retweet - message - reply - follow
" Some exciting thing are a brewin' for Ensigo which may or may not include...a TRAVELING ART EXHIBITION! "



Falling in love, developing copyright law, recording, & getting robbed...things that can happen while in East Africa for a year
0

January 13th, 2012
News

Here’s a little update letter that I just sent out to friends and family with some Ensigo news. Feel free to read it, and if you know me give me a call or send a message…but if you don’t know me you can still call and share about what’s been going on with you, but I’ll have to warn you it may or may not be a little awkward.

 

 

Dear friends and family,

 

Wow, it has been one whirlwind of a past year (and some weeks) spent working on Ensigo projects and traveling through Northern Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and U.A.E.! I am now back in good ol’ Nashville Tennessee where I’ll be coopin’ up until around the middle of March before I head back to Uganda. As I’m in the U.S. I’ll be working on finishing up the art and music from the U.S. contributors for the Ensigo Seeds album, recruiting U.S. artist volunteers for a new Ensigo program I’m trying to launch called “Volunteers For Creative Collaboration”, working with Compassion International again, working construction jobs, working with World Vision, and fundraising.

 

I’m sure so much has happened in your lives over this past year and I would LOVE if you could send me an update email or else let me know a time when you can talk over the phone and catch up (my U.S. number is: 727.753.8663)! As usual, fun and crazy situations always seem to find me, and this trip was definitely not a let down. I’d much rather share these stories over the phone or in person but as a teaser to this last year, here are some of my favorite stories to tell (hopefully this will pique your interest to the point where you can’t resist but to call.

 

• Fell in love with a wonderful woman named Maggie…I’m in love, I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it!
• Was a part of a panel of Ugandan musicians and producers for a weekly radio show to discuss ways that music can positively transform societies, on 94.8 FM in Kampala.
• Filmed a MusicArt video with an American filmmaker, Ugandan painter, and American photographer in Mpanga forest for an Ensigo song.
• Had a death threat in Somaliland
• Worked with the Somaliland government (ministry of culture) to begin developing copyright law to protect musicians from exploitation and generate income for them.
• Recorded 15 songs with 8 Ugandan musicians for the Ensigo Seeds Album project
• Worked with 7 Ugandan visual artists who created “MusicArt” pieces to selected Ensigo songs
• Hosted and organized an Ensigo art exhibition/concert/film viewing party in Kampala as a fundraiser to send up and coming Ugandan filmmaker Peter Tukei to Berlin to present his film at the Berlinale film festival (pictures: http://ow.ly/7R3cX and http://ow.ly/7R3iB)
• My girlfriend and I were robbed at machete point in Kampala Uganda
• Helped record audio for a film being made by the organization H.A.L.O., and then donated an Ensigo song for the video (check it out here: http://vimeo.com/23398914)
• Led songwriting workshops for children that are part of the organization Empower African Children (video: http://youtu.be/S_oquaGj4IY)
• Bizarreness of being escorted in a motorcade by the president’s personal guard to a recording studio in Somaliland
• Ensigo album release party in Piswa Uganda in which, unexpectedly, several government officials attended and gave speeches…and a goat was killed then roasted (pictures: http://ow.ly/7R4f4)
• Along with a great friend named Eric Kreutter, we wrote, recorded, advised and performed songs with Uganda’s top rock musician (and great role model), Rachel K.
• First day in Somaliland myself and two other friends visited the “zoo” and then our friend got robbed by the “zookeepers”.
• A Brandon Heath music video of the song I recorded with him and the Restore Children in Gulu was released! (video: http://youtu.be/Gy67Ugf-2Ig)
• Organized (and performed at) a benefit concert for a great non-profit organization in Uganda called Educate!
• Recorded some songs of a wonderful children’s choir that are part of the organization In Movement.
• Had a baseball sized rock thrown at my head while walking down the road in Somaliland
• One that I can’t mention over email, but it’s CRAZY
• Had a giant loogie hocked on my leg in Somaliland
• Advised/mentored several great Ugandan musicians: including Tamba and Davis Ntare.
• And a few others that are pretty neat, but not quite as neat as those listed above.

 

So that briefly sums up my time away. Now the thing that I’m desiring the most is…if at all possible, to sit down over some coffee or a meal and swap stories. One thing that is so hard for me while I’m away from my U.S. community of friends and family for extended periods of time are these feelings of disconnection, and not feeling as involved in your lives, and you in mine. I love Facebook and using it to keep up to date with latest happenings in your lives…but good ol’ fashioned personal emails are great too. So if you have some spare time, it would be great to get an update with how things have been going for you.

 

Thank you soooooooooooooooooooooo much to everyone that donated financially and through prayers to make this trip possible! Your generosity has had a huge impact on me and the lives of many people throughout East Africa….and it challenges me so often to live a more giving life!

 

Love,
Aaron

 

P.S. In lieu of sending out massively long email updates every several months (as was my habit), I’ve been posting more regular updates on www.facebook.com/ensigo and www.twitter.com/ensigo. So if your heart so desires you can check out what’s been going on with things there.

Service Artist Article on Ensigo's Work!
0

November 16th, 2011
News

This summer I met an awesome guy named David Watterson in Uganda. David works for an amazing organization named The Center For Music National Service.
Well one thing led to another, and he ended up writing an article about my work with Ensigo which you can read by clicking the image below.

Honoring the web of life

P.S. Also in this article, for the first time EVER that I’m releasing some clips from upcoming Ensigo songs. Check ‘er out.

As long as...
0

August 18th, 2011
Creative Writing

In this one year that I’ve been working and traveling throughout Eastern Africa (Northern Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Kenya) I’ve developed an even stronger passion for indigenous peoples around the world, and for focusing on projects that encourage biocultural diversity in the work that Ensigo does. I intend to write a blog post soon on the subject of biocultural diversity and it’s extreme importance in sustaining the world…but in a nutshell biocultural diversity is “the rich but neglected adaptive interweave of humankind and nature, cultural pluralism and ecological integrity.”

 

Recently I was reading through the poetry of the Saami author Paulus Utsi (The Saami people are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway). I was inspired when I cam across a brilliant poem of his entitled “As long as…” which echoes the lament of many indigenous peoples about the ravages caused by industrial development upon nature and traditional cultural values. He describes a longing to maintain traditional lifestyles close to nature and the ensuing loss of meaning when engulfed by modern economic development. Captured in the poem are underlying cultural values and definitions of what constitutes indigenous peoples’ wellbeing and sustainable development and, in its absence, indigenous peoples’ despair. Please check it out below and feel free to leave a comment on your thoughts.

 

As long as we have waters where the fish can swim
As long as we have land where the reindeer can graze
As long as we have woods where wild animals can hide
we are safe on this earth

 

When our homes are gone and our land destroyed
– then where are we to be?

 

Our own land, our lives’ bread, has shrunk
the mountain lakes have risen
rivers have become dry
the streams sing in sorrowful voices
the land grows dark, the grass is dying
the birds grow silent and leave

 

The good gifts we have received
no longer move our hearts
Things meant to make life easier
have made life less

 

Painful is the walk
on rough roads of stone
Silent cry the people of the mountains

 

While time rushes on
our blood becomes thin
our language no longer resounds
the water no longer speaks

 

-Paulus Utsi

 

 

Paulus Utsi was born in 1918 and died in 1975. His poem “As long as…” is translated by Roland Thorstensson and reprinted in In
the Shadow of the Midnight Sun: Contemporary Sami Prose and Poetry (1998), Harald Gaski (ed.).

 

The Bo Jackson of Art in Uganda
59

December 29th, 2010
Art & Photography

Tukei Peter is to art in Uganda as what Bo Jackson was to sports in the U.S. As a multi-talented artist and all around fantastic human being Tukei excels in painting, photography and filmmaking. I first met him in 2009 at an art exhibition hosted by Alliance Française. And I’m pretty sure that we connected after remarking how strange the guest contemporary dancers were as they wildly gyrated against the displayed paintings and sculptures.

 

At the age of 8, after being inspired by the paintings his older brother was creating, Tukei began to take up sketching. Soon showing a natural talent in the arts he passionately strove to cultivate his abilities and ended up pursing a degree in art and photography at Makerere University. Now 25 years old, Tukei is able to support himself completely through his work as an artist. Each year he usually will work for about 4 months on making paintings then selling them, and for the last 8 months he lives off the profit from his paintings and focuses on developing his hobbies of photography and filmmaking.

 

Tukei has only been involved in creating films since 2009, but has already shown a natural talent. Check out the trailer below from his latest film entitled Kengere. It is a wonderful 20 minute short which uses stop-motion animation and traditional banana leaf dolls to tell the story of a Ugandan bicycle rider. If you’re in the Kampala Uganda area be on the lookout for updates about a film viewing party Ensigo will be hosting for Kengere around the end of January.

 

Here are some selections of his work:

 

kengere from t.u.k.e.izm on Vimeo.

 

P.S. To check out more of Tukei’s photography and art work please visit the ensigo facebook page.

Conclusion Of My Research On Music In Somaliland & A Tribute To The Days Of Somali Musical Yore
144

November 9th, 2010
Music & Video

After this one and a half months of intensive research in Northern Somalia/Somaliland I have concluded that neither of Ensigo’s initiatives (Seeds Album and Volunteers For Creative Collaboration) will work at this point in time. Through interviews with local academics, musicians, government officials, NGO’s, news agencies, and religious leaders I have found that since the late 1990’s extremest practice of religion in the region has striven to suppress music and various other forms of artistic and traditional cultural expression (dancing, visual arts, drama/theatre, study of pre-islamic Somali history, traditional craft-making, local film industry, poetry, storytelling, literature, traditional dress, etc.). This has also created a hostile environment for collaboration among the the few local musicians that are left (especially with the uptempo inter-genre music that Ensigo is creating). I have been warned that this could potentially endanger the safety of both the local musicians and myself. So after this trial period and after much deliberation I have made the decision to cease all research here and move on to the next phase in Uganda. But I look hopefully to the future for increased freedom of artistic expression and the possibility of returning.

 

Somaliland is unlike any country I have previously experienced. It is a land of dramatic extremes! I have had some of the most thrilling positive experiences (which I will share in detail once I’m in Uganda). But in this same trip I have also been deeply saddened by a string of negative incidents I endured. However I think I’m gradually learning to find joy in all of these experiences and seek growth.

 

I consider my time in Somaliland well worth it. And I’m looking forward to continue investing in the friendships that I was blessed to form here.

 

 

——————————
Tribute to the Days of Somali Musical Yore:

 

In my research I found that the golden era of locally composed and recorded Somali music has passed, hitting it’s pinnacle in the mid 1980’s with the popularity of groups like Iftin and Dur Dur, While there is an abundance of wonderful new Somali music being created by the diaspora (notable artists: Nimco, Maryan Mursal, and K’naan), the current state of music in Somalia is dismal. In recent history musicians were highly revered as cultural icons and voices of a generation, however many are now trapped in lifestyles of destitution revolving around an addiction to an amphetamine-like drug named “khat.” As a tribute to the days of Somali musical yore, and a longing to see local musicians return to making beautiful music and developing their talents, I am posting 5 of my favorite songs that were collected during my research. I hope you are as moved by the passion in the performances in these songs as I am. And please join me in praying for the restoration and local support of the musicians (and their families) who are remaining in Somalia.

 

Iftin – Haka Yeelin Nacabkeenna
Dur Dur – Goromphmca
Arays Esse – Haddii Kale Wahan Iahaa
Kinsi Xaaji Aadan – Adkaysan Waayoo Aduun Dhibkiisaa
Xasan Aadan Samatar