Tag: Recollections
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IS ARCTIC SNOW REALLY BLUE?
For years, I have been seeing photographs of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. And in nearly every photograph, the snow is blue. The Svalbard Archipelago is halfway between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole, so I often wondered if perhaps up there the snow truly is blue. I finally got an opportunity to travel to Svalbard last month. And I can ensure you … the Arctic snow is perfectly white. It’s just that our not-so-smartphones think it’s blue. I bought my first camera – an Olympus OM-1 – in 1978…
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SAFER, STRONGER AND MORE PROSPEROUS
I don’t know where to start to comment about this insanity. I’ll just share my personal perspective. I’ve always been proud about two things as an American: the Peace Corps and USAID. To me, they are symbols of an altruistic country who deeply cares about humanity. Both are the legacy of an inspirational national leader, John F. Kennedy. And both are the best tools to make the US “safer, stronger and more prosperous”. I first started meeting USAID staff in the early 1980s when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. I…
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MAKE EARTH GREAT AGAIN (MEGA)
I remember when we believed we could change the world with a poster and a chant. That belief never really left me—just got bruised along the way. But I’m still marching, still stubborn, and still hoping we can learn to love this planet like it’s the only home we’ve got.
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A VOTE FOR COMPASSION
In November 1976 I got my first chance to vote in a US presidential election. I was a newly minted 18-year-old and eager to help shape the course of the nation. I voted for Jimmy Carter. And I’ve never regretted how I cast my first vote. Historians rate President Carter as being in the ‘middle-of-the-pack’ in terms of the effectiveness of his single term and perhaps a bit lower in leadership and his ability to control Congress. It was a challenging time with plenty of international and domestic crises to handle.…
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ASK THE WOMEN
A long time ago a client asked me to document a forestry project in the rural town of Hojancha in northern Costa Rica. I took photos of proud men standing by amazing stands of introduced eucalypts, Gmelina and teak. The trees were grown for both timber and firewood. But I learned the women weren’t too crazy about eucalypts as firewood. They said they didn’t like the smell and it made their gallo pinto taste bad. No one bothered to ask the women about their preferences before the trees were planted. That…
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A POTATO JOURNEY FROM WISCONSIN TO KENYA
I started out begrudgingly planting potatoes for a merit badge in Wisconsin. Decades later, I found myself in Kenya, watching advanced potato breeding at work. From garden patches to in vitro labs, I’ve come to appreciate the science behind every spud, and the people shaping its future.
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SAKE IN AN IZAKAYA WITH A FRIEND
In December 1981, I was standing on the sidewalk in San José, Costa Rica while watching the fireman’s parade. A marching band clad in blue uniforms pounded away on their instruments. I looked out amongst the band members and spotted my mate Glen Snyder blowing away on his trombone while keeping in step. Glen and I had arrived in country six months earlier as Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to environmental education projects. Glen lost no time and had already integrated himself into his local community and joined the municipal band. I…
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A TOURIST-FREE EGYPT, 1990
In December of 1990, there was a global fear of a regional war in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and was ignoring demands for withdrawal. There were fears the war would escalate well beyond the borders of Kuwait. And that made it a perfect time to travel to Egypt. Tourism in the region had dropped to diddly squat the day Saddam rolled his tanks into Kuwait. My mate, Doug, and I took started our end-of-year holidays from our job in Aleppo, Syria and flew into Cairo on Christmas…
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FORTY YEARS OF SPANISH DREAMS
While in university, I took a travel literature course. I loved getting homework … I could do it while lying in bed and drifting off to foreign and exotic lands. My favourite assignment was to read Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. The author sets out on foot armed with a violin and a blanket from his home in England and embarks on a walking journey through Spain just before the onset of the Spanish Civil War in the mid-1930s. The imagery Lee presented of Spain became firmly…
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