Known popularly as Angel Falls, these falls are called Kerepakupai-Merú by the Pemon.

(Canaima) While Adamaka Charafukaikuse Endayuritupo, or Henry Campos, knows that he is Venezuelan; he prefers to refer to himself as Canaiman. That’s because for Campos this where his people’s history is etched in the dramatic landscapes of the area that today consist of Canaima National Park. These jungles are the setting of the tales and legends of his people who for centuries have called this ancient landscape home.

Campos enthusiastically tells the tales of how the Pemon people are said to have reached these jungles, the home of the immense ancient rock formations, or tepuis, and the highest waterfalls in the world. The falls, known as Angel Falls, flow from the vertical cliffs of Auyantepui mountain.

“For the Pemon people it is all here,” says Campos, “We have the beach, the river, our people. My grandfather told me that this is lost paradise; it is the land of our gods, the rivers, the mountains the animals and insects. I always thank the gods that I was born in Canaima.”

Mythical Mount Roraima
Long referred to as the Lost World, the nearby Mount Roraima and its grand tapui boasts four hundred meter tall cliffs that formed the setting of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic 1912 novel The Lost World.

Among some of the world’s most ancient rock formations, I flew over some of the one hundred tepui that rise above these vast tracks of land in what is a series of elevated plateau that pierce the clouds with their sheer sandstone cliffs. The tepui drop vertically leaving fields precious stones, strangely shaped rocks, unique flora and ancient fauna.

An Amerindian of the Pemon tribe, Campos learned to speak English shares his innate knowledge of these landscapes of South Eastern Venezuela with visitors to some of the twelve guest houses and area resorts.

Arriving in Canaima is landing on an airstrip that until very recently received only small aircraft, leaving it hard to access. Local carrier Conviasa recently launched commercial flights to this remote area, and the site of the aircraft parked on the side of the airstrip dwarfs the small stand-like structure that greets tourists. There is no airport here but a small stall where arts and crafts are pitched to tourists.

Vehicles then shift guests to and from the local resorts and campgrounds a short distance away on narrow dusty roads.

Traditional longboats take guests on day trips to the waterfalls surrounding the resort.

The Canaima Lagoon
Venetur Campamento Canaima overlooks the Canaima lagoon with a view of a series of plunging waterfalls that flow into the waters, with an imposing tepui in the distance. Tea colored waters, sandy beaches and three palm trees literally emerge from the waters as if to emphasize the otherworldly nature of the setting. Traditional longboats ferry guests to and from the seven waterfalls that fill the lagoon.

Jetting off from the resort in a longboat, Campos leads the way to a day of trekking. He explains the origins of the Pemon, an amalgamation of a series of tribes known for having been fierce warriors. As we head out to the lagoon and approach the falls Campos receives a phone call on his cellular phone, and the view is a striking contrast of his tribal tales and the trappings of contemporary life.

We walk through the jungles and Campos points out caves, flora, lizards and even a striking small black and yellow colored frog that is a mystery to even to biologists. They are thought to have originated from ancient times and survived on the unique flatlands of the surrounding plateaus.

Sapo Falls
We pass El Hacha Falls and Sapo Falls, which we climb and follow a rocky path that leads literally behind the falling waters. About every three months I like to live a really magical moment – one where I can stand in front of nature, or experience a profound moment of cultural sharing. Standing in front of these falls, and later exchanging with Campos about the Pemon was one such moment. We showered under the warm falling waters, taking in spectacular views and appreciated the moment.

That evening after a few glasses of whisky, Campos recounts the legend of his tribe’s arrival in Canaima centuries ago. The Homeric journey began, he says, in the northern Caribbean when the son of a shaman predicted a terrible war against the ‘other side’. It was a war that could not be won. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing of the Spanish invasion of the Americas, but this was a tale that the community could hardly believe.

The shaman, however, predicted that there was a land somewhere in the clouds where they could live well and sent his son with a magical potion to give him strength in the journey to discover the unknown earthly paradise. The tale eventually leads to the land around Canaima, to Auyantepui and Kerepakupai-Merú – known today popularly as Angel Falls – whose waters literally fall from the clouds.

The mythical Angel Falls
The last top on our journey was a short flight to these mythical falls and its rugged flat-topped tepui, a landscape that was until recently named after Jimmy Angel. He was American aviator who in the 1930s was first believed to have been the first outsider to see these highest of waterfalls in the world.

A small plane in the distance reveals the immense dimensions of the landscape of Canaima National Park.

Angel Falls are approached either by boat or in our case a small aircraft. In our case, four passengers were crammed into the small plane. Its climb revealed the baby-green terrain, meandering rivers and jutting tapui.

A handful of waterfalls flowed from the cliffs, but it was not until I saw another small aircraft approach in the distance that the sheer proportions of the landscape became clear. We swooped several times as my fellow passengers became dizzy and somewhat nauseous, but there they were – Angel falls flowing from the clouds. Our pilot even claimed to have moved the clouds over during his thee passes of the falls, giving us a better view.

The top of plateau pierced the cloud-cover and the waters of Kerepakupai-Merú flowed ferociously. The backdrop was no less inspiring as it must have been in the eyes of the Pemon generations before. And the minuscule size of the small aircraft approaching the falls just emphasized the sheer vastness of the jungles of Canaima.

Jamaican-born reggae and dancehall musician Papa San moved to gospel when his life spun out of control. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com JAMAICA

In Jamaica, a creative life offers an escape from a cycle of violence

(Montego Bay) When Jamaican-born reggae, dancehall and gospel singer Papa San took the stage of the Fun in the Son festival in Kingston earlier this spring, it might have been a homecoming of sorts. Like many artists from here who were raised in a rough and tumble environment, escaping a life of violence and excess was a long journey. But it was one that has always leads him back to the hustle of the grimy streets of his hometown.

In this island-nation, music, art and creativity born in the yoke of the ghetto are more than symbols of liberation and freedom. They are its key.

“Music somehow elevates you out of that lifestyle and takes you on a different road,” says Papa San, who was born Tyrone Thompson. The artist who is known as Jamaica’s fastest lyrical speaking DJ began his journey to fame from the area of Spanish Town not far from the capital, Kingston. This is where he flourished as a teen in talent shows and contests.

“You get to success and everything becomes right because there are a lot of yes-men around you,” he says, “Then you start making terrible mistakes by just having the money and the friends who defend it.”

A precarious rise to fame
Papa San describes his early climb from the precarious streets to an environment that fed by an addictive lifestyle that enmeshed him into a dangerous world of clan-politics, excessive womanizing and violence. It was that context which ended up costing the lives of friends, relatives and even several of his siblings.

Ultimately, it lead him to a downward spiral. His Rastafarian grandmother raised Tyrone Thompson, and throughout his career – which has spanned over two decades he has adopted more musical styles than most artists would in a lifetime. He began as a dancehall DJ, went on to find acclaim in reggae, and finally left the secular world to settle into a devout life of faith and songs of praise.

His signature style today is best described as high-octane Gospel, paired with his private hosting of bible readings in his Florida home. His audiences adore him, revere him, and even mime every word of his miles-an-hour lyrics. A concert of Papa San is a happening enraptured by an electric energy that results in tears, and audiences who are so electrified that they seem to take in the music from a trancelike state.

“When I go to a show there are a lot of guys walking behind me, and they are all from the ghetto,” he says, “But they are just walking with the artist. Everything you do is with a mindset and that is the mentality that is still that of a ghetto person.”

Elgo, the renaissance man in Montego Bay
On the far side of the capital of Kingston are the azure blue-oceans of Montego Bay. On the outskirts of the tourist trail is a small, cram packed art gallery. This is where another Jamaican artist with a mission sits vigil. Errol Lewis, known as Elgo, is a painter, a poet, a merchant, a traveller, a businessman, an art dealer and a spiritual voice.

While he too has brought his own art out of the constraints of the economic realities that many Jamaicans face, his mission is very much rooted in a desire to give dignity to a people whose history is weighted by a legacy of slavery and suffering.

Cycle of violence penetrates art, as seen in one of Elgo's own paintings. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com JAMAICA

“I don’t think that the struggle has ended,” says Elgo in a quiet and determined tone. “It has continued in a very subtle and undefined manner. But the nuances and tentacles of mental slavery remain. This is what Bob Marley sang about, about using music to open the eyes of the world. Art speaks eloquently and silently.”

As we talk, Elgo glares at one of his own paintings depicting an anguished mother from whose breast drips bullets falling directly into the barrel of a gun. The work reflects the painful dilemma of Jamaican mothers whose nurturing love confronts the gangland society of murder and violence that has enveloped in the inner-city streets of this country’s ghettos.

Ultimately, he laments, Jamaica has become plagued by a philosophy of extreme economic violence.

For his part Elgo hones the memory of his own African roots and nourishes the creative talent of the black artists of Jamaica. He was inspired by a trip to Ghana, where disappointedly he realized that black artists be they in Dadowa, Ghana or Kingston, Jamaica were left in a different league by a society rooted in sustenance and survival, unready to actually pay for their cultural product.

Creating a market
“What was interesting there was that the Africans were not interested in purchasing or looking at art. They would often come into the gallery and ask if they could eat the artwork. It was as basic as that,” he recalls of his attempts at running an art gallery outside of Accra, the capital of Ghana.

When he returned to Jamaica he was introduced to a man that was said to have been the cousin of Pablo Picasso, to whom Elgo put a burning question in his mind. Why, he asked, did European artists get millions for their paintings while he was unable to name single black artist who would fetch similar amounts? A half our later the man returned earnestly and told him, “It is for you to set the standard, the ceiling for your culture.” The answer inspired Elgo to a mission.

While the works of European artists like Pablo Picasso were negotiable, almost a bankable instrument, the same value system didn’t follow for the black artists of Jamaica. He would create the market, he reasoned.

“Essentially what that gave me was an impetus to look at the business of art,” says Elgo, “I have vowed to see that at least one black artist secured $ 1 million US for a painting, either in their lifetime or before my death. That mission is on my way. “

Like a one-man cooperative Elgo promotes both his works and those of his fellow Jamaican artists, even giving them international reverberations at an important international contemporary art fair in Miami. While many of the works in the gallery are of the lower price brackets, some visitors are surprised when he comes up with local works priced from $ 25,000 to $ 125,000.

Errol Lewis, known as Elgo, is a painter, a poet, a merchant, a traveller, a businessman, an art dealer and a spiritual voice. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com JAMAICA

Leaving Jamaica
But for Papa San, fame and fortune as a reggae star didn’t provide him with the solace that he might have sought. He made millions, he says, but also lost millions. He lived an up and down lifestyle, losing over forty of his friends, and two of his brothers by gunshot. He hit rock-bottom.

“When I reached the end of my road I looked around me and said that something is not working,” Papa San recalls, “I could have ended up in prison or been killed many times. I lost one of my brothers at that time and I tried girls here or there. It never worked for me, I was at the end of my rope and was ready to give my life to Christ.”

“When God really talked to my heart about giving my life to him, music was really the last thing on my mind.”

Within an environment where people were killing, shooting and fighting, music suddenly lay somewhere in the middle. But as much affection that the had for his homeland, Papa San then chose to move on from the political violence and strife, and he now lives in Miami. He left his old friends, accepted Christ into his life, and started over.

“I forgave those who killed my brothers,” says Papa San, who began a new life, embracing a life of faith, “I lived with three different girls, cut them off I cut off on that very day, I settled down with the mother of my child who is now my wife. I never looked back. I have no taste to.”

Unlikely road-trip. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

A road-trip through Quebec’s Magdalen Islands

(Old Harry) You can’t escape the irony of talking about a road-trip when traveling along a single road of a sparsely populated set of windswept islands in the middle of the Gulf of the St-Lawrence. While the road here is long it only meanders slightly; you never really get lost. You do make stops on the journey, though, listening to the tales of island storytellers; fishermen or wanderers who somehow chose to make Quebec’s Magdalen Islands home.

In this unlikely setting I discovered a landscape peppered with small colourful houses and dreamy vistas. The eclectic mix of people who live here run the gamut from those who settled on these islands centuries ago and who live off of the fruit of the sea.

A lighthouse at sunset attracts crowds here and from one area to the next the language spoken, the dialect and even the flags flown change. The population of these islands includes a mix of descendants of survivors of the over 400 shipwrecks that landed here over the centuries. Their inhabitants are an assortment of both English and French speaking people to those whose ancestors were Acadians who once took refuge here, to those who simply chose life on the periphery.

The journey to the Magdalen Islands
The trip to Cap-aux-Meules, the main port settlement, began for in Montreal on the St-Laurence River on the CMTA Vacancier. The ship is a clunky ferry that runs tourists from Montreal to the Magdalen Islands every summer. It stops in Quebec City and Chandler, passing the scenic Gaspé Bay and it’s iconic pierced rock. This is no luxury-liner but a comfortable sail with a swath of Quebec society; many head to these islands like a yearly pilgrimage.

The winter months on the Magdalen Islands are cold and bleak until spring comes to life and local fishermen head to sea, while others prepare for tourists to flock to the shores. From the port at Cap-aux-Meules, south to Île du Havre Aubert, to small settlements like Pointe-aux-Loups, or up north to Grosse Île, most of the islands are interconnected along one singular route.

As I walked off of the ship in Cap-aux-Meules, a small hatchback was parked at the side of a road. The doors unlocked and the keys were simply placed on the windshield, left to me for this road trip. It was a matter of starting the ignition and rolling away towards the blue skies of Île du Havre Aubert. 

I turned on the radio to U2’s “The Sweetest Thing”, the windows open, I felt the exuberance of a carefree existence.

The journey south began to a setting of flocking birds, sandy beaches and small rural villages. Eventually I turned off from Route 199 – what some locals like to call the ‘Trans-Magdalen’ route – and onto Île du Havre Aubert’s scenic highway with its porous terracotta cliffs perched high over the sea.

The Magdalen Islands are a set of scenic and sparsely populated set of windswept islands. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

At Le Site D’autrefois, translated ‘the place of other times’, a sole fisherman sat vigil at this miniature recreation of an old-time fishing village. He recounted stories of the life of the early ‘medelinots’. He talked of how one local once brought in a twenty-six pound lobster, then the rise and fall of island fishing. He even confronted the contentious issue of the seal hunt and the intermittent comings and goings of activists onto the islands. Seal hunting has been practiced here for generations, and famously international celebrity Martin Sheen was chased away from a hotel in the Magdalen Islands in 1996 when he arrived here to protest the practice. It is in small communities like this that the concepts of urban life clash with the long-honored traditions of a local community.

The storytellers of the Magdalen Islands
The next day I head out to sea on a fishing boat with island storyteller Elaine Richard. She tells the tales of the organic geological birth of the islands, stories of one-time shipwrecks or the origins of the peculiar local accent. The Acadians who came here in the 19^th century dropped a letter from their speech, she says, so repugnant was the idea of even pronouncing the first letter of the word ‘roi’, or ‘king’.

“I became a storyteller because I was motivated by the idea of telling our stories to the children before they leave the island,” she says, recalling the large number of islanders who set off every year towards more prosperous urban areas. “At least this way they can make their own judgment about whether to stay.”

Richard tells the stories and histories of the people of the islands to local schools during the winter months, and at local or international festivals. The fact that she remained on the islands is a twist of her own fate. Her father could only send one child to school, and she was the one who ended up staying. 

They lived, she says, in the abundance of the strict minimum – but as a result today she appreciates what she learned of island folklore. “We have to be conscious about our stories,” she says.

About halfway up the island chain is Aunt Emma, another notable island storyteller. Her tales come with vibrant musical accompaniment at a local bar. One of seventeen children and raised in the small northern community of Pointe-aux-Loups, she tells and sings the tales and local legends, and pokes fun at linguistic quirks or rivalries between neighbouring islands.

The Café de l’Est
The last leg of my trip had me heading northwards toward the more remote corners of Grosse Île and Old Harry. I stop at Le Fumoir D’Antan, a boutique and herring smokehouse where a family is reviving a tradition that largely died out with the decline of the fish stocks here during the 1970s, and then haphazardly meet with characters like Byron Clark on Grosse Île, who painstakingly repairs old organs on the edges of a remote island road.

The clouds rolled in as I headed towards the most northern and distant of the Magdalen Islands, passing small churches, beachfronts and even a salt mine.

A lighthouse at sunset attracts crowds at the Magdalen Islands. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

At Old Harry, on Grosse Île is Café de L’Est, a small marine-blue eatery off of a verdant field with hardly a neighbor to talk about. A jovial Shyam Amsel, an ethnic Hungarian-Slovak-Jew who grew up on the streets of Montreal, waits on the restaurant that serves the best clam chowder that I’ve ever had. 

Amsel traveled the globe in his 20s, venturing as far as India looking for meaning and spiritual enlightenment. He also visited the Magdalen Islands in his youth, but it was only much later that he took the leap of faith and head over here, trying to invent coffee-culture on these remote islands.

“Then I learned that the reason that there was no café was that the madelinots were not that interested in cafes. The rhythm of life was different here.” While he knows that he will never be an ‘islander’, he does feel a part of a diverse but nourishing community.

“The horizon goes on forever here and my eye wanders out into the eternity, and that touches the eternity within me,” he concludes, “Wherever I hang my hat is home and all of the people are family. We are all brothers and sisters here, not by blood way, but it’s all right.”

DIVERSE MIX. Members of the Mile End Chavurah in Montreal hold a service. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

Montreal’s Mile End Chavurah takes a novel approach to Jewish identity and ritual

At a recent service of a nascent Jewish group, a woman announced her coming out in front of her community. But the point was not that she was gay. Her friends already knew that, she said. It was because, she admitted, she didn’t believe in God. But her lack of faith didn’t impede her desire to participate in Jewish ritual and spirituality. She was comfortable surrounded by a community with whom she could explore Judaism.

Shortly thereafter, the Mile End Chavurah’s spiritual voice, Rachel Kronick, guitar in hand, followed suit in admitting her own atheism. For this exceptional service, having taken place in the presence of a Torah, she offered to pretend. While some members of the group may individually profess ambivalent views toward the notion of God, this vibrant community is united in its desire to explore Judaism and its rituals.

New ways of connecting
Its approach values individual journeys toward Judaism in an open environment. This is self-serve Judaism, where one can take or leave or even adapt traditions, depending on personal convictions.

“There are so many people who don’t fit anymore in the boxes of traditional synagogues,” says Kronick, “There are so many people who identify with Judaism, and approach Jewish identity with a sense of ambivalence. They might not have a straightforward, uncritical view about Israel, or they may have married non-Jews.

“While they are deeply curious about Jewish spirituality, they are uncomfortable with the orthodoxy that exists within many synagogues. They just want something that feels heimishe.”

Kronick begins some services with a sort of poetic ode. She welcomes a diverse lot that range from those whose backgrounds are anchored in Jewish life to others for whom Jewish rituals are altogether new. “Some of us were dragged here – by our partner, by a parent, even by a child – and we aren’t convinced we even want to be here,” recites Kronick. “Some of us are Jews by choice… Some of us are not Jews. »

“Some of us don’t read a word of Hebrew,” she goes on, reciting at a metronomic pace. “For some of us, Hebrew is our mother tongue. Some of us keep kosher. Some of us keep kosher at home and eat bacon out.”

Mile End Chavurah's Rachel Kronick (right) and Layla Dabby (left) leading a musical Hanukkah service. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

Founding a community
The Mile End Chavurah grew into a community from a small group that Kronick gathered together for a founding meeting in a local café in the spring of 2009. She set out to develop a grassroots, innovative community that she felt would fill a need for an open space to study, a place to debate and explore Judaism and its rituals.

“It was intriguing because suddenly I was meeting other people who had similar things to say about their relationship with organized Judaism,” says Layla Dabby, a founding member, recalling the first meeting. “It was responding to a sense of alienation or disconnect, of not feeling represented. It was surprising to me; up to that point I didn’t realize that other people existed besides me that felt that way.”

The group began by celebrating small Shabbat dinners at each other’s homes, initially with 10 to 20 people attending. They later adopted a church and cultural center which was once a synagogue. This is where the group holds services that include Shabbat dinners, holiday celebrations, guest speakers and meditation in the context of potluck vegetarian meals.

The group follows in a tradition of havurot that date back in North America to the 1960s and 1970s. These fellowships were initiated to hold holiday prayer services or facilitate Shabbat dinners. They have traditionally favored an egalitarian approach, rather than hierarchical structures.

“Most fundamentally I get a community,” says Dabby, who has since been joined by other family members. “I have this group of people that I can see myself getting older with, going through different stages in my life and with whom to share major events, of sharing and exploring an identity. It is a great gift that I never expected to have, and I am very grateful for it.”

New ways of thinking, new approaches
Among its growing number of programs and events, the Mile End Chavurah recently held a community-wide educational event featuring Rabbi David Ingber of Romemu, a progressive New York-based Jewish community, to share the approach of a more inclusive form of Judaism.

These groups are two of several North American movements that are challenging stratified notions of Jewish celebration. They are taking religion out of the synagogue and into people’s homes, encouraging the adaptation of traditions to individual desires. The Mile End Chavurah welcomes gays and lesbians, and offers the space to approach traditions with a critical eye.

“We are not trying to do flashy cool things, but we are simply trying to engage in an authentic spiritual inquiry together,” says Kronick, herself the product of a mixed marriage whose mother converted to Judaism.

“There is nothing that we are not open to. Someone can come to chavurah and say that ‘I am really uncomfortable with Judaism,’ or ‘I am uncomfortable being a Jew.’ There is space to explore. People can come in and say that I feel really committed as a Jew, and there is space for that, too.”

In a matter of months, the Mile End Chavurah went from intimate Shabbat dinners in people’s apartments to members par- ticipating in regional retreats and conferences. It even surprised some in the community when some 250 persons attended High Holy Day services, and potluck dinners also began to attract a wide variety of new members.

Through a newsletter and social media, the group mushroomed and finally received granting from Gen J, a funding body of the mainstream Jewish community which is intent on attracting a new demographic into the larger Jewish community. The group now includes a diverse array of members whose interests include ways to express Judaism in environmental, gastronomic or spiritual terms.

Tamara Kramer brings an international flair to the table with her radio program Shtetl on the Shortwave, which doubles as a Jewish cultural magazine. The program has a dizzying array of themes from in-depth interviews with proponents of this city’s vibrant musical scene to a talk with the spiritual leader of the Abayudaya, a Jewish community in Uganda.

More openness, an inclusive space
“The new generation wants much more freedom in how they define their way to be Jewish,” says Andres Spokoiny, chief executive officer of Federation CJA in Montreal. “They demand much more openness, an inclusive space to be able to express their Judaism in the way that they choose to do so.”

While the definition of openness put forward by Spokoiny differs markedly from that of the Mile End Chavurah, the CJA has welcomed the group at arm’s length, but significantly with financial support. One key to understanding the shift is a changing demographic among the community here.

Montreal’s Jewish community has become increasingly multicultural, multilingual and multi-ethnic. From a predominantly Anglo- phone and Ashkenazi face, migrant populations, Russians, a vibrant Sephardi community, Jews from South America and even Israel have now enriched it.

Yet while Spokoiny talks of inclusion in terms of mixed marriages between Ashkenazim and Sephardim or integrating Jews of various ethnic backgrounds into the greater community, the Chavurah remains much more open-ended.

For the traditional Jewish institutions of Montreal – one of North America’s most dynamic communities – associations like the Mile End Chavurah also represent a strategic interest. For them, opening to those with less traditional approaches to Judaism comes down to demographics.

There can be beauty in people disagreeing, says student Simone Lucas. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

These movements act as a catalyst to attract new segments who don’t feel at home with the more traditional institutions.

Contentious issue of Israel on the table
“There can be a beauty in people disagreeing, and in the Jewish community, it is a kind of a stereotype,” says university student Simone Lucas, who attends Mile End Chavurah events. “I think that with this group there is more of a willingness to discuss without having to arrive at a conclusion. There is a willingness to make things work with what we have without having to put boundaries attached to one view or perspective. Those are the underlying values.”

Lucas was attracted to participating in Jewish ritual, an open-ended approach to Judaism and seriously prodding intellectual questions. But for her, it doesn’t stop there. Being exposed to the contentious issues surrounding Israel on the university campuses led her to seek a space where openness existed to talk about these issues without preconceived notions.

“There is a lot of talk about Israel and a lot of activism around Palestinian liberation, but there is an emotional difficulty in talking about it,” she says. “Hillel, for instance, doesn’t respond well a lot of the time. We have been fed a lot of narratives and stories that are hard to detach ourselves from. Sometimes there is a need to talk about it, because it is really important. Jews feel certain accountability for it.”

The writer is a member of the Mile End Chavurah. He visits and reports on diverse communities around the world, and is the edi- tor of the travel website ontheglobe.com. This article first appeared in the Jerusalem Post Magazine.

‘Shtetl on the Shortwave’
Mile End Chavurah member Tamara Kramer brings edgy alternative Jewish Montreal to the world, and global stories of her own to this city. Astute and always seeking the unusual angle to all things Jewish, Kramer is the host of Shtetl on the Shortwave (shtetlmontreal.com), an online alternative Jewish cultural magazine and radio program. The show features interviews with an array of artists from the suave, musical or edgy to the quirky or the simply curious.

“People have an interest in Jewish culture, whether they are Jewish or not. They want to access it, but they do not know how,” says Kramer. “The traditional routes to find out what is going on in the Jewish world don’t always speak to everybody.”

Of her show, she says, “It’s bringing together what is important, interesting and deep about Jewish life. Showing how it is relevant to young people who might not be interested in going to a synagogue or who are disenchant- ed with the Jewish world but who still want to have a connection but don’t feel comfortable in traditional Jewish spaces that we have here in Montreal.”
Kramer has featured a vibrant mix of guests. They have included an inter- view with a spiritual voice from the Abayudaya – a Jewish community in Uganda – as well as in-depth inter- views with the likes of local musician Socalled, who performs in porn halls and then causes a stir as he attempts to play with a female singer in an Orthodox synagogue.

She even points to one of her more unusual voices, Zohar Weiman Kel- man. She is an Israeli doctoral student who approaches Judaism from the study of Yiddish poets of the early 20th century in Poland – all while heading out to queer Jewish spirituali- ty events in California and performing as Shabbes’dik, a drag-king performance based on a likeness of her rabbi grandfather in his youth. The package results in a unique, amusing and entertaining mix.

“A lot of Jewish people and people in general are really in the closet with a lot of their questions,” says Kramer. “It’s true that in a traditional setting people can’t say, ‘I’m married to a non- Jew’ or ‘I’m bisexual and interested in Jewish arts and culture and religion.’ But that is the reality with a lot of Jewish people today. They might be inter- married, part of the secular world or just part of global culture. But they still want to find a connection to the Jewish culture.”

Portrait of a girl, Cartagena. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com

In Colombia, the rhythms of dance are part of the cultural fabric

(Bogota) Wander the streets of a sweltering Cartagena, a fortress of a city by the sea on the northern coast of Colombia and you will be taken in by its colourful facades, flower-laden wooden balconies and airy rooftop patios. The fiery sun bounces off of the freshly painted houses adorned in bright reds, yellows and even blues. The echo of your voice can be heard in the narrow streets where an atmosphere is so intimate that the roads give the impression of being alleyways.

If you look a little closer at the Colombians, you might also notice that they never stop to dance. They dance their feverishly paced salsa every night, and even he motions of their thighs and breasts seemed more like natural gyrations. Then the speed of their salsa becomes acrobatic. Even in the streets during their everyday lives the shifty walks of the Colombians appear almost choreographed as one suave step leads into another keeping a kind of natural beat.

The coffee triangle
But this journey lead me to crisscross the country from the cool capital to the famed ‘coffee triangle’. My next stop was in Bogota, high in Andes mountains, a sprawling city said to be close to the legendary El Dorado, the ’gilded one’. This fabled kingdom of gold was said to have its origins when a South American tribal leader covered himself in gold dust only to dive into the waters of a pristine mountain-lake, creating a golden empire, the location of which is still said to be somewhere in this area.

Plaza de Bolivar at sundown. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com

In Bogota you can see real gold in the form of the creations of pre-Hispanic society which are housed in the capital’s Gold Museum. A pair of circular earrings from the Narino Valley – dating back to 600-1700 AD –were once worn at dances and ritual ceremonies many centuries ago.

From a dinner at the peak of Cerro de Monserrate at 3,160 meters with a breathtaking view of the sprawling capital, to the Botero museum with its collection of Fernando Botero’s amusingly rotund caricature-like figures, Bogota is a regional Mecca of unique art and architecture enveloped by mountain peaks.

Classical architecture of Bogota
The central Plaza de Bolivar at sundown you have the feeling of being in a view by the 18^th century Italian painter Canaletto. As far as the eye could see the classical architecture constructions baked in the rays of the five o’clock sun as birds whisked back and forth in the frame.

But as day became night, again it was the dance and passion of Colombians that came to life. On one evening we ventured out to Andres Carne de Res, the famous restaurant and dance hall as known for its sumptuous steaks as it is for its carnival-like atmosphere. Forty minutes from the capital, this is where the fast dance and the slow-kiss meet.

Cocktails are served in strange coconut-like mugs, and the décor is pasted together with a wide array of strange local objects from bottle caps to traditional Colombian hats. Bands of musicians wander throughout the place playing to tables all while competing with the music that everybody else is dancing to. As the night progresses the dance floor becomes packed and the salsa, electric. They danced between the tables and wherever a person could fit.

Basically, the scene developed into a sort of utter chaos. Dance-obsessed Colombians kissed the night away as they drank their mojitos and moved to their salsa, merengue and cumbia beats.

View of Bogota from Cerro de Monserrate. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com

But if you utter the word Colombia to most people in the world they will think of the Arabica produced here. This is coffee country that was ironically made famous by the fictional character known the world over as Juan Valdez.

The Parque Nacional del Café
We move to the lush coffee region not far from Armenia and the village of Montenegro at the Parque Nacional del Café, something of a Disneyland of the coffee bean. This is one of Colombia’s largest parks where you witness the processes of coffee production, from the nursery, planting, collecting and the processing of the beans.

This is where they present the Show del Café, or the story of coffee, as interpreted through dance and narrative. Young Colombians tell the story of coffee rich in traditional costumes, spears, coffee bags and the story of Juan Valdez with a painted backdrop of the Andes Mountain range in the background.

“We are a kind of tropical people, living in the movement,” Carmen Dora Ossa, a singer of the traditional Colombian musical ensemble told me, „The people of this territory carry the music in their blood.”

Related article: Valle de Cocora, seeontheglobe.com

Scene featuring sheep on Irish coastline near Cliffden. Photo courtesy Tourism Ireland Imagery Library IRELAND

Once provincial Ireland rebuilds, with history in mind

(Galway) An aerial view of Ireland reveals the one thing the Irish cherish most: their lush yet rugged land. It shows the dualities that have marked a nation that in recent months has gone from boom to bust. But the scars of this country’s history underscore the character of a nation of survivors.

The rolling hills from the banks of the Shannon River to the rocky pastures just north of Galway show a verdant landscape that looks tropical in its misty hues. It’s an illusion, though, because this is a nation home to more sheep than people, and whose soil’s rocky composition and sickly potatoes over a century ago caused famine and gloom.

Perched atop a hill near Roundstone, one of the oldest fishing villages in the region of Connemara, lies what locals call a “famine cottage.” Sprinkled throughout the countryside and overgrown with moss, foliage and vines, these are sturdy yet ominously empty cavities of what were once the homes of those who fled Ireland’s devastating 19th-century famine.

Many escaped to America while others simply died out, leaving these forgotten shells like oysters strewn about a barren seabed.

Dynamic Galway
Less than 75 kilometers away is the Galway of today, a dynamic university city whose streets spill with students day and night. In a country where the median age is 35 and until recently plentiful jobs were a magnet for migrants, even today this area is a stark contrast to the same country decades ago.

Galway, a city that doesn’t sleep. Photo courtesy Jonathan Hession, Tourism Ireland Imagery Library IRELAND

“Ireland skipped the industrial revolution and went straight to education and high-tech industries,” says Ciaran Ganter, a 20-something entrepreneur sipping away a pint in a local pub. “That is one of the reasons why we were poorer 15 or 20 years ago.”

Ireland in the 1990s emerged as the “Celtic Tiger,” the booming economy of a youthful Europe. But this all came to a tumbling halt late last year when the debt-paralyzed nation was forced to concede to a bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

But if any nation knows the rough life, it’s the Irish. Venture into Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Gallery on High Street and prominently displayed is a hardcover book by Tom Garvin, adorned with a depression-era black-and-white photograph of a destitute-looking man gazing into an empty landscape. The book is titled Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long?

The role of the Church
Garvin’s book, which raised eyebrows and opened debate, rests on the notion that the lack of Ireland’s development in the decades after its 1921 independence was caused by the then-powerful Catholic Church, in whose interest it was to maintain an under-educated and subservient society.

A lack of mass education denied preparation for life in the modern world, Garvin argues. It was only during the 1990s when a new and highly educated, technically trained and by then largely secular workforce came into being. It was then that Ireland finally began to flourish, and according to the author, a generation later than it could have.

Ancient Irish stone carved cross. Photo courtesy Nutan, Tourism Ireland Imagery Library, IRELAND

“Ireland is much more liberal now and the church doesn’t have so much influence,” says a confident Anna Metadjer, a humanities student at the National University of Ireland in Galway. “A lot of my friends don’t believe or don’t go to mass. Religion wouldn’t be as important to people our age now.”

Metadjer is in her early 20s, and proudly wears a necklace adorned with a small cross. Her family roots in Ireland date back generations, and her ancestors are buried at the 6th century medieval monastery in Clonmacnoise, which to this day remains a popular tourist attraction located at a remote spot overlooking the Shannon River.

A paddy will always buy a field
Though not oblivious to the past, Metadjer has other things on her mind. Pondering her future and travel plans with her friends in a Galway pub is more the order of the day. She wants to travel for a few years, but then return and acquire a house.

“It’s so expensive to get a house, but property and land means a lot to the Irish people, owning something,” she says. “A paddy will always buy a field, the saying goes. It’s the whole land thing, the whole history of Ireland. It was always a fight for land.”

In its growth towards becoming the “Celtic Tiger,” the Irish were in the property market, not far from their roots. They purchased property both domestically and abroad, from Spain to Budapest. The Irish went international, leaving behind their provincial roots.

As the land-loving Irish rebuild, they don’t lose their practical sense. Bitter memories guide them once again into the future as raindrops fall quietly yet steadily onto the lush Irish landscape. Just as it has done for generations on this green horizon.

Sili Apelu lost fourteen members of his family to the 2009 earthquake and tsunami in Samoa. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com SAMOA

Rebuilding after tsunami in the south pacific island of Samoa

(Lalomanu Beach) One early morning less than two years ago, Sili Apelu had no clue that in a matter of hours his life would literally turn upside down. Literally. On that day fourteen members of his family were washed away by the crushing impact of over twenty foot waves and his surviving relatives were left with their lives in tatters. During the minutes and hours after an earthquake struck off of the shores the South Pacific island of Samoa, he was forced to make life wrenching decisions. Survival was the order of the day.

When he resurfaced from his ordeal of the morning of September 29, 2009, Apelu didn’t just set out to rebuild his life. He made it his mission to rejuvenate the small beachside community on the eastern tip of Upolu Island. With his family, a group of his faithful guests and friends, he set out to recreate at least a semblance of the life of the community that he had previously honed on the remote and scenic Lalomanu Beach.

Rebuilding in Samoa, however, would always be a community affair. Nestled in the vast oceans of the South Pacific, age-old Samoan culture is based on Fa’a Samoa, a traditional way of life which to this day is anchored in chiefly traditions, reverence for family and community.

Even before the tsunami Apelu rented fales, traditional Samoan thatched roof constructions. Tourists rent fales to be in ear-shot of the ocean waves, lagoons and shining corals. On that particular morning the seventeen fales of Taufua Beach Fales, his outfit, were booked solid. Ninety six guests were staying on the property, he recalls, with some overflow clients housed on the neighbouring properties.

According to the US Geological Survey, on that morning at 6:48 am a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck the Samoan Islands region, with the epicentre 190km south of Apia, the capital. Samoa is located in the region known as the Ring of Fire, and can experience tsunamis from any direction. But the stark reality was that an earthquake here could leave as little as nine minutes before harnessing a potentially deadly tsunami onto these shores.

A reminder of September 29, 2009. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com SAMOA

Early morning buzz at Lalomanu beach
Apelu’s family were up and buzzing at 4am that morning. The household said prayers daily at the insistence of his 97 year-old ailing father. “I was still sleeping and when the earthquake rumbled,” remembers Apelu, “I thought someone was playing a joke on me and shaking my bed.”

He instinctively knew what had happened. Given the intensity of the shaking and his having worked for a seismological observatory for six years, he suspected what awaited them. A tsunami. He knew that it would be intense, since generally earthquakes were felt less on the absorbing sandy beaches of Lalomanu.

He brought the land cruiser from the back and turned on the radio before escaping into the office where his daughter had already fired up the internet. He sat down and asked to see for himself, searching for warnings. That was all that there was time for.

Something strange and eerie was happening. By the time he had typed in the US Geological Survey website into his web browser, the nearby lagoon had all but emptied. It was sucked out to sea, the sign that a massive wave headed right towards the beach.

“My wife suddenly yelled for people to run for their lives,” he remembers, “People were running all around. Somebody brought a land cruiser from across the road and many jumped onto it. They were panicking.”

Apelu, standing in front of the office, suddenly faced the two massive piles of water emerging from the ocean in the distance. The pandemonium that ensued was palpable. Although they didn’t know it at the time, the white Land Cruiser would have no chance of escaping the gushing waters. The only safe place was far beyond the path of a small road that crossed Lalomanu Beach.

Apelu called on his wife to escape, his son continued to warn the unsuspecting guests to run for their lives. Many didn’t even know where to run while others had little clue of what a tsunami was in the first place.

“I started running away from the wave that was sweeping in from behind. But by then the water had already inundated the road, which told me that the wave had hit the upper part of the village before it did our side. While I was running the wave was bulldozing the beach fales.”

“I didn’t make it to the foot of the mountain before I was caught.”

Fales rebuilt by Sili Apelu and his team at Taufua Beach Fales. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com SAMOA

Waves hits Lalomanu Beach
Sili Apelu still doesn’t understand how he survived the first waves that hit Lalomanu Beach. The day conjures painful images. He chokes when recounting the story, taking deep breaths and intermittent, lengthy pauses. Tears run down his face as he confronts his memories of that day.

Apelu ran between two solid structures as the wall of waters approached. He quickly grabbed his four-year-old nephew who was standing at the door, perplexed.

“I grabbed him,” he remembers, “I saw that the water was already in front of us and imagined that it had gotten into the house and was trapped before it escaped quickly through the door. All I did was to put my back against the wall and hung on to my nephew, but in a split second the building collapsed and took us away…”

Apelu hung on to his nephew as the world crumbled around them. The next image he remembers was being literally clamped onto a series of planks of wood, timbers that he thinks were from the base of a pigsty that had been on the foot of the nearby mountain.

“I had my nephew with me. Then I looked up and all that I remember was water for about two meters above me,” he says, “That was the first wave… and then I had to decide what to do with my nephew.”

“I thought that if I released him he would catch some air above, because I struggled to get away from what was locking me down. But I couldn’t. I had to decide what to do.”

“I let him go,” he says painfully. Another wave arrived shortly thereafter. Apelu looked up, now without his nephew.

Somehow amidst the chaos, Apelu survived. The water receded from the beach, and further down the it remained like stagnant pools for three days. Bodies emerged from the sludge. Where houses stood, mere foundations remained.

His wife had been carried away, but she was saved by the floating roof of a fale which she could grab onto in an ordeal that she describes like being strewn in a cycle of a washing machine. Apelu’s fathers was among the countless bodies that were found in the days that followed. In all fourteen members of his family lost their lives. Five of his neighbours family, four in the next, and three in the next…

“Our daughter survived, and one of our grandchildren,” he says, “Our eldest grandchild was taken by the tsunami. We had another child that survived, luckily some were in Apia.”

“As far as our losses are concerned… Now we are more concerned about the living, and we have to move forward,” he says.

Lalomanu Beach, site of the September 29, 2009 earthquake and tsunami. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com SAMOA

After the tsunami
The tsunami that hit Samoa on that day killed at least 149 people in Samoa, 34 in neighbouring American Samoa where the waves caused widespread damage to infrastructure in Pago Pago, its capital. Damage was also recorded in Tonga, as far away as Wallis and Futuna Islands, while heightened waved were witnessed in New Zealand and French Polynesia.

In the surrounding regions of Samoa, thousands had lost their homes, boats or cars. Villages were reduced to rubble, roads washed away in the four massive waves that pounded the island within minutes of each other.

The community at Lalomanu Beach continues to reveal the scars of the tsunami of 2009, with shells of one-time homes scattered along the main road. Family, however, have been rebuilding – some constructing fales up in the hills, fearful of the sea. But rebuilding is part of the healing process, says Apelu.

Taufua Beach Fales have reconstructed almost all of the fales which were completely destroyed less than two years ago, in a process that included both reconstruction and reclaiming of the white sands which were also washed away.

“As Christians we understand that earthquakes are part of creation,” he says, “It is not something that was intended to punish people. We have to move on. There must be a reason that God left us behind from the rest of our families.”

“By going ahead to rebuild will give hope to the people of the village to start slowly to move forward.”

Branding-day offers a glimpse at the pioneering western lifestyle. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

Branding day in Saskatchewan gives a glimpse into the true western experience

(Cypress Hills) I may have looked silly rounding up cattle on the western prairie. What kind of a cowboy wears a helmet and rides a stubborn half-breed painter horse through the Western Canadian landscape? Yet while I may have been a strange looking cowboy, there was nothing unauthentic about my experience on the edges of the baby-green rolling Cypress Hills in the southern corner of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

“When people watch cowboy movies they come out here thinking that that is how it goes. I just tell them not to believe everything they see on TV,” said eighteen-year old Leanne Reesor, a fifth generation rancher and the youngest child living on the The Historic Reesor Ranch. “I don’t even like watching movies with people running around and yelping heehaw and throwing their ropes. That’s not the way it is.”

But here the unfamiliar quickly became comfortable as I went on to eat prairie oysters and an end-of-day feast with the extended Reesor family. We watched the sun go down while her cowboy-poet father Scott Reesor recited verses about life on the ranch. This was after a day rounding up about two hundred cattle and the branding, castration and inoculation of dozens of calves.

But this is a century-old tradition for these folk, a tradition that is quickly eroding as the urbanization of this prairie province continues. Smaller ranching operations like these are simply sold off to the highest bidder with their replacement by vast mechanized operations. My experience visiting this old-style ranch was all about connecting with a culture that struggles with very basic existential questions.

Don’t let your horse take you for a ride
The Reesor Ranch is nestled on the northern edges of rolling Cypress Hills. This is the rugged area where in the 19^th century the North-West Mounted Police and their cavalry of men later known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police first took control of Western Canada.

The historic Reesor Ranch is one of a handful of working cattle ranches in this flat prairie province that have opened their doors to tourists as a way to supplementing income and passing on western traditions to interested tourists. These experiences give visitors the opportunity to become familiar with the lifestyle of the pioneers who settled the West more than a century ago.

Just be sure not to make the mistake of naming them farmers; you will quickly be told that ranchers keep their grass right-side-up, while farmers turns theirs upside-down!

The Historic Reesor Ranch offers packages that include horse rides into Cypress Hills, cattle drives or even western-style cowboy cabin rentals. La Reata Ranch in the Saskatchewan River Valley on the shores of Lake Diefenbaker is a scenic spot with wide-open prairies, ranges, canyons and sandy beaches where guests horseback-ride or experience a western Rodeo.

The Trails End Guest Ranch north of Moose Jaw takes you to historic landmarks including native teepee rings or one-time buffalo rubbing stones. Other ranches open to tourists in the area include the Sturgeon River Ranch, the Eastview Wilderness Ranch or the Reedan Ranch.

Leanne Reesor believes that the mass media portrays many misconceptions about her lifestyle. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

Taking over the family ranch?
I lived on the upper-floor of the Reesor family ranch, a century-old homestead decorated with family pictures, old cowboy hats, and even old poems and letters written by ancestors.

Leanne and her friends gathered like and excited poesy on branding day. At 18, Leanne is the youngest in the family, but is steadfastly committed to ranching and the lifestyle that goes with it. Maintaining the family traditions is just as important to her elder sister Joan, 24, but she is more likely set for a road-trip, trying her luck at a more urbane lifestyle. When I visited their brother Jason had gone off to a well-paying job in the north to work as a welder. I was told that he has his own philosophy about the future of the family ranch.

Just where the future lies for their ranch is as very real dilemma for parents Theresa and Scott Reesor, as it is for their children.

“Scott and I have always tried to share the idea that it is not what you can get out of the place, but what you can bring to it,” says Theresa Reesor, “We want them all here. If they can find a place where they can generate income. The question is always what they bring to the table to keep this place growing.”

“They all have wonderful gifts. But we don’t know what the future holds,” she adds.

Riding Darby, the chunky cream-colored painter horse
While the cattle spend much of the year roaming the fields unattended the highlight of any rancher’s season is round-up and branding day. It’s a community affair as families gather, helping each other collecting the cattle, branding, inoculating and even unceremoniously castrating the young male calves. Ultimately it ends in a boisterous affair of food, drink and a real communal party.

We woke at sunrise to saddle up the horses as clouds blurred the landscape, fault of a forest fire in the distance. There were about a dozen of us who each headed in different directions as the morning sun bounced about. I rode Darby, a hardheaded chunky looking cream-colored half buckskin and half painter horse. Darby didn’t want much of my directions.

We headed up the sloping hills and through the wooded enclaves with Darby not the slightest bit interested in the goings-on. He just wanted to wander the green fields. The Reesor-clan and the handful of tourists helped guide the growing numbers of cattle that began a chorus of whining cries with their young not far in the distance. Scott, Leanne and Joan orchestrated the migration, periodically consulting with each other on the best strategy to move the cattle without them getting caught up in fences or being separated from their young.

Rancher, cowboy-poet Scott Reesor. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

Lessons from another era
Scott Reesor was latecomer to ranching, at 39. This was after he and his wife Theresa had meandered north on the Alaska Highway, then imagining that they would buy land and settle after getting involved in an operation of selling portable band sawmills. Finally in 1997 his parents invited the couple to take over the family ranch, which by that time was already doubling as a bed and breakfast.

“It’s a big house and there is lots of room and Scott’s mum always had people here,” remembers Theresa, “I could not imagine this place without people or visitors. It was built for two families, but for generations there have always been visitors here.”

Even then the couple knew that with a few hundred cattle, ranching was no get-rich-quick scheme. History speaks loud and from far back. The family homestead here was founded after a 1903 spring storm killed some 350 cattle. That tragedy prompted Scott Reesor’s forbearers to establish a ranch where it stands today, from its one-time shanty.

Scott and Theresa continued to raise cattle, host tourists, all while running a spring-water operation.

“We hope to develop something that our children can be a part of if they want which will support multiple families,” says Scott Reesor, “Our land-base is too small to support even one family really well. With these other businesses if our kids all want to be a part of it and bring their gifts and abilities, who knows what we can develop?”

“You never know how it will end up since lot depends on the relationship between the siblings, which is such an important part of the formula. It’s a real miracle that it’s come this far.”

Branding day on the ranch
The Western tradition of livestock branding is a complex fire-heated system that has its origins in ancient history. Newer ranches use mechanical systems that relegate traditional branding techniques something of a dying art. Here branding day is still a community affair of family, friends and neighbors. Ranchers still rope, castrate and brand the calves in much the same way as might have been done a century ago.

“No one does it anymore. Everyone rides quad and nobody rides horses anymore; it’s just starting to become obsolete. I remember brandings with my uncles, and I want my kids to experience that, and my kids-kids,” says Joan Reesor, “I want them to pass it on from one generation to the next.”

Branding day at the Reesor’s was like a military operation, with the mass of cattle moaning around the dusty enclosure. Like a general before the battle Scott Reesor read out the marching orders to the troops; his family and friends. Everybody knew his or her role. A horseback pair roped the calves while Leanne branded the calves with hot rods in a smoky haze with her mother by her side. Five or six others wrestled the calves down while yet others tagged and Scott inoculated them.

Meanwhile a slightly self-satisfied, mischievous and amusingly sadistic knife wielding Joan learned the art of castrating, contentedly collecting prairie oysters in a small white bucket.

Branding day at the Historic Reesor Ranch. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com CANADA

Decisions on the horizon
As the day progressed the processing of the cattle became much like clockwork, ending in a jolly atmosphere. The horses were brushed and sent into the fields, and the meal began as Joan proudly served her prairie oyster, the calf testis that tasted something like a hardier version of deep-fried mushrooms.

If there was one cloud looming over this feast, it was the weight of the future of the ranch. If any young persons most important decision is choosing a life partner, that same choice seems even more daunting if you are a young Reesor. Although she still wakes up later than her parents and might spend her days doing light fence work, moving around cattle or riding trails with tourists, behind the daily routine its the decisions that she will make in the coming years that she seems most aware of.

“I actually think about it a lot more than I should,” admits Leanne, “I’m only eighteen and I don’t think I should be thinking about who I am going to marry. It’s easier for a woman to marry into a rancher’s lifestyle than it is for a man because. Most women will be in the house and the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to know a whole lot about ranching.”

“A rancher, a guy, can marry a girl from a small town or a city and she will be just fine. But compared to me; I’d have to marry somebody who grew up in it and knows what he’s doing. So I do consider that quite a bit.”

The roads of Agra are a forray of activity. Cars, ricksaws, and a wide array of animals mix into the fray including elephants, camels, and donkeys.

In India, a frenzy of activity leads you through the shadows of age-old temples, forts and palaces

In exiting the aircraft at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, it didn’t take long to understand that layers of activity took place consecutively here; and no one layer particularly cared very much about what was going on in the next. There is always movement here; a sign in the main entrance hall read, “This is a work in progress”.

Swarms of people moved about like armies of marching ants, simply avoiding workers who were building the new, and fixing the old. This work in progress was a fitting welcome to a developing, moving, and buzzing India.

Even a strikingly beautiful young Hindi woman didn’t put a dent in the activity here. Out of nowhere a young woman in a bright yellow sari suddenly sat squarely on her luggage in the middle of the busy airport traffic among honking horns, corn vendors and taxi drivers. She began to talk emphatically on her cell phone, indifferent to the clouds of people around her who without a thought, simply rerouted their own paths to avoid her.

In the mêlée, I finally found my driver. I was a guest of the then Indian Minister of Tourism, whom I had met at an international event in Colombia. “You must visit my country”, she said. Before long, I was on my way on a tour of the “Golden Triangle” of Agra, Delhi and Jaipur.

I commented to the driver in New Delhi on the vibrant atmosphere, to which he jovially said, “A good horn, good brakes, and good luck are all you need in India to get by.” It made sense, I thought, as we sped off through the dusty, noisy streets to my first place of recluse.

The colorful streets
On this trip I was ready to enjoy the quirky, noisy and colorful streets of India. But the counter-balance here was a series of plush hotels and stately resorts to which you can easily escape and pamper yourself. It’s all a part of the duality of contemporary India.

It also takes a cultural immersion of sorts before you start to understand a history that most westerners are little equipped to understand. India’s rich collection of dynasties, kingdoms and religions existed far from European, let alone the North American glare. India and its history have to be learned as you begin to fathom the complexities that brought about the grand palaces, forts and temples that mark the landscapes here.

The Taj Mahal. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com INDIA

Navigating here was a challenge. It is not unusual for cars to venture into the oncoming lanes, elephants to wander the streets or for monkeys to congregate in parks – and all of this without anyone taking particular notice.

The Taj Mahal
An early morning adventure brought me to the Taj Mahal, completed in 1648 and the most emblematic of India’s tourist sites. Standing at the Taj Mahal is almost a spiritual experience. This monument – as glorious as the finely carved inlaid the marble is – is best known for its beautiful story. This greatest example of Mughal architecture was constructed with no other purpose than to honor the love of a man for his wife. Mughal ruler Shah Jahan promised his dying wife Mumtaz Mahal to construct a grand ode to their love. Hence the world was gifted the Taj Mahal – a real symbol of the power of love and dedication.

In Agra we also visited the stately Agra Fort, and the beautifully constructed but abandoned sixteenth century city of Fatehpur Sikri. The crafted stone-carved buildings here were used for a mere fifteen years.

In Agra I stayed at the beautiful Jaypee Palace resort. This self-contained complex includes ponds and pagodas, gazebos and landscaped gardens. The vast beautiful this complex is designed to reflect the style and tastes of the Mughal dynasty, and the hotel is situated not far from the famed Taj Mahal – but far away from the urban clutter and sounds of the streets.

After a harrowing evening drive we arrived in the neighboring state of Rajasthan and its capital Jaipur. The Chokhi Dhani is an ethnographic resort and theme-park representing the interior of Rajasthan culture. Ideal for families, the village is spread out over some twenty-two acres. At night performances for kids, restaurants, puppet shows and traditional dances entertain and even educate visitors. Accommodations are clean, but sparse – little huts basically – decorated with local arts and crafts that represent the traditional lifestyle of the Rajasthan people.

Meaning ‘Palace of Winds’, the landmark building of Jaipur was built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. Dedicated to Lord Krishna, the building is shaped like a makut, or crown, which adorns the deity Krishna’s head. The construction has over 900 niches, and not so long ago ladies of the court watched festivities on the street below without being observed themselves.

We came accross this young girl selling nuts on the sides of the busy Agra roads. Photo © Andrew Princz, ontheglobe.com INDIA

A blend of Hindu and Muslim architecture
Also in Jaipur is the Amber fort, built in red sandstone and white marble it is a complex with numerous apartments, living quarters and public and private audience halls. The Amber Fort reflects a blend of Hindu and Muslim architecture. Built in the 16th century, the fort sprawls a hillside.

After last minute shopping of beautiful Rajasthan textiles, I flew to the capital, New Delhi. Here I stayed at the stately and classical Ashok Hotel, located in the capital’s diplomatic quarter. Labeled the “grandest of them all”, this vast complex includes a variety of thematic restaurants all under one roof. You can dined in Indian, Chinese, modern and classical-style restaurants. The exclusive sixth floor even has its separate private dining facility, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson just happened to be staying a few doors away during my visit.

The Red Fort
The constructions of Mughal leader Shah Jahan is also on proud display in New Delhi in the form of the Red Fort, begun in 1638, and which took a decade to complete. This two kilometer long structure stands some eighteen to thirty three meters high.

My last port of call in India was as appropriate a place as you can imagine. It was the very place where Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi – who spearheaded the movement of non-violence – was assassinated on 30 January of 1948. Here at The Birla House, a permanent memorial, I paid my reverence to a man affectionately known here as ‘Bapu’. Inscribed in the simple room where he spent his last hours are his own words, “My life is my message”. A message of peace and social justice that resonates today as it has and will.

ontheglobe.com and The Archaeology Channel give you a preview of the major exhibit The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army, an exhibition currently on view at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). Thix exhibit, on view until June 26th, presents archaeological works which take visitors on a faraway journey covering 1,000 years of Chinese history.

We interviewed Laure Vigo, the newly appointed MMFA curator of Asian Art and Royal Ontario Museum senior curator Chen Shen, who gave us valuable insight into Emperor Ying Zheng’s famed tomb complex.

Dating from 2,200 years ago, ten larger‐than‐life terracotta sculptures are the star attraction of this exhibition. Two high‐ ranking officers, four soldiers, a civic official, an acrobat and even two horses are among the works found in various pits excavated since then containing 2,000 statues, every one of them unique, of warriors and horses. Rare bronze sculptures, including a goose, unearthed in 2005 from what is considered the site of the sovereign’s water garden, other never‐before‐exhibited relics, and many funerary figurines, ornaments in jade and gold, swords, coins and adornments, architectural elements and military accoutrements from the imperial tombs of the Emperors Gaozu and Jing of the Han Dynasty will trace the history of close to ten centuries of funeral rites.

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For more information on the exhibit, please link to the site of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Civil official
Earthenware
Qin dynasty, 221-206 BC
Excavated in 1999 at K0006 Pit of First Emperor Tomb Complex
Lintong, Shaanxi province
Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology, 001173
© Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Centre, People’s Republic of China, 2009.