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Day 33 July 22, 2007

Sorry for the long long pause in journals. But alas, plans have
changed and it has taken some time to put them right again. The
project continues, and I am in a dingy hotel room near the port of
Dakar in Senegal. I spent the last two days working on finding a
ship that can take me to Cap Verde Islands, about 200 miles offshore
of Dakar. I am hoping to meet up with some scientists there and do
some work on conservation on two different islands in the
archipelago. I had dinner tonight with a group of NGO (Non
Governmental Organization) workers at a very flash new place near the airport. I met, fortunately by accident, Emma Greatrix who works
with Project Wetlands, an organization assisting with wetlands
conservation in West Africa. They also have an office in Cap Verde
and it will be a pleasure to meet up with her on Monday and see if I
can work a bit with them. They have a very interesting project on the
West African Manatee, which is one of the most rare and elusive large
mammals still alive on the planet. There are not many of them, and
they survive in the wetlands and saltwater marshes of West Africa.
No one knows what they eat (could be omnivorous or vegetarian) how
they reproduce, (aside from the obvious mammalian needs) or how many there are (very very few). are so hard to find that even the one
scientist on the project has only seen on a couple of times, and I
don’t have the time. Nevertheless, I will visit a nearby wetland and
look at some of the environmental education work that Emma is
involved in. After that I will be off either by boat or plane to the
Cap Verde Islands within the week. It’s been a hectic time here. I
said goodbye to the yacht yesterday, and today Deon and Andre sailed
away for Amsterdam. In the end Andre decided that they would not go
to Cap Verde at all, so it was an easy decision to get off the boat.
I need to make sure that the project continues, and with the change
in plan already with Fernando Des Naronha, it is very important to
make sure I cover some interesting science on the next islands. All
was fine with the yacht, and Andre’s change of plan had more to do
with impatience to see his newly pregnant wife than anything else.
It feels strange to be in a huge dirty thriving city like Dakar after
the peaceful and pristine nature of the sea. Only coming into a port
like this do I truly understand what a mess we have made of much of
the beaches and land surrounding the oceans of the world. That we
humans would prefer to live in our own squalor and filth instead of
creating clean packaging materials and putting them in the proper
place, I find pretty surprising. Why I wonder…is it laziness?
Simple indifference? It is definitely ugly and far worse on the
nose. I will try to photograph some of the detritus that accumulates
here in Dakar in such huge quantities…it’s everywhere! Although I
have to admit it is also a very difficult place to shoot pictures.
People always want to be paid for their photo, and this is not
something that I do. As a professional journalist working with the
newspapers of the world, it is not allowed to pay for a photo or a
story. This rule is there for an obvious reason. If someone is
getting paid for their story, there exists the possibility that they
make it up to sound worse, or better. Obviously for the photos this
is not such a big possibility (though it can happen). To offer money
for a picture means the unwritten contract of journalistic integrity
is broken. Someone may take a picture of me to show others what my
life is life. If someone pays me, then how will the person who looks
at the picture know if what they are seeing is a real representation
of the truth? This is the difference between commercial and
documentary photography. I pay a model to create my vision of a
photo, I take a photo of a girl in the street to show other what that
place and those people really look like. If I pay that girl, and
tell her how and where to walk…its not really the real deal. This is
why my clients, like the New York Times and the Guardian, have a
written rule against paying for photos. So in Dakar, more than in
Afghanistan, or Zimbabwe, or pretty much anywhere I have ever been, people want to be paid. I was filming myself in the street today and a few guys came up to me demanding that I pay them for their photo. They relaxed after I showed them that I was filming only myself, but a two didn’t want to believe the footage I showed them. It got kind of nasty, but then they weren’t in the film. Very frustrating, and hard to believe people are so pushy, especially in a place where the
people are fairly rich compared to most of the places I work in
Africa. But it’s a beautiful place anyway, and I am meeting some
great folks. The air conditioner is humming away…I hate the things,
but its malaria season now and I didn’t bring any tablets since I was
leaving Africa. I don’t like to take them anyway, they make me a
little ill. So I have it on just the fan (less energy usage) and the
windows are closed but still some street sounds drift up even this
late at night. Dakar doesn’t sleep on the weekends. I do