Frank in Africa ‘08

Today we left Dar es Salaam - Tanzania, I’m happy to leave somehow, I got kinda tired of the city life there, to much noise and polution. we left at 7:30 in the morning, took a taxi to the airport and checked in, it all took really long because there was a lack of organisation at the airport, there was no structure, they had to check my bag because it had 2 external hard drives in it, but jeroens bag, which also had 2 HDDs didnt get checked. Everybody made it through the bag check eventually and we were late, but the plane wasnt even there yet…

The flight itself was fine, I slept for a bit and they gave us breakfast, scrambled eggs with a lil sausage and some fried potatoes. when we landed I knew it was gonna be a totally different place than Dar es Salaam, it’s so green here because its the rain season, and its all so peaceful and beautiful. After a long drive from Blantyre to Zomba we checked into the hotel, we have 4 small lodges I guess the word is, me and Beer share 1, and next to us are the other 2 guys (Jelle and Jeroen) the women are up hill slightly, which is great because they talk too much.

After unpacking we went to the city centre, which somehow reminded me of an old Western movie, old looking scructure with the paint coming of, and the hand painted sign, it’s great, but not a place I can photograph I think, since we’re the only white people here and it’s clear that we’re a circus act to the locals… we visited a small market which was crazy, and after that had dinner (beef curry), at this place called “tasty bites”, it was ok.

I didn’t sleep much because Beer had an allergic reaction to all the dust, and he kept me awake most of the night with all his disgusting sounds ruining the nice sounds of the stream nearby…

Tags: Malawi by Frank
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Sooo, I’m sitting here on my bed, I just got home from the internet cafe, finally some peace and quiet, I think Beer is taking a shower and the other people are still away or sitting on the balcony. I miss being alone from time to time, I know that sounds strange but having some time to yourself to get your head sorted isn’t just something that’s nice sometimes, it’s something I need, maybe it’s because I’m used to being on my own and doing everything my way and by my own scedule.

I got to talk to Will today for a few minutes and it somewhat made me miss home, not “home” the location, or the feeling of being home, just the few hours a day I have at home just for me. There’s non of that over here right now, things are really chaotic and there are always people talking, ahhh peace and quiet is over now, beer just walked in and is gonna start packing his bag for malawi… I guess I should do the same after I’m done writing this…

lets go back a few days and write something about everything I experienced, I have no clue about my last “real” post, it’s been a lot harder to write since my laptop died, I basically type it in a few minutes and quickly upload some pictures… I hope Blaxtar (the dutch rapper who’ll come to ) will bring me a harddrive (I mailed him today).

The studio…after the workshops the rappers went to the studio for 3 days, and I went there the last day to take some pics, I had never been in a music studio before, not that this would really qulify I think… basically there were 2 couches, a table with water bottles and crisps, a desk with a computer and a chair, and a small recording booth. The results of the recordings were pretty cool, even though I’m sick of hearing those songs (because we edit the video to the music) I was impressed that they could make songs that quickly, I always figured it took days, but Prinz pi told me he does it in a few hours back home…

The video shoot… we shot the video at the school across from the kaya guesthouse, which we’re staying at. it was great to see a real african school and how simplistic everything was, they had these really cool drawings on the wall, some about science some about math. the first part of the video shoot I didnt like, it was too forced and I felt bad for the kids, it just felt wrong to me that a bunch of white guys wth cameras were telling these poor black kids what to do, they werent getting paid, or didn’t get any rewards at all…all I kept thinking was, just turn up the volume and let the kids dance and party with the rappers, which happened later on and made me feel a little better, we also donated 2 footballs to the school which is something I guess. it was a special experience though, and I’m glad I was there, even with those mixed feelings…

today was the day after the video shoot, and we caught up on some work, mostly some of the image galleries. we didn’t really get to edit because the video guys didnt load the movie onto the external hard drives for us. Theres still some friction there, but its to little to really get into a discussion about, even though it does build up.

Things will be different in Malawi, we’ll all have seperate rooms, and I’m hoping for easy internet access, but I’m not expecting it.

Tomorrow is Beers birthday, and We’ll be going to a small iland I think and hang out for most of the afternoon, some much needed rest, maybe I’ll take a walk on my own or something to clean my head…

yea not much else to talk about, I better start packing and do some laundry…mannn I still hate laundry…

Tags: Tanzania by Frank
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