Casting nasturtiums

We arrived in Germany extremely jetlagged. We left St Louis early afternoon on Tuesday, for a connecting flight at Chicago. A man we met in the security queue at St Louis (whose job was checking airport security scanners) said he never accepts jobs at Denver or Chicago and goes out of his way to avoid both airports, which are notorious for delays and other problems darkly hinted at. But we weren’t delayed at Chicago; our problem was at St Louis, which we left about an hour after scheduled departure.

Our impression of Chicago’s O’Hare airport, as we hurtled from one end of the terminal to the other, with less than ten minutes to get to the Lufthansa gate, was that it was modern, upbeat and clean and I wouldn’t have minded if I’d had to wait around in such surroundings – but not if it meant missing our flight to Frankfurt.

Fortunately, we made it onto the plane. Our luggage did not. This had both good and bad sides to it. On the good, Lufthansa delivered it to our hotel later on that afternoon, and that meant we didn’t have to lug it around ourselves. On the bad, it was very hot in Frankfurt and we didn’t have a change of clothes. Not so bad really, as lost luggage dramas go.

The worst thing, and probably unrelated to delays, was that when the luggage arrived, the zip on my big, new, moderately expensive suitcase was no longer in one piece. Well, actually the problem is that it was only in one piece, not several, as befits a functional zipper (see picture at left), and was also sans padlock.

Now I was forewarned that US customs are known for ripping padlocks apart in their vigilant search for weapons of mass destruction and other suspicious items (Ha! The poor fools opened the suitcase that didn’t have the Milo), so I had spent a bit extra and bought “US-proof” padlocks. But I am now not only minus one such padlock, I also have a security problem of my own, which sadly cannot be resolved by brute force. But hopefully my new, bright purple luggage straps will stop things falling out.

Not happy, Uncle Sam.

You may think I am being unduly suspicious and casting unwarranted nasturtiums, and perhaps I am, but when I called Lufthansa, their rep immediately leaped to the same conclusion. In the interests of good customer relations however, Lufthansa did accept my claim and will reimburse me if I get it fixed or replaced. I wonder how many non-US airlines have had to fork out compensation for damaged luggage, due to US customs? Perhaps that is why my flight from the US arrived in by far the least inviting arrival hall at the Flughafen: a subtle revenge. I know it’s the least inviting because I spent about an hour traipsing around Terminal 1 on Thursday in my quest for compensation.

So what next? Well, we are staying in Frankfurt. I’d considered moving to a hotel in Mainz but then decided it was too much trouble given our current state of exhaustion. I’m hoping we can do everything easily from here. In order to stay we will be playing musical rooms tho. We have to move from basement to 3^rd floor & then back down. I don’t think this is a bad thing, especially as the concierge will move our bags for us.

I chose the Hotel Am Berg on the strength of a review at Lonely Planet which piqued my interest. It has paid off – it is an interesting place, staff are friendly and helpful, it’s quiet and reasonably central, and I don’t mind at all getting a squiz at three bedrooms instead of just one. It’s paid off. The second room was an attic with great views (@$%@$ hot tho), & our third room is gorgeous & moderne. 

Not much else has happened since we arrived. Almost as soon as we got off the plane ActionMan went berserk with the camera, which he generally ignores, snapping everything from the interior of our bus from the airport (so spacious, clean and modern, with an interesting ticketing system), to an Asian man in the town square who was playing the flute while balancing some extraordinary contraption on his nose, to various elderly building facades, to cars parked on a cobbled footpath.

It has been a source of fascination to him how many expensive European cars there are; some of which hold almost mythical status in our home suburb: Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, Renaults, Peugeots and the occasional  Alfa Romeo or Ferrari. Plus of course every second car’s a VW (fortunately not beatles or my arms would be black & blue from “punch-buggy, no return”).

After a brief and mostly unproductive visit to an internet cafe on Wednesday morning he morphed into his alter-ego, LethargyLad, and we both had a nap. He has remained stuck in this alter-ego ever since.

Wednesday night we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner & it turned out the waiter had lived in Sydney for a number of years, so we had a bit of a reminisce and he gave us some advice about getting around.

Thursday I did a bit of catching up with my photo blog (not fully up to date tho), then dealt with the luggage issue, and with the repercussions of letting AM have that afternoon nap the day before – he’s having trouble becoming diurnal & wanted to sleep all afternoon. We needed a quiet day tho, and that’s mostly what we got.

Friday the lethargy continued but we managed to buy him some clothes, and I finally figured out what we’d be doing for our last two days - more on that in the next post. But it may be a while before you get an update as we leave for Ghana on Monday, & I’ve no idea yet what sort of internet access I’ll have.

Tourism, Takins, a Tirade, and Ting

Day Three in St Louis was raining, after a violent electrical storm that seemed to go on all night. You forget, when you plan trips, that your plans for short stopovers may be sabotaged by the weather. We spent the morning sleeping in, breakfasting, and wondering what to do. We finally settled on the zoo at about 2.00pm, and the weather cleared for us.

It’s a great zoo – gorgeous garden surroundings & some rare animals I’d never even heard of, such as Somali Asses (like donkeys but with stripy shins), and Takins, a peculiar looking beast apparently related to the musk ox. We also got to see camels with two humps. They were not at their best because they were moulting. You wouldn’t believe, looking at the shaggy lumps of hair drooping off them, what a lovely fibre camel hair is when spun and woven (and clean!).

My highlights were the birds in the cypress swamp, the hippos – three full size ones in a big tank, so you could see them underwater – and the baby elephant, too cute for words. It was very funny watching baby & mum. Baby was playing in the water & didn’t want to get out, & it really did look like Mum was giving him (her?) the ‘five minute warning’. Then after about five minutes she made him get out, apparently for the sole purpose of promenading him up closer to the gawping crowd so we’d get a good photo. Then baby was allowed back in the water to continue playing.

ActionMan was very busy with the camera for the first hour or so – bears, takins, sea lion show – and then got very tired & missed both the hippos and the elephant baby. Not that he seems to care …

Our last day we visited the Cahokia mounds just across the border in Illinois. The mounds represent the remains of a large city, which at its peak around the 12^th century had a population of about 20,000, & was apparently bigger than any other city that we know of for that period. The actual mounds are both raised platforms for the homes of prominent people or religious buildings, and burial mounds. It’s all grassed over now, and you can walk around the mounds. There’s also an “interpretation centre” that’s pretty ugly from the outside but has interesting and detailed displays on the inside. Whoever’s responsible has done a great job in conserving, excavating and explaining the site, but I do have a couple of gripes.

The first is that I think the history has been rather sanitised. However I understand the delicacy of interpreting indigenous culture and history, especially when that culture had some practices we now find confronting, such as human sacrifice. I guess it’s better to err on the “noble savage” side rather than the “savage barbarian” side, when representing these cultures, and maybe, given the history of racism, we’re not at yet at a point where we can do it any differently, so I can forgive that.

However I’m pretty upset about something else, which I don’t think is excusable. *Tirade alert*

At Cahokia I saw what would have to be one of the most blatant rewritings of history through the lens of current political bias, that I think I have ever seen. There is a section in the display that summarises what was going on in the rest of the world at the time that Cahokia was at its peak. In “the near East”, you may be interested to learn, “Moslems intent on spreading their faith waged holy wars of conquest”, whereas in Europe “the Roman empire, once a symbol of organisation and purpose, collapsed under the pressure of invasions. But gradually, order returned”.

Excuse me! When I can I will spend a little more time researching this to back it up with some useful links, but my understanding is that at that time Moslem societies were also at a peak – of learning, culture, advances in science and mathematics, the arts. You could easily argue that early Islamic societies, within their own sphere of influence, were also a “symbol of organisation and purpose”.

Yes indeed they may have been waging holy wars, but not necessarily without provocation. (And what societies were not at war in those days, anyway?) In fact freedom of religion was a hallmark of Islamic societies in the middle east at the time, and my understanding is that the crusades, which started in the 11^th C, were begun by Christians. Moslems were slaughtered in mosques during this period by European Christians who could equally be said to be “intent on spreading their faith” and thus “waging holy wars of conquest”.

And Rome is held up as a model of all that is good and rational, sadly destroyed by “external” forces? Rome, one of the earliest and greatest colonising forces? Yes it may have represented organisation and purpose, and I certainly appreciate the cultural and intellectual legacy of Rome, but it was also, let us not forget, an expansionist empire. Its downfall was brought about more by the internal pressures of sustaining such an empire, than by any external force.

Well, I was gobsmacked. And angry. No wonder Americans continue to mistrust Moslems when such misrepresentations of history are being casually propagated. I can only hope not many people bother to read it.

*Tirade ends*

So that’s about it for the US. After a truly massive dinner – beef ribs, cajun pasta, shrimps, cheesecake, we said our goodbyes & the next day hopped on a plane. There are just a few more highlights from visiting Ting that I have to mention:

• Ricotta pancakes on our 2^nd morning – Ting and I used to make these together when she lived with us in Oz last year, & she made some for me on Saturday. It was a weekend tradition we couldn’t forgo.

• Eating Taiwanese preserved eggs (they were black – aren’t I brave?)

• Watching Taiwan Idol on YouTube (You can tell the contestants all say all the same stuff, no matter where they’re from .. it’s been a great journey, thank you so much, I’ll never forget this, it means so much …., sniffle, gulp…)

• Feeling very proud that our PM speaks Mandarin – it was fun to see Ting & co’s faces when I told them.

I see trees of green …

Gori Girl commented on my first post after arriving in the US, please don’t generalise the LA experience to all of California. When travelling it is easy to generalise to a whole country on the basis of what you find n one place, especially when you don’t get to see many other places, so I try not to do it – but in any case I would sincerely hope presume the rest of the US is not like LA. I tend to think of LA as a beacon of insanity in what is otherwise probably a fairly normal country. Yes, there are good things about it, but ….

So when I got to St Louis, I breathed a deep sigh of relief, for here at last, after the dust, the glare, the highways and the profligate consumerism and waste, was some normality. I liked St Louis. It has old buildings, interesting architecture, whole forests of green, and a feeling that there is life beyond congested freeways, strip malls and Starbucks.

On our first day we had a cafe brunch in a real, independent cafe with excellent ‘Aztec’ Hot Chocolate. Mmmm. Opposite was a lush green park where elementary school children appeared to be having a sports carnival, with first Bollywood & later a kind of waltz music booming in the background. Can Americans do nothing without a soundtrack? I loved their colourful team shirts: aqua, purple, maroon; no boring primaries there.

We visited the Science Museum for a couple of hours (about half of which was spent in the museum shop; ActionMan is always more interested in looking at objects when retail is involved), then spent a pleasant couple more hours in Barnes & Noble while Ting had a meeting. AM spent most of that day and the next, reading the books I’d bought him to take to Ghana.

He was back in B&N on Saturday, having refused point blank to do anything touristy. I let him get away with it on the grounds that with so much going on, he needs some down-time. I think it’s his way of coping with whatever feelings are bound to be surfacing about being so far from home & familiarity & most importantly, friends. I had a great time without him. I went with Ting and her two flatmates to visit The Arch and dip my fingers in the Mississippi River.

I had been so flat out before I left Sydney that I did absolutely no research about St Louis. I figured Ting would take me to all the places worth seeing, and I was right, but I did arrive in St Louis appallingly, embarrassingly ignorant about the city and its history. What I learned at The Arch made me realise that if I could have chosen a US destination regardless of visiting friends, St Louis would probably be high on the list. It has a very interesting history.

The Arch is a soaring metal – well, arch, that commemorates and symbolises that St Louis was the gateway to westward expansion of Europeans in America in the 19^th Century. It was the place where people who travelled west in covered wagons stocked up on flour, bacon, tea, guns and other essentials before venturing into the ‘wilderness’ beyond (i.e. the lands of assorted Native American tribes).

The museum under The Arch records this exploration and expansion, including negotiations with Native American leaders. Successful peace negotiations were recognised with the presentation of a ‘peace medal’ a kind of super-sized coin bearing the portrait of the current President.

There were also displays and a presentation on Native American culture. We listened to a talk / performance by one of the rangers, who played tunes on a love flute that corresponded to different stages of a typical day, and of a typical life. Love flutes were made by young men to serenade the women they were in love with. If the woman felt the same way, she’d compliment him on his music; if not, she’d say she hadn’t heard anything, & he’d know to look elsewhere for love.

I could have wandered through the museum, absorbed, for hours, but we had a ticket for the 4.15 ride to the viewing platform at the top of The Arch – more challenging of comfort zones, and not just for me this time. You travel to the top, after waiting in a themed queue, in a specially designed lift that’s touted as part train, part elevator, and part amusement park ride. I would add, part torture chamber for the claustrophobic, but then we were, as I mentioned, challenging our comfort zones.

Both Ting and I felt nauseous once we got to the top, but as I don’t think we were high enough to be suffering altitude sickness, it must have been just naked terror. But it was worth it for the spectacular views (from a height of 192 metres), even on an overcast day. We spotted the white blob of a wedding dress in the gardens far below – I imagine it’s a popular site for wedding pix – plus the courthouse, the new stadium, the St Louis CBD and skyline, the patchwork farmlands of Illinois across the river and of course, the Mississippi itself.

I mentioned how ignorant I was, didn’t I? I hadn’t even realised that St Louis was on the Mississippi river (wouldn’t it be on the Missouri?), and then even when I found out, I forgot, so it was a surprise when I realised, just moments before we arrived, that I was actually going to see the great river. I was pretty excited. And it didn’t disappoint, even though I only saw the small stretch of waterfront before the Arch. A paddle steamer called the Tom Sawyer rattled past, and a very large, flat barge went by as well, pushed by another boat. In spite of the touristy flourishes, like buggy rides and a paddle wheel on the side of the casino, it was clearly a working river. I was thrilled.

It reminded me that in 1992 I stood at the head of the Nile in Uganda. Two great rivers that I learned about in primary school, but never, ever imagined I’d get to see. And on this trip I will also get to see the Rhine, and probably the Volta. And I think to myself … what a wonderful world …

 

A brief sidetrack

My friend who updates me with Ghana news stories has just forwarded an article on “Black and white” marriages written by a Ghanaian for a Ghanaian news website. I thought it was frank & insightful, so here it is:

http://www.modernghana.com/news/166921/1/black-and-white-marriages.html

Meet me in St Louis

Okay, okay, I realise that has to be one of the most over-used titles for travel blogs referring to this part of the world, but I just can’t help myself sometimes. And as you will guess, we are now in St Louis and we did indeed meet someone here – our friend Ting.

While we were travelling on Thursday, it sometimes felt like we woudn’t be meeting anyone anywhere. We seemed to alternate rushing frantically – to and through airports – with stagnating in long queues: freeway traffic jams, check-in queues, runway queues. Then there was the occasional panic about lost passports, lost wallets and potentially delayed lugagge, but it was all okay in the end.

We arrived (with our luggage), met Ting & her flatmate Chia-An, checked in to a reasonably comfortable and surprisingly quiet airport hotel, & had an enormous meal in a diner just like they have in the movies! ActionMan’s eyes, as usual, were bigger than his stomach, although, to be fair, they hadn’t fed us on the plabe. He had the full bacon & eggs, pancakes & maple syrup deal plus fries smothered in cheese and crispy bacon, all washed down with an endless cup of lemonade (and a stomach ache to folllow …). I had a BLT & “thinly sliced” turkey sandwich. Yes, it was thinly sliced but there were so many thin slices it seemed to hardly matter. It was delicious tho.

But enough of now. I realise I’ve been a bit slack in updating the blog this past week, which is ironic considering I had far better internet access then than I do now. So this is the LA catch up. It’s a bit long, and I apologise in advance as I haven’t time to fully spell check.

We had a relatively quiet time in LA. My niece Cathe has twin 6 year olds and a toddler, & it really didn’t make sense to be out & about every day. But we were there mainly to see the family, so we weren’t too bothered. ActionMan was happy as long as he got his daily dose of his currently favourite online game, and we both enjoyed just hanging around, chatting, eating, playing and swimming.

We did have two big excursions tho, after “The Getty”. The first was a day at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, or Ren Faire, as people called it, which was a big festival over by the Santa Fe dam near Pasadena. I had always imagined Pasadena to be somehwere remote in the desert, and perhaps it once was, but it only took us about an hour to get there.

I loved the Faire. People wore all kinds of (sometimes loose interpretations of) period costume, from washerwomen to the Queen, to swordsmen to John Smith & Pocahontas to a Drag Queen to a man with cat’s eye contact lenses and a woman in a fur bikini. Mostly it was Tudor style – bustiers & codpieces & more sunburned bosoms on display than on Xmas day at Bondi Beach.

There was all kinds of more-or-less renaissance related paraphernalia on sale. Flower garlands, costumes, assorted weaponry, pottery, leather accessories, jewellery. Performances ranged from folk ballads, medieval/renaissance instruments (I’m sure I heard a dulcimer) and bawdy plays to (the ubiquitous at festivals) belly dancing. Even the food stalls and games were themed, such as the giant dragon swing (see picture) that was totally man-powered. ActionMan had a go with a crossbow, but he could also have tried fencing, javelin throwing or regular archery. Or betting on racing tortoises, but I’m not convinced that was really authentic.

All the stall holders and many passers-by spoke in appropriately archaic language, all sprinkled with “milady’s” and “milord’s”. However I did think that the buxom wench who admiringly said to ActionMan “Thou hast a very long sword my lord”, was taking it a bit far (give him time to grow up, woman!).

I think he missed the innuendo, because in fact he was at that moment carrying a very long sword – a claymore, actually – that he had won through a just and challenging quest: to climb to the top of the hardest section of a climbing wall, and upon succeeding, to dip his hand into a bowl of mysterious tokens.  The stallholder reckoned he gave about 12 away each year, so ActionMan did well.

The very long sword has been left in LA for now, while we figure out how to get it back home. Cathe, whose youthful frolics with The Society for Creative Anachronism have left her with assorted uncommon wisdom, has promised to keep it oiled for ActionMan in the meantime.  she also treated us to some fairly graphic stories of how such a weapon would have been used, and the lethal potential of even the blunted sword that ActionMan won. I’m not sure I want it back in Oz really  ….

It will seem sad and pathetic that in the midst of such a glut of joyous period authenticity we should resort to fish & chips for lunch, but I was seized with a sudden anxiety that we wouldn’t get to eat them again until September, and it was too much to bear. ActionMan didn’t think much of them, but the fish was white & succulent, and the batter, which is after all the most important bit, was thick and crispy, so I was happy.

It was, at any rate, better fare than he had to suffer two days later at California Adventure Park (the thrill-seeking younger sibling and next door neighbour of Disneyland). I still wish I’d taken a pic of the enormous but barely edible burger that he heroically tackled. My chicken sandwich wasn’t too bad – perhaps I’m more easily pleased – but we both agreed that the next time we had the choice of Mexican or burgers, we’d opt for Mexican.

I suspect that when we went hunting for burgers, he was in the same state I was in over the fish & chips. Cultural food panic. He has since had a much nicer build-your-own burger at a cafe at Cathe’s local mall. Altho we were both bemused to discove that “chilli” is a fairly mild meat & tomato sauce like we would put on tacos, not a hot sauce or garnish as you’d expect in Australia. Verdict: you can find a good burger in the US. (I know that must sound terribly arrogant & dismissive considering the US is virtually synonymous with burgers, but we Aussies are very particular about our burgers too).

Anyway – back to fantasy worlds. California Advenure Park & Disneyland. Of course we had fun. How could you not? You’d have to be far more deeply and miserably cynical than I am. Also, we went during the week & it wasn’t a peak time so the crowds and queues weren’t too bad. I pushed the boundaries of my comfort zone & went on everything except the giant roller coaster – and that was only because of cirumstances at the time.  I even went on the rides that drop you at speed from a great height, so all my friends should feel very proud of me.

We’d been to Disneyland before when Actionman was seven, & I thought then, and still think that it is quite a bizarre experience to be so thoroughly immersed in fantasy. It’s kind of wonderful and horrifying at the same time. The spectacle, the enthusiasm,  the escapism, the apple pie-ness of it, the themed garbage bins, the unreality overdose … Well, I just abandoned myself to enjoying it all.

ActionMan’s favourite ride was the giant roller coaster, and I think mine was the haunted lift  in the Hollywood Hotel (a lift & drop ride that we went on twice), but I was also very impressed by “Soar over California”, which simulates a helicopter ride over California landmarks, complete with lurches and swoops and the scent of oranges.

Most Disney rides are simply roller coasrers – the variety is not in the type of ride but in the theme -ghosts, pirates, space, alpine yetis, Indiana Jones, views over Disneyland. That’s not to say they aren’t fun. And the attention to detail is entertaining. The entries to rides are built long to accomodate the monstrous queues, and thoroughly themed to keep you amused on the wait. Waiting for the Indiana Jones ride you pass along a winding trail through jungle, caves, ancient temples and abandoned mines.

My award for the most absurd ride goes to Splash Mountain. I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but the experience of abruptly plunging down waterfalls and then gently swaying through caves full of B’rer Bear & B’rer Rabbit singing cheerful ditties (zippidy doo-dah …), then turning the corner to another plunge … was surreal, to say the least. Or perhaps it was just that it was nearly our last ride on a very long day.

Tired but happy, the revellers trudged towards the exit …

Gruntled

Yesterday, while being driven along one of LA’s interminable highways, I noticed a billboard advertising an airline that claimed, in regard to its trans-atlantic service: “Leave disgruntled, arrive gruntled”. Well, I think it’s pretty difficult to complete a trans-Pacific crossing in a gruntled state, no mater how you were feeling when you started. It’s a long, long way.  However, in spite of the usual cramped conditions and a truly awful breakfast, we did arrive pretty gruntled. It’s good to be here.

In the middle of the night ActionMan looked out the window & by chance we were passing over the lights Apia, capital of Western Samoa. A pretty, if lonely sight. Shortly after, I looked out again and this time spotted a single, even more lonely light in the middle of the dark expanse of ocean.

We certainly left loneliness behind once we arrived though. Around 20 million people – approximately the population of Australia – live within approx. 36,515 square miles – that’s LA & immediately surrounding counties. (My niece has very kindly calculated this for me).

I will now put this is perspective by saying that is equivalent to the population of Australia within a space only slightly larger than Tasmania. (I hate it when foreign writers discuss the sizes of places by comparing them to US or European localities, that I have no idea how big they are, so now I’m getting back at them, heheh).

Except I think you physically couldn’t fit 20 million people in Tassie because it is so mountainous. You’d also have to remove all the rainforest. LA had no rainforest to remove, but the environmental footprint of 20 million people relying on cars to get them around, and air con to make their buildings habitable, must be truly immense. I find it shocking.

Also shocking was the discovery of snickers-coated toffee apples at a mall last night; that even small take away coffee cups are bigger than a Sydney regular (and you drink it out of straws); and that I don’t have enough room in my luggage for all the books I want to buy at Barnes & Noble (so cheap!).

Not shocking but bemusing are the revelations that Americans have trouble with our accent, that children don’t play in the wonderful water features of the John Paul Getty Museum , and that the food is - actually – quite good.  Oh, and being asked, in the shop that sold the snickers-covered toffee apples, if I was “ready to be helped?” They certainly take service seriously over here. And being unable to find my way out of Target (do you just walk out the door? Is it all free? Sadly, no).

At the exciting / wonderful end of the spectrum of LA travel experiences: definitely the John Paul Getty Museum, with its wonderul creamy stone architecture, beautiful gardens, and absorbing galleries; the vista of distant mountains that you can glimpse when the dust lifts in the afternoon; the attractive Spanish style architecture and lively atmosphere of Irvine Spectrum Mall at night; the lovely balmy evening air; the pool at the apartments we’re staying at; and of course catching up with my niece, her husband and their three little girls.

Yes, I’m very, very gruntled. And we’ve only been here two days.

Coals to Newcastle

Perhaps the equivalent phrase for the modern age would be “Chocolate to Ghana”. Ghana’s one of the world’s biggest cocoa producers but it doesn’t export actual chocolate – or only in peoples’ hand luggage. It doesn’t have much of a chocolate industry, so all the cocoa goes overseas.

Of course, Ghanaians like chocolate as much as the next person and so usually when I go I take chocolates. The first time I went, I thought I was taking them for the children – my mother in law soon set me straight on that. This time, of course, I intend to take Fair Trade chocolate. Although I have to admit, I don’t know when I’ll find the time to make a special trip & get them. Perhaps that’s another little job for Germany (like The Haircut). And it seems weirdly ironic to be returning cocoa to Ghana, that’s travelled half way round the world in search of refinement.

I mention this because – ta da, drum roll - it’s Fair Trade fortnight.

By happy coincidence, my birthday falls within Fair Trade Fortnight. Last year I put on fair trade birthday afternoon tea & asked people to donate money rather than give me presents, which I then split evenly between my mother-in law (hey, Mother’s Day also falls within Fair Trade Fortnight!) and the Fair Trade Association. (They each got about $80 – had I not thoughtlessly had my party on Mother’s Day, no doubt I would have raised more, but many potential guests were racing around Sydney visiting mothers).

This year I don’t have time to organise it – and also no longer live in a house with a garden, so have less room for parties. I’ll probably still give my mother in law money when I get to Ghana, but what she really wants, DadaK tells me, is mentholated liniment. So at this stage it may be more important to find that, than dash off to the Oxfam shop in search of chocolate.

I did have grand plans of trying to find out how my rellies in Ghana could be linked up to a fair trader – but possibly I’ll have to do that online after I leave. Thank god for the internet. Divine Chocolate is one mob that works with Ghanaian farmers, tho it’s not Aussie based. I’m looking forward to having a bit more time for this research.

And so I pack my bags, with FT choccies, liniment and big ideas. (Plus hand-me-down soccer boots, fair trade footballs, books, wind-up torches, a solar powered gadget charger, a box of ballpoint pens, more books… Oh, and a few clothes. And lots of drugs (the medical variety). A toothbrush … And my 1.5 kg tin of Milo. Remember that?)

HIV Hip Hop

Yes, yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to write much over the next week or two. But I was cleaning up my files & found this!

I post it for several reasons. One, to restore my cross-cultural credentials after two posts on non-African music. Two, because it’s fun. Three, because if it’s on my blog I’ll always be able to find it when I want it, and Four, because it shows there’s more to Sierra Leone than civil war.

Sorry, still haven’t had time to figure out why cutting and pasting YouTube code doesn’t embed the video.

 

The words “DON’T PANIC” were written in large, friendly letters …

While it may seem that my recent posts have had little or nothing to do with bicultultural parenting, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it. Indeed, updates about hair, language lessons and cooking Ghanian food are all bubbling away in my brain, but due to a combination of lack of time and a bad dose of eyestrain, they haven’t made it into cyberspace. Bokor, be patient.

These other activities and reflections have been a necessary distraction from current challenges. Like the fact that in just over a week we step onto an outward-bound plane. In fact, I shouldn’t really be taking any time out to blog at all.

So instead of plunging into a lengthy discourse on, for example, teens and mixed race identity, or recipes for peanut soup, I will update you on our travel plans – and you may not hear much more from me for a while after that.

On May 15th we fly from Sydney to LA to visit my niece, her hubby and three small daughters for a week. Disneyland, San Diego zoo, here we come! Then it’s off to St Louis for a long weekend to visit a friend who’s promised us walks, boating and more (I just can’t remember what, but I’m looking forward to it. The next flight is to Frankfurt – just cos it’s part of the deal with a round-the-world ticket – where we have 5 days to explore castles on the Rhine, thermal baths and German internet cafes. 

All these are but appetisers (or perhaps a last blast of western culture, flush toilets and malaria-free zones) before the main course: Ghana, West Africa.

We’ll be in Ghana for three months, returning to Oz in early September via South Africa & possibly a game park or two. Mostly we’ll be staying with DadaK & co at his mother’s house, which of course means also with quite a few other extended family members. We will visit slave castles, rainforest, the family cocoa farms and the arid north, where I’ve seen camels in the middle of town.

I’ll also be couting out a suitable school for a proposed Australian African Network Sister School venture, getting involved with the local co-counselling community, fanning myself a lot, blogging, and – in all likelihood – gorging myself on Ghanaian food while simultaneously slimming down from the effects of the Kumasi Runs. I hope we’ll also both be getting more fluent in Twi. Kwajo will go to school.

So are we prepared? Well, mostly.

• Tickets – booked & paid for
• Ghana Visas – being processed (slightly delayed because I forgot to enclose a cheque with the application. Who, stressed, moi?).
• Vaccinations & anti-malarials – check
• Travel insurance – check
• Excitment rising – check
• US-safe padlocks - check
• Farewell party organised – check
• 2nd house-minder organised – eek!
• Bandwidth used up so that urgent internet business can no longer be easily undertaken at home – thank you ActionMan
• Lift to the airport – check. Except if I cut my hair before we leave the offer will be withdrawn. (I do have other friends you know …)
• Centrelink bombed – heh, just kidding.
• AAN responsibilities handed over – check. Except they seem to accumulate at the same rate as I divest them. Hmmm.
• Work projects handed over – panic, panic, panic! No really, I’m on track.
• Pharmacy purchased – check. Except I think I should get some antiseptic powder. And maybe I’ll need an elastic bandage … AM’s run out of skin cream …

So, it’s all happening. Count to ten, breathe deeply … and hit the ground running.

And now for something completely different

I think I’ve discovered how Christianity managed to get such a powerful foothold in European culture. The early church bewitched congregations with its music.

Last night I was privileged to attend a sublime concert of Gregorian chants and early choral music performed by the St Laurence Singers (I told you Apocalyptica wasn’t my usual choice in music).

There is a fascinating story behind the performance. It was the 4th, by popular demand, in a short series of concerts in which the songs from a medieval manuscript called the Rimini Antiphonal were performed for the first time in 600 years. The manuscript was beqeathed to the NSW State Library in 1928 by an English collector, in recognition of and gratitude for, Australia’s contribution to the war effort in WW1.

It was only last year that the manuscript was finally transcribed and prepared for performance by Neil McEwen, a distinguished scholar of Gregorian chants and the director of the St Laurence Singers, as well as choirs at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

We were first treated to a slideshow of illuminations from the pages of the manuscript and a short presentation about the music by McEwen. Apparently the original score had been scratched out in the 16th C (due to changing musical conventions), so he has actually had to reconstruct how the original 1328 chants probably sounded! Even before we got to hear the music, I was greatly moved by his obvious passion for it. He exuded happiness and well-deserved pride at the prospect of presenting this glorious sound to our ears.

And when the singing started, I wanted to fall at his feet in gratitude. I wanted to garland the singers with roses and shower them with incense and myrrh. Words can barely express my appreciation for this transcendant gift they have given all who were privileged to hear them.

What is it about music that moves us so profoundly? I wanted to dance, I did weep, I felt I was lifted beyond the mundane preoccupations of my life. The exquisite purity of the soaring sopranos, the perfect harmonies (or should that be polyphonies?), to me represented all that is best and beautiful about human beings. No wonder my ancestors went to church a lot!

To all who were connected with this event – what an achievement. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you’d like to know more, and hear the singing, there’s a program about it on ABC Classic FM tomorrow at 2.00pm.