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Back on a roll with the 30 Day Non-Facebook Prose-Instead-of-Pictures Challenge. The 20th Challenge is today:
20.A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel
This challenge was already done a while back with my non-bucket-list list of sensory experiences to be had before I die. They covered sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. But I'll still play along with today's challenge.
This may shock a lot of people, but I'd love to travel to Tanzania. Just think! A photo safari, the Maasai, and Mount Kilimanjaro all in one place! How thrilling is that? Seeing the great migration, interacting with the nomadic people, climbing the highest peak in Africa. The problem would be finding enough resources to do a trip like that. Resources of both time and money.
But today's challenge isn't about where I want to travel next month, or next year. It's simply where I would love to travel. One day. Hopefully.
[Title taken from this.]
Who has the least grip on reality, Muammar Gaddafi or Charlie Sheen?
Some nice folks stopped by to read the first of the sensory blogs on sight but were disappointed that there were no links to some of the sites. Links have been added to some. Check them out here.
Third in my series of lists of the senses is smell. Mostly in memory of that sense which our family lost last week when we all developed head colds of varying degrees. (Cue the Dies Irae.) My first list was sight; the second list, sound.
Without further ado, I give you scents I want to experience before I die:
- That baby-smell on the top of a grandbaby's head
- Sweet-shrub wafting through my open bedroom window on a warm spring morning
- White Shoulders as I nuzzle in for a hug (my grandmother's signature)
- Chanel No. 5 as I nuzzle in for a hug (my mother's signature)
- Mrouzia in Marrakesh
- Rogan josh outside Lakshmana temple in Khajuraho
- Spruce and firs giving way to glaciers in Denali
- Varnish remover while refinishing an antique [fill in the blank] by myself
- Lavender fields in Provence
- Body oil with patchouli being massaged onto me while at a beach-front spa in the Caribbean
Coming up with scents to experience is quite difficult. Knowing what I want to do or see is easy; but how does one describe a new scent? Today's list was very challenging. That will be your challenge now -- what scents do you want to experience?
This isn’t a “bucket list”. It’s just a list. Maybe this will be the first in a series of lists.
Things I want to see before I die:
- The Nazca Lines
- The Roman Catacombs
- The aurora borealis
- Penguins in their natural habitat
- Polar bears in their natural habitat
- Victoria Falls
- The Road of Bones from the back of a motorcycle
- A grandbaby’s eyes
- The world from the highest point in Africa
- The winter solstice sunrise from inside Newgrange
What do you want to see before you die?
Yesterday's blog was a Movie Quote Quiz. And I promised you the answers in today's blog. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I stumbled upon an article in The Telegraph. The Telegraph, for those of you don't know, is a newspaper from London, England. Notice that this news hasn't hit any of the major American media outlets. Yet.
The significance of this, and the reason why today's blog won't include the answers (check back tomorrow for the quiz answers), is that the Telegraph is reporting on something that I blogged about last week, the upcoming vote in southern Sudan. As some commenters pointed out on my earlier blog, Sudan isn't as rich in natural resources as Iraq or Kuwait. The article says that southern Sudan actually produces 480,000 barrels of oil a day. A day!
That could be its saving grace. Either because of the oil in southern Sudan or because the United States wants to avoid another Rwanda (I'm betting on the former), the State Department formed the U.S. Civilian Response Corps, which is currently building a large presence in southern Sudan. They are there to "observe, report and monitor".
As I mentioned in my earlier blog about southern Sudan, the Anglican Bishop of Sudan spent time at our parish when he was just a priest from the Diocese of Renk in southern Sudan, before he became the Bishop of Renk and then the Bishop of Sudan. Now the Archbishop of Canterbury warns that the world risks "sleepwalking" into another disaster like Rwanda.
It's amazing to me, and a very sad indictment of the world, that it could be southern Sudan's oil reserves that save its people, rather than humanitarian concerns of saving lives just to save lives.
Very rarely do I venture into the realm of politics on my blog. Mama always told me there are some things you don't discuss in polite society. These are politics, religion, and sex. Seeing as how I've violated her proscription on religion and sex on these very pages, let's go for a troika and blast the politics taboo as well.
Here's the background. Several years ago, a young priest from the diocese of Renk came to our parish as a home-away-from-home parish while he was studying at seminary. Renk is in Southern Sudan. He brought with him stories of genocide, Arabic north against the native African south (mostly indigenous Dinka), Islamic north against the traditionally Christian south. This was before Darfur. This was before George Clooney and the world wanted to help.
Our parish partnered with the diocese of Renk to build schools, buy a seed drive, establish a health clinic. Our parish became a refuge for the Lost Boys and Sudanese families driven from their homeland by rape, murder, slavery, hunger, and war.
In the almost 60 years of Sudanese independence, almost 40 of those years have been engulfed by Civil War. There is a current peace agreement between the north and the south. On the 9th of January 2011, the southern Sudanese will vote on whether to remain part of Sudan or become an independent country.
No, we can't vote on that referendum. What we can do is urge our Senators and Congressmen to support southern Sudan's efforts to create a new nation. The Sudan Peace and Stability Act of 2010 offers American help to achieve the goals of the peace agreement while holding southern Sudan accountable.
There is a real chance for peace. At the same time there is a real threat that Sudan could erupt into violence along the lines of Rwanda. Will we stand by and let another Rwanda happen?
Regardless of whether you, like I, consider the southern Sudanese brothers and sisters in Christ, I would hope that we all agree that killing another human being for the simple reason that he or she is of a different tribe or ethnic group is wrong.
That's why you're getting a twofer blog today. That's why I'm urging you to stand for peace, freedom, and democracy in a part of the world that has been suffering for so long. That's why I'm asking you to ask your Representatives to support the Sudan Peace and Stability Act of 2010.
Peace be with you.
For those of you who haven't seen this elsewhere, it's very powerful. Check out the video here. Then check out the website here.
