Maono 2012-2013-2014

Maono means vision in Swahili. My daughter Maya and her partner Bram have worked very hard to make this project work during these three years. Maya being a futurist has developed road book with tasks all having to do with images of the future. Bram's pictures and films have contributed to the great visual aspect of the project.
The three closing days at the VUB Salle Nelson Mandela where very intense. Two students held incredible speeches about how thinking  about the future and having the exchange with the local students and artists had changed them forever thanks to Maya and Bram.
Here you find a short video with an overview.
The following day a walk through Brussels was organized with all the colonial and post colonial aspects highlighted. Interesting, even on a cold day. The buildings, the banks, the administrative centers, Matonge the African section of Brussels, we saw it all and had even a nice moambe with chicken and fried bananas and saki saki for lunch. The project took place in Lubumbashi, Katanga and also yielded literary results also as a comic strip and some paintings and lots of photographs holding a view of the future.

May first - Antwerp Flanders Belgium

 Each in his or her own way participated in the first of May solidarity with the workers and needy of this world. Be it blowing up the red balloons to be released at the end of the march in front of the town hall. Be it a young boy from Chile carrying the flag high and proud.

There was also protest against the new right wing Mayor.
Three old ladies with balloons, happy to see the crowd walk by, old party members so they wouldn't miss this day. The crisis hits these people hard. Of course trade unions for the different sectors of industry were there and big foreign delegations from Latin America, from Kashmir, Sri Lanka and a real active and committed group with fun songs  carrying serious messages. And the Walloon comrades were welcome too...

Transits

Transits always were interesting to me, maybe because I am more aware of my curiosity, wondering about what changes will come. Finally peace in Syria, I hope. A durable solution for Gaza. Finally gun control in the USA. Friendship and warmth in the inner cities in Europe even in Antwerp with a mayor who doesn't exude either of these qualities. I have been blessed by an evening with my parents, an evening with a more than kind German family and also with the best Moules Marinière I have ever had at the home of dear friends, where the blanket of warmth and friendship covered me kindly. After the famed apple cake followed the official and non official fireworks forbidden by the just mentioned mayor. People have lit more fireworks than ever before so 1-0 for the citizens! The not liked mayor started his job on January first. We saw the city being cleaned up after the latest revelers went home to sleep it off. And then the birthday of my daughter in a truly international, multilingual gathering with nice food, a Belgian shrimp cocktail, Syrian delicatessen with the best humus and bulgour preparation, with pastries send from Damascus. The factory still standing.... It is great to meet friends of friends, colleagues, photographers, a musician, Cat lovers and dog lovers, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. It is great to be part of humanity!

Love and peace for all on earth!
And don't forget we are all citizens don't stand by idly, be useful.

Snow - and refugee camps on the Syrian borders

The first minuscule snow flakes made me smile, hid the church-towers in the distance like a fine fog. Then the flakes grew bigger and I saw the roof tiles getting fluffy edges and the flat roofs turning white. It quietens the city. Time to think and meditate. I have seen pictures of the official Syrian refugee camps in Turkey. In this horrible war cluster bombs are being used in the cities. It is a known fact that those kill mainly children rummaging among the debris of their homes. So families flee with their children and their elders and end up in the no-mans-land between the Turkish and the Syrian border. These people have nothing. Turkey is nice and warm in summer but now there is a harsh winter too. Blankets, sleeping bags, tents is the minimum a family need to protect itself from the elements. The Pen Writers in Prison Committee still received messages about human rights violations in the beginning of the destruction of the country. Now since months and months nothing came through. It is also a shame how cities on the United Nations list of cultural heritage of the world are bombed to smithereens, regardless of the inhabitants. I know people looking for a way to help, to make a difference, if they found a way. I'll let you all know. It is a humanitarian emergency.

Cinema Inch'Allah

There are good day’s to be taken out of one’s own world and to be introduced to another. On such a day an invitation  from my daughter to join her and go and view a documentary by Vincent  Coen  & Guillaume Vandenberghe was welcome, also because mu curiosity was peaked by the title of the documentary. The film team followed over a couple of years four Belgo-Moroccan filmmakers living in Brussels. They started as teenagers with a small handheld camera, filching it every time the father, rightful owner of it, wasn’t around. In the course of the documentaries we see the evolution in the camera’s they acquired. It is a generous movie: we gain an insight in the otherwise closed world of Moroccan families. We see the difference in treatment of a daughter and the wife of the same man. We see the longing of a mother to become a grandma and admonishing her son the get on with it. Doing it in a a formalized way so that it looks almost like she acted her request with typical ways of moving and of looking. We also see Brussels, to many Flemish people an extraneous entity from where the country is governed and where the royal family lives. We also witness the personal crises of Farid: from the bad relationship with his family when filming and starting to question whether it is ‘halal’ to film at all since Islam forbids the portrayal of anything living. So he radicalizes and this is a bit too prominent in the documentary. For instance the success of the actor Reda is all but lost. The four friends have several films under their belt, projecting their fears and hopes. The wonderful thing is that they show the prejudices which are held against the Moroccan community and by making their films, they claim the right to define themselves.Worth while!

Breathless in Antwerp

City life can be really dusty. Especially fine dust is a real killer. In many European countries the freeway is still cutting cities in half, causing noise pollution and also a lot of fine dust being spread through the cities, causing lung problems. There are communal elections coming up. The aim of today's gathering was to raise awareness and to ask people to vote for one of the four parties - ranging from a pro industry party - called 'liberals' but not in the American understanding of the word - to the greens and a left wing party involved in health service 'medicine for the people'. In Antwerp there are two contenders to become Mayor, yet none of them were present, nor seem they to be interested it what is a very important issue. Covering the ring, making a tunnel, for the 300.000 cars a day which impact over 300.000 inhabitants would provide cleaner air. The citizens would breathe better and be healthier. The city expects 100.000 new inhabitants: schools, kindergartens, social housing all has to be build. In covering the ring, a green lung for the city would be created and new space where the urgently needed provisions could arise. The through traffic would be lead around the city in what is called the Meccano plan. To show support for the plan four poets read, among whom the former City Poet Laureate, speeches were delivered by Ademloos founder Wim van Hees and Manu Claeys from StRaten generaal. People were invited to bring a pick nick, and while I blog tango is being danced on top of the Craeybecks-tunnel  where the whole action is held in pleasant green surroundings.

The square and B B King

I am sitting in a trendy square and am amazed at how young the city has become. Just here and there a graying beard, a white head. Just two, three ample gray haired women. The 30/40 year old are mainly skinny, Sancere sipping and speaking about a new partner be it in love or in business. Also relationships turned sour are a frequent subject. Good advice, or advice meant as such, is balanced by hard edged principles, used as a dam against more hurt. And then from somewhere a line of music:

If you don't know
what to do
listen to T-Bone Walker
if you don't now
what hit you
when you're under
a bad spell
can't hide the thrill
listen
listen
to B B King

Windows

The days shortening make me a little sad, yet last night having to run an urgent errant at dusk I was thrilled that people had turned on their lights. Many shutters were down, or the curtains drawn, yet here and there I could catch a glimpse of beautiful woodwork in an almost stately home or a beautiful rosette centering the luster of a crystal chandelier. But the greatest joy was seeing people going about heir daily life: kids  doing homework or crafts at the table, a parent puttering around in the background, cooking, clearing clutter and coaching from a distance. People eating or talking gave me a sense of warmth, a sense of caring and community. Of course there were some voices of crying toddlers, angry parents shouting, a couple fighting... There one felt how overburdened the people were within their situation, how hard it is to deal with the daily disasters. These glimpses give me an insight in what seems to constitute happiness, serenity and a feeling of belonging. Last night 's image I cherish most is an old man sitting and reading by a lamp near the window. He is secure in his place, knows where he belongs and so he is reassuring to me. These short flashes of unknown people's life seem to hold for me valuable wisdom and insights.

Around the kiosk

Frank De Vos organizes next Sunday, September 9, a beautiful gathering of eight poets who will smuggle in their words around the kiosk in Hoboken. It starts at three, be there!

Smuggle ware from Croatia:

Birds whisper softly

don’t drown out

what was thought

Bells clang

-       it is six o’clock-

invite

to the day

the good life

in submission

to a normal life

of singing women in black

Thereafter

the heart  full of fire

the soul in the wind

and the distance that calls

Birds whisper softly

don’t drown out

what you think at all

Living on the edge of the Jewish quarter

Living on the inner edge of the Jewish quarter I have a choice when  I go shopping: to the right or straight ahead I'll see the people in their diverse religious attire. Fedora like hats on top of the head, white shirt all in black with the curls along the ears flying while cycling on the boardwalk. Yarmulke's and the fringe of their ceremonial scarfs peeping out from under the coat, while some where long white stockings and large fur hats, which when it rains are covered in a specially designed plastic bag. The women I saw this morning wore all a different color of wig: black or blond, light or dark brown. All wore comfortable flat shoes. The difference between richer and poorer Jews is immediately visible. The poorer women can't afford a good wig, so they wear scarves, either hiding all their hair or a scarf with an attached fringe of hair sticking out.
Since there are also a lot of Polish Jews there are also some good polish shops where you find kefir, other wise only found in the health shop or in the Pakistan shop. I also notice that some peope go to synagogue each morning and on special occasions they'll have palm leaves wrapped in plastic under their arm.

Going left however, I enter the general mainly European stream of peoples, with North Africans and black Africans being part of the mix just as Turkish and oriental people. A friend once called me on the fact that when one is at a local police station and does not speak the local language that one has to bring an interpreter. She was totally offended by this and thought the city should have the interpreters on call. So I got curious and asked how many languages were present in the small old jail, where people who have been picked up wait for their first meeting with the judge. The answer was a to me staggering amount of 76 languages. So the menu is from kosher to halal, from bio dynamic to straightforward meat, potatoes and veggies... All in walking distance. Wonderful.
What I don't understand is that the protests against the scarfs Muslim women wear and the acceptance of the same principle in a different execution in the Jewish community. In both cases the hair of women is supposed to for private viewing only.

summer in the city

José: musician (alt clarinet), general music culture teacher, environmental activist and poet, invited me to a concert of 'Le petit ensemble' on the second hottest day since 1833.

Young musicians get a chance to show their stuff and yes good they were. That in a general festive atmosfere with the smells of food drifting in on the gentle breeze and the beer place all around. Not snobbish at all. I loved the Ravel and the Bartok and their own arrangement of the pulp fiction music.

'Brugge', city of water from the middle ages

Brugge and the 'Reien', the canals through Brugge are a real attraction.  My last visit to Brugge was with wonderful Rose Van de Walle for the presentation of Annie Reniers' 'Grasschriftuur'. Years ago.

 So it was a pleasure once again in good company to rediscover the charms of this old city. It rained on and off, so it wasn't as if  we were just walking through a film set for a period film. Brugge is not a city in decay.
 Official buildings, the town hall where Napoleon visited and which now houses a Museum and also private buildings and churches are well kept. The town is a tourist trap and in certain periods can be a bit overrun. It is sad that the main shopping area has exactly the same shops as in other European main streets. But in Brugge the lace is still hand made and pretty. The food is generally good and the atmosphere relaxed

 There is however also a modern part pf Brugge with a concert hall with a great sound and this pleasant sculpting. And old ladies up for a conversation, proud of their town.

So a good time was had by all.

Sightseeing in Belgium

 When a friend visits you in a place she has never been, what do you show? My friend having worries, I decided to show her my favorite chapel: it is where the working girls would go to confession and there always is a nice quite and peaceful atmosphere. It is an beautiful baroque chapel, dedicated to Mary and St Antony. As you can tell many do light a candle to lighten their load, adding to the warmth and meditative ambiente.

Then we walked and visited many enclosed city gardens and small squares and even the botanical garden, smack in the middle of town. The whole city is  also filled with hundred of Madonnas.

 And yes, Antwerp is a playful city as one can tell by the the lion.

My Italian friend visited because of a European swimming competition. Her son won two gold medals and a bronze one. The Italian team won the relay swimming.

Occupy birthdays

The building is a former monastery, empty for years. And then long before the occupy movement homeless people started squatting there. Now only a small group of squatters still live at the premises. Poetry nights were organized and parties can be organized there as well.There is also a people's kitchen.

 Music was made, people were fed and people had a good time, talking, laughing, enjoying the music. We were invited by Ken on the guitar who celebrated his 59th birthday among friends and strangers. There was even a real technician for the sound system present.

The last picture was meant to render the general atmosphere:  children and grown ups eating ice cream, girls and boys standing in a group discussing hairstyles, dogs playing and yes a dog came by and changed the focus of the picture. It became an abstraction with warm vibrations, probably a better general mood picture after all.

Rooftops and change

 Living in a high rise, yet not on a rooftop, I tend to look out of the windows a lot. Since a couple of month I have noted a definite change in the city. From my vantage point I spotted at least four buildings where an extra apartment is added on the roof. If they aren't creating new living quarters, people have turned their roof into an urban garden or have installed solar panels.

 Here, on the left, you see a new apartment under construction and behind it on the slanted tiled roof, new solar panels. The small dark gray corner top apartment is brand new and is offered to students as a good place to stay. This tells me that in an urban setting people will create gardens, green refuges or overflowing balconies where ever they can and also that the price of land is so exorbitant that it is cheaper to just add an extra floor. Interesting what one sees from a it higher up.

Occupy in Utrecht The Netherlands and Kingman, Arizona

During a trip to Utrecht we talked to the people from Occupy Utrecht. Well organized, fun and committed.Lots of music and fun, but also discussions and planning for the next events was the fare of the day. 

 But then there is also Kingman, in extremely republican Arizona. The 99% supporters gather each Saturday at the train in the Park along the historic Route 66.


Here the group was rather small on the hot Saturday morning, yet it was a pleasant crowd talking about topical issues and the upcoming presidential elections. So On Sundays they have a peace vigil on a different location and on Wednesdays they have a gathering to suppport women's reproductive rights which are under thread because of republican inititatives.
A lot of work needs to be done, the grass roots in America are waking up and growing. We are the 99% working for better futures.

water in the city

I love cities with water flowing through them. You stick your nose out of the door and voilà, somethings strange happens. A small pilot boat dragging two huge cranes in the sunset...

I love the reflections on the water, the activity on the water..
The tall ships I can actually see from my bedroom window and sometimes i see a glimps of the water mirroring the sky.

So the cranes disappear into the distance, soon to stand sleeping in the mild summer like night.

The problem is when I look at the tall ships, I also can see the smoke rising from the nuclear power plant at the edge of a million people's town.

No nuclear energy - change to solar and wind.

Sunrise at the Ohio

Sunrise, just behind Patriot on the scenic byway along the Ohio, is a quaint small rather artsy town. The majestic Mississippi boat which never arrived in Madison because of the fog was discovered here.

Houses and streets are well kept and decorated. It looks neat, like for culturally minded baby boomers. But alas, here too the economic crises is all too visible: The national bank of Sunrise is up for sale.

Mound builders and Paducah

The Indian Trading Post alerted us to the location of Wickliffe Mound State Park. The mounds were build about 1200 years ago. Some flat topped as meeting grounds, others for structures of importance for the community.

 There must have been about 15 dwellings and the exhibition shows the tools used, the food eaten and the pottery. The light spot on the picture left is a burial mound where 14 people were found, unburied, studied and then returned to their original grave in as close the same pace and position as they where.

 Then it was Paducah, a town with a theater, with bistro's, wineries and quilting, being the quilting capital of the USA. Of course also here the 'Ministery of Harley Davidson' and Free Spirit. Yet also frozen mocha was to be had and even decent bread, hippie stuff and dirty chai: chai with chocolate and a shot of  coffee. Of course antique shops and restaurants: the catfish was excellent, a pleasant surprise along the Mississippi.