children following a wedding in opucet, uganda

Oumarou Mebouack –

The Third Eye In The Lens.

Oumar Mebouack is a African photographer, cameraman and videomaker based in the city Douala, Cameroon. Oumarou Mebouack was born on December 1st 1976 in the town of Mandjo in Cameroon and grew raised by a grandmother who could not read or write a single letter in western alphabet. But she could read the signs n the nature, translate the weather and explain the dreams. Oumarou grew up learning from his grand mother all the characteristics of human behavior and life. As a child living in countryside of a 3rd world nation as Cameroon, he also grew up very speechless and watched the rural activities, including ritual ceremony of the Tikar tribe.

He became a photographer by accident. One day his uncle Ousmane brought him a little strange automatic box that could fix on a tape on a film tape any or a scene that you see. The young Oumar was shocked by the first gift from his uncle. After he moved from N'ditam Tikar, country to the city of Douala, at the age of 17th, he decided to study photography. Like many other artists in Cameroon, Oumarou is a self taught photographer and multimedia artist. In 2000s he started working as a freelance a photojournalist and reporter for local and international agencies while he was also photographing the urban daily life such as; birthday, marriage and family celebrations to make a living.

Since the year of 2002, he is the project coordinator of (HITIP) Hope International for Tikar People, a community-based organization that is working to improve the lives of the Tikar and pygmies people in Cameroon. Oumarou is the vital link between the Tikar and Pygmy region in Cameroon and the rest of the world and the villagers call him the "Third Eye". Oumarou has collaborated on several publications, magazines and documentary films, some most notably the latest film "Return to the Belly of the Beast," "The Power OF Pen And Ink" and the current "Radio Taboo" cpoduced by Issue TV, US. Oumarou is well-known for his artistic work, and his works have been shown in several countries around the world. In 2008, one of his videos was shown at Prospect 1, the premiere Biennale in New Orleans in the United States. The aim of this video project was to compare the trauma experienced by the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina with the daily life of the inhabitants of certain regions of Africa during the rainy season. Because of his deep knowledge of the traditional, rural world and the urban world, Ourmarou's valuable research has allowed HITIP to establish a solid base in the Tikar region of Cameroon. Oumarou's work have also documented the lives of thousands of indigenous people living in rainforest of Cameroon. "I want my camera to be the witness of all the things that my eye can see" said Oumarou. Oumarou Mebouack works and lives in Cameroon.

Please take a look at some of these videos filmed by Oumar!!

By Rachel A. Becker, National Geographic

PUBLISHED July 28, 2015

People with small body sizes, known as Pygmies, begin life at a typical size but grow slowly in early childhood, a new study shows. The results may cast doubt on long-held beliefs about how and why these groups developed shorter statures.

New evidence published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that East and West African Pygmy children have different patterns of growth, a finding that may also shed light on how these groups evolved. Fernando Ramirez Rozzi, a National Geographic grantee at the French National Center for Scientific Research and lead author of this study, spent eight years tracking age, growth, and fertility in a Pygmy population in Cameroon called the Baka.

The name Pygmy describes rainforest hunter-gatherer populations around the globe that share heights of less than around five feet tall. This short stature is genetic, research has shown, not merely the result of malnutrition. Less clear, though, is the question of how diminutive body size evolved, and whether it did so independently in different African Pygmy groups.

Growth curves

“There are just so few studies of this kind on Pygmies,” says University of Pennsylvania professor Sarah Tishkoff. Tishkoff studies the Baka but was not involved in this work.

Nomadic hunter-gatherer groups such as the Baka are notoriously difficult to study. Rozzi described the village as completely in the rainforest, with a shifting population. “You go one time in the year and you find some people. You go again six months later and the people have moved—you have a new family there,” he said.

Another challenge, added George Perry, an anthropologist and geneticist at Pennsylvania State University, is that hunter-gatherers don’t always know how old they are. “If you don’t have that information, or if that information is prone to error, it’s very hard to actually get accurate growth curves,” said Luis Barreiro, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Montreal.

Rozzi’s group got accurate ages from a group of nuns at a nearby Catholic mission who recorded birth dates and weights since the late 1980s. Rozzi’s team combined the information with their own measurements of children and adults whose ages they knew to create a growth curve of Baka people from birth to age 25.

The growth curves revealed that Baka infants are born the same weight as French infants, but after three months Baka weights drop, and never catch up. This contradicts the reigning theory—at least for this population—that Pygmy people are short-statured because they lack a growth spurt during puberty. (“They demonstrate a growth spurt pretty convincingly,” Perry says.)

East African Pygmy populations have a different growth pattern: Infants are born small and stay small, according to published studies that Rozzi’s team used for comparison. The difference between the two groups could mean that Pygmies’ shorter statures did not start with their common ancestor, but instead evolved independently in response to similar environments.

Evolved twice?

Pygmy populations in Africa have a common ancestor thought to have split from typically-sized populations around 60,000 years ago, before splitting again into East African and West African groups around 20,000 years ago.

Several theories suggest that short stature is an adaptation to life in the tropical rainforest: small bodies regulate heat better, are more agile when moving through dense vegetation, need less food, and, according to one theory, can reproduce at younger ages.

mother and child in Jinja, Uganda

For many people, fishing is a way of life. But for a small town in Argungu, Nigeria, fishing is both a way of life and a symbol of peace between them and the people of Sokoto. Every year, the Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria is celebrated to commemorate the harmony between the two neighbors. Fishermen from Argungu, Sokoto and nearby towns participate in a bare-hand fishing contest in Matan Fada River where the winner is awarded generous prizes and the title, "Fisherman of the Year". The winner is the one who catches the biggest fish using only a net and a calabash floater. The Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria is a four-day festival which also includes different sports activities like archery, swimming, catapulting, animal-skinning among others. But the main event is the bare-hand fishing wherein a fisherman is given one full hour to catch the biggest fish to the sound of the beating drums. Winners will receive cash prizes and other gifts given by sponsors. Generally, the participants and audience are all male so verify with the event organizers if you are female and want to experience the excitement.
The best time to see the Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria is on March 16th or 17th. Again, always check with the organizers to prevent missing the dates as sometimes, the Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria is postponed due to low water level of the the Matan Fada. Usually the Argungu fishing festival starts on a Wednesday and ends on Sunday. If you are a bit of an adventurer and would love to dive into the waters of Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria or in any of the events, recently, they have allowed male foreigners to join the contests and the festival was brought to International level. The people are known to be friendly and helpful and it is most honorable to be able to experience the Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria. Weather during this time will be hot and balmy with some occasional rain shower, make sure to drink lots of water because it will be crowded. Moreover, if you are a spectator, expect it to get muddy especially if it rains in the Matan Fada. It is recommended to travel with a local so hire a trustworthy guide from a local tour operator.
Ref: http://www.thecircumference.org/argungu-fishing-festival
YouTube videos

In Israel there exists the largest community of Black Jews in the world. They are called today Yehuday Etiopia or Ethiopian Jews. They have their own Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yosef Hadane, recognized by the State of Israel. He has amongst his duties to make sure that Ethiopians in Israel before they marry have either a continuous female line Jewish lineage or else that they first convert. This is because of the gap between World Jewry in touch with Rabbinical Jewish Law and their Ethiopian brethren not traditionally conversant in Rabbinical Judaism altogether.

They are developing their own responses to Rabbinical Judaism on individual and communal levels. This causes tension at times but the Jews from the Former Soviet Union have had a similar situation with Israel having to deal with people considering themselves Jewish in accordance with Soviet government definitions but not Jewish ones. In any event many Ethiopian Jews want to preserve customs that have been in vogue in Ethiopia. One of them, a holiday in Israel, called Sigd is an opportunity nowadays, for all Jews to further their bonds as a people or more accurately in terms of Jewish attitudes, a family.

Sigd falls out the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, 50 days after Yom Kippur. The holiday recalls the reaffirmation of acceptance of God's covenant with Israel through the leadership of Ezra and Nehemia leaders of the returning Jewish exiles to Israel from the Babylonian exile, the first exile of the Jewish people.
In 2008, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset legislated Sigd as a national holiday. Rabbi Yosef Hadane helped to organize its annual Jerusalem celebration. It is a time when Ethiopian Jews celebrate their heritage and now a time when their fellow Jews come to celebrate with them their common connection. After welcoming their brothers and sisters home to Israel, they are trying to make them feel at home.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_people_(Cameroon_and_Gabon)

The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka (Bebayaka, Bebayaga, Bibaya), are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related. Likewise, the name "Baka" is sometimes mistakenly applied to other peoples of the area who, like the Baka and Twa, have been historically called pygmies, a term that is no longer considered respectful.

The Baka people are hunter-gatherers, formerly called Pygmies, located in the Central African rain forest. Having heights of 1.52 meters (5 feet) in average as well as a semi-nomadic lifestyles, the Baka are often discriminated against and marginalized from society.

The tropical rain forest in Gabon, Central Africa where some of the Baka reside
They reside in south-eastern Cameroon, northern Gabon and in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Congo, the Baka people are otherwise known as the Bayaka. Some Baka are also found in the Southwestern African Republic. Although, the Baka people are located throughout the Central African rain forest, they are mainly concentrated in Cameroon as the Baka community of Cameroon represents roughly 30 000 individuals.

The Baka are a semi-nomadic people, like other hunter-gatherers such as the Bagyeli and the Twa. However, they are slowly becoming a more sedentary people due to the intensive deforestation of the Central African Rainforest. Pressures from their taller and more dominant neighbors, the Bantu, have also slowed the Baka people’s mobility.

The Baka have successfully maintained their language, also called Baka. Unlike their neighbors’ languages (Koozime, Bakoum and Bangandou) which have Bantu roots, Baka comes from a different language family, Ubangian.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_people_(Cameroon_and_Gabon)

A man sells jackfruit to those passing by in Soroti, Uganda

A school child in the village of Opucet, Uganda