After our conversation about the organisation of the project last night, I woke up ready and raring to go, motivated to make the changes that we spoke about and really kick off CM4K 2018. I rose earlier than usual, around 7:15, to finish writing up yesterday’s blog. We left the pastoral centre at our usual time of 8:45 and had breakfast, there were omelettes so Luca had a feeling it was going to be a good day.

After breakfast, we congregated in the lecture room and Peter spoke about all of the issues around individual roles and organisation that we brought up last night. At first, I was nervous that our friends from Rongo would feel that we were directly criticising them, which of course we weren’t. However, we all split off into our groups and everyone was extremely understanding and shared my motivations to make today more successful. We sat outside and discussed who should be performing what roles, and settled on Angel and May joining Kassim to film the small vignettes, while Eve operated the main documentary camera, Aaron operating the boom microphone and Mercie monitoring the audio. Overall, this made things run a lot more smoothly, the details of this I will highlight later in the blog.

Once we had finished discussing in our groups, we hopped on the bus and headed off to our first location – the shopping centre at Cham Gi Wadu. This was originally the area that we were supposed to visit yesterday but, because of the disorganisation, we ran out of time. As this was not an intentionally planned visit, and we did not want to make the same mistake around organisation and timekeeping as yesterday, only the photography group were to get off the bus to quickly get pictures of the buildings. Therefore, I stayed on the bus with Halima and Angel and we discussed how each of our projects were going. Halima said that her audio project is going really well as she has done audio work for the past 3 years, and so is used to doing it (and very good at it I must say). The plan of only getting photos of the shopping centre worked, as we were back on the road again after only 15 minutes – compared to the 3 or 4 hours spent in Cham Gi Wadu yesterday!

The first “proper” stop for us today was the Ongo Medial Centre. Our whole video group met by the side of the bus once we had all gotten off to finalise roles and make sure everybody knew what they were filming. Once again, I told Angel, May and Kassim that they were to focus on just getting establishing shots for the vignettes. We were then told that there was nobody to interview at this location so I advised Aron, Eve and Mercie to just focus on getting footage of the interaction between the CM4K participants and the community. I was worried that this would mean that Mercie, who was monitoring the sound, would not have anything to do. I spoke to her about it, and she said something to me that I felt really epitomises community based participation and community learning. It was along the lines of – “I know that it’s frustrating for me to not really be doing anything at the moment, but I know that it’s not about me, it’s about the community.” It’s made me really think about what our purpose is, and how I need to involve the community more in what we are doing so they can pass everything over when we leave. After my conversation with Mercie, I was informed that there was in fact an interview taking place and we needed to quickly go and set everything up. No matter how hard we work on organisation, these little changes seem to be token for this project. Anyway, we set up and recorded the interview – Eve operated the camera, Mercie monitored the sound, I held the boom mic and Aron acted as the interviewer and asked the questions. The whole operation was successful and ran smoothly.

The next location was Ongo Primary School, a short walk around the corner. As we were approaching the school, we saw a flood of children sprinting form their classrooms and down the hill toward us. Soon I was met with a barrage of “Mzungu, how are you?” to which I replied, “Fine, how are you?” It does seem quite intimidating at first, especially as they all giggle and whisper in their native language as I walk past, but soon I realised they are just fascinated to see a white person, as I expect that it’s quite rare in this area. Anyway, we arrived at the school and an interview was immediately set up, so we recorded that. It was difficult as it took place outside so the sun backlit most of the shot. We still however, managed to work around it and still record a good quality interview. Peter then went and signed the visitors book, I thought that this would make some good B-Roll as it shows his commitment to the local communities. After recording all of that, I headed back outside to find Angel and May, who we apparently left behind at the Ongo Medical Centre – oops! Lucky it was only next door and not a half an hour bus journey away! Sorry girls! After hearing their story, we took some establishing shots for the vignettes and headed back to the bus.

Our final destination of the day was Kitere Primary School. As we arrived, we saw that the Chief was having a meeting with members of the community in the school grounds. He invited us to introduce ourselves and what CM4K was about – Peter took the liberty of this as he feels that he is the “token mzungu” (his words, not mine haha). We then let the chief and the community members get back to their meeting as we had to interview the head teacher of the school. After our discussion around job roles and organisation earlier in the day, these interviews now run like clockwork, which is great as it means that we can get in and out of the places in record time! Afterwards I helped Angel, May and Kassim with the rest of the establishing shots. It was then time to return home, I was shattered, still not fully recovered from yesterday. I pulled out my phone, expecting it to be around 5pm but alas no, it was only 2:30pm. I made my way back to the bus, put on my headphones and tried to relax before attempting some editing back at the University.

It turns out that I’m actually far too tired to be doing any editing this afternoon, so instead I’ve written this blog. Today has been a much better day in terms of organisation and planning and I think it has shown through the footage that we have captured. Tomorrow we have a whole day dedicated to editing, so I can’t wait to start compiling all of these clips together and get some final products to express the hard work we have done so far. We might even get a few cheeky Tuskers tonight to celebrate!

Sam 🙂