Well, officially hit the halfway point of my trip today. The days continue to change as I see more and more of Guatemala and it just doesn’t cease to amaze.

To start off with the music project – it’s going phenomenally well. It’s indescribable to literally watch them, throughout the past few weeks, begin to understand the concepts of rhythm, beat and tempo while we practice beatboxing, drumming, and singing.

What I’m more excited to share though - I initially set a donation target of $700, knowing that this money could purchase a great music school for the kids. In only five weeks of fundraising, the donations continued poured in and, in the end, I was able to raise $1590!!

The fact that YOU – my friends and family reading this - all contributed more than DOUBLE my target not only renders me speechless, but means that we can do much more for Ninos Del Lago. I spoke with with Ramon and Felipe about the best way to spend the remaining funds. I learned that, whereas elementary and middle school are free, it costs $150/year for children to attend high school in Guatemala. We are going to be able to provide a year’s worth of tuition to the five children in Ninos Del Lago. From the bottom of my heart, thanks to all those that supported this project.

OK…now onto the extra-curriculars. Last left off before a fun day trip to the Mayan Market at Chichicastenango. It was a hustling, bustling mirage of people and authentic Guatemalan knick-knacks for purchase.

That night, I had a beatbox show at Buddha Bar, by far my favorite hang-out spot in San Pedro. I have a ton of videos but unfortunately can’t find an Internet connection fast enough here to upload them to YouTube. Will have to wait ‘til I get back to the States.

As for last weekend, my Guatemalan trip was altered forever when I was graced by the presence of one Jon Murstein. He was only visiting from 5/21 – 5/25 which gave me the incentive/challenge of seeing how to maximize 3½ days in Guatemala. To the best of my ability, I describe the weekend in which, as Jon turned to me on his last day and remarked: “We T-rexed this country.”

Thursday the 21st:
12:45am: Jon’s shuttle arrives in San Pedro. We get his bags into my apartment and he is sipping his first Gallo within approximately 7 minutes after arrival.

Friday the 22nd:
7:00am: We wake up, rent kayaks and go cliff diving off of this great set of rocks just left of San Marcos. Jon was simply awed by the fact that we were sitting in the middle of 3 volcanoes on top of 10,000,000 gallons of water in Lake Atitlan.



3:00pm: We get back to San Pedro in time for music class with the Ninos. Jon places himself on videocamera duty and decides to play Narrator to what I can only describe as freakin’ hysterical videos of the kids singing “No, Mujer, No Llores” with Jon’s hilarious commentary. Stay tuned for these gems.
Nighttime: We grab some great eats and then head to a party in San Marcos being held by San Pedro Spanish School for their 12th anniversary. I end up beatboxing during the band’s set break to a great, energized crowd - all made for an awesome evening.

Saturday the 23rd:
3:30am: We wake up to catch our 4am shuttle to Antigua. We take a quick pit stop to shoot an amazing Guatemalan sunrise over the mountainous country roads.


We arrive in Antigua 3 hours later, meet up with Miguel, a friend introduced to me my a mutual friend back home, who turned out to be the nicest host we could have asked for. He took us to an unreal breakfast at Hotel Santo Domingo, a hotel literally built around old Mayan ruins. It boasts 3 museums, a church, and wedding chapel to boot. After a great day walking around the great colonial town of Antigua…


3:00pm: We hop on a shuttle to Guatemala City to catch our 6pm flight to Flores. We arrive at our hotel in El Remate around 9pm, have a great dinner at the hotel restaurant and pass out, ready for Tikal the next day.

Sunday the 24th:
5:00am: We wake up to catch the first shuttle to Tikal. We were the FIRST visitors to Tikal that morning, having arrived early enough to watch the sunrise and walk amongst Mayan ruins without any other tourists.

It was surreal.


We met two cool girls from the States – Sydney and Nicole – who instantly fell in love with Jon’s “Woody Allen/Michael Scott” shtick.
We trekked around the Temples continuously marveling at the sheer genius of the Maya, to have built all this so many centuries ago.


Jon and I even did a little vocals/beatbox jam at the top of Templo Cinco (video soon).



After trekking until around 2pm, we caught a shuttle back to El Remate, had a giant feast complete with a 4-lb whitefish. We went swimming in Lake Peten, watched a most unforgettable sunset, and collapsed in our beds after a phenomenally rewarding, though exhausting, day.


On Monday, we flew back to Guatemala City, killed about 2½ hours over breakfast at a great restaurant in the City, before heading back to the airport where Jon caught his flight back to Miami and I my shuttle back to San Pedro.

In hindsight, I can only agree with your assessment, Jonny Boy: we T-rexed this country.

Viviendo la Vida En Lago de Atitlan

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

As I look back on my first two weeks in Guatemala that go from the horribly negative - food poisoning from a milkshake in Chichicastenango to the amazingly sublime - translating the lyrics to "No, Woman, No Cry" into Spanish and teaching it Ninos Del Lago - I realize I'm in for an even better six weeks to come.

After arriving two weeks ago to Guatemala City from a 2 1/2 hour delayed flight, I passed out at my B&B shortly after my 1am arrival. I woke up the next morning to a fruit spread of native Guatemalan fruits before Ramon (Director of San Pedro Spanish School) and Felipe (Director of Ninos Del Lago). We head straight to the music shop to go over our purchases that we would return to make later that day before heading back to San Pedro.

Ramon then had a meeting, Felipe had to run to his grad school class, leaving me with my personal driver around Guatemala City! Unfortunately, not much to see here (Lonely Planet actually advises against spending any time here as it's ridiculously unsafe and dangerous. In fact, every shop was manned by a guy with an AK-47...), but I did mangage to catch this woman in the city center with funky native garb:

Guatemalan woman selling native garb

We then pick up Ramon and sit down to a nice lunch with typical Guate fare. Afterward, we head to the bank to exchange my dolares into quetzales. We ended up with: 4 tambourines, 1 child's acoustic guitars, 1 acoustic-electric guitar, 3 congo drums, 1 microphone, 1 amplifier, 4 sets of maracas, and a ton of other percussion instruments. Around 4pm, the rain began to pour out of nowhere (as I learned it would do 95% of the days) but there was a clear and present mutual excitement as we watched the birth of the music project.

After a four-hour drive to San Pedro, I arrived at my homestay to Rosalia and Juan, the sweetest family I could have asked for in a 2-week homestay. I then hit the sack as I had a 7am alarm clock going off for my 8am Spanish lesson!

Estela, my primero maestra de Espanol

After meeting my teacher, we soon took an introductory walk around the school compounds (an absolute must upon arrival, I mean...look at how gorgeous this place is...)

View from my Tiki Hut/classroom

Canoe/Kayak Rentals: $1.25/hour!

My first two full days in San Pedro were spent chatting with my host family over authentic Guatemalan meals, learning the layout of this charming little village of San Pedro, and remembering why I love traveling to places like this so much: it is not until we escape the comfortable confines of our living rooms and venture off into the unknown that we can begin to grasp a true sense of self and our pre-supposed limitations.

San Pedro elder in native garb

Friday was a big day as, at 2pm, the parents of Ninos Del Lago would be taking a day off from their jobs (an involuntary rarity) to come to the school and watch the instrument donation ceremony. Felipe and I each spoke about the project, our gameplan, and felt a great sense of enthusiasm fill the room. We then made the donations of the musical instruments, the two laptops from Wyse Technology, and dozens of books and games that I collected from the US:

Felipe addressing the parents

Ninos opening & playing with the instruments

It was a wonderful sight to watch and made me all the more excited to begin music classes the following week. My first weekend was spent making friends amongst the other students at the Spanish school, discovering my favorite local spot (The Buddha Bar), kayaking to San Marcos and cliff diving on Saturday (no pictures due to potential water hazard) and THEN...Sunday, definitely one of the best/luckiest days of travel I've ever had...

We took the 9:15am boat over to Santiago, another village on the other side of Lake Atitlan, a 1/2 hour ride.

Boat ride from San Pedro to Santiago

Santiago's claim to fame is that they house the iconic body of MAXIMON, a god that is worshiped by people throughout the surrounding villages. Now, the location of MAXIMON changes exactly 12 times a year when the villagers move the body on a monthly cycle from one place to another to redistribute the balance of power in the village. Hence, the very second you jump off the boat, a hoard of locals approach you, offering to take you to the "secret location" of MAXIMON (for a nice fee, of course).

But, we decide that we have all day and are in no rush to see MAXIMON. In fact, we create the challenge of finding MAXIMON ourselves without the help of locals. We find a nice place for brunch and then venture around the town for a few hours, mind you with 3 new locals offering to show us MAXIMON every minute.

Suddenyl, we hop a corner and stumble upon a huge crowd of local villagers, with loud music playing, all waiting eagerly for...something to happen. We get right up front to see this very estranged religious symbol that we could only assume to be a black Jesus:

Black Jesus

We then realize that we are the only 5 gringos amongst a crowd of Santiago villagers who are clearly holding some sort of very sacred ceremony. We're looking at each other thinking that it may be a funeral procession, perhaps a group prayer. They then light two huge fireworks. BANG! BANG! Marimba music begins to roar. The villagers cheers get louder and louder. And then, out of nowhere... behind a small wall emerges...MAXIMON!

Body of MAXIMON

IS THIS FOR REAL!? Are we actually in Santiago on the 1 day out of 30 that they relocate the MAXIMON's body!?! YES!! We then proceed to join this crowd of roughly 600 local villagers who walked through the streets of Santiago playing music while the other residents cheered and looked on from their rooftops:

Procesion de MAXIMON!

I felt like I was in a National Geographic special like "Living with the Kombai"!! It was surreal.

Santiago villagers carrying MAXIMON by Lake Atitlan

We caught a 3:30pm boat back to San Pedro as the rain set in, elated from this spectacle we were lucky enough to catch. As if it couldn't get any better, the rain cleared up for just in time to reveal the most spectacular rainbow I've ever seen with these two eyes.

Boatride back from Santiago to San Pedro

A truly perfect day of travel.

Since then, I have to admit that the last week has had its ups and downs. I decided to move from my homestay as my family lived right across the street from a pentecoastal church that played horrendously loud (like, 180 decibels loud) music. Try and imagine the Chicken Dance song played with an accordian, cowbell, tambourine and harmonica...really loud...ALL THE TIME...3 hours every morning, and 4 hours every night. It quickly became my own personal hell. I also caught some nasty food poisoning from a day trip to Chichicastenango last Sunday. However, all's better now as Ramon, the school's director has offered me his second home, a 3-BR apt. just next door to the school! So, now my days are 1000X more convenient (12-min walk to/from school previously), plus I have my own apt. with private bathroom and Internet!

I also decided to change my class schedule to afternoons so that I could take better advantage of the gorgeous weather in the mornings. A typical day now goes something like:

8:30am - 11:00am: Wake up, morning run, get a work-out in, usually by rock/tree climbing next to the lake.

My "Gym" In San Pedro

11:00am-1:00pm: Run errands, finish homework for Spanish class, prepare music lesson for Ninos del Lago, grab a bite to eat, or just stroll around town in general, digging on the local scene.

San Juan, a 30-minute walk from San Pedro

1:00pm-5:00pm: Spanish class.

Maria, mi maestra

5:15pm - 7:30pm: "Conversation Club" when the students get together and converse/play games/tell jokes in Spanish, followed by an activity that changes nightly (special guest presentations, movie nights on Mayan history, salsa nights, etc.).
7:30 onward: Wind down with a beer or mojito at one of our happy hour spots, grab dinner and then either head to Buddha Bar for some live music, Allegre Pub for Movie Night (saw Gran Torino on Monday...wow.), or take it easy with some hot chocolate and a stroll around town.

[8:00-10:00 am on Fridays & 3:00-5:00pm Mondays]: Teach music to Ninos Del Lago. After a few initial lessons on beatbox, drums, and basic concepts in rhythm, I am now working with them on Parte Uno del Proyecto: I've translated the lyrics to Bob Marley's "No, Woman, No Cry" into Spanish (No, Mujer, No Llores) and am putting together a performance where some students play their instruments while others sing in unison. Needless to say, it's phenomenal to watch come together (Video uploads in progress...stay tuned).

It's getting to be around 2am which is rather late by San Pedro standards for a Tuesday night. Till' next time...

Saludos de Lake Atitlan!

Wyse Technology Donates Laptops!

The outpouring of support and encouragement has been extraordinary! In addition to several pledged donations and musical instruments already in boxes on their way down to me, I received this e-mail from Wyse Technology:

Jay, this is great. We would like to donate to Ninos Del Lago couple of Wyse X90 laptops for you to take with you to Guatemala – they are not musical instruments – but teachers and students can use these low-cost and secure Web Computers to access information regarding music on the Internet.

I can not thank Tarkan, friend and President/CEO of Wyse Technology, enough for this incredibly generous contribution to the project! Not will these laptops allow the children the the latest in technological access, they are the greenest, most energy-efficient computers on the market! Learn more at www.wyse.com

Website and "Donate" Button!

Just put the first touches together for www.MusicForGuatemala.com, where I plan to blog about the adventure, upload photo and video, and generally just keep everyone up-to-date on the progress of the project.

Also...DONATE BUTTON!

You can now make electronic donations through Paypal. Please click the button above and donate to your heart's content!

Help Spread Music to Guatemala!

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die... it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."

- Maya Angelou

Friends and Family -

It is with much enthusiasm that I write you today. I have spent the past month finalizing my summer project and wish to share it with you and seek your help.

I have connected with Ninos Del Lago, a non-profit organization in San Pedro, Guatemala that provides education, healthcare, and nutrition to under-privileged children in the region. I have offered to help build a music department for their school so that these children can also experience the beauty of music and obtain the sense of human connection that comes with it.

My plan, over the next two weeks before leaving, is to gather as many musical instruments and donations as possible and then purchase several more instruments upon arrival. We will then have an opening ceremony in which we donate the instruments to the school. Over the following few months, my days will consist of studying Spanish at San Pedro Spanish School in the mornings and teaching music to Los Ninos Del Lago in the afternoon.

How can you help?

• Make a monetary donation. I am working with Ninos Del Lago to try and set them up a Google Checkout account for electronic donations. Until then, please make checks out to "Asociación Comunitaria Educativa Niños del Lago" and send to:
  

Jay Stone
3285 NW 63 St.
Boca Raton, FL 33496

At the risk of sounding like Sally Struthers, there is no donation too small. $5, $10 - whatever you can give to support music education to children in Guatemala.

• Donate musical instruments. IIf you are in New York or Florida, please e-mail me and I will pick up instruments from you in person. If you are from elsewhere, please e-mail me and we will work out arrangements for you to ship the instruments to me. I will also be collecting small but valuable items like medicine and vitamins if you wish to donate these.
  

• JOIN THE FACEBOOK CAUSE! I'm helping the Director establish an online donation account so my hope is that you will soon be able to make donations electronically. Until then, please mail checks and join the Facebook Cause to stay tuned for updates.
  

Keep track of the project - if you want to stay up to date on project progress, check out photo uploads, and view some HD videos of the mission, please subscribe to the blog!




Muchas gracias! Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

Jay Stone

The adventures continue...

Apparently, any notion of coming home after my 7-week global sojourn to a mellow chill-out period of rest and relaxation was simply not happening.

After the international section which went something like:

6/20 - 6/22: Tel-Aviv, Israel
6/24 - 6/26: Petra & Wadiram, Jordan
6/26 - 6/29: Eilat & Tel-Aviv , Israel
6/29 - 7/02: Jerusalem, Israel
7/02 - 7/06: Istanbul, Turkey
7/06 - 7/09: Aegean Sea Cruise
7/10 - 7/12: Tel-Aviv, Israel
7/12 - 7/26: Nepal
7/26 - 7/28: Amman, Jordan
7/28 - 7/31; Tel-Aviv, Israel
7/31: Home to the States

I continued on a domestic travel spree for another month:

8/01 - 8/07: DC After 3 years of renting out my Foggy Bottom apartment in the District, it was finally time to say goodbye and consolidate and simply life a bit...

8/08 - 8/10: NYC | All Points West Festival | Radiohead Part I: WAY too glad Diego convinced me to put the "apartment liquidation" on hold for the weekend to join he and Ari (2 of my 3 Panamaniacs I will be visiting in December/January) for the BEST of the four times I've now seen Radiohead.


8/11 - 8/18: DC
8/19 - 8/24: SF | Radiohead Part II: The band was the FIRST artist ever to perform in Golden Gate Park after sunset. Quite an unreal experience that, in spite of the sound completely crapping out twice, was well worth every minute.

8/24 - 8/27: LA | Radiohead Part III: Endless props to the Blumenhizzle for scoring us tickets to this show at the Hollywood Bowl, easily now one of my favorite music venues. The "1/2 bowl" shape allows the sound to reverberate off the very last row, ensuring perfect acoustic enjoyment for anyone from front row center to nosebleeds.

8/27 - 9/07: FL | The main man T-dawg's (aka Trevor's) bachelor party. We initially had plans to head down south to Key West but quickly diverted course northward after Hurricane Gustav came in and ransacked the entire southern coast of Florida. Luckily, we still had a blast camping out on Jupiter Beach.
9/07 : Return to SF...where, believe it or not, I have succeeded in staying put for the last month.

Finally getting an opportunity to...exhale...for the first time in three months has led to some deep intospection. I will not lie or try to downplay the experience I had abroad - it was incredible. I had so much original hesitation before leaving but, with each passing day of the trip, was further reaffirmed that leaving the confines of corporate America to embark on a personal journey of self-discovery was the greatest choice I could have made at the time.

Why was the trip SO good? Fair question. My good friends know I have a pension for exaggeration and will often describe every trip I go on as "beyond extraordinary," "life-altering," or "mind-expanding" but this was different. Yes, Israel, Turkey, and Jordan were phenomenal and I pay endless thanks to my hosts and friends who showed me endless amounts of fun: Shirlee, Matt, Deb (Gingit), Kfir, Orly, Sydney, Basia, Hila, Marina, and Yuvi. You guys always have a place to crash at whatever corner of the globe I may be at when we reconnect.

However, the undeniably greatest part of the trip was my first week in Nepal. I'd never been to a country before where I've come so face-to-face with some of the poorest people in the world. Some of the villagers we visited in our first week of the Dorjhana Foundation Healthcamp have never made more than 30 cents/day in their entire lifetimes. But, these people smiled and laughed, 20X more than the average American. Here in the States, we have EVERYTHING in such easy proximity to us. We drive our gas-guzzling vehicles an hour to work every day and then complain about the outlandish cost of a barrel. We fill our lives with meaningless towers of material crap that add complexity, confusion, and a compulsion to consistently need more...stuff.

But here...

in Nepal...

were some...
of the happiest...

people...

I have ever...
come across. It gave new meaning to the phrase "Money doesn't buy you happiness." I thank these beautiful Nepali people who taught me things about life, serenity and minimalism that I would have never learned in the US.

Coming back with this feeling and still holding it more than a month later, I have felt uncontrollably compelled to do something to pay these people back in the hopes to opens their minds and hearts like they did mine. In a conversation with my good friend and mentor Janet this past week, it hit me like a bolt of lightning: WWW.PHOTOSFORNEPAL.COM. I bought the domain name and am going to start this website to showcase and sell 40-50 of my favorite photos from the trip in various sizes (i.e. 5x7, 8x10, 11x14, etc.). Here's the catch 110% of the proceeds will back to the Dorjhana Foundation and organizations like to promote health and education in impoverished mountain villages like Khizi. "110% of the proceeds?" you're probably asking yourself? Yes, 110%. For every dollar of funds raised from the website, I will put in 10 cents of my own money as a way to encourage people to support this idea. I will keep you posted on when the site's built and open for fundraising!

At present, I find myself in SF reeling from a great week of change, involving some exciting new opportunity. It began with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year which entices me to do a few things: first, introduce you to these two videos if you haven't seen them yet.

The Great Schlep


Phone Atone


Second, I always try to pick a quote that will serve as a "mantra" of sorts throughout the next year. Here's what I'm using as my inspiration for '08/'09:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson

And now, after a productive day at World Chi Recording Studios in downtown SF (5 new tracks about to blast through your speakers at mouthmatics.com), I'm off to New Orleans tomorrow to start a 6-month disaster recovery consulting engagement assisting the displaced residents from Hurricane Katrina move out of FEMA trailers and back into permanent housing.

Stoked!? Please...that's an understatement.

Home, home again...I like to be here when I can

"Hashish my friend?"
"Rickshaw?"
"You want to smoke brother?"
"Taxi?"
"You want to go Trekking?"

Welcome to my first 7 seconds in Thamelt, the tourist hub of downtown Kathmandu. It is impossible to walk for more then 3 seconds without someone offering you to sell you one of the above. Truthfully, I wish I could say that Kathmandu is an exciting metropolis bustling with life and energy; in reality, it is a discombobulating, dizzying mess of a city where the air quality, combined with the noise pollution, immense litter, and depressing poverty, make it very difficult for one to find peace of mind. Especially after an amazing week trekking into the Nepali mountains (I now feel compelled to share a few more of my favorite shots from that week)...




I find myself wanting out from the madness of Kathmandu.

Nevertheless, I tried to make the most of my time in Kathmandu. I took the first day to connect back with the real world after not having Internet for a week (amazing how much relaxation this added).

The next day, our mountain guide and now my good friend, Lakpa, took me rock climbing. We had plans to climb natural rock but the monsoon season brings rain almost every day to Nepal so we diverted our plans to an manmade wall that, while still outside, was covered by a roof and remained dry.


I then spent the next two days strolling around Thamelt, getting gifts for friends and family. I also took a day trip to Patan, a town about 1/2 hour outside of Kathmandu, particularly known for its rich cultural heritage.

Swastika next to Star of David: apparently, the swastika was an ancient Hindi symbol meaning good luck. Leave it to the Nazis to screw that one up.

The next day, it was time for some adventure. I embarked on a 2-day trek into the mountains again where I had one of the greatest, most adrenaline-filled experiences of my life: bungy jumping.



It was a 160m drop, the second highest in the world. As you can tell from the video, I sort of couldn't wait to jump. This was something I'd been anticipating for a long, long time and am glad I got to cross off the list of "Things to do before I die." Next up - base jumping. Here's the group of us - from Holland, Denmark, Nepal, US - that all bungied together.


The next day, four of us went canyoning, another extreme adventure sport I'd never done. While I wish I had some photos to offer, canyoning involves repelling down waterfalls so, for obvious reasons, I did not bring my camera. From there, we enjoyed a nice 3-hour ride back into Kathmandu, the majority of which I spent on the roof of the bus:


One of the guys on the bungy trip named Pippin owns and manages a bar/nightclub in Thamelt named Lhasa. After hearing some beatboxing at our night at the Last Resort, he invited me to come to Lhasa on Friday night and perform. Here is a (shotty picture, yet decent sounding) video of me doing a beatbox cover of The Beatles' "Come Together."



Unfortunately, on my last night in Nepal, I caught some nasty virus and, while I'll spare you the details, will simply say I was up the entire night before flying to Amman. I owe a very special thanks to Emily, my friend I was visiting in Amman, whose door I arrived to sick as a dog. She went out of her way to give me meds, allow me to relax, and help me back to health as soon as possible.

In spite of being sick and out of my element the entire time I was there, Amman was fun. Not feeling my best, we took it easy and went to see the Dark Knight the first night I arrived. Next day, we baked in the sun at the Dead Sea...


and then went to Mt. Nebo, where Moses apparently led the Jews after 40 years in the desert before, at the ripe old age of 120, saw the Promised Land before dying at this spot.



After 3 days in Amman, it was time to head to Tel-Aviv for my last 3 nights of the journey. I got to spend some quality time recording some music with Yuval, the guitarist for Coolooloosh. Much thanks to him for opening his home to me for the last part of my trip.


After three days of relaxation on Tel-Aviv beach, it was time to head home, where I find myself now...currently in Washington, DC still reeling from the adventurous 7 weeks that precede. Sometime in the coming weeks, I plan to blog about some interesting life revelations this trip afforded me, so until then...safe travels in your own journey.