Visiting Central California Missions

My daughter Jessica, friends Laura Biche, her sister Cathie Ferris, and I are continuing our quest to visit all of the California Missions. In 2015-2016, we visited seven Missions (listed north to south, with the order of establishment in parenthesis):

1. Mission San Francisco Solano, (#21) in Sonoma 
2. Mission San Rafael Arcángel, (#20) in San Rafael
3. Mission San Francisco de Asís (“Mission Dolores”, #6), in San Francisco
4. Mission Santa Clara de Asís, (#8) in Santa Clara
5. San Juan Bautista, (#15) in San Juan Bautista
6. Nuestra Senora de Soledad, (#13) in Soledad
7. San Antonio de Padua, (#3) in Jolon

Last weekend starting from San Jose, we visited six more Missions, plus another visit to San Juan Bautista since we had dinner in town:

1. Mission San Miguel Arcángel, (#16) in San Miguel
2. Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, (#5) in San Luis Obispo
3. Mission La Purísima Concepción, (#11) near Lompoc
4. Mission Santa Inés, (#19) in Solvang
5. Mission Santa Barbara, (#10) in Santa Barbara
6. Mission San Buenaventura, (#9) in Ventura

Since we were traveling on a Sunday, we attended services at Mission San Buenaventura.  Many of the missions are still in active use by the Catholic Church. A few are public museums. We have eight more Missions to visit, in two trips: one to Southern California and the other near where we live in Northern California:

Southern California

1. Mission San Fernando Rey de España, (#17) in Mission Hills (Los Angeles)
2. Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, (#4) in San Gabriel
3. Mission San Juan Capistrano, (#7) in San Juan Capistrano
4. Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, (#18) in Oceanside
5. Mission San Diego de Alcalá, (#1) in San Diego

Northern California

1. Mission Santa Cruz, (#12) in Santa Cruz
2. Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, (#2) in Carmel
3. Mission San José, (#14) in Fremont

Pictures of Mission San Miguel Arcángel:

Pictures of Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa:

Pictures of Mission La Purísima Concepción:

Pictures of Mission Santa Inés:

Pictures of Mission Santa Barbara:

Pictures of Mission San Buenaventura:

Mission San Juan Bautista:

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Images Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

Extra Gear? Gifts for Sierra Leone

My daughter Jessica and I will be visiting Families Without Borders in Sierra Leone next week with Terri Khonsari. If you have any extra laptops or smart phones we can bring – no matter how old or dead – the students will be delighted with your donation. Please contact me soon!

I have visited the inspiring and fascinating continent of Africa at least once a year since 2010. With TechWomen Delegations, I have been to Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa, plus participating in Delegations to Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa below the Sahara. With People to People, John and I visited Ethiopia. My only actual vacation in Africa was to Egypt in 2010 – a much longer trip than planned since our family was stranded there by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano.  This will be my first trip to West Africa.

I bring gifts on each trip for our generous hosts and for new friends and colleagues. For my first TechWomen Delegations, I had custom pencils made but more recently, I have brought San Francisco keychains and geeky pens and toys given away at events like the Grace Hopper Conference.  For this trip, I bought keychains, the Willow Glen Wells Fargo Bank branch gave me a big bag of red pens, and I am also bringing packages of stickers for the children.

However, the best present for the students in Sierra Leone would be empowerment and greater connection to the wider world.  Your outdated computer gear can help them.  I hope to hear from you!

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Image Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

Sierra Leone Trip – Families Without Borders

Terri Khonsari, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I are traveling to Sierra Leone in a few weeks to visit the Families Without Borders school Terri manages in Makeni.  Jessica and I will be making technical and business presentations in Makeni and in Freetown. Terri and I are both long-time Mentors for the TechWomen program.  We have been discussing this trip for years.

More about Families Without Borders:

We believe in building communities from within through education and empowerment of local youth. We begin by recruiting top students from disadvantaged families. We enroll them in a four year Bachelors Degree program of their choice complemented by a full servant leadership and personal development program. The program includes: advance computer skills, communication skills and financial management.

On Saturday, John, Matthew, Jessica and I joined TechWomen IdaRose Sylvester (with her husband Neil Hendin) and Samera Edwards at the Families Without Borders annual fundraising Gala. We enjoyed good company, good food, and good music. Jessica even learned some drumming.

Here are Hamid and Terri Khonsari with four TechWomen Fellows from Sierra Leone at the Families Without Borders Gala in 2015:

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Images Copyright 2015-2017 by Katy Dickinson

Easter Egg Hunt 2017

Catching up on my postings… Easter was on Sunday 16 April in 2017 and as usual we had friends, family, and neighbors over for a potluck brunch and Easter Egg Hunt in our back garden and on WP668. The Associate Easter Bunny wrote a very difficult set of riddles for the adults to find the Gold and Silver Eggs – one of the clues was on Twitter! Jessica, Matthew, Paul, and John all helped – as did our house guest Thoko Miya from South Africa. John cooked Maqluba (chicken and rice “upside down” from Jordan) which was much appreciated!

Silver Egg

• I am a beautiful-bold building block,
• a 1-to-2 ton ballerina queen.
• My reach spreads from Iskanderia to
• where Toko lives (though there are fewer of
• my ances-sisters bellowing than lived
• there free when Ibn Batuta roved from
• the Cape to Cairo and Mongol Guangzhou,
• from shadowed Fez to wet-and-wild Mosul.)
• I’m sunning myself in the shade of yolks
• that hold their albumen inside their skins,
• that parents feed their dogs for YouTube lulz,
• and babies cry-smile when first they taste them.
• So far I’ve led you on a lumbering chase
• Msr, AsSeen, Arak — where is my place?

(the Silver Egg was hidden in the dirt, under a concrete hippo, under a lemon tree)

Gold Egg

• Six unkind clues will guide
• you briskly to my haunt,
• in shadow where I hide.
• Get hopping – it’s a jaunt!
• You’ll climb among downed-trees
• and wander through spike-leaves…
• Hop quickly so Ethan won’t flaunt!

(the Gold Egg was on top of the light bulb, inside the glass cover of the overhead light fixture, on the porch)

Gold Egg – Clue 1

• I’m surrounded by pot apparatus
• But it’s not a medicinal grow.
• You’ll not have to climb up to the attics
• or wander wader-deep in the snow.
• You’ll just have to walk
• to a gate that unlocks
• and find out where Paul’s clay does go.

Gold Egg – Clue 2

• The next clue is online
• you’ll practically titter
• when you see the next poem
• is posted on Twitter.

Gold Egg – Clue 3 – from Twitter

• Upon a bright flower
• You’ll find my small bower.
• Not on a rosethorn,
• or leaf-ling of corn
• – under cactus and dragon I glower.

Gold Egg – Clue 4

• Under Princess’s butt I was warming
• My contents I hope you’ll find charming
• But because she’s a cat
• And upon me she sat
• My message by now will be warming.

Gold Egg – Clue 5

• You’ve lined up and squarely stood still
• You’ve caught-on and gotten your fill
• and now hear’s the treat:
• an Easter-hunt feat
• You’ll find me outside grey-bird’s sill.

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Images Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

Eleanor Dickinson Art – New Website Launched

My family and I just launched the new Eleanor Dickinson Art website on which you can see information about my mother, Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson, and purchase some of her fine art, posters, and books.

Eleanor Dickinson Art contains selections of original creations from the archives of Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson, a remarkable American artist who was actively creating, teaching, and exhibiting fine art for over 75 years. Her work has been exhibited at many dozens of galleries and museums around the world, and is collected by a wide variety of individuals, universities, museums and other major institutions, including:

• Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
• Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Tennessee State Museum
• The Oakland Museum
• University of Tennessee Libraries, Special Collections

Fine art is a reflection of the soul – this website includes nudes.

In addition to getting more of Eleanor Dickinson’s creations into the world to be seen and enjoyed, the new website provides photographs and information about the artist: her Statement, Resume, Obituary, and Reviews. The About page includes information about the Art, Shipping and Additional Charges, the Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson Charitable Art Trust, Paper, and other topics.

Thanks to Jessica Dickinson Goodman and John Plocher for their help in setting up the Eleanor Dickinson Art website. Thanks also to those of you who reviewed the site while it was in development.

Images Copyright Eleanor Dickinson Art 1976-2005

Benefits of Dementia

On this, my daughter Jessica‘s birthday, I want to honor and thank her for her creativity, love, and generous heart. It is such a pleasure that she and Matthew live here in San Jose, not only because I love and want to spend time with them but also because Jessica has made time each week for my mother Eleanor (her grandmother), to help her get all that she can out of life, despite her dementia and other health challenges.

In a recent conversation, Jessica told me she keeps a mental list of what is good about dementia. After a pause during which I reoriented my thinking about this degrading and frustrating disease, I remembered that in 2008 I made a similar list of some of the benefits of having a disabled child.   Here is Jessica’s list, plus some additions:

Benefits of Dementia

1. Good Surprises: Jessica told me about man with dementia who would order socks or books or other needed items for postal delivery. By the time the packages arrived, he had forgotten he himself had ordered them. He was sure he had a loving friend sending him surprises that were just what he wanted.
2. Making a Statement, Again: When my mother saw Jessica in a politically provocative tshirt, she was delighted. Later that afternoon, Eleanor noticed the shirt for the first time, and was delighted again.
3. Keeping Contact: When my father Wade died in 2011 at the age of 85, Eleanor lost her greatest fan. They had been married for 59 years, fighting and arguing all the way. Eleanor’s dementia has softened that loss. Sometimes she speaks of Wade as if he is in the next room.

What would you add to this list of the benefits of dementia?

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Images Copyright 2016 by Katy Dickinson

TechWomen Community Cycle

The TechWomen mentoring program has been since 2010 a big part of my annual planning. 90 Emerging Leaders from 19 countries in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East will arrive in the San Francisco Bay Area in about ten days to start working at local STEM companies.  I am already working with the 6 ELs from Tunisia as one of their 3 Impact Advisors. Our Impact Advisory group has been meeting remotely every Friday – I look forward to meeting the Tunisia ladies in person soon.  The 2016 Emerging Leaders will be in the USA until mid-October, returning home after a visit to Washington DC.

I am also enjoying supporting one of my 2014 mentees, TechWomen Fellow and Fulbright Fellow Mai Temraz from Gaza, who will be starting her MBA at Cal State San Bernardino next month.  Several of us visited Mai and her family in Gaza City earlier this year.  The Temraz family is staying with us in San Jose while Mai goes through orientation at UC Davis.  Last weekend, my daughter Jessica, Mai, and I did a road trip to help find an apartment in San Bernardino and to see the Cal State campus.  In a few weeks, the Temraz family will move to Southern California.

TechWomen is more than an Initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, it has become a beloved community and extended family for many of its participants.

Walaa, Mai, and Yazan Temraz in San Jose, California, August 2016

TechWomen Erin Keeley, Eileen Brewer, Mai Temraz, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Katy Dickinson, and Aliya Janjua in Gaza City, February 2016

TechWomen Seham Al-Jaafreh, Mai Temraz, and Katy Dickinson, San Bruno Park, California, October 2014

TechWomen in Tunisia, with Impact Advisors in California, August 2016

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Images Copyright 2014-2016 by Katy Dickinson