Long Walks On Leafy Streets

4/1/2014 Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Wells, ME (Thanks to Nicole)
Last week was the first full week of classes following spring break. We didn’t have any days off for snow. As mentioned in previous post, it did snow on Tuesday but due to the slightly warmer weather much of it did not stick to the ground. My walks to work were a lot more pleasant.
It is a good feeling when you have worked really hard all week and then you can let your hair down a bit on Friday and Saturday nights. I also enjoyed getting up slightly earlier on Saturday morning and enjoying the silence and the warmer air. There was a slight drizzle all day on Saturday. I went running in the morning and after the initial difficulty of dragging myself out it was quite a pleasant run. I even grabbed a few plastic bottles that were on the roadside and put them in recycling bins. It felt good to know they won’t end up in our rivers and oceans.
Last week was also the second week of the environmental film festival.
Every year this festival comes to Washington, DC in early spring. This year they are showing more than 200 films in different places around town, such as in universities, embassies and churches. At Howard they showed the movie “Black Gold” about the effect of the ivory trade on African elephants.
This film festival is a happy time for me. I try to see as many of the films as possible. One learns quite a bit from them. They are also very touching and inspiring. I wish this were spring break and I could have seen movies every day! As it is I had time only for four movies. But each one was enchanting and inspiring in its own way. You could probably see some of these in their entirety online.
On Thursday the 20th Nicole and I along went to the National Geographic to see some of the finalists of the Eric Moe memorial awards for short films about sustainability. Lori had organized this outing for the Nature Lovers’ Meetup. “The Silkies of Madagascar” was about a group of women who formed a co-operative for weaving artistic silk garments and turned their lives around. A Peace Corps volunteer helped them to sell their garments at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Apparently this is a huge event that draws thousands of people every year and generates much-needed funds for the artists who come from all over the world, especially the developing world. The film “Amazing Grace” won the award. Although only five minutes, this movie about a Zambian man who went from burning trees for charcoal to dedicating his life to planting them was deeply touching.
On Monday the 24th I took my parents to the “International Museum of Women in the Arts” to see “The Jungle School,” about an Indonesian woman who went to teach villagers inside a rain forest and ended up having a life changing experience. Unfortunately I had looked at the wrong date! The film festival calendar is a bit confusing because it starts with Monday instead of Sunday as is usual. Turns out that “The Jungle School” showed on Tuesday. We ended up seeing “The Barefoot Artist” about Lily Yeh, a Taiwanese woman who travels around the world helping broken communities heal themselves through art. We were all very happy that we got to see it! She has helped women and children in Rwanda do paintings. She spent 18 years in Philadelphia designing and creating many of the arts projects in the Village of Arts in North Philadelphia. For me this was special because Nicole is from North Philadelphia and we had seen some of the murals while going on the SEPTA bus, although I am not sure if Ms. Yeh did these particular murals. If you go to my Flickr page (click on the little photo at the top, then “Pictures”) and click on the set “Christmas 2009” you will see a photo of one.
On Thursday the 27th I took my nephew Naveen to see “The Man Who Plants Trees” at the Czech embassy. Jeanne from the Nature Lovers Meetup joined us. She is of Czech and Slovak heritage. I was really impressed with how the villagers from Cameroon of the tribe Kedjom-Keku under the leadership of a guy named Ernest were planting thousands of trees every year to reforest the areas that were cut down for pasture and charcoal. It was great to see images of African savannah and rainforest and the animals in them. On Friday the 28th Nicole and I saw some short films from the Dominican Republic at the Gala Hispanic Theater in Columbia Heights. Although we lived in Columbia Heights for a while we had never been inside this Theater that was renovated by the city in the 90’s. It was great to see the Islanders take up recycling on a big scale to mitigate the trash problem. Islands are great laboratories for sustainability because of their small size and special needs. Solar, wind, wave and tidal energy all can be used to make them energy independent (in Hawaii and other tropical islands add biomass also!). A Zero waste policy can help them save millions of dollars in transporting the trash to far away places.
It gives me great hope to see individuals around the world taking action one person at a time to heal our planet. It also gives me confidence that perhaps I too can make a difference.

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