Our 'Increasing Access, Retention and Performance in Primary Education' project has contributed to change parents' and community members' views on education in Kailahun district, Sierra Leone.
Below are the opinions of some Community Sensitisation Committee (CSC) members.
Community members at a meeting with our project partner Pikin to Pikin in Kailahun district, Sierra Leone.
"I joined the CSC for the benefit of my children. It is a good thing for every parent to send children to school to become useful citizens for tomorrow. I enjoy going to speak to parents about the importance of education.
I have adopted a young boy who was being prevented by his mother from going to school. He is 9 years old. He is going to school now and doing well. His mother, who is a single parent, had previously abandoned him and gone to Guinea. This was a big problem, the boy was alone.
"Many people left the village because of the war. The village was very affected by the war because it is so close to the Liberian border. Many stayed on in Guinea, not wishing to return because the people they depend on are no longer here. There are thus many widows and single parents and for those who are not educated and who have lost their husband, it is very difficult to survive with 4 or 5 children.
There is free education in Freetown, but not in Kailahun. The teachers are mainly unpaid, volunteer, community teachers; there are only a few, government (and therefore paid) teachers. The parents come together to pay them a small fee, but contributing to this is very difficult for the single parents. Consequently, their children cannot go to school.
We are trying to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable children but some children are still not going to school. Meanwhile, the schools are over-crowded.
I like the programme; it is good. It helps children to be fluent and more open to listen to each other and share their problems, which is very important. I now see children teaching their colleagues at home.
enjoy talking to the parents. Most of them are not prioritising education and I want them to understand how important it is, so I am sensitising them to enrol their children on time.
Parents do listen, although some amongst them don't. They are sometimes ignorant; they don't understand why it is important to invest in children. Some parents are impatient during the Young Learners sessions, because they want to know how they are going to personally benefit. Others face constraints because of the costs of sending their children to school. They can be deeply traumatised as a result of their experiences; especially, the levels of poverty are disturbing and many parents are forced to concentrate on subsistence farming.
I enjoy seeing parents change the way that they treat their children. The programme is really good, especially in preparing the pre-schoolers to enter school; it makes a real difference. I have seen a real change in the Young Learners, who now enter school on time.
I have also seen a big change in the Young Facilitators. Some of them had poor reading skills before the programme and also a low knowledge base.
"I have been a member of the CSC for a year. I am happy that the older children are helping the Young Learners, and pleased to see the Young Learners walking to school confidently; previously they didn't do this.
Some parents have the wrong perception about school. In the first meeting with them, I encouraged them to send their children to school; I discussed the importance of education for their children. Parents are co-operating with the programme.
The adults who went to school are making headway in their lives and are able to provide for their families. I went to school until Class 3 but was then taken out, so being in the CSC and being a member of the School Management Committee is an important role.
It is important to disseminate information and exercise leadership within the community. Some days ago, I intervened in a labour exploitation situation. A small child was being asked to carry a very heavy load of water and I prevented this.
Changes will come gradually within the community. That's why the programme must continue long-term. The children in the community are very vulnerable. Thanks to the programme, Young Learners are now going to school before they have even officially enrolled. They want to be there.
The names have been changed, in accordance with our Child Protection and confidentiality Policies.


text:
Фарма́н, Га́иб Туама́ (1927, Багдад — 1990, Москва) — иракский писатель, классик современной арабской прозы, переводчик.

Биография
Родился в Багдаде в бедной семье. Из-за близорукости не был принят в багдадскую Высшую коллегию обучения преподавателей, которую окончили многие ведущие иракские писатели и поэты. В 1947—1951 годах получал образование в Египте, в колледже искусств Каирского университета, но был вынужден возвратиться в Багдад из-за финансовых обстоятельств и слабого здоровья. Там он учился в колледже искусств Багдадского университета, который окончил в 1955 году. Работал в нескольких газетах и издательствах в Ираке и Египте.

Первый сборник рассказов опубликован в 1954 году. Дружил с известными литераторами-современниками, такими как Фуад аль-Такарли и Абд аль-Ваххаб Баяти. Выделяется среди других иракских писателей как романист, больше всего способствовавший продвижению иракского романа в течение XX века — как художественным развитием жанра, так и полнотой раскрытия социально-политической жизни Ирака 1940-х — 1970-х годов.

После многих рискованных конфликтов с государством и цензурой, в 1957 году Фарман был временно лишён гражданства. В 1960 году уехал в Москву, где прожил остаток своей жизни, работая в изгнании до самой смерти в апреле 1990 года. В этот период он перевёл на арабский язык произведения крупных российских писателей, таких как Горький, Достоевский, Пушкин, Чехов.

Особенно замечательно и, возможно, уникально в иракском контексте то, что все романы Фармана были изданы, когда он находился вдали от родины, живя в СССР (с 1960 по 1990 годы). Некоторые критики утверждают, что до сих пор никто из иракских прозаиков не сравнился с Фарманом в яркости, подробности и реалистичности изображения исторической эпохи, изображённой в его романах.

Похоронен в Москве на Троекуровском кладбище (2 уч.).

Признание
 16 декабря 1967 года Г. Т. Фарман награждён государственной наградой СССР — орденом «Знак Почёта».

 22 сентября 2017 года, в день рождения писателя, во Всероссийской государственной библиотеке иностранной литературы имени М. И. Рудомино при финансовой поддержке литературных переводчиков А. Хабы и Хайри Аль-Дамена открыт мемориальный бюст Г. Т. Фармана.
В 2018 году мемориальный бюст Г. Т. Фармана открыт в Союзе писателей Ирака.

Примечания

Ссылки
 About Ghaib Tu'ma Farman, short info: www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/367/ghaib-tuma-farman/
 «Ghaib Tu`ma Farman: The Old Man's Word» https://bandannie.com/2015/09/26/ghaib-tuma-farman-the-old-mans-word/
 «Many people who had been exiled by the Iraqi regime were living in Moscow...» https://ruyafoundation.org/en/2017/01/4291/

Писатели Ирака
Кавалеры ордена «Знак Почёта»
Похороненные на Троекуровском кладбище
Умершие в Москве

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
SHORT FICTION: ANN CAVLOVIC
STAN'S HOUSE
Sohki stood beside the several metres of water she needed to cross and regretted signing up for this. She turned toward her colleague in the jeep; he'd tried last week and failed, and so now the Environment Ministry was sending her in hopes a female might soften the old curmudgeon. Her colleague tipped his hand to his mouth, reminding Sohki he'd promised one beer if she got through to him, two if she didn't.
The puddle, as Sohki called it, was actually the former side street leading to Stan Novak's house, now a brown and stagnant expanse. She waded through in tall boots, poking a walking stick before each step. Stan's house stood upon an incline, so that, if you could ignore the boards nailed over the windows and doors of neighbouring houses, it looked almost as if nothing had happened. His flagstone walkway had recently been weeded and swept clean. But his shed, lower down and closer to the river, was ripped open at the back, wood and tools spilling out like an exit wound.
When she reached the dry part of his lawn she stomped her heel in the soil, predicting it would be dry enough for bulldozers in two weeks. Rechecking that her mask was in her bag, she knocked on the door. Lights were on, but nothing happened. She knocked again, and Stan swung the door open abruptly, his heavy frame suddenly close. "Oy, they sent a girl. How cunning."
"May I come in, Mr. Novak?"
He scratched his grey beard, as if weighing his appetite for amusement, then motioned her in. As she took a step her boots sunk slightly into the carpet. The air was moist but not as oppressive as she'd feared, although she knew the worst moulds were scentless. The whole effect was earthy but not unpleasant, like the peat moss bogs she once bounced upon in Australia, with the added aroma of toast.
"Your boots, madam." He stood straight, eyebrows raised, left eyelid drooping, dressed in a polo shirt and thick-soled sandals. He motioned toward a tray tucked against the wall, on which boots and an umbrella stood tidily.
Sohki glanced inside. Some of the carpet had been removed, exposing bare concrete, but remaining patches had black smears and darker sections near corners. Out of diplomacy, she removed her boots. Stan directed her toward the living room, where the drywall and insulation had been ripped out of the bottom third of the walls. A jug of bleach stood in one cavity.
She chose the chair with the least upholstery. If she could have ignored everything lower than her kneecaps, and the abandoned houses out the window, it would have been a perfectly normal place to entertain guests. The moisture in her socks climbed up around her ankles.
"Well, coffee?" Stan said. "Or do you suppose my kitchen's condemned?"
"Mr. Novak, I know you're aware that – "
"Ah, but are you aware?" He pulled a folder from the bookshelf and handed it to her. "Everything the town needs to rebuild. Pro bono."
"So you're not worried about another flood?"
She was moving too fast. "Yes, you've put a lot of work into this."
"Good. So offer me something reasonable for my repairs." He glared.
Sohki, aware of her browner skin and how often she was mistaken for someone much younger, abandoned her strategy of appearing disarming. She stood up while keeping her gaze fixed on Stan, having learned recently how to hold herself unapologetically as a tall woman. His eyes, which came up to the level of her chin, softened and retreated. She then quickly spread the plans out on the dining table, feigning careful consideration. "I see you're planning another flood barrier."
"The last two were just shoddily made."
"It'd have to be forty metres high, cost three-hundred million, and would still cause erosion downstream."
"Don't bungle it this time." He tapped a pen on her shoulder.
Sohki jerked her shoulder away and glared at Stan. "You'd be safer and financially better off by accepting the buy-out package." She spoke slowly, deliberately. But she regretted not better concealing her disdain.
He approached within six inches of her face, as she'd been warned was his tendency. "My house," he said, flashing his yellow teeth, "is worth twice what it was in 2022. Not the pittance you're offering. I nearly gutted the place after the last flood." He motioned toward the kitchen. A tall faucet gleamed atop a large island with stainless steel countertops, clean and sleek, straight out of a design magazine, if it weren't for the darkened and buckling cabinet doors near the floor. "Everything I worked for, you want to dismantle."
"But with the package you could rebuild fully, on higher ground."
"What do you know about building?" He stomped to the back door and whistled. Sohki heard distant barking. A black dog, wet and scrawny, barrelled inside. Stan stroked the dog as it leapt around him. He opened a pantry filled with neatly organized mason jars containing food Sohki couldn't recognize, and fed the dog from one jar. He then pulled something out of another jar and nibbled, looking toward the sunroom in the back, long enough for her to wonder if he'd forgotten she was there. Casually, she walked toward the island. A creak in the tile floor panicked Sohki, momentarily flashing visions of the floor collapsing beneath her, before she remembered that Stan's house didn't have a basement.
Stan tossed a biscuit out the back door, and the dog followed with the same disorganized movements. "Nothing wrong with how I live my life, missy."
On the wall, a family photo from the early 1900s hung in a large frame. About a dozen people sat or stood together, looking severe and unhappy in the way of most family photos of the era.
"Wouldn't it be good to live where you didn't have to worry about the next flood?"
"There may never be one like that again!"
Sohki couldn't tell if he actually believed this. There had been three major floods in the past ten years, the kind formerly called once-in-a-hundred year floods. Then she saw Stan's expression harden.
"Know your facts. 1938, '47, '59, '72, '99, even the 2010s. All manageable."
"But the past ten years?"
His arms tensed and vibrated. "No more stupidly built levees!"
Her mind flashed with rainfall projections, trends in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, things no trained mind could witness and conclude that rebuilding in this floodplain made sense. Building in the first place had been near-sighted, but you could almost forgive that. Yet she knew that talking about a changing climate worsening the natural tendency for floods would only derail the conversation with a former oil executive. "I know this house means a lot to you."
Stan narrowed his eyes and grinned. "There go the feminine wiles."
Sohki wanted to smack him. Maybe even to leave a mark on the oily plains of his impish face, a tiny mark compared to those left by men like him on her ancestral lands. She breathed in deeply, resisting, yet remaining professional at this point seemed futile. "You'd rather be expropriated, then? At the current value of this place?"
"Don't you dare swindle me. I never swindled anybody. I came here with two suitcases. Barely spoke English. I worked for my money. Nothing wrong with that. The Premier himself toured my biggest wells."
"Right. A self-made man deserves a bigger government handout?"
Stan's jaw twitched. Sohki sensed he was concealing the same impulses she'd had a moment earlier. She thought of her phone. In her pocket. Her husband often complained his headstrong wife would land herself in trouble one day. She had been told the RCMP had removed everyone's guns.
Stan stomped to the dining room wall, yanked off a frame, and nearly threw it on the countertop beside Sohki. A Business Award of Distinction, from the province for Novak Oil Ltd. He leaned in across the counter, projecting the fermented scent of what he'd eaten.
"Nothing wrong with how I lived my life."
"Mr. Novak, it's not about you. We trying to protect the whole town, and to do that this area needs to remain a floodplain."
The dog barked, and burst through the back door into the sunroom, noisily knocking over a thick metallic tube that had been fastened to a window. Stan hollered and shooed the dog out, then remained there, readjusting the tube and cursing for so long that Sohki again wondered if he'd forgotten about her. The sunroom had windows on three sides, and through them the garden shrubs appeared lush and well-tended.
She moved closer. Stan finished reconnecting one end of the tube to a large fan in the window that hummed quietly. He then moved furtively to reattach the other end to the top of a metal garbage can standing on top of several layers of carpets. The can was filled with a thick grey slurry.
She stepped back. She'd been trained on many hazardous situations but couldn't gauge how potent, if at all, this could be.
Stan pulled something long and thin out of the garbage can; an electrode, Sohki suspected, connected to a wire running out the window. Stan looked at the tiny calcifications on the bottom, smiled with satisfaction, and glanced at Sohki with eyebrows raised. He reinserted the electrode and stirred the slurry with a spatula.
"Are you trying to make carbon nanofibres?" She asked.
"I already have. I'll rebuild the town with this. Stronger than steel. Just you wait."
So maybe he didn't deny the excess carbon in the air after all. Although she couldn't guess what he might blame it on. But companies had been trying for decades to extract carbon directly from the air – as if to liposuction away the problem – and so far all had failed. While she watched Stan tending like a gardener to his contraption, wondering if an assessment of his mental capacity to make decisions about property should be conducted, he spoke without looking up from his task: "One day. That phone of yours. They'll say you should've known all along what it was doing to you. Or maybe it'll be something in your soap. Or your fancy new shoes."
Sohki became acutely aware of her phone in her pocket, a warm sensation, as if it was radiating through her skin. Not her womb, and could she be…? No, this was just psychological. But she'd intended to carry it in her bag anyway, just to be on the safe side. The precautionary principle. Inverse Square Law. These terms from her degree came back to her, mockingly.
In the garden, birds landed along the cedar hedge, and as a glint of sun caught the blooms of the prickly pear cactuses she found herself grieving his garden. It would soon be bulldozed, on her own instructions. Returned to nature was the phrase in the briefings.
She pulled the buy-out agreement from her bag. The rustling of papers knocked Stan out of his focus and his expression hardened. "Enough of you already. Out!" He pointed toward the door.
"I could just leave these here – "
She turned, pulled out her phone and strode toward the front door while texting "2" to her colleague – the two-beer salute. She peeled off her socks and shoved them into a specimen bag. Her bare feet slithered against the edges of her boots. Turning the handle felt like unlocking a cage, the blast of fresh air a consolation, a promise of return to her normal duties and sense of life moving forward. Sohki took a few steps out and then looked back at Stan, who stood in the doorway, the hem of his pants coming undone, wicking moisture around the seams.
"I've always been a homeowner," he said, flatly, a quiver in his wrist where he gripped the doorframe. "Nothing wrong with that."
He appeared to her as shrunken, dwarfed by the two-storey structure around him, and something in Sohki dissolved, lifted, something hard she had been holding, and this struck her as unfair. She resented the part of herself capable of such forgiveness. And she had done what had been asked of her, so the words that she spoke came as a surprise to herself. "Why don't you come for a walk with me?"
Stan stared, quizzical.
"I'd like you to get some fresh air."
His wrist still quivered, but his face and posture softened. So it was with an almost childlike obedience that he turned slowly and reached for his boots.
"This story first appeared in Little Bird Stories Vol. VII in 2017"
Based in Quebec, Ann Cavlovic's fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Canadian Architect, Event, The Fiddlehead, The Globe and Mail, PRISM international, Room, SubTerrain, the anthology This Place a Stranger (Caitlin Press), Today's Parent, and elsewhere. "Stan's House" won the 2017 Little Bird Writing Contest judged by Esi Edugyan. Her stage play Emissions: A Climate Comedy was the most attended show of the 2013 Ottawa Fringe theatre festival. Please visit her website: www.anncavlovic.com
FICTION: ADAM GILES
The hamsters in Burnaby were assholes. One was on this gluten-free, low-carb diet and even if you bought the right brand of gluten-free, low-carb diet pellets, he'd still crap in your hand if you weren't cradling him the way he liked to be cradled. Meanwhile, because of the special treatment, the other guy, whom the ad described as "beleaguered but friendly," squealed and thrashed in the cage. Twice a day with this. All winter. But it was a rent-free place out west. It was a start.
Mom called every day, usually when she was at the nursing home, visiting Dad.
"Any chance we'll see you for Christmas?" she said.
"These gigs don't come with vacation time."
"Well, that's not very nice."
"Snowbirds don't fly home until spring, Mom."
"Snowbirds? It hasn't even snowed yet."
"That's climate change for you."
She put Dad on the phone, and I told him about my hamsters: the high-maintenance one and the angry one.
"Rodents?" he said. "I'm on my deathbed and this is what you're doing with your time?"
Dad had been on his "deathbed" for nine years. The stroke paralyzed his whole left side and while the doctors said—with hope, hard work, and time—there was a chance of recovery, Dad was a pessimist, so hope and hard work were out. Which left only time.
The high-maintenance hamster crapped in the angry one's bed and I told Dad I had to go.
"You remember when you were a kid?" Dad said. "When you'd ask me what I wanted for Christmas? And I could never think of anything?"
"I just thought of something."
"A pillow over my face."
The angry hamster took note of the crap in his bed, looked at me, and started into some lunges and shoulder stretches. Prepping for another squealing/thrashing episode.
In Surrey it was low-chirp budgies. These were normal budgies, genetically modified to chirp a little less. For rich folks. These particular rich folks were the Smuggs, 30-something department store catalogue models who spent half the year in Montreal, modeling.
The guy next door, Steve, lived in an eco-home. Solar, geothermal, rainwater harvesting, the works. A net-zero footprint. Which was great except that it reminded me of what I left behind in Toronto. I gave up my construction job for a non-profit that traded eco-homes for inefficient detached houses. Curbing wastefulness, promoting green lifestyles—luring sheep from the flock essentially. The pay was garbage and even if the dream of being self-sufficient, owning an eco-home myself, seemed impossibly out of reach, I was doing my part to save the planet, building these places for other people. Steady, noble work. Turning 40 though, living at home, earning less than one's mother, there are existential questions one begins asking oneself.
Steve smoked weed, so I was over there quite a bit. We lounged in his backyard amongst the stray stalks and shoots of the overgrown vegetable garden. I brought over the budgies in their cage. Steve didn't know the Smuggs even had them.
"They're low-chirp," I said, taking a drag.
"So they don't ruffle anyone's feathers," Steve said, throwing his head back, laughing at his own cleverness.
Steve always had his Green Day playlist going, which I thought was maybe a little too on-the-nose given his eco-lifestyle.
"These guys are probably average environmentalists at best," I said. "They're more anti-establishment."
"What do you think environmentalism is?" Steve took the joint from me. He pointed to the Smuggs's house next door. "You know these pricks have a second monstrosity in Montreal? How's that for a footprint?"
My high was coming on strong now. The Smuggs: younger than me, set for life with money, and I was taking care of their stupid birds. How did everyone get so far ahead of me?
"It's all temporary," Steve said. "Time is borrowed. You give everything back to the Earth when you check out. A house here, a house there—what's the point? People gotta feel important."
I closed my eyes, felt myself drifting.
"You know, those budgies really are pretty quiet," Steve said. "It's nice."
The pygmy goat in Coquitlam was a hush-hush job—the municipality frowned upon keeping them as pets—so Mr. Jenkins and I usually stayed home. But his owners had a leash for him and said he liked walks along the mountainside. Which was perfect: after the ocean, the Rockies were the main draw for me out west.
It was surreal, the humbling perspective of seeing the endless range of wave-like peaks up close. Mr. Jenkins led the way, his little bum wiggling along a mountainside trail. He was 15—I read online that these guys live 8 to 18 years. He was just happy to be outside, looking for adventure, oblivious that the clock was ticking.
Mom called. She was at the nursing home visiting Dad.
"Your friend Derek phoned," she said. "Apparently you cancelled all your social medias? He said you went AWOL. You didn't give him your cell number out west?"
"Not really looking to be reached."
"Apparently they're planning some boys trip to Vegas."
"Ah, the mid-life crisis tour."
Mr. Jenkins went off road, bounding through tall grass, westbound toward the setting sun, which somehow, within minutes, turned the sky from blistering orange to an almost artificial pastel pink. I imagined Mom, had she been here, shitting on the moment, warning about the imminent threat of ticks. You'll get Lyme, she'd have said. That's what you get for straying from the trail.
"Dad's going downhill," Mom said. "I try to keep his spirits up, but he checks out, isolates himself."
"He's got stuff to process," I said. "Things to come to terms with."
"He shouldn't be doing it alone."
"We come into this world alone…"
"Ugh. Please come home," she said, her voice breaking. "I can't keep this up by myself."
I could have moved away from home before 40. Living with one's parents until one was nearly middle-aged wasn't exactly the path most travelled, but somehow it was always easier to stay. Comfort, fear, whatever it was, I just went with the flow, let life happen to me.
"I've got my own stuff going on now." It was weird hearing myself speak up, risking ruffled feathers. "I have my own things to process, to come to terms with."
Mom cried. "Is it selfish that sometimes I wish the stroke killed him?"
It was a Sunday morning. Mom was at the butcher's for her monthly haul of resource-intensive animal flesh. She came home and found Dad slumped over the living room ottoman. Doctors said he was 20 minutes from being a goner. So close, Dad said.
"You're allowed to put yourself first," I said.
She gave Dad the phone. He told me about bingo night at the nursing home.
"Won six dollars in change," he said. "You know the difference between me and this handful of coins?"
"They'll still be in circulation next year."
Mr. Jenkins veered back to the trail and stopped to pee under an enormous tree, a lone Douglas-fir, set apart from a dense patch of other Douglas-firs higher up the mountain. Probably a hundred feet tall, this tree. Been around forever. Pissed on by generation after generation of domesticated animal to walk this trail. Resilient though: growing despite urine-soaked roots.
I was supposed to be a veterinarian. Couldn't get the squeamishness under control though. I failed Grade 11 Biology because I passed out when they set the scalpel and frog corpse on my desk. This was a disappointment for Dad. He worked at an oil and gas company with the dads of my classmates: he heard about it at work; I heard about it at home. I was the "bleeding heart." Every family had one, a sheep of a different colour.
In Vancouver, I walked Jericho Beach. The ragdoll at the duplex near the university was a social guy, ran with a gang of neighbourhood cats. Self-sufficient.
This was it: the ocean. I guess not technically. An inlet of the pacific? A connected waterway? A manageable sampling of ocean: to ease sheltered people into the experience, to curb the stupefying awe.
Guys in camping chairs fished off a pier. A lapdog—a Shih-Poo or otherwise genetically-modified animal—curled up in one guy's lap.
My bare feet sunk into the sand, granules filtering up through my toes. The sands of time. Time slipping. Slipping between the cracks. All those nice clichés we use to process such things. And then of course the surf rolling in, erasing every footprint along the beach, smoothing over all traces. Like no one was ever there. Profound stuff.
One of the camping chair guys reeled in a fish, a huge thing. Out came the camera. Photos of the impressive catch. Then the clever idea for a photo of the thrashing fish next to the Shih-Poo—for scale. The fish, hanging from the line, hook still through its face, and the dog, pink bow on her head, locked eyes. Then posed for the camera. And the guys, they were just happy to be outside, excursioning, oblivious that the fish wasn't having a good time. Which was fine. Because maybe they'd have strokes one day and forget about happiness altogether.
The entire flight to Toronto I was trying to calculate my share of the emissions, reconciling necessity with hypocrisy. What would Dad have said? Old Bleeding Heart's polluting the skies.
It was probably selfish to give up the non-profit job, to stop fighting the good fight so I could "find myself" out west. But saving the planet was never about saving the planet anyway. Try self-preservation. Animal instinct. Convincing myself I had a say in avoiding carbon suffocation, heat wave incineration, etc. Because a lone wolf stands a chance against the pack, right? Because creatures of habit are eager to change?
It was shoulder-to-shoulder through the terminal. At the baggage carrousel, I stood amongst fellow cattle. Outside, I waited in line for a taxi. I was back. Back in that pack.
Was it selfish to wish an end to your fear? Or maybe the fearful just weren't supposed to survive.
Dad died yesterday. Mom was there. She was always there. For everyone. I used to feel guilty for letting her take care of me so long. I thought leaving would unburden her. It never occurred to me that taking care of people wasn't a burden. It was instinct.
A cab idled at the curb. Spewing exhaust. I could have taken public transit, but I was done wasting time. The sun was going down. There were arrangements to arrange.
Mom would ask me to stay. I had a return ticket. She'd offer to take care of it though—everything.
Adam Giles' short fiction has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The Feathertale Review, The Humber Literary Review, Riddle Fence, The Dalhousie Review, and other journals. His story "Corduroy" won the University of Toronto Magazine Short Story Contest in 2013. He lives in Mississauga, Ontario with his family. Find him on the web at www.adamgiles.ca.
FICTION: DAVID HUEBERT
LIKE AN ICEBERG
"What harm could it do?" Sam says into the frozen waterfall. He holds an ice axe in each hand, a tangle of straps and carabiners jingling on his orange harness. Sam huffs mist into the air. Above us, a hundred metre wall of ice.
Ice climbing was Sam's idea. The doctors cleared the trip to Banff, but told him not to overdo sports. He's already weaker than he was, and he doesn't need undue stress on his immune system. Mum went cross-country skiing on her own and Sam said he was going to the grocery store, came back to the time-share condo with his arms full of rented equipment.
"We can walk there," he said. Lately his face has started to thin out. He was already going gaunt. But in that moment he was gleaming.
"Sam. It's not a good idea."
"Come on you lanky sapling!" He was smiling like a champion, the way he smiled when he talked about his art. "You were born to climb."
I couldn't say no.
Now he tightens his crampons and steps into the ice. "Here we go, Long John Silver," he says over his shoulder. He climbs briskly. Lately, he's been subtly weakening. But now his face seems to glow, and he moves quickly, even with the heavy gear.
"Like this, right?" He grins down at me, kicking his toe into the ice.
"Toe in the crampons, put the screws in every ten metres, I think."
"What?" Sam smiles down, pounds his ice axe into the waterfall. He's only two metres up, so the fat five-foot icicle he releases is relatively harmless. I'm just glad I searched "ice climbing basics" on the walk over, and that we're staggered.
I wait for him to put the ice screws in and set the anchors. Then I climb up behind him, driving my axe in. On this side, it seems, the freeze is a little more consistent.
The desk clerk at the neighbouring hotel said this is a popular moderate-expert spot, but that it was still a little early and the ice was temperamental this time of year. I guess no one else decided to test a frozen waterfall for the first time on Christmas Eve.
Before long we've found a rhythm, grinding the ice axes in, huffing into the cold, blood flowing. The axes are light and powerful. The waterfall could be a little more frozen—the odd large chunk sloughs off when the axe hits. But it feels just solid enough.
We hit a hump in the waterfall and walk flat-footed across a ridge. Who would have thought simply walking on crampons would be the craziest part of all this?
The next bit is the last tongue, a sheer climb of thirty metres. Dig, toe, tug, breathe. After the last screw, Sam climbs impossibly fast. He's a little crazed, hard to keep up with.
"Is it too late to say this is stupid and crazy?"
Sam grins down at me. "Two choices," he calls. "Up or down." I haven't seen him so happy in weeks, maybe months, maybe ever.
I dig deep. Toe-in, axe, smash, pant. I'm sweaty, tired, hungry, cold. But I'm almost there. Another chop, some ice chunks off. Then I get the axe in, the last one, and I see my brother's hand reaching out.
"See," he says, pulling me up the top. "It wasn't that hard."
He's flushed and beaming. I'm thirsty and sweaty.
Sitting on the top, we look out on the snow-cloaked vista, unpacking our sandwiches and cold trail mix. The pines droop with yesterday's snow. Sam starts talking about water, about ice. "Staring into the ice all the way up," he says. "It was so intimate. Wasn't it?" I shrug like "yeah" and he goes typical Sam, saying how crazy it is, how we take it for granted that an entire river can freeze and thaw, liquid becoming solid, then changing back.
"We don't see it," he says. "The world's all around us. All this surging wonder and we don't see it. We just walk through it like ghosts."
He pauses, swallows a bite of sandwich. All around us the mountains towering, hunching like great still gods.
"Sometimes," Sam says. "I think it takes a sickness like this to really live."
I don't argue that. I just let the words hang, breathe, dangle. I let my brother feel what he needs to feel.
"Sorry," he says eventually. "I'm being morbid again."
In the distance there's a road cutting through the mountains, sun glinting off the hoods of SUVs. Sam points to a distant peak and we watch an eagle drift down, then rise again, riding a thermal. A wind passes through the mountains, shaking snow off the branches of the smaller trees.
Fishing through the trail mix for an M&M, I gesture around at the vista. "It is beautiful up here. Satisfied?"
"Yeah," he says, standing up. There's a strange glint in his face. "Absolutely."
Carefully, he brushes the snow from his legs. Then he smiles at me, the look in his eyes gone manic. He says, "I love you brother," and starts to run. Races full speed in his crampons, tearing for the edge, the hundred-metre drop.
I stand up and take a step but it's useless. He's already at the brink. Already leaping, spreading his arms like wings. Over the lip of the frozen river my brother hangs, for a moment, and falls.
A friend once told me that grief is like an iceberg: most people only see the tip of the pain while the bulk broods in the hidden depths. I'd like to go see one someday. They don't come up the bay, wouldn't make it past the peninsula, especially these days. There are more and more of them now that the glaciers are calving. Some are as big as Jamaica. Ice islands floating in the open sea. I would have liked to go see one with Sam, if he was still here. Maybe one day I'll go out to sea, and I'll think of him as I watch one bob and melt, float out to the great Pacific garbage patch.
"And then," Sam says to the people gathered in the living room. "I jumped. I flew."
It's February now, and Sam's confined to a bed in the kitchen. The palliative care nurse Cass' mother helped to arrange is more or less living with us. As he waves them, excited, his arms are strangely thin. Around his mouth he has the wrinkles of a forty-year-old smoker. So wrong beside his youthful eyes.
There's a room full of people—Mum, Cass, Jeremy, even Roger—gathered for my birthday. We're eating my favourite: grilled cheese with singles and peanut butter ice cream cake. Sam is being as charming as possible, telling the ice-climbing story like this great exploit. Like it's funny. Which, maybe it could be, in another place and time.
"And then he asks, 'You satisfied?'" Sam chuckles, takes the plate of cake Cass is handing him. "We're up there on the side of a mountain looking out over all the pines, the winding frozen river below."
He starts fumbling for the plate. He's clearly having trouble, getting frustrated with his fork. He's getting some weird looks. Everyone's waiting for him to tell the story or take a bite. He reaches his fork forward and misses, sighs, circles back.
When Sam jumped off the edge of the frozen cliff, I didn't realize he was still strapped in. Even still it was stupid. He broke two ribs crashing into ice and sprained his hip from the drop. When I walked to the edge and saw him dangling there. "I needed to do it," was all he'd said. "I needed to feel it. I needed to feel."
He knocks the cake onto the ground. Everyone is tense, trying not to grasp. No one says anything. Mum watches, stunned. She stands up but can't seem to move. "Um," she says.
Sam is glaring at her, then the window. His jaw is set, his face thin, frail, his arms shaking.
Cass stands up. "Okay," she says to the room. "It's probably time to go."
People stand up nervously, gather their things.
Sam grins morosely, perversely. "Happy birthday," he sings with an awful off-tune melody. "And many more."
When we were little, maybe eight and ten, Sam and I went swimming alone. There's this beach at the edge of Sych Harbour, if you follow Hill Street all the way up and back down again. It's a day's bike ride there and back. Mum was working the day shift and Sam had just started looking after me on his own and he took me there. We brought sandwiches and a thermos of red juice and biked all day but when we got to the beach we didn't stop. We biked past the hillocks and the tall grass to a place where a river led out to the sea. "You have to go hard and fast," he said. "Straight across. There's an undertow." I heard "under-toe," pictured a wire-haired gnarl of a toe that grew up from the floor of the river and tried to grab small children. We waded in and found it strangely cold in the full of summer. It wasn't wide but it flowed fast. "Come on," Sam said, and I waded in behind him. He leapt and started swimming and I watched the water twist him. Watched it turn his body and push him diagonal to the sea, the current taking my brother away. Stood there wanting to follow him but shocked still. The rush was taking him, torqueing him, though he was working hard, wailing his arms up and over, pushing and pushing with all his power until finally he reached the other side, crawled wheezing to shore. As soon as he had his breath he turned back to me. He'd gone far, far, down the river, halfway to the open mouth of the sea. But when he cupped his hands and called out, I could still hear him, barely. And I could hear the grin in his voice. "Come on," he shouted, shivering with cold and joy. "It's amazing! The river—it's alive!"
The thing about icebergs is that they melt, and there's something beautiful in that: ice leaking into water. Because when you zoom out, you see that ice was water all along. Water changes from solid to liquid, but that doesn't mean it's gone.
I didn't follow him that day. I waited and watched as he swam back across to safety, through the living river. I knew, then, that I would never be as alive as he was. I knew that life was both in time and beyond it. And I knew that my brother was a tossed stone rippling the river of me.
David Huebert's fiction debut, Peninsula Sinking, won a Dartmouth Book Award and was runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. In 2020, David published his second book of poetry, Humanimus. A new story collection, Chemical Valley, will appear in fall 2021. David teaches at The University of King's College in K'jipuktuk/Halifax, where he lives with his partner and their two children.
FICTION: CATHERINE BUSH
BLAZE ISLAND: AN EXCERPT
Miranda woke in darkness. She was riding a fierce wind. The changes were not going to stop. Someone was moving about below her, and the small sounds would have been reassuring, except that it was only a little after five a.m. Whoever was below had lit a fire. Heat ticked in the metal chimney on the far side of the room, the ticks speeding up. Miranda whispered to Ella, the dog, not to stir.
Through the half-open door of her father's bedroom, she took in the tussle of his empty bedclothes, reading glasses tossed atop his dresser. Always there had been secrets in this house, and she had surrendered to her father's desire for them, the things they'd kept hidden about their past, other things he'd attempted to hide from her and she'd allowed herself to ignore, but a new impatience surged as if she were struggling to climb over the fence that encircled her.
Downstairs, in his coveralls, eating a slice of toast at the counter, her father turned sharply at the sound of her footsteps. "Miranda, what are you doing up?"
"Couldn't sleep." She kept her voice as low as his. He'd made only the one mug, not a pot, and everything in his posture made her presence an intrusion. He wasn't welcoming her, she was merely slowing his escape.
"Why don't you go back to bed. There's no need for you to be up so early."
But she was wide awake. "Where are you off to?"
His face relaxed into a smile. "To see if by some miracle I can access the internet at the cabin."
"Can I come with you?"
It was an impulsive thought, and he said no before adding, "There's no need for that."
"Why not if I want to. Are you meeting someone?"
He shook his head. "Best to have one of us stay with our guest." Our guest, she thought, and then, more possessively, my guest. Something else gnawed: Would her father lie to her? Had he before, would he again? Did her own safety make the lies justifiable?
"Dad — the plane that landed at the airstrip the day before yesterday, who was on it and what are they doing here?"
Her father gulped down the dregs of his tea and set his mug in the sink.
"Miranda, I need you to sit tight for a bit. Can you do that for me?"
He was ruffling her hair, asking her to do something for him once again. She shook herself free, some essential part of her refusing to be deterred, a new resolve forming in her throat.
"Why won't you answer me? I'm supposed to do what you want but you're always hiding things from me — saying we should never leave then inviting people here and going off with them. What are you actually doing? Whatever you're up to, it isn't just weather monitoring, is it?"
"Miranda." He stepped into the middle of the room. "If I've kept secrets, it's only been for your own good. Things are in such a precarious state. I'm trying, from this out-of-the-way corner of the world, to do everything I can—"
"What if I don't want to be protected like that?"
He didn't have an answer, other than to show her that she'd jarred him. When he hugged her, the strength of his embrace stopped her mouth even as she struggled to say more. The next moment, with a rustle of jacket and shudder of boot, her father was gone.
Always when she'd allowed herself to think about the future it had been shaped by the contours of the past: how else did you envision what was to come other than by reconfiguring what you knew? There were days when, swayed by Caleb's suggestions, Miranda had imagined living with him on the far side of the cove even as another part of her retracted from the dream. She had assumed that somehow Caleb and Sylvia would be in her life forever. What she loved would always continue, how could it not? More often she'd seen herself living in the little white house in Green Cove with her father and Ella, taking care of her father, because he needed her to do this. She'd ruffle Ella's fur, meet her brown-eyed stare. There'd be more animals, because she wanted more, she would tend the land, build a bigger greenhouse, listen and note each time the wind shifted, there would be order and safety in such a life, in its deep choreographies and self-sufficiencies, in being responsive to sea and sky and the wild and ragged weather growing wilder all around them. There had been ruptures and alterations, but nothing had shaken her fundamental belief in the continuity of this life, given to her after the biggest rupture of all, the catastrophes that had sent the two of them fleeing to the island: everything here was proof that, despite grief, a new life could be made. Even the rupture of losing Caleb, painful as it was, had somehow been bearable. She'd gone on. They all had. Now, though, the world looked so different she wasn't sure she could step back into the body she'd inhabited only a day ago.
Catherine Bush is the author of five novels, including Blaze Island (2020), the Canada Reads long-listed Accusation (2013), the Trillium Award short-listed Claire's Head (2004), and The Rules of Engagement (2000), a New York Times Notable Book and a L.A. Times Best Book of the Year. She was recently a Fiction Meets Science Fellow at the HWK in Germany and has spoken internationally about addressing the climate crisis in fiction. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Guelph and Coordinator of the Guelph Creative Writing MFA, located in Toronto, Canada, and can be found online at www.catherinebush.com.
Blaze Island: a novel
By Catherine Bush
Goose Lane Editions, 2020
The time is now or an alternate near now, the world close to our own. A devastating Category Five hurricane sweeps up the eastern seaboard of North America. On tiny Blaze Island in the North Atlantic, Miranda Wells finds herself in an unrecognizable landscape. Just as the storm disrupts the present, it stirs up the past: Miranda's memories of growing up in an isolated, wind-swept cove and the events of long ago that her father, once a renowned climate scientist, will not allow her to speak of. In the storm's aftermath, things change so quickly and radically that she hardly knows what has happened. Blaze Island asks how far a parent will go to create a safe world for a child and how that child will imagine a future. A gripping story, the novel unfurls in the midst of constantly shifting elements: drifting icebergs, winds that grow ever wilder, and the unpredictability of human actions.

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If you don't get your mind right then how are you going to change your life.
Your limited negative beliefs are keeping you mentally stuck! I know that may seem extreme, but it's true. Think about it, when was the last time you took self inventory and paid attention to the reasons why you feel discontent and lack motivation.
And more importantly when was the last time you took action and changed the areas of your life where you feel dissatisfied?
It probably hasn't happen in a long time, if ever.
The negative thoughts that you have when no one else is around matters. The unkind words that you say to yourself that you would be embarrassed if others found out about matters.
Your fears, insecurities and self sabotaging behavior is affecting you in a negative way and causing you to exist in your life versus truly LIVING.
In order for you to see positive changes in your life you have to free your mind from your negative way of thinking.
Where did your negative beliefs come from and why did you adopt these beliefs as your truth?
The Free Your Mind E-course is a step by step process designed to teach you how to change the way you think so you can change your life. Why is this important? I'm glad you asked. Because, You become what you believe.
Being free to live the life you want on your own terms is possible for anyone but you first need to believe that it's possible for you.
If you could change on your own, you would have done so by now. Accept that you need help and guidance to position yourself for success and you're tired of feeling hopeless and frustrated with your life.
The Free Your Mind E-Course is a supported self-paced course where you'll learn the power of changing your way of thinking and the actionable steps you need to take to see positive changes in your life.
I was once where you are... A few years ago I was mentally stuck. I dreaded my job and I was unhappy with the direction my life was going in. Sure you could look at me from the outside and think I had it all together, family, "good" paying job, house, car, but instead I felt like I was dying inside. I wasn't genuinely happy with the direction my life was going in and due to circumstances that happened in my childhood, I felt like I wasn't good enough. I knew there was more to my life than being a wife, mother and an employee. It wasn't until I started looking within and I realized that my negative way of thinking was the reason I felt stuck in my life.
I knew that if I didn't take responsibility for my life then I would have no one to blame but myself. I made a decision that I wanted my life to be different and I started taking actionable steps every single day.
I freed my mind from my old way of thinking and adopted new principles to live by and I've been on fire ever since.
When does the Free Your Mind E-Course start and finish?
The course starts Monday, February 15, 2016. This is a supported self-paced course so don't feel pressured to do everything at once. However, be intentional about completing the lessons and applying what you learn. You'll get out of it, what you put in.
You'll have lifetime access. Plus whenever there are updates and/or upgrades to the course you'll have access at no additional cost to you.
Yes, I've included worksheets, notes, checklist, exercises to compliment each lesson.
I've created a private online community exclusively for anyone in the Free Your Mind E-Course to provide accountability, support and encouragement. Honestly, I feel like this will be one of the most valuable assets of the course because you'll be connected with other positive like-minded women who are on the same journey. Also, I will be very active in the group checking in to provide support and answer your questions.
This course is online that includes text, audio and worksheets.
This course will provide you with the information you need to shift your way of thinking. You're responsible for doing the work and applying what you learn. The people that are most successful are the ones that approach the course with an open mind and will put in the work.
If you have any other questions feel free to email me at siobhan@befreeproject.com.


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ForumFryzjerskie.pl Tablica ogłoszeń Szkolenia, pokazy, kursy i konkursy
But Mayfield threw another interception two plays
Informacje o terminach i wymaganiach jakie stawiane są uczestnikom - komentarze o imprezach które się odbyły.
Tematy zaczynamy od miejscowości.
Np.: Lublin - Fryzjerska Wiosna 26 luty 2008
Post autor: elaine95 » 12 cze 2019, 04:43
Armed with cap room and draft picks Tytus Howard Jersey Womens , Brian Gaine can do a lot this offseason."The Houston Texans' roster needs some new blood.From the running back room, to the offensive line, to the cornerbacks and overall depth chart, the Texans need to reload if they have any hope of repeating the success of the 2018 regular season and finally breaking through the glass ceiling to make an impact in the NFL Playoffs. Loaded with more than $65 million in salary cap space, Houston needs to re-sign a few key players, such as Jadeveon Clowney and Kareem Jackson, and then they need to go after some free agents. The Texans currently have the luxury of a first round pick and two second round picks.There are lots of young players available in the 2019 NFL Draft that could contribute to this team right away. It's not often that a team is loaded with cap space, draft picks, and a General Manager who knows how to draft in the manner Gaine did last season. Despite not having a selection in the first or second round in 2019 Seantrel Henderson Jersey , bringing in players like Justin Reid, Keke Coutee, and the tight end twins of Jordan Thomas and Jordan Akins was a job well done. Seeing what Gaine can do in 2019 is an armchair GM's dream if the Texans are your team. Yet it's rare to see a team hit home runs in both the draft and free agency. With that in mind, the question for today is where you think Houston will have the most success this off-season in roster refueling.The 2019 NFL Draft or free agency? CBS Sports has a few suggestions of players the Texans should be eye-balling right now in the draft:With a handful of key free agents Houston could target as well, the opportunity to greatly improve an already solid roster is coming. With players like Trent Brown, Ronald Darby, Daryl Williams, Ja'Wuan James, Bryce Callahan and Rodger Saffold potentially about to be looking for work Senio Kelemete Jersey , along with Houston's fairly sizable checkbook, Gaine could go on a spending spree to grab a few of the Top 25 Free Agents and several depth guys.In other words, the Texans have options. HOUSTON (AP) — After the Houston Texans extended their franchise record with a ninth straight win on Sunday, J.J. Watt was asked to reflect on how far the team has come in the past year."I was on the couch a year ago so this is a lot better," said Watt, who missed the last 11 games of Houston's 4-12 2017 season with a broken leg. "I was in a lot of pain. So it's good for us to be winning …this is what it's supposed to feel like. Honestly this is how you dream it up."Deshaun Watson threw a touchdown pass and the Texans intercepted rookie Baker Mayfield three times, returning one for a score, to get the 29-13 victory over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday that extended the streak.The Texans (9-3), who opened the season 0-3 Black Tytus Howard Jersey , haven't lost since Sept. 23 to take a commanding lead atop the AFC South. While they appreciate what they've done to turn things around, they're quick to note that they still have plenty of work left to do."It means a lot especially from where we came from 0-3 … but it's not the Super Bowl so we're still fighting," receiver DeAndre Hopkins said.Houston raced out to a 23-0 halftime lead and added two second-half field goals by Ka'imi Fairbairn to give him five on Sunday.Mayfield, the top overall pick in this year's draft, had his worst game of the season, throwing three interceptions for the first time since he was a freshman at Texas Tech in 2013. He entered the game having thrown nine touchdown passes with just one interception in the past three games as the Browns (4-7-1) won consecutive games for the first time since 2014.Mayfield lamented the mistakes he made in this one."(If) I would've taken care of the ball, this game would've been very close," he said.He finished with 397 yards passing and had a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter after throwing a career-best four in a win over the Bengals last week. Houston's fearsome pass rush, led by Watt and Jadeveon Clowney didn't sack Mayfield White Tytus Howard Jersey , but they hurried and harassed him for much of the day.His interceptions all came before halftime to help the Texans build the big early lead."He probably wasn't feeling too dangerous in the first half, but he was feeling a little more dangerous in the second half," Watt said.Houston was up 3-0 after an early field goal when Watson, who finished with 224 yards, connected with rookie Jordan Thomas on an 11-yard touchdown pass. Hopkins set up that score when he made a 24-yard reception after T.J. Carrie grabbed his dreadlocks in an attempt to slow him down two plays earlier.Zach Cunningham made it 17-0 when he grabbed his first career interception and ran 38 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter. Officials first ruled him down at the 1, but the play was reviewed and changed to a touchdown.Kareem Jackson was called for a 47-yard pass interference penalty on Cleveland's next drive to put the Browns at their 20. But Mayfield threw another interception two plays later and it was returned 18 yards by Johnathan Joseph.Houston added another field goal to make it 20-0 with about three minutes left in the second quarter.Mayfield's third interception came late in the second quarter when Andre Hal grabbed the ball in the end zone.Lamar Miller had 103 yards rushing for his second straight 100-yard game and fourth of the season and Hopkins had seven receptions for 91 yards.Cleveland continued to struggle in late-season games, and the Browns fell to 9-39 in December and January games since 2008.Nick Chubb got the Browns on the board in the third quarter when his 2-yard TD run cut the lead to 23-7 with about 9½ minutes left. Rashard Higgins had a 17-yard touchdown reception in the fourth quarter, but the 2-point conversion failed to leave the Browns down 29-13.Houston added another field goal after that before a mistake-filled possession by the Browns. First Mayfield threw what looked to be a 76-yard touchdown pass to rookie Antonio Callaway, but it was brought back because of a holding penalty by left tackle Greg Robinson.Two plays later Youth Tytus Howard Jersey , Mayfield connected with Callaway again and he gained 71 yards before rookie Justin Reid chased him down from behind and knocked the ball out of his hands just before he would have scored. It bounced into the end zone where it was recovered by the Texans."It was just trying to make something happen," Reid said. "I didn't want him to score so just make a play on the ball and see if it would come out. Good thing for us it did."INJURIESCleveland cornerback Denzel Ward left in the first half with a concussion. … Browns defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi injured his biceps in the second quarter and didn't return. … Joseph didn't return after injuring his neck in the second quarter. … LB Brennan Scarlett injured his leg and didn't return. … Houston offensive tackle Kendall Lamm left in the second half with a concussion.REMEMBERING PRESIDENT BUSHThe Texans observed a moment of silence before the game for former President George H.W. Bush, who died on Friday night in Houston at 94. Bush was a frequent visitor to Houston's games and had participated in the coin toss at several contests. During the moment of silence pictures of Bush at various games were shown on the video screens flanked by huge 41's made out of a collage of pictures as a further tribute to the nation's 41st president.UP NEXTBrowns: Host the Panthers next Sunday.Texans: Host the Colts next Sunday.
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To preserve the art and tradition of sewing and embroidery in the south, local entrepreneurs have initiated several projects, including Gibeon Folk Art.
Stopovers en route to the main tourist attractions in the south provide an opportunity to meet the interesting people of the south.
Ten kilometres from Berseba is Bruckaros Campsite in beautiful mountain surroundings. With minimum facilities, and no running water, the attraction here is the scenic landscape.


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Family of neglected child found, refuses to co-operate with social workers
Western Cape / 7 January 2020, 1:00pm / Monique Duval
Lucinda Evans appealed to find parents online.
Cape Town - The family of an abandoned toddler who was left on the streets of Seawinds has been found, but have refused to co-operate with social workers.
This is according to the Department of Social Development who revealed that the child had been neglected before.
The case of the little girl, who is believed to be just two years old, sparked an outcry on the Cape Flats after Lucinda Evans, the founder of Philisa Abafazi Bethu, took to social media to appeal for the family to come forward.
At the time, she told the Daily Voice that on 15 December, she was contacted by a woman who found the child wandering on her own in Spoonbill Crescent.
Evans collected the child, who was dressed in shorts and a vest, and tried to find the family.
She later posted a picture of the child's foot on Facebook and expressed her shock that nobody had come forward to claim the child.
After her pleas fell on deaf ears, the girl was handed over to social workers.
Joshua Chigome, spokesperson for social development minister, Sharna Fernandez, confirms that they have been able to find the child's family, but in a shocking twist, says their records show social workers dealt with the family previously, before the toddler went missing in December.
He says in September last year, social workers were in contact with an grandmother of the child as she had been neglected.
"On 13 September 2019, contact was made with the maternal step-grandmother, who confirmed that the child is residing with her," explains Chigome.
"The child had been neglected, but not abandoned.
"It is unclear what happened with the child from the time the step-grandmother was contacted to December where she was found abandoned.
"It is also unclear who was caring for her at the time she was found as the family refuses to co-operate."
Chigome says that after the child was found in December, social workers managed to locate the family and obtain a temporary file with a birth certificate.
"We are currently experiencing challenges around co-operation of the family members to verify information obtained," he says.
"The minister has prioritised this case and the matter is still under investigation. The child is at a place of safety and will remain there until the finalisation of the matter."
Chigome said that during the investigation, they can't indicate if criminal charges would be opened against the toddler's family.
Daily Voice


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Bold Predictions for Edtech in 2021
By Carl Hooker published 6 January 21
Carl Hooker looks into his crystal ball and offers his annual predictions for edtech in the year ahead
(Image credit: Carl Hooker)
Every year, I try to prognosticate some crazy ideas in the hopes they catch on in both education and society. I know some people like to make resolutions, but I'm more about prediction and reflection with the turning of the calendar toward a new year.
I've written this blog post for the past eight years and some of my better predictions in the past have included:
A non-Apple Tablet will rule them all (2013)
Pearson will lose its testing contract in Texas (2015)
A dual-language school with coding as the other language will be invented (2017)
A Boba Fett movie will be announced (2018) - technically, a series but ….
The 2020 election will be heavily influenced by TikTok (2020)
However, I also bombed with these:
The self-driving school bus will be a thing (2016)
A human battery-level app will be invented (2015)
A school goes 1-to-1 exercise bikes (2020)
Obviously, I missed a big one last year not predicting a global pandemic would shut down everything and most schools would muddle through the school year in some form of hybrid or remote learning. This year, however, I'm going to use some of the lessons learned from the pandemic to drive some of my predictions--as well as throw in a couple of fun ones just for good measure.
Presenting my 9th annual "Bold Predictions," for 2021:
The mega face-to-face conference dies...and is reborn as hybrid
Conferences around the country were shaken to their core due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some conferences adjusted quickly, pivoting to an online platform. Others, such as ISTE, postponed the event in the hopes that things would get better. And some just cancelled all together.
In speaking with conference organizers for this 2021 year, many are struggling to figure out what direction to go. The all-important vendor dollars that drive these events have severely fallen off with the lack of face-to-face opportunities. Some smaller events (such as Confluence in Texas) tried the hybrid approach (a mix of in-person and remote) at their conference and were able to pull it off in a safe and productive fashion.
My prediction is that there will have to be some robust online (synchronous and asynchronous) options available for conference attendees going forward. While I miss the collegiality and networking of in-person events, having these online components and getting creative with sponsor presence (such as trivia nights!) could make the edtech conference even better in the future.
Esports becomes a national varsity sport
This movement has been gaining traction but many state agencies that certify high school sports have neglected to recognize the sporting aspect of esports. With more than 200 colleges offering more than $15 million in esports scholarships, high schools around the country will have to start stepping up to the plate sooner rather than later.
While there are some equity concerns with esports in terms of who can afford the equipment, there are also equity opportunities that can rise out of having a sport that isn't based on gender or physical skill.
Every high school will offer high-quality online options from now on
This one isn't that bold, which is why I threw in "high-quality" there. With the sudden shift to remote learning, most schools and teachers struggled to provide high-quality instruction. However, there were some teachers and students who thrived in the online environment.
When things go "back to normal," why not keep some course offerings online? Schools can network with other schools in their state to provide options that they might not normally offer. I know this has been tried in the past and there are funding hurdles (such as who gets the money for the student attending online), but if this pandemic has shown us anything, it's that we need to break from the brick-and-mortar building and the thought that learning only happens between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Bad weather days become obsolete
Again, maybe not so bold, but piggybacking off the thoughts from above, if a school knows it is in for some bad weather, the staff should be able to send devices home the day before and easily pivot to an online curriculum. Many schools have been "piloting" this eLearning Day concept for years, but after almost every school was forced to go remote in 2020, it's something everyone should consider permanently.
Again, some hurdles here would be antiquated "seat time" laws when it comes to state funding, adequate devices and bandwidth (which is still a major issue), and preparing the curriculum and being able to pivot quickly as a teacher. If ever there was a time for this to happen, now would be it.
Classroom air quality becomes a priority
I used to teach in an old portable building that I was pretty sure leaked asbestos and mold into my lungs every day. Schools cut corners all the time because of funding, but one that we really need to reconsider after this pandemic is the effect of air quality on absenteeism and learning. This University of Wisconsin white paper sheds light on those effects and the benefits of using a system that is not just an air filtration system, such as many schools have, but something that hospitals use to kill surface germs.
Having a silent, non-chemical, non-filter system such as a C.A.S.P.R. in every classroom would go a long way to slowing absences due to the cold and flu as well as helping those students with asthma and breathing issues. Between this and the end of bad weather days, kids would no longer have excuses for missing school--which I'm sure they would hate.
The Roaring 20's will be a thing
This is less about school and more about society, but in studying the aftereffects of both WWI and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919, people were eager to get out and party. Thus, the "Roaring 20's" were born.
While I have no quantitative data around this, I would say that qualitatively, 90% of people are eager to get out and do something (travel, go to a bar or restaurant, etc) sooner rather than later. With vaccines starting to roll out and herd immunity on the horizon, the back half of 2021 and into 2022 will witness The Roaring 20's 2.0. I'm sure the hotel, airline, and cruise industries are hoping for this too, so better buy those tickets to Vegas now before the price doubles!
Schools will adopt a "racial justice" curriculum
Last year, prior to the pandemic and the black lives matter movements, Adam Phyall and I delivered a presentation called "It's Not All Black Or White." We didn't know it at the time, but the conversation we started during our session would reveal one MAJOR issue many public educational institutions have: Our history and the way we teach it, is flawed.
When the events following the killing of George Floyd captured our nation, it brought to light several issues we currently have in our own historical textbooks. While our country has a checkered past, my prediction is that schools will look to offer a more diversified view of history as well as curriculum that helps students and teachers have those hard conversations around race and privilege. These are hard conversations but they need to happen if we are truly going to move forward as a society.
The hot ones episode of the UnDisrupted Podcast goes viral
Speaking of Adam and myself, we recently tried to kick off the new year of the UnDisrupted Podcast with an episode titled "What's HOT in Ed Tech" -- an homage to the Hot Ones Challenge made famous by the guys at FirstWeFeast.
During the episode, Adam and I came up with our own predictions of trends in edtech, but along the way, made sure to eat progressively hotter chicken wings. By the end of the episode, we were both in tears and Adam began spewing classic one-liners such as, "I can't feel my teeth!" and "My hair is tingling." This episode is a classic example of leaders taking risks, only to crash and burn, but we hope you enjoy our buffoonery. Who knows, maybe it'll go viral!
90% of face-to-face meetings will be eliminated in education
Pre-pandemic I would say that a Zoom meeting only accounted for about 10% of all meetings (at least in education). Other global industries have long-since adopted the virtual meeting, but education, ever-grounded in traditionalism, has continued to opt for face-to-face connections. From cabinet meetings to board meetings to parent-teacher conferences, we force dozens of people into a room and force them to pay attention to one person talking.
While we all yearn for socialization and networking (see The Roaring 20's above), we also learned that maybe spending half of our time in face-to-face meetings isn't entirely efficient. While I know this prediction will be hard to measure, and there will still be times at which people will have to meet in person, I'm hoping that the "meeting that could have been an email" will actually be an email in the future.
There will be a Star Wars spinoff about a school on Tatooine
As has become tradition in my Bold Predictions articles, I usually include at least one Star Wars-themed prediction, so this year will not be any different.
Last month, Disney announced the 10 shows and movies they will spin-off from the Star Wars brand. Much of this came as a direct result of the tremendously popular Mandalorian series. Not lost on me, was the classroom scene in that show where students (still sitting in rows) listened to their C3PO-like teacher try to teach students in a traditional fashion. I found it ironic how similar the classroom looked to those here on Earth and hope that in the future, Disney will develop a spinoff show just about what teaching is like on a planet such as Tatooine. If I was really bold, I would say it's based on Hoth, but then every day would be snow day and that wouldn't be any fun.
I finally write and publish my children's book
Another running tradition has been this one which I've listed the last five years. It's bound to happen at some point, right? Last year, I even upped the ante with three different book ideas planned, but those fell to the wayside as the pandemic forced everyone to pivot. I was able to use that time to pivot as well and decided to create an online course (The Remote Learning Coach) rather than a book.
My hope for 2021 is that not only do I get this children's book out, but that I continue to enjoy the new pace of life that has occurred as a direct result of being forced into my house with my family these past nine months.
And to that end, I also hope that all of you have learned something about yourself during this pandemic. We've all struggled with different aspects of this past year. Quarantines, lockdowns, changing from remote to hybrid, cancelled travel plans, and much more have affected all of us personally and professionally. My goal with the predictions above is that we can reflect, change, and grow from those lessons learned to make education and society better for everyone in the future.
Stay safe, stay sane, and happy 2021!
Carl Hooker has been a part of a strong educational shift with technology integration since becoming an educator. As Director of Innovation & Digital Learning at Eanes ISD, he has helped spearhead the LEAP program, which put one-to-one iPads in the hands of all K-12 students in his 8,000-student district. He is also the founder of "iPadpalooza"- a three-day "learning festival" held in Austin annually. He's also the author of the six-book series titled Mobile Learning Mindset, a guide for teachers, administrators, parents and others to support and embrace mobile learning in our schools. Read more at Hooked on Innovation.
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Whether you're new to blogging or have years of experience under your belt, you want to make sure you start the New Year prepared and ready to make money. To get you started on the right foot, here is my list of 7 Things Every Blogger Should Do In January to prepare for the New Year.
I work on a lot of sponsored campaigns and many of them require me to use specific links for tracking purposes. When my exclusivity is up with the brand (usually 6 months), I like to go back through all my old post and swap out campaign links for affiliate links. This allows me to make money on posts that are already bringing in traffic and ranking on Google.
My go-to for affiliate links is Skimlinks. They have a large selection of brands, they accept almost everyone, and I love that I don't have to log into several different websites to grab links. They even have a plugin that lets me know if I'm on a website that offers affiliate commissions and what the commission rate is.
I'm all for working smarter not harder so, while I am registered with a few different networks, they are not where I put the most of my efforts. PR agencies handle more than one client and if you can show them that you consistently deliver quality work, turn things in on time and you're good about staying in touch (without being annoying), they will more than likely continue the relationship and will have no problem considering you for other brands they represent.
I've owned several businesses and am no stranger to filing taxes as self-employed but there is something about filing taxes as a blogger that makes my skin crawl. Last year I waited until the last minute and before I knew it I had over 40, (yes FORTY) 1099's staring me in the face. Trust me when I say you don't want this level of stress on top of trying to work. Start getting your taxes in order long before April. Have a system for keeping track of 1099's when they come in, be prepared to follow up on missing 1099's and start gathering your receipts. Trust me, you will thank me later.
Planning early allows you to start coming up with ideas for those random holidays (we all know celebrating National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day is a must lol)! Get those posts written now so you have a steady stream of content so that when things do pick up you won't be stressed. Another perk, since you already have content in the hopper you can take a few mini vacations throughout the year without worry about also trying to juggle work. Try to schedule your blog posts to go our 3-4 weeks before the holiday and social media post 72 hours prior to the holiday.


The all-new MacBook Pro pushes the limits of notebook performance. It has a Retina display with millions of displayable colors, the latest quad-core Intel® Core™ i7 processor, next-generation NVIDIA graphics and is incredibly thin and light.
(Also known as the CPU). The part of the computer that interprets and executes instructions. Think of it as the brain of the computer.
How fast a computer processor carries out instructions. In general, faster is better, but processor speeds across brands may not be equivalent (i.e., a 3.0GHz AMD processor may not be the same speed as a 3.0GHz Intel processor).
The type of battery used to power the phone, usually NiCd (nickel-cadmium), NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) or LiIon (lithium-ion).
Technology used to display text and images on the screen. Computer monitors are available in 2 types: CRT (traditional tube displays) and LCD (flat-panel liquid crystal displays). Notebook computers, PDAs, mobile DVD players and other devices use LCD screens.
Size of the screen, in inches, measured diagonally from corner to corner.
A small segment of memory that stores frequently used information for fast access by the processor, improving response time.
The memory a computer uses to run its operating system, applications and active data files. Greater amounts of RAM improve speed and enable more applications to run at once.
Hard drives are classified based on the interface they use to connect to a computer. Common interfaces for internal hard drives include EIDE, PATA (also known as, ATA and IDE), SATA and SCSI. Common interfaces for external hard drives include USB 2.0, FireWire and eSATA.
Capacity for storing programs, photos, video, music and other electronic information. Hard drive capacities range from a few gigabytes to several hundred.
The master software that controls hardware functions and provides a platform on top of which any software applications will run. Commonly used systems include Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X for computers and Palm OS and Microsoft Windows Mobile for PDAs.
MODEL Apple® - MacBook Pro® with Retina Display - 15.4"