do what you love

Batik artist and painter, Samey's studio

At some point, when I have battery and connection, I need to write about the artists I have visited this trip to Moshi. As usual, I have spent most of my time working for various projects between KCMC, Duke Global Health, and KIWAKKUKI. However, I have also been keeping up with my "day job" at www.welcometocompany.com and as such the life of artists hasn't been far from my brain.

Not that it is unusual for me to think about *my* life as an artist when I am in Africa. But in the past those feelings have often fallen into an "either/or" situation.  I think this is maybe the first time that I have been pushed into truly evaluating artists living with in their art *and* africa.

Samey's goats.

Meanwhile, i am just completely kichaa. I always look a mess, perhaps because I have no problem spending a few hours in terribly pathetic running clothes. And yet, it doesn't bother me near as much here.

improvisational cooking.

One of my favorite african activities is cooking straight out of the backyard. Note that these kuku did *not* come from our backyard! We love our chickens and treat them as rafiki. (As far as we can tell, there is no word for "pet" in swahili, the closest words all mean "friend". This may explain why we can't quite communicate to africans why we love our kuku and give them names.)

The only downside to taking such joy out of messy cooking is that it pretty much forces you to either have a few glasses of wine or enjoy a large east african beer.