Fishermen leaving the docks in Accra, Ghana. Personal photograph by Michael. 19 May 2008.

The docks were buzzing with activity when we arrived there around six a.m. Fishmongers were readying their tents. Fishermen--all men--were cleaning their boats and pushing them out to sea. Soon they would return and the women would start their work. They would relieve the men of their morning catch and proceed to scale and fry the fish on their charred makeshift grills.

One man stood out in particular. He was taller and larger than the others, and the rest. Perhaps he was a Lord of the Docks, doling out fish and responsibilities. Or perhaps he was a drug dealer. There were several men wandering the docks who offered us to get high.

The entire morning made for a wonderful sociological experience. Somehow, everything seemed to fit -- parts of a complex mechanism that hummed along just fine without anybody's help. The men worked in tandem. The women picked up baskets of fish, balanced them on their heads, and started on their long treks to the villages. The kids would chase stray dogs in and out of rickety huts set up along the shore. Stacks of narrow, charred smoke from the grills wove themselves into the fresh air. It was a sight no picture could fully capture.

Israeli lamppost at Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Personal photograph by Michael. 14 October 2006.

The Israeli sculptor Frank Meisler was commissioned by the Israeli Ambassador to the UK to create the bronze sculptures of Bottom and Topol mounted on the Stratford lamppost pictured above. I remember visiting Meisler's shop-cum-museum off a humble street in Jaffa in Israel. His most ubiquitous work is the Jerusalem Sphere, below.  He gifted a modified version of the sphere to then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  Meisler turned his incredible imagination toward a craft that has elevated the Polish-born sculptor to the honor of the best Israeli sculptor. I am, frankly, amazed that there is no English Wikipedia page for Meisler. I was able to find one in German and another in Russian. No English page exists. 

Sources

1. Public sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull

Mexica Sun Stone at the Museo National de Anthropologia, Mexico City. Personal photograph. 22 November 2009. 

This stone was discovered on December 17, 1790 under the Zocalo, Mexico City's main square, just several miles away from its current residence at the National Anthropology Museum. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the stone weighs 25 tons and spans 12 feet in diameter. The stone was originally believed to be an Aztec calendar because it contains references to dates and seasons. The museum, however, describes the stone as an unfinished sacrificial altar of the Mexicas, the immediate predecessors of modern Mexicans. By that interpretation, the altar, now hung vertically, was intended to lie flat on the ground for sacrifice.

At the San Diego Zoo.  Personal photography by Michael.  30 January 2010.