A Traveller’s Eye, A Thinker’s Heart
I like to tell stories. I like to take photos.
And I like to share them. Enjoy.
-
TRACING THE FONIO VALUE CHAIN
It’s one of the oldest cultivated crops in Africa but you’d be forgiven if you’d never heard of fonio. I had heard of fonio’s many qualities but had never seen nor eaten it. That’s changed now. I travelled to Benin with my colleague Scott Christiansen to learn more. Stakeholders in Benin led by the Crop…
-
CRINCRIN
I never thought I’d enjoy eating green mucilaginous slime. But I did. Jute mallow is a favorite with the Beninese who call the crop crincrin. It’s an annual leafy crop grown in many places around the world. Its leaves are rich in pro-vitamin A, iron, calcium, and vitamins B and C. Those are important in…
-
AGOUN FOR LUNCH
The city Dassa-Zoumé is about half way between Cotonou and Natitingou in Benin and pops up just about when your stomach starts to grumble during the day-long trip. Our colleagues, Malika and Sam, knew just the place for lunch and we stopped in at a roadside kitchen for a feed. Malika said something about yams…
-
BY THE RIVER OF DEATH
The mouth of the Ouémé River in Benin was historically quite a treacherous place with dangerous currents which took many lives. Yet the settlers and traders built a fishing village at the mouth and that village has now grown to be Benin’s largest city. French colonists liked the location and stablised the currents and built…
-
KARIJINI
If you’re a redophile then I’ve got just the place for you. Head to the Pilbara region of in the north central part of Western Australia. Iron ore country. The landscape glows with deep reds and earthy ochres. Iron deposits layered over 2.5 billion years. The red ancient banded iron formations are among the oldest…
-
FAREWELL PAPA
As the sun sets here in Halls Head on Easter Monday, we say farewell to Pope Francis. Much will be said about Pope Francis and I admired him greatly. But for me I admired him mostly for his stance on the environment, which came to light in 2015 when he published his ‘Laudato Si’: On…
-
THE ‘YOU NEVER KNOW’ RICE
A rice variety developed in China in 2008, stored in international genebanks, has emerged as a top-performing crop in Pakistan. After years of preservation and testing, this resilient strain—now called NARC-RICE-1—demonstrates the vital role of seed conservation in ensuring future food security.
-
UNDER THE MATAPALO TREE
I was homeless in Costa Rica for a spell in the summer of 1983. But a mate had heard of a gringo who had just moved to San Jose and might be looking for a roommate. So I called the guy and we decided to meet up at Key Largo, the local watering hole for…
-
PARALLEL UNIVERSES
There’s this movie I once saw … or maybe it was a book … about the main character living in parallel or alternate universes. In one universe the character gets up on the left side of the bed and in the other on the right. And that little act changes everything from that moment on.…
Adventure Adventures Agriculture Austria Backpacking Bangladesh Belize Benin Bolivia Botswana California Canada Cassava Chickpea Colombia Community Seedbanks Costa Rica COVID Cowpea Crop Diversity Current Affairs Czech Republic Ecuador Egypt Environment Eulogy Family Finger millet Finland Flora Food Security Forestry France Friends Georgia Germany Grasspea Greece Guatemala History Hitchhiking Honduras ICARDA India Indonesia Ireland Italy Japan Kazakhstan Kenya Kyrgyzstan Language Laos Lebanon Liberia Life's Experiences Literature Lousiana Malaysia Media Mexico Monaco Morocco Mozambique Nature Nicaragua Norway Pakistan Papua New Guinea Peace Corps Peru Philosophical Photography pigeonpea Portugal Potato Recollections Religion Rice Sierra Leone Singapore Sorghum South Australia Spain Sweden Sweetpotato Switzerland Syria The Gambia The Netherlands Togo Turkey United States Vietnam Washington Western Australia Wine Wisconsin Zimbabwe
What are you looking for?
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.