Photographing Africa

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

Africa is home to one billion people.

TRAIN HORN

This vast continent is a melee of cultures and identities.

For the past century,

there's been a mass human migration in Sub-Saharan Africa

as families leave their rural way of life behind

and establish homes in towns and cities.

Growing up in the Sudan

and newly-independent Kenya,

I've watched this movement of people.

I've been photographing here since the early 1970s.

Recording the changing face of Africa has always been my passion,

and it's the focus of my photography.

Travelling out to remote parts of the continent,

I'm able to record what still exists of the old,

and also photograph what's new and emerging.

Despite the city's powerful magnetic draw, surprisingly,

most of Africa's billion people do still live out on the land.

It's a fascinating time because, within the next ten years,

that balance will tip

and the majority of Africans will become town and city dwellers.

If I could find the same rural people

I photographed two or three decades ago, I think they'd give me

a vivid insight into Africa's story of change.

This wild land of North Kenya is one of my favourite places on Earth,

and it's home to a semi-nomadic group called the Samburu.

Here, in 1984,

I took a series of portraits of five young Samburu women.

Because of their nomadic ways,

who knows where those women might be today,

or even whether any of them will still be alive?

But I would like to try and track them down,

and for that I'll need the help of an old friend.

Harry!

-How are you?

-Fine, thanks, fine.

Well, we've come all this way to talk to you about a plan.

We have a plan.

The young women whose portraits I'd taken in 1984

were all from traditional Samburu clans, living with livestock.

30 years on, I want to know what's become of them

and if Kibiriti will help me find them again.

Is that something that you could come with us?

-Yes, I will come with you.

-Yeah? Excellent.

Do you need to get yourself ready or anything?

-I think I can just put a trouser on.

-OK.

We found you without trousers, without anything!

I am very happy to see you again.

So nice, so good.

-Were you surprised to see me?

-Yes, yes. I just saw the car.

-I was standing here, I recognised you.

-Really?

-You thought, "Who's that?"

-Harry.

These five women. What's your instinct?

How do we start to look for them and find them?

I think the way to start looking for these girls is to search

-out from the old names, the one they had before.

-The family names?

-Their original family names?

-The original family name.

Do you think they will still be living traditional lives?

I think some might be, because they never change.

If married by the townspeople...

They will be different there. They will change.

Or if they have been married at the town, at the time, change.

-So people in the cities change faster?

-Yeah.

It will be a long journey to go

and look for them because...

HE SPEAKS IN DIALECT

Looking for a needle in a haystack.

-Is that right?

-Yes.

Samburu Land covers an area of 8,000 square miles.

That's a region the size of Wales.

So I don't doubt Kibiriti when he tells me

that our search for the five women will be no small task.

'Drought is a recurrent part of Africa's climate.

'It's not a rarity here

'and the Samburu have adapted their lifestyles to deal with it.

'Since 1984, there have been least three cataclysmic droughts in which

'most Samburu lost virtually all their livestock

'and many people died.'

'My fear, I suppose, would be

'to find out that the woman in the photographs have suffered.'

Kibiriti suggested that we return to the place I took the photographs

and speak to his friend, Douglas.

He thought Douglas might know the family names of some of the women.

Do you recognise any of these girls?

THEY DISCUSS

30 years is a long time, it's a lifetime.

Of course. But that's the story of all societies now.

Of course.

Douglas spread the word that we were searching for the five women,

though he, like Kibiriti, warned me it wasn't going to be easy.

Douglas explained that women

generally marry into a different clan,

and, once they've taken on their husband's name

and moved away to live with his family, they'd be hard to trace.

But what if they hadn't married, I asked.

Douglas just laughed

and said that wasn't an option in the Samburu girls' life.

The Samburu tribe are divided into nine clans.

Outside of towns, they, for the most part,

continue to live steeped in their tribal tradition.

When I arrive at a community,

if people are amenable to having their portrait made,

I put up a studio tent.

-WHISPERS:

-Fantastic.

It's like a Victorian studio portrait.

He wouldn't need one of those neck braces to keep him still.

Absolutely like a statue.

Fantastic.

You were just as still as a rock.

HE EXCLAIMS

Woo!

I've just had my first positive lead.

One of the Samburu women has been recognised by a relative.

He believes Ndito Lekisoli is now married to his brother

and that she's living on this hillside.

I'll be gobsmacked if she's actually here.

That's her in the yellow. No! Ndito?

No.

No, she hasn't spotted us yet.

Here we are. Yes. Yes.

Ndito!

Her oldest child is 24. She's a grandmother many times over.

So exactly six years after I took the picture,

Ndito got married and started having children.

That's great.

It's incredible.

Amazing to find her 30 years on.

What was the happiest time of Ndito's life?

What really surprised me about photographing Ndito

and finding her is that, in 30 years,

she's only moved two miles,

settled down and had a family.

So the whole pattern of the Samburu nomadic group

has completely changed over 30 years.

They're no longer travelling great distances in search for pasture.

I asked Ndito, what's the furthest away place she'd been in her life?

She told me it was when she went on a shopping trip to Kasima.

That's a small town 12 miles from where she lives.

It's interesting to me that

it was a town, as opposed to some wild, far off place.

Small towns certainly are an irresistible allure all over Africa.

They're vital to people's livelihoods as marketplaces,

where they can buy and sell livestock and produce.

It's fantastic. A lovely pot of tea.

It's the Serial Hotel.

A hotel in this part of the world isn't a place where you stay.

It's a place where you eat. It's a restaurant.

-Oh, hello. Is this your hotel?

-Yeah.

Can I take a picture of you and the mural? Thank you.

I like your T-shirt.

Excellent. Thank you, sir. What is your speciality? What do you serve?

I just sell rice, beans and potatoes,

about 50 shillings for a plate.

Cup of tea, 20 shillings per cup.

20 shillings for a cup of tea?

-Yes.

-That's good value.

That's about 20p a cup. That's very good value. Yeah. Excellent.

-Can I have a cup of tea?

-Yeah, come on.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, it's very sweet. It's already got the sugar in it.

It's very sweet. Delicious.

The people who travel into these small market towns

to sell their produce or buy goods often come from a place

way out in the land, a place they still call home.

But Samburu territory is surrounded by other tribal groups.

There are more people on the land than there once were,

so there's greater conflict over grazing and water.

Cattle can never be more than half a day's walk from drinking water.

In the remote parts of northern Kenya, traditional singing wells

are still very much in use.

THEY ALL SING

THEY DISCUSS

My search for the four remaining women continues,

and I've just met someone who thinks they know Mary Lesupai.

If it really is her, she'll be living near a place called Baua,

with a married name of Mary Lekaltia.

I've been given directions

and driven out to the open flatlands to speak to the community elders.

We have a girl here. I have a mystery.

There's a girl here called Mary Lesupai.

This picture of Mary was taken in 1984.

You do? Chief Paul, you know everybody! How old is she now?

Yeah. Let's go, let's go and meet her.

Yeah, we go back?

Oh, yes, yes OK. Let's go and try there.

Does she recognise this? Is it her? What does she say?

Does she recognise herself?

Chief Paul, what was her name before she was married?

So this is the right name.

She is the one, but she doesn't...

Does she recognise it?

It is her.

Is it really? It's definitely her. It is her.

PRINTER BEEPS

Why isn't it working?

Chief Paul, how many children does Mary now have?

Eight children. Any grandchildren?

Do any of Mary's boys have jobs in the city,

or do they all work with cattle?

They're all cattlemen.

PRINTER BEEPS

"Remove the paper jam and press the resume button on the printer,

"reprint the page you were printing."

PRINTER BEEPS

What do you think of that?

'I couldn't understand at first why

'Mary found it so hard to identify herself.

'I suppose I took it for granted that most of us grow up

'surrounded by family photographs and pictures of our childhood,

'images that remind ourselves of how we looked

'and reinforce our self-identity.'

Mary, your picture.

Incredibly concentrated look that Mary has,

looking back 30 years,

seems to be bringing back very deep memories.

'Mary still lives with cattle, but like Ndito,

'she too now lives in a permanent homestead with her family.

'Time on the move with her herds is now largely

'a thing of the past for the Samburu.

'Our continued search led us

'out to the furthest reaches of Kenya's northern deserts.

'But we still had no news of the other three Samburu women.

'Across the rest of Africa, a good number of pastoralist tribes

'continue to move with their herds in constant search of grazing.

'Some of these pastoralist groups still live very traditional

'lives and seem to be almost immune to the city's strong magnetic pull.

'To find these people today,

'I have to head much further out into the heart of Africa.

'One group I've been keen to photograph for a very long

'time is the Mundari.

'But their newly-independent country of South Sudan has been

'blighted by civil war and turmoil for over 30 years.

'There's no knowing what kind of reception I'll get from a

'people whose entire lives have been dominated by bloodshed and war.'

Look at this.

'The camps where the Mundari keep their herds in amongst

'the Nile tributaries are often very remote

'and totally inaccessible to vehicles.'

Good morning.

-Madak?

-Madan.

-Madan.

Madan.

-Madan.

-Hey! Hello.

Madan.

Madan.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Wow! This is a great camp!

Fantastic!

Salaam. Madan.

Madan.

Madan.

Madan.

Ah, madan. So, where is the head man, Clement? Where is the head man?

SPEAKS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE

This is the head man?

Ah, excellent. Madan.

How are you?

What's his name, Clement?

SPEAKS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE

-He's called Loku.

-Loku.

Loku.

Clement, can you ask Loku

if we can do some photography in his camp today?

How does he feel about that?

SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

How does he feel about that?

They're welcoming it?

But, Clement, he doesn't seem very happy. Is he happy?

-Which is his camp?

-This one.

-From here to there.

-From here to there.

-And the other leader is down there?

-Yes.

Shall we start at this end?

So just make sure that we're in his camp.

Thank you, thank you.

OK.

Very good.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. That's good. Thank you.

It's inside there, but I have to take it back to process

it in the laboratory in England and then it comes out.

HE TRANSLATES

Not sure whether he understood that one.

Have a look.

Have a look.

Look.

Can you see? Beautiful?

Huh?

OK, one second.

I love your hat.

Fantastic hat!

How many cattle do they have?

Wow! Really? For a bride?

Yes.

How does... How do you make the hair like that?

And when the Dinka come to raid the cattle, what do they use?

Do they use spears or clubs? How do they defend the cattle?

LAUGHTER

That's fantastic. Look at that. Wow!

-And do they have lots of spears here?

-Yes.

Yeah.

'During the dry season, young Mundari men

'and women leave their villages and take their herds

'down to the flood plains around the Nile, in search of pasture.

'They spend all day out grazing, but before nightfall,

'the animals return to camps for protection.'

An absolutely incredibly magical moment.

All the cattle coming back at dusk.

And they come in, there's about 1,000 in this camp,

and each cow turns to the same peg it was the night before.

In fact, where it always goes. They know exactly where they belong.

It's just, they're creatures of habit.

The Mundari have this incredible bond with their cattle. They just...

I mean, they're treated like family. They ARE family.

What's happening is that the girls just wait in the little circle

of pegs, waiting for the particular cows to come back

and then they just put a noose round their neck, peg them to the ground.

And that's that.

Moored for the night.

It's fantastic. Incredible sense of order about it.

Like parking cars. Absolutely incredible.

'Back in the Mundari villages, the elders,

'as well as the mothers and small children,

'are waiting for the rains to arrive, so they can begin planting.'

25 cows for his wife?

I'm sorry?

They're still demanding more? How long ago did he get married?

30 years and he still is in debt for his wife?

That's a long time to be paying for your wife.

So this is for shooting people?

They're nasty-looking arrows. Has he shot a person with this?

It's a secret. A secret, how many people...

Um... Can we have his permission to camp tonight here?

Just tonight. We'll leave in the morning.

He says you go to his home.

It's incredibly kind of this family just to let me

pitch a tent in their compound.

Can't imagine in England if you walked into somebody's back yard

and said, "Can I pitch my tent?" you'd get quite such a warm welcome.

'Rain has finally brought relief for the Mundari.

'But within a few days, roads will be impassable

'and bridges washed away.

'Mundari land will remain cut off and inaccessible for months.

'Such isolation from outside influence has certainly

'played its part in retaining Mundari culture.

'But there are not many parts of Africa where the powerful

'lure of city life is not felt.

'The whole continent is on the move.

'All about, I see people rooted in their past,

'yet propelled forward towards an urban future.

'Everyone in the city is here to earn their living.

'Hand-painted signs advertise what's for sale.

'These shop front murals began life by being a very clear

'and effective way to communicate across a vast population

'composed of so many different tribal languages.

'The signs of goods and services for sale promise a new and exciting

'life to many rural people coming in from the countryside.'

I've done restaurants, butchers,

salons, shops.

-Is it a satisfying job?

-It is really satisfying, but really annoying.

HE LAUGHS

They want it to be this way... I want it to be like a brown face...

I want it to be yellow face!

So this man, is he happy with this one?

He is so happy, but maybe 95% happy.

The 5%, like, "Please, can you come tomorrow

"and fix the eyes a little bit?"

'The city certainly is the place to come and make money.

'But just 100 miles from this densely packed metropolis,

'there's a group of people who resist the draw of the city

'and for whom money has no value or use at all.

'The Hadzabe are one of the very few African groups who still

'survive entirely as hunter-gatherers.

'They, like pastoralists and nomads, cling resolutely to a traditional

'way of life, while the rest of Africa changes all about them.

'The Hadzabe are masters of survival in this harsh land of theirs.

'They find drinking water high in baobab.

'A pool of rainwater has collected, way up in the hollow of the tree.

'Hadzabe hunting weapons have changed little with time.

'Their bows and arrow shafts are made from a sturdy local tree.

'Their feather flights are taken from hawk and guinea fowl wings.

'And their arrowheads are tipped

'with a poison brewed from a toxic plant.'

'Golfani's band of hunters have no means of storage.

'They rely entirely on what can be harvested in a single day.

'And they have no use for money,

'because their currency is their skill as hunters.'

But across Africa, only a few groups of people

still manage to survive as hunter-gatherers.

The Batwa pygmies of the East African forest

have been, for the most part, squeezed off their land,

and are now living in refuge on the edges of small towns.

The Khoisan bushmen of the Kalahari are equally threatened.

The Waata of Tsavo, who once lived by hunting elephants,

have long been forced to give up hunting.

The Hadzabe, meanwhile, cling to a tradition

that's now virtually extinct across the continent.

'I'd photographed Onka'a and his band of hunters on a previous visit.

'I now had their portraits for them.'

Golfani's hunters are preparing for a baboon hunt, tomorrow at dawn.

Baboons are highly-prized by the Hadzabe,

and they're exceptionally difficult to hunt.

A young man, in order to demonstrate his skill as a hunter

and prove that he will be capable of supporting a wife and family,

must shoot at least five baboons.

BABOON BARKS

BIRD CAWS

BANG!

SQUEALING

SHOUTING

It's the whole story of the hunt.

A whole re-enactment of the hunt that he has just performed.

It's a huge, huge, alpha male baboon.

That is food for the whole group.

A baboon of this size is a real cause for celebration.

Fewer and fewer groups of people in our world remain able to practise their traditional ways.

It may be just a matter of time before the Hadzabe too

will be forced to move towards a homogenised, urban society.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead warned that one day,

all human experience might be reduced finally to an amorphous, commercialised culture.

Her worst nightmare was that we would wake up one morning

and not even remember what we had lost.

'Back in northern Kenya,

'Kibiriti and I discovered sad news about Elisa,

'who was one of the five young Samburu women

'I had photographed in 1984.

'Elisa had contracted HIV and died of AIDS in the year 2000.'

Generations of African children have lost their parents to AIDS.

The statistics for the disease

in Sub-Saharan Africa tell a terrifying story.

On average, 169 people have died every hour from AIDS

for the last 15 years.

The orphans are often left to be raised by their grandparents.

All over Samburu Land, clans are gathering to perform a rare ceremony

that only occurs once every 10 or so years.

It is a vitally important rite of passage

in a Samburu man's life.

It marks the point that a Moran, a man of warrior age,

is initiated to become a junior elder.

This ceremony only takes place once a decade,

because it is the moment each generation moves on.

'All the young men together, as a collective group.'

Very good. Well done.

'The initiation takes place in a large, specially built corral.'

Each of the Morans is staying by their house at the moment.

Yes, I see. Standing by.

I don't know which one of these cows is for the chop,

but each of the 68 houses around the perimeter has a young man who is being initiated today.

Each one has to sacrifice an animal.

HORN BLOWS

'That's the signal everyone's been waiting for.

'It's a momentous occasion for the Morans.

'It's their last day as warriors.

'A crucial turning point in their lives.'

It's all kicking off now.

They're starting to get the cattle out and moved to the area

where they're going to slaughter them.

'The psychological pressure of the moment is deeply felt by the initiates.

'Some are so overwhelmed with emotion,

'they collapse in violent seizures, known by the Samburu as enduka.'

The Samburu name for this ceremony

translates as "the death of many cattle in one place".

No part of the sacrificed animals will go to waste.

Each cow's dewlap is carefully skinned, the jugular pierced,

and the initiates drink fresh blood.

'This is vitally important in the way that it reinforces

'the initiates' bonds and commitment to their clan and group.

'But today, many Samburu manage to balance their traditional roots

'with an entirely different, contemporary African lifestyle.

'I was fascinated to meet one of the initiates

'who has a full-time job as an officer in the Kenyan Air Force.'

Why is this ceremony so important to you?

Being a warrior, a Moran?

You'll be allowed to marry?

-And you will return to your job in the Air Force?

-Yes.

'He may hold a hi tech city job, but it is still crucial for him

'to join the rest of his Samburu clan for the finale of the ceremony.'

'The dance increases in volume and intensity.

'Through its rhythm, the dancers build themselves up

'into a trance-like state of consciousness.

'As the tension mounts, initiates start, once again,

'to break down under the emotional strain.'

'While the initiate is carried off, the dance continues.

'The dance is all-important and it cannot be interrupted.'

'It is extraordinary to me that these same dancers

'one moment are entirely immersed in this timeless ritual,

'and the next, they effortlessly navigate

'the modern 21st-century world.

'Many of these young men are experienced internet users.

'Some have created Facebook profiles.

'That in itself may not be surprising.

'What interests me, though, is that on their homepages,

'they have not posted images of themselves as modern city dwellers.

'Instead, they are dressed in full traditional tribal regalia.'

The duality of life here cuts to the core of my passion

to photograph Africa as it moves between the past and the present.

While the roots of so much African culture have undergone erosion and change,

this ceremony is conducted in a traditional way and with total conviction.

As I photograph this rite of passage, I am very conscious the world will be a decade older

by the time the ceremony comes round again.

I can't help wondering if the next generation of Samburu Morans

will experience this ceremony with such authentic intensity.

Kibiriti has good news

about one final woman from the portraits I'd taken.

Selina received word someone was looking for her

and she crossed the mountain to search us out.

She has carried a baby all the way down that incredible mountain!

And the baby is still asleep! That is amazing!

Oh, my God!

Hello.

HE GREETS HER IN HER OWN LANGUAGE

Are any of these her?

That's you? That is you! Oh, that is beautiful.

She remembers. She does, she remembers that.

That was 30 years ago, that was in 1984.

How many children do you now have?

Seven children. Is this your youngest child? Oh, look, a little fella.

He is fast asleep. That is fantastic. Look, he is snoring!

You can hear him snoring, he is fast asleep.

Right now, the present day.

When she looks back, was that a happy time?

She prefers the present to the past.

What about for the future, does she feel positive about the future?

'Of the five women we searched for, it was a sad blow to hear Elisa had died.

'But managing to find three of the women was far beyond my expectations.

'Since photographing them as girls, they had raised families.

'They were well, and all three were grandmothers.

'I'm inspired by their resilience.

'The bedrock of Samburu culture does appear to have survived

'the pressures of a changing Africa.

'What strikes me most was the way each of the women preferred to be living in the present,

'as opposed to looking back at their past, or ahead to their future.

'That's a quality I value and admire enormously.'

There is one girl we were unable to trace.

Nakwan, we were told, had moved to the city.

The details of her life and her whereabouts remain a mystery.

One of the things I find totally surprising is that two of those women had travelled so little.

They were still within a few miles of where I had photographed them, 30 years ago.

How do you explain that?

In Swahili, we say that...

HE SPEAKS IN SWAHILI

How do you say?

The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. It's the same in English!

Kibiriti...

THEY SAY THEIR GOODBYES