2018-19

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC

15TH EDITION

From the Editors Sharing stories is part of human nature. Through sharing our individual tales, sharing stories of others around us, and through exploring narratives that shape society, we are all one piece of a greater work—the human experience.

Each member of the Middlebury College community possesses their own unique story, a slice of the world they have seen, experienced, and lived. These experiences often shape how we perceive the people around us and also ourselves.

Stories matter. People matter. In the end, each day entails a choice of which stories we want to share, which stories we choose hide, and which to listen to.

During these times of fake news and attacks on the foundations of journalism, we forget that photojournalism itself is the act of sharing stories about other people and about the world. In the 15th edition of Middlebury Geographic, we invite you to rekindle the spirit of storytelling. Through the following stories—the words on these pages combined with photographs or drawings of the world around us—we hope that your belief in people and our world with all its beauties and complexities, is rejuvenated.

In this life you will venture to breath taking places, and meet people who take your breath away. We invite you to learn with us, see the images that entranced us, listen to the stories that have taken our breath away.

We hope you enjoy, The Editorial Staff

Two collared Aracaris enjoy a game of catch with a bunch of palm fruits in Tikal, Guatemala (Photo by Michael O'Hara) 22

Photo by Van Barth

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC 15th Edition 2019

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Ilamagun Panama

By Alfredo Torres The Way to Kathmandu Nepal

By Mai Mai

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Italian Summer Italy

By Mike Pallozzi

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Counting Days Arizona

By Isabella Primavera

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Fire & Ice Iceland

By Edward Hoffman

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Tie-Dying in Yunnan China

By Tatsatom Goncalves

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A Call from Nepal Nepal

By Olivia Weisel

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A Small Fish Story Vermont

By Matteo Moretti

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Painting with Place China

By Charlotte Massey

An Unlikely Pair Chile

By Julia Beck

Dekuji Krumlov Czech Republic

By Monique Santoso

Faces of Loikaw Myanmar

By Pyone Aye

Gjunba Ghana

By Lexie Lessing

The Book Thief of Kabul Afghanistan

By Farid Noori

Tracking Time Jordan

By Violet Low-Beinart Photo by Van Barth

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CONTRIBUTORS

PYONE AYE '19 Editor-in-chief Pyone is Senior Economics and Art History major who has never lived in one place for more than 3 years. She loves capturing all of life’s moments–the breathtaking, the bittersweet, the embarrassing, the blurry–on camera.

MATTEO MORETTI '21 Matteo is a Sophomore Environmental Studies and Film joint major who can finally admit that he is obsessed with fishing and the outdoors.

Nature has been the glue that has brought together all of his interests including story-telling, film and photography, and writing.

EDWARD HOFFMAN '20 Edward is a Junior Physics major and Linguistics minor. He had a young start on photography using his father's camera and wandering around his hometown. He enjoys outdoor activities of all kinds, particularly if he can lug his camera around.

JULIA BECK '19.5 Julia is a Senior Feb Spanish major who uses practicing her language skills as an excuse to travel to Latin American countries. She loves art, storytelling, and learning outside of the classroom.

LEXIE LESSING '19 Lexie is a Senior Neuroscience major with a minor in Anthropology. She is from Long Island, NY and loves everything water–sailing, kiteboarding, scuba diving, wake surfing, you name it.

TATSATOM GONCALVES '19 Tatsatom is a Senior Environmental Studies and Geography major who grew up in the Brazilian countryside.

Somehow he managed to learn six languages along the way.

He loves traveling a lot and is occasionally seen carrying a ukulele on his back.

VIOLET LOW-BEINART '19 Violet is a Senior IGS Middle East Studies major who was born and raised in New York City but has always loved exploring other cultures. Although she started taking photos on a digital camera she loves the slower process of film photography and the surprises it brings.

MAI MAI '22 Mai is a Vietnamese first-year student still confused about her major. She spent two years studying at United World College Red Cross Nordic in Norway. She likes hiking up mountains, swimming in the sea, journaling, and being spontaneous.

ISABELLA PRIMAVERA '21.5 Isabella is a Sophomore Feb ENAM major and Philosophy minor. She is from one of the three main islands in the Philippines called Luzon. Her love for photography started from taking portraits of her friends, which eventually expanded to taking photos of everything else.

CHARLOTTE MASSEY '19 Charlotte Massey is a Senior Philosophy major with a minor in Studio Art. When she isn't reading or mountaineering, Charlotte enjoys hanging out in coffee shops and doodling the view with her espresso.

MONIQUE SANTOSO '21 Monique is a Sophomore Psychology major who is on a never-ending chase to see, feel, and know all that surrounds her on this incredible earth.

Her wanderlust has given her fantastic 3 AM conversations with strangers who turned into friends.

FARID NOORI '18.5 Farid Noori is a recently graduated Feb Economics major, but has a secret affair with Creative Writing. He loves being on the road, telling stories, and nurturing Mountain Bike Afghanistan, an organization he founded to grow mountain biking in Afghanistan.

ALFREDO TORRES '19 Alfredo Torres studies Film and Media at Middlebury where he has changed his major more times than what he can remember (or what should be allowed). His passion for visual and performing arts are often inspired by his life in rural Costa Rica.

MIKE PALLOZZI '18.5 Michael is a recently graduated Feb from South Jersey who majored in Environmental Science and Geography. He has been shooting film photography for the past five years to capture the authenticity of the world in good old-fashioned grain.

OLIVIA WEISEL '22 Liv is a first-year from Northern California where she feels deeply rooted in the arts and surf culture. Her love for the ocean and dancing with it inspires both her movement and vision of work. She plans on being a Studio Art major.

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Photo by Van Barth

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Ilamagun ALFREDO TORRES • PANAMA

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or the Guna (Kuna) people in Panama, the first albino or “ilamagun” that was sent to them by Bab Dummat, their god, was the father of the Sun. From there on, all the ilamagun that came after were known as children of the moon, and they were associated with magical powers.

During eclipses, albino members of the population are in charge of shooting arrows to the dragon that wants to devour the moon. Such an honorable position, however, was not always granted for the children of the moon. Just like many other albino populations in the world, particularly in parts of Africa, ilamagun members of the Guna suffered extreme discrimination, persecution, and death. At some point in history, their condition was mistakenly associated with the blood of many of the White Europeans who violently settled in the region.

Although traditional beliefs were reestablished and infanticide had stopped, one the biggest challenges faced by ilamagun members today is skin cancer. The strong embrace of the loving tropical sun is not kind to their skin and eyes. Thus, there are greater efforts towards trying to help protect the skin, the gentle skin, of the children of the moon.

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Hijo de la Luna

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"Kunming Constructed” This piece is painted with soil from the Cangshan mountains, Matcha tea from Kunming and indigo dye from the Lanxu Eco-Cuture Development Center in Zhoucheng.

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“PAINTING WITH PLACE” BY CHARLOTTE MASSEY

Painting with Place CHARLOTTE MASSEY • CHINA

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connect to the places I visit by creating paintings with materials that I gather from the landscape itself: iron-rich soils, plants with staining leaves or flowers, espresso from a local café, juices from a juice bar or locally harvested dyes. I call this practice ‘painting with place’- creating art with an understanding of my location and connection with the natural landscape.

This summer, I had the opportunity to study at the Middlebury School of the Environment in Yunnan, China, and I expanded my endeavor of ‘painting with place’ through the Understanding Place final project. We spent three weeks studying environmental policy, science, and history in Xizhou, a picturesque town nestled on the shores of Erhai Lake and shaded by the Cang Mountains. Then, we traveled into Kunming to spend three weeks in a contrastingly urban environment. Throughout the program, I used visual art to connect with and explore the communities and natural environments around us.

In my first week in Xizhou, I met a painter at a local coffee shop. We managed to communicate through Google translate and enthusiastic gestures, and I realized that she was an art teacher. She invited me to come to her class the next morning. What I didn’t realize was that the art class was in a meadow, halfway up a mountain, and that she wanted me to help teach the class. That’s how I ended up teaching plein air oil painting to twenty college students from Kunming, two Malaysian artists, and one monk from Shangri La. I learned techniques and styles that were dramatically different from my own style and realized we were using entirely different color palettes. I wanted to paint the landscape using colors that would capture the feeling and tactile nature of the places we were visiting. I decided to paint using only materials I could gather in China.

I’d painted with coffee before, so I asked the local café owner to serve me some strong espresso for my first painting of the rice paddies outside Xizhou. To brighten my paintings with other colors, I had to experiment with new materials.

The area of Yunnan we studied in is famous for traditional Bai tie-dying, and I was curious about whether these dyes would work as paint. A famous dying village called Zhoucheng was a few miles down the road from our base in Xizhou.

We visited the Lanxu Eco-Culture Development

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Center there, and learned about local dye production from an employee named Jake. Jake told us that dyes are made from many local plants, such as gardenia flowers, pomegranate rinds and indigo. The materials are all harvested at different points of the year and are carefully prepared. For example, the gardenia pods must be boiled for several days to get the rich yellow they use for dyeing; indigo is boiled and then allowed to sit for three years to obtain a rich blue color. The pools of indigo dye were a dark green color––the indoxyl from the leaves turns blue and converts to indigo when it contacts air––and bits of leaf floated on the surface. I dipped my brush in the vats to test if the dye could work for painting.

Jake let me take some indigo and gardenia dye home to experiment with, and I used these dyes for the blue and yellow hues in the pieces.

I used watercolor brushes and small watercolor postcards for my painting and I applied the dyes as though they were watercolor paints.

I stored the dyes in little plastic bottles and started to try to create my own. I soaked goji berries in water to see if the orange color would stain paper. I experimented with rose petals, soup broth, three types of soil, matcha tea and various plants. I also learned traditional techniques like Jia Ma block printing and local crafts like embroidery and tying for tie-dying designs.

All of this exploration came together as an art show during The memories our last week in Kunming, where will last and the tactile nature of the I raffled off seven pieces of original artwork changing as art to raise money time passes creates a for migrant workers who don’t viewing experience have a place to that goes beyond call their own. a simple visual The paintings may fade over representation. time–they are painted with experimental materials without light-fastness ratings like traditional watercolors.

However, the memories will last and the tactile nature of the artwork changing as time passes creates a viewing experience that goes beyond a simple visual representation. These paintings include another dimension of the representation of place–a little piece of the landscape is right there on the paper.

“Flower Farms in Dali” Painted with rose petals, gardenia flower dye, indigo dye, Matcha, and soil from the Cangshan mountains.

"Zhoucheng Tie-Dye Village” Painted with indigo dye and gardenia dye from the Lanxu Eco-Culture Development Center in Zhoucheng Village, Matcha, soil from the Cangshan mountains.

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“PAINTING WITH PLACE” BY CHARLOTTE MASSEY

“Yunnan Coffee” Painted with coffee grown in Yunnan, prepared at Peter’s Coffee in Xizhou, Dali.

"Dragon Pool near Heqing” Painted with indigo dye and gardenia dye from the Lanxu Eco-Culture Development Center, pen.

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“PAINTING WITH PLACE” BY CHARLOTTE MASSEY

“Across the Bridge Noodles” Painted with Across the Bridge Noodle soup broth from our class dinner at Bao Chung Fu, coffee from the Linden Center grown in Yunnan, watercolor paint, pen.

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Ahu Tongariki, Rapa Nui

An Unlikely Pair From Santiago to Rapa Nui JULIA BECK • CHILE

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Memory serves as a powerful testament to the lives lost during the antiago, the seven-million-people- strong capital of Chile, military dictatorship. I unearthed the most mysterious history at the sprawls farther than the eye can see. Although, I could barely General Cemetery, where Salvador Allende, socialist president prior see a great distance through the city’s relentless haze, pierced to the dictatorship, lies with murderers still unknown 50 years later. by a few skyscrapers. An eternal congestion caused by millions of From Santiago, I took the one, and only, five-hour flight that cars made finding a moment of true silence nearly impossible. A lands everyday at the Rapa Nui airport––a small building covered powerful mountainscape made it hard to forget about the proximity with palm fronds, that are clearly there for the tourists, but do their of the Andes. All of this stands in stark contrast to Rapa Nui, a small job of reminding the newly arrived that volcanic island with a population of about six thousand better known by It’s popular to the point that “instagram they are in Polynesia now.

Though Rapa Nui forms part its colonial name “Easter Island,” tourists,” as locals sometimes call them, of the edge of the Polynesian islands which is nearly inaccessible, but travel to the island just to pose at the triangle in the Pacific, travelers remain, through Santiago. technically, in Chile. The Chilean I, like almost everyone who island’s archaeological sites. government officially annexed the island travels to Rapa Nui, one of the most in 1888, initiating a period of formal colonial control that though remote inhabited islands in the world, spent a few days in Santiago has been drastically altered, has not ended. For most of this period, first. Too big to just walk, most people take the subway to each tourist destination: the Pablo Neruda museum, the funicular, the tallest the local language, also called Rapa Nui, was banned in schools, a building in South America, to name a few. The history of the city, law, I learned from locals, that has consequences still seen to this day. though not exactly hidden, must be uncovered among the trendy Around 1890, all of the island’s natives were officially confined to restaurants, tourist traps, and big city-life. Colonial architecture Hangaroa, the capital (and only) city, and the rest of the 64 square reminds visitors of the Spanish past in the country; the Museum of mile island was used as a sheep farm that extracted forced labor from

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“AN UNLIKELY PAIR” BY JULIA BECK

Ahu, Rapa Nui

Central Market, Santiago

the islanders through the 1920s. The introduction, at the same time of non-native plant species, nearly eradicated local endemic plant species. When I went hiking on the island, I found myself repeatedly climbing (or tripping) over the stone fences built for the sheep that still litter the island. In this way, the island’s history, unlike Santiago with its haze, is everywhere.

Tourism has become a dominant industry on Rapa Nui. It’s popular to the point that “instagram tourists,” as locals sometimes call them, travel to the island just to pose at the island’s archaeological sites. These tourists will probably miss all there is to learn from the island. While visiting, I heard dozens of different theories, from different guides and from friendly locals, about how and why the world-famous Moai, the enormous stone sculptures that were carved to honor specific ancestors, were created. The Moai period is only the most famous historical period, though, since the Birdman period and others are almost equally mysterious and present on the island.

As I walked along the island’s coast, I passed by centuries old stone chicken coops from the earliest days of inhabitants on the island. A little farther, Ahu Tongariki, a platform with the greatest number of restored Moai came into my view. Later, I walked to the cave where the Rapa Nui people hid during the first events of visitors

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and invaders on the island. One day I walked to the southernmost corner of the island, and, next to a volcanic crater, a sacred village that was used once a year for the Birdman competitions lies perched on top of a cliff.

And, though it’s fairly easy to drive to all of the biggest archaeological sites, walking is so much better. On Rapa Nui, travelers can learn so much more when they take the time to walk.

While walking, the island slowly reveals itself, its history While walking, the and its mysteries. The other island slowly reveals option, of course, is speeding itself, its history and its through all of the best sites for photos, like the so called mysteries.

“Instagram tourists,” before catching the flight back to Santiago.

Visitors, Chilean or not, since they don’t have Rapa Nui ancestry, cannot stay on the island for more than 30 days. So, I eventually took the plane that leaves for Santiago everyday at 2:30 p.m. I left the salt water breeze and the volcanoes for the mountains and the skyscrapers with a slight ache for the gentleness of island life, and the wondrous amount of history to explore on the island.

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“AN UNLIKELY PAIR” BY JULIA BECK

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Dekuji Krumlov MONIQUE SANTOSO • CZECH REPUBLIC Canoeing down the Vltava, we crashed into rocks and dove into gorges, as quiet winds blew and we paddled over way toward Český Krumlov.

Temperate June blush drew on, touching the tower tips shyly as we spiralled up medieval cathedrals and castles while cobble stoned paths stirred beneath our feet.

Walking from the towers to the city we dined by a babbling brook and watched the lights glistening synonymous to the stars above.

I settled into my seat and a vintage record played as I inhaled the lingering smell of cheap perfume and expensive cigars.

Walking hand in hand, a dim path before us, I was reminded of empires, of kings and merchants treading down this very path.

We waltzed quietly in the corner under a street light where no passerby could see how in love we were of the city and of the adventures.

Calling out to canoers under, I remember the pleasantries they threw irrespective that we were strangers, not yet friends.

If to live is to breathe and to love is to laugh, then I lived and loved most under the golden hues of Český Krumlov.

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FACES OF LOIKAW PYONE AYE • MYANMAR

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“FACES OF LOIKAW” BY PYONE AYE

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he first brass coil is put on a child as young as age-five. As she grows older, more coils are added until the neck appears extraordinarily long. The weight of the brass pushes down on the collar bone and stretches out the neck.

While the tradition is centuries old, the practice faces an uncertain future. Historically, these brass rings were markers of beauty, status, and wealth. Nowadays, only a small handful of women wear them, and some continue the tradition simply for commercial gain. Many tourists come to areas like Loikaw, Myanmar to take pictures of the long-necked women. Many of them also pay for tours around the villages and purchase local handicrafts before leaving.

Although, the reasons for preserving this cultural practice is now largely driven by tourist demand, we can still appreciate the beauty of these women, their smiles, and their brass coils.

By sharing these photos, I hope to shed light on the ancient tradition and have faith that this will continue inspite of Myanmar modernizing around them.

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Gjunba LEXIE LESSING • GHANA

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pressed down on my shutter release when I saw a baby goat look up at the word “WONDERFUL” handwritten on the side of a small home in Gbunja. In just a fleeting moment I felt as if I had captured a word that would remain permanently ingrained not only on the home, but also in my memory and life.

In the Summer of 2017, I had the wonderful opportunity to help empower women in Gbunja, a rural community in the Northern Region of Ghana, with the NGO Saha Global. In the local Dagbani language, the word “saha” means opportunity. I helped community-selected women build a sustainable watertreatment business to provide the opportunity of clean water to their families and communities. Previously, Gbunja’s primary drinking water was an opaque, brown liquid from a winding, crocodile-filled river, a 30 minute walk from the village center.

The women’s water-treatment business uses locally sourced chemicals to make water from Gbunja’s primary source of water Through these potable. In return, I was given still images, I was the opportunity to experience the villages’ beautiful cultures able to capture and to discover the rewards and small moments of realities of development work. humility, strength Through these still images, I was and vibrancy in able to capture small moments of humility, strength and vibrancy Gbunja. in Gbunja.

Hearing small anecdotes from each family made me feel connected to the 400 people of Gbunja. One woman’s comment concisely distilled the weight of our project into a single statement. When asked what she thought about the new water treatment center, she responded saying that drinking the dirty water made her feel no better than the animals they shared their water source with and that she was moved by the opportunity to be able to give her children something better.

Hearing this woman’s statement showed me how powerful the simple opportunity of clean drinking water could be.

On my last day in the village, my team and I sat the children down under the large tree in the center of Gbunja, a makeshift classroom, and handed out empty water bottles. I watched as many of them dispersed and returned minutes later holding bottles filled with clean water from their families’ safe-storage containers with huge smiles on their faces. It was moments like these that helped me realize the impact of my weeks in Gbunja. It was not that my presence enacted change, but that the community in Gbunja had the passion to understand and the desire to take advantage of an opportunity to improve their own lives. Development work should not be a foreign imposition; it should be community driven and informed by specific, local needs. While no project is perfect, Saha Global’s work in the village of Gbunja showed me an example of the wonderful opportunities that empower people and strengthen communities.

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“GJUNBA" BY LEXIE LESSING

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“GJUNBA" BY LEXIE LESSING

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Photo by Nora Peachin 32

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The Book Thief of Kabul FARID NOORI • AFGHANISTAN

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eople often forget that English is not my mother language. My journey from Afghanistan to Middlebury began inside a classroom tent donated by UNICEF, and it required a relentless quest to learn the English language, which I accomplished largely by stealing English books.

When the Taliban came to our village of three homes in Central Afghanistan in 1995, my family escaped to Quetta, a city in Southern Pakistan. My father quickly realized that it was no safe place either; terrorism was becoming epidemic there too. He saw my brothers and I getting sucked into gang culture and banditry out of boredom. So one day, he jumped on a fisherman’s boat with 200 other Afghans to cross the Indian Ocean and make it to Australia His last words before as refugees. His last words before we said goodbye were, “You enroll in saying goodbye were, English class tomorrow!” And so, at "You enroll in English age five, I was asked to learn another class tomorrow!” And language before I could properly speak my own. so, at age five, I was After the events of September 11, asked to learn another my father abandoned his Australian dream, and we returned home to language before I could properly speak take part in the United States-led reconstruction of our country. This my own. time we settled in Kabul, which had the happy and energetic vibes of a post-war capital. In front of our house, we fed a half dozen street dogs who were not only starved of food, but of human attention too. Upon close examination of their faces, one could see the war reel play in the glitter of their eyeballs.

Suffocated inside a UNICEF tent classroom, I desperately dreamt of studying in the U.S. which required me to become fluent in English.

I took private English classes, but soon realized that their heavy focus on teaching grammar from obsolete textbooks like The New American Streamline, equipped me to speak like a robot at best. Instead, I opted for listening to the BBC World Service on a Sony Walkman using $2 headphones at a time when American teenagers had iPods. I also desperately started looking for English novels, but they were as scarce as diamonds.

To my luck, in 9th grade, a good friend of mine participated in the International Science Olympiad in South Korea, and returned home with a few John Grisham novels. In the next few months, I lay my hands on the first set of English novels I had ever read: The Runaway Jury, The Street Lawyer, The Last Juror, and The Testament. Grisham would be delighted to know that even in Kabul he had a fan club, and it consisted solely of my friend and I. A few months later, the problem of book scarcity fell on my lap again. My visits to several of Kabul’s bookstores had no successful results. Inside these tiny room-size shops in the basements of poorly lit supermarkets that boasted of carrying all kinds of English books, one could only find The New American Streamline, English Grammar in Use, 504 Absolutely Essential Words, and a few variations of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). I nevertheless bought them—better something than nothing—and forced myself to memorize a healthy dose of ten absolutely essential words every day.

Cliché as it sounds, you find what you seek. That summer, one of my teachers went to India and returned with a suitcase full of Penguin Readers and Reader’s Digest condensed books. Because I didn’t know any English writers other than John Grisham, I didn’t hold any prejudices against any particular author. I began binge-reading random titles. I had read somewhere that reading out loud could help with speaking fluency

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and confidence. Following that advice, with a jug full of water by my side, I used to read aloud for long exhaustive hours, doing voice acting in a room all by myself, frequently drinking water to moisten my drying throat.

My attachment to English literature made me stand out among my classmates. They started calling me an infidel for devoting so much time to the study of English, as opposed to reading the Quran, or Persian literature.

One day, one of my classmates walked over to the heater with a Reader’s Digest copy in his hand and threw it in the blazing fire. He belonged to the family of a strong faction of the Mujahedeen.

Someone else threw a whole row of books on the floor, stomping over them, crushing and crumbling the Someone else threw hard covers and kicking them like a football. I was convinced that these a whole row of books books had no value for my classmates. on the floor, stomping From then on, when everyone left over them, crushing the classroom, I occasionally picked and crumbling the hard a book and silently slid it into my covers and kicking them backpack.

Around the same time, I had like a football. begun hanging out in the Afghan Cultural House–a hub for Kabul’s young and growing civil society. In its lush green yard, there was always a small crowd discussing and reading work from authors like Franz Kafka.

The boys had long and unkempt hair, and some of the girls weirdly dyed their hair blonde.

They gave out an aura of pride with their outlook and self-claim as Kabul’s cultural elite, so I never acquired the guts to join their circle. On the veranda, there was always a live performance of some kind; folklore music, theatre plays, and even rap songs. Inside the building, there was a café where young men wearing slim fit jeans and button-down cotton shirts hung out with girls who either let their scarves hang loose around their necks or entirely let go of them. This café would go on to give birth to most of Kabul’s youth activism. It was also a place where one could bring someone on a date without some angry guy throwing a rock at them.

Attached to the café, there was a small library, which mostly carried Farsi text, and a few translations. Past the library, photographs and paintings hung on the stairs leading to the second floor where a screening room, and an art gallery occupied the main hall. Only Kabul’s highly educated elite moved around the perimeters of the Afghan Cultural House. Women had a voice here. Music was praised, and people tossed around phrases like the metaphysics of the mind in normal conversation.

As a teenager seeking a Western education, the Cultural House sucked me in as soon as I found out about it. Here, I watched movies like Schindler’s List while my neighborhood in Kabul struggled without electricity and proper healthcare.

In 2010, my efforts to learn English paid off when I earned a scholarship in an exchange program that brought me to the U.S. Before I embarked on my journey halfway across the world, I came across the Reader’s Digest books that were now covered under some dust. At first glance, I decided to return them to my classroom, but the thought of those pages either burning in the heater or sitting untouched for years before they were thrown away in a garbage pile gave me second thoughts. I tossed the books in a large duffle bag and As a teenager seeking a took a bus to the Afghan Cultural Western education, the House. Inside the small library, I unpacked the books one at a time, Cultural House sucked and stacked them in a visible shelf me in as soon as I found where I hoped their glossy covers out about it. would attract some fresh eyes.

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“THE BOOK THIEF OF KABUL" BY FARID NOORI

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“TRACKING TIME" BY VIOLET LOW-BEINART

Tracking Time VIOLET LOW-BEINART • JORDAN

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ast Fall, while living abroad in Jordan, I became interested in the ways time was conveyed and experienced in ways so different from my own understanding. This essay is the result of that fascination. Presenting photos of both Beirut and Petra in Jordan, this essay seeks to focus on the small details that expose both the passage and presentation of time. While each location shares a different, and sometimes contrasting relationship with time, they each expose how time cannot be hidden for it will always find ways to emerge.

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I Walking through the streets of downtown Beirut, it is sometimes easy to miss the signs of the decades-long civil war that raged across the city. Posh and gleaming Channels and petite Parisian bakeries line wide-open spaces that scream international luxury. This spatial attempt to manipulate collective memory during the 1990s was a convincing effort. However, once leaving this seemingly timeless area of peaceful and reunited Lebanese paradise, time becomes visible once again as the city’s scars and long history are exposed.

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“TRACKING TIME" BY VIOLET LOW-BEINART

II While Beirut tries to manipulate time to forget the horrors of war, Jordan’s Petra embraces it, wielding time as a commercial tool to draw in high-paying Tourists to gawk at its romanticized past. Chiseled out of ancient rock and protected by its dessert encasement, the magnificent two-thousand-year-old world wonder still stands. In contrast to the uneroded and seemingly timeless structures of Petra, signs of the passage of time can be found everywhere –– constantly shifting shadows tell of the passing of daily time, while the deep etches in the rocks speak of millions of years of geologic activity.

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Niklas and I fell asleep several times on the bus and opened our eyes to dreamscapes of naked rock and ice. The rapid transition from the bustling city streets of Kathmandu to the primordial tors of the Himalayas, completed within a few hours by bus, made for a surreal experience. The mountains themselves were raw and endless and to this day impart a powerful nostalgia.

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“THE WAY TO KATHMANDU" BY MAI MAI

The Way to Kathmandu MAI MAI • NEPAL

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hat my bus was filled with people helped still my mind—literally—as my head was cushioned by a legion of hands, heads, and torsos that afforded little movement to my own.

Without them, I would have rattled and shook like the bus with every bump in the road. We were traveling from Muktinath back to Kathmandu, and the trip would be eight hours.

The road was crudely rocky and tortuously narrow.

Its path winded, meandered and oxbowed with all the dramatic flair of a snake in tall grass. All of us passengers feared leaning against either side of the bus, in fear that we might tip it and send ourselves careening off the edge of our mountain trail. My traveling sidekick, Niklas, and I would periodically tense up and hold our breaths whenever the bus crossed over a particularly perilous path. And, while he laughed in awe of our blind trust in the dexterity of our bus driver, I tried hard to keep looking up, and not down at the chasm, praying for our safety but not knowing who I was praying to.

Those mountains felt intimate and terrifying at the same time. Terrifying, as if at any moment we could disappear among their chasms and cliffs and sheer faces.

And intimate, as if they, in their titanic expanse, hugged us with timeless stillness.

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Right: We were at the “Thorong La” Pass with an elevation of 5416 metres above sea level.

It was difficult to breathe.

Even after Niklas left to see his grandmother in Germany, he couldn’t shake the Nepal’s influence.

Whenever he lied outside in the front yard he’d be struck by the calmness of the world around him.

There was no bustling Kathmandu traffic, only a tentative breeze passing through the neighborhood.

Biking down the German streets, he noticed how homogenous the people were. He missed the Nepalese vendors and their vibrant carpets and clothes. He missed the Tibetan candles and mantras warming whole neighborhoods with light and spirituality. He missed the breathlessness of a good hike. He missed the chaos and the quiet. Nepal was paradoxical, human, authentic, and a place Niklas missed an awful lot.

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“THE WAY TO KATHMANDU” BY MAI MAI

The silence of the mountains were a stark contrast to the chaos of Kathmandu. Even among the Nepalese peaks the city was hard to forget. The noise of cars and motorcycles swarming the streets, the monsoon season rains turning paved roads into muddy traffic-jams, the mountain buses struggling to hold onto the road while their inhabitants held on to each other: Kathmandu in all its noise, color, and chaos remains one of the most delightful places we’ve gotten to call home.

We didn’t want to miss the bus back to Kathmandu. But after two weeks of trekking the Annapurna Circuit in central Nepal, we’d fallen in love with where we were.

The endless Himalayan ranges, the vibrant swaying “spiderwebs” of Tibetan player flags, the crisp white sun during the day and finger-numbing cold in the night, the early morning skies tickled by the blending of cool mountain fog with smoke from a distant teashop—the open mountains in their tranquility and wonder would be hard to say goodbye to.

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Italian Summer MIKE PALLOZZI • ITALY

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“ITALIAN SUMMER" BY MIKE PALLOZZI

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“ITALIAN SUMMER" BY MIKE PALLOZZI

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Counting Days ISABELLA PRIMAVERA • ARIZONA

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fter nine long grueling days down in the canyon, I felt like I could continue living without seeing the colorful rocks for years. But after our early morning hike, we reached the rim, and I felt some sort of bittersweetness.

There was something about being dirty, being in nature, and leaving the luxury of daily showers and running water for nine days straight. The canyon became our bathroom, our home, and our playground. Living by the saying “leave no trace behind,” we carried our wastes with us.

There was something about the canyons surrounding you day and night for nine days straight. The canyons are your only witness–it watches you light your portable camp

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stove, as you make your hot chocolate after dinner, as you sit around the campfire before bed, as you tell each other stories and play campfire games. It watches you sleep outside the tent in your sleeping bag right under the starless sky, right under the bright moon–the moon that tells you what time it was, as every time you wake up in the middle of the night, it was in a different place.

Each day passed and our backpacks got a little lighter. It was a reminder that our days in the canyon were numbered.

From nine to five to one. And, at long last we saw the rim.

I told myself I wouldn’t be back for a long time. But now I find myself missing it.

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54 “COUNTING DAYS" BY ISABELLA PRIMAVERA

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Fire & Ice EDWARD HOFFMAN • ICELAND

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fter leaving Reagan airport at around 8, we flew along the coastline of Canada, slate grey water fading into black as the sun set. However, heading north, it was not long until we saw the sun again; lighting the jagged peaks of Greenland as the only features from the featureless white of the ice sheet.

“Surely, Iceland won’t be like this.” I thought to myself, as we flew on. Fortunately, dropping below the clouds revealed a welcoming sight of an island mostly devoid of ice. We deplaned and promptly collapsed in the airport as we awaited my older brother, who was flying in from England. After picking him up, we crammed into a small sedan and headed towards our Airbnb awaiting our first night.

At 40,000 square miles, Iceland is only just slightly smaller than Kentucky, but with a population that barely edges past 350,000 inhabitants. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Of that population, two thirds lived within an hour’s drive of where we had just landed, Reykjavík. The next morning, still groggy, we journeyed up to the capital. With the weather unusually

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clear, we were able to explore the city on foot and admire the fjords all around us, having lunch at a seafood restaurant before heading back to Keflavík.

On the next day, we decided to drive down to the “Golden Circle,” a loop that connected three national parks and a thermal river. Nonetheless, we first stopped at the Reykjadalur Thermal River, which was accessed by a short 2 mile hike up the gorge carved by the river. After hiking through a sulfurous geothermal area, we reached the warm section of the river and wasted no time getting in.

Being of a particularly restless stock, I left the river, dried off, and continued hiking up the valley looking for solitude and the source of the river. Unbeknownst to me, my family, who is well acquainted with my wandering tendency, had left the river and hiked back to the car, so I had a nice downhill two mile run.

On finding my family, we piled back into the car and headed to the first stop on the Golden Circle: the thermal area of Haukadalur, the first reported geyser known to Europeans. Once again, my

personal satisfaction came at the cost of my family’s patience as I and drove along Route 1, the major highway that circumnavigates photographed the eruption of the geyser several times, before finally the island. Our ultimate destination was Hofsos, a small town in compiling a series I liked. one of the northern fjords. On arriving, we went to the thermal

After this we headed on towards Gullfoss waterfall, which swimming pool with an outstanding view of the fjord, before coming had been the subject of a dam project for more than 50 years before back and setting up camp as the sun set so late, we were in no danger the investors ran out of funds and the of running out of sunlight. waterfall was sold to the Icelandic Being of a particularly restless stock, I left We knew we would eventually government, who scrapped the travel to Mývatn, a large lake in a hydroelectric plan and currently works the river, dried off, and continued hiking volcanic area in the north central part up the valley looking for solitude and the of the island but stopped along the to preserve the area. way to hike up a knife edge ridge in a The immense amounts of spray source of the river. glacial valley. ejected by the falls made sure we were After a quick lunch in an old sod house, a museum, we got all well and truly wet at this point, but we had one more stop to back on Route 1 and headed toward Mývatn. Reaching on site, make, the Þingvellir National Park. To get there, we first drove we decided to head up to another geothermal swimming area, one around Þingvallavatn, the largest natural lake in Iceland, only to much less a pool and much more a mineral water spa. After relaxing arrive in the rain. At this point, we were tired and wet, thus, only from the long drive, we explored an inactive volcanic rift that had managed to briefly walk into the rift before heading back for the day. flooded before heading back to our campsite, where I spilled all of On the following day, we loaded into a Volkswagen camper van

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our backcountry meals (oops). We ended the day all crammed into the van for a much better night of sleep.

We started off the next day by trying to escape the campground, as the parking lot was entirely full with our rather large vehicle wedged into a corner. Once we escaped, we headed for Hverfell, an extinct cinder cone volcano that dominates the landscape around Mývatn. From the rim, we had a 360-degree view of the surrounding lava fields which scarred the landscape. Once again, I earned the ire of my family, this time by stopping to take 100 exposures to create a panorama of the cinder cone. After descending the cone, we explored the lakeshore where magma pillars had formed odd shapes protruding from the water. True to its name, Mývatn, meaning lake of the midges, we were besieged by gnats which, fortunately, did not bite. Once our cursory survey of the lake concluded, we continued our geothermal activity theme by heading to the site of one of the most recent eruptions in Iceland. At this point, my parents were tired, so my brothers and I hiked along to the site of the eruption.

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The inside of the crater felt extra-terrestrial with jagged rock outcroppings. Just past the crater, the landscape was dominated by vast fields of black cooled magma, lending the whole area a desolate feel.

One notable feature of Iceland in the summer is how long the days are, a fact that would be advantageous to us the next day. As fun as Iceland was, eventually we had to move onwards, and having gone halfway around the island, our drive back to Reykjavik was an unpleasantly long notion. We loaded our gear into the camper van and sped off on the ring road. Along the way, we stopped at a small town known for seal watching; however, the cold August weather had them far from view.

As we drove back through the wide fjords around Reykjavik, stopping occasionally to enjoy the 10 PM sunset, I reflected on the trip, with everything from the difficulty of 20 hours of sunlight to the extra-terrestrial landscape rising to mind.

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Tie-Dying In Yunnan TATSATOM GONCALVES • CHINA

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e hit the road that day with only a vague sense of where to go. Just a few minutes prior, my friends and I had decided to embark in search of an art museum that none of us knew much about. “It’s a traditional form of zaran,” said someone in the group. Though I didn’t know what the word meant, the prospect of adventure seemed too appealing to turn down. We set out on our bikes and before I know it, I am leading the team with our only GPS. It isn’t long before we also realized that very GPS has led us through a tricky route alternating between treacherous highways and narrow, bumpy dirt roads. The endless yellow rice fields, so typical of this part of Yunnan, accompany us throughout.

After about an hour, we finally arrive. As we approach the museum, blue-colored cloths of various shades emerge. Of course, "zaran" means to tie-dye! I hastily ask around if this is the local Bai Minority Tie-Dye Museum. Three ladies in full-on Bai traditional garments nod profusely.

Along the entrance hallway, the most beautifully dyed drapes hang on the wall. Further to the side, lies a series of rope lines much like those in my home’s backyard, only in this case crowded with elaborate works of art.

Past the rope lines is an exhibit on Bai people’s centuries-old tie-dye culture. The exhibit includes samples of the natural ingredients used for each corresponding pigment, as well as a description of the nearly 20 steps entailed in the process.

Intricately tied cotton cloths demonstrate each piece’s appearance before being submerged in dye, dried out and ultimately untangled for display. At a distance, dozens of cloths illustrate the mesmerizing fruits of the painstaking days-long process.

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The Bai people, an ethnic group found mostly in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, have long been known for their rich tie-dye tradition. The practice, dating to over 1,500 years ago, includes more than one thousand traditional patterns–most of them blue-colored. In recent years, however, the array has come to encompass not only traditional tablecloths and tapestry, but also modern-looking patterns on goods such as hats, purses, pillows and even wallets.

Indeed, judging from all the merchandise in the museum’s local store, it is hard to believe there could be any limits to this array.

I leave the local shop with a new tapestry and the temptation to bring along many others. Just a few steps ahead, I find an enormous wooden container filled with indigo dye. A lady, dressed in traditional Bai garments, notices my curiosity and asks if I would like to try making a tapestry myself. I excitedly accept the offer. She asks my preferred pattern and I indicate one of the flower-like styles, whereupon she proceeds to manually print the outline onto a blank piece of white cotton. An older Bai lady then instructs me to weave a string along the pattern’s contour before tying and folding the cloth in more ways than I can remember. The outcome looks very much like a multiarmed and severely disformed cotton doll. Quite a successful outcome given that my teacher, fluent only in the local Bai language, had unfortunately failed to communicate instructions to this merely intermediatelevel Mandarin speaker.

At this point, all four of us foreigners have produced multi-armed dolls, and are ready to plunge them inside They are a far the dye-filled wooden containers. Before long, cry from the a young man with gloves magnificently retrieves the dolls and prepared tapestries places them inside of a around us, but still giant centrifuge where all the cloths dry up. All not a bad first try that is left, is to untangle for amateurs. them, and voilà. Four flower-patterned and napkin-sized cloths are born. They are a far cry from the magnificently prepared tapestries around us, but still not a bad first try for amateurs.

Happy with the experience and the friends we have made, we prepare to head back right before dawn without realizing a thunderstorm has formed outside.

And, perhaps one of the most impulsive decisions I have made, we all cram our four bikes inside of two tuk-tuks with a sense of direction not much better than the one we had started with. Fortunately, we make our way back safe, tie-dyed cloths in hand and an adventurous story to share.

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“TIE-DYING IN YUNNAN” BY TATSATOM GONCALVES

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A Call from Nepal OLIVIA WEISEL · NEPAL

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T

h ree months after returning from Nepal, I received a call from an unknown number with the international code +977. An enthusiastic “Hello?” sounded on the other end, her heavily accented voice bringing me back five months in time.

It was the second-to-last day of September 2017 and I was standing on the 603rd step of a vaguely maintained stone stairwell that led to Chokati, Nepal. Hints of the monsoon season lingered allowing each breath a humid comfort. My sight was overwhelmed with a verdant green from miles of lush and terraced rice fields that surrounded me. Standing there, I became unprecedentedly aware of my teal backpack’s minimal contents and the weight of nervousness accumulating in my gut. It was about another hour’s ascent to meet a beautiful family of two that would house me for the next two weeks.

I followed Chandreshwari’s long braid and plaid kurta up a creek bed to her house. Her four-year-old son, Amir, was strapped tightly to her back with a scarf. I was immediately confronted with the barrier of spoken language as, at this point, I knew a countable number of Nepali words and my family’s position being similar with English. “Dhanyabaad” (thank you), “namaste” (greeting), and

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charades became the staples of my new vocabulary and observation became my singular vehicle for understanding. Days were spent shadowing my twenty year old homestay mother as she went about her daily rural life. We sat curiously and awkwardly over two warm plates of daal bhat every day, each meal allowing time to get acquainted and comfortable in each other’s presence.

One night at dinner, while I was peeling potatoes with a precariously shaped utensil, I looked up to see Amir’s grandmother, Babani Thami, in the door well. She had stopped in to say hello and take a good look at the blond haired visitor. She was wearing green flip flops, billowy red pants, and ten yellow beaded necklaces, each bearing a key, that rested atop her takka cholo, a Nepalese style jacket.

I, too, was proudly wearing a cholo that the local tailor had sewn me earlier that day, so I took the initiative to make conversation over our simple similarity. I started repeating the words “cholo” and “ramrochha,” (good) a few times while gesturing from her upper body to mine. She laughed and said “ramrochha.”

A few silent moments passed and then, somewhat disappointedly, she looked down at her chest and said “chhaina,” there is not. She looked up at me, rubbed her hands flat down her breasts and said

“chhaina!” once more. I glanced towards Chandreshwari for guidance saying “I miss you” in English, I was overwhelmed with love and to a plot, but she too looked confused. “Bhujina,” I said, "I don’t joy and confusion. My life in America had resumed, and I was understand." Fast, complex Nepali words were exchanged followed confronted with the truth that I may never see this family again. But by an immediate eruption of laughter. Babani Thami replayed her instead of dwelling on the fact that the temporality of my homestay “chhaina” gesture and this time, resumed to reach across and grab and my current geographic location inhibits my ability to connect my breasts. With a nod that implied "see what I mean!" she said, on a deeper level, I look forward in remembering a display of love, “chha!” which means "there is." I was catching on. Upon releasing hospitality, and community that I had never experienced before. my small boobs, she lifted up her A quick note on foreign shirt to reveal her naked breasts photo-taking: photography in a She rumbled with laughter, Amir covered his that were halfway to her navel eyes in mortification of seeing grandma naked, foreign culture is controversial. and had certainly stood the test of and Chandreshwari was on her back in hysterics.

Exotification can come to time. She rumbled with laughter, the unconscious forefront of the Amir covered his eyes in mortification of seeing grandma naked, and intention and the camera can come between the connection. Finding Chandreshwari was on her back in hysterics. Babani Thami reveled an appropriate place to capture one’s artistic vision takes a deliberate in her old aged body as she compared it to my nineteen year old awareness of her position behind the camera and a keen attention figure, and together we were speaking the language of womanhood, to her intention. I want to acknowledge my respect for the people celebrating the universally relatable experience of being human. and places in my compositions as they are the story-tellers, homestay As I answered that phone call five months later, I couldn’t have mothers, brothers, mayors, religious figures, and mountains that felt farther away from the connection I had made in Chokati, Nepal. gracefully offered me an insight into life in Nepal. Thank you and Hearing Amir laughing in the background and Chandreshwari namaste.

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“Photography in a foreign culture is controversial.

Exoticism can come to the unconscious forefront of the intention.�

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Photo by Olivia Weisel 72

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A Small Fish Story MATTEO MORETTI · VERMONT

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rmed with a 2 weight rod, a single fly tin with some of my favorite dries and my dad’s old film camera, I shut my car door and proceed to walk.

I pass through the meadow that precedes the cobbled trail to my favorite local mountain stream—dew sliding in between my toes and wildflowers just catching the sun that was creeping its way over the White Mountains.

Wandering down the thinly trodden path, I pick a large stone to rest on and I wait. I wait long enough for nature to forget about me and it is there that I truly experience all that fishing means to me: Delicate brook trout waver in a young pool spawned by this spring’s floods. They face upstream waiting for meals, weaving between debris that passes by. Lithe fins, a deep earthen orange and vermicular backs that tell a story similar to the creek carved into the slope of the mountain—calloused but youthful.

Newly hatched caddisflies congregate on a nearby rock and dare to putter above the creek—testing their virgin wings—unfortunately teetering just close enough to be pulled down by the water. And the brook trout are breaching the surface ever so slightly to sip in the fallen bugs, allowing the ephemeral birth and death of the mature caddisfly to nourish them.

I take my rod laced with my oldest fly and kneel down behind

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the stone, listening to the cadence of feeding fish. When I am ready, I gently lay a cast a few feet upstream from my native gems. The newly powdered dry fly bobs through the water, the most eager and ironically smallest fish rises to the fly and misses it.

I know that in this creek the trout will only look at a fly twice until they grow weary, not three times, but twice. As I readjust my positioning, I draw back my arm: 2 inches above the fly, the supple monofilament sits firmly in between my thumb and forefinger and I release my bow.

The fly lands again and this time the trout, all 3 inches of it, successfully nabs my cacophony of feathers. I raise my rod and ease the fish close to me. I bring my The honesty of father’s camera to my eye, knowing a film picture that with film I needed enough time expresses exactly to get the exposure right, but I could how we must not let too much time elapse and miss remember to the moment. experience fishing.

The honesty of a film picture expresses exactly how we must remember to experience fishing: feel the stillness in the stones, smell the petrichor in the cool water and appreciate the perfect imperfections of a small fish story.

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EDITORIAL BOARD Pyone Aye Daniel Krugman Matteo Moretti Julia Beck Isabella Primavera Monique Santoso Ruhamah Weil Om Gokhale Sarah Haedrich Ben Beese PHOTO CONTRIBUTORS Van Barth Nora Peachin FRONT COVER Olivia Weisel BACK COVER Pyone Aye SPECIAL THANKS Printing Services Amanda Reinhardt Valerie Costello Jeff Howarth

Photo by Edward Hoffman 76

JOIN THE ADVENTURE If you are interested in submitting travel essays and photographs to Middlebury Geographic or in being part of the magazine’s editing and design team, please contact us at mg@middlebury.edu Every issue of Middlebury Geographic is available at www.issuu.com/middgeog A new website is coming soon!

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