FEBRUARY 13, 2018
Members' Night: Three reports from afield
Dan Senecal
LIVING AMONG THE DEAD
The Philippines
Visit the 135 acre North Cemetery of Manila in the Philippines where 6000 people live, eat, and work among the tombstones of nearly a million. The residents have their own school and jeepney transport system. Considered squatters by the City of Manila efforts to evict over the years have gone to naught. Dan will take you on a ‘tour’ to observe unique living arrangements where mausoleums double as houses, small shops and living pets sleep on tombs.
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Jack Deary
TRAVEL GRANT REPORT: NAM OU RIVER TRIP
Laos
Jack Deary’s son, Tony, is a recent recipient of a Harvard Traveller’s Club Permanent Fund Grant. As Tony remains abroad, Jack reports on Tony’s production of a photo documentary of an expedition through a significant tributary river of the Mekong called the Nam Ou. The Nam Ou is a navigable river that runs from the Chinese border to its entry into the Mekong just north of Luang Prabang. Tourism on the lower parts of the river (near the Mekong confluence) is possible, particularly where there is road access. But reports from Western foreigners who have traveled upstream are scarce. Tony traveled to some of the most remote parts of the South East Asian peninsula and felt as if he had slipped into ‘a time machine back to the pre- industrial period’. The rugged and inaccessible landscape has kept the indigenous tribes here isolated from most of the world, but that is changing rapidly now.
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Peter Lou
WORLD WAR I BATTLEFIELDS
France and Belgium
The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, of which Dr Lou is a member, visited France and Belgium in October 2017 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of US participation in WWI in Europe. This presentation highlights the battlefields in which US and Canadians troops fought as part of “the war to end all wars”.