Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone…!

On my travels, I love visiting the local village schools, to see the country´s future. More often than not, I find smiling faces of happy pupils, regardless of the political/economical outlook of the country. Here are some photographs from my archives plus quotes of wise (wo)men.

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“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.”
― Sydney J. Harris

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School in Sudan

“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”
― Mark Twain

Playing basketball in a neglected school hall in Armenia

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

School in Sudan

“You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.”
― Brigham Young

Derelict Bakong Temple school, Angkor, Cambodia

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”
― Socrates

Children in the school of Chong Kneas floating village, Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
― Albert Einstein

Igor, a teacher in Halidzor village, Armenia, supervises his pupils in a shabby classroom of the local school.

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.
― Alexander the Great

Bushman children on their schoolground, Den/ui village, Bushmanland, Namibia

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
― Albert Einstein

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”
― Frank Zappa

School in Sudan

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
― Nelson Mandela

Deserts of the world

Landscape of Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Barchan dunes of the Namib Desert, Namibia 

“Everything that ever happened to me that was important happened in the desert.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Dusk in the volcanic landscape of the Black Desert, Egypt

“…anyone can make a desert and call it peace…”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

Bedouin in Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

“You are a nomad, a wanderer – just like me. You roam the desert and I roam the world. What’s the difference between us?”
― Linda Ruth Horowitz, While the Sands Whisper

Tree of water connects lagoon and Atlanic ocean – Aerial photograph of Namibian coast

“In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen.”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

Whirlpool of sand Aerial photograph of the Namib Desert

“But in the desert, in the pure clean atmosphere, in the silence – there you can find yourself. And unless you begin to know yourself, how can you even begin to search for God?”
― Father Dioscuros

Bedouin in Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

“As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred change happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.”
― Wilfred Thesiger

Ray in the desert, surreal landscape of the White Desert, Egypt

“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance. I had found too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquility was to be found there.”
― Wilfred Thesiger

Surreal landscape of the Namib Desert Acacia Trees in the Deadvlei pan, Namibia

“In the desert of the heart, tears do not touch the ground.”
― Charles de Leusse

Rock formations of the White Desert, Egypt

“The sand doesn’t care if you’re made of flesh or stone.”
― Joaquin Lowe, Bullet Catcher

Dead Acacia Tree and sun in Hidden Vlei pan, Namib Desert, Namibia

“Desert is simply that: an ecstatic critique of culture, an ecstatic form of disappearance.”
― Jean Baudrillard, America

Landscape of Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

“I shivered in those
solitudes
when I heard
the voice
of
the salt
in the desert.”
― Pablo Neruda

Meroe Pyramids in the Nubian Desert, Sudan

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Desert photo gallery

Bedouin in Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

Meroe Pyramids in the Nubian Desert, Sudan

Landscape of Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

Landscape of Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

Surreal landscape of the Namib Desert Acacia Trees in the Deadvlei pan, Namibia

Tree and shadow in front of Dune 45, Namib Desert, Namibia

Sunset over the volcanic landscape of the Black Desert, Libyan Desert, Egypt

Dead Acacia Tree and sun in Hidden Vlei pan, Namib Desert, Namibia

Bedouin in Empty Quarter, Rub al Khali Desert, Oman

Lonely dead Acacia tree in the evening landscape of the Namib Desert, Sossusvlei, Namibia

Tree of water connects lagoon and Atlanic ocean – Aerial photograph of Namibian coast

Waves of the Atlantic Ocean meet the sand of Namib Desert – Aerial photograph, Namibia

Whirlpool of sand Aerial photograph of the Namib Desert

Barchan dunes of the Namib Desert Aerial photograph

Ray in the desert, surreal landscape of the White Desert, Egypt

Rock formations of the White Desert, Egypt

Fantastic landscape of the White Desert, Egypt

Landscape of el Agabat Valley, Western Desert, Egypt

Dusk in the volcanic landscape of the Black Desert, Egypt

Bizarre colors and shapes in the landscape of White Desert during sunrise, Egypt

 

Shadows on the wall

How I long to be
A shadow on the wall
I will make no sound at all
And when the sun goes down
The shadow on the wall
It cannot be seen at all

-Brandi Carlile-

Chasing shadows, Sudan

Old Dongola, Sudan

Skateboarding in Melbourne, Australia

Colours and shadows of Trinidad, Cuba

Little girl and shadow in Den/ui village, Bushmanland, Namibia

Shadows on the wall, Sudan