PRESS RELEASE
24 March 1999
The GSMP is in the final preperations for our first Video Production and training which will feature the Rupununi Savannahs in Guyana. Dr. Terry Roopnaraine, GSMP coordinator and Silke Seco, assistant producer are presently in the Rupununi making arrangements for the production. Ray Kril, GSMP Coordinator and Jurgen Braam, soundman and photographer will arrive there on 28 March to begin production and training. The team will be joined by 3 local residents who will be in training during the production. see VIDEO TREATMENTS for subject information.
During the production of PORTRAIT of the RUPUNUNI SAVANNAHS the production team will be sending reports with photos to the GSMP web site to be featured on the Rupununi Page. The first report should be on or about 30 March. It is hoped that viewers will be able to also send comments, questions or thoughts to the team in the Rupununi. The Production team will be there from 28 March - 15 April.
1ST PROJECT UP-DATING REPORT
Sunday 28th of March. Ray and Jürgen arrived in Guyana on Saturday the 27th, joined Sherwin in Georgetown, and flew into the Rupununi the following day, where Terry, Silke and Sharla had taken care of the logistics a few days in advance. After a long-awaited reunion on the airstrip, we drove to the hotel in Lethem, the administrative centre of the Rupununi, where we have established our base. Some invigorating savannah food (beef and farine), a briefing on logistics progress and planning for the next two weeks, and we went to bed full of excitement, ready to start our filming adventure on Monday.
Monday 29th of March. Early this morning, we started to work in St Ignatius, an Amerindian community which is only about a kilometre from Lethem. The village is home to some 800 people, who make a living from farming, fishing, animal husbandry, some hunting and increasingly through contract labour in building sites, government administration, driving and domestic work. We went to the house of Adeline, one of the women who is weaving Wapishana hammocks with the Rupununi Weavers Society, and filmed the process of making a hammock, which is incredibly hard and elaborate work. A hammock is made of several parts: the main body, the scalines, the heads and the fringes. Weaving or ramming the main body of a hammock requires the greatest amount of work, taking approximately two weeks. The making of the scalines, the heads and the fringes takes about another week, so on average, it takes a woman three weeks to complete a whole hammock, depending on the number of daily hours worked. We also filmed the process of framing the hammock, which involves arranging the cotton strings in a large wooden loom, where the ramming or weaving will be subsequently done. Finally, we filmed the final stage in the process, when the hammock is taken out of the frame upon completion of the main body. Watching the emergence of such an astonishingly beautiful piece of fabric was an incredible and breathtaking experience.
Aside from filming the making process of a Wapishana hammock, we talked to Adeline, Lynnete, who has just started to learn to weave, and Adeline’s grandmother, a great character! Adeline and Lynnete told us about their families, their daily life activities apart from weaving, which include looking after the children, fetching fire-wood and water, and other domestic chores. They also explained to us how the money that they are getting from weaving is allowing them to buy things like clothing, food-stuffs and also to save money to build their houses. Angelina, a Wapishana grandmother about eighty years old, told us how happy she is that young people are making Wapishana hammocks again, and after the chat, asked for a bottle of rum in exchange!
To finish up the day, our camera men filmed a variety of every day life scenes in an Amerindian village.
Without doubt, we will all end getting to bed exhausted, ready to get up very early tomorrow, to catch the sunrise over a beautiful traditional Wapishana house, with some gardens and the fabulous Kanuku mountains in the background.
