toystour

4. 2. Going back

2010-02-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

With our last Nairas we managed to get to the airport, where we spent our last Euros to pay for excess luggage caused by the heavy video equipment. We wore our recycled waste caps from Accra, and everybody was smiling. The lady at the customs wanted my cap, and I promised her: “Next time!”. She was satisfied, and I could pass.

At 10:30 a.m. our plane left Lagos, bringing us back to the European cold.

We were driving all the way from Austria, Italy, Morocco, Mauretania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria to explore different cultures and socio-economic realities via the Trash of Your Society (T.O.Y.S.), bringing our own trash from Austria in exchange. We explored the different definitions and values of what is called trash in our own country. We found out, that certain items thrown away in Austria are real treasures in the deserts of Mali, where people were fighting over our PET-bottles, which are basis of transaction for many self-employed entrepreneurs all along our route.

We found metal-recycling cooperatives, local and international NGOs, scavengers melting lead and copper out of otherwise useless electronic equipment from Europe and the USA, or restoring und re-selling things they find in the waste. We found artists, who transform waste into sculptures, installation and designer fashion.

It started to hurt throwing away things we knew by now that they are precious for our entrepreneurs, like plastic- or glass bottles, metal cans, old clothes… It was shocking to see, how greedy children grabbed for a mango peel recklessly thrown away, or a crumble of sugar; to see people eating from the dumpsite, together with cows, goats and sheep. And of course we started to value water, which is not available in sufficient quality and quantity for so many people along our way.

At the end we learned, that real progress is possible, when the government is interested in making things better for their people. In 2005, I experienced most districts of Lagos as a huge dumpsite, now you see the LAWMA-staff in their orange overalls cleaning up the streets all over the city.

Most of all, we found wonderful trash dividends for our lucky shareholders.

It is still possible to buy shares, email to toys@mur.at

1 share of Eur 35,- brings you a guaranteed unit of trash from Africa, have a look at http://toysontour.mur.at

A work by trash-artist ASTON from Cotonou will be raffled off between all our shareholders at the AGM (Annual General Meeting) of our up-and-coming company.

We thank all our partners, sponsors, shareholders, supporters, interviewpartners and collegues:
O.N.G. Auve-garde des plages de la baie du levrier, O.N.G. Arbre, O.N.G. Zazou, Martial Pouret and Sophie (Mauretania), Momo le Magnifique, Cooperative des Forgerons et Ferblantiers Jama Jigi Marche Medine, Mamadou (Mali), Oxfam Quebec, Jaqueline Djidonou, ASTON (Benin), Mike Anane, John Owoo, Tei Mensah Huagie - Not a Waste Recycling Studio (Ghana), LAWMA, Akintunde Akinleye (Nigeria), Wendelin Schmidt (D) and many others.
Austria: Max and Markus Gansberger, Klaus Meßner, Schaumbad – Freies Atelierhaus Graz, Vice-Mayor Lisa Rücker; Markus Wilfling, Michael Maier, The Syndicate, Südwind, Pöttinger Entsorgungstechnik, WKO Sekundärrohstoffhandel Steiermark, Die Entstopfer, Grüne Akademie, Wolfgang Croce/Croce & Wir; Land Steiermark, bm:ukk, Cinestyria Filmkunst

3. 2. LAWMA - Ojota dumpsite, Lagos, Nigeria

2010-02-11T02:51:00.001-08:00

Finally at LAWMA – Lagos Waste Management Authority. Managing director Ole Oresanya welcomed us in his office.

What happened to Lagos within the last years? Mr. Oresanya confirmed, that Lagos had a huge waste-problem several years ago. The city now has about 18 million inhabitants, which means: when everybody drops a piece of paper a day, it makes 18 million pieces of waste! Since the democratisation of Nigeria in 1999, the government decided to make a plan to keep Lagos clean, as lots of waste means more frustration, more aggression, and more crime.

Together with LAWMA, the government developed a concept for efficient waste management, and since a few years, it really works.

Lagos generates about 9,000 metric tons of wastes daily (0.5 kg/person/day), 80 percent of this waste can be recycled. Under the city’s recycling initiative called ‘zero waste programme’, organic waste, which makes up 60 percent of the city’s waste is being recycled into compost. This is used for a green programme aimed at beautifying the city with trees and flowers. Additionally, Oresanya is looking at waste as a tool of job creation and poverty reduction.

LAWMA didn´t have half of the lorries they needed, so they included private companies to bring the waste to the dumpsites. In the meantime, they have almost half the lorries they need - around 500.

Joachim will write more about LAWMA.

We went to their biggest landfill in Ojota, Lagos to interview the scavengers there, together with Nigerian photographer Akintunde Akinleye.

After arriving, the geologist of LAWMA was about to go to a meeting. Quickly she explained, that the smoke coming out of parts of the dumpsite due to the high pressure of waste will be used for methan gas production soon.

There are about 2000 scavengers collecting useful waste on Ojota dumpsite every day. Some of them live there, some just go there to work. Many of them come from other Nigerian states. They are all independent contractors, working under highly dangerous conditions: caterpillars and lorries are rolling between people who try to grab the most precious things before the others get them.

The scavengers are mostly specialised: some on collecting cloth, plastic, metal or paper, some collect suitcases and bags, repair them and sell them on the nearby second-hand market. E-waste is not allowed on site, but some does appear from the general waste collected all over Lagos.

People are cooking and eating between the waste, white birds join them. Patricia, one of the scavengers, offered to cook pasta for us. Some people did not want us to take photos of them, they were afraid, that their friends and family might find out, where they work. Some were really proud of their work and appreciated us being with them in the waste and bad smells. When I started to collect dividends for our lucky shareholders, they started to respect us being one of them – although a bit stupid, because we did not collect the “valuable” waste.

2. 2. No waste land

2010-02-10T12:44:00.000-08:00

The meeting with LAWMA director was postponed to Wednesday, so we decided to visit Heinrich Böll Foundation and Goethe Institute in search of possible partners, who could help us with shipping our dividends, and maybe help us to bring the exhibition to Lagos.

With Monika Umunna of Heinrich Boell Foundation we discussed CO2 emissions in Africa: We have seen so much fire and smoke from Benin to Togo, Ghana and Nigeria, but there is no measuring, no statistics, no awareness. Then Monika introduced us to the staff of Goethe Institute, which is located in the offices of Boell Foundation until they can move to their new building in March.

After this, we decided to visit CCA Lagos - Center of Contemporary Art, run by Bisi Silva. We could not afford expensive taxies, so we went to take a “Danfor” – small, yellow VW-busses, the public transport of Lagos. They take 8 passengers.

After half an hour of waiting with locals, most of them disappeared and advised us to go a few stops back, because all Danfors coming to this stop were packed with people already and did not take more. We went to the big street to stop a motorbike taxi – we had good experiences with this way of transport from Cotonou. No, they are not allowed to drive out of their own district. They would do it anyway, but it would cost around Eur 15,- for both of us, thank you. For Eur 1,- they would bring us to a better bus stop. On the way, they asked every Danfor-driver if he would go our direction, and soon we were on our way.

Looking for CCA, we had to ask for directions several times, which was fun, because people were really helpful and nice. The house welcomed us with a bicycle made of used metal cans on the terrace. Bisi showed us her library with a comprehensive collection of books and magazines on African art, women´s art, feminism, as well as catalogues of notable international art events. She just had an international exhibition on “Old News”, in collaboration with a Danish gallery. http://www.oldnewsnews.org/

How about the reaction of the Lagos art audience? Well – collectors are irritated, they don´t see artworks they can buy…

After this inspiring visit we took a walk in the quarter, collected some dividends, and then took a Danfor back to our hotel – in the go-slow time between 6 - 8 p.m., and it took us precisely from 6 – 8 p.m to get there.

Later in the night, we visited the Fela Kuti Shrine.

Resumee of our day out: The waste on Lagos streets is disappointing. My inspiration to start the project was a visit in Lagos in 2005, where I was impressed by the huge amounts of trash on all streets. This was the El Dorado of waste, here I wanted to return and explore. And now: almost nothing, except the LAWMA-women in orange overalls, brushing and collecting waste everywhere we were going.

Tomorrow we finally would meet the LAWMA-officials, find out what happend, and then visit their huge landfill.

1. 2. The long ride to Lagos

2010-02-06T12:19:00.000-08:00

The distance between Cotonou and Lagos is about 80 km, so we were convinced – considering all expected troubles at the border -, that we would arrive in Lagos around 10 a.m. when starting in Cotonou at 6 o´clock in the morning.

We expected some small troubles: Manuel had lost his vaccination card, and the stories we heard from Maryam and Joachim were not really promising.

We arrived the Nigerian border quickly. We had to get out of the taxi, I went barefoot because of the huge blisters on my feet. People offered me their sandals, but no way.

A long row of tables, we had to go from one to the other for control: passport, visa, vaccination card, drugs, customs… On every table somebody new who asked, why we did not get our visa from Vienna, but from Cotonou. Why we want to go to Nigeria. Obviously, they were looking for something to make us pay, we observed a constant stream of money, going into the officer´s pockets.

Manuel was stopped at the first counter because of his missing vaccination card, and after a not too small payment he was allowed to pass. A few counters later he had to pay again.

I mentioned Susanne Wenger and could pass all controls quickly. On the last counter they asked: “What do you bring to our people?” – “Sorry, we have nothing left.”

We continued in a Nigerian taxi. The driver charged a huge amount of money, because we are white, and this means: more police controls than usual, more troubles. Our Benin driver had charged money from him to hand us over, and there was some fight we did not understand between people we had never seen before. They passed money around, and finally we could go: Welcome to Naira land.

After some hundred meters we had to stop for the next control. The car before us did not stop immediately, the policeman was beating on it with a golf club. Everybody had weapons – heavy guns, small guns, knifes, golf clubs, metal claws… We felt a bit uncomfortable. There were stops every 5 minutes, Manuel had to pay for his missing vaccination card again, and some stops later they wanted to have money for a mask Stefan bought in Mali. It was a souvenir-shop Dogon mask, obviously new, but they wanted to charge money for an antique. Endless discussions, they wanted Eur 30,-, this was more than the money he paid for the mask. Stefan could not pay, they wanted to keep the mask, not even Susanne Wenger could help… Finally we said, we would leave it with them, but we want official papers, so we could claim it back. We could keep it for 1000 Naira, which is around Eur 5,-.

During all this horror drive I observed mostly women in orange overall, cleaning the streets. They had the logo of LAWMA on their clothes – Lagos Waste Management Association. Joachim and Maryam had been there already, the director expected us to come with the video camera. I was too shocked with all this police controls to take any pictures of the waste workers. There was police everywhere, and cameras definitely would give them another reason to make us pay.

We finally arrived in our hotel at 1 p.m. – exhausted and frustrated. We did not feel like going anywhere, the country seemed to be hostile. The taxi driver was complaining all the way about mismanagement and too much police, traffic jams and controls everywhere.

We had the first hotel room with air condition, so we switched it on and went to bed. The hotel had high walls, barb wire and a strong gate, protected by a guard day and night. We felt secure.

After a short nap, I wanted to contact my friends in Lagos and check emails, but there was no internet and no phone to the outside world. After checking the hotel nextdoors, we found out that it had internet, but was much more expensive, so I looked for an internet café nearby.

People on the street were helpful and friendly, quiet atmosphere. The internet café was close, the hotel manager gave us his own sim card for our cell phone, and we could start to organize our stay. We called Mr. Bode Fanima of LAWMA, and he visited us at 10 pm for a drink and talk. He promised to arrange a meeting with the executive director, and a visit on their biggest waste disposal site: the waste dump of a city with 18 million people – we were excited!

31. 1. Cleaning up our Steyr and burning

2010-02-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

Stefan started to pack his own stuff early in the morning, then we put all dividends into recycled metal cases, which will be sent to Austria as soon as we have raised enough money for shipping.

Then we said good bye to our home of the last months. The truck with its rich load of dividens can stay at the German Embassy in Cotonou for the next few months.

Instead of leaving for Nigeria as planned, we felt weary and tired and decided to leave early next morning. We were packing at about 40 degrees Celsius heat, so there was not much energy left.

Nevertheless, there were 2 big bags of our own waste left from the journey, and all the Austrian waste we brought and nobody wanted. It was not too bad for 3 months of journey, but considering the small dustbins of Manuels girlfriend´s house where we stayed for our last days, it was quite essential.

Waste production in African households is incredibly small, for an apartment house with 3 floors there was only 1 medium sized dustbin, which is emptied once a week, and this is usually sufficient – but not, when you have European guests.

We decided to make a final Benin shot and burn our trash on the beach – as we had observed local people to do regularly. Where ever you look, there is a fire burning waste.

It was Sunday evening, and the beach was crammed with people enjoying the sunset – and a big fire of waste burning on the side of the road. We were curious about the reaction of people when they see us – white people – burning trash the same way they do. What would happen?

We stopped and put our waste out of the truck. Manuel drove the truck away. The situation was not discussed before, and it was quite confused. Stefan asked me to throw the waste into the fire, but I did not feel comfortable with the idea, so he started to film the sunset. After a short thought, I decided to take a bag anyway and throw it into the fire. The bag was heavy, and I went too close – the ground was loose with ashes, and I slipped right into the embers, wearing only sandals. My toes burnt like fire. I tried to get out of the ashes, but trying this I was sliding even deeper, so I let myself fall down and crept out.

In the meantime, some children had taken our other bag and started to fight over its content. Then some barefoot children ran into the hot ashes and pulled out our bag. A car passed by, the driver shouting out to us fiercely. I was looking at my toes, shocked and convinced, that I would not be able to walk for the next days. Not knowing what to do, I took some pictures, while Stefan was filming the children and Manuel came back talking to a man he just met.

I decided, that it hurt to much and asked Manuel to bring me to a doctor. Stefan hanging on the outside of the truck, we were driving back into the city for a pharmacy, where Manuel got me a salve. Then we went back to the apartment, and I spent the rest of the evening with my feet in iced water, while Stefan cooked a nice meal.

Manuel tried since noon to find a taxi to pick us up at 5 o´clock in the morning to bring us to the Nigerian border. He made countless phone calls, at the end we had 3 taxi drivers competing. None of them would bring us over the border. At 2 a.m. Manuel finally fixed an appointment with a driver from Porto Novo, who would hand us over to a Nigerian driver at the border.

30. 1. The tour to the market

2010-02-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

At 9 a.m. we were at the quarter´s bottle storage to wait for Celestine, who came with baskets full of bottles, then went away to collect some further goods. The other women helped her to built a huge tower, which she put on her head, an on we walked. While in the quarter, Celestine still stopped to ring up households, and then we came to the big street, and instead of walking, we stopped 4 “zemidjans”, the moped taxies. We filmed and took pictures while driving, and on the market Celestine went to the Oxfam headquarters to sell her goods. She got cfa 2.000,- (Eur 3,50) for her collection, which she bought for cfa 1.600,-, walking from house to house for hours. This made a wage of cfa 400,- for a whole day´s work – not even 1 Euro.

We doubled up the cfa 2.000,- and bought some of the bottles for the exhibition and one of our lucky shareholders. With our budget, we could not do more.

In the afternoon I started to pack my stuff from the truck, we had to leave it in Cotonou. Stefan went to Aston to exchange a painting by Schaumbad artist Michael Maier for a work by Aston – we had discussed this at our last visit. Stefan came back with a great picture plus a small sculpture, which will be raffled of between our lucky shareholders.

While packing, somebody started to burn their waste on the street.

29. 1. Back to the waste world

2010-02-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

After a few cheap days of doing nothing for the project we had to prepare for our way back and make loose ends meet: The story of “Oxfam Quebec” was not finished for the video, and we tried to make an appointment with Jaqueline, our competent guide from the first tour. Jacqueline Djidonou is responsible for the empowerment of women and public relations.

We could not reach her on the phone, so we went to her office to learn, that she was at their branch in Ouidah, a few kilometres out of Cotonou. We got her cell phone number and gave her a call: we would like to interview her, but we also needed Celestine, the woman we filmed last time on her tour to buy empty bottles, cans and paper from the households. We covered the collecting part, but not her walking 3 km to the market and selling the bottles. We did not interview her so far. Jaqueline promised to find out her cell phone number and call us back.

We were about to leave the office, as Jaqueline´s boss came and asked if he could help. As Jaqueline was out of reach, I asked him for an interview, but he immediately phoned Jaqueline and told her to come to the office, which would take her about 2 hours time.

In the meantime we decided to go to the place were the women of this quarter have their bottle storage, it was quite close to the Oxfam office. We hoped to get hold of Celestine. At the storage there was the usual crowd of women washing bottles, eating, chatting. They recognized us and went away to bring Celestine, who was not happy about our request: her next tour to the market was on Monday (we would be in Lagos then), now it was Friday and she wanted to enjoy the weekend with her family. She also claimed, that she did not have enough bottles to sell. Hm, how about a small fake? We would buy the bottles from a colleague, and she could sell them and get all the money without having to collect them all day. We also would pay for her taxi to the market, so it would safe her lots of work and 3 km of walking. Finally she agreed, and we made an appointment for 9 a.m. the next day.

Jaqueline came and gave us a comprehensive interview about Oxfam Quebec – their history, structure and fields of waste management.

Basically, they take care of all solid waste in Cotonou and Ouidah: they have this plastic recycling program, a compost production from organic waste, a huge landfill site, as well as educational programs, where people learn how to avoid waste. Oxfam offers “abonnements” to all households: for a very small amount of money they get a dustbin, and Oxfam would come every week to get the waste. To promote this, they have groups of “animateurs” on the streets, in schools or walking from door to door to demonstrate the advantages of professional waste disposal. Additionally, they produce TV-spots, Jaqueline was playing in some of them.

Oxfam Quebec is a Canadian organization founded in 1942 to fight hunger and poverty. In 1996, a regional office for West Africa was established in Cotonou, Benin to supervise activities in Benin, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Waste, which was a big problem, turned out to be a chance to provide jobs for many people, and it was a success story. Cotonou became much cleaner, and many other communes now ask for a branch in their cities. They soon will expand to Porto Novo, and probably further all over the country. http://oxfam.qc.ca/

25. 1. Leaving Sodom and Gomorrah

2010-01-27T15:08:00.000-08:00

Manuel had to go to the hospital for further examinations. I went to Sodom and Gomorrah again, this time with Mamasita. We went by “Trotro”, the public busses. This time we visited the other side of the river, the “residential area”. It was 10 o´clock in the morning, and many children were playing between the e-waste on the riverside. They did not speak English, so they probably don´t go to school at all. We played with them and took photos, Mamasita bought water sachets for all of them, which made them really happy. Then back to the other side, were they burned out copper and lead as usual: flames and smoke, children working, girls selling water, a herd of cows eating the organic waste in between.

The girls found photographs in the waste, some old black & white, some faded colour pix. They gave them to me, laughing, and I gave them water - another nice dividend for one of our lucky shareholders.

Mamasita presumed, that this site will grow in the future; I decided to think positive -activists like Mike Anane will raise consciousness, and this madness will stop within the next years. We will do our best to help to spread the information.

I took a taxi to the New Accra Shopping Mall to meet Manuel and Stefan with the truck. There was so much trash on the street, so I decided to throw out my dirty paper handkerchief out of the cab. Immediately a policeman approached and told me, that this is not allowed. Embarrassed, I apologized, and he let me go. The taxi driver told me, that this could have cost me a fine of 100,- Sidis (Eur 50,-), or 6 months of prison as an alternative. Keep Ghana clean!

The doctor allowed Manuel to go, so we left Accra. It was clear, that our budget will not allow us to go to Lagos for further research: Lagos is far too expensive, and we are running out of private money as well. We decided to go back to Cotonou.

24. 1. “Pooh-pooh Beach”, Accra

2010-01-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

Mamasita, a Polish-Spanish artist in our hostel told us again, that the shore around Accra is incredibly dirty. It is her third time in Accra, and she knows the situation well. We started together, this time with our truck. We chose to go near the lighthouse, where the river running through Sodom and Gomorrah flows into the sea. We noticed, that we were approaching the right place by the intense smell of shit getting stronger.

Getting out of the truck, a fisherman welcomed us to his nice beach – if we were here for swimming? He told, that he and he colleagues were out there fishing every day. The water was brown, the smell indescribable. If they are also fishing shit? Well, sometimes they had nasty things in their nets, yes. He brought us to the source of “pooh-pooh”, and Stefan filmed the smelly, brown liquid going into the sea. All of a sudden, a fierce looking man, accompanied by 2 other men with big muscles appeared and shouted at us: we need permission of the mayor to film here, he knows were the material ends up, it will be in TV and in the internet and he will have trouble. We should delete our material.

I was collecting water sachets all the time and told him, that we are only collecting trash to make recycling art. I showed my collection, which confused him completely, and he let us go. He had a big car, and the fisherman said, this is big brother, making big money out of pooh-pooh.

Stefan took our fisherman to a place hidden between bricks and made an interview: many of the fishermen´s children are sick all the time, because the fish is poisoned. They went to the mayor to complain, but the mayor told them to wait, things will become better. They are running out of money, because the doctors are expensive. They don´t know where to go, and there seems to be no help.

We went back to the tourist beach to eat, but we will never eat fish again in this area, nor swim in the sea, with the “pooh-pooh-beach” only 2 km away from the posh tourist hotels with their expensive, “clean” beaches.

23. 1. La Beach Resort

2010-01-27T14:27:00.000-08:00

We were told, that lots of Accra´s waste ends up on the beach. Stefan and I took a taxi, telling the driver, that we are looking for a dirty beach. We ended up at “La Beach Resort”, were we had to pay Eur 2,- entrance fee.

The beach was packed with tourists, shops, a bar, lots of merchants selling clothes, CDs, masks, jewellery, food, horse rides or themselves (women and men).

The beach itself was quite clean, except a few water sachets and some plastic bags. Inside the water it looked different – you had to swim slalom between plastic bags.

So here somebody collects the plastic on the beach – but were are the “wild” beaches? We could not find, there was one expensive hotel after the other, with air condition, swimming pools and beach bars, wellness programs and plastic burning in the backyard. Entrance fee to the hotel beach for non-residents is about Eur 7,50.

We went to Sodom and Gomorrah again, some people recognized us, I bought some water from the girls and gave it to the workers, who use it to cool the hot metals.

A bunch of young men came running over the place, some of them had soccer balls and they started to play.

22. 1. Not a Waste Recycle Studio

2010-01-24T01:15:00.001-08:00

In the morning Manuel was fine, but quite weak and tired. I called John Owoo, an art journalist from Accra, recommended by Wendelin Schmidt. We met up at 2 p.m., and he brought us to an artist working with waste: Tei Mensah Huagie, founder and director of “Not a Waste Recycle Studio” (www.nawtei.com).

Here we found our “missing link”: an artist recycling plastic. We found our good old friend, the water bottle in installations and pictures, water sachets as clothes, bags, walls, but also flip flops as chairs and hats, as well as hammered corrugated iron and cables as sculptures. Tei is a witty fashion designer and sculptor, with many fresh ideas, like his work “Public Urinal”, a light wall construction, made out of painted PET bottles.

Tei is working a lot with students, he conducts workshops in recycling art and sells the products. This educates the young people not to throw away things on the streets, but see everything as potential materials for something new and collect it.

We wanted to buy everything in this plastic wonderland, but we are at our very limits now. I loved his installations and pictures, but his prices are near international level, so we could only afford some small works (bag made out of water sachets, 1 hat made of flip flops).

20. 1. Stuck

2010-01-24T01:14:00.000-08:00

Igor left early in the morning for his flight to Lagos. Stefan and me were sleeping on the roof top terrace of the Hostel, suddenly Manuel stood in front of us, he felt worse. This time we took a taxi to the best hospital in town, Western standard, located in the big, new Accra Mall.

Again paying, this time for blood tests and EKG. The doctor prescribed Aspirin and 3 days bed rest.

The shopping mall was a strange new world for us: what wonderful goods like real milk, yoghurt, butter, cheese, black bread, coffee, cakes, fruit – everything more expensive than in Austria, but what a paradise - unreachable for most of the people living here.

19. 1. Igor leaving

2010-01-24T01:13:00.000-08:00

Picking up Manuel from the hospital in the morning failed – he had to get another drip. Stefan went to buy him something for breakfast, a nurse accompanied him. Stefan asked for some vegetables, the shopkeeper and the nurse were shocked: vegetables for a sick man? No, you can´t do this!

At 3 p.m. we finally could take him to our hostel.

Money is running quickly – drips, injections, pills, taxis… "Heaven" is an empty box of matches on the streets, and real women use "Maggi".

It was Igor´s last day with us, so we went to the market and bought lots of vegetables, fruit and some wine. Then we cooked a nice meal and stayed up late. Igor gave Gansberger´s second antlers in a photographic ceremony to a Swedish couple, who are building a lodge out of mud (with wood construction) at the west coast. We will visit them at their “Desertrose Lodge” next time we come to Ghana.

18. 1. Sodom and Gomorrah

2010-01-20T12:43:00.000-08:00

At 2 p.m. we had an appointment with Mike Anane, and he brought us to the e-waste dump site. Sodom and Gomorrah is the name of the district, and it used to be the slums out of Accra, with high criminality. But in those times, it had green meadows, and the children were playing soccer there. So did Mike.

He goes there 3 times a week to talk to the people, make photographs and video testimonies, and collect waste with foreign labels. Mike looked a little bit like us, walking through the trash, collecting here and there.

Some of the electronic waste comes directly from the port – they check, if the devices work, and then bring them to this place. Other items go to small shops, the owners buy them and then find out, that they don´t work. They put them out on the street then, where people with carts come to collect and bring to this dump site. Here mostly children are working: they smash the devices and melt out the copper and lead. The smoke is extremely poisonous, lead makes people aggressive, thus causing fights. Many people there have serious scars everywhere. Most of all, the smoke causes cancer, and this children die early. They have diseases all the time.

They mostly have single mothers, who don´t know how to buy enough food to feed them, or buy school books. Most of them go to school in the morning, and work on the dump site all afternoon. The smoke is also bad for the brain, and most of them have very small bodies for their age, while their faces look older than they are. Children from all around come to Accra to work on this site, even from the neighbour countries, like Togo.

Girls work there to sell food or water, which is also used for cooling the metals.

We collected some dividends for our lucky shareholders, and the girls helping me to carry got some coins at the end – about 50 cents each, which is half of the daily income of the workers here.

On the way to the dump site, we noticed a green truck with the letters “RAS WASTE”, and “ADD JESUS TO YOUR LIFE”: the local disposal company of liquid manure. They empty their tanks directly into the sea, unfiltered. Mike told us, that he also was fighting against this practise, and that a new law against this is about to come.

When we came back, Manuel had 39,4 degrees fever, and we had to bring him to the hospital. “Mama” explained the driver where to go, and after about 2 km of driving, the taxi driver asked us, if we knew where to go. Then he continued driving. We stopped him, he asked other drivers, they showed in one direction and our driver went to another direction. We insisted to leave the taxi and asked people – there was a hospital around the corner, and we walked there. Manuel had to spend the night in the hospital – Malaria.

17. 1. Accra

2010-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

Browsing for a reasonably priced place, I found the description of the way to the cheap hostel we were looking for the other day. It took us more than an hour to find it, at the end a woman brought us there. Crystal Hostel is very well hidden, no signs, nothing. Quiet place with a big mango tree in the middle of the yard, we finally felt at home and safe. Manuel went to bed immediately, we called Mike Anane, a local journalist and activist, whose contact we got from the Austrian NGO “Südwind”: they made a documentation about a huge electro-waste site in Accra, where all the broken computers and electronic devices from Europe and the USA are disposed. About 80% of the second hand electronic devices sent to Ghana are completely useless, they end up at this dump site, where mostly children work to put out useful parts.

We told other guests about our project, and Julia, a Swedish woman, who builds a lodge on the country side in Ghana together with her boy friend, showed us a purse made out of woven plastic bags. There are some small NGOs on the countryside, who make different items out of waste.

16. 1. Fever

2010-01-20T12:41:00.001-08:00

In the morning Manuel felt really sick. After getting the final stamp, we passed the border and he lay down sleeping. The street to Accra was running through countless small villages, and it took us almost the whole day.

Accra is a fast growing city with about 2 million inhabitants. It looks like an American or European metropolis in its center: huge, modern architecture, theatres, parks. Everything looks nice and clean, almost no trash.

We asked a taxi driver to guide us to a hostel we found in the “Lonely Planet”, but the taxi driver did not know it and brought us to another place, but it was dirty and humid. Manuel had fever and refused.

At the internet café nearby we found a hostel run by the Methodist Church nearby. A taxi driver brought us there, but there was loud gospel music and we were supposed to put the truck out of the yard at 6 o´clock in the morning, because next day was Sunday.

We decided to eat first, then started to look for a place again. At a restaurant on the beach we asked an American tourist for reasonably priced accommodation, and he sent us to a “Rasta”-place. Manuel started hallucinating.

The “Rasta”-place was a posh tourist resort, somebody sent us further along the beach. At the end we found an expensive, posh Chinese hotel in the middle of the Favelas. Manuel got a room with air condition and felt better immediately. We spent the evening talking to the people around.

The sea we saw so far was all littered with these low-quality black plastic bags, which break at first use. I decided to start collecting this bags.

15. 1. Between the borders

2010-01-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

We got our visa immediately, and headed for the border. There we were told, that we needed a carnet, otherwise we had to pay the value of the truck as a guarantee, that we would not sell it in Ghana. They were talking about Eur 2.000,-, which we did not have.

Next round: from officer to officer, finding out, that it was also possible by making a bond. There were insurance companies doing this, and they charged Eur 100,- - still too much for our tight budget. Back to the first officer, asking if there are cheaper options. He sent us over the border to Ghana, there was a row of offices. We walked over the border like many other people, without even showing our passports.

On the other side, we found an office where they offered us to write a letter, telling that we are tourists and politely ask to enter the country with our truck and promise to bring the truck out of the country again. This sounded ridiculous, but we thought: ok, this is Africa – who knows. The man wrote the letter by hand on a paper, I typed it into the computer, and then we went to an official decorated with 4 stars, who signed and stamped the letter. Then back to the other officer, who asked: “But where is the bond?” So back to the beginning: what is a bond, what does it have to look like? Over the border again, back to the office. They asked us to wait. Then back to Togo, we went to the 4-star officer and asked what we could do and why it did not work. He made a phone call and sent us back to the first place.

In the late afternoon, the officer there brought us a man from an insurance company, which would charge a correct price. Back to Ghana, filling in forms, and then: Eur 50,-. With the guy back the officer, we asked, why it was so expensive. The officer started to shout at the insurance guy and told him, that it was Eur 25,- - an amount we were happy to accept.

Then back to the waiting room, the man were running around with forms, and about 1 hour later it was – almost – done: They phoned a man who was at home already back to the office, he signed and stamped, and then it turned out, that a signature of the chief officer was necessary, and he was gone already.

It was dark, and we had to spend the night between the borders. The guard told us to please move the truck to another parking place, because at night there might be some shadows of people jumping over the walls, and then he has to shoot.

The parking lot was filled with rusted cars, which were confiscated because of fake number plates.

The area between the borders was an interesting place: usually, these places were already indicated from far by lots of trash. Here it was the opposite: dustbins everywhere, and posters with “Keep your environment clean”. I threw a banana peel on the ground, and immediately somebody came and showed me the dustbin.

I only found a few water sachets, and one big fence with black plastic bags all over. Taking photos was not allowed, and we did not render for more trouble.

14. 1. Togo

2010-01-20T12:35:00.000-08:00

Going to the embassy early, lots of people. 4 passport photos obligatory, we went out to make photos. After some hours waiting and filling out forms, we were told to come back the next day.

Some German guy we met there explained us how to get to a nice place to stay, run by a Swiss lady: “Chez Alice”. It was close to the beach, a little bit out of Lomé: clean, beautiful and cheap, with brilliant internet connection. They serve Swiss food (“Rösti”), also vegetarian stuff, and they have their home-made ice tea out of a local plant. Lots of dogs around, playing; cats, some monkeys; old style African furniture, masks on the wall. Gert Chesi, the famous Austrian photographer and director of the "Haus der Völker" in Schwaz, Tyrol, usually stays there, Alice showed us his books. We enjoyed the first newspapers since long, good food and friendly atmosphere.

Igor explored Lomé, I felt sick and went to bed early.

13. 1. Leaving for Ghana

2010-01-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

Our travelling guide says, that you can take a bus from Cotonou to Accra, and arrive the same day. We packed our truck and started around noon.

Before crossing the border to Togo, Manuel wanted to visit a friend, who has a lodge on the seaside. His wife told us, that he was arrested, because he had borrowed his car to a relative who commited a crime, and they found him as the owner of the car. We collected some dividends for our shareholders on the beach and back on the road.

The border to Togo was easy, we got our visa immediately, and wanted to spend the night around Lomé (capital of Togo). Looking for a good place to stay, we suddenly were on the border to Ghana. The sun went down, and the border was really busy: people packed with lots of stuff, discussing, shouting, negociating. We went out to get visa – inshallah -, but were sent back: no more visa at the border, we had to apply at the embassy in Lomé.

Back to Togo, we had the departure-stamp in our passports already. It was dark, and still no place to stay. Hungry we went into a Chinese restaurant to eat, and asked if we could sleep next to their entrance and guardian, so we were protected for the night.

11. 1. Cotonou Trash Art and "Alibert Voodoo"

2010-01-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

Maryam and Joachim had to leave for Lagos. The rest of us finally wanted to leave Cotonou for Ghana. Before this, we decided to apply for visa for Nigeria, as we all have flights out of Lagos, and the officer at the Nigerian embassy in Cotonou gave Maryam and Joachim visa without asking for bribes (which really surprised them after their border experience).

Arriving at the embassy, they were out of application forms and asked us to go and make copies, but some more for their further use. Then we had an interview to prove, that we “deserve to go to that wonderful country”: Why we wanted to go there, what we think about Nigeria, what we know about it? And then the officer said, we better go back to Vienna to apply, here it is no business for him to treat our asses. We did not have money for bribes, so he only “could give” us visa for 7 days (in the form it said 1 month), which was ok with us anyway.

After this performance, Igor, Stefan and I went to ASTON, an artist living at the beginning of Haye Vive, the posh restaurant and boutique-area of Cotonou. We had passed the house several times, admiring the huge trash metal giraffe and guitar player on the roof. His phone number was written on the wall next to his door, so we had made an appointment with him for 2 p.m.

Aston was there, and he introduced us to his universe of finest trash: all walls, and even the ceiling were covered with artworks and installations. Out of a big box, he conjured up one installation after the other, like the “politichiens” - politicians are like “chiens” (dogs), when they get their food, they don´t let anybody else to their bowl.

His roof top terrace is covered with assorted trash, most of the work he is doing there. If he specialises in certain kinds of waste? “No, I am collecting everything”.

Aston is musician, so his favourite materials and topics are connected with music: a man made of headphones, guitar players and saxophone players made out of computer parts and small speakers… His “star”, however, are used toothbrushes: he is using them everywhere - as joints, feathers, whole environments…

We fell in love with some of his works and bought them for the exhibition.

After a short meal, we called the trash artists we met at the voodoo festival in Ouidah. They told the zemidjan-driver how to get to their place.

With our rich booty from Aston in our hands, and the “Alibert” (small mirrored bathroom cabinet) our colleague Markus Wilfling gave us for our truck´s “bathroom”, we were sitting on the mopeds and went high speed out of the city to the suburbs. Markus is collecting “Aliberts” and uses them for his artwork. He bought us one, and we had to promise to stage a “voodoo”-ceremony with it. The artists with their voodoo masks were the right address to do this.

They picked us up on the main street and brought us to their house. On the way, they had a huge trash sculpture in the public space. We got a warm welcome, some “Sodabi” (local spirits), and I was dizzy immediately. After explaining our “Alibert”-project, they brought their masks and candles, Igor brought the stag´s antlers, that our colleagues Markus and Max Gansberger gave us as talisman in order to find a good new place for it. After arranging masks, candles, and the “Jägermeister” (an Austrian spirit with antlers on the label), they started to play drums, and we joined them, drumming on different objects and chanting. All around in the neighbourhood people were singing, drumming, laughing, we started to dance, and Igor made the photos promised to Markus.

The artists explained their masks, and we chose to buy one containing a water bottle: it was made out of materials from a burned house, the water bottle means something like “drink out of the bottle and be ready to die”. It comes from the time of slavery – when it became too much for the slaves, they were “drinking out of the bottle”, and it gave them incredible strengths.

Before leaving, they made a protection ritual for us in their “Mami Wata” house shrine. Our travels will be safe.

10. 1. Voodoo Festival in Ouidah

2010-01-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

January 10th is the worldwide "Day of Voodoo", and there are festivals everywhere in the country. One big international voodoo festival is every year on a different place in Benin.

We went to Ouidah, a place on the beach where slaves used to be shipped abroad. There is a huge "Gate of no return".

Out of the car, we saw some wonderful voodoo masks made out of trash. They hung on the public toilet to be sold, and the artists were beside. We asked for their phone numbers and decided to visit them the next day in Cotonou.

9. 1. Voodoo Festival of the King of Allada

2010-01-14T17:04:00.000-08:00

What would voodoo trash look like? We went to the annual big voodoo festival of the King of Alladah, a small village near Cotonou. This king is at the moment head of all Benin Kings, he is mostly living in Germany and studied at the Sorbonne.

The festival was ecstatic. After the official speaches, a woman took a chicken that was walking there to pick some corn, bit its neck and swallowed it slowly.

The feathers were collected carefully, we could only find one at the end of the festival. Joachim found a water sachet, saying "Jesus", but trash-wise this was no real success: everything was perfectly cleaned up.

8. 1. Waste disposal site of the City of Porto Novo, Benin

2010-01-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Starting early in the morning to find the big waste disposal site the German guy in the beach bar had talked about. We went out of Cotonou direction Porto Novo, the capital of Benin and looked for waste. There was only the usual amount of garbage around, no big deal. We could not find anything, and then we arrived in Porto Novo. What to do?

After a drink, we asked a zemidjan-driver, if there was aluminium-recycling here. We had heard before, that all the waste metal in Benin goes to Porto Novo for recycling. The zemidjan driver brought us to some small booths, where people offered the pots we knew so well for sale. This was not enough, so we asked for the city´s waste disposal site.

The zemidjan brought us to a small place in the middle of a residential area, with the sign saying, that the site belonged to the City of Porto Novo.

A school class with teacher was standing on the other side, and suddenly somebody started to burn the trash. All of a sudden, we were in the middle of smoke, and on a place nearby the same thing seemed to happen.

We went to the teacher to ask, what he was doing there, and he told, that he was educating the children about waste and hygiene: Waste should not be near the house but brought to a dump site and burned or buried. The teacher was talking, and the children listened carefully and wrote on their blackboards. Stefan made an interview, and we exchanged email-addresses.

The man who burned the waste was paid by the City of Porto Novo to care for the waste, burning is the usual practice. There were lots of houses and people living in the neighborhood.

Porto Novo has about 250.000 inhabitants, divided into districts. Each of them has their own dump site, but there was still too much waste on the streets: many people prefer to simply throw their waste out to the streets instead of bringing it to the dump site or paying the people who collect it with their carts and bring it there.

We found some nice dividends for our shareholders, one of it was a water bottle re-used for traditional medication. It has the package insert glued on it, typed with typewriter.

FOTOS t.o.y.s.-team

2010-01-14T15:59:00.000-08:00

maryam durchbricht die rauchmauer..

voller einsatz mit material und körper
stefan hat wieder sicht..

die beste position zum fotografieren ist nicht die gesündeste..

t.o.y.s. on tour TEAM: stefan, maryam, igore, eva, joachim, manuel

FOTOSTORY - burntrash and the childs of porto novo -

2010-01-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

our simidjan-guide broght us to the right place:
the official dump site of a district of porto-novo / benin
(sheeps and goats, our old trashy friends.)

children pass by with short disturbance of everydays air pollution..

ibrahim - lives as a neighbour and gardian of the dump site. he regularly burnes the waste down, no matter what it contains..

"it´s my job to clean up this area and before the pest comes to us, i burn it down, whatever it is.."

ibrahim, 52.
(is there any connnection between voodoo and waste, i ask myself once again)

wastefire vs. burntrash in the palm grove..

..meanwhile..

..a schoolclass in the background is learning about botany, ecology, sustainability, and how not to deal with waste..

"don´t burn trash!"

"the air pollution harms you and all the people around you!" underlines the teacher.

but they burn..
..and burn..
..and burn all the waste, not knowing about the value and the toxic of it..

ibrahim is going home to watch his granddoughter playing with plastik toys from china.
..till the job is finished and the waste gone with the wind.

but:

there are a lot of possibilities to make jobs, make money, make sustainable developments for the society - out of trash of your society. the lack of information transFair to these people is leaving them not knowing better. the lack of financial transFair is not even offering alternatives.
we where the first speaking with this people about the global value of waste.
so there is a lot of potential for T.O.Y.S. company limited by waste to develope an ongoing global business with secondary raw material from africa.
our sustainable trash stocks are still available.
invest in global fairness for global waste.

for the better future..

7. 1. Temple Voodoun de la lumière

2010-01-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

Joachim and Maryam were sick, they stayed in their room all day. Igor asked for Manuel´s moped to make his own trash research in town.

We wanted to get an invitation to the Voodoo festival of the King of Allada, so Manuel, Stefan and me were going to visit prince Bokpe at his Voodoo Temple of Light. We waited in a room decorated with photographs showing the prince with different politicians, e.g. Bundeskanzler Schröder of Germany.

The prince was not there, but his mother gave us a warm welcome and made a voodoo ceremony of protection for us. After water, cola nut, local schnaps and coca cola we felt a bit dizzy and went to a beach bar nearby to have a drink. The place was owned by a woman from Switzerland, and there were some European guests. A man from Germany told us about a big dump site out of Cotonou, on the way to Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. About 20 people were living there. We had our plan for the next day.

FOTOS dividenden cotonou / port novo

2010-01-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

(westliche) schablonen am müll in port novo
(eine metapher auf so manche denkmodelle, die ich in afrika deponieren mußte..)

chinese yellow turbokapitalism plastic trash

no bills without electronic calculators!

coffee with milk ensemble
(only nestle-cafe in these coffee protucing countries)

epperle: big impact on small pupils

joachim and eva always on the topic

FOTOS cotonou II

2010-01-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

street business as usual..

trashziege: die wohl verbreitetsten müllverwerter und -käuer

staatspropaganda-schild zur verschönerung der umwelt (gerade auch im hinblick auf tourismus)

cotonou: das bad am ende des städtischen kanales

strandkakteen - als ob sie vom trashman of africa geschmückt wurden

uferzonen: allerorts ansammlungen von müll (der nächste regen trägt´s schon weg..)
trashgoats

places "inbetween" - filled with trash

every not used place is instantly turned into a dump site

trash: colourful, not in use anymore, not organic, chaotic system, strange to see (others trash)..

dividende: plastikhaare - das schönheits statussymbol in westafrika

5. 1. Oxfam Quebec

2010-01-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

Jaqueline of Oxfam Quebec brought us to a place nearby, where they had a hut filled with different kinds of waste: mostly plastic and glass bottles, aluminium cans, but also newspapers. Young women were sitting in front of it, eating or cleaning bottles. We waited for the woman, who would take us with her on her tour.

Celestine arrived, with a big, empty basket on her head. She was one of the “Women of the Quarter”, who come regularly to collect all bottles from the households.

Celestine walked around with her basket on her head, shouting"Bouteille!" Then she waited in front of some gates, until somebody came out with bottles, and Celestine BOUGHT them. This was our first complete twist: People come to the houses and buy waste! This specific area was rich – diplomats, embassies, villas -, so the domestic servants sold the household waste for an extra income. Later on, we saw women with bottles everywhere in town, even on our hotel on the beach.

After her tour, Celestine´s basket was well filled, and she came back to the storage. Here the bottles were cleaned and separated, and when the quantity is big enough, she would walk 3 km in the boiling heat to the big market in the center of town to sell their collected goods to her certain person.

They buy PET-bottles for 15 cfa (about 1,5 cent) each, and sell them for 25 cfa.

We went to the market – but we did it by “zemidjan”, the moped taxies, which is no option for the collecting women - they need space for their bottles. They also can´t take a car taxi, because this would be far too expensive. They have to walk.

On the market, we were introduced to the president of the association, a quite old, tough lady and nice grandma, who only talked Fon, which made communication complicated. She was elected by the women working there, but she also had to be accepted by the commission running the whole market.

We decided to come back later for an interview.

http://oxfam.qc.ca/

4. 1. Embassy and Research

2010-01-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

Morning starts with going to get visa for Benin at the Benin Embassy. We all had only transit visa for 48 hours, so we had to extend. Application was quickly, but they had to keep our passports until the next day. Joachim was happy about the trash dividends he found in the dustbins of the embassy.

Then money exchange, which is not possible without passport. Fortunately, we had Monique with us, so she could do it for us. The problem was, that as a local woman, she only could change a maximum of Eur 1.000,- at a time. After a long, long time of waiting, each of us finally got our exchange money for Eur 200,- each.

Manuel got the contact of a woman from Germany, who spent the last 20 years in Cotonou, works at the German Embassy, runs a small boutique – and is supposed to be somehow involved into recycling.

The address was near the Brasserie, where Manuel´s girl friend is working, next doors we found a nice internet café, run by a woman from Morocco. We went to the boutique, and waited until it opened.

Carola Kipp was the right contact for us. She came to Benin as a social worker, and soon got involved into waste management projects. She told us, that the city of Benin had bought a large piece of land in the swamps around Cotonou, and all the waste was put 1 m under the earth, one line after the other. That there was a project making compost out of organic waste, because it was not easy to get good soil for gardening. And she mentioned the women´s project we had found on Sunday – the headquarter was in the same street as the boutique. We went there, and the Canadian boss was in the middle of a meeting, but handed us over to a young woman – Jaqueline -, who told us to come at 9 a.m. the next day, she would show us everything.

3. 1. Cotonou go slow

2010-01-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

In the morning we went to the Benin embassy to prolong the transit visa we got on the border. Then eating and go to a German woman somebody had recommanded to Manuel. She works at the German embassy, runs a boutique and does a lot of comunity work. Carola Kipp has been in Cotonou for 20 years, and she knows everything about trash here.

She told us, that the headquarter of the women´s cooperative we discovered in the market the day before was just a few hundred meters down the street. We went there, and got a friendly welcome by the canadian director.

Oxfam Quebec is a Canadian organization, who supports and organises different projects in Cotonou. The director handed us over to Jaqueline, who made an appointment to meet up next morning a 9 a.m. to got with the women who collect empty bottles in the quarter.

Meanwhile, Joachim had almost 50 different empty plastic water sacks in his collection. He puts everything on his excel list and analyses the different names, dates and symbols on them. This will be wonderful dividends for one of our lucky shareholders.

FOTOS oxfam quebec

2010-01-05T12:35:00.000-08:00

FOTOS plastikflaschen sammlerinnen

2010-01-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

FOTOS cotonou grand marche

2010-01-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

dividenden

grand marche

2. 1. Cotonou exploration

2010-01-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

Still holiday feeling, but we had to go out to explore urgently. Joachim found a new item worth collecting: plastic water bags, which exist all along the beach and actually everywhere, so it was easy to find about 30 different types within an hour, saying things like: Don du Dieu, Jesus t´aime, Omi Tutu, Al Moubarak, Excellence, Princesse… We saw big tableaux growing for the exhibition in our minds.
Then to the beach restaurant to bring our donation from “Parkhouse” in Graz: 15 white plastic chairs. The restaurant was crowded with guests, but for the chairs there were immediately 3 people available to clean and put them around the tables. It was a celebration.
After unloading the chairs, we went to the city center to explore the huge market.
I went with Maryam and Joachim, while Stefan and Igor stayed together.
Along the bay, which borders the market, there are piles of trash again, but nothing real attractive for collecting – the area serves as public toilet as well. We took lots of pictures, and after a short talk everybody was really friendly and nice.
Before it got dark, we found a women´s cooperative recycling plastic and glass bottles, and we made an appointment to come back on Monday for photos and interviews.

1. 1. Rest

2010-01-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

Discussing plans for the next weeks all morning. Joachim and Maryam had raised their own budget for their part of the project, and they only stayed 2 weeks, so they were fine. We have serious financial problems: we can afford to stay on a cheap place until we fly back with our private money, but as soon as we want to work, we need more. Most of all, we can not afford going to Lagos – visa, fees and bribes make it too expensive.

Maryam and Joachim landed in Lagos and stayed there 3 days of trash research already. Maryam had hundreds of photos, showing real impressive waste heaps.

Crossing the border to Benin had cost them Eur 100,- each – it was an adventurous story of arbitrariness and corruption. For them, Cotonou was the low-cost paradise, while for us, coming from the other side and different stories, it suddenly was really expensive: we can´t live in the truck anymore, it had to be parked safely and protected, so we have to pay a hotel room for Eur 30,-/night.

We tuned in to Cotonou slowly, next days will be garbage-rich again. Finally.

31. 12. The big reunion

2010-01-03T14:34:00.001-08:00

Heading for Cotonou through a country of grey skies, burnt soil and smoke, sometimes a bit of the fresh green in between. My throat hurt, I did not want to talk anymore.

Then finally Cotonou: crazy traffic, then off road along the beach and finally - it was almost 8 p.m. – a warm welcome by Maryam and Joachim at the Auberge au Large. We had made it – our Tour team was complete now.

Monique, a restaurant owner nearby, invited us to eat at her place directly on the beach. The wind brought clean air from the sea, and suddenly my voice was 1 octave lower.

At midnight we jumped into the rough waves of the Atlantic ocean.

30. 12. Benin burning

2010-01-03T14:29:00.001-08:00

The children woke up a bit later than we did. They simply stood there staring at us. I said “hello”, took a few photos and showed them, they smiled. Then on to Benin.

Border in the heat of noon, almost no water. The border official shouted at Manuel. A nun, who went from Africa to Europe without visa, was sent back in handcuffs recently. A nun! Who are we to think, that we can simply come here without visa and cross the border? Go back to Ouagadougou and apply for a visa at the Benin embassy!

Manuel showed the stamp from his entry last April: he always does it this way, it never was a problem before. You get a transit visa for 48 hours, and then prolong it at the embassy in Cotonou. “No way, go back to Ouagadougou, immediately!”

A woman in uniform was sitting in the corner, nodding, and another officer looked grim. Manuel told, that his girl friend was waiting to see him in Cotonou on New Year´s Eve. This did not impress them at all. What is his girl friend doing there? Manuel told them, that she is from Cotonou, then took his mobile phone and said, that he would call her now, and they could ask her. He tried, but she did not answer. What the hell did I want to do in Benin, he asked me. Tourist? Not really - we have many Africans in Austria, and I want to understand them better. The women waved me to her: “What would you think about marrying an African man?” – “Basically – why not?” “I like you”, she said, pointing at the other officer: “This is my brother – would you marry him?” “Many Austrian women marry African men, so basically…”

Everybody started to laugh. They offered us apples and watermelons, we were eating and joking, exchanging phone numbers, and after a warm good bye we were on the road again.

Driving through a country of smoke for hours and hours. Everywhere people are burning the grass and bushes to get new and fresh green, they burn their trash, there are fires for cooking… The sky was always grey, and every now and then you could see billows of smoke from far and near.

The night it became worse, we were driving through a burning country. We were driving until we found a place where we could breath a bit and fell asleep exhausted.

29. 12. Ouagadougou pass through

2010-01-03T14:26:00.001-08:00

Feeling real bad in the morning. In Ouagadougou we were looking for a camping site mentioned in our travelling guide. After a long time searching, a moped driver led us to a huge, empty space. The buildings there had no roof, and the owner apologized for having neither water nor electricity. The site was actually closed down.

I insisted for immediate truck repair, and the owner of the camping site brought us to a place around the corner, where they fixed the hole in the exhaust within half an hour for almost no money.

Then internet café and phone, linking with our Ouagadougou contact Günther, a Viennese who works there for UNESCO. Stefan and I had met his wife Petra in Ruanda last year. My beloved colleague Mihael Milunovic was also supposed to be in Ouaga, but I was too weak to do anything. At the end Manuel and Stefan insisted to continue for Benin, and it had some logic: the rest of our Trash on Tour team, Joachim Hainzl and Maryam Mohammadi were waiting for us in Cotonou, Benin on December 31^st, and Manuel wanted to be there for his girl friend to celebrate New Year´s Eve together. Good reasons, but the very bad feeling to skip an interesting country.

People here behaved really different from Mali. Nobody asked for money or presents, taking photos was no big deal. The country is even poorer, but there is a well-paved street (called “highway”) running through, most of the people seemed to have bicycles, we saw many green fields…

At night we stopped near a village and asked a farmer, if we could stay on his land.

FOTOS burkina faso / ouagadougou

2010-01-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

dividenden

eva in action
mindestens 3 liter wasser (manchmal auch aus plastiksackerl)
neue wertigkeiten von plastikflaschen

staatspropaganda gegen kinderarbeit!
taxi brus

taxi brus mit hühnern am dach

FOTOS out of dogon & afrique ARBÖ

2010-01-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

abschiedsfoto in gimini
abschlepphilfe auf afrikanisch

28. 12. The long ride through Burkina Faso

2010-01-03T14:23:00.001-08:00

On to Burkina Faso. Crossing the border in the early afternoon, very easy going. We stopped in one of the villages for some cold drinks, and I stumbled into a shop where they sold cars and motorbikes out of cans. I fell in love with a Kawasaki bike out of an insect spray can, and I bought it. In front of the food shop, children were collecting plastic bottles.

Going on, Stefan complained about the smell of diesel in our “living room” and closed the window. I fell asleep to wake up feeling real sick: headache, stomach, limbs hurt.

At night we stopped on a field 50 km from Ouagadougou.

27. 12. Mamadou in Guimini

2010-01-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

In Bamako we started to notice, that our plastic water bottles (PET- or Polyethylenterephthalat bottles) were items of value. Our “mama”, who cooked the best food around, used old bottles for her ginger and hibiscus juices. In Mopti you could buy used plastic and glass bottles on the market (for me as tourist for 100 CFA), and they were valuable presents for children. Giving a PET-bottle to children caused serious fights. Since then, we have often been asked for our water bottles, and we started to store them more carefully to give away. We are causing plastic waste in rural Africa. On the other hand, we could be sure, that people here would use them as long as they functioned, and it made their life a bit easier: the bottles are light, they keep the water, and they can be closed easily. They are simply the most efficient storing system for liquids.

Igor explored the Guimini alone early in the morning, and he met an old man who wanted to sell him a wooden mask. Igor started to bargain it for PET-bottles, and he would have got it for 20 bottles.

Stefan, Manuel and I went with Mamadou, who introduced us to the different religious communities: there are Christians, who were drumming last night because of Christmas, there are Moslems, who like to join the festivities of the Christians, because it is always nice to celebrate (and vice versa). And he showed us some of the old, animist cult places, the forbidden areas only certain people are supposed to enter, told us about old prophecies about the new culture to come. He found, it was really important for his people to keep all the old stories (and write them down), but at the same time find their way to the new millennium.

Mamadou turned out to be only 18 years old, and he was about to study mathematics and chemistry in Mopti. Over his door, he had mathematic formulas written, and in his room there were heaps of books.

We asked, why people here were so much friendlier than in Sanga, and did not ask for “cadeaus” all the time. Well – almost no tourists stopped here, only a few passed by from time to time. The village was really remote, with only a few old rock habitations, there were no structures for tourists at all: no hotel, no restaurant, not even a shop. We had found the place we were looking for: what happens to the trash far away from our “civilisation”?

In an interview with Mamadou we found out, that the women collect all the trash one time in the month to put it inside a huge hollow baobab tree. There it turned into humus for the fields. “And what happens to the plastic?” – “There is no plastic”.

About the plastic and paper waste we saw here and there, he said, that it was brought by tourists. It was only a few pieces, and some of our shareholders get nice dividends from a village, that is a bit cleaner now – at least we hope so, because the children were waiting for us to empty our waterbottles, which ended in a battle as usual.

Before we left, I gave the cap I bought in Thailand for my “Asiatopia”-performance with Doris Jauk-Hinz to a man who accompanied us the whole day, and he gave me a carved crocodile – the holy animal of the Dogon.

Mamadou went with us to show us the way out. Driving slowly up the huge sand dune, after about 5 km of driving it became clear, that it was impossible to make it: the sand was too deep and soft, it was really steep. After a surprisingly long backside-debate, we were definitely stuck. It was clear, that we had to go back, but where to go then? It had been possible to go DOWN the sand dune, but up? While still discussing, about 30 people - children and adults came running out of nowhere, and started to cut branches from the bushes to build a track of green leaves on the red desert sand. Then they pushed us up to the top of the dune – our truck of 11 tons! We had no more presents, so they got the rest of our plastic bottle prototypes (big battle again), and about 15.000,- CFA (approx. Eur 25,-). Their routine with this task showed, that it must be a big part of their income.

Survival in Dogon country is quite a task: sometimes it does not rain for a year, and then nothing grows, the animals die, people have no food. We saw wells built by the Chinese, and wells built by GTZ (Gesellschaft Technische Zusammenarbeit, Germany), as well as wells by different US-organisations.

In the late afternoon we arrived at the beginning of the corrugated iron road safely and said “good bye” to the Falaise.

26. 12. Falaise de Bandiagara

2010-01-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

After a rich breakfast in our slow gourmet restaurant we started late, because all the ingredients had to be bought, and as there was no bread available in the village, the owner baked us some baguettes. Then down over stones and rocks, slow speed. Endless driving, amazing views. Breathtaking landscapes made up for the extreme shaking in the back of the truck. Sometimes we got out to walk a little bit. Wherever we stopped, we were immediately surrounded by children coming out of nowhere. Some shot us fruits from a Baobab.

We stopped in Banani, and Stefan and Igor followed the voices of women. They landed in a courtyard, were old women were dancing around a women holding a small plastic sack filled with gin, laughing, singing, drumming. At least here the women knew how to have fun.

After hours of driving between the rock and a huge sand dune, from time to time passing tiny clay house villages on the foot of the Falaise, we met some Germans, who work in Abuja. They were driving over the sand dune from the other side, and we discussed the route.

Stopping for coke, we saw some wooden gods, seemingly lying in the trash – well, they just were “young” gods put out to the sun for ageing. There was almost no trash around.

Looking for a quiet place to sleep, we drove up the sand dune - deserts are quiet places. Stopping at a breathtaking gorge separating the Falaise from the dune, we heard very distant voices from up the rock on the other side. In almost no time, a big group of children approached, running down from the rock and up the huge dune and asked us for “cadeau, argent, chemise”. We continued to look for a quiet place, but wherever we stopped, and however lonely it looked, we were discovered and surrounded quickly.

At the end, we decided to go down the sand dune back to the Falaise again. Around dawn, we arrived in a small village called Guimini, and stopped at the village green. Surrounded by children, we started to play with them. A 1 year old Suleyman wanted to be in our truck and we let him sit inside. When his father took him away, he cried desperately. Then Manuel asked for a person, who is responsible for the village, and he was brought to one of the elders. We asked, if we could spend the night under the big tree at the village green, and he welcomed us. His son Mamadou came to the truck and we invited him for our instant ramen. He offered to show us around his village the next day.

25. 12. Entering Dogon country: Sanga

2010-01-03T14:05:00.001-08:00

Waking up, our truck was surrounded by children already. Women, children, men were carrying water from the village well, some had carts, a few even had donkeys. Women from the Dogon villages walk 15 km bringing their firewood to exchange it for food.
Our host offered to go with us Sanga, because there was no paved street going there, and he knew a very nice way.
Dogon country is an attraction for 4-wheel-drive luxury tourists. You only can only get there on mud roads, the villages are simple, there is no electricity. In the bigger villages they have a few tourist hotels with generators, the water for the showers is brought from the village well on donkey carts and poured into the sanitary system. Usually, it takes a lot of money and time to get there to explore the ancient rock habitations of the Dogons and Telem.
Sanga is one of the starting points to the Falaise de Bandiagara, the 140 km long rock, 250-300 high, with ancient habitations everywhere high in the rock, even in overhanging areas. The mud road from Sanga to Banani leads from the upper side of the rock to its bottom, from where you can climb to some of the habitations.
On the way to Sanga, we passed small villages with a small belt of green fields around. A dam built by US-Aid makes it possible.
We stopped on a beautiful rock formation, and immediately children appeared, shouting in a quite demanding way: “Hello, money!”
In the early afternoon we arrived Sanga: wonderful old trees, beautiful clay buildings, we were impressed. Children were running towards us as usual, shouting “cadeau” (present), “argent” (money) and “chemise” (shirt). Whenever we wanted to take a picture, they shouted “No! – This is not allowed!”
At the entrance of the expensive hotel on the top of the hill we found instructions, how to behave: only explore the village with a guide, there are many restricted areas, the authorized guides would tell. Never take children as guides, or give them money or presents. Give things to the teacher or the elders of the village, they will distribute.
I went out to take pix of the trees, surrounded by shouting children. Then looking for the market, which was on another hill over the creek. Some children followed, children and adults asked for money all time.
The market was small, as usual women working, selling mostly food. Immediately I was surrounded by women, who wanted to sell their indigo cloth really urgently. I bought some mangoes, grinded peanuts, bakery - everything had the price of 500,- CFA (approx. Eur 1,-), but it made the women smile, and people started to leave me alone.
The market place was quite clean, with some trash on the fringes, mostly organic. Here I found a broken plastic bucket, coloured blue and yellow like many plastic items you find here, so I had to take it as a dividend for one of our lucky shareholders. Suddenly all the friendly women warned me and said, that I should not take this, this is not good! It is waste, dirty and broken, don´t take it.
Happy about my finding I walked back to the other hill, on the foot of it there was supposed to be a festival of traditional music starting soon. We had the appointment to meet in the cheap hotel next to the festival site, Manuel would bring the truck there as well. New children followed me, I tried to ignore them. They touched me and my broken bucket. “Tranquille, tranquille!”, I said (calm down).
I collected some more trash, so they started to collect trash for me, hoping for “argent”. I did not want to make this business, keeping in mind, that you should not take the services of children. They collect more money from their tourist hustling than their hard working parents earn in a month, and then they lose respect of them, their teachers, the elders… So no, thank you, and “tranquille!”
Walking side by side, one of the girls started to hum a melody, and then another one started to drum on a rusty metal pot she had collected for me, and I joined them drumming on my bucket. It was a wonderful band.
Suddenly we were out of the village, and I was lost. I asked the children for the festival site, they did not know of a festival. I asked old people, young people, nobody knew. A boy approached me, introduced himself as a “guide”, I said I just would like to know the way to the festival site. He waved to the left and said, that it is not possible for me to go there, because it is forbidden - I can only go there, when I pay him to go with me. Many (local) adults were walking the ways, so I did not believe him, said good bye and walked in the direction he had shown before, followed by my crowd of approximately 7 children, humming and drumming. I entered a clay village structure with tight paths between the houses, sometimes opening to small squares where mostly men were sitting and talking (the women worked out on the fields). They looked at me in surprise, but answered when I greeted. Many houses were open, and all the time some of my children were shouting: “Don´t take a photograph”. The drumming girl then gestured them to be quiet: “tranquille, tranquille!”, and told me, that I can take photographs. These are not my favourite conditions to take pictures, so I decided to switch off the cam and simply walk through the village, look and enjoy.
On the other side, I recognized the place, and in some distance I spotted our truck. The sun went down already, and I happily walked into the hotel. The children stayed out, our song was over. I decided to buy the metal pot drum from the girl for a few coins, why should it always be the men who win in this hustling business. And we were a band by now anyhow.
The owner of the hotel told me, that the other were at the festival and showed me the direction. Back out of the quiet refuge, children behind me, but after a few meters Manuel and Stefan came and described, what was going on there: a few drummers, not too good, some dancers, and some (white) tourists with their guides as audience. Entrance was Eur 6,-, so we decided to eat. While we were talking, the children kept trying to sell their trash to Manuel and Stefan.
The menu of the simple hotel was surprisingly rich. After an hour waiting for the food, Manuel looked into the kitchen: the owner was standing there with a torch tucked under his arm, cutting vegetables. Satisfied we waited another hour or two, and then he served us the best meal we´ve had for a long time.
After eating, Igor and I wanted to have another look at the festival, but it was over. New children followed us, and Igor started to chant with them. Mali is the country of music.

FOTOS dogon gimini

2010-01-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

gimini - das dorf ohne müll..

bauschutt in gimini

FOTOS am weg ins land der dogon

2010-01-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

gummifetische und ritualfiguren
von kindern verkauft

deponia pia

rund um marktplätze

dividende "gin kick im sackerl"

24. 12. On the way to Dogon country

2009-12-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

Manuel went with Stefan to film the mechanics and local recycling metalworkers. There are not so many in Mopti.

I went with Igor to take care of the trash in the streets, but this time I felt a bit sick. Mopti is on islands between the rivers Niger and Bani, who meet there. Around the city there are huge swamps. The city itself is quite touristic and clean, only a few broken ceramic vessels, but as soon as you leave the main streets, you find mountains of trash along the riverbanks and in the swamps. Children are playing there, men build their pirogues, women are cooking and everybody tells us not to take the trash, it is not healthy. Again we found a lot of playing cards, the rest was quite nasty (dead fish, animal skins, plastic…)

On the bridge to the mosque an older woman was sitting between assorted plastic and glass bottles, obviously to sell. She did not want me to take a photograph, so I bought one of the bottles for 100 CFA (approx. 15,- cent) – another dividend for one of our lucky shareholders. The woman smiled satisfied.

Around 4 p.m. we left Mopti to head for the Dogon country. At 6:30 p.m. – oops, we found out, it really is Christmas Eve. We kept driving into the sunset, and arrived at Djeme´s relatives when it got dark. They welcomed us warmly, and we were sitting in front of the house eating with the men, while the 3 wives stayed in the courtyard.

23. 12. Mopti

2009-12-29T06:32:00.000-08:00

Yapas Probleme Hotel: spacey, high standard hotel with swimming pool and roof top terrace restaurant, for people with small budget they offer mattresses and mosquito nets on a quiet part of the roof for a low price. 2 of us took mattresses, 2 stayed in the truck, which therefore could stay safely at the watched parking lot of the hotel. We could use the power plugs on the terrace and on the swimming pool, toilets and showers, and there was a fast wifi (for an extra of Eur 3,- for all of us for the whole time of the stay). Chill out and cool down.

Stefan cleaned up our truck, and the women washing cloth outside asked to have a look into our “home”. After the first amazement, they started to laugh, sing and dance in our small “living room” – there ARE Europeans, who can live in such small and simple spaces!

Our devices start to break down, too much dust, shaking and heat. My camera gets problems with storing, and the lens doesn´t always function properly. Igor´s zoom stopped to work properly 1 week ago.

At the beginning I was shooting like crazy, you never know what´s on the picture when the truck is shaking. Now I am happy about anything I get at all.

Manuel has a friend in Mopti, Djeme, who runs an antique shop with beautiful masks, chairs and jewels. His shop is in the big central market hall, so time for us to finally go to the market with our trash.

The original plan was to bargain with people to find out, how much they would buy for our trash, and then give it to them for free, in case they were interested. But now it was serious: we really need money!

Djeme helped us to get in contact with people who might be interested in some of the tools we brought to give away to metalworkers, and some of the better trash donated by friends.

After hours of sitting and bargaining, a group of people came to our Steyr, and Stefan and Manuel started to sell: Eur 1,- for a big CD-presentation plastic, the young entrepreneur was very happy. Mini disc player, Computer, Monitor went quickly. People became greedy and wanted everything they saw – my photo camera, Stefan´s video cam, our clothes… At the end of the day we made almost Eur 200,- altogether - we will make it to Burkina Faso.

At sunset we decided to make a Chrismas card picture and send it to the world.

FOTOS mopti

2009-12-26T11:03:00.000-08:00

pädagogische beschilderungen zum umgang mit müll

metallrecycling auch durch kinderhände
mopti - das venedig afrikas

die große moschee - lehmbau restauriert mit know-how aus deutschland

maggi market

dividenden
obama spielkarte

please recycle!
eine plastik- und glasrecyclerin

die offenen kanäle in mopti

22. 12. Djeme stopp

2009-12-23T13:43:00.001-08:00

Taking a walk through Djeme, the banks of the Niger, the local artisan market. There was a booth selling photo- and video cameras, small cars as well as oversized mosquitos made of old cans. The works are brilliant, and Stefan and Igor could not resist buying. Would be good to sell some more shares to be able to buy recycled products from the metalworkers as well as artisans and artists we meet, but no more new shareholders for the last 2 weeks. The project money we got from our sponsors and shareholders is almost gone, for us this also means: no more luxury of camping sites with electricity and showers…

Then heading for Mopti, non stop full speed (80 km/h maximum, mostly around 50 km/h). Boiling heat as usual, wonderful trees, small villages, not so much trash around.

21. 12. On the road to Mopti

2009-12-23T13:41:00.000-08:00

9:00 a.m. getting a taxi to lead us to Modibo Keita, a local social scientist, who had studied in Germany. In the 1990s he started to work on the topic of waste in Bamako, and now he is director of a waste consulting company. They mostly work for international NGOs, now they hope to get a commission from an American company, who wants to burn waste to get electricity. They work out the best way to do it, how to organize the collecting and separating of waste etc. At the moment they work on a concept how to deal with electronic waste, how to repair or dispose old computers etc. “The government does nothing, and there is no support at all”.

At noon we were back on the road for Mopti. Driving in boiling heat, Stefan felt sick. Manuel stopped for a group of people who wanted to go to Djeme, which was about 20 km apart. Arriving there, it was 5 p.m. already, and we decided to stay there.

The man in the group turned out to be a healer, he told Manuel a lot about local healing plants, and he gave us a cola nut. We were invited to dinner and spend the night safely on the street in front of their house. But first we all went to the internet café, were we spent about 3 hours. Stefan did not manage to upload the video to the blog, and while trying, we all could not get workable connection. I started to prepare pix on photoshop while uploading, which took around 15 minutes for a small file.

After the session, we had spent as much money as we would have paid for a dinner for 4 (around eur 9,-), but all my batteries were charged again. Since Bamako, we can not use the electricity from the truck battery any more, our Steyr refused to start. So we depend on external charging possibilities, which is quite problematic with three laptops charging for 4 hours each.

It is getting more and more difficult to get pix on the blog: boiling heat (around 37-40 degrees), no electricity, not internet. We will keep feeding the blog, but we are not always 100% precise and do the research and compare data after returning back home. We also will work on the selection of pictures later on – for the moment we are glad to be able to make it at all.

20. 12. Metall Recycling Cooperative in Bamako, Mali

2009-12-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

How much can we get for a wonderful trash-“Rolex”, donated by our colleague Erwin Posarnig? Momo le Magnifique was not sure. No, he preferred to get Eur 10,- for bringing us to the metalworker cooperative, even though his own wristwatch showed the same time since we´ve met.

Momo brought us to the outskirts of town, where the metalworkers have their workshops. About 1000 people work there, collecting old cars etc. to make something new, like the pots and stoves we knew from Nouakchott. The president and vice president charged about Eur 10,- for filming and photos, this was money for the cooperative, and we were glad to support them.

The cooperative was founded in 1991 by “GTZ - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH”, an enterprise owned by the German government to support third world aid policy. Now they get no more support, and it is hard to survive. The workers work there every day, morning until night, they eat there, and have their siesta in their workshops. Most of the time they work really hard, you see it on their muscles. Some children start hammering metal at the age of 8, and when they are 12, they are strong workers already. The president hesitated to tell this, children should go to school, of course. Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, and priority is getting something to eat.

There are lots of women working there, some are cooking, some are collecting and separating plastic waste. The president told us, that many of them also work with metal, but now it is Sunday, so there are not so many women around. A little girl was “playing” with a colourful plastic basin, a second look revealed, that she was washing clothes. Later on I met her playing in a rusted car wreck.

With all their work, they earn just enough money to survive on a very basic level.

Igor exchanged a half-finished watering can for another watch we got from Erwin in Graz, and we bought a few products. There was one artisan, and Stefan bought a crocodile made of iron.

Video 13.12. Nouakchott

2009-12-23T11:05:00.000-08:00

GRET ist eine französische NGO die weltweit Umweltprojekte betreibt die von Frauen getragen werden.

Martial Pouret unser Glücksengel, der uns mit seiner netten Freundin Sophie

Unterkunft, Essen sowie Alkohol angedeihen hat lassen.

Martial führte uns durch das Frauen Plastikrecycling Projekt welches er seit einem Monat in Nouakchott betreut.

Diese werden zerhackt und in einer Maschine zerkleinert, von den Frauen gewaschen und zu neuen Produkten zum Oktopusfischen, Sitzbänke, Plastikkacheln.

Nun, viel lässt sich nicht verdienen, aber es ist eine Möglichkeit etwas zu tun

und ein bisschen zu verdienen, nebenbei wird die Umwelt sauberer.

Wir mussten, wie im Video zu sehen, nach getätigtem Interview tanzen,

recht haben Sie da kommen die Europäer Fragen und Fragen und Reden,

wo man auch tanzen kann..........

Video 12.12 6200km

2009-12-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

6200km Nouakchott

Nach 2 Tagesreisen durch die Sahara, und dem Sammeln wunderschönener von der Wüste gezeichnete Blechmüll Dividenden erreichen wir Noakchott (1 Million Einwohner).

Mauretanien, ein Land mit der 13 fachen Grösse Österreichs

zählt 2,5 Millionen Einwohner, die Hauptstadt Nouakshott besitzt keine Wasserquelle, das Wasser wird über 200km herangekarrt.

Hassan und Mohamed erklärten uns wie Sie in den Recyclingkommunen,

Menschen über Marketing, Schutzmassnahmen unterrichten und diese vernetzen.

Nach dem Interview mit Hasan und Mohamed, einer ausgiebigen Teezermemonie ging es an die Rundfahrt durch Nouakshotts Recycglingindustrie wie im Video zu sehen.

Aus Aluminium wird in Erdöfen wie scheinbar in vielen Ländern Afrikas eine grosse Palete an Produkten gegossen und verarbeitet.

Wir haben einen Alukochtopf als Dividende gekauft.

Aus Ölfässern entstehen Tiertränken, und Gefässe für Wasser,

Hassan erklärte uns das so mancher Kunde schon eine Sonderanfertigung

Ölfass als Senkgruppe sprich Toilette verlangte.

Im Video sieht man eine typische Esel Tankstelle aus einem Ölfass.

Abschliessend waren wir bei einer Zaunfertigung,

Lastwagenreifen werden verbrannt die Metallseile freigelegt,

diese werden aufgetrennt und zu Zäunen verarbeitet,

diese Zäune werden zur Regenzeit zum halben Preis eines Neuen verkauft.

Die Jungen bekommen ca 20 € im Monat je nachdem,

ein Kilo Mandarinen kostet ca 1,5 €, Gemüse annähend soviel wie in Europa,

da der Wüstenstaat alles importieren muss.

Die Kinder gehen nicht in die Schule, wie Hasan leidvoll anmerkte,

höchstens in eine Koranschule wo Sie ein bisschen arabisch Schreiben lernen.

Nun da scheinen die Mädchen einen Vorteil zu haben die derweil in die Schule gehen, der sich im Erwachsenen Alter wieder umkehrt wie wir erfuhren.

Da eine Studie ergeben hat das in Afrika 70% der anstehenden Arbeiten von Frauen erledigt wird.

FOTOS bamako recyclingkooperative

2009-12-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

FOTOS bamako müllhalde 2

2009-12-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

der "patron" der müllhalde

und sein haus

zwillinge und eva

dividenden

FOTOS bamako müllhalde

2009-12-21T14:23:00.000-08:00

"almauftrieb"

dividendenkollektion

our brother obama

stefan at work (not easy)

FOTOS weg nach mali

2009-12-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

on the road

malariawarnung

offroad

ein bauer, der mit einfachsten mitteln sein feld bestellt, freut sich wegen des geschenkten pullies

dividende spielkarte

19. 12. Bamako waste deposit site

2009-12-21T11:28:00.000-08:00

At 9 a.m. Momo showed up and lead us to a place about 5 minutes driving apart: the dump site of this borough. Each of Bamako´s s boroughs has their own dump site, and there are still huge piles of waste along the fringes of the city. Momo introduced us to the custodian of the place, who explained us the system of the site: he got a permission from the mayor of Bamako to take care of the place and organize it. People with carts full of trash kept coming, running up the mountain of trash with high speed. They get paid from the private househoulds to collect their trash regularly, and they paid the custodian a small amount for deposit it on the waste site. The custodian and his family lived in a shack on the dump site, and he knew, that it was a lousy job, but he had no choice: when he was young he was in a street gang, got arrested and spent about 20 years in prison. So it was an ok way to survive.

Suddenly a herd of cows appeared and went up on the hill of trash, “browsing”.

Men, women and children where allowed to “browse” there as well: the inhabitants of the nearby huts were looking for food and “valuables” like plastic they can sell, or metal. A cart brought rotten oranges, and cows, children and women were happy.

Stefan interviewed a women who told him, that she had 6 children, and she lost her husband last year. She walked 10 km to come here and look for things to eat, use or sell. And there are more and more people living like this.

18. 12. Bamako chillout

2009-12-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

Standard African breakfast: Nescafé, milk powder, Belgium cheese ("La vache qui rie"), and a baguette. Then leaving the nice place for a cheaper one: Youth hostel, dirty, loud, in the centre of Bamako. At least 3 bands rehearsing somewhere in the area all day. Skinny, tall men in yellow shirts playing basket ball and asking for “cadeaus” when you want to take a photo. So no photo. I went to feed the blog in air conditioned, spacey internet place, while Igor and Stefan finally started to paint our Steyr with the sponsored colors. I joined them between the rhythms of basket ball and drumming, people dropped by all day laughing at us, taking photos with their mobile phones, telling where to put more color, and at the end applauding: we had a brand new car, finally OUR Steyr, in shiny white, orange and chocolate, laughing at us. Our guide from yesterday appeared and promised to bring us to the Bamako dump site next day. He introduced himself as ”Momo le Magnifique”, and he would bring us everywhere we want: “Welcome to Bamako, welcome to Mali”.

17. 12. Arriving in Bamako

2009-12-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

Early up and trying to exchange money, but exchange rates were terrible. After a stop for gasoline, the Steyr did not start again and had to be pushed. So nonstop to Bamako – without local money, almost no water, boiling heat. Landscape is the same all time, mostly savannah, strong old trees and bushes, only a few small clay house villages from time to time. Not so many donkey anymore, many horses and long horned cows. Then more and more rivers, it becomes green, and around 3 p.m. we reached Bamako. After hours in the traffic jam, a young man we asked for directions brought us to paradise: nice hotel/camping site on the bank of the Niger, huge terrace, huge swimming pool, all of us jumped into the water immediately.

16. 12. Crossing the border to Mali

2009-12-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

Heading for the border to Mali, reached it around 2 p.m. and everything was laid back and easy. In Mali suddenly a different world: buildings are made of clay and match with the yellow-orange land. At the insurance company we asked for a toilet, the answer was: “au brousse”. A new, very important French word for us: in the bush. The times of the “civilisation” as we know it were over. No more washrooms, no more dustbins - only the brousse. Here we also found wonderful dividends for our lucky shareholders, because everything “useless” ends up there.

Around 5 p.m. we found a nice, old little village to stay and start our Mali explorations. Again it turned out, that the animals do their best part in separating organic waste from the rest.

15. 12. Route de l´Espoir

2009-12-21T11:15:00.001-08:00

Starting early again and driving, police stops every now and then, and animals on the street. Policemen ask for „cadeaus“, small presents like pens or lighters, some of them insist on T-Shirts or pants, preferably new ones. We were a bit tired of this official street-robbery and gave them old clothes we got from the French travellers we met at the beginning of our journey in Morocco. It worked.

Around 5:30 we got stuck at a control post: they saw Stefan with the video camera on the roof of the truck when approaching. They insisted to watch the video, and Stefan showed them. “C´est ici?” – “Is this here?” No, this is Mauretania, beautiful country, beautiful landscape! They were satisfied and let us go.

We were amazed by the green of the land, when suddenly we noticed, that there was a huge flood, one village almost completely under water. The street was closed for traffic, but a Toyota Landcruiser ahead of us tried, so we did the same – and succeeded.

Spent the night in the desert.

14. 12. Leaving Nouakchott, Route de l´Espoir

2009-12-21T11:11:00.000-08:00

Starting at 8 a.m., first shopping for bread, vegetables and fruit, which is quite expensive in this country. The fruit turned out to be mostly old, everything is imported and therefore overprized and tasteless. The national food is camel meat.

After finding a great goodbye-dividend for our shareholders, we finally left Nouakchott.

The „Route de l´Espoire“ starts with intensely red sand dunes, going into deep yellow sometimes, spotted with juicy green bushes and trees. It goes through small nomad villages with mostly tents, over lush oasis with ponds and brooks, through villages with teahouses along the road, men as well as women lying there lazy, drinking tea and playing with the children. There is less and less trash around the villages, everything is quite clean. Later it becomes the „Route des Cadavres“, because all those donkeys, goat, camels and cows insist, that it is their country, so they stand on the street and don´t move away. At some parts of the road, you find dead animals every few meters. It is as bad as going through the Australian outback, where you can find millions of dead kangaroos.

At night we went offroad again to hide between the dunes, as a young man with a camel approached as. He spoke no French, and we invited him for tea and bread. The camel war really young and shy, so was he. After a sip of tea, they went away quickly, leaving us with a firework of red and orange sunset.

13. 12. Zazou, Nouakchott, Mauretania

2009-12-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to meet Martial at his office, but even though we had a city map, we were not able to find it and crisscrossed Nouakchott widely.

2 hours late we finally arrived, and he brought us to the factory, where about 8 women and 2 men were employed to shred and clean plastic for selling to big recycling companies. When we arrived, a delegation of graceful, well-dressed women welcomed us, introducing themselves as director and communicator of the organisation.

We gave them some plastic recycling prototypes from a Viennese company, who brought them to Graz for our journey. They discussed them intensely.

Then they introduced us to the workers by starting to chant and dance with them, and after this, Diagana Khoumbane, directrice of the company explained their philosophy and working processes. She talked quite experienced, and it turned out, that „arte“ had been here before. Khoumbane started to work at “Zazou” as accountant. It is the company´s policy to educate the women working there in order to give them leading positions.

After the factory, we went further into the slums, to find 2 women working in a tent. They are collecting the plastic and cutting it afterwards with knifes and saws to prepare it for the shredder in the factory. This is real hard work, and Igor developed a device to make it easier for them.

Many of the women we talked with were divorced several times. For each marriage, they get bride money, so marrying is quite a good deal. After a few divorces, you have a good life, I was told. And when you earn your own money, the family can afford the “butter on your bread”.

I asked one of the women, if her husband was proud of her earning her own money. She looked a bit disturbed and shook her head. „Yes, her husband is very proud, because she earns her own money and at the same time cleans the environment“, translated the communicator.

In Mauretania you really feel like being in „God´s own country“: mosques and speakers everywhere, 5 times a day Allah surround. In Nouahdibou there were even prayers after the muezzin´s call, out of all speakers which were at every corner.

We suspected, that the life of women must be quite restricted. They always hide behind their hundreds of shawls, and some of them only show their eyes. This seems to be enough for flirting, though – the men of our group noticed.

In Mauretania, women are much more educated then men, there are 70% of women on the universities. There are female ministers, managers, directors, business women... When they are married, they have lots of freedom, a woman told Stefan and Igor. We also saw quite some women out at night without men.

After the interviews it was too late to start our trip on the „Route de l´Espoire“ or „Route des Cadavres“, which should take us to Mali. It was too dangerous to stay in the surrounding of Nouakchott over night, and driving at night was anyway taboo in this country of police controls: too much danger to get caught by fake policemen and robbed.

Martial and Sofie invited us to stay at their place, and this was perfect – thank you so much for everything, dears!