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Teresa’s Photos

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

I wasn’t the only one documenting this trip. Teresa and Eduardo took a lot of amazing photos. Some of the photos you’ve already seen on the blog are Teresa’s.

Here are a bunch more:

: Arriving at the airport.

: Airline jedi.

: Paris sunrise from the plane.

: Eduardo cooking spinach in the gourmet kitchen.

: Spaghetti feet.

: A clinic intern, Fatamata, and Eduardo’s Obama Loteria drawing.

: Driving through Sikoro.

: Dan shooting at the horse track.

: Shooting in the hardware store.

: Eduardo shopping for paint.

: The travelers, the interpreter and the energy drink.

: Teresa in Dan’s glasses.

: Teresa and Dan’s shadows.

: Fun with the projector.

: The Chief looks at the proposed mural design.

: Eduardo, Mamu and The Chief (dugutigi)

: A scanner silhouette.

: Group scanner silhouette.

: Typical taxi door.

: Dan and his BFF from the Gran Marche.

: Dan shooting the kora performance on inauguration eve.

: Racks of dresses at the Gran Marche.

: A Lakers and OBAMAKO fan.

: Aretha’s hat was even a hit in Bamako.

: Dan at the inauguration.

: A cartwheel in Sikoro.

: Drying newly dyed fabric.

: Dying fabric.

: Dan shooting on the roof.

: Eduardo and Hamidou at the dedication with a sign showing the partnership between GAIA and the clinic.

: Mamu channeling Whitney Houston.

: Our guardian, Salif.

: The horse dancer in Segou.

: The zebra dancer in Segou.

Tags: AIDS, bamako, dan viens, documentary, eduardo pineda, GAIA VF, HIV, mali, mural, teresa pineda
Posted in Mali Project | 1 Comment »

Taking Shape: 1/18/09

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

Today was a long day. I had the camera incident and the painting crew outlined the entire design on the wall. The entire form is now on the wall and people are noticing.

As Teresa, Eduardo and Amadou paint and I film, we draw a crowd. The numbers ebb and flow throughout the day, but at its peaks it can be a chaotic situation. Cars, motorcycles, kids running, yelling, looking and all manner of people, goats and dogs walking down the street.

The presence of the kids and everyone else makes this a really rich and lively experience, but its also exhausting. The kids will surround the camera and asked to be filmed. Sometimes I just have to ignore them so I can work. But I can’t be that guy all the time so sometimes I engage them. Today we counted to 14 in both our languages and I had them repeat some tongue twisters and words like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Tomorrow we are going to hit the big market. We haven’t been there yet. Then the painting continues. We’re in for a lot of work over the next two weeks.

Another cool thing today was that Mali was playing Rwanda in soccer. Tons of people were watching it. They were gathered around televisions out in front of people’s houses.

The funniest thing from today was just as the artists were finishing up, a handful of goats walked past the mural and dragged their bodies along the base of it to get a real good scratch. It was hysterical.

Photos from today:

: Dan and Baba, one of the many Sikoro kids out and about.

: Dan camera self.

: Selling flip flops and showing wonderful balance.

: Mural outline photo 1

: Mural outline photo 2.

: Mural outline photo 3.

: Nido getting a good scratch on the bushes at GAIA house.

: Norman Rockwell in a Bamako bathroom.

Tags: AIDS, bamako, dan viens, eduardo pineda, GAIA, HIV, mali, mural, pineda, real earl productions, storytelling walls
Posted in Mali Project | 4 Comments »

Paint on The Wall: 1/17/09

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

We’ve had so much going on with running errands and getting our bearings and now all of a sudden the real reason everyone is here has begun to blossom. Today paint hit the wall and the actual mural work has begun.

Teresa and Eduardo worked with a local artist who works at a nearby children’s center to cover the wall in white paint. Amidou, brought a few of his friends, Eduardo went into happy instructor mode and within 90 minutes the wall was covered. Eduardo working with Amidou made me think of the book I’m reading, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Without getting too much into it, basically I’m hoping this chance collaboration will help Amidou progress as an artist in a way that he would not have had this mural project never happened.

Once the sunset we returned to the clinic. This time to project the mural images onto the wall and trace them with pencil. This will allow Eduardo, Teresa and their helpers to complete the mural with a sort of template already on the wall. While they were painting and projecting, dozens of kids came by to check out what was going on in their neighborhood. It was quite a scene.

Today I also did a couple of interviews. One with Karamoko, the director of the clinic, and Rama, an HIV positive peer educator. Kara is great to talk to and Rama had a lot of very insightful things to say. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet them and discuss their work with them.

This evening Teresa and I went out for some drinks at a great place called The Diplomate. It is basically an outdoor island type bar with great music and an outdoor dance floor. We had a lot of fun cutting loose and dancing after a long day. While we were gone, Eduardo started filling in the color on the illustrated draft of the mural we have at GAIA house. Upon return, Teresa and I were scolded by our house guard, Salif. I think we may have stayed out too late, but I’m not sure. I can’t understand anything he says. All I know is that he means well.

Here are some photos:

: Big Sikoro smile.

: Brokedown Bashi (little bus).

: Cute hoodie.

: Crowd of kids in Sikoro.

: Crowding around the painting.

: Painting the wall.

: Eduardo working the projection.

: Teresa up against the wall.

: The trace is on.

Tags: AIDS, art, bamako, dan viens, eduardo pineda, GAIA, HIV, mali, mural, real earl, real earl productions, storytelling walls
Posted in Mali Project | No Comments »

Full Mural Draft 1

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

I posted several snapshots of the mural drawing two nights ago. Here they are all stitched together. Since this draft there have been some revisions at the request of members of the Sikoro Asaco and some people associated with the clinic.

The mural design has basic elements of the clinic, the village and the GAIA organization. The two most prominent themes within the mural are the hands and the mango tree.

The mango tree is representative of a mango tree which is planted in the clinic’s courtyard. It was planted by Annie DeGroot and the village Chief. It represents putting roots down in the village and signifies the growth of the clinic and its offerings within Sikoro.

The large hands and many of the figures’ hands within the piece are representative of the clinic’s HIV education program called Here Bolo. Basically this uses the five digits on the hand to represent different facets of combatting HIV and its stigmatization.

thumb – espoir (hope)

index finger – identite (identity which means identifying whether you and your partner have HIV or not)

middle finger – transmision (transmission which talks about how the virus is actually transmitted and informs people about prevention)

ring finger – femme, famile, fidelite (this covers caring for and respecting women, family support of HIV positive people and remaining faithful to your partner)

fifth finger – community (the importance of a communal approach to fighting HIV/AIDS (fifth finger completing the whole hand).

All of these elements are represented in the piece within scenes under the mango tree which grows from a seed to a full tree providing shade and fruit to the community from left to right.

In this form the mural also looks like one of those pages from Highlights magazine where you try to find the differences. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Wow, now you’ve got a lot to look forward to.

Click the image to see it big.

The mural as of Wednesday 1/14/09.

Tags: africa, AIDS, bamako, dan viens, eduardo pineda, GAIA, HIV, mali, mural, real earl productions, storytelling walls
Posted in Mali Project | 3 Comments »

Sunsets Like a Dream: 1/17/09

Friday, January 16th, 2009

From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. is a magical time to shoot video here. The temperature is perfect. The sky goes from blue to yellow then orange then red and pink. Mixed with the red earth and the haze from dust it is a majestic scene.

I’m trying to get out every evening to shoot around this time. Today I shot a lot of football (soccer). As 4:30 rolls around you see boys of all ages heading to areas all over town to play. It’s no wonder we can’t compete in the World Cup. The rest of the world is playing soccer everyday and in poor countries without cleats or shin guards.

Earlier in the day The Chief of Sikoro (dugutigi) approved Eduardo’s mural design. Tomorrow they will start on the wall. In the morning they’ll paint the wall white and then in the evening they will use a data projector to project images onto the wall which they can trace with pencil. Then they will darken the lines and begin to paint Monday. We have 16 days left.

We also strolled around our voisinage (neighborhood) today. We saw many beautiful children, hundreds of smiling faces and tragic filth. There was a beautiful garden and just beyond it a stream chock full of garbage, scum and waste. It makes me sad that the people and animals here live among such squalor. Then you stop and talk to people and they offer you fried bananas and the trash and filthy water melts away and all that remains is the happiness, contentment and generosity of these wonderful people.

Photos from today: