The Tripoli tweetup was a great chance for me to meet lovely people in a beautiful area of Lebanon that I was not familiar with. I loved Tripoli for its authenticity, its vernacular streets, smells, colors, political posters – not to mention the amazing hospitality of the ‘traboulsiyyeh’. Oh it’s great to be a tourist in your own country, and in Leb, you can never get enough! I recommend all of you who haven’t been there to visit it and enjoy its beauties. 

Who was at the #tripolitweetup? @funkyozzi, @azzi, @dashkoun, @sunkentreasure6, @sdarine, @beirutspring, @larazankoul, @ghassanb, @danyawad

Last but not least, I met someone in the tweetup who will probably never know what twitter is.

I had a lovely little talk with 14 year old Rabih, who was working on the boat, just like an adult! Made me wonder about child labour in Leb. I don’t have any idea about the ‘numbers’. But this boy’s eyes were so full of a weird mix of innocence and harshness. He went to school for 2 years only, but then spends his life working just like an adult. It’s too sad to see how basic education can be neglected due to poverty.

Anyway enough for now, I should get back to work (I am super-overloaded in the coming days!)  Wish you all a great week!

I had an incredible time in WA recently at Spring Poetry Festival and now I want to share with you the words pouring out from that side of the country. First up, here’s a poem from Amber Fresh and Janet Jackson.

BRISBANE
               by Amber Fresh

so i’ll write about brisbane
to avoid a confession
to avoid the confession i’m
queen of unkindness

i went to the city
city of water
city of lights
city of refuge
state of confession
state of excitement

i walked right around
walked right over
over the streets
over the grease
over the grass
over the water
over and over and over the water
i walked all the way
hands in my pockets
hands up to no good

i sat all alone
all alone in a crowd of self-consciousness and longing and i
pinned you up a little note on the
noticeboard closest to your house
between househunters and prayer groups and
everything new farm and it said
i am the queen of unkindness
though not in those holy words

brisbane is to sydney what adelaide is to perth
northam is to brisbane what mt barker is to canberra
brisbane is to perth what you are to me and
of course i imagined you were there

when the music travels in
it travels in through your ears and straight to your heart
that’s the moment you know what i mean

when you told me you were married
well we all know what that means but it’s
not what you think

the haiku started, MR, IN A STATE OF EXCITEMENT,
and finished, HOLDING OUT HIS HAND
this self reference helps to
create a fantastic disguise in which
each girl is in the correct bed
each girl begins to read in the desert,
holding out her hand
holding her hand out to the faraway tree

the faraway tree of mother
(hesitate the word nature)
(hesitate the word mother)
(hesitate the word Christian)

there was a man in the desert
a man from a book
with a stick
and a tome

in a state of excitement holding out his hand

today i told you the truth
today i told you a secret
but i didn’t confess one bit

About Amber:

Amber Fresh is a writer from Perth (via Albany and Paris). Her poems have been published in Westerly, Navigations, Cottonmouth Zine, MoTHER [has words...], The Ponies Zine, and Metior. This year she released her first book of poetry, “Between You and Me”, with funding from the Department of Culture and the Arts. She writes on a typewriter and makes music in a band called Rabbit Island.

Aren’t we?
               by Janet Jackson

Just text me, will you?
I don’t know where you are
but I’m in the park
with my phone, crying
behind sunglasses

So life is really
friends & their babies
and not these obsessions and loves?
Life is that? All the
shallow smiles?

A man does tai chi, or something.
Does it help?
He does it fast, jerky.
I thought tai chi was slow.
It’s scary.

I wanted to be with you all day
Just hanging out, not saying much,
playing guitars

A black-booted woman texts somebody
Let’s all text each other Let’s
hug hello, hug goodbye We’re
one big village
Aren’t we?

This is why people get spiritual.
I tried that and found
that spirit needs to be shared
to be sustained.
Needs communion.

     In that moment, as I underlined communion,
     you texted me.
     In that moment
     I thought
     it mattered.

About Janet:

Since 1986 Janet Jackson has sculpted in English, seeking poems that work whether declaimed loudly or whispered in the mind.

Janet featured at the inaugural Missing Link Festival (Perth 2008), the 2006, 2007 and 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festivals and 2007 and 2008 Melbourne Overload Poetry Festivals. She has featured at many readings, performances and slams and can be heard at all the places in Perth where poets gather.

Her poems have been published in many print and online magazines and anthologies, and she has self-published three chapbooks and her own website, Proximity.

Her first collection, Coracle, was published in March 2009.

Janet is the convenor of The Line Mine, an online community promoting poetry events in Perth, and the organiser of the Perth Poetry Club.

© donjiva

   #mce_temp_url#

Coucou tout le monde, j’espere que vous allez bien !

Rapide article sur le Cambodge que nous quittons a peine… Impressions mitigees pour etre honnete, je n’ai pas toujours accroche avec la population : pas necessairement aimables les cambodgiens, et des prix exhorbitants pour les touristes… Le mieux est de sortir des circuits touristiques pour avoir une chance de rencontrer des khmers un peu plus sympas…

Ce pays possede neanmoins des paysages splendides, a commencer par la province Ratanakiri avec ses nombreux villages de tribus, ses cascades, son lac volacanique et sa terre rouge.
Plus au sud, les plages tres agreables de Sinahoukville et de l’ile Koh Tonsay (surnommee “Rabbit Island” en raison de sa forme). Sur cette derniere, quelques bungalows basiques et une poignee de familles de pecheurs. Le reve quoi ! Cadre paradisiaque sur une ile isolee avec des gens adorables… Nous n’avons pu resister a y rester quelques jours…
Passage furtif a Kampot egalement, avec des grottes marrantes a decouvrir en compagnie d’une ribambelle de gamins.

Les magnifiques temples d’Angkor n’ont pas fait partie de mon trajet cette fois-ci mais j’en garde un superbe souvenir !

Et la capitale bien-sur, Phnom Penh, que j’ai eu plaisir a parcourrir alors qu’elle etait videe d’une bonne partie de ses habitants, partis feter le nouvel an en famille et en province. Des musees vraiment interessants, des quais agreables, et un palace dont la visite fut ecourtee par une enorme averse… Resultat, enormes embouteillages dans toute la ville car les eaux sont montees de quelques dizaines de centimetres en une heure… La saison des pluies a de l’avance cette annee ! Mais Gaetan (que j’ai retrouve dans le sud de Cambodge) et moi-meme l’evitons de justesse puisque nous sommes arrives ce matin a Kuala Lumpur. Quel changement ! Mais je detaillerai plus amplement ce sujet dans un prochain article sur la Malaisie !

Il ne me reste plus qu’a vous mettre le lien vers mes photos du Cambodge.

A tres bientot mes chers amis !

Dela

Today was a gorgeous Hawaii day! We took the kids fishing at the pier next to baby Makapuu. (See picture of Rabbit Island below.)

When your kids are 4 and 2 you don’t really take them fishing.  It’s more like you take them to watch you fish. I spent most of my time chasing da boy around to make sure he didn’t fall off the pier.

Nonetheless, we all had fun.  Riley played and splashed in puddles collected along the pier. Daddy caught some rubbish fish which both kids enjoyed playing with.

And when they got bored I took them back to the beach where they played in the sand while daddy continued to try to catch more fish.

This question occured to me while I was watching my kids on the pier: why do kids love to splash in puddles (my kids hit everyone of them) while adults avoid them?  I mean kids make it look like so much fun and they really seemed to enjoy it.  At first I was like “don’t splash in the puddles.”  Then I figured what the heck, no sense being a kill-joy.  I tried spalshing in the puddles.  Pretty fun. =)

OK, OK, you caught me. I haven’t been writing. I’ve been relaxing—at the riverside, the seaside, the countryside…

But I have recently returned to Phnom Penh, so at the very least I now have loads of new photos for you. Many are actually old photos, I should say—just newly uploaded. I also reorganized the photo album page in a way that I hope makes it more user-friendly.

So you can now both backtrack to my missing month (Laos) and see where I was last week (Kep), and a few things in between.

Just a few, however. The album listing is by no means complete, as there is still more of Laos to show you and, of course, Angkor Wat. Those photos still await me having an even bigger chunk of free time (I know, ‘free time,’ sorry!) in which to edit and upload them, as there are so very many! And the internet service here is so slow…

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these and they will tide you over for now.

Two caveats, one of which I’ve mentioned on the photo page. There is one album from my visit to Tuol Sleng, which is now a museum and which used to be Pol Pot’s secret prison/torture chamber. The photos are not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, but I really do suggest you force yourself to look.

The second is much less of a caveat than an explanation. If you click on the Kep album you will notice that the entire first I’m-not-even-going-to-go-back-and-check-how-many are of a sunset. Which is a beautiful sunset, but, I know, come on, Mia. Well, there is a story that goes with them, so you might want to click each one anyway, if only to read the little sunset-seeking adventure tale that goes with them. (And come on, a little extra gorgeous sunset never hurt anybody. Though actually, I’m lucky that in the end going to see it didn’t hurt me…)

OK, that’s it for now. I may very well be headed to the jungle soon, so if you don’t see any photos of the day after about a week or so (that is as far as I have scheduled them), you’ll know why.

You can view all of the albums, new and old, by clicking on ‘Photos’ above or by clicking here. And of course, don’t forget you can also catch up here on all the photos of the day you might have missed along the way!

Looking north towards the Cook Strait, one really can see the change in weather patterns. 

Safety regulations are very limited in Cambodia, and we made our way back from Koh Tonsay in rapidly fading light with no lights of our own. A few boats laden with party supplies passed going in the other direction, invisible but audible. As we approached the beach at Kep we cut our engines and waited for momentum to pull us to the shore.

Koh Tonsay overlooks the Gulf of Thailand, and the island in the distance belongs to Vietnam. Much of the Cambodian island is made of razor sharp dark red and black rocks, and covered in thick jungle. It is largely empty, aside from beach huts and a path which follows the shore.

Taking a tuk-tuk from Kampot to Kep, we boarded a boat to Koh Tonsay, or ‘Rabbit Island’. It was New Year’s Eve, and Khmer from all across the south of the country were converging on the coast to celebrate. Our boat was full of people, bringing big blocks of ice, fruit, baguettes and crates of beer in preparation for the party.

Dive Site: Manana “Rabbit” Island
Depth: 40-80 feet
Location: East Shore
Visibility: 40 – 80ft
Level: Advanced
Sea Life: Lobster, Triton Trumpets, Helmet Shells, Whitetip Reef Sharks, Tiger Sharks

Manana Island is located just off Makapu’u Beach Park on the south west point of Oahu. As you look from shore, they look close enough to be tempting to swim to, but in reality it would be tough. The water is shallow (20 feet) all the way to the island, with good coral formations and shelling, but the best diving is done from a boat, either off the seaward side of Manana, or along a ridge at 40 feet that runs between the two islands. The islands are close enough together to be spanned on one tank in depths between 40-70 feet and there are overhangs on the ledge with good coral encrustation and plenty of lobster.

Caution: The aptly named Moloka’i Express is found just off this island, it whips around Makapu’u Point and usually brings in clean waters, but you should be very aware, as unsuspecting divers have also been taking along with it. The other warning at this site is regarding the marine life. The site has an explosion of tropical and game fish, which in turn have attracted an equally healthy community of sharks, including Whitetips, grays and Tigers. Tiger sharks are extremely territorial creatures and have a history of attacks on humans at this site. They are NOT to be ignored and we urge you to leave the water if they are sighted in the vicinity.

Manana Island is located just off Makapu’u Beach Park on the south west point of Oahu. As you look from shore, they look close enough to be tempting to swim to, but in reality it would be tough. The water is shallow (20 feet) all the way to the island, with good coral formations and shelling, but the best diving is done from a boat, either off the seaward side of Manana, or along a ridge at 40 feet that runs between the two islands. The islands are close enough together to be spanned on one tank in depths between 40-70 feet and there are overhangs on the ledge with good coral encrustation and plenty of lobster.

Caution: The aptly named Moloka’i Express is found just off this island, it whips around Makapu’u Point and usually brings in clean waters, but you should be very aware, as unsuspecting divers have also been taking along with it. The other warning at this site is regarding the marine life. The site has an explosion of tropical and game fish, which in turn have attracted an equally healthy community of sharks, including Whitetips, grays and Tigers. Tiger sharks are extremely territorial creatures and have a history of attacks on humans at this site. They are NOT to be ignored and we urge you to leave the water if they are sighted in the vicinity.

Så skete det endelig, The River Phoenix’s EP er ude og en milepæl er nået. EP’en koster kun 24 kroner og kan købes i iTunes store. Den indeholder 3 numre; ”I’m USA, You’re Canada”, som har været i rotation på P3 i et godt stykke tid. ”Rabbit Island”, der tidligere har været udgivet i en anden version da bandet hed Softporn og til sidst et helt nyt nummer med titlen ”Riccochet”. På bandets MySpace side kan man høre et udpluk af alle sangene i det nummer der hedder “TRP Medley”.

Nu venter vi spændt på resten af albummet, som vil være ude i løbet af nogle måneder.

Læs evt. om bandets uheldige rejse til netop dette punkt på Soundvenue:

http://www.soundvenue.com/interview.asp?id=430

Besøg desuden The River Phoenix på MySpace og Facebook!