The good and the bad of the cell phone

Studying community health and holistic healing

Hello, everyone, this is Genno trying to write a little more about my time in the Green Mountains in Vermont studying. In my last blog I introduced you to my summer of ‘85, when I studied at the ISE.

One of the courses that I took and enjoyed a lot was on community health and holistic healing. This course explored the forces that shape the health of both the individual person and the community. The class involved experimental, hands-on learning, field trips, class discussion and healing arts practitioners. The goal was to learn to sustain ourselves and become healthier in an ecological context. In the course of holistic health, we practiced hands-on learning in giving a massage as well as other forms of healing. We also explored green politics and urban agriculture, with evening lectures given by activists and faculty in their chosen fields.

Social ecology and the summer of ‘85

This is Genno checking in and trying to get started with a new blog. I have had some bad luck with my blogging but I am going to try again.

In the summer of ‘85 I signed up for classes with the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, Vermont, and connected to nearby Burlington College. I was looking for some college hours. The school is located in the Green Mountains. In registering for classes, everyone was required to take the course that was given by Murray Bookchin, founder of the school. The required course was an overview of social ecology — there were speakers who shared their expertise on social ecology in agriculture, feminism and holistic health, to name a few topics. The material was integrated to provide a coherent analysis through a series of talks by Bookchin.

What are they dressing up for?

I am going to do a little blog about something I have thought about for a long time. I have been an avid fan of pro basketball for a long time, and it has always amazed me that the coaches of the various teams come to the games dressed in designer suits, silk ties and such to coach their team on the sidelines in these “dress up clothes.”

Coming to America

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The weather has changed — windy, bumpy, with waves 8 to 9 feet high, in bad storms they get up to 25 feet and the captain put up ropes in the lounge so there is something to hold on to where there is no railing. We have had some rolling and movement of the ship and the waves have been l0 to 12 feet high but on the ship you cannot tell they are that high.

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Today is the last day I will be writing and when we arrive in New Jersey we will be stay overnight in New Jersey near the airport. I will close with some statistics that might be interesting for some who read this account.

Pizza in Pisa

We are now docked in Naples, Italy but it has rained so hard most of the night and the next a.m. A tour guide came on board about going to Pompei but the trip was called off because the rain had made the streets almost impassable. Later an Italian official came onboard and phoned for a taxi for me and asked for a driver to take me to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was the only one who went as the other passengers had been there before. It cost me a hundred dollars and was well worth it. The driver played a tape with music from a concert Pavarotti had when he was in Rome on the way. The trip was around a hundred miles from the ship and on the way back we stopped at a pizzeria, had a mug of beer and a delicious pizza.

Up the Hill to Nazareth

Going ahead with my trip, I will continue about the ship docking at Haifa in Israel and the tour up the hill. I hope it hasn’t been boring to everyone. As we went up the hill to Nazareth our tour guide told us about the schools there — they are free until college and then cost around a thousand dollars a year, but remember this was back in 1992. We saw many kibbutzes along toward Nazareth. The kibbutz is a community farm and the land given to the people by the government, which gets a percentage of the profit made. There is good transportation in all the major cities in Israel and Haifa is the third largest.

Next Stop — Iskenderun

Getting out of Alexandria port was not easy. The captain said ships aren’t anchored systematically — just dropped here and there instead of a in line so that ships can get in and out of port easily. Our ship had to whistle many times to get other ships to move as they blocked the channel. Our next stop was Iskenderun, a city of around 300,000 people. The cargo to be unloaded was for the US government for a base about a hundred miles away.
In the city there are many places to buy spices such as sage, red pepper, basil and all kinds of fresh fruit — radishes bigger than large onions, cabbages bigger than watermelons, men in their long robes drinking Turkish coffee and little boys delivering it on a tray.
Grace, another passenger and I had lunch at a large restaurant, no other women — just men. The port at Iskenderun was a big grain elevator and some of the grain is spilled when loading and the captain told us about all the rats near the dock. He said some were as big as dogs.

Ships Dot the Wide Expanse of Sea

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There are so many ships dotting the wide expanse of sea, all waiting to get into dock at Alexandria.  The reason there are so many ships waiting is because of the holidays and many of the dock workers don’t show up for work.  The captain has been told that we will probably be the l0th ship waiting to get into port and that it may be longer.

Water, Water Everywhere

Today is 12/29 — spent quite a bit of time up on deck
watching the ship forge ahead and water, water
everywhere you could see, dozed a little in a deck
chair, listening to the sounds the ship makes as it
moves along.  It has been a warm, balmy day with  a
gentle breeze and the blanket I brought along on deck
felt very good.  The sun is disappearing and it will
soon be dusk and time to eat again.  Food I have had
today included broiled lamb chops and smoked tongue (which
some of the passengers wouldn’t try but it was delicious
and so enjoyable).

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