The most important accomplishment in my life, aside from having my 2 beautiful children (which stands alone) is that I have survived. My life has not been ordinary or easy by any means. I started out in childhood with serious health issues, life threatening, only to go into young adulthood struggling with a great variety of tropical diseases.

When I was quite young, I would come to meet a very special Iranian family who would adopt me and then take me to South America, where work prospects were good for them. I lived in the Northeastern Amazon region of Peru in a village called Tarapoto for my first year in S.A. It was there that I shed my identity as an American teen and came into being global citizen. It was a long painful process, I resisted and resented my circumstances until finally my spiritual eyes were opened to the beauty that surrounded me. In Tarapoto my family worked on designing a public facility that could accommodate large crowds, a kind of coliseum.

The design of this facility was so unique and original that it was recognized by then President Belaunde an accomplished Harvard architect. Two members of my Iranian family were Architect/Engineers and they had received their degrees from M.I.T and Princeton. My family was offered a position for an international company designing radio complexes in different South American countries. We moved from Tarapoto, Peru to the Andes on Lake Titicaca in a village called Chucuito. We lived at over 14,000 ft for the next year there. My family built an edition to an existing radio station there and then we moved onto our next project in Bolivia. We were sent to Caracollo, Bolivia, at over 13,000 ft, for the next 2 years. My family built the radio complex there from scratch. Today it is a very successful radio station that serves over 2 million native peoples living in remote regions of the Andes.

During those first years I contracted typhoid, dysentery, parasites of every kind, and severe anemia. I would have to leave Caracollo after contracting hepatitis A from local food. I was sent to recover in Coachabamba, Bolivia, a beautiful valley city at a reasonable 10,000 ft. It is there that I met my first husband, Franz Suarez. I would marry Franz and go to live in the village where he was born and raised, deep in the Bolivian Amazon jungle in a village called Chimore. I spent the next 10 years there. We built our own coffee farm and home and raised chickens and cared for one cow, 2 horses and 9 hunting dogs. We hunted and grew our own food. We had no electricity or running water. I did my laundry with the other local women in our nearby river. I contracted malaria and palo diablo (a terrible river fever...I do not know the English translation for this disease). I also contracted the deadly skin eating disease leishmanisis, a rare and terrible parasite that weakens and destroys your immune system while eating away the skin and cartilage. It is as terrible as it sounds and I was pregnant when I contracted it. There is no cure and I was helped by a tribe down the river from us called the Yuci. They healed me in exchange for promising to dedicate my life to helping bring awareness to the Earths and native peoples’ struggles.

I was basically home-schooled and self-educated. The most formal schooling I had was up to 7th grade. When I returned to the U.S in 1990 at the age of 30 I took a G.E.D test with no preparation and passed with nearly a perfect score.

My real University and learning came from the Native peoples that guided and loved me, despite my ignorance and arrogance in the early years, and Nature itself. The Amazon shaped me into the person I have become today, I am deeply in love with Nature and people everywhere and I am committed to doing what I can to be useful and part of the healing that must happen in our world today.

After being the States for a couple of years I met an author named Harvey Arden. Harvey is famous in the Native world for his work with Leonard Peltier, a wrongfully imprisoned Native here in the United States. Harvey is also a best- selling author of Wisdomkeepers: Voices of Native Elders from North America. He is a former National Geographic senior staff writer and editor. Harvey and I worked together for several years. We published the words online of Native Elders who wanted to share their concerns for the earth and what they felt must happen if we are to continue to live here. We published the book White Buffalo Teachings with Chief Arvol Looking Horse the 19 th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people of the Great Sioux Nation.

I later would study organic horticulture and begin working with draft horses. I worked in Philadelphia giving tours in Historic Philadelphia. I worked full time as a carriage driver for 76 Carriage Company for almost 2 years and continue today to drive during holidays and special events. While working with the draft horses in Philadelphia I found my real passion and joy.

I am committed to practicing Organics and re-introducing working horses to their rightful place in society.

I believe that I survived my whole life to come to do the work of Blue Star Equiculture. I feel a deep bond and connection with the people involved. I will be hard- working and committed as a caretaker and organizer, and I will share whatever else I can in making this project successful.

One day I will write my story, and hopefully it will include my greatest work, which is yet to come.