chapter 36: back on the pommel horse

so it's been a while. between seeing long lost friends, getting back to work, re-acclimatizing to life in canada and partying in pemberton, i haven't been thinking about the blog. but now it's time to get back on it.

work is crazy in the lead up to the beijing olympics. we're understaffed, and golobal national has asked me to pick up the slack by training to do practically everything on the show, from broadcast producing, research, story producing and web editing. oh yeah, and writing. by next week, i'll probably even be up on the desk! it's going to be a hellish next month or two, but at least i'll be making good cash.

speaking of the olympics, exactly what everyone knew would happen...has happened. china has completely ignored its bid promise to respect freedom of speech. it blocked journalists' access to websites critical of the regime, such as amnesty international and falun gong. it has arrested dissenters, destroyed people's homes with no compensation to make room for facilities, and cracked down hard on free speech.

as far as i'm concerned, the olympics, as a movement, is over. it's now just a big corporate gangbang. there are efforts afoot to backroom the whole deal to protect what's left of the olympic reputation as a uniting human force. and unfortunately, it's being spearheaded by canada's ioc member, dick pound. the torch relay is close to being eliminated because, counter to uniting people in the olympic spirit, the international portion united people in protest against tyranny, and we can't have the ever-so-shining olympic reputation tarnished, can we?

Pound said:

"The international leg of the Beijing Olympic torch relay was close to a disaster that was beyond the control of the IOC and the organising committee. My commission, which examined the issue, felt that there should not be an international relay, and my understanding is that the coordination commission was of the same view. The risks were obvious and should have been assessed more closely. The result was that there was a crisis.
"My view is that there should be an analysis of how this happened and a resolution to do away with the international portion of the torch relay ... the high risk and low reward of the international leg is now obvious."

the only thing that's obvious to me is that pound is not representing canada's values...he's representing the jackbooting thugs at the ioc who support the jackbooting thugs of beijing.

beijing has tried to change the focus, saying this will be the best olympics ever. but from where i sit, the only thing that can obscure this disgusting olympic farce is the even more disgusting blanket of pollution that 'doesn't' sit over the olympic city.

chapter 35: french head(ache)

i hate toulouse.

i was only supposed to be there for one night. i'd planned to stop and see my friend natalie, who i hadn't seen since we met in oz seven years ago. i traveled the five hours by train on tuesday, reluctantly leaving behind the golden beaches of san sebastian, and a whole lot of t's, k's and x's which prevail in the language of spanish basque country.

the plan was to spend the evening waterskiing at a local lake with nat and her boyfriend mike, then knock back a few pints. but the evening was apparently born under a bad sign. almost from the time we got in mike's van, ambulances seemed to be stalking us, suddenly materializing from alleys, side streets, overpasses and underpasses. we were perplexed. later, it would make perfect sense.

i had a date with un medicin francais.

it started innocently enough. after waterskiing, i cracked the top of my head getting into mike's van. but i was fine. for a while.

abut twenty minutes later, i started to feel like i'd just gotten off the gravitron, the most vomitous ride at playland. as we exited the van to head for the pub, it came on strong, and suddenly i couldn't stand. another 15 minutes later, dizzy, headachy, glassy-eyed with one pupil disconcertingly larger than the other, i was in the belly of the beast itself, being tended to by french firemen, who apparently act as paramedics too. the ambulance prophesy had come true.

after that, there really isn't much more to tell. i was kept overnight and tended to by excellent medical personnel, then let go in the morning. in all, i ended up blowing an extra 120 euros on an extra night's hotel stay and a replacment plane ticket to paris, and i lost a day there while i recuperated. so i don't have a lot of positives to take home from toulouse.

but if there's one silver lining, i learned michael moore was right on the mark about french healthcare in "sicko". when i inquired about the bill, the gracious, smiling french nurse replied "monsieur, c'est gratuit."

so suck on that dubya...are you listening barack?

chapter 34: far from the equator daze

i'm a night person. always have been. or so i thought. lately i've been thinking that in some ways, we're really not in control of our bodies at all. it seems like the rhythms of our bodies are funkadelically linked to the beat of this great big rotating dance club called planet earth.

for example: in ghana, the sun set between 6pm and 6:45 the entire time i was there. when it gets dark, it gets dark. and í'm not speaking metaphorically here. the lack of street lights and frequent blackouts meant after sunset, i often couldn't see things that were two feet in front of my face.

on cue, i'd be tired. sure, i worked long, mentally and physically exhausting days, scurrying around in the hot sun, often while trying to wring coherent answers out of self-important big men.

but still, this is brennan we're talking about!

the life of the party, the one who never fell asleep during movies, the "let's shoot some tequila!" at 2am guy. suddenly, i was losing the war between my mind, which wanted to rock and roll all night and party ev'ry day, and my body, which thought i should be sleeping like a log...at 7:30. i even slept through what was supposed to be my birthday at the club, much to the disappointment of my ghanaian friends.

i felt old.

but then, a mysterious thing happened. when i came back to 'the world', my stay-up-and-go...came back. yes friends, the brennan you know and love is back. long live the party. and long live the san sebastian sunsets...at 10:30pm!

ps - body, this is mind. let's never fight again.

chapter 33: "they're all hoodlums..."

"they're all hoodlums. one side is green hoodlums and the other side is orange hoodlums."

-john hawthorne, belfast

northern ireland is an interesting place. a tiny place, with a huge reputation. the country claims as its own noted authors such as james joyce, oscar wilde, and cs lewis to name only a few. there's breathtaking architecture and stunning natural beauty.

but it's perhaps best known for the infamous "troubles", between unionists loyal to the british crown, and irish nationalists. it's a long running bloodbath that claimed many innocent lives, pitted neighbours against neighbours and was immortalized by u2 in their song "sunday bloody sunday" about the 1972 killing of 14 people by british troops.

these days, a fragile peace prevails. the people are trying to forget and start over. greg and i got a chance to see it all, and even today, the scars are visible. we stayed with his relatives john and brenda hawthorne in belfast for a few days this month. they've seen it all. and even though the troubles are officially over the peace, in brenda's words, is only "a thin veneer."

walking around the unionist/protestant shankill road and the nationalist/catholic falls road, you can sense the tension. all over the city you see murals.

how could people forget when the reminders of all that tragedy are staring at them in vivid, living colour day after day?

you get the feeling one incident is all it would take for erstwhile butchers, barmen and short order cooks to put down the cleaver, the pint glass and the skillet, and pick up the guns and petrol bombs. the protective wall that divides the two sides is, even now, being built higher and higher.

to put it simply, the wounds are still open, and the emotional scars are generations away from healing. walking through the area, blighted by violence and economic depression, it dawned on me that gawking and taking pictures of memorials to dead teenagers and twentysomethings would be just a wee bit tacky. the words are heartfelt, the plaques shined to a high gloss. phrases like "IRA terrorists" and "evil genocide" make my spine tingle.

maybe one day the scars will heal, and the memorials will be allowed to dull and fade into memory.

but not yet.

chapter 32: t.i.a vs t.i.e

day one in london. it's weird. clean streets. clean buildings. quiet, orderly traffic. brisk walking. quiet people who keep to themselves.

here's a funny short story.

all through my stay in africa, annoyances, inconveniences and uncomfortable material circumstances were the norm. and whenever i'd come across them, someone (often me) would mutter "this is africa." (or in the french parts, "c'est l'afrique".)

no running water? take a bucket bath. t.i.a.

someone's three hours late? t.i.a.

bad customer service? t.i.a.

constant sweating? t.i.a.

but what about t.i.e.?

i decided to spoil myself my first day in london. four star hotel. towels, soap included. no ants, cockroaches, mosquitoes. nice, hot shower. comfortable bed.

so what happens? the air conditioner conks out. the room is stifling. i'm sweating. on a typically cool, overcast london day.

i phone the front desk. no answer.

i decide to take a shower. no soap.

finally, i get the front desk. the concierge fiddles with the air conditioner and gets it working. but i'm still really hot. he brings soap. i take a cold shower.

i step out, and the room is glacial. now i'm freezing.

t.i.i.

this is irony.

chapter 31: 'ghana' daddy gone (the epilogue)

for the last month, i've been looking forward to seeing family and friends on my post ghana travels in europe, and then at home in canada.

i'd had enough of ghana. it was time to go home. but then, a funny thing happened. i spent my last day in ghana wishing for one more day, a week, a month, to see friends i'll dearly miss and places that were on the to do list, but never crossed off.

i'm excited for the next chapter, but i'm also kind of dreading it. will europe and canada seem cold and boring by comparison?

obviously, ghana has a galaxy of problems, most related to poverty. but on leaving, i prefer to remember the good things.

i'll miss feeling special wherever i go, and hearing "you are welcome", "you are invited", and people caring, really caring, if i'm enjoying their country.


i'll miss watching young men in filthy clothes joke and laugh while hauling balky old wooden hand carts through streets clogged with traffic.

i'll miss goats. stupid, endearingly dopey goats, wandering everywhere.

i'll miss the cheerful honking of fan ice vendors and the industrious way street hawkers seemingly take over every corner of the country. as i was coming into accra on my way to the airport yesterday, one of them had his wares hanging on the razor wire separating the six lanes of traffic entering the city. making the best of things. that''s ghana.

i'll miss the dancing. not mine, theirs.

i'll miss the way nobody, from the youngest kids to grown men, has a problem putting their arm around a friend for all to see. not a trace of self-consciousness.

i'll miss watching strangers run unbidden to help push a broken down old trotro through traffic in the blazing, stifling heat.

i'll miss how ghanaians call eachother brother or sister, regardless of which of the country's 100 or so ethnicities they belong to.

sunrise, sunset.

finally on my way out, on the plane at 30,000 feet, i'm glad, sad, and a little guilty. i've taken a lot more than i've given. i've seen things most people will never have a chance to see, both good and bad.

ghana has become precious to me, no longer simply an unknown part of an unknown continent, the hoary, cliched, "dark continent". i wonder if i'll ever see it again.

below, the land is shrouded in the blackest night. but i'm quickly leaving it behind, that much is sure. the land is receding outside my window, and in my mind. it already seems like i've just woken up from an incredibly vivd, ludicrous dream.

and like all dreams, the events of the past 8 months already seem unreal.

chapter 30: open letter to god

dear god/allah,

i consider myself a pretty good guy. i generally adhere to the golden rule, which is the only one all religions seem to have in common. but i'm not a super religious guy. i don't go to church, never pray, and engage in a laundry list of behavious that are clearly sinful. that's kind of what this letter is all about.

anyway, i'm writing to tell you, the world you (supposedly?) created is out of whack. as i leave ghana, i'm reflecting on the last 8 months spent living with some of the world's unfortunates. they have a brutal natural environment to deal with, terrible health conditions, grinding poverty and pretty bleak expectations that the whole mess will ever improve.

but they believe in you.

they smile, help eachother, give of what little they have to visitors. and they thank you every day. i'm still trying to figure out what they're thanking you for. lack of running water? the insistent, sizzling heat? malaria mosquitoes? i'm not sure.

but here's the thing: they're a lot more thankful to you for their scant comforts than the western world is for its lavish lifestyle.

and as i head back into that world, i'm thinking on the contradictions. i'm looking forward to having religion in its proper perspective, as the people of ghana go a little nuts with it at times. i'm sure even you would prefer to leave zealotry out of the plan. but i'm not looking forward to hearing "god bless america/canada/god save the queen". why is it that poor people are thanking you for their paltry lot in life, while rich people keep asking you to bless them even more?

i'm still not sure about you, god. the world seems to spin faster and faster out of control, like a twisted merry go 'round, operated by a demented psycho. there seems to be a certain randomness to it, like nobody's actually in control at all. so here's the deal: change the balance. give the poor a break. send them rain, responsible leaders, brilliant doctors and scientists. send the west a little fear, drought, pestilence and fire.

have you seen how the west is living right now? we dropped out of your program a long time ago. the vast majority of africans are with you. it's about time you showed the world who's in control, cause lately, it seems like you're on a really long break.

give em a goddamned break, willya?