Mine-Sniffing Rats

I wanted to show the mine-detecting rat that Mr. Easterby was incredibly fascinated by which is part of my borders project. I spent a couple of days away sleeping among scorpions and snakes–seriously–at the APOPO camp in Mpilane, Gaza province about three hours outside of Maputo. It was fascinating. I also had some time with a mine victim in his village, Donga.

Overdoing it

I've been putting far too much time dealing with my before and after pictures. I've hiked a trash-strewn hillside dodging human feces, gone to a private luxury home's owner to see the view from their balcony (it was blocked by trees), gone through a chain of command at a private park to photograph from their hillside land and finally sweet talked my way past two doormen to the twentieth floor of a building that has a fair view of the coastal strip of road I'm covering.

I've contacted a long line of people searching for the copyright owners of the historical photograph and now am being put on hold by the bank who owns the rights. I've been researching copyright law and examining "fair use." Nevertheless, one of the photographs that I made today is probably about as good as I'll get to duplicating it because there is simply too many trees and shrubbery including in front of the landmark that I wanted to show. It's not ideal, but I'm happy with what I've gotten. It's times like this when I will probably look back and wonder why the heck I spent so much time and effort on this picture which might not even make an edit.

As for my borders project, my Brazilian nuns have pushed my meeting date with them back several times and did it again this evening. I'm set to meet them again on Thursday. My minefield contacts from HALO Trust have both moved rather abruptly. One has gone to Cambodia and the other to another Mozambican region to set up a new office. So, I'm on hold to meet the replacement who won't be here for two weeks I believe. If it wasn't a minefield, I'd just bypass them and go alone, but that could mean trouble. Next week, however, I'll be going away for a few days to visit with rats who locate landmines in Chokwe, Mozambique.

LCC Promo Video

Post Graduate Studies at LCC
I've been looking around for venues for our collective work in the borders project. Some places I was thinking that could work well as vehicles to show work or to divert back to our portal are the obvious: Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter, Flickr. It would be nice to create podcasts of multimedia projects as some universities have done (see iTunes University). Once we get a name settled, I would like to set up some pages or accounts in these places. Anyhow, I ran into this video and do believe that is our very own Paul Lowe making a cameo in this promo for post-graduate studies at LCC.

Borders Update

My note to John Easterby:

"...If you recall, I had struggled with narrowing my subjects down for the borders project. The last time we met, I talked to you about starting the de-mining in Southern Mozambique project. It's been slow going and I haven't actually taken a photograph yet--sort of a hazard of being at the mercy of HALO Trust. However, I am finally scheduled to go out with a team, and the last week of this month, I will go near the center of the country to go out with a group called Apopo who uses rats to locate mines.

Now again to rack you memory, you might remember how one of my initial ideas was about going to a border town about an hour and a half away called Ressano Garcia that reminded me a bit of a small town Mexican border crossing. I had been looking for an actual story there rather than simply going to the town and doing a general profile. I never really stopped that effort and found something. There is a group of Brazilian nuns there running a children's home to help kids that are typically trafficked or abandoned at the border.

I'm really excited about this one and am scheduled to meet the nuns next Tuesday to see if they'd be receptive to me photographing there. I will keep you informed.

I guess I still haven't entirely solved my initial problem of having too many ideas. I still plan on doing some that I mentioned before in the future for myself particularly the border of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and the former mountain retreat town of Namaacha that borders Swaziland where a pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary happens every May. For now, I'm staying focused on the demining and the Brazilian nuns of Ressano Garcia. I know I'm sort of throwing a lot of darts at one target, but to some degree they haven't completely solidified yet. But with than in mind, I'm still working very hard on my coastal erosion project which I plan on making my final project..."