O, Gentle Reader,
lend me your noble ear.
They call me Jean-Pierre.
I live in Vatovavy, a fiefdom
of charm & bliss.
Unlike your high plains
of Germany, Italy & France,
in our tourist land, we hold
no baked bricks – dear.
Yet in our Royal Palace
of unshod, earthen floor;
we share this sacred plot;
we treat you to a local liquor.
Peppered with fir trees, our zebu
grazes, and stands still
in a tick of sudden grace.
We grant you water here of endless source.
Our irrigated rice fields sprawl beyond infinities.
Here, Jeannine’s dad, with jagged hands
sows & buries seeds.
Terrace fields know their line
of patchwork quilt. Mornings are quiet
here in August; they stretch into nights.
In a big pond the water smiles
in wrinkles at the water lilies
which rise from mud to bloom,
to thrill your insatiable hearts.
O, visitor, I bow with a humble heart
I leave you with a plea:
carry a good vibe, with memories of lemurs
you pack, do not forget us.
I bid you a farewell. So long.
Jean Pierre, the son of working peasants, was born on February 2, 1955, in the small village of Ambodipaiso Sud in the Vatovavy region of Madagascar. After completing elementary education, he enrolled in the Immaculate Conception College in Mananjary, Fianarantsoa. He passed his final exam in 1973 and continued his studies at a college in Kianjasoa, Fianarantsoa, where he earned a high school diploma in 1976. Following this, he studied philosophy at the Major Seminary of Ambatoroka in Antananarivo. After his studies, he began working as a teacher at St. Francis Xavier College in Fianarantsoa. He further pursued teacher training in Manakara and then taught in Mananjary, Vatovavy. From there, he moved to schools in Mandanika, Toamasina, and then to Ranomafana. Eventually, Jean Pierre returned to his home village of Ambodipaiso Sud, where he taught for five years. After dedicating 25 years to teaching, he retired and continues to live in Ambodipaiso Sud.
Kamil Filip Dziubek was born in Poznań, Poland, and quickly developed an insatiable curiosity about the world around him. As a natural born scientist and autodidact, he devoured old textbooks found in his childhood home. Around this time Kamil set up a small home lab and managed to damage a table and burn holes in the window curtains. Despite these mishaps, his skills were soon recognized, and he was recommended to a chemistry teacher in elementary school. At the age of 9, Kamil became the youngest laureate of a chemistry competition for school students. Over the years he pursued his scientific interests and earned his PhD in chemistry in 2009 from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. After working for a decade at the European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy in Florence, Italy, Kamil recently moved to take a position at the Department of Mineralogy and Crystallography at the University of Vienna, Austria. He is an active member of the research community, serving as the chair of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) Commission on High Pressure and as the IUCr Ambassador to CODATA. Kamil is also a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in science. He co-organizes “Women under High Pressure” Power Hour gatherings at various conferences and workshops. He contributes to the decolonization of science in Africa by volunteering as a teacher within X-TechLab, an experimental platform dedicated to scientific research in Cotonou, Benin. Kamil also tried his hand as a translator, interpreting in Polish several neo-Latin Baroque funerary inscriptions published in “Vanitas. Coffin portrait in the context of Sarmatian burial customs” (1997).
