This weekend I finally accepted the truth of my main motivation in life. I am motivated not by a desire to do good, or even a good healthy lust for wealth or power; nope I am motivated by the need to prove people wrong.

For example:

In a past job I was working on building this inter-agency partnership on sustainable land management. After being given the task by my manager I started asking around to get feedback from other colleagues. Some of the responses I got were:
(a) It’s a nice idea but it’s going to be almost impossible to coordinate.
(b) There are some very big issues which need to be addressed before it’s going to work.
(c) The idea is a good one but the timeframe is far too ambitious, it’s just not realistic.
So I threw myself into building the partnership and after a little more than a year, when the partnership had a life of its own, I decided that it was time to move on to a different challenge. When I told my manager he said ‘How can you leave now when the partnership has only just taken off? I think you’re afraid of success Jaime.” I wasn’t afraid of success, it was just that the feedback I was getting from everyone was now ‘sufficient momentum has been built, the partnership will move forward no matter what.’

Then take my current position. I was drawn to the advertisement and decided to apply. Most people I spoke to about the position though said, ‘yes you could do the job but that won’t matter because you’re too young and the organization is too bureaucratic to overlook that’. So what did I do? I left my nice DC contract early and came up here to take a temporary position with a very long-shot at anything in the future. Now that I’ve convinced people here that I can do the job even though I’m young I’m really just going through the motions.

Now what do I want to do in my spare time? I want to write children’s picture books in verse. Why? Because every article I’ve read states that (1) it’s very difficult to do, and (2) even harder to sell.

So my dear readers, I need your help.

1. Am I normal?
2. Do most people react the same way to being told that they can’t do something?
3. Am I every going to find satisfaction in my accomplishments?

Friday is the third best day
Why the third, you questioningly say

Well although it is the end of the week
It’s only the beginning of the ‘sleep-in’ streak

What day can possibly be number one
If at 7am my nights sleep is done

And by 9am I’m stuck at work
With internet access my only perk

But it’s not as bad as evil Monday
For by 5pm it’s no work all play

And so Friday I still hold you dear
Cause in three more hours I’m outta here

Ah my dear readers, I have strayed for far too long, from my new passion…lists. And so, with a heart full of warm, fuzzy, welcoming thoughts I present Jaime’s List of the Three Most Memorable Outdoor Moments

3. Hiking on Mount Algonquin with a bunch of friends (and a few strangers)

Not knowing the pace of the few strangers on the hike, we ended up taking far longer than was initially expected (especially since the French people had to stop every 10 meters to talk about food…no I’m serious, they were physically incapable of talking about food and walking at the same time).

Anyway we expected to be finished long before nightfall however; well what kind of story would this be if everything went as planned. Of the nine of us we only had three head lamps and somehow I ended up being the only girl who didn’t get one (chivalry my ass). So I followed behind a friend (D) who would call out obstacles as we’d approach them (yes, it was that dark).

D: “Rock”
J: “Got it”
D: “Drop off”
J: “Oof, found it.”
D: “Creek”
J: “Ok, over it.”
D: “Log”
J: “What?”
D: “Log”
J: “Where?”
D: “Keep walking, you’ll come to it.”
Jaime’s head: “Thump!”

Yep that’s right, while walking bent double looking for the log lying on the ground across the path, I walked right into the log four feet off the ground hanging over the path

Moral of the story = don’t assume that logs only lie on the ground

2. Peeing beside the road in Kenya (ok I wasn’t peeing but…)

As mentioned in previous posts, we were hopping back and forth across Kenya in the back of a truck, every once in a while though, we’d get to ride in vans. On one such occasion we had taken an unusually long time to make the drive (it might have had something to do with the flood we were having in the middle of the desert at the time) so we arrived at night.

We were one of the last vans to get there (it might have had something to do with getting stuck in the mud surrounded by a pride of lions) and as we pulled into our half-constructed camp our headlights swept across the side of the road where squatting all in a row, six girls from another van were discreetly doing their business under the cover of darkness. You know there’s something about catching someone peeing: the look of shock on their face, the fact that they’re helpless to leap up and duck out of the way, the throw back to grade school humor…multiply that by six and we were rolling around with laughter.

Moral of the story: before peeing by the side of the road, always count vans

1. The great sheep chase

What is it about guys and chasing stuff? No really, is it genetic? Imagine the English moors, wide lazy streams winding their way through old landing strips (a World War II thing), sheep and horses quietly and peacefully grazing amongst the wildflowers.

Enter Jaime and Bert…Jaime is sniffing away (something about the moors really brings out my allergies - the damn foggy, damp place that it is) and Bert has just had a can of coke and a whole slew of British ‘sweets’ (a dangerous combination). The sheep barely lift their heads as we walk by, sidling out of our way when we get too close. Life is good for all involved. Until:

B: “I bet I could catch a sheep.”
J: “What!?”
B: “I said that I bet I could catch one of those sheep.”
J: “Sheep can be deceptively fast Bert.”
B: “Still, I bet I could catch one.”
J: “What would you do if you caught it?”
B: “Tackle it.”
J: “What?”
B: “Yeah, cows can handle it in the Rodeo.”
J: “Well whatever, you couldn’t catch one anyway.”
B: “That sounds like a challenge.”
J: “Groan”

The jacket came off, the shoe laces tightened and then off he went. At first he just ran flat out, but sheep are deceptively fast, then he tried stalking them, sheep know the difference between man and tree, finally he tried herding them which may have worked had he had a fence or coral or even a big rock which he could back them into, instead he had miles of flat open moor.

The end result was a dejected and dirty Bert (did I mention he tried diving) a Jaime in hysterics, and a herd of sheep with the firm belief that man is dumb.

Moral of the story: if you want to catch sheep, bring a dog.

Where: Kenya (again - sorry for the lack of originality)

Who and When: same as with the Bedford

What: After weeks of traveling by truck it was time to head to the coast where a month of camping on the shores of the Indian Ocean awaited us all. Tumbling excitedly aboard we divided into different sleeping cabins, by now groups had formed and there was no longer the awkward necessity of, ‘is this seat taken’. Seeing us that night you would never guess that we were coming off two months of relative freedom, that night we were all thrown back to grade school days at camp. Running up and down the cars, popping are heads into each cabin just to say hello to people we’d been living with for months as if we were long lost buddies. There were cabins where people were playing cards, rotating from one game to the next; there were cabins where people sat intensely embroiled in political and moral debates; there were cabins where people lounged in silent contemplation of music; and cabins where casual conversations and the sharing of food and drink welcomed all…and then we stopped.

Yep, morning greeted us at a standstill, the train sitting in the middle of empty savannah. There was nothing to see outside the window but an endless expanse of tall yellow grass; and the sun. Slowly we tired of the unchanging view, slowly the sun rose higher and higher, slowly the heat built inside the tin can which was, temporarily, our motionless home. Without the breeze we had when we were chugging along, the chatter and camaraderie was replaced by sighs and complaints. Doors which were propped wide open the night before were closed as people stripped down as much as decency allowed.

It was gross, our bodies developed sheens of sweat which attracted the dust blowing in through the open windows, we were too hot to sleep, too hot to move, and there was no end in sight. Food began to run low, the trip was not supposed to last this long. Up and down the train nobody knew when we’d get started again, after a few hours I was too hot to care.

I can’t tell you how long we were stuck out in the open like that for, all I can remember is that joyous moment when, with a bump and a shudder we began to move again and the wind slowly picked up, wafting through the open windows bringing relief. To this day I maintain that I was neither grumpy nor winy on that train but some of you out there know the truth…it was just so hot!

Ok I’m jumping to automobiles but I’ll come back to trains tomorrow…I promise.

Where: Kenya

When: Spring 1998 (I think)

Who: A gaggle of Canadian University students traveling around Kenya, studying as we went but learning so much more than our course work (and grades) would imply.

What: We were camping out in different locations throughout Kenya and, in order to get from place to place we would pile into the back of a big open truck (the kind you see transporting soldiers in World War II movies). There was very little in the way of shock absorbers and even less in the way of cushioned seats and air conditioning…we called it “The Bedford” (it was, in fact a Bedford brand truck but for us it was the one and only Bedford).

We would start the journey sitting along the two sides, facing each other rolling the canvas up when it got too hot, and rushing to lash it back down when it got too dusty. By the end of the trip we had found more comfortable positions, laying on the floor, sitting back to back watching the scenery go by, whatever took our fancy.

I remember one trip, lying down looking out the back of the truck at the sky above the Great Rift Valley. Night had fallen at some point along our painfully slow ascent to the top of the valley (and past the Equator…seven times). With amazement and wonder I looked up and saw the Southern Cross for the first time in my life. I had never seen it displayed on tv, or sketched in a book but that night there was no doubt in my mind what I was looking at.

It’s a strange experience, looking up at a sky you don’t recognize, and seeing something that you shouldn’t know all the while understanding it so clearly. It seemed almost as if I was reaching through all the learned experiences cluttering my mind to find some primordial shred of instinctive knowledge, some hint that shouted, ‘this is important, see this’.