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| From Dschwaz Photo Blog |
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| From Dschwaz Photo Blog |
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Botswana National Stadium part II
I'm off to Namibia for a week-long holiday. I apologize for a lack of posting, but the internetz have been fickle with these large files. In the meantime, I present Part II of the Stadium Series. Due to a limited amount of photos, a few select still images will have to satisfy any visual demands. hopefully the audio will suffice...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Photos of some Characters
Khwezi Mphatlalatsane, hip hop artist, takes a leap on the outskirts of Gaborone.
People of Religious Nature, a Gabs-based, eclectically-talented, hip-hop group, poses for test shots for their upcoming album, Word Truth Freedom. Members include, Ngozi Chukura, Shorty, and Khwezi Mphatlalatsane
Dominic "Mex" Mandindo, owner and head producer of Mexyland Studios
Sebastian Modak drums at Mexyland
Some men juggle a soccer ball at a charity soccer event in Central Gaborone.
Ilana Millner reads to her sunny heart's content
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Botswana National Stadium 1
This auditory location sketch is part one in a three-part series (culminating on October 12th. the photos taken for this were also a victim of the camera thieves. I hope the audio suffices.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Over-Dume La and Taking Photos
Irony is a shabby place to start, but here it is. As i proclaim this imagistic site up and running, i also proclaim that my camera was stolen. Yes, the author's pen was nabbed but he will continue to nib--puns and all. Before we get there, however, let's start here...
Welcome to Reportswana: A Botswana Report. I have been in this Sub-Saharan country for just over a month, but because the gray meat in my head needs marination, this blog might taste a 'bit tardy. If so, then it is my goal, over the next several months, to serve up some memorable, educational, and linkable content. I like seasoning (my Setswana name is Baba Dijo, which means Spicy Food), so I promise consistent and zesty recipes of images, sounds, and words.
***
I am here in Gaborone, Botswana as an exchange student from the University of Pennsylvania. I came here to seriously pursue a creative and intellectual passion for multimedia-based documentation. I am enrolled at the University of Botswana, taking courses in both the Urban Studies and Media Studies Faculty, using classes such as Radio Production and Urban Sociology to investigate the people and places around me. The difference between the U of P and the U of B is nicely summarized by the latter's lower, curvy line. Indeed, this location has thrown me for several loops. Whether I speak in terms of health, infrastructure, food, fun, people, beauty, language, or security, the past several weeks have been dizzying.
There's a bit too much ground to make up if I am to cover my past month, so for now I promise that future posts will fill in some of the gaps. However, memories are fickle and some might remain rooted in the ink of my notebook or evaporated into this region's dry air. It is for this reason, among many others, that I humbly and imploringly ask that you look at two blogs written by two special people who both do two special things with words: write well and write often.
Ilana in Botswana
Sebswana
As this blog will not strictly be a travel journal--it may in fact bend toward the less-personal and more-formal aspects of recording this place and time--both Ilana and Sebastian's blogs are insightful voices of balance. I hope you read 'em.
***
Experience is a rich fellow, and as an aspiring documentarian, I will be striving to reach further and further into his pockets. This takes us to friday night, when someone reached into my own pockets.
Lizard Lounge is a club whose tacky nomenclature matches the atmosphere. With red lights, green lasers, and multiple levels of griminess (Sebastian named one "The Dancequarium"), I was glad to arrive with a large crowd of friends. A quick round of introductions:
-Ilana and Sebastian, both putting the 'bomb' in Bombay. They are also exchange students from Penn.
-Mex, a Zimbabwean music producer and local studio owner. He has become a relentlessly generous friend and host in the context of Gaborone's cultural scene.
-Lebo is a life-long friend of Mex, and he lives and works at their studio, Mexyland. He is a stoic iceberg--calm and quiet on the top but salsa-dancing, DJing, chess-mastering, and marimba-banging on in the bottom.
-Khwezi and Ngozi are local musicians/artists. They, along with friend/collaborator, Shordi, are finishing their debut hip hop album under the name, People of Religious Nature. (Much more on them at a later date.)
-Anna is a student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County majoring in English and minoring in International Affairs. She is a constant source of acute, metaphysical observations regarding cloud movement.
-Brianna is an exchange student from UC Santa Clara studying history. If her sarcasm were a knife, it would tickle you. She also plays some mean guitar and sings some charming tunes.
We arrived at Lizard Lounge early in the night, hoping to show some support for DJ ONKZ who was playing that night. Mex is currently putting the finishing touches on ONKZ's new album, House Work, and I was "hired," two weeks ago to provide graphic design and photography for the CD packaging. Below is a tentative promo poster that may soon be plastered on walls across this fine city.
Walking into a club can either be confidence boosting or diminishing. However, walking into a busy, unsafe environment with big, expensive gadgetry is downright uncomfortable. Furthermore, I enjoy tapping my toes on occasion, and with a shoulder bag weighing around 8 lbs, I know such dancing must be attempted sparingly and prudently. I have engaged in festive, photographic evenings on a boat in Philadelphia, at a bar in the Peruvian Amazon, and in a concert-hall in Atlanta, GA. I pride myself in having the competence to extend my bodily awareness, my kinetic sensory ability, and something along the lines of spidey-sense to my camera. The machine molds into my palm, and neither gravity, a strong swipe, nor tempestuous fate could pry my baby away from me. Yet, such skill (or luck) was limited on Lizard Lounge's premises.
Around 12:30 pm (00:30), I was shaking my hips to the beat with my camera tucked, zipped, and velcroed into my shoulder bag. With Ilana on one side and Lebo on another, a tall man, dressed in a red track jacket, came right up to me and started dancing. Suspicion began to swirl in my head: his movements were friendly, his face unsmiling, and his proximity threatening. I decided to return the groove and plastered a friendly expression on my face. In the vague recesses of my memory, I now remember feeling something wiggle against the the black canvas holding my camera.
About five minutes later, my shoulder was bouncing too easily, and I reached around to feel an all-too-light bag. My hand went for the clip and zipper, found both undone, and reached for what was no longer there.
I immediately stopped Ilana and Lebo, frantically notified them that my camera was gone, and I began running around the club scanning hands, bags, tables, and floor space. I stopped random club-goers, peered under couches, and hyperventilated. Mex notified the club-manager, who quickly had security close all the entrances and search everyone leaving. Brianna began to systematically interrogate anyone and everyone she could, and together, she and Anna went into the V.I.P. lounge and searched under all the furniture. Sebastian, Khwezi, and Lebo went outside to investigate whether the theif(theives) had been seen exiting. Ilana and Ngozi stood with me at the main door, making sure the guards didn't let my camera slip out. To say that my friends rallied in my effort is an understatement. I have known most of these people for less than a month, and yet, without a flicker of hesitation, they came to my aid with sincere urgency. These are true friends, and if it took this experience of material dispossession to understand it, then that's okay with me.
At around 4:30, after some confusing and hectic leads outside the club, Mex informed me that the camera was probably gone. Two girls had seen a man walk out of the club with a big camera around his neck shortly before security closed the exit. In all likelihood, this man stole my camera while his red-jacketed partner distracted me. If i had been the nabber, I too would have made haste and scrammed before the eventual physical and emotional reactions. Effective and affective indeed.
The past several days have been filled with police reports, pawn shop visits, and sadness. Regret is also present--I should not have brought the camera there, I should not have been dancing, I should not have kept my bag in back of me. But as someone who still isn't comfortable living my entire life with a lens to my eye, I feel that there's a fine line between working and experiencing. Perhaps a real photojournalist can give me some tips (please do hollar at me), but maybe this is just a lesson in probability and luck. Furthermore, only my camera and the attached 17-85 mm lens were taken--not my or anyone else's physical safety*. That alone is reason to rejoice.
As I remarked to Ilana that night, I often think about what I'd do if someone approached me with a knife and demanded my camera.
Ugly Mugger: Give me your camera or your guts sucker! (knife shining in moonlight).
Daniel: Yes, of course. Here take it. If I give you my 50 mm lens and tripod, will you walk away faster?
Ugly Mugger: Shut up. (takes all my gear and saunters away, picking at a wedgie.)
And as I told Ilana about this hypothetical situation, I described the swelling wave of violence I would internally have to suppress. I'm a pretty big pacifist--I've never intentionally hit someone with all my strength, and I've never been in a real fight--but this scenario has always boiled me into raging, fist-tightening anger. However, standing against the club wall at 3 am, I didn't want to lay my knuckles on anything but the sweet metal and plastic of my Canon. Perhaps I read Gandhi too young, but I was--and still am--ready to forgive and get back.
Property theft is probably one of the most common forms of disempowerment in this world. People experience it everyday in a variety of forms and with a multitude of implications--candy, wallets, cars, real-estate. For some people, a stolen meal is annoyance while for others its starvation. On this spectrum, I place my loss relatively low. Likewise, it's possible that the people who profit from this theft need money in a more immediate and basic sense than I need my camera. Yet, that feeling of my possession being in another person's is pitted in my stomach. Pitted deep.
***
Future entries will hopefully be less self-concerned and wallowing. Though my camera is gone, I had taken and saved ample photographs to bide my time until new imagery can be acquiesced. Likewise, I am hoping that my insurance company will help out and I'll be getting a replacement camera soon. No matter what, I will continue to post the sounds of Botswana using a handy field recorder. This is a fascinating, entertaining, and complex place, and I hope my reports can reflect it.
*On the cab ride home, I noticed that the outside pocket of my camera bag was unzipped. It seems that the thief also made off with Ilana's room keys, which I had been holding. This petty, useless, and unprofitable action rendered Ilana locked out of her room for the remainder of the weekend. For a detailed and infuriating account of that tale, check out her blog in the next several days.
Welcome to Reportswana: A Botswana Report. I have been in this Sub-Saharan country for just over a month, but because the gray meat in my head needs marination, this blog might taste a 'bit tardy. If so, then it is my goal, over the next several months, to serve up some memorable, educational, and linkable content. I like seasoning (my Setswana name is Baba Dijo, which means Spicy Food), so I promise consistent and zesty recipes of images, sounds, and words.
***
I am here in Gaborone, Botswana as an exchange student from the University of Pennsylvania. I came here to seriously pursue a creative and intellectual passion for multimedia-based documentation. I am enrolled at the University of Botswana, taking courses in both the Urban Studies and Media Studies Faculty, using classes such as Radio Production and Urban Sociology to investigate the people and places around me. The difference between the U of P and the U of B is nicely summarized by the latter's lower, curvy line. Indeed, this location has thrown me for several loops. Whether I speak in terms of health, infrastructure, food, fun, people, beauty, language, or security, the past several weeks have been dizzying.
There's a bit too much ground to make up if I am to cover my past month, so for now I promise that future posts will fill in some of the gaps. However, memories are fickle and some might remain rooted in the ink of my notebook or evaporated into this region's dry air. It is for this reason, among many others, that I humbly and imploringly ask that you look at two blogs written by two special people who both do two special things with words: write well and write often.
Ilana in Botswana
Sebswana
As this blog will not strictly be a travel journal--it may in fact bend toward the less-personal and more-formal aspects of recording this place and time--both Ilana and Sebastian's blogs are insightful voices of balance. I hope you read 'em.
***
Experience is a rich fellow, and as an aspiring documentarian, I will be striving to reach further and further into his pockets. This takes us to friday night, when someone reached into my own pockets.
Lizard Lounge is a club whose tacky nomenclature matches the atmosphere. With red lights, green lasers, and multiple levels of griminess (Sebastian named one "The Dancequarium"), I was glad to arrive with a large crowd of friends. A quick round of introductions:
-Ilana and Sebastian, both putting the 'bomb' in Bombay. They are also exchange students from Penn.
-Mex, a Zimbabwean music producer and local studio owner. He has become a relentlessly generous friend and host in the context of Gaborone's cultural scene.
-Lebo is a life-long friend of Mex, and he lives and works at their studio, Mexyland. He is a stoic iceberg--calm and quiet on the top but salsa-dancing, DJing, chess-mastering, and marimba-banging on in the bottom.
-Khwezi and Ngozi are local musicians/artists. They, along with friend/collaborator, Shordi, are finishing their debut hip hop album under the name, People of Religious Nature. (Much more on them at a later date.)
-Anna is a student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County majoring in English and minoring in International Affairs. She is a constant source of acute, metaphysical observations regarding cloud movement.
-Brianna is an exchange student from UC Santa Clara studying history. If her sarcasm were a knife, it would tickle you. She also plays some mean guitar and sings some charming tunes.
We arrived at Lizard Lounge early in the night, hoping to show some support for DJ ONKZ who was playing that night. Mex is currently putting the finishing touches on ONKZ's new album, House Work, and I was "hired," two weeks ago to provide graphic design and photography for the CD packaging. Below is a tentative promo poster that may soon be plastered on walls across this fine city.
Walking into a club can either be confidence boosting or diminishing. However, walking into a busy, unsafe environment with big, expensive gadgetry is downright uncomfortable. Furthermore, I enjoy tapping my toes on occasion, and with a shoulder bag weighing around 8 lbs, I know such dancing must be attempted sparingly and prudently. I have engaged in festive, photographic evenings on a boat in Philadelphia, at a bar in the Peruvian Amazon, and in a concert-hall in Atlanta, GA. I pride myself in having the competence to extend my bodily awareness, my kinetic sensory ability, and something along the lines of spidey-sense to my camera. The machine molds into my palm, and neither gravity, a strong swipe, nor tempestuous fate could pry my baby away from me. Yet, such skill (or luck) was limited on Lizard Lounge's premises.
Around 12:30 pm (00:30), I was shaking my hips to the beat with my camera tucked, zipped, and velcroed into my shoulder bag. With Ilana on one side and Lebo on another, a tall man, dressed in a red track jacket, came right up to me and started dancing. Suspicion began to swirl in my head: his movements were friendly, his face unsmiling, and his proximity threatening. I decided to return the groove and plastered a friendly expression on my face. In the vague recesses of my memory, I now remember feeling something wiggle against the the black canvas holding my camera.
About five minutes later, my shoulder was bouncing too easily, and I reached around to feel an all-too-light bag. My hand went for the clip and zipper, found both undone, and reached for what was no longer there.
I immediately stopped Ilana and Lebo, frantically notified them that my camera was gone, and I began running around the club scanning hands, bags, tables, and floor space. I stopped random club-goers, peered under couches, and hyperventilated. Mex notified the club-manager, who quickly had security close all the entrances and search everyone leaving. Brianna began to systematically interrogate anyone and everyone she could, and together, she and Anna went into the V.I.P. lounge and searched under all the furniture. Sebastian, Khwezi, and Lebo went outside to investigate whether the theif(theives) had been seen exiting. Ilana and Ngozi stood with me at the main door, making sure the guards didn't let my camera slip out. To say that my friends rallied in my effort is an understatement. I have known most of these people for less than a month, and yet, without a flicker of hesitation, they came to my aid with sincere urgency. These are true friends, and if it took this experience of material dispossession to understand it, then that's okay with me.
At around 4:30, after some confusing and hectic leads outside the club, Mex informed me that the camera was probably gone. Two girls had seen a man walk out of the club with a big camera around his neck shortly before security closed the exit. In all likelihood, this man stole my camera while his red-jacketed partner distracted me. If i had been the nabber, I too would have made haste and scrammed before the eventual physical and emotional reactions. Effective and affective indeed.
The past several days have been filled with police reports, pawn shop visits, and sadness. Regret is also present--I should not have brought the camera there, I should not have been dancing, I should not have kept my bag in back of me. But as someone who still isn't comfortable living my entire life with a lens to my eye, I feel that there's a fine line between working and experiencing. Perhaps a real photojournalist can give me some tips (please do hollar at me), but maybe this is just a lesson in probability and luck. Furthermore, only my camera and the attached 17-85 mm lens were taken--not my or anyone else's physical safety*. That alone is reason to rejoice.
As I remarked to Ilana that night, I often think about what I'd do if someone approached me with a knife and demanded my camera.
Ugly Mugger: Give me your camera or your guts sucker! (knife shining in moonlight).
Daniel: Yes, of course. Here take it. If I give you my 50 mm lens and tripod, will you walk away faster?
Ugly Mugger: Shut up. (takes all my gear and saunters away, picking at a wedgie.)
And as I told Ilana about this hypothetical situation, I described the swelling wave of violence I would internally have to suppress. I'm a pretty big pacifist--I've never intentionally hit someone with all my strength, and I've never been in a real fight--but this scenario has always boiled me into raging, fist-tightening anger. However, standing against the club wall at 3 am, I didn't want to lay my knuckles on anything but the sweet metal and plastic of my Canon. Perhaps I read Gandhi too young, but I was--and still am--ready to forgive and get back.
Property theft is probably one of the most common forms of disempowerment in this world. People experience it everyday in a variety of forms and with a multitude of implications--candy, wallets, cars, real-estate. For some people, a stolen meal is annoyance while for others its starvation. On this spectrum, I place my loss relatively low. Likewise, it's possible that the people who profit from this theft need money in a more immediate and basic sense than I need my camera. Yet, that feeling of my possession being in another person's is pitted in my stomach. Pitted deep.
***
Future entries will hopefully be less self-concerned and wallowing. Though my camera is gone, I had taken and saved ample photographs to bide my time until new imagery can be acquiesced. Likewise, I am hoping that my insurance company will help out and I'll be getting a replacement camera soon. No matter what, I will continue to post the sounds of Botswana using a handy field recorder. This is a fascinating, entertaining, and complex place, and I hope my reports can reflect it.
*On the cab ride home, I noticed that the outside pocket of my camera bag was unzipped. It seems that the thief also made off with Ilana's room keys, which I had been holding. This petty, useless, and unprofitable action rendered Ilana locked out of her room for the remainder of the weekend. For a detailed and infuriating account of that tale, check out her blog in the next several days.
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