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The Elephant Cloud

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Mosques

May 25th, 2010 by Jay Wright · Africa, Middle East, Morocco, Palestine, Syria

darlene in casablancaThere is always water. Mosques of the old medinas go hand in hand with the hammam. Courtyards are adorned with fountains and in some, large ablution rooms lay deep within the mosque. It is social, it is for cleansing ones self.

In Casablanca, the mosque is built over the sea. A bastion of faith on the old sea wall, the tides and waves curling into its foundation. Inside the fortress, a pocket of calm. From end to end a small channel carved into the marble floor, where water flows, cooling and soothing with its unique whisper.

courtyard of the alabaster mosque, cairoI stand barefoot on carpet, my sandals at the entrance with two men silently abuzz in arabic murmur. I am at ease in the peaceful inner décor of mosques. I am afloat and untouchable. There is a coolness to the marbled protectorate and a calming in the patterned mosaics. Calligraphic inscriptions of the Qur’an ring the columns and trace the contours of the sanctuary. I cannot read the arabic verses and so, uninterpreted, I am alone to inhabit my own story and welcomed to do so. I look inward, but feel expansive, heeding every breath.

In Damascus busloads of Iranians descend the old city on this stop of their hajj.  All in black, men in fine western suits and women draped head to toe. They are immaculately dressed, the women sharp in their embroidered burkas, fine slacks and leather shoes of the latest european fashion. Amongst themselves they hum with anticipation behind black sunglasses, but outwardly, they have all but removed themselves as anything more than a physical holder of the space they occupied. It is at once both eerie and oddly beautiful in its mystery and anonymity.

Darlene kneels on the soft divide between the muslim and christian halves of the mosque, a shrine for a prophet shared by both faiths. She is cloaked in a borrowed hood, yet her golden curls betray her. Families approach, smiling, and offer forth their children. Disinclined, but gracious, she accepts them and the families come to her and take photos, fathers and mothers with their children, collecting memories.

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, damascus, syriaWalter and I enter a neighboring mosque early one morning. There is only a hint of the surge of pilgrims that will later fill the streets and halls. It is a persian mosque with a martyr’s tomb. A slain child, daughter of a caliph, bloodline of the prophet. The tomb is adorned in gold beneath a dome of glass mosaic. Women in black huddle and cry softly. Families lean tightly together, reciting the qur’an amongst themselves. Tears of faith and belief for the little girl, as one by one, men and women enter the hall and press themselves against the tomb.

We are on the floor by the marble columns of the entrance when an elderly gentlemen steps forward. After a moment, he turns and comes to us. I look up into his eyes. “I am Iranian,” he says and extends a welcome. In turn he shakes our hands, touches his heart, then turns and walks to the tomb, where he presses his head against its side and closes his eyes.

In occupied Palestine, we cross the square and stand at the open door of the mosque named for the second Caliph. Atop a flight of stairs a small, venerable gentlemen in a conservative, gray western suit and stocking feet, waves us up. He is the muezzin, the man who sings the call to prayer, and he invites us to join him.

The prayer hall is a large, humble space on the second floor where we are joined by several men who joke about the merits of sons and daughters and share with us the extent of their own families. When the time comes, we are invited downstairs into his station, a simple room with a microphone and stereo system wired to the minarets loud speakers. With us seated beside him, he smiles, stands, and turning to the microphone, he sings.

The adhān covers the entirety of Arabia.  By design, this call to prayer penetrates every nook of the city. It is intentionally loud and often tinny. However, on that afternoon in Palestine, when the muezzin sang, we heard that call in its purest form. We shared the intimacy of his song, his heart, and his pride. The complicity of organized society confounds me the world over, but the gifts of an individual does not.

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Walls

May 20th, 2010 by Darlene Nastansky · Middle East, Palestine

“Why do you want to venture into the West Bank?welcome home“

Ominous 25ft walled gates wrapped in barbed wire and torn plastic bags escorted my crossing. Passport control, one-way turnstile, another passport control.  An endless reminder of entering somewhere forbidden, dangerous as I cleared each security check, until the last gates opened and I entered Bethlehem,  said birthplace of Jesus Christ.

Snaking for miles, dividing the Holy Land,  stark gray walls on the Israeli side give way to artistic expression canvassed across the Palestinian walls,  so began my journey of photographing these images.

I was advised to keep my nationality quiet, but when the first question, “Where are you from?” reverberates down corridors and alleyways within the Middle East, I prefer not to lie, “I’m American.”

This set off a monologue of emotion with misunderstanding, sadness and rare spouts of anger.  At times, we were brushed off or asked to leave,  more often we were invited into the homes of Muslims,  a gesture of peace.

As a non-Muslim woman, I was surprised when the Muezzin of the Bethlehem Mosque invited me upstairs to his Minaret,  a room reserved for men, where at precisely 1:15 he sang  the call to prayer.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the world’s major sources of instability.  Through my extensive travels, humanity prevails and people world wide share the same aspirations- a world free of war, famine and destruction.

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Travel with a Good Book

May 7th, 2010 by Jay Wright · Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Middle East

can't remember where i took thisThere is a magnetic draw to the Middle East, where history is so powerful that people completely lose themselves. It is the home of three of the worlds largest monotheistic religions, all born of a single father, reading from a common book. And I love a good book. Immersing myself in the fiction and wrapping myself in the prose.

The Torah is comprised of the five books of Moses, the Old Testament contains these same chapters and Islam builds on these origins, referring to Christians and Jews as people of the book and telling of Moses in the Qur’an. The story is bigger than any one single book and the chapters I found myself wrapped up in are those of Moses.

I flipped pages up and down the Nile, thumbing thru the tombs, lingering in the temples. It is an adventure story of double identity along the banks of the desert river. An orphaned boy sent adrift in a peasant’s basket to be raised in a pharaoh’s court, from pauper to prince, then back again, as a young man re-identifying with his people, driven to murderer, and forced into exile a fugitive.

darlin' on mount sinaiIn the Sinai we drank beer and dove the reefs for two weeks along the Red Sea, a hundred kilometers from Mount Sinai, where in exile Moses found love by the well, purpose through a burning bush, and guidance in the ten commandments. Along the way we met Mary and Jesus, two Californians studying in France, with whom we climbed the mountain and drank beer. Sure, its a different story, but you can’t deny the profound irony of it.

Entering Jordan we traveled the last verses.  His brother, Aaron, was laid to rest in Petra and he himself by Mount Nebo, from where he first saw his peoples Holy Land. Refreshed from a swim in the Dead Sea, we also looked out from atop Mount Nebo, over the valley of Jericho, the Jordan River, and on to Jerusalem and the Holy Land which Moses would never know, as it was divine will that he never set foot in the promised land.

gotchaThese may have been Moses’s chapters, but the story is not so simply contained. It is just a footprint for a much larger mystery. Hidden away in the north of Ethiopia in a simple church’s dark interior, is said to rest the Ark of the Covenant, brought to Ethiopia by King Solomon’s lineage thru Ethiopia’s Queen of Sheba. It is guarded by one man, for life, seeing no other visitors but him on one day a year. Or perhaps it was the Knights Templar who found and moved it from David’s Temple in Jerusalem. It is these questions that are best left to scholars like Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. Or, just maybe the two brave Nastansky women who raid tombs professionally, if you know how to find them and are willing to pay the price.

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The Street Boys

April 19th, 2010 by Jay Wright · Africa, Ethiopia

jirata, lalise, and damekaMark Twain delights us with the wonders of boyhood. Skinned knees and bare feet, wild with imagination and thirst for adventure. Jirata, Dameka, and Lalise would fit brilliantly into these pages. I can see these three scamps racing the red clay roads to the staduim on Saturday mornings to watch futbol, striking taekwondo poses, and nabbing mangoes along the way. Later, they’d hang out by the foosball tables on the side of the tarmac, a road that cuts thru Gimbie on it’s way to Addis Ababa or Sudan, depending on your direction. It was by these tables on my walks home that they adopted me, taking turns teaching and quizzing me on Amharic, or Oromifa. I could never tell which was which.

lalise, taekwondo is big in ethiopia and free to watchThese boys are like all little boys and they’ll steal your heart and take your hand. Except they have no hands to guide them, they are on their own. These are the street boys, living together as a family, sleeping under trucks and in doorways, begging or charming their dinners from the townspeople and restaurants.

One little urchin with lazy eyes and a peaceful smile followed us into a restaurant for dinner. We were with our friend Mark and by the time we washed and sat down, David was sitting right beside us, beaming. I thought he was with you, oh, I thought he was with you. He sat patient, a perfect little gentleman and the clever little guy won us over. When the communal plate of injera came we bought him a soda and feasted. After the meal, clutching his prized soda, he rocked with lightness of laughter as Darlene mimicked an exploding belly.

I had already been working with the street boys for a couple weeks when we came upon Jirata, exhausted and sitting on the curb, in front of his favorite mango stand. I saw his tiny figure rise and turn to us with his signature stare, bloodshot eyes, and exhausted posture. Darlene, who’d never met him, recognized him instantly from my photos. His anticipation was overwhelming and his tiny hand found mine. I knelt to bump shoulders, as is the ethiopian greeting, and took the whole of his filth, from head to toe, into a warm embrace. I have never seen dirtier children.

Everyone had been looking for him, the boys told us he was sick and skipping school. Only nine years old, he’s HIV positive and both parents have been taken by the disease. He has no one looking after him aside from his best friends, who during previous hospital stays held vigil by his side.

No words were exchanged and his grip tightened and we walked to the hospital. This attracted attention. Ethiopians are not accustomed to foreigners embracing filthy street kids, let alone walking off with them. He could barely eat and he was so dehydrated his lips were sore. He managed half a banana and held a mango for later. He was admitted to the hospital.

The next morning, I set out to visit him. A little girl living on the hospital grounds knew where his bed was and brought me into the ward to see him. I had drawn a little cartoon on a makeshift card, but when we arrived, his bed was empty. The nurse said he woke, pulled out his IV, and left.

my team, my teachers

A few days earlier, I happened upon a crowd gathered on the curb not far from the hospital. Two of the boys were in the middle so I pushed my way in and found another boy lying on the ground. I’d never seen him before, but he was wearing one of the yellow t-shirts that were given to a handful of the boys six months earlier. One man spoke broken english so I grabbed Moti by the shoulder and pulled him over to relay the story. The man translated, but would never have considered asking Moti himself. The crowd dispersed but the boys remained together, I know they would not have left him alone. I picked him up and carried him to the hospital. Half way he insisted on walking, though he had to hold me with all his might, his strength all but gone. In the emergency room I found a nurse and they laid him down to rest. I learned later that he was epileptic and had had a seizure. He was discharged that afternoon and I never saw him again. The Children’s Medical Fund paid the bill.

Today, Jirata and four other boys are living in a small rented house in Gimbie. A program called the Street Boys pays for the accommodation. A sister project, The Ark, offers economic opportunity for unwed mothers and employed one of them to live in the house and watch the boys.

I created the following video about the Children’s Medical Fund, which provides health care for children in need under the age of eighteen, including the Street Boys.

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Finding Jinsse

April 18th, 2010 by Jay Wright · Africa, Ethiopia

where is tarikeIn order to do anything in Africa, you have to take full control. Then, as you’re just about to take full control you are boldly reminded that this is Africa. You have no control.

I had an assignment from the States to follow up on two hospital patients and document their progress in photographs. Jinsse and Tarike, two women admitted in February and now home with their families. Binyam, a young Ethiopian working tirelessly with the hospitals community outreach programs instructed me to find their fathers names and the kebeles in which they lived.

I started with the hospital registers and quickly learned that in juggling english, amharic, and oromifa, no one spells a name the same way twice. Translating from amharic script, vowels are often doubled in an attempt to spell things phonetically for the ferengi. One name is spelled differently on each incarnation of the register, patient charts, lab cards, and prescriptions. Sometimes the name includes the fathers name, sometimes it doesn’t. No one keeps their cards, so a new one is made each time. If someone asks you to find someone by the name Jinsse, you might be looking for Jisse, Jinsse, or Jinsee and chances are the people wont know her name, only her fathers.

In the end, it was the nursing students who remembered the patients and I closed the useless register. Jinsse was too far, a three hours walk and no vehicles would make it. Finding Jinsse would be impossible. Tarike, on the other hand, was close, just one kebele over. You can practically see her house from here.

Africa lulls you into an acceptance of waiting. You actually believe things could be straight forward, that it will come together, as planned. Never, never, never fall for this. Let me assure you it is most certainly will not. Africa reveals itself slowly. Rushing one thing will inevitably complicate something else.

In the two weeks we spent living in the hospital compound we accomplished a lot. Darlene was exhausted at the end of each day seeing patients and I was accruing video for my projects. But those accomplishments came with the price of waiting. Time, patience, trust and a lot of faith are complicit with unwritten schedules, vague complications, cultural under-communication, and over ambitious goodwill. There is a refusal to admit defeat and you rely on motorcycles that almost work but might need a part. When you are in Africa and you’re on a tight schedule, you miss a lot, because Africa rewards the patient traveler. However, if you surrender to Africa, you suddenly find yourself as I did, on my last day and still waiting. It was Friday morning and our flight would leave on Saturday just after midnight. We were an eight hour drive from the airport.

In the end, it was cold hard cash that broke the wait. I hired a truck and invited Monica to join me and disperse shoes to the village children through one of her many outreach programs. We’d drive thru Tarike’s village, do a meet and greet, and then head over the hills and deliver shoes to children in the vicinity of Jinsse’s village and hope we might find someone that knows her family.

I may have bought off the wait, but Africa was firm in it’s resolve. Tarike was not on the way. We couldn’t see her house, the village officers were not available to help us, and the bribes we’d have to pay did not inspire confidence. We’d need to see the village officers, but not today. It would be impossible for her to live in the village and the officers not know about it, I was assured. Deflated, I was now forced into a decision. Would we stay another day? I would have to give up our seats in the land cruiser and instead take local transport to Addis, making the trip ten hours, instead of the eight.

shoesThe shoe project went much better. We bumped along weathered dirt tracks rising over farmland hills and thru the heart of village life. We parked by a lone tree and unloaded two duffels of shoes while children ran across fields as word spread. Binyam fitted shoes to young girls offering their toes, their dresses worn and dirty, their waists wrapped in ropes which bound them to a future of heavy loads they would carry to support their families. But it was a beautiful afternoon full of goodwill and cheer. In fact, the goodwill was so overwhelming that one man, whose daughters were fitted with free, brand new shoes, was so pleased he charged only a small fee to lead us to Jinsse.

After two weeks of hearing how far she was, how impossible to find, how remote, we actually found her standing on the side of the road in front of a relatives house. She practically had a sign over her head. I was so pleased with accomplishing the impossible that I decided we’d stay and find Tarike. I would give up our seats on the land cruiser and set out with Binyam, first thing in the morning.

kitfoBy noon the next day the motorbike still wouldn’t start and I spent the morning waiting. I was getting nervous and hungry, and Binyam was feeling pressure, so I took him out for kitfo, grabbing a sparkplug en route. Kitfo, is raw meat with a hot green chili paste eaten on injera. Ethiopians are mad for it and it cheered him up considerably. I had my kitfo fried up to be on the safe side. I bought him a hen on the way home, a good egg-layer.

The spark plug didn’t solve the problem. He worked thru the afternoon, it was three o’clock and no one at Air Egypt or Ethiopia Airlines would answer the well-published phone numbers on the world wide web. Changing our flights was out of the question, the search would end at sundown and I began to believe if I waited one more day, our luck would change. But that was impossible. Not Africa impossible, but real impossible.

Unable to delay my departure, defeated, we decide to walk to her village. As we passed the Adventist Church, we notice an unused motorbike parked out front. With a little fast talking and the mandatory African waiting period, we procured the bike. Tarike was once again, right next door. I could almost see her smile.

The race was on and skidding into the kebele we greeted the village officers. Tarike? Never heard of her. What?! Maybe you should try the next village over. My heart sank but the bike bounced along and we called out the village name as villagers pointed us in one direction or another.

The road split several times and we took the wrong fork with each division. The day was coming to an end and we eventually ran into a group of Hararbe’s, muslims who had been airlifted from the Somali side of the country to the Sudanese side and set up in a makeshift village camp, like refugees. They only spoke arabic and so we could no longer communicate. We turned around, defeated and bumped our way back toward Gimbie in silence. And then, out in those hills in the earliest hours of dusk, Africa relented and we came across a group of women returning to their village on foot. Yes, said one, Tarike is my neighbor.

Tarike cannot walk. Whatever she suffers, the womans own daughter suffers the same. Two months ago, the village carried Tarike to the hospital for care, and she was admitted, but nothing could be done for her. She is now home, an hours walk from where our bike idled. The bike would not make it, a bridge was out. It was late in the day. I looked at all the faces around me. Hardened by the earth, each carried a heavy load wearing battered shoes and beautifully patterned, but stained and filthy dresses. The future of the girls I saw yesterday.

Tarike would have to stay where she was, they would not carry her again, unless they believed in the treatments she would receive. This was their story, but like the spelling of names, no two stories in Africa are the same.

Binyam looked at me. He would return tomorrow, he was also stung from being so close but not having found her. He would make the hike and get her picture. No, I shook my head. In the middle of that forest, surrounded by the villagers faces looking at me, what was I really going to do? I could almost read it in their faces. Why was I there for Tarike, was this ferengi on the back of a motorbike really going to help?

I had nothing to offer these women but I felt Africa wrap a brotherly arm around me as if proud for bringing me here. There was no doubt that I would be shown more if I stayed longer, but this is what I would see for now. Knowing I had a rocky ride home to survive, we turned the bike and headed out, white knuckles on the gear rack. Africa always surprises when you surrender to it and what you are seeking is not the reward you eventually find.

As for our return to Addis, I received a call late in the evening. Minivan seats were available for us. We just needed to meet a boy named Howie at 4:30 in the morning under a street lamp across from the bus station. This did not impress Darlene and our ten hour, twenty hour ride to Addis is a whole other story that will need to wait.

Inspired by the travels of Joni Kabana and Philippa Ribbink and their collaboration in travel photography and developing world medicine.

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