Protected: RIP Michael Jackson

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

The Situation in Sudan

Today I bumped into a Sudanese friend (a woman who comes to English classes at the local Community College where I work) , and we greeted each other with the usual pleasantries. I asked her how her holidays had been going (Easter) and she said it had been bad. Assuming she was talking about the weather, and the flooding we had just had, I said, “yes, hasn’t it been wet” .. and then she proceeded to tell me that she had just heard that 2 of her “cousins” and 3 of her husband’s “cousins” in Southern Sudan had been killed. Wow, I thought … that is much worse than a bit of soggy carpet or a boggy road. Were they soldiers? I asked. No they just looked after cows, she said. It seems things are getting bad again in Sothern Sudan – and its not just in Darfur, which is the area currently being reported on. And the Sudanese community were so euphoric in February 2005, when it seemed a certain PEACE had been achieved. Here are some scenes from the celebrations in Coffs Harbour at that time of hope. 

 

I was particularly moved by her news, as I am currently reading a novel by Dave Eggers called “What is the What” – an autobiography of one of the Lost Boys, Valentino Achak Deng. I asked Yar where her “cousins” were. A small village called Yirol, she said, but I wouldn’t find it on a map as it was too small. I asked was it near Marial Bai, the town which Valentino came from,  and amazingly, she knew this town, and said her teenage daughter was reading a book about a Lost Boy who came from that town. What an incredible co-incidence, I thought – that we were reading the same book, at the same time. The other amazing thing that she told me, was that this current round of fighting did not involve the militia or the Northern Islamists or even the rebels, but was between southern Sudanese tribes.  What chance has that troubled region got, I thought.

The ultimate in ocean views

Clubstead – Exterior View
Originally uploaded by ipsafictura

 

 

 

 

While driving to work yesterday, I heard an interesting story on the new ABC radio national program Future Tense (12/3/09) : entitled “Life on the ocean waves” about a new concept called “Seasteading” – see offical website – http://www.seasteading.org/
This is NOT really a new idea. In Halong Bay in Vietnam, in 2005, I saw whole floating villages, complete with fish farms, clothes lines and seafaring dogs. 
 
  So ….. if the recent Victorian bushfires have put you off the idea of a “tree change”, maybe seasteading is a more desirable option. If you want a new life and a new freedom, both physical and political, you could live on a huge floating city in international waters. Those just beyond the 12 mile limit would be anchored (eg off the coast of California – but don’t think too much about the San Andreas fault and possible tsunamis ). Those in the deep oceans would be floating, and possibly migrating to follow the good weather. What a bizarre concept!! Imagine a lone sailor, far from the worries of the world, coming across one on a misty morning!!!
Am I lacking in imagination and vision, if I remain a bit sceptical, even cynical about such a venture? If you read the quotes on the official website – Albert Camus: “Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better” or Balthasar Gracian: “Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit” – it would seem that I am certainly not the visionary dreamer they are looking for to people these new civilisations.

90-DAY GEISHA

I have just finished reading this fascinating book, by Chelsea Haywood, about hostess clubs in Japan, but with insights into many things Japanese, including the psyche of that enigmatic place and its enigmatic people. Having been in Japan only months ago, I found that it brought back lots of wonderful memories. Admittedly, I never had the experiences that she did (and frankly, I wouldn’t have done that to my body and my mind!! – the number of times she ends up in a drunken and drugged stupor – even if it was “for the book” – is frightening) – but I did experience a hostess club in Kobe. The father of my Japanese friend, who I was staying with, owned and ran quite an exclusive one in the centre of Kobe, and we went there one evening. I observed all the wierd behaviour described in the book, but only now, vaguely understand it … if it is something that can ever really be understood.

It was a very readable book and her style very natural. But, I did get a bit annoyed at how many times she mentions how beautiful she is (quoting her customers of course). She was only 21 when she was there (4 years ago), and she was a model, so she probably WAS beautiful, but was she THAT beautiful???

I found this interesting photo of Chelsea on Flickr by mattbooy. It was taken in an underpass near Waterloo Station in London, for promotional purposes. I recognised the location as I had been there, also on my last trip, and had taken photos of this same artistic graffiti, which adorns the walls, the whole length of the underpass. 

This is my picture.

Barack Obama the man

20081104_Chicago_IL_ElectionNight1258

Originally uploaded by Barack Obama

 

This photo shows the human side of this man, who is soon to become the most powerful man in the world. He is now the president elect of the United States, but he is also a Flickr contact of mine.
Will it be like Kevin Rudd, who was everyone’s facebook friend (including mine), until he became the Prime Minister of Australia?? Will it be seen by his aides as a security threat, to have such a public profile? This photo alone, had 151 comments, and another, also posted on 7 Nov 08 – election night – of he and his wife on the couch smiling into the camera, had 423 comments. He has a list of testimonials that scrolls down forever, but it just goes to show that the tide is changing in politics. Barack Obama is young and vital and charismatic. Girls scream and cry when they see him, like a pop idol. The fact that he is black, I think, is irrelevant.
Not that I have any illusions that Barack Obama spends any time on Flickr, uploading his own photos, and checking out his contacts’ photos (he has 7,142 contacts). I realise that it is just another arm of his publicity machine – but for a Pro Account of $30 per year, it is a lot cheaper that an ad on prime time TV. The first of his 50,423 items was posted on 3 Feb 07, at the start of his campaign, and after scrolling though all his sets, I can see they are all pictures of him on the campaign trail. There is not one set entitled “Christmas with the Folks” or “Picnic in the Park”. Though I will admit that he did take time out from his campaign to visit his ailing grandmother. I also admit that the cynic in me saw this as a clever ploy to attract the older voters, until I found out that she died 2 days before his election win.
What for me is amazing though, is that the internet is changing EVERYTHING. Social networking sites are becoming a significant form of communication for millions of people. So, why shouldn’t the pollies get onto the bandwagon???

www = wonderful wicked wierd

I never cease to be amazed at the power of the www – to link people, places and ideas.
Ever since I first posted my old scanned slides from Afghanistan in 1974 onto Flickr last year, there has been a snowballing effect. I have had a fascination for that country ever since I visited it back then. I read any book on Afghanistan that I could get my hands on and watched documentaries and films about it. And of course, followed with dismay and horror … the war on terror that was waged there after September 11, 2001. But after the flickr posting, I was contacted by Afghanis all over the world, many of whom had never seen as much of their homeland as I had. Many of them had been forced to leave it as children, and many have very bitter or sad memories of it. So, they were grateful to me, for having preserved this slice of history of their country. I was invited to join Afghanistan flickr groups, and facebook groups, and kept in contact with my growing circle of Afghan friends in our virtual Afghan country. I attended a book launch in Sydney, when my facebook friend, Mahvish Khan, was on a promotional tour of Australia. I bought and read her book My Guantanamo Diary, about Afghan detainees in Guantanamo Bay, with great interest.
Then the latest chapter, in this ever widening story, came when one of my photos was posted on a flickr blog. Then a whole lot more people looked at my Afghanistan set, and the daily views went up to 500 or so on that day and I made a few new contacts. Then futurowoman, a historian/photographer, posted a blog about it, and lo and behold ….. a heap more views (2,076 on one day in fact).
I can’t help but feel that this virtual journey will again take me back, in real space and time, to that timeless land … and I hope it will be a much happier and more peaceful place.

ANZAC DAY

Today is Anzac Day. My dad always used to march in the parade, when he was younger, and then go to the pub and have a few drinks with his mates. This is a picture of him, taken in his army uniform in 1942. He served in the Australian army in Papua New Guinea, but he didn’t talk very much about it. He was in an engineering corps, so I don’t think he fought in the front line, but maybe memories of war are such that people sometimes lose them, to avoid the pain. They also say that returned soldiers often don’t talk about their experiences with anyone, except their army buddies, because if you weren’t there, you just couldn’t understand.

Anyway, I won’t have the chance to find out any more about my father’s war experiences, because he passed away last year, on Sept 15th. I made a mosaic cross to put on his grave, and on it I put this picture of him, looking young and handsome, in his army uniform.  I thought, if it were me, I would rather have people remember me like this, rather than old and frail and stooped.

Around his picture, printed on a ceramic disk, I put the rising sun, which is the symbol of the Australian Army. When my brother was here from France, in November, our little family walked to the cemetery on our property and had a ceremony, where we buried the ashes and erected the cross. He we all are:

Me, Colin (my partner), Bryan (my brother), Brendon (my nephew) and Banjo our dog, who also is no longer with us.

I went to visit the grave last week. It was my father’s birthday on 14th April. I lit some candles and sat beside the grave in the quiet and still of the evening. I had a beer and a chat with my dad. It is a nice resting place. I thought how important it is to have a place where you can go and connect with someone who has passed away - I suppose that is why we have such symbolic places as graves and memorials. And that is why people make pilgrimages half way round the world, to see a field of tiny crosses or a plaque or a statue. And why many peoples of the world have celebrations, like “The Day of the Dead”, and have a big party by the gravesides of their ancestors.

Carnage at dog fight

 

Just yesterday I heard on the news that 80 people had been killed in a suicide bombing at a dog fight just outside Kandahar. It was said to have been the deadliest single suicide attack since the Taliban movement was driven from power more than six years ago.

It made me very sad and angry, as I am in the midst of reading a very fascinating and incisive book by Sarah Chayes, called “The Punishment of Virtue – Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban”. It seems that the Taliban, the name that instills fear into Pentagon officials and ordinary Afghanis alike, are still alive and well in Afghanistan, despite years of American rhetoric and miliary intervention.

This amazing book, by a very strong and inspiring ex-journalist, is set largely in Kandahar, a very signifacant strategic stronghold in a largely desolate and desperate region. It survived successive waves of aggressors sweeping across the high plains of the Hindu Kush, from Alexander the Great to Ghengis Khan, Turmalane, and more recently the Soviets. In between times a colourful culture grew and thrived. I was lucky to visit it in one of those “between times” – in the mid 1970’s – when I was able to witness a dog fight, at that very same place just outside Kandahar where 80 people were killed just yesterday. The news always seems to hit home harder, when you know the place, the people or both.

Solomon

Solomon

Originally uploaded by Wendy Tanner

I love this photo of Solomon, just one of the wonderful students in my ESL class at Coffs Coast Community College. This was taken at Woolgoolga Beach, just north of Coffs Harbour, where we had lunch at our end of year excursion. About 80 of us, in 2 big buses, travelled to the blueberry farms, where the students gorged themselves on blueberries. Then we went to the Indian Sikh Temple.
What a lovely way to finish our year.

Bellingen Global Carnival

As I sit here now after the whirl of the global carnival – I have many fine memories floating around my head – and after all the music that I have listened to over the weekend, it is the sounds of the Mauritian song, La Travailleur  (The Worker) which I have going around my head. And I had the honour of hearing it one last time, at a private concert on my verandah, from the vital and vibrant group Jalsa Creole, some members of which stayed as billets at my home for the weekend. A band of renegades from the tiny island of Mauritius, they brought fun and laughter into my house. They were all so different, in appearance and temperament, as Mauritius, off the east coast of Africa, is a real melange of cultures and races – Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, Indian, African and even Chinese. Before the Suez Canal was built it was on the trading route from The Old World, to The New – and had many different visitors, colonisers and influences. The saddest story, about which the band sings, is of a tiny island, off the coast of the island of Mauritius, called Diego Garcia, that was evacuated by the British – all the inhabitants were moved to “the mainland” so the British could allow the US to have their strategic base there – and all those people are now totally dispossessed – living in poverty on the fringes of society on the main island of Mauritius.

 

Mauritius is small, about the size of the greater city of Sydney and is mountainous and volcanic. The view look a bit like the view from my verandah, so one of the band members told me. Very tropical and laid back. Sounds a bit like Bellingen.

Well the global carnival this year was wonderful. After a year off, I’m sure everyone really appreciated it even more. I know I did. So often, I looked around me, or through the lens of my new camera, and saw happy faces. Even the theme of this years mosaic project, led by the local identity Guy Crosley, (who looks more and more like Salvador Dali every time I see him, and is probably almost as eccentric), was happy faces. And there is something for every one. Haunting tabla and sitar music from India to the upbeat sounds from Africa and Latin America. A cornucopia of concerts, activities for the kids, workshops and so much colour to see and taste with all the senses.

I went through so many emotions. Happy carefree jigging to the Irish band, Sharon Shannon, who win you over as soon as they speak with that beautiful Irish brogue, before they even start playing their instruments. Sadness, as the gospel singing of the Café at the Gates of Salvation, washed over me, and brought tears to my eyes, as I thought of my Dad, who had died only 2 weeks before. “The Storm was Passing Over” for me, inside, too, as well as outside. I met up with old friends, and saw those I had once known as kids and babies, now grown up, with kids of their own. I spent some time with the wonderful women from Africa who were doing the hair braiding and cooking at the Kafé Karibuni, which means, “Everyone is Welcome” in Swahili. These strong and inspirational women, who as refugees, have suffered brutalities and privations that we cannot even imagine, but despite all, can sing and clap as they cook, and happily count the profits at the end of the day, and will probably send most of it back to Africa.

The African energy of Shasha Marley, the preacher like figure who held the audience in the palm of his hand. The beautiful backing female singers from South Africa and Ethiopia. The boys from Burundi and Congo, who drummed and danced and sung with such dynamism and freshness – their first big festival appearance, after arriving in Coffs Harbour as refugees less than 2 years ago.

The gutsy and gorgeous Mihirangi, from New Zealand, who has the energy and sound of a whole stageful of performers, creating overlays of sound and percussion, using looping and just the sound of her voice.

The fire event was moving and beautiful. I loved best the chanting and part singing of the whole crowd, who were joined in one voice before the burning wheel, each person holding their candles, and interacting in small ways with those around.

The beautiful gates, representing the four elements – earth, fire, water and air, with their fluttering flags, under which thousands of people passed over those few days.

But for me, what is almost more enjoyable and memorable at the Global, are the little scenes and events you stumble upon – the teenagers busking by the bins, the 2 Amigos amusing a small group of kids; the stilt walker who catches my camera’s gaze and turns around to pose for a photo; the monks making their sand picture, with kids and adults alike, watching in amazement and reverence – hardly talking, lest a puff of breath might blow the sand away. A jam session at the marimba stall. The kids milling possessively around the paper lanterns, getting ready for the parade, just on dusk. People of all ages trying to learn juggling and stilt walking in Circus Works, or being artistic and creative, by contributing to a colourful collage of tiles in the mosaic workshop, or making an individualised clay tile to be used in next year’s project. A chai and a chat at the Curried Away Indian stall. Local Aboriginal elder, Bea Ballingarry, closing The Forum with a circle in which everyone in the audience stood, held hands and had a moment’s silence. So many lovely little encounters and snapshots and surprises.

 So, this was the Global Carnival of 2007, or my reflections of it, anyway. I think we are so lucky to have such a wonderful and beautiful event, created in, and by, our beautiful and wonderful Bellingen community. Thankyou to the organisers and all the wonderful musicians and dancers and all the people who went to the Global Carnival this year, with happy hearts and open minds, and made it such a fabulous “home-grown” event.