welcome to Africa!

So here we are, Namibia! Departed from Holland with Albert Scheffer, his daughter Judith Scheffer, and Albert his collegues Thea Seinen, Date de Vries and and my fellow grad student Jelmer de Jong we drove for 6 hours to Europes largest airport which is placed in Frankfurt, Germany. From there we took a 10 hour flight to Windhoek Airport in Namibia.

But our journey didn’t end there. From the aiport we drove in two cars and drove another 2 hours to Gobabis, the place where Jelmer and me are shooting our film.

Along the way we came across a wildebeest and a gazelle running along with us next to the car and a small group of baboons crossed the road about 50 meters ahead of us. Welcome to Africa!

The way into Botswana

Instead of staying in Gobabis and relaxing a little (something a normal person would do), Date had invited us back in Holland for a trip into Botswana to the Okavango Delta. This was something I personally didn’t want to miss for the world, so we decided to go. We left our film equipment and other unnecessary luggage at hotel ‘Die Dam’ where Albert, Thea and Judith were staying, and we went for another 10 hour trip, this time by car, to the Okavango Delta, in the middle of Botswana.

At the border stop we had to fill in forms, forms and more forms. When we had crossed the border we had to fill in more forms again. On the positive side, we did get some nice stamps in our pasports. But 9 hours later or so, things went a bit bad when we arrived in Maum (pronounced as ma-oom).

We did not have enough fuel, our bank and credit cards didn’t work anywhere in town (we tried about 6 different ones) and we still had to pay for the fuel where we had so desperately looked for earlier. Before we were able to find a place where our cards actually did work, it was allready dark and we had no way of finding our way around properly, ever since road signs don’t have lights here (we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, after all), and road signs are even hard to find during the day around here! Apart from that, at night people walk on the streets, the roads have big holes in them and wild animals from dogs up to hyenas come out – especially at night. So drive carefully ‘cause you won’t see them easily.

We were tired, did not have enough food and water with us (I never went on a trip this unprepaired before, but it was quite an adventure) but in the end we made it to the Backpackers Lodge just outside of Maun at the start of the Okavango Delta. Unfortunately they didn’t have a place to sleep for us, but what they did have in stock was a great dinner in this atmospheric location in the middle nowhere surrounded by the weirdest wild animal noises  that I have ever heard in my life (truly amazing!).

After dinner and a huge healthy fruit shake later, we felt sort of reborn and thanks to a manager at the Backpackers Lodge we were able to find a place to sleep at Audi Camp for the upcoming nights, just a few minute drive away. We were also able to book a ‘Mokoro trip’ for the next day there – this was the reason we came to the Okavango Delta, after all.

The Mokoro Trip

A mokoro – or in plural a mekoro – is a shallow-draft canoe traditionally hewn out from ebony wood or a sausage-tree log. We were able to take a tour through the Okavango Delta with one of these traditional canoes. You are so close to the water level that you really start to feel one with nature. It’s relaxing but also chalenging somehow because after all, you’re in the wild and in the river where crocodiles, hippo’s and other animals rule.

To get to the actual riverbank of the Okavango Delta you have to go by 4 wheel drive, otherwise you’ll be stuck for sure. Big puddles of mud and overthrown roads by riverfloodings will block your way if you don’t have have 4 wheel drive because some are deep and have quite dangerous rapids in them. Also the roads (as for as you can call them that) itselfs are graveled roads and impossible to drive on with a normal car. After this adventurous trip we ended up at a quiet area at the river bank. We were guided by a man and woman who were polars for the canoes. They push the mokoro forward with their sticks. After about an hour in the mokoro we continued further on foot to spot some wild life. No lions, leoperds and cheetas unfortunately, but we did see giraffes, zebras and eliphants. Have a look at a small collection of the pictures at the end of this blog!

Village life

The day after our Mokoro trip we had to go back to Gobabis. Date had work to do there and obviously so did we! But on our way back we stopped at several villages along the way. We had plenty of time for that so why not make the best of it? When I say village, i basically mean 5 till about 10 ‘houses’.

These villages of wood are still pretty untouched by western life, but you can feel the change. They wear more western clothes instead of traditional ones, and they now use money like everybody else to buy their food, allthought traditional way of life (hunting et cetera) still goes on. Have a look at some of the pictures at the end of the blog.

Sandune safari

After Botswana we went back to Gobabis and got to know the place a little better, and each other. Albert is so well known in town by almost everyone (he’s been coming and going here since 1991 for his job) so obviously Albert knows the in’s and out’s of Gobabis by heart. I’ll be writing a seperate blog about that later, though.

By the end of the week Date de Vries had to go back home, his work here was done, and he wanted to finalize his stay with a last safari on the day of his departure back to Holland. And for this departure we went to Sandune, about a 30 minute drive away from Gobabis. Have a look at the pictures below. The day after Date left, two other people came. Another collegue of Albert, Anke de Vries and her daughter Emma.

Thank you!

Today all the Dutches that were with us have left. I would like to use this blog to thank each and every one of them for making us feel home away from home and for introducing us to all these amazing places such as the Okavango Delta and Harnas (Harnas will be coming in a blog post soon and it will be filled with lions and cheetas et ceterea) restaurants and for letting us meet with so many interesting new people for the last 2,5 weeks. Now Jelmer and me are on our own, but we had a great introduction that will help us greatly in making our film.

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On the 23rd of january a photography exhibition about the great city of Istanbul opened up in ‘De Kunsthal’ in Rotterdam. It’s called ‘Onmoetingen langs de Bosporus’ which basically means ‘Meetings along the Bosphorus’.

Photographer Nicole Segers travelled the bosphorus river up and down by some of the ferryboats on the river for about a year, starting in 2007. She took pictures of all the people she met along the way in one of the oldest cities in the world that links west and east, old and new, and Europe with Asia.

I’ll be visiting this exhibition next week to gain some new inspiration. I’ve been in Istanbul many times and I’ve taken many pictures of it. To me, the city never dissapoints. On each street corner there is something new to discover. From all the places I’ve seen in the world, there is no place that calls me back more then Istanbul does.

You can read about the exhibition in the link below (in Dutch). I also added some photos from Istanbul that I made myself in this post. So don’t confuse them with the pictures from exhibition in Rotterdam. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy them!

Link: Kunsthal website

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A short time before I went to Lisbon I did a photoshoot for the ‘Ceramics Museum in Leeuwarden’, Holland. The same day, after the photoshoot in the museum, I also made some portrait photos of Gerda Havertong. One of these pictures has recently been used in ICCO magazine, for an interview with Gerda Havertong. Gerda Havertong has been actively involved with ICCO and has been a member for years.

Gerda Havertong

Gerda Havertong used to present on the Dutch Sesame Street. She is a professional artist and also writes books. Just recently she did the voice over for a 3D character in the Disney film ‘The Princess and the Frog’ (Dutch version).

Some of her activities are poetry, storytelling for children and poems for ‘third world liturature’ in combination with music.

About ICCO

ICCO is an organisation that works on a world without poverty and injustice. For this reason ICCO supports various projects in the world that have that same main goal, and ICCO gives a contribution to these projects by for example financing it and giving assistence.

The interview for ICCO Magazine used one of the portrait photos I made of miss Havertong. The interview was held by Jan-Henk van Vulpen. You can read (in Dutch) and see the article and picture in the link below. I also added the photo in this blogpost.

Read the article here: ICCO Article

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite ]]> http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2010/02/19/gerda-havertong-icco/feed/ 0 http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2009/10/13/internship-check-the-gate-part-3/ http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2009/10/13/internship-check-the-gate-part-3/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:25:47 +0000 Jaap Ruurd Feitsma http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/?p=730 The last few days were pretty interesting. Did some video editing and photography editing to begin with and apart from that yesterday was an interesting day as well especially. I went with a photography scout all over Lisbon to look for interesting places for one of our films. We took pictures from various locations – places I hadn’t seen before. For me personally it was great for two reasons; the first one is that I simply love photography, the second reason is that we came through places where we found ‘the real Lisbon’, instead of the more tourist parts of the city.

So far, I hadn’t had the chance of looking for the ‘real’ Lisbon yet. For people who read this and want to visit Lisbon, keep it in mind that a lot of areas in Lisbon are pretty unsafe (drug addicts, criminals et cetera), so don’t wander of f too far from the main roads. My iPhone being stolen last weekend is nothing compared with what can happen, especially when you carry a professional camera that you are not willing to give up easily. Try to blend in as much as possible (a bit hard for me with blond hair and blue eyes, but what the heck!)

Anyway, some even more interesting days are coming up as well! I’ll be working first hand with the Assistent Director (AD) on the upcoming film where we did the scouting for. Apperantly he is the best AD in Portugal, so no doubt that I can learn a lot! More info soon!

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We stayed a few days in Szekesfehervar and I met some of Denes his friends. We went out a few times to parties before we would go to Krakaw, Poland by train. We also visited a farm where people went horseback riding. Some of Denes his friends work here.

A hell of a trainride with two extremely smelling persons later that shared the same wagon as us, we arrived in Krakaw We called our wagon ‘the coffin’ because of the smell the other two men had. They farted all the time and for sure they hadn’t showered in a decade. They also tried to forbid us from opening the window.

In Krakaw we stayed in a nice hotel. We walked around the main square – which is really great – and drank Denes his ‘favourite beer in the world’ in the evening while listening to some life music (drank some vodkas too, though..).

The next day we went on to Lodz (pronounced as ‘Woodzj’), famous for it’s filmschool. Because of this school, the town is also known under the name ‘Hollylodz’.

Allthough I’m very interested in filmmaking and one day hope to make it my profession, we were here for yet another reason; to meet up with another friend who we got to know in Turkey as well. Agnieszka Kuckowska (Aga). During our stay in Turkey the three of us were hard to separate, so you can imagine how good it was seeing each other again. After a few interesting and fun days in Lodz, it was time to go back home. Aga went from Lodz to Warsawa airport because she was flying to her boyfriend in NYC. Denes and me went back to Krakaw. Saying goodbye in these cases is always a bit hard, so we said ‘see you’, instead.

Denes went from Krakow directly to Budapest (but I got a text message from him about 10 hours later that somehow his train had ‘missed’ Budapest) and I went back to Bratislava. The train connections from Krakow to Bratislawa were not that good either, but tired as (we all were) I was, managed to get back to Bratislava in one piece. I spent one more day there where I took a short hike up the castle and where I finished reading my book ‘The Historian’ from Elizabeth … in a quite place. Later back in the old part of town I enjoyed a perfect cappuccino in the lovely old town before flying home the next morning. All together, it was  journey never to forget. But ‘every journey ends the way back home’.

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The opening started in the Grote Kerk (Big Church) also known as the Jacobijnerkerk in Leeuwarden. Several couples walked into the church as if it were a real wedding – music included – and every couple wore wedding clothes from around 1900 till today. about 750 people came to watch, among them some famous Dutch people such as Imca Marina, a well known singer from Holland. She held a speech about the exhibition and so did Else-Marie van den Eerenbent, a well know family therapist and author.

Gerda Havertong was also at the opening and she’s a famous singer and actrice in the Netherlands. Most people know her from Sesame Street. I did a personal photoshoot for her in the afternoon.

Take a look at some of the pictures from the photoshoot and the opening of the exhibition ‘Scherven & Geluk’ at the end of this article.

Find out more about the exhibition at the museum’s website here and  and the exhibition website here.

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