Voyager

I’ve been getting into reading a little bit about Carl Sagan recently, just out of coincidence (and reading alot of digg.com). He died in 1996, but today would have been his 75th birthday – and so there’s been a ripple of news stories with his quotes floating around in the last few days.

One of them that I came across touches on musings about what the Voyager satellites were loaded with before they were sent out on their long and perhaps never-ending mission, and it’s quite an amazing thought really… what should we send out to sum up humanity – to sum up Planet Earth…what would you send out if you could launch a time capsule into space?

Check out what we sent:

”Accordingly, as each Voyager left Earth for the planets and the stars, it carried with it a golden phonograph record encased in a golden, mirrored jacket containing, among other things; greetings in 59 human languages and one whale language; a 12-minute sound essay including a kiss, a baby’s cry, and an EEG record of the meditations of a young woman in love; 116 encoded pictures, on our science, our civilization, and ourselves; and 90 minutes of the Earth’s greatest hits-Eastern and Western, classical and folk, including a Navajo night chant, a Japanese shakuhachi piece, a Pygmy girl’s initiation song, a Peruvian wedding song, a 3,000-year-old composition for the ch’in called “Flowing Streams,” Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”"

Pretty cool, no? And funny that music is such a big influence in representing who we are…

Read more [here]

The New Era of Documentary

This story is a couple days old already, but it’s too interesting to miss.

Canadian filmmaker, Rob Spence, lost his right eye in a shooting accident as a child. He’s now using it to his advantage by installing a video camera in his spare eye-socket.

This raises many privacy concerns… but for me it is a step closer to what will bring the most real documentary work that we’ve ever seen. There are infinite classifications of what “true” documentary is. But I believe that in 99% of situations that an artist will attempt to document will be affected by the presence of a camera. We will always choose our wording a little more carefully, be a tiny bit nicer, and spin the truth a fraction when we’re in front of the camera.

So what’s going to happen when the camera disappears?

Full story here.

What is excellence?

In your own words.

Go.

Moving On

First, before I write anything else…

Thank you.

You don’t know how uplifting it is to hear from each and every one of you, offering your perspectives and encouragement. I’m feeling much more at peace about the entire situation, with the assumption that my insurance will work with me to help me start over. To clarify real quick…all of the footage is safe with Joe, so we didn’t lose our work for the past 6 months. And what you’ve all been saying is completely right : it’s about the experience, and not the keepsakes. I’m just glad that I’ve been somewhat able to share the experience with all of you along the way. Now you’ll just have to listen to me describe things more than taking the easy way out and showing pictures.

Ethiopian Airlines was kind enough to put me in a hotel last night, in Addis Ababa, because they changed their flight schedule after it had been booked. I stayed in a somewhat fancy hotel for ambassadors and UN workers, and remembered what it’s like to lay on the couch and watch real television (and use a gym for the first time in 6 months). Addis seems like a beautiful and intriguing city – the minarets woke me at around 5am and have been broadcasting ever since. Unfortunately I wont get to explore much, as I leave this afternoon for a night’s stay in London, and then continue on to California.

That’s it for now. Just needed and wanted to say thank you. It means alot to me to know that you’re all out there. I’ll leave you with a quote that my Uncle Rob left in the comments yesterday, which really helped me change my perspective.

“The boy who is going to make a great man… must not make up his mind not merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand defeats.”
Theodore Roosevelt

Goodbye, Tanzania.

I’ve felt sick to my stomach all day.

Last night, I returned to my room at Meru House Inn, the place that I’ve called a second home for 6 months, to find that someone used a key to enter my room, steal my laptop, Canon SLR, and Laerke’s iPod, camera, and $25.

When I told reception and saw the guilty looks on their faces, I went straight to central police in Arusha to get two officers to come back to Meru House Inn. In the end, one of them ended up in jail, but no one has come forth with any of the goods. All my recent work, pictures, videos, and writing is gone. I forgot to mention, but they stole my backup hard drive too.

The case is still open, so I’m still hoping they’ll come to their senses and realize that the laptop is password protected and isn’t really worth anything on the black market.

We’ll see.

It’s hard not to be bitter, but if I don’t get it back… maybe it’s a fresh start? Please send out your thoughts, prayers, or comments and help me make sense of it all.

Honesty

I have to be honest. I’ve become a little intimidated to write on this blog. I don’t know why. It’s really silly in fact, but I came to the point where I thought that every entry I wrote had to be meaningful or in some way insightful. And I guess that’s how I can explain the lack of posts in these past few weeks. And I guess I’ve been in conflict with my work with OHS, which I promise to get into in much more detail later (and which is now over). My goal this week is to make short, sweet, and fun updates, and not to get in over my head with observations.

But now, it’s time to eat, so instead, enjoy this article from the Onion

The Big M : Part 2

So what I didn’t tell you is that the Big M actually meant two things: Malaria…and Moustache. No, not Mustache. Moustache. It lasted until my head was clear enough to realize how ridiculous this actually in fact looked. It will enjoy a life immortalized here on this blog. (Good riddance)

Black & White

This weekend has been somewhat of a mental struggle for me. The more people we talk to about CCF and the deeper we delve into the questions of what should be done for street children, I often leave these conversations with more questions than I came with. Most recently we’ve been asking people two important questions:

Amina

Last Friday, I was asked to go to the local clinic to have a malaria test administered for one of our volunteers (it turned out negative, no worries there). When we got to the clinic, I saw a girl that we’ve been working with named Amina and her 3-year-old daughter, Shamin. Amina must be about 19, and has lived on the streets since the age of 12, and we’re pretty sure that Shamin has lived on the streets her whole life. The story is unclear to me, but it’s our understanding that Amina was told to leave her village at the age of 12 to find work in Arusha. When she couldn’t get work, she turned to prostitution. She ended up getting pregnant and giving up her first baby, Rama, to adoption. Shamin is her second child, and now stays with Amina on the streets.

As a fellow volunteer has described, she has the face of a woman that is both young and old at the same time. Soft, young features. A small frame, usually wrapped in a dirty blanket. Yet she has the scars, the wrinkles, the deep set eyes of a woman that’s been through years of pain. OHS has been afraid that both of them are HIV positive for a while, but the moment that I stepped into the clinic, I knew our fears were confirmed. A close friend, Chloe, who has been involved with Amina from the beginning of July, was sitting next to her in tears. In the half an hour that followed in the waiting room, I couldn’t take my eyes off of young Shamin. She’s very intelligent. Extremely perceptive, and has a sense of humor and mischief that often surprises and offers a glimpse of hope that she can have a better future than the one her mother has left for her.

But she won’t.

My New Office

One of the hostels near to where I stay in town is called the Arusha Backpackers Hostel. They have a bar / lounge that has a nice atmosphere to hang out in – so I occasionally go up there to do work, write, and drink coffee. It was today, after looking out on this view, that I suddenly realized I might never be ready to go home.