After paddling the Youghiogheny River this weekend I have been wearing socks. My feet are decidedly more comfortable in Pittsburgh's damp October.
We are eating veggie/grainy soups and stews.
Roadside farmstands have pumpkins, apples, and little else.
Festivals. We went to one in SW Pennsylvania this weekend. It had a giant pumpkin "contest"--with only 3 entries--one being hundreds of pounds heavier than either of the others. A kiddie tractor pull. And dozens of booths where fried things (some food) could be tasted. I almost ate a fried Milky Way candy bar, but in the end Amy and I stuck to the deep fried potatoes.
We are replacing summer squash with winter oats down at the farm.
Apple cider.
Flannel.
Cold kayaking.
Leaves of various colors. Both on trees and the ground.
7 pm darkness.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Recently Returned.
My first few months back in the US have flown by and though fall is still a few calendar weeks away the temperature is slowly dropping here in Pittsburgh, mine and Amy's new base. We are nearly settled into our apartment--pictures on the walls, books on selves, my kayak in the bathroom closet--I say nearly because we still need a screen for our kitchen window. This opening gives some of our smaller neighbors (2 gray and 1 charcoal colored squirrel) access to our compost bucket and my ever expanding pile of black walnuts.
In Jersey a few weeks back while pawpaws ripened and fell deliciously to the ground a friend introduced me to the tasty native nuts of Juglans nigra. Sensing the impending autumn I (like the squirrels) have began to garner a stockpile for winter.
Our new neighborhood (Squirrel Hill--yes they were here first) is a walkable residential community bordered by several large city parks and two rivers--9 Mile Run and the Monongahela. The Mon joins the Allegheny River a few miles downstream and forms the Ohio River. This joins the Mississippi about 980 miles to the west.
Though many of the region's rivers have overcome their industrial pasts the Mon is one of American Rivers most endangered rivers of 2010 and as far as contact with the waters of 9 Mile Run, I was told "they don't recommend that." (Glad I kept my mouth shut) They, apparently, have never been swimming in Dhaka.
In Jersey a few weeks back while pawpaws ripened and fell deliciously to the ground a friend introduced me to the tasty native nuts of Juglans nigra. Sensing the impending autumn I (like the squirrels) have began to garner a stockpile for winter.
Our new neighborhood (Squirrel Hill--yes they were here first) is a walkable residential community bordered by several large city parks and two rivers--9 Mile Run and the Monongahela. The Mon joins the Allegheny River a few miles downstream and forms the Ohio River. This joins the Mississippi about 980 miles to the west.
Though many of the region's rivers have overcome their industrial pasts the Mon is one of American Rivers most endangered rivers of 2010 and as far as contact with the waters of 9 Mile Run, I was told "they don't recommend that." (Glad I kept my mouth shut) They, apparently, have never been swimming in Dhaka.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Home.
Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.--Wallace Stegner
On a pile of napkins I used to write my first report back to Watson Headquarters from a mountaintop in the Italian Alps I related anecdotes about the places in Canada and Italy that had become my homes. Displaced and wandering I had found home in bus and train stations, beach bungalows and Alpine retreats, log cabins and prefabricate trailers. From that mountaintop I moved onward and called new countries and cities my homes and added new people to my family. I became one defined by my own motion. I often imagined myself moving like a molecule of water, starting high up in the clouds and racing gravity down to the sea.
The people, places, and the experiences I passed all fell somewhere within a landscape full of high and low points. These highs and lows gave momentum to the events of this year, events which in turn sculpted the landscape of my Watson watershed. Throughout the year my experiences combined and moved me forward. Some days flashed past like rapidly flowing whitewater, while others moved slowly--nearly backwards in motion. I experienced intensely clear moments of understanding and moments heavy with weighty emotions. Emotions whose real relevance might take years to truly settle out. In my last six days as an on the road Watson fellow I caught up with raindrops on the edge of the coast.
Huge raindrops smash into the corrugated aluminum roof. They explode into clouds of smaller droplets. These gather in the roof's slanted channels and begin to flow downward, running over the edge. First drip by drip, then in dozens of small waterfalls as the rainfall intensifies. The sky--deep blue minutes before--is now misty and gray with clouds that obscure the treetops. The shoreline is no longer visible and the only reminder that the Pacific lays 20 meters away is the rhythmic crashing of set after set of frothy white waves. All of the jungle's other sounds drown under the falling rain.
Not far from our beach front shelter, the rain is filling a braided streambed. While we sleep the sky clears and the milky-way blankets the beach, meanwhile the river crests. In the morning we wake and walk out into the sun and continue north along the beach. The river has settled leaving a five meter cliff where there was once a roadway.
In the 365 days I traveled around our planet as a Watson Fellow the jungles of the Osa Peninsula in southwestern Costa Rica were the most wild of any biomes I explored. There one can hardly walk more than a few minutes without hearing the loud crackle of scarlet macaw flocks, monkeys quickly become mundane, crocodiles commonplace, and only the rarest of animals--tapirs and jaguars--remain elusive.
The model for conservation in the Osa Peninsula and for much of Costa Rica's biodiversity is one of separation. Volcanoes, forests, coastlines, and waterfalls are surrounded by shaded spaces on maps. These protection zones enclose enormous swaths of land and biodiversity. They provide living laboratories for scientists to study the processes of natural selection. But the people of Costa Rica are far removed from these places. They speak about their gifts in terms of tourist value and ecotourism potential. Their lives revolve around the marketable of their landscape. And though I have rarely experienced such pristine natural landscapes I fear that they are becoming commodities. As the economic value of protected areas grow benefits to biodiversity and ecosystem services may increase. But solitude, education, and humanity degrade. The landscapes that shape who we are, that renew our souls and feed our creativity become museum pieces that only those privileged with wealth, time, and plane tickets may experience. By marginalizing humans from the landscape we lose our best teacher.
This is not a cry for us to open our forests, deserts, and wilderness to development and destruction but rather to acknowledge the debt we owe to our natural world and allow ourselves to continue learning its countless lessons. Some of these lessons are transferred easily and until recent history well followed. The types of animals and plants that can and can not be used for food, environmental cues suggestive of the coming of strange weather and new seasons, and the strength and durability of certain materials are several examples. There are more complex theories that we gleam from the nature that have transformed our understanding of the world, theories addressing evolution and biomimicery. These have allowed humans to develop medicines that stop disease and elegant building materials that simplify our lives.
But the most important lessons we must heed, and the ones we are currently forgetting, concern the natural world's impact on our cultural identities and our notions of aesthetics and necessity. Mountains, rivers, oceans, open vistas, blossoming flowers, schooling fish, ranging herds, forests, and deserts have shaped thousands of cultures on this planet for generations. Each of these cultures have molded legends and gods from the earth's raw materials. Building have grown to fit the scale and materials of a locale. The colors, medium, notes, and patterns of art and music are borrowed freely from the world. Even our historic notions of what we do and do not need have come from the type and quantity of resources within our culture's grasp. When disconnected from the natural landscapes--whether by private boundary, ecological destruction, globalization, or poor accessibly--we lose grasp of the styles and limits that have created and sustained us.
Spending this year immersed in so many cultures that were not my own I saw firsthand the influence of landscapes. Primarily the complex influence of water and waterways on a people. Rivers test our defenses and designs with unpredictable flooding and frequent movement of their channels. On a human scale rivers sculpt us as if we are slabs of stone, breaking off the worn, weaker pieces of who we are, leaving us in the same place but never the same. Rivers move these worn off pieces of us within their flow. These pieces help shape the lives of others. This dual role, as the shaper and shaped, became clear to me during this year. Constantly new faces, smells, colors, and tastes passed by, over and around me--each helping to push my life forward--perhaps even saving it.
We have been moving sluggishly down the Tonle Sap River for two blindingly sunny, scorchingly hot mornings and afternoons. The landscape, historically part of an extensive flooded forest ecosystem, had given way to dry, scrubby, slashed, and burned grassland. This stretched off to the horizon broken by the silhouettes of tall palm trees, water buffaloes, and the occasionally spindly farm house.
Our dated maps tell us that around the next bend there should be a long canal, a short cut through the flat lowlands. Slowly a huge green mass starts to show on the right bank. In our shadeless, sun-soaked world the promise of large leafy branches is only too welcome. A half an hour later huge branches, large enough to tower as trees themselves, hang over my head and yellow kayak. Next to the twisted roots the canal--long silted in--enters the muddy river. Though the canal holds too little water to offer much of a short cut the trickle of clear liquid in it looks perfect for drinking. After gathering empty bottles and my filter I began to decant the clean water.
A shirtless child watches us from the top of the bank. A small puppy stands by his feet. As the first bottle fills a man comes over the bank--we exchange greetings. I pantomime my intention to drink the clear water at my feet, asking with thumbs up if it is clean. Instantly he shakes his head, pointing to the farm fields above and successfully communicating that in this clear stream, below this scared tree, flows harmful pesticides. After this lucky encounter the muddy water of the big river taste that much sweeter.
So many moments and days like this one stand out in vivid detail in my mind. Reminders of the world I experienced. Experiences of clarity and beauty, ugliness and happiness--full of smiles, friendship, tears, and thanks. These places and people exist everywhere on this planet at once and they flash through my memory.
An elderly native couple is sitting quietly below the slow moving Arctic sun. The last of summer's fish are drying in the first cold breaths of autumn. A retired school teacher is walking his dog along a beach he knows but almost lost to his failing vision. Two homeless lovers are passing a minty bottle of mouthwash between each other to satisfy the morning's thirst. A fisherman is waking up to start another 18 hour shift on the Adriatic water ways. An immigrant housekeeper is buttoning her starched blouse. A farmer heads into his vineyard before the day's heat sends him back into the barn for a break from the sun. Tomatoes and grapes ripen on a vine. Junkies awake bruised and disoriented. An ancient man hitches an equally ancient cart to a team of burros. A city made of stone awakes to the morning's sun. A little girl is napping along the beach--free from the men who torment and pay her during the night. A young man uses surfboards to save others from that little girl's fate. A rickshaw driver is paid pennies by a sweaty man in a business suit. Lunch is being served in enormous ricey piles. House boats rock in a river's current. White thunderheads start to fill the sky. Shallow brown water begins to roll in low waves--each crest tinged bright green by algal blooms. Storm clouds are illuminated internally by the constant flash of lightning. Large raindrops resonate on tin and bamboo roofs--they fill barrels and pots with clear cool water. Innumerable stars replace fading clouds. At the mouth of the Mekong an old man uses his only arm to start an outboard motor, the engine breaks both the river's smooth surface and the afternoon's silence. As he accelerates, the wind hits his dark cheeks, and he smiles. A deaf man dreams of a deaf wife who lives in Hartford. Behind on rent payments a restaurant owner thinks of selling his family's business. Smiling raft guides lead plastic boats through silty whitewater. Cows graze on a hillside. A full bus lurches down a steep, switch-backed roadway. A young woman from the city looks off the porch of her small home in the country. A child sleeps quietly in a the slow swing of a cloth hammock.
These people, places, and memories are inseparable from who I now am. They and all those I know, will know, and will never know stand equally on this planet. We breath at the same time. I may laugh when they cry or wake when they sleep. I will always be thankful for the lessons we learned from each other and those I have learned from this world.
On a pile of napkins I used to write my first report back to Watson Headquarters from a mountaintop in the Italian Alps I related anecdotes about the places in Canada and Italy that had become my homes. Displaced and wandering I had found home in bus and train stations, beach bungalows and Alpine retreats, log cabins and prefabricate trailers. From that mountaintop I moved onward and called new countries and cities my homes and added new people to my family. I became one defined by my own motion. I often imagined myself moving like a molecule of water, starting high up in the clouds and racing gravity down to the sea.
The people, places, and the experiences I passed all fell somewhere within a landscape full of high and low points. These highs and lows gave momentum to the events of this year, events which in turn sculpted the landscape of my Watson watershed. Throughout the year my experiences combined and moved me forward. Some days flashed past like rapidly flowing whitewater, while others moved slowly--nearly backwards in motion. I experienced intensely clear moments of understanding and moments heavy with weighty emotions. Emotions whose real relevance might take years to truly settle out. In my last six days as an on the road Watson fellow I caught up with raindrops on the edge of the coast.
Huge raindrops smash into the corrugated aluminum roof. They explode into clouds of smaller droplets. These gather in the roof's slanted channels and begin to flow downward, running over the edge. First drip by drip, then in dozens of small waterfalls as the rainfall intensifies. The sky--deep blue minutes before--is now misty and gray with clouds that obscure the treetops. The shoreline is no longer visible and the only reminder that the Pacific lays 20 meters away is the rhythmic crashing of set after set of frothy white waves. All of the jungle's other sounds drown under the falling rain.
Not far from our beach front shelter, the rain is filling a braided streambed. While we sleep the sky clears and the milky-way blankets the beach, meanwhile the river crests. In the morning we wake and walk out into the sun and continue north along the beach. The river has settled leaving a five meter cliff where there was once a roadway.
In the 365 days I traveled around our planet as a Watson Fellow the jungles of the Osa Peninsula in southwestern Costa Rica were the most wild of any biomes I explored. There one can hardly walk more than a few minutes without hearing the loud crackle of scarlet macaw flocks, monkeys quickly become mundane, crocodiles commonplace, and only the rarest of animals--tapirs and jaguars--remain elusive.
The model for conservation in the Osa Peninsula and for much of Costa Rica's biodiversity is one of separation. Volcanoes, forests, coastlines, and waterfalls are surrounded by shaded spaces on maps. These protection zones enclose enormous swaths of land and biodiversity. They provide living laboratories for scientists to study the processes of natural selection. But the people of Costa Rica are far removed from these places. They speak about their gifts in terms of tourist value and ecotourism potential. Their lives revolve around the marketable of their landscape. And though I have rarely experienced such pristine natural landscapes I fear that they are becoming commodities. As the economic value of protected areas grow benefits to biodiversity and ecosystem services may increase. But solitude, education, and humanity degrade. The landscapes that shape who we are, that renew our souls and feed our creativity become museum pieces that only those privileged with wealth, time, and plane tickets may experience. By marginalizing humans from the landscape we lose our best teacher.
This is not a cry for us to open our forests, deserts, and wilderness to development and destruction but rather to acknowledge the debt we owe to our natural world and allow ourselves to continue learning its countless lessons. Some of these lessons are transferred easily and until recent history well followed. The types of animals and plants that can and can not be used for food, environmental cues suggestive of the coming of strange weather and new seasons, and the strength and durability of certain materials are several examples. There are more complex theories that we gleam from the nature that have transformed our understanding of the world, theories addressing evolution and biomimicery. These have allowed humans to develop medicines that stop disease and elegant building materials that simplify our lives.
But the most important lessons we must heed, and the ones we are currently forgetting, concern the natural world's impact on our cultural identities and our notions of aesthetics and necessity. Mountains, rivers, oceans, open vistas, blossoming flowers, schooling fish, ranging herds, forests, and deserts have shaped thousands of cultures on this planet for generations. Each of these cultures have molded legends and gods from the earth's raw materials. Building have grown to fit the scale and materials of a locale. The colors, medium, notes, and patterns of art and music are borrowed freely from the world. Even our historic notions of what we do and do not need have come from the type and quantity of resources within our culture's grasp. When disconnected from the natural landscapes--whether by private boundary, ecological destruction, globalization, or poor accessibly--we lose grasp of the styles and limits that have created and sustained us.
Spending this year immersed in so many cultures that were not my own I saw firsthand the influence of landscapes. Primarily the complex influence of water and waterways on a people. Rivers test our defenses and designs with unpredictable flooding and frequent movement of their channels. On a human scale rivers sculpt us as if we are slabs of stone, breaking off the worn, weaker pieces of who we are, leaving us in the same place but never the same. Rivers move these worn off pieces of us within their flow. These pieces help shape the lives of others. This dual role, as the shaper and shaped, became clear to me during this year. Constantly new faces, smells, colors, and tastes passed by, over and around me--each helping to push my life forward--perhaps even saving it.
We have been moving sluggishly down the Tonle Sap River for two blindingly sunny, scorchingly hot mornings and afternoons. The landscape, historically part of an extensive flooded forest ecosystem, had given way to dry, scrubby, slashed, and burned grassland. This stretched off to the horizon broken by the silhouettes of tall palm trees, water buffaloes, and the occasionally spindly farm house.
Our dated maps tell us that around the next bend there should be a long canal, a short cut through the flat lowlands. Slowly a huge green mass starts to show on the right bank. In our shadeless, sun-soaked world the promise of large leafy branches is only too welcome. A half an hour later huge branches, large enough to tower as trees themselves, hang over my head and yellow kayak. Next to the twisted roots the canal--long silted in--enters the muddy river. Though the canal holds too little water to offer much of a short cut the trickle of clear liquid in it looks perfect for drinking. After gathering empty bottles and my filter I began to decant the clean water.
A shirtless child watches us from the top of the bank. A small puppy stands by his feet. As the first bottle fills a man comes over the bank--we exchange greetings. I pantomime my intention to drink the clear water at my feet, asking with thumbs up if it is clean. Instantly he shakes his head, pointing to the farm fields above and successfully communicating that in this clear stream, below this scared tree, flows harmful pesticides. After this lucky encounter the muddy water of the big river taste that much sweeter.
So many moments and days like this one stand out in vivid detail in my mind. Reminders of the world I experienced. Experiences of clarity and beauty, ugliness and happiness--full of smiles, friendship, tears, and thanks. These places and people exist everywhere on this planet at once and they flash through my memory.
An elderly native couple is sitting quietly below the slow moving Arctic sun. The last of summer's fish are drying in the first cold breaths of autumn. A retired school teacher is walking his dog along a beach he knows but almost lost to his failing vision. Two homeless lovers are passing a minty bottle of mouthwash between each other to satisfy the morning's thirst. A fisherman is waking up to start another 18 hour shift on the Adriatic water ways. An immigrant housekeeper is buttoning her starched blouse. A farmer heads into his vineyard before the day's heat sends him back into the barn for a break from the sun. Tomatoes and grapes ripen on a vine. Junkies awake bruised and disoriented. An ancient man hitches an equally ancient cart to a team of burros. A city made of stone awakes to the morning's sun. A little girl is napping along the beach--free from the men who torment and pay her during the night. A young man uses surfboards to save others from that little girl's fate. A rickshaw driver is paid pennies by a sweaty man in a business suit. Lunch is being served in enormous ricey piles. House boats rock in a river's current. White thunderheads start to fill the sky. Shallow brown water begins to roll in low waves--each crest tinged bright green by algal blooms. Storm clouds are illuminated internally by the constant flash of lightning. Large raindrops resonate on tin and bamboo roofs--they fill barrels and pots with clear cool water. Innumerable stars replace fading clouds. At the mouth of the Mekong an old man uses his only arm to start an outboard motor, the engine breaks both the river's smooth surface and the afternoon's silence. As he accelerates, the wind hits his dark cheeks, and he smiles. A deaf man dreams of a deaf wife who lives in Hartford. Behind on rent payments a restaurant owner thinks of selling his family's business. Smiling raft guides lead plastic boats through silty whitewater. Cows graze on a hillside. A full bus lurches down a steep, switch-backed roadway. A young woman from the city looks off the porch of her small home in the country. A child sleeps quietly in a the slow swing of a cloth hammock.
These people, places, and memories are inseparable from who I now am. They and all those I know, will know, and will never know stand equally on this planet. We breath at the same time. I may laugh when they cry or wake when they sleep. I will always be thankful for the lessons we learned from each other and those I have learned from this world.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Gimme Shelter.
Under the cool rain the vegetation glows bright green against the white sky. It's falling fast enough to soak anyone or anything out in the open. Below palm fronds and banana leaves its aim is more sporatic. Patches of soil and bark remain dry in the rainshadow.
It is the perfect day to watch--with warm coffee in hand and leaky roof overhead--the hummingbirds visit sheltered blossums, squirrels gorge on ripening bananas, and leaf cutter ants march under their tiny green umbellas.
It is the perfect day to watch--with warm coffee in hand and leaky roof overhead--the hummingbirds visit sheltered blossums, squirrels gorge on ripening bananas, and leaf cutter ants march under their tiny green umbellas.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Rinse and Repeat.
Wake up.
Gallo Pinto con huevos.
Caffee.
Walk (avoid snakes!) or ride in tractor two kilometers.
Put on helmet/life jacket/etc.
Kayak, 2 hours.
See monkeys.
Eat pineapple.
Rain heavily.
Back to put in.
Kayak, 2 hours.
Rice and beans.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Gallo Pinto con huevos.
Caffee.
Walk (avoid snakes!) or ride in tractor two kilometers.
Put on helmet/life jacket/etc.
Kayak, 2 hours.
See monkeys.
Eat pineapple.
Rain heavily.
Back to put in.
Kayak, 2 hours.
Rice and beans.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
South to the Mouth.
The van pulls into a gravel driveway off a small side street. I grab my bag and an old women directs me down a narrow alley on the left side of the house. Behind the house is the Mekong. A narrow plank connects the shore to the small boat that will take me six hours down river to northern Vietnam. Nearby several young men unload bricks from a large barge. Our boat's engine starts and we ease into the current, heading south.
After several hours floating past dry farmland and buffalo pasture we arrive at the Cambodian border. The police checkpoint is in the colorful courtyard of an old country home. A guard stamps my passport while a budda watches us from the opposite wall. In a few minutes the process is repeated at Vietnamese customs, though here the atmosphere is different, a giftshop clerk watches over the transaction.
At the border we change boats and soon turn off into a side canal bound for the delta's northern city of Chau Doc. The water is overhung with branches--shading hundreds of free ranging ducks and providing diving boards for local children.
South of Chau Doc towards the coast lie hundreds of kilometers of busy waterfronts and markets, rice fields and shrimp farms.
Like Cambodia, southern Vietnam is waiting for the overdue rains of summer. Each hot afternoon the sky looks ready to burst. But aside from heavy winds, distant lightning, and rainbows the dry season continues.
The aquaculture industry appears to have brought economic stability to the delta's communities. It's small cities are busy with store fronts and motorbikes. In the countryside newly renovated levees stand guard over fields and homes whose natural protection--mangrove forests--have been cleared away in exchange for rectangular ponds. Ponds filled with shrimp larvae and fish fry, aerated by plastic paddle wheels that churn idly in the sunshine.
Along a secondary road a small path branches off to the east. For nearly ten kilometers it runs past small homesteads and football fields; through dry rice paddies and bamboo thickets. The path parallels a small brown canal, bridging countless tributaries. In some places small patches of mangrove forest remain. In one of these an old man digs snakes from the sticky gray mud. The path and canal end together at the Brassic River--one of the "nine dragons" of the Mekong Delta. Here blue/green tidal waters mix with the dark brown run off from the delta and slip slowly into the sea.
For nearly 4,400 kilometers people fish and float on the river. Boat props, paddle blades, and bare feet churn its muddy bottoms. Fish, otters, and springtails live and die under and on its shores. Here at the mouth of the Mekong an old man uses his only arm to start an outboard motor, breaking both the river's smooth surface and the afternoon's silence. As he accelerates, the wind hits his dark cheeks, and he smiles.
After several hours floating past dry farmland and buffalo pasture we arrive at the Cambodian border. The police checkpoint is in the colorful courtyard of an old country home. A guard stamps my passport while a budda watches us from the opposite wall. In a few minutes the process is repeated at Vietnamese customs, though here the atmosphere is different, a giftshop clerk watches over the transaction.
At the border we change boats and soon turn off into a side canal bound for the delta's northern city of Chau Doc. The water is overhung with branches--shading hundreds of free ranging ducks and providing diving boards for local children.
South of Chau Doc towards the coast lie hundreds of kilometers of busy waterfronts and markets, rice fields and shrimp farms.
Like Cambodia, southern Vietnam is waiting for the overdue rains of summer. Each hot afternoon the sky looks ready to burst. But aside from heavy winds, distant lightning, and rainbows the dry season continues.
The aquaculture industry appears to have brought economic stability to the delta's communities. It's small cities are busy with store fronts and motorbikes. In the countryside newly renovated levees stand guard over fields and homes whose natural protection--mangrove forests--have been cleared away in exchange for rectangular ponds. Ponds filled with shrimp larvae and fish fry, aerated by plastic paddle wheels that churn idly in the sunshine.
Along a secondary road a small path branches off to the east. For nearly ten kilometers it runs past small homesteads and football fields; through dry rice paddies and bamboo thickets. The path parallels a small brown canal, bridging countless tributaries. In some places small patches of mangrove forest remain. In one of these an old man digs snakes from the sticky gray mud. The path and canal end together at the Brassic River--one of the "nine dragons" of the Mekong Delta. Here blue/green tidal waters mix with the dark brown run off from the delta and slip slowly into the sea.
For nearly 4,400 kilometers people fish and float on the river. Boat props, paddle blades, and bare feet churn its muddy bottoms. Fish, otters, and springtails live and die under and on its shores. Here at the mouth of the Mekong an old man uses his only arm to start an outboard motor, breaking both the river's smooth surface and the afternoon's silence. As he accelerates, the wind hits his dark cheeks, and he smiles.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Clouds over the Tonle Sap.
Around three in the afternoon billowing white thunderheads begin to fill the sky. Soon they loom over the entire lake. Later in the afternoon the clouds are tinged orange and red by the setting sun. As the thunderheads push higher into the atmosphere the winds increase, pulling warm air and moisture from the lake into the towering clouds. The shallow brown water begins to roll in low waves--each crest tinged bright green by algal blooms.
After sunset the storm clouds are illuminated internally by the constant flash of lightning. Hours later the rains arrive. The large drops resonate on tin and bamboo roofs--they fill barrels and pots with clear, cool water. Shortly after starting the rains stop, silence settles over the lake, and the clouds are replaced by innumerable stars.
During these hot, dry months of spring the rains are a welcomed rarity. Momentary relief from the baking sun and heat. Once the rainy season arrives these storms come with such intense regularity that after a few months the lake will rise nearly eight meters. As the water rises whole villages will go up with it, buoyed by hundreds of long bamboo floats. The lake will spill into its floodplain, covering hundreds of kilometers of pasture, rice paddy, and forest--quenching the parched earth.
After sunset the storm clouds are illuminated internally by the constant flash of lightning. Hours later the rains arrive. The large drops resonate on tin and bamboo roofs--they fill barrels and pots with clear, cool water. Shortly after starting the rains stop, silence settles over the lake, and the clouds are replaced by innumerable stars.
During these hot, dry months of spring the rains are a welcomed rarity. Momentary relief from the baking sun and heat. Once the rainy season arrives these storms come with such intense regularity that after a few months the lake will rise nearly eight meters. As the water rises whole villages will go up with it, buoyed by hundreds of long bamboo floats. The lake will spill into its floodplain, covering hundreds of kilometers of pasture, rice paddy, and forest--quenching the parched earth.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sweet Water.
We have been moving sluggishly down the Tonle Sap River for two blindingly sunny, scorchingly hot mornings and afternoons. The landscape, historically part of an extensive flooded forest ecosystem, had given way to dry, scrubby, shashed, and burned grassland. This stretched off to the horizon broken by the silhouettes of tall palm trees, water buffalos, and the occasionally spindly farm house.
The flood-plain, though no longer the maze of tangled branches that provided breeding and feeding habitat to fish in one of the world's most productive fresh water fisheries, still supports innumerable trey riel. These small fish are so important to Cambodians that their name is shared with the national currency.
Our dated maps tell us that around the next bend there should be a long canal, a short cut through the flat lowlands. Slowly a huge green mass starts to show on the right bank. In our shadeless, sun-soaked world the promise of large leafy branches is only too welcome. A half an hour later huge branches, large enough to tower as trees themselves, hang over my head and yellow kayak. Next to the twisted roots the canal--long silted in--enters the muddy river. Though the canal holds too little water to offer much of a short cut the trickle of clear liquid in it looks perfect for drinking. After gathering empty bottles and my filter I began to decant the clean water.
A shirtless child watches us from the top of the bank. A small puppy stands by his feet. As the first bottle fills a man comes over the bank--we exchange greetings. I pantomime my intention to drink the clear water at my feet, asking with thumbs up if it is clean. Instantly he shakes his head, pointing to the farm fields above and successfully communicating that in this clear stream, below this scared tree, flows harmful pesticides. After this lucky encounter the muddy water of the big river taste that much sweeter.
The flood-plain, though no longer the maze of tangled branches that provided breeding and feeding habitat to fish in one of the world's most productive fresh water fisheries, still supports innumerable trey riel. These small fish are so important to Cambodians that their name is shared with the national currency.
Our dated maps tell us that around the next bend there should be a long canal, a short cut through the flat lowlands. Slowly a huge green mass starts to show on the right bank. In our shadeless, sun-soaked world the promise of large leafy branches is only too welcome. A half an hour later huge branches, large enough to tower as trees themselves, hang over my head and yellow kayak. Next to the twisted roots the canal--long silted in--enters the muddy river. Though the canal holds too little water to offer much of a short cut the trickle of clear liquid in it looks perfect for drinking. After gathering empty bottles and my filter I began to decant the clean water.
A shirtless child watches us from the top of the bank. A small puppy stands by his feet. As the first bottle fills a man comes over the bank--we exchange greetings. I pantomime my intention to drink the clear water at my feet, asking with thumbs up if it is clean. Instantly he shakes his head, pointing to the farm fields above and successfully communicating that in this clear stream, below this scared tree, flows harmful pesticides. After this lucky encounter the muddy water of the big river taste that much sweeter.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
File cabinet.
Even when all of your belonging fit into one large blue backpack and a camera bag it is still possible to discover long forgotten possessions. Several dozen Italian train tickets for example. How these lurked around for so long escapes me, but they did provide a really fun mental journey back across Italy.
Early mornings, sunsets, and moonlit nights are fabulous here in Phnom Penh. The temperature becomes more bearable, a breeze comes in off the river, and the general mayhem of this rapidly growing city settles down.
Speaking of mayhem it was two weeks ago that I spent 18 hours trapped in a hot bus trying to get back into Dhaka for a few days of quick goodbyes, roof tops, and a two AM flight here.
Which brings me back to Italy. Late night drivers are not always the most honest in Dhaka and when I realized that mine had decided to use my desire to catch my flight as a perfect cover for extortion I began verbalizing only in Italian. No matter how many times he asked for his big tip (baksheesh or bribe) I feigned ignorance. Out of confused frustration he delivered me to the airport.
Enjoy spring rivers!
Brett
Early mornings, sunsets, and moonlit nights are fabulous here in Phnom Penh. The temperature becomes more bearable, a breeze comes in off the river, and the general mayhem of this rapidly growing city settles down.
Speaking of mayhem it was two weeks ago that I spent 18 hours trapped in a hot bus trying to get back into Dhaka for a few days of quick goodbyes, roof tops, and a two AM flight here.
Which brings me back to Italy. Late night drivers are not always the most honest in Dhaka and when I realized that mine had decided to use my desire to catch my flight as a perfect cover for extortion I began verbalizing only in Italian. No matter how many times he asked for his big tip (baksheesh or bribe) I feigned ignorance. Out of confused frustration he delivered me to the airport.
Enjoy spring rivers!
Brett
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
World Water Day 2010.
I left Bangladesh two days ago. I left the smell of open sewers, burning trash, beeping car horns, the circus elephants, black water, the taste of turmeric and fish, the questions, the cows, the crowds, the smiles, the traffic, the colors of local fabrics, the jokes of rickshaw drivers, the marriage proposals, the instant friendship of those stuck for 18 hours on a hot bus, the ripening mangoes, and the people working and hoping for a healthy more secure future.
Below are some reflections on water in a place where both its abundance and scarcity are a curse.
Crack.
For nine months after the storm waters receded the embankment held. The mud and tin homes that were swept away by three meters of brackish, muddy water were rebuilt. The road surface dried and cracked in the glaring sunshine. The saline waters left by the floods--though undrinkable--were used to produce exportable goods like crab and shrimp. For the people of Burigoalini Union life slowly became livable again.
One day a local man noticed a small crack in the embankment's dusty surface. His home was rebuilt with foreign aid after Cyclone Alia swept away his village last May. He knew that if the embankment failed he would have to start over again and this time with the next cyclone season quickly approaching.
So he pleaded for help-- for a work crew, for food, for water, for atmospheric carbon reductions, for anything to stop the flood he feared would come. While he frantically looked for help the crack widened and the tide rose. In two days nearly half the embankment had disappeared. Hundreds of men and women endlessly dumped baskets full of sticky gray mud onto the eroding wall. Paid 115 taka (1.70 USD) per day of foreign aid money these laborers tried to reinforce the embankment.
The man who first noticed the crack watched these workers with his hands on his son's shoulders. He hopes their efforts will stabilize the seawall. He fears the next storm.
Not far from the breaching embankment in Burigoalini is Gabura Union. This village has also been rebuilt since Cyclone Alia. But since its embankment failed during the storm all reconstruction has taken place on a narrow strip of dry mud--the remains of the village's failed seawall. The dark dusty interiors of the small bamboo and tarpaulin huts that cover the roadway contrast with the bright colors of drying lungis and saris on the roof tops. The survivors of this drowned village have moved to the only piece of dry land left.
The bricks of once paved side streets disappear below the water. Scattered palm trees and broken walls stand as reminders that the sea has only recently returned to this place. In a half flooded chai stand an old man with a leashed baby monkey watches two boys catch small minnows and shrimp with scraps of plastic and fishing net. Their catch joins a pile drying on a nearby rooftop. Flies swarm everywhere.
Though always a difficult place to find water free of salt, arsenic, human, or animal contamination this part of Bangladesh's southwestern coast is now completely starved of fresh water. In villages accessible by roadways water arrives by truck twice a day. It is pumped from untreated surface ponds further inland. Upon arrival the water is transferred into 5000 liter tanks. Liter by liter it is rationed out to waiting women. From up to one and half kilometers away these women come with rounded aluminum containers pressed to their hips. In the folds of their saris they carry small sheets of paper. Without these receipts they will not be given their family's daily ration of three liters per person.
In one village with an estimated population of 20,000, hundreds of women and children wait in line for a water delivery from 40 km inland. To meet the needs of this community 60,000 liters need to be delivered daily. Most days they receive 20,000, some days half that number. But since they never know when the delivery will arrive women and containers line up for hours in the sweltering midday heat. While they wait young girls play with each other's hair while the women talk in large colorful groups. When the tanks run dry as an old women starts to fill her container she cries out. Others reassure and convince her to wait in the shade for water that may never come.
Nine months ago the country focused its attention on these places. The broken embankments and drowned villages dominated the news. They were labeled "Alia affected" areas. They were rebuilt and stimulated with economic development. Yet today embankments damaged last year and never repaired frequently fail in calm weather.
Each flood tide deposits another thin layer of silt on the remains of brick roads and houses. Mangrove shoots break the smooth outline of the muddy bank as tiny amphibious fish skip along the shore. The water has reclaimed one village and made life nearly unlivable in dozens of others. Will those villages that survived last year’s storm season make it through this one?
Below are some reflections on water in a place where both its abundance and scarcity are a curse.
Crack.
For nine months after the storm waters receded the embankment held. The mud and tin homes that were swept away by three meters of brackish, muddy water were rebuilt. The road surface dried and cracked in the glaring sunshine. The saline waters left by the floods--though undrinkable--were used to produce exportable goods like crab and shrimp. For the people of Burigoalini Union life slowly became livable again.
One day a local man noticed a small crack in the embankment's dusty surface. His home was rebuilt with foreign aid after Cyclone Alia swept away his village last May. He knew that if the embankment failed he would have to start over again and this time with the next cyclone season quickly approaching.
So he pleaded for help-- for a work crew, for food, for water, for atmospheric carbon reductions, for anything to stop the flood he feared would come. While he frantically looked for help the crack widened and the tide rose. In two days nearly half the embankment had disappeared. Hundreds of men and women endlessly dumped baskets full of sticky gray mud onto the eroding wall. Paid 115 taka (1.70 USD) per day of foreign aid money these laborers tried to reinforce the embankment.
The man who first noticed the crack watched these workers with his hands on his son's shoulders. He hopes their efforts will stabilize the seawall. He fears the next storm.
Not far from the breaching embankment in Burigoalini is Gabura Union. This village has also been rebuilt since Cyclone Alia. But since its embankment failed during the storm all reconstruction has taken place on a narrow strip of dry mud--the remains of the village's failed seawall. The dark dusty interiors of the small bamboo and tarpaulin huts that cover the roadway contrast with the bright colors of drying lungis and saris on the roof tops. The survivors of this drowned village have moved to the only piece of dry land left.
The bricks of once paved side streets disappear below the water. Scattered palm trees and broken walls stand as reminders that the sea has only recently returned to this place. In a half flooded chai stand an old man with a leashed baby monkey watches two boys catch small minnows and shrimp with scraps of plastic and fishing net. Their catch joins a pile drying on a nearby rooftop. Flies swarm everywhere.
Though always a difficult place to find water free of salt, arsenic, human, or animal contamination this part of Bangladesh's southwestern coast is now completely starved of fresh water. In villages accessible by roadways water arrives by truck twice a day. It is pumped from untreated surface ponds further inland. Upon arrival the water is transferred into 5000 liter tanks. Liter by liter it is rationed out to waiting women. From up to one and half kilometers away these women come with rounded aluminum containers pressed to their hips. In the folds of their saris they carry small sheets of paper. Without these receipts they will not be given their family's daily ration of three liters per person.
In one village with an estimated population of 20,000, hundreds of women and children wait in line for a water delivery from 40 km inland. To meet the needs of this community 60,000 liters need to be delivered daily. Most days they receive 20,000, some days half that number. But since they never know when the delivery will arrive women and containers line up for hours in the sweltering midday heat. While they wait young girls play with each other's hair while the women talk in large colorful groups. When the tanks run dry as an old women starts to fill her container she cries out. Others reassure and convince her to wait in the shade for water that may never come.
Nine months ago the country focused its attention on these places. The broken embankments and drowned villages dominated the news. They were labeled "Alia affected" areas. They were rebuilt and stimulated with economic development. Yet today embankments damaged last year and never repaired frequently fail in calm weather.
Each flood tide deposits another thin layer of silt on the remains of brick roads and houses. Mangrove shoots break the smooth outline of the muddy bank as tiny amphibious fish skip along the shore. The water has reclaimed one village and made life nearly unlivable in dozens of others. Will those villages that survived last year’s storm season make it through this one?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Saint Martin's-Part 1
The whole house is sagging. Under the weight of drying fruits, vegetable vines, oars, and bits of trash the palm frond shingles and woven bamboo walls are slowly being pushed back into the sandy soil. The sun is setting into the thick haze hanging over the Bay of Bengal. In the fading evening light I am entertaining a half dozen small children with my camera and answers to their memorized questions of “howareyouiamfine?” and “your country?”
Inside the low doorway of the house two men are talking loudly with an old woman. I understand a handful of the Bangla words I hear and guess that some sort of negotiation is taking place. The yard is full of small papaya and banana trees covered in green fruit.
Abruptly the discussion stops and the two men emerge smiling. They turn to the children who quickly stick their hands out. Into their open palms the men put a fistful of crumbled red notes. The kids demand more and the men add another ten taka—roughly 17 US cents. With cash now in hand a dozen small fists start digging into the sand. The stench of decaying marine life fills the air. From the ground come dozens of beautiful shells. Many are still squirming with maggots. Each shell is inspected before being stuffed into a nylon sack. Several purple sea urchins are retrieved from where they were drying in the top of a papaya tree.
Another few weeks drying in the sunshine on Saint Martin’s Island will make these former mollusks and echinoderms from the island’s coral reef ready for shipment to seaside resorts back on mainland Bangladesh. The shells will be hawked by small children to smiling middle class and foreign tourist on a dirty beach bordered by dozens of newly built high rise hotels.
Inside the low doorway of the house two men are talking loudly with an old woman. I understand a handful of the Bangla words I hear and guess that some sort of negotiation is taking place. The yard is full of small papaya and banana trees covered in green fruit.
Abruptly the discussion stops and the two men emerge smiling. They turn to the children who quickly stick their hands out. Into their open palms the men put a fistful of crumbled red notes. The kids demand more and the men add another ten taka—roughly 17 US cents. With cash now in hand a dozen small fists start digging into the sand. The stench of decaying marine life fills the air. From the ground come dozens of beautiful shells. Many are still squirming with maggots. Each shell is inspected before being stuffed into a nylon sack. Several purple sea urchins are retrieved from where they were drying in the top of a papaya tree.
Another few weeks drying in the sunshine on Saint Martin’s Island will make these former mollusks and echinoderms from the island’s coral reef ready for shipment to seaside resorts back on mainland Bangladesh. The shells will be hawked by small children to smiling middle class and foreign tourist on a dirty beach bordered by dozens of newly built high rise hotels.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Dusty Collar.
It is hot. Between the dust and bright sun the color is washed out of the day. We have just arrived at the end of the road. Before us crumbling brick and clay continues southward, but we stop. There is no reason to try and go further--the decaying road has no destination. At least not any more. Nine months ago this was a place of mud and tin homes, small villages, fishermen, lumberyards, and fish farms. These are gone--erased by the eight foot high flood waters of last year's cyclone season.
Minutes after arriving we are surrounded by locals who offer us lunch. They then comment on how dirty I am from the long ride and offer us a place to wash. My attempts at the local shower--clad in a skirt-like lungi--quickly draw laughter from on lookers. Clean, we search for a way by boat into the Sundarban wilderness. The Sundarbans are the world's largest mangrove jungle. The lush green islands are home to fishermen, tigers, woodcutters, and pirates. The forest's many canals are wild enough to have hidden a population of 6,000 Irrawaddy river dolphins--unknown to the World Wildlife Fund until last year.
Cartcutter, the village we hire a boat from, has experienced problems with salt water damage to aquaculture and groundwater since last year's cyclone. It's roads and homes still show signs of damage.
Patorekali has none of these problems. It no longer exists. A row of hasty assembled tin and tarp houses line the remains of the main street. Pieces of a mosque and the village's school hang over the muddy river banks.
No one living today had ever seen a storm like last year's. Even the man I am staying with who had survived a tiger attack--by killing it with his bare hands--had never faced anything like last year's cyclone. Here in the low-lying delta of the Meghna River the rising waters of the Bay of Bengal are facing off with with the southern end of Bangladesh. One storm at a time Bangladesh is losing ground.
Now it is the dry season and though the damage is still fresh life goes on. Hundreds of workers rebuild roads and embankments--50 meters further back from the water. Fisherman check their nets. Bicycles haul wagon loads of lumber north towards the highway. Newly painted boats dry in the hot sun.
My host treats us to shrimp, fish, and crabs from what remain of his aquaculture ponds. These luxury foods are usually reserved for export to foreign markets in the USA and Europe. He arranges tours on the edge of the Sundarbans, a visit to a forestry outpost, and photo opportunities with monkeys. As his guest I am show around the village--introduced to hundreds of curious men and children. They laugh and smile when I try to speak to them in the pieces I know of their language.
Humanity, curiosity, hospitality, hardship, endurance--this is Bangladesh.
Too soon after arriving we begin the long, hot, dusty trip back to the highway.
Minutes after arriving we are surrounded by locals who offer us lunch. They then comment on how dirty I am from the long ride and offer us a place to wash. My attempts at the local shower--clad in a skirt-like lungi--quickly draw laughter from on lookers. Clean, we search for a way by boat into the Sundarban wilderness. The Sundarbans are the world's largest mangrove jungle. The lush green islands are home to fishermen, tigers, woodcutters, and pirates. The forest's many canals are wild enough to have hidden a population of 6,000 Irrawaddy river dolphins--unknown to the World Wildlife Fund until last year.
Cartcutter, the village we hire a boat from, has experienced problems with salt water damage to aquaculture and groundwater since last year's cyclone. It's roads and homes still show signs of damage.
Patorekali has none of these problems. It no longer exists. A row of hasty assembled tin and tarp houses line the remains of the main street. Pieces of a mosque and the village's school hang over the muddy river banks.
No one living today had ever seen a storm like last year's. Even the man I am staying with who had survived a tiger attack--by killing it with his bare hands--had never faced anything like last year's cyclone. Here in the low-lying delta of the Meghna River the rising waters of the Bay of Bengal are facing off with with the southern end of Bangladesh. One storm at a time Bangladesh is losing ground.
Now it is the dry season and though the damage is still fresh life goes on. Hundreds of workers rebuild roads and embankments--50 meters further back from the water. Fisherman check their nets. Bicycles haul wagon loads of lumber north towards the highway. Newly painted boats dry in the hot sun.
My host treats us to shrimp, fish, and crabs from what remain of his aquaculture ponds. These luxury foods are usually reserved for export to foreign markets in the USA and Europe. He arranges tours on the edge of the Sundarbans, a visit to a forestry outpost, and photo opportunities with monkeys. As his guest I am show around the village--introduced to hundreds of curious men and children. They laugh and smile when I try to speak to them in the pieces I know of their language.
Humanity, curiosity, hospitality, hardship, endurance--this is Bangladesh.
Too soon after arriving we begin the long, hot, dusty trip back to the highway.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...fill 'er up!
It is early afternoon. We look absently from the back windows as the driver swerves around several small three wheeled rickshaws and CNG's (containerized natural gas vehicles). The driver maneuvers us down the commercial streets punctuating each shift in direction, or perhaps internal thought, with a loud beep of the car horn. Soon we pass beneath the shadow of a sprawling multistory blue box. The man with me says it is to be south Asia's newest super mall. And if all the right bribes are paid--permitting the partially illegal structure--it will open in 2013. A monolith to consumption, a totem for the economic future of Dhaka.
Quite suddenly the road turns to dirt and we realize we have passed our turn off. Things are changing in this part of the city so rapidly that directions are somewhat dynamic--with new landmarks being constructed almost daily. We pull ahead a bit further until we find a place to turn around. We arrive at an intersection. The narrow streets of a slum stretch off to the left. Newly built high rises supported by bamboo scaffolding loom over us on the right. An old cow and a handful of brown ducks scratch around in the dusty roadbed ahead of us. We turn around. Some children play on swings made of twine and brown paper bags. We drive past them and turn off down the next lane.
The road is lined with high rises in various stages of construction. Dwarfed by these condos are trees in various stages of death and decomposition. Their lower bark has fallen away. They look like skeletons of trees. At the end of the road is a low building with a tin roof and some words spray painted on the outside wall. Inside are 30 smiling children.
A group of second graders show me how well they can count in English--they are well on their way to 100 when their teacher stops them, whispering to me that they will continue onto 1000 if she doesn't stop them now. I admit to them that I can only count to 12 in Bangla. This starts a dozen voices yelling out numbers. With almost no time to repeat what they are saying I quickly mispronounce 34, 35, 36...soon we are all reduced to uncontrolled laughter.
It is now late in the day and the students must go home. They live in slums all over the city, some live on the streets. The school, funded through donations, is where they go for lessons in English and science, a square meal, and a clean place to bath. It is a place that hopes to help the students out of the slums.
The drive back across the city is uneventful. We pass the remains of rivers and ponds--now filled to the top with rubble and soil--the newest high rise building pads. Unfortunately the school also sits on prime real estate--and it will not be long before the landlord forces the teachers and students away. But the new super mall needs nearby customers. Not to mention that broken walls make great fill.
Quite suddenly the road turns to dirt and we realize we have passed our turn off. Things are changing in this part of the city so rapidly that directions are somewhat dynamic--with new landmarks being constructed almost daily. We pull ahead a bit further until we find a place to turn around. We arrive at an intersection. The narrow streets of a slum stretch off to the left. Newly built high rises supported by bamboo scaffolding loom over us on the right. An old cow and a handful of brown ducks scratch around in the dusty roadbed ahead of us. We turn around. Some children play on swings made of twine and brown paper bags. We drive past them and turn off down the next lane.
The road is lined with high rises in various stages of construction. Dwarfed by these condos are trees in various stages of death and decomposition. Their lower bark has fallen away. They look like skeletons of trees. At the end of the road is a low building with a tin roof and some words spray painted on the outside wall. Inside are 30 smiling children.
A group of second graders show me how well they can count in English--they are well on their way to 100 when their teacher stops them, whispering to me that they will continue onto 1000 if she doesn't stop them now. I admit to them that I can only count to 12 in Bangla. This starts a dozen voices yelling out numbers. With almost no time to repeat what they are saying I quickly mispronounce 34, 35, 36...soon we are all reduced to uncontrolled laughter.
It is now late in the day and the students must go home. They live in slums all over the city, some live on the streets. The school, funded through donations, is where they go for lessons in English and science, a square meal, and a clean place to bath. It is a place that hopes to help the students out of the slums.
The drive back across the city is uneventful. We pass the remains of rivers and ponds--now filled to the top with rubble and soil--the newest high rise building pads. Unfortunately the school also sits on prime real estate--and it will not be long before the landlord forces the teachers and students away. But the new super mall needs nearby customers. Not to mention that broken walls make great fill.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Dhaka.
Red light, go, honk horn.
Green light, go, honk horn.
Rickshaw, go, honk horn.
Off loading bus, go, honk horn.
Traffic officer, go, honk horn.
Old person, go, honk horn twice.
Kid selling popcorn, honk horn, stop. But only because you have too. These entrepreneurs seem to pop up whenever a traffic jam is imminent.
Green light, go, honk horn.
Rickshaw, go, honk horn.
Off loading bus, go, honk horn.
Traffic officer, go, honk horn.
Old person, go, honk horn twice.
Kid selling popcorn, honk horn, stop. But only because you have too. These entrepreneurs seem to pop up whenever a traffic jam is imminent.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Italy in Review.
The early morning sun rises over the low mountains of the Supramonte region of Sardinia. Its warmth and light wake a sleeping dog, who is curled in front of an old stone farm house. The dog yawns and stretches before heading into the Mediterranean shrub forest in search of goats and cows to harass or lone hikers in need of company. The snow in the mountains is melting and where the underground rivers break to the surface, through eroding limestone, the water is running high.
On the mainland—in Roma—gypsies, street musicians and beggars move out of the alleys and into the main streets hoping some holiday cheer will be shared with them by passing tourists, nuns, students, and Romans.
In the ancient city of Matera an old woman, barely tall enough to lean on the short stone wall in front of her, looks out over the stone city and deep canyon where her ancestors lived and worked ceaselessly for the church and nobles who once ruled her city.
In Genova the junkies and prostitutes are awaking to another damp day in the streets after a long night of false pleasure and false passion.
High above Lago Maggiore in the southern Italian Alps, hikers are tightening their thick boots and preparing themselves for another day above treeline.
It is exam season and students all across the country are studying—hoping for high marks.
In the south migrant laborers, fresh from the shores of northern Africa are busy picking oranges and clementines. Slowly wearing down under the low wages and abuse of their mafia supervisors.
In countless small towns sheets of freshmade pasta and warm loaves of bread are laid out in store fronts below massive wheels of cheese and dried meats.
In Venice public workers assemble elevated boardwalks over the streets so tourists can photograph Saint Marcs square with dry feet. Gondolas rock gently in the rising tide waters and boats deliver goods to the hotels and restaurants of the city. In back alleys white egrets stalk small fish. Not far away huge cranes lower rubble and concrete into place as construction continues on the colossal flood protection project, MOSES, that many hope will stop the rising Adriatic.
An old farmer in the Po valley checks on his cows and the day's milk prices to see if either will help pay the month's mortgage. On the edge of his property a small stream runs dark brown with runoff from the nights heavy rain and snow melt. Downstream the river roars dark and earthy into the Po delta. Mixed with the dark mud of agricultural run off are countless pieces of litter and waste—destined for the beaches of the northern Adriatic.
A train worker in Milano blows her whistle as travelers push past one an other for a seat on their train ride home to see their families for the last festival of the season.
In Chioggia street vendors open their stands. They arrange their vegetables and countless species of fresh seafood. Large fishing boats arrive home from long nights working along the Adriatic coast. Store owners enter their banks, caffees, bars, supermarkets, shoe stores, and workshops. They hope the continuous flooding from the week before has not ruined their business—that their pumps kept pace with each night's rising waters.
In a piazza in the small town of Galaezza local men are building a gigantic effigy of the old year—la befana—an old woman, whose five meters will be burned in a joyful, though to me somewhat morbid, ceremony that night. She is a symbol of the old year and her sacrifice represents a new start. Across the street in a cold room with fading frescoes I awake and start a pot of coffee. It is so cold that I imagine the snow falling outside the window is in the room with me. I open an email and learn that one of my greatest friends and mentor has died.
George once told me that “life can be bore, a mess even, but it is a great adventure, ever ceaseless change, and constant challenge! And it can be fun.”
George's death, and more importantly his life, inspired in me the desire to understand change. How our environment and cultures change. The last four months in Italy have provided me with countless lessons in how the world can and does change.
For much of time I lived in Italy my home was in a city hostel on the island of Chioggia. Chioggia is city obsessed with fish. Everything about the city is related to the island's fishing past and present. The streets are lined with shops selling fishing boots, nets, and nautical gear. Its bars and caffees face the water ready for the pescatore(fisherman) in need of a hot or strong drink. The canals are lined with boats. Small ones that work the lagoon's shellfish aquaculture farms and big ones that pillage the waters of Croatia for species long depleted from Italian sea. Behind dusty widows are boat mechanics and net makers. The main canal is bordered with dry docks and fish processing plants and also the daily fish market, where on many occasions I counted nearly 30 species of fresh seafood, much of it still trying to wiggle itself towards the canal and a new chance at freedom.
Chioggia was a place were I developed a rhythm. I awoke to follow the tides, to see how the city lived with frequent flooding, the endless boat traffic, and scent of the lagoon. I lived with university students, who provided me an environment where all I heard for weeks on end was Italian—a language I now use in conversation and hear in my dreams. Two of the hardest things for me to deal with in Chioggia, and the reasons I finally left to explore other parts of Italy, were racism, and the disconnect with the fishery resources they all depended on for work. I saw immigrants denied access to food, spit on, and chased off the streets. After high water, when the streets were smeared with filth from the canals, I watched shop owners and fishermen use brooms and bleach to clean the pavement—sweeping a chemical slurry into the lagoon, only to head to the beach at low tide to collect mussels for dinner. I worry that for Chioggia change will come quickly when the already abused fisheries of the lagoon and Adriatic sea crash and the 1000 year history of fishing, the dialect, and the culture of the city are reduced to graying photos on postcards.
As much as I love the sea and water I was often drawn to the mountains—especially when I needed a little snow and solitude. And it was thus that one weekend I found myself coming down a long snowy trail above Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, wearing mountaineer boots that were a half size to small. In need of a break my friend and I decided to explore a deep cave, famous for its permanently frozen depths. Depths hiding a glacier—a glacier with ice dating backing nearly 2000 years. After climbing 15 meters down into the cave my boots meet a muddy bottom, at the base of some dirty snow. The last ten years of warmth in the Alps had erased the icy record of the previous 2000 years.
A few weeks ago I traveled to Sardinia. I backpacked through a region known to the Romans as Barbaria—a place with people so fierce and independent that the Roman military left them alone. The region is dotted with the crumbling ruins of castles dating back to the birth of Christ. Each night I stayed in small huts made of stone and juniper. For nearly 4,000 years structures identical to these were used by local shepherds to look over their herds and hunt for wild boar. Less than 50 years ago the last old man left his hut for the city and now a national park protects the artifacts of their ancient lifestyle. A lifestyle replaced by roads, trucks, and factories.
In 36 hours I fly to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ceaseless change.
Brett
On the mainland—in Roma—gypsies, street musicians and beggars move out of the alleys and into the main streets hoping some holiday cheer will be shared with them by passing tourists, nuns, students, and Romans.
In the ancient city of Matera an old woman, barely tall enough to lean on the short stone wall in front of her, looks out over the stone city and deep canyon where her ancestors lived and worked ceaselessly for the church and nobles who once ruled her city.
In Genova the junkies and prostitutes are awaking to another damp day in the streets after a long night of false pleasure and false passion.
High above Lago Maggiore in the southern Italian Alps, hikers are tightening their thick boots and preparing themselves for another day above treeline.
It is exam season and students all across the country are studying—hoping for high marks.
In the south migrant laborers, fresh from the shores of northern Africa are busy picking oranges and clementines. Slowly wearing down under the low wages and abuse of their mafia supervisors.
In countless small towns sheets of freshmade pasta and warm loaves of bread are laid out in store fronts below massive wheels of cheese and dried meats.
In Venice public workers assemble elevated boardwalks over the streets so tourists can photograph Saint Marcs square with dry feet. Gondolas rock gently in the rising tide waters and boats deliver goods to the hotels and restaurants of the city. In back alleys white egrets stalk small fish. Not far away huge cranes lower rubble and concrete into place as construction continues on the colossal flood protection project, MOSES, that many hope will stop the rising Adriatic.
An old farmer in the Po valley checks on his cows and the day's milk prices to see if either will help pay the month's mortgage. On the edge of his property a small stream runs dark brown with runoff from the nights heavy rain and snow melt. Downstream the river roars dark and earthy into the Po delta. Mixed with the dark mud of agricultural run off are countless pieces of litter and waste—destined for the beaches of the northern Adriatic.
A train worker in Milano blows her whistle as travelers push past one an other for a seat on their train ride home to see their families for the last festival of the season.
In Chioggia street vendors open their stands. They arrange their vegetables and countless species of fresh seafood. Large fishing boats arrive home from long nights working along the Adriatic coast. Store owners enter their banks, caffees, bars, supermarkets, shoe stores, and workshops. They hope the continuous flooding from the week before has not ruined their business—that their pumps kept pace with each night's rising waters.
In a piazza in the small town of Galaezza local men are building a gigantic effigy of the old year—la befana—an old woman, whose five meters will be burned in a joyful, though to me somewhat morbid, ceremony that night. She is a symbol of the old year and her sacrifice represents a new start. Across the street in a cold room with fading frescoes I awake and start a pot of coffee. It is so cold that I imagine the snow falling outside the window is in the room with me. I open an email and learn that one of my greatest friends and mentor has died.
George once told me that “life can be bore, a mess even, but it is a great adventure, ever ceaseless change, and constant challenge! And it can be fun.”
George's death, and more importantly his life, inspired in me the desire to understand change. How our environment and cultures change. The last four months in Italy have provided me with countless lessons in how the world can and does change.
For much of time I lived in Italy my home was in a city hostel on the island of Chioggia. Chioggia is city obsessed with fish. Everything about the city is related to the island's fishing past and present. The streets are lined with shops selling fishing boots, nets, and nautical gear. Its bars and caffees face the water ready for the pescatore(fisherman) in need of a hot or strong drink. The canals are lined with boats. Small ones that work the lagoon's shellfish aquaculture farms and big ones that pillage the waters of Croatia for species long depleted from Italian sea. Behind dusty widows are boat mechanics and net makers. The main canal is bordered with dry docks and fish processing plants and also the daily fish market, where on many occasions I counted nearly 30 species of fresh seafood, much of it still trying to wiggle itself towards the canal and a new chance at freedom.
Chioggia was a place were I developed a rhythm. I awoke to follow the tides, to see how the city lived with frequent flooding, the endless boat traffic, and scent of the lagoon. I lived with university students, who provided me an environment where all I heard for weeks on end was Italian—a language I now use in conversation and hear in my dreams. Two of the hardest things for me to deal with in Chioggia, and the reasons I finally left to explore other parts of Italy, were racism, and the disconnect with the fishery resources they all depended on for work. I saw immigrants denied access to food, spit on, and chased off the streets. After high water, when the streets were smeared with filth from the canals, I watched shop owners and fishermen use brooms and bleach to clean the pavement—sweeping a chemical slurry into the lagoon, only to head to the beach at low tide to collect mussels for dinner. I worry that for Chioggia change will come quickly when the already abused fisheries of the lagoon and Adriatic sea crash and the 1000 year history of fishing, the dialect, and the culture of the city are reduced to graying photos on postcards.
As much as I love the sea and water I was often drawn to the mountains—especially when I needed a little snow and solitude. And it was thus that one weekend I found myself coming down a long snowy trail above Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, wearing mountaineer boots that were a half size to small. In need of a break my friend and I decided to explore a deep cave, famous for its permanently frozen depths. Depths hiding a glacier—a glacier with ice dating backing nearly 2000 years. After climbing 15 meters down into the cave my boots meet a muddy bottom, at the base of some dirty snow. The last ten years of warmth in the Alps had erased the icy record of the previous 2000 years.
A few weeks ago I traveled to Sardinia. I backpacked through a region known to the Romans as Barbaria—a place with people so fierce and independent that the Roman military left them alone. The region is dotted with the crumbling ruins of castles dating back to the birth of Christ. Each night I stayed in small huts made of stone and juniper. For nearly 4,000 years structures identical to these were used by local shepherds to look over their herds and hunt for wild boar. Less than 50 years ago the last old man left his hut for the city and now a national park protects the artifacts of their ancient lifestyle. A lifestyle replaced by roads, trucks, and factories.
In 36 hours I fly to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ceaseless change.
Brett
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