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.
-
NJUGU
Esther Yoham Majija wanted to make her bakery, the Fortlene Bakery, a step apart from other bakeries in her town of Babati, Tanzania. She wanted to use traditional African vegetables in her baked products. The mother of three visited a booth of the World Vegetable Center at a trade fair and learned of different ingredients
-
THE SEA FARMERS OF WADEYE
Theodore Kormin-Kormin Dooling was pretty stoked about getting his commercial fishing license. He showed it to me with all the pride he could muster and somewhere underneath that long thick beard I sensed a smile. There’s now hope in Wadeye, an Aboriginal settlement about an hours’ flight down the coast from Darwin. Thanks to support
-
RECLAIMING FONIO
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
-
FROM ALEPPO TO JOONDALUP
Good friends are hard to come by; endearing friends even harder. But for those of us who lived and worked in Aleppo, Syria in the early 1990s friendships can be eternal. Our friends from our Syrian days, Scott and Andrea Christiansen and their daughter Caya, are visiting Padma and me. And our friends Joop and
-
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
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 Kenya Kyrgyzstan Language Laos Lebanon Liberia Life's Experiences Literature Lousiana Luxembourg 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 Tanzania 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.