Ten years ago, I worked as Assistant Editor and Associate Producer on the documentary Sembene! about the filmmaker who founded FESPACO, Ousmane Sembene. Sankara, was one of Sembene’s personal heroes. I watched so much footage shot in Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso that I feel strangely at home looking at your photos. I can also understand your despair at being parted from this part of the world that engenders such deep emotion. You can rent the doc Sembene! on Apple TV+ if you want to feel less homesick. Also, his last film, Moolaadé, was filmed in a very remote, very beautiful village in Mali - you can find it on the Criterion channel. Jërëjëf for the post.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Denise. I attended the FESPACO festival about 5 or six times between 1999 and 2015. I see you picked up some Wolof. I can only say Nanga def!
I felt sad reading this, knowing it’s too dangerous for you to visit when it’s so obvious your heart is very much there. The photos are are beautiful. I hope you can go back one day. Can you communicate with your adoptive mother and sisters or is it complicated?
Oh Liza ❤️ Beautiful and I look forward to reading more when you're ready and more photos too, even if a single photo and a note in a post. Never made it to Burkina (not for field work, not for the festival). So much has changed... So many places are now out of reach. And it is all so complicated.
Although you have refrained from writing in detail about your years of experience in Burkina Faso (a country I learned about briefly during my teenage years studying French), I appreciate your descriptions of the people there, your adopted family and the photos you posted. I can sense a lot of love and respect in your words. I'm sorry for the trauma you sustained while there. I hope that one day I'll be able to read more details of your life there.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Lily. I really want to write about the people and the place with respect and with awareness of my white privilege and how that can creep up inadvertently in what I write.
I commend you for being so mindful of your privilege while writing stories. I wonder if there's a way to sort of make a disclaimer before you tell a story, so the readers would know that the narrative is coming from a specific perspective and not feel like it's skewed. Perhaps something like that can free you up to tell your narrative? Just a thought.
Liza, thank you for sharing. Beautiful pictures. I hope one day you find it in you to write about your experience there. I for one would love to read it.
Beautiful pictures Liza and I wish I could read more about the time you spent in Burkina. I see what you mean, that one could feel under scrunity these days, depending on how it writes about it. Perhaps you could try first with a version that speaks to your heart, and later add the 'caviats' you feel might be needed?
I better understand now the strong feelings you have toward Burkina and hope that it will be possible for you to return there in the not too distant future.
This is such a beautiful piece and I can feel your pain. I would struggle to go back for many reasons, safety being just one of them (even as a white man). I hope there comes a time when things are safe enough for you to return.
Oh I just wrote a comment which got deleted... hmm. But wanted to say I loved this piece and the insight the photos give to daily life in BF. I agree it is complicated to write about these places and our places within them, and I find it takes more time than I imagined to process before I could even write about some of the aid world - and like you said - especially as our experience as westerners can add another layer of complexity.
Thank you, Catriona. I know you are one of the few people I've interacted on Substack understand the complexity of writing about our place in these places. I hope one day I will get better at it. Maybe I should just try doing it, even if I fail.
Thank you for this insight. As to your personal experiences and reflections (as opposed to your PhD thesis), perhaps the best thing for the moment is to write these things privately. One day, you might be able to share them. I know these are selected photos, but I am curious as to the absence of small children. Perhaps they are in other photos?
Thank you for your comment, Allison. I do have plenty of photos of children, but I feel like posting those, unless it is really a meaningful illustration of the text, is lacking good taste and possibly exploitative.
Ten years ago, I worked as Assistant Editor and Associate Producer on the documentary Sembene! about the filmmaker who founded FESPACO, Ousmane Sembene. Sankara, was one of Sembene’s personal heroes. I watched so much footage shot in Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso that I feel strangely at home looking at your photos. I can also understand your despair at being parted from this part of the world that engenders such deep emotion. You can rent the doc Sembene! on Apple TV+ if you want to feel less homesick. Also, his last film, Moolaadé, was filmed in a very remote, very beautiful village in Mali - you can find it on the Criterion channel. Jërëjëf for the post.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Denise. I attended the FESPACO festival about 5 or six times between 1999 and 2015. I see you picked up some Wolof. I can only say Nanga def!
I felt sad reading this, knowing it’s too dangerous for you to visit when it’s so obvious your heart is very much there. The photos are are beautiful. I hope you can go back one day. Can you communicate with your adoptive mother and sisters or is it complicated?
I communicate with them, but it is hard for me to explain to them that I don't feel safe to go back.
I get that. Maybe they don’t have access to information you do? I’m sorry, this sounds really emotionally taxing.
Oh Liza ❤️ Beautiful and I look forward to reading more when you're ready and more photos too, even if a single photo and a note in a post. Never made it to Burkina (not for field work, not for the festival). So much has changed... So many places are now out of reach. And it is all so complicated.
Thank you, Mojca. And as we both know, many parts of Ethiopia feel similarly out of reach these days.
Although you have refrained from writing in detail about your years of experience in Burkina Faso (a country I learned about briefly during my teenage years studying French), I appreciate your descriptions of the people there, your adopted family and the photos you posted. I can sense a lot of love and respect in your words. I'm sorry for the trauma you sustained while there. I hope that one day I'll be able to read more details of your life there.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Lily. I really want to write about the people and the place with respect and with awareness of my white privilege and how that can creep up inadvertently in what I write.
I commend you for being so mindful of your privilege while writing stories. I wonder if there's a way to sort of make a disclaimer before you tell a story, so the readers would know that the narrative is coming from a specific perspective and not feel like it's skewed. Perhaps something like that can free you up to tell your narrative? Just a thought.
Liza, thank you for sharing. Beautiful pictures. I hope one day you find it in you to write about your experience there. I for one would love to read it.
Hello from Rio, Brazil.
Thank you for reading, Renata. I hope to write more. Comments like yours do give me the encouragement that I need.
Beautiful pictures Liza and I wish I could read more about the time you spent in Burkina. I see what you mean, that one could feel under scrunity these days, depending on how it writes about it. Perhaps you could try first with a version that speaks to your heart, and later add the 'caviats' you feel might be needed?
Thank you Silvia, I would like to write more.
I better understand now the strong feelings you have toward Burkina and hope that it will be possible for you to return there in the not too distant future.
I hope so too, Susanna. Thank you for reading.
This is such a beautiful piece and I can feel your pain. I would struggle to go back for many reasons, safety being just one of them (even as a white man). I hope there comes a time when things are safe enough for you to return.
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment, Daniel. I know that your own personal story gives you an rather informed insight into my pain.
Oh I just wrote a comment which got deleted... hmm. But wanted to say I loved this piece and the insight the photos give to daily life in BF. I agree it is complicated to write about these places and our places within them, and I find it takes more time than I imagined to process before I could even write about some of the aid world - and like you said - especially as our experience as westerners can add another layer of complexity.
Thank you, Catriona. I know you are one of the few people I've interacted on Substack understand the complexity of writing about our place in these places. I hope one day I will get better at it. Maybe I should just try doing it, even if I fail.
Yes it might help you work it out to have a go.... as long as you feel inspired or pulled to I think it could be a good idea.
Thank you for this insight. As to your personal experiences and reflections (as opposed to your PhD thesis), perhaps the best thing for the moment is to write these things privately. One day, you might be able to share them. I know these are selected photos, but I am curious as to the absence of small children. Perhaps they are in other photos?
Thank you for your comment, Allison. I do have plenty of photos of children, but I feel like posting those, unless it is really a meaningful illustration of the text, is lacking good taste and possibly exploitative.
Yes, I get that - totally!