A Chat With Daudi En Route to Nsefu
“Happy Anniversary to You! Happy Anniversary to You! I Love You! I love you! Happy Anniversary to you! Happy Anniversary to you!” AdventureMan sings me awake to the tune of the Superman theme. He always knows how to make me laugh, and after 39 years, he can still surprise me. We are so delighted to wake up here, in Tena Tena, on our anniversary. Life is sweet.
Morning at TenaTena Camp:
AdventureMan is walking to the next camp, and I am spending the morning catching up on notes, organization, small things, charging up my iPad, etc.
As I was saying earlier, you’d think this would all be very restful, and everything is done for us, but it all revolves around our game drive schedule, and any necessary re-charging depends on the generator schedule (unless you are in Nkwali, where you can re-charge everything in your own rooms; there are lots of electrical outlets) and at the same time, why on earth are we bringing all these electronic devices to the bush???
I’ve discovered a program on the iPad called Notes, and it allows me to write so much more than I would if I were writing by hand. I forget a lot of the smaller details and some of those small details are what makes camping life here so much fun.
The Robin Pope camps pay a lot of attention to detail. One of the things they provide is an insect repellant that is also lotion; it goes on easily, it smells good, and it really seems to keep the insects away, so I gladly use it instead of the Deet we brought with us which melts plastic if it leaks. How can that be good for our cameras?? How can that be good for us? And it is oily, and it smells so bad, and the tsetse flies just ignore it altogether. The insect repellant lotion, on the other hand, seems to work . . . and it smells like lemons.
We are all discovering new ways to use our cameras. I have discovered a program called Night Scenery, which allows me to take spectacular sunsets, and even photograph the essence of a night drive with some clarity – how cool is that? We are a good group in that we can sit patiently and shoot twenty or thirty shots of the lilac breasted roller, experimenting with various shutter speeds, aperatures, and compare them to the automatic function.
(I love my Lumix. I get great shots, and it takes me close to get the finest detail of a bird feather. It is lightweight, easy to handle, and doesn’t need as much light as many of the longer interchangable lenses on other cameras. I have two batteries, so I can be charging one and using another. I have another, smaller Lumix also with me as a back-up in case the unthinkable happens and something goes wrong with the bigger Lumix. My one gripe – the back-up battery is not a Panasonic battery; it works, but it doesn’t show how much battery is left, so just at the worst moment, my camera can just die if I don’t remember to change the battery out when I think it might be time.)
Our new Scottish friends, Mark and Madolyn, show us photos they took at the salt pan and they saw lion with a big huge bushy dark mane, and she took a photo – are you sitting down? – with her iPhone, that I would have killed to take. It is close, it is detailed, it is every bit as good as a photo taken with a camera. So much for all the control we are trying to develop.
They also ran a rescue mission for all the village men passing on bicycles, telling them of the lion ahead, loading bikes into the Land Cruiser, ferrying them past the lion and dropping them off past the danger zone. Some of the pride of lions have 10 – 20 members. Most avoid humans, but . . . would you want to bet on that, riding by a pride of lion, say . . . hungry lion . . .on a bicycle? (shiver) Not me!
It is approaching deep winter here, so it can be cold, not bitterly cold, but cold enough to make you stupid when you get up in the morning, cold enough that you want a fleece and a scarf for the first few hours of the morning drive. Around mid-morning you start stripping off layers, until around noon when it is very hot and you know the sunscreen won’t be enough; you have to put on some kind of cover against the strong African sun, even approaching mid-winter.
On my way to Nsefu, our last camp in the South Luangwa, I am with our old friend Daoudi, whom we first met twelve years ago, on our first trip to the South Luangwa. We talked of our families, and changes, and I thought to ask him about a conversation I had had the night before, with our Tena Tena guide, Julius. I had asked him how his wife coped with him gone guiding several weeks each month, and he began his response with “She is a well-mannered girl . . . ” going on to discuss how they problem-solve and work with the situation. It’s of interest to me, as a former military wife; military wives also spend time apart from their husbands.
So I pondered this, it was the first thing he said, “she is a well-mannered girl . . . ” and that tells me being well mannered is the most important thing, but well-mannered behavior differs, I have learned, sometimes painfully, from culture to culture.
“Daoudi, when a Zambian girl is said to be well-mannered, what does it mean?” and he explained it meant from her earliest days, her parents had instructed her on proper behavior.
“OK. I understand that. But I might not understand well-mannered the same way you do. Like when we lived in the Middle East, you know I learned to wear clothes that covered me to the elbow and to the knees, and did not have a low necklline . . . ”
“Yes, modest . . .” he said, thoughtfully.
“Yes, exactly,” I affirmed, “but also things very un-American . . . I learned to keep my eyes down, or at least not to look directly at a man and smile – that for us it might be friendly, but there it might seem forward. And I learned to use my quiet voice in public, and not to laugh out loud in the souks. Things like that, things I would not have even known if I had not been told.”
“Ah, yes!” he agreed, “these are also what it is to be a well-mannered Zambian woman. To speak softly with your husband, not to be shouting at him when you disagree, but to talk softly so you can come to agreement. Like that.”
We rode together in a comfortable silence, then I had another question.
“Would it be OK for a Zambian woman to be sitting here in the car with you when she is not your wife or your sister or a closely related woman?” and he laughed and said “Yes, it is helpful! Like you give someone a lift to help her get where she is going, there is nothing improper in that.”
So while some of the manners are like the manners of the Middle East, there are differences, too, and a person could spend a lifetime learning all these little distinctions and still not get it all right. Learning another culture is a never ending task, and it makes you envy those children who are born of two cultures (or more) and can pass fluently from one to another, knowing the subtleties of each.
We have American nieces and nephews who have lived most of their entire lives in a foreign country, and while they are not born of different cultures, they played on the streets, attended social functions, the local culture seeped into them by their daily lives. They are idiomatically fluent and inter-culturally fluent, but it takes a lifetime of bi-cultural living to attain their level without a dual-culture mother and father.
Nsefu Camp, the original Norm Carr camp, has little round plastered bandas set right on the river, where you can watch the elephant families cross the river, entirely lovely.
Everyone arrives hot and tired from the walk, and delighted with all they have learned. We have a lovely lunch, and AdventureMan sleeps soundly for an hour before afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea is a lot of fun; the chef has baked a beautiful chocolate cake for our birthday girl, and seven men enter singing “Happy Birthday” with the birthday cake for tea. 🙂
On the afternoon game drive we spot a civet cat, which we have never seen so clearly before,
and we see a porcupine family. When we first spotted them, it looked like the big porcupine was dragging something, but no, it was a little tiny baby porcupine sticking to Mom’s heelslike glue.
(Sorry, it’s just hard to get good clear sharp shots at night)
Again, a gorgeous night sky and a lot of fun trying to find constellations. Dinner was a Mongolian barbecue, with sparkling wine provided by the Australian honeymooners, who had a true honey moon – the moon rose huge and red in the sky as we were eating our dinner.
Galilee Cafe, Mobile, and Foley AL; Life in Small Adventures
AdventureMan was perusing the Weekend Section of the Pensacola News Journal when he saw the opening of the Farmer’s Market in Foley, AL, and he said “Let’s go!”
“Let’s Go!” and my agreement doesn’t always mean we will really go. The market isn’t until 3 in the afternoon, and a lot can happen. Sometimes we just change our minds.
But at water aerobics, I get a great idea, and I can hardly wait to share it with AdventureMan.
“Let’s go to the Jordan River Cafe for their Friday buffet, then head down toward Foley through Fairhope!” He loves the idea, we run a couple errands on the way home, I call the restaurant to make sure they are still open (It’s been about a year since we last went there) and then hit the road for Mobile:
When we get to the restaurant, we discover it is no longer the Jordan River Cafe; it is now the Galilee Cafe, and I wonder if the food will still be so good as before. As we enter, we are shocked – the Cafe is PACKED. Every table is taken – no, no, there is one small table, over in the back, we can have that one, the welcoming waitress says.
Galilee Cafe
326 Azalea
Mobile
T: 251-304-0297
Lunch was fantastic. Yes, the restaurant has changed hands; the current owner born in Bethlehem, and we are astonished and delighted to see so many people enjoying “Mediterranean” cuisine, which is suspiciously like what we used to eat in Jordan and Syria 🙂 The restaurant stayed busy the entire time we were there, so busy that some people ate outside on the front terrace. The food is delicious, and worth the drive from Pensacola. The Friday buffet (and it appears they also now have a Sunday buffet) is all the usual suspects – hummous, baba ghannoush (some of the best I have tasted), tabouli, fattoush, etc. plus a lot of the home-cooked favorites, lamb, chicken, grains, beans and vegetables, pita bread – all delicious.
The first time AdventureMan went to this restaurant (as the Jordan River Cafe) he went with a Saudi buddy and his son, and he has talked ever since about the route they took, but we never knew how to find it. Yesterday, we experimented, taking a right on Azalea as we left, and driving down to Government and turning left. (These iPhones are great navigational tools) It takes you through an older part of town, with large glorious mansions, and into a rather quiet downtown Mobile.
The good news is, it takes you to another tunnel under the Mobile Bay, closely paralleling the one I-10 uses. We like to have an alternative; I-10 can get clogged going through Mobile. This route serves our purposes as it is Highway 98, and it is the road we want to be on to get to Fairhope and then to Foley.
It is a lovely day for a drive, and while we have taken this drive before, it is never the same twice in a row. As we are on the stretch between Fairhope and Foley, the clouds darken and a few stray drops fall.
“That wasn’t bad!” I said as we arrived in Foley, promptly at three for the opening of the Farmer’s Market. “Great parking, too!”
We got as far as the first booth, which was soaps and toiletries (I love hand made soaps) and AdventureMan walked off to explore the rest of the stalls – and the torrent broke forth. Rain came down in buckets, and lightning came, crackling and booming, one strike after another. It never lasts very long here, so I thought we would just wait it out. The wind is blowing the rain under the canopy, so we gather up all the soaps to try to keep them dry, and we wait. And we wait. AdventureMan comes back, soaked; the wind has blown the rain under his umbrella. We wait another five minutes, and then everyone is starting to pack up – and I never made it beyond the first stall! We quickly made our purchases, ran to the car, and drove home mostly without air conditioning because we were so soaked and shivering.
The Farmer’s Market is held on Friday afternoons, 3 – 6 pm, in Heritage Park:
It was a great adventure 🙂 Thank you, Google Maps, for making it so easy to share the small adventure with our friends.
Transfer from Nkwali Camp to Tena Tena Camp
Monday, 3 June transfer to Tena Tena
Fred takes us on a game drive to Tena Tena, and it is a great morning, with a lot of fun. First thing out, we come across another elephant family, and we love stopping to visit with the elephants.
We stopped to take photos of signs for Nkwali, and I really love this one because we are the shadows taking photos in the photo, LOL.
There were baboons out grooming on the bridge going into the park, and I took a photo of the restroom. It was primitive but totally clean – wouldn’t you prefer that to modern, but totally filthy? And . . . it beats going behind a bush. I always think about that lion lying under the tree; he sees me and I don’t see him.
We saw a cooperative waterbuck, with the target circle on his bottom:
And a family of frolicking zebra:
A great hippo – this one is for you, BL:
And another fish eagle, which make a great screech as they hunt:
We had a great stop for a family of giraffe feeding, then crossing the road to the flat plain across the road where they drink and continue on their journey. It’s one of the things we like best about the Robin Pope safaris; the guides respect our delight in spending time just observing the animals. We shoot photos, but we also love just watching, trying to figure out what is going on. The guides know so much, and Fred is good at helping us understand a lot of the smaller things.
We reach the river, where the bags are loaded into a small canoe, and
we are too. We wave goodbye to Fred, are poled across the Luangwa, and
meet our next guide, Julius, on the other side of the river, for a
drive to our next stop, Tena Tena Camp.
Tena Tena is one of our favorite camps ever. It is sort of tented – if
tents are tall enough to walk around in, with a great veranda for
sitting and watching the wildlife passing within feet in the nearby
lagoon, with an outdoor bathroom with separate circular areas for
toilet and shower, all shaded by a tall tree whose branches entirely
cover the bathroom area. Between the two is a large dressing room with
shelves and a luggage rack.
Our tent:
Our washing up area:
Our shower area:
Our dressing area:
View looking out from our tent through our veranda:
Oh, and frogs. I couldn’t get my toilet to flush, so I took the top off to see if it was all hooked up, and FIVE frogs looked up at me, two sitting on that ball that goes up and down, two on the flushing mechanism and one in the little notch at the back of the toilet. I guess they love a cold, damp environment 😦
A short walk away from our tent is the gathering room with its large bar, and down about twenty paces further is the outdoor dining room, where
scrumptious lunches and dinners are served.
As we arrive, we are met by Claire and Nyale with cold “flannels”
to wipe our dusty faces and hands, and then shown to our cabins. We
have a few minutes to organize and then we head for lunch, where we
meet the other six guests in the camp. Tena Tena hosts ten guests
maximum, so it isn’t that hard to meet everyone. The wait staff excel in napkin folding; today we are eating fish 🙂
And “what will you eat in Africa?”
It’s a long, leisurely lunch, and then back to the cabin to unpack a little
and catch a quick snooze before the afternoon game run. We spot a huge elephant, tearing apart a tree, and a lion lazing on the beach, a couple bush babies, a genet and elephant shrew, and search for leopard, but never find him. Back at Tena Tena for late dinner, we can barely keep our eyes open, and excuse ourselves soon after dessert to lay our our clothes for the next day and hit the sack.
And! We see a Scope’s Owl!
To bed, we have a long day tomorrow, going to the Salt Pans!
PATRICIA WELLS AT HOME IN PROVENCE: Recipes Inspired By Her Farmhouse In France
Ahhhhh. . . . . this is a gift for Father’s Day to AdventureMan, a gift that just keeps on giving.
The first night, he read it in bed, enthusiastically reading aloud ingredients for various recipes; they all sounded so delicious we were HUNGRY! Today we headed for the grocery store to find the crucial ingredients, which, because this book is very homey, are not hard to find. AdventureMan is making a pasta with sweet red peppers, and tonight, because we trust Patricia Wells, he is even going to add the Parmesan cheese which he sometimes hates. He has discovered that if it is really really good Parmesan cheese, it’s not so bad. (I don’t think he will ever like the stinky, salty Pecorino that I adore.)
I can hear him whistling in the kitchen as he prepares the onions and red peppers. My tummy is grumbling; I know this is going to be good!
We are Patricia Wells addicts. When we lived our many years in Germany, we had her books The Food Lovers Guide to France, and the Food Lovers Guide to Paris, and they were our major resources to go see things we might never otherwise have even known. She introduced us to Monsieur Fallot’s magnificent moutardes, and to La Duree’s hot chocolate and macaroons. We found kitchen shops and bakeries and charcuteries, and while she often led us into temptation, she never led us astray.
The recipes in this book are doable. She requires GOOD olive oil and fresh ingredients, we can do that. There is nothing very complicated or difficult – it’s home cooking, as only the French can do it. God bless you, Patricia Wells. 🙂
And now . . . to dinner 🙂
Nkwali Camp, Day 2
We’ve booked three nights at each camp, so we get at least two full days at each, and additional drives or hikes for the transfer days – there is never a dull moment.
The drums, the drums, and we are ready and out the door in no time. Today, as we are walking down to catch the boat, my toe catches on a root and I almost fall into the river. Even though the Luangwa is shallow, it would still be humiliating, and I would have to go back and change clothes, and then (gulp) there are those crocodiles . . . . The path is rough and I am a little unbalanced by my backpack, and by the grace of God, the guide, Keyala, steels himself, I hit him and he doesn’t fall in the water when I hit. He holds steady. Thanks be to God! (By evening, there was a new set of stairs, and no roots.)
Our day starts with leopard. We are once again at a green lagoon, watching ducks and cranes, when Keyala says “look, there is a leopard!” and about two hundred yards back, he is at a pond, drinking, then quietly, slowly, turns and walks back into the forest. What a great way to start!
Sorry, the leopard is in the distance and you learn to shoot fast. It doesn’t always make for the sharpest shot, but by the time you get all the settings right and the focus set, the leopard is gone and you have a photo of the lagoon where the leopard was, who wants to see that?
We have a lively morning, full of birds and more elephant and giraffe:
These giraffe are young males, and they are fighting with their necks, sort of comical to watch, but they can seriously hurt one another. I think these ones are more playing at fighting:
This hippo has gotten tired of the fighting for a spot in the river and has found a lovely isolated spot in the lagoon. You can tell he is a weathered old soul by the scars on his body.
We also get a chance to photograph that glorious fish eagle in a tree – this is how you usually see them; the one I shot in the previous post on Nkwali was actually catching a fish. You don’t get that shot often:
Many stops later, we are driving along and we smell sausages. Keyala says it must be a nearby lodge, but there is no lodge near by. . . We turn a corner and there is a crew, with a fire, and camp chairs all set up, and we realize we are about to experience one of the infamous Nkwali BBQ cook-outs, oh what fun. We are overlooking another great lagoon, full of hippo, Cape Buffalo, baboons, and all kinds of wildlife. Robert, the stellar camp cook, is there asking us how we like our eggs, and with our eggs are sausage, bacon, corn fritters, fried onion, baked beans and toast from loaves of bread made in camp, big thick slices.
On our way back to camp, we will cross the river again:
And here is one of many of the crocodiles sunning on the river sand:
Just before we get back to camp, we see a Zambian local, fishing in the river. Look closely at the canoe – we used to see canoes like this in Alaska, too, dugouts. Imagine the hours it takes to hollow out a tree so that you can use it as a boat, and imagine that if you have very little, the man who has created for himself a boat can be a man with an enhanced opportunity to feed his family . . .
Once again, we arrive back at camp, and snooze a little until dinner. Bumping around in the Toyota trucks wears us out, and we are still jet lagging, some times we think we’ve beat it, and then when we least expect it, it beats us. I really need to wash my hair, it gets so dusty from the trails, but I really really need a nap and a nap almost always trumps washing hair.
As we head out on our last Nkwali game drive, there is an air of excitement. We find the noble-looking kudu, so shy, and he astonishes us by walking across the road so we can get a clear shot of those amazing curled antlers.
You’d think there would come a time when we might think “Oh, it’s just another elephant family,” but for us, that time never comes. We always watch them with fascination, thinking how very smart they are, how far they range, how they communicate, and how they mourn the deaths of their group. Elephant are huge, and they have their own agenda, they are not there for our entertainment but for their own survival, so we watch them with great respect.
Keyala takes us across the river and we head up to the highest hill for sundowners, half-searching for lion and leopard on the way. The highest hill has a 180 degree view of the land all the way to the escarpment, and the sun sets at just about 90 degrees – right in front of us. Behind us, about the same time, the full moon rises. It is awesome.
This is Keyala and Keyfus. Keyfus (Kay-fus), on the left, is the same as Cephus in Greek, meaning rock – Saint Peter’s name. Keyala is our guide, and recently marketed for Robin Pope Safaris in Seattle. 🙂
On this high hill I spot a tree, Sterculia quinqueloba, a tree I have never seen before, and Keyala tells us the name. It is such an unusual tree:
Sunset from the high hill in the Chongwe Game Park:
Moonrise in the east, magical:
Dinner conversation is fast and furious back at camp, and we excuse ourselves to make sure we are packed up and ready for departure the next day for Tena Tena. We say a sad farewell to Chris, and Tina, and Keyala, who have taken such good care of us and gotten our Zambia safari off to such a great and happy start.
Angry Father Beheads Daughter with Sword
I am embarrassed to tell you that my source for this story is Fox News:
JAIPUR, India – Police say a man upset over his daughter’s lifestyle chopped her head off with a sword and then paraded it through his village before surrendering to authorities in western India.
Marble miner Ogad Singh’s 20-year-old daughter had been living with her parents in the Rajasthani village of Dungarji after leaving her husband two years ago.
Police Superintendent Umesh Ojha says Singh was upset by his daughter having affairs with men, and became enraged when she eloped with one of them two weeks ago.
Ojha says Singh forced her to return home Sunday, and beheaded her Monday with a sword.
Rapidly modernizing India faces increasing social clashes as youths resist traditions like arranged marriage or limits on women venturing outside their parents’ or husbands’ homes.
Sorry, China!
Found this on AOL News, reported by the Huffington Post
“Stop! Stop!” says China. “It is illegal to publish air pollution readings!”
LLLLLOOOOLLLLLLLL! Sorry, China, those days are past. Too many ways the information can get out and verified.
(Clarifies translated comment from ministry spokesman)
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, June 5 (Reuters) – A senior Chinese official demanded on Tuesday that foreign embassies stop issuing air pollution readings, saying it was against the law and diplomatic conventions, in pointed criticism of a closely watched U.S. embassy index.
The level of air pollution in China’s heaving capital varies, depending on the wind, but a cocktail of smokestack emissions, vehicle exhaust, dust and aerosols often blankets the city in a pungent, beige shroud for days on end.
Many residents dismiss the common official readings of “slight” pollution in Beijing as grossly under-stated.
The U.S. embassy has installed a monitoring point on its roof which releases hourly air-quality data via a widely followed Twitter feed. The U.S. consulates in Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou provide a similar service.
While China tightened air pollution monitoring standards in January, the official reading and the U.S. embassy reading can often be far apart.
Chinese experts have criticised the single U.S. embassy monitoring point as “unscientific”.
Deputy Environment Minister Wu Xiaoqing went a step further, saying such readings were illegal and should stop, though he did not directly name the United States.
“According to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations … foreign diplomats are required to respect and follow local laws and cannot interfere in internal affairs,” Wu told a news conference.
“China’s air quality monitoring and information release involve the public interest and are up to the government. Foreign consulates in China taking it on themselves to monitor air quality and release the information online not only goes against the spirit of the Vienna Convention … it also contravenes relevant environmental protection rules.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin called on foreign diplomatic missions to respect China’s laws and regulations and to stop issuing the readings, “especially over the Internet”.
“If the foreign embassies want to collect this kind of information for their own staff and diplomats, I think it’s up to them,” Liu told reporters. “They can’t release this information to the outside world.”
The U.S. embassy acknowledges on its website (http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn) that its equipment cannot be relied upon for general monitoring, saying “citywide analysis cannot be done … on data from a lone machine”.
Despite his criticism, Wu acknowledged that China’s air quality and overall environmental situation remained precarious, with more than one tenth of monitored rivers rated severely polluted, for example.
“What needs saving is the country’s air quality, not the government’s face,” Zhou Rong, an energy campaigner for Greenpeace, said in emailed comments. “The environmental authorities must stop finger pointing and start taking actions that really address the issue.” (Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)
And this also from the Huffington Post:
A mushroom-like cloud was spotted over Beijing earlier this week, closely resembling the explosion of an atomic bomb, reports China Daily.
Now, footage of the mysterious cloud has been released on YouTube. One shows raw video of the haze taken from what appears to be a high-rise building, while another video is an edited version documenting the haze on June 14.
The yellow and green haze led Chinese authorities to advise residents to stay inside Monday, according to Agence France-Presse.
While rumors swarmed online about the cause of the unusual cloud, Chinese police arrested two internet users who said the pollution had been triggered by a chlorine leak at a chemical plant or an explosion at a steel refinery, notes The Economic Observer.
Meanwhile, government authorities told the Xinhua news agency straw burning was the cause and denied there had been any industrial accidents.
Air pollution is increasingly becoming a major problem in China, and the government is often accused of downplaying the severity of the problem in metropolitan areas.
Earlier this month, China demanded the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to stop publishing air pollution readings, saying it was against diplomatic conventions and the law.
“Never for Acclaim, Always for Country”
This weekend the CIA also honors fallen warriors, and in a new level of transparency, shares some of those names. It’s devastating to lose a loved one in the military, and I cannot imagine what it was like to lose a loved one and not to even be able to tell people your loved one was lost in service to his or her country. Heartfelt thanks to all those who have served silently and anonymously and sacrificed identity and history for our nation. You know who you are. 🙂
From ABC News:
Out of the shadows in death: The CIA honors its fallen
By Suzanne Kelly CNN – When you’re a spy, you have to accept the fact that everything you do will go unnoticed by most people during your life. Sometimes that secrecy even follows you in death, with a simple star carved into a marble wall at Langley being the only memorial to your service.
Sometimes though, in death, the names come out, along with just enough information to piece together a glimpse of what life — and death — have been like for CIA spies over the past three decades.
This past Monday, 15 names were added to what’s known by insiders as the “Book of Honor.” When a name is inscribed in the book, it allows family and friends of the fallen to publicly acknowledge in general terms, how their loved ones spent their lives, and how they died.
The names and brief stories shared with a crowd said to number in the hundreds gathered in the CIA lobby, told a story of an Agency spread far and wide; the story of an Agency not only consumed with tracking down terrorists, but sometimes becoming victims of the hunted.
Jeffrey R. Patneau, described by CIA Director David Petraeus as a “young can-do officer,” was killed in Yemen in September 2008. Yemen has become a hotbed of al Qaeda activity and is where a recent al Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula (AQAP) plot to bring down an airliner with a difficult-to-detect new explosive material, was recently foiled by undercover operatives.
Five of those honored this year died on April 18, 1983, when terrorists targeted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. Phyliss Nancy Faraci had also been one of the last four Americans evacuated from the Mekong Delta when Saigon fell, according to an Agency spokesman. She died in Beirut along with Deborah M. Hixson, Frank J. Johnston, and a married couple, James F. and Monique N. Lewis. Petraeus noted the Embassy bombing as the place where the Agency “first caught sight of the adversary we face today.”
To get a sense of just how widespread the CIA presence has been over the years, Matthew K. Gannon was killed in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; Molly N. Hardy was killed in the 1998 suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi; Leslianne Shedd died when hijackers downed the plane she was on over the Indian Ocean in November 1996; Jacqueline K. Van Landingham was killed in Pakistan in March 1995; Barry S. Castiglione died during the ocean rescue of a colleague in 1992 in the waters off El Salvador; Lawrence N. Freedman was killed in Somalia in December 1992; Thomas M. Jennings, Jr. died in Bosnia in 1997; Freddie R. Woodruff was killed in Georgia in 1993; and Robert W. Woods died in a plane crash during a humanitarian mission to Ethiopia in 1989.
Petraeus told the group of gathered mourners and friends that the officers who have died for the mission “all heard the same call to duty and answered it without hesitation — never for acclaim, always for country.”
One more star has been carved into that wall so far this year, bringing the number of stars representing fallen officers to 103. We don’t know who the latest person was, or how they died, but maybe someday, we will.
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Where is Zambia?
Zambia is in the central part of southern Africa:
It is a beautiful and varied country, with many peoples speaking many different dialects. It is an amazing country in that they have all managed to learn to get along with one another. They learn each other’s languages in the schools, they have instilled a culture of respect for the differences as well as a focus on the similarities they share. Our Zambian friends work hard, and they are very proud of Zambia. When you visit, you can’t help but respect and admire their pride.
I found a photo of Zambia’s flag on Wikipedia, and an explanation for the graphics and colors:
The colors used in the flag of Zambia are rich in symbolism. Green stands for the nation’s lush flora, red for the nation’s struggle for freedom, black for the Zambian people, and orange for the land’s natural resources and mineral wealth. Additionally, the eagle flying above the colored stripes is intended to represent the people’s ability to rise above the nation’s problems.
We traveled often to Zambia from our homes on the Arabian Gulf, but this will be a very different trip, crossing 8 time zones and flying a very very long time to get there. It will take us longer to get to Zambia, via South Africa, than it used to take us to get to Qatar or Kuwait. We’ll have two nights, one in Johannesburg and one in Lusaka, before we start out on our safaris.
It’s a different world. You know it as soon as you get there. It smells different. You smell wood-burning fires and dust. Out in the South Luangwa, where we are going, you hear the hippos saying ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaah in the nearby rivers and ponds, and sometimes you will hear elephants fighting, and it is very loud with lots of crashes. You hear soft birds, and when you hear English, it is spoken with a different lilt, so you have to listen more carefully, pay better attention, so you will understand what is being said.
It’s a different world, too, in that sometimes your bags don’t catch up with you. Sometimes bags are just never seen again! We are carrying our nightclothes and a change of clothes with us to help us deal with unforeseen challenges.
Did I mention we are very excited?
I am thinking we need an eagle flying above our stripes to symbolize American belief that we can rise above our nation’s problems . . . 🙂
Packing For a Purpose
Part of what we love about the Robin Pope Safari Camps is that we also get to go into the village and see how the schools are doing. There is a consortium of safari camp service providers who donate a portion of their profits every year to providing for and maintaining schools, finding sponsors for children who have no parents, finding help for teachers in obtaining much needed supplies.
Many of the children of the village are truly being raised by the village, as fathers and mothers succumb to the dreaded wasting disease, to malaria, to yellow fever and to problems attending poor nutrition and inadequate access to health care. The camps bring in a volunteer doctor, when they can, who works with the villages six months to a year or so. Children are looked after by aunts and uncles, or grandparents, or a neighbor – who may not have much to spare, with her own children to look after.
So, with a prayer, we headed for Staples to pick up school supplies. What a deal! Pocket dictionaries! Boxes of 60 pens! It is so exciting, I bought too much, and now we are hoping they won’t weigh our suitcases too accurately. We’ve jammed a lot in . . .
I should have checked the website again before I shopped, or I wouldn’t have bought so many pencils, but they DO still need erasers, and I bought a lot of those. And I try to stick in something they might have some fun with – sticky notes. foam shapes. glue sticks. This year I am including some threads and counted cross stitch fabrics, hoping maybe someone will develop an interest in needlework 🙂
We are getting so excited we can hardly stand it. AdventureMan is trying lots of new techniques and camera equipment, hoping to get some stellar shots. I am taking my new Lumix, the FZ40/45, a lightweight camera with a 24X optical zoom. He gets great artistic shots (water drops dripping off a wide-open hippo mouth as he opens his jaw unbelievably wide) and I get great documentary shots – the rooms, the bathroom fixtures (LOLL, yes, I can’t help it, I love creative design!) and textiles, as well as the wildlife and the environment.
We had just enough room in our suitcases for all the school supplies. Now we will have room for that last stop at Tribal Textiles . . . 🙂
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