YELLOW SUBMARINE IN THE DESERT
First week in Utah

I finished up my training, and it was AWSOME! I spent a week sleeping under brilliant stars, cooking ash cakes (which the students here call scooby snacks or just plain scoobies) over a fire made by friction, and learning various skills such as traps and making coradage. At the company i work for now, every group has an animal name, cougars or eagles and so on. Our training group was asked to pick a name that would represent us. After much disscussion, we became the Beatles.
We spent the week talking in silly accents and singing "Yellow Submarine" while we hiked. Life in the desert is rough, dangerous, and incredibly beautiful. I have seen more stars in the last week than ever before. I am now using my off shift to learn the myths of the constelations so i can tell them to the kids at night around the camp fire. Cant wait for my next shift! Woot!
We also learned the uses of many differnet types of plants. For example: Juniper berries are not only edible, they are covered in a fine dust of yeast, which can be used to raise bread.
Sage makes a good spindle for a fire bow. Other interesting but less savory plants also grow here. Ephedra grows wild in our field. It can be boiled for tea. If you boil it down to a very concentrated state, it becomes a type of speed (obviously we do not tell students this). Peyote also grows nearby. And of course, there are ghost beads.
Figureing out what to do on my off shifts is proving more difficult. Enterprise is smaller than Mayville NY (for those of you who know mayville) and less culturaly interesting. I am going to try to bribe someone to give me a ride to cedar city or st george next off shift, and perhaps eventualy get a small appartment there. I do not plan to stay here forever, but am enjoying myself and learning alot.
I have even heard a rumor that there are capoieristas about. I hope to find them, though as is usual they are proving difficult to track down. There is a girl that works here who plays capoiera, which i am immensely excited about. Visions of a moonlight battle in the desert swirrl in my brain.
I lost my camera, so sadly pictures will have to wait for another day. I will write more when i can, but the small library here has only one small computer bank and i am keeping people waiting. Love to you all.

Digger