Oaxacan Elections

It was a rainy day in Pizzaville for all those who watched the 'big' game here on Sunday. Mexico losing to Argentina isn't exactly against all odds. (PS Big ups to Ghana!)

On to bigger things, in Oaxaca at least.

Gubernatorial elections in Oaxaca and several other states are around the corner has emotions running high. Yesterday saw the assassination of a gubernatorial "shoe-in" candidate in Tamaulipas, a border-state, and illustrates the gravity of some of these elections.

These violent undertones are presently absent in Oaxaca, though regardless it will mark a changing of the guard from Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, whose violent past has made him an unpopular leader.

Most of this discontent stems from the decision to unleash military and police forces on a powerful protest held by APPO, a local teachers union, in 2006. This led to dozens of deaths and disappearances, most notably - in American/Canadian media at least - the shooting of New York Indymedia's Brad Will by police forces. Something far from forgotten on the streets of Oaxaca.

Thousands of APPO supporters have occupied the city's Zocalo for the last month, living in tents, demanding better wages and improved worker's rights for teachers. As of today, they intend to be there until the July 4th elections, which has some people worried. However, their 70 000 person, June 14th march - photo above, date in honour of the worst day of violence in 2006 - stayed remarkably tranquil, especially considering the numbers.

As tensions rise with elections coming, all hopes are that this calmness will remain.

Tweet Tweet, Twitteros

Twitteros in Mexico - those who 'tweet' - have been the subject of much debate lately. At the heart of it is the potential use of Twitter for clandestine purposes. What seems to have started as authorities cracking down on people in DF - Mex City - using Twitter to avoid drunk driving stops has spread to the drug world. The bigger concern is that cartels are using the social networking medium to communicate and evade law enforcement. But, even talk of dismantling the uber-popular Twitter in Mexico has obviously caused a debate to spring up. There has been lots of interesting media coverage on this lately.

Global Post has an interesting summary on this with some good internal links for context, and CNN offers a pretty harrowing portrait of those using Twitter as a means to speak out against the cartel violence in their areas - something nearly impossible to do in person - and of citizens offering tips when gang roadblocks are set up, or narco-violence breaks out near their homes.

Time's article on Twitteros from a few months back best illustrates the overall issues at stake.

Mexican drug cartels apparently use Twitter and Facebook not only to communicate with one another, but also to spread fear through local communities. Recently in the bloody border town of Reynosa, people associated with one cartel used tweets to terrorize Reynosa by posting messages that created panic among residents and halted normal activities as the threats circulated online. One such message read, "The largest scheduled shootout in the history of Reynosa will be tomorrow or Sunday, send this message to people you trust that tomorrow a convoy of 60 trucks full of cartel hitmen from the Michoacan Family together with members of the Gulf Cartel are coming to take the city and take everyone out alive or dead!" Schools and shops closed that day.

Look Who I See

Lo and behold, on Surfer's Journal's website, two staples of the Liberian surf scene - Dr. Keith and Mr. Eth - with a staple of the UN security detachment. Guns and boards, together at last.

Now is the time of year... if perfect left-hand point breaks is what you are into, the shores of the LIB await.

Where I Be

After a pretty decent amount of time battling bureaucracy, car breakdowns on isolated mountain roads and the uphill battle that has been refining my spanish after years of neglect, as of a few days ago, it is official: I am in Mexico.

Life is a little odd at the moment. I am (somehow) living in an otherwise empty apartment building with no furniture in a medium-gruff neighbourhood in southern Mexico, trying to largely avoid the existential quandaries this echo-y environment encourages.

I continue to ply away at a number of longer term projects that are not that close to coming to fruition, so how long I will be in Mexico is up in the air. But, I am here, with no plans to leave, and lots of ideas to try and develop for short term articles and photos. The Esteyonage will capture some of this, as well as spin-offs, tangents and related news around the region.

As West African issues are still a driving interest of mine, and I continue to (try and) follow what's going on, definitely expect to see a continuing presence of interesting or important news, ideas, photos etc from that region. Between Mexico and Central America, and all throughout the Carribean, there is some pretty fascinating stuff going on that I will be increasingly involving myself in, and documenting. So also expect the focus to swing that-a-way.

I realize many people read this blog for its Liberia-ness, but I hope some of you have interest in what's going on in this realm as well, and will stick around.

Gonna start adding in blogs and info sites more specific to the region in the next couple days, and offering the first Esteyonage reports of life "south of the border/down mexico way." (Sinatra impersonation implied)

Tons of thanks to all the people who have been helping me with advice, edits, research, contacts etc on all the long-term stuff, and those who have let me sleep/park at their places. There's too many to name, but you know who you are!

Quickie

AMAZING article in the Atlantic, called "How to Save the News." A must read for anyone with even a casual interest in social documentation, and the future ability of news to cover hard to reach (read: expensive) places.


And serious big ups to Didier Drogba for playing with his recently broken wing and helping to hold Portugal to a nil-nil draw.

Gettin' By - Rural Teaching

This post is part of a greater series called Gettin' By that looks at the informal sector of Liberia, and how people make a living in a country with a reported 85 % unemployment rate.

Technically, a teacher is a member of the formal sector as they should be a registered employee of the government. However, in Liberia, a disturbing percentage of teachers don't make the payroll. On a four day trip across Gbarpolu county, investigating the status of rural education with reporters from various media outlets in Monrovia, roughly 20 % of teachers we met outside of county capital Bopolu said they actually earned a salary (often 1 - 2 at a school would receive a government check, while their peers would show up on their own accord). By my count, this puts them out of the formal economy, and into the realm of Gettin' By

Profession: Volunteer teacher

Location: Schools Across Liberia

How it Works: A lot of teachers were pretty tight lipped about how they actually make money in lieu of surviving off payroll. One reason for this is that its a thin line between corruption (paying for grades) and thanking a teacher who comes to work every day without receiving any pay. Some reported this as an income source, but every teacher we talked to stressed that no fixed fee came with this.

A more informal means of sharing goods and services also offered an income source. Again, very, very abstract terms used at the best of times when asked about this, but the general consensus was that families of students would often offer food from their farms - rice, cassava, bush meat, plantains - or bring by a plate of food from time to time.

For the most part though, nearly all of the teachers off payroll said they depended on farms they would tend to after morning classes. The farm served as the income and food source, while teaching was something that was done a) because it could offer them some small additional income, and b) because it has to.


The long and short is that there is no way to quantify the widely variable range of donations that constitute a 'salary' in this 'Gettin' By.'


Variables: A lot of the teachers we interviewed said they are waiting for government to expand its payroll, and pull them into the system. If the money exists, this would be a great thing. Until then, unannounced absences and bouts of discouragement that most teachers said comes with the terrain of their 'work' will be the realities of staff whose bottom line depends on ill-defined handouts.

Point of Comparison: A plate of lunch that day - amazingly spicy cassava leaf with amorphous, unknowable, soft chunks of stuff - cost $ 25 LD, or about 35 cents

Stuff of Mine in the Past Few Weeks

Mr. DeWolfe, self portait. Emerging from his glamourous summer home, in an environment where I am pretty glad I no longer have to plant thousands of trees every day

Although I haven't been writing a lot of articles lately - and even fewer that appear online - a few pieces of work to point you to.

With my good friend and occasional collaborator, photographer Adam DeWolfe, I have a feature story about surfing and treeplanting in the current issue of Surfer's Journal - a really big honour.

SBC surf, Canada's surf mag, which thanks to editor Malcolm Johnson, is one of few surf mags that encourages any writing outside of 'bro, one time I shredded this wave and was like woaaahhh', has an article with Sean Brody's beautiful photos.

Neither surf article is online, but seek and ye shall find - if you are interested.

An article I wrote for Global Post a while ago on Liberia's middle class appeared in Global Post's recent series on the middle class across Africa.

World Cup Stuffs

The first chance for an African nation to host the world's biggest sporting event begins in just a few days. As with all World Cups, lots of excitement, lots of speculation and, more than usual, a bit of controversy.

Being a huge football fan, been keeping up (trying, at least) to stay abreast of all that's happening. A few things worth noting.

1) Steve Bloomfield - A great journalist who runs the blog Things Seen and Heard recently put out the book 'Africa United: How Football Explains Africa'. Its listed as a 'must read' by this NYT article. The Africa United blog also has a great round up of horrible world cup ads on the top right now, and I'm sure will be providing helpful info through the tournament.

2) Injuries - Torres, gone. Beckham gone. Rooney, questionable. Now, arguably Africa's best - and a personal favourite - Ivorian Didier Drogba, broke his arm in an exhibition - not the most common soccer injury. He says he's still gonna play. Good profile of his crazy life here.

3) Who really wins - Trailer for the movie 'World Cup Soccer in South Africa: Who Really Wins? Always suspicious of docs that claim to have 'the truth' behind something, but its out there.



4) Use you algorithm - Great post by 'My Heart's in Accra' blogger Ethan Zuckerman on various ways to decide who to support. Helpful map to show who competes.

5) North Korean fanfare - If a team from an isolationist dictatorship travels to South Africa to play soccer, will anyone watch?

6) Unfortunate Signs - The first fan injuries in the pre-games via a stampede at the Nigeria - South Korea match.


7) Cinema verite - Seriously, I hesitate to big up Nike, but, objectively - ie all facts, ethics and opinions aside - their 2010 World Cup ad is a cinematic triumph. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros) drama, suspense, heartbreak, defeat reign supreme. Hilarious cameos and tangents define the creative imagination and story telling at its finest... at least in the context of a commercial.

Gettin' By - Mining Gold

The desire for gold is the most universal and deeply rooted commercial instinct of the human race.

- Gerald M. Loeb

This post is part of the series Gettin' By, which looks at how people make ends meet in the informal economy, amidst Liberia's posted unemployment rate of 85%. To read the explanation, please see here, or click here to see other posts.

Profession: Gold Miner

How it Works: Very few items in the world have the allure of gold. Diamonds - which, through doing a story on diamond boys in the area, was how I ended up meeting this family - may be the closest rival. While perhaps more famous for brutality used in extracting, diamonds ultimately lack the history, ubiquity and the manic 'lets'all run to the Yukon cuz there's gold en dem der hills' mentality that fronts gold's fame.

Gold continues to be hunted in all formats, from large mines run by 20 ton trucks to creek sifting as seen above. About three years ago, I even met a guy in northern Canada who was living in the bush with his family, running a claim that sounded relatively similar to this one: run manually, in a river, looking for alluvial gold (the dusty or flaky sort found by hand held sieves, not trucks).

This particular family does not run an official claim. They live up the river, the opposite way that the lens points in this frame. They have a small farm, they fish and hunt, and will sometimes travel up the road in either direction to work temporarily at a more official mine, or on the farms around the nearest villages.

Gold mining is done as a family at this site, when resources are low, and/or options are limited.

In the above picture, the first half of the chain of command. (and, if you have good eyes, the corner of my red motorbike at the edge of the river) Two of the women dig and scoop up the riverbed, place it in the bucket, and remove obvious non-gold objects. After a bit of sorting, the girl in the right foreground passes the sorted mud towards the below picture. Pouring water over the riverbed mud, and pressing the mud through the holes in the bottom of the metal cylinder (a pot, once upon a time), facilitates separation.

Broken up mud runs down the slide-like thing. Not sure if you can make it out, but the green stuff that appears on this slide is actually astroturf. Somewhere along the line, some genius figured out that astroturf traps gold flakes, but not mud. A revelation known by few, but revolutionizing the DIY gold trade in every rural mining operation I've visited across Liberia.

After several hours of taking turns sorting, digging and wading in the creek, this piece of astroturf will be - carefully - set to dry in the sun. Then - even more carefully - placed in a dry bucket, and beaten with a stick. Fallen gold flakes get collected, and placed into small bags or containers.



At the time of speaking with this family, gold prices worked as such. For all small mining operations the unit of gold is the 'pennyweight.' The first time I asked what this meant, "ten cents" was the reply. Wrong, on so many counts.

The internets has since told me that a pennyweight means 1/20 of a troy ounce. But, buyers - dudes who have some mental map of where all these mines are, travel around buying up pennyweights with folds of dirty bills in sketchy backpacks, later selling them to the Guineans and Malians who run the middle ground of the gold trade - say that a pennyweight is 1.7 g. (If you do the math, there's a discrepancy of 2.9 g, which is pretty big $$ in the gold game. But, 1.7 g is how the buyers measure it, and run the game).

A pennyweight, while in this river, was selling for $LD 3400, about $US 50.

As with any kind of mineral exploration, variability is the reality; there are no guarantees. This family said finding anything was pretty tricky, and pretty scarce. Though I didn't have a scale on me at the time, the gold they showed me looked like about 1/100th of a pennyweight - which is pretty small to begin with (a US penny weighs around 2 grams). Literally, a dusting of flakes in a small pan.

I asked how long they thought it might take to get to a pennyweight. I was subsequently laughed at. The eventual response: "for long." Not much gold remains in this river; certainly not enough to wager an existence on. This operation was more about trying to supplement subsistence hunting and farming with a tiny bit of capital in a region with almost NO options for formal employment: its a 2 - 3 hour jarring ride in either direction to anything beyond a small village.

I don't have an exact figure of what a day's work here yields, but I am very confident in saying that it averages out to no more than a few dollars, split amongst everyone.

Point of Comparison: One of the plastic buckets costs $ 60 LD, or roughly $US 1 in the nearest towns (exchange rates of LD tend to be a bit worse the further you are from a major Liberian city.)

For Long-o!

yo, yo, yo...

Its been a long time since a post appeared on the Esteyonage... Much longer than intended. Time flies when you’re, uh, doin’ stuff? Anyways, stoked to be here.

While I was hoping to have everything set up and official before returning to this text box with a smash-bang, it is far from being set in stone what I am up to in the coming months and years: sometimes, things just take some serious time.

Until it becomes more clear to me which of those potential plans will shape up, I’m gonna reserve myself on throwing out guesses to the public. But, I do really hope some of it works out, as it will make things rad ‘round here.

Although I am no longer in Liberia, The Esteyonage will retain similar themes that it always has. I hope that you will continue to visit this blog, and leave comments, questions and suggestions.

In the next week or two, you can expect some general pot potpourri of rad and/or important things I’ve been staying on top of around the world, and a fulfillment of the post from late January stating that there would be a three-story installment of Gettin‘ By in a rural context. I owe two more of those posts, and then I will conclude Gettin‘ By Liberia with arguably my favourite job to both watch and utilize in the informal economy.

Then: the future.

(Note: if you are not familiar with Gettin By, read the summary here, or see the list of posts here.)

As a LOT of people have requested a Gettin‘ By regarding how and why Dutch newspapers arrive in Liberia and serve as donut wraps, peanut holders or bread protectors. However, I never did enough research on that to give it enough justice for even a rough sketch of how it works. That is another way of saying that I would greatly welcome any of those who wrote me about that - or anyone else - to be a guest poster for an amazing segment of Liberia’s informal economy.

Write me at esteyonage@gmail.com

Finally, an official 'big ups' to all the peeps who wrote me over the past few months - even people that pissed me off. Friends, colleagues and lots of peoples I will likely never meet. Each email got me hype in its own unique way, and overall, kept me focused on developing new ideas, motivations and on starting up the blog again.

Peaces,

Myles