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.
Throughout the world HIV is stigmatized. One of the roles GAIA VF plays in Bamako, Mali is to help educate to remove the stigma and to help HIV positive people and their families deal with the social aspects of the disease.
In this video, Annie talks about how GAIA creates a medical home for these people at the clinic in Sikoro. She also talks about how the mural painted by Eduardo and Teresa at the clinic will be a PR piece for the work done by GAIA, its peer educators and the clinic.
Dr. Anne De Groot: Full Spectrum HIV care in Bamako & How a Mural Can Help from Real Earl Productions on Vimeo.
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
We’ve been back from Mali for just over two months. In that time I’ve been consumed by work that wasn’t the Africa stuff.
Since returning I’ve:
Where I
I am thrilled to say that I am finally done with everything that was standing between me and really getting to work on the Mali Mural project. I have now logged a total of 6 hours of footage out of the 51 I shot while we were there. I will now commence with regular blog updates with video from the trip.
Portland’s Aladdin Theater had some beautiful sounds coming from it on April Fool’s night thanks to Bamako, Mali’s own Habib Koite. Teresa and I went to the show and half a world away enjoyed a wonderful evening of music by a man we had dinner with in Bamako in January.
The show was beautiful and very high energy. It was also perfect timing. That same day Teresa gave a presentation at work about our trip and the mural painting process. And on the previous evening I finished up all the other work that was keeping me from diving into all of the footage I shot in Africa.
It was a great way to return to Bamako for an evening. Habib has a wonderful voice and the rhythmic sounds brought me back to the warm days in Mali.
Photos from the show.
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.
I wrote last month about a wild day of shooting when I stumbled upon a ceremony on the hillside above the main village of Sikoro in Bamako, Mali.
After talking with Amidou Keita, a photographer from Bamako, I’ve learned the purpose of the ceremony was probably to rid the demons from one of the women there.
Here is some raw video from that day. The video quality suffers a bit to get in on You Tube. I’ll work to improve the quality as I post more.