beentouring's Guestbook

What a fascinating (if slightly damp) day, exploring spices. as for other "stuff", I admit that I had never thought about where kapok comes from until I saw your photo. Amazing. I love your description of your shopping adventure - avoiding the scarves with difficulty and the jewellery with ease. My own hard/easy would be different - and I find that more things are in the 'easy' category as I get older.

Another ocean - and a warm one! Lovely. I empathize with "screen washout" - it can be a real problem, but it seems that at least some of your shots worked out. I empathize also with your group member who hit his limit. Someone I know who went back and forth to Guatemala professionally (and whose Spanish and Mayan-language facility is excellent) used to say that after watching students come and go, she figured 3 weeks was about as long as people could (usually) be open to cultural/linguistic differences. After that, many people just found them annoying. I expect there's a natural range in this capacity (as in most things) and I'd like to think that we can learn to be more open, but it's a real thing and not any better if it's pushed down or treated dismissively. A good thing, i think, to do a "formal" farewell. I've seen people leave groups for various reasons, never to be acknowledged.

So much colour in the school! Lovely - and much ahead of any school construction I saw in Guatemala, which was all unadorned concrete block with high windows. And so much colour in the airplane view of Zanzibar City. In my teens I read a historical novel of Zanzibar where the Arab king fell in love with the green of Zanzibar, compared to the desert of his home. I love the story about the BC'er who "converted."

What an amazing "last drive." It's interesting to see 3 roughly similar yet completely distinct body types in the zebras, wildebeest, and gazelles. And of course, the birds! That secretary bird looks ferocious (and e-Bird more or less confirms my reaction: It prefers open rangeland and savanna, where it strides about hunting for reptiles, small mammals, and insects, which it bludgeons with its powerful legs.) That eagle head on crane legs is quite a combination.

What a spectacular day, documented in some spectacular shots/video, especially of the "chase". As a creature at the top pf my own food chain, it's perhaps illogical for my sympathies to lie with the prey rather than the predator, but so it is. And that Lilac-breasted roller is stunning.

African hockey fan?
Couldn't help but notice there's a man in photo #17 wearing a blue hockey t-shirt. I suspect you didn't discuss the Calgary Flames with him.

Our farmers work hard but at least they're spared having to time harvest to fend off baboons! Loved the video of the cooks.

What a delightful day for you - and for your hosts, I expect. Always nice to have people take an informed interest, and to have any point of shared contact (like your name).

Fascinating to read about the sustainability efforts - and successes - from just one venture. It sounds like a lot of hard work, but also a high level of creativity. (It reminds me a bit of Costa Rica, where every house in the countryside grew rice, beans, various fruit trees, and had chickens (at least). With school (including university, I believe) and healthcare provided through the tax base, it put a different look on poverty than the one I'm used to.)

Boy, I wouldn't think that crop of dried grasses offered any nutrition for the gazelles (as seen in the video). The "garden" photo makes better sense to me: at least some of the ground cover is green! On the other hand, it looks almost staged - so many animals. and so numerous. What an experience. On other matters, I didn't know that ostriches run a communal nest. I know that ducks here (and geese, maybe?) sometimes "gang up" their ducklings/goslings in little water-borne flocks of 20 or more, but I've never heard of any that go that extra step of sharing nest space. Interesting.