http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/TWIG project Together We Integrate Growth/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from TWIG project Together We Integrate Growth en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:12:21 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:12:21 BST Home Today In the UK Home in Devon now after seven months of being away. We finally have ourselves an apartment yay And though the floors are squeaky And the kids are cheeky Wersquore back in the swing Of the workstudy thing. Irsquom writing about ecology And dance improvisation Rich works with kids And needs a vacation But we love what we do And we keep planting trees And planning our http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Devon/Torquay/blog-170270.html From Swaziland we searched again fully and futilely for a nonflight transport mode to get to west Africahellip We found a pleasure boat ride that could take us from Cape Town as far as Angola and drop us off and we heard that from Accra you can take a motorboat to Monrovia but the journey takes about three days and sometimes the boat capsizes. Walking and hitching was seen and recommended a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Liberia/blog-170260.html Hello dear friends and colleagues around the world Many moons it has been since you last heard from the TWIG Project. This is not because we were taken hostage by Maoists on the countryside roads of Nepal and ran into the woods to escape from the siege eating nuts and berries to survivehellip No we write to you now from Dartington in England back in the place we began our TWIG Project jou http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/blog-165549.html Can you imagine what this entry will entail A rickety but relieving border crossing from the land of green onions in more food than yoursquod like to see to the region of curry in the air. Another long jeep ride into the center of Nepal took us to Kathmandu capital of one of the countries with the worldrsquos highest rate of travelersrsquo trots Only a few days later and we were read http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-94071.html We came along to this high land upon the newest railway in the world just built and opened this July 2006. The scenery changing as we crossed from Sichuan into the Tibetan plateau from scrupulously utilized farmland every inch of space used to plant either rice corn peanuts or vegetables to the endless expanses of land on the plateau nearly devoid of people but rich in plant and animal http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Everest/blog-94048.html Much still needs to be said about Nanling. The children we worked with there impressed into our hearts and minds like gleaming lights... the spunky ones the diligent ones the rakish and mischievous ones. Each lesson we would arrive to the classroom early to set up and get ready and each time we would have to hold off the crowd of boisterous youngrsquons clustering around the door trying i http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/blog-94047.html 0530 Lhasa i wake up and m is still asleep. so i put on my gear and head for the door. m wakes momentarily to ask where irsquom off. i kiss her goodbye and head out. first encounter on the main street is a middle aged man dressed in burgundy with a suggestion of yellow or gold underneath. he places both his hands together at his heart and tells me good day i respond with a similar gest http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Lhasa/blog-88078.html itrsquos been six weeks give or take a week or so since our last blog entry and plenty has happened upon and around us. but for the most part this should be about the children.to begin with we posted some information about our project plans in the town and along with it a kind of registration day date and sat back and waited. we expected maybe forty or so kids to attend. we decided to give them http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/blog-85997.html Nanling Forest National Parkon the 23rd of june we arrived in shaoguan train stationwhere we were to meet our hosts for the coming twomonths. representatives of nanling ecotourism huang xinghai and yu ying collected us from the taxi rankin front of the station and took us after some lunch to themountains and our home for the foreseeable future.over the course of these last ten days we have beeng http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/blog-71462.html Hitchhiking is expensive in China. You will be expected to pay a lot if you are foreigners.And so a fast train whisks us south from Beijing. Our sleeper is the picture of lacy cleanliness and efficiency. Our companion is the gracious and courteous Mr. Lee a businessman from Guangzhou.Guangzhou pronounced gwongjo embraces us like a sweaty hug that doesn't stop. Tooling through the cit http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Guangzhou/blog-69991.html see there was these rickshaw drivers rightand they were hassling us okso we give them the slip and as we dothis smiling man sympathizes with us he's a localso we walk and he tells us he's a calligrapherand he's all about helping us and tells ussure i'll show you to the forbidden city.......oh here is my teacher's studioplease meet master chang the famous beijingcalligrapher his father was nat http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-69978.html Rain puddles on ancient stones where emperors trod. Curling dragonsrsquo talons silk wings and sparrows make M twirl and fly. So much space and after the rain we suddenly see the sky http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-66473.html Moscow. Day 0. We move into our sardine can with an Irishman we call Dave and a Chinaman smuggler who crams bags and boxes of rowanberry vodka cigarettes and bricabrac liberally about our cabin and then disappears for three days. Our Chinese conductor speaks zero English and we speak .0002 Chinese and sports only one nametag Conductor no. 186. He cooks himself delicious dinners of dump http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Mongolia/Gobi-Desert/blog-66467.html Red square dancing aware.Pigeons hunt policemen stare.Horse chestnut momentSlows down the flowof business people busying by.Small trees will growGolden eagles captive will cryMonkeys in diapers and on leads are not shyWould you like your photo taken ...with the captive cathedral the editors apologize for the poorer photo quality this time around including the Warsaw entry... we are exp http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-64645.html Thank you Gidget and our Warsaw hostsWe loved collaborative gardening and the view.Geraniums red and a box of herbsAre happily blooming on your porch anew.This dance M gave for your orange treeWas full of zest and citrus zip...The city winked its dark sunset songTo carry us through on our train journey so hip. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Belarus/Minsk-Voblast/Minsk/blog-64640.html ...by Richard Bear barks in the night pigs trumpet deers mew.Malaika in a fright me brave and strong she phew.Food in a tree after a scramble and a pooToo tired to stay awake and worry or woo.So the bag bugs bite and burrow Ew. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/District-of-Hamburg/Hamburg/blog-64036.html Luck has landed us into the middle of a handsome spring quilt green wheat fields blooming yellow acres of rapeseed clean lakes and the neat gardens of Rugzenice our home for the week. The Wienscy family knows about radishes family and real food. Grandma piles the plates high with potatoes and fresh chopped dill and insists you have second helpings of dumplings. And with the imminence of http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Masovia/Warsaw/blog-64020.html Note This entry should have been posted before 'Would you like some tea'G'dancing from South Brent to KazooTczew is to kazoo as Gdansk is to prancingyouI am cuddling a cup of tea and listening to eighties pop music bless him ol' Rod Stewart behind the front desk of our fleabag hotel in Gdansk Poland. Last night we slept in Tczew which in Polish is pronounced 'tuhchev' rather than 't http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Lower-Saxony/Hannover/blog-63825.html One moment Rich and I were standing in the train station at Iwava in central Poland feeling lost and only hours later we were sitting down to a three course dinner cooked by a polish Grandma full of gardengrown ingredients potatoes with chives dill and cucumber salad and homegrown cherry juice to name just a few. We are currently being lovingly hosted by the family of Ursula Carolina and http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Pomeranian/Malbork/blog-62475.html What do the sounds of melting ice growing grass and buzzing flies have in common They're all the internal workings of Noah's Living Room the collaborative artistinresidence gallery exhibition cocurated by Xiaoqian and Liu Ding Chinese artists at Dartington College of Arts.Huge plastic flies made from water bottles flying by hitching lifts on a ceiling fan a tiny grass hillside festoo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Devon/Torquay/blog-60195.html