Letter to Santa Claus, circa 1991

So when I wrote that I didn't really have an issue with not having a dad, I must have been lying to my 8-year old self.

My mom recently found a letter I wrote to Santa Clause when I was 8. Warning: it starts funny, and then I make you feel like an a-hole for laughing at my letter. Ha.

I'm leaving in all original grammar mistakes, which are embarrassing, but really make the letter pretty amazing.

11-21-91 (Please pay attention to the date: as of 8-years of age, I was not yet a procrastinator)

Dear Santa I'v made a list of the things I want for Christmas. Ther are some big things I want. (I kinda love how I give Santa a heads up)

1. The icecream maker (not just any ice cream maker...THE ice cream maker)

2. A new bike. (I got the bike when I was in Guatemala...hilarious story to be told someday about how some drunkard tried to steal it from me)

3. Some papper (reguler with lines. Coler, tiping papper) (translation: paper, color, typing. Slightly pathetic)

4. A new book

5. The movie "home Alon (this one is crossed out. I must've realized I was asking for too much, and this is what I thought I could live without)

6. The book "Bingo"

7. A blak hat to go out (first of all, I couldn't spell black? REALLY?! Secondly, where exactly was I "going out" that I needed a hat?)

8. A cook book for kids

9. Monoply for kids

10. A new suite (I would reiterate my second comment from #7)

11. A diyerie with a lock (Diary. A diary. And a lock to make sure my mom stayed out of my shit)

12. Jinga (I think I still own my Jenga. It's currently in storage)

13. encyclopedia (1) how many 8-year old's ask for this? 2) I couldn't spell "black" or "diary," but I could spell encyclopedia. Interesting)

back ----> (Yes, I let Santa know there was more in the back of the page)

Baby (crossed out)

maybe (crossed out)

Maybe (with arrow pointing back up to the first line) if you can my dad

(you know, no big deal, but maybe, perhaps, if you have time, you could kidnap my dad and bring him to me)

Have a verey nice Christmas.

Love Alexandra Maria Hannson Beltran (I couldn't even spell my last name right)

My mom told me she felt guilty about never sending the letter out. All I have to say is, THAT'S WHY I NEVER GOT MY DAD FOR CHRISTMAS!

Daddy Issues

Well, it only took 28 years for me to get emotional about Father's Day.

Up to now I've always told myself, and others, that it probably worked for the best that I never met my father, and hence, that he's never been a part of my life. Curious thing to say, right? Thing is, the father relationships that surrounded me growing up have always been complicated ones. Not necessarily bad ones, just complicated: divorced parents, step-father, emotionally withdrawn, not around, etc. From what I understand, my dad wasn't ready to be a dad, and he made that clear to my mom. So why would I want someone in my life who didn't want me in theirs? I prefer that I've been brought up by people who love and care for me, as opposed to someone who felt obligated to do so; I think any issues I have would have been exacerbated by a father who didn't care to be a father to me. Nothing that happened today changes my mind about that.

Now that I'm older, I'm seeing relationships that are less complicated. Jeff's dad is a great example, as is my uncle, who is constantly at baseball games and family vacations with his kids and family. During the sermon at church today (after which my mom gave me a book titled "Rediscover Catholicism," but that's neither here nor there for purposes of this post), the priest recalled stories of time spent with his dad, like going to pick rocks at the Santa Ana river bed, which they later used to for various projects in the garden. He recounted these stories with a certain...I dunno...sparkle? Maybe not the right word, but you could just hear in his voice how much he enjoyed spending those moments with his dad. Jeff's often recounted similar stories to me, with the same "sparkle" and enthusiasm.

I haven't thought very much about what I've missed out on. I guess maybe when I was little I did. But I can't remember it anymore. Maybe that's why today just hit me out of no where. What if my dad is actually a great dad to the children he has now? What stories will they have to share about their dad that I don't? I've always told myself that I haven't missed out by not having my dad around, but what if I have?

I think those are questions I'll never know the answer to. Today was the first day I asked myself if I'm really ok with that.

True Story: I made a girl cry. Once.

Not on purpose, I swear.

It was probably second year of law school when it happened. Allegedly -- and I use that word simply because I don't remember it happening, the source of this information is actually very trusted and don't doubt her word by any means...and I really like to use "allegedly" whenever I can -- our usual group of law school folk were hanging out, probably pretending to study Con Law, and a new member was introduced to our group: cue Ms. Natalie. Through the course of this initial interaction, Ms. Natalie said or did something that elicited me to say something to the effect of "wow, you're not even part of our group." Harsh, right? Here's the thing though...if she had known me at that point in time (which she obviously didn't because we had just met), she would've known that I was being uberly sarcastic. Maybe too sarcastic...since those words did elicit some tears. Am I ashamed? Yes.

Good part of the story: we now share moments like these:

To those I have unintentionally made cry: I'm sorry, I hope you've since forgiven me and that we've had some amazing moments like Natalie and I :) And let this be a reminder to all of us: sarcasm is usually only appreciated after the person knows you well enough to be able to appreciate it. Yep, true words of wisdom, from yours truly.

Haiti Stories: Trash Burning.

Tuesday night Abby and I had to sign up for whatever job we wanted to do on Wednesday, our last full work day in Haiti. I really wanted to go out with a bang and spend the whole day on a rubble site, but the idea of having sufficient time to empty out my home for the last two weeks was nice, I had to take care of a couple things for Haiti Scholarships, plus it was Adri's birthday and we were determined to find her a cake so we could sing happy birthday that night. We opted to find something we could do for a half day, so we'd bust ass in the morning, and take the afternoon off to get everything else done (we had a mental checklist of everything we needed to do). Turns out the only thing we could do for a half day on Wednesday was housekeeping. Less than ideal.

All Hands is true communal living. So someone has to do these things. Someone has to wash dishes. And someone has to take out the trash. And someone has to scrub the toilets. On Wednesday, that was us. Housekeeping chores actually aren't too bad, mostly because Abby tackled the toilets. The one thing we didn't want to do was having to collect all the trash (including bathrooms....), carry it all the way through the field in the back of the base, and set it on fire. It's just not good times.

But it's a good story.

We collected all the trash, then carried it out to the back, where we saw what was supposed to be the easier way of carrying the trash cans to the end of the field: a pull cart attached to a bike. Basic, but word on the street was that it was a lifesaver when it came to handling the trash situation, and the fact that you have to carry it all the way to the end of the Joint Logistics Base. Ok. Easy enough, right? Load it up, peddle those happy feet...unload.

Weeeeeeeelllllllllll. The loading part worked out fine. Then Abby got on the bike and sat on the seat. Then the seat fell off. Then she jumped off. The seat had a tendency to flip back when you sat on it, exposing people of both sexes to injury in areas that are crucial if you ever want to have kids. With the seat no longer attached, you ran the danger of injuring yourself on the metal that was sticking out.

Abby graciously allowed me the opportunity to try my luck. I put the seat back on top, knowing there was no way in hell it was going to stay there. I jumped on the bike and tried to sit on it. That didn't go well. I gave up hope on the seat but thought, hey, remember when you were little and you would ride your bike standing up? Well...that should work. And it did, for about two peddle rotations. At which point the pull cart became unattached to the bike, and I was no longer pulling a cart.

At this point, we'd already attracted a nice crowd of local warehouse workers who were thoroughly enjoying our adventure. Luckily, Abby and I took the higher ground and decided to laugh at our situation, rather than start crying. Ok. We arranged the trash cans on the pull cart so the weight would ensure that it remain attached to the bike (basic physics came into play on this one. Thank you Mr. Dempsey). Reattached pull cart to bike. I decided to give it another go with the stand up method.

Holy ridiculous. I almost wish I could have watched this scene with our spectators, as I'm sure I would have been on the ground laughing. I had some trouble steering the bike without sitting on the bike...which led me to weave back and forth...the whole time trying to remember not to sit on what was sure to rob me of a comfortable trip home the next day. I think these were some of the most frantic and confusing 10 seconds of my trip in Haiti. Pull cart fail.

Since we had condensed the trash to three trash cans, we decided we would each just carry one of the lighter ones to the back, then come back and carry the heavier one together. Which is fine...until you have men propositioning you for $5. Then things get uncomfortable. Mind you, there was absolutely nothing glamorous about us (no offense, Abby). We'd been sweating all morning from cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms, and we were carrying trashcans full of a day's waste of 80+ people. How is that attractive?

As difficult as it was to not reply energetically to kissy noise advances, we made it to the end of the base were we found the three wonderful incinerators where we had to dump our trash and set it on fire. Advice on best ways to start a fire of trash, from a very trustworthy base manager: shit tickets. Yep, toilet paper. Worked like a charm every time. The rest of this story I won't really bore you with. We burned trash. We watched it. It burned some more. It was quite the experience.

And much more of an adventure than we had signed up for.

Thank you pull cart.

Haiti Stories: Deforestation

So until I figure out exactly what I want to say about my trip to Haiti, I'm just gonna share some random short stories on here.

One work site I got to work on was school 9, where I got to observe while they finished rendering, then went in the next day with Abby and a small group, and we did a deep clean of the school so we could start painting the following work day. Getting to this site requires a little bit further of a drive than most other work sites, which allows for a nice view of fields and mountains. Although it was nice to get out of Leogane and enjoy a longer-than-usual drive every morning through some rural country side, the view of the mountains always made me sad.

I can't remember where I read it, but I do remember reading that back in the day Haiti was one of the richest countries in the Caribbean, as far as natural resources and what not. If you can believe it, Haiti was actually called "the Pearl of the Caribbean." It was difficult to keep that in mind when I looked at the bare and brown mountains on our way to and from the school or beach. How did they get so bare and brown? I'm sure there are many reasons, but a big one is the reliance on charcoal as the main fuel source in Haiti. I could go on at this point...but realized I started with a description of this as a "short" story...so I won't digress...

But I will share the following video from a former All Hands volunteer that might give a little hope:

Trees For Life from Keely Kernan on Vimeo.

Can you just google your brain?

I'm a big gmail fan. Google in general, but I love my gmail account. I can organize my emails in folders. I can archive stuff so it's not filling up my "inbox." I can use search terms to find emails that have been lost in my cyber mailbox. I can search by a contact, and see every single email I've shared with that one person. It groups my email and subsequent responses in one "email." I mean...things weren't always this amazing! Remember hotmail? Yeah...

My favorite feature is definitely the search capability. All I need to remember are a couple key search words, and I can find the EXACT email I need, even if I don't remember who it was to or from. So I guess it shouldn't really be a big surprise that lately I expected my brain to do the same. I was trying to remember something, not sure if it was a memory, some sort of information or whatever, and in my mind I started thinking of the search times I was going to use to "gmail search" my brain. Once I realized what I was trying to do, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. But how awesome would it be if you could gmail search your BRAIN?! You'd never "forget" anything (not sure how the brain actually works when it comes to remembering and forgetting...but assuming it all stays stored in your brain somewhere)...you'd just have to remember the right search terms and you'd be set.

I shared this recently with Jeff, and he shared a similar story he had . He was smelling something at his parent's house, he wanted to share the scent with me, and wanted to email it to me so I could smell it. Ha!

This sounds crazy now...but it's only a matter of time...right?

Blast from the Past

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to go back in time. Yep, time travel. It was circa 1999, I was sixteen, and I was speechless. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I got to relive my infatuation with Enrique Iglesias! Am I a little embarrassed? Not really. We've all had embarrassing infatuations, right? Anyhow, my friend Ana generously

bought me a ticket for his recent show at the Gibson as my birthday present. Yes, she is pretty awesome.

Before we went and grabbed our seats, I waited outside the restrooms for Ana and her sister, at which time I was able to witness the following interaction:

Another girl, maybe of the more appropriate age of sixteen, was standing next to me, presumably also waiting for her friends. As most people, um...women, in attendance, she looked very much Hispanic: dark hair, brown eyes, darker skin. I, on the other hand, was part of the white girl minority in attendance.

Because of the obvious disparity in the male-female attendance ratio, the Gibson had changed the signs of a few of the mens restroom to better serve the female population. One older event staff member, let's call her Maria, was trying to make us women aware of this, since the women's restroom had a huge line, and the restroom next door, which was also marked "women's", was almost entirely empty. Maria kept pointing to women in the line, and telling them to go to the other restroom. After

a few minutes of continuously telling new arrivals to keep walking to the next restroom, she turns to my Waiting Buddy and starts talking to her in Spanish, "these women! I'm trying to tell them the next one is completely empty! Ay ay ay, I'm gonna have to stand here all night!" The way she said this reminded me of my grandmother: super sweet and joking older lady, just trying to get a laugh out of her job.

Throughout this conversation, Waiting Buddy was just starring back at her like she was crazy, while I tried to contain my smile at Maria's funny outburst, since she wasn't talking to me and I'm sure she didn't think I understood a word (I'm always afraid people are going to think I'm crazy when I react to things I overhear...when they don't think I understand...they probably think I'm crazy, right?).

It occurred to me that Waiting Buddy had no idea what Maria had just said. I felt sad for multiple reasons. For one, that Maria didn't want to joke with ME because I looked like a white girl who couldn't understand her...even though I totally got her jokes! And two, I felt bad for Waiting Buddy, who didn't know what she was missing out on. Like so many second or third generation children, they come from Hispanic families but are never taught, or maybe don't want to be taught, the language of their heritage.

Waiting Buddy's buddies walked out of the restroom, and as they were walking away, Waiting Buddy was telling her friends how the cleaning lady had started talking to her because the cleaning lady thought she spoke Spanish...and she hadn't understood a word. I had to smile to myself.