Back to Africa

OK, enough memories for a moment, and time to start planning for the future. I've just been accepted to present at an e-Learning conference in Zambia in late May (we really need more sub-Saharan Africa universities, and an e-Learning conference for African universities seems like a perfect fit), and while I'm in the neighborhood I'm going to revisit South Africa and make an initial visit to Botswana. So, I've already sent an email to my long-suffering travel agent Rochelle with one of those vague messages that goes something like - "so anyway, the conference is 26-28 May, and I really want to visit the four universities that I deal with in South Africa, but the main professor at Nelson Mendela Metropolitan University has to leave early, so I need to go to South Africa first - and I know the World Cup is being played there this summer so that might be a problem - so let's plan on flying into Johannesburg and catching a flight to Port Elizabeth, and then back to Pretoria, and then on to Zambia, and then, since we're flying over it anyway, let's try and put something together for a Botswana (oh, and could you check on the visa situation in Zambia and Botswana - oh, and note to self - send off passport to get extra pages put in it (remember what happened last time we tried to fly to South Africa and got stuck in Kenya because I didn't have enough pages), and then from Zambia back to Pretoria/Johannesburg, and then on to Cape Town. Oh, and could I get an aisle seat? Why the woman doesn't quit - or at least not answer the phone when I call is beyond me - but I think she actually loves the challenge - and at least this isn't the seven country marathon from this past summer.

Reflections on Things at Hand: A Rainy Day in Paris

Yes, still awash in memories, which I guess means I'm either in a comfortable place in my life and thinking about how lucky I've been or depressed and not seeing much hope in the future (grin). Or maybe it's just a delayed reaction to the enormity of turning fifty. Or maybe like Billy Pilgrim I'm just unstuck in time. No matter the cause, my mind has been sliding back more and more frequently into my own past, which is normally something that I try and avoid like the plague. On the way back from India in August 2004 I carved off several days in Paris as a treat. On one particular morning I had spent several hours walking through the Paris Catacombs, which I loved and have blogged about before. After leaving the Catacombs, and sitting in a little out of the way restaurant and downing a latte, I ventured out into a soft rain. It was one of those days when the rain was not bad enough to keep you inside, and the light was perfect for taking pictures. In the end I walked around the Jardin du Luxembourg and took in the scenery. It was a very quiet, uneventful and utterly unforgettable day. I remember telling my good friend David Kelley before his first trip to Paris that if he could truthfully tell me that he didn't love Paris I didn't think we'd be able to be friends anymore. We're still friends.

Reflections on Things at Hand: Michelangelo's Pieta

The summer of 2008 was mainly focused around my Faculty Internationalization Initiative trip to the Middle East, but on the way back I presented at a conference outside of Florence. Much earlier I included some stories and pictures about Florence, but for reason I never posted anything on visiting the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo and seeing the Michelangelo's Pieta (this is not the Pieta that he carved that everyone thinks of automatically, but the one he created very late in life). I think it popped into my mind again because of the upcoming trip to Moscow, which reminded me of the trip to St. Petersburg over Thanksgiving break. While there I saw a Michelangelo sculpture which had much the same feel and appearance as this later Pieta (that is, more "rough" and in some odd ways "abstract" than the more "smooth" and finely detailed Pieta). This Pieta is located in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, which is right in the center of Florence and not far from the famous Uffizi Museum. The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo is very modern and spacious and has some fine works, although everything there pales in comparison to the Pieta. Unlike the earlier work (completed when Michelangelo was 24 - he was close to 80 when he carved this Pieta), which features the body of Jesus spread out in Mary's lap, this one displays an older man helping to lift the body of Jesus. The speculation has always been the the older man was Michelangelo himself, and, considering the Renaissance emphasis on the artist as unique genius - and Michelangelo's own immense ego - this is very believable. I remember being astonished at Michelangelo's skill, especially considering his advanced age. Of all the different artistic genres the one that always consistently blows me away is sculpture - how do you take marble and turn it into live flesh or flowing robes? And that would be the medium wherein it would seem that old age could provide the greatest obstacles, although an older man's patience and experience would certainly serve him well.

Reflections on Things at Hand: Bandra

Yes, back to India again. Mrs. Gary's Apartment was located in Bandra, which was about ten minutes or an hour (depending upon the time of day and that moment's level of traffic insanity) from Champlain's campus. It was also only a few blocks from the ocean. It was a very nice neighborhood, alternating between upper middle class and pretty posh, especially for those lucky enough to have places on the beach. There were nice restaurants and coffee shops and ice cream parlors, and also more mobile food stands where you could eat in the park down by the waterfront. Almost every evening, when it wasn't actively in monsoon season, I would end up walking in the direction of the shore - plenty of tree-lined cool streets. Sometimes I would make it to the waterline, and other days I would just wander for hours around the neighborhood. Even in a neighborhood that nice going for long walks took lots of negotiating because it was difficult to find a long stretch of "uninhabited" sidewalk - people would put up little shops on the sidewalk ("we don't need no stinking permits") so you were constantly climing up and down off the sidewalks. There was this one little boy who was in charge of this huge cart full of bananas and I would stop by every couple days to haggle - I'm sure he now owns property based on what I overpaid. There was also a man with a roadside stand of used books and, as is sometimes the case when I'm overseas, I start getting "homesick" for Dickens. Before I go anyplace I sit down with my friend Sarah Cohen, the librarian who talked me into writing this blog in the first place, and figure out what book I should read on the trip - so, for instance, before I went to Morocco for the first time we figured out which Paul Bowles novel to read, etc. I had brought several India-themed books, but I was over there for an entire summer and eventually I needed to read some Dickens (my favorite). I found a beat-up used copy of Great Expectations at this little stand and, even though it was missing the last ten pages, I still was going to buy it - I'd already read it a couple times and even had two copies at home anyway, but I got it into my head to buy it anyway, figuring that I'd end up leaving before I finished anyway, and at that point I'd just leave the book in Mrs. Gary's Apartment. However, the merchant, sensing that I was operating under some sort of Dickensian mania, would not haggle with me - again, assuming that as an American, and a large American, I was rolling in money. I would literally stop by almost everyone day, for something like two weeks, and resume this high drama. Finally, one day I was in another part of town and stumbled into a more legitimate used book store, and bought an actual complete version of Great Expectations and went back to the stand and showed the merchant that I had bought a copy and told him how much I had paid (which was less than what he wanted for the more dog-eared incomplete copy) - he just smiled, and asked me if I wanted to buy one of the other books. When not pestering poor Indian used book salesmen, however, I would usually just end up sitting down by the water's edge, watching the sun go down.