The language barrier often made the mural process in Bamako very difficult. From understanding the guys at the paint store to our hosts and getting directions to settling a bill – things could be difficult and sometimes that wore on us.
One way to escape that was interacting with children.
Their curiosity and interest in the mural, my camera and us three toubaboos always transcended the barriers of language. Here Eduardo talks about those playful interactions.
GAIA Vaccine Foundation, which stands for Global Alliance to Immunize against HIV and AIDS, is the organization that put me up while I was in Bamako in January. It was their clinic where Eduardo and Teresa painted the mural.
The founder, Annie DeGroot, is the most driven person I’ve ever met and her organization is among the most legitimate I’ve ever encountered. In addition to building and running the health clinic, GAIA is involved with HIV vaccine research in both Bamako, Mali and Providence, Rhode Island.
The organization is having its most difficult fundraising year ever and they are having a very hard time finding funding for three Brown University students to work in Annie’s Providence lab this year and then travel to Mali this summer. The research and work GAIA is involved with has the opportunity to benefit every person on the planet who is HIV positive and eventually everyone on earth. They need to raise $12,000. Annie is matching every donation dollar for dollar.
If you can donate some cash that would be amazing. I’ve given $50, but I’m sure they wouldn’t turn away donations of $5, $10, or $25. Thanks very much. The link to donate is below and I’ve also pasted Annie’s recent email.
Here is the excerpt from Annie’s email
This video is an excerpt from an interview done with Ray Patlan. Ray is a prominent Bay Area muralist who grew up in the barrios on the south side of Chicago. He has partnered with Eduardo Pineda on several mural projects.
In this video he talks about how murals can inspire change in impoverished areas where people have never realized a sense of power in any aspect of their life. It’s pretty inspiring stuff and it definitely has a bearing on the work Eduardo and Teresa did at the clinic in Sikoro and overall the work GAIA is doing at the clinic.
I think very often we judge people whose lives we truly can’t fathom. Ray’s comments definitely helped me to understand that there are many people in our own country and around the world who have not had the opportunities I’ve had and don’t feel empowered to make change in their lives and in their communities the way people who have been privileged throughout their lives do.
I agree with him that a simple artistic change of scenery can help to inspire that change.
Murals and Their Power to Change: Video from A Real Earl Production Documentary from Real Earl Productions on Vimeo.
At the tail end of our trip to Africa we were asked to contribute a news story about the mural and its dedication to one of Bamako’s 12 daily newspapers. Eduardo wrote the article, Teresa and I proofed and I provide one of my photos.
The story was supposed to be printed on our last day there. But, as things typically did, things did not go as planned. The story got printed a few days after we left. But with the magic of intercontinental travel and the post office, our editions of Le Republicain from Feb. 3 arrived in Portland last week.
Here’s the scanned article. You’ll enjoy it if you can read French.
More video from the trip soon.
The scanned image of the mural article from Feb 3's Le Republicain
Teresa, Eduardo and I had a wonderful night on the eve of President Obama’s inauguration. You can read about it here.
It seems so long ago. Returning home and hearing endless debate about the stimulus makes it difficult to remember the feeling of that night. It was a wonderful evening.
Part of the evening was a concert by a group of Malian musicians that included Abdoulaye Diabaté a famous kora player. The group includes about 10 kora players, plus a percussionist on the kalabash and four singers.
Here is some video from the event.
Malian Kora Concert: Real Earl Productions Documentary Video from Real Earl Productions on Vimeo.
We’ve been back a couple weeks and while Teresa and I have had some time to get back to our daily lives, Eduardo is just getting able to start doing. Since we returned he had been very sick.
His problem was finally diagnosed as an allergic reaction to his malaria drug, doxycycline. Here I was, worried about vivid dreams (I never had any by the way) from my malaria drug and it was poor Eduardo who ended up getting terribly ill from his medication.
There are only about 10 documented cases in history of his reaction and his case was severe. The amazing thing is that it didn’t strike until he was in the comfort of his home in Berekely. Things would have been much worse had it struck in Africa.
I have been spending time logging all the video and I expect to begin posting multiple times a week to keep the momentum going until the film is finished.
Here is a video from my first interview with Eduardo about the mural. The interview was done on Dec. 27, 2009 in Balmy Alley in San Francisco’s Mission District. Eduardo is standing in front of his mural in the alley which is called Hoy (Ve) Como Siempre. Balmy Alley is very cool. You can read more here.
I thought this video was important to post because Eduardo talks about how murals should reflect the community in which they reside and how you can ensure that by involving the community in the mural process. This is exactly what he did in Bamako.
I will post videos here and they will also be available at www.vimeo.com/realearl
Murals Reflect Community: Real Earl Productions Documentary Video from Dan Viens: Real Earl Productions on Vimeo.
We’ve been home nearly a week. I’m not quite over the jetlag because I went right back to work. Teresa has returned from San Francisco to Portland and from what she tells me Eduardo has been pretty sick. That’s a bummer.
I’ve started looking at some of the video and I am pleased to say that what I’ve seen looks amazing. I will begin posting video regularly starting today.
First though, here is a selection of photos taken by Eduardo while we were in Mali.
The birds I made my first film, On The Wing, about are called Vaux Swifts. There are many other types of swifts and from what I can tell they are all very similar.
When we were in New Orleans last May, swifts flew all over the French Quarter. Here in Africa, I have seen them both in Bamako and Segou. Both times I’ve been very close to the Niger. They are most visible near dusk as they cruise through the air for mosquitoes, which are in abundance here.
It’s become a very comforting thing for me to see them throughout the world. I feel like they’re my birds.
Here’s the best photo I could get.
An African swift.
Thanks to my friend Jeff in Portland, I get some great Adidas gear at a pretty low price and sometimes for free. In fact I have been heavily outfitted in Adidas gear for the trip. Adidas is a German company with it’s American headquarters in Portland.
Our German friend Moritz has been loving the stuff I’ve been wearing and asked if I could send him some. I did him one better and gave him one of the two identical T-shirts I have. He was really psyched. I’m glad to be sending this Adidas shirt to its other home.
Thanks Jeff!
Dan and Moritz fitted in Adidas.
Going to Segou for the Festival Sur le Niger is like going to New Orleans for Jazzfest. We weren’t ready for Jazzfest. We might have done better with something a bit more Summerstock. We saw some wonderful music and dancing and drank our share of beer, but parts of the weekend were pretty intense. Here are some lights, both high and low.
1. The bus ride was an adventure. Three hours hurdling through African countryside was kind of fun, but the scenery gets repetitive, the bus heats up after a while and well, it’s a bus.
2. We saw a monkey on a motorcycle. He wasn’t driving, but still cool.
3. We knew our hotel room didn’t have a bathroom and that we would be using a common one. We didn’t know we were the only room out of 19 like this and that we would be sharing the staff bathroom. We’re certain the staff held this against us.
4. The hotel had a wonderful outdoor seating area under a thatch roof. It was a great place for decompressing on Friday with some gran Castels.
5. We couldn’t sit in the outdoor seating area Saturday because they were pumping sewage out of the ground with a super loud machine.
6. Being white at the festival meant you were ripe for buying stuff. We were constantly accosted to buy stuff or just look or whatever. It really gets on your nerves after a while. People follow you. Put their hands on you. If you do stop to buy something, then a ton of other people come up like vultures. It’s exhausting.
7. The music and dancing at the festival were amazing. The dancing was like nothing any of us have ever seen. The music was really fun. The stage was actually on a barge on the Niger River.
8. The seating was wildly uncomfortable. We were sitting on the concrete/rock embankment on the side of the river. It was hard on the rump and hard not to slide down. On Saturday, there was a wild crush of people for the entire concert. We watched the first two acts and then just couldn’t handle the onslaught.
9. We got home around10. It was hot and loud. I was asleep in 10 minutes. I was exhausted. It seems like once the mural was finished, our energy was kind of gone. We started to realize how exhausted we were and although we saw some wonderful stuff, it was hard to enjoy it all. Now we’re back in Bamako and able to relax a bit.
Our flight is late tomorrow night and I’m happy to be going home.
Some photos from Segou:
