Annamaria on Monday
My current WIP progress - A Death on the Lord's Day (Vera and Tolliver 4) - is with my publisher, and I am awaiting editorial feedback. In the interim, I have been touring around the New York Metropolitan area hawking Vera and Tolliver 3 - The Blasphemers. And I am beginning to ruminate about Vera and Tolliver 5, the first of the series that will take place during WWI. Looking for inspiration, I went back over some photos from a research trip. In 2014, I had the privilege of accompanying a small, fortunate group on a tour of the WWI battle field of Kenya, under the auspices of of Old Africa Magazine. As part of that week, we went in search of a church and a house that figured in the life an amazing and scary character named Vladimir Verbi, who plays a colorful part in the war between British East Africa and German East Africa. I will tell more about him soon. In the meanwhile, here is a glance at the incredible scenery of the peaceful Bura Valley where Africans farm terraces and live surrounded by splendid vistas. In the highlands, it was nothing at all like any place else in Africa I had ever visited.  |
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Yeesh. Do they cook eggs on those metal roofs?
ReplyDeletePerhaps, EvKa but since I was not there at mealtime, I cannot say for sure. What I know for certain is that a hundred and four years ago the roofs were either thatch or iron. And the tensions between the Brits and Germans were at the boiling point. We are coming up on the anniversary of the declaration of war.
DeleteDeclaration of war? In Africa? WWI ENDED in November 1918... AH... ANNIVERSARY (July 28, 1914), not 100 years... (Nov 11, 1918). That's what I get for getting out of bed before I put my brain in gear... :-)))
DeleteYes, EvKa, that's the war in question. Martial law was declared in British East Africa on 5 August 1914. I was there visiting the battlefields for the 100th anniversary. LUCKY ME!
DeleteWhat a beautiful place!! It's difficult to imagine it ravaged by war.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing Africa through your eyes.
Thank you, Susan. The shot I am proudest of is the third from the top: Kilimanjaro. That mountain, like Fuji and Denali is extremely difficult to catch, almost always shrouded in the weather it creates. My little but powerful camera got the only good snaps of it on that trip. Teehee!
DeleteBeautiful pictures. I'm in Oxford at the moment...looking at galleries and museums. We have a very benign attitude to our colonial past. Further blogs to come on people called Churchill tramping over other folks' countries.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your blogs on colonialism, Caro. It's a topic I deal with daily. I am not saying I approve of it, but some of the results have actually been positive. My latest - The Blasphemers - has as one of its themes the subjugation of women. Here is one of the quotes that begins the book--from a Nigerian literary scholar:
DeleteWe blame colonialism as a whip horse but it is colonialism that eventually offered the beacon of light of women’s western education and exposure which propelled us to the outer world and recognition of the commonality of women’s subjugation world-wide.
Helen Chukwuma, “Women’s Quest for Rights: African Feminist Theory in Fiction,” Forum for Public Policy, 2006
Those are extraordinary photographs. I always try to relate photos to places I know, and there are some that come to mind, but Kilimanjaro stands on it's own! Great shot, sis!
ReplyDeleteThank you, my brother. Speaking of great and photos, please tell the photobomber that I would love to see her in quieter NYC!!
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