Needed Assistance

I just received the following bulletin from Rev. Wasike in Kimilili,

“Last night, we had an incident where thieves broke into the school office and took cereals and other things in the school. These things used to be kept at our neighbour’s home, but were transferred recently after the school had doors and windows installed. The school lost the following:

1. an old manual type writer donated to school last year by board member
2. maize and beans donated by guardians
3. a box of schoolbooks and teaching material

The matter has been reported and being investigated.”

The school management and the children are going to try and run a fund raising action to see if they can replenish their food supplies. If the children do not receive nourishment throughout the day, they will begin, as Rev. Wasike says, "to be absent in mind and body".

What is most needed are schoolbooks and teaching materials. If there is any possibility of you sending one or two primary school books or some notebooks, we would be ever so grateful. If you would like to contact us, please do. Rev. Wasike (cbsmkeny at yahoo dot com) or I (cbsmkenya at gmail dot com) will give you any information you might need. You can send the packages to:

Rev. Wasike Wilberforce Walubengo
P.O. Box 2099-00200, City Square
Nairobi 2099
KENYA

You can send books in English per post or in Kiswahili through mamamikes. We thank you for any assistance you can give.

Slowly getting back into gear

I am just about ready to crawl off the sofa and over the large pile of discarded books that I have consumed these last weeks... nearly three weeks of a book a day... most of them crime mysteries... all of their stories have haunted my dreams. My inner batteries have been recharged. Now it is time to get back into the grove of things.

Compassion

While thinking upon our actions of this past year and the goals we wish to set for the year to come, perhaps the words of the Charter for Compassion can move us towards peaceful action.



Last year, Karen Armstrong spoke to the TED community about her wish to make religion a force for harmony by creating with others the Charter for Compassion. She speaks well about how we are currently being summoned towards compassionate action; how we have to move away from toleration and towards appreciation of others.

Short Break

Short break to recover from a cold, the wonders of a big family Christmas celebration, and just time to wind down....

Courageous Heart

"Shaffi Mather explains why he left his first career to become a social entrepreneur, providing life-saving transportation with his company 1298 for Ambulance. Now, he has a new idea and plans to begin a company to fight the booming business of corruption in public service, eliminating it one bribe at a time."

What a fascinating concept. I wonder whether this might not be a new viable solution to a long tradition that needs to be eradicated.

If you want to know more about the Acumen Fund activities, please consider reading their blog.

Frozen Blossom

I wanted to write a poem of love revisited, but only struggled with a jumble of phrases whose pieces, no matter how placed, didn't mean anything of importance. So, instead, I surrender and just gift you the image of a frozen blossom.

It's Snowing

It's snowing in Luebeck and what a fine thing this is! Fairy lights and falling snowflakes and Christmas on the horizon. I wish I could sing this joyful feeling into a song. Instead, I made a collage for you.

My last day of work was Wednesday. Will take two weeks off and just enjoy the company of family and friends. Come January, I'll start looking for meaningful employment.

Pride

My grandmother took
Pride
In the fact that
We were
English.

In a French-speaking Canadian province, our family name
Stood
For all those great
Anglo Saxon
Values our
People
Grew up on.

I don't believe she ever visited
England in her
Lifetime.

As a child, I thought her
Pride
Was
Carved In Stone
And this made it hard for us to approach her in a
Heart-felt... manner.

As an adult, I wonder whether
It (that Pride)
Was rather a cloak
That covered an
Unspoken Yearning
To feel more important
Than she normally
Did.

Insignificant beings
That
We are.

Back on Key

I've got over my disappointment at having stupidly erased all my documents last month. The first change in activity was to make up a few collages.

This one was inspired by waves and wood. Many years ago, I had the thrilling experience of flying over Greenland while the sky was clear and springtime had just arrived. What was startling was to see the various wave motions embedded into the glacier formations. I had never thought that solid mass could be flowing movement as well.

Ghost from the Past

About 18 years ago, I became acquainted with a woman who had been laid off from the company I worked at. This short acquaintanceship taught me a painful lesson about naivety and ignorance.

After having met with her a few times, I hired her to come and clean my apartment once a week. She was very thankful for this additional source of income and all went well for a few months. After a while I began to miss a few items. Since I am a very forgetful type of person, I didn't think anything of it. It was only after she suddenly stopped coming to clean (having given the most weak of excuses) that I began to make the connection of missing items to times she came to clean.

A horrible moment of realisation about how stupidly naive I had been, came when I went into my cupboard and took down my jewelry box. It should have contained all the jewelery I received as a child in Venezuela and the pieces I had inherited from my grandmother. I found it empty.

I haven't thought of the lost jewelry in many years, until yesterday when the woman came into the Oxfam shop when I was working there. She didn't recognise me. It has been nearly twenty years after all. I'm probably only one of many people she stole from in her life. Yet, I recognized her for she's the only one whose stolen from me.

It would be nice to say that I felt forgiveness towards her, but I didn't. Instead, I just felt this leaden dullness in my heart. The whole episode was like a visit of a ghost from the past.

Breath of Winter

Winter breathes cold silver slivers upon the skeletons of grass blades and faded summer leaves.

Speak Out

Annie Leonard created the really interesting series Story of Stuff. Now she's looking into the Cap and Trade practices.



I think she clearly states her argument and expresses her worries well. What about you?

Wisdom Comes with 65

WISDOM Trailer from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

It's a quiet Saturday morning. I'm on my way to (volunteer) work at the Oxfam shop. This is something I do once a week and every few months, on a Saturday as well. Looking at this video, it made me think of some of the older customers who come into the shop daily to look around and see what new items we've put on the selves. I wonder what each would say about wisdom, or what piece of advice they would like to pass down to the younger generations.

Do enjoy.

Difference of Opinion

Just watched these two videos today. Both concern the US as a leading superpower, but both presenters are of different opinions about the chances of US continuing to be a leading power.



The presentation above given by Robert Guest is a Washington correspondent for The Economist. This presentation is funny at times, but it's center argument does not quite convince me as much as Hans Rosling's presentation, which is equally funny presentation.



This could well be because I just love numbers and the numbers Hans Rosling presents so clearly demonstrate the connection and plausibility.

Knowledge and Acknowledgement

Paul Van Zyl is a South African who has spent his career working with human rights issues. In the presentation he gave recently at the Pop Tech! conference, he speaks eloquently about why Americans should undertake a proper and public reckoning about the torture and other forms of abuse carried out in the name of the global war on terror by the Bush administration.



The presentation is not a presentation, as much as, it is a moving speech that convincingly and, at times, beautifully articulates how South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission enabled this country to move forward into democracy after years of apartheid.

So much of what he says moved me to tears, here is just on quote of his speech,

“It was through this process of testimony and revelation that our country began to move from knowledge to acknowledgement. It is one thing to know that crimes occurred, it’s quite different to acknowledge that they were wrongful and to promise never to allow them to happen again.”

Taking Baby Steps

These last weeks have been filled with various work on various projects. Most of the work seems like a hard build up to a specific goal and then a long tail slug afterwards to get all the odds and ends collected and properly put in place. Thought I'd write about some of the stuff I've been involved in:

The group I work with in Kenya, has finally received the money from the charity tea party and various other donations (bank here sent the funds to Mombasa and not to Nairobi). If all goes well, they will buy 5 drip irrigation kits this week and head up to Kimilili on Friday and hold two best business training workshops this weekend. I am kind of excited because another women's co-op from Kitale is also attending one of the workshops and they will receive one of the drip irrigation kits for their community. It is our hope that once the two communities see what drip irrigation is all about they might find the means to make their own DIY systems.

I've (finally) finished writing a project proposal for our Gardening Vocational Training Program. This is a program targeted towards women's co-ops and our youth project group. We want to set up a garden project where groups work in collaboration learning and implementing "modern" sustainable agriculture techniques. (The reason I say "modern" is that many of these methods, such as polyculture, mulch systems, organic composting, etc. were techniques western countries took away from indigenous farming cultures in developing countries over the last 70 years. It is ironic that we are in the position of trying to reintroduce these techniques back into those countries so many years later.) The project proposal is for approx. 8,000 USD for the purchase of land and materials (e.g. treadle pump and drip irrigation systems). If anyone knows of an organization that might fund such a project please send me a link.

We are in the process of setting up a clean cooking fuel small-scale business co-op between the Makerere University in Uganda and various rural communities. This project is going to take a while to develop because we haven't the proper technology as yet. We are trying to establish a pilot project to make clean burning cooking briquettes out of bio-waste (e.g. maize cobs or sugar cane). These briquettes burn nearly smokeless and set out no toxins and save on the need to burn wood. I'm still at the stage of trying to figure out the technology needed and set up a feasible collaborative business model. The outline of the project currently is to have a) a youth vocational training program that mass produces and sells the corn cob crushers (a wooden box with a coarse roller to crush the charcoal bits), b) a central briquette-making press where people can come with their crushed charcoal and make the cooking briquettes, and c) a series of small-scale businesses to sell the cooking briquettes at markets.

We are trying to set up a NGO so that we can do all the project work mentioned above more formally. This would mean that those individuals who contribute donations or micro-loans would be able to make them tax deductible. It would also mean that we could approach more organisations and foundations for funding.

My son managed to hand in a research paper titled, Web 2.0 Revolution (Consequences for Corporations), last week. This was a volunteer paper he researched and wrote in the hope of improving his final grade when he graduates from high school next June. I volunteered to yield the whip to get him to set up a schedule, work on the paper regularly, and not get preoccupied with all sorts of other activities. This was not an easy task, nor one that I did with any grace or sense of authority. Contrarily, it consisted of a great amount of petty hysterics, long plea bargainings, and mini breakdowns on my part.

Time to go off to the office...

Take a Moment

Take a moment and watch Michael Pollan's presentation about non-sustainable and sustainable food systems. Not only is the information he presents very interesting, the presentation itself is a masterpiece.

On a personal note, I unfortunately and stupidly erased all the documents on my computer a week ago and have been struggling unsuccessfully to retrieve the files. As you can imagine, the effort needed to try and retrieve the data has been extensive. I have not been commenting, nor writing on my blog as a result, though I have been reading and appreciating your blog posts.

Perfect Moment

Perfect moment to a quiet start to my work day. William Hoffman's film set a gentle accent.

Lost Luggage Claim #2

Passenger’s Name: Mr. Leaving It All Behind
Date: 09.09.1999
Point of Departure: Friday afternoon after a dull and frustrating week on the road selling supplies to gas station managers
Final Destiny: the Easy Life, Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, the West Indies

Listing of “Then” Luggage Content:

• Baccalaureate Certificate, majors in history and geography (level mediocre)
• Six seasonal regional ski passes for Davos-Klosters, Switzerland
• Ski instructor id for the Silvretta Parkhotel, Klosters, Switzerland
• Acceptance letter to the University Lumière Lyon 2 in their business and economics program
• Cancellation letter at University Lumière Lyon 2 due to lack of attendance at the end of the first year
• Stub receipts for heliskiing at Whistler (B.C), Jackson Hole (Wyoming), Breckenridge (Colorado), Pyramid Mountain (Alaska), Valle Nevado (Chile), and Riksgränsen (Sweden)
• Various photos of different topless or skimpy bikinied female guests on deck of their Mediterranean sailboat charter with him as captain
• Letter of boat owner firing him as captain of above mentioned boat for inappropriate drunken behaviour
• Full-time work contract as product supplier at his uncle’s gas station franchise
• Copy of a monthly travel expense report, including: summary of mileage driven (10,478 km), gas stations supplied (76), bad meals eaten (63), hung overs suffered (31), coffee drunk (27.41 l), cigarettes smoked (520), beers (153) and shots of whiskey (96) drunk, time spent doing something remotely interesting (0 min.), chances of being promoted any time in the next ten years (null)
• Only source of fun: going to bars, drinking too much, chatting up young women and regaling them with old stories about the grand days of him heliskiing around the world

Listing of “Now” Luggage Content:

• A modest sum of money acquired by selling all of his worldly goods and also the house he inherited from his grandparents in La Rochelle
• One-way plane ticket to Carriacou
• Slick high tech smart phone with the ring tone from an 80s Bacardi Rum commercial
• A backpack full of electronic gadgets
• DIWA diving instructor certificate
• Preconceptions of what the Easy Life is and how one goes about living it
• The ethical and moral values of a lizard
• Predisposition towards drinking too much cheap alcohol and smoking too much weed
• Plump certainty of successful sexual quests with local women, as well as passing female tourists

Passenger’s Complaint:

All items of my “Now” luggage have been stolen by the locals. Everyone is smiling and appearing friendly, but on one is really concerned about helping me out of present predicament. I have no means of making a living other than living off female tourists who I despise, but whose pockets run deep. Currently, acting as captain on a large flashy American motor cruiser. The wealthy owner’s wife likes to watch me kite surf half-naked. Unspoken agreement that she is allowed look, but not touch, which I am thankful of since she is old and ugly.

Officer’s Statement:

Passenger suffers under a ridiculous unwarranted sense of self-importance and privilege. The items he claims were stolen were wastefully spent or destroyed through neglect. Accusations, complaints, and angry alterations voiced towards or about local residents are increasing in their regularity. This indicates an increase in paranoia and disillusionment with his life situation. We are all waiting patiently for him to leave the island and leave us in peace. When he does leave, he will leave friendless, despite having lived here ten years

Mood Picker Upper

I dare you not to smile!