Podcasts about northeast africa

We are joined by Dr. Gerald Horne for a discussion on the meaning of the American Revolution and his extensive scholarship on re-assessing 1776 as a "counterrevoluton." At the heart of this discussion is the political and practical question for socialist politics in our time, namely: what is salvageable from 1776, and what is not? How do we read history from a materialist point of view? Dr. Horne's scholarship traces the social forces that brought about the rebellion of 1776 back farther than most historians of the American Revolution have done, by showing how the international forces went to shape the early settlers in relationship to the threat of slave rebellions and resistance. Horne's work also sheds light on a far more extensive network of resistance and rebellion amongst enslaved Africans that has largely gone ignored by historians and he reveals how central the slavery question was to the wider movements of 1776. Chapters Opening and Intro to Dr. Horne Is the American revolution a purely bourgeois revolution? Can we salvage the optimism of 1776? Is there a revolutionary tradition in America? Understanding slave rebellions and resistance pre-1776 How can history help the "class vs. race" debate that often divides the left? How is "counterrevolution" related to Trump? Is Trump Bonapartist or Fascist? How can socialists contest the two capitalist parties in America? Closing and future of Dr. Horne's scholarship and work Please join our Patreon to support us and get early access to all of our interviews, seminars and videos (https://www.patreon.com/c/torsiongroups).  Dr. Gerald Horne holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies. His research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of relations involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. He has also written extensively about the film industry. Dr. Horne is the author of more than thirty books and one hundred scholarly articles and reviews. His current research includes two forthcoming books: The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery, Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism and Revolting Capital: Racism and Radicalism in Washington, D.C., 1918-1968. His other projects include a study of U.S. imperialism in Northeast Africa, principally Egypt and Ethiopia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a similar study concerning U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia during the same period. He won the American Book Award for The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century in 2021.

Explore the world of Zar spirit possession rituals in Northeast Africa. Join us on a captivating journey as we delve into the rich cultural tapestry of this old tradition, shedding light on the captivating ceremonies, beliefs, and the deep connection between Zar spirits and the practitioners. Discover the mesmerizing dance, powerful music, and the profound significance of Zar in the lives of those who practice it.Sources/Recomended Reading:El Hadidi, Hager (2016). "Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt". The American University in Cairo Press.Henkesh, Yasmin (2017). "Trance Dancing with the Jinn: The Ancient Art of Contacting Spirits Through Ecstatic Dance". Llewellyn Publications.Wood, Connor; Saikou Diallo; Ross Gore and Christopher J. Lynch (2018). "Trance, Dissociation, and Shamanism: A Cross-Cultural Model". In "Journal of Cognition and Culture", 18 (5):508-536. Brill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Kara and Jordan sit down with Prof. Solange Ashby (Assistant Professor, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA) to discuss her academic journey and her research on Nubian women. Solange Ashby received her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. Dr. Ashby's expertise in ancient languages, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Meroitic, underpins her research into the history of religious transformation in Northeast Africa. Her book, Calling Out to Isis: The Enduring Nubian Presence at Philae, explores the Egyptian temple of Philae as a Nubian sacred site. Her second book explores the lives of five Nubian women from history including queens, priestesses, and mothers. Dr. Ashby is an Assistant Professor in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA where she teaches Egyptology and Nubian StudiesAcademia WebsiteSHOW NOTES* Download the full article here- Ashby, Solange. 2018. “Dancing for Hathor: Nubian Women in Egyptian Cultic Life.” Dotawo 5. https://doi.org/10.5070/D65110046.* Meroitic Language* C-Group Culture * Hathor* Dance in ancient Egypt & Nubia* Inner panel of the sarcophagus of Aashyt* Tattoo practice in Nubia and Egypt * Philae Temple* William Leo Hansberry Society * The Hansberry Society panel on Early Christianity, commemorating Rev. Dr. Gay L. Byron will be on Saturday August 17th at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on their YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0HcD4L9_k0YFz8L_vH-jzw Get full access to Ancient/Now at ancientnow.substack.com/subscribe

Ep.208 Dr. Andrea Myers Achi is trained as a Byzantinist, and her curatorial practice focuses on Byzantine art of the Mediterranean Basin and Northeast Africa. She graduated from Barnard College in 2007 with a BA in Ancient Studies. She thought she would become a Classics Professor but fell in love with Byzantine art and archaeology her senior year during a study abroad program on an excavation in Egypt. Dr. Achi went on to receive two Masters' of Arts degrees from New York University, the first in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies with a concentration in archaeology and the second in Byzantine Art. In2018, she earned a Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.  Currently, Dr. Achi is the Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In her role, she specializes in the art and archaeology of Late Antiquity and Byzantium, with a particular interest in illuminated manuscripts and ceramics. She has brought this expertise to bear on exhibitions like Art and Peoples of the Kharga Oasis (2017), Crossroads: Power and Piety(2020), The Good Life (2021),  Africa& Byzantium (2023), and Afterlives: Contemporary Art in the Byzantine Crypt (2024) at The Met and in numerous presentations and publications.  Portrait credit Eileen Travell  Metropolitan Museum https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/afterlives-contemporary-art-in-the-byzantine-crypt https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2024/05/afterlives-conversation https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/medieval-art-and-the-cloisters/staff-list https://www.metmuseum.org/met-publications/africa-and-byzantium Yale University Press https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9781588397713/africa-and-byzantium/ Center for Curatorial Leadership https://www.curatorialleadership.org/participants/ccl-smh-curators-forum/ Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2024/01/04/africa-byzantium-exhibit-met-review/?_pml=1 Barnard Magazine https://www.bgc.bard.edu/about/news/1003/08-feb-2024-exhibiting-africa https://barnard.edu/magazine/winter-2024/andrea-myers-achi-07 Princeton https://humanities.princeton.edu/event/africa-byzantium-at-the-met/ Church Times https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/23-february/books-arts/book-reviews/book-review-africa-and-byzantium-edited-by-andrea-myers-achi Tiwana Contemporary https://www.tiwani.co.uk/publications/26-africa-and-byzantium-the-museum-of-metropolitan-art/ The National Herald https://www.thenationalherald.com/hacf-presented-dr-andrea-achi-lecture-on-africa-and-byzantium-on-feb-1/  Artnet https://news.artnet.com/career-stories/andrea-achi-1933101  National Endowment for the Humanities https://www.neh.gov/article/marvels-byzantine-africahttps://www.neh.gov/news/disorienting-beauty-africa-byzantium  Apollo Magazine https://www.apollo-magazine.com/andrea-myers-achi-40-under-40-usa-the-thinkers/  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-myers-achi-9b575168

The Richard Syrett Show, July 5th, 2024 Canadian employers allegedly racist for not hiring activist troublemakers https://www.westernstandard.news/opinion/slobodian-canadian-employers-allegedly-racist-for-not-hiring-activist-troublemakers/55768  Linda Slobodian is the Senior Manitoba Columnist for the Western Standard based out of Winnipeg.   Liars, Cheats and Crooks - New Single from Five Times August Watch video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yED2b-GGRKg Brad Skistimas, aka “Five Times August” is an accomplished singer/songwriter, and recording artist base in Dallas, Texas. His new single is called, Liars, Cheats and Crooks https://www.fivetimesaugust.com Five Times August - Stay Free Concert - St. Catharines, Ontario September 14th More details https://trinityproductions.ca THE LIMRIDDLER Mexican Salsa Trade that ignited a maritime quest. Beckham and Bunton were stardom possessed. Variety rife Is the essence of life. What gives a Mexican salsa its zest? THE UN TAKEOVER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS  Maggie Hope Braun – Community Advocate, Speaker and Writer, the Founder of Gather 2030 and leads the KICLEI Initiative a project designed to help Canadians engage their municipalities, protect their community and strengthen citizen led democracy Get Involved! https://www.kiclei.ca https://gather2030.substack.com KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR MONEY Taxpayers call on Ford to end LCBO monopoly https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/taxpayers-call-on-ford-to-end-lcbo-monopoly Jay Goldberg, Ontario Director of The Canadian Taxpayer Federation Petition to Fire Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gonkek Sign the Petition to Fire Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek https://www.rebelnews.com/tags/jyoti_gondek  Sydney Fizzard – Video Journalist for Rebel News THE LIMRIDDLE ANSWER AND WINNERS The answer to today's Limriddle is: Spice The first five to answer correctly were: 1. Will McNair, Ottawa, Ontario 2. Amy Lou Woo, Baysville, Ontario 3. Rosalind Mitchell, Peterborough, Ontario 4. Tom Dibblee, Lake of Bays, Ontario 5. Sue Somerville, Calgary, Alberta Trade that ignited a maritime quest. The spice trade involved early civilizations in Asian, Northeast Africa and Europe and included cinnamon, ginger, pepper nutmeg, cloves, turmeric and others. Beckham and Bunton were stardom possessed. The Spice Girls were a British music group formed in 1994 and included, among others, Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) and Emma Burton (Baby Spice). Variety rife Is the essence of life. “Variety is the spice of life.” This expression originated with William Cowper's poem, The Task (1785). What gives a Mexican salsa its zest? Salsa is a both dance and a dish. As a tomato sauce, salsa gets its zest from spices. As a Latin American dance, it exhibits considerable spice as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Archaeologist Julien Cooper digs up the remote deserts of Sudan and Egypt, finding forgotten artefacts, which tell the uninterrupted, thousands-year-old story of the nomadic peoples of Northeast Africa

Listen to the Mon. Dec. 25, 2023 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. The program features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the growing Pentagon presence in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden region in West Asia and Northeast Africa; there are more journalists being killed in Gaza; in the North African state of Morocco people are demonstrating in solidarity with Palestine; and the Vatican has expressed solidarity with the people of Gaza. In the second hour we look at the worsening humanitarian situation among Palestinians in Gaza. Later we examine the unprecedented targeting of journalists by the IDF in Palestine. Finally, we look back on the Massey Lectures by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the last several months of his life.

Explore the mystery behind the Garden of Eden's true location. While some people suggest places as far-fetched as Mars and Missouri, and many scholars question its existence, certain descriptions in Genesis point to a few plausible locations. We'll delve into theories about the Armenian Highlands of Eastern Turkey, Northeast Africa, and Jerusalem. #GardenofEden #Eden #WeirdHistory #Biblicallocations #Genesis #ArmenianHighlands #EasternTurkey #NortheastAfrica #Jerusalem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

EPA Levels are DANGEROUS * There are NO ACCEPTABLE Levels of Uranium in our systems, NONE Support is Appreciated:    Support the Show – Psychopath In Your Life   The post URANIUM in Water Systems USA* Northeast Africa* Middle East* Egypt* Sinai* Israel* Jordan* TEXAS appeared first on Psychopath In Your Life.

What role did women play in the social and cultural life of Ancient Egypt? Kim Chakanetsa talks to two women uncovering secrets from this incredible civilisation. Dr Monica Hanna is an Egyptologist and a leading heritage expert. She's the acting dean of the College of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at the Arab Academy in Aswan. Monica's been awarded for her fight against looting. Dr Solange Ashby is an Egyptologist at UCLA whose work focuses on Nubia, a region in Northeast Africa split between present-day Egypt and Sudan. Solange's current research explores the role of women in ancient Nubia and she's writing a monograph about the royal women of Kush. Produced by Alice Gioia and Lorna Treen. (Image: (L) Dr Monica Hanna, credit Justin Merriman. (R) Dr Solange Ashby, credit courtesy of Dr Solange Ashby).

It is the season of Scorpio! And we start off with a bang~ as there is a Partial Solar Eclipse on Oct 25th 2022 ! It will begin in the wee hours on the Pacific Coast- (3am).The New Moon is exact at 3:49 am PDTThis eclipse can be seen in Northeast Africa, Most of Europe, and the Middle East.  It will be FELT worldwide!Thanks for listening!Here are links to my sites: Support the showAstrology:http://www.kitchensari.comJewelry:https://www.Etsy.com/shop/parkermcp Support the show:https://www.pateron.com/ParkerMcP OR- just by me a chai/coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/parkercI am on RUMBLE.COM now- with short videos of...

This week we discuss the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit which took place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan and why it has gained traction in Northeast Africa's Egypt.

Mostafa talked about his work as a professor and his published books such as, "The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz."Mostafa Minawi researches different forms of imperialism in the Middle East and Northeast Africa at the turn of the 20th century. He also investigate how global events and the internal crisis in the empire were refracted through the lived experience of Arab-Ottoman imperialists and their families, living in Istanbul through the turbulent political and social changes leading up to WWI and the breakup of the empire. He is currently working on two related book projects which he thinks of as two sides of the same coin. The first is a “micro” level look at the lived experience of imperialists at home, focusing on the life-worlds of the families of Arab-Ottomans living in Istanbul as the empire crumbled between 1878 and 1918. It comes out in late 2022 in Arabic, translated by Africa Institute in Sharjah. The second focuses on Ottoman imperialism abroad and is a “macro” level engagement with international diplomacy and questions of sovereignty and colonialism in northeast Africa.Created & hosted by Mikey Muhanna, afikra Edited by: Ramzi RammanTheme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/About the afikra Conversations:Our long-form interview series features academics, arts, ‎and media experts who are helping document and/or shape the history and culture of the Arab world through their ‎work. Our hope is that by having the guest share their expertise and story, the community still walks away with newfound curiosity - and maybe some good recommendations about new nerdy rabbit holes to dive into headfirst. ‎Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience ‎on Zoom.‎ Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp   FollowYoutube - Instagram (@afikra_) - Facebook - Twitter Support www.afikra.com/supportAbout afikra:‎afikra is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity. Read more about us on  afikra.com

Financier, philanthropist, and longtime president of the World Sephardi Federation Nessim Gaon was proud of the Sudanese birthright that made him part of a long lineage of Jews from Arab lands. However, with growing antisemitism in Sudan, he also believed Israel offered the only safe haven for Jews around the world and devoted his life to constantly improving the Zionist project.  Gaon's oldest grandchild, Dr. Alexandra Herzog, deputy director of Contemporary Jewish Life for American Jewish Committee, shares the story of her grandfather's flight from Sudan, his quest for equality in Israel, and his pursuit of peace between the Jewish state and Arab nations that led to the historic 1979 accord between Israel and Egypt. Along with Dr. Herzog, oral historian Daisy Abboudi describes great changes in Sudan that take place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which saw the country emerge from a period of Islamic extremism to a land of possibilities for Jewish pioneers. However, this brief window of openness closes once again as Gaon's cousins, Diana Krief and Flore Eleini, describe how following Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Sudan once again became a terrifying place to be a Jew.  ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  Saza Niye Glemedin; Penceresi Yola Karsi: all by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel, Electric Guitar)”; Composer: Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081 “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. “A Middle East Lament”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Dan Cullen (PRS), IPI#551977321 “Mystic Anatolia”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Okan Akdeniz (MSG), IPI#37747892568 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Fields Of Elysium”; Publisher: Mysterylab Music; Composer: Mott Jordan; ID#79549862 ___ Episode Transcript: ALEXANDRA HERZOG: Oftentimes, I asked him, would you want to go visit Sudan? If you could, would you? And you know, he would tell me, ‘Well, I have this image in my head. And I want to keep it that way.' And I think that it was so loaded for him in terms of memories, in terms of, you know, vibrancy of life and I think he wanted to keep it as this frozen image. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience.  This is The Forgotten Exodus. Today's episode: Leaving Sudan MANYA: When Diana Krief and her 95-year-old mother Flore Eleini look back on their family's life in Sudan, they conjure dark memories. Flore remembers enjoying afternoon tea outside with her mother-in-law when soldiers armed with bayonets stormed the garden. FLORE ELEINI: Life was normal, life was good. And then, little by little. it deteriorated. We were the very, very last Jews to stay in the Sudan. And then, after the Six Day War, of course, they came, you know, in the street, they were shouting, kill, kill, kill, kill the Jews, kill, kill, kill the Jews. And one day, I thought it was our end. MANYA: Her daughter Diana remembers soldiers raiding their house and posters of decapitated Jews outside their home. DIANA KRIEF: It's actually by others that I came to know that I was Jewish, that I was a Jew, you know, born in a Jewish family. They used to come in front of the house with posters of Jews in the Mediterranean Sea with their heads cut off, and blood everywhere. That's the first time I had actually seen the land of Israel. I didn't know that we had a land before.  And it was “itbah” the whole time. And even when we would put the radio on, they would sing“itbah itbah al yahud.” That means “slaughter, slaughter the Jews”. And this always stayed in my memory. MANYA: In 1968, Flore and Diana were among the last Jews to flee Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. They followed a path to Geneva blazed by Flore's cousin, Nessim Gaon, a financier and philanthropist born and raised in Sudan who had moved from Khartoum to Switzerland a decade earlier.  Gaon, who died in May 2022 at the age of 100, was a legend in modern Jewish history. As a longtime president of the World Sephardi Federation, he worked to raise the profile of Sephardic Jews around the world and level the playing field for them in Israel – where Arabic speaking Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews were often looked down upon.  On the contrary, Gaon believed they offered Israel a gift – a link between the Jewish state and their former homes in the Arab world. Gaon himself offered a shining example. He persuaded his dear friend, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to meet with Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, which led to the historic 1979 accord between Israel and Egypt – the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab nation. ALEXANDRA: For him when Israel was built, it really was like a miracle. He really, truly believed in the possibilities that Israel could offer. He also realized that Sephardic Jews could play a role in creating a bridge between Israel and the Arab countries, and that they would be able to help in creating peace or at least creating dialogue between some of those countries. And that's really what he did in his conversations with Anwar el-Sadat and Menachem Begin.  MANYA: That's Gaon's oldest grandchild, Dr. Alexandra Herzog, who now serves as the deputy director of Contemporary Jewish Life for American Jewish Committee. As her last name indicates, her mother Marguerite, Gaon's daughter, married into the Herzog dynasty. Alexandra's paternal grandfather was former Israeli president Chaim Herzog, and her uncle Isaac Herzog, is the Israeli president today.  But in addition to that proud legacy, Alexandra is especially proud of the impact her maternal grandfather made in helping Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews – a slight majority of Israel's Jewish population, but a significant majority of its Jewish poor – thrive, succeed, and lead in the Jewish state. Gaon was the driving force behind Project Renewal, an initiative launched in the 1970s to rehabilitate some of Israel's most distressed neighborhoods and improve education and social services there. He developed a bar mitzvah program that provided the education, ceremony, and gifts for thousands of underprivileged boys. And tens of thousands of young Sephardi leaders from impoverished neighborhoods received university scholarships. ALEXANDRA: A lot of the people who came out of this program are actually mayors or members of the Knesset – important people in Israel who actually have, as a ripple effect, a strong impact on the lives of other people as well. MANYA: The history of Sudan's once tiny and tight-knit Jewish community is limited to the late 19th and early 20th centuries – a brief window when it was safe to be Jewish in that Northeast African country. But the Sudanese diaspora's connection to that country runs unusually deep.  Sudan, Egypt's neighbor to the south, was much more than a waystation during the age of migration. It was a land of possibilities. Even if their forefathers spent centuries elsewhere, their descendants today often identify with the fleeting generations spent in Sudan. DAISY ABBOUDI: If you speak to people who were there, and you say, where are you from, they will say, Sudan, in a very proud, but definitive way. MANYA: That's Daisy Abboudi, a London-based oral historian of Sudanese Jewish history, who began her career by interviewing her own grandparents. DAISY: Sudanese is very much part of their identity and their descendants kind of focus on Sudan. And I know, there's this kind of phenomena from around the Middle East – a kind of nostalgia of looking back. There's kind of an inherited nostalgia that exists as well. But it's particularly strong in Sudan for a country where people didn't have thousands of years of roots. And I'm kind of always wondering, why? Why has it got this pull? MANYA: The reason could be embedded in the history of Sudan and the pioneering spirit of the Jews who landed in this rustic pocket of Northeast Africa, where the Blue and White Nile Rivers converged, the constellations shone brightly in the night sky, and the scent of jasmine and gardenia floated in the air. In the early 19th century, Sudanese and Egyptian residents lived under Ottoman rule. Jews in Egypt – and the few there might have been in Sudan – faced harsh taxes. But that changed toward the end of the 19th century, as the Ottoman Empire fell, and British forces took over Egypt, before moving south. With them came Christian missionaries who intended to “civilize” the tribes there. An opposition and independence movement began to build, led by a self-proclaimed Mahdi, who claimed to be the foretold redeemer of the Islamic nation. The 1966 epic film, Khartoum, depicts the infamous 1884 Siege of Khartoum, in which the Mahdi, portrayed by Hollywood superstar Laurence Olivier, defeated the popular British General Charles Gordon, played by another Hollywood legend of Ten Commandments fame, Charlton Heston. DAISY: When this independence movement starts, it's led by a man who calls himself the Mahdi, which means the kind of chosen one, and he wins, basically. He conquers Sudan quite quickly and then promptly dies of malaria and his successor takes over. But this period of independence, once it was established, is called the Mahdia, after the Mahdi.  It was an Islamic state, basically in that it was quite extremist. All the non-Muslim people living in Sudan had to convert to Islam. This was a law that was targeted at the missionaries who were there, but of course these Jews that were living there got caught up in that policy. MANYA: When the British conquered the Mahdi in 1898, that conversion law was revoked, and some converts reverted back to Judaism. The British built a railway line to supply the army and connect Egypt to Khartoum, the capital of the dual British-Egyptian colony. And soon, Sudan became a destination for Jewish families who sought to build economic opportunities from the ground up. DAISY: It was a kind of a mercantile community, a lot of shops, import-exports, cloth, gum Arabic, hibiscus. A couple of families grew and then traded hibiscus, which was like the main ingredient in cough syrup at the time. Don't forget, at that time, Sudan was very new – Khartoum especially, in terms of on the map in terms of European consciousness, obviously not new in terms of how long it's actually been there. But it was kind of seen or perceived as this new frontier. It was a bit off the beaten track.  There wasn't the mod cons or luxuries even of the day. So, it was people who were willing to take a little bit of a risk and dive into the unknown who would actually go to Sudan. MANYA: According to historian Naham Ilan, though the community was deeply traditional, it was largely secular and introduced many of Sudan's modern conveniences.  Morris Goldenberg from Cairo was the first optician in Khartoum. Jimmy and Toni Cain, refugees from Germany, ran a music hall and cabaret. Jewish students attended private Christian schools. By 1906, the Jewish community of Egypt invited Rabbi Solomon Malka, a Moroccan rabbi who was ordained in British Mandate Palestine, to lead Sudan's Jewish community. He was supposed to stay for only a few years, but instead stayed and purchased his own manufacturing plants, producing sesame oil and macaroni. His son Eli would later write the foundational history of the community titled Jacob's Children in the Land of the Mahdi: Jews of the Sudan. DAISY: When Rabbi Malka came, he was the shochet, he was the mohel, he was the rabbi. He was everything, it was a one-man band. The community was already kind of focused in Khartoum in 1928 when the synagogue was built. The club was built in 1947. I think the peak in terms of numbers of the community was early to mid-1950s. And that was about 250 families. So even at its peak, it was a very small community. MANYA: Community is the key word. Everyone knew each other, looked out for each other, and when Israel was created in 1948, they raised money to help some of their fellow Jews seek opportunities in that new frontier. Those who left weren't fleeing Sudan – not yet. That shift didn't happen for at least another decade. When things did start to turn, Nessim Gaon would lead the exodus. He had seen what could happen when Jews ignored warning signs and stayed where they were unwelcome for too long. Gaon's family arrived in the early 20th Century when his father got a job working as a clerk for the British governor of Port Sudan. Gaon was born in Khartoum in 1922. ALEXANDRA: As for a lot of Sephardi families, they basically moved with opportunities and changes of power in different countries. So they went from Spain, to Italy, back to Spain. And then they went into the Arab lands. So I know that they went into Iraq, then they went into Turkey. And they spent quite some time actually in Turkey, until they finally went to Sudan and Egypt. MANYA: As a young man, Gaon left to attend the London School of Economics. Shortly after he returned, he encountered British officers recruiting soldiers to fight for Winston Churchill's campaign against the Nazis.  ALEXANDRA: He just went in, signed up, and the next day, he was sent to the front. His family was not so excited about that. And he was actually under age, he wasn't really supposed to be able to sign up at that time. But when they figured out his age, you know, in the army, it was already too late. He just felt that he needed to be useful and do something. And that's what he did.  MANYA: Though he knew about the uneasy life for Jews in Sudan preceding his family's arrival there, what Gaon witnessed during World War II while stationed in places like Iraq ensured he would never take for granted his safety as a Jew. ALEXANDRA: Even though he never spoke about all of the things that he saw in great detail, he did a lot after the war, to help survivors go to Israel. It was very important to him to try to help those who had survived to actually go into a place of safety. He knew what it meant to be a Jew in danger. MANYA: Gaon and his future wife of 68 years, Renee [Tamman], exchanged letters every day when he was away at war and kept every single one. And after his return, from that point on, they never spent more than three days apart. The couple soon began to build their family. But because of rudimentary medical care in Sudan, it was difficult. Three of their children died before their daughter Marguerite was born in 1956. They were buried in Khartoum's Jewish cemetery. Sudan became independent in 1956. But the ties to Egypt ran deep. Later that year, when French, British, and Israeli forces attacked Egypt over Gamel Abdel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal, the anti-Jewish tensions trickled south. DAISY: The Suez Crisis, in the end of 1956, kind of spikes a bit of antisemitism. There is a talk in the newspapers about antisemitism, Zionist things, plots. There were a few things that made life slightly more difficult, but not in a very impactful way on daily life. MANYA: There were other signs too. When the winner of the Miss Khartoum beauty pageant was discovered to be Jewish, she lost her crown. When Jews had matza imported from London for Passover, it had to be packaged in plain boxes without a Magen David. Given what Gaon had witnessed in World War II, that was enough to leave. He, his wife, and only daughter at the time went to Geneva. ALEXANDRA: That was a blooming community, they were happy, they were together. And they were able to create and expand on their Jewish life. And I think that, at some point, when it became clear, when they saw the signs of that antisemitism coming their way again, they just felt like, “OK, we've seen this before, not just in Sudan, but also from the history of the Holocaust. And we need to take proactive measures, and make sure that we're safe. MANYA: When they left, Gaon and his wife told no one. They packed only enough bags for a vacation. They even left the doors unlocked and food in the refrigerator so no one dropping by their home would get suspicious. ALEXANDRA:  My grandmother always told us how some part of her broke a little when they just left the house. They really pretended that they were just going out and they would come back. They would tell us how hard it was when they turned and they looked at the house the last time and they knew that they had left most of their things. That they had a whole history there. That they had children there who were still going to be there and it was really difficult. And so, they took everything [with] them, left to Switzerland, and made a life there. MANYA: The decade that followed was particularly tumultuous in Sudan. The country had its first coup of many, and a military government took over. In 1960, all of the Jews who had left Sudan had their citizenship revoked. Another revolution in 1964 restored civilian rule.  DAISY: It's at that time, that a lot of the north-south tension kind of comes into things. And there was a lot of violence in that revolution, a lot of rioting. And the violence was tribal, north-south tribalism, a lot of violence against southern tribes, people from the South in Sudan.  But that scared the Jewish community that there would be violence and murders in the streets, and that signaled that this was no longer this stable country that they had been living in. And that's when more people start to leave. MANYA: By this point, acquiring an exit visa had become difficult for Jews, especially those who owned businesses and properties. Much like Gaon and his wife had left under cover of vacation, people began acquiring tourist visas with return tickets they never used. In the summer of 1967, the Six-Day War became a flashpoint in Khartoum. DAISY: There was a lot of rhetoric against Jews, in the newspapers, accusations of Zionism, Zionist spies, slurs, the lot. The Jewish young men who didn't know the right people to avoid it, were arrested for the duration of the war, and then released subsequently. And then after the Six Day War, the Arab League Summit, and the declaration of the three Nos. That actually happened in Khartoum, so you can imagine the atmosphere in Khartoum at that time was not pleasant. MANYA: The Three Nos. No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, No negotiations with Israel. These were the pillars of the Khartoum Resolution, the Arab world's proclamation denying self-determination for the Jewish people in their biblical homeland. The Arab League Summit convened in Khartoum on August 29, 1967 and the resolution was adopted days later. Flore recalls how Muslim friends and colleagues suddenly turned on them. Returning home from a trip, her husband Ibrahim's business partner brought back a framed picture and insisted that Ibrahim read its engraved inscription out loud: “The world will not have peace until the last Jew is put to death by stoning,” it said. Another friend asked Flore one day where she hid the device she used to communicate with Israel, implying she was a spy. During a visit to Geneva, Ibrahim was warned not to return because there was a price on his head. Flore said their delayed departure was a source of tension between her and her husband, who even for years afterward, couldn't believe his beloved Sudan had betrayed them. But the time had come for most Jews, including the extended family that Nessim Gaon had left behind, to abandon their homes and fortunes in Sudan and join him. FLORE: My husband had confidence in them. And we had a lot of problems between my husband and me because of this. Because I said ‘Ibrahim, this is not a country for us.' He says: ‘You don't know anything. They won't harm us. They won't do that.' He had confidence, he couldn't believe it. Until my husband became very old. He died at the age of 94. And he always, always, in his heart, he said that they cannot harm us. But he had illusions. He had illusions. MANYA: The Gaons also could not return. It was simply too dangerous. But in the 1970s, when Nessim Gaon learned vandals might have desecrated the Jewish cemetery in Khartoum, he resolved to retrieve their children and other family members who were buried there. From a distance, he coordinated an airlift for several prominent Sudanese families, including Rabbi Malka's descendants, to transfer the remains of their loved ones out of Sudan to be reburied in Jerusalem where he knew they would be safer. It was this sincere belief about the promise of Israel and the promise of peace in the region that led Gaon to encourage and attend a meeting between Menachem Begin and Anwar el-Sadat in 1977. ALEXANDRA: He saw opportunities there to create a peace with Egypt and he told Menachem Begin we can create peace with the Arab countries. And so Menachem Begin took him to meet with Anwar el-Sadat. They had a meeting and they hit it off right away, because they spoke the same language, they came from the same place.  MANYA: Over the next two years, Gaon worked discreetly in the background to ease both of their minds, find common ground, and reach a consensus. When the two leaders were ready to sign a treaty in 1979, Gaon gave them both the Swiss pens they used to make it official.  ALEXANDRA: They actually called him first thing after signing, and told him: ‘Nessim, it happened. We did it.' And, you know, it was something that he was very proud of, but that we were not really allowed to talk about in the outside.  He truly believed in the possibilities, in the outcome. That's what he focused on. He wanted to better the lives of people both in Israel and in Egypt, and he cared about, you know, the Sephardi Jews that were part of that narrative as well. MANYA: Sudan was one of only two Arab nations who supported the accord. Egypt was suspended from the Arab League for ten years and el-Sadat was assassinated in 1981.  Still, Gaon never stopped trying to pave the way for more peace negotiations. In fact, much later Israel tapped him to meet privately with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Unfortunately, the outcome was not the same. ALEXANDRA: We did not really want him to go and meet with Arafat because we were worried. I mean, Arafat had a long history of terrorism and we were a little bit scared. Arafat actually told him that at some point, there was a murder order on his head. They were considering killing my grandfather. And they decided not to, because he realized that he was an Arab like him. When my grandfather told us about this, we all went like, [gasp], what are you saying? But he was very calm about it. And he said: ‘You know, I, I stood there and Arafat told [me], I knew that you were doing a lot of good things. And you know, you were not doing anything bad towards the Arab populations. And you are very respectful. This is your background as well. And so we decided not to go ahead with it.' But I think my grandfather found it very difficult to talk to Arafat. And Arafat was not ready to make peace. MANYA: By this time Gaon had become a grandfather, Alexandra's Nono – the one who taught her how to whistle and play backgammon. The one who blessed her before long trips. The one who taught her his first language, Arabic. The one who passed down his love for the beauty of Sephardic Jewry and his concern about it being overshadowed and undervalued around the world and in Israel. ALEXANDRA: He was so idealistic about Israel, and really believed in it and thought it was such an important project. He also was very critical of it in terms of its treatment of Sephardic Jews. He was very sensitive to it, and he really worked hard to change that.  He was a little bit darker skinned. And he came from Sudan, he was born there. So he saw himself really, as a Sephardic Jew who had the opportunity here to educate this new country and to help this new country understand how Sephardic Jews could actually help and be positive agents within the country. MANYA: He also believed that the Jewish world must acknowledge and respect its own rich diversity for the benefit of everyone – Jewish, non-Jewish, Israeli or Diaspora. As president of the World Sephardi Federation, he traveled the world to encourage others to step up and show that Jewish history is not just an Eastern European, Ashkenazi narrative. ALEXANDRA: The more you're open to people who come from a different background, the more you also know how to interact with non-Jews and with countries that are maybe antagonistic to you. I think that it was a way for him to sort of bridge conflict to say: if you make an effort within the Jewish people, then you learn how to talk to everybody. MANYA: Daisy Abboudi said telling the stories of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews is complicated. Are they migrants? Are they refugees? What do they want to be called, and why? And then there's the ambivalence some Israelis have had about welcoming all Jews, some of whom still feel affection for nations that wish Israel did not exist. In their eyes, it's a fine line between affection and loyalty. DAISY: It's not an easily packaged short story. It feeds into so many different kinds of strands and politics and it's such a messy period of history anyway, with colonialism and the end of colonialism and nationalism, and, and, and, and. I think it is too big and too much for people to kind of get their heads around. And so people just don't. MANYA: But Gaon believed that leveling the playing field and making sure everyone has equal opportunities to education and leadership is where it starts. As part of Project Renewal, he often walked the streets of the most distressed neighborhoods in Israel to hear firsthand what residents there needed and advocated for them. In addition to the scholarships, bar mitzvah programs, and Project Renewal initiative, Gaon also held court at the King David Hotel whenever he traveled to Jerusalem. Sephardi residents would line up around the block to meet the man who invested and believed in them. ALEXANDRA: Years later, when he was quite influential, he got a letter from the Sudanese government to tell him that they would love it if he took back the nationality. At the time, he decided not to.  He wanted to keep the memories and the life that he had in Sudan and all of the legacy of Sudan without specifically being connected to a government or a political situation that he disagreed with and that was difficult and unpleasant to Jews. I know that oftentimes, I asked him, would you want to go visit Sudan? If you could, would you? And you know, he would tell me, ‘Well, I have this image in my head. And I want to keep it that way.' And I think that it was so loaded for him in terms of memories, in terms of, you know, vibrancy of life and what he experienced, and I think he wanted to leave it that way, and not be sort of surprised or sad, or, shocked by the changes possibly. I think he wanted to keep it as this frozen image. I hope that one day I can go both to Sudan and to Egypt and see those places myself and get a sense of putting the pieces of the puzzle together and getting a sense of what life might have been. MANYA:  It's unclear when it will be safe for Jews to travel to Sudan again. Between November 1984 and January 1985, Sudanese, Israeli and U.S. officials worked with Gaon and Alexandra's father, Joel Herzog, to facilitate an airlift of thousands of Ethiopian Jews from refugee camps in Sudan to Israel. Operation Moses, as it was called, ended abruptly in January 1985 as soon as Sudan's Arab allies caught wind of the joint effort, stranding many Ethiopian Jews there. Some were eventually rescued, but not all.  ALEXANDRA: He not only helped fund the mission, which was very secretive, but he also took care of all of the details of the infrastructure from making sure that they could take a bus, to the plane, to a ship. He really took care of all of the details. And it was important to him because he wanted to make sure that fellow Jews would be in a place of safety. MANYA: Tribal conflict and civil wars also have continued. Feeling neglected by Khartoum, the largely agrarian South Sudan gained independence in 2011 after two civil wars. Warring factions within the South agreed to a coalition government in 2020.  Meanwhile, since 2003, millions of Darfuri men, women and children from three different ethnic groups have been targeted in what is considered the first genocide of the 21st Century – atrocities that continue today.  In 2019, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir was pushed out of office by a series of peaceful protests. The following year, Sudan's fledgling civilian government announced its intentions to join the Abraham Accords as part of a larger effort to engage with the international community and secure international assistance. This included an agreement by the United States to remove Sudan from its state sponsor of terrorism list. But yet another military coup in 2021 derailed any efforts toward diplomacy and that plan was put on hold until a civilian government is restored.  Gaon died before seeing it become a reality.  ALEXANDRA: He really saw Sudan as his home. That was the place that he knew, that he grew up in. And I mean, again, he had gone to London before to study, he still came back to Sudan. You know, he went to war, he came back to Sudan and came with a lot of different layers of understanding of what it meant to be a Jew, in a lot of different countries, a lot of different places.  MANYA: Alexandra said he carried those layers and lessons with him throughout his life, as well as immense pride that he came from a long lineage of people living in Arab lands. For Nessim Gaon, the Jewish tradition was and always should be a big, diverse, inclusive tent. ALEXANDRA: One of the memories that really sticks with me is how during the Kohanim prayers at the synagogue, my grandfather would take his tallit, his prayer shawl, and put it on top of all of his children and grandchildren. And my grandmother would do the exact same thing with us in the women's section.  And of course, from time to time I would peek and look at this beautiful tent that was extended above all of my family members. And what was really special to me, was how we knew at that moment that we were being blessed by both my grandparents and that if someone was around and looked completely alone, they were welcomed under our tent.  And this really represents for me, what my grandparents were, they were warm. They were inclusive, loving and generous. And really they extended the tent, our family tent, to all the Jewish people. MANYA: Sudanese Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who in the last century left Arab countries to forge new lives for themselves and future generations. Join us next week as we share another untold story of The Forgotten Exodus. Many thanks to Alexandra, Flore, and Diana for sharing their families' stories. Does your family have roots in North Africa or the Middle East? One of the goals of this series is to make sure we gather these stories before they are lost. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to find more of these stories.  Call The Forgotten Exodus hotline. Tell us where your family is from and something you'd like for our listeners to know such as how you've tried to keep the traditions and memories alive. Call 212.891-1336 and leave a message of 2 minutes or less. Be sure to leave your name and where you live now. You can also send an email to theforgottenexodus@ajc.org and we'll be in touch. Tune in every Friday for AJC's weekly podcast about global affairs through a Jewish lens, People of the Pod, brought to you by the same team behind The Forgotten Exodus.  Atara Lakritz is our producer, CucHuong Do is our production manager. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Sean Savage, Ian Kaplan, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name, for making this series possible. And extra special thanks to David Harris, who has been a constant champion for making sure these stories do not remain untold. You can follow The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can sign up to receive updates at AJC.org/forgottenexodussignup. The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed the episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.  

With a region spanning Northeast Africa, Middle East and Central and South Asia, CENTCOM is preparing for the Defense Department's JADC2 effort to better connect data capacities around the world. DISA Central Field Command's Tania Wilkes shares some of her top cyber challenges and how she believes cyber education will make or break cybersecurity for military operations. Expect to hear about satellite communications, 5G security, zero trust and more in this episode.

Christine Aldrich is a children's author who recently published her first children's book, Braiding Crowns of Friendship. It's a story about an African American girl who learns to love her hair, and in doing so she helps to teach others about the beauty in diversity. When Christine wrote the book, she pulled from her own life experiences growing up in a predominantly white school where she didn't see a lot of other children who looked like her. If you're a parent, then you know that all of the lessons we teach our children are not academic. Some lessons deal with life, self-worth and confidence. Regardless of whether you are raising a boy or a girl teaching your child the proper way to groom their hair is important. Stay tune and listen to this conversation and send us a message to let us know how you're teaching your children to love their hair.We've Got Merch! Support the PodcastThere are hoodies, t-shirts, sweatshirts, pillows, and more. Place your order at CleverlyChanging.com/shop.Something to Explore: Did you know that the men in the Afar tribe use cow fat and butter to style and maintain their hair? The Afar people are indigenous to Northeast Africa. They are also ethnic Cushite people. Their curls are obtained with sticks and butter, which helps the hairstyle last for several days, and the cow fat and butter protect their hair from the sun's heat. Learn More.African ProverbWealth is like hair in the nose: it hurts to be separated whether from a little or from a lot. ~ Malagasy ProverbWord of the EpisodeTaiwo means first born in Yoruba. Let's Connect!Want to be a guest on an upcoming show? Just fill out this form, and we will send you an interview link when your request is approved.We're bringing back Cleverly Cultured Kids! To have your kids featured on Cleverly Cultured Kids, complete this Interview form for kids, and we will send you an interview link when your request is approved.You can call us directly now. Please leave us a voicemail and let us know how you are enjoying the show or share your questions.Grown Folks Section: Meet Christina Aldrich who discussed Teaching Children to Love their HairChristine Aldrich has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master's degree in Counseling from Cal State University, Fullerton. She has worked with low-income families in higher education for over twenty years. For the last six years, Christine has served as the director of the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services and the Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (EOPS/CARE) at Compton College.Recently, she decided to write children's books to help educate young African American girls on how to increase their self-esteem, build their confidence, and teach them how to love their skin tone and hair texture. Her mission is to help young girls realize that everyone is unique and  should celebrate who they are because of their wonderful differences.Please follow her instagram page and buy her book "Braiding Crowns of Friendship" on Amazon.Please Share This PodcastGet chatty and tell your friends about our podcast. While we love having a conversation with each other, the podcast will only exist if more people are listening. If you know someone with children or an educator, tell them where to find us. Our tips and tricks are beneficial to educators, parents who homeschool, and those interested in supplementing their children's education.Furthermore, wherever you listen to this podcast, please leave us a review. Reviews do a lot to encourage others to check us out and increase our visibility on those platforms.Lastly, if you want to hear more about homeschooling and how we have managed to make it work for our families, please check out our past episodes.ADDITIONAL DIRECTORIES:Luminosity | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | TuneIn | Apple★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Confabulating with: Prof. Richard Reid Richard is a historian of modern Africa, with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is particularly interested in the culture and practice of warfare in the modern period, and have focused on the transformations in violence in the late precolonial period (the nineteenth century), as well as on more recent armed insurgencies, especially those between the 1950s and the 1980s. He also works on historical culture and memory, especially around trauma and upheaval, and one strand of my research involves an exploration of how the ‘precolonial' is perceived and understood in modern Africa (as well as in modern Europe). While some of his published works spans the continent as a whole, his primary research is on East and Northeast Africa, including Uganda and the Great Lakes region, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Research Interests: Warfare and militarism in Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly East and Northeast Africa Historical culture, emotion and memory in modern Africa, particularly East and Northeast Africa The relationship between Africa and Europe during the ‘long' nineteenth century His current research is concerned with histories of war in modern Africa, and has two main strands. The first focuses on the ways in which war leads to distinctive, often markedly emotional, forms of historical culture, and how it influences both public history and more private understandings of the past. His case study is the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia (1998-2000), which in some ways was the outcome of distinctive cultures of violence, militarism, and historical consciousness, but which has also served to underpin those cultures. He is especially interested in how history is organized and ‘packaged' as the result of prolonged trauma, including at the level of national history, and he has recently undertaken work on Uganda with that in view. Secondly, and related to this, he is interested in how the ‘precolonial' is perceived and understood in modern Africa, especially given the negative connotations often attached to precolonial violence by modern political and economic elites. This is particularly fascinating given that at least some of those elites are themselves the products of violence and its long-term aftermath in the postcolonial era. The third strand of my work involves a re-examination of the relationship between Africa and Europe during the long nineteenth century. The culmination of that relationship, famously, was the so-called ‘scramble for Africa', between the 1870s and the 1910s, and I am in the process of revisiting that formative ‘moment' in the histories of both continents. But I am equally interested in the ways in which political, economic, and military upheavals in both continents during the nineteenth century were closely intertwined. Ultimately, I am seeking to understand Africa's revolutions during that era in a more global context. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ihshg/support

Hanan recently retired from her position as General Secretary for Northeast Africa for Danone.She was born in Egypt but has lived in many countries and her career has been far from to linear.Hanan chose to stay at home when she had her two children and was terrified when she returned to work. She felt as many women do - that the world had changed. However, Hanan persisted and, when she moved from Amsterdam to Saudi Arabia, had the courage to pitch a programme proposals directly to the head of a Saudi TV station.Hanan's story is a great reminder that we can do anything if we set our minds to it.I would love to hear any comments you might have on this episode and respond to any questions. You can find me on the Brave New World Facebook page, on Linkedin or on my website: www.ceciliapoullain.comCecilia PoullainFounder of Brave New WomenCoach - Empowering Women to Find their VoiceMusic: Stephen Marquis www.songsta.com.auEditing: Talal BourokiCecilia PoullainFounder of Brave New WomenCoach - Empowering Women to Find their Voice

FOLLOW TMP: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/themiddlepath_podcast/ TWITTER | https://twitter.com/middle_path_ Sh. Yassir Fazaga was born in Eritea in Northeast Africa and moved to the United States at the age of 15. He has a Bachelors Degree in Islamic Studies from the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in Fairfax, Virginia and has a Masters in Marriage & Family Counseling from California State University of Long Beach. He has completed his 2nd Masters in Middle Eastern Studies at UT Austin, Texas and is a licensed counselor. Sheikh Yassir has served as the Religious Leader of Orange County Islamic Foundation (OCIF) in Mission Viejo, California. He was the Director of Mental Health Department at Access California Social Services Agency in Anaheim, where he helped families with different challenges in life which include: domestic violence issues, communication problems, marital matters, generational gap, difficult teens, some mental and personality disorders, divorce, grief, and single parenting, among others. He has done numerous interviews about Islam on television and radio stations around the globe. He speaks on Islam and related topics for conferences, churches, high schools, colleges and universities. He served on the advisory board of the Islamic Studies program at Claremont Graduate School and is listed on the “Who is Who among America's Teachers” where the best students choose their best teachers and was featured on the Today Show on “Spirituality in America”. He was one of the co-hosts of weekly “WiseLiving” TV program and a regular guest speaker on Peace TV. Sh Yassir Fazaga is a unique talent in North America. His skill set of being a traditionally trained and experienced Imam along with being a clinically experienced and credentialed psychotherapist is extremely rare. He was one of the first to meld the two disciplines together about 20 years ago and continues to be one of a handful of people that have this experience. Due to his unique credentials, he is considered an expert in the field and has been speaking widely on the topic of Islam & Psychology for many years.

Sh. Yassir Fazaga was born in Eritea in Northeast Africa and moved to the United States at the age of 15. He has a Bachelors Degree in Islamic Studies from the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in Fairfax, Virginia and has a Masters in Marriage & Family Counseling from California State University of Long Beach. He has completed his 2nd Masters in Middle Eastern Studies at UT Austin, Texas and is a licensed counselor. Sheikh Yassir has served as the Religious Leader of Orange County Islamic Foundation (OCIF) in Mission Viejo, California. He was the Director of Mental Health Department at Access California Social Services Agency in Anaheim, where he helped families with different challenges in life which include: domestic violence issues, communication problems, marital matters, generational gap, difficult teens, some mental and personality disorders, divorce, grief, and single parenting, among others. He has done numerous interviews about Islam on television and radio stations around the globe. He speaks on Islam and related topics for conferences, churches, high schools, colleges and universities. He served on the advisory board of the Islamic Studies program at Claremont Graduate School and is listed on the “Who is Who among America's Teachers” where the best students choose their best teachers and was featured on the Today Show on “Spirituality in America”. He was one of the co-hosts of weekly “WiseLiving” TV program and a regular guest speaker on Peace TV. Sh Yassir Fazaga is a unique talent in North America. His skill set of being a traditionally trained and experienced Imam along with being a clinically experienced and credentialed psychotherapist is extremely rare. He was one of the first to meld the two disciplines together about 20 years ago and continues to be one of a handful of people that have this experience. Due to his unique credentials, he is considered an expert in the field and has been speaking widely on the topic of Islam & Psychology for many years.

Happy New Year Folks!!! (How long into the year can we continue to say that?!) We are bringing you some of the top stories from around the continent to neatly wrap up the end of 2021. We take you from Sudan in Northeast Africa, continue in East Africa with Ethiopia and even make a stop in South Africa. These stories are not at all exhaustive of the events that took place in Africa in the 4th quarter of 2021 so we employ you to keep updated on other news as well. Here is a breakdown of the stories we cover for further reading: The Fight for Sudan's Democracy The Ethiopian Civil War Desmond Tutu Covid in Africa The crisis in the Central African Republic Ngozi Okonjo Iweala becomes the first woman and African to be the head of the WTO Ex-President Zuma's legal history Thanks for listening. Email: podsaveafrica@gmail.com Website: saveafricapod.com Twitter: @p0dsaveafrica Instagram: @podsaveafrica --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pod-save-africa/message

Today, only fourspecies of hyenas remain, the aardwolf, spotted hyena, striped hyena, and brownhyena. Today, we will talk about the aardwolf, the smallest of the fourspecies. Though it is a carnivore, or meat eater, aardwolves are insectivores,eating insects and their larvae. Aardwolves like termites in particular, andcan eat as many as a quarter of a million termites in one night.Aardwolves arevery thin, and look similar to the striped hyena. However, they have a slendermuzzle, or mouth, and they have yellowish-tan fur. There are bold, verticalstripes on their sides and legs. They have a mane that goes down the middle oftheir neck and back, and when the aardwolf feels threatened, it can raise itsmane to make itself look larger. They have large ears, like the striped hyena,and also a bushy tail.Aardwolves live inopen, dry areas and bushland, and try to stay away from mountains. They lookfor places where they can find a specific family of termites that they eat.There are two distinct populations of Aardwolves, one in South Africa, andanother in East and Northeast Africa. Because of this, there is a disagreementon whether Aardwolves are one species, or if the two populations are twodifferent subspecies.Aardwolves feedprimarily on termites, and they lick them off the ground, rather than digginginto their nests. Using their large ears, they can find termites because ofsounds they make, and also from smell, since soldier termites secret a scent.Using their long, sticky tongue, Aardwolves lick up termites. They make surenot to eat all of the termites, or destroy the nest, which means they have aconstant supply of food. Unlike other hyenas, they are not scavengers, and donot eat carrion. They have been seen eating by dead animals before, but theyare actually eating insects and larvae.For Wild Suzhou,I'm Ciana, thanks for listening and see you next time.

Check out Google books: ("The African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Fuedal Japan," by Thomas Lockley & Geoffrey Girard)...Samurai. Legend. The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai, and his astonishing journey from Northeast Africa to the heights of Japanese society. When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned (in local tradition) Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan's martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society. In the four hundred years since, Yasuke has been known in Japan largely as a legendary, perhaps mythical figure. Now African Samurai presents the never-before-told biography of this unique figure of the sixteenth century, one whose travels between countries, cultures and classes offers a new perspective on race in world history and a vivid portrait of life in medieval Japan.

Gabriele Delmonaco talks about A Chance in Life an International Non-Profit that Provides Food, Shelter, and Education for Underprivileged and Refugee Youth Throughout the World. This is episode 384 of Teaching Learning Leading K12, an audio podcast. President and Executive Director of A Chance In Life since February 2015, Gabriele Delmonaco heads the national operations of the organization from its New York office, reporting directly to the Chairman of the Board. He is leading the organization in our next phase of growth and international expansion. A Chance In Life is an international nonprofit that provides shelter, food and education - including financial literacy - for underprivileged and refugee youth throughout the world including here in the United States. Originally known as Boys and Girls Towns, the organization came into being 75 years ago after World War II.  Its goal was to provide a home to vast numbers of children who had been displaced and to give them “a chance in life.”  Not only did the institution offer them a home, but its unique system of “self-government” gave these young people the opportunity to pursue an education and to develop the confidence and the creativity they need to become active participants in their communities.  Fast forward to today and this international nonprofit is providing shelter and support to nearly 4,000 homeless, vulnerable and refugee youth in nine countries with plans to open one in the United States in the coming weeks.  ACIL's unique model of self-governance lets youth have complete control over how their town runs - even forming their own currency. They not only learn to think critically, but how to speak out for themselves and those around them.     Gabriele, a native Italian, moved to the United States in 2001 from Rome. He possesses more than 25 years' experience in the non-profit field with a proven track record as a chief operating officer and as a fundraiser, managing multinational teams.   Most recently, Gabriele served the Jesuits of the New York and New England Provinces as VP for Advancement and Communications, leading a successful merger of the two provinces. Previously, he served as Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. branch of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), an international agency that provides humanitarian aid and pastoral support in the Middle East, Northeast Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Gabriele also worked at the Vatican as Associate Director of Finance for eight years. Gabriele holds an MBA in marketing and a BS in organizational management from Nyack College in New York. He resides in New York City with his family. Awesome episode! Thanks for listening! Enjoy. But wait... Could you do me a favor? Please go to my website at https://www.stevenmiletto.com/reviews/ or open the podcast app that you are listening to me on and would you rate and review the podcast? That would be Awesome. Thanks! Remember to take a look at NVTA (National Virtual Teacher Association) The NVTA Certification Process was created to establish a valid and reliable research-based teacher qualification training process for virtual teachers to enhance their teaching and develop their ongoing reflective skills to improve teaching capacity. NVTA is an affiliate sponsor of Teaching Learning Leading K12, by following the link above if you purchase a program, Teaching Learning Leading K12 will get a commission and you will help the show continue to grow.  By the way, don't forget to go to my other affiliate sponsor Boone's Titanium Rings at www.boonerings.com. When you order a ring use my code - TLLK12 - at checkout to get 10% off and help the podcast get a commission. Also, Don't forget to register your team at www.ImpactEducationSummit.com  to participate in the Impact Education Summit June 23rd with Suzy Pepper Rollins – 3 time author & national presenter.   Thanks!!! Oh by the way, you can help support Teaching Learning Leading K12 by buying me a soft drink. Just go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/stevenmiletto  Have an awesome day! Connect & Learn More: https://www.achanceinlife.org/ https://www.achanceinlife.org/leadership.html https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEM3axhXQzbOptNV0Sg8FZw https://www.instagram.com/achanceinlife/ https://www.facebook.com/achanceinlife/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/achanceinlife-org/ https://twitter.com/achance_inlife 212-980-8770 Length - 49:52

Humanity realized we could do more with stone tools some two and a half million years ago. We made stone hammers and cutting implements made by flaking stone, sharpening deer bone, and sticks, sometimes sharpened into spears. It took 750,000 years, but we figured out we could attach those to sticks to make hand axes and other cutting tools about 1.75 million years ago. Humanity had discovered the first of six simple machines, the wedge.  During this period we also learned to harness fire. Because fire frightened off animals that liked to cart humans off in the night the population increased, we began to cook food, and the mortality rate increased.  More humans. We learned to build rafts and began to cross larger bodies of water. We spread. Out of Africa, into the Levant, up into modern Germany, France, into Asia, Spain, and up to the British isles by 700,000 years ago. And these humanoid ancestors traded. Food, shell beads, bone tools, even arrows.  By 380,000-250,000 years ago we got the first anatomically modern humans. The oldest of those remains has been found in modern day Morocco in Northern Africa. We also have evidence of that spread from the African Rift to Turkey in Western Asia to the Horn of Africa in Ethiopia, Eritraea, across the Red Sea and then down into Israel, South Africa, the Sudan, the UAE, Oman, into China, Indonesia, and the Philopenes.  200,000 years ago we had cored stone on spears, awls, and in the late Stone Age saw the emergence of craftsmanship and cultural identity. This might be cave paintings or art made of stone. We got clothing around 170,000 years ago, when the area of the Sahara Desert was still fertile ground and as people migrated out of there we got the first structures of sandstone blocks at the border of Egypt and modern Sudan. As societies grew, we started to decorate, first with seashell beads around 80,000, with the final wave of humans leaving Africa just in time for the Toba Volcano supereruption to devastate human populations 75,000 years ago.  And still we persisted, with cave art arriving 70,000 years ago. And our populations grew.  Around 50,000 years ago we got the first carved art and the first baby boom. We began to bury our dead and so got the first religions. In the millennia that followed we settled in Australia, Europe, Japan, Siberia, the Arctic Circle, and even into the Americas. This time period was known as the Great Leap Forward and we got microliths, or small geometric blades shaped into different forms. This is when the oldest settlements have been found from Egypt, the Italian peninsula, up to Germany, Great Britain, out to Romania, Russia, Tibet, and France. We got needles and deep sea fishing. Tuna sashimi anyone? By 40,000 years ago the neanderthals went extinct and modern humans were left to forge our destiny in the world. The first aboriginal Australians settled the areas we now call Sydney and Melbourne. We started to domesticate dogs and create more intricate figurines, often of a Venus. We made ivory beads, and even flutes of bone. We slowly spread. Nomadic peoples, looking for good hunting and gathering spots. In the Pavolv Hills in the modern Czech Republic they started weaving and firing figurines from clay. We began to cremate our dead. Cultures like the Kebaran spread, to just south of Haifa. But as those tribes grew, there was strength in numbers.  The Bhimbetka rock shelters began in the heart of modern-day India, with nearly 800 shelters spread across 8 square miles from 30,000 years ago to well into the Bronze Age. Here, we see elephants, deer, hunters, arrows, battles with swords, and even horses. A snapshot into the lives of of generation after generation. Other cave systems have been found throughout the world including Belum in India but also Germany, France, and most other areas humans settled. As we found good places to settle, we learned that we could do more than forage and hunt for our food.  Our needs became more complex. Over those next ten thousand years we built ovens and began using fibers, twisting some into rope, making clothing out of others, and fishing with nets. We got our first semi-permanent settlements, such as Dolce Vestonice in the modern day Czech Republic, where they had a kiln that could be used to fire clay, such as the Venus statue found there - and a wolf bone possibly used as a counting stick. The people there had woven cloth, a boundary made of mammoth bones, useful to keep animals out - and a communal bonfire in the center of the village. A similar settlement in modern Siberia shows a 24,000 year old village. Except the homes were a bit more subterranean.  Most parts of the world began to cultivate agriculture between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago according to location. During this period we solved the age old problem of food supplies, which introduced new needs. And so we saw the beginnings of pottery and textiles. Many of the cultures for the next 15,000 years are now often referred to based on the types of pottery they would make. These cultures settled close to the water, surrounding seas or rivers. And we built large burial mounds. Tools from this time have been found throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and in modern Mumbai in India. Some cultures were starting to become sedentary, such as the Natufian culture we collected grains, started making bread, cultivating cereals like rye, we got more complex socioeconomics, and these villages were growing to support upwards of 150 people.  The Paleolithic time of living in caves and huts, which began some two and a half million years ago was ending. By 10,000 BCE, Stone Age technology evolved to include axes, chisels, and gouges. This is a time many parts of the world entered the Mesolithic period. The earth was warming and people were building settlements. Some were used between cycles of hunting. As the plants we left in those settlements grew more plentiful, people started to stay there more, some becoming permanent inhabitants. Settlements like in Nanzhuangtou, China. Where we saw dogs and stones used to grind and the cultivation of seed grasses.  The mesolithic period is when we saw a lot of cave paintings and engraving. And we started to see a division of labor. A greater amount of resources led to further innovation. Some of the inventions would then have been made in multiple times and places again and again until we go them right.  One of those was agriculture.  The practice of domesticating barley, grains, and wheat began in the millennia leading up to 10,000 BCE and spread up from Northeast Africa and into Western Asia and throughout. There was enough of a surplus that we got the first granary by 9500 BCE. This is roughly the time we saw the first calendar circles emerge. Tracking time would be done first with rocks used to form early megalithic structures.  Domestication then spread to animals with sheep coming in around the same time, then cattle, all of which could be done in a pastoral or somewhat nomadic lifestyle. Humans then began to domesticate goats and pigs by 8000 BCE, in the Middle East and China. Something else started to appear in the eight millennium BCE: a copper pendant was found in Iraq. Which brings us to the Neolithic Age. And people were settling along the Indus River, forming larger complexes such as Mehrgarh, also from 7000 BCE. The first known dentistry dates back to this time, showing drilled molars. People in the Timna Valley, located in modern Israel also started to mine copper. This led us to the second real crafting specialists after pottery. Metallurgy was born.  Those specialists sought to improve their works. Potters started using wheels, although we wouldn't think to use them vertically to pull a cart until somewhere between 6000 BCE and 4000 BCE. Again, there are six simple machines. The next is the wheel and axle.  Humans were nomadic, or mostly nomadic, up until this point but settlements and those who lived in them were growing. We starting to settle in places like Lake Nasser and along the river banks from there, up the Nile to modern day Egypt. Nomadic people settled into areas along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers with Maghzaliyah being another village supporting 150 people. They began to building using packed earth, or clay, for walls and stone for foundations. This is where one of the earliest copper axes has been found. And from those early beginnings, copper and so metallurgy spread for nearly 5,000 years.  Cultures like the Yangshao culture in modern China first began with slash and burn cultivation, or plant a crop until the soil stops producing and move on. They built rammed earth homes with thatched, or wattle, roofs. They were the first to show dragons in artwork. In short, with our bellies full, we could turn our attention to the crafts and increasing our standard of living. And those discoveries were passed from complex to complex in trade, and then in trade networks.  Still, people gotta' eat. Those who hadn't settled would raid these small villages, if only out of hunger. And so the cultural complexes grew so neolithic people could protect one another. Strength in numbers. Like a force multiplier.  By 6000 BCE we got predynastic cultures flourishing in Egypt. With the final remnants of the ice age retreating, raiders moved in on the young civilization complexes from the spreading desert in search of food. The area from the Nile Valley in northern Egypt, up the coast of the Mediterranean and into the Tigris and Euphrates is now known as the Fertile Crescent - and given the agriculture and then pottery found there, known as the cradle of civilization. Here, we got farming. We weren't haphazardly putting crops we liked in the grounds but we started to irrigate and learn to cultivate.  Generations passed down information about when to plant various crops was handed down. Time was kept by the season and the movement of the stars. People began settling into larger groups in various parts of the world. Small settlements at first. Rice was cultivated in China, along the Yangtze River. This led to the rise of the Beifudi and Peiligang cultures, with the first site at Jaihu with over 45 homes and between 250 and 800 people. Here, we see raised altars, carved pottery, and even ceramics.  We also saw the rise of the Houli culture in Neolithic China. Similar to other sites from the time, we see hunting, fishing, early rice and millet production and semi-subterranean housing. But we also see cooked rice, jade artifacts, and enough similarities to show technology transfer between Chinese settlements and so trade. Around 5300 BCE we saw them followed by the Beixin culture, netting fish, harvesting hemp seeds, building burial sites away from settlements, burying the dead with tools and weapons. The foods included fruits, chicken and eggs,  and lives began getting longer with more nutritious diets. Cultures were mingling. Trading. Horses started to be tamed, spreading from around 5000 BCE in Kazakstan. The first use of the third simple machine came around 5000 BCE when the lever was used first, although it wouldn't truly be understood until Archimedes.  Polished stone axes emerged in Denmark and England. Suddenly people could clear out larger and larger amounts of forest and settlements could grow. Larger settlements meant more to hunt, gather, or farm food - and more specialists to foster innovation. In todays Southern Iraq this led to the growth of a city called Eridu.  Eridu was the city of the first Sumerian kings. The bay on the Persian Gulf allowed trading and being situated at the mouth of the Euphrates it was at the heart of the cradle of civilization. The original neolithic Sumerians had been tribal fishers and told stories of kings from before the floods, tens of thousands of years before the era. They were joined by the Samarra culture, which dates back to 5,700 BCE, to the north who brought knowledge of irrigation and nomadic herders coming up from lands we would think of today as the Middle East. The intermixing of skills and strengths allowed the earliest villages to be settled in 5,300 BCE and grow into an urban center we would consider a city today.  This was the beginning of the Sumerian Empire Going back to 5300, houses had been made of mud bricks and reed. But they would build temples, ziggurats, and grow to cover over 25 acres with over 4,000 people. As the people moved north and gradually merged with other cultural complexes, the civilization grew.  Uruk grew to over 50,000 people and is the etymological source of the name Iraq. And the population of all those cities and the surrounding areas that became Sumer is said to have grown to over a million people. They carved anthropomorphic furniture. They made jewelry of gold and created crude copper plates. They made music with flutes and stringed instruments, like the lyre. They used saws and drills. They went to war with arrows and spears and daggers. They used tablets for writing, using a system we now call cuneiform. Perhaps they wrote to indicate lunar months as they were the first known people to use 12 29-30 day months. They could sign writings with seals, which they are also credited with. How many months would it be before Abraham of Ur would become the central figure of the Old Testament in the Bible?  With scale they needed better instruments to keep track of people, stock, and other calculations. The Sumerian abacus - later used by the Egyptians and then the device we know of as an abacus today entered widespread use in the sixth century in the Persian empire. More and more humans were learning larger precision counting and numbering systems.  They didn't just irrigate their fields; they built levees to control floodwaters and canals to channel river water into irrigation networks. Because water was so critical to their way of life, the Sumerian city-states would war and so built armies.  Writing and arithmetic don't learn themselves. The Sumerians also developed the concept of going to school for twelve years. This allowed someone to be a scribe or writer, which were prestigious as they were as necessary in early civilizations as they are today.  In the meantime, metallurgy saw gold appear in 4,000 BCE. Silver and lead in 3,000 BCE, and then copper alloys. Eventually with a little tin added to the copper. By 3000 BCE this ushered in the Bronze Age. And the need for different resources to grow a city or empire moved centers of power to where those resources could be found.  The Mesopotamian region also saw a number of other empires rise and fall. The Akkadians, Babylonians (where Hammurabi would eventually give the first written set of laws), Chaldeans, Assyrians, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and one of the greatest empires in history, the Persians, who came out of villages in Modern Iran that went back past 10,000 BCE to rule much of the known world at the time. The Persians were able to inherit all of the advances of the Sumerians, but also the other cultures of Mesopotamia and those they traded with. One of their trading partners that the Persians conquered later in the life of the empire, was Egypt.  Long before the Persians and then Alexander conquered Egypt they were a great empire. Wadi Halfa had been inhabited going back 100,000 years ago. Industries, complexes, and cultures came and went. Some would die out but most would merge with other cultures. There is not much archaeological evidence of what happened from 9,000 to 6,000 BCE but around this time many from  the Levant and Fertile Crescent migrated into the area bringing agriculture, pottery, then metallurgy.  These were the Nabta then Tasian then Badarian then Naqada then Amratian and in around 3500 BCE we got the Gerzean who set the foundation for what we may think of as Ancient Egypt today with a drop in rain and suddenly people moved more quickly from the desert like lands around the Nile into the mincreasingly metropolitan centers. Cities grew and with trade routes between Egypt and Mesopotamia they frequently mimicked the larger culture.  From 3200 BCE to 3000 BCE we saw irrigation begin in protodynastic Egypt. We saw them importing obsidian from Ethiopia, cedar from Lebanon, and grow. The Canaanites traded with them and often through those types of trading partners, Mesopotamian know-how infused the empire. As did trade with the Nubians to the south, who had pioneered astrological devices. At this point we got Scorpion, Iry-Hor, Ka, Scorpion II, Double Falcon. This represented the confederation of tribes who under Narmer would unite Egypt and he would become the first Pharaoh. They would all be buried in Umm El Qa'ab, along with kings of the first dynasty who went from a confederation to a state to an empire.  The Egyptians would develop their own written language, using hieroglyphs. They took writing to the next level, using ink on papyrus. They took geometry and mathematics. They invented toothpaste. They built locked doors. They took the calendar to the next level as well, giving us 364 day years and three seasons. They'd of added a fourth if they'd of ever visited Minnesota, don'tchaknow. And many of those Obelisks raided by the Romans and then everyone else that occupied Egypt - those were often used as sun clocks. They drank wine, which is traced in its earliest form to China.  Imhotep was arguably one of the first great engineers and philosophers. Not only was he the architect of the first pyramid, but he supposedly wrote a number of great wisdom texts, was a high priest of Ra, and acted as a physician. And for his work in the 27th century BCE, he was made a deity, one of the few outside of the royal family of Egypt to receive such an honor.  Egyptians used a screw cut of wood around 2500 BCE, the fourth simple machine. They used it to press olives and make wine.  They used the fifth to build pyramids, the inclined plane. And they helped bring us the last of the simple machines, the pulley. And those pyramids. Where the Mesopotamians built Ziggurats, the Egyptians built more than 130 pyramids from 2700 BCE to 1700 BCE. And the Great Pyramid of Giza would remain the largest building in the world for 3,800 years. It is built out of 2.3 million blocks, some of which weigh as much as 80 tonnes. Can you imagine 100,000 people building a grave for you?  The sundial emerged in 1,500 BCE, presumably in Egypt - and so while humans had always had limited lifespans, our lives could then be divided up into increments of time.  The Chinese cultural complexes grew as well. Technology and evolving social structures allowed the first recorded unification of all those neolithic peoples when You the Great and his father brought flood control, That family, as the Pharos had, claimed direct heritage to the gods, in this case, the Yellow Emperor. The Xia Dynasty began in China in 2070 BCE. They would flourish until 1600 BCE when they were overthrown by the Shang who lasted until 1046 when they were overthrown by the Zhou - the last ancient Chinese dynasty before Imperial China.  Greek civilizations began to grow as well. Minoan civilization from 1600 to 1400 BCE grew to house up to 80,000 people in Knossos. Crete is a large island a little less than half way from Greece to Egypt. There are sites throughout the islands south of Greece that show a strong Aegean and Anatolian Cycladic culture emerging from 4,000 BCE but given the location, Crete became the seat of the Minoans, first an agricultural community and then merchants, facilitating trade with Egypt and throughout the Mediterranean. The population went from less than 2,000 people in 2500 BCE to up to 100,000 in 1600 BCE. They were one of the first to be able to import knowledge, in the form of papyrus from Egypt. The Mycenaeans in mainland Greece, along with earthquakes that destroyed a number of the buildings on Crete, contributed to the fall of the Minoan civilization and alongside the Hittites, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Babylonians, we got the rise of the first mainland European empire: Mycenaean Greece. Sparta would rise, Athens, Corinth, Thebes. After conquering Troy in the Trojan War the empire went into decline with the Bronze Age collapse. We can read about the war in the Iliad and the return home in the Odyssey, written by Homer nearly 400 years later.  The Bronze Age ended in around 1,200 BCE - as various early empires outgrew the ability to rule ancient metropolises and lands effectively, as climate change forced increasingly urbanized centers to de-urbanize, as the source of tin dried up, and as smaller empires banded together to attack larger empires. Many of these empires became dependent on trade. Trade spread ideas and technology and science. But tribalism and warfare disrupted trade routes and fractured societies. We had to get better at re-using copper to build new things. The fall of cultures caused refugees, as we see today. It's likely a conflagration of changing cultures and what we now call Sea People caused the collapse. These Sea People include refugees, foreign warlords, and mercenaries used by existing empires. These could have been the former Philistines, Minoans, warriors coming down from the Black Sea, the Italians, people escaping a famine on the Anatolian peninsula, the Mycenaeans as they fled the Dorian invasion, Sardinians, Sicilians, or even Hittites after the fall of that empire. The likely story is a little bit of each of these. But the Neo-Assyrians were weakened in order to take Mesopotamia and then the Neo-Babylonians were. And finally the Persian Empire would ultimately be the biggest winners. But at the end of the Bronze Age, we had all the components for the birth of the Iron Age. Humans had writing, were formally educating our young, we'd codified laws, we mined, we had metallurgy, we tamed nature with animal husbandry, we developed dense agriculture, we architected, we warred, we destroyed, we rebuilt, we healed, and we began to explain the universe. We started to harness multiple of the six simple machines to do something more in the world. We had epics that taught the next generation to identify places in the stars and pass on important knowledge to the next generation.  And precision was becoming more important. Like being able to predict an eclipse. This led Chaldean astronomers to establish Saros, a period of 223 synodic months to predict the eclipse cycle. And instead of humans computing those times, within just a few hundred years, Archimedes would document the use of and begin putting math behind many of the six simple devices so we could take interdisciplinary approaches to leveraging compound and complex machines to build devices like the Antikythera mechanism. We were computing.  We also see that precision in the way buildings were created.  After the collapse of the Bronze Age there would be a time of strife. Warfare, famines, disrupted trade. The great works of the Pharaohs, Mycenaeans and other world powers of the time would be put on hold until a new world order started to form. As those empires grew, the impacts would be lasting and the reach would be greater than ever.  We'll add a link to the episode that looks at these, taking us from the Bronze Age to antiquity. But humanity slowly woke up to proto-technology. And certain aspects of our lives have been inherited over so many generations from then. 

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Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week, we are joined by Antoine Bandele, author, publisher, and a lot-of-other-stuff-er. He's a busy guy who knew what he wanted out of the fantasy maps for his series world of Esowon, and found help on Fiverr to see it realized. You'll want to start out, if possible, with his page of maps open in a browser: https://www.antoinebandele.com/esowon-maps We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 43: The Maps of Esowon, Cartography with Antoine Bandele transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00] K: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. My name’s Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisition editor for Parvus Press.   R: And I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore and today we have a very, very awesome guest. This is Antoine Bandele. He happened to write a book that I happened to read recently and when Kaelyn suggested that we do a whole series on artwork, I said,” Ooh! We should talk about cartography, and I have the book and the author for this episode.”   K: Yeah, we said Artwork August, it became more “Artwork Series.” But cartography is a really important and, I think frequently underappreciated, certainly, part of a book. You know, as Antoine mentions in the episode, fantasy books especially, it’s almost expected that you have some kind of a map or something in there.    R: It might be overlooked as far as the work that goes into it, but if it’s not there, it will not be overlooked.   K: Yeah.   R: Your fans will be talking to you about, “Excuse me?! You invented a world?!”   K: Visual representation of this world.   R: Yeah. So this was a series of maps at the beginning of the book that I read, which was By Sea and Sky, an Esowon story, and there were a series of maps at the beginning, including a diagram of one of the vessels in, as the title kind of gives it away by sea and sky, so there’s an airship and there’s a great, even just a layout of the airship. Almost plan-like, ship...plans.   K: A schematic.   R: Schematic! That works. I took interior design for a year, I don’t know what to call the drawings. Hey! Drawings! That’s what we called them.   K: Pictures. Pictures of boats.   R: Yes. So, almost like a draftperson’s drawing of an airship concept. So those are all in the beginning of the book and, when I opened them, I was just like—I don’t know if they loaded. Because you know an eBook will load to a certain page when you open it and, like, you have to go back to see the preceding pages.   I always go back to the cover because I always wanna see how the cover looks on an eReader because this is just a minor point of mine. And I happened to see the artwork, the cartography. Whether it was loaded after the automatic page one , or before. I was like, “Oh! These are nice! These are really nice,” because Kaelyn and I have talked about maps before for books. Colin and I have talked about maps before for books. I did my map for my books and that was a whole heck of a project and I wish I had somebody else to do the work for me because it’s not easy.   K: I think we think, like, “Oh, whatever. You just sit down and you draw some borders, some boundaries, some oceans. Throw some mountains in there, I guess, and you’re done. It’s not that. It’s not easy at all. It’s certainly not that easy. There’s a lot of considerations that go into building a world and then putting it on a piece of paper. You can be an excellent artist, are you that good a cartographer, though?   R: Cartographer’s a big word and it’s a big responsibility.   K: So, anyway, we had an absolutely fantastic time talking to Antoine. Hopefully we’ll have him back at another date because oh my god does that guy do a lot of stuff.   R: Yep, yep.   K: So, anyway, take a listen and we hope you enjoy.   [intro music plays]   R: I just wanted to double check the pronunciation. A: Bandele. Kind of like ándale, with a B.   R: Okay.   A: It’s actually a mistranslation. [laughs] It really should be Bamidele, but I guess somewhere, the naming coming over to America, it got—   R: A syllable fell off?   A: Yeah. So now it’s Bandele.    K: So, Antoine, do you wanna take a moment and introduce yourself to our listeners?   A: Yeah, so my name’s Antoine. I do many-a-things but the thing that’s most relevant to today is that I am a publisher and writer and I do fantasy works, particularly fantasy works that are inspired by pre-colonial African myth and folklore, anything of that nature.   K: And we brought you on today, specifically to talk about a certain special kind of artwork that pops up in especially fantasy books sometimes.   A: Yeah,especially fantasy.   K: Yeah! Maps and cartography. Rekka and I wanted to do a series on artwork in books. We’ve been threatening to do an episode about cover art for a long time. And as we were working through this, we were kind of like, “You know, there’s so much art that goes into a book that you don’t think about or that we take for granted and I think one of those, definitely, are the maps that you find in the books. Because they add so much to the stories and they give the reader a great sense of the world that they’re about to explore and just helps set the stage.   I think that they’re—well, everything’s relative in terms of difficulty, but designing a map is very different than designing cover art.    R: Yeah.   A: I would suspect. I don’t even know. I just hire people to do it, so I dunno.   R: Well that’s one of the smart things, right? Is making sure that you stick to the areas that your expertise is heavier in, and don’t try to be Master of Everything. So when we were talking about this Artwork August, I had just finished reading your book By Sea and Sky. So, I just served up these maps into my face and enjoyed them and then we started talking about doing artwork.   I instantly said, “Oh! You know what great maps I’ve seen? And they’re not like in an old, 60-year-old Lord of the Rings edition. Let’s talk about some current stuff.”   A: Mhm.   R: These are really great maps and I didn’t even know at the time, and it blew me away, but you found these on Fiverr?   A: Yes, so a woman named Maria Gondolfo, who actually is from Italy, which is awesome about working remote or online, is that you can work with people all across the world. Like, my first book, I think my editor was from Texas and then one of my beta readers was from the East Coast. I think York was one of them. And my cover artist is from Bangkok and then I have my cartographer, she’s from Italy. So it’s a lot of people all over the world who get to work with me.   She is renflowergrapx on Fiverr. And I got really lucky because I think she was maybe the first person I found on Fiverr.   K: Oh, wow. Okay.   A: Just by searching up “fantasy maps.” I think my brother had directed me there because he usually goes there for Dungeons and Dragons maps, and that’s what she usually does. She does Dungeons and Dragons campaign maps for people.   K: Very cool. Yeah.   A: And I was like, “Oh! Do you also do it for books? Or have you done it?” She’s like, “Yeah, I’ve done a few books before. Just give me what—” Oh! I should show you guys this! I actually have drawings. So, I usually would do a sketch-up of the map itself and then she goes and does her amazing work. I should find that.   K: Getting a map together—as you’re grabbing these sketching that you did—it’s no small thing. It’s a commitment. It’s a very difficult—I think a lot of people underestimate how difficult it is, even as the writer, to sit down and plan out the map in your head. What made you decide, “Yes, this is the book that I wanna take this on.”       A: So the reason I need maps is that, yes, it’s a fantasy fable. It’s actually expected from the fantasy reader to have a map and it helps, as you were saying before, contextualize the world. Especially when people start talking about locations in the world. It’s like, “What? What are you referring to? I don’t know this world.” But you can refer to the map and be like, “Oh! He’s talking about that little corner in the north!”    So the way I do my maps, is I really just take from real world landscapes and basically just do copy-pasting. So I’ll take a sheet of clean paper and then I’ll have a section, like, I think some of the islands are based on some SOutheast Asian islands. Not the big ones you would recognize, but the little ones that are off to the size. And then I just blow them up to be bigger. I’m like, alright cool, and then I do that. And the benefit of that is that you’re getting a natural land formation versus it just being completely out of your mind, in which case sometimes that can come out with mistakes and that sort of a thing. So I just do that, mostly as a way to help the reader figure out what this world is and what it’s about.   K: And so you’re starting—rather than starting from scratch, you’re drawing inspiration from existing geography—   A: Correct.   K: But this is a fantasy world, things are gonna exist there that don’t quite exist in South Asian islands.    A: Right, exactly. Well, ‘cause I don’t have a full world map right now because I’m building out the world section by section and then connecting it later.   K: I was gonna ask, did you sit down and figure this out all at once or are you kind of adding a new land as you need to?   A: Yeah, I add new land until the world map is filled out. So, for looking at the Esowon Esterlands map. If you turn it clockwise, you might notice that landscape, possibly. It’s a little scrunched up, but if you look at it, it is basically Panama.   R: Okay. Yeah.   K: Yep, yep.   A: The space between South America and Central America.   K: Alright, yes, I can see it.   A: But flipped the other way so it looks a little more reminiscent of Northeast Africa and Arabia.   R: Yeah.   A: And then, also, the middle islands are based on the Carribean, so it’s inserting the West Indies in the Red Sea, basically. But, again, making a fantasy of it because that stuff doesn’t necessarily exist. Even that, you know, the indication of Octa, that’s supposed to be Egypt and the Delta Nile, that’s supposed to look like the Nile, but it’s obviously not.    Victoria Falls is kind of in that bottom section. So it’s very much inspired, and this one in particular I did that because I, specifically was going the Song of Ice and Fire route—And that’s actually what George R. R. Martin did. Westeros is basically just the UK turned upside down.   K: Yep, and stacked on top of each other a little bit.   A: Exactly, and there are some differences to meet the standards of Westeros, but that’s essentially the basis for what I did for this, you know, making it somewhat familiar but then still being its own thing in a fantasy realm.   K: Yeah, and for reference, if you’re wondering what we’re talking about, we’re on Antoine’s website where he has all of the maps from the books displayed on there. And a link to find the cartographer who did them. They’re very impressive.   R: And that link to this page will be in the show notes. We should’ve said that at the top so that people could bring him up while they listen, if they’re not driving. Because who commutes anymore?   [A and K laugh]   A: Right.   R: Yeah. So you went to Fiverr. Was that your first stop looking for a cartographer?   A: Yeah, that was definitely my first. I think I was first flirting with the idea of doing it myself and then I was like, “Nah, I’m not gonna do it myself.” Because I realized very quickly, as you were saying, it’s actually more complex than you would actually expect.   R: Oh yeah.   A: And there’s actually a lot of rules to cartography that people don’t think of. Like, the way the rivers flow, they have to come off mountains. Stuff like that. The way port cities usually are. There’s a lot of little nuances that people don’t really recognize. I definitely just went to Fiverr and I just got really lucky. I honestly, my first search—I might’ve looked at a few people, but then Renflower was a standout for me, for sure. She had an option for standard black and white and she had a full color and and I saw her examples and I was like, “I don’t think I have to look anymore! Lemme just, like, reach out to her and see if she’ll do it.”   K: This is it!   [11:44]    R: Nailed it. A: And then what’s really awesome, and she surprised me on this because By Sea and Sky, it features airships. And I was looking and I was like, “Aww, I’m probably gonna have to find a new person, because she only does maps,” right? But that’s my thinking. I was like, “Well, hey, I need like an airship. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that before…” and she’s like, “Yeah! I love doing them!” She says it gets kind of old to just do her maps, you know, week in and week out. And she was really excited. She, actually I think uses it as an example or whatever now.    K: Oh, awesome.   A: I needed that in particular because I was writing the third act of By Sea and Sky which takes place, there’s like a battle sequence at the end. I was like, “Oh, man. I need to know, solidly, what the landscape of the—” Basically I had to know which level everybody’s on, how are they getting trapped—   R: What room’s above them and under them, yeah.   A: Yeah! Exactly! So I got her to do that and, again, I got references, something like that. I was like, “Is this kinda like the—” I describe it as looking like a ship, but it flies and has like the sails on the sides so it can fly and that kinda stuff. And the different rooms and where the captain’s quarters is and the mess hall and all that kinda stuff. So that was a lot of fun for her and for me.   R: So this sort of comes from her experience doing D&D maps, I assume—   A: Right, exactly.   R: This was kind of laid out where, you actually could, if you printed it out big enough you could do a campaign through the ship, reenacting the battle from the third act.   A: You definitely could.   R: Yeah. Yeah, and it’s great. There’s a kind of isometric view of the ship, where you get the wow factor of what the ship looks like with the lateral sails and the more traditional sails, and then you get the deck structure. And then you get the breakdown, floor by floor, almost like architectural drawings.   A: Right. And that’s because she wanted to feel like it was in the world, so some of the names you see on the bottom right are actually characters in the world, the engineers who built out—    K: Ohh!   R: Oh, yes!   A: Very, very small in the bottom right corner—   K: Very cool!   R: I didn’t even try reading it because it was so small.   A: Janaan Malouf, Ismad al-Kindi, who some of them actually show up in the book, like Ismad al-Kindi is the engineer that we know in the story itself. Janaan is someone we meet in book two. But these are actual, in the year of The Viper, the year of 3582. So she made it feel like it was in-universe, except for the typeface with the navigation and whatever that looks very much like it’s us typing that in, versus it being written.   But, otherwise, it’s supposed to be like an in-universe kind of blueprint.    R: And there’s something to be said for legibility, too, if you want someone to read that.   A: Exactly. You gotta be able to read it, though.   R: I mean, we all assume it’s translated into English and maybe it’s also translated into a serif font—   A: Exactly!!   R: So. Yeah.   A: Right.   K: So, you got on Fiverr, you found Maria. What is this first conversation like, while you’re trying to explain and describe this.   A: Oh my god. Well, she—so most Fiverr professionals do this, where they’ll ask you to provide an explanation, for what you want, so there’ll be boxes of, “Do you have fantasy examples that you want your maps to look like?” Because she does several different kinds of styles. “Please tell me a little bit about your story, what is it about? What’s the landscape like? What’s some of the history behind the landscape.” So you explain all this, you fill out the boxes and then you have a conversation.    Well, first, she has to accept it. So when you send it off, you’d be like, “Okay, well, is it cool? Would you wanna work with me?” She says yes or no. Yes. Then you continue forward and then she takes, however long, I’m not sure how long her thing is on her website right now, but I think when I did it, it was like five to ten days, or something like that? I’m not sure. She’s like really popular now. I think she even has a Level 2 badge or something like that.   K: OH, great!   A: Or something to that. I can’t remember, but… So we do that and we talk together, and she’ll send me a rough and I’ll maybe have adjustments. We’ll go back and forth until we both are happy with our final product, and it just goes on like that.   K: Yeah, and actually, as a call back to the previous episode we did with Colin Coyle, who does most of the art direction for Parvus Press, you guys have to have a contract or an agreement in place. When you say you’re talking to Maria, you have to check all of these boxes, there’s gotta be something set up.  You don’t just, you know, hand someone something and say, “Hey, I want it to vaguely look like this,” and then you send them some money and you get back you—   A, laughing: Yeah, no.   R: And Fiverr’s got that kinda built in, don’t they?   K: Yeah.   A: Yes, they do. Fiverr, Upwork, any of those other freelancer websites, that’s kinda the benefit of it because you don’t have to do all the legal stuff because it’s already all done in the background for you. That’s the reason why it costs an extra fee to use those platforms because they’re basically managing all of that paperwork, kind of a thing.   R: Mhm.   K: But worth it, if that’s something you don’t want to worry about.   A: Right.   K: Because we—there’s a lot of really talented, awesome artists on Fiverr, obviously, but they’re—you don’t always know you’re running into and what their work ethic’s gonna be like. Sometimes more so than the work that they’re producing. So if you’re looking to have something like this done, and you’re considering, “Do I go out in the world and find someone, or do I go to somewhere like Fiverr?” There is that, at least to consider as the built-in protection that comes with Fiverr. They have all these policies in place already, so you don’t have to think or worry about that.   R: And there’s some motivation for the artists to maintain their reputation on the side, too.   K: Absolutely.   A: Right, exactly.   R: So these are color maps. What made you choose color? I mean, they’re very colorful, too. So, obviously, digital Kindles and eReaders and on your website, they look fantastic. But, traditionally in books, you’d have like a black and white interior print—   A: Just black and white, yeah.   R: Yeah, exactly. On the ink-readers you won’t see color. So was it a price difference and you just decided you wanted to see that color? Or, what was the decision as you’re art directing her? Even though she’s applying her know-how and all her experience creating these things, but at a certain point certain aesthetics are up to you. So, what were the decisions you made as you went through this?   A: So, that was just her having that option available. Because I was just expecting to go into it black and white, like it was. I mean, that’s just how it is. But then she had like a premium version that wasn’t that much more expensive and I saw her examples and I was like, “Oh, yeah! If color’s an option then let’s do color! Why not?”   R: Mhm.   A: But, of course, you can only see it if you’re looking at it on the Kindle app or if you’re looking at it on an eReader that has full color available to it. If you’re looking on a Paperwhite or anything like that, or on a printed page, you’re not gonna have that. But that’s all a thing, too, that she factors in is that she makes sure that the greyscale, once you put it in greyscale, does it still function? So when we do our passes between each other, she actually factors that in. Every time she sends me a color, it also shows up in black and white as well, to make sure that it functions in both formats.   R: Oh, excellent.   K: Very nice, yeah. More like lineart, kind of.   A: Yeah, ‘cause a lot of times amateur cartographers or amateur artists don’t consider that you can’t just flip a switch, necessarily—   R: Yup.   A: It’s a separate skillset to have black and white versus color.   R: That’s like all the Mad Max and Logan and other movies. They’re starting to release editions that are in black and white. And it’s not just that they desaturate the film, they actually go through and adjust it, just like they were producing a whole new movie, to really play with the tone and the volume and the color and stuff like that. It does take a lot of work to remove all that color and still have something that’s lovely to look at.     [19:26]   K: This is a far more complicated project that requires a different skillset than just: Well, I’m going to draw some mountains on a nebulous looking piece of land. Right? And, you mentioned before, there are rules. You can’t just have a river that just starts in the middle of a continent and also ends in the middle of a continent.   A: Right.   K: It’s gotta be, you know, flowing from somewhere. Presumably, even in your fantasy world, some laws of physics and geography do still apply.   A: Yep.   K: But Maria obviously has a lot of experience dealing with this and designing things. Was there anything that, you know, you said, “Okay, I want it to look like this,” and she went, “Oh no, that’s not how this works. It’s gotta look like this instead,”?   A, chuckles: Um, I don’t know if we ever had those conversations because I think we both came in, both knowing what had to go into it. I’m sure she—because she actually liked me as a client, I guess, because I communicate well or whatever. Because I guess who she usually deals with are people who don’t know that kind of thing? And for me to come in and already have all that set up—Like I said, I do my sketches before she does anything. I’m sure that’s a benefit to her. It’s just easier.   R: Yeah, I can tell you, as a graphic designer, most of the clients you get are, “Oh, I’ll know it’s right when I see it!” And then seventy iterations later, they still don’t like anything.   A, sympathetically: Yeah…   R: And you just want to walk away from the situation. But, yeah, if you know what you want to begin with and you have sketches, I mean that must be so much easier for her. And then she can apply what she knows, to take those sketches. So, your sketches were land shapes and continents, islands, and that sort of thing? Coastlines that you already had an idea of? Or was it mostly an orientation of: these cities are kind of grouped over here and they’re on a continent and this one’s on an island, and this one’s on a straight.   What level of understanding the actual geography of your world did you bring to begin with? Or was it mostly like, “I need a map. I only know that these two things are separated by water and are seventy miles apart.”   A: I was very specific on the land masses and how they looked. The main thing I didn’t really know was the in-between stuff like the mountain placement and forest placement and stuff like that. I knew I would say, like, I would have a drawing of this is greenish, this should be forest-y, this should be desert-y, but then she would go in with the details. So I was very, very—my notes were very specific about shapes and also what was forest, what was desert, and even the spacing.    Like, the spacing, in particular, was important for By Sea and Sky because the main island, Kidogom and Al Anim were a specific, plot-wise, not so much in book one, but in book three, there was a specific plot on the distance between the two, because there’s some travelling that goes on. So I was very, very specific about it. I think, at some point, she had it really close and I was like, “Oh no! They’re not that close together.” And that’s the reason, actually, we made the second version of it, the one that’s called Al Anim and Kidogo map, which shows a little bit better the distance between the two, versus the wider shot. So you can understand when that particular plot happens how much time and distance happens between those two.   R: I’m observing that you know things about book three that have to have bearing—   K: That’s exactly what I was gonna say! How do you deal with this with potential spoilers, because what you’re putting on a map are things that are significant to the story. Did you have any concerns with that, where you’re like, “I’ve gotta put this on here because it exists in the world, but I am then—”   A: Ohh, I see what you’re saying!   K: Yeah.   A: So, yes. Specifically, there are—The map that I have on the website now, those locations are only locations that are spoken in that particular book.    K: Gotcha.   A: So, in oncoming books, like in the second book I mention a newer location, the map gets updated with that little point of interest. So the particular thing with the whole distance between Kidogo and Al Anim, not really a spoiler so much. It just gives context for when that plot point comes up because it’s really just about how long it takes to get back to Kidogo because there’s a plotline of, “Hey, we gotta get back there! And how long is it gonna take for them to catch up to us?” kinda thing, that’s why that was very specific, those two locations in particular.   R: Yeah, and those two are mentioned throughout the book. It’s not like a—   A: Correct, correct. There are places on the map that should be mentioned, but aren’t specifically for that reason that you guys mentioned about it being spoilery. So each map is different.   K: So you just go the method where, “I’m leaving this stuff off and when I need you to know about it, I’ll let you know about it.”   A: Yes. And that’s exactly the same way I write, too. I don’t present every piece of worldbuilding. I was just talking to another author because I work with a lot of authors within the same space of this world that I’m building out, and they’re like, “Whoa! You know so much about this, this, and that!” And I’m like, “Yeah, there’s just no point of putting it in that story because it wasn’t relevant to the story.” But there’s all these pieces of worldbuilding.   I think George R. R. Martin said your worldbuilding should just be like a tip of an iceberg and then, you know, the reader should see the impressions of the iceberg underneath, but that’s not part of the story. So you don’t need to see the entire iceberg, you just need to see the little tip of it.   R: I think Kaelyn would appreciate that, as an editor.   K: It’s funny because Rekka and I talk about this all the time, that I’m a planner.    A: Me too.   K: I want to—and this comes from being an editor is that, especially if I’m working with somebody who’s working on a series, I need to know where this ends up. I need to know how it ends, but also geographically where it ends because I need to make sure that there isn’t something coming completely out of left field here. And what I was gonna ask is if you, along the George R. R. Martin lines, like to pepper little people and name places into your book for you to go back and reference and make relevant later—   A: Yep.   K: —I’ve used that trick with authors where it’s like, “Okay, listen, if you’re not sure how you’re getting yourself out of this hole yet, that’s fine. But you gotta lay some groundwork along the way. So if you wanna make it a throwaway line that could or could not mean anything, that’s fine. But you have to do something.” So that it’s not like: oh! It turns out there’s this entire lost continent that nobody knew about and it’s super-secret and special. That’s how you annoy people.   A: Mhm, yeah.   R: You wanna create a Chekov’s Island and you can put it in the map, but not in the book.   K: Yes, yes exactly.   R: So, it was that planning ahead which was more my question for you. You have a series that is in the works.   A: Right.   R: You already have how many of them written?   A: Yeah, there’s a few. Demons...1984… I think at least six right now, across the entire series.   K: Well, yeah, because you have some prequels and things like that.   A: Yeah! There’s prequels, there’s novellas, there’s a graphic novel as well. There’s a lot of—audiobooks as well. But yeah.   R: And they all share this map.   A: And they all share… portions of the map. Like, I said before. So the portion that we’re looking at now is the northeast version of it, the other one that I have which is for my first book, The Kishi, which is called the Southern Reaches of the Golah Empire, that’s like the southwest portion of it, and then this one here, Southern Eshiya, that’s like far east. So these are, like, pieces of it and I haven’t puzzled them all together yet because I am building out the world bit by bit.Oh! Perfect! You guys already know about Game of Thrones. So basically what I’m doing right now is I’m writing about Robert’s Rebellion before A Game of Thrones happens. So basically, I”m writing all that stuff leading up to the saga, the big epic books.      R: So, planning ahead this much, is it just because you’re going section by section that you have the confidence to say, “Okay, yes, this is where all the cities are, I don’t need to move them because I’m not gonna run myself into any trouble later.” You could get to book eight and say, “Oh shoot! It would really help if Kidogo was actually a little bit further north because then I could squeeze in another island that isn’t here right now!” Like, do you worry about that or are you just like, “Okay, I can commit to this and I can figure it out later.” Or are you really, really planned out to the point of, you have outlines for enough to pretty much flesh out the entire world. And you know what you need.   A: A bit of both. I actually know how the big saga books end. I know how those began. I know where the locations of all these stories will be. So I know what to keep not spoken about.   R: Mhm.   A: That’s why I have only a few points of interest. Like, I don’t go and like, “I’m gonna go and name every single piece of land here!” That would just put me into a corner if I do that. So that’s why my rule is, whatever I’m talking about in the story is what will be mentioned on the map, and nothing more. Because yeah, if I wanna add something in there, what? Never was mentioned before! It’s not canon, so it’s okay. I can insert that in there. But if you do, do that, if you do over explain it too much then, yeah. You can run yourself into a corner of being like, “Whoops! I kind of established that that place is like this and I can’t, you know, add that in there so.”   R: And I put the picture on my site, people are gonna point at it and say I was wrong!   A: Yeah, exactly.   K: And, conversely, though, this is getting more into the actual creating the maps. As you said, you only, if you’re not talking about it, do you keep a list as you’re going through the book of kind of like, “Okay, I need to like—”   A: Oh, yes! I have a story bible. I have a huge story bible.   K: Okay, so like, “We went here, we went here, we went here. These are the places we need to talk about. Or this is mentioned.”   A: Mhm, yeah. There’s timelines, locations, like terms and language phrases. Yeah, that’s very important, too, for creators out there. Writers, make sure you’re having a story bible. For, especially, epic fantasy.   K: Oh, yeah.   A: You really should have it for anything. Like, even The Office, which is just a sitcom, has  a story bible.    K: Yep.   A: Fantasy, it’s a must. It’s not even like an optional thing. You must have a story bible.    K: Yeah, otherwise you’re gonna run into some bizarre continuity errors. But, there are certainly some famous ones out there. But I have actually read a book, I can’t remember which one it was, where they had a map in there and there were two places just missing off of it. And they weren’t particularly relevant to the story or anything, but they were mentioned and there were characters from there and I’m a hundred percent sure they were meant to be on the map. And they just left them off it. But, yeah, you know if you’ve got a lot of cities and places and stuff, I’m sure it can happen.   [29:52]   A: And the benefit of me being indie published is that I can rectify that very easily. ‘Cause I’m like, “Oh, that’s not on there? Alright, photoshop, put it in there, reupload,” and then that e-file gets updated so that person is like, “Alright cool. Sweet. Never happened. What.”   K: What are you—what are you talking about? That was always like that. You’re imagining things. Stop hallucinating cities that weren’t there.   A: Right.   R: So, I’m noticing that as we run through these maps and you’re talking about them in different ways, and you’re mentioning that they’re different regions of the planet, I am noticing that they—or the worlds, planet is for sci-fi—that these maps are kind of in different styles. Is that intentional, that they would be a regional style for each story?   A: Yes! Yeah, so they’re slightly different depending on which region we’re in. And it’s supposed to kind of be like a—what Maria always wanted to do was make sure that, as much as she could, make it like it was an in-world map and not so much a map made by 21st Century people—   R: A digital file, yeah.   A: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, yeah that’s the reason for the differences. That’s why we have the airship layout looking like it’s like a blueprint and then you have Kidogo and stuff looking, as it does.   R: And creases! Creases in your maps and discolored areas and…   A: Yes, yes! Oh, and she—which is funny because when I first started, I use a program called Vellum which is a formatter, and it didn’t—at first, it didn’t support full-page leaved images, so when I had showed her the book the first time, she’s like, “Oh… I designed it to be full page…”    I was like, “I know, but it doesn’t support it! I had to make it a little tiny thing on one page. And then I showed her, “THEY DO IT NOW! THEY DO FULL PAGE IMAGES!!!!!” So the crease that she does there actually creases with the spine of the book, like it actually exists. Like “OOOH!”   And she’s so happy that it has that now, and I was like, “Yeah, I know you wanted that,” because they only put that in seven months ago or something like that.   R: Yeah, it was not that long ago. When I went in and I found it, I was equally happy.   A: I use it all the time. My title pages look so awesome now!   K: That is, that’s very cool.   R: And I noticed it also, like you said, lay a single image across two pages, if you have your print layout done through them, too. So yeah. Very good update. Vellum is constantly improving. I’m a huge fan.   A: Yeah, they’re awesome.   K: You work on these books with an editor. Do you include the editor in the designing process of these maps at all? Do you get any input or run anything by the editor, or do you just handle all of this yourself?   A: More or less. I mean, it depends on how important that location is to the story. I definitely have an editor—I have one of my editors, she’s more developmental, she’s more about the characters, and then I have one who’s more into the worldbuilding aspect of it? Fiona’s the one I’m mentioning who is like, more the character-based one and then Callan, Callan Brown, is the more worldbuildy.    So, with Callan, I moreso do that kind of stuff with, where I’m like, hey this location—or, when we get to Al-Anim, because Al-Anim’s the main thing of book two, we were talking about the design of that city, the idea of the spine that goes through the entire city where everybody congregates and stuff like that. Or the idea, like I came up with a tavern, I’m like, “Okay, this tavern, what’s the history of this tavern? Why is it central? Why is it so important for everybody? Like, why is it popular? Why does it do so well?” We have those kinds of conversations, for sure, with an editor.          K: Gotcha. ‘Cause we spend a lot of time talking about how, especially in self- and indie publishing, there’s this drive to just want to do everything yourself. I can take this, I can handle this, I don’t want people coming in and messing up my thing, but an outside voice, an outside set of eyes, is certainly, I think, helpful, even when it is something as microcosmic as building a map.   A: I think it’s a complete necessity, actually. I don’t think it should ever be a one-mind person. Like, it’s very similar to filmmaking, where it’s a really collaborative effort when you really look at what goes into a book. Like, there’s not too many people out there who are gonna be doing everything on their book. From audiobook production or your cover design or your cartographers or your editors. Like, it’s definitely a collaborative thing.    And I’m very huge about that. Like, I use the heck out of beta readers. I really, really—several iterations I’ll have a draft go, have the beta readers say something, send the other one out, have the beta readers say something. Alright, now my editor’s going through it, now my critique partner’s going through it. I’m very, very into the feedback and that feedback loop of making sure that everything makes sense and things track. I think that’s super important.    K: Yeah, I completely agree. So, along those lines, we always ask when we have guests on, advice,s suggestions, red flags, things you would pass along to somebody who’s thinking, “Hey, you know, I’m gonna include a map in my book.” What would you tell them? To either watch out for or to make sure you do.   A: I would send them to Brandon Sanderson’s, he has a bunch of YouTube videos. It’s his classes, literally his classes for free. One of those episodes that he has on YouTube is about him talking about maps. Literally, the whole session of that class was about maps. And he really, really goes into—Also him, and there’s also other people on YouTube who talk about it. D&D people, I would say look up D&D channels.   K: Okay.   A: They also have really good insights about map design. Because yeah, it’s not as simple as putting a mountain, and like you were saying, having a river in the middle of a continent, sort of situation. Even port cities. Port cities are done incorrectly because they aren’t typically right on the coast, they’re usually a little bit more inland, whether it’s a bay or on a river, deeper in. Whatever it might be. So, I would say, I usually suggest Brandon Sanderson’s works, his lectures that are free on YouTube.    You don’t have to take a college course about geography or geology or anything like that, but it does help to have some knowledge about what tectonic plates are, how they work, how they form continents, why continents look the way they do. Why those mountain ranges look different from a different kind of mountain range. A little bit, just a little bit, if you’re gonna be making maps, to know that.    K: Yeah, I would even take it a step further and say, you know, think about the terrain that you’re putting in here and how it fits into your story. Will this kill the characters, based on the length of time it’s supposed to take them to cross it?   A: Right.   K: I’ve seen a lot of traditionally published books where you look at the maps and you’re like, “That’s not how long it should have taken them to get from that place to the other, compared to these two cities which are much closer together and somehow took a longer amount of time.” But I’m sure that’s a factor you have to consider as well. If I say these two cities are this far apart and it took these two characters six days to get between them, and these two are twice as far apart, in theory it should take at least twelve.   R: And one’s in an airship and another one’s sailing on the water.   A: That is literally the reason why I was talking about the whole book three thing between the Kidogo and Al-Anim thing because it was very important ‘cause both of those things factor in. It was like, “Okay, how long will the sea ship take to get there? How long will the airship take to get there?” So I had to factor it and I’m like measuring it out. I’m like, “Okay, so, if I’m taking this or something like that, I’m gonna measure out each piece of it. Okay, this little prong is probably gonna be a quarter of a day, so if I do four of these, this distance takes a day— Yeah, I totally had to do all of that and adjust things based on plot reasons.   K: Plot reasons. Yes. No, we could do an entire episode on geography versus plot. And how they work for and against each other.   A: Uh-huh.   K: The airship, you know, what if it’s crossing mountains that frequently have storms over it. What if the sea ship is going through a channel that’s known to be very rocky, so you really have to slow down and navigate through there.   A: And sometimes you add that, specifically, because you’re like, “I need them to slow down! Lemme put a typhoon here!”   R, laughing: Excellent.   K: These people are gonna get there two days before they left the last…   A: Yup, yup, yup.   R: I did see that there’s a sea serpent on the map. Occasionally it might just pop up and grab the airship or something, right?   K: Here there be monsters.   R: You do so much else.   K: Like, a lot.   R: A lot, a lot. What do you want our listeners to know about you before we let you go and, definitely include where they can find you. Talk about your publishing your house, talk about your various business—   A: Ventures and endeavours. Yeah.   R: You just keep switching hats! And go, “Today, I am an audio producer. Tomorrow, I’m editing video.” I’ll let you do it.   A: You can find everything about me, if you just wanna see every single thing that I’m doing, on my website. That is antoinebandele.com [spells it], so I do a bunch of stuff. So I do, primarily right now, the main income generator for me is my YouTube channel. I am a YouTuber. Right now, I’m focused mostly on Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra because those have come back to Netflix and my channel is like, “Hey! Lots of people are watching those videos! You should make more of those videos!” And I’m like, “Oh my god, yes I will!” And so I… that’s the main focus right now.   K: Fine, I’ll talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender more.   A: Oh, fine. Jeez, Louise! So I’ve been doing that, as of late. But I do other things, too. I’ve covered Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, as we’ve been talking about. Samurai Champloo, some anime, stuff like that.   R: Nice.   A: So I have my YouTube, and that’s my main thing. I also work freelance for other YouTube channels. I used to work for a company called JustKidding films, where they do a news channel, they have a party channel for board games. I also work for a blog channel, their name is Tip and Kace. Basically it’s just a family blog, just their day-to-day and stuff like that. So I have those services, and I also do services for indie authors who are trying to produce audiobooks.   So I have a bunch of—I live in L.A., I think as I mentioned already in the podcast, so I have a lot of friends who are actors, or up and coming actors, who would love to have work. I was doing audio just for myself, right? Just for my own books, because I’m already an editor I’m like, “I’ll just do it myself.” And then one of my friends, after we had collaborated on the prequel to By Sea and Sky, Stoneskin, and when we did that prequel and I did the audiobook, he’s like, “Dude, this is like really good. You should be doing this as a service.”   I was like, “I don’t know about that, that sounds like a lot of work.” He’s like, “It’s not! You obviously know how to do it.” And I was like, “Fine,” and I did it and I have a bunch of clients now who work with me on their audiobooks, whether it’s urban fantasy or sci-fi and all these other genres—romance, I’ve never done romance before. That was interesting to experience.   [40:13]   K: Oh! How was that?   A: It’s definitely a different genre. It’s definitely different from what I’m used to.   R: In audiobooks, no one can see you blush.   [K laughs]   A, laughing: Exactly, exactly! So I started doing that. So I have that going on as well. But then, you know, my main thing, the thing I’m wanting to be my main thing, is my own publishing. Of my books and other works. So, of course, I write these Esowon books, as we’ve been talking about. That’s the sky pirate stuff, the African fantasy inspired stuff, but I’ve also produced a children’s book for another friend of mine, who had a children’s book that he published, I think, in 2012, and he’s like, “Hey, I’ve seen that you have really good quality of your books. Could you re-do my old book?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure! Why not?” And then he actually profited within the first two months, before I even profited on my own works.    K: Oh, wow. Great.   A: I was like, “Oh my god! Children’s books is where it’s at, apparently!” So  I do that, as well. I’ve published… five authors, at this point? Besides myself. Underneath my imprint of Bandele Books. So, yeah, I think that’s everything that I do. My YouTube channel, my editing, publishing, audiobook production, writing. Think that’s everything.   K: Jeez, that is an incredibly… full and talented.   R: Full plate.   K: Full plate, and incredible brand of talents. That’s really, really awesome. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to talk with us about this. This is, you know, like we said, a really cool thing in books that I think are taken for granted by both, well, especially readers, but even sometimes by authors, with how much work and effort and time goes into this.   A: Mhm.   R: Excellent! Well make sure you go and follow Antoine, check out his work on his website. Check out the books, they’re really great! I happen to be biased toward airships. But everyone should be.   K: A little bit.   R: And I’m looking forward to reading the next one and seeing what you add to these maps! Now I’ve got this little piece of candy that I can follow. What’s new? What’s new on the map? I’m gonna be looking at them real closely. Thank you so much, Antoine, and maybe we’ll have to have you back someday to talk about audio production.   A: For sure, yeah! That’d be fun. R: Awesome, thank you so much.   [outro swish]   R: Thanks, everyone, for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter @wmbcast, same for Instagram, or wmbcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at Patreon.com/wmbcast.    If you can’t provide financial support, we totally understand, and what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find out podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter.    Thank you so much for listening, and we will talk to you soon!   [outro music plays]   The team Antoine gathered to work on his Esowon books:Cartography - RenFlowerGrapx (Maria Gondolfo): https://www.fiverr.com/renflowergrapxFiona McLaren - DevelopmentalCallan Brown - ContinuityJosiah Davis - Line/CopyeditSutthiwat Dekachamphu - Cover ArtSarayu Ruangvesh - Character ArtOther resources:Brandon Sanderson Creative Writing Lessons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc&list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ

Thomas Lockley is an associate professor at Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo, where he teaches courses concerning the international and multicultural history of Japan and East Asia. He authored the first academic paper on the life of Yasuke, which led to the release of a Japanese-language book on the historical figure and now to African Samurai, a narrative history co-written with thriller and speculative fiction author Geoffrey Girard that relays Yasuke’s story in a cinematic, endlessly fascinating fashion. African Samurai,discusses the remarkable life of history’s first foreign-born samurai, and his astonishing journey from Northeast Africa to the heights of Japanese society.When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. 

In this episode we question is Kanye West sane or insane? Were Kanye's remarks about Harriet Tubman the truth? What was America like before white colonization? How were the Egyptian pyramids created? Why do self proclaimed descendants of West Africa feel like they derived from Northeast Africa, Egypt? Seems like Nature Boy is a true Kemetic why don't others feel the same? Trump is trying to block contact tracing, why does nobody care? Do certain organizations hire people to attack the truth & statements that go against their agenda on Twitter? Are most American Aboriginal women low key lesbians? Why did Tory Lanez allegedly shoot Meg Thee Stallion in the foot? Is Meg thee Stallion's music as famous as she is? Plus, many more topics discussed in this episode. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

 “May this convention of union last 1,000 years.” African countries including Ghana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Mali, and Zambia recognise Africa Day as a public holiday.  Other countries have celebrations to mark the historical day, while international cities, such as New York, Dublin, Melbourne, London, and Washington engage in academic gatherings and cultural showcases to mark the day. https://africa.com/10-things-know-africa-day/In Nigeria, one of the countries with the greatest potential for rapidly scaling up production, pharmaceutical manufacturing production currently utilizes around 40 percent of actual installed capacity. https://www.cfr.org/blog/scaling-african-pharmaceutical-manufacturing-time-covid-19 Blantyre-based tech firm iMoSyS is one such company that is now using its 3D printers and computer assisted design (CAD) software to design reusable face masks and face shields for healthcare workers. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52776994 Dynamic, a reformer and an adept diplomat, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is at the heart of tectonic change in Ethiopia and in the region. The country was starting to outgrow the governing and economic model that had turned it into East Africa's largest economy. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiy_AhmedTop 250 Companies operating in Africahttps://africanbusinessmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AB_0520_Top-250-Companies_compressed.pdfHow to cook Jollof rice… in simple steps to help you celebrate Africa Day https://twitter.com/Kurlycheeks/status/1264807349082116097?s=20The Tigrayans or Tigrinyas are an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to Northeast Africa who primarily inhabit the highlands of Eritrea and the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. They speak the Tigrinya language, a direct descendant of the Ge'ez language that was spoken in late antiquity.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4daTQxNUNMProduced and Pod

My guest today is from the nation of Eritrea, in Northeast Africa. He has been granted legal and permanent asylum here in the US. To get here, he was smuggled through 18 countries on a terribly dangerous journey. He is currently pursuing American citizenship and hopes to return to Eritrea someday, as a visitor. The story you’re about to hear may put some of those things in jeopardy were they to become known, so I’m just going to call him “my friend from Eritrea”. Here is a wild, almost unbelievable, and deeply impacting story. You’ll be on the edge of your seat. I can’t stop thinking about it. My friend is a great storyteller, and THIS is a story worth telling. Sponsor a child through Compassion International today!! http://www.compassion.com/thepivot Andrew's links: http://www.andrewosenga.com/ https://www.everybodypivots.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-pivot/support

Today, we continue our discussions with Student Veterans of America's Student Veteran of the Year finalists. This episode features Chanel Powell and Tyler Freeman. We learn about their chapter's success in 2018, their philosophy on outreach, and how to include other military personnel on campus. About Chanel: Chanel is a paralegal specialist in the New York Army National Guard for the past 3 years and continues to serve. She deployed with the 1156th Engineer Company to Kuwait and Iraq in 2016-2017. Promptly after returning home from deployment she started her first semester at the University at Buffalo just last spring. During her first semester she was elected SVA chapter President and the following semester they became nationally recognized within the Student Veterans of America, making their chapter one of the newest. Her plan is to continue her education in law school a little over a year from now. About Tyler: Tyler was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and joined the United States Marine Corps in 2008.  He was stationed in the Carolinas shortly thereafter with military occupations primarily involving helicopter squadrons as an Aviation Maintenance Supervisor and a CH-53E Helicopter Crew Member. After 5 ½ years of service and three deployments (2 to Northeast Africa and 1 to Afghanistan), Tyler received an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps in April of 2014 to pursue undergraduate studies at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. While enrolled, he held a concurrent full-time position at Ameriprise Financial in various operations and project management roles. He completed a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (Magna Cum Laude) at UNC Greensboro in December, 2017. Tyler then relocated to Atlanta after he was accepted to Emory University’s Goizueta Business School & Emory Law School, where he began the full-time MBA/JM Dual Degree program in August 2018.

The encouraging stories of the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus beginning to connect with non-Jewish peoples in their region -- like Philip the Jew and a Eunuch from Northeast Africa -- feel like models for the kinds of interactions our church today experiences all the time.

I have a new guest co-host on the podcast today to help me discuss some of the Ocean articles that we liked this week. Dr. Lyne Morissette, a marine mammal biologist and science communicator, joins me as co-host on Ocean Talk Friday to discuss: 1) Shark Tourism; 2) Whales found north in winter; 3) New recommendations for the Canadian Fisheries Act; and, 4) Greenpeace helps protect fisheries in Northeast Africa. Enjoy the podcast! Are you looking to change the way you eat for a better health and environment? Start using Arbonne nutrition and health care products that are all natural and environmentally friendly. I use them all the time and their nutrition line has transformed the way I eat and my health. Email me today, andrew@speakupforblue.com to find out how you can transform your health. Looking to transform your health and wellness using Arbonne products? Learn about our starter package to get you living for a better Ocean by contacting me at andrew@speakupforblue.com.

As a continuation of our "Better Men Than Us" series, we share a recording of James "Mad-Dog" Mattis, a retired United States Marine Corps General who served as the 11th Commander of the United States Central Command (Centcom), the Unified Combatant Command responsible for American military operations in the middle east, Northeast Africa, and Central Asia, from August, 2010 to March, 2013.  When President-elect Donald Trump chose Mattis to serve as Secretary of Defense, he broke the status quo, since it's usually a civilian who oversees the nation's military. If Mattis is confirmed, he will be the highest-ranking military officer ever to lead the Pentagon. Enjoy! Show-notes can be found at Wastedammo.com/127

Join Mariam Guilliams in a serious discussion about this image: Black Jesus from an Egyptian American Coptic Christian's perspective. "Earliest known image of Jesus Christ, from the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt. This painting of Jesus is older than the image of the black Jesus Christ in the Church of Rome which is from the 6th century. " A Church built into a cave in Egypt, is home to 70,000 Weekly worshipers. Saint Simon,is one of the world's oldest Christian Communities. One of the more populous groups are Egyptians who have retained their Coptic beliefs and established the largest Christian church in the Middle East. Other nearby caves have also been built into separate church spaces, and all of them have been linked to create a massive Christian complex. Since tourism through the scavenger's village is not a thriving industry, reaching the Monastery of St. Simon is no small feat, yet as the largest Christian church, hundreds of thousands of people make the pilgrimage each year. -------- The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the largest Christian Church in Egypt and Northeast Africa. According to tradition, the Church was established by Saint Mark, an apostle and evangelist, in the middle of the 1st century --------