An old un-posted travel story.._

Intro

“Mediating with Comics in Environmental Education” was the title of the event I was fortunate to participate in France 22.11 – 29.11.2008. Basically the idea of this was to teach and discuss how to raise the awareness of environmental issues through comics. Event was organized by TERA-Maison de l’Europe de la Charente in cooperation with Regional office of the French Ministry of Youth and Sports, the CNBDI (National Center of Comics and Picture), the Centre de découverte d’Aubeterre.
Event took place in little town called Aubeterre-sur-Dronne and Angoulême – World capital of comics. Aubeterre was the headquarters of the event and CNBDI (National Center of Comics and Picture) in Angoulême was where the seminars were held.
Participants gathered from all over the Europe – Creek, Macedonia, Romania, Latvia, Spain and of course hosting country France and myself from Estonia. It was an misfortune that people from Armenia and Georgia couldn’t participate.

Conclusions – in random order:

• French are about cheese, red wine and hospitality.
• French have lunch as a social event – its no problem to eat lunch for an hour.
• Some even speak English.
• The hardest English word for them is “environment”.
• French know how to make a short story long.
• Creek have some strange chewing gum and alcohol. Alcohol must be better than the chewing gum, cause it did not last long, while the gum lasted forever.
• French have some really strange green marmalade jam.
• French have some weird cars (have you seen electric window control in the center console? Fuel filter nearby rear right wheel?)
• French are very thorough.
• An airport can have inner railroad system.
• Romanian men are strong-boned, probably wrestling with a bear in their free time.
• Romanian women don’t talk when they have nothing to say.
• Macedonian men are quiet observers and can tell a joke.
• Paris is very much afraid of terrorists.
• French are very tolerant.
• Countryside around Aubeterre-sur-Dronne is amazing – people, landscape, atmosphere…
• Every house has window covers, I don’t know why.
• French don’t use much spices in their food while desserts are very sweet. Desserts make an excellent combination with coffee.
• French have their morning cereals with warm milk.
• French eat the 300 different types of cheese with bread, not bread with cheese like us.
• There is a university in the World where they teach how to draw comics. That is in Angoulême.
• You need GPS to navigate.
• You can have unlimited roundabouts in a city.
• French love-love-love comics.
• You can have a store which sells only comics and covers about 100 square meters.
• French are very aware of environmental issues and teach ecology in schools.
• Some parts of Spain already face clean water issue and have a factory to make sea water drinkable. So it isn’t a “to come” issue.
• Lost baggage can be found.
• Don’t buy books as souvenirs, nor accepts them as gifts if you don’t have wheels on your suitcase.
• Travel insurance IS needed, accidents DO happen. I hope you get well soon unknown Estonian who was taken to hospital from Amsterdam airport.
• There are book authors who spend about 15 minutes writing-drawing you a dedication.
• There are people who walk around with a sketchbook and pocket-brush in their pocket. They draw anytime and anywhere.
• To some age French children have 4 days of school per week.
• Comics can be excellent way to make long story short. For example this blog post would be on 3 A4s if drawn by a good comic artist instead of way_too_long-hard-to-read-boring text. As they say: “One good picture says more than 1000 words”.
• Comics are extra useful for those who have “visual memory” (like me).
• So comics can be extra efficient educational material.
• Sarkozy can be present in every comic strip in the newspaper. Good guy, no unemployed comic artists!
• Star Alliance’s emergency baggage contains following stuff: perfume, a comb, a razor, shaving foam, a white T-shirt size of XXL, toothpaste, a toothbrush, absorbent cotton, ear cleaning sticks and some strange white powder. I didn’t forget to write shampoo or shower gel here, it wasn’t included in the package.

Image: Momo not just signing, but drawing a full page dedication

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2008_4