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An idea, the design, research on the Peace Pole Project, a new design--and then the chainsaw; a three and a half foot blade warped in a tooth of knawing metal. We were supposed to have had the materials, and the paints, but there were none. So we improvised, Peter Titcomb and I, finding resources, scouring the bush. And with the help of three large muscular black men of the Ijaw tribe in the Niger Delta. The engine hummed, filling a quiet room of books and cataloging. Wood split, poles shaved, materials produced. The Niger Delta Friendship Library Peace Pole of Oporoza was underway.

Pole of Peace

Camron Karsten
2006-02-18 20:12:18

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An idea, the design, research on the Peace Pole Project, a new design--and then the chainsaw; a three and a half foot blade warped in a tooth of knawing metal. We were supposed to have had the materials, and the paints, but there were none. So we improvised, Peter Titcomb and I, finding resources, scouring the bush. And with the help of three large muscular black men of the Ijaw tribe in the Niger Delta. The engine hummed, filling a quiet room of books and cataloging. Wood split, poles shaved, materials produced. The Niger Delta Friendship Library Peace Pole of Oporoza was underway.

The day was hot, bloody wet with beautiful cumuli in the sky. Their large thunderous heads rose high above an atmospheric layer, starry through a filter of Hollywood light. But this was Nigeria in the heat of the dry season.

At ground level the forest was green, lush. Tall trees stabbed at the clouds from low bush and in our field's clearing, narrow paths led into the shadows where local villagers were last seen. Peter and I hauled the newly cut panels on our shoulders, four to a stack, and sought shade beneath the school's awning.

There, we found Prince Abekunle, cousin of the Akran of Badagry--an ancient slave port to the New World. He was inside its seedy walls performing an art class; two students in attendance. Above them, white-washed wooden panels sagged on their beams, stained a muddle of corrosive hues (would this be the fate of the pole?) Reds, browns, blacks, and a drab green melded like an amoeba in the heat, oozing with a contagious cover, making obvious the leaks in the roof.

Fortunately, to our proceeding luck--and that symbol for peace--Abekunle had extra paint; a gritty, "highly water-resistant" substance available in a few pinkish pastel colors.

I poured the amounts in plastic cups and began what first seemed to be a simple creative process, like a scribe to the Pharaoh’s speech. But this was Africa, West Africa--Nigeria ...