Molten is a veteran traveler who trained as a PE teacher.

In her youth Naomi wanted to explore the world and spent 18 years hitchhiking around the globe.

She recalls her adventures as a young woman in the 1950s traveling mainly on her own to many countries including New Zealand, Australia, India and Pakistan, Afghanistan and the North West Frontier.

Lahore, Pakistan
Beirut, Lebanon
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sao Paulo, Brazil

The World’s Alex Gallafent looks at some of systemic problems behind such disasters.

The building that collapsed in Lahore, Pakistan, and killed more than 20 people, was a factory. It’s thought it was brought down by an exploding boiler.

The building that collapsed in Beirut killed at least 25 people. A couple of theories for its collapse:

Maybe cracks in the building were made worse by heavy rain. Or perhaps its foundations were weakened by nearby construction.

In any case, for the professionals, a building collapse is one of the worst things that can happen.

Cameron Sinclair is one of the founders of the non-profit group Architecture for Humanity. For him, what’s scary is rarely the design of buildings, rather it’s how those designs are constructed.

“The quality of construction is diminishing greatly,” he said.

“There was a time when we as architects would deal with a whole system of master craftsmen who would be working on the finer details of a building. Now it’s kind of like the McDonalds of building. It’s a lot of cookie-cutter, dropped-in solutions that are done to maximize profit locally.”

That may be true, but it doesn’t account for the building stock the world already has.

The factory that collapsed in Pakistan was about 25 years old, and the Lebanese building dated from the 1920s.

In these cases it’s more a matter of upkeep and regulation.

For instance, one commentator suggested that–in Beirut–the fact that old laws keep some rents very low means landlords don’t spend money on standard safety inspections.

And it’s problems with enforcing the rules that Christopher Gaffney thinks are to blame for the recent building collapses in Brazil.

In Rio de Janeiro a 20-storey building collapsed onto two smaller buildings, both of which also went down.

Gaffney is an architecture professor there, and he notes that Brazil has a long and proud tradition of structural engineering.

“So this was a bit of a surprise and it’s turn into a tourist attraction of sorts. But in terms of a shock at the falling apart of public infrastructure, people were not terribly surprised.”

Gaffney sees cracks not in Rio’s buildings so much as in the city’s civic infrastructure: no-one’s stepping up to take the blame.

“The mayor doesn’t want to take responsibility, the governor doesn’t want to take responsibility, the engineering firms don’t want to take it,” he said.

“And so this is a concern of mine in general for the way that the World Cup is going to be run.”

That’s the soccer World Cup in 2014, a major event that’s only going to increase the stress on Rio de Janeiro.

Rio’s problems are big and systemic, and Gaffney doesn’t see the city’s leaders tackling them.

“When you have a bit event coming in, when you have these gross failures of public administration, you expose yourself to international coverage and you expose your weaknesses,” he said.

Anywhere in the world, developing big systems takes a long time, whether it’s building a culture of responsibility or a well-regulated inspection regime, or a seamless construction process.

Maybe, says Cameron Sinclair, at Architecture for Humanity, that’s why it’s easier to blame fate when things go wrong.

“When we assume it’s a freak accident, we dismiss it and we just ignore it.”

The country borders, among other nations, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

Its two official languages are Swahili and English.

The country became independent in 1963, but 60 years ago, it was still a British colony.

Also, it was this place, 60 years ago, where Princess Elizabeth happened to be when her father, King George VI died.

So, it was the place where Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II.

Kenya is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

As the Queen celebrates 60 years on the throne, The World’s Alex Gallafent looks back at the circumstances in which Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II.

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Australian businessman Ken Grenda has, after selling his business, awarded his employees generous bonuses.

The other boss, former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin, has been stripped of his knighthood.

Ishioka died recently in Tokyo at the age of 73.

You may not know her name, but you might have seen some of her work.

I met Eiko Ishioka about a year ago, when she was working on the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.” We talked backstage, surrounded by some of the surreal costumes she’d designed for the show, including a lizard-like Green Goblin.

Spider-Man was only the latest job in a career of extraordinary breadth. Ishioka won the 1993 Oscar for costume design for her work on “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” But her association with the film’s director, Francis Ford Coppola, went back to a project in the mid-1980s that upended stereotypes about Japan — the film “Mishima.”

Ishioka said that before “Mishima” most Americans making movies about Japan focused on ninja, geisha and samurai. “So as a Japanese, I was very frustrated,” she said.

The movie was about Yukio Mishima, a Japanese novelist and activist who committed ritual suicide in 1970.

“This movie’s an American film, but talking about a Japanese subject, so I was very excited,” Ishioka recalled. “But at the same time I was very frightened.”

Eiko Ishioka had built her career as an art director for Japanese ad campaigns. Now she was working in the US as a production designer, or a costume designer.

She loved it.

She said that the designer’s job is typically a passive one. “When I receive very exciting job, turn to the very active, like I want to express my own creative philosophies, like a fine artist.”

That didn’t mean a specifically Japanese philosophy.

“I want to bring my own identity as a human being. But I don’t need to bring a Japanese identity. I don’t even know what Japanese identity is. Japan is a really complicated country.”

Maybe it was Ishioka’s refusal to accept simple categories that allowed her to jump from movies to designing racing outfits for the Canadian speed skating team — outfits that would later inspire her designs for the musical “Spider-Man”.

It’s no surprise then that an American jazz musician selected her, a Japanese artist, to dream up a cover for his album, one named in honor of a South African civil rights campaigner.

The album was “Tutu”; the jazz musician, Miles Davis.

“I observed his face, his hand — incredible symbol of his life,” Ishioka said. “So I said, this is it, this is perfect. I want to make his album with his face and hand.”

Eiko Ishioka won a Grammy for her work on “Tutu” — a series of striking close-up photos of Miles Davis, shot in stark black and white.

Ishioka died in Tokyo. But for the last 30 years her main base was New York. Not that it mattered.

“I was completely free spirit,” she said. “Any kind of exciting job, I wanted to do it.”

Andrade holds Evoria in great esteem, but she’s definitely her own artist.

Global Hit: Mayra Andrade by The World

Listen above for some really beautiful music and for the answers to these three Mayra Andrade trivia questions.

1. Why does Mayra Andrade carry a dinner knife and a length of metal wherever she goes? (It’s not for eating.)
2. Who was her musical mentor in Cape Verde? (It wasn’t Cesária Évora.)
3. Which part of her own body does she want people to access through her music? (It’s not her head.)

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Many Dickens lovers will be traveling to the UK to celebrate. Some may have been planning to visit the Charles Dickens Museum, housed in one of his London homes.

It contains thousands of manuscripts and personal items owned by the author–and it’s where he wrote novels including Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

But, from April to December, the museum will be closed for renovations. And that’s causing a stir.

Then again, right now in Britain, it’s Dickens, Dickens, Dickens. There are exhibitions, festivals, film seasons, you name it.

And so Florian Schweizer, the director of the Charles Dickens Museum, says maybe it’s not such a bad moment to do the renovations.

“While in any other year our closure might have been a problem we feel quite confidently that we’ve created such a strong program of events in and around London and around the country that for that short period the public probably won’t miss us too much.”

That’s utter nonsense, according to Lucinda Hawksley. She’s Dickens’ great-great-great-granddaughter and a patron of the Museum.

Hawksley wants the refurbishment plan to be postponed until 2013, leaving the building open this year.

In particular she’s thinking of Dickens pilgrims from overseas who are planning trips to the UK. Many of them are members of an association called the Dickens Fellowship.

“A lot of people have been saving for four or five years to come here in the bicentenary year,” she says.

The museum will be open for Dickens’ birthday on February 7th, continues Hawksley.

“But what they’ve neatly not mentioned is that in August of this year the International Dickens Fellowship Conference is being held in the UK. It’s being held in Portsmouth and people were planning on coming to London to visit museum. And the museum is the international headquarters of the Dickens Fellowship. People are so upset,” Hawksley says.

Rose Roberts, 90, President of the Dickens Fellowship of New York (photo: Alex Gallafent)

Roberts has been president for the past 35 years.

By day she’s a full-time travel agent, but it’s the works of the great writer Charles Dickens that she loves the most.

“He’s not a great writer, he’s a fantastic writer,” she counters.

“There’s no one like him. People compare him to Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote a few plays. Big deal.”

If you’re thinking that Rose Roberts is a little bit like one of those larger-than-life Dickensian characters, well, she wouldn’t entirely disagree.

“I’m considered feisty, I’m 4’10’’, I weigh 100 pounds, so I’m quite petite. But I have a joie de vivre, you know a zest for living. And I know looking at me you might not think it, but I’m over 90.”

Rose Roberts reached that milestone last October. Recently she got the email from the Dickens Museum announcing the planned closure.

“I think it’s bad timing, a bad decision.”

As for the works of Dickens, Rose Roberts says she loves A Tale of Two Cities, and its famous opening.

“The best of times, the worst of times. That’s our logo on the heading of our calendar: the best of times with the Dickens Fellowship of New York,” Roberts says.

And she admires the way he shone a light on the mistreatment of women and children in his time.

But there’s one thing she doesn’t like about Charles Dickens.

“The way he left his wife after having 10 children, because she let herself go, she shouldn’t have had that many,” she says. “He had nothing to do with it?”

Not the kind of behavior that gets you into heaven, she thinks. Unless you’re Charles Dickens.

“Because of his writings there’s no choice, he has to go up there,” she says. “When I go up and I see him, I’m going to talk to him.”

And you can be sure Rose Roberts will be giving the Dickens Museum a piece of her mind when she visits London later in the year.

“When I was there five years ago I said this could be really stepped up quite a bit,” she says. “It did look dowdy, it wasn’t comfortable–seating arrangements and so on–so they had all these years to do it. Why now?

The Dickens Museum will likely be fielding that question until its planned re-opening just in time for Christmas.

There’s promotional video for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games making the rounds now. It includes Mitt Romney, who headed the Salt Lake Olympic Committee, speaking French to welcome volunteers. The video (below) was made by a Democratic PAC. The translations are not the real translations of what he is saying.

There are two major orange producing countries: Brazil and the United States. Both are involved in the current price spike.

Last week, Florida experienced prolonged temperatures below freezing, enough to cause some crop damage and to give traders the jitters.

Florida produces most of the oranges in the US, and the US produces about 15 percent of the world’s supply. But with 33 percent it’s Brazil that’s the biggest orange-grower, said Michael Smith of T&K Futures and Options in Florida.

“So when you take a problem with either or you’re talking about half of the global production,” he said.

The US Food and Drug Administration has found a fungicide not approved over here in shipments of orange juice concentrate coming from Brazil. Producers over there use the fungicide to stop mold on their trees. And now the FDA says it’ll stop any further shipments of Brazilian oranges that contain the chemical.

“We could have quite a lack of product on the global market,” said Smith.

The market for orange juice is enormous, thanks in part to campaigns like those produced by Florida’s Citrus Commission back in the 1950s. One features the tennis star Gussie Moran.

“And Gussie I’d say that you really go for that orange juice”, says a smart-dressed man. “Bud, I crave it,” replies Moran. “After a fast tennis match nothing refreshes me as fast orange juice.”

Elizabeth Sullivan is a health coach based in New York. She says there are 22g of sugar in a single glass of orange juice.

“So what happens is that the sugar gets absorbed immediately into your blood stream and it might give you an energy spike right away. But over the long run that’s an awful lot of sugar in your diet if you’re drinking a lot of orange juice,” she said.

We certainly do drink a lot of orange juice, and not just for the sugar kick.

While Sullivan says it’s better all-round to eat a whole orange, whether it’s from Florida or Brazil or anywhere else, OJ has long been America’s go-to source for vitamin C.

That doesn’t look set to change.

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What made it distinctly Indian was one of the figures at the center of the protest: a bare-chested yoga guru named Baba Ramdev who undertook a public fast. (The other central figure was–and remains–the social activist Anna Hazare.)

These days stories from India tend to be about the country’s technology-driven charge into the 21st century, powered by an army of web gurus.

In contrast, the notion of spiritual gurus conjures the image of hermits living in the mountains, or bearded sages from the sixties living in remote ashrams.

So how did they become some of India’s most powerful figures?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is one of India’s most visible gurus. He displays all the hallmarks of the Indian guru: He’s childlike, he giggles; there’s flowing hair and simple robes.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

Don’t confuse Sri Sri Ravi Shankar with Ravi Shankar the sitar player. This one leads an international non-profit organization called The Art of Living: it aims to create a world free from violence by eliminating stress.

But the guru says he’s also obliged to speak out on Indian politics, for instance corruption. “Spiritual leaders cannot sit back and say this is not my area. They have to take action. They have the role of reformers, not rulers, but they will have to have a say.”

They already do have a say.

When Baba Ramdev arrived for his anti-corruption fast in Delhi, Indian government ministers took the time to meet him at the airport. That’s a lot of political bowing and scraping for someone unelected. And it provoked a degree of soul-searching in the Indian media.

On Indian TV commentators wondered if the likes of Baba Ramdev were indeed more like politicians than gurus. Was it, they asked, for him to be weighing in on complicated national issues such as corruption?

The consensus is that spiritual leaders like Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar have managed to do what India’s political leaders have so far not: capture the hearts and minds of many in India’s growing middle-class.

Ramnath Narayanswamy is a professor of management at a Bangalore business college. He teaches a course called ‘Spirituality for Global Managers’.

“I think India’s unique contribution to world civilization is precisely what we call in Sanskrit a ‘guru shishya parampara’, the relationship between a master and his disciple” he says.

Ramnath Narayanswamy's ring bears the image of his guru (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

That master-disciple relationship still resonates throughout Indian society–from the office to the school to the ashram. Pair a genuine teacher with a committed student and knowledge will flow.

Narayanswamy met his own guru on July 28th, 2007.

“It was an enormous outpouring of love,” he remembers.

Narayanswamy says his guru has spiritual powers beyond rational understanding.

“As soon as I approached he seemed to know everything about me. In about three minutes he told me my whole life. He knew everything. If there’s a scratch on your body, he’d know about it. And he’s never wrong.”

But millions of Indians–especially young Indians–aren’t so comfortable with that degree of belief.

Young professionals like Nandini Rao are members of the secular global community. She’s a brand manager for an IT company in Bangalore. But she’s also Indian.

“At one level we feel very educated, all of us are traveling across the globe,” she says.

“But at the same time there is a conflict.. How much of a connection should I have to my Indian roots?”

The problem is that, as India’s middle class has grown, its Indian roots have become harder to grasp.

In a city like Bangalore, people don’t know their neighbors any more. They’re unhappy with their careers, or their appearance. They’re money-conscious and time-poor.

So what do you do?

Well therapy’s out, says Sumit Acharya, another IT worker. This is India, after all.

“If somebody wants to go and talk to a psychologist it will be considered a negative in the society,” he argues.

“But if somebody goes and meets the gurus, [it] will be considered a very positive step forward.”

So you’ve got a growing Indian middle class that’s feeling cut off from its roots. And you’ve got this cultural ideal of the master-disciple relationship. Put the two together and you get some pretty fertile soil for an enterprising guru.

A bearded sage by the name of Sadhguru appears on giant billboards throughout Bangalore. He’s developed a philosophy designed to appeal to tech-savvy Indians. It’s called ‘Inner Engineering’.

A Bangalore billboard promoting 'Inner Engineering' (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

Sadhguru is a kind of life coach as much as anything else.

“Engineering fundamentally means to create situations the way we want it. But our inner situations are not the way we want it.”

He sells DVDs and self-help books alongside his Inner Engineering course. The profits, his foundation says, help fund charitable projects in rural India.

But even if the motives of Sadhguru and others are humanitarian, the sheer scale of their operations makes others uneasy. Ramachandra Guha is a well-known Indian author and columnist.

“Historically and traditionally, spirituality has been associated with solitude, with a retreat from the world,” he says.

“It’s rather difficult for someone like me to think of such a guru who’s interested in brand strategy and brand marketing and expanding his empire. But that’s how many Indian gurus are today.”

Some say many of today’s gurus are something else: corrupt.

Sathya Sai Baba, who died earlier this year, was one of India’s most powerful and revered spiritual leaders.

He built schools, hospitals, and transformed his own village into a thriving city. But over the years, he was also publicly accused of money-laundering, fraud and sexual abuse–charges he always denied. And after his death, large amounts of cash, gold and silver were found in his private quarters.

For Ranji David, an IT training manager, he was just one of many gurus who didn’t live up to their billing.

“What makes it frustrating for the urban youth is that every time these babajis come it’s good work and you know packaged really well. But somewhere down the line they get exposed.”

So how can Indians today tell the difference between the fraud and the teacher worth following? It’s an important question, not just for India’s spiritual life, but for its political future too.

One straightforward answer came from, as it happened, another guru–a clean-shaven man named Eswaran. He lives with his wife in a small apartment near the center of Bangalore.

Vedanta guru Eswaran at home in Bangalore (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

“When it comes to the teaching of the master, you [must] go extremely critical,” he says.

“You’ve got to be doubting, doubting, questioning, questioning, questioning.”

In other words, don’t forget to use your brain.

“God has given intellect to human being[s], right. For what? To think.”

Good advice in any age.

Potato Jalapeño Latkes

12 pieces (2 per person)

Ingredients:
2 Large russet potatoes, peeled
1 Egg yolk
½ cup Matzo meal
1 Jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1 t Kosher salt
Olive oil for frying

To Make:

1) Using a box grater, coarsely grate the potatoes into a medium-size bowl. Add the egg yolk, jalapeño, salt, and matzo meal; mix well and let cool in the refrigerator for five minutes to allow ingredients to bind.
2) Remove bowl from refrigerator and drain off any excess liquid.

Julian Medina's potato jalapeno latkes in the pan

(Recipe courtesy Chef Julian Medina)

Audio extra: Rabbi Michael Sternfield discusses Jewish fusion food

But Mandela is rarely far from people’s minds.

Heidi Holland, a journalist based in Johannesburg, met Mandela frequently after his release from prison in 1990. Now she gets regular updates on his health.

“He’s not sick,” she says, “he’s just fading away, as old men do.”

“And he had a tough life, you know, all that breaking of rocks in the quarries at Robben Island.”

Holland has heard the question many times: what’s going to happen to South Africa when Mandela passes away?

“And I used to say quite glibly, ‘well he’s been out of active politics for such a long time, it’s not going to make any difference.’ But I’ve changed my mind about that.”

Heidi Holland (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

Today Heidi Holland looks at the ruling African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, and she sees it corrupted by greed, ambition and infighting: things, she says, Mandela would not have tolerated.

“And so I have this growing nostalgia even though he isn’t dead yet,” she continues. “You just wonder where the voices of integrity will come from.”

Nelson Mandela has been the subject of criticism over the years, not least for actions he took when his then-wife Winnie Mandela was in legal trouble.

But nothing has really threatened his stature as the father of modern South Africa, even though it’s been more than a decade since he left office.

Bigboy Muhlwa, a geography teacher in Johannesburg, says that Mandela’s “presence cannot really go away.”

For him and many others, Mandela remains the country’s moral center, even as he’s absent from public life. He’s still the guy you want to turn to when things are going bad.

“The idea of Mandela, it goes and comes back,” says Muhlwa, adding that it comes back when people are talking about the most important things in their lives.

Amina Cachalia hears the same question again and again: ‘What’s going to happen when Mandela’s no longer here?’

Cachalia is a veteran of the freedom struggle, and she’s been a close friend of Nelson Mandela for more than sixty years.

She says people ask the question “as if he’s keeping us together in a way. That’s how people feel.”

Cachalia is upset at the thought of losing her friend, but she says South Africans have to face reality: Mandela will die, and there’s still basic work to be done.

Equal political freedom hasn’t yet translated into equal economic opportunity. Many young people are unemployed and angry.

From afar, it could look like the achievement of Nelson Mandela has been squandered and degraded.

But that’s not how Graunt Kruger sees things.

“Are we seeing a degradation of the era of Mandela? Well, the era of Mandela has gone.”

Kruger works with black women entrepreneurs for one of South Africa’s major banks. He says all South Africans are ‘Mandela’s children’. But children grow up, and–as he points out–these ones have accomplished great things.

“The ANC, the South African government, South Africa as a country [all] grew leaps and bounds beyond Mandela and probably beyond what his wildest expectations even were.”

Amina Cachalia (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

Kruger says South Africa’s institutions have matured since Mandela stepped down. He believes the country is now well-placed to meet its current set of challenges.

Indeed, Kruger wonders if the focus on Mandela is more for people outside the country, as if South Africans themselves can’t afford to stop and get nostalgic: there’s too much to do.

But there are some, like veteran activist Amina Cachalia, who are adamant that South Africa mustn’t forget the lessons of Mandela and his generation.

“I think our leadership has to buck up” she says pointedly.

“The examples have been set for them. The struggle’s been won in a way, and yet there’s a great struggle ahead for us.”

It may be impossible to live up the standards set by Nelson Mandela. But Cachalia says South Africans must try.

Alex Gallafent traveled to South Africa with assistance from the International Reporting Project.

Swaziland is one of the smallest countries in Africa, positioned between South Africa and Mozambique.

It faces big challenges: a crumbling economy, a devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic and one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world.

Swaziland is also the continent’s last remaining absolute monarchy: King Mswati III rules with few constraints but he also presides over a people growing in anger.

A few years ago, King Mswati agreed to be interviewed for an American documentary, called Without the King. He made this argument:

“We can only succeed if we are all of us together. But if that one pulls in that direction, and that one pulls in that direction, the problems will overcome us instead of us overcoming the problems.”

Today that ideal of the Swazi nation pulling together rings hollow for people like Sizwe, a youth leader in the country’s largest city. He lays the blame for Swaziland’s troubles squarely at the feet of the King.

“Of late, I really hate him,” he says. “I’m sorry, but to me he’s as good as dead.”

King Mswati III is 43-years-old. He inherited the crown from his father in 1986, along with a fortune that’s estimated now to stand at around 100 million dollars. He’s taken fourteen wives, and–say his critics–he enjoys a lifestyle of palaces and plenty.

In contrast, most of his subjects live on less than two dollars a day. Some have taken to the streets in protest.

Swaziland’s constitution provides for freedom of expression. But in practice, political parties are banned and authorities have often met political demonstrations with violence.

Still, the protests continue. In recent weeks trade union members, students, and even lawyers, have gathered in their hundreds to vent their frustrations.

But King Mswati is in no immediate danger of being overthrown by his people, partly because he commands a powerful security force. But that’s not the only reason. Many, like 21-year-old Zama Simelane, believe he’s not to blame.

“It’s the people who are close to him that are actually making these huge decisions,” she contends. “It’s just the way the government is being run.”

The way the government is being run is the King’s way. But there’s another reason why Mswati remains strong despite his critics.

PUDEMO leader Mario Masuku (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

“There [are] no racial concerns, there [are] no ethnic concerns. It is just a people within themselves.”

Masuku’s point is that almost all Swazis share a common heritage, including a common tribal link with their King. Mswati isn’t a colonizer, or even an exotic strongman like Muammar Gaddafi.

But for Masuku, he’s not above reproach either.

“Our culture in Swaziland has been politicized,” he says.

For example, he continues, King Mswati has taken to appointing tribal chiefs instead of allowing titles to be handed down through birth. That’s shored up his position.

But most Swazis aren’t aware of such political machinations. They just want their voices to be heard, and freely. That’s not an easy thing to achieve, says Hleli Luhlanga, who directs the Swaziland Young Women’s Network.

“When we go to the communities to empower people we have to answer to the police,” she says. “They want to know what our agenda is all about.”

Hleli Luhlanga directs the Swaziland Young Women’s Network (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

Then again, maybe change is just a matter of time: it came to Swaziland’s neighbors: South Africa, Malawi, and Mozambique. Recently it’s come to some north African countries too.

But Sizwe, the youth activist, says that democracy in Swaziland needs help from outside, even if it’s only the oxygen of international attention.

“We are not getting the attention the other countries are getting, solely because we don’t have anything in hand,” he complains.

“If you look at Libya, you look at Tunisia, almost all those northern countries, they are rich in oil, they have minerals. So when you bring up the Swazi case, what does Swaziland have? If I try to help Swaziland, what will I get in return?”

For neighboring South Africa at least, there would be something in return: stability across its border. Recently, the South African government offered Swaziland a financial lifeline in exchange for a set of reforms, some fiscal, others political.

Those political reforms would amount to baby steps only. Regardless, King Mswati has so far chosen to reject the offer.

The 'combi' park--a transport hub--in Manzini, Swaziland. (Photo: Alex Gallafent)

With his wife and artistic partner, Jeanne-Claude, he created The Gates in New York’s Central Park.

He also famously wrapped Berlin’s Reichstag in fabric;

This week he received permission from the US federal government for his next project: an artwork called “Over The River”.

“Over The River”

Christo will place a series of billowing panels of translucent fabric along sections of the Arkansas River in Colorado.

There will be eight sections in all, between Salida and Canon City, along a 42 mile stretch of the river. In total, just under 6 miles will be covered with fabric.

At his studio in New York last year, he gave more details to PRI’s The World:

“The fabric is only above the water, meaning that the width of the fabric varies with the width of the water. Sometimes [the panels are] 45 feet wide, sometimes they’re 120 feet wide.”

Christo says there will be two principal ways to experience the artwork, one from the highway running alongside the river, and the other from the river itself.

Studio
Christo’s studio is at the very top of a town house in lower Manhattan. The walls are covered with sketches and drawings, for “Over The River” and other projects.

“I don’t allow anyone to move anything,” he says. “I have no time. I have no time to do anything but to work on my art.”

Christo pays for his projects by selling some of the sketches, but the artwork itself will be transient. “Over The River” will exist for two weeks only, in the summer of 2014.

“Humans have this enormous pleasure to be in the presence of something once in a lifetime, never again.”

And Christo is excited to see how the idea of “Over The River” will change as it goes from paper and pencil to rock and water.

“We do not know, myself and Jeanne-Claude, how the project will look.”

Christo talks about Jeanne-Claude as if she were still working on “Over the River”. The two conceived the idea almost twenty years ago. But she died in 2009.

“I always say ‘we’ because I can’t think without her. You know, the most important things I miss about Jeanne-Claude was that she was extremely critical, very argumentative. This is the most empty place, and there’s no way to substitute. No way.”