Kari Barber

My 4th Mac laptop

Today the doorbell rang and I flew down the steps to accept and sign for my fourth Mac laptop – a 13.3 inch Macbook Pro.  After thanking the benevolent Fedex man, I brought the tidy white box into my apartment and was instantly flooded with memories.  So, I decided it’s time to sit down and write an ode in honor of my fallen Macs.

Now first I would like to dispel any notion that my love for Mac computers is in any way related to the recent trendiness of the brand.  I have never bought an iPhone, iPad, iPod.  I hardly know how to even use them.  My story begins many moons ago when the igizmos were just a glint in Steve Jobs’ brownish eyes.

Apple IIe

As a child I had an Apple IIe followed by a spiffy Apple IIGS. I think I only used them to experience the hardships of the West via The Oregon Trail.

Apple IIGS

The years passed quietly and quickly and then Mac started to emerge onto the scene. As a school girl I knew and understood little about the discontent over Apple allocating resources to the Mac line rather than to the Apple II line. All I knew is that suddenly home computers got pretty.

iMac

At some point I owned a Blueberry, a Strawberry and an Indigo. Lovely names, but I never did get too hyped on those machines.

It wasn’t until 2003 when I got my first Mac laptop, a 17-inch MacBook Pro, that I really started getting kinda mushy.

It was my college graduation gift and I was so protective of it that I bought a metal case to carry it in that made it look like I was carrying a bomb everywhere I went.  Everything worked magically on it and it was so simple that for the first time in my life I didn’t feel like a total computer dufus.  But, alas, after time, my back began to ache.  I bought the 17-inch because I was planning to edit video and thought I needed the extra screen space.  While it was nice, the extra weight and surface area in a laptop wasn’t worth it to me and I rarely lifted it from the desk. Once when I did however, I immediately dropped it onto my hardwood floor causing the screen to go black.  It was still under warranty so I sent it in claiming it just stopped working out of the blue.  Mac contacted me back with a message saying “The laptop appears to have been dropped on a hard surface from a height of about 4 feet.  Nice try.”

Happy Family of MacBook Pros

I was furious and retaliated by buying a new Mac.

I bought a Mac Mini which when I lived abroad I treated like a laptop, taking it to Internet cafes, diving under the desk, pulling out all their cables and hooking it up to their monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Mac Mini

But it was like treating your cat like a dog. After a while it was time to buckle down and take the plunge again. And that’s how I met her.

Beautiful White Macbook

She was truly something special. She came to West Africa to live with me. She traveled with me from our home in Senegal to the Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Guinea. She withstood power voltage fluctuations like a champ. She edited video and audio without a hiccup allowing me to make a living as a journalist. She never failed to find a wireless signal. She operated all day long in 100 degree temperatures without a whimper. All she asked for was a recharge every 8 hours. She was wonderful. So wonderful that someone stole her.

They broke into the office I shared with other journalists in the middle of the night and took her along with many others of her kind. I never saw her again. It was hard for me, I’m sure you understand. It took some time, but I knew that I had to move on. I ordered one just like her in her memory. Sure it was never the same, but I needed to work and pay the bills. I still think of her often.

This brings me up to date, well as of earlier today before the newest edition arrived. The fact that I’m typing this right now and the new Mac is still in the box is a testament to the adult I have become. For the first time I have purchased a new computer before the previous one was completely dead. In fact this Macbook still works fine after being used and abused in high temperatures, unsteady power situations and sandstorms in Africa, after being slept on too many times to count by my over weight cat and having been dropped many, many times by its clumsy owner. I wanted the new one so that I could use a newer version of Final Cut and not have to wait as long while video is rendering.

I have found a good home for this one to spend the rest of her days.

If you’ve read all of this, you are probably thinking that I’m a total Mac whore.  And you’re right.  I just appreciate that for so many years they’ve made products that I like.

My message to Mac:  Please don’t start sucking.

I’ll leave you with a final photo from one of my fondest memories with the laptop I will be retiring today. This photo was taken by Ricci Shryock at the 2008 Islamic Summit in Dakar, Senegal. I’m ftping a video I have just edited to Bahrain state television and trying to explain to the delegation that their video will be in Bahrain in moments.

Watchout, Macbook in use!

“Boardwalk Bakery” the movie

I wrapped up the filming for my first documentary in July 2010.  It’s been a dream for me to create a movie on my own and I’m eternally grateful for my husband for supporting my ambitions, my mother for being an excellent AP and dealing with the paperwork, and to the bakery staff for letting me enter their world (and sleep on their floor) for two weeks.

The film is about adventure in Alaska, family who is always there, and baking.  I will be editing for the better part of 2010.

Click on the title above for updates on the film.

Founder of one of biggest human rights organizations in the DRC, Voix des Sans Voix or Voice of the Voiceless, was found dead in the back of his car on June 2nd.  He was murdered according to news and activist reports.

I visited the Voix des Sans Voix office in Kinshasa in 2008 and was so amazed and impressed by the personal risks human rights activists are taking in the DRC.  Here’s a video I made, narrated by VOA’s Nico Colombant.

Best Short Screenplay Award!!!  The award is for a comedy I wrote which, hopefully, someday I’ll get to produce too.  Either way there were really yummy hors d’oeuvres, spring rolls and quesadillas.

I’ve just wrapped up the first year of a 3-year, or possibly longer, MFA program in film at American University.  I wanted to share a few of my favorite homework assignments.

Man v Nature

I took this photo at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware on a good surf day for my Photojournalism and Social Documentary class for an assignment that depicted man pitted against nature.

A Baby Feeding in German Expressionism, crazy Russian and Film Noir

This was for Film Theory class.

Digital Imaging Class, Is Photoshop Fun?

Sort of.

Finally, drumroll…..Backpack Documentary

The idea is to make a short documentary by yourself.  It’s about intimacy.  This story is about a girl who is a true hero (heroine) in Washington, D.C.  To start with, she is a single teenage mother who is going to college, and her story only gets more complicated from there.

Thanks to my wonderful professors who have inspired me (and made even Photoshop fun) and thanks to my family for not calling me crazy when I said I wanted to go to film school and make movies.

Hopefully by February, inchallah, I’ll be finished with the short film I’m editing right now called “Bikes of Birao” (title is subject to change). The film is based on a news feature that I did about bicycles as a lifeline and status symbol in a remote village in the northern Central African Republic.

We went to CAR to do much more newsy stuff, but the bikes, often adorned with plastic flowers to look stylish, were just too fascinating that I couldn’t resist.

Until I get the film finished, here’s a news report about it.

I produced dozens of television news features from West Africa between 2006 and 2009, here are a few that for me, personally, really stood out.

To check out more stories, see my video archives page.

Africa stock video

If you’re looking for Africa stock footage of Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia or Sierra Leone I might have it.  So just send me an email to ask at kari.barberdc[at]gmail.  This means you too broke filmmakers, I’m not out to gouge anyone!

Here’s an audio slideshow on midwifery. I became interested in this topic during my own pregnancy so I went to this clinic in Washington, DC, to shoot pictures for my Photojournalism and Social Documentary class at American University last semester. I took a Zoom recorder and interviewed some of the midwives and patients. The woman who runs the place, Ruth Lubick, says using midwives rather than hospitals for healthy pregnancies is one way the U.S. could cut down healthcare costs.

Thanks to Nico Colombant for producing this for the Voice of America website.