More pouring and dripping rain this evening...May 2011 has now posted a record amount of rain, and there's nearly a week more of May to go (with three days of rain in the forecast).
The flowering plums and apples have come and gone, lovely for a moment, but soon faded by water and wind, leaving a confetti of pale and dark pink all over... The lilies of the valley are drunkenly aromatic in the front of the house. I half expect visitors and the mailman too to lurch as they approach the house, from the headiness of their perfume. And in the last couple of days that effect has been doubled by the blooming Japanese lilac by the front window, all soft purple and fragrance. The final piece of this talk of blooming in the rain is the wisteria, always a touchy subject for me. The vine, a Chinese (white) wisteria, has bloomed precisely twice in eighteen years, and not very generously. But last year I kept trimming it intermittently all summer and early fall. And lo and behold this spring there's a whole section of the plant that is trailing long white strands of dripping blossom. Now if I could just be sure which part of my trimming technique caused this to happen. Maybe none of it. Perhaps it's chance, or mother nature taking pity...
I'm still on deadline, and feel like I must have a raw patch on my nose where I've had it pressed to the grindstone. No, really, the Burma book is emerging from the fog of its creation and feels solid now. It just needs more editing time. Most books do!
In the last weeks, apart from the lovely blossoming of spring, there have been some wonderfully good intervals. One was the visit overnight of a young woman whom I haven't seen since she was not quite seven. At the time she was travelling in Thailand with her parents. We spent a lot of time together and had memorable days over the Lisu New Year at a Lisu village a day's walk from Pai... I've seen her mother a few times in the past five years, coming into town briefly from BC, but this is a first with the daughter. And she was a wonderful and present person as an adult, a grown version of how she had been when a child. What a privilege to be back in touch with someone I've always thought of as family. Yes, that was a special trip, twenty-four years ago, and now there's a chance to reconnect with it in a new way.
This coming weekend there's a Market Day up in Grey County, when the members of the Saugeen Trading Community come together to buy and sell; outsiders are also welcome of course. I'm going to head north for the day. It should be a good break from the manuscript and also a chance to pick up some heritage tomato plants and to reconnect with friends from Grey County whom I haven't seen enough of this spring.
The tomatoes will need to be planted once I get back to the city. I have three bags of soil, but need three more I figure, so that I can plant them in the bags (make slits in the plastic, stir the soil to loosen it, and insert the plant. Make a slit right beside the plant and put a small plastic cup in there with holes at the bottom. Water the plant regularly by pouring water in the cup, so it goes directly to the plant). Those are the almost verbatim instructions set out online for growing tomatoes or other plants in a plastic bag of soil. (I'm doing it because there is blight in the soil in my garden, argh!).
I'm sleepy this evening, not able to work on Burma. That'show I've managed to post this small blogpost. I took the evening off to go to listen to Monia Mazigh, Maher Arar's spouse, speak about current events in Tunisia (her home country), Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc. I am so glad to have heard her and seen her. She's a strong intelligent woman, deliberately provocative in her hijab, speaking fluently in English, her third language. Very dazzling.
meantime my only contact with all those shattering and amazing and awful events is to follow them on Twitter and read the links that are posted. And to hope that they have a positive and productive and peaceful outcome, sooner rather than later.
Showing posts with label Tunisia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tunisia. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
FAREWELL TIGER, & HELLO TO THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT
it's the last day of January, the first day of this year's immersethrough week in Chiang Mai and north of here, and also this is probably my last post in the year of the Tiger, since the Rabbit is due to come loppety-lop into our lives on February 3. I have nothing against rabbits, in fact precious Dom is a Rabbit, but since my birth year is a Tiger year, I am sorry to see the end of another one.
One more the cycles remind us that there are things to look forward to and enjoy, and that there is also a time for them to be over, for us to move on. I'm moving on by remembering that this Tiger year has given me health and happiness, deepening friendships, a small but growing understanding of culinary and other culture in Burma, and an optimism that even if tomorrow is harsher or more painful than today, I have the resilience to weather hard times. Yes, that optimism may be misplaced. But I don't care, just am happy to be feeling this way.
Today we shopped in Warorot Market, now celebrating its centenary, and then came back to make, under Fern's mother's direction, a wonderful meal: gaeng om (a simmered layered-with-flavor beef soup/stew); gai nung (chicken pieces rubbed with a spice paste and then steamed to make a wonderful broth and tender meat); laap pla northern style (catfish minced with cleavers, then fried with aromatics, then mixed with separately fried heaps of of crispy fried garlic and the fish skin, and topped with more aromatics); gaeng pakat (Chinese kale in a broth flavored with pork ribs etc); ep moo (pork cleaver-minced and then mixed with lemongrass and other flavors, then shaped into small flat patties, wrapped in banana leaf, and grilled); and lots of fresh vegetables; all made and eaten with a great vibe. That's my immersethrough report! Very local doings here in Chiang Mai.
I feel rather cut off here from the huge world events of the last week: the turmoil and awakening in the Arab world. To stay with food, for a moment, apart from all else they have in common, the places where change has happened or is seething at the surface are all flatbread places: Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon.
When I was in Tunisia (for an Oldways conference and also to do research for the Flatbreads book), the place felt heavy, authoritarian, much more than Morocco. Once when I was in a car driving north of Nefta, not far from the Algerian border, the taxi driver had some great music on the radio. It was sufi/qawali music, being broadcast from Algeria. He made me promise not to tell, for that radio station was banned in Tunisia. He could be arrested. It was a small thing, in a way, but a reminder that people's lives and thoughts were not their own. And Mubarak's Egypt of course is notoriously oppressive. But for years Tunisia has often been referred to approvingly, in the media and by politicians, as stable. Does "stable" just mean "successfullly repressive?" It seems to, when it comes to US allies in the Arab world and in other places too.
How disgraceful.
Here I find myself on a political path in this post...how did that happen?
And as I write out here on Fern's balcony (she has wi-fi and I don't) I can hear a call to prayer, in the dusk, a call with elegance and intensity both. It's a good reminder. When I think of the people demonstrating in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, and those injured and killed, I want to think of them not as an abstract mass but as human beings with feelings and aspirations, wanting the freedom to listen to the music they choose, to believe as they wish, to be safe under a secure rule of law.
Maybe the year of the rabbit will bring them that. Let's hope so...
And may the year of the Rabbit be a generous and fruitful one for all of you.
AND AN AFTERWARD: There's an article in the NYTimes by Ross Douthat that engages in a brief way with the guessing games played by the US and other governments about whether or not to intervene, to support repressive regimes for fear of worse, etc. It's here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/opinion/31douthat.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage
Basically everyone would like sure outcomes, but such things are not available...and often then, the US and others tend to stick with the devil they know rather than supporting uprisings, even when the devil they know is deeply authoritarian, undemocratic, corrupt, etc.
One more the cycles remind us that there are things to look forward to and enjoy, and that there is also a time for them to be over, for us to move on. I'm moving on by remembering that this Tiger year has given me health and happiness, deepening friendships, a small but growing understanding of culinary and other culture in Burma, and an optimism that even if tomorrow is harsher or more painful than today, I have the resilience to weather hard times. Yes, that optimism may be misplaced. But I don't care, just am happy to be feeling this way.
Today we shopped in Warorot Market, now celebrating its centenary, and then came back to make, under Fern's mother's direction, a wonderful meal: gaeng om (a simmered layered-with-flavor beef soup/stew); gai nung (chicken pieces rubbed with a spice paste and then steamed to make a wonderful broth and tender meat); laap pla northern style (catfish minced with cleavers, then fried with aromatics, then mixed with separately fried heaps of of crispy fried garlic and the fish skin, and topped with more aromatics); gaeng pakat (Chinese kale in a broth flavored with pork ribs etc); ep moo (pork cleaver-minced and then mixed with lemongrass and other flavors, then shaped into small flat patties, wrapped in banana leaf, and grilled); and lots of fresh vegetables; all made and eaten with a great vibe. That's my immersethrough report! Very local doings here in Chiang Mai.
I feel rather cut off here from the huge world events of the last week: the turmoil and awakening in the Arab world. To stay with food, for a moment, apart from all else they have in common, the places where change has happened or is seething at the surface are all flatbread places: Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon.
When I was in Tunisia (for an Oldways conference and also to do research for the Flatbreads book), the place felt heavy, authoritarian, much more than Morocco. Once when I was in a car driving north of Nefta, not far from the Algerian border, the taxi driver had some great music on the radio. It was sufi/qawali music, being broadcast from Algeria. He made me promise not to tell, for that radio station was banned in Tunisia. He could be arrested. It was a small thing, in a way, but a reminder that people's lives and thoughts were not their own. And Mubarak's Egypt of course is notoriously oppressive. But for years Tunisia has often been referred to approvingly, in the media and by politicians, as stable. Does "stable" just mean "successfullly repressive?" It seems to, when it comes to US allies in the Arab world and in other places too.
How disgraceful.
Here I find myself on a political path in this post...how did that happen?
And as I write out here on Fern's balcony (she has wi-fi and I don't) I can hear a call to prayer, in the dusk, a call with elegance and intensity both. It's a good reminder. When I think of the people demonstrating in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, and those injured and killed, I want to think of them not as an abstract mass but as human beings with feelings and aspirations, wanting the freedom to listen to the music they choose, to believe as they wish, to be safe under a secure rule of law.
Maybe the year of the rabbit will bring them that. Let's hope so...
And may the year of the Rabbit be a generous and fruitful one for all of you.
AND AN AFTERWARD: There's an article in the NYTimes by Ross Douthat that engages in a brief way with the guessing games played by the US and other governments about whether or not to intervene, to support repressive regimes for fear of worse, etc. It's here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/opinion/31douthat.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage
Basically everyone would like sure outcomes, but such things are not available...and often then, the US and others tend to stick with the devil they know rather than supporting uprisings, even when the devil they know is deeply authoritarian, undemocratic, corrupt, etc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
