Journey's Journal

Friday, 1/8

Among the comments that I received in response to the blog postings from my July trip to Kenya and Zambia was “oh, no, not another blog about problems with airlines.” I resolved to omit such entries from future postings. BUT…I was scheduled to fly on British Airways to Nairobi via London today. Given the ferocity of the European winter, I started checking my flight status with BA early in the day. I even enrolled for early notification of flight status, via e-mail and mobile phone. 

My flight to London was scheduled for 9 pm from Kennedy. I had not received any notifications from BA. At 4:30, I checked with my travel agent, who gets better info re flight status than passengers can get. Everything appeared fine, so I left for Kennedy. When I arrived at 6 pm, there were about 100 people in line at the BA counter and two agents working. Talking with a person in line, they told me that our flight was delayed until 1 am. There was no notification posted at the check-in counter. I probably would have still been standing in line when my flight for London was supposed to leave. Regardless, I would miss my connection in London to Nairobi. I called my travel agent to reschedule. We were able to get a direct Delta flight on Monday, bypassing a European connection. I had to redo my work itinerary. Instead of starting in Kenya and proceeding to Ghana, I had to start in Ghana, go to Kenya, and return to Ghana to complete the assignments there.
The lessons
1. get non-stop flights to the destination. It reduces the variables that can intervene.
2. when avoidable, don’t fly British Airways. This is the second similar experience that I’ve had with them.

Tuesday, 1/9

Walking past the baggage claim in Accra airport, I noticed a pile of hundreds of suitcases, at least 10 feet high and 20 feet in diameter. All had BA luggage tags on them. 

My Accra hotel, The Mahogany Lodge, is incredible. It has unlimited free internet.

Wednesday, 1/10

Even this far into 2010, Ghanaians greet each other with “Happy New Year.” The fixer who I hired for my assignment for the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth, Francis, is a Ghanaian journalist. He is the stringer for AP, USA Today and Dow Jones. He had just returned from Nigeria, where he was researching background info on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day attempted bomber. He went to Abdulmutallab’s village to talk with people who knew him as a child. Francis gave me a particularly African twist on the story. Extremely weak family ties made Umar vulnerable to Al Qaeda recruitment efforts. Alienated from family and ancestors while at boarding school in Britain, he found the security and intimacy that he needed from Al Qaeda. Following this interpretation, he didn’t become involved with the fundamentalists because of religious beliefs. He did it looking for a surrogate family. Similar to the interpretation that sociologists/criminologists in industrialized countries put on gang membership.

Thursday, 1/11

A woman crossed the street, right in front of our car, without looking. My driver screeched on the brakes and said “another candidate.” I asked Michael “another candidate for what?” He replied “the cemetery.”

Friday, 1/12

On a rural highway, I blinked three times after I saw a man selling, what appeared to be, a small leopard (dead). My client, Benjamin, from Ipas, confirmed that it was a leopard, which is a gourmet, luxury meat. It costs about $7 per kilo undressed. He’s eaten it and loved it. Like beef, but more flavorful. An interesting road. A bit further, we saw Rita Marley’s recording studio. She moved to Ghana shortly after Bob’s death.

Monday, 1/15

I received an e-mail informing me that an aid worker, with whom I had worked in Cambodia while on assignment for the United Methodist Church, had been killed in the Haitian earthquake. I’ve been to many, many disaster scenes. I connect with the victims. But, this was especially difficult for me. I knew this guy. He was not killed by an earthquake. He was killed by poverty. An earthquake, of this magnitude, can hit an industrialized country and we are shocked if more than a handful of people die. It’s things that existed before the earthquake — the type and quality of structures, the lack of a functional infrastructure, the general health condition of the people. That’s what killed them.

Saturday, 1/20

Driving out of the airport in Kisumu, Kenya, where I had flown on assignment with The Population Council, we noticed a box fall out of the open back of a pick-up truck. The box fell apart, upon impact. Out ran a very startled goat. Soon it had disappeared.
The remainder of the day, everytime we saw a goat, we joked that it must be the escapee goat.

Monday, 1/22

Kenyans love Obama and take great pride that one of theirs has become the most powerful man in the world. However, Nancy, a Kenyan project manager from Price Waterhouse with whom I was working in Nairobi, expressed a sentiment of being cheated.
Nancy: “Obama has to come back to Kenya. We need him to fix our problems.”
Me: “I think he’s working on bigger things.”
Nancy: “That’s why we need him back. He’ll never be able to fix those problems. But, he can fix our problems.”

Wednesday, 1/25

When I had to switch airlines to get to Africa, I had to buy a new ticket to get to Ghana. Today (almost three weeks later), BA refunded the money from its ticket. By the way, my original flight to London was not merely delayed. At about 3 am, BA cancelled it.

Thursday, 1/26

I was presented with a different development model by my client, the International Finance Corp., a part of World Bank. In the area surrounding a new gold mine in an isolated part of Ghana, they are working to start and fortify small businesses that support the mine and its workers. A waste management company, a consumer clothing manufacturer, an industrial uniform manufacturer, an international quality restaurant. It is a problem and an opportunity that had never occurred to me.

Saturday, 1/27

Though I’ve flown long distances, crossing many time zones, hundreds of times, the process still amazes me. I got on the plane in 90+ degree heat in Accra. Eleven hours later, I was in 10 inches of snow in Washington.

It’s Richard. Making my first entry, as I leave the US for Zambia.

Sunday, 6/14

My first revelation on this trip to Africa was the changed atmosphere at Dulles Airport. I had not flown from there since October, prior to the change in US government. The atmosphere of police-state security has transformed. I was aware of security procedures being followed, but in a considerably more respectful, friendly attitude by the TSA employees. It changes the entire airport experience. It took me over 2 hours to pass through all of the various procedures to arrive to my gate. The place was jam-packed, which struck me as strange, given the strength of the global recession. But everyone was smiling. No tension, no nastiness. What goes around comes around.

Monday 6/15

What could I have done to deserve my flights? The first leg was to Zurich. From there to Nairobi. In Nairobi, I had a three-hour layover, waiting for my flight to Lusaka, Zambia. So, I decided to go through immigration, so that I could enjoy natural air during the wait. When I returned to the Kenya Airways check-in counter, I was told that my onward flight to Lusaka had been cancelled and that it would be 10 hours until there would be another. Interestingly, each employee told every passenger a different story. Initially, I was told that there was a problem with the runway lights in Lusaka and that they could not do a night landing. Another passenger was traveling for an appointment with a friend who is the Zambian Minister of Agriculture. He called the Minister, who told him that there was no problem with the lights at the Lusaka Airport. He reported this to the person who was working at the Kenya Airways check-in counter, who told him that he must have misunderstood. The airport problem was in Harare, Zimbabwe. There logical flaw with this explanation.  Our plane was not scheduled to land in Harare. When we brought this to the agent’s attention, he admitted that the problem was that Kenya Airways had not sold enough tickets for our flight, so we were being combined with the passengers on the morning flight. C’est afrique.

I told the duty supervisor that my luggage had to be delivered to me before I would leave the airport for the hotel that they were arranging for us. He said that would be no problem. The bags would be brought to the Kenya Airways Service Desk. At the service desk, we were told that we were being given accommodations at the Pinari Hotel, a five-star. Having had the dubious honor of staying at the Pinani before, I protested that it might be described as a five star, but, in reality, it would have a hard time getting its second star. We were reassigned to the Stanley, one of the best 5 star hotels in Nairobi.

I asked the customer service agent for my bags. He replied that he knew nothing about them and asked for my baggage claim checks. I gave the claim checks to him and he examined them, discovering that United Airlines had checked my bags from Dulles only to Nairobi, despite having a ticket which clearly documented that I was connecting to Lusaka.  He suggested that I should go to the carousel from which the bags from my flight had been offloaded.  Perhaps, it was there. It was. Sitting on the floor with a few other unclaimed bags. Forget that it was supposed to have accompanied me to Lusaka. At least I had it in my possession. I tried not to think about the fate it would have suffered if I had not, by virtue of “unusual” circumstances, “missed” my connection and had I not gone through immigration in Nairobi.

Tuesday 6/16

On assignment for Coke, I was doing street shooting regarding issues pertinent to Coke’s image in Zambia.
I noticed a billboard advertising Obama Brandy. I wanted to buy a bottle, as a souvenir. A pint cost $3. My production assistant, Perrett, asked me how much a bottle of whiskey costs in the US. I told him that a pint of reasonable quality spirits cost about $20, but that one could pay up to $50 for higher quality.
Shooting outside the municipal dump, we saw a group of children running after a newly arrived garbage truck. They were chasing it to be first in line to scavenge items to recycle. Perrett commented “In your country, you can pay $50 for a few drinks of whiskey. Here, children chase a garbage truck to earn a few coins. So they can eat.”

Wednesday 6/17
When I left the US, I received an e-mail from a long-standing client, Penelope Riseborough. We have followed each other’s careers for almost 20 years, as she has been the Director of Communications for three international health NGO’s and have met, face to face, three times. She would be in Lusaka at the same time as me. This was the evening that we would dine together, catching up on each other’s lives and sharing insights regarding the current situation of international health organizations as well as the state of photography.

Thursday 6/18
Lusaka has always been among my favorite Third World cities. This is the first time that I’ve had an extended stay here (10 days). It is “old Africa,” emitting the charm that most other Third World capitals have replaced with slums.

People are proud. Interpersonal relations are more important than consumption. It embodies the African adage that, when preparing dinner, you cook a quantity sufficient for your family, your guests and “whoever else might come by.” Regardless of your economic level.

Sunday 6/21
I celebrated Father’s Day by sharing a carbonated beverage with an elephant at the most wonderful game reserve I have experienced, Chaminuka Lodge. I was on assignment for Coke. The elephant seemed to enjoy the drink, despite the bubbles in its trunk.

Chaminuka is about an hour from central Lusaka. The animals roam totally free and the facilities for humans are both excellent and appropriate. The entire reserve appears to be constructed with respect for  the animals. They are “doing their thing” and humans may observe. The animals are not there to entertain the humans.

Monday 6/22
Shooting for the TB Alliance, my assignment was to illustrate the problems that TB patients encounter in traveling to clinics for their medication — for many, a daily chore. An elderly woman, who I photographed, sat on a bike while her adult son pushed the bike from their slum home to the clinic. A two-hour journey, in each direction, they endure this trip daily.

To have the opportunity to observe this force of character and strength continues to pull me back to the Third World. It recharges my batteries and reminds me of what an incredible creature the human being can be.

Tuesday 6/23
Fear engaged me as my return flight to Nairobi was on Kenya Airways. It wasn’t that bad, aside from being 1.5 hours behind schedule, disgusting bathrooms, and surly flight attendants.

Wednesday 6/24
My frustration with Nairobi traffic intensified as we sat in a traffic jam for an hour. Usually, I have my laptop with me, so I can use unscheduled delays to work. But I didn’t have it today, as both of the shoot locations were in rural locations and I minimize the transport of the laptop on bumpy dirt roads.
Often, inconveniences are overshadowed by spectacular, serendipitous experiences. Making images at a 54,000-acre reforestation project, sponsored by Coke, I was concerned about how I would communicate the significance of the project in a non-clichéd message. At the planting site, I noticed a Massai tribal elder, in indigenous wardrobe passing by. His tribe lived on this new forest. I talked with him through an interpreter and convinced him to pose, looking at the new trees.

He told me of the struggle that his nomadic people encounter daily as their grazing lands disappear. Of the struggle to maintain their traditions in the face of the city’s lure. Of the beauty that someone cares about them.

The results were spectacular and the experience unanticipated. A really good day.

Thursday 6/25
Flew to Kisumu, on the shore of Lake Victoria, in western Kenya, on a Kenya Airways domestic flight. It was airline travel as it should be. This is a route on which many small airlines compete with KQ, unlike the interAfrican routes, on which KQ has virtually no competition,

Friday 6/26
On assignment for AERAS, a microbicides/HIV health organization, I passed within a mile of Barack Obama’s ancestral home, which so many of us saw so many times on TV after the election. I was told that a fence has been constructed around the village to keep non-residents at a safe distance. The villagers want to continue their lifestyle, not to be a tourist/media attraction.

Among the other distinguishing characteristics of this area is that it was the hotbed of what Kenyans call “the chaos.” The armed violence, which put Kenya in the world news in early 2009.

Last winter, on assignment for Calvert Foundation, I worked with micro-enterprise loan recipients in this area. They lost all of their possessions in the violence. The loans gave them the practical tool to struggle from the disaster that violence had brought to them.

I stayed at the Imperial hotel, a wonderful provincial hotel. Almost everything was functional and it has the charm that international business hotels lack.

A wonderfully funky place.

Sunday, 6/28

A few hours to actually explore Nairobi’s Central Business District, preceded only by a brief meeting with my local client from Coke to plan next Thursday’s shoot — selection of models, proposed locations, etc.

Among Kenya’s best-kept secrets is the new atmosphere of its central business district. As recently as 5 years ago, street crime was not merely probable, it seemed to be guaranteed, even during daylight hours. Today, the streets are SRO well into the night, abounding with restaurant goers, tourists and other non-criminals.

Monday, 6/29
I went to Kigali, Rwanda, for IFC, a part of World Bank. Don’t have much to say about it. The trip, door-to-door from Nairobi was 26 hours. Went from the airport to shoot to the hotel to sleep, preparing for my 2am check-in in Kigali Airport.

Tuesday, 6/30

The IFC assignment was primarily geared for its annual report. One particular image, which had been designed by its design firm, Addison, presented a particular challenge. This was a last-minute assignment, the nature of which I was unaware before arriving in Kenya. After many unsuccessful attempts to e-mail and fax me the mock-up, which was exacting in the subject’s body position as well as a tabletop of artifacts, I finally received the mock-up. After the shoot, I processed some sample images and e-mailed them to the chief designer in New York. My workday started at 6 am. At 10:30 pm, it ended.