So Sylvie

We celebrated Earth Day with Marcel at a library in San Jose, California. He gets quite excited on the subject of Geography, and has since he was 2 years-old. It started with a fascination for maps and globes, and grew to include flags, culture, music, and regional elements. He was invited by the library to set up a Geography booth at an event showcasing an African theater group called Oriki.

As you can see, he really enjoyed the drumming (he’s listening closely to the instructor). He learned techniques of drumming with roots in Ghana and Mali; Mali, in West Africa, is credited as the place where the blues originated. The teacher was wonderful, teaching them African words and dance steps. Many of the performers are from Nigeria and told us that the younger generation in their homeland aren’t interested in their own folk culture anymore; that they have western leaning values. He expressed sadness over this, as some of that culture – like the drumming – has so much significance in terms of real human interaction. I would surmise: if you don’t interact with humans, on a very basic humane level, then you can’t be expected to have much mercy for the earth either.

Marcel also had some great interaction at his booth; sharing geographical wisdom and handing out flags to children and adults. It was a sweet and inspiring day.

You may be interested to learn about how much energy is used by our home electronics when we think that they are "off". Check out this article from the BBC: Energy Cost of PCs On Standby.