{"id":5551,"date":"2011-10-12T12:11:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T12:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=5551"},"modified":"2011-10-12T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T12:11:56","slug":"photo-show-by-mg-film-fest-contestant-shows-hard-but-happy-life-in-malawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/12\/photo-show-by-mg-film-fest-contestant-shows-hard-but-happy-life-in-malawi\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo show by MG Film Fest contestant shows hard but happy life in Malawi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elliott Ruga\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0entry in last month\u2019s\u00a0MorristownGreen.com Film Festival<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0was a thought-provoking documentary about urban planning in West Palm Beach.<\/p>\n

So when Elliott invited us to check out his latest project, about life in one of the world\u2019s poorest countries, Malawi, we were intrigued.<\/p>\n

His photo exhibition is called\u00a0Why Ain\u2019t There No Tea in Malawi?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and it runs through October at the J.B. Kline Gallery, at 25 Bridge St. in Lambertville.<\/em><\/p>\n


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Videographer\/photographer Elliott Ruga with his faithful assistant, Madison. Photo by Kevin Coughlin<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the summer Elliott spent 16 days in Malawi, Africa\u2019s most densely populated nation, shooting a documentary about a demo project that distributed mobile phones to health workers. The idea was to streamline delivery of medicine and emergency services, explained the Harding resident, who also works as a policy analyst for the New Jersey Highlands Coalition.<\/p>\n

Previously, Malawians might bicycle for miles to a hospital for a pickup, only to discover that a shipment of medicine had not arrived. The phones have enabled text messaging about these shipments. Ambulances also can be dispatched swiftly now, he said.<\/p>\n

According to Elliott, Malawi has the world\u2019s 12th highest infant mortality rate. Per capita income is $800 and life expectancy is just 52 years.\u00a0 Eleven percent of citizens are infected with HIV\/ AIDS.\u00a0\u00a0 In the video clip here, recorded by Elliott, the\u00a0Nkhotakota District Hospital Office Band<\/strong>\u00a0sings about the importance of contraception; songs are a vital way to spread information in a society with low literacy.<\/p>\n

Yet for all the challenges faced by the people of Malawi, Elliott found them to be remarkably upbeat. His photos reflect that\u2013and the exhibition\u2019s title is meant to ask why Americans are so glum.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny American who claims to be a member of the Tea Party movement lives a life that is infinitely safer, healthier, more secure and more comfortable than 99.9 percent of the rest of humanity,\u201d he said. \u201cBut all they can do is complain about how awful things are. Maybe we have to give up our Hummers. These people (in Malawi) have nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somehow, he said, Malawaians \u201care happy, they get along, they laugh. They are a lot more content than people here who have everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elliott Ruga\u2019s\u00a0entry in last month\u2019s\u00a0MorristownGreen.com Film Festival\u00a0was a thought-provoking documentary about urban planning in West Palm Beach. So when Elliott […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[334],"tags":[532,1263,289,1264],"class_list":["post-5551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-misc","tag-competition","tag-context","tag-lake-malawi","tag-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}