Sunday, July 31, 2011

born to

As if the run the night before weren’t enough for this week, I decided to go for a long run this morning.  I think this was my longest run ever in my life.  Its hard to tell what my pace is at this point because, while I think I’ve greatly improved on an easy, flat course, the hills, the higher elevation, and the smoke in the air make this a very different run than Mombasa.  But I’d say I did 8ish miles.  I’d done 10ish in one day in Mombasa but always split into 2 runs.  I ran in the heat and the hills for an hour and a half today without giving up. And I did it, mostly, with a smile.  Maybe we all were really born to run. Even the ADD, asthma ridden, weaklings like me. 
 
In the evening I went to play ultimate frisbee with a bunch of other UNC folks and expats.  Many of the players were really intense which I was a bit unprepared for. I certainly got some speed drills in in those two hours. 
The best part of all of this exercise. Eating whatever I want.  I’ll work out like that every day if it means basically doubling my food intake!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

my new run here

My run tonight was not what I thought it would be when I headed out.  I was going to do a quick 3 miles. I got a little bit of a late start and wanted to get back before dark so I could talk to my parents for the first time since getting here.  Instead of turning right out of our street ,as I have every other day here, I decided to see what was to the left.  The road ended a few blocks down and I found myself on a path headed downhill.  On either side of me there were fields and in the distance I could see plumes of smoke.  The light at this time of day is stunning here.  The orange light from the sun hitting the red earth is like nothing I’ve seen before.   At the bottom of the hill I hit a small river with wooden bridges over it.  They looked a little iffy so I walked across them, each wooden cross piece bending and shifting under my weight.  As soon as I got across the shouts started. Small children chased after me yelling “azungu, azungu!!’  Men yelled at me to stop and talk to them. They said they liked talking to white women and I should come back another day and talk with them. Women outside were doing laundry or cooking dinner.  From them all I got were confused stares or the occasional laugh.  I ran through the neighborhood, with kids laughing and skipping behind me. 
As I got to the end of the neighborhood my internal compass, which apparently needs some tuning, told me I’d be hitting the main road again.  When I didn’t see that road I thought for a minute about heading back the way I came.  But I wasn’t looking forward to the same attention so I pressed on.  When I hit the next intersection I again realized that I wasn’t quite sure where I was. Again I thought about heading back but my stubborn streak started to come out.  The sun was going down quickly and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in an area I didn’t know, in the dark. I tried to remember which direction the sun sets when I’m at the house to get my bearings. I should have stopped to ask directions a dozen times at this point.  Or turned around, though at that point I wasn’t even sure I could find my way back the way I came. 
If this had been just any run I would have stopped to walk long before this point.  I would have found my way home and taken it easy.  But when necessary the body can do things the brain doesn’t want to do. I knew I needed to get home before dark so walking was not an option.  I finally found a main intersection but the trouble is there are no street signs.  I had no idea where I was.  I had been winding for so long I didn’t know what direction to turn. Again, directions would have been good at this point.  Oops.  I ended up picking the right way and after another 20 minutes or so started to recognize the landscape.  A man stopped me to ask for the time and I finally asked if the main hospital was up this road. He confirmed and I trekked that last uphill climb, my lungs burning from the smoke that filled the air, making it home just in time to see the sun set behind the hills.  I’ll be trying that one again, maybe with a little more daylight next time.

Friday, July 29, 2011

malaria vaccine trial clinic

 I spent a day at Malaria vaccine trial clinic, offsite from the main Kamuzu Central Hospital.  Here are just a few photos of a typical day at the clinic.    

Many women walk many miles to make it to these appointments.  They are required to come to the clinic for the first several visits to be enrolled. After that, the field team visits the family once a month to follow up. A total of 35 visits are required, proving a huge amount of dedication from the participants and the field team.

 
Mothers and their children wait in the corridor, sometime for many hours for their appointments.





 A staff member gives a sensitization talk, reminding the mothers about malaria, the purpose of the study and  the rights of all of the participants.  This speech, which ends in songs and chants, will be given at every clinic appointment.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

home for the next few weeks

Just wanted to give you a little tour of my home for the next few weeks while I'm in Malawi. I'm staying at the UNC guest house.  The hot water, satelite TV and full stove have been pretty great changes from my time in Mombasa.  Though I do miss the sound of the ocean and the whole being able to speak the language thing... small tradeoffs I suppose.  There's a car (which I will not drive in this traffic), a graden full of greens, full kitchen, a dog, who is very cute but very flea ridden, and well, you can just see the photos. 








Wednesday, July 27, 2011

never go back

“Sometimes I think I’ll never go back to the US. The words are seductive, and once in a while I play with them in my head, a tantalizing refrain: never go back, never go back. Of course it’s all drama, because what do you fill that “never” with. You still have to spend the rest of your life somewhere.”
There is a bookshelf here in the guest house with tattered, worn books that have been left here by all the students before.  I flipped open the book Someone’s Heart Is Burning to the page with that quote.  And that is exactly where my head has been for the last month or so.  A few weeks ago, after I got past the halfway funk (I’ve spared you all that post), I started to feel like I didn’t want to go home. There is too much to do and too much to see here to leave right now.  Burundi or Rwanda would be a pretty easy plane ride from here and Eastern Congo would just be a thrilling motorcycle ride from the border there.  I started to look at how much money I have sitting in my bank account and fantasizing about how long I could wander before reality would set in and I would have to start paying on school loans.  The more I have a camera in my hand the more I realize that it is all I want to do.  And the more I realize that I’m in grad school because I didn’t have to balls to just do what I wanted to do in the first place.  It’s not that I don’t love public health – I do. And you can believe I still occasionally contemplate medical school – maybe in another life.  But I’m having a hard time convincing myself that another year – and a lot more in school loans – is worth it right now.  I’ve spent hours thinking in the last couple of weeks.  Ultimately I bet I’ll cave and find my way back to Chapel Hill.  I’ll spend the year doing what I want and need to do. Focusing on my photography/journalism classes, yoga, running, rock climbing in my free time (if there is any). I’ll have plenty of other classes to do too.  And a good deal of work work in the office, but I’m going to take the advice I was given last year to heart.  Take what you need and leave the rest.  If I can manage it I’ll travel again over Christmas and then it’ll be time to look for a job abroad.  I’m a wanderer.  That much will never change. But maybe it’s time to go back to home base for a little while. 

Monday, July 25, 2011

in malawi

Got here this afternoon after more than 12 hours of travel and was brought right to the house where I’ll be living.  I’m staying at the guest house of the UNC Project.  It’s pretty nice.  Hot water. A TV?! A real stove.  Seriously living the high life here.  There are a couple of other students here. Things politically have calmed down significantly in the last couple of days.  Word is the protests will stop for a month in order to give time for their demands to be met – not going to happen.  And I’ll be back in the states when they are set to protest again.  I got a tour of the hospital grounds and met with all the people I needed to meet with to get this photography rolling.  I start shooting tomorrow.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

conflicted early morning thoughts

I am now sitting in the Mombasa airport. It is 1:15am.  The place is completely deserted. In order to get back into the waiting area I have had to wake up two people from what looked like a very lovely rest.  Security guards all around are sleeping, slouched back in plastic chairs, caps placed over their faces, heads cocked in unnatural positions.  There is music faintly playing from the other side of the large room and a crow cawing above.  The loudest noise is blaring in front of me.  I plopped myself down in a chair right in front of the television.  In a room lined with glass walled shops which are filled with over produced trinkets and duty free liquor, in the middle of wood carved elephants, tusker t shirts, cloth dolls, beaded bracelets and Old Monk rum sits 42 inches of flat screen tragedy.  Al Jazeera is on and with every change of the story I want to weep even more.  Bombings, massacres, famine, disease, drug overdoses, riots, protests, economic failure.  It’s all so overwhelming.  There are images on the screen of the famine in Somalia and the refugees pouring into Ethiopia and Kenya and I can’t help but notice that they look just like images I have in the photography books sitting on my shelf in North Carolina right now.  Images from decades ago immortalized on the pages from Sebastiao Salgado and James Nachtwey and others.  The same sunken faces and hollowed eyes.  Mothers unable to feed their children, children too weak to feed themselves.  People who have walked for days only to have to wait outside already overflowing camps.  This has all happened before.  Right there.  And the medium that I love so much, the one that I claim has the power to change, well what has it changed?  Is this really the powerful tool that I claim it is?  Whats the point?
I find my career choice to be similar, in a way, to medicine or social work. You go into fields like this because you want to see something change. Doctors want to do away with disease or pain. Social workers long for stable, safe homes for kids. I want to see an end to the injustices I see all around. But the truth is, if we all got what we wanted we would all be out of a job.  Our want would no longer exist. What would we fill our time with then?
During a debate in our Swahili class about whether war is ever justifiable (a difficult enough subject in english and we had to do it in swahili), a girl arguing that was can be justified finished a rant with "we need to be realistic about reality."  In a way she is right. It is childish and idealistic of me to think that war will ever not exist. In a way that attitide feels like she has given up. But maybe she and I just have different realities.
These are thoughts I struggle with and will likely continue to struggle with daily as I devote my life’s work to photography.  Ultimately I know that we need to keep working.  Because if I throw my hands up in the air now and think that if this is happening now so it’ll happen again so what’s the point in fighting against it I’ve failed. Many photographers have come before me.  And said all of this better than I can when I’ve been up for 20 hours.  I will photograph to make others see and feel and pay attention to what is going on.  I will continue to work because if I can create photographs that make just one person want to stand up and work against violence and injustice then I will have done some good here.  

Friday, July 22, 2011

the first day home

I leave for Malawi this weekend.  I still have a few weeks before I get back to the states but with most of the girls starting to get excited about going home there has been much discussion about what people are looking forward to the most.  We all have a dream for our first days back and I am no exception.  Some are craving bagels, some can’t wait to wear shorts in public, some have schedules pedicures and haircuts. Its not that this summer hasn’t been luxurious in its own ways.  We’ve stayed at nice hotels on weekends, we’ve been served dinner every night, we have a nice house with a fantastic view.  But there are definitely certain elements of home that are just not to be found here.  Like hot water for example, or fresh water.  The water at the house is essentially pumped right from the ocean so we’ve all been bathing in salty water all summer.  My hair has a texture that I’ve never experience before.  I have no idea what Malawi will be like but right now there is a perfect day in my imagination waiting for me in Chapel Hill. 
I plan to:
Get picked up from the airport and go straight home for a hot, non-salt water shower with real conditioner and will shave my legs with a brand new razor.

Go to chipotle for a steak and black bean burrito bowl with warm, salty, yummy chips and then to weaver for a grapefruit izze and espresso cheesecake. (I’ll go back to veggie right after that, but that delicious chargrilled steak is all I want right now.) 
Curl up on a couch in my pjs and my blanket in air conditioning, with all of my delicious food and watch a movie.
Then it will be a few jam packed days of studying for comps and travelling back to Michigan to see family before schools starts up again but on that first day back I want chipotle, cheesecake and chick flick. Who’s with me?

Thursday, July 21, 2011

my running route

Again the photos don't do it justice. Especially that point that you hit the water. It was truly incredible.  Starts out in a small garden/park area and then goes right onto Mama Ngina Drive - a street of mostly government buildings, keeping the traffic low.  Once you hit water the road curves to the right and goes past a golf course and heads toward another big park area.  I miss it already.








Wednesday, July 20, 2011

one thing I will miss

Hand washing laundry: I know that seems strange.  Washing machines are so damn convenient and the time it takes to hand wash laundry could probably be better spent on other things – like studying or working on my practicum – but I really like it.  It’s relaxing and repetitive enough to allow me to sit and contemplate life and what the hell I am doing with it.  Lets be honest, I don’t know if I will miss it enough to do it when I’m in the States but I enjoy it much more than most here.  Enough to have maybe, possibly taken 40 or so photos of my last load here. 

Monday, July 18, 2011

soundtrack to the summer

When I loaded up my computer and ipod for the trip I knew I wouldn’t have space on this computer to bring all of my music.  I was also in the mood for some new tunes.  So I took a bunch of music from my roommate and a friend.  It was a pretty small selection of music to start with and what I have actually listened to on a regular basis is an even smaller listing.  This list is the soundtrack to my summer.  There have been plenty of other tunes floating around this house but these are the songs I listened to the most.
These songs also evoke memories of the trip so far.  On the drive back from Malindi through the lush green countryside, the window of the bus open and the wind loudly blowing around me while vast fields rushed by,  I listened to Junip.  Grace Potter and Rachel Yamagata remind me of working out on the roof with Katie, the women in the house behind us lined up in their chairs on their roof confusedly watching us work on our buns, guts and thighs and use water bottles for weights as we tried to kill more time after our runs to keep ourselves from stuffing our faces before dinner came.  The National and Bowerbirds songs  will remind me of sitting on the balcony reading or journaling or drawing in the afternoons.  Bon Iver reminds me of sitting on the roof with Elizabeth’s boyfriend’s pink pig guitar playing and singing. And Colin Meloy told me that “you must bear your neighbor’s burden within reason” at times when I needed that life lesson reminder in that crazy house of girls. 

Bon Iver – Skinny Love
Rilo Kiley – Silver Lining
Camille – Mon petite vieux
The Decemberists – Don’t Carry it All
The Decemberists – January Hymn
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals – Paris (ooh la la)
The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio
Bon Iver – Blindsided
The National – England
Rachael Yamagata – 1963
Junip – Black Refuge
Bowerbirds – Northern Lights
Junip – In Every Direction
Fleet Foxes – Montezuma
The Civil Wars – Dance me to the end of love




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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

emotional necessity

From the window of the coffee shop I frequent here I can see into a shop across the street in which men are carving intricate decorations into wood.  Immense objects like headboards, tables and doors are covered in elaborate scroll designs or precise geometric patterns.  I see the results of the labor all over town. As you walk down the streets in Mombasa you are surrounded by wood carvings like this.  Some pieces are brand new but a lot of it has clearly been there for decades or longer.  Signs of weather and time shaping and warping it even more. 
Watching these men work has reminded me of an article in Yoga Journal in which Bo Forbes states, “spiritual initiation is like a carving knife – it cuts and pierces, but also refines and reshapes you.  Initiations allow you to reinvent yourself completely, or to give yourself over to something greater.  They are windows through which you can glimpse who you really are and what’s possible for you.  They’re not just an emotional necessity; they’re a spiritual imperative.”
When I began this new journey in the spring it very much felt like an initiation.  I threw myself into it full force and immersed my whole life in the practice. In most ways I am not a different person from who I was a few months ago. I wouldn’t say I reinvented myself completely.  I don’t know that I think that that is a possibility. But I am trying to remind myself to do good work and stay on the path I want to stay on.  The carving of this wood, like carving out the life you want, takes effort, patience and acts of love. All things I think I could still use some work on.


Saturday, July 9, 2011