I started out yesterday morning in the White Mountains of New Hampshire at 2800 feet altitude and was, at times above the low-lying clouds, other times enveloped by them. By noon I was at sea level, enjoying scallops for lunch at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The misty morning gave me some great opportunity for moody photographs.
Today I will head north along the coastline to end up at Vardon Point in New Brunswick.
I sit in Lincoln New Hamshire this morning having a McBreakfast. The truth is that MacDonalds seems to be the only place open at 7 am in this little town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and they have coffee, a washroom and Wifi.
I am off on a trek to the East Coast to track down dead relatives who lived from Maine to New Brunswick in the 1700’s and to visit friends who are summering in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
I wakened this morning to the sound of birds but a grey sky and steady drizzling rain. So by 7, I was packed up and looking for a dry place to have some breakfast.
Lafayette Campground near Lincoln New Hampshire
I have brought my tent and the Red Rider with me and yesterday camped at the Lafayette Campground in the White Mountain district of New Hampshire. After several hours in the car, we both enjoyed the bike path along the river and the trails to both The Basin and The Flume Gorge –good exercise and spectacular natural settings for photo ops.
Step right up, folks. I can double the value of your money instantly.
Last year the Sasamat Foundation, based in Vancouver, Canada, offered to donate to the CanAssist African Relief Trust to help with construction of a school in Mbita, Kenya. They offered $10,000 initially and another $5000 that they would give matching donations from other donors to CanAssist for this project. We ended up with $17,500 and this year the school building was successfully completed.
This year Sasamat has offered to do the same. They will match any donations made toward either of these CanAssist water projects in July. You can help us reach this goal. Read on.
The projects that CanAssist will support with this donation (and yours) are related to rainwater catchment in two communities in Kenya and Uganda.
Water is precious – we, in Canada, sometimes are not as aware of this since our access to fresh clean water is pretty much universal and taken for granted. But in Africa, people often have to walk several kilometers to get water and when they do, this is often from a pond or stream or river – not clean at all. Diarrheal diseases from consumption of unclean water is common and one of the largest causes of infant mortality. The work usually falls to the girls and women – costing several hours of productive time a day, absenteeism from school and risk of assault and even attacks by crocodiles. It is a daily chore which has significant impact on the well-being of the community and women in the community in particular.
This year, CanAssist will support rainwater catchment and storage at the Nyandema Secondary School in Migori District of Kenya. When it rains in Africa, the rain is often torrential, so having guttering on any existing building to catch rainwater into 10,000 litre storage tanks provides access to relatively clean water for the weeks to come.
Students at the Nyanema Secondary School have to walk about 5km every day to get water… and then it is from this muddy river. CanAssist will fund four rainwater catchment tanks at the school to provide a clean accessible water supply.
A second rainwater catchment and storage project will be at the Olimai Health Centre in Eastern Uganda. CanAssist has had an ongoing association with this small hospital facility and last year provided funding to complete a new maternity building for the clinic – one with a big new roof that will be excellent to catch rainwater!
Last year CanAssist funded the installation of this roof on a new maternity ward at the Olimai Clinic in Uganda. This year we would like to provide guttering and rainwater storage tanks to provide water for the clinic.
The cost for both of these projects will total approximately $15,000 Can
Our second Canada Day Challenge to our supporters is to donate before the end of July to CanAssist to support these projects. Any donations we receive to help with this access to clean water for these two communities in July will be matched with an equal donation by Sasamat.
Will you help us to achieve this goal? Your donation will be doubled if you make it in July and specify the Olimai Health Centre or the 2013 Sasamat Double Your Money campaign with your donation.
Donations by cheque can be made to the CanAssist African Relief Trust , 562 Sycamore Street, Kingston Ontario. K7M7L8 Or by using the secure Canada Helps link found on our web site or right now using the link below.
I was stunned this morning when I logged onto my Facebook page and started a chat with one of my friends in Mbita, Kenya. As we talked he received news that CanAssist’s dear friend and associate, Mama Benter Odihambo, had just died at the Mbita Hospital. Kennedy lives across the street from the hospital. I was getting the news before most of her community knew.
This is indeed sad news for everyone who knew her.
Benter was a cheerful, gentle, nurturing leader in her community on Rusinga Island, Kenya. A widow with a large extended family, she was the epitomy of the strong African grandmother who is wise and caring, not only to her family but to her entire community. I will cherish the memory of the afternoon she and I spent together in February, chatting as parents, grandparents and dear friends.
She founded the Little Stars Academy – an elementary school for vulnerable children that is on the edge of Mbita town.The school has grown from a few tin buildings with about three classes to a larger school that graduated students last year who will now go on to secondary school. Their school had top marks in the region and both the top boy and girl won scholarships to continue their schooling.
Benter was a dear friend and an adopted mother to many Canadians as well. She was always cheerful and helpful to students from the McGill Canadian Studies in Africa Program, some of whom came to know her well after their studies. She worked with the CanAssist African Relief Trust to improve her school and established the prototype school garden near her home which provides nourishing food for the children and income for the school. She worked with the women of St Mark’s Church in Barriefield Ontario to help establish a program to supply sanitary pads for the older girls at the school so they would not miss school during their monthly cycles. She, along with other members of her family, even had a part in the upcoming movie “Nightrunners”, shot on Rusinga Island in February of this year.
The sadness I feel at her passing is like losing a family member. I know that many people in Rusinga, Mbita and Canada will mourn her loss. At the same time we must resolve to continue in her spirit to help people who are vulnerable.
I will append some photos and videos of Benter that will remind us of her grace.
Mama Benter Odihambo.
In 2013, CanAssist will continue the good work started by Mama Benter by helping to renovate classrooms at the Kanyala Little Stars School. Friends who would like to donate to this project in her memory can do so at : http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?CharityID=d95557
I have been drawn to the vibrant colours of the early summer flowers and, like most photographers, can not resist capturing some of these images.
The lilies are in a garden just outside the historic Kingston Customs House buliding built in 1856 at the corner of Brock and King Streets.
The pansies are in a pot on my balcony – loving the weather.
This geranium is on a plant that I have in my living room window. It overlooks the lake and watches the Wolfe Island Ferry come and go. I have had this plant (or an offspring of it) for over five years and it currently has 61 buds and blooms on it. Like me, it is very happy to be living by the lake in Kingston.
And Kingston Market Square behind City Hall, of course.
This is an article that I wrote which was published in the Kingston Whig Standard on Saturday June 22, 2013.
The pupils in Mrs. Pare’s class at Glenburnie Public School are ending the year on a high note and children in a rural Kenyan school are also celebrating, thanks to the generosity of their Canadian peers.
In May, I visited the Glenburnie School class to talk about Africa. They had been reading a book called Alexandria in Africa by Eric Walters. In the book, Alexandria, a young teen from a privileged background ends up in Kenya and sees the challenges of people who live with much less. The Canadian students became both curious about the way people live in Kenya and also motivated to do something to help children living in communities that are not as fortunate as we are.
I showed the Glenburnie kids pictures of my many Maasai friends, told them how traditional Maasai people live, showed them Maasai beadwork and ornaments and photos of my goat, Veronica, whose family is ever growing in fields near the Rift Valley.
We also talked about schools in other regions of Kenya and, in particular, about the S.P. Geddes Early Childhood Development school in a little fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria.
Through donations to CanAssist from my 93 year-old Dad and some of his friends and family, we have been able to fence a schoolyard, put in latrines and build a couple of new classrooms at this rural lakeside village. In appreciation, the community named the school after my father and when I visited them last February they even plunked a six-month old boy in my lap and said “Meet little Stewart Geddes.” You can imagine how wide my smile was and how excited I was to share this news of this Kenyan namesake with my father when I got home.
Although the village school has two classroom buildings, the older one needs repair and they have absolutely no furnishings. The children learn sitting on mats on the floor – a dirt floor in the older building. CanAssist hopes to remedy that soon.
When the Glenburnie students heard about this they decided that they would like to help out. They started a “Dimes 4 Desks” campaign at the school, set up a table at the school Fun Fair, took tin cans and jars around to other classes to collect dimes and told their neighbours about their project to help African children. One of the students made a video/powerpoint presentation (which can be seen on the CanAssist website).
Last week I went back to the school and they made me guess how much they had raised. I was astounded when the figure reached $1100. I wondered, “If 24 grade four students could come up with $1100 in a month collecting dimes, how much could the same number of adults raise collecting toonies?” Does anybody out there want to try?
I relayed the good news that the Kenyan school will soon be able to purchase desks and chairs and soon received a photo of the kids at the school preparing a thank-you sign for their friends in Glenburnie. I can only imagine the excitement of the children in her class when Mrs. Pare shows them this personal thank you from Africa.
The children at Glenburnie School told me that they had learned a lot about Africa in the last month. And I learned too. These kids proved that with teamwork and enthusiasm goals can be met. They proved that small financial contributions can mount to accomplish something significant if everyone contributes a bit and shares the load. The smiles on their faces and their delight at being able to help others has buoyed me up for the ongoing work that CanAssist is doing in East Africa.
As Gavroche in Les Misérables says “This only goes to show what little people can do!”
Today was the first day of summer according to the calendar.
This evening the Lake Ontario was calm and there were lots of people out enjoying the longest day of the year for us. Sunrise was this morning at 5:22am and sunset at 8:53.
I went out to enjoy the evening and, once again, had to pull out my phone for some photos, all taken within a 10 minute walk from where I live. How I do enjoy living in downtown Kingston.
Kingston City Hall from the Confederation Basin
Behind City Hall. I grabbed a coffee from Starbucks and sat at this table for a while just soaking up Kingston.
King Street from Market Square behind City Hall.
Lots of patio restaurants busy this evening.
City Hall from Market Square
From the roof of my apartment building.
My 2009 safari in East Africa took me back to the edge of Kibale Forest, a high-altitude rain forest ( a jungle, in fact) in Western Uganda. The forest lived up to its name with rain pelting down in dramatic outbursts most days. When the clouds cleared it became humid and warm and felt quite tropical.
I had been there a few times before so it was quite wonderful to see the villagers who live nearby, people I had smiled and waved at in past visits. They seemed to remember this white-haired mzungu with a camera around his neck who wandered along the road taking pictures of birds and butterflies and kids. I have tentative plans to return to Kibale for a few days in September 2013 and am very much looking forward to it.
On my daily walks, as I followed the red dirt road into Kanyawara village, I was aware of being watched by several sets of eyes. An old baboon sits in the grass, scratching himself and looking like he’s a spectator for a parade. A big brown cow stops chewing for a moment to look up as I pass and children peek from behind curtain doorways. Some of the bolder ones run out to greet me with “How are you?” the only English phrase that they know. One little girl is dressed in a torn and dirty party dress and most of the children are barefoot.
I stopped along the way to visit a young fellow named Mark who is a progressive entrepreneurial type. He had purchased a plot of land that sloped down into the valley. He grows all of the food needed to feed his four children and has some left over to sell. As we chat, he hands me a carrot pulled from his garden and I munch on it as we walk. He introduces me to his 9 year old son, Moses, as “Geddes, my friend from Canada”.
He and his wife have been digging sweet potatoes and pulling up plants that have peanut-like clusters on the roots. Ground nuts, or G-nuts, are a staple here. Mark also knows that they enrich the soil somehow so he intercrops them with other plants. We walked under the banana trees and he pointed out various other crops – greens, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, cassava and arrowroot. Avocado trees form a border for his lot. He sells the fruits for less than ten cents each. He breaks off a fresh pineapple from a spiny bush and cuts it up for me to savour. There is no comparison in taste between a tender, sweet, fresh pineapple that is five minutes from the plant and the pale sinewy ones we often get in the super market.
I leave Mark with thanks for his hospitality and carry on. I’m on a bit of a mission. I have with me a photograph of Rose, a waif who I have seen by the side of the road every year for the past four.
When I first encountered Rose in 2006, she was a sad little waif on the side of the road.
When I get to her village, Rose is nowhere to be found. Knowing that many children in Uganda succumb to malaria or malnutrition before they reach the age of five, I worry that she is OK.
I show Rose’s picture to a woman who is sitting under a tree as she weaves a basket from coarse grass. She shakes her head then points vaguely across the road but I can tell from the look in her eyes and absence of a smile that I won’t find Rose there.
Rose in 2007. I knew she remembered me from the year before.
A man sitting in a doorway looks at the photo and tells me that this little girl is not here any more. Both her parents died within the past few months, her mother on Christmas Day. She has gone to live with grandparents in another village – the stereotypical African orphan story. He says he will try to pass the picture on to them.
Disappointed, but glad to know that Rose is alive, I start to head back to the research station. Soon I am joined by four young kids who have been following me around the village. The youngest, about four years old is dressed in a one-piece red pajama outfit, the dome fasteners up the legs and around the crotch all undone. She grabs my hand as we walk.
I think of how trusting and open these kids are with me, a white foreigner from the other side of the world.. In North America, we have scared our children so much with warnings about strangers that they have become fearful and suspicious. There must be a happy medium.
As we walk, the kids want me to go up a side road. I don’t understand their Rutoro language nor do they understand my English, but it is clear that they want me to follow them, perhaps to their home. So, also in a very non-North American way, I let these kids drag me half a kilometre up a narrow roadway lined with tall grass and banana trees.
We come to a driveway that leads to a small house. Outside a mother is sitting with a baby on her lap. Beans boil on an open fire in a mud kitchen hut. Three other kids are playing in the yard.
One of them is Rose.
Rose in 2009. A happier chid living with grandparents and brothers after both parents had died, likely of AIDS.
She looked happy and healthier than when I saw her the year before. Shyly she came to greet me. She remembered me for sure and once again, I checked out the scar on her leg that reminded us both of our first meeting when I treated an open sore there. We were all smiles and I take a few more photos with promises to send them back or maybe bring them myself one day.
After a brief visit, I headed out, feeling relieved that Rose was still there – still alive – struggling, no doubt, to get day to day but looking like she will survive. Rose will never know and would never understand the influence her being has had on motivating me to help in Africa where I can. I have trouble, sometimes, really understanding it myself.
I will travel to Kibale Forest again this September. Will our paths cross again in this little town near the Ugandan jungle? Stay tuned.
Rose in 2010. Look at those eyes. She will be a teenager now. Will I find her again? I am on a mission.
This afternoon I rode the Red Rider from one end of Kingston (Lake Ontario Park) to the other (Fort Henry). Kingston today was just so vibrant. Stunning, bright blue sky and lake – both punctuated by patches of white – fluffy clouds in the sky and the odd whitecap blown up by the lake wind. Fresh breeze to make it comfortable. Peonies and strawberries on the market. Downtown and all the parks full of people outdoors enjoying the day.
My fantasy of passing a jocky cyclist in lycra pants sweating her way up Fort Henry hill came true. Trouble containing my grin as I pulled out to pass her on the hill.
Pulled out my phone along the way to take some photos that I will let speak for themselves.
Spring Turnips at a stall on the Kingston market.
Kingston City Hall
Lake Ontario Park shoreline
Kingston from the Fort Henry Hill
More music…
Today, actress and humanitarian, Glenn Close will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. Yesterday afternoon I was lucky to be able to attend a lecture that she gave at the university which was based on the work that she has been doing with Bring Change 2 Mind– an organization she founded to help reduce stigma associated with mental health problems.
My first notice of Glenn Close was when she was in the movie The Big Chill – a film made in 1983 and also starring other favourites of mine, William Hurt and Kevin Kline. I saw the movie in the Dream Theatre in Monterey, California. The theatre was small and the seats were actually from cars – big and bulky. They gave you the feeling that you were at a drive-in – the perfect venue to see this movie. I have vivid memories of that evening etched indellibly somewhere in my brain. The Big Chill will remain a favourite movie of mine,more for the venue than the film and certainly for a very attractive Glenn Close.
But I digress.
Although she alluded to some of her movie and acting experiences in her talk, it was really about the work she has been doing to try to reduce stigma associated with mental illness. Some of her work is with a Queen’s professor, Dr Heather Stewart who holds the Bell Canada Mental Health and Anti-Stigma Research Chair at Queen’s.
The talk was very personal and often touching. Close has a sister who suffers from Bipolar Illness and a nephew who has Schizophrenia. For years, they went untreated. Everyone just thought they were “difficult” or acting out. Her sister had two suicide attempts as a teen. The family was fed up with their aberrant behaviour. In time, they realized the root of the problem was much deeper.
Close related the statistic that 2 of 3 people in North America with mental illness avoid getting treatment, often because of the stigma attached to their problem. She also said that one in four of us is touched by significant mental illness in their friends, family or themselves. None of us are immune, or so separated from people suffering from Depression, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Illness, PTSD or any other significant mental illness.
The gist of her talk – we have to accept mental illness like we do Diabetes or Cardiovascular Disease, not make it shameful or hidden and encourage access to appropriate care for people who suffer from it.
Glenn Close answers questions from an audience member with hearing impairment. He had to get close so they could converse and she engaged him one-on-one.
As a Health Care professional, I have to wonder if our system is actually up to this task. We often talk about “difficult” patients – people that the system has trouble dealing with because of their manipulative behaviour, poor compliance, anger issues or being demanding. I wonder how many of these “difficult” patients suffer from mental illness. How many of our patients who are non-compliant, aggressive and drug seeking actually have depressive illness or PTSD? How many of our patients with Eating Disorders have been victims of abuse in the past – sexual or emotional? If they or their problems seem “difficult” to us, how “difficult” must it be to be them?
And how are these patients often portrayed? Check out this short Public Service Announcement made by Glenn Close and her professional colleagues from the crew of the TV series “Damages”. ( Close revealed that the crew donated their time to make this short promo film after one of their own committed suicide… and none of them recognized his depression.)
Last month I was admiring the courage and openness of Angelina Jolie. This week it is Glenn Close. And it is not their celebrity that awes me, it is their determination to use that celebrity to bring notice and change to social issues that are often overlooked or hidden. They are putting their talents and good fortune to work to improve well-being. I am impressed with their integrity and openness and their determination to “do something” about important social issues.
Read more about the work Glenn Close is doing to reduce stigma in mental illness here: 
Movie stars seem to loom “large” in our imagination. Glenn Close is actually surprisingly petite – probably not more than five feet four in height. I discovered that she shares her birthday with my brother (March 19) and my year (1947). As with Angelina Jolie, I am available for lunch any time.
johnageddes 