Traveling

Well, yeah I did the great tourist thing already. I dropped my passport pouch while going through security in PDX and had to get the help of the kind security guards looking out for the old and helpless.
So I am having a pint of Redhook in Seattle while waiting for the plane to Amsterdam. I am so ready for this adventure. I am sitting here with a woman on her way home to Rhodos. I visited Rhodos several years a ago, so we are having a great conversation about Greece and Turkey.
Selene and all the family would love this woman. She is telling me that she has to wait about two more weeks before going swiming at Rhodos. She reminds me of that classic woman in Zorba.




Okay good by to the Northwest-- bring on Africa

Statement from the Doc

Okay, I am off to a great adventure--First stop the Netherlands. After a brief stop in Amsterdam I am on to Cape Town, South Africa where after a night's sleep to fend off the lag I will be on a ferry to visit Nelson Mandela's home for about 18 years, the prison on Robben Island. This must be the first place I visit because if it wasn't for Nelson Mandela I would not be going to Cape Town.

The view of Robben Island from Cape Town.

Mandela visiting his former cell on Robben Island.

These are the opening words of Nelson Mandela's famous "statement from the doc" at his trial on April 20, 1964.

I am Prepared to Die

I am the First Accused.

I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961.

At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.
In my youth in the Transkei I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case.
Having said this, I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.
I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.....

You can find the rest of Mandela's 29-page "statement from the doc" several places on line.

Here we are looking in on Obama before he was president pondering his future and the future of his county.

I don't think I will be able to see Cape Town from this prison room, but it is something I will look for Wednesday when I am there.

 Here we see Nelson Mandela as a middle aged man mending his clothes with the possible hope for a court appearance. These simple things he did for himself. Hiding pages of his writing in the seams of clothes and in the bindings of books for all of us to get a glimpse of his strength and resilience.

And these are the wonderful critters who have been here on Robben Island since before humans came and hopefully will be here after we are gone. They are fondly known as Jackass Penguins. What a wonderful name. I will be delighted to see them.

The long route when I leave Cape Town on March 4 on a wonderful

 odyssey from Cape Town to Nairobi.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/prison/

• In Nairobi at the finish of my trip I will look at the history of Jomo Kenyatta. 

• Jomo Kenyatta was the first president of independent Kenya in 1964.
• I will be delighted to have you along on my journey.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/prison/

My Friend Joan

My friend, Joan Bailey, who watched the Tundra Swans with me in late January died on February 9. Joan had a witty generous soul, and, inspite of great pain, always had a laugh and a spark. I read Mary Oliver’s “The Swan” to Joan while we were at the Finley Refuge watching the geese and swans. Here is a last photo of Joan and me taken by her daughter while listening to the swans.

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?

Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -

An armful of white blossoms,

A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned

into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,

Biting the air with its black beak?

Did you hear it, fluting and whistling

A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall

Knifing down the black ledges?

And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -

A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet

Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

Mary Oliver

Tiger Leg Monkey Frogs

These almost cryptic critters at the Oregon Coast Aquarium hide their stripes until they are moving. Are they tiger frogs? Not sure, but the colors are tigerish on the underside of their bellies. Only one of this bunch was on the move in the late afternoon. I am not even sure what country they come from. It may be the Panatela Swamps of Brazil or the Chaco of Paraguay. They are in a corner of the swampland exhibit at the Aquarium. Hidden right in front of you, suddenly they appear, and then they are so bold. How could you miss them?







Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis azurea
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Lichens Of Marys Peak

These wonderful whispy beards hanging from every tree in Oregon's rain forest, sprouting and covering every large boulder are things of mystery to most of us.




 
These particularly interesting matchstick like growths are just now poking their heads out of the moss along the East Ridge trail of Marys Peak. The common name here in the Northwest is Devil's Matchsticks. The scientific name is Pilophorus acicularis, a mouthful and not nearly as fun as Devil's Matchstick. This is one of many Club Lichens found on this trail in the winter. Pilophorus means ball-bearing in Greek, and acicularis means pin in Latin. Some other club lichens to look for on Marys Peak are Lipstick Caldonia with, you guessed it, a bright red tip, and False Pixie Cup that looks a bit like a golf tee.

Amanda's Trail Yachats

A woman loses her daughter to her common-law husband because he refuses to marry her. Without a legal marriage she not only loses her daughter, she is forced to walk barefoot and blind from the Coos Bay area to Yachats in May 1864. She is just one of many on this trail of blood and tears when the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced the relocation dozens of members of the Coos and Lower Umpqua tribes from their homes to an internment camp at Yachats.

Today we can retrace a very short segment of Amanda De-Cuys’ trail of torture. I cannot fathom the pain of Amanda De-Cuys as I leave the waterfront of downtown Yachats along Highway 101 to Gender Drive. Where I cross to the east side and wander to rainforest where I find Amanda’s shrine.

Was it Amanda’s gender or her ethnicity or both that tore her daughter, Julia, and her home from her? I wonder if we are still part of this violence today as a group of women here in Corvallis seek to change the rape law of Oregon. You do not see the connection? I do. Women are used and abused here today in Corvallis, Oregon, and if there is no demonstrable physical harm them, they have no remedy under our law.

As I walked Amanda’s trail the Trilliums and Bleeding Hearts were in bloom last spring. What a disturbing metaphor for Amanda’s life. What a disturbing metaphor for the victims of today’s violence in Oregon.