A few of my favorite things: A photo show

Here's a collection of some of my favorite things from photos through the years including fields of flowers, cows, farmer's markets books, tea, and hotdogs!

Shopping in Singapore

I've always said, you can tell a lot about a country by the flavors of potato chips it sells. Pringles in particular is very adapt to adjusting to the local market.

In Holland you get a lot of Indonesian spices (reflecting their former colony). In France, you get Roast Chicken with Thyme. In England, Vinegar and Salt, Cheddar Cheese, or Worcestershire sauce. In the US, Nacho cheese, buffalo wings and blue cheese, or barbecue.


This is what I saw in Singapore

Deli

Road Trip 2009: Of South Dakota and Corn Palaces

Neither Alyson nor I had ever been to South Dakota or Nebraska. We had gone to Iowa as young girls with my father, I had been to Minnesota for a wedding after college. Since we were flying into Omaha, we thought we couldn't miss the opportunity to see South Dakota too. Unfortunately, we were trying to conserve Alyson's vacation time so we missed the cousins big trip to the Badlands and didn't have time to stop at Laura Ingalls Wilder's homestead spot that was about 2 hours off the highway but I have a feeling that we'll try to return to South Dakota. Home of Tom Brokaw, Cheryl Ladd, and Tom Daschle!

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

Road Trip 2009: Surprisingly beautiful Nebraska

My only real interaction with Nebraska in the past has been awe at the power of the 80s Cornhusker football team, reading "My Antonia" and Little House on the prairie books, and my friend Linda who was from there. I had a vague image in my mind of long flat boring countryside. Boy was I wrong, I found Nebraska beautiful. I would even go back although I'm still smarting from my speeding ticket from Norfolk, Nebraska. At least the police officer was polite! And talk about good service, the folks at the rental car agency were about the nicest people I've ever met in my life!

Enjoy some photos from my road trip with Alyson.

In action in Uganda

In June, I presented at a conference in Uganda supported by the RAISE Initiative. I was just checking out their website and found these photos of me "In action" - thought I would share them. See - from running around in landcruisers and interviewing women in war zones, I've turned into a convention-eer. But what a nice convention it was by the shores of Lake Victoria.



For any JSI alum reading this, yes, that is Steve Kinzett that I'm hanging out with.

Perfection in Kenya

* Driving across the Rift Valley eating mango frozen yogurt
* Lunch at Drifters watching the Storks fish and the Egyptian geese argue
* Tea at Elsamere watching the sunset over Lake Naivasha
* Waking up to hippos grazing on the lawn outside my cottage
* Sunset boat ride around Lake Naivasha
* Breakfast in the garden
* Walking with the giraffes and zebras in Crater Lake
* Drinking pineapple juice on an overhang watching Crater Lake
* Hiking into a crater
* Sunset on the escarpment

Family Photos

My father's father and my grandfather, Julius "Stub" Martin in the Army back in Papua New Guinea during WWII.


Mom and Dad in London in 1963



Alyson and I looking a bit like ruffians probaby in the early 70s.



Matching lederhosen dresses. Parents must love to laugh hysterically at their offspring.



Matching band uniforms, Sumter High School Marching Gamecocks, circa 1984!



70s Family at the World Famous Iris Gardens in Sumter, SC



Me in 2nd Grade



My first passport photo!



My mother rockin' a great hairdo. Obviously before she had children and time to do her hair!




Mom, about age 12 in her school photo.



My father on his first tour of duty to England in 1950.



My dad's glamour photo. Why don't they airbrush up our photos like that nowadays?



The first official family portrait from Mons, Belgium where Alyson and I grew up.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.

Alyson and I spent the day today in our house in Sumter, trying to make sure anything valuable is put away or brought to Columbia. It was in the 90s and it was hot and dusty. I came across some boxes of photos that I haven't seen in ages. I sat through and thumbed through them tonight and I am going to try to scan some of them electronically in the next few days and post them here. Our beautiful house in Sumter was the setting for so many of them and so many fabulous memories.

* Prom photos from 1982 (Mike), 1983 (Kenny), and 1984 (Mortie) - Mostly posed by the stairs in the living room. My hair stayed remarkably small considering it was the 80s but I have a dress copied from Princess Diana's wedding dress that my mother labored over and sewed for me. Usually she sewed in the sunroom and there was nothing she couldn't make - EXCEPT a bathing suit. We tried that several times and it never quite worked out right. I wish I had paid more attention to the sewing. I can cut out the pattern (my job) but could never thread the bobbin.

* Band uniform photos. I think these should be burned. Posed by the sunroom in the living room. At least I didn't wear braces like Alyson but I do see some monster zits on my face. Alyson also has piano recital photos. I played flute and piccolo - don't see any photos from symphonic band - just marching band.

* Photos of me and my friends from high school and college - rugby shirts, t shirts with sayings, dropped waist dresses, lots of teal. Playing cards, playing scrabble, playing drinking games in the den, draping ourselves across cars in the driveway, and posing in front of the front door in Sumter.

* The house after Hurricane Hugo - my favorite dogwood tree ripped up by the roots, the roof in shambles. Photos of Alyson and I playing in that tree. I remember pretending I was a gymnast in the Olympics.

* Gatherings with Grandma Sis and British relatives when they came to visit in the back yard (before its renovation into a Charleston gated garden) and on the side sunporch patio before we realized it was way too hot to ever sit there in the sun in the summer.

* Dinner with the Winsteads, the British Wives' Club, and other friends of my parents. Usually in the dining room. Often, Alyson and I were banned from the grownup parties and sent upstairs. We would try to wheedle ice cream out of our parents by sending notes down tied to the cat's collar.

* Christmas presents opened and displayed - usually done in the living room with a tree in the sunroom or living room and all of us in bathrobes in front of the fireplace in the living room.

Alyson and Dad's House in Columbia

Here's the house that Dad and Alyson are renting in Columbia. It's near Sunset Drive and Main Street in Earlwood, a nice little neighborhood. I'm staying in the office/guestroom with the crazy orange cat named George.

Photos from South Carolina

Just saw this guys photography in the Starbucks in the Vista (boy has that place changed since my days slaving away at Motor Supply Co. Bistro) and I liked a few of his things.


This is the Congaree Swamp near Sumter where I grew up.


This photo is lovely - I once went down here for an afternoon with a boyfriend I had named Shrimper.


The Gervais Street Bridge that leads from West Columbia (where we once saw the Ku Klux Klan recruiting at the Kmart) to the Vista (where I worked for some time and the site of many a debauched evening). Some will remember my infamous vomiting episode on this bridge after the famous snow storm of 1988.


The State House in Autumn SANS the confederate flag on top, thank god.


Shrimp Boats in Mt Pleasant. I have fabulous memories of eating fresh shrimp, ice cold budweiser, and dancing to the English Beat with Mike Dumiak and Bill McIntosh and his wife to be, Holly. What an amazing weekend.

First impressions of Papua New Guinea

I'm currently in Lae, Papua New Guinea - a port town and the second largest city in PNG (as its abbreviated). Calling it a city, however is a bit presumptious. There don't appear to be any buildings taller than 3 stories and its quite spread out. I'm posting a few photos from todays "Fun Run" that I participated in where we walked through the city dressed in green and yellow teeshirts with thousands of others. More impressions to come later.

Photos from the "FUN RUN":

The military men join in running in cadence and singing.


Orange boots keep the mud out!

Dutch Immersion: Bike Prison

I stupidly parked my bike in an illegal spot last Wednesday. This morning, Corinne and I traveled out to Sloterdijk to AFAC, the "bike prison" to retrieve my little Gazelle. Here's some photos from our trip.

When knowing Dutch would come in handy

In general, I've gotten along pretty well in Holland without speaking Dutch. I can now read "menu Dutch" and understand a few words in conversation. I miss reading a daily newspaper and I often feel left out in the daily news because I can't understand the local news (with the very attractive young male newscasters with flowing curly hair and open shirts!!). But its when I'm watching tv (mostly US tv shows with Dutch subtitles) that I really wish I knew Dutch.

I was just watching a commercial where a young guy at a breakfast table takes a banana and pretends to shoot all his family members. He starts going crazy and machine gunning all of them. His family sit there kind of awkwardly and then the screen dissolves to.... a warning about the dangers of video games? an ad for an insane asylum? no. An ad for the Dutch Army. I am dying to know what the commercial says! "Can't wait to kill people? Join the Dutch Army!" "Afraid your son will turn into a homicidal maniac? Enlist him now in the Dutch Army!" It makes me nervous because of media portrayals in the US of Columbine massacres and other schoolboy shootings.

I guess the Dutch Army are in Afghanistan now so there's a good chance that you can join up and shoot people but when I think of the Dutch army, I think of an anecdote my mother told me. In the 70s, we were stationed in Belgium at NATO. My mom told me you could always tell the Dutch army men because they were allowed to have long hair and beards and pierced ears - they just had to pull their hair up in a hairnet. One of my friends from way back was in the Dutch military when they still had mandatory service and he told me funny stories of cycling drunk and drilling with WWII guns - leaving a kind of quaint nostalgic feeling about European military culture. Now that I've been here a year, I have met a few former Dutch military guys at MSF (the non-violent way to go to remote locations and live in violent areas) so I know they aren't all peace and love but its still hard to shake that image of a peace loving Dutch man dressed up to play military in my head. The Dutch Army even has a big float in the Gay Pride parade.

But the 70s Hippie ethos of peace and love and tolerance is not completely accurate for the Netherlands anymore. I've heard rumblings that the city has become increasingly intolerant of squats and junkies and open drug abuse. They've closed down a number of coffeeshops or restricted licenses for new ones. There is talk of closing at least 1/2 of the windows in the famed red light district.

On Saturday, I ran down the street to my grocery store to pick up some stuff for the weekend and as I rode my bike down the street, I noticed that the street was closed off at the end. There were riot police out and the police dogs were barking and snarling at people. The water cannons were on the street along with three or four buses. For more info on this, go here. Sitting all over the street at the end were a bunch of young punk kids. The kids were wearing the traditional uniform of Black Flag patches, Doc Martens, hoodies, ripped jeans, bandanas, that weird ear piercing where you have a giant hole in the middle of your lobe, and tattoos. But most of them looked rather clean and wholesome (that Dutch rosy cheeked complexion and the blonde hair) and very very young. 18 or so. I asked what was going on and one of the kids told me that they had a birthday party at their squat the night before and the police came to close it down because it was too loud. He said when they came out to "negotiate" with the police, the police swarmed in and evicted all of them. He said "Everyone thinks that the Netherlands is cool because you can smoke weed but its not true. The police don't care and they'll come out and kick your ass because they can." And in the Saturday afternoon sunlight, it did seem a bit extreme to use riot police to evict young anarchists.



Its interesting. I'm reminded constantly how much more violent the day to day life in the USA is. I feel much more comfortable walking down the streets late at night here than I have in any place I've lived in the US. The number of deaths due to guns is much much lower here. There is purse snatching in the tourist areas but many of the neighborhoods safe completely safe to walk about in late at night. I don't get nervous when the cops go by me like I do when a typical bullying South Carolina highway patrol man does(mostly because they are so cute on their matching bicycles and the female cops often wear braids - plus its hard to speed on a bike so I'm not nervous that I've done anything wrong). Yet the Dutch have a long military history - from their battles against the Spanish and the English to their colonization of Indonesia to participating in the Korean war and the current Iraqi invasion. Their battles to maintain control of their colony in Indonesia were particularly brutal with mass graves and allegations of torture in the post WWII years of the late 40s.

From what I've read on the web, the Dutch haven't really come to terms with the way they subjugated Indonesians (despite their love for Indonesian food). It reminds me that for all its faults, the US at least has an open culture where one can freely criticize our government and discuss our outrage about Guantanomo Bay and the outrageously wasteful and destructive war in Iraq in the media, in the streets, in our schools. I can't imagine a Moroccon, Indonesian or Surinamese descended Dutch person as the leader here. It was considered news worthy that Nicholas Sarkozy, the president of France was of Hungarian descent. The US is no more violent, really, than any other country. The European nations have a bloodier history because they've been around longer. And the Dutch still need to appeal to violence obsessed video gamers to join the military, I guess. Because they still have wars to fight.