Days 8 & 9: Nicaraguan Journal

Patty Osborne

DAYS 8 & 9
Spent most of days 8 and 9 at Santa Rosa, one of the few remaining collectives in Nicaragua. The land belonging to the collective was originally a privately-owned hacienda. When the owners fled during the revolution, the people who had been working for them moved onto the land and set up the collective and then persisted, despite several changes in government and political ideologies, in gaining title to the land. Each family in the collective is allotted land to live and work on and if they do not maintain their home or their land they are evicted.

The pottery there is run by one family and a portion of their profits, and those of other money-making enterprises, goes back to the community. The potters of Santa Rosa include Consuelo, who came along on last year's brigade, her mother and her aunt, as well as her husband, although he spends some of his time raising vegetables with his own father. Consuelo's father is chairman of the board of directors of the cooperative.

After introductions we were invited to help unload the new kiln which had been built by Potters for Peace thanks to a generous donation of $600 from one of our brigade members who shyly accepted their thanks. We were glad to help, although later, when we knew each other better, Consuelo confessed that, although they had planned the firing so that we would be there for the unloading, a buyer had turned up early so they had to unload it without us and then, so that we wouldn't be disappointed, they put most of the pots back. I could see by the huge change and expansion in the work being produced at Santa Rosa that Consuelo had taken full advantage of the opportunity to learn from the other potters that she met on the brigade last year.

During the two days we took turns throwing and handbuilding and Daisy, George (from Iowa) and I got a chance to demonstrate some techniques and Consuelo showed us how she applies slip trailing decoration (for the non-potters, that means squeezing spaghetti-like lines of liquid clay onto a semi-dry pot) to her pots using a plastic bag, a technique that seemed to me to be a lot easier than trying to squeeze a hard plastic slip trailer.

At noon, as we meandered through the village in the direction of Consuelo's house, her daughter Cindy, looking very much like a city girl, came running up the road to meet us and show us the way.  Lunch was a delicious homegrown chicken stew which we ate while sitting in the shade in the backyard.

On the second afternoon we walked through the village, along a road, past a deposit of yellowish clay, down a big hill, across a swampy area, and up another small hill in the woods to the pottery's deposit of black clay, which is on land that has been designated to Consuelo's mother.  The walk was beautiful but it was also hot and the trail was rough in places—no wonder I felt sheepish when, in reply to Consuelo's question of where I got my clay from, I answered "from the store, in a box."

On the way to Santa Rosa on our second day, we stopped in at a filter and brick factory that is run by a fellow named Tito, who is part of a family that, before the revolution, were wealthy landowners. Tito's family now lives in Mexico but he has returned to Nicaragua to try to regain title to some of their lands (land title in Nicaragua is incredibly complex due to the revolution and other changes in government). At the filter and brick factory Tito employs many young men, most of whom are university students. Tile-making is monotonous and sometimes back-breaking work but the workers take turns at each job so they don't wear themselves out. Some of the men have become competent throwers and the factory also produces a line of flower pots.

Unfortunately, after our first day in Santa Rosa, George (from Florida) decided he would have to leave the brigade: he had a case of "stomach troubles" that he just couldn't shake and he was finding that he just didn't have the energy needed to get the most out of the brigade. Robert's wife, Bev, who had driven up to Santa Rosa to meet us, took George with her on the 4-hour drive back to Managua.

Acorn-Plantos Award

Daniel Zomparelli

The Rapid Denoument of the Vancouver Olympics

Thad McIlroy

It’s been a week since it ended, or rather since the only part that millions

were interested in seeing ended (the Paralympics start on March 12, not

that the media or the politicians can muster any interest in this token event).

 

It took me a week or so from the start of the real Olympics to recover

from the three hundred First Nations’ dancers surrounding by awkwardly

shuffling Caucasian Star Wars storm troopers, who I assumed had tasers

at the ready should anyone pause in the festivities.

 

 

I still haven’t memorized the names of the corney mascots. I found

them on the VANOC site: Miga, the sea bear, Quatchi, the Sasquatch,

and Sumi, the animal spirit. Not memorable.

 

My shock at the opening ceremonies was soon to be overwhelmed by

my horror at the closing ceremonies. I still wake up at night screaming

at the memory of those giant beavers, which looked like they had

drowned a month before and become horrendously bloated.

 

 

(Note the caption: “Entertainers dressed as lumberjacks perform.”

Aside from the fact that there’s hardly a lumberjack in sight, just bloated

beavers and a dancing maple leaf, I wondered also whether in fact they

were lumberjacks dressed as entertainers performing – think Monty Python.)

 

Anyway, things deteriorated from there, and soon we were the laughingstock of the world. What could they have been thinking in Tanzania or Tajikistan after this:

 

 

I won’t even mention Mr. Bubbly.

 

However, the point of this blog entry is not the spectacle itself so much as the aftermath. I went downtown on a few errands the morning after the close and

thought I’d entered the Twilight Zone. The city center was all but deserted.

Talk about “Apologies, but I must eat and run!”

 

 

No standing on ceremony at London Drugs. We’ve got too much leftover

plush, the Paralympic visitors are not going to snatch it up, and we’re

clearing it out of here – fast!

 

The ploy was a success. It was a mob scene:

 

 

I asked one excited buyer what she expected to do with her 50%-off

trophies and she said immediately, “Sell them on eBay!” Disappointing

news for her there. While the last winter Olympics four years ago in

Torino, Italy, did not seem to generate any squishy dolls (possibly because

they lacked Italian versions of Miga, Quatchi and Sumi), I can report that

the “official” pins are mostly up for bid at $3.99. The few available items

of clothing appeared to have retained their value, but will not make anyone rich.

 

Meanwhile a display of London Drugs’ half-price plush got lonely:

 

 

But not for long:

 

 

Some of this junk was not genuinely endorsed souvenirs, but it was

heading out anyway:

 

 

It took some of the other stores and restaurants a few

hours to catch on, but they soon were smitten with the clearance spirit:

 

 

 

 

I love it that below you can still see “Welcome World” under “Good-Bye, World!”

 

 

Apparently Steamworks does not think of the Paralympic participants

as from this world.

 

Perhaps they’re more open-minded at the other Steamworks in

Vancouver, over on W. Pender “…a gym/sauna/bathhouse for men

18 years and older with private membership options. Now open to

the public, Vancouver is open 24/7, 365 days a year! Steamworks is

a clean, safe place to hang out, work out, meet guys, watch porn, play,

or whatever.” Welcome World (or aleast the male half).

 

The Hudson’s Bay Company, “the oldest commercial corporation in

North America,” purchased in 2008 by the U.S. firm NRDC Equity

Partners (from another American firm, The InterTech Group),

was declared “the…Online (emphasis mine) Store for the Vancouver

2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.” VANOC couldn’t quite bring

itself to awarding the entire retail franchise to one American company,

so The Bay created “The Olympic Superstore” at Granville and

W. Georgia Street “a one-stop shopping destination for all official licensed

merchandise of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.”

 

Trying to exit the SkyTrain during the games I walked inadvertently into The Bay

and I thought for a moment that I’d stumbled into New York’s Macy’s on Christmas Eve. The escalator on the main floor from the Granville Station had been blocked off with steel construction fencing: management had moved the sole entrance to Seymour Street, where there was a huge line-up patrolled by police and security.

 

The escalator to the second floor was broken. I stood in frenzied despair for several minutes, pushing at the barriers. Throngs of shoppers stared at me with a combination of fear and puzzlement. Two young women appeared suddenly beside me, but apparently found humour rather than peril in the situation. Finally I summoned the strength of the truly desperate and managed to move one of the fences just far

enough to slip through. Now the shoppers were looking thoroughly frightened. A terrorist perhaps. I stumbled around the official merchandise, searching frantically for an exit. A bright-faced uniformed young woman approached me and offered me an Olympic pin with the VISA credit card logo attached. I grabbed it while blurting out, “How the hell do I get out of here?” She cheerfully pointed to the Seymour street doorway and I ran for it, jostling many, and did whatI was told during the closing ceremonies the night before, as a true Canadian: I said “sorry” twenty times

while I pushed the zombie-like shoppers out of my way.

 

Outside the main door, gasping for breath, I found this sign in the window:

 

 

I was reminded that the Olympics are all about the heights of human endeavour, about being your best.

 

It took The Bay a few days to get with the program and realize that the disabled

and their families were not going to shop in sufficient numbers to clear all that crap out of the store. By Wednesday I spotted:

 

 

But let me leave the final word to she who looks after (most of) our Olympic athletes:

 

 

I guess Presbyterians don’t care much about the Paralympics either.

Merc #1: A Bloody Sci-Fi Tale

Chelsea Novak

Merc #1 kicks off the new series from Zenescope Entertainment, following Sonny Grissom, a mercenary whose cybernetic upgrades are destroying his body. Despite his physical condition, Sonny is still in the game and when a woman representing the CDC shows up with a six-hundred-grand job retrieving a courier with stolen merchandise, he’s eager enough to take it. Unfortunately Booth, who sells organs and other body parts to the rich while harvesting his wares from anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way, also seems to have an interest in the courier and whatever it is the CDC is trying to get back.
 
Scripted by Jerrold E. Brown, this comic mostly reminds me of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Sonny’s friend and partner, Buddha, jacks into a network via a plug in his head (think Matrix), while Sonny’s cybernetics pump him full of drugs. For the most part, Merc offers pretty standard science-fiction fare, although the one thing I do find strange is that Buddha refers to the CDC as “the angels,” accusing Sonny of trying to make amends before he dies by working for them. This would make the CDC one of the few government agencies— I assume they’re government, it’s not entirely explained yet— in science-fiction history to wear an angelically white hat.
 

The art of Merc, provided by Daniel Schneider, works well with the story. There are a few panels where character positioning is an issue, but there are also detailed, striking panels that help build the mood of Merc. I could have handled a little less gore, but this book probably wouldn’t live up to expectations without it.
 
Check back for an interview with Merc artist and Canadian Daniel Schneider.

Michael Enright brings us the Abortion Caravan with a guest appearance by Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Patty Osborne

Last Sunday, the day before International Women's Day, The Sunday Edition, a CBC Radio 1 show, presented an amazing documentary (by Karin Wells) on the Abortion Caravan, a group of 35 women who drove in three cars from Vancouver to Ottawa (arriving on Mother's Day weekend), organized a huge demonstration on Parliament Hill where they demanded access to abortion, infiltrated parliament and chained themselves to chairs and then began shouting during Question Period, until Parliament was shut down, and, a few weeks later, met in Vancouver with an angry Pierre Trudeau and managed to leave him speechless.

A fabulous documentary that took up the first hour of the show and that you can listen to here.

An Awfully Canadian Occurrence

Dan Post

          I couldn’t help but think of Shane Koyczan’s poem “We Are More” this morning as I watched the bus driver purposely ignore a man trying to get her attention to open the doors and let him on. I was thinking about this whole Canadian identity thing, this supposed politeness we are proud enough apparently to broadcast to the whole world viz a vis a poorly-executed closing ceremonies, and was beginning to doubt it’s verity as I watched him whistling, yelling, and flailing his arms to no avail. Why didn’t he just bang the window? That would surely have got her attention she was pretending to withhold. A block away and he hadn’t given up chasing down the bus to the next stop.

“He’s still running” a middle-aged passenger behind the driver said. “It’s so pathetic.”

She was laughing in a twisted way, but I suspected it was only to cover up her true feelings of sympathy. I could see she was concerned, but also trying to avoid confrontation with the surly driver.

Even Seth Godin can't solve my parking problem

Patty Osborne

The sign said "Additional Parking on Other Side of Overpass" and I noticed it as I walked through the park-and-ride lot at Phibbs Exhchange in North Vancouver, a lot that I never park in because it's always full. I, along with many other commuters, park on a nearby residential street, and I'm sure this annoys the people who live there.

Change is difficult, but I was willing to try this new parking lot in order to not feel guilty when I parked, but when I drove by it a few days a few cars were parked there but I could see no way to enter the lot without driving the wrong way on a freeway exit lane. How stupid, I thought, to create a parking lot that only freeway drivers can get into, but my son, who I talked to a few days later, assured me that there was a way in and he told me to veer right, turn left, then turn right again and I'd get there but when I tried his route the next day I chickened out on the last right turn because I thought it was going to strand me on a lonely island between two lanes of zooming traffic.

I would have given up then, if my son hadn't loaned me Seth Grodin's audio book Small is the New Big (which has some interesting ideas in it but could have used a good editor), and I hadn't heard, a few mornings later as I drove out of my driveway, Seth urging me to "zoom," which is his term for "embracing change." At once I was infused with a resolve to push on with my quest for a new parking lot, so I steeled my nerves and, at the right moment, veered right, turned left, then turned right again and stopped to wait for a break in the traffic. The gleaming new parking lot with it's shiny white lines called out to me but someone at the district hall must have decided there was too much zooming going on—the yellow gates were closed and locked and I was, indeed, stranded on an island between two zooming lanes of traffic. Sigh.

Gagetown, NB

Geist Maps

The first in a series of One-Minute Movies. More will follow in due course to form a One-Minute Movie Map of Canada. You can contribute to the Geist One-​Minute Movie Mapping Project here.

Four Plastic Buckets and Two Sticks

Becky McEachern

 Apparently four plastic buckets, two sticks, a wine bottle and a cow bell spell love. Here's a street performer in Waikiki, Oahu, to convince you.

Day 7: Nicaraguan Journal

Patty Osborne

DAY 6
This morning we "borrowed" the kitchen of the comidor where we have been eating and four of our bravest brigadistas cooked breakfast for us using a traditional Nicaraguan wood stove: a long, narrow firebox that is fed with long branches at the end of which are a couple of holes to put pots onto the direct flame. I wasn't part of this adventure but I heard that all would have been lost without the help of Maritza, our native Nicaraguan brigadista.

The final product was delicious but it took a little longer (okay, a lot longer) to prepare than we had anticipated, which gave the rest of us time to walk the streets of San Juan de Limay and watch people starting their day: collecting tortillas for their breakfast, sweeping their doorsteps and the street in front of their houses, sitting outside their front doors looking at us as we looked at them, and, in the case of the dogs, sleeping in the middle of the road.

On our way to La Naranja pottery, we passed another gordita, this one holding a djembe, an African drum that was introduced to Nicaragua by a potter from Africa and has since become known to gringos who are not as well-informed as we are, as a "traditional Nicaraguan drum." La Naranja is a family-run pottery that you get to by takinga  short drive from San Juan de Limay and a longer walk down a steep and rocky road. We pulled several mysterious and heavy metal pieces from the back of the van and lugged them down the hill and they turned out to be the parts for an extruder, which we put together and mounted beside the studio door on one of the few solid beams in the place.

We hung out at La Naranja for the rest of the morning playing with the extruder (Maritza gave a demo of an extruded boat that she had learned how to make at a Potters for Peace workshop last year), sharing pottery techniques and buying pottery pieces that we would later stuff into the space left by the extruder parts and then we said goodbye and walked back up the long, hot hill.

In the afternoon we visited the pottery at El Calero, a pueblo that was created to house people who survived when Hurrican Mitch wiped out their previous pueblo, Rio Abajo. El Calero is close to San Juan de Limay but the road we had to take is rough and rocky and runs through a river bed that, at this time of year, is usually dry. The potters at El Calero (all of whom are women) have many challenges: so far they have not been able to form a strong, cohesive group; they are not proficient throwers and they have no one to teach them; they have little contact with larger centres and so have difficulty coming up with design ideas; and they have difficulty getting their wares to market and buyers seldom brave the rough road to get to them. The one advantage they have over other potteries is ready access to four different colours of clay—light orange, red, black and light purple—which they use for decorating and in making jewellery. However, their finishing is still little rough and we all agreed that the women of El Calero could use some help to make their business more successful.