Word: tree
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Depressed people often need someone to hug. On occasion, that someone may just be a tree...
Until recently, however, scientists did not understand exactly how such a large primate - weighing up to 180 lb., orangutans are the largest living arboreal animal - can navigate the delicate branches at the top of the tallest trees. At that height, tree branches are thin and begin to wobble as animals climb on them, much as a suspension footbridge vibrates as people walk over it. Too much vibration and an orangutan can be thrown off altogether. From high in the trees, such a fall would be deadly. (See pictures of a bonobo Eden...
...make that point even clearer, each tree is now topped with an illuminated "30" to mark the 30th anniversary of the victory of The Sandinista National Liberation Front over the repressive U.S.-backed Somoza dynasty. Nicaragua's continual Christmas theme is also appropriate because President Ortega governs Nicaragua a bit like Santa Claus. Not because he is jolly or has a tummy like a bowl full of jelly (Ortega is very serious and has kept in remarkably good shape for a 63-year-old), but because the Sandinista boss uses gifts to keep people in line, and always double checks...
...some, it's a bit too much. Gonzalo Carrion, of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, is a bit of a Grinch when it comes to the Christmas trees. He says the thousands of light bulbs burning brightly each night are an offense to the thousands of impoverished Nicaraguans - Sandinistas included - who can't afford to light their own homes. "There is a lack of ethics in all this," he said. "The Christmas trees don't project the image of a humble party of the poor." The continual Christmas celebration is also symptomatic of a country "full of poets...
...three weeks since I've been here, though, I've started to appreciate a lot of aspects of the Tanzanian diet. Most notably, the fruit. Turns out bananas in America aren't really bananas—they're poor imitations of what real ndizi, picked from the tree and sold in a village marketplace, are like. My homestay baba grows avocadoes and oranges in the backyard, so we have some with almost every meal. Chapati, which is basically a thin, African version of naan, is delicious (at least until you're forced to consume six of them by your overbearing...