Where the hell is Matt?
[Loband: Object Removed -]
This is really sweet.
From his website:
Matt is a 35-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think
that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt
achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but
eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In
February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the
money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this
site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They
were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said
"Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it."
He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It's actually the
only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a
very good idea.
A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it
to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is
quasi-famous as "That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy.
The other one. No, not him either. I'll send you the link. It's funny."
The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum.
They asked Matt if he'd be interested in taking another trip around the
world to make a new video. Matt asked if they'd be paying for it. They
said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.
In 2006, Matt took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal.
The second video made Matt even more quasi-famous. In fact, for a brief period in July, he was semi-famous.
Things settled down again, and then in 2007 Matt went back to
Stride with another idea. He realized his bad dancing wasn't actually
all that interesting, and that other people were much better at being
bad at it. He showed them his inbox, which, as a result of his
semi-famousness, was overflowing with emails from all over the planet.
He told them he wanted to travel around the world one more time and
invite the people who'd written him to come out and dance too.
The Stride people thought that sounded like yet another very good
idea, so they let him do it.
And he did. And now it's done. And he hopes
you like it.
Thanks for the link, Jan!
Musing on India - Part 5:
Faces from Bihar
Here are some people we met in Bihar, North India
[i-Bihar farmer]
Ramiwash is a small farmer, but probably one of the most create ones we met. On his plot, he combined fruit trees and several vegetable crops. He also implemented convervation farming, planting crops in small holes rather than ploughing his entire field. That way, he could preserve more water, a very scarce resource.
[i-Bihar farmer]
Anil talked to us about the dire need for water, now that the rains have become more scarce and the water level decreased over the past years.
[i-Bihar farmer]
Indramani is a widow taking care of her grandson. Her son, daughter in law and another grandson moved away to the city. She had a small plot with wheat and one buffalo to barely make ends meet.
[i-Bihar farmer]
Susila had to rent out one of her plots, as she had no access to water. Her husband has a mobile temple which he drives around to bring in a bit of extra money. She could read and write, and stressed the importance of educating her children, so they could move to the city and "get proper jobs".
[i-Bihar farmer]
Vidyabhushan invested in a set of teak tree seedlings, which he wanted to plant along his land, so he could harvest the timber and sell it in the years to come.
[i-Bihar farmer]
Arti lived alone with her three children. Her husband worked in the city and came home only once a year. She worked as a day labourer on other people's farms. She told us how the opportunities to work have drastically decreased as people leave their land barren in the summer due to lack of access to water for irrigation.
[i-Bihar farmer]
Arjun is the village chief (or "president") from four villages. He is also the chairmain of PACS, a cooperative bank who gives micro-loans to its members, and allows the farmers to ensure their crops against calamities.
Musing on India - Part 3: Four sisters
[i-Indian girl]
[i-Indian girl]
[i-Indian girl]
[i-Indian girl]
I ended my previous post with the phrase "False beauty is only skin deep..."
Likewise, true beauty is endless...
For any country I travel thru,
no mountain view can take my breath away,
no river descent leaves me gasping,
no dew-dripping leaves can grab my heart,
as does the glister in a child's eyes,
the curl of a child's smile,
and endless echoing sound
of its laughter
and song.
Children are the true joy,
the true future.
The only purity we have left.
Here are four sisters, daughters of Mohammed, a dairy farmer in Punjab. He has forty buffaloes. But he would sell them all, he said, if that could give his daughters a good education, and a job in the city.
But luck was not with him. Nor with his girls. They did not get the opportunity to go to school, limiting their options in the future.
How the crib in which you were born, decides what you can become in life.
Maybe one of these girls could have been a doctor. Maybe one would have become a famous poet or a singer, or a politician, or a peacemaker. Maybe one would have invented a new drug that eradicated malaria. If only they'd have the chance to go to school.
(to be continued...)
PS: While I was publishing this post, Latika's theme played through my mind. (mp3 - 4 Mb)
Musing on India - Part 1
[i-Hyderabad]
Most of the time, I feel inspired when I come back from my field trips. Especially the previous trips to Kenya, Mali, Ghana and Burkina Faso have been inspiring. I had the privilege to talk to dozens of farmers on practical techniques they adopted to cope with the changing environment.
In Africa, most of these stories were encouraging, positive, with a "rolling up our sleeves"-attitude. Not so for my India trip. Not much of that "rolling up our sleeves", and me not feeling invigorated.
I realize I only saw a small part of India, and my views are just snapshots, fragmented and highly subjective. Even though it was my third or fourth trip, the time I spent there was nothing but a mini-flash of the whole picture which India represents.
[i-Map India]
We flew into Hyderabad, where I gave training sessions about social media on the ICRISAT campus, an oasis of calm and peace in a hectic Hyderabad. I loved that part of the trip. Truly inspiring to see the other side of the "food chain": the nonprofit agricultural research.
Then we flew to Delhi, drove to Punjab for interviews with farmers, drove back to Delhi, flew to Bihar for more farmer interviews, and flew back to Delhi.
[i-Man on Indian market]
Much of my impressions are the same as those I retained after my visits ten years ago: hectically busy on the streets, people wherever you look, cars honking endlessly and purposely, smoking chimneys wherever you look, smog, dirt almost everywhere.
I don't think I saw a single river which was not filled with crap. I don't think I stood at any point where I could say "this is rural". High-tension electricity poles, mobile phone towers and factories about everywhere.
[i-Punjab farmer]
Luckily, it was winter, and the temperatures were low to moderate. In Delhi and Punjab, a mist-slash-smog hung over the cities. While we did the interviews with farmers in Punjab, against the bright green wheat fields, topped with a white misty sky, I thought I could be standing in a field back home in Belgium, during spring. Not much of a difference at first glance. At least not on the surface.
But there are things on the surface and then there are things below the surface.
(to be continued...)
Back from India
[i-Delhi Red Fort]
Thirteen interviews with farmers in Punjab and Bihar, and two training sessions on social media in Hyderabad later, I am back in Belgium. Now the sprint starts to edit about 18 videos - the rest from West Africa, and the one from the India trip - in three weeks time. About 500 pictures need to be sorted, selected and edited, and several stories need to be written.
And my car broke down again, this morning.
Life can be challenging sometimes, but that's what we like about it, no?
Can't wait to share some of my findings from the India trip. Stay tuned.
Off to India
| [i-Gujurat earthquake] |
| 2000: On the Gujurat airport strip, waiting for a truck |
I'm off to India tomorrow. A couple of days in Hyderabad to give training on social media, followed by a week of Punjab and Bihar interviewing farmers about their climate change adapation techniques.
I have not been back to India since the 2000 Gujurat earthquake, when we flew in from Islamabad with a plane load of relief goods. Was that before or after the Orissa floods? I can't remember. Might be after that. Hmmm. I do remember I celebrated my birthday in Orissa.
Anyways, will be an interesting and hectic two weeks coming up. Wish us luck! Read the full post...
Interviews with farmers in Kenya:
the positive vibes
[i-Peter interviewing farmers in Kenya]
I am back in Belgium for a few days to work on the post-production of the video interviews we shot in Kenya two weeks ago.
We had a team of three: Bart -the cameraman who also does the video post production-, Jan -the radio reporter from the VRT who did a series on climate change and myself. Plus a local NGO contact and two drivers.
The goal of the interviews, which will also be done in West-Africa and several Asian countries, is to take a snapshot how the farmers in different countries experience the changing weather patterns, and how they adapt to them, or even mitigate the climate changes they anticipate.
[i-Peter interviewing farmers in Kenya]
Every farmer we spoke to highlighted their dependency on the rains, and the more erratic rain patterns nowadays. They also battled with high prices for the seeds and fertilizers which, paired with a lower price for their produce, resulted in a deflated income.
A combination of past inefficient farming techniques and the introduction of foreign seeds and aggressive pesticides often depleted the soil and caused the introduction of new pests which needed even more chemicals.
It was interesting talking to the older farmers, and their stories how things gradually changed. "Twenty years ago", said sixty years old Andrew, who also used to be a teacher, "Twenty years ago, we planted seeds without fertilizers. We had no pesticides. And yet, we had a high yield. We could use the seeds from our harvest for the next year's crop. Water was available everywhere. Forests were dense and plentyfil. But now, you will not yield any crop without pesticides and artificial fertilizers. We have to use hybrid seeds which are more drought resistant. The seeds from the hybrid plants themselves are worthless, so we have to buy new ones every year."
But he said so in a "tone of fact", not as a complaint. It was a statement.
And still they all cope: Some change the crops they grow or the type of seeds they use. Others resort to small-scale irrigation, mulching -covering the seedlings with clover-, or conservation farming... They brought up creative ideas on how to avoid erosion, conserve the manure from running off the fields and collectively advocated on planting more trees both for the fruits, the timber, and... the carbon credits.
[i-Cameraman Bart]
Each interview lasted about three hours during which we took ample time to get the farmers at ease, even though each of them was quite outspoken and not camera-shy at all. Each had a story to tell. Not only about their farming, but also about their families, how the men went off to work in the cities, and the women are left to the farming. How all too often, the grandparents are left with their orphaned grandchildren, as if a whole productive generation was decimated.
[i-Jan Gerits in Kenya]
Still, each and everyone of them smiled. There was more laughter than complaints in the air. Each had taken an active role in determining their destiny, even though they had far less control over "life" than anyone in more developed countries...
I left one week of Kenya feeling respectful for each of the people we met, whose lives briefly crossed mine. And at this moment, I am trying to put that respect into the videos we are producing.
Ruth, Cheleste, Emily, Edward, Julia, Anastacia, Margaret,.. you will soon get copies of the pictures and the finished videos. As promised!
PS: Some of the output of these interviews is reflected in short blogposts. The first one is already out on the CCAFS blog.
First two pictures courtesy Jan Gerits.
Off to Africa, once more.
[i-kids in Madagascar]
People ask me "So how is the sabbatical going, having a nice rest?". Well, that's not exactly how it went. While shuttling between the family in Belgium and my base in Rome, it seems destiny carved out a specific path for me.
I always wanted to expand my experience with social media: blogging, Twitter, social bookmarking... And without really chasing projects, I have been fortunate to get several projects I could sink my teeth in.
I did a review for CGIAR's ICT-KM blog, designed a new blog for a CIAT project (See the draft design here) and made several YouTube videos for AgCommons. I was asked to coordinate the social media team for the upcoming AgKnowledge Share Fair in Addis, Ethiopia (see the initial shoutout for volunteers, and our Wiki page).
I am leaving for Addis tomorrow, combining the trip with another project I am really enthusiastic about: interviewing farmers on the impact of climate change in different countries in Africa and Asia. The goal is to gather material and generate short video and audio recordings, blogposts and pictures of the on-the-ground effects of climate change, the ways the communities adapt and mitigate the changes.
This is something I always wanted to do: travel around, take input using different means and outputting it via social media. I will be in Kenya for the first series of interviews next week, followed by a week in Addis for the Share Fair.
This will be my first trip to Africa since a while. While I lived in Angola, Malawi, DRC and Uganda for five years back in the nineties, and travelled around the continent extensively, I honestly can not remember the year of my last trip to Africa. Was it the onset of the Darfur crisis back in 2004? No, it can't be. It must have been the trips I did to Kinshasa back in 2005 and 2006.
Still, it has been four or five years since I set foot in Africa again (apart from a short trip to Cairo). I am excited to go back, to see the changes first hand, and to embark on a new series of projects.
It is strange how life goes. This is not exactly how I intended this sabbatical to go, but following the path destiny sets out, I seem to discover new things, new opportunities, new passions.
I turned 50 this week. 50! When I was younger, I always said I would never reach the blessed age of 50. "I'd fall out of tree, crash off a mountain top, or freeze to death in the Antarctic first", I used to say. But yet, I turned 50, three days ago. And still, life puts its challenges ahead of me. Still, I am wandering around, finding new things, exploring ways to make a difference while enjoying what I do.
I guess I will never settle. Maybe when I do, it will be the end of me. "Home is where I lay my head", says the song. And meanwhile, I put my future in the hands of destiny. She knows best.
Picture courtesy Michael Higgins (WFP)
Viva Alitalia - This is why the pope kisses the ground after a flight
[Loband: Object Removed -]
As part of the series The Flying Fun on The Road, here is an interesting event to further relativate the "Science of Flying".
When we landed with an Alitalia Airbus A321 last Sunday, the cabin sound and light installation went completely bezerk for the whole of the 20 minutes we were taxiing to our gate. Both the rhythmic flickering and rapping beat in the speakers made it look and feel like a night at the disco.
I imagined one of the flight attendants coming from the back rapping to the tunes of Cobra Starship:
I have had it with these motherf**king snakes
on this motherf**king plane! (oh-ah)
Times are strange (ho-ho)
We got a free upgrade for
snakes on a plane. (ho-ho)
F**k 'em, I don't care. (ho)
Bought the cheap champagne, (ho)
we're going down in flames, hey. (hey,hey)
Oh, I'm ready for it (ho-ho)
Come on, bring it. (ho-ho)
Oh, I'm ready for it (ho-ho)
Come on, bring it. (ho-ho)
But none did. There was no announcement to apologize -leave alone explain-, and no reaction from the flight attendants other than a chuckle.
I guess the fact we were already on the ground, made things a bit "lighter" for all. I wonder how people would have felt if this were to happen in mid-flight. Would they still joke "Ahhhhlitalia"?
Or is this how a cabin looks like before things really start to go wrong...
Snapped: The Finale from Le Marche
Before this site turns into a photo blog, some random pictures from Le Marche. I challenge you: take a car, drive for 15 minutes in Le Marche, and you will find a treasure.
[i-Le Marche Italy]
We got lost there on purpose: A small town called "Force", which had no decent restaurant but breathtaking views
[i-Le Marche Italy]
We got lost there once. I think this was near Montecchio
[i-Le Marche Italy]
We got lost there on purpose. Near Monti Sibillini National Parc.
[i-Le Marche Italy]We did not get lost here. We looked for it and actually found it: Lago di Fiastra
[i-Le Marche Italy]
Force. As the town did not feature a restaurant, we got lost looking for one in the next town.
[i-Le Marche Italy]
We did not get lost here. We saw a town on a hill, and said "Let's have dinner there". It took us two days to actually find the road to the town: Ripatransone.
It think.
[i-Le Marche Italy]
Along the road to Lake Fiastra. We got lost on the way back, though.
Snapped: Sunset in Marche
An inspiring sunset in Marche
[i-sunset in Marche Italy]
[i-sunset in Marche Italy]
[i-sunset in Marche Italy]
[i-sunset in Marche Italy]
[i-sunset in Marche Italy]
Snapped: Views from Marche
This year, we went for a week to Marche, in the east of central Italy. A Friend recommended Marche as "the undiscovered Tuscany", a stretch of rolling hills between the Apennine mountains and the Adriatic coast.
The fields on the hills were less spacious than in Tuscany, but no less appealing: condensed fields of olive trees, vineyards, wheat and sunflowers dotted for as far as the eye can see.
Here are some views taken from the house we stayed in.
[i-Our garden in Marche]
Our garden by sunrise
[i-Gran Sasso silhouette]
At sunrise, you can see the silhouette of Gran Sasso, the master of the central Apennines
[i-Apennines in Marche]
There is some magic in seeing the last stretches of the Apennines fading out into rolling hills
[i-Apennines in Marche]
The same view with the olive trees right next to our house
[i-A view from Marche]
A view to the South of our house
[i-View from Marche with bougainvillea]
A view to the next farmhouse, with bougainvillea from our garden
[i-The next village in Marche]
The next village from between the trees
[i-The next neighbour's fields in Marche]
The neighbour's vineyards and olive trees, a typical sight in Marche
[i-houses on the hilltops in Marche]
In many places in the world, people build houses in the valleys, where they are more protected. In Marche, houses and villages are built on top of the hills
[i-fields in Marche]
A typical view of Marche: small fields, one next to the other.
[i-The neighbour's fields in Marche]
Olive trees, vine yards, olive trees, vine yards, olive trees,...
Snapped: Sunflowers in Le Marche
Last year, I published a series of sunflower shots from Tuscany. Here is a followup from Le Marche, on the Italian east coast.
[i-sunflowers in Le Marche]
[i-sunflowers in Le Marche]
[i-sunflowers in Le Marche]
[i-sunflowers in Le Marche]
Snapped: Lunch on the beach
It is sizzling hot here in Italy. The best place to get a refreshing breeze is... on the beach.
We love to just drive off, and see where we end up. This time, we got lost somewhere a 100 miles north of Rome, on the coast. We found a small stabilimento in what must have been the southern part of Tuscany.
"Stabilimenti" are the Italian version of "beach resorts". Some are just wooden shacks on the beach, nothing more than a bar which rent out beach chairs and parasols. Others are more luxurious settings with a swimming pool, renting surf boards or canoes... but always much lower key than in many other countries. And there are thousands of them.
All in the Italian tradition: if they offer food, you will not find hotdogs or hamburgers, but fresh sea food, salads, fruit.
Some pictures from lunch from a stabilimento we ended up in:
[i-link]
The setting...
[i-Lunch%20in%20Tuscany]
A view from our spot.
[i-link]
The breeze.
[i-link]
The view from within the stabilimento offers different frames as if in a movie set.
[i-Lana%20in%20Tuscany]
Lana, 15 now...
[i-link]
And Hannah, turning 13!...