A Weekend Dip in the Lake
Submitted by Outdoor Afro contributor Reginald James, who reflects nostalgically on a recent swim in a local lake with friends.
A few weekends ago, I went swimming with a group of friends at Lake Anza at Tilden Park in Berkeley for the third year in a row.
The idea for a swim began through a 2009 Twitter conversation with my friend Charles Perkins. As a child in Berkeley public schools, Lake Anza had “childhood nostalgia” for Perkins. He remembered swimming at the lake more than the nearby WIlliard Pool while he was in elementary school.
Two other friends, Katia Allen, and Chinyere Tutashinda, soon joined the Twitter conversation. We all liked to swim, despite the reservations of many of our peers. Just a few months before, USA Swimming released a report about six out of ten Black children being unable to swim. And according to a University of Memphis study, 70 percent of black people cannot swim or have limited swimming abilities.
“Anytime you talk about Black people and swimming, that issue is going to come up,” Perkins said. Since all four of us could swim, could we be the four Blacks out of ten that could swim?
There are many reasons that Black children don’t swim. Many Black children, whose parents grew up in Jim Crow communities, did not have opportunities to learn how to swim. And many of those folks sure didn’t teach their children. And many people don’t have access to neighborhood pools, so many young people grow up without learning how to swim. Some people even associate swimming with “acting white.”
Not to mention the transformative effects of water on Black hair!
Growing up, I was fortunate that my mom insisted I learned how to swim. As long as I can remember, I could swim. In fact, when I fell in Lake Merritt feeding ducks in 1987, I was able doggy paddle back to the edge.
(Sidenote: Swimming in Lake Anza is far better than swimming in Oakland’s Lake Merritt. Uggh!)
I later moved to nearby island town of Alameda. Although I lived in what some people considered the “ghetto”—in the historically segregated West End of Alameda—the Buena Vista Apartments had a big swimming pool. Coupled with some swimming lessons at the Encinal Swim Center, I practiced in my neighborhood every summer in our pool. But swimming in neighborhood pools is nothing like going out to the lake.
Lake Anza is like a small beach inside of Tilden Park. Just past the Little Farm, this jewel is surrounded by hiking trails in the Berkeley Hills. For a small entrance fee, you can enter Lake Anza’s sandy beach area. Surrounded by trees in sort of a clearing, it is full of sun and free of extra wind. There’s also a nearby picnic area.
We began our annual Lake Anza swim in 2009. As my friend Katia said, “There’s no such thing as a ‘first annual’ anything.” But after going two years in a row, “Now it’s a tradition.” This year, we decided to go a little earlier in the summer, and we also decided to invite a few friends.
I put out a Facebook event called, “Fantastic Voyage at Lake Anza” I invited a few people. Somewhat to my surprise, a lot of folks wanted to go. Unfortunately, many had scheduling conflicts, while there were also some who could not swim.
On short notice, the turnout at the Lake tripled. Besides our group, we also had Jumoke Hinton Hodge, Falilah Aisha Bilal, Joy Gerner, Khaya Wig, and Cedric Troupe. (Cedric convinced me to swim with him September of this year during the Escape from Alcatraz swim.) And a few folks brought their children and families.
We brought fruits and vegetables and other snacks. Some of the children played with buckets and shovels, while the bigger (adult) kids swam out to the lap area. A few of the guys took a little hike on the main trail too.
“It’s important to get back to the simple things in order to connect with nature,” Perkins told me. “Swimming at Lake Anza is a very spiritual and holistic process; walking on dirt instead of concrete and swimming in a lake instead of a pool.”
Many people don’t have access to pools. Lake Anza is a great place to swim. And there are lifeguards on duty.
Swimming at Lake Anza is a great experience that I hope to share with others for many summers to come.
Reginald, son of Deborah James, was born in Oakland, CA and raised in the nearby island city of Alameda. He is currently studying Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, after transferring from Laney College, where he focused on African American Studies, journalism, and political science.
Classic Outdoor Afros
Colleague Camille Dudley of Outward Bound Adventures had some terrific images of natural beauty on her facebook page. I just had to share!
Invasive Species
Last spring, I helped to organize a local event as part of a national campaign to get people connected to nature. As much as I wanted to share how wonderful the event was, how well attended and rich the experience, until now I was unable to do so because there was a part of the experience that day that pained me, and has since sat like a lump in the back of my throat.
All the time I hear reasons why African-Americans do not engage with the outdoors. From experience, I know it’s not just because of the bugs, or a rustic engagement with nature that can signal a lack of modern-day progress, but sometimes because of the people they may encounter along the way. In some circles, whispers still remain of “strange fruit,” or a fear that bad things happen to black people in the woods.
Many have seen the satire of Blair Underwood, stymied over and over again by the way those he encountered responded dramatically to his unassuming hike in nature. For many black people who find ourselves on a back-country trail as the only person of color for miles around, each Underwood scene, no matter how humorously staged, rings true, and exemplifies the psychological barriers we must push through in order to simply enjoy nature: the nervous or inquisitive stares, questions about what we are doing, or the overly enthusiastic embrace that can leave us feeling like a rare, identified species discovered in the wild.
So I partnered with an organization I respect tremendously to bring youth and their families by bus from the local community to come out for a day of play in nature. Leading up to the event, we deliberately reached out to families who live in poorer communities within a city (like many) divided geographically and socially by class, with many never venturing beyond the ten-square blocks of their own neighborhood, much less into the remote wild that looms perilously in the skyline. In the weeks before the event, we personally invited people at local community meetings, and early-childhood development centers. We obtained the blessing of city park and recreation leadership and also made promotional materials available in a few languages. Our efforts left us feeling hopeful that the event would reflect the true diversity of the community not commonly seen in local nature.
What began as a diverse group of families exploring nature, many for the first time, was quickly shaken-up by the presence of a nearby and vocal resident, who demanded to know: “What is going on here?”
The concerned resident was visibly upset, struggling to string together words to name her distress. She mentioned that the event came to her attention because she found herself in her car, stuck behind a slowly climbing bus on her way home. She decided to follow it to see where the diesel carrier might go, what it might contain.
She followed the passengers off the bus into the public park, and along the trail leading to the narrow, curved strip of land where the event was staged. There, she found a temporary play space in an impacted clearing, with imported natural materials such as dried bamboo, palm fronds, mounds of dirt, rocks, native plant clippings, and plenty of wet mud. While surveying the new park visitors, she expressed concern about the presence of so many “non-native” species, and said she was troubled by the threat to the local ecology.
Feeling responsible, I stepped in to try to engage her in a discussion about how people can engage with nature in a variety of ways. I tried to discuss cultural relevancy and how the event was a safe, rare invitation for families to discover and begin to build a relationship with the wild spaces right in their home town. I tried to explain how the material would be removed once the play event was over. But as we talked, I saw she was not satisfied with my answers, and became more agitated and resolute. With a sinking feeling, I could see my expressed passion for connecting this community of black and brown folks to the outdoors was very misunderstood.
Without satisfaction from our conversation, the resident said that she needed to speak to someone else because I had an “attitude,” and therefore decided she was going to contact the City Council as well as a national environmental organization to protest the event. Feeling deflated, yet still hopeful for resolution, I led her to my co-organizers and colleagues (all white) who helped to reassure her of the merits of the event and clean-up plans. And I listened nearby with humility, as they were also obliged to vouch for my character.
My own feelings aside, I was actually more worried about who might be overhearing this passionate exchange, and how they might react; Would they feel unwelcomed? Would they ever return to nature again?
The resident was eventually able to calm, and I decided to get present to the gifts all around me. I observed my own giddy kids from afar building forts and fairy houses, the pride of families creating in nature for the first time, many muddy fingers and toes, and relaxed parents (relieved from always having to say “no” to play in their own neighborhoods) finally safe to say “yes.”
Yet it was heartbreaking that the concerned resident could not see past those magic moments and into the future of these youth and their families to become the conservationists our lands and their health so desperately need. She could not see that the seeds of love for self and the planet evolve from connectedness and relationship between land and people, most often through unstructured discovery and play – and that there were no invasive species that day after all.
Noticing Nature on the Fourth of July
So good, we had to repost! Happy Fourth!
No matter how people feel about the outdoors, almost everyone feels inspired to get outside for the Fourth of July to enjoy the company of family, friends, and a grilled meal leading inevitably to an evening polytechnics display.
While spending time under the sun and stars this holiday, I encourage you to also take the time to recognize the displays of nature around you: the song of a bird, summer foliage, stars in the night sky, wind rustling through trees, the texture of cool grass, and warm sand between your toes.
To help promote connectedness to land and family in new ways, you can try activities such as using elements of nature to create an outdoor art project, encouraging elders to share their stories of time growing up in a nature, or making up outdoor scavenger hunts for both kids and adults. Deliberately noticing nature within your festivities creates an opportunity to uncover a new awareness that can bring forth a deeper appreciation of the surrounding natural world.
How might you make nature a part of your celebratory weekend?
Happy Fourth of July!
Backyard Cookout Recipe: Fish en Papillote
Reposted from ActivekidsClub
Last weekend my daughter and a friend did some balcony camping. For dinner that night we made fish cooked in foil packages outside. Cooking fish in foil with seasonal vegetables is a very smart and tasty way to cook fish. Less mess and fish cooked in the juices from the vegetables always end up perfect to eat. The French call this way of cooking “en papillote” which means in parchment, the method of cooking in which the food is put in a folded pouch and baked. Using foil in cooking is perfect for cookouts and camp food. Some of my favorite meals are fish cooked on an open fire with aluminum foil.
Because it is so fun for kids to make their own fish dish, it is also a great way to get them to eat fish.
You need:
500 grams Cod filet (or your favorite local fish)
Vegetables in season
We used: 1 Onion
10 Asparagus (already boiled)
Herbs
Chopped 2 Tomatoes
1 Lemon
100 grams Champignon Mushrooms
3 Spring Onions
This is how you do it:
Wash and prepare all vegetables. Chop and fry champignon mushrooms and boiled asparagus. Put
them in different bowls.Cut fish in pieces and put them on a plate.
Bring everything outside with foil, olive oil and salt.
First put the fish in the middle of a sheet of foil and cover it with your favorite vegetables and herbs. Add some salt, pepper, and olive oil and wrap your blend in foil. Place on your gas grill or near some hot coals from an open fire.
Give your kids a piece of foil and make sure all the ingredients within reach for them.
Visit Great American Backyard Campout for ideas and recipes
What Happened to the Stars?
Outdoor Afro contributor, Roger Porter reflects on how the night sky in his old Oakland neighborhood has changed, and the key role stars played for runaway slaves and in African antiquity.
There are theories that credit ancient Egyptian advanced knowledge of astronomy for helping to create the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders, and known for 3,800 years as the tallest man-made structure in the world. It is said that the Egyptians were able to accomplish this feat by aligning the corners of the massive stone structure with the burning stars that served as the chief architect for the project.
When I was a little boy my family used to live on 90th Avenue in deep East Oakland, CA. There were eight of us: my brother, sister, mother, uncle, aunty, two cousins, and I living in an old pink two-story house. Even though the pink paint was peeling, the structure was falling apart, and we lived in the middle of a notorious ghetto, I still consider the years that I spent there to be the most joyous of my life.
Summertime was the best.
I remember going to the corner store and buying 10 cent Otter Pops and Jolly Ranchers, water balloon fights, cold pineapple Crush sodas, and young girls playing double-dutch.
I also remember going out on the porch at night, looking straight up into the open expanse and having my older cousin extend his fingers to the sky and point out every constellation.
“That’s Orion’s Belt right there! Oooh and you see that? That’s the Big Dipper.”
There would be shooting stars, twinkling stars, and little stars right next to stars that looked huge by comparison. But today, when I look up in the night sky above Oakland, there only seem to be a few points of scattered light.
It is said the reason for this may be light pollution—which basically means that all the new street lights and traffic signals that have been installed over the past 25 years, in addition to all the new light bulbs burning in all the newer homes, produce a tremendous accumulative glow that prevents people in an urban metropolis from seeing the stars.
It makes me wonder how runaway slaves might find their way under this new sky with so many the stars blanketed in man-made light? What would those brave souls who followed the North Star for hundreds of miles do if they knew that their descendants wouldn’t even be able to see the very thing that guided them to freedom?
It saddens me that the once electric, urban summer sky now seems blank and generic. I miss the constellations; that old house in East Oakland, and youthful innocence. I suppose it should make me feel a little better knowing that even though I can’t see the stars they are still there—but it doesn’t. For if we cannot see them then they are as good as gone.
Roger Porter is a writer and educator from Oakland, CA USA whose first book, "The Souls of Hood Folk," is available at lulu.com. He has a degree in English from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. He describes himself as "An average everyday man from East Oakland who writes about average everyday hood life."
Great American Backyard Campout Blends Outdoors, Family Fun and Science
By Danielle N. Lee Outdoor Afro Contributor and author of Urban Science Adventures! ©
It's summertime and the living is easy, especially if you're a kid. Schools out and fun is all that is on their hyperactive minds. We adults still have jobs to attend, bills to pay and bellies to feed, but there's no reason why we couldn't be on the same page, at least for a single night. So, what's the best way to enjoy the summer with your kiddos that's fun, affordable, and engaging? Well, outside camping of course! And even if you're not big on ruffing it I think you could handle this one -- camp out in your own backyard! On Saturday, June 25, 2011, the National Wildlife Federation is asking everyone to pitch a tent in your yard and participate in the The Great American Backyard Campout. It is a grassroots initiative to Leave No Child Indoors while also raising awareness and funds for more outdoor youth programs. Families and communities are encouraged to spend time together and while you're outside in the fresh air why not explore nature (and science)!
So get your family and neighbors together and go camping - at a local campground, state or national park, or in your backyard. Being outdoors is a perfect time to connect to science. You can explore biology, conservation, ecology, astronomy, geology, geography, environmental science, and more.
COPUS - the Coalition of Public Understanding of Science - is encouraging everyone to participate in the Great American Backyard Campout and use that time to not only connect with family/neighbors but have fun exploring science, too. Check out the blog post (link here) and read the whole list of recommended Citizen Science and Arts and Science activities. Plus here's one I overlooked: Waving at the International Space Station as it orbits over your night time sky! The International Space Station is visible in the sky, assuming the weather agrees, so you could actually keep an eye out for it while you tell campfire stories and eat s'mores. Visit the website http://www.isswave.org/ for details on how to plan your wave. You can also follow them on Twitter @twisst for a tweet when it's visible from your skies.
Or if you're ready to sign up right now, then go for it. You can register your 'camp site' - your family, church or community event with the National Wildlife Federation Great American Backyard Campout website (link here).
Do you need to check your supply list? Well, you know Outdoor Afro has you covered. Here is a handy-dandy list of Tent Camping Essentials for Outdoor Afros. In the meantime, check in with us and let us know if you plan on participating and how you'll be connecting to science while you're under the stars. We have some prizes for Outdoor Afros who participate.
Cleopatra Warren: Our 3000th Outdoor Afro Facebook Fan!
I was thrilled to see the Outdoor Afro facebook fan base cross the 3K mark this morning, as part of its steady and organic growth over these last two years. To commemorate the milestone, I asked our lucky 3000th fan to share more about herself, and what she cares about in the outdoors. She will also receive a REI Gift Certificate, courtesy of the REI store in Berkeley, California.
Name: Cleopatra Warren
Region: Atlanta, Georgia
Profession: Secondary Educator/Social Studies
M.A. Education, New York University New York,NY
B.A. Political Science, Morris Brown College Atlanta,GA
What she loves about the outdoors: Hiking and walking nature trails. The outdoors provides me with an opportunity to recharge and connect with nature. The North Georgia mountains have been one of my favorite places to visit since childhood.
Most important outdoor memory: I've had many wonderful opportunties to participate in educational and cultural travel around the globe, including Africa, Europe, South America, Caribbean and most of the U.S. Each summer, I make it a personal and professional goal to travel and connect with the outdoors.
Here is a photo from the summer of 2010, where I participated in an invitational think tank hosted by Expeditionary Learning and the Fund for Teachers at the UCROSS Foundation in Sheridan, Wyoming. The program was designed to engage 20 educators in a weeklong nature retreat, including hiking, walking and group activities to reflect on our instructional practices with respect to student impact from our travel experiences. It was one of the most remote and pristine places I have ever visited.
Why Cleopatra 'Liked' Outdoor Afro?: It is so refreshing to see a site dedicated to the broad cultural heritage of African Americans in the outdoors!
Outdoor Afro warmly welcomes Cleopatra!
Not already a facebook fan?Click to 'Like' us today!
DC Photo Tours Connect Visitors with the Outdoors
Outdoor Afro Contributor Delane Sims
Upon arriving at our nation's capital for the first time, my mind started racing about all the attractions I wanted to see in my short visit. Of course, the White House was a must-see along with all the amazing historic sites in the area. And in my quest to get the most out of my Washington DC experience, I responded to a LivingSocial ad for Photo Tours DC.
And boy was I in for a treat!
The founder of Photo Tours DC is Lynford Morton, a second generation photographer. His love for photos was instilled in him as a child by his father who was also a photographer. Lyn (as he prefers to be called) went on to become a career photo journalist. He later combined his love for photography with his joy for connecting with people that led him to create a business that brought it all together.
Lyn's photo tours take a unique approach to touring DC's famous outdoor sites. He spends one-on-one time with each participant to instruct them how to maximize their own camera to capture great images. And the results are amazing! I have to confess, I've had my camera for a year and the only setting I ever used was automatic. Now, thanks to Lyn, I finally know how to really use my camera! Herein is a sample of the photos I was able to capture using my point and shoot.
In short, this brotha's tour is a wonderful way to engage with historic monuments and nature, using your own camera as tool to capture them. So the next time you are in DC, remember there is another way to engage with the outdoors - click to learn more about Lyn and PhotoTours DC!
Delane Sims is a student at UC Berkeley, and is spending this summer in Washington DC doing an internship.
Childhood Matters!
School is out! Summer is a great time to be outside together as a family. Listen to Nurse Rona and guests, Avery Cleary and yours truly on Childhood Matters as we discussed how to embrace, explore, and enjoy the beautiful outdoors together!
Click to Listen!