The 27th year...

My birthday has come and gone and time for reflection on the year as a whole is in order. I certainly didn't accomplish all the school goals, but that has just been side-tracked for the next couple of years, it'll get done when it gets done and not a moment sooner. A few goals accomplished:

1. Quit smoking for the last time, now that I'm 27, and have good things to look forward to, and it's Day 7 again, I'd like to say to people in the future that I quite smoking when I was 26 period.

2. I had my first piece of writing published, the Cabinda genocide article in the Ubyssey campus paper, the full article should come out in in May's issue of the The Knoll.

3. Kept active with the VOC and kept in generally good health all year. Increased climbing skill to sport leading 5.6s and 5.7s consistently, when before I could only top-rope a 5.9 at the max, that level is up to 5.10a. Learned Traditional and multi-pitch ascent. Got in more days climbing this schoolyear than last year and still have atleast 2 days planned at Squish before work starts.

4. Completed the third and fourth chapters of my novel. Both need editing, and the third needs to be pared down (God damn Dan Brown), but I expect to have Ariat's chapter written by the end of my 3rd season in the bush.
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The birthday was a blast, for many reasons but mainly because I got to see my bro, Gareth, who's on the Canadian National Ski Team, for the weekend (he's pictured at right doing Zoolander's Blue Steel I think). My sister and friend Reuben and my Aunt Lois (Back from New Zealand) were also there and we all had dinner at Milestones on the Victoria wharf. I drove back home in the rain and Gareth and I hit the sack in the studio. The poor guy's totally exhausted from all his training but I insisted on saturday that we go summit Mount Tzhouhalem.

We took dad's truck and ended up wandering around below the actual hiking trail looking for the correct path up the rock. We back-tracked for a while until we found a small trail leading up the rock.

It definately wasn't the trail I took with Blaire, it was smaller and ran up the cliffs and outcroppings towards the first summit.

We ran part of it and after every sramble there was a nice viewpoint of the cowichan valley. My brother had his digital camera and took the photos.

We found, and I was able to capture a garter snake on the way up. It released its defensive stink on my fingers but it was worth a picture or two before I set it free.

We eventually found our way to the cross at the first summit. There we rejoined the main trail and headed down after a little rest.

We jogged the bottom of the trail to make time. I was just glad to spend some quality time with my little bro.

He's off at the airport now with my folks. JB and Reuben left early this morning. I'll upload the rest of Gareth's pictures to this blog.


Then I'm going to try to finish off one of my papers. The next post will be a bunch of my photos from recent hikes.

Weekend on the rocks...

The Vancouver heavens have opened up a deluge of Biblical proportions late on a tuesday evening and it seems about time to update the blog.

I spent the weekend in Squamish taking a course in traditional climbing. Squamish left a pretty nice impression on me. I've always liked climbing in the smoke bluffs, but the town shares that remote mystique that I guess I would apply to places like Canmore in Alberta. Surrounded on all sides by mountains, good hiking and great climbing it seems far from the port hustle of Vancouver although it isn't. I stayed in a nice, but pricey hostel, next to the highway for the weekend. The room was pleasant an empty most of the time, with amazing views of the Stawamus Chief from its patio.

Friday morning started early at the local starbucks where myself and another fellow named Peter met our teacher for the trad course, Craig. It rained lightly for most of the day, which didn't matter too much as we spent the better part of the day familiarizing ourselves with traditional gear (cams and nuts), and their proper placement in cracks underneath the Zombie roof.

When the sun came out in the afternoon, Craig set up a top-rope on a beautiful and fun 5.7 climbed called the Laughing Crack. I was hooked up with a rack of protection and made my way up the climb without much difficulty. The real challenge is looking at part of the crack and figuring out just what size of cam or nut you'll need to fit in properly. It definately will require a great deal more practice. You have to get used to climbing along with one hand and having the other able to go to your side to find gear without risking falling. It was great fun, especially given the climb itself was not too simple but ridiculous fun nonetheless. I found a picture of a trad climber going up the laughing crack pictured on the right.

For reading in the hostel I had Irshad Manji's "The Trouble with Islam Today", an excellent book that really requires a post of its own to be made later.

I bought a small booklet and pen to record the various knots and rules for my course on the second day. We trekked in to Ronin's Corner [sp] and set up another top-rope on a nice 5.6. The corner was where I first learned to set top-ropes on the VOC Longhike 2 years ago. I went up the pitch, set up and anchor and Craig showed me how to belay from the top. We turned the climb into a 2-pitch and it went well. In the afternoon we went over to Fern Gully and I had my first true trad climb on a gentle 5.5 or 5.4 that was basically a collection of big crags and verticle shelves thirty or forty feet up. I definately benefitted from having done sport before as the usual spookiness factor of climbing above an anchor wasn't too extreme. At the top, I learned the munter knot belay and Peter seconded my climb. We rapped down the pitch and spent the rest of the afternoon learning rope ascent and some rescue techniques.

All and all a great course. The investment of a trad rack is a bit daunting, especially at the pre-brushing-season-moment, atleast $700. But given the freedom it allows in terms of finding out climbing spots and going up mountain faces without the need for bolted routes.

On monday, Dave came up from rainy Vancouver. We had ambitious plans of going up Mount Brew, but that was scaled back to a climb of the backside of the Chief. The beginning was a forested stair-master of a climb that just went up and up through the forest next to Shannon Falls. We decided to climb the first peak. The whole climb was about 450 meters vertical, and near the top it steepened up to ladders up scalloped and rippled granite slopes. Dave and I got off the tracks and I, in the blowing wind and rain, tried my hand at a solo of a nice granite slab. A little slippery and spooky but fun. We soon convinced ourselves that we'd lost the route and returned back to the path. The last part of the climb was up onto the granite peak in the wind and rain with the help of chains at one point. We skittered to the top (to wet for photos), before we joined a bunch of other hikers heading down the peak. It was a reverse stair-master on the way down and we were soaked to the bone and cold when we made our way to the Brew Pub for lunch.

Weather wasn't perfect, but a damn good long-weekend nonetheless. Dave's off to Scandanavia and Eastern Europe tomorrow, watched a bit of Michael Palin's "Sahara" tonight. Signing off for now.

Summer's hit the island and the sad decline of the Panditas...

It's late at night at my dad's place on cherry point road near Cowichan bay. I had a nap earlier, so I'm kind of wide awake now trying to wind down. Everything is beautiful here, my Dad's flowers are all in bloom, he has the green thumb and knows all their names all I know is that the whole property is permeated with the warm, humid smell of intermingling flowers. All the stars are out and, aside from the TV, I can only hear the sprinklers outside. The Rhodis are in bloom and smell great.

My Mom's dog Morgan is here and doing well, chasing robins and rabbits. Spirit and Ruffles, our two cats are as spritely as every and are happy to have me over again.

I got a great deal of progress done on the China paper today, mainly just outlining Wallerstein's World Systems Theory for use later in application to China's shift from external to core nation after the death of Mao. It's the type of paper I love to write. I'm all over political sociology and development studies. The better the grades in this course, the better that chance the CUSO will look at my application. Their application states that work overseas will help. I'd definately consider living cheaply in Marrakesh or Tunis if I could find work. According to Lonely Planet though, I'd have to be plugged into the ex-pat neighbourhood, and unemployment's high, I'm no teacher, and the jobs should really go to the Africans. Hopefully, I'll have most of the paper done by tommorow evening.

In a couple of days I'm taking a traditional climbing course in Squamish. With weather like this, it's going to be amazing and gives me every reason I need to stay off the smokes.

Ah, yes, the 'Panditas', Sanskrit for Scholar and origin of the word bandied about the American network news chats 'pundit' as in 'poltical'. Is Fox news anything but the mouthpiece of the Bush and Cheney administration. It is stunning how well that network of "scholars" has served the administration in: acting as apologists for administration, reporting selectively, keeping the fear level at its highest whenever popular, and ruthlessly attacking the Democrats (i.e. comparing the President of Iran's recent message to the President to Democrat talking points). Okay, so you say, yeah, I watch Jon Stewart too but who really believes Fox. The answer: The same people who've ensured that the Bush Administration has served two terms. Many of them in the Bible belt, blaming jews and homosexuals for 9/11 (Fallwell), and while holding the Bible high know so little about religions in general as not to know:

A. Jesus was a Jew.

B. Allah is Arabic for "the God" not God, and refers to bringing the people of Mohammed into the correct faith of the followers of Abraham (the first prophet) and Jesus (who is seen as the second prophet). One God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims pray to.

Say that to the average Texan and over a dinner party.

signing off for now...

Hiking: Vancouver Island, Vancouver and other stuff...

So first to report, yet another cigarette relapse, it was a small regrettable one, but now I'm back to day 3 with the patches and feeling confident that I won't relapse again, as I really can't afford to literally or figuratively. This is minor business, my blog keeps me honest about these things.

When I was still on the island last week I went to visit Tracy again and her little curly-blonde-haired, 13-month-old baby Emily said "Hi!" to me when I came in the door. According to Trace, she's becoming much more independent these days. I saw her crawl around and work on standing near the coffee table. I was there a while back to see her clap her hands (a first), and this time I saw her clap her feet (another first). I wish I had a picture I could upload of her, but at this time I don't. I took he for a little walk around the house and bounced her around before Tracy and I left. We hunted around Parksville for a while looking for some moving boxes for mum but couldn't find the place. Lunch at Smitty's, brunch I should really say. Then off to Englishman river falls for a nice hike around the falls. Tracy and I chatted, I ran the last bit uphill to the parking lot. I love the lush vegetationan tall trees of Vancouver Island. When I go up north brushing, my fondest memories are of wandering the Vancouver Island rainforest.

In other news, Kalle Lasn of Adbusters rejected my Cabinda article for being "too particular". I guess it wasn't "Adbustery" enough. I'll keep trying, and its going to be published in The Knoll at the end of May, so I'll have a link to it from this site by then. Came back to Vancouver and have been working feverishly on a paper for my sociology of development and underdevelopment about the Chinese economic miracle that we are all witnessing in the news. A little bit more research and I can start writing the giant. I went to the Kaleida cave twice and UBC and climbed the all VO+ routes (5.10a) in the bouldering wall. Since it costs a bundle for me to go to the wall, I spent some time at the weights as well.

Yesterday, Dave and I went up the Grouse Mountain Skylift (bloody pricey but great views from the top). There was thick and sloshy snow all around and a Grizzly reserve at the base of Grouse. We watched the bears for a while, before Dave acquired sunglasses for me (as I was going blind from the snow reflection). It was a beautiful blue sky and sunny day. We began our hike on a cat-track and hoofed it up the the summit of Grouse. Beautiful views of the Greater Vancouver Area, I took a few pictures and will put a link to them when my roll runs out. We descended into another snowy valley and fought our way up to the summit of the next peak (Dam mountain). As with the lions, we would have made much better progress with snow-shoes. After stopping for some food, we descended into another snowy valley and fought are way up to the summit of Little Goat mountain. At this point we only saw one other hiker on his way back - possibly from Crown pass.

At the top of Little Goat we had beautiful views of Crown Mountain to the left and Big Goat mountain to the right (pictued is crown sometime in the summer). In the distance we could see the Tantalus range, and Garibaldi. I took many pictures. Crown and Big goat were covered in snow with no tracks leading to the summits. We considered an ascent of Big Goat before a time check made the decision for us to return to Grouse.

We slowly ascended to the peak of Dam and then re-ascended Grouse before sliding our way down the ski hill back to the lodge for a good dinner.

At home I received my UNICEF yearly report in the mail, I also realised that my face was lobster-red from the reflection off the snow. Next time I'll be a little better prepared for peak trekking on a sunny day with snow.

Today, I went to the gym, climbed all the VO+ routes, ran two miles in on a treadmill in about half an hour, lifted some weights and finished one more VO route before heading home. I'm feeling good about the non-smoking thing and just have to remember to always have sugarless gum in my pocket (that stuff is essential).

Signing off, tired and sunburnt.

Day 2 all over again...

Okay, some things to report: a cigarette relapse on my 11th day. I felt like a heel as soon as I cracked the pack - damn school pressures but no excuse really. So now I'm on day 2 of the patch again. So much essay writing to be done over the next month and all I want to do is get out into the mountains and hike. I got some of my vaccinations for Africa yesterday, a small amount of yellow fever is coursing through my veins at this moment (it hasn't given me much more than a headache).

Back on Vancouver Island at the moment at my mom's place in Qualicum Beach. I always feel as if I've come home when I stay in this town. I went out with Tracy and her new boyfriend Mike tonight to see the Errington Coffee House performances. A couple of decent bands performed and a soloist did a pretty good rendition of "Smoke gets in my eyes" amongst others. I love the small community atmosphere of this place, the coastal rainforest all around, I even enjoyed the rain that came when I got to Qual, which is something odd to enjoy in early May.

I went with Dave and saw "Live and Become" at Fifth Avenue cinemas. It told the story of a young Ethiopian boy who escapes the Ethiopian famine by disguising himself as a jew so that he might escape to Jersusalem with the rest of the Falushas (I think they were called). A very good film the focused on the boy's life as he grew up and desperately tried to construct an identity for himself in this foreign land always knowing that his only true wish was to return to his mother in the refugee camp in the Sudan. The film ends with him returning to his homeland to work with doctors w/o borders. He sees his mother, and grasps her to himself (she is a mere wisp of a woman after years of poverty). When he does so she lets out a wail of uncontrollable sadness. It's hard to describe the sound, it's not high pitched crying, it was a low and endless bellow. If sadness could be described in sound, that would be it.

Also saw Brokeback Mountain, damn Ang Lee. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon made me want to travel to China given his luscious cinematography and consideration of landscape as a backdrop to events. The movie was all it was played up to be, beautifully sad. But the scenery, those jaw-dropping high alpine meadows, lakes, and mountains of Alberta. Sometimes I miss the prairies and the mountains of my youth to a great degree. Never more than seeing that film. I've really got to get myself a vehicle and climb and trek in the Rockies on of these days.

Good news to report about the Cabinda article, I'd sent it to the editors of Adbusters hoping to get it published. I hadn't heard anything for a few days until Kale Lasn, owner and publisher of Adbusters, contacted my through e-mail and asked me to send him the article. Fingers crossed, if I could get the full article in Adbusters it would be would be a Godsend.

I'm now of the state and mind that a 4th season with Apex as a brusher might not be what I really want to do with my life. I've decided to apply for a position with Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO) for a 2 year volunteer position in Africa after I graduate. Hopefully doing development and sustainable economy work in Burkina Faso or Ghana. I intend to e-mail their African director with my interest pretty soon even though graduation now looks like it's going to take 1 more semester and a summer semester before graduation.

Signing off....

Darwin's Nightmare - A Film Review

Just finished watching Hubert Sauper's documentary of the above name. A pertinent film that discusses a case in point of the 1st world/3rd world exploitative relationship I was talking about a couple of posts ago.

The film centers around the Nile Perch fishing industry on Lake Victoria in and around Mwanza, Tanzania. With hand-held interviews and scene-shooting, the film gives its focus a raw and uncensored feel.

The nile perch, is a huge predatory fish that europeans pay top dollar for. According to EU officials in the film, exports of the fish represent the largest export commodity that Tanzania has to offer. The fish however, has devoured other fish in the lake and also cannibalized its young. The result is complete devastation to the Lake's ecosystem. A meeting of Tanzanian government officials is shown a film detailing this destruction and quickly brushes it off as only showing the bad side of the nile perch. They speak of the importance of "selling Tanzania, and selling fish" over the problems it might present.

Even though, factories are producing 500 tonnes daily of the fish for export, none of the fish goes towards solving the desperat famine within the region. The film notes that while 2 million European whites eat the fish daily, only the useless heads and carcasses are allowed to be sold to the local communities. A local man is paid to guard the fish stocks from intruders looking for food, he notes that he only got the job because the last man who had it was hacked to death. The huge transport planes that come into the area daily are supposedly empty. It is noted, however, that they often carry arms and ammunition for sale to rebels in the D. R. Congo (see previous post) to sustain Africa's great war. As a Tanzanian journalist points out, this provides the Europeans with a double profit, guns come in, fish come out, while nothing goes to those who work the hardest.

The women of the film are widows whose husbands have died of Aids or famine and they come to work as prostitutes for the pilots. During a funeral, a pastor notes that the rebion can lose 50 to 60 fisherman in 6 months to "the virus". Yet he maintains that condoms are dangerous because they are a sin against God's law. The girls risk beatings from their clients, as the film ends we learn that one woman was beaten to death by an Australian client.

It is a very sad but extremely necessary film. The security guard says that he would welcome war because it would mean he would be well-paid for a change. Many stories are told in them film and they are all tragic. The fish industry may benefit the fat cats in the government of Tanzania for now, but a few years down the road, the entire country will be facing massive famine instead of just certain regions.

When I rented the film, a friend of mine who works at the video store told me to rent it if I wanted to depress myself. Charity fatigue doesn't just grip nations, it grips us. What can we do but listen, write, and open our eyes to the extremely exploitative relationship between the world that surrounds us and the world of Africa and other regions of the third world.

The Effects of Protest and Rumblings of War in the Congo

In my last post, I wrote that Talisman inc, a Calgary-based oil company operated in the Sudan during the civil war between the muslim Khartoum government and the Christian/animist militias in the south. This was true. However, a good friend pointed out to me that Talisman, due to pressure from human rights groups has withdrawn from the Sudanese projects until peace comes to Sudan. The U.S. government also applied pressure to Talisman, threatening to pull it from US markets. The larger project, from which Talisman sold its stake, the Greater Nile Oil Production and Pipeline project still continues to operate with companies from Malaysia, China, India, and Sudan's domestic company. Ultimately, it's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless that shows the positive effects of large-scale protest.

Such protests took place yesterday en masse in Washington DC, and smaller scale in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. At least one members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has spoken publicly about military intervention in Sudan "because we can't allow dictators to kill their own people." This quote of course is not found anywhere in PNAC a document that was written before 9/11 and was concerned with establishing the United States of America as the only true world power and empire. Tenets of PNAC include the rolling back of civil liberties of Americans, fighting and winning multiple theatre wars, military control of space and cybersapce. Chillingly, the document wrote that such actions could not be done unless a "second pearl harbour" a cataclysmic event happened. Along come the attacks of 9/11, and
PNAC becomes policy. Since Bush has taken power, PNAC has had a name change and was referred to as the 'Freedom Doctrine" by Bush in his second inaugural address. Most people will tell you that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is about control over regional resources (oil and gas mainly). As Gwyn Dyer points out, the wars are a way of showing potential regional rivals (such as the EU, or China) that the US "no longer plays by the rules" in terms of international law. The Iraq war was an illegal war by UN standards. The US has made a strong play to hold down Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us not forget how resource rich Iran and Sudan are. The chink in PNAC's armour, is that the US military is exhausted from combat in Iraq. The idea of the US fighting in multiple theatres and winning is ludicrous to comanders of their military forces. It is no surpise the the members (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle) have never served a day in the military.

As late as the spring of 2004, there were rumblings of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Observers worried that it might result in a repeat of the first African World War (1998-2003) that involved 6 nations and left 3 million dead. The main opponents in the war are long-time rivals Rwanda and the government forces of the Congo. To put the deaths of this war in perspective (deaths from fighting, starvation, and disease) it would be the equivalent of a 9/11 catastrophe every day and half for 5 years straight. The wild and lawless regions of eastern Congo are home to anti-Rwandan militants (many the escaped perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide), Rwandan-friendly militias, and Congolese troops. In early June 0f 2004, two miltias occupied the Eastern Congo city of Bukavu for a week. Joseph Kabila, the rebel leader who ousted Mbutu sese seko's brutal regime in the 90s, responded by chasing the rebels out and posting between 5000 and 10,000 Congolese troops along the Rwandan border. Rwanda cites its involvement in the Congo as protecting their nation from the anti-Rwandan militias. It must be said however, that Rwanda desperately needs the energy resources in that region for their power-starved nation.

However, Rwanda still relies heavily on foreign aid which they run the risk of losing should they launch any military offensive into the Congo. The U.N. has its most expensive mission in this region of the Congo, and U.N. helicopters launched attacks at rebel militias to drive them from Bukavu. One group retreated, the other did not. The DR Congo still has the world's largest concentration of child soldiers, though as many as 15,000 have been demobilized. The DR Congo's UNICEF head of office Massimo Altimari rarely if ever visits the site he funds. The BBC quotes him as saying, "The situation doesn't permit all the displaced people to go back to their villages because they are scared, they are tired...We have no government here, the government is represented by the army and the army is not behaving well."

This war bears another grim description in which rape is commonly used as a weapon of war. A church hospital in the region houses rape victims, many just teenagers, and in three year has treated as many as 4,500 victims alone from their region. The majority of the deaths in Africa's long war are children dying from preventable diseases reports Amnesty International.

Though sporadic fighting continues in the vast regions of Eastern Congo, the real crisis emerging in the humanitarian one caused by years of vicious combat. Villages have been destroyed, children abducted for use in the various militias, and disease runs rampant. Organisation such as UNICEF fear entering the region for their own personal safety.