Surfbird

Life is a balance…yin & yang = surfer & sun…

SORRY sorry…got back from Guatemala, am moving houses, working multiple jobs, fighting some pesky bug I picked up down south and just swamped with goodness…seriously, seriously, I am back and will post daily…surf is small and fun, good to get back in the water.

A lifetime of emotions have painted their lines across the horizon of her brow…

Just got back from Guatemala and am suffering a little bit from culture shock…will be back to “normal” soon and will be posting shots everyday again starting tomorrow (I will also backpost shots for the last two weeks)…surf is blown out and so will be posting some shots from the trip. Here is a shot from a live volcano that we climbed just outside of Antigua, Guatemala…It erupted two days after I took this shot and unfortunately killed two of the guides that we helping to get people to safety.

The sun sets on an incredible trip…we are definitely going back!

What’s crazier…hiking up a live volcano and staring into red hot chambers of lava as your shoes melt from heat, or roasting marshmallows over those pits of lava and bbq’ing hotdogs…Crazy?

Lava Rocks!

How can you look at this kid and not do anything. As soon as we walked into the Jackson House (just outside of Antigua, Guatemala) we knew we had to help…and so we stayed for the next four days (until it was time to fly back to California). We were told to scrub up and help take care of the 20 undernourished/malnourished (both nutritionally and emotionally) babies by feeding and burping them all every three hours…not to mention changing some gnarly diapers and love love loving them. It was emotionally difficult to feed one when 19 others were crying for food and love, hard to put one down when you knew she would fall to pieces in tears, but harder not to, knowing the others we starving or needing to be held. I fell in love with this little one immediately (her name was Angel), she was 2.5months old and only about 3lbs (I was almost 10lbs when I was born) and so so cute and hungry and all skin and bones and just absolutely the smallest thing I have ever seen…Those big eyes melted my heart. Then there were kids like Guadalupe, who was 4 months old and did not know how to eat, having never been breastfed by a mother that was also starving…I would have to force feed her her bottle, practically drowning her in milk as she swallowed more air than food, and had to be burped constantly. It was so adorable to hear the biggest and deepest of manliest burps coming from such a small package being forcefully rocked on my shoulder…and then there were 18 other similar stories.

So hard to think about these little boys and girls going without food, hugs, kisses and love…as you read this.

We helped our new friends start a community feeding program…we made 100 sandwiches and walked around the pueblo of Alotenango (which is fittingly also known as El Rincon…funny that I always end up at the Queen) and passed them out to the pobres. You should have seen their smiles. Houses with poor blind old men, or a 100yr old woman that was as young as half that age, or a house with 12 orphaned kids–each one of them bursting into the biggest of smiles at the gift of food and love. It was an incredible day and though we were only there for the first feeding, we have been supporting our new friends with monetary and emotional support to continue every week. Please send donations for this program, if you feel inclined to give, to gpravenhill.at.gmail.com via Paypal. Thanks.

This kid rips…had a great session today at the queen and this kid was all smiles as he seemingly got every set wave. He was all of about 3 feet tall and so most of the waves were easily double overhead (not this one)…Gnars. I am off to Guatemala until the 18th…so no updates until then. Go surf!

Am selling this surfboard