I can hardly express my mixed emotions and my thoughtlessness

To read about three lessons I have learned from participating in a gender workshop, click here.

Woman
John Lennon, Double fantasy stripped down, Capital records

Photo: United Nations Photo

If you've got no place to go...

... for a long week end, consider Stockholm.

I have just spent three wonderful days discovering the capital of Sweden. I have come here for work but managed to come early so as to visit some of the city's landmarks, partake of some typical Swedish food and listen to music.

I arrived last Sunday morning and had already booked my ticket beforehand to go to the Royal Opera for Wagner's Parsifal: 5 hours and 30 minutes long! I was not sure I would actually be able to sit through the whole show having flown in from Nairobi the preceding night. I did yawn quite a few times but the show was riveting: singers' emotions were intense, the music equally so. I have to admit that I was lost in the first act: I had not studied the plot beforehand and my German was not good enough to follow everything that was being sung onstage. Wagner's lyrics are not meant for aria with da capo, so one only gets one chance to get the meaning of words. Subtitles in Swedish were unhelpful for me. But I still managed to receive the very intense emotions from the singers despite not knowing what was happening. I nonetheless went to buy the programme at the first interval and discovered an extremely complicated and mystical storyline.

The next day I enjoyed more music but in a completely different style. I spent two very gratifying hours in the brand new Abba museum. Lots of songs, lots of glitter: all the memorabilia of the Swedish pop group has been assembled in one place to understand what went on behind the scenes to deliver the Abba songs we love so much. I was definitely singing Abba tunes when leaving the premises.

As for the food, I concentrated on sampling fish because that is rather sparse in Nairobi. Cod, herring and salmon, usually in a butter sauce with a touch of egg, or mustard, or cream, and always some kind of fresh herbs as garnish. That's what I take away from Swedish cuisine after just three days. And of course, there is always a great selection of cakes on the buffet table. At Café Blå Porten next to the Abba museum, there was even a whole vat of home-made vanilla-flavoured whipped cream to scoop from...

Take a chance on me
Abba, Gold greatest hits, Polydor

I read the news today oh boy

Jo Cadilhon saves himself and 57 other people from death by powerpoint!

Read all about it here!

A day in the life
The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's lonely hearts club band, EMI

Photo: Nick Quaranto

Où sont les femmes ? Avec leurs gestes pleins de charmes

To learn about my involvement in a dairy value chain assessment study targeting smallholder women in India, read here.

The good thing about interviewing dairy sweet traders is that one gets to sample the goods... We were treated to a cup of custard when we interviewed the owner of this sweet shop in Hyderabad. I then purchased some sweets, just to make it worth the time the owner spent answering our questions about his business.


Où sont les femmes
Patrick Juvet, Paris by night, Decca international

Photo: ILRI/Jo Cadilhon

Tell me more, tell me more, how much dough did he spend?

To learn about the lack of coordination in the farmed fish value chain of Uganda, read here.

Summer nights
John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Soundtrack from the original motion picture Grease, Paramount

Photo: ILRI/Jo Cadilhon

Luxe, calme et volupté

I have just come back from one week of African holidays with my Uncle Tom and Aunty Betty, visiting me from Singapore.

We went for three days of safari in the Masai Mara, staying in a tented camp just outside the parc with outstanding overhead views of the park savanna. The food served was very well prepared with hot soup every evening when the temperatures went down. Hyenas and other wildlife provided background noise at night. Although our guide and driver was surprised by the difficulty of stalking the big cats in this part of the park, I was extremely content. Wherever we went, we could spot numerous elephants all the time. I just could not tire myself of observing these majestic and ever-active animals.

After a short rest in Nairobi the three of us flew to Zambia to see the Victoria Falls. The waterfall was very impressive, particularly so on the Zimbabwean side. There was little water on the Zambian side of the falls due to the dry season. I particularly enjoyed our river sunset safari on small motor boats taking us into the small channels of the Zambezi river to observe numerous birds, the wary hippos submerging as soon as they would see the boat and more unconcerned elephants crossing the river, bathing or grazing in front of us. As they introduced the open bar on the boat, the boatmen and rangers told us: 'the more you drink, the more game you will see...' They served us some delicious snacks on a small river island after having checked that no big animals were hiding in the bushes.

L'invitation au voyage
Henri Duparc, Gérard Souzay, Gérard Souzay Vol. 1, Documents

PS: So it was with great sadness that I came back from all this natural beauty and peace to a Nairobi under shock from the still ongoing terrorist attack in one of the major malls of the city.

And every mountain and hill made low

Well: it did not feel like it...
Read my impressions from two days of mountain biking in Northwest Vietnam here.

Messiah
G-F Haendel, Howard Crook and The English Concert directed by Trevor Pinnock, Archiv

Photo: Lee Brimelow