Charge, Please!

With Christmas Day almost upon us, I thought to reprise an article I wrote for a White Rock magazine some years ago.

I am chagrined to note that not much in my approach to the holiday season seems to have changed!

.............................. Charge, Please! .............................

On my list of thing to do, Christmas shopping rates below scrubbing toilets and above gutting fish. It's not that I dislike giving gifts...nor am I immune to the spirit of the season. Christmas morning never fails to find me dewy-eyed with emotion. Dewey-eyed is usually the best I can manage; by then I've shed enough tears to completely wash away the pier at White Rock!

The odd thing is that I manage to forget this from year to year. Seduced by light-bedecked trees and a chorus of carols in the background, I plunge willingly and wistfully into the shopping mall. With a long, generous list in hand and a heart full of good intentions, I convince myself that this will be the perfect Christmas; this will be the year I make everyone's dreams come true.

The good intentions do not last long, and the list grows no shorter in spite of the rate at which my wallet empties. Nothing has prepared me for the prices. I make a valiant effort to resist, but all too soon I'm choking out those ruinous words, "Charge, please!". There is no turning back now.

My undoing is that I may be the only 40-year-old woman who still believes in Santa Claus. To me, he's more than a fat old man who hates to shave and has strange taste in clothes. He makes wishes come true, and in pursuit of that quest, I am his tireless ally.

Even I have my limits, however. Nothing can persuade me to buy a talking toy bear that costs as much as a week's groceries. As I see it, what could he possibly have to say that would be worth giving up Twinkies? More importantly, do I really need another mouth in the house?

For me, the real horror comes when shopping for that most dreaded of the species - the person who has everything. Hours of numbing indecision leave me willing to consider any idea, no matter how bizarre. Perhaps Uncle Bob really does need an engraved brass case to hold his sticks of gum. Maybe cousin Ralph could use a pair of slippers that look like chopped-off bear feet. Desperation tends to cloud good judgment.

Shopping trip follows shopping trip, and as the days count down, I feel the pace speed up alarmingly. Television commercials become longer than the shows; sales are more common than short tempers, and the paper boy is forced to hire an assistant as advertising inserts begin to outweigh the news..

This is when real panic sets in. Stores that have run out of stock keep you dangling with the promise of future orders. Competition becomes fierce for what little is left on the shelves. Even the calmest of shoppers can resort to bared teeth and a warning growl when it comes to a choice between remaining ladylike or getting her little boy what he wants for Christmas. While I have never actually seen blood drawn, I am careful not to go Christmas shopping with people I care about.

Caught up in the momentum, the most important thing I forget from year to year is that when that special morning finally arrives, the amount of effort it took to get there no longer matters. As I exchange gifts with my loved one, what we share goes far beyond the gift itself. We give of ourselves, and out of that giving, a little magic is woven.

Santa and I have pulled it off another year; and even my husband's moaning when the bills begin to pour in does little to dampen my euphoria.

After all, you can't put a price tag on magic!
.

More Weird Water!

As is normal in the Fall, Vancouver has turned gray, damp and cold. Sunday afternoon found us taking a chilly walk through Surrey's Serpentine Fen.

.

Because I was unimpressed with the photos I got, I thought to flip a few and see what happened.

Above at left is the original shot, taken across the river. When I turn it upside down, the sky seems to shimmer with light.

.

Mallard Ducks were

lazily swimming up the Serpentine River.

Turning the picture upside down gives me a mirror image of the ducks.

.

The Fen is a waterfowl sanctuary, so there are many birds to be seen. Several viewing towers around the property allow one an overview of the area.

The watchtower takes on a whole new look when reflected in the water.

Great Blue Heron,
original photo at far left.

.
This top photo is the flip side of the one below it. I like the ghostly look of the trees, as if a heavy fog was rolling in.












The sun showed itself briefly, and lent colour to the day. I quickly snapped a few photos of stunted posts in the river.

The surreal effect created when flipping this shot over creates confusion...one cannot be sure what one is actually looking at...



.

.

.
To see more water, click on the link below...I know you'll be glad you did!
.

http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/

.
For Weekend Reflections on Friday, click on this link:
.
http://newtondailyphoto.blogspot.com/
.

Wired and Weird

In our wired world, where
wily words wield weapons,

weird

is the new normal...

.

.

.

I am linking this post to Poets United Thursday Think Tank, where the prompt for today is 'weird'. For more weird poetry, do check out the following link...

.

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2010/12/thursday-think-tank-25-wierd.html

.

The photos are a few of my abstract Artist Trading Cards...

.

World AIDS Day 2010

As today is World AIDS Day, I thought to repost a piece I put on my travel blog some time ago. It is a day to look outside the safe and cozy lives so many of us are fortunate to live....

I wrote this essay for an anthropology course some years ago.

Little has changed for the better and the numbers quoted have escalated drastically...

.

.

.

An estimated fourteen million orphans throughout Africa live in poverty because AIDS took their parents’ lives; yet the globalization that opened up the world to many, has effectively cut these children off from the help they so desperately need. Without adequate food, health care and education, they cannot change their lives for the better, and stand little chance of survival. For 315 million Africans living on one dollar a day, resources are nearly impossible to access. Brand-name medicines are costly and without them, an entire generation of adults in the childbearing years is losing its fight with AIDS. Those orphaned by this disease must watch one, or both parents die a slow and agonizing death. Grandmothers take in their grandchildren whenever possible, and when the grandmothers die, the eldest child in a family becomes head of the household, looking after younger siblings. Penniless, parentless and forgotten, the orphans of Africa fall into obscurity, their needs unmet by the world, their futures devoid of promise.
.
Child-headed families struggle daily to find food and shelter. Attending class is not an option; they cannot afford the mandatory user fees imposed by aid agencies; and even in countries where those fees are waived, the cost of books, supplies, and uniforms remains outside the reach of most. As a result, roughly 44 million children are excluded from primary education in Africa. Those without parents or teachers lose valuable access to the knowledge and tradition normally passed along from one generation to the next, and to the absorption of family and group values that provide children with confidence and a sense of place. World governing agencies agree that education is key to the survival of these vulnerable children; yet funds donated to local governments for use in health and education rarely reach their target. Budget cuts, corruption and mismanagement mean that up to 90 percent of the national budgets in some countries goes toward government salaries, leaving little else to cover the larger demands.
.
Education and health care are equally hard-hit by international policies put in place with good intent that still miss their mark. A loan to Africa by a body such as the World Bank often comes with binding conditions. This impacts medical care when severe pay restrictions and hiring policies force many health-care professionals to seek work on other continents. Additionally, AIDS takes not only the lives of Africa’s mothers and fathers, but those of its doctors, nurses and teachers, leaving in its wake a modicum of trained personnel to cope with the millions of families affected by the disease. Mass privatization of resources dictates that only brand-name drugs be used, and patent restrictions prohibit the development of generic medicine that would be a fraction of the cost. Many orphans left behind are themselves HIV-infected: 90 percent of all children with the virus contract it from their mother at birth. A single dose of a drug called nevirapine given to the mother in labour and to the child at birth, along with a Caesarean delivery and formula feeding, lowers the risk of passing on the virus to less than 2 per cent. Even if the drug was more affordable, limited access to health facilities means that 700,000 African children are still born infected each year to potentially become the next generation leaving its orphans behind.
.

The African continent has serious economic and social issues to address. Eradicating AIDS remains its main challenge, because while this disease continues to spread uncontrolled, it compromises every other aspect of development. Following decades of colonialism, sub-Saharan countries struggle to take their place among the family of democratic nations. Debt, corruption, and tyranny have left much of the continent crippled with overwhelming debt. Resources generated by global governance are often mismanaged, rarely translating into improved infrastructure or technological development that would facilitate Africa’s move toward self-sufficiency. In the midst of widespread machination, the plight of AIDS orphans escapes notice.

.

Tucked away in villages far from main roads, bereft at the loss of parents and grandparents, families of small children are malnourished, lonely and afraid. Their needs appear simple; yet remain well beyond any chance of attainment. As well as education and health care, providing basic resources like water, nutrition, sanitation, and instruction on the tending of small crops would drastically improve the lot of these youngsters and offer them the chance of a future. Most African countries do not have a tradition of orphanages in the Western sense we have come to understand. Family and community once formed a safety net to care for orphaned children, but AIDS has ripped away this net and destroyed village life, as it was known. We must make constructive resources available to these children if they are to build new communities, forge lasting connections, and develop the means to get on with their lives.
.
Twenty-five years into the pandemic that has ravaged the African continent, there is still no master plan in place to help its orphans, in spite of global efforts to improve finance, health care and education. The chaos created by this disease has gone on so long that the original orphans are now adults, who risk the same fate as their parents because they lack information and services that would help them to make safe choices. For children orphaned by AIDS, schooling is vital. Beyond its traditional role, a school is a centre for immunization, for meal programs, and for much-needed education on HIV/AIDS. Without primary education, children cannot go on to university or acquire the trade skills needed to support themselves as adults. The wealth of creativity, intelligence and innovation these resourceful young people might contribute is beyond measure; tapping that potential may be the best tool in reshaping the future of their continent and the upcoming generations who will inherit its problems.
.
Stephen Lewis tells us pointedly...“Allowing world economic problems to be taken out on the growing minds and bodies of young children is the antithesis of all civilized behaviour” and “it shames and diminishes us all”.

.

Africa is a continent wherein children are raising children. If the world has become a global village, these are our children in this new extended family, and they need our help to learn to help themselves. Their lives are in our hands now; we cannot, and must not, let them down.
.