Ceramics

I’m a substitute teacher (and student and wannabe writer). About a year ago, I subbed for Mr P, the ceramics teacher at a school in my district. I had lots and lots of spare time on my hands, so during one period, I made a little statuette. It was of a generic ancient Egyptian woman, standing about eight or nine inches tall. I made it from clay and I tried to mimic the look of ancient Egyptian statues. Not sure how well I succeeded, but you can judge for yourself.

The statue: Left Side, Right Side, Front, and Closeup.

I left the statue as wet clay on the top of the odds-and-ends box (that’s what I made it from) so that Mr P could reuse the clay in his class.

Today, I subbed for Mr P again, and the very first thing after “Hi” that he said to me when I walked in his door was, “Oh, you’ve subbed for me before! You made that little statue… I still have it, if you want it.” And he gave it to me. He’d fired it and everything, and he remembered that I made it, even though he hadn’t seen me in a year!

I feel special.

My Sister In Kenya

My older sister, Rebecca, recently went to Nairobi, Kenya for the World Social Forum; she was funded by her university department as part of a research group. They paid for the ticket, room, and board while she was there. She decided, along with the other graduate students going, that since tickets to Africa, not to mention time off work and school, are hard to come by, they would go early and have a bit of a safari trip as well. So they arranged it; cheap safari, since they only had to pay for hotels for the extra week and the transportation and suchlike. These are the marvelous pictures (plus some of the stories) that came back from that part of the trip.

First of all, the pictures with my sister in them:
The Group.
This is part of the university group in Nairobi. My sister is the blonde one in the approximate center. The older gentleman beside her is Dr. Chase-Dunn, her advising professor. The little one in the very bright green shoes is a boy who tagged along. He used to be barefoot, but my sister bought him the shoes—he picked them himself.

The Hospital.
Actually my sister isn’t in this picture, but since we’re on the subject of Nairobi; this is a hospital signboard in the city. The circumcision listed as a service offered refers to female genital mutilation.

The Escort.
My sister is the blond one. The gentleman beside her is the escort mentioned in the sign; yes, he really did have to carry that gun the whole time.

The Camel Ride.
The very tall camel which my sister rode She got up there and then got scared. The gentlemen with her are from the Samburu area, and the one in the red lied about his fraterity to the chairperson of Umoja. More on Umoja in a few posts.

The Monkey.
My sister posing with a very cute monkey that is quite at ease with people. Note the sign above her head; it says “Please do not feed Monkeys.” She ignored this very good advice, and fed it part of a Power Bar. As a result, it wouldn’t leave her alone, and it got into her hotel room. It searched around until it found another Power Bar, which it stole. She saw it outside eating it and decided to get revenge on it.

The Sad Monkey.
She placed a bunch of bananas inside the window, and teased the poor creature.

Next, the scenery pictures:
The sun, shining through the Kenyan jungle.

A beautiful sunset.

A second beautiful sunset.

And finally, the animal pictures:
The Trashers.
These charming fellows were photographed outside her cabin on the safari. She came out of the cabin eating a Power Bar (this was before the monkey in the above photos) and got ambushed by one that leapt upon her and fastened itself to her leg. She got scared it would bite her and threw a piece of the Power Bar away from her to get it to leave. It did, but a number of its buddies gathered around, and chased her into a friend’s cabin. The later she went back to her cabin to find it totally trashed. She had closed the door but not locked it, and the monkeys had broken in. They did not find her Power Bars but did find all her papers, clothes, makeup, and sundry items. They bit her toothpaste tube open, and left some lovely gifts in the sink and on the bed to show their appreciation of it.

Demon Crocodiles.
The Demon Crocodiles of Kenya. These fellows had their picture taken at night, hence the flash glow and the demonification. My sister was behind a low wall, which was built around the entire safari hotel with the idea of keeping these guys out.

A Black Mamba.

Cheetahs.

Fighting Rhinos.
A very nice picture of fighting rhinos. They watched them for about fifteen minutes. The one with the broken horn seemed to be winning, or at least pushing the other one around more. It was not fast clashing together, but more of a sort of game of chicken.

A Dikdik.
A weeny little antelope.

An Elephant.

A Baby Elephant.
This little guy was with his mother. The safari group thought he was darn cute.

Charging Baby Elephant.
Until he charged the safari van. That was when they moved on from elephant-watching.

A Giraffe.

Zebras.
The one lying down is not ill, just lazy. While my sister was watching it, it raised the upper hind leg, as if doing a leg lift, and let out a giant fart. That was when they moved on from zebra-watching.

Lions.

A Leopard.
This one followed the safari van for a bit before giving up on the idea of free food.

Hippos.
She got about twenty feet from them, because the boat driver didn’t know they were there until then.

And that’s all, folks, until next time.