More Funerals

by Nathan Clendenin on February 11th, 2006

I tried to arrange on Friday with William, the gravedigger, to visit the gravesite again on Saturday, hoping for softer light with the cloudy weather. He said he would not be there and wasn’t sure if he could arrange with his substitute to have me there. I would not have been worried about that, given that I always just explain to each funeral party what I’m doing when they ask, without William being right there. However, Gloria’s father passed earlier in my trip and his funeral was today. Vincent asked me to come, and with hesitation at first, I went. I was feeling, as at the end of Friday, totally uncreative and out of energy to keep shooting. I shot photos but without enthusiasm and they weren’t very good (in my eyes). It was a very large funeral though, bigger than any I’ve witnessed in S Africa. In the car with me and Mandla were Selina and Vuci. It was great to ride with them and spend time with them, not photographing. Vincent noticed, and I concur, that I’m really becoming a part of their family. I bought disposable cameras for the kids earlier, as Thebo esp. kept trying to take pictures with my cameras. I wish I had time to really teach them, and perhaps I will in future trips. I find myself wanting to help this family so much, not in a poverty relief way, as they have good shelter and food, but in an opportunity way. I see such promise in the kids, because of their strong parents. I want to have them visit the U.S. and show them around. I want to finance their educations and see to it that they make it out of Mamelodi, at least for awhile. But those are my feelings and thoughts, I only pray that our relationship will be able to continue over the years to come.

Along the same lack of creativity lines, I am having a feeling that I have missed some crucial part of some of the stories, like no closing shot or no good scene setter. Yet weirdly, I am taking no initiative to check or make those kinds of pictures just in case. I am trying a bit, but the pics don’t have people in them or for some reason don’t work out right. I am basically just worn out from working on these stories, and feel like I’m in a huge rut with my camera. I don’t know how to get out of it, except to take time away, which I don’t have. Deep down I am worried all this effort will go to waste, will be not as good as I hope. I know sometimes these are just lies blown out of proportion by my feeling a lack of control. I try to ignore them, and I pray about them. I have this deeper feeling that God will use this project, as I’ve asked, to raise awareness beyond ways I can imagine.

Quiet Strength

by Nathan Clendenin on February 10th, 2006

I worked with sister Margaret today. As I hoped, she needed to spend time at the hospice (instead of in the office building). I am impressed with her quiet strength, which she displays through leadership of her staff and caring for the patients with grace. I photographed her working for awhile, and did an audio interview. She spoke to me in English, unlike many of the other interviews. However, I will likely still have a voiceover for her because the room was unavoidably noisy (a constant beeping in the background and patients moaning a bit). Plus that will remain consistent with the other stories. I didn’t have to ask but one question to get all the information I wanted to cover. I photographed her working with patients a bit more, and she reminded me of the ones we had visited earlier in the week that were now here. One of the patients, a man with HIV who had an usuable arm due to a stroke, look much much better in the hospice. Another woman, looked worse. Margaret started to ask me what else I wanted, at which point I realized it was time to leave. I didn’t feel unwelcome, but she started to do things for me just so I could photograph, and so I stopped. There wasn’t much else to photograph anyway, otherwise I would have attempted to explain that I couldn’t photograph posed events. Instead I dropped it and started wrapping up. We had a nice goodbye and I could tell she was happy to have worked with me.

Uncle’s Orphans

by Nathan Clendenin on February 9th, 2006

I went back to visit the Uncle Orphans today. I hoped they would get used to my cameras and stop posing for me, but alas such was not the case (as Vincent predicted). Even after two hours, most of the children were still posing for me and fighting for my attention. I made some nice shots though, of the portrait variety. Instead of getting discouraged, which I started to feel, I decided the only way to tell this story is to call it something like “Portraits of Poverty”. I don’t know if it will end up in the final product, as the link to AIDS is uncertain. But the link to poverty is so strong. I’ll have to see what Pat thinks. It makes a nice fifth story, one that is a little different as a series of portraits.

Another Sick Day

by Nathan Clendenin on February 8th, 2006

Still feeling a bit sick, but getting better. Worked half a day today, meeting with Granny for a bit.

Upon further reflection, I think that the four day break I took during my first trip, to go to Capetown, was a very good idea. Working under such demanding conditions physically and emotionally, I am only good for about a week, then I start losing focus, get easily frustrated, etc. By the end of the second trip, I couldn’t even think straight enough to remember what shots I had gotten and what I needed, despite my attempt to take notes and record my thoughts.
-Added 4/16/06

Under the Weather

by Nathan Clendenin on February 7th, 2006

I am under the weather today. I also need to send some photos to Pat Davison to have him review along with some other errands so I’m going to take it easy today. It’s also been raining profusely the past few days, which his highly unusual for here, even in the rainy season.

A Day with Granny

by Nathan Clendenin on February 3rd, 2006

I worked mainly with Granny today at the house. I felt a bit awkward at first, esp. with the older children like Kate and Mongese. But I decided to just sit with them for awhile, not taking pictures, to allow them to get used to me. One of the babies also took a while to stop crying when he saw me. I didn’t have much of an idea about what shots to take except that I needed interaction with Granny and the kids. I asked God to help me see that story how He sees it. All the children, except Given the oldest grandson, were home and interacting with Granny quite a lot. Many other children from around the neighborhood came by also and I struggled with how to answer them about my project. I didn’t want to reveal anything about HIV for fear of stigmatizing the family, but at the same time I don’t want to be dishonest or perpetuating the silence about the disease. I ended up telling them I was doing a project on people in Mamelodi. Mostly these children and other curious passersby just wanted their photo taken, which I did happily.

Faced with a Challenge

by Nathan Clendenin on February 1st, 2006

Was up early for morning prayer, arrived in Mamelodi at 5am.  After prayer I moved to Selina’s house where she was bathing the children.  Then I headed over to Granny’s and took some photos of her and a few even with the grandchildren, which has been hard.  Showing her interacting with them, caring for them.  Visually, her story is difficult.  On paper it’s a perfect story.  An old woman, who might die in the next 5 years, caring for 9 orphaned grandchildren on her measly 800 rand/month pension.  As she says, “I’m pulling with one gear.”  But visually, it is difficult because there is not much emotion in the house, she doesn’t interact very much with the children, two of the girls, one of which is pregnant and due any day, don’t totally feel comfortable when I’m around and usually go to another room, plus her house is not very run down, compared with many other Mamelodi homes I’ve been in.  I am faced with the challenge of choosing this difficult story, versus another story involving a family of 15 or so living in a very bad house that leaks, has only 2 twin beds and no money or food.  This story is much more about poverty than AIDS though, because they are orphans but there’s no way of telling for sure if their parents (there are two sets involved, so there are brother/sisters and cousins living together) dies from AIDS.  Most of the neighbors say that the mother of one set of parents committed suicide because she had it (back in the mid 90’s when it was very taboo to talk about it even).  But I won’t be able to have any of the children tell me that.  So they are indeed orphans, struggling to the fullest, and their living conditions are very visually easy to portray, but it’s not a clear AIDS related thing.  It is likely that some of the children have AIDS from sleeping around, and there have been rapes also from men breaking in at night, but I don’t think anyone has been tested and nobody is sick right now at least.  My hunch is to hang out with that family just a bit and see if I can talk about HIV at all and see what they say.  I also don’t want to give up on Granny and her orphans, just because it’s a difficult story.  I think I can shoot both and decide when I get home, and maybe even use both, emphasizing poverty on one and orphans who will be left without support in the Granny case.

Finding the Story

by Nathan Clendenin on August 5th, 2005

This week 32 people will be buried in just one graveyard in Mamelodi. On Saturday I will shoot the majority of the funerals that will take place more or less simultaneously. After that’s over I’m heading to the airport to pick up my friend Will Brown (since we met at L’abri back in 2001, we’ve been doing trips) and then straight to a wedding that Vincent is officiating. I am looking forward to Will’s visit, and our excursion to Capetown next week. It will be good to take a step back from this project and see where I am what I need to accomplish in the last 10 days I am here.

In a story as obvious as “People are dying of AIDS in pandemic proportions” it takes some thinking to avoid the obvious pictures. My struggle so far has been to search outside the box for little moments and images that keep things interesting. Since the last post Vincent and I have been all over the place (Vincent has been the biggest help). He’s really making the process much easier and is always cheerful and laughing. We’ve interviewed an AIDS orphan, prayed for AIDS victims in their home, been to the graveyard a few times, talked to many different people and even visited a barbershop today (see pic of man with baby). One of the side stories I am hoping to pursue is about the many little shops people have set up to earn a living. This is how they fight poverty, through innovation and entrepreneurship. Poverty is the real problem here, not AIDS.

Originally posted on Vicarious Summer Blog

Mamelodi Moments

by Nathan Clendenin on August 3rd, 2005

I had quite a full day here in Mamelodi. I awoke at 5am to the beautiful sounds of the morning prayer meeting just outside my window. The singing was so beautiful, and it was great to just listen to it. Vincent and I ate some breakfast together around 9am (when I finally got up), then went out to meet with some older ladies at the YMCA. They welcomed me with tea and sandwiches. Apparently most of Mamelodi knew I was coming, so I’ve met lots of people eager to meet Vincent’s visitor. We also had lunch at the Y, after some singing and dancing. It was a great time. Afterwards we went to meet the gravedigger at the cemetery. He told us in Zulu all about how he got started digging during Apartheid, when it was the only job he could get in order to stay in the town and not be forced back to the countryside where he came from. He buried many victims of government killings and even endured threats and attempted murders from blacks who saw him as an extension of the government. This man will be a very interesting person to record audio with, and we’re going on Thursday morning to photograph at a funeral. Vincent has been such a blessing, helping find all kinds of people. And he really knows what I am looking for without me really asking. We’ll be riding along and he’ll say, “I know this orphan, his parents died of AIDS. We will talk to him”. And I say, “Yes, that would be very good.” It’s been working like that so far, and we have lined up that orphan, a woman who works in an AIDS ward, and possibly a prostitute with AIDS (the women who do that here do it for lack of any other way to get money, not because of greed or anything else, really).

Safety here has not been an issue so far. I have felt completely safe in every place I’ve been, including a very “dodgy” looking housing complex leftover from Apartheid (a hostel is what they call it). Plus, Vincent is with me all the time. I haven’t taken many photos yet that will actually be used for my project, but I’ve included one here of a neighborhood boy. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Originally posted on Vicarious Summer Blog