Peruvian In Pacifica With Maya & Karl

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It is truly a very small world.

Karl & I visited with Maya, a former ISD teacher and close friend of Almamy, our Senegalese cultural guru. From Dakar to Pacifica, I arrived with gifts for Maya from Almamy, including a little, well-worn, wooden stool collected in the village of Combol, while on a visit to the traditional marabout Yorro (photos 7/8).

Photos 1/2: The fishing pier in Pacifica, located just south of San Francisco. The pier was a thing to see and experience, a social happening, lined with folks fishing for crab, striped sea bass and kingfish, using tackle and techniques I've never seen before -- round nets and squid-laced snare rigs. Fascinating.

Photos 3/6: After a walkabout, we lunched at a Peruvian restaurant -- good food and great company.

Making Pie With Iljin & Anna (And Only One Fire)

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Photos (top to bottom)" photo 1: the apples; photos 2/3: Anna's fancy apple core & peel gizmo makes short work of the 20 apples; photo 4: Iljin poses with his apple filling mixture; photos 5/6: settling down to enjoy pie in the backyard; photos 7/9: the kids pose with their pies, each INSISTING that theirs is better.

Iljin, Anna & I got together on a sunny afternoon to bake pies. Iljin's love of pie was the motivation behind this. (Iljin & Anna are former ISMers, now high school sophomores.)

(Note to all of Iljin's prospective girlfriends: Think pie.)

I picked up the kids, we shopped Safeway for the ingredients, then got down to business. We made four pies: 4 x 5 apples, cinnamon (lots), sugar, nutmeg, and raisins (to taste). I bought the pre-made crusts. (The purists out there are groaning.)

While Iljin & Anna squabbled over whose pie was superior, facts are facts, and mine was best.

A Naturalist in the Making: Anna of Green Gables (Kelp Beds)

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Mary and Joe Welsh have been involved in marine ecology and education through much of their lives. Joe is a collector with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Mary teaches grade four at ISM. So it's not surprising that their children -- Cameron, James & Anna -- are similarly drawn to the sea and the marine sciences.

Anna is a former ISMer, and currently a sophomore at the Monterey Academy for the Oceanographic Sciences. Anna's spending part of her summer volunteering as a docent at the aquarium, a wonderful experience for this born naturalist.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium

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Photos taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium: photo1: the aquarium from the bay; photo2: an instructor guides a trio of students around the cove as part of a summer program that introduces children to SCUBA diving (remember, the water is chilly 55 degrees F); photo3: sardines swim continuous around a circular tank; photo4/5: the jellyfish exhibit; photo6: sardines school in the outer bay exhibit; photos7/8: in the kelp forest exhibit, a diver feeds the fish and talks with a large gathering of aquarium visitors; photo9: a large rockfish hovers in the kelp forest exhibit; photo10: an exotic species of seahorse in the all-new seahorse exhibit.

Great Friends & FREE FOOD!

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Photos (top to bottom): photo1: Zoe D., with Skye-Marie, Fionna, Kaelene, & poppa Tim; photo2: Janice, Kasey & Lonn Barker; photo3: Bruce, Davy, Taylor & Lisa Matthews; photo4: Katherine & Elijah Sage; photo5: Reeve & Uwe Grobecker; photo6: Shirley Dickinson & Rick Kanak; photo7: Karl Saul & Dave Brandau; photo8: Mary & Anna Welsh; photo 9: Paul, Riley, Fletcher & Ellen Gaucher

Sinners & Saints In Soledad & Greenfield

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Karl Saul & Penny Hamisch are former teaching colleagues in the once small (now expanding rapidly), agricultural town of Greenfield, located in the southern end of the Salinas Valley. I teamed with Karl for a couple of years in grade 5 and had a very memorable time. Now the couple live in Carmel Valley, at the Ayres' family homestead, where I'm staying this summer.

Photo5 shows how much Karl loves the tedious work of completing end-of-the-school-year paperwork. Photo6 was taken in front of a Greenfield landmark, a clothing store called Satisfashion. Photo7: I spent a day with Karl and Penny as they tidied up their classrooms at the close of the school year. We lunched at La Fogota, another Greenfield landmark, where we enjoyed many a meal during my years in the district.

Photos 1-4 were taken at the Soledad Mission, founded in 1791. I stopped by to pick-up a selection of medallions (of saints) and milagros to share with my ISD students, Senegal being a country rich in mysticism and belief in juju fetishes.

ISM Grad Dance @ the Tragenza's

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