After the fire in the previous post had burned long and hard, they hooked those red hot tiles out and dropped them into the preheated cooking pit.
As I watched, it occured to me that they almost appeared to be fishing - carefully but quickly completing the transfer.
Travelling, too, is something you have to learn. It is a constant transaction with others in the course of which you are simultaneously alone. And therein lies the paradox: you journey alone in a world which is controlled by others.
Cees Nooteboom, extract Nomad's Hotel, Travels in Time and Space.
This morning I was that woman engrossed in her book as my trams crossed the city. Those first chapters in Cees Nooteboom's Nomad's Hotel were electrifying.
I love revisiting the books on my shelves next to my desk. This one is dated 2008, in my handwriting. I've been to Venice in years since. Cees has some truly divine descriptions of that city I didn't fall in love with.
Zinc light, the painter does not yet know what he is going to do with this day, leave it as it is, add some more copper, a greenish sheen, accentuate the grey, or alternatively flood everything with more light.
This morning, as I read, I realised that I read to travel. When I can't 'leave', I climb into a book and go anyway. But when I travel, in actuality, I read too. I become a devourer of books, on buses, planes and trains, enjoying those quiet alone-spaces and the freedom to read without a long list of must-do things queuing up there in front of me, and people I must give my attention to.
And then, when alone and out traveling, I read myself to sleep.
Returning from the weekend that took me 'home', back to people I understood, shared a humour with, people who reminded me of who I am at my core ... re-entry has been interesting. There is always so much more to understand about the self.
Life as the journey. Perhaps that's it. There always something new.
And my latest 'new' thing was photographing the Hangi, from beginning to end. Here is the magnificent fire that heated the stones that were later buried with the food and cooked it all.
I met Lenn at the Peace Village, out on Flanders Fields, yesterday and asked if I might document the story of a New Zealand Hangi.
He said yes.
And what I didn't know was that it's as much about cooking the food as it is about the people involved ... and those drawn in when it comes time to share the food.
In the end I felt extraordinarily fortunate to be there for those hours and I felt my little Kiwi soul fill up and overflow with joy.
It was extraordinary.
Thank you, Lenn, for putting up with my camera and I.
I captured these kiwi blokes taking a well-earned break after finishing up work on the Hangi.
You really couldn't wish to meet nicer, harder-working, big-hearted, highly-amusing Kiwi blokes than these guys. They simply impressed me ... and made me laugh more than once.
It’s been over 20 years since the birth of the Tino Rangatiratanga flag with Rangitaane Marsden citing its launch date as the 6th of February 1990. Now it has been adopted by many and flies in places of significance across the nation.
Rangitaane Marsden says “the flag in a sense reflects the creation story but if you take it to another level black reflects the potential, red reflects the realities and white reflects the wisdom and illumination that come with a persons own individual being”.
Source: Māori News, the Origins of the Māori Flag.
I spent most of yesterday outside in a field near the Peace Village, photographically documenting a Hangi.
The image below was taken while they were still heating up to tiles used in the hangi pit. It was a stunning fire ... one that burned so hard and so long. I was fascinated.
Thank you, so much, to Lenn Krosschell and those helping him for allowing me to hang round and take photographs.
And there in the background, the Tino Rangatiratanga Flag blowing strong in that Flanders Fields breeze.
Ngāti Rānana London Māori Club aims to provide New Zealanders residing in the United Kingdom and others interested in Māori culture an environment to teach, learn and participate in Māori culture.
The three guiding principles of Ngāti Rānana are whanaungatanga (togetherness), manaakitanga (looking after one another/hospitality) and kōtahitanga (unity).
Source: the Ngāti Rānana website.
These guys were in Mesen/Messines this weekend and they touched the hearts of everyone who saw them perform.
Last night was one of those extraordinary nights spent with good people while doing marvelous things.
I had wandered over to Brussels in time to meet Lynette after work. We met up with New Zealand artist, Wendy Leach and together we walked to Irma's house, where New Zealand photographer, Jacque Gilbert, was arriving fresh from her Amsterdam world.
I cannot begin to describe how lovely it was to find myself sitting there with these women, glasses of wine in hand, food on the table ... just talking. It was one of those magical moments you experience sometimes, one of those ones where you think about pinching yourself to see if it's real.
But that was only the beginning. We had come together because we were attending a literary event at the bookshop called Passa Porta. I had never heard of it before last night but their event was impossible to resist. Lynette had written, telling us all that she had booked tickets to an event with Eleanor Catton. The writer who convincingly won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 with her book The Luminaries. Annelies Verbeke, a Flemish writer, was to interview Eleanor.
We arrived at the shop and the room was already quite full. I'm sure there were more than 100 people there. And then it began and honestly, sometimes I was close to the point of tears. Before photography, writing was my great big passion. I still write but somehow it slipped into the background as photography strode to the forefront in my life.
Last night, there I was, listening to Eleanor and Annelies talk while delighting in the way she was willing to kind of crack open her novel ... revealing her motivations, ideas, goals, and more.
I loved her 832 page novel, The Luminaries, for so many reasons. It was set in New Zealand but more than that, on the west coast of the South Island in a town I've loved since I was a teenager. My cousins came from Hokitika. It was a small town with a wild savage beauty back then. The Tasman Sea still comes roaring across from Australia crashing in on the shore there. And a few miles inland you can see the powerful outline of the Southern Alps rising up, appearing to trap you between the wild coast and the mountains.
I returned to Hokitika in 2012 and it had changed, so much. So little, and so much. The road through the alps to the east coast is a highway these days ... a rugged New Zealand highway but still, simpler to cross than it was back in 1866. The year Eleanor Catton's novel opens ... goldrush days in that wild place.
She read the opening scene to us before Annelies began with her questions. The audience became completely silent. The room was still as she read. Annelies asked some superb questions and Eleanor answered them, fully, completely. To the point where I will reread the book because I understand how she intended we use the astrological information. And while she was clear on the fact that it's not important to understanding the story, it does add another layer or ten to the complexity of the story.
There was a question time and an invitation to stay for the book signing. New Zealand wine was handed out, courtesy of the New Zealand Embassy.
I'm not really a creature who wants my books signed by authors. BUT I did want to talk with Eleanor, to tell her how much I had enjoyed both the book and the evening.
I started my university degree in 1998 because I needed to earn two papers before I could apply for Bill Manhire's creative writing course ... way back then. I lost my way, stayed on at university and never did apply for the course.
Listening to Eleanor brought everything back. Those days on Stewart Island, a writing workshop with Patricia Grace. The Otago University's summer writing schools. Those days of writing. And so I bought a second copy of the book and waited my turn in the queue. Somehow, despite the intensity of the interview she had just come through, Eleanor made time to really talk with every person who approached her.
It turned out that we were wearing the same greenstone necklace. The same hook. I explained I had needed some of 'home' to bring back to Europe, to wear close to me, and that it came from a place just along the road from Hokitika.
Today I wrote, over on Facebook, that I found Eleanor Catton to be intelligent, gracious, patient, humble ... and you know, everything good. I didn't exaggerate. If you get the chance to hear her speak, I recommend you do it.
Lynette (on the left in the photograph below), the woman who made it all possible because I would have missed this without her, gave me her camera and I took a series of photographs.
But you see ...?
Mana from Heaven ... or that's how the 3 New Zealand magazines I was given have seemed on this lazy Sunday afternoon.
Not that I was lazy. I have a bin full of paper on the floor next to my desk and my desk is less littered with papers and notes and ... stuff.
Each time I reached a 'clearing/organising' milestone I would allow myself to read another of those 3 magazines.
North & South was probably my favourite. Then again, it always was.
I'm aching with flu. It's been all around me but I had no plans for it myself. I thought it might have been a food allergy. I slept yesterday afternoon and then all night too. A rare feat for me to do both. I woke feeling better but by lunchtime I was aching and ready to sleep all over again. I guess it's the season so I'll just concentrate on the fact that I am so glad to see Spring.
I was lucky, I had the book At Least You're in Tuscany for company, so I powered through it these last 24 hours. Jennifer Criswell offers another take on giving up your career and moving to Italy.
Last night I dreamed I flew home to New Zealand. It was a long and difficult journey. A complicated dream. And so it was incredibly disappointing to wake and find myself still here in Belgium.
There was a red rowboat, parked up on the beach, last time I was home ...
My parents grew Broad Beans out in the garden of my childhood but never did we make anything as interesting as Habas con Jamon with those beans ...
Today Yaiza had to use water for the final part of the preparation. That would be instead of beer or white wine but still ... it was delicious.
Thank you to Yaiza who patiently taught me these recipes, and put up with my camera, and with my constant note-taking too. Details were recorded and my big hope is that I can recreate tonight's dishes next week.
Today I learned how to cook 3 different Spanish dishes ...
Yaiza came over, armed with the ingredients I didn't have, and showed me how to create a delicious Tortilla. And an Aioli sauce that is so divine I'm not sure how it won't be on the menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Or that's what everyone was saying as they handed the pot of it round the table.
Then there was the Habas con Jamon ... and I was left wondering how it was that New Zealanders could have failed to create that dish with their Broad Beans and ham??? Then, as the final touch, Picaillo. A divine salad, small pieces of boiled potato and eggs, cherry tomatoes, green beans, and tuna.
And oil.
So much oil but it was truly divine.
Tonight I'm realising how much I missed in life due to my mother not knowing to send us out into the world - to the beach, the forest, or simply 'out', with a package of cold Tortilla to save us from hunger and associated horrors. Ithink my childhood might have been that much happier if my mother had copied the Spanish mothers and done this simple thing.
Oh my ...it was all so good. Here is a close-up of the two Tortilla's created here in my kitchen. More of this Spanish cooking is planned.
Today is all about creating ... text for the workshop descriptions, and more text for the Newsletter I'll be sending out soon.
Then I want to process Federico's photographs from those days in Genova. And I have a range of interviews almost ready to publish. And some more to transcribe.
But that photography workshop last Sunday ... it's still making me smile. Ellen sent this photograph she took of Anna.
Really my works are narratives, I am really interested in stories. I find different visual ways to talk about narratives, political narratives. My work is about conflicts and politics, but it links in very kind of intimacy like soldier sleeping. I am interested in getting very close to my subjects, and I live how they live, or share things with them.
Tim Heatherington, extracted from an interview on Periscope.
I have read war photographer Robert Capa's book and more than a few books about him. Over the years I have collected and read the stories of war journalists John Simpson, Christina Lamb, Frank Gardener, Kevin Sites, Kate Adie ... and more. I have the dvd titled War Photographer, about the work of James Nachtwey too.
There is something I have been trying to understand.
Tonight I watched 'Which Way to the Frontline - The Life and Time of Tim Heatherington'. It is a documentary created by Sebastian Junger ('The Perfect Storm', 'War') and in it he seems to take the whole 'conversation' about motivations and understanding war to a level I've never really found before.
In tracing Tim's career back through the years, Junger's intention seemed to be about honouring, remembering, and revealing the truly fascinating man who was a war photographer.
Tim Hetherington was killed while covering the front lines in the besieged city of Misrata, Libya, during the 2011 Libyan civil war.
Pippa Pehi ...thank you, so much, for sharing your beautiful photograph of those places I love and miss so very much.
Sometimes, the temptation to play with photographs ... as was done in the darkroom, is too much and so I play. But I resisted the polaroid frame and opted for a simple edge. And stuff ...
Back home in New Zealand, we had Albatross circling one day, down there at the end of the Otago Peninsula. I adore them. For me, it feels a bit like seeing God go by, in that they are these enormous graceful birds, quite unlike any other I know.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The first sign of Spring I had seen in 2014. Back in February while wandering the hilly streets that surround Genova with new friends and old.
