Martina Clark – WriterTravel Archives - Martina Clark

Writing Links: Two Recently Published Pieces

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Martina Clark

Writing, writing, writing. Yes, I’m still writing, really, I am. It has been a while since I’ve posted here, but rest assured, much has been going on.

I’ve recently gone back to work full-time at the United Nations and am again working on HIV. I’m currently working in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations so it is all new and interesting and consuming many brain cells.

We also have two new people living in our home; my partner’s daughter and her 21-month-old son. This brings more layers of complexity to day-to-day life, and also much joy. So much joy!

Oh, and, yeah, and we elected someone as our next president who frightens me so, yeah. There’s that and it is very depressing. But I’m not going to go there today.

Today I am sharing two links to recent pieces of writing that have been published online. (The first piece, Blue Marlin, is also available in print from the TSR website.)

The first link, for Blue Marlin, is the first chapter to my Master’s thesis (aka memoir) for my MFA in Creative Writing and Literature. With luck the rest will also be published, one day, but for now, here are the opening pages which have found a home at TSR: The Southampton Review, the literary magazine run by our MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. If all goes well, I’ll be graduating with my MFA on the 22nd of December – watch this space for updates!

You can find Blue Marlin here: http://thesouthamptonreview.com/nonfiction/blue-marlin-by-martina-clark/ I’m honored to have been published amongst such remarkable writers.

The second link is for a piece in the Sunday Magazine section of Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel. Panorama is a new journal focusing on literary travel writing. The journal is beautiful and the writers, photographers and illustrators are extraordinary. I am truly humbled to be among such talented people.

This particular piece, The Taste of Healing, in the Eaten section is possibly the hardest piece of writing I have ever attempted. I’m not even sure why, but writing this out nearly broke me and I was convinced it was the worst writing I’d ever done. But, perhaps, therein lies the very success of the piece; I tapped into something so raw that worked exactly because it was so rough around the edges. In any case, I hope you will enjoy it. Your can find The Taste of Healing here: http://www.panoramajournal.org/sm7-eaten/

I haven’t felt much like a writer lately but seeing these two pieces in print has helped. Maybe I’m still a writer after all.

The Beauty of Language:

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Martina Clark

As I wrote last week, I’ve just started co-teaching a World Literature class focusing on the literature of immigration. So far, this is turning out to be a wonderful experience.

As you might imagine, we’ve spent a great deal of time talking about language and the beauty of language expressed through the voice of a writer from another country, the beauty of foreign language, the beauty of mixing words from different languages and so on. In short, the beauty of language both spoken and on the page. These discussions reminded me of a piece I wrote a while back and thought I’d share it again. Enjoy!

Pass The Salt

“Sophie?” (Sophie? -/-)
“Ja, maman?” (Yes, mother? Dutch/French)
“Please pass the salt.” (Please pass the salt. English)
“Voilà.” (Here. French)
“Dank u, cherie.” (Thank you, dear. Dutch/French)
“Tsy misy fisaorana.” (You’re welcome. Malagasy)

Dinner conversations with these friends in Madagascar – where I worked off and on for six months – were always like this.

Mom is Dutch, Dad is American, and their kids – the epitome of “third culture kids” – were raised in Congo, India, Madagascar and Thailand and always attended French schools. The entire family is tri-lingual and always conversant in the local dialect of wherever they live. To them, dipping in and out of three – or four or five – different languages in the course of a conversation is nothing unusual. This, like everything linguistic, fascinates me.

During one of my trips to Madagascar, I realized something about myself, as well. While observing a training – which was happening entirely in Malagasy – I suddenly stopped the group and said, “Nope. C’est pas ça. Non.” My colleagues stared at me in confusion. Not because I’d said it wasn’t that – whatever that was – but because I followed their words.

How could I? I don’t speak Malagasy. But, somehow, I understood. I’d been doing my job (HIV education) for so long, that I knew the unspoken subtleties of my subject. I knew the gestures, which would be repeated all around the world. I knew the intonations. I knew that no matter the native tongue, the issues are always the same and, as such, so is the language.

And, so too, I believe, is the language of travel, at least if we pay attention and use all of our senses. This I learned, in part, thanks to a class from Don George – considered by some the American guru of travel writing – on how to be a travel writer. (It was also, by the way, the first travel writing class he ever taught. I feel very lucky to have been there!)

In his class, I’d write a simple line describing the silhouette of a church in San Francisco and he’d ask things like, “But what about the bells? The seagulls? Was it cold out? Was the church musty? Could you taste the salt in the air from the ocean?” and so on.

Once I began to pay attention to my other senses, everything felt fuller, my writing and my experiences. I took that class over two decades ago and am only now getting back to the business of travel writing, but I know that in those interim years, I traveled like a writer. I listened. I watched. I sensed. I smelled. I tasted.

And I now recognize that in any language, pass the salt, comes with a slight nod of the head (or elbow or fork) towards the salt shaker and is preceded by a facial gesture that says “hmmm, needs something”. I speak a few languages, but most importantly, I speak the universal language of observation. Now, please, pass the salt.

Writing Retreats and Workshops

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Martina Clark

I posted this about this same time last year. This year I am at home in Brooklyn working and writing but secretly wishing I was off on another writing retreat adventure! Enjoy!

———————-

About this time last summer, I was up in Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe in Northern California. Having grown up in California I’d been there many times before. The majestic allure of lake, The Jewel Of The Sierra, as they say, never fails to delight my senses.

Community of Writers at Squaw Valley

This visit, however, was entirely different. I wasn’t there to hike or ski or sail or partake in any of the better-known activities the area has on offer. No, I was there to write, and read, and listen and learn. Through a few strokes of good luck and, I suppose, a good application, I was invited to join the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, a community that has been nurturing writers since 1969.

An MFA in a week, they lovingly call it.

My frequent flyer miles went towards my airfare, family with a house in Squaw graciously allowed me to stay as their guest, and I was awarded a scholarship for this writers workshop. It couldn’t get much better.

Until it did.

On the first evening, I was standing in line for a glass of wine when the fellow next to me started chatting. He probably recognized my doe-in-headlights stare, giving me away immediately as a newbie. And, as a fellow writer, he probably inherently assumed my introvert’s shyness that is shared by so many of us creative souls.

We talked a bit about the standard stuff.

How are you enjoying the mountains?

Have you been here before?

Where do you call home?

That sort of thing.

Then he asked which genre I was signed up for for the coming week and I replied, “Non-fiction, memoir actually.”

“Oh, that’s great, I’m leading a few workshops on non-fiction,” he said then asked, “which group are you in?”

“Number 9, I think.”

“Oh hey, that’s one of my groups. What’s your name?”

“Martina.”

A wide smile graced his gentle face as he extended his hand for me to shake.

“Martin, Marty.”

We had a giggle over that…Martin and Martina meet at the bar…sounds like the start of a joke. But then it turned out he was in fact the leader of the very session during which my writing would be reviewed.

“Important stuff you’re writing about, but we’ll talk more about that on Sunday. For now, let’s have a drink!” We raised our glasses and continued chatting.

Then a woman he knew joined us, a very funny one whom I could have listened to all evening. Both from Southern California, they quickly fell into conversation so I politely drifted outside to give them some privacy. Soon, they too were out on the patio and, again, Martin drew me in.

Best book dedication EVER!

“Martina, this is M.G., another of our faculty this year.”

“Martina? Martina Clark?”

“Yes,” I replied, surprised that she knew my name.

“Oh my gosh! I just finished reading your piece. I’m your one-on-one adviser. We don’t really even need to meet, we just need to find you an agent!”

I was speechless. I felt as though I could have left right then and there and everything would have been worth coming for, a million times over. But, of course, I didn’t. The workshop hadn’t even really begun in earnest so I came back again each day of the very busy week.

I could not have imagined a warmer welcome to the workshop. We – Martin, M.G. and I – ate dinner together that night and chatted periodically throughout the week, beyond our regular sessions.

Being embraced by the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley was definitely a game-changer for me. I finally felt justified in calling myself a writer and that I should no longer be hesitant when making that claim. If I’d been invited to spend a week with such amazing authors (Amy Tan, Richard Ford, Mark Childress, Janet Fitch, Karen Joy Fowler, M.G. Lord and Martin J. Smith to name but a very few) then I am doing something right.

A month after that, I also attended the Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, now in its 22^nd year, at Book Passage bookstore in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Again, I felt a sense of solidarity with many of these people.

I’d taken my first ever travel writing workshop with Don George, the heart and soul – and chair – of this conference, well over two decades ago and had actually attended the first ever conference they held, well, 22 years ago. So, for me, this was not just another workshop, but a sort of coming home to complete the circle.

I’d started out on this adventure of freelance writing in the early 1990s and then life got in the way and I ended up in international development work. That said, those career decades also afforded me the chance to gather a remarkable amount of material that I can now write about, so no complaints there.

But coming back to the conference, seeing Don George again and being back in the fold of travel writing, particularly on the heels of my amazing experience at Squaw, felt like a giant hug.

And now, as you read this, I am yet again headed to a writer’s conference. This time I’m on the other side of the country – a train ride away from Brooklyn where I’ve lived for the past decade – out on Long Island at The Southampton Writers Conference. From sea to shining sea, I am honing my craft.

This workshop will also count towards the MFA I am about to begin in the fall at Stony Brook University; the MFA which is my gift to myself at the age of 50 for waiting so long to truly embrace my writer-self.

Incidentally, Amy Tan was also at the Travel Writers Conference, and if she shows up in Southampton, I may have to kiss her hand!

It has been a wild ride, this past year, of investing myself fully in my writing and I don’t even know where I’m headed since this leg of the journey has only just begun. What I do know is that I’m feeling so blessed and grateful to finally, at very long last, be on this path.

Snapshots of Africa

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Martina Clark

Yesterday I returned from a nearly two-week work trip to the small West African country officially known as The Republic of Togo. Between the travel, jet lag and work, I didn’t manage to write anything clever this week so, instead, I’m sharing three snapshots of Africa.

Sometimes, I find, it is also good to just replenish our senses, particularly after heavy news days like these past few have been and reflect on beauty. I’ve looked at these photos taken and edited with my iPhone so many times during these past weeks that they feel like pebbles collected on the shore.

I open them and stare at length and see the depth of beauty in the world; despite the ugliness around us, there is also such confirmation of perfection in simple things.

These are flowers that I found in foliage behind the meeting rooms where I was working for the past two weeks in Lomé. We were working between three different conference rooms and were frequently cutting between the buildings to go from one to another. I stopped as often as possible to admire the vibrant colors and lushness that comes with frequent rain.

From my taxi one day I witnessed this trumpeter practicing his craft mid-afternoon on the beach along the coast that runs from Ghana to Nigeria. This photo is my favorite because I also got to hear the music that accompanied the image and it was splendid, indeed. Few things can touch my soul like the talent of a musician summoning the magic that is music.

After suffering from spectacular sensory overload from the endless variations of design, I became fixated with this one – one of a bazillion gorgeous fabric prints – this one that made me smile and think “Reggae meets Afro Pop.” Like the flowers at the top or the trumpeter on the beach, the fabrics of Africa and in turn the fabric of her people remind me that we are all still alive with so much joy to witness.

A Well-Traveled Bag (No, Not Me)

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Martina Clark

I’m a little jealous of my suitcase, my well-traveled bag. Not just because it has wheels and moves more smoothly than I do, but because it has traveled more and goes on adventures without me.

This past Monday I set out from New York to Lomé, Togo, for a work trip. My bag and I are both well-traveled, but I haven’t been on a work trip in years. I’ve worked, and I’ve traveled, but I haven’t traveled for work since late 2011 so it took my brain some readjusting to get back into the swing of things.

The thing about traveling for work is that although it may seem glamorous and exciting, it is really just work and often stressful. For example, if I’m on a trip for pleasure, it doesn’t matter if my flight is late. I don’t want to cut into my fun time and sit in an airport instead, but it doesn’t matter much when I show up.

For work, however, time is money and being late is not a good thing. Being late cuts into the time you need to be rested for the job, it cuts into the time to prepare for the work and it cuts into the time you actually get to do your work. For me, of course, the worst of these three is the cutting into my sleep time, but that’s mostly because I’m old and lazy, but that is perhaps another story.

In any case, my first flight was delayed which set off a whole chain of challenging events. Because my flight from New York to Paris was delayed, I missed my connection to Lomé. Once in Paris, the Air France folks did everything they could to re-book me because, apparently, they had no accommodation to offer because of a conference in town. Now, personally, I would have loved an unscheduled stopover in Paris – I love Paris, who doesn’t? – but in this case I was in support of her efforts.

Had I taken the same flight the next day, I would have missed the main meeting I was going to Lomé for in the first place, the one I was supposed to facilitate. So I was delighted when she found another booking for me. It got me into Togo twelve hours later than planned (many of those hours which I’d imagined I’d have spent sleeping) but at least I’d get there in time for my meeting.

And so off I went, running through the airport to an adjacent terminal. Calling a colleague to have her alert my contact in Togo about the change in plans as I went through security again, the strap on my bag breaking as I juggled my phone and untied my shoes and, well, you get the picture. I arrived at the gate for the flight from Paris to Casablanca, which would get me half way to Togo to find that it was also delayed but this time because a woman was fighting with security about how much luggage she could take in the plane. It was actually pretty funny to watch and served me well so I didn’t miss that flight as well.

The flight boarded and I was happy for my middle seat and the continuation of my journey. Once in Casablanca, the woman at the transfer desk gave me my boarding pass for my connecting flight to Lomé and confirmed that my luggage had arrived with me and off I went, through security yet again, to wait…for seven hours.

As I waited, I alternated sitting and trying to rest a little with walking around the departure area and looking at the things for sale in their shops. I saw beautiful ceramic tagines and pointy-toed shoes, Moroccan spices and clothing and endless rows of souvenirs. The Victoria’s Secret store, however, took me by surprise; that is not a store I’d expected to find in an airport in Morocco. I didn’t either expect to find a Hudson News shop, which I’d somehow thought were only found in New York airports. Who knew?!?

But it was all interesting to look at and I enjoyed imagining what Casablanca might be like if I could have stayed and enjoyed a vacation. I’ve loved visiting other countries in North Africa and Morocco is high on my list of places I’d like to visit, but I was traveling onward so those thoughts would have to stay in my mind for now.

Around 10:30pm they announced my departure gate and only then did I realize that my flight to Lomé would also be stopping in Cotonou, Benin. This was not surprising since Benin is next to Togo, but somehow it caught me by surprise; another country to transit before reaching my destination.

After what felt like far more than seven hours, I boarded the new flight and was lucky enough to get a window seat so I could rest a bit on the short four-hour flight to Cotonou. We landed in Benin and some people got off the plane and other passengers got on and a half an hour or so later, we were back in the air and, eventually, we landed in Togo.

Upon arrival, before entering the terminal, we were all obligated to put sanitizer on our hands and each person had their temperature read before proceeding to immigration. This, I suppose, is now becoming standard procedure following the Ebola crisis, but it was new to me. Without fever, I was allowed through and filled out several forms for my visa.

An immigration officer tried flirting with me and I did my best to balance the fine edge of discouraging him while not offending him since I still needed a visa to enter the country. I’m pleased to say I succeeded because he got bored with me and left me to deal with other immigration folks for my visa, which was granted.

At long last on Wednesday, a day and a half after leaving home, I was safely in Togo and waiting at the luggage carousel, which brings me back to the story of my well-traveled bag. Despite my seven-hour layover in Casablanca, my bag apparently didn’t make the trip. And, of course, that flight is not daily, because that would be too simple. And so another two days later, my bag finally joined me in Togo.

During lunch break on Friday, a driver from the organization hosting the meetings took me to the airport and waited while I filled out yet more forms and eventually retrieved my bag. We returned to the meeting and he kept the bag in his vehicle for safekeeping. After the meeting was over at the end of the day, his vehicle, of course, was not there as he’d gone to take someone to their hotel. But eventually we found him, and my bag, and four and a half days after leaving home, my bag and I were reunited and comfortably resting in my hotel and all was right in the world of my travels.

At the end of this little adventure, there were two things that struck me; 1) when I didn’t have my luggage and had gone straight to my meeting, it was only that evening, I realized, that I hadn’t taken off my shoes for two days. I can now confirm that they are extremely comfortable – Converse sneakers – because I hadn’t even thought about them until that moment. And 2) the other thing was that out of everything in my bag, I was most happy to have my pajamas – strange, but there you have it.

My bag isn’t talking, but I’m pretty sure it had some adventures in Casablanca. Probably it went for a drink at Rick’s Café, as a friend suggested, because it came back wrapped in plastic which I can only assume means it had a hangover since I’ve never seen it dressed like that. I’ll never know what really happened, and I’m not one to embarrass a friend with probing questions, so I’ll just wonder and imagine my bag wheeling it’s way through the medina and wearing a fez on its extended handle, sipping mint tea and sleeping in a shady spot under a palm tree. I’m glad it is back and hope it didn’t have too much fun without me.

The Shadow of The Mountain: Caucasus

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Martina Clark

Just showered and as yet under-caffeinated, I fixated on the magnificent silhouette of the mountains filling up the picture windows on the west side of the hotel, just across the hall from my room. Dark in the early hues of dawn– the sun still pushing up from behind – I was reminded of a mirror view from a lifetime and a world away.

As a kid in the San Joaquin Valley, we used to take an annual field trip to Yosemite National Park and walk along the manicured paths next to freezing cold, crystalline, rivers and creeks. Shaded by the giant sequoias and California black oaks and Ponderosa pines, we’d play hopscotch in the beams of sunlight that fought their way through the lush foliage. The days were always comfortable, if not crisp. At least until the sun ducked down behind El Capitan and the mountains went from alive and vibrant to dark and ominous, as if the peaks slipped on a cloak for the evening to morph into shadowing images that brew nightmares in the minds of over stimulated children.

I reached down for my bag, feeling for my iPhone, which had long replaced the boxy camera with the flashbulbs of my youth, when I noticed the pointy black shoes planted silently next to my own. The presence of this guy with the dark shades in the pinstriped suit who studied my every move reminded me that I was not in California. These were not the Sierra Nevada. These were the Caucasus. This was Russia – North Ossetia-Alania to be specific. And this man was armed.

While some might find my work risqué – I was an HIV-educator working for the United Nations – I don’t believe anyone considered it risky and certainly not worthy of carrying protection, at least not anything thicker than latex. And yet, here I was in one of the more volatile hotspots less than a two-hour drive from the heart of Chechnya, and me, my wooden penis – Woody – and my silicone vagina – Sil (I traveled so extensively with these two anatomical models, that I finally gave them names) – were being followed by men with guns.

I’d been warned by my colleagues in the nation’s capital about this leg of my Russian journey, “Prepare yourself,” they said, “they are like wild peoples in the south, no culture.” I was shocked and, of course, terribly curious. Wild peoples appealed to me much more than the seemingly miserable, overworked and underpaid robots of Moscow who reminded me of the citizens of any major metropolis. We’re like ice cubes popped out of our trays in nice tidy shapes in the morning and which then drip home disheveled and in need of resetting by the end of our long days of work and commuting. Exhausted to a point of humorlessness. I understood them. I even felt for them in a way. Hell, in New York I was one of those worker-drone ice cubes. But somehow in Moscow, I didn’t want to be counted as one of them. I wanted to be among the wild peoples of the south.

And so off I went on my S7 flight – formerly Siberian Airlines – with the slightly splintered wooden toilet seat in the lavatory and the electrical wires dangling from the reading light embedded into the overhead luggage bin. I stored my carry-on bag with Woody and Sil under the seat in front of me and rested my feet on them for the two and a quarter hour flight.

The landscape below shifted from urban to sprawling suburban to nothing to green foothills fronting jagged peaks. By the time we landed at the airport in Beslan, the site of the tragic school siege and massacre of nearly 400 children and adults back in 2004, I did indeed sense that I was in a very different place. The blue-eyed blonds of the north seemed to be overwhelmingly replaced by olive-skinned brunettes with green or hazel or brown eyes. Some faces hinted of Asian roots and probably had migrated from further east in the central Asian republics, all former pieces of the now defunct – but not at all forgotten – puzzle that was the USSR.

I removed my sweater as the sun beat down on my face and I breathed in the air that even at the airport moved more freely and wafted hints of countryside. I registered the relative quiet after the never-ending hum of Moscow and felt myself relax. I slowed my pace to fall into step with these sauntering people who were not rushed by the modern hassles of city life.

A UN driver collected me and as we drove along the one lane streets towards Vladikavkaz, the capital of the autonomous republic, I admired the contrast of the boxy multi-floored apartment blocks, stark and practical, against the majestic mountain just beyond. The airport could have been in any developing country; these buildings in any eastern European country and the mountains definitely rivaled the Alps or the Rockies. I felt a sense of calm the shadow of the Caucasus, as life seemed less harried here.

At least until I noticed the car that was following us and the tension crept back into my shoulders. Even more so when I noticed the passenger shift a medium-sized weapon from the backseat to his lap, the tip of the gun pointing towards the lock on the inside of his car door, just where he’d rest his elbow on a sunny day. If he’d had the window rolled down. And if he wasn’t holding a gun, following my car.

Only three months prior, I’d been in Abkhazia, the breakaway state just on the other, southern, side of the Caucasus on the border of Georgia on the Black Sea. I spent my time then with UN Peace Keepers, as I did on many of my work trips, so I was more or less – more less than more, actually – accustomed to being around weapons. But having one following me and seemingly poised to shoot in my direction was anything but reassuring.

As we pulled into the UN compound to our security offices, I felt the growing pools of sweat spreading under my armpits. They inched closer as we pulled into the parking lot but the men stayed behind and sat in their car. Once inside the UN office, I was issued a temporary badge, a radio and escorted up one flight of uneven brick stairs to the dispatch room for my briefing. Oversized maps were flipped and pencils tapped to draw my attention to where the most recent ethnic clashes had taken place and were likely to erupt in future – probably the very near future. But I would only be there a few days, and my only task was to train the fifty or so UN staff based in Vladikavkaz on HIV awareness and perhaps show them a few handy tricks with condoms. Like how to use them, when and why.

When asked if I had any questions for the local security officers, I responded yes.

“Who are those guys who have been following us?”

“Which guys?”

“The ones in the black SUV parked just outside the entrance to your parking lot.” I said. “The ones with the guns.”

“Oh, those guys. Well, for one, everyone has guns,” said a middle-aged guy with silver hair who rocked back on his chair. “But those guys are for you, well, one is, anyway.”

“For me? Like a gift?” I asked as they laughed at my naïveté.

“No, to protect you. So you don’t get killed or kidnapped or nothing, you know. For protect you.” “Seriously?”

“Seriously. You came a long way to be here, we protect you so you go back in New York safely.”

And so it was that the man in the pointy shoes who stood beside me that morning had become my shadow. I, along with Woody and Sil, had been issued our very own body – or should I say body parts – guard. His car drove behind mine. On foot, he walked ten paces behind me. He ate two tables over in the restaurant where he did not, I’m pleased to say, bring the bigger gun but rather just his handguns in holsters on his hip and, I’m guessing, at his ankle. Either that or he had broken it and it had never set properly because it definitely had an odd angle, that ankle.

When he followed me to work the next morning, and stood in the back of the room to observe the group as I did my training, his face turned a shade of red that rivals borscht as I unpacked my bag. His eyes locked on to Woody and I was so amused – and slightly evil – that I waved a few circles in the air with it just to see his head spin. Sil was less simple to identify – a ballet-pink gelatinous squared silicone blob – until I inserted a female condom inside of it, at which point my poor bodyguard seemed to contract whooping cough. He followed along the entire training and, I am quite certain, learned a few new methods of self-protection that he’d probably not been taught in any security drill.

We spoke only once, just before the photograph I took of the mountain that morning. As I exited my room at the Hotel Vladi on my third day there, he blocked the door. Exhausted from the extensive hospitality and late night dinner I’d enjoyed the night before, I had forgotten about my bodyguard.

“Доброе утро” or “good morning,” he said in Russian. “You break now?” He was slightly disheveled and his suit wrinkled and I guessed that he’d probably slept in a chair outside my room.

“Break?” I asked wondering if he wanted to dance or perhaps snap me in half. “Break. Fast. You break fast?”

“ Да, спасибо – yes, thanks, but first, please, let me admire the view.”

I pointed and he smiled, revealing the yellowed teeth of a smoker and allowed me all the time in the world to admire his gorgeous Caucasus and the Terek River that passed below in the shadow of the mountain. When I was ready, we each instinctively double-checked that we had our respective weapons. Him, the handgun on his hip. Me, Woody and Sil, and off we went to make the world a safer place.

This piece was originally published on Travelati.com and Travelati for iPad in 2013

Iceland: Bubbling Muppets

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Martina Clark

Bubbling Muppets.

Hmmm… let’s see. Let me type this into Google, hit return and, no.

“B is for Bubble” episode on the Muppets.

No, that’s not it.

Baby Piggy and the Giant Bubble – Muppet Wiki.

Nope, not that either. Let me add Iceland and see what happens.

Created deep in the volcanic bowels of Iceland… hills of bubble-filled lava rocks… is the spiritual home of scaremongering muppets…

Interesting, but that’s not it either. It was definitely the “bubbling muppets.” This tidbit of information was dangling from my amazing trip to Iceland, to the furthest point north I’d ever visited.

Perched on the front right hand seats of the tourist packed bus from Akureyri around the fjords in northern Iceland, we listened as our guide explained that in the village of Reykjahlíð, we’d need to change buses.

Blending in nicely with the fair Scandinavian and Germanic travelers, Powell and I took in the enormously thick windshielded view full of countryside that looked something between the surface of the moon and a batch of slightly burnt, slightly moldy, chocolate chip cookies. Being far more familiar with the cookies option myself, I chose to imagine a heavenly aroma just outside the heavy hissing door that seemed to vacuum us shut into the travel capsule.

Powell and I were newly reunited long-lost friends who’d never actually met. We’d both enrolled in an online course on travel memoir writing earlier in the year, and about three weeks into the class, she threw out the idea of a writer’s workshop in Iceland.

“Anyone interested? It’ll be in early August, for a week” she posted during our weekly chat.

Before I’d registered my reflex, I saw my typing on the screen – already entered – in front of me, “Hey, yeah! I’d be interested! Can you send me more information?”

I hadn’t had a vacation – that is to say a non-work, non-family trip – in nearly seven years. I was well overdue for some fun and exploration. And thus it began, an adventure launched in cyberspace and materialized in the land of the bubbling muppets.

Our guide continued, “The bus you’ll join in Reykjahlíð will take you further east and north to Húsavík where you’ll enjoy a lovely afternoon of whale watching on Skjálfandi Bay.”

Whale watching? I thought quietly to myself. Powell lives in Hawaii. Did she really book us on a tour for whale watching? She’s always going on about how she can see them from her back yard. Strange. But I suppose if I saw whales, instead of souped-up, bass-booming bling mobiles outside my door, maybe I’d do more whale watching, too. And anyway, who was I to judge, I’d totally invaded her escapade.

“This bus, definitely, will continue as per the schedule on to Lake Mývatn where we will visit the lake and, of course, the bubbling muppets.”

Bubbling muppets? Did the guide really just say “bubbling muppets”? I tried to look at Powell for confirmation, but she was already so focused on suppressing her laughter that she couldn’t glance in my direction without risk of being tossed off the bus for bad behavior. With all due respect to the 230,000 Icelandic cousins – apparently they’re all related – they actually sound like muppets when they speak.

Over a bottle of vodka, or maybe two, we collectively decided that the real way to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, the now famous erupter-disrupter volcano that brought air travel to a standstill in Europe for over a week was, in fact “air of Hitler’s yogurt”. Probably the tourism board wouldn’t adopt our methods, but they were working for us. Pronouncing things in Icelandic was decidedly giggleicious and our phonetics went downhill from that endless day forward.

By the time I heard “bubbling muppets”, nothing surprised me. I only wish I’d heard it while walking down RipTorn Street in shredded cut-offs! I’d come on this trip to Iceland to learn more about the craft of travel writing but also to clear my mind of the ever-increasing pile of life sitting on my proverbial plate. Thinking it an excellent break from my day-to-day life, I thought it would be, at the very least, fun. I needed fun. Fun is to this trip what the sun is to light. I haven’t laughed so much, and for so many days on end, since – well, perhaps ever.

On days three and four of our travel writer’s workshop, we were each to go off on an adventure. Explore Iceland, meet Icelandic people, and see what we could see. Experience the country. I immediately decided to go to Greenland – easy to reach from Reykjavik, hard to get to from anywhere else. My father had worked there on the US Air Force base in Thule some fifty-odd years prior. “Odd” being the operative word, according to him. My family are all devoted travelers so it stood out when my father once said, “One place you never have to go, kiddo, is Greenland. What a wasteland. Save your money, anywhere but there.” Never one to follow logical thinking, I headed off to the tourist bureau to book a ticket for the wasteland to the west. “If you booook it on the online, it’ll be cheaper for the tee-cket. On the online”, the plump agent said, nodding towards her computer.

Okay then, back to the guest house and on to the online. Booked. No seats available. Everything booked. I must be doing something wrong. Back down the two blocks between the simple framed Icelandic houses in colorful

travelati.com/stories/martina/iceland-looking-for-bubbling-muppets/ 3/6

11/17/13 Iceland: Looking for Bubbling Muppets | Travelati

hues and just to the left before the skateboard park in the square near the yellow painted Ice Bar and back to see Guðrún, our favorite person at the tourist bureau. Okay, the only one I ever spoke to at the tourist bureau, but certainly she’d still be my favorite. She cursed occasionally, mostly in Icelandic, or maybe she was saying “stupid muppet, who goes to Grrrrrreen-a-land, it’s a wasteland, everrrryone knows that.” I liked her squat, dark- haired presence behind the counter, smile lines deepening each time she laughed at – I mean, with – us. “Boooooked? The online is boooooked for Green-a-land? Well, let me try then.” “Fooooly boooooked. Says so on the online. Sorry – you can’t go to Greenland.”

Standing next to me was Powell, waiting to book her adventure up to the North of the island. I smiled my most sheepish grin and asked, bleated, “could I? Greenland is fully booked, would you mind? Could I join you?”

She smiled back at me and we booked the trip setting us on an itinerary that would only take a scant two days, but would feel like a lifetime, even if it didn’t include the bubbling muppets.

We left our guesthouse at 6 a.m. the following morning and flew up to Akureyi where we met our tour bus around 10 a.m. We stopped at the Goðafoss, a double waterfall allegedly hailing from the heathen gods. Iceland is steeped in folklore, but this tale was lost on me.

Our guide Hattis told us all sorts of delicious details, like the fact that they have tomatoes all year round and have one the largest banana plantations in Europe. When she spoke about the countless sheep, she drifted off into a reverie of longing, “I used to have some sheep of my own, they‘d been handed down by a grandmother or maybe a grandaunt.”

She snapped back into reality when she continued her stories telling us that to smoke the fish they’re so famous for, they often used cow excrement. “Sheeeeeet”, she stretched it out the length of a ruler. “That is shit, sometimes of the cow, sometimes it is of the sheep shit. It is very nice.”

She then pointed out the “Cow Shit Cafe” which, upon closer inspection was actually the “Cow Shed Cafe.” But, close enough. Continuing, she shared in her muppet voice, “the mountain that starts there, well, it’s rainy there, and it sends itself all the way to the desert…” I was becoming enamored by the way they phrased things “sends itself all the way to the desert” as if the mountain was alive. Later she told us that most of the woods were forested by birch, notoriously short trees. She then told her favorite joke: “What should you do if you get lost in an Icelandic woodland? You stand up!”

To which she and the outrageously cool 25-year-old driver with her dyed jet black hair, matching black Ray Ban shades, skinny jeans and sneakers, laughed aloud.

Powell and I eventually left our guide, Hatti and the hipster driver, and continued on to Húsavík where we did, indeed, enjoy an afternoon of whale watching. Once on board our whale watching vessel, another young hipster announced that he’d be pointing out the whales and porpoises to us and that we were in good hands with him and the rest of the crew. Captain Ahab and the First Mate Thruster. By this point, Powell and I could barely be near each other lest we appear to have epileptic fits from our uncontrolled laughter. Several whale and porpoise sightings later, and after dispensing hot chocolate and cinnamon brioche to the passengers – hot chocolate being not such a great option on a bouncy sea – we returned to Húsavík. Chugging our approach to the dock, our whaling narrator mentioned that we “should not miss the chance to visit the Phallus Museum, the only museum in the world dedicated entirely to the penis.”

How could we miss that? How could I miss that? I mean, honestly, I carry my own penis with me when I work; certainly it was worth a visit. We found the museum and, truthfully, were a bit disappointed. A girl can only look at so many penises before they start to look alike, I suppose, but we did give it a go.

We eventually made our way back to Akureyri and found a place for the night. A purple place. A guest room the color of a Prince album. Amazing. One doesn’t sleep much in the north of Iceland in August since the sun never really sets, but the purple walls didn’t help. There were also no towels for the shared bathroom, but a room is a room. Purple or not.

The following morning, we left on the early side and wandered back down into the center of Akureyri for a nice breakfast and then headed back to the airport for a quick jaunt up to Grimsey Island to see birds and cross the Arctic Circle. One hundred people live on Grimsey in the summertime, only about 70 in the winter as the older children go off to the mainland for school. We saw the Church where our lovely young Grimsian guide, Karala, explained that one day she’d get married there.

“The Church seats a hundred, so absolutely everyone can come!”

As we wandered about this tiny piece of earth, I was struck by how awesome our planet truly is. I was exhausted when I’d arrived in Iceland and hadn’t really slept since, but I felt absolutely free in my mind and rejuvenated in a way that only nature can do. The air was so crisp and the colors surreal in the clarity of the views. I’d made a new friend – Powell – and counted myself incredibly lucky to have stumbled upon this experience.

Once back in New York and on a better on-the-online connection, I did a few more Google searches and determined that our guide had actually been saying the “bubbling mud pits” but I’m choosing to ignore that fact. Indeed, I have decided that I’ll have to go back to Iceland. Also to the wasteland to the west they call Greenland, but mostly, to find the ever-elusive bubbling muppets.

[This piece was originally published in Travelati, Travel Magazine for iPad in Spring 2011.]

Pass The Salt: Savoring Language

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Martina Clark

This past week, in a few of my writing classes, we’ve been discussing the challenges of language when it is not one’s native tongue. With that in mind, I thought I’d share an old essay I wrote on just this topic. Enjoy!

Pass The Salt: Savoring Language

“Sophie?” (Sophie? -/-)

“Ja, maman?” (Yes, mother? Dutch/French) Sophie’s hand, by the way, was already reaching for the salt shaker.

“Please pass the salt.” (Please pass the salt. English)

“Voilà.” (Here. French)

“Dank u, cherie.” (Thank you, dear. Dutch/French)

“Tsy misy fisaorana.” (You’re welcome. Malagasy)

Dinner conversations with these friends in Madagascar – where I worked off and on for six months – were always like this.

During one of my trips to Madagascar, I realized something about myself, as well. While observing a training– which was happening entirely in Malagasy – I suddenly stopped the group and said, “Nope. C’est pas ça. Non.” My colleagues stared at me in confusion. Not because I’d said it wasn’t that – whatever that was – but because I followed their words.

And, so too, I believe, is the language of travel, at least if we pay attention and use all of our senses. This I learned, in part, thanks to a class from Don George – the undisputed American guru of travel writing – on how to be a travel writer. (It was also, by the way, the first travel writing class he ever taught. I feel very lucky to have been there!)

I’d write a simple line describing the silhouette of a church in San Francisco and he’d ask things like, “But what about the bells? The seagulls? Was it cold out? Was the church musty? Could you taste the salt in the air from the ocean?” and so on.

And I now recognize that in any language, pass the salt, comes with a slight nod of the head (or elbow or fork) towards the saltshaker and is preceded by a facial gesture that says “hmmm, needs something.” I speak a few languages, but most importantly, I speak the universal language of observation. Now, please, pass the salt.

This essay originally appeared in the now defunct online travel magazine, Travelati, in November 2013.

Random Encounters

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Martina Clark

Encounters in life often seem random. Of course, there are specific introductions, or the people we are related to or work with, but outside of such organized settings, many individuals do seem to cross our paths out of nowhere. And yet, from time to time, we see that some are connected, randomly to us, perhaps, but not to one another.

Follow me here; I’ll give you a sampling of my random encounters, over the years.

In my 19^th year, (1983) I spent several weeks in Tahiti during a stretch of about nine months that I crewed on boats in the South Pacific. I caught a ride from the capital, Papeete on the main island, to Moorea, a few hours’ sail away.

There I quickly befriended a handful of English-speaking actors – British, Australian, New Zealander, Irish, and so on – who had been living on the island for months as they filmed a remake of The Bounty with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins as the stars. Few of them spoke French or Tahitian and so they were delighted to speak to someone who shared their language and we sort of hung out together, like kids in school thrown in together for detention.

One evening, we meandered down to the beach and as we sat on the sand, under the stars, a tall broad-shouldered Irishman started singing “Gypsy Rover” and I tried to join in with harmonies. I wasn’t doing very well at deciphering his accent, so he taught me the lyrics and for an hour or two we were singing buddies.

Several years later, (1990) back in the States, I went to the movies in San Francisco with a friend and saw that same face on the big screen. As we watched the film, I think it was Dark Man and I listened to his voice, I realized that this actor was the same one I’d sung folks songs with on the beach in the South Pacific. Liam Neeson was becoming a star in his own right, no longer the guy in the background, and I smiled as the lyrics played in my head.

About six years after that, (1996) I attended a luncheon organized by amfAR, and our gracious hostess was Natasha Richardson. She and I rode the elevator together and I was tempted to tell her that her husband had taught me Irish folk songs, years before, but decided to keep that information to myself. I simply introduced myself, thanked her for her work on AIDS, and once out of the elevator, made my way to my table with the other guests.

Then, (2011) in the last month of my career with UNICEF, I met Vanessa Redgrave when she spoke at an event at our headquarters in New York City. I asked a friend who works with celebrities for UNICEF to introduce me. I thanked Ms. Redgrave her for her words and her work and, in that case, did opt to tell her that I’d met her daughter and commented what a beautiful person she had been.

And just this fall, (2014) in the first semester of my MFA at Stony Brook Manhattan, I enrolled in a fiction class with Susan Minot who wrote the book Evening which, when adapted for film, starred Vanessa Redgrave with a supporting role by Natasha Richardson who in this, one of her last films, played the on-screen daughter of her real-life mother.

Over the course of thirty years, by chance, I met all of these people who are connected to one another. Beyond sharing the randomness of encounters, there really is no point to this story except to highlight how amazing life is.

Who will I meet next?

Booger: The Hidden Beauty of My Double Life in Albania

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Martina Clark

This is a cross-posting from a digital travel magazine I used to edit: Travelati. I’m sharing this today in honor of my friend Flora – who is key to this story – who died a year and a half ago of breast cancer. This October she would have turned 47 and I think of her every day.

“Booger!” my colleague Flora exclaimed with a wide grin.

Standing in the oversized, ornate hotel conference room – a resplendent remnant of Russian influence decades prior – I had just said that I’d thought our meeting had gone well and quietly turned to verify her response.

When “Booger!” came out yet again, I widened my eyes, covered my nose and sheepishly asked,

“Excuse me?”

“Booger! Booger! It was being perfect!” she replied.

I hear phonetically and when someone shouts “booger” at my Anglophone ears, I become very self-conscious.

Eventually it was explained that what sounded like “booger,” is actually “bukur” in Albanian and it translates roughly to “beautiful.” I was relieved so I smiled, dropped my hand and accepted this strange sounding compliment with gratitude.

Click this link to continue reading: http://travelati.com/stories/martina/booger-the-hidden-beauty-of-my-double-life-in-albania/