An Earthquake in Sichuan
I am deliberately leading with this photo, to remind us all that life does go on even in the midst of such tragedy as a 7.9 or 8.0 earthquake. Returning to the US with its continued willful obsession with the tragic events of 9/11 and sheer stubborn unwillingness to, as it were, move on…well, it seems there are things our leaders and fellow citizens could learn from the good folks of Sichuan about accepting tragedy and moving on constructively and engagingly with life.So , as it happens, I was in Paris debriefing from my eight+ months in Port Harcourt, when the earthquake in China happened. Having studied Chinese language and history in college; having lived in China for more than two years if you add up my time there with MSF and my student days in Taiwan, and being readily to hand in Paris for the emergency desk to ask if I’d be willing or able to help out with any relief effort we decided to try to launch…well, let’s just say that rather than returning as planned to the US and enjoying Oberlin’s graduation weekend and the celebration of Shansi’s successful fundraising campaign, in which I played an enjoyable and not insignificant role for the past four or five years, I headed off to Asia less than a week after returning to Paris from Africa. Everyone’s read the news reports, I’m sure, and knows that the government’s response has been impressive and thorough. I won’t get on the soapbox for long, but let’s just say the citizens of New Orleans would have fared far better under this regime, which so many in the US delight in criticizing endlessly, than under the band of thieving incompetents we’ve allowed to run our country for the past eight years. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves here.
…Above, you can see the mountains in the hazy background — they’re really quite close, as this town butts more or less up against them, but there was always a lot of haze (or was it pollution?) in the air. Below: I do, always have and always will, love the countryside of China. I just love rice fields and wheat fields and the small low-tech way they’re still run in China, by contrast to the superfarms that have driven American small farmers out of business…while allowing us all to pay nearly nothing in cash for our food and put off the real environmental and social costs of such factory farming for future generations to sort out. (Ooh…sorry, I’m really in a soapbox mood today, aren’t I? Sorry!)
And Then There Were the Pandas :-)
During my brief time in Chengdu it was pretty much long work days and no down time really. On the very last day, though, I managed to slip out with my delightful colleague Sarah for a visit to the famous Panda Research & Breeding facility on the outskirts of Chengdu city. There’s a larger, more forested and wild place a good deal farther outside the city, but that one was out of the question. This one was possible, only taking up a couple hours on my last morning there. I’m not at all sure this layout will work: further down there’s a sequence of shots of some young pandas playing, which I tried to lay out in sort of a filmstrip fashion from top left to bottom right…if they overlap on your browser, try launching another one: I find that strangely enough explorer often interacts better with blogspot than firefox, much as I usually prefer firefox…
By explanation: adult pandas do what many of us have seen the adult pandas do in zoos in our home countries: lie around snoozing, or if you’re early in the morning (as we were) chomping on bamboo. (Yum! I’d like mine with the spicy salsa, please!) The young pandas are another matter altogether: they’re like the young of many other mammals, overloaded with energy and playfulness, and they were a total treat to watch endlessly playing with each other like a litter of puppies.
Anyway, it was nice to be able to enjoy Chengdu even a little bit. Otherwise it seems a very nice city and I was happy with how at home I felt there, and how well my spoken Chinese came back after nearly two years away from China; the city itself was very little affected by the earthquake or the aftershocks, though of course everyone felt them all and was quite jittery, understandably.
An Equatorial Interlude
I managed, rather at the last minute, to get away from PH for a week’s relaxation before returning for the finish-line sprint. I decided that Ghana and Senegal (two common vacation destinations for my colleagues), though indubitably more culturally interesting and classically West-African, simply did not sound anywhere near as haven-like and utterly relaxing as the equatorial island nation of Sao Tome e Principe, two large islands and a few smaller ones clustered in the Gulf of Guinea. After all, if what I want is history of the slave trade and old slave forts – in which Ghana excels – I can get a taste in Calabar; if I want markets full of energy and excitement and people…well, we have those here in Port Harcourt. And so on.
All in all, for a change of pace, Sao Tome sounded like the place for me, and boy was I ever right. After my Calabar entry (scroll down a bit), Mom sent an email praising the beauty of my photos. Indeed, I did enjoy Calabar and it is lovely. However, before reaching Sao Tome I certainly hoped and expected it to be a great deal more lovely and green than Calabar. And, as these photos attest, I was far from disappointed. I spent a full week doing little more than relax, walk, read and do yoga in and around my small resort located on a little island off the southern tip of Sao Tome. I returned to PH brimming with good vibes and energy with which to finish my assignment here – which will come to an in May, after which it looks like I’ll be spending a good deal of time back in the US, helping Mom with some major projects around the house, before moving on to whatever comes next. This is likely my sign-off until I’m out of Nigeria – so enjoy the pics, keep in touch, and thanks for your support and interest during my time here. Do support MSF, and do pay attention to Nigeria: it’s a great country with many problems but fantastically wonderful people, and really rather important for stability and future prosperity in West Africa.
…above, the resort seen from the hill on which is located a marker for the equator (which you’ll see further down); below: said hill, seen from the pool. Someone said it’s the largest pool on the equator, or south of the equator, or something…but I think it’s actually a few steps north of the equator, though it’s quite possible the line goes right through the pool…
…it’s obviously a volcanic island, with a coastline riddled with black volcanic rock; this gives rise to at least three separate blowholes where the surf forces water and mist up through holes in the rock. Quite cool. And very dramatic-sounding as well.
…I’m smiling through the pain: I’m on the boat leaving the island. (Sigh. Sob.)
Above: a few shots of the Sao Tome coastline as seen from Ilheu Rolas.
Exploring Ilheu Rolas
…left to right: Sao Tome e Principe (with two stars for – I assume – the two main islands, Portugal (home base of the resort company), EU, Pestana (the resort company).
Below are four shots of the paths on which I spent many hours wandering and exploring the island. After making my way down from the airport (more about that further below…sorry, Ondrej, I just can’t bring myself to stick to linear time in these entries: it’s about beauty and narrative…) around sunset — which naturally happens around 18:00 all year — on Saturday, I awoke Sunday wondering what was in store for me during my week on the island. Still rather high on the adrenaline and nervous energy of my daily life in PH, I was up and out for a long run around the island: oh, bliss, an hour of green nature and running without one single other person, or vehicle, or smoke-belching generator to be seen or heard. Initially, I thought I’d maybe hop the boat back to explore Sao Tome a bit as well either on foot or by hopping the public buses…or maybe even head up to the capital city and see the sights. But as the days went by, my comfort level with doing absolutely nothing other than a morning walk around the island, an evening outing to another part of the island, and an afternoon of lethargic poolside lounging or air-conditioned movie-watching in my room steadily grew. By the end of the week, I virtually needed help to scoop myself out of my lounge chair and onto the boat to leave the island. Still and alll, I did manage to explore most of Ilheu Rolas during my morning and evening strolls (remember: I was right on the equator, so I’d have been mad to exert energy in the mid-day sun!), even if my energy wasn’t sufficient to take me back to the big island until it was time to leave. Herewith many shots of the pathways, coastline, and sights of Ilheu Rolas.
The resort, Pestana Ecuador, is by far the largest source of income on the island. However there is a small village whose inhabitants collect bananas, coconuts and other forest products, seem to grow a few crops in surrounding fields, and take their fishing boats out from the village pier (behind the straw-thatched shelter, above). The village only has a handful of inhabitants, so it’s really about the resort, which itself doesn’t have the highest occupancy-rates you could imagine: if you need a completely relaxing vacation in a lovely and really rather luxurious setting – though my standards are not those of the average American tourist, Pestana Ecuador really does a fine job in my estimation – go now. Most of us wonder how long the resort can keep going with such low occupancy and really quite reasonable rates! Below: the village church and other views.
Poonam tells me that every year some 150 people are killed worldwide by falling coconuts. (She and her family – husband Owen and kids Leila & Billy helped keep me from feeling actually too isolated on Rolas by letting me join them for meals and the occasional ping-pong or dominoes game.) We all agreed that after the well-advertised risks of the streets of Lagos & Port Harcourt, falling coconuts were a welcome risk. Here you also see one of the culprit fallen coconuts in the flesh, rapidly taking root and reaching for the sky in hopes of begetting further dangerous falling objects for future visitors…
Remember that my daily life in PHC hardly exposes me to the natural world. So I reveled in these little elements of the natural world encountered on my meanderings around the island.
Above: a highly unflattering self-portrait, but how many chances does one have to photograph oneself literally straddling the equator? So I shall swallow my pride, and post it nonetheless. Below: the equator monument on the hill, with Sao Tome’s coastline in the background, and another view of the village pier.
Sao Tome City & Island Views
Ilheu Rolas sits off the southern tip of Sao Tome, larger of Sao Tome e Principe’s two main islands. The airport is just outside the eponymous capital and largest city. Sao Tome became the second Portuguese-colonial city I’ve visited — after Macau in 1983 when it, like Sao Tome, had that ineffable beauty and faded charm that somehow comes with genteel, unpretentious colonial architecture that’s grown a tad dilapidated from years of tropical rain and sun. Above, the cathedral; below, various street scenes and bay views. The entire country has maybe 300,000 inhabitants, I think; the city perhaps 60,000 — so it’s a far cry from Port Harcourt and Lagos!
There’s roughly a two-hour drive to get one from the northern side of Sao Tome, site of both the airport and the eponymous capital city, down to the southern tip whence the boats for Ilheu Rolas depart. Both coming and going, I tremendously enjoyed the trip with its views of rubber, cocoa and coconut plantations; steep cliffs diving dramatically to lovely bays and coves; verdant landscapes with volcanic plugs looming sharply in the distance (see below); and small villages, with village women (above) doing their washing in rivers & draping it to dry on any available flat surface (I so wish I’d managed a shot on one of the flat road verges or rocky river banks literally carpeted in clothing laid out in the sun to dry — rather like a huge bank of solar panels, only a bit less high-tech…). Both going and coming, it made a fine transition from the crowdedness of Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Nigeria to the peace and relative isolation of Ilheu Rolas.
…and a few parting shots for your enjoyment: Sao Tome seen from one of the small beaches on Ilheu Rolas, Sao Tome (immediately above) seen from the boat as I left the resort (look closely and you’ll see the volcanic plug, which looks a good deal less dramatic with the other hills and mountains in front of and behind it); and, below, parting views of the resort and of the whole island. Farewell, oh blissful retreat. 🙂
Clean & Green Calabar
Colonial buildings abound in Calabar — most built in Liverpool, brought over by ship, and then reassembled piece by piece here. They housed colonial officials and their families, and also those Africans wealthy and powerful enough to buy one as a status symbol. After taking this shot, I discovered I’m not relaly allowed to take pictures in this zone…it’s a government building…but I had a friendly chat with the nice officer and he ended up wanting to pose for a picture with me instead. Kinda classic, that one. I hope I don’t get in trouble for posting this shot…I just thought the building was lovely, and I’d like for y’all to see some of the many things that make Nigeria fabulous, rather than just beset by myriad problems.
Me at Cercopan: more about Cercopan and primates in Calabar below.
Calabar really does public sculpture and other demonstratoins of public pride — the huge flag at the top is part of an independence monument in the center of town, and these hands are on a gorgeous bluff in the old district of town, overlooking the Cross River. It was delightful to wander and enjoy the green and relatively smog-free streets.
I sat at this little table by the river for a loonnng time 
enjoying the peace & quiet and writing in my journal. The walflower is hiding a lizard, but even I can’t really see him, I only know he’s there…and the wallflower is pretty on its own, isn’t it?Colonial Calabar
Colonial buildings are another highlight 
The Calabar Museum is praised by 
Lonely Planet as far and away the best museum in Calabar. It really is an excellent and interesting place full of documents and stories from the days when Europeans first decided this was a great place to buy slaves; then, as noted in the sign at right, when the British abolished the slave trade and started actively policing the high seas against slavers, the chiefs and businessmen of Calabar shifted to the palm-oil trade, from which the whole Niger Delta region thrived for many, many long decades. The whole museum is housed in the old British colonial governor’s house high on a bluff above the Cross River, and it’s very easy to imagine the governor and his staff or family sitting up here watching the boats ply their trade on the river below. LP recommends taking a torch (flashlight) since the power’s usually not running; I got a good half-hour in the darkened museum, reading by torchlight, until someone figure out I wasn’t supposed to be there without power and kicked me out. Oh well.
Primates in Calabar
A fantastic highlight of Calabar is the two small primate-related NGOs based there. Pandrillus, aka the Drill Ranch, was the first to start up – founded in the early 80s by an American woman named Liza with whom I had the pleasure of watching the drill monkeys (above) and chimpanzees (below) pace their compounds and – in the case of the chimps – frolic in the water. (Shortly after I wandered into the compound, which is tucked away on a back street in a residential part of town, Liza decided the heat was getting to the chimps, and out came the hose; and yes, I did get to hold it and spray this girl above for a while — for all the world it felt just like holding the hose on a hot summer day for a frontyard full of kids in the midwest — they’d take turns running into and out of the water and screeching happily. I ask you: where else would one get to spray a chimp with water on a hot summer…well, February…day?)
Anyhoo: long story short: Cross River State, of which Calabar is the capital, is home to some of Nigeria’s little remaining forest and wild habitat in which monkeys and other wildlife can pursue their lives as they always have. Sadly, many of them get shot for the bush-meat trade; Pandrillus and Cercopan, the other NGO, take in the monkeys orphaned by the bush-meat trade, and sometimes reclaim monkeys who’ve been shipped around the country or the world as pets. Pandrillus specializes in Drills, a pretty large monkey and close relative of the better-known Mandrill, which live only in a narrow band of Nigeria and Cameroon, and on a nearby island in Equatorial Guinea. Cercopan focuses on a few species of smaller monkeys, several of which I’ve captured in action below. Both have offices and small enclosures for newly-received primates in town, and a larger facility north in the forests, where they run larger groups and, I think, try to prepare some to return to the wild — though having been orphaned at a young age, and/or chained to a perch in a hotel lobby here or a barbershop there, many of these primates wouldn’t really thrive in the wilds any more, and so stay indefinitely — and breed. Both organizations have had success at captive breeding, which is great since the Drills and at least one of the species at Cercopan are quite endangered and live in habitat that is under constant threat. (The most endangerd at Cercopan, I believe, is limited to a narrow band of habitat between the Cross and Niger rivers in Nigeria. I’m here to tell you there’s not a ton of undisturbed habitat left in this particular zone!)
Not sure if this is a mom and her kid, or just two friends; one thing I saw very frequently during the hour or so I spent just staring at these fabulously un-stressed-out looking creatures was the frequetly with which one of them will collapse in front of another for a grooming session. The other will then quite obligingly start picking through fur and – one assumes – removing grubs and burrs and other debris acquired while roaming the…cage.
This flag, as you’ve noticed, quite captivated me — it’s visible from so many parts of town, and provides a unifying central image as one wanders the streets and paths of Calabar, something I was so delighted to be able to do that I ignored the sweat drenching my shirt and walked endlessly. Herewith a few more shots of contemporary Calabar.
The first time I saw — in Port Harcourt — a book vendor balancing a stack of books nearly as tall as himself on his own head, I was most impressed. Now I’ve become as accustomed to that as I am to the traffic here. The tree, above, is a bus stop — desintaitons all indicated on the sign to the left of the tree.
Just north of Calabar along the Cross River, surrounded by rubber plantations, is a development called Tinapa – which is trying hard to be “Africa’s premiere business resort and destination,” or something of the sort. It was hypothetically opened a year ago or so, but it seems the shops still aren’t selling anything because, according to one article I’ve read, they haven’t settled the import and selling permits yet. This may be code for “they haven’t bribed the right people yet,” but it’s hard to know. Tinapa also wants to become an important site for Nollywood — Africa’s largest film industry is based in Nigeria. Hence the gorilla on the round dome.
The Road to Calabar
One of the joys of spending a weekend in Calabar is the chance to actually see a little bit of the rest of Nigeria. Working six days in the hospital, and being pretty limited in terms of social and outing options on the seventh day, we tend to wear grooves in the road between the house, the hospital, and the one or two restaurants and bars where we spend almost all our time. Heading toward Calabar, after about two hours you get into a gorgeous green stretch of road in a state called Akwa Ibom, and from that point right down into Calabar the road really gave my eyes some much-needed relief from the hardscapes of Port Harcourt.
Hill, Dale, Family, Sculpture & The Year That Was
‘But what are we looking at?’ you may be wondering. OK, I will tell you: the photos above and below were taken at Yorkshire Dales National Park, which is north of Leeds where Steve was teaching this autumn. He and I took the train up after seeing Mom off on her train to Kings Cross, whence she found her way (ably assisted by fabulous Tracy, for which thanks again, my dear) to LHR for the flight across the ol’ pond; after wandering the Dales a bit, we headed back to Skipton for a canal-side lunch — pix of Skipton duly appended, below, after which a few more of the Dales. I remain sad that I was unable to join the larger family gathering to celebrate Thanksgiving at the beer & cider festival, but happy that I caught at least the tail-end of Mom’s visit, and saw Steve a bit of Yorkshire also.
…for those of you who don’t know, that’s Steve, my older-but-not-oldest brother, looking like a well-known Rodin sculpture (sans chin in hand) out on the Dales.
In 2007 I’ve also begun to feel more in touch with my own mortality. For the first time since the early 1990s, I lost a close friend of my own generation when Sigrid passed away this spring. Perhaps this, coming not long before I myself turned 45 and admitted that my body simply no longer qualifies as young by any measuring stick, has found me putting things more in perspective. And I like the perspective. Two more odd dualities of my current life – ‘oh no!’ they groan, it’s another Paul philosophy entry – are: 1) At the same time as I’m really owning up to my own mortality in new ways, I’m also constantly humbled and kept young by everything I’m learning and all the remarkably committed and competent people I run into again and again in MSF projects other parts of my life; and 2) By leaving my known world of LA and SF behind three years ago, I’ve come closer to many of my family and friends, even if I see them less frequently day in and day out.
After the heat, humidity, concrete-jungleness, and dreadful air pollution of my temporary home in Port Harcourt, the clean green windiness and visible nature (however affected by milennia of agriculture) of Yorkshire felt like a balm to my tired spirit.
That’s really more than enough to say in one entry, is it not? I shall quit while I’m ahead, or at least not too terribly far behind. I’m sending out my thoughts, my wishes, my good energy and lots of love to my family and friends who have been amazingly steady sources of comfort, support, and encouragement these last several years. I am eager to share more details of my Nigerian life & work with you, one on one, whenever this chapter closes next spring. ‘Til then, smile and be nice to folks you’ve never met or don’t even like much, try a new act of kindness or generosity any chance you get, and (if it’s legal) make sure you’re registered to vote in the US (and please please do not simply assume that Hillary’s the candidate: give them all a good solid look before you pull that lever). So long for 2007 from smw, slt.Yorkshire Sculpture Park
On the Yorkshire dales outside Westfield is an absolutely lovely sculpture park which occupies many acres and includes a number of delightful indoor galleries and – in contrast to Storm King, to my & Mom’s great joy following an afternoon wandering the wet and wooly hills – a cozy cafeteria. Henry Moore, creator of the sculpture above, grew up in this landscape, which over the years has been much shaped by human agricultural interests, most often of the four-footed variety seen here. I’d never before enjoyed sculpture while keeping one eye on my path for sheep pies. 🙂
The Yorkshire dales were, after all, home to the Brontes, so it’s such dramatic, lovely, and often dark and rainy landscapes that shaped the imaginations from which sprang Jane Eyre & Wuthering Heights.
This Season by the Thames
The Tate Modern has a great Louise Bourgeois exhibit (would you have spent a day in London to see it, if you’d known, Mom?) which spans the length and breadth (broader than I, who’d only seen her later sculptures at Storm King, really appreciated) of her inspiring career. This spider, commissioned (who knew? not I!) for the opening of the Tate Modern, was almost the only overlap between this and the smaller, more limited exhibit that Mom & I took in at Storm King on…another rainy sculpture park day last May!
I truly do tend to get choked up when I think about WWII and what London, and Britain as a whole, had to handle once France and the rest of Europe had been invaded, and before the US had finally entered the war. It seems Norway has not forgotten its gratitude to Londoners for holding out as long as they did; every year the embassy of tiny Norway sponsors concerts at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (lovely concert, this year), and the citizens of Oslo donate a tree to thank the citizens of London. How I wish gratitude, for example to France for making our revolution possible, were a more dominant note in the American citizen’s international-relations vocabulary…
(so much world, so little time....) 