Once More From the Air: MIA–>PAP
It’s eight weeks since I returned from my lovely May break back home – from which the photos in the last entry emerged. Those eight weeks have been, as usual, mighty busy at work and I’ve not gotten out with my camera at all here in Port au Prince, let alone out of town. Also, I have to admit I’ve been pretty distressed at the state of the world — from Dhaka to Istanbul, Dallas and Orlando to Nice and London, it feels that these past weeks have brought a steadier diet of disheartening news of violence and people closing their hearts to each other than we’ve seen in quite some time. At such times, I tend to focus as locally as possible, on what’s in front of me that I can do. I also tend to look at photos of all the great people and places I’ve met around the world – memories of fonder times. And I did take some photos on that last flight from Miami to PaP – another set of mostly surreal-looking photos of islands in the Bahamas, and some of Biscayne Bay, as seen from an airplane window. Enjoy…and shed some light and kindness on those around you, please. 🙂
Paths and Parks, Poppies and Panoramas
In May, I spent a few weeks of holiday back in Sonoma County. As ever, I spent as much time as I could on the bike trails and in the parks. As you’ll see in these photos, the California poppies were in bloom, the days were usually sunny but sometimes – as when Amy & I climbed to the top of Hood Mountain — pretty cloudy and even occasionally rainy. (That’s rare for May in California, in case you didn’t know.) In Haiti, where I’m spending most of my time these days, I rarely have the chance to linger by streams with wading birds and gliding ducks, or to enjoy little irises or turkeys fanning out during a hike in the woods. I’ve also included a couple of shots taken at Dolores Park, one of my favorite spots in San Francisco, which has been under reconstruction much of the past year and now looks fresh, new and as popular as ever.
Springtime in Virginia
My Mom just turned 80. Happy birthday, Mom! She’s often chosen springtime celebrations farther south — this time she was interested in springtime gardens of Virginia, along with Virginia’s colonial and civil war history. I flew up for a few days with her, my brothers and sister in law, and my aunt (Mom’s sister). Here are a bunch of shots that I figured I should put up right away while the memories are still fresh and folks further north – or going into southern autumn – can appreciate the beauty of tulips, dogwoods, redbuds and other flowers and trees. I’ve never really been to Richmond before – probably drove through once or twice, but never stopped. Lovely city, fairly messed up history – not a coincidence that the only two historical monuments I decided to photograph are ones celebrating great African-Americans and their achievements. ‘Nuf said. Still…pretty buildings, eh?
The Bay on New Year’s Day
2016 dawned beautiful, bright and clear in and around San Francisco. And for the first time in many years, I saw my first sunrise of the new year in the bay area instead of out on another continent across a ocean or two. True, the next day I flew out again to head back to Haiti and my work here…which would be why it’s taken me nearly 1/6 of 2016 to get these put up: sorry! As you see, though – the view was clear enough to see easily and clearly all the way out to Mt Diablo, and all the way up to Point Reyes National Seashore. Enjoy these little views of my home region :-).
From the Air: PaP–>MIA
Mostly when I’ve flown out of the Toussaint Louverture PaP Int’l Airport, we’ve taken off toward the east, then circled around north-westward until the airplane has climbed to its altitude and established its flight pattern toward whatever US airport it’s aiming for. On my last trip, I had a window seat and I took full advantage: friends and followers may remember how much I loved staring out the window and capturing the views in PNG and over the Coral Sea between PNG & Australia…well, the views on this route are equally wonderful. All photos in this post were taken during one flight, following that trajectory up and over Haiti and on to Miami Int’l Airport. Two highlight full-size shots are kicking it off here, out of order, but the gallery below is strictly in order as the plane advanced along its course. I’ve named each photo and hope if you run your cursor over it, you’ll see which was when; where I knew I was looking at xx or yy geographic feature, I cited it. I find the contrasts between Haiti, the other islands and the finally Miami very interesting. And many of the shots nearly modern-art-like in their beauty. Hope you agree!
The Trouble with Trees…
Taking pictures of them, that is. Especially when they’re 2,000 years old, enormous, and have curious and fascinating extrusions angling off in interesting directions. Or when its just grand and full, and no photo your little pocket-camera can capture could ever convey the enormity of leaning against its trunk and scanning the grey skies through its dense crown. That’s all my way of apologizing for the inadequacy of my attempts to show two of the grand heritage trees that can be found at Jack London State Historic Park, where with Steve & Mom, I spent a chunk of one of the last days of 2015. Mom and I had been before, to learn more about the man and his family and ideals and history. Really remarkable stuff, and it was clear to me that Chuck (my eldest brother) would have been good friends with the guy – seems he was quite the cut-up, aside from being quite work-driven and really a fairly original thinker in many ways. (He tried to experiment with sustainable farming in the first decades of the last century — well before the dust bowl first made obvious how badly we were over-farming the continent!) Anyhoo — here are just a bunch of shots from a hike Steve & I took to a remarkable, lone ancient redwood. I guess it’s the only old-growth redwood left, i.e. the only one that didn’t get cut down and turned into planks for housing some time between 1850 and 1980 or so. I’m fairly sure we saw new-growth redwoods coming back in various spots along the walk, which is nice to know. So many SF tourists stick with Muir Woods, which is certainly lovely but also a great deal more densely crowded than the many magnificent state parks which dot the coastal mountains both north and south of the city. If you’re interested in redwoods and considering a trip to the city, do think about ranging further afield…it’s well worth it.
That’s Steve with the ancient redwood behind him, especially the multi-tiered burl, which may look like a fungus or problem but is apparently one way the tree can reproduce itself if it needs to. I’m not quite clear on the mechanism, but it’s clear the coast redwoods have multiples systems of reproduction. Further down there’s a shot of me & Howard & Gene at sunset on the last day of 2015, at Limantour Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore – another great bay area location well worth visiting. 🙂
Family Holiday…at Home :-)
2015 was the first time since 2005, when I started this whole global-wanderer thing, that I’ve been at work only one flight away from the US, and in the same time zone as my mom and one of my brothers. This was also the first holiday season in more than a decade where both my brothers and I managed to get together in one place. Not only several lovely meals and afternoons together, but a trip to the local, fantastic, brewery in honor of my biggest brother’s new brewing ambitions. My sister-in-law generally stayed behind the camera, but certainly helped fill out the festive feeling for everyone. We got out and about a good deal, some with just mom and Steve who were able to stay longer, and some with Chuck as well. Lovely, and I’m going to let the many pics just speak for themselves. Some are really just family stuff of limited appeal to most of my readers…apologies, but it was special for me. 🙂
Elephant Seals @ Ano Nuevo
smw, slt has landed back on the west coast of North America for a short end-of-year holiday. The morning after I landed, I had the chance to head down from SF to Ano Nuevo State Park with my cousin’s daughter, who’s recently begun her college career in SF. Ano Nuevo is best know for its large visiting population of elephant seals – enormous, unusual seals of the northern Pacific who were nearly wiped out when Europeans first discovered how easy they were to kill when beached, because they had no natural land-based predators (and thus no land-based fear, let alone defense against guns). After European hunters had decimated whale populations, they found elephant seals a reasonable alternative source of oil for street lamps and other uses, and by early 20th century, there were no more seals hauling themselves out on the beaches of California for their mating, molting, or socializing seasons.
Mercifully a small remnant population of seals remained on a small island off the coast of Baja California. From that remnant population has sprung a newly-robust population that has resumed its historic habits of seasonal haul-outs in various spots along the mainland California coast. The very first, small groups started coming back to the island with the lighthouse-keeper’s house which you’ll see in these photos, in the 1960s or late 1950s. Now there seem to be thousands who haul out for mating, from mid-December through March or so – and then for the molting season (different months for adult males and adult females), the juvenile socializing season and other such things. These are fascinating animals who spend months at sea, then haul out and spend months on land without taking to the water again. We saw the very beginning of mating season – in six more weeks, the beaches will be completely packed with harems dominated by one bull seal – they’re the ones trumpeting loudly, and with scars on their necks. The females delay implantation, and then give birth just after beaching in December…feed their pups ‘til they wean (about four weeks), mate again, and head back to sea for several months to fatten up again, before returning to the beach for molting season. Truly fascinating stuff.
In the slide show just above you’ll see some juveniles hanging out together, and then a one-year-old (or so) coming ashore and wandering up onto the beach. I set that one up so if you follow the sequence of slides, you’ll see the young one emerging from the water, and then shots as it works it flippy-floppy way up onto the beach. The other shots are just general – you’ll see one bull seal trumpeting, but I didn’t have my camera out at the right moments when two were facing off. They don’t physically fight as often as the media would tell you: mostly they just posture and then one backs down, and the most we observed was two bulls trumpeting and staring each other down, ’til the smaller one shrank back and turned away. You’ll also see a rock – truly a rock – that was so distinctively shaped I hypothesized it had to be a petrified part of a (very) large animal’s skeleton – and indeed the ranger confirmed it’s a piece from the back of the skull of an ancient and mighty big whale. Every shot should be informatively named, so you can hover over the image or click on it to see its name. Enjoy.
Remembering in December
My wandering field life passed the ten-year mark earlier this year. That’s ten years of finding my way into a new work environment and getting to know new colleagues once a year or so. In a more mundane way, it’s ten years worth of photo files to keep up-to-date and to try to remember to share on my blog. A cousin (thanks, Juliette!) noticed that the entries from my earliest days had lost their photos: mine was a rather early blog, and the ways of uploading photos have changed since then. (Many of those earliest posts appear frankly so embarrassingly shallow to me now that I’m tempted to simply wave my editorial wand and have done with them…but thus far my sense for historical accuracy is controlling that temptation…) If my continued research succeeds, many of those photos will be directly restored onto the blog as I find their originals in backup hard drives and other obscure locations: ah, new year’s resolutions before the old year has even wrapped up!
In the meantime, I’m uncovering little treasures that never made it up here, while fondly remembering where I’ve been and what I’ve done. I was recently saddened to learn that Nancy Schrom Dye, former president of Oberlin College, had passed this year. During my years of active alumni-association work I greatly appreciated her contributions to my alma mater – so I was proud to join some other colleagues in taking her for an end-of-year meal which, the digital date stamp tells me, occurred in Beijing on December 31, in 2005. Up above are also a few rediscovered December 2005 Beijing-area shots which somehow didn’t get posted at the time. (Posting photos was more challenging in those early days…)
Just below are some previously-unposted 2015 shots: early-morning moonset at my home here in Haiti; me with my brother and a colleague when I gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon University earlier this year; and some shots from the lovely Frick House & museum in Pittsburgh, from the same visit. And since this put me in the mood, I’ve wandered through the many countries & continents, family meals & trips & assignments on four continents that have filled the years between these two sets of photos so very fully. Assembling them’s been fun for me so I hope viewing them is fun for you too :-).
This time last year? In December 2014, I returned from Sierra Leone & later went with great friends to enjoy the Ai WeiWei exhibit on Alcatraz Island (more photos from that one in the original post….though that particular set of great friends – you know who you are! – are remarkably camera-resistant):
Where’d I spend 2013? Living in PNG, participating in meetings in Amsterdam & dive trips in Australia, then celebrating the holidays with Steve & Mom in New Zealand:
I began 2012 in the US (where I visited Washington, DC in cherry-blossom season), turned 50 in the company of Howard & Gene at Kakadu National Park in Australia, and finished the year in PNG:
2011 was mostly Mweso, a little Lamu, a little London and a year-end back home seeing Frank Lloyd Wright homes of Pennsylvania with family:
2010…wow, what a year. Just seeing all the continents and countries where I spent time (actually meaningful time, with friends and family and work) makes my head spin even now. The photos evoked so much for me that I just couldn’t narrow it down to three or four…so I’m giving you a lot from 2010, a mix of Manipur (start of year) and Mweso (end of year), with a sprinkling of Sweden, Berlin, Paris & California in between:
I entered 2009 in Tahiti, yes it’s true: during the year I took off from work to help Mom with her house, I dedicated two months to exploring Australia (and watching the Australian Open!) and New Zealand, flying in via Tahiti with a few nights in Papeete, just because I could. The year ended, of course, in Manipur and included a great trip to see excellent sites of Rajasthan with Howard & Gene:
2008 started in Nigeria, and ended in Tahiti…with a lot of good work in Nigeria, a short assignment for the earthquake in China, visits in Germany with my exchange family friends there….and a good deal of time in and around NYC (Mom, aunt Judy & I enjoyed a harbor trip past Ellis Island where our own immigrant ancestors entered the country, and also a trip to our favorite sculpture park up th Husdon)…with a side trip for some hiking in Sequoia and other California adventures:
2007…I began the year based in Colombo but spend the new year’s period with Mom & Steve at Angkor Wat, returned to Colombo to finish out an assignment, headed on for training in Paris where I also got celebrate Mom’s 71st birthday…back to the US to reorganize my life after my first two years in the field, and then off for a new assignment in Nigeria. At the time it felt big. Now it’s all fond memories:
…which will bring us back to year two of this current phase of life’s great adventure, the lovely year 2006. From Beijing & Yunnan in China, to Polonnaruwa & Sigiriya in Sri Lanka (where I was based at year’s end), with family time on Cumberland Island (Mom’s 70th birthday dinner!) and in Germany in between. With a special souvenir from Seoul, where I had the opportunity to work a bit with the young ladies pictured with their daffodils. In a small-world twist, I had dinner with one of those two young ladies just a few nights ago in Port au Prince, which she visits sometimes in her current work with the CDC. So much small world, so little time for it all. Happy end of 2015, and many good hopes for a 2016 of more peace and health to everyone, everywhere.
Seasons in Sonoma County
When I moved from New York City to southern California, a long-time family friend told me I’d miss seasons. While not untrue, this was also not entirely true. The joke among southern Californians at the time was that there were seasons but they were just different from the classic northern four — in LA, one had fire season, mudslide season, etc. Now I’ve spent the past decade and more roaming among assignments mostly well within the world’s tropical bands, I’ve learned more about the seasons not of winter and summer, autumn and spring — but of wet and dry, all too often also of malaria and cholera. As a world we seem also to be learning about the less-bad and even-worse seasons to attempt crossing the Mediterranean in an overcrowded wooden boat in the urgent hope of providing for yourself, your children, your spouse some kind of safety or opportunity more than you and yours face in the horn of Africa or parts of the Arabian peninsula. And meanwhile, would-be presidential politicians in the US whose great-great grandparents left northern Europe as economic migrants wax sanctimonious and try to bar the gates behind them and limit opportunity only to those who look, think and act like them. Ah well: when the politics and pain of the world get too much for me I think about the green grass of winter, and the brown grass of summer, on the hills of California.
Herewith some examples of the same places, at different times of year. And let me add, for blog readers new and returning: I’ve made some changes in design and layout recently. One feature I’m personally addicted to is the header image on this page, which should shuffle through a bunch of different images, changing pretty much each time you come back to it. I’ve tried to pick some of the most interesting things I’ve seen since I started this little blog thing in early 2005…so please, if you see things up there that you especially like, or that you think aren’t strong or interesting enough, drop me a comment or shoot me a note. I’m enjoying fiddling with the design and layout, and always love to hear from readers, whether I’ve met you yet in person or not. Thanks!
Hills & Halls of San Francisco
Readers may be aware that I’ve recently taken a short holiday from work in Haiti, to soothe my soul and celebrate another birthday in my home counties of the bay area. The airline complicated my return, much to my chagrin, with the silver lining of an extra, unplanned day in the city — which I used to take in a big-screen movie & walk some parts of the city that I frequent somewhat less often. From that day emerged these shots, which I hope you’ll enjoy. 🙂
On & Around San Francisco Bay
…plus a few remnants from a series one might call ‘airports of the world.’ smw, slt has not gotten out and about with the camera much these past weeks, but I did realize there was a small cache of photos from some boat trips on the bay, and some hikes in Marin and Sonoma counties, that had not yet been posted. Since I get a bit homesick sometimes when I’m so far away, I’m putting these up so that I have an easy way to scan over them from time to time and remind myself what home looks like. Maybe some of you will enjoy it as well. All the photos have descriptive file names that show up if you hover over them or open them separately, I think. In the slide show below, you’ll see a panorama which goes from the Bay Bridge on the left (east), across the full waterfront of northern SF, to the Golden Gate Bridge & Marin Headlands on the right (west). Further down you’ll see some hiking shots from the trails in Tennessee Valley (Marin county), and Annadel State Park & Hood Mountain Regional Park (Sonoma County). In one of them you’ll see frost on the ground in the shadowy foreground: that was Christmas day last year – ah, how I long for frost on a hot afternoon here in Port au Prince! At the end are some photos of me and friends – at Wolf House in Jack London State Historic Park (Sonoma County) … and, well, me looking as lost as I felt, with some colleagues in Casablanca airport on my way home from Sierra Leone, last December. Our flight out of Freetown had been at some crazy hour like 2 am or 3 am or something, so we took the ferry over to the airport at 10pm or so, and snoozed in the waiting area and then flew for three hours to Casablanca to land at something like 8 in the morning. Oy, airports in which we have waited listlessly: might be a future series, what do you think?
Springtime in Sonoma County
For several months now, smw slt has been calling Sonoma County, in the northern sector of California’s lovely Bay Area, home. It’s an area I’ve always loved and now hope to return to regularly in coming years…during breaks from the upcoming long assignment that’s about to begin. Yep, that’s right, after more than two glorious months of biking, hiking, cooking and quietly attending to the business of having and making friends and pursuing a relatively quiet life, I’m about to pack the bags and hit the airport circuit for more of my beloved work. But before I go, I figured I should pop a few of the scenes I’ve been enjoying these recent months up on the blog, both for myself to scan when I’m feeling homesick, and for anyone who wonders what life looks like an hour’s drive of the city of SF itself. These were all shot between January and March along the coast and in towns and spots around Sonoma County – sadly, I forgot my camera often when I went out by bike or in the car when my mother visited, so for example I have no photos of our lovely day at Fort Ross and at Jenner, where the Russian River meets the ocean. Oh well – that’s called down time for me, to forget the camera! Enjoy, and look for future updates when I get the chance. (And for the record, the painted boot was just sitting there on the picnic table; I did not stage that one. If you don’t see it, try launching this page in a different browser.) Thanks :-).
Art on Alcatraz
I’ve never been much for prisons. They’re scary, and being someone with an active imagination and a personal identity that leads to punishment or death in many places, I’ve always had a certain “there but for the grace” reaction. During a high-school social-action trip to Washington, DC our youth group visited a local medium-security federal prison and spoke with prisoners. It was an important experience, but I admit I felt far more in my element at the soup kitchen, to which I returned to help cook and serve on our choose-your-assignment day. I’d still make the same choice. So it’s probably not a surprise that – for all the time I spend in SF – I’d never set foot on the island of Alcatraz until a week ago when I was drawn there, in a group organized by my good friend Amy (thanks again!) to see a special installation of art created in absentia by Ai WeiWei specifically for this former prison location…indeed, for this location which is probably one of the most famous and certainly one of the most tourist-friendly former prisons in both the US and the world at large.
Indeed, it’s that very tourism-friendliness which has helped keep me away from Alcatraz: I’ve imagined that many visitors go with a sort of prisoner-theme-park idea in mind. I start out deeply uncomfortable with the basic statistics and facts about race, opportunity and incarceration in the US…then I add my uncomfortable awareness of how the US’s crime and punishment statistics measure up against other peer nations which pride themselves on openness, opportunity, and democracy for all (spoiler alert – do some research, but last I knew we don’t compare any better there than we do on gun violence per capita…), and in the end I’ve just never managed to get out to Alcatraz.
I’m so glad that Ai WeiWei and the creators of this exhibit gave me a good reason and impetus to visit. His work has made me think a great deal about freedom – freedom of mind, of body, of spirit. Freedom from as well as freedom to do, to think. There’s a range of installations – audio clips heard inside a small cell of famous prisoners of conscience from around the world, ranging from Martin Luther King, through the Robben Island Boys, to Pussy Riot. There’s an audio installation in the psychiatric observation cells, with a Hopi ceremony recorded. Through this I learned that among the earliest prisoners at Alcatraz in the 1890s were quite a few Hopi elders, who supported the parents of their tribe in refusing to enroll their children in the schools that were to “modernize” their children. (Translation: rip them from their homes & roots, and leave them confused about their place in this race- and class-driven world.) He’s got beautiful kites — dragon and other kites — with messages from fighters for freedom of conscience and ideas around the world. There’s a huge room whose floor is full of lego portraits of prisoners of politics and conscience around the world, and postcards where you can write you own message to some of these folks in many nations.
All in all it’s a very thought-provoking and educational exhibit. And being on Alcatraz, in the heart of one of the world’s most beautiful bays, it’s also a beautiful outing. Check it out if you’re in the area during the coming months. I believe and hope that posting these images is in line with the artist’s wishes but do hope someone will inform me if I’m wrong in which case I’ll gladly remove any that don’t fit. Peace, health, freedom to be happy sad or thoughtful in the new year to one and all.
T
he exhibit-installation had many parts. The one called “blossom,” of which there’s an example above, was installed in the hospital ward. It made me think of the hundred-flowers campaign, and also of the buddhist tradition that the lotus flower derives some of its spiritual power from the fact that it represents beauty arising from the muck. In another part of the main prison ward were many audio segments, each playing inside an individual cell and each representing music or speeches from people and groups imprisoned for their ideas or art. That’s hard to capture in film – but the shot to (I hope) the right, showing the three tiers of cells, and the photo of text from one of Martin Luther King’s later speeches are both from that section. The dragon kite is from a segment called “With Wind,” and if you look at some of the photos closely you will see quotes from people imprisoned or threatened with prison for their ideas.
California Scrapbook
So smw, slt has again left the continent and headed off to work. This time our work really won’t be anything we document on here, so both to clear my own to-do list, and to leave my friends with a sense of how well-rested I’ve become from these past two months in my spiritual and now literal home of California (well, literal in the sense I actually have a home there waiting for my return, not in the sense I’m there at the moment or expect to be for the next few months…), I’m giving a you a scrapbook of shots that piled up since my return from the ABQ wedding in mid-August. The bay, the golden gate bridge and Marin headlands as seen from Fort Mason; various scenes of Napa and Sonoma counties as seen from hikes & bikes around new new home base; some shots from a couple days last week (!) in Los Angeles – back to Topanga Canyon & the fountain in Grand Park on a nearly-full-moon night (the next night, we stood out on my balcony up north to watch the lunar eclipse at 3AM, how cool was that?!)…and scenes of the bay’s wetlands around Palo Alto as seen when I had the privilege of riding along for some training with my friend Amy who’s getting herself trained to fly a small plane.
If you’re curious about the work, there was a PBS frontline documentary filmed in early August at that project where I’ll very soon be working; from Europe I’m unable to launch the link but I’m fairly sure if you’re in the US you can find it here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/
As the man says, be well, do good work, and keep in touch. It’s certainly what I plan to do! Cheers.
(so much world, so little time....) 
