The last 2 days have been eventful and involved us travelling far and long. After leaving Nairobi early(ish) to get to Rongo via Londiani we arrived at Kingsway primary school at around midday to film a quick video promoting the issues they are facing. Whilst our welcome was truly endearing and the children’s excitement was heartwarming it was also sad as we were told it was one of the best boarding schools in the district and had neither running water or electricity. The reason this made me feel melancholic was because I was thinking if this is a high ranking private school I can not being to imagine what a mediocre state school looked like. Whilst the children were probably the happiest I’ve ever seen anyone be, I couldn’t help but compare this to my boarding school experience, only to realise that there was no similarities. This this does not exclusively relate to the facilities but also to the incomparable attitude these
kids had towards us and evidently life in general. What I have learnt from this is that people actually need very little to be happy and we are continuously causing ourselves problems which are actually insignificant as we are really fortunate to not have to worry about catering for basic human needs as clean water. Obviously we are aware that some of the issues we consider problems are insignificant and there are people with issues unimaginable to us, it does however make a massive difference experiencing this first hand and I really aim to remember this once I’m back and remind myself to not get frustrated so easily about things like a lack of soya milk in the house. We left and continued or journey which felt like it was an eternity through beautiful Kenyan country side and several villages Europeans would consider Shanty towns. After a long journey we final arrived at Rongo where we were greeted with a very big delicious meal before being led to our hostel. The first day in Rongo was actually really enjoyable as the group of girls we worked with seemed very determined to make a difference about prevalent issues within their communities. We settled on the topic of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is practiced in certain tribal communities as a rite of passage and to control women’s libido. After I was already aware that women’s rights were less developed than in the Western world I only realised then how in many communities the woman is actually considered as significantly inferior to the male. Once again I was slightly overwhelmed with this cultural difference and I was really impressed that these girls, who were younger than me, were really passionate about this and really hoping to change current attitudes. We spent the day storyboarding, explaining shots and production roles and running a practice interview and organising another interview. All in all 2 successful days which have taught be a lot of Kenyan culture, cultural diversity amongst their country and between us and their country. I am really interested in what they have to say and am looking forward to finding out more about their views on current issues.