Category Archives: Context Africa
Sep 22
2009
1:00 PM
Being a teenager isn’t easy — anywhere. Being a teenager in one place when you’re parents are from another place is even harder. Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed explore the relationship between mother and daughter, and here and there, in a new documentary set to air on September 22 on PBS. Bronx Princess is the story of Rocky, your average American teenager, and her not-so-average Ghanaian family.
I got a sneak peak of the doc a few months back when Yoni gave me a copy. It’s a great story, with an amazing soundtrack, insight that crosses both sides of the Atlantic, and horses on the beach. Yes, horses. Check your PBS affiliate for screening times! And, from September 23 – October 23, you can watch the film on the web.
See previous Context Africa posts:
How did you find the subject for Bronx Princess and how did it go from concept to film?
Our first film, A SON’S SACRIFICE (PBS Independent Lens 2008), explored a father-son relationship at a halal slaughterhouse in Queens, and we had hoped to make a mother-daughter companion film in another borough of New York. However, making a documentary is rarely a straight path, so we weren’t sure how to meet our ideal subjects. During a weekend shoot in a predominantly West African neighborhood in the Bronx, we stumbled into a corner store. The owner, Auntie Yaa, treated us like we were her own children. She welcomed us immediately, cajoling us to try on wigs and sample the lotions she brought from Ghana, her homeland. And we weren’t the only ones — everyone on the block called her “Ma.” Customers trusted her not only tell them which soap would get rid of acne, but also how to patch things up with a boyfriend. But the one person who wasn’t so enamored with the community’s matriarch was Auntie Yaa’s own daughter, Rocky. When the self-assured 17-year-old Rocky walked in, we saw a family conflict brewing: the teenage search for independence butting against her parent’s stern guidance. After hanging out with Rocky and her mother, we knew the stars of Bronx Princess had found us.
Did you find music you like or have someone create a score to match the footage?
Bronx Princess’ music was composed and performed specifically for the film by Blitz the Ambassador, a Ghanaian-American hip-hop artist based in Brooklyn, NY. The score is primarily Ghanaian high life music, featuring strong percussion and horns, with elements of hip-hop. Blitz grew up in Ghana and went to college here in the US, so he understands the the bi-continental experience of Rocky, the film’s protagonist.
Blitz is a talented musician with new album “Stereotype. and we’re releasing a soundtrack to Bronx Princess later this month on iTunes
How did the family in Bronx Princess react when the saw the film?
After we premiered our film in New York at Lincoln Center, a group of 30 high school students surrounded our subjects, Auntie Yaa and her daughter Rocky. They bombarded them with questions, asking for advice about how to deal with their own parents. Rocky and her mother transformed into sages, dispensing witty advice and causing the students erupt in laughter. We didn’t know how Rocky and her mom would react to seeing their lives on the big screen, but the response from the students cemented their commitment to the film. We’re grateful that they entrusted us to tell their story.
You guys stayed with Rocky’s family in Ghana, did you ever feel caught in the middle of the family drama?
Making the film became more of a collaboration with the family than we expected. We became a familiar sight at Auntie Yaa’s beauty supply store — Yoni pointing a camera and Musa balancing a boom pole. Most customers assumed we were making a commercial for the store, but after a few months they realized that even infomercials didn’t require so much shooting.
Our long hours enabled us to gain the trust of both mother and daughter. After one fight in particular at the store, the mood was tense when we followed them back home. After Rocky went to bed early, Auntie Yaa asked us to sit down with her. We thought that she was going to kick us out for invading her family’s privacy. But instead she spoke to us softly, “We’re all family now. Tell me: Am I being to hard on her?” The next day, we found ourselves becoming Rocky’s confidants as well, as she admitted she might have an attitude, but she really just wants to be appreciated. We learned to be good listeners so that we could include both of their perspectives in the film.
When Rocky goes back to Ghana, she’s very much a visitor, and that seems so telling of how different life is for African in the diaspora. How did you and your partner navigate that as film makers?
We were conscious of Rocky’s high hopes of her life in Ghana. As a teenager ready to leave her home in the Bronx, she idealized her parent’s birthplace. She craved a life with more freedoms in Ghana and a more permissive relationship with her father, the chief.
Unfortunately, her father had a different agenda in mind for her three week visit.
As filmmakers, neither of us had been to West Africa before so we were unsure of what to expect. We lived at the family’s palace for three weeks while filming. Everyone else living in the palace understood that there are special rules for interacting with the Chief, such as speaking modestly in front of him. But as filmmakers, we needed to make certain requests of the Chief, like asking him to wear a wireless microphone, which he perceived as a challenge to his authority. After he scolded us, we promised to be more careful. And then there were customs we were simply ignorant of. One day, Yoni casually crossed his legs while sitting in front of the Chief. The Chief called in one of his advisors to explain that crossing one’s legs in front of a chief was a great insult. Eventually, we learned how to work within the Chief’s parameters and before long we were on the dance floor with him, celebrating his chieftaincy at a family party.
Sep 14
2009
6:31 PM
To most people, AIDS is an abstraction: a disease that happens to someone else, somewhere else. And a lot of reporting about AIDS in Africa doesn’t do much to detract from that. But, 28 Stories does. Stephanie Nolen (@snolen) spent years working on a book that’s about real problems, and also real people. She tells the stories of the women, men, children and grandchildren in vivid and sensitive detail. And because of this, the book is so much more important than any 28 people, anywhere.
Stephanie Nolen is the New Delhi-based South Asia correspondent for the Globe and Mail, the national newspaper of Canada. From 2003 to 2009 she was based in Johannesburg as the Globe’s Africa correspondent, with a specific mandate to cover the African AIDS pandemic. In 2007, she published 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa in 14 countries and six languages; it was nominated for Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction Literature.
See previous Context Africa posts:
One of the things that I like the most about “28 Stories” is it manages to give a face, or several of them, to an epidemic. How did you balance individual story telling in the context of a global health crisis?
Setting out to write 28, I was battling the impression of virtually everyone I spoke to in the developed world that Africa’s AIDS pandemic was an overwhelming, numbing problem, that the scale of it, the numbers of people affected, were so big as to be ungraspable. The only way to counter that was through the stories of individual people – to remind people that behind the huge statistics were people, who were, in fact, much like them. Each story in the book tells the reader the personal story of one person (it’s one story for each million of the 28 million then living with HIV in Africa.) But each story also (subtly, I hope) introduces you to one issue or one key piece of information (such as how vaccines work, or how militaries are implicated in the pandemic, or HIV denialism) that you need to understand the African epidemic.
You tell 28 individual people’s stories, but how many did you interview in the course of writing the book and researching HIV?
I couldn’t even begin to guess – zillions. I covered the issue with frequent trips to Africa from the late 1990s, before I moved there, and then full time for six years – so I’ve interviewed people in support groups and hospitals and villages and township clinics and government offices – for years.
Is there any one of the stories that sticks with you specifically today?
Truthfully, they all do. A few of the people in the book have since passed away and I think about them. Most of them became friends, and I hear from them often – about new babies and new jobs and marriages and kids graduating from school … In most cases, the people concerned have taken HIV and made it into a positive force in their lives and it’s inspiring to watch them go from strength to strength. In a few cases, people are sick, and struggling to get access to meds or health care, and them I worry about – it makes me feel very far away.
AIDS is highly politicized. You manage to both engage with that set of politics and avoid letting it become the focus of the book. What do you recommend to people who feel the politics of it all prevents them from understanding individuals?
It’s interesting, to characterize it as “political.” I think often people tried to cloak the pandemic in language of politics, as a way of complicating it and excusing inaction. But it was a pretty straightforward issue of people being denied life-saving access to treatment, denied access to information and basic health care to protect themselves, because they were Africa, because they were poor. And then there were the abstinence campaigns, and the condom prohibitions from the churches, especially the Catholic church, which I suppose could be considered political; and the whole swampy mess of denialism from the Mbeki government in South Africa, which had to do with race and Western ideas of black sexuality – also “political” in some sense. Mostly, though, I felt it was about equity issues – about Africans being entitled to the same drugs and the same access to condoms and information and primary health care – as people in the West – about the responsibilities of those in the developed world, and of African governments. And I don’t think basic justice or equality is particularly political. And when you make the discussion about Mfanbela, in the village, whose wife and children are dying because they can’t afford $5 in transport to get to the clinic in town, or Andualem, who is fired from his job because he has HIV, or Tigist, who is 14 and raising her brother on the streets of Addis Ababa because her parents died – they’re not political.
How did you see the face of the epidemic change as your reported on it, and how would you characterize it now?
When I began reporting on HIV in Africa, no one, absolutely no one, whom I met had access to anti-retrovirals – even though people I knew with HIV at home in North America had had the drugs for six or seven years. A diagnosis as HIV-positive really was a death sentence, and the story I told, at the beginning, was quite simply a story of death and destruction. And then came the amazing fight for access to treatment in Africa, and people – often the most impoverished, most marginalized people in a country – battling their governments and pharmaceutical companies for access. And governments got engaged, and the story became one of fighting back, of survival, of trying new and innovative ways to compensate – obviously, not always successfully – for the impact of AIDS. It became a very dynamic story. Those fights are ongoing in many places, and obviously millions of people continue, inexcusably, to get infected or to die without access to treatment – but I would say that there is a slight easing of the sense of panic at this point.
Images courtesy of John Morstad.
Sep 02
2009
8:57 AM
I met Alex Halperin in Kampala in 2008. He already was talking about writing a piece like The Mzungu Thing even back then, and I’m so glad to see it published. The essay takes a long hard look at expats in Africa – the good they do, and the not so good. Alex says a lot of things that need to be said, but that most people don’t want to hear, and certainly no one wants to write.
With amazing dry humor and a nod to How to Write About Africa, Alex recons with everything from the devaluation of African lives to “good news” to drug trafficking. Here’s a brief excerpt, though I highly, highly recommend that you read the whole essay:
The safer parts of Africa have become a workshop for high-concept philanthropy, wrapping adventurism in a veneer of charity. Young Americans bring yarn to a small Ugandan town, where they teach women to crochet hats to sell back in the States. Two British girls on a gap-year teach kids photography in Nairobi slums. They plan on selling the kids’ work from a London gallery and, if the plan works out, somehow reinvesting the profit in the kids. A fitness-oriented charity attempted to organize “an endurance running challenge: 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 weeks in 2010. This Guinness World Record-breaking endeavor will push our team members to their personal limits with the goal of bringing fundraising and awareness to the AIDS orphans of East Africa.” Running the Antarctica Marathon for the sheer idiocy of it no longer registers on the self-satisfaction meter.
I can sympathize. It wasn’t enough to go to Africa; I had to feel important doing it. So I found a generous organization that would sponsor me to go find Africa’s untold good news, although I’d never been there. I wanted to write about social entrepreneurship, fair trade, and microfinance—this last the biggest thing in poverty reduction since Live Aid. Since I wanted to sell my stories to the mainstream American media, it would help if my central characters were white.
The point of this series is to highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of projects committed to telling a different kind of story.
See previous Context Africa posts:
How did you decide you wanted to write about this and how did the essay come about in this form?
I began writing what eventually became The Mzungu Thing during Kenya’s electoral crisis. The country was falling apart: thousands of Kenyans had been killed or injured during the violence, many times more had lost their homes and I was going home every night to a comfortable furnished apartment in Nairobi. For me it underscored the reality of Americans visiting Africa which is that they are, in almost all cases, infinitely more privileged than almost everyone they encounter. That’s not always said but still pretty obvious, so in the essay I focused on why people like me want to go to Africa and what we do once we’re there.
There are many foreigners who are doing important work in Africa. I focused on those who aren’t because their foibles are more entertaining. But I also hope the piece conveys that do-gooding isn’t something just anyone can do. Many Americans, I think, go to Africa under the illusion that somehow their mere presence will make a difference. And that isn’t any more true than it would be for someone who barged into an operating room and demanded the scalpel.
What are your concerns in publishing something like this? Do you think it might be misinterpreted?
Anything can be misinterpreted, and I do worry about that kind of thing. In a lot of reporting from Africa, undoubtedly including my own, most Africans appear as martyrs and victims in atmospheric detail and then the journalist goes off and interviews an official—often a foreigner—whom they rely on to find out what’s going on. In this piece I tried to describe encounters with a few people who probably wouldn’t appear in the media, and because these portrayals aren’t entirely sympathetic I am a bit nervous about how readers will react.
Ultimately, this essay is very much about the value of African lives to the outside world. What kind of thoughts did you have about this before you went to Africa and at the end of your stay? And after writing this piece?
Before I left for Africa I didn’t think there was any earthly calculus in which Africans have an influence proportional to their numbers. Traveling around didn’t change my mind. How could it?
To me, this essay is kind of like a version of “Stuff White People Like” that’s about Africa. What do you think of that?
I like that blog and can cringingly identify with it as much as the next white person. Sure, elements of my essay might read like what happens when ‘White People’ go to Africa. I didn’t mention it in the essay, because I couldn’t figure out a way to say it without sounding even more tendentious, but elements of white culture—which of course the blog highlights—are highly sought after by Americans in Africa. Good coffee, The New Yorker, and certain foods are all the more fetishized for being hard to come by. Pirated DVDs, iPods and 21st century pharmacology make life in Africa much more comfortable than it used to be. On the other hand the contrast between American middle-class luxuries and the reality of life in, say, northern Uganda, can be unsettling. Like any White Person, I squirmed a bit at the juxtaposition.
Do you feel guilty about being one of those mzungus? why or why not and what do you do with that feeling?
Not really. I’m a journalist and so it’s pretty easy to say I was in Africa to write about things, not to help anyone. And like most people I’m not particularly inclined to apologize for my circumstances and good luck.
Why do you think Africa in particular is subject to this sort of thing: “The typical American in Africa is less likely to know five people willing to donate $100 than a quintet eager to fly over and give an awareness-raising rockapella concert.”? Why don’t other poor regions see the same phenomenon?
It’s not exclusive to Africa. In Calcutta, for example, there’s a huge community of wazungu—for lack of a better term—who are anointing lepers and such because they feel guilty about some aspect of their lives. Part of this owes to Mother Teresa’s legacy but the broader point is that many people try to absolve themselves, for whatever reason, by working with the poor and it’s much more stylish these days to work with the far away poor than the nearby poor. But yes certain parts of Africa do attract more than their share of people looking to do charity on their vacation. This is probably because Africa is the poorest continent and Westerners who haven’t been there often see it as one miserable monolith, the place where they’re most needed.
Alex Halperin is a freelance reporter who lives in Brooklyn. You can reach him at alexhalperin at gmail dot com.
Aug 11
2009
6:30 PM
It’s not often that you see much about a remote rural, area in Sub-Saharan Africa in the mainstream media. But an innovative web project hosted by the Guardian about an area in eastern Uganda called Katine is the exception that proves the rule. Editor Elizabeth Ford agreed to answer some questions for Context Africa. Katine is the online chronicle of the ups and downs of village life, from specials about secondary school to irrigation schemes, Katine is your one-stop-shop for understanding one particular kind of rural life.
The point of this series is to highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of projects committed to telling a different kind of story.
See Context Africa posts:
Can you tell me a little bit about how the Katine project got started and why this particular village was chosen?
Katine is actually a sub-county in north-east Uganda, comprising six parishes with 66 villages, home to around 25,000 people (within the Katine sub-county is Katine parish and Katine village!). The project stretches across the whole of the sub-county.
The Katine project began in October 2007 by the Guardian and Observer in partnership with the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref), Farm-Africa and Barclays. Amref is implementing the three-year development project on the ground in Katine, with technical support on livelihoods from Farm-Africa, and it’s being funded by reader donations and Barclays.
Katine was selected by Amref as one of the poorest regions in Uganda. It is considered an opposition area politically and has been largely neglected by central government (prosperity in Uganda seems to be centred around the south, central and western regions). Katine has also experienced civil war, incursions from the Lord’s Resistance Army (fighting in the north) and cattle raids over the past 20 years.
The reason for the project is really to highlight how development works (the successes and the failures – it’s more than giving £5 for a malaria net). The work being undertaken on the ground is being followed on the Guardian’s dedicated Katine website.
The idea was sown a few years before the project began when editors at the Guardian began to discuss how we could show aid and development in a new way. New technology meant we could harness the power of the internet to publish regular updates and tell stories using videos and galleries.
We also wanted to ensure we heard more from the beneficiaries of the project – the villagers. So often aid is discussed in terms of victims and helpers and we get a one dimensional view of people’s lives. We wanted to give villagers the opportunity to share stories about their lives and to get their opinions on the project. We haven’t always been able to do this successfully, but this aspect of the project has really taken off over the last four months, with villagers using video to share their life stories and beginning to post comments on the Katine Chronicles blog and on articles.
We have two award-winning Ugandan journalists who work on the Katine project. One, Richard M Kavuma, spends two weeks a month in thesub-county, and Joseph Malinga, who is based there full-time.
How does the team in Katine maintain such a high rate of content turn around with the challenges of electricity and internet in a rural area?
It can be challenging. The Amref office in Katine has a generator, which provides power, although outages are not uncommon. Attached to this office is a community media resource room for villagers to use. This is equippednwith five computers, so they can browse the Katine site and the internet inngeneral, and get some IT training.
Mobile phones are important, so when power goes down, information can benrelayed this way. There are also internet “cafes” in the nearest town to Katine, Soroti, which is around 22km away. Our reporters have been known to use these to file stories and pictures to us.
How does focusing long term on one village create a bettern understanding of rural life for media consumers who may have never traveled to a village?
I think focusing on one sub-county allows people to get to know the people, the local infrastructures, the cultural sensitivities etc that exist, which should give a greater understanding of the impact the work is or can have.
What kind of reaction has the Katine site on the Guardian platform received? Do you share that reaction with the people in Katine?
The reaction from readers has been mixed – lots of positive comments but also questions about why the Guardian has got involved in development. You only need to read some discussions on the blog to see this. I think, though, a lot of people who do comment on the blog are engaged with then project – perhaps questioning or praising the way Amref is working there and how the Guardian is reporting. We have shared with people in Katine what sort of impact the project is having, and some people do look at the website and read comments.
What are some of your favorite pieces on the Katine site?
One of my favourites is our first online chat between a primary school in Katine and one in London – the questions were great (they talked about football, the taste of termites, whether their teachers were nice, as well as the more serious issues of homelessness and poverty), and the children were thrilled when they received replies from a country so far away that they had only ever been told about. I think this sort of interaction addressed a few stereotypes that existing on both sides and highlighted the similarities that exist between children in London and Katine, rather than just focusing on differences.
Jul 21
2009
12:14 PM
Candace Feit is an award winning photographer who spent several years in West Africa. She’s recently moved to India, and photography from the region is worse for it. Her work is always thoughtful and beautiful, and tells some stories that make headlines and also important stories that don’t. I loved her recent series on Senegalese wrestlers, “Tyson vs. 50 Cent,” and she agreed to answer a few questions about it for Context Africa.
The point of this series is to highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of journalists committed to telling a different kind of story.
See Context Africa posts:
There are a lot of wrestlers in Senegal. How did you decide to focus on this particular group? How long did you spend working on this series?
This story was shot for
Arise Magazine and I worked with writer
Rose Skelton on it. Rose made contact with some of the members of the wrestling community in Senegal and they advised us on where to go. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of schools like this one, which is in a suburb of Dakar. We were only able to get to the school for one afternoon, but when we showed up, after a bit of explaining they let me just wander around, observe and photograph. Once I walked into the place I was pretty blown away by how it looked, with a hundred plus guys going through these rounds of exercises, calisthenics and then sparring. I didn’t get to work on this as long as I wanted because I was in the process of moving from Dakar to New Delhi, and the first part of the project was shot during my last week in Dakar. I wanted to photograph at least one match as well but the weekend I was leaving town all of the matches were canceled because of a general election. Luckily I was passing back through Dakar in early May so I could fit another couple of days of shooting in. All told I spent about 4 days shooting the story (2 more days than I budgeted for), but I wish I had had more time, this is one of those stories I feel like I could easily work on for many months, especially as there are so many guys in these schools who could very well be just on the cusp of making it big – so it would be great to have the opportunity to keep track of one or two of them through a year or so.
The photos certainly play with geometry and symmetry, visually, but never at the cost of the individuals who are pictured. What did you do to try and achieve that balance?
That balance is always in the back of my mind – especially in a situation like this where the beauty of the guys all in relative sync, running through their series of exercises is the most obvious thing about the scene. Even if it looks effortless so because these guys are so huge and so fit, it’s definitely not, and that was a big part of the story to me. In that way it was important to actually connect with guys (and the fans) and show the beauty along with the fierce determination to compete. One of the goals of my work is to show the connection with the subject and to gain more insight into the story behind the image – and to that I am always trying to shoot for the person and the feeling of the situation and not just the person as a nice shape in my composition. Especially in a story like this where the energies were running so high – with both the training and the fans – it is a spectacle full of anticipation but there are also quiet moments where the wrestlers are thoughtful and calm. It’s all part of the showmanship of the matches, and the matches themselves are usually very brief (2-3 mins) so there is all of this stuff around the actual match that I found incredibly interesting and that could act as a counterbalance to the intensity.
Technically speaking, it seems like you use both short lenses and long lens to create a variety of looks. What lenses did you loose to snap this with? And why did you pick black and white versus color?
I prefer shooting in film (6×6 med format) but when I shoot digitally I use Nikons (D700/D200/D300) with a few different lenses – mostly a 17-35, 28-70 and I use a 18-200 occasionally too but after years of running around with too much gear that I never used, I’ve tried to strip it down to the minimum. It was actually the magazine who wanted the piece in black and white – it’s not something I usually work in – but after looking at both options, I definitely agreed with them. I think presenting it in black and white had the benefit of stripping the photos down and removing a lot of visual information that would be distracting in color.
You mention that wrestling is changing a lot in Senegal, from a village sport to big business. Did you get to see examples of the village counterpart during your time in Senegal?
I have seen matches in villages in Senegal – both between kids and adults. Unfortunately I never got to see the stadium matches until I was working on this story, despite always wanting to go. Sport and physical fitness is such a huge passion in Senegal – especially in Dakar, were every beach is filled with a wide range of people working out, running, doing pushups in the sand. It is part of the landscape of the place, and I think can be used as a good tool for understanding the culture of the country.
At any point during the snapping did you do some wrestling?? Or weight lifting?
Good question! No, though I did have to run around a bit shooting this. These guys are so huge – their presence are overwhelming. At one point I went with a wrestler who works out at my gym to photograph him through his workout. He took me around and introduced me to the staff there – none of who seemed to recognize me from my time there.
Jul 14
2009
2:44 PM
Today’s Context Africa is a special kind of post. Over at Christian Science Monitor, journalist Mary Wiltenburg and editor Clara Germani have worked together to follow “Little Bill Clinton,” a refugee displaced by the conflicts in Congo and Rwanda, currently living in Atlanta, Georgia. The effort took place in real time with a lot of multimedia pieces to help explain a complicated story. Both Mary and Clara agreed to answer questions for this post about context, sustaining interest in a long term projects, and the complications of cross-cultural exchange.
Read the blog (my favorite entry is African Kids Decode Michael Jackson), and check out this week’s CSM magazine cover story What it’s like to be a refugee in America, complete with great sidebars about refugee resettlement and a refugee gatekeeper’s lament.
Question for Mary: Can you tell me a bit about how this project got started and what’s next?
Mary: This project started with a question: What can we as journalists learn from the way people communicate online – through Facebook, Twitter, all of it – to inform our thinking about new models of storytelling they’re likely to respond to? The idea of a story unfolding over time, in intimate detail and a variety of media, appealed to me. It seemed like a natural pace at which to get to know a family and a community – both for me and for readers. Conversations with Clara about the idea led to a second question – What and who would be worth devoting a year to in this way? – which led us to the International Community School and Bill Clinton Hadam.
What’s next could be much more old-school: after the Monitor series wraps up next month, I’m hoping to write a book that will continue and expand the story.
Question for Clara: As an editor, how is working on a series like Little Bill Clinton different from the daily grind? How does the “real time” element change things?
Clara: Usually you edit only a slice of a story like this. Maybe 1,500 words on the sadness of a refugee child struggling to make it in a US school or 1,500 words on a UN refugee camp where safety from conflict is a cruel cheat because life doesn’t get better for most. But in this project, I – and our readers – lived week in and week out with Mary’s daily experiences in Bill Clinton Hadam’s home and classroom. It was the day-to-day blogging that was astonishing, delightful, and heartbreaking in it’s detail and insight: The roaches swarming Bill’s homework as he diligently tried to finish it alone at night; Bill’s verdict that the refugee camp had been kinda “stinky,” the slow piecing together of Bill’s mom’s traumas during 33 years as a refugee (losing a husband and son to genocide in Rwanda, losing a daughter who fled the refugee camp after being raped), the wonder of Bill and his brother overcoming language and cultural issues to actually get to grade-level status in an American school. So much richness went into the blogs that normally would have been sliced out by editing.
Another aspect of the project was that the reporter was going to become a part of the story by virtue of being so close to it. We anticipated this and never tried to deny that it would happen to some degree. At the beginning, it was my daily nightmare that a huge burden was being placed on Mary as a person as well as a journalist who had the newspaper’s ethics to uphold. These innocents were telling her everything, beginning to rely on her because she was one of few Americans paying attention to them. Early on we faced the dilemma of Mary’s frequent visits to Bill’s apartment and the fact that the kids were hungry: What do you do when you know that for the next year your reporter is going to be asking these people for access and information? The subtle quid pro quo of modern journalism (you give us information, we write about it and presumably civic forces will come to bear on your behalf in time) isn’t the kind of quid pro quo you’re going to be able to live with in a situation like this. These were the kind of struggles that weren’t going to end with a deadline in a few weeks – we had to cope with them throughout the year and apply our sense of integrity as we went, moment by moment.
Question for Mary: How was reporting with refugees in America different than reporting with refugees in Africa?
Mary: Really different – and counterintuitively so. You’d think the farther from home, the more “foreign” the reporting experience would be, but for me the opposite has been true.
Getting to know Bill’s parents in Atlanta has meant taking them out of context. It’s a peculiar way to meet people, torn out of their social fabric, stripped of the major relationships and clues – extended family, religious community, neighbors, jobs, educational backgrounds – that I would normally use to make inferences about people’s pasts and consider their presents. In writing about the family, I’ve tried to be sensitive to this – and I do think there are many things I’ve understood about them, and vice versa, that transcend cultural markers. But I couldn’t really place them, and I assumed this might be beyond me.
In the refugee camp I visited in Tanzania, though, I met a group of friends who had become Dawami and Hassan’s extended family over the decade they spent there together. It was a revelation. These friends – high school teachers, human rights activists, journalists, printers – were middle-class people uprooted from their lives. They had a nuanced analysis of the Tanzanian government’s refugee policy; education was their priority, and they were furious about the closing of their kids’ camp schools. For me, this made them feel very familiar. Despite our obvious differences of circumstance and culture, it was like talking with my parents’ friends in a mud-brick house on the other side of the world.
Question for Mary: How did traveling to Tanzania change or reinforce some of your opinions?
Mary: After spending time in those camps, I feel really impatient with the immigration debate back home in the US. It seems obvious to me that countries around the world need to establish paths by which those who cross their borders – whether fleeing violence or economic hardship – can work to earn their citizenship. While I was in Tanzania, the country was granting citizenship to 170,000 Burundian refugees who’d been living the country in productive, peaceful settlements since 1972 – an unusual move, and an excellent idea. It was also in the process of expelling several hundred thousand others who’d been warehoused in camps for decades, people with talents and skills who wanted to work and become contributing members of some society somewhere.
It’s not a perfect analogy to our situation in the US, of course, but I think for both countries, it does greater harm than good to keep families growing up within their borders in educational, professional, and legal holding patterns. The International Organization for Migration estimates 3 percent of the world’s population, 192 million people, now live outside the country where they were born. As an international community, we have to find better and more dignified ways of addressing this.
Question for Clara: How do you make sure your audience will connect to things happening in Tanzania? Or for that matter, even in their backyard?
Clara: One great thing about the Monitor is that there’s a presumption of reader interest in world events, that there is a presumption of importance of stories like this. Yes, we have to try to make them relevant to people who have never heard the word “mzungu” and don’t know if Dar es Salaam is a person or a place. And, yes, we have to figure out ways to “market” them via the web so that we get sufficient hits to justify the effort.
That’s what this project was designed to do: to use rich, compelling storytelling through words, audio, and video to seduce readers to what might ordinarily be unfamiliar and difficult to access. For those who found us, I think we accomplished that (look at the comments sections). The hardest problem was getting the project the exposure it needed to bring in readers for a first look.
Question for Clara: Is it hard to sustain a readers’ interest on a long term project like this one?
Clara: Well it’s not “The Bachelor” or “American Idol” – it’s REAL “reality” and it can be heavy. For readers with an interest in African issues, or refugee issues, or American poverty or education, the predisposition is to follow a project like this, and I believe there was a base of readers who did. But I’ll admit that it would take more than the average reader’s commitment to return daily to this boy’s story. I will say that once a reader’s heart was broken or warmed by one of these blogs, it would be hard for them not to occasionally pop back in for a look on the latest developments.
See Context Africa posts:
Jul 02
2009
11:46 AM
The debate about “poverty tourism” rages on the blogosphere on the pages of the HuffPo, Bill Eastery’s blog, and elsewhere. But, as Jina Moore (previous Context Africa feature), who wrote a great, nuanced piece about this for Christian Science Monitor, says,
If it’s that easy to be flip, you’re probably missing something.
Part of my goal in Context Africa is to look at projects that aren’t interested in easy answers. There are people out there asking difficult questions, and coming back with stories, photos, and other works that don’t provide straight answers. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of journalists committed to telling a different kind of story.
Today, I’m happy to highlight the work of Samantha Reinders, who is currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. Her take on Township Tourism shows that nothing is as straightforward as it might seem and even something as divisive as “poverty tourism” can be looked at with nuance.
Here’s what she has to say about Township Tourism:
South African townships are historically rich, vibrant suburbs. It is in these townships that you can see the tangible legacy of apartheid as much as the insatiable hope for a brighter future. Touring them is important for visitors to begin to understand the complexities of modern day South Africa.
As a phenomenon it is as interesting as it is controversial. These images serve to create awareness of both the positive and negative aspects of township tourism – as a way to contribute to the very small pool of research done into the socio-cultural impacts of the trend.
My personal views on township tourism have changed considerably since I started the project in 2004.
I have seen the industry at large, as well as the actual tours, change for the better since the beginning of my study. Both the practice of touring the townships (solely looking through the window of a tour bus) as well as the perception that these tours are exclusively voyeuristic tours of poverty has changed slightly. Through encouraging media reportage, as well as positive word of mouth experiences, awareness of the positive aspects of township tourism has slowly been created. Tourists are treading more lightly in the neighborhoods they are visiting.
While many people take pictures during the Township Tours, most people don’t take pictures of the tourists themselves. How did people react to your presence and project on the tours?
People were initially surprised by my presence. Just after the tour guide introduced himself I also introduced myself and explained what I was doing. Everyone I came across was interested in the project, most asked many questions, and I think that my presence on the tours made the tourists really consider the impact of their visit. Most tourists came loaded with hundreds of questions about South Africa’s past and present, and I became quite involved in the tours in that I was another person who they could direct their questions at. In almost all of the cases the tour guides were black South Africans, living in the townships we were visiting. I’m white and live in the city…so I think it was interesting for the tourists to get both perspectives.
What made you decide to focus on this particular activity for a photo story? How does this differ from more straightforward travel photography?
Township Tourism, especially when it just became popular in the mid 90s, got really bad press in South Africa. And admittedly I was swept up in that. I thought the concept was horrible. A Brazilian friend in town was determined to do one of these tours and I went along with him and had a surprisingly good experience. So I decided to do a story on it and investigate the industry in a little more depth. As time went on I changed my mind about Township Tourism. Whilst there are definitely negative impacts on the communities involved when tours are run badly and mismanaged, I saw the positive impacts out way these in many cases. I left the project with a more 50/50 view of the industry.
It differs from normal travel photography in that is trying to tell an important story, trying to explain to the viewers the impact of this type of tourism, and show potential tourists how they can improve their experience on a township tourism for the community members of the townships they are touring. I’m hoping it will have a direct impact on the conduct of both tourists and tour guides.
What kind of reactions have you gotten to the photos?
Generally people are intrigued by the story. When I show editors it always leads to interesting discussions. No one has picked up the story to publish though ☹
Do you think photography has a role to play in post-Apartheid South Africa?
Absolutely. I really feel that photography has a massive historical importance. As South Africa moves away from the Apartheid regime I think it is integral for its unique story to be captured for prosperity. Much of South Africa’s past has been documented thoroughly through photography (the work of Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbrook, Jurgen Schardeburg, Greg Marinovich, David Goldblatt and many others) – and its legacy is evident in many museums and books. So I hope that through this people can realize its importance in the historical sense.
See previous Context Africa posts:
10:07 AM
So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the wide range of types of projects and regions of focus I’ve been able to feature on Context Africa.
But, they’ve been heavily weighted towards places I’m familiar with: East Africa, and specifically Uganda, and West Africa, and specifically Liberia. I’d love to feature more projects from different places and in different mediums. If you know of any projects that would be appropriate for Context Africa, I’d love to feature them. Ideally they would be well reported over a longer period of time, nuanced, and thoughtful.
I’d especially love to include some radio pieces. It’s not my medium, so I’m less familiar with what’s out there. I’d also love to include some pieces from North Africa and more from Southern Africa as well.
If you know of any projects – yours, your friends, other people’s work that you find engaging – leave a comment here with relevant information or send me an email at glennagordon at gmail dot com.
Jun 17
2009
12:16 PM
I first came across Paul Sika’s photos on the blog Africa is a Country and was immediately transfixed by how he transformed scenes that seemed so familiar to me into something brilliantly technicolor and radiant. I emailed him last week and asked a few questions and he was kind enough to fill me in with a little bit of information about his work for Context Africa.
Context Africa is new series on this blog that highlights projects that go above and beyond daily content making to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of journalists committed to telling a different kind of story.
See previous Context Africa entries:
How did you get started as a photographer and how did you look evolve into what it is now?
In 2003 when I was studying English in London in order to start my studies in Software Engineering, I happened to realize I was in love with cinema. Indeed I was walking down Tottenham Court Road on my way home when I got mesmerized by the Matrix Reloaded trailer that was playing in the window. Right there on the spot, when seeing that Agent, in the famous Highway scene, jumping from one car and landcrashing another, I realized I wanted to make movies. I thought to myself “is it this type of imagination that is required to make movies? Because if it is then I think I am well equipped.” I then started to think about my past, how I was very attracted to video games which I was playing nearly all the time.
I love storytelling too. I remembered that once I was the Game Master at some voice Role Playing Game, and I would create the story and narrate live. I even managed to convey fear to the players in bright daylight. It was an amazing experience. So from that life changing moment, I wanted to enter a filmmaking school instead of Software Engineering. The ones I had discovered were too expensive for me and I entered Westminster University for the S.E. course. After a year I wanted to drop out. But in the end I did not and finished with Distinction. Still very much interested in cinema, but not wanting to jeopardize my studies I bought a still camera with it in mind that I would explore the still image as it is the unit of the moving picture and when I am done with S.E. I would get into some film school.
On the technical side of things, can you tell me a bit about how you create the sort of Technicolor dream space that your photos occupy? How much of the work happens during the snapping and how much during postproduction?
Well I am a digital technology advocate. In fact when I was considering starting photography, I investigated the type of technology around and trust me if digital did not exist, I would not have entered the field. I wanted quick and accurate results. I love immediate feedback so I can orientate my choices. I love to move at the speed of thought.
I use Photoshop, one of my favorite ever tools and the main one anyway. I over saturate my colors. I also paint over them. In a way it is not easy to describe the process because it is to me so instinctive. When I am in postproduction, most of the time I don’t realize I am thinking because it is going so fast.
The characters you see on the photos are all present at the time of shooting. I do not add any person in post, at least for the moment – that is because I am a director. I am a Film Director using a still photo camera.
Do you consider your work editorial or creative? Or some kind of hybrid?
I do not see Editorial and Creative separately. I am pushing for more creative editorials.
I think it is time we open the door for more daring, creative, researched, accomplished editorials. Some have started to do so but I do not feel it is widespread enough. We must surpass ourselves and create imagery we will remember for a long time. I am in fact thinking of doing some photo essays with my style of photography.
You’re currently based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. How did you end up there? Where are you from?
Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire is the place I saw my first sun rays back in 1985.
But you know what, I do not see myself as limited by borders and frontiers.
I am Global. That is my nationality: Global. My other nationality: Entrepreneur. My third nationality: Creative.
Can you describe the different phases of your work?
Overlapping one another a little bit, the three main categories on my web site are Photomaking, Illustrations and Monochrome, which more or less represent the 3 great periods of my photography.
As a complete beginner I was doing a lot of monochrome, yet very much interested in colors. And if you take a good look at the monochrome pics, you will see that they are photos of life happenings, events/things/people you could meet/live/encounter yourself. In that period I was a witness of my surroundings. Not really putting my own judgment/vision I was a complete receiver.
Then if you look at the Illustrations, the images are getting some scrambling treatment. They are mixes of several photos, of different kinds of subjects: people, nature, objects, animals…. some start to have a surrealist/fantastic feel to them. At this stage, I started to insert/inject my vision.
Then Photomaking was the last/latest stage where I am without mercy projecting my own vision onto the photo especially, with the latest photo series such as At The Heart
Of Me with Murielle Nanie (Miss Cote d’Ivoire 2008). The set was our most ambitious one. We built the wall, carved out the heart, painted on the walls.
People around me were telling me I was putting too much money into the production of just a photo. I didn’t follow what they said.
May 26
2009
3:25 PM
I wouldn’t presume to say what Ugandans will learn from the book. I think that most of what it says are things they already know. The one thing that I think it might do–that I sincerely hope it will do–is encourage Ugandans who lost someone to think that the past is retrievable. I know that Duncan Laki’s story has already had that effect on many Ugandans. As for Americans, I hope they read this book and realize there is something more to Africa than elephants and tribal dancing and civil wars. As I said, the book is really about the Uganda of the present–a profoundly flawed country, but miraculously stable and politically vibrant and gloriously argumentative one. Maybe it takes the cartoonish figure of Idi Amin to get readers interested in learning about such a place, but I hope that by the end of the book they realize that there’s something far more ambiguous and multifaceted–more interesting–going on now than simple brutality.
Andrew Rice has written about Africa for The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and The Economist, among other publications. His article “The Book of Wilson,” published in The Paris Review, received a Pushcart Prize. Between 2002 and 2004, he lived in Uganda as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, an American nonprofit foundation. Prior to that, he worked for several newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Observer. A native of Columbia, South Carolina and a graduate of Georgetown University, he currently lives in Brooklyn.
(Photo of Duncan Laki courtesy of Vanessa Vick)
May 12
2009
10:36 AM
This week’s installment of Context Africa focuses on the work of documentary photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington. For nearly ten years, Tim lived and worked in Liberia covering the war and its aftermath. He made the film An Uncivil War, which he loves seeing pirated on the streets of Monrovia. Now, has a new book of photos out. His work is internationally acclaimed and an important addition to understanding what happened in Liberia. I got a sneak peak at his new photo book Long Story, Bit by Bit when we had coffee at the Mamba Point Hotel last week.
In his own words,
There are two Liberias, two worlds that are far apart but that sometimes intersect. One is the world of Liberians and reflects their individual struggle with history and circumstance. The other is the world of the international community, led by events and the preoccupations and agendas of organizations like the United Nations and international NGOs. The international media often portrays Liberia as a place of abstract violence and faceless individuals. As the only photographer to live with the rebels during the war, I was granted a unique perspective. My evolving work is an attempt to describe how the events of war intersect with personal lives. I want my images to evoke the contrast between inside and outside, the personal and the historical, and the individual and the event.
Context Africa is new series on this blog that highlights projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of journalists committed to telling a different kind of story.
See previous Context Africa entries: Jina Moore’s Q and A about forgiveness in Rwanda, Nicholai Lidow on post-conflict surfing, and Rob Crilly on how to write about a place as contentious as Darfur.
Tim Hetherington work can also be seen here, on his homepage.
How did this book come to be?
I didn’t think about a book for quite a long time. I was making work in West Africa for general dissemination. I wasn’t thinking, “you make a project and then you make a book,” but it seemed obvious in 2006 that I’d make a book. Then, you spend a couple of years thinking, “What was the book about, what was the project about?” The book is the final project that crystallizes what I was doing. I only finally understood what I was doing when the book was completed and making it was an exercise in figuring that out.
How did you end up in Liberia?
By chance, like so many things in life. I was working in the UK and I found out about a Liberian football team that was coming to the UK. And I thought sports was an interesting way to connect Liberia to the UK. I approached the organizers of the tour and said I wanted to be on the coach when the kids come around. They saw my work and said they were looking for someone to come out and film. They asked if I wanted to go to Liberia. I said, “Sure, where is it?” I first came here in May, 1999.
I remember the first scene that grabbed me. I was walking down Tubman Boulevard and everyone stopped and stood still. They said, “Taylor is coming, Taylor is coming.” He had summoned all the ministers to come to meet him at the airport after a trip abroad. He had a massive convoy of 100 vehicles going full speed down a two-lane street, along with armed vehicles and guys with RPGs and wrap around sunglasses. It was a caricature of Africa. A woman was jumping up and down and saying “Taylor is our lord, Taylor is our lord!” It was the end of one part of the war, but the buildings were dilapidated and broken down. It blew my mind. How can this reality possibly exist in the same world that I exist in?
From there, the project turned out into an inquiry into power. It’s about how young men and women are used politically, and what happens to them and their lives.
My recent work follows similar themes. I did a project in Afghanistan, and it’s about young men and power – how young American men and violence and power come together and how they’re used politically.
How has Liberia changed since you first came here, ten years ago?
Now, Liberia is in a better place. There’s security here, some economic progress, some investment, some political stability, some improvement in some people’s lives, and a great deal of freedom of speech. There’s a desire by the political powers to resurrect justice and democracy. You can see that visually. It’s changing, but it’s too early to say what’s going to happen. You can’t make that call now. Things are still very fragile, the process is going to take ten or fifteen years.
One of the things that I love about this book is that it isn’t just straight war reporting. You include landscapes, portraits, even still life images. Can you tell me a bit about that decision?
I’ve never seen myself as a war photographer. This is about narrative. I’m very open to any visual conceits and any possibilities at my disposal to better explain to people the ideas I’m exploring. I like art photography, I like still life, I like war photography. I like to include everything to weave a tapestry to explain to someone, “What happened?”
A lot of the pictures are metaphorical, and the combination of pictures is metaphorical. This piece of work is almost like a novel. I use narrative book techniques, and I think they’re a more powerful approach than having a lot of war photography. The other thing is I’m working in square format, and that’s a signature of the Liberia work. Working with film slows down your process and makes it more contemplative. I can do square work and it’s fast moving, but I can take a slower photo of an orange, and it becomes something.
(Note: Tim uses a medium format film Hasselblad for almost all of his work.)
What do you hope will come from this book?
For me what happened was that unlike the other people that covered the war, I actually lived with the [LURD] rebels during the war. That was a privileged experience. And I felt the importance of making that public record, and that’s what the book is and why it comes out. And that’s why Uncivil War is so popular here. It’s not just the government, but it’s what people here saw.
The book and photos will tour around galleries and colleges, and I want to create awareness of America’s involvement in Liberia up to a present date. People in America should understand that. Liberia is still like an antebellum plantation system and that needs to be understood.
In the book, I name people and show people who they were. A lot of warlords were using America as a base. The LURD came out of Guinea, but the MODEL came out of America. That’s something that needs to be spoken about. America can have a very destabilizing effect on Liberia.
No one in Liberia will pay $30 for this book. They don’t need to be reminded of what this book contains. They know it. In a few years, I want to make a low cost copy of this book that can be sold here. Something soft copy, printed in China, and then disseminate it here for $2 so people can show their children what happened. But not now. Liberia needs to focus on rebuilding, not what happened. But this generation’s children will need to see it and their children’s children will need to see it.
Buy the book on Amazon, which will be released on June 1, 2009, and see Umbrage Press for more information.
May 05
2009
3:37 PM
This is the third installation of 
Al Siir and his taxi. Together we have been in dozens of scrapes, two accidents and one hole.
If what’s happening isn’t bringing us any closer to a solution, is there something that would?
A lot of the pressure for change is coming from outside, from a Save Darfur movement that has polarized the debate. The first step has to be taking some of the heat out of that debate to make it easier to engage with Sudan and also the Arab world, which has largely kept quiet so far. Then the next step is looking for solutions from inside Sudan, in building bridges between the tribes which have become caught up in the conflict. Some of this work is already happening but gets overshadowed in the rush to vilify Khartoum. Then the top tier is to improve relations between Chad and Sudan, another key driver of conflict.
There are no silver bullets. And many of the right processes are in place. The problem is that pressure is too often focused in the wrong places – getting peacekeepers in, the ICC – so that the international community expends all its energy, and political capital at the Security Council, on things that won’t end the conflict.
2:39 AM
Last week Context Africa was all about responsible tourism, post conflict, and surfing in Liberia, the week before about reconciliation in Rwanda after horrendous crimes.
This afternoon, I’ll post an interview with Rob Crilly about his new book project on the always contentious topic of Darfur. Rob’s a stellar journalist whose live tweets during Bashir’s indictment justify the service’s existence. He strives to understand the place, its context, history and future in more than soundbites, more than 600 words, more than angry internet comment forums.
When not riding donkeys across vast stretches of Jebel Mara, he can be found at Java’s in Nairobi filing for the Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other sundry outlets.
Apr 28
2009
4:37 PM
This is the second installation of Context Africa, a new series that will highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context and create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. See also, Jina Moore’s Q and A about forgivness in Rwanda from last week.
This Q and A is with Nicholai Lidow, who did a summer internship at a peacebuilding organization in Ghana, where he lived with a group of Liberian refugees. After graduating from college, Nicholai traveled to Liberia to meet up with these friends, who had just returned to their country after 14 years of exile. The people he met on this journey and the incredible waves at Robertsport changed Nicholai’s life. To tell those stories, Nicholai teamed up with his friends back home—a small group of filmmakers and surfers—to make the the movie.
Sliding Liberia follows Nicholai and his friends to Liberia in search of more than perfect waves. Risking everything to explore the West African country devastated by decades of war, they record the stories of people they meet—people like Alfred, who became Liberia’s first surfer after finding a bodyboard while fleeing from rebels. Besides rediscovering a break that could be the best-kept secret in the surfing world, they find something more important—a way to travel responsibly in the 21st century.
One of the things I like about Sliding Liberia is that is neither just the story of you and your friends surfing nor the story of Liberia’s recently ended war. How did you work to achieve that balance?
Surfers have the opportunity to travel to some of the most interesting and amazing places in the world in search of waves—El Salvador, Indonesia, the Philippines. But a generation of surfers have grown up with surf media that show image after image of perfect waves, with little concern for the people who live on land. The goal of Sliding Liberia is to combine the journey towards perfect waves with a more in-depth look at the people and places encountered along the way.
Striking a balance between surfing and a documentary-style look at Liberia’s current situation was the biggest challenge of the film. Britton Caillouette and I tried to be very careful to preserve Sliding Liberia as a surf film—something that would be entertaining to watch—while also presenting an accurate, informative picture of Liberia today. During the editing process we went back and forth—cutting some surfing, adding some interviews, and vice versa— until the balance seemed right.
What kind of feedback has the film gotten?
The response to the film—from the surfing community, the general public, and people in Liberia—has been overwhelming. When Britt and I first thought up the idea for the film in 2005, we had no experience and no connections in the surfing world. Our idea was simply to buy a couple of camcorders and see what happens. Early on in the project we met with the Malloy brothers (a legendary trio of surfer/filmmakers) and pitched them our idea. The Malloy brothers were incredibly supportive and within a week we had a top cinematographer (Dave Homcy) a brilliant photographer (Ted Grambeau) and multiple feature articles lined up.
Even more surprising was the positive response from film festivals and the general public. Sliding Liberia has screened more than 60 times on 6 continents and won more than a dozen awards at international film festivals. I think part of the reason for this reception is that the film strikes a balance between the beauty and optimism of Liberia on one hand, and the serious legacy of violence and poverty on the other (plus the soundtrack is catchy).
My biggest joy from the film, however, has been screening it in Liberia. Over the last two years we’ve organized a few free screenings in Monrovia and Robertsport, for both NGO workers and Liberians. I was terrified how these groups of people—people with experience in Liberia—would judge the film. The feedback has been very positive, and it has been great seeing my friends who appeared in the film transform into local celebrities.
How have things changed at Roberstport, where you filmed most of the surfing, and in Liberia, in the years you’ve been visiting?
Robertsport has experienced some changes since the film was shot in 2006, although the people still face the same daily struggles. When we made the film, Alfred was the only local with any experience surfing. Now there are at least a dozen kids out in the water, and four of them are becoming very, very good. The kids now have access to about a dozen surfboards that visitors have been kind enough to leave, and surfing is continuing to grow. The biggest change, of course, has been the opening of “Nana’s Camp,” a luxury lodge right on the beach. Now surfers and aid workers can stay at Robertsport in comfort, without having to build a camp on the beach.
At least a dozen surfers have made the journey to Liberia solely to experience the waves at Robertsport (most of them because they’ve seen Sliding Liberia!). Hopefully as these numbers grow, the opportunities for employment and development in Robertsport will increase.
Unfortunately the people of Robertsport continue to face difficulties. Although most of the community relies on fishing, the long distance to Monrovia means that there are no markets to sell their fish. Very few jobs exist in Robertsport (although Nana’s Camp now employs about 20 local staff), and access to electricity or running water is very limited. Alfred’s mother, for example, has had to leave her family and move to Kakata to pursue a job in teaching because she could not find any source of income in Robertsport.
You’ve come back to Liberia this time around to work on doctoral research. How is your academic work informed by your time in Liberia hanging out and surfing?
My research focuses on post-conflict reconstruction and on the organization of rebel groups. My academic work has benefited tremendously from my early experiences in Liberia. I first came to Liberia to visit friends that I had met in Ghana in 2003 while they were Liberian refugees. When I graduated from college I traveled to Liberia with the simple goal of visiting these friends and tagging along with them while they tracked down their families and reconnected with a country they hadn’t seen in 14 years.
Seeing Liberia from their perspective sparked a connection with Liberia that I have never felt anywhere else. But aside from this personal connection, my network of friends have proven invaluable resources when it comes to explaining the nuances of Liberian politics or tracking down elusive contacts.
I really love the music you guys used in the film. Can you tell me a bit about that?
Britton Caillouette, my partner on the film, was the driving force behind the soundtrack. Our goal was to create a bridge between the Western music that typically appears in surf films and the West African music that is a more authentic backdrop to the scenery and stories on the screen. Britt listened to thousands of songs to pick the ones that worked— I think he did an amazing job. We also teamed up with Todd Hannigan and Jesse Siebenberg to compose an original score that captured the complicated emotions present in the film.
$1 from each DVD sold on the website is donated to NGOs and local organizations working in Liberia. The film is also available at Amazon.com or on Netflicks.
Apr 27
2009
5:35 PM
After last week’s somber and thoughtful installment of Context Africa with Jina Moore, this week I’ll feature another project with a similar amount of commitment and equally difficult themes, but a lighter throughline: surfing.
I’d heard of Sliding Liberia before I got here, but I didn’t watch it until one quiet Saturday night a few months ago. What immediately appealed to me about the film was that it didn’t try to be about The War (capital T, capital H), but about a group of friends surfing and the context in which that takes place.
Tomorrow, I’ll post a Q and A with Nicholai Lidow, one of the driving forces behind the film. Stay tuned for more information and some amazing pictures Nicholai has been kind enough to share.
Apr 21
2009
11:45 AM
This is the first installation of Context Africa, a new series that will highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context and create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa.
“No Small Mercy” is the story of Alice and Emanuel. Years after the genocide, Emmanuel meets Alice, the woman whose hand he hacked off with a panga. He asks for her forgiveness. Alice is hesitant but ultimately forgives him.
Journalist Jina Moore, who has worked extensively in Rwanda and the Great Lakes, tells an insightful story that doesn’t gloss over what happened but also doesn’t focus on April 1994 exclusively. She gives the history context and the individuals identity. She took a few minutes to answer questions about working on the piece.
How did you identify Alice and Emmanuel as people to feature in this story?
I was introduced to Alice through a personal friend in Rwanda. When I told her that I wanted to write her story, she insisted on including Emmanuel. She felt very strongly that her narrative was only half of her own personal story, and several times in interviews when I asked her follow-up questions about what seemed like “her narrative” she deferred to Emmanuel, who was on the other side of her experience. Emmanuel was willing to participate in deference to Alice, but also–it seemed to me, after many hours of conversation–because he has done a lot of personal work to move forward from the genocide, and he is a man of reflective thought. The story, perhaps, gave him a chance to talk these things through with an outsider.
Did you interview Alice and Emmanuel together or separately or both?
Both. I’d met Alice almost a year before we started working on the story, and then I heard a little of her story. I did the interviews for this piece in January, and I met with Alice first for an hour. Then we had a marathon, 8-hour joint interview session, and then several follow ups which included group and individual interviews. I wanted to give each person a chance to convey ideas they might not express in the presence of the other person, but it turned out that they preferred to speak together.
Is writing an “as told to” story different from more straightforward journalism?
I don’t know if it is in general, but this certainly was. I was inflexible about my writing method: I wanted as much as possible to be literally lifted from my transcripts. I didn’t feel like I had the authority to paraphrase in my subjects’ voices. Also, Rwanda is a place of great political and historical sensitivities, that as an outsider I don’t fully understand. I did not want to put Alice or Emmanuel in a difficult position by having paraphrased in a way that seemed legitimate to me but crossed a cultural boundary I don’t know about. That method meant I had to interview much more rigorously than one usually expects when doing a print piece.
There is so much written about the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath. How did you make your story different from the others?
I’m flattered you think it’s different enough that it stands out. I think my reporting/writing approach is unusual, and I also think my time in Rwanda added a nuanced understanding I wouldn’t have otherwise. I certainly didn’t understand Sierra Leone as well, for instance, and a series I did last year on the same topic–postwar reconciliation–doesn’t feel to me nearly as satisfying as this story.
What’s the hardest thing about this topic to explain to people who don’t know much about Rwanda or about Africa generally?
That challenge is different in other pieces, where I have the freedom of third-person narration, which lets me do far more explanatory writing. But in both, the challenge of Rwanda is pretty symbolic of the challenge of writing about Africa: you want to write against the stereotype of poor, suffering, uni-dimensional Africans, but you have to acknowledge the poverty and suffering IS part of Africa. So how do you write about those things that have become a cliche, without turning your subjects into stereotypes? It’s hard, and I think the key is paying lots of attention to small things, and staying the hell out of the way—in your reporting, and in your writing.
Does writing about horrific crimes take an emotional toll on your personally?
I am loathe to admit it, because I’m an idiot, but yes. Turns out, though, that there are lots of us idiots in denial about the effect our work has on us, and the
Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is trying hard to change the culture of the way we work, getting past the “I’m so tough I can do refugee stories for YEARS” machismo that permeates the profession. They’re really getting a great conversation, and support network, going. (Also, they give away money. So that’s another reason to them.)
Jina Moore is a freelance journalist who splits her time between New York and Africa. Her work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Search Magazine and Best American Science Writing 2009 (forthcoming).
Apr 20
2009
7:04 PM
It’s hard to understand a lot about a place in 600 words – the length of the average news article. It’s hard for a journalist to explain them, and it’s hard for a reader to comprehend them. While longer form journalism about Africa is much more infrequent than, say, longer forms of journalism about Washington DC politics, there are a few stellar journalists working on books, magazine articles, documentaries, and photo essays scattered across this diverse continent.
I’m starting a new series on this blog: Context Africa. The idea is to highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context ,as well as to create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa.
Coming tomorrow will be a Q and A with friend, sometimes collaborator, and stellar writer Jina Moore. She just finished a piece for the Walrus Magazine, “No Small Mercy.”
Stay tuned.
