Hag Coffee

 This...somehow doesn't inspire me to buy this coffee. You?

Cool Bleiben

In a German election campaign that has been relentlessly dull and unfailingly insipid; in which the biggest news story – seriously – was Social Democratic candidate Peer Steinbrück being photographed raising his middle finger in "Sagen Sie jetzt nichts" ("Don't Say Anything," a photojournalistic series in which public figures are asked to respond to questions using only expressions and gestures, no words); in an election season where everyone I've talked to, regardless of political affiliation, believes the challenger is a terrible candidate and the incumbent is guaranteed to win; in which the entire city is drenched in posters and billboards bearing candidates' faces, but no one seems to be talking about any actual issues, here's one of the very few things that at least struck me as clever:

 It says, basically, "Keep calm and elect the chancellor" (but with the feminine form of "chancellor," so it's clear it means Merkel) and plays on both the ubiquitous "Keep Calm and Carry On" cultural meme and Merkel's iconic, omnipresent hand gesture. (The latter has provided endless fuel for fun, for example here.)

I just assumed the "Cool bleiben" poster was a spoof by someone else, that no one within Merkel's Christian Democratic Union would be creative or culturally savvy enough to have come up it, but it turns out it was actually created by the Junge Union, the CDU's youth organization. Well done, Junge Union.


Incidentally, I think this is my new favorite parody version of "Keep Calm and Carry On."


Incidentally incidentally, Steinbrück's middle finger has also led to endless photo-manipulation fun.


Incidentally incidentally incidentally (tying all these threads together), I also saw a pretty great image that juxtaposed the various "Sagen Sie jetzt nichts" pictures of Steinbrück, gesticulating wildly in response to the various questions the journalist asked him, with the same number of pictures of Merkel, captioned with the same questions but with every one of the pictures being an identical shot of Merkel with her implacable expression and characteristically interlaced hands. Can't seem to track that image down again, though...

The Merkel App

 Billboard campaign ad for Angela Merkel on the main street near my apartment...

...with little note in the upper right that says, "This poster talks. Download the Merkel app now."

Download the Merkel app? Really? Maybe it's no surprise no one's taking the current election campaign very seriously...

Senegal in Pictures: V

The final Senegal album! In which I rejoin Kap and Graham and spend a last couple days exploring Mbour, before traveling back alone to Ngor for a last evening sunset at the westernmost tip of Africa.

SENEGAL V – Mbour (again) and Ngor (again again)

And thus concludes the photographic record of my trip to Senegal in January 2012.

Senegal in Pictures: IV

In which we travel inland to visit a family making their living from a traditional goat-herding lifestyle (Kap met them because her friend Maniang gets the milk for his goat cheese from them), hang out with the family for a day at their rural compound, meet a lot of (human) kids and (goat) kids and learn just how big a baobab tree can be; in which, also, our intrepid heroine continues south alone to the beautiful Sine-Saloum Delta, land of salt flats and mangroves, wading birds and holy islands.

SENEGAL IV - the goat farm and the Sine-Saloum Delta

Next up: Senegal V, the final album, with a last few adventures in Mbour and back to Ngor.

Senegal in Pictures: III

In which our heroine rejoins the rest of the trio in Ngor, discovers a secret source of thiakry (millet) in the winding back lanes of the village, attends an international school party and a famous musician's concert, travels south to Mbour to stay in the home of an extended Senegalese family, visits a preschool, makes friends at the beach, discovers unexpected connections at a dance school and explores the business of making goat cheese. All that and more, right here:

SENEGAL III - Ngor and Dakar (again) and Mbour

Next up: Senegal IV, in which we make an excursion inland to meet the goat-herding family that produces the milk Maniang uses for his wonderful goat cheese, and then I continue on further south to the beautiful and tranquil Sine-Saloum Delta.

Senegal in Pictures: II

In which our heroine travels north to meet a friend from Ithaca living in St. Louis (that's pronounced like French, not like the American city of the same name), sees more pelicans than you can possibly imagine, goes to the Mauritanian border but does not cross over, watches as a significant portion of the country convenes on the holy city of Touba, meets a camel and makes it back to Dakar with only one major and one minor car accident behind her.

SENEGAL II - Saint-Louis, Djoudj and Touba

Next up: Senegal III, in which we continue south to Mbour.

Senegal in Pictures: I

I was honestly starting to think this would never happen, but:

My pictures from my trip to Senegal, in January 2012, are now fully sorted, edited, uploaded, organized, captioned... in short, finally ready to share! It only took 1 3/4 years, how 'bout that?

Here's "Senegal I – Ngor and Dakar" in which our intrepid heroine lands in Senegal, gets to know the friendly beachside village of Ngor, meets a lot of her friend Kap's friends, meets a lot of goats, plus photographs vegetables, juices, boats and a surprisingly number of colorful clotheslines.

SENEGAL I - Ngor and Dakar

More coming soon! Next up will be "Senegal II – Saint-Louis, Djoudj and Touba"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As a curious side note, as I was putting my Senegal albums together, I also glanced back at the my photo albums from my trip to India in late 2010 and discovered that these two trips apparently generated precisely the same volume of photo-album-worthy photos. All together my India albums include 238 photos and my Senegal albums, once I post them all, will include 237 photos. Seriously! That struck me as a fascinating coincidence, which then caused me to wax a little lyrical about the ties that connect those two trips...

The trips I took to both India and Senegal were of similar length (about 3 1/2 weeks), of similar significance to me (a big trip to a very different place, a chance to get outside myself and my daily life and really experience something different, an amazing opportunity to visit friends locally and get to know people, not just be a tourist on a beach or something).

Also, though not by design, these two trips ended up forming neat bookends to what became my "Year of Travel" in 2011.

Between the big trips to India in December 2010 and Senegal in January 2012, I traveled to Switzerland, western Germany, England, the US, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Spain, Scotland, the Netherlands, western Germany again, Belgium, the Baltic Sea, Italy and western Germany yet again for German Christmas. Throughout, I experimented with working from abroad, orchestrating half-work/half-travel weeks that allowed me to stay present professionally despite being physically absent from Berlin. All together I was away and traveling fully 1/4 of that year.

And it was an awesome year, though the pace did eventually get tiring and I slowed down again. And entirely by accident, that Year of Travel slotted itself neatly between these two very different yet similarly resonant trips, to India and to Senegal.