Dinah and Freda in Bhola

Dinah, our founding Trustee of Bhola's Children, and Freda, one of the newer but already invaluable members, have just returned from a highly productive visit to Bangladesh. 

The local Committee are going from strength to strength, and Sharjahan and his family, six months in to their trial as assistant Directors/houseparents have just had their contracts extended.

The children are all doing well, and life very much goes on, despite the day to day tribulations over which we only tread the surface...

Just a few new pictures, this month, for you to share in:

All present and correct - the Bhola Family as it is at present!

Sharjarhan and his family (with Freda)

 

Hassan, creator of this year's 'Christmas' card is very proud!

Weeding the vegetables...

The Christmas cards are available via the www.bhlaschildren.org website - a technological glitch means I haven't a direct link here, but the website is always worth a look anyway!  And, a shameless plug, if anyone would like to give a present of A Blonde Bengali Wife, Amazon has it, or you can email me direct!

Anne x

 

Writing Round-Up

With the changing of the clocks and November all-but upon us, it's often a time when writers make a 'new season' resolution to draw the curtains, light a candle and huddle over the laptop; get writing in a way that wasn't so welcoming during the long and warm summer evenings.

If that sounds like you, then here are a few more incentives, success stories from various people and groups with which I'm involved:

Writer, Jazz Shaban, is publishing her dual biography Road to Damascus, in November.  It tells the parallel stories of the lives of sisters Jigi and Suzan, raised separately, one in the UK and the other in Syria, and how they eventually get back together again.  The story is often challenging but Jazz's insights and humour bring the book alive and it reads like a gripping novel.  All the more poignant because the Syria that Suzan still lives in is changed beyond all recognition. 

Another author, Marie Campbell, has just found a very enthusiastic agent for her first novel, currently titled, Missing.  James Essinger of the Canterbury Literary Agency, is the one who has recognised what a clever and entertaining thriller this is... Father-to-be, Michael, goes missing and Jill, his partner, is the only one convinced it's far more than a case of cold feet.  Michael certainly has a past, but where does the shadowy Anna fit into it?  Also told from dual points of view, this will keep you guessing to the suitably chilling end.  No doubt a publisher is just round the corner.

Kendra Olson and Stuart White have embarked on the academic route.  Both with novels under their belts, they were both accepted on to the very competitive MLitt in Creative writing at Glasgow University.  Much luck to the them!

Over to Edinburgh-based writing groups: I've already written about the successful collaborative play that Ox-pen, based at Pentland Community Centre, wrote, entitled Spooks, Secrets and Suspects.  Well, if you are local and you missed the reading, the film version is being shown in Oxgangs Library on Thursday 20th November at 2pm - all are invited.  At the other end of town, Gilmerton Writers' are currently preparing their first anthology of work... more on that in later posts.

If you're still not quite ready to hunker down and write, consider hopping out to the Lyceum's current production, Bondagers.  Great play by Sue Glover that has come home to Edinburgh and is quite compelling... Click on www.lothian-life.co.uk for a truly wonderful (you'll see why) review!!

Finally, a totally unconnected, very important, plug for Christmas cards in aid of Bhola's Children.  Currently available via www.bholaschildren.org they are also available without a greeting so you can use them any time of year!  I'll paste a full link here as soon as PayPal etc is set up for purchase.

Anne x



 

Bangla Food for Dragon-Slayers

Today, 29^th September is Michaelmas. I learned this equally from the wonderful Steiner School Kindergarten and late night forays of distraction into River Cottage repeats.  It’s traditionally a festival for marking the change in seasons and of gathering the harvest to provide for the winter ahead; more recently it celebrates the role of the archangel Michael as dragon-slayer.  As the long days of summer draw into the dark nights of winter, it’s apparently an opportunity to confront our own ‘inner dragons’ and finding the light and courage to see us through to spring .

It got me to thinking – yes, my thought-processes are often tenuous in the extreme – about the importance food plays in nurturing, giving comfort and offering a focus for a social occasion.  It has always been the case in Bangladesh!  Never have I eaten so much, so well, and given with such generosity as I have with both friends and strangers from Dhaka to Bhola.  Of course, some offerings – the crown of the rooster, fish larvae, cows’ brains – are once in a lifetime ‘treats’, others I would come back to again and again, and it’s often the simplest of foods.

Here’s a menu, and a ‘toss it in and see’ sort of recipe for a breakfast feast…

POTATO & PAPAYA CURRY

Take a green-skinned papaya (the flesh is firmer) and a couple of potatoes and chop them into equal sized pieces.  Fry some garlic, onion, turmeric and any other spices you fancy/are to hand, add the potato til cooked through, then toss through the papaya.  It’s a dry curry that is perfect eaten with roti (chapati).

KITCHURI

2 handfuls rice 
1 handful red lentils
1 handful any green leaf vegetables 
couple of tablespoons of oil
water as required

You can also add in onion, garlic, ginger, tumeric and salt… and some versions include egg or meat or chicken.

It’s trial and error: heat the oil and coat the rice, add in the lentils, start to add the water – and keep stirring. Keep adding more water as the rice and lentils absorb it and once they are more or less soft and cooked, stir in the leafy veg

CHA’

A big spoon of black tea per person, add boiling water, add boiling condensed milk (sweetened of course) and more sugar to taste (yes, really) and serve very hot and strong – it should be caramel brown and almost able to hold a spoon up… The faint-hearted can have ‘raw’ tea i.e. omit the condensed milk.

Okay, it’s Jamie (on an off day) rather than Nigella but even when it all goes wrong, the aroma wafting through the kitchen is the perfect way to imagine yourself in Bangladesh - and definitely sufficient to slay those dragons!

Anne x

 

 

 

 

(Bangla) Friends Reunited

Having just returned from a whirlwind summer of travel, I'm once again reminded how indebted I am to so many long-standing and new friends for their generous hospitality.  On the most recent trip this ranges from Ger and Jackie in Ireland to Jose in Washington DC and all the folks in Virginia, to Jay and Charles and Ravi, Valeria and Marla in California and to Guillermo and Dick in Vermont... And the many others who have visited and, very importantly, shared in Simon's 4th birthday!

Of course, there are hundreds of others from Bangladesh - most of them mentioned here on the blog or forever remembered in the pages of A Blonde Bengali Wife - to Tanzania to New Zealand and everywhere in between that are unsung yet treasured.

I can only hope that somehow and someday I manage to pay as many of you back as I can...

Readers of my Bangla musings will have heard countless times about Munnu, Mannu and Bachchu, the three brothers who have made me as near as is possible to a sister.  Well, it's not much but at least this year, I've been able to welcome Bachchu to Edinburgh for a brief but lovely stay and show him our home. 

It was a literal case of friends reunited: Jacqui also met all three brothers (and many other family members) during our visit in 2008 and Allan and Simon met Bachchu earlier this year on our 2014 trip.  A wonderful evening, and let this post be both a genuine, if inadequate, thanks to all of you out there - and a general welcome to anyone passing through Scotland in the years to come!

Anne x

 

Freda Runs For Bhola

Writing from sunny California, with a new cluster of people to excite/bore about Bangladesh, I've realised I'm always quite vague about where the island of Bhola actually lies - saying 'right down in the Bay of Bengal' means something to those who know the geography of SE Asia, but there are a lot of us who remain very geographically-challenged!  So here it is:





The circle shows the position of Bhola's Children, the island on which it is sits is - Bhola.

Our newest Trustee to make the journey is Freda Graf, and Freda is about to undertake a sponsored run (no, not actually to Bangladesh!) to help with the continuous fundraising drive.  I'm attaching the link to the official Bhola's Children website here, first, in case you'd like to support Freda, and secondly because it's a re-vamped website that's well worth a look if you haven't been there recently.

And finally... if anyone has any ideas for other fundraising, please let me know.  The Saltyard evening was wonderful, but I am so unimaginative about thinking of things I could do - and let me state right now, all suggestions gratefully received unless they involve me abseiling off the Forth Bridge.

Hope you're having a good summer wherever you are... We're off to Vermont next.

Anne x

We Need Your Help!

Our Trustee, Freda Graf (in the picture on her first visit to Bhola) will be doing a sponsored run to support Bholas Children. If you would like to support Freda then please visit http://bholaschildren.org/Thank you, your support is really appreciated!

 

The Road to Srimangal

This month I've been thinking about fact and fiction, and especially about the point at which they merge; when something that has happened to you, the writer, is turned - by you or someone else - into a story. 

The programme for the first of my Community Education classes has been 'Writing for Life', which has taken us through writing as a hobby to writing as reflection to writing as therapy... and all points in between.  It has created a lot of very personal writing that has had all the greater resonance because of that, and has highlighted a significant difference between writing the story and telling the story.  Maybe it is easier to control the writing, maybe because it is done in isolation, but once in front of an audience, there is an emotional charge that affects both the writer - and the 'hearer' - and it's a challenge for both.  A very powerful experience.

This term culminated in the class interviewing me: me as myself (fact) with the additional information that I had more or less become the next JK Rowling with a huge publishing deal (fiction).  The results ended in 8 very different (very good) pieces of writing - a great exercise in how and what (and why) individuals hear, interpret and report what they have experience in the same room at the same time.

At the same time, the current focus of my PhD critical theory has been how a novelist creates a totally fictional world.  Surely, however far s/he retreats into imagination, both that fictional world and that imagination can never be totally free of external influence.  In a story, a word, a phrase, a description is never 'just' a word or a phrase or a description, it has been very carefully chosen. IT needs to be authentic, not contrived and rarely coincidental.

Coincidence in fact though, in real life, is a different matter entirely.  And that's abounded too recently.  When we were in Bangladesh in April, we went to Sylhet  and randomly met a local guide at the Five-Layer Tea Shop who offered to show us around a tea estate in Srimangal.  It came to light it was that very same man who, a teenager at the time, had been the porter for a different tea estate, when I first visited there in 2001.  A good story in itself...

Now fast forward to last Saturday on the crowded Edinburgh to London train.  A man walked the length of the carriage, turned and came back to us. 'You were on the Emirates planes from Glasgow to Dubai,' he said.  Yes, I agreed, having no recollection of ever having seen him before.  It transpired he had been on his annual visit home, to Srimangal, to his family business, the Five-Layer Tea Shop.

Would that work in fiction?  Make of it what you will but apparently it's a small world and all roads lead to Srimangal...

Anne x

 

Reflections on Bhola

'm bending a self-imposed rule this month and writing more than a couple of paragraphs... stringent self-editing has fallen by the wayside in trying to report everything that happened last month in Bangladesh!

We arrived in Bhola early on the morning of the 9^th April.  At this stage, it’s a homecoming for me as I’ve been to Bangladesh a dozen times; Simon at 3-and-a half is on his second visit, and for Allan, a fundraiser and supporter, also from Scotland, it was his first time in SE Asia. 

After the thrill of a ride in our new auto-rickshaw, the children, armed with Bangla flags and bright flowers, were on hand to greet us – a wonderful, warm welcome for all three of us, but clearly Simon was the one they were waiting for… He had a fantastic time playing with the ‘big boys’ and was using sign language in no time; it took him longer to accept the girls as they were too ‘kissy’!  Allan, a marathon-runner was accompanied on his early morning runs by up to 10 boys in flip-flops, on other days Ali led them in a brisk walk.

It was a pleasure to see so many new faces amongst the familiar ones.  A couple of the younger girls had only just arrived and were busily settling in, whereas old friends had – just as they do in all families –  grown up and moved on. Not moved too far though: we spoke to Tasnur and Dilruba, and met Maksud in the street.  Everyone appeared to be happy, well and in good spirits too.  The older children continue going daily to the local primary school.  It’s not easy for anyone, as they don’t have an interpreter, but they are persevering, and signing and lip-reading classes continue in the boundary.  There was much singing and dancing – there always is – and cricket was the name of the game most evenings.

Official awareness programmes and day-long picnics were shelved for this visit, given the average temperatures of 35 degrees, but we managed trips to Valumia (the new access road is shaping up and the pond is being dug out - very slow and hot work), Supari Bagan, the river, the second bridge and Bhola town.  One highlight was the ‘water melon’ trip: Ali, the three of us, 32 staff and children, and twenty gigantic watermelons on an outing in the tractor; with the crowds that followed, there was plenty of unofficial awareness-raising!  .

 

It’s a tradition that with the arrival of a direct financial donation, a small portion is shaved off for an outing or other special treat.  This way, says Ali, the children learn to forge a link with the outside world and to celebrate their donors and supporters worldwide.  So this watermelon picnic came courtesy of the money raised by Saltyard – and was enjoyed by one and all!  The remainder of the very generous £535 raised will be put towards a couple of specific projects: mainline gas – finally – has come to Bhola and funding buys the correct fittings so that cooking over a wood-burning fire in temperatures of 40 degrees is no longer essential.  It’s also the time of year to brave the bazaar and buy cloth by the yard, from which the girls will sew all the clothes and school uniforms required, and make the tablecloths and bedcovers that bring in a little extra income.  The rest of the money is safely in the bank, a contingency for – literally – a rainy day.

Our last day coincided with the Bangladeshi New Year and Nahian’s ninth birthday, so an evening party, with Ali’s signature dish of ‘sweet rice’ – and when the Bangladeshi’s call something sweet, they really mean it – and a lot of fun and games.

There were the usual types of challenges! The new air-conditioning unit on the third floor continually blew the electrics and added to the thrice daily power-cuts… Eventually the very tenacious electrician triumphed (at 11pm) and the system, used sparingly, is a welcome addition. The microbus kept breaking down due to the lack of clean fuel but again, was eventually fixed and fixed again, and, best of all, the brand new gas supply, promised to Bhola Island for years, finally arrived.  This long-awaited main-line gas means there is a viable alternative to the outdoor wood-fire method of cooking, which is welcome during the hottest of days and the wettest monsoon.

 

On the plane on the way home, Simon asked me, wistfully, if he could, please, have four big brothers, ‘just like my new friends in Bhola.’ Clearly, Ali and Bhola’s Children worked their usual magic on all of us and I remembered over again why this is such a very special place and part of my very extended family.  I would say it was one of the best of visits… except that I say that every time...

 

Anne 

 

 

Bhola, Bangladesh - April 2014

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then let the pictures speak!

The long-awaited trip back to Bangladesh seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye: Dhaka, Bhola, Srimangal... here are just a handful of the very many highlights...

Hot off the plane(s) in Dhaka, and Ali secures us our rickshaw chariot
 

Arriving in Bhola by overnight launch
 



The new tractor-trailer - carrying 32 of us altogether

 

38 degrees but work to build the new road goes on

Shopping...

Cooking - but mainline gas has arrived!

 

Picnic breakfast for Bangla New Year

Allan leads the exercises...

Sunset on Bhola

Allan took the photos, Simon fitted in as if he'd never been away, and Bhola's children, staff Ali were as fabulous as only they can be.  More about what we did and how the home and school are progressing next time.

Thanks to everyone who's supporting us (and anyone who has any exciting fundraising ideas - please let me know!)

Anne x


 

Spooks, Secrets and Suspects: A Play

As tutor of this highly talented, committed and hugely fun group, I can safely recommend that anyone in Edinburgh and free for an hour on Thursday will enjoy this.  Of course, the writing is good, but we're famed for our refreshments too...




 

CurryFest at the Saltyard - All Welcome!

If a blog isn't a perfect place for shameless advertising, then where is?

There is a wonderful café on Dalry Road, Edinburgh, called The Saltyard.  The rumours might be true about Simon and I spending quite a lot of time there... but I promise you, so would anyone who lives a hop, skip and jump away.  I've certainly been there enough to get talking about Bangladesh and the lovely staff - without coercion, persuasion or hints, honest - suggested Saltyard host a fundraiser for Bhola's Children.

Tickets are now available for this excellent evening, and everyone is welcome!  Details follow... It would be lovely to see anyone who is local enough to drop in on Friday evening.

AN EVENING IN AID OF BHOLA'S CHILDREN

 

'A feast of curry for your senses'

 

Saltyard Café

158 Dalry Road

 

Friday 7th March

18.00-20.30

 

Curry Supper

Table Quiz

Bangla Music & Photographs

 

Tickets £4.50; £1.50 (children); £10.00 (family)

The lucky prize winners will receive a copy of A Blonde Bengali Wife and I will be doing a 5 minute talk about Bhola... but don't let that put you off!  The food alone will compensate, and the company will be second to none.

Anne x




 

Bangladesh At Home

 

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2014

 

 

So, 1st January 2014 didn't quite see us winging our way from Glasgow to Dubai to Dhaka but it certainly didn't mean our hearts and thoughts weren't there.  The four of us - Jacqui, Allan, Simon and myself all regrouped in a certain flat in Edinburgh and created our own little world of Bangladesh for the day.

 

 

Dressed in our best salwar kameezes and serving (if not cooking, that honour goes to Lazeez, the best take-away in the city!) our version of a Bangladeshi picnic on the sitting room floor, we raised a toast and made our plans for a visit in April. 

 

The travel blockades throughout Bangladesh, the main reason we deferred the trip, ran from December through to the 13th January.  This would have left us two days to get to and from Bhola (down in the Bay of Bengal and an overnight boat trip away) in two days... virtually impossible!  So on balance it was the right decision.  Now, let's just get on with the business of reapplying for those visas.

 

I think the sign is a version of Happy New Year in Bangla; that's the sentiment anyway...!

 

 

Anne x

 

To Go Or Not To Go...?

Season's Greetings!

I hope you've all had a very happy and peaceful (or exciting, as you wish!) Christmas and are looking forward to the adventure of 2014.

For the last 48 hours, this little corner of Edinburgh has been a hotbed of international discussion and negotiation as we've followed events in the lead up to Sunday's forthcoming elections in Bangladesh - and wondered if our (Jacqui, Allan, Simon and myself) New Year's trip there can, realistically, go ahead...

The final unanimous decision was reached last night - Simon's contribution pulling it all together with, 'if we go to Bangladesh, we will go to Bangladesh.  If we stay at home we will stay at home' - when we decided, with regret, that it would be sensible to postpone the visit until later in the year.

(Important Note: Despite evil rumour-mongering, this is nothing to do with the fact that Jacqui and I tried on our trusty salwar kameezes and had twin tantrums when we realised they were, um, a little on the tight side and must have Shrunk In the Wash).

None of us feels the political situation is a safety issue, more of the 90% likelihood that we'd be sitting in a guesthouse in Dhaka for more than half the visit: national blockades and strikes mean that even if we got into the city itself, the chances of getting out again to Bhola are virtually non-existent.  So, with thanks to Ali, for his sterling efforts, and to Hasina, Mr Hoque, Mitali, Bonny, Bachchu, Suez (read more about them in the amazing book, A Blonde Bengali Wife, available in print and e-versions, signed copies on request) and Dinah for their advice, we are now rebooked for an April jaunt!

Disappointed, yes.  But relieved to have the promise of being back in Bhola in only a few weeks time.  However, given that Simon's first words on seeing his Christmas stocking were, 'Santa Claus has been, now can we go to Bangladesh?' it might well be that we need to hail a ferry in Rosyth, do a round trip and end up with dinner in an Indian restaurant, just to placate him (he's 3, it'll work, trust me) in the meantime.

So, what to do with two empty weeks...? Suggestions on a postcard, please, but those who mention 'work' will be disqualified as sensible spoilsports.  What we will be doing tomorrow - Jacqui, Allan, Simon and I) - is coming together and raising a toast to all our friends here, in Bangladesh, and everywhere, and wishing you all the very best in life, health and happiness for the coming year.

Love, Anne x

 

Four Novelists and a Narrator

‘Everyone has a novel in them’. 

How many times have we heard that said?  It’s possible.  Probable, even.  The world is full of the blissfully ignorant, who will write their novel ‘one day’ (when they have time) and the woefully knowledgeable, who have a drawer full of rejections.

To write a novel is to find oneself in a gleefully negative community.  Head-shakes and rueful smiles precede a useful little sound bite: ‘who do you know (have slept with/can blackmail/preferably all three) in the publishing business?’ or ‘JK Rowling had 3 million rejections, you know’ or ‘have you thought of bee-keeping instead? Fewer stings. Ha ha.’

At the other end of the scale is the urban myth of the bored bricklayer (brain-surgeon/dog-breeder) who wrote a thriller during a wet weekend in Wales and got a £billion advance and a 6-book deal.

So should the Regular Joseph/ine give up now? Of course not.  And I have four good reasons, aka Craig, Ruth, Katie and Stuart. A week ago, I attended the book launch of Craig Smith’s, The Mile, a funny and serious novel about three friends, a nonagenarian runaway, and the Scottish referendum.  Also accepted for publication is The Single Feather, by Ruth Hunt, which follows smart, sensitive Rachel trying to establish a new life as an artist who is not defined by her wheel-chair.  Katie Hart wrote Finding Destiny, a fantasy novel for young adults in which time-travelling Alex needs to save his family and city from the evil owl, Dragonstar.  It’s now being considered by a publisher, and next, another fantasy novel, Stuart White’s, Rise of the Kalax is currently being reviewed by an interested agent. 

All four are talented, determined (and previously unknown) writers I’ve worked with over the past months… and I’m sure they would agree, that whilst talent is vital, it’s the determination alongside that has got each of them to this point.

There’s another person to mention.  Gerry Coffey died last week.  A remarkable man – kind, intelligent, very funny, some may say a little bit stubborn – who made a huge difference in so many ways over his ninety-odd years.  He wasn’t a novelist but he was a storyteller of the best kind; his anecdotes, tall tales, and straight-to-the-point observations, will be remembered and quoted for a very long time.  Gerry, it doesn’t do you justice (and you’d probably have a word or two to say about my grammar) but this blog (and Simon’s lantern) is for you.

Anne x

 

 

Ten reasons to join a creative writing class...

Thanks to an off the cuff remark by one of the participants in my Thursday morning writing class, I came up with a whole host of potential ice-breakers last week.  I'm always on the look out for new 'warm up' writing exercises that are fun, vaguely useful and never reminiscent of terrible office team-building days.

The man I will call Mr H (in case he's too modest to own his ideas here...) mentioned he had once written - for creative, not personal reasons, you understand - a list of 'Five Reasons to Date Oneself'.*  This started the cogs turning and I took the idea if  not the content to another writing group, twisted it to make it as convoluted as possible and asked them to create a list of things they would write Ten Reasons  about.  If it came from personal experience, all the better. Yes, it did take half the class to explain what I meant but it was worth it.

Here they are:

1 Ten Reasons to take a metronome on holiday...

2 Ten Reason to do a jigsaw puzzle upside down...

3 Ten Reasons why haggis is better than chicken...

4 Ten Reasons to drink tea straight from the teapot...

5 Ten Reasons to wear two pair of trousers...

6 Ten Reasons never, ever to date your ex-girlfriend's mother..

7 Ten Reasons to carve a pumpkin in the bath...

8 Ten Reasons why you should never write lists starting 'Ten Reasons'...

9 Ten Reasons not to climb onto your roof in December in your pyjamas...

10 Ten Reasons to cut jelly beans in quarters...

I didn't go as far as actually asking for the accompanying Ten Reasons... best not, I thought.  No questions that all of these people have earned their place in a creative writing group, or at least, it keeps them off the streets.

And you know what?  Reading these lists is like having a tune stuck in your head: you'll now spend the rest of the day mentally thinking up Ten Reasons....  Feel free to post them here!

Anne

*No, I'm not going to list them... Mr H might have his own plans for them, but there's nothing to stop you making a list of your own!

Images From Bhola

 

What's the best way to beat the blues?  You know: the end of the summer, the increasingly dark mornings and shorter evenings, a new term's work already piling up... 

 

Well, you sit down and peruse the Emirates website and the next minute find your fingers are compelled to book flights for Bangladesh! 

 

January 2014, Bhola (and who knows where else?) here we come.

 

With that in mind, and given your patience at my various pontifications over the last few months, I thought I'd simply post a few random snaps of the children and young people currently living in Bhola.

 

Here they are - 

 

 

 

Ahsan picking the carrots he's grown on our land in Valumia

Boys relaxing on the roof - where they are building the parapet
 

The girls on a break from the tailoring building stop to chat



School children practising for Independence Day Parade

 

Salina giving Rosina treatment  in the new physio room

 

The boys getting a lesson in sewing and mending their school uniforms

Just another day in Bhola!

Anne x

 

Edinburgh Fringe, Toddler-Style

August.
Edinburgh.
Simon shaking me at dawn and demanding, 'mummy, is it morning-time and what show we will see today?'
It must be the Fringe. 
And Simon is a 3 year old groupie... 

If he could write his reviews, he would.  Verbally, he's deconstructed the performances at length and it goes something like this:

ALIENS LOVE UNDERPANTS - 'very excellent funny'
That's good, because neither of us had read the book before we went.  We have since.  Many, many times.  Nearly as many times as we, and all house-guests, have had to check our underpants have not been stolen.  However, it seem we're okay: we live on the second floor, and aliens, like Darleks, can't - apparently - climb stairs...

BIG RED STORY BUS - 'mummy, why don't all buses have stories?'
A trip up Arthur's Seat, accompanied by songs and stories from top-deck storyteller, Peter Snow, was very well-received but has set us up for a lifetime of disappointment on Lothian buses.  Still, if there's nobody singing on the Number 4 bus home from nursery, Simon has no problem entertaining commuters with a rousing '5 little monkeys jumping on the bed'.

MR BLOOM'S NURSERY - 'very wriggling worm and lots of poo.'
Well, what's not to like there, then?

TIDDLER'S TAILS - 'there were no sharks, just pretend ones.  Real ones need big sea and that would fall out the tent.'
Quite.
A bit of a lukewarm response to this one; it just wasn't sufficiently like the Julia Donaldson books to pass muster...

I did manage to sneak out and see one grown-up show, called, ironically, My Village and Other Aliens.  An excellent one-man performance by writer/singer Terence Blacker, which reminded me of a previous life... and where I'm looking to in the future.  Can't ask more of a show than that.  Although, I expect Simon would have said it suffered for the lack of real aliens.  And underpants.


Anne x

 

Much Madness; or, A World Within a World.

Here's a conundrum for all you writers - and readers - out there (keep reading, I'll get to the point eventually):

In the 1950's, the psychologist Erving Goffman developed the concept of the Total Institution.  This, he defined as:

‘A place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time together, lead an
enclosed, formally administered round of life.’

(Goffman, 1961)

It was the heyday of the 'mental asylum' and of the boarding school, even the convent.  Care in the community wasn't even embryonic and criminals were far more likely to be incarcerated than paroled. Goffman was talking about actual bricks-and-mortar buildings where people on the inside only had contact with people on the outside through a strict system of gatekeeping.  These places were, then, worlds within worlds; they were enclosed.

Now, I'm fast-forwarding through lots of theoretical and philosophical debate (I find this fascinating, but I might just be weird), and - you'll have to trust me on this - somewhat redefining Goffman's concept. Let me ask you writers and readers still with me, to take a gigantic leap of faith and think about those words: totality, enclosure, gatekeeping... and consider:-

Is possible to describe a fictional world, created by a novelist, as a Total Institution?  Such a world and its characters are enclosed in the writer's imagination, and that writer is the gatekeeper between the fictional world (the story) and the real world (the reader).

Is the basis of fiction a world within a world, or am I simply locked in my own little world wherein lies much madness?  Any thoughts appreciated, especially since the critical text of my PhD is in here.  Somewhere!

I'm plodding on regardless. banking on the words of Emily Dickinson:

'Much Madness is divinest Sense -

To a discerning Eye - '

 

 

 

Note From Nicaragua

It would have felt very exotic to finish my novel in Nicaragua.  I could have written a neat little Foreward or Afterword, signed and dated Pochomill, or San Juan or Granada.

 

Was it ever going to happen?  Of course not.... too many people to see, deserted beaches to explore, horses and carriages for Simon to 'drive', boat trips to private islands.  Oh, and canopy tours above the Mombachu volcano involving harnesses, helmets and zip wires along tightropes and down vertical drops - I strapped on Simon and off we went!  (Not really, he stayed at home eating ice-cream, counting bugs and hunting dragons.  Honestly). 

 

Ah, yes, another time-consuming activity: staying alert to zap my deadly enemy, the mosquito.  As readers will know, Bangladeshi mozzies adored me and Tanzanian ones got so drunk on me, they couldn't fit back through the netting they had infiltrated.  Well, Nicaraguan ones lined the street, all but waving palm leaves and shouting Hosanna.  

 

But I did some research, important fact-finding in preparation for the future.  I found the perfect location for writing.  The shady garden overlooking the beach at Pochomill was a strong contender, but the crashing of waves, the Plasticine-blue skies  a swaying hammock were all just too much of a distraction.  Then, the house in the mountains in San Juan had a view down to the bay that just kept dragging my eyes away from the computer screen.  But here, in a blue and white colonial house in the centre of Granada, there 's a perfect tiled courtyard between the sitting room and the bedrooms -

 

 

 

 

And here at one end of the pool, a ceiling fan just above my head, is a chair with a squishy cushion and a footstool -  

I've stuck a little flag on top of it and proclaimed it mine.  And now, over a plate of gallo pinto and sapote milkshake, I'm thinking about thinking about writing...

Author's Note

Granada, Nicaragua

June 2013

 

Rounding Up and Counting Down

Two days away from an extended trip to the USA and Nicaragua (far enough away to escape the Scottish summer?) I've spent the week drawing this term's community education classes to a close, and finishing up some editing work.

Inevitably then, it's been a week of evaluation, reflection  and reviews.  Tricky as it is to come up with an original, interesting and useful evaluation form, it's often harder for the respondent to pass on his or her views via a standard, often dry, bit of paperwork.  Nevertheless, there are some past* comments from  writers that sit, immoveable, in a little corner of my mind.

What better to do on a lazy Friday evening, when I should be packing a suitcase, than share them with you?

•  'Class is quite good but we have to spend too much time writing'

• 'I still can't think of anything to write but at least I can do it grammatically now.'

• 'Creative writing?  Seems that there are so many rules about grammar and punctuation and formatting and style and POV and how to submit your MS that being creative is the one thing it's not.'

• 'A new tutor would be nice.  What about getting the person who writes JK Rowling's books for her?'

• Overheard:  Ms A (whines) '...yes, but I don't think I'm being sufficiently stretched...' to Ms B (snaps) '...well, there's Pilates next door.  Why don't you try that next term?'

• 'I had hoped to meet some proper writers but mostly it's people like me'

• 'Sometimes there are no Jaffa cakes left at break time.'

• 'I thought creative writing was those fancy letters you see on signs.  It's not. But I'm glad I stayed anyway because now I know that is calligraphy.'

• 'Very good for my social life.  Now I can tell women I'm a writer as well as a postman and they are much more interested in me.'

• 'I wrote a book of short stories before I joined.  The tutor hasn't been that helpful, I still need someone to rewrite the ends and beginnings and some bits in the middle. And to type them.'

I do hope every one of these people finally found what they were looking for; I'm not sure if being quoted on my blog would have been the type of recognition any of them was looking for, but I certainly appreciate their feedback!

On that note, I'm giving the last word to Simon, who has an uncanny knack of keeping me in my place.  This is his side of a recent conversation:

 'NO, mummy, close up your 'puter RIGHT NOW....  NO.  Writing is not work. Building towers is work.  Help me, please.'

 

 

 

*none of these come from any of my lovely, talented and appreciative current students - I promise!

Thoughts Back on Bhola

Recent posts have concentrated more on life and writing here in the UK, but it's time to return to Bhola, especially during a week when thoughts have turned to Bangladesh in general.  Few people will have missed the coverage of the factory building collapsing in Dhaka and the subsequent tragedy; my heart goes out to all of those affected.  It reminds me of so many 'near misses' on my journeys there, events that make a great story in retrospect - because they ended happily:  a speedboat in a tropical storm off St Martin Island; electricity failure in a lift (10 floors up) at the tail end of cyclone Sidr; a tribal sniper in the Rangmati hills; a bus under threat of hijack...

So, it's great to look at the most recent pictures from Bhola and see the quiet progress that continues to make a sad or sick child just that bit happier.

All the children now go to the local school for some lessons and in addition, the English teacher visits the boundary every day, and Ali teaches lipreading.  We have a new combined resident teacher (for special lessons) and office manager, with particular responsibility for the accounts.  Nozrul knows the community well and is already streamlining all systems!

Salina, mother of a little girl very disabled with cerebral palsy is now in charge of physiotherapy. There are at least 8 resident children and teenagers with CP or other balance and mobility problems, and many, many outpatients.   Salina, assisted by Supia and Rozina, both of whom are blind, is giving morning and evening treatments, and it gives a real and valued role to the two visually impaired young women. Conversion of one of the buildings has allowed for  big and bright physio room.

Valumia, the vegetable garden and 'fish pond' is flourishing, although this year there is little surplus produce to sell; a combination of poor weather and a healthy community who need to eat most of the food produced!

As always the pictures should highlight the stories.... but try as I might, I can't upload them!  Battling with Windows 8, I'm still learning that it might be intuitive, but clearly, I'm not.  Once I work it out, I'll edit this post to add the colour and interest.  Meantime, thanks for your patience....

And I'll finish with a reminder of the colours and the emblem of Bangladesh: the red sun setting over the green fields, which forms the basis of the national flag.


Anne