Thats all folks

back in berkeley. Back to gambia next year. cool.

tit for tat

Here is my response to the British Library Learning Team response to my original email:

The Learning Team
Your intention "to show that the same stories appear across different religions" and your objective "to get students thinking about the way particular stories are shared or adopted by different religions" is a noble and worthwhile endeavor, but i think you failed in the execution.

You did not explicitly state that the story of David and Goliath is a HEBREW story that appears in Christianity, or that it has been shared or adopted by Christianity, you flatly state that the story simply IS Christian. I am curious: did you get the OK from any Protestants or Catholics to make this particular claim? I would be surprised if Christians and Christianity were not reticent to claim outright that the story of David and Goliath is one of theirs. The words "shared" and "adopted" generally imply cooperation between more than one party. Again, i would be surprised if Jews and Judaism actually consented to "share" or allow for the "adoption" of one of their most sacred texts into an entirely new (dare i say alien?) religion. Also curious if you got the OK from any Jews. Same goes for the story of Jesus and Mary, with regards to Christians and Muslims.

I maintain that, at best, you committed a faux pas. For an institution as venerable as the British Library, this really surprises me. I would love to be convinced that i am barking up the wrong tree, or something like that.
Good luck!

Reply from The Learning Team at the British Library

About ten days i published a post about the British Library website calling the story of David and Goliath a "Christian story"...here is their response:

Dear Zachary,

Thanks for your comments on the Sacred Stories interactive. When choosing the stories for the interactive, our intention was to show that the same stories appear across different religions. The objective was to get students thinking about the way stories evolve and the fact that particular stories are shared or adopted by different religions.

As you will read if you click on the ‘more information’ tab in the David and Goliath story, we acknowledge that the story is included in the scriptures of all three Abrahamic faiths. Similarly, you’ll notice in the Islamic section that we tell the story of Mary and Jesus. The theme of shared values has been central to the whole Sacred project.

With thanks,

The Learning Team


Dear Mr Rob Ainsley, Sacred website editor!
I was shocked amazed dismayed and perplexed by the listing of the Bible story of David and Goliath as a Christian story.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/cult/sacred/stories/

David, as in, king of the Israelite/Hebrews, in a battle with a Philistine named Goliath, only hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ, (and by inference, Christianity perhaps??? Ya think???)? How in the name of God could anyone call the story of David and Goliath a Christian story? What is Christian about it? Because "Christians" put together a pile of Hebrew texts into a collection called the Bible, which simply means Book? If I, as an American, compiled a collection of English fairy tale stories into a codex and called it The Book, would those stories then be called American stories? I am totally at a loss for words. Help me out, please.
Sincerely
Zachary G Wilson, Lover of Bible Stories...


So i can see their point. Christianity has adopted Hebrew stories as part of their religion. But does that make it a Christian story? Not convinced...

Back By Bay...reflections on a journey

Photo taken from the Berkeley Hills early in the morning, looking East at the rising sun with the fog from the ocean covering the land, and Mount Diablo in the upper right...

The view from the Berkeley hills looking West over the city of Berkeley, the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the city of San Francisco upper left.

Same view as photo above, taken at night. In the foreground is the Campanile Bell tower which sits smack on the grounds at the University of California at Berkeley.

This is not the Golden Gate Bridge, it is the Bay Bridge, which links SF to the East Bay cities of Oakland & Berkeley. That's downtown SF lit up like a city on fire.

This is the Five Dalasi note of The Gambia. There is a picture of a Gambian child on the front. This note is worth about 20 USA cents. Now compare this five note to the British five note:

This is the Five Pound note of England. There is a picture of the queen on the front, wearing a crown of precious metals and stones. This note is worth about 10 USA dollars. This note is worth about 5000% more than the one from Gambia. It's worth fifty times as much. On its money, England honors the queen who is obscenely wealthy. On its money, Gambia honors the child who is obscenely poor. And that about sums up the world economy today.




Here with my new bride Julia in Gambia...she kinda purty dont ya think???

Gambian English is unique. Here is part of an email my Gambian friend sent me...

"I hope we shall meet again in a good atmospheric condition. I wish all the best to your friends and family in the US. Thanks for visiting me and my family, and the time we rendered."

I like that. Atmospheric condition. Time we rendered.

The flight from London to SF was fascinating because we had crystal clear views over Iceland and Greenland. The stewardess said that after flying the London SF route for over ten years she notices a big change in the amount of ice in the arctic. We could look down at the mountains and icebergs and ocean clearly. Much of the ice is now floating in the ocean. Iceland is turning into Noiceland.

US customs gave me a bit of a hassle because i used two passports while traveling and i spent 3 months in Muslim countries. "American Taliban" and all that poppycock. But they finally let me through. Whew!

Being back it's like i never left. Compared to London, Oakland and Berkeley are sleepy little towns. Nice summer weather today, even though an Alaskan rain front typical of wintertime moved over California a few days ago, in JULY. VERY unusual.

That's it for this blog. Look out for my controversial new book about religion, the bible, and Jesus, coming out soon..

bon voyage

went to the british library for a visit to sacred texts...inspiring...
makes me want to write and draw...

flight at 2ish today arriving cali 5ish after 11 hour flight...

hipsters tweakers dreadies

been in london town since saturday met with a young woman from the ethical fashion forum about how to save the world wandered around the finsbury neighborhood in north london where all the speed freak tweakers tread and its also a huge north african immigrant hood that feels like brooklyn crashed an art gallery party for the wine and met a local woman whose parents are jamaican she invited me to church on sunday morning but before that i had to go home and sleep at the house of samba he had house guests who played music at a festival and they were looking at the video of the days work but next morning i went with her two kids to the slick production it was an all african church mostly ghanians and nigerians plus the caribbean folks it was pentecostal which means charismatic and of course africans are just a wee bit more expressive in church than say british anglicans so the music was roaring and the choir was wailing and the people were falling backwards afterwards we went shoe shopping all the while im trying to tell everyone lets go to the british library and see the sacred text the only sacred text people wuz interested in was credit card receipts so then i went to RISE one of the biggest outdoor festivals in london every year its anti racism pro cool with lots of music and its free and all the hipster dreadies are there and they had a carnival ride which is like a space pod bungee jump but they dont drop you they shoot the pod straight into the sky like a slingshot and then the pod whips around wildly up and down whilst the bungee ropes bounce back and forth the police were out in force but the bobbies carry no guns so you dont have to worry about being shot in the back while running away so you dont get a ticket for drinking in public with a fatty in your mouth whilst mouthing off about the queen at one point i sat under a tree like the budda and watched the mass of humanity quietly massively strolling by as they left the grounds at 19:30 and closed my eyes and actually felt like i reached a state of meditation for about a minute and it was the best part of my day i felt my heart thumping in my chest and i sensed the presence of stillness and peace deep within i think i will try it daily then a group of teenager multi colored multi haired multi talented london hipster dreadies clumped around me like they had discovered the sage of finsbury park and we talked about god and the devil well they used words like "stay positive" (god) and "the world is f****d up" (the devil) and they oohed and ahhed over my pure rainbow color splashed african outfit eventually of course inevitably as always we all went home and fell asleep do you ever contemplate how we are always moving always going somewhere doing something we are either eating or wanting to eat or we just ate or sleeping we are always going somewhere or getting ready to go somewhere our minds are constantly in flux our bodies are in perpetual behaviour mode where is the peace quiet and stillness? after the festival i wandered home to the house of samba you remember the one across the street from the old arsenal gunners football stadium earlier in the evening i walked to the new stadium which is built smack dab in the middle of railroad tracks its huge and sleek and expensive one of the five or six football teams that plays just in london its called emirates stadium i think its owned by arabs from united arab emirates halfway down the block from sambas i could hear wonderful soft arabic music from the backyard it was the band playing at sambas house traditional north african sacred music called gnawa until midnight we drank mint tea and all the hipster dreadies were there...as always!

Feedback

If you get a chance send me an email and tell me what you liked in this blog, what you didn't like, what worked for you in the writing, what didn't...what you want to see more of, what you want to see less of...i want to improve my writing so any advice comments thoughts are welcome. I am just about to wrap up this blog and head stateside for the summer and fall...tommorow i will finally visit the british library to see the sacred texts website and visit the british museum...heathrow on tuesday...leave at 2pm arrive at 5pm...10 hours straight, chasing the sun.

Free World/Share It or Lose It

It's singularly tragic that human beings are prevented from traveling freely on this planet. I have an American and New Zealand passport. I can travel to any country of the world if i want to, solely by virtue of the fact i hold those documents. Yet most people of the world are not allowed into my countries. Simply not allowed. For no reason other than that they come from a country that is economically more poor off than my countries, and thus my countries consider such citizens to be candidates to over stay their visas and work/live illegally.

If i was king of the world i would eliminate all visa requirements. Anyone can travel anywhere and work any job. Chaos would ensue. Vast shanty towns of immigrants would spring up outside of first world cities the world over. There would be water and food shortages. Terrorist gangs would form. Diseases and ill health would spread...in other words, it would be just like it is now already in the third world, only in first world countries too! UNLESS, those first world nations with all the money and power decided to solve the problem by sharing the wealth in the third world countries so that people wouldn't WANT and NEED to leave. The rich nations would HAVE to, unless they wanted to see their countries destroyed by the problems of massive immigration. After all, they got all the wealth from the poor countries in the first place, one way or another. None of that "we worked for it" bullox! No, the people in factories and mines and agricultural fields in the third world worked for it, and you benefited from it, thanx to your friendly local corporation.

In order for there to be rich people, there must be poor people. Why? Because money is a limited resource, by definition. If you print more, the value goes down, and the resource stays limited. Therefore, as soon as one person has more than the average, someone else must, necessarily, have less than the average. Some call this Darwinian economics. Fair trade. Survival of the fittest. Inevitable economics. I call it barbarism and selfish greediness, the lowest common denominator of human existence. I mean, we don't even raise children that way! We tell them to share, and don't fight, blah blah blah, and then we as adults do the exact opposite. We hoard, and then fight over our pile of stuff. And then we have the nerve to rationalize it. Seriously, would you let someone at your dinner table take all the food and run away into a room and lock the door? That's exactly what we are doing as a human race to our human brothers and sisters.

My solution is called "share it or lose it". That's how i deal with children all the time. If there is one ball for 4 kids i say "share it or lose it." If anyone is not sharing i take the ball away completely. Better to share than to lose it, right? It always works. And if there is one kid who just wants to ruin it for everyone else, i quarantine him. Lead him by the ear onto the bench to sit with me and get some healing while the other three kids go "ohhh, i'm glad that's not ME. Sharing is FUN!" That's what i would like to do with G dub. With my thumb and forefinger lead him firmly by the scruff of the ear to the bench for a big fat TIMEOUT. "You don't know how to share, or play fair, and you are killing everyone, so it's time-out for you buster!" It's like water, it has to find its natural level. Right now the economic playing level is artificially and greedily tilted in favor of maybe 15 percent of the worlds nations. So i say, share it or lose it.

FREE THE BORDERS! SHARE IT OR LOSE IT!
and of course, as always...
Bring back god.

Dead Sea Scrolls & The Bible

From the website blog of the Sacred Texts exhibit at the British Library:
"The Old Testament and the Jewish Bible are two different texts. The Jewish Bible is the Hebrew Bible, and orders the books into three sections: the Torah (5 Books of Moses / Pentateuch), the Neviim (the Prophets – from Samuel to Malachai) and the Ketuvim (the writings – the later texts, poetry, history and narratives of Job, Ruth, Esther etc. ending with Chronicles). The Old Testament orders and numbers the books differently, counting 39 to the Hebrew Bible’s 24, and is, of course, in a different language, translated first into Greek and later into Latin.

The earliest translation, the Septuagint (meaning 70 in Latin), is named for the legend that 72 Hellenised Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Greek for one of the Ptolemaic kings, and all came up with an identical translation. My poetic experience leads me to doubt this as a possibility, and those who first marveled at the legend clearly shared my suspicions because they only way they believed it could happen was with divine inspiration.

Each version of the Jewish Bible displayed here is different – the Dead Sea Scrolls show a plain text, with no vowels or punctuation; however the post-10th Century Bibles contain the Masoretic text – with vowels and cantillation signs (providing the grammar) stabilising the Hebrew meaning. The Greek and Latin translations into the Old Testament are also varied, just like the numerous English versions we find in our bookshops today. Each word, each inflection changes the sense – as a translator, the tension between rendering Biblical poetry into a poetic text and sticking close to the literalness of its original, is far more freighted that when translating modern writing, or even Shakespeare. The theological implications of using a definite or indefinite article can send reverberations streaming through the text and religious life, let alone the impact of translating the bearer of prophecy in Isaiah into ‘young woman’ or ‘virgin’, or defining how all three religions have different understandings of ‘prophecy’ itself.

How can Jews, Christians and Muslims all be People of the Book, when their concepts of ‘the Book’ are founded on different interpretations and meanings? Who can lay claim to ‘the truth’? In a time when fundamentalism can have terrible and violent consequences, it seems so important to highlight the multiplicity of meaning, of possibility, the ways in which the readings and interpretations of these sacred texts was as much shaped by the historical place and moment as the calligraphy and illustration, the notion of ‘truths’ and not ‘truth’."

First i zak would like to answer the questions the writer poses:
"How can Jews, Christians and Muslims all be People of the Book, when their concepts of ‘the Book’ are founded on different interpretations and meanings?"
What, we can't all be People of the Book because we have different interpretations??? No, you don't say, you mean, different? God forbid!

"Who can lay claim to ‘the truth’?"
No one. We're all liars. So why are we having this conversation? Let's go find someone who does tell the truth. Hint: He's in the Bible.

Onward and forward...
Consistent with the writers line of reasoning, it's a common thought that the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts that make up the modern Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible have been altered and manipulated beyond original recognition, or at least are open to interpretation because of the difficulty of translation.

The 20th century discovery of the "Dead Sea Scrolls" is evidence that modern day Old Testament and Hebrew Bibles are, in fact, accurate and faithful translations of the original texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fantastic: The Sacred website says "of the scrolls found, about a quarter (220 in all) are books of the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament: all the books, in fact, except Esther and Nehemiah."

Check that again: "All the books" found in the Old Testament. When were they written, and by whom? The website says "They were written over a period of around 200 years, and were evidently placed in the caves to hide them from the advancing Roman army at the time of the First Jewish Revolt, and hence no later than 68AD. Carbon dating puts the earliest of them at about 150BC. They may have been written out by the scribes of an ancient community living at Qumran, near the caves where they were found. However, their origins are the subject of much scholarly debate, and there are many different theories. What is clear is that the authors were Jewish, and disapproved of the Jerusalem priesthood of the time."

When scholars translated these texts, and compared them to the modern day translations, they found that they were the same. "The discovery of the scrolls proved that today's Hebrew Bible is 'basically the same' and thus did not alter Jewish beliefs, said Rabbi Salomon Cohen-Scali of Congregation Ezra Bessaroth in Seattle. The scrolls attest to "the general reliability of the Hebrew text on which most modern translations have been made," agreed George Nickelsburg, professor emeritus of religion at the University of Iowa.

It's a great debate.

From the Sacred Texts Website:
Dead Sea Scrolls

These celebrated texts are of unique historical and religious significance. The 800-plus manuscripts - written on papyrus or animal skin, and discovered in caves by the Dead Sea in the late 1940s and 1950s - include virtually the only known surviving Biblical documents written before the second century. This piece, part of the Psalms, dates from the year 50.

You can see this item on display in the British Library's Sacred Exhibition until 23 September 2007. Find out more

Enlarged image Zoomable high-resolution image

Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran, Israel, c.50AD. Psalms
Musée Bible et Terre Sainte, Paris

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 800-900 documents, many containing ancient Biblical texts. Some are in tantalising fragments (there are over 50,000 individual pieces in all). Others are substantial and complete, the longest scroll being eight metres long.

They were written over a period of around 200 years, and were evidently placed in the caves to hide them from the advancing Roman army at the time of the First Jewish Revolt, and hence no later than 68AD. Carbon dating puts the earliest of them at about 150BC. They may have been written out by the scribes of an ancient community living at Qumran, near the caves where they were found. However, their origins are the subject of much scholarly debate, and there are many different theories. What is clear is that the authors were Jewish, and disapproved of the Jerusalem priesthood of the time.

The dry climate on the shores of the Dead Sea, parts of which today are 400m below sea level - the lowest place on earth a human can walk - helped preserve the ancient documents.

In contrast to the Christian Bible, which survives in many manuscripts dating back to the fourth century, the oldest known source for the Hebrew Bible before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was only a thousand years old. They are therefore the earliest surviving sources we have for the Hebrew Bible by almost a thousand years.

What do they contain?

Of the scrolls found, about a quarter (220 in all) are books of the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament: all the books, in fact, except Esther and Nehemiah. The most common books found are Psalms and Deuteronomy.

A further quarter are religious texts not part of a standard Bible, such as the book of Enoch or the book of Jubilees. The rest are other religious texts and a range of secular writings including lists of laws, advice on warfare, and a catalogue of places where treasure was buried. About one in six of the scrolls have not yet been identified.

Over three-quarters of the scrolls are written in Hebrew. The remainder are in Koine Greek and Aramaic.

Who found the scrolls?

One story is that a young Bedu called Mohammed, nicknamed edh-Dhib, found the first scrolls in a cave in 1947 while searching for a goat. Dr John Trever, an early researcher, found several Mohammed edh-Dhibs all claiming to be that very man.

The extent of the find quickly became apparent. Over the next ten years the site was thoroughly investigated. In all, 11 caves were found to contain scrolls, wrapped in linen and stored in jars. Caves 1 and 11 produced the most intact documents.

The scrolls are referred to by the cave they were found in, the letter Q, and a further identifying number. An example is the controversial shred of papyrus found in cave 7 called 7Q5: some believe it is part of the New Testament, specifically the Gospel of Mark. If this were true, it would be the earliest known Gospel text by a century. However, the only complete legible word is 'kai' - Greek for 'and'.

Caves on the shore of the Dead Sea

What is on this scroll?

This scroll contains part of the Psalms, the most commonly found book of the Bible among the scrolls. Of the 150 'standard' Psalms in the Bible, 126 are found in the Dead Sea collection, plus 15 'apocryphal' ones (that is, not found in the standard Bible). Some scholars believe that the psalm collection was copied out at Qumran, but was not compiled there.

Of the 40 scrolls that contain Psalms, over half (23) came from Cave 4; six came from Cave 11. This fragment is likely to derive from Cave 4, and shows verses from Psalm 33 (centre) and Psalm 35 (left). It is on loan from the Musée Bible et Terre Sainte, Paris (call number CB 7162), which has had it in its collection since 1960.

The fragment was acquired in 1952 by Professor Jean Starcky, a French scholar who in the early 1950s worked as an editor of the Cave 4 Scroll fragments at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in East Jerusalem. It has never been exhibited or displayed in the UK until now.

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HEY Rob Ainsley, Sacred website editor of the Sacred Texts exhibit at the British Library in London England!

Dear Mr Rob Ainsley, Sacred website editor!
I was shocked amazed dismayed and perplexed by the listing of the Bible story of David and Goliath as a Christian story.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/cult/sacred/stories/

David, as in, king of the Israelite/Hebrews, in a battle with a Philistine named Goliath, only hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ, (and by inference, Christianity perhaps??? Ya think???)? How in the name of God could anyone call the story of David and Goliath a Christian story? What is Christian about it? Because "Christians" put together a pile of Hebrew texts into a collection called the Bible, which simply means Book? If I, as an American, compiled a collection of English fairy tale stories into a codex and called it The Book, would those stories then be called American stories? I am totally at a loss for words. Help me out, please.
Sincerely
Zachary G Wilson, Lover of Bible Stories...

Ethics

Joss in front of the newspaper article about her work (that's her photo on the far left). She is wearing an original THTC tee shirt, and her Loop Fabric company logo is visible at the bottom of the photo.

Zak in the Loop Fabric home studio...great to see a small entrepreneur do her thing with gusto...that crazy bag on the left is made in Mexico of recycled plastic packaging and is selling like hotcakes, or fish and chips, or whatever, in the UK where they can spot a fashion trend from a continent away...

Joss said lets have a big smile competition. In the UK smile competition evidently means shark face competition. I didn't get the memo. Joss showing off the celebrity smile she learned at modeling school.

I first met Joss in Berkeley California when she was peddling hemp fabric items on Telegraph avenue at the tender age of 22. Now she is a a 30 year old fashion forward UK leader in the movement towards ethical/fair trade/organic/low carbon footprint clothing, fabrics/textiles and accessories. I linked her fabrics website earlier...here is a link to the newspaper article shown in the photograph above which featured her...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=467143&in_page_id=1879

Her partner Dru is leading the way in the world of tee shirts with his hip hemp and organic cotton clothing company THTC. Here is the link to the company website...

http://thtc.co.uk/welcome.php?p=welcome

Katharine Hamnet is a UK fashion design icon who has been the champion for decades for ethics and fair trade in the clothing industry...she was just listed first out of 100 influential environmentalists in the UK, ahead of even Al Gore who is fourth on the list. Check the link to her website...and BRING BACK GOD!

http://www.katharinehamnett.com/shop/women/t-shirts-15/bring-back-god-9/index.html

I'm FAMOUS!!! SOMEONE CARES!!!

The British Library website featuring the exhibit of Sacred Religious texts has a page listing all the blogs found on Google that mention the Library and the exhibit. Click the link below, and then click the link on the website featuring the blogs...my blog link is the eighth one down...oh my gawd, i've finally been discovered...

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/sacred/blogcuttings.html

Police and Tennis

Police presence in London is big brotherish. There are more surveillance cameras here than for sale at an FBI gadget convention. The police ID'd me yesterday at Wimbledon just for entering the wrong ticket kiosk. I got out to the grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis Club Championships at Wimbledon late in the afternoon yesterday...it's a lovely walk from the train station through the small town of Wimbledon, then up the hill to Wimbledon village, then back down the hill on a windy country lane past suburban neighborhoods to the grounds, all very civilized and understated...whilst there i could have waited until 5pm to buy a ticket for five pounds to wander the grounds and watch the finals on the outer courts, you know, the wheel chair finals, or the under 3 year old toddlers mixed doubles finals, but the line was too long. The way to do it is to arrive at 8 am, get in for 8 pounds by 11, and wander the grounds all day, enjoying the girls and boys finals, watching the future stars...

So my Wimbledon experience consisted of a police interview conducted to the background sounds of muffled and polite English applause on Centre Court as Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer played the best tennis seen this century...i watched the fifth set at a pub in quaint little downtown Wimbledon town on my way back to the train...the match was as tight as a djembe drum at 2 games all when Federer lead footed the accelerator and ran off four straight games to take the title. The man is the best tennis shot maker i have ever seen, and i have been watching tennis since Borg, McEnroe etc. In sports it's considered high praise to say that an athlete is a "playmaker"...Federer is a shot maker. He simply puts the ball where you can't get it, and he does it from impossible angles, while sprinting to and fro, and when you least expect it. They call it imaginative. He hits it soft, hard, deep, shallow, straight, angled, curved, top spin, back spin, side spin, no spin...he is the maestro, the genius, the wizard. Federer is especially dangerous just when you have him on the ropes...he fought off 4 service break points early in the fifth set, losing any of which would have ceded control of the match to Nadal. Down 15-40? Time for an ace, a quick serve and volley winner for deuce, a mistake by the opponent for AD and then a sublime on the run down the line stinger for game. Nadal is a supremely talented player with a ferocious competitive streak, and Federer used him like a mop to wipe up the court in the last four games. Rog still has to win the French to be considered the GOAT. The Greatest Of All Time.

And when are the women going to play five set matches? How many times do we have to watch a 59.5 minute women's final where the winner hardly breaks a sweat? It's ALWAYS unsatisfying. When was the last time you watched a satisfying/epic women's grand slam final? It's just wham bam thank you ma'am.

As for yesterday...it was a glorious 10 mile walk through the heart of the city. I started at Piccadilly circus and walked to the start line for the Tour De France bike race. The first rider left at 2 sharp as a began to walk the length of the course aiming to beat the last of 189 riders to the finish line. Every 60 seconds a rider passed, preceded by a motorcycle cop and followed by a team car with spare bikes. The riders jetted past at over 50kph, finishing the 5 mile rider in 9 to 10 minutes. A million people lined the course, and i just beat the last rider to the finish line at 6:15...all along the course the organizers had placed giant huge mega TV screens to watch the race...in the end i felt empty, like another observer of someone elses more exciting life...the way everybody feels about movie stars, and the Queen in her palace...it's awful. So live your life!...march to the beat of your own drum...invent new cliches...in the evening Samba and I conversed into the wee hours of the morning about Africa and what can be done to be of service to our beloved and despairing continent...

London is a city for a writer, like New York, or Paris...or..Mexico City, Caracas or New Delhi, or Cairo, or Athens...Nairobi, Tel Aviv...Tehran, Beijing...Bangkok, Kathmandu...and of course San Francisco! I have barely begun to explore this city. It's been all Disneyland castles, palaces, mansions, fortresses, cathedrals and spires...all superficial postcard classic skylines...police bobbies and barricades and posters and union jack flags...

Given a choice, most Americans would choose Paris over London...Paris has the romantic appeal...but London is deeper. London is weighty. It has a presence unlike any city on earth. England must be dealt with. Love it or hate it, one must find reconciliation with London England. London is equal parts past, present and future. Its the elephant in the room. Don't forget that the war in Iraq is based on an alliance between DC and London. Did you know that the IRS and the Federal Reserve (which prints American money) are both private family owned operations contracted by the US government to collect taxes etc.? And who do you think runs those businesses? English families amongst others. Nothing has changed. How far back do you want to go? To the Pharaohs of Egypt? To the emperors of Rome? To the popes, the monarchies of Europe...just do the math...

Until we meet again...

Sacred and Profane

The British library is currently displaying a collection of Jewish Christian and Muslim texts...

http://www.bl.uk/sacred

I will of course be visiting with the intention of liberating some of the more sacred ones...

Sporting Heaven

This weekend in London is an ecstatic moment of travel serendipity, a confluence of wonderful happenings...one of those perfect moments in the life of a traveler when everything meshes in perfect harmony, totally unplanned and unexpected, like the second healthy baby of a pair of twins when the parents only expected one...like money falling from the sky...when you feel grateful and honored to be alive on this planet in this body at this exact moment in time...


Arrived at Victoria station last night, the grand central station of London, and was bombarded with the overwhelming power and majesty of the worlds most off the hook city...facking amazing is London, dripping with wealth and power...Joss and i took the double decker bus out of the city center, sitting top deck front row as the sun appeared for the first time in three weeks...London is Disneyland: palaces, mansions, coins worth their weight in silver...it's the whole world, every citizen of every nation can be seen negotiating the supremely crowded streets and subway system...Joss and i met her brother and friends for dinner and afterwards i went to North London to spend the night at a friends house. Samba from Senegal is a UK citizen and world traveler i met in California a few years ago...his house is directly across the street from the old stadium of the Arsenal Gunners football team...one of the most famous teams in the world...and thus kicked off one of the biggest sporting weekends in the history of London....

After three weeks of unrelenting rain, hail, snow and freezing winds, a British Isles nightmare winter/summer, today dawned balmy, sunny, and graced with marshmallow white clouds floating in the sky like cotton candy...perfect for tennis! The Wimbledon finals weekend...the most prestigious weekend in the tennis world...today Venus Williams goes for her fourth title and tomorrow Nadal and Federer will probably play in the final. But for me, today, there is something even better...

The Tour De France bicycle race starts today in London, the first time its ever started here. Today is a circular time trial race around Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, with each of the 189 riders setting off individually at one minute intervals. So today is all about the Tour De France. Tomorrow i will don my all-white African outfit and spend the day at Wimbledon wandering the hallowed grounds. Maybe get a ticket to see a match, maybe get a ticket to see the men's final?????? Could it be???? Tomorow is all about Wimbledon.

Also tomorrow is the British Gran Prix Formula One Motor car race. Normally, car racing does nothing for me, but rookie Lewis Hamilton is a 22 year old African-British citizen who is poised to win this years overall championship. He is being hailed as the new British Sporting superstar, and tomorrow he makes his British debut after taking America and the continent by storm. Also today is the Henley regatta, an ancient rowing race on the River Thames (pronounced Tems)...and tonight at the brand spanking new Wembly stadium is a huge benefit concert called Live Earth...

London is on high terrorist alert after all the bombings and bullshit last week...where money and politics and religion merge in an explosive cocktail called the 21st century....

Just another amazing weekend in an amazing city on an amazing planet in an amazing universe...be here now.

Bloody England

Here comes the sun...
Cheers!
Africa i cry for you...
Off to London tonight
after two days in
By the sea Bright...
Brighton that is
looking south across the English channel to France...fronce...
Brighton where 20 minutes in the dryer at the laundromat costs
fully two dollars...or the price of ten bus rides from Kerr Serigne to Serrakunda
in The Gambia
God is not an object. Life is not objective.
Or as my friend and bible mentor, Hezekiah Allcock (A.K.A. The Libertine) SAID:

"Your mind is too literal, objective,and must die to live because GOD is subjective and in the now and not in, you said, but in the, what do u mean.................... in the economy of the LORD?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,...............................i walk always in the cross fire of Divine and natural Eros & Agape Oikonomia...pick up your cross (death) and follow me.........that's the message sir."

Click the Link for a glimpse into the life and times of the 2nd Earl of Rochester

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375920/trailers-screenplay-E25983-10-2


"You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford...The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the world."
-Samuel Johnson

God save our gracious queen!
Long live our noble queen!
God save the queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the queen.
-National anthem of England

Can you name the seven deadly sins?
Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Anger
Sloth

Can you name the four noble virtues?
Prudence
Justice
Temperance
Fortitude

There are 33 degrees hierarchy in the Freemason society...with the 33rd the highest rank. The 16th degree is called "Prince of Jerusalem"...

"You are like a villain with a smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart."
Shakespearean insult

The first Monarch of England was William the Conqueror in 1066.

The current poet laureate of jolly old England is Andrew Motion...
"I fell at once into a dream of Victory –
How she wallowed through Biscay,
With her battle-tatters smoking –
Then gave my signal for a change in nature.
At which she side-stepped her Channel lane,
Shimmied over the Hampshire hills,
Caught the surge of London,
And made fast to a spire of Westminster
Overlooking Trafalgar Square."

Between 1963 and 1969 the Beatles had 13 number one hit songs in the USA.

The city of Berkeley California was named after British Bishop George Berkeley who said
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few."

Auld Lang Syne
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?..."

Eco Fabrics

My friend Jocelyn is super cool and this is her website. We are going to work together to create gorgeous high end fabrics from africa and sell them in england and europe. Ecological friendly fabrics such as organic cotton and hemp, and dyed and processed by African artisans using natural techniques...it's gonna be cooooool....

http://www.loopfabric.co.uk/

Also here is the link to my previous blog, the story of my walk across california and the navajo reservation in arizona

http://www.strollingalong.blogspot.com

Gambia Barcelona England

I left Gambia at 00:01 this morning. I caught a flight and flew to Barcelona. It took 4.5 hours, and we arrived at 06:30 because Barthelona is two hours time zone east of Gambia. We flew at 10,000 meters and the air temperature was 45 below zero. There was rain in Spain, and no flights to America under 1000 euro. So i flew to London in two hours and sat next to Lourdes, the wife of the Peruvian Ambassador to Spain, a diplomat herself. She was reading a commentary on the book series "A Course in Miracles" so we talked about the bible and god for 2 hours. She was raised Catholic in Puira and Lima but never actually read the bible. Another body to whom to preach the gospel of liberation from oppressive spiritually upside down religion. Puira is where my auntie's husband is from, and Lourdes recognized his last name of Houghton.

I got into Gatwick around noon. One krispy kreme donut at Gatwick airport costs $2.40 USA money. Everything in England is roughly twice the price of the USA. In fact today's newspapers reported that the English pound reached a new all time high against the Dollar @ now over two dollars to the pound. Look out US economy...can you smell the edge of the cliff? Can you see the smoke? The British one pound coin is tossed around freely like an American quarter, yet it's worth two dollars. Scary. It's a heavy little beast of a coin, with jagged edges.

I Be Here Now, in England, hoping to catch a flight to SFO for no more than 250 pounds. Good luck in July! I'm in Brighton, the end of the train line from Gatwick. My English friend Jocelyn from America is putting me up. She's a fabric/hemp person. I brought some lovely indigo colored tye dye batik style cotton fabric from the Serrakunda market. It cost 2 pounds for a two yard piece. I can probably sell it guerrilla marketing style for 10 pounds or more somewhere in London. 10 of those pieces sold will pay for my plane ticket from Spain to here, and i will get to enjoy England for a bit. Unless the market is saturated with Gambians selling fabric.

Goals in England: Go see a tennis match at Wimbledon all grass courts championships. Go to some old churches, maybe a museum or two. On the plane coming in i saw the White Cliffs of Dover. Checked that off the list. Just ate fish and chips. Check that off too. The food was from Sing Lee fish and chips, and for 8 bucks i had a soggy greasy mess of fatty starch and deep fried frozen fish flesh. Yuk. The sexy Slovakian woman behind the counter at this internet cafe just told me she likes my English accent because she can actually understand me, unlike the Brits who can sound like they have marbles in their mouths. Traveling teaches you to E-N U N-C I-A T E.

Why are 50 percent of Americans and British overweight and 99 percent of Africans not? Yanks and Brits eat too many calories and Africans don't, that's the pure science of it. But the WHY is that Africans eat mostly starch (complex non sweet sugar) and protein, with very low fat and very low sweet sugar in the diet. Fat and sweet sugars are the densest calorie rich foods, and we eat WAY too much of it. And we sit behind desks and steering wheels and Africans chop firewood and carry water. So that's the answer to that question.

I have come to realize that the statistics on average life spans are totally skewed. There is a phenomenally high rate of infant and small child mortality in West Africa. One of the big killers is malaria. Major Dave told me that malaria kills three times as many people in Africa as does AIDS, yet AIDS gets all the attention. Out in the villages where people work hard, and get lots of fresh air and water, it is said that it's common to see folks live well into their nineties, and they aren't infirm either. Still pounding the mortar and pestle, still carrying a great or great great grandchild on the back...still kicking it brewing attaya...

Another difference between Africa and Europe: In Europe the visible culture is modern and new, but there is a visible architecture which is fairly ancient. In Africa the visible architecture is fairly new, but the visible culture is ancient. Does that make sense? Being in England is so much like the states. Way more people than in Africa, but people are way more isolated. In Africa people live in compounds in extended families. The social interaction is ceaseless. Here people are packed together in the work place, on the trains and highways, in stores, but they go home to their nuclear family or to no family at all. More people, less interaction. More adults, less children.

Still, England intrigues me. The United Kingdom is mythical and full of some kind of magic...The Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and all that...on the train ride here i saw a gorgeous rainbow winking at me across an emerald meadow...The UK is a green and isolated little island resting unobtrusively in the North Sea close up against the bosom of West Asia...cool and misty and quiet, yet it contains an electricity and dynamism that is intoxicating. It's a fabulously wealthy little island for one thing. The per capita net wealth of its citizens (including Scotland and Wales) is probably higher than just about any other country on earth. It's not only a mystery to the rest of the world how these pasty dry humoured people turned half the world into their historical empire, it's a modern mystery to the British people themselves! They hold their history with a sort of half bashful pride and half outright shame...they enslaved people on the one hand, and liberated people on the other...(for example, the British ruling class of India outlawed the Indian practice of murdering widows by burning them alive on top of their deceased husbands funereal pyre).

More on England...it's 21:00, nine at night, and its still very light out. We're way up north in Brighton by the sea in the summertime...the air is just like Frisco. People are out and about, it's lively like the Haight Ashbury or Noe Valley...and a pack of cigarettes costs five pounds. 10 US dollars. 250 Gambian Dalasis. In Gambia cigarettes cost about 10 Dalasis a pack. The average Gambian is lucky to make 150 Dalasis a day working hard. But the working stiff in England who makes the equivalent of 4000 Dalasis a day is hard pressed to save a pence, because he turns around and spends it all on beer and cigs, fish and chips and a flick, flowers for his girl and a train ride for two...gas and clothes and rent and phone cards and coca cola and one premier league football match per year and satellite tv and a cell phone and coffee in the morning, doing clothes at the laundry room, batteries for the cd player...a holiday by the shore...and what's left to send the family back in Syria or Bangladesh? A day's salary can buy an acre in India. One gas station attendant can help 10 people live WELL in Sri Lanka if he lives like a monk in a cave and sends it all home.

Non-sequiturs: There are big bomb terrorist scare threats in the UK right now, so don't leave your bag unattended! As i perused my email address book today i was surprised to see that i have 10 English citizens out of 250 people total.

As i came through customs i presented my New Zealand passport. The old codger wasn't impressed by the fact that my passport says
"In the name of her majesty the Queen of England please allow the bearer of this document to pass unimpeded through your gates kind sir blah blah blah..."
We played a verbal game.
"How long do you want to stay?"
"How long am i allowed to stay?"
"Depends on why you are here, how much money you have, your attitude with me, how i feel today, where you have been, where you are staying, what your religion is, and how much you bribe me with."
"How about six months then?" said I.
"OK." he sighed as he stamped my papers.
When i first told him i didn't know where i was lodging for the night because
"Woah man, i'm a free spirit man, i just go with the flow ya know?"
the agent in the booth next door leaned over and said
"If this was America they would just turn your sassy ass around and send you on the next flight out"!
Just for not writing down some stupid fake hotel address on the pathetic little entry card? Anyway i just told him:
"I AM an American you moron!"...no just kidding. Six months. Not bad for all that.

More to write about Gambia...my stay in Gunjur, my visit to Tanjie...the wedding of my Israeli friend to a Gambian woman...my djembe drumming with Babacar...watching Gambian television...the bumsters and prostitutes on the tourist strips...the struggles and dreams of the Gambians to escape poverty (how they take flimsy boats 100 plus miles off the Coast of Gambia to the Spanish owned Canary Islands, hoping to attain political or economic refugee status and be allowed to go to Europe)...how young men told me that it's so bloody grim for them in Gambia that they are totally willing to risk their lives to get out...i want to write about the heat and humidity and the rain and the sounds of the insects...about how the president and his personally owned newspaper claims he is curing AIDS with a combination of herbal remedies, Koranic verses and hands on healing...and how the same newspaper stories make a compelling case for the complicity of the pharmaceutical companies and the biological weapons industry in the spread of AIDS, particularly to Africa (in an attempt to control the population? Could it be a conspiracy? No, because "we know better than THAT")...about the Miss Black USA competition that was held there...about the African Roots festival which attracts many African-American tourists...about the music festival at Kanilai that invites traditional musical singing and dancing groups from all over West Africa...about why Gambia is one of the most peaceful and mellow countries in Africa, and the world as a whole (nothing to fight over except peanuts, literally. No diamonds (see Sierra Leone), no oil (see Nigeria), no valuable mineral deposits (see Congo and Zaire))....about how the "Under 20 (years of age) World Football (soccer) Championship" is the biggest thing happening because the Gambian team actually qualified to play in the tournament, held in Canada. This tournament is to Gambians what the World Cup Football championship is to the rest of the world, because Gambia is never good enough to make it on that world stage. They even made a music video about the team and it's on constant radio and tv rotation...of course the inside joke amongst Gambians is that while the Brazilians and Italians really do only send the actual under 20 years of age football stars, the Gambians send their best players period, regardless of age. They just forge the documents. But they still lost their first game to Mexico 3 nil. (That's 3 goals to 0, for you football jargon impaired).

One and done. As in, One Love, One Heart. As in, Unity, or Inity. I and I. Oneness of all creation. Zakariah Israel signing off...

The Adventures of Major Dave

For the last twenty years, ever since he got out of prison, Major Dave Fulton has been on a mission from god. He ministered to inmates at prisons in the UK. He moved to Gambia West Africa to work as the christian chaplain to the military, which is 90 percent Muslim. In Gambia he befriends and helps people of all colors, ages, nationalities and religions. He has been very kind to me, as has his family. Many Gambians work with him and appreciate the partnership and fellowship he provides. He goes to naming ceremonies, weddings, funerals and everything in between. There he will speak, minister, hand out a little cash, lend someone a hand, whatever is necessary. He visits the inmates in prison, many of whom he befriends and lets stay with him when they get out. "Dave's transitional housing unit". Then he lends them money to help them start businesses such as farming. He appreciates people who work hard, are honest, and committed. Every Sunday he holds church service at his house and has bible studies every week. He and his wife give out money, buy medicine, help people in the neighborhood with school supplies...he adopted a Gambian baby who needed a father...one time he delivered a baby by C section in the bush but the mother died in childbirth. The baby needed medical care so he payed for the baby to go to an expensive medical clinic in Dakar. He has helped Gambians get visas to the UK, which is difficult. I rarely hear him complain. He gave me permission to share his life story as a testimony to how god can can change a mans life...now let me just say, i could write alot more about the good stuff he has done...but you know how it is: we like all the juicy gossip about the bad boys...

58 year old Dave started his career as a criminal by getting a good old fashioned British military training. It was there that Dave says he learned everything he needed to know about robbing armored trucks, along with becoming an expert in small arms and hand to hand combat. Rule of thumb: run from a knife, charge a gun. Before he started armored car robberies, and after graduating from the military school of mayhem and destruction, he fought in Africa as a mercenary soldier. Yes, those were the days. You had righteous rebel armies trying to overthrow despotic tyrants running some countries on the one hand, and you had nice democratic governments trying to prevent military coups and traitorous insurgents from overrunning the palace on the other hand . Which ever side was the good side, Dave fought for them, for the fee of many thousand of British pounds sterling. You know, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique...it was popping off all over. Dave only got shot twice and lived to tell the tale...but you should have seen the other guys. Or not. Bottom line: Dave's side always won. His reputation grew. Eventually Satan attempted to recruit him to overthrow the kingdom of god but Dave said NO WAY! Wrong side buddy! Dave decided that mercenary soldiering was a crap shoot and wasn't paying enough so one day he parked his car in the woods in England, rode his bike to where an armored car was parked, put a gun in the ear of the driver, got inside the vehicle and said: drive. He'd dyed his hair and put cottons balls in his mouth to make his voice sound muffled. Dave made the kidnap victim drive to where his getaway car was parked, tied him up in the back, unloaded the money into his car, drove far away to a pay phone, called the police to go rescue the poor tied up armored car guy, and went to the bar to down a few cold ones. Scotch whiskey that is. He loves Scotch whiskey. He's a Scotsman. William Wallace and all that.

Next he figured out a clever to way to steal a fancy sailboat without anyone finding out for months. He painted over the name and used the registration papers from another boat to sail from the UK, with the loot, all the way across the Mediterranean sea, through the Suez canal, and down the east coast of Africa to the tiny remote tropical paradise Indian ocean island nation of...the Seychelles. After he played robin hood with the cash for awhile and spent it all, he went back to the UK to steal some more money from the armored cars. He did it about 5 times, and each time he got about 10 million pounds, which is worth 20 million USA dollars today. Ten million in the roaring 70's was like 30 or 40 mil today. The sixth time he robbed a car he had a struggle with the driver and ended up shooting him in the leg, and fortunately the guy lived.

Dave was lucky to go to prison for only 4 odd years. In his mid 30's, while in prison, he found the lord, or the lord found him. As proof of the lords power, Dave says he quit smoking for life the minute the prison chaplain prayed over him. After smoking 60 cigarettes a day for like 20 years. When he got out of prison he married a lovely young English woman and began his walk with the lord in the great outside, which didn't stop him for stealing just a wee bit more cash now and again. Old habits die hard. Despite his brushes with the law, the British military recognized his extraordinary skills and let him back in the service to be a special operations type guy. For example, after President Qaddafi bombed the plane over Lockerbie Scotland, he was sent as part of an international strike force to go in under cover and destroy a Libyan military installation. Suffice it to say, the other guys lost. But after a bit of this covert black ops James Bond style saving the day for queen and country Dave said: screw it! and drove his family across the Saraha desert. Then one day they moved to Gambia...

Recently Dave was preaching up river at a little village outpost and the people didn't like his presence so they started throwing rocks at him. He ran but got bruised in the leg and got a broken toe. All part of a days work.

That's just a bit of the story, the adventures of Major Dave.

Isaiah

Is anyone different in gods eyes? Is the starving child considered more holy than the rich king? Is the generous person more loved by god than the thief? Is the murderer more loathed than the cancer ward nurse?

Or…is it true "we ALL, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way”?

Here is what one person says...
”Isaiah’s encounter with God's holiness is probably the most instructive for our case. In the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah, this prophet describes how he was given a vision of the heavenly throne, with cherubim and seraphim continually crying, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." And what is the prophet's response? Rather than getting "caught up in a wonderful worship experience," Isaiah realizes something is dreadfully wrong. The problem was sin.

"Woe to me!" Isaiah cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King,the LORD Almighty." Many today are claiming to have ecstatic mystical experiences with God (or simply with the divine), but what is notably missing from all these accounts, from whatever religious persuasion, is the conviction of sin. We simply cannot have a relationship with God until we face the fact of sin head on. Isaiah was not being melodramatic here. He knew that something was intrinsically wrong with the fact that he should behold God in all his Glory, for as God explained to Moses,"no man may see me and live" (Ex. 33:20).

But as Isaiah goes on to explain in his case, "one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." God provided a way, not by lowering his standards, but through atonement, "your guilt is taken away." And what God did for Isaiah in this passage was foreshadowing of greater things to come, things that would ultimately find their fulfillment in Christ. Isaiah himself writes of this coming one a few chapters later: See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted....he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him....he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities....We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on HIM (j.c) the iniquity of us all....Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days....(52:13, 15, 53:5, 6, 10).

If we are to have a relationship with the God of these inspired words, it behooves us to proceed according to the terms he has spelled out for us. If we do not keep God's holiness in mind, we will ultimately find that there is no need to focus on our sin, guilt, and conversely, Christ's atonement. It is interesting to note that this lack of emphasis on the central redemptive themes of the Bible used to be characteristic of liberal mainline churches, but now has become all too common even in conservative Christian circles. Therefore we must come to grips with God's holy character, and as a consequence, begin to reflect on our own sinfulness as a contrast to God's holiness. Once we engage in this process, the words God spoke to Isaiah can be fulfilled in us,

"For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Is. 57:15).

Here is the link to web page from which i stole all that: http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/srmerit.htm

Life in Gambia

One day i up and left Senegal by plane to Gambia. It was a dark and stormy night. Just kidding snoop dog; it was an overcast day. It never rained while i was in Senegal, and it was always temperate by the sea, but it was starting to warm up just before i left. I said my thank yous and goodbyes to all my friends and neighbors and family, and we shook with the left hand. Ken taught me that when we shake with the left hand upon departure we ensure that we will see each other again...god willing!

One hour in a small plane later, after scoping out the passengers representing the African international jet set, we disembarked at the tiny airport. On the approach into the airport all i could see was little plots of farm land...with trees in the open spaces. Much greener and more tropical looking than around Dakar...at the airport i was met by Dave and Fiona and their daughter Elizabeth (see photos). I met Dave and Fiona through a group of missionaries in Dakar. I met the group of missionaries through a guy who was riding around the world on a motorcycle (NOT on a mission for the lord). He was staying at the little guesthouse up the street from the Doumbia house, which is owned by my Senegalese friend and dance teacher Allasane from the states. So i met this guy Frank and we got to talking and soon i was preaching and he said hey! i know just the people for you..The god squad! That was his name for the folks i ended up meeting an having fellowship with. Here is a link to their website.
http://freewebs.com/familycaresenegal/

So that's how i ended up with Major Dave and his family. I arrived on may 10. I used my New Zealand passport instead of my American to avoid the 45 dollar visa fee. Gambia is part of the British commonwealth, and any citizens of a commonwealth country (such as NZ) are exempt from needing a visa. My first few days in Gambia were a whirlwind of meeting a fascinating cross section of Gambians and expatriates from all over Africa and the globe. High ranking politicians and police, big business people, ex-prisoners and criminals, dirt poor and dirt rich people, musicians, teachers, pastors, children, and plenty of just regular working family folks. At one party i met a man who is a student in his first year of law school here in Gambia. In fact, its the first year of law school EVER in the Gambia. Brand new. Like Gambia in general. Ten years of intense development fueled by the tourist industry, as well as the migration of villagers into the city.

Gambia when i arrived was dry and dusty and in need of rain, which everybody kept saying was imminent. It has rained a bit since i have been here, and everybody says July is the month. They say when it rains it transforms the land instantly from dirt to grass, from dusty to shiny, from hazy to crystal clear, from mushy yellow clouds to billowy bright white ones...i would like to see that...i would like to go upriver, where the water is filled with crocodiles and hippos, which are far more dangerous...And many species of birds...and monkeys, and big cats and hyenas...rhinos and elephants and lions and giraffes all live farther inland, deep into Mali where the country is more open and free...

Gambia...colonized by the British who ran a slave fort on an island on the river. Where American Alex Haley traced his ancestral ROOTS to a man named Kunta Kinteh in the village of Juffreh, which is now a tourist destination for many Americans seeking their own roots in Africa. Kunta Kinteh, a free Mandinka man who was kidnapped by slave traders and taken to America where he was forced into chattel slavery until his dying day...in Juffreh today you can meet a elder woman named Binta Kinteh...

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me"...(song written by the captain of a slave ship whose conscience finally got the better of him, and he turned the ship around and released the kidnapped people back in Africa...)

Gambia has the most amazingly easy public transportation. For one thing it's a small compact country with only a few main roads and highways. From the suburb of Kerr Serigne you walk about 10 minutes to the end of the line for the little mini van shuttles that run all the way to Serrakunda. The shuttles run every ten minutes all day every day, until around 9 or 10 at night. The cost is 5 dalasi for any length of trip, which is 20 cents USA. You off board by yelling "stop here!" anywhere. You just wave the shuttle down and it will pick u up, anywhere. Now that's what I'M talking about! At the main junctions which lead to different locations than Serrakunda there are regular yellow taxis waiting. These taxis run between the main junctions (generally just a few miles on the open highway) and also cost 5 dalasi for any length of ride. The driver waits for four people to fill his car and drives off. So from Kerr Serigne to Banjul (the capital), which is around 13 miles, you pay 5 for a shuttle to the first junction, 5 for a taxi to the next junction, and then 6 for a larger bus to the city. Just over 1 US dollar for a two hour (door to door) 25 mile roundtrip to the capital. It's a pubic transportation wet dream. Late at night, or whenever you want, the taxis charge for a "town trip", which is a personalized ride to your front door. That price is negotiable, as like in Senegal the taxis have no meter. Generally you can get a town ride for 50 D or less.

As we drove from the airport on that first day i noticed that Gambia was nothing like urbane Dakar. Here was much more rural and rough around the edges. Poorer. But in a country of 1.5 million there is an almost non-existant murder rate. Maybe 10 per year? (a wild guess, someone google it). Contrast that with Oakland California which has a population of .5 million people, a third that of Gambia. Oakland has a murder rate of about 3 per week. Just about every other day someone is murdered in Oakland. Probably 90 percent are young men of color, primarily African American. Lets say that of the 150 murders a year, 100 of the victims are young black men. Oakland is about 33 percent black, which is approx 165,000. Half of those are men, and maybe half of those 80,000 are young. Thats 40,000 young black men in Oakland. And every year, 100 are murdered (usually by each other). Now, compare that to UC Berkeley, which has a student body of 30,000, with probably another 10,000 employees. Thats 40,000 people. If just ONE of those people gets murdered by someone else on the campus, it's a big huge story. If three murders happened in one year it might be considered a national story, as in WHAT THE HELL IS GOING WRONG AT UC BERKELEY? If it happened every year, 3 or 4 murders, inside jobs so to speak, it would be considered a disgrace to the city of Berkeley and the state of California in general. There would be heavy police presence and massive FBI involvement. Parents would keep their students home. But 2 people PER WEEK are murdered out of 40,000 in Oakland, every single week, every single year, and the story gets buried in the back pages of the Oakland tribune. Barely a notice. Just a shrug and a "oh well, what can you do." Interesting, that's all i'm saying.

But my first day in Gambia was different. Just the day before, a young man in Serrakunda died. The next day, as we drove from the airport in the midday, the young men of Serrakunda were rioting, standard issue stuff, you know, breaking windows, burning tires. Nice intro...

Have a beautiful day or night.