I spent Saturday first with Tony at the Spinners Flock Sale (and lunch at Common Grill, a wonderful place I’d never been before). Then I came home and knuckled down, because I had promised a whole lot of people (the most important being Altu) that I would do a travelogue at her restaurant on Sunday.

Remember, I took more than 1400 pictures in Africa. Altu gave me a memory stick for her own camera, with 171 more photos on it. I’m grateful for her additions, because she had her camera set for a higher resolution than I did and her camera was able to take some absolutely wonderful photographs (you should see how well her camera does with sunsets, it’s heavenly).

I’ve given you folks a taste here and there of photos of my trip. Well, I showed almost none of these photos at the travelogue. And on April 10 I’ll do another travelogue at Working Women Artists (local folks, even if you are not a woman and/or an artist, please let me know if you want to come to that one). That one will focus more on the visual, the art and color and dancing of it all.

But man, oh man, did I have a task ahead of me. I ended up with 105 slides (some of which were maps showing our journey) and somehow nobody fell asleep during the process! Whew! I know I love to talk about things that i’m passionate about, and I always pray that I stop talking before I become a boor. It turned out fine, and lots of folks thanked me for the talk.

I talked to Regina after the talk was over. She is perhaps the most loyal of fans/friends, and seems to be at every performance I do, no matter if it’s dance or singing or talking to a crowd. Bless her! She is an artist and she really loves to study all artforms, whether in a book or by visiting art galleries/museums all over the world.

Regina mentioned she really liked a particular photo early in the presentation. She remembered it more by the colors than the subject matter… a woman after my own heart! I don’t know which one it was, but I am hoping it was one of these three, which are all from the historical Northern Ethiopia tour we took. The trip included Bahar Dar, Gondar and Lalibela. If I’m not mistaken, I believe these three photos were all taken in or near Bahar Dar, which is the area where the Blue Nile river begins.

Thanks to everyone who came to the travelogue. It’s snowy and nasty out, and we also unfortunately scheduled the talk at the same time as the Soweto Choir at Wharton Center (talk about bad timing) and a sold out MSU Women’s Basketball game… so we really do appreciate all those who did make it.

Photos: 1) Traditional Ethiopian homes, 2) Landscape near Bahar Dar, 3) Panoramic view including small waterfall which is the Blue Nile. It used to be a huge waterfall, just huge, but the water has been diverted (most days, anyway) for hydroelectric power generation in the last few years. Gorgeous view, isn’t it? We did quite a hike up some pretty steep hills to see this view, but it was worth the effort. I realize this photo is larger than I usually post here, but there is so much detail worth seeing, I ask your forgiveness this time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 20th, 2005 at 5:48 pmand is filed under Africa, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.