Adventures in Peru: North of Lima, part 2
(North of Lima, part 1.)We based ourselves in Trujillo for Chan Chan, Huaca de la Luna, and el Brujo; the first two sites are a short collectivo ride (i.e., local minibus service) outside the city, and el Brujo is about an hour distant. There isn't a heck of a lot going on in Trujillo itself, although there was quite a bit of interesting colonial architecture.
Most memorable, however, is the sketchy guesthouse in which we caught one of the desk clerks in our bathroom, claiming to be cleaning it at six o'clock in the evening (naturally, with no cleaning products to hand). Nothing was missing from the room, but I was still suspicious. 'He was sticking his nose in our underwear,' I said. 'It's the only logical explanation.'
Chan Chan, built by the Chimú in the ninth century, was a vast city constructed entirely of adobe. Plentiful pelican, fish, and otter motifs, and the diamond-shaped walls (fishing nets!), show how the Chimú appreciated what the sea provided.
(See the otters on the walls?)The next day we did Huaca de la Luna (Moon Handbooks link here), the 'Temple of the Moon.' I think this was our favorite archaeological site (it was definitely mine)--fascinating polychrome wall reliefs (giant spiders, vanquished warriors in neck chains being led to sacrifice), excellent guide, totally adorable Peruvian schoolgirls. There are two huge adobe structures here, both constructed by the Moche people layer upon layer over successive generations during the first millennium A.D.--the Temple of the Moon was used for religious and ceremonial purposes, the nearby Temple of the Sun for the military and administrative stuff. The Temple of the Sun, looted by the conquistadores, is still undergoing excavation work and isn't yet open to the public. Children used to play soccer on the sand before these ruins were discovered underneath.
I know this shot must look kind of posed and phony, but honestly it isn't--our guide was about to snap a photo of the three of us, and these adorable little girls were shyly watching on, and we invited them to come over.I also took a panorama at Huaca de la Luna--I don't know why it's playing so jerkily, but you get the idea:By our last day in Trujillo we were a little bit ruined out, but el Brujo (another city constructed by the Moche between 1400 and 2000 years ago) was still very much worth the visit, particularly for the Señora de Cao, a young woman who was evidently a very powerful political leader. Her mummy was discovered in 2006 along with a fifteen-year-old handmaiden sacrificed presumably to tend to her needs in the afterlife; experts concluded the Señora had died in childbirth around the age of twenty.
What the walls probably would have looked like a millennium and a half ago. If I remember correctly, this is Ayapec, 'the great decapitator.' Eep!
The brand-new museum at el Brujo houses the mummy of the Señora de Cao, and you can still see the undulating tattoos on her arms. I was really fascinated to discover that when you look into the glass case you aren't actually looking at the Señora, but at a mirror image; the mummy is lying safely out of sight. I was trying to figure out why the sight of the mummy at Sechin bothered me so much when I was only in awe of the Señora--it must be because of who they were in life. The Señora was entombed in layers of precious cloth and gold baubles, while it seems cruel to display the body of the sacrificed girl when she'd already had to suffer that supreme indignity. Anywho.Next post: THE JUNGLE!
Adventures in Peru: North of Lima, part 1
There were three phases to our adventure in Peru: first Kate and Jill and I spent four or so days doing the archaeological sites along the coast north of Lima; then the three of us took an overnight bus back to Lima followed by a flight to Iquitos, where we made arrangements for a stay at a lodge on the Amazon. There were four marvelous days in the jungle. Then we flew back to Lima to meet up with Elliot and Spencer, and we did the more touristy parts--Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, the Sacred Valley, etc.Anyway, we visited five pre-Incan archaeological sites on the first part of the trip: Caral, the oldest city in the Americas; Sechin, the home of a warlike culture dating between 1800 and 900BC; Chan Chan, the largest adobe city ever built; Huaca de la Luna, built by the Moche, who flourished during the first millennium A.D.; and el Brujo (also Moche), home of the tomb and mummy of the Señora de Cao--a powerful female ruler whose arm tattoos are still clearly visible. (More on her next time.)
At Caral we met Nathalie, a lovely Frenchwoman who lived in Spain for many years and was traveling on her own for a few weeks before meeting up with her boyfriend. We took a taxi back into town together and had dinner at a little restaurant by the sea (which was a lot less picturesque than it sounds, but it was still a nice time).
Charming.
Sechin was a much smaller site, and we were able to walk around without a guide. There's a small museum, and in the basement we were appalled to find the preserved body of a teenaged sacrificial victim stuffed on the bottom shelf of a rickety glass case. Jill was saying something about mummies actually being comforting to her somehow, not creepy, but then she amended her statement: 'Well, I didn't find her comforting because she was buried alive...' Her mouth was wide open. Taken with the bloodthirsty nature of the stone carvings that Sechin is known for, this one was certainly the most disturbing of our archaeological visits.
And now for something completely different. We saw these signs on every bus:
I must say this perplexed me greatly. Like, what if I can't help it?
This was one of those situations where the sights blow you away but the towns you've got to sleep in aren't quite so amazing--although we did manage to find a friendly little spot in Barranca (our base for Caral) for jugo de piña and some breakfast cake.Next post: Chan Chan, Huaca de la Luna, and el Brujo.
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #9
On my last day in Vermont, Paul and Niki and I met Michael (otherwise known as 'the boy with the long red hair') at his shop for lunch. He restores pianos in this spooky factory space built in 1904:
Niki played this gorgeous piano dating from 1890, and nearly had a heart attack when I told her later that it costs $36,000!
After lunch at Wicksticker's (where, like I said, we had beer and peppermint schnapps on the house), Michael took me back to the shop for a little while, but it was too nice an afternoon to work. So we went for a swim.
It was a perfect last day--at the end of it Gail made her sublimely delicious enchiladas, and we had this for dessert:
(This holy mother of all fruit tarts is from a bakery in Middlebury, but she makes amazing desserts too. Gail is one of those enviable people who can, seemingly without effort, turn a random pile of raw ingredients into edible gold.)I'm going back to Vermont in a week or so, so I'll have more photos to post then!
Said and Unsaid
I was thinking about dialogue on the Greyhound bus ride home the other day. I have borrowed many a good line from strangers on public transport—the gem of that trip was 'Have you been to the bathroom in Baltimore? I felt safer in prison'—and sometimes these lines are so good they sound like they HAVE to have been made up.
Here's an example. I wrote the following, and my editor asked me to change it because she couldn't imagine anyone actually speaking this way:
Every so often I get a craving for the kind I can't find at night. You know the sort of man I mean: a vegetarian Buddhist in thrift-store corduroys, doesn't drink, rarely pays a visit to the barber. Last time I found one I was coming home on the PATH train at half past six on a Sunday morning; he boarded with a friend, both with twelve-speed bicycles in tow. I knew I had to have him when I heard him say, "You know when you're riding down a country road and come upon the skeleton of a barn? I love that." He didn't notice me then, but I made sure he left his pocket journal on the train...
Yes, I heard a guy say that, word for word. I loved how much that offhand remark told me about his personality, and the well cared for bicycle at his side reinforced my impression. I didn't go home with that boy, but Eve sure did.What can really make good dialogue, though, is all the things that go unsaid. Here's another exchange I scribbled down on Monday afternoon:
HE: So...are you going to be around long enough for us to go out?
Something about being on a Greyhound bus gets me really horny. You'll do.
SHE: I don't think so. I'm too old for that shit.
I'll talk to you across the aisle, but there's no way in hell I'm going back behind the dumpster with you at the next pit stop.
HE: Yeah, I don't do the bus thing either.
[a moment later]
But I can cook up seafood better than you can buy it at the harbor.
I'm gonna pretend like you didn't just shut me down. In fact, I'm gonna give you one more chance, because I haven't met a woman yet who could resist my crabcakes...
This reminds me of nights in the study room back in grad school, when Seanan would write two lines for every one line of dialogue he composed: one for what was coming out of the character's mouth, and the second for what he was actually saying. Dialogue--reading it, writing it, overhearing and 'appropriating' it—is one of the most delightful aspects of being a storyteller, and doing it well makes it just as satisfying for the reader.
Home from Peru!
Welp, I'm back. It was such a fantastic trip that I felt none of the usual 'I've been gone long enough, I'll be glad to get home again.' I just feel melancholy.
We saw and heard marvelous creatures in the jungle, oohed and ahhed at pink river dolphins making brief appearances above the surface of the Amazon, walked up and down temples where young girls were sacrificed to old gods, got all our bones jangled in tiny moto-taxis (I called them putt-putts), watched condors wheeling over Colca Canyon and climbed up Machu Picchu (the mountain the city is named after, that is). The food was far better than we were expecting (surprisingly veggie-friendly), and I've never laughed so hard in my life.
So here are some random highlights--I won't start blogging in earnest until next weekend, when I get to download Kate's pictures.
[Oh, and for the benefit of those few readers--if any, bwahahaha --who are not related to me, I should clarify that Kate and I went with Kate's boyfriend Elliot, his mother Jill, and his brother Spencer. It was Jill and Kate and I for the first half--when we did a bunch of pre-Incan archaeological sites like Chan Chan and Huaca de la Luna, then spent four days at a jungle lodge on the Amazon--and then we went back to Lima to meet up with Elliot and Spencer, and that's when we did Machu Picchu and all that.]
At Machu Picchu. I don't know what is going on here.
Spencer, Jill, and Elliot, waiting for our flight to Cuzco. Elliot finished Petty Magic on the trip. I get four and a half stars.
Cool doorknocker in Trujillo, our base for exploring Huaca de la Luna and other archaeological sites. We disapprove of the Spaniards for all the disease and violence they wrought upon the natives, but must admit the colonial architecture is splendid.
Kate: How's your marriage going?Me: Great! We never fight!
More soon.
Something Jolly
I really needed something colorful to knit on after my grandfather died. Starting a scarf out of Donegal tweed at the end of May didn't make much sense, but just looking at it cheered me up. And now that I'm moving to Vermont I'm glad to have it, because everyone keeps telling me how cold it gets up there in the winter.
I used leftovers from other projects, so it matches my Gretel beret. Kilcarra Tweed is so awesome--it may be a bit scratchy, but the colors are delicious and the yarn softens with washing anyway.
Pattern: V-Striped Scarf by Lise-Lotte Lystrup, from Vintage Knitwear for Modern Knitters.Yarn: Kilcarra Aran Tweed in pea green (1), teal (1.25 balls), and purple (1.5 balls), and Donegal Studio Tweed (same as Kilcarra) in fuschia (1).Needles: #7s.Raveled: here.And here are basic pompom instructions.
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #8
The polebeans really took off once we got the teepees set up.
Cattle crossing at the Larsons' farm. Oh, rural life.
Here we are (Niki, Nick, Gail, and Paul) at our favorite snack stand, chowing down on the BEST sweet potato fries ever. Mr. Wicksticker's is set up in the owner's own front yard, and it's right down the road from our favorite swimming spot. Because we have gotten to be such frequent customers, Mark (a.k.a. Mr. Wicksticker--he also makes candles) has taken to giving us free stuff. That day we got a jug of his very own maple syrup (and we gave him some beer), and the day before I left he gave us beer and peppermint schnapps. (Yes, peppermint schnapps, at two in the afternoon.)
Paul and Niki with Queenie, and Avalon peeking out from behind. I'd intended to take many more pictures of the animals, which I'll do when I get back in September.Kate and I are leaving for Peru today and I wasn't organized enough to autoblog this time, so the blog is going to be pretty quiet for the rest of this month. There'll be plenty to blog about when I get back!
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #7
This isn't going to be a useful post or anything--just some photos of us all having too much fun.
Paul makin' the bacon. (Yes, that is a mohawk'd Nick in the background. Ben had shaved his head the night before.)
Ginevra and Niki were the pancake queens: blueberries and raspberries (from the garden), banana, and banana with chocolate chips! I'm not much for pancakes, but I think I ate more than anybody else that morning. They used pumpkin pie spice, which made them that much tastier.
He's got pizzazz even while he's washing the dishes.More tomorrow!
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #6
Well, I'm back in New Jersey for a few more days until we leave for Peru, and I'm missing Harmony Homestead terribly. Seven weeks passed in a blink!Whether we were working or playing, every minute was fun.
We stopped for ice cream after an afternoon at the Manchester farmers' market (where Paul was playing) and a good long browse at Northshire Books (where Linsey picked up a blank book entitled The Wit and Wisdom of Sarah Palin. Bwahahahaha.) From left: Jasmin, Gail, Paul, Nick, Linsey, Niki, Sal, and on the bottom, Geneviève with Grace and Luna. If you look closely you can see that Sal isn't wearing any shoes. That's because his only pair got smelly beyond any possibility of continued wearing, so after ice cream we went to a shoe store, where they had JUST locked the door (it was about 7pm by then). The woman looked down at his feet, unlocked the door again, and ushered him inside. The rest of us sat in the car and laughed and laughed.
A few days later (July 17th, to be exact), we went for a ton of interesting sustainability workshops, good food, awesome live music and contra dancing at Solarfest. Above, Leslie is leading us on a 'weed walk,' where we learned a lot about the medicinal uses of wildflowers like yarrow and stinging nettle.And of course, we spent most of each day in the garden:
You will notice that we were way behind in the planting, and there's a very unfortunate reason for that. At any rate, everything got put in the ground eventually and we're hoping for the best.
This is why they're called polebeans. Paul showed us how to lash, and then Birch Bark Jim (he's the best, I wish I'd gotten a picture of him) helped us construct the tee-pees. That was the most fun I've had in the garden so far.More photos soon!
Blurbs and other fun stuff
Fun book stuff is starting to happen! Petty Magic recently got a couple of lovely blurbs from two of my favorite authors:
A charming curiosity shop of a novel, packed to bursting with secret histories and glittering marvels. With Petty Magic, Camille DeAngelis has given us a glimpse into a strange and enchanting world. It's dangerous good fun, and well worth getting lost in.—Jedediah Berry, author of The Manual of DetectionLove, magic, history, witches: it's all here, between the covers of this lovely book. Updike might have written it, if he'd had a better sense of humor.—Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician
(Also, in case you missed it, you might want to read my post about how Daniel has inspired me.)The other exciting thing is this profile published Thursday in my local newspaper, the Burlington County Times! [Edit, 2013: alas, no longer online.]I'm also working with the designer of these two fabulous websites to come up with a brand-new blog; more about that later.
Operation Mincemeat
World War II offers us far more interesting, amusing and subtle examples of intelligence work than any writer of spy stories can devise.
In Petty Magic, I refer to a couple of the most spectacular World War II hoaxes, both of which were part of a larger deception plan, Operation Barclay--constructing sham army camps to fool Nazi reconnaissance, and planting phony intelligence documents on a corpse in uniform. It took several incredibly imaginative, 'corkscrew-minded' intelligence officers to hatch each of these plots, and in my novel I give all the credit to my magician-spy, Neverino. These hoaxes were first devised not by a magician, but a novelist!
The hoax involving a corpse in uniform was codenamed Operation Mincemeat (Churchill had forbidden the use of obvious or jokesy code names, but apparently no one listened to him), and it's the subject of a riveting new book by British journalist Ben Macintyre.
To begin regaining control of Europe in the summer of 1943, the Allies first needed to take back Sicily--and the Germans were just as aware of its strategic importance. Taking advantage of Hitler's 'Balkan fixation' (because the Third Reich got most of its raw materials from Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia), the Allies would convince him that they were planning to invade Sardinia and Greece instead, and that Sicily was the phony target.
Human agents or double agents can be tortured or turned, forced to reveal the falsity of the information they carried. A dead body would never talk.
So here's the gist: the corpse-with-phony-identification idea originated in Basil Thomson's novel, The Milliner's Hat Mystery, published in 1937. Ian Fleming, the naval intelligence officer who would later pen the James Bond novels, was a fan of Thomson's, and he included it in the "Trout Memo," a list of possible hoaxes that was distributed among the intelligence chiefs at the very beginning of the war. Two other officers in MI5--the eccentric, unassuming Charles Cholmondeley ("Chumly") and the supremely confident lawyer Ewen Montagu--developed the idea and saw it to fruition.
Once the higher-ups at MI5 consented to the ruse, these two officers embarked on an elaborate planning process. St. Pancras coroner Bentley Purchase informed them that the body of a homeless Welshman, Glyndwr Michael, had just been brought in, and Cholmondeley and Montagu spent the next couple of months (with Michael in deep refrigeration) inventing his alter-ego, Major William Martin, complete with love letters and photographs, hotel bills, and snippy missives from his father and bank manager. Cholmondeley and Montagu spent so much time inventing him that they began to feel as if Martin had actually been a friend of theirs.
Cholmondeley, Montagu, and the other planners knew how the Nazis thought--their two biggest flaws (with regard to military intelligence and espionage, anyway) being 'wishfulness and yesmanship'--and if they could allow those phony documents to fall into the right hands, thousands of lives would be saved on both sides.
The operation got off as planned, and by the time 'Major Martin' arrived in Huelva, Spain, he stunk so bad the local forensic pathologist dismissed the inevitable anomalies (the corpse's face and the face on his ID card didn't quite match up; the body was too decomposed to have been in the water only a few days, as his documents attested) in favor of getting the heck out of the room. The body was laid to rest in a Catholic cemetery, and the suitcase and its contents got lost in a maze of Spanish bureaucracy and intrigue before the Nazis finally got their hands on it. The rumor of a Greek invasion spread, and thus began to substantiate itself; Hitler was convinced, and the ruse was complete.
The material is fascinating regardless, but Macintyre does a great job of bringing to life each character involved in the plot of Operation Mincemeat--from the aforementioned jolly coroner of St. Pancras ('He loved Gilbert and Sullivan operas, toy trains, boiled eggs, and his model piggery in Ipswich. He never wore a hat and laughed loudly and often') to the brave submarine commander assigned to the dispatch of 'Major William Martin', Bill Jewell, who only begins to fear for his life after falling in love with a Wren in Algiers. We get a keen sense of each player's desires and ambitions, their private histories and their miserable working conditions.
So why are so many details of the planning of Operation Mincemeat only now coming to light? After the war was over, there was still the possibility of a political backlash were the full story of the hoax to come out. British diplomats had conspired to deceive Spanish officials, so the revelation would have no doubt damaged Anglo-Spanish relations; furthermore, back at home, those who had orchestrated Operation Mincemeat had obtained the corpse by not-strictly-legal means, and exposure would have caused quite a bit of trouble for the coroner and other government offices involved in that particular aspect of the deception.
So, in The Man Who Never Was and on the international lecture circuit, Ewen Montagu spent forty years telling a story that was hopelessly incomplete--for the above reasons, and because Cholmondeley and several others abided by their MI5 oaths of secrecy for the rest of their lives. Macintyre had access to Montagu's personal archives, and along with information that has become available only in the last twenty years or so, he was able to write the most complete account of Operation Mincemeat we'll probably ever have. Its unputdownability is a testament to Macintyre's prowess as a storyteller. Highly, highly recommended.
[Edit: Since I wrote this I found there's another book on the subject that's also come out this year called Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat by Denis Smyth. It'd be interesting to compare them.]
Eastern Europe retroblog: back to Budapest
Exterior and interior shots of the Great Synagogue (Kate took the latter); a pretty fountain sculpture in a city park; a wonderfully atmospheric old shopping arcade; me at the same sidewalk café, having the most delicious coffee (with honey!) ever.And that concludes my Eastern Europe retroblog. We're going to Peru for three weeks next month, so there'll be plenty more travel photos coming soon!
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #5
Sorry if I've been a deadbeat blogger lately--between farm life and all the fun stuff we do in between, there isn't much time left for puttering around on the internet (which, if I'm being honest, is what I'm always doing at home). Anyway, here's what we got up to last Thursday evening:
Circus Smirkus is a circus run and performed by children and teenagers. I can't tell you how amazing they are--it's like a professional show, so much so that you keep regretting your wasted youth (dude, I was watching Gilligan's Island all summer) even as you are continually delighted by the spectacle. If you ever get a chance to see one of their shows, don't miss it.
Clown noses come with your ticket. Me and my new little bro Nick.
Back in Babyville
I haven't mentioned my knitting in ages, mostly because I've been making gifts:
I knit this for Sally, my Mary Modern editor, who had a baby girl in April. It's the infamous Pea Pod Baby Set by Kate Gilbert, which is no longer available online (so many people on Ravelry are frustrated that they can't knit it). If you are reading this and don't have a copy, you know that I couldn't possibly email it to you if you dropped me a line to ask. Oh, no. (Raveled here.)
The Little Coffee Bean Cardigan by Elizabeth Smith is my new favorite pattern--I knit these for Lindsay's baby (due in July) and my nephew (sized up for a 2T). Let me tell you, I'll never knit a baby cardi in pieces ever again, and crazy stripes are a great way to use up odd balls. As you can see, the sleeves on the second Little Coffee Bean are much longer--I knit the first version to the pattern, but then I decided I wasn't too keen on the half-length sleeves; although I guess I'd have to see it on the baby to know for sure if it would look odd or not. (Raveled here and here.)
This hat (super-easy pattern here) isn't for any baby in particular--I just wanted to knit something fast that would cheer me up the week my grandfather died. (Raveled here.)
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #4
Lavender and nasturtiums for sale at the Sunday farmers' market in Dorset.Shots from the garden: the polebeans I planted my second day here (much taller since I took this pic); tomatoes; rhubarb (Gail makes the most amazing rhubarb peach crisp--I'm going to blog the recipe!); zucchini (hoping to make fritters out of the flowers, I'll let you know how that goes).
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #3
The sunset edition! Took this one on the ride home from swimming on the Poultney River last week.
And these were taken tonight:
Eastern Europe retroblog: Brčko, part 2
(Brčko, part 1.)
Saturday 23 June 2007 Had a wonderful tour of not one but two mosques, both of which are new buildings. The original ones were destroyed in the war; a sheikh, a very nice man, showed us around, with Mujke [MOY-kuh] translating. I enjoy hearing the call to prayer, and not just because it sounds exotic. It's also simply a beautiful sound--even if it is often a recording. Counterpart to church bells, almost.
Coffee with Briony and Mujke afterwards, and then we finally got around to visiting the outdoor fruit and veggie market (also with B.) So glad we made it--dinner is going to be yummy tonight. Can't remember ever seeing such fresh and robust heads of garlic.
Briony is from England, and was conducting part of her doctoral research in Brcko in the summer of '07. I was hoping to see her while I was in London, but unfortunately our schedules weren't going to jive. Next time!16 June 2007 Our apartment here has a very lived-in feel, down to the eyeglasses and balled-up socks on the curio shelves, the rotten apple on the kitchen windowsill (Kate threw it out the window and busted out laughing--there's a wild apple tree in the courtyard outside, she wouldn't have gotten away with it otherwise. You can hear the occasional thump as an apple falls to the pavement), the cobwebs dangling from the eaves on the balcony (no view, but we hung up our laundry out there, and some coal-black cobwebs clung to our skivvies. Yuck), cologne bottles and half a dozen toothbrushes in the bathroom.The owner later paid us an unexpected visit at 6:30 in the morning, for no apparent reason.
Kate in the courtyard. Next and final post: back to Budapest!
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #2
As promised: puppypalooza! (I neglected to mention that they are Vizslas.) Most of them are going home with their new families tomorrow. It's going to be awfully quiet around here.
Grace (she's the pup Gail and Paul are keeping) and Lilypads (so named for her extra digits) have a tussle in the puppy pen.
Harmony Homestead Dispatch #1
The last week and a half has felt like an age in the very best way; I hardly recognize myself. I am sunburned, bruised, covered in midge bites, I haven't bathed since Thursday--and I couldn't be happier.
Planting bush beans.
A fragment of china, found in the garden, that may have belonged to the very first homesteaders here--a hundred and fifty years ago, Paul guesses. (It might be early 20th century, but it's so much more romantic to imagine it's that much older.)
I play with nine puppies every day. This is Bean. (All but one of the nine are spoken for, and they'll be going to their new homes this weekend. One of the new owners rechristened their puppy 'Uncle Peter,' which I found hilariously inappropriate.)
I had a feeling it would be this way, but I can now say for certain that manual labor has an amazing effect on one's creativity. I've gotten so many great ideas while gardening or doing dishes; I haven't been at the computer much, and yet I've been worlds more productive than I ever was at the library. I've made space in my head, and a lot of really good things are showing up.I have so much more to say about Gail and Paul and all their interesting friends, but it's getting late and I want to post this. More puppy photos in dispatch #2!
Eastern Europe retroblog: Brčko, part 1
Toward the end of our Eastern European adventure Kate and I arranged to volunteer at a children's summer camp in a Bosnian town called Brčko (pronounced 'Birch-ko'-- and if it's not then we were saying it wrong the whole time). There would be children of all religions and ethnicities here, and the idea is to foster friendship and cooperation between them. It was a very positive experience overall--thanks to our lovely volunteer coordinators Dina and Sanjin, other new friends Briony and Mujke, and a bunch of really sweet kids--but as with every other volunteer experience I've had, there were definitely aspects I found ineffective or at least inefficient.Monday, 18th June 2007 Thoroughly frustrated...yesterday we passed three boys rooting through the dumpsters at the far end of our block, and of course one of them approached us and asked for money. THOSE are the kids who need help, but as Dina pointed out, the Roma don't want or think they need any help. They don't want a better life for their families, and that is totally incomprehensible to me.We were there less than two weeks, but we quickly settled into a routine of workshops and coffee afterwards at Dina and Sanjin's favorite cafe, Jazzwa.
Wednesday, 20 June 2007The workshop this morning was quieter but still a success--we did the 'pass it on' story exercise and illustrated a few of the stories afterwards, and of course most of the kids got plenty of laughs when they were read out. We started with 'Once upon a time a brother and sister left home with their pet goat in search of adventure,' and though the goat dropped out of pretty much all the stories (never featured in Dina's quick translations, anyway), there were still a few gems. 'The boy squeezed the bird and mayonnaise came out'; 'they ate five kilograms of chocolate and had diarrhea.' Lots of farting too, naturally. Our favorite illustration was a marsupial dragon--a 'dragaroo.'At three we were treated to a tour of the town library, which is housed in a crumbling but wonderful imperialist Hungarian building dating to 1892.Two views of the library:
There's so much to say about Brčko that I should split it into two posts. Next time: fresh (and not so fresh) produce, other people's toothbrushes, and an unexpected early-morning visitor.