Dr Susanna's guide to MJoTA sites
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July, the month of Julius Caesar, the ruby month, the month of independence for America, the month of birth of my 2 favorite Yoruba princesses, and the month I gave birth to a daughter an adult lifetime ago: July is about to end. July started with celebrating the mother-daughter team that brings us clothes and art from all over the world, and now it is ending with the Olympic Games playing in the city where in all likelihood my life started.
Story of Calabar Imports click here. Story of Florence Nightingale click here.
I visited Dr Chieke Ihejirika at Lincoln University last week, and as I was parking, I saw blue daisies all over the grass. The picture above makes me ache. A blue daisy still standing after the rain stopped and the sun had dried most of the others out of existence. When I arrived the rain was pouring and I decided to wait to photograph the blue daisies I saw covering the lawns. That was a mistake. By the time I came outside to photograph them, the blanket of blue was gone.
Seize the day. Rage against the oncoming night. Whatever is beautiful and good now is gone in an instant. Everything we see, even us: we are illusions. As I have been saying for years, the only things that are real are love, trust, prayer and accountability. These things last after the rain stops, after the sun dries us out of existence.
Peter Norman is dead, his 2 American fellow protestors against the American apartheid carried his coffin to his grave. He seized the day. His body is gone, but his love, trust, prayer and accountability continue. Olympic salute click here.
At Lincoln University I walked through the campus, past the Langston Hughes Library into the John Miller Dickey building. Others have walked this path, from the Lincoln University website:
"Many of Lincoln's international
graduates have gone on to become outstanding leaders in their countries,
including Nnamdi Azikiwe, 1930, Nigeria's first
president; Kwame Nkrumah, 1939, first president
of Ghana; Rev. James Robinson, 1935, founder of
Crossroads Africa, which served as the model for the Peace Corps;
and Sibusio Nkomo, Ph.D., 1981, chairperson, National
Policy Institute of South Africa."
So did Langston
Hughes, 1929; Thurgood
Marshall, 1930. Gosh. They must have known each other and President Azikiwe.
Pictures of Lincoln University with story by Dr Ihejirika click here. Story on Dr Ihejirika click here. Picture of Dr Ihejirika at church with I.R.V., Omenihu Amachi and High Chief MC Orji click here.
City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism pictures from media conference and news feeds click here.
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Ah. I am cheering for EVERYONE this Olympics: Kenya (of course); Nigeria (is there any doubt); all Caribbean countries (I love them all) and every other African country; Britain (I was born there to British parents); Australia (I grew up there, my brothers are still there and my parents died there); New Zealand (I lived there from 6 to 9); USA (I live here and my 4 kids were born here); Germany (my younger kids are German); Sweden (I love Sweden); India (my grandfather was born there and my great grandfather died there); China (half my family is married to daughters of China).
I left out a lot of countries, I know I am connected to them all. That is the human condition: the diversity resulting from every child requiring 2 sets of DNA from parents, 8 from grandparents, 16 from great-grand-parents.
So yes, gold medal winners, well done!
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Picture above I took during the July monthly open house at Vivant Art Gallery in Old City Philadelphia. The owner is a young woman named Florcy Morriset, and she is a daughter of Haiti and a board member of African American Museum of Philadelphia click here.
I first visited the gallery in January. I was in Brooklyn, attending first the 2nd anniversary memorial for the 10% of the population around Port au Prince that perished because of the Jan 12, 2010 earthquake, and then the CACCI celebration of Martin Luther King Day, when I got an email from the Welcoming Center about a memorial planned that evening by young Haitian professionals in Philadelphia. I ran to my car, and zoomed to Philadelphia. Haiti click here. Welcoming Center click here. CACCI click here.
And gosh, was that worth the effort. Not only did I come across this oasis in Old City, but I also met a rising rap star, Irv, who agreed to come on board MJoTAtalks click here.
Irv was why I walking around in the rain past Independence Hall late on Saturday night. He was in concert with some other rappers, gosh, was he great.
We have 2 MJoTA stars: Irv is one, the other is daughter of Nigeria and gospel singer Chisom click here. And for John Coltrane and friends click here.
I updated the country pages on Nigeria click here, and on Brazil click here.
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Jul 28, 2012 Sons of daughters of Kenya run faster than the wind click here.
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Above, ostrich farm in Kenya. Videos and constantly updated news from Kenya click here.
A lovely Saturday, last Saturday in July. Every day in the summer in New Jersey is a glimpse of African countries as they all could be, will be: functional in the weather so hot that as I sit in my office typing the sweat is happily dripping down my nose, down my back. Heat like that I love, and I remember the cold dark days in Sweden and in Finland when I stripped off and sat in saunas to achieve what equatorial Africa and the Caribbean does without effort.
Saturday has always been clean-up day whenever I am not on the road or witnessing a success in African and Caribbean communities. Today I am cleaning up pages. I have updated the MJoTA Friday Night Movie pages so you can find your favorite movie later click here. I have updated the page on I.R.V. who is a rapidly rising rap star and is in concert tonight in Philadelphia click here.
Since April 2009 I have been showing up at CACCI events around Brooklyn and from the first meeting I have been seeing a cheerful man happily handing out water ices. He is Alfredo Thiebud and he is from Honduras, and today I published a page on Honduras. And you can see him being interviewed at the Caton-Flatbush market. Page on CACCI click here. Page on Honduras click here.
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Above, on the Mall in Washington, a stairwell in the National Museum of African Art. I love the way it goes up and up and reaches the sky. Feels like a prayer. National Museum of African Art click here.
Today is MJoTA Friday Night Movie and the movie came from Burundi. And they are playing my song click here.
News and videos from Burundi click here.
Zambia click here.
Updated page on Ethiopia, and new page on its neighbor Eritrea.
I met a group of focused brilliant Eritreans at a few events for the Mayors Commission on African and Caribbean Affairs, the page on Eritrea is for them. What sticks out about Eritrea is that according to one group of journalists, Eritrea has the world's worst reputation for freedom of the press, worse than North Korea. I posted some videos to give an idea of who Eritreans are and what is going on, and has been going on.
For Ethiopia click here.
For Eritrea click here.
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Above, train to New Jersey from Thomas Jefferson University Medical School in center city Philadelphia. Philadelphia has 5 medical schools. The oldest in the Americas is the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in West Philadelphia (1790); Temple University is in North Philadelphia; and the School of Osteopathic Medicine and Drexel University School of Medicine are also in West Philadelphia. The medical school at Drexel was formed by coming Women's Medical College with Hahneman Medical School. Philadelphia has long been the center of medical education and the pharmaceutical industry.
African businesses in Philadelphia click here.
The building on the left, ah, that was where I went to a party after a vigorous karate work-out in 1980, and met eye surgeon Raymond Pekala MD, with whom a subsequent joint venture produced Angus Dodgson Pekala and Miles Dodgson Pekala.
In the same building, 25 years later, Angus worked as a lab technician for Professor Hilary Koprowski MD, who created the world's first polio vaccine, and developed the rabies vaccine and who has been absurdly accused of inventing and unleashing the HIV virus. Which is evil nonsense aimed at a genius whose work has lengthened millions, maybe billions, of lives. He is 95.
I was once on a flight to Amsterdam with his main associate, Carlo Croce. He impressed me with having no luggage, just hand-luggage, and the minute the plane stopped he was off, doing what he came to Amsterdam for.
Vaccines click here.
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In Sep 2001, the world as we knew it changed when North African murderers smashed planes into buildings in New York City to my north, into a field to my west, and into the Pentagon in Washington DC to my south. They missed my town, and my state, completely, but the tsunami affected my family completely.
With my odd logic, as I was listening to reports of catastrophe, I was thinking that airline tickets would be really inexpensive for a while, which is what happened. So within 3 weeks I had left my crushingly boring job with a New Jersey advertising company and signed on as a freelancer with a Pennsylvania drug information company, and was on a plane to California, paid for by international pharmaceutical company Pfizer, and then Greece, and then California again, and then Texas, and then Nevada, and then California again, and then, finally, Spain.
The trip to Spain was to the international AIDS conference, which 10 years later is meeting this week in Washington DC.
Ten years later, nelfinavir, the miracle drug of Pfizer (that bought the company Agouron) that paid for my trips, and for my children's education, is no longer a first line drug, in fact, its use is recommended against in persons who have never taken anti-retroviral drugs. For guidelines for anti-retroviral therapy click here.
What a comedown. According to Wikipedia, which states that they have not verified this statement: "The initial product launched proved to be the largest "biotech launch" in the history of the pharmaceutical industry, achieving first full year sales exceeding $US335M. Agouron's patent on the drug will expire in 2014." If this is true, it explains why Pfizer was so happily spending money promoting it.
At the 2002 AIDS conference, the Pfizer team was more than 20, and they went to great trouble to have daily war conferences and updates. At the end of the conference, just before Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela spoke, a late-breaking abstract toppled nelfinavir off its place as the best drug for controlling the symptoms of AIDS. I heard the Pfizer cardiologists and infectious diseases physicians mumbling that they were going to have to look for new jobs immediately.
Right away, the money from Pfizer dried up, and apart from a trip to liver meetings to write about hepatitis C and HIV co-infection in Boston and in San Francisco, that was the end of my days as a traveling HIV/AIDS writer.
For HIV/AIDS resources click here. For fighter pilot movies click here. For story and full-length movie on the Red Baron click here.
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When my Board Member, Welsh engineer and Quaker Christopher Roberts
grumbles that MJOTA does not have a page on Zambia, you can bet I spring
into action. He spent some years in Zambia decades ago. Videos and news
from Zambia click here.
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Picture above I took in the parking lot of a mall the day after Christmas last year. I had put on Nigerian clothes and spent the afternoon dancing and clapping and laughing and being serious for the Imhotep Charter School celebration of the first day of Kwanzaa. Philadelphia foot doctor and son of Ghana Dr Samuel Quartey is the President of the Board, and he can move like the best of them. Stories on Ghana click here. Stories on breathing click here.
Afterwards, I sat in my car drinking tea from the flask I always bring with me, looking at the vast expanse of sky.
In this picture the lights from earth look like they are reaching out to the moon and stars, and today I am reaching out my heart and soul towards the light that was astronaut Dr Sally Ride.
And I am wondering why Dr Sally Ride died when I am healthy. We were born in the same year and were awarded PhDs in the same year. My dissertation was on breathing gases, her was on astrophysics. Dr Ride rapidly left me and other women scientists behind in the star dust, and we are all so proud of her life.
I am remembering June 18, 1983, listening to the report of her shuttle the Challenger taking off as I was driving from the University of Pennsylvania to my new house in South Jersey. I had moved to my house a month before with my husband, my 2 year old and my baby with blue eyes big as moons. The day I went into labor in Dec 1982, I submitted for publication a paper that changed my life. I reported for the first time that a protein needed to stop our bodies getting too acidic was involved intimately in ridding the body of carbon dioxide. And the Journal of Biological Chemistry published it in June 1983. My long resume click here.
And suddenly, the whole world opened for me, and there I was with a new house in the suburbs, breast-feeding Miles whenever I was not in the lab, trying to toilet-train Angus, and wife to an eye surgeon. I started getting invited to speak at conferences, and 2 years later was awarded a 5-year grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Just as Dr Sally Ride opened up space for women, miraculously, the world opened up for me. Vale Dr Ride. Long will you be remembered.
I have posted a video of Dr Ride's space ride, scroll down the page and you will see it after you click here.
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And Burundi. I was contacted by a friend who is Burundian, lives in Burundi, who told me I need to visit this small East African country. Ah, this lovely country has been kicked around like a football by Europe and European wars. Rich in coffee and sugar, and recovering from a brutal civil war. God bless Burundi. To learn a little about what is gong on there from maps, videos, news feeds, click here.
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Nelson Mandela click here.
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I really had a lovely weekend in New York City and Philadelphia. Oh my. A few hours in an office in Manhattan getting our printing services up and running click here. A meeting with Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Flatbush Merchants Market click here. A quick visit to Egbe Omo Yoruba graduation celebrations in Queens click here. And a wonderful relaxing dinner at Tropical Grill with my favorite Yoruba princess and my favorite Yoruba beauty queen. The princess publishes Afro Heritage magazine, which is on hiatus because she is studying, but will return soon and when it does, you will read about it here.
I was a guest at a wedding celebration in the Bronx, the traditional wedding of a son of Biafra to a daughter of Jamaica, picture from the wedding above. The bride Michelle is wearing an orange crown, her new sisters-in-law are wearing big gray head-dresses, her new mother-in-law Mrs Nkechi is wearing a brown dress and has her back to the camera. The bride's father, Mike Elliot, recently widowed, is standing looking at her, wearing white. Her new father-in-law the Rev Dr Emeka Nwigwe (he took a bullet as a Captain in the Biafran Army) is wearing cream and is the man furthest left. For stories about Biafra click here. For stories about Jamaica click here.
If you look closely at the picture you can see Borough of Manhattan Community College teacher Nkechi Madonna Agwu PhD putting money on the bride, who is wearing an orange crown. Dr Nkechi was, maybe still is, the constant companion of practitioner Lookman Sulaimon Arounfale. Stories on Dr Agwu click here.
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The whole child abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University is getting a lot of cool people hot under the collar. In my essay yesterday I called for sanctions against universities when they let employees and fee-paying students loose on the world.
Sanctions against Pennsylvania State University have been swift and vicious. I pray for healing and for good people to chart a new course at that wonderful university that has launched so many careers for hard-working professionals with pure hearts. For the whole story according to the independent counsel report that led to the sanctions click here.
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No-one in the Penn State scandal shot anyone, which is merciful. However, Colorado and the rest of the country has been mourning the gun deaths of young people watching a movie in Aurora, Colorado.
New Jersey, where I live, has the strictest gun control laws of any state in the 50 united states, has no death penalty, and depending what you read, has the highest average household incomes and the least violent crime.
New Jersey also has the city with the highest murder rate, again, depending on what you read, which is Camden, which is a small city as American cities go. Camden is 5 miles from where I now sit in my pine-walled, bamboo-floored office looking through the glass doors to my right at orange, black and gray cats chasing each other around the rose bush and small forest and through my window to my left at the squirrels stealing apples from several apple trees nestling amongst pine trees.
We don't have many murders in my town, I only recall 2 in my 29 years here. And another connected to my town.
The first was an Italian wife whose husband decided to replace her, she shot him dead as he was moving her things out of the house. Gary used to see her in the woman's prison when he was visiting his former fiancee who had left him for a man she shot dead with a gun she pulled out from under her mattress when he told her he was going back to his wife. She was in another town and I never knew why she had a gun. Maybe to shoot him. Oh gosh.
The second murder in my town was that of a mother to maybe 20 children by birth and adoption Diana Barker on Halloween, which tragedy affects me and those around me to this day.
So we do have guns in South Jersey, maybe more than I know, but from where I am sitting, I believe that when something goes wrong in South Jersey, we do not immediately think about shooting someone.
I am speculating, but believe this may not be so in other states where guns are widely advertised and widely available and often treated like toys. I read a story yesterday of a little girl of 2 visiting her father in Georgia, who pulled his gun off the night table, and managed to shoot herself in the chest. Until Louise died of cancer in 1991, she was our glass-washer at the University of Pennsylvania, her middle son was killed in Pennsylvania by a friend playing with a gun in much the same way. And Gary's mother tells a story of when before Gary was born, her eldest son shot at her second son, and missed, and she immediately banned all guns from her house. Also in Pennsylvania. Gary said he was a pre-schooler when his cool uncle started teaching him how to shoot. God.
The problem with guns is that they are exceedingly dangerous, and I would like them to not be available, to make illegal keeping a gun in the house anywhere except in a state-regulated locked cabinet, to make a felony carrying a gun concealed or in the open. That is what I would like. But we have a gun culture, where guns are available, and even more available if you are focused on stock-piling them and doing the maximum amount of harm to the maximum amount of people.
I read a post yesterday from a woman who said the murders at the Aurora cinema could have been prevented if movie-goers had guns. Wait. She wants our kids armed to the teeth when they go to see Batman! I cannot imagine the carnage if other guns had been fired in a dark cinema. This would only have worked if the kids' guns had been bullet-piercing (the murderer was fully clothed in bullet-proof armor), and if the kids had been sharp-shooters and understood that they were in a battle zone and on full alert.
So if we are not going to stop guns being bought and sold, if we are not going to change the gun laws, we have to hold people accountable upstream. The neighbors who saw guns being delivered should be charged with accessory to murder. The gun shops who sold the guns. The shops who sold body armor. The ticket collectors who let a man in full body armor and guns into a midnight movie showing. The gas station which sold him gasoline for his car. Everyone and anyone who enabled him.
MJoTA now has a page on physical abuse, because physical abuse is a health issue. Physical abuse is inappropriate contact with a child or an unwilling adult click here.
Pictures of CACCI at Caton Flatbush Market, including pictures of son of Haiti New York Councilmember Dr Mathieu Eugene click here.
And don't forget to sprinkle cinnamon on your tea and coffee and oatmeal click here.
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Jul 22, 2012. Chasing a golden balloon. God bless the child click here.
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Above, my friend Modupe and myself at the Yoruba church in Philadelphia. Modupe is a nurse, as is a lot of Nigerian women and increasingly men. Perhaps as many as 80% of all Nigerian women I know in the United States is a nurse. Modupe was the first person who welcomed me into the church in Philadelphia in 2006.
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Is that moon in your face or what! I took this picture in North Philadelphia on June 2, right after our monthly meeting of the Coalition of African Communities of Philadelphia click here.
Today is Friday! Time for MJoTA Friday Night Movie. We have 1 science fiction movie called Moon, a wonderful video of the first moon landing on July 20, 1969 and a Haitian movie that will sharpen your Creole language skills. Enjoy! To watch click here.
And today is the anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969, when I was in my last year at Sydney Girls High School and we were all sent outside to watch on a tiny black and white television the landing. I couldn't see anything, but that didn't matter, it was happening and we were marking it.
And meanwhile so many in Biafra were in their death throes, but the resistance to genocide was regenerated in 1969 by the insistence of doing the right thing by a Swedish count, the nephew of Field Marshall Goering click here. And my partner in Ganymede Movies LLP, Captain August Okpe, was there, a young pilot who flew more than 500 wartime missions under absurd conditions and managed to blow up Russian war planes and factories of war, click here. Link to stories on the short-lived nation of Biafra (was and is now the eastern third of Nigeria) click here.
I like to walk through an old growth forest near my house, and around lakes, many lakes. This cleans out my head and gets me talking to myself, working out how to navigate through the many choices that are tangling my path. I remember vividly walking through the medieval section of the German town of Freiburg-im-Breisgau suddenly realizing that life and death come from the same source, the Giver of Life is also the Taker of Life. And that World War I and World War II could not have happened if the scientists and engineers of the 19th century had not been so good at what they did. Could World War I have happened if Florence Nightingale had not invented nursing? For story about Florence Nightingale click here.
Today I will be celebrating a wedding of the son of a man who was a captain in the Biafran Army, who took a bullet that remains in his body. The greatest revenge for all wrong is to live, and to laugh, and to dance. And take good care of your health, which laughing and dancing helps you do click here.
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Wishing you blessings and the strength to fast on Ramadan!
Above, Chaplain Nurah-Rosalie Amat'ullah, DMin, Executive Director, Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development in the Bronx, giving a eulogy during the 3-days of wake and funerary rites for a huge man in New York communities, the Rev Dr Abraham Abegoke Iyanda Oyedeji. You can read her remarks click here.
I say communities because he was inclusive, he was not a racist, he was not a sexist, he was not opposed to humans of other faiths: his life was lived for all, and at the same time, he was Nigerian Yoruba Christian, and he made a place that was comfortable to speak Yoruba and be with Yoruba Christians.
His church, Christ Apostolic Church First in the Americas in Brooklyn some years ago moved into a former synagogue, and I enjoyed services he conducted. His death took everyone by surprise because until his last breath he did not give up his enthusiasm and passion for life.
I first met him in Philadelphia, dancing down the church aisle of Christ Apostolic Church Philadelphia at 58th and Baltimore Avenue, and I enjoyed listening to him preach. I saw him a few more times in New York, and he always gave me a lovely open smile and made me quite sure I was welcome. I always knew I was in the presence of a great human.
We can learn a lot from his life. In his death he continued to unite me to people with pure hearts. I met the Chaplain at his wake, and we are friends. I wish her a wonderful spiritually renewing Ramadan which begins this evening and ends in the evening of Saturday, Aug 18, 2012.
MJoTA published an article about him which I mentioned above which includes pictures of the women of Christ Apostolic Church Philadelphia, and yes, even former NYC Mayor David Dinkens and the United Nations Nigerian Ambassador, click here.
For stories on Nigeria click here. For story on the arrest of academic and journalist Dr Okey Ndibe in Jan 2011 click here. To listen to Dr Ndibe speak click here.
Story on the dedication of a huge new building in Christ Apostolic Church Hyattsville, which is a suburb of Washington DC click here.
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Above, Lisa Vives of the Global Information Network and Omoyele Shahore of Saharan Reporters share space in Manhattan. Last year, on this day, Nelson Mandela's birthday, they put on a wonderful party and lots of us showed up to listen to talks about how it was, and how it is, and music. South African news, videos of Nelson Mandela speaking, click here. And happy 94th birthday Mandiba! How marvelous!Page on African businesses in Philadelphia with Philadelphia pictures and news feeds click here.
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Above, mural on the side of a building in North Philadelphia, close to where John Coltrane lived for some years. The mural includes a quote from Aristotle: "Hope is a waking dream". Lovely.
John Coltrane was a jazz musician and I often listen to his music while working on the MJoTA sites. So can you, for his music and pictures of North Philadelphia click here.
John Coltrane was in the American Navy when the United States absurdly had 2 sets of armed forces: one for designated sons and daughters of Africa, the other for everyone else. Philadelphia has a museum for veterans of the segregated armed forces click here.
He died on July 17 in 1967. What a time in the history of America, in the history of Africa, in the history of music. The nation of Biafra had been declared 6 weeks earlier and the starvation by genocide by Russia, United States and Great Britain. Link to Biafra stories click here.
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Above, Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. I took this picture at night in the week of the summer solstice, midsummer, after the Caribbean Heritage reception sponsored by CACCI and Medgar Evers College.
Pictures and story on Medgar Evers College click here. CACCI click here. Pictures, stories, news about Caribbean countries predominantly populated by the sons and daughters of Africa click here.
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Above, group picture of Bed Stuy Vollies celebrating 24 years of existence and also the 72nd birthday of Commander Rockey Robinson.
I wandered out to Bed Stuy yesterday with Universe Promotions and we both put our professional cameras to work. EMTs everywhere, first they had a motorcade and then gathered at the headquarters for award ceremonies, and honoring the Commander.
Rudy Muhammad, Chief of Staff, said that the Commander would have been a Nobel Laureate if he had been white. Not sure that is true, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has recently favored sons and daughters of Africa click here. However, the prize for Physiology and Medicine: yes, the Commander deserves that.
Why? Because his life has been dedicated to saving lives twice. He saves the lives of the EMTs, he says the Bed Stuy Vollies is the place for second chances, third chances, fourth chances, however many are needed. And then he trains these Vollies and EMTS and sends them out to give first response to anyone who needs it. Page on Bed Stuy Vollies click here.
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Above, huge painting hung in Medgar Evers College which I photographed during their reception with CACCI for Caribbean Heritage Month. Most appropriate for Bastille Day, when the Marseillaise is being sung beautifully all around the world. About call to arms! Revolution! Get away from those who enslave us! Indeed.
French Revolution. Succeeded in those who won looking around for others to oppress. They found Africa, and did an immensely cruel job of kicking the faces of Haitians into the dirt for as long as they could.
What I have realized this week personally is that the pain of cruelty never ever goes away. We can forgive, I can forgive, but we learn to stand away from those who are cruel, who kick us into the dirt. I live and work and socialize and pray almost exclusively in African communities, and some Africans cannot forget the cruelty that comes along with my heritage. Cannot forget. They want to but they cannot. Which I believe was the basis for being sued in Federal Court, being sued in Minnesota, being arrested for sending out Mother's Day greetings, and most recently, being threatened with legal action from Lagos. Personally, all I can do is stand back from sons and daughters of Africa who have ancient memories of unspeakable cruelty, and bless them, and wish them well.
The painting by Donavon Nelson has a sign next to it saying it is 109" by 85", he named it "Ibos" and it is acrylic on canvas and it is for sale for $25,000. Which seems to me a bargain for such a beautiful painting.
I have published an article on the Igbos being kidnapped and landing in America as slaves, and refusing to be captured, and flying back to Africa. Many Igbos survived and were treated inhumanely and their descendants are all over the Caribbean. I know professionals from the Caribbean, one in particular, who looks like he just stepped off a plane from Igboland. God bless his ancestors for staying together under impossible circumstances and triumphing.
For story on Igbos in flight click here. For Freedom Riders click here. For page of news from Haiti, which gained independence from France, click here. For page of news from Rwanda, which gained independence from France click here.
Form battalions, indeed! Happy Bastille Day!
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Page on Calabar Imports click here.
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Picture above, Gandy's Beach in New Jersey on the western shore. More of America is over the horizon. I took this picture last October after I purposely drove to Gandy's Beach to celebrate my birthday.
I love oceans of water, and seagulls and vastness of potential energy and life. The beach had been heavily devastated by Hurricane Irene 2 months previously, the house you can see is clearly defying the forces of heaven and earth by standing on wooden poles and not toppling into the water.
New Jersey is the main buffer state between New York and DC and Philadelphia, and generally avoids severe weather. I was most aware of this in 2001 when planes were smashed into buildings in New York to the north, DC to the south and Pennsylvania to the west. No terrorist, or hurricane, ever even thinks about doing its main damage on New Jersey. New Jersey has been a great place to nest, to raise my 3 sons and daughter to adulthood. And it is a great place to come home to, again and again and again.
I am home today after a day in Manhattan, wow. As I was walking from Penn Station I saw tropical trees for sale, 20 feet high, if you bought a second, half price. The incongruity of these huge trees in the mostly tiny little apartments and offices. I am betting most people who buy them will bring them back to New Jersey.
In Manhattan on 34th street at midnight I saw a man levitate a lit cigarette. Cute trick, I think that was trick number 267 in the magic book my brothers and I bought in the magic shop when we waited for the bus home from the Sydney museum when we were pre-adolescents. I didn't wait to see him levitate an old Coca Cola bottle. Which was clearly a trick bottle, small hourglass figure Coca Cola bottles just are not readily available any more.
Ah, how sad to look at magic tricks and figure out how they are done. Better to look at the magic of light playing and laugh with delight.
I posted a page on Universe Promotions, which is a printing company, they are a Caribbean company and they print for anything on any conceivable surface. I am always looking for printers and have posted this as a public service, currently I have no economic interest in the company but I have a lot of emotional investment in businesses run by African communities. I endorse this company, they are good people, and they are close friends of Commander Rocky Robinson, whose Bed Stuy Vollies were first on the ground in Haiti, and whose picture I posted yesterday. For Bed Stuy Vollies click here. For Universe Promotions click here.
It's Friday night! Which means MJoTA Friday Movie Night! One from Brazil, which is in Portuguese, which you can learn on the MJoTA page on Brazil; one from Australia which is fictionally scary, and "Hotel Rwanda" which shows what happens when people dance with devils, and with angels. Page on Brazil click here. MJoTA Friday Night Movie click here.
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I take a lot of pictures, but I love very few of them. The picture above, I absolutely adore. It is one of the few that has made it to my background picture, the picture I gaze at when I turn on my computer. I took it through a mirror, which is why you can see me with a camera in the background. And that is what my place is at Bed Stuy Vollies, in the background, quietly bearing witness to a great success story.
In the foreground is Commander Rocky Robinson, who started Bed Stuy Vollies with another New York City emergency medical technician, because they both worked for the fire department and when calls came from Bed Stuy, the EMTs were too scared to venture in. Page on Bed Stuy Vollies click here.
The man the Commander is talking to is Alond Pierre, a Haitian lawyer based in Washington whom I met when I interviewed his brother for his story of watching the roads turn into waves during the Haitian catastrophic earthquake. They are a family of engineers, lawyer and builders, and they are helping rebuild Haiti. God bless them all. I have not yet published his story, several computer crashes disrupted that, but I still have the story and plan to publish it on the 3rd anniversary of the Haitian catastrophic earthquake. For stories and videos on the earthquake and rebuilding Haiti click here.
I have published a page of automatically updated news feeds and videos for Sudan and Southern Sudan. Simply, Southern Sudan is recognized as a separate countries by itself and many others, maybe all others except Sudan. Sudan is governed from Khartoom; Southern Sudan from Jubba.
I am struck by the differences in Southern Sudan and Biafra. A year after Biafra declared itself a nation that was the eastern third of Nigeria, Britian, Russia, the US were doing everything they could to genocide the nation of 12 million. God bless Southern Sudan, independent on Jul 09, 2011; and God bless Biafra, May 30 1967 to Jan 15 1970.
For page on the Sudans, click here. For pages on Biafra click here.
I published a page on the African Cultural Center in Philadelphia last December, when I was told it was shut down. I have heard it is open again, for story and pictures click here.
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Above picture, I took during a reception celebrating Liberia at the African American Museum in Philadelphia in June 2009.
At the far right is Stanley Straughter who is an American accountant who was a protege of the Rev Leon Sullivan. Stan started going to Africa in the 1960s and is now Honorary Consul for Guinea, I wrote a story about his efforts to get funding into African professionals who know how to build, click here.
The African American Museum in Philadelphia is on Arch St, down the street from the largest Quaker Meeting House in the world, across the street from the Philadelphia Mint and the next block over from Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Which is to say that AAMP is in the right place. Article on AAMP published in MJoTA in 2008 click here. Speech on decolonization and the history of Liberia by Dr Elwood Dunn given at AAMP in 2009 click here.
I have been a member for about 4 years, and I went to the opening of an exhibit last week called Freedom Riders. Which were 68 paintings on collages by daughter of Germany, American artist Charlotta Jensen, who is a pale as she sounds. She said she was inspired to start this huge body of work when President Obama was elected leader. For pictures from the exhibit,click here.
Charlotta's interest in civil rights, which is maybe an obsession, she clearly drank in with her mother's milk. She and her parents have fled a lot of totalitarianism, her parents were relocated from Germany to the United States under the Marshall Plan, and later moved to Iran, which they fled with Charlotta in 1979 when Iran underwent a revolution.
This exhibition covers the walls of the 2 top galleries, and some are 4 feet by 3 ft; many have a 2011 completion date. Work of this scale takes an unusual focus, an unusual passion, and a lot of obsession. AAMP is immensely proud of the work, and has scheduled more than 10 events around it for 3 months. I will continue adding pictures to the AAMP page, keep coming back, but for now, click here.
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Above, boats coming into the harbor of Istanbul as the sun rose on Feb 29, 2012. I was flying into Istanbul on my way to Nigeria. I was flying by Turkish Airlines, which had never seeped into my consciousness. Seeing the boats, and the waters were vast and the boats maybe numbered 50, got my attention. Maybe Turkey was not a sleepy country that connects Asia to Europe, and perhaps was a vibrant economic power.
I discovered that Turkish Airlines has a daily flight from Lagos to Istanbul which started on Christmas Day 2011, that Nigerians on the flight take it often because they trade with Turkey. I even found a Nigerian couple who chose to hold their wedding in Istanbul. And I discovered that Turkey is emerging as an economic and political power.
For videos about Turkey's relationship with Africa and newsfeeds from Turkey including business news, click here.
Turkey is doing a great deal to normalize Somalia. Which is heroic. Videos about Turkey and Somalia and newsfeeds from Somalia click here.
At the Rutgers Conference on Democratic Media and Governance in May, I listened to Turkish journalist talk about the press in Turkey. This conference you can see in photographs, read my talk, and if you scroll down you can read the account from the Center for Media and Peace Initiatives and also the account from Ghanaian journalist Ernest Opong, click here. Mr Opong publishes every 2 weeks a print newspaper called Amandla. For videos and newsfeeds from Ghana click here.
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Eighteen years ago today a tiny girl was washed and wrapped tightly and placed in my arms. She stared at my face, looking at my eyes, my nose, my mouth, clearly delighted to be able to put a face to the sounds she had been hearing in Germany, Sweden and America as she grew into a baby. She was curious, and laughing, and for 18 years, she has never lost her sense of delight, her curiosity.
When I was in the airport in Istanbul, waiting for my plane to take me back to the United States after 3 weeks in Nigeria, I bought a few boxes of Turkish Delight. And today, with my youngest child who is my only daughter, we are happily eating the Turkish Delight and celebrating her becoming officially a woman, and my leaving behind my years of being a mother of children. Haddonfield graduates click here.
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Above, picture I took in August 2008 on the approach to the Karen Hospital in the area in Kenya on the plateau that holds Nairobi known as Karen. Karen Blixen's farm was in this area, and long after she left Africa a real estate developer capitalized on her name.
In my years working in African communities, how often have I hear that professionals based in the United States have gone back to Nigeria and died after a heart attack, a stroke. Because they did not have rapid access to a hospital, and hospitals were not equipped with equipment and medicines that could help them. How often have I told Nigerians that if they want to give lectures in Nigeria, they should go instead to Nairobi because the Karen Hospital has everything a man over 40 needs to keep him alive.
Article on hospitals in Kenya click here.
Article on obstacles to diabetes care in Kenya click here.
Page of newsfeeds from Kenya click here.
Page on Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathi click here.
Philadelphia pharmacist Neil Pitts in Kenya, story by Aleta S Hodge MBA click here.
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Above, son of Belize CACCI Board member George
Hulse introduces honorees at the annual Caribbean Heritage Month
breakfast at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CACCI) click here.
With
Mr Hulse is daughter of Trinidad and Tobago Collette Burnett, financial
manager and owner of Super Wings, and daughter of Guyana Sandra
Chapman, Deputy Borough President of Brooklyn.
Mr
Hulse was honored himself in New York for his leadership in the
Caribbean community and in his work as Vice President of External
Affairs a nonprofit New York health insurance company Healthfirst. He is
a powerful speaker, I always enjoy listening to him. Video, stories on Belize, video of Mr Hulse, click here.
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Above, picture of New York City Councilmember Jumaane Williams at hs annual holiday party in Dec 2010. Mr Williams is a son of Grenada and a champion peacemaker for us all. Story on "stop and frisk" click here. The anti "stop and frisk" is continuing, I spoke with a good man who was collecting signatures at the Brooklyn International Arts Festival on Monday.
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I am getting more and more upset, and that means I need to spring into action. We have a number of critical elections coming up: Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, America. And I can probably find more if I look.
What I am hearing from Sierra Leone is what is upsetting me. Slurs against the incumbent president Koroma and his challenger Bio. What little I understand is that the system is broken, not the candidates for election. Bio is not a mass-murderer. Koroma is not a mass-rapist. Both are stuck in a broken system that the Sierra Leonean Diaspora is doing its best to get fixed. I want to hear that this election is not about "winner takes all" but about highly educated, well-meaning professionals doing their best to lift this beautiful fertile country out of poverty, out of corruption. Without fighting, without blood-shed, without stepping on the faces of women.
I have updated 2 pages on Sierra Leone, one is the news pages which has links to a lot of stories on Sierra Leone, click here, the other is a wonderful essay by Sierra Leonean engineer Melbourne Garber, click here.
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Picture I took in Haiti 30 days after the devastating earthquake. The little boy was my guide, I met him outside the Catholic Church where I attended services for 3 days of national mourning. He showed me the devastation around the Port au Prince suburb of Santos. And he did not stop smiling. During our walk he pulled mangoes off trees and ate them.
Constantly updated stories from Haiti click here.
Haiti is always in my heart, deep, deep in my heart, and I am reminded of this at this time. Because the month is July and July is the birthday of America, of my daughter, and of Commander Rocky Robinson.
Commander Robinson was the man who sat watching in real time CNN reports from Haiti as the world as Haiti knew it ended in 30 seconds. He sat watching and started yelling and making phone calls IMMEDIATELY and told everyone, the air, anything, that Haitians were his people and he was going to get his ambulance association into Haiti as soon as a plane could scoop them up and drop them there.
Commander Robinson is a big man, a tall man, a man of great charisma and understanding. He is 72 next week, which is a miracle in itself. The Commander has diabetes and was on dialysis when a member of his Bed Stuy Vollies gave him a kidney.
He is the biological father of 19 children, and I told him once that I am glad I didn't know him back when I was myself populating the planet, because he would be the father of 21, and the last 2 would have been mine. Because I know if I had met him then I would have been ready to go to the end of the earth for him.
That is what Commander Robinson does to people. Makes young women bear his children, young men give him body parts.
I met him in January 2010, 2 weeks after the earthquake. I was staying in East New York, looking for a way to get to Haiti to bear witness to bravery and decency. Finally some Haitian physicians sent me to his Bedford Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Association, and I told him I would sit in his office until he sent me. Which is pretty much what I did, and 3.5 weeks after the earthquake, I was on my way with 2 nurses and an American of Haitian parentage who was with us to co-ordinate and look into the possibility of setting up emergency medical services in Haiti.
Haiti changed me. Clarified a lot of things for me. As the only daughter of 2 physicians, I had an idea for some years that I should be studying medicine, and made some attempts to do so, which always failed. Because I always believed that healthcare practice, or teaching, were professions that stood on the banks of the river, educating and patching up people who got back into the river and moved forward ideas, technologies. And I wanted to be in the river.
I had worked as a nurses aide in my summers when I was an undergraduate: this involved wiping bottoms, emptying bedpans, making beds, bringing tea and meals to old people getting ready to die in recuperation hospitals. So I thought I could do the same in Haiti.
But I could not. We were only in Haiti for 5 nights, and I rapidly ran away from anyone in pain. The only way I could handle pain was by photographing it in context, and by talking to professionals doing everything they could to alleviate it. I had a plan to come back to the United States and take the Emergency Medical Technician course, but Haiti ended that plan. What I do now is what I do best, write stories with a focus on health.
What the Commander did was heroic, sending waves of health professionals to Haiti for some weeks. He likes to say "while the rest of the folks were singing "We Are the World" Bed Stuy Vollies were on the ground in Haiti, kicking out the locks and setting up General Hospital." Indeed they were, and the Scientologists helped every step of the way, starting with John Travolta flying in the first 2 waves of EMTS, nurses and physicians.
Page on Bed Stuy Vollies click here. Page on Haiti click here. Page on Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry click here.
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MJOTA Friday Night Movie: Three great movies for chilling out in a North American hot summer
night, or snuggling up to on a cold night in Australia. Or ration
yourself, a movie every other day... Two from India, one made in 2010;
and one from France, won awards, made in 2010. Lots of good and evil and
music. Enjoy! Click here.
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Two countries pages added: Congo which is 2 countries, Republic of Congo as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, click here. And Botswana, click here.
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Picture above, a sandcastle on a beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico during my last visit in 2007. Videos and constantly updated news from Puerto Rico click here.
Puerto
Rico was a dangerous place for humans until the 1960s, when the United
States Government completed its efforts in eradicating the malaria
mosquitoes with the insecticide DDT.
When spraying started, DDT was seen as a gift from God for elimination of malaria: Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller was awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1948 "for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods". Read his speech click here.
What is remarkable to me is that Mr Muller was laboring hard in Basel in field trials for DDT while a massive war was going on next door in Germany, next door in Italy, next door in France. And there he was, working hard to rid the world of anapholese mosquitoes which cause malaria.
In my first visit to Germany in 1986, I flew into the airport for Freiburg, which additionally is the airport for Mulhouse France and Basel Switzerland. France, Germany and Switzerland converge at Basel.
About a month after that, I met a German athlete-inventor who became the father of my younger children, and for the next 12 years I was frequently with him in Basel. Because that was where he did all his banking. That is what Germans living near Switzerland do. Page on Lothar Blossfeld Dipl Physik click here. Requiem for a German Jewish woman who lived through the Holocaust click here.
Switzerland
was one of several countries that declared itself neutral during World
War II, but the only country that was useful enough to Germany for
Germany to accept its neutrality. Germans the loved Swiss banking as much as they do now.
In
the 70 years since World War II, all sorts of stories have emerged
which show that neutrality was breached, but the story of Mr
Mueller toiling away in Basel in the Geigy Laboratories show that the
neutrality was real.
The
Geigy laboratories have been merged and bought out and done all the
things pharmaceutical companies do in 70 years. I have visited its
derivative companies on both sides of the city of Basel that straddles a
gorge with a river deep below the cliffs.
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Above, float from 2011 Philadelphia Independence Day parade. Today I was in Haddonfield New Jersey, where I watched fireworks last night. Independence Day is fun, and I am getting ready to go into Philadelphia for the fireworks.
I have updated 2 pages today, one is the news from the countries of Africa, click here, the other is the page for Antigua and Barbuda, click here.
Happy Independence Day America!
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Picture, Quaker meeting house during thrice-annual Meeting for Worship of the Haddonfield Quarter. I was for 10 years Recording Clerk of this meeting, and have been a Quaker since 1991. ------------------------------------------------------ I was in New York yesterday and today for the annual African Arts Festival, I came back to my small South Jersey town for the fireworks celebrating the independence of America from Great Britain. I took more than 20 years, more than 30 years to understand the United States of America and Independence Day. I had to go to Africa to understand the exhilaration of freedom from a dominating self-interested power. And why we really, really celebrate independence, in New York, in Philadelphia, in small towns. I published a page on the twin island nation of Sao Tome and Principe today. I first became aware of this small West African nation when I read the accounts of Count von Rosen and the planes he acquired to reconstitute the Biafran Air Force, click here. Page on Sao Tome and Principe click here.
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Evangelist Leona Hale, looking back, does not like women being homeless, and organized a conference in Apr 2011 to talk about the problem. But she does not just talk, at all opportunities she arranges food and clothing for homeless women at shelters including the Eliza Shirley Shelter, in Center City Philadelphia.
The picture above I took during talks and worship service after a morning of giving healthcare and food to all who came to the conference center and church at 58th and Walnut in West Philadelphia. The church itself is a Nigerian pentecostal church, Redeemed Christian Church of God Living Spring.
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India is a good friend to Africa, and African countries in Africa and the Caribbean are homes to millions of Indian ancestry. I have always be drawn to things Indian. To this day I shop weekly at an Indian supermarket in New Jersey.
India gave life and death to my family. My grandfather Hubert Dodgson and his brother Rex Dodgson were born in Dharmsala in India in the 1890s, and their father Charles Heathfield Dodgson is buried there.
Africa and India are inextricably linked. For automatically updated news, from inside India, pictures and videos of Indians in India and the Caribbean, click here.
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C'est beau la vie. Happy July! The ruby month, the month of my daughter,
more precious than rubies, and the month of America and France.
July also is the month for France, and I was in France my first time in 1977, getting lost in Paris - "je suis perdue" -, climbing the steps of the Montmatre and hanging out in a pub watching the Tour de France.
I was 25, in the last lap of finishing my PhD in Australia, and spent 6 weeks in France.
My excuse was a week-long international Physiology congress held throughout Paris, and the opening lecture was at the Sorbonne. The reception was in the Georges Pompidou Center, an enormous gallery that held wall-to-wall paintings and drawings by Pablo Picasso. Who was clever enough to be extremely prolific, have every work worth millions and live a long life.
Amazing how I was always able to say with a straight face that I was going to a conference! to work! and this was one of the early conferences.
Calabar Imports, picture above click here.
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The mission of Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa is to celebrate African professionals, and create health in African communities.
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Click on any picture and you will be taken to another page or document on MJoTAtalks.org or MJoTA.org
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Click here to register to access free locked pages on mjota.org, mjotatalks.org and drsusanna.org. I will email you only when passwords change. Would you like mjota.org or mjotatalks.org to link to your news or business site? Want to talk? Email publisher@mjota.org or chat on Facebook Wanjiru Susanna J Dodgson click here or Linkedin click here.
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Read the constantly updated news on health from the CDC, FDA and NIH, click here.
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Biafra was the eastern third of Nigeria that tried to become its own
nation on May 30, 1967 because other Nigerians were murdering them, on Jan 15, 1970 the
rest of Nigeria stopped murdering them and they became again part of
Nigeria. At the end, 3 million were dead from a population of 12 million. Do not forget Biafra.
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Biafra audio. Listen to speeches by General Ojukwu and the Biafran national anthem. Click here.
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Algeria click here,
Angola click here,
Botswana click here,
Burundi click here,
Congo click here,
Eritrea click here,
Ethiopia click here
Ghana click here
Guinea click here
Kenya click here,
Liberia click here,
Mali click here,
Nigeria, click here,
Rwanda click here,
Sao Tome and Principe click here,
Senegal click here,
South Africa click here
Sierra Leone, click here,
Somalia click here,
Sudan click here,
Tanzania click here,
Uganda click here,
Zambia click here,
Zimbabwe click here
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