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.
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.
Seeing suffering and hardship every makes it easy to lose sight of what you're doing and why it matters. But don't forget! You are a wonderful soul doing wonderful things, and there's not a doubt in my mind that you and Andrew will continue to give a voice to people who are rarely heard.
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