I’m in Austin, Texas for the next couple of days, attending the International Symposium on Online Journalism. For a live webcast of the event, visit http://livewebcast.theacesbuilding.com/.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention the symposium blog being maintained by Rosental Alves’s students. And photos.

The Global Voices team’s Miami headquarters in Coconut Grove

The first sign was the failing wifi signal, accessible, after a while, only to people with the last name “Avila“. Then the power went completely. We eventually located the fuse box, and toggled every switch we could find. No go.

For relaxation, members of the Global Voices team helped Outreach Director David “Oso” Sasaki with his laundry

We’ve recently established, however, that the power outage was in fact south Florida-wide, and wasn’t the fault of the eight Global Voices editors and authors present in the city for WeMedia Miami 2008 and the eight laptops, the washing machine in the process of laundering 98% of Oso’s wardrobe, the coffee maker and the two ceiling fans going full tilt at the team’s Miami headquarters in Coconut Grove.

Phew.

Renata, one of the Avilas who had internet access till the bitter end

 

 So Many Elephants [0:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

More video from my 2006 India trip. This one’s really just a slice of life, and a slice of tourist life at that. Nikipedia and I had every intention of riding an elephant up to Amber Palace. But on actually arriving at Amber and seeing that the walk up the hill takes all of five minutes, plus learning that getting to the elephant terminus involved walking some distance away from the Palace, we decided to hoof it instead. Viewed up close, it also seemed just too much of a touristy thing to do.

Which didn’t stop me from filming tourists riding elephants. The faintly audible voice pointing out that most of the elephants are female is Nikipedia’s. View a larger version of the video here.

We did end up getting a chance to interact with elephants, however, as Tabu, our Jaipur driver, took us to visit an elephant compound in the middle of a village off the Amber Fort Road.

I’ve never been one for new year’s resolutions, but if there’s one goal I have for 2008 it’s to make peace with online video. Having spent a good part of my professional life working in television, I’ve got plenty of prejudices about quality etc. to rid myself of. In fact, I strongly believe that one of the reasons I was able to embrace audio so freely is that I’ve never worked in radio.

So brace yourself for a season of bad CFR videos as I teach myself to shoot (as opposed to telling somebody else to shoot) moving pictures, edit (as opposed to sitting with my hotshot editor brother and watching him push the buttons) and play with various methods of compression and presentation while savouring the limitations imposed on me by bandwidth and my reluctance to impose too much on the patience and goodwill of my viewers.

I recently invested in a small, cheap Aiptek GO-HD camcorder, but the video below was filmed on the Panasonic still camera I took with me to India last year. The footage sat there for a year, until, inspired by some of the things the Egypt group were doing with their little camcorders, I decided to sit down a few weeks ago and hack it into something. It’s a little over six minutes, which is a long time to be looking at footage shot from the side of an auto-rickshaw, but it’s got a nice soundtrack and a few interesting images here and there. So why not pop a Dramamine and take a look?

Technorati Tags: semanal08, semanal08week1, india, jaipur, autorickshaw

A word of advice: don’t try to buy a domain and web hosting from BlueHost from Egypt with a French credit card. That is, unless you enjoy being lectured about “country mismatches” and treated like a common criminal.

Since emerging from the Yotel two Saturdays ago, I spent three days in Barcelona (about which more later) before coming to Alexandria, Egypt, where I’ve been working with a group of women journalists from Europe and North Africa on a citizen media project. Apart from the mistreatment at the hands of BlueHost, it’s been extremely rewarding and enjoyable experience. The language of instruction is French, though a few of the participants are stronger in English, so I spend the day switching between the two languages, not to mention helping troubleshoot computers with operating systems in French, Italian and English, often with either European or Arabic keyboards. By the end of the day my head is spinning, and I’ve arrived at the point now where both my French and English are in a pretty sorry state.

Barbara and Djahida film each other

As usual, my Flickr page is probably the best vantage point from which to keep track of my activities, at least for now. Photos of Alexandria here, and of the workshop here.

(9:52pm Barcelona time) Pictured above, my cabin in the Yotel at Gatwick airport, and also the reason I still feel vaguely human after having spent most of last night on a plane and been shaken out of REM sleep at the equivalent of 2am Trinidad time to disembark.

I knew nothing of the Yotel’s existence until, having been told by EasyJet that I couldn’t check in for my flight to Barcelona six hours ahead of time, I was wandering around that odd zone in Gatwick that accommodates both arrivals and departures looking for somewhere to park myself and my bags and came upon a poster advertising short-term accommodation starting at £25 for four hours. This sounded way too reasonable by London standards (a pre-packaged Coronation Chicken sandwich in Boots runs you about £25 these days), but as I still had five hours and 55 minutes to kill I figured I’d at least take a look at this Yotel thing.

Within minutes of arriving in the Yotel’s vestibule, which, bathed in a soft purplish glow, reminded me of cross between a space ship and an ultra-modern medical dispensary, Julien, the pleasant young front desk clerk who turned out be from Martinique, had checked me in and dispatched a member of the cleaning staff to prepare my cabin. While I was waiting, Julien told me that Yotels are being planned for Heathrow and Amsterdam Schiphol.

The Yotel’s cabins are a study in the judicious use of space–if you’re carrying extra-large suitcases you’d be better of leaving them with the left luggage service. A narrow passage separates a padded cubicle containing an elevated bed from a glass-walled stall with shower, sink and toilet. Should you require a work desk, a pull-down table and folding stool are provided, as is both wired and wifi internet access. The bed linen was impeccable and the mattress struck the perfect balance between firmness and give. Once I’d changed into sleepwear, pulled down the blinds in the cabin door window and turned off the lights, it took me no time to fall into a coma-grade sleep.

A few hours later my PDA alarm told me it was time to get up and deal with EasyJet. My body didn’t want to co-operate, but I promised it that if it did, it would be rewarded with a warm Yotel shower.

I’m willing to bet that this will be the best £25 I spend this entire trip.

I’m in Louisville, Kentucky to attend the Idea Festival. Arrived here yesterday evening a bit dazed after the 11.5 hour journey (via Houston) from Trinidad, and so far have only ventured within a couple of blocks of the hotel to have dinner in Fourth Street, a pedestrianised entertainment hub lined with the likes of TGIF and the Hard Rock Café and where having a huge and blinding neon sign is evidently part of the zoning guidelines. My Global Voices colleague Amira Al Hussaini and I had a very good dinner, however, at an establishment specialising in bourbon, where I had my first ever mint julep. I suspect it won’t be my last either–they’re not as good as mojitos, but close.

On the way here I also had my second experience of being recognised as the person who does CFR, which was rather shocking, as I’ve begun to think that I barely qualify as a blogger any more, far less as a podcaster. The recogniser was Maurini Strub, a Trinidadian transplanted to Detroit who tells me she has a neglected blog on Vox (don’t we all) but didn’t offer the URL. Thanks, Maurini, for making me feel like I’m still part of the blogosphere.

I landed here around 8pm yesterday evening, so my impressions of the city are vague, but the feature of the landscape that made the strongest impression as we glided over the city were the bridges spanning the Ohio River. Hence the choice of the photo above, which was taken from my 17th-floor hotel room. I believe that’s the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge. (More photos will be posted here, though no need to rush there just yet, as I’ve only posted two so far).

Off now to see what the Idea Festival is all about, and to find some eye drops, as I’ve been plagued with hay fever ever since I landed on US soil. Could I be allergic to America?

Still in Chicago (BlogHer ended yesterday - was excellent - photos here), and still proving that I’m an even worse blogger when I’m travelling than when I’m at home. In lieu of a conference report/trip update - at least for now - here are a couple of photos I took this afternoon in Millennium Park.

Now why is it that we outgrow activities like this again?

The Trinis in Toronto

Returned from Toronto at 6am this morning and I’m feeling about as well as one should after having spent a sleepless night on an aircraft, so a more detailed report on the 2nd annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival will have to wait.

In the meantime, feel free to check out the photos.

Technorati Tags: caribbean tales film festival, film, toronto, canada, caribbean, trinidad

Those who check in on my Flickr page would have noticed (some of with great relief, I’m sure) that I’d sort of burned out on the bird photography. Thing is, there are just so many ways to shoot a Blue Gray Tanager.

Here in Tobago, however, I’ve become obsessed with the several varieties of hummingbird that frequent my uncle’s bird feeder. Capturing good photos of these hyperactive creatures poses an entirely new set of challenges, some of which — patience? — I’m pleasantly surprised at my willingness to embrace. I’ve also noticed that they have really short legs.

It occurs to me that this is my maiden voyage on the fast ferry to Tobago (I don’t get over to the sister island nearly enough). It’s quite spacious and comfortable, and the decor has a sort of mildly faded, early ’80s vibe. The the ride is fairly smooth (at least for now). Not bad for TT$215 (US$34) round trip (including car).

We’re already what seems like four or five miles out of port, and I still have internet connectivity from my EVDO modem — interested to see how long it will last.

The T&T Express - the ferry that plies the route between Trinidad and Tobago

Apologies for the break in transmission. I returned to Trinidad from Jamaica only on Monday, and today (Wednesday), I find myself on the port at Port of Spain, waiting to drive my car on to the ferry to Tobago (pictured above), where I’ll be headquartered for the next 17 days.

I still have grand plans, however, of blogging about the final day of Calabash, which Nicholas has of course already done over at Antilles, and the final Calabash photoset is here.

In honour of Indian Arrival Day, which we observe today in Trinidad & Tobago, my maternal grandfather’s West Indian Travel Permit.

According to research conducted by my cousin Stephen Trent, my great-grandfather, Ganga Singh Bissau, was born in the village of Ghagiphur, “which could be in Northern Rajasthan, Punjab or modern Pakistan (who knows if this village still exists).” He would have come to Trinidad some time in the 19th century to work as an indentured labourer. My great-grandmother, Bhagwanti Changoor, was born in St. James, Trinidad, of India-born parents.

My grandfather was born in Philippine, in southern Trinidad, and at birth was given the name Poon Mahabir Ganga Bissau, becoming Morton Dean Gangar after he fell in with some Canadian missionaries and was persuaded to convert to Presbyterianism (several of his siblings remained Hindus). He married my grandmother, Petronella Quarless, a woman of mixed African and European ancestry, in 1930. They had nine children. MD (as my grandmother always called him) occasionally spoke Hindi with his siblings but never with his children. I believe my grandmother’s mastery of Indian cuisine came via her mother-in-law, who also pierced the ears of the five eldest girls (by the time the sixth — my mother — arrived, Bhagwanti was too old, or was perhaps was even dead by then).

MD died in 1973, when I was far too young to contemplate such matters, but by 1967, the year this Travel Permit was issued, I’d like to believe that he was thinking of himself as a Trinidadian and a West Indian (though up until 1962 — the year Trinidad and Tobago gained independence — he was a British subject). Perhaps more importantly, MD was a metrosexual: I remember him as an assiduous hair-comber, and he always smelled of after-shave. Which might explain where C*POP gets the trait.

Technorati Tags: indian arrival day, india, trinidad, caribbean, diaspora