Seeds for an Ethiopian Photo Curriculum

At Addis Ababa University’s Graduate Journalism and Communications program, I ran a two-day workshop on technical aspects of photography as a prerequisite to a month long intensive production course. During the workshop, it became clear that many of the students had little exposure to tools like cameras and minimal visual literacy skills, at least in relation to mass media. We made a lot of progress in two days, but they clearly needed some instruction on photographic visuality and its various applications for the field of journalism.

Alice Klement, the professor of the course, invited me to guest lecture on photographic composition, documentary photography, and visual storytelling. The follow up lectures vitally supplemented the technical skills training that the students received during the prerequisite workshop.

The 33 first-year students of the Masters in Journalism and Communications were chosen for the program by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education. They will all continue on to teach at the 13 new universities currently under construction across the country. The students intend to use my presentations in their own classes after they graduate. The positive response to the workshop and lectures has been overwhelming, and I’ve received a number of effusive thank you notes over email.

You can see the presentations below. (The final presentation is in 2 parts.) I regret that there are not more examples of work from Africa by Africans. I decided it was better to stick with what I know and admit its limitations rather than deliver a weak lesson by using work I couldn’t effectively speak to. Alice Klement reassured me. “Won’t it be great to come back in a few years and find versions of your presentations retooled with Ethiopian examples and interpretations?” It totally will be.

Timkat

Timkat, the Ethiopian celebration of the Epiphany, was celebrated early this week in Addis Ababa with huge crowds gathering at several sites around the city for religious ceremonies, processions, and dancing. These photos were taken at Jan Meda on Tuesday. Many thanks to Adane for guiding me through the crowd and insisting that I try the dances and the home brew.

Theater as Catharsis in Grappling with HIV/AIDS

Most of Hope For Children’s daylong celebrations include somber testimonies from community members who have suffered with HIV/AIDS and plays by the youth about fictionalized family dramas where HIV/AIDS is a strong theme. During the Christmas celebration this past weekend, one play enacted the tragedy of a mother who dies from AIDS because her negligent children do not take her to receive medical attention in time. The play moved many in the audience, including the small children, to tears. While this might seem out of place for a Christmas celebration, the ritual is deeply cathartic for all those involved and reminds attendees of the hard work that the community is engaged in with the help of Hope for Children.

Click image and zoom to view full size.

As part of my Fulbright project here in Ethiopia, I am exploring the influence these community plays have on the films of Sudden Flowers Productions. Participation in plays at Hope For Children is one way that members of Sudden Flowers have developed the sophisticated sense of personal narrative that they draw on to produce their films. One of the films will be screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival at the end of this month. “Fighting With Father” is a true story about Yonas’ struggle with his mother’s death and his father’s alcoholism. Congratulations to Sudden Flowers Productions and director Daniel D. Negatu in bringing this story to an international audience.

New Years?

Only the faranjis (foreigners) in Addis Ababa are celebrating the New Year now. Ethiopia’s New Year starts on September 11th. It is currently the year 2002 according to this calendar, hence one local tourism company’s slogan: “Visit Ethiopia and feel 7 years younger.”

Time in Ethiopia offers a variety of challenges for faranjis. Aside from the different calendar year, there is the unique system for noting the time of day. Hours in the day are counted sequentially with daylight hours. Being so close to the equator, Ethiopia sees very little variation in daylight hours from season to season. 6am, when the sun is about to rise, is considered 12 o’clock. 7am, the end of the first hour of sunlight, is 1 o’clock, and so forth through to the next 12 o’clock, or 6pm faranji time, when the sun sets. To convert between faranji time and Ethiopian time, just look to the opposite number on the face of an analog clock. Luckily, most Ethiopians assume I’m working from faranji time when I make plans with them. I only had a few botched attempts at scheduling meetings due to confusion about what system of time we were using.

But this isn’t what faranjis are complaining about when they bemoan habesha time.¹ Habesha time refers to an Ethiopian style of living in the present, which comes into conflict with the tendency of most American and European to live in the future. Anticipating, premeditating, planning, all deeply ingrained activities that characterize how Americans like me get things done, do not mesh easily with how most Ethiopians get things done. While I assess my effectiveness based on my ability to carry out plans, Ethiopians measure their effectiveness based on… well, I’m not sure exactly yet, but whatever it is, it seems designed to foil mine! Hopefully after another 8 months here, I’ll have a better understanding of the perpetual present that my Ethiopian colleagues live in. It’s markedly different from the siesta-inflected cyclical time of Mexico/Central America or the monumental bureaucratic time of India.

If time and making plans didn’t already sound complicated enough, here’s another twist. The Amharic language doesn’t have a future tense. The future is implied contextually with certain uses of the present continuous tense. This means that only Ethiopians who are completely fluent in English will use the future tense when they speak in English. In my conversations with Ethiopians, I often struggle to understand what has already happened, what is happening and what will happen.

Is my new year’s resolution in keeping with Ethiopian conceptions of time, or just a faranji’s attempt to maintain sanity in spite of it? I’m resolving to enjoy procrastination.

First Encounter with OLPC

Today, I had my first encounter with an OLPC laptop. It was in the home of a member of Sudden Flowers Productions. The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to enhance educational oppertunities for poor children by providing them with their own robust, open source laptops. After hearing so much about the initiative, I was ecstatic that one of the youth I’m teaching is using of an OLPC laptop to do some independent studying.

Oh Friday, we had our last Photoshop lesson, reviewing what I taught them about layers and color correction. I thought they could use more time to play around with what they learned, but they insisted that we move on to discuss web design. It was pretty gratifying to arrive at the office this morning and find several of the youth on the old Windows laptop messing with the highlights and saturation of photos they took last week. Seems they do have that all figured out and are ready to move on. The next three hours consisted of playing with and discussing a few web based interactive projects (1, 2, 3, 4) followed by writing some simple HTML and CSS documents.

Tensaye (on the left in the first photo below) was especially eager to learn about web design.  “This is my dream,” he confided in me last week.  “Okay,”  I told him, “We’ll make it happen.”  After today’s lesson, we headed to his house to load the example files onto his family’s desktop computer.  That way, he could experiment on his own until the next lesson on Friday.  But the computer didn’t have the right drivers for my USB drive.  After unsuccessfully trouble shooting for a few minutes, Tensaye suddenly perked up and asked one of his relatives to get the “little computer.”

I gasped with delight when I saw the green OLPC OX-1 laptop.  Seems that it sat largely unused in the house since Tensaye’s older relative had received it in school a few months ago.

Tensaye plugged my USB drive into the laptop, and it loaded no problem.  He copied over the examples and resource files.

What totally endeared me to the device was the keyboard.  Characters of the Amharic fidel were printed alongside the Roman letters!  I asked Tensaye if any other keyboards were set up this way.  “Nope,” he said. ”First in Ethiopia.”

I showed him how to swivel the screen around for easier reading.  “I will use this a lot,” he said scrolling through the documents.  “You have to test me.  On Friday, ask me what I learned over the week on my own, and I will show you.”

Thanks, OLPC.  Mission accomplished.

Sheger FM: Ethiopia’s First Independent Radio Station

Sheger FM is Ethiopia’s first independent radio station. In operation for about two years now, the station reaches between 5 and 7 millions listeners in the Addis Ababa area.

Antenhe Safio, Program Producer.

Much of the broadcast equipment was donated by Voice of America.

Some of the station’s music collection.

Satellite dishes on the station’s roof recieve programming from Voice of America and Deutsche Welle, among other sources.

                               Solomon Guangul, News Editor.

Johannes Yehalawork, Politics Editor.

External Programs Head Tefari Alemu, left, General Manager Maeza Birru, center, and Technician Wongelawit Berhanu, right, prepare to record a commercial.

Meseret Bezu, Technician.

Technician Desalegn Mekuria repairs equipment.

Music Program Editor prepares a show.

General Manager Meaza Birru at her desk.

Gifts from listeners displayed in the station hallway.

                               The Shegar FM radio tower on the roof of the station’s offices broadcasts on FM 102.1.

Getting Connection in Ethiopia

One of the first things anyone does upon establishing themselves in a new country is connect to local communications systems. This blog post will outline how as a foreigner I’ve hooked into the phone and internet system here in Addis Ababa and what’s changed since my previous visit last summer. I’ve had a relatively easy time getting connected thanks to input from other expats who have been here for some time. Without their help, it would have taken much more time and money to figure out how things work here. Hopefully this post will be of use to other. Do note that the phone and internet systems have changed notably since a year ago when I first visited. I can only promise that this information is accurate now. Also, since this information is based on my experience, it is possible that there are alternate ways of getting things done. This is just what worked for me.

Welcome To Choose

All telecommunications service is provided by the state-run Ethiopian Telecommunications Company (ETC), so clearly this is the option you are welcome to choose. Below is a photo of the text message I received upon setting up my cell phone service.

Cell phone service

When I was here last summer, there was a run on SIM cards as there were not enough phone numbers available to meet the demand. Since then, new numbers were introduced to the system. I had no problem getting a SIM card this time, paying about 160 birr ($13) for it in a shop at the Hilton Hotel.

Cell numbers starting in 0911 are original numbers. Those starting with 0912, 0913, etc., are new numbers.  I got the cheapest cell phone offered at a small shop near Meskel Square for 450 birr ($37). Lots of shops offer SIM cards and cell phones, so you should have no problem finding either.

Sim cards come with a few birr of service and credit can be added with green or blue prepaid phone cards available at almost every corner store. Use blue cards to add credit to SIM cards with 0911 numbers and green cards to add credit to 0912 and up numbers.  They come in denominations of 25, 50, and 100 birr.  In about a month’s time, I’ve used 150 birr of service making about 2-3 local calls a day that rarely last over 10 minutes each.

The prepaid card will have instructions on how to add credit by calling ETC at 909. Even if you don’t understand the recorded Amharic prompts, following the instructions printed on the card in English will do the trick. You should receive a text message confirming that credit has been added to your account.

Cell phone annoyances

As far as I understand, adding the new numbers pushed the telecommunications system over capacity. About 1/3 of the time I try to place a call, it won’t go through and an automated message plays offering one of various reasons why.

Often times, people I’m working with cannot afford to charge their SIM cards with credit, so they call and immediately hang up so that I call them back. They will also borrow other people’s phones to make calls from rather than using the credit on their own SIM card. I don’t have voice mail service, and no one I know does. I’m not sure if it’s even offered. While in the U.S. I might ignore calls from unknown numbers to my phone and just listen to the message later, the combination of practices and services here mandate that I pick up all calls.

Internet

I had a lot of help from the F9 Photo Blog on getting my Apple laptop connected to the internet. Please refer to this post on the EVDO internet connection for additional specifications and instruction on this service.  Two connections are available through USB modems: CDMA 1X and EVDO.  Most vendors I talked to were completely misinformed about the USB modems they are selling and the internet connections available through them. Many ETC employees were misinformed as well. In addition, few can speak to compatibility with Apple computers, which are not very commonly used here.

I bought a Huawei USB modem for just over 2,200 birr ($183) at Getu Center on Bole Rd.  With the help of an Ethiopian friend, I registered the device at the ETC office next to Edna Mall for limited EVDO internet service at 480 birr/month ($40) for up to 2GB of bandwidth usage.

The EVDO connection is very new in Ethiopia (introduced in the past several months) and comes in limited and unlimited bandwidth options. The unlimited bandwidth option is exorbitantly expensive, so unless you’re opening an internet cafe or something, go with the limited service.  The maximum connection speed is 2.4 MB/second, though rarely is my connection actually over 250 KB/second. I paid for the first month at the ETC office, but subsequent months are paid for with prepaid cards much like the ones used to add credit to my cell phone service. The light blue cards for internet credit are available at some stationary shops and corner stores that advertise CDMA/Internet Cards. I got mine at the stationary store one floor below the ETC office near Edna Mall.  At the beginning of each month, I buy 5 100birr cards and charge my account.

If you don’t charge your account by the 8th of the month, ETC closes the account. I find the connection does drop out occasionally, especially when I am doing things that demand a lot of bandwidth, like watching videos. Usually, reconnecting after the connection was dropped does the trick.

The other option for internet service with a USB modem is the CDMA 1X connection, which works through a SIM card with credit added through the same prepaid cards as the cell phone service. It is significantly slower than the EVDO connection and charges by time used, not bandwidth. On a friend’s 1X connection in my first few weeks here, I rarely saw connection speeds over 25 KB/second. If I stuck with the 1X connection, I would have paid comparably to what I pay for the EVDO connection over the course of a month but would accomplish much less in the time spent online because of the slow connection speed.  If you are in Ethiopia for any significant period of time, a 1X connection is a waste of time and money.  It’s worth the added haste of getting the proper USB modem and registering at the ETC office for the faster connection with EVDO.

Combating Desertification on International Volunteer Day

Thanks to a fast growing population, aggressive farming practices, and deforestation, over 70% of Ethiopia’s land is subject to desertification, the deterioration of land due to loss of moisture and vegetation.  Reforestation is one way to combat this process.  On International Volunteer Day, December 5th, volunteers in Debre Sina planted trees to commemorate the success of a local United Nations funded project to combat desertification.  ‘Involvement of Ethiopian Youth in Combating Desertification’ has organized over 200 youth to plant trees on 438 hectares of land since 2006.

So Much Construction

One of the most stunning things about the capital of Ethiopia is the omnipresence of huge construction projects.  In 2006, Addis Ababa ranked as the world’s 31st fastest growing city in the world.  The country consumes some 3 million tons of cement per year.  According to The Economist, Ethiopia’s economy will be the 5th fastest growing economy in 2010.

A lot of work is going into imagining Addis Ababa’s future.  This display by Sunshine Construction in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel is one example.  I was surprised to find the trade magazine Construction Ahead for sale among the limited selection of magazine at the Lime Tree Cafe’s Book World shop, a popular ex-pat hang out.

The city is going through an intense period of urbanization.  China is investing in the construction of roads.  I’ve noticed commentary about Addis being relatively free of beggars in the past, a condition which is certainly not the case now, as I’ve noted earlier.  How will all these changes impact the majority of residents in the capital?  Wikipedia’s entry on Ethiopia cites that 55% of Addis’s residents live in slums and only 12% of homes have tile or concrete flooring.  If the word on the street is true, that all the units in the huge housing complexes under construction have already been purchased by Ethiopians living abroad, this construction boom in unlikely to relieve the housing shortage.  Some articles in the current issue of Construction Ahead stress the need to focus on long term development in place of short term profit.  Everyone seems poised to see how these familiar trends in urbanization will continue to play out for Addis Ababa.

Messing Around with Photography in Cross-cultural
Exchanges

There were a lot of cameras out on Saturday at the 9^th anniversary celebration for Hope for Children.  The custom used to be that conscientious foreigners visiting developing countries would give prints to locals in exchange for posing for pictures.

Here, the dynamic has changed.  The instant gratification of seeing the image on the back of the camera increasingly takes the place of giving back prints.  Is this a bait and switch, where the mystique of the foreigner’s technology leads to the locals missing out on a fair exchange, or is a different kind of interaction happening all together?

The flow of images between the developing world and the developed world has always been a two-way street, but the producers of highly circulated images have consistently come from privileged backgrounds.  Researchers, artists, and journalists make images about far-flung and exotified places for the enrichment of those in developed counties while mass media designed for the same audiences filters out across the globe and deeply influences the media culture of developing countries. The flow of visual media came under intense scrutiny in the 1960s and 1970s when post-colonial anxiety reached a fever pitch.  This anxiety was perhaps best captured by Susan Sontag in her book On Photography, where she associated the proliferation of photographic imagery with chronic voyeurism antagonistic of any meaningful intervention.¹ In response, a host of community oriented creative practices took hold, including the practice of conscientious travelers giving prints to those in the photographs. Giving people prints focuses on exchange.  The foreigner gets the image they want and the local gets a copy for cooperating.  Now, in many places I travel to, locals are quick to insist upon prints and will speak with vivid indignation about those visitors who promised prints but didn’t deliver.

The dynamic around photography at the Hope for Children anniversary celebration was wholly different.   This was in part because these locals are kids accustomed to interacting with foreigners who support Hope for Children’s work.  Many of the kids are uninhibited about engaging these strangers, and they have expectations around digital photography that seem to have as much to do with participation as exchange.

Not only were kids asking to have there picture taken and immediately reaching to turn the camera around to see the results.  Many were asking to take the pictures themselves, often with no apparent expectation of keeping their work.  I wonder if there is something decidedly ‘new media’ about their interests to get their hands on the technology and participate in production.  The dynamic I witnessed felt a lot like kids jumping at the opportunity to ‘mess around’ with visual media and digital technology, an important learning activity for digital youth identified in a recent report by UC Berkeley ’s iSchool.

While I was at the celebration principally as a photographer, to make images, one interaction left me with something decidedly more valuable that a photograph.

The sun on Saturday was strong, like it is most days this close to the equator.  I spent some time hugging the thin lip of shade cast by a corrugated tin fence.  After a while, I felt a tug on my pants and looked down to see a girl of about 7 years old pointing timidly at my camera and then at herself.  She wanted me to take her picture. My first reaction was a feeling of nausea as her eager eyes and covered head brought to mind Steve McCurry’s iconic image and all the dubious cultural and gender baggage that fueled its’ popularity.  Judging by her expression, it took her a while to find the nerve to get my attention.  She must have seen the more assertive kids getting in on the photography action and wanted to participate.  I decided to ignore my initial anxiety, crouched down, snapped a few frames, and turned the camera around to show her.  A suppressed smile crossed her face.  I looked at her eagerly hoping for a more telling expression of her feelings about the photo.  Getting only bashfulness, I offered mine: “Konjo.” (“Beautiful” in Amharic.)  The girl’s suppressed smile broke into a grin from ear to ear.  She quickly looked at the picture one more time to confirm the assessment and, satisfied, turned back toward the festivities.  I reluctantly show you the picture here to help you envision our interaction, but the real value of the exchange for me was in using my camera satisfy her curiosity and break through her shyness.  Seems that she valued the exchange around the photo at least as much as the photo itself, too.

Those who own the cameras and the means of storing and viewing the images still have the most leverage over visual representation.  That said, digital technology might help push stopgaps for postcolonial anxiety (like sharing copies of the final production) toward sharing the means of production, prioritizing the interaction between people, and jointly assessing the results.