Photographer, writer, reporter. Going through life with an eye towards creating records and histories.
On the roof a a friend’s house in Nakasero, Kampala back in 2006, I went through a crate of discarded items he and a few other artists had gathered. On that day, I was looking for something, and I found the lion. Something about the hollowed out, paint chipped toy appealed to my understanding of this amazing continent: I’d never seen a real lion, after all.
Previously based in Uganda, currently in Liberia. Always roaming. This blog provides curiosities, commentary, and photos.
I know that I’m mixing the French term for “Cameroon” with the English term for “caterer,” but I kind of feel like a mash up is the best way to describe this pleasant country, which I’ve alternatively heard described as either the best of or the worst of a combination of Nigeria and Congo. Either way, these caterers’ ties were definitely one of the best parts of an event I attended the other day.
Okay, I was so excited to see that Malick Sidibé won that I put up a blog post about it instantly. Now, hours later as my internet struggles to keep up with my photo-looking-desires, I realize that there are a couple of great photos from Africa of the total non-poverty porn vien included in the winners this year. Check out Francesco Giusti’s pictures of the sappeurs society in Congo, and Joan Bardeletti’s photo of a picnic on the beach in Mozambique, an aerial shot of JR’s awesome installation in Kiberia, and Denis Rouvre’s images of Senegalese wrestlers. There’s also plenty of standard fare that I won’t spend time linking to here, but, I’m happy to see these four examples mixed in.
Maybe this will be a good year for media in and about Africa. I certainly hope so.
Vice has a new documentary out about Liberia. It’s getting lots of buzz around the web, and a few people have emailed me to ask what I think of it. The truth is that I haven’t seen it. Thanks to a very, very, very sloooooow interent connection I can only read what people are saying about it rather than form my own opinion.
So far, the always interesting Ethan Zuckerman’s take gets to the heart of the matter:
So, is this a straightforward case of overprivleged westerners making fun of the poor, a contemptible piece of exoticism? I think the filmmakers see themselves doing something different: showcasing the strange culture collisions that occur in a world as interconnected as ours… Something about the VBS documentaries – the high quality of production, the unfamiliarity of the subject matter, the narrative of “adventure” rather than history – is generating a lot of buzz. As much as I want to object to the VBS video, which sensationalizes, uses historical footage with little context, and is a classic example of parachute psuedo-journalism, I have to admit that it’s a compelling piece of storytelling and that it caught my attention. Rather than critiquing it, I’m interested in picking it apart and starting to understand what makes it work. What could documentary filmmakers learn from VBS to generate a wider audience for their work? Is it possible to broaden your audience without playing to their desire to see something shocking and outrageous? Is it acceptable to use shock and outrage to get people to pay attention to parts of the world they know and care little about?
The field coordinator for the project was friend and colleague Myles Estey. He writes a bit about it on his blog Esteyonage, a frequent link-ee and definitely worth reading, here. Frankly, the Vice guys were lucky to have Myles working on this project. With the caveat again that I haven’t yet seen the film, I’m guessing that the input Myles provided makes Ethan’s questions harder to answer and keep the film from being outright sensationalism.
Myles tells me he’s getting a copy mailed to him in Monrovia and I’m hoping we’ll sit down and watch it in the coming weeks – as the generator flickers and heroine addicts and rebel warlords roam the streets terrorizing Liberia’s tentative peace! Okay, not really. My house is in a nice neighborhood and there’s a tea shop outside where I buy eggs every morning, there are always kids playing, and people bring chairs and benches and gather round in the evenings to watch movies and football games.
Check out two cool new photo projects that help break down stereotypes and display more than your standard poverty porn. I also really like that both projects eschew the whole bad news/good news debate.**
The first is Africa Knows (HT: White African) that is a huge databank of the kind of images you can’t find anywhere else – everyday people, living every day lives.
The second is as much a sociology project as a photography project: Middle Class in Africa looks at who the middle class are and what their (usually unseen) lives look like. HT Afrique in Visu.
**More thoughts on this one of these days, but a quick question for all those who complain about all the “bad news” about Africa in the media – when was the last time you read good news in the media about Guatemala? And yes, I do know that Africa is a continent and Guatemala is not, but my point is that most of the media is made up of telling sad stories and bad news.
When I posted three similar photos of soldiers in DRC a few different people responded that journalists shouldn’t travel in packs. While I generally agree, in a situation like when these photos were taken (probably in the Kivus circa Nov 2008) insecurity was a major issue. Traveling in packs is safer. Additionally, as newspapers and magazines cut costs, few journalists can shell out for their own vehicle and fixer and most will often have to pool resources. This is a reality of the industry, unfortunate as it may be.
The Lens even makes mention of this (the safety part, at least, but not the money part):
“For their safety, all of the photographers work together,” Mr. Leroy said. “In the same situation, the same scene, Dominic is better.”
What makes me upset is that the same types of photos receive praise and accolades again and again. The Lens, which is a great, great blog about photojournalism, has featured two stories from Africa, total. One was about Dominic Nahr, whose image I borrowed for this post. The other was about making a movie about the Bang Bang Club, a group of photographers who covered 1990s apartheid violence in the township in South Africa.
Both are about violence, of course.
UPDATE: Thanks MK for a correction via email. The Lens has also featured Tim Hetherington’s Liberia work (silly omission on my part, since I love his work) and a few images among their daily selections.
So really, my issue isn’t with Nahr at all. Clearly, he’s a great photographer. I guess I’d just like to see what would happen if he turned his lens somewhere else.
Always taking, displaying and praising images of violence or about violence limits the possibilities of the visual vocabulary that describes Africa. For example, photos of soldiers trump Finbarr O’Rielly’s amazing photos of Congolese hair styles. I posted one of his photos among the three images of soldiers, but to me, that’s some of his least interesting work. This great series of Congolese hairstyles by O’Rielly is the truly “new” work coming out of DRC, from a photographer who has worked there on and off for years. They tell a similar story in a very, very different way.
There’s nothing quite as iconic as vulnerable soldiers huddled together, protecting themselves from the rain. And while all three of the fine photographers whose images I’ve posted below obviously have many, many amazing photographs of many varied things, I can’t help but wonder if “new work from DRC,” like the first example is referred to by the Lens, is really that new.
Dominic Nahr in the NYT Lens Blog.
Marcus Bleasdale from the VII website
Finbarr O’Reilly, from his homepage
UPDATE: Read part two — Of Photographers and Soldiers in the DRC, Redux
From the amazing blog of Ryan C. Briggs.
Posted on Scarlett Lion, June 2008.
Posted on Scarlett Lion, August 2008, hat tip Jillian C. York.
Here are three bits of news gathered from the wide, wide web. I see a relationship among them. Do you?
ONE
A recent study commissioned by the American Chamber of Commerce shows how the corporate world views Africa. From Foreign Policy:
The survey suggests that African countries tend to fall into three categories: strong countries that are seriously considered as investment destinations; weak countries that would not even be considered by most of the respondents; and average countries where a mix of good and bad news calls for caution. South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are rated highest for their economic development, while Ghana, South Africa and Tunisia take top honors for their investment climate. South Africa got the highest marks for government attitude, with Ghana, Morocco, Kenya and Nigeria tied in the next highest position. Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa saw the highest perceived return on investment. These traditionally high performers are followed by an interesting group of emerging countries that are catching investors’ attention. Libya, Senegal, Mozambique and Rwanda are viewed increasingly positively in government attitude, investment return, and progress with economic development.
TWO
People donate things like used underwear, Soviet snow plows, or colored pencils but no paper to Africa. Read about these and more on a great new blog Good Intentions Are Not Enough. (HT: Texas in Africa). Here are five questions to ask before sending a donation:
THREE
Depressing news that has to do with extraction of resources:
A January 2009 study by the Social Welfare Department – responsible for children’s welfare and supervising orphanages – showed that up to 90 percent of the estimated 4,500 children in orphanages in Ghana are not orphans.In Ghana a small orphanage might have a budget of up to US$70,000 a year, depending on its size, the bulk of the funds coming from international donors and NGOs, with small contributions from local corporations, according to research by Ghanaian non-profit Child Rights International (CRI).
Donors are attracted to orphanages because they appear to be a simple solution, said Joachim Theis, UNICEF head of child protection for West Africa. “You have a building, you house children in it, it is easy to count them. And they are easy to fundraise for. It is a model that has been used for a long time. But it is the wrong model.”
Monika Schnarre, who considers herself a supermodel/actor/journalist, is about to visit Rwanda. And she’ll blog about it. She’s so edgy. Watch out gorillas!
Most people try to lose weight before a big trip; I decided to take the opposite approach.
I have gained five pounds as a ‘‘cushion,’’ in case I get malaria, yellow fever, or tuberculosis (although people who know me might blame one too many summer BBQs and Mojitos for the extra weight).
Anyway, I feel the less attractive I am the better. God forbid a silverback takes a liking to me, as did that emu in Australia who chased me around a wildlife sanctuary after deciding he wanted to mate with me.
Tomorrow I embark on my journey to Rwanda. I’ve resisted telling many people because their reaction usually ranges from perplexed to aghast. Some 14 years after the genocide of a million Tutsis and the widely publicized poaching of the silverbacks, they may have some cause for concern.
But I’ve been fascinated with primates since I was a kid, and I still have the book that I used to tote around as a child, The Love of Monkeys and Apes by Dan Freeman (1977). With the numbers of gorillas in the wild dwindling (there are only an estimated 700 left) I figured it was time to go before I would lose the chance.
My friend Michael Bancroft will be joining me from Brisbane. Michael’s been teaching about seven spin classes a day to pay for the trip —and, he says, to protect me from any hungry lions. Or maybe an amorous gorilla.
“It is crazy that we hear nothing about the Democratic Republic of Congo. The level of suffering there is horrendous, but it hardly makes the news. I heard awful stories of young girls being raped and people fleeing attacks on their villages. Despite the suffering that they have been through the people of Congo are just like us and need our help. I hope the exhibition will wake people up to what is going on.”
The NGOs, for example, get barrels of money thanks to the images that photographers generate of mortally sick or malnourished children, money that they use, among other things, to expand their projects… If I ask a local African what he would really like to do professionally, I often get the answer that they want to work for an NGO, because in their country, NGO workers live a rich life in comfortable houses.”“In fact,” continued Martens, “I find it a very hypocritical situation. Not because journalists and photographers would be just a gang of profiteers exploiting others’ poverty by turning it into attractive or impressive images and making piles of money, but because none of the profits that these images generate return to the people that deliver the raw material: the poor allowing themselves to be filmed. This makes the exploitation of filmed and photographed poverty a perfect double (analogy) for rubber, coltan or slave labour. The economical value of these phenomena is denied to the local population, and consequently, they get hardly anything in return. The poor are never involved in getting anything back from the exploitation of their poverty, they have no ownership over it, they are mostly not even aware of the fact that their willingness to be photographed brings in huge amounts of money for the NGO’s.”
Photo by Amy Toensing
The size of Africa map was great. So is this one. Hat tip to Jillian C. York.
This is just too much, even for my cynical self.
The SIFA African Children’s Choir might need to add some Chicago blues to its repertoire after thieves again struck the traveling group of Ugandan orphans….The choir has been traveling around the U.S. since April to raise money to build group orphan homes and a school in their tiny village.
The article is a bit of a sob story about how the orphans’ ONLY copies of their dying parents were on the computers that were stolen the firs time around. (Which orphans in Uganda have digital photos? Or if they scanned the photos, where are the originals? And, if you do scan that kind of thing, you back that shit up!)
Orphans, especially robbed orphans, do tend to bring out the best in otherwise not philanthropic businessmen, and one has donated $10,000 and one donated $5,000. Though Chicago tourism may need a boost from both businessmen to recover from this kind of evil.
The article says the kids were there to fund raise – but how much does it cost to buy across-the-globe plane tickets?
Anyway, for a more articulate and less whiny account of orphans choir in Uganda, visit the always lovely and informative Ugandan Insomniac.
How one blind boxer got famous, one news outlet at a time…
REUTERS, Nov 6, 2007
Ugandan “used to boxing in the dark”
KAMPALA (Reuters) – It’s an amateur boxing practice with a difference: neither fighter can see.
In the red corner: Robert Sembooze, 28, blindfolded. In the blue: Bashir Ramadan, 38, who doesn’t need a blindfold because he lost his sight 12 years ago.
The two Ugandans in padded gloves dance like fire flies on the concrete floor of the East Coast Boxing Club and punch each other in the head and chest.
Uganda’s blind boxer, little known even in his home country, does not think being sightless is the handicap some might expect.
“I don’t consider it a big problem,” said Ramadan, who has to tap his way into Kampala’s popular fight club with a stick, as he wiped down after the half-hour punch-up.
AFP, March 24, 2008
Blind Ugandan Boxer Taking the World by Storm
KAMPALA (AFP) — His name stirs amazement in coaches, while trainers gush over his skill and competitors quake in fear. Bashir Ramathan is an intimidating boxer — even though he is blind.
Ramathan, 36, lost his sight in 1995 but refused to let that stop him from resuming his boxing career, three years ago.
Peers call him “the German” — a reference to Germany’s tenacity on the football field, mirroring Ramathan’s in the ring.
“I was told by my parents I could do everything,” Ramathan says, as he jumps rope outside of the East Coast Boxing Club, a dusty, concrete facility that opened last year.
NEW YORK TIMES, August 15, 2008
TALK about shadowboxing.
In the center of a flyblown gym, where the musk runs strong and the weak are not welcome, Bashir Ramathan bobs and weaves, his tattered gloves punching furiously, trying to find their target. Blows rain down on his arms, his chest, his sweat-beaded face. But his fists keep flying — all completely in the dark.
“You better watch my hook!” he warns. “It’s fast! It’s sharp! Watch out!”
Mr. Ramathan is completely blind, and he is a middleweight boxer. It sounds improbable, and dangerous, but it is his way of dealing with his disability.
This husky, bearded bricklayer from the Ugandan slums is fearless, calling out all the other boxers in the gym to go toe-to-toe with him — as long as they wear a blindfold.
And finally, from the State of News Media (via Ethan Zuckerman)
While the news is always on, there is not a constant flow of new events. The level of repetition in the 24-hour news cycle is one of the most striking features one finds in examining a day of news. Google News, for instance, offers consumers access to some 14,000 stories from its front page, yet on this day they were actually accounts of the same 24 news events. On cable, just half of the stories monitored across the 12 hours were new. The concept of news cycle is not really obsolete, and the notion of news 24-7 is something of an exaggeration.
A widely read blog based in New York called Jezebel linked to my post on African Woman magazine yesterday. The Jezebel post, as of now, has 113 comments and 7,034 views. That’s a lot.
They range from a lack of understanding of fistula, to a desire to help, to a desire to blame George Bush, all the way to making fun of magazine editors for their insistence on inopportune alliteration. Someone finally googled Sylvia Owori, the magazine’s founder, and found an article about her on the MS Uganda site.
It’s really too bad that AW doesn’t have any sort of web presence, because almost no one who read the post on Jezebel has probably ever seen the magazine. I wish these 7000+ readers (and counting) had this kind of context. Readers on my site may have heard of, seen, read, or even own issues of AW, but when the readership changes from people-interested-in-Africa to people-interested-in-celebrity-gossip, the difference is palpable. The discussion changes from what a magazine for African women should look like to the dangers of a society without Planned Parenthood.
I’m glad that 113 commenters, and 7,034 viewers now might be a little more aware of Lovinsa, but I’m not sure that being aware of the flaws of a Ugandan glossy are the same as really being aware of fistula. Maybe some awareness is better than none, but maybe that’s the same kind of logic that leads one to say giving a fistula survivor a makeover is better than giving her nothing.
Women’s magazines in the west tell you to suck in your stomach, buy some new heels, and you too will have the job/man/apartment of your dreams.
What happens when you take Cosmo and publish it in Africa without altering the formula?
From Fistula to Fab!
Basically, a staffer at AW went to Mulago and found a woman who was recovering from a fistula. They dressed her up in clothes with a sum total price tag of about half a million shillings ($300). Considering that this woman couldn’t previously afford transport from Wakiso to Kampala (UGX 2000 or $1.50), those are some pretty pricey clothes.
There isn’t much in the way of quoting this woman, or discussing what she might want for her future or her children, just how she likes having her hair done and how nice she looks when she smiles.
The makeover genre is popular in the likes of Cosmo and Marie Claire, but usually the subject is a quiet secretary or former band geek or some other social pariah ready to join a stiletto-ed consumer army. Taking this trope, and applying it to a woman recovering from a fistula repair surgery seems callous. Though the African Woman article focuses on obstetric fistula (those caused by problems during childbirth), a lot of fistula cases are caused by gang rape, violent rape, or foreign objects used during sexual violation.
It seems to me like someone who has had a fistula probably needs more than a makeover. Sure, someone might argue, providing more information and humanizing fistula is important, but I can’t help but wonder how this woman felt during the process. And moreover, how did she feel afterward, when the journalists, stylists, and photographers made a rapid exit for the next story, probably taking the fancy clothes with them?
Instead of a headline like, From Flabby to Fab! or from Yellow Teeth to Sparkling White! or some other you might find within the glossy pages of a Hearst Publication, From Fistula to Fab! trivializes a very serious problem without offering meaningful commentary or insight into things like medical advances, or people who are working to stop discrimination or incidence, or the voices of survivors themselves.
It would be great if African women had a magazine they could call their own. But they don’t. African Woman is just a transplant of the Western version, all the more problematic for ignoring the difference between yellow teeth and fistula.
Women’s magazines in the west tell you to suck in your stomach, buy some new heels, and you too will have the job/man/apartment of your dreams.
What happens when you take Cosmo and publish it in Africa without altering the formula?
From Fistula to Fab!
Basically, a staffer at AW went to Mulago and found a woman who was recovering from a fistula. They dressed her up in clothes with a sum total price tag of about half a million shillings ($300). Considering that this woman couldn’t previously afford transport from Wakiso to Kampala (UGX 2000 or $1.50), those are some pretty pricey clothes.
There isn’t much in the way of quoting this woman, or discussing what she might want for her future or her children, just how she likes having her hair done and how nice she looks when she smiles.
The makeover genre is popular in the likes of Cosmo and Marie Claire, but usually the subject is a quiet secretary or former band geek or some other social pariah ready to join a stiletto-ed consumer army. Taking this trope, and applying it to a woman recovering from a fistula repair surgery seems callous. Though the African Woman article focuses on obstetric fistula (those caused by problems during childbirth), a lot of fistula cases are caused by gang rape, violent rape, or foreign objects used during sexual violation.
It seems to me like someone who has had a fistula probably needs more than a makeover. Sure, someone might argue, providing more information and humanizing fistula is important, but I can’t help but wonder how this woman felt during the process. And moreover, how did she feel afterward, when the journalists, stylists, and photographers made a rapid exit for the next story, probably taking the fancy clothes with them?
Instead of a headline like, From Flabby to Fab! or from Yellow Teeth to Sparkling White! or some other you might find within the glossy pages of a Hearst Publication, From Fistula to Fab! trivializes a very serious problem without offering meaningful commentary or insight into things like medical advances, or people who are working to stop discrimination or incidence, or the voices of survivors themselves.
It would be great if African women had a magazine they could call their own. But they don’t. African Woman is just a transplant of the Western version, all the more problematic for ignoring the difference between yellow teeth and fistula.
I’ve just returned from Karamoja, an impoverished region in the north-east of Uganda, bordering Kenya and Sudan. The people who live there are culturally dissimilar from the rest of Uganda, and partially as a result of this, marginalized politically and economically, with almost no existing infrastructure or opportunities for people who call the arid region home. They are traditional cattle-herders, with the modern twist of abundant AK-47s that make raids on neighboring tribes deadly.
Last fall, there was a flood. This spring, there’s been a drought. Things are much worse than they were when I visited last year. Or maybe I know better to recognize how bad things are.
Sometimes, I feel like at least once every few weeks, I come home and say, “That was the worst/poorest/saddest place I’ve ever been.” But only one place can truly take the superlative.
I hope that I don’t see anywhere worse/sadder/poorer anytime soon, because this was pretty bad/sad/poor. It will take me awhile to decompress from watching a famine unfold and children die. It will take me awhile to sort through all of the material I’ve gathered and try and form a coherent narrative.
In the meantime, here are some photos I took of a few little boys from the Ik tribe. They were so cute, laughing and smiling and running around and being kids. The distended belly is a tell-tale sign of malnutrition, but more subtly, the orange tinge at the hair line is indicative of Kwashiorkor.
Three…
Two…
One!
