News from Dia

I was able to get through to Anna on the phone this afternoon. She has moved down the Niger River from Massina to Dia (pronounced JAH) for a few days. It took most of the day to drive the 75 km. because the road is pretty rough. She said she saw many species of birds along the way.

Anna is staying with the family of the president of her NGO, and Dia appears to be his home town. It was night when I spoke to her. She had been sitting on the roof marvelling at the moon and the village around her which is made entirely of mud.

Here are a few pictures of Dia by Huib Blom, a Swiss photographer who specialises in travel images from West Africa.

Weather Forecast for Bamako

Bohemians and Gypsies

Warsaw, May 1972 - JW, Mary, Ted, Andy and I converge on the capital for May Day.


One of the first sites on our "must see" list is the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science.


There our little band of Canadian bohemians encounters a band of Polish gypsies.


JW is about to witness the magical illusion of his 100 złoty banknote disappearing into thin air.

Storyland Valley Zoo, Edmonton, 1960

(Click on the picture to enlarge it!)

With all the recent excitement of Anna's departure for Africa, there has not been much time for blogging photographs. But as so many of you have been scolding me for slacking off, I thought I'd dig around in the archives to see if there was anything interesting I might send your way.

These two photographs go way back. They're from the Storyland Valley Zoo created in 1959 by the City of Edmonton.

Riding the miniature train you will see me and my brother Edzio, just behind the four little blonde girls in identical robin egg blue dresses.

In the following photograph, Edzio, my cousin Arthur and I, are standing on the bow of Noah's Ark.

Both photos were taken by my father with his pre-WWII Contax III camera with Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 lens.

Montreal - Casablanca - Bamako

Young graduate of McGill's International Development Studies leaving for her first job in her chosen profession. Destination Bamako, Mali. Dorval Airport, Montreal, Nov. 22, 2005. Go Anna!

One of the really good things about this four month internship is that all the excitement has given me something other than my job to keep me awake at night.

And yes, Anonymous, I have been slacking, but you try to get through the last half of November in Ottawa sometime. Everything is fine usually until Remembrance Day, and then it hits you - winter is inevitable and if you don't have an escape to the French West Indies planned, you're facing five months of freezing temperatures, blizzards, snowdrifts, slush, freezing rain, dull steel grey skies, salt stains on your pant cuffs, and an extra 20 minutes a day just to put your coat and boots on.

On the other had, there are some really good things about winter, like Christmas, skating on the canal, hot Drambuie toddys, and taking a sauna and finally getting to use the young birch branches I've been keeping in ziplocs in the freezer since last spring.

Hike to the Ramparts, Gatineau Park

Above Meech Lake, 3:52 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005.

Christening in Kaszowo, July 15-18, 2005

This is the last blog with photos from our trip to Poland last summer. Our final stop was in Lower Silesia, in the village of Kaszowo.



Kaszowo is a little village near Milicz, about 50 km. north of Wrocław.



It's the home of my friends Danka and Zygmunt. Danka is JW's cousin.



They live in the same house where I spent a good part of the winter of 1973-74 with Danka's parents, learning about peasant life in Poland.



This time we had come for the baptism of Maja, the daughter of Danka's nephew Irek and his wife Daria. Danka's daughter Iza stood as godmother. Milicz, July 16, 2005.



There were quite a few relatives there for the ceremony. That's Maja's older sister Kinga in the red dress.



Afterwards Irek and Darka invited us to a reception at the Restauracja Impuls in Zduny, a little north of Milicz.



We were at the table for about six hours, just long enought to eat four meals.



Each dish was more extravagant than the one before.



There was plenty of vodka too, about one bottle per person.



In fact, there was so much food left over that Irek and Darka invited us over the next night to continue the feast.



Despite the enormous quanitities of food and drink, we didn't gain a single ounce in weight.



To stay fit, we went for a little walk around the village with Iza and her fiancé Dirk.



Kaszowo is a perfect little dorf in the Lower Silesian style.



Most of the houses were built around the beginning of the 1900's.



It was great to see Danka and her family again.



Zygmunt recovers!

McGill University Grants BA to Student 99

Now for some good news. After four years of diligent study, Student 99 received her BA from McGill University in Montreal on Oct. 20, 2005.

Louise and I were in were in the audience that heard Chancellor Dick Pound encourage the graduates to treat learning as a life-long mission, and to serve well their world, their country and their community.

Student 99 in line to mount the stage.

She picks up her degree after being tapped on the head by the Chancellor.

Happy day !

Hard to say who is prouder.

The Graduate.

Exit Polls of the Presidential Runoff Vote

I guess the right wing socialist wins after all. When I talked to Aunt Wanda in Warsaw this morning, and she told me that she and all the other pensioners in her building voted for Lech Kaczyński, I agreed I would probably have done the same in her position. There's a slight chance that he and his twin brother Jarosław will try to buy popular support by some funding of social programs and pensions. But in the long run I am not optimistic. Lech was not effective as the mayor of Warsaw, so there's little hope he'll be much good as President. I'll bet you anything that in the next few weeks we'll hear that the PiS have decided to take his brother as prime minister after all.

Polish Presidential Election Results

Donald Tusk 35.82%
Lech Kaczyński 33.29%





The old Poland voted for Lech Kaczyński,while new Poland voted for Donald Tusk. The peasants voted for Lech, while the towns voted for Donald. Tusk led among both men and women, and in all age groups except the youngest (under 24) and the oldest (over 60).

As neither candidate got an outright majority there will be a run-off vote in two weeks.

The next two weeks will be an extreme test of the nerves of Polish voters. Which of the two center right candidates will become president depends entirely on who the left wing populist vote decides to support. I fear that is going to make it very difficult for Tusk, as Samobrona and LPR tend to get the vote of the peasants, the un or under employed, the less educated, and the retirees - exactly the segments of the population that are more likely to vote for Lech Kaczyński.

Here's how Reuters compares the candidates -

"Tusk, 48, and his Civic Platform want to revitalise the economy by cutting red tape and taxes, saying this is the best way to put back to work Poland's 18 percent unemployed, an EU record high.

The soft-spoken historian paints his party as a force for modernisation that can unite Poles, mend strained relations with big neighbours Germany and Russia and anchor the nation of 38 million in the European mainstream.

Kaczynski, 56, and his Law and Justice party promise a clear break from post-communist Poland under the banner of the "Fourth Republic", "moral renewal" and a return to Christian values while protecting workers' rights and the welfare state.

The conservatives have also courted the religious right, shrugging off EU criticism over their calls to limit gay rights and reinstate the death penalty."

I'm actually pretty proud of how Poland has embraced democracy and the maturity its political processes have begun to show. We've come a long way since 1990, when the leader of the chronically pathetic Libertarian Party of Canada, Stanisław Tymiński, ran for Polish president and came in second only to Lech Walęsa, leading to a second round where he finally lost with 25.1% of the vote. That he got so much will long be a stain on Poland's credibility.

Now, unfortunately, the knives will come out. The twin gnomes, Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński, will never again have an opportunity like this one to impose their vision on Poland. I expect that they will resort to the worst kind of USA style mud-slinging and dirty tricks to get their vote.

Here is how the other candidates did:

Andrzej Leppera 15.11%
Marek Borowski 10.33%
Jarosław Kalinowski 1.81%
Janusz Korwin-Mikke 1.43%
Henryka Bochniarz 1.26%
Liwiusz Ilasz 0.21%
Stanisław Tymiński 0.16%
Leszek Bubel 0.13%
Jan Pyszko 0.07%
Adam Słomka 0.06%