Born in Africa, “Racial” Scars and the Internet Gap

Let’s just say, you’re better off not getting sick or injured in an African village. If the wound or disease isn’t too bad, you may suffer, but you will get better. Anything worse, you’ll probably have the money to pay for transport to a hospital in the city. If you’re from the village, you will probably die. Speaking with most women, they have many children, partly because they don’t know how many will survive. A typical response… “ I have had nine children, four are dead. Now I have five.”

Gbemissola just had another baby nine days ago. She waits in this medical centre until her husband comes back with money to pay for the birth(probably around 10 €). Gbemissola’s face is decorated with scars. Decorated, because it is a symbol of her tribe, the Houli. She says she is neutral on the subject. “That’s just the way things are,” resumes Gbemissola. She won’t scar her newborn’s face. Not because she is against the practice, but because the scars are passed down from the father and Gbemisolla’s husband is Fon, so no scars. In general, this practice is becoming more and more rare.

There is no electricity in Kpokissa. There is no running water. And, of course, there is no internet. In the last 20 years, our lives in Europe, America and Asia, have changed drastically because of Internet. A world of information is at our fingertips. Friends from afar are only a Skype away. When I used to come to villages like Kpokissa, they seemed underdeveloped to be sure. Now, they seem like another planet, but it is more that we in the west live on another planet. The gap between us has increased by trigabytes. A kid in Europe copy-pastes his homework from Wikipedia on his ipad, as Gbemissola’s little baby waits in the dark for his father to return with money so they can leave the rundown maternity… probably by foot.

Taking pictures of misery

I have always said it is not easy to take pictures of misery. Not only emotionally, but composition, feeling of the picture. It is difficult to convey what poverty is like when, many times, it is sunny. The buildings around are lapidated, but still you don’t feel the pain of poverty. People are usually smiling. You know they suffer, but they don’t show it. It is very hard to capture in a picture.

But, today, misery was in plain sight. We were driving back from the border of Togo where we interviewed the Commissar about how he and his men can stop child trafficking. I noticed, just off the road, a bunch of people digging. Then I noticed most of them were children. We stopped the car and I went over to film. Kids, as young as probably 4 years old, were lifting picks bigger then themselves. It was hot. There were a few adults. No one stopped me.

And that was strange too. No one thought anything was wrong with this scene. Kids are helping their parents. But breaking up gravel in the hot sun for sale is no work for small children. One little girl in her little yellow dress, barely looked up when I went to photograph her. Other kids laughed and wanted me to take their picture. It was almost a haunting feeling filming this little girl, this silent little girl lifting the huge pick while other kids laughed around me. What was going through her head?

You're never without help in Africa

We head out of this northern town to the village of Tepridjissi to film a group of women who raise fish for sale. The idea is to give women extra revenue so they can help provide for the family and thus run less of a risk that the children look for work and fall into the hands of children traffickers.

As we arrive at the fishpond, massive black clouds billow at the horizon. The women must have felt something because they weren’t anywhere to be seen. We decided to head back for shelter. Arriving back to the path, we discover the 4x4 vehicle axle deep in mud. Worse, the driver had closed the doors with the motor running and by some automatic system, the doors locked.

As the skies started to open up and the rain came pouring down, we all climbed into the back of the truck. Some women came walking by and asked us if they put their sacks of fertilizer in the back of the truck to protect them from the rain. After a while, a whole group of villagers were hanging around the truck, shivering in the pouring rain. We got out and broke a window to get in the cabin and the villagers helped out, lifting the truck and putting branches under the wheels. The path is now a stream, but after 20-30 minutes, we finally get the truck out of the mud.

The showers stopped our filming for the day, but we had a small adventure and got to share some time with some nice people in a little African village. You're never without help in Africa.