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Taal Volcano Erupts

1/15/2020

4 Comments

 
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A while back, I told you about a remarkable place - the Taal Volcano here in the Philippines. Located only an hour or two from the main city of Manila, the Taal Volcano is crazy cool as it’s located on an island (Luzon), in a volcanic lake (Taal Lake) on a smaller island (Taal Island), with it’s own water-filled volcanic crater with yet another tiny island in the center of its inhospitable waters! Crazy! 

After hiking up Taal Volcano with my girlfriend, Joy, last summer, I documented the history of Taal, including its notable eruptions as recently as the 1980s. 

Well, I had no idea that Taal would blow its lid again, but that’s exactly what happened about a week ago. It was a big one.

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Sadly, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people had to be evacuated from in and around Taal, and there have been human casualties as well as many animals left behind on the island.The volcanic cloud from the series of eruptions reached as far as Manila, where cars were blanketed with soot and ash. 

So, in this postcard, I not only cover our experience hiking up to the peak of Taal Volcano (which, admittedly, seems sort of petty considering the eruption), but, most importantly, our connection with our guide for the trip, Fatima.

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***
​We started out with a 20-minute, impossibly twisty ride down the cliffside, following switchbacks through the jungle on a good government road. Sweating and nauseas by the time we got to the bottom, the air temperature was easily 20 degrees warmer than at the top of the cliff above, causing us to move over into the shade - and it was only 8:30 in the morning. We bought emergency sunglasses from one of the vendors and went to the “official tourist office” – a single desk with a handwritten sign inside someone’s living room.
 
The only two passengers on our narrow outrigger canoe, we sped across the morning-glass lake until we soon pulled up on the shore, a stack of tires our only dock.
 
Various tour guides and touts milled about but they weren’t overly aggressive since there’s a strict number system to make sure everyone gets work in the proper order – and everyone gets fed. Our guide was #24, a young woman who couldn’t have been more than 20 years old, dressed conservatively in long pants and a shirt, donning a blue scarf to protect her from the sun. 
 
Even though most of the tourists opt to ride a horse up to the top to avoid the hot, arduous climb, we told her that we wanted to make the hike, earning the view. Sweating in the jungle heat and unsferable humidity, we followed a path that led us on a zippering journey up towards the volcano. 

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“My name is Fatima,” she confided before covering her shy grin with her hand, turning to Joy, to talk in their native Tagolog. “Sorry, my English isn’t good.”
 
But it was excellent, I assured her, and we all chatted and joked as we made the climb, silence only befalling us when we crossed areas with cover from the tree canopy, the sun sapping any conversation.
 
On the way up, we passed a party of hikers that were going at a more deliberate pace, including an older woman.
 
“I’m 80 years old!” she proclaimed proudly when we said hello, and we encouraged her that she was doing great.
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Our only relief came at a lookout near the top, where a group of locals lounged on rough plank board benches under the shade of a palopa roof. They halfheartedly offered us bracelets and statuetes made with lava stone, but didn’t seem to mind when we politely declined, since I smiled at them and showed respect by saying, “Salamat po.”
 
I did buy coconuts for all of us, including Fatima and one for the 80-year-old woman, who was visibly waning in the sun as she tried to make the last push. After they split open the top of our cocnuts with a machete, revealing cold fresh water we could sip out of a straw, I carried one down the path to the older woman, who was being supported by her son and daughters now.

​She thanked me, drank, and kept on.
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Our only bad vibe came when two tourists – I’m guessing they were from Singapore or something – were protesting when asked to pay a 50 Peso fee to go further. I gently reminded the guy that he was being a complete dick because it’s only one dollar and these people are literally living in dirt just trying to get by. 
 
He just kept hemming and hawing while his friend vaped. What a d-bag.


I snapped a few photos, guzzled my coconut water, and signaled to Fatima that we should keep going before we got too comfortable. The crucible of the volcano was only 1,000 meters away now, but the rest of the way was even more steep with no shade cover at all.
 
That last leg was impossibly hot, but it was worth it when we reached the ridge of wild grass and red rocks that descended down into the crater lake on the other side. It was a steep drop, and the path along the rim of the volcano was only a foot wide at best, with no ropes, guard rails, or nets below. ​
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I wondered out loud how many tourists had slipped and fallen to their untimely demise, and if that’s why they asked us to pay up front? 

The 360-degree view was spectacular - something I won’t even try to describe. My only disappointment was they weren’t still golfing from the volcano’s edge. The first time I’d been up here to the Taal, only a year and a half ago, they were renting golf clubs and selling balls for $50 Pesos ($1) a piece here, which serious Korean tourists drove or chipped off of the ridge down into the crater lake, aiming for the tine, far-away island like they were trying to hit a hole-in-one.
 
But I wasn’t mad that there was “wala golf” – or no golf – since the government had shut down the practice for ecological reasons.

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Soon, after a few more photos and taking in the panorama, we started down. But I asked Fatima if we could go a different way. The Spanish Trail, called Daang Kastila in the native tongue, was more direct because it lacked all of the switchbacks, but was also far steeper and completely exposed to the sun.
 
There were no other tourists or even locals on this route, as all traffic had long been diverted to the other, more amenable and cooler path. The only signs of habitation were wooden crosses along the way, erected to recreate the 12 stations going back to the first Spanish friars who had settled this island in the 1500s.
 
As we reached the bottom in no time, I was feeling proud of my decision to lead us down this shorter trail…until I realized that we were still a couple kilometers from the main beach where our boat driver was waiting.
 
It was a straight shot on a semi-paved road only wide enough for two horses or motorbikes at the same time because there were no cars on the island as far as I’d seen. But that meant walking in direct sun as we were getting closer to the most sizzling part of the day. I chugged as much water as possible but still started swaying and seeing blurred from the heat, something I’ve actually grown accustomed to out here in extreme temps.

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But it was well worth it because we got to walk through several local hamlets – just a few shacks or one-room concrete bungalows at best, stationed in dark sand and dust. We said hi to the friendly, curious locals we passed.
 
Soon, we passed several young guys sitting in the shade of a tree, drinking shots out of a bottle. They called me over and asked if I wanted a shot, full well thinking I’d just keep walking.
 
Well, I didn’t want to be rude! So, I went over and took my medicine like a man…a warm shot of Ginebra gin at 11 in the morning, but they did have a pineapple juice chaser. 

Along the hour-long walk, Fatima confessed to us that she’d actually never taken that Spanish Trail in her year as a tour guide, so she was thankful that she was learnig soemthign from us! Enlivened that we were interested in her, her life, and her family, she welcomed us to her home when we passed by her four-house village, too.
 
We all took a break in the shade of the front porch as she collected a pitcher of cold water from inside. This was a big deal for her, and she glowed with pride to have two genuine new friends spend time at her house.
 
Remarking that my travel companion was so beautiful, she offered that she once wanted to be a model, too, through sugar cane-worn teeth and still-young, radiant face.
 
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But then, she got pregnant with her island boyfriend, so now the priority was just putting food on the table, and being a tour guide earned her 250 Pesos each trip - $5.

​So, her three trips per week earned her about $60 per month as a total income. Wow.
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We thanked her for her hospitality and I put the water glass to my lips and pretended to drink, pouring out half of the water on the ground when she wasn’t looking. Since there’s no way it was filtered water, it could actually be dangerous for me to drink with a delicate foreign stomach, but I didn’t want to offend her by not drinking. It worked like a charm and she had no idea.
 
We continued walking and passed a smattering of school kids coming home from their half day in class, wearing mismatched uniforms based on what they could afford. Fatima explained that there were so many kids on the island but only a few teachers, so they had to break the school days in half so every kid would at least get some education daily.
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The kids walked with us and some were shy, hiding behind their big sister or big brother, while others ran out for high fives or even asked our names with big smiles.
 
Soon, we reached our boat, and collected our boatman, who was napping under a tree. 
 
We thanked Fatima, gave her a tip equivalent to one week’s work, and took down the number to her cracked, ancient cell phone, promising to visit her when we came back or send others coming to Taal to her.
 
“When you come back, you can stay in my house overnight!” she offered, a little sad that we were departing.

***
​Little did we know that Fatima would be on our minds and in our prayers again so soon.

When we first heard the news of Taal’s eruption and saw the powerful and horrifying, yet somehow beautiful, photos, our thoughts went immediately to our guide and friend, Fatima
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But before I could even propose that we try to check on her, Joy had already texted Fatima and heard back. She was ok, but they had been evacuated not to safety on the “mainland” of Tagaytay or Batangas, well-off communities that surrounded the lake, but to a different island on Taal Lake. ​
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​There, they were stuck, as heavy rains made travel on the simple dirt roads impossible. Fatima told us that already, three jeepneys (simple passenger vehicles) had tried to navigate the treacherous, muddy roads but turned over and gone off the steep edge, killing 14 people total.

Sadly, that wasn’t even in the news here in the Philippines. The people living on Taal and in these communities are also the poorest of the poor, so they often don’t have a voice.

But we were happy to hear that Fatima was still ok, and we offered to help her any way we could. Within a day or two, she was able to get off the island and make it to the mainland, where she settled into an evacuation center.

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One of her family members defied the evacuation order and took a small boat back to Taal island to try and rescue their horses left there and check if anything was left of their little home. 

This is what they found...
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It's hard to believe that's the same happy, green place we visited.

Joy arranged for Fatima to receive a humble donation from us to help her family get through these tough times, and she managed to access it through a money wiring service that operates there. 

Here is the video of Fatima and her family saying thank you. Of course we’d do this to help any friend, but seeing them safe and so appreciative makes it all worth it!
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I'll tell Fatima that you said hi, and see you next month with a new postcard!

Your friend,

Norm  :-)
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20 Images that changed the world.

1/12/2020

6 Comments

 
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The first photograph that we know of was taken around 1826 or 1827 in the Burgundy region of France, when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce documented the scenery from a window at Niépce's estate using a paper coated with silver chloride, that became dark in the places where it was exposed to light. 

Since then, humankind's ability to capture real life on film - and now, digitally - has changed our world.

These days, smart phones are omniscient and easily document what we see around us in real-time. Thanks to the popularity of social media platforms like Instagram, we took more photos last year than in the entire course of history before combined! Let that sink in! 

But that wasn't always the case. One iconic photograph splashed across our morning newspapers, nightly newscasts, or on the cover of National Geographic, as the case may be, had a profound impact on how we perceived our lives and drew meaning.

I wanted to share some of the most iconic and world-changing photographs in the modern era, whether they illuminated seminal world events, the dawn of a new age, phenomenon the world had never seen before, or just exposed our humanity.

Enjoy these 20 images that changed the world!
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"Tank Man" protester in Tienamen Square, Beijing,China
This 1989 photo by journalist Jeff Widener captures one lone, unidentified civilian protestor standing his ground in front of a column of tanks.  He was never seen again, but this image remains as the perfect symbol of human bravery in the face of the technological war machine.

​"Tank Man" protester in Tienamen Square, Beijing China.  This 1989 photo by journalist Jeff Widener captures one lone, unidentified civilian protestor standing his ground in front of a column of tanks.  He was never seen again, but this image remains as the perfect symbol of human bravery in the face of the technological war machine.


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Brave student barred from entering high school amid segregation
This iconic photo captures 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, an African American student in Arkansas, trying to enter Little Rock's Central High in 1957 while fellow students scream and harass her.

Eckford was one of the "Little Rock Nine," the first black students to attend a racially segregated (white) high school after the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education constitutionally guaranteed integration in schools, ruling against "separate but equal" segregation practices.

On this day of September 4th,, Eckford was denied access to the school by the Arkansas National Guard in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling. In fact, the actual pig-headed Governor of Arkansas blocked her entry into the school that morning.


When she was turned away, Eckford had to make her way through an angry mob of white students and protestors who threatened to lynch her. To escape the mob, the girl ran into a bus stop, where she broke down and couldn't stop crying.

A sympathetic reporter named Benjamin Fine, thinking about his own 15-year-old daughter, sat next to Elizabeth and comforted her, telling her not to let them see her cry. Another white woman, Grace Lorch, also offered Elizabeth protection and escorted her safely onto a city bus.

For the next two weeks, the Arkansas Nine studied at home. Even after President Eisenhower requested the students be granted access, they were blocked by the Governor, National Guard, and thousands of protestors.

Finally, President Eisenhower assumed control of the National Guard and set up a military escort to accompany the students into the building. On September 23, 1957, Eckford and the Arkansa Nine finale were able to enter the high school.
 
It wasn't easy, and the Central High actually shut down the next year, but Eckford did graduate high school and went on to earn a BS in History from Central State University in Ohio. She was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for her courage and significant moment in history.



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​Second plane hits the Towers on 9/11
American Airlines flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center the morning of September 11, 2001, confirming for a terrified public that the first airplane collision was not an accident, but a terrorist attack.

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​Migrant Mother, 1936.  
This photo of a 32-year old California farmworker, taken by Dorothea Lange, is considered to show the face of the Great Depression.  This mother of 7 children had just sold her tent and the tires off her broken down car for food, as the whole family was living on foraged vegetables and wild birds. 

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The world is introduced to Apple
A 1977 advertisement for the Apple II personal computer, which revolutionized the concept of aesthetics and ease of use in computers that sparked the personal computing phenomenon.  

These innovations in computing and eventually, music tech and smart phones, changed our world by ushering in the dawn of the Digital Age.



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First flight
​The Wright Brothers first in flight, 1903.  On December 17 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two bicycle mechanic brothers changed history by going airborne for 12 seconds. 
 
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​Earthrise
Taken from the moon on Christmas Eve of 1968, either by Frank Borman or Bill Anders of the Apollo 8 mission.  It was called “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken,” by adventure photographer Galen Rowell.  

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Buddhist monk sets himself on fire in protest, Vietnam.  
In 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam, doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire to protest the government's abuse and torture of priests.  He never made a move or uttered a sound as he burned to death.

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​I want my MTV
Music Television's first on-screen logo, signifying a musical renaissance in which culture and art would drive the innovation of technology, not the other way around.  


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DNA strands finally photographed
​DNA has been depicted with renderings and images nice 1953, when James Watson and Francis Crick first mapped DNA's famous double helix formation.  

​But not until very recently has technology allowed is to take an actual photo of DNA, this image, thanks to Enzo di Fabrizio, a researcher at the University of Genoa in Italy. He found a way to photograph strands of DNA through an electron microscope.  

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The US proves to the world that Cuba has Soviet missiles, 1962​
The Cuban Missile Crisis comes to a heated standoff in the United Nations session, October 22, 1962.  

​In this photo U.S. ambassador Adlai Stevenson points to a photo of Soviet missile sites in Cuba, offering incontrovertible proof that they existed.  The U.S. and Soviet Union narrowly avoided a full scale nuclear war.



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​How Life Begins, 1965.
This was the first time an embryo was photographed inside the human body, taken by Lennart Nilsson with the endescope.  

It led to a firestorm of controversy over the origins of life and abortion that still rages on today.
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​The US drops The Bomb and ends the war
A-bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945, as taken by the U.S. air force.  

The mushroom cloud-producing atomic bomb killed 80,000 people and forced the surrender of the Japanese military, ending WWII in the Pacific Theater.  

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​"The Afghan Girl."
A portrait of a 12-year old Afghan refugee living in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation, taken by Steve McCurry, appearing on the famous 1985 cover of National Geographic Magazine.  

​She was identified in 2002 as Sharbat Gula and became the face of struggle of refugees all over the world, and this photo was often called the "Afghan Mona Lisa." 
 
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Execution of VietCong soldier
​The Vietnam war was the first military action in U.S. history where journalists had direct access to soldiers and combat, often traveling around with soldiers and killed in action, themselves.  

The results was shocking images like this, taken by Eddie Adams February 1, 1968 when a police captain summarily executes a captured VietCong soldier on the street by shooting him in the head.  The photo made the front page of the New York Times, and created an outrage against the senselessness of the war that sparked protests.  

After Vietnam, journalists were placed on restrictions where they could go and what they could photograph in combat.

​
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​Young JFK Jr. plays under his father's desk
This famous photo, taken in 1962 by Alan Stanley Tretick of Life Magazine, depicts President John F Kennedy at work at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office of the White House, while his son, Jon Jr. plays underneath.  

JFK Jr. was the first child born to an active President, but his father was assassinated less than a year after this photo was taken. 

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The Berlin Wall falls
On November 11, 1989, East German border guards demolished a section of the Berlin Wall to create a crossing point between east and west. West Berliners started tearing down the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, signifying the end of Soviet Bloc in Europe and soon the fall of communism.  

​The wall, also called the Iron Curtain, divided free West Germany from oppressed East Germany for 28 years, since August 13, 1961.

​
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Raise a fist for Black Power at the Olympics
It was a far different time in America, but so much was the same. 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics, US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood during the medal ceremony after winning gold and silver, respectively.

In an act of solidarity for the Black Power movement and civil rights strife in their home country, these men raised their fists skyward for all the world to see.
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​V-J Day in Times Square, August 14, 1945
When Japan surrendered and World War II was won, Americans were ready to celebrate. On that very day, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured a Navy sailor kissing a woman in a white dress in the middle of Times Square in New York City, which became the symbol for post-war jubilance and hope.



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The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover, 1969
This iconic image of the band crossing Abbey Road in London would guild their 11th studio album, and last recording before disbanding in 1970, the end of the British Invasion.  

The album, their top-selling ever, was met with critical acclaim and swirled in controversy, some people theorizing that it was a big staged metaphor for Paul McCartney's death.   

None the less, the image of the four Beatles crossing the road over a piano key-like crosswalk has been one of the most replicated and imitated album covers ever.

 
 

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    Norm Schriever

    Norm Schriever is a best-selling author, expat, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. He travels the globe, telling the stories of the people he finds, and hopes to make the world a little bit better place with his words.   

    Norm is a professional blogger, digital marketer for smart brands around the world,  and writes for the Huffington Post, Hotels.com, and others.

    Check out South of Normal his Amazon.com best-selling book about life as an expat in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.

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