Jan. 19th: An Accounting

7:06 AM: The wind-sheltered side of the VSFS building.
“I think that’s his head. Luke?”
I peak out of my down cocoon of a sleeping bag and am immediately confronted by daylight. The sun is already high and I can feel that the hair on the back of my head is sticking up.
“Yah, what’s up?” I manage to bark out in something between morning voice and grizzly bear. Squinting, I make out Beth and Heidi.
“The stove isn’t lighting.”
“Did you try lighting it manually?” Closer to morning voice than grizzly bear this time.
“Yes. The propane is on too.”
“May need to switch tanks. Ask Ted.”
Ted is asleep on his cot in the belly of the fin whale skeleton, about thirty feet away.
“Alright. Thanks. Sorry for waking you up.”
I was planning on getting up in a couple hours anyway.

7:24 AM: The boys’ room in the VSFS
I dig for my deodorant through the explosion of socks and soiled t-shirts that used to be my luggage. Deodorant is an essential item in Baja, allowing the user to stave off showering for days on end. But right now, this white, powdering gold eludes me. Bennett walks in.
“Hey Bennett, have you seen any deodorant lying around?”
“Does it look like this?” He replies, pulling down the stolen treasure from his shelf. “Because I have the same kind.”
This time he pulls out another stick, same brand, same flavor, same pretty much everything.
“I saw this one on the floor and I thought it was mine because they’re exactly the same.”
“Bennett, you stole my deodorant.”
“They look exactly the same,” Bennett clarifies, leaving me with the pilfered anti-perspirant.

10:43 AM: By the beach outside the VSFS
I replace another turned over rock in discouragement. I am not finding anything. We are fish-printing today, a technique of applying ink to an object (we used fish, obviously) and pressing down on the object with paper, leaving the imprint of the object on the paper. I had the idea earlier that I wanted to do something unique, but now in the moment, I am coming up short. I turn back to the field station to print the spotted sand bass Dan acquired this morning.

10:46 AM: Back inside the VSFS
I see Melissa inking a cool looking seastar, Ben has a cardon skeleton to print and Natalie is trying out a crab. I turn to a sand bass with a large mouth and despondently start painting ink on the fish. I am not yet satisfied with my print subject.
Troy walks up to Ted and asks, “Hey, can you tell me how to do this?”
“You can watch other people and figure it out,” Ted replies.
Troy pauses.
“Hey Makalani, can you tell me how to do this?”

10:58 AM: Still inside the VSFS
“It’s non-toxic!” Aimy Beth articulates, happily smothering her hand in a smooth layer of dark ink.
“Right. Does it wash off?”
“Um… I think so. It’s water-soluble!”
I stand there, looking at her newly blackened digits and it strikes me. I must do something completely unique, something untried before, something risky, but something totally cooler than a sand bass. That is, unless you really like sand bass.
“Aimy Beth, when you’re done with that, what do you think about printing a head?”

11:16 AM: Very much still inside the VSFS
“Say, ‘Ink me!’ so that we can use it for a quote!”
A white trash bag hangs over my shoulders. I turn to Matt and agree to his request.
“Ink me.”

11:21 AM: Even still very much inside the VSFS
My face is covered in ink. It is stuck is my beard, on my eyebrows, up my nose. The wet paper peels away from my face. My first impression of the print is that I look like a lion, or maybe a goat. They are pretty similar looking.





12:07 PM: In the kitchen of the VSFS
“Save me a head, and I’ll eat it.”
I look at Jon, a little curious about the request, but I agree.
“The eyeballs are like jello.”
“Right.”
I grab a knife and start working on the first of the sand bass. Sautéed bass sounds like a fantastic lunch to me. The real lunch is burritos, which are great with freshly made salsa, guacamole and tortillas, but I have five perfectly good sand bass that only need to be cleaned. Beth and Matt both grab knives and try their hand at filleting. Try is a great word for our attempts.

12:41 PM: Haven’t left the kitchen
Corey, Jenny, Gen, Beth and I stand around a little yellow plate filled with fish.
“I wish there had been some garlic, but the lime sure helps out,” I comment as I dive in for another mouthful, hoping to dodge any missed bones.
“I think I’ve stopped eating fish and am only eating limes,” Gen grins.
I look around the kitchen.
“Has Jon eaten the fish eye yet?”

1:23 PM: VSFS lab
I sit and listen as Karen lectures about desert plant adaptations. I only mention this because I thought it’d be good to prove that we actually learn stuff in Baja. It really isn’t fun or entertaining.

3:35 PM: I’m not really sure where it is. I was in the back Dan’s van getting there and you can’t hear or see much back there.
“Try digging in the drier stuff. You would not think there would be any there, but there was water there a few hours ago.”
I’m not sure if Seth knows what he is talking about, but I dig the shovel into the gravel bar.
Carleigh sees one and grabs it, only to find another. Ted and Karen also start seeing more. Seth knows what he is talking about.


4:53 PM: Back in the kitchen of the VSFS
Emily, Bethany, Julie, Ted, JJ, Natalie, Becky and bunch of other folks whom I don’t recall are all gathered round piles of clams. We are listening to Journey, which makes clam cleaning a very epic activity.

5:02 PM: Still in the kitchen of the VSFS
“It kind of looks like the chicken helper dinner we had in Mulege,” I notice about the pile of shelled clams.
Rafe looks at me and warns, “Don’t tell any one that. Then they won’t want to eat them.”

5:49 PM: At the sinks in the kitchen of the VSFS
Jenny has her arms out, forming a triangle with soapy thumbs and fingers. She blows into the vortex of soapiness (I’m sure there is a scientific phrase for that which I should know) and out comes a big bubble, free floating above the sink.
“Sweet…,” I whisper to myself as I lift up my soapy hands to try to emulate the feat.

8:38 PM: In the lab at VSFS
I sit at one of the tables in the field station lab as Rafe is lecturing about the theology of ecology. A line of Rafe’s current lecture reads, “Seeking contentment as our great gain.” This is in the context of the theology of ecology, but for me it has been the meaning of this trip. My prayer at the beginning of this trip was to find joy solely in God, getting my pleasure from Him, or at least to head in that direction. My time in Baja has been showing me this, that happiness is not found in people liking me, eating good food, entertaining myself, or even enjoying His creation. I find joy when I think about the Lord, how He humbled himself to become like me to save me. At night, I stare up into a testament of vastness, the night sky, and I know that my God is beyond all that. Knowing that that same God, the one who made the deserts, oceans, whales, mountains, and plant life that we have seen humbled himself so that I may approach the throne of God, as a wretched sinner washed clean, brings me joy. I pray I look to this for my contentment, my joy and my hope. I pray that I can find contentment in all situations, learn to trust in Him, and continue to do so as I move back into the everydayness of life.