Sharpening Knives

Butchery in Juba, South Sudan

I hear a man sharpening his knifes.
It reminds me of my days as an adolescent.
Being a cleaner at a butcher’s shop in a rural town in the Netherlands, Zutphen.
On Saturday afternoons I’d be picked up from the railway station.
By the butcher.
To come clean his place.

The money I’d spend on vinyl. To expand my collection. And be a DJ.

Days long gone.

Now?
Now I make a living working in what promises to be Africa’s youngest nation. In a “capital” with dusty roads and entire neigbourhoods where people live in “tukkels” – mud houses.

I no longer clean. These days I write stories. I take pictures. I look around.
And soak up life as if I were a sponge.

A boring city it is. In a way.
Because in many other ways it’s not boring at all.

Life thrives.
It dances.
It swings.
It meanders.

Therefore: an ode to a vocation.
And the love with which some people manage to do what they do.
To stay afloat.
And feed the kids.

Life…

(For a full screen version of what is no more than a test; a lesson in how to make a Flash file.)