Help A Blinded Boy

A year ago, the parents of then five-year-old Fernando Caled Alvarado Rios gouged out his eyes for a satanic ritual. He and his older brother Kevin, who witnessed the attack, survived but are now in a children’s shelter. The parents and five others are in jail, hopefully for a very long time.

When a friend first told me about this horrific story, I sat on it for a longtime because it was so inhuman I didn’t even know how to react. I think we all have the tendency to look away from such cruelty and brutality.

Then I started thinking, “What can I do?” I can’t change what happened to Fernando but maybe I can bring a little bit of good into his life. So perhaps donating and helping spread the word will help Fernando understand that there is love in the world.

My friend, Laura-Osorio Gonzalez, has contacted the shelter and was told both brothers are adapting well. They say that Fernando is well cared for and he sings in the choir and plays violin. The Mexican government is currently covering all their expenses but we can send letters, books, toys or clothing. And a trust fund has been established for when Fernando turns 18.

Item donations and letters can be sent to:

Lic. Maria Isela Avila or Enriqueta Alonso

In care of: Fernando Alvarado Rios

Address: 
DIF – Atencion Ciudadana

Paseo Colon, Esq. Paseo Tollocan, 2do Piso

Colonia Isidro Fabela, Toluca, Mexico

Money can be sent to:

DIF Edo. de Mexico

Account Number: 4054723887

Bank: HSBC

In care of: Fernando Alvarado Rios

If you make a donation, please provide them with contact information so that they can keep track and send thank you letters.

Wells Fargo TV ad

A lot of friends have called me recently to say they thought they heard my voice or got a brief glimpse of me on a TV ad. They wanted to know if I’m the blind guy climbing while they were watching Dancing With The Stars and other prime time shows. Yes! It all came together quickly, and I’m psyched to be represented, along with the Wright brothers, Rosa Parks, and the Mars Curiosity landing. Very cool and an honor to be working with Wells Fargo.

They’re right. Conversations lead to some amazing things!

Erik

PS the sound works in some browsers but not Safari.

No Barriers Boston Fund

As a graduate of Boston College, and a runner, I was greatly impacted by the horrors of the tragic bombing. So I am proud to share the news that we have established the No Barriers Boston Fund to help amputees acquire advanced prosthetic legs. The goal is to raise $500,000 in the next 60 days so that these victims can once again run races, climb mountains, bike, swim, and live a normal life.

My good friend and former No Barriers board member, Dr. Hugh Herr, is the impetus behind this project. Hugh is both a bilateral amputee and a research scientist at MIT who has spent decades developing the most sophisticated prosthetic legs available. Another No Barriers board member, Bill Barkeley, who is deaf and blind, ran the Boston Marathon last year and will serve as the official spokesperson for this project.

If you would like to help the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing take the next step in their lives, please contribute and spread the word about this worthy cause! If you know someone who was injured, please share the No Barriers Boston Fund application form.

Thanks!
Erik

Vote for Trish!

My good friend Tricia Downing is in the running to win a wheelchair accessible van and she needs your help! Trish is an amazing athlete who was paralyzed from the waist down after a car hit her while she was riding her bike. That hasn’t stopped her and she’s now doing incredible things, such as starting Camp Discovery for women affected by injury or disease.

The contest is part of National Mobility Awareness Month and the grand prize is a fully decked out van worth $40,000. Check out her story in the video and then please vote her into a some new wheels. You can vote once a day until the contest is over on May 3rd.

Today Show article on blind skiing

Last Friday, I went skiing at Vail with my usual guide, Jeff Ulrich, and a producer from NBC news. Jack Chesnutt just posted this article on the Today Show Health blog.

At the bottom of the article, you will find two old Today Show videos. The first is about me using an early version of the BrainPort device to “see.” And the second is about our Blindsight expedition to the north side of Mount Everest with six blind Tibetan teenagers.

Vote for the Webby

Last November, the New York Times published an article about me that was written by Erik Olsen. He also produced a short film, called “Paddling Blind,” that is now up for a Webby Award. Please take a moment and vote for Erik’s film!

Modern Gypsies Compassionate Adventure

My buds, the Modern Gypsies (Eric Post, Taylor Filasky, and John Post) have completed their first Compassionate Adventure and produced a series of cool videos that are starting to appear on Vimeo. On this expedition, they travelled to Ecuador and climbed Cotopaxi (the same peak our Soldiers To Summits team climbed last December). Then the Gypsies took their adventure to the next level by installing a well in a remote town to provide clean, safe water for the locals. Great stuff!

Compassionate Adventure Ecuador- Episode 1 – Sacred Blessings from a Shaman from The Modern Gypsies on Vimeo.

Check out some more of their videos here: http://vimeo.com/user12535525/videos

Morocco “Expedition Possible” Adventure

Join my No Limits team and the Modern Gypsies for an adventure of a lifetime! Anyone who watched the ABC television show “Expedition Impossible” will know that my friends (Jeff Evans and Ike Isaacson) were the runner-ups to those pesky Gypsies (Taylor Filasky, Eric Bach, and John Post) in month-long adventure race across scenic Morocco. And you also know that, despite the competition, we all became lifelong friends.

Next year, you join all six of us as we retrace the path of Expedition Impossible through the High Atlas mountains, across the Tizi Ntarabza plateau, and eventually to the summit of Jebel Toukbal (13,751ft), the highest peak in Northern Africa. This will definitely be 10 days that you will never forget!

The exact dates of Expedition Possible remain to be determined but will be sometime in Spring of 2014. At a cost of only $2,200, we expect this trip to fill quickly. That includes all lodging and meals (including three nights at the wonderful Hotel Riad in Marrakech), camel and horseback ride, local guides and muleteers, and endless banter between No Limits and the Gypsies. To find out more about this incredible trip, visit Jeff’s web site.

I’m psyched to go back to Morocco and hope you will join us!
Erik

Blind Wrestling

Since I was a wrestler in high school, this story about Anthony Ferraro was especially interesting. Though we’ve never met, Anthony certainly exemplifies the No Barriers mindset. If anybody knows how to reach him, it would be awesome if Anthony could attend the No Barriers Summit this summer in Telluride!

Here are some photos of me when I attended Weston High School in Connecticut. I was captain of the wrestling team in 1987 and competed in the National Freestyle Wrestling Championship that year. I was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 199s and the Connecticut Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2005. Now I’m teaching my son Arjun to wrestle and he’s already showing some good moves!

Everglades Family Expedition

Last week we took the kids out of school for a fun family adventure. I was in Florida speaking to two organizations and have had a life-long goal to explore the Everglades, and not just by loud airboats that drown out the sounds of wildlife, the typical mode of travel for tourists, but by kayaks where you’re moving quietly only inches above the surface of the water.

So we took this opportunity to meet up for a family expedition: It was my brother Eddi and his kids, as well as my dad and his wife, and lots of friends like Remembrance and her husband Joe – locals who helped organize the trip…and, of course, Ellie and my children.

We based out of a lodge on Chokoloskee Island, near Everglades City, and worked with an outstanding guide company, Everglades Area Tours. John, one of our naturalists and guides, met us outside the shop playing his harmonica and then immediately taught all of us how to cup our hands against our open mouths to make different octaves of sounds. And just to show us what was possible with practice, he played “Swannee River.”

That day we explored the Turner River with its narrow, shallow channels between cypress and mangrove. I was in the front of the kayak with Ellie steering from the back, and it fell on me to forge the trail and push aside the thick mangrove branches and spider webs to pull our way through.

Within fifteen minutes our group was thrilled to spot our first gator, and then as we paddled on, a second, third and fourth. They were everywhere. John told us that gators are territorial and there’s one male who claims his domain with an entourage of concubines. The gator that claimed this particular territory is probably 40 years old with plenty of battle scars, gained through fierce protection of his kingdom.

I remarked aloud that it wouldn’t be too bad a life to be a male gator – protected from hunters and surrounded by a harem of gator gals to spice up daily life. Unfortunately, I was within range when Ellie hit me with her paddle.

For me, I loved hearing the native birds, for instance, the Moorhen with a shrill jungle cry, and the American coots with a lower call like the squeak of a screw being drilled into a metal beam.

The Everglades are about the farthest thing from mountains as you can imagine. In fact, within the entire park, the highest elevation is only eight feet above sea level. It gets progressively and dramatically drier with slight increases and there is even cactus growing near the highest parts. In the mountains, changes in habitat occur within hundreds of feet of elevation, but as John said, “in the Everglades, inches matter.”

The other thing we learned from John was that it’s not really correct to call the Everglades a swamp, which implies stagnant, foul-smelling water. It’s more of a series of sloughs, which are fed from inland lakes. The water flows towards the sea in slow moving shallow sheets and that makes the water fresher and chillier than you’d expect.

That afternoon, John had us walk through the sloughs in knee-deep water and he pointed out amazing plants like different species of bromeliads, ferns, and delicate wild orchids that I could touch. John said that poachers often steal these flowering plants. Even worse, many invasive plants have been introduced into this habitat, crowding out the native species. This goes for animals too.

A bunch of yahoos actually let their Burmese pythons free in the Everglades, and with no natural predators, they have proliferated, almost wiping out some bird species. Now they have hunting season on pythons with a reward, but these creatures are incredibly resilient and blend in to such a degree that people often step over them without knowing they’re right under their feet. If that’s not bad enough, some ultimate yahoo actually threw a four-foot Nile crocodile into the Everglades, but thank God it’s not able to breed with the local native crocs and gators.

At the end of the day and as night came on, John was not slowing down. His passion for the plants and animals of the Everglades was immense. “Check out these apple snails…” he said excitedly, placing my hand on one. “You’ve got to feel this royal palm. It’s fallen down and another is actually growing out of it… “Look at these fish skeletons on this stump. It’s where a mink has been picnicking…” “This is a pond apple. It produces these large, bitter, yellow-green fruit and it’s a staple for a lot of animals…” “Feel the leaves on this gumbo limbo tree…”

And as the night became still and began to quiet the sounds of wildlife, John got philosophic: “This place has given me so much energy over the years. Whenever I feel low or exhausted, I come here and it fills me up again. So when I die, I’d like my energy to flow back to this place.” It made sense and gave me pause.

On our second day, we explored the Ten Thousand Islands region where we paddled up more narrow rivers, which would then open, into remarkable inland bays. These kinds of areas are a mixture of fresh and salt water, called estuaries. Like the day before, we passed plenty of alligators, with two huge ones, probably 11 feet long. Even though I couldn’t see them, I still got a little prickle up the spine knowing they were only a few feet away eye-balling us.

Earlier, I’d felt a stuffed gator about that same size and was blown away not just by the length – longer than our kayak – but by the huge girth of its torso, plenty big to fit a human body.

Even though they could catch you if they wanted, alligators are actually very docile. There have been no unprovoked gator attacks in the Everglades, so I felt pretty safe. So safe In fact, I dared 10-year-old Arjun to wade 20 feet through knee-deep water with a spongy, quicksand-like bottom so he could touch a mangrove. He finally did it, but it cost me $20.

That afternoon we pulled up onto a sandy, crushed-shell island. Here we learned the improbable way islands are formed in this region, first by oyster beds collecting and building up until above the surface of the water. And then mangrove “propagules,” which are long narrow airtight seeds that float around until, under very specific conditions, they take root on one of these shell beds.

The red mangrove is on the front line and seems to grow first, and then the black mangrove and white mangrove come soon after to back it up. The Calusa Indians, now long vanished, actually made islands from their discarded shells, building these islands into a horseshoe shape with the lagoon protected from the open sea. Periodically, they’d block off the lagoon in order to catch fish for dinner.

 The beauty of the Everglades was only half the joy. The other half was having my family together sharing this wild place. I loved listening to Emma and her cousin, Brooklyn, catching lizards and whispering back and forth in secret girl language. And Arjun and his cousin, Edwin, typical goofy boys, giggling hysterically as they chased each other around with coconuts they found.

Yesterday, back in Golden, I walked Arjun to school and, on the way, we started talking about our trip, the gators, the pythons, the crazy bird calls, the striking shells we found, and all the fun we had. It made me reflect how precious this time is that we have together. Cherish it always.

Erik