epitaphs

On my last trip, I spent time catching up on magazine reading – a typical practice for long flights, and my recent flights were exceptionally long. It was within about a week of Steve Jobs’ passing, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that most publications had not just one, but multiple articles on the founder of Apple. I read the first few, but after that, I started to feel a bit, well, annoyed... but mostly sad.

See, the week before Jobs died, one of my personal heroes had passed away with little to no fanfare on the international stage. Wangari Maathai was an outspoken advocate for women and the environment, one of the first African women to earn a PhD, and a Nobel Prize winner. She was the first woman elected to the Kenyan Parliament, and through the Greenbelt Movement, which she founded, oversaw the planting of 30 million trees (that’s not a typo!) She persevered from rural, impoverished conditions to gain both her education and voice. Along the way she was beaten, imprisoned, marginalized, yet never failed to speak truth to power. She was a pioneer in every sense of the word and a catalyst of change in her nation and beyond.

Yet, whose face was on cover after cover of every magazine I picked up? The creative genius, design guru, multimillionaire Mr. Jobs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod as much as anyone and would be significantly less informed without the hours of podcasts kindly supplied by iTunes. (It was even in a podcast that I first heard Wangari Maathai interviewed.)  Yet, as I continued to see more and more articles eulogizing Jobs, I couldn’t help but notice that they all celebrated the brilliant innovation of Apple’s products and Jobs’ foresight into the world of technology, but none, not a single one, celebrated his humanity. There was no mention of his compassion, his philanthropy, his kindness or generosity.

Sure, maybe I read the wrong articles and he was actually a big-hearted guy. But from what I sensed, his notoriety and the incessant memorializing centered on the Things He Sold Us. Eventually, this just started to make me sad, because (brace yourself)…  what does the fact that our society idolizes him (in a way that almost borders on worship) say about us? Are these the people whose lives we celebrate? Is this as good as our heroes get – a corporate executive who was (according to some accounts) a big jerk?

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for artistry and vision and technological advances, and Mr. Jobs made awesome products and cute movies at Pixar, too. But did he truly change lives, did he make the world a better place… for everyone, including the billions who will never ever own an iPod?  Maybe I just don’t get it (that’s totally possible), or maybe I just look for different qualities in my Heroes. 

And then there she was, on the next to last page of a magazine with Jobs on the cover (again) – Wangari Maathai, her rich, complex, inspirational life shrunk into a few paragraphs… but I am thankful that at least it was there at all.

laos

Lovely Laos... it was amazing to be back in Asia again. The organization, the food, the smiley people -- I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it. I spent a week in the capital city, Vientiane, leading an advocacy workshop. This proved a fairly easy task, as Laos is one of the only communist countries left in the world, so the government makes all the decisions and pretty much laughs at external pressure. So, in many ways, our action plan boiled down to knowing who to take out to a fancy dinner and who to send a bottle of Johnny Walker.

I strolled around the city in the evenings, which is perfectly safe and relatively small. The Mekong River snakes through the main part of town, and the entire area is saturated with Buddhist wats, open for prayer every few blocks. Religion is still a vibrant part of local life and seems to have missed the oppressive thumb of authority completely. I ate food so hot it made me cry and walked around so long on my day off that I almost melted into a puddle. Everywhere I went I was greeted with a sweet smile, folded hands and a slight bow. Asia, oh Asia, I hope to see you again soon...

Mekong River at sunset.

Spicy green papaya salad -- it brought tears to my eyes!

Wats wats everywhere

 

Shoes off before entering... always.

 

As always, I found a little street art to bring home.

d.c.

“You can always come back.” 

I’ve been blessed to hear that phrase pretty much everywhere I’ve worked, but the magnetic force of one particular organization seems to be greater than any other. The call came mid-August, and of course, they wanted me to start the next week. So I loaded up the car (the dog and multiple dog beds included) and headed north, back to where I’d started this crazy career path and first caught a glimpse of what I’m doing today. 

Because God is funny, I was even given a spot in the building where I originally worked, starry-eyed and fresh out of grad school. I was even on the same floor, just a few cubes over, and swear my old chair was still there. A few familiar faces greeted me immediately -- old colleagues, all sincerely happy to see me. But that first morning of the very first meeting, once all the squeals of surprise and “Where are you now? What are doing?” conversations had subsided, I began to notice the changes. It was more than the new cast of characters around the table, it was the tone... the tactics... the focus.  

Gone were the feature stories from disaster scenes that I used to canvass the country writing. Out were the unscripted comments, the unstaged photographs, and to some degree, the principle that always guided me while in response mode = serve people first. Twitter and facebook and pre-fab stories had replaced any semblance of real reporting. Quantity had replaced quality, and just about everything was about spin.

Then the emails started, filled with edicts and demands from people I had never even met before. There was no “Hello, Bonnie. My name is ... and my job here is ... my request relates to ....” Instead, it was more like, "I need you to do this in one hour. Thanks." To say I was astounded is an understatement, and I felt myself slipping back into a mindset I’d left behind more than a year before.

I essentially took an escape hatch out of my last job into a headlong quest to find my joy again. Amazingly, thankfully, I feel like I’ve pretty much done that and have settled into a lifestyle relatively free from stress and drama. After being catapulted back into an office soap opera, though, I had to admit that my own potential to fire off snarky emails was definitely still there, not so far from surface. Thoughts of the garden (literally stopping to smell the roses), prayers and nearly daily visits with old friends helped keep things in perspective, and  I walked through those weeks with little attachment to a very temporary situation.

As much as the work part of the trip was exhausting, I left profoundly grateful for where I am now and the insane amount of freedom I’ve been blessed with. I can get up at 6 or 10 in the mornings. I can wear pajamas to work or my bathrobe. I can be a photographer or writer or advocate or trainer or gardener or beekeeper or dog walker or chef.  I think one reason joy has exploded back into my life is that I finally have room to breathe, to think, to grow… and to just be. In those brief weeks experiencing again a life I left behind, I realized that there was little space for any of that, and I moved past the notion that I could “always go back again” to knowing that I didn’t really want to. 

Ok, truthfully, there’s one gigantic reason I can think of to go back… friends. The joy of reconnecting with so many fabulous people made every moment of office drama 110% worthwhile. We wined and dined all over the District and Del Ray, just like the good old days. I hung out on porches, lingered over brunches, and relished in homemade Indian food. But most of all, the cumulative conversation of those weeks refilled the gas tank of heart in a way that only amazing friends can. 

The familiar things of places I once called home nurtured my soul as well. I loved riding the Metro, walking on the Mall, and going to my old church. I looked over Charles Villlage’s unmistakable rooftops and strolled with Maz in Wyman Park Dell, just as we used to every afternoon. I even stopped to peer up toward my old balcony and saw remnants of my Tibetan prayer flags, still tangled around the cable and electric wires, a little reminder that I’d left a piece of myself behind... and did again.

madagascar 2.0

It was my second time to the world’s fourth-largest island, and I was stunned to look back and realize that I had never written about my first trip there in 2008 – for shame! My take-away memory from that trip, though, was how REALLY rural Madagascar is – I was mostly in the northeastern coastal region, canvassing remote communities by day and sleeping in a thatched-roof bungalow on the beach at night. At one point we even had to cross a flooded river on a makeshift footbridge while our Landcruiser and driver (literally) floated across. Crazy!

Don't slip off the foot bridge!

It was a great experience, and while I was excited to go back, this would be a relatively short trip, especially considering the 16-hour flight involved in getting there. My work doing strategic advocacy planning and training was all in the capital city, Antananarivo, situated near the geographic center of the island. But amazingly, we wrapped up early and I had 36 free hours to do what all visitors to Madagascar must do -- see some lemurs!

I hired a driver and we headed due east, toward Andasibe, with a quick detour to Ambohimanga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and former home to some of Madagascar’s must powerful rulers. The name literally means “blue hill” in the Malagasy language, because it apparently looks blue on the horizon as the sun sets (much like my beloved Blue Ridge Mountains, named for the same reason!) Madagascar’s a big island full of big words, with syllables strung together based on their meaning, like King Andrianampoinimerina, who once lived on the “blue hill” and whose hysterically-long name is typical of Malagasy monikers of any heritage or class. 

Rice fields covered the landscape

The rolling landscape of the high plateau transformed as we drove, from urban, traffic-jammed congestion to lush rice patties worked almost entirely by hand and small pastures of grazing zebu, a cow relative and the islanders’ primary meat source. Strangely, we also passed teams of cyclists, decked out in their multicolored gear and straining up the winding, well-paved roadways. Without fail, though, these teams of ambitiously athletic locals would be followed closely by a dusty farmer on a rickety, rusty one-speed bike, toting vegetables to sell in the next town. (The juxtapositions of daily life in developing countries never cease to make me smile, shake my head, or both.)

Lemur on my head!!

I was camera-less, if you can believe it, but had traveled there with no free time in my schedule. But as the saying goes, “The best camera is the one you have with you,” so I did what I could with my aging iPhone and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to capture a few shots. 

After a few hours, we pulled in at the infamous Lemur Island – infamous because much to the chagrin of animal purists, the keepers of this cage-less habitat have tamed the little critters, while allowing them to run free on their own tiny islands. (It’s amazing what plying creatures of any kind with food will do to increase their friendliness.) 

So, I set out with my guide in a blue canoe for a tour, and within moments we met our first lemurs, who came swinging through the trees toward us as docked our boat. Using me as a tree, they clamored to reach the guide, and his pocket full of bananas. The brown lemurs snorted frantically like little piglets, which was honestly a bit unsettling since they were sitting on my head and shoulders (literally!)  

  

It was the familiar ring-tailed lemurs that won my heart, though. They bounced like kangaroos to greet us then perched on my shoulder with ease, cooing like a baby. Their soft, thick fur reminded me of a fluffy dog, and their tiny five-fingered hands were completely human-like, but padded like paws. When they climbed into the canoe, I momentarily took it as a sign that the cute little critters wanted to come home with me.

Each lemur species is unique – they all look and sound different, have unique eating habits and ways of interacting. In all, I saw six species during my quick excursion, including the elusive mouse lemur that I caught a glimpse of on a nighttime forest trek (again with a guide, of course). It was truly a brief adventure I'll never forget! 

Less than 24 hours later, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, I giggled with delight as I flipped through the phone-quality pictures of my furry Madagascar friends and couldn't help but wonder, "Who really needs a fancy camera anyway??" 

bees

It was no ordinary road trip. Usually the ride to the Delta and back is pretty straightforward -- 400 miles, maybe one stop, several Diet Cokes and a brown dog in the back seat. Yesterday, all of that was again the case, but with a few thousand additional passengers -- honey bees.

My Dad added beekeeping to his many and varied list of hobbies last year (with delicious results), but I’m not sure when exactly I got sucked in. Perhaps it was the notion that a beehive would somehow bolster my garden production, or that it was something else good and tangible I could do for the environment, or maybe it was just thinking it was really cool and interesting.

Whatever the draw, all of those positive notions were the furthest things from my mind when I loaded my 60,000 new friends with stingers into the back of my Celica. (Oh, the random things that have fit in the back of my car over the years -- Christmas trees, Adirondack chairs, large TVs, eight-foot garden trellises, three bales of hay, and now, beehives.)

During our travels back and forth to our beekeeping class, Dad had assured me the transport wouldn’t be a problem, and I mostly agreed. It would only be two hive boxes with bees, and they would have a screen on one side and a cover on the other. What could possibly go wrong?

The bee hives in the trunk of my car.

When loading time arrived, we donned our bee suits, dusted off the renegade bees clinging on the outside of the screens and put the two boxes in the car. I piled my luggage in the front, while Mazzy squeezed in beside additional empty hive boxes in the back, and we were off.

I heard nothing but the radio the first forty miles or so, then there was a buzz. I could see the little bugger in my rear view mirror, banging against the back glass like a prisoner in a cell. Zzzz zzzz zzzz. It only took a few buzzes before I pulled over and quickly put on the long beekeeping gloves in the seat beside me. I needed to both silence the renegade bee and see how many others were loose in the trunk. Problem one was remedied quickly, with a splat, but inside the back hatch I discovered my bigger challenge -- a dozen or so bees crawling around on the *outside* of the tightly sealed hives. (How they got free, we still have no idea.)

With cars and 18-wheelers zooming by on the highway, there was no time to linger. I would just have to hope they stayed put and get back on the road. Twenty minutes passed before I heard that ominous sound again, this time in stereo. Three little bees were buzzing in my back window this time! Zzzzz zzzz zzzz zzz zzzzzz zzzz

Blinker, brakes, gloves on, out of the car I went -- this time followed by the dog. Five more times over the next hour and half, I pulled over and went through the same drill, all the while knowing that once I reached the busy interstate, pulling over constantly would be dangerous, and at this pace, I would never get home and would certainly get stung.

The hive all set up in the backyard.

By the eighth stop, though, I had a plan. I exited at a shopping center, went in and bought two bed sheets, which I stuffed in every possible opening around the back flap covering my trunk. Cautiously optimistic, I resumed the road trip, set my cruise faster than normal and didn’t stop again until I reached my driveway.

When I finally unlatched them in their new spot in the corner of my backyard, I’m not sure who was more relieved -- me or the bees. And they’ve been buzzing around ever since, seeming to stick close to the hive, as if asking each other where the heck they are.

But with the flowers and gardens throughout the neighborhood beckoning, I’m sure they’ll soon settle in to their new city home -- plus, they kinda have to, because I’m certainly not putting them back in my car again anytime soon.

The bees new "city" home -- my backyard!

A shot from beekeeping class. It was quite an eclectic mix of people and *lots* of bees!

This post is dedicated to my Dad, who has inspired me to do many things in my life, among them now is keeping honey bees buzzing for the benefit of us all. And to my fabulous Cowgirl, who aptly and encouragingly observed that spring is my creative season. I hibernated from blogging and much else over the winter and hope to return with renewed and buzzing fervor in the months ahead.

'stans

By the time I've posted this, my springtime trip to Central Asia seems like a very long time ago. It was quite a journey to get there, but I was greeted by the friendliest of faces -- my dear sweet former colleague and housemate in Aceh, Elzat. She and her husband have been bouncing around the region the past few years as she's helped lead disaster preparedness throughout the region. I came to help them with some public awareness efforts, and though I met folks from each country involved in the project, I only traveled to Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. For the record, I did not see Borat or anyone who resembled anything in that disastrous movie. People were kind and gracious and very smartly dressed. I spent an incredible amount of time not knowing what anyone was saying, but that's totally fine. I did learn a whopping two words of Russian in the process.

The photos that follow are from Tajikistan, where we road tripped through one of the world's most disaster prone regions... Click on the photo for a larger view.

Within an hour or so from the capital city, we were careening through ice-covered roadways.

The further we traveled, the more spectacular the views became.

Cute kiddos in a village we visited.

Spectacular views!

Traffic jam!

Plav, the traditional dish of the region.

Almond trees in bloom.

Endless interesting rock formations.

These wisps of trees were everywhere.

A village very prone to landslides.

nigeria 2.0

Oh, Nigeria. I left you only months before with exalted hopes and shattered stereotypes. Little did I know you were not finished with me yet... This was a tough trip. A long trip. Confessionally, I dealt very poorly with the daily, mounting frustrations and aggravations. I even started writing a blog entry on the flight home, only to read it later and wince at my own incessant complaining. When truly, any trip, any new experience, any chance to see another corner of the globe is a blessing. We covered a lot of ground -- Abuja, Ibadan, Ilorin and Kaduna, and in the shots below you'll see glimpses of each. Cute kids (I can't help myself), open air cooking (including my favorite suya), the markets, women entrepreneurs, local leaders in traditional clothes (I was repeatedly told that Nigerians are the best dressed people in Africa,) the rusty rooftops of Ibadan (once Africa's largest city), gigantic yams, and much more. Enjoy the mini-tour!

 

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share a little light

How many flashlights do you have? Personally, I have about 10, counting the normal size ones (mostly with corroded batteries), the one on my keychain, my headlamp and camping lantern. On the off-chance there is ever a power outage, I will certainly be well-lit!

What about you? Is there a surplus of lighting devices in your life?  Before you answer, let me share a little bit about why I’m asking.

Some of you may know that I went to Kenya recently to report on a treatment project for malaria, which is the leading cause of death for children there. Volunteers with the Kenya Red Cross were trained to treat sick kids in some of the most remote and poor villages in the country, and their work was having incredible results. After only 18 months, the number of children dying had dropped dramatically and more than 80 percent of kids were receiving treatment within 24 hours, the pivotal time window when malaria infections become deadly. This life-saving success was a direct result of a small army of dedicated volunteers, and I was blessed to hear their stories.

The volunteers were individually selected by community members where they served, nominated because they were trusted and respected by their neighbors, friends and families. They all have other jobs as farmers or teachers, shop-keepers or students, and the work they do as on-call “little doctors” in their villages is strictly voluntary. When they get a knock on the door in the middle of the night, they go. When they’ve treated a sick child, they go back to follow-up and ensure treatment is continuing, not once, not twice, but three times, along with keeping detailed records that would rival any doctor’s office anywhere in the world.

They are typically the only health care providers of any kind within twenty or even thirty miles -- and that’s on foot! Before the project started, if you were a mother with two sick kids, you would carry one on your back and one on your shoulders to the nearest clinic, regardless of how far it was, so that your child would get treatment. But now, mothers only have to alert their local volunteer to ensure their kids are cared for. No more long journeys required.

But it is the volunteers, though, who are called out at night by text message or by concerned family members, to rush out into the darkness with their kits of life-saving medicine. They navigate pathways between huts and trees that I couldn’t even see in the daytime, and since these are all rural areas, natural predators of the Kenyan wilderness lurk around every corner -- snakes, lions, you name it. It’s not only a tough job, it’s an extremely dangerous one as well.

As I talked with these volunteers, I began to hear a single common challenge among them. It wasn’t the exhaustive nature of the work or balancing volunteering with their many other jobs -- it was something very simple. They all needed a flashlight. Of the dozen or more volunteers that I talked with, every single one of them said that having a flashlight would help them the most with their work. Not money, not transport, but a flashlight. It was that simple.

That need resonated with me as I traveled home and wrote the report about their project, about their amazing work -- a report that was later presented by the President of the Kenya Red Cross at the UN General Assembly in late September. (Their work is just that good, that the world truly needed to know about it, learn from it and replicate it.) But it was also during that time that one of the volunteers, a young man named Benson Fujo, was killed by a wild animal while on his way to treat a sick child in the middle of the night. It was then that I really knew I needed to do something…

You all know I have seen lots of projects over the years and even more disaster scenes, but this time was different. Their need was so simple, and our means are abundant.

So now I ask you again, how many flashlights do you have?

I have begun collecting solar-powered waterproof flashlights to send to them and wanted to ask you if you would like to help as well. There are no batteries for sale in their villages, so these sturdy, compact solar devices seem just perfect, and they are only 13 bucks.The project operates in 113 villages, so that’s how many I’m aiming to collect -- one for each community volunteer. It’s taken me this long to organize plans and full approvals on the Kenya side, but now this modest effort has received the green light. I would truly love for you to join me in sharing a little bit of light on the work of my new, inspirational friends in Kenya.

The easiest way to contribute is to order them directly from Amazon and just have them shipped to me. You are also welcome to send me a check and I will gladly order them for you -- whatever you prefer. The timeline is immediate, and three weeks or so from now, I will make sure any difference is covered and have them shipped to arrive in Kenya early in 2011. If we collect more than we need, all the better -- the project will soon be expanding due to its unprecedented success!

If you want to learn more about the project, please check out the report, my blog about the trip with pictures of the volunteers, or this video from the Red Cross with my photos-- whatever your media preference may be! Also, don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any questions or ideas, and feel free to share this link with anyone you think would be interested in helping out or spread the word via facebook or other social media.

Again, the flashlights can be found here = http://www.amazon.com/Hybrid-Light-Solarlite-Brightest-Flashlight/dp/B001IF2COS/ref=pd_sim_hi_1

Just use your own account but have them shipped to me at 446 Woodhaven Dr., Decatur, GA 30030.

Thank you, thank you, thank you… for sharing the light of your love and generosity. I promise it will be a blessing and a help to someone who is working tirelessly to help others as well.

Love,

Bonnie

One of my favorite volunteers, Jacob,
showing me his supply of medicine.

This Mom named Jumma with her two youngest kids,
demonstrating how she used to carry them to the clinic
when they were sick. It was over 20 miles away!