a lil flash photography

going to catch a car rapide

this was when the demonstrations were most tense in the neighborhood. the police tank had just driven by and people were throwing rocks at it. once it had passed they continued to throw rocks at this big, illuminated sign, there was a bit more of destruction like this seen in other parts of the city.

the police tank came back through.

people were hanging out all night, keeping fires going in protest.

these photos are a bit out of order but here is one of luke eating mad right before gettin' his head shaved. this fruit is real sour but tastes good mixed with sugar and a bit of red pepper. kinda like a natural sour patch kids.

baldy, lookin' weird

rims

luke got a bit of footage of some people starting the fires.

a well earned beach visit.

just thought i would put up some photos. there are some of the demonstrations. the BBC has photos of the demonstrations but they make things appear to be much more violent than they actually are. we are all safe here. waiting to see if anything will happen tonight. sending all my love!

y'en a marre

Awoke from a nap this afternoon to a few bangs. Outside people have started protesting the electricity blackouts that have affected the neighborhoods around where Abubakar lives, including Sacre Coeur where Luke used to live and where Abubakar's barber shop is. Cherno, a guy that barbs at Abubakar's shop couldn't work at all today because the electricity was out the whole day. For a month people have been experiencing random blackouts at least once a day. Blackouts are sometimes necessary to account for overload in the electric grid, but it is usually done to a schedule without favoring any particular neighborhoods. Here it is clear that something is not right. I have just collected some info from people around and from what I get in the news, but for more news check out: Xalima News and follow up on this group of rappers that is organizing against the electricity blackouts amongst other corruption experienced under the president Abdoulaye Wade: Y'en a marre. More on this laterz...

bien arrivée!

Made it to Sénégal. Luke and Abubakar were waiting for me as I walked into the warm air outside Leopold Sedar Senghor Airport. We grabbed a taxi and headed back to Abubakar's place. I grabbed some well-earned hours of sleep and was awoken by a light rain in the morning. The cool breeze from the rain was well appreciated after the heat in Lisbon. Eating some mango as I watch Brazilian sitcoms. Things are pretty swell.

scraping the peaks, a bit on the mountains

Nearly off to the Sahel! I have been relaxing quite a bit here in Lisbon, enjoying the flush toilets and waiting for some laundry to finish before I do a minimal amount of exploring. I took a half of my malaria pill hoping it will have less side effects when split up.

Before I get to the Sahel though I would like to write about the mountains in Morocco.

After the desert Tiffany and I were scooped up by Omar, our guide and probably the eigth Omar we had met, and his brother Hamed. They drove us into the Atlas mountains from Ouarzazate. Driving around through Morocco the landscape changes so much. From the desert we had driven through oases, like the Dades Gorge, and then into the mountains that went from dry, shale like rock to lush forests of walnut trees.

The Berber people of the Atlas Mountains maintain their traditional lifestyle in isolation from the rest of Morocco. Most people I met spoke a few words in French, Berber is the first language and second is Arabic. The agricultural system is truly impressive. The fields are terraced along the mountain sides. When we were there wheat was being harvested and then, using mules and donkeys, the soil was turned and corn planted. The land is dotted with fig and walnut trees. The walnut trees serve as a commodity crop for families like Omar's that harvest the walnuts during the month of Ramadan and sell them in Marrakech. The woman do all the harvesting and the men tilled the fields and planted new seeds. I felt like that was quite symbolic of male-female relationships.

We went on an over night trek with Omar and his nephew Hassan. I became pretty good friends with Hassan and was really sad to say goodbyes at the end. A very trusty mule accompanied us on our hike. I have to admite I felt really bad for it, especially when it was carrying all out luggage and I was sitting on it, haha. But, then I saw some other mules carrying luggage for about five people or so and I was entirely impressed at the stamina of these little creatures and their knobbly legs.

There are some photos of here of a town we visited called Magdez. This town is known for having grain or hay attics within the buildings and they are all about 300 or 400 years old. The construction materials are nothing more than clay, stones, and hay I think, but they have lasted an incredible amount of time. We shared tea with the chief of the town and walked part of the way back with school children going to their home village.

A group of girls kept on running ahead of us, staring back at us, and laughing. I picked some flowers to try and give to them but they kept on refusing. Finally they hung around when Tiffany started clowning aruond and making them laugh a bit more. I think they were still afraid of me because they really did not want any flowers. Maybe they were confused about my identity, afterall Omar had asked me why I cut my hair because  it made me look like a boy. haha. Anyway, once we made it to their village they were very friendly with us and they finally accepted my flowers, but at that point I didn't have enough for all of them. oops. As we walked out of their village they kept on shouting goodbyes in little bird-like voices.

Tiffany and I found that most children and most women did not want their photo taken. I asked Hassan about this after we left these girls. He explained that at some point a few years ago a group of tourists had come to one of the villages in the valley and took photos of girls and women, and then put them on the internet. Through our language barrier I could not understand whether the photos were a sexual exhibition of the women or not. Either way the women from this one town in particular are known for their beauty and here marked the beginning of their expocure to the world through the internet without any form of consent. This was especially hurtful because, according to Hassan, men were coming from other parts of Morocco to see these women. It sounded like the women had become commodified because of their beauty. The exposition of these women on the internet, I imagine, was also detrimental to the security of their village and their traditional lifestyle that seems to depend a lot on their isolation.

With this in mind I only took photos of willing subjects and will be sending copies back for Hassan to give to them. I am not going to put up any photos here that I feel might be offensive or an unwanted exhibition.

jumping around a bit, been dodging quite a few vendors

Writing to y'all here from the windy ocean side of Essaouira. Tiffany and I met up with my friends from Belgium, Daphne and Chloe, in Marrakech, and after a day or so of some intense city life have retreated to the calm by the sea. Even the hostel we are staying is playing this chill French lounge music that I expect Ken would really enjoy. 


Since I have not written in quite a bit I would like to catch up on a few things. 


We left Fes on a night bus that brought us to the outskirts of the Sahara Desert in the early morning hours. There we met a guide to take us on a cliche, but well worth it, overnight camel trek. We spent the day waiting for the heat to die down in a beautiful Kasbah owned by his family, I think- family seems to be a fairly all inclusive term. Leaving the grit of the city, we felt well posh in the calm heat of the day. 

Around 5 we headed into the desert. In this part of Morocco, from what I understand there are only dromedaires, one humped camels. We climbed atop our trusty transport and headed into the expanse of sand, full of orange waves that seem to swallow any grounded concept of where you are. 


Hopefully these photos will give you a glimpse of it. The beauty is contrasted by the visibility of the Algerian border. Which is a very contentious space as I have learned. I have only got bits and pieces on the politics of the area and need to read up on it. But, so far I have gathered that the area is somewhat autonomous as the desert is expansive and difficult to navigate without an innate or well learned knowledge of it. In addition, because the desert is part of Morocco, Algeria has been cut off from direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. I need to learn more about this all, please forgive any misconceptions.

After the desert Tiffany and I had our guide drive us through several gorges into Ouarzazate. The gorges were beautiful, something like the Grand Canyon of Morocco. The sides of the gorge walls are covered with these rock formations better known as monkey fingers, as they resemble very much our primate siblings´fingers. 


Alrighty must head off the computer now, sorry about the inverted photos. more later!
big love

On the People that I Don't Get to See Again

The anticipation of returning to friends and places that I haven't seen in three and a half years is ballooning fast for me, but the more I think about it, the more I think about my friend Moussa, a true friend, the likes of which are as rare in Dakar as anywhere else in the world. He died of malaria this past October. 

I had some footage from hanging out with him in 2007 when Joe Fresh and I traveled to Senegal together. In retrospect it's of course precious few clips of him, but for those that knew him we're lucky for the glimpses it gives us: hanging with friends, spoiling his niece Maam Daba, standing up for Mermoz when the developers came to build over a public space (Joe tells me it's been razed since), and being on the Ile de Madeleine off the coast of Dakar, one of his favorite places to be, by his own admission.

There's a lot more to say about him but not right here. I am posting the video below since many of you reading will have either known him or heard me talk about him. 

On a Proposed Trajectory

Hello folks, please allow me to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming of "The New Moroccan Adventures of Celeste and Tiffany" for my own ramblings.
It was-- jeez, I dunno Celeste, maybe nine months ago that we started talking about this journey? Celeste asked me if I wanted go on an around-the-world-in-80-days trip with her. After four years of disciplined book-learning and freezing winters, she was understandably ready to blow this taco stand called North America. When she asked me, I immediately imagined the long list of E.T.s, A.D.s, S.N.s, and so forth who, naturally, must have been invited before me but who, for some reason, had to decline. It was one of the best older-brother moments of my life to hear that Celeste in fact asked me first. The trip itself got whittled down by reasonable temporal and fiduciary constraints to "just West Africa," although when I look at the six-week, 1,500 mi/2,400 km (albeit half by plane) dogleg through four countries, in middle of the rainy season, it feels pretty substantial. All the moreso for Celeste with her head start in Maroc!
Here's an outline of what we have in store (though flexibility will undoubtedly be of the essence):

• June 22, 23: Arrive in Dakar, where we'll stay with stay with this guy, my good friend Abubakar, the most hardworking barber in all of Dakar, more on him later fo' sho'. We'll live up the nightlife dakarois, see old friends, hit the beach, nab some visas and plane tix for Mali and Burkina and generally live it up.
• July 3: Fly to Bamako, meet some interesting members of the coalition on community forest rights that I worked for until last week, nab another visa.
• July 6: Head to Djenne (potentially by pirogue?), home to the world's largets mud structure and an old friend I met when passing through here in 2005 who has since started a tourist lodge there.
• July 9: Bandiagara-bound, via a stopover in the eponymous town, where we'll hike along the great escarpment and get a glimpse of Dogon-country
• July 15: Cross into Burkina Faso, to Nouna in the northern Boucle de Mahoun region (in'ch'allah, and contingent on road conditions) via San, Mali. Outside Nouna is a small village called St. Jean, which is the site of a model- village-type development intervention sponsored by a small NGO. We connected with them through WWOOF. We'll spend about a week living here and volunteering labor with a reforestation project they have going on.
• July 24: Leave for Bobo Dioulasso, spend a couple of days here and try and check out La Mare aux Hippopotames.
• July 26: Travel south into Ghana at Hamale, and make our way to Mole National Park for what I hear to be excellent up close wild animals and, perhaps more important for some, an excellent variety of insects.
• July 31: Make tracks down the middle of Ghana, probably overnighting in Kumasi, to get to Accra in time to eat at this rad rooftop sushi joint Monsoon and catch a hiplife act and chillax until we leave on the eve of Aug. 4.

Rather substantial, n'est-ce pas? But half the fun [w/c?] will be seeing how the ideal conforms to reality. Stay tuned, gentle people.
yours,
lb

Yes Fes!

We have spent two days in Fes so far. 


Upon arriving I braced myself to be hassled with offers of taxi rides, things to buy, and the slightly more ridiculous massage or marriage offers. But I was pleasantly surprised to find these offers pretty weak and easily let go and not too over bearing with a little laugh.

Tiffany and I had a really lovely dinner at Cafe Clock. This resto is situated among the winding streets of Fes in the medina but is something of an oasis of calm from the consistent bustle of people, donkeys, horses, cats, and goat heads for sale! I almost walked right into a donkey; it was clearly just as scared as I was with its head rolled back in a bray. The horses and donkeys used to cart heavy items around the medina are so well behaved and clearly well weathered by their every day routes.

Cafe Clock has three different floors and the waiters must get quite a work out from running up and down the narrow steps. We met a man named Ibrahim who worked for the Red Cross. He took us to dinner at Cafe Clock, insisting that we try the camel burger. I must admit it was really good. But after a day of kefta and camel meat I am taking a bit of a break from carnivorous habits.

Ibrahim shared with us about his work in the Red Cross. We also asked him about the bombiong in Marrakech a month or so ago. Mainly his point was that looking around at the majority of people in Morocco you see, clearly, they would not have the desire nor the means to set up such an attack. I have never believed that bombing attacks , like the Marrakech one, are representative of an entire country. It is clear that these angry calls to attention, or however we describe them, should be accepted as individual acts. That being said, coming into a place from an outside lens, the background knowledge I have recieved in the United States would suggest that this place is rather on edge. Possibly on edge with some violent influence from majority groups. 

However, all this is to say that last night I went to a concert of Saida Fikra. The emotion she invoked among the whole audience, most visibly among all the men, was beautifully empowering. Her songs of struggle for peace and coping with pain seemed to resonate throughout. It was beautiful. From all this, we see how the majority strives for peace for more beauty in the world and in our relations among other humans. It is most times the few in power or with enough power that make these hurtful gestures that mar innate movement towards peace. 

This is just a sliver of everything I am trying to make sense of. Take what you wish from it. Thank you for open ears. 

meat by the roadside

As-Salam Alaikum!


We have made it to Fes! 
We left the blue doors and sheltering mountains for the bustling religious capital of Fes. I tried to upload some photos but it did not quite work.


I had meat for the first time since I am not sure when. Our bus stopped on the roadside where some kefta_ ground meat cooked into a brochette_ was being cooked. The smell was too tempting to ignore. And it was delicious. 


In the streets I cannot walk more than a few steps without being called at to eat at someones resto or some sort. Not quite sure why they wre so interested in me. haha.


On a hike yesterday in Chefchaouen Tiffany and I stumbled through what appeared to be several donkeys territory. Always a bit surprised at the hiccuping braying around every corner.  


After a full day on the bus I think some tea is in order. 
à bientot tout le monde!