Cameras and the police
Friday, 15 June
"Hey white man, your sister is very nice..."
Sara and I ignore him and keep walking.
"Very fine."
This guy's persistent.
"I want her to be my wife."
Finally I can't stand it any longer. I could explain to him that we're just co-workers and that simply both of us being white doesn't mean we are related or that if he wants to marry her, he should talk to her, not me or that we've already heard that line before but those are all way too complicated. Instead, I turn around and with the most upset scowl I can manage, which isn't very threatening, tell him "we're married."
He immediately issues forth a string of apologies. It was fantastic.
---
After completing the commute down to the Stadium without further annoyances, we went out and bought some bread and Laughing Cow cheese. The center was open, but not very active. By 11:30 a few of my students were there, so I worked with them on their self portraits and handed them my digital camera to go take their portraits with.
Andrew introduced me to Edward, who is a cameraman for ABC television, the only independent alternative to the government-owned official station. He will be filming iEARN's events planned for the Day of the African Child on Saturday. After a brief chat, Sara and I went to Marianella for a lunch of fried rice.
When we returned to iEARN, the self-portrait students were still out taking their pictures, but given the usual pace of life here, I wasn't overly worried. Sara and I did another identity class for those who missed it yesterday. As this session loved to write, it went very smoothly. I can't wait to see how their portraits turned out - they really hit upon some serious topics in their written portraits of themselves, so hopefully the photographs will be equally thoughtful.
The morning self-portrait class stumbled in around 2:30, having finally finished taking their pictures - but not before being arrested by the police. The only explanation I could get was that "the police thought we were trying to kill the children," which I initially found absolutely ridiculous.
Mustapha had wanted to include some street children in the background of his portrait and so the group had taken some pictures of and mingled with the street children. Apparently, they were acting suspiciously and attracted police attention. Mustapha explained that during election time people will try to seduce - with pictures, candy or money - and kidnap children to sacrifice them in hope of good luck in the election. I'm currently in the process of researching this further; if anyone is aware of similar practices elsewhere, send me an email.
I'm actually quite glad that the police arrested them as it shows that the police actually do something besides direct traffic. Thankfully, Mustapha is quite the smooth talker and was able to convince the police of their innocent intentions, but only with the promise to carry a letter describing the project at all times.
Somewhat frazzled, I didn't send any more photographers out and instead spent the afternoon catching up on emails while Sara went down to the restaurant to read a book we borrowed from Amanda about the civil war. We went with Moses back to Wilberfoce, but not before stopping by a shop to buy a 25 kg bag of rice (imported from Vietnam) for Le75,000. This was our last day staying with Aunt Jennie and her family; while it has been a fantastic week-long homestay, we don't want to intrude on their lives any longer, so we are moving to the YMCA tomorrow. We gave the bag of rice to the family in exchange for our stay.
As usual, the house was quite interesting. Ola had made some rice with anchovies, so Moses, Ola, Sara and myself sat on the front porch eating as Joshua had not yet returned from his evening football game after work.
After dinner, we went for a walk up the hill a bit further to a clearing where you can see much of Freetown and the ocean below. Literally a hundred meters further up the hill from where I took the picture below is the current President's compound - he certainly has quite the view from his house.
We returned to the house and chilled on the front porch for a while. Two young neighborhood boys who we hadn't seen before came up with a very injured chicken belonging to Aunt Jennie. A burst of Krio ensued and all we were able to make out was that one of them had thrown a rock at the chicken, mortally wounding it. At that point we went inside, as it seemed to be no place for an outsider with some sort of confrontation occurring about what to do about the dead chicken and a suitable punishment. When I ventured out of Joshua's bedroom a little later, Ola was in the kitchen, cutting up the chicken by the light of the lantern. I don't think she was too happy about it as she had just taken a bath.
For an early evening snack Sara and I continued our sampling of imported cookies with a cookie with "fruit tooti cream filling" from Argentina. It was a bit lacking and perhaps overly fruity. The vanilla ones were more like shortbread crackers than anything else.
"Hey white man, your sister is very nice..."
Sara and I ignore him and keep walking.
"Very fine."
This guy's persistent.
"I want her to be my wife."
Finally I can't stand it any longer. I could explain to him that we're just co-workers and that simply both of us being white doesn't mean we are related or that if he wants to marry her, he should talk to her, not me or that we've already heard that line before but those are all way too complicated. Instead, I turn around and with the most upset scowl I can manage, which isn't very threatening, tell him "we're married."
He immediately issues forth a string of apologies. It was fantastic.
---
After completing the commute down to the Stadium without further annoyances, we went out and bought some bread and Laughing Cow cheese. The center was open, but not very active. By 11:30 a few of my students were there, so I worked with them on their self portraits and handed them my digital camera to go take their portraits with.
Andrew introduced me to Edward, who is a cameraman for ABC television, the only independent alternative to the government-owned official station. He will be filming iEARN's events planned for the Day of the African Child on Saturday. After a brief chat, Sara and I went to Marianella for a lunch of fried rice.
When we returned to iEARN, the self-portrait students were still out taking their pictures, but given the usual pace of life here, I wasn't overly worried. Sara and I did another identity class for those who missed it yesterday. As this session loved to write, it went very smoothly. I can't wait to see how their portraits turned out - they really hit upon some serious topics in their written portraits of themselves, so hopefully the photographs will be equally thoughtful.
The morning self-portrait class stumbled in around 2:30, having finally finished taking their pictures - but not before being arrested by the police. The only explanation I could get was that "the police thought we were trying to kill the children," which I initially found absolutely ridiculous.
Mustapha had wanted to include some street children in the background of his portrait and so the group had taken some pictures of and mingled with the street children. Apparently, they were acting suspiciously and attracted police attention. Mustapha explained that during election time people will try to seduce - with pictures, candy or money - and kidnap children to sacrifice them in hope of good luck in the election. I'm currently in the process of researching this further; if anyone is aware of similar practices elsewhere, send me an email.
I'm actually quite glad that the police arrested them as it shows that the police actually do something besides direct traffic. Thankfully, Mustapha is quite the smooth talker and was able to convince the police of their innocent intentions, but only with the promise to carry a letter describing the project at all times.
Somewhat frazzled, I didn't send any more photographers out and instead spent the afternoon catching up on emails while Sara went down to the restaurant to read a book we borrowed from Amanda about the civil war. We went with Moses back to Wilberfoce, but not before stopping by a shop to buy a 25 kg bag of rice (imported from Vietnam) for Le75,000. This was our last day staying with Aunt Jennie and her family; while it has been a fantastic week-long homestay, we don't want to intrude on their lives any longer, so we are moving to the YMCA tomorrow. We gave the bag of rice to the family in exchange for our stay.
As usual, the house was quite interesting. Ola had made some rice with anchovies, so Moses, Ola, Sara and myself sat on the front porch eating as Joshua had not yet returned from his evening football game after work.
After dinner, we went for a walk up the hill a bit further to a clearing where you can see much of Freetown and the ocean below. Literally a hundred meters further up the hill from where I took the picture below is the current President's compound - he certainly has quite the view from his house.
We returned to the house and chilled on the front porch for a while. Two young neighborhood boys who we hadn't seen before came up with a very injured chicken belonging to Aunt Jennie. A burst of Krio ensued and all we were able to make out was that one of them had thrown a rock at the chicken, mortally wounding it. At that point we went inside, as it seemed to be no place for an outsider with some sort of confrontation occurring about what to do about the dead chicken and a suitable punishment. When I ventured out of Joshua's bedroom a little later, Ola was in the kitchen, cutting up the chicken by the light of the lantern. I don't think she was too happy about it as she had just taken a bath.
For an early evening snack Sara and I continued our sampling of imported cookies with a cookie with "fruit tooti cream filling" from Argentina. It was a bit lacking and perhaps overly fruity. The vanilla ones were more like shortbread crackers than anything else.
posted by Paul at
11:59 PM
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