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Pipsqueak reunited with family

After being separated from her adopted family for almost five months due to the pandemic, Pipsqueak the dachshund has finally arrived home in Australia.

Zoe and Guy Eilbeck adopted Pip in Sicily, where the couple lived on a sailboat with their two sons, Max and Cam. The adorable dachshund joined them on multiple trips through 17 countries.

When the pandemic paralyzed the world and borders were closed in March, the Eilbeck family were immediately forced to return to Sydney, Australia, sadly leaving behind their dog in an animal shelter in North Carolina.

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To make matters worse, the shelter had to close due to COVID-19 restrictions. Luckily, local woman, Ellen Steinberg, stepped up to provide a home for Pip.

“Ellen gave Pip unconditional love for three months and taught her how to live in a house, not an easy feat for a sailing dog who is used to very different conditions! Her kindness was incredible. Daily updates on Pip and help getting her ready to export to Australia as it quickly became clear we could not return to the USA easily,” Zoe told Lonely Planet.

As restrictions eased and after multiple vaccinations, blood tests, and paperwork, Pip was finally ready to leave the US — which proved to be a no easy feat.

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Back in Australia, Pip’s family put a plea on social media asking the public for help in transporting her back to Sydney. Their post garnered over 200,000 views. After generating a lot of conversation on social media, a kind volunteer helped the dachshund get to Los Angeles where she was put up in a hotel with her very own king-size bed. From there, Pip was flown to Auckland, New Zealand where she immediately went into a routine 10-day quarantine under the care of vets.

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Yet the family had another obstacle before being reunited. Just before Pip was due to leave Auckland for Sydney, Australia, the southern city of Melbourne went into lockdown, which left the dachshund stranded once again.

Due to the national media coverage the story received in Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald and Virgin Airlines stepped in to help. After a total of 136 days of travel, Pip was happily reunited with her family.

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Chocolate dust covers Swiss town

Chocolate lovers have long dreamed of it, and Switzerland has made it a reality: Chocolate falling from the sky is now a thing. In the Swiss town of Olten, the residents have experienced the whimsical phenomenon of a chocolate snowfall.

Particles of fine cocoa powder spread around town on Friday after the cooling ventilation of the local Lindt & Spruengli chocolate factory malfunctioned in an incident that isn’t exactly unwelcome.

According to the factory, a defect occurred in the ventilation for a line of roasted cocoa nibs, which are fragments of crushed cocoa beans. The malfunction, combined with strong winds, caused cocoa powder to drift to the ground around the factory’s immediate vicinity.

Thankfully, the incident didn’t throw a wrench into the factory’s chocolate production. The particles are completely harmless to people and the environment, the ventilation system has been repaired, and the factory is continuing its operations as normal.

One car in the area was lightly coated with a sprinkling of cocoa, and the company even offered to pay for any cleaning needed as a result. The car’s owner hasn’t yet responded to the offer — probably because they already licked all the chocolate away.

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Timbuktu preserving artifacts

Strategically placed by a bend in the Niger River along the main trade route through the Sahara desert, Timbuktu was a hub for merchants and travelers between the 11th and 16th centuries. This constant flow of people brought with them ideas and experiences, and Timbuktu slowly became a center for Islamic culture and intellectualism. The hundreds of resultant mosques and libraries have been drawing tourists, scholars, pilgrims, and admirers to Timbuktu for nearly a thousand years, yet in 2012, the remaining artifacts of this legacy were nearly destroyed in a handful of months.

The perpetrators were Ansar Dine, an extremist group with ties to al-Qaeda. Among them, the man who served as their chief of police and de facto head enforcer, Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, is currently being tried in Den Haag, Netherlands, by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for both crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Al Hassan’s lawyers are arguing that he is unfit to stand trial. At preliminary proceedings, when presented with each separate charge against him, he has refused even to enter a plea, simply stating, “I cannot answer this question.”

One of the primary beliefs of Ansar Dine surrounds the sanctity of the teachings of Islam, and that secular literature is considered idolatrous. In an effort to remove such “threats” as part of their occupation of Timbuktu and the rest of Northern Mali, Al Hassan headed the intention to completely destroy a thousand years of teachings, mostly handwritten in Arabic, that had been carefully stored in the hundreds of libraries throughout Timbuktu.

Although Al Hassan’s efforts were largely thwarted by a handful of librarians and laypeople, many manuscripts were publicly burned or otherwise destroyed. The cultural artifacts that were saved were either taken away from the city or hidden.

But now the relics they managed to stow in Mali’s capital, Bamako, face a greater threat to their destruction: natural decomposition.

The race to preserve the intellectual history of Northern Mali from the climate of its capital is being treated just as seriously as the unlawful actions of Ansar Dine. Today in Bamako an international restoration and digitization project is still underway, but it is only 20 percent complete. The ultimate goals are threefold: to restore the manuscripts and devise methods to prevent further harm, remove the threat of insurgency in Northern Mali, and return these artifacts to their rightful home in Timbuktu.

The insurgency

In 2012, taking advantage of an already-occurring anti-government rebellion of the local Tuareg people, Ansar Dine managed to wrestle a terrifying, strict control over Northern Mali. Their goals included installing a hyper-conservative sect of Islam, this being in direct conflict with the region’s reverence for the secular pursuits of literature and science.

Their methods of control were extreme. They recruited soldiers from the population, offering small stipends, thus tempering resistance. They patrolled the streets, swiftly enforcing new laws they had implemented without trial or process. They were particularly strict with women who frequently suffered severe physical punishments for the smallest misdemeanors.

To many citizens of Timbuktu, its libraries and books are indivisible from the city itself — Timbuktu would simply cease to exist as it has for the last millennia without them. But to Ansar Dine, these manuscripts were considered haram — forbidden — and among their other campaigns of control, they sought to destroy them all.

So important is the literature of Timbuktu that destroying it, the ICC believes, should be considered a war crime. Their first precedent-setting case that argued this was in 2016, when Al Hassan’s cohort, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi was tried in Den Haag. He was charged with attacking religious buildings and historical monuments in Northern Mali. Nine mausoleums and a mosque were cited in court as being targets of his destruction for which he was ultimately convicted. Al Mahdi was sentenced to nine years in prison, and the ICC likely seeks to use this legal precedent to similarly convict Al Hassan.

While the Insurgency was largely quelled in 2013 with the help of French troops, the threat has not dissipated completely. Even though Al Hassan is currently imprisoned in Den Haag, Timbuktu has not yet fully recovered, and the relics still require additional measures of protection for safekeeping.

Today, commercial flights to Timbuktu have ceased altogether, and tourism, long a booming industry for the ancient city, is almost non-existent. Once an influential oasis, Timbuktu now sits effectively more isolated than ever.

The preservation

Photo: Teo Tarras/Shutterstock

When Ansar Dine began to burn books and destroy libraries, many feared that a thousand-year legacy would be lost forever. But Abdel Kader Haidara, himself owner of a library, refused to let the history of Timbuktu go up in smoke.

Through a translator, Haidara shared with PBS how they managed to save some of the artifacts: “We smuggled the manuscripts out very slowly, little by little, over a period of six months. We took them out of Timbuktu in 4×4 SUVs. We brought them to Bamako. We also stockpiled them in small boats about five miles outside of Timbuktu and took them 375 miles away.”

Haidara, other booksellers, and members of the resistance in Timbuktu were presented with the massive challenge of saving the written history of a nation on the fly. Via a clandestine system that involved methodically transporting a few books at a time, Haidara and other librarians, historians, and laypeople were able to save about 200,000 manuscripts in total.

“We formed several committees: one in Bamako, one in Timbuktu and another at an intermediate point on the route,” Haidara explained. “Some took care to make sure that the material was accommodated and remained intact inside the car. Others accompanied me to Bamako, and there the manuscripts were removed from the third reception committee and placed in houses where they would be safe.”

“We couldn’t take the manuscripts with us,” said Haoua Toure, owner of a private library in Timbuktu. “The occupation took us by surprise, but people had to decide what to do. So people started to find ways of hiding their manuscripts before leaving.”

Many were forced to bury their precious books in the Saharan sands, taking with them only a list of the precise coordinates where they lie and the hope that they could one day be unearthed intact.

Thanks to their efforts, the majority of Timbuktu’s literary artifacts were saved, though sadly, much of what could not be secreted away or buried for safekeeping was burned by insurgents and lost forever.

The restoration

Both public and private libraries in Timbuktu have accumulated hundreds of thousands of manuscripts — some dating as far back as the 12th century — that collectively form what some believe is the single most important collection of literature in the world.

The fragile papers that were naturally preserved for hundreds of years by Timbuktu’s arid Saharan climate are now vulnerable in Bamako’s humidity. This means that what began as an effort of mere transportation quickly became a full-scale restoration and digitization project that is still ongoing.

Each book must be carefully cataloged. The manuscripts that are in good shape must be read and summarized, photographed, then placed in boxes that are specially designed to ward off further deterioration.

One of the restorers on the project, Eva Brozowsky told DW, “if one person did this, we would have more than a century of work. The more people who can collaborate, the greater the financial need but the faster the result.”

The books themselves cover such a wide range of topics: astronomy, medicine, music, and much more. The wealth of knowledge at stake is enormous. They are a link between the nation’s past and present and are inextricably tied to their history of Timbuktu.

Meanwhile, the manuscripts that failed to make it out of the city remain largely buried. Again, Haoua Toure said of her own buried cache, “We know the exact coordinates of every one of our manuscripts, but we can’t unearth many of them because it’s still dangerous here, so we can’t start organizing them yet. They will remain in hiding. It’s really a problem, and it’s much better that it remains a secret, for the security of all of us.”

In parallel to the manuscript restoration project in Bamako, Timbuktu is getting a facelift. The damage to their mosques and libraries is being repaired, the city being readied for when the threat of violence subsides, and their treasured manuscripts can be returned to their rightful home in the Sahara.

But COVID-19 has brought a new threat. A rise in extremism has been noted around the world, and groups operating in the east of Africa like Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, and even Ansar Dine have become more active in 2020. Meanwhile, in Bamako, social-distancing protocols have thrown a wrench into restoration efforts, slowing their progress.

Al Hassan’s trial is currently on hiatus but is scheduled to resume on August 25, 2020.

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Doing a group bar crawl solo

I’ve lived everywhere from Windhoek to West London, Abuja to Aachen, but up until five years ago, I had never traveled on my own. The very idea brought me sweat-dripping discomfort. During a period of disquiet and dissatisfaction with my life in London, however, I took the plunge and booked a ticket to Central America for my first large-scale solo journey. The beach boosts my mind and lifts my spirit, so when I need replenishment, I go to the ocean. This time, I wasn’t going to let a lack of companionship stop me.

Armed with one suitcase, I headed to Costa Rica in 2015. I booked accommodation for the first few days; other than that, I indulged in very little other planning. Hawaiians say “let’s go holoholo” when embarking on a long day at the beach or blissfully cruising around the islands. There is no set destination or aim. The mantra is that it’s not where they plan to go but where they end up. I decided to embrace that lifestyle and ended up in Panama a month later. I loved it so much that I returned to Panama 2017. Little did I know that a chance encounter on this trip would set me on a surprising, ultimately fulfilling, new journey.

The slender isthmus brought many scintillating experiences my way, but one of the most groundbreaking was that fateful Panama City bar crawl on July 29. To add some sizzle to my Friday evening I decided to hop on a liquid tour of the old quarter with just myself for company. I was a little apprehensive about the prospect though. The anxiety brought on by turning up to a party alone is already immense, not to mention in a new city that is still (pleasantly or unpleasantly) unfamiliar to you.

I shouldn’t have worried: The bar crawl hosts, Sonia and Jenny, embraced me from the very start.

“Venetian mask or pirate hat, you choose”, Sonia said. She also placed a “Panama Bar Crawl” badge onto my dress, so I could easily be identified as one of their guests. More revelers poured in, and it was time for the games to begin. We broke the ice by telling sweet truths and untruths that our new friends had to uncover. Reggaeton music blasted through the venue which happened to be spacious enough for a round of limbo or two.

Armed with our plastic swords, eye patches and miscellaneous party regalia, we marched conspicuously to venue two where mojitos provided liquid courage for our next icebreaker task. Questions like “What does love mean to you?” and “If you were arrested, what would your family think the crime was?” opened the door for both bonding and belly laughs.

The giggles continued at the third establishment, Chupitos, a shot bar. As if that wasn’t enough, Sonia and Jenny brought a confetti cannon along for the ride, too. I was already suitably impressed, but the next rooftop bar proved I made the right choice by joining the bar crawl.

Photo: Rosie Bell

At Tantalo, we swayed with the wind in our hair and looked down at Panama Bay as the stars above in turn watched over us. This is how good life can feel, I thought. Full of beautiful moments that take your breath away. This was a priceless evening with convivial crawlers from all corners but the undisputed stars of the show were Sonia and Jenny who would later become two of my dearest friends.

The day after the crawl Sonia invited me for tea. There I learned that our commonalities went beyond the love of a good boogie. We spent hours discussing loss, debating love, and dissecting our entrepreneurial dreams. A multilingual, multi-hyphenate tour de force, she truly inspired me. Her accolades and activities included krav maga, being a whiz at chess, milking cows, and the ability to make her own goat’s cheese — not to mention that she had flown 5,000-odd miles from Belgium to Panama to start a new life and business.

I told her of my travel plans and uncertainty about my next destination. Without hesitation, she invited me to take up her and Jenny’s spare room in case I fancied calling Panama home for a while. Without hesitation, I accepted. I knew I was smitten with Panama, but I wasn’t sure I could actually live there until that moment. Meeting these women was the cosmic push I needed and the assurance I could make it out there.

Saying yes to Sonia’s proposal turned into a passport to discover more of Panama’s corners. I darted between the capital city and the blinding blue archipelagos. Sonia, Jenny, and I planned our first trip almost instantly, to the islands of Bocas del Toro, where we would feast on decorative ceviche and travel by water taxi from one envy-inducing beach to the next. Our ocean-view apartment in the city was an epicenter of fun, and we soon built a robust social circle of like-minded wanderers. I found my travel companions supportive, luminous, and entertaining; I had truly won the roommate Olympics.

That chance encounter at the bar crawl on one spirited evening would influence my decision to move to Panama on a semi-permanent basis, and that decision has had a powerful ripple effect on every facet of my life. Panama tends to fly under the radar compared to its neighbors Costa Rica and Colombia, so numerous travel writing opportunities came my way as a result of being based there, and my career blossomed.

Being in a physical environment that lit my flames benefitted by my writing, too. I spent afternoons perched in colourful, quaint cafes in the old town where I wrote my life design book Escape to Self. I also witnessed unimaginable beauty: On a secluded two-family island, I saw a bright orange moon slowly setting into the sea. I cured my malaise and learned that I can thrive wherever the wind blows me.

I still carry my “Panama Bar Crawl” badge in my purse as a reminder of that night. As a reminder of what can happen when you take a leap of faith. Sometimes even the most unexpected moments, even those involving pirate hats and confetti cannons, have the power to change your life forever.

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Tokyo’s new outdoor toilets

These public toilets in Tokyo might be sitting for a long time before anyone actually has the courage to use one. New transparent toilets, created by architect Shigeru Ban, were installed in five public parks in Shibuya, and the fact that they’re artsy likely won’t make you feel any better about using one. The toilets are made from colored “smart glass” that turns opaque once the cubicles are in use — but to figure that one out, someone had to first actually take the plunge.

Photo: Tokyo Toilet

The toilets, which opened this month, are part of the Tokyo Toilet Project organized by the nonprofit Nippon Foundation.

According to the foundation, the toilets are more than just edgy art installations, but actually serve a practical purpose. “There are two concerns with public toilets, especially those located in parks. The first is whether it is clean inside, and the second is that no one is secretly waiting inside. At night they light up the parks like a beautiful lantern.”

Photo: Tokyo Toilet

Thanks to the new technology, potential users can inspect the premises through the transparent walls before deciding to enter. Once the door is locked, the glass outer walls turn opaque, so no one can see through. The toilets also come with washing and drying modes, seat warming, and lids that open and close automatically to improve sanitation, as is typical of Japan’s restrooms. The project intends to expand the number of toilets in Shibuya by next spring, installing 17 units in total.

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Museums in New York City can reopen

New York City’s museums have been closed for months amid a lockdown designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Now, museums are finally allowed to reopen on August 24. As NYC enters Phase Four, museums, as well as other low-risk indoor cultural venues, will be allowed to open, though restrictions and safety measures will still be in place.

Museums and cultural institutions can open in NYC starting on August 24.

25% occupancy. Timed ticketing required. Pre-set staggered entry.

Face coverings enforced and controlled traffic flow.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 14, 2020

Not all museums will be opening on the 24th, and those that do will have new protocols designed to mitigate the virus’ spread. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, won’t reopen to members until the 27th and to all visitors until the 29th. When it does, visitors must stay six feet apart, wear masks, and undergo temperature screenings.

The Museum of Modern Art will also reopen on August 27 at limited capacity. Advance, timed tickets must be purchased online starting on August 21, and guests with a temperature over 100 degrees won’t be allowed to enter. The American Museum of Natural History is reopening on September 2 for members and September 9 for the general public, with some new health and safety measures.

Some museums, like the Guggenheim and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum have not yet announced their official reopening date.

Although some of NYC’s most notable museums are still waiting to reopen, Phase Four is good news for anyone who’s been starved for a little culture during the long months of lockdown.

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Notre Dame VR experience

A new virtual reality experience called “Rebuilding Notre Dame” allows people to experience the famous Parisian cathedral before and after the destructive fire that occurred in April 2019. The 18-minute experience blends footage filmed a few months prior to the fire with film taken afterward.

The experience was launched by virtual tourism venue FlyView in central Paris. Participants wear VR headsets, sit in spinning armchairs, and are treated to 360-degree views of the landmark building, both inside and outside.

Arnaud Houette, FlyView’s director, told The Art Newspaper, “We want people to have the impression of being inside Notre Dame and feel the strong emotion everyone felt last year.”

The documentary experience features drone images of the fire itself, as recorded by the city of Paris, shots of the scaffolding, and views of the interior. The experience intertwines footage recorded before and after the incident to highlight the immense damage, and includes interviews with Paris’ mayor, the cathedral’s rector, and General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who heads the reconstruction efforts. Participants will even get to see the cathedral’s attic and sacristy, two areas usually inaccessible to the public.

The experience costs about $23, with a portion of the proceeds going toward Notre Dame’s reconstruction.

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Adorable elephant shrew rediscovered

Until recently, the Somali sengi, the least-documented species of elephant shrews in the world, was lost to science. The small mammal was last seen by the scientific community in 1968 in Somalia, but a team of scientists set out to find it again in Djibouti — and they were successful.

People in Djibouti knew the species was very much present in the area, and had no idea that it was lost to the international scientific community.

The team of experts, including Houssein Rayaleh, research ecologist and conservationist at Association Djibouti Nature, set traps hoping to lure the shrew into view. They caught one almost immediately, identifying it by the tuft of fur on its tail that distinguishes it from other elephant shrews.

Photo: Steven Heritage/Global Wildlife Conservation

Steven Heritage, member of the research team and a scientist at Duke University, said, “It was amazing. When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of its tail, we just looked at one another and couldn’t believe it. A number of small mammal surveys since the 1970s did not find the Somali sengi in Djibouti — it was serendipitous that it happened so quickly for us.”

The research team set up over 1,000 traps and saw 12 Somali sengis in total, capturing the first photographic evidence of them in decades.

Rayaleh said, “For us living in Djibouti, we never considered the sengis to be ‘lost,’ but this new research does bring the Somali sengi back into the scientific community, which we value. For Djibouti this highlights the great biodiversity of the country and shows that there are opportunities for new science and research here.”

The shrew was previously featured on the Global Wildlife Conservation’s 25 “most wanted” list for species waiting to be rediscovered.

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Woman tries sue NY over quarantine

In New York, a judge ruled against a woman for trying to sue the state over its 14-day mandatory quarantine. As a result, Cynthia Page, from Arizona, had to cancel her trip to Brooklyn, which she cited as a violation of her rights to travel.

Page filed a lawsuit against the state of New York in July after being forced to cancel her travel plans. Her action came shortly after Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the mandatory quarantine rule for people coming from Arizona, Florida, and Texas.

She argued that her rights were being hindered and according to her legal team, “The State of New York is not an independent country. The Governor of New York does not have dictatorial powers that permit him to require healthy, law-abiding citizens to remain quarantined, which is akin to a house arrest, for 14 days as a condition on their right to freely travel in and through the state of New York.”

Page cited the 14th Amendment which was dismissed by the judge who explained that quarantine doesn’t actually prevent anyone from traveling — it only requires them to self-isolate for two weeks. Page’s lawyer told the New York Post that they plan on fighting back.

As COVID-19 cases continue to grow nationwide, New York now requires people from 33 states to quarantine for 14 days upon entry, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

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Don't dress us as Native Americans

Last Halloween, I was sitting on the front porch watching scrub jays dart from branch to branch. I lit candles in the pumpkins we carved and waited for the parade of kids trick-or-treating. Then came the rush of footsteps and laughter. I chatted with parents, oohed and aahed over the costumes. One kid was dressed as a purple dinosaur. Another was made to look like grapes wearing a green shirt covered with green balloons. And then there was a tiny girl with two long black braids, wearing faux-leather, dressed as Pocahontas or Sacajawea, and her dad wearing a headdress.

I love Halloween, but my thoughts are heavy saddlebags. It’s unintentional, of course. This father was most likely unaware that it is disrespectful to dress his daughter and himself as Native American. I could shrug it off as cultural borrowing and overlook cultural appropriation — after all, he means well. But I can’t. As Native Americans, we are a culture — not a costume. I understand that wearing a culture as a costume is not intended to hurt most of the time. However, the fact of the matter is that it does.

Native social justice activists have been speaking out against Native American-themed costumes for decades, yet companies still produce them, and stores still order and sell them. When I contacted a number of the costume supply stores in my city and state, the owners I spoke with said that their Pocahontas, Indian Brave, and Big Chief costumes are top sellers, and they would lose business if they didn’t stock and sell them. Some people wear these costumes out of naiveté and others in a blatant disregard, disrespect, and irreverence.

Our Native American regalia is a tradition for our Native people, and the wearing of it is a distinctly indigenous activity. It is imbued with spiritual meaning and an expression of culture and identity. For Native dancers, not only is the act of dancing that expression, but the wearing of dance regalia is also a visible manifestation of one’s heritage. Often the beadwork contains personal motifs that reflect the dancer’s tribe, and beadwork is frequently created by a family member and given as a gift to the dancer.

Feathers receive utmost respect. Regalia is one of the most powerful symbols of Native identity and is considered sacred. This is one reason why it is inappropriate to refer to regalia as a “costume.”

However, we (by “we” I mean American society) are stuck in a mode where too many people tolerate imitating American Indian people. These activities are indicative of an ignorant society that refuses to see American Indian people as people.

Most damaging are the Halloween “Pocahottie” and “Sexy Indian Girl” costumes which have gained popularity. I can begin by referencing statistics about how many Native women are sexually assaulted (one in three). The rate of sexual assault is more than twice the national average, stressing the point that dressing up and playing Indian is not a harmless activity.

When a costume or sexiness is based on race, ethnicity, or culture, humans are being extracted for the sake of making the wearer of the costume feel powerful or exotic. There is also cultural appropriation. It involves members of a dominant group exploiting the culture of a less privileged group and equals belittling the lived experience and ethnicity of those who have birthright.

Native American people are among the most underrepresented and misunderstood minorities in all of North America. Too often the First Americans are depicted as existing during colonization and western expansion as if belonging only in the past, but not as people in today’s world. No myth about Native people is as prevalent, or self-serving, as the myth of the vanishing Native, also known as “the vanishing Indian” or “the vanishing race.”

It’s no surprise that so many feel that wearing Native American-like regalia as a costume isn’t offensive — because in their mind Indians no longer exist.

A version of this article was previously published on October 24, 2016, and was updated by the author on August 17, 2020.

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