stocking up and paring down for Africa

As I prepare to spend three and a half months working in Africa, I’m determined to pack sparingly, bringing only those clothes and personal items that are absolutely necessary.  I want to keep myself as light and portable as possible.  My backpack is an ultra-lightweight, collapsible design, and the clothes inside are airy and versatile.  At the same time, I’m sparing little expense — that backpack was worth every pretty paycheck penny; this new lightweight durable laptop and backup drives were worth several paychecks; titanium tripod also more pricey than your average three-legged stool.  And as for photography equipment…. Let’s just say that I didn’t increase my personal savings this summer, despite working five part-time jobs…

With a clear ideal of where and what I’ll be able to shoot during my time in Kenya and Tanzania, and a sketchy idea of what reportages may come out of it, I’ve been strategically enhancing my gear stock to allow me to capture the images and stories that may come my way.  The investment has been showing immediate returns…

What a change from my gear-light self the last time I traveled to Africa.  Gear-phobic, gear-critical, gear-wary.  One Minolta point-and-shoot camera and lots of film, and neither the experience nor the confidence to push myself beyond amateur shooting.  THat would come, in bursts and waves of inspiration (and confidence) in Mada.  So many ways I grew from the Peace Corps and post-Peace Corps experience… My aspirations toward photography, photojournalism, and conservation and development are, quite obviously, some of the most resonant.

Check back often for updates from Africa!  Let’s see if I don’t come back with several extra bags….

newport from jamestown

I could feel the pressure building.  Four twelve-hour work days in a row, lots of life changes to be contemplated, and still that big beautiful moon overhead…

my absolute favorite. sold the next day!

I needed to do some more night shooting.  It’s some form of therapy.  Stillness in the air, silent movement of the clouds, muffled snippets of far off conversations drifting in and out of earshot on the light breeze.  So calming, yet invigorating.  Visualizing a dramatic photographic capture of the scene, setting up my equipment, deciding on an initial exposure, and shooting that first image… from there, as it’s been said so succinctly in a certain song, time turns elastic.  One exposure begets another and another, each one bearing a slight change in frame, aperture, ambient light, and even subject matter: cars drive over the bridge, planes pass overhead, dinghies cross the black waters, clouds stream across the sky, the moon rises.  Each photo brings a new delight, rich dark night hues made fantastically otherworldly through my lens.  I would do this every night if I could…

Someday I’ll get there.

Galilee, night, moonlight

The big beautiful moon, a glowing orange orb rising over the trees from my vista in Galilee.  Long, luscious reflections on the marshy waters, and the velvety glow of moonlight on still docks, swaying boats, inky harbor waters.

I had been thinking about it all day.  Imagining those last moments of my 12-hour work day, and a burst of night vibes to grab my camera and climb to the top of the Fisherman’s Memorial and shoot the moon.  Shoot for the moon.  Capture the moon.  Make the moon my own.

I only had a short while between the end of my shift and a late dinner date with my very own slice of heaven…

clear friday nights in summer

The first time I went this summer, Saturn was on prominent stellar display, rings coyly wrapped around its waist, tilted down to the right.  It looked anomalous, like a sticker someone had slapped on the telescope viewfinder, so much brighter and more defined than any nearby celestial object.  I shrieked with delight and awe when I saw it.  Saturn.  No wonder you’ve been called the god of abundance, peace, justice, strength…

On the second trip, the moon stole the show.  The big beautiful half-moon.  We arrived just before 10pm, with a lightning storm approaching from the western horizon; the observatory crew was debating whether to close up shop ahead of the storm or take their chances.  Our hopeful eyes and eager words, I imagine, helped to sway the staff to keep their massive lens trained on the sky a bit longer; we were invited in to gaze into the telescope.  I was the first to have a look.  I gasped and jumped backward as soon as my eye glimpsed the moon: it filled the entire frame.  Craters, pockmarks, rocks, color variations, and an eerie layer of wavy haze caused by the atmospheric humidity.  It was overwhelming.  SO much more big beautiful moon than I had expected.  Passages from Still Life With Woodpecker began whirring through my mind.  I looked again.

It was pure delight.  The moon, in all its exquisite imperfection.  As Tom Robbins mused, no wonder the moon is the altar of lovers.

In my universe, there’s no better way to spend a clear summer Friday night than at the Frosty Drew observatory at Ninigret Park.  The viewing is free, the venue is calm and tucked away from the hubbub, the mood is cosmic.  There is so much to learn and love about the night sky, peering down at us gazing up at it.

My next trip might be my last for the summer, drinking in the night air like wine, reminding myself how beautiful, vast and unfathomable the universe.

Analasatrana community school: a global partnership for one small village

A small hillock nestled between rice paddies and peanut fields, Analasatrana hardly seems like its own village.  More like a rural “neighborhood” of sorts, a hamlet.  Granted this is only the slice of Analasatrana visible from the main track; its domain extends across the fields to the clusters of the homes dotting the nearby landscape.

Even so, with only a few hundred residents and less than 200 children of primary school age, Analasatrana was never given its own school.  Local resources simply couldn’t support it, neither the government school system nor the community itself, one consisting of struggling farmers and zebu herders.  As a result children were forced to walk several miles either east or west to the nearest schools in the two adjacent villages.  Only about fifty of Analasatrana’s children could manage this, as these other schools were already overcrowded with their own local students, and some parents were simply unwilling to send their children so far for an education.

I worked a lot in Analasatrana, one of the 12 villages within the “rural commune” that was my home as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  We addressed community health issues — safe water, diarrhea prevention and treatment, malaria, nutrition — as well as micro-enterprise, and the reinforcement of local associations and their strategies.  I soon came to understand the serious education issue as well, and began meeting with the parents and community members who were determined to improve the situation.  Together we laid out a coherent, and created a simple work plan, budget, and design for a school house.  We approached local authorities and business owners, held several community meetings, and gradually built a base of support for the effort to build a primary school in Analasatrana.

At the time I was also interacting more and more with ecotourists visiting our region, promoting local artisans and crafts, the new local radio station, and other projects.  I used the area’s only ecolodge as a primary means of reaching out to tourists about these local community development endeavors, spending many nights chatting with visitors and encouraging them to take advantage of locally-run activities and contribute to the local economy.  Their support bolstered numerous critical pilot projects, giving the community the confidence to engage directly in ecotourism and improve their livelihoods through it.

Oftentimes tourists would ask me what they could do to help the community to achieve its sustainable development goals.  On one such occasion, a British couple who had stayed in the Ankarana sent me an email upon their return to the UK.  They described how touched they had been to meet local residents, children in particular, and to see them struggle to  survive in such harsh conditions.  The squalid, overcrowded state of the schools had especially moved them, and they expressed the desire to directly support primary education in the Ankarana.  In my reply to their kind words, I told them about the plight of Analasatrana, and the community’s desire to improve the situation.  I shared our basic plans with them, and asked if collaboration on the project might interest them.  Their response was enthusiastic, and thus a beautiful partnership was born.

We nurtured the  Analasatrana community school project through a series of emails and Skype conversations, across the oceans and over  nearly two years.  Our goal was to build a two-room school house using local materials and local labor, as well as to acquire an adequate supply of text books and other teaching materials.  I served as the liaison between the community and our partners abroad, ensuring that progress was as smooth as possible, and providing regular updates.  The donors, with experience in development issues and familiar with Madagascar, were sensitive to the inevitable snags and delays, and cognizant of the community’s lack of formal reporting experience; they asked only for our regular, honest updates from the ground. As the seasons change, it can become impossible to proceed with different aspects of construction, or to bring all necessary parties together for important decisions; our project was of course subject to these factors of weather and poverty, and our donors were wholly understanding.  I led numerous projects throughout my time as a PCV, using a variety of funding sources and various degrees of reporting requirements; the community school project was by far the most realistic, effective implementation, which will no doubt have far-reaching impacts on the life and success of the school.

Now, eight months since my departure, the school is preparing to open its doors for 2011.  The political instability that has been rocking Madagascar since late 2008 has severely stalled progress, yet the community has done what it can to prepare, raising money and awareness to strengthen the school as it begins to work for Analasatrana.  Although I personally get frequent updates from partners on the ground, I can’t wait to return in person and see that the project has come to fruition…