Princeton-in-Africa Photography Book

In case you want to support a cause I believe in – the one that helped send me to Uganda for the first time with Right to Play – I thought I’d do a little shout out for the Princeton-in-Africa Photography Book. Put together in part by another Princeton Rugger who fell for the red mud of of the continent, it features a few of my own photos (so I’m told) and the profits go back into the fellowship program! Check it out at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/152821

The Walk

Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey

I walk out and down a valley
A glance shows all is rough and wild
But evergreens fresh from a nursery
Belie the wilderness

Black irrigation hoses to trip over
Angry dog barks in the distance
But nothing spied in a few minutes
Curious search.
Continue descending.

A cut off hose is an unnatural spring
Spurting and trickling the water
Has built its own house
Unusual ice sculpture

I place a hand to understand the texture.
Press down. Drops extend away and I leave
A barely visible imprint when I
Eventually walk away
To see into a birds nest

In a twisted spiky tree.
There is a leap up and attempt to scale
A vertical living pole.
A skinned shin and white dusty clothes are the only result.

I wander some more and
Then walk back out of the valley.
Derelict outbuildings wait at the top
Exploring, I find
Tables and seats roughly assembled

Child’s play of house,
Or someone’s cold reality

Memories of adolescence
Floating to the surface
Of consciousness
Like warm air in winter

Shy hand holding on an orange-patterned seat
Between white water-tanks.
Shaded by dusty green and prickly acacia trees
Dirt on cement floor.
Sneaker-clad toe-scratching.

‘Lambada’ he says, ‘Do you know what
It means?’ Of course I do—I was the one who said it was
I love you
No matter that it isn’t.

But I only say ‘yes’ so quietly as
I turn away
Nervous but smiling.
But, ‘Do you know what it means?’—I want to ask him now.

For at school
Our neighborly friendship and courting
Dissolves.
He ignores me and plays basketball
With his twin and friends instead.

No sign of Lambada
No dance for me at Valentines.
A lone card dropped on his doorstep
And a hasty, awkward escape after the bell is rung

With an arm cast to protect a broken wrist,
12 year old heart soon to join it.

Streaming through the night

Gately on Nile

Jinja, Uganda

On the way to watch the Superbowl

Streaming through the night
On the back of a motor bike
Sunglasses on
Eyes wide open
Wind blowing
Surreal nostalgia down in the pit of the stomach
As friends and football wait at the end of the ride


Dark and cool Africa town
Pavement and pot holes
Quiet
Like a silent soundtrack playing
To the wrong movie
You think
But it’s not


Just a different place to what you thought it was
Or maybe just a
Different side to the story you were living


Streaming through the night
Surreal and nostalgic light


This is now
This is home
For now

Right now this is home

How still you sleep

Here I lie. Do you recognize me now? Will you acknowledge me now that the blackness of my skin is in contrast with the sky? It is almost mid-day and still here I lie. Would you listen to my cries if I still had the air to create them? How still you sleep. Can I do nothing to wake you? Finally you come, not to me, but just to pass me by. Eyes lowered, hidden, you see the small black pool on your left. Shaken but not showing it, you look away only to see me. Finally. Children round their mother’s skirts are playing, but you do not stay. You certainly do not play. You walk on.

There you rest. Outside your walls, you could look up and find me not a hundred paces from your bed. But there are walls and you do not come for me. You hear the barking. So loud that you cannot sleep. Come. Please come and stop my seeping. It is not too late but I cannot move. And neither do you. You lie with your love so close and I am here all alone. Only the dogs come to investigate. You roll over and pull each other close. The wind pulls my scent onwards and more howls join the din. A symphony finale. Am I the only one who listens? I am the composer. How still I lie. The audience does not applaud. Finally, you sleep on.

There you hide. Or maybe you are not hiding at all but I do not see you. And then you come. Why? I can guess but I do not know. You hurt me so much. I am afraid but countless others have felt this pain and somehow I feel that instead. In this place many have lain before me. Oddly, I am comforted but still I fight. And still you continue. How much will you take before you leave me? How much of this sugar cane will be cloaked in my blood? Whereas the children in the morn may wonder how still I lie, you may never wonder how still I die. You drop me. Finally. You move on.

15th April 2003
Mbarara, Uganda