Friday, June 27, 2008

Tonight my editor Sam sent his blog writer out with the camera.

My apologies. This evening Mrs. Dada and I went out to a potluck dinner in honor of Pastors for Peace who chose El Paso as a stopover on their way to Cuba. They are carrying medicines and impossible-to-find supplies of items made scarce by our own government's seemingly endless blockade of Cuba.

My editor Sam sent me out with the camera, a couple of "Dada's Dally" cards and lots of hope of learning more about this group's incredibly adventurous mission: to go to Cuba, to deliver those supplies in defiance of U.S. prohibitions against citizens attempting to do so.

This is the 19th trip to the island since these missions began 17 years ago. Hopefully, it will be just as successful in achieving their goal as the previous 18 have been.

But more to the point, as we pulled up outside the El Paso Unitarian Universalist Community Church, this evening's host of the Pastors for Peace group, I discovered the same bus Mrs. Dada and I encountered two years ago this summer on Interstate 10 just west of Blythe, CA. So intrigued were we back then, I slowed down as we passed it while Mrs. Dada took pictures of this most curious vehicle.

Tonight, sadly, we weren't so lucky. Two reasons. First, I started photographing our "old friend" the bus and another accompanying bus parked just across the street from the church. Both appeared loaded with supplies. After the fifth photo or so, the camera stopped working. That's because I forgot to put the memory card into it before leaving the house, a fact I'm still sheltering from Sam, my editor.

At least I had a couple of photos on the camera's internal memory of the buses outside. It was then I next discovered Mrs. Dada hadn't brought her Olympus with her this evening, something she usually never goes anywhere without.

"Well, even if I can't capture some of the incredibly courageous people undertaking this government defying adventure, at least I have the pictures of their buses," I thought.

In short, when we returned home I quickly plugged the camera into the computer and "Presto! Bingo!" there were the great images of the buses. That's when the second sad thing happened. Unconditioned as I am of saving to the computer images stored on the camera's internal memory -- I was so engrossed in the pictures -- as I closed them after viewing, I was actually somehow deleting them! "Poof! -- Gone!"

Perhaps there's redemption in the morning. Perhaps not. But if I leave the house early enough, I may just capture images of those two buses before they leave with their 16 passengers headed to their next stop, San Antonio, TX, then on to Mexico, then Cuba.

But pictures or not tomorrow morning, I'll have more to say about this evening's incredible potluck with a wonderful band of very dedicated and daring people. And maybe, just maybe, if I can retrieve some photos in the morning before they leave, my editor Sam won't even know of my goof earlier tonight.

5 comments:

The Grey Tiger said...

So glad to have found you. Janine is a dear friend and her blog had the photos you can borrow for Editor Sam if you need some. She'll be happy to share, as always.
Tuesday is Canada Day here and we celebrate taking the country from our native friends a long time ago. You know, the day following the big apology for fucking up the natives with residential schools for 6 or 7 generations of torment, this government passed a law that allows oil companies to dump pollutants into their northern lakes!! We are as bad as the Bush admin for what we are doing to the people here and abroad. Canada Peacekeepers??? Not on their lives, we're not!!
I am so glad you got to see the Caravan, I was on it in '01 and it was hot, hard, and heavy but I'll treasure those memories and friends until I die!!
Warmly,
Barbara in Victoria Canada

Dada said...

Hi GT! Thanks for stopping by. I felt so badly losing the few images I managed to take of the buses Friday eve that I returned Saturday morning, hoping to catch 'em before they left.

I was too late. But all was not lost for I had a very serendipitous moment on the way back that I hope to post some photos of in the next day or two.

Anyway, discovering Janine's photo gallery yesterday on her blog of the trip, I asked it I might use a picture or two and have been awaiting her reply when your e-mail arrived.

So thank you! I just wanted to get a post on my small blog before the 3rd when they plan to cross over our border so that any of my regulars, so inclined, might be able to see what's going on with the caravanistas.

How fortunate for you that you were able to go on one of these ventures. (A regular reader of this blog, and personal friend - along with her husband - went on this trip back in the 90's - "Border Explorer".)

BTW, I enjoyed reading your latest blog entry. It made me nostalgic, thinking of our two trips to Alberta/Eastern BC and Victoria and how much we enjoyed them.

So thanks for the "greenlight." I shall work up something soon to let readers know what's happening with the Peacekeepers.

(Oh, and BTW, Sam my "editor" is our dalmation mix dogger and he wasn't too upset I blew the photo op.)

Billie Greenwood said...

Jeebus, Dada, you wouldn't be baiting me?
"MEM-reez light the KORners of ma mind." I do hope you'll post on the caravan. I may be tempted to tell some of my stories. It was the highlight of my life.
Thanks for going to the potluck.

Dada said...

Well, B.E., I confess: the thought occurred to me a blog on this group just might "bait you" into revealing a little more of the "highlight of your life" moments during your own journey to Cuba one year.

In fact, we met a young girl there that evening that made me wish we'd had children. Just so vibrant, alive, very sweet, polite and you could see all of this in her before even speaking with her. And I happened to say to this person that I knew of a couple who had made this very trip some years earlier; that one of them had remarked to me it was "the highlight of her life."

Yes, I shall make a meager offering re our evening with the blockade busters soon, but ask your patience at anything I may get wrong and your contributions (from "one who's been there," such as yourself) would be most welcomed!

It was a very uplifting evening. Undoubtedly a highlight of my life! (Ah, you can tell I haven't been near as far around the block as you, my compatre! ~[a word I just made up.]) ~D.

Dada said...

Actually, I just realized...with commenters like you, B.E., and grey tiger here, my comments on this mission will come from way beneath the water's surface. I'll expect y'all who've been there, done that. to buoy me up when I sink.

(Hmmm, maybe I'll just go light on the details, more on my impressions?)