Reflections Archives - Bon Touriste

Bathing Suits & Boots in the Dominican Republic

June 14, 2016 by Kristin Winet Leave a Comment

I’m no stranger to volunteering or public service. After all, I’m a teacher. But the next adventure I’m about to have is making me think about why I’ve dedicated my life to service–to teaching others, to doing good work in my community and my university, to engaging my students in community activism projects that promote social justice, the good work of non-profits, and the value of connecting across academic and public spaces.

Since I started teaching, I’ve been doing all kinds of advocacy work, getting my students and me involved in literary projects, immigrant and refugee centers, and no-kill cat shelters, setting up writing partnerships with at-risk high school students, and helping generate writing materials for startup nonprofits. It’s one of the most rewarding and meaningful kind of experiential work we can do as writing teachers–to take our talents and bring them to the world.

For instance, here we are this past semester, reading books to kindergarteners in downtown San Pedro, Los Angeles.

My students and I volunteering at a Los Angeles elementary school

Yet, I realize that even as I’m writing this, there’s another side to me.

At the end of the day, I’m not just a public servant–I’m also a die-hard, unabashedly selfish travel writer bent on seeing as much of the world as she possibly can. I’d give up a class in a minute for a trip to Israel; I’d put aside grading if inspiration hits and I have to bang out the stirrings of an idea for a new travel essay; I’d rearrange my summer to accommodate for a trip (actually, I just did that).

2016-05-29-11-20-29-070 — Floating down the Danube in Serbia two weeks ago

It’s not lost on me that these are selfish things, but there’s also a part of me that whispers, timidly, that knowing these things doesn’t make me a bad person. I don’t have to dedicate myself to others all the time; after all, my heart needs to flutter every once in a while, too. And I’m still at a point in my life where I can do these things, where my freelance career, my teaching career, and my personal life have aligned ever-so-perfectly for these months so as to allow me a little time to heal from a spectacularly bad professional year and and to come to grips with the fact that, come end of summer, I’ll be moving–and starting all over–again, on the other side of the country.

So, public servant and traveler. In the past, I have traveled in ways that stroke both of these egos, teaching English in Colombia, working with international students in Malta, shopping only at local markets and buying local handmade goods. But I have never done it short-term; I have never taken a trip that emphasizes volunteering. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if it works.

On the one hand, I’m thinking through the ethics of travel (ALL THE TIME), grappling with whether or not we as “gazers” can “gaze” without exoticizing another, and at the same time, I’m coming around to the idea that travel is often a joyous act. I don’t want to feel guilty for loving it. I want to feel invigorated by speaking about it, by asking questions about it, by participating in it as fully and completely as I can, with open eyes and an open heart. I want to share the messiness and beauty of meeting others, of experiencing new ways of being and living, with my world, because I believe it is crucial for us to have these conversations.

So that’s the question I’m asking myself today. Can combining public service and travel work short-term? Can I eat a ton of really delicious food on a cruise ship and then build a concrete floor?

Carnival Cruises’ newest project, the Fathom line, believes I can. Next week, I’m taking one of my best friends–grad school roommie, fellow writer, and traveling partner-in-crime Alison–to find out.

Alison and I have met in 2008 when she moved to Tucson, and since then, we’ve traveled all over the Southwest together, hiked all over a bunch of mountains, swam in seas and oceans, met up on the East and West coasts on more than one occasion, and headed down to Mexico in our cars with nothing but an Airbnb reservation and a vague idea of where we were going. Our husbands co-wrote their first book together. We’ve done a lot of cool stuff together.

So, I knew she’d be the perfect person to take along. (Plus, we’re supposed to keep each other on our summer writing schedules….we’ll see how well we stick to it when the beach beckons us;)).

Alison and I hanging out in our beach hats in Mexico

Fathom’s Intended Mission

In this, their inaugural season, Fathom has set up journeys to both the Dominican Republic and Cuba (both sailing out of Miami) in the hopes of blending the surreal and temporary life of cruising with the harsh realities of life in the parts of the Caribbean past the golden sands and turquoise waters through something they call “impact travel.” Of course, I’m no stranger to the different sides of the “voluntourism” debate, the one that questions the ways that identity, privilege, class, and race intersect in complicated ways when white Westerners go to places of color and try to “save” them. I’ve talked with friends around the world who have been the “recipients” of said programs, who’ve experienced how terrible it feels to see tourists come in, work for a few days, take a bunch of photographs of them, and then leave feeling good because they believe they’ve made a difference.

So what is Fathom doing differently?

Here’s what they say on their website:

“Every Fathom journey is based on our sincere belief that the person-to-person connection is among the strongest catalysts for transformation. What sets Fathom apart is the long-term, systematic partnership approach with its partner countries paired with the unique business model that allows for sustained impact and lasting development.”

Their formula is People + Passion + Partnership = Enduring Social Impact. The site goes on to state that participants will “work side by side with local residents (my emphasis) in existing programs that focus on improving the lives of children, families and communities.” This interested me, especially the use of the preposition “with” and the focus on collaboration with “existing programs.” There was no mention of “saving,” of “poor people,” and there were no exploitative photographs of people of color being stood over by white people. But who were these local partners and these existing organizations?

On the “Meet Our Partners” page, there are links to the two lead impact partners, Entrena and IDDI, two nonprofit organizations that work exclusively in the Dominican Republic to enhance local well-being and social projects. I looked up both websites, and here’s what I learned:

Fathom’s Partners: Entrena & IDDI

Recently, Entrena, who has been in existence for 25 years, has hosted students from Texas A&M who are working on global heath initiatives, held employment fairs for local youth through the Alerta Joven (At-Risk Youth Project), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), hosted summer camps for young children of refugee and expatriate families in Caribbean nations, and partnered with the Major League Baseball Association to create a program called MLB en la Comunidad that is focused on improving the lives of Dominican youth who hope to become baseball players. Their projects have generated 30 million dollars in sustainable development for the Dominican Republic, a number that seems very impressive to me. I clicked around some more and learned that the organization was started by John Seibel, a Peace Corps volunteer after he spent time living and working in the Dominican Republic in the early 1970s, and that Entrena is now run by both he and his wife, Sobeya. On their staff page, too, I noticed something else I particularly liked: they not only list bios and photos of their office workers, but they also feature their drivers and concierge staff. Too often these critical members of an organization do not get recognized, but on Entrena’s site, their names and bodies are included.

The other main partner, IDDI, el Instituto Dominicano de Desarrollo Integral, only has a website in Spanish, so I’ll sum up what I read for those of you who don’t speak Spanish. The Instituto was started in 1984 as a nonprofit dedicated to “amortiguar la pobreza tanto en las zonas rurales como urbanas,” or, eliminating Dominican poverty in both rural and urban areas. Roughly translated, their mission is similar to Entrena, in that they wish to contribute to the well-being of Dominican society by creating new opportunities, promoting dialogue across constituencies and create long-lasting social change, to identify and tackle not only problems but find their underlying causes, and to create a space where people can live productively and creativity. Their projects and partnerships are generally focused in the areas of public health, climate change, sustainability, biodiversity, youth, and humanitarian aid, and their website highlights plenty of these projects and how they’ve met (or are still working on) their goals.

These are organizations I can get behind. In fact, I’ve already starting thinking: How can I get my students involved in these projects next year, too?

Where We’re Headed

Over the course of a week, we’ll be cruising out from Miami, spending 4 days in the Dominican Republic, and then cruising back. Here’s the map as it appears on Fathom’s website:

mapdr — Voyage map – from Miami to the DR to Miami

During the days we’re cruising, we’ll be doing things cruisers do–attending lectures, sunning ourselves, taking yoga classes, and eating…a lot. Fathom serves small servings of local, sustainable food, which makes me happy, as I’ve never been comfortable with the amount of waste generated on the bigger cruise ships. The Adonia holds about 700 people, so it’s still going to be the biggest cruise ship I’ve ever been on.

Projects I’m Signed Up For

Every traveler can sign up for three “impact activities,” or day excursions that are focused on health, education, or business. Since I’m already a teacher, I decided against working with children or volunteering to practice English with students and instead chose activities that I thought would be both thought-provoking to me and helpful to the community.

On their website, they offer a sample itinerary, and it looks a little something like this:

Here’s what we’ve chosen to do with our mornings:

Cacao and Women’s Chocolate Cooperative

This local women’s cooperative is actively involved in the cultivation of organic chocolate (cacao) plants, an important source of income for the Puerto Plata region. We’ll be spending the day working on the complete production cycle, from planting and cultivating the organic cacao trees, to preparing the raw materials, to producing and packaging the final product for sale. Fathom’s website states that by participating in this project, we can contribute toward helping hire more local women and providing critical income in a region with limited employment opportunities.

Concrete Floors in Community Homes

In the homes of poorer communities, the common basic dirt floors are a genuine health risk. They pick up dust during the dry season and retain dampness and puddles in the rainy season. And they’re impossible to clean, which means that anything spilled on the floor or tracked into the house, however unhygienic, tends to stay put.

Every month, homes in a different small area of a community will be chosen to be upgraded with new concrete floors. There are also plenty of other tasks at hand: painting the house, fixing broken furniture, cleaning and improving the outside surroundings, making improvements to common areas in the community, or planting fruit trees as part of a beautification effort that can also provide long-term nutritional benefits. The overall project will also include the addition of latrines and mosquito screens to reduce the prevalence of waste-borne and mosquito-borne diseases. Fathom’s website states that we’ll be working alongside the homeowners and other members of the surrounding community, including children and teenagers, helping them create surroundings they’ll be proud to maintain and take care of.

Water Filter Production

One solution already being implemented is the production and distribution of clay water filters, which mean far fewer children and adults will miss school or work due to water-borne illnesses. On this day, we will help out with the entire filter-making process: gathering and mixing the raw materials, working the clay, shaping and firing the filters, testing the quality of the finished product, and distributing the finished filters to needy families.

Thoughts So Far?

I’m pretty excited. For one thing, I get to spend a week on a new cruise line and I get to spend a week with one of my best friends. (Though, seriously, we could be hanging out in the kitchen cooking dinner and it would be amazing). We’ll have our afternoons and evenings free to explore, so I’m hoping to squeeze in some city touring, some waterfalls and some hiking, and some local restaurants.

More than that, though, I’ll get to meet some new people, eat some good food, do some interesting work, help out where I can, and see more of Puerto Plata than just those heart-stopping sandy white beaches. I’m hoping to make some lasting connections with the organizations Fathom is working with and set up a service project for my students next year.

Have any of you been to the Dominican Republic? Can you share any tips or must-sees for me?

Yours in travel,

Kristin

–

Come join me in the DR! Booking a Fathom cruise is super easy and they’re offering amazing deals for their inaugural season. I don’t get a commission or anything if you book with them, but I thought I’d include the link in case you were interested, too!

Down the Neva: Reflections on a Russian River Cruise, Part 1

July 20, 2015 by Kristin Winet 3 Comments

From May 29^th to June 11^th, my mom, Kay Mock, and I joined Viking River Cruises on their enigmatic and incredibly special Waterways of the Tsars cruise, an experience that changed both of us in unexpected ways. Neither of us had ever been to Russia before, and what made this trip even more special was that it was my mom’s first international voyage. That, along with getting to know Russia much more deeply than I expected, are what made this trip one of the best of my life, and I quickly realized that I couldn’t write about it without her words, too!

In this special three-part series, my mom and I share our experiences as a baby boomer and a millennial—women with two very different perspectives on a country that, above all else, is full of surprises.

And so, we go.

First Stop: St. Petersburg, city of canals on the Neva River

Kay: Like many Americans of a certain age, I was influenced by the last century’s news and generally held opinions regarding Russia as a dark and oppressive country. Under Communist rule, the country was essentially closed to tourism and worse, not particularly welcoming of free-world Westerners under any circumstances. One needed government sanction to enter the country, which was not an option for the casual tourist. Mother Russia was, and still is to some extent, an enigma.

On May 29, I joined my well-traveled daughter for a long-awaited trip to Saint Petersburg, Russia where we would board the Viking Truvor (one of many well-appointed cruise ships operated by Viking River Cruises) for the Waterways of the Tsars itinerary. We would call the Truvor home for the next 12 nights. For a history, art, food and culture nerd like me, this trip would turn out to be the most enlightening and enjoyable adventure I could have imagined.

Kristin: That’s the first thing you’ll learn about Russia: just like in the United States, Russia has suffered from some insane media coverage over the years. We as Americans are not exactly portrayed in the best light abroad; neither are the Russians. We’re two countries—two very large and influential nation states—that, to the chagrin of all involved, have been both victims and perpetrators of powerful stereotypes. While there is usually some truth to stereotypes, they’re never the whole story. Even during my lifetime, I’ve never seen the young city of St. Petersburg depicted as the charming city of sky-blue buildings and winding canals that we discovered when we arrived here. Through the images I’d seen time and time again in my youth, I imagined St. Petersburg as a European city covered in darkness and buried in piles of white snow all year round.

“St. Petersburg is not an old city. It’s more like, I don’t know, a teenager.” –Micha, our tour guide, on the city’s status as a “new” global city

On our flight from Paris to St. Petersburg, my mom and I flipped through the itinerary that Viking had mailed to us and we marveled over some of the activities they’d planned for us: art tours, evening canal cruises, vodka tastings, cooking classes, painting lessons, cathedral tours, traditional spa visits, ballet and folklore performances. How in the world could this place also be the Russia I’ve been warned about since I was a child, the Russia depicted as cold, snowy, and without sunlight? I felt a giddiness to find out—the same kind of giddiness that, on my first trip abroad, turned me into the writer I am today.

Kay: Saint Petersburg is truly a thing of beauty. With the main Neva River and the many canals wandering calmly and gracefully through the historic and architecturally significant waterways within the city, I was immediately reminded continually of the fact that here there is so much to share with the world, but was not shared until recently because of ideological governance. This is now in the past, and lucky for the rest of the world, we can experience a really beautiful Russia. During late May and early June, for instance, Saint Petersburg offers a spectacular phenomenon known as “White Nights” when the sun barely sets and is visible on the horizon during what would normally be the nighttime hours. It is a wonder to see and photograph. Full daylight resumes at about 3AM.

Kristin: What an eerie and phenomenal experience the white nights are. For one thing, the sun at midnight isn’t the same sun you’ll see at noon: it’s a colder sun, a blueish sun, a sun that looks, if you can imagine it, like a sun at midnight should look. Check out this picture my mom took at midnight on our first evening together on the ship:

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Kay: When we arrived and as our transport headed toward the ship’s dock, I saw another truly astonishing sight; miles and miles and miles of high rise apartment buildings appeared clustered along the road to the horizon, as far as we could see. Later we learned how and why these Soviet built structures came to be and how many descendants of those first living there inherited them and live as owners free of charge. Andrey, our resident know-it-all guide (as we teased him), told us all about it when I asked him.

“If you’re not in a good mood or are looking for something, come to St. Petersburg.” –Andrey, our tour guide, on why St. Petersburg is such a great destination

This trip would not have had the impact we experienced without his knowledge and pride in the Russia of today as well as his boundless knowledge of Russian history. He, and other Viking guides, are truly experts, walking keepers of the extensive history and great pride of their homeland. As Andrey guided our group through the historically significant Hermitage, Catherine the Great’s Winter Palace along the Neva, he taught us about her great passion for art and architectural design that places the Hermitage as one of the world’s most splendid museums.

As we were guided expertly through a selection of the 1,000 rooms, we experienced many of the 3,000,000 exhibits that reflect this collection of the world’s greatest art. The building itself and its opulent ballrooms are a work of art in themselves.

Kristin: I absolutely couldn’t believe all that is inside the Hermitage: literally, this astonishing and meticulously gilded palace, is literally home to thousands upon thousands of the world’s greatest Western art: There are walls full of original madonnas by Da Vinci and Raphael, sculptures by Michelangelo, dozens of paintings by such European greats as Rembrandt, Monet, Matisse, Poussin, Renoir, Ruben, Van Gogh, and my beloved Caravaggio whose greatest works, I argue, are still in Malta. That doesn’t even cover the many works housed there by El Greco, Goya, and Picasso, the great Iberian artists I fell in love with while studying Spanish art and architecture in college. And though I’m no expert when it comes to art criticism, having Andrey by our side was immeasurably awesome: with our little discreet headsets, we easily followed around our resident expert while he regaled us with tales of composition and design as we walked us through tens of thousands of pieces of art. I am so grateful for his expertise; otherwise, I think I would have wandered around aimlessly for nine hours in the biggest palace I’d ever seen in my life.

To be honest, I had no idea—no idea whatsoever—that the Russians had worked so hard to preserve this much of our world’s art within its walls. It’s such a testament to historical presence—a theme mom and I quickly realized permeates all of Russia, from the fact that the downtrodden Communist blocs have not yet been torn down to the careful conservation of her many palaces, cathedrals, and churches.

Kay: And then, seeing Swan Lake at the Hermitage Theater–what a treat!

Kay: Day three in this exquisite city was to begin with a trip to Peter the Great’s wife Catherine I’s palace, which was expanded by her daughter, Elizabeth. We were looking forward to seeing this striking example of Russian baroque architecture. Regrettably, jet lag and lots of walking got the better of us. We overslept and missed the whole thing. This will be my reason to go back and do it all again!

Kristin: And again, and again.

Kay: This would be a good time to mention that the Truvor boasts the most comfortable beds and pillows I have ever had the good fortune to sleep in. After a long and active day with sights, sounds, and information swirling around one’s mind, it is a little piece of heaven. Everything we saw and did in Saint Petersburg not only was expertly planned and executed, but succeeded in inspiring us to see and to learn more and more. We did every optional excursion and loved them all.

Kristin: I especially loved the tour of the Peterof Palace, particularly because Peter had such simultaneously odd, opulent, and exquisite taste! He was really into Chinese art, for instance, and had rooms completely devoted to art he’d imported from the mainland. He was also obsessed with portraits of the same women, painted over and over again, from slightly different angles and wearing slightly different headscarves or shirts. He has a whole room full of these portraits—from floor to ceiling.

Also, my favorite detail: The Peterof Palace is the only historic place I’ve ever been that asks you to wear cloth shoes over your own shoes so as not to scuff the stunning wood floors. My one tip: Keep looking down. You will be enthralled with what’s beneath your toes.

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Kay: Peter the Great’s “Versailles by the Sea” definitely made a bit of an extra impression on us. Such grandeur and clever engineering of a 1721 system of waterworks made us wonder at the brilliance of it. But, while the Peterof was inspiring, we were astonished by the Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood, built in honor of Emperor Alexander II after he was assassinated there. It was begun in 1883 and while it is one of the newer constructions in Saint Petersburg, it is no less spectacular.

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Then, when we visited the Peter and Paul Fortress later that day, we learned that it is intimately linked to both the history of the city and to the Romanov dynasty, as it is home to the graves of nearly all the rulers of Russia since Peter the Great, including the Romanovs. There were so many unexpected sights and revelations for this American tourist, who could not get enough history, art, and amazing beauty in all that I saw and experienced.

Kristin: Stepping into the fortress, we were greeted by a four-part male acapella choral group who sang some brilliant Russian chants for us. As we wandered through its walls, I realized that we were standing amidst the tombs of nearly all of Russia’s rulers (except for Lenin, who has his own tomb in the Red Square in Moscow, an experience we’ll tell you about later), and it occured to me, once again: historical presence. The Romanovs, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great…these names I have known since I was a child, these names my mother has known since she was a child…here, in a sunny, bright yellow fortress, their spirits stay.

Kay: Again, were it not for Andrey and Micha guiding and informing us, we would have only marveled at yet another beautiful cathedral instead of experiencing the depth and breadth of its history.

We were not ready to leave this lovely place called Saint Petersburg, rightfully called Russia’s most beautiful city.

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**Up next: Next week, Mom and I will be dishing about our journey in-between, to Kizhi island, the tourist village of Mandrogi, and the lovely golden ring cities of Yaroslavl and Uglich.

—

A very special thanks to Viking River Cruises and the team on the Viking Truvor for hosting my mom and me on our unforgettable first river cruise. One thing I will never forget is something my mom said to me as we walked around to the different artisans selling their work around the Church on the Spilled Blood. “Kristin,” she told me, with twinkles in her eyes and an energy I hadn’t seen in a long time, “I’m falling in love with this city.”

Mom, I am so grateful to have had this experience with you.

If you’d like to see the full itinerary, you can see it on Viking’s site or in my previous blog post about our journey together.

What Does It Mean to…Settle Down?

June 23, 2015 by Kristin Winet 6 Comments

Those two words, when used together, have always terrified me. Settle + down. Settle, a word that evokes a “coming to rest,” an acceptance of things as they are, a seated position. Down, a word that means everything but “up.” What else could it mean but a snoozefest in the suburbs? A wanderlust unfulfilled? A life that’s predictable, simple, and altogether comfortable?

Oh course, I’m mostly kidding. As I transition into this new decade, the decade that comes after all the college partying, waywardness, and all-around general uncertainty, I see it happening to a lot of my friends, and I have to admit: there is something more attractive about the idea of settling down now than even five years ago when I was still knee-deep in my mid-twenties. So many of my childhood and adult friends own houses, have children, are in jobs they don’t necessarily love (or do love, if they’re one of the lucky ones!). I’ve never had any of these things, except for maybe the “job I love” part…but even my long climb to pursue a job I really wanted has made me question whether or not spending so many years in higher education as an exploited graduate student teacher making less than a poverty-level income is worth the prize at the end.

There were many restless nights, nights spent eating leftovers and fretting about my dissertation, in which I thought very long and hard about giving it up completely, about taking a new path, about jet-setting somewhere new and “settling down” at a foreign language school somewhere and doing what I do best: teach, travel, and write. Plus, the academic job market is nothing short of grueling–it takes every ounce of confidence, perseverance, and tenacity to survive it. For a hopeful academic and a freelance writer, rejection is part of the daily grind. But rejection after rejection is not easy, let me tell you.

I did, unexpectedly, have a job offer to teach English at a very prestigious satellite American university in China. The “me” five years ago would have literally jumped on an airplane with one stuffed suitcase and no regrets, and I would have had countless after countless stories to write, countless after countless photos to take. My parents would have been so proud of me (love you, mom and dad!), and my sister would have wanted to hear every detail. My dad started sending me every expat website he could find on Shanghai, and he put me in touch with friends he knows who work in Asia.

Then, when they offered Ryan a job as well, I did something unexpected: I paused.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t think I wanted that life, that life characterized by chaos, uncertainty, excitement, and adrenaline, again. At least not right now. I wanted, for the first time in my adult life, to be closer to my family, to spend more time with my parents, to make more memories with my friends here, rather than selling everything I owned (which, admittedly, isn’t much), stuffing up a suitcase, and heading off on a one-way ticket. Having been by my mom’s side through her seemingly interminable struggle with cancer over the past seven years, I’ve thought a lot about family, about lifelong friendships, about the world right outside my door that is stunningly beautiful on its own. I’ve thought a lot about the quickness with with life passes, and about how, despite our best intentions, we can’t hit the pause button. Perhaps Shanghai could wait.

So I did something even more unexpected: I went back on the job market, and I, with a freakishly dogged persistence, kept applying. I knew my contract at the University of Arizona was going to be up in May, and I didn’t–I painfully didn’t–want to end up adjuncting for less than I’d make working at a fast-food chain or panicking every month because my blog didn’t have enough unique page views to support potential advertiser’s appetites. As I’ve learned, talent and charisma can only take you so far–the formula for success is really no more than just trying really really hard and refusing to give up no matter how many rejection letters or the sounds of crickets pile into your inbox. (Trust me, there were plenty). And for someone like me, someone who is horribly anxious by nature, this hasn’t been easy.

And then, in April, I got another offer, and during the phone call, I blurted out that Ihadahusbandtooandhe’sanacademictooandhereallyneedsajobtoo…. And they said they’d be happy to find him a job, too.

So, this settling down thing is really happening.

Ok. So I’m not really “settling down,” so to speak….we’re just moving to California.

I’d like to think of it as an “unsettling down,” a partial settling for the two of us and our two cats….with a good amount of restlessness still in the wings. I’m confident that I will thrive in my new position as an Assistant Professor of English, and I am more than excited to be heading to a liberal arts college just steps away from the beach (with a view that is, let me just say, ridiculous!). Last weekend, we found a cute little place to live–an upstairs unit in an old-but-adorable 1920s bungalow three blocks from the harbor–and we arranged for the movers to take what little we have from Tucson to Long Beach. Marymount CA University, here we come!

We’ll be in the middle house here, with the green awnings and cute Spanish tile roof. It’s quirky, it’s got character, and it’s got just enough bungalow to remind me of Tucson.

Thanks to Google Earth–in all its awesomeness and creepiness–for snapping this for me.

longbeachhome

So, here we are, straddling one part of our lives, not quite ready to let go, but somehow, in some way, ready to embrace another.

And dear Sonoran Desert, this unexpected, harsh, and lovely place I have grown to love, with all its buzzing cicadas, gigantic palo verde bugs, anthropomorphic saguaro cacti, and wonderful, wonderful writing community, I am happy, because you’ll still be just a day away.

Yours in travel,

Kristin

#WITS15 Reflections: An Invitation to Re-vise

March 31, 2015 by Kristin Winet 2 Comments

The room was freezing, and then it was boiling. First, we bundled into our scarves and coats, brought with us inside from the cold Boston morning air, and then, we peeled off all the layers again. In a room of glaring fluorescent lighting, silver water pitchers atop white tableclothed tables, and notoriously bad hotel carpeting, no one seemed to be able to decide how many clothes they wanted to wear.

The malfunctioning of the air conditioner, though it might be the first thing I remember when I think about this week’s Women in Travel Summit, is certainly not the most important detail of my four days in Boston, although it does have meaning for me. The cold and heat of the room, that wave of heat passing over us from above, encouraging us to shed our coats, scarves, and mittens, marked a metaphorical shedding for me, too.

This is because I was the one standing in the front of the room, my computer propped up on the podium, a microphone angled toward my face. At the moment the heat clicked on and the stale warm air started drifting down onto our shoulders, I started my presentation, asking the 35 women before me to let their guards down and to be open to the possibility of revision. I talked about Adrienne Rich’s lovely and powerful essay, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” the very first essay I was ever introduced to in graduate school and the first essay I ever taught to students, and I talked about the importance of honoring our work, rather than just typing it out and hitting the publish button. To all 35 sets of eyes, many with incredibly diverse and worldly experiences, I talked about integrity and how and why, as women, our stories matter.

poster

It’s not the first time I’ve said this: I tell my students at the University of Arizona this every semester: that revision, the art of seeing something with fresh eyes, of seeking to revisit and old tale, an unsavory sentence, a tired image, is an incredibly powerful tool. Revision (or as we like to write it, re-vision) wields power; and having power allows our writing to flourish, and to matter to someone other than ourselves. Our audiences require at least this from us.

But don’t let that fool you: I was so, so very nervous, not because I haven’t gotten up a million times in front of my students every semester to help walk them through their own writing projects, but because this was the first time that I was bringing my teaching self into my travel writing world. The two have been disconnected for so long–as if one morning I’m a nice, put-together writing instructor in a pencil skirt and black pumps and the next evening I’m in jeans and a backpack, jetsetting to some faraway destination with business cards that say nothing about my being a teacher anywhere on them. When I proposed the workshop to the planning committee of WITS, I wondered if maybe I didn’t have enough experience, if maybe I didn’t have a big enough following (if maybe my shuddering at the word “following” was indicative enough that I wasn’t qualified to talk about creating better stories that would attract more pageviews and more shares on Facebook….), if maybe people would look at me and see a creative writer who has a degree but who’s only published travel writing, journalism, and a couple of photographs here and there. I wondered if maybe I was still too young to have anything decent to say about writing craft. But I hit the “send” button anyway, my application drifting off into cyberspace, and I put the whole business out of my mind for a couple of months until I received an email from Beth Santos, the CEO and founder of WITS, that I’d been invited to Boston.

lunch

It’s a complicated space to be, to say the least, between responsible teacher and wanderlusting writer. However, there is power now, I realize, in merging these identities. By the end of our hour together, I was literally floored by what happened between the women and me. The women hadn’t gone the direction I’d originally thought, revising an existing blog post, maybe rewriting a tired scene or rethinking another way to write a “list post;” instead, they were in the process of daring themselves to start telling stories they’d always wanted to write about but never had the courage or the safe space to do.

Stories of the nervousness of admitting to her parents that she sold her eggs to travel, of healing from being attacked from behind by an assaulter on a quiet street, not far from home, of learning from the Eritreans what being the n-word meant in other context, of working with Ugandan mothers and feeling torn between photographing them and creating poverty porn….

This was not exactly what I had expected, and I nearly teared up at the end of the presentation when a few women came up to me and asked me if I could take a look at their work and let them know what I thought. One said I should start a business coaching aspiring bloggers on the art of storytelling, and another told me lots of women in the room had been tweeting lessons they were learning.

tweets

My heart leapt. Me, the little girl who’d been scribbling in her little pink journal when she was five years old, now a woman, sharing a kind of expertise in a field she’s loved since that first step she took off the airplane in Madrid ten years ago as a college student. Ever since that moment, and the outpouring of writing that came from that experience, I’ve wanted this. And here I was.

The rest of the weekend, too, kept my heart full and hopeful that travel writing can be ethical, feminist, and worthy—all the adverbs I always pair with a genre of writing and blogging that is not always valued or considered important.

As I fly back to Tucson, where I will jump back into my pencil skirt and heels for tomorrow’s technical writing class, I come back with a renewed sense of who I am, who I wish to be, and how I hope to live my life. As a call-to-action, I encourage all of us to look deeply, passionately, and lovingly at what we do and how we do it, and re-vise, re-vise, re-vise.

And maybe eat a Mike’s Pastry cannoli in-between.

cannoli

Yours in travel,

Kristin

PS. Sadly, my smartphone doesn’t perform all that well in low light, so take these Instagram pics I’m including here with a grain of salt. 🙂

PPS. If you’d like a copy of my presentation script and accompanying worksheet, you can get them on Scribd.com for free!

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From the Archives: 61 Writing Tips from my MFA

September 12, 2014 by Kristin Winet 1 Comment

Today is part of my annual “fall cleaning,” which has nothing to do with actually cleaning my house. As a writer, this is the time when I go through my digital files and try to organize all of my writing and research into folders (that I will inevitably change the following year when I think I’ve come up with the next brilliant organization method). This year, I came across something that I couldn’t resist sharing–a compilation of 61 writing tips I put together from my workshop notes after I graduated from my MFA.

I had completely forgotten about this list, but after finding it and reading it this morning, I’m unabashedly unashamed to share it with the rest of the world. I hope you can find a gem in here, too! (And in response to #2, yes, I am still weird.)

Also, curiosity getting the best of me here, what would you add?

–Kristin

Count how many times you use “I” in one paragraph. Have you overused yourself? Please find other ways to talk about yourself than using “I.” Try description. Try something. ANYthing.
Find the “oddness” in your own identity—there’s an interest in every truth, detail, and experience. And yes, you are weird.
Lyric essay vs. personal essay vs. memoir:
1. Lyric essay: poetic elements, figurative language, metaphor, condensation, tightness, attention to language, juxtaposition, making statements by placement, refrains, repetition, music, cadence, tone, associative thinking, not linear, intuitive connections in white space, “objective correlative” (T.S. Eliot) objects, sensations in relation to emotion!
2. Personal essay: topical/political, present tense, meditation, reflection, argument, narrative, scene, summary, characters, “to try” to discover, analyze, inquire, voice, “I” or no “I,” tone/attitude/bias must be present, exploratory, self as the “lens” through which we see a way of life!
3. Memoir: shifts in time, memory, “I,” identity, complexity, experience and how we make meaning of it, human conditions, epiphany, “me,” How do I know…?,” “How does it work?” asking questions, time and place ruptured, moments in history
Don’t “wrap everything up” too nicely—let us make our own conclusions, please. Caveat: don’t leave us hanging when it comes to romance, please. Romance + ambiguity = one frustrated reader.
Zoom in on physical description and historical summary of place.
Don’t use too many names/characters—even if they all seem important!—or the reader will get lost. We don’t want to know every person you’ve ever met. Zoom in on the key peeps.
“Found material” in essays can be good for credibility but not good for doing the work for you: words from brochures, research, letters, quotes, etc. can add context but don’t rely on them.
****Must be self-effacing before making judgments about other people/cultures!!!
Incorporate research as part of the scene! Make sure voice is consistent.
Personal essay: narrator must change in some way, have realization, change in attitude, acceptance, movement (not necessarily epiphany)
Acknowledge your audience! What do they know/not know about your subject?
Use dialogue to reveal character’s personalities and motivations!
Make a dull subject exciting through quirky people, interaction with the subject as part of your personal experience
Humility goes a long way and people relate well to it
Interrogation leads to self-perception
Using metaphors/similes to explain unfamiliar concepts can go a long way: ej. “I traveled around her as a binary star” must mean binary stars make rotations!
Endings shouldn’t be so expository—let us dwell in scene!
Use white space (page breaks/section breaks) as a place to let the scene resonate.
Don’t always try to use clever transitions to make us aware of connections
Purpose shouldn’t be withheld until the end—nonfiction is about the “journey,” not the element of surprise!
If the essay isn’t chronological (fragmented/collaged) there needs to be some framework for the audience to keep up.
Forecasts must be subtle! Never say, “in the following memoir, I will…” Bleg.
Don’t overstate facts that should only be mentioned once or twice!
Trust analogies to work without explaining them immediately afterwards.
Silence can work as wonderful connective tissue! (Does this mean use white space? Not sure…check on this).
Clean and crisp: shorter sentences are a must! Knock out excessive subordinate clauses.
Semi-colons: outdated?
American perspectives need their own critique—must acknowledge own perception as own, not as norm!
If you haven’t lived it, don’t make a claim about it!
How to decide which form is best for the material? Think about it like a poet! Content shapes form!
Try new ways of shaping material by changing the form.
Find the thread in the tapestry of your life and follow it to the end: where are those patterns?
People must be able to identify with you all the time, even if this seems like an impossible task in real life.
If we can’t find the resolution (even if the resolution is that there isn’t any resolution), make one!
Don’t make the language so complicated that the point gets lost.
Philosophical views—which sometimes very effective—inevitably distance the reader.
Reconstruct emotion but please, dear God, don’t “cry” more than once in an essay!
Dependent clauses shouldn’t override an essay. Too much “cataloguing” does not push narrative forward! Especially don’t do this at the beginning of a paragraph.
Increase tension/urgency by using present tense.
Don’t let an interesting technique “dilute” a story—just write it!
Don’t write about man; write about “a man.”
Write to a less-informed audience than you expect, but don’t patronize them.
Outside to inside, general to specific: works well as grounding technique
Compound words like “olive-sized” work better spelled out: “size of an olive”
A voice that’s too colloquial can work against credibility
Orient your readers so they don’t feel like monkeys hanging from a branch!
Technical writing must be done carefully and meticulously—don’t lose your reader in too many terms they won’t understand (farm equipment)
If you weren’t there, you can’t pretend! Use the Nabokov technique: “I can imagine her standing there at the train…” “I didn’t see…but I can guarantee…” This gives you freedom to say what you thought might have went on!
Show, don’t summarize!
Too many modifiers actually weaken what you’re trying to say!
Which anecdotes tell the story BEST? Toss out the ones that don’t contribute to the overall purpose. Save them for another essay.
Context is vital—bring us along with you. Use your senses, knowledge, comprehension!
Understanding the real truth is impossible, especially if you’re considering more than one perspective. “One of the best stories is….grandpa says…but now dad, dad says…” “But I think….” Shows complexity of situation.
In description, always be more specific. What game were you playing? What perfume was she wearing? What day was it?
Techniques to help us get to know the narrator better:
1. stronger chronology
2. more narrative sequence
3. visual imagery
4. internal thoughts
5. center the essay in your life
6. use more events than summary
7. know more about implications of the past
Chop out extraneous information—we don’t need it!
Active storytelling: real time versus narrative time
1. Real time: dates the essay: “now, last week, this morning”
2. Narrative time: imperfect tense immortalizes essay: “often, generally, as a child, that morning”
Don’t overuse adverbs: “obsessively, incessantly, constantly, seldomly”. We seldomly need your incessantly overwritten passages.
Make sure vignettes don’t become balloons without strings!
Lenses are important: Finkel’s book, for ex. Is it examining the firing through the lens of the murders? Or the murders through the lens of the firing?
“The worst thing you can try and imitate in nonfiction is chaos or confusion.”

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