Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

Article on the front page of the Standard of Tanzania 1/6/1971 reads: Blowing bubbles distracts these children from the war poster behind them. It shows a freedom fighter ready for armed struggle to liberate his country - South Africa, namibia, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola. The Children, far from these areas are in Dar-es-Salaam to mark International Children's day. They will soon forget bubbles and take to arms to continue the struggle in their respective countries. The Dar-es-Salaam based MPLA office appeals to "all friends of our people to demonstrate their active solidarity by making a donations such as tinned foods, clothing, shoes, woollens, money, milk, babies bottles, medecines and so forth.  "All such donations should be taken to our Office (Independence Avenue / Mkwepu Street, near the Cosy cafe, dad-es-Salaam) throughout June so that they can be sent on to the children of the liberated areas of Angola." 

See if you can spot Dad, Tony Hall. The Hall family grew up quite close to one another geographically and pretty well emotionally. For most of my childhood Granny and Grandpa Hall lived in Pine Street in Pretoria and Aunty Connie, Uncle Jack, Rosemary, Barbara and Ian lived across the road. Your Dad's dad, of course, owned the Lido Hotel south of Johannesburg. David and Tony were boarders at Pretoria Boys High School – older than my brother Peter who was also a boarder, while I was mostly a “day dog”. As you may have been told, Grandpa (that is my Grandpa and your Great Grandpa) was a geologist who, as the assistant director of the Geological Survey, surveyed some of South Africa’s richest mineral prospects – platinum, phosphate and gold in particular. With nothing more than a rock hammer, a chisel and a wonderful instinct he made extraordinary discoveries and his reports are still used by geologists today. Ask any geologist who works in South Africa about Dr A L Hal...

Don Jorge Quesada in the Zona Rosa house 2000 Don Jorge has a double doctorate from the university of Navarre. He's the youngest of Tere's uncles and has sacrificed his life to teaching in higher education sometimes in the most remote and harsh environments in Mexico and Latin America. He is wonderful to talk to, but his special interest is astronomy and I remember he gave me a book, long ago in 1994, which showed the cosmic imprint of background radiation. We lived right opposite the Observatory in Guadalajara. Its roof was across from ours and sometimes I would go up in the night and look at the stars and at the observatory and wish that I too was an astronomer. Don Jorge was very indulgent of my skepticism. He smiled and smiled, but couldn't really be bothered to explain too much. I think priests see the negation of atheists as, essentially, part of a contrarian search for God. Don Jorge introduced me to the anthropic principle. When we were in M...

Mike Hall's paintings of Johannesburg Here are a few of Mike Hall's paintings of Johannesburg in the 1990s. If you would like to contact Mike about prints or comissions then leave a post and I'll pass it on to him. Thank you and please remember these paintings are copyright.

Uncle Wilhelm was killed on the Russian front in 1944, not long after this picture was taken. Granny said he was a simple, sweet unambitious boy who wouldn't hurt a fly. But he joined the army at 19 at the beginning of the war and rose to became an oberfeldwebel in the Luftwafe, a company sergeant major. I very much doubt he kept his hands clean. How could you as an NCO in the Nazi army over a period of about 4 years? The oberfedwebel was mainly involved in keeping the company supplied with ammunition and other supplies, evacuating the wounded and collecting prisoners. It chills me to think what 'collecting prisoners' could have meant in practice in Russia.  I suppose the Luftwaffe was focused on the air war. But in what way is that reassuring?

Granny Lisa and Grandpa Richard in 1935

Uncle Arthur became a journalist and like his Father Isidor Steinhardt, he was an expert in foreign affairs I think this picture was taken in Bulgaria , but it might have been taken in Serbia.

It was her grandmother's seventieth birthday and there were over a hundred guests. 12 Mariachi turned up to play for Teresa senior, that most beloved of woman. My youngest daughter was 7. She had just learned to dance at her school. Unselfconsciously, she went forward and in front of the Mariachi, standing forth, and in front of the 100 guests, she did her traditional Mexican dance.

Eve and Tony in Somalia 1983-1985 Eve with Colleagues I believe this was Eve’s first job after she did her masters in the UK. She became Chief Technical Advisor for the ILO to set up and lead an income generation project for women in the Jalalaqsi refugee camps , about 3 hours inland from Mogadishu. Eve had put in a request for an associate expert that I found in the bottom of a drawer when I visited ILO in Geneva in search for an inspiring job. I had passed the selection process in the Netherlands and our Ministry of Foreign Affairs was willing to sponsor my work as an associate expert with the ILO. I received a couple of positions before but these were all sort of office jobs sitting in the capital city. I therefore decided to go to Geneva and try to find a position that was more challenging. So I ended up at EMPRU (rural employment) department and more specifically the women’s programme. I explained that I was looking for hands-on work in more of an NGO setting rat...

Is it healthy, sometimes, to hate? I was sitting with Mom in Matumi by the fire and Mike was with us and Mike was telling us how he forgave his stepmother while she was dying and he felt liberated by it. While she died he prayed and in praying and forgiving he was released. At this point, Mom broke in: 'Do you think I forgive the Nazis for what they did to my grandmother? Do you think I forgive the people who jailed me and who jailed our friends?' Very angry now, she said. 'Sometimes it's healthy to hate.' And she turned to me and asked. 'What do you think love?' And she waited, a little apprehensively, for my answer. Would I support her? Now Mike and I have a close relationship. He has taught me so much over the course of my life, though our meetings have been few and far between. But I looked at Mom and said: 'Yes, Mom, I agree with you, sometimes it is healthy to hate.' And since then I have been thinking about what she...

ALLEGRO MA NON TROPPO    By Wislawa Szymborska Life, you're beautiful (I say) you just couldn't get more fecund, more befrogged or nightingaley, more anthillful or sproutspouting. I'm trying to court life' s favour, to get into its good graces, to anticipate its whims. I'm always the first to bow, always there where it can see me with my humble, reverent face, soaring on the wings of rapture, falling under waves of wonder. Oh how grassy is this hopper, how this berry ripely rasps. I would never have conceived it if I weren't conceived myself! Life (I say) I've no idea what I could compare you to. No one else can make a pine cone and then make the pine cone's clone. I praise your inventiveness, bounty, sweep, exactitude, Sense of order - gifts that border on witchcraft and wizardry. I just don't want to upset you, tease or anger, vex or rile. For millennia, I've been trying to appease you with my smile I tug ...

By Tony Hall Kumb. Ardh Kumbh Mela, photo by elishams A general look at a subject which is close to my heart - I got to love the country, its cultures and history, very much, from when I first went there in 1973 for Oxfam, moving around the villages and towns of Western India for many weeks, to report on and help publicise the drought emergency. It was about two years later that I was transferred by Oxfam from East Africa to India. We moved as a family from Nairobi to be based in Delhi, and Eve and I both 'covered' India, reporting on emergency and development needs and projects. . ---------------- . India really is RICH - in peoples, cultures, history. It has exported hard work, skills and brainpower to many parts of the world for ages: shopkeepers and sugarworkers, engineers and intellectuals - and in recent years, a stream of highly educated computer techies to the West. . Chess was invented in India,and so, they say, were numerals ...

  This is not Arbor, but it looks like him. His name is Cricket - great name for a cat. I've only had one cat. I lived on my own as a student and walked past a pet shop. I went inside and looked at the kittens. One of them came to the grating to look at me and I asked to see it. The pet shop owner opened the cage and the kitten, a grey tabby, walked up my arm rubbed its side against my right ear and then walked across my shoulders, and then its fur tickled my left ear. So I bought it and took him home and fed it and looked after it. No problems with toilet training. I called him Arbor. I carefully dropped the 'u' to make it more of a cats name. The root suffix of arboreal - my arms, his branches. For the next month, I woke up and opened my eyes and there Arbor was, his large green eyes looking straight into mine. He sat warmly on my chest and throat, purring. It frightened me. I didn't normally sleep on my back. Why was I waking up on my back? Di...

My son is in his first year of medical school and he is extraordinarily level headed and rational. He reminds me of my father, in fact. He is lucid and holds very fast to reason. But he's also quite open-minded. We had this conversation a week ago:  Chix: 'I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed I was being gassed. It was very real. I didn't know I was dreaming and I couldn't wake up.' Me: 'Do you mean the holocaust?' Chix: 'Yes.'   Me: 'Were you a boy?' Chix: 'Yes.' Me: 'How awful. You poor thing. What happened?' Chix: 'I was being gassed and all I could think about is how unfair it was. It was just so unfair that I couldn't believe it was happening. Then, afterwards, I woke up.' Me: 'Couldn't you wake up?' Chix: 'No.' Me: 'And you had no idea it was a dream?' Chix: 'No.' Chix: 'But the unfairness made it seem unreal. I couldn't belie...