Simon Waters

Slapstick

It was the annual Festival of the Glorious Ewe, the patron saint of Mordek, and the capital was thronged with visitors. Kopek, chief spy of the Pimpleknuckle Confederation, surreptitiously mingled with the crowd disguised as a peasant on a jaunt to town, though his monocle and well waxed handlebar moustaches jarred slightly with his shepherds smock and slouch hat.

Of Pulque and Popo:

After enjoying Mexico’s cactus beer, I decided to climb the volcano that towers over Mexico city. Then, dammit, I did it again, But as Hericlitis said, you never climb the same mountain twice.

First Knock Door

When Victor found I had an Ewondo girlfriend from the Centre Province, he asked me if I was a serious man.

“If you are a serious man, you need to know how to dote your love,” he said. “I will tell you how to go see her father.”

The Ewondo live in the French speaking Centre province, so I asked, “How do you know about the Ewondo?”

“I had a love from there,” he told me. “You must be ready for what will happen. It is called the First Knock Door. When you go to see the father to ask for his daughter, you will say to the father, ‘You have a nice flower in the family that I love’.”

Getting Lucky (fiction)

Piter ate his sandwiches at the back of the library where he couldn’t be seen. The papers had no jobs he could apply for. He had looked at Maclean’s, Beautiful BC, and a skiing magazine, but finished none of the articles. As he folded his sandwich bag, a pretty young woman pushed a cart of books around the nearest stack. Piter self consciously cleared the crumbs off the table as she began to stack the books. He wished he had shaved that morning.

A short walk in the Cameroon rainforest

(Summer 2014) Simon Waters; 15 minutes As we left Assok, morning light streamed down through the rainforest tree tops. Soon the trail crossed a wide mud-brown river on a fallen tree trunk and Etienne strolled unconcernedly across. Although my pack was lighter than Etienne’s, I needed to protect my iPhone, and digital camera, so IContinue reading “A short walk in the Cameroon rainforest”

Canadian Customs boards US warship

I felt sick as I waited to board the USS Roark- would I get shot by the US Navy?

Nuclear Subs Deep Trouble

Stopping Canada buying nuclear submarines In the middle of the summer of 1988, I got an urgent call to go to the Greenpeace Toronto office to meet with Steve Shallhorn Canada’s Nuclear Free Seas campaigner. Steve got straight to the point: he wanted me to plan an action in Ottawa in a few weeks. IContinue reading “Nuclear Subs Deep Trouble”

A Princess or an ice-axe?

The Himalayan Institute of Mountaineering, Manali Part 1 Simon Waters I was sitting looking into the beautiful brown eyes of a stunning, sari-clad princess, at a party in Dehli, when my father came up. “There is someone over here I think you ought to meet”. “I’ll just be a few minutes Jake”, I replied, andContinue reading “A Princess or an ice-axe?”