blog - gObama 2008
Oakland - can’t touch this flavor...
Sunday, December 30, 2007
(North Oakland, California - 3 a.m. local time)
I am settling in on the cosy sofa in Rochelle’s apartment. She is the girlfriend of my friend Chip, who works and lives as a doctor in the Navaho Reservation (Arizona) and who hooked me up big time to do this trip.
After my transition from Michael’s house (Chip’s buddy from Uganda) and his African hospitality from Santa Cruz, I feel positive and inspired to explore Oakland and San Francisco.
I conducted a great interview with Rev. Deborah Johnson early in the morning and then spent the afternoon filming Chip’s friends, who have generously supported my project with financing. I owe them a great party. Should happen soon after we know Obama is gonna win this campaign...
With generous support of Chip I have purchased a 1 TB hard drive - big enough for my backup. My documentary rests on a hard drive now... strange multimedia world.
Downtown San Francisco is a designer shopping mall and has a mellow and depressed feel to it, and so does Oakland on a Sunday in winter. The amount of homeless people and junkies that are on the streets is stifling. I feel that my European mind can just not get around this. I am irritated by the visible poverty that sits so comfortably aside middle class wealth.
It’s my fear of robbery in brought daylight, just because I carry an HD camera and apple laptop around. Kinda neurotic of me, but ever after my long stay in South Africa, I react with the same paranoia that wealthy folks have there in an unknown environment. My great privilege is that I am not a stranger any longer, cause for the first time I am surrounded by good friends who watch my back.