This is about 2 months later than it should be, but I’ve bene having some annoying camera/computer problems that kept me from posting.

Before I left for the DR, my brother convinced me to get a pair of Skechers that are basically leather sneakers. Great idea. I so enjoyed getting my shoes shined. Now that I’m back in the U.S., I am faced with the decision between paying $10 at an airport for a shoe shine or having dull, lifeless shoes.
In the DR, shoe shines were 15 pesos, about 50 cents. Cheap. But still quality. I walked up to a shoe shiner at “Nueve,” a big intersection on the north west side of Santo Domingo, and they would jump out of their seat, and I would sit down. I was impressed that they went over each shoe twice, ending with a snap shine that impressed the other people in my group.
But nothing prepared me for the Honduran shoe shine. I paid 20 lempiras, about a dollar. I felt slightly ripped off, until the shoe shiner got working. My shoe laces were out in seconds, and I had sock guards protecting my socks from the 13 different liquids being thrown at my shoes. I just sat there, reading a newspaper, and when I looked down, my shoes absolutely gleamed.
I really wish there were some 7 year old shoe shiners hanging around the park here…

Photos: Shoe before, Shoe after, and the shoe shining booths in San Pedro Sula

I’ve done videos in four developing countries: churches overcoming apartheid in South Africa, immigration from Mexico, poor coffee producers in the Dominican Republic, and currently a woman’s group doing education in Honduras. This trend (as well as some articles I’ve read) have led me to think about who am I, a middle class person from the United States, and how does this affect my work?

In Granta magazine, Binyavanga Wainaina, from Kenya, describes satirically “How to Write about Africa.” “Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. (…) Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.”

This demonstrates pretty clearly a case of what happens when developed world eyes look at underdeveloped places, in what some are calling “development pornography.” In many cases, it is exploitation to gain money (supposedly for a good cause). AlertNet, a service of Reuters, put out this article, Aid workers lament rise of ‘development pornography’, explaining how a picture of an emaciated famine victim often only serves to “perpetuate a colonial idea of incapable Africans waiting passively for help from their white saviours.”

I, as a middle class white male from the U.S., see a situation differently than the Honduran teenager with AIDS, living in a two room house, that I interviewed last week. How can I tell her story, instead of my interpretation of her story?

A couple things I have done have worked towards alleviating this.

First, as with Convite, I lived with one of the families featured in the video. This helped me become part of their story, so that I could understand it better. Granted, I was still an outsider, but I attempted to see from their point of view.

Second, I have tried to have people talking for themselves as much as possible. Any government official or scholar may be able to give some overall statistics, but they can not tell the true story of a person who immigrates to feed their family, as in Fuerza.

Third, I have learned to have someone from close to the same situation actually be the one to interview. This arose mainly as a problem of language barriers, but I’ve learned this extends to class barriers as well. It helps people to give a more real interview of their life. I’ve had a middle class interviewer laugh at a lower class interviewee during the interview because of their less refined language. I can’t use anything from this interview.

Fourth, in the DR, I worked with a student who was interested in making documentaries. I had experience from making other documentaries, and could share that. He had the cultural insight I lacked. He now can make other documentaries, without my help.

Will I ever be able to show the world through someone else’s eyes? No. But I do think I can do my best to reduce my developed eyes in my work

Yeah. I woke up last Tuesday 50 feet from a beach, and Wednesday morning woke up a foot away from snow. That’s just wrong. But at least I’m going back to the tropics soon enough. More on that later.
So I am back from the Dominican Republic now, and thought I’d update you on what happened since my last update. I spent 2 weeks with an amazing family in a very rural part of the country. My hosts, Luis Fidelio and Adela, were part of the Association of Coffee growers that I was making a documentary on. I could ramble about what this group does, but the documentary would be a lot more interesting. So watch it on Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDOt7Mjr3uI . Look for my hosts. I worked on the project with a university student who is interested in making videos, and so hopefully he’ll be doing some more work in the near future. He’s also part of a great music group, Batey 0, that uses a lot of Haitian rhythms- which is really counterculture in a country where Haitians are treated as inferior.

I also spent about 3 weeks in the city, hanging out with the college crowd at Justicia Global, the organization I was with. While there, I made a short video, a parody of the incumbent president, Leonel Fernandez’s, campaign ads. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WF4B0RjMM8
Basically, the original ads say “Don’t be Creative. There is none other like him,” referring to Leonel. The youth then writes “Let’s be creative. Only the people can save the people.”
It got some attention, and may be shown on some TV show, but I’m not sure of those details.

So I’m home from the DR. I’ve updated my map at directedbyface.com with all the places I went , including some photos, so check that out.

I said earlier that I am returning to the tropics… and it’s true. Next Tuesday (one week from today… AAAAaahhh!) I will be going to Honduras with Mennonite Central Committee for 3 months on a short term assignment. While there, I will be working with one of MCC’s partners, MAMA, on a promotional video. I also may be doing some video work or writing for MCC, and possibly traveling to Nicaragua, El Salvador, or Guatemala for that. Maybe. So I will keep you posted, of course. This also is my internship at school, and is also part of Goshen’s Service Inquiry Program.

Usually with missions trips like this there are fancy letters or fundraisers, but I’m not around long enough to pull those off. But I still am a bit short on money for the trip. So if you’d like, feel free to send some money to me.
You can send it to:
James Weber- MCC, 425 South 6th Street, Reading, PA 19602

You can also send it to me through PayPal, by following this link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=jamesnw@gmail.com&item_name=Honduras&no_shipping=2&no_note=1&tax=0&currency_code=USD&lc=US&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF&charset=UTF%2d8

I’d also like to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers, emails and letters while I was in the DR. I’d love if you kept that up. My mail address in Honduras will be:
James Weber
Comite Central Menonita
Apartado 2720
San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

So thanks for reading this and caring, and for all of your support!
James Weber

I just returned from the Dominican Republic, and will be actually arriving at home tomorrow. I have a little over a week before I go to Honduras, and am excited for that. Meanwhile, I have updated the movies page with some new ones, including the Documentary I was working on in the DR. I hope you enjoy!

So I am here in the DR, and here is my first video production. It may take a bit of explaining, since it has a lot of DR specifics.
Inventemos
The ads at the beginning are campaign ads all over Santo Domingo for Leonel Fernandez, the current President, with the most money, and therefore the coolest ad campaign, by far. The translation of the ads is “Don’t be creative. You can only win with Leonel.”
The response is then “Let’s be creative. Only the people can save the people.”
It may be shown on TV here.

I have exactly a week left in the study portion of SST, so that is seeming really short. I’ve really enjoyed living with my family and getting to know the basics of city life and transportation. However, I’m going to be able to stay on in Santa Domingo, at least part of the time.

My service assignment will likely be with Justicia Global, an social organization. Two workers there are graduates of the SST program. I worked with them for a showing of Fuerza, and I’m really excited to be working with them. I will be putting together a promotional video for them over the course of about 6 weeks. One aspect I’m really excited about (but hasn’t been cleared with Justicia Global yet) is the possibility of local film students helping out. UASD, the oldest University in the Americas and with a whopping 150,000 students, is public, with about a $5 tuition fee. This means that the focus is much more on theory than practice, and that the film students have little access to equipment. So I’m hoping to be able to work with them on the project, so they can get practical experience, and I’m sure I could use some help. So I’ll be moving to another family in the city next Friday, and will likely have another family in San Cristobal, about 30 minutes away.

So what’s been going on the last bit. We drank cokes in the National Palace in Santa Domingo. We went to the border town of Elias Pina, and went to the border. Went to an international market, where the clothes you donate to Goodwill likely end up if they don’t get sold at Goodwill. Learned a lot about reforestation, and saw avacados being grafted. Saw a cock fight (my rooster, the white one, lost). Saw the supposed ruins of an ancient Taino village (a rock surronded by other rocks in the middle of a soccer field). Ate lots of rice, beans, chicken, chuleta, and lots of juice. I’m loving Skim Ice.

Tomorrow I’m going to Florencia with two other SSTers. We have no real idea what’s there. But we have to write a 3-5 page paper on the town. It’s at the end of a dotted line “road” and will liekly not have a hotel, so we probably will be sleeping at someone’s house. Should be fun.

Oh- and the fish bone came out while i was eating pizza.