CHANGES-2

Freedom is what they got and enjoyed.

This is the car, a Röhr (Roehr), made in Germany towards the end of the 1920s, and it's convertible too.

My mom loved that car. They lived in Switzerland then and she became the family's preferred driver.

Another form of communication that changed dramatically and rapidly is, of course, telephony.

The first successful experiment with telephone was conducted by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. And the following year the first city exchange was installed in Hartford, Connecticut. London became the first European city with a telephone exchange two years later. Cities were then gradually linked, nationally and internationally.

All in all it took several decades before telephones became really practical—no use to have a telephone rigged up in one's house and only a limited number of people to call. For those of you born with a mobile phone on the bedside table it must be incomprehensible that only 30 years ago the telephone exchanges in the areas outside of the main cities of Indonesia were all manual. One had to call the operator by cranking the little handle on the side of the phone and state who or what number one wanted to be connected with. Long-distance calls would typically involve a long wait for the connection to be brought off. And only 15 years ago it was very difficult, bordering on the impossible, to get a new telephone connection in Jakarta, there were simply not enough lines.

Something to ponder—does the cellular phone avalanche also mean greater freedom for their users? I'm not sure. Unless switching the phone off, one is on call 24/7. And observe groups of friends sitting in a café or restaurant, each one concentrating on a phone, chatting, mailing, smsing…

Maybe that is freedom to replace talking to the person opposite or next to you with chatting to ones far away—to let them know where you are and what a great time is had by all.

Comments welcome!

CHANGES

Did you ever wonder what happened to yesterday, or the day before, or last year, or the era before the one we are now living in…? I don't mean what you did yesterday or he day before, or last year, or… You probably know what you did, though there is a good chance that you have forgotten it already.

What I mean is do you ever wonder what happened to the larger constellation, the ideas we then entertained, the feelings of awe felt, no even heard, as a shared sigh of amazement. From my fairly high position on the tree of life, a position where the branches are getting shorter and thinner, I have a commanding view of those awesome happenings and amazing developments: in my early years—primary school days—television started to project grainy black-and-grey pictures into our living rooms, and the neighbour in the house opposite parked his car a bit down the street so as not to disturb the kids playing (field) hockey and other games; he was the only one with a car in the whole street, and he might of course also have wanted to prevent possible damages to his car. That was The Hague, Holland, in the early-50s. Go there now and you will not see a single child playing. The street has become one-way and the two-car families are claiming parking space left and right.

My mother, who was born at the beginning of last century, listened in awe tot the first scratchy sounds coming out of a radio. Her mother, and now we are adding another lifetime, was taken to school in a horse-drawn carriage—a fiacre I think it was, as they then lived in Paris.

Both women learned to drive—my grandmother not very well—and used the car to travel widely and frequently.

For them these quantum leaps in transport modes meant an expansion of their freedom.

to be continued…

recipe GARLIC HUMMUS

Today I include a recipe for Garlic Hummus, a very tasty Mediterranean dip. These are the ingredients:

• 1 can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans (drained)
• 10 or more cloves of garlic
• 60 ml or 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 30 ml or 2 tablespoons lemon juice

But not only tasty, also very very healthy.

The beans are a great source of fibre, and regulator of blood fat, levels of LDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol, and triglycerides. Garlic is a powerful antioxidant, and the olive oil—it must be extra virgin olive oil—helps to control blood sugar. (Diabetics are typically told to avoid or minimise fats, a study by the German Diabetes Association found, however, that monounsaturated fats, such as extra virgin olive oil, do lower glucose levels.)

To make the dip: blend all ingredients in a food processor to the desired level of chunkiness.

This recipe is dedicated to my good friend ME, aka "Machine Gun". Enjoy it Pak…!

herbal cure GRAVIOLA

Some years back, during a visit to Holland, I was trying to find Graviola for a friend who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I had read about Graviola, the natural Amazon forest cancer killer, which is said to be 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy. The health stores and homeopathic pharmacies that I contacted all knew the product, but none had it. One health store owner finally told me that some boxes with the pills were kept under lock and key in Brussels by the EU-authorities. The reason, the importers had been late in asking for food and drug clearance, and without the approval by the EU drug authorities the nutrient was not allowed to be sold.

I finally found a supplier in Switzerland, but of course had to go there to pick it up myself as the Dutch customs department would, most likely, have confiscated the shipment.

And yes, my friend has been pronounced cured, his cancer in complete remission.

The Brussels licensing problem has been cleared, and Graviola is nowadays widely available. Good.

But to my great surprise, just a few days ago here in Jakarta, I was presented a booklet: SIRSAK, Si Buah Ajaib 10.000 X Lebih Hebat dari Kemoterapi… (Soursop the Wonder Fruit 10,000 X Stronger than Chemotherapy). And, of course, it grows in Indonesia. Not only here, but also in the Philippines, Thailand and many other Asian regions. Graviola/Soursop/Zuurzak (Anona muricata Linn), a native of South America, was brought to the Philippines by the Spaniards. Its leaves, flowers, fruit and bark were used of old for a wide range of illnesses and ailments: from arthritis to asthma and from stomach upsets to malaria. Its effect on cancer cells is most likely a more recent discovery.

So now that this knowledge is locally available I hope to be able to use it in a future rural develop­ment assignments, and who knows, we might be able to produce an impact on general health conditions in the region.

Nuruddin Fara, a Somali writer

Somalia. Brings to mind: famine, religious fanatics, suffering population, pirates, war lords, hunger, Black Hawk down, failed state, civil war, international failure, annoyance, human intolerance, narrow-mindedness...
And then I suddenly came upon Crossbones... the last book in the trilogy Past Imperfect by the Somali writer Nuruddin Farah. Links and Knots are the first and second volumes of this trilogy.
Mr Farah left Somalia in 1976 and now lives in South Africa and the US. I have only read this last volume where the need for survival overrides all social considerations, as nothing is what it seems, or what, we readers in a more  organised society are used to... and I cannot wait for Amazon to deliver the other two.
I recommend, enjoy.

a day in the life of... STARTING

Never done this before and  feel a bit awkward. Talking to a blank wall, no nods or moving eyebrows, no visible reaction to my words... Still, let's continue. I made a quick trip to the big supermarket. Had to take the car as it is a bit far, definitely not walking distance. I needed a new casserole as the one I have is losing its no-stick coating, I think it is a no-stick layer inside the pan, but it might well be not more than a coat of black paint. Whatever, it's coming off, getting seethrough so to speak, and I'm worried that whatever the coating, it will not add healthy nutrients to my meals.
So, off to the shop to get my new casserole. I had seen it there before, 24 cm, stainless steel with a three-layer sandwich capsule bottom for great thermal dispersion. I copied that from the box it came in, but it is one very heavy dish with a very heavy lid.
I am gradually replacing my cookware--most of them teflon coated--with stainless steel, as however careful one is, and I am handling my kitchen utensils very carefully, the coating is bound to get scratched and nano pieces of it end up in one's food. I'm not going  to tell you the name of the supermarket or the brand of the casserole as availability in my part of the world (Jakarta, Indonesia) will be different from yours, but similar pots and pans can be obtained from the Amazon Home & Kitchen department.
Enjoy your day, I do.