Observations

I flew back to the States yesterday to have some holiday time with my family. Some (rather cranky) observations:

  1. Noise seems to be inescapable; especially in American airports, there seems to be the constant drone of music and announcements. Many tend to be ominous pronouncements about security, “If you value the lives of your children, please do not leave them unattended at any time; unattended children may be confiscated and destroyed by the Transportation Security Administration.” I had a several hour layover in Chicago (which is not all that bad of an airport considering); and felt like I was under a constant aural assault from loudspeakers, squealing carts, televisions, and all manner of buzzing bleeping things.
  2. People in America are fat; every time I leave and return, I’m shocked. I’ve just finished critiquing a report on the increase of obesity in Britain; but the UK can’t yet compare with the US. For some reason, many of the TSA screeners seem especially overweight. Several of them had great globules of flab hanging over their belts; this does not bode well for their ability to chase down random baddies (though, since security are not all armed, perhaps falling perpetrators is a strategy—some sort of soft enforcement).
  3. The sensors in toilets need better artificial intelligence. I don’t know how many times I’ve been on a toilet that prematurely flushed. One yesterday flushed three times whilst I was on it. I finally discerned that, if I remained completely motionless, it would not flush. I wonder if there is a ready solution (i.e. affix a post-it-note® over the sensor)?
  4. Food on airlines (American Airlines yesterday) can, indeed, taste as horrible as food in hospitals.

Blochairn Fish Market

At 4:30 this morning I awoke to go to Glasgow’s fish market (with my Food Culture and Agriculture classmate, Kate). Fish markets are filled with bustling stalls of people, fishermen hauling in the morning’s catch straight from the sea, vendors shouting out the stock of the day—trying to get the best prices for whole fish, fishmongers wandering about trying to talk prices down between one vendor or another, everybody moving here and there to get fish as fresh as possible out in shop windows by the time people are standing in line to buy this evening’s dinner!

Or, that’s what it was like 25 years ago. This morning, as we walked into a nearly silent building, we saw a dozen or so men quietly moving Styrofoam containers filled with already filleted fish and ice into vans. Most buyers place orders electronically the night before for delivery the following morning. There were once 50 or 60 independent fishmongers in Glasgow; only a few remain today. “People don’t want to mess with fish” said one vendor, “they’d rather buy something pre-packaged and vacuum sealed from the supermarket.” The supermarkets, because of their size, bypass the fish-market altogether and buy fish at auction. This has greatly diminished the wholesale trade. “We used to have forty wholesalers here twenty years ago, now, well, look around there are only about eight of us left on the floor.”

There didn’t seem to be much on at all this morning. Everyone seemed eager to speak with us; it was as if the men lacked human contact. “It’s exciting to see a new face now and again” quipped one vendor. “It used to be filled with people, lively, you’d see your regulars; sometimes a fight to cheer things up.” One can just walk in and purchase fish directly from the vendor; but, apart from a couple Chinese fellows picking up lobster, there were few people browsing about. (The lobster were flown in from Canada! It’s apparently difficult to fish North Sea lobster in winter, but the market demand for off-season lobster is great enough to transport them by air.)

The facility has become less of a market in the traditional sense and more of a transport depot (indeed, it’s not a place one would readily walk to or stop in, it’s “outside” the realm of everyday city life just off the M8 highway). One vendor said, when he started years ago, his firm had one van for delivery. Now they run ten. It seemed more of a building for moving white boxes back and forth than a place where life and food connect. This came through in the stories of several men; “It’s soul destroying” said one. It didn’t sound like there was much draw to working in this business; where once one was part of the everyday flow of life, now there are crates and the back end of vans.

One man pulled out a (beautiful) fillet of haddock; “You know how to tell haddock, do you? Look, here the sides, see these dark patches? They’re called ‘Peter’s Prints.’ You know, from the Bible, Peter the fisherman.” The patches are on either side—marking where a human hand might hold the fish. We are losing this connection; the fish has become something distant, something we want canned or sealed and ready to serve. I head the sound of lobster claws against a Styrofoam crate; we’ve closed life and death away in insulated boxes and shipped it round the world.

Ethical Walking

Every time I ride the subway into the city from my place it’s about £2 roundtrip (a little over $4 USD). However, it only takes me 45 minutes to walk to school, so I’ve been walking most of the time. My erstwhile comfortable casual shoes (Czech made Bata) aren’t made for pounding the pavement though. So, this morning, I set out on what became a small quest for new shoes.

It’s easy to find shoes; in a given city, on a walk from here to anywhere, one is likely to pass a dozen shoes shops. Each will have full windows of the latest fashion or discount pair. It is, unfortunately, difficult to find shoes if one is looking for a pair that weren’t made in a sweatshop somewhere in Asia.

I went from shop to shop, searching and lamenting my sore feet (probably not the best idea to shoe shop with sore feet). Finally, I came upon a store stocking New Balance shoes (made in England). This was the first shoe store I’ve been in that has a “museum” to a certain type of shoe. There is a room in this store with a timeline of New Balance history, how they still manufacture their shoes in England, the innovations, etc. It was especially informative (and I feel like I may have joined some kind of cult—with 10% off on sale).

So now I have a pair of sporty English made New Balance shoes to trounce around town. We’ll see if my legs and feet fare better now.

Living by Metaphor

We had last week the first session of Food Culture and Agriculture, a course on how societies view the growth of food and the customs that surround it. “Customs” here are far-reaching; we are not merely discussing table customs, but the cycles of consumption and waste that are necessarily connected to our “modern” food “industry” (perhaps food should also be in quotes as the pre-packaged frozen salted preserved irradiated bar-coded best-by dated substance purchased in the supermarket bears little resemblance to what was once considered cuisine).

There are any number of criticisms one can raise concerning food culture; there are arguments that we have larger issues at hand to consider. However, until the Industrial Revolution, the world was based on agrarian societies. We planned our years based on agricultural cycles; we lived near the soil. Now we think of soil as something dirty. It is something dead and dusty that gets tracked into the house and must be vacuumed up and disposed of (as an aside, most of the dust in one’s home is dander or the faecal material of dust mites who have fed on sloughed off skin). At best, we look upon soil as an inert medium in which we grow plants.

We consider ourselves the benefactor of the agricultural cycle. However, we are not the end product of agriculture; plants and produce are not the final product either. Soil is the product of agriculture. Without the regeneration of soil, agriculture is impossible.

I’m going to meander and come back to this in later postings as I’m interested in the interplay between the environment and religious belief.

We all live by metaphors; societies function by the consensus of ideas (or, to be harsher, often we live by the consensus of delusion). The primary metaphor of western society is that humankind is cursed and in need of redemption; we’ve been developing the components of this metaphor for the past several thousand years and its influence and consequences have now spread over all the Earth. We are a fallen race; the consequence of the fall is this:

And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
—Genesis 3:17-19 KJV

This has been the basis for social custom and cohesion for millennia; the primary activity of humankind has been to toil in the fields. Yet, suddenly, within a few generations, we have surpassed this original curse (and burdened ourselves with a new one). These verses tend to get read through quickly, as if they are of secondary importance to the whole “we’ll be fighting against Satan till the end of time” thing. But, what we fight against is dust. The felt consequence of the curse are not primarily the fight against cosmic forces or the fact that we have to wear clothing; it’s that we will forever struggle against dust. And we are made of dust; we face an intractable situation. We are bound to tend the soil till we return to it; or, at least, we were until we unleashed the powers of industry on the world.

I wonder if the environmental and societal issues we face now are rooted in a grand attempt to abandon the metaphor of dust. What greater power could our species show than to gain the upper hand on God and his feeble curse? What greater expression of pride could we display?

Yet, in this attempt, we drain life from soil. We have replaced life with chemistry and killed the mystery. The substance of our lives is humus; but it is this substance we seem to disdain and distance ourselves from. I think that, unless we return to a closer understanding of soil and the consequences of its loss, we can never have a healthy respect for others (or for ourselves, for the future, for the environment). If we do not consider or respect the base substance of life, there can be no respect of any living thing.

Disturbing

Today I read one of the most profoundly disturbing things I’ve seen in some time. One of the big supermarket chains here in the UK is experimenting with “in-store chaplains.” It’s a way for churches to “get involved in the community.”

Buckie and back again

Last night, I returned from Aberdeenshire in the North of Scotland. Some of the Human Ecology students went this weekend on the invitation of one of our cohort, Gerry, for trekking about in the country (special thanks to the whole Aiken family for letting all six of us sleep about on your floors and beds).

First, there is a lot of open space in Scotland; it’s a country made for walking around. Second, it’s made for pleasant walking (unless it’s absolutely pealing rain and wind which, thankfully, this weekend it was not).

We arrived in Buckie, a small town that was formerly a fishing village (however, as the stocks have collapsed, it is no longer. The fishing harbour lies silted up and there are only remnants of the past economy). That’s not to say that the town itself is run down and depressing; they’ve moved on to other ways and means (I get the impression that Scots are fairly industrious in that regard). It was however—grey; every building was grey, the rocks were grey, the sky was grey, the grass was an amazing eye-piercing green. This was the farthest north I’ve ever been; I can’t imagine what it will be like in a couple months when the days are even shorter and greyer. I think this must be why Scots seem to be such good conversationalists; in the winter months there is little else to do (may also hint why they traditionally have large families).

We walked mostly along the coast; the coast looks just like what it looks like in books and films. Which means that I expected the English to try invading at any moment only to be repelled by hearty men and women in kilts—or just the quiet wind and mist to continue unmolested till the sun sat. (Note that I did not take my camera this time; it’s not that I’m tired of taking pictures, I’d just like to see some things without having to think every moment about the camera…but it’s a definite pack-along next time).

Then, the highlight, we went to spent the night at a Bothy (these are old stone houses in the wilderness that are now used as overnight shelters for hikers). We went to a wildlife preserve which, oddly and perversely was wired with lights and sound for “Between the Two Worlds” event. A three-hundred year old tree was rung with flashing white bulbs and speakers playing what can only be described as “faerie music.” It was quite disconcerting.

The bothty itself stood alone in a wide glen surrounded by heather and small bushes. And it was quiet. And dang cold. Fortunately, we had chicken and mushrooms and mince pie and scotch whisky! We built a fire in the fireplace and had conversation and eventually fell asleep with the fire dying down…then I woke up with food poisoning. What is this, my curse! What do I have to do? stop eating?

So we had to walk out (after I had vomited about four times); the guys wiring up the trees and heather were kind enough to give us a ride into the nearest town. I saw the country doctor (perfect image of Scottish doctor; wearing tweed, frumpy leather shoes…) He gave me a shot in the butt (which is sore today) to stop the nausea (and, since I’m in the UK and they have national health care, this didn’t cost a thing). Then, after a couple trains and taxis, I finally got home to my own warm bed. (Here I have to send good onto Gerry and Stephen who stepped me through the whole thing and helped my back.)

Next time I go anywhere, I will only eat in people’s homes or just eat vegetables. Will definitely go trekking again though; think it could be addictive here.

Words come back around

This was written by my friend Sara; it’s so good, I’m re-posting it here:
When I Find the One that Likes Me Too

Instead of hours, on and on,
over pints, or through the park
about my Past,
I’ll take you to SkateLand, where we will couple’s skate,
skirting the fallen, popular tweens, one standing, the other,
a half-circle Sit-N-Spin on the seat of jeans

We will go to the Air and Space Museum
to pulverize astronaut ice cream like florist-foam, brown
and pink. There, a shy girl-nerd studies the suspended
Cold War jet, the IMAX marquee, various capsules,
diesel Blue Birds idling in line,
vehemently ignored,
by nerdy, high-school boys

We’ll go to a symphony at a conservative religious university
and hold hands. No longer library staff, I will
not police the stacks for stolen kisses.
We’ll instead pretend to look up Ezra Pound and,
between the shelves, I’ll take your lapels,
a mix of permission-asking and desire,
and kiss you, there, myself

Sit on the couch,
at dark 5-o’-clock while I write
and the dim light shows up ghosts. You
won’t see them, but you’ll believe, for me,
and I won’t be afraid, with you.
And that’s all you’ll need to know.

Video from Congo and Albania

After a couple years; International Ministries has finally posted some video from my trips to the DRC and Albania. I did most of the videotaping of this material. Francisco Litardo did all the editing and post-production (he is the narrator and, I’m assuming, chose the swanky hep muzak as well).
First, an overview of their work in Albania:

Then, Into the Heart of Darkness:

And Wayne (note that the video rather sounds like Wayne and Katherine are siblings that later married and came back to Congo as missionaries; don’t fear, they grew up in Congo as the offspring of two distinct sets of parents).

And, this is the kind of thing that makes me bust out crying behind the camera…

I’ll not post them all here; you can go to the God at Work page on the International Ministries website to see more. There are selections from all over the world showing what IM missionaries are up to. One thing I especially respect about them is that they are looking at the real physical needs of people instead of just dropping Bibles from 10,000 feet. The IM missionaries I’ve worked with are seriously dedicated people who are right there on the front lines with people in palpable need. Even if you don’t share the same religious ideology or fervour, it’s the commitment these people have to making real change in the here and now of people’s lives that commands respect.

We spend all this time and effort to get the highest quality video possible; I obsess over all the technical details—and the final product gets compressed down and shown on YouTube. Alas.