This Used To Be My Playground

Laundry Day

Lake Nicaragua

©trryan November 2008

It Takes a Village

Gadling  On-line Travel Magazine's
Photo of the Day - August 2009
Shot at the Villa Esperanza Barrio
Granada, Nicaragua
November 2008
©trryan

Holding Up Half the Sky - The Seminal Moral Challenge of Our Time

Holding Up Half the Sky
local girls from Barrio Esperanza in Granada, Nicaragua go back to school through Kathy Adam's Empowerment International ©2008 trryan

If you do nothing else this week - checkout this past weekend's edition of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Almost the entire 56 page spread is dedicated to addressing what is surely the seminal moral challenge of our time: the oppression of women worldwide. What anchors this issue is an excerpt from a passionate and powerful new book by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and Times Op Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Pulitzer-prize winning author Sheryl WuDunn, called "Half the Sky - Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide".

From the New York Times Editor: Nicholas Kristof began writing his Times Op Ed column eight years ago, and form the start, he has regularly and incisively called attention to women's issues, especially those in the developing world. Traveling to scores of countries, he has carefully documented and forcefully denounced the crimes and cruelties suffered by women and girls: sex trafficking and slavery; political rape, child marriage; the denial of the freedom to pursue an education or career, or to enter a domestic relationship in which you're not beaten by a man.

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"The oppression of women worldwide is the human rights cause of our time. And their liberation could help solve many of the world's problems, from poverty to child mortality to terrorism."

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Granada Family, Nicaragua ©2008 trryan

Kristof says that "the oppression of women worldwide is the human rights cause of our time. And their liberation could help solve many of the world's problems, from poverty to child mortality to terrorism."

That kind of statement should merit everyone's attention and if the excerpt in the Times Magazine is any indication - this book, in stores next month, is a not only must-read but a clarion call to action for all of us.

Female Krung Elder - Ratanakiri Province Hill Tribe - Cambodia ©2009 trryan

Kristof and WuDunn write that if the paramount moral challenge was slavery in the 19th Century and totalitarianism in the 20th Century - in this century the overwhelming moral challenge is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the world: sex trafficking, slavery, acid attacks, no access to medical care and education, bride burning, and mass rape. In most cases these atrocities easily escape the fatally blind and discriminatory arms of the law. "Yet," they write, "if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater."

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"Women hold up half the sky" Chinese saying

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Empowerment International, Barrio Esperanza, Nicaragua - ©2008 trryan

"'Women hold up half the sky,' in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that's mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it's not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos." The pair add that there is a growing recognition that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. "The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren't the problem; they're the solution."

Masaya Market Portrait, Nicaragua ©2008 trryan

And so why is a travel and nature blogger posting today about women's rights? In 25 years of traveling around the globe it has been much too easy to find places in the world where gender equality is not accepted as a universal right -- and it is heartbreaking at every instance. But more importantly, I am the product of a lifetime of strong and compassionate women who watched over my world and held the sky over my head so that I could grow to the man I am today. It is a debt I owe them - the hopes that all women in the world could enjoy the same empowerment and all children enjoy the same sheltering sky. In my next post - I pay tribute to these women who watch over the world.

I encourage you to read the entire magazine and the other six investigative articles on crimes against women that accompany the Kristof/WuDunn piece in the magazine. And the link to purchase the book, "Half the Sky", is here. The book offers a number of ways that ordinary citizens like you and me can make a difference.

Following Kristof and WuDunn's call for action, later in the week I'll be introducing you to some of the heroes I've met from my travels in Cambodia and Nicaragua who work tirelessly toward the emancipation and empowerment of women in their own villages.

In the meantime, I'll end by sharing with you some of the staggering numbers from The New York Times Magazine piece.

Getting Ready for School

Barrio Esperanza, Nicaragua ©2008 trryan

By The Numbers:

From the August 23, 2009 edition of The New York Times Magazine

-100 Million women and girls are missing around the world because of gender discrimination

-2100 women die in childbirth for every 100,000 live births in Sierra Leone

-5000 women die a year in honor killings, the majority in the Muslim world, according to U.N. estimates

-1 percent of the world's landowners are women

-21 percent of young women surveyed in Ghana reported that their sexual initiation was by rape

-130 Million women around the world have been subjected to genital cutting

-39,000 baby girls died annually in China because parents didn't give the same medical care

-1 bride is burned almost every two hours in India - punishment for an inadequate dowry or to make way for another wife

Similar Hopes and Convergent Dreams

Mural of Che Guevara photographed in Esteli, Nicaragua on the eve of elections - November 2008 ©trryan

"This is a glimpse of two lives that ran parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams. In nine months of a man's life he can think of a lot of things, from the loftiest meditations on philosophy to the most desperate longing for a bowl of soup. And if, at the same time, he's somewhat of an adventurer, he might live through episodes of interest to other people and his haphazard accounts might read something like these notes: Man the measure of all things, speaks here through my mouth and narrates in my own language that which my eyes have seen" Ernesto "Che" Guevara from "The Motorcycle Diaries"

Top Travel and Adventure Books

The Motorcycle Diaries- The story of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s eight-month motorcycle journey across South America as a 23-year-old medical student in 1951-52. The book (recently turned into a movie) mixes observation, adventure and politics. Guevara left home with a doctor friend of his and this eight month motorcycle trip was the start of his path towards revolutionary. He explores Inca ruins, visits a leper colony, and helps miners and farm workers. His time with the underclass fomented his desire for political changes and solidified his politics and portents what the future held for him.

Big Night in the City Different - A Celebration of Nicaragua

This Friday in Santa Fe, NM, I'll be joining two other photographers for the opening of a photo exhibition featuring images from a trip we took to Nicaragua last November. The exhibition is a fundraiser for various humanitarian projects in Nicaragua.

"Humanitarian" being the kinder, gentler word to mean "extreme poverty". Poverty, indeed, is complex in its discussion and understanding. Nicaragua, however, after Haiti, is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. One out of every six people in Nicaragua simply does not get enough food to eat; and one out of every three children in that country suffers from chronic malnutrition. In simpler terms: every third child you see in Nicaragua is starving and the sad truth is that our pets are better fed then most of the population of Nicaragua.


These are heady statistics and you've heard them all a million times before juxtaposed against an endless assortment of impossibly heartbreaking images proffered before you again and again. The sad truths of Nicaragua, a legacy we Americans helped create in the 1980's, are often ignored and dismissed. Too often we are steadfast in our refusal to believe what we already know to be true. And often overwhelmed by our own problems - we too easily harden hearts and turn our backs and are empathetic only to the point that we can easily imagine our own condition to be equally daunting - ignoring the fact that we'd be hard pressed to find a doctor anywhere that would describe us as malnourished.


Friday night will be the first time that my photography is shared to the public outside of the virtual world of blogs and websites. It will be the first time that I will be formally introduced in public as "a photographer". Am I nervous - just a little bit. But no more than then the first time I posted a photo on my blog two years ago with then what seemed like outrageous audacity to brand the label ©TR Ryan under it. I took a big breath and pushed the send button. What followed has changed my life, needless to say.

I am imagining the event this Friday as nothing more than a big live blog post. The only difference is that my virtual thumbnail images are now impossibly embiggened and framed and I'll actually be standing in the comment section when curious onlookers decide to post a comment before passing on.


Seriously though: what really makes Friday a "Big Night" for me has much less to do with finally getting to dress in the professional moniker of photographer for a few hours and much more to do with finally seeing the fruition of my steadfast belief in the power of photography to create awareness, open a space to begin a conversation and, most importantly - open a window to a world most people can't see. This is the moment I'd hoped for when I made a commitment two years ago to take photography much more seriously. The fact that my first exhibition is in the third largest art market in the United States is just a little extra nerve-wracking icing on the cake.

The road to Nicaragua was born in the highlands of central Mexico two years ago in a private class with National Geographic photographer Raul Tuzon sponsored by Santa Fe Workshops. From that encounter - an invitation was extended by Santa Fe photojournalist Susan Boe to join a private photographer's donor tour designed to explore some of the incredible humanitarian organizations waging the war against poverty in Latin America's poorest country.


Our host for the week was the Nicaraguan charity Empowerment International and it's founder Kathy Adams. An encounter with two street kids while working in Costa Rica as an engineer right after college graduation changed Kathy Adams' life forever. She never left Central America and since 2003 she has been the founder and director of this successful grassroots organization that addresses poverty through education. Empowerment International helps to break the repeating cycle of poverty by working with parents to keep their children in school and by providing children in high risk areas with the physical and emotional support needed to stay in school.

Susan Boe and I were joined in Nicaragua by other extremely talented Santa Fe photographers including Morgan Smith, journalist and former Colorado congressman, and Judith Cooper Hayden, celebrated photographer of the definitive photographic design and travel tome "Oaxaca - The Spirit of Mexico". I don't think any of us, all wizened world travelers, were prepared for how quickly we would lose our hearts and souls to the captivating beauty of both the land and people of Nicaragua. Never in all my travels have I seen such resilient courage and uncomplicated joy flower so beautifully from the muck and mire of such desperate circumstances.

Our trip that week not only wove through rural and urban barrios but also in and out of some of the country's vast geography of mountains, volcanoes, forests and wetlands.

Nicaragua enjoys a biodiversity nearly unmatched around the world and very little of it is truly protected. It was in that context, within this harsh juxtaposition of impoverished humans and stunning landscape that I finally understood the inexorable link between poverty and the loss of biodiversity. Conservation cannot and will not happen until the issues of poverty are addressed and alleviated.

Empowerment International also understands the complex intersection of poverty and conservation and knows that protecting the biodiversity of Nicaragua is intrinsically linked to the human well-being of the community and to celebration of place. To that end, Adams' photography program, Mi Camera - Mi Mundo, which puts a camera in the hands of many of her impoverished students is nothing short of brilliant. It not only provides students with a creative and artistic outlet but, through the lens, also engenders an overwhelming connection to place and an awareness and appreciation for the natural beauty of Nicaragua.


The amazing thing about the social media phenomenon right now - us bloggers, facebookers, and tweeters - is that we suddenly discover that we are straddling that fine line between storytelling and citizen journalists and often find ourselves in unique situations to shed the light of truth in places more conventional media ignore. This is the path that I follow with my camera and this is the path that leads me from the darkest depths of a desperately poor barrio in Nicaragua to the swank wine-swilling crowd of a Santa Fe gallery this coming Friday. I walk this path with outrageous hope and unabashed faith that the connection I make between my camera and the people and places of this world can and will make a change - no matter how small.

I know most of you can't make the gallery opening in Santa Fe this Friday. But I encourage you to follow the links to Empowerment International and see first hand the amazing work of Kathy Adams and her team. And come meet these special people from the barrios who's enduring human spirit rises from this once voiceless, powerless place - carved out of obscene oppression and the abysmal failures of democracy and politics.

And while there, maybe drop a few coins in the bucket. The little funds Adams mines out of that bucket have already gone a long way to foster the continued self-empowerment of several rural and urban communities in Nicaragua.

I'll be sharing much more of my trip to Nicaragua here all month long.

Earth Week: Local Heroes that Inspire

Turtle Island - Mother Earth - Gaya

We've been celebrating and protecting her for more than 10,000 years - why stop now?

Earlier this week, one of my favorite people on the planet, Jane Goodall, sent me an email. Well, probably not just me - hopefully a couple hundred thousand others - but nevertheless it was a timely reminder that this entire week is a celebration of our planet Earth. And as a fellow traveler with Jane on this fantastic, beautiful, planet - her note hit home:

"As I travel the world more than 300 days per year, I meet so many amazing people who are using their lives to make a better world. They understand that each of us makes a difference, every day, with even our smallest choices.

I'm only a 200-day-per-year kind of traveler - but nevertheless Jane's note reminded me too of some of the amazing and compelling people I've met in my travels recently who are also making a difference every day with their dedication and their brave choices on behalf of this place we call home.

On this special week designated to celebrate Planet Earth, I want to recognize some of these extraordinary people I've worked with this year and thank them for the inspiration they've given me and countless others. It has been a pleasure meeting them out there on this wonderful, wild ride of a journey:

Albania

Auron Tare

Auron Tare is not only a noted historian and journalist but also considered a pioneer of sustainable tourism in Albania -- promoting the country's cultural and environmental riches as a renewable source of economic development through tourism.

Years ago he tirelessly worked to save an historic site near his home and in the course became one of the founders of Butrint National Park - which was eventually named a UNESCO World Heritage and Ramsar significant wetlands site. In 2005 he was awarded a one million dollar grant by the World Bank to address environmental issues in the park. He also formed the first exploratory expedition in the north of Albania on behalf of the Smithsonian Institute and the Royal Geographic Society. And with Albania poised to become the Costa Rica of Europe, Auron is quite keen to introduce the wide world of birders to his country's avian riches.

Auron has turned his passion for his country and the environment into political action and if his party wins the elections for Parliament this spring - he's expected to play a key government role in supporting Albania's stunning natural resources.

Siberia

Bashila- Crown Shaman of Lake Baikal

Born the eleventh child of eleven daughters in a small village in the Buryat Republic of Siberia, Bashila was identified early on by village elders as an heir-apparent shaman and was eventually chosen to carry on the centuries-old Buryat tradition of shamanism -- not always an easy role for a female in Buryatia, the northern frontier of the Mongolian world.

In time Bashila began to use her spiritual training not only for healing her fellow Buryats, but for healing the sacred waters of Lake Baikal as well. And in doing so - she restores the practice and the importance of caring and protecting the environment back to her people. She now partners with renowned Lake Baikal scientists to bring an indigenous voice to its conservation.

Oklahoma

Sue Selman

Sue Selman is a fourth generation Oklahoma rancher, former president of Save the Prairie and a tireless advocate against the destruction of intact natural prairie ecosystem by the growing presence of wind power companies. A pioneer in Oklahoma's burgeoning agritourism movement - the Selman Guest Ranch is a role model operation when it comes to using innovative ranch-based agritourism events to earn tourism dollars toward sustaining large family-owned tracts of nearly unchanged prairie and its subsequent maintenance and conservation.

Her 14,000 acre ranch was recently designated as Oklahoma's first Audubon Important Bird Area and her conservation practices have gone a long way in protecting the threatened lesser prairie chickens and snowy plovers that have existed in this habitat for centuries.

In 2005, Sue received a grant from the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture to use toward a non-traditional, multi-species grazing system which used Droper/Croix sheep and goats to help control invasive plant species without resorting to chemical control methods. She is an indefatigable voice for the conservation of Oklahoma prairie and her in-depth research of wind power certainly begs a lot of questions as to the accuracy of its "green-ness".

Peru

Alan T.K. Lee

In 2002, Alan T.K. Lee walked away from a well-paying computer software career in Manchester,UK and rode his bike 6000 km across South America as an ambassador for the National Excema Society. Not ready to return to the corporate world, Alan remained in Peru and volunteered for the Tambopata Reserve Society. In time he became a resident naturalist and field worker for the Tambopata Macaw Project and began investigating the impact of tourism on the Peruvian Amazon for Project Fauna Forever.

His experience volunteering in the field at Tambopata turned him into a passionate advocate for the conservation of macaws and other parrots and he now serves as the co-principal investigator for Earthwatch Institute's "Macaws of the Peruvian Amazon" and manages the Tambopata Macaw Project.

He is also completing a related Ph.D program at Manchester Metropolitan University and is one of the world's leading experts on clay licks as they relate to parrot abundance. Alan is also keeping a watchful eye on the devastating impact of the new Interoceanic Highway that will soon connect the west coast of Peru to the east coast of Brazil.

Nicaragua

Kathy Adams

An encounter with two street kids while working in Costa Rica as an engineer right after college graduation changed Kathy Adams' life forever. She never left Latin America and since 2003 she has been the founder and director of a successful grassroots organization that addresses poverty through education in Nicaragua, the worlds second poorest country. Kathy's Empowerment International helps to break the repeating cycle of poverty by working with parents to keep their children in school and by providing children in high risk areas with the physical and emotional support needed to stay in school.

Kathy also understands the complex intersection of poverty and conservation and knows that protecting the biodiversity of Nicaragua is intrinsically linked to the human well-being of the community. To that end, her photography program, Mi Camera - Mi Mundo, which puts a camera in the hands of many of her impoverished students is nothing short of brilliant. It not only provides students with a creative and artistic outlet but, through the lens, also engenders an overwhelming connection to place and an awareness and appreciation for the natural beauty of Nicaragua.

Backyard Naturalists Across America

On this Earth Week we must not forget the local heroes of conservation who are doing their small part by turning suburban backyards into important wildlife habitat by replacing grass turfs with trees, flowering plants and ponds that sustain birds, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians and other suburban wildlife. For more information on turning your suburban backyard in to a wildlife paradise checkout this website.

Parents and Mentors

Eradicating Nature Deficit Disorder

And let's also not forget the parents and mentors of children who believe no child should be left inside. The greatest legacy we can leave to the Earth and its conservation is by inspiring the children we come in contact with to explore, interact, appreciate and conserve the great outdoors.

Nature Bloggers

And last, but definitely not least - a shout out to the Nature Bloggers who inspires us every day with pen and camera to love, cherish and respect our little corners of the world.

From left to Right:

Julie Zickefoose , Mary's View, Wrenaissance Reflections

Susan Gets Native, Somewhere in Jersey, Sycamore Canyon

Kat Doc's World, Nature Remains, Hasty Brook.

After two years of blogging, It will be a pleasure to meet these nine incredibly talented nature bloggers next week at the New River Birding and Nature Festival.

Photo Credits- Auron Tare on horseback from Facebook profile, Sue Selman by John Kennington, Kathy Adams from Kathy Adams, Nature Bloggers from individual blog profiles. All other photography ©T.R. Ryan

525,600 Minutes

How do you measure a year? In the Pulitzer Prize winning play Rent, the La Boheme inspired characters consider several ways of measuring the 525,600 minutes that make up a year: "In inches, in miles, in laughter and tears", they suggest.

If my years are marked by geography, stamped by places traveled, and measured by the latitudes and longitudes navigated, then 2008 was a banner year. Back and forth I crossed these skies - and the weft and warp of travel wove a remarkable tale of destinations both discovered and revisited, friendships made and rekindled, the enchantment of ancient and mystical landscapes explored, and the endless and unbridled joy the natural world renders.

But travel is paradox and the stories the intrepid traveler returns with do fail if they do not remind us that our journeys cannot transcend our very human world. My travels this past year were no exception - the heartbreak of poverty was everywhere -- so too the preponderance of human greed -- and from time to time I shuddered with raw grief at what seemed a cruel and careless world. Traveling is about learning to see - and every languid smile of a hungry human and every slash and burn mark through a once fecund forest empowers my every step to walk this world with greater purpose and reminds me that travel is indeed transformative.

From the simple to the sublime here are a few memorable moments of my 2008 travels marked by the months that these 525,600 minutes passed through:

Sunsets in Hawaii in January

Sunrises in the Caribbean in February and March while it continues to snow back home.

In April, coming face to face for the first time with the America's past in Normandy. And finally really understanding what it means to be a hero.

Any trip back to Greece, where I once lived, is always a welcome pleasure. In May we cruised between islands and countries watching a thousand years of history unfold in a matter of a few hours.

May also brought a trip to my favorite city in the world - Istanbul. It is here that the haunting and melancholy call of the muezzin to the faithful reminded me that travel is often a spiritual quest.

The world's natural wonders never cease to amaze me. These spectacular falls of Iguasu in Brazil have eluded me for years. They more than lived up to their reputation when I finally got there in June.

Roof-top birding with old friends in Rio

One of my first trips out of the country was to Rio de Janeiro in 1987. Roberto Cortes was the Brazilian guide I was assigned to work with. Even though I only spoke one of his eight languages, we became fast friends. Over the years we met wherever our paths crossed: again in Rio, in Geneva, in Santa Barbara and at home in Santa Fe. We have remained friends for more than two decades but I had not seen him in many years until my June visit to Brazil. Relationships often transcend language and culture -- and these friendships are the greatest souvenirs of travels abroad. Returning back to visit special places and special people is always one of the great joys of travel.

Probably the biggest surprise all year was discovering the hidden simple beauty of Beijing while working there for six weeks in July and August. Those magic moments were unexpected and unending, and something spectacular was always just around the next corner or in the least expected of places.

The experience of working with my Chinese little sisters will stay with me the rest of my life. If they are the hope for our future - indeed we are in good and capable hands.

In August in China, the sense of One World, One Dream was ever-present and universally felt. Say whatever you want about the Olympic Games -- but the sheer scale by which people from all over the world, from all walks of life, come together for a common ideal does more for world peace and human understanding than any amount of arm chair finger pointing and boycotting will ever come close to accomplishing.

In September, in Oklahoma, a river runs through it...

and blogger-buddy road trips to southern Oklahoma with the Motmot, who I met right here at the Faraway, Nearby in 2008, rank high atop the highlight list. The geographical complexity of Oklahoma, with landscapes in eleven life zones - sweeping prairies, cross-timbered hills, pine-covered mountains and miles of shoreline -- ensures that adventurous travel will always be possible even in the most daunting of economic times.

In the October, travels took on a completely different form and function. I traveled to places once thought only accessible in the farthest reaches of my imagination.

The stark geographical beauty of Albania was often overwhelming -- its deserted beauty and lack of sun seeking tourists was a welcome contrast to the usual maddening crowds of the Mediterranean.

The subtle beauty of Siberia was as intoxicating as the crisp, clear, smooth vodka served at every meal.

Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and contains twenty percent of the entire earth's fresh water. The spirit of place is personified by the unique complexity of Baikal.

Perhaps the greatest travel moment of the year: an unexpected midnight ride, by the light of a bright, corpulent October moon, to the Buryat Kingdom of Siberia to meet the crown shaman of Lake Baikal. She is just one of many healers of water that I would come in contact with during my travels this fall. She has an uncommon grace and beauty similar to her ancestral cousin, the Dalai Lama. I will treasure or new-found friendship and the wisdom she passed on to me for a long time to come.

Nicaragua is indisputably one of the most impoverished countries in the world. In November, at the invitation of a friend, I joined a group of photographers there -- coming together on behalf of Empowerment International -- with the hopes of being able to make a difference in a child's life through the persuasive power of the lens. The experience was profound and the spirit of these people is personified in a rare and remarkable grace, the likes of which I'm not sure I've seen before. It's mind-boggling when one finally comes to fully understand how much can be learned from people who seem to have so little - but therein lies one of the greatest gifts of travel.

The spirit of place and the people here is indomitable.

And the astounding beauty of Nicaragua is not only expressed in the eyes of its people -- but also by the texture and color of everyday life.

From Granada in Nicaragua - south to Lima and then east to Puerto Maldonado and the Tambopata Forest reserve in the Peruvian Amazon. Travel as a means of income is completed for the year and its time to participate in a little global community service project for Earthwatch Institute. I join those who have come from all parts of the globe, from all walks of life, to honor this enormous forest and, if only for a brief period of time, to serve and to protect it. It proves to be a once in a lifetime experience. The majesty and spectacle of the natural world continues to pierce my little human heart to the center core of my being.

December skies...

and open roads...

always brings me back home.

I wish you a very happy New Year.

all photos ©2008 TR Ryan