Just before the event, I was invited by Ali, a friend in Sumba, to experience Pasola, a day of ritualized Tribal war games for young warriors to prove their courage. It takes place in several locations in February and March each year in the western part of Sumba Island, Indonesia.
I had been in Sumba last spring for a week in 105o heat with matching humidity. We drove past the Pasola grounds where we’d just missed the event by two days. All reports were that Pasola was great and the non-natives suffered badly from the heat. Continue reading Sumba 2008
We were on our second day of X-country skiing in the mountains outside Glacier National Park. We ski a couple hours a day for a week once a year. It’s enough to enjoy it, but not enough to get much better at the sport. I was facing my first big downhill this season on a groomed trail and I knew somewhere I would fall. You see, I never learned to stop. Without that trick up your sleeve, any steep downhill brings out a sweat like no uphill climb ever can. 
