Today was interesting. We drove down to Homa Bay so that the audio and film guys could go interview the County Director of Homa Bay. As we arrived into Homa Bay, Jerry and Peter had received a call to say that the Director was in an important meeting so we would have to wait to meet with them later on. We drove towards Homa Bay Pier where we parked and from there we had a wander round and checked out the Lake and local Fish market where the photography group (my group) wanted to get some contextualizing photographs of the lake, boats and fish to introduce our exhibition on the Luo people. It was a good day out; we got some great photos of locals, the fish market, African stalks and the Lake. And we were also lucky enough to go on a boat trip on the Lake in a rustic looking fishing boat. 🙂

today we went to visit a Luo community to collect media information about this community in order to produce represententional knowledge about this community. This encounter was meaningful and powerful,. I let.like I was in a national geographic scenario. The colours, the sounds, the music and staring face create a powerful ambiance. The woman were screaming and the men were hunting and singing.  Each dance were scenario, and rituals performed after an elder died, or a marriage and so forth. The energy was contagious and I felt stimulated by their energy. The local community seemed to be happy that we had come to see their performance. To me this interaction was meaningful and I felt I had t he responsibility to document this cultural dance, without stereotyping their culture. I was trying to records sounds which were atmospheric and which represent the meaning of the dance to this community. I hope that we can work with these recording and enable the listeners to feel touched by the sounds, without any visual purely the sound…  

Today has been one of my favourite days of the trip so far. We travelled to Homa Bay near lake Victoria to a small village called Kagan, where the some of the Kagan people performed to us three traditional dances to symbolise the customs and traditions within the Luo community. As we arrived to the village on the bus the dancers came down the hill dancing, singing and playing instruments to welcome us to their village. We followed them up to a big grassy area where they had chairs for us to sit and watch. The whole experience was so amazing! It was like something you would see out of National Geographic magazine with all the beautifully coloured costumes, feather headdresses, and excessive beaded jewellery.  Each dance represented a different traditional belief within Luo culture (marriage, death, and chasing away evil spirits). The whole time we were there the atmosphere was so vibrant and fun! I managed to get a lot of nice shots so I’m happy! 🙂 I’m also so glad we had the opportunity to see this; I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it before.

today I spent about 8 hours on a blue and golden bus crossing Kenya. We went across hills and rift valleys (the place of birth of man kind , so they say) , and I saw beautiful landscapes. Getting out of the city was a nice way to compare the different ways of life living not so far from one another. Although I did not stop very often and get out to walk around and the see the villages, I got a quick feel for them as we slowly drive through. Most villagers would stop and after to check us out. I must admit in this situation I did feel like a tourist just zooming through all these different villages. The villagers interacted with me in this way, as well by trying to seek me locally handmade and knick knacks. I no longer felt like I was a community partner, only a white girl visiting Kenyan to buy bracelets and take photos of lions. that was not my motivation for going to kenya, but this idea of the western rich tourist was mapped onto my body due to the color of my skin. I don’t like this idea of capitalist western tourist, it bothers me and makes me feel uncomfortable with my culture and interaction with locals.  This is not my idea of travelling and exploring is about…, 

we arrive in rongo late in the evening, the table was set with beautiful table cloth and students greeted us as soon as we got off the bus. The campus is fresh and lush with flowering trees and flowers. It is much smaller than KU but has its own charm. Today, Peter introduced the concept of community media and community based learning to the rongo students so they knew what they were signing uproar. Jerry explained to us the topic that he wanted us to document and research in each media project. We re exploring the Luo tribal culture, specifically the dance and its meaning. We are going to explore how this dance is fitting int he broader culture of modernisation and globalisation. Through interview we explore the perception and understanding  of the dance by the children and the elders.  By interviewing different generation we will be able to grasp how traditions are evolving within the globalised world and the Luo culture feelings as regards these potential changes. Each of the media text (video,audio,photography) will be a form of exploration and research to attemp to historically document and understand the Luo culture.  Once again, I am on back on the audio team with Keji and Lana. 

Today we were picked up early and taken to the university to have breakfast, luckily the university isn’t as far away to travel to as KU. The grounds are beautiful with less than a five minute walk away from our room a beautiful view stretching far back to the hills.

(Above: View at Rongo University)

In the morning I walked to the clinic to see someone about the bites on my leg; the woman gave me three days’ worth of anti-histamines and was recommended not to drink with while taking them much to my disappointment.

We met the students and got into our groups me and Angelica again did photography again but Lana decided to give audio a go. Ali from SEMA media travelled with us from Kenyatta to help out and again was in our photography group. Two further students joined us so a smaller group then KU which I preferred. This time we were given the topic of the Lou Community and their traditions with a focus on their dancing. We brainstormed different types of shots we wanted to capture and why and presented our ideas to Jerry and the group. Afterwards we went for a walk around outside the grounds and practiced using the cameras. Everyone was very friendly and instead of the usual don’t take photos of me they were asking us to take a photo of them!

Probably one of the best bus journeys I’ve had… not that I’ve had many but travelling through Rift Valley and through the vast landscape of the Mara is incredible, the different cultures across different villages and all the hard work you see along the way. The whole trip took just over 10 hours to get from Nairobi to Rongo so it was a quite a long journey, but it was great fun and we also had a few students from Rongo Univsersity on the travel so it was great to get to know some new people.

Two long days and nights getting together all of the footage – over nine hours in total – for roughly a 15 minute piece of work. The exhibition is coming up on Saturday so time was ticking to get the production done quickly. The first day of edit started 9am sharp at the university and followed us back to the Hostel until we crashed around 5am, so a pretty long session, for us to then carry on the following day.

The Friday night Amos, a worker at our hostel saved our backsides with the editing; we had footage spoke in Kikuyu, a tribal language that isn’t so common. He aided me with the translation for the subtitles late into the night prepped for the morning. While this was happening Oscar worked away on the drama side of the production which is turning out ace.