I got a call to my room from the reception this morning, just as I was leaving.

He speaks little English, but has managed to educate his daughters. It is a struggle. This note was pressed into my hand.

—————-

Good Morning Mr Daniel

First of all let us say thanks for what you did to NN. You help her with money for school fees. She was worrying about school since the day she stay at home without going to school but now she is saying thanks for you. But the main purpose of this letter to you is that the whole family of Mr and Mrs NN want to beg you that if possible pliz help us. We don’t have enough food this year and we are so many in our family so we say please and please. We are not forcing but we are just begging. Help us with money so that we can buy enough food to pass this year. Even though we didn’t see you face to face but we know that you are a good man and all the family need to see you the time you have free. We have heard that you are going soon so let us just say have a nice journey. May God be with you wherever you go and don’t forget. Help us.
Thanks.

From: The whole family of NN.

——————–

So … what would you do?

I spend some of my time, not as much as I’d like, working for a NUFU (Norwegian academic research organization) project based at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway and University of Malawi, Chancellor College, in Zomba, Malawi.

It’s work in computational lexicography and corpus linguistics. I have finally managed to install some of the resources and programs outside the internal (local) network.

The Centre for Language Studies

Some of the corpora can be found at:

Corpora from the Centre of Language Stuides

I am now working on making the lexical databases available on the net.

One of these days I will gather the strength to write an in depth report of the on-going story of my contact with Philip Tambala and the aftermath. I write “aftermath” because he has died. There’s a story there too.

From the same ditch where we were sitting:

In Africa there is not the same incentive to automate or to create efficient work-flows. There are so many people looking for work.

I passed by these men working in the stream in Zomba (Malawi). They had already felled large gum trees (Eucalyptus) and were breaking the trunks down into small pieces; not small pieces, just smaller.

These pieces of timber were then taken up on land, propped up, lines are traced and then they manually, using the same technique of two workers on one saw, cut out planks from the smaller pieces of tree trunks.

A closer look:

The next stage, on land:

There’s a family I’ve been involved with for a couple of years now in Malawi. The father, Philip, died a few months ago. If you dig around on my blog or ask me, I can point to some background information.

This year the priority is food. It always is in Malawi. The price of fertilizer has gone up almost 3 times from last year and cost around 90 USD a bag. That is a total insult to the masses of farmers out in the country who rarely see cash. The majority has never seen 90 USD at one time. It takes about 8 bags to cover a field large enough to supply a family with food.

You can see the difference. The corn (maize) on the left is a field that belongs to the family I am helping. The corn to the right, to someone else in the hamlet who couldn’t afford fertilizer:

Dorte said one thing to me in English: “blankets”. And this is when she said it:

The cold season is coming and sleeping on the earth can be very, very cold.

There’s some more pictures here:

Feb. 2009

I found a roll of Tmax400 that got misplaced from an earlier trip to Malawi and processed it over the week-end.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, but when the rains come in time and in reasonable amounts, there is plenty to eat. These children were enjoying mangos:

When Alick and I stopped to shop for some rugs that he wanted to take home with him (we had spent the day at Lake Malawi), these children ran to meet us.

They were all taken with an M3 and a 50 Summitar.

I haven’t been working on my gallery, PAW or blog (at least, not noticeably working on them) for a couple of weeks because I have been away, in Zomba, Malawi. I am working in a bi-lateral research project between NTNU in Trondheim, Norway (The Norwegian Technical University) and Chancellor’s College, University of Malawi. In Malawi I am working with the Centre for Language Studies.

I took my Rolleicord V this time and took a couple of rolls. It was immediately recognized as a camera in Malawi, not just a curious little box. So people on the street would often like to have their portrait taken.

This young man was a filmmaker. He was working on his film, “Give me back my property” and is evidently inspired by Kung Fu films. He practised martial arts.

This next man is someone I would pass by every morning as I walked to the office.

I met these girls as I was walking down to the market on a Saturday afternoon:

Individual 1

Individual 2

Individual 3

There are more pictures taken with the Rolleicord in the gallery: here, here and here.

The thing to do on a Friday night in Malawi, and many places in Africa, is to go out dancing and drinking. All things considered, I got the impression that dancing was more important than drinking. Some were drunk, but not many, if you take consideration for how many people were at the club.

I met this man both nights that I went there. He is the one who asked:

Have you tried malawian girls?

No.

Why?

I’m married.

(High five … he liked that answer)

Together with Jannick.

A happy couple.

The man recognized me as I walked around town a few days later, stopped his car and came back to greet me, to make sure he got a copy of the picture.

Dancing …

And the owner, Joy …

.

Some of you might remember Phillip Tambala. I met him on my working trip to Malawi in November last year. I wrote a little report at the time.

One thing I knew I wanted to do this time, was to get a roof on his house. He had put up the walls, but couldn’t afford anything more.

It is a little late, but anything is better than nothing. It is late because the rainy season has been going on for a couple of months and a wall is collapsing in the little hut he, his wife, his two own children and four adopted children have been living in.

Word gets around and Phillip was waiting for me when I arrived. I knew he would be. I was prepared for it and was very happy that what I wanted to help with was exactly what he wanted help with. We hadn’t discussed it before.I didn’t have time to go to the bank so I sent him with some cash to change. It wasn’t enough, but he bought what he could and hid the sheets in the market for safe-keeping:

Believe me, if I tilted that camera upwards and caught some faces I would have left the market as an unhappy man.I took these on my lunch break and by then I had passed by an ATM and pulled out the rest of the cash so he could buy the remaining sheets. While we were at the market he introduced me to his sister:

He is holding the portraits from last year in his hand.I took some more of his sister because she wanted some too the next time I came down.

Just another view taken of her in her daily environment. I bought some cucumbers (5 for 75 cents) and some fruits.

I haven’t done much in the way of processing the images. I am using a laptop (untested) that I brought down. It has Ubuntu installed and I processed the Nikon raw (NEF) files using the GIMP and dcraw (both are available on GNU/Linux).

Travelling to and working in Africa means meeting people, for me. The work we do is important in the long run, but there are plenty of people in whose lives you can play a role in the short run as well. You can’t save the world. You learn to say no. I guess this is a story about how I chose not to say no.

Meet Philip Tambala:

Philip
Philip

He wasn’t a beggar. I bought his “calendar elephants” of wood (12 elephants, from large to small). I paid too much for them so he could buy seed (too much = I didn’t haggle). I even bought 6 more in order to make a down-payment on fertilizer.

My only request was that I wanted to see the receipts.

We met on the first day.

Two days later he was back with a long story about why he didn’t have the receipts with him (bought on the black-market). But he needed a lot more for fertilizer.

I explained that I had done my part. I appreciated his situation, but I wasn’t made of money. I still wanted proof of what he had done.

He was a fast talker. His command of English was amazing, but his mastery of logic and disposition was somewhat confusing.

He came back more and more. I was firm. Not a penny more.

But his story made sense.

After 10 days I put him together with the Chief Exectutive Officer:

CEO

All I wanted to know was if his story was straight or not. You really need fertilizer after planting corn (once knee-high and once again as “top dressing”). Each bag cost, subsidized, around 6 USD. But the coupons for claiming the subsidized price were not getting distributed. The market price was about 5 times more, per bag (50 kg), and he needed 4 bags. That’s starting to look like 120 USD and I wanted assurance.

The CEO and him had a long talk. After two hours I came in. I asked if I could see the fields and we agreed on Friday (the last day of my visit).

We had had a long running discussion and our agreement felt like a resolution.

The day before we were supposed to go they, my colleagues, started hesitating about taking me there. The CEO more or less made sure I would be safe, but there were other security aspects.

Blood-suckers.

It was well-known that blood-suckers were attacking the people. Ripping up holes in roofs, sneaking in at night and sucking out blood. Anyone coming in a vehicle might be seen as coming to negotiate with the chief about when they could come and suck blood. They would then stone the car and us before asking why we were there.

But on Friday morning I came to work early, 7 am, and Philip was waiting for me. He was for real.

We bought the fertilizer and headed off. The kids greeted us.

The girl on the left took a liking to me.

Another picture of her.

That’s her in the background, disappearing into the hills with my green camera bag (and all my cameras) on her back.

I called her back.

Told these guys to keep trying, I used to work the streets of East St. Louis.

Philip is a gentleman and helped his wife pick up the 100 pound bag.

He took the next one.

And his oldest son took the last one (the fourth one I had sent out in good faith days before).

And there goes my camera bag again.

The village.

Philip’s sister-in-law died and in a matriarchy her husband was required to move out of the house, but also required to leave the children behind. There were four.

Philip is now responsible for 8 children, one wife, two grandmothers and himself.

The property is still owned by the mother’s family, but they are not there anymore.

He was telling the truth. He had planted the seed and he did need fertilizer (I had already come to trust him so I had brought the fertilizer sight unseen).

His youngest son is sick with malaria, the deadliest kind.

This is where they live. The outer room is about as big as a coffee table and the inner room is about as big as two coffee tables.

No pictures. I was invited in but had to tactfully leave after a minute of fighting off the mosquitoes and holding back puke.

The grandmothers. Again and her hands.

The 3-bedroom house he is building.

He can’t afford a roof yet (I think I see some work cut out for me in January when I go back).

He paid about 85 USD to have others build the house for him (he baked the bricks himself right there in the front). You didn’t need to ask what they were smoking.

Neighbors.

Our departure:

Sending us off. Another of the same.

I was privileged to be allowed such a personal tour of his family, but the trust is there now. Africa is about people and you don’t dump each other.