Peter van Agtmael
© Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos
Several weeks ago I took part in the World Press Photo Masterclass in Holland. I stayed a few days after it ended to visit some family that lives in Holland. The class had been really intense, and before heading off to my cousin's house, I decided to spend a few hours walking around Amsterdam to sift through my thoughts.
While walking around I randomly stumbled upon a parade. It was mobbed by young kids with their parents and grandparents, and the mood was deliriously festive. Curious, I approached the parade's edge, and inched in for a spot to see what was happening. A continuous line of many hundreds (thousands?) of Dutchmen dressed in blackface with afro wigs and brightly painted red lips were marching down the street and handing out candy to shrieking children. Some performed tricks on rollerblades and bikes, and they all acted like jolly buffoons, while the bearded Saint Nicholas (the Dutch Santa Claus) rode slowly by on his stately white horse.
My father is Dutch, and from my childhood I vaguely remembered him telling me about 'Zwarte Pete,' (Black Pete) the helper of Saint Nicholas. When my sister and I were young we would celebrate Saint Nicholas on December 5 by putting a wooden shoe by the chimney, along with cookies for Saint Nick and carrots for his horse. In the morning we would find a big chocolate letter shaped like the first letter of our name stuffed in the wooden shoe. But Black Pete was never really much of a character in our informal celebration of the holiday, which was really just an appetizer for the 'real' Christmas. I'd largely forgotten about Black Pete many years ago.
Saint Nicholas Day is celebrated in Holland on December 6 in lieu of Christmas (which is a quiet, commodity free event), and Black Pete is an integral symbol of the holiday. As Holland attracts more immigrants, Black Pete has become an increasingly controversial figure, although he is still largely embraced. Still, I only saw one family of black people attending the parade; the kids were having a blast, though the mother and father looked very disconcerted. In 2006 an effort was made for the Black Pete's to be covered in many different colors of face paint, but the effort was widely rejected.
Blackface has a loaded history in the United States, originating in the hugely popular minstrel shows of the early 19th century that parodied African Americans to adoring crowds for over a hundred years.
Now, it would be completely unacceptable to see blackface in any kind of mainstream use. Yet Holland, which prides itself on its tolerant and progressive politics and people, condones it despite its loaded history. I'm curious, what do you Magnum blog readers think of this tradition? It would be especially interesting to hear from those readers living in Holland.
Peter van Agtmael
© Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos
Traveling by road is simultaneously one of the great frustrations and pleasures of working in Uganda. The only real way to get around is by bus. The journey starts early in the morning at the bus station, which is often a muddy, confusing collection of loiterers, vendors, opportunists, thieves, the unemployed, and a few bus company employees shouting destinations. The buses never leave before they are full, and usually they're overflowing by the time they teeter out of the station. Still, no matter what time I arrived, there always seemed to be a two-hour wait until the bus left. The best way to pass the time was to chat with the other passengers, who were usually curious and amused that a white man was traveling with them. Inevitably, the first question would be about whom I was voting for in the upcoming election. When I expressed my enthusiasm for Obama, the friendship could really begin. From there we would gossip freely about our job, family, relationships, politics and anything else to pass the time. Ugandans are generally very warm and open people, and there was always a lot of teasing and laughter. When the bus finally filled, the engine was coaxed to a start and it began a complicated dance to leave the bus park, weaving between haphazardly parked buses, hundreds of jostling people moving in different directions and shouting vendors eager to make a last sale.
© Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos
Life in Uganda happens very close to the road, which is often the only consistent stream of income for the small, forgotten towns that line the routes between the major cities. The buses stop frequently on the roadside, and instantly a mass of people sprint towards them with their goods, pressing them up to the windows and shouting prices. One time I traveled with a Ugandan friend named Salle, who insisted on buying something at every stop. First he bought a stick of grilled chicken livers. At the next stop Salle grabbed a jerry can of fresh milk, clucking happily at the bargain price. The next stop specialized in live chickens held up to the window by their bound claws. After a brief negotiation, Salle decided on a fat, frightened specimen, which he stuffed under his seat and for the next five hours flapped its wings and pecked at our ankles. Salle became very eager to eat that chicken by the end of the bus ride.
© Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos
Sometimes bus trips could be extremely frustrating. The roads are full of potholes, forcing the bus driver to swerve constantly to avoid them. But there are too many to avoid all of them, and when hit at speed the old buses give a mighty jump. I've hit my head untold times on the roofs of the smaller buses, to the amusement of most of the passengers who instinctively know when to duck.
On my last day in Uganda I was making my way back to Kampala to catch my flight home. I was coming from Karamoja, a remote region in the northeast corner of the country. There was only one bus a day leaving for the capital, and the journey was supposed to take ten hours. Four hours into the ride, we hit a massive pothole. Large chunks of the suspension flew off and the bus swerved to a halt. After a bit of surprised murmuring we debarked and sat under a tree. The driver pretended to fix the wheel by banging on it with a wrench, and the conductor carrying the fare money hopped on the one motorcycle in the village, never to be seen again. For two hours we waited on the remote roadside for any sort of vehicle, which finally came in the form of an empty truck heading to the next town to pick up produce. After a scramble we all managed to fit in the truck bed. From there we transferred to a minibus, which drove around town for another hour looking for more passengers. Eight hours into the trip, I finally arrived at the regional hub and found a bus going to Kampala, still seven hours away. Thankfully, that trip passed relatively uneventfully, and I arrived back at my friends place with just enough time to pack my bags, take a shower and head onward to the airport.
I present a selection of photographs taken on the road. On each bus ride I photographed constantly. I was becoming frustrated by the way mannerisms change when people know they are being photographed, and enjoyed the purity of relying on my gut, and having just one chance to catch slivers of daily life passing by.
Links
» Peter van Agtmael's Magnum Portfolio
» Peter van Agtmael's Website
» Interview with Peter van Agtmael on Conscientious
» Interview with Peter van Agtmael on Smithsonian
