The Harnas Wild Life Foundation

A few days before Albert and the others went back home, we went to the Harnas Wildlife Foundation. It’s about an hour and a half drive away from Gobabis.

Harnas is a wildlife park where you can go on a safari trip by 4wd and on foot and watch lions, cheetas, crocodiles et cetera. But the Harnas Wild Life Foundation is more than just a park where you can watch wildlife. Here they help injured and orphaned animals grow up and they prepare them to go back into the wild again. If you are lucky you can even cuddle baby lions, cheetas and leopards if they’re around.

In our case we were able to get really close to two cheetas. An old cheeta fella named Goeters and a young female cheeta named Duma. Goeters has been around here since the beginning of the Harnas Wild Life Foundation project (26 years) and is basically as tame and friendly as a housecat, just a whole lot bigger! We also played with a young giraffe. Be carefull though, because he tends to kick every once in a while when he’s in a real playfull mood (there are signs warning for this in the park). The giraffe walks freely next to the bungaloo houses, so enjoy your breakfast with a giraffe breathing down your neck or stealing your food

Another nice thing to know is that Albert and Judith have been coming here for quite some years now, and they love Goeters so much that they even named their own dog in Holland after the cheeta. When Albert explained this to the owner of Harnas, she really appreciated to hear this.

Have a look at the pictures below, they’ll give you some idea of what you can see in Harnas. And for the record… I totally fell in love with this cheeta Duma  (as you will see in some of the pictures).

The last two pictures (with me, Judith and ‘our’ giraffe) are made by Emma Bloemhof. And the pictures of me and Duma were made by Judith.

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Life in the slums of Epako

The first few times that we went into the slums of Gobabis, Epako was with Judith and I was not as shocked as I thought I would be. Maybe this was because in the South East of Turkey I had seen comparable living situations, or maybe it was because I didn’t fully realize or understood it yet.

By now, about 2,5 weeks later, all that has changed. I will not be able to tell you what goes through your mind when you start realizing and seeing the facts of life around here. The diversity of rich and poor and the extremity of wealth and poverty.

In the township Epako, most people here have nothing. Unborn babies are found on the streets, people live in small self made houses made of plastic and other garbage materials and quite often they live in them with over 20 people. In these situations most people get very sick. Apart from AIDS there is also a quite high level of Polio, Cholera and for example TBC. All of which there is no good treatment for in this area (and no money).

‘They burry us in plastic’

In winter – which in Namibia is right now – it gets very cold at night. Most people do not have enough blankets to keep themselves warm and there is a lack of water and food. To keep themselves warm and their stomachs full, people start drinking alcohol at a very young age. There are breweries called ‘Tombo houses’ in the slums of Epako (very dangerous to go there on your own…) where an alcohol called ‘tombo’ and ‘kaalgat’ are made.

A woman in Epako told us the people get this alcohol mostly in exchange for sex, which most of the time happens unsafely. Many people carry diseases and spread them by having unsafe sex. This Tombo drink is made from bodyparts, rust and animal parts, to make it even stronger (and for sometimes for voodoo rituals and superstition). People die from it on day to day basis.

This woman that told us about all this was pregnant herself and that their are no good toilets in Epako, so people do their business in the streets and/or in the bushes. At night, she told us, women are afraid to go out to go into the bushes because they’ll get raped or even worse. Lots of people are sick and have diarea, but they are unable to walk so they leave everything in their own houses. More diseases spread this way and when people get burried they don’t get a normal coffin but just a shallow grave, a small ditch in the grownd while they are wrapped in plastic, according to a man we spoke to.

Prison

To make things even worse, several street kids were arrested for stealing food and shoes. These kids were once involved in a project called ‘Ubuntu’ that originated in Holland. I’ll write more about this in another blog soon, ever since this might be a part of our film as well. In the end – with a lot of help from Thea and Albert – they were able to set them free. One of the kids was beaten up pretty bad in prison and all of his belongings were stolen from him. These kids were able to go back to the place where Ubuntu took place, with a guy named Ben, but a lot of other children have no place to go so they will only get arrested again for sniffing petrol to get into a halucinative state or for stealing or sometimes even rape. What shocked me the most was that arrested children get raped and beaten up in prison by other inmates, but almost all the children actually prefer that, because at least this way they have a roof over their heads and are able to get some food to stay alive. It’s sad, because the only reason they get involved in criminal activities is because they want to survive…They all live day by day.

Hope

However, not all is bad. A lot of projects are initiated by the municipality of Smallingerland when they started a twinning with the municipality of Gobabis. A fellowship, a connection was made between both municipalities to make this world a better place.

And they are working hard on this! There are also individual project running in Gobabis, such as Ubuntu, for the same purpose. Another project is ‘Early Childhood Development’ which one are better education on pre-schools. During our first two weeks we visited a lot of pre-schools where Judith asked the teachers questions for Smallingerland and hadned out flyers. She asked questions about how their school system works, where they get money from (if there is some) et cetera and with this information they will see if these schools can get help from Smallingerland, to help as many vulnerable children as possible in Gobabis, to give them a better future then for example the ones mentioned above.

Surprised

The second thing that surprised me in the slums – after realising how the people actually have to live – is the never ending positive perspective by most people I have come across so far. They have hope in their hearts and minds, in despite of everything that is going on. They are friendly and more or less even happy. They live by the day. What I really want to do with this film is give these people a voice of their own. A voice to the voiceless!

I’ll get more detailed about all of these subjects in upcoming posts, but for now this is sort of an introduction and my first impressions – they can obviously change as time passes. Have a look at the pictures that I took – mostly portraits from the slums in the township Epako and at some of the pre-schools that we visited there.

In the upcoming blog I’ll start writing about the film production fase as well.

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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 second of july 2010 I’ll be flying with fellow CMD student Jelmer de Jong towards the second least densely populated country in the world which also happens to be one of the driest continents on the planet. This country is positioned above South Africa and is called Namibia.

Personal Reason

We were asked by a teacher at our faculty to make a film in Nambia. Jelmer and I were both still looking for suitable graduation film subjects, and this subject (which will be explained below) touched us both. So we decided to do some research, meet some people and take the job!

Purpose

For the last 15 years the Namibian municipality of Goababis and the Dutch municipality of Smallingerland have had a fellowship that is connected by development aid. Several projects have been set out in Gobabis for the last 15 years such as HIV/AIDS prevention, housing projects and many more.

The municipality of Smallingerland wants us to make a film about the last 15 years of development aid that has been brought to Goababis. They want to know how things are going today. So in short: what’s going great and what could be better?

They want us to shoot from our perspective – from a new way to look at the whole piece – and also with an eye to the future.

Symposium

The film will be played in october on an international symposium in Drachten which obviously is about development aid. the film is set to inform and create a discussion between the people at the symposium to create steps for the future.

On the 4th of september we’ll be back in Holland. I’ll try and post as many text and video blogs as I can about the proces, but it will be hard staying online where we are. I’ll also need a USB device so that I can connect my MacBook Pro with a telephone based internet connection but so far I haven’t been able to find one yet, not even the Mac Store.

More news coming soon, about the pre-production, the production and the post-production.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite ]]> http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2010/06/25/namibia-part-1/feed/ 3 http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2010/06/02/an-interview-in-turkey/ http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2010/06/02/an-interview-in-turkey/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:31:54 +0000 Jaap Ruurd Feitsma http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/?p=1002 In 2008 I studied and lived in Turkey for about 8 months. I was a participant of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), an exchange program that gives students the oppurtunity to study in a foreign country. I chose to do this in Eskisehir (Eski = Old, Sehir = city), Turkey.

In Eskisehir I studied at the Anadolu University at the Cinema & Television department. During my studies there I made several films and photography projects, learned a little bit of Turkish language and about it’s history and travelled the entire country and some of it’s middle eastern neighbours, many photo’s I have taken on this great journey can be found in my portfolio up till today (allthough I am currently making a new selection of pictures).

Apart from all that, during my study, me and some other Erasmus students were asked to be interviewed for a Turkish TV channel at the University about the Erasmus program and our experiences with it. ‘Why did I choose Turkey?’ ‘What are the biggest differences between the university in Turkey and the one I study in at Holland?’ And a whole lot more questions like that.

I was never able to actually (re)watch the interview myself either online or on TV, but my dad came across the following article from the ‘Anadolu Haber’ a Turkish newspaper from the Anadolu University.

Basically what the article says is that I had been in Istanbul a year earlier -  before I went there for Erasmus – and fell in love with the city and it’s people (this is true ).

It also says that I talked about two Turkish Students (Pinar and Fikeriye) who went for Erasmus in Holland at my faculty from Turkey and when I became friends with them. I decided to study in Turkey myself for a couple of months. The article goes on about how ‘special’ it was for me and then continues with the questions about our cultural diversities and stuff like, all very interesting!

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you, I found it quite nice to see this article.

And for the ones who can read Turkish, enjoy

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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/2010/02/18/back-in-holland/ http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/index.php/2010/02/18/back-in-holland/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:57:30 +0000 Jaap Ruurd Feitsma http://www.jaapruurd.com/journal/?p=896

On december the 29th I flew back to The Netherlands from Lisbon, Portugal. My internship at CheckTheGate had come to an end. After very nice goodbyes with both company CheckTheGate and other people that I’ve met over the past 4 months that I was there, I was packed and ready to go back home to work on my graduation project.

I’ve decided to make a documentary and at this point I have several options, both local and abroad. The most important thing for me right now is to find a place to put the film. What I mean with that is that I need an institution, a channel or a website that’s interested in what I would like to make and possibly, if necessary willing to finance it. In the upcoming posts I’ll write about the various subjects and options that I have at hand.

I would also like to use this blogpost to share some of the pictures on the filmset I worked on for the NGOL Commercial in Lisbon for CheckTheGate.

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Also I have another anouncement to make: my next semester will be my graduation project, and I’m currently working out several ideas including a synopsis for a short fiction film and a plan for a short documentary about a town called Hasankeyf in the far south east of Turkey. Due to the ammount of time a project like this might take, I might go back home a little earlier from Lisbon then planned before. Officially I should be doing an internship for 5 months, but my faculty agreed they don’t want to stop me from working a little longer on my graduation project by starting a bit earlier on it. Another reason for me personally is that currently there are not so many filmshoots at the company – allthough a lot of other work is obviously being done, all linked to filmmaking.

When exactly I will be going home is uncertain at the time. I enjoy my time in Lisbon very much. Both at my internship and socially it’s a good life here at the Atlantic Ocean Have a look at the Christmas card I made in Photoshop as well for all the foreign clients of CheckTheGate!

Christmas card I made for clients from CheckTheGate

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