It is a calm, almost balmy, May evening on the waterfront in Kingston. Folks are strolling and absorbing the warmth and the quiet.
As I walk along, I am troubled, however, thinking of the young man, a stranger to me, who chose to end his life this week by throwing himself from the 17th floor of the apartment building where I live. I grieve for him and for his family. As I soak up the beautiy of this early summer night, I am saddened that this fellow, a boy really, must have felt such overwhelming turmoil and despair and that he will never again experience this peacefulness.
A trip to NYC has to include a Broadway show or three. The theatre district around Times Square is certainly a busy hub with many theatres packed into the neighborhood in the middle of Manhattan, their marquis all luring tourists to see their show.
We went to three.
For my first Broadway experience I saw Beautiful, the Carole King Story and this was the absolutely perfect introduction. The show was delightful, flawless musical entertainment. The stage converted from a living room to a three story recording studio to a performance stage seamlessly and elegantly. It was fun to watch the pianos and furniture glide on and off the stage like magic. And there were two amazing costume changes that happened in a second that made me blink and wonder just what had happened. More magic.
The joy of this piece is the music. Twenty-eight (yes, 28!) familiar songs from the 60’s. I knew every word to every song and it was obvious from the delighted sighs in the audience when an intro started up that I was not the only one. The cast is strong and a works together as an ensemble. And, it keeps building, the lead actor playing Carole King is Chilina Kennedy. Chilina spent her teen years in Kingston and many of us who do amateur theatre here know her from having worked with her on one production or another a few years ago. We are all very proud of her for arriving as a Broadway “star” and from the overwhelming standing ovation she received we are not alone. Despite her demanding schedule she was gracious to visit with us (along with her husband, my friend Jacob James, and her adorable son Henry) in her dressing room after the show. You can imagine that this was a memorable evening. Thanks, Chilina and Jacob for this fantastic introduction to Broadway theatre. This is a show that would appeal to everyone with perhaps a lean toward those of us who vividly remember Carole King’s Tapestry album, little Eva, the Shirelles, the Drifters and the Ritcheous Brothers. And Neil Sedaka, too.
Book of Mormon was also on my list of “must see”. Where Beautiful is … beautiful, Mormon is explosive energy and very much in your face. You will need to be OK with over-the-top profanity and a deluge of politically-incorrect vulgarity to enjoy it. I absolutely loved it. I laughed non-stop and the time just flew by. Once again there is a talented young ensemble cast with many numbers having rich choral work. My choice for the best performance of the shows I saw was Christopher John O’Neill as Elder Cunningham. I could see this show again in a minute and know that there would be more funny little jabs that I would get out of it.
It is not easy to describe this show. Suffice to say that the plot line revolves around two young Mormons being assigned to Uganda for their “mission”. Here is a taste of the music performed at the Tony Awards in 2011. Listen for the multi-layered choral background.
The third show we saw was It’s Only a Play. The playbill boasted an all-star Broadway award-winning cast that included Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, T.R. Knight, F. Murray Abraham and Katie Finneran. The play was terrible. The plot was non-existent and the whole thing was like an overly-long Carol Burnett sketch, including Nathan Lane breaking character at one point, laughing and throwing in a line. The cast, it seemed, were resting on their laurels, lampooning and mugging to the audience who seemed to lap up just seeing these stars regardless of the material. It was the worst piece of theatre that I have seen in the past five years and that includes high-school productions. The only glimmer of talent here was the newcomer, young Micah Stock. He was the only one that looked like he was trying or maybe not trying too hard. If you are in New York, don’t go to this piece of schlock.
With a population of 20 million people, New York City is a great place to people-watch. Every language you can imagine. And it’s free!
Bicycle taxi in front of the Central Library
Some of the 20,000 people in the Sikh parade down Madison Avenue.
Enjoying the late afternoon sun in Bryant Park.
Cops in Grand Central Station
At Coney Island
Kids on a ride at Coney Island
Times Square – Always busy
Classic New York Hot Dog Vendor
Tourists doing selfies. (there were a lot of them)
And yet, despite all the hustle and bustle and millions of people, you can find a quiet spot to enjoy nature right in the middle of Manhattan in Central Park
For the past few days I have been wandering around New York City. April is a great time to visit. Spring flowers and trees in blossom. Perfect temperature for walking from one end of Manhattan to the other.
Since a picture is worth 1000 words I will stick to photos instead of exposition. It will be a trilogy. Spring Flowers – Icons – People
Sometimes it is easier to turn a blind eye to poverty and suffering than to do something about it.
In Canada, because we have social assistance programmes funded by our various levels of government, we tend to let others provide the help rather than deal directly with the people in need.
Do you know that a single person receiving social assistance (we used to call this welfare) only gets about $650 a month to sustain them? Could you find accommodation, food, clothing, and transportation for that? How could you find a job if you have no phone, or a computer connection to communicate with prospective employers, or transportation to go to an interview? If the social assistance recipient finds even a part-time job to supplement his/her income, that money is deducted from the social assistance check. This must remove incentive to find low-paying work, often the only jobs available.
Now … imagine what it is like in much of sub-Saharan Africa. There is no government social assistance, or employment insurance, or social security, or pension plan. Unemployment rates approach 40% in Kenya (in Canada is is 6.8%) and the food inflation rate in Kenya in 2014 was 8% compared to ours at 3.9%. Although primary school education in Kenya is claimed to be “free”, many families can not afford the required school uniforms, or additional payments needed to support poorly-payed teachers. Classrooms may have sixty or more pupils per teacher, no desks, and no books.
The burden of illness in much of Africa from infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS and ebola far outweighs ours. In Kenya, one child in fourteen dies before the age of five and the chances of a woman dying of a complication from pregnancy is 1:250 compared to 1:9000 here.
Despite their poverty, patients are required to pay a small user fee for health services and medications are often not available or too expensive.
Those of us who have visited communities where this is the situation come home wondering what we can do to help. This is poverty beyond what we, in Canada, can comprehend.
When faced with these overwhelming statistics, it might be natural to feel sorry but give in to the thought that the problems are just too great and vague for individuals like ourselves to do anything about it.
Let me tell you about one Kingston family that decided to help.
Thomas and friends enjoying a filling lunch thanks to Canadian friends.
Last year, Marcia O’Brien, her two young sons and her mom, Gabriella Zamojski traveled to Kenya. During their trip, they visited some rural community schools supported by the CanAssist African Relief Trust.
While visiting the S.P. Geddes Early Childhood Development Centre in Osiri village, they were impressed by how the community was attempting to provide early education to the young children at the school. They also saw that many of the pupils (and teachers too) come to school hungry. One young fellow named Thomas caught their attention and represented the rest. His father is deaf and mute and his mother had died the day prior to their visit to the school. Yet, the child was at school, is best opportunity to receive some caring and support. He was, like many of the other children, hungry.
The image of this child haunted Marcia and Gabriella for months after they returned home. They decided to do what they could to help Thomas and the other children at the school.
In February, I took money from this Canadian family to the school in Kenya to start a weekly lunch programme. CanAssist bought plates and spoons, the children will bring sticks of firewood, parent volunteers will help stir the pots and serve the food and their Kingstonian friends will provide $100 a month, money that will allow the school to feed 120 kids a nutritious lunch once a week.
Although it may be tempting and more appealing to our hearts to provide individual help to one needy child, at the CanAssist African Relief Trust we believe that by helping the community with infrastructure like classrooms, clinics, latrines and water tanks, we are contributing to the well-being of many rather than just a few. Marcia and Gabriella have also adopted this stance with their direct donation to the Kenyan school to feed the whole group, even though their hearts were particularly touched by one student.
What can you do to help? Realize that your support, however meagre it may seem in the big picture, does make a difference to the people in need who live in our own community, or to those who are even more impoverished in developing nations. Every individual effort helps. Combined small contributions add up. Believe it. You can assist.
Little S.P. hands out spoons to the children lined up to get their lunch.
Portions of this article was printed in the Kingston Whig Standard on Thursday April 9, 2015.
I am fortunate to have friends in Italy that welcome me to their home when I want to visit. I forget between visits what a good cooks Gloria and her mother, Maria, are.
Last year’s Easter dinner for me was Gloria’s home-made tortellini.
The meals are a tasty variety of home-made dishes combined with good company. How lucky I am to enjoy this when I visit these wonderful friends.
My first meal on the evening I arrived last spring was one of my favourites – Pasta Genovese. This is a combination of pipe rigate pasta cooked with green beans and little chunks if potato and coated with a home-made pesto (olive oil, basil, pine nuts). Gloria chooses whatever pasta she cooks to match the sauce and it is always done to perfection. (Yes, Sherri Robinson, I have promised you the recipe for this and I have not forgotten).
Lunch à la Gloria. Minestrone with Parmesan, Crusts of Italian Bread and some home-made red wine.
In the morning I was greeted with some espresso coffee. Maria and Silvano (Gloria’s parents) had arrived before I awoke and brought with them some home-made ricotta cheese from the farm. I had brought some maple syrup from Canada and so our breakfast great was a little bowl of ricotta cheese drizzled with maple syrup. Cheesecake without the cake.
For lunch we had minestrone soup sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and torn pieces of Italian bread. This was followed by chunks of spare ribs with fresh strawberries ( in season here since late February) for dessert. All meals except the breakfast are accompanied by sloshes of home-made wine poured into juice glasses. The wine has a slight effervescence to it and makes a delightful pop when the cork is released.
My friend Antonio has opened a gelateria in Sassuolo, Italy.
We also always make a trip to a Pizzeria in Sassuolo run by Luca and Gloria’s friend, Antonio. He keeps serving us up pizzas that he makes up as he goes along until we are full. I always get something with truffles on it, my favourite. Well, this weekend, Luca sent me a photo of Antonio in his new Gelateria. Now, after pasta (and wine) my favourite indulgence in Italy is gelato. Nothing like it. Now that Antonio has his own Gelateria, I look forward to my next visit…dessert after one of his spectacular pizzas!
I had a message from Uganda today that Josephine died last night.
Neighbour helps Josephine wash her hands before we have afternoon tea.
Josephine Apoo was a woman whom I met last time I was in Uganda in the remote community of Olimai. No one knew exactly how old she was but she was well over 100, perhaps as old as 110 – remarkable in a country where the average life expectancy is about 60. “She was here when people ran around wearing no clothes at all,” I was told. The stuff of which early African stories are made.
Her neighbours were always looking out for her. She would join them for tea or a bit of food, walking with a stick from her house. We shared tea and some mango one bright October afternoon in 2013.
The last time I saw her she was heading home into a brisk wind. A storm was threatening. She was pretty sturdy against the wind. The image of her heading into the wind, over 100 years old, still being strong and independent is one that I will never forget.
My friend in Uganda asked that I join them in celebrating her life. Worth celebrating, indeed. My condolences to her many loved ones in Olimai. I feel privileged to have met her.
Josephine – October 2013. Died March 18, 2014 at well over 100 years old. Olimai, Uganda.
It is always gratifying to feel that the work that we do through the CanAssist African Relief Trust is helping kids (and adults too) acquire education, health care and improved water and sanitation facilities.
There are about 300 children at the Kyabazaala Elementary School in Uganda. CanAssist has had an ongoing association with that school, helping them in many ways. I have visited the school a few times and can vouch that they do need help. The classrooms are somewhat dilapidated and they have few resources. The teachers are paid a meagre salary by the government and often have to find places to live as their homes are not close by. When we first went to the school, they were getting water from a dirty pond shared with animals, to make the one cup of maize gruel served to the kids at noon, often their only meal of the day. Their toilets were abysmal.
CanAssist helped by repairing their one water tank that had been damaged and installing new toilets. Other Canadian well-wishers visiting the school (including Hugh Langley, Ann Marie Van Raay and Elizabeth Muwonge) provided funding for cementing floors of some classrooms and between us all, we got electrical supply to the school.
Last year, the Mayer Institute in Hamilton, through CanAssist, funded installation of two water tanks at the School. This will be a grand improvement to their access to water.
This week, I received an email with a scanned letter of appreciation for the various ways we have helped. It was, indeed, heartwarming, to get this acknowledgement of our support and I want to share it with those who have, through donations to CanAssist, contributed to all the work we have done at the school.
Our next project at the Kyabazaala Elementary School is to help them construct teachers’ quarters on the school property. This will help them to acquire and retain qualified teachers since the school will be able to offer some modest accommodation to the teachers whose salaries are woefully low. The community has already been accumulating locally-made bricks for this venture. The total cost for this six-room teachers’ quarters will be approximately $7000 CAN. CanAssist (and the school) will welcome any support dedicated to this project so we can start it soon.
I am excited for the upcoming week. And not because of the Oscars on Monday night. I wasn’t nominated for anything, despite my dramatic background performance in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming thriller Crimson Peak. My role in that one may be a bit like Where’s Waldo. But I did get paid $141 for getting up at 2am and doing several retakes while tending chickens in the market and hanging out between takes eating a hot dog with Mia Wasikowska.
No, my excitement is for two premieres happening later in the week. The first is an invitation-only first screening of Nightrunners -the Movie in Toronto on Thursday night. This thriller was shot in Kenya in early 2013 and I was lucky enough to be there for most of the shoot, filling a number of roles from looking for locations to putting on bandages and taping iv’s in place on the actors. I even had one scene in the movie with a few lines.
Unfortunately it ended up on the cutting room floor. The director claims that it was not due to my acting but maybe she was being kind. The scene was shot in a real hurry as rain clouds threatened and the light from sunset was quickly dying. The intent was that I carried the leading lady from the lake something like King Lear and Cordelia and then we had a bit of dialogue. Because the rain threatened to damage lights and equipment and the schedule was running tight, we did this scene three times with no rehearsal. Prior to each take the director poured a pail of water over me and we then managed through our lines in the sand on the beach, having never even read them together before. It was fun but we had to pack up quickly to save the equipment ( I was already drenched) and I have never seen the takes. I am wondering if they even filmed anything or if it was just fun dumping water on me as a joke.
A consolation could be that it is one more thing that I share with actor Chris Cooper. Last year with King’s Town Players I had the role of Charlie Aiken in August, Osage County, a part played by Cooper in the movie. I also learned that he had been totally cut from scenes in The Ring. Apparently he had a part early and late in the film but the test audiences wanted more of him and as a result his entire part was cut out. Maybe director Neilson was concerned that the Nighrunners audience would want more of Heinrich.
Nevertheless, the movie will premiere on Thursday night and I will be there to enjoy it. I can hardly wait for it to be shown to the folks in Kenya who had significant roles in it. Will it be worth a 35 hour trip both ways for the 2 hours of sharing this moment with my Kenyan friends? We will see.
On Saturday night at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Leigh Ann Bellamy’s movie, Fault, will be shown for the first time at Memorial Hall. I was present for much of this movie shoot doing the still photography. I saw a rough cut and my right arm appears twice (unless Leigh Ann has cut those scenes, too). At least there were no pails of cold water for this one. It will be a real pleasure to enjoy this evening with my friends in the cast and crew. So proud of them for this production.
It has been great fun to be associated with these movies and watch them take shape. It has given me a totally new perspective when I see a film as I am more aware what goes into each take.
Who knows where these two films will end up being shown. Watch for them. And will you be able to find me in Crimson Peak? I doubt it, but I will know that I am there.
johnageddes 