Terra Cotta Warriors

Good Morning!

This is the third day of overcast skies. I am afraid the sun doesn't shine here anymore! Last night it took us 35 minutes to get from the hotel to the restaurant which is about a mile away. We are in Xian, a city of about 7 million, where in 1974 a local farmer discovered what was to become the 8th wonder of the world. Ever since Steve was in 4th grade (or was it 5th?) and he did a report on the Terra Cotta Warriors, I have wanted to se this sight. And it was worth the wait! There are over 7,000 soldiers, hundreds of other statues including generals, archers, horses, chariots. All of this was built over 2 thousand years ago to help an emperor continue to rule in the afterlife. It is an amazing story.

Today we hike around the walled city of Xian and see some additional sights before boarding a plane to Xining where we will do some sightseeing and go to a lake before getting on the train to Tibet.

It is very difficult to find internet access for my computer and when I use a Chinese computer all the directions are in Chinese. But I will continue to try to bolg!

Love,

Mom

Lawn Weeds of the Lost Ark

There's really nothing happening here and to prove it, I 'd like to tell you about lawn weeds. There's a lot of love in gardening and yard care, but there's a lot of hate too. Cute little bunnies who eat the lupins I grew from seeds all last winter, Bambi and her marauding horde of munchers, bugs of all sorts, and now slugs that eat the coreopsis. I've got anti-bunny spray, anti-deer spray, netting, and fences arrayed against these innocent-looking monsters. And then there's the lawn, now being eclipsed by lawn weeds. There are chemicals, but my antipathy has not driven me to use them yet. Googling "organic lawn weed killer" turned up a number of brews that were largely vinegar, so I got some vinegar at the grocery store and have been spritzing biodegradable devastation far and wide. But the consensus advice is to pull the weeds (after scolding you for letting the lawn deteriorate this far), so I have been pulling lawn weeds. An inadvertent side-effect is that the pulling of the lawn weed drives worms crazy. I mean wacko, run-for-the -hills, worm stampede. They literally launch themselves out of the ground. Today I had three worms crawling through my toes, a mini-Indiana Jones nightmare. I haven't gone fishing in 50 years, but this new-found worm-acquisition technique makes it tempting.

Peter

Diane in China

The trip was uneventful once I got past the episode of the woman next to me vomiting all over herself, the seat, me, and the flight attendant. Not a good wat to start off a 14 hour journey! I landed mid afternoon, and a guide met me to take me4 to the hotel where I was able to leave my stuff befoe heading off to the Silk Market to meet the group. We then went to the foot massage place where, fro a mere $25, we were able to have 1 1/2 hour leg, foot, head and back massage. They even did this crazy thing where they cleaned your ears!!!!!!! Then to dinner at the Peking Duck restaurant. Today we are off to the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, followed by an overnight train ride to Xian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. I will write more later!

Di

We are on the train to xian. I got the top bunk! The train station was a bit scary. We had to run through thousands of people, about half of whom were lying on the ground on sheets of newspaper with huge piles of belongings in plastic bags. The sheer number of people was overwhelming and then running to catch a train made it even more exciting Right now we are enjoying a glass of wine in our cubicle and we are entertaining guests from nearby cubicles. Its an overnight trip and I,ve taken my tylenol pm . Nighty night!

Obamarama

I was walking in a park in New Belgrade yesterday, when I came across two older gentlemen sitting in an empty corner under a tree. As I walked by, they said something to me, and I explained that I couldn't speak Serbian, by not speaking Serbian, and they asked me if I was from London. When I said, no, I'm from closer to New York, they mentioned the name "Clinton," which, of course was the name of our president during the NATO bombing of Belgrade, and the word "malo," which, I'm pretty sure, does not mean "progressive reformer." I promptly gave the thumbs down sign to Clinton, and said... Obama? and both of them in unison, yelled, "Obamarama!"

Modern Art, Post Soviet Style

Up and coming artists often use old warehouses to showcase their work because they are big, empty spaces and usually come pretty cheap, or so I’m told. But if you are in Brooklyn or London, looking for an old warehouse, there’s a good chance the warehouse you find near the given address will be the gallery.

But in a former Soviet country that’s seen the economy disintegrate since its proletariat heyday, there’s a very good chance you might have picked the wrong abandoned building on a street full of them and are just a dumb American wandering around an empty warehouse. I’m just saying, it could happen.

I like to call this one, "The Carpetman Lean"

Until next week, when I will still be in Armenia...

Love, Becky

St. Hripsime Meets the Germans

Echmiadzin

Not to be a Negative Nancy but the driving culture is my least favorite part of Armenia. The driving is dangerous and fast and doesn’t seem to adhere to any set of pre-determined rules. Drivers here show absolutely no deference to pedestrians. If you are walking, it's your job to watch out for drivers taking rights on red, left turns-legal and not legal. Don’t get me started on the beeping. Yesterday I got beeped at for walking too slowly across the crosswalk.

Tower at Echmiadzin, the circles above the windows are faces and the one all the way to the right is that of a famous Prussian king. Some time ago the Armenians heard the Prussians were invading and destroying buildings as they went so quick thinking Armenian priests had stone carvers chisel the King of Prussia's face onto the church. When the Prussian army arrived the next day, the Armenians showed them the face and the disappointed Prussians admitted they could not destroy a church with their king's face on it.

But ANYWAYS, that was a long way to say I decided to take a tourist tour to see some local sites because I will never ever drive here. (Not that they’d want me to, but that’s neither here nor there.) We went to Echmiadzin, the Vatican of the Armenian Church. It’s a gorgeous old church, first built around 180 AD. Just in case ya didn’t know, Armenia was the first country in the world to formally adopt Christianity in 301 AD, which means the churches are a little older than those we have in Connecticut. The early Christians built it on top of a pagan shrine in a sort of bait-and-switch move to keep the people coming to the site. According to my guidebook, the shrine was left, “seemingly in situ in case this whole Christianity thing turned out to be a fad.” There were services going on in each of the churches but the services seem much more informal than others that I’ve seen. Again, the guidebook: “At Echmiadzin, everyone stands. There seems to be no rule about when you arrive or leave. People were still squeezing past us halfway through Mass, walking around, lighting candles, talking to friends. Actually, I think there’s something charming about it, like being in God’s living room."

Church Service Inside St. Gayane

Tombs outside St. Gayane

We also visited two nearby churches called St. Hripsime and St. Gayane. The churches commemorate two of 32 virgins nuns who left Rome to help bring Christianity to Armenia. They arrived and began preaching only to have the Armenian king fall in love with Hripsime. He demanded her hand in marriage. She said no because she had to remain true to her faith and the king killed all 32 nuns by stoning. Hripsime’s church was originally built in 618 on her gravesite. Gayane was the prioress of the nuns and her church was originally built sometime in the 6th century.

St. Hripsime

At St. Hripsime, they let you go down below the church and look at what is supposedly her grave. There’s a painted portrait of Hripsime on her tomb and you can also look at the rocks that were supposedly used to stone her to death. The room was about seven feet long by about five feet long and there were already ten people in it by the time I got there so I took a quick peek and head up for fresh air. Back outside, two of the men on the trip, a German child psychiatrist and a Swiss i-banker told me they thought I looked exactly like St. Hripsime. It’s a funny thing, you know, being compared to a second century nun who was stoned to death. I’ve decided to just accept it as a compliment.

Zvarnots, ancient monastery near the airport. Just peaking above the clouds you can see Mt. Ararat, where Noah's arc landed after the flood.

Victor the psychiatrist and Julian the i-banker turned out to be very nice, if a little crazy. I ran into them later in the week and we went to get a drink in one of the many cafes in Yerevan. Julian is very into two things: making money and reincarnation. We had to pass up several very nice cafes because they had ‘bad energy.’ Victor is aging hippie with an earring who vuld like the vorld to lif as vone organivm. They are going on a horseback riding tour of the Armenian wilderness, which at first I thought might be a little Brokeback adventure but the Victor told us all about his love affairs with beautiful women in remote European towns. It also turns out that Julian is the great grandson of one of the queens of Madagascar and is directly related to the dictator that was finally voted out when I was there in 2002.

Where naughty Christians go to get baptized

And finally, to ease everyone’s fears about the nuclear power plant situated directly on a fault line about 40 kilometers from Yerevan, Jorge the Czech nuclear plant safety management expert from the tour says, “Don’t worry about it.”

Old guy showing us the wine jugs he made when just a wee whippersnapper.

Diane Goes to China and Tibet!

Good Morning All!
I am leaving for Tibet this morning, The Chinese government is finally opening the borders to Tibet. I will let you know where I am and what I'm doing whenever I can get internet access. I arrive in Beijing on Saturday morning and will travel south to tibet over the next week with stops along the way. I leave Shanghai on July 12 to return home. Off to my adventure. My itinerary is belwo with the exception that I am arriving a day later than the rest of my group. Peng, our guide, is a friend from my previous trip to Shandong Province. He is a former official of the National Ministry of Education and he knows lots of officials and can negotiatie the Chinese system quite well. It should be a great trip.
Below you will see my itinerary.
Thursday, June 26Departure from Hartford to Beijing Friday, June 27Arrive Beijing in the late afternoonHotel in Beijing Saturday, June 28Tian’an’men Square, Forbidden City, Hutong Tour, Peking DuckHotel in Beijing Sunday, June 29Excursion to the Great Wall and Summer PalaceEvening train to Xi’anHotel on the train Monday, June 30Arrive Xi’an in the morningExcursion to the Terra-cotta Warriors MuseumDumpling Banquet with ShowHotel in Xi’an Tuesday, July 1Morning: Shanxi Provincial History Museum, City Wall and Old TownLunch in Muslim enclaveFree time in Xi'anHotel in Xi'an Wednesday, July 2Morning flight to LhasaRest and free time in LhasaHotel in Lhasa Visit Thursday, July 3Visit Potala Palace, Jokang Monastery and Barkhor StreetHotel in Lhasa Friday, July 4Visit schools in TibetHotel in Lhasa Saturday, July 5Drive to Shigatse, sightseeing of lakes and glacier mountains along the wayHotel in Shigatse Sunday, July 6Morning: Visit Tashilhunpo MonasteryDrive back to Lhasa from another roadVisit a school if time permitsVisit local Tibetan people's home on the wayHotel in Lhasa Monday, July 7Morning: Take the train leaving for LanzhouOn the train sightseeing of Tibetan landscapeOvernight sleep on trainHotel in Lanzhou Tuesday, July 8Arrive Lanzhou around noonCity tour in Lanzhou: Visit Lanzhou Museum and Yellow RiverHotel in Lanzhou Wednesday, July 9Fly to Shanghai in the morningBund area and Nanjing RoadBoat Cruise on Huang Pu River in the eveningHotel in Shanghai Thursday, July 10Morning: Visit Shanghai Museum, City tour in Shanghai (Old Town, Yu Garden)Afternoon: Free time in ShanghaiHotel in Shanghai Friday, July 11Excursion to Suzhou, an old garden city near Shanghai: Gardens, Boat Cruise on Old Grand Canal, Old Town, Silk FactoryHotel in Suzhou or Shanghai Saturday, July 12Departure from Shanghai back to the U.S.Arrive in the U.S. on the same day

montenegro and croatia

Hello family,
I'm back in Belgrade after five days in Montenegro and Croatia on the coast, which was beautiful and sunny. We were in Budva for most of the time, exploring the coast and the old town there. The sense of history everyone has here is incredible, everyone has an understanding of, say, the last five hundred years, and is able to tell the story of how they've arrived as a group, at the present.
anyways, here are some nice pictures I took this weekend.

Me, Bill and Sludge

Bill Popik and I went to Northampton today to watch Paradise Pond getting dredged using a geotube system. While fascinating to us, it turned out to be a bad day for the sludge-busters as they made a slight miscalculation on the slope of the field and the enormous geotextile bag they were filling decided to roll away on them. Ropes, and trucks were used to try to restrain the runaway monster (200 feet long, 60 feet in circumference and ready for its freedom!) and they eventually did stop it, although they were very embarassed.

Peter

Me, Bill and Brad

Beautiful Steamboat Springs, CO where I attended the New Works festival and wrote a short play.

If you visit www.cgiu.org and look at the big photos on the front page, you will see a photo of me with Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt. (Or you can just click the "Commitments to Action" button on the lower right hand corner of the photo.) I don't look that great, but hey, no one can really look good standing next to Mr. Hottness himself.

Sarah

Sloppy Blogging

It's come to my attention that my post last Friday made it seem like Armenia was sending me home! I apologize, I only meant that my boss at ABA ROLI was letting the staff go home early on Friday to avoid the protest. And by 'See you next week,' I meant 'See you in the virtual blogosphere next Monday.' My bad.

In case you are interested, here's a pretty good summary of what is going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_presidential_election,_2008 .

Love,
Becky

Yerevan's New Cathedral, Built in 2001

The Little People

It takes a lot of "little people" to keep you wanderers on the road. The drivers, the cooks, the support team, the coordination staff. Today, we'd like to give our thanks to Clara for transporting Steve's gear to Alaska. As you can see Steve did not pack "light"!


I drove the backpack up to White River Junction and had the time to muse and observe along the way. Now that I am past 60, one of the few joys left to me is arithmetic. Gone are the high's and low's of youth, the questions, the clashes, the triumphs and storms. Nowadays when I get that faraway look in my eye, that intensely inward, wistful but serene and settled composure of a man who has seen much and remembers perhaps too much, I am probably adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing, on my way to some kind of average or rate or percentage.

So, on the long drive to Vermont I was watching the mileage. Mapquest had the trip at 140 miles, but as soon as I crossed into Vermont, the first sign for White River Junction changed that trip total to 151 miles. But then things started to fall apart. Next sign 156. Then 154, and so on, giving the illusion that White River Junction was pulsating up and down Rte 91. The more grim view was that the arithmetic skills in the Vermont Highway Department may not be what one would hope for the Green Mountain State. We are all proud of young Jonah Ullman who scored first in the state of Vermont in math and I thought of how much they need him up there.

Back in Boston

I'm back in Boston living in a house with some friends on Powderhouse Blvd. It's been really fun so far to play house. Yesterday I went on a cleaning spree and cleaned the living room and kitchen (mom you would be so proud.)

Anyways, Steamboat Springs turned out to be worth it after all. It was really tough at first because it is in the middle of nowhere and I was with people that were much younger than me, with the exception of the dancers who were all my age. Once the New Works festival arrived, things changed and it got very exciting. I got to meet and connect with artistic directors from across the country, including reconnecting with Michael Wilson, Neil Pepe of The Atlantic Theater Co. (Spring Awakening, anyone? I hinted to him that maybe he should cast me.), Andrew Leynse of Primary Stages, Adrien-Alice Hansel who develops new works for the Actors' Theater of Louisville (and who told me to send her some stuff!) and plenty of amazing playwrights and actors.

The reading of my play went very well, although it's still in the draft stage. It helped me figure out what needs to change and what works, etc. I figured out that the staged reading format doesn't really work for my play because there are some essential pieces of action that can't be done from behind a music stand. The best part was the fact that I structured the play in a way that kept people talking and musing over my play for the rest of the weekend. One actress told me that she thinks it will be her favorite piece of the festival!

Anyways, I'm here at Tufts now, going to start my research with the drama professor. I'm also working at the Office of Sustainability and that's where I'm off to now.

Lovee,
sarah

Housekeeping

As a true and patriotic American, I solemnly swear to never tire of making jokes about washing my clothes with BARF.




Here are a couple pictures of my apartment. It costs more than my apt in Hartford, but it's right downtown and is quite nice. I always have hot showers because there's a big tank of water above my shower. There's cold water for about six hours a day and I haven't had a power outage yet! I even have cable and air conditioning, things my US apt is sorely lacking. Ok fine, the cable is in Armenian and Russian, except for the very notable except of CNN Global edition but I've had it on so much that the commercials are like nails on a chalkboard now. Integrity. Vision. Wealth Management. Bored businessman in your hotel room, put your money in Dubai!!! That's pretty accurate summary.



I have a little balcony and right across the street there is a very famous cafe that has jazz or classical music every night. In an interesting property-law turn of events, the top floor of the open structure was sold to a different comapny that started another cafe featuring live music. I think they've worked out a deal where the upstairs pop singer does a couple songs- Nora Jones or 'I Will Survive,' and then downstairs gets a couple classical numbers. In any event, I can hear it when I'm falling asleep and it's very nice.


Once again I've ended up somewhere with hotly contested elections and mass protests sooooooo they are sending us home early.

See ya next week!

Love,
Becky

off to montenegro

Go Celtics!

So we're off to Croatia for a day or two and then to Montenegro for a couple more days, with Mile, our boss Slobodan's brother. I've been researching Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003, and the economic recovery process. The fallout from destabilizing the country seems to have people wondering whether it was worth it. At least in the immediate aftermath things appeared that way from the sources I'm seeing.

Slobodan Djinovic, one of my bosses is pushing to finance trainings not only in the process of nonviolent revolution, but also in fragile democracy stabilization and economic recovery. He and my other boss, Srdja Popovic are going to the Fletcher Institute next week (along with a colleague of Uncle Steve's) to present at a conference.

For the next few days,
steve

In my room

La tourista

The Armenian Genocide Memorial

City view from the Armenian Genocide museum. Armen the military security guard offered to take the picture with my camera. Then he took one with his camera.

Start from the beginning, or the middle...

I realize I've been a little remiss in posting here so let me just say- get ready! I'm going to be blogging up the wazoo. Pictures and everything!

I'm in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, where I have an internship for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) project here. The American Bar Association is the same organization that runs the state bar exams and functions as the professional organization for attorneys in the US.

How did they get involved in Armenia? Back when the Soviet Union collapsed, the US government responded with what many consider a modern Marshall Plan for the former Soviet republics. It was an enormous outpouring of aid- financial, humanitarian, technical, you name it and the US probably sent it over here. (Firetruck, you may ask? CHECK) From my understanding, the motivation was similar to that of the Marshall Plan- the US hoped to both win hearts and minds as well as establish political, economic and legal stability in the region. Stability, in turn, would create new trading partners and markets and necessitate fewer troops abroad. And there would be peace around the world. (Sandra Bullock in Miss Congenitality)

As happens so often with our government, much of this work was contracted out to various organizations. The humanitarian assistance program I worked on at Counterpart was one such program. The ABA ROLI project is another. ABA started projects in many of the former Soviet countries, including Russia itself, and the majority of these projects were very successful. More recently projects were started in other areas of the world. Here's the website if you are interested: http://www.abanet.org/rol/.

The office in Armenia has several very interesting programs. Here's a brief rundown of the programs and their main projects:

Criminal Law- Helped start the first Public Defender's office to ensure legal representation to criminal defendants. Helped form and continues to support the Chamber of Advocates. Advocates here are lawyers who have a special license to appear in criminal court. They face enormous challenges as most criminal trials are just rubber stamps for predetermined convictions. Advocates face judges who will be punished if they don't make the 'correct' decision and prosecutors who are guided by the judges.

I attended a Chamber meeting where a US prosecutor who spent 20 years in Brooklyn and the former Attorney General of New Jersey asked and answered questions. They discussed strategies to navigate this system and it seemed that the most realistic option is the public shaming of incredible decisions. One advocate described a case in which he represented a man charged with murder. Apparently the police tortured the man to get a confession by either ripping out or sticking something through the man's fingernails (I was unclear which). The advocate managed to have evidence introduced that proved this fact. The judge wrote an opinion in which he ACKNOWLEDGED the fact that the confession was obtained through torture but still found the man guilty on the basis of the confession. What to do with a case like that? From what I understand, defendants can only appeal to a higher court if the judge of the court of first instance agrees that it should go to a higher court. And you can imagine how often that happens... The other options are to apply to the European Court of Human Rights or to try to get the decision publicized in the media. In either case, the outlook for the man sitting in jail is not great.

This is getting a little long so I'll save the other programs for future posts.

Love,
Becky

oh I figured I should explain the "reading the Bible" part of that title. The playwriting teacher, Henry Fonte, said I should read the Bible for my literary knowledge so that's what I'm doing.

Snow, playwriting and reading the Bible

Greetings, family!

I am in Steamboat Springs, CO, working on a play. It is hard work. When I first got here, it was snowing! Our cabins do not have heat or insulation so that was a challenge at first. It's a little bit warmer now. I came here thinking I was going to have to give in my cellphone and have no internet access, but it turns out I was supposed to bring my laptop because I'm in the writing program. oh well. someone is letting me use their macbook pro for now.

I miss Israel and all the friends that I made there. I've been talking with the Israelis and they want to come visit, so get ready!

My play is about all the men with guns that I met in Israel and who those men are, how being a soldier changes your identity, etc. We shall see how it goes.

sorry this is so short but I'm on a deadline...

love,

sarah

mom again

OK, so this will only work if everyone posts their comments.
I just heard that the Chinese government is not yet letting Western tourists into Tibet. I leave 2 weeks from today, so that worries me a bit since I signed up for this trip specifically to see Tibet. Oh well.
Sunday is Father's Day and we will be going to Louie's house for brunch and Buppa will be there. I thik he is a bit lonely so it would be good to email him about your travels.
Right now, Sarah is in Stemaboat Springs, Steve in Blegrade and Becky in Armenia (kissing museum guards). Keep in touch!!!!!!!!

Mom signing in

I just heard from Sarah who is at Logan getting ready to leave for Colorado (Steamboat Springs). There was a day last week when Becky was in Armenia, Steve was in Serbia and Sarah was if Israel. What is going on here?!

Testing, Testing

Does it work??