the bottom of the lake

first; i want to write about what happened to david.

it was the 31st of October, heads were fuzzy, footsteps and progress was slow, we had said goodbye and thanks to some fellow volunteers, and drank some wine, as we do, the night before, did not sleep enough after spending too long tuning a guitar and sipping whisky nightcap/s. the 6am wake up every day of the week is still 6am every day of the week. I had been staring at my computer screen for hours trying to determine if I was being productive or more useless than usual. I wanted to go to the farm and help burn the bricks, or help weed, or help mulch. But I was doing something, I remember I was doing something… useful, while staring at the screen.

I chose rice over spaghetti that day. Like most days, if I had the choice.

11.30am and I must be consumed by water, I needed to be consumed by water, the fresh cool delicious water of lago Niassa just there, waiting, calling, perpetually, just there.

I see some staff on the beach chatting about something, I pass and say hello, “im going in there,” I say to dev, pointing at the blue, “nice,” he responds.

I strip to my bra and nickers, and put my goggles on. There are some waves breaking close to the shore, I swim past the beginning of their swell and a bit far out to swim alongside the lakeshore – david comes past me in a canoe, david is from the farm, and although we don’t share a language, we’ve had fun, we’ve managed to laugh, and work together, digging pits for the mud bricks, carrying bamboo, weeding, eating cassava and plantain bananas, and drinking tea.. “where are you going?” I ask. “Yah,” he says, always ‘yah’. “Are you going to the farm?” “Yah, no, Mala, Manure,” he says pointing north; he’s going to Mala, a nearby village to collect manure for the compost. “Okay, tunana bambuyo,” (see you later) I say. “yah..” he goes…

and I go swimming down the lakeshore, slowly, bobbing over the waves. When I come back after a few minutes, I notice some other staff in the water, hurrying to get out and put their shorts on, I wonder if its because they don’t want me to see them in their undies… Jamie, one of the staff from guest-management, runs over the platform that goes out on to the rocks just past the harbour. He runs back and up to the office. I see two fishermen come around from the rocks in a dugout canoe, and I think it must be because they’re not supposed to be fishing so close to shore, and they’re going to get yelled at.

Devon, one of the mzungu managers, rushes back down with Jamie and Willard and on to the platform; I get out of the water and wrap a sarong around me just as other staff come rushing down, I wonder what’s happening. Joal, a carpenter, is next to me and says, “guy from farm, canoe,” and signals it tipping over, “david?!” I say, shit, I run over to the platform and see that the guys are in yellowfin, the speedboat and are looking in the water, fuck… I run back to the lake and see them pulling the green canoe out from the water onto the boat… my heart takes gulps of air and starts to beat faster.

I grab my goggles and run into the water and swim out the boat, just near the furthest rocks, I’m cursing and breathing and cursing in time with my strokes. I start to swallow air and dive down a meter or so, to see the bottom, I can see it, but nothing..
The boat comes over to me, can you see him? No, where was the boat? I keep diving down and looking around, rocks shock me as I spot them, up and down, my head feels like it’s being squashed together between an iron clamp the deeper down I go. We keep looking for 20 mins or so, the boat circling around, and the guys looking over the edge. Finally they leave to see if/what the fishermen saw…

I swim back to shore and run around to the rocks on the other side of the bay, in case he’s over there somewhere, I clamber up and over the rough black and white stained surfaces, my feet gripping as I move. I’m still swearing as I move from one high point to the other; I look around, the clouds are semi-covering the sky and in the cracks the lake glistens and shoots crystals into my squints – I keep seeing breaks of water out further, ‘is that him?’ please let it be him, after about another 20 mins I see the speedboat coming back, so I go around and see that they continue looking around where they pulled up the boat.

I slide roughly into the water again, by this time the swell has picked up a bit and the waves are stronger – I swim over to them and dev says “the boatmen said they saw him swimming to the rocks, and we spoke to emmanuel (at the farm) who said one time david ran away into the bushes when a rock got into the water pump and he was scared.. so he might be okay..” – oh, but no one has seen him. We would have seen him. We keep looking, and eventually someone from the boat points somewhere, I follow them- now emmanuel and some fishermen have come out in another boat and we stop at the same point, he’s pointing down, I duck under, a meter or so, and see a shape, it shocks me, I see it’s an orange shirt – like the one’s the farm staff wear – I pop up, it’s his shirt, shit, oh shit oh fuck, oh jesus, I go down again and see it again, clearer.

People are further over and I move with them, I duck down and see him, david, this image will never leave my mind – he’s lying there, on his side, as if sleeping, arms bent and near his head, as if near where his pillow would be, he’s swaying with the undercurrent; I go up. ‘oh jesus, oh fuck, its him’ – I go down, there are other guys swimming now, trying to see if they can get down to him. It’s too far. He drowned.

I’m in between the boats now, and there’s a lot of commotion, people know, they know he’s dead, but people are moving fast, or slow, I don’t know.

Eventually one of the staff dive down with a rope and manage to loop it around his legs – they pull him up onto the boat, and as his torso is making its way over the edge, his limp arms flap over his chest.. I just watch..

I think, ‘should I do CPR?’ Should someone try? It’s been over an hour now, there’s no chance.

They take him back to the land, and I swim back to shore; I wrap my sarong around me and move to where everyone is gathering – the women are separated from the men, and one person starts wailing, and others join in, they start screaming and crying and fall to the ground sobbing – I don’t know where to sit, should I stay with the women or the men, I stay with the women for a little while; then we move over to join the men – discussions are happening about what to do, – we have to send a message to his family, who will go?

They are discussing whether or not to call the police, the police might cause problems if they don’t see the ‘scene’ – they might cause problems for us – say that something else happened, but devon and I are determined that we have to tell the truth, there is no other option – the alternatives scare me a little.

So dev calls the police in Cobue, and two people go off to send a message to his family, an hour or so walk south of nkwichi. – people sit together for a while, then break apart, we walk back to the office and it starts to rain – emmanuel sits down and starts crying, I am stunned, but calm.

I go to the farm to find hilda and joyce – to tell them, I walk the 15 minutes there feeling surreal and unsure, it’s grey and raining a little, thunder is cracking, and lightning threatens..the bush is bright green and yellow..  I don’t find anyone there, so come back.. I sit down to eat something, rice… and stare into space, at people moving about slowly, and murmuring, sitting, staring also. Later I go back to the farm with a letter from emmanuel to joyce and hilda.

‘I’m going to wait here, we’re going to wait for the people to come back from mbueca with the family’s choice about what to do with the body, then we will take the body by boat to his family’. They’re in shock, not speaking, murming, hilda asks me if his body is bloated… ‘I don’t know..’ ‘he had 5 children,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry’. We go to the lake to remove the pump from the rocks, and hilda puts it on her head, ‘you’re strong’, mpavu I say.

I walk back and later, just before sunset about 20 of us cram into the boat, with david’s body wrapped in a sheet and blanket at our feet. Everyone puts on life-jackets, for the lake is angry, rough, the sky is dark clouds and raining on and off – why must we put them on now? Its ironic, I have never seen anyone wearing one before. The journey to mbueca is quiet, but people chatter and babies cry. The swell is big and we move slowly over the water, up and down.

Once we arrive, the chief is sent for, and we sit on an old dugout, murmuring about mosquitos, Rebbeca, big mama, who is like a mother to me, says we should be careful, because the family might say that we killed their son.

The chief and some people come down, we speak a bit, about what to do, then a bed frame is brought and we place david’s body onto it, then we carry it along the beach as the moon is appearing from behind the clouds and we can see everything, this silent precession along the lakeshore, we go into the village, up through the ghostly cassava plains, past mounds of rocks keeping the soil in place, past homes made of earth, of grass, and women begin to wail, scream, weep, yell and scream, I can see shapes, people, figures, clearly, not clearly.

We arrive at his home, and lay the body down, the family is there and are weeping, some women fall to ground at his side and cry and yell and wail. We step back and wait to be asked to be welcomed by the father.

He is humble and grateful, for us bringing his body ‘I know it was an accident, I know how hard it is to find the body out there, sometimes it gets so deep and people never find the body, thank you for bringing him to us, I hope you treat all your staff like this.’ – devon says a few words, and so does emmanuel. Tomorrow will be the funeral, the carpenters will make a coffin and bring it by boat.
We leave, back through the cassava under the moonlight, our trail, barefoot over rocks and sand, back into the boat, surreal laughter, silence, chatter, movement, the women stay in the village. We return. I wash, and notice the crocodile tracks are back, leading from the lake to the swamp across the glimmering white sand.

That night I sleep, I’m scared a little, in shock, I worry about dreams, of that image. But I sleep.

I spend the morning at the farm, watering mostly, there is no pump because emmanuel is at the lodge, and there is no one else now.

So I make several trips to the lake with a watering can, I want to water the fruit trees, it’s hot, but overcast, I don’t want them to die, the trees…

Around lunchtime, a man from mbueca comes and asks if we can hurry up with the coffin because the body is starting to puff up and bleed, they want to bury him.

The coffin is beautiful, and wrapped in green and black ma

terial. We take it to mbueca by boat – I have my camera, I want to photograph the ceremony, once on the land I ask if it would be possible .. they ask the family for me, and then I am directed where to go. I follow the men under a big tree, the largest I have seen in this area, there is maybe 100-200 people sitting under it, all men, the women have split off and gone somewhere else – I am feeling awkward, sticking out as the only white woman amongst a crowd of Mozambican men. They’re looking at me and I hide on the edge.
- some words are said, and I am pointed at as the mzungu from the lodge, and after a little while I am taken up to the family home, past the place where david’s grave has been dug – a wave with respect to those who dug it. Up to the house, there are maybe 50 people, 100 people gathered under the grass thatched roof, singing, all singing and looking out, down to the lake below. Inside are the priests, the family, david, others. I sit outside with the singers, as one song follows the other, they’re beautiful – the songs, I wish I could sing them. I record them instead.

I am taken inside and into the room where david’s body now lies in the coffin – I didn’t ask to photograph this, but it appears they want me to. The father and some other men nod at me, and signal to photograph – so I do, click, click, it’s dark, you can’t see his face, but maybe that’s ok.

Out again, and I am signaled to photograph the wife, and family who are on the floor, staring at the wall and crying – I wonder why, but do so anyway, I feel like such an intruder, photographing people grieving and singing – I can’t hide now, I am standing in front of everyone.

Out again and down the path to the tree. Then the ceremony starts- the singing comes closer and closer, led by the cross and the priests – in single file through the cassava fields, under the tree they lay his coffin, they sing, everyone sings, these beautiful songs, I have heard some of them, from where? The church singers.

They say some prayers and the ceremony moves to the graveyard. There is singing, non-stop, as he is lowered into the ground, and people begin to shovel dirt over the coffin, taking turns, the men, taking turns with all the shovels, smiling, some, this ceremony, I’ve never seen anything like it – it seems so regular, almost, but with so much respect and love, it is a beautiful ceremony; he was loved, he was known, everyone, it seems, from the entire village, is here. the clouds are booming, blossoming almost, above behind the mountains behind us, and over the lake on the other side.

Eventually it is over, and the food arrives, but we are leaving, and we run down to the boat, dodging plants and rocks; there is an incredible burst of light breaking and splitting onto the lake far away. It seems too fitting, too planned, it’s there, it’s present.

On the boat back people are laughing. And smiling, some vomiting; but this life has been cherished, even if people experience death at a much higher rate than I do, than some do. It is respected and cherished, but life for others continues…

–
that night, in my hut, in my home, my temporary home, my bamboo and grass thatched hut, where I have been able to lay my belongings for longer than I have since leaving Australia, I wake up, its about 2am, I need to go to the toilet, but contemplate not going, convincing myself I don’t need to. The moon is still bright outside and I can see it through my mosquito netting.

Suddenly I hear a mans yell, a screaming becoming louder up the path towards me, as if he’s running away from something, a leopard? I have had too many dreams about leopards for me to now see one. My heart starts beating at a million beats per second – I get up and listen, it sounds as if the man has run up my path and stopped at my door, I am silent, but I can’t hear anything, I am frightened, shit-scared, I have never felt this fear before – I keep listening. Nothing. I get out from my mosquito net and grab the machete I have been keeping beside my door since I am the only one in my village now, the others left two nights ago. Where is Esau? Where is the nightwatchman! I want to yell for him, but am dead silent. I try and peer on to my veranda, but only the glimmering-flickering of the lantern is there. I stand behind the mesh for about 10 minutes, and still I hear nothing. I really need to pee now, but am way too scared to go outside. So I pee into my large camping mug, and it resonates throughout the hut, I am still holding the machete.

Eventually I get back into bed with the machete beside me and take a while to get back to sleep. In the morning I ask Esau in broken chinyanja and portugese if he heard anything last night, nothing, nada… I was scared, I say, telipo, he says, I’m here.
I know! but maybe you were asleep… I wonder if I was dreaming, I can’t have been dreaming, it was more real than dreams of mine. But maybe I was dreaming…

David couldn’t swim, he was a fisherman before being a farmer, and he couldn’t swim, he lived on the lake all his life and couldn’t swim.
I hope he is now resting in peace.

bay of mpepo, wind

bay of mpepo, wind

1. and sleep for a while in a long while i did, with blaring rnb across the lake with mpepo and waves crashing beneath the hut here; waiting till tonight to catch the big boat, the ilala, back across to likoma and then onwards back to mozambique, to niassa, to nkwichi, for the last month there before deciding what to do, maybe come home, back continue on to tanzania to do more articles for IPS – i have not yet decided. i am in africa and i’m not sure if i am fully aware of this.

muslim women singers from karonga to mzuzu - 3 hours

2. and yesterday, we caught a bus after many days, months, a year, 2 years of mostly good, so we part ways, and on the bus we’re squeezed into with a group of muslim women singing all the way from karonga to mzuzu, it reminds us of what we’ve shared that has found its way into the belly heart of us – and all else will sift its way through me to find itself as history and mud somewhere. so they sang and we smiled and looked nostalgically through the smeared windows over the bumps and away from each other again.

muslim women singers #2

3. so we had a conference on u-mining in Kayelekera, to share info and develop an action plan- very inspiring to see the voices of the people speak out in this kind of context that has not yet been brought up in Malawi – issues of human rights around mining, the total disregard by Paladin and the government of international standards of uranium mining and handling of radioactive materials – they’re concerned the water, poisoned will run into the rivers and lakes, it’s possible, maybe it already is.
more on this with an article..later.

a limp in my steps these days.

mzuzu hotel

hugging shadows ; and the noise of birth while they drink

fires out of control, Mcondece, Niassa Province, Mozambique

what can i say of walking through these villages that you’ve been to before; you have seen it before haven’t you? I’ve seen your pictures. You have said it before haven’t you? I’ve read your book. Nothing to add of another mzungu voyeuristic experience, of clicking and noting, and seeing your cracked walls, cracked roofs and knowings of survival.

I’m chasing james, our compadre and interpreter, through the fields of cassava southwards along the lake by the light of the moon only, it’s nearly full now. You can’t differentiate between a mound and the flat, we weave through the ghostly plants, – such a stable here, of such subsistence here; and along the houses, homes of many, fires lit inside, a baby cries, someone’s cooking, nsima, fish and some more, a dog gnarles, barks and comes closer, “give me your machete james”, the dog stops short, I hurry on, “im not going to chase you two, my feet are blistered, and this fucking sand, I hate this fucking sand, isn’t there another way?”

source of all water needs, Mtepwe River

There’s fires blazing in the mountains on the left, ahead, behind; they told us earlier, lit by travellers passing from village to village, lit by careless cigarettes – lit by them, not us, we don’t burn anymore, they told us not to – the smoke is so constant, thick, perpetual, it’s the smell of this place, this earth, these days, nights. \ when the rains come, what happens? These paths impassable, these homes unreachable, these fields ungraspable?

meeting in Mcondece village

We’ve finished our village visits in-land, just three, no clean water there, those interior villages rely on the dwindling rivers, used for every action, washing, cleaning, drinking, irrigating, also for animals, baboons, buffalos? Elephants? The like. I look there, dead trees and murky water, we have water-purification tablets, but what do you have? The ability to move? To boil? To.. stay. “we get diarreha, stomach pains, billhazia, it’s hard to say what, because we don’t have a doctor here”

This night, the sounds of birth penetrate through the valley, through the plastic-lining of my tent- I hope it is birth, I hope, I pray to some being that it is birth – maybe three hours of the sounds of pain, of occasional baby cries, of, a woman in ritual, tradition, – in the other direction, the drink, blasting reggae and arguing, laughing, loudness, they drink the lords gin, and a clear-skinned beer, -  under a mango tree here, in front of fields of cassava, more. Some goats behind us, moving, stuck in a small pen, safe from leopards, safe.

I lie awake, listening to the intricacies, notes, leaves falling and landing on the tents, a scream, or groan or shout, a bicycle wheel spins past, remote but living life here.

Mtepwe Village

So we walk, from Magachi the last of the northern villages within the project area, through the mountains, and downwards towards the lake – arriving as if the last four days have been a year, of water engulfing blisters and sweat, dirt and a headache; but so common for others these treks; hot, long, waterless perhaps a common route, not novel like for me, for us, occasional, meetings, talks, under the shades of the biggest trees or in the church (we pray under him, maybe for another piece of tin roofing), under the annex of the chief’s house – after fresh papaya, after tea.

Mtepwe school

So, this fucking sand, we’ve been walking for 5-6 hours? I don’t know, less, more, but a while in the dark, in the light-shadows of the moon, my shadows, listening to the crackling of carbon, crackling of grass, smells of dried fish, smells of…dust… the familiarity of here.

Arriving in Cobue to the site of the boat from the lodge, we’re relieved- no more footsteps for now, blistered, like I said again, and tired. We wait at julius’ bar, it’s packed, completely, overflowing, people sleeping on the sand outside on the waters-edge – the tv is blaring, music clips, or FRELIMO campaign programs, ads, songs, etc. it’s tiny, the tv, but all eyes there, a gathering, nightly, to electricity, to noise, sounds, community… “I only profit if they drink.”

A bucket of boiling hot water – I stand, naked, under the moonlight behind the bamboo walls of the wash-room; waiting for the water to cool, when it does I step in, and stand, allowing my feet to come alive again – I wish I didn’t leave my boots in England, I wish I wasn’t trying to minimise. Fuck this sand, fuck these sandals. It’s beautiful here.

The boat; packed with booze, packed with nuts, cabbages, people, we drink warm beers, and look up at the stars the moon, the lake waves, the clean water, outwards, to nothing now, the water, the reflections, the shades of blue, grey, black, ndilipo, I’m here.

not much for many

soccer match, Cobue, Niassa, Mozambique

Cobue Lago Niassa

1. as I clip my toenails on the veranda of our sloping bamboo and thatched roof hut I hear some noises in the bushes around me, dry grass and tall trees sing in the wind, dust blows and sticks to every surface, the sea-like lake has waves that crash today – the noises, I see them, baboons; one perched in a thin twig like tree grabbing fruits of some sort; I look left, another baboon on the path, scratches itself, looks at me, cares/doesn’t care, darts off, I cut another nail- I smile at my participation in this self-grooming primate & homo-sapien subsistence.

a silver and bright-blue skink chases an insect across the floor
a 1.5m monitor lizard clomps through the bush

I dream of leopards – at least three times, of other animals too, they’re frightening, the dreams, perhaps, she says, preparing me for a confrontation one day soon. One dream; I looked out the back of the hut; it was over a hill, very green, lots of big acacias, (not like here), all sorts of animals, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, etc. just being, sleeping moving – suddenly the front door makes a noise, there’s a leopard there, its fighting to get in, I’m holding the door shut, screaming for a knife. – I wake.
Another dream, similar, where I confront it, with a machete, but I wake. It’s always dark, mostly blue like light. I learn later that these dreams may have come from Larium, the malaria medication we’ve been taking. Possibly contributing to the mental and emotional tug of war that’s been happening lately. We switch to doxy but we’ve run out.

Mala Village Dance Competition

local farmers deliver tomatoes to Nkwichi Lodge, Niassa, Mozambique

2. these weeks have been filled with sounds and smells, stepping backwards, stepping forwards, words and thoughts, writings and images; here in the manda wilderness (ghost forest); volunteering with the trust, working on projects at the farm, collecting bamboo (.3), carrying rocks, making paths, tightening bolts, banging hammers, chopping tomatoes, making chutney, making sauce, swimming in the lake, playing volleyball, sitting around fires, walking through villages to get information for writing articles on remote health-care, agriculture, and environment issues, working with the community trust by travelling to villages and having meetings (.4) about community problems and giving info on mining +’s & -‘s (mostly -’s)… thinking forward thinking backwards. Trying to research for a new body of work here, where to start? mostly feels like a long process of attempting to understand life here, how removed it is from my own, but also how normal everything has become.

christopher, boatman from Nkwichi

2.1 – IPS articles:

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48184
http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=48266
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=48476
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=48413

3. emmanuel leads us through the bush, me, machete in hand, happy we’re off the constructed paths at the lodge and into the scrub – we walk along a dry riverbed, 5 of us to collect bamboo. We find a patch and start chopping, I’ve no idea of the method-I’ve never used a machete before, only had nightmares about them after reading Mandela’s biography, and watching Hotel Rwanda and The Last King of Scotland, but walking around the sand being pointed out leopard tracks has made me desperately want to own one…- So we’re chopping, emmanuel (the farm manager) laughs at my lack of skill, but he shows me, I learn, but still hack away using more energy than needed, we all do this for a while, then pile them up into bundles of 8, these are thick pieces of bamboo, to use for making paths, to use for everything it seems, they find the right kind of tree-bark for twine to wrap around the bamboo, emmanuel gives me the smaller bundle, and tries to balance it on my shoulder, its heavy, but more painful than anything; it digs into my shoulders and he thinks I can’t do it. “we’ll come back for this one,” he says, “no, no, I can do it,” I say stubbornly.

we start walking through the scrub, the bamboo, maybe 3-4meters long, throws me off balance – it starts to really dig in to my shoulders, so painful I want to cry, but it’s just a mental process isn’t it, pain? I try not to focus- alexis, the community project manager is also struggling, so I don’t feel so hopeless. Maybe we walk for half an hour, or less, but it feels much longer, stopping occasionally to rest, i feel like giving up – feeling my shoulders caving inward, bruising or weeping… but we reach the farm and I throw the pile on the ground, delighted and sore that we made it – emmanuel and the other farm workers laugh – why was that so hard? this is something we do every day in half the time… we all laugh.
Lessons in African livelihood are white-peoples tales.

Emmanuel, Manda Wilderness Project Farm Manager

3.1. loveness, emmanuel’s child, she’s 4. We can’t communicate through language, but we get the message across, she helps her mum at the farm, she shows me how to carry a baby on my back wrapped around with a sarong, like all the other women-mothers here- but I’m carrying a teddy-bear, not a baby, she’s proud of what she’s taught me, I smile. Later, we pick weeds from in between the herbs, someone’s singing, everyone’s watering, 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the afternoon, the thatched shades crackle in the late-morning sun, I pick some rocket from a bed and nibble at it, loveness giggles. Later, I’m helping joyce (loveness’ mum) around the farm; her smaller child emma, she’s 1.5yrs old, and loveness are in the tool shed, there’s hacksaws and machetes lying around, nails and bolts and rakes on the ground, im stressing, trying to say ‘be careful, don’t touch that’, but joyce seems unfazed by the potential disaster, kids just seem to know how to get around and do things without too much damage.  perhaps because they start carrying bricks and water on their heads from age 2.

Lake Malawi Eel caught by a local fisherman, 1.4m long

4. it’s the wind that starts near 4am that wakes me, it sounds like a motorboat – but no one has one of those here (or maybe just one person does) – just dhows, going the way of the wind. Dozing for an hour before the sounds of women and children washing and cleaning pots pans plates and cups and babies in the lake begin  -  we’ve an audience here on the shore of lake Niassa, kids gather and stare as we pull ourselves out of our tents and start a fire for tea- james and charles, translator and companion, are carrying weight and leading the way through these villages of mud-brick and thatched roof homes we’re visiting this week. 5 in total, 5 days, no roads, just paths, sand, a lot of sand, dirt, huts, homes, trees, farms, cassava, maize, tomatoes, greetings, laughter, formality, chiefs. We have community meetings about problems the communities face (lack of employment, poverty, lack of infrastructure/development, too many students- not enough teachers, falling down schools, no desks or chairs, no health-clinic, long distances, problems with hippos destroying crops, leopards eating the dogs that scare baboons, virus affecting the cassava, insects eating the cabbages, water wells drying up/breaking down.

Church between Chicaia and Mataka

4.1. at the first village, Chicaia, a 3 hour walk from the lodge, our responses are mostly from one man, sceptical, with good reason, of us, and ‘who are you?’, and ‘you’ll never come back anyway’, ‘we’re poor here, so we’ll except the mine even though it has problems’. It changes throughout the villages, and people are concerned about the problems and are happy to hear about the problems and benefits. The next village, Mataka, we walk to that afternoon, just 1.5 hrs from Chicaya, we meet the chief and ask his permission to camp on the lakeshore, a we do in every village, we buy some mustard leaves for dinner and set up camp. The lake is still-glass and the sun is just going down, we jump in the freshwater to wash, but don’t stay too long for fear of crocodiles.

Chicaia Elders school for those who didn't go during the civil war

4.2. in some places along the track children dance and sing us songs, we say ‘bon dia’ ‘bon tarde’ ‘mula bwanji’ ‘good afternoon’ ‘hello’ more times than we can count, every single person greets us in some way, with a respectful two hand wave-clap, or a smile and a shout. Men sit under the shade listening to a radio, or manning their tiny shops with sachets of sweets and washing powder. Each village we visit is only an hour or so walk from the next, so it’s not difficult. We buy vegetables literally from the tops of women’s heads who are coming home from the days harvest, 50kwacha (Malawian currency because this area is so isolated from the rest of Mozambique) for 2 huge bunches of mustard leaves (about 40c), a pile of tomatoes for under $1. Mango and banana season is coming, but it’s not here yet, and there’s no other fruit around.

Mataka lago niassa

4.3. we sleep and wake early, our meetings discuss depleting supplies of fish and firewood, we try to understand why – more people, more poverty, different fishing methods, using mosquito nets, catching the young fish, people need an income, this helps. The women walk for up to 6 hours to collect firewood from the mountains; they are having to go further and further because they collect only deadwood, they say. The women do most of the farming as well; I’m humbled by life here. I feel endlessly privileged and useless at the same time. There’s no health clinic, or there is one, but only volunteers, or one nurse, and hundreds of people come here, from other villages too. It’s too far to a hospital…

Mataka School

4.4 you start judging one community as being wealthier or better off than the next based on whether the school has desks or not, or whether the community has a school at all. Sense of judgment is totally skewed “this school, at least has concrete on the floor”.

It’s also surprising to notice the differences between the villages even though they’re only 1.5 hours walk apart. As we hit the furthest north one we were visiting this time, Ngofi, it had pubs (mud brick constructions with open doors and windows, blaring African reggae, the men either yelling from inside or lounging outside, it’s amazing how quickly alcohol changes the feeling. This place has more in it’s tiny shops, instantly I feel as if I should buy something, do I need something? I can’t think of anything.

Mataka School

Mataka School

4.5. the women in Ngofi seem more present in the committee, more vocal, stronger, they even ask to talk to emma and I afterwards, about business ideas they have for the women in the community, starting a bakery, starting a chicken house, agricultural training, things to empower the women, things they can benefit from; we’re overjoyed with this because the women have had such little voice in most of the meetings, we wish we could just say “yes, of course, we’ll start these straight away,” and these projects would only need such a small amount of money to begin, but a lot of work in terms of training and resources and distances. But we hope. Any ideas?

Ngofi Health outpost

Chigoma School

5. so for now, back at the lodge, we’ve been summoned to immigration, we hope it’s not because of our meetings in the villages, hoping that it’s just the immigration official with malaria in Cobue is bored. We have more meetings in the closer villages this week and then we’re going to 3 inland villages next week for 5 days of long hikes for more meetings. But I’m aching for the mountains, to see the forest and inland life.

6. and so. still dreaming about coffee back home, dreaming about the smells and sounds of home, still dreaming about the faces of friends and my own community there, wondering if I’ll return before the end of the year – there’s still so much I want to do and see in this continent before I leave. If I can get some more work writing articles and taking photos then I’ll try to move around a bit, but home calls often these days…

salaam
jess

mud brick : thatched roof

Kayelekera village, Malawi

1. the light-flies are swimming across my screen; the lake sounds like an ocean ; it feels more like an island here than part of a large continent called africa.

for now we are in Mozambique, volunteering at Nkwichi lodge and with the Manda Wilderness project, living in a hut near lake niassa/malawi and doing many things with the lodge and with the community projects, writing more stories, walking in the bush slightly scared of potential leopards, watching baboons jumping across trees above us ; trying to have enough time and space to properly write about time looking through overcrowded bus windows at lives of great inspiration and strength bumping by. but for now a few photos and a few notes from a couple of weeks ago.

–

update from 13 august.

1. It’s been just over a month now since I left England; the short 1 week visit that was England; mainly Haywards Heath; that was meeting my family again for the first time in 12 years, that was my cousin Esther’s wedding, that was directionless walks around the hobgoblin woods and empty fields in the rain, photographing puddles and street signs, cottages and mud. What was there was the attempt to live in that part of the world while I found a job and started to have an income after just under a year of ‘being unemployed’. I was only going to be there for 6 months perhaps – perhaps less; but I wasn’t really there, and I wasn’t hoping to stay.

I have always dreamed of travelling to Africa; maybe since hearing Ladysmith Black Mombazo on Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ when dad played it on the car cassette player when i was a kid. Or since knowing that both my parents came to this continent, and spent 6 months here on separate journey’s. What they both loved and learned here is what I learned so far away in Australia. Yet I am still trying to uncover their adventures, stories and histories, and being here is helping that process to unfold.

I flew to Nairobi on the 13th of July with Ethiopian Airlines, the plane was mostly empty which, despite making me feel guilty about tonnes and tonnes of unseeable gases being shat into the atmosphere later to rise their ugly shapes in the form of… islanders being displaced perhaps… well, it meant I had an extra space between me and Daniel, the 17 year old Zambian guy who was returning home after 1 year of school in the UK. He was so happy to be returning to ‘space’ – to his family, to the life so far removed from the raining concrete land of northern England.

So I drank a few plastic cups of wine and read Broomberg and Channarin essays about war and trauma, and photographic processes that attempt to depict them. I read about human anxiety, about horror and violence, about sometimes empty images that show this sometimes more powerfully than a scene from war. The sky started to grow light and clouds blue-white growing pinkish-grey. I slept a minute or two before arriving in Addis Abbaba for a short layover. There I ate the seaweed snacks my aunty Hae-Soon had packed for me, she also gave me two new t-shirts and 5 pairs of underwear from Korea.

The airport at Nairobi was hectic and scattered, with very little instruction as to where to go and which forms to fill out. H1N1 forms, visa forms, what money do you have, I’m only here for 2 days and I have to pay how much?

We drove to where em was staying in her godmother’s house in the expat gated, fenced, maided, guarded area of Nairobi, where I was shocked when I saw a yuppie driving a 4×4. My fist impressions of driving through Nairobi were still trying to figure out if I was there or not – the landscape already began to feel slightly and strangely familiar – perhaps because I was back in the southern hemisphere after 8 months…? Pretty standard images of workers working on roads, markets, shops, buildings, men women children getting about their business – as people do. It wasn’t until later driving around with emma through the streets past the greenbelts, maize, vegetables, fruit growing in every and any empty space possible, past women carrying everything on their heads, water, buckets, clothes, sacks, and children strapped onto their backs with sarongs, past the lines of markets and people selling everything from socks and flowers to dogs and nuts in between the traffic, just asking for something, anything.

Collecting water, Kayelekera Village, northern Malawi

2. The smoke; the smell; the constant smell of smoke, of burning wood, burning grass, leaves, corn, chicken, oil.. plastic. This smell- it’s so familiar to dry season top end Northern Territory – to south coast camping – to desert swags and cups of tea.. It’s everywhere, it coats every other smell around- it’s comforting, it’s a smell of things that keep going- whatever that means.

I stayed just 2 days before we caught the bus over the border to Tanzania, on a public bus that broke down before we left the outskirts of Nairobi. We changed buses and trip was mostly bumpy, dodging potholes, and onto road-work diversions of dirt roads and landscapes that took me to outback south Australia, that took me to places of such familiarity in some ways, and also places of such newness-oldness. Whatever that means. Villagers/villages – mud brick huts with grass-thatched roofs. Tribes-peoples standing on the side of the road in traditional dress, with long sticks.. rubber tire sandals…

Soldier, Lilongwe, Malawi

3. Everyone is working. From age 2 till 102. Carrying wood on bicycles, so high it shouldn’t be possible, carrying water, carrying sacks, clothes… children pumping water out of the ground into buckets, dancing and singing all the while… how to describe the feeling that people here know how to survive. Perhaps that’s conceited, this-life-looks-fucking-hard. But this is also life. And life that has been this way for….ever. And it looks like life that is like no other I have seen being lived before a life that is about life and living and ever action taken in order to keep living. And that’s also conceited because how much more inside those huts, out of view, or in the valley’s and fields not seen from the road, how much more to this life there is – of culture, tradition, history, country, landscape, stories, animals, spirits.. god…
–
So a stop in Arusha, northern Tanzania for two nights before a 19-hour bus ride to southern Tanzania not far from the border of Malawi. We’re cramped in an over-crowded over-weighted bus with luggage lining the isle and falling from the compartments overhead. Whenever there’s a village stop crowds form to shove sweets, chicken, corn, coke and bananas through the bus windows. We drive past fields where there are elephants, giraffes, zebras, buffalo, dear and baboons – I giggle and shriek with the excitement of a child – ah –as if.. of course, they really exist after all, and I didn’t have to pay for a safari. All the locals on the bus are pointing them out for us Mzungu (white people) – they seem to be excited too which is comforting. Drove through a ‘valley of  boabs’ – twisting and winding around mountains – the silver elephant-like trees climbing the hills, almost flickering as sun-sets, people quieten and the wind starts to cool.

On the way to Dzalanyama NP, Malawi

On the road to Dzalanyama NP, Malawi

Village elder, Malawi

4. Next day we cross to Malawi – no border fee and no one to tell us where to go or how to get there. Just a few scribbles of how much each leg to the capital city Lilongwe should take. 1000 Malawian Kwacha (AU$9) from here to Karonga, 1000MK from Karonga to Mzuzu in a share taxi/mini-van that are all only serviced just enough to keep functioning on the road. Then 1500MK from Mzuzu to Lilongwe – should get there by 10pm. It arrives at 1am. We are two of maybe 5 that get off the bus here, we’re uncertain whether we’re in the right place. We ask, is this Lilongwe? Yes… where is every one else going? To Blantyre… which is another 6hours drive south, the bigger city. Lilongwe is more like Canberra, business and politics. Blantyre, like Sydney perhaps. I haven’t made it there yet. Maybe next time.

–

5. So the next or the past 4 weeks were spent working on a project for the Mineral Policy Institute with Reinford Mwagonde from the Citizen’s For Justice on gathering information, community testimonies and a general understanding on how Paladin Energy have been operating in their Kayelekera uranium mine, the first uranium mine in Malawi and the ‘standard’ on which further mines will be based. Paladin are an Australian company which couldn’t get their feet off the ground there because of government regulations which are ‘too stringent’ – which have forced them to mine in Africa – taking advantage of lower standards of living, an unemployment rate at 85%, lax legislation (nothing that deals with radioactive materials) and minimal understanding about the dangers of uranium.

–
So we visited the village of Kayelekera, not far from Karonga in the north, we spoke to villagers and workers about what they have been told, about how much they get paid, about their working conditions and about uranium in general. We weren’t trying to scare people or instill fear. Just gain an understanding of the ways in which Paladin have been operating in Malawi. And oh how familiar it is to Australia! A company comes in and promises poor communities basic human services, like roads, schools, health clinics, clean water, and jobs, etc. in return for a 10+ year uranium mine that leaves the people, country and lake with a radioactive legacy lasting tens of thousands of years. So they come in and tear the community apart, divide them, those that want answers, those that are willing to be paid off, those who will suffer for their ignorance.. suffer because they are already suffering and the idea of an income is better than none.

We speak to some elders, some wise men and village leaders around Karonga, who are against the mine, and know Paladin are only there to make money off the peoples’ ignorance, poverty and labour.

One man, Kapote, reminded me so much of Yami Lester, a Yankunkajara man from Walatinna station, South Australia – his warmth, his humour, his mannerisms, his style, his strength, his.. elderness… it was so warming to have this man so familiar to my life in australia over here in africa.

Kapote, a village elder, from Karonga, Malawi

–

and so. We will continue to work on this campaign, we will come back in September to hold some community meetings/education information sessions about uranium mining and the health and environmental impacts. Hold some sessions with Reinford in ways appropriate to disseminate information about these things. The questions begs is how we can come here and tell people about all the dangers when we aren’t offering any alternative… this is always the question…
you can read the article i wrote for IPS here;

Coal mine, northern Malawi

Lilongwe markets bridge

Victor and Tandewa, garden and house-workers, Lilongwe

Lilongwe, Malawi

Church singers flood the streets of Lilongwe

Lake Malawi, Chitimba

Me, Clara (Rein's daughter), and Em, Lilongwe

Lakeshore inhabitants and me, Lake Malawi

—
6. We are in Monkey Bay now, on the southern tip of Lake Malawi – a 9 hour bus ride in another ‘chicken bus’ (buses that cram people in like chickens) for a 300km or less journey. It is beautiful, calm, not all that quiet, but we’re staying in a backpackers on the lakes edge – there aren’t many people staying here so it’s nice.

Monkey Bay, Southern Malawi, a dug out canoe on front of a speed boat

We walk through a village to get here. Children often screaming mzungu mzungu, give me money, give me the bottle, how are you? mzungu mzungu… laughing waving, laughing some more. Like everywhere else we have been.
–

scrambling for fish, early morning, Monkey Bay, Lake Malawi

early morning fish delivery, Monkey Bay, Lake Malawi

so we are getting on the Ilala tomorrow, the boat that will take us over-night under the stars to Mozambique. 28 hours on the lake. We’re going to an eco-lodge/community development trust that emma’s godmothers children run on the lake in the Nyassa region. Where I hope to be working on the farm, being taught how to love and tend to fruit, vegetables and grain with all I can muster, by a Mozambiqan farmer. Perhaps we’ll be painting a school, doing some other work around the lodge and with the villagers that they work with. Also doing more research and work around uranium mining in the Lake Malawi catchment area, if there is any funding perhaps. Also trying to write the occasional story and do the occasional photo-essay for IPS to attempt to bring in some subsistence money. But I dream of also a lot of swimming and snorkelling in the lake, walking, reading, sleeping and writing . We’ll be there for 3 months, if all goes to plan. And then afterwards.. well. That’s afterwards.
–
it seems like too much to write about and too many words not writing about what I wanted – but before I leave the world of connections, even though they are so temperamental, inconsistent, slow and frustrating – I wanted to get this up here, just to show I am no longer sitting in my uncles home looking at the rain through the conservatory window wondering where I will be next.

-

A very sickening journey along lake Malawi/Niassa to Mozambique on the Ilala, sleeping on the deck with a swell bigger than i have ever seen before

on weather and tea; haywards heath, england

07 july 2009, #1, haywards heath

08 July, 2009, Haywards Heath

and so, i am in england, potentially temporary, perhaps next week i will be in africa – perhaps paris?  berlin? – for now i am in england looking out through the windows of the conservatory into the garden of my uncle mike’s house. i hadn’t seen my family here for 12 years. the last time i saw my 2 aunties, 2 uncles and 5 cousins from my mothers side I was 11 years old.
so cousin esther had a wedding – they said they love each other and sang the lord, we drank wine, aunt sue took a bottle away before they cleaned up, we danced a ceilidh, they danced to a cover band. next day cousin dan and i drank coffee while they went to church. the house has now dispersed, some to greece, esther and pete went on their honeymoon to cuba, joseph is here for summer and i remain.  to unpack my belongings from my back pack, to watch a dvd, to make endless cups of tea, to walk freely, to spend british pounds and listen to the british accent, to make my own meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, to feed the cats, to repair my technical belongings, to stare out the window of trains at the summer rain of england and the old houses whizzing by, to not mind because it’s lovely to wear a jumper and have rain around. thunder and lightening too. to wander the trails around haywards heath across the empty fields and into the woods so dark-so dark, no wonder they made tales of goblins in them and fairy tales about them.., past the cottages, past the english houses with steeped roofs..

- so i am gathering my bits and pieces, writing applications, looking for grants, looking for funding, looking for work, going through photographs, video and audio, saying hello to loved ones far away. missing people, feeling content, feeling transient, answering the telephone and talking to strangers, taking messages, thinking about a train to london…thinking about visas, thinking about to-do lists, thinking about here and there.

salaam
jb

some notes from gaza; may 30 – june 10

damage caused to a farmers house in the recent israeli attacks, northern Gaza

in an attempt not to be too long and just blot the whole of my diary down, here are some snippets from 10 days spent in gaza, seeing how things have changed/not changed since i was there in march, re-connecting with friends i’d made the first time, trying to focus my energy on stories of daily life and simply ‘life’ in gaza- trying to gain a bit more of an understanding of what life is like for people here. as varied and differing the stories are, they all have a shared experience of horror and loss, but also a shared optimism and hope that things will change. or simply a resilience not to give up and to lose more dignity that the hope imposes on them.
–

01.06.09
we are being followed around by Hamas security, they are putting curfews on us, restricting our movements and hassling our host-families, no one knows the exact reason for this; perhaps the recent infighting in the west bank, perhaps they really want to protect us, perhaps they just want to be looked at in a good way, seen as protecting peace delegations. in any case, it is causing dramas – for example, today i caught a taxi from Beit Hanoun, where i am staying again with my host family, the lovely al-za’aneens, and in the taxi was a few other people, one being a middle-aged man who spoke very good english – he started asking what we were doing in Gaza, and i responded “salaam, peace, we are a peace delegation, to bring children’s books, toys, playgrounds and medical supplies, and to support the people of gaza.” “So are you delegating with Hamas?” he says. “Well, we have to meet with them as they are the democratically elected government here, we don’t support their actions, but if you want to make change you have to talk to everyone.” – i say. “You people are disguisting, you make me sick, you should just all leave now, you are doing nothing but bad for the palestinian people, you are making Hamas look good, which is only bad for the palestinian people.” – at this point i didn’t know what to say, i had had my own reservations about meeting with hamas, about the fact that i have heard many stories about them killing people inside, and doing the same damage, if not more than israel to the palestinian people. We do not support them and i wanted to do my best to stay away from them, but how to translate this? “I am an artist and writer, i am here to listen and record stories about ordinary people, unassociated with politics!” “yes but you are doing more harm than good by being here!” he responds. Now i am crying, this is the last thing i wanted to happen, actually doing damage to the situation.  but i’m upset so i respond “you can’t blame me for that, you can’t see me just as an international person to take your problems out on, i am here only to give support to the palestinian people and get their stories out there!” – and so i turn away and look at the streets zipping past, donkeys overpacked with fruit and vegetables, streets full of potholes, bombed buildings here, graffiti with the names of those killed all over the shops and walls. bullet holes flying through my mind as i cry as silently as possible. “I’m sorry, i’m sorry” he says, but khalas (enough), i can’t speak.

–
later today we re-visited devastated areas in the Abbed Rabu area, where we spent quite a bit of time in March interviewing people. Almost all of the tents had been blown over in the wind and no new ones reconstructed. It left the questions open of where are all the people now, considering not one single building has been reconstructed since ‘Operation Cast Lead’.

abbed rabbu area, damaged tents

–
In the evening I went back to the Al-Za’aneens and spoke to Ibdisam about her recent trip to Ramallah in the West Bank for a committee to enhance the position of women in the west bank and Gaza. On her way back from Ramallah through the… checkpoint to Jerusalem she was put into a small room, no bigger than space to sit on a chair, with no air and no one listening. She banged on the walls, saying “listen to me, I can’t breathe.” But no one responded for around 45 minutes, when she was told to “go back to Ramallah” by Israeli authorities. As she was walking a fruit seller told her to go and talk to the women from Machsom Watch (checkpoint watch) a group of Israeli’s who monitor how Palestinians are treated at the checkpoints within the West Bank. They spent over an hour making phone calls and organising for Ibdisam to safely get from the West Bank back to Gaza (about an hour drive); and successfully they took her through the checkpoint, carrying her bags, with one woman in front of her and one behind her, to make sure there were no problems. Now Ibdisam will deal with them when she needs to travel, If h a m a s will let her travel, that is.

02.06.09
“There is no grey area between justice and injustice, it either is or isn’t. The country should be built on equal citizenship rights…” – Jabar from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).

American International School Gaza

Wafa Hosptial, Northern Gaza

Wafa Hospital, northern Gaza

03.06.09
some quick notes before sleep;
just heard 5 or 6 very loud – window shaking explosions from my bed in Beit Hanoun (– which at the time I thought was the cease-fire breaking, i.e. missiles launched into Israel, but later I learned that it was Israel shelling fishermen and camps in the northern areas). I sat up, looked out the window and listened to gunfire, noises, response, anything, I am a foreigner here, so have no fucking idea what is what, what is sounds from Israel, what is sounds from Hamas, what is normal what is what – im just sitting here on my bed in the near full moon light listening wondering, feeling slightly frightened, not for myself, but for who the sounds are affecting, for where I am and what this life is like here – where no one even finches or acknowledges sounds like these sometimes – “don’t worry Jess, this is normal.”

—
this evening, on the way to find a taxi from Gaza City to Beit Hanoun – Ahmad, friend and translator from the March trip here, tells us about last year on his way to joining his friends one afternoon in a field near the border areas, a very open field, where everyone can see what is going on there.. as he was walking up to them, everyone laughing and happy, playing music on their mobile phones, a random explosion hit the three friends of Ahmad’s, right before him, all he saw was smoke and rubble, of course he was shocked and frightened, he ran over to them, and after the dust cleared he just found them in “pieces all over the footpath”.
During the taxi ride home Ahmad sat slumped, silent and chain-smoking in the front seat, unable to mutter even a word, when normally he can’t stop talking. I just put my hand on his shoulder (something women don’t do in this society!) and didn’t know what to say, how to help…

bullets/weapons found after various Israeli, on display at PCHR

Gaza City Beach

I had told Ahmad that I wanted to talk to a storyteller, or an ‘elder’, someone who was born before 1948, someone who had grown up here and seen the developments and changes happen over his lifetime. so this is how we met Mohammed Rachit. Mohammed is originally from Beit Hanoun born in 1931, making him 78 years old. His family were all farmers.

I ask him about what life was like before 1948 and he tells me of some of his earliest memories and knowledge about the time:
“In 1944, I had to walk to school from here to Gaza City (about 8km), there was now, transport like there is today.” Although to residents of Gaza City these days, catching a taxi to Beit Hanoun is like driving to the outskirts of a 50km wide city. It’s like…the end of the country…
“I left school early” Mohammed continues, “because my father wanted me to work on the farm…
“It was during the British Mandate when the support for the establishment of a Jewish state was moved forward… but in 1919 it had already been planned, during the Balfour Declaration
“By 1936 Jews, Arabs and Brits were fighting, but not so much.”

Mohammed Rachit, Beit Hanoun

“In 1948 they took the land. People didn’t know what was happening… they thought they were going to return, if they knew they would have stayed here.
“The weakness of the Arab countries didn’t help [us fight]. Israel was supported and we weren’t. I remember them attacking this area. I was a part of a resistance group then, a fighter, a soldier. In May 1948 there was the fight in Beit Hanoun, we resisted from evening until early morning, but we didn’t have enough weapons or bullets to keep fighting, we had to leave to Jabaliya then.
“After 3 years, people realised they weren’t going to return, then the Jihad started.
“We knew we couldn’t defeat Israel so we were gaining support from Egypt, training, education etc. We wanted to lean to co-exist with Jews. We always kept the hope.

“Land is life. I prefer to stay on the land than to leave the land. For us, we cannot separate between the culture and the land. They wanted to remove the people to remove the culture in order to break our connection to land. But the strength of the people lies within the land. After people fled and were forced to leave, the most important thing was to educate the children about the land. A lot of old people who kept the stories were killed…

“This holy land used to be the place where many cultures would meet and exchange. It was wonderful. This land is our culture and our history. We used to live in peace, we had a free life, anyone could whatever they wanted. Why couldn’t it be like that again?
“After 1967: The Israeli government allowed Palestinians to work inside Israel and the families would take their children to their old land and teach them about their history there, they would tell them ‘this is where you’re from’. They would teach them about the area, the stories and the histories… It is still taught today so that the young cannot forget. It cannot disappear. The history and knowledge will never disappear. Even refugees living far far away will know where they’re from…

“The strength that Israel has is from the international community, if they stopped supporting them then it would change almost immediately.

“The recent offensive was a big surprise to us; we were not ready psychologically, logically, with food or water. It was much stronger than we have ever seen. They were using new weapons and everything, they keep getting stronger, but have our strength in the land. [During the attacks] we stayed inside the home, listened to the news on the radio, tried to keep in touch with what was happening. It was the most violent war we have ever known – for 23 days we couldn’t leave the house. There was no electricity, no water, no food. We didn’t want to show our children what fear we had inside. We just kept trying to tell our children that would all be okay, then we just prayed to Allah. We stayed here in Beit Hanoun when everyone was leaving, people were being forced to leave (because this is so close to the border of Israel). The number of people in our house was increasing as people just wanted to be close to their families. There was one good thing that came out of this, that was broken during the civil war, people were helping each other, just waiting for the attacks to stop.

“No one could image what happened here. We are used to Israeli attacks but not like this.

“Despite the strength of Israel and whatever they do, the Palestinian people will always be connected to their land. Actually, it just makes their strength and desire for the land grow stronger.”

Mohammed Rachit

04.06.09
this evening was HipHopKom – see previous post.
a little more from an interview with Khaled Harara from the Black Unit Band:
“One of my goals is that the people outside know what really happens here in Palestine. Most people here in Gaza believe we have brought a bad thing in from outside. They think that outside hip-hop means drugs, girls, cars, bullshit, and of course in side Gaza we don’t have all these things, we have war, occupation and my people that fight against each other. They think we have brought western culture here to delete our culture. This is why I believe Hamas shut down the show last night. Also because there was a connection with the West Bank and there’s many problems for Hamas people there recently. I think there were a few people that were killed there just this week. There’s a lot of people that resist us here, because of our style generally reflecting western culture.”

Mohammed Wafy from the Black Unit Band

Khaled Harara from the Black Unit Band

some lyrics by Khaled Harara from the Black Unit Band

Phalistine forgive me,
My tears dry, my wounds dry,
I can’t hold it anymore
I can’t stop and I can’t be silent, about everyone who has stolen this country,
I can’t stay silent, because everyone here has trodden on us, treated us like dominos, they kill us, and then they take money for it,
Hamas colour is green, Fatah is yellow,
They’ve raised the Palestinian flag and now the colours are just green and yellow, that’s what they want
We want from the united nations in the Gaza strip, for the fuckin situation, we want more corn and more soup to wash our faults that have been put on our shoulders, and the faults are now like a graveyard, it’s the freedom that’s buried in that graveyard.
The military are rich off the backs of the people, the people who are standing in the lines to take a bag of flour from the United Nations…

Palestinian Unit, Khaled, Ayman and Mohammed

08.06.09
Mond took us to meet with his uncle who is a farmer in the northern area near the sea. here is some transcriptions from the interview: but so stupidly i didn’t write down his name, i will get it soon.
“My original homeland is from over there, where you can see the city of Ashkelon today, just over the border into Israel, I can look at where I’m from everyday… My Grandfather is from Al-Gora, what is was called before they named it Ashkelon. They had 800 dunams there. I have 30 dunams here (=7.4acres). I still have the papers for our land there..
“…after the 2nd intifada the farm was destroyed the first time. I used to have honey, but the flowers have been destroyed so there can be no more production.
Every time there was a war here, the fruit and vegetable fields were destroyed. I have planted new olive trees after the last war, and they’re going well but they will take a long time to produce any fruit. A lot of the land was destroyed in the last war. This are depends on bore water; the Israelis drill bores every two hundred metres – sucking water from here, now I depend on sea water and have to buy drinking water – I use tactics to filter the sea water for the farm, like filtering through sand.
My land is my life, I cannot leave this land for one day – maybe 1 at most… I am the happiest and the most at peace when I can sit amongst the trees and make a cup of tea.
“My wife doesn’t work in the farm, she stays at home and looks after the kids, and she makes the best pickles in Gaza. My children don’t work in the farm because I don’t see hope for it in the future, but they spend a lot of time here.
“Every time my land was destroyed I go out there the very same day and plant new trees. I can give up because I have to have fun, I have to live my life. Life and death are the same to us, I have lost a lot of friends but I have to keep hope. How can I be sad when everything here is beautiful? Can you hear the sound of the birds? The only reason for someone to be sad is to be afraid of something. When we were kids we played with the simple things, like the sand. Everything in this life has an end, and no body knows when it will come.
Israel is lying to the whole world but they can’t lie to us, we know the truth, we see what happens here.
We are simple people in this area. The Israeli’s didn’t look for war here, because there is no resistance here, just the trees.

the farmer and his olives

the farmer and his chickens

the farm, one side which was destroyed in the recent attacks

damage caused by the recent israeli attacks, they thought that 'resistance' were hiding here

09.06.09

We had a demonstration today, at the Erez border, well, near to it, with 300 Palestinians and a handful of internationals to demand an end to the siege and occupation. see glimpsesofgaza for the media release we put out.

Women at the Erez demonstration

—

every day coming back to my room  i am amazed and inspired by the selflessness and simpleness and resilience and hope that people hold here in Gaza – something we can learn a lot from on the outside and also making my own simple whining and whinging about money and jobs and not moving forward seem so selfish and greedy. i remind myself of these words and thoughts when i get going on that personal diatribe.

we’re leaving tomorrow, insha’allah we are allowed out. it seems too short, but also we have a lot to process and a lot to do from here. as i have the priviledge of leaving of the gates of rafah tomorrow back into egypt i take with me the knowledge that 1.5million people are stuck inside,and cannot travel with this freedom i have, they are stuck with just the bare essentials and their dignity being stripped from them on a daily basis, with the future for many looking not further than the money he makes from selling ciggaretts, and never being able to play a soccer game in the West Bank, and never being able to study abroad or smell a different climate, or simply never having the choice or freedom to do so. but we also leave with their hope and strength that it’s going to change and there will be future outside and within the walls of gaza. we leave knowing these people aren’t going to stop fighting for that, for their human rights and for a dignified life and for the choice and freedom that so many of us enjoy on the outside.
peace salaam shalom.

soccer on Gaza City's beach

kids at Gaza city beach

Mechanic, Gaza City

Gaza City streets

food sellers, gaza city beach

soccer training, gaza city sports club

more photos can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessieboylan and on my facebook page.

An octave higher: The mic’s on Gaza’s youth

30.06.09
1. I have been writing and writing and transcribing and transcribing all my notes, recordings and interviews from the trip 30 May – 10 June to Gaza, and i can’t seem to bring them all together to form a cohesive ’story’ or trail of diary entries that is both useful to someone else and gives justice to my own thoughts. so i shall do this bit by bit by bit by bit – mostly here and there, but mostly about the selfless youth i met this time around – the people who spoke with such eloquence and strength, that puts even my tiny thoughts of greed and need to shame.

21.06.09
2. As I scramble down a rocky mountain edge in the forests of turkey, just inland from the Mediterranean sea, my mind flowing with six.five months of collected thoughts, from Israel-Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, and now, my feet slipping and my sweat dripping in Turkey. It seems strange to be heading towards Europe, with all of its affluence and cleanliness and order, away from places and people and cultures and languages I had only just started getting used to and familiar with – to be honest, my heart and my mind and my thoughts and my feet seem to all be in different places right now; I hope the coming months will align them and then direct them all on the same road again.

As my feet clomp and the noise of the cicadas in the forest keeps intercepting my thoughts, and the hot sun forms beads of sweat on my arms, and the water in my backpack is warm and the goats are looking at me; and I’m thinking most of all of this freedom I have to be here and be doing this, when less than 2 weeks ago I was sitting with people my age in Gaza, talking about their lack of freedom, their inability to move freely, to leave the tiny land and prison walls of Gaza; and now, I, only some thousand or less km’s across the same sea, am walking about on different soils with the freest of freedom anyone could have, without the sound of another soul, except for my mum, around, without the concept of a wall or a border or a soldier or a gun or an extremist view blocking my exist or entry into another place, blocking my ability live without fear in my daily life.

3. so it’s like this; the evening of 04 June we were invited to a hip-hop competition that had live-streaming between the West Bank and Gaza titled ‘HipHopKom’ – the 3rd and final week of a events that were mostly kept underground in Gaza (advertised only by word-of-mouth) and quite open and free in Ramallah (an obvious sign of the diference between the Fatah and Hamas governing powers). So I’m watching these young men and women perform – the live-streaming from Ramallah has no sound until the last few acts so we’re watching these women break-dancing and going off and the mostly young boys in the Red Crescent Society hall are cheering and supporting and moving about as if they’d be moving about a lot more if they weren’t being watched by Hamas. so anyway, as i said, i’m watching these artists perform and i’m thinking, fuck, of course – i’m 23 years old, much the same as a lot of these people – I want to know what they’re thinking, how they see themselves and their lives here in Gaza, how different or similar is it from those people who are living ‘normal’ lives in totally different environments than these. so thinking and watching i am, my ethical dilemma of just visiting Gaza to see friends and show an international face of support suddenly has more grounding and solidity. i smile and let the lyrics of occupation, disposession, love, hate, pride, war and hope take me through a journey so far from my own and yet allow me wholly to place my feet on the floor….
It’s Gaza’s turn and Ayman Jamal is MC’ing; Ayman is from the second generation of Palestinian hip-hop artists, the first being a group called DAM, who originated in the West Bank; Ayman’s group, Palestinian Rappers (PR) are the first group from Gaza. Seen recently on the documentary ‘Sling-shot Hip-Hop’ shot by an American woman about Palestinian hip-hop.

“As-Salaam al-akummmmmm!” (peace be with you) Ayman yells to the audience as he takes the stage and the mic. Ayman introduces the first group, The Darg Team, they’re a group of about 5 who all have shaved heads, the same shoes and long baggy denim shorts. They get round on stage as if they’ve jumped out of an American music-clip. They get people moving, but still in their chairs. A friend Majed starts translating some of the lyrics for us ; they’re about life under occupation, how life has been growing up with war and killings and separation, how they want peace and freedom and their land and lives back, but also about love, and humanity, and hope… next is the Black Unit Band, who appear to be a favorite.

So, more people are moving and more people are cheering, even thought people are still in their seats or standing near their seats. we get so taken in the music and energy that we don’t notice that half the room has shuffled out and eventually the sound starts cracking, and dropping out, eventually it gets completely cut during Ibrahim Gho’s performance, we all get up and get shuffled out – everyone’s whispering and not knowing what’s going on, except best answer is to ‘leave’. We learn that Hamas shut the shown down for what could be any number of reasons: that they don’t agree with the embracing of western culture and events with girls and boys mixing in the same room, that the music isn’t traditional or Palestinian, in other words they don’t support it and will exercise their power in order for it to stop. We are scared for the hip-hop groups, as the smallest ‘mistake’ in Gaza can leave someone with bullet holes in their knees or no more life to live. We get in a taxi and leave the scene, later to hear that the show continued in Mohammed Wafy’s flat in a nearby neighbourhood.

The next day we organise to meet with Mohammed Wafy and Khaled Harara from the Black Unit Band, and also with Ayman to learn more about this growing phenomenom of Palestinian hip-hop and the struggles facing them internally and externally.

4. so this is where this series stemmed from and why this post goes back to them and to the young people who make up more than half of the population in Gaza; back to the hours spent walking Gaza’s streets with Ahmad (friend and translator) asking people at random if they wanted to say something to people outside of Gaza. To the people who invited us into their homes for much coffee and tea, with the sound of israelis shelling fisherman at sea in the background, it goes to those who put trust in me and to those who want someone to listen. I’ll let them do the talking

*Thanks to Ahmad, Mond and Majed for organising interviews and for interpreting them.
**after this I will post some more notes an images from our time there.

school’s out in ghazza

gaza city beach

primary and secondary schools in gaza city have finished their exams as of today, university students will follow in the coming week. the beaches of gaza are filling with families, students, individuals, lovers, elders, tents, kites, frisbees, and amass of chatter – the weather is getting hotter and everyone jumps in the med or lazily smokes shisha on the sands, eyeing this foreigner off and she walks with her camera protruding from her waist. unfortunately the mediterranean here in gaza is quite polluted, but this is the sea gazans have and thus this is the sea gazans shall swim in.
more soon soon,

still here, leaving on wednesday if there aren’t troubles at the border…

re-visiting gaza

children's centre

and so ; after being escorted all the way to the border from cairo to rafah by egyptian police – after losing two of our egyptian compadres due to the egyptian role in the siege of gaza, many cups of arabic coffee, and too much inside tribulations we have made it in to gaza – 66 of us on a delegation organised by codepink to bring aid, children’s toys, books, and three playgrounds – to show continued soldarity with the people of gaza and to move forward in ending the siege on gaza and opening the borders..
- and again it is not something easy to write about day by day – full of visiting devastated sites, meeting different organisations, hearing harrowing stories, visiting children’s centres, watching dabka performances, eating local food, laughing, crying, not sleeping much…
i am spending much of my time thinking about my role here – my purpose here – other than the obvious support, solidarity, documentation and so on – which stories of the 1.5 million do i write down, which faces of the 1.5million do i photograph? which homes, lives, re-tellings, futures, hopes, resilience, joys, sadnesses, weddings, football teams..fishermen, farmers, women artists, craftspeople, engineers, homeless people, refugees, displaced peoples..

for now its just this – until i figure out how to write about it in the ‘right’ way – until it’s processed again a little bit – until… later.

Salaam,
jess

dabka