Today we went back to Kenyatta University and met our groups. We went to conduct our test shoots, my group went to an outside dance room, we watched an amazing dance routine, and it allowed the group a chance to photograph motion and then stills through portraits. We then went back to look through each others photos, we complemented and then recommended ways to make the photos better, this was useful before we headed out on shoot. We all got a coach together and headed to Ngong, on the coach all students mixed and learnt more about each others life’s, in and out of university, the journey took around 1 ½ hours. Firstly we arrived at a local police station, we meet the local county commissioner and he gave a speech to welcome us to Ngong. We then headed to visit Professor Walla, Kenya’s greatest children’s author; an expert in Swahili based books. I felt this part of the day went on to long and took away from the time we had to shoot. We quickly proceed to Ngong township school, a school of over 2000 students and only 37 teachers. Half the group went to shoot at an orphanage up the road. Myself and the rest of the group stayed to listen to the head teacher. We spoke about the troubles the school faced and the ways a community center can help the local area. My group then went and photographed a teacher in her classroom, she showed us around the school, it was very sad to she such basic rooms. What shone out was the teachers passion to help better their school and community. We regrouped and headed to Ngong hills for photos. The whole area is stunning; it has been the best day so far!

We woke up and started the day with a home cooked breakfast, we the headed to Kenyatta University to meet our cohorts who would be taking part in the workshops. When we arrived we sat in the workshop room and listened to introduction speeches, we then formed our groups. I was running the photography group along with 3 other Brighton students. We started by getting to know each other, talking about each other’s communities, university lifestyles and national culture. In order to stick to our serviced based learning approach we asked everyone to express their knowledge on photography. Some students were advanced and others novices. One Kenyan student explained the basics of photography. Then we processed to explain in more depth the workshop and photography theory. We followed our guide we made back in Brighton, each student had a partner, we used the cameras and tripods to physically show how a camera is used. After lunch we went and took test shoots around the university. We then came up with the theme ‘faces of the community’ and decided to use portraiture. We took photos around the university’s shopping center, we then went back to the room, reviewed the photos, reflected on the days events and planned a test shoot for the next day.

Day One/Two: We arrived in Nairobi at around seven thirty at night and the climate change was  immediately recognizable. We got through customs without a hitch and made our way outside to meet our driver to take us to our apartment. The bus arrived quickly and we all got on and there was lots of space! Once we arrived at the apartment we were all shattered! It had been such a long plane journey so we had a few drinks and went to bed.

Our second day was an acclimatizing day and we spent our time preparing our kit for an intense workshop at Kenyatta University. We also explored the area around our apartment such as the shopping mall next door called ‘T-Mall’. In there was a supermarket, a food court and other shops. It was useful to have this so close by as we could get any extra food or water we needed for our trips.

Day Three: On the third day we travelled to Kenyatta University to meet around 30 Media and Film students there. When we arrived we met Willis the president of The National Youth Council, he is a very friendly and helpful man and was so kind and welcoming. Once everyone was settled in a hall speeches were made from members of staff from the uni as well as our lecture Peter and myself representing the students. I felt my own speech went well and I covered our expectations for the next three days such as two may learning and training the trainers.

Once the speeches were finished we split into our video, audio and photography groups and met the students that wanted to work with us. I was in the video group and at first we did find it very awkward. Being from completely different cultures means that it can be difficult to communicate with one another.

However, we followed our structure and within about half an hour things were going well, once we had the kit out it became clear that these students were as clued up as we were! Things began to slow down before lunch unfortunately as the students didn’t feel that had a real focus. All of the students were meant to be made aware of community media centers but something had slipped through the net. After lunch Willis made a speech on what community media centers were followed by Peter who made a great speech which really inspired all of the students, and us also!

Once we got back into our groups there was a real focus and direction. My group decided to their documentary about the gap between the rich and the poor. I worked with Kelly in my group and three students from Kenyatta uni. We began devising questions and setting up interviews and thinking about who we would interview as well as storyboarding. The day finished on a high and we were ready to film.

Day Four: On the fourth day we travelled back to the university where we were met by students of the uni, had an early lunch and after a bit more pre-production, jumped on the uni bus with our students. Willis was there also but he travel in the car with Peter. We were traveling to a town around two hours away called Ngong (pronounced Gong).

On the journey we discovered the ‘real’ Kenya and it was very upsetting, many rural communities survive on absolutely nothing at all and we saw children sitting around on rubbish and living in real slums.

Once we arrived in Ngong we met the assistant district commissioner who was welcoming and friendly to all, we also met the chief of the town who would be showing us around. The assistant commissioner made a speech and we all felt very proud to be meeting such an important man, and knew this would do great work for the idea of a community media centre.

After meeting the assistant commissioner we travel to meet a writer who owned a ‘sort of’ leisure area with games and a pool, although we would of all liked a dip in the hot weather we had work to do! So we spoke to him for a while but he spoke mostly in Kiswahili so it was difficult to understand, but of what he spoke in English he sounded very  knowledgeable and insightful.

Up until now we hadn’t had a chance to film yet but then we were taken to a primary school so this was a greta opportunity to ask the children about life in Ngong and the gap between the rich and the poor. We also went to an orphanage near by which was really unsetting for all of us to see but also a great chance for our groups to interview the chief and the ‘mother’ of the orphanage who was really sweet and provided some great footage for us. We then travelled back to the apartment and prepared for our final workshops the next day.

Day Five: In short the fifth day went from good to bad to good again. We started off well speaking to our group about how were going to edit our piece. We were planning to edit on Windows Movie Maker for its simplicity and you can (once you know the basics) begin to teach yourself. One member of our group had premier pro, a much more advanced editing software so we decided to use his as he was competent with it. Shortly before lunch we ran into technical difficulties and had to switch to Window Movie Maker, yet our group were not so keen on this idea and we began to split apart with Kelly and I working on one edit with Windows Movie Maker and the students from the uni working with premier pro. This of course was not meant to be the case and Kelly and I, along with the uni students began to get frustrated. However, once everything was finished we deiced this would be a good opportunity to compare and contrast the two editing softwares. The showing of our videos went well and the critical analysis and evaluation was really interesting and something that I and the other student will take away with them.

Kept sleeping for merely 4-5 hours everyday since we arrived Nairbo, last night was the first night having a 8 hours sleep. Have myself fully recharged, we then head off to the street exhibition for stories from our cities. In the exhibition, few random Kenyan residents came over and asked me what am I doing there. So basically I had a little chat with them about the stories from our cities. Later on, I have engaged in two short interviews with Eric and Abdi about their photos posted on the exhibition. I carried on having a dialogue with Eric afterwards. In the conversation, I can feel his passion for photography and films production. Besides, I found it quite funny cause whoever started talking with me, when they acknowledge that I come from Hong Kong, the first question they asked me is always ‘Is Hong Kong a country or a city/ Is it under China?’ Most of them really curious about my home country. Communicating with people, introducing Hong Kong and asking them stuff around Kenya should be what we called ‘Cultural Exchange’. Feel like Hong Kong isn’t as famous as our citizen thought we are, as another part of the world doesn’t really know what’s actually out there and is under control by whom.

Finishing the exhibition with a soda drink and a photo shot at last, we passed through Victor’s (our driver’s) house, had a little visit and then continue our way back to the living place. That’s pretty much all for today!

The photography group settled on the idea to capture the spirit of the community by photographing its members. Portrait photography was something a lot of the group was very excited to try out. Overall when it comes to taking portraits the focus is on the face of the person and the images can display the person’s emotions, background and personality.

We set off to capture stills of people in different places in the university campus. The host students took us to a few amazing locations where we got to see a lot of interesting things, including a dance performance from a student dance group. When it comes to shooting images a really important thing is location and we were quite unfamiliar with the campus. It was amazing that our hosts could show us interesting places on their campus that they think would be a suitable locations for photographs.

Ngong

Visiting Ngong was  an absolutely amazing experience. We broke off into groups to capture footage of the community. My group visited a children’s home where we were allowed to photograph the location and the children. We were discussing how the community could benefit from a community media centre and capturing footage to illustrate our theme. Some of the topics included domestic violence, the gap between the rich and the poor and preserving Kenyan culture.

Final Edit of “Faces of the community”

Our last day at Kenyata University was spent finalizing our project which we had to present in front of the rest of the groups and tutors. The most fascinating thing about the whole project was that at the end we ended up with over 2,600 picture to look through. The way we handled that is by editing it down twice, once down to 200 and then down to 35 which made it to the final presentation. Our hosts suggested that we should use music to enhance the feeling of the photograph. They recommended some really interesting African music that blend very well with our overall theme.

During the presentations we got to see everyone else’s work as well, which was really interesting. I think the video group did very well in portraying the issues discussed in their videos, such as Tribalism in the kenyan community.

Stories from our cities.

Initially I expected that our exhibition of photos would be in a hall where people could walk in and out of their own free will, I could not of been more wrong. Ruaraka was the biggest culture shock I’ve had so far.

We arrived in a VERY poor part of the city, it was (I think) basically a slum. We set up by  an intersection and there was music and all our photos up on a wall.

Immediately we were surrounded by curious locals and children, which was fun. An hour or so later things started to get a bit serious when local Adults began to approach us and ask us what we were doing and begging us to help them. One particular man told me and Alex that our photos were not helping and they were still suffering, this is where I started to feel like we shouldn’t be there. thought that to show up as we did and not actively help but show photos of where we’re from was almost like rubbing it in their faces, we all got a bit upset and started to feel harassed as locals began to approach us as soon as one of us was on our own.

One of the worst things I think is rock up to an African slum with nice clothes,  very expensive camera equipment and immediately go and buy coke and stand around drinking it TRYING to ignore children as they beg you for some. It was awful.A couple of times I could people trying to get into my back pockets and opening my bag zips, stressful!

Later on while attempting to wander back to the group a woman grabbed me and asked me what we were doing, when I told her about the photos 3 other woman appeared and began to all talk at me at the same time asking why we were comparing cultures when there is absolutely no comparison, they needed help.

We left ASAP and got taken to our bus drivers house, this is where probably  the worst part happened. On first impressions as usual we were surrounded by locals welcoming us to their community, we went into a block of flats and saw victors house and then left. At this point a woman appeared and grabbed me and attempted to lead me into an alleyway and told me she was “angry” but actually I was wrong and she was saying “im hungry” regardless I was absolutely terrified but thankfully Alex saw and rescued me (forever the hero) and we all got in the van, where local women started to try and get in and ask us for help, telling us they’d ‘Lost a Woman’ and were suffering, we all got a bit upset and anxious as we had nowhere to go and were trapped in the van.

Pete arrived and hastily shut the door and we drove off to get stuck in traffic for 3 hours as Kenyan drivers do not understand the concept of LANES.

The day ended with more upset as when I got home I realised for the second time that my ‘tan line’ was actually just dirt from the dusty roads.

NO JOKES TODAY GUYS, STUFF GOT VERY CEREAL. SO CEREAL.

CM4K QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Do you work?” (Southy, A: 2015)

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. :((

Apologies fort late blogs, no internet until 30 seconds ago;

Today was our last workshop, running late, starting late and everyone generally being late did not make it a good start.

Initially me and Charlie thought that our group understood the task at hand and we were confident about the interviews shot and the final result as a whole. Unfortunately after an hour and a half our group was yet to even open the editing programme. We left for a break , came back and we were presented with  a 30 second clip accompanied by Ed Sheeran – Lego house as a ‘soundtrack’ .  We told them the video was to be about a community media centre and to include the interviews..and when they weren’t looking deleted Ed Sheeran.  2 hours later me and Charlie were panicing- hastily editing our own video as our group had decided to stop everything in order to re-name every single individual video file and I could still hear Ed Sheeran, thanks for that Ed.

Later on we realised our group had decided to abandon us, and had made someone else we hadnt in the 3 days we’d been there edit their video for them…We ended up presenting two separate videos.
It was a very frustrating day, but both videos kind of worked well together and we managed to get through it and NOT laugh when the Sheeran montage happened.

On a plus note every single person was absolutely lovely and we’ve all added each other  on  facebook, we’ve made some friends for life here J

I HATE Ed Sheeran.

CM4K QUOTE OF THE DAY

“they should put cars on tracks…oh, wait that’s called a train”

Today we travelled to Focus initiative in Rerue for Japata day! Focus Initative is in some ways a youth club/school/day time orphanage for the local village kids. They get fed there once a day and can have somewhere safe to be and learn, grow and make friends.  This was quite a contrast from the orphanage we saw the other day, friendlier and a nicer atmosphere

The kids (like the ones from the orphanage in Ngong) were so thrilled to play with our cameras, they were photographing, filming and begging us to take photos of them.  Genuinely having so much fun and we were afraid we were going to have to give our (potential) degrees to them.

We spent the morning being taught how to make Japatas in a VERY HOT and cramped kitchen, as usual everyone was so welcoming and friendly, especially Chris and his GORGEOUS daughter:

Before dinner we all went outside the gate and played some traditional African ice breakers in a HUGE circle, there was dancing and a lot of singing.

The food  (when ready, Kenyan time) looked and smelt so nice but unfortunately for some reason someone decided to show me the goat they were about to slaughter for dinner…I only asked him to unwrap my lollypop (I couldn’t do it) and what I got was  “Ill show you something cool” and I was excited but the harsh gritty reality was a soon-to-be-dead-goat.

My absolute favourite part was putting on music in the classroom and dancing with everyone. Someone tried to teach us how to dougie. It didn’t go well.

Our first stop was Kenyatta University, the second biggest university in Kenya. What a campus..oh mah god! Massive campus, big gardens and relax areas, a cinema (!), playgrounds and what not. Spencer, Boyana, Anneeka and I were responsible for the photography workshop. Even though we briefly run through it on the previous day, we were quite nervous what to expect.

Day 1

After being fashionably late, representatives from Kenyatta University welcomed us with a little opening ceremony. We got introduced to the students who we were going to work with, we met a few lectures and the head of the department of Film and Theatre. After the speeches finished, we were split into groups and started our workshop. As the most important part of what we do is to share knowledge and experience, we did not want to make them feel like we are there to teach them. We wanted to make everyone feel comfortable and confident and to share what they know and what they are good at with the others. We sat in a circle and everyone introduced themselves explaining why they’d chosen the photography workshop. Then we continued with introducing the basic functions of the camera and tripod. When we got to know their level of knowledge it was easier for us to lead the workshop. We were worried that we would either bore them to death or we would bombard them with tons of information. It was a nice sunny day ( get over yourself, England! ) so we spent some time outside talking about ISO, aperture, shutter speed while experimenting with the cameras. I believe everyone enjoyed themselves, we were really lucky to work with these particular students, all of them were really passionate about photography and eager to learn. After the lunch break, we talked about the upcoming trip to Ngong on the next day and our topic for the shoot. We had a few very good ideas but we decided to do Faces of the Community and focus on portraiture. We set a task for everyone to go outside and take portraits so they can start thinking about setting, background, lighting, positioning the subject, etc. At the end of the day we ended up with some amazing photographs and everyone was pleased themselves. One of the students came to me and told me that she was a bit worried at first but we did a great job and she had an amazing time. It made me so happy : )

Day 2

The second day we went to the Kenyatta University in the morning. We decided to walk around the campus and take some more portraits so everyone can feel confident for the trip to Ngong. Since we had the best group and the best workshop, we spent the morning watching a group of boys dancing to a contemporary Kenyan gospel ( amazing song, still trying to find it ) at the playground. We took some great photos that ended up in our final presentation.

In the afternoon we travelled to Ngong. Our first stop was at the police station where the governed welcomed us, then we head to the Community Media centre where we met Professor Walla. Our final stop was the Ngong Township School. The groups were split into two. Some of us went to speak to the teachers, my group was sent to the Faraja Orphanage. I was not prepared for that and got extremely upset at first. However, seeing the happy smiles on these kids’ faces made me realise that money means nothing and one needs only so little to be happy. We ended the day at the Ngong hills watching the sunset. An absolutely incredible view. One of those that you never forget. I think that has been one of the best days so far.

Day 3

The last day of the workshop was a bit hectic and stressful. We all had to finish our projects and present them in front of everyone at the end of the day. Honestly, we as photographers were lucky because we did not have to focus so much on the editing process. We had a short Photoshop session, then we picked up 40 images out of 2786 ( don’t ask us how ), arranged them and decided to present them while playing a traditional Kenyan song. All groups presented their work, everyone did a great job for the short period of time we had. We all were a bit sad to leave but thankful for the great experience and the new friends we made.

Disclaimer: Before I start today’s blog, I must mention that we have not had proper access to Wifi the past 3 days and keeping up to date with blogs has been a pain in the arse – 1^st world problems in 3^rd world countries.

Thursday 22^nd – Kenyatta university Round 2

Heading to Kenyatta university once again on Thursday, I was quite confident that the day would be as productive, or even better, than the one yesterday. We spent the first couple of hours with the students of the audio workshop planning out what sort of audio footage would be useful to capture when visiting Ngong later that day.
After an early lunch, we all got into a schoolbus and headed off towards Ngong. The journey there as well as visiting various places within the town, was an eye-opener to say the least…a lot of what I had already heard about Kenya and African countries in general was confirmed throughout the trip. I’ve never really understood what it is like to have such little and grow up in harsh conditions, as thankfully I grew up in a lovely developed country with all the access to clean water and food I wanted, and in general had a great childhood. Witnessing the conditions people live in, where children go to school, what they have to do to survive and in general, what problems families in poor societies face, made me reflect on my own life and upbringing – I think everyone has to get a view once in their life of how people in poor countries like Kenya live to understand that what we consider as ‘problems’ in our country are ridiculous. At the same time though, it’s pleasing to see Kenyan students interested and determined to learn more about communities and how to potentially help tackle contemporary problems – I like to believe there is light at the end of the tunnel, despite all the obstacles along the way.
To top off witnessing these life changing spectacles, we ended the day with a short visit up to the Ngong hills. It was truly breathtaking – I was convinced that these kinds of mountain ranges and views only existed in fantasy movies like Lord of the Rings, and actually being on the top of a hill in view of endless valleys of untouched nature all the way into the horizon made me feel like I was at the top of the world. What a sight.

The day ended with dinner at the bar and a couple o’ Heinees of course, but I couldn’t help but think that while I’m here with a plate of food and a beer in front of me, just a couple of miles away a child is eating out of a dustbin. What a world…

Friday 23^rd – Kenyatta university Round 3

Friday was a stressful day, as all the material we had gathered over the past few days had to be edited and put into one piece and presented by 3pm, and arriving at 9:30am really didn’t help. Nevertheless, as soon as we arrived we got cracking and did what needed to be done. We recorded some of the Kenyan student’s pieces they wanted to make that would support the recordings we had gathered the day before in Ngong.
After lunch at around 12 noon we started editing, but we were rather pressured with time as everything had to be done and ready to be presented by 3pm. The editing process was challenging, as during the editing we realized that it would be useful if we had some small ‘in-between’ clips introducing each topic, as well as some music which would serve as a background. Besides that, a few of our recordings were not of the best quality due to background noise interfering with the actual speech. Nevertheless, we managed to finish it off by 3pm and present it at the presentation and closing ceremony of our collaboration project with the Kenyatta university students.
The whole ceremony was great; it was amazing to see how much we had all achieved within 3 days and how much we had all learned about working with students from a completely different kind of community to the ones we are familiar with. Personally I was very impressed by the work the photography workshop group did, as I felt it really touched on topics and the honest reality of community problems and issues.

Leaving the university was accompanied by a mild sense of sadness as we had had so much fun the past 3 days with the Kenyatta students and we had grown to really like each other and enjoy ourselves, but at the same time we were all overwhelmed with a sense of achievement which we celebrated later on when we arrived back at our flat.
Probably my favorite day yet 🙂

Saturday 24^th – FOCUSing on development – contructing Ciabbattas

Today we headed off to the Focus youth centre for the Ciabbatta forum, where we spent the day with the children that spend their days at the youth centre as well as the students from Zetech university. The day started off really interesting when we arrived there as we got involved with the making of ciabbatas while getting introduced to the Zetech students who were really welcoming and happy to meet us. Being around all the children at the centre was rather fun as well, especially since we got involved with their activities and games. I had a conversation with a few of the people that run the centre, about what the centre does and from what backgrounds the children come from, which made me really reflect on the kind of childhood I had and make me realize how well off I have been while growing up. You really need to see the grim side of the world to understand that the world is not always a beautiful place, and that many things we have in our life are taken for granted such as having clean clothes and clean water to drink.
Seeing the children in such a condition, but with a smile on their face was an eye-opener to say the least, and being able to play with them, talk with them and generally spend time with them really made their day and was probably the highlight of their week, month or even year… it’s strange how they react when seeing someone with light skin; they seem so amazed and interested as if we have come from another planet.
Throughout the day, everyone I met instead of calling me by my first name they kept calling me Jesus, and the kids picked up on that and they started calling me Jesus as well ! It’s funny that where I come from, if you have long hair and a beard it’s very likely that people will think you are a slacker or just ‘trouble’ in general, but here, in an intensely Christian community they seemed to be extremely fond of me exactly because they thought I looked a lot like Jesus. Go figure!

Sunday 25^th – Slumdog ‘millionaire’

The ‘Stories from our Cities’ photo exhibition was held today in a place called Ruwaka, which is situated in the outskirts of Nairobi in an area of dense slums. Arriving there, I genuinely felt sick. Not because I was ill or had eaten something dodgy, but from what I was seeing before me. I can’t describe with words the abysmal living conditions people live in within the slums. I could tell that the others from our group were just as shocked from what we were seeing, and it made us consider if that was an appropriate area to have a photo exhibition in, even though the actual exhibition was aimed at portraying the real faces of Kenya, both the beautiful and the ugly, in order to exhibit that Kenya is not only a bad place, common to popular belief. With us were students from the university of Nairobi who were hosting the exhibition, which made me feel safe to have them with us as it meant we were not alone in the middle of a not-so-safe area. The exhibition lasted only 2-3 hours and as we left we got stuck into the most horrendous traffic jam comprehensible by man. We had gotten used to being stuck in Nairobi traffic, but this was something else – road etiquette is not a term in the Kenyan dictionary to say the least.
Thankfully we got home safe and sound and had the opportunity to sit down, have a rest and try to comprehend today’s experience and reflect on all that has been happening.