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.
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THE BATTLE OF VERDUN – A CENTURY LATER
As we turn our attention this weekend to the centenary of the signing of the armistice to end World War I, I look back at a visit that Padma, Xander, Joseph and I took this summer to a battlefield in France which proved to be the ultimate test of human endurance. The Battle of Verdun…
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GRANDPA GAUSTAD
For as long as I remember, my mother has flaunted her ‘Norwegian-ness’. Her mother, Gertrude Gaustad, was of full Norwegian stock. So mom has an appetite for lefse but when I would ask her about our Norwegian ancestors she would draw a blank. She didn’t know much except that her grandfather was named Ole, he…
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OLAV OF BYNESET
I hit a brick wall once. A genealogical brick wall, that is. For five years I had been trying to find out where my great grandfather, Ole Erickson Gaustad, came from. I was getting nowhere and figured I’d never find out. But one night in 2007, I was Googling ‘Gaustad’ and the village where I…
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A NIGHT IN COPENHAGEN
Padma and I preferred to drive everywhere in Europe, rather than flying. So when we decided to visit Norway and meet my family, we decided to drive. We arrived in Copenhagen in early evening after driving all day from Bonn. Just enough time to enjoy the long summer day and take a stroll through the…
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A LIONESS ALL FOR MYSELF
It’s Sunday and I’m not working on finger millet so I took the morning off to visit the Nairobi National Park. This is almost an urban park as it is a mere 15 minutes south of Nairobi with its skyline visible from the park … and yet it truly is the home to some very…
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A TALE OF TWO MARYS
Once upon a time a man married two Marys, which is something you can do in Kenya. The man passed away but his two wives, the Marys, lived on and prospered while growing finger millet. Finger millet is a traditional crop of Eastern Africa and once grew abundantly in the Western Kenya near the town…
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BAALBEK, THE CITY OF THE SUN
While on assignment in Lebanon, I took an afternoon off to vist the ruins of Baalbek, located in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. They are among the world’s most impressive and best-preserved Roman archaeological sites. Once known as Heliopolis, or the “City of the Sun,” Baalbek was a major religious center dedicated to Jupiter, Venus, and Bacchus.…
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BACK AT ICARDA
It’s taken me 25 years, but I’ve finally returned to the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, the organisation I once worked for. This time it wasn’t in Syria but the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon … but Syria was just a few kilometres away beyond the mountains in this photo. The location…
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SPRING INTO SWITZERLAND
Padma and I had a severe case of spring fever, so we drove to central Switzerland over the long May Day weekend for some hiking in the Schwyz Alps. The hike around Mount Rigi was really quite stunning and Spring really was showing off its true colours. The area around Lucerne is marked by numerous…
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