twofour54 interviews WTYSL – Alicia and me!
http://creativelab.twofour54.com/
13th February, 2011
Film, educate and connect
A heady mixture of youth, idealism, pro-activism, social change, travel and film, What Took You So Long (WTYSL) Foundation is passionate about aiding grass-root NGOs around the world via the immediacy and visceral impact of documentaries.
Armed with their cameras and their curiosity, the WTYSL crew films untold stories & unsung heroes in remote corners of the globe. Duly screening their work, hosting workshops, organising lectures and attending conferences all over the place, they draw on their extensive worldwide networks in bringing the message and a vivid sense of awareness to as many influential decision makers as possible.
With a simple mission to ‘film, educate and connect’, the movement is breaching new horizons and making waves through engagement and collaboration with likeminded individuals.
All this began when WTYSL joined hands with Kickstarter – the ‘largest funding platform for creative projects in the world’. A new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavours, Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) were able to fund the Foundation’s first project in Africa – paying for equipment, transport and visas.
WTYSL undertakes planned expeditions in specific countries; discovering, documenting and networking at every stage of the journey with the aim of ultimately inspiring other young people into developing a globally conscientious mindset and diving into the process of bringing about positive change.
The Foundation, created in 2008 by Sebastian Lindstrom and Evan Fowler, has thus far provided an online platform and avenue for lives and stories across three expeditions. Their current labour of love sees them fulfilling their dream of exploring the Middle East in detail and further stretching their wings from Mongolia to Mauritania, documenting the special animal that is the camel.
creative lab had the chance to catch up with two core members of the WTYSL Foundation, Alicia Sully and Philippa Young, and get their views on the movement, its journey and its current preoccupation with Arabian camels.
Hello Alicia, we’re really glad you could join us. First up, could you tell us a little bit about Kickstarter and how they managed to kick-start your WTYSL journey?
It all began with our first project in Africa – Kickstarter provided 6,000$USD worth of funding. It’s social media funding, which involves working hard on your social networking skills. All the money was used on the Africa adventure, and in return, we created a documentary for Kickstarter featuring our stories and interaction with African communities.
On the current Camel Project, we’ve received funding to the tune of 8,000$USD. Kickstarter have funded just half the project, and we’ve promised picture books, camel manuals and the like in return. Seeing how the expedition keeps growing and expanding in scope, we’re actively seeking donors and sponsors and have already attracted some major names in that regard. The team’s always on the move, always interacting with people and organizations in spreading the word and getting things going.
Given the relatively small amounts of funding per trip, does the team end up having to really rough it out a majority of the time?
Yes we do, but that’s not due to the funding or lack thereof, it’s how we would like to do it anyway! We believe in the ethos of living with the people we’re filming and discovering; sleeping in the communities, eating the food, hitchhiking, the whole deal. It’s the only way to connect and learn. We’d rather use the fund money on equipment, media and marketing – things like that. And we love giving back to the communities we come in touch with – be it in the form of books that capture the entire experience or DVDs that preserve our interactions with them for ages to come. It’s those things we’d rather use the money for.
Alicia, you’re the official Director & Cinematographer with WTYSL. What inspired you to start this?
WTYSL had just been created – I was living in Ghana at the time, working on films. I was searching for my next project. You could call it a natural progression. I love working in this team, connecting with likeminded people. It empowers you, it inspires you. It allows you to aim higher and reach further.
At this point, Alicia has to leave, and we get to continue our conversation with Philippa Young and gain further insights into the workings of What Took You So Long, their camel expedition and life on the road in general.
It’s a pleasure to meet up with you Philippa. What is your role at WTYSL and what triggered your decision to become part of the Foundation in the first place?
We were just discussing this the other day actually – the fact that each member of the team is performing about twelve roles at any given time! On this current camel expedition, I’m writing, producing, conducting interviews, handling the research and have also been thrown into the part of studio technician! Besides these responsibilities, I’m a Director with the Foundation as we make our journey onward.
As for the second part of your question – I was living a very comfortable, happy life in Hong Kong. But there was this strong desire to shake things up. I was offered a research job with Sebastian’s other foundation in Ghana. That led me onward to Mauritania, and it was a case of being in the right place at the right time, since the birth of the Camel Project was taking place then.
I believe in what I’m doing and can honestly say that I haven’t had a better job in all my life. It involves activity, travel, change – it forces you to demolish your preconceptions and grow as a person. I love what I do and am excited by the challenge, everyday.
Why film as the medium for social change – what’s the compelling factor?
Film is such a powerful medium. And with WTYSL, we firmly believe in doing things in our own style – involving the communities and people we come in contact with, getting young people and volunteers to travel with us, initiating and sustaining connections – anytime, anywhere. It’s a mad yet really fulfilling way to work. And with film, the entertainment value is immense – which is a very important factor when you’re holding screenings. Documentary films are educational, aspirational, beautiful… it’s the perfect medium, really.
Personally, what has been your greatest adventure with WTYSL so far?
We always say: “The highs are high, the lows are low”. It’s been such a rollercoaster ride, filled with people and events and memories. It’s so hard to tell you about just one thing. But I can honestly say that being here in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates has been very special. One thing that does stand out is being present at the Camel Beauty Pageant in Abu Dhabi. It was the first time I’d seen black camels – these imposing, impressive creatures. And then there’s right now, where I’ve just witnessed the birth of a baby camel, such an emotional and fantastic moment. The contrast and emotions involved will stay in my mind.
The current Camel Cheese Project – could you tell us a little bit about it?
Well, it began as a Camel Cheese expedition but has evolved into something much bigger and stronger. We were doing all this research into camel cheese and then gradually moved on to camel milk and the processes and stories involved – it’s a whole new world.
Discovering the health benefits of camel milk with its massive potential, and then exploring places all over the world where camels and the camel culture are prominent, has just been fascinating.
The larger story here is that through our journeys, we’ve discovered that camel populations are dwindling quite rapidly in many parts of the world. In Kazakhstan, for instance, their population has declined from huge numbers to only about 145,000 – which is troubling.
We’re just seeking to capture these stories, convey some strong messages and arouse interest in an intelligent manner. The project’s grown from ‘Camel Cheese’ into something much more substantial. If I had to encapsulate the project in its current avatar in just three words, I’d go with ‘Respect the Camel’.
How many projects has WTYSL completed so far?
The first expedition was Crossing Africa – which stretched from Morocco all the way to South Africa. That project involved looking at NGOs across 16 African countries – studying their best practices and examining aid effectiveness.
The second one was in Papua New Guinea where we’ve made two separate trips. The cross-peninsula journey resulted in a 20-minute documentary titled ‘Betelnut Bliss’. Additional footage has been incorporated into another documentary which is currently in post-production.
Between expeditions, sometimes simultaneously, we also produce videos, video profiles and related clips focusing on social change – free.
Another great aspect of this adventure is the partnerships, such as the one we share with the Sandbox Network (www.sandbox-network.com) – involving screenings, organised discussions, video series and assorted collaborations.
Our Foundation’s current project of course is the one we’re doing on the camels.
To a person really wanting to volunteer but tied down by stuff like rent, loans, nagging spouses, etc. – what 30-second motivational speech would you give to get them up and moving?
I’d tell them to leave behind everything they find beneficial about staying stuck in the one place. Travel, do it with a purpose – it will change your life. Don’t be pinned down by the mundane. If you never try, you’ll never know.
Do you feel idealism is a losing cause or something that’s becoming a stronger force by the day?
I feel idealism is stronger today than it’s ever been, and it’s closer to becoming reality than on many occasions in the past. When you take the vast scope of the internet and social media and travel and the dynamism of young people everywhere, it’s great cause for optimism.
I guess the key is to dream big but keep things humble. Also – less talk, more action. That’s one constant mantra at WTYSL – “stop talking about it, just get up and do it!” Because the more you talk about it, the more chances you’re giving people to knock it down with negativity and cynicism. So stop wasting time discussing it, just get on with things and go for it!
What next for you personally, Philippa?
Next year, I’m going to Oxford to do my Master’s in Anthropology. It’s about bringing more skills and strengths to the table for WTYSL. Anthropology is particularly useful for obvious reasons – gaining better insight into cultures, peoples – making sure that knowledge is used towards giving back and contributing towards communities.
And what next for WTYSL?
The ‘Respect the Camel’ project seems to have taken on a life of its own. The year-long project has expanded as we’ve moved from culture to culture, taking in Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and Arabia. So for the foreseeable future, that’s what we’re going to be concentrating on.
We’re also exploring potential projects in Egypt, Somalia and Kenya. These are tentative and for the future, but we’re certain to be exploring nomadic and Bedouin cultures on the road ahead.
Philippa, it’s been delightful and fascinating having a chat with you. Wish you all the very best with the Foundation. We hope to have all three of you with us sometime soon so we can chat more about your adventures and maybe even shoot a video profile.
I would like that very much. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Take care, bye for now.
As a global, nomadic movement, WTYSL welcomes volunteers and interns from four corners of the globe. Get in touch with them or simply follow their journeys:
www.whattookyousolong.org
info@whattookyousolong.org
www.facebook.com/whattookyousolong
www.youtube.com/user/WTYSL
http://twitter.com/WTYSL
A camel lovin’ story …
21st December 2010
This morning we jumped onto a bus in Abu Dhabi and hopped off an hour-and-a-half later in Dubai. Dan has organised a private camel farm visit for us. Asem, Dan’s friend and police administrative officer, picks us up in a large white 4×4, not unlike every other huge white 4×4 that zooms through the new black roads hugged by voluptuous mounds of sand. We climb in, go for food, to pray, and finally to the Sharjah farm. The small, low-key camel farm is made up of metal gates on sand dunes with food troughs inside, rows of cages like a dog pound, each one containing one mother and her calf.
As we walk around the compound Asem lets us in on his thoughts about camels. “They are not like other animals” he tells us, “They are more like humans, in fact” he says, “they are ghosts”…….
After the physic twins stories of Aswan we are ready to listen to anything. Asem’s English isn’t perfect so we start troubleshooting what exactly the word ghosts could mean to him – Souls? no. Dead humans? not quite. Humans before they are born? sounds better. A different species in another dimension? ….This is the closest we get to Asem’s proud, awed description of camels.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai – these guys love their camels.
The discussion is interrupted by two camels mating in a cage. Want to know how this love story goes?
Breathe deep….
The male first sniffs the female’s behind, groaning and frothing at the mouth. His engorged, tongue hangs out of the side of his mouth, swinging as a bubbling, gurgling noise emanates from some deep part of his huge body. The sniffing tells the male if she wants him, and if granted access she makes a special sound and sits on the ground. Camels are unique in the animal world for this fact of mating whilst sitting.
Mounting her, the male continues his grunting and bubbling, swinging his head around, spraying foamy saliva onto his mate. She does not move, only nodding her head slightly and occasionally groaning. The camel has a foot-and-a-half long schlong. He thrusts a-rhythmically and powerfully. I’m grateful we can’t see much more than that. It is a lengthy, noisy, saliva splattered event.
When over and both stand up they are separated immediately. In 15 days
she will be checked over and if the pregnancy has not taken they will try again. The male is muzzled and forced out of the enclosure for some exercise. “Males never want to leave their cage” Asem translates for us, “they have to be tied to a car and pulled 500 metres. After that they will walk on their own”. The camel, to be entered in a beauty contest next month, walks six kilometres each day. Every two days his face is washed with a special shampoo.
The circle of life continues as we see a female in the first week of pregnancy, her tail curled up like a scorpion, signalling her pregnancy. Another she-camel has just a week to go before giving birth, her belly huge and round, the fur on her body soft and shiny as though blossoming into her motherhood. A calf totters around, just a month old, vying every few minutes for his mother’s teat and her tasty milk. A bowl of it is passed to us; light, fresh, warm, delicious.
Psychic twins and camel milk – a bedtime story?
Life as we know definitely don’t know it: a story from the far south of Egypt in Daraw, near Aswan, right at the border with Sudan. There you will find a kind-faced man called Fareed Ali Elomda and two camels. We searched a long time for this man.
Even this close to Sudan, a major camel country, the presence of these lovely beasts in Egypt is becoming a rarity. But Mr Fareed is still there, waiting patiently with mummy camel and baby camel just as always. Mr Fareed milks his camels and gives it all away for free in old plastic water bottles. To us, hungry for a taste of the precious liquid, he gives three bottles.
Making friends with the growing congregation of faces looking into ours we share a sheesha pipe, squeeze lumps of henna between our hands staining us into the family, and chew on long sticks of sugar cane, crunching, sucking and munching in happy union. With our hands full of cultural bonding it’s time for a break from filming.
As the sun sets behind the milky camels Mr Fareed invites us back to his home, where Mrs Fareed fills a table with delicious homemade food. Such hospitality is humbling and met by grateful bellies.
Full of handmade cheese, home-baked bread, honey and lemonade, we sit back to talk of camels… Fatma Mahmoud, mother grandmother, sits small in a corner, quietly curled, waiting for her turn to speak. When she does, she says something so incredible our interpreter hesitates to translate what she is saying….
(Paraphrasing this strange story of southern Egyptian lore)
Twins are born frequently in Daraw. And when they are their unique mental connection does strange things as they sleep….
As eyes close and little heads nod off, even littler souls escape and attach to the body of a roaming cat.
Now that all sounds fine….until that same cat gets into some mischief somewhere and gets rewarded with a kick. This kick, painful to the cat, reveals itself as a bruise on the sleeping child. And if that cat runs out into a busy road………….
How do frightened parents protect their troublesome twins?
Easy, says Fatma, just feed the children camel milk before bedtime and the cat/soul connection is severed.
Grandma Fatma couldn’t tell us how, but it worked. She knew because she had seen it. That’s called empirical evidence people…well sort of.
Grandma Fatma seems happy with the absolute hush she brought on the conversation and curls back into her seat with a smile. Our interpreter is quieted. wouldn’t you be? We have listened to some strange stories, but this tops our milky list. Our journey must be followed northwards. No time to find psychic twins – camels alone took long enough to track down. Another day perhaps, in another lifetime.
Camel milk cures psychic sleep-wanderings in young twins. It could catch on.
At a camel market in Egypt we saw a camel die…
Camels cannot be trained, camels cannot be dominated.Camels are managed.And what I love about them is that working with them makes you a better person.
Sinai Bedu in the mountains, by the sea…
SINAI:
“Although Bedouin culture is approaching its end, there are Bedouin in Sinai and the Negev who are still faithful to their ancient desert culture” – Clifton Bailey
Here, in accordance with the rules of the desert, for three days guests can stay with no questions asked, eating and drinking for free. Only after the third day will you have to start explaining yourself.
“There are camels, though galled, who bear loads but don’t cry;
Others shy, though the fat in their humps is stacked high”
We are at Camp Laguna. The sea in front, the mountains behind and nothing else but desert everywhere else. There are no animals here; nothing but fish and tiny tiny crabs in the ocean, hundreds of flies, and camels. The camels graze all day. Breakfast runs into lunch for the animals jokes Sheikh Ashish.
Here the Bedouin eat simply; just unleavened bread baked in the hot ashes of the camp fire, camel milk, dates, coffee and sweet milky tea. But this is no peasant diet, it’s something the Bedu are immensely proud of: three thousand years ago, in the Akkadian Poem of Erra, the nomads challenged the urban god Erra with the boast:
“the rich bread of the city cannot compare with bread backed in the embers.”
The Bedu are famous poets. Sheikh Ashish’s father, Anez abu Salim al-Urdi, was the most famous poet of the Sinai Bedouin. He wrote most of his poetry from a prison cell, in which he was incarcerated for ten years for smuggling, a crime strongly associated with the nomadic, camel herding Bedu. Anez was well-known as one of the biggest smuggling ringleaders in Sinai – his operations a source of income for hundreds of fellow Bedouin.
“To have a poet of such unbridled spirit and a lover of freedom confined within prison walls for 15 years (his original sentence) was felt as a grave injustice” – Clifton Bailey
When Anez sent friends his poems describing the despair and pessimism he felt, they were learned by heart and circulated orally throughout the peninsula.
The bed have four basic reasons for composing a poem: to express an emotion, to send a message, to impart instruction in the art of living, and to entertain. Poems whose theme is emotion are more than an aesthetic mode of expression as in much of the Western poetic tradition. Strict social constraints in Bedouin society prevented any expression of emotional weakness. The desert’s rules are rigid and residing within them is survival. Poetry became the only way a Bedouin could express himself.
Existing in an almost constant state of migration and dispersion, the Bedu sent messages to communicate, composed in rhyme to prompt the memory of the illiterate messenger. Despite, or perhaps because of this pedestrian usage, rhyme had a quasi-mystical aura to Bedouin.
“A crescent and stars are my she-camel’s brand,
Whose milk, at year’s end, meet my children’s demand”
- from a hija (a poem that strikes an opponent with a degrading rhyme) from Anez to Furahi.
Note: a crescent and star are the trademark stamp on smuggled packages of hashish.
Ashish tells another joke: that a normal one hour can run to three, five or ten hours on Bedouin time. I believe it, as we sit surrounded by a strange homogenous beauty. There is desert, mountains and sea but everything has the same tone, colour and shimmer of immense distance. Hours run into each other. Lunch is taken at 5pm as the sun goes down. The wind is blowing a gale today and it fills the empty silence, so we don’t need to talk into the space. We sleep and plan and think and don’t think. There is time here but I am unprepared for it – I was geared up for work, not meditation, so I twitch and fidget, unable to sink comfortably into the calm. The city is with me, tensing my muscles and teasing my brain, waiting for me to move, work.
We are given everything we need, except for exactly what we need – access to Bedouins milking camels in the mountains. But we don’t push our agenda, it’s not the way we work. What ultimately prevents us getting the footage we need turns out to be a miscommunication only realised on the way home. “OH – I understand what you need. Why didn’t you say before?” Sheikh Salleh says as he drives us back to base camp. At least we leave with an emphatic invitation to return, and next time for longer: three months Ashish suggests, to live and travel with the Bedu so that we can really understand.
Our minds fast forward to next year, when we could possibly fit in an Egyptian project, people we could partner with and how we could make it work. Time will tell – let’s just hope it’s not Bedouin time.
Academic masturbation…
http://www.ru.org/education/the-quest-for-truth-redefining-education.html
The Quest for Truth: Redefining Education
An expanded vision of what it means to be a human being, is the starting point for reconstructing the educational system.
by Marcus Bussey
An article I was given by non-formal education student Sebastian Lindstrom by Futurist Marcus Bussey.
“In recent years, state education systems have sought to get value for money from their education systems. They have developed, or are developing, detailed and rigorous curriculum documents that will ‘ensure’ best practice on the part of teachers and best outcomes on the part of students.”
– it is funny to see it written like this, to form a realisation, a crystallisation of the banal pointlessness of ‘best practice’ (nod to the power of words – ironic, as explained later) a word used in the failing aid system and the failing school system. Best practice means laying down rules that say what is good almost every time and what is not good almost every time. I spoke to a physicist the other night on a rooftop in Dakhla, a city in the disputed region of Western Sahara, about Chaos Theory in Physics. Oversimplifying a complex theory for me, Andy explained how some objects, when set off on a certain trajectory and subject to finite controls will follow a finite number of paths. Some objects however, cannot be measured. For example a pen dropped on its end is highly sensitive to its initial conditions which produce infinite paths it could follow after hitting the ground and bouncing back into the air. Ultimately, in the pen situation we cannot control this path so long-term prediction of the pens trajectory is impossible in general. We cannot predict where the pen will land.
Ok, so that’s the theory – now think about humans. This is the same argument against most studies of Psychology. We are infinitely changeable beings affected by infinite variables in our lives, so how can you measure us? To get back to the point, how can you ascertain best practice? How would it even work? So you can discover paradigms, but with unmeasurable infinite levels and choices of existence, how do you know that your brilliant, solid, foolproof paradigm won’t reverse tomorrow? Empirical evidence allows us to say that there are patterns of behaviour, but that is when empirical evidence is looking for patterns. I would like to know of a theory that at least tries to find all the behaviours that don’t have patterns. Physicists and Chemists might argue that we are a collection of elements governed by the rules of Physics and thus there must be a pattern we just don’t know about yet – that we simply don’t know how to calculate it. Ok, that’s a nice comforting thought, but I would be surprised if we will be able to apply such rules and patterns to education and aid in the near future in an effective way. Even if we figure out that nature is all patterns and rules, what about the variables created by others (the nurture in the nature/nurture dialogue) and how that impacts on us – infinite variations right?
Right now a theory of chaos might be more useful. But how do we measure progress, good and bad? Through a chaos measurement system. Contradictory? Impossible? No – just as difficult to envision perhaps as measurable rules for human behaviour (cough psychology is not a science cough). Is conceiving the infinite simply more difficult that trying to measure it? Because that is what we are doing – refusing to accept infinite chaos theory as applicable to our daily lives by attempting to calculate the infinite for use in future rules. A comment on the human condition perhaps: Delaying the present in order to create a convenient system in the future, a system that will allow us not to think. Are we building our coffin through rules? A comfortable death of thought is what we are striving towards? To gain all knowledge in order to die? Thank goodness this is impossible.
(I evidently more questions than answers here so if anyone knows where I can learn more let me know.)
Best practice in education – as i’ve suggested it to be almost an insult to humans, but something that I admit seems necessary to ensure (although how we’ll ever know is up for debate) that what teachers are doing in schools is not wrong or damaging. As this clearly already happens, perhaps it’s time for a tactic of defining worst practice rather than best. There are certainly rules like that in place right now too – you can’t hug a child or comfort them for fear that the teacher is abusing their position as a figure of authority to satisfy an abhorrent desire. No, worst practice is a terrible idea too. It’s just another way to make people lazy – rules, as I said above, are nice because you learn them and then don’t have to think. Religion coming in for fire…… ?
Onwards in the article….
“Ben Okri has noted that “We began before words, and we will end beyond them.”
Anyone entering a classroom might be forgiven for thinking, however, that we are constituted as beings purely through language. There is so much talk and there is very little real silence, when pens stop scratching on paper (except pens no longer scratch). Of course social scientists will point out that a lot of socialisation is occurring and that this has more to do with mores than words, yet the focus in our culture is the word.
It is the primacy of the word that has lead us to dismantle, and thus control, so much around us. It is the symbol of our supremacy over all we see, and a good deal of what we don’t. The word is the sword of the enlightenment. It has, through unyeilding logic and reason, sheared off mystery and shadow from our existences. All is revealed in words and what cannot be revealed seems of little count.”
— this last sentence about revealing mystery in its totality I believe to be a sentence merely serving the purpose of the author and not a thesis that has been thoroughly thought through. Words cannot reveal everything – just as humans cannot know everything. Words can merely represent one of infinite perspectives that will be interpreted in infinite ways. They are complicators at the same time as being simplifiers and ‘revealers’. If there was no mystery in words we would call them universal rules as we do in Maths and Physics (irony here as even Maths and Physics are working with rules that are not really rules as mentioned above, but you get the idea). As Paul de Man says in The Timid God, “the impossibility of reading should not be taken too lightly”.
“The reductive, totalizing logic of language in the hands of materialists is coercive in the extreme. The word has been linked in this new discourse with desire, the individual’s need to have their desire filled. The force of the argument is clear and simple: the capacity of individuals to achieve their desire is gained through success in meritocratic learning systems.
To succeed in the face of such opposition really requires an epistemic break that places power beyond the word and redifines desire within a much broader holistic environment where Truth, and our pursuit of it, become the relevant motives for education.”
– The whole argument against words here is odd to me. Has Marcus Bussey heard of Deconstruction? Words can do far more than he is suggesting they can. The only reason words may lock us in to a system is because we create the system and reside within it. Words can break systems, even systems of language that create them.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I would suggest that Bussey makes more sense if we take his idea that education is not holistic enough. Words are not the problem, but our over-emphasis on them and limited mis-use of them is.
“In making such a break we move from the utilitarian view of the human as a cog in the economy, beyond the humanist sense of the human as potent individual to a Neo-humanist view of the human being as an interactive agent embedded in a world of mystery and power. This sense of individuality is very potent as it draws on our interconnectedness for power rather than on our ability to dominate and control.”
– I feel a lean towards typically (or stereotypically) feminine energies here. “Thus education becomes open and infinitely varied.” – ooo scary, just like the indefinable nature of woman!
Bussey goes on to suggest the following:
“Teachers, as those who only impart traditional academic learning, if they exist at all, will only be one part of the educational process. They will work along side a wide array of people such as tradesmen and poets, engineers and mystics in creating new educational spaces to assist in the realisation of a greater range of now recognised human potential.”
– This seems to me like denying best practice in favour of heightened awareness, great participation – a combination of which provides a constant flow of accountability (the reason we bother with best practice in the first place) by creating a small community that can change fluidly, reflecting their specific needs and, on a wider framework, what it means to be human, by engaging with humans and in human activity. Not, as we do now, just leaving it all to defined strategies made up of, yes I know it, words. So perhaps Bussey had a point about words all and they are the root of all evil. Is silence the answer or can words be part of the solution? The problem I think is that words, written down, on stone (think Moses and the 10 Commandments) or on paper (books and legislation) are a freakshow of what words were created to be – a communication of the ephemeral as well as the solid. The spoken word can have as much power, combined with having the ability to disappear as soon as it is said. Oral traditions do not seem powerful because they can only be preserved through humans – but surely this means we should preserve ourselves? Just because we are clever enough to create something that can exist after we leave this earth does not mean we are smart at all – smart would be learning how to preserve ourselves so we don’t leave the earth!
I’ve recently had the privilege of spending time in Bedouin and nomad communities, witnessing people who are able to recall hundreds of lines of poetry that have remained largely unchanged for centuries. These poems, composed by illiterate people, are also formed without paper – the memories of the poets required to keep reams of words in the undefined space of their minds, even those they may soon discard. The landscape of their memories seems to be far more expansive than mine, which demands I write down what’s in my head so that I have ‘brain space’ to move on and give room to the next thought, creating a physical space for abstract thought.
So if the written word is the baddy here, what about unwritten rules, still clearly defined by words, like social convention. Are they all defined by words? Some may not be. The unwritten may work on the level of an individual and their personal development – but can this be done for the whole of society? Society: the constantly moving and changing body of a multi-faceted beast needs some kind of structure (anarchists may disagree here) so perhaps there is value in a few obviously over-simplified rules defined by written word. In short, worded rules work for the individual and work for the biggest collective (morality and ethics might be examples, if they exist). And what this means is that we have gone over the top in our rush to label, define and structure everything. Our mid-points, things like education, would benefit from being localised, based in a community, run by the community, for their group and individual needs. Makes sense right? Not original right? So why doesn’t it happen this way? Why are we cramped by over-arching rules, where schools seem like governments trying to control a society.
“So, as education is a quest for truth, the way leads us to a purposeful stepping out from the culturally prescribed boundaries that currently constrain our vision of education, to a form of teaching which is integrative and reverential. Neo-Humanism is the key to this as it embraces a vastly expanded vision of what it is to be human and thus frees us from the limitations of current educational practice.”
I still have a problem with this “quest for truth”. If truth is defined as anything singular this is still a quest for a universal black or white, and is thus falling back into univocal space that it worked so hard to pull out of. What about an appreciation of grey? How about a quest to be completely deconstructed — no, a quest to be continually deconstructing.
Hold on, have I just asked education to be Buddhist……? Oh well, It’s all just academic masturbation anyway.
And on the fifth day, they showered…
Our fifth night sleeping rough, this time in Cairo, again not really our fault (well it was actual Brock’s fault).
We left Mauritania prepared for the 40-hour drive through Western Sahara to Agadir, Morocco, one sleep in a taxi, one on a bus. We weren’t prepared for landing in Cairo five showerless days later.
Now sat on our bags in the stairwell of a concrete building in down town Cairo listening to and watching the traffic 20 floors below, we have time to reflect on our journey to Egypt. It’s past midnight, a fact we just realised when our couchsurfer host for the night told us that he was at work covering a night shift. Great start. Or rather great end. Because it all started in Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania, stuffing seven people into a ‘grand taxi’ at 2am. Two more taxis, a broken engine, a flat tire, one hitch-hiker and a bus ride later we arrive in Agadir, Morocco. Our 5am flight means a night in the airport. No problem….until an impromptu visit to an Internet cafe drops an unfriendly email into our collective lap that stamps a big fat CANCELLED over our plans. Four hours of phone calls to Orbitz in New York and Royal Air Maroc in Maroc later we are no better off and, once again realising the hour, turn to the cafe manager to ask if we could maybe, possibly, if it’s no trouble….stay with you?
That was our third showerless sleep and our first on a rooftop, his house being in the middle of construction. No complaints here – fresh air, warm night and stars. We light a candle for chats en Francais and come morning our new friend brings us home-made treats to munch. A new day, a new flight: 5.30am the following morning. Sleep at the airport -why not? Ok, so by now it’s getting a little grating, we’re all a little weary, and looking forward to a friendly indoor floor and that elusive shower. We must smell…we really must. But we can’t tell. Onto the flight we clamber, new country, new day. And then….
Our fifth night sleeping rough, this time in Cairo, again not really our fault.
The stairwell isn’t so bad. There are strange noises and stray cats occasionally stop by to check on us. There’s a smell of urine I ignore and the ground chills just the parts of my body that rest on it. The things we do for camels. Our airport nap being just a few hours, dreams lock us in sleep till 9am.
We wake above the smog lines of an immense sludge brown city, the traffic sounds are a tape on repeat. Mauritania’s silent desert nights and city of one million has been replaced by Africa’s most populace city of 30 million.
It looks just like China, we say as we taxi down the highway; it’s so like India, we coo, as rickshaws zoomed past juice bars and CD stands pumping out loud music; doesn’t it remind you of Hong Kong, we ask as we walked the streets, air-conditioners dripping in-between endless construction. Cairo is probably a little of everything: Middle Eastern food, African geography, European colonial buildings. Frustrated and tired we swing through emotions but it’s hard to be miserable in a city where there’s another country around every corner.
Big toothy smiles string my endless list of similes together. Before we meet the con man and the thief common to every city in the world, Egyptians show us beautiful smiles and a helping hand uniquely their own. Bus, taxi, rickshaw, metro and 30 million smiling faces are going to help us get to that shower.
Fifty years young, Mauritania
28th November, 2010
Independence Day for Mauritania. This giant country on the west coast of Africa is 50 years young today. All celebrations are cancelled due to potential terrorist threats. Everything stopped. Nothing to mark the day but shiny green flags with the Islamic crescent moon and star flapping outside every boutique and boulangerie…and a camel race.
Momo, our friend and host, drives us to the edge of Nouakchott, capital city of this huge desert country of just three million people. The road we take (the only road available) is the same on which three Spanish people were kidnapped nine months ago, freed just recently by Al Qaida. The houses thin, we turn off the tarmac road and bump along the solid ripples until a large khaima (traditional tent) appears filled with carpets and spilling people onto the sand.
It’s 5pm, the fierce heat of the day over now. Even in December the sun feels barbaric on my northern European skin. Shouts in Hassaniya punctuate the chaos of camels being lined up for a pre-race photo shoot while three white-coated vets perform checks in front of the delegation of government officials in the front row.
Eight camels stand facing outwards in a circle, a skinny booboo-clad Mauritanian atop each hump. No camel milk being served here, but plenty of Coca-cola for the dignitaries and VIPs. Police officers wear blue shirts and ties, “first time I’ve seen them wear those” Mauritian-born Momo tells us. Seven more camels arrive, not quite trotting, not quite walking, but bound onto centre stage, something like a giraffe performing dressage
These are not ‘proper’ racing camels Momo explains, “they are transportation camels, not the short skinny racers you find in the Middle East”. Last year just six camels raced 200 metres. This year 13 camels will run 1,500 metres, making the event much more exciting for bystander Cheikh Ould Benmomi, “I think number five will win, the hairy one”.
Sky blue booboos flapping in the light desert wind brush against me as men and children push for the best position at the finish line. Women gather demurely behind the clamour. Green-clad Gendarmerie push people back as the camels slowly sway into starting positions.
The race starts. A cloud of dust is kicked into the camels’ eyes by trucks that speed line judges to the finish line. A clear winner emerges, right up until a juicy desert grass catches his eye. But the crowd is cheering,
the race has opened up and camels are gaining, falling behind, stopping, trotting forward and stopping again. And one crosses the finish line, another crosses, and three so close together the jockeys can shake hands. Five huge camels are bounding towards the officials’ tent. The crowd screams louder and I gasp thinking they will stampede, but the faces around me are grinning and pushing forward still. The one celebration of today is received with elation from the small gathering. Camels: proud, resourceful, survivors; a fine representation of the Mauritanian people on this special day.
Mauritania, a country, politically young, culturally ancient; relatively unknown and silenced further by occasional bursts of terrorism. I feel privileged to be here, seeing this small celebration and the smiling faces that make this country so special. We are here to meet the people who live off a land that gives nothing away easily and who have immense levels of respect for their sole lifeline, the camel.
I glance back into the desert just in time to see hairy number five cross the finish line, decisively last.
An Inconvenient Blog
I was told recently by a professional cheese maker that wearing gloves makes people dirtier. This is why cheese makers use their bare hands in the cheese making process. Counter intuitively a protection against dirt creates an exaggerated inverse reaction psychologically causing us to behave in ways that are dirtier. It made me wonder what other structures we apply to ourselves in the hope that they will protect us, but that actually make us lazy; so lazy that we negate any benefit that the profylactic provided in the first place.
A no traffic light test in Somerset, England (http://barry.pousman.com/post/1359240407/no-lights-no-traffic-a-look-at-somerset-county) proved this to be the case when they witnessed people using common sense and becoming aware of their surroundings rather than relying on lights to dictate everything. And if you’ve ever seen the schizophrenic state of the roads in England you’d understand how our efforts to protect have, like Western medicine, been a temporary and ill-equipped bandage to a symptom indicative of a much deeper illness. Why would we add more confusion to the roads rather than create a holistic and deeper understanding of why we need to drive carefully on roads and be kind to others? Because it’s easier.
And speaking of Western medicine, the same applies here. My sister works in a pharmacy, and as such treats any illness with the drugs, syrups and creams she has learned how to administer and dispense. I have done the same for most of my life. Right up until I heard how Japanese GPs work. In Japan doctors are paid for every month of the year that their client is WELL for. It is their job and in their best interests financially to keep you well. We pay doctors when we are sick. We incentivise illness financially. This subconscious incentive directly contradicts the doctors’ hippocratic oath and I do not deny that GPs worldwide are simply trying to help, but there is still something inherently wrong here. The fact that our drugs and medicines treat symptoms rather than causes is a clear warning signal – doctors ARE helping by alleviating symptoms, whilst ensuring that you will come back again and again for the same problem, the root of which hasn’t been treated.
This has led me to read into nutrition and health almost obsessively whenever I have felt a twinge or been ill travelling. The snippets of wisdom picked up on my travels I am collating and sharing. Do you know your blood type? Check it out and then check the blood type diet. If you’re a Type A you should stick to a more vegetarian diet as you lack an enzyme in your stomach that digests meat efficiently. Do you drink water to hydrate? Most people know this isn’t enough as it doesn’t replenish salts or sugars, but did you know that if stuck without electrolytes you can dig into sand to the cleaner, cooler depths, put that into your water, wait for it to settle at the bottom and drink that to replenish potassium and minerals.
The world seems to me obsessed by convenience. I would like to see an appreciation of inconvenience. It’s true that technologies can do difficult things for us in order for us to have more time to achieve greater things, but once again, I’m not sure that this doesn’t have an element of the counter intuitive. As we speed up and cram more into our daily lives, we lose the ability to slow our minds and give concentrated dedicated thought to questions and issues. Brain space is something I feel my life lacks, as I strive to use every part of my day efficiently. Taking time out to wash my clothes in a bucket whilst on the road is a treasured moment, either for reflection, daydreaming or just a delightful nothing.
And inconvenience doesn’t mean drudgery – it means self awareness. A self-awareness that can lead to simplification and self-control; two things I strive towards more than money in my pocket and credits to my name. Even if you as a person would not be happy with the simplest of living, how beautiful would it be to feel real joy at the luxuries you are afforded. Do you feel real joy when you have a good meal or sleep in a soft bed? The innocence that simple living creates is something to treasure. When I do experience a bus that has windows and comfortable seats, I know two things: that I would be just as content on a bus without windows and with wooden seats (free fresh air, better posture on the journey and cheaper) but that I really feel the softness of the luxury seat and….well I can’t say anything good about air-conditioning as it just dries out eyes and gives people colds.
On this immense subject I have spoken too much. It’s a work in progress for my entire life. The well-known saying “nothing worth having comes easy” is a lesson in enjoying the process, in enjoying the tangible and in enjoying life.
So what am I doing now that I’m here? Writing… this blog post… on a 360Dirham bus with air-conditioning that dries my eyes, soft seats that curve my spine painfully and dirty windows that stop me from seeing the beautiful desert coastline. And I know that when I get off I will stretch my body with yoga – not pop a painkiller to dull the warning signs – and will look forward to the 5Dirham bus with broken windows that allows for a flood of Moroccan noises and smells, with flat wooden seats that have backs low enough for you to interact with the people in front and behind you.
My current bus is a microcosm of our cities: convenient, expensive, isolating; an unreality, speeding through real life in order to get you to….where exactly?
To degree or not to degree…
I have a place at Oxford to read Migration Anthropology – a 9-month MSc. Fees 13,000 GBP, projected living costs 11,000 GBP.
1. I chose the subject based on interest and its interdisciplinary nature.
2. I chose the course because of its brevity (as compared to 2 years in Sweden and the US and 1 year at other UK universities).
3. I chose the university because of its levels of teaching, collegic system and its perceived elite status.
4. I chose my college (St Anthony’s) because it is post-graduate and international.
5. I chose to study again because I love it and because it would be a stamp on my CV that is becoming all the more necessary to prove your worth as an intelligent human being.
6. I chose further education (rather than work) to deepen my understanding of the subject and gain expert guidance on how to apply theory to real world situations.
Why I am having second thoughts:
– The real world moves faster than the academic.
– I was largely disappointed by my undergraduate experience and the university for not providing a real tangible space for sharing knowledge and creative, philosophical thought, but for spending conscious time, effort and money on providing space for drinking and throwing up that drink.
– Oxford will cost me (and my family) 24,000GBP – a HUGE investment.
– There are no scholarship or grant programmes (I asked and this was confirmed) for a white, British, middle class person like myself.
– Through travelling extensively with a documentary team I have built a small but exciting network of people who value action more than education.
– The simple fact that I have learned more in two years outside of university than I learnt in the previous five years of education I received.
– Education is (or rather is largely) a passive experience.
– Do I agree that people should be judged on their level of education? If not why am I buying into the system?
– I don’t agree that university should be so expensive, or should have its current financial structure, so again, why am I buying (literally) into the system?
What I could do to change this:
+ Mobilise the university’s immense funds for projects.
+ Network actively with bright minds, treating my self as a mini recruitment centre for all the projects and organisations I’ve learned about and connect the dots.
+ Create the spaces I want that facilitate philosophical discussion.
+ Make the most of lecturers and seminar tutors.
+ Engage in everything offered – societies and extra lectures.
What remains a problem:
Money (why oh why can’t we have the basic income grant in England so I can lift this crushing, debilitating weight of financial stress from my small shoulders).
……………………
Hmmmm – this almost seems to be it. Money, or my lack of it has forced my mind to innovate and really analyse how I am spending it (interesting line on my inconvenience theory, next blog). So although it’s a pain in the arse, if I had the money I would ignore the long list of problems and say “hey, it’s only nine months and I’ll work hard and get a great degree”. With my current unpaid (but most fulfilling and life-propelling) job I am forced to say “if I do this I have to squeeze the absolute utmost value out of every second”. I recently spoke to Karen of Doulos Community NGO based in the slums of Nouakchott, Mauritania and she told me that lack of funding has forced them to restructure. Now, instead of providing teaching and workshops that eat up direct funds and that have a finite value for a finite number of people, they are utilising connections, networks and skills to consult, bring together and empower people to find solutions themselves and to work towards bettering their own future. Thus decreasing dependency and maybe even going some way to removing aid from the equation.
Speaking of slums makes my next sentence seem ungrateful but it is my relative reality that I will have to live frugally if I take the plunge. I would usually have no problem with this, but after spending time with network members from Sandbox and at universities like LSE I can see that many networking events take place in expensive restaurants (bear in mind all restaurants are more expensive than home-made soup) with pricey after-class drinks. Do I actually lessen my chances of participating by entering university with no money to physically live on? I can subsist happily (and would choose this route) on market-bought vegetable soup and tap water; I need not buy another item of clothing from a high street store; I can cut my own hair; I can borrow books from the library, and I can cycle everywhere. But if the rest of the society at Oxford does not operate on the same principles, and wonders why this white, middle class Brit does not want to spend money in the same way they do, I run the risk of alienating myself from the very things I find value attaining.
Catch-22. Great book. Frustrating reality.
Lack of money may force a valuable self-awareness and value-awareness, but it may also hobble me in the act of reaching the value I am now aware of. Brilliant.
And this is where I run aground. How to move forward? Instincts tell me I would not only enjoy study but revel in utilising non-academic skills in an academic environment. Doubt tells me I would be stifled and cut off because my non-academic ideas would not be welcome, my relative penury would signal me as not worth knowing.
Oxford is elite and elitist. What am I?
One last thing I want to say is that this is not a depressing situation for me but a chance for discussion, innovation and a challenge to be overcome.
Comments have already been exciting and fruitful via Facebook. Any more are welcome here.
