famous people gather in Cannes

Saturday, May 24, 2014

I don't love literal crowds, and I don't love doing what all the cool kids are doing. But I have been living in southern France for almost two years, and if ever I'm going to go to Cannes, I might as well just visit the famed Côte d'Azur city during its important little film festival. I tried to go with a friend last year, but our attempts were foiled by transportation challenges and not enough incentive. This year, though? Success!

Let's just get this out of the way from the
start - Here's the most famous person I saw that day. Unfortunately, he was a
little too one-dimensional to sign an autograph for me.

Just to prove it really is Cannes I'm showing you photos of.

Reporting live from the middle of star-gazers.

Apparently, if you're at the right place at the right time, you will see real, live famous people.
At least I think that's why unfamous people stake out their spots with much intensity near the red carpets.

This guy was all dressed up for the big event Saturday night, kindly requesting that someone, anyone
 would give him tickets. I really wanted to follow him around all day and see how it worked out for him.
Did he get in? or not?

Look! RED CARPET!!!!

A small crowd was gathered outside this hotel. We don't know whether there was really something
 to see or whether it was an experiment to see how quickly the sheep would follow
 once a few people formed a crowd. Burning life question that will never be solved.

The scene of the nightly movie on the beach for the commoners.
We didn't go, but I bet it was cool.

The hat seller guys appeared to share a fun camaraderie.

A little break from the sun. Cafés are always appreciated.

oh, haiti, we weep with you again

As images of Haiti's newest devastation trickle in, the photograph that has thus far resonated most for me in terms of representing this newest chapter in Haiti's hard story is this picture of the collapsed top levels of Haiti's National Palace. (Photo also available here.)

One day at the end of the month I spent in Haiti in July 2008, my Haitian-American friend Jack took me on a field trip to downtown Port-au-Prince, an area that had been the site of riots over food shortages a few months earlier. Even among some of the missionaries this was an area that didn't have the best of reputations. Jack knew the lay of this part of the city's land, though, so we hopped aboard a tap-tap that would take us from Petionville to next-door Port-au-Prince.

And when we arrived in downtown Port-au-Prince what did my wondering eyes behold? Nothing that was remotely scary. Sure, the riots had really happened: there were lingering broken windows as evidence. But there are not riots every day here. The day I was taking in the sights people lounged in the park like they do on nice days in parks down the block from the office I used to work at in Washington, DC; people went about their business; people sold souvenirs; people went to and fro; people were not menacing.

After nearly four weeks in Haiti, I had been impressed by all the things that don't make it into the bits of news we usually get from the country. I had met Haitians who were working hard for their communities and families. On two occasions new Haitian acquaintances who learned that I was in Haiti as a journalist asked me to tell stories of the good things in Haiti, too, rather than only telling the same stereotypical stories that are always told.

By the time I sat on the tap-tap, frustration was formulating over the reality that the only thing most of America and probably most of the so-called developed world routinely hears about Haiti is that it's the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This is how the country is identified in nearly every news article that covers anything that happens in the country, which usually means some sort of natural disaster or an account of more political instability. These things are true, but Haiti is much more than these things alone.

And so, on that late July day when I stood in front of the National Palace that I had not previously heard of or seen images of (apparently not as famous as its White House cousin in America) I was surprised by its beauty. I loved its architecture and its gleaming white facade, even its nicely contrasting green iron fence. Regardless of whatever political realities it represented, for me it represented the unexpected beauty I had found in Haiti. It symbolically said that Haiti is not only poor, make-shift shacks stacked upon each other. There is hope for Haiti yet, it said, because there's beauty, pride, ability and hard-working humanity here.

So when I see photos of a demolished National Palace and think of the long rebuilding ahead for that one symbolic building, I weep for Haiti. Once again for me it symbolizes big things: why must Haiti's hard-won beauties be stripped away? How I hope that her people will survive this new blow and build a stronger country in place of the one that collapsed around them today. How I pray for God's mercy on these poor, beautiful people, people created in His image just like the rest of us.

*All photos are from my late July '08 visit.

roots

For a few days I'm back where I began. It's a good place to be. Especially while still-cheery autumn sun glints down on Upper East Tennessee's hills and hollers. Today for barely more than a moment I did something I've done all too rarely here, during either my growing-up days among the narrow, windy roads or on my regular return visits to see my family.

In places other than this one, I explore (old-school style, sans GPS). I take the long way home. I take roads I've never driven on before, roads whose destinations I don't know, roads that start out heading in directions I want to go without offering any guarantees they'll continue that way. I walk along sidewalks that may or may not deposit me somewhere I recognize. I meander by foot or by wheel. And I make delightful discoveries. Exploring offers you things you wouldn't receive otherwise.

Post-nice-conversation this afternoon with a fellow traveler who doesn't hail from these parts but has made a home-base here I was reminded how little I've explored the nooks and crannies of this place I still refer to as home, in the way of "home-home" that references roots rather than where my books are shelved. I haven't done things here that I have done in lots of other places I've lived in and visited. Mostly, I haven't meandered with eyes willing to see the wonder of this place. Instead, I went to high school and sewed 4-H aprons and babysat and went on youth group retreats here. Good things all but not really the same as exploring. Living, yes. Exploring, no.

In Cape Coast, Ghana, two years ago now, I stole away for some solitary moments spent overlooking the picturesque coastline, watching colorful fishing boats bobbing on the sea as two men carried fishing paraphernalia down a path and then along the beach. I wondered then if they recognized the beauty they walked in the midst of every day or if they only pondered whether the day's catch was enough for their family's supper.

When I tell people where I'm from, those with any knowledge of this place comment on its Appalachian mountain beauty. I agree. Yes, it is beautiful here. But deep down I feel a bit insincere as I nod my head. Because I'm not sure I ever stopped long enough to take in the beauty while I lived in its midst. I don't think I paused on many mountain paths in the middle of my daily tasks and looked around myself, absorbing just a bit of the prettiness I'd been plopped into courtesy of birth. I certainly didn't explore beyond the usual routes from place to place.

When I've returned to Nashville after various travels abroad, I've come back with eyes eager to see my home (in the home-du-jour, single "home" version of the concept) through a traveler's eyes. What would my new friends think of this place? What would they notice? What would seem odd and incongruous? What would seem intriguing? What would seem beautiful? What would seem similar to their homes? What would be strange and different? What would surprise them and crack their stereotypes?

Today, for perhaps the first time, I momentarily turned those questions toward my home-home in the northeastern tip of Tennessee. I explored just a little. I exited the interstate one exit early and headed toward a nearby road that appeared likely to take me to the farm-fenced, sun-brightened hills that were beckoning. I wound along the narrow asphalt for just a little while, crossing a railroad track, passing old Boone Station, and meandering deeper into the hills. That bit of time was long enough to decide there must be more of it. There is wonder here too.

It's sometimes easy to sell home-home short. To miss its charms for its daily grind. To miss its cow-dotted pastures and friendly-looking houses--scattered in delightfully un-cookie-cutter fashion along shoulderless roads--for grocery store runs and "i"s to dot or for family to visit.

But that's the beauty of travel. Done right, it brings you back home, back to where you began, just better equipped to recognize the wonder of the world you walk in every day as you catch your daily fish and finish your geometry lessons and visit your new niece. Here's hoping for more time spent exploring my beautiful home-home.

rockin' it country style in sudan

I've been moving photos from one computer to another tonight and came upon this bit of video. It made me chuckle, for the pleasant memory it holds, so I decided it's time to share it with you. There are so many stories yet untold from my Africa travels, and I'm still hoping to give those stories life here over time. This is a start.

I met Kennedy during a quick overnight trip to southern Sudan from my base-for-the-month in Uganda. I've been curious about and captivated by Sudan for a long time, so I was really glad things came together for me to get at least this brief bit of time there. Kennedy is the Ugandan aid worker who hosted us in this very remote town. As we flew in, it was clear this was one of the more remote places I'd yet been during my Africa sojourn. The terrain was parched and filled only by scrubby growth. No other spots of concentrated life were visible from the air, outside of the town we were visiting.

Kennedy was great and had such a fun sense of humor. We spent a good bit of time being driven by him between aid sites in the SUV that's so necessary for driving in such places. There'd been some rain recently, leaving behind some very muddy, deep water spots on the dirt road. Kennedy had to do some fancy driving to get us through them. After he'd successfully gotten unstuck in some spot or other, I called up to him from my perch in the back of the vehicle: "You're having fun, aren't you?" He grinned in response.

So in all this driving around, I barely noticed the music lilting from the vehicle's speakers. Someone else commented on it first. I didn't notice it because it just seemed so normal to hear Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and more singing to me. I'd just assumed it was the radio playing all this time. I didn't stop to realize that it was unlikely that there was a country music station broadcasting in remote southern Sudan.

Turns out that Kennedy is a huge country music fan. He was pumping his tapes of country music through the speakers. Kennedy offered me an unexpected bit of home in the middle of this hardscrabble locale. It was fun to tell him about my Nashville home and the country music stars who used to come through my Starbucks line. I was supposed to come back to Nashville and tell them all about the big fan they have in Sudan. :-)

a little more NOLA

One more New Orleans post is live! There's even a recipe included this time. It's clearly a must-see post. Hop on over while the hopping's good. ;-)

trying to get it right

Tonight I chatted with a writer friend who just returned from a couple weeks in Southeast Asia. We talked about many things, of course, and among the richness was conversation about how to tell stories of people we meet in such places, that are so different from our homeplaces, without descending into unfair cliche and stereotype. How do you tell stories of far-away people and places to people back home who've never visited them? How will they understand?

Relatedly, we talked about photographs, as she considers which photos to share from her trip. She realized that in Southeast Asia she wanted lots of photos of people, but when she and her husband stopped off in Paris for a couple days, she specifically didn't want people in her photos. Was she exploiting the people in Southeast Asia?

Oh, how I understand what she's wrestling with. So many people who visit points in Africa or Haiti or other developing countries return home armed with photos of themselves posing with cute kids. I'm sorry to say that I have a harder and harder time with these photos, as well-meant as they are and as much as they populate my own photo album. And it's because of that exploitation question. That sense of white Westerner showing off the good things they're doing for the poor little kids of Africa is something I find increasingly troubling. And it's sometimes all too embodied in these photos.

The fact is that kids are easy to come by in many developing countries. To explain: particularly in warm weather cultures, much life happens outdoors. That's where children play. So they easily notice the strangers walking through their village or down their street. Warm weather cultures, where many developing countries lie, are also often very communal, so communities watch over children and children watch over each other and everyone is friendly to strangers. It's just not so easy to take pictures of children in places like France because culturally the children aren't so likely to be running around without adults hovering over them. It's just all so different. On a related side note, I think that people in India and many parts of Africa, for example, are some of the most beautiful people in the world. So photos of many of them make for stunning portraits. And that's partly why so many people are able to take compelling photos of them. But...

After working alongside a photographer while in Uganda, I've started paying a lot more attention to the kinds of photos that make their way into the literature of development and mission organizations and into newspapers and other media. My photographer friend is a very good photographer, but the reality is that I see his photos repeated again and again by other good photographers. The faces are different but the photos tell the same story. But it's not necessarily a true story.

You see, there's no way photographs can tell a whole story. In the same way movies are almost never as good as the books they're adapted from, photographs need words to give them context. Photos on their own aren't fully contextual. They can be artistic and amazing, but as sole tellers of true stories, they can be, well, misleading. Everything going on outside a picture's frame is lost, unable to be considered by the photo's viewers. All the viewer can see is the way things looked for a split second of time within the space parameters of the photo. Photographs rarely provide back story. They rarely explain what prompted the smile or frown captured by a snapping shutter. All of this missing information can tell a story that isn't true at all.

As I seek opportunities for further work abroad, I'm coming to a frustrating suspicion: I need to be a photographer in order to be certain to be sent to points outside the U.S. Photographers must necessarily shoot on location. There's no way around it. Writers, on the other hand, well, if you're looking to save on travel costs, it's much easier to ask the writers to stay home and gather quotes via email. At a loss, I think, to true story-telling. There's nothing that can substitute for being on the ground in a place, gathering the back story and the outside-the-frame action that the camera can't possibly capture.

Sure, writing has limits too. There's never space to tell everything. And some photographers do an amazing job telling stories through their lenses. But though a picture may be worth a 1000 words, as the saying goes, there are 1000 other words the picture misses. And I think it's those words, composed thoughtfully, that protect a photo subject's humanity and ward off exploitation of the poor people the world loves to photograph.

break a leg

You might as well hear the news straight from the horse's mouth, or so the saying goes and is going tonight: I was very happy to be flying under the radar of the flu/cold causing viruses floating around London infecting my friends. But my luck didn't hold. Those little pests found me. In an act of defiance at not wanting to let them ruin my last week-plus of London explorations (which they have been disrupting since Thursday), I accepted my friend Beth's last-minute invitation to join her for a bit of London theatre, courtesy of a generous friend of hers.

Cold or no cold, how could I say no to enjoying one of the very-London things I haven't yet partaken of these three months past? So I said yes. And am very glad I did (especially if I wake up miraculously mucus-free in the morning). Beth and I found our ways separately (her by bus, me by DLR) to a hidden gem of a performance space that would have been a treat in itself even if the play had been rubbish, which it wasn't, of course.

On tap was The Cordelia Dream, a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's too late and I'm coughing too much to try to offer a review of the play, so I'll just say: it was interesting, intense, dramatic and worth seeing. And it was especially worth seeing at Wilton's Music Hall, a nearly derelict old space with a colorful history that folks are trying to keep alive. Far from the glitz and the suffocating, look-how-fashionable-I-am crowds of theatre central around Leicester (pronounced "Lester," just for future don't-sound-like-a-tourist tips when you visit London) Square, the hall is tucked inside a brick-paved pedestrian road called "Grace's Alley." As you walk down Cable Street in East London toward Ensign Road, there are no real clues that you're anywhere near a theatre. Which means you feel like you've been let in on a secret when you pass through its barnlike and almost miss-able main doors into the warm yellow glow inside. And perhaps you have. One of the best kinds of secrets.

the front doors

Grace's Alley

don't get excited. it's just rain, not snow. it's okay if you get excited about the theatre banner, though.

fyi: go to the right of the staircase to enter the main performance hall.

kitchen reflections

If I lived in London's City of Westminster rather than its Borough of Lewisham, I might have heard Big Ben chiming twelve as I returned from my theatre jaunt, but I don't. And neither did I hear any less famous substitute, as there don't seem to be chimes in this corner of London. Only occasional sirens that are more than occasional (think "very normal") during rush hour. Anyway, my eye caught this intriguing sight after brewing a cup of pre-bed tea (chamomile, vanilla and honey. Yum!) and grabbing a literal midnight snack. My camera was on hand and the lighting was sure to be different in the morning. It was a now or never moment. And like the worst storytellers, I won't leave you in suspence. I went with now.

You might call it "Still Life in the Kitchen."

You might call this "Alien causes flower stems to grow mysterious bowl of oranges. (No one has been able to get to the bottom of this yet.)"

happy thanksgiving!

My cousin Melissa arrived in town Wednesday night, just in time to make it feel like a holiday weekend. She is stopping by on her way back home following a few weeks of travel in Madagascar and Mauritius.

On Thanksgiving Day we headed out to Cambridge for a few hours on our way to Thanksgiving dinner.

Since I don't actually have any pictures from our dinner, I figured I should include this food picture from a market in Cambridge in honor of the meal. From Cambridge we proceeded to Huntingdon where we joined a proper American feast courtesy of a friend of mine who was visiting his aunt and uncle and invited us to join in.

Nearly at the end of our Thanksgiving Day, we were thankful to be able to wait indoors for our next train instead of out in the cold.

And to you and yours....HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! (a day late)

round 1 of italy photos - from jessica's camera

When you work in the kitchen, you get to eat scrumptiousness before the retreat kids arrive: hot brownies, real raspberry sauce, chocolate chips melted by the hot brownie and whipped cream on top of it all.

Apparently cutting and serving pizza is serious business in Italy.

The logistics/teaching team for the retreat: Jessica (MCYM staff person), Kami, Cheryl (Jocelyn's mom), Jocelyn (MCYM staff/main teacher/speaker for this retreat), Jaime (Jocelyn's friend), Tido (MCYM regional director).

I enthusiastically manned the "Olive Oil Shop" for a couple hours at the end of the retreat. This is grown and bottled across the street from the retreat place by the Ammirabile (sp?) family I mentioned having lunch with. Notice how green it is? That's what olive oil looks like when it's first bottled during olive harvest time, but the green part (the chlorophyl?) settles out by the time it reaches American store shelves.

View from the back of the main retreat building. Even more stunning in person. All those gorgeous Tuscan pictures you've seen are true.

Pretty stand of trees along the nice country walk Jessica and roommate Stephanie and I took by walking down the road from their house. (i.e. they could see this every day if they wanted to!)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is really in Pisa! (confession: Before learning that I would be in Pisa, I had never before stopped to realize that the "leaning tower OF PISA" was anything other than a name. I never realized that that probably meant there was a town called Pisa somewhere.)

We were trying to make ourselves look nearly as interesting as gorgeous San Gimignano in the background in it's stony, towery glory.

next apache is the name

Life feels as it should today. I’m in Bratislava in a slightly smoky, cozy tucked-away café (that gets extra points for having a roomful of used books—in English--for sale), and I’m typing away, working to tell the story of a great London-based charity, wishing I could spend more time with their clients and have more space for words to tell their stories. The room I’m in was mostly empty until just a bit ago. Julie is in another room meeting up with some women for a Bible study. The main room of Next Apache has filled up, but since the other patrons are speaking Slovak to each other, I’m not so distracted as usual as I try to block out the conversations around me. In this cozy space, Slovak sounds prettier than it has to me most of the time here.

Two other quick anecdotes before I jump back to what I should be working on…

My Italy travels produced a new entry in the story of my crazy job. Thursday afternoon after my arrival and after one hour of sleep the night before, I was doing a quick email check in my friend’s office while she shopped for retreat food. Then I planned to take a nap to shake off a bit of the fog of small sleep. Well, the email account I check less frequently contained an email from a Nashville acquaintance-friend asking if I did musician bios and if there’s any chance I could write one for his new band by the next day. They’d decided last minute to apply for a music festival and Friday was the deadline. I generally don't turn down assignments unless there's really just no way to finish them on time, and I've been on a working holiday more than a vacation these past two weeks. So with a couple email exchanges we decided to go for it.

I collected a bit of info from him via email, took a quick little nap until my friend returned to her office, emailed Jeremy her office phone number, and then participated in a conference call: me in Italy, Jeremy in Nashville, and his bandmate in Canada. Then, between that night and the next morning before Jessica and I left for the retreat, I whipped out the fun assignment. And it was more fun for the fact that I had to get it done so quickly that it never even made it onto my to do list, so I could never feel behind on it. :-) And it was nice to have a connection back to Nashville for a few hours.

Anecdote #2

Sunday was a really lovely day here. After church Julie and her roommate-ish/co-worker-ish/friend Heather and I went to lunch at the home of some friends of theirs from church. Karen is from New Jersey, and Lubo is from Slovakia. They have a nine-year-old daughter Alexa. They live in a lovely house outside Bratislava in the village of Marianka. Our lunch party was rounded out by Nick, an Australian ESL teacher, and Roger, a British businessman in Bratislava for a week who found the church on the internet. So it was quite an international collection of people.

We had a really delicious and leisurely lunch followed by our choice of coffee or caramel espresso. I chose the espresso courtesy of my week in Italy (not courtesy of my five years behind the Starbucks bar). Then late in the afternoon as dusk was arriving we all went for a walk to the village center, stepped inside one of the oldest churches in Slovakia, and toured the stations of the cross set up along a path bounded by tall, old trees. We returned to the house and sat around on very comfortable couches enjoying hot drinks and good, thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation. Such a nice, leisurely way to pass a Sunday.

However, Heather, Julie and I thought we’d been trapped in the Slovakian Bermuda Triangle on our way home. The buses and trams we needed seemed not to be working, and what should have taken us an hour tops took about 2.5 and included multiple walks back and forth between different bus and tram stops. Not so lovely, but it ended well since we got home eventually. :-) Oh, and by then it was raining. And cold. Everyone’s favorite end to a really nice day. :-)

Okay, that’s all for now. Next entry will be posted from London. I’m off to pack up for my evening flight. (Oh, yeah, I’m no longer at the cute, cozy café. A few hours have passed since the beginning of this entry. :-) )

quick trip to oxford