Kiwanja Ndege Community Project

Short Film - Transit

esperanto_films — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:00:00 GMT

Hi Everyone, As you may have heard on the World Nomads Podast, I am about to show my graduation film at the Australian Centre of Moving Image (ACMI), in Melbourne, at 6pm on Friday, the 30 of November 2007. Tickets are free and available on the day of the screening at the ACMI box office. If you are interested in seeing my current work, feel free to come along. It should be a fine night. Hope to see you there...

kiwanja Ndege Community Project Day 5

esperanto_films — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:39:00 GMT

Day 5: The final morning. One last look at the bright and colourful horizon. One last walk up to the school that had lovingly accommodated us for the last 5 days. By now the group had successfully mastered the two main tasks, painting the inside of the school and building a large amount of new and refurbished school desks. It was an amazing feeling seeing the joy that we brought to these young children’s faces, so grateful for so little. Nevertheless, we were still not finished. The installation of a water tank had to be done before leaving. My day consisted pretty much of swapping shovel with tripod and vice versa. A strange tension was floating through the air. All day the kids were preparing several different songs and dances that would give us one last impression of the place we came to visit. I spend the entire last day simply thinking about whether I had all the material that I needed, and all aspects that would give me plenty of variety in the edit later on. We finished the day with a big celebration of what had been done, exchange of experiences and contact details. Did I have enough material, did I choose the right story and how the film will turn out, I don’t know. One thing is for sure though – it has made me realize that the only way to make other people aware of the world outside their own front yard, is a device you carry on your shoulder with a big red button that says “RECORD”...

kiwanja Ndege Community Project Day 4

esperanto_films — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:38:00 GMT

Day 4: The next day started pretty much with me trying to put together a raw structure of what I needed to cover over the next couple of days. We all met again at the school. The group was desperately trying to stick to the schedule and I spent my time with Robin, trying to understand what a kid in his position goes through. Funnily enough, he wasn’t much different to the kids I knew from back home. He enjoyed playing sports, hanging out with friends, well the usual. Yet, there was one major difference. He told me he wanted to become a journalist. Nothing unachievable – in Australia! The problem I encountered was that when completing primary school in Kenya, the funds to pay for a secondary school were fairly limited. The majority of kids are not able to educate themselves further because of their financial background. After Robin finished school for the day, we walked home to his place together. On the way we chatted about all kinds of things, some more some less important. He introduced me to his brother and his other siblings. This was what I had been waiting for, a more personal insight into the life of those I was documenting. While I was focusing on getting the best possible material, the group itself had their own little hurdles to overcome. The end of the trip was coming closer and closer and we both started to run out of time to complete what we came for. Now that I finally had the base of my film, the camera did not stop rolling. Unaware that batteries and tape stock was rapidly running out, I shot whatever material I thought would be useful in the edit... After returning to the campsite, I reviewed some of the rushes and made arrangements to charge my batteries, yet I was still running low on stock. The final day was coming up and I had to make sure to cover everything important whilst saving as much tape as possible for the vital shots that could essentially make the film.

kiwanja Ndege Community Project Day 3

esperanto_films — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:38:00 GMT

Day 3: The next day presented itself. It was time for me to seriously start thinking about what story I was going to pursue and how to form and structure the overall narrative of my film. My initial idea was to spend a day with one of the kids from the school, to see what it really meant to live out here. I started to make my way through the classrooms, on the lookout for that one kid that I could base the story on. The initial idea was quite simple: Get a kid, ask him a couple of questions, spend some time with him, wrap. Of course I was wrong... Based on past experiences, documentaries don’t form themselves. The key is to find that one story that has been there all along and you just couldn’t see it. I spoke to the schoolmistress, explaining that I needed a child that would meet certain criteria’s. Nothing special, simply a character most people could relate to and would make an interesting story. I had it all sorted, that’s what I thought anyway. They arranged for me to spend some time with one of the children. The child was wary of the big bulky black eye that was staring him right in the face. For me it was a simple camera, yet the child had never seen such a thing before. I asked him what his name was, he replied by saying “good”. I didn’t think much about the first answer, but when all the answers to my questions were “fine”, “ok”, “football” and “Ronaldo”, I realized I was encountering a little problem. I was always under the impression that the kids in the school would understand English. They sort of did, but not as much as I needed them to. This started to become a major problem as my knowledge of Swahili and masai was very limited. Sorry, let’s make that zero. How could I make a personal story on a child that didn’t understand me and most importantly I didn’t understand him? I couldn’t afford to lose much time. We had only a few more days left to finish what we originally came for and my shooting time was running out. At about midday, I walked up to the football field that overlooked the magical valley of this spiritual place. I was trying to take some nicely framed location shots, while thinking of an alternative of how to approach this film. I just set up my tripod when suddenly someone kept yelling “Shoot me!”, “Hello Mr, Shoot me!” After being slightly confused as to what was going on, I noticed one of the kids was asking me to kick back the soccer ball that was lying next to my tripod. And so I did. He waived me over to join them in their quite vicious way of playing. I started chatting to one of the older kids. It had come to my attention that it would make more sense to base the film on an older kid than a child that would simply be too young to understand what was being asked of him. And my search started again... The end of the day arrived, and I finally had found someone that was happy to assist me in my undertaking. His name was Robin and I was quite glad it wasn’t “good”, “fine” or “Ronaldo”...

Kiwanja Ndege Community Project Day 2

esperanto_films — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:36:00 GMT

Day 2: We awoke to the sounds of a rooster, not quite the wake up call I expected in Africa. I opened my tent and was mesmerized be the vibrant colour palette that presented itself to me. In the distance I could see a couple of young kids, probably making their way to school in the sunny but chilli morning. I took out my camera to capture some of the amazing colour combinations that had formed on the horizon, announcing it would certainly become a typical African day. Sunny, hot and dry as a pancake baked on sand. I sat down at the camp table, trying to remember all the names that were thrown at me the night before and tried to put a face to them. I succeeded with most of them. Being served with eggs and bacon, muesli and the instant coffee, which was later simply referred to as diesel, was a great and fuelling start to the day. We walked up to the school. The hill, which had made just a small impression in the car the day prior, suddenly had become much larger than life when on foot and carrying camera gear. What did I have to complain about? Some of the children, I found out later, had a 6km walk to and from school each day. Now it made sense to me why Kenya is the leading nation when it comes to marathons and other endurance sports! We made our way through the school fence, which was basically made out of sticks, all scumbled together, to keep the school safe from...from what actually? I never bothered to ask, but really I didn’t want to find out anyway. I set my camera ready for capturing, when I came around the corner of one of the classroom buildings and saw about 300 little children all lined up in front of the headmaster. More and more big dark beautiful eyes started to stare our way while still pretending to face the headmaster. A slight giggle started to erupt throughout the children. One of the kids started clapping and suddenly all of them started to follow. A song. A song they would sing every morning to bless their luck of being able to have the possibility of being educated. The possibility of having the chance of spending time with each other and being able to share knowledge amongst themselves. Soon our guide pulled us aside to split the group into two teams, painters and carpenters. Was this to split the men from the boys? The carpenters group was to assemble new school desks, while the painters were to strip down the walls of the classrooms and to undercoat followed by a light blue colour of fresh paint. At first painting sounded like the easier option, that was until they discovered that the kids has used glue to stick their posters onto the walls. Scraping down the walls before painting was a job of devotion – not pleasure... The day progressed by everyone putting in as much as they could. Assembling school desks didn’t sound to hard at first, yet being a carpenter without access to electricity makes drilling holes quite a time- and endurance-consuming job. We ended the day by trotting down the hill back to our campsite, exhausted and in need of food we discovered that Jackson, our oh so talented cook, had delivered a feast. To this day we are still unsure how this little man, who’s body’s pivot point was more in his back, due to his proud beer belly, was able to come up with the most delicious recipes when limited to the bare minimum. Followed by a bottle of Tusker (beer) we all fell into our beds...sorry make that tents with hard floors and rolled up jumpers to lean our head on. Even though all our luxuries were far away from us, we all still had a good nights sleep...

Kiwanja Ndege Community Project Day 1

esperanto_films — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:27:00 GMT

Day 1: After arriving in Nairobi and being introduced to the hustle and bustle, fumes and the melody of car horns, I soon realised that this trip was going to be an adventure. On the same night we were briefed on the actual project and got to meet everyone who would share the next 7 days together as well as water and coffee supplies. We left Nairobi in the early morning and made our way through the numerous checkpoints to a little town called Laikipia. The roads rather resembled a Swiss cheese than the main entrance point between Tanzania and Kenya. Spending 6 hours in a car with strangers, definitely helped to break the ice and exchange a few stories as to what had brought us all here. Most of the people came from all corners of Australia, yet all had the same goal. Give the kids a better and happier learning environment. We arrived at the Kiwanja Ndege Public School in the late afternoon. The sun slowly made its way down the horizon, and an orchestra of birds and other animals started to greet us to this somehow forgotten yet magical setting. We made our way down to our campsite, a short but rugged drive down the hill from where the school was, whist being told that for the next seven days, the transportation by car would simply be a luxury. The children that attended this school, walked from all over the region to get to it on time, a pleasure that I would encounter a few hours from now! After deciding who would share the tents with whom, we all sat down to once more go over what had to be done throughout the following week. Many of us had just arrived, and thus to preserve energy we slowly but surely parted and went to sleep.