Brian Nowak – In Memoriam

Brian Nowak

Remembering Brian Nowak

Brian Nowak, Niger, and ALMA

Brian Nowak was an alumnus of Boston University’s Niger Study Abroad Program, who decided to make his life in Niger, building his own home there and creating a life dedicated to the people of Niger.

Brian and ALMA director John Hutchison crossed paths many times over the years in Niger; they were both involved with RAIN, an organization that forges partnerships with rural and nomadic peoples in Niger, and the Friends of Niger, a group of returned Peace Corps Volunteers who initiate and support activities related to Niger and its people. But most recently they have been collaborating to enrich the African Language Materials Archive (ALMA).

Brian had a deep love for and appreciation of the music of West Africa. He traveled widely filming and documenting African musicians. He would get to know the musicians and would film and record their music. He would contact linguists at local universities, and hire them to transcribe and translate the recordings. Brian became a seasoned ethnomusicologist. He recognized that the lyrics of music and song could become reading materials for our ALMA site. He also appreciated that much of the traditional music within this region is “endangered” just as the languages are, by neocolonialism, globalization and change. ALMA serves an important archiving function to preserve what may be threatened. Through his work, Brian became one of the most prolific contributors to the ALMA website. You can see his work in the Language of African Music section of the ALMA website. He was recently invited to join the Advisory Board of ALMA.

When Brian and John met last in October 2021 they envisioned a greater role for Brian as a Field Researcher for ALMA with the possibility of his traveling also to other regions on the continent, collecting and filming African music. They discussed ways in which they might obtain grant funding for this work, while continuing his collaboration with ALMA and others. There were so many possibilities ahead for Brian, perhaps even becoming a Research Associate of the BU African Studies Center as a way to collaborate with ALMA and the African Studies Center in applying for grants.

Brian went to Niger, made a life and a career out of his contact with Nigeriens. He was loved in Niger. His life is now an amazing unforgettable story. In his short life, Brian effortlessly made many significant contributions to this troubled world of ours, a bright light. He was gifted, creative, talented, and dedicated. He is sorely missed.
John Hutchison
ALMA Director

Remembering Brian Nowak (1977-2021)

Brian Nowak in Ngari, Niger, 2009. Photo courtesy Cynthia Becker

It is with a heavy heart that the African Studies Center announces the unexpected passing of our friend and colleague, Brian (“Barké”) Nowak in November of 2021. Brian was an independent scholar and consultant based in Niger, with a passion for anthropology, ethnomusicology, development, and education. He lived, travelled, and worked in Niger for more than 15 years, including teaching for the Boston University study abroad program and consulting for field research and assessment projects. He was Programs Director for the NGO Rain for the Sahel and Sahara, and a research consultant and contributor to the African Language Materials Archive. At the time of his passing, he was in the process of establishing a formal appointment as Research Affiliate of the African Studies Center.

Brian was given the Fulani name Barké when attending the BU study abroad program in 1998. Brian stayed for three semesters, reluctantly returning to the US for the spring semester of 2000 to take the one course required for graduating with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in African Studies at BU. He stayed in the US for another five years, completing his MA in General and Urban Education at Long Island University in New York while working as a teacher in NYC Public School 155, located in Brownsville, Brooklyn. As an elementary school teacher, he taught ESL, kids with special needs, and received a grant to implement a multi-cultural music program. Music, education, and language guided his teaching in NYC and these were the passions that Barké continued to cultivate his entire life. An intense longing for Niger led him to return permanently in 2005 when he began working as a consultant for the Red Cross and Red Crescent. When I met him in 2007, he had purchased some land near the Niger River in the Goudel neighborhood of Niamey and built an adobe house. We quickly realized our shared interest in divination, spirit possession, music, and art. He brought me to visit his favorite diviner, Issaka, translating with great ease from Zarma to English. Riding back in his Land Cruiser we stopped to eat street food; I was impressed to see the astonished looks on people’s faces when he spoke fluent Zarma. He comfortably teased and joked with people; his laugh was infectious and he managed to get everyone to smile and laugh with him.

Many of the BU students who studied in Niger had similar experiences to mine. Barké taught courses on Nigerien culture and performing arts. He coordinated field trips outside of Niamey, taking students to rural markets and sharing his intense love of Niger with them. When I returned to Niger in 2009, Brian and I traveled into the Liptako region to learn about Bella/Iklan communities there. Given that the area had no hotels, and even if it did Brian would not want to stay in them, he prepared for our journey by strapping mats on top of his car; we filled the back of his car with a large sack of rice, spices, onions, and a few other vegetables. We went to various market towns, interviewing blacksmiths, tailors, and women about styles of dress and social change in the region in regards to the history of slavery. When we visited small communities, we gave people some of the food and asked them to cook for us, sharing it with them. We camped by their homes and slept under the stars on our mats. We got stuck in the mud several times, once for a harrowing four hours; only a large truck and a team of people managed to pull us out. It was during this trip that we did the research that would be the foundation of an article we co-wrote for the journal African Arts, which will be published in September of 2022.

Security concerns in Liptako cut short our plans to write about Wogo painted houses on the Niger River islands near Ayerou. I found an email from several years ago where I told Brian that I was not going to have time to come to Niger that year, as I was working on a new project in Morocco. I regret that decision and every chance that I missed to travel with him, despite the fact that his car often broke down in the middle of our journeys. We had great adventures over the years traveling to Maradi and Zinder in eastern Niger and to Morocco together. When he came to the US once or twice a year, he stayed with me in Boston, giving at least a dozen lectures to my various African art classes. I teased him about wearing his yellow plastic sandals with socks to BU and often had to reprimand him for using the F-word during class or making some other off-color joke. Of course, students loved him.

But I was only one among many whose lives were impacted by Brian. He remained close to his host father from his study abroad days, Baba Nzara, whose family he regularly visited for Eid and other occasions. He was a devoted advocate for youth education, especially among children living in poverty, and supported several Nigerien students with school fees. He was a consultant for the music label Sublime Frequencies, traveling to Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Nigeria with Hisham Mayet to document music and dance. He worked with his longtime friend Tara Deubel as a consultant for OXFAM in northwestern Mali. He taught with Cezarina Trone at the American International School of Niamey. He shared his great love of Tuareg music with Eric Schmidt and became good friends with scholars Scott Youngstedt and Sara Beth Keough. He was close to Sue Rosenfeld, who directed the BU study abroad program in Niger until it closed in 2011 and who lived in Niamey until her passing last year. For more than eight years he worked with Bess Palmisciano for the NGO Rain for the Sahel and Sahara as an organic gardening consultant, providing practical training in nutrition and health. This led to his position as a Programs Director for Rain, evaluating programs in agriculture and education, working on a dorm program for students from nomadic communities, and designing curricula. He maintained close friendships with his Rain colleagues, including Halima Aboubacar, with whom he collaborated on humanitarian work across the Tillabéri and Agadez regions. Every American who passed through Niger doing research or as a student encountered Barké. No doubt there are many others not mentioned here who would agree that he had a profound impact on their lives.

Over the last few years, Barké began to devote himself to his true passion: music and oral traditions. He worked with John Hutchison and traveled throughout the Sahel and documented more than 77 artists performing in 22 different languages. He was a talented photographer, often choosing to photograph people from below, presenting them as majestic and proud, which is clearly the way he understood them to be. An avid hiker, he loved spending the night under the stars, whether it was in northern Ghana or on the roof of his house in Niger. Barké was deeply spiritual and a seeker of knowledge, facing life with an open heart and mind. While he had many lifelong friends, he also valued his time away from people…as a solo traveler hiking for several weeks across the Adirondacks or driving into rural Togo to meet a diviner. I used to call him the most social hermit that I had ever met. Brian Nowak was a loyal friend, a talented educator, a generous humanitarian, and an avid adventurer who lived life according to his own terms. It was a joy to have him in my life but 14 years was not enough. I will miss him. Rest in peace Barké.

Cynthia Becker
Associate Professor, History of Art & Architecture Department, Boston University

Reprinted with permission