Category — World

Random Beatings Not Thing of the Past

By Hala Salah Eldin Hussein

The following e-mail exchange took place over two weeks at the beginning of August 2011 between Hala Salah Eldin Hussein, an Egyptian translator, publisher, journalist and occasional contributor to Ragazine, and Mike Foldes, in response to a casual question about what the “atmosphere” is like on the ground in Egypt these days:

MF: Hi, Hala, how are things in Cairo? Is the political situation getting to be under control? Do you have any questions/doubts about the progress?  

HSEH: Dear Mike, I’m sorry I’m late. I was on the road. The situation doesn’t really look good, though I believe it will come around. Military rule is weighing down on those aspiring to establish a civilian society. Months ago a law was enacted to forbid demonstrations and sit-ins, but it was recently implemented. Beatings and arrests, even in Tahrir Square, of activists and unarmed citizens are random. Actually Tahrir Square is now occupied by the military police so nobody will protest there or organize a demonstration. Military trials of civilians are still taking place. An unbelievable number of 11,000 citizens were held before military courts in the past five months. Never happened in Mubarak era! But days when we couldn’t say NO are over, and I do believe we could force the military council, now ruling the country, to hand the country down to a civilian rule. Days ago we have seen the “royal” family of Mubarak, except for the wife, behind bars. They were accused of a number of charges, most importantly giving the order to police forces to kill protesters in the first days of the revolution. I do believe this bumpy period will be over, maybe not soon, but it’s inevitable. Our mistake is that we have allowed a part of the former corrupt regime – the army – to take over the country after toppling Mubarak. We actually had no other option. Our revolution has no leader! On the other hand, Islamists’ voices are more resonant than ever. Their opportunism was stark when they have – and still – gone against the people’s will and unconditionally support the ruling military council. But our eyes are vigilant against their schemes. Well, I must say we are no longer the country before 25 January. We have become more aware of our rights. We have never ruled ourselves before, and we are still growing as a nation, and this gives me hope and courage to say that things will come around. Thanks Mike

MF: Sorry to take so long getting back to you. Would you mind if we publish your comment? It is filled with the kind of information from ‘real people’ that we do not see/hear in the news in the US. Everything is fed to us from the networks, and it is generally all sound bite from administrators. Your POV is engaging. Of course, keep the faith, as we used to say in the anti-Vietnam day…

HSEH: Please do so. Use it as you wish, though a civilian girl was charged this morning with insulting the Council in a Facebook Status! Seriously. She will be court-martialled in the coming few days!

MF: Hi, please send us an update on what happens to her … does court-martial mean she’ll be shot? jailed? stoned? starved? or simply remonstrated?

HSEH: Military prosecution launched an investigation against Asmaa Mahfouz, a 26-year-old activist accused of insulting the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and calling for armed operations against the military and the judiciary. Of course activists and presidential hopefuls condemned Asmaa Mahfouz arrest. Mahfouz was released on LE20,000 bail! A huge number if I may add. This means that we are all threatened, in one way or another. Declaring what you think via Facebook, or pointing out a flaw in the ruling Council’s performance can get you court-martialed. If convicted, she will face a jail sentence.

About Hala Salah Eldin Hussein:

Born in 1978, Hala Salah Eldin Hussein was raised in Tanta, a city in the middle of the Nile Delta of Egypt. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Faculty of Arts, Tanta University, 1999. She is the editor of Albawtaka Review, and general manager of Albawtaka Publishing House. 

Graffiti is illegal in Belgium. That's too bad.

Dehors! L’histoire des graffiti à Bruxelles

By Sara Marilungo

Neerpede Park is a huge open air art gallery. Little known by the people of Brussels and surely not included in any tour guide or do-it-yourself journey in Belgium,  it lies on the outskirts of Brussels, Eddie Mercks metro stop.

The pillars of the three flyovers that cross the park have become the favourite spot of Brussels’ graffiti artists to show dozens and dozens of works of street art.

“Neerpede Park is one of those places that I call ‘no-man’s land’,” says Adrien Grimmeau, art historian and professor at Iselp, a contemporary art centre in Brussels. “Brussels’ graffiti artists moved away from  the streets of the city centre, where there is less control by the police and they can make works that sometimes require up to 10 hours, sometimes even two days”.

Artist at work: Defying da law

Grimmeau has recently written the first book ever about street art in Brussels. The book, titled Dehors! L’histoire des graffiti à Bruxelles and published by CFC-editions, will be released on the 15th of June on the occasion of the exhibition Explosition. L’art des graffiti a Bruxelles – a title in between the French “explosion” and “exposition” – at the Musée d’Ixelles of Brussels.

“I chose this title for the book for two main reasons: first of all “Dehors!” – get out! – is what the teachers say to the kids who misbehave in class. Graffiti art is made by young people, often children who were considered “rebel” at school. Secondly, I say “Dehors!” to the readers of the book, but also to the artists and to myself. Enough with the museums, go look for art in the streets!,” says Grimmeau.

The exhibition will show pictures, sculptures, paintings and installations made by almost 20 artists with a street art background. It aims to show how the artists who exhibit in the museums sometimes come from a background which is anything but academic.

The book tells the history and evolution of graffiti art in Brussels from its origins in the ‘80s until now. “It is a way to speak about Brussels, its youths and its street art,” says Grimmeau, who collected interviews with some of the most famous graffiti artists of Brussels’ milieu, namely Bonom, Muga, Obes, Na and Defo, five artists who differ in terms of topics, typology of art forms and techniques.

“During the ‘80s graffiti was a more social and political art. Afterwards, in the ‘90s, hip hop became an out-and-out underground cultural movement linked to music, rap and break-dance. Differently form today, the graffiti of the ‘80s and the ‘90s were mainly made of letters and few images in poor and degraded areas of the city,” says Grimmeau. These graffiti were also often inspired to comics, of which Belgium boasts a rich tradition. However, Grimmeau explains that the graffiti artists of the ‘80s mainly drew their inspiration from American comics, in particular Vaughn Bode. “It was more ‘cool’”, explains Grimmeau with a smile. “I know for sure that graffiti artist read comics, but it is not ‘cool’ to paint The Smurfs – Les Schtroumpfs – on the walls.”

“Now it is different. The artists want to show a different way to look at the city and take it back. They don’t want to change the world, maybe they want to make us smile or surprise us. They want to tell the people to look around themselves. “

Not only spray then, but stencils, fonts, stickers, images, tags and out-and-out paintings.

Grimmeau calls them neo-graffiti, in order to highlight these artists’ will to increase the interaction with the city and with the spot itself where the painting is realized.

“Graffiti are more site-specific, which is also what happens now with works of contemporary art in the museums.” For instance, in the case of Bonom, there is always a reason for the animal painted on a certain building. Grimmeau mentions the example of the fox falling on the wall of a building in Place du Congrès. At the feet of the Colonne du Congrès et de la Constitution there is a flame – the flame of the Unknown Soldier –,  which blazes endlessly. Looking carefully, the orange fox looks like a flame pointing at the sky. “Nowadays, in most cases graffiti artists are not inexperienced people, but they come from art schools and they want to bring art out of the museums and the schools, in the streets.”

Grimmeau notices that in the recent past Brussels’ authorities, as often as not, built  “architectural monstrosity” ; in one occasion they even destroyed an art nouveau building by the architect Victor Horta. “Graffiti artists don’t paint on the walls because they hate the city, but in order to make it better and more beautiful. It is also a way to claim the public space as a social space.”

For instance, Obes believes that the city belongs to everybody and that everybody is allowed to express him or herself creatively. But if the city belongs to everybody, then someone may not agree with the graffiti. “As a matter of fact, it is difficult to come to an agreement. Here in Belgium we are very good at making laws and regulations that don’t please anyone, precisely because they’re aimed at pleasing everybody.”

Graffiti in Belgium are illegal and, differently from other cities in the world, there are no walls legally used for street art display of graffiti. For this reason, most of the graffiti artists interviewed for the book had problems with the law on several occasions. For example, Defo and Obes went to prison for some days. The artists are often required to repay substantial amounts of money for damages.

Bonom is the most famous graffiti artist in Brussels. He painted some beautiful graffiti of animals and dinosaurs, even if half of them have been removed. However, not even Bonom is protected and he often had problems with the law, according to Grimmeau.

“The whole graffiti process is contradictory because sometimes these artists are summoned by the authorities to paint public places, such as the tram station  De Wand,” says Grimmeau.

Supports for the arts ...

Beside Neerpede Park , there are other “concentrations” of graffiti in the vicinity of the cultural centre Recyclart, nearby Gare du Midi o in Le Marolles, an historic neighbourhood in Brussels where, since the ’60s, artists have been meeting to make art and discuss about the problems of the city. “It is the soul of Brussels,” says Grimmeau. However, most graffiti are made along the metro lines, such as the line from Gare du Midi to Gare Central or between the station Pennenhius and Bockstael, in the neighbourhood Laeken.

Near the metro stop  Porte de Namur, Bonom painted several buffalos that create the illusion, for the people observing from the metro, that the animals are running. “There are at least 20 buffalos. Even before he discovered Blu’s animations, Bonom revolutionized the way of looking at graffiti in the metro lines of Brussels: once the graffiti were painted on the trains and moved with the trains, now the trains move and the motionless graffiti come to life.” A similar dinosaur was painted by Bonom near Etterbeek Station.

In collaboration with Iselp, Grimmeau also organizes  “graffiti walking tours” for organized groups of several people. You just need to contact Iselp to make arrangements.

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About the writer:

Sara Marilungo has an MA in journalism from Independent Colleges of Dublin. She is a freelance writer in Dublin, but temporarily resides near Brussels. Her work has appeared in the Italian webzine www.nuok.it, and occasionally for other websites and newspapers. She also received a degree in Italy in Communication Science with a thesis about contemporary art and philosophy of languages. This article appeared in the online magazine www.nuok.it, in Italian. This is its first publication in English.

For more information:  http://saramarilungo.eu5.org/

Muneeb Butt (left), and Mughees Butt, victims of lynching

The Sialkot Lynchings:

A Year Without Justice

Pakistani independent journalist Zaira Rahman has followed the story of two young men beaten and lynched by a mob in a neighborhood of Buttar village during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in 2010.  Nearly a year later,  the outrage remains, and still no one has been called on to account for the crime. The following article for Ragazine provides some background on the event, and sheds light on how difficult it has been to enforce either civil or religious law in a tight-knit community where kinship and friendship outweigh the ideals of Justice.

By Zaira Rahman

August 15^th, 2010, was just another day for most of us, but for two brothers from Sialkot, Pakistan, that day became the most horrifying ever. It was the day that took their lives away and ended their youth brutally. This is the true story of Mughees Butt (17 years) and Muneeb Butt (15 years) who were killed by the residents of a town for a crime they never committed — under the very nose of law enforcement officials. This story is being told so the world  knows that even in these progressive times, in some places the value of life is nothing. It is simply worthless.

There are too many versions of the incident that I have come across during my investigations to tell them all.  In addition are the stories from a number of journalists who covered the story, who spoke with witnesses  present at the crime scene, and to family members of the two brothers. The background of the story is crucial and might help us connect the dots to understand just what happened, and who was responsible.

Just one week before the lynching incident took place, both the brothers went to the suburbs of Buttar village, in the outskirts of Sialkot, to play cricket. However, they had an argument with a gang of local youth who wouldn’t allow them to play cricket. Thus, a fight broke out between the brothers and the locals, and Mughees and Muneeb left the ground.

On 15^th August, 2010, the brothers returned to the same cricket field again in the early morning after keeping their fast, since it was the Holy month of Ramzan (Ramadan), which is considered very precious and sacred by Muslims. When they were on their way back on a bicycle, the trouble began. The boys saw a crowd was gathered in Buttar and there was some commotion. The young boys could not help being curious and stopped by to see what was happening. Perhaps, they should not have been so curious. The locals were angry because a robbery had taken place. One of the villagers was severely injured by the robbers, and later on died.

It is said that one of the youths who had argued with the brothers the previous week shouted in mere vengeance that the brothers were friends of the robbers. That false accusation was enough to trigger the already angry crowd, who for no other reason, without logic or thought, started beating the boys with sticks. The two teenage boys could not escape the wrath of the barbarians who had became a law unto themselves on that sacred day of Ramzan.

Surprisingly, the mob beating of the boys allegedly took place in the presence of Sialkot District Police Officer Waqar Chauhan, and eight other police officers, though some reports claim there were at least fifteen police officials present at the crime scene. The younger brother, Muneeb, was injured badly in the beginning, and almost immediately lost consciousness. After beating them with all their might, the two boys were handed over to Rescue 1122,  a local organization whose purpose is to assist locals in emergencies.

However, in this case, subsequent investigations revealed the Rescue 1122 staff members showed utter negligence by not calling immediately for medical assistance. Since the 1122 staff never moved the boys to a hospital, the mob again started beating the boys to death. Thus, this is no mere accident. It was murder by an angry and unreasonable mob that was facilitated by the police officials and Rescue 1122 personnel in broad daylight in Buttar village, in the outskirts of Sialkot.

YouTube Videos Recount Beatings

Sadly, it was one day after Pakistan’s 63^rd Independence Day. This incident talks greatly about how much (or how little) we have progressed in these years as a nation. What can we say when the law enforcing agencies and organizations that are supposed to help the citizens are involved in such criminal acts? How can we talk about progression when illiteracy rules the minds of so many – who could not realize that it is inhumane to beat two unarmed boys for hours? How can those who killed two innocent boys preach about Islam, when they could not even respect the sacred Holy month themselves? How come it is okay to kill kids so easily in front of law enforcing agencies? Do we even have the right to talk about human rights when countless people who witnessed this public killing opted to make videos for their entertainment rather than standing up against the wrong?

What is shocking is to see that with hundreds of witnesses, countless images and extremely strong evidence in the form of live videos of the entire incident, we can see that justice is still being delayed. Last year, when the incident took place due to the media coverage and protests by common citizens, the Pakistani government announced that this case will be solved within a few weeks, but we can clearly see that nothing of the sort has taken place.

As for the police officials at the scene, some witnesses said the police themselves tied the boys’ hands and returned them to the crowd so that they could be lynched. At that point, there was no stopping the mob. Mughees and Muneeb were beaten to death. The amateur video, that not everyone has the stomach to watch, shows clearly what happened that sad day. The video footage, widely available on the internet, is extremely painful and heart shattering. People, like myself who have seen the footage to seek the truth, can never take out those images out of our minds.

Unforgettable Images Not Enough

The brothers were beaten with sticks by numerous men. Muneeb, the younger brother died quickly, but the elder brother suffered for some one and a half hours. It is said that he was begging to be killed quickly just to stop the pain. Even as the brothers died for something they had not done, the angry crowd didn’t realize the crime they themselves had committed. The brothers’ dead bodies were paraded around the neighborhood in an open truck. And the final touch to this brilliant act of cruelty was that the boys were hung by their feet to a pole like some dead goats, just minutes away from the police station.

Their first post mortem report was not accepted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Thus, the bodies of the lynched brothers were re-examined again in September 2010 by senior doctors appointed by the Supreme Court. Upon investigation, it was discovered the two boys were good students and were never involved in any criminal activities or illegal acts. On the false claims, that the brothers were dacoits, it was not surprising to discover that the boys were unarmed and no (stolen) valuables were recovered from them.

On the other hand, Buttar’s chief of police, Waqar Chouhan and regional police chief Zulfiqar Cheema, were under scrutiny for negligence on their part in the entire matter. Cheema is alleged to have encouraged extra-judicial executions in the past. The officers   present at the crime scene were suspended, but most of the people involved in the crime managed to escape, or were freed on bail. The case is still being handled in the courts, but the process is slow. The latest news I have read is that one of the accused is arguing   that it is irrelevant to use the camera footage as evidence in court.

The boys' grandfather waits for justice.

Family Trusts in God

The family of Muneeb and Mughees, have left everything on the hands of God. They lost their sons for no reason in a country where life has no value. They hope that God will give them justice for the way their sons were brutally killed, and how their bodies were humiliated even in dead. Their father was relieved that at least the court absolved his sons of all the charges of robbery; but, they are waiting for the day when justice will be delivered and all the culprits involved in this mob killing are punished.

Meanwhile, this very sad and inhumane incident that took the lives of two teenage boys, must not be forgotten. They were killed by illiterate local people who seem unable to listen to anybody in a sane manner. And two curious boys who set out one morning to play cricket, returned to their homes with mutilated faces and crushed bodies that were nearly unrecognizable to their loved ones.

Since life is so uncertain, should people stop leaving their homes? In a country, where law enforcement officials themselves can encourage such acts of violence because they know they can get away with it,  who would feel safe?

For most people, the two boys were just a story that lasted a few weeks, that angered some of them enough to turn out to protest. The protests got the attention of higher level government officials, but for the family of these boys, the loss is eternal. I know these brothers are not alive to fight their own battle, but as caring humans we must work to ensure this tragedy is not forgotten, and to see the guilty are punished.

While it is not absolutely relevant, if these two boys were like Raymond Davis (the CIA station head in Pakistan accused of killing two people in Lahore, and who was freed after paying “blood money” to their families), their case would have been resolved quickly. However, since they were two innocent local and very common Pakistani boys, for the time being their souls will wait for justice, and we will have to see if it will take a good ten years or longer to give them that miraculous justice!

Zaira Rahman is a writer, blogger, copy writer and animal rights activist. She lives in Karachi, Pakistan. Rahman has an MBA in marketing, is author of “Pakistani Media: The Way Things Are” and co-author of “If Mortals Had Been Immortals and Other Short Stories”.  Her previous article in Ragazine was a Bollywood film review.

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Everything I Knew

A visit to Ghana turns the imagined world

 into something unimaginable, and real

Photos and Article by Roscoe Betsill and Steven Keith

Roscoe: Even though I read everything I could get my hands on prior to our trip to Ghana, it was clear, shortly after landing in Accra and approaching customs, that somehow everything I knew was different. There was one line for Ghanaians, another for residents of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and a third much slower moving queue for the All Others – a designation that we as Americans are not accustomed to. Right out of the gate, we were greeted by hawkers offering a wide assortment of wares and services. We were traveling with our host, a very self-possessed Ghanaian woman, who now lives in the states. Pearlene assured all of those vying for our attention that we did not need any of what they had to offer.

It was actually because of Pearlene, that my husband, Steven, and I decided to spend our Christmas holiday in Ghana. She was my late mother’s (extremely over-qualified) home care professional and became a true friend to her and to me. Mom, who passed away a few months ago, had traveled extensively. One of her most memorable and life changing trips was to Ghana, nearly 20 years ago. Traveling to Ghana seemed a good way to spend the holidays and to honor her.

Before heading to Pearlene’s house on the outskirts of Accra in the village of Gbawe, we stopped to check out two hotels that we were considering for later in the week. Even though it was a fairly short distance, because of heavy traffic, it took an hour and a half to get to the other side of town, where we were to spend our first several days. This was by no means a boring voyage. We ended up taking it many times and each time we were thoroughly entertained by the constant parade of vendors, who took full advantage of the slow moving traffic. There were folks selling drinking water, handkerchiefs, homemade plantain chips, peanut butter brittle, pastries, hair care and beauty products, soccer balls, hammers and hatchets, telephones, flashlights, batteries, shoes and shoe brushes almost always piled on trays or on platforms or in small cases – sometimes with doors and glass windows – and these perched and balanced ever so perfectly on the vendor’s heads. I would love to have the posture, not to mention the stamina, to perform such a feat. The street vendors work long hours in the equatorial heat of the day. Because we were there during the holidays, we also saw folks dressed in elaborate costumes and intricately detailed wire mesh masks collecting donations for either charity or next year’s costumes, depending on whom you asked.

Steven: Pearlene’s family compound measures about 40 by 60 meters. When you enter the compound, after enduring the dusty and bumpy ride of the “rough road”, all becomes clean and calm again. The 3-meter high wall on the right is nicely decorated on the inside with small trees set in well-swept red earth. The first of these is half white and half green, the result Pearlene said, of two trees that just happened to collide and soon were inseparable. The ground underneath the car is paved in a smooth mix of rocks and concrete, also swept clean.

Directly ahead was the house boy’s house but we were transfixed by the main house on our left, which was also stucco and featured a wide and deep front porch of cream and tan terrazzo flooring, wide curved steps, and two neo-classical columns. An orange dog had been lying on the cool terrazzo but jumped up as soon as we entered and made her way back toward the house boy’s house. I remembered hearing, on some cable TV dog program, that if all dogs in the world were left to breed on their own, then soon all dogs would be the sort of medium-sized brown dog commonly found in Africa. And here she was! We soon realized that almost all the dogs in Accra looked just like this one. All week we tried to sweet-talk this beautiful bitch into letting us touch her and, while she was intrigued, she never accepted our offer.

Roscoe: Ghanaians are very religious, whether Christian, Moslem or Animist. In the capital, Accra, they tend to be Christian and every manner of business is a means of expressing this. Taxis, hair salons, hardware stores and markets were likely to have names like By His Grace or The Lord’s Venture. Several people we met had names with religious or poetic significance – The pious Delali (there will be a savior), the sweet Sedena (word of God) and the radiantly smiling Sunrise.

When, by the grace of God we finally reached the house, which turned out to be a compound actually, we were seated in the main room and offered glasses of cool water, which is a standard and much appreciated welcoming gesture (it was about 95 degrees, inside and out). We met a number of members of the immediate and extended family, including relatives we  met previously in Ohio and the twin brother, Atsu, we had heard so much about. It was a large house and filled with lovely and generous folks. We had taken Pearlene at her word when she said that there was plenty of room and that we would not be an imposition, but I started to wonder. We were then shown to our quarters, which turned out to be a separate house behind the main house with it’s own kitchen, bath, sitting room and a large porch.

Steven: The space between the blazing blue sky above and the orange red-clay ground below was teeming with color, colors of all sorts, but often red, gold, yellow, and green, bright blue, blinding white, and orange, brown, and purple (sometimes all in one jazzy patterned shirt). There was little black or gray to be found, except for the proudly displayed Black Star, found on Ghanaian flags, soccer shirts, and beer bottles. The national colors – gold red, and green – were well represented, such is the real pride the citizens of Ghana take in their 50-year old nation. Large and small adverts for cell phone services, soul-saving churches, promising politicians, and thirst-quenching drinks were all around, hiding the trees and demanding a future. The streets were lined with wooden open-front shops that were filled with everything that one might need or want, including handkerchiefs, snacks, sandals, hand tools, head wraps, light bulbs, disco balls, toilet paper, and small plastic bags that each contained one shot of gin or rum. “Cold Stores” sold water, fruit juices, soda, and beer.

Roscoe: We were fortunate enough to be able to get tickets for the 25^th Anniversary concert of the famous High-Life musician Abrantie Amakye Dede. High-Life music fuses traditional African sounds with jazz and soul influences. All of Accra seemed to be there, dressed in its very fine finery, including the former President, John Kufuor. It would have been well worth the price of admission to see this even had there not been performances by several of the nation’s top entertainers.

Steven: We decided to do the most obvious site-seeing first: a visit to the mausoleum of the founding father of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. In fact there were five more of these founders, who with Nkrumah were called the Big Six; all of them appear on the paper money (cedi notes) in Ghana.

The mausoleum museum was in rather bad shape, having had its maintenance funds slashed by the current free-market-oriented government. This was told to us by the young adults working there as guides; they encouraged us to make donations for the upkeep of this final resting place of their Marxist hero. History is very much alive in Ghana and is being made every day. Perhaps most notable at the Nkrumah Museum, besides the carefully preserved (plastic draped) dormitory furniture used by the great man at Lincoln University, is a bronze statue outside of Nkrumah, which is missing its head and one arm, vandalized during a military coup that ousted him in 1966. While we were there, it was announced that Konadu Rawlings, the wife of the murderous Jerry Rawlings (President from 1981 to 2002) planned to run in the next Presidential election. Upon hearing this, one friend of ours said, “over my dead body”, and this expression seemed more real to us than ever before.

Roscoe: I woke up very early on Christmas morning. There were on-going services at two nearby open-air churches, which I heard clearly from my room. The singing at one was harmonious and a pleasure to listen to (the other service was a bit rough but nonetheless sincere). Roosters crowed and other birds, some singing harmoniously (others less so) always started their songs well before dawn. I walked out into the courtyard where I met Achu, who asked me if I’d ever seen a goat killed.

What a way to start the day. The throat slitting and blood letting was every bit as graphic as you might imagine. I helped with the scraping off of the coat, once it had been sufficiently scorched by the open fire. A lot of the cooking that day was done in the courtyard, where there were a number of braziers set up for a variety of preparations. There was a hearty goat stew that consisted of innards cooked in blood and there was the more appealing -to my taste – goat light soup, tender goat meat simmered in a flavorful broth that was the perfect accompaniment to fufu- cassava and plantain pounded into a paste. I had never managed to taste this staple of West African cuisine. The first mouthful felt very odd, but once I gave in to the texture and coated it with pepper sauce, I was able to enjoy it.

Steven: After the coup, Nkrumah went to live in exile in Guinea, where he was revered not only for his nation-building but also and especially for promoting Pan-Africanism as the only successful way forward for the people of sub-Saharan Africa and of the African Diaspora. Similarly, the great American scholar WEB Du Bois spent his last years in Ghana, a guest of the government. So, off we went to the Du Bois Memorial Centre. A much more modest version of the Nkrumah Mausoleum, this one included an Ashante-style wood pavilion for the tomb and the preservation of Du Bois’ last home. The library there was particularly compelling, with wood louvered shutters on the window and wood shelves filled with books by African writers from all over the world, including Du Bois’ extraordinary Encyclopedia Africana, which he was working on when he died. The young man working there, a scholar himself, earnestly recited one of Du Bois’ most famous speeches at the gravesite and it was hard to imagine a similar heartfelt performance by an American college student.

Roscoe: We considered taking a long and potentially uncomfortable bus ride to the coastal towns of Cape Coast and Elmina, each featuring a fort at which many thousands of people, who were captured and enslaved, were held captive awaiting their journey to the new world. At Pearlene’s suggestion we hired a car and driver and with the charming company of her daughter Ama and friend Sara, we were able to make much better use of our time. On the way, we visited the splendid tropical rainforest Kakum National Park.  It was breathtaking to take the canopy walk, a network of wood and rope bridges suspended between trees at a height of 40 meters above the forest floor. Being able to drink the juice of a freshly macheted coconut was a fitting recompense for having completed the journey. We went on to Cape Coast and had a delicious lunch of freshly grilled tilapia, snapper and lobster with banku, a fermented cassava and corn meal mixture steamed in a banana leaf that I found irresistible, at the Mighty Victory Hotel. By now we were accustomed to the fact that in Ghanaian restaurants everything is prepared to order.  We were well rewarded for our patience.

On to the coast of this fishing village there were fisherman untangling nets, vendors and a bustle of activity that one might have seen a century or 2 or 3 ago. The Cape Coast Fort above was a foreboding structure with canons perched along its perimeter. It was not until we arrived there that I realized that one of my Mom’s favorite photos from her trip to Ghana, of her with her arms around 2 young boys, was taken there. I shuddered a bit, but shuddered more as I experienced being in the dungeon with only the slightest glimmer of light coming in, and again as I passed through the ‘door of no return’. I had a moment of prayerful meditation for ancestors who passed through these gates. I am extremely grateful to have had this experience, painful though it was.

We spent our last few days at The Golden Tulip, in a fancy hotel in the center of town.  I enjoyed the swimming pool each morning, up to the point that I found it occupied by carpenters who constructed an impromptu fashion runway and dance floor over the pool for what was to be a spectacular New Years Eve bash. At the splashy bash, we wore shirts that Pearlene’s sister-in-law’s tailor had made for us, after surreptitiously sizing us up when we had gone to her house for a visit.

The people we shared our time with in Ghana were extremely generous with us – giving of their time, their knowledge, their kindness and their good humor.  I have rarely felt more welcome – anywhere. Weeks later, I am still feeling the glow.

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Better to drink gin …

Yes, one needs to be very careful with the water. We only drank bottled water and we were careful about eating salads or any uncooked food, likely to be washed in water unsafe for foreigners. Our hostess made her ice cubes from bottled water. And the hotel had potable water throughout. But out at a bar or restaurant, one is advised to just avoid ice. Most places serve juices, soda, and mixers from bottles straight out of the fridge, so ice is not needed anyway.

The locals drink ‘purified’ water that is sold in sealed plastic bags (see photo). Our Ghanaians friends advised us against drinking it, as some of these bags were likely to have been filled up from the tap at home. As it is hot most days, some people enjoy a nice cold beer in the afternoon, bought from a Cold Store. There were also these nifty little one shot plastic bags of booze – gin or rum – that sold for about 25 cents!

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About the travelers:

Roscoe Betsill (left) is a New York-based  food stylist, recipe developer and writer.  His clients include The New York Times, Bon Appetit, O (the Oprah Magazine), and Field and Stream. His web site is: www.roscoebetsill.com

Steven Keith is an architect and political activist. He’s been married to Roscoe for one-and-a-half years, but has known him for over 19 years.

They have a red dog named Ruby, and divide their time between New York City and the Hudson Valley.

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The garden at Soekershof

Soekershof:

Jody Joyner’s Land Art & The Amazing

Botanical Gardens of South Africa

With Yvonne de Wit & Herman van Bon

In the narrow meaning of the word, a nest is the spot in which birds lay their egg(s) and hatch. In the Germanic languages it is also used as a name for a sleeping spot or a place where two lovers please each other. In the more natural sense of the word, ‘nest’ means ‘house’. And at home you feel yourselves at home in your own protected surroundings or shelter. People nowadays have simply attached themselves to comfort which modern technology offers us and that actually detaches them from the natural surroundings.

Why then not a nest made of natural material from its own surroundings? Simply to attach to the vicissitudes of nature and to repair your own ecobalans?

This idea is the basis with which Land Art artist Jody Joyner from Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A., has been playing from the end of December at Soekershof; Private Mazes & Botanical Gardens in South Africa, also named Green Cathedral of South Africa.

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Jody Joyner

A studio art major from Tucson, Ariz., she was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship for her project, “The Art of Place: Where We Are.” She is traveling to the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Canada to study how artists visually convey their perceptions of, and connections to, the natural world, how their artwork reflects knowledge of local geographies, and whether art cultivates a sense of place.

Before beginning work at Soekershof in December 2010, she was involved in Landartgenerator in Dubai and a project in the Louvre in Paris. From South Africa she will fly first to Australia to be involved in a project with aboriginals, and from there she will create an object with Inuit in the North of Canada. Her assignment in South Africa was part of Land Art project in South Africa, an initiative of Soekershof,  a private initiative without governmental grants and/or subsidies.

View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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About the gardeners: Yvonne de Wit & Herman van Bon

Who we (me and my wife Yvonne) are?  Well, best is to google ‘soekershof’ or ‘green cathedral of south africa’. Be aMAZed and feel Welcome. We don’t pretend to be scientists (we just make use of those in a mutual beneficial way) and we are considered as ‘weird’ by some of our neighbours.
OK, visiting Soekershof is a bit of a whimsical experience, but also the proof that a garden does not have to be “boring”. It’s entertaining with a very serious undertone.
And what more: there is an outdoor collection of over 2500 different, registered, species/subspecies/cultivars/etc. of succulent plants from all over the world and we are very proud of that.
It also explains why representives of the SANBI gardens (Kirstenbosch, Karoo, etc.) in South Africa do not want to know about us, but we play nicely with some university gardens, nurseries and collectors around the globe.
You are Welcome!

For more information: http://soekershoflandart.wordpress.com/

Leaf of a Cannabis plant

Collateral Damage

This edition is a follow-up to the last one which pertained to the illicit drug trade. What is presented is an article done by Professor Randall Shelden, “After all, it is a war.” As with his writing in general, I am confident that you’ll find his presentation informational and thought provoking. I say this in part because it’s a true statement, particularly in relationship to the volume of work he has produced over the years on a variety of criminal justice related concerns. I also say this because Randy is an old friend and colleague, as well as someone who, over the course of his long teaching career, has maintained a particular integrity with his classroom efforts — something not so easily found in academia, especially given the continuing corporatizing of our post-secondary processes. (This is another issue that may well be addressed in future articles.)

I would like to also mention a few other points concerning Professor Shelden. It was with his help some thirty five years ago that I was able to pull together an education program, while incarcerated in the Nevada State Prison system, from which I could develop a legitimate and worthwhile career.  Coincidentally, he also contributed to my last book, which basically tells the story of this journey. So in some ways, the presentation of his article allows me to pay a small tribute to a great guy, someone who truly extended a hand when a hand was needed. At the same time of course, the article allows our readers the chance to consider significant pieces that relate to our American puzzle. So thanks on both counts, Randy.

Again, I trust you will enjoy the read. And, as always, please feel free to offer your own comments and thoughts accordingly. (By the way, you can read more of Randall Shelden at www.sheldensays.com).

— Jim Palombo, Politics Editor

After All, it is a War, isn’t it?

By Randall Shelden

In 2006, a report was published by the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank that has been unrelenting in its criticism of the drug war, largely because it represents one of the ultimate examples of the overreach of the government into the lives of citizens.  The report is called Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America by policy analyst Radley Balko.

San Bernardino police SWAT team

I came across this study as I was reading yet another exposè of the racist nature of the criminal justice system in general and the drug war in particular.  This one is called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander.  In a chapter called “The Lockdown,” Alexander, citing Balko’s study among others, discusses the militarization of the police, a term that criminologist Peter Kraska has frequently used. In many ways crime control has taken on many of the characteristics of the military, or what Kraska has called the “militarization of criminal justice.” Writing in the Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Kraska makes the point that there is an underlying ideology of militarism that clearly has been borrowed in the “war on drugs”, which he defines as “a set of beliefs and values that stress the use of force and domination as appropriate means to solve problems and gain political power, while glorifying the means to accomplish this – military power, hardware, and technology.”

This also involves a “blurring of external and internal security functions leading to a more subtle targeting of civilian populations,” plus an ideology that places emphasis on the efficient solving of problems that require the use of state force, the latest and most sophisticated technology, various forms of intelligence gathering, the use of “special operations” (e.g., SWAT) in both the police and within the prison system, the use of military discourse and metaphors (e.g., “collateral damage,” “under siege”) and last, but not least, collaboration with “ the highest level of the governmental and corporate worlds, between the defense industry and the crime control industry.”

This process can be traced to the early years of the Reagan administration when they were trying to get the law enforcement establishment to go along with their desire to crack down on drug offenders.  Law enforcement was at first reluctant, since it would take time and resources away from their pursuit of more serious violent and property offenses.

What the Reagan administration did was to, in effect, bribe law enforcement with money via large grants.  In 1981, Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which began to funnel military equipment to police departments.  Congress passed a series of laws that provided exceptions to the famous “Posse Comitatus Act,” passed in 1879, that prohibited using the military for civilian policing. Balko writes that these “exceptions allowed nearly unlimited sharing of drug interdiction intelligence, training, tactics, technology, and weaponry between the Pentagon and federal, state, and local police departments.”

Police Armored Rescue Vehicle.

As a result between 1995 and 1997 alone, the Pentagon gave to law enforcement agencies all over the country the following: 3,800 M-16s, 2,185 M-14s, 73 grenade launchers, and 112 armored personnel carriers!  If that was not enough, Balko reports that “between January 1997 and October 1999, the agency handled 3.4 million orders of Pentagon equipment from over 11,000 domestic police agencies in all 50 states. By December 2005, the number was up to 17,000. The purchase value of the equipment comes to more than $727 million.”  Among the items included were “253 aircraft (including six- and seven passenger airplanes, and UH-60 Blackhawk and UH-1 Huey helicopters), 7,856 M-16 rifles, 181 grenade launchers, 8,131 bulletproof helmets, and 1,161 pairs of night-vision goggles.”  After all, a “war” had been declared.

The rest is, as they say, history, and that history included the arrests of millions on drug charges, plus the deaths and injuries of hundreds of innocent civilians.  Not surprisingly the bulk of this “war” has been waged on poor communities of color.

Balko testified before a House Subcommittee on Crime in July 2007, and during that testimony he related several instance of police drug raids that resulted in the death of innocent people.  Most such raids are based upon tips from informants and quite often the information provided turned out to be false.  On many occasions the police went to the wrong house.  One example, among many provided by Balko, was a drug raid in Atlanta “that killed 92-year old Kathryn Johnston. Ms. Johnston mistook the raiding police officers for criminal intruders. When she met them with a gun, they opened fire and killed her. The police were acting on an uncorroborated tip from a convicted felon.”  He also cited a case in Durango, Colorado, where the police “raided the home of 77-year-old Virginia Herrick. Ms. Herrick, who takes oxygen, was forced to the ground and handcuffed at gunpoint while officers ravaged through her home.”  It was the wrong address.  He cited similar raids in cities and towns all over the country.  He testified that “800 times per week in this country, a SWAT team breaks open an American’s door, and invades his home. Few turn up any weapons at all, much less high-power weapons. Less than half end with felony charges for the suspects. And only a small percentage end up doing significant time in prison.”

Quoting Kraska, Balko notes that “the total number of SWAT deployments across the country increased from a few hundred per year in the 1970s to a few thousand per year by the early 1980s to around 50,000 per year by the mid-2000s.” Today, virtually every city has a SWAT team, and most have more than one.  Many small towns  have SWAT teams, such as Eufaula, Alabama (population 13,463). SWAT teams were set up primarily to defuse an already violent situation, such as hostage taking.  Today they are mostly used to “break into homes to look for illicit drugs, creating violence and confrontation where there was none before.”

A SWAT team in action.

As already noted, among other issues include the fact that literally hundreds of innocent people have been killed during SWAT drug raids. One case, reported by Balko on Reason.com concerns the death of a 7-year-old black girl named Aiyana Stanley-Jones this past May in Detroit. The police were looking for a murder suspect who was in the apartment above where the little girl lived.  He surrendered without a fight.  The police had an opportunity to arrest the suspect earlier in the day but instead waited until the middle of the night.  Despite the existence of various children’s toys around the outside of the house and being told by a neighbor that there were children living there, they raided the downstairs apartment first in order to secure it.  Apparently the girl’s grandmother, when confronted by the police, tried to defend herself and the little girl.  One police officer accidentally fired his weapon (whether this is true is subject to debate) and a bullet struck the little girl, killing her instantly.

In Overkill Balko goes into great detail about the abuse of citizens with this military-style repression.  He mentions the city of Fresno, California, where for many years the SWAT team was used for routine, full-time patrolling in high crime areas. The Violent Crime Suppression Unit, as it was called, was given carte blanche to enter residences and apprehend and search occupants in high-crime, mostly minority neighborhoods. The unit routinely stopped pedestrians without probable cause, searched them, interrogated them, and entered their personal information into a computer. “It’s a war,” one SWAT officer told a reporter from the Nation. Said another, “If you’re 21, male, living in one of these neighborhoods, and you’re not in our computer, then there’s something definitely wrong.” The VCSU was disbanded in 2001 after a series of lawsuits alleging police brutality and wrongful shootings, though officials claim the unit was dissolved because it had “fulfilled its goals” (p. 11).

The Fresno SWAT officer quoted here could have easily added that he was talking about a black male over 21 and that “these neighborhoods” were mostly segregated black communities.  After all, the statistics about race and drug arrests make clear that the rate for black males has consistently been far greater than for white males, as documented by Human Rights Watch, among so many other studies.  Balko quotes a judge in Boston who stated that the drug war in his city was “a proclamation of martial law . . . for a narrow class of people — young blacks” (p. 17).  Peter Kraska was told by a SWAT commander “When the soldiers ride in, you should see those blacks scatter” (Balko, p. 18).

One of the most recent stories of botched drug raids (one of the latest among thousands over the years) is described by WSB News in  Atlanta as follows: An elderly Polk County woman is hospitalized in critical condition after suffering a heart attack when drug agents swarm the wrong house.  Machelle Holl tells WSB her 76-year-old mother, Helen Pruett, who lives alone, was at home when nearly a dozen local and federal agents swarmed her house, thinking they were about to arrest suspected drug dealers.

Another story in Atlanta involves the killing of a 92-year-old black woman who was the victim of a police raid at the wrong address. “When it was clear that the officers had the wrong house because no drugs were found, though, police still decided to plant marijuana on the 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who was shot to death in the raid.”  A wrongful death suit resulted in a settlement for $4.9 million to her family.

The web site stopthedrugwar.org has a long list of similar botched SWAT raids around the country in recent years.  One case is typical: In Buffalo, New York, September 2008, “Terrell Pennyamon, who suffers from epilepsy, was struck in the head by the end of a shotgun when police broke down the door to his family’s residence. Looking for heroin, the cops raided the Pennyamon’s apartment by mistake, terrifying their six young children and his wife. When police later raided the ‘correct’ house, no drugs were found.”

And so it goes in our unrelenting “war” on drugs.  When there is a war, there is “collateral damage.”  Meanwhile, millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs continue to be smuggled into the country every year and millions of citizens continue to use these drugs, while hundreds die needlessly and thousands are sentenced to prison every year.  Since blacks are arrested in numbers far greater than their percentage in the general population (despite the fact that they are about as likely to use drugs as whites) and since a person’s civil rights are taken away from them after an arrest for drugs and they cannot live in public housing, nor vote, among other things, is it any wonder that Michelle Alexander calls her book “The New Jim Crow”?

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All photos in the public domain from Wikimedia Commons

By Jonathan Evans

Twenty-Ten recently saw the nineteenth anniversary of the death of one of the most exciting and revolutionary musicians of the second half of the twentieth century.  In the field of popular music, he’s right up there with The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley.  Of the above, only Dylan, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr still survive. Sadly, Bob Marley is not among them.  He died back in 1981, aged only thirty six — but perhaps the most interesting thing about him is the fact that he is way bigger now than when he died.  His songs and message just keep on spreading and growing in stature.  His music is still played massively all over the world, in Africa, Indonesia, India, the States and Europe; in Jamaica he has achieved god-like status and there are statues erected to him all over that island.

Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the leadsinger, songwriter and guitarist for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands, The Wailers (1964–1974) and Bob Marley and the Wailers (1974–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited for helping spread both Jamaican reggae music and the Rastafarian religion to a worldwide audience.

Marley’s best known hits include “I Shot the Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry”, “Could You Be Loved”, “Stir It Up”, “Jammin”, “Redemption Song”, “One Love” and “Exodus”.  The album Legend, released three years after his death, has sold more than twenty million copies across the world, and just keeps on selling.

Marley started out in Jamaica playing ska music in the Wailers with some local success, but signed with Island Records in 1974 and combined the Jamaican shuffle rhythm with a hot rock backing to virtually create what is now called reggae.  Early on, Eric Clapton recorded a rather limp version of “I Shot the Sheriff” which focused public attention on Marley, who went on to record eleven albums during his short lifetime.  He was a charismatic performer, his long dreadlocks swinging wildly as he sang, and I was lucky to hear him in concert several times.  I’ll never forget seeing him perform at a huge bull-ring show in Ibiza, Spain, with a brilliant full-moon rising up over the rim of the arena as he came on stage to sing “Get up, Stand up” to an explosive roar from the crowd.  I caught him again in London, and three times in New York.  There, fearlessly posing as a High Times Magazine reporter at a press conference, I even met him once and got to talk with him and then hung out with his band, The Wailers, in the dressing room at the Apollo Theater in Harlem after the show.  He was short and intense and it was hard not to be intimidated by his obvious power.  For Bob Marley’s message was always a universal one, not only aimed at Whitey the oppressor, but aimed at oppression existing everywhere.  When I first heard the song “Exodus” in 1977, an incredibly powerful track exhorting all people to leave Babylon and to go to a new Promised Land, I remember thinking that change was in the air.  Marley combined a powerful Messianic message with a fabulous reggae disco beat  surely, nothing could be the same again!  I was naïve and mistaken of course — music might change the way people think but it doesn’t overthrow systems.  The sixties demonstrated that clearly.  But Marley planted the seeds of change where they had never existed before, and over the past two decades, his influence is felt more strongly than ever.

Rastafarianism, the fundamentalist, herb-smoking religion that he expounded, is still strong in Jamaica but its presence in more developed countries looks to be little more than a fad attitude.  Dreadlocks and biblical platitudes cover a multitude of beliefs and sins, and these days, outside of parts of London, Africa and even India, it is hard to see expounders of this faith as more than making a fashion statement.

The music is something else though. As well as writing militant political songs, hedemonst rated over and over again his generous sensitivity by writing and recording some of music’s most impassioned and moving love songs.  “No Woman, No Cry” and “Waiting in Vain” have outstanding melodies coupled with some of the most soulful and expressive lyrics and singing ever.  For a period in the mid to late seventies, he seemed unstoppable to those of us who listened and cared.  He exemplified the voice of the Third World underdog and had enormous critical and commercial success.  But life caught up with him quickly; he developed a melanoma  that killed him just as he hit his prime.

Since Marley’s death, there have been many other reggae stars but none have reached out to cross borders, races and cultures in the way that he did.  He sang to all people and addressed issues which affect us all and still show no sign of being resolved.  As Bob Marley’s message is spread further and further worldwide, there will come a time when his words cannot be ignored.  People must never be judged by their color as they still are all over the world (think about it — how crazy and evil that is!) and one day, a world of equality based on love and mutual respect will surely prevail.  His sons and daughters are all musicians with greater or lesser success, and although none of them have his original vision, his philosophy is still getting out there through them.

“— Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war

That until there are no longer first class
And second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war

That until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all, without regard to race
Dis a war

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be pursued, but never attained
Now everywhere is war, war —”

(Bob Marley- ‘War’)

Dia-de-lluvia

Redemption and Rebirth

There are two major influences that drive an artist in the execution of their work. The fist is internal which is composed of the past and their interpretation of individual memories.  The second is their present which is the current interaction with people and the culture that surrounds them.

There is also a third dimension that separates good artists and great artists. This is the ability to see their place in the future history of art. To have an incredible work ethic and personal sense of accountability that transcends tomorrow and into the years ahead.  It is the pursuit of a dream, and desire to fulfill a destiny.

In the pursuit of his current work he is brutally honest in seeking out the truth of his past, transcribing it into the symbolism of his work today and understanding its impact and value well into the future.

Jean Marc Calvet is like the perfect storm.  Born in Nice, France in 1965, the first 37 years of his life brewed malevolently bringing him to a point well beyond desperation; a hell on earth.  He wanted to end his own life.

The catalyst that bankrupts a human being to the point of emotional, physical, and spiritual madness can be attributed to a multitude of factors, or a single tragic event.  It is the point where all that was familiar and understood begins to slip away into a gray world lacking definition.  It is a place where time holds no relevance or sense of structure; the past and present melt together to create its own distorted sense of unreality.  It is a place where the soul’s monsters celebrate freedom in a frenzied orgy of self destruction and external mayhem.

Whichever road this insidious evil chooses to take, the impact is both devastating and all consuming.

Jean Marc Calvet with his self-portrait, El Otro.

There is only one hope for salvation.  On very rare occasions, the soul is miraculously graced with an exit from this nightmare downward journey with a passage marked “Redemption”.

Calvet discovered his path to salvation; his mission…….to paint.

He is a legitimate self-taught artist, an outsider in every spirit of the word.  His first works were crude explosions of his inner turmoil exploding on any surface that was close with any materials that would leave a trace.

Having never been taught to draw or paint, or ever having had any interest in art, he is a true original.

However as Ed Mc Cormack Managing Editor of Gallery and Studio Magazine said very astutely:

“There is a very real danger for an artist as brilliant as Calvet in having too colorful a back-story.  It is too easy for the legend to flourish at the expense of the art.  (Just think how many people know nothing about van Gogh except that he cut off his ear.)  That Calvet happens to be self-taught only complicates matters.  It could too easily get him relegated to the gilded ghetto of so-called “outsider art” and deprived of his rightful place in the mainstream art world, where he most definitely belongs, given the innate sophistication of his vision and the accomplished technique with which he makes it manifest on canvas. ”

A retrospective view of his work shows a distinct and stepped development in his technical and artistic skills over the years.  However the work is always definitively recognizable as the product of Calvet with hallmarks that remain constant.

Seven years on, Calvet delivers a marked sophistication in his works that adds clarity yet maintains the spirit of the true brut style that birthed him as an artist.  His repertoire of colors continues to develop giving a richness that further enhances his work. The large scale of his works adds to the impressive impact they make.  He has continued to increase his canvases on occasion giving him ample room to evoke his stories with subjects that still explode out of a Pandora’s Box with his own brand of manmade monsters.  Each of his creatures is vivid with emotion and their own individual stories.  Now instead of the creatures wreaking havoc on Calvet personally, he is able to release them and imprison them on canvas.

Collage of Jean Marc Calvet by Larry Hamill

Calvet works with a ferocity that defies most; often working non-stop until a work is complete.  He is regularly found to be painting 12-18 hour days and so despite the intensity and detail required to complete one work, he is able to turn out a generous volume of work.  It is this work ethic and an accountability that he shows in his work of his prior life and his pursuit of a bright future that ensures the dynamism of his work.  Despite his output, the works are never repetitive or tired.  His commitment to the creativity that wells from within him is absolute.

Today, Calvet is based in Granada, Nicaragua.  He has exhibited his work in Europe, the United States and South America including several solo shows in New York and Nicaragua.  His work is held in several private collections and work is about to placed in several museums.  His life story has also been captured in a feature documentary which is planned to premier next year.

Calvet is a charismatic man, warm and generous.  On first impressions you might not imagine him to be the source of his paintings.  However salvation can be a slippery slope and he understands the warning:

“Those who forget where they came from are bound to relive their past”

Looking at Jean Marc Calvet’s paintings allows you to experience an explosive visual arts experience and glimpse the depths of his soul from the safety of the other side of the canvas, a place that he also stands today thanks to the grace of redemption.

-Bob Hogghe,  Monkdogz Gallery,  New York

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Jean Marc Calvet began painting at a point in is life when severe crisis metamorphosed into a form of redemption and rebirth. With no training, he discovered the need to paint by complete chance.

Not only did it save him but it changed his life. Art is his catharsis and his evolution has been astounding. For him, it is about exorcising the insanity of his past and slapping down on canvas the dirty truth of life. He paints 14 hours a day, seven days a week and lives now in Nicaragua.

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“Yo pinto por necesidad …. sin pensar, una especie de automatismo libre.  Dejo que mi inconsciente dirija  mi mano. Cultivando  las obsesiones, los miedos, seguramente para poder sentir y apreciar las buenas cosas de la vida.

“Yo creo que los artistas ante de todo son antenas, receptor de emociones, puertas, pasaje adentro de diferentes mundos.

“En mis pinturas cada personaje esta lleno de historias, creaturas,  un movimiento permanente de muerte, amor, sexo, de vida simplemente. Somos hechos de detalles nuestra vidas están  ritmadas por ellos, sin ellos no existimos……….. Nos volvemos trasparente.

“Afuera somos palabras y adentro somos colores …”

-Jean Marc Calvet

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To view others works including his poetry visit: http://jmcalvet.com

Copyright © 2010 – Jean Marc Calvet

A Path in Delta, oil on canvas, 23.6” x 19.7”, 2010

A wonderful state of mind

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The Artist’s View

The matter of landscape as a state of mind is essentially a very vast domain.

The landscape in art is an expression of the human spirit, particularly due to the communion of man with nature, his material and spiritual house. Each man is part of a matrix, of a specific universe, a part of an area with individualist and morphologic character. Each of us feels a resonance in front of a pattern, created in our minds by the very area we grew up in, the places of our childhood where our character was formed.

No matter where we then go in life, we carry these marks of our memory. Landscape and nature have surrounded me since I was a little child, they gave me the joy of a deep and truthful living and I have always been attached to the clear atmosphere of the marks of my own memory, rooted in my own space. Whether it is abstraction, expression or impression, they are all related to the representation of the same motif: nature displayed through landscape.

Nature is for me as a basis for the comfort of the soul, reverie, calm and faith. I had different views on my artistic itinerary, different representations of the same universal motif, nature.

This work represents a synthesis of my artistic and expression research of the last years.

Reeds on Water

The essential motivation of choosing this analysis theme comes from my belief in  the force of expression of the landscape, the simple message of nature and its echo in our souls, the state of mind conveyed by the landscape (whether on a macro or micro level).

“My motivation is purely pictorial, it is the art of turning the landscape into a wonderful state of mind.”

— Claudiu Presecan

A Curator’s View

“…In the creative strategy of this creation stage (solidly underlain in theory by the systematic investigation of the impressionist painting) the primordial factor of provocation is nature – pure existence, homogenous, non-sequential and all-comprehensive, while the motivation of the pictorial act is the re-experience of a paradisiacal state, of total participation at the mysteries of a genuine nature, of grand expansive vitality: the nature of the Danube Delta.

And the reeds and the water lilies – innate beauty from waters, are felt as a real archetypal symbol of this miraculous and fascinating encounters with moving still waters, earth flooded with vegetation and sun bathed skies – which is the Delta. To this nature, which ignores anthropomorphism (as it is ready only to attract, absorb and protect the fragile human being) the artist relates as to a constant and explicit guiding mark (he doesn’t suppress the natural referent nor does he put it in brackets), but he considers the referential activity from a double perspective; the one of his own sensitivity of poetic essence and of his endowment of colorist and drawer – admirably polished by a sustained atelier practice) and the cultural perspective of the passionate dialogue with an already existent visual code: the morphologic and syntactic code of the impressionist art. In other words, the artist proposes, in an attractive and persuasive way, a dialogue style of his own (with undisguised cultural appetence) with a style historically constituted (in the 19th century) long persistent (towards the half of the 20th century) in the modern painting and assertively re-introduced in actuality (in different aspects), in post-modernity. The reception charm, the lyrical exultance of the immediate experience are expressed in simple and undulating forms, built with a simple drawing, in a fluid and sonant color, dominated by cold accords – only partially autonomous in relationship with the motif: virtuous drawing and vibrant chromatics, masterly enhanced in value by the excellent domination of the white extended with oriental refinement on large surfaces. Besides this explosive hedonism, the intensity of the artist’s sight is exerted stupendously in the decoding (in the very act of painting with detached gesture) of sub-adjacent dynamic structures, of an expressive order, beyond the strict horizon of appearances. Clear and aired, refined without ostentation and lyric without sentimentalism, the images of the reeds and water lilies – crossed by harmonious rhythms, with expressive accents and energetic resonances, become spaces, without any narrative ballast, of some thrilling communication ritual with a fraternal, cordial cosmos.  Each and every one of them composes a sensitive pictorial essay about a personal poetics of purity.”

—Dr. Livia Drăgoi, Director, Art Museum Cluj-Napoca, 2008

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born on April 12, 1969 in Cluj-Napoca, a city located deep in the heart of Romania’s legendary Transylvania, Claudiu Presecan received his B.F.A. from the Cluj-Napoca High School of Fine Arts in 1987. From there, he pursued graduate studies in painting at the Cluj-Napoca Visual Arts Academy which ultimately lead to his earning a Masters of Fine Arts. He has exhibited in Romania, Denmark, South Africa, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Turkey, Canada and United States.

The famous Transylvanian silversmiths, Sacks and Szeckler, together with Judaic, Armenian and Turkish artists, brought about a special contribution to the expressive fusion of Transylvanian art. This provided inspiration for contemporary Romanian artists. Presecan’s art reflects the period of graphic art borne between traditional and modern language, and contributes to modern Romanian culture — a fresh contrast to Transylvania’s legendary, dark history.

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website and blog:  http://www.presecan.com/

email: claudiu@presecan.com

HOW DOES IT FEEL?

How does a god feel when
trees and bushes turn green
without asking for his blessing?

How does a tree feel
when its leaves start turning pale?

How do the pale leaves feel when
the tree starts letting go of them?

How does a breeze feel
when a lull stops it in its tracks?

How does a star feel when
being slowly snuffed out by dawn?

How does a window feel when night comes
and it has nothing to show outside?

How does a door feel when
there’s no one to keep out?

How does a car feel with the hood up
standing idle by the road?

How does a page feel left blank?

How does a bird feel high in the sky
on suddenly forgetting how to fly?

How does a fish feel
about the world above the surface?

How does a pen feel when words
walk off the page and fly unaided
over a puddle of eyes and ears?

How does a feeling feel
in a paralyzed breast
running out of sighs?

MY WINTER IN DEBRECZEN

(Egy telem Debreczenben)  By Sándor Petőfi,

translated from the Hungarian by Paul Sohar

Hey, you town of Debreczen,
how often you taunt my mind
with the suffering you gave to me!..
And yet you remain
a beloved and kind
guest in my memory.

A papist I am surely not,
yet I fasted there a lot.
Good thing the gods made mortal teeth
out of bone by wise design. No doubt,
had my teeth been made of steel,
they would’ve surely rusted out.

In the middle of a raw
winter of snow and sleet
my stove ran out of straw
and I slept without a whiff of heat.
Putting on my worn-out set
of rags I could easily recite
with the gypsy caught in a net:
“Must be real cold outside!”

The only help to me
was my poetry!
But how to record my riff
with fingers frozen stiff?
At last I hit upon the very thing,
kept my fingers twisted tight
around my always burning pipe,
till the welcome breeze of spring.

And what got me through the fast,
I’d fasted much worse in the past.

Egy telem Debrecenben

Hej, Debrecen,
Ha rád emlékezem!…
Sokat szenvedtem én tebenned,
És mindamellett
Oly jól esik nekem,
Ha rád emlékezem, -

Pápista nem vagyok.
És mégis voltak böjtjeim, pedig nagyok.
Jó, hogy az embernek csontfoga van,
Ezt bölcsen rendelék az istenek,
Mert hogyha vas lett volna a fogam,
A rozsda ette volna meg.

Aztán a télnek kellő közepében
Kifogya szépen
A fűtőszalmám,
S hideg szobában alvám.
Ha fölvevém kopott gubám,
Elmondhatám,
Mint a cigány, ki a hálóból néze ki:
“Juj, be hideg van odaki’!”

S az volt derék,
Ha verselék!
Ujjam megdermedt a hidegben,
És ekkor mire vetemedtem?
Hát mit tehettem egyebet?
Égő pipám
Szorítgatám,
Míg a fagy végre engedett.

Ez ínségben csak az vigasztala,
Hogy ennél már nagyobb ínségem is vala.

NATIONAL CALL

(Nemzeti dal)  by Sándor Petőfi,

translated from the Hungarian by Paul Sohar

Rise you Magyars, heed the call!
It’s now or never, do not stall!
Shall we live enslaved or free?
Choose your chains or liberty.
On the God of Hungary
We swear,
We swear,
No more chains for us to bear!

Too long we have been prisoners,
The victims of an evil curse.
Our forebears lived and died unbound,
hey cannot rest in servile ground.
On the God of Hungary
We swear,
We swear,
No more chains for us to bear!

Only a knave is too afraid
To perish in his country’s aid
And values his wretched life above
His homeland’s honor and its love.
On the God of Hungary
We swear,
We swear,
No more chains for us to bear!

The sword is brighter than the chain,
The arm looks better in its flame.
Then why the shackles tied on fast?
Let us grab our swords at last!
On the God of Hungary
We swear,
We swear,
No more chains for us to bear!

Hungary will shine again,
Worthy of its golden name;
We shall wash it clean of dirt
Smeared on it by years’ of hurt!
On the God of Hungary
We swear,
We swear,
No more chains for us to bear!

In our graveyard on a hill,
On their knees our children will
Bless our tombstones and declaim
On them every holy name.
On the God of Hungar   We swear,
We swear,
No more chains for us to bear!

Nemzeti dal

Talpra magyar, hí a haza!
Itt az idő, most vagy soha!
Rabok legyünk vagy szabadok?
Ez a kérdés, válasszatok! –
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

Rabok voltunk mostanáig,
Kárhozottak ősapáink,
Kik szabadon éltek-haltak,
Szolgaföldben nem nyughatnak.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

Sehonnai bitang ember,
Ki most, ha kell, halni nem mer,
Kinek drágább rongy élete,
Mint a haza becsülete.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

Fényesebb a láncnál a kard,
Jobban ékesíti a kart,
És mi mégis láncot hordtunk!
Ide veled, régi kardunk!
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

A magyar név megint szép lesz,
Méltó régi nagy hiréhez;
Mit rákentek a századok,
Lemossuk a gyalázatot!
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

Hol sírjaink domborulnak,
Unokáink leborulnak,
És áldó imádság mellett
Mondják el szent neveinket.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

(Pest, 1848. március 13.)

(This poem, written in March 1848 and recited by the poet at public gatherings, ignited a revolution against the Hapsburg rule over Hungary. Footnote by the translator.)

Excerpts below are reproduced in cooperation
with Kitchen Caravan. For more delightful
and exotic recipes and cultural insights, visit
http://www.kitchencaravan.com

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Summer 2010

By Emma Piper Burket

THE IRAQI SEED PROJECT                                           VOLUME 3, SUMMER 2010

In the days of yore a farmer gave (these) instructions to his son… Your implements should be ready. The parts of your yoke should be assembled. Your new whip should hang from a nail — the bindings of the handle of your old whip should be repaired by artisans. The adze, drill and saw, your tools and your strength, should be in good order. Let braided thongs, straps, leather wrappings and whips be attached securely. Let your sowing basket be checked, and its sides made strong. What you need for the field should be at hand. Inspect your work carefully.         - from “the first farmer’s almanac,” an ancient tablet from 1500 BCE found in Nippur, Iraq in 1949

Your gardens and local farmer’s markets are likely in full bloom as we enjoy the last weeks of summer; look around at some of the bounty: cucumbers, melons, apricots, grapes, peas, onions, okra… these crops have been growing in Iraq for thousands of years.  Maybe when you take your next bite you will think of the farmers in Iraq who are enjoying similar tastes and textures so far away.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Editing begins: Since returning from our June filming trip, we have been editing and organizing footage, photographs and audio files. We hope to share some of the material with you soon… To do this we need to build our website’s library: You can help!

• Seeds of Kurdistan: We are happy to announce the launching of our latest initiative. This website celebrates the agricultural traditions of Iraqi Kurdistan and will also provide training materials for the region’s farmers.

• Facebook- you can now keep track of the latest news of agricultural activities in Iraq as well as what’s happening at The Iraqi Seed Project by following us on facebook.

NEWS, LINKS & THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

• The Tiziano Project just wrapped up a summer workshop in Erbil, training local journalists in new media skills. Watch the video Zana Mamundy, one of their students, produced about grain growers in Mahkmour.

• Wheat Fleet: August 19-21st we are floating a portion of the Willamette River to promote local grain growing in Oregon. 

• In June we visited the Farmer Kamal outside of Erbil, after a tour of his farm he invited us for a delicious home-grown lunch. Here is a very simple recipe for bulgur, or cracked wheat, prepared the way farmer Kamal makes it:

-2 cups bulgur

-1 onion

-olive oil or ghee

-4 cups chicken (or vegetable) broth

-salt, and seasonings to taste

Chop the onions and sauté them in oil with a heavy bottomed pot, add the bulgur and seasonings, pour over the broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until broth is nearly absorbed. Turn off heat and allow to steam for 5 minutes.

ON THE ROAD

This Fall The Iraqi Seed Project is going on tour, collecting messages for Iraqi farmers and offering a sneak peak of our film; contact us about scheduling a farm visit, rough cut screening or fundraising event at a community center or school in your area. Check the website for upcoming dates in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington DC.

DONATE

As you know, we are in the process of editing and building The Iraqi Seed Project‘s library on our website. We are currently operating with zero funding. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation through Arts Engine, our fiscal sponsor, so that we may continue our work!

SHARE

And of course… we are still collecting images, articles, essays, videos and links for the library— remember you don’t have to be an expert to participate. Be part of our knowledge exchange and share what you know about Iraq, sustainable agriculture, seed saving, biodiversity, or home gardening.

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May-June

On the road to BAGHDAD

THE IRAQI SEED PROJECT: (LATE) SPRING 2010

Website is up and running for The Iraqi Seed Project – Visit www.iraqiseedproject.com to learn more about what Emma & friends are up to and ways you can get involved.

• Ready to go: The team left the first week of June for a filming trip to Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Internet reports will be a bit spotty, but whenever possible, they will post notes and photos on the Field Journal section of the website — so check there for updates. We will be spending our time in Northern Iraq with the Kurdish Ministry of Agriculture, on small farms in the area, and visiting some USDA project sites around Baghdad.

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Mint Julep en Rose

Explore More Recipes:

Fizz à la Violette

The Andalus

Mint Tea Martini

Adapted from The Gentleman’s Companion: An Exotic Drinking Book

6 sprigs of mint
1 teaspoon sugar + 1 teaspoon rose syrup

OR

2 teaspoons sugar + 1 tablespoon rose water

1 ounce bourbon

Juice of ½ lime

Garnish: Marachino cherry and/or edible flowers

Muddle 2 sprigs of the mint, the sugar, and rose syrup or rose water in a martini shaker. Make sure you muddle well to get the essence of the mint extracted. Add in a good amount of ice. Pour over the bourbon and add 2 more sprigs of mint (unbruised) and the lime juice. Shake it up really well and pour into a glass filled with ice and top with the remaining 2 sprigs of mint and a colorful edible flower.

Serves 1.

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March April

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Freekeh and Garbanzo Pilaf

This is a very healthy vegetarian dish that is high in fiber and full of Mediterranean flavor.  Freekeh is wheat that has been harvested while still very young, and thus is very high in protein, vitamins, and minerals.  It has a slightly smoky flavor due to the way the wheat is processed after harvest, so it pairs well with mellow flavors, such as beans and chicken.  This recipe calls for cooking the beans from scratch, but feel free to use canned garbanzos for a faster version.  The “Short” sauce is a light pesto that adds a zing of herbs and lemon to sharpen the taste of the dish at the end.

For the Garbanzos:

½ cup dried garbanzo beans, soaked at least 4 hours
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic
1 sprig thyme
a few black peppercorns

For the Pilaf:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup yellow onion, small dice
¼ cup carrot, peeled, small dice
¼ cup fennel, small dice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Pinch of cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup freekeh, rinsed and soaked for 30 minutes
cups vegetable broth

Short Sauce:

1 ½ cups fresh cilantro, rinsed and roughly chopped
1 cup parsley, rinsed and roughly chopped
1 sprig mint, leaves roughly chopped
½ cup pinenuts, lightly toasted
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt to taste (about ¼ teaspoon)

For the Garbanzos:

Drain the garbanzos of their soaking liquid.

Place in a medium sized pot and cover with about 3 cups fresh water.  Add the rest of the ingredients (you can place them in a bouquet garni bag if you want) and bring the water up to a boil.  Simmer until the garbanzos are cooked through.  Drain, remove the aromatics, and set aside.

To Prepare the Pilaf:

Heat up the olive oil in a medium sized pot.  Sweat the onion, carrot, fennel, and garlic until the onion and fennel appear translucent.  Add the spices and a pinch of salt, and stir for another minute or two.  Drain the freekeh of its soaking liquid and add it to the pot.  Stir everything together so that the freekeh is well integrated, and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring gently.  Pour over the broth and bring to a simmer.  Cover the pot and let cook for 30 minutes.  Add the garbanzos and continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes, or until the liquid has been absorbed and the wheat is cooked through.  Keep in mind that these are wheat berries, so they will have a slightly chewy texture and will not be completely soft.

Make the short sauce by blending all of the ingredients together until coarsely chopped, you do not want a smooth puree.  Spoon a bit of the sauce into the pot and stir to combine.  Serve while warm.

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For more recipes from around the world, visit
Kitchen Caravan on-line.

Kitchen Caravan was started by Sophia Brittan and Emma Piper-Burket  in January of 2007 to provide an online resource for healthy eating and cultural education with quality content and a valuable learning experience.
Check it out. Archives explore foods from around the world.

Leaving Lamu

I wake up at 4 a.m. It’s December 29^th, the day I leave East Africa. I’m at the end of a disappointing exhausting writers’ conference. I expected white sand beaches and superb seafood. I hoped for a tranquil transforming experience.
After five days on Lamu Island I can’t wait to leave. At 2 p.m. I’ll be on a dhow headed for the airport. Ten hours is too long to wait. I want to go now.
I’m exhausted, soaked with sweat and irritable. My $50.00 tomb-like room is unbearable. I feel trapped in its dark close dinginess. Dead insects are stuck in the grayish mosquito-netting enclosing the bed. There’s no closet. The bathroom is narrow and minuscule.
The shower worked when I first arrived, a trickle of cool water against the stone walls. There’s been no water in my room for three days. There’s been no power in my room for three nights. Without electricity the fan doesn’t work. One small window opens in the room.
There is another window in the bathroom but I leave it closed. A local family lives on the roof just outside the window. They cook, do chores and sleep there. They talk excitedly and laugh a lot.
The two adult men look like father and son. They wear white kanzu robes and kofia caps. The three women are swathed in black bui-buis. Only their eyes are visible. The barefoot children wear western shorts and tees. Several donkeys share the living space. They wake up before dawn, braying. Everyone seems happy.
Lamu is a Muslim city. People are religious. One of the many mosques is across the alley from my hotel. The mosque is shabby with crumbling walls. The call to prayer is haunting and beautiful.
My hotel was arranged by the conference. I’m in Old Town, miles away from the air-conditioned expensive resort hotels, surrounded by looming coral-block buildings with peeling paint and narrow muddy alleys. This was a mecca for the slave trade. Now tourism supports the island.
Before we arrived the conference staff told us the island was like going back in time. That during the ’60s and ’70s, it was a hippie refuge. There are still some long-haired weathered men hanging around, especially at Petley’s bar, drinking beer and negotiating with the teenage prostitutes.
Lamu’s streets are winding dirt paths. The intricate and old sewage system drains into them. Donkeys with carts are everywhere. On the shorefront donkeys walk alone and at night sleep unattended in the dirt. There is no escaping the donkeys. Donkey shit is everywhere. So are hovering glistening flies. The smell is nauseating.
My first night at the hotel the donkeys scared me. I had no idea what the sinister, distressing, discordant sounds were. The donkeys’ braying is why I’m awake so early. That and stomach problems. The cramps and diarrhea started after last night’s lobster dinner. It was supposed to be a celebration.
I ate with Ellaraine, a poet from Sunnyvale, who traveled with me from San Francisco.
“To my sister survivor,” she toasted.
“To surviving,” I said.
Then we parted and I left for my inland hotel, carrying a flashlight in the dark, heart pounding as I fearfully navigated narrow alleys, rushing by shadowy robed men hovering in entryways, until I arrived at Janat House, my hotel with the attentive staff and picturesque roof terraces, proudly promoted pool and bar, but horrible room.
I check the time again, 4:30 a.m. I’m facing thirty-six hours of traveling.  My stomach’s messed up. I rip aside the mosquito netting and rush to the bathroom. I need Imodium. The toilet doesn’t flush. When I try the sink there’s no water.
I’m having breakfast in the hotel dining room. It’s a lovely open space overlooking a garden. But with no electricity the fans don’t work. At 8 a.m. the air is already oppressively hot and humid.
The staff person assigned to me is inordinately cheery. Habib cleans my room, cooks and serves my breakfast. He’s young and constantly smiles. I tell him I just want tea and toast today.
“No omelet, fruit?” he asks. He reminds me there is gas to cook the eggs with. “Doesn’t matter the power is out,” he says.
“My stomach,” I tell him, shaking my head.
I’m already packed and ready to go. To lighten my luggage I’ve decided to leave things I don’t need behind, to let Habib have them. My gym shoes encrusted with mud and donkey shit, bags of peppered cashews from Nairobi, sunscreen, body lotion and insect spray. I leave my loose Kenyan change on the table.
After breakfast I go to the hotel desk.  “I’ll be checking out this morning,” I say.
“But you must wait for the porters,” the receptionist tells me. She wears slinky silky western dresses and has long braided hair.  Like all the hotel staff she works twelve hour days. “They’ll be here for you at 2:00pm.” She smiles a lot too.
“I can carry my own bags. Besides, I want to leave earlier. The dhow leaves at 2:30 p.m. I don’t want to miss it.”
“No, it’s been arranged by the people you came with.”
Arguing seems pointless. I leave my bags and tell her I’ll be gone a couple of hours. I head for the shorefront. I’m sweating. My clothes are already wet.
I stop at Bush Gardens Restaurant and take a table by the street. I’m the only customer. There are several men behind the counter but they ignore me. After what seems like too long a wait I go to the counter and ask for service.
I don’t know why I’m being ignored. Does my tension show? Do they think I’m strange, an aging wrinkly woman with a gold nose ring and burgundy hair, wearing a black camisole and yoga pants?
Twenty minutes later I order a banana shake, hoping it will settle my stomach. It takes almost an hour to prepare. I tell myself I have nothing else to do. I’m better off killing time here than at the hotel.
I stare at the Indian Ocean. Now that I’m leaving I can admire the brightly painted red dhows, small children playing in indigo water, the sound of an unseen woman giggling, the pungent smell of cumin and sewage. I try to take it all in, figuring I’ll never come back.
I want to be positive but a lot of this trip has been hard for me. I feel old and tired. I’m not as flexible as I used to be.
When I traveled to Israel in my twenties everything was an adventure. I met a brown-skinned sabra whose family came from Yemen. I didn’t care that he gambled away my money. We slept on the beach in Eilat. We had exciting Dexedrine-fueled sex and guzzled Maccabee beer. Sometimes we smoked hashish or opium. I lived on falafel sandwiches and Turkish coffee. I lost weight and loved being skinny.
When he left I should’ve been devastated but wasn’t. Thirty years ago, with my life ahead of me, it was easy to be flexible. Now I’m more rigid and need control. I don’t have time for misery or mishap.
I don’t notice the waterfront hustler until he’s standing by my side. Uninvited he sits across from me.
“I have a special for you, special for ladies staying at the Lamu Palace,” he announces with a suggestive smile.
The Lamu Palace is one of the fancier waterfront hotels in Old Town. It’s where several people from the conference stayed and for the extra $15.00 per night I was sorry I hadn’t.
“I’m not at the Palace,” I say.
“No problem. You want massage?”
“No.”
“But this is special massage. You understand, just for the ladies?”
“I’m not interested,” I tell him. “And I don’t want company.”
“No problem. Don’t worry,” he says, and saunters off.
He’s young enough to be my grandson. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry but I’m glad this is my final day in Lamu.
When I pay the bill it seems like the waiter is leering at me. I feel myself flush with embarrassment. Then my stomach cramps and I don’t care.
“Where’s the toilet?” I ask. He directs me to the rear of the restaurant, across an open storage room. The toilet is clogged and the floor is wet. I have terrible diarrhea.
I leave the restaurant and head one block inland to the main street, hoping to find a drugstore. After walking up and down the crowded alley, jostled by donkeys and strolling three-abreast men, I find a pharmacy. The clerk takes me to a side room and reaching into a large bin shows me a handful of capsules.
“For your stomach,” she says.
When I ask what they are she shrugs.
“Do you have anything in a sealed package?” I ask.
She takes me to the main part of the store and brings out a local equivalent of Imodium. “This is more expensive,” she says.
I buy the medication but don’t take it. I don’t know what it is. I’m afraid of the side effects. I’m afraid, period.
By the time I return to my hotel it’s noon. Habib is waiting for me with the receptionist. They both seem upset.
“You left your belongings,” the receptionist says. “We need the room.”
I look at Habib.  “What’s left is for you. Take what you want and throw out the rest,” I tell him.
He doesn’t thank me. He doesn’t smile. His face is a mask.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I say.
I’m embarrassed by my thoughtlessness. The cliché Ugly American, assuming he’d be grateful for my garbage.
“I’ll get the things from my room,” I tell the receptionist.
“Habib will do it,” she says. Her voice is cold.
“I’m sorry,” I say. My voice is shaky.
Their eyebrows lift with mistrust. Their smiles are gone. They disappear behind the receptionist’s counter.
With the conference over, the hotel has emptied out. I wish I’d left the day before, with everyone else. But a few of us had flights scheduled a day later.
With no place to go I head for the pool. A man and woman who arrived last night are the only ones there. They’re in their thirties and wearing full safari gear. Her large silver hoop earrings have turned her skin black. I wonder if she knows. They both look hot and uncomfortable. The pool-waiter brings them a menu and they decide on spaghetti.
I call the waiter over and order a glass of white wine. It takes a while. When I drink it my stomach feels better. I order another. I feel light-headed. I can’t wait to leave.
At 2 p.m. I go to the hotel desk. There’s no one to take my bags. I decide to carry them myself.
“No, the porters are coming for you,” the receptionist says. “No reason for worry.”
I’m too tired to argue.
Ten minutes later two porters arrive. They’re streaming sweat. They take my bags but say we have to wait. The couple by the pool is coming too. They pay for their spaghetti. They go to their room. I’m afraid of missing the boat and. pace anxiously around the courtyard. Finally at 2:20 p.m. they’re ready.
The porters put our bags in a wheelbarrow and we leave. The porters are jogging, telling us to rush. By the time we get to the shorefront and the dock we’re all dripping and breathless.
A crowded dhow is at the floating dock. We rush down a rope ladder to the boat. The porters come too. “For your luggage,” they say.
There is one person from the conference on the boat. I don’t see Ellaraine who’s also leaving today. We speed along the water getting sprayed as the boat tilts from side to side. Finally we arrive at the Lamu airport.
The porters insist on carrying my bags. The dirt road is hot and dusty. When we get to the outside waiting area one porter asks for 500 shillings. When I give it to him he wants another 500 for his friend. I don’t see the couple from my hotel paying but hand over another 500 shillings. It’s only fourteen dollars. I don’t want to argue. I just want to leave.
I finally see Ellaraine arriving. Her fancier hotel had a private boat. I’m the only one from the conference flying Air Kenya. The others are on Safari Link and go to a different area, leaving me alone.
Chattering vacationers surround me. One middle-aged woman is covered with mosquito bites. Others look tanned and relaxed, dressed in expensive resort clothes.
My stomach cramps. I go to the outside toilet. I’m dehydrated but afraid to drink. I have a headache. Probably the wine wasn’t a good idea.
The waiting area has narrow wooden benches and an open thatched roof. I hear people talking about the weather, saying the heat is unusual.
“Thank god for the hotel air-conditioning,” one man says. He has a British accent.
“That’s so,” his friend answers. “Old Town was hard hit. No power to most places, rolling blackouts at best.”
“Why we never stay there,” the first man says.
I didn’t know the weather was abnormally hot. Would I have felt better, knowing? The staff at the hotel, the waiters at the restaurants, the shopkeepers…were they all suffering too? While the resorts used up their power. Didn’t the locals care?
What do the Muslim families think of the tourists who vacation in their city? Do they resent our money and privilege? Flaunting our wealth, buying clothing and trinkets we don’t need. In and out of the main street stores, bargaining over pennies, buying, buying.
Before giving up on shopping I went to Ali’s, the most popular store for clothing. A musty cubicle of bright fabric crowded with western women waiting for the handsome young proprietor. He had curly hair and wore a black Rolling Stones t-shirt with gauzy white pants. He smelled of cigarettes and sweat.
“I make you Swahili dress. Sexy, beautiful,” he told a well-preserved American blond.
She ordered four dresses in sheer gold-threaded fabrics—turquoise and scarlet stripes, purple, emerald and lime. She took a handful of his cards.
“I’ll give them to my friends,” she said.
He shook her hand and smiled. The two older men sitting in the shop nodded. Were they his relatives? Or maybe the real owners, watching the charismatic Ali work his magic.
I bought two shawls I didn’t need. I felt nauseous from the heat. The big toe on my right foot was blistered. As I left I heard Ali and the old men laughing.
My whole time in Lamu I felt sorry for the locals. I pitied their poverty. But maybe I was wrong. Their families are intact, they have religion and tradition. They seem content, even happy. Maybe they felt sorry for me.
Perhaps with time I’ll think about this trip differently. Without the blinders of culture shock, be able to appreciate the place and the people. Maybe return someday, with the confidence of a returning visitor.
But I’m not there yet. I won’t be for awhile. I can’t wait to leave Lamu.
When the plane arrives I want to scream with joy. Instead I get my bags and cross the dirt field to the plane. I can’t wait to be home. I’ve had enough adventure.

About the author:
Myra Sherman was a finalist in the 2006 SLS-Kenya Fiction Contest and the 2006 Moment-Karma Short Fiction Award. An excerpt from her novel in progress, “Mother Mary”, was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Best Start 50 List for June 2009. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, and her non-fiction in Ars Medica and JMWW.

A girl attends a ceremony in Duk Payuel in December 2009. One out of every seven children in southern Sudan dies before his or her fifth birthday, according to United Nations' "Scary Statistics -- Southern Sudan" report.

©2009 Michelle Gable

Lost Boys returned to Sudan

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In December 2009, I traveled to southern Sudan with former Syracuse Post-Standard reporter Maureen Sieh, who won a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists. We spent three weeks following four former Lost Boys, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who returned to their home villages to build clinics, schools and wells.

Villagers greet former “lost boys” as they returned to their village in southern Sudan.

In 1987, John Dau, Gabriel Bol Deng, Daniel Amet and Angelo Kiir were among 27,000 boys sent fleeing across the East African desert when northern government soldiers ravaged their villages during the civil war in southern Sudan. Thousands died of diseases, gunfire, and attacks by wild animals. Dau, Deng, Amet, and Kiir made it to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and eventually found a home in Syracuse in 2001. Everything they have done to build a new life in Syracuse has been devoted to the cause of helping their communities back home.

As adults, these former Lost Boys of Sudan, named after the fictional characters in “Peter Pan,” are bringing hope to their homeland. Here are some photographs from my travels.

— Michelle Gabel, Syracuse, N.Y.  April 2010

Michelle Gabel

[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_01sudan.jpg"]
A woman walks toward The Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan. Burning cow dung creates a lot of smoke and is used to repel flies and mosquitoes, which carry harmful diseases. Malaria is hyper-endemic in southern Sudan. The Duk Lost Boys Clinic was initiated by former Lost Boy, John Dau, of Syracuse, N.Y. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_02sudan.jpg"]
A woman in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, cares for her family's cows. Cows symbolize wealth in southern Sudan. Men use cows to pay dowry for a young woman they want to marry. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_04sudan.jpg"]
Martha Aman Mayen lead villagers of Duk Payuel in prayer and songs. Southern Sudan is predominantly Christian and animist. Northern Sudan is Islamic. During Sudan's civil war, the northern government attempted to convert the south to Islam. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_05sudan.jpg"]
Mary Atit Thong, 75, holds one end of a stick as her daughter leads her home after visiting The Duk Lost Boys Clinic, a five-minute walk from their home. She came to the clinic in December because she had diarrhea, but she also wanted to restore her vision. When northern Arab soldiers returned to Duk Payuel during the Civil War in 1994, a soldier beat her with the butt of his gun. She lost her vision in 2005. "My eye is always in pain," she said. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_07sudan.jpg"]
Alang Majuk Manyang, 16, right, traveled two hours to the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, to give birth to her son, Akim Mathei. Her husband, Mathei Bol Atem, is shown with her, holding their baby. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_08sudan.jpg"]
Juliana Cheruiyot, a Kenyan midwife, cut the umbilical cord off Juliana Mayon within minutes after she was born at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in December. A traditional birth attendant is shown in the background. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_09sudan.jpg"]
Achol Akim Aleu holds her 2 1/2-year-old son, Akoy Malual, as nurse Paul Aleer tries to find the child's vein to draw blood. Behind Aleu is Samuel Juma Malual, clinical officer at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel. Akoy came with a running nose and cough. He was diagnosed with pneumonia. "Everybody gets respiratory diseases because of the weather and congestion in the village," Malual said. "Sometimes five people sleep in one room on the floor. We try to teach them two people in one room." Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_11sudan.jpg"]
Rebecca Aliet dances before receiving her certificate for completing the traditional birth attendant workshop organized in December by the Duk Lost Boys Clinic. Aliet was one of 25 women who learned how to deliver healthy babies. Traditional birth attendants are the mothers and grandmothers who deliver most of the babies in southern Sudan, but many of them are not trained. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_14sudan.jpg"]
An elementary school student in Duk Payuel practices English as a classmate rests in the tree above. More than 90 percent of children in southern Sudan attend school under trees. Eighty-five percent of adults in southern Sudan do not know how to read or write. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_15sudan.jpg"]
A young boy manages a rice stall in downtown Duk Payuel, where there are no stores or major markets. People usually put their money together and then send someone to a market about 12 hours away to buy lentil, rice, oil, soap and other goods to sell in the village. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_16sudan.jpg"]
When southern Sudan officials came to Duk Payuel to encourage people to vote in the upcoming multiparty national election in April 2010, villagers killed a cow in celebration. The officials also encouraged people to stop the interethnic fighting because instability in the area could affect the January 2011 referendum vote for independence from the North. A UN helicopter that carried the officials to Duk Payuel is shown in the background. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_17sudan.jpg"]
Three children in Duk Payuel watch a United Nations helicopter take off after southern Sudan officials came to the village to encourage people to vote in April in the first multiparty election in 24 years. They also encouraged people to stop the interethnic fighting because instability in the area could affect the January 2011 referendum vote to separate from the northern government. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_22sudan.jpg"]
Saint Josephine Bakita Clinic will focus on women and children said Daniel Amet, a former employee at St. Joseph Hospital and Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., who built the clinic and drilled two water wells in his home village, Malakalel, in southern Sudan. The clinic is shown in the background middle right. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_27sudan.jpg"]
Women sing and dance as Gabriel Bol Deng, of Syracuse, visits Ariang, his home village, for the third time since fleeing the war in 1987. He has raised nearly $200,000 for Ariang to build a school and wells. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_29sudan.jpg"]
Gabriel Bol Deng greets Awien Koth, a relative, shortly after he arrived in Ariang on a sunny Sunday morning in December. Koth, 48, showed Deng a painful swelling on her left hand. She said she needed medicine. As villagers marched behind Deng, they told him about their needs; medicine, school uniforms and clinic. "Bol must help us,'' they sang in Dinka. Standing next to Deng is Garang Daniel Amet, one of the "lost boys'' of Syracuse. Amet is building the St. Josephine Bakita Clinic in Malakalel. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_30sudan.jpg"]
Nay Kiir Akol, a relative, leads Gabriel Bol Deng to the tree where Deng's mother and his placenta are buried. Deng's uncle, Garang Deng Majok, performed a traditional water ceremony asking God's blessing for his nephew's health and spirituality. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_31sudan.jpg"]
People gather water from one of the six wells Gabriel Bol Deng, of Syracuse, drilled in his village, Ariang, in southern Sudan. People from nearby villages walk several miles to get water for their families. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_33sudan.jpg"]
Ariang school children march and sing in Dinka, "The SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) has tried through the gun to end the war, but the real peace will come from education." Gabriel Bol Deng, a graduate student at LeMoyne College, has raised about $200,000 for Ariang. He decided to build a school when he saw children learning under trees in his village. He also drilled six wells. A crumbling mud hut is shown in the foreground. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img alt="" src="http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_34sudan.jpg"]
A young boy runs after the vehicle Gabriel Bol Deng rides in as he visits Ariang in December 2009, his third visit to his home village since he fled the war in 1987. He first went home in 2006 to find his parents. He would later learn that they died of natural causes. Five uncles and two brothers were killed during the 21-year-old civil war. Photo by Michelle Gabel

To view larger photos from the gallery, please enter the FS button.

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A link to the multi-media piece that appeared at the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper website: Lost Boys Come Home.

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Michelle Gabel is an award-winning photojournalist who has worked for The Post-Standard, the daily newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y., since 1993. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today and the Detroit Free Press, among other publications.

She has documented a diverse array of human interest stories in the U.S. and abroad, including following the battle of a breast cancer patient during the year leading up to her death; the effects of environmental pollution caused by IBM in its birthplace of Endicott, N.Y.; the closing of a long-time, family-owned dry cleaning business; and the day-to-day reality of a couple raising 15 adopted children. Her recent international work includes a trip to Ghana, West Africa, to photograph a community’s efforts in furthering girls’ education, the building of a local library, and a Liberian family in a Ghanaian refugee camp preparing to resettle in Central New York. In December 2009, Gabel traveled to southern Sudan to photograph four young Sudanese men, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who are helping to rebuild their homeland.

She has received honors from the National Press Photographers Association, the Associated Press and Gannett newspapers.

Michelle can be contacted at: mgabel@twcny.rr.com

© 2009 Michelle Gable

Giving a Hand, Not a Handout

From “The Iraqi Seed Project” Newsletter, Vol. 1

Background: Iraq and the Fertile Crescent are often referred to as the birthplace of agriculture. Crops such as wheat, barley, lentils and chickpeas were first cultivated there over 7,000 years ago. After years of war, sanctions and environmental degradation many Iraqi farmers are now struggling to feed their families.  Today Iraq imports much of its food supply.  Wheat, which originated in the region, is now imported from the United States and Australia, and Iraq is now one of the fastest growing markets for US agricultural exports.

The Iraqi Seed Project seeks to document the daily reality of farmers on the ground and to honor the rich history of farming in the Fertile Crescent. The hope is to connect Iraqi farmers and agricultural policy makers to counterparts abroad who are working to promote crop diversity and environmentally sustainable growing practices. 

The Iraqi Seed Project will consist of a short film, interactive website and real life exchange; it is intended as a creative work as well as useful resource to those working in the field.  The project currently is in pre-production, with plans to begin filming early this spring.

• The film explores daily life on an Iraqi farm • The website shares  research in the form of video interviews, essays, articles, and discussions related to the history and current realities of farming in Iraq • The exchange - part of The Iraqi Seed Project’s mission is to facilitate a real life exchange between farmers in Iraq and farmers abroad.  Seed swaps, workshops and correspondence are just some of the intended ways to accomplish this.

For more information contact Emma Piper-Burket, emma@iraqiseedproject.com,  or visit the group’s profile in Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media Database