Gnomo Habilis: Projects in Progress

     Gnomo habilis: the handy gnome. There's some confusion on the web about what this phrase means- among my beloved Spanish speakers, in fact- but ultimately it plays on the first, anthropologists think, of humans' early ancestors to make some tools. Homo habilis mastered a form of flint-knapping, making Olduwan spear hand axes although they didn't use them to hunt. They preferred scavenging.

As a DIY maker, crafter, and all around hands-on creator who loves to scavenge and salvage, I feel a kinship with those early handy proto-humans. But I also love repurposing trash, junk, and trash waste, and exploring methods for sustainable living. Like Upton Sinclair, author of fictional save the forest propaganda novel The Gnomemobile, my outer environmentalist is in touch with my inner gnome. Gnomes have accompanied me from my high school locker to the tops of volcanoes, so I thought I'm pay them homage too. Thus the weird name for this blog.

 I hope to share my repurposing and green living projects. There may be weird anthropology puns and references aplenty to health, and odd though it may seem, it is relevant. I want badly to become a real applied medical anthropologist. As I explore how to do this, my belief that environmental health, public health, physical health, mental health, sociocultural health, spiritual health, and creative occupations connect in vital and surprising ways, will evolve through my various DIY experiments.

Oh, and this is temporary until I can rein in my scatter-brained ideas, come up with a cohesive yet search engine friendly name ("Gnomo Project" oddly yields "Human Genome Project"), and move to WordPress. Work in progress.

Travel Chocolate and Sweet Snack Wrapper Memory Board

Los Chocolates y Las Meriendas Dulces: chocolates and sweet snacks. Inspired by my Ecela Peru classmate Derek, who decided to sample all tienda candies, and my former lab adviser Alison, who decoupaged an entire wall of her kitchen with the wrappers of her and her husband's favorite exotic chocolates, I sampled and saved as many cheap sweet things in Cusco, Peru and Antigua, Guatemala as possible. I visited El Choco Museo (see center flyer) in both cities as well. I finally arranged, labeled, and tacked them to this board. Still smells tasty!