'Black Gold'

I finally watched Black Gold, a documentary made five years ago about coffee farmers in Ethiopia. It follows a co-op manager, Tadesse Meskela, as he tries to get higher prices for the coffee farmers. Equal Exchange buys from the co-op (Tadesse visited Equal Exchange a couple years ago for our 20th Anniversary party). Anyway, it really put a face to the poverty many coffee farmers are living in, largely because of the low prices they receive from major corporations that control the food industry - like Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks and Kraft. I encourage anyone who drinks a cup of coffee to watch it. You'll see the benefits of the fair trade/co-op supply chain.

There & Back Again

PART TWO - Across the Mitten

I definitely made my rounds. I was in East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Hastings and Detroit visiting friends and family at a wedding (my high school friend Betsy got married), a goodbye party (for my friend Nikki from MSU) and a surprise birthday party (for my aunt Sheryl).

During my down time at my parents' house, I took advantage of free food and cable. And my parents' company. I even saw my sister for about 15 minutes.

Oh, I also saw "Batman: The Dark Knight" and "Mamma Mia" while I was in Kalamazoo. Both were enjoyable in very different ways.

Before I knew it, I was at Detroit Metro Airport with my suitcase in hand. My plane was two hours late leaving Detroit and I had a connecting flight to make in New York City. I knew it was going to be close. I got off with about 40 minutes before my next flight was scheduled to depart for Boston at 9 p.m. I had to exit the airport, run across the street to a different terminal, go through security again and made it to my gate about 15 minutes before it started boarding. Whew!

As the plane departed NYC, fireworks were going off at the baseball stadium. It was a spectacular sight to fly over them and into the night sky.

It was a nice visit to Michigan, but I was relieved when I safely made it back to Boston and could relax after a busy vacation.

There & Back Again

Well, I’m finally getting a chance to write about my recent visit to Michigan. If was certainly action-packed.

PART ONE – The Drive

As most of you know, the plan was for me to drive my car from Boston to Michigan, where it would stay for good (I bought a plane ticket for the trip back). The car has been a lot of trouble for me in Boston, and with public transportation and a vanpool for the work commute, it’s not necessary to have it.

So, I left Boston by 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Since my a/c hasn’t been working, and my cd player/radio was stolen in February (along with the car itself), it was a very hot and very quiet ride. But the first 9 or so hours went really smoothly. I crossed into Canada around 5:30 p.m., and just as I was trying to accelerate back onto the highway, I realized something was very wrong with my car. It would not accelerate. I pleaded and pleaded with my car to cooperate, but it was just too exhausted to move any further.

I pulled over to the side of the road. I was maybe only half a mile from Customs, which was reassuring. I could walk there if I needed to. But then what? I was still five hours from Michigan, and 10 hours away from Boston. And, I was in Canada. I popped my hood, and grabbed the oil I had purchased earlier in the day just in case I needed to fill it up at some point on the road. I have never put oil in my car before, and have only watched other people check the oil, but I managed to check it myself and realized it was fine. So the malfunction wasn’t the oil. It wasn’t the gas. That was pretty much the extent of what I knew about fixing cars.

I tried calling my parents, and neither answered. We had been in communication throughout the day, and now, when I needed to talk to them, they were unreachable. Of course.

I tried not to look panicked while I panicked, leaning under the hood of my car, on the side of an entrance ramp to a Canadian highway. But I must have looked panicked, because after only a few minutes, a car that had passed by pulled over and started backing up toward me.

A woman got out of the car. “Are you O.K.?” she asked. “I saw you and I couldn’t just leave you here without knowing first.”

I explained what had happened so far and where I was headed. It turned out Lisa was also from Michigan, and was going just 50 miles from East Lansing – my destination for the night.

Several times she told me that I shouldn't worry, she wasn't a “masher,” and while I didn’t know what a “masher” was, I was glad she wasn’t one. Lisa had her 20-year-old son, Mike, with her in the passenger seat. Mike has Down’s syndrome. He smiled at me from the sideview mirror. Lisa looked about 45 years old. She talked a lot and while I wasn't listening to everything she was saying, it was comforting to know she was there with me.

After I finally got in touch with my dad, and talked my options over with him, I decided to just try and keep driving my poor Toyota Tercel toward Michigan. My first obstacle was a huge bridge, which was down to one lane, thanks to construction. I was really scared that I wouldn’t make it over the steep bridge, and hundreds of cars behind me would be furious. “I’ll follow you, and push your car with my bumper if I have to,” Lisa reassured me. So we went for it.

My car jerked like crazy and made noises out of the exhaust pipe as I accelerated up and up the bridge. I drove with my flashers on, and kept checking my rearview mirror to make sure Lisa was still there. She was. I prayed the whole time across the bridge. And I made it.

I exited the highway at an information center just over the bridge. I told Lisa my car seemed alright once I got moving. She said she would stay with me on the drive, if I wanted, until we got to Michigan. I took her up on her offer and thanked her again and again. She just told me, “Do you know how many people have helped me in situations like this? That’s why we’re on this earth – to help other people. Just pay it forward.”

So, she did stay with me. She knew some shortcuts through Canada, so I followed her, but she told me if my car started acting up, I should turn on my flashers and pull over, and she would do the same. We made several bathroom and gas stops throughout the evening, and chatted at each stop. We drove through three crazy thunderstorms, with some of the worst lightening I’ve ever seen, and rain so intense I could barely see anything. I felt powerless as nature poured down on me. I just kept my eyeballs glued to her bumper the whole way, occasionally seeing huge bolts of lightening out of my side vision.

When we finally made it into Michigan, I was so relieved. It was around 10 p.m. Our final stop was just before U.S. Customs, and we exchanged e-mail addresses and hugged goodbye. She took a photo of Mike and I, and promised to send it to me.

After an hour, Lisa got off the highway at her exit and I kept driving another hour until I finally made it to East Lansing. As we went our separate ways, she waved out her window and I honked my farewell.

I rolled into East Lansing around midnight. It was an exhausting and stressful evening, but also inspiring. A reminder that there are still good people out there.