Hi, I'm Trent Cahoon. I'm a Canadian expat based in Santiago, Chile and I've been working mainly as a freelance translator/conference interpreter for the last 31 years.
At the ages of 17 and 18 I worked as one of the summer events coordinators at a playground program for children between the ages of 4 and 13 in a tiny town called Rimbey in central Alberta. I had the time of my life with those kids and was responsible for planning and directing activities such as sports, field trips, singing, storytelling, drawing & painting, crafts and so on. Everywhere I went there was one kid perched on my shoulders and two or three more hanging from my arms. I'll never forget the love and appreciation shared by those children.
Many years later I was working as a language instructor with the Chilean Army and was asked by the commander in charge of training to come up with something fun for the young cadets. I remembered a city-wide treasure hunt that had clues published in the newspaper every week back when I was going to university. Based on those memories we set up a treasure hunt ranging all over the base. The clues were obscure and written out in calligraphy (another hobby of mine). I took my guitar to every class with the young men and women in the program and soon had them singing along and filling in the blanks for lyric sheets that were handed out at the start of each session. We often sat in a circle on the floor campfire style and played different games focused on improving vocabulary and fluency while having fun.
My permaculture journey started at the age of 25 in the public library while reading the Encyclopedia of Country Living and planning out a future farm. From there I got into Sepp Holzer and went on to spend two months in Portugal studying the creation of water retention landscapes at Tamera.
You sparked my interest, C.E. Rice. I'd love to give you a hand with rental coordination, communications, fine art and design (my Chilean daughter went to art school and directed a mural painting workshop in Chiloe), activities such as setting up a treasure hunt based on the permaculture playing cards, staging a capture the Wheaton Labs flag competition, building a catapult for mostly safe medieval water bomb warfare with the ants, bringing musicians together for fireside festivals and staging Senoi-inspired dream enactment plays involving the entire community.
I'm done with my day job and will be traveling to Canada at the end of June to get started on the rest of my life. This coming chapter is going to be all about permaculture, art and music. I'll be busy helping to create a sunken patio, food forest, hugelkultur rows and moon gate in a residential area of Lethbridge during the month of July. Early August is doable if you're interested in having an enthusiastic full-time or part-time contributor as part of your team.
Long days and pleasant nights,
