10 World Heritage Sites

Tomorrow is the International Day for Monuments and Sites. It is a day to appreciate the monuments around the world that help us understand history, culture or the natural world. Here are ten such monuments and sites I’ve visited. They are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The 2,700 mile Great Wall of China is the longest human made structure in the world. Its construction began in 300 BC. and it was repeatedly rebuilt and modified over the years. Its purpose was to protect China from nomadic northern tribes. It became a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Masada is an ancient stone fortress built by King Herod between 37 and 31 BC and located on a very high rocky mesa in Israel, above the Dead Sea. It is a 840 acre complex with well preserved ruins that are evidence of the history of ancient Israel and the courage of its people during a Roman siege in 73 AD. It became a World Heritage Site in 1966.

Chichén Itzá on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula was a powerful centre of commerce and government for the Mayan people from 600 to 1200. Its most important role, however, was that of a sacred city, a place of worship and ritual. It became a World Heritage Site in 1988.

The Taj Mahal in Agra India was built by the emperor Shah Jahan in the mid 1600s as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is considered a jewel of India’s rich history and attracts some 8 million visitors a year. It became a World Heritage Site in 1983.

The Collosseum is an amphitheatre in Rome Italy and is one of the few mostly intact structures from the Roman Empire. It is a monument to the architectural and engineering prowess of ancient Rome. Construction of the Collosseum began in 70 AD. It could hold 50,000 spectators and was famously used for gladiator combat. It became a World Heritage Site in 1980.

The Serengeti National Park in Tanzania which encompasses some 1.5 million hectares of savannah, boasts one of the most impressive nature spectacles in the world, the annual migration of two million wildebeests plus hundreds of thousands of zebras to find pasture and water. The park is also home to many endangered animal species. It became a World Heritage Site in 1981.

The city of Dubrovnik in Croatia, often called The Pearl of the Adriatic, is known for its stunning architecture and was an important centre for Mediterranean sea power beginning in the 1300s. It suffered from a massive earthquake in 1667 but has still managed to preserve many of its Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance buildings. Much of the old city including the wall around it was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979.

The Genbaku Dome now known as The Hiroshima Peace Memorial was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. It has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. It serves as a stark symbol of the most destructive force ever created and expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons. It became a World Heritage Site in 1996.

Angkor Wat in Siem Reap Cambodia is a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex located on a four hundred acre site. The Guinness Book of World Records considers it as the largest religious structure in the world. Built between 1122 to 1150 it eventually became almost lost in the jungle until it was rediscovered by a French explorer named Henri Mouhot in 1860. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1992.

Banff National Park is in Alberta Canada. It has unbelievable views of the Rocky Mountains and some of the world’s most beautiful lakes including Lake Louise a popular skiing destination. Established in 1885 it is Canada’s oldest national park. It became a World Heritage Site in 1984.

Other posts………

Visiting the Great Wall

Visiting the Taj Mahal at Dawn

Remembering Hiroshima

West With Giraffes

This pair of giraffes my husband photographed in Tanzania reminded me very much of the two giraffes in the novel West with Giraffes

At the start of our safari in Tanzania last year our guide asked each of the six people in our group which African animal we were most interested in seeing. I said giraffes. I’ve long been enamoured with them.

So it isn’t surprising that I enjoyed the novel West With Giraffes by Linda Rutledge based on a true story about two giraffes who eventually made their home in the San Diego Zoo.

While being shipped to the United States from Africa in 1938 their vessel encountered a hurricane but the pair of giraffes survived.

Photo from the San Diego Zoo Library

The novel tells the story of the trek by truck the two giraffes make across the country from New York to San Diego and their new home. The tale is narrated by Woody Nickel, a fictional young man who drives the truck.

I enjoyed the book because I learned new things about giraffes and grew to love the pair in the story more than some of the human characters.

I am working on a novel set in the 1930s right now and so the West With Giraffes story which takes place in the same decade provided valuable background information, particularly about the way women and Black Americans were treated during that time.

The story of the travelling giraffes was widely covered in the media. There is a woman on the truck in this photo from the New York Sun. Did she inspire one of the characters in the novel?

I always enjoy a strong female character and I got that in a young woman nicknamed Red who is following the truck with the giraffes hell-bent on taking photos of their journey for Life Magazine.

How I came to read this novel is kind of interesting too. When we were in Palm Desert in January Dave and I toured Sunnylands an estate that has hosted some of the most well-known political figures of our time.

Ten women who were part of a Los Angeles book club also touring Sunnylands requested Dave take their photo. When I asked the women what was the best book they had read recently they said West With Giraffes. “It’s so good,” they told me.

That’s why I bought the book!

I’m glad I did!

Other posts……….

Giraffes For My Granddaughter

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

The Girl Who Loved Giraffes

Three Women On A Mission

I’m watching the latest season of New Amsterdam a Netflix series about a large hospital in New York. In an episode I saw yesterday the emergency apartment was inundated by wedding guests suffering various injuries after an explosion.

As the plot unwinds we find out a little ten- year-old girl who the doctors had assumed was a flower girl at the wedding was actually the bride.

The episode ends with the shocking revelation that the girl’s 15 year-old brother tried to stop the wedding by creating the explosion that injured the guests. One of the doctors explains that in some American states there are no laws against a girl of ten being married.

Unicef says child marriage is a problem world wide. Every year some 12 million girls, including some in the United States and Europe find themselves forced into child marriages for cultural or economic reasons.

Michelle Obama, Amal Clooney and Melinda French Gates– photo from The Hill

I follow both Michelle Obama and Melinda French Gates on social media and have been reading this week that these two influential women are teaming up with well known human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to try to put an end to child marriage for girls.

Photo from the McGill Reporter

Girls marrying young has dire consequences. Child brides are more likely to leave school, experience violence, struggle to earn an income, have an unintended pregnancy, and suffer a miscarriage or die during pregnancy.

Melinda French Gates, Michelle Obama and Amal Clooney have written a joint Time Magazine OpEd in which they explain that they are supporting three initiatives to try to end child marriage. In each case they are partnering with local agencies and institutions.

Their first goal is to support female led fights to get countries to pass laws prohibiting child marriage.

A second is a campaign to convince families that child marriage is not a good idea.

A third is to get more girls into school. When girls in a country are educated they tend not to be involved in child marriages, their country’s economy improves and when they do eventually start a family their babies are born healthier.

Gates, Obama and Clooney at a girls’ school in Malawi

This week Melinda French Gates, Michelle Obama and Amal Clooney have been in Malawi visiting schools for girls that are funded by various organizations supported by the three women. These organizations provide girls with scholarships, mentorships, and afterschool programming.

“Making sure girls finish school is one of the best ways to counter child marriage and help girls reach their fullest potential,” Michelle Obama says.

I admire Melinda French Gates, Michelle Obama and Amal Clooney. They are three very powerful and wealthy women who could be spending their time and money on all kinds of selfish pursuits but instead they are teaming up to address a problem that is vital for the creation of a better world, one in which there are equal opportunities for all young women.

Other posts………

The Light We Carry

A Book To Make You Insanely Hopeful

It’s Harder To Hate Up Close

What is WASH?

My invitation to the iDE luncheon last week

I hadn’t heard of the acronym WASH till I attended a luncheon last week sponsored by iDE a non-profit organization whose goal is to end poverty by empowering entrepreneurs in Africa, Asia and Central America.

WASH stands for water, sanitation and hygiene. According to the United Nations, inadequate WASH in a region has an enormous negative impact on public health.

Infectious diseases spread quickly through improperly disposed human waste and unsafe water. Poor hygiene practices vastly increase rates of infant mortality, malnutrition and chronic illness.

Our luncheon speaker Sarah Custer-Lalanne serves as the WASH global director for iDE and she is passionate about the subject and in particular, the role women can play in bringing healthy WASH services to their communities.

Sarah talked about the fact that local women know what is best for their families, they know what will work in their communities.

One reason Sarah appreciates working for iDE is because their approach is to really listen to the people they are trying to help and support them as they implement their own innovative ideas.

Adamu building toilets- photo from the iDE website

On the iDE website, you can read the story of Adam Adamu Azumpagaama the first woman in Ghana to own and operate her own toilet business. iDE has trained over a hundred entrepreneurs like Adamu to facilitate the building of toilets for people in their communities.

One of Adamu’s key motivations was wanting to be a role model for her daughter showing her that a woman can succeed in a male-dominated industry.

Sarah our luncheon speaker emphasized the fact that when women become successful entrepreneurs they are much more likely than men to reinvest their capital in their families, their children’s education and their communities. Empowering women entrepreneurs brings about not only an immediate improvement in family and community life but multi-generational change as well.

Sarah also talked about the importance of providing women with proper products and sanitation facilities for menstrual hygiene. This can improve health outcomes for women, open opportunities for further education for them and increase women’s dignity and confidence.

Photo from the iDE website

Toilets and menstrual hygiene products may not be the first things you would think of when you consider what would make a big difference in someone’s life but the women iDE empowers in Africa and Asia know just how important they are.

Before last week I admit I didn’t know what WASH stood for.

Now, thanks to my friend Shirley who is on the iDE board and invited me to their luncheon, and to Sarah Custer-Lalanne our speaker, I not only know what WASH stands for but I realize just how vital it can be to the healthy future of women and their families.

It’s a cause I am happy to support and tell others about.

Other posts……….

Two Films About Menstruation You Need To See

Art That Makes You Feel Sick

Pop Up Toilet

The Reign

I photographed this stunning sculpture called The Reign when I visited the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town in February.

It is one of several by Johannesburg artist Mary Sibande that features a character named Sophie a kind of alter ego of the artist herself.

Made of fibre glass Sophie is riding a life -like stallion in a blazing blue Victorian-style dress. How is Sophie able to wrestle with such a huge and powerful creature? She almost looks like she’s a general getting ready to lead an army into battle.

Mary Sibande’s mother, grandmother and great- grandmother were domestic workers in apartheid South Africa and so Sophie wears an apron and a ‘doek’ a square of cloth African working women often have on their heads.

Mary wanted to imagine that a kind of fairy godmother came along and allowed her hardworking female ancestors to escape from the grind and harshness of their labor to enter an imaginary world where they weren’t servants but powerful adventuresome characters.

Can you see the little bit of a purple skirt sticking out from under the blue one? Purple is a color that represents wisdom, creativity, royalty, power, and ambition.

Mary says she doesn’t want the viewers of The Reign to feel sorry for black women who had no choice but to be domestic servants during apartheid but rather to celebrate what women in South Africa have become today and to appreciate how far they may still go.

Mary Sibande – photo from the Strauss and Company website

I wondered why Mary called her piece The Reign instead of The Rein which might be more logical since Sophie the character in the sculpture is riding a horse. What do you think?

Other posts………..

Drawing Kids Into Art Galleries

A Black Jesus That Got It’s Artist Arrested

Accidentally Finding Desmond Tutu’s Ashes While Looking for the Black Madonna

Can You See Us?

One reviewer calls it ‘a low-key gem.’ Yesterday I watched the film Can You See Us. It is the first movie made in Zambia to be shown on Netflix. A woman who travelled with me in Africa earlier this year recommended it.

Can You See Us is based on the story of popular Zambian singer John Chiti who was born an albino.

The novel Golden Boy by Tara Sullivan which I read during my time in Tanzania and South Africa was how I first learned of the challenges faced by those born with albinism in Africa

I learned during my two months in Africa that albino children face all kinds of discrimination and danger. They are bullied and many families disown their albino children.

People in Malawi, Tanzania, Burundi, Mozambique and several other African countries believe the body parts of albino children can cure diseases and so they are hunted down by poachers who want to dismember them for financial gain.

Thabo Kaamba plays a young John Chiti who is called Joseph in the film and Kondwani Elliot Zulu takes on the role of his stepfather Martin

In the film Can You See Us John Chiti faces all those challenges.

He is abandoned by his birth father, attacked by poachers, and bullied by local children, and yet because of his loving stepfather who accepts him as a son and an elderly musician who takes him under his wing, John Chiti survives.

The real John Chiti- photo from his Twitter page

Today John who is married and has two children uses his platform as a popular musician to advocate for Albinism causes in Zambia as well as other African countries. He has released five music albums globally and is a household name in Zambia.

Dr Margaret Kenyi the director of the Step by Step Learning Centre in Arusha, Tanzania with two of her students

When we were in Tanzania we visited a school for children with physical and mental challenges and there was a young albino woman there who had a story similar to John’s. Mistreated by her family she was adopted by someone who made it possible for her to attend school and have a better life.

Apparently because of the writers’ strike in Hollywood Netflix is going to be streaming more foreign films to fill its schedule.

A silver lining of that may be that more global attention will be drawn to issues like the one at the heart of the film Can You See Us?

Other posts………..

Golden Boy- A Novel That Reflects Reality in Tanzania

Tanzania Reunion

A Pencil Test to Determine Your Future

Tanzania Reunion

We had a reunion on Monday night with three of the people who shared our Tanzanian safari experience with us.

Our last meal in Tanzania together from left to right Deb, Sue, Shannon, Les, Dave, me- only Sue was missing from our reunion this week

I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo during our time together on Monday but we were so busy reminiscing and visiting I completely forgot.

Deb one of our safari companions had brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers to the reunion dinner.

Deb’s bouquet reminded me of some of the gorgeous flowers we saw in Tanzania.

Les and Shannon brought these colourful napkins to grace our dinner table.

The napkins featured some of the animals we saw on our safari.

Les and Shannon also brought a bottle of South African wine called Frisky Zebras.

We had certainly seen lots of zebras in Tanzania- millions in fact that were migrating.

I had created a photo wall for our reunion dinner that featured some of the animal shots my husband Dave captured on our safari.

Our group drinking a toast after a long day out in the safari jeep

I also curated a slide show to tell the story of our Tanzanian Adventure and Shannon had brought a photo book she had collated about our safari.

On Monday night we had a great time sharing memories of our Tanzania adventure.

I just forgot to take a reunion photo!

Other posts………

How Many Mennonites Does It Take To Get a Picture of a Bird in Tanzania?

So Many Animals- The Trip of a Life Time

Wow! Wow! Wow!

Africa On Display

This week I have been choosing photographs from the ones my husband Dave took on our safari in Tanzania to make a wall display. I’ve decided to feature these. Which is your favourite?

Other posts………

So Many Animals- The Trip of a Life Time

Giraffes For My Granddaughter

A Rare and Momentous Occasion

Is Getting Rid of Greed the Only Hope For Humanity?

“Greed – if only we could get rid of greed. That is the only hope for humanity.”

On a walking tour called Apartheid to Freedom in Cape Town last month our young guide stopped in front of a government building and told us how he believed the corruption rife in the ruling African National Congress party was leading South Africa down a path to ruin.

Our walking tour guide

I asked him if he had any hope for the future of his country. He replied, “I have hope for the future of humanity if only we can get rid of greed.”

In his opinion that was the problem all over the world, not just in South Africa. Greed. People who wanted more and more power and money and were willing to get it and hold onto it without thought of how that pursuit of power and money might impact others.

So many people we spoke to in South Africa talked about their disillusionment with the African National Congress, the party of Mandela and the first to be democratically elected in 1994.

The party may have started out with high ideals for making life better for everyone in South Africa but its leaders have become corrupt and now care only about lining their own pockets. All the young people we talked to said they would never vote for the African National Congress party again.

Our tour guide agreed. He was not afraid to openly criticize the greedy leaders of his country but was quick to point out that greed is at the root of all the problems humanity faces in every country.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot ever since.

Other posts……….

Architecture Asks Questions About Government

Knock Down the House

A Pencil Test to Determine Your Future

Bits and Pieces of Cape Town

I’ve been looking over my photos from our month-long stay in Cape Town and since this blog is also a record for me of our travels there are some things we saw and did there that I haven’t written about yet and I want to remember them. Here are some bits and pieces of Cape Town that fascinated me.

We spent a fair bit of time down at the waterfront in Cape Town and I loved watching all the seals that cavorted in the water there. We took a little harbour cruise one day and I got a photo of this seal asleep in one of the tires lining the docks.

One night we attended this acapella choir competition. There were all these amazing musical groups from churches and schools and communities. Boy could they sing! And MOVE! And the way the audience got involved in the music- shouting out encouragement, clapping and MOVING to the music with abandon. It was quite an experience!

At the Iziko South African National Gallery I was mesmerized by this artwork called Messages From the Moat by Sue Williamson. It was a net filled with over a thousand bottles and water was dripping from them into the ship hold below. And inside each bottle was engraved the name of a slave that had been brought to Cape Town from other parts of Africa and the East Indies to work for the Dutch East India Company.

I told Dave he had to be in this picture because he has a Bachelor of Theology Degree and behind him are a series of mountain peaks called The Twelve Apostles presumably named after Jesus’ group of twelve disciples. Interesting thing though there are eighteen peaks in this mountain range not twelve.

Dave hadn’t brought his golf clubs to Cape Town and he was a little sad about that. So one day when we were in Green Point Park he sat down on this bench right across the water from one of the fairways on a nearby golf course and watched for a long time as different players approached the green and putted. He provided a running narration of their shots for me. Just one of the unique things you get to experience when holidaying with Dave Driedger.

I took this photo of a tree down on the waterfront that had been bent by the wind. The winds could be fierce in Cape Town and sometimes at night the wind was howling so loudly outside our eleventh floor apartment that we couldn’t sleep.

Dave posed beside this life-sized giraffe in the Iziko South African Museum because we wanted to send a photo to our granddaughter who loves giraffes. I thought it gave you a good idea of just how small humans are in comparison to these African wildlife giants.

You can see twenty different colorfully painted rhinos down at the V and A waterfront in Cape Town. This one was painted by Tay Dal. The rhinos are part of a project called The Rhinos are Coming.

It’s a way to draw attention to the fact that South Africa’s rhinos are still being killed by poachers at an alarming rate because in some countries rhino horn is even more valuable than gold. People believe it has magical healing powers. There are only 5,500 black rhinos left in South Africa and The Rhinos are Coming is a way to make the public aware of that.

I know I’ve already written probably too much about the fabulous food in Cape Town but one thing I especially enjoyed were all the interesting salads we had. They inspired me to try and get a little more creative with my salad making.

I LOVED the one in this photo at the Nonna Lina a restaurant near the movie theatre we frequented. It was chock full of marinated artichokes, parmesan cheese, roasted pine nuts, mixed baby leaves and herbs and dressed with a chive vinaigrette. Heavenly!!

Perhaps my favourite piece at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cape Town was this one called simply Together. It is by an Ethiopian artist named Nirit Takele and showed a woman with her family gathered close around her.

I can’t promise I won’t write any more blog posts about Africa but this hopefully is one of the last. So many things are happening right here in Winnipeg I need to write about too.

Other posts………..

A Pencil Test to Determine Your Future

Mexican Food With a South African Twist

Five Things I’ve Learned About in Cape Town South Africa