Vancouver 2010

It seems a little off-key to post this after John's posts about Haiti.  

We just got back from a few days in Vancouver and the Olympics, staying again with our friends the Masons.  "Going to the Olympics" is one of those things I never thought I would do, and certainly would not have if not for the Masons.  They got the tickets when they were only available to Canadians, last summer.  

We spent Saturday wandering around downtown Vancouver, one large and long party, many streets closed to cars, many pavilions and stages and a zip line high across a downtown square, lots of (not great) street theater, some intersections so jammed it took us ten minutes to get across.  We saw what Canadians call "the Cauldron," the Olympic flame, now more accessible to visitors.  Sunday we saw W's 1500 meter speed skating at a brand new place, The Richmond Oval, in a suburb.  Everyone is very friendly and welcoming, thousands and thousands of volunteers doing the ticket-taking, crowd management, directions.  Tuesday, we were back at the Oval, front row seats for the M's 10,000 meter speed skating, the exciting race in which a Dutch skater broke the Olympic record by over 7 seconds but was disqualified for a lane change violation.  He found out when he was right in front of us and threw his sunglasses away.

Monday we were headed to see the US-Sweden W's hockey semi-final game, at the hockey rink at the University of British Columbia an hour southwest of downtown.  Janet got into the car with a set of tickets she had picked up on the kitchen counter and told Bob Mason "you forgot the tickets," and he said "no I didn't" -- but he had picked up the wrong set of tickets, so we would have driven an hour to UBC and discovered we didn't have the right tickets.  Janet saves the day.  But...

We parked at a UBC garage (they had sent the 40,000+ students home during the Olympics) and leisurely strode across the campus with plenty of time to spare.  Got to the arena and one of those volunteers said "what game are you seing?"  Bob said "US-Sweden."  The volunteer said that game was downtown -- where there is no parking.  So we race-walked back to the garage, and on the way saw a few people with American flags headed the other way to the UBC rink.  Merri Mason said to one such couple who had come on a bus "you're going the wrong way," and Bob offered a ride downtown.  Janet and I talked to the couple and they were laughing: she lived in an apartment two blocks away from the downtown hockey arena (where the NHL Vancouver Canucks play) -- and had a visitors parking space!  So we gave them a lift, they gave us a parking spot and we all saw the game.  

More later, photos, too.  Irony: there was over a foot of snow on the ground in NJ when we left, four straight sunny days without a cloud in Vancouver with no sign of snow anywhere.  Rained the last day.  Big snowstorm in NJ the day we got back.  But an unforgettable experience in every way.  I kept saying "I'm not really here," but I was.

More snow pictures

I was visiting my boyfriend in New York for the big snow and spent the day in Central Park building the largest snowman I've ever built. Here are some pictures.

Love,

Annie

Haiti realities

This is where people get in trouble, writing on personal blogs about their experiences in their work environments, around the globe.
 
So, with that in mind - here goes.  (And don't send this around.  My retirement will start even earlier!)
 
Where to start?  Lots of realities.  And that would be the title of my book about what has been happening in Haiti and my own little slice of Haiti.  Either that or "everywhere you look."
 
One reality is I am spending most of my time inside the Embassy.  I sleep here and have taken all but one of my meals here.  Meals in quotes, as it is mostly sandwiches.  I did give up sweets for Lent though!
 
When I do go out, I don't have to go far to see devastation.  Parts of the city near the Embassy are only touched in a minor way, but the downtown area, where the Palace and the government agencies has collapsed.  Piles of rubble everywhere, twisted, misshapen concrete buildings everywhere.  Lots of UN vehicles, lots of military vehicles indicate a major outside presence.
 
You also don't have to go far to see the spontaneous settlements tucked away in any available land.  The grounds of the national unviersity have been taken, but so have streets, as people are trying to stay close to where they live.
 
Before coming I thought to myself that at least it was not raining.  But that is certainly on everyone's minds now, as the rainy season begins in full force at the end of May and is even now gradually moving toward that with sporadic rains.
 
Before coming, I remember watching the Clinton-Bush press conference the first weekend after the quake, and wincing when GW said "just send cash."  Fact of the matter is now I see he is right.  People who want to do the right thing are coming up with good ideas far removed from the realities of Haiti's needs.  I know, since I did that myself before coming, on a couple of projects having to do with protection of cultural property and on use of social media.  Needs here are so basic, and Haiti's capacity to fix this is so limited. 
 
Even in the two weeks I've been here, I have seen more and more of a routine return.  International press has dwindled, airport has reopened to commercial airlines, markets have come back, lots of traffic, even in our culture section, we are starting to get the exchanges programs up and running.
 
But the challenges are everywhere.  Getting the displaced people through this rainy season is highest, but then it is rebuilding education, hospitals, businesses.  Everywhere you look.
 
Some anecdotes -
 
-- one Haitian woman who works at the Embassy and watched her house crumble around her as she stood in a doorway on the second floor, said that she thought her dog knew ahead of the time that a quake was coming, as he stayed under a bed the entire day before hand. The dog survived.
 
-- a journalist described took about 15 minutes to describe what was going through his mind during the 30 seconds of the quake, mostly in deciding where he should be moving as he was on a balcony and watched the ground and buildings move like waves in the oceans
 
-- lots of heroes.  One university lost its entire campus, but has set up tents in their parking lot for their medical students to earn credits for working in the clinics.  Another is the Muncheez pizza place, where we stopped yesterday and saw hundred of kids from the neighborhood lining up for a free mail served by the business, that they have done every day since the quake.  Our military and our disaster assistance people are incredibly committed.
 
-- And then there is the Haitian people - there were expectations of looting and mass migration and political instability.  None of that has happened.  People have different ideas why, but probably has a lot to do with the character of this nation, people helping their neighbors, their families first.
 
Throughout, I have reminded myself I have a comfortable place to return to, that this is temporary.   Hard to know what it must be like for people who do not have that. 
 
Love from down here!
 
 

Addendum

I classmate of mine from Catholic University was just elected Mayor of New Orleans. He had a double major of politics and theatre (is that an oxymororn?).  

Janet

Snow stories...

I have decided that snow is much prettier to look at in pictures.  Dasha is having enough trouble with pooping outdoors as it is. A foot of snow does not help.  Last night was the Company Dinner for the cast and crew of "Fetch Clay, Make Man," a new play in production at McCarter.  The fictional story of an actual meeting between Stepin Fetchit (go google him if you don't know who he was) and Muhammed Ali. Fantastic production.  Potluck dinner, with many volunteers.  And as bad as the weather and roads were, only one person backed out.  Ben Vereen is the star of the show (he plays Stepin Fetchit) and he was incredibly gracious and nice.  Now - back to the Dasha training. Since we have so much snow on the lawn, I am walking her on the road.  She has decided that when a car comes down the street she should run at it.  Nearly got herself hit this morning. 

This week upcoming is "Mini-Week" at Princeton Day School. I am on the "New York, New York" mini-week. Tomorrow I teach three classes about the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which will include auditions so that the kids can get up on stage when we go to the Apollo on Thursday and perform.  We also get to see "West Side Story" on Wednesday (which of course is the next big storm day), Dance Theatre of Harlem, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Irish Hunger Memorial, El Museo de Barrio... the focus of the mini-week course is the history of immigration.  Tuesday is a ride on the Staten Island Ferry in the morning.  Yay! 40 students on the freezing cold water.  

Have a great week everybody!

Janet

Spring is Coming!

Good evening, or good morning, depending on when you read this........

 

Spring is coming, and my calendar says so..

 

Now here in Rochester we don't brag about our snow........it comes every day...that's something to suffer on; not brag.

 

Yes, we've been following the news; watching radar and "info" people dressed in their best logo'd "L.L. Bean" garb, braving the elements to tell us what we can easily see for ourselves. Yes, we've also made some phone calls to hear that people have survived, and who are looking forward to a normal work day or weekend, without the benefit of succumbing to the elements. Yes, we've also taken a peek at Facebook, to read postings on just how terrible people were in Whole Foods before the storm, and how much snow was in Old Town.

 

You do have to admit the pictures are very pretty; maybe even worth the experience of near record snow, that someday when we are all in rocking charis, can brag to the younger generations, on how we all walked miles through 10 feet of snow to get to school, the mall. work, or where-ever.

Oh, Yeah.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is how we got ourselves dug out of the snow, and how Janet made a really great meal for the cast at McCarter Theater with Southern cooking recipes, and Sean was home for a couple of days, which was nice and all, but he did a lot of the snow shoveling even though I asked him to just take it easy, and how he went back today, that's Saturday if you're not paying attention, which I wouldn't blame you for, because he's doing this big Super Bowl party or something, and all that Pop's Weekly Letter kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into, if you want to know the truth.  I mean, everybody's going to say they got more snow, or had more snow, or will have more snow and all that.  I mean, it just kills me, when someone brags about snow, it really does.  I'll tell you what else kills me, it's that dog Dasha, she's really nice and all, but you take her out in this weather and all she wants to do is eat snow.  She just knocks me out.  So anyway, I'm suppposed to tell you that I am auditing a course at the U this semester, called Geosciences 103, Natural Disasters, I think it's called, but in the third lecture the teacher puts all this calculus up on some slide and I didn't like that at all, I really didn't.  You don't want to hear about me and math.  I mean this is a Geee-ohhhh-Sciences course, if I wanted math I would have taken Math For People Who Actually Understand This Crap, or something like that.  But we're going to do volcanoes, floods, earthquakes and all, and I guess I will give it a try.  Oh, yeah, and with the snow and all, I just re-read Catcher In The Rye.  Like you didn't know. 

=

Whoever said spring is coming....

can be blamed for this snow.  How do you measure so much snow?  You can barely see the raised windshield from the snow on the cars.  The nice full and fluffy shrubs around the house have been crushed and misshapen beneath the weight of this wet snow.  Or, the adirondack chair that now looks like it belongs in a museum of modern art?   I don't care how you do measure it, it certainly is easier to measure when you're inside!   Yesterday was like the day before Christmas.  People were so excited at what we knew was coming.  I think I would have preferred the 1800s living on the frontier when these things kind of crept up on you.  But then again, as we were walking outside last night in the early hours of the storm and saw one electric line down from the weight of this heavy snow, our biggest fear was losing power.  That would have made it just like the 1800s life on the frontier.  Not so much fun after all.   All of this would be ok, if it weren't that I am supposed to get on plane tomorrow noon to go to Haiti for a couple of weeks.  And this is supposed to keep on snowing into the night.  The eternal, naive optimist in me thought they's have runways cleared by noon tomorrow.  Then I heard they shut down the airports all day today.    Mary got out of school early and government was released early.  When I left at 6pm, though, it was pretty much a ghost town, but the snow was still hardly sticking on the roads.  I walked by the headquarters of the American Red Cross and there was a team of people shoveling the walk in front of the building, and there was less than an inch of snow.  Hmm.  Now I know where my contributions went - do you think they coulda waited ten hours until there was a foot of snow?   And no one is talking about the snow day we had on Wednesday.  That was only four inches.  The snow was the excuse for me to stay home, but I was also sick.      But we know the snow is making its way up to NJ, Mass, NY and may even have stopped by Chicago on the way here!  So everyone will have stories.  What are they? Just send an e-mail to Popsweeklyletter.dicksons@blogger.com and let us all see!   One thing good has happened - nobody 's talking about the Super Bowl.   Other than that, we had a Monday night dinner out dinner with Joe and Margaret this week in DC, which was fun and made us old folks feel like young urban professionals again.   We spoke with Annie and she has the week off, so she's heading for New York City this weekend.  Wonder how that will be with this snow.   Mary talked to Grandma who said she had a great time with David and Paula, Jeffrey and Melodie.  Peter and Janet came over with some chili one night.  The snow last weekend prevented me from coming, and Mary had a cold so we missed all that fun.   So, happy snow days; happy Valentine's Day coming up!  Love