Ben Wilhelmi

sometimes this continent…

 

this continent still puzzles me.

I mentioned last week that some fellow pilots had had a few motorbike accidents. As usual a curious crowd gathers around the premises, some of these onlookers are good hearted but most are  ready to steal something. In Jordy’s case, his helmet was stolen. I paid him a visit last week at the hospital. His helmet was in the room. He laughed telling the story behind this helmet. The thief tried to sell it to the biker shop where Jordy is a regular customer. The shop owner recognised the helmet, snatched it and gave it back to Jordy. The story beginning is unfortunately very common. This kind of ending pretty rare though…

last month in Makambako, somewhere in Tanzania, outside bars and hotels some customers and employees were ambushed at night and clubbed to death with iron bars. This happened more than once and nothing was stolen from the dead victims. Men suspected their jealous wives to organise a heavy revenge thing, while women suspected their men’s jealous lovers to take a revenge. Finally the cops managed to arrest 2 groups of criminals carrying bags containing blood stained iron bars. After “thorough” (as written in the newspaper) investigations, the criminals admitted they had been commissioned by various witch doctors to bloodily hit people to death with these iron bars and bring them back (the blood stained bars) to the witch doctors for use in voodoo activities!

voodoo is a big thing here. Look at the news about the 50 albinos who have been killed in Tanzania in less tahn 2 years…voodoo purpose again. Some of the killers have just been sentenced to death by the way. That decision won’t prevent me from sleeping I guess.

In Mbeya, some years back, in connection with Congo, some bodies had been found completely skinned.

in Arusha, I remember a body that had been dug up and stolen at night, a few years after burial!

after all even local bishops and politicians are renowned to pay visits to brothels huh no sorry that’s another topic, I meant to witch doctors! Bishops!? What part did they miss in “monotheist religion”? Having said that, talking about criminals and voodoo, the late French president Mitterand was famous for having a personal astrologist. We can assume he didn’t have anybody killed for that reason but is it worse than believing in juju?

some portraits

sun and dark skins don’t always go well together in the day. Early morning or late afternoon are the best times. Otherwise, I use shades like here at the entrance of a barn with the inside as a dark background. The reflection from the outside environment gives a nice light. Compensation from the light measurement might be needed.

 

 

this man with a very photogenic face is the foreman at Kimemo Estate where I have been assigned to shoot coffee processing and the cottages. He is holding and inspecting some dried coffee beans.

 

 

aerials in Tanzania, our house, lake Manyara

 

Arusha, our house in Nane Nane neighborhood, south of the “city”. Arusha, a city…. They smoke good stuff here.

large view. Different kind of houses, some nice ones too. Not the most posh place in Arusha but not too bad. Reasonably quiet except for the odd angry preacher ( this could be a pleonasm as preachers always look angry to my opinion) or some pub that used to be loud (Mr Bankruptcy might have paid a visit lately)

 

closer view. Ours is the one central in the picture with all the trees. That was a few weeks ago. Now, with the rains, the grass got shiny green within a few days. Our neighbor is one of those water wasters, his lawn is green while kids are drinking from water puddles nearby, from the numerous water pipe leaks or inconsiderate gardeners leaving taps and hoses flowing away.

I wrote once about that funny habit to build big houses in tiny gardens. Big houses but with a maximum of tiny windows, lost space in various corners, twisted roofs….Poor planning from architects you could say. In turn you get the windows 2 or 3 meters away from a hedge, or worse a high wall! Look at the big house next to us (and the one half cut top of the picture)…their gardener is always trying to cut the hedge short to get some light in I suppose or to peep in. Whatever I yelled at him once and things look OK now. Behind our house there is a smaller house. We suspect our house girl or guards would love to live in, in order to save rent or travel costs. It happens in other families but our peace is priceless, I don’t want to have servants living on the premises. I’m not born in such a wealthy environment, I’m not used and can’t get used to servants, so I’m always happy when I can tell her to stay home whenever I’m home myself and there is not much work to do. So I don’t have to wonder if she likes Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, even if I ask she won’t dare to say no anyway, I can wander around naked if I want to and not feel embarrassed. You can call that selfish attitude I know, I feel sorry for them that they probably live in small and maybe shared cramped rooms but I want to live too…

 

bush fire in the Ngorongoro Highlands, in September.

 

lake Manyara in October, dried up at 95%, another flat salt lake in the Rift Valley, like Eyasi, Natron in Tanzania. Bogoria, Nakuru, Turkana in Kenya… all the way up to the Dead Sea.

I always wonder if I could land safely on this. It looks flat enough though. But having walked a bit on lake Natron and heard stories, I know it could be deceiving. The crust could crack and collapse. People have played unwillingly a similar game as stuck in moving sands. A plane has sunk to the bottom for instance, well below the surface I mean. How do you call your boss and tell him you’ve landed on the lake for a lunch with some friends and by the time somebody noticed the plane was imperceptibly sinking, it was too late to free it out?

as for lake Eyasi, the colors are much duller than Natron. But they get interesting enough. The 5% of remaining water are located on the northern side of lake Manyara. A waterfall there seems to feed the area a bit longer. The hippos, the zebras, the buffalos, some lost wildebeests hang around the fresh water as do some birds.

B/W pictures with the Leica M

 

my Leica got jealous of all that attention on the medium format cameras… I can’t say which one I like best. I don’t even try to decide anyway.

Lengijave, a close spot to Arusha but that looks very bushy and remote. We like to go there for a late afternoon. We’ve been rarely disappointed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

some pictures with the Rolleiflex and Mamiya C220

both are similar twin lens reflex cameras. Slight differences in handling but the same constraints and exceptional quality with the big 6x6 cm negatives. They might be old fashioned but quality is there, definitely.

that’s Karine’s baby, slightly bulkier than the Rolleiflex  but equally great to use.

 

 

 

 

mount Meru in the distance.

 

 

not an exceptional picture, too bad the waterhole is made of concrete. But, this is the view we had while having our lunch or sipping a cocktail from the Tree Tops lounge. Waterbucks, warthogs and baboons also came in a bit later to have a drink.

 

all these pictures are made with a fixed standard lens, no zoom here (though the Mamiya does accept lens change). A standard lens is basically the one that represents the same image seen by our eye. No closer, no wider. That used to be the regular lens on cameras decades ago, before optical researches produced telephoto lenses and zooms. These fixed standard lenses still exist widely luckily even in the digital world.

some pictures with my Rolleiflex …part II

 

I’ve visited about 10 African countries and this is a common scenery: hawkers, touts, whatever they are called are a nuisance all over. Except at borders where they are usually kind of forbidden, which is good. There is enough worry with the paperwork, delays and so on. So to get these pestering guys off your soles is quite relaxing and welcome.

 

 

people building hand cartwheels. Big business around.

 

and another good business is rope sale. Since everything is systematically overloaded and overflowing from any vehicle, a good rope is handy…

 

 

some pictures with my Rolleiflex and B/W films

 

 

serious looking lady waiting for a bus.

 

 

bare feet lady. How poor is that…no even some cheap crap Chinese sandals at 50 cents?

 

 

on a more joyful tone, Karine and I went to that splendid lodge, Tree Tops near Tarangire (we’re not on their payroll! It is just a great location) and I wandered around some baobabs…

 

 

 

 

lake Eyasi, Tanzania

 

lake Eyasi last month, before the rains started. Sure it must look like a normal lake by now. The lake is shallow and salted like all the lakes in the Rift Valley, at least in Tanzania. In turn they filled up very quickly. Eyasi is never as bright red and colored as lake Natron but once in a while it gets decent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

some street pictures in Lira, Uganda.

 

 

 

 

the Obama mania hasn’t been over the top as I would have expected. The first colored US president…it looks like white people finally made more fuss about it that here. I’ve seen a few bumper stickers, some T shirts and a few customized paintings on ‘dala dala’ aka the public transport minibuses. Though if you ask me those paintings don’t count too much as I’ve seen some glorifying Slobodan Milosevic or Monica Lewinsky. So what credit can you give to that…Some people in Kenya might have thought and hoped for some direct benefits, typical tribal attitude, but that fell down quickly too. That’s about it I’d say.

 

a neighborhood in Mwanza, one of the main towns in the country. Mwanza is located on lake Victoria, a fresh water lake for a change. View from the hotel.

 

 

  

client relaxing.

about Tanzania…

a little break from the “America chapter”.

the long-awaited rains have arrived, finally: the last 3 years have been unusually dry. People were starving here and there, cows dying, crops failing… now with the rains coming in, there will be people dying because of flash floods in ravines, mudslides…. Nothing’s perfect.

the grass in the garden got green within a few days, the landscapes get incredible again with perfect visibility and dramatic skies, the dust gets pinned down by the moisture. The clouds offer a rich variety of grey tones and shapes. I got wet a coupla times on the motorbike. My car gets washed for free and without wasting water. You couldn’t believe how many fucking carwash companies exist in Africa. Even the worst junk car you can imagine has to look clean, nevertheless it is full of dents and nicks, rusted, poorly body refilled and repainted, with bits missing or parts that are not original. Pride has its logic…It drives me nuts in the dry season to see such a waste of water. Not to mention that you could wash your car every hour to keep it clean. Dust falls by the buckets…Our watchmen used to ask us once a week the wash the cars and wouldn’t understand why we refused. I had to threaten to fire my previous gardener if he kept on washing the car while I was away. I finally gathered that our dirty cars were a shame on him. As if he could gather some of our “prestige” with clean cars. I know it’s not going to be politically correct (and I hate the PC concept anyway) but how come 3rd world or developing countries always seem to copy our worst behaviors? One example out of many unfortunately.

The flying gets more interesting too, well mind you, that depends if you’re talking to pilots or passengers. We were flying at night last week, in some decent bad weather. It doesn’t change anything from flying in daytime bad weather of course. The main difference is in case of an engine failure on a single-engine aircraft: you’re most likely to hit the ground within seeing it coming, especially in Africa where lights on the ground are not numerous to say the least. But psychologically flying at night is always scarier. Add a few turbulences, the heavy raindrops on the windshield, the blinding strobe lights reverberating from the wingtips that I had forgot to switch off when we entered the clouds, the ghost red lights inside the aircraft, flying blindly between 2 big mountains (Meru and Kili)…my passengers didn’t need much more to be tense and quiet. One of them said never again.

there has been a “carnage” amongst pilots lately, luckily only on motorbike issue. I had a crash with a taxi 2 months ago, many bruises and only a broken collarbone, which was not bad at all considering I had been ejected above the taxi. Another pilot crashed while riding crazy on dirt tracks, just bruises and his pride bruised too. Then one hit at night of those numerous carts which have no lights of course, luckily the bike took all the damage from the long cart handles. Then one pilot’s little brother visiting here borrowed his motorbike and fell down, badly enough to crack his (European make) helmet but didn’t get injured himself. He got a lot of hammering from his older brother of course, but last week this same older brother was hit and run over(!) by a car. That is the worst of all these 5 accidents because he had survived the crash with only one broken wrist but the faulty driver ran away, crushing his leg, 8 fractures in one bone, crushed his knee as well. His passenger, with a broken leg, had to roll on herself to escape the same fate! Let’s hope that the driver was drunk, otherwise these are some more reasons to despair from the human race…

besides this dull chapter, all is fine here. I am back on my motorbike and mountain bike, more cautious than ever of course. I’m considering head surgery: one extra eye near my ears, and one in the back of my head…maybe some AK 47 mounted on the handle bars could be good deterrent too? 100$ in Northern Kenya…

all is fine as my first Rolleiflex picture has been printed, thanks to Karine’s expertise and her own pose on the picture, and the result is superb. So I’m dead happy with that camera too. The sharpness on a 6x6cm negative is blowing.

leaving Las Vegas

for those who might think I was joking about the non-walking habits of America, by coincidence I’ve just read another excellent book by Bill Bryson, “I’m a Stanger Here Myself”. American himself, he thought he should go back in America after 20 years away when he learnt that 3 million Americans believe they’ve been abducted by aliens! As a writer there was definitely something to write about America. Amongst many weird habits, the non-walking chapter (yes, one whole hilarious chapter) is worth reading. Americans walk in average 350 yards (or 300 m) a day in average!! As always with averages, some do less than the mentioned figure. As he reminded me, streets in most towns or cities are NOT pedestrian friendly. While I liked to walk, to the cops wonder, I indeed found it hard to cross streets: no pedestrian crossing, high pavements, no traffic lights…Try to cross a large avenue full of angry fat drivers in those conditions. I felt like a toreador sometimes. New York, San Francisco are a bit different, but for the rest…I don’t advertise at all on my blog. This is really a free tip, ready to wet yourself?  www.billbrysonbooks.com

 

after a coupla days of good laughing and food, we left Las Vegas. That was 10 years ago. I could visit again as a lot must have changed. Ready for another round of laughters.

 

 

 

 

one the albino tigers from Siegfried and Roy. One of them got mauled if you remember. Bit of a kitsch environment…well what else, this is Vegas after all.

 

 

Harley to be won.

 

trompe-l’oeil.

 

 

on Fremont st

 

Las Vegas at night

 

 

Fremont St, as said yesterday it all started here with typical galore of neon lights. Not copying anything from the rest of the world. Pyramids, New York, Antique Rome, Walt Disney etc came later.

 

 

like this covered gallery in Caesar’s Palace. Fake marble statues, columns…

 

 

Bacchus and nymphs!

 

 

I’m wondering what Caesar and other Roman emperors would think of this use of their culture. Considering their huge ego, they might be pleased in the end. And they’d be quite pleased on another topic: the idea of keeping the lid on people’s brain by giving them food and games was developed in Roman times. Some smart ass, Juvenal if my memory from my Latin classes doesn’t fail me, said “Pane et Circus” and that concept to keep brains numb survived through centuries. Quite a feat. After all television, casinos, theme parks…just do the circus job. As for “Pane”, the western world has never been so flooded by food… I remember I couldn’t find a 1 oz (28gr) pack of chips! Very common in Europe for reasonable eaters. Here considering the norm for gluttony, nothing less than a pound pack on display. No wonder 30% of people are here obese, official figures. Unfortunately I have to admit Europe is now catching up, as some African countries, funny enough against all logical beliefs.

 

 

 

 

 

chapels and other stuff in Las Vegas

OK, marriage is not my thing at all, but I keep on wondering what pushes people to get married in these cheap and quick conditions, far from friends and family. I’m puzzled as well by the huge costs like a 2000$ dress on the other side of the range, the military planning of all of it…

 

 

I mean, c’mon, a drive thru weeding??? WTF? Is that aimed at virgin people, the kind of no-sex-before-wedding dudes? Too eager to finally get real (in a 10 sec squirt I’m afraid)? Dumbfounding…

 

Elvis must have peed around the wall, so Graceland was chosen in retribution?

 

Chrystal…but plastic wedding rings I bet…

 

that’s another thing that drives me nuts. Same crap all over the world. Anything to make business. I remember a “Napoleon slept here” in Waterloo (the real town, in Belgium!), or “Stanley passed under this door” in Tanzania… what’s the value of that? So when I wrote “Elvis had peed here”, I was not pushing that far finally. But nobody seems to have the balls to use “had sex”, “smoked a joint” or anything really interesting.

 

 

that’s the nice thing with a big new vast empty country. No ancient history behind to prevent building large avenues.

 

 

don’t get lured! The sidewalks are only wide and long because the whole avenue is decorated and worth seeing by foot. Sometimes I feel a real pedestrian is a rarity in the US. the country is seldom pedestrian friendly. Here some must have realised that they can indeed survive a 500m walk without a car. In Los Angeles, I had been stopped by cops (fat ones in a big police car) because they were wondering if all was OK with me walking. They had spotted me walking a few blocks and were concerned. Walking!? And they got flabbergasted when I said I indeed possessed a car at a hotel a few miles away but fancied a walk. I would have got a more understanding look if I had been standing on the corner naked with my balls painted purple. God Bless America people believe…some sense of humor if it is the case.

 

 

 

 

below, the original center of Las Vegas, Fremont street, where it all started.  No canopy by then though.  A total different touch, a bit more on a human scale, 

 

 

the other famous cowboy in same style is a bit further. I can’t find the picture anymore.

Las Vegas

 

well I’m not going to describe Las Vegas in 1997. New casinos and hotels, old ones destroyed. A lot must have changed by now. Except the extravagance…

copy of New York, the Pyramids, antique Roma…

 

 

notice the Latin version of Warner Bros.

 

that’s a job nobody can possibly like. I guess they were hoping for fame.

 

 

New York by night.

 

 

some fairy castle. I forgot the name.

 

 

isn’t that hilarious?

 

 

volcano show at or near the Mirage.

we only stayed 2 or 3 days, just gamble 50$ or so for the fun, stayed in some Motel 6 and enjoyed the permanent show. I had more fun looking and having fun at everything, from people to architecture…I wish I had taken picture of people though.

Arizona-Nevada, to Las Vegas

 

caribou? Not sure, I’m not very familar with these things. But it made my day to spot or two while leaving Grand Canyon

 

 

laughing time…we didn’t get in though. Maybe we should have…

 

 

back on Route 66 for a short while.

 

 

 

then the long road in Nevada desert…

 

with funny names here and there. that is nice of the local residents to give themselves silly names like that. It keeps the conversation going in the car on these long trips.

 

 

coming close to Vegas. How much is true in that statement? 1.6 million every day???

 

the suburbs.

and more aerials of the Grand Canyon

 

today I’m normally on my way to Kenya and Uganda for a few days. No access to www out there in Lira. Which is not always a bad thing by the way. A few books, my drawing kit, my cameras and my trainers will keep me busy.

 

anyhow back to the Grand Canyon for a last batch of aerial pictures.

 

 

trees! Pretty unusual on this scenic flight. The Grand Canyon looks more of a big piece of badlands at first sight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

and some forest again. Obviously the rock formation is quite different around here, maybe the altitude as well

 

and snow!

 

look at all the gullies feeding the main river when the snow melts.