Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Storm clouds (Kampala City Terror)
"Love may not always triumph, but it keeps us human . . . . Perhaps it is the only antidote. And there are times when remaining human is the only victory possible."
-Chris Hedges, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
After visiting Uganda twice in 2009 and having spent most of that time mulling around Kampala I have often told people wary about traveling to the Continent that Uganda, Kampala specifically, is a good first stop to make to get their feet wet.
Unlike neighboring East African capitals, Kampala is a city shrouded by seeming safety. We would often stay out on the town until all hours of the night, something that would be exceedingly more difficult to manage in neighboring Nairobi where the streets shutdown at sundown to anybody who isn't a thug, thief or general and legitimate hardass.
Despite the occasional story of robbery or attempted hijacking (one violent story of the kidnapping and rape of an American expat I remember would be an outlier on the graph), most of the unfortunate stories from Kampala's vault consisted of minor theft and threats - things that happen in any major urban center in any part of the world. It seemed that the most dangerous aspect of the average life of the Kampala expat would be the traffic, especially when on the back of a boda boda (the vulture-like motorcycle taxis that during heavy traffic are your only reasonable way to get anywhere).
All told, getting tossed off the back of a motorbike is probably still your greatest danger should you choose to use such transport, but it's not what your going to be thinking about - not after the World Cup suicide bombings of a rugby club and an Ethiopian restaurant that left over 70 dead earlier this month.
Somali group, and al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabaab have claimed responsibility for the attacks. There have been warnings of such an action for several years but in the end there's not much you can do to stop someone who with a bomb strapped to their stomach.
On al-Shabaab and why; the safety of Kampala:
The stability and safety of Kampala, some might say, has been shattered, but really it seems to me that it's always been teetering on a knife edge. Uganda is a country with a history of violence, from the terror reign of Idi Amin to the child abductions and warmongering of Joseph Kony. Today, despite the reasonably stable but largely corrupt two-decade rule of Yoweri Museveni, the nation sits in the midst of some of the most volatile conflicts of the last quarter-century - Rwanda, DR Congo, Sudan, Somalia. And last year's tribal riots in Kampala were what many are calling a precursor to the 2011 Ugandan presidential elections where Museveni will step down and someone new will fill the power void. Now add to this the gnawing fear of repeat terror attacks from Islamist extremist groups.
As soon as the bombings happened I received e-mails from friends with stories of their experiences and notices that they were alright. The most chilling of these came from a medical professional who was called to one of the scenes and described some savage details of what they saw. I sat around a bonfire in a friend's backyard in Winnipeg as these messages came into my Blackberry.
Nobody I knew was at either of the locations that were targeted, although the Ethiopian restaurant that was hit is literally just up the hill from where I stayed when I was there and a place I have visited before. Seeing pictures debris, overturned tables and chairs, and bloodshed is a little different when it's a place you recognize.
The next day tweets and status updates all had a common thread: It is a sad day in KLA.
At the end of my days in Kampala I would often sit with a drink and a cigarette and watch storm clouds gather on the horizon towards Lake Victoria. Maybe it was the times of year I was there but I rarely saw it storm in Kampala itself. It seemed the clouds would build into thunderheads and rumble to themselves but keep their distance from the city.
Once I began to learn a little more about to socio-political state of Uganda I always thought the storm clouds a fitting analogy - you could see them, perilous, in the distance, but you rarely felt their effects. You know the danger is there but when you see it enough times without getting wet you forget about what they can do.
Kampala got wet on Sunday, July, 11th, and I wonder how long it will be before the next storm hits.
With tried and tired peace but unwavering love from Winnipeg, Canada, where one can't possibly begin to understand.
-Chris Hedges, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
After visiting Uganda twice in 2009 and having spent most of that time mulling around Kampala I have often told people wary about traveling to the Continent that Uganda, Kampala specifically, is a good first stop to make to get their feet wet.
Unlike neighboring East African capitals, Kampala is a city shrouded by seeming safety. We would often stay out on the town until all hours of the night, something that would be exceedingly more difficult to manage in neighboring Nairobi where the streets shutdown at sundown to anybody who isn't a thug, thief or general and legitimate hardass.
Despite the occasional story of robbery or attempted hijacking (one violent story of the kidnapping and rape of an American expat I remember would be an outlier on the graph), most of the unfortunate stories from Kampala's vault consisted of minor theft and threats - things that happen in any major urban center in any part of the world. It seemed that the most dangerous aspect of the average life of the Kampala expat would be the traffic, especially when on the back of a boda boda (the vulture-like motorcycle taxis that during heavy traffic are your only reasonable way to get anywhere).
All told, getting tossed off the back of a motorbike is probably still your greatest danger should you choose to use such transport, but it's not what your going to be thinking about - not after the World Cup suicide bombings of a rugby club and an Ethiopian restaurant that left over 70 dead earlier this month.
Somali group, and al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabaab have claimed responsibility for the attacks. There have been warnings of such an action for several years but in the end there's not much you can do to stop someone who with a bomb strapped to their stomach.
On al-Shabaab and why; the safety of Kampala:
The stability and safety of Kampala, some might say, has been shattered, but really it seems to me that it's always been teetering on a knife edge. Uganda is a country with a history of violence, from the terror reign of Idi Amin to the child abductions and warmongering of Joseph Kony. Today, despite the reasonably stable but largely corrupt two-decade rule of Yoweri Museveni, the nation sits in the midst of some of the most volatile conflicts of the last quarter-century - Rwanda, DR Congo, Sudan, Somalia. And last year's tribal riots in Kampala were what many are calling a precursor to the 2011 Ugandan presidential elections where Museveni will step down and someone new will fill the power void. Now add to this the gnawing fear of repeat terror attacks from Islamist extremist groups.
As soon as the bombings happened I received e-mails from friends with stories of their experiences and notices that they were alright. The most chilling of these came from a medical professional who was called to one of the scenes and described some savage details of what they saw. I sat around a bonfire in a friend's backyard in Winnipeg as these messages came into my Blackberry.
Nobody I knew was at either of the locations that were targeted, although the Ethiopian restaurant that was hit is literally just up the hill from where I stayed when I was there and a place I have visited before. Seeing pictures debris, overturned tables and chairs, and bloodshed is a little different when it's a place you recognize.
The next day tweets and status updates all had a common thread: It is a sad day in KLA.
At the end of my days in Kampala I would often sit with a drink and a cigarette and watch storm clouds gather on the horizon towards Lake Victoria. Maybe it was the times of year I was there but I rarely saw it storm in Kampala itself. It seemed the clouds would build into thunderheads and rumble to themselves but keep their distance from the city.
Once I began to learn a little more about to socio-political state of Uganda I always thought the storm clouds a fitting analogy - you could see them, perilous, in the distance, but you rarely felt their effects. You know the danger is there but when you see it enough times without getting wet you forget about what they can do.
Kampala got wet on Sunday, July, 11th, and I wonder how long it will be before the next storm hits.
With tried and tired peace but unwavering love from Winnipeg, Canada, where one can't possibly begin to understand.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Word (The space between)
It's words just like these ones, symbols of language and culture and being, strung together and given meaning through our shared bank of knowledge.
Letters make words and words make paragraphs but once you've mastered that it's all about
spacing
and doing more with less.
Five well spaced words on a napkin say more than a thousand bad ones crafted to fill page B17. Indeed, it's the spaces between the words and lines that say more than the words themselves ever will. The words are the frame and the vehicle but it's the delivery, the emotion behind, and the spaces between that make up the masterpiece.
The empty spaces are what make you feel at home and make you want to be anywhere but. They make you feel like nothing in the world can touch you because you are, by all means, better than every other hack out there.
Nobody can touch you.
It's the space behind the words that make you believe you can be Dylan or Kennedy or Mahatma. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, because you can be all those people.
You can be anything you want.
What's read between the lines is the fog, the words the rocks, and the delivery is the lighthouse that brings the Titanic back from the bottom of the Atlantic. Master the spaces and you can raise things from the dead by merely thinkng about them.
The empty spaces are what make you yell and cry and feel and understand. Because that's what it's all about - creating something that somebody else will understand the way you want them to understand it. Perception is a fickle endeavour but when done right, it means the world.
And you mean the world to me.
It's also a power thing. Ten dollar words make for expensive speeches. Keep it simple and how it's said and how it's spaced will say the rest. The person who can entice you with a simple sentence that makes you think beyond what is actually said has all the power over someone who takes an explanation, a backstory, and an 8-point five-year plan to mean what they say.
And I mean what I say.
It's the spaces between the words, the quiet lull, the misdirection and simple truth, that can make you come in your pants.
Now that's power.
Word.
Letters make words and words make paragraphs but once you've mastered that it's all about
spacing
and doing more with less.
Five well spaced words on a napkin say more than a thousand bad ones crafted to fill page B17. Indeed, it's the spaces between the words and lines that say more than the words themselves ever will. The words are the frame and the vehicle but it's the delivery, the emotion behind, and the spaces between that make up the masterpiece.
The empty spaces are what make you feel at home and make you want to be anywhere but. They make you feel like nothing in the world can touch you because you are, by all means, better than every other hack out there.
Nobody can touch you.
It's the space behind the words that make you believe you can be Dylan or Kennedy or Mahatma. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, because you can be all those people.
You can be anything you want.
What's read between the lines is the fog, the words the rocks, and the delivery is the lighthouse that brings the Titanic back from the bottom of the Atlantic. Master the spaces and you can raise things from the dead by merely thinkng about them.
The empty spaces are what make you yell and cry and feel and understand. Because that's what it's all about - creating something that somebody else will understand the way you want them to understand it. Perception is a fickle endeavour but when done right, it means the world.
And you mean the world to me.
It's also a power thing. Ten dollar words make for expensive speeches. Keep it simple and how it's said and how it's spaced will say the rest. The person who can entice you with a simple sentence that makes you think beyond what is actually said has all the power over someone who takes an explanation, a backstory, and an 8-point five-year plan to mean what they say.
And I mean what I say.
It's the spaces between the words, the quiet lull, the misdirection and simple truth, that can make you come in your pants.
Now that's power.
Word.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Deerhorn
The Fire
It was one of those watershed moments where you and everything you know is swallowed, shaken, and spit out on some foreign shore. I didn't know it at the time but losing Deerhorn would start a chain of events that would drastically change the next twelve months of my life.
Tinderbox conditions and an unexpected wind shift brought a forest fire down on top of us in the middle of the night. We received no warning from Saskatchewan Resources.
It was a fire that had been burning for over a week and would continue to burn for another two. Earlier that day I had seen it burning like hell had opened up about 40 miles to the north of our camp and heading due east. Worth keeping a close eye on but not necessarily something to be overly concerned about.
It took about a two hours from the sighting of the first flames on the horizon to sitting across the lake from the lodge and watching the fuel tanks explode. Not knowing how much time we had, the staff removed everybody from the site as quickly as we could, telling them to grab their passports and wallets and leave the rest.
Nobody was hurt. We spent the next twelve hours on the lake, dodging heavy smoke and ash as we waited for the skies to clear enough to get a float plane in.
Back at the lodge, after we got everybody in boats and out on the lake, I stayed behind for a while, cutting water lines and trying to hash up some sort of plan to keep things damp enough to snuff out the falling embers. I still didn't believe we were going to lose the camp.
I've never really shown these video clips to anybody.
Getting Lost (Ghosts of Attitti Lake)
There was a magic to Deerhorn.
Simple, rustic, and entirely remote, you would be hardpressed to find anything like it in Canada or anywhere else. Not that there aren't other simple, rustic and remote fishing lodges hidden away in the Canadian backcountry, but there was something about this one. It was the air, the lake, the wildlife, the land - it was special to each person in their own way. There was something haunting about the location, something that got into your bones and your brain and your heart.
It still haunts me.
Below is an open letter to guests and staff I wrote a few days after the fire.
Greetings from Kississing Lake, Manitoba.
It’s been an eventful season.
Kississing’s operations have expanded and shifted, the fish have migrated from east to west, shallow to deep, and new staff members have fallen into our fold like family. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a more capable staff.
On the other side of the equation, an unusually warm and dry spring turned northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan into a tinderbox during the month of June, amounting in an evacuation of Kississing Lake and the unexpected loss of Deerhorn Lodge on Attitti Lake, Saskatchewan.
Losing Deerhorn, particularly in such a hurried manner, was met with a barrage of feelings and memories from a lot of people. It’s clear that the location meant something different to every person who found themselves in its cradle and I’d like to share a few thoughts of my own.
Deerhorn is a place where you can go and get lost; in the atmosphere, in the fish, in the opportunities. It’s a place where problems are purged by a filter of fresh air and the smiling, experienced faces who are genuinely as excited to be there as you are; guests, staff and guides alike. It’s a place for grand ideas and even grander stories of big fish and true, gritty, northern adventure.
Very few fishing destinations boast the spread of easily accessible lakes that Attitti offers. Far removed from any city, town or outpost, and with nearly a dozen bodies of water at your fingertips, a short portage brings you deeper into the wilderness than most have ever been. Getting lost never felt so good.
Having learned over the winter that I would be spending my summer running the camp on Attitti I was enthralled but a little apprehensive. I had spent three summers on Kississing Lake and was familiar with the ins and outs of how a fishing lodge operates. I was also aware that Deerhorn was quite a bit different than what I had come to know over the previous years.
As soon as I got there, however, I felt myself being pulled into the place. It was like Kississing’s little brother with an attitude problem and I couldn’t get enough of it. I let my mind wander and imagined spending the fall, winter and spring on Attitti and really getting to learn the lake and the bush. Max, one of our guides on Kississing, came over with me to guide Deerhorn for a week at the same time. From the second we stepped off the floats of the plane onto the dock he would not stop talking about the place; where the fishing holes are, where he’d seen caribou and moose, multi-colored bears and pickerel with golden scales . . . stories that only the deep bush can produce. It was clear that Deerhorn has a gravitational energy that sucks people in with such force that you nearly have to physically pry your feet off the dock on the way out.
Attitti Lake is one of those unique natural gems that cannot be replicated. When we lost it to the force of the very nature that we admire and respect, the first thing everyone was thinking, and most were asking, was when was it going to be rebuilt. Although Nature came in with fury it still gave the staff and guests enough warning time to evacuate.
It was as if She was saying, “Get out now because I’m coming in with everything I have.”
If you listened closely enough I swear you could have heard an apology echoing between the roar and the crackle.
Now, with building plans moving along with a ferocious energy that seems to be increasing in velocity daily, there is a constant hum at the camp on Kississing about what Deerhorn will now become. The mass of emails we’ve received from concerned guests sending their regards and questions have filled our inboxes and sparked our imaginations.
Despite the loss, this in an exciting time. This is what Deerhorn was and what it will continue to be: A place for ideas, big and small, and constant movement in any direction but where you currently are. Although the buildings are gone it is as if the energy of the place is still around somewhere inside the hearts and minds of everyone who’s ever been there.
It may well be over a year before we can send boats out on Attitti and the surrounding water again but it is clear that this is only the end of the beginning. Until that time comes we will all appreciate what the location means to so many and wait patiently until we can go and get lost at Deerhorn again.
With kind regards.
It was one of those watershed moments where you and everything you know is swallowed, shaken, and spit out on some foreign shore. I didn't know it at the time but losing Deerhorn would start a chain of events that would drastically change the next twelve months of my life.
Tinderbox conditions and an unexpected wind shift brought a forest fire down on top of us in the middle of the night. We received no warning from Saskatchewan Resources.
It was a fire that had been burning for over a week and would continue to burn for another two. Earlier that day I had seen it burning like hell had opened up about 40 miles to the north of our camp and heading due east. Worth keeping a close eye on but not necessarily something to be overly concerned about.
It took about a two hours from the sighting of the first flames on the horizon to sitting across the lake from the lodge and watching the fuel tanks explode. Not knowing how much time we had, the staff removed everybody from the site as quickly as we could, telling them to grab their passports and wallets and leave the rest.
Nobody was hurt. We spent the next twelve hours on the lake, dodging heavy smoke and ash as we waited for the skies to clear enough to get a float plane in.
Back at the lodge, after we got everybody in boats and out on the lake, I stayed behind for a while, cutting water lines and trying to hash up some sort of plan to keep things damp enough to snuff out the falling embers. I still didn't believe we were going to lose the camp.
I've never really shown these video clips to anybody.
Getting Lost (Ghosts of Attitti Lake)
There was a magic to Deerhorn.
Simple, rustic, and entirely remote, you would be hardpressed to find anything like it in Canada or anywhere else. Not that there aren't other simple, rustic and remote fishing lodges hidden away in the Canadian backcountry, but there was something about this one. It was the air, the lake, the wildlife, the land - it was special to each person in their own way. There was something haunting about the location, something that got into your bones and your brain and your heart.
It still haunts me.
Below is an open letter to guests and staff I wrote a few days after the fire.
Greetings from Kississing Lake, Manitoba.
It’s been an eventful season.
Kississing’s operations have expanded and shifted, the fish have migrated from east to west, shallow to deep, and new staff members have fallen into our fold like family. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a more capable staff.
On the other side of the equation, an unusually warm and dry spring turned northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan into a tinderbox during the month of June, amounting in an evacuation of Kississing Lake and the unexpected loss of Deerhorn Lodge on Attitti Lake, Saskatchewan.
Losing Deerhorn, particularly in such a hurried manner, was met with a barrage of feelings and memories from a lot of people. It’s clear that the location meant something different to every person who found themselves in its cradle and I’d like to share a few thoughts of my own.
Deerhorn is a place where you can go and get lost; in the atmosphere, in the fish, in the opportunities. It’s a place where problems are purged by a filter of fresh air and the smiling, experienced faces who are genuinely as excited to be there as you are; guests, staff and guides alike. It’s a place for grand ideas and even grander stories of big fish and true, gritty, northern adventure.
Very few fishing destinations boast the spread of easily accessible lakes that Attitti offers. Far removed from any city, town or outpost, and with nearly a dozen bodies of water at your fingertips, a short portage brings you deeper into the wilderness than most have ever been. Getting lost never felt so good.
Having learned over the winter that I would be spending my summer running the camp on Attitti I was enthralled but a little apprehensive. I had spent three summers on Kississing Lake and was familiar with the ins and outs of how a fishing lodge operates. I was also aware that Deerhorn was quite a bit different than what I had come to know over the previous years.
As soon as I got there, however, I felt myself being pulled into the place. It was like Kississing’s little brother with an attitude problem and I couldn’t get enough of it. I let my mind wander and imagined spending the fall, winter and spring on Attitti and really getting to learn the lake and the bush. Max, one of our guides on Kississing, came over with me to guide Deerhorn for a week at the same time. From the second we stepped off the floats of the plane onto the dock he would not stop talking about the place; where the fishing holes are, where he’d seen caribou and moose, multi-colored bears and pickerel with golden scales . . . stories that only the deep bush can produce. It was clear that Deerhorn has a gravitational energy that sucks people in with such force that you nearly have to physically pry your feet off the dock on the way out.
Attitti Lake is one of those unique natural gems that cannot be replicated. When we lost it to the force of the very nature that we admire and respect, the first thing everyone was thinking, and most were asking, was when was it going to be rebuilt. Although Nature came in with fury it still gave the staff and guests enough warning time to evacuate.
It was as if She was saying, “Get out now because I’m coming in with everything I have.”
If you listened closely enough I swear you could have heard an apology echoing between the roar and the crackle.
Now, with building plans moving along with a ferocious energy that seems to be increasing in velocity daily, there is a constant hum at the camp on Kississing about what Deerhorn will now become. The mass of emails we’ve received from concerned guests sending their regards and questions have filled our inboxes and sparked our imaginations.
Despite the loss, this in an exciting time. This is what Deerhorn was and what it will continue to be: A place for ideas, big and small, and constant movement in any direction but where you currently are. Although the buildings are gone it is as if the energy of the place is still around somewhere inside the hearts and minds of everyone who’s ever been there.
It may well be over a year before we can send boats out on Attitti and the surrounding water again but it is clear that this is only the end of the beginning. Until that time comes we will all appreciate what the location means to so many and wait patiently until we can go and get lost at Deerhorn again.
With kind regards.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Airport chatter and bad weather
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in London-Heathrow listening in on the din around me. Another flight is cancelled, Obama is talking about airport security on the overhead television, and all the coffee chatter is about the deep freeze that has hit Europe, the connections that have been missed, and the warmer, sandier places people would rather be.
Obama switches back to Blitzer. There’s been another shooting in the United States. Disgruntled factory worker.
Then back to the main story of the last two weeks – the young Nigerian man who almost blew up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day. Turns out American intelligence knew about a potential Yemeni-Nigerian threat but a misspelling of Abdulmutallab punched into a database allowed him slip through.
I wonder how many times I’ve averted something potentially disastrous because I took extra care to spell someone’s name correctly
Outside the tarmac is covered in snow. It looks wet and miserable and all I want to do is stand out there in the slop and have a cigarette. Unfortunately I’m trapped in airport limbo; imprisoned in a shopping mall where everything is overpriced, babies cry incessantly, and everybody is eternally pissed off after being awake for 24 hours or more, crammed into flying metal tubes, and then made to take apart their belongings, take off their clothes, and explain why they are indeed just a weary traveler and not another Abdulmutallab with plastic explosives lining their underwear.
Just under five hours before I begin yet another transatlantic jump. I stare at the departures screen, at my ticket stub, and back at the screen. I hope my flight doesn’t get delayed.
I hope someone didn’t misspell my name and blacklist me as a potential terror threat. This trip home is going to be long enough as it is.
I hope it’s as cold and miserable in Canada as it is here so I can stand in it, feel my East African tan fade away, and get back to my old life.
I hope I never really get back to my old life.
I hope you’re enjoying yourself because it’s later than you think. You never know when a pair of explosive Fruit of the Loom’s might have your name on them.
Obama switches back to Blitzer. There’s been another shooting in the United States. Disgruntled factory worker.
Then back to the main story of the last two weeks – the young Nigerian man who almost blew up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day. Turns out American intelligence knew about a potential Yemeni-Nigerian threat but a misspelling of Abdulmutallab punched into a database allowed him slip through.
I wonder how many times I’ve averted something potentially disastrous because I took extra care to spell someone’s name correctly
Outside the tarmac is covered in snow. It looks wet and miserable and all I want to do is stand out there in the slop and have a cigarette. Unfortunately I’m trapped in airport limbo; imprisoned in a shopping mall where everything is overpriced, babies cry incessantly, and everybody is eternally pissed off after being awake for 24 hours or more, crammed into flying metal tubes, and then made to take apart their belongings, take off their clothes, and explain why they are indeed just a weary traveler and not another Abdulmutallab with plastic explosives lining their underwear.
Just under five hours before I begin yet another transatlantic jump. I stare at the departures screen, at my ticket stub, and back at the screen. I hope my flight doesn’t get delayed.
I hope someone didn’t misspell my name and blacklist me as a potential terror threat. This trip home is going to be long enough as it is.
I hope it’s as cold and miserable in Canada as it is here so I can stand in it, feel my East African tan fade away, and get back to my old life.
I hope I never really get back to my old life.
I hope you’re enjoying yourself because it’s later than you think. You never know when a pair of explosive Fruit of the Loom’s might have your name on them.
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