"Debt is a cleverly managed

reconquest of Africa"

- Thomas Sankara

by Paula Akugizibwe

"You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future." – Thomas Sankara

 

Thomas Sankara, former leader of Burkina Faso, was the apparent opposite of everything we are often told that success should look like. Mansions? Cars? Who? What? Get out of here. As Prime Minister and later as President, Sankara rode a bicycle to work before he upgraded, at his Cabinet’s insistence, to a Renault 5 – one of the cheapest cars available in Burkina Faso at the time. He lived in a small brick house and wore only cotton that was produced, weaved and sewn in Burkina Faso.

Going by his lifestyle, Sankara was the antithesis of success, but it is this very distinction that enabled him to become the most successful president Africa has ever seen, in terms of what he accomplished for and with his people. Sankara would not have chopped P-Square’s money given twice a chance – in fact, he might have sat him down and taught him a thing or two about the creeping menace of pop culture patriarchy – because Thomas Sankara, “The Upright Man”, was a feminist. In this and many other ways, Sankara was the African dream come true, the only living proof that hopes of African independence are not dead on arrival.

His life ended with a bullet which, according to the testimony of some involved in his assassination, was ordered by former Liberian president Charles Taylor with the support of the French and American governments, and delivered via Blaise Compaoré – Sankara’s long-time friend and colleague, and the current president of Burkina Faso. Four years prior, when Compaoré and Sankara had jointly staged the popular coup of 1983 that made Sankara president, Burkina Faso was one of the poorest countries in the world. Under Compaoré it still is – so much so that the dire circumstances led to a series of violent protests last year.

During the years of Sankara’s administration, things were turning around, especially in the areas of health, education and the environment. Mass vaccination campaigns were rolled out with a level of rapidity and success that was unprecedented for an African country at that time. Infant mortality rates dropped. School attendance rates doubled. Millions of trees were planted in a far-sighted effort to counter deforestation. Feminism was a core element of political ideology, manifested through improved access to education for girls, and inclusion of women in leadership roles. Sankara introduced a day of solidarity in which men switched traditional gender roles – going to the market, running the household – so as to better empathise with what women handle on a daily basis. It was Africa’s greatest success story.

How was this achieved? In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Sankara reflected on the state of Burkina Faso at the time that he had come to power, stating that “The diagnosis was clearly sombre. The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political.” And Sankara did not hold back with the treatment. As soon as he came into power, he set about razing the conventional structures of power and inequality.

Gone were the days of politicians living lavish lives sponsored by taxpayers’ money – Sankara issued salary cuts across the board, including for himself. The fleet of Mercedes Benzes for high-ranking officials was done away with, and the cars replaced by Renault 5s. Land and oil wealth were nationalised. While the masses celebrated, the country’s elite was enraged as decades of class inequality, which had previously favoured them, suddenly came into jeopardy.

The international community, whose interests were vested in the status quo, were also disturbed by Sankara’s radicalism, not least when he started calling for African countries to reject debt repayments. From the 1970s onwards, newly-independent African governments had begun to rapidly accumulate huge amounts of debt from rich countries and the Bretton Woods institutions:  the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As the Cold War intensified, such loans were increasingly used as a tool for securing political support from key countries – even governments that were patently corrupt and would inevitably default on repayment, such as Mobutu’s in the DRC, were readily provided with billions of dollars in credit.

In one of his most famous speeches [above], delivered at the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in Addis Ababa in 1987, Sankara issued a passionate call for a United Front Against Debt. “We think that debt has to be seen from the standpoint of its origins. Debt’s origins come from colonialism’s origins. Those who lend us money are those who had colonized us before,” he declared. “Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave…”

At the time of his speech it was clear, just a couple of decades into independence, that African countries were quickly becoming financial slaves. Interest rates rose sharply in the 1980s, but governments continued to borrow more and more. Between 1982 and 1990, African debt doubled from US$140 billion to US$270 billion. Sankara rightly predicted that this would cripple African development for generations to come. Despite debt relief programs, which have resulted in increased spending on health and education in African countries, Jubilee Debt Campaign estimates that in 2008, low income countries paid over US $20 million a day to rich countries.

Their decision-making power is also constrained within the limits of orders given by the institutions and countries to which they are indebted. Strangely enough, while these orders demand decreased public spending for example on health, they don’t seem to have made a dent on the perpetual rise of Africa’s waBenzi clan: politicians rolling in flashy Mercedes Benzes bought with taxpayers' money. And to make matters worse, with access to new creditors – especially China – many African governments are once again sinking into the vicious cycle of debt dependency that Sankara foresaw.

His Foreign Policy Advisor, Fidèle Kientega, explains how this foresight was shared with ordinary people. “Sankara did not dictate to people or force them to work. He told them about the mechanisms of getting loans…He said that they could relax at home and ask him to borrow money from the neo-colonialists, but that they would have to bear in mind that they and their children would have to pay back the loans with interests. Consequently, his government would find it difficult to provide universal education and health care because he would have to spend a greater chunk of the meagre tax revenues in servicing the debt. They could also beg for aid but then they would remain beggars forever. The people got the message and were motivated into working harder.”

Stories of Sankara tend to focus on his radical policies, but it is this approach that was probably the most radical of all – his efforts to bring discussions and decisions, “the apparatus of democracy” as Kientega puts it, to ordinary people. He was able to do this not only because he had political commitment to the proverbial grassroots – as many leaders claim to do – but because, through the choices he made, he positioned himself as their equal. Sankara made personal sacrifices that no other president has ever made, and did not view them as sacrifices, but as an act of solidarity, of African pride. In his view it was only through collective commitment to such sacrifices, which he hoped would one day be viewed as “normal and simple” actions, that Africans could begin to work their way towards self-reliance.

“He who does not feed you can demand nothing of you,” he said. “We however, are being fed every day and every year. We say, 'Down with imperialism!' yet we can’t ignore our bellies... Let us consume only what we ourselves control! Many people ask, “Where is imperialism?” Look at your plates when you eat. These imported grains of rice, corn, and millet—that is imperialism. You need look no further."

Despite Sankara’s incredible oratorical gift, the message came across even more eloquently through his actions: it is better to live a simple life in freedom, than a fabulous lifestyle in economic chains. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, most African governments did not share his philosophy. In a recent series of debates on democracy organised by TIA, people from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa all expressed a lack of faith in their countries' democratic systems. Why? Because, they said, existing political systems across the world don’t answer to ordinary people – they answer to money. African governments are first accountable to rich countries, then to their own local elites; and finally, if convenient, to the people.

In a world that only answers to money, everything is for sale – democracy, freedom, dignity, integrity. Thomas Sankara bucked this trend, and in so doing struck at the very core of the international system of control – because for once, the world was faced with an African leader it could neither buy nor co-opt.

And because he was not for sale, Sankara had to be eliminated, buried in an unmarked grave whose whereabouts are still unknown. To this day, Sankara’s family and supporters in Burkina Faso and around the world are still fighting for justice, some in the face of death threats. Meanwhile, despite the fact that some of the fastest growing economies in the world are now African, and the fact that poverty rates are falling, so much of our energy now and for the foreseeable future will have to be devoted to further reducing poverty levels relating to decades of political selling out. And the selling out continues, even as our economies are bouncing back. Why do our leaders keep selling us out? Same reason we all sell out – for nice things. “Where does this debt come from anyway?” Sankara asked. “Did we need to build mansions…or foster the mentality of overpaid men among our officers?” This last question, in particular, has become more relevant as we learn of just how much money Africa's elite have been salting away in foreign accounts even as their countries' foreign debts mount: 'Capgemini and Merrill Lynch estimate in their latest World Wealth Report that Africa has about 100,000 “high net worth individuals” with a total of $1.2 trillion in liquid assets. The debts, on the other hand, are owed by the African people as a whole through their governments.'

Of all the holy cows in the world today, materialism is probably the deepest and most universally entrenched – from home to school to pop culture. This entrenchment is necessary to preserve the current system of inequality, because it opens us all up to compromise, to co-option. How much would you sell your values for? How much do you sell your values for? Sankara demonstrated that the make-or-break of freedom is not so much about heroes and politics as it is about the very personal struggle between principles and cash-money.

A week before he died, Sankara said, “revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, but you cannot kill ideas”. And so, for us today, the final challenge rests not in finding more Sankaras, but in becoming them – in bringing these ideas to life. “You have to dare to look reality in the face and take a whack at some of the long-standing privileges,” Sankara said, “so long-standing in fact that they seem to have become normal, unquestionable.”  And that’s the most daunting thing of all, because it requires a struggle with the person in the mirror.

"You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future." – Thomas Sankara

For more information on Thomas Sankara, visit www.thomassankara.net and http://fuckyeahthomassankara.tumblr.com

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 Paula Akugizibwe is a music-possessed writing-obsessed pan-African nomad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silent film thought to be lost

is restored by the

Oklahoma Historical Society

“The Daughter of Dawn” was shot in the summer of 1920 in the Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma using an American Indian cast.

 

By Bryan Painter | Published: July 16, 2012 Oklahoman   

Em-koy-e-tie, a young Kiowa woman, walked right at the camera in the silent film.

The lump built in Sammy “Tone-kei” White's throat, tears welled in his eyes and he felt a sudden chill in the room as he watched the scene five years ago.

This was his mother in 1920.

For historians “The Daughter of Dawn,” an 80-minute, six-reel silent film shot in July 1920 in the Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma, is history put to motion.

But for White, 82, this was the part of his mother, one of about 300 Kiowas and Comanches in the all-Indian cast, he had only heard of throughout his life. When she died in 1946, so many people talked of her appearance in the film.

Although a “sneak preview” of “The Daughter of Dawn” was held in mid-October 1920 at the College Theater in Los Angeles, nothing was really heard of the film after that.

Until Brian Hearn, film curator at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, answered the phone one day about seven years ago. A private investigator in North Carolina said he had received a copy of a silver nitrate film as payment for an investigation, and thought the film was “The Daughter of Dawn.”

The investigator was interested in selling it. But since the museum hadn't started collecting films, Hearn decided to contact the Oklahoma Historical Society. Through the actions of many people and organizations, the movie has been restored and rereleased with the first screening held in June at the deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City.

While White hasn't seen the entire film, museum staff showed him scenes in 2007.

“My mother was walking right at me, she was so beautiful,” White said. “I'm glad the room we were watching it in was dark, because it was emotional seeing her so young.

“To have someone say we have ‘The Daughter of Dawn' is something very sentimental to me.”

A look at a distant time

The lead actor is White Parker and one of the other key roles is played by Wanada Parker. They were the son and daughter of the great Comanche leader Quanah Parker, said Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Also appearing in the movie is Esther LeBarre as Dawn, Hunting Horse as her father the chief, and Jack Sankadoty as Wolf.

Blackburn said it's likely in 1920 that many members of the movie's cast would have been those living on allotments and trying to adjust.

“A lot of these people were pre-reservation Indians, who had been wandering free out on the Plains,” Blackburn said. “Some of the people in that movie were in their 60s and 70s. They would have been young warriors out on the battle trail.

“And here they are depicting warriors again in their own gear, with their own tepee. That affects me every time I talk about it.”

The script for the movie was developed by Norbert Myles, an actor, writer and director brought into the project by Richard Banks, who started the Texas Film Company in 1916.

Myles wrote on the cover of his script that, “This story has been made possible by R.E. Banks, whose knowledge of the Indian, and of his traditions, was gained during the twenty-five years that he lived with them.”

The film includes a four-way love story, buffalo hunt scenes, a battle scene, village scenes, dances, deceit, courage and hand to hand combat, Blackburn said.

In one scene a young buffalo bumps into one of the riders.

The Kiowa is knocked from his horse to the rocky terrain of the Wichita Mountains area.

“The rider just gets back up, and goes on,” said Matt Reed, a curator at the Oklahoma Museum of History. “You're like, ‘Wow, you're in a breechcloth and moccasins and riding at full speed you just fell from a horse and it didn't even faze you.' These are some tough, tough people.”

Plans for the film

Reed and Bill Moore were the staff members who showed some scenes of the movie to Sammy White in 2007.

As staff visited with Kiowa and Comanche friends who identified people in the movie and described some of the objects brought from their homes to the set, one object in particular stood out. It was a tepee with bold horizontal stripes positioned at a key spot in every scene. The Kiowas said it was an especially significant tepee that disappeared in 1928.

Just a few years ago, while one of their curators was going through collections at the Oklahoma History Center, he pulled a canvas tepee off the shelf, unrolled it, and recognized it as the tepee in the movie, Blackburn said.

“If he had never seen ‘Daughter of Dawn,' the tepee might still be undiscovered,” Blackburn said. “And next year, the tepee will be used in a new museum exhibit.”

Plans for the film include taking it to festivals in the U.S. and internationally, offering it for broadcast, selling it on DVD, and using it as a central component of exhibits at the Oklahoma History Center and at the proposed Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture in Tulsa. In the meantime, “It will be used for historical research and appreciated as a piece of motion picture art,” Blackburn said.

“I will never forget the day we received the restored film and the digital conversion that we could view,” Blackburn said. “Seeing Southern Plains material culture in a museum and reading about traditional Indian customs leaves much to the imagination. Seeing both captured in moving pictures is like traveling back in time.”

That's certainly what it did for Sammy White, as his mother walked right at the camera.

 

 

11-Minute Excerpt from "The Daughter of Dawn" 

De La Soul's

20 Years High

and Rising Tour

@Jazz à la Villette, Paris

Maimouna blends hip hop,

afro jazz and

Native American sounds

to make beautiful melodies

July 15, 2010

By: S. Ann Johnson

 

 

photos by Edith Williams, of Diamond Digital Portraits

 

Ear Candy is a monthly listening party that features some of the best indie soul artists in the nation. Last month’s Ear Candy featured Marcell & The Truth and Maimouna Youssef. Your Baltimore Performing Arts Examiner got a chance to chit chat with both acts. Eavesdrop on her conversation with Maimouna Youssef, below; and Marcell & The Truth, here.

You’ve toured the world with Roots, appeared in Dave Chapelle’s Block Party film, and shared the stage with some incredible artists. What do you attribute the connections you’ve made in the music industry to? Is it being in the right place at the right time?

I think there is a lot of being at the right time at the right place and having a lot of ambition at such a young age.

My name, Maimouna, means lucky [in an unknown language]. I think it is a lot of that. I would meet a lot of people on the humble.

The first record deal that my cousin and I obtained . I met a publicist through Duke Ellington School for The Arts. I played her some of the music that we started recording. I felt like we needed to document what we were doing at the time. It was very raw when I look back on it now . . . how far we were beyond our time. It was a mixture of jazz and hip hop.

My mother’s a jazz singer [ Navasha Daya of Fertile Ground], and my dad is a visual artist. I played with a jazz band in middle school. I had that upbringing. Even now my music features various styles [such as] afro jazz. My mother is Native American, so I listen to a lot of Native American music.

 

How does your ethnic background influence your music?

It takes me outside of the box in reference to sound. I’m always searching for another sound that evokes a certain emotion. In Native American music, they may imitate the bird, the wind-- they incorporate all sounds of music that the urban environment won’t do. There are no limitations.

I’m always searching for a way to communicate an emotion. The openness of imitating sounds
to me its seamless; it is very natural.

How did winning Baltimore Idol impact you?

When I first heard about the competition I was like ‘Baltimore Idol? That’s going to ruin my street cred.’[laughs] But I think the song that I won on was “When I Fall in Love,” which is a jazz song.

[Winning the competition] brought exposure to the band[ Editor’s note: Maimouna was one half of the group Cirius B, which she formed with her cousin Aziz]. We stared getting more notoriety, shows booked, donations for the album, a record deal, met The Roots.

Before we close, talk to me a little bit about the new album?

I’m working on it right now. It’s changed shape with my growth and development. I started writing the album, and then I didn’t like any of the songs anymore. This summer, I will finish my project. Some of it will be live music. It’s going to be an independent project. It’s independent, but I ‘m not doing it by myself. I have a lot of supportive family and community activists that support the work that I do.

__________________________

Exclusive Interview

Maimouna Youssef:

A person, who is inspired,

can achieve education and

proceed to moving mountains!

>via: http://popingcherry.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/exclusive-interview-maimouna-you...

photo by Malin Fezehai

 

Lemonade infused with

Peppermint and Lavender

Flowers !!

 
Aroma on top of Aroma

- Love Rasta!!

 

Ingredients:

1 bunch fresh lavender flowers

1 bunch fresh peppermint leaves

2 cups boiling water

1 cup raw agave

8 lemons

7 cups cold water

 

 

Directions:

1. Place raw agave into a 2 quart pitcher.

2. Place the lavender flowers and peppermint leaves into a bowl, and pour boiling water over it. Allow to steep for about 10 minutes, then strain out the herbs and discard. Let it cool then pour into the pitcher.

3. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and mix into the pitcher. Getting as much juice as you can. Top off the pitcher with cold water, and stir. Taste, and adjust lemon juice or agave if desired.

4. Let it cool in the refrigerator for 20 minutes allowing the flavors to marry !!

5. Pour into glass with ice, pull up a lawn chair and relax - SUMMERTIME !!!

Malin Fezehai is a photographer and filmmaker of Swedish and Eritrean descent. After studying photography in her native Sweden she moved to New York to attend the International Center of Photography. She now specializes in portraiture and reportage photography. Malin has worked in Ethiopia, Brazil, Peru, Ghana, Sri Lanka, South Pacific, Haiti and in the US. Her photographs have been published in several major Newspapers and Magazines in Norway, Sweden, England, US, France and Switzerland. She currently lives in New York city.

Photographers For Good

~ Malin Fezehai

June 23, 2011

By mkdanzer 

The Photographers for Good series highlights photographers who use their work to make a difference. We look for photographers who produce powerful, stunning and meaningful images and whose work has had an impact on the world around them. We are proud to recognize Malin Fezehai as a Photographer for Good.

 

View of the island of Abaiang, one of 33 low lying islands of Kiribati. The average height above sea level for the island is less than 3 meters. ©Malin Fezehai

Tell us a little about yourself and your photography.

I started doing photography when I was in high school and I was just taking pictures of my friends. It was the first thing I ever felt that I was good at. When I was 19 years old I packed my bags and went to New York to attend the International Center of Photography. Since then I have traveled and worked in places like Ethiopia, Peru, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Brazil. My work has focused on marginalized children and the displacement of communities due to poverty, war and climate change. When I go somewhere I try to stay a minimum of two months if possible because I like spending time getting to know the place I am photographing.

What’s in your bag?

My camera bag is always packed with my Canon 7D, two batteries, three lenses, two fixed, one zoom, a sound recorder (Zoom H4n) and a spider tripod. I travel with as little as possible but on my travels I always bring my laptop and a good airplane pillow. I also never leave home without a couple reliable hard drives.

Tell us a bit about your work in Kiribati.

Kiribati is a small island nation of 33 atolls spread out in the South Pacific; the area is the size of Alaska but the amount of land could fit within Manhattan. The average height above sea level is about 2 meters and this makes the island very vulnerable to rising sea levels. During my time there I found many destroyed homes and learned that families had to build makeshift sea walls to protect their houses. As a result of the rising seawater, food crops are much smaller and water wells are being contaminated. At the same time the islanders are dealing with the same issues of globalization as the rest of the world: overpopulation, waste disposal and rising number of diabetes cases due to the increase in consumption of imported foods. A once isolated society is now trying to figure out how to adapt to the new problem of climate change while continuing to grapple with globalization, both of which are transforming the way of life and culture across the region.

 

 

Boy jumping in the water from the causeway that separates the lagoon from the ocean on the island of Tarawa. ©Malin Fezehai

 

 

 

Island of Tarawa. A landfill in the village of Nanikai, it'€™s one of two landfills on the island that has been constructed in an attempt to manage the island’s growing garbage disposal problems. The amount of disposable solid waste is increasing as lifestyles and consumption patterns in Tarawa has changed to Western ways, with increasing levels of non-biodegradable materials such as cans, bottles and plastics. The usual methods of disposal are dumping on the seashores result in polluted waterways and lagoons. ©Malin Fezehai

 

Why is what’s happening in this tiny island nation relevant to folks around the world?

“Climate refugee” is a new term of our time, and there are a growing number of people who are being displaced due to climate change and natural disasters. A report by Oxfam last year predicted that 75 million people in the Asia-Pacific region will be forced to relocate by 2050 if climate change continues unabated. What is specific to the islands in the South Pacific is that the options for migration is very limited, that is why I think their story is so important and should be told. It’s a region of small nations with very little political capital on the world stage. The question that remains unresolved is who takes responsibility for these people. I do think that public awareness about climate change has grown, but I don’t think that people fully understand the mass migration that is underway and that’s why I think the situation in Kiribati is very relevant to rest of the world.

 

 

Iataake Totoki is the assisting agriculture officer on the island of Abaiang. He says that he intends to move to either New Zealand or Australia, because of climate change. "€œThe higher we go the better." He says that most people here don't want to leave Kiribati but if they know what is going to happen they will want to leave as well. According to him, it's mostly educated people that fully understand the situation. ©Malin Fezehai

 

 

In the village of Eita there used to be a sea wall constructed to protect the village. It has now been destroyed by rising tides and is threatening homes on the island of Tarawa. ©Malin Fezehai

 

What was it like to be shooting in a place that really might no longer exist in a very short time?

Kiribati by itself is pretty surreal, because when you are standing in Tarawa (the capital) you see the ocean on one side and the lagoon on the other, and I just felt kind amazed at how people have lived on these small plots of land for generations. What you have to keep in mind though, is that the end of Kiribati won’t come as a single engulfing wave. Over a period of decades, the 33 atolls of Kiribati will be rendered uninhabitable by flooding, which will ruin homes and the small patches of arable land, poison drinking water, spread disease and drown the fragile economy. So it’s a gradual process.

 

 

Island of Abaiang. Fallen coconut tree -- a result of rising seas and lands erosion. ©Malin Fezehai

 

 

Mangrove trees in the village of Buota. Mangroves trees can grow in salty coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics. The planting of mangrove trees is a strategy by the government to try to hold the soil in place. ©Malin Fezehai

 

What were some of the challenges of photographing in Kiribati?

There weren’t any major challenges, if I would name a few it would be means of communications, like cell phones and internet were not the best, getting ahold of people was a little bit of a challenge, but I would just show up at their doorstep. The roads, when I was there, had been washed away because of the increase of rainfall, many of the buses were just falling apart because they couldn’t handle all the potholes, so getting from place to place was pretty time consuming. On the outer islands the was no electricity with the exception of one generator that was on for two hours, so charging my gear and dumping my cards was a bit tricky.

 

 

On the island of Abaiang. A broken seawall in the village of Tebunginako. The government came to the conclusion that they could no€™t sustain the seawall and that relocation would be the better option. ©Malin Fezehai

 

Island of Abaiang. A village called Tebunginako has had to relocate because of rising seas and land erosion. This is a former fresh water lagoon that is now inundated with sea water which is killing the coconut trees. When a coconut tree dies, the decay starts at the top. First the fruit falls and then the leaves. All that is left is a desiccated trunk, cut off at half-mast. In the front, mangrove trees have been planted as a strategy by the government to try to hold the soil in place. ©Malin Fezehai

 

Anything else we should know about the island and the people?

One thing I think people should know about people in Kiribati is that they love their island and their way of life. It’s a very family orientated culture and I met very few people that expressed that wanted to leave. A woman I met told me a story about her daughter that was at the American embassy in Fiji to apply for a student visa to Hawaii. She was picked out of the line right away and got her approval, and they said to her “you guys from Kiribati always go back”.

What are you working on now?

I am working on a documentary I shot in Kiribati, but it’s on a slightly different subject matter. It’s about this dance group called “Miss July” comprised of a group of cross-dressing men living on the island. I was so impressed by their courage to express their femininity through dance considering that Kiribati is a very religious society. But because they are better dancers than most women, the majority of people on the island accepted them. When I was there I filmed many of their performances and I promised them I would make a film about them. Lately I have been working on more video projects as well as film editing.

If funding was not a problem and you could work on any project for a year, what would it be?

I would continue photographing in other countries in the South Pacific like Solomon Islands that has become the first country in the Pacific region, and one of four countries in the world, to qualify for a special international fund for projects that help nations gear up for climate-related changes, and in the Marshall Islands that has already lost up to 20 percent of its beachfront. On another note though, there are also several projects I want to do in parts of Africa as well, including a short film I would like to shoot in Massawa Eritrea, in the home country of my father.

A little girl playing in a tree on the island of Tarawa. ©Malin Fezehai

via photocrati.com

geigh-shagirls:

aethericbody:

 

What is Kemetic Yoga?

            Yoga was practiced in Ancient Egypt, North East Africa, for a very long time. Research has indicated that the philosophy of personality integration, or yoga, was practiced in Egypt for about 10,000 years which is a great expanse of time.

            The teaching of yoga that was espoused in the country of Egypt was derived from the meditations and insights by the early sage priests and priestesses. Egypt is not the original term for the country. Egypt is a modern term; the original inhabitants of the country called it Kemet, meaning black or the black land, because of the yearly inundation of the Nile River which caused the rich silt to overflow its banks.

            So if yoga was practiced in Kemet for such a long period of time, then the question beckons, what is yoga? The term YOGA is not indigenous to Kemet either. Yoga is a term of Sanskrit origin, one of the languages of present day India. Yoga, when translated into English means to yoke or to bind. Then again, to yoke or to bind what, some may ask? Each human being has an individual consciousness and individual mind upon which they are perceiving the world. No two people think in exactly the same manner, no two people have identical ideas on things, which is a manifestation of individual reality.

            However, there is universal consciousness that is beyond the scope of the normal realm of consciousness, or individual reality of people. Hence, the practice of yoga is a personality integration method that allows human beings to bind their individual transitory reality with the universal consciousness. The universal consciousness is stable and unchanging, unmoving, therefore, it is the substantial reality while human beings are existing in transitory phenomenon. When this process is accomplished one can say that they have experienced the way things really are or have experienced reality; universal consciousness.

Yoga is the practice of binding individual consciousness with universal consciousness. This individual reality that you are experiencing is actually only a small reflection of your true nature and yoga is the practice of how to achieve the knowledge of one’s abiding and immortal aspect.

In the Kemetic teachings this process of yoga is called Smai Tawi which means UNION OF THE TWO LANDS, not to be confused with physical land masses, but is an explanation of the higher and lower nature within the human entity.

~Puff

(via prissyporsha)

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>via: http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/wife-swap-couple-trade-city-life-africa... 

Welcome Poets & Writers

 

Welcome!  Select your life stage below to view and enter our free, monthly essay competitions.  What's your story?

 

Stage of Life Writing Contests

Enter our Blogging and Writing Contests

Current contest:  July & August 2012

Thousands of bloggers, writers, and regular people in every stage of life, from teens to Baby Boomers, come to StageofLife.com each month to enter our "essays about life" writing contests.

Our blogging and writing contests are designed to further the mission of making the world a better place, one story at a time.  We're excited that the education community has embraced our writing contest as over 100,000 teens, college students, professors, and high school Language Arts teachers utilize our monthly essay prompts each year to get students writing more outside of the classroom - a key digital literacy initiative here on Stage of Life. 

Our monthly writing contest winners receive a) featured writer status and b) a Stage of Life prize package. 

And allow us to share that this isn't your normal writing contest.  The essays uploaded to StageofLife.com have received attention from the press including TIME.com, The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch, NPR member station WITF, Mint Education, and more, etc.

Select the writing contest by your stage of life to read specific details and enter.

	Writing Contest for High School Students We ask a monthly contest writing prompt about a real-world issue that's relevant to teenagers in high school. Read contest rules See current prizes Review current topic/theme for your high school writing contest. This writing contest is open to high school students.
	Writing Contest for College Students Submit an essay answering the monthly contest writing prompt geared towards a topic relevant to students. Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for your college writing contest. This writing contest is open to college students.
	On My Own Writing Contest Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for your college writing contest. This writing contest is open to singles.
	Wedding Story Writing Contest Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for the wedding writing contest.  This writing contest is available to brides, grooms, OR anyone that has participated in a wedding as a bridesmaid, groomsman, usher, attendant, or special performer, e.g. wedding singer.
	Marriage Story Writing Contest Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for the marriage writing contest.  This writing contest is available to anyone who is (or was) married.
	Home Ownership Writing Contest Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for the marriage writing contest.  This writing contest is available to anyone who rents or owns a home.
	Baby Story Writing Contest Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for your baby story entry.  This writing contest is open to any mother or  father who has had a baby.
	Writing Contest for Moms, Dads and Parents Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for the parents' writing contest.  This writing contest is available to anyone who is a parent.
	Writing Contest for Grandparents Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for the grandparenting writing contest.  This writing contest is available to anyone who is a grandparent.
	Writing Contest for Empty Nest and Retirement Read contest rules See current prizes Review the topic/theme for the grandparenting writing contest.  This writing contest is available to anyone who is a retired, getting ready to  retire, or has an empty nest.

What makes our writing contests different:

• We want to hear your personal, authentic thoughts on real world topics each month.  We pick topics for which your answers and wisdom may help one of our readers
• We award the winners with real prizes (cash and/or gift cards) from our site sponsors
• We have Stage of Life SWAG for thewinner
• We invite each monthly writing contest winner to become one of our Feature Writers on the site for their stage of life