ROW80: Nearly Farewell to Merida

Earlier this week, we were quite excited to once again visit Celestun, a national preserve here in the Yucatan for thousands of flamingos. We walked down a tiny dock to board the small but charming boats, each holding 6 passengers and each with a canopy, looking like out-takes from The African Queen. 

A elderly, tall man slipped as he stepped from the dock onto the boat. Suddenly, he fell head first into the water and looked likely to slide under the boat. Several men quickly grabbed his feet and pulled him from the water, drenched, his head with contusions, but he was, relatively speaking, all right.

We all sorted quickly into our boats, and the excursion began. Flamingos, cranes, herons, pelicans, and a trip through a large mangrove filled up the rest of the afternoon. But the scene of the man falling remains with me. One moment, all was well. The next, disaster.

Part of the flexibility of ROW80 is that process of sorting through our goals, refining them, measuring our progress, and identifying those smaller steps that seem more achievable and take us closer to achieving our goals. Even when we're on vacation.We have just 11 days left before returning home, and I'm still trying to figure out who plays the villain in my current draft plot.

What I really want is access to a printer so I can print out those research articles I'm finding, mark them up, and resolve the relationships between museums, police, and those who trade in black market art.

So, if an artifact is 'on loan,' apparently some museums don't review provenance as carefully as they do for an outright donation or purchase. Perhaps the size of the museum is a factor. Or dwindling budgets for police departments. I've found stats that say that sales of black market art has grown just in the last five years from several billion to $5-7 billion in 2017. Looting of precious artifacts during war grabs headlines, as do arrests of art gallery owners and auction houses for selling illegal artifacts.

So, I will continue the research and take a lesson from our visit to that preserve for flamingos: One moment all is well. The next moment, disaster.

LAST WEEK'S SUMMARY: Wrote 750.com words 5/7 days. Total words = 2,932 (goal 2,500). Continued work on developing the villain character for The Seventh Tapestry. Posted on writing blog: Monthly post on Insecure Writers’ Support Group and poem (Winter in Merida). Reported in for ROW80 Weds & Sun. & read 6x posts.

For the coming week, same goals as above, with one new wrinkle. Focus research on the Museum of Edinburgh (or other Scottish museum) and on Scotland Yard's art crimes unit.

And now for the flamingos!

Celestun (February 2018)

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