Free Wine at a Winery

You expect to get free wine samples at a winery, but I was given a bottle of wine for free by the owner.  After an interlude of hilarity.  I received the bottle after going round the back of the shop with the owner where he said he wants to show me something. So on our return, when he gave me a free bottle of wine,  there were a lot of winks and nods.

It all started when I confessed that I do not like Shiraz. Justin McNamee the owner of Samuel's Gorge winery, where we were closing a day of wine tasting,  continuing to enjoy the wine he poured for his visitors,  took me around the back of the shop and showed me the old vintage equipment as a way of explaining how pure the process is.  My answer being that “that purity” might be why I do not like it. Quizzically he stopped talking and waited. 

Well the reason I do not like Shiraz has nothing to do with the quality. It is to do with the taste and texture of wine. Certain wine resonates with me as an unique experience. Whether it is because of what I was brought up with, perhaps it transports me to another more happy times. Perhaps it agrees with my constitution, makes me feel better, happier, stronger more virile. Perhaps it is what I expect a good wine to taste like. Whatever the reason, some wine does it for me. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot does it for me. Other wines, especially the pure types of Shiraz, Pinots and especially the Zinfandels, do not.

That is what Justin and I talked about in the back of his wine pressing workshop. And the same attraction applies to people. After sampling some 16 wines and a couple of bottles of wine, a delicious lunch, talking was easy and open. We discussed wines and then people until the obvious distinction become less apparent.   I  feel a resonance with clever, adventurous, confident, slightly eccentric people. I feel comfortable in their company. Not all people have these qualities, but within this group, I gravitate towards the more unique. Selecting the pure wine. This is where Justin and I shook hands and he presented me with a bottle of tempranillo wine.

There are mini reflections of the whole. The secrets of life might be too broad for our brains to comprehend, but there are mini reflections, glares that we can perceive. And it is a stretch to even suggest that wine reflects life, but it is within our comprehension to understand that our appreciation of wine (or beer, or art, or music) is based on fundamental pleasures. Pleasures that are specific and tuned to who we are as human beings. Combining all of these pleasures together; from tactile to taste to auditory to visual and you can easily see how there is a dance of the sense. A symphony.  Each appreciation reflects your essence as a person. And because of this essence, these tastes only get refined but not changed.  I have a similar resonance with people. Old close friends that show up in my life still resonate deeply within me.

Johannes Kepler was convinced that the geometrical blueprint that provided the Creator with the model for decorating the whole world was based on musical harmonies.  He attempted to explain this not with mathematics or physics, but with music. And he was not alone. The harmony of the universe had been studied by Pythagoras, Ptolemy and many others before Kepler. The central set of "harmonies" was the musica universalis or "music of the spheres."

Finding, or coming across wine, music, people that are in tune with your harmony is not often. Shiraz might be a pure tone, but it is not part of my harmony. Welcome Tempranillo.

Darkness

I am a city guy. I realized this when in my second visit to Beijing, I went off on my own without even a worry or a care. I could hardly pronounce my hotel correctly, but I felt sure that I will get by, because it is a city. Cash is the oxygen line that feeds you in any pool of humanity. So, back to the present, when I was offered to stay another night at Cape Tribulation one of the most remote places on earth--because of another mishap with the tour booking (for another story)--I hesitated. I am not comfortable out of my environment, out of the city.

Cape Tribulation is a headland 68 miles north of Cairns. It has a funny, foreboding name. It was ofcourse, named by an Englishman, Captain Cook. In his land grab of 1770 his ship Endeavour was shipwrecked on a reef 12 miles off the coast of the cape. He was in such a good mood that he also named the mountain at the tip as Sorrow Mountain. Cape Tribulation and Sorrow Mountain. Located within the Daintree National Park and at the edge of the Great barrier reef, both the reef and the forest are now World Heritage areas. Cape Tribulation survives on this fame through mainly backpacking tourist. With a population of 101 in the 2006 Census, it really is a small backcountry resort.

My resort was at one end of the village. A well maintained resort but with a limited restaurant. So when I went kayaking and the tour started from another hotel with a fully exposed kitchen and two chefs working, I knew this is the place to visit for dinner. Walking there later on in the afternoon was easy. As I got out of my resort, two young brothers from Sydney stopped and gave me a lift. I should have checked on the mileage, but I had not spoken with many people lately and I was in a talkative mood. I did not see the distance nor the terrain traveled in their rented car. But I was not worried. After a few beers the Sydney brothers headed off to prowl the local scene while I stayed at the resort to wait for 6pm when (all) restaurants open up for service. And what a service. The meal was excellent...chicken breast with sun dried tomato and feta cheese wrapped in proscuito on a bed of spinach, asparagus and caramelized onions, potatoes with a hollandaise sauce. I savored the dish, not noticing the sunset. It was 7pm.

Satiated and well pleased with myself for making a good selection (both the dish and the restaurant) I headed out of the resort. It was pitch black. With the lingering refraction of light behind me I headed onto the unpaved dirt road to start walking back to my resort. It was a surprise how quickly it got dark. That kind of darkness that compels you to put your hand in front of your face to make sure that you cannot see it.

The sky was overcast and the moon was not visible. I stopped. I was still happy from my meal. I looked around and I saw nothing. I looked back and I had only traveled some 30 meters but the glow of the resort was only faint enough to outline the canopy of the forest encircling it. I stood still for a few seconds trying to will my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I looked forward. Nothing. I scuffed my boots against the dirt track to reassure myself that I was on the track. Looked back again and then headed forward away from the glimmer. No noise but my breathing.

To be engulfed by darkness is the best way of describing the total lack of visual clues of where I was. By scuffing the road I knew I was still on the path. I knew that on both sides there were ditches, in some cases leading vertically down maybe 10-15 feet into a river or a swamp.

Imagine being in space, with heavy gravity. The canopy of the trees closing upon me, yet unseen. I continued to walk on the dirt track. The road seems to undulate. Looking back I saw nothing. I was walking fairly slowly now. My initial spring in my step gave way to a more cautious stomp. My ears sensitive to the rustling noises of the forest. Rain drizzling but hardly touching me. The trees and shrubs get to it first. They are predators for water.

Then I hear a noise coming closer fast. I turn towards the noise ahead of me, but it must have bounced off the trees, I turn back and I see a light coming from behind me. Then a noise, an engine. It is loud and revving. I look at the expanding light, and then it comes around the corner. There is one light source, bright as a sun staring at me and coming straight at me. VROOOMM. What looked like a Triumph Bonneville, a café racing bike, doing 60 miles an hour with the driver hugging the chassis of the bike and skirting the edge of the track.  Five feet from where I was. VROOOM. I am temporarily blinded by the light and then I hear another sound following. Another engine, revving, but this time the sound is more deep and sonorous. Two lights heading towards me, at the same speed as the bike. They must be racing. A bike and a diesel land cruiser. I feel like a witness to a non-event.

I see their lights become fainter and then the darkness engulfs me once more. Although temporary blinded again, my night vision eroded by the bright lights, I was more elated because I realize that at least there is traffic on the road. I continue walking into the darkness. It is drizzling still. Sometimes when I pass a section of the track where the canopy does not reach over, where there is a creek or a river, I feel the coldness of the rain, otherwise I hear the rain on the layers of vegetation from more than a hundred feet up.

I continue scuffing my shoes to ensure that I am on the dirt track. I hear rustling on the side. I tell myself that it is just the wind. And then I start thinking of the story of Rip Van Winkle, and the animated version of the story, where the tree comes alive and attempts to catch him. I laugh it off. My internal narration does not laugh. It continues to go through the story. I start burping, anything just to make a sound. I pretend that I am in charge. I start shouting. Nothing. Not even an echo. I stop dead. I listen and the only sound I hear is the rustling of the leaves and the creaking of branches. my breathing is deeper. I still cannot see anything. I check my watch which has a back light. I have been walking for ten minutes. Hmm, I start wondering how far have I walked.

(A picture of the track in the morning driving there to pick up the rest of the group )

Another ten minutes pass and no more traffic and I still have no clue where I am. I am alone in the middle of one of the oldest forests in the world. Some 260 million years. I start walking briskly. The backlight from my watch gives me some company. I start looking at the time every minute. I start walking faster. I glance back and up and to the side. Nothing. Then light ahead of me. Initially, I thought that it was the village, but t was moving towards me. Two lights, a car coming up ahead. This four-wheel truck being driven more slowly than the last one, they pass me, and then I see the brake light come on, then the white reverse light.  The truck reverses up to me, wind down their window. I can see two dark aboriginal men. “You OK?” The driver asked. I really wanted to say no please help me, but what came out of my mouth amazed me “Just heading back to my hotel, thanks for checking. Is it far?” “About ten minutes walk” the passenger softly responds. “Cheers” and the truck slowly moves away from me.

Why is it indigenous people are not afraid to stop and offer help? When I arrived in America and persuaded my wife at the time to go for a walk to the Hoover damn from the village of Boulder, I misread the distance. Having just came from Malta, where an inch on the map is ten paces, in Las Vegas an inch was more than 5 miles. Tired, hot, and thirsty, having drunk all of our giant Slurpee, we gave up and tried to hitch a ride back to our apartment. My wife who was four months pregnant with our first child at the time was suffering from the heat. I tried hitching for more than 20 minutes. Nothing. Cars were zooming past us. I was getting worried. By this time the sun started to go down and although we have only been in Las Vegas for a few days, we knew that once the sun sets the temperature drops. Then an old beaten up dark green chevy impala stops. I look inside the cavernous space of these big American cars, and there in the corner was an old American Indian man. Long hair, waistcoat, dark and craggy complexion. “Y’all need a lift?” “Yes please”  Yes please, I should have gone AHLLELUJA, god be praised…”Yes Please” is what came out. “I was robbed last week giving a lift “ As we both settled into the front seat. Again I was amazed at what came out of my mouth. In a gesture of reassurance that he is safe I said  “I am Maltese, from Malta” as a way of assuring him that we are safe. He drove us to the bus station and then disappeared. Indigenous people have always come into my life and made it better.

So here I was, alone and in darkness again, transported back to when I first moved to the United States. The contact with the aboriginal men started me to reminiscence. My life started to flash in front me. As I walked deeper into the darkness, I reminisced about the past. I thought of all the changes, all the lost energies, all the trials, and (my) tribulations. And then I become aware of how utterly alone I am in the world. I stopped walking. I looked up. I could not even see the stars to define my smallness in the universe. I was simply a dark speck in a dark universe.

I was alone. If I was attacked by an overzealous dingo there would be no one to inform. No one knew who I was. In the middle of the night, at 8pm, in a dirt track in one of the oldest forests on earth, thousands of miles from anyone who knows me and could identify me,  I become aware that being able to give up everything is how you can truly release from worry and to live. Being out of your environment, knowing that you have nothing to hold onto, you are necessarily lonely, and this is how the journey forward needs to proceed. Most of the time in darkness, most of the time alone, and most of the time slightly on edge. All the time to know that you have already given up your life in order to live it.  This is how I felt that evening. It took me another 45 minutes to get back to my resort. I missed my junction but I made it back. Sometimes running, sometimes walking, never knowing what was around me. Wet and very tired, but I had not felt so alive in a long time.

Downunder Food and Anchovies

Why have I not written about food yet? Back in San Diego I go around dissecting the menu and then the individual dishes. Here I am, 7900 miles away, in a different continent, different culture, and I do not talk about food.  And there is a reason for this.

So far I have been feeding my craving for Chinese food. Both Melbourne and Sydney have significant Chinese presence and therefore great and varied Chinese food. When there is good Chinese food, there are no other options.

But now, the anchor has been released and I am floating up the north eastern seaboard of Australia, away from the urban environment that I feel so comfortable in. And perchance I am exposed to the local cuisine. 

When I travel I make it a rule to eat one salad every day, and to try something weird every day.  The weird dishes have amounted to a tahini coconut rice ball from the marihuana capital of Australia; Nimbin. To today’s pie—Australians eat a lot of flaky pastry pies—this one was chicken and asparagus. I go in a shop, I ask the attendant, wow you have a lot of pies/items/choices what is the most unique and strangest item you have. This is likely to get me in trouble one of these days, but so far, so good. Hence the tahini ball, which I initially tired to break in half, but it resisted. I had to bite into the hard ball, like a dense rice crispy ball. A concoction of rice, desiccated coconut, tahini and something brown that I could not work out. I think it is Milo (like Ovaltine) Australians put it on ice cream here. Well that is what I hope was in it.

Which brings me to my salad. So a quick lesson on caesar salad. It was not developed by any of the Italian Caesar gods in between their acts of debauchery meddling with some lettuce and cream (oh the imagination wanders aimlessly.) Or by one of the many Caesars' grateful chefs preparing the dish of lettuce to compete against braised bull testicles and sheep brains. No.

It was developed by a restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant, who was living in San Diego but also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition in the 1920’s.  The dressing involved (involves to this day in some continents) raw eggs, and why it must be prepared fresh. The basic recipe is romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, and black pepper.

So I ordered a chicken caesar salad in Byron Bay and the dressing is good, lettuce, crotons, and then there is a poached egg sitting atop of the bed of chicken. There is a great distrust for having lettuce overwhelm a dish. It seems like perhaps there is so much fluff on the dish and we must have more substance, more of everything but lettuce. In San Diego when I go to DZAikins I can order a salad that is 12 inches by 6 inches and that is not a family meal. So, in this salad at Byron Bay, there is maybe four roman lettuce leaves, an ample proportion of chicken breast meat, and a poached egg (perfectly done) sitting like a diamond atop of pedestal of protein.

So you would think that I would know what to expect next time. Forward two days and I am in a local pub in Harvey Bay. “Would you like anchovies?” With my salad? Only to recover quickly and say “Sure.” What have I ordered now. Again the dressing is good, a few lettuce leaves at the bottom, but two very prominent lettuce leaves sticking out of the bowl like rabbit ears waiting to be shot down. Tenderloin chicken in ample proportions, crotons, and quartered boiled egg, slivers of ham, and, true to the order, a few lines of anchovies. 

Before I go on  about the adherence to the true recipe, the addition of anchovies tasted really really good. Again I would prefer more lettuce. Vegetarians must get a bum deal here since to be a vegetarian you have to eat twice as much in volume to make up for the less dense matter. To survive and make up for all the protein and nutrient you need to consume twice the volume of a carnivore. Back to the anchovies. They tasted really good on the salad but why? This is where the bible of all bibles in cooking comes in…On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. Worchester sauce, one of the main ingredients of the caesar sauce,  is made from anchovies. So the idea of combining the dressing with its main ingredient is not that alien.

Every Caesar salad so far has been different, with something new added. The last one involved a cold fried egg, which we will not dwell on. But who would have thought of combining anchovies with salad. 

The Heart of Australia

Its huge. A steel mill in Wollongong, touted as the largest manufacturing factory in the Southern Hemisphere. Bluescope. It has to be huge. This is the economic heart of Australia. It drives all the other economic parts and its heartbeat is the health of the economy. From it comes one of the most adaptable products on earth, steel. It takes iron ore, coke/coal, limestone and other elements--in most cases, from all parts of Australia--and in an enormous cauldron fuses them together to produce this commodity that drives the real economy. This is not the Wall Street smoke and mirror money, this is production. This is the basis of all economy. Not google, not facebook, not twitter. We have moved so far away from the means of production that we forget that all of the derivates, futures, all the stock market empires are based on this simple outcome...production. It is an inverted pyramid built on production. And you cannot get more basic production than steel (perhaps agriculture.) Standing 30 feet above the hot slabs coming off the line (picture) , even at that height, the intensity of the heat is unbearable. The shear size and the constant production (24/7) is a true analogy of the heart. The rhythm, the heat, the flow. How small seemingly inconsequential event have big impacts. Smoking and heart disease, and in the economy, exchange rates and the export of steel.

So it came as a surprise last week when talking with one of their workers at a BBQ that the local steel mill is closing one of its two furnaces. The exchange rate is so high that it is making steel too expensive to buy. SO they are shutting down their export side of production. Although Switzerland who faced similar export issues (not with steel) devalued their currency so that they stayed competitive, Australia remains with a very high exchange rate. But visiting the mill yesterday and seeing this enterprise in such a scale, I felt for the first time while being here, a sign of arrhythmia in the economy of Australia.

It's All Good

On my travel from Melbourne to Sydney I took a bus tour that took us to the southern most point of Wilson's Premonitory and to the roof of Australia Mount Kosciusko. We experienced beaches, tropical rainforest  deserts and blizzard, all in one day. Out guide's frequent descriptions would end with the phrase "It's all good" and despite the annoyance of the catch phrase, it is an appropriate metaphor for life and an excellent coat hanger for my thoughts today.

Because Australia is so far away, expensive and entails spending a large chunk of time, coming to Australia is a radical move. No one says, "Oh, I am going to Australia for the weekend, or to do some shopping or to go to a concert." Coming to Australia is radical.

Everyone on the tour had their stories. From the recently bereaved young man who lost his mother to cancer, to the mature nurse starkly adapting to her changing world. Some escaping, others embracing. I am always--without exceptions--encouraged when I meet people. There is so much energy and truth in what we do. Sitting at home constructing our reality inevitably leads to negative interpretations because we tend to remember negative events better than positive ones. We have more words for negative emotions than positive ones. But in real life, the life of people interacting, there is mostly positive energy. We are truly social beings and anything that impedes our ability to interact socially is cancerous. It's all Good.

People's Narrative

There is a story line running through my consciousness. A narrative of my life being played in many languages. Constant interpretation of events, regurgitating past ones, and predicting new ones. Choosing a language (or a word in most cases) for the occasion. Always narrating. Always there. I was first made to noticed this when I went to yoga the first time. The master said to listen to the voice but to accept that it is separate,  it is not you. Not me? my narrator goes? WTF. My narrator talks to itself a lot. Sometimes they (I do not know how many) do a comedy sketch for me and I end up laughing. Nowadays that is about the only time I do laugh. I would be walking and the narration starts a little joke. I think they know that there time is up, they are being nice. They know what makes me tick. So my narrator tells me that this is what you get paying for middle class yoga at upper class La Jolla, California.

As I sat there, slightly uncomfortable in the yoga class, I noticed that I was aware of my narrative. And it--my narrator--was frightened. I know it was frightened because it stopped for a brief brief second.

Yoga has been a salvation in many ways, but the best lesson is being able to separate the narrative from me. And you do this quite simply by observing and forgetting who you think you are, whatever that means, and observing everything around you. Your breathing, your narrator, your little pains, but not let them encompass your being there. It has not been that easy.

Like any healthy man I thought I could conquer yoga relatively quickly. I am active and strong, so I thought it would be a mater of practice. This attitude worked well for me going to beginner classes for six months. Until I went to the wrong class. That is when I realized that there is more to yoga than just strength or willfulness, there has to be release.

I am an early riser, so I decided to go to the dawn class at my regular yoga place. I must have misread the  level because by the time I got settled into the class people were warming up doing one-hand stands and lotus position handstands. I should have known I was in deep dodo when the instructor came in looking like a scandinavian Bruce Lee and, with a distinctly German accent, introduced himself as Schroeder. Oh shit.

I looked around and the faces around me expressed blissful smiles and quiet anticipation. How bad can it be?  It was a cool morning that only the affluent coastal regions can experience this late in the summer. So it was invigorating to start off with some allegro sun salutations. I quickly warmed up. The morning chill already a faint and distant memory.

I normally go to the beginner yoga. And although I feel accomplished and masterful in these classes, I did not realize that it was very gentle yoga that I mastered. My false sense of accomplishment was to be exposed. This wasn't gentle. The quick five sets of sun salutations quickly expired my repertoire of moves and energy. Standing in the tree pose I realized I had to be creative to survive. And that is what it was all about. I fucked up, got in the wrong class, and there is no way, no way I am going to give up and walk out to be the recipient of pitiful glances, glances I myself have punished others less competent. So I started sneaking a breath through my mouth. Like a whale gulping millions of plankton, I was stealing oxygen from the air through my mouth. This was war.

From tree position we did some downward facing dog. I normally do this for a few seconds and then go to the next position. Here, at first I thought I went deaf. No call to change. IAs much as I could through the film of perspiration clouding my eyes, I looked around and everyone was still in position. Shroeder comes around, reminding all of us that this potion is a relaxing position. My shoulder were burning with pain. Shroeder came closer. I tried to rotate my arms to alleviate the pain, but the pain just moved into my wrists. I was about to fall on my face when everyone came up into warrior one. I must have gone deaf. The bussing in my ear only more disconcerting than the pain that was moving like a pinball machine up and down my arms, buzzing at the shoulder.

And then came pigeon. Anyone who runs, or cycles knows that the pigeon position, which is where you lie down with one of your legs crossed infront, and the other straight behind you, and then you fold yourself onto your front crossed leg--is like sticking a hot needle into your gluteus maximus. This is when Shreoder came to gently press on my back, which would now be a very comfortable release of energy, but then it was excruciating. Encouraging me, "good good that is kundalini breathing." he compliments. I could not reply, I had involuntary tears streaking down my inverted face and I think my lower limbs went numb and my hips burned with pain. I was breathing hard. This was not kundalini breathing I was whimpering and breathing hard trying not to pass out. My hips felt like they were on fire and the burning had singed my testicles. I prayed to god to release me. To send a lightening and frizzle me away. I wanted nothing to exist.

Coming out of pigeon, looking up towards the ceiling, trying to keep the tears from becoming a cry, I went into the same position for the other leg. For the next hour there was a lot of pain. But there was also an acknowledgment that I am going to survive.

By the time the 1 hour 15 minutes and 23 seconds passed, I could not walk properly, and there was a funny buzzing sound in my ears, but there was no pain, and for the first time no narration. That is when I learned that yoga is not about strength but about release. And the first thing to release is your narration.

So it comes as a surprise, that while visiting friends in Australia, staying with them--I normally do not stay with friends when I travel, since when we meet with with friends it is for an evening, or an event--I noticed that not only do other people have a narratives, but some vocalize theirs. Some do it when they drive. They narrate everything about what they are thinking. By now you, the reader, can appreciate how much I treasure my lesson with Shroeder. Being able to switch off my narration and releasing. So I have another lesson now, to release myself from other peoples' narrative.

How to grow and develop as a country

The recent mayhem in London, Bristol, Birmingham and Liverpool; the continuing collapse of the stock markets in America, Europe, and now Australiathe daily news of disasters and personal predictions of a larger collapse coming to reality; the looming black economic hole that is sucking in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain (the “PIIGS”) now threatening France and with it directly, Germany, the final harbor in Europe's turbulence; the overwhelming and encroaching power of China; and sitting in Melbourne, in my apartment at Ormond College, I feel somewhat insulated.

Can the riots happen here?  I ask.

Not not here, But in 2005 there were the Cronulla riots, New South Wales and spreading, over the next few nights, to additional Sydney suburbs.  By 4 December 2005, a group of volunteer surf lifesavers were assaulted by a group of young Lebanese men, widely reported and commented on in Sydney media.. A large number of arrests were made over the subsequent months, from both the initial riot on 11 December and the retaliatory riots held over the subsequent nights. The incidents tarnished Australia's international image. But here in Melbourne, unlikely. The Master of Ormond College, Rufus Black, was confident that such riots would be unlikely in Melbourne

.

That was last month.

As I travel from Melbourne to Sydney, I ponder the real question of how to deal with the cause of this endemic malaise and economic cancer. I know what the cause is, but a practical solution has evaded me till today. Up to now I had a tentative idea about what is happening at my place of employment:
http://iage-marius.blogspot.com/p/special-feature-change-way-sdsu-does.html
and the economic disaster evolving in US with the every increasing debt and accounting privileges of Congress:
http://iage-marius.blogspot.com/p/special-feature.html

The problem is the ever evolving bureaucracy that is answerable to no-one. My attempts at dealing with this is to propose to decentralize control to smaller units, to departments. But I could not find a practical and viable example until I stopped looking.

When I was at Ormond College, before I left, I asked Rufus how he deals with administration at the University. I had to ask twice because I thought I misheard. He does not. The college is an independent unit, he controls how he spends his own budget. And the penny dropped. That is why this college "works". Not just that it looks good, and it feels privileged, but it works. People talk to each other. There is a sense of right and wrong and not because of rules or regulations, but because there is an obligation, they are responsible how the college runs. If there is a problem they are vocal. There is a sense of belonging, a sense of control over your actions.

When Hilary Clinton in 1996 published a book "It Takes a Family to Raise a Child" a title which is attributed to an African proverb originating from the Nigerian Igbo culture and proverb "Ora na azu nwa" which means it takes the community/village to raise a child. She forgot that she needed to also adopt the Igbo's name for their children "Nwa ora" which means child of the community. The community needs to have responsibility and control.

The control part is the pivotal aspect that we are missing. We have relinquished control over most of what we do. With ever increasing responsibilities.