PhotoHunt: remembrance

I was conscious of this post coming immediately after one advocating peace, but there is no conflict. I am certain the people involved in the episode remembered here wished for peace as ardently as any others.

This photo of the Dunkirk memorial on Dover sea front was taken during the summer.  On 11 November, Remembrance Day or Poppy Day, the area will be covered with poppies. The plaque beneath the memorial says it all, I think.

Dunkirk Veterans Association East Kent

This memorial was erected on 16th August 1975, the 35th anniversary of the Battle of Dunkirk.
During the period May 10th to 1st June 1940, 202,106 British, British Commonwealth and Allied troops were evacuated to Dover.

The memorial not only pays tribute to the bravery and discipline of the servicemen, but to the courage of the crews of the armada of little ships which assisted, and the people of the port of Dover who received them.

I am again on my travels this week.  We are moving out of our house by the end of the month, and the place we
hope to call home in the future should be in this historic part of the world.  Life keeps changing.

If you'd like to join in and find other other players, pay a visit to TNchick's site where you can find out more.

Dona nobis pacem: Peace comes dropping slow

I have taken a quote from WB Yeats "Peace come dropping slow" completely out of context, but I was reminded of those words when I read the story of Samuel Mwangi who was caught up in the violence in Kenya two years ago.  He fled his home and is still in a refugee camp with his family.  Before the violence he had a five-acre farm and could have been considered prosperous in that area of the Rift Valley.  Now, two years later, he has managed to find work as a caretaker on a farm, and as a labourer.  He doesn't dare return to his home because his land has gone and he's afraid of being attacked again.

He is hoping that he may be given new land and he would be happy with that, no matter what sort of land it is.  "The most important thing is security".

He says being an international displaced person is like being in jail.  For Samuel and his family, peace is indeed dropping slowly.



"We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life."
- A. J. Muste

"Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict - alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence."
- Dorothy Thompson

"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Peace is costly but it is worth the expense"
- African Proverb

A walk around an English village

A quiet walk in the country at the end of the summer took me to this very typical village in the south of England.

Going up the lane heading into the village.

The village primary school hidden behind trees. The old tree stumps seem to be used to keep cars off the grass.

Thatched cottages. The traditional thatch would be long straw, but this is the shortest lived of the thatching materials. Wheat reed is next most durable at 40 years and longest lived of all is water reed. These cottages and the following ones all appear to be wheat reed because they have a protective covering to keep birds out (not, I think, visible in these smaller photos). Long straw gives a looser, shaggier, "tea-cosy" effect. Water reed doesn't need protection from birds because it's more tightly packed. It looks more angular.

A footpath, one of many criss-crossing the whole area, leading into nearby woods.

Houses along the "main" road.

Another thatch.

Pond, with fish!

The village church.

The school keeps the village alive, but the local shop and post office closed, and had to be re-opened staffed by volunteers. The local pub has also shut down, a combination of drink-driving laws and no smoking. I'm not sure that's the full reason - I think they could have adapted to stay with the times rather better than they did.

A very rural place, quiet and peaceful I wonder how much longer it can continue without becoming just a dormitory for a local town.

PhotoHunt: bags

I have endless trouble getting into this blog this morning - and it isn't even morning any more!  I would have liked to have been able to say "Bags I first!" but there was no chance of that.

Some bags are a very important part of my life.

Just waiting for for a refill for the next bout of travelling.  The bags that travel with me come in every shape, size, and colour, but I'm not terribly particular.  As long as they have the capacity required, they'll do.

I'm a great deal more fussy about other bags.

So wherever I go, I make sure I have bags and bags of tea bags.

If you'd like to join in and find other other players, pay a visit to TNchick's site.  I'd like to point out, after a conversation I've had elsewhere during this last week, that as far as I'm concerned this a is not a closed shop.  All comers are very welcome.

Fish, fowl or good red herring?

What is it?

Read more.....

Ten things under $27 I can live without to change the world

I've just received an invitation from Grameen to help get people thinking about how to make a difference, to help end poverty.

The Grameen Foundation's mission is to enable the poor, especially the poorest, to create a world without poverty.  The first seeds of the Foundation were sown by founder Muhammad Yunus when he made a loan of $27 to some Bangladeshi women out of his own pocket.  That small amount helped the women start their own business and lifted them out of poverty.  If we were all to do without for a little while, the money we would save could go to help someone else.  Small amounts of money can truly transform lives.

So what things could I manage without, things that cost less than $27 (approximately £16.50)?

1. Bottled water.
2. Candles
3. Coffee when out shopping
4. Instead of buying a book, use the library.
5. Newspapers - read online.
6. Clothes dryer.
7. Walk instead of drive.
8. Greetings cards.
9. Plants for the garden.
10. A glass of wine with dinner.

Sigh.  Well, that last item was hard. But when you consider that every day, women around the world are living on less than $1 a day and they have to use use ingenuity, creativity and hard work to make ends meet, sending $27 on the 27th seems the least I could do. 

One example of what a loan through Grameen can do to help is the story of Zeinab in Egypt.  With her first loan of 250 EGP (US$46), Zeinab started her business making wooden pots, crafts, and kitchen supplies. Now, she runs her own workshop from her home with three of her children.

What would you do without to change the world?