CLOSE UP Video Interviews

On a six day visit to Bermuda, your correspondent became intrigued by the variety of accents.

On a ferry ride, a very zippy jet-powered ferry from Hamilton to the Royal Navy Dockyard, an elder ferry worker referred to his proper yet distinctive accent as “British Bermudian.” He distinguished it from the Queen's English and from a West Indian accent. Tongue-in-cheek, he attributed British Bermudian to the temperate sea breezes on the island, warmer than England and cooler than the West Indies.

Jean-Marie runs a “garden inn’ in Southampton and although our timing didn’t work out to stay there, we visited! She has a lilting accent from (warmer) Antigua. She married and settled with a Bermudian and settled here, but goes back to Antigua every year. A garden tour included the greenhouses full of smal,l green poinsettias which she imports as slips , feeds and grows, prunes back in September. In the following months she draws the curtains  to provide just the right amount of night darkness so that they turn brilliant red at Christmas. Unfortunately, two back-to-back hurricanes caused her to twice enlist neighbors and draft her sons to haul the plants into the house and back to the greenhouse; the salt mist blowing in the one semi-open side of the greenhouse could have “burned” the leaves brown and gotten into the potting soil.

At a lovely Airbnb, across the road where we stayed, the innkeeper’s partner, Danny, exhibited a British Bermudian accent, also. His heritage is very varied-including Scottish and Indian from India. Ironically, some of his family were originally settled in a more northern area of the island populated by Native Americans (American Indians) a legacy of the confusion attributed to Christopher Columbus in the 15th century who thought he had reached the east Indies. He recounted that the 300 year-old house was once a horse stable for an inn and brothel that had stood across the street; evidently it was popular with sailors on the then sparsely populated island!

Your correspondent also came upon other English accents- someone who spoke with a rather posh accent and yet another with more working class. Perhaps most surprising was the “Bermudian” accent that was American! Robert’s English family, whose genealogy he has been documenting (3000 individuals so far), has been on the island for a few hundred years. A grandmother may have spoken with an English accent, he recalls, but recent generations like his have been sent to boarding school beginning at age twelve following through with university in the States.

A woman waiting in line at the bake sale at St. Martin the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church in Jenkintown, PA on Saturday March 19, 2022 was intently swiping away at a “2048”type of online game called “Play for Ukraine” on her smart phone. The event, attended by several hundred, if not more than a thousand, people waiting in a long line to purchase pierogis, borscht, sausage, roasted potatoes, sauerkraut, cakes and pastries was raising money for medical supplies and also for equipment for the Ukrainian military. Five stations inside the social building accommodated the patient crowd. Outside, re-enactors dressed in 17th century costumes had a tent display and talked about the close historical and geo-political ties Ukraine has had with neighbors such as Poland. More photos of the event are here.

“It’s a serious game” the woman said and pointed out how many attacks the game notified her she had made on the Russian military. She had accessed the game through the official Ukrainian Facebook site. According to several news reports, the game is part of Ukraine’s effort to recruit the vibrant Ukrainian crypto community into a volunteer IT army. Reports say nearly 300,000 volunteers have been organized through the Telegram messaging app and, using VPN,and are tasked with different missions.

“It doesn’t matter whether I win or no,” the woman said as she busily doubled 2s to 4s, 4s to 8s, etc. According to media source Fast Company, each move a player makes effects a DDOS (Dedicated Denial of Services) attacks on a targeted Russian website.

Watch the video interview of the woman playing online game to defeat Russian Army here.

Chris Sanes wears a kilt for work. He was sitting parked in a sparkling green, plaid-covered “Men in Kilts” van, alongside the Cake restaurant in Chestnut Hill. He was in the neighborhood on a mission to market company’s services and hand out business cards. I wanted to see whether there was truth in advertising and Sanes obliged me by stepping outside -wearing his kilt. The company does exterior house-cleaning, power-washing, and gutter cleaning but their “biggest thing” is window-washing, Sanes says. The story goes that a Scotsman in Canada went to do this kind of work one day wearing his kilt and people took a keen interest. The idea took off and now there are 15 some or franchise operations located in Canada and the U.S. Asked about whether he received any training in Scottish heritage, Sanes related that he grew up thinking he was Irish but a long-lost cousin suggested he might be Scottish. So, after getting the job, he took a DNA test which reported he was 48% Scottish. Now he’s listening to an audio book while he works on Norse and Gaelic history. What is it like working in a kilt? “It’s very liberating, being able to move around. [Our] shirts say 'No Peeking' on them." Some Scottish connection is not a job requirement - and it appears from the “Men in Kilts” website, neither is being a man. Watch video interviewer of kilt wearing window washer here.

Alexandra “Alex” Khalil is running for the U.S. Senate. In a crowded field of 14 Democratic primary candidates vying for outgoing Republican U.S. Senator Pat Toomey’s seat in the May 2022 primary, she says can’t get the political reporters for Philadelphia’s paper of record, the Inquirer, to mention her name.

Khalil is mounting a vigorous door to door campaign and one of those doors was your correspondent’s. She’s expounds a progressive agenda of Medicare for all and a living wage. But she’s not against nuclear power.

Her entree into politics came when her son told her to check out Barack Obama. Kahlil did more than that: she worked on his campaign and now holds elected office as a councilperison for the borough of Jenkintown, a small town just outside northwest Philadelphia. There she is fighting against privatization of public utilities such as the sewer service. Professionally, she works in IT for the pharmaceutical company Merck. Khalil has also practiced law.

As the daughter of Palestinian parents from the West Bank, Khalil is especially keen on the protection of human rights regardless of identity or any other criteria.

In our interview, Khalil was most animated when she spoke of the conversations she has had with people while canvassing widely around Philadelphia area and in Lebanon and Schuylkill counties: the 80 year old woman whose husband suffered a stroke, and now they can’t pay their property taxes. She’s spoken with many seniors who are in similar danger of losing their homes, perhaps faced with high medical bills. She’s touched by the families who have lost children to drugs. She lays these ills at the feet of the Republican Party for failing to adequately fund human needs, schools and infrastructure.

Khalil believes her string connection with people as both a councilperson and campaigner will set her above the crowded field in voters’ estimation. She’s received coverage in the Northeast Times, her race is covered in Spotlight Pa and elsewhere and she is hoping more major media outlets will give her a fair shake

Watch video interview here.

Your correspondent joined U.S. military veterans, Iraqi refugees and other volunteers from the community to break ground on Memorial Day and start work on a traditional Iraqi structure dating back thousands of years called a “mudhif“ on the grounds of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Roxborough, Philadelphia. More photos here. Watch a video about the first day ceremony and building start of an Iraqi mudhif.

“Al-Mudhif” is the brainchild of Seattle-based artist Sarah Kavage and Mount Airy based designer Yaroub Al-Obaidi who, after attending a lecture Kavage delivered a year ago at Moore College of Art during which she displayed a photo of a mudhif, suggested they build one! It is, perhaps, the first in the United States. The project, sponsored by the Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River, is one of fifteen site-specific installations, six already completed, extending as far north as the Delaware Water Gap and as far south as Wilmington, west to Reading and east to Trenton, all within the Lenapehoking watershed, the home of the native Lenape people.

Building a mudhif, which your correspondent can attest to firsthand, is overlaying and binding together reeds into long columns. These columns are then placed in 32-inch deep, 2-foot wide holes to provide the vertical supports. They are then bent toward one another to form an arched roof. In upcoming days, mats will be woven and set in place to form a thatched roof. Air and sunlight will come through lattice panels to be constructed and attached. Adjacent to the structure, Kavage’s husband, Rob has been busy installing the structure for a large bench for seating and a view from just outside the mudhif.

On day one, we divided into two large teams- the first tasked with digging 10 large holes, 5 opposite 5 to form the length of the rectangular structure. I opted to work with volunteers assembling the columns. We used phragmites, reed grasses, harvested previously. (A non-native form of phragmites is considered invasive and it is likely a plus-side of the project was some invasive control)

From the sidelines, an older man from Iraq who went by “Kam” vividly recalled his father’s large mudhif in Nasriyah near the Euphrates River. His family would welcome guests and travelers to rest, stay, eat and drink coffee or tea in the mudhif, set apart from the main home. At that time, Kam said, people traveled distances by horse and would go from mudhif to mudhif to rest along the way.

A younger man, Hadi al-Karfawi, who left Iraq at the age of nine spoke of his strong emotional connection with the mudhif his grandfather, a tribal leader, had built . As a boy, he was tasked with preparing and serving the strong coffee to guests. He absorbed that the mudhif was community place where people would come to resolve disputes. Everyone was given a chance to speak without interruption. The disputes might be inter-tribal or among families  of one's own tribe.

As your correspondent spoke with al-Karfawi, Mohaned Al-Obaidi, the lead builder and Yaroub’s brother, was having some trouble bending the first two columns of reeds to form the arch at the entrance. Traditionally, al-Karfawi said, the reeds, of a different variety in use here, might be more moisture-filled, perhaps more freshly cut, which would make the bending easier. (The arch is not going to be the traditional rounded one; Yaroub has designed it to be more angular  so winter snow will more easily slide off and not weigh down the roof.) al-Karfawi spoke of helpers being divided into groups, just like us, with specific tasks and he demonstrated how he and others would stomp on mud mixed with hay to form the “cement” to applied inside the roof. He had brought along two of his young children and, as the project was about to get underway, they stood by with child-sized shovels at the ready.

In his opening remarks, Al-Obaidi spoke of how emotional this undertaking has been- recreating a traditional community structure from his homeland. He suspected many of us have only associated Iraq until now with war and suffering. He hopes this welcoming mudhif will bring about a better understanding of Iraq’s ancient and rich culture.

The grand opening of the mudhif is planned for June 24th and according to a Schuylkill Center blog many activities are planned. “We will activate the installation Al-Mudhif with extended programming around exchange of war experience, healing and intercultural encounters from June to October 2021.”

Your correspondent asks, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the dispute resolution aspect of a mudhif could be "activated”? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if representative native Lenape could settle ongoing claims in this mudhif with representatives of the long dominant immigrant community? Descendants of former slaves with descendants of former slaveholders? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Israeli and Palestinian representatives could forge a just and lasting peace in this mudhif? And isn’t it fitting that this peace and justice-making take place on land taken from the Lenape, now in the safekeeping of environmental non-profit, in a traditional structure of a people who themselves experienced recent devastation to their own culture- the swamp Arabs of Iraq? A structure built for community, hospitality and peace-making. Inshallah.

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More videos here

Building Al Mudhif - short version

Mudhif groundbreaking ceremony

Docent tells about Iraqi mudhifs and ancient Sumer

Schuylkill Center Director acknowledges land belonging to Lenape people at mudhif groundbreaking

Julia Alekseyeva emigrated to the United States from Russia when she was four years old. Her relationship with most members of her family was fraught. But her great-grandmother, Lola, reflected her own personality and they developed an especially close bond despite nearly 80 years difference in age. Lola, like many other Jews who had been marginalized and persecuted in the pre-Soviet era, had become a member of the Communist party. She later became secretary, devoted but exploited, to the NKVD, predecessor of the KGB. The years leading up to and through the war years were a time of struggle and deprivation. Lola's husband, sent off to fight, and many other family members fell victim to the Nazis. In "Soviet Daughter," a graphic biography, Alekseyeva recounts Lulu's sweeping 100 year story based on memoirs her great grandmother had secretly kept. Alekseyeva places "Interludes" between some chapters of the book which weave in her own personal history- growing up an immigrant, overcoming thyroid cancer (precipitated by Chernobyl radiation exposure) navigating her college years and discovering her sexual, Jewish and political identities. Near the end, lost in grief after the death of her beloved Lola, Alekseyeva receives a phone call. She has been accepted into the Comparative Literature Department at Harvard. Alekseyeva has also authored illustrated works on Rosa Luxembourg and Walter Benjamin. At "Book Paper Scissors! an artists' book fair at the Free Library on the Parkway, cosponsored by the Philadelphia Center for the Book,  these were on display along with Soviet Daughter. Rounding out her display were Yuri Gagarin t-shirts and other t-shirts embellished with a pineapple and written across the pineapple Alekseyeva's DJ name - “Comrade Pineapple.” Watch here the author artist describe her graphic memoir about her one hundred year old Russian great-grandmother.

Gabriel Nathan has a 1963 "Love Bug" VW that screams "Drive Out Suicide" on its rear window. The car is the same model as "Herbie", the anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle emblazoned with a large encircled number 53 in the 1968 "Love Bug" film by Disney. Having lost an Aunt to suicide, been plagued by intermittent suicidality himself and having worked in a psychiatric facility, Nathan hopes to bring awareness to the issue with his Herbie. He is on the board of Prevent Suicide PA " and trains people in the community, "natural gatekeepers" he calls them, in the QPR ("Question, persuade, refer") method. This short training equips them to perceive when others may be in crisis and what to say and do. Nathan and his Love Bug are the subject of a short documentary film by Bud Clayman, "A Beautiful Tomorrow: Taking Suicide Awareness on the Road" and can be followed on Instagram at @lovebugtrumpshate

Watch video interview here

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Frank Rapoport, an attorney, started SamsaraGear some time after his daughter Alex took her own life at 32. Alex had gone to the Himalayas during her college days, fell in love with it, and converted to Buddhism. According to Rapoport, these experiences were the brighness in her life of struggle with an eating disorder. Rapoport retraced her steps in Bhutan and discovered the colorful textiles handwoven from sheep and yak hair, a thousand year old tradition of the native people. So impressed were his friends with a vest he brought back from a trip to Bhutan, Rapoport decided to make a go of an import business of clothes and accessories as a tribute to his daughter. In Buddhism "samsara" is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Watch video interview here.

Related: "End The Stigma is a community that provides education, resources, and discussion about mental health. Your story matters." #EndtheStigma "Leave kind words for someone who may need them" at the Starbucks in Flourtown

Using a handloom built by former school parent and woodworking teacher, John Fiorella, Philadelphia Waldorf middle-schoolers set up yarn on three spindles for people to crank out their own soft jump ropes. Admissions Coordinator Maggie Davis says the students decided to donate all monetary proceeds on Sunday April 7, 2019 at the Clover Market in Chestnut Hill, to UNICEF after reading Alan Gratz's book, "Refugee," about the plight of refugee families from three different countries in three different time periods. Watch video of Waldorf students using a hand loom to weave jump ropes to benefit UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

From the Facebook Event Page

"Join us on June 30 for our Palestine teach-in! This event brings together an amazing group of scholars, organizers, activists, and teachers for a day of teaching and strategizing. Whether you’re looking for a basic introduction or advanced analysis, the event will be a valuable experience." Hosted by Uncle Bobbie's Coffee and Books in Germantown.

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Meanwhile  Weavers Way Co-op may have gotten around the boycott Israel issue by selling Equal Exchange Olive Oil produced by Palestinian small farmers