One of the fishing trawlers in Fiumicino port near Rome. Looks like a living example that the weakest shackle determines the strength of a chain.
Apart from the fact the anchor seems to be a second hand from an oil tanker. Slightly oversized. Maybe they nicked it from one of the Libyan freighters at the oil terminal a mile off shore here...
In February, spent a loving time near Lago Maggiore, in the very North of Italy, close to the border with Switzerland.
Last fall, I visited one of Italy's treasures, Cinque Terre, at the Riviera in the Northeast of Italy. A stretch of rocky coast where town, vineyards and isolated houses are glued onto the rocks, or perched in narrow gorges. I think one can write a blog only about travelling through Italy. More than a blog.
My mobile phone gave up on me this week. The guys at work had it replaced in no time and copied all settings, messages and pictures.. While checking if everything was still there, I browsed through the picture galleries. I seem to have quite a backlog of photographs I took while thinking "I should write a blog post about this".
This weekend, I caught up, and wrote a short series, called "Snapped". Each has one picture and a short comment. The images are all taken with a crappy Nokia phone, so the quality is not very good. The memories are.
Here are the first two:
In June, the weather got very hot all of a sudden. When I'd get into the car in the evening, everything felt as if it were at melting point. So one day, I decided to leave the car windows wide open. Something I normally never do. A summer storm passed by in that afternoon. Of course I'd totally forgotten.
Water flushed out of the car when I opened the window in the evening. Puddles of water on the seats. Which are in cloth, not plastic or leather. I never knew cloth and foam could soak up that much water until I had to sit on it for 30 minutes to drive home.
I don't think I had wet pants since I was four.
On the road from Belgium to Austria last Easter, we drove through Luxembourg. And got lost on a detour. We knew were were lost, as we were on the road to "Bitche". We decided to keep a brave face and not to bitch. Time lost, is lost forever. But whenever you get lost, you discover something new.
In principle, this could be the shortest blogpost I ever wrote:
| Question: "What makes food in Italy taste so good?" Answer: "The ingredients" |
Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond these questions...
Clambering for the scraps in the shatter of us collapsed
that cuts me with every could-have-been
Pain on pain on play repeating
with the backup, makeshift life in waiting
Everybody says time heals everything
but what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in between
are we just going to wait it out?
There's nothing to see here now,
turning the sign around
We're closed to the earth 'til further notice
A stumbling cliched case,
crumpled and puffy faced
Dead in the stare of a thousand miles
All I want, only one, street level miracle
I'll be an out and out, born again, from none more
cynical
And sit here cold, we will be long gone by then
In lackluster, in dust we layer on old magazines,
fluorescent lighting sets the scene
in the one life that we've got
And sit here
Just going to wait it out
And sit here cold
Just going to sweat it out
Wait it out
Say it's true, there's nothing like me and you
Not alone, tell me you feel it too
And I would runaway
I would runaway, yeah
I would runaway
I would runaway with you
Cause I have fallen in love
With you, no never have
I'm never gonna stop falling in love, with you
Close the door, lay down upon the floor
And by candlelight, make love to me through the night
Cause I have runaway
I have runaway, yeah
Sean Gallagher is a photojournalist living in China. With the support of Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting to highlight the impact of desertification in China.
Almost 20% of China's land is now desert, affecting 400 million people. In Western China over one million acres of fertile land turn into desert. Per year. Last year they suffered a peak drought.
Climate change, wind and water erosion, industrialization, agriculture, untimely policy changes, you name it.
China's desertification is not only a problem for the Chinese. It impacts the world as a whole. I am not talking about what 1,000,000 acres of desert mean to the world's climate, alone: the more fertile land turns into sand, the more China is looking for agriculture land abroad, competing with European biofuel companies and Arab countries trying to secure their food production too. And money buys land in Africa. Easily. Even if this means they need to reduce their own food production.
Video courtesy Sean Gallagher. Discovered via Resolve and Duckrabbit
With the media heating up for the December Climate Change Summit in Denmark, it is time to for some reflection.
Does the name "Severn Cullis-Suzuki" mean anything to you? Severn was 12 when in 1992, she raised money to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. She spoke to the summit members in a speech which became famous. A speech which -sadly enough- could have been given today. It makes one wonder what progress really happened in the past 17 year.
Do we actually make progress on protecting our planet for the sake of our children, and their children? In an age where Green Goes Commercial, where corrupt companies like Monsanto and Cargill start dominating our food chain, and chase the food prices up so the poor no longer have access to food. A world where Western companies buy up fertile land in Africa to grow biofuel crops so less land becomes available for food agriculture?
Did we make progress, or are we still sliding downhill?
Check out the most recent news and blogposts about the Climate Change summit in Copenhagen on Humanitarian News.
To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
In what seems to become an ongoing series about humanitarian advocacy ;-)... Here is another video which spoke to my heart.
Compare this piece of (he)art with the MSF video we discussed earlier, and you will see what I mean when I say "you don't have to fake stories to move a public"
Added to inspirational video collection.
Video courtesy the Strongheart Fellowship Programme
Here I am, waking up tickled by sunlight. I get a shower, water the plants, clean up the place a bit, get into the car, drive up the highway. And then I hear a funny noise in the back...
Oops, punctured tyre.. No problem I have done this before... A Smart does not come with a spare tyre, but with a handy electric pump. I park on the emergency lane. 30 ton truck racing 2 inches past you. You "pump it up" and drive off..
Oops... puncture too big.... I barely make it to the next gas station. All flat again. No problem.. I have a can of tyre glue filler (how do you call that stuff?), made for just that. Except that there is no tool to get the valve off the tyre. No way to fit the glue tube onto the tyre.
Well, this is a gas station, so I ask the pompista. Nope. "No tools." He points at the gas station at other side of the highway: "Ask there". Luckily there is an underpass. Off I go.
I explain with the best of my Italian, that there is a problem with my "bomba" and I am looking for a "bombista".. The guy gives me a funny look but no luck. "If you get the tyre here, I will fix you up with a second hand one", he says. I think that is what he says.
Meanwhile next to my car, a queue is forming. Three buses of Dutch tourists wanna go to the loo, and line up right next to my car. And each has a comment. Not thinking I would speak Dutch. We're in Italy after all. Until I comment on their comments.
Long story short, my luck comes in the form of an angel, a friend working close by. She dropped by the local garage, picks up a wrench and a tool to remove the valve. When she arrives, I introduce her to the Dutch tourists as the representative of the local automobile club. They all comment they want to change tyres too.
Anyway, glue goes in, but as soon as I pump up the tyre, it comes out of a dozen different holes. It seems I drove into every single nail in Rome. Tyre has to come off. Smart no come with jack. Back to the pompista to explain I have a problem with my 'bomba'.. No tools. Friend's car has. Fits well. Off comes the tyre. 
With tyre and friend back to the other side of the highway. I ask again for the 'bombista'. Friend asks me what I mean? I say "a guy who fixes tyres".. "Ah" she says, 'GOMMISTA', you mean. 'BOMBISTA' is someone who makes bombs..." No wonder nobody had tools for my "BOMBA" (bomb). Oh well.
The GOMMISTA gets the tyre off, and fixes a second hand one he has laying around. "Should get you going to the next garage", he says. 20 Euros. Cheap to get back onto the road.
Back to the other side of the highway (thank God for underpasses), fixed the tyre while realizing this is not the typical picture: Normally you would have a blonde saved by a mechanical savvy guy. Here I am being saved by a female angel..
Anyways, dropped the car off at a garage, and got a ride back home. Back where I started off, four hours later. Car to be picked up in the evening.
Will give it another try tomorrow morning...
Nope, I don't mean just the past few days - I spent the weekend home in Belgium. I don't mean the hours spent trying to get Windows XP reinstalled on Lana's laptop. And figuring out which driver was the right one for her wireless card. And preferably did not conflict with the network card. Beh.
I don't mean neighter the debugging of the LAN ("Daddy, why does the Internet only work for 5 minutes in one go?") - which was just a reset of the wireless router...
No, I mean in the past weeks... What's been keeping me busy (outside of work)..
Well. I kicked off several new sites:
And I wrote stuff:
"Humanitarian News" has been up since a week now, and collected over 4,000 different articles. Just the mere amount of articles has proven to be quite an asset. Just do a search on Sudan for instance, and you will get what has been published about Sudan in those 600 different sites: news articles, press releases and posts in the Blogosphere..
And it is not just quantity, but also quality: as the sources are all handselected, the contents is quite relevant for anyone working in, or interested in the nonprofit sector...
For the moment, You and Us and Me is fed from about 30 different sources. This week, I will look for more sites...
That's what has been keeping me busy....!
The discussion around MSF UK's controversial video sparked quite a lot of comments around the topic 'How do you portray aid and poverty' or 'How do you make people think about these subjects'.
So I thought it is a good idea to show another way. A way that touched me. Meet Emily Troutman.
Emily Troutman is a writer and photographer living in Washington. She just came back after a month travelling around Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She made a video collage of her pictures, mounted it with some gripping music and appropriate text. Its simplicity took me in, and contrasted sharply with the MSF video we talked about a few days ago. Have a look for yourself:
I contacted Emily, and we had an interesting exchange:
Why did you make this video?
Emily: It was a rare opportunity to give voice to an issue that at this moment only exists at the fringes of the mainstream media.
Was this your first trip to rural Africa?
Emily: I also traveled with UNOCHA in the Gulu area of Uganda in 2006. I took some wisdom and knowledge from that trip into Congo. For example, I already knew what real poverty and starvation looked like, so I was able to pay attention to what could maybe be called higher-level needs, but are still urgent: space, pots to cook in, blankets. Of course in Congo, the biggest issue is safety.
What was different in the experience between the two trips, Congo and Uganda?
Emily: In Congo, I generally saw less hungry people, but still some malnutrition, and a whole new complexity of issues facing internally displaced people (IDPs). In Congo, IDPs are still running in a way that they were not in Uganda in 2006. I was also profoundly impacted by the enormity of the jungle in Congo. My four day trip to Pinga, through an area where civilians and aid workers have been shot, really brought home the sense of danger that the Congolese face in simple day-to-day tasks like gathering wood, or walking to market.
These are areas where the authorities or even the people, are not always happy to see a photographer
Emily: The DRC was a very frustrating place to take photos because the work I was doing was technically illegal.
It is exceptionally difficult to get permission to take photos there, so most of the time when I shot, it was in IDP camps or traveling with UN MONUC escorts. I have a profound respect for those photographers who risk their lives to take photos of the military or shine light on issues like child soldiers.
But DRC.. So many have published stuff about the DRC?
Emily: I recognized that Congo, like so many intractable problems, has a way of receding into the noise of daily life. Even for me, it became one of these world crises that are too far away and too foreign to matter on a daily basis. It becomes hard to summon the energy to pay attention. Like, why even look at the issue if I can’t do anything to help?
And did you? Did you help?
Emily: I wanted to go, just so I could see. And ultimately, to decide if that experience of seeing and sharing what I saw could transform how all of us think about Congo, and more generally, the problems of “other people.” Although I have written and photographed similar issues in the past, Congo seemed uniquely overlooked, especially in light of the scale of its tragedy.
People talk a lot about “awareness” and “action” and “making a difference.” But honestly, this was not an aspiration of mine. I only wanted to be open to the moment and encourage those I photograph to also be open to me. The next part is like a witnessing, seeing what happens when two people enter a silent pact to tell the truth. I wanted to make the video because it is an easy way to draw people in; a photo doesn't ask anything of us except our attention.
You can find the stories behind the pictures, on Emily's blog. More of her work, you can find on on her website.
 Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order. |
© Blogger template The Business Templates by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
The Road's Dashboard
Log in
New
Edit
Customize
Dashboard