San Cristobal de la Casas, in Chiapas, in the south of Mexico. Nice town - quite modern compared to most of the places I saw in Central America. I'm wondering whether Mexico is more developed mainly because it hasn't had to deal with civil wars in recent decades.

I'm staying with Kjell Kuhne, who founded Hospitality Club with his brother back in 2000 (several years before CouchSurfing started). Great guy, and it's interesting talking with him about sustainability and appropriate technology. Turns out he recently went to a national Mexican convention on appropriate technology - I'll be going over that material with him tonight, and talking about how to make connections between this knowledge and these people and Appropedia's appropriate technology base.

Finding street food without meat is a challenge though.

When I first went to Indonesia in 1995 I was looking for something. How to make a difference. I threw myself into learning the language and culture, and worked very hard on it. I quickly became conversant in the language, and eventually fluent.

Now I'm traveling more widely, and find myself in Guatemala... and I find it hard to make the time and effort to learn Spanish. Sure, the same methods are helping me pick up vocab day by day, but my focus is on Appropedia and the connections I already have that support my small part in changing the world.

But I am meeting cool people, and learning about the struggles, needs and thoughts of development workers. That's extremely valuable. Now I'd like to just regain that sense of wonder, and make space in my life for that. In other words, I need to get out more.

I'm checking Wikibooks and other learning resources on learning Spanish, in preparation for my trip to Latin America.

My main approach will be immersion, with as many language learning tricks as possible (like those used in The Wrong Way To Learn Spanish) This approach served me well with Indonesian - though I did start Indonesian with two weeks of morning classes, in-country, so I might think about that, too.

(I've signed up to Wikiversity, but there's not much there yet. Then again, universities and schools mostly suck as a way of learning languages, so Wikiversity may not be the best model, unless it does something radically innovative - and it might just do that).

The keys to language learning, for me, are (not exactly in order of importance):

• immersion - start by letting your brain and ears adjust to the new sounds and new words.
• an emphasis on vocab
• word association (if they are pre-prepared by others, all the better... but there have been times when I've wracked my brain and only come up with a weak link... but the very process of thinking about it has imprinted the word in my brain for the next day or so.)
• progressively less frequent reviews of new words (double the period betwen each review)
• good written resources - especially a dictionary you carry with you.
• music (thanks Tressie! My hard drive runneth over.)
• having no shame about the methods one uses - they're just games, and the more ludicrous, the more effective, in many cases.
• having no sense of embarrassment, and talking to everyone
• believing that it is far better to make mistakes than to be cautious
• being a parrot - imitate the way people speak enough that it sounds like you're mocking them. You're not learning words made up of your old sounds - you're learning new sounds.

A Chinese friend studying in Sydney would ask people directions at the bus stop. He knew exactly where to go, but he would listen carefully and match what they said with what he already knew. He was sShameless - and that's the way to learn.

I take my first trip to Latin America on Oct 28. I'll be there for several months, but beyond a bunch of contacts in Guatemala (where I begin) I have little concrete planned. 

If you know anywhere in Latin America that's good and affordable for spending time writing and working on Appropedia, with broadband, friendly locals and preferably lots of dancing, then please let me know.

Or possibly appropriate technology villages or eco-villages that would welcome a traveler for a short visit (or a long visit if there's a broadband and we can come to an arrangement).

The Sara Lee cake has more than 10% sugar! I guess they thought they were making a cheesecake. I went for a bread with "only" 3% sugar - that would already be on the sweet side in Australia. This bread has it in the form of corn syrup (Americans really are the corn people) but I'm more concerned with the total sugar.

This no longer shocks me, but I was stunned when I first found in a Boston supermarket that I couldn't find a wholewheat bread without corn syrup.

But one thing I like - it's much easier to find peanut butter without crap here. Just roasted peanuts and salt. And that (unlike the versions with extra crap) goes well in savory form as well - bread, peanut butter and freshly ground black pepper or chilli flakes. Optional dried oregano or mixed herbs. Mmmm.


*Yep, confirmed in this nutritional info on Australian supermarket breads - are several below 2% sugar, including some of my favorite breads. I'm pretty sure it would be similar in pretty much any Western country outside of North America.

I swam in Lake Ontario today. Good time of year for it - while the water is in liquid form.

Beautiful spot here in Kingston. It's good meeting Joshua Pearce (who teaches at Queens University) face-to-face at last, and talking about sustainability, appropriate technology and all that, and ways to get collaboration happening in a much bigger way. And tinkering with his clever piece of solar water disinfection equipment - but I'm not allowed to share details of his specific design, just yet.

I mentioned to an Indonesian friend by email that I was going to Ontario - she said watch out, maybe there's lots of onta (camels) there :-).

Having been in the office of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) at 2 a.m., and now on a Sunday afternoon, I can confirm that these geeks work hard. I now understand the introductions to some of the people here when I first visited - "This is X, he doesn't sleep."

It's been an intense trip - finally meeting the really great people I've been working with for the last couple of years, and a bunch of other interesting folks besides. Vinay Gupta, the Hexayurt guy, the closest person I've met to a mad scientist. Andrew Lamb from EWB-UK, and colleague in the Appropedia Foundation, had great ideas about working with organizations, and showed me some of the sights of London (very cool). The other day I finally met Lonny & Cat, also from Appropedia - great to meet in person, and it felt very natural to be with these kindred spirits. We were in a crowd of appropriate technology buffs, at the International Development Design Summit.

And MIT - it's wonderfully geeky. If I'd been at MIT, I would have been teasing other people for being geeks - in the most good-natured, reverential way. I could definitely spend a lot more time in Boston, and hope I get the chance in the next year or two.

I turned down a job offer last year which would have created a conflict of interest with Appropedia. Sometimes we have to choose between being financially responsible, and living out what we believe. I have the luxury of being single with no dependents, and can wait a bit longer till I can achieve both those worthy goals.

So, I'm watching my money. Couchsurfing my way from country to country, and buying groceries rather than eating out. Simple living (though I don't know if that includes world travel). But buying groceries and not driving are often the more satisfying, healthy options, anyway. Sometimes it gets to be a pain, but overall, life is good when living what you believe in.

Here in the Hague I bought some really nice strawberry jam, brie, mustard, nice brown bread and vine-ripened tomatoes. (Groceries seem cheaper here than in Sydney.) Tonight I had a meal from all of those - with olive oil, of course. I knew mustard and honey made a great dressing - it turns out my mustard and high-grade strawberry jam went well too. One of those things that made sense, but I wasn't going to make a full serving till I mixed and tasted tiny bit. Rather good.

Changi airport has an amazing new terminal - at least I'm told it's amazing, just looks like lots of shops to me. They do have a nice lounge area, and free wifi. The wifi takes you first to an extremely badly written sign-in page, that makes little sense to non-Singaporeans, but the lady at the info desk was very helpful. The fact that they ask for your passport number* will concern some people, but then, this is Singapore.

A little over 24 hours of traveling to go. (Just got have one of those inflatable cushions that go around the neck, from the pharmacy here.

At Amsterdam airport I'm meeting Vinay, the Hexayurt guy - the first of many interesting people.

* Or rather, it asks for "NRIC/FIN", without further explanation.

Wikitravel has improved enormously since I first saw it. No more lugging heavy travel guides! And it's in 19 languages.