OK, for those that read my blog, you know that I think FaceBook is evil however I joined and I am semi active on it, I would say. Though that is relative since I know people who spends hours on it and have mobile phone connections to it and stuff so relative to that, I am barely on FaceBook. Weeks go by and I don’t go on and then there are my active weeks where I will check it out three times a week. Anyhow, today, I found this group through my friend Angad’s page (the one I met in Bombay who calls me Jungle Queen) and it is called, Anthropology+ Good Looks= A Deadly Combination. The blurb for the group is as follows: Sexy Anthropologists all over the world must unite in global awareness of our dashingly good looks and witty, unparalleled brilliance.
What can I say, I love it. One of the officers of this group (and I would just cut and paste the entire group here but I don’t want to be messing around with people’s privacy) says, “sexy is her name, evolution is her game”.
How could I not be in love with this group?
There were other groups before, like, I secretly want to punch slow walking people in the back of the head, or Lovers of Third World Shit Holes, and Drunk Dialing Appreciation Society etc and all funny, but really, it takes anthropologists to do it for me.
I still think FaceBook is evil.
Must comment on two comments I got: Lurker person, thanks for the postcard, I did so love it and I really wish I could have read it properly but really it’s al blotted out with the rain but it has a place of pride on my fridge, just below the other anonymous postcard I got that was covered in poetry. You are a star, send me more, the rainy season is almost over so it might make it in one legible piece.
Mr. nick naeem who wrote a comment along the lines of my blossoming into my own woman after my strict upbringing hijab wearing oppressed days…I hate to do this to you and disappoint all those people who saw me growing up, but I really do not even once recall growing up oppressed or strict or repressed in anyway. Your concern and backhand compliment is really very sweet but I think I grew up because of the way I am because of my parents and the environment I grew up in. I ain’t no rebel. I’m just me and like you, my parents are also very, very proud of me. Thanks for reading and the very lovely comment. And I shy away from these conversations since people see everything in black and white but my decision to stop wearing hijab was because my mom said to me, Look, it’s obviously not working for you…what are you afraid of? Take it off, try it out, you can come back to it if you decide to and you may not so live your life. I was never once told I HAD to wear hijab. It has always been a personal choice in my household (like everything) and I am super lucky to have grown up with the family I have. I look at other South Asian (and not just South Asian but any race) kids and their relationships to their families, and there is nothing that I would change in mine. I love it and love how it grows, changes, new people coming in and out and I think of what my dad used to say to us growing up (which obviously as a 12 year old was harder to understand since as much as I love my family, going to the mall with everyone in tow when I wanted to go with my friends was uncool), my dad would say: at the end of the day, it’s your family who is there for you. Time and time again, that has been proven to me. I now feel like I need to shoo away all the evil eye with my proclamations about my family and how kick ass we are. Will call my mom and ask her to do it. If Iqbal Khaldun had told me about how to get rid of the evil eye with chickens, I would do it here in Ampara. My sister has been privy to some egg charm…will ask her to test it out.
The flooding in Ampara seems to have stopped and I am gearing up for the next hectic 6 weeks and my bday extravaganza (relaxed day on the beach) coming up in Feb. I will be 30. YAY! And I decided that it will be in Sri Lanka, bombs or no bombs. Anyone want to come?
Still love my job and I have photos but dial up and no patience. And no time at work but soon.
Showing posts with label Postcards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Postcards. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Art in Baghdad
Good stuff....Check out the article. I like. I must write more soon. I keep thinking about it. Got lots to say on a random postcard I got but it was all rainy so I can't read it properly, all the bombs in Colombo and the cease fire being called off, along with my birthday celebrations since I just can't take the responsibility of having people over and not knowing where they are at all times since I am anal retentive about security and people but I think I will be in Portugal instead and that might be an option if people love me that much to fly there instead, flooding in Ampara and how good it is to be back, elections in the US and how exciting that is, and just for Clem, I am watching Planet Earth!!! Mick got it for me as a Christmas present and I am thrilled but I miss my flatmate loads....
Soon, I will write properly...till then, enjoy the article...
Gallery Owner battles for art in Baghdad.
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer Sun Jan 13, 12:57 PM ET
BAGHDAD - By all rights, the Hewar art gallery should be a casualty of war. Months go by without a single painting or sculpture being sold. The gallery's cafe — once a noisy meeting ground for Baghdad's intelligentsia — now sees just a few hardy regulars.
The owner's balance sheet shows losses of up to $400 a month — a sum considered a good monthly wage.
On the plus side: three sheep that were a gift from a friend in his native Anbar province to the west. They grazed on weeds and hedges outside the gallery in north Baghdad's Waziriyah neighborhood.
But something keeps Qassim Sabti from locking the doors for good.
It's part stubbornness, part nostalgia and a dash of belief that, just maybe, better times are ahead — the same recipe that kept a handful of other cultural guardians, such as book sellers, poets and theater troupes, from abandoning Baghdad during the years of fighting and upheaval.
Now, with violence on the wane, the city's struggling artist community looks for signs that their patrons could someday return and the discussions in the coffee houses could again be about their latest works rather than the latest troubles.
Sabti's gallery is a bellwether.
The Hewar, or Dialogue, is perhaps the best known cultural crossroads in Iraq.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the two-story building became the main salon for debates and exhibitions basking in the heady freedoms that were long bottled up by the regime.
But as the insurgency took hold in Baghdad, the gallery's fate mirrored the rest of the capital. People with some savings left for Syria or Jordan. Checkpoints and blast walls rose up in the gallery's neighborhood. Sunni and Shiite artists — bound by lifetime friendships — took pains to avoid discussing the sectarian bloodletting.
Sabti estimates at least 70 percent of Iraq's artists and intellectuals are out of Iraq.
"My gallery, like Baghdad, is under siege," said the silver-haired Sabti, a Sunni Arab married to a Shiite. He still walks with a limp from childhood polio.
But Sabti, 54, has not stopped organizing exhibitions — 29 in all since 2003. "The Iraqis kept coming but none can afford to buy art," he sighed.
Sabti arranges for financial support to artists from an association of painters he runs, and some of the artists who exhibit at Hewar have taken advances against the future sale of their work. Dozens of pieces are stored in back rooms under a layer of dust — like the rows of empty chairs in the gallery's top floor where young people occasionally take music and painting classes funded by a private U.S.-based organization.
"Security has undeniably improved, but people don't yet have the confidence to leave their homes unless it's necessary," he said while sipping a coffee on a recent January morning. "People are barely surviving on their salaries, and these are the lucky ones with jobs."
Last month, Sabti tried to drum up business for the gallery by offering art to the capital's foreign diplomats in the heavily protected Iraqi Foreign Ministry.
"We only sold five sculptures," he said, with a hint of sadness.
Then comes his resolve: "I will never close Hewar."
He even manages to keep his wicked and wry sense of humor. He looked over at one of his three children, his stocky teenage son Ahmed, and jokes that the Americans must be spraying secret growth chemicals over Baghdad. "I don't remember us being so big as kids," he quipped.
"How are you? You infidel pimp!" he shouted from the terrace of the gallery's second floor to a Christian friend whizzing past on a scooter. The friend looked up and smiled.
After several weeks roaming in and out of the gallery, the sheep from Anbar have been taken to a friend's house with a healthy patch of grass.
"One of them will be lunch next month in remembrance of Imam Hussein," he said, referring to one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints whose 7th century death is the holiest day of the Shiite calendar. "I will invite Shiite and Sunni artists to a lunch of lamb and rice."
In 2006, Sabti sold 250 of his works to a U.S art dealer — collages made of hundreds of books charred by a fire in the library of his alma mater, the Arts Academy, the day after Baghdad fell in April 2003.
The works defined his strong feelings about the chaos and lawlessness that swept Baghdad and saw the country's national museum and library looted and torched to the deep dismay and anger of many in Iraq. Sabti blames the Americans for the looting, arguing they should have done more to stop it.
Sabti now has found artistic inspiration in something else — the changed landscape of Baghdad since the invasion. "They speak of the conquerors who have laid Iraq to waste over the centuries," he said of the new project, in which he uses rags, pebbles, match sticks and glue to create street scenes on wood.
"There is little empty space in each one of them, but the rest is filled with destroyed sidewalks, rocks, concrete blocs and blast barriers, barbed wire and bits of the human flesh found on streets at bombing sites," he said of the works he began three months ago.
"They reflect what the tanks did to our streets, but they are not about the ugliness of Baghdad. Rather, they reflect the city's melancholy. We used to be very proud of Baghdad."
Sabti says only three close friends have seen the 20 works he has completed so far. He says he wants to keep the pieces under wraps until he has completed the project, but he doesn't know when that will be.
"I don't want anything to disrupt or distort the life story of the works," he said.
___
On the Net:
http://www.qasimsabti.com
Soon, I will write properly...till then, enjoy the article...
Gallery Owner battles for art in Baghdad.
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer Sun Jan 13, 12:57 PM ET
BAGHDAD - By all rights, the Hewar art gallery should be a casualty of war. Months go by without a single painting or sculpture being sold. The gallery's cafe — once a noisy meeting ground for Baghdad's intelligentsia — now sees just a few hardy regulars.
The owner's balance sheet shows losses of up to $400 a month — a sum considered a good monthly wage.
On the plus side: three sheep that were a gift from a friend in his native Anbar province to the west. They grazed on weeds and hedges outside the gallery in north Baghdad's Waziriyah neighborhood.
But something keeps Qassim Sabti from locking the doors for good.
It's part stubbornness, part nostalgia and a dash of belief that, just maybe, better times are ahead — the same recipe that kept a handful of other cultural guardians, such as book sellers, poets and theater troupes, from abandoning Baghdad during the years of fighting and upheaval.
Now, with violence on the wane, the city's struggling artist community looks for signs that their patrons could someday return and the discussions in the coffee houses could again be about their latest works rather than the latest troubles.
Sabti's gallery is a bellwether.
The Hewar, or Dialogue, is perhaps the best known cultural crossroads in Iraq.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the two-story building became the main salon for debates and exhibitions basking in the heady freedoms that were long bottled up by the regime.
But as the insurgency took hold in Baghdad, the gallery's fate mirrored the rest of the capital. People with some savings left for Syria or Jordan. Checkpoints and blast walls rose up in the gallery's neighborhood. Sunni and Shiite artists — bound by lifetime friendships — took pains to avoid discussing the sectarian bloodletting.
Sabti estimates at least 70 percent of Iraq's artists and intellectuals are out of Iraq.
"My gallery, like Baghdad, is under siege," said the silver-haired Sabti, a Sunni Arab married to a Shiite. He still walks with a limp from childhood polio.
But Sabti, 54, has not stopped organizing exhibitions — 29 in all since 2003. "The Iraqis kept coming but none can afford to buy art," he sighed.
Sabti arranges for financial support to artists from an association of painters he runs, and some of the artists who exhibit at Hewar have taken advances against the future sale of their work. Dozens of pieces are stored in back rooms under a layer of dust — like the rows of empty chairs in the gallery's top floor where young people occasionally take music and painting classes funded by a private U.S.-based organization.
"Security has undeniably improved, but people don't yet have the confidence to leave their homes unless it's necessary," he said while sipping a coffee on a recent January morning. "People are barely surviving on their salaries, and these are the lucky ones with jobs."
Last month, Sabti tried to drum up business for the gallery by offering art to the capital's foreign diplomats in the heavily protected Iraqi Foreign Ministry.
"We only sold five sculptures," he said, with a hint of sadness.
Then comes his resolve: "I will never close Hewar."
He even manages to keep his wicked and wry sense of humor. He looked over at one of his three children, his stocky teenage son Ahmed, and jokes that the Americans must be spraying secret growth chemicals over Baghdad. "I don't remember us being so big as kids," he quipped.
"How are you? You infidel pimp!" he shouted from the terrace of the gallery's second floor to a Christian friend whizzing past on a scooter. The friend looked up and smiled.
After several weeks roaming in and out of the gallery, the sheep from Anbar have been taken to a friend's house with a healthy patch of grass.
"One of them will be lunch next month in remembrance of Imam Hussein," he said, referring to one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints whose 7th century death is the holiest day of the Shiite calendar. "I will invite Shiite and Sunni artists to a lunch of lamb and rice."
In 2006, Sabti sold 250 of his works to a U.S art dealer — collages made of hundreds of books charred by a fire in the library of his alma mater, the Arts Academy, the day after Baghdad fell in April 2003.
The works defined his strong feelings about the chaos and lawlessness that swept Baghdad and saw the country's national museum and library looted and torched to the deep dismay and anger of many in Iraq. Sabti blames the Americans for the looting, arguing they should have done more to stop it.
Sabti now has found artistic inspiration in something else — the changed landscape of Baghdad since the invasion. "They speak of the conquerors who have laid Iraq to waste over the centuries," he said of the new project, in which he uses rags, pebbles, match sticks and glue to create street scenes on wood.
"There is little empty space in each one of them, but the rest is filled with destroyed sidewalks, rocks, concrete blocs and blast barriers, barbed wire and bits of the human flesh found on streets at bombing sites," he said of the works he began three months ago.
"They reflect what the tanks did to our streets, but they are not about the ugliness of Baghdad. Rather, they reflect the city's melancholy. We used to be very proud of Baghdad."
Sabti says only three close friends have seen the 20 works he has completed so far. He says he wants to keep the pieces under wraps until he has completed the project, but he doesn't know when that will be.
"I don't want anything to disrupt or distort the life story of the works," he said.
___
On the Net:
http://www.qasimsabti.com
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Postcard Newsflash!
We got our first random postcard, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I think that is where it is from. Before I get into the random postcard, I must give props to the non random...well, random in a different way postcards that have been collecting.
Clem wins the prize for most postcards sent. Her last batch took her clean over the edge that she and Saks were fighting for. Smart woman that she is, she sends postcards in bulk. I now have an assortment of fun postcards that I look at and feel happy. And hungry since Clem sends the most weird ones (one of baked beans on toast, one of some palace (I know, Clem, I should know which one), a bunch of bottles, a scottish sheep (is that really a sheep? Now that I think about it, it looks like an old and hairy ox...I need to go back and read the postcards carefully). Saks, you had better catch up. The rest of you lazies had better just send one.
And now, moving onto the postcard from the stranger. I came home and saw it on the desk which is where the postcards when they arrive collect. I first thought it was Saks since the handwriting is kind of similar. Then noticed there was no name. Thought it might be Emma (ahem, Emmaaaa), and for a while went with that and then I noticed the stamp was from the USA. And this was just as Mick was saying that he would get excited when we got a postcard from a stranger. And tada! WE did. And it is sooooooooo lovely. I need to take close photos of it and post it on here but basically, there are two poems (that reminds me, I need to look them up....I think I know who one of the poets is), one on the front and one on the back. And all it says is, everyone needs some poetry.
Thank you stranger. I did need some lovely poetry. We are assuming here in Ampara that you did not write the poetry yourself. Which is why I need to google it. And thank you for making our day in a big way. Will be posting the photo (which I will take soon) of your postcard on the blog.
All you random strangers should take inspiration from that story.
What will suck is that I have a best friend or relative in Cedar Rapids and I am supposed to know who sent me the postcard and I have no idea. Hmmmm.
Clem wins the prize for most postcards sent. Her last batch took her clean over the edge that she and Saks were fighting for. Smart woman that she is, she sends postcards in bulk. I now have an assortment of fun postcards that I look at and feel happy. And hungry since Clem sends the most weird ones (one of baked beans on toast, one of some palace (I know, Clem, I should know which one), a bunch of bottles, a scottish sheep (is that really a sheep? Now that I think about it, it looks like an old and hairy ox...I need to go back and read the postcards carefully). Saks, you had better catch up. The rest of you lazies had better just send one.
And now, moving onto the postcard from the stranger. I came home and saw it on the desk which is where the postcards when they arrive collect. I first thought it was Saks since the handwriting is kind of similar. Then noticed there was no name. Thought it might be Emma (ahem, Emmaaaa), and for a while went with that and then I noticed the stamp was from the USA. And this was just as Mick was saying that he would get excited when we got a postcard from a stranger. And tada! WE did. And it is sooooooooo lovely. I need to take close photos of it and post it on here but basically, there are two poems (that reminds me, I need to look them up....I think I know who one of the poets is), one on the front and one on the back. And all it says is, everyone needs some poetry.
Thank you stranger. I did need some lovely poetry. We are assuming here in Ampara that you did not write the poetry yourself. Which is why I need to google it. And thank you for making our day in a big way. Will be posting the photo (which I will take soon) of your postcard on the blog.
All you random strangers should take inspiration from that story.
What will suck is that I have a best friend or relative in Cedar Rapids and I am supposed to know who sent me the postcard and I have no idea. Hmmmm.
Monday, September 24, 2007
And the good news is.....
Not only am I still alive and kicking (not that it was really ever touch and go, but still), I got my first postcard! From, of course, Saks, my sister who is now stopped traveling and is in DC finishing up law school. It was a very sweet postcard addressed to both Mick and I and it is in Ampara and I am in Colombo which is why I have not written about it as yet since I wanted to do it justice but I suppose I can wait.
Bill in Liberia said that there is no functioning postal system in Liberia. I don't believe him and think he is just being a lazy. A lazy lazy. Both adjective and noun.
So, ends up that I have an enlarged liver. Not so nice. Either some strain of typhus or tick bite fever. And I was on the mend too, which was annoying since I felt lovely a week ago for about half a day and then crashed all of a sudden again. Another round of tests, possibly...no, probably tomorrow and then back to good ole Ampara on Thursday. My time in Colombo has been lovely. I have been a grown up living with my boss and his family (I made a big fuss and was being a total baby about coming out to Colombo since I complained that no one would look after me and better to be miserable in Ampara where atleast Mick could see me pathetically passed out on my bed than being alone in some hotel room in Colombo....still had bad memories of my rib recovery from the last time). Anyhow, so my boss and his lovely family have been looking after me, cooking lovely meals, having birthday parties and just all around being great company which I am sure has speeded my recovery. And no, he doesn't really read my blog (though he should every once in a while for content to make sure I am not crossing any lines and he claims that he has at least once come on here), so I don't have to be nice about him just in case he might be on here. His son, however, does read my blog...well, one of them does at least so I should be more careful since....since I should.
He owes me a postcard.
No photos. No real stories either. I could come up with some if I tried. I should. But later. And no, I didn't finish my thesis and the party I had planned went on without me in Arugam Bay. Sad, but true.
Bill in Liberia said that there is no functioning postal system in Liberia. I don't believe him and think he is just being a lazy. A lazy lazy. Both adjective and noun.
So, ends up that I have an enlarged liver. Not so nice. Either some strain of typhus or tick bite fever. And I was on the mend too, which was annoying since I felt lovely a week ago for about half a day and then crashed all of a sudden again. Another round of tests, possibly...no, probably tomorrow and then back to good ole Ampara on Thursday. My time in Colombo has been lovely. I have been a grown up living with my boss and his family (I made a big fuss and was being a total baby about coming out to Colombo since I complained that no one would look after me and better to be miserable in Ampara where atleast Mick could see me pathetically passed out on my bed than being alone in some hotel room in Colombo....still had bad memories of my rib recovery from the last time). Anyhow, so my boss and his lovely family have been looking after me, cooking lovely meals, having birthday parties and just all around being great company which I am sure has speeded my recovery. And no, he doesn't really read my blog (though he should every once in a while for content to make sure I am not crossing any lines and he claims that he has at least once come on here), so I don't have to be nice about him just in case he might be on here. His son, however, does read my blog...well, one of them does at least so I should be more careful since....since I should.
He owes me a postcard.
No photos. No real stories either. I could come up with some if I tried. I should. But later. And no, I didn't finish my thesis and the party I had planned went on without me in Arugam Bay. Sad, but true.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Post Worthy Postcard Story
Just in case people are too lazy to go through the comments, here is one I had on my postcard post which is just toooo lovely to not have as its own post. Which is the only way you can get Emma to post anything on a blog since she refuses to write one herself even when she is forced to do so. Good for you, Emma, don' succumb to the pressure.
---------------------.
Emma Waller said...
Can i tell you a lovely postcard story? My mum and her best mate Caroline send postcards to each other that they make. They are both artists, and have for many years shared each others, but currently live on opposite sides of the world. Mum is in Melbourne, Caroline is in Paris. They send one a week or something. These postcards and the art they put on them is their dialogue. According to them a postcard has no well-defined dimension and is not of a particular substance. A postcard is a bit of something that is not put in an envelope but is sent through the post.
Anyway, it's fantastic. They now have 2 years worth of postcards they have made for each other that document their life. They also send two sketch books between each other that they take turns in drawing/painting/sticking/writing in.
Neat huh?
So that was a postcard story for you. =)
lots of love
emma
Go thesis go thesis GO
---------------------.
Emma Waller said...
Can i tell you a lovely postcard story? My mum and her best mate Caroline send postcards to each other that they make. They are both artists, and have for many years shared each others, but currently live on opposite sides of the world. Mum is in Melbourne, Caroline is in Paris. They send one a week or something. These postcards and the art they put on them is their dialogue. According to them a postcard has no well-defined dimension and is not of a particular substance. A postcard is a bit of something that is not put in an envelope but is sent through the post.
Anyway, it's fantastic. They now have 2 years worth of postcards they have made for each other that document their life. They also send two sketch books between each other that they take turns in drawing/painting/sticking/writing in.
Neat huh?
So that was a postcard story for you. =)
lots of love
emma
Go thesis go thesis GO
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Send Me Postcards
So, I want to write about postcards in order to encourage people I know to send me one. I got one. At my cute home in Ampara town with just my name and address on it all the way from La Rochelle, France. Sakina, my younger sister was there and we tried it as an experiment and lo and behold, within two weeks, I had a postcard delivered to my house, a little missive of love from far away.
I love getting mail. When I was younger, I would write letters to people and would try over and over to get people to write back to me. One of my favorite books (and I am using the phrase, when I was younger very liberally...I mean within the last ten years, so technically, that phrase works, but I don't mean when I was 15 or 9, I mean an age where one is socially, age-ly recognized as an adult)....where was I? Ah yes, The Venetian's Wife was a book I loved since it was all about letters (ok, fine emails), and stuff.
We have this family thing where whenever we travel, we send postcards home to our parents. My two sisters are WAY better about it than I am (a typical postcard from me, if I even send one, says, Hi, miss you, love you, put this on the fridge, love z). The postcards tend to be lovely. My elder sister, Appie, actually just has these plain white cards that she then draws on and sends home to us. Which I love. I think she needs to start drawing a weekly update for me and send it to me. The postcard Sakina sent was a store bought one but she made drawings over it of herself doing activities that one does in La Rochelle, (biking, swiming, cafe-ing, walking etc as far as I can tell).
Actually, you know how I love my cluster map (scroll a little down on the right hand side to the map) and there are people from all over coming onto my blog, would you all terribly mind sending me a postcard? I want to see how many postcards make it out here in Ampara, Sri Lanka. You would be making a homesick aid worker very happy. I will keep a log on my blog of all postcards received with special categories of most creative, most sweet, furthest flung location, most bizarre etc. Please please. Anyone reading this blog, send me (and my housemate, Mick) a postcard. I will, once I get a camera soon, take photos once a week of the post cards I receive. Special postcards will be replicated on my blog. And really, it would make me SOOOOOO happy to receive mail. Real mail that I can touch and hold close to my heart (and wash my hands after since god knows where these postcards have been).
So give a shout, send some love in the form of a post card.
Zehra and Mick
138 Buddangala Road
Ampara Town, Ampara
Sri Lanka.
And no one stalk me but Mick and I were talking about this and we decided you would have to be a real dedicated stalker to come all the way out to Ampara, which Lonely Planet in their last edition before the new one said, don't stop there if you can help it. I like Ampara but really, don't expect to show up and shack up with us (if you can get through my security guard, which if you are not brown, you can), since my security rules do not allow for visitors. You may sleep outside the gates if you wish. With all the vicious street dogs and burning garbage. I hope that is enough to deter people. Though again, if you are that much of a dedicated stalker, maybe you deserve atleast an audience with Mick and I. We would rather you sent us a postcard instead which we will then display on a prominent wall on our house and pose with and post photos of on here. Though Mick is on facebook (I know, i can't believe it either...evil evil evil....like the rest of the world, barring me, out there), so perhaps he will post his pictures on there. Maybe he should tell him facebook friends to send us stuff too. Will mention it to him. Does facebook work that way? I really fucking hate that I even had to say the word facebook. Though all my friends are on there and no one really reads my blog so I might be getting diddly squat in terms of postcards. Prove me wrong people.
Show some love.
I love getting mail. When I was younger, I would write letters to people and would try over and over to get people to write back to me. One of my favorite books (and I am using the phrase, when I was younger very liberally...I mean within the last ten years, so technically, that phrase works, but I don't mean when I was 15 or 9, I mean an age where one is socially, age-ly recognized as an adult)....where was I? Ah yes, The Venetian's Wife was a book I loved since it was all about letters (ok, fine emails), and stuff.
We have this family thing where whenever we travel, we send postcards home to our parents. My two sisters are WAY better about it than I am (a typical postcard from me, if I even send one, says, Hi, miss you, love you, put this on the fridge, love z). The postcards tend to be lovely. My elder sister, Appie, actually just has these plain white cards that she then draws on and sends home to us. Which I love. I think she needs to start drawing a weekly update for me and send it to me. The postcard Sakina sent was a store bought one but she made drawings over it of herself doing activities that one does in La Rochelle, (biking, swiming, cafe-ing, walking etc as far as I can tell).
Actually, you know how I love my cluster map (scroll a little down on the right hand side to the map) and there are people from all over coming onto my blog, would you all terribly mind sending me a postcard? I want to see how many postcards make it out here in Ampara, Sri Lanka. You would be making a homesick aid worker very happy. I will keep a log on my blog of all postcards received with special categories of most creative, most sweet, furthest flung location, most bizarre etc. Please please. Anyone reading this blog, send me (and my housemate, Mick) a postcard. I will, once I get a camera soon, take photos once a week of the post cards I receive. Special postcards will be replicated on my blog. And really, it would make me SOOOOOO happy to receive mail. Real mail that I can touch and hold close to my heart (and wash my hands after since god knows where these postcards have been).
So give a shout, send some love in the form of a post card.
Zehra and Mick
138 Buddangala Road
Ampara Town, Ampara
Sri Lanka.
And no one stalk me but Mick and I were talking about this and we decided you would have to be a real dedicated stalker to come all the way out to Ampara, which Lonely Planet in their last edition before the new one said, don't stop there if you can help it. I like Ampara but really, don't expect to show up and shack up with us (if you can get through my security guard, which if you are not brown, you can), since my security rules do not allow for visitors. You may sleep outside the gates if you wish. With all the vicious street dogs and burning garbage. I hope that is enough to deter people. Though again, if you are that much of a dedicated stalker, maybe you deserve atleast an audience with Mick and I. We would rather you sent us a postcard instead which we will then display on a prominent wall on our house and pose with and post photos of on here. Though Mick is on facebook (I know, i can't believe it either...evil evil evil....like the rest of the world, barring me, out there), so perhaps he will post his pictures on there. Maybe he should tell him facebook friends to send us stuff too. Will mention it to him. Does facebook work that way? I really fucking hate that I even had to say the word facebook. Though all my friends are on there and no one really reads my blog so I might be getting diddly squat in terms of postcards. Prove me wrong people.
Show some love.
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