asakiyume: (glowing grass)
This is a secret world

wetlands

Where you can find marsh marigolds, tussock sedge, and skunk cabbage

marsh marigolds

tussock sedge

skunk cabbage

I went for a brief walk here with Wakanomori. Birds came and talked to us at eye level, little frogs jumped into the water. It was lovely.

-------

In other news, I dreamed of a tree with a growth habit and leaves like a black locust, but a trunk and branches that were segmented like bamboo, and smooth green like bamboo, only the joints, instead of being flush with the surface and pale colored, were BLACK and stood out from the surface as if they were arm rings or bangles that the trunk and branches were wearing. In my dream I stroked the smooth surface of the trunk and branches and the smooth, raised black joints and thought, What a remarkable tree--I have to look up what it is.

But of course it was a dream. It doesn't exist :(

However, when I searched--just in case--"black jointed bamboo," I discovered a type of black bamboo (but with pale joints) called Bambusa lako... Timor black bamboo. TIMOR.

It's very beautiful.
large photo )

Also, I finished translating my Timorese acquaintance's story, and we sent it to Strange Horizons. Hopefully they accept it!
asakiyume: (good time)
Two exciting things!

First, Strange Horizons is doing a special issue featuring Southeast Asian writers, and on Twitter they mentioned especially that they'd love to get someone from Timor-Leste. So on Facebook I posted about that and one of my acquaintances from when I went there in 2013 messaged me! He wanted details, and he said he'd try writing something if I could help him translate it. I said yes! And the other day he sent me a 3,500 word story. And now I'm working on translating it!

I can't convey sufficiently how exciting this is for me. I daydreamed, when I was over there, about how great it would be to hear local stories and tales--or even to read them. But it seemed worlds away, requiring so much study, and was I likely to do all that work for a place I might never go back to? But I did it! And now I can help someone share his stories with the world! So there's that thrill, but then there's the thrill of the tale itself. It seems very folktale-esque so far (I'm not quite a third of the way through it), but all the little details! Details about how to clear a patch of forest to make a field (bring your axe and your machete--which, amusingly, in Tetun is called a katana), put little stones around the perimeter, cut all the grass, weeds, and other plants, let them dry, then burn them. It was the tools and the little stones that I was especially excited about. And then details about what they eat for lunch, and bathing in a stream... all of it. Now maybe these are just folktale elements, but they're new-to-me folktale elements. I love them.

Now I'm waiting for a promised magical eel to appear.

Second, my ESL tutee and I are going to experiment with making Salvadoran chicha! She was telling me her mother sometimes makes this alcoholic drink to sell to people, and I was asking how she did it, and I thought... why don't we try it? So we're going to. Ingredients are seed corn, panela (unrefined sugarcane juice, condensed into a brick), a pineapple rind, and water. And time ;-)

I'll let you know how it turns out.
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
This fabulous short story in Strange Horizons contrasts the personhood-under-the-law of corporations and rivers, and it is beautiful. It's also very short; you can read it in probably five or ten minutes--or you can listen to it (link). A few selected quotes:
Try convincing a corporation it isn’t a person now, see how far it gets you. There’s whining and litigation and they slouch down the street after you, cat-calling. “Look at me, bitch! I’m talking to you!”

...

We made the corporations people, but then we did the same to the rivers.
-------

It was a way of fighting back. It was the best thing we ever did.

...

When we made the corporations people, we made them like us. We taught them want, we taught them privilege and power.

When we made the rivers people, all we had left to teach was self-preservation.

...

There’s blood in our veins, but most of blood is water. Rivers run through our veins more than balance sheets ever did.

The end is exultant--when I read the story to Wakanomori, he cheered.

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