Dogs, dirt, endless sugar cane fields.

Rows of shiny coffee plants, coconut trees, gentle afternoon rains.

Hills dotted with cattle, fruit vendors on every corner, edible flowers.

24 hours back in El Salvador. Yeah, it feels good to be home.

Prepping for my flight down south

This news clip didn't help calm my fears. Early-warning monkeys, jaguar alarms... brilliant.


Guatemalan Flight's Data-Recording Parrot Holds Clues To Crash

Tri-State Trek - Day 3

On the third and final day, we hit New York.


While participating in the Tri-State Trek, Mearns took part in the Bi-State Pee. Not nearly as internationally recognized as the Trek, but highly respected in certain circles.


After 270 miles, the ride ends with a brutal climb dubbed "Jon's Street" by the ride organizers in honor of Jon "Blazeman" Blais, the Ironman triathlete whose famous battle with ALS has inspired many.

Jon's Street comes at mile 70 on Day 3 and, like Heartbreak Hill in the Boston, it couldn't come at a worse time. For many riders, the climb feels as if it's vertical, and serves as a metaphor for the fight against ALS itself - a daunting challenge that appears totally insurmountable, yet if taken pedal by pedal, day by day, can be overcome.


As the road climbs, inspirational messages are written in chalk on the road and all along the sides of the street, ride supporters and families cheer on the riders who are often brought to tears from sheer exhaustion.

At the top, police and fire fighters crowd around the riders. It's an amazing spectacle and a fitting end to the ride.

At that point, everyone groups up and forms a giant parade stretching for miles all the way down to the welcome tents where families, friends, and a bbq feast await.

Here's our mom, clearly caught up in the post-ride jubilation.


The med staff, the only reason I survived my fourth ride to NY, having trained only a handful of days.


The rain and chills of hypo didn't stop us from putting back a few celebratory beers.

Here's Martini and Kevin, who could always get a smile out of me every time he sped by on his beast of a motorcycle.


I want to end with a quick shoutout to team captain and fellow Team America founder, Chuck McNamee, who, along with Steve, make up the heart and soul of Team America.

In 2007, when Chuck and I first took part in the ride and half-jokingly named the team, never taking ourselves too seriously or expecting our name to produce anything more than a passing smile, we raised something like $6,700.

Neither of us could have ever imagined that in the four years since its formation, Team America would grow to be the second largest ride team, 10 members strong, and raise over $19,500 for ALS research.

Hats off to you, my friend. You have a lot to be proud of.


Looking forward to Tri-State Trek 2011!

Tri-State Trek - Day 2

This photo pretty much sums up Day 2. Oppressive heat. A decent hangover and only a few hours of sleep. Great conditions for a 95 mile ride.

Ben pretty much set the pace for the crew. This guy was a machine.


The gang


Towards the end of the day, my body started to give in to the heat. My neck, my knees. I felt like a heap of parts thrown together with duct tape.

The biggest thing was actually something I'd never had a problem with before: my feet. Since road shoes are essentially hard plastic footbeds velcroed to your feet, after that many hours you start to feel like you've been trying to break the guinness world record for barefoot jump roping on a concrete floor. By mile 160 of the ride, mine ached so bad I could only pull up to pedal. It became unbearable.

Definitely have to toughen up those guys for next year.

Here's Marge attending to my footsies


The solution? Maxi pads. Yep. Those super absorbent little wonder pads kept my size 13s dry, cool, and exceptionally comfortable just like the packaging promised. So a big shoutout to all you feminine hygiene product engineers reading my blog. Keep up the good work! Couldn't have done it without you guys.


But whenever I was having a tough moment, Mearns was always there to lift my spirits. And usually his shirt.


And at every rest stop, Steve was there with a smile and some good tunes cranking out of his sound system.


Red bull gives you... insanity

Tri-State Trek - Day 1

Team America rides again


So it's official. The 2010 Tri-State Trek is happening. After nearly a year of preparation, and an untold number of winter and spring months spent planning, training and, let's be honest, worrying about the ride, it's already a third over. Pretty amazing.

As usual, we rode out of Boston at the asscrack of dawn, filling the streets for a brief moment as 200 riders enjoyed carte blanche to take over the streets while local cops waved us through intersections and 6 AM commuters forced grumpy smiles and the occasional cheer.


On our first day, we spend most of the time making our way down to Connecticut, passing through local towns, vaguely familiar from past AIDS and ALS rides.

One of my favorite spots is Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg (also known as Webster Lake) which, I am told, basically means "you fish on your side, I'll fish on my side, and no one fishes in the center." It's been said that this is bogus, but it's just crazy enough to be true.


At the rest stops, ALS TDI spared no expense and, in addition to mounds of Clif Bars, bananas, cookies, fresh fruit, and of course gallon upon gallon of Gatorade, extremely friendly medical staff like Heather here, doled out neck and back massages if you knew how to ask nicely. Chuck knew how to ask nicely.




Sidenote: with the steady rain in the afternoon, it wasn't 15 minutes before we were soaked and chilled to the bone. And when I got in to UConn (after screwing up and missing the final rest stop) with signs of minor hypo, the girls at the med tent got kind of excited to practice their emergency medicine and hopped into action. I'd say they got a little carried away with the space blanket and tape...


Later on that night, everyone converges on the beer tent, where we circled up and drew in whoever wasn't involved in flip cup. Sidenote: big thank you to ride sponsor, Sam Adams, and to that underage student bartender who kept 'em coming.






Then it was off to the hotel bar, where we hung out with the man, the legend, Mat Mendel, the ride organizer.


A nice way to end the night.


I was pretty stoked to catch up with some old friends I met four years ago on my first ride, especially my buddy John who was celebrating his 65th birthday that night. John's quite the character and is a figure of the ride, famous for mailing himself gourmet french wine and cheese to the event to have after dinner. He passed on his usual array of wisdom. One in particular, stuck in my mind:

Yesterday's history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Today is a gift, and that's why we call it the present.

Words to live by.

One day down, two to go!

Chuck and Dana tie the knot

On a cloudless, picture-perfect day in July, a small group of family and friends gathered together at Harkness State Park on the Connecticut coastline to celebrate the union of Charles McNamee and Dana Crosby.


It was kind of awesome. An opportunity to see all my good buddies in one place, friends I hadn't seen in years. I guess that's the point of a wedding, really. To bring people together. A cheesy thing to say? Obvious? I dunno. By now, I've been to a bunch of weddings and this one had that nice balance of moods, sort of like casual formality.


I, as an usher, did my part. Flew home, bought my suit, and delivered my package. One bride's maid. Yay!


Later on, the band started up, the bar opened and the real party began.


Our sacrificial lamb, meticulously adorned with fresh flowers and ready to be cut into pieces to appease the sun god, the god of miniature sailboats and of course, Shiva. You always gotta look after Shiva.


The party lasted until the wee hours. Oh Bridie and Mearns, you kids are so crazy.


One hell of a weekend.

Fundraiser at Doyle's

As you may know, I am back from El Salvador for the entire month of July. So far, it's been an amazing week, but time is quickly flying by.

A number of people have been asking how they can learn more about or donate towards my health projects in my community in El Salvador. So to provide an opportunity for people to donate/ask questions, and to see all my friends and family, we've organized a get-together at Doyle's in Jamaica Plain and you're invited!

It will be a casual night of food and drinks starting at 6:30 pm. We have the entire back room reserved and I'd love to fill it up with my friends, family, and anyone interested in the Peace Corps. There will be food, drinks and a short presentation about my Peace Corps experience in El Salvador.

What: A fun night to reconnect with old friends, celebrate El Salvador and the Peace Corps, and raise money for children's scholarships.
Where: Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain (Directions)
When: Friday the 16th, 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Hope to see you there!

Hasta pronto,

G

ps. And if you're unable to make it, please consider donating towards children's scholarships in my community through Aid El Salvador, the organization which will be managing the funds. Aid El Salvador's webpage.

Please make sure to mention "El Carmen, Metapan."

Any amount will help and 100% of your donation goes towards children's scholarships. When donating, please consider that it costs as little as $50 a year for a high school student to study in the nearby pueblo.

America

Behold Friendly's new grilled cheese burgermelt. A cheeseburger with all the trimmings, wedged between two grilled cheese sandwiches. As Stephen Colbert recently put it: "It's like your lunch, and two other people's lunches are having a three-way in your mouth."

Yep, that's America. Only here could such a creation exist.

So I'm back for the month. And it feels good. Despite the initial culture shock, readjustment hasn't been so bad. And those first few days of seeing family and reconnecting with friends was exactly what I needed.

We held a July 4th beach bbq, my first in three years, followed by a pretty kickass bonfire overlooking the city skyline. Sailboats crossed back and forth in the bay and from where we were camped out, we had an amazing horizon to horizon view of Boston's as well as six other towns' fireworks displays. It's a beautiful spot. Just off the right edge of the photo below sits Boston Light, the nation's oldest lighthouse. Couldn't have been nicer.


Jamie and Ben also brought Addie, and she did what she does best: run around, zipping and buzzing between everyone like a little honey bee collecting pollen. Here's a photo of the little stinker.


And the bonfire. When it died down, smores and keg beer were thoroughly enjoyed.


Late in the afternoon, we were visited by an eccentric neighbor of Chuck and Dana's who had clearly been awake celebrating the birth of our nation while all of us had been sleeping, eating breakfast, whatever.

I'd just like to say, just because I never actually saw him refilling his cup from a small duffel bag tucked away behind some rocks, doesn't mean it didn't happen... 15 times. Nor did I actually see him take out a small, copper-colored cannon and balance it precariously on a beach rock.

But I definitely saw it, and felt it, go off. As did his dog, who freaked out and pissed all over Kate in fear when it thought it was caught in the middle of a revolutionary war reenactment...

Fire! Keep your eyes on the doggie...

For the record, that's someone asking: "What about, uh, do you want us to move the dog back?"

"No, he's fine" he said dismissively. "Ready...? Fire!"

Man, I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

Or seen as vivid a sunset...

Closing a chapter

A few weeks ago, Jimbo finished up the reconstruction project he and his community members had been working on for the past six months up on Chinchontepec. An inauguration party was planned. One of our bosses was driving up. This was a no-brainer. I damn near demanded a seat in that car.

Jimbo was definitely surprised. The look on his face was hilarious. Confused, stunned, embarrassed. A few more guys had actually hopped in, mainly good buddies of his, sort of as last-minute gate crashers coming to show our support not only for Jim, but for the families devastated by last November's landslides; our host families during training who went out of their way to make our first few months in their country as comfortable as possible.

The last time I was up there, I was with Adam. It was August of last year, and Adam had stayed an extra day or two before heading back to the states. We'd already been around the country and back - my community, the mountains, the beach - so we decided to head up to Jimbo's for the night, chill out on the side of a volcano, and play a little guitar. I was feeling pretty apprehensive about what it would be like this time.

It takes about 30 minutes to four-wheel your way up to Santiago de Chile. I'd done it a bunch over the course of the past year. Usually crammed in a bus, jamming to 80's music remixes. I've often wondered how many buses are playing Lady in Red throughout this tiny country at the same time. It's gotta be in the thousands.

It will be no surprise to you that this time it was an all-together different experience. All along the ride up, Jimbo was pointing out sections of the road that had simply collapsed; areas where the natural lay of the land had funneled the water, mud and rocks into a chute where the mass continued to pick up speed until it poured out on top of the communities below. Craters lined the edge of road where the earth just couldn't hold on anymore and gave way.



When we pulled into Jimbo's community, it was like a long-lost family member was returning from ten years at sea. There was an energy in the air you could feel. Everyone was yelling Yim-boooo! And people were even saying hi to me. I was touched they even remembered me, let alone my name.

At his house, it was great to see familiar faces, standing there smiling in front of mud-stained walls and piles of bricks and trash where buildings used to be.

Actually, we were out back eating oranges off the trees when Jimbo pulled out an old running shoe of his from under a mud pile. Six months after the landslide, they're still uncovering objects buried in the mud.


After chit chat time ended with the family, we headed to the fiesta.

From the relief money he raised back home in Michigan in the weeks after the landslides, Jimbo and his ADESCO set aside some funds for a celebratory party commemorating the hard work rebuilding what they had lost and improving the infrastructure to assure it would never happen again.


I guess word got out, because a ton of people showed up. The vibe in the community was incredible.


The event was a typical Salvadoran affair. A thousand plastic chairs, everyone freshly showered with shiny, slicked-back hair (girls) and faux-hawks (boys), a giant mesa de honor with a veritable who's who of Santiago de Chile up on stage. And yes, food. No one could ignore the smoke wafting in from the grills out back, carrying the promise of a free lunch and ensuring good behavior from all the kids.

The event started off like you'd expect. The MC introduced each member of the table, giving each their proper respect and 15 minutes of fame at the podium. The department's congresswoman spoke, the governor, prominent community members, and finally Jimbo.

I realize I'm his best bud, so I'm probably not the most objective person on Jimbo. But in all honesty, he gave a hell of a speech. Seriously, a hell of a speech. After speaking about the bonds between his friends and family back home and the people of the community, he ended it by saying: "My name is James Leddy. I was born in Canton, Michigan. But I am from Santiago de Chile."

It was incredibly powerful.



Here's Miguel taking the opportunity to toast his good friend.





After all was said and done, the local priest led a group up to the start of the landslides, and to a bridge which Jimbo's fundraising helped rebuild. We sang and he blessed the bridge with holy water. It was a nice moment.







I think it was important for me to see Jimbo's community one last time. To be apart of his former life even for just a few hours. I'd spent a decent amount of time up on the side of that volcano and it meant a lot to me to see those familiar faces, even if it was just to reassure myself that they were still there.