I met Jacqueline Boone at the PINK conference in San Francisco. One of the things that I did there was ask everyone the question, “What would you do if you only had 6 months to live?” Ironically, most people I meet say, “I would travel the world!”
It might be because the people who are drawn to me are jetsetters, but I think that there is something more profound than that. Perhaps, at the end of our lives, the one regret we might have is that we did not go on that dream trip to (fill in the blank) or that we did not take the time to see the world.
So, when I got an email from Jacqueline telling me that my question started her on the journey, “What would you do if you only had 6 months to live?” blog. I was inspired to share her experiment. She calls it “An Experiment in Living.” She asks, “What could you do in 6 months?”
It is so inspiring to see young women like Jacqueline pursuing a passion and chronicling it. So, I ask you….
What would YOU do if you only had 6 months to live?
Me? I would fly first class around the world visiting all the incredible places that I have not seen I would take a camera and interview as many wonderful people that I could, I would learn about their culture and what they value. Then, I would share it with the world. And, hopefully, through me living my passionate life, I will inspire others to do so as well.
Because, as Buddha says, “World peace, through individual happiness.”
My girlfriend Moira didn’t pay attention to the sign “Private: Keep Out,” when she sped through the back gates of Slane Castle in Ireland. “Listen, Teresa, you’re only here for a few more days, this is the best way to see the castle,” she said. “What, by breaking and entering?” I asked. “Yeah, something like that.” She chuckled.
Lucky for us that when we rambled up to the front of the castle, Henry, Eighth Marquess Conyngham, the proud owner of the ancient edifice, was standing out front.
Now, feeling a bit criminal, I slowly got out of the car and introduced myself. Thank goodness the Eighth Marquess was quite friendly and happen to have some time to show us him family’s property.
Slane Castle is a private estate that has been in Henry Conyngham family since 1701. The Hill of Slane overlooks the Castle and legend has it that this is the spot where St. Patrick lit his paschal fire around 432 AD. The area of Slane is packed with many ancient relics of Ireland’s long Celtic and Druid history. Only 20 minute drive from the castle is the great mysterious monument, Newgrange which dates back to 3200 BC. Unlike the castle, the history of Newgrange is a bit blurry, much like my mind after two pints of Guinness.
Lord Henry (I must admit, I really didn’t know the proper way to address a Marquess) took us on a tour of his second home. The castle is available for rent and years ago it was the place where U2 lived for six months recording one of their albums. The band also has performed live at the castle and you can purchase the video at amazon.com.
Since 1981, Slane has hosted the largest outdoor concerts in Ireland. Rolling Stones, Madonna, Queen, Bob Dylan, Robbie Williams, David Bowie, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Oasis and REM are just some of the world-renowned acts that have played at the venue. The next concert is scheduled for June of 2010. I asked the Marquess who will be performing, and he still is in negotiations with a few bands. Whoever is playing, you’ll find me backstage that day – the Marquess promised me backstage VIP passes.
If you are thinking about a destination wedding or just want to rent out a castle for a week or two, then Slane castle is a fantastic venue for you to live out your rock star dreams.
For you brides-to-be, Slane castle offers two banqueting options for your special day, Burton Hall which can accommodate up to 240 guests and King George IV’s Ballroom which has a capacity of 110 guests. The castle has ten spacious bedrooms that accommodate up to twenty-four guests or groupies. All bedrooms have their own private bathrooms and many rooms have incredible views of the river Boyne below.
When Lord Henry is not booking international bands to perform on his front lawn or managing the castle, you can find him and his son in the cellar creating Irish whiskey. His whiskey, appropriately called Slane Castle Irish Whiskey, is distilled by Cooley Distillery, which won the European and World Distiller of the Year at the 2008 International Wine and Spirit Competition. Slane Castle is very much a family affair and the Marquess’s very handsome son, Alexander, The Earl of Mount Charles, is also intimately involved in the family business. With Alexander’s previous experience working for Irish Distillers, he plays a key role in the creation of Slane Castle Irish Whiskey. This latest venture is a reflection of the family’s long standing passion for ‘Uisce Beatha.’ (Uisce Beatha is a Gaelic term which means ” Water of Life,” a.k.a. whiskey.)
Lord Henry is such a delight. We spent an hour walking through the castle and touring each room. With every step, he would share a riveting story of Ireland, his family, or the English royalty. My favorite story was about the romance between King George IV of England and his great, great, great, great grandmother, Elizabeth, the first Marchioness Conyngham. The King stayed in the Castle in 1821 and it is believed that the reason the road from Dublin to Slane is one of the straightest roads in Ireland is because it was so designed to speed him on his journey. Oh, what the rich and powerful will do for love.
The weather in Morro Bay was surprisingly warm for late October. We had left a cold and windy San Francisco and drove four hours south to Morro Bay. Unlike touristy Santa Barbara or uber-expensive Carmel, Morro Bay is a sleepy little coastal town with lots of otters and even fewer tourists.
After the drive, we headed down to the quaint harbor, where we dined at Windows on the Water. There, I devoured a plate of succulent Dungeness Ginger Crab Cakes and a glass of rose. I continued to enjoy my crisp glass of wine with the Roasted Pork Loin and fresh organic vegetables.
Our trip to Morro Bay was planned after I had spent a few exhausting weeks in Europe. So, it was such a pleasure to dine on such comforting love-filled cuisine. The restaurant is on the second level with windows overlooking the bustling harbor, we watched the fishing boats come in while relaxing in the day’s final rays of light.
The owner of Windows
The next morning, we headed to Coffee Pot Restaurant, a Morro Bay institution. If you love a good all-American breakfast, you’re going to adore the Coffee Pot. There, my day got started with their famous pancakes and a steamy cup of freshly brewed coffee. After all that eating, it was time for some walking.
Coffee Pot Restaurant
1001 Front Street Morro Bay
805-772-3176
The Coffee Pot Restaurant
Morro Bay is famous for the beautiful rock formation called Morro Rock, which was named in 1542 by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. He wittily called the rock El Morro, which translates from Spanish to “the pebble”. For the past four hundred-plus years, it has become an important landmark for sailors and travelers who sail up the California coast.
The Chumash Indian tribe considers the rock to be a sacred site. Although the rock is a tempting morsel for experienced rock climber, if you climb the rock, you will be put in jail and fined a ridiculous amount of money. Although no one else can legally climb the rock, the Chumash tribe legally climbs Morro Rock for their annual Solstice ceremony.
We walked around Morro Rock and there we witnessed otter playing in the harbor. There was a group of six of those darling creatures, and one of the otters had a fuzzy baby on her belly. It was one of the cutest things I have even seen. We wrapped our way around Morro Rock and found Peregrine Falcons soaring above the blue sky. This falcon is a pretty special bird, it was the fowl worshiped by the Egyptians who saw them as the god Horus.
(from wikipedia)
After our National Geographic walk, which also included pelican dive bombers, musing by sea lions, and Clark’s Grebe sightings, it was time for lunch.
I felt thousand miles away from civilization due to animals’ behavior around us. They all seemed so playful and carefree, they did not mind that we would venture close to them. It is not often I feel that animals are in charge of their environment, but in Morro Bay, it was evident that they were respected and loved.
Lunch, oh lunch. I love oysters and Morro Bay happens to have a very successful producer of fabulously plump oysters. Neil, the owner of the Morro Bay Oyster Company took us on a private tour of his oyster farm.
There is not much to see, oysters grow in sacks that are suspended by cables under the water. It takes between a year and three years to get oysters big enough to eat. We jetted out to his underwater farm and Neil grabbed a few bags fresh from the sea, then we headed back to the shore where we sucked down two dozen fresh oysters with a bit of horseradish and lemon.
It was here that I fell in love with grilled oysters. I have been an oyster purists my whole life. Give me an oyster with a little lemon and horseradish and I’m in heaven. The thought of grilling an oyster seemed like a sin. Until I ate one of Mark Tognazzini’s grilled oysters. I could have died there, my life was complete.
But then I followed the oyster appetizers with a succulent bowl of clams in white wine and garlic.
After experiencing heaven, it was time to slumber. We planned on leaving Morrow bay the next morning, but before we drove home, we had to have breakfast at the famous Frankie and Lola’s Café.
We got a chance to chill with the owner, whose name is not Frankie, so I could not resist calling him Lola. After a cup of very strong coffee, I gave in and ordered the Nom-Nom, which is an omelet stuffed with cheddar cheese, Ortega chili, crimini mushrooms and sausage served with black chili salsa.
Need I say more?
Morro Bay is a small gem – definitely not a pebble – tucked away in a gentle part of California’s coastline. It is a charming little fishing village where you can escape to for a few days and let your taste buds run wild and free.
Mummies have never been my thing. Seeing dead people wrapped up in dry dust clothes seems a bit freaky to me. But I went to a new exhibition at the Legion of Honor that really gave me a new apperciation for mummies and the past.
The exhibition is called Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine and it examines the ancient practice of mummification through the lens of modern technology. While the mummy of Irethorrou lies in its decorated coffin, visitors can learn how modern mummy research is advanced through the use of high-resolution scanners.
That’s the really cool part!
Images produced by the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium and by scientists at Stanford Medical School’s Department of Radiology and Fovia, Inc. reveal much about Irethorrou and how he was prepared for eternity, including the locations and textures of over a dozen magic amulets that were placed on his body during the intricate wrapping process. It’s much like me getting ready for a night on the town, really!
The exhibition includes computer-generated models of the skulls of Irethorrou and of a close relative Ankh-Wennefer. This affords the rare opportunity to reunite members of the same ancient family through forensic portraiture.
Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine includes other “cult of the dead” antiquities that relate to the ancient Egyptian beliefs of death and the afterlife including a beaded mummy mask from Dynasty 26 (7th century B.C.), an anthropoid coffin from Dynasty 30 (4th century B.C.), a funerary shroud circa A.D. 180-275, amulets, funerary furnishings and a selection of historical prints that highlight the public’s ongoing fascination with mummies.
The exhibition opened on October 31, 2009 and runs through August 15, 2010.
Irethorrou is one of four human mummies and one crocodile mummy in the Fine Arts Museums’ permanent collection. These and other antiquities were among the museum’s earliest gifts, having been given to the collection by founders M.H. de Young, Adolph Spreckels and other donors.
The Legion of Honor displays a collection spanning more than 4,000 years of ancient and European art and houses the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts in a neoclassical building overlooking Lincoln Park and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Address: Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street San Francisco, CA 94121 Phone: 415.750.3600 Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 9:30 am–5:15 pm; closed on Monday Admission: $10 adults; $7 seniors; $6 youths 13–17 and students with college I.D.
Members and children 12 and under are free. General admission is free the first Tuesday of every month
Information: www.legionofhonor.org
The BVI Charitable Fund, which is organizing the December series of the 2009 Virgin Islands Winemakers Dinners, announced today that Chef Anne Burrell, the host of the Food Network program “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef” and sous-chef to Mario Batali on Iron Chef America will be one of the six visiting chefs participating in the four dinners that will be held in four special locations in the BVI between December 3rd and 6th.
Ajit Mathew George, Co-Chair of the BVI Charitable Fund said, “the 2009 Winemakers Dinners are a series of exclusive events during which guests will have the opportunity to meet some of the most gifted winemakers in the world and sample their award-winning wines. These are wines are expertly paired with innovative creations by international master chefs and some of the best BVI chefs. The six visiting chefs, with the assistance of BVI chefs, will prepare on four separate nights seven course formal dinners that will be paired with 14 different wines presented by seven wineries from Argentina, California, France, Germany and Italy whose representatives will personally pour their wines each night.”
The seven wineries presenting their wines include Francis Ford Coppola’s Rubicon from California; Cheval des Andes from Argentina; Weingut Grans Fassian from Leiwen, Germany; Tenuta San Leonardo from Trentino, Italy; the Grand Cru champagne house Pierre Paillard from Bouzy, France; Weingut Reinhold Haart from Piesport, Germany and Terrazas De Los Andes from Argentina. All the wineries are donating the wines poured during this event. In addition each winery is donating some interesting wines for a small auction.
The seven courses served at each dinner will be prepared under the leadership of Vikram Garg who is the Executive Chef of the famed Halekulani On The Beach at Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Chef Anne Burrell
the other participating chefs include former Top Chef contestant Otto Borsich who has also worked at some of America’s finest establishments including the Pierre Hotel, Le Bernadin, Bellagio Hotel and Charlie Trotters; Taekyung Chung from Chung Cooking Studio, Tokyo, Japan who is the author of The Korean Table, the bible of Korean Cooking and Roberto Trevino from the Bodati, San Juan, Puerto Rico who participated in Iron Chef America and the Next Iron Chef.
Swiss born Albert Kramer accepted a special invitation from the Hon. Premier to return to the BVI for the Virgin Islands Winemakers Dinners. Chef Kramer was the first Executive Chef at Little Dix Bay Resort in Virgin Gorda when Laurance Rockefeller opened it in 1964. He also became the first developer of Nail Bay in 1966. Chef Kramer has worked all over the world after he left the BVI in 1967.
Pastry Chef Heidi Benyair of Biras Creek Resort, Virgin Gorda who previously worked as a pastry chef for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges in London will be working with local chefs to prepare the desserts for each night. All the chefs including the visiting chefs are volunteering their time and talent.
A VIP Reception will kick off the December series of the Winemakers Dinners on December 2nd at Pirates Bight on Norman Island, allegedly the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
On December 5th, the new reincarnation of Giorgio’s Table, which is Virgin Gorda’s newest restaurant, will host the third dinner. The final dinner will be held on December 6th at The Golden Pavilion in Tortola, a one of a kind Balinese-style villa on four gated acres.
In addition to the four dinners, there will be seven luncheons at various restaurants in Virgin Gorda and Tortola featuring a three-course lunch with one of the seven wineries presenting their wines. A limited number of tickets to the December dinners will be available with sponsorships, which can be purchased on or after November 1, 2009 on-line at www.winemakersdinners.com.
The Co-Chairs of the BVI Charitable Fund are the Premier of the British Virgin Islands, the Hon. Ralph T. O’Neal, OBE and Ajit Mathew George, Managing Director, Nail Bay Resort. The BVI Charitable Fund was established on Easter Monday, March 24, 2008 with a $25,000 challenge grant from Nail Bay Resort to create new and innovative fund-raising events to benefit various charities in the BVI by attracting support from both outside and with the BVI while at the same time promoting this destination to potential new visitors.
The four beneficiaries of the net proceeds of the 2009 Winemakers Dinners are all in the British Virgin Islands including The BVI Red Cross, St. Mary’s School, Virgin Gorda, St. George’s School, Tortola and YEP (Youth Empowerment Project) in the East End, Tortola.
The BVI Tourist Board is the Presenting Sponsor of the 2009 and 2010 Winemakers Dinners. For additional information on winemakers, chefs , lunch and dinner locations, visit www.winemakersdinners.com.
As for me, you’ll find me sipping wine while overlooking the beautiful Caribbean blue waters.
I will be attending the Fashion Show and Gala Fundraiser to celebrate the launch of India’s premiere couture brand’s non-profit, The Valaya MAGIC Foundation, to be held at the Ritz Carlton – San Francisco on Sunday, November 15th, 2009.
Would love to see you there!
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This November 15, The Valaya MAGIC Foundation Chapter SF, USA, will celebrate its launch in the United States by hosting a formal gala fundraiser event and couture fashion show choreographed by Charleston Pierce and accessorized by John S. Brana fine jewelry at the Ritz Carlton – San Francisco.
The proceeds will be used for land acquisition in India to build more schools for young girls and offer vocational training in textile arts for older girls. Funds will also support NARIKA, which works with immigrant women and children in the Bay Area, and The Bill Clinton Foundation, that works towards racial equality, women’s rights and economic empowerment in nations around the world.
The designer will showcase a combination of tailored jackets, sensual jodhpurs, and crisp tops worn with detailed skirts crafted from the finest fabrics, prints and ornamentation. The 40 piece collection will be accessorized with fine jewelry from San Francisco’s own John S. Brana, who has custom designed several pieces exclusively for this show. Guests may bid on select pieces from both JJ Valaya’s and John S. Brana’s collections to benefit the Foundation.
Cocktails and Hors D’oeuvres will be served at the event.
It was a crazy time last week. I produced two huge events: a concert at Davies Symphony Hall and a 4-hour fashion show on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. Then, a mere six hours after completing the fashion show, I was on my way to Paris to meet up with my San Franciscan friends who had been enjoying Paris for five days before my arrival.
Teresa and Iris at L'Avenue, Paris
My plane landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at 8:30 am, and my first fashion show was at 11:00 am. It was designer Barbara Bui’s show and I was excited about going backstage and interviewing the incredible designer. Unfortunately, the way things run in France are a hell of a lot slower than in the states. So, after an hour search for a working ATM, then another hour waiting in line for a cab, then another hour in Paris traffic – I missed the show.
The Glamour Girls
So, I took a disco nap to rise in time to meet my friends at lunch at L’Avenue. My dear friend Joel Goodrich was hosting a fabulous lunch with the team from Channel. The guests included famous fashion photographer Iris Brosch, owner of the chateau where DaVinci Code was filmed, (http://frenchvacation.com) Olivia Hsu Decker, stylist Karen Tamblyn (whom I just wrote an article about for the New Fillmore and dressed me for my interview with Speaker Nancy Pelosi), Sophie Azouaou, the talented interior designer from San Francisco – but who is originally from Paris, Victoria Sawyer, the chair of the Junior League fashion show, and a few beautiful people.
Lunching in Paris, Darling
After lunch we strolled over to Hotel Plaza Athenee where a few high-end designers were hosting trunk shows including Reem Acra. After the Plaza, we caught a cab to Hotel du Louvre where I interviewed Lenny Kravitz’s girlfriend who was designing a new line.
Karen and I enjoyed a glass of rose with Joel and Olivia. By this time it was 6:00 pm and we needed to get ready for our night on the town……
With Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s arrival into New York City, protests are taking place at the UN. In San Francisco, instead of protests, Shams Ensemble, a band coming from Iran, will be performing at Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday, September 27. This is their first overseas performance since the current uprising in Iran.
Shams Ensemble, a musical troupe formed in Tehran has become a rallying point of overseas support for the Green Revolution in Iran. They will be performing in San Francisco to raise money for Amnesty International.
Western regional director of Amnesty International on human rights worldwide, Banafsheh Akhlaghi and San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi will be emceeing the event.
The ensemble produced a song for Iran’s Green Revolution loosely translated from Farsi as “The Cry For Change,” and it became the anthem for action and involvement. The song became an underground sensation and over a million copies were distributed to Green Revolution supporters.
The ensemble draws its inspiration from traditional Kurdish, Sufi and classical Iranian music and incorporates the poems of Rumi, a famed 13th Century poet and mystic. The nine-member group creates its mesmerizing music with the help of the tanbur, a traditional Kurdish lute, the daf, a framed drum, as well as Brazilian musical instruments.
Since Shams inception, founded and directed by Kaykhosro Pournazeri, nearly three decades ago, the group has struggled to obtain permission to perform in Iran from the country’s fundamentalist Islamic authorities.
But after entertaining troops in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the ensemble was able to secure permission to perform in public once. Now, due to the uprising during the elections, all permits have been canceled. Shams Ensemble does not know when and if they will ever be allowed to perform in their country again.
WHO: Shams Ensemble, a world music band with 10 members – 5 members are coming from Iran WHEN: Sunday, September 27th @ 7:00 pm WHERE: Davies Symphony Hall HOW:www.CityBoxOffice.com or call 415-392-4400
More concert dates
New York
Rose Hall at Lincoln Center
October 3, 2009 @ 8 pm For tickets, CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE or call 212-721-6500
Los Angeles
Royce Hall at UCLA
October 10, 2009 For tickets, CLICK HERE or call 310-825-2101
San Diego
Sherwood Auditorium
October 16, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
For tickets: 858-653-0336
Washington D.C.
Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall & Arts Center
November 7, 2009
For tickets: 703-517-4343
After my lunch with Madame Speaker Pelosi, I know one thing for certain; she was nowhere near Bryant Park this week. Actually, fashion is not her gig. She hates shopping and prefers function over fashion. It makes sense. After all, she is the most powerful female politician in the United States. Mrs. Pelosi doesn’t need to worry if her d’Orsay pumps match her handbag, and she doesn’t care. The issues she deals with are much bigger than the latest styles gliding down the runways in New York, Paris, London and Milan. The only runway she cares about is the one her jet will be landing on in D.C., so she can get back to Capital Hill where 111th Congress has reconvened.
So, while others were chatting about the top must-haves for next season, Madame Speaker was generously giving me seven pieces of advice that are substantially more important than the hottest styles. And, unlike the latest fashion trends, her words of wisdom are priceless and will never be out of season. Power. Darling, it is the best accessory of the year. And it goes with everything!
She shared her power secrets with me, and now, let me share them with you:
1. Take Notes: That piece of advice was given to Speaker Pelosi by Norman Brokaw, the Chairman of the William Morris Agency. You can find the whole story in her book, Know Your Power (Doubleday 2008). So much information is thrown at us every second, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by everything we have on our plates. But if we just take a few seconds to jot down some notes, chronicle our priorities, and get our thoughts on paper, the weight of our responsibilities can lift from our shoulders and fall onto the paper. It is such a simple, yet powerful act. Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword.
2. Have Faith: Faith is a conviction for something that you truly believe in. Because many ideas and dreams we have do not yet exist, it is only through our faith can we make it happen. Speaker Pelosi had faith that she could make positive changes as a Congresswoman. Later her steadfast faith got her sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House. “Faith again was very much on my mind. I thought of all the women throughout American history who’d had faith that one day we would achieve equity with men.”
3. Build Strategic Alliances: Earn others respect and know your boundaries. Speaker Pelosi shares, “We learn that leadership requires vision, judgment, action, and the respect of the American people. No matter how excellent the intellectual appeal, the emotional connection is essential for success.” So much of our relationships are built on emotional bonds and it is important to honor those bonds and value the trust you create. It is vital to have teammates who trust and respect you.
4. Love Others: “Let Other Views Exist.” Many of you reading this piece are not fans of Speaker Pelosi. And chances are you will want to post a message about all the terrible things that Speaker Pelosi has said to offend you. But, if you just let others’ views exist, you’ll have more energy for more productive activities, like spending time with the people you LOVE. She says that we need to recognize other people’s views – through acceptance we can learn to understand them. She never said you need to agree or like their ideas.
5. Organize, Don’t Agonize: When Speaker Pelosi ran for Chair of the Democratic National Committee, a few of the people closest to her did not support her – and some even attacked her. She lost. Two years later, congresswoman Sala Burton asked Speaker Pelosi to run for her seat in congress. So, instead of agonizing about her past loss and what others were saying about her, she organized. Speaker Pelosi knew that she had an opportunity to bring a woman’s voice to the table as a congresswoman – and to her, that was more powerful than anything some naysayer could do to her. We tend to focus on the bad in our lives and not the wonderful opportunities we are given. Madame Speaker focused on her goals and opportunities and spent no time worrying about her failures. Oh, if we could all do that!
6. “Age Quod Agis”: “Do what you are doing.” With a career like hers, it would be easy to lose track of time, family, and important moments. But one of the tools Speaker Pelosi employs is “Do what you are doing.” She shares, “Whether it is work or play, helping around the house, or entertaining the kids, focus on it.” Focus. Such simple advice, but so powerful. If we all took her simple piece of advice, I believe we would find some space for connection and a solid sense of presence.
7. There is no Secret Sauce: When Speaker Pelosi first started in politics, there were only a handful of women in D.C. Because of this, there was a mystique about the “Old Boys Club.” It was though these career politicians knew something that the newcomers-especially women-did not know. They had the “Secret Sauce.” Well, there is no secret sauce! To succeed you need optimism, confidence, and a persuasive argument on the reasons why you are better than your opponent. It has nothing to do with a fabled “secret sauce.” It has everything to do with hard work and commitment.
Finally, I asked her, the Speaker of the House, loving wife, mother, and grandmother, what she hoped her book would achieve, and she said, with a beautiful, loving smile: “I hope that women will know their power, and take action with it!”
Regardless of how you feel about her political maneuvering, you can’t deny that she has some incredibly powerful advice that each of us can utilize in our daily lives. Not all of us can have lunch with Madame Speaker Pelosi. So, if you want to know more about how this mother of five from Baltimore became the most powerful women in politics, then you can pick up a copy of her book: KNOW YOUR POWER: A Message to America’s Daughters.
Many thanks to the Women’s Leadership program hosted by IBM at the Metropolitan Club in San Francisco.
Before landing on the somewhat illicit island of Cuba, I was pretty optimistic. Heck, what could be so wrong with the destination that claims to be the birthplace of Mojitos? I was sure that the drama about the Cuban Missile Crisis and its communist propaganda were just more American media hyperbole. As a world traveler, I experienced many US-media-gone-super-crazy moments. Case in point: Mexico’s swine flu, Post 9-11 travel fears, and the death of Michael Jackson. But I regress.
Well, we flew into Havana on a sizzling and unpleasantly damp afternoon. The plan was to spend one full day in Cuba shooting images of the locals and capturing what life is really like in this mysterious, forbidden place. I am a journalist and my husband a photographer. The goal was not to get questioned about our visit by the Cuban government and leave with some telling images of modern Cuba. So, before we departed, we had to get our stories straight, just in case Cuban officials interrogated us separately. “We are students at a Spanish school in Mexico and we are here overnight to meet other students. We fly out tomorrow night.” Some of that was true. We were students at a Spanish school and we did plan to be in Cuba for only one full day. It was not enough time to explore the bucolic countryside or spend sultry evenings dancing salsa with the locals. After all, that is what I expected.
But what I encountered was the complete antithesis of my expectations. I witnessed a sad, dilapidated Cuba that Fidel and his cronies don’t want me, the US journalist, to know about. I was shocked.
Cuba is falling apart, literally.
One of the students picked us up in a relic of a car that churned out black smoke and violently whined with every turn we made. “My goodness,” I whispered, “They really still drive these yank tanks!” On our way to Havana (in a car that was built before the invention of air conditioning), we passed billboards cursing the US and then more billboards that praised Che and celebrated the revolution.
Even though Cuba is a glorious island floating in the soft aqua-blue Caribbean Sea, and is a mere 90 miles from Florida, it does not change the fact that it’s a totalitarian communist state. And, unlike the ebullient greetings you get when arriving at other Caribbean destinations, Cuba seems dead. I found that quite surprising since it was the Cubans who invented salsa music and mastered the cigar. Oh yes, these accomplishments were before the revolution.
The Cubans I met are beautiful people, but behind their big, dark eyes I could see desperate sadness. When we met up with a group of young locals, I tried to ask questions about living in a Cuba and their hopes for the future. I didn’t get any insightful answers. They spoke of family and special moments like weddings and births. But not once was Fidel and the restrictions on their lives ever mentioned. They don’t talk about it and they can’t travel. They don’t know anything about the latest iPhone apps (cell phones were just legalized in 2008), personal computers are rare (forget the Internet), and as for the television programming, no Dancing with the Stars, or Oprah, or Desperate Housewives (maybe that’s a good thing?) The Cuban communist government manages all media and television programming.
Under the rubble of years of neglect, you can catch a glimmer of Cuba’s former glory. Walking near the beach, I could just imagine what it was like in the fifties. Havana must have been filled with fabulous beach homes, poolside parties, and celebrated wealth. But now, each of those once-glorious villas are occupied by two to five families. And the edifices are crumbling, leaving the families living within the rotting walls despondent. Oh, but I forgot the mention, housing is FREE in Cuba. Thanks Fidel.
The average wage in Cuba is under $20 a month. On a cynical, capitalistic note, yes, Cubans get free housing, health care, food rations, and education. But what about their dignity, passion, and drive to create change? You can’t put a price on freedom, and if you could, it would be worth more that $20 a month.
On this trip, I realized that I took my freedom for granted. As Americans, we can protest, we can read whatever books we want, and we can even watch vacuous television without the moral police showing up. And yes, we can travel. Well, we can travel, as long as the US does not have a trade embargo on that country.
Which leads me to my next point. The Cubans could use our tourism support, and it would be a great idea to show Americans what it would be like to live and a communist country. Americans traveling to Cuba might value their freedom just a bit more. And this country could use a bit more gratitude and appreciation. “You think you don’t have any opportunities in the US? Take a trip to Cuba!”
Much like those archaic cars spewing out black guck into the somber Cuban air, the trade embargo that the US has against Cuba is outdated. It’s time for a change. What is fascinating is that we (US citizens) can travel to Russia. But Russia continues to suppress political freedoms in the press, and they are the ones that started the Cuban Missile Crisis in the first place. As a travel writer, I find it stupid, as a global citizen I think it’s unfair.
We are a forgiving country. Right? There is no reason for the US to keep up this wall of intimidation and fear with respects to Cuba.
