Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
It's now a week since the horrific events in Christchurch and kiwis are still reeling and trying to come to grips with it all.
Many vigils have taken place and many more are planned for today. Mosques like my local Al Masjid Al Jam'e above have become meeting points for those wanting to express their solidarity and horror, to leave flowers and messages of support as members welcome them and share a conversation – and an invitation – as mosques across the country will today welcome the public to 5 o'clock prayer.
Many women across the country today don a hijab in support and the 'call to prayer' has been played for the first time in our parliament. A national petition has been answered with perhaps the quickest law change in our history as military style semi-automatic weapons have this week been banned. Not many of us realised they were even available for sale.
Conversions across the country and in the press have been endless, popular comments have been along the lines of 'this is not us' and 'we are one' as kiwis try to figure out how this could have happened here, but emerging voices are being heard from more along the lines of 'we've been trying to warn for years'. There is plenty to think about.
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