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To Be Black in America: One Tuesday Morning With George Floyd

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Until America’s Black population is free from the tyranny of a racist and biased system, none of us, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Caribbean will ever be free.

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To Be Black in America: One Tuesday Morning With George Floyd
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We were supposed to be dropping seeds. It could have been me instead of George Floyd, trapped, choked, dead and gone. None of it seemed real, much less right.

I thought we’d be out hugging trees by now, but it’s 7 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, months after and we just can’t get it together. It’s like they’re trying to rip your heart out, like they want to destroy that part of you that is divine and God-given. Your ability to love, to feel generosity, kindness, forgiveness and to share it all, loudly, boldly and freely.

But instead, they watch your pain and, not changing, they condemn another generation to the hell you’re living in. It makes you weak, saps your spirit and reeks of pain.

How can they not understand? How can they not see and know what he was feeling or what you’d be feeling?

Pain and more pain.

And the utter horror and grief, because you know, we are better than this. We should be so much further than this, yet here we are.

I thought when I immigrated to the Netherlands, Amsterdam, that it was only white Americans that couldn’t be trusted and I somewhat believed that Europeans were different, that they would move the marker of skin colour from the stratification of human definition. But the reality at present makes me unsure about this world. About them and about us.

I don’t even know about Tuesday mornings anymore because the indifference spreads and I feel the pressure all around me. It is the kind of pressure that brings shame because you know your suffering doesn’t reach them and that brings grief. You know you are at the bottom, at the very rock bottom of love. Your heart amplifies these feelings and the words you hear bring tears to your eyes, welling and then streaming down your cheeks from the never-before-aired footage of the last moment of Mr George Floyd’s life that knocks you to your knees as you try to resolve the purpose of the latest video. And the silence of politicians and world leaders, ignoring a clear public cry for help, burns a hole in your head. Deep is the humiliation and despair triggered by the new reporting, played again and again, ravaging our sensibilities as those who should know better, be better, stand aside unmoved by the sight of Mr Floyd’s demise.

I recall the years given defending the freedom of the Europeans who hold tight to their traditions today and it hurts me to the core.

The Dutch, the French, the Belgians, the Spanish, the Italians, all allies of the United States, have taken a position and their complacency speaks louder than words. My emergency, the Black man’s emergency is just not their concern.

I thought about the past revolutions and wars, and the many concessions that were made so we could at least achieve a semblance of dignity that no government would impose its weight on its own citizens, but nothing was as it should be.

I thought about the early Berlin conference and the scramble for African wealth that would pull apart an entire continent to be exploited and plundered under the guise of colonialism and a new imperialism. I was a fool to believe these same people didn’t know the wickedness of their deeds. They knew.

Imagine a meeting hosted by the Germans, attended by a league of White Europeans, all the nations present, all playing a part. The Dutch, French, Germans, British, Austrians, Belgians, Swedes, Italians, the Portuguese, the Russians, Spanish and the Americans sitting down at the table and agreeing to bring havoc to an entire continent and its people for their own personal interest.

I thought about the thirteen-year-old Jewish girl Ann Frank, hiding from the Nazis with her family in a small room in a house I’ve walked or biked past a million times before. The house today serves as a memorial to the holocaust, a testament to the evil men can do when there is no moral restraint or self-control.

Tourists gather to see the view she had while she waited for someone with a heart to save her and her family. Thank God for the tree she had to look upon while she waited. She waited for months. No one came. She died in a prison camp. Ann Frank’s room and her diary is just something to do, something to talk about over a coffee and a croissant, if it doesn’t move you. It’s only public relations if we keep dying.

I thought about the twenty-seven years I’ve spent in the Netherlands and that surprising turnout (in Amsterdam), in support of George Floyd. On that day, whites and blacks of Amsterdam and the surrounding regions came out in record numbers, risking their health and their safety to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Protesters in America. The surprising show of support was inspiring and welcomed.

I was inspired standing with so many of my young sisters and brothers on the Dam square and practically moved to tears in the Bijlmer for it’s always been obvious to me, America doesn’t like Black people. And I’ll say it again, America doesn’t like Black people. But that day I felt their energy, thousands of people, white and black people with fists raised in the air saying with one voice,

‘’Black lives matter’’, and I was deeply moved.

The solidarity at both these protests in Amsterdam was inspiring and for a good moment I was proud of the Europeans, all of them except for the political leadership. Not one leader came out to speak against Trump’s anti-Black sentiment like President Reagan did in 1987, when he took a stand for the human rights of German citizens in Berlin. President Ronald Reagan changed the course of history when he delivered a simple, bold message to Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev that would usher in a new era for the German families separated by a wall.

“Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Reagan made history on the 12th day of June 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, speaking directly to Russian President Gorbachev because he could imagine a different kind of world, a world without the Berlin Wall, and I was proud to be an American, and proud to be wearing the army green, and proud to be a democratic military presence among the Europeans, even back then.

As a former military intelligence non-commissioned officer, I wanted to overlook the silence from local leaders as mere protocol but with the weeks of civil unrest in America and President Trump’s highhanded response to the protests, the silence coming from European political leaders was deafening, questionable and telling.

How could you not see the pain?

And already I was seeing people moving away from what mattered, from saving Black Lives to fighting over privilege, over monuments that honour confederate soldiers, men who fought to keep Blacks in chains (men who lost the civil war), to fighting to get economies to reopen (when the science advises against it) and fighting to remain simple-minded and elitist, instead of listening to evolve.

“What do you want? The cops to kneel to you Black guys?”

“They want to destroy our monuments, our businesses, our homes, to rewrite our history.”

People are generally poor listeners, but they would listen if leaders provided moral leadership. Destruction, chaos and anger reign, and the US President’s reluctance to denounce the White supremacist groups along with his repeated denial of the serious threat of the COVID-19 virus while the statistics show that the number of people dying is mind boggling—until you see, until you learn that the virus disproportionately affects the homes of the poor, often African American and Latino, communities.

All this should make you sit up and take notice. We should be in a much better place, far from here, from the senseless violence, killings, racial hatred and economic prejudice. But the disease of indifference is worse than any virus, because indifference gets to the newcomers, the ill-informed incapable of understanding the legacy of slavery and the brazen impropriety which resembles hate. I know this because Europeans talk, and many sound like Trump’s MAGA supporters.

But I also know the Dutch like van Gogh knows hands. I know they think they don’t have a role to play. For one like me, who knows Dutch history and the Dutch way, who knows how the provinces of the low country became a state after the Calvinistic protest that would gain them independence from Spain, setting in place the economic structure and belief that would define the Dutch in this modern era.

Out from under the authority of the church, the Dutch turned the once forbidden practice of money lending into a business, pooling their funds and their knowledge of sailing, which happened to coincide with the technological advances of gunpowder and made them a force to reckon with. With the emergence of a banking system and a stock exchange, they entered the business of trafficking Africans across the Atlantic to work and die on plantations in the Caribbean and in the Americas.

This lucrative venture would usher in a period the Dutch remember as the Golden Age (1575-1675). During this period everybody was making money and the first model of the contemporary middle class society was born. Before then there were only two classes of men; the rich and the poor. Two hundred years later in 1885, the Dutch would meet with other European nations and sign an agreement to go back into Africa, this time not just to capture and enslave the people, but to take their land.

President Reagan claimed his moment in history by speaking in a clear, loud voice, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall’’.

To see the Berlin Wall fall two years later in 1989, and the oppressed people running towards freedom, has always been a happy memory for me but today it feels like a slap in the face with a brick. For one like me who remembers traveling to Warsaw, Poland in 1999 and visiting the ghettos, the part of the city where the Jewish population was confined by the Nazis before being sent to the death camps, it is incredibly disheartening. It is also really sad, as a former volunteer soldier who served in four top NATO assignments before being sent to war and then going back to America to the Rodney King beating and the famously disappointing verdict that would set America’s inner cities ablaze.

We should have been much further than we are. How are we going to ever recover from this?

My mind is scrambled, and the tears won’t stop flowing. I had hoped to make it to the grocery store before the crowds. A young Muslim cashier greets me every time, with a big smile. Nothing crazy or romantic—she just found out I was an American and her eyes lit up, as is often the case.

In Europe being an American carries a certain sort of notoriety, a certain sort of celebrity. I get that, but today, I am wondering how she is, how we are going to come back from this, after this, without tears from all sides.

No one was listening to Mr Floyd. Now he’s gone. No playback button on this one. You begin to think crazy, insane thoughts, maybe they can’t see us, maybe it’s true and they really think we don’t feel pain or suffer. But we do, every time that we are excluded, pushed aside, ignored or mocked by the government or in the media or the news.

It gets into the heart, suddenly tears floods your face, because you know your cry falls on deaf ears, so you turn to the only help you know, the one that’s always been there for you.

You turn to her and you pray just maybe the mention of her name strengthens and sustains you behind the weight of doom. Mr Floyd cried out for help in handcuffs for eight minutes and 46 seconds for just one someone to save him and no one came.

But now George Floyd is gone. You want to stop the utter horror and grief but you can’t. You want to distance yourself from the graphic image being broadcast around the world but for some reason, you can’t switch channels. You try to convince yourself that maybe you are too emotional. You didn’t even know the man or his momma. So why all the tears?

Because you know how it feels to be powerless, you know how it feels to want your mother in a difficult or bad situation. You know the centuries’ old abuse. You know the European adventures. You know the freedoms of the Dutch. You know the road it took for you to be here. You know Vermeer’s blue skies, and the Dutch Spirit Jenever. But none of it brings you any relief.

Sunday night, and a new video on my social media page showing a Black male, 29-year-old Jacob Blake, in a dispute with a police officer that ends in another shooting of another Black man.

As I watched the video I prayed it was a fake. I wanted more than anyone to learn that the video was a hoax, sent out to further divide the ill-informed.

One could only have hoped that since the death of George Floyd and the weeks and months of protest that happened on a global scale, every police officer would know that when it came to a show of force, pulling out a gun was just not to be done.

Emotions were already too high.

However, soon after watching the video I would learn over mainstream media that the horrific shooting in Wisconsin was real. A police officer had shot a man seven times in front of three little children who witnessed those seven rounds going into Mr Blake’s back.

While listening to the report, I couldn’t help but think of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s book, “Why We Can’t Wait”. As he wrote from a Birmingham jail cell back in 1963 about the reason he protested despite the threat of violence directed at him and his followers, Dr King knew that it was time.

Just as Dr King believed, I know that today young Blacks all over the world are watching what’s happening in America, they know America is not living up to its creed, and they just aren’t going to take being treated as second-class citizens anymore.

An ordained minister and Reverend of the Baptist faith, Dr King knew that seeing their uncles, fathers, cousins, brothers dying at the hands of those who were employed to protect them would only incite young Blacks to extremes.

If significant visible gains were not seen and felt in the Black community, America could never trust the freedom it boasts of. Dr King believed America could make real the creed of its nation and all men would be treated equal under the constitution, if only we “commit to live together as brothers or perish as fools”.

This latest shooting of another unarmed Black man joins a long list of others killed for being Black in America, and brings us yet again at to new milestone, not only for Blacks but for Whites as well. We must do all that is in our power to rid this world of racism.

We are on the precipice of change, our humanity is in the balance. We can’t romanticize the systemic racism, or the ill-treatment of Blacks by law enforcement agencies or the call for reparations. We can no longer sit on the sidelines. We must commit to overcoming this evil.

We must have the uncomfortable conversations about the underrepresentation of Black leaders on the work floor, in the boardroom and across the board.

We must begin to look one another in the eye as human beings, regardless of race, class or gender.

Beyond imagining an all-inclusive world, we must all become ambassadors ushering in a new era, a new age and a new way of being.

The age of real partnership, where all life is precious and endowed with certain rights that can’t and must not be denied, including the right of any man to rebel against any authority that doesn’t support his interest.

Until America’s Black population is free from the tyranny of a racist and biased system that allows officials to take Black lives so easily, I tell you none of us, in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Caribbean will ever be free. For as the Rev Dr Martin Luther King so rightly wrote some fifty years ago, “Injustice anywhere in the world directly effects justice everywhere”.

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Fitzgerald Brown is an African American poet and author from Charleston, living in Amsterdam.

Reflections

In the Absence of a Trophy, the Photo Is Proof

With increased human subject research in Africa, there needs to be benchmarking that is focused on justice and human rights instead of the neo-colonial mentality that perceives the African as a ready pool of human subjects to be had at a bargain.

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In the Absence of a Trophy, the Photo Is Proof
Photo: Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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When I first visited a leading global health organization in the US in 2014, I was overwhelmed by its behemothic stature. I was also taken aback by how the African, mostly the African woman and child, were a constant fixture on the walls of the institution. There were very few pictures of men. My experience is that men are skittish and have learned to distrust foreigners with cameras. Also, for various reasons that I won’t go into right now, it is also quite challenging to get men to consent to participating in research in rural Africa. I walked through the hallways looking at the large posters of African women and children, stuck in time, looking back at me. Their images, some women pregnant, others bearing young children on their arms, in long lines in front of rural health facilities that were too familiar, followed me with their eyes. Large white eyes like beads set on a beautiful black canvas of faces. I felt as if they recognized me. And I too, them. As if we shared the secret of the poverty and broken healthcare systems that had occasioned us to be in this space. They on display as subjects, or potential subjects of research, I as a researcher, occupying a higher social space thanks to my education and other opportunities that have trickled down to me. These images of Africans trapped in the uncertainty of the healthcare system, lost in thought, yet so hopeful, are too common on the walls and websites of every major NGO working in the African continent.

How much should we pay the African woman?

While implementing research in rural Kenya between 2007 and 2014, we were paying mothers of subjects 150 shillings per study visit. That is less than two US dollars per visit. The reasoning around this, and mostly around research done in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries, is that the subject stipend for participating in research should not exceed what people typically make in a day. Essentially, subjects are paid the perceived lowest amount for unskilled workers in these rural areas, or they are paid the lowest amount that one can live on in a day in the rural areas. A dollar or two per day is considered adequate. It is thought that any amount exceeding that would be economic coercion of sorts, and the strongly desired act of voluntarism by the subject would be lost.

Since most of the research volunteers in sub–Saharan Africa are women, the discussion centres around what a typical woman selling vegetables in a local market, for example, would make. The discussion never strays into the question of what people in formal employment—for example, the local primary school teacher—make in a day. Any additional burden such as travel, which is mostly on foot or on motorcycles, is assumed to be the normal way of life. Others such as the pain from injections and the drawing of blood, and other adverse effects, are assumed to be mitigated by the free healthcare received. The summation of this reasoning ends with the subjects in rural Africa making very little money from research, even though participating in research causes major disruptions to their social lives. It also creates a neo-colonial mentality in research where the typical rural African woman or child is perceived as a ready pool of human subjects available at a bargain, rendered desperate by the failure of the local healthcare systems and by government neglect.

When thinking of money, we should think of the environment too

I was recently part of a team undertaking very interesting and important COVID vaccine research. Part of my job involved reviewing study documentation as well as taking part in discussions about subject compensation. I worked with research centres to provide justification for subjects to be paid specific amounts of money, always acting as an advocate, while also being a good steward of the research budget. I advocated for increased payment in some circumstances and argued against overpayment. During the discussions around compensation, two words took prominence. One is voluntarism. A study subject is assumed to be volunteering their time, blood and other samples and personal data while withstanding pain in their desire to advance research and the increase of alternative therapies for themselves and humanity. Based on this assumption, participation in research becomes a higher calling, an act of altruism by the subject. The alternative to this explanation would be that, in participating in research, the subjects respond to incentives, be they economic, social, or psychological. This is more in line with the reality of capitalism and the world we live in. The question, therefore, is not whether the typical rural African woman is joining research to advance science; her decision is part of the survival calculus in an environment where healthcare is stretched and the reality of poverty is ever present.

Coercion is also a very prominent word in research. Coercion here implies that the subject is responding to some form of active or passive persuasion from the researchers to join research. The promise of money as compensation for research is passive coercion to say the least. The promise of efficient and superior healthcare to that which is available within the local ministry of health system is coercive.

The promise of money as compensation for research is passive coercion to say the least.

The politics and ethics around the two words, voluntarism and coercion, is loaded. It gets even more confusing when it is apparent that the pharmaceutical company implementing the study is focused on profiting from their new therapy or device; in most cases, saving humanity is as important as profits for these companies.  And these companies will hold on to their patents for as long as they can, no matter the human suffering, until they realize the desired return on their investments. Why then would the pressure be on the subject to volunteer when the whole setup is for profit? In the developed world, subjects are always very aware of the cost of drugs and how the healthcare system works. Study subjects are very vocal in negotiating for themselves and subject advocates ensure that their subjects’ interests are protected. In Kenya and many African countries, the subjects take what they are given. This is because of the pressure brought to bear on the subject by the local researchers to have them believe in the alternative truth that research is charity, and not business.

How do they do it in the West?

While working in the West, I have waited to hear of benchmarking decisions formulated around subject compensation based on the amount of money that waiters and waitresses make. Or based on the hourly payment of anyone making anything below the minimum wage. So far, I haven’t. The benchmarking in clinical research in the West always considers what skilled workers would be making per hour, how difficult it is to recruit from the population, past precedent, and the economic incentives that would result in quick recruitment and in keeping the subjects in the study. It is not based on any preconceived ideas of the researcher, it is not based on their perception of poverty and on how little people can get by. It tends to be based on the reality of the market forces, equity and study needs.

In addition to this, any transport and accommodation requirements are met through provision of lodging and reimbursement for transport costs, among others. The word coercion is therefore not prominent in the West as it is in developing countries. The assumption in the Western world is that the subjects there deserve a better quality of life when participating in research. Their time is also more valuable. They are also capable of making complex decisions to join research. They are not just a pool of humans readily available for data mining. On the other hand, the decision to pay a very small stipend in developing countries is tied to the image of the local African woman, or man, in rural areas. This is the same image that is captured in photos during the field trips to Africa by Westerners. And in this image, the African is seen as one who is hardened in his environment and quite capable of surviving on very little, one who should be thankful for the little that they receive since the options available to them is either broken, or not working. This assumption is also supported by local researchers and institutions who consider any additional benefits towards the welfare of subjects to be secondary to the outcome of the research. The continued existence of these colonial attitudes in research is strengthened by an image of the African in research that is based on a single story, on single moments captured on a photograph. These are the images I saw on the walls of the prestigious research institution I visited.

Images are powerful tools

In the absence of a trophy, images are the proof of that rich encounter between those in power and the powerless in those far-flung places. Images are also proof of the need for funding. They are also proof of work done. They are proof of privilege and relevance. They are also proof of love. Of comradeship.

The images in the halls of international public health organisations have served to encourage donations for research, providing the much-needed momentum and acceleration of interventions to improve life. On the other hand, these images have also reduced the worth and the story of the African woman, man, or child into a single moment captured at the click of a camera. In that sense, such images on the websites and walls of research centres have focused on a single story, sometimes perpetuating a stereotype of the African, often the stereotype of people without choice, but who can provide the much-needed data at the lowest cost to the pharmaceutical world, their aspirations and hopes not mattering in the calculus of profit and power in international research. Do these people go to weddings? Do they have smart phones? Are they on Instagram? Do they enjoy Christmas? Or are they stuck in that moment, in that small health facility waiting to be saved by international researchers. Does their voice matter? Or is theirs already drowned by the strong collaboration between the ministries of health, the local administration and international researchers and pharmaceutical companies?

The assumption in the Western world is that the subjects there deserve a better quality of life when participating in research.

With increased human subject research in Africa, there needs to be benchmarking that is focused on justice and human rights. How much compensation for research is reasonable to cover transport and time and allow the African woman living in rural poverty to save some money for food for her family after a whole day spent traveling for research? How much does local skilled labour cost per day in the rural setting? Researchers should focus on financial justice rather than perpetuating financial oppression while hiding behind the principle of coercion and voluntarism. And beyond that, if the rural African woman and child are going to be forever immortalized as the face of international research, then there should be a balance between their desperation and their resilience in these challenging environments. That balance is self-worth. It is power. And this power and self-worth are tied to the representation of the conqueror as well as the conquered, the researcher and the researched, through images and films.

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Reflections

Women at Sea: Testimonies of Survivors Fleeing Across the Central Mediterranean

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Women at Sea: Testimonies of Survivors Fleeing Across the Central Mediterranean
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Anyone crossing the sea to escape a dangerous situation or to find a better life is in a vulnerable position, but women face the additional burdens of gender discrimination and, all too often, gender-based violence, along their routes. Women represent only a small proportion – around five per cent – of those who make the dangerous journey from Libya to Italy.


On board the Geo Barents, female survivors regularly disclose practices such as forced marriage or genital mutilation (affecting either themselves or their daughters) as being among the reasons they were forced to leave their homes. Women also face specific risks during their journeys – MSF medical teams report that women are proportionally more likely to suffer fuel burns during the Mediterranean crossing, as they tend to be placed in the middle of the boat where it is thought to be safest. . Many women rescued also report having experienced various forms of violence, including psychological and sexual violence and forced prostitution.

“The minute I was alone, they would have raped me.” Adanya, 34 years old, from Cameroon.

Among these women is Decrichelle, who fled a forced marriage to a violent husband with her baby. They left their home country of Nigeria and went via Niger to Algeria. When they arrived in the desert, Decrichelle’s daughter fell ill and she could not do anything to treat her because she had no access to care or medicine. The young girl died, and Decrichelle had to leave her behind before continuing the journey to Algeria: “an immense and inconsolable sadness” for her.


Decrichelle attempted to cross the sea once but was arrested and sent to prison, where she was released immediately, only to be taken by taxi to a brothel. Some Cameroonian friends helped her escape. For six months, she lived in the campos (the abandoned buildings or large outdoor spaces near the sea where traffickers gather migrants) before scraping together the money to pay her way for another crossing. “I want to be in a place where I can live like a normal person of my age. I want to be able to sleep at night,” she says. “I wanted to be here with my child. It hurts me to think that I am safe, and I left her in the desert.”

Beyond the difficulties women face on migration routes and in Libya, MSF teams on board the Geo Barents often witness the strong bonds that develop between survivors on the women’s deck. The women come together to support one another with daily tasks and childcare.

“In Libya, I was sleeping under trucks and buses as I did not have any money.” Afia, 24 years old, from Ghana.

“I want to tell women: it is not your fault. You are exactly the same person as you were before. You are even stronger,” says Lucia, deputy project coordinator aboard the Geo Barents, who has herself experienced rape. “I think it has been really moving to see these women, who actually escaped what I experienced for an hour of my life, and in their struggle, their strength and their hope, [they do not stop] this fight,” she adds.

Meanwhile, when male survivors are asked about the people they left behind or the reasons for their journey, a woman is always mentioned in their stories. Ahmed, 28 years old, was born in Sudan to Eritrean parents who moved to Sudan to escape the war. Having lived all his life as a refugee, Ahmed never felt that he belonged in Sudan. He wished to leave, but as an undocumented person, unable to return to Eritrea for fear of military conscription and an oppressive dictatorial regime, he decided to travel to Libya and cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.


Ahmed’s mother was the only one who stood by him when he decided to convert from Christianity to Islam, despite harassment from his other family members. “[Converting to Islam] affected me, affected my friendships… for sure [I faced issues because of that]. At first, from the family… in the beginning, I was secretive… until my family knew; then the harassment started. But my mother accepted me. She told me, ‘Whatever makes you comfortable, do it.’” Ahmed says his mother is one of the reason she was able to make the journey from Sudan through Egypt and into Libya. “She has a really big role in my life. She was continuously supportive and motivating me, wishing me the best. She is my inspiration… I hope to meet her again.”

“I know if I tell my mother I am in Libya, she will be crying every day.” Ibrahim, 28 years old, from Nigeria.

Nejma, cultural mediator on board the Geo Barents, explains her bond with survivors like Decrichelle and Ahmed: “I am African and I am Middle Eastern. I am a mother. I am a woman. There are so many things that link us together. Maybe also the fact that I had to flee. That is a big part of it. I think it helps me understand where people are at the moment we find them; it is an understanding that books could never teach me.”

Cultural Mediator Nejma Banks converses with some survivors aboard the Geo Barrents

Cultural Mediator Nejma Banks converses with some survivors aboard the Geo Barrents

As a refugee herself, Nejma shares what helped her to move forward in the places she fled to. “[Survivors need to] keep the strength… once they disembark in Europe, it is not the end of the journey,” she says. “It is a different challenge: to not let go of who they are, to never forget who they are, where they are from. To be very proud of their origins. Because you will not know where to go if you do not know where you came from. And I want my brothers and sisters from Africa and the Middle East, or anywhere, to remember who they are. It will make it easier to move forward.”

The photographers

These stories of the women on board the Geo Barents were collected during rotations of the ship at sea. The portraits and testimonies were captured by two female photographers, with a view to amplify women’s voices, while respecting cultural sensitivities:

Mahka Eslami is an Iranian photographer, who was born in Paris and lived there until the age of seven before her parents returned to Tehran. While studying engineering in Iran, she worked as a journalist for the Chelcheragh. She returned to France where she finished her engineering studies before branching out into documentary photography and transmedia writing to become an independent photographer. Her work has been published by Le Monde, Libération, Society, Néon and Les Inrockuptibles.

Nyancho NwaNri is a lens-based artist and documentarian from Lagos, Nigeria, whose work revolves around African history, culture and spiritual traditions, as well as social and environmental issues. Her documentary works have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Aljazeera, Reuters, Quartz andGeographical Magazine.

Background information

MSF has been running search and rescue activities in the central Mediterranean since 2015, working on eight different search and rescue vessels, alone or in partnership with other NGOs. Since 2015, MSF teams have provided lifesaving assistance to more than 85,000 people in distress at sea. MSF relaunched search and rescue activities in the central Mediterranean in May 2021, chartering its own ship, the Geo Barents, to rescue people in distress, to provide emergency medical care to rescued people, and to amplify the voices of survivors of the world’s deadliest sea crossing. Since May 2021, the MSF team on board the Geo Barents has rescued 6,194 people, recovered the bodies of 11 people and assisted in the delivery of one baby.

This story was first published by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF).

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Reflections

Nairobi, Nairobae, Nairoberry

Cacophonous, labyrinthine, gluttonous, angry, envious, charming, paradoxical, mysterious, confusing, alluring.

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Nairobi, Nairobae, Nairoberry
Photo: Joecalih on Unsplash
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Nairobi. A cacophony of matatu hoots and booming bongs from church bells. All in inexplicable harmony. Like a Beethoven piece. A muezzin’s melody moves the ummah from a minaret here, a bus conductor — shouting from the most pimped out mathree — moves umati there. A hawker here. An ambulance there. But there’s also a silent monotone. The sound of hope dying. Of someone stealing two billion every day, of the clock going tick-tock from your 9 to 5. There’s that saying: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? But what if it’s in the middle of Waiyaki Way? Just because someone thinks giving us an expressway will absolve him of war crimes. While in reality, all it does is leave all the marabou storks homeless.

Nairobi. A labyrinth of lipstick-stained shot glasses and semi-filled ashtrays. Where a party starts regardless of where the limbs of the clock point. And only ends when everyone is browned out and on the brink of calling the one that got away. Nairobi is looking for coins during traffic because you want to help the beggar, who is patient enough to receive the donation before snatching your phone. It is being stagnant in that same traffic for long enough to buy crisps made with transformer oil and served in compact disk wrapping. And like clockwork, you put the window back up because Nairobbery isn’t just a play on words. But the ones that hurt the most are the conmen, because nigga I trusted you!

Nairobi. Where gluttony is second nature. A kaleidoscope of too much gold tequila and too many smokie pasuas. Of good pasta and wine in overpriced restaurants. Of ramen noodles and pre-cooked meat. Where nothing is ever enough. We drink and eat to our fill because life sucks. Why wouldn’t it? Our last president’s advisor was the bottom of a Jameson bottle and our current one’s advisor is Jesus. The spirit guides the nation either way, I guess. But still, Nairobi tastes like chances and do-overs. It tastes like anxieties and aspirations and I know it doesn’t feel like it but today you omoka na 3-piecer then one day you omoka, for real.

Nairobi. Reeks of piss and thrifted clothes. Fresh bakeries and Subway. Old currency and that one cologne every man in their early 20s wears. Smells like fighting your titans and sending a million job applications. Nairobi. Where you can go weeks without a lover’s touch but only days without a cop grabbing you by the wedgie into a mariamu because you shouldn’t be idle as you wait for your Uber outside Alchemist. Because of course in that time you should take up a sport, play an instrument, solve world peace, et cetera.

There are few occasions when pride will linger. Like when Kipchoge finishes a marathon in under two hours. When Lupita wins an Oscar. The hubris you feel when your copy makes it to the billboard on UN Avenue. Or when your lame joke gets five retweets because Kenyans on Twitter will massacre you if you think you’re the next Churchill. Orrrr that one time we were all watching Money Heist and so gassed that Nairobi was one of the characters.

Sadly, Nairobi pride also comes in with its individualism. Everyone is out here on their own trying to get some bread whether they’re in the upper class getting baguettes and rye bread or in the lower class getting Supaloaf. I get it though, the city doesn’t let anyone rest from the grind and the hustle and the drudgery. And the wealth gap is bigger than Vera Sidika’s bunda. But ironically, the city is a paradox. An optical illusion. Sometimes the people are so ready to convene in community that it kinda revives the fickle hope you have in humanity. From safe spaces to fundraisers to a simple hearty conversation with your Uber driver.

And there’s obviously that murky feeling of greed that comes from 90 per cent of our politicians. When you’re at the bottom of the food chain it’s called hunger, but the higher you climb the more you want and it becomes indulgence. Greed makes them say and do all kinds of things. Like apologising to Arab countries that are exploiting Kenyans because they don’t want to be cut off. Y’all know any juakali guys we can commission for guillotines? – Heads gotta roll. Because how will I steal cooking oil and flour and end up in a cold cell but they’ll steal billions and end up with a second five-year term?

I think wrath is the most Nairobi-esque of the cardinal sins. We’re angry at the police. At the government, at global warming, at nduthis, at KPLC, at Zuku, at Safaricom, at KCB, at each other. Agonizingly though, our anger fizzles out as fast as it blazes up. I don’t think we’re ever angry enough.

And then there’s the envy. You know you’ll get there eventually but that gets lost in translation when you see someone with better because that sparks something in you even though we are all on different paths at different paces. Whether it’s a BMW or an airfryer, the question stays: Why not me? And also I’m personally jealous of the people who’ve managed to move out of Nairobi to Naivasha, Watamu or wherever. It feels like they’ve figured their way out the maze while I’m still at a dead end wondering whether I can just hop out the sides. Doesn’t matter what it is, our eyes are as green as the parks and spaces we so desperately need in this godforsaken city.

Nairobi. The city of miniskirts and cheers baba jackets. Lust dripping down the sides of our mouths because we can’t seem to contain it under our tongues. I don’t even know why people bother to go to Vasha for WRC when they live in the city of sexual debauchery where the only thing that’s on heat more than the sun is whatever’s between people’s legs. Where even Christian Grey would pause and do a double-take. Where ropes aren’t just for skipping and leashes aren’t just for dogs. If you find ordered love in the city, you must have saved refugees and orphans in your past life. This is the city where the flesh is truly willing.

You know that intense sloth-like feeling when you wanna wake up for Sunday brunch at Brew Bistro or K1 and then later watch Hamilton race at around 4 when all the mimosas have hit your head and you’re surprised that your wig is still intact? Or the next day when you’re trying to get out of your covers and you’re thinking about that beastly Nairobi traffic you’re about to face and all you can do is tweet “Nimewacha pombe mimi”. Truthfully though, other than that and a few other instances, the pace is too fast for me. I just wanna be in a dera next to the beach drinking a passion caipiroska and eating viazi karai cause why are y’all always running?

And y’all are way too fast when coming up with new words too. There’s like a million words for currency, ass, sex, sherehe, et cetera. Truly, there is a certain linguistic je ne sais quoi when it comes to the Nairobian’s language. It stops being a transaction of random syllables and begins to become an understanding of feelings, emotions and behaviour. I, especially, like how we knead it into our art. We sneak it into our music and get phenomena like gengetone.

We compress it into our films and get Nairobi Half Life. We squeeze it into our visual pieces and get Michael Soi. One thing about Nairobians is we do not cower in silence, we have words to say and we shall say them. Even if that means running a president out of Twitter. That’s why our writers are as staggeringly sensational as they are. Ngartia. Sookie. Grey. Muthaka. Laria. Abu. And those are just my friends, dawg.

But it’s not just the writing. The fashion. Rosemary Wangari. Nicole Wendo. Samantha Nyakoe. The music. Mau from Nowhere, Vallerie Muthoni, Karun, Maya Amolo, XPRSO. Just a Band. The films. The painting. Muthoni Matu. Zolesa. The architecture. The cinema. The theatre. Too Early for Birds is back! et cetera. Man, I gotta tell ya, when God was cooking up the cauldron of this city, he went hard on the talent. Quote me on this: a lot of exceptional creatives from this city are gonna hit the world with a head-splitting bang in a couple of years.

Nairobi. Despite the crowds, the queues and the poor drainage, it still has a charm. Mysterious. Confusing. Alluring. Despite the fact that you can only truly enjoy the Nairobi experience if you’re a bird or an expat, me I love it still.

Nairobians, keep sinning, keep winning!

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