New Mexico vs. Colorado

Tuesday and Wednesday were tales of two cities.

Tuesday night we were in Chama, NM a small railroad town that exists along the axis of one road. We met people from numerous ethnicities in this town of maybe 1,000- Israelis, Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, and Caucasians (even Yankees!). I talked to a lady who, once she find out I was going be a physician told me TMI: that she been married 4 times and told to me all about her relationship with her father. Also Chip, my dad's new best friend, was Rasta-looking guy whose eyes lit up when he talked about his high school age son. These folks were mostly poor but very close to each other. New Mexico is full of towns like this surrounded by mountains, cacti, and sagebrush. The Native Americans were friendly, hawking their goods but willing to engage us even if we didn't make a purchase. They said they lived in pueblos on their self-governed land so that they could have plumbing and electricity in their small collections of homes. My summary poor, arid, beautiful, and friendly.

Then as we drove north across the AZ-CO border things began to change. Suddenly there was grass and the ground rather than desert shrubs. The trees that were bushy in NM stretched into tall stately aspens and pines. Not only did the trees grow in size as we headed north, so did the houses. The adobe huts and trailer homes were few and far between and the log cabin vacation homes on hundreds of acres of land were around every bend. Durango is a small town of aroudn 15,000 with tourists probably doubling that. The town is idillyic- kids biking through downtown on their way home from school, snow covered mountains at the end of every street, and the Victorian/Craftsman-style homes are so well kept that my only conclusion is that the neighborhood association is run by nazis. We met a man named Rich in the Steamworks Brewery who was a chemist by trade who used his skills to help vineyards and brew houses perfect their fermentation processes. He gave us tons of local knowlegde that he had accumulated from his self-imposed 2 month vacation every year, sounds like France! All this to say, southern CO, Durango included, is a beautiful place full of verdant fields backed by unnamed 5,000 foot peaks with towering trees- almost perfect. I caught myself thinking several times- is this what the Native Americans thought heaven (or their version of it) would look like? Because I'd sure be happy if looked like this. The people here were not as effusive as in Chama, they spoke to us but it seemed like they were doing us a favor. The priorities here are the environment, outdoor activities, and culture. The population is not as mixed as in Chama, mostly white and mostly very fit!

There are great things about both places. My inner voice wars about which I like better. Do I chose culture and education over a place where there is much greater need but also more community? I think this battle is not unique to these two places. Most physicians end up choosing the Durango-type place for the sake of their children, but I think Chama can be a wonderful place to live too, it's just a different kind of education. Anyway, lots of thoughts but much more to see.

Just getting started...

There are lots of things to narrate already. Its amazing how striking the mountains, snow, and gorges are here in northern New Mexico. I thought this was going to be a more subtle beauty than the likes of Colorado and Utah, but this is impressive. We played the part of tourist at a millennium old pueblo in Taos where we bought gifts for our loved ones and ate what must have been a calorie-busting fried bread topped with cinnamon. After driving through flash snow storms we arrived in Chamas, NM where we met the locals at Foster's Bar (est. in 1881). It was great to experience their hospitality through their less-than-full-toothed smiles and recommendations for restaurants and lodges.

Deep thoughts: Language oftentimes is used to comfort humans in a big, big world. Rocks and snow-capped peaks don't describe the enormity or what I saw today. There are peaks innumerable that make me look like an ant, most of the mountains with snow on them would kill me to scale, and I think a "cap" connotes something much smaller than what I saw today. I think that we humans like to comfort ourselves that we have a lot more control over our destiny and environment than is actually true and language allows us to believe those illusions. Stand at the foot of a mountain, look at the ocean from a shore, and gaze at the stars and realize that you are small.

Cryptococcus

(Here's a picture from google images of Cryptococcus neoformans. I thinks it's kind of pretty.)

For my first installment of things you didn't know existed but will now haunt (or interest) you...

Cryptococcus neoformans is a encapsulated yeast first discovered in 1894 by a pathologist named Busse. It enters the body via the lungs and host responses range from being an asymptomatic infection to pulmonary disease to meningitis to disseminated disease. Cryptococcus infection is increasing in incidence as HIV becomes more and more prevalent all over the world. In the US about 5-10% of AIDS patients will get C. neoformans and in Zimbabwe, for example, approximatley 85% of AIDS patient get the disease. AIDS, however, is not the only cause of immunosuppression, organ transplantation, steriod use, and even malignancy can result to crytococcus setting up residence in the body.

Prior to 1955, if Cryptococcus entered the brain of a person he or she had an 80% of dying, but since Amphotericin B (nicknamed, Ampho-terrible because of its side effects) was invented mortality has been greatly decreased. Once someone with HIV has this fungus, they are treated intensively for weeks to months with Ampho and then given a lifetime of antifungal medicine to keep it from returning. Even if you are not immunosuppressed but you get infected with this in your lung, you are looking at 6 months to 1 year of medicine (fluconazole) to rid yourself of it.

All this to say, Cryptococcus is a bad boy with a pretty face. Oh yeah, one aside, stay away from aged pigeon droppings because that is where it grows best!

Children's Books

One of our friends is a elementary school teacher and she talks about having a room for kids to learn in that is word-rich. Meg and I want to have a family that is word-rich so we are reading to our little one everyday. Right now she really only wants to sit down for about half a Dr. Seuss book, but that's not much shorter than my attention span.

The Little Blue Truck is our current favorite because of its rollicking (an adjective used on the cover of the book) illustrations. The story is about a blue truck who is friends with all the animals who live along an ambling country road and he speaks to them all as he slowly goes by. But one day, a dump truck with "big, fat tires" came barreling through just missing little ducky on the road and eventually ending up stuck in a puddle of "muck and mire". No one but Little Blue comes to help the leviathian when he cries out. And despite all his effort he "couldn't quite budge the heavy load" until his animal friends heard his cries for assitance. The dump truck learns his lesson "that a lot depends on a helping hand from a few good friends". Morality is so simple in children's stories, do we make it too complex? One thing is for sure, stories are much better with pictures.

I Have A Dream Speech

Before last week I had never heard this speech in its entirety. The emotionality, rationality, spirituality, and patriotism of the speech are woven so richly together that it seems that King takes the nation's hopes, ideals, and skepticisms and knits them into his dream of racial equality. As you watch, King sticks very closely to his notes until the very end, and then history begins happen. Right after he encourages the audience to go back to their neighborhoods and peacefully fight for the end of segregation and for better schools for black children is when he begans to vere from his prepared speech. Nothing he says was new to his followers, he'd been preaching like this for years in the sanctuaries of southern churches, but is new to the nation. He goes back and forth seamlessly quoting the Constitution to "Let Freedom Ring" to the Bible to negro spirituals resonating each time with self-evident truths of each person's equal claim to dignity. His vision is still moving today because so much of what he envisioned for us in this speech is yet to come to fruition. I just wanted to share this video because it should not be put on the shelf as an interesting historical event, but as a call to action for us all.

Lent and Blogging

Could there be any plausible connection between Lent and blogging? Traditionally the Christian church has celebrated Lent through a time of penance and abstience. Thus, my Papa used to give up his least favorite food every year, watermelon, and my dad became a teetotaler for 40 irritable days! (Just kidding Dad, if you ever read this.) So this year I have decided that, not only am I going to give up some cherished delectables, but that I am going to actively pursue some good things. One of my goals is to take action in my life. I tend to be one who prefers quiet thoughtfulness over direct action and I'm feeling a bit imbalanced. So blogging, despite its obvious narcissitic tendencies, is a way for me to grow my creative side. I got some help from my friend Will who encouraged me to do this by resurrecting his blog recently. So think about some things to give up or take up for Lent and consider blog reading as an option!