Filed under: Uncategorized
VOTE NADER 08 !!!!!!
it’s raining … with the exception of the occasional tropical downpour in sudan, i have skipped around and ahead of the rains for the past 7 months … my luck, it would seem, has run out …i am told that roads become impassable and work often shuts down … and i can see why … it ***!!!RAINS!!!*** when it rains … people just congregate under any awning they can find … they sit … they wait … as the streets go from dry to flooded in less than a minute …
great thing about the rainy season though ??? … mango season … ever tasted a mango ??? … no you haven’t … hahahaha …also had a red banana today … not as good as expected … but then … bananas are for suckers …
apparently canada elected harper and co. for another round …way to go … i didn’t really want to move back to canada anyway …
but seriously … it’s not like the neo-liberal ideology that harper has supported throughout his entire political career is crashing and burning right now or anything …
that’s really unfair of me … the liberals are worse and the ndp, well, someday maybe …what we need is a real choice in politics …
soooo …
i am going to start my own political party … first thing i will do sell off 100% of Canada’s military to the Darfur rebels (securing oil rights after they whoop the governments ass) and re-negotiate all contracts to produce humanitarian ‘weaponry’ … turn our military into the most terrifying force for good in the history of mankind, ready to swoop in and save the day with shovels and tractors wherever the next disaster strikes …
then i will decrease income tax to virtually nothing for all but the richest 10%, increase the GST to 15%+ on all goods, but significantly more on alcohol and tobacco, provide 100% free post-secondary education to all citizens, import thousands of foreign doctors and re-invent the health care system to focus on prevention instead of treatment, with every citizen assigned a doctor who visits every 30 days (identify and solve problems before they are problems), raise the minimum wage, legalize drugs and prostitution and go door to door and take away every gun from every person because, really, do you need them ??? … there are child soldiers in the Congo who could really use that gun … please give to those in need …
then i will nationalize all of Canada’s oil resources … which will prolly start a war with the U.S. … but it’s our mother f**king soil and it’s our mother f**king oil and those **** s*****s (i’ll let you use your imagination with that one, or buy a vowel [$25.00], if you want) in texas have no fucking right to monopolize the profits no matter what our government may say … i will not spend one single cent of the profits, but will invest and use the interest to improve social services to our weakest and most vulnerable …
then i will spend an absurd amount of money re-building a group of competitive, independent, publically owned media sources from the ground up, with huge promotion for all things Canada and zero corporate interference in public opinion manipulation … that is the government’s job …
then i will re-name Canada ‘Brandon-Land’ and appoint myself Emperor for Life …and if you even think of messing with me … you will be disappeared and your house will be burned to the ground …
you may hear this and say ‘wait a minute, that’s not how the canadian government does business’ … i say … ‘you need to look at what our government has been supporting in the developing world for the past 50 years … or just keep watching some stupid reality show about singing and dancing’ …
vote for me in 2043 … seriously … 2043 … i am thinking of ‘Change You Can Believe In’ for a slogan … what do you think ???
that was an unexpected little rant …
got a ‘job’ … though i don’t get paid (was offered but refused) … utterly pumped … i am working for an NGO called Story Workshop that produces radio programs designed to entertain listeners while educating about things like HIV and attempting to re-define the discourse on things like gender roles within the local context … i have seen similar NGO’s all over Africa, but none that does it quite so effectively … it is run by locals, but is directed by this amazing old Dutch woman who is blindingly intelligent and fiercely opinionated … she has invited me to stay at her place while i am here … and her place is bitchin … so … yay …
i start that on monday, and am spending the rest of this week getting to know another local NGO focused on small and medium business support and a fair trade macademia operation …
loving blantyre and excited to get to know it personally over the next month … then off to zimbabwe …
peace and love …
RaIt’s kinda strange, the way you change
But then again, we all do too
i am in an internet cafe in blantyre, malawi (though i still am not sure i am spelling blantyre correctly … i am told it is a place in scotland … meh) … micheal jackson is pumping through the stereo … it turns out that billie jean is not my lover …
strange place, blantyre … almost unfortunately western … walking down the main streets feels like walking down a canadian street … all the roads are nicely paved … the buildings are modern and well made … it’s surreal … but that’s malawi i guess … lots of BMW’s being sold in a country where the average person still lives on less than a dollar a day …
my quest to find a rural area to settle in is 100% on track and a complete failure … if that doesn’t make any sense to you … you’re not the only one … i just feel as though i am exactly where i need to be … i put my life and faith entirely in the hands of the universe and all roads lead here … from the moment of arrival, i have met incredible people and had intense glimpses on new points-of-view … and … i am sure that the meetings i am to have over the next 2 days will have a profound impact on … well … everything … so here i am … exactly where i wanted to be …
except … well … it’s nothing like where i wanted to be … life is funny like that … i was looking for uber-rural … and this … this is not that … this is the most western feeling city i have been in since toronto … oh well … i suppose i am getting a little ahead of myself …
speaking of toronto … GOD i miss toronto …
malawi has been weird … everywhere i go, i meet old friends … time and time again i turn my back on people who have touched my life, and set out into the unknown, only to find more old friends waiting for me when i arrive … (tragic, i know)
my first day in blantyre, i ended up with one friend and a handful of strangers at a play based on the challenges being faced by zimbabwe … where i met 3 other friends and an endless stream of the most incredible strangers … far too rarely in my life have i been lucky enough to hang out with artists … this norwegian guy with a tiny acoustic guitar, dressed exactly like bob dylan, plays at random, while the south african play director makes up words on the fly and actors from zimbabwe and england chime in with ironic and beautiful and hilarious contributions … all in the beautiful garden of a dutch lady, surrounded by art and the quiet warmth of a malawi night … gotta love artists … tragic though … the next day they went on tour … the worst part about meeting amazing people is never seeing them again …
it’s interesting to come further within the sphere of south africa … where history has played out very differently from the rest of the continent … i encountered my first s.a.’s in pemba in mozambique, and i knew right away i was dealing with a different breed … there is this … aggression … cockishness …
as i move south, i meet more and more, and while some are, of course, wonderful people, some are, of course, not so much …
it’s difficult to describe … one must wonder at what it is like to live a life of priviledge surrounded by suffering … to be explicitly blamed for that suffering and to bear the fear of the violent fruits it creates … to survive revolution only to see your political dominance disappear and become far more powerful, yet less obvious, economic dominance … even here in malawi, they seem to occupy a class all their own … zipping around drunk and carefree in nice cars from one lavish drinking den to the next … disregarding rules as they see fit … willing to give nothing and feeling no obligation to civil courtesy whatsoever …
to be a supremely dominant and spoiled racial minority in a country torn apart by racial disintegration and violence … what kind of a person does that create ??? … to be called ‘oppressor,’ to see the pain of your oppression, and to continue to bask in the glow of absolute economic dominance …
but then … what is the solution ??? … would you give back everything you had worked for ??? …
(again, i must stress that some … MANY … south african’s are wonderful and kind and among the best i have known … some … not all)
Filed under: Malawi | Tags: Electronic Music, Lake of Stars, Lilongwe, Music, Nick Mulvey
It's the hammer of justice It's the bell of freedom It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters All over this land
did i mention that i love music festivals ??? … wow …
i don’t even know where to begin …
i was there alone … which was a REALLY cool experience … i have always gone to music festivals/concerts with friends … which is great … what is life without friends right ??? … but alone was a whole different world …
i knew lots of people there … so cool to see so many people … people i had met as far back as uganda, a handfull from tanzania, some from mozambique and lots from my first week in malawi … and i met dozens and dozens and dozens of new people over 3 days … so there was certainly no shortage of people to hang out with … but i wasn’t ‘there’ with any of them … i could wander from group to group … approach compete strangers with utter confidence or sit by myself watching the waves lap on shore to the most incredible live soundtrack … there is something so incredibly liberating about travelling alone …
the venue was amazing … a long stretch of beach on the shores of the spectacular lake malawi … with 2 stages, half a dozen bars and a tent city with hundreds (or thousands) of tents of all shapes and sizes … the party went all night, and watching the breathtaking sunrise over lake malawi (as i did on all 3 nights) … dancing on the beach or barefoot in the wind driven surf, surrounded by compete strangers turned into instant friends was truly sublime …
and the music … how to describe the music … the best part for me was a guy named Nick Mulvey and his buddy Milo … who you should check out on myspace (www.myspace.com/nickmulveymusic) … an absurdly talented acoustic guitarist who i was fortunate enough to get to know reasonably well at the festival and after … him and the headliner, a sea-chanty like fiddler named Seth Lakeman, were acoustic … the only acoustic acts really … both very talented and very cool …
there was also a good assortment of local bands, though i can’t imagine how hard it must be for the local popular band from malawi to get up and perform in front of a couple thousand white people … it was neat for me … as i have been here so long, i have heard the local popular music many many times … to see them live was really cool and something i am sure many of their biggest fans don’t get to do …
other than that … it was electronic … probablly 60-75% of the acts were DJ’s … and WOW … i have been playing with the idea of buying some turn-tables when i get home instead of a tv … just to play with and have fun making music …
now ??? … more than ever !!! …
my exposure to electronic music has been pretty limited i suppose … a few big parties at huge clubs in toronto, and then local djs at local bars … i had NO idea the … breadth and power of electronic music … one of the feature acts was a BBC Radio 1 performer named Mary Anne Hobbs … sweet mother of god … huge dirty heart crushing baselines that shake you from the core … with rapid tempo and time changes that somehow collide smoothly into each other to knock you off your feet … i have never heard anything like it and all i want is more, more, more …
the whole feel was just perfect … most of the crowd were expats living in malawi and neighboring countries, or volunteers working nearby as i did in ethiopia … as such, the median social consciousness was staggering and it created an atmosphere of pure peace love and music … total woodstock, and with just as many … errrr … ‘things’ to do …
there is something otherworldly about sitting in a circle with people from Canada, Norway, Italy, USA, Netherlands, Germany and Malawi … drinking beer and passing around … errr … nevermind … talking about poverty and oppression and the form of a ‘brighter future’ … the bringing together of so many intelligent, educated and aware human beings, in an environment of creativity, celebration and love, created an energy that i can’t even describe … i have undergone serious seismic shifts in my thinking … and i am quite certain hundreds of other concert attendees can say the same …
so … it was great … days spent chatting and drinking on the beach … nights drinking and dancing from dusk till dawn … i partied … i consumed far too much … danced far too long … and by day 3 i was so completely knackered that by 2am i fell into a right foul mood that didn’t break until i heard an american playing ‘two coins’ by dispatch on an acoustic guitar the following afternoon … god i miss my music …
now i am in lilongwe … the very chipper capital of malawi, waiting to sort out the next step … i was hoping it would reveal itself at the concert, but i had no such luck … i had a breakfast meeting with a guy working in fair trade macadamia nuts who may be able to get me semi-set up in a rural area … so i think that is the direction i will take … it would be great if i could spend half my time working with them and half my time working with a locally run project … i think the contrast would be enlightening … and … i will be close to some mountains … and there is nothing i like more than spending weekends climbing up bigass rocks …
time in africa is dwindling down … i can’t believe the festival that once seemed distant on the horizon is now 3 days behind me … i am still loving it, but am more excited than ever to get home … i want to build … i want to create … i want to live … music’s got me feeling so free, i wanna celebrate …
peace and love my brothers and my sisters …
Filed under: Malawi | Tags: Cape McClear, Development, Lake of Stars, Senga Bay, Summer
as i was riding with 25 other people in the back of a pickup truck to get here (if you are wondering how that works … it’s simple … you hold onto each other … can you imagine getting on a bus in canada and wrapping your arm around a stranger’s waist for 15 minutes ??? … god i love africa) … and i couldn’t help but feel like it was … summer …
it even smelled like summer in canada … the temperature is the same … the atmosphere is the same … what fun (in october … enjoy your autumn suckers … ) … and what for ???
the lake of stars … a uk organized music festival on the beautiful shores of lake malawi … 3 days of sun, sand and music with thousands of white people from all over the world (of course locals can’t afford the ticket prices … and if they could, they can’t afford the food … but who says the people of malaiwi should be able to enjoy their own music festival) …
i am super pumped … my favorite things in the world are 1) music 2) live music 3) outdoor live music and 4) outdoor music festivals on the beach in malawi … so this is pretty much heaven for me … AND … i am staying with a friend i met in dar … he owns a local restaurant and lives on the beach … so i get cheap eats, a private beach and a tv/dvd player to chill out with while all those suckers are forced to party and have a good time …
my big goal in malawi is to find a rural area to park myself in for a month … a huge gap in my understanding is the conversion from ideas to results in small scale development projects … so i want to get up to my elbows in something that is small community, locally designed and organized and uses education (and hopefully music and sport) as a basis for progress … i miss small town life and want to get to know a one of a kind african community again …
the past few weeks have been incredible … mozambique was unforgettable and i had a great journey across it with some sweet austrians … though busses and trains always leave at 4:00am, which can get old after 3 or 4 days of travel … i am hoping to find my way back out to the coast in a few months … turning my back on the ocean after months living on her shores was one of the harder things i have ever had to do …
been in malawi about a week … getting in is a huge sigh of relief … mozambique is always a bit hairy … but malawi, from the word go, is super chilled and super easy to get around … it’s sad that the people here suffer as terribly as they do … they are friendly and kind and seem to work harder than you do … but what can you do when there simply is no money ??? …
i was at a place called Cape McClear for a few days chillout with a friendly norwegian who has backpacked somalia and afghanistan … and then took a boat across the lake yesterday to senga bay … and now here i am …
music kicks off in 1 hour 36 minutes … it’s good to be me … though it strikes me that i have never heard any of the bands and don’t even know what kind of music it is … meh …
peace and love ya’ll …
