Katya Cengal – Book Reading and Discussion: From Cnernobyl with Love: Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union

Co-Sponsored: Napa Center for Thought and Culture and Bookmine

Cengel first took a job at the Baltic Times just seven years after Latvia regained its independence. The idea of a free press in the Eastern Bloc was still so promising that she ultimately moved to the Ukraine. From there Cengel made several trips to Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. It was at Chernobyl that she met her fiancé, but as she fell in love, the Ukraine collapsed into what would become the Orange Revolution, bringing it to the brink of political disintegration and civil war. Ultimately, this fall of idealism in the East underscores Cengel’s own loss of innocence. From Chernobyl with Love is an indelible portrait of this historical epoch and a memoir of the highest order.

Napa Center for Thought & Culture (nctcnapa.org) presents one performance only of “Along the Trade Route,” Sunday, January 26, 2:00 pm, at Jarvis Conservatory, 1711 Main Street, Napa.

Musicians have been sharing melodies for centuries without regard to political and national boundaries. Irish sailors brought melodies to sea ports in Ukraine. Turks, Roma and Jews shared common songs. Roma music has its origins in India.

Internationally reknown Bay Area musicians, steeped in seemingly separate cultural musical traditions, come together to share an exciting and surprising common vision of musical sharing.

Each violinist will be performing on a violin once owned and played by a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. These violins are now repaired and repurposed as instruments of peace, social justice and hope.

Musicians include: Cookie Segelstein (Klezmer); Emmanuel During (Middle Eastern); Hemmige V. Srivatsan (South Indian); and Darcy Noonan (Celtic).

This program is part of Violins of Hope San Francisco Bay Area presented in association with Music at Kohl Mansion, Burlingame, CA. Special thanks to Anonymous for NCTC sponsor support of “Along the Trade Route.”

We’re honored to not only have the film “Heather Booth: Changing the World,” but also, Heather Booth herself! Heather will talk about the film and answer questions. She is an American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist who has been involved in activism for progressive causes.

Dr. Charles “Chip” Fletcher is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He is also Vice-Chair of Honolulu Climate Change Commission.

With easy access to DNA testing or learning of adoption, newly revealed family secrets are changing the landscape of family relationships, identity and sense of belonging. Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFT, LPC will speak on Parental Identity Discovery and the findings behind DNA tests and how to find the information and process what you discover. Jodi will share her own personal experience in being able to identify her own biological father.