Wine in Vietnam !!???  …. what, where, how ?

Colour: cherry red with hints of salmon hue
Aroma: red fruits, hints of grass (herbaceous notes) with some sweet spices
Palate: off dry red fruit nuances, pleasant and has an extremely short finish

Further research into this confirms that table grapes are used but the region does have some other fruits like mulberry as well. Apparently Vang Dalat also produces a peach cooler which tastes like Champagne (interesting!).

I tasted this wine 3 years ago while hosting our first ‘house warming’ here … albeit our stay was only for 6 months. It was a Wintry evening affair, so my local shopping for wine made me pick this wine, which we were all too eager to taste ….. it troned among the proud French, Australian and Chilean wines. Its first taste hit me with surprise ! I was waiting for an almost medicinal chinese wine sort of taste. Lo ! instead it was a tangy fresh explosion of berries with a sweet honey tinge and lingering warmth. Just what I wanted to feel on that cold night.

And it grew on me … us.

What better legacy the French could have left apart from the wonderful architecture and the baguette … and yes the 12 accents of Modern Vietnamese writing !

Vietnam’s hill resort of Dalat is a horticultural wonderland. The cool tropical microclimate endows its market with the best of both worlds: tropical fruits from the lower hillsides combined with more European fare from the cooler climes. Fresh strawberries sit alongside avocadoes, artichokes, beetroot and dragonfruit; with vendors keen to foist strawberry jam, cashews and the grim local grape wine upon me. Where local markets tend to be the feature that orient me in any town, Dalat’s apparent lack of clear equatorial seasonality is bewildering.

Next time on the rice wine …. rocket fuel as Anthony Bourdain calls it !

A new report says climate change may cause vast human migrations on an order not previously experienced. The report, In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Displacement and Migration, was written by researchers at CIESIN, the United Nations University, and CARE International. Drawing on empirical evidence from a new survey of every continent, with original maps created by CIESIN that pinpoint potential locations of critical displacements, the report explores how climate change is already causing people to leave their homes, and details some of the specific ways displacement may occur over the next decades. For example, the report says, melting glaciers will negatively affect agricultural systems throughout Asia and contribute to the risk of flooding. Natural disasters will continue to cause short-term migration, while the breakdown of eco-system-dependent livelihoods—such as subsistence herding, farming, and fishing—will cause long-term migration. Developing countries will be most vulnerable to migration and displacement, with less capacity to implement adaptation measures.

A potential downward spiral from resulting ecological degradation and breakdown of social structures could ensue, leading to political instability which would further exacerbate population displacement. The report calls for seeing climate-related migration and displacement as global in nature, not simply isolated local crises. It aims to inform critical policy making by presenting a comprehensive discussion of the linkages between environmental change, displacement, and migration.

When one greets another in Vietnam, it is always about asking whether ‘ you have eaten rice?’

Rice is a sacred commodity, it is present in all forms shapes, at all occasions and at any time of the day or night.

From disastrous times when it struggled to feed itself, Vietnam has become the world’s second-largest exporter of rice, after Thailand. Most of the rice is exported. But there is a fair bit about the local rice produced here that never gets heard of, let alone any recognition.

One of them is the rice grown in terraces in the mountainous province of Lao Cai.

Xoi bay ma which literally translates into rainbow ice is in  fact in rainbow colours. Now, where can you get blue or purple rice ? .., and yes perfectly natural and no nasties present. The rice is a sticky variety and is commonly sold over in markets wrapped in a conical shape in bamboo leaves. They are steamed and eaten with pound roast sesame seeds, salt and peanuts. The sticky rice comes in a plethora of colours – red, violet, yellow, green, dark blue, black and  of course , ..white. All dyed with wild flowers, leaves or herbs. The local people believe that eating coloured rice brings happiness and luck all year round.

Where’s my bowl of rice ? !

A must watch !

A friend sent this link to us and I have watched it over and over again.

Yann Arthus and Jean Luc Besson teamed up for this production and had a worldwide release on the WED but strange enough, it appeared on no news channels. This why you need to watch it and reflect upon the beauty and fragility of our planet. Pass it around to reach the maximum amount of viewers. This is no hollywood flick and did not get geared by mega marketing arsenals.

It is just an artist’s view of our world. It is pure and raw beauty !

Enjoy !

Thank you Mic.

What legacy are we leaving behind ?

Today is the World Environment Day.

World Environment Day is observed annually in more than 100 countries, and is one of the most popular days on the United Nations calendar. It is an opportunity to raise awareness and promote action on national environmental issues. Every year, a different host city is nominated, allowing various countries to showcase the positive things being done nationally, regionally and internationally to promote sustainable practices and reduce the impacts of climate change.

Thinking of it, our environment is closely tied with the delicate balance protecting it for our future and the eradication of poverty. Environmental issues do not spring alone with industrial wastes or a rapid urbanised lifestyle. It touches the core of this millennium’s tar. Poverty.

Poverty is frought with lack of awareness and basic facilities leading to an unhealthy environment. Like in many parts of the world, children are the worst hit by poverty and pollution.  Child Labour annd street violence also come to the fore. The recent flick of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ gave a glimpse of millions of children living in states of poverty. But we can only hope that we would not end up in a world like shown in Pixar’s Wall E.

In Timore Leste, we encountered this familiar scene where kids are garbage collectors. The littered beaches offer a good hunting ground and many of the kids have had to face the trauma of treading on those beaches where the recent conflict saw their families, friends and close ones being killed in front of their own eyes.

Reflecting upon it brings back a not so far episode I have encountered. It was in Timor Leste.

“Hello Mister ! Hey Mister ! !.”

We are greeted by a bunch of kids running towards us while we enter the compound of Dili 2001 hotel’s compound after a long day’s work. This is where we live, as there is little accommodation left after the conflict ridden country. Most of the public infrastructure and houses have been burnt down to ground. The hotel is made up of a compilation of containers and prefabricated structures by some Chinese Singaporean entrepreneurs who found an business opportunity in the leanest time.

The people of Timor-Leste are friendly and you never feel uncomfortable walking the streets, most of the local children are keen to say hello, “hey Mister, hey Mister” is often heard shouted from within groups of kids playing along the streets and the parks, they smile and wave and there’s often the odd hi-five.

The beach in Dili is always bustling with activity in the morning.

Fishermen from Atauro Island camp on the beach in front of the parliament building in Dili and sell their fish by hanging it it trees alongside the road.

It is pretty normal for buyers to hang their fish from the side view mirror or windshield wipers so the fish doesn’t stink up the car.

Jose, Melita and Rosa cross the road to go to the beach for their daily chores…. or should I say work ?

They may earn 1 $ if they are lucky to find the right amount of garbage. This money will feed an average family of 5 or 6, sometimes more.

Nearly 40 – 50% children among working-children are street children. These children survive by begging, stealing, shoe polish, street performance, collecting scraps, street selling and other. Some, particularly girls, get involved into the flesh trade. The majority of children on the streets in developing countries are rural migrants. Children migrate with their parents and as a result of worst economical condition of parents, get involved into odd jobs. Some percentage comes alone to urban cities due to bad environment in their own home such percentage is less. Major percentages of such children get addicted to use of drugs and their main work is scrap collection or stealing. With girls it is serious issue as rural poor illiterate parents abandon girl child to end up life in brothel or street prostitution and of them some escape to streets begging, scrap collection and finally end up as prostitutes. In developing countries; girl child is considered as disgrace in poor illiterate orthodox uncivilized families. Nearly half of street beggars and garbage collectors are girl children. Most such girls are neglected by parents as are considered burden on them.

Urban children who turn as street children are 10% to 20% of working children. Family economical condition or unpleasant abusive environment or abandoned by parents or mental disorder are the major reason for them to leave home. Number of street Children on account of unpleasant abusive parents in Brazil, India, Cambodia, U.K, U.S.A, and Mexico are extremely high.

Aggressive Movies and TV channel environment too has contributed spoiling children to source money through ugly street jobs for drug addiction; become street children. Also friend circle or family alcoholic habit stimulates children to taste such life.

Helping Brazilian children whose lives revolve around garbage dumps

Helma Maas

Angélica is a 10-year-old girl whose unemployed parents left the countryside five years ago to go to the city of Olinda in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

Circumstances forced the family to the garbage dump of Olinda, where they constructed a home from pieces of cardboard and plastic. It is there amongst the food and trash unwanted by others that Angélica and her two younger sisters have lived, played and worked. Thanks to a local effort which is part of a year-old national campaign called “Children in the Garbage Dumps: Never Again,” Angelica is going to school and her little sisters are attending a creche.

For most people in developed economies, the image of 45,000 children living and working in garbage dumps is almost impossible to visualize. In most rich countries, there is a healthy and sustainable treatment of solid waste and child labour does not exist. In Brazil, healthy and sustainable treatment of solid waste is a relatively new and very complicated issue. Part of the issue is the dependence by many poor families on the collection and sale of recyclable trash for their survival.

Thousands of young children and adolescents were found four years ago to be working in garbage areas in 1,956 of the country’s 5,507 municipalities. They do this to contribute to their families’ meager income. Solutions to this problem must thus include finding viable alternatives for these children and their families, and changing the attitudes of people in the communities in which they live and work

The dump in Olinda consists of several mountains of garbage. In 1997, there were 350 children and teenagers who worked with their parents at the dumpsite. When a municipal garbage truck arrives to dump its waste, the children, adolescents and adults who live and work there rush to the new heap of trash to pick out what can be used or sold. There is a lot of competition, and you have to be fit and fast to get to there first. The work is dangerous and some children have lost limbs due to accidents with the trucks and other heavy equipment. Whenever something edible is found, it is eaten.

The high incidence of children living and working in the garbage dumps called for intervention. UNICEF’s work in waste disposal dates back to 1991 when an environmental education project was introduced in Rio Branco in the Amazon area of Brazil. The work quickly expanded to other areas. In Olinda, where Angélica lives, UNICEF began in 1992 a collaboration with the city government and several non-governmental organizations to discuss health and education rights, environment care and income generation.

Taking children out of a garbage dump is easier said than done. The children were contributing, however little, to their parent’s income. Older children sometimes made 15 reals (US$ 1.05) per day, which is as much as most adults, while the little ones sometimes didn’t contribute more than one real per day. (One real is worth about 70 US cents.) In Brazil, where many people don’t even earn the minimum wage (which is currently 151 reals per month), every real is invaluable. To stimulate parents to send their children to school and also attend after-school activities, the family needs to be compensated for the loss of the children’s income.

With financial and technical support from UNICEF, the non-governmental organization CEAS Urbano has worked in several ways. It has helped the adult informal garbage workers – called catadores do lixo – to form an association. This cuts out the middlemen so that they can sell directly to the paper, glass and plastic industry. The average income per family increased, with some families now earning more than two times the monthly minimum wage. The children of the catadores were provided a safe place to play and learn. In 1998, the adolescents helped renovate a building now used as a youth centre and a pre- and after-school centre for young children. Lessons in dance, music, puppetry, and producing art from recyclable goods – such as papier-mache baskets – are provided. Nearly all the children between 7 and 14 years old are now enrolled in school. At the youth centre, they receive extra help with their homework. In addition, the government provides the families with a “school scholarship” of 25 reals (US$ 1.75) each month for every each child enrolled in school.

An interesting and complex aspect of this issue is how these children integrate with other children not living in or near the garbage dumps. Children living in garbage dump sites have not been brought up in the same environment as middle and upper class children. This is reflected in their lack of confidence and self-esteem. Sometimes, the children between 14 and 17 have an especially difficult time, because they have never gone to school and can’t get used to sitting next to a 7-year-old who may know more than they do.

In Olinda, a special group has been formed for these adolescents, to discuss various issues of special interest to them, and which includes AIDS education. On the other side, middle-class students – and often the teachers themselves – may not welcome these children and adolescents into the classrooms. They are encouraged to understand the background of these children and to integrate them fully into the classroom setting.

The youngest children of the catadores are going to a crèche. One creche, Sal da Terra (Salt of the Earth, supported by a Swiss NGO) is located in one of the slums next to the garbage dump and provides nutritious food and care to 60 babies and toddlers. Another crèche, run by a church, also caters to children of catadores.

The experience in Olinda is one of many throughout the country. Much has been learned in the past decade. Simply removing children and their families from garbage dumps is ineffective. Either they will return or others will come to replace them. Successful resolution to the problem of solid waste must include the participation of the communities and families themselves and of course the government at federal, state and local levels; NGOs; private companies; the schools; workers’ unions; and so forth. In June 1999, a national forum on waste and citizenship was held. Exactly one year later, the national campaign, Children in Garbage Dumps: Never Again, was launched amidst great publicity and high hopes.

Today, in July 2000, an initial assessment indicates that the issue of waste disposal is more widely discussed and better understood than before. In addition to ten specific waste-site projects, UNICEF plays a major role in stimulating discussion and partnerships and in training government and NGO and other partners.

Back in Olinda, Angélica’s little sisters go to a crèche where they are properly fed. Angélica for the first time in her life is going to school, along with other children whose parents are working in the garbage business. The families are now living in houses built by the government and the catadores have organized themselves into an association.

Much more remains to be done. Though about 1,500 children of Brazil’s catadores have been enrolled in school in the past year, too many more – at least 43,000 – still play, eat, work and sleep in the waste of others.

Posted in Environment, Society, Travel, World Tagged: World ]]> http://shakunharris.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/world-environment-day/feed/ 1 shakunharris j0438929 boy timor rub dili family rub8 rub2 rub1 http://shakunharris.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/diving-and-snorkeling/ http://shakunharris.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/diving-and-snorkeling/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 09:39:59 +0000 shakunharris http://shakunharris.wordpress.com/?p=756 ]]>

My Mum told me I chuckled merrily when she first gave me my beach bath ….

Looks like I do till now. I love the sea. I am a true islander. Happiest when I am by the beach and the sea. Nothing else matters, life seems restful and all seems to come back to order. Being born in Mauritius, I could only follow the nation’s favourite pasttime. Picnicking at the beach, call it a day, a public holiday, a celebration, Mauritians will find any opportunity to be by the beach.

The whole family spends langorous, hedonistic and lazy hours under the shade of the casuarina trees swayed by the gentle breeze nimbling at delicious snacks in between runs of swimming in the lagoon. Wet and sticky with sand, everyone’s pleasure is tolling day long on the stretches of gorgeous beaches Mauritius is famous for. And to the more adventurous, comes the snorkeling. Yet to the more adventurous, diving takes a special place depending on time one can devote to follow this passion.

Mauritius undoubtedly shares the reputation of one of the most sought after and reputed diving spots on this planet. What makes this distinction ? Well, the rich variety of marine life, the crystal clear water, the temperature, and the accessibility ticks all the right boxes to a memorable diving experience. I spent all my childhood and adolescence by the beach. I learnt swimming quite late though, at 12 years old. Since then, I took part in many national competitions and won a few too.  But my dream was to be able to dive. And to start, I tried my  first snorkeling … it was a disaster ! I choked, spat, drank sea water … and my eyes hurt and burnt for some days. However, my first diving experience was painless. It was like anticipating agony at the dentist and it turns out to be smooth and eventless. My first initiation was given to me by a friend who now runs the first diving centre on the island.

It is nothing equal to any terrestrial experience. I saw a yellow and black sea eel ( below is a picture showing, but its not mine, courtesy to Nautilus), and shoals of simmering fish in a multitude of colours which all …. seemed a bit blurred and grey at first. But later, it was joy. A feeling of awe, intense euphoria with that frustrating and exploding sense of wanting to shout without being able to.

Scuba divers in Mauritius are spoilt for choice of dive sites. There are numerous dive sites strewn all over the island. Beginners can start at the shallow side of the ocean whereas experienced divers can head straight for the more adventurous dive sites such as cliffs, caverns, reefs, pinnacles and wrecks. One of the well-known and popular dive sites in Mauritius is the Cathedral that is located off the Flic en Flac on the western coast of Mauritius. Other dive sites in Mauritius include the Whale Rock and Roche Zozo that is an underwater rock pinnacle and the submerged crater near Ile Ronde.

Can’t wait to get my paddlers on again this Summer ….. Some nice pics at this site, click to see them : Panoramio

Would this sort of reading be cliche now ?  Well, to a Mauritian, no. It is heartbreakingly serious. We are losing the Tambalacoque tree very rapidly and only a dozen are believed to be still alive.

You would want to know why am I talking about a tree which is almost extinct when there are thousands of species which share the same fate. First of all, the Tambalacoque tree cannot fail to impress you with its majestic site. It is child’s dream to play around those multiple roots and vast shades of its sprawling thick branches.

Tambalacoque (formerly Calvaria major), also called the Dodo Tree, is a long-lived tree in the family Sapotaceae, endemic to Mauritius. The Dodo Tree is valued for its timber. Tambalacoque is analogous to Peach. Both have a hard endocarp surrounding the seed, but the endocarp naturally splits along a fracture line during germination.

To aid the seed in germination, botanists now use turkeys and gem polishers to erode the endocarp to allow germination.This tree is highly valued for its wood in Mauritius, which has led some foresters to scrape the pits by hand to make them sprout and grow.

In 1973, it was thought that this species was dying out. There were supposedly only 13 specimens left, all estimated to be about 300 years old. The true age could not be determined because Tambalacoque has no growth rings. Stanley Temple hypothesized that the Dodo, which became extinct in the 17th century, ate tambalacoque fruits, and only by passing through the digestive tract of the Dodo could the seeds germinate. Temple (1977) force-fed seventeen tambalacoque fruits to Wild Turkeys and three germinated. Temple did not try to germinate any seeds from control fruits not fed to turkeys so the effect of feeding fruits to turkeys was unclear. Reports made on tambalacoque seed germination by Hill (1941) and King (1946) found the seeds germinated without abrading.

Temple’s hypothesis that the tree required the dodo has been contested. Others have suggested the decline of the tree was exaggerated, or that other extinct animals may also have been distributing the seeds, such as tortoises, fruit bats or the Broad-billed Parrot. Wendy Strahm and Anthony Cheke, two experts in Mascarene ecology, claim that while a rare tree, it has germinated since the demise of the Dodo and numbers a few hundreds, not 13. The difference in numbers is because young trees are not distinct in appearance and may easily be confused with similar species. The decline of the tree may possibly be due to introduced pigs and Crab-eating Macaques and competition with introduced plants. Catling (2001) in a summary cites Owadally and Temple (1979), and Witmer (1991). Hershey (2004) reviewed the flaws in Temple’s dodo-tambalacoque hypothesis.

To me, the Tambalacoque remains my favourite tree along with the Talipot palm to grace the unique image I retain of my native island. Although the shore is fringed by beautiful Casuarinas, the island flora never failed to excite me whenever I ventured inland to see these wonders. From the giants water lilies of the Botanical gardens which can hold 4 seated men in its span, to the tall Talipot which blooms only once every 100 years !, and the Trochetia’s shy blush make me think again when I see plants left to the destructive hands of man.

Below pics of the Giant Amazon Lily in Mauritius, the Casuarina or Filaos tree as it is affectionately called, the Talipot Palm or Centenary tree, and the Trochetia. The Trochetia like the others, is endemic to Mauritius and is also the national flower. The national carrier ‘Air Mauritius’ has named its latest aircraft after it.

One of my Designs, Cover stamp.