I’m 5 days away from moving out of my beautiful home and into a collective home of 10. Things so far have gone very smoothly. I’ve got most of my belongings in my new room… which still needs to be painted and organized.
Because I’ve been so busy here are some pictures of the last two weeks.
Peace and Love
Just some food for thought… Every time you find yourself in a situation like the picture above, don’t forget to be thankful. Take time to realize how lucky you are to have even the extra time and resources to enjoy a scone (or whatever you prefer) at a coffee shop… and how lucky you are to be healthy… and how lucky you are to be able to do it again and again…
Peace and Love
I spent a couple nights up in Boston seeing friends that I never get to see. The first being my close friend Christopher who actually had his birthday and spent the night with me eating boxed cake and a feast of different kinds of food. I ate so much food that I woke up with stomach cramps!!! The next day I met two friends for lunch. One of which I haven’t seen in over a year! The other was a couchsurfer. Anthony and Adrienne were great company and actually decided to meet up again after meeting one another! I spent the next few hours at the MFA. I walked through EVERY exhibit and saw some crazy things… my favorite was the mummified head! After the MFA was Pauline’s. We spent the night eating good food and having deep conversations about life. She even baked a pie!
All went well and I got home today exhausted but happy! I’m off to work now… here are some pictures of around the MFA and inside Pauline’s condo.
Peace and Love
I woke up today after a long day of stomach pain. I decided to turn off the computer and do some mental rehab. First I read some of the Tao Te Ching and then moved on to chanting Om. I went to bed with a clearer head and woke up (whether related or unrelated) feeling better.
I’m just trying to stay happy and hope to clear out this emotional stress. But I feel a lot like a bubble that can burst… but a beautiful bubble that can burst can also experience an entire lifetime of wonder and awe…
Peace and Love
I realized today that my camera’s picture quality is too large to put up in my blog. I will have to forgo putting them up on the site unless someone knows how to change the file size of a photo…Otherwise you can go to my facebook album and look at them.
Peace and Love
Here’s an article about some police brutality that took place the other night in Providence. I put a link to the article in the Projo and copied the text onto the blog. If anyone is interested in protesting this event on Saturday evening let me know.
Peace and Love
http://www.projo.com/news/content/PROVIDENCE_BRUTALITY_INVESTIGATI_12-05-09_FFG_v30.398b074.html
PROVIDENCE — A surveillance videotape showing an unarmed and apparently handcuffed man kicked and then beaten over the head several times with a flashlight by the police was made public by his lawyer on Friday.
The video, from the night of Oct. 20, was released on the day that the man, Luis Mendonca, 20, of Pawtucket, was sentenced in District Court, Providence, for assaulting two Rhode Island School of Design police officers in connection with that incident.
The grainy, black-and-white video shows a group of police officers struggling with Mendonca in a parking lot off Benefit Street on the city’s East Side while he is lying on the ground near a parked car.
It shows the officers dragging Mendonca from under the car and into the center of the parking lot, after he has apparently been restrained. The video then shows another police officer entering the fray, kicking Mendonca and following up with a number of blows to the victim’s head with what his lawyer says is a flashlight.
The video, which has no sound, ends with a visibly limp Mendonca being dragged by police officers up a flight of stairs leading to Benefit Street.
Video
Footage of Luis Mendonca allegedly being assaulted by police
Mendonca’s attorney, Alberto Aponte Cardona, of Central Falls, says that following the beating, his client was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, required 12 staples to close a gash in the back of his head and was in a coma for nearly three days.
Cardona says that the officer shown repeatedly striking Mendonca is Detective Robert R. DeCarlo, a 15-year veteran who has received at least two awards for his police work, according to Journal archives.
“It is obvious from this video that that officer needs to go. He’s not fit to wear the badge. Officers need to be prosecuted,” he said.
Police Chief Dean Esserman says the department’s Internal Affairs Division has been investigating the incident, but he would not confirm whether DeCarlo was involved. The officer that is the focus of the investigation currently remains on duty, he said.
Esserman has also asked the attorney general’s office to open an investigation. Michael J. Healey, a spokesman for the office, says an investigation is ongoing.
“The department takes the matter very seriously,” Esserman said. “We are looking into everything … One officer is under investigation, but the entire incident is being looked at as well.”
During the court hearing on Friday, Cardona tried to submit the surveillance video as evidence that Mendonca had not resisted arrest, as the police alleged. Mendonca had been charged by Providence police with two counts of simple assault and one count of resisting arrest.
But District Court Judge Elaine T. Bucci said that the video was inadmissible since the attorney general’s office had withdrawn the charge of resisting arrest.
“They dropped the resisting arrest charge so that this video does not come out,” said Cardona.
Cardona released the video to the media on Friday after having made it available to Channel 12 at least a day earlier. The videotape came from a surveillance camera on an apartment building at 306 Benefit St., and was focused on the parking lot where the beating took place.
Esserman says that the department’s internal affairs division obtained the video from the building’s owner and launched an investigation into the incident soon after it happened. Investigators questioned the witnesses and officers at the scene and also contacted Mendonca, who subsequently filed a formal complaint with the internal affairs division.
Cardona received a copy of the video as part of the court’s discovery process.
Judge Bucci found Mendonca guilty of violating the terms of his probation on previous charges and sentenced him to 90 days in the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.
Upon completion of his prison term, Mendonca must also serve one year of probation and a one-year suspended sentence on each of the two charges of simple assault. Cardona says his client will appeal the sentence in Superior Court.
Mendonca still suffers blurred vision, headaches and vomiting from his injuries and needs to receive the proper medical treatment while he serves out his prison term, said Cardona.
“My client is a good kid. He worked for the City of Central Falls. He volunteers with youths,” says Cardona, an assistant city solicitor in Central Falls. “He’s had his transgressions, but none violent.”
Friday’s court proceedings shed some light into the events that precipitated Mendonca’s beating.
At about 7:20 p.m. on Oct. 20, Mendonca had been stopped by RISD police near Hemenway’s Restaurant on South Main Street, following a report of an attempted trespass at the RISD dorm at 15 Westminster St.
RISD officer Justin Wall testified that he had stopped Mendonca and was searching him when Mendonca “attempted to pull away,” striking the officer in the ribs with his elbow. Wall then put Mendonca in restraints.
When RISD Sgt. William LaPierre arrived, Mendonca identified himself as “Cory Garabedien,” but could not spell the name or produce any identification.
Still, the officers uncuffed Mendonca and said he was “free to go,” according to both officer’s testimony. But with Providence police on their way, the RISD officers say that Mendonca offered to show an ID.
Instead, LaPierre says Mendonca made a “lunging move,” struck the officer in the chest, and pushed LaPierre’s arm out of the way as he fled down South Main Street. Mendonca ran up a long flight of stairs behind the state attorney general’s office that led to the rear of an apartment complex on Benefit Street.
While the officer’s testimony on Friday ended there, the video released by Mendonca’s attorney shows what happened next.
After trying to hide under parked cars, the video shows that at about 7:41 p.m., Mendonca was seized by a group of at least eight police officers — mostly Providence police, but also one RISD officer –– and was beaten while “clearly” restrained, says Cardona.
“We want all of those police officers held accountable,” said Cardona. “Not one of those officers comes to this poor guy’s aid. They knew that this guy was defenseless.”
With staff reports from Amanda Milkovits
VIDEO
pmarcelo@projo.com
I love this picture!!!!!!!!! Thank you Sara!
Peace and Love
Derek
So all the while living on the coast of the Mediterranean Nathan and I have been eying the mountain summit across the valley seen from our home/camper. Yesterday was the day we decided to make the climb. And what a climb it was.
We packed three meals (for two), fruit and tortillas and 2.5 liters of water along with a tent and some other stuff and made our way to the trailhead. It took us about two hours to walk to the “trailhead” which wasn’t an actual route that anyone in their right mind would climb. We found a road that had a sign for hikers and for the natural park around the mountain. Little did we know that it wasn’t a path to the mountain, so we did what goats had been doing for years and followed the remnance of their passages up to the top. The climb was straight up and fast. It only took us a couple hours to get to the summit from the closest road. We were really tired when we got to the top and very thankful we weren’t about to go back down until today.
We watched the sunset and then this morning the sunrise. We spent our first night in our tent. It was nice to be away from the farm for a night… even though the ground was not the best to sleep on and Nathan complained I pushed him into our backpacks all night. Either way we left around 9am in the same direction we were originally headed to descend the ridge of the mountain where a nice beaten path was waiting for us. The path took us straight to Frigiliana and to the restaurant Splash where we ate to our hearts content… which meant an appetizer, two main plates, and three desserts… Yes, three… Mmm, caramel bread pudding… The owner (Gary) was nice enough to drive us all the way back home too… which saved us over an hour’s worth of walking.
Here are some pictures of the hike and a couple of videos of the summit.
Peace and Love
By chance/luck/coincidence the day after needing a place to go, Nathan and I found a request for WWOOFers in the mountains of Málaga. We jumped on the opportunity to experience a new place and we were greatly surprised. Sevilla was beautiful but where we are now is just stunning.
Our trip started on a Monday morning by bus to the city of Málaga. From Málaga we made our way further south east along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to a town known as Torrox. From there we were picked up by our host José Luis and brought to our new temporary home in the mountains. It was light when we arrived and we were just blown away by the views. My first thought was “This can’t be real!”. The road kept winding upward into the mountains and always overlooking the valley and sea below. Small white villas dotted the landscape that was completely filled with a variety of trees. It was difficult the focus on our conversation because it was so amazing.
When we turned sharply down a side road I knew we were getting close. As the road sloped downward the view to the valley opened up again and the car stopped in front of the first house we came to. When we got out of the car José Luis immediately started to show us around our new surroundings. He introduced us to Laura and their two-year-old daughter Abril. Then he proceeded to take us to the fields. We walked about a couple hundred yards away from the house down a dirt path that came to a little blue camper… our new home!!!
We were very pleased with our accommodations especially our new teepee toilet down the hill. We then took the next path down the incline to the fields that are located about 100 feet from out camper. There are two of them that are one on top of the other and surrounded by sugar cane to protect the young plants from high velocity winds and cold.
We spent our first night enjoying a meal of lentils and potatoes by candlelight thinking how lucky we were to be in paradise.
It’s been over two weeks and life couldn’t get better. We spend a lot of our time weeding and recently have been planting and putting up bamboo poles for the peas. We get up at dawn, just before the sun comes up over the other side of the valley. Since we have no clock we begin work after a cup of hot mint tea. After working for a few hours we take a break to have a small breakfast and continue working until 3pm when it’s time for lunch. We share this meal together, and I’ve been welcomed to cook a few times now, the first being only the second day on the farm. Nathan and I keep ourselves busy. We like to spend time running around looking for fruit that’s dropped from the trees (avocados and oranges). But in the evening we return to our cozy home and cook a fabulous dinner. I’ve started experimenting making tortillas and for dessert I like to make typical American fried dough with cinnamon sugar. (Tonight I’m making my first attempt at preparing a real Spanish tortilla de patatas.) We have all the vegetables of the garden at our disposal as well as bean and rice (and basically anything else we would ask for). We’re in heaven.
We’ve decided to stay here for the remainder of our time in Spain. We’re currently looking at intentional farming communities in South and Central America as well as Portland, Oregon. That’s right; we’re movin’ west. Sad to say for all my friends in the east, but it’s been a dream of mine for a while. If Nathan and I are going to start a life together somewhere we might as well try someplace we’ve never been. Our hopes are high for a home with space for an intensive garden to experiment with and jobs to pay off our college debt.
We’re very excited about taking our next step, but we do really love it here on the farm. José Luis and Laura have been extremely welcoming; it’s more than we could have ever asked for. Conversation isn’t a breeze because of language but they’re always patient and great at repeating themselves. Abril is so cute and inquisitive. She affectionately calls us “Los Chicos,” and she’s warming up to us after initial shyness. If/when we come to Spain again, we’ll surely be back to visit this wonderful family.
Peace and Love
