Namib desert

Bagua protests, Lima

A few pictures of Peru

Trip to Colca Canyon & El Misti (click on picture):












Random pictures from Peru (click on picture):

Peruvian music

Peru has a great and complex musical history...there are some real gems if you look beyond the cumbia that assaults you in every cab and combi ride. Here's some of my favorites--

Psychedelic jungle music:

Roots of Chicha http://www.barbesrecords.com/rootsofchicha.html

Afro-Peruvian/world beat fusion:

Novalima http://www.novalima.net/afro/

There's a good background on Afro-Peruvian music here

Musica criollia, the national music of Peru, is closely related.

I've been learning to play the Cajon, famous in Afro-Peruvian music...

This upcoming week I'm planning to visit Chincha, heart of Afro-Peruvian culture, during their Carnaval celebrations...heading there with my photojournalist friend Ric Francis to take some photos, etc...more to come...

Mzungu!!

In Zambia from Mar-May 2008 I led a team of 20 or so fieldworkers in Luangwa district--a rural area bracketed by the Luangwa and Zambezi rivers, Mozambique across one bank, Zimbabwe the other. I spent my days coordinating malaria field work, visiting village chiefs and headmen to explain our activities and obtain permissions (this required frequent gifts of cooking oil and millie meal), and managing the field team....which was not without drama, as we had a fair amount of resistance from the communities, who thought we were satanists come to steal their blood, and some of the interviewers were chased from houses with rocks...

The wildlife in Africa is incredible. And everywhere. While in Haiti we would leave the field before dark to avoid kidnappers, in Zambia it was for elephants. We frequently diverted our activities due to rumour of herding elephants--a real nuisance--as they often trampled homes and really aren't all that friendly. But by contrast I found stumbling across a heard of baboons exhilerating, and witnessing the night movements of a jaguar about the coolest thing in the world. However I've not had the best of luck with the animal kingdom--having been mauled by doberman as a kid, then put on rabies shots due to a ferocious street dog in turkey, and again the same in panama. I thought I was exhibiting similar caution when I approached some zebras to shoot some photos--actually, they were on the path on the grounds at probably the fanciest hotel in Zambia, at Victoria falls, so I couldn't really avoid them..but was curious about a frail, shaken looking Indian women who was on the ground with her family ahead of me, and amongst them. As I approached, I was suddenly and without warning given the most exruciatingly painful kick to the back of my leg and quickly lay writhing, shaking, and sweating on the ground next to the Indian woman; she had suffered my same fate...
We were both carted away to the local infirmary to recover, nursing wounds to our bodies and our egos...and my leg took over a month to recover.





I camped with some friends in Zimbabwe's Mana Pools NP on the Zambezi river--camping in Africa can be a terrifying experience to the uninitiated, with some of the planet's most ferocious beasts most certain to visit, only a thin layer of polyester away. I woke under moonlight in my camp next to the river to realize I was sitting amongst a bloat of munching hippopotamus, one stumble or clumsy back step, and I was squished. I spent much of the night ready to bolt from my tent, but thankfully headed the creed of African campers, that you NEVER leave your tent at night in the African bush... pee in a cup, whatever, once you exit you are a MEAL. I woke to find that one rather ungracious hippo had relieved himself on my tent.

The hyenas you notice more from the smell when they enter your camp than anything else. They reek of death, rotting flesh, and they come snarling into camp, aggressively poking their noses into tents, seeking unguarded toes and eyeballs. I heard the story, from an opthamalagist tech, of one lady who chose to sleep outside under only a mosquito net, and was dragged across camp by her eyeballs, literally. So yeah, sleeping in the African bush is pretty exhilerating. And just about the most beautiful place in the world.

Check out some photos from Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique here:

Zambia-Mozambique

"Nap boule!"--sweating it out in Haiti

This is an email I sent to friends from Deschappelles, Haiti, where I lived and worked for two months each in the fall of 2006 and 2007:

Dear Friends,

Nap boule! ('we are boiling'!--the most common response to "sak pase?" or "what's up?")

Hope this finds you all very well. Sorry if I have not communicated much lately...internet here in Haiti is intermittent. This has been an obnoxiously intense two weeks, but nothing less should be expected for Haiti. I should've known it'd be that way when on the morning of Nov 1 (coincidentally my b-day) after not going to sleep halloween night (dressed in rags and shoeless no less), I got to the airport at 5 AM with about 17 huge boxes of research supplies (including a liquid nitrogen shipper) and managed to leave my passport, of all things, in the cab. So I spent 40 panicked moments figuring out contigency plans, etc, all the while trying to get through to the cab company (the person on the phone saying "ok honey baby" over and over in true nola style...5am in new orleans is not the best time to get things done with any urgency). It somehow managed to work out and I ran the fastest 700 m dash with two huge duffle bags (and various unchecked toothpastes, lotions, etc that were unceremoniously confiscated) and my name broadcoast over the intercom.

Haiti is a crazy and complex world that astounds, fascinates, and assaults you. The moment I arrived at the hospital grounds that serve as a base for our research, I began furious and constant negotiations (and glorious salutations) with the throngs of unemployed workers that had gotten wind of the "return of the malaria study" (we were quite magnanamous last year). The unemployment rate in Haiti is about 97.5%, and the hospital (Hopital Albert Schweizer) has just recently downsized, if you can imagine that.

So now from about 6AM (literally) until about 9pm I am in negotiations with the members of the community of Deschappelles who are selling their gorgeous paintings and offering any service we desire. I'm a bit of a sucker with a sensitive heart, so I've hired a "gardener" to clean up the yard, a fellow to wash the car, a kreyol lesson instructor, a peanut supplier, a coffee supplier, a coca-cola supplier and a beer and rum supplier in addition to the interviewers and translators for the project. I've also bought a few stunning paintings and contracted my favorite local artist to make me another one. Unfortunately I've recently learned that the coffee guy is in prison for stealing someone's computer. The prison is down the road so I think I'm going to go pay him a visit this week.

We've also lucked out in scoring a house next to the market so that we are woken every morning at 5AM by the tortured screaches of dying pigs. I'm now thinking about marketing a "Haitian farmer alarm clock" which would basically consist of those same screaches...they're quite effective. I've also been running back and forth between here and Port-au-Prince to pick up dry ice to preserve samples for our study--no easy feat--which has proven less than effective for the study but is very useful for foaming, steaming rum and cokes.

In all seriousness, Haiti is in a bad spot yet remains fairly forgotten even given its close proximity to the U.S. Virtually every conversation begins with "Adam, Geyen pwoblem" which translates as "Adam, I have problems"...and is usually followed by a request for some funds. Last night we transported a young girl to the hospital because she'd sustained a concussion and was mildly comatose and vomiting. We found her at a voudon neighboring one of our survey households. I haven't followed up yet. My friend Tico's sister just died two days ago, and I'll be attending the funeral this Sunday, as well as providing support for new wardrobes, etc.

If you had to list the top priorities here, they'd probably be Governance, Public Education, Public Health, and Agroforestry. We're doing our best to try to eradicate the malaria problem, but that's a very small step. There's very little civil society and corruption, kidnapping, etc are the norm. Still, the artwork, music, food, and general demeanor of people is incredible and uplifting once you accept the continued assaults on your privacy. Juxtaposed against the squalid poverty are places like "Club Indigo," a somewhat tranquil sliver of beach just over an hour away. It's housed in the old club med (tourists were scared off years ago) and apparently has some crazy pedophile past. Now it's another beautiful Caribbean resort with classic, faded, pastel colors, several pools, a sunday buffet, and ping pong tables. Unfortunately there's a dj who plays loud dance music all day sunday so any shot at true tranquility is about a mile down the beach (but then there's lumps of trash there). Also unlike other Caribbean beach resorts is the high percentage of aging UN brutes on jetskies and their underage Haitian counterparts.

So that's the news for now...I haven't had much time to work on some other project ideas (Jatropha, http://www.haitiinnovation.org/en/2007/04/14/biodiesel-haiti-appropriate-technology-micro-lending, fair trade coffee, etc.) but still hope to before I take off (two weeks or so). I've started to put some pictures on Flickr, my account name is afbennett415. To view some old photos see here, it's worth it, it's a great photo site.

I'll be in touch once I find some more time...

Love to you all,

Adam

Naked Farmers and Sharks in Mexico

For a week this past summer I attended a photojournalism workshop in Mexico City--the Foundry workshop--the first of its kind, with a bunch of cool famous photojournalists. I stayed with my photographer friends Trevor (http://www.trevorsnapp.com/) and Bene at their flat and enjoyed a great week of tacos al pastor, pozole soup, and photographing naked farmers. These farmers, from Veracruz, were camped out in downtown DF, protesting the takeover of their farming land by land developers and corrupt politicians to make place for an airport. Check out some of the pictures here:

I spent the next 4-5 days on a bit of vacation, in Sayulita close to Puerto Vallarta, surfing and eating fish tacos. I'd planned to head to the Troncones area, but after several fatal Bull Shark attacks in the area (http://sharkattackmonitor.blogspot.com/2008/05/fatal-23-may-2008-pantla-beach.html)--at a beach I'd surfed a year before--I decided to pass. By the way don't read shark attack blogs if you ever want to get in the water again. Shark attacks on the Mexico coast are quite rare, and some shark experts argued that La Nina conditions might have influenced these attacks, as the cold water column was closer to shore than usual. Bull sharks, while not entirely massive, are some of the most aggressive creatures on the planet, and are responsible for most of the attacks in the US, in Florida.

While in Sayulita we got a bit of south swell and I surfed a great day on the other side of the peninsula. I cut my foot a bit on the entry--there were big rocks on the beach....and then turns out there were a bunch of reef sharks in the water. They kept coming to the surface and flopping about so myself and the other surfers tried to keep our limbs out of the water....one came up pretty close to my foot and gave me a little spook, so i got out of the water till my cut had stopped bleeding. No matter the size, not cool to see that shape below you.

Harare Nights

Traveling to Zimbabwe currently presents a different kind of weirdness, the evil sides of the human psyche (represented by the Mugabe's thugocracy) masked by politeness and religiosity (Zimbabwe once had the best infrastructure and most educated population in Africa). I felt like Zimbabwe was now a bit like how it must have been in Haiti during the Duvalier regime/Tonton Macoute years. Once thriving colonial palaces, a population brought to ruin by military dictatorship... the police and military in Harare drive (or drove?) shining new Mercedes while infrastructure decays and millions starve. I took very few pictures here because foreign journalism is basically forbidden and punished...but I did meet a handful of undercover BBC folks.

I traveled to Harare in May 2008 to help with National Malaria control efforts...I arrived on an Air Zimbabwe flight late at night with a motley band of travelers--our plane diverted from Zambia to Lubumbashi, Congo (that's the opposite direction from Lusaka) because they had forgotten to pick up some travelers earlier. Strangely, they were all Japanese. UN workers. I ended up at the airport in Harare with only a "Rhodie," as they pejoritavely call them here--a former farmer, a grisled south african type with tight dusty shorts, crusty work boots, and an aged briefcase that looked to be covered in snake skins. Outside the terminal he sat and railed about the idiocy of the Mugabe regime while a few soldiers/policemen in dark shades looked on. Nervously I tried to distance myself, but realized he was probably my best option for a ride into Harare.

The economy, of course, is a mess, and the local currency basically worthless. I knew not to use my ATM cards--with the official rate at 30,000 zim dollars-$1 (which the banks give you) and the blackmarket rate 250,000,000-$1 (upon which prices are based), I couldn't have afforded a Coca-cola with all the money in my bank account...I assumed I could use the little US cash I had at the quaint postcolonial english hotel to which i headed...unfortunately, the restaurant there was only accepting zim dollars, so with all i had on me--close to $500, i couldn't come close to affording dinner at the official rate....luckily a girl noticed me, and we walked outside to some dark alley, where she met a friend with a brick, literally, of newly printed 250 million zim dollar notes...I was certain i got a bad rate, so only changed enough to get the meal and a little extra. At the black market rate, dinner was less than $5 US.

Luckily I connected with my friend who works at UNICEF in Harare, because otherwise I couldn't have afforded the hotel stay--they couldn't accept my cards because the machine ceased functioning due to the astronomical number of zeros required. I stayed with him and his girlfriend most of the time, enduring frequent power and water outages, and was able to work at the house of a gracious employee of the US Embassy.

Visiting the Ministry of Health building downtown was always a strange, slightly depressing experience. You enter the huge, cavernous and dark 20 story edifice and are first greeted by a massive painted seated portrait of Mr. Mugabe himself. Good to know he was watching over ministry of health operations. Upstairs after passing urine-stenched staircases, I searched for my contacts in the malaria department. Mostly what I found were dusty hallways stacked with papers, old books and desks, and locked doors. Little sign of any human activity. A few charts on the walls describing something about a malaria project from five years ago. I finally found a door behind which were some actual people, remarkably those who I was hoping to work with. In a cramped room lined by stacked papers and ancient computers I was greeted with tea and buscuits by some marvelously upbeat, friendly folk chattering with heavy english accents. Throughout my two weeks in Zimbabwe, I found it incredibly difficult to reconnect with my contacts or meet anyone I'd come to meet. State workers are paid a penance, and with inflation at some trillion percent, they stand in bread and bank lines, travel to unnecessary conferences to get paid per diem, and take jobs as cabbies to make ends meet.

I left Zimbabwe, in May, just before Mugabe ramped up his reelection "campaign" (read propaganda and torture). I'd seen videos--produced by the US ambassador's team--of people in rural areas who'd been brutalized by Zanu-PF militia. And I visited a farm on the outskirts of Harare after a band of police thugs had beaten up the owner and thrown his son in jail on some bogus charge. I once found myself out of place on a sketchy late night bus from the Mozambiquean border, an old school bus, packed like a traveling market, careening through the countryside; then stopping at supposed militia control points...where the fellow next to me told me I could be beaten if they entered the bus and saw my passport...luckily it all worked out for me (I even found myself peeling old visas out of my passport at the Moz-Zim border) but Zimbabwe has declined since my visit and is a state in major economic and health crisis, with a worthless currency, crumbling infrastructure, a massive cholera epidemic, and a starving population. It has a population in dire need of international attention. Please check out the Zimbabwe Benefit Foundation for ways to help out.

On a positive note, Zimbabwe has a history as a hotbed of some fabulous music (John Chibadura, Alek Macheso among many others). Here's a classic, and one of my favorites (quality on this sucks, turn the volume down a bit, but you can get the song from itunes-Zuza Refuka Kwangu-John Chibadura):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLRfUXPs96k

Montanita, Ecuador

In late January I traveled to Montanita, Ecuador to catch some NW swell. I flew from Lima on TACA ("take a chance") airlines, and got a cheap fare on pretty short notice. However they gouged me so much on the surfboard--$100 each way--that I might as well have shelled out for LAN. Dinged my tail, too.

Montanita is Ecuador's equivalent to Peru's Mancora, but greener, and with more of a rasta/hippie vibe. Lots of dreadheads selling hemp jewelry, all night DJ parties, international hook-up scene. I stayed a bit out of town at the north end of the beach by the point (a right which only breaks with some decent NW energy) at Casa del Sol, a mellow spot populated by California surfer types, good food, and rides to nearby breaks if you want.

The surf was fun (shoulder high with overhead sets), but the crowd not so much, a bunch of rippers in the water but two or three who spoiled the atmosphere for anybody remotely resembling a gringo...one of them was notorious, infamously called "the backside bully" (rides goofy on a right). I had a few run-ins, got my leash jerked, and steered clear during crowded afternoon sessions (30+ on the point). Some other non-Ecuadorian surfers (French, American...) were pretty shocked by the attitude and bummed about it their whole trip. It got to me a bit at first, but I was able to steal a few waves somehow, and then had fun on the beachbreak when it wasn't closing out...so all was good. Spent the rest of the time hanging with new friends, throwing back some chelitas, and enjoying the scenery.