Almost a gear post

The moment I saw her, I knew.


I had only been in New York a couple of weeks, and after living for almost two years in the worst dressed city in America, I was surrounded by people who looked like they just stepped out of "Sex and the City." It was freaking me out.


I watched with the fascination of an anthropologist as women sashayed down the street in stilettos so high that I tripped just looking at them. There was jewelry without the tiniest bit of hemp. There were skinny jeans and trendy gladiator sandals and onesies for grown-ups. (I later learned these were known as "rompers." Sure.)


Anyway, I met Sophia at an orientation get-together in the heart of New York's fashion district, and as soon as I got a load of her outfit, my heart swelled with sandalwood-scented joy. 


She was one of us.


Oooooh, she was crunchy, all right. She was wearing Chacos, pretty much a giveaway in itself. But what really sealed the deal was the cotton retro-print dress that she was wearing over jeans.


I knew then and there that we were going to be friends. (My first guess was that she was from Portland. Turned out she was from San Francisco. Surprise, surprise.)


The dress over jeans thing is a staple of my wardrobe. I have several light, casual dresses that I love and I refuse to go through a whole winter season without them. I am not alone in this. I have encountered female ski bums and wilderness guides all over the western U.S. who love the look.

I predict that the fashion plates along Seventh Avenue will be copying me 

by this time next year.

108 Sun Salutations

Three years ago, I spent a semester in Tanzania with the School for International Training. While I was there, I did a three-day homestay with a family of Maasai, the traditional pastoralist people who believe all the cows in the world are theirs by divine right. Here's an excerpt from one of the emails I sent home in March of 2006:

They dressed me in traditional Maasai garb; long blankets draped over the shoulder and tied at the waist, and lots of beaded and metal jewelry. With my hair in braids, one of the other students told me I looked like Pocahontas. I felt a little ridiculous, but mostly fabulous. I used my outer blanket to carry jugs of water over my head and played with the kids under a tree, hoping all the while that the warriors who stopped by would take me dancing when they left at dusk.

On Wednesday night, my last night of homestay, my yeyo put one of the big beaded collars over my head and showed me how to shake my shoulders so it jingles the way the young Maasai girls do. My papa beckoned me to follow and with three of the girls from neighboring bomas - all from around 8 to 11 years old - we set off across the sandy hills to where the warriors, who had returned home with their cattle now that the rains had come, would dance with the girls who might eventually become their wives or mistresses. 

It was a walk that will always stand out with complete clarity in my memory, though it felt surreal at the time: the silhouette of my Maasai papa with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders and fembo walking stick in hand, navigating with only the moonlight softly illuminating the land to guide him, the three little girls in their head wraps, their necklaces tinkling as they walked, the approaching lightning flashing silently, still too distant to hear the thunder, and behind me, the faint red glow at the summit of Oldonyo Lengai. 

As we entered the boma, the layered chanting of the warriors and the high-pitched responses of the girls started and I was swept into the dancing. Warriors would stomp forward and whip their blankets under a girl's chin as a sign of flirtation. Several did it to me and once it coincided with a lightning flash that showed the whites of his eyes inches from mine. They're not messing around. Girls would disappear with a warrior for a time and then return, giggling, and jump back into the dancing. Loud thunder signalled the arrival of the storm that had been threatening, and the dancing was cut short so that we could walk back to the boma in the pouring rain. I fell into bed next to sleeping little Monica, sopping wet and deliriously happy.

Those were the craziest three days I'd ever experienced. Sleeping on a cowskin with my host mother and her three children, a volcano erupting ten miles away... man. It was epic. 

Me and my little brother, Troima, at his boma by Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, March 2006.

At the end, along with the rest of my American classmates, I was given the opportunity to ask a group of women questions, and they were astonishingly candid about any number of topics, including circumcision. Many of them regarded it as a normal rite of passage and didn't seem to feel too strongly about it, but there are women out there who want something else. They were all very young when it happened to them, and there was no alternative in order for them to become women in the eyes of their culture.


I think it's important to respect unique cultures like the Maasai and the traditions that make them so distinct, and also to respect the rights of young girls who historically have had very little say in their own fate. I don't think I can emphasize enough how important it is for these girls simply to have THE OPTION to pursue a different path. 


So, this coming Saturday, I will be participating in the Houses of Hope Yoga-thon in Central Park.  From the website:


"The organization is run by Agnes Pareyio, a Maasai woman, who has been working to end FGM for over a decade through education and the development of an alternative rite of passage for young women... Agnes has built two safe houses where young women live, are educated and do not face pressure to undergo FGM. There are plans to build 6-9 more houses across Africa."


I feel like this is a small way I can create a little more good karma in the world. Thank them for the amazing experience, you know? And I love yoga. It's all one big win!


If you're interested in helping me support this awesome cause, go here (or, better yet, create your own fundraising page):


http://www.americansforunfpa.org/netcommunity/ejhargraves

The Friendliest Place on Earth

Hello. I'm Emily. I recently arrived in New York City after spending the last couple of years happily exploring the wilds of the great American West. I worked a series of odd jobs, many of them seasonal in nature: forestry researcher, ski lodge dining room server, brewpub jack-of-all-trades, freelance writer, wilderness field guide. Not only did the mountain air and the smell of sage work their way deep into my heart, I fell madly in love with the culture I will hereafter call "crunchy."

You know. It's not precisely "hippie," but it's definitely granola. "Dirtbag," when spoken with a great amount of affection and pride, is also an acceptable term. We can often be found working in fields relating to wilderness, education, holistic health, music, or psychology. Many of us have a bad case of a travel bug that is more likely to take you backpacking in South America or Southeast Asia than wining and dining in Paris... though we aren't above enjoying the finer things in life. At the risk of further pigeonholing this lovely bunch of people, I will add that if you attend an ultimate frisbee pickup game, odds are that you'll run into a few of us.

I've come straight from Durango, Colorado, a sort of dirtbag heaven on earth. Located in the Four Corners at the exact point where mountains meet desert, there is ridiculous climbing, dirt biking, skiing, and kayaking in the area, much of it actually within the city limits. Many of my friends live out of their trucks year-round because when they aren't field guiding, they're off on a road trip to Utah canyon country or backcountry snowboarding in Wyoming. Plenty of my old coworkers at the brewpub moonlight as rafting guides on the Animas River and have been known to wax rhapsodic about the trip to "Gnar-nia" their new tele skis took them on. The big expenses in our small budgets tend to revolve around gear and music festivals. So leaving that for the bright lights of New York has been interesting, to say the least. You know that part in Crocodile Dundee when Mick arrives in Manhattan in his outback finest? And looks spectacularly uncomfortable and out of place?

Well, it's actually not like that at all. I'm from Massachusetts originally, have spent a fair amount of time in cities, and am incredibly stoked to be here. I am, however, experiencing a few pangs of nostalgia for the stars, which I won't be seeing for awhile. I miss showing up to work in torn Carhartts and Chacos. And there's a lot I'd do to breathe in the scent of a ponderosa pine. Mostly, I miss the people and the lifestyle.

In this blog, I'll write about all the outdoorsy, adventurous things I can find to do in this urban wilderness. I'll talk gear a bit for all you gearheads out there, and if I see or hear about a sweet band playing in the area, you'll definitely know about it. Any tips about inexpensive and/or awesome outdoor getaways and activities would be great. This is New York, and it has a little of everything. I know that there's a little crunch to this Big Apple, and I intend to find it.

"That's incredible. Imagine seven million people all wanting to live together. Yeah, New York must be the friendliest place on earth." 
~Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee