Women at the top

Following Tuesday's movie "Crash", Frank Couvares was our moderator for a lively debate on this topic, analysing the many layers and various messages conveyed by the producer. American society as one big "crazy salad", stereotyped characters, bad guys showing their good heart, good guys committing crimes, people trying to integrate, assimilate and risk losing their own identity, wealthy people being unhappy, poor people being misunderstood, loving mothers, caring fathers and an angel to protect them.

Laura Lovett, professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, gave us a lecture on "Women in the 21st century: Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama", giving the background of the women's movement, the changing expectations of women's roles, segregation issues, housing policies, ... very interesting but too much perhaps to fit into 90 minutes. During our short Q&A time the women in our group learned that not all men in our group seem to believe in equal opportunities ... Personnally, I was shocked to learn that in the USA of today, and not even in progressive Massachussets, women don't have the right to a paid maternity leave.

After the lunch break - still at Valentine's where young kids on tennis camps are being catered for and the food is reduced to burgers, burgers, and burgers - we were treated to an enthusiastic talk by Judie from Judie's. She told her personal story of how she started baking cakes at the age of 10 and now runs a very successful restaurant with a staff of 92. She has ADHD sydrome and has put it to her advantage, doing lots of multitasking and working many hours to succeed as the unbeatable popover queen of Amherst. We received a popover with applesauce and I'm sure that it will convince the ones who hadn't been to her restaurant to pop over soon.

(a popover is something between a cake and bread and hollow inside)

Judie illustrated women leadership in the profit sector whereas Leslie Laurie talked about the non profit sector. Leslie is the Executive Director of Tapestry Health Services. This NGO organises health services for people who are not covered by any other system. They run programmes on family planning, from contraception to abortion, HIV/Aids screening, needle exchange and others. In Amherst, for example, a shot of heroin is cheaper than a six pack of beer which explains why the center is visited frequently. Ellen Story, Massachusetts House of Representatives was supposed to talk to us as well, but because the government has recently cut down the budget of this NGO, she had to go to Boston to set things right. Everyone reading this blog is invited to visit the website http://www.tapestryhealth.com/ to find out more and perhaps make a donation for this worthy cause.

My personal conclusion of today is that succesful women don't only work with their head; they also use their heart!

In the evening, Bruce and Leslie Laurie took Naeema and me to NACUL Center where Tullio Inglese and his wife Judith have their studio in an old church they renovated.

Tullio is an architect specialising in ecological architecture. He showed us maquettes of houses and a futuristic Andromeda project in China. He was also one of the runners-up for the Ground Zero competition in New York City. Judith is a ceramist artist whose work depicts multicultural and multicoloured scenes. In Amherst a number of her plaques decorate the streets with words by people of the town; for example Emily Dickinson : "I'll tell you how the sun set, a ribbon at a time".

From the church, we drove to Tullio's house set in the middle of nature: simply breathtaking.

The light and airy wooden house looks out to the woods and the hills behind; a lily-covered pond, wild flowers, a terraced garden with a pizza oven, a vegetable patch, Tibetan peace-flags over the chicken run. We were welcomed by the whole family. Ariana and her husband and beautiful baby James, who really stole the show. Francesca and her - Belgian ! - boyfriend, whose name was ... Jan De Wilde ... (like my brother - but we don't think we're related). We had a lovely meal and a fantastic evening. I enjoyed speaking to Jan and I think he's very lucky to have come into this warm and loving family. After spending just one evening with these people, I felt so comfortable as if I had known them for a long time.