Let’s have a blog summarizing what I have done in the past 3 days.

On the 22nd January,
we carried on running the audio workshop with the students of the Kenyetta University. We cracked on right after most of our teammates arrived. Started by forming into groups of two in charging different subtopics, we asked them to think of and prepared the questions for the interviews happening in that afternoon when we went to Ngong. With the questions prepared, when the recording and interviewing opportunities appears, we will be able to catch the chance and capture materials which will be useful to put into the radio show.

After a delicious lunch in the canteen, we carried on the record planning for a little while, then we are excited heading off to Ngong. The first thing we did after the two hour journey was listening to a talk by Professor Wallah Bin Wallah, who is a Swahili scholar. It was a quite inspiring one to me to be honest. Sometimes he is using a quite offensive approach to tell us stuff, but I found some of the things he said was really meaningful and it will be useful to absorb and try to adopt them into my life. The line of ‘People who success do not do different things, but do things differently’ is still clearly in my head!

Following by this, our big recording opportunity came eventually. We went to the Ngong Township Primary School, having the headmaster’s speech being recorded, we splited into our little groups, grabbed two teachers aside to get the interviews done with them respectively. A big part of contents for the radio piece has been recorded, Hurray! All of the hard works were worth right at the moment we all went up onto the Ngong Hills watching the gorgeous sunset. You just cannot believe a day could end up with such a marvelous view. P.S. Had a spring roll and cheesy garlic bread in the Tmall for supper and they were really nice!

23rd January, last day audio workshop in the Kenyetta University

In the morning, it was time for us to record our own opinion regarding to the subtopics we were working on. Then, we went straight onto the editing process which is the most stressful part of the whole audio workshop cause we merely have a limited time of 3-4 hours and only 1 laptop with us. Actually all I want to say for the whole audio workshop is that we are all collaborating thoroughly throughout the whole process, but it is hard to do the editing part using a partnership mode. As it is always better to listen to the audio and do the editing through earphones, with a large number of group members, it seems difficult to do the editing together which is embarrassing for this project, which is designed to focus on partnership and collaboration. But I feel like it should be understandable to have the whole pieces done within an extremely limited time and available resources.

We, as a team, did record some transition sentences in between each subtopics but in the finishing products for presentations at 4pm, we are not able to put them in the finishing piece. Cause it was so close to the presentation time that we would not be able to drag,move and arrange the audios in Auditicity. As it will be a huge amendment, much more time is needed, so we left it and planned to edited these transitions back into the final piece later on.

I love the presentation and wrapping up section so much today. It was really good to look at other groups finished pieces whether it is an audio or a photography one. You can clearly feel the efforts being put in, being moved and touched by the video and photography contents. Sometimes I really feel like radio, as a community media tool and platform which merely focus on sound, are difficult to have good outcomes in a short and limited production time. While photography and video ones are mainly focused on visual elements, it always makes me reckon that people are always easier to be moved and touched by the things they look at, they watch and they see but not the one they heard. That’s just my opinion. And most of the speech by different representatives were just too good with laughing points and good contents at the same time to sum up contributions being made and what we have learnt within these 3 days. I wish I can become good speaker like them one day too! Last but not least, the entertainment at the end was unforgettable for me, my tears literally dropped. I do enjoy myself and the audio workshop lots in these three days.

24th January, A day visit to the community media Chapatti forum

We went to visit the community media Chapatti forum with the partners from the Focus Initiative programme today. Cannot believe the massive numbers of kids there when I walked in the place. First thing after I dropped my bag off in the storage room was going to help making the Chapati, it was not an easy job for me cause I do not usually cook, haha! I am not good at cooking at all but I tried to learn and helped out for an hour.

And then I have a little chat with some of the kids around me but I feel like they cannot understand my English and that’s why I reckon our communication wasn’t a successful one at all. It’s a shame actually. I must admitted that I am not that kind of people who like kids lots, but today I saw another types of communities within Kenya. When I was making the Chapattis, the one who teach me how to fry it told me stuffs about the kids in this institution, some of them are poor as I cannot believe what I heard, but later on, when I was forming the circle and playing games with them. the happiness on their faces are so genuine. Their happiness is so simple which I have a little reflection and rethink of myself, why am I usually unhappy under such a good environment and condition comparing to theirs? Haven’t got the answer yet but I will figure it out soon! Feel regret that not tried the Chapatti before I left because of the headache under the sun. Should have stay until the Chapatti meal. :((