The Spirit of Making Something Out of Nothing: Volunteers and Information Technologies

Contemporary Africa is full of contrasts and contradictions. It is a jumble of the old and the new, the traditional and the global, the urban and the rural, of extreme wealth and of abject poverty. It is a mélange of smells, colours, ethnicities and cultures. It is a moment in transition.

It is said that information technologies have the potential to transform social, economic and political life through out the world. But, what of those countries who are witness to this technological age but can not participate? My photographic contribution, in questioning this discussion, explores the chasm that is the digital divide, searching for that moment, in Uganda, where the divide converges, brought together by a particular spirit that emerges in the face of adversity. This spirit I choose to call making something out of nothing.

It is the spirit of innovation. Taking what is available, however meager, and finding new, utilitarian ways of making it work. This results in the transformation of nothing into something, or of something old into something new. In addition, my visual documentation points at the symbiotic, relationship between people and the earth, exploring, on a micro scale, the way in which technology can fit, harmoniously, into this relationship.

The Volunteers

40 kilometers south of Kampala, off the national electricity grid line, is a farm called Kamunye. Kamunye, abandoned for many years by its owners, was inhabited by a community of people from the near-by village. They cultivated parts of the land, living off the fruits of their harvest. When the owners returned to reclaim the farm, they included the people, who lived on the land during their absence, into their plans for the progression of the farm, and thus they, the owners, inadvertently became a part of that community. 

Community is an aspect of the volunteer sector. Being a part of a community means volunteering a part of yourself and your time to that community. This type of investment doesn't have commercial value and there is no monetary exchange, what it does have, though, is social capital: community solidarity. A community that is rejuvenated and sustained by a collective, through this type of social investment, will in itself nurture, protect and provide an identity for the individuals rejuvenating and sustaining it. This is a cyclical illustration of making something out of nothing.

The Technology

Turning something old into something new, is the spirit with which the owners of Kamunye have handled the basic problems they face in their plans to further develop the farm: no running water; no electricity; no communication; no time to cultivate the land. Using locally supplied, economical solutions they are alleviating these constraints by installing a plumbing system that uses the rain (of which fertile Uganda receives plenty) as its water source; investing in large solar panels for energy supply; providing a mobile phone powered by a single solar panel; and enlisting the community as care takers of the land. 

The Photographs

Focusing on the minutiae of this community it becomes apparent that technology has become just another aspect of this farm life. Visually experiencing the children's 'sapatus' in the wheel barrow, the peppers from a recent harvest, the solar panel that powers the mobile phone, the child on his mothers back as she works, one can see where the divide has converged, where a need has been assuaged, and a harmonious, symbiotic relationship has flourished, between the people, technology and the earth in the spirit of making something out of nothing.