Today we had a bit of a lie in as we had finished selecting the final images for the exhibition which was later today held at Alliance Francoise. We drove to a market with the exception of Lewes and Oscar who had to stay behind to finish their video project so it was just all the girls. We bought some nice gifts for people from a stall owned by a woman called Pumpkin and then stopped off on the way back to a nice viewpoint to take some photos.

(Above:  Kej, Angelica and Rufus at the market)

(Above: Viewpoint of Nairobi) 

We picked the others up and then went to the exhibition where the photos had already been displayed. The photography group (Me, Angelica and Lana) were a bit disappointed because the images weren’t very good quality, there were some missing and they were not laid out with the quotes which was the point of the exhibition. But the images themselves were very good and I was happy that I got some images in the exhibition. It was quite fun and lots of photos were taken with everyone as this would be the last time we saw them all. We went back to the guesthouse and had a few drinks to celebrate, but not too many as we had a long journey to Rongo the next day.

(Above: Some of the final images at the exhibition)

Day 4 got off to a very dodgy start! I’d received disturbing news about my ageing dog Tobey at home – who time is beginning to catch up with him. Luckily after a trip to the vet he seems to be a bit better – which was a relief! However, that wasn’t everything. After almost 2 hours in the Nairobi traffic we arrived at KU only to find that no-one from SEMA Media had arrived and only a few of the KU students were there. Over the next few hours this started to change following a few frantic messages between myself and the leaders of the other groups – who couldn’t attend in the morning but hadn’t made that clear to me. As this was the main content gathering fieldwork day – it was a massive frustration to say the least. However, as the day progressed the SEMS participants, who come from different communities and have to change Matatus several times, arrived – as did the KU students. To make matters worse I was scolded by the tea lady, who herself was an hour and a half late, for sending my students out into the field without the fruits of her efforts. This latter development was as much bemusing as it was amusing. 🙂

After the lunch the guys started to get very creative and I can’t comment on the final content presentation but the effort and enthusiasm to share knowledge with one another and engage in the production of some very creative content planning warmed my heart as an educator and developer of the PEARLS community-based learning approach (see previous blog). In this respect the collaborative dialogic and reflective approach we adopts to the development of a community of learners is beginning to win admirers here. It was this that attracted Fred Ochieng from KU Media and now SEMA Media (having engaged in an earlier workshop) to become a CM4K partner. However, Shikuku (my counter-part from Kenyatta University) arrived he stood watching the participants engaging in the development of participatory photography; audio and video productions and a big beaming smile brought his face to light. He looked at me and said,

”this is learning my friend. Look at how engaged they are and how they enjoy the knowledge sharing. I will take some pictures to show my colleagues….it’s amazing.”

With this my day got even better and certainly a lot better than the miserable start. 🙂

This morning when we left for KU I felt quite stressed about the day ahead. As a group we had a lot of things to do before 4.30pm; organising and arranging photographs, going out and taking more shots, printing photographs and writing up the captions for each of them. When we arrived and met with the rest of the group we thought that to ensure we had everything ready for the exhibition tomorrow that each of us would need to be allocated a task for the day. I went with Impeesa, Fanuel and Ali out to Kenyatta Market again to get some photos of us engaging with the community and also to get the locals to take photos on our cameras. This was really interesting, as many people in the market had never held a camera like any of the three SLR’s we had, and a few had no idea how to make use of the camera. This is where we were able to help them to take a good quality photograph of something going on in the community. I found this really rewarding as a few of the people we asked to take photos we’re so happy and appriecative that they had been offered the experience to use a camera. It’s an experience I have probably taken for granted, as this technology has always been so accessible for me back home.

While this was happening we also asked each person a few questions (about their work, their interest and hobbies, and also if they had learnt anything about photography). We then went back to the university to go show the rest of the group what we had done, and together we selected photographs to put into tomorrows exhibition. The rest of the afternoon we spent stressing and working our socks off to make sure we would have the photos printed and everything organised before we had to leave. We rushed and managed to get all the captions and photos ready for printing on SD cards right before we were due to leave to go back to our hostel when Fred said that he would print them off for us somewhere much cheaper in Nairobi city centre. This took a huge weight off our shoulders. All there was to worry about now is that the exhibition will be arranged correctly tomorrow in time for its start at 3pm. I really enjoyed the experience at Kenyatta University; I met some really lovely people who have inspired me to pursue my passion for photography.

Today when we arrived the whole group went straight out to Kenyatta market just a short walk over the railway behind the university. We started to interact with the community by going around the fruit and mitumba clothing stalls. We asked locals if they would be ok if we could take some photos of them at work and also if we could interview them for their name, their interests and what makes them happy. We did this so that we could get a quotation to caption each image for the exhibition. With three cameras in the group we managed to take over 500 photos, interviewing about 20 locals in the market. By about 1pm the weather turned really hot and as we had enough shots we decided to go back to the campus to grab some lunch and start selecting photos for the exhibition. The weather and food seemed to have drained the group a bit at this point so we just spent the rest of the day sorting out which photos we wanted to use and didn’t want to use. By 4.30pm the bus had arrived to pick us up so we travelled back to the hostel to chill out for the evening with a few tuskers of course! 😉

today, I would like to share my experience working in the recording studio at Kenyatta university. We are a team of 7 and we have really bonded over the last couple days. We have been brainstorming and have decided to address the issue of the health and hygiene in the community of KM. KM is a local market used by students for their food, shopping, photocopy… All of these businesses have popped up just for the university and are out of business when university is closed. These are temporary businesses. 

For making our show we brainstormed key theme to explore, collected interviews with students going to the market and a student studying food and nutrition to gain expert knowledge. We recorded our introduction, voice overs , ads and catch phrases. This has been a great experience and has given me insight on all the nitty gritty cogs involved in making a radio show. I have reflected upon the necessity to keep a captivating voice and humour in order to keep the audience listening. Making a radio show has taught me how to present audio information in a fun, simple, clear, coherent manner. 

Working in team has successful and I have made really good friends. We had fun, and raised an important issue in the local community. This project has also created a community within our group which is the best of rewards !  

I am slowly getting used to these early starts; when we arrived at KU there were lots of people missing and we were waiting a while to get started, luckily they eventually all turned up and we went out altogether to the Kenyatta Market (KM) which was just outside the university gates. It was busy and full of life and overall I took 300 images, some of them really good I was very happy with what I achieved.

(Above: Some of KM)

We went back to the classroom to go through all the images; unfortunately Angelicas camera ran out of battery very early in the day but we still had 3 full cameras worth of images to go though and the day before to pick just around 20. This process was the most stressful as everyone liked different images and were naturally quite attached to the ones they had taken. If there was no clear consensus we voted on it. We also had to consider what interviews we had as we needed them to create the caption so if we didn’t have an interview or no way to get one we couldn’t include the image.

(Below: Some Images I took – hard to pick only a few)

the days are moving along and it is strange how time seems to have slowed down. Being away from my everyday life and western life makes me rejoice ! I feel like being out int the ‘real’ world and it is so much more real than simply reading about the world in a textbook. Experiencing the African way of life with the food, the people, the rhythm of life and community living has really made me grow. Although I still have so much to learn from Kenya, being here only a couple days has opened my eyes. I guess the main thing I have been thinking about and I have discussed with a Kenyan friend is our direction of life. The ideals that we have about what we want our lives to be like. We both have the same aspiration as to have a happy life but different paths to achieve this. We both agreed on the necessity of basic material wealth to meet needs, but I feel like in the west this a priority over actual, real, happiness. My friend seemed to explain that s long as your have food, family and you do something you love.. What else could you want? It is interesting and I think vital to reflect in our relation with money and happiness in a the world of new-neoberalism. How far does money actually enable well being? This questions seems particularly relevant for a developing country trying to catch up with the world economy. 

This is a photograph over layered with some drawings of the road site in Nairobie 

When we arrived in the morning at KU Elle, Lana and I went to meet our photography group in the lecture room. Together we went over our ideas for the topic and discussed how we were going to present it at the exhibition on Saturday. I was a bit worried before we arrived today that we hadn’t made it clear on how we are going to present ‘happiness and joy’ (in either printed photos or a digital story board) in the exhibition. But after getting the encouragement and approval from Peter, Fred and Shikoukou I felt much better about it. Also there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm from the whole group today, which was great! The previous day we decided to divide into two groups to ensure we make effective use of the time we have.

Group A: Elle, Lana, Fanuel and Brenda, and group B: Impeesa, Yvette, Ali and I. It was great because in each group we had a real contrast of personality and skill. Elle and Lana who are both skilled photographers went with Fanuel and Brenda who both had no experience using a camera. The two showed incredible confidence and make use of Elle and Lana’s cameras for the whole day. In my group I was really lucky to have Impeesa and Ali, as they are both really talented photographers with so much passion and determination for creativity. Impeesa had his own DSLR camera and was very helpful and knowledgeable when trying to plan a shoot and also when trying to assign the settings on the camera to suit a particular shot. As a group we went off to the student shopping centre to capture people having lunch, hanging out with their friends and relaxing. We then went to the swimming pools to try get some shots of people doing ‘what they love to do ’then onto the park where we tried getting some photos of people relaxing and having fun with friends. While taking these shots we also asked individuals a few questions about happiness, what makes them happy, and what they do to make them feel joyful. Overall it was a really fun and interesting day!

Day two of the CM4K fieldwork trip kicked off as it often does with a frustrating drive crawling through Nairobi traffic. Taking us well over an hour to get what is normally a twenty minute drive – however, after a few days we’ll get used to this and next year we might well stay on the Kenyatta University (KU) Campus as the partnership with them develops.

So the first day’s activities comprised formal introductions and a 2 hour lecture by me on: the history and vision of CM4K complete with the associated learning theories we apply to our community media practices; a participatory breakout session discussing what community means to the partnership participants (always an interesting and insightful activity); and a critical expose of the meaning; role and practices of community media. I think it went down well……I was certainly enjoying it but I suspect the most enjoyable part of the morning’s proceedings were the paper, rock, scissors & cheerleaders ice-breaker session Lola organised……Kenyans have never played this game but they certainly enjoyed it. We might have to include this into every year’s trip from here on in.

The afternoon session was spent organising the participants into practice groups – photography, video & audio. I spent that period flitting from group to group….throwing in the odd thought provoker and listening to the participants get to know each other through dialogic knowledge-sharing and planning. All in all it was an interesting and rewarding day but I was ready for an early night when we got back to the hostel and I swiftly drifted off as I laid on the bed to relax and think a while.

Day 3 and an even longer delay getting to KU saw us kick off the workshop a little later than planned…..but with impeccable timing we were there in time for tea J, which was a nice way to start the day. The participants got stuck in and soon were finishing off the assessment and planning stages (engagement was the previous day) stages of the Participatory Education & Action Research Learning Scenarios (PEARLS) – developed as part of the CM4K work. What I found encouraging about the work they were doing (over and above the level of enthusiasm and commitment from all) was the level of dialogue and critical reflection through the morning’s workshops.

In the afternoon, the three groups went out into the community to start work on their digital stories projects. The photography group working with a range of local people to express joy and happiness in Kenyan life. The audio team and working on producing a radio show focussing on food security in Kenyan communities and the video team are producing a participatory video project focussing on mixed marriages and tribalism in modern Kenya. The projects are ambitious in the time available but all participants are determined and excited and I am pretty sure some strong content is going to emerge. The work will be exhibited at the Alliance Francaise Exhibition Centre in Nairobi City Centre as part of the CM4K/SEMA Media ‘Stories from our Cities’ collaboration.

Today I felt a bit better as I slept fairly well but I was extremely nervous about the day ahead and taking photos as most people stare a lot because I suspect they probably don’t see white people around much at all add that to the language barrier (although most speak very good English) and the fact we are trying to take photos of them which is quite personal and intrusive.

In the morning we talked further about our ideas and presented them to Peter who was happy with what we had come up with. After lunch we split into 2 groups; Angelica, Impeesa, Ali and Yyvette went to the shopping centre, swimming pool and the park and Me, Fanuel, Brenda and Lana went to the girl and boy dorms. I didn’t take any photos but instead taught Brenda how to use the camera as she had never used one before. We also tried to interview everyone we took a good image of so we could have a short caption under the image. We asked their names, what they enjoyed doing in their spare time and how that made them feel which created a good quote. We reconvened at the end of the day to look through the images we had taken and picked out some of the best.

(Above: photography group selfie)