Letters to Wilson....: Venice, and My Christmas Surprise

In this view of one of Venice's many islands, gondolas await riders.

Hello, Wilson.
It's Christmas Day, and I'm writing from Venice, the artsy swamp community in Eastern Italy. And I want to tell you about my Christmas surprise. I wanted to be distributing more One World Futbols this fall--to Cuba--but I got sidetracked by a presidential decree and a small cancer issue. But I made adjustments, and in my last posting I said I was planned to be making the distribution to two countries early in the New Year. Well, we have to revise that figure upward. I just learned that a former colleague has jumped into the game and now three countries are involved!

The individual is John Phillips. that's John in the photo below, creating a makeshift stadiometer out of blue Post-it note sheets that's he's sticking to a post in the community center of Mai Hich, a village in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

John Phillips builds a version of a stadiometer.

A stadiometer is the device they have in a doctor's office to measure height. We had to make our own in that village. We also had to teach people how to stand on a scale so that we could measure their weight.

John was the team leader for a group of medical professionals, medical students, and lay people who went to Vietnam's Central Highlands to conduct health clinics in remote villages. Here's a few photos of what went on there and another village, Cun Pheo:

Nurse Jennifer Hazard listens as conversation with patient is translated.

Some patients were seeing medical staff for the first time in their lives.

She's only 100 years old. Her son is driving her home from the clinic.

Some 8,000 young teeth were flourided one day in Cun Pheo.

I went along and distributed unbreakable One World Futbols to two villages, and that's how John found out about these marvelous balls that can be punctured a thousand times and still won't go flat. John took that photo of me, below, in the coolie hat and surrounded by a bunch of youngsters at a school attended by Thai immigrants' children. They had good use for soccer balls that never wear out.

Five futbols went to the Cun Pheo elementary school.

Well, like Victor Hugo said, "nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." The mission to Vietnam was coordinated through the Global Impact program of three Seattle community colleges and John works with veterans at one of those colleges. He could see first hand the value of a ball like that for the world's most popular sport. In January, the Department of Defense is sending him to Thailand, so John asked whether he could take 10 balls to distribute there! This idea is infectious -- in a healthy sort of way.

I knew our readers would be pleased to see that the cause they supported continues to catch on. John has promised photos for a future letter.

Oh, about that cancer thing . . .

I mentioned cancer. It was just a little bitty cancer. It's pretty well gone, as far as we can tell. My prostate gland had been sending up smoke signals for 10 years, and when the smoke got thick enough, the doctors found the fire and put it out with a little bit of light they shone on it every weekday for two months. ("And God saw the light, that it was good") The doctors also gave me hormone shots that made me lose interest in girls for a while. Those shots also caused hot flashes and night sweats -- the sort of thing that middle-aged women have, only in my case they call it man-o-pause.

Well, I got over that. I call this the lucky cancer, because it's pretty easy to treat, once you find it. Half the guys my age have it and don't even know it.

Now you know one reason that I haven't been distributing some of the futbols that donors had paid for. John's interest really helped me jump-start the distribution again. Thanks John! What a great Christmas present.

Here are a couple more photos from Venice, where I'm spending Christmas before I start the journey home. Wish you could have come along. Miss you. Venice photos below

Love,
Robert

Stairway to nice AirBnB. The suite could host 5 and cost 121 (dollors or Euros(?)) for three nights.

Buildings frame a small plaza.

The building at the end of this canal is actually on another island.

Somebody had a sense of humor.

Solitary boat in canal

This previously flooded bookstore is known for protecting books in a gondola.

Not-so-fortunate books were converted to a stairway to a view of the canal.

Masks in store window

Bridge of sighs: The name was an afterthought for what had been a route to the Inquisition.

St. Mark's Cathedral and part of Venice as seen from St. Mark's Campanile, a nearby tower

Confections: Tall cakes and orange peel

St. Mark's Square in evening with Campanile tower

Street at night

Eat your heart out, Chihuli! Venice is the place to buy art glass.

The ghetto

Origin of the term, "ghetto," is debated, but it may refer to the foundry area where Venice's Jews were first confined 501 years ago. When Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of Venice," the ghetto was still fairly young, and perhaps his attitude reflected in the comedy was based on the attitude that created this enclave. This is where the world's first ghetto existed, and it is from this locale that the name was established.

There is a metal sign of apology in the Ghetto for the removal of Jews and their extermination during World War II. Part of it states:

The city of Venice remembers the Venetian Jews who were deported to the Nazi concentration camps on December 5, 1943 and August 17, 1944.

There is also this statement:

"...nothing shall purge your deaths from our memories.
For our memories are your only grave."
Andre Tronc Ancien Des Forces Francaises Combattantes
(Andre Trunk Former French Forces Combatants)