And I am back...in Sri Lanka
for the record this is the third time i have had to write this out. I have had the computer crash. the text just disappear and now i just hope it works otherwise i will just flip out.
so forgive me if this blog is less detailed than we would all like. the more clever material was in the frist two times i tried.
Well it’s all over folks. I am currently on a resort island with one of the video guys taking our well-earned day off. Yes this is our second day off but we have been working during our days off so we earned a second one.
The show was fantastic! The work looked better than I could have hoped and it went over so well I could hardly stand myself and the students were even more excited. It was amazing! For the first time EVER we showed films publicly made my Maldivian Youths in response to issues they chose and the censor board didn’t touch them. Partly because we had the blessing of the Minister of Information and I get the idea that they had no idea that the content would be so dark. There were movies about drugs, child abuse, reckless driving and more than one that were just damn funny. They went over very well, there were a lot of nervous looks to see what the Ministers reaction would be by his deputies but he liked them. But enough of that moving picture crap. It’s easy to tell a story at 30 frames per second. Lets see those guys do it with only one frame.
The photos were by far less controversial but we heard a LOT of praise for them. Even from a few skeptics we heard good things, the kids shot the photos, they edited them and we had them printed. I helped choose between photos every now and then but they chose what was shown and how in the end. They did so well I am still beaming with pride. To have gone from absolute doubt to swollen with pride is fabulous.
The show was fantastic! I can say it a hundred times and it wont be enough. Now the scary part is what to do next for these students?
Brutal truth is that in my not so educated opinion on the subject I had maybe two students who with luck could be pros. One really, Ahmed, He really has a great eye. The portraits he was taking were amazing; I would be thrilled to have them in my book. THRILLED. They are very good. I want to help him and the other to go as far as their skills and desire will take them. The Ministry of Youth has a photo class with a black and white darkroom, strobe lights and teachers, the question is how do we get these guys in there? From what I understand, Ahmed has been applying for these classes and has been constantly turned down with out being told why.
I think UNICEF has some great ideas and they want our/my input as teachers as to what we think is a good next step. To me it’s keeping these students moving, get them into the classes. I have asked that if UNICEF needs a local shooter for something to contact Ahmed and work it out with him. Of course there are pro photographers in Male, but if they can give the experience and exposure to a former student of the workshops they why the hell wouldn’t they?
I leave for Sri Lanka tomorrow where I will stay for I don’t know how long. I hope to find work with someone there for a week or two but I can’t count on that so who knows. I know I want to climb Adams Peak again, this time I wont lose my temper and think about killing anyone. Probably anyway, I cant promise. If I leave soon then I will make a stop in Paris to see a friend that I haven’t seen in person since Boston. I am thrilled to see Manon again. Eventually I will end up back in Brooklyn wondering how the hell I am going to pay for all of this fun. I am looking to see what else I can do for the students and the workshop in general. UNICEF is keen on doing this again in the New Year. Not sure if that plan includes me or not but I wont mind if it does.
What else?
I learned more from the kids than I taught them. I know that to be true. I had to turn off my phone out of guilt and shame, several of my students have been calling me to say thank you and that they miss the class miss me and want me to stay. (Cynical me then asks why the hell they were never on time to class?) It seems like to some they needed these classes, video or photo it was a way to live for a very short period of time that they are not too sure will ever happen again. According to UNICEF it will but you can never tell. I really honestly hope it does, with or without me the kids loved it. Yes I am aware of the arrogant tone in that last comment but you have to understand how damn bored these kids are. So bored that drugs aren’t so much a thing to do as they are almost the ONLY things to do. The government of course acts like the drug problem is falling into a controllable scale, which is crap. I had a very scary but open discussion with a student out front of my hotel the day before I left. I asked about drinking and whether or not they could actually get alcohol or was it just too hard. He said no it’s just very expensive. They pay around $100-$150 for a bottle of whiskey. They can get it easy enough but for the money why not go with hash or heroin? Which can even be free if they agree to sell some. The other trainers and I took last Tuesday to sleep in and go snorkeling off a nearby island, so yes, I have been snorkeling already but it’s worth it here. Within 20 minutes we saw two 5-6 foot black tip reef sharks. They are about the least scary of any shark but when you realize that you both saw each other at the same time about 6 feet away from each other neither of us looked pleased. He /she just turned and swam away; I just stared and tried not to practiced my squid impressions. Just joking. I saw them both and they saw me and they went about their life completely not giving a damn I existed. So the video guy (Vava) and I swam after them. It’s kinda creepy, in the movies the sharks just appear and disappear in the water. You think its not like that, you think you might see it coming and you could react but really they just pop out of the reef and bang your face to face then its gone. You will be scooting along the reef then pow! Their under you then gone, it’s pretty cool. So after that today was pretty tame, we took a boat out the “house reef” of the resort where it wasn’t nearly as cool or colorful but on the way back we saw a pod of dolphins in the distance playing so off we go. A blue slow moving dive ship filled with German, Irish, French tourist and one funny Serb and a loud mouth American. Nothing but white people on a boat chasing after the dolphins. Honestly it was funnier to sit back while we putted closer and closer to the dolphins to watch fat older men in Speedos jump up and try suddenly to figure out how to work their underwater cameras out of the water then it was to watch the dolphins. That was until the dolphins started swimming in front of and around us, jumping and spinning in the air splashing on both sides of the boat. It was very beautiful. Humbling too, my mask kept leaking the whole time I was snorkeling so I kept having to pop my head out of the water take it off put it back on splashing around and looking like a wounded bird in the water, while the dolphins were launching out 4 feet and more spinning 3 or four times before splashing back into the water. Some were doing front flips. It was just very cool to watch. I of course was raised not to show off in such a manner so I opted for the splashing around like a drowning pale rat. The dolphins were worth the whole trip out to the resort. Which as its own thing sucked. Every one was European, rich, white and fat. They drank like fish and looked like dried fruit. It was very upsetting. You could tell we were an oddity because we were saying a few words in Dhivehi to the staff and they couldn’t believe that we knew any. None of the guests really get off the resorts except to go to and from the airport. Its just damn scary. Its kinda like going to New York and taking a cab straight to the four seasons, never leaving the hotel and heading home to tell your friends you went to New York City.
WOW!
Sorry guys,
I have been in Sri Lanka for the whole weekend and haven’t had a chance to get to the web. I have been hanging out/ staying with a friend from IOM here who is kind enough to tolerate me on her floor whilst I look for work. Melissa kicks ass.
The tone here is really mellow. They just elected a new president and they had some problems with violence in the east in the process. Apparently in several voting districts no Tamils voted in protest against the process and the government, which still seems to work quite hard at keeping them in their “place”. IE second class.
During the election and the days after alcohol sales are forbidden (alcoholism is a growing problem here) apparently in effort to frustrate me and my attempts to have a cold beer without going from place to place trying to find someone who has a special permit.
Fear not I found out that the Hilton could sell to me IF I buy the buffet dinner. SO Melissa and I had the buffet dinner strictly for the alcohol. Is that so wrong? I am ok with it.
No word yet of work, except that I should have been here two or three weeks ago and I would have been one hot commodity. Everyone seems to have their shots done for the one-year reports. I may stick around and hire a driver to head out on my own back up to Ampara district where we shot the most in February. Ampara was hammered by the Tsunami and was not well cared for by the government after the fact. Coincidently this is where the violence was, hmm. Piss off people bad enough for a 20 year civil war to break out, get your cease fire, major disaster occurs, generally ignore same people, they get pissed again and blow up a few buildings? Who would have though that something like this could happen?
I am well, I do apologize for the very long delay in information, it was a lack of Internet thing, certainly not a lack of things going on but I will be better able to write from now on.
so forgive me if this blog is less detailed than we would all like. the more clever material was in the frist two times i tried.
Well it’s all over folks. I am currently on a resort island with one of the video guys taking our well-earned day off. Yes this is our second day off but we have been working during our days off so we earned a second one.
The show was fantastic! The work looked better than I could have hoped and it went over so well I could hardly stand myself and the students were even more excited. It was amazing! For the first time EVER we showed films publicly made my Maldivian Youths in response to issues they chose and the censor board didn’t touch them. Partly because we had the blessing of the Minister of Information and I get the idea that they had no idea that the content would be so dark. There were movies about drugs, child abuse, reckless driving and more than one that were just damn funny. They went over very well, there were a lot of nervous looks to see what the Ministers reaction would be by his deputies but he liked them. But enough of that moving picture crap. It’s easy to tell a story at 30 frames per second. Lets see those guys do it with only one frame.
The photos were by far less controversial but we heard a LOT of praise for them. Even from a few skeptics we heard good things, the kids shot the photos, they edited them and we had them printed. I helped choose between photos every now and then but they chose what was shown and how in the end. They did so well I am still beaming with pride. To have gone from absolute doubt to swollen with pride is fabulous.
The show was fantastic! I can say it a hundred times and it wont be enough. Now the scary part is what to do next for these students?
Brutal truth is that in my not so educated opinion on the subject I had maybe two students who with luck could be pros. One really, Ahmed, He really has a great eye. The portraits he was taking were amazing; I would be thrilled to have them in my book. THRILLED. They are very good. I want to help him and the other to go as far as their skills and desire will take them. The Ministry of Youth has a photo class with a black and white darkroom, strobe lights and teachers, the question is how do we get these guys in there? From what I understand, Ahmed has been applying for these classes and has been constantly turned down with out being told why.
I think UNICEF has some great ideas and they want our/my input as teachers as to what we think is a good next step. To me it’s keeping these students moving, get them into the classes. I have asked that if UNICEF needs a local shooter for something to contact Ahmed and work it out with him. Of course there are pro photographers in Male, but if they can give the experience and exposure to a former student of the workshops they why the hell wouldn’t they?
I leave for Sri Lanka tomorrow where I will stay for I don’t know how long. I hope to find work with someone there for a week or two but I can’t count on that so who knows. I know I want to climb Adams Peak again, this time I wont lose my temper and think about killing anyone. Probably anyway, I cant promise. If I leave soon then I will make a stop in Paris to see a friend that I haven’t seen in person since Boston. I am thrilled to see Manon again. Eventually I will end up back in Brooklyn wondering how the hell I am going to pay for all of this fun. I am looking to see what else I can do for the students and the workshop in general. UNICEF is keen on doing this again in the New Year. Not sure if that plan includes me or not but I wont mind if it does.
What else?
I learned more from the kids than I taught them. I know that to be true. I had to turn off my phone out of guilt and shame, several of my students have been calling me to say thank you and that they miss the class miss me and want me to stay. (Cynical me then asks why the hell they were never on time to class?) It seems like to some they needed these classes, video or photo it was a way to live for a very short period of time that they are not too sure will ever happen again. According to UNICEF it will but you can never tell. I really honestly hope it does, with or without me the kids loved it. Yes I am aware of the arrogant tone in that last comment but you have to understand how damn bored these kids are. So bored that drugs aren’t so much a thing to do as they are almost the ONLY things to do. The government of course acts like the drug problem is falling into a controllable scale, which is crap. I had a very scary but open discussion with a student out front of my hotel the day before I left. I asked about drinking and whether or not they could actually get alcohol or was it just too hard. He said no it’s just very expensive. They pay around $100-$150 for a bottle of whiskey. They can get it easy enough but for the money why not go with hash or heroin? Which can even be free if they agree to sell some. The other trainers and I took last Tuesday to sleep in and go snorkeling off a nearby island, so yes, I have been snorkeling already but it’s worth it here. Within 20 minutes we saw two 5-6 foot black tip reef sharks. They are about the least scary of any shark but when you realize that you both saw each other at the same time about 6 feet away from each other neither of us looked pleased. He /she just turned and swam away; I just stared and tried not to practiced my squid impressions. Just joking. I saw them both and they saw me and they went about their life completely not giving a damn I existed. So the video guy (Vava) and I swam after them. It’s kinda creepy, in the movies the sharks just appear and disappear in the water. You think its not like that, you think you might see it coming and you could react but really they just pop out of the reef and bang your face to face then its gone. You will be scooting along the reef then pow! Their under you then gone, it’s pretty cool. So after that today was pretty tame, we took a boat out the “house reef” of the resort where it wasn’t nearly as cool or colorful but on the way back we saw a pod of dolphins in the distance playing so off we go. A blue slow moving dive ship filled with German, Irish, French tourist and one funny Serb and a loud mouth American. Nothing but white people on a boat chasing after the dolphins. Honestly it was funnier to sit back while we putted closer and closer to the dolphins to watch fat older men in Speedos jump up and try suddenly to figure out how to work their underwater cameras out of the water then it was to watch the dolphins. That was until the dolphins started swimming in front of and around us, jumping and spinning in the air splashing on both sides of the boat. It was very beautiful. Humbling too, my mask kept leaking the whole time I was snorkeling so I kept having to pop my head out of the water take it off put it back on splashing around and looking like a wounded bird in the water, while the dolphins were launching out 4 feet and more spinning 3 or four times before splashing back into the water. Some were doing front flips. It was just very cool to watch. I of course was raised not to show off in such a manner so I opted for the splashing around like a drowning pale rat. The dolphins were worth the whole trip out to the resort. Which as its own thing sucked. Every one was European, rich, white and fat. They drank like fish and looked like dried fruit. It was very upsetting. You could tell we were an oddity because we were saying a few words in Dhivehi to the staff and they couldn’t believe that we knew any. None of the guests really get off the resorts except to go to and from the airport. Its just damn scary. Its kinda like going to New York and taking a cab straight to the four seasons, never leaving the hotel and heading home to tell your friends you went to New York City.
WOW!
Sorry guys,
I have been in Sri Lanka for the whole weekend and haven’t had a chance to get to the web. I have been hanging out/ staying with a friend from IOM here who is kind enough to tolerate me on her floor whilst I look for work. Melissa kicks ass.
The tone here is really mellow. They just elected a new president and they had some problems with violence in the east in the process. Apparently in several voting districts no Tamils voted in protest against the process and the government, which still seems to work quite hard at keeping them in their “place”. IE second class.
During the election and the days after alcohol sales are forbidden (alcoholism is a growing problem here) apparently in effort to frustrate me and my attempts to have a cold beer without going from place to place trying to find someone who has a special permit.
Fear not I found out that the Hilton could sell to me IF I buy the buffet dinner. SO Melissa and I had the buffet dinner strictly for the alcohol. Is that so wrong? I am ok with it.
No word yet of work, except that I should have been here two or three weeks ago and I would have been one hot commodity. Everyone seems to have their shots done for the one-year reports. I may stick around and hire a driver to head out on my own back up to Ampara district where we shot the most in February. Ampara was hammered by the Tsunami and was not well cared for by the government after the fact. Coincidently this is where the violence was, hmm. Piss off people bad enough for a 20 year civil war to break out, get your cease fire, major disaster occurs, generally ignore same people, they get pissed again and blow up a few buildings? Who would have though that something like this could happen?
I am well, I do apologize for the very long delay in information, it was a lack of Internet thing, certainly not a lack of things going on but I will be better able to write from now on.
posted by davidlang at 12:06 AM
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