Jet Lag, iPads and Small Things
The first leg(s) of our travel are completed; today we head for our destination, the Robin Pope Camps in the upper Luangwa in the eastern part of Zambia. We took the relatively new Delta flight 200 from Atlanta to Johannesburg, leaving out of the new airport terminal in Atlanta for international flights. More on that later when I am back to my computer and can more easily insert photos the size I want them.
Fifteen hours is a long flight. There are a couple ways of doing long travel; one is to break up the journey, like go through Paris and spend a couple days, then fly on to your African destination. I say Paris, because it would be our destination of choice, but you can as easily connect through London or Frankfurt, and a few other places. Many people like doing that, and one of these days, we might, too.
During our years in the Gulf, we developed a pattern of just gutting it through, getting on a very long flight and just getting there, dealing with all the consequences once we reached our destination. For me, going west, it is a piece of cake. For some reason, when I fly east, my body rhythms are jangly for two or three weeks, my sleep patterns erratic, and all you can do is gut it through. We have learned that getting on schedule at your arrival destination helps, getting sunshine and exercise helps, but nothing keeps you from those long lonely hours awake in the middle of the night.
It has hit each one of us differently. I got almost no sleep for two nights, then got a good eight hours (broken) last night. AdventureMan is getting lots of sleep and having very little trouble adjusting.
I am getting used to using the iPad. Just before leaving, I discovered a Sudoko program, and very shortly learned a couple things – electronic Sudoku is just different from paper Sudoku, it is harder to quit. You also can find you’ve lost hours to playing and it gives you a splitting headache – unlike paper Sudoku. It also eats up your time, and although the battery is supposed to have ten hours, either it runs out faster when you are playing Sudoko, or it FEELS like it runs out faster because the time passes so quickly. All I know is that I suddenly became aware that ten hours is not all that much, and I am constantly looking for re-charging places; it has become a priority.
At the last minute, I also pitched my books, and downloaded books to the iPad. I find I am enjoying reading on the iPad (I never thought I would), but once again I am constantly concerned with how fast the time is going (it doesn’t seem to use as much battery time when I am reading) and when and where will I be able to recharge? I am wondering if the camps in the bush have made allowances for their customers increased reliance on electronics – iPads, cameras that have batteries that need recharging, etc.) and I am also wishing I had brought a book with me – it’s just easier.
On the other hand, I have also discovered that on the iPad I have a little program called “notes” where I can make . . . notes! I can do it on a daily basis and it keeps them separate, and it is much faster than writing notes in a little notebook.
The internet at the Taj Pamodzi in Lusaka is much more reliable and much faster than the last time I was here. I hope it is also more secure.
Small things. We are hearing a voice singing outside, we heard the call to prayer from the mosque this morning and felt oh, so nostalgic for our times living near the mosques of Qatar and Kuwait. The singing voices are coming from a nearby school; we can’t understand the words, but it sounds joyful. We have a newspaper, it is much wider and thicker than our Pensacola News Journal, and I think I remember our newspapers also were wider and thicker once. The first few pages were full of people being arrested for corruption, and it makes me happy for Zambia, not happy that they have corruption, but happy that their police are free to arrest highly placed corrupt officials who are stealing from the Zambian people and their heritage, and also that they are free to name the names.
I have lived in countries where offenders are not named, so as not to bring shame on the innocent families, but I believe that when the offender is named, it is a deterrent to corruption. And for what? Is a shiny Mercedes worth the shame, and the jail time? Even though corrupt people in high places steal on an unimaginable scale, the things they buy with them are . . . just things. When you place your value in things, you lead an unsatisfied life. No thing can fill the void that lack of integrity leaves.
Long Legs and Blogging
“Your posts have long legs.”
Every now and then, WordPress sends a critique, a kind of how you’re doing on your blog sort of thing, and I kind of like it that my blog has ‘long legs.’
My stats are inching back up. At one time, blogging out of Kuwait and Qatar, I averaged around 1200 – 1500 visitors a day, now I am happy to see 800 – 1000 a day. This year I had my highest all time day on this blog 3931 visitors in one day. I don’t really have the kind of blog that attracts that kind of visitor count often; mine is quirky and focused mostly on small things – and great ideas.
But I love the ‘long legs.’ Today the post attracting attention is one I wrote back in March of 2008 about bathroom plumbing in Kuwait. It just always gives me a grin to see an old post attract a little attention. 🙂
Petroglyphs in the Petrified Forest
So here we segue back to the Petrified Forest, and it may not seem logical in a linear, chronological sense, like time-as-pearls-strung-together-on-a-string sort of thing, but in terms of like things, the next chronological entry is going to be on 700 years of culture, the Ancestral Puebloans who used to be called the Anasazi, but before I go there, I want to show you some petroglyphs.
(I’m putting in a lot of links in case you are as big a petroglyph nerd as I am, and want to read more)
I always imagine the problems with being early man. Imagine they are smart, and spend a lot of their days figuring things out, most important being 1. What are we going to eat? 2. How are we going to keep dry/warm? 3. How do we protect ourselves from our enemies? They have the same problems we have, only on a much more basic level, and with fewer resources.
Have you ever thought about how easy it is to get information now? (The hard part being sifting through so you get the most reliable, most relevant information). Imagine a world where you have to figure it out for yourself, every day.
Early civilizations fascinate me. I am always interested in little tiny things that can be very important, like how did they fasten skins together to keep themselves warm? How do you poke a hole in a sharp bone so you can use it as a needle? How do you make a button, or make strips that can be used to tie clothing together?
How do you fasten a spear head onto a spear, or an arrowhead onto an arrow?
Early man was a problem solver, and I am fascinated by petroglyphs, which are either early attempts at documentation, or early attempts at communication, or maybe both? The first petroglyphs and cave paintings I ever visited were the Font de Gaume Caves near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, and they took my breath away. I didn’t even hesitate because it was a cave, I wanted to see them so badly.
I want you to look at this photo of a fairly early dwelling in Les Eyzies de Tayac-Sireuil and hold it in your mind before we move on:
Later, living in Saudi Arabia, one of the most fun day trips ever was to a rock formation called Graffiti Rock, which had no protection, so very old petroglyphs mingled with modern carvings, but some of the older carvings were so interesting, so intriguing.
Coming across petroglyphs in the Petrified Forest was a delight.
Here is part of what the national parks website has to say about petroglyphs found in the Petrified Forest:
In 1977 a spiral petroglyph at Chaco Canyon National Monument was discovered which displayed a precise interaction with sunlight at the time of summer solstice by means of a narrow shaft of sunlight that moved down a shadowed rock face to bisect the center of a large spiral petroglyph. Subsequent observations found that on winter solstice and equinoxes there were intriguing interactions of sunlit shafts with the large spiral and a smaller spiral nearby. No other example of a sunlight interaction with prehistoric or historic petroglyphs was known at this time. However, there was a tradition of Pueblo sun watching in historic times, particularly of the varying sunrise and sunset positions throughout the year, to set the dates for ceremonies.
As a result of the Chaco Canyon find, Bob Preston initiated a research project to determine whether other petroglyph sites in the Southwest functioned as solar “observatories.” Over the last 16 years he has identified about 120 examples of similar solstice events at more than 50 petroglyph sites in Arizona, New Mexico and southern Utah. Evidence indicates that the phenomenon may have been spread over as much as a 1000-km region. These findings show clearly that certain petroglyphs were used by early pueblo cultures to function as calendrical markers for the winter and summer solstices. Petrified Forest National Park contains the greatest known concentration of solar calendars, with 16 of the sites being in or immediately adjacent to the park, and has been key to understanding their nature.
Shadows and sunlit images are found to move across petroglyphs due to other rocks being in the path of the sun’s rays. As the sun’s path across the sky changes throughout the year, the positions of the shadows and sunlit images change on the petroglyph panels. In many cases the petroglyphs have been placed on the rock faces in just the right position so that specific interactions occur on the solstices. The most common types of petroglyphs on which solsitial interactions have been identified are spirals and circles. The key to determining that these were intended and not by chance is that interactions are seen from site to site, and occur on the solstices more frequently than on other days of the year. These consistent interactions may involve a point of sunlight or shadow piercing the center or tracing the edge of a spiral or circular petroglyph; or shadow lines may suddenly appear or disappear at the center or edges of the petroglyph; or they may move up to the center or edge and then retreat. It is not uncommon for a single petroglyph to display multiple interactions of this type, either on the same solstice or on each of the solstices. In fact, at one site, there are five circular and spiral petroglyphs that show 15 interactions on the both solstices.
An intriguing question is whether types of petroglyph images were involved with specific dates. In several cases similar sunlight and shadow interactions occur on spiral and circular petroglyphs on the equinox, and distinctive interactions occur with other petroglyphs on the solstices and other dates. Clearly much of the puzzle remains to be unraveled.
There was a WEALTH of petroglyphs. I’m just going to show you a few of those we found:
This one makes me laugh; it looks so much like our modern day stork-who-brings-babies (LOL, where did that legend/story start anyway??)
LOL, these feet are larger than life, or else they were made by giants!
Early people in widely separated parts of the world carved and painted on rock, probably for a number of reasons, maybe keeping track of solar activity and seasons, maybe magical/religious thinking for a good hunt or nostalgia for a good hunt, maybe just someone who, like today’s blogger, just has to document in some way . . . 😉
Thank You, AdventureMan
This is a shakedown trip for the new iPad. I love the way it travels, and that it is bigger than an iPhone for picking up e-mail, and I have a keyboard, so I can write.
It is a lot harder to blog. It is harder to crop and manipulate photos, it is harder to integrate the photos into my blog entries. It was so much more difficult that I just didn’t do it. I had a lot of ideas and a lot of photos, but not enough time (you know how it is when you are traveling) to figure out how to get the job done.
AdventureMan very generously offered to let me use his computer to upload my photos and integrate them into blog entries. Thank you, AdventureMan!
Hell Bent for Texas and the Country Kitchen
(This is my first blog entry done from an iPad, and I still have a lot to learn about how to make the same technologies work that seemed so easy on my computer. Bear with me!)
We could have taken more time, but we decided to make it all in one day – Pensacola to Bryan/College Station, Texas, to see old Texas friends. We made it out the door at exactly seven a.m. – a miracle, and chat chat chatted our way across the remaining few miles of Florida, flew across Alabama, zipped across Mississippi. About when we figured we were half way, and were hungry for lunch, we found ourselves back in familiar territory – the Atchafalaya Basin, Bayou Teche and serious Cajun country. And – we also needed gas, so drifting into the gas station on fumes, we breathed a sigh of relief and focused on our next project – what to eat, where to eat.
An answered prayer – The Country Kitchen. As we drove into the parking lot, AdventureMan lowered his window and said “Can you smell that??” The smell of smoking meat pulled us happily inside, where we ordered BBQ chicken. I did something I never do – my phone rang and I had to make a quick decision on a side, and I went with cornbread dressing. What a blessing of fate, while it is something I probably should not eat much of, it was SO delicious, hot, spicy and sweet. It was hard to resist. I also had the sweet peas – they were out of green beans. AdventureMan had very much the same, except with rice.
SO Good.
If you find yourself outside of Lafayette, LA, find this gem. The cooking is all real food, probably not the healthiest, probably they use fat in just about everything, but it is oh, so delicious.
Now Google tells us that the quickest way to get to Bryan, TX is to get off the Interstate at Beaumont, TX, just after crossing the state line. This road is hilarious – two lanes, with speed limits of 70 on several stretches, churches along the way with names like Cowboy Church and Lonesome Dove Chapel, and a stand set up selling Mayhaw jelly.
It was a very very long drive, and, at long last, we arrived at our friends’ beautiful, serene house, spent the evening laughing and catching up, with never a silent moment, we all just had so much to say. Finally, exhausted, we fell into bed, only to rise ready for more chat the next morning. Aren’t old friends the BEST? No matter how much time has passed, you can pick right up, share your hearts and you can talk about everything.
It was a joyful breakfast, again full of tears and laughter, and then, the painful parting. We have this wonderful memory though – just as we were about to leave, we asked about those Mayhaws. what were they, and then we asked about a song AdventureMan can almost remember, “Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch,” which our friend knew and sang, and as we left we were all laughing once again.
Stop Kony 2012
I love this campaign. I love its focus and specificity. I love that it goes after a merciless bully who uses children as a weapon, and twists religion to serve the evil. I spit on you, Lords Resistance Army.
Please, take twenty-something minutes to watch this, what young people all around the world are doing to stop a hideous abuse of children in Uganda.
April 20. Wooo HOOOO!
New Stats on WordPress
When I went to my Stat page today, I found a new presentation – the countries my visitors are from, listed and in color codes on a map:
Pretty cool, hmmm?
While most of my visitors are from the US, I still get a substantial number from Kuwait and Qatar. 🙂
Depends Who Writes the Obituary . . .
I am sorry, but this totally cracks me up. I found in on AOL Huffpost and it is about a Tampa family, where the one writing the obituary gets to insert his point of view. We all have families; they each have their points of view.
When I am reading the obituaries, the ones that crack me up are the ones who have clearly written their own obituaries and had them ready to go when their time is up. Many of the ones written by men are a little grandiose, the ones written by women are more matter-of-fact. You can usually tell what they found most important about the life they lived. Now and then, you find someone original, with a sense of humor and proportion about themselves, who talk about hunting, or their dogs, or sailing. There are people I wish I had met when I read their obituaries; maybe we should all publish pre-death summaries of our lives so far . . . Oh wait . . . that’s a blog, LOL!
When AdventureMan says “that’s not how I remembered it!” I always say (you’ve heard it before, you can say it along with me) “Get your own blog, AdventureMan!” But it is true, the one who is doing the blog gets to skew the history, LLOOLL!
By Laura Rowley
One of my first assignments in my first real job in journalism was writing obituaries for The Milwaukee Journal. I found it a little daunting at first, this job of writing about the dead. But that changed after a phone call with a woman whose daughter had died in a car crash overseas with her husband and toddler.
It was my job to call the family for the story, and I assumed the mother would hang up on me. Instead she spoke for an hour, sobbing, telling me stories about her extraordinary daughter and son-in-law, and the grandchild she had barely gotten to know. At the end of the call she said, “Thank you, my husband won’t talk with me about this.”
In every call I made after that I had a different attitude. I realized that the obituary is a place where ordinary people have the opportunity to honor the people they love in a very public way.
That is, unless the survivor is self-centered enough to believe the obituary is about him, as appears to be the case with Angelo “A.J.” Anello of Florida. Anello placed an obituary for his mother Josie, who died on February 11, taking the opportunity to insult his siblings Ninfa and Peter with the following line:
“She is survived by her Son, ‘A.J.’, who loved and cared for her; Daughter ‘Ninfa’, who betrayed her trust, and Son ‘Peter’, who broke her heart.”
The source of this rivalry between these post 50 siblings? Money. Ninfa Simpson told the Tampa Bay Times that her brother A.J. became more controlling over their mother once their father died, which A.J. denied. The two told the paper that the third sibling, Peter, has been estranged from the family for more than 25 years. The Tampa Bay Times also reported that:
Simpson says Anello drained the mother’s savings and maxed out her credit cards. Anello says Simpson and her husband used their mother’s Social Security checks to go on vacations to Branson, Mo., and Alaska.
Both siblings deny the other’s allegations.
A.J. told the Tampa Bay Times that he was merely conveying what his mother said through the obituary; nevertheless, an alternative version of Josie Anello’s obituary — which does not include evidence of the siblings’ feud — has also been published.
What do you think about Josie Anello’s obituary? Let us know in the comments, and watch the below video to hear more about this unbelievable family rift.
Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis
This is a photo from Katie’s blog: Kisses From Katie.
Do you believe in God? Do you believe that God believes in you? Then how do you live your life? Do you commit 100% to God and trust him to provide as you leave all your riches behind and follow him, serving the poorest of the poor, speaking for those who have no voices?
I will warn you, this unforgettable book has a lot of talk about God in it. A part of me watches in horror, wondering how long Katie can continue to serve God with all her heart, with all her soul, and with all her mind? How long she can work against all odds, trusting in God to lift her and provide for her and her children. This is a true story, an ongoing life. A part of me fears a terrible crash, but the greater part of me prays for Katie, and stands in awe of her courage and her commitment.
I don’t know who told me about Kisses for Katie, the blog. As soon as I started reading it, I was addicted.
Now for the shocker: Katie is only 23 years old. A year before she graduated from high school, she felt an undeniable call to do a 6 week mission teaching in a school in one of the poorest parts of Uganda. At the end of her six weeks, she couldn’t bear to leave. She returned, finished out her senior year in high school (HIGH SCHOOL!) but she never felt entirely ‘home,’ her heart was with the children of Uganda, the poorest of the poor.
Although her parents had her doubts, the strength and consistency of Katie’s belief that she was called to serve in Africa brought them around, and they agreed she could go work for a year in this small, poor village, before starting university. At eighteen, Katie was teaching, raising money for food, tuition and uniforms for over 100 children, and working to prepare all the meals, bathe all the children, and teach them about the love of Jesus.
When I saw, a month ago, that Katie had a book published, I had to buy it. Kisses from Katie is inspirational and unforgettable. Her story continues on her blog, but the book lays all the groundwork, the heartaches and the joys, the delights of her 13 adopted daughters, the horrors of the Ugandan bureaucracy, Katie’s dogged day-by-day fight to claim and save lives. She is a remarkable young woman, powered by an awesome God.
If Katie were going to burn out, I think it would have happened earlier, as she suffered terrible disappointments, and made truly amazing sacrifices to raise her girls, to be their “mommy” and to insure the educations of over a hundred children. With a growing foundation, Amazina, and a growing group of contributors, she carries on, and the miracle of this book is that she doesn’t seem to sense the amazing woman that she is at all, she seems to believe that she is a simple woman following God’s will for her life, and reveling in it, joyfully surrounded by her 13 adopted daughters and frequent foster babies. She feels blessed to have the life that God created her to live.
I stand in awe.
You can order this book from Amazon.com for $12.49 plus shipping. It might even change your life, or how you view your life. Yes, I own stock in Amazon.com. No, I make no money from recommending this book. 🙂
Oops! Five Year Blogaversary Almost Slipped Past
Holy cow, how could I forget my own blogoversary? Five years. When my son and daughter in law got married, they had a cake that totally knocked my socks off. I wish I could think of a good occasion to have a cake like this made . . . not so much to eat, but oh, they are so beautiful!
We’ve been through so much together – three years in Kuwait, a move to and another year in Qatar, and then the move, about 18 months ago, to Pensacola. These cakes are good reminders of all three countries, loaded with the blessings of blue skies, sand, glorious seas and seashells. Join me in a bite of cake 🙂
Pensacola, with the light house 🙂
Beaches I’ll remember 🙂
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