adventures in america

wordle

2009-02-28T07:54:00.000-05:00

a letter

2009-02-17T18:59:00.002-05:00

rage against the mainstream.

participate in it only as much as is necessary to maintain dignity and respect among those who live it (which I'll warn you is a frighteningly large number of people, by definition).

don't buy things, because you really don't need things, and if you dare to regard 'your things' as merely 'things,' they will start to lose all meaning (kinda like the word things).

if you must buy stuff, do so with confidence that your consumption is not harming anyone else, (has not and will not, too) and purchase pre-loved goods.

before this, though, be creative. reuse jars, rubber bands, fabric, bits of string, and everything else. that's right: everything.

wear what you like and what makes you feel comfortable. don't fall into the traps of brand names and marketing.
value is not made of money.

play equipment-less sports - swim, walk, stretch, practice yoga.

eat things that energize you, and encourage others to do the same. don't feed your guests; nourish them.

invite people over to your home, casualize social situations so that you can blur the lines between norms and normal.

stop talking about community and enact it.
be goofy, accept support, offer your ear when someone else is in need.

seek out the skills and talents of your friends, rather than spending money on impersonal services.

give back in whatever way you can. keep a gratitude journal, plant seeds, volunteer.
acknowledge the greatness of the universe and the miracle of life around you, accepting that you are small within it, but certainly not insignificant.

smile at strangers. exchange expressive glances, because we do not drop out of emotional life the moment we enter public space.

be friendly, because loneliness is rampant (and becoming pandemic) in this plugged in and 'connected' world.

refuse (politely) to accept garbage from others. this includes 'disposables,' blame, paper cups, and self-doubt. let no one rent space in your head.

revel in colour, knowing that its use is powerful, and surround yourself with your favourites.

drink tap water, if you can, because you can, and appreciate that ability.

dance when you feel like dancing. sing when you feel like singing. don't buy into other people's beliefs that there is an appropriate age for doing things. this will make life more fun.

stop killing bugs. stop driving a car. stop flushing your toilet so often.

start a compost pile. start keeping your door open. start living the life you've always imagined, rife with possibilities.

How big are your feet?

2009-02-17T18:27:00.001-05:00

I have taken several versions of this quiz, but found this one particularly useful. Try it yourself to find out what your ecological footprint is!

The zero hour is coming - the Toronto Star, January 3, 2009

2009-01-20T20:22:00.001-05:00

At the start of a financially challenged 2009 one word dominates: "Stimulus" has become the desperate mantra as a fractured world agrees on the need to inject cash and credit into the bed-ridden economy.

Many governments have taken unprecedented stimulative measures and promise more.

In Ottawa the opposition "coalition" threatened to overthrow the Conservative government for not following suit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, desperate to evade defeat, is negotiating a "stimulus" budget with the Liberals.

During the holiday shopping season, Premier Dalton McGuinty exhorted Ontarians to contribute their own stimulus by hitting malls and car showrooms. He didn't urge us to buy things because we need them: The aim is to save jobs, profits and tax revenues.

His advice was predictable: It is common, unshakeable wisdom that a healthy economy must expand. The mere suggestion of the oxymoronic "negative growth" is grounds for dismay; panic ensues if it persists for six months – officially a recession.

We don' t appear to mind that the definition of recession is based on gross domestic product, which simply totals the supposed value of all the goods and services a country produces and ignores a wide array of social and ecological costs.

Even many environmentalists trumpet growth, cloaking it in green. With clean, efficient, carbon-free technologies, they say, we can have more of everything and keep the planet habitable.

One recent example was a "groundbreaking" study by the Pembina Institute and David Suzuki Foundation. It claimed that within 12 years Canada could cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 25 per cent below 1990 levels and still expand its economy by 20 per cent and create 1.2 million jobs.

Researchers at the highly respected Potsdam Institute, in Germany, calculate annual growth at 2.5 per cent in their models of the steps required to prevent runaway climate change. They insist on expansion even though it would require massive use of techniques such as carbon capture and storage – grabbing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and burying it underground – that, they say in private, they don't actually trust. The pressure to accept growth is just too great to resist.

But some impressive thinkers argue we need to contemplate something different. They say not only that Earth won't sustain relentless expansion – since we're consuming its limited natural resources far faster than they can be replenished – but also that we'd be better off in a steadier state.

It's a small, disparate band of economists, philosophers and ecologists that dares to challenge our economic orthodoxy, and to develop the ideas in earlier books like Ernst Shumacher's Small is Beautiful and the Club of Rome-sponsored Limits to Growth.

"No growth" advocates have faced a tough battle to be taken seriously, even though most of the general predictions made 35 years ago in Limits to Growth were accurate. And they won't sweep the world in 2009. We're still closer to the extreme represented by the frenzied Long Island mob that figured a Wal-Mart employee's life was worth less than a sale-priced toaster.

The concept runs counter to almost every piece of expert advice about how to cope with the current downturn, and its proponents admit that a period when most indicators are headed south is not the time for an abrupt change in course. But they do say that this confluence of economic and climate change crises ought to cause us to think seriously about the longer term.

"There's a growing concern about where we are," says Peter Victor, a senior economist at York University, who recently published his latest book, Managing Without Growth. "People are looking for alternatives."

In his book, Victor asks: "Will the capacity of Earth to provide and accommodate the flows of material and energy on which economies depend constrain future economic growth?" His answer is "Yes," and it comes with a warning: "If we do not address this issue, then, the next generation or two may have to do it anyway without any preparation for the task whatsoever. That is not a legacy for which they would thank us."

"The implicit assumption is that the planet can cope with endless growth," he said in an interview. "It's the desire to question that assumption that's the primary driver of my work."

What's wrong with growth?

In the first place, Victor says, it hasn't fulfilled the promise of full employment, less poverty and a better environment: "Growth has been disappointing."

We don't require endless improvement in material wealth, he adds. "Above a certain level of income there's no relationship between wealth and happiness."

In fact, Victor and others say, the focus on growth diminishes us, largely because two-thirds of our economy is based on consumer spending: If we don't work and earn so we can keep stuff flying off store shelves and into ever-larger homes, our industrial machine sputters and wheezes. Other important aspects of life – family, friends, relaxation, contemplation, health, hobbies and interests – are trampled in the mad frenzy to ensure the wheel stays spinning.

In a 2007 article promoting his book Consumed, American political scientist Benjamin Barber says capitalism is stymied. Originally an effective way to ensure people got what they need, it now renders us infantile by convincing us to embrace artificial needs and desires, so that we must have the latest toys and gadgets – right now!

"In order to turn reluctant consumers with few unsatisfied core needs into permanent shoppers, producers must dumb down consumers, shape their wants, take over their life worlds, encourage impulse buying, cultivate shopaholism and invent new needs," Barber says.

"This is capitalism's all-too-logical way of solving the problem of too many goods chasing too few needs."

But even if growth were beneficial to the human psyche, it couldn't continue, Victor says. The finite Earth won't tolerate it. A "green economy" would only delay the day of reckoning.

"The faster an economy grows, the higher the rate it has to decarbonize," or replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and conservation, he says. "No matter how efficient you get, you have to use carbon."

Victor isn't saying we should let the economy continue its current collapse: "`No growth' can be disastrous if implemented carelessly." But, he says, the crisis ought to encourage us to think of a new strategy.

His plan calls for growth to decelerate until around 2030. At that point, we'd be materially better off than now and enjoying life more.

We'd get there, he says, through policies that include:

Stabilizing population by letting immigration offset the forecast natural decline. Maintaining current levels of family reunifications and refugees, but allowing fewer economic immigrants.

Cutting resource use and waste emissions through taxes, cap-and-trade systems and other measures to reduce consumption of goods and increase emphasis on services.

Reducing the time each person works and spreading the jobs around.

Taking increased productivity as leisure time.

Assessing the environmental and social impacts of new technologies before they can be produced.

Promoting local economies.

If these items sound Draconian, Victor says, we should remember they're already in use in some form. And if we consume less, he notes, we'll leave room for growth in poorer parts of the world.

He admits it won't be easy: "The scope of change required for managing without growth is so great that no democratically elected government could implement the requisite policies without the broad-based consent of the electorate. Even talking about them could make a politician unelectable."

That's especially true because, "as a species, we evolved having to deal with short time spans and a relatively small spatial scope. The problem now is that we have big impacts that are global and long-term. The question is, are we capable of thinking at that level?"

So far, we've shown little inclination to make the leap. In fact, the usual reaction to "no growth" is ridicule or hostility. That doesn't faze Victor. "I don't back away from an idea simply because there's a backlash."

---- Young Farmers, a call to arms! ----

2008-09-20T00:23:00.000-04:00

co-written by Severine v T Fleming and Zoe Bradbury.
posted on Grist.

Coast to coast, thousands of people are inspired to dig in and grow food! Yet access to the land, capital, market savvy, and skills requires for successful farming is available only to a dauntless few. Those few are brave, strong, and delightful advocates of the purposeful life, but it will take more than a few to reclaim a food system of industrial monocultures, labor abuse, and toxic factory conditions. This is the injustice our movement seeks to repair.

Indeed, it will take the muscle and heart of a large-scale, young-farmers movement: thousands upon thousands of hands on the land -- the hands of women and immigrants, the hands of fourth-generation farm kids, the hands of college graduates and former farmworkers-turned-farmers. It will take thousands of new growers of fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains, dairy, and livestock to transform the landscape of sprawling development and corporate control into a dignified, livable, and culturally rich mosaic of ecological farming.

The young farmers now emerging onto the land seek to reclaim, restore, and resettle the deserted rural towns of America. We are similarly poised to revive the fabric of urban life with markets, gardens, bees, corn patches and waterways. Motivated by a force of intention that cannot be rationalized economically, with lives driven by an instinct for direct action and stewardship that honors the planet, people, and place, we are the allies of every American. Our instincts are emboldened by the mercury shatter of dew on the broccoli plants at dawn, by the roar of pollinators in a flowering crop of buckwheat, and by the river of neighbors streaming through the farm-gate clamoring for "real" tomatoes and happy chickens. The hands of young farmers on the land seek to push forward an agenda of sustainability on a human scale.

There is much to learn, and there is much, as a culture, that we risk forgetting. We need these bodies, we need their work, we need their food and their protagonism. We need young farmers to succeed and we need that success to be rewarded.

As fledgling farmers and activists within this community, we see these to be some of the key political, economic, and cultural requirements for that success:

* A hospitable policy environment that prioritizes a next generation of food producers -- not massive corporate subsidies, not cheap imports from across the world

* A regulatory framework friendly to smaller producers

* Affordable credit for capitalization of diversified farms

* Public-private partnerships to give aspiring farmers better access to farmland

* University research focused on low-input, resilient, sustainable production

* Practical, school-based, agricultural training programs (hands in the soil)

* Reformed land-use proscriptions at the community and state level -- some land and soil should never be developed

* Incubator farms to rear and train fledgling farmers and an Agricultural Journeymen program to help people navigate the path from aspiring farmer to successful new farmer.

* Processing infrastructure and facilities for fruits, meats, dairy, etc. at the local scale

* State-sponsored direct-marketing venues -- covered markets, public markets, and friendly zoning for farmers markets and farm-stands

* Comprehensive, affordable health insurance for farmers and food-workers

* Improved state-sponsored nutrition programs for at-risk, elderly and civic establishments.

* Start-up grants and an expansion of Individual Development Accounts, matched-savings program for qualified young farmers, to afford irrigation, tools, equipment, fencing, land, production infrastructure, etc.

* A cultural revaluation of farming as an ambitious, worthwhile life-venture, celebrated by family, church, and society

* Fiscal underwriting of farm-supportive NGOs and programs

* Songs, dances, parties, and festivals for young farmers in the countryside

* High-speed internet connectivity in rural places

* New farmer forums for networking, marketing, resource-sharing, processing, and farmer-to-farmer exchanges

* Access to locally grown seed and protection from transgenic pollution

* Fair wages and equal labor rights for all farmworkers, even those with "illegal" status

* Consumer education about the realities and true cost of food production

* More consumer/producer alliances such as community supported agriculture and community food cooperatives

And what is success? Success is an edible future, when local populations are fed by local fields and sensible nutrition is affordable and accessible. Where we address poverty and hunger, not with biotechnology, but with long-term access to the means of production, and with proximity to that productive plenty which we can achieve only with careful stewardship of our soil and land base -- a wealth immeasurable in dollars. Success is a smooth energy transition, a satisfying daily bread, a culture in which we have restored honor, and respect to the profession of farming.

Call to arms

Arms strong and hands calloused, eyes open to the beauty of every morning. Our spirits are prepared for the long row still to hoe, our hearts full with the support of family and community. Let us unite, young farmers! Let us fight for the right to farmable land! To the pursuit of an equitable marketplace, and for recognition from society. We are here, we are indispensable, we are a cornerstone of the future of food. Let us welcome many new entrants into agriculture, striving to share our lessons, seeds and stories with generations to come. Now is the time for action.

there ain't no pesticide on us

2008-06-30T11:01:00.004-04:00

so it's not just me

2008-06-13T14:10:00.001-04:00

I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.--E.B.White

manifesto

2008-06-11T12:45:00.001-04:00

this wonderful manifesto comes from the think again conference team. i think these are some good principles for life...

1. Blow your mind – Think Again. Think big, open your mind and imagine the possibilities. Allow yourself to be changed in ways you could never engineer.
2. Soak it up. Blink and you'll miss it. Be present, in the moment and absorb it all.
3. Make Connections. Take advantage of this great network. Find common ground, build friendships and take ideas home.
4. Collaborate. Work together, share ideas and pick the brains of your peers. You are some of the best leaders in the country. Allow yourself to be surprised by those you would normally pass by. Conspire to change the world together.
5. Pump up the volume. Speak your mind. Agree, disagree and ask absurd questions. Voice your curiosity.
6. Walk a mile (or 1.6 km) in someone else's shoes. Listen deeply and seek to understand. Explore what you don't know. Allow listening to deepen into learning.
7. Go deep. Go beyond the rhetoric and get to the core of the issue. Harvest ideas and their meanings. Be bold and take risks.
8. Own it. This is your conference. Show up and take the opportunity. You can shop another time.
9. Be the fun you wish to have in the world. Life is serious enough as it is. Laugh from your belly. Find the humour. It's essential for gaining perspective.
10. Celebrate. Recognize your efforts and those of your peers. Build off your successes and value your mistakes. Every step counts, dance as you move through the world.

bridgewater

2008-06-03T14:53:00.022-04:00

some time last fall, i received an email from a canadian exchange student predecessor to bridgewater, who told me that she missed it dearly and considered it 'home.' at that point, i remember smiling and thinking, i can't imagine feeling that way after only 9 months. but here i am at the end of it all thinking exactly the same things.

i have neglected to post anything much over the last couple months, in part because i had been very busy with finals and projects, and in part because i was so busy living the life that there was hardly time to write about it.

so here goes nothing...

Exposed: the great GM crops myth

2008-04-21T23:12:00.000-04:00

From http://www.independent.co.uk
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 20 April 2008

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.

The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.

The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields.

But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.

A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over. (See graphic above.)

Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would.

Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. And Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington – and who was one of the first to predict the current food crisis – said that the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved.

A former champion crop grower himself, he drew the comparison with human runners. Since Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile more than 50 years ago, the best time has improved only modestly . "Despite all the advances in training, no one contemplates a three-minute mile."

Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted – the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development – concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.

Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: "The simple answer is no."

kibera article

2008-04-21T22:18:00.003-04:00

the following piece was written by my dear friends anne and peris chege, who live in kibera, in kenya. i post this piece to remind everyone of the ongoing strife of many innocent kenyan citizens.

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In the wake of the disputed December 27th General elections, Kenyans experienced what nobody ever had dreamt of. Our beloved country was in shambles, murderous gangs grouped according to tribe orientations. One tribe in particular was victimized; this could be traced back to pre-election period. The campaigns which were ongoing tried to group other tribes against one tribe, the particular tribe was branded as the imperialists; wealth accumulation in one region as was claimed.

The election results announcement was delayed; soon the opposition realized that it was going to lose their leaders walked out of the conference room. This led to mayhem by their supporters; burning of houses and homes countrywide, eviction from their residential places of those who supported the government side.

This was more serious in Nyanza and Rift valley provinces, considering the fact that these areas are the stronghold of the opposition. In Coast province there was also skirmishes which eventually died out. The situation in Rift valley was so grave, what happened there left people debating whether it was genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Of more than 1000 people who died, most of the deaths were recorded in Rift valley; almost 70% approximately.

In Nairobi province, the capital city, things were abit contained. Nairobi is a cosmopolitan city, with about 3 million residents. However there were cases of mishap in areas like mathare, Kibera, Kariobangi and Dandora.These areas are populated mostly by people loyal to the opposition. In these areas residents involved anti riot police in running battles for days.

Days after the election results, the opposition called for mass protests. The rallies were banned by the newly inaugurated Government; the rallies were viewed by the Government as promoting civilian coup. The rallies were to be convened at Uhuru Park, a public park; it was guarded by police for about a week to deter the opposition supporters from reaching there. The sympathizers when dispersed turned to looting, traffic obstruction, stoning of vehicles, burning of business enterprises, burning of houses in residential places aforementioned. This led to displacement of more people in their own country. Places like Kibera, Huruma and Mathare were more affected, the displaced from these places camped in Jamhuri Park.

Kibera the second largest slum in Africa, particularly was the place where most of the drama was captured. The police had to keep a 24-hour watch to keep the feuding gangs from regrouping and possibly massacre of innocent people. In Laini Saba, the residents pulled out the railway line, burned the train cargo which was the relief food being ferried to regions with inflow of internally displaced people (IDP), leaving in camps.

There was seizing of houses, mostly for rental by the opposing groups. These houses were then occupied by the captors. The landlords and government supporters were left with nowhere to stay, the only place for them was the camps; specifically Jamhuri park in Kibera.Considering the fact that these places are mostly slum areas; the youth are the most affected because they’re targeted by the politicians. With a very bureaucratic system, these youths are left with little or no option; they have to toe these rich men ways; thus participating in these crimes including killings and destruction of rivals’ businesses premises and firms. For instance the economic strike that was called by opposition leaders targeting corporations owned by individuals loyal to the Government.

During these dark moments, the whole nation was in sorrow, divided along tribal lines .People that were displaced from other regions were taken to their home regions, this was to avert more atrocities. The economy was most affected, people were losing jobs, there was inflation contributing to general rise in prices of commodities. Teenage girls living in camps were sexually abused by men pretending to be good Samaritans. They took such girls and hoaxed them to offer them jobs. The situation here in Kenya was that grave, with time however things settled.Wars, murders, civil strife, ethnicity and other evils hold true nowhere in Kenya. What happened was of great regret and our beloved country will not succumb to that again.

puerto rico spring break tour with chamber singers!

2008-04-01T12:22:00.009-04:00

ridiculous

2008-03-28T20:24:00.001-04:00

take a look at this crazy video. it caused me to be both amused and horrified at the same time.

Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas

posts

2008-03-25T11:30:00.001-04:00

hello faithful readers!
i have not posted a single thing in almost a month, and i'm wondering if this blog is still practical to keep running?
hannah

kuwafikia wakenya

2008-02-28T20:24:00.002-05:00

at long last, it seems as though peaceful negotiation has paid off in kenya and both odinga and kibaki have agreed to a power-sharing coalition.
see below for an explanatory article from the bbc.

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Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have signed a power-sharing agreement which will see the creation of a prime minister post.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who mediated the negotiations, said the deal would be known as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, and "entrenched in the constitution".

He outlined the key points of the agreement as follows:

# The post of prime minister will be created, with the holder having the authority to co-ordinate and supervise the execution of government functions.

# The prime minister will be an elected member of parliament and the parliamentary leader of the largest party in the National Assembly, or of a coalition if the largest party does not command a majority in parliament.

# Two deputy prime ministers to be appointed, one to be nominated by each member of the coalition.

# The prime minister and deputy prime ministers can only be removed if the National Assembly passes a motion of no-confidence with a majority vote.

# A cabinet to consist of a president, vice-president, prime minister, two deputy prime ministers and other ministers.

# The removal of a minister of the coalition will be subject to consultation and agreement in writing by the leaders.

# The composition of the coalition government will at all times take into account the principle of portfolio balance, and reflect the parties' relative parliamentary strengths.

# The coalition will be dissolved if the current parliament is dissolved; or if the parties agree in writing; or if one coalition partner withdraws from the coalition.

daily bread

2008-02-28T18:48:00.003-05:00

last week i learned that world flour prices have soared from $14 something per hundred weight to $48 something in the past year alone. have you noticed the price of your bread has gone up???

the following is an article entitled "UN warns of new face of hunger" which explains some of the reasons for our recently soaring food prices.
______________________________________________________

The United Nations on Monday warned that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger".

"We will have a problem in coming months," said Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half-a-billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs."

With voluntary contributions from the world's wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73-million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world's undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2,9-billion. But with annual food-price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.

The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply, are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2,5-million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition

"This is the new face of hunger," Sheeran said. "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before."

WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors, including a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.

The impact has been felt around the world.

Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan, and Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples.

After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice, except the high-quality basmati variety.

"For us, the main concern is for the poorest countries and the net food buyers," said Frederic Mousseau, a humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam. "For the poorest populations, 50% to 80% of income goes on food purchases. We are concerned now about an immediate increase in malnutrition in these countries, and the landless, the farm workers there, all those who are living on the edge."

Much of the blame has been put on the transfer of land and grains to the production of biofuel. But its impact has been outweighed by the sharp growth in demand from a new middle class in China and India for meat and other foods, which were previously viewed as luxuries.

"The fundamental cause is high income growth," said Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute. "I estimate this is half the story. The biofuels is another 30%. Then there are weather-induced erratic changes, which caused irritation in world food markets. These things have eaten into world levels of grain storage.

"The lower the reserves, the more nervous the markets become, and the increased volatility is particularly detrimental to the poor, who have small assets."

The impact of climate change will amplify that already dangerous volatility. Record flooding in West Africa, a prolonged drought in Australia and unusually severe snowstorms in China have all had an impact on food production.

"The climate-change factor is so far small but it is bound to get bigger," Von Braun said. "That is the long-term worry and the markets are trying to internalise it."

The WFP is holding an emergency meeting in Rome on Friday, at which its senior managers will meet board members to brief them on the scale of the problem. There will then be a case-by-case assessment of the seriousness of the situation in the affected countries, before the WFP formally asks for an increased budget at its executive board meeting in June.

But the donor countries are also facing higher fuel and transport costs. For the biggest US food-aid programme, non-food costs now account for 65% of total programme expenditure.

Global impact: Where inflation bites deepest

1. United States
The last time America's grain silos were so empty was in the early Seventies, when the Soviet Union bought much of the harvest. Washington is telling the WFP it is facing a 40% increase in food commodity prices compared with last year, and higher fuel bills to transport it, so the US, the biggest single food aid contributor, will radically cut the amount it gives away.

2. Morocco
Thirty-four people jailed this month for taking part in riots over food prices.

3. Egypt
The world's largest importer of wheat has been hard hit by the global price rises, and most of the increase will be absorbed in increased subsidies. The government has also had to relax the rules on who is eligible for food aid, adding an extra 10,5-million people.

4. Eritrea
It could be one of the states hardest hit in Africa because of its reliance on imports. The price rises will hit urban populations not previously thought vulnerable to a lack of food.

5. Zimbabwe
With annual inflation of 100 000% and unemployment at 80%, price increases on staples can only worsen the severe food shortages.

6. Yemen
Prices of bread and other staples have nearly doubled in the past four months, sparking riots in which at least a dozen people were killed.

7. Russia
The government struck a deal with producers last year to freeze the price of milk, eggs, vegetable oil, bread and kefir (a fermented milk drink). The freeze was due to last until the end of January but was extended for another three months.

8. Afghanistan
President Hamid Karzai has asked the WFP to feed an extra 2,5-million people, who are now in danger of malnutrition as a result of a harsh winter and the effect of high world prices in a country that is heavily dependent on imports.

9. Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf announced this month that Pakistan would be going back to ration cards for the first time since the 1980s after the sharp increase in the price of staples. These will help the poor (nearly half the population) buy subsidised flour, wheat, sugar, pulses and cooking fat from state-owned outlets.

10. India
The government will spend 250-billion rupees on food security. India is the world's second biggest wheat producer but bought 5,5-million tonnes in 2006, and 1,8-million tonnes last year, driving up world prices. It has banned the export of all forms of rice other than luxury basmati.

11. China
Unusually severe blizzards have dramatically cut agricultural production and sent prices for food staples soaring. The overall food inflation rate is 18,2%. The cost of pork has increased by more than half. The cost of food was rising fast even before the bad weather moved in, as an increasingly prosperous population began to demand as staples agricultural products previously seen as luxuries. The government has increased taxes and imposed quotas on food exports, while removing duties on food imports.

12. Thailand
The government is planning to freeze prices of rice, cooking oil and noodles.

13. Malaysia and the Philippines
Malaysia is planning strategic stockpiles of the country's staples. Meanwhile, the Philippines has made an unusual plea to Vietnam to guarantee its rice supplies. Imports were previously left to the global market.

14. Indonesia
Food price rises have triggered protests and the government has had to increase its food subsidies by over a third to contain public anger.

FAQ: Food prices
Few winners and many losers

What is the problem?
In the three decades to 2005, world food prices fell by about three-quarters in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Economist food prices index. Since then they have risen by 75%, with much of that coming in the past year. Wheat prices have doubled, while maize, Soya and oilseeds are at record highs.

Why are food prices rising?
The booming world economy has driven up prices for all commodities. Changes in diets have also played a big part. Meat consumption in many countries has soared, pushing up demand for the grain needed by cattle. Demand for biofuels has also risen strongly. This year, for example, one third of the US maize crop will go to make biofuels. Moreover, the gradual reform and liberalisation of agricultural subsidy programmes in the US and Europe have reduced the butter and grain mountains of yesteryear by eliminating overproduction.

Who are the winners and losers?
Farmers are the obvious winners, as are poor countries that rely extensively on food exports. But consumers are having to pay more, and the urban poor in many developing states will be hardest hit, as they often spend more than a third of their income on food.

How long are prices likely to be high?
The US Department for Agriculture says the country's wheat stocks are at their lowest for 50 years and demand will continue to exceed supply this year. There is potential to bring more land into production in countries such as Ukraine, but that could take time. And as all foodstuffs have risen sharply in price there is little incentive for farmers to switch from one crop to another.

What about the EU's common agricultural policy?
High food prices certainly remove the need to subsidise farmers and so there is a chance, say experts, that badly needed reductions in CAP subsidies, which cost European taxpayers dearly, could now be within reach.

Are other commodity prices also rising?
Oil, metals and coal have seen their prices rise strongly as the global economy has expanded rapidly, driving up demand for almost everything, particularly from emerging economies such as China and India. Some economists think speculation may also play a part. Disappointed by the subprime collapse and falling property values in many countries, investors have piled money into commodities. -- guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

bystanding

2008-02-27T15:37:00.002-05:00

i have just come home from a genocide class that has really shaken me up. we were each given a little slip of paper with a child's photo and name on it, and told that this was the depiction of a boy or girl who died in the Holocaust. according to numbers written on the back of the photo, we were asked to write a letter to our child, from the perspective of a. their mother, b. a nazi soldier, c. a german bystander, or d. an american bystander. after ten minutes of writing, we were invited to share with the class.

many of the letters written from the perspective of 'mother' seemed really disingenuous, with expressions like 'my sweet' and 'baby girl' tossed in thoughtlessly. many of the 'nazi's failed to actually put themselves in the shoes of the perpetrators. and many of the bystanders didn't justify their inaction. but three letters really caught me by surprise with their depth of understanding and sincerity. as they were read, i felt myself turn cold and clammy, my heart sped and slowed, and i had to consciously remember to keep breathing. the first was a letter from a mother. the third was a letter from a father. both of these were potently and honestly written. the second was a letter from an american bystander. this one moved me completely and for the first time since i began these studies, i cried.

this phenomenon i like to call apathy is what consistently moves me through my efforts to educate and rally people. i vividly remember a line from "hotel rwanda" about the american public watching the news about the genocide and then turning off their televisions and going back to their dinners. this too, one of the few scenes in the film that shook me so, brought me to tears. there is an excellent line from a dr. seuss book that i have taken to writing all over the place..."unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. it's not."

apathy is so easy. we can easily distance ourselves from other people by thinking "we are not alike." we don't have to sympthize or empathize or imagine ourselves in lives or situations much outside of our own experiences. but as i grow up, i'm realizing that we are all more alike than we are different. religion doesn't matter. skin colour doesn't matter. money doesn't matter. gender doesn't matter. age doesn't matter. being alive to the world makes us the same and therefore responsible for and to one another.

humanitarian soliciting

2008-02-26T23:34:00.002-05:00

ever notice how the street corner solicitors for humanitarian causes are always young attractive people, either still in or fresh out of school? ever stop to admire the way they catch you with a smile and then sweep you into conversation about topics they can make you feel well-versed about? ever thought about how carefully crafted their speeches are, and how cleverly they get your name so that they can make you feel as though you're chatting with an old friend instead of a stranger on a street corner? ever stop to unpack the guilt complexes interwoven into the rhetoric of the good-cause marketer? ever glance at the latte in your right hand, or imagine the cell phone in your purse as you are being asked if you could spare a dollar a day, or fifteen dollars a month, or a one time donation to a good cause? ever politely say no and walk away and then almost turn around and rescind?
...then you must have been out in harvard square on a sunny day.

seven days

2008-02-23T17:48:00.002-05:00

this time last week, i was bundled in bed feeling ill. seven days later, so much has happened!

sunday: katie and rachel (two lovely high school friends who came down to boston for their reading week) visited the aquarium without me, because i had a fever and decided to rest up instead. i spent the day working on journal entries for my class in genocide and political violence, and katie arrived in the evening, disgruntled from the drive and ready for bed.

monday: this was presidents (not sure where the apostrophe goes) day in the united states, and the first ever family day in canada. i received a delightful email from a friend that concluded by saying that statistically, there should be a little population boom in nine months from this day. after a vegetable egg scramble, katie and i wandered bridgewater in our sweatshirts (yes, it was that warm here!) and then toodled on to the grocery store. we made hummous, reminisced, tried to do a bit of schoolwork, and then went for dinner. we went to a lovely little asian food restaurant down the road in bridgewater called chatta box, detoured to bring zaine home, who wasn't feeling so hot himself, came back and bumped into jeff, a new friend, and after eating, met rach and her boyfriend mike to see a movie in taunton. it was a silly romantic comedy called 'definitely, maybe' and was probably just the right fluffiness for the end of the long weekend.

tuesday: i got up early, made up a batch of whole wheat blueberry cornmeal pancakes, and zipped off to a meeting with professor james hayes-bohannon to talk about how his geography class on coffee could collaborate with the social justice league to put on a part of the upcoming fair trade fair. before our meeting began, he taught me how to brew a cup of coffee, beginning by grinding the beans (fair trade from equal exchange), boiling water (not tap!) and then letting it come to approximately 205 degrees before combining the two in a french press, brewing for five minutes, and transferring to a carafe. it might have been the best cup of coffee i've ever had. that afternoon, katie gave me a lift into cambridge, where she reunited with rachel and i ran to class. i am now auditing 'global food systems' at harvard with professor james watson, who is an anthropologist who specializes in culture of south china, and the culture of food. each week we are reading a book about a different food system, including sugar (sweetness and power), salt, tsukiji, bananas, potatoes, corn, and rice. harvard is this very interesting microcosm of very intelligent and professional students, but i can't help but smile as i immerse myself in the class that under these impressive veneers, they are all simply 20 year olds. heck, one person picked their nose through class last week. but i digress. after class, i met katie and rach for lunch at a cafe where the man behind the counter answered "how's it going?" with "i'm maintaining" and ended the interaction with "stay focused." the food was delicious and healthy and invigorating and after finishing, we explored the bead store across the street and i headed back to bridgewater. it was such an odd feeling to say goodbye to my friends in a place that is so far from where we know each other.

wednesday: class! monday and wednesday are my busiest days of the week this semester, with things going on from 9:00 until 6:00 with a two hour break in the morning. i passed in my genocide journals, did eurythmics at choir (dancing with motion! we embarrassed ourselves thoroughly), and then came home to a belated valentines package from home and watched the lunar eclipse. i have never (or don't remember having) seen such a thing before, and even though it was a long process, i was engrossed for most of it. we were lucky to have a good view of it from our porch, and reiko, zaine, john and i came in and out for tea to warm up our hands as we marveled at it turning orangey red and then back to full and bright again. zaine and i saw a shooting star above the moon at one point (my second ever...the first one i saw on martha's vineyard last semester). it was a lovely lovely lovely evening.

thursday: i woke up, poked around the house, and received a call that a friend from glendon, elek, had arrived on the train in bridgewater. after picking him up, i spent some time chatting and pointed him in the direction of the grocery store before heading to james hayes-bohannan's class to brainstorm about their project. it was a quiet group, but jill and dan and i spoke lots about what the social justice league does (everyday superheroes!) and where we're headed with this fair trade fair. after the class, we bumped into the other half of our committee (jeff, rich, and brandon) and had a little powwow about contacting vendors, applying for grants, and next steps. then jeff and dan walked me home and they came in for coffee, which was a disaster of sorts. a stick of butter had been left on top of the coffee maker in the sunlight and dripped, unbeknownst to me, into the coffee machine. what resulted was a massive pot of butter coffee, or buffy, which reiko, elek, jeff, and dan all tried. dan said he had a film on his lips. the others said it wasn't bad. i didn't think i could stomach it and told them to pour it out, but wonderful supportive friends that they are, they wouldn't do it. elek came with me to sustainable development class, where we bashed disney and discussed 'collapse' by jared diamond. we then came home and made vegetable bean soup with rice, and hit the hay.

friday: it was snowing when i woke up. which means that i was happy as soon as i opened my eyes and looked out the window. word reached the house through the campus website that classes (and everything on campus!) were cancelled after 10:00 am, but i had a test on hindu theories of personality at 9:00am, so off i went! jeff and i moseyed around town in the light snow to arrive at the rockin k and chat with diane (her son henry got into his art school of desire in new york city!!) for a couple hours. diane is also planning to hold a taste for justice event this year (on behalf of a zimbabwean women's group that is the theme for the year), and i am excited that i will be able to help out in some way. i had talked to tanya about it, thinking her penchant for food might get her interested, and lucky for me, she passed the information into perfect hands. diane made a delicious lunch spread for us; bagels spread with cream cheese and cranberries, artichoke, yellow peppers, and avacado, bean spead and cashews, and sundried tomatoes and hot peppers. it was scrumptious and gave me a boost to hike home through still-descending snow. when i arrived back, elek was getting chewy molasses cookies going, and i pitched in as well. how lovely to have a houseguest who bakes! later in the afternoon, i went out to shovel our driveway and walkways, a chore i normally don't like. yet this particular afternoon, it was the perfect remedy for all ailments, and i felt like i was working some canadian gene as i heaved the snow around, clearing space for our impending company. at about 7, elek and i were joined by john, reiko, john, kim, zaine, evelin, and ronan. we had a merry international games night, joking that the americans in the house (both named john!) were a minority, and that we represented three continents and five countries. we played rummoli, which is called tripoley here, and i won! in the last hand, all but one person was broke (no more pennies) but i finally laid down the 8-9-10 of one suit, which had been accumulating pennies since the beginning of the game. then ronan decided to teach john this complicated argentinian game called "trucu" (sp?) which seemed to have a new rule at every turn, but john picked it up and ronan was delighted to have found a buddy to play cards with. we made popcorn on the stovetop and ended our game night with "pig," where you have to stick your tongue out when you have four of a kind, and we laughed very hard as elek did a little monologue about a different version of the game and we all listened with our tongues out, waiting for him to notice that he was the last. after our guests had gone home, elek read zaine and my tarot cards and i pulled the moon, balance, loss, integrity, and the ace of earth.

saturday: the plumbers were back this morning, making plenty of noise to rouse us all from our beds. zaine and i took a walk in the snow, delivered a letter headed to the school for designing a society, and met ronan and evelin and her roommate katie to frolic in the snow. we built a snowman (the first ever for zaine, ronan, and evelin), threw many snowballs, and even made snow angels. we found a worm out under the snow, which was terribly bizarre, and probably a sign of global warming, and soon headed back to our place for hot chocolate. it couldn't have been more of a february day. and to top it all off, i received a postcard from a dear friend who is on her way to australia, which is perhaps the sweetest letter i have ever received. in our delightfully digital age, thoughtfully penned notes are highly underrated, yet so profoundly sincere and sentimental that i hope to continue writing and receiving them for all of my life.

excerpt by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Four Letter Word

2008-02-17T15:04:00.003-05:00

Emeka,

That round-mouthed surprise a woman shows (is supposed to show?) when a man proposes has always annoyed and puzzled me. Surely a couple whose relationship is strong must have talked about marriage instead of following the script of the silly ‘ambush question’ from the man and then the woman’s response of grateful surprise as if she were receiving a glorious gift she had never imagined would be hers. Are you smiling reading this? It’s not funny-oh! So, really, why was I surprised when you sent me that ridiculous text? We had talked about marriage, hadn’t we? Well, you had mostly. Still, reading your — do you think we can begin to discuss the possibility of getting married soon? — I felt first surprised, then amused, then frightened and then this stupid crazy joy that I still feel.

You know, you’re wrong when you say that it’s remarkable how similar we are. Of course we are similar — except for the little fact that I am significantly more attractive — but it isn’t remarkable at all. Many other children of Nigerian academics read Enid Blyton and wondered what the heck ginger beer was; read every single book in the Pacesetters series; and read every James Hadley Chase. These are not at all proof of how right we are for each other — if they were, then you would be right for one out of every two campus-raised women I know. Your father graduated from Ibadan only two years before my father did. If your family hadn’t left Nigeria just before the war we might even have grown up together in Nsukka and maybe all of this marriage talk wouldn’t be going on because we would have known each other too well, you would have been my brother Okey’s friend from secondary school and you would always see me as Okey’s scrawny little sister. So no, there’s nothing remarkable about our shared interests. But the day you told me that your favourite part of Mass, the only reason you still go to Mass sometimes, is when the priest says ‘as we wait in joyful hope’, I was startled. I didn’t tell you then because the coincidence seemed a little too pat but it’s my favourite part of mass too. O di egwu!

So since your text came yesterday, I have been recalling the ways we are different, how you like beans and macho novels and the rainy season and I don’t. It’s suddenly important to me that we not be too similar. You know I have always been suspicious of anything close to perfection, anything too neatly put together. Always wanting to find bumps in smooth surfaces, as you tell me. It frightens me, how easily I now speak in the first-person plural. Yesterday, just before you sent the text, Aunty Adaeze called me and asked whether I would get leave for Christmas to go to the village. I said that we were hoping to get time off until after New Year’s so we could go to Uche’s wine-carrying and return to Lagos in January. She started laughing and said, ‘Ah, I asked about you and you are telling me “we”.’ After I hung up, I began to think about how used to you I am and began to wonder how many other times I had said ‘we’ without even realising it.

Yesterday, too, I realised that I have never told you how much I like you — this before your text, by the way. Love is different. Love is ridiculous. Love can just happen, as it did to you when you saw me and asked Ifeanyi to introduce us (exactly seventeen months and three days ago) and to me as you tried to charm me with your watery knowledge of Achebe’s work, but like requires reason. And yesterday I marvelled at how much I have come to like you. I like that you know when to leave and quietly shut my door and that when you do I never worry that you are not coming back. I like your cooking (I have never complimented you because I keep imagining those silly women who over-praise men for cooking, and those silly mothers who like to say, ‘My son can cook-oh, so no woman will use food to tempt him’). I like the way your butt looks in your jeans, that flat elegance that you don’t like me to point out, and I like that you make futile attempts at the gym to grow muscles we both know you never will and I like that you underline sentences in books to show me. I like that you like me and that your liking me makes me like myself.

I will, by the way, never write anything like this to you again. So smile all you want now, atulu. I remember when I was a kid, reading books in small dusty Nsukka, and often encountering characters eating bagels. It was an elegant word, bagel. I wanted desperately to have a bagel. Years later, in New York City (on our first visit to America as a family), I was flattened to discover that a bagel is a dense doughnut. I imagine you saying ‘From where to where with this story?’ as you read this. Well, my point is that I never wanted marriage and so perhaps it will turn out to be something good, unlike the bagel which I wanted and which turned out to be remarkably boring.

I have been reading your text over and over since yesterday and I have never felt so alive. So, yes, I suppose we should begin to talk of the possibility of getting married soon.

Chioma

fever

2008-02-17T12:36:00.002-05:00

i do not normally get ill, but this weekend i have come down with something vile...i have a temperature, hot and cold flashes, a scratchy throat, upset stomach, and a pressure in my head. i'm not one to complain, but rather to draw parallels...and i can't help but thinking about one of my favourite picture books about mr. poggle and scamp called "terribly wonderful". 2 wonderful friends of mine are down in boston for a few days from toronto, and if i can just get a nap or two in before i see them, i'm sure the week will turn brighter before my very eyes!

ode to my socks

2008-02-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

maru mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
i slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
they were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
fireman, fireman
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.

nevertheless
i resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men,
collect
sacred texts,
i resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
in a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
i stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.

the moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.

by: pablo neruda
translated by: robert bly

canada-friendly

2008-02-03T23:15:00.001-05:00

to my delight, this weekend i discovered a room full of flags in hunt hall at bridgewater state college...canadian flags!! courtesy of the canadian studies program, there is a foyer decorated with the canadian flag, accompanied by each of the flags for the provinces and territories. i had to hold myself back from singing the anthem (haha!).
on saturday night, walking back home from the bus after a choir festival in a nearby town, a car full of people beeped at me, seeing the flag sewn to my backpack, and drove by with fingers in peace signs.
finally, at church this morning, one of the members of the congregation talked about an upcoming dance, where there will be english country dancing, and then as a joke, proposed a bit of canadian country dancing as well! i was in stitches later at the coffee hour when he demonstrated a few of his moves :D

i love you

2008-01-26T11:12:00.000-05:00

i'm collecting ways to say i love you. here is the list so far...

je t'aime (french)
ek is lief vir jou (afrikaans)
te amo (spanish)
naku penda (kiswahili)

please write back if you speak another language and can add to this list!

cultural nuances

2008-01-26T11:04:00.000-05:00

sitting around the kitchen table, we have discovered many new things about south african, american, japanese, and canadian culture and how they are the same or different. did you know:

- toyota is the most popular car company in south africa

- in japan, they keep squirrels as pets

- satsuma is like a purple potato (my yams caused some confusion)

- the card game 'president' or 'janitor' is a drinking game in america, but the word for it in japanese means 'richest man'

- you can't find marmite at the roche brothers grocery store, but rooibus tea is everywhere

- some people in america put ketchup on top of their pizza (maybe this is just the one we were talking to...)

- nobody knows what i'm talking about when i say touque

...hopefully there are many more of these to come!

relocating

2008-01-26T01:36:00.000-05:00

after being away from bridgewater for a month and a half, i am officially back and already one week into the semester. things have changed significantly and i'm now living with two wonderful friends just off the edge of the campus (a five minute walk from the library) on maple ave. how appropriate!

it is a very large house that is currently still under renovation by the landlords. and so we get construction from the wee hours (seven o'clock on days where no one has a morning class...!). this is the view of the front:

here is the side door that leads directly into the kitchen, and the windows to the right of zaine are mine. the room is somewhat septagonal - seven walls, with only one right angle, and three of those have windows. it gets beautiful morning light.

i think we would collectively agree that this is our favourite room in the house. here is reiko showing off her skills with a skillet.

this table and chair set was a steal...reiko found it for five dollars at the thrift store. and i happened to have the fabric for our table cloth. zaine contributed the fitting world map. we have the idea that we should hang all of our different flags out the front of the house, the way american flags are hanging proudly on lots of houses in the neighbourhood. conversation piece?

that door on the right in the picture above leads into my room. here is a photo from the inside. so far all it has is a bed and nightstand and several still packed suitcases.

that door on the right of my bed is a double door that connects my room to zaine's. here is the mantle that was left behind when the fire place was closed off. it makes for good shelf space!

zaine's room, which overlooks the street:

here are the double doors that connect zaine's room to the front hall with the staircase leading up to reiko's room, the bathroom that has been ripped out, and the two other rooms waiting for renovation (one with a gaping hole that leads to the attic).

our mostly empty common room

some of reiko's art, which i am hoping she chooses to decorate the living room area with...

finally, a picture of home. to christen our new oven, we baked a loaf of bread, and i cooked up a lentil stew (served in one of my pottery bowls from ceramics one, taken last semester at bridgewater) for supper on the first night that we had the table.

holiday eve

2007-12-12T10:46:00.000-05:00

it is my last day in bridgewater and i'm really excited to get on that plane. not so much because it means i will be leaving, but because i will be coming home. and i know that having finally found an apartment for next semester in bridgewater will make living here again that much better. i'm happy because i'm sad to leave new friends behind...just as i go i am feeling incrementally more settled, and clear as to why i'm doing the things i'm doing.

introductions

2007-12-09T17:28:00.000-05:00

this is my friend from canada. she says washroom instead of bathroom and pardon instead of what.

apathy

2007-12-07T14:54:00.000-05:00

i'm going through a period of extreme frustration with a system that i feel is failing its people. i'm not exactly sure which system this is, but it's one that allows students to be unaware of important people, places, events, and once hearing of them, failing to care. it's a system that convinces us our happiness is derived from our accumulation of things, be they goods, vouchers, contacts, or raw dollars. it's a system that condones violence of all kinds, from domestic to political, and sanctions the exploitation of human beings for profit margins. this system teaches us not to ask questions, speaks to the lowest common denominator, and gives us quick outs and easy solutions to complex issues, sweeping the rest under the carpet. in this system our water is running out, our graduates can't identify "their" from "there", every item in the grocery store contains high fructose corn syrup, the weather is unpredictable, children and women are being bought and sold like commodities, religious celebrations have become commercialized gift-giving days, some waste energy screaming about inconveniences while those in true agony are muted, and we've totally lost the ability to relate to strangers on the level of humanity.
sigh...

december

2007-12-02T21:19:00.001-05:00

it's snowing! and with a fresh white dusting over the world, i'm really really happy.

two weeks remain

2007-11-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

i have been feeling intensely nostalgic the past day or so, for various things from various parts of my life. this is a hodgepodge of images to represent those people and places.

sisterly love and fuzzy dogs

old friends and silly summer fun

grandma and her house

new friends from kenya

and as i began to do this, i realized how many photos i am lacking to represent what i love and miss: family, mom's garden, glendon (and its lovely musical ensemble), sunday night coffee with aunts and uncles, high school and university friends, travels, afternoons exploring toronto, baking, long walks in thornhill, the toronto children's chorus (and its community), shad reunions, and the list could go on and on...

the island

2007-11-24T17:53:00.000-05:00

i spent my second thanksgiving of the season on martha's vineyard with new friends and rather than write a lengthy post, i'll show you how gorgeous it was through photos.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this is the story of how hannah the vegetarian went to a butcher's house for thanksgiving. luckily both had great senses of humour and some ate turkey while others ate beans.

they started out their tour of the island with a scenic drive along the water, stopping at south beach to sigh and take photographs.

they then drove on to gay head to see the clay cliffs, and again soaked in the salty sea air and marveled at the rugged authenticity of the scenery.

the sun, she was a-settin'...

and hannah, she was in heaven...

and as the moon came up and the sun went down over the water, the three gals headed back to south beach for more rapture

morning came and the warmth drained from the island, leaving everyone bundled and watching their frosty breath in the air on the walk through felix neck

there at the fall festival at the end of the trails, they came across some animals

and after a day of wandering oak bluffs, eating thai food, browsing a local record store, and bumping into neighbours, they drove home along the open road with the moon over the water on their left, the orange clouds on their right, and steaming mugs of herbal teas clutched tightly between mittened hands.

on friday night, after a lengthy round of watching movies while curled up next to the fireplace with the cats, there was an impulsive drive back to south beach at 10:00 to see the mostly full moon. although too dark for a quality photograph, it was so light outside that the headlights on the car were hardly necessary. having lived all her life in a suburb of a monstrous city, hannah had never experienced her own shadow under the moonlight, and stood marveling at it's clear outline on the sand. around the moon wrapped a ring of rainbow colours, and more stars appeared than she had ever seen before. the two women tramped down the beach, with all sand and water brightly illuminated, seeing kilometers and miles in all directions. they stopped every so often to gape at the night sky, so piercingly blue and sprinkled as it was with stars. as hannah walked, she forgot the cold, and glancing up, saw her first shooting star.

with the crack of dawn, the thanksgiving weekend rolled to a close and they packed, headed out of the driveway,

dropped by the butcher's on the way out for goodbyes and a package of lambchops,

and pulled out on the early boat back to the cape and toward a peaceful drive back to bridgewater

happy thanksgiving.

disposable

2007-11-15T16:31:00.000-05:00

she’s grown melancholy, realizing that
we’ve forgotten how to mend things.

disposable society,
throw away relationships.

it’s ripped? Garbage.
it bothers you? Get rid of it.

but we rip things for fashion
and buy faded jeans.

rescued things are elegant
sometimes the patches are beautiful.

besides, new things
have no stories.

unwrap plastic layers to find no smell,
no dust, no fingerprints.

in this disposable life,
we are constantly cycling through things.

are we becoming toxic waste?
all the things we rip through bioaccumulate
in our own systems.

we don’t clean up, we move on.
all our pollution, mounds of trash,
heaps of pain, they can only be ignored for so long

we’re wired for consumption
and envy, some say.

but we lose touch that this is only
a part of our whole selves.

she's angry that we’re stainless,
fireproof, water-resistant,

spotless, immaculately clean
and devoid of evidence of humanity.

so she's searching.

for handprints in concrete sidewalks,
bookplates and dedications in second-hand novels.

100 year old postcards with the messages still on them,
a hair in your salad, the gunk stuck in the drain, an eyelash in the sink.

a fingernail in the clay,
the air inside of balloons, used tissues, hickeys.

the fluted edge of a homemade pie with clear outlines
of an individual – fingerprints that are unique.

muddy footprints on the floor,
warm chairs in a newly vacated classroom.

the smell of sweat, lipstick on the rim of a glass,
coffee stains on a term paper.

initials carved into a tree that swell over time,
scribblings on the top of a desk, gum stuck underneath.

these things are not all nice,
not romantic, and certainly not clean.

but they are how we tap out of individual worlds
and into a community.
they are us.

recharging for the home stretch

2007-11-15T15:42:00.000-05:00

this past weekend i had the really good fortune of being able to go home and visit my family. we went to see the ballet...the colours were dazzling, the movements were stunning, the music was beautiful, and the ability to spend it with my family was relaxing. the national ballet performed west side story, phillip glass pieces, and chopin nocturnes. home food was a fantastic change from residence: we shared a delicious indian dinner before the performance, and on another evening my sister and i cooked a southwestern style meal for aunts and uncles (including adorable mini pumpkin corn muffins and blueberry rhubarb tartlets). we went for walks in the leaves, and spent a lot of time chatting - or maybe that was just me. i seem to talk endlessly whenever i get home :). it was exactly what i needed and it came at precisely the right moment. now i think i can find the oomph to see through this semester.

this week and last week a number of things made me smile:

1. there is a tent city outside of the commuter caf, run by the social justice league to bring awareness to the school about homelessness. a few students are braving the elements for a week to get the authentic experience

2. i feel like i am in relatively good contact with friends from home, and even though i am away, coming home is always easy and nice.

3. i am thinking about applying to the school for designing a society for the summer, although i'm tremendously excited about the possibility of applying to the UN Environmental Program for an internship or Foodshare or The Stop Community Centre in Toronto.

4. i sent an email to my environmental/consumer health class about a number of opportunities and interesting things and got a great response from a few folks.

5. a kind-hearted friend sent me an american cookbook :)

6. i had an epiphany in consumer psychology - i never liked doing the dishes because i mostly did them alone in the kitchen. it's all about affiliation and community!

7. had lunch with a new friend!

8. i received a nutrition assignment back with a spelling mistake...yoghurt. this was my first american/canadian difference noticed by a prof.

registration is going on here for next semester this week and as an exchange student i get last pickings. i go back and forth between wanting to register for many classes, and then wanting to register for none. i think i'll be forced to find a happy medium and perhaps register for a couple and think about an independent study. any suggestions?

red is for cranberries and bicycles

2007-11-06T09:43:00.000-05:00

i'm not a superstitious person, but sometimes you have days where you feel like either everything is conspiring against you, or where the stars are all aligned. yesterday was one of both. because it will be more fun to tell you about the latter, i'll start my day after noon.

i got word through the bsc email system there was a package waiting for me at mail services! during the break in the choir rehearsal i skipped over to pick it up and was ambushed on my way back by a bearhug. inside the package was a book called 'get a grip' signed by the author, frances moore lappe. i have been in touch with her small planet institute in the hopes of supporting them in some way, and to inititate me i guess, they sent me the book they are promoting right now. (frances moore lappe is the author of 'diet for a small planet' and her daughter anna the author of 'grub')

also through the power of email i heard from a professor here that he had a bicycle waiting in his garage for me! i have been attending the unitarian universalist church sporadically on campus as there i have found a wonderful world-conscious group of people that i really enjoy, and one weekend had mentioned that i was on the hunt for a bicycle. lo and behold, someone found a second-hand red bike and thought of me...i was and still am completely overcome by the generosity and kindness that went into making this happen.

rewind a couple days:
this weekend i spent my days at colchester farm and with the wonderful family that runs it. in my search for ways to complement this formal education, i am seeking to get really hands on in my learning about food security and safety. what better way than to do so by pitching in on organic farm? we spent friday harvesting brussel sprouts, kale, chinese cabbage, arugula, and parsley, and saturday chopping, blanching, and freezing the harvest (as well as cooking lovely healthful meals in between) since it was blustery and stormy outside. we even lost power for a few hours! things that made me happy:

- chopping thawing cranberries (that came from a nearby cranberry bog) and seeing the tiny white seeds inside and the way they stained my fingers pink

- freeing little inchworms trapped inside brussel sprouts

- taking eggs out of the chicken coop

- scouring the family cookbook to find recipes for everything from grandma's ravioli to burnt toast

- dinner by candlelight that bounced off the wood walls and table and seemed to warm the room (while listening to NPR)

- the prickly feeling left under my fingernails from chopping mustard greens and hot peppers

- being taken into a house for the weekend; not to mention, a lovely house surrounded by trees with colourful leaves and filled with friendly people

les feuilles mortes

2007-10-28T21:54:00.000-04:00

welcome to bridgewater state college in the fall!

maxwell library, which was built backwards and thus this front entrance faces a row of houses and all the students enter through the back and come up through the bowels of the building

beautiful boyden, and the requisite american flag

outside of the art building, where i take ceramics classes, some students chalked some famous artworks...

the path from boyden hall (the stately building where the choir rehearses) to the art building

the field between boyden and tillinghast, the nearest dining hall. on this field we ate a bbq welcome dinner on the first day of school. awfully empty now though...

tilly dining hall, where i had brunch this morning!

some of the lovely foliage around campus

on a walk near the campus, i met a very friendly feline who posed for me!

neighbourhood plants

moss on the trees - this is a new climate; wet and today, windy.

lovely colours; snap dragons and flower baskets

kabul and baseball

2007-10-25T18:03:00.000-04:00

i've been learning much about american culture through talking to people, attending classes filled with all-american students, listening to professors lecture, and wandering bridgewater and boston. two very important things have been revealed to me recently.

1. kabul: since an anthropology class where the professor asked "who knows where kabul is?" and not a soul knew, i have made it my personal task to poll the general student body at bridgewater to find out if this is a fluke or a representative sample. and many questions later, i have to say that it is unfortunately the latter. of all the people i have questioned, only two knew where kabul was, and these two are both japanese transfer students. i was at first shocked to find that afghanistan has so faded from the news that students would be unaware of this city; however, the professor who posed the question theorizes that students have a lack of exposure to the news at all: in their home lives, in high school, and now here. i guess to be fair, i should ask people where baghdad is, since it is more prominently in the news these days, and hopefully more talked about in classrooms. i also have an urge to return to a glendon or york classroom or travel to harvard and ask the same question.

2. baseball: it is a big deal. for a city that has four strong sports teams (as i have yet heard), baseball rallies a huge amount of support. since the beginning of the school year, people walk about wearing red sox paraphernalia (a lot of people and a lot of paraphernalia), watch every game, and talk about the red sox possessively ("our team", "us", "when we sold so and so", "we don't like the yankees", etc). if you hadn't heard, the red sox won the world series this week, and this campus went crazy...or should i say, wicked crazy. as soon as it was over, students came flooding out of the dorms, whooping and hollering, and all headed toward miles and dinardo's quad, where a crowd chanted, threw each other up and down, and generally rocked out to sweet caroline until it was too late and too cold to stay out any longer. the huge celebration parade, the red sox rally, happened two days later on a tuesday, to the chagrin of many students with midterms (mind you, some professors rescheduled important tests and deadlines for the benefit of die-hard red sox fans).

patch adams and romeo dallaire

2007-10-24T21:17:00.000-04:00

recently, as bridgewater's keynote canadian speaker, the canadian studies department hosted a lecture given by senator romeo dallaire, the man who refused to leave rwanda when most of the world pulled out during the 1994 genocide. he is a man who holds duty in the highest regard, and is well-respected by canadians. it came as quite a suprise to me to attend a lecture such as his, which in canada, would be given to a full auditorium of enthusiastic students, professors, staff, and any others who could manage to get in. here in bridgewater, a generous handful of people came out, sen. dallaire was notified that students would be coming in and out (class turnover, football practise, etc), and the after-lecture reception was sparsely populated and over in fifteen minutes. this meant, i had the honour and privilege of speaking with senator dallaire, being introduced as 'a canadian at bridgewater.' he joked with me that the canadian flag is the hitchhiker's flag, and indeed i wear it proudly on my backpack here, not so much because i want to distinguish myself as canadian, but because i never removed it after my sojourn in kenya this summer.

at the reception following his talk, i sat with a grad student here from quebec (une des deux canadiennes, selon romeo dallaire) and a professor of canadian history and the school's hockey coach, a man who got his phd at york university. there is something so very comforting about being among canadians. here am i, trying to understand american culture and to break stereotypes, and i can't help but think that there's so much about my own culture that i take for granted. we so often self-effacingly say that there is no such thing as canadian culture. but oh how there is! and would it were that i could explain what that is...but maybe once i get through a few more months going back and forth between here and home, i'll find a way to verbalize it.

at the end of my first month in bridgewater, i went to a talk given by the real patch adams, a brilliant human being (here i won't say doctor or clown or any of the other millions of labels he could have as he is truly what i would say is quintessentially human). it was so long ago now, that i'll sum up the lecture by copying some notes i took there. he was absolutely fabulous and i think every person in that room (this time a big auditorium full to the brim with bodies) left in a different mind state than when they came in.

- there has never been an academic (or other) paper written about the value of being serious

- no one ever falls asleep laughing, and the life of the party is the funny one

- he has never said 'laughter is the best medicine' because he knows that friendship is the best medicine

- at 62 years old, he grew up in a military family, a war orphan at 16 overseas

- segregation at US school was harder for him to handle than his father's death

- he was hospitalized 3 times at 17 and 18, but then realized, 'i don't want to kill myself. i want a revolution'

- 2 life decisions: to serve humanity through medicine (doctor) and to never have a bad day (clown)

- he never had luck in dating so he had a lot of free time to mess around and spent 2 years calling people to practise talking to them (pretended to be a sociology major and see how long he could keep them on the phone), spent 10 hours a week on an elevator, breaking the rules

- rules of an elevator: 1. turn to the front 2. be silent 3. keep hands to yourself

- he wears crazy pants (the crotch hangs to the ankles) which he manipulates into the 'five stages of the pants' in order to amuse people; these pants stop fights 100% of the time. he will ask hotel concierges where the violent bars are and go there with these pants on

- verbal comedy is normal sentence, normal sentence, normal sentence, surprise! ha ha ha. physical comedy is when you know what normal is and you don't do it.

- he hasn't been sick in 44 years!

- there's one thing that's funny in every culture: farting
he carries three whoopee cushions wherever he goes - one to use, one to give away, and one extra for emergency purposes
- he promised one person in the audience a whoopee cushion as long as he promised to use it one place he shouldn't, like meeting girlfriend's parents for the first time

- the gesundheit institute is a 6 bedroom house with 20 adult staff and their families, plus 5 - 50 patients per day
- he has never liked a patient enough to give them psychotropic drugs
- "everyone is allowed to be crazy in our house but not violent"
- everyone is just lonely, lonely, lonely - that is the major epidemic in our
society
- he wants to eliminate the idea of debt in the medical world
- refuses to carry malpractise insurance
- wants to recreate tribe, sense of community
- never thought of humour or love as therapy
- the health of the individual, family, community, and society are all related
- everyone makes the same amount of money, the cleaning ladies and the doctors
get $300/month and 1000s of doctors apply each year to be part of the institute

- "i was playing with the world and i fell in love with humanity"

- half of his apartment is books because "i've got to feed the nerditiy" and the other half is toys

- funny stories are social glue

- the day to day vitality of life is what makes good health, therefore you can have cancer or be old and still be healthy

- injustice is a medical issue

- the US rewards fame, not intelligence. we need to change society from one that worships money and power to one that worships kindness and generosity

- huge numbers of people want to serve humanity, but they just don't have a place to do it

- you have to start loving others before they start loving you

- if you put a person in a clown costume, they become a clown

- "when you don't know the language, always learn to say 'i love you,' 'friend,' and 'thank you'"

- in clowning "i'm not doing anything that takes any proficiency. i also have no idea what i'm doing"

- formula for never having a bad day (beware of having one that works!):
intention: i will love life
performance: take it off the stage into everyday life. you're either performing,
asleep, or dead
consequences: change performance, not the intention. ask, how did i do?
in buddhism, this is called 'mindfulness'
or this is the civil rights era notion of being present

- in every moment, create the self you want to be

- most people live 'because'..."i do this because..."
but the syntax needs to be changed to 'so that'..."i do this so that..."

- "i never had a religious thought in my life. i love humanity. i get disgustingly affectionate with people"

- as you grow up you discover that very few people have self-esteem, whereas most kids think that everyone has it

- there is a huge world of communication out there without language

- how to make change? become articulate and make sure it looks like you're having a ball

- if he were the president of the united states (in response to a question from the audience), he would
ask really smart people to be honest with and to serve the population
get rid of nuclear arsenals, tax corporations, and rich people
put left-leaning people into cabinet
build carless twentieth century cities with slides to use gravity
apologize to nations of the world for the last century's crap
quadruple teachers' salaries
shift paradigms to a women's approach
turn media over to the people
recapture the family farm
make compassion and generosity a value

- no one should want money, power, or fame except to help. money is not the problem. value systems are.

- "there is no country in the world that is safe for women. men should be crawling on their bellies in shame, begging for forgiveness"

- "spiritual is a term for love in action; my god is friends. when i'm with a christian, i'm hot with christ, when i'm with a buddha, i'm hot with buddha, when i'm with a musician, i'm hot with music, ..."

- "no pill will do the things a moment of humanity can"

weekends in boston

2007-10-24T20:30:00.000-04:00

it's been a while since i've posted anything meaningful about what's going on here, so i will try to encapsulate what the last few weeks have been like in a bit of a nutshell. (think large nut...like a coconut)

i get the distinct feeling that a lot of my learning here is going to be happening outside of classrooms. while the subject matter of my classes is me to a tee, i am not feeling incredibly inspired by the atmosphere in which they are taught. as an example, the other day, the following question was posed: "who knows where kabul is?" ... not a soul in the room. i'm also rather taken aback by some of the methods, whereby i am reverting to answering questions out of textbooks and periodically handing in response papers, to the exclusion of any kind of analytic essays.

on the other hand, i am increasingly finding my niche within a slightly different community in bridgewater; those who make up the unitarian universalist church have welcomed me in (i am intrigued by their ideas of faith without doctrine, but have yet to figure out how i feel about joining anything that resembles organized religion. any thoughts???) and through this i have met an organic farmer who teaches on campus, one of the founders of the center for sustainability, some new amnesty international supporters, and countless other stimulating and interesting individuals. needless to say, these souls are not what you would call my 'peers' age-wise, but they are makers of wonderful conversation, and so i am feeling happy to have connected with them.

the weekends are the highlight of my existence this month, as i have been able to use them for wandering the town and making friends. two weekends ago i went into boston with a friend from my ceramics class, who has lived in this area for ages and attended boston university at one point. together we went to newbury street to visit the pucker gallery, where a collection of pottery was being displayed that had been donated by brother thomas, a monk who had just passed away. the glazes were magnificent and i had the striking feeling that colour is what has been missing from my life for a while. i still have an urge to go out and buy a box of crayons. newbury street is a frufru area of town, where there is no shortage of designer clothing stores or upscale restaurants, but also lovely galleries. we were drawn into one by the canvas in the front window, which was but one of many gorgeous portraits of women playing instruments, dressed in rich textures and lush fall colours. the artist is felix mas.

that afternoon we visited the society of arts and crafts where an exhilarated man was trying on rings that looked like cartoons (imagine a king in a disney movie) and inhaling rapturously after each one. after looking at a price, handed classily to him on a piece of folded up paper, he looked up and said loudly, "that's it?!" the curator coyly answered, "we could increase it for you."
i found a number of sweet blown glass bottles that were purposely aged by an artist/poet who carved things into them like "time [caution: evaporates quickly]" or "hope [powerful substance]", and "trust [fragile: easily broken]". i quite liked these!
for lunch, we had japanese food - a welcome change from the cafeteria - and i had fermented soybean sushi, which has a gooey texture that will take a few trials to understand i think. going our separate ways, i headed on to cambridge to pick up a book for one of my classes that can't be found anywhere in bridgewater: "having faith: an ecologist's journey to motherhood." i then snuggled down in a small warm cafe in harvard square with a mug of chai and a big oatmeal raisin cookie...the combination of books and tea are very good for the soul...and started in on my book about pregnancy next to a woman cooing and playing with her baby. i also discovered a magnificent poetry bookstore nestled behind the harvard bookstore - it is one room filled floor to ceiling with more poetry than you can imagine, albeit only one shelf of canadian stuff.

on this note, i get the distinct feeling that americans like canada, as much as canadians can be the butt of many jokes (in the way that newfoundlanders can bear the brunt of it in canada). some evidence for me that day was the discussion i had with the owner of the poetry shop about canadian literature - i was searching for a book by richard van kamp called "angel wing splash pattern" - as well as a chat with a volunteer selling 'sponsor a child' packages on the street. talking about montreal in the music lounge on campus (it's the rage here to bus up to quebec to go drinking), i had a group of people ask me about school fees and health care in canada and promptly decide they wanted to gain dual citizenship. a new friend from south africa announced that he has never met a canadian who wasn't wonderful and polite. perhaps it takes going away to become really proud of and attached to your home.

on sunday i went apple picking with the international culture club and wound up with too many fruits for my single self, yet managed to distribute them so that they were gone before any had the chance to turn to mush on me. i have a soft spot for honey crisps and granny smiths, and a penchant now for some different kinds of fruit!

this past weekend i went up to boston to visit a friend, who promptly departed for toronto an hour after i arrived! we arranged for me to stay over at her apartment in cambridge, which gave me what felt like a vacation from my normal life, and a chance to become a pseudo-harvard student for a day. i ate in the harvard caf and was inspired to conduct some sort of correlative research study into the quality of cafeteria foods and the resultant quality of students (athletics, academic, emotional stability, etc, etc).
on saturday i visited the boston vegetarian festival and was mildly surprised to find it packed, but mostly for the procurement of the legendary free samples. there were several great presentations; i went to one about different kinds of fats - did you know canola is so named because they didn't want to name it after its source, the rapeseed, so instead named it for its home, canada? - and another presentation on vegan baking. in the evening i was delighted to meet with a toronto friend who popped into boston on a roadtrip and experience boston's chinatown for supper. sunday was a relaxing day of reading among the leaves and sitting in on the bridgewater amnesty international meeting that takes place at the local yoga centre. it has been gorgeous weather out and the fall colours do wonders for this campus. i am going to attempt to take some pictures so that you can see what i mean!

ok, i couldn't help myself and this nutshell has turned into a snowball. what can i say? i like storytelling.

injustice or ingenious?

2007-10-18T23:06:00.000-04:00

country-specific cell phone models

kill the buzz

2007-10-18T23:03:00.000-04:00

did you know that cell phones are interrupting bees' frequencies and causing them to lose their direction back to the hive after collecting pollen, thus causing their mass destruction in certain parts of the world?

sounds like canada

2007-10-12T10:44:00.000-04:00

i'm satisfying my craving for canada with bucketfuls of cbc radio. there's nothing like news from home, familiar speech patterns, gentle senses of humour.

thanks giving

2007-10-09T22:55:00.000-04:00

it was a wonderful weekend in toronto, through the unseasonal fog and the sun showers, because i got to see my favourite people in the world. my family congregated in toronto; as we adopted the dining room table when grandma moved, we also adopted the first big family holiday, and three out of the four families made it to our house for turkey, leek and stilton soup, and aaron's apple pies.

i am really thankful for the people in my life; for all the friends that have entered and exited, for those that stay in touch, for everyone i meet that welcomes me into their circle, for the strangers on street corners and in bookstores that humour me by chatting back, and for my family who supports and forgives enduringly. i saw patch adams speak last week (which i will soon write more about) and he spoke at length about the sustaining qualities of friendships and about how the biggest epidemic in our society is really loneliness. laughter is not the best medicine, friends are, he said, and i quite agree.

i think that as we meet people throughout our lives, we are vicariously meeting all of the folks they have ever met, as you carry a bit of all of your acquaintances and interactions with you. in this way, the world becomes a smaller and much more homey place, where all is familiar. now, i am beginning to look at strangers and recognize old friends, or see resemblances in character to someone i have met at another point in time. it's not every day that i strike up the courage to tell people how 'home' they feel to me, but i do go out of my way to let people know that they mean a lot to me as often as i can. so, thanks for being a part of who i am.

autumn falling

2007-10-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

once again, it's turning into my favourite season. the leaves are oranging and decorating the grass and the pavement. it has become necessary to carry a sweater or scarf most places. i have cravings for roasted root vegetables and an itch to start something new, while also feeling like dropping out of my daily life for a while to hibernate in a cafe with a stack of books, a roaring fire, a home-knit afgan, and the smells of ginger and cinnamon lingering on the doorstep. i want to go apple-picking and make pies with my cousins, to enjoy an earthy glass of red wine and discuss new things with old friends, and to bask in sunlight and moonlight, as they fight for sky space at dusk.

end of week wonders

2007-09-23T20:26:00.000-04:00

this is the end of a long-anticipated weekend, and i am glad with how it has turned out. it has concluded with a home-cooked meal, fewer readings left to do than there were saturday morning, and a general sense of ease.

saturday

on saturday morning i took the commuter rail in to boston to visit a high school friend studying in cambridge, along with several transfer/international students she had met there. the plan was to visit the museum of fine arts or the gardiner museum, but by the time we had assembled, we decided the weather was too nice to ignore and abandoned our plans in favour of wandering outside. we started our meander at the boston commons and public gardens, two idyllic spaces with tourists and locals strolling through at various degrees of patience.

we followed the freedom trail (a red brick line that takes you past many old buildings and boston monuments) for a bit and then detoured toward quincy market for lunch. i had been expecting a farmer's market from the name - having never heard of the place before - but it ended up being a large building filled with lunch-type food vendors and upscale boutiques surrounding it. there were a number of buskers and street performers, and to add to the good cheer, a giant flock of college guys obviously pledging to a fraternity, who one by one would march up to pretty young women with a rose in hand and ask if they would like to go to a party that night. regardless of the response from the embarrassed woman, the whole group would suddenly burst into bleats of "give him a hug!" which made me laugh hysterically for some time...have you ever heard thirty guys yell the same thing before?

when we got tired of the market, we wandered around the back, hoping to find a place to sit down, and bumped into a real market, run by mostly hispanic bostonians, where all the fruit and vegetables were ridiculously inexpensive. i bought a giant eggplant, three boxes of strawberries, and a big bag of grapes for three dollars, while other possible one-dollar options included three pounds of tomatoes, or five nectarines, or a dozen ears of corn. amazing! we wondered why everything was so cheap, hoping the foods were not contaminated, but just too ripe to sell elsewhere. we had a giant fruit dinner on park benches, where we were approached by a man with a camera ('take my photo?') who talked to us about shooting a moose with a bow and arrow in montebello, quebec when he learned we were from canada. sketchy...

the evening ended with a jaunt into chinatown, a rummage through a beautiful used and rare bookstore, and a stroll toward the train station, from which i caught the train into bridgewater, my new (it's becoming) home.

sunday

this has been a quieter day of pondering and reading, catching up on loose ends, and doing odd chores. i left my room with the intent of going to the library, but again was distracted by the beautiful day and walked around the residential neighbourhood south of west campus until i got too warm, and then found a spot in the shade of a big old maple tree to do my readings. [let me add here that i procured a cup of fair trade coffee from the east campus commons caf!! it was blueberry scented...]

the rest of my afternoon was spent devouring books and articles, picking up odds and ends at the cvs, discovering that bridgewater has a second hand book store - i bought the bostonians as a lark - and learning that due to the override at the recent municipal election, bridgewater's one public library is due to close by october. what a shame!

i spoke with some very friendly people working in the cafeteria, learned that botswana has an aids rate of 38 percent while reading my anthropology textbook (and surprised myself by my visceral anger, coming quite close to tears), and cooked up a dinner that was much too salty. all in all, it has been a wholesome weekend and i'm looking forward to the next few days before i head back to ottawa for the weekend.

observation

2007-09-23T11:19:00.001-04:00

this is a very academically-oriented place in the world. evidence? the ad sections of many of the newspapers are filled with requests for test subjects for various studies.

home sweet ottawa

2007-09-21T11:09:00.000-04:00

this past weekend i went home to ottawa. not that ottawa is where i'm from, but there is an amazingly palpable difference between the united states and canada that i hadn't realized until we hit the tarmac of the ottawa airport and i breathed a giant sigh of 'ah, i'm back.'

i spent the weekend at the killam/fulbright orientation, which was an enlightening and professional three days of events together that allowed us to discuss everything from our upcoming years in each others' countries, to national identity, to hockey plays.

i found myself consistently counting my blessings throughout the proceedings, finding myself amid fascinating people, with diverse interests, talents, and immense knowledge. yet amid these wonderfully academic people (i hesitate to say academics because it seems to put unnecessary borders around personalities) i found a wonderful down-to-earth and level-headed outlook on life, not to mention some great senses of humour! on our last evening together, i sat amid a group of american fulbright scholars and students ranging in age from bushy-tailed to experienced, and listened as insightful and warm conversation washed over me. this was our way of unwinding after a very fun game of hockey had transpired earlier that evening, and we were the crowd eager to continue our conversations, but not inspired to do so at the local pub. several times i came very close to tears, overwhelmed as i was by the situation i found myself in. how privileged i have been throughout my life to end up where i am right now. what amazing people i have met through my travels. wonder where the next twenty years will take me?

boston arrival

2007-09-19T19:48:00.000-04:00

when we first arrived in boston, en route to bridgewater, we as a family collectively took these photographs. each of them tells a different story.

interesting statement under the neon lights. it says "god bless america"

two kinds of oil at one rest stop.

canadian beer advertised in boston!

down at the wharves (who knew this was the plural of wharf?)

i was proud of this canadian-american connection, since this is the purpose of my visit here, even if it was just decor at a restaurant.

a beauteous flower outside of a small shop in cambridge.

the lovely scenery.

i was, and am still, impressed by the presence of american flags everywhere. on people's homes, outside of shops, on buildings, probably even tatooed in places i can't see. this was the giantest one i have seen so far.

finally, the stereotype of america in a photograph. i hope to discover that this is completely untrue, unfair, and unamerican. we shall see...

classes

2007-09-12T09:50:00.000-04:00

yesterday i was in class from the early hours of the morning until sundown and reached my room exhausted at the end of the day, but only because of the stormy weather. (twice I had reached classes soaked to the skin as I hadn't realized it was going to rain and did not bring an umbrella with me in the morning.) i love my classes! let me sort of recap my day:

my first class was "global indigenous peoples" in which we discussed the basic methods and features of anthropology in order to get us ready to talk about this article: Body Rituals of the Nacirema, which is quite funny and worth a read. i really enjoyed the professor's discussion of walking through a mall in the phillipines (she is from senegal) and watching as things came to a standstill around her with everyone turning to look at her, a blatant foreigner. i guess when you do fieldwork, you need to accustom yourself to the idea of being the odd one out in your new surroundings. i certainly felt that way sometimes in kenya, but getting close to the people you are working with changes that feeling of being different really fast until sometimes you forget that you look a different way.

my second class was "consumer psychology" and i am so glad to have found this class at this school! for a society that consumes endless amounts of things, the western world spends little time criticizing this behaviour. advertisements try to make us fantasize urgent needs out of our wants, and psychologists have now conducted studies that prove there is a dark side to this american dream! i have a textbook that elaborates how materialism causes unhappiness and unhappiness causes materialism. and this returning thought arose again yesterday: there are enough resources on the planet to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate every single person. it's a great frustration to me that if this is a possibility, it is not at once a reality!

my third class of the day was "environmental and consumer health," a fantastic elaboration on consumer psychology with an ecological bent. i sat through this class close to tears, as the professor elaborated all of the horrible things we are doing to our planet, but i'm tempted to say this was a renewing and important experience to have had. with a fresh rage about the destruction of the earth and its resources, i can better apply myself to my own small changes and talking to others about theirs. some human beliefs that contribute to environmental problems are:
- that man is the most important species and should have dominion over nature
- that any harm we do, we can undo
- that our individual and collective impact on the environment will result in imperceptible changes
- that natural resources are free and inexhaustible
- that the environment has a nearly infinite capacity to assimilate toxic discharges and waste

also, here is an incredible comparison of our current priorities...every year,
$14 billion is spent on ocean cruises
$15 billion on perfumes
$18 billion on makeup
$17 billion on pet food
$11 billion on ice cream in Europe alone!

compare this to the cost to make some vital changes
$12 billion for reproductive health care
$19 billion to eliminate hunger and malnutrition
$5 billion for universal literacy
$10 billion to provide clean drinking water for all
$ 1.3 billion to immunize every child

staggering, isn't it? and if this hasn't moved you enough, think to the seventh generation, as some of the first people living in this country do, considering what ramifications your actions will have on your grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren.

my fourth class of the day was "nutrition" which is a nice formal way to pursue a longstanding interest of mine. it is a class filled with mostly physical education and health education majors, which is great because they are a bunch that is already quite knowledgeable about the subject.

finally at the end of the day i had my first ceramics class! it is super long (almost 5 hours) but time passes quickly and i think it will be quite therapeutic. i am taking this class in the evening, with a lively bunch of women and a down to earth professor named ron mello (a name that suits him well). last night we spent our class touring the studio and working on pinch pots. everything they do is high fire stoneware, and i am looking forward to learning how to mix glazes, reconstitute clay, and play around with my imagination to produce interesting things. we are encouraged to come in to do work at any hour of the day, which is lovely; i will have a retreat if anything else gets too crazy. it's really nice to be taking pottery; i feel like it gives me a connection to the earth, to history, to my own family a little bit more, and will offer me a chance to be artistic in a way that i normally am not.

today i have many odds and ends to do as i get ready to - believe it or not - go to ottawa early thursday morning. the killam foundation is having a killam/fulbright conference over this weekend and i'm going to be able to meet some of the other folks who are similarly settling into new colleges and universities here and in canada. i look forward to posting some photographs sometime next week!

p.s. i'm thrilled to have received so many comments on my posts! thank you so much; they make the writing a breeze.

things to learn

2007-09-07T22:31:00.001-04:00

today i spent some time wandering campus and the town of bridgewater, trying to orient myself in this new place. i had heard there was a yoga studio in town, but after walking over, i discovered it has moved 2 miles down the road, just a tad too far away to get easily on foot in time for the class i was planning to go to. maybe i'll try again tomorrow.

it strikes me that bridgewater state college is much like glendon, in that it is a school that is rather self-contained. most people pack up and go home on the weekends; i saw many students leave east hall this afternoon with laundry bags and not much else. we are just a little bit removed from the major city (glendon from toronto, bridgewater from boston) and when i mention the name of either of the colleges, not many people know what i'm talking about. :D

i'm finding myself conducting somewhat of an anthropological study of american culture, looking into everything in a very different light, searching for differences and similarities. one thing i've realized is that i've become accustomed to a rather progressive community of people - people who are concerned about turning out lights, walking or taking public transit whenever possible, and generally living healthy. i haven't quite found that group of people here yet; i was surprised to discover that the "better bean" coffee shop has never heard of fair trade coffee before. it also came as a bit of a shock that most residence students also have cars and live only about half an hour away from the college. most lunches i have seen people eating are some combination of pizza, burgers, french fries, and tacos, although i'm hoping this is not really the case but just what happens to stick out to me this first week.

in other strange observations, i keep hearing music blasting out of cars and dorm rooms that i associate with kibera, where i spent two months of my summer teaching journalism. it's bizarre to come from a slum to a posh college and to connect them through song. amazing how time and space can be so condensed by something so simple.

and they're off

2007-09-06T20:07:00.000-04:00

when i first arrived at bridgewater state college (bsc) i found a book in the library that i had been unable to find almost anywhere else; the diaries of adam and eve by mark twain. it is a shortish book and i took from it two delicious pearls of wisdom as follows:

how little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it - eve

it was against my principles, but i find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed - adam

* * *

as of today i have officially begun all of my classes here, and so far they are looking great. the professors are welcoming, the topics are incredibly well-suited to me, and after standing in a very long line at the bookstore, i have acquired the books that i have to get through before the end of the semester.

i am taking a consumer psychology class, in which the overriding theme is that material goods cannot buy you happiness. or, more eloquently put:

you can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy - eric hoffer

i think this is going to be a great year

settling

2007-09-04T18:52:00.000-04:00

just before i head to bed on my first night in bridgewater, i think i should post to say that i have made it here in one piece, i have found my room, located a 'connect card' that lets me into places of food, of sleep, and of books, met my lovely roommates, attended an exchange student orientation where i met the two other canadians, been to a campus bbq, and even sat on a bench in the shade of some big trees to devour a book i have been searching for for ages and finally found here at the library.

it has been a whirlwind journey to get here, and i have many stories that need to be accompanied by some photographs, soon to come.

good night!

and so it begins

2007-08-31T18:22:00.000-04:00

tomorrow i'll be leaving thornhill for bridgewater, or if i want others to easily grasp these places' whereabouts, i should say i'm leaving toronto for boston. really though, i'm moving from one suburb to another, to start a year's adventure as an exchange student. i will once again be a foreigner in a new place, probably detectable by my thick Canadian accent and my fondness for beavers.

i'm thrilled, sort of the way you are as you're about to hop onto your first rollercoaster, and this feeling yoyos back and forth between exhilarating and petrifying. time keeps ticking by though, so there's little left to do but get in the car and hope for the best. here it goes...