Blogtoberfest Day 21: Sunday Snippets

{sunday snippets} A collection of photos from your week. No need for words. Let the pictures tell your story.  Joining in with Tinniegirl and others here

Blogtoberfest Day 20: Grateful for...

I'm not much of a gardener.  I have fits and starts. Make a big effort and then dont keep it up.  And I dont really know much about what I am doing. I've had a go at establishing a garden from scratch. It was hard work.  It didnt look the way I wanted it to.  The trees were going to take years before we could enjoy sitting under them. So this week I am really grateful to now live in a house with an established garden. As the weather warms up the shady trees will be even more appreciated.  A grapevine covering a trellis is going to be a lovely cool spot in summer.  When we moved in the camellias and azaleas were a picture.  The mandarin tree was loaded and the rhubarb was just waiting to be made into crumble. The roses had just been pruned. Now three months later they are beginning to flower.  I'm loving the surprise of finding out what colour each one is. New things keep appearing or flowering.  I was very excited to discover a number of varieties of bearded irises.  Many of the trees, vines, hedges, flowers  take years to establish so I marvel and am very grateful

Playing along with 52 Weeks of Grateful
hosted by Maxabella Loves

Blogtoberfest Day 16: New

I have gone on thinking about my Spring Manifesto, using my morning pages of writing to explore this further. Thinking about it while walking with Billie.  It is beginning to take some shape and I am really enjoying thinking about how I can make this last quarter of the year fulfilling, enjoyable, fun, profitable, manageable. More thinking is yet required on this. What I am really clear about though, is just how good it is to have the chance to begin again.  To start over and over again.  With new hopes, new intentions, new goals, new practices.  Like pressing the refresh button at the top of my screen.

Blogtoberfest: Spring Manifesto

Kat's post today about creating a Spring Manifesto really resonated with me.  She says

Regardless of the hemisphere you're in, I suspect you'd agree that it's a slippery slope to the holiday season from here. The rest of 2012 is about to disappear into a whirlpool of end-of-year concerts, final reports, gift buying and family politics (er, I mean, "quality time").

....now is a wonderful time to think about what you would like to invite into your life as the calendar year draws to a close.

I always find Spring bittersweet.  I cant forget that summer is just around the corner.   Years of living on a farm where summers are hot and dry, pesky flies abound in the day, mosquitoes at night  and the everpresent fear of bushfires always looming on the horizon have left their mark.  I dont like Christmas either and summer means Christmas.  This dislike of Christmas has to do with grief and not having family around.  I no longer live on a farm and summer in the city is nowhere near as harsh.  My early losses are sad but I have good friends and even though I havent looked forward to Christmas since I was 15,  the truth be told, I have very much enjoyed Christmas for a number of years now.  I recognize that my feelings of fear and dislike about the season are a choice, a habit in a way, that no longer serve me well.  I like Kat's idea of 'listening to the whispers of your heart, the yearnings of your soul and the true needs of your body' so as to be clear what it is I would like more or less of in my life.  I like that I can set my intention, make plans - write a manifesto to remind myself to stay on track so that I can enjoy Spring with out fearing Summer and then when Summer comes make the most of that.  So, I'm off to write my Manifesto.
What about you? Do you look forward to summer and the end of the year? 

Blogtoberfest Day 14: Sunday Snippets

{sunday snippets} A collection of photos from your week. No need for words. Let the pictures tell your story.  Join in here

Blogtoberfest Day 13: Grateful

Today I'm taking up Kat's invitation to play along with 52 weeks of Grateful, which is hosted by Maxabella.

This week I have been grateful for ....
1. The rain. The garden really needed it. Now it is looking lush and lively again. And I didnt have to spend time watering it. The soil is again dark and moist, able to nourish all those microbes and the growing plants At the moment there are little tiny grapes forming on the vine. Figs, too. Flowers on the citrus trees. Leaves growing everyday on the passionfruit and the raspberries.  The strawberries are starting to fruit.  The roses are budding.  So I'm really glad it rained

2. Audiobooks.  I've looked forward to being in my sewing room each day this week because I've been engrossed in Henning Mankell's "The Fifth Woman". Last week it was Michael Robotham's "Bleed for Me" and "The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Fry"by Rachel Joyce

3. Leftovers.  Having something yummy and healthy to eat without having to spend time preparing it. Some even taste better a day or two after the original dish was made.

4. My fabric stash. This week I have enjoyed finding and using fabrics already on hand to make cushions,  pillowcases, trim sheets, a jacket and some skirts.  As well as mixing and matching fabrics and planning furture makes

5. IKEA. A new chest to store clothes in. A funky light for the spare room and a few other touches to brighten up the place for relatively little cost

6. Trams.  I love Melbourne's tram system.  I especially love that I get to sit back, relax and dream while I travel. And it is so great not to have to worry about parking.  I like the walk up to the tram. And the wait is never long.

7.  New seasons salad veggies, as well as some weather conducive to wanting to eat them: juicy watercress, tasty tomatoes, fragrant basil leaves

8. Deep Heat. I pulled a muscle in my leg and tried a few things. Deep Heat, extra strength has given blessed relief!

9. Walking with Billie.  She loves it so much that I cant not enjoy it. And I just feel grateful for the physicality of walking, as well as for the chance to notice my surrounds.  There seems to be lots of birds around at the moment.  And of course all the spring flowers

10. A good night's sleep.  The night I hurt my leg I had hardly any sleep.  The night after that it was still painful and hard to get comfortable in bed.  But last night I slept really well and it was sooo good to wake up and find that it was morning and not the middle of the night

Blogtoberfest Day 12: Whistleblower

Last night I watched 'The Whistleblower', a recent release thriller I borrowed from the library.  It is a powerful and shocking story inspired by actual events. Kathryn Bolkovac (played by Rachel Weisz) is a police officer from Nebraska who accepts an offer to work with the UN International Police in post war Bosnia. She plans to go for six months and for the large amount of money she will earn. She urges and helps police develop an angle by which a Muslim  woman can seek justice through the court system for the brutal domestic violence she has been subject to. The trial is successful. Following this Bolkovac is made head of a department for gender affairs.  She becomes involved in the case of a young Ukranian woman named Raya who has been sold by her uncle to a sex slave trafficking ring.  Through this case she is then able to uncover a wide scale sexual slavery and human trafficking ring that various international personnel, including that of the US have participated in.  Furthermore, when she brings the scandal to the attention of the U.N., she discovers that they have covered it up in order to protect lucrative  defense and security contracts. Kathryn finds allies in Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave) and Peter Ward (David Strathairn), authority figures who support her investigation and once she is fired encourage her to go to the UK, where Democra Security (her employer) is based and expose the scandal through the BBC.

It is said in the ending credits that following Kathryn's departure, a number of peacekeepers were sent home, though none faced criminal charges because of immunity laws. It is also noted that the U.S. continues to do business with private contractors like Democra Security, including ones worth billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Kathryn Bolkovic wrote a book, The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors And One Woman's Fight For Justice.  This article about Kathryn and what she discovered in Bosnia is definitely worth reading. Sounds like the movie toned down the real story. Unlike those who had been quietly sent home, Bolkovac’s professional record was blighted by her dismissal and she’s been unable to find work in international law enforcement since.
The movie leaves us with a sense that the horrific stories of sex slavery are still continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan. What we saw in the movie was that it wasnt just 'sex' either' but really degrading, violent, brutal stuff, often in public for the amusement of a bar full of men. The young women are treated really, really badly. One of the officials in the film refers to the 15/16 year olds who have been abducted and sold, usually by someone they know - father, brother, uncle for sex as "the whores of war. All wars have them' .  This comment made me furious.  The so called ' whores of war' have no choice in the matter. No rights at all. In fact it is gross abuse of Human Rights.

Bolkovac believes trafficking is still not taken seriously. 'You should see the amount of money that’s put into training for anti-terrorism and gun-smuggling,’ she says. 'But when it comes to human trafficking and violence against women you don’t see the same resources being generated.’
Sex trafficking is not, unfortunately, confined to areas with a military presence.
The New York-based Somaly Mam Foundation, set up by a Cambodian woman who was trafficked as a child, estimates there are 2.7 million people enslaved globally, 85 per cent of whom are women and girls in forced prostitution.
The most recent figure for England and Wales is 12,000, which Abigail Stepnitz of the British anti-trafficking organisation Poppy Project, calls 'a tip-of-the-iceberg number’.
'For me the idea is to go after the demand end, to stop focussing on the victims,’ says Bolkovac. 'We have to focus on prosecution of the perpetrators.’
This is starting to happen.
Joseph Yannai, an author based in New York State, was convicted last June of trafficking girls from Europe, tricking them with adverts seeking editorial assistance. He’s facing a sentence of up to 80 years.
Also last year, a Romanian father and son operating a huge forced prostitution ring in Britain were given 21 years. - from The Telegraph

Using the internet to find out more on the issue of sex slavery and human traffiking I discover that it happens here too, right in my own back yard.  Up to 2000  women are trafficked  into Australia every year and effectively forced to work as sex slaves in Sydney and Melbourne, a new study has found.  Four Corners also ran a story of this issue  last year. Find it here
What to do about this dreadful issue?
The Australian Federal Police have a community resource on their website found here
World Vision Australia have an information page and also receive donations here
Stop the Traffik website lists things ordinary people can do to help stop the traffiking of other people
Project Respect has suggestions on their website
the Not for sale campaign has suggestions on their website, too.
United Nations Victoria are showing a film and holding a forum on this issue in Melbourne on the 29th Oct details here