Monday, August 27, 2012

thought bubbles


The expanding froth of synthetic white bubbles is in obvious contradiction to the grimy angular tiling in this sorry excuse for a bathroom. It grows, a fractal of hygiene, erupting like a middle school baking soda volcano from a teal PVC abyss. I guess Laos’ wet season gets you quickly accustomed to wetness after a long hot dry season of general desiccation – dank bathroom stalls, mold and bacteria now colonizing the seams of a cheap tile job, just inches from your body’s own bacteria-rich seams.

So this scouring, not of an innocent landlocked tropical carpet by geopolitical resource vacuums, but of a rather unassuming smallish bathroom stall by hordes of expanding soap bubbles, was not at all unwelcome.  Cleanliness is all relative here – there is only a certain level of sterility that can be attained when one lives on a bamboo and thatch structure above molasses mud of the Mekong and a host of various domesticated (and not so domesticated) animals. And politically as well, clean is rarely any easier. A project or mandate not tarnished by streaks of greed and corruption is unheard of in these forests and hills.

And in my current Saturday eve stupor catalyzed by sticky rice and beer Laos, although wary of colonization of any sort, I silently dare these waxing half moons of increasingly incandescent bubbles to do the job that the tired Lao woman had failed to complete the night before, at this particular watering hole, in this particular capital city – if you could call it such.  Simultaneously, as my mind’s eye pans from gazing down to all around, I ask those invisible orbs that contain the force necessary to ensure that local people have a say over the future of their land and livelihoods, those bubbles that travel only along strands of shared understanding and experience, to one-day expunge the back door mining concessions and illegal logging roads from this country’s collective tiling.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

siphandone: fish are people too


Siphandone: 4000 islands, it means. A place in which the fate of people and fish are inextricably tied. So, in lieu of actually strapping a person to a fish, we spent a week on a small and remote island with the intention of burdening an already exhausted krempf's catfish, in the middle of its migration upstream, with a bulky piece of technology - an extension of humanity's long arm... or antennae.  

The tag, which records light levels and electromagnetic field, will transmit data to a satellite once it detaches from the fish and allow us to track the migration route and pace of these long distance migrants. While the Mekong harbors a number of migratory fish - little is known about the migration routes. This information is critical to predict the impacts of the 11 potential main-stem Mekong hydropower dams that are being planned. 

Find out more about the project by watching this video (embedded near the middle of the web-page) that I filmed and produced: An Upstream Journey: Tagging migratory fish of the Mekong river

Not a Brazilian child




Bringing a catch back from a li trap on 3 inch diameter bamboo sections. Note: the railing is note to code.

Large basket-type fish trap


lots of water

To the market by fish-cycle

concentric fish

8kg or so

Working on a net with dad

After some beer laos and long day on the li trap

Just one of many channels of the river at sunset

rusty hammock

three generations

runaway fish ramp

smoking fish

working on a trap

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

if you're still out there....


Dear friends.... it has been a while, I know. If you're still out there, check out my latest (and first) cinematic production. Explosives, big fish, rapids.... its got it all. Photos from this trip and China to come.

If you are out there.... let me know, and maybe this blog will live on!