If I had a Hammer...

May 1st,It's been so long since I've written; complications of too much work and too much travel. I literally can't sleep in past 8am in this country despite late evenings trying to soak up every moment in fullness. Well enough seeing as I have so much filming, editing, managing, scheduling, brainstorming, and experiencing to do. Just a few days ago I landed home from a holiday weekend in the big city of Blantyre. As we drove through mountains and hills covered in baobab trees and splotchy cement buildings silhouetted by dark figures waiting and watching, I fell in love. We stayed with the Malawian middle-class family of one of our new friends Z, and were treated with so much welcome I forgot I was in Africa. Treated to home-grown Avocados, Mangos, and Tangerines and home-made jelly, Shepard's Pie, and smoked beef brisquet, I'm coming to terms with the stratified lifestyles in a breath-taking country. We discussed some of the woes and difficulties of the educational system here, political and economics reasons for the previous and current fuel crisis, and the reality of witchcraft that pervades this society. We walked through the city streets, meeting Fred, a filmmaker that could find me a job working in the Malawian film industry or connections to market the documentary on this continent. Huge glass complexes constructed around winding streets bordered with massive African trees and fragrant flowers. I love it here. Not that I need cities to survive, in fact the commercial goes against the core of me. Watching marketing and materialism infiltrate traditional Malawian villages and families gives conflicting feelings.'Development' is one of the best ways to reduce infectious diseases biologically but I feel is also one of the best ways to increase infectious diseases socially. This past week was drenched with dreary weather and I think it has started to infect some of my mood. What hasn't is Peter Mawanga getting his non-profit registration certified, an organization called Talents of the Malawian Child, which offers workshops and training for child artists and musicians and eventual festivals to promote and develop the talents inherent in young Malawians. Or Q Malawezi agreeing to collaborate with me on the documentary project, something I am so excited for. Growing up in a family of the ministry(government), he's become an educated and engaged artist who produced one of Peter Mawanga's albums, writes poetry and is an amazing spoken word performer. I'm so pumped to have his eyes guiding this project, his voice narrating the way, and his friends filling in where an American can't understand or contact.
What I can't seem to understand is how to correct a corrupt car-less police force that waves you for speeding on ill-marked roads and demands cash immediately ('because they don't have a National Bank branch in Dedza to cash a check') or after an hour of arguing insists on an open check. Finn having an embassy badge seems to sometimes help but that underlies the issue of diplomatic power in a country swarming with foreign aid groups and businessmen. One could argue that they're kinda the same thing. Trying not to let all the injustice taint my daily experience but when it's glaring at you from behind the beaten brow of a street kid, as you drive through the embassy district mansions, as you're prompted as 'boss' from a stranger twice your age because you might offer him a job...
But each day starts fresh and bright (this week) and it's a welcome relief to our complications last week when we went to Balaka to meet a traditional healer who supposedly has cured 800 people of AIDS. Complete with documentation and pictures of his patients, this was a golden opportunity to show a crucial perspective in this culture but after our 4 hour journey on cracked and pot-holed pavement awaiting a doomed flat tire that could leave us stranded for hours, we were left waiting at Balaka for a man that would never show. In exchange for a failed trip, we visited with the biggest pop star in Malawi, Lucius Banda, a personal friend of Peter's who welcomed us with conversation for a couple hours. Offering us any help he can in marketing or distribution for the album, we discussed the Malawian music industry and the social strifes they face. Before we left his relaxing home, I heard Lucius mention 'I hope I'll live to see my 3-year old son make music'. This is a man that lives comfortably, travels and plays music around the world, yet faces the harsh truth that he may not live to see his children's live's unfold. Some children I see walking home from school on the side of road strike me as odd. They're not children, they're people. These mature little lives amble along knowing more about life than I suspect most people I've seen in college.
In Blantyre we met an 11-year old boy begging on the street in the cusp of a dazzling sunset who told us of how he and his brother sleep outside the city in an orphan center. He stared at us with a battered expression in his eyes that told me more than his timid voice could. He stood next to a middle-aged man who relentlessly tried to sell us postcards and beaded necklaces for mere fractions of a dollar and I had the eary feeling that I was seeing the same person spread out over two generations. The 'businessman' told us with darting opportunistic eyes and loneliness on his face how he lost his wife 6 years ago, an experience I hear all too often here. From what? How long does he have? Are these terrible thoughts or the reality of this place? I drift into a depressing ride home contemplating my own privilage at not having a monthly funeral to attend, overwhelmed by the opportunities that I have to give, grappling with my deficiencies in language and the automatic divide that exists in any relationship that I develop with a local here.My daily interactions include numerous expatriots and the degree of international mixing within most every interaction is bizarre. In my month of being here, I've met only two other Americans within hundreds of expats. Language once again shows how pivotal it is to people and how paramount its power is in this life. My efforts to communicate through images doesn't work without some communication through language. I get lonely sitting in Mubuya Camp's bar watching a football match surrounded by a dozen young adults, all with unique nationalities and accents, but it gives me time to think of music video ideas for Peter Mawanga's new album. My skills are becoming an amazing catalyst for experiencing and seeing more of this country. I've been in meetings with Nhkotakota Wildlife Reserve lodge director who has offered to put us up in luxury tents on a river island only accessible by a suspension bridge in exhange for filming and editing a promo video for their website. That's still in the planning stage but this weekend we're heading to Mozambique on a 9-day charity biking safari along the southeastern shore of Lake Malawi on an all-expenses-paid wilderness safari trek. I've been commissioned to film the biking Brits, the cathedral in Mozambique and the alluring Lakoma Island as well as keeping the portugese-translating, fiddle-jamming Finn some company.We're both really excited, me especially in the wake of yesterday's experience walking through the Malawian Refugee camp. Setup in 1994 against the backdrop of a Rwandan genocide, the 12,000 person village is contained by military personnel wielding menacing guns in case anyone tries to infiltrate any other part of Malawi besides their dusty barren slum of a town. With a booming HIV rate occupying an otherwise bored diversity of southern Africans, the excited ministers we met with were patient and kind and grateful to have someone come and potentially help their desperate parish. What can a camera do to help these people? What can I expect twice translated words of hope to accomplish for people that have no lands or stability to speak of? Money won't help these people. How can pictures help these people? Even if an infinite surplus of food suddenly appeared, what is there to occupy the soul? I feel desperate to offer an answer that will give a future to some people living in scrap sheet metal stamped with 'USA' and cardboard guarded by uniforms with machine guns. But this is MY worldview and MY life watching, something I wrestle with constantly.
Just when things begin to become too overcast and hopeless I'm inspired by the phenomenal people that populate my life for months to come. Like my nightly impressions of looking up at thousands of glowing stars that I knew were there but I've never experienced, the continual feeling of meeting amazing individuals is always surprising. Weekly I meet incredible artists here who have so much ability but lack the resources or venues to develop a brimming art scene here. I feel the obligatory responsibility to do what I can to help. Amid the slow hum of tires to tarmac a typical sunset begins to spill over this African landscape. A deep red shoots over a jagged horizon blossoming into orange and a blue that can't decide where to put the purple clouds. Along this gradually browning countryside are various smoke signals from burning trash that mingle with the car dust. This return trip is the first of six bus rides to be frustrated by the unreliability that's commonplace here in Malawi as we're sidelined for a flat tire. Children relieve themselves on the side of the road without shame and our smoke-filled bus takes on the odor of tar and earth and fire. I take a nap with bodies resting against mine in a bus packed past standing-room capacity. I'm like a kid. I finally arrive back home to a house without power and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made in the dancing flicker of candlelight comfort my swirling head. Each day ends with humility and aspirations of doing more than I can. I wish I was more. Or better. Or enough.

If you Build it...

April 20th,
Each day drifts along slower than the last until I sit down to look at my calender and realize I've covered three weeks here. The Malawians have this concept that a day and a night are two days. Someone sentenced to two years in prison spends one calender year behind bars, the most common egregious crime being theft. This is remarkable seeing as Finn and I watched a dozen people scattering from a depot with bags and luggage in hand having stolen the storage from a travel bus and all the onlookers watched and laughed. Even our adolescent guide chuckled as he told us what we were watching and proceeded to request payment with outstretched hand after showing us where the bus station was. The droves of people that coalesce around me after exiting any bus or car in the city is becoming an old joke. That and the countless people that daily exclaim muzungu at the mere sight of me and Finn, no matter if we're walking the streets or riding in a car.

Riding on the way to Liwonde National Park in a crowded bus packed with the smells of oranges and the clamor of voices, hands and produce and crackers fill the bus windows at every stop. An incredible countryside of orange and green tipped with exposed rock, a sweet much-needed breeze, and we're off to the meet the logistical coordinator and various individuals of the Clinton Foundation. Connected to the area hospital, we have access to names and numbers of possible interview subjects and we end up retrieving one narrative from the head of the AIDS support group with more possibilities to come soon. The main reason we've arrived four hours from the capital is to visit Finn's friend Sarah, a peace corps volunteer that lives with hippos grazing her front lawn, elephants leaving dung behind her home and baboons stealing pots of food from her backyard. She was relocated to a home on the park property after her village home was broken into by six men wielding blades. They managed to get away after leaving permanent scars on her village mother and son, who fought off the opportunistic assailants with their hands and arms.

This brings up the bitter memory of listening to the younger Madalitso a couple days ago share with us how he was robbed in the middle of the night. Making an already painful and difficult life harder is a handful of guys breaking into your humble home with knives saying 'I'm going to kill you' to you and your 12-year old brother. After slapping him to the floor they took everything he has except the mattress. All of his food, clothes, mosquito net, ARV's! How can anyone with a soul take a boys medication, a drug to keep him alive long enough to make something of a national average life expectancy around 40-years? He needs to find somewhere else to live. I get the feeling that he's not going to find anything on his own soon. He needs a break. I can't imagine living in his shoes. I listen to his dreams of seeing America, of paying for his younger brother to finish school and become a doctor but, 'having no money he suffers'; how he doesn't like Malawians but likes "white men from England" even though it was one of these same men that took his mother away from him. I have too many contradictory emotions swelling inside of me. I have to reassure myself that there are good things that can come of suffering. I have to remind myself that I can't live anyone's life but my own. I have to do something...

America is fast and quick, an ego-driven teenager that believes it has it all figured out. But I can hope to understand the system and there are things I can count on. Malawi is gentle and steady like my grandfather, but sometimes I feel like I'm at a party I wasn't invited to. Like I'm witnessing this elaborate dance but I don't hear the music. Eight months ago, there were no city road signs, no billboards, and a few years ago Lilongwe knew no traffic jams. Now the radios sing out auto-tuned Akon imitators from Zambia who see a computer making digital noise as a price reduction to spending a fortune to buy instruments. Talking with a fluent Chechewa-speaking Sarah about her two years of observations within a village and the town of Liwonde and I feel like I'm listening to a tale of a spider eating its own young, caught in a web of the historically oppressed stepping on one another to rise above what financially is 'poor'. What good is money when you grow your own food, don't pay rent and have your family and friends in walking distance? I literally see Coke signs every 15 minutes driving along rural highways watching thatched roofs and rust-colored concrete blocks bearing names like 'Thanks Grocery'. A boy shoving chips into our bus wears a shirt that reads "This is what a feminist body looks like". I want to believe he can read English.

I want to believe that somewhere quality can overcome quantity. Meeting up with Hilda I discover that her daughter has a secondary certificate in hand but can't afford to complete her public health masters in a country that has 1 doctor to every 50,000 citizens. Her tuition cost is 85,000 Kwacha. That's $530. Can't her government do something when President Bingu orchestrates a K300 million wedding and charges the stadium full of guests 1,000 Kwacha each? I'm angry but what am I going to do. I want to believe that music and art can change the course of history. A couple of guys from the Kumbali band went to the market with Finn and Andy with their instruments and the response was startling.



I listened to Peter Mawanga and Finn jam together a couple days ago and I could barely keep my camera steady. Inside I wept for hope... for love... for suffering... for living... for being a kid that stares at clouds.

There and Back Again

April 9th,
Too much to say. Many times this past week I've been reminded of Bilbo Baggins, my mind and body "spread thin like butter over too much bread". My place in this world seems to be becoming more clear. But this world unfortunately is not. More than any other place, I've seen the stratification of people as a wide gulf between those that have and those that don't. It's so difficult to be open and present in the tiny sofa-sized apartment of a 17-year old boy who's positive because of a tainted blood transfusion for his heart condition. With no family to speak of he now raises his 12-year old brother by himself. The smell in his dank clay structure couldn't overpower my complete feeling of helplessness, I could only sit there and smile, trying to bring some kind of warmth to a boy that shouldn't ever have to deal with frequent agonizing pain and insurmountable odds. To hold back tears as I write this I think of the smile that painted his face when Finn mentioned that the boy would be able to sing for his track on the concept album. He just glowed. His name is Madalitso, which means 'blessings'. There are things here that I don't know how to process.

Another man by the same name also echoed this feeling I've been trying to suppress about my own role here in Malawi. He's been working as a translator for Finn during some of the narrative collections and is currently a translator for the documentary crew filming a piece on William Kamkwamba. You may have heard of 'The Boy who Harnessed the Wind', an amazing story of a boy who built from a picture and junk parts a few working windmills producing electricity and pumping water for his family and village in a rural Malawian village. This elder Blessings was a teacher when he met and encouraged William in school and now has the opportunity to facilitate a broader telling of his story. But in spending time with Blessings at his home something he said struck the heart of me. 'These men from America come here and make a movie and then leave Malawi and don't come back... but for what'. I can feel the distrust, the difference between how he relates to Finn and how he relates to me. Maybe it's a matter of spending time with someone and getting to know them but I can't help but think that the camera will always make me something I'm not. Or maybe I am...

The difficulties of the lens has grown so that I feel torn, stretched between a human being here to see and share and relate, and an idea. A multitude of ideas actually. The idea that I'm capturing a part of the people I want to share. Commodifying and exploiting, for what purpose is open to numerous opinions. That I have come and will go potentially to never return shades a different light than this is my home that I work for. I'm not someone that is talking or giving music but I'm taking with the assumed gurantee that I'm planning to give back later. I'm still choking on the truth he sees, the weight of trying to comprehend the mashing of two cultures. The reality of my task is settling. I feel the compulsion of an artist that wants to help smacking into the expense of some westerner 'coming to the rescue' of a situation that is more complex than words or moving pictures can relate.

My being an 'other' has become increasingly clear. The language barrier alone creates a dissonance between me and the people, except those educated few that I feel can confidently understand both my words and the context. In a way, I've become increasingly bound to Finn to navigate through so many daily instances. His linguistical abilities(Chichewa, Portugese, French) are a blessing but highlight my inability to be natural with people, unable to communicate or be real, to inquire or to share. To look someone in the eyes and smile sends only the message the receiver wants to receive. We go to the market to buy fruits and vegetables and to approach a stranger we're overcharged as much as 400%. Finn bargains down to the delight of Malawian onlookers who smile and laugh at the fact that we azungu end up paying almost double what we're told we should pay. Maybe that's the upcharge of history. Maybe that's the price of someone else's greed. I feel dirty and deflated walking back to the car while brooms and pirated dvds and stolen hubcabs are shoved in my face. I'm an opportunity, I get it. I still feel like a jerk putting on my sunglasses as I try and ignore the stink of burning trash and desperation.

The next minute I'm sitting in the welcoming home of a woman that gave herself the nickname of Finn's 'African Grandmother' because of identical names and no doubt a sign of the sweet and endearing woman exuding gentle wisdom before me. Hilda shows Finn, Andy and myself the proper way to make nsima and prepare some relish. She calms me effortlessly, just spending time in a small kitchen stirring boiled maize. We listen to her story of infection and subsequent diabetes, about the children she teaches and the HIV presentations she is in charge of, we talk about the market and her family, we discuss President Bingu's wedding that is to take place this weekend and how we're fleeing the capital to miss the congestion disaster a stadium wedding will pose. I'm here. I'm well. I'm looking forward to coming back next week and spending some more time with her, listening to her stories, working up some more nsima, maybe a mini-Chichewa lesson.I came here to share and augment the work of Finn and I have no doubts in my ability to do this. There are those moments that level me. There are those moments that shake my core and dissolve any stability I've manage to culture over the past 25 years. Then there are moments when I'm sitting on the couch of the former Minister of Lands witnessing part of a life that has survived wrongful imprisonment, 30 years of exile, the death of three children to HIV, and a breaking of political silence that prompted Africa to listen. I'm in the presence of greatness. Sacrifice. I have dreams. Rather, I have responsibilities. Time will tell. Many may listen... but who will do?

A World Within a Week

April 5th
It's only been a week. That's incredible to think. What has felt like months; what has squeezed aside this whole lifetime before it to make room for 'Muli Bwanji's, Kwacha-conversions in tumultuous markets and grilled chip stands (fries) at 'luxury' hotels, daily pills that make me extra-sensitive to sun and sunscreen applications in a 90 degree African sun that burns brighter and hotter than I've known before, and the throng of people I meet daily that are genuine and calm and wonderful... this all has come to pass over the span of a mere week. There is so much to speak of and not time enough to share everything, but I guess that's why I have a camera with me.

The first thing I noticed while shopping that still kinda creeps me out; long-lasting milk from Zambia that stays good at least until November without a fridge. Complement that with malnourished eggs that come out of the shell a pale faded yellow and there are some things that food-wise take a little time to get used to. Like nsima, the staple dish of every Malawian made from boiled maize flour and water. If a Malawian is offered every dish imaginable and gourges their bellies without scooping by hand this porridge-like substance, they would relate that 'they haven't been fed any food'. They had plenty of relish but no food. Granted, I've never been opposed to eating weird, dull, or monotonous; like sustaining on crackers and cheese religiously on Scouting camping trips. But it should be noted that cheese is super expensive here and cream cheese is a distant legend. It's like trying to explain what snow is to people that have only felt the luxury of ice and the blessed season of torrential rain. What they do know are 20-minute sunrises and sunsets that demarcate your day making 9pm feel like midnight, and the danger of walking about in darkness first for the desperate crimes that occur in an otherwise gentle city and second for the malaria that decimates your health to feverish and nauseous pain on the rate of seasonal allergies. Milky and creamy whites of eyes are the fated labels of this lifetime of mosquito transactions.

What I've come to learn is the pleasure from an afternoon breeze wafting through your house when every window is screened and open and the sweet smell of vegetation and chirping of birds that replaces those of industry. Or the mass cultural acceptance of children in the villages, having mastered the thumbs-up and 'hello', come and run to greet the rare foreign visitors that are walking around their yards. There are those things that are unreliable like electricity or the prices for some who see my skin as an invitation to temporarily ease their lives. But on the whole of those locals that are greeted in Chechewa, I am met with smiles and a warmth that Carrboro has on its best days.

My days have taken on the mold of rising with the heat of the sun around 7am and preparing my gear to follow Finn and his visiting friend Andy. They've developed a bit of a jamming relationship with the Kumbali village band, a group of self-taught and dedicated Malawians who have taken to the generous instrumental and managing offerings of the village's director Scott Gray. It's been incredible to hang out and listen to this improvised mix of styles, some of them hearing Appalachian or Irish tunes for the first time and laying afro-rhythms on top. I've witnessed this fusion of musicians on such a regular basis. It's incredible how music in this first week has brought so many people together. It inspires my work on this project, compelling me to double my efforts and shed as much of myself as possible for the sake of presenting a fuller picture.

If music be the thread of this Malawian story, then the individuals are the knots that bind and strengthen their communities and my hope for a world too often jaded by bad press. The more one explores ways to improve a given situation, it's tempting to stop short at these negatives and egocentric criticisms that isolate and distance rather than unify. But our trip to Senga Bay gave witness to Richard, an unabashed and courageous man whose status presented him with an opportunity to travel the numerous villages surrounding his home and spark dialogues on this epidemic. He has since, from years of work, created a nutrition center for dozens of infected children that provides three meals a day as well as teaching means of artistic expression like songs or theater. He brought us through 4 villages and introduced us to some of the children and their families including some that Finn has collected narratives from. I can't describe these lives nor can I speak clearly of my feelings as we were ushered from home to home. Smiles and deep eyes, me a western male carrying a shiny plastic camera, homes built of necessity and earth, collections of curiosities tailing our tour, sounds I can't translate and words I can't produce....
We leave this place to step onto the tickling sandy beaches of a hotel that is hosting a concert starring Peter Mawanga, the socially-conscious Malawian musician whose collaboration with Finn on an AIDS stories album has brought me here. I look out past the 40-foot boulder stage backdrop onto sparkling waves beneath golden(magical) african clouds and wonder what the Mozambique mountains on the horizon see when they look back at me. I lay my sunburned body down inside a mosquito net and sigh. I'll sweat but I won't dream.

Lilongwe-Bound

March 29th 2010
Having just arrived in Africa for the first time in my life... there are no words. They don't do justice. This fantastical idea I've daydreamed my whole life is now surrounding me. It's intoxicating. The 15-hour flight from the bustling noise of New York gave way to this relaxing trance as I told myself, 'you're in Africa!'. Several restless naps on the plane only further shrouded my reality and as we cut through 30,000 feet of clouds and finally bounced onto the runway, I half-doubted whether I could accomplish what I'm here to do.

I spent a brief interlude in the aiport lovingly nicknamed 'joburg' listening to something on my ipod that I've listened to hundreds of times before boarding the last leg of my journey to Malawi, 'The Heart of Africa'. Two days worth of airplane food later and I saw the first patch of green since I left the United States, rows and patches and splatters of varying shades of green and yellow that out-hued Scotland. A vast country-side dotted with trees and bushes bordered by rolling mountainous peaks. This is Malawi. I struck up a conversation with my neighbor, one Malawian Deston Katenje, who crunches numbers for The Tobacco Control Commission here in Lilongwe. I tried to relate that I grew up amidst Tobacco Road over there in the United States. Polite but unphased he gave me his card and I stepped outside for my first breath of African air. Sunny and wide-open, smelling of flowers and sounding of birds. Yes!

I safely acquired my travel visa to find that one of my bags is missing. Filling out the form I realized just how inconvenient life will be. No cell phone for them to call, an address that acts as more of a compass than exact location, no vehicle or well-maintained public transit to take, no exact computer-calculated location of where my bag could be. I couldn't be happier. Andrew Magill (for now on referred to as Finn because Malawians have trouble with his first name) was there in all smiles to welcome me with a 'Muli Bwanji' (How are you doing?). This first day was such a strange feeling driving down the left lane gazing at this incredible panorama of hills, maize, mountains, people, all speckled by the shadowy cloud cover that resembles seismic explosions captured in time.

Lilongwe is a capital city that has no real definitive borders but instead is a general area of spaced-out residencies and occaisional multi-story complexes in the more industrial and developed parts. I dropped my things off in my home for the next 5 months in Area 10, a numbering system that doesn't relate order but instead refers to age. A spacious 3 bedroom home surrounded by an even more spacious forested yard and fence. I met our hired help Damson who lives in a home in our backyard with his wife and children surrounded by their seasonal crop of maize and chicken coop. Both of my two mzungu(European or 'white') housemates were at work so I continued my tour to Finn's beautiful home that reminds me of what I imagine a South American villa to be. On to exchanging some of our precious dollars for the Malawian Kwacha that will support my living while I follow Finn's work and passions.

An incredibly gifted musician and equally engaging personality, Finn has been in Malawi for 3 months now and begins unloading useful and pertinent information while I soak in every little drop. After buying some meat at the 'posh ex-pat' grocery store we arrive back at his place to cook a real meal and converse with his housemates about anything and everything that strikes a fancy. I've had too much to take in and the waning hours drag on until I'm back home on my foam mattress. My last thoughts were either that I've made a huge mistake...
or I'm going to need a good night's rest to let this one wash over.

Finn waking me up at 11am the next day to begin what will be a routine-less adventure swiftly erased any doubts and I picked up my camera bag and headed for the door.