Day 2 Training

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

We woke up and prepared for the second day of training. We had arranged to meet Steve at the center of town at 9am, even though it was way past Manyatta, arguably the largest slum in Kisumu, where we were going that morning. We had hoped to walk the whole way, but were running low on time and so walked part of the way and then caught a matatu. We arrived and found no Steve. We stopped in at some of the electronics stores that we had heard about to find some adapters and perhaps a photo printer to help us to better use the donations that we have. Unfortunately, they didn’t have what we were looking for, although at each store they would recommend we go to another store that also didn’t have what we needed. We waited for over an hour for Steve, even though he had told us when we arrived there, “I am coming.”

He finally arrived and picked us up. We stopped off down the block so that he could take care of some business at the bank. When that was done, he drove us to the Tuungane satellite community center in Manyatta. Victor was waiting for us there. He leaned over and whispered, “and why are we so late this morning?” We tried to explain as the youth that had been waiting for us for so long began to move chairs into the room and the pool table to back of the room.

We began. When we asked the participants whom they considered their community to be, most talked about the people in their neighborhood, often referencing the sharing of resources. One girl responded, “my enemies.” When we asked about the issues and challenges facing them, we got similar answers to those that we had heard from the other two groups, although they did suggest that we break up the issues by category: social, political, and cultural. They also brought up incitement, describing it as when politicians get the community riled up about an issue and incite the community members to protest. They also were the first group to bring up tribalism, violence, and corruption.



We began the exercises. We decided that it would be more appropriate for Victor to escort them to take pictures with the digital camera. Later, Victor mentioned that the pictures were almost all staged scenes depicting the issues, rather than more representational or symbolic images. Sara found that when audio recording the interviews, the language barrier seemed to be more obvious than with the group from the day before. Alexis was taken into the boys’ bathroom to take a picture posed as if they were peeing. They apologized to her about the smell. We weren’t able to get very far on the exercises because of lack of time.

We came back to the center and found that the electricity was out. We were concerned because that meant that were unable to recharge our equipment. Instead we took a nap. When it was time to leave, we piled into Steve’s car and headed for Liberty Secondary School. Steve and Victor had told us that Liberty had a reputation of not being a very good school academically, but in a former project of Abila’s, the “It’s Our Lives” debates, Liberty had beat Kisumu Girls Secondary School, much to everyone’s surprise.

We waited in a classroom to be shown where to go, still feeling groggy from the nap. We were taken past a room that seemed to contain nothing other than husks of corn and a chair and shown to a classroom with outlets.


We plugged in while we waited for the students to finish their exams. Alexis took some photos as students slowly trickled in. When enough students were there, we began our presentation. Suddenly more students began to flow in, on top of what already seemed like way too many students for what we had planned. Sara winged it again.

After asking about community and the issues and challenges facing them, Sara asked if anyone could share a personal story that illustrated one of these issues or challenges. Many of the students had trouble moving away from hypothetical illustrations, but one young man told a personal story about his experience with peer pressure and smoking banghi (marijuana), which made the others giggle. We encouraged this kind of storytelling. A girl shared a story about a young girl who is a neighbor of hers who was raped, the girl ended the story, illustrating the negative effects, by stating that this young girl is now scared, particularly of people in trousers. The electricity went off during the workshop and rain began to pour down outside. When we had run out of time, a teacher apologized to us for the disorganization and asked us how many students we would like to have the next time. We replied that we wouldn’t want to exclude anyone who had attended the first meeting, even though the huge number of students made it almost impossible to do any exercises.

Alexis took a number of pictures of the students and allowed some of them to use her camera. There were instantly students all around her, wanting to take and have pictures taken.


Two girls, Mary and Gloria, carried our backpacks to the gates of the school for us as we marveled at the beauty of the sky as a very light rain fell. The girls left us there because they are not allowed to walk through the market in their school uniforms because of the many temptations there. We bought some items at the market and then left Steve at the main road. Victor escorted us part of the way home and then instructed us to take a matatu. When we alighted from the matatu at our stop (Posho Mil), we were struck by the beauty of the sky. It was like nothing we had ever seen. One side was blue and the other was orange. Alexis couldn’t stop taking pictures of it as we meandered home.

We arrived home to find that we were still without electricity. We made dinner and went to bed. When the electricity did return, we knew because the radio had been left on at a very high volume.

Day 1 Training

Monday, July 17, 2006

We woke up nervous. We packed our backpacks with video cameras, audio recorders, video and audio tapes, and a computer and waited for Steve and Victor to get us and take us to the Obunga Community Center. Our schedule had said that we would be at Obunga at 8:30am, but we soon found out that everyone else was working on Kisumu time. Steve and Victor picked us up in Steve’s brother’s car and we drove down to Tuungane, the nice community center we had visited a couple of days before. We met a man named Moses, who was very sharply dressed, with whom the Abila guys had organized the trainings that would be held at Tuunagne and its satellites, which are located in slums and other neighborhoods around Kisumu. We also met a woman named Eunice who runs a group of young women called Smart Ladies who meet to play football (soccer to Americans) and discuss issues affecting them as young women. We waited nervously by the car while Moses ran around gathering supplies for us: markers, paper, pens, tape, and a pad of large paper to be used in place of a blackboard.




Once all the supplies had been gathered, we drove to Obunga, which was located off the main road on a dirt road populated by small shacks housing shops and some small homes. There were many children around who came by to see what the wazungu were up to. We entered the center and after a couple of introductions, they sent some of the youth to sweep out a sort of covered patio area to ready it for our workshop. We were told that people had been there earlier for the training, but had left when they found that we were not there. People had been sent out to round up those who had left. “They are coming,” we were told. We waited awkwardly while children stared at us from the entrance gates and the community center members swept and moved chairs and a table into the patio area. People slowly began to trickle in and fill the empty chairs. We looked at them and they looked back at us blankly. Alexis, who is terrified of public speaking, thought she was going to throw up.

Victor suggested that we begin informally by having people introduce themselves. We had the video cameras going, which might have been adding to everyone’s seeming discomfort. We went over interviewing skills, trying to drive home the idea of always having the interviewee incorporate the question back into the answer. We illustrated by introducing ourselves by asking one another simple questions like, “What is your name?” “How old are you?” and answering with, “My name is Sara Feldman.” “I am 27-years-old.” They were shocked to find out our ages. When we asked why they answered that we were very young.

We went around the group and asked them some questions so that they could introduce themselves, while getting practice answering questions in this new way. We found that many of the participants were in their late teens or early to mid-twenties. Many of them spoke very softly. One of the girls refused to answer and simply scowled at us until her scowl broke into embarrassed laughter but then the scowl quickly returned. We tried to have someone else come up and stand with her to make her more comfortable, but she continued to scowl until we thanked her and invited her to sit back down. She and a friend of hers left a couple of minutes later and never returned. Others were much more interested and excited to participate.

When enough people had come and all had introduced themselves, we moved on to having the youth tell us about the issues affecting them as members of their communities. They spoke of many issues, including:
• HIV/AIDS
• Poverty
• Crime
• Rape
• Prostitution
• Drug and alcohol abuse
• Lack of employment opportunities
• Idleness
• Need for the empowerment of girls and women
• Affordable medicine
• Need for hygienic conditions
• Intergenerational communication gaps

One young man is a musician and discussed the importance of media to communicate issues that are affecting the youth in Kenya. There was another enthusiastic young musician in the group who shared the same views. We all agreed that media was an effective way to give voice to people who might not normally have a way to communicate about the challenges they are facing.

We introduced the projects that they would be doing and had them break up into groups of four to begin to discuss the issues in more depth to begin a dialogue and prepare for the projects.

Unfortunately, Alexis was only able to get through about five people because of lack of time. She found that some older women misunderstood when she accompanied the youth to use the digital camera, thinking that she was having the participants take pictures for her, and asked for money. One of the participants was able to communicate to the women that the photograph was for the community members, not the foreigner, and the women agreed to have their picture taken. One participant took a picture of dirty water to illustrate problems with hygiene and lack of clean water. Another participant photographed a dumping area in an alleyway to illustrate the sanitation problems within the community.

Sara found that some of the participants had difficulty with the language barrier, but many were able to communicate eloquently about the issues. Most of them were able to remember to effectively incorporate the question back into their answer.

Victor seemed to do fine with the disposable camera.

We came back together and those who had been able to take a picture with Alexis presented their pictures to the group.

As we were packing up to leave, a couple of the participants started talking to Victor in Kiswahili. We asked what they were saying. One of them told us that we should bring money next time. Sara jokingly responded that they should bring us money. The response was simple, “But you’re American.” Victor and Steve had told us that they didn’t like to use the terms “training” and “workshop” because in this area, NGOs often pay individuals 20 shillings (around a quarter) to attend their trainings and workshops. People don’t typically gain skills from these trainings/workshops, but they sit through them for the money. Abila does not believe in this system. They feel that the skills should be reward enough for the participants.

As we climbed back into Steve’s brother’s car we asked for some feedback on the first session. The response was that we should wait until the end of the week to get feedback. We were not satisfied with this answer and pushed for something. We got, “it was fine.” We returned to the center to relax before heading to Kisumu Girls High School. Steve and Victor left early and told us that they would meet us there. It seemed that Victor was not very excited about working with this particular school.

We traveled by matatu to Kisumu Girls High School. He was not excited about The school is quite large with many uniformed girls. We met Steve there and headed for the Counseling Office, where we met some teachers and signed the visitors’ book. We were then led to a classroom where we began to set up our equipment, as the teachers from the Counseling Office took their seats. We thought that we had from about 4:30 until 6:00 to work with these girls, much less than the three hours we had taken that morning. Steve leaned over to Sara and whispered, “you had better include some counseling in this one.”

We had no idea what to do, so Sara winged it. We ended up going around the room and having each girl introduce herself and tell us one interesting thing about her. Someone began the trend of informing us of what she wanted to do when she grew up and everyone followed suit. One young woman wanted to head up the UN Security Council, others wanted to be journalists, doctors, lawyers, etc. We asked them to tell us about the issues facing their communities and the girls were happy to contribute with very academic descriptions of complex issues such as:
• Gender inequality
• Rape
• Lack of security
• HIV/AIDS
• Contraception
• Abstinence
• Poverty
• Censorship and the media
One girl, who was obviously speaking from experience, brought up the issue of not being allowed to socialize outside of school because of parents’ strict rules.

Alexis did her lecture on the aesthetics of photography. We then told the girls that they were going to apply what they had learned by taking pictures with our two digital cameras. We broke them up into two groups and went outside with them to find pictures that either illustrated an issue or an aspect of their personality. It soon deteriorated into girls taking pictures of their friends. We were told by Steve that we were to finish at 5:30, and so we had to cut the exercise short. We returned inside and thanked the girls for their participation. Victor then got up and made a formal thank you. The teachers, who had made us so nervous the whole time, then stood and thanked us for coming, stating that it had been a “healthy interaction.”

Sundays in Kisumu

Sunday, July 16, 2006

We woke up hungover from the night before and realized that we had consumed way more liquor than we had thought. We had breakfast and planned to stop by a cyber café in town before going to see Lake Victoria, where, we had been told, people go on to eat fish, especially on Sundays.

We slowly readied ourselves and made it down to the main road to catch a matatu. We were speeding along in the matatu, when suddenly we slammed into the back of a silver car. Instead of slowing or stopping, the matatu driver accelerated while a passenger and the man who takes the money hung out the door of the matatu yelling and laughing as they looked back at the car, which it turns out had been the victim of an accident on its frontside as well. While Sara had seen the collision, Alexis thought that perhaps we had driven through a ditch and blown a tire and couldn’t figure out why everyone was laughing and yelling. Other than some bruised knees and a jittery feeling, we were fine.

Although we had hoped to make it to the lake, the electronics store, and the cyber café, it took so long for us to upload, download, and update at the cyber café that it was the only place we made it to, and even there we were unable to accomplish all we had hoped. Frustrated, we made our way back home.

We sat down in our new bedroom and designed the lesson plan for the next day, not knowing who, how many, or what age group we would be dealing with. We came up with a lecture that explained to them that the building blocks to filmmaking are photography and storytelling. We intended to find out from them about issues and challenges that they are facing as young people in their area. We decided to then teach the very basics of interviewing, Alexis would give a presentation (complete with visual aids on her computer) of the aesthetics of photography, and Sara would talk about storytelling. We would then break them up into small groups to discuss the issues that are important to them and think about how they would complete the following exercises.

1) They would go with Alexis in their small groups and with her assistance each participant would use a digital camera to take a picture that represents one of the important issues that they are facing.

2) They would go with Sara in pairs and conduct brief audio-recorded interviews, one time as interviewer and one time as interviewee, in which they would identify themselves and speak briefly about their communities and the important issues facing their communities. They would also identify the issue that they had chosen to photograph and come up with one sentence about that issue.

3) They would go with Victor after both interviewing and being interviewed and take a picture of their interview partner using a disposable camera. The photographer would have creative control of how they chose to characterize their subject thinking about some of the aesthetic points that Alexis had presented to them. The pictures would be developed and brought in for them to see in the next session.

The final activity, using Alexis’ computer, would be to have each participant present their picture of the important issue that they had chosen along with the sentence about that issue to the rest of the group.

Nervous and exhausted, we went to sleep with no idea what the next day would bring.

Things are making sense.

Saturday, July 15, 2006
We woke up to text message from Steve that read, “Mrng ladies will b there for the discussion hope ur wel.” It was somewhat comforting, but we still didn’t know when this meeting would be happening.

We got up and Alexis cooked a lovely omelet. We had a nice brunch together. We cleaned up, gathered water from the well in the yard, and were about to begin testing the equipment when Victor showed up.

He told us that Steve was on his way. He apologized for the day before saying that they thought that they would return after their meeting, but it went too long. We tried to be gracious hosts and offered Victor some coffee. Although it came out a bit chunky as we are still getting accustomed to the powdered milk (although the kitchen is furnished with two refrigerators, neither is currently working), he graciously accepted it. Steve arrived and took tea.

They seemed impressed by the equipment room. After they expressed this sufficiently, we moved into the meeting area/dining room. Alexis and I set up cameras and mics to capture the meeting on tape for the possible films that could benefit from the inclusion of the meeting.

The meeting finally began with Victor and Steve explaining who they are and what Abila Creative Center does, with the occasional distraction from Alexis running around to maintenance and man cameras. Abila was started by a group of artists in Kisumu and it used to have a space in town, where they had shows, displayed art, and held other events. Recently, the focus has moved away from that space because it was took a great deal of resources to run. It turns out that Abila currently does not have sufficient funding and Steve and Victor are working for free. They have a number of different programs that they are currently involved in. They have given Abila a commitment of 5 years to secure funding. Their philosophy is to make the community aware of their presence, their desire to help, and their space, but they only work as the facilitators for projects that come from the community. Their desire is for the community members to determine what the issues within their communities are with Abila’s support and to then work with Abila to determine the best ways to address these issues. They don’t make any promises, they are simply there to provide opportunities and assist.

Steve told us their expectations of us: we were coming there to teach filmmaking, interviewing skills, and peer counseling.

They asked us about our expectations. We told them that Sara had been in contact with Oby only through e-mail and Gchat. We explained the difficulties that had caused in creating real expectations, especially given Oby’s busy travel and work schedule and the constant time differences. We told him about our projects had “developed” though internet conversations with Oby, specifying that HIV/AIDS and culture seemed to be two key points and highlighting how underdeveloped we felt they were in terms of collaboration with Abila.

We explained our backgrounds and skills, emphasizing that we are no way experts on these subjects. We told them that in our vision of the workshops, they would come more from the participants than from us as facilitators, since they would have to bring the subject matter, determine what their focus would be, and decide what projects they ultimately want to do.

We told them that we had ideas, but given our lack of information about the people we would be working with, our plans were very loose. We explained our ideas for introducing filmmaking through photography and interviewing and later videotaping. They watched intently as we spoke. We finished and waited for a response. There was a brief silence…then Victor spoke up. He told us that he really liked the idea of teaching filmmaking through photography. He added that he liked that we did not think of ourselves as experts. He said that he thinks that often times when people take an expert point of view their teaching can suffer.

We outlined some of our other ideas. We discussed peer counseling and determined that this workshop, much like the filmmaking one, would have to be developed as it went. We were able to distinguish what is meant by peer counseling in this context, which seems to be mostly peer education with a counseling component. Steve and Victor seemed to really like our approach and laid back nature. They stressed that they would be there to assist, but they really wanted us to feel comfortable doing our thing.

It was like they had known all of our fears and addressed each one.

After these more serious discussions, we moved into a more casual conversation. They told us about the local dance clubs. We decided that since it was Saturday evening and we were starving that maybe we would go into town to get some nyama choma (grilled beef) and drinks. We invited Steve and Victor to join us and they accepted.

We climbed into Steve’s car and he drove us down to a place that is known for roasted chicken. We had a seat and ordered some drinks. Beer is the drink of choice here, but Alexis and I prefer vodka and soda. We ordered them and found that we were presented with two bottles of soda water and a fifth of Smirnoff.

We began drinking and talking and soon discovered that Victor and Steve had expected that from Sara’s e-mails and our names that Sara Feldman would be a 45-year-old woman and Alexis Hudgins would be a man. They told us that they thought that we were opposites, Sara being the conservative one. The food came, a big pile of chicken with a small mountain of salt, ugali, and a plate of chopped tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers. We washed our hands there at the table while the waited held the pitcher and the bowl. We dug in. The food was delicious.

After we finished, we had some more drinks and talked. We left to go to a place where we could dance, but instead ended up at another bar. We sat and ordered some drinks. A drunk man named John or Yohana came over and began talking to us. John/Yohana introduced himself and kept repeating “no strings attached.” Steve seemed surprised at how people act towards wazungu out here sometimes. John/Yohana did some drunken dancing, hopping, and standing on one foot for us. He showed Sara his identification cards and all of his contacts in his black book. He introduced us to his friend. He constantly repeated “no strings attached.” He showed Sara his beer, which was more than half full, and referred to it as empty. He asked if she would buy him a beer. She told him that she was going to ask him to buy her a beer. He said that he would have but he had asked first. He asked for our numbers and addresses, but we only agreed to give him our e-mails. He gave us his phone number, offering his account number, as well. We declined the account number and reminded him “no strings attached.” He finally went to talk to the pair of girls next to us.

We left and went to another bar that had dancing, which was in a mall decorated with a neon palm tree. They were playing Kenyan music. We headed for the dance floor with Victor. We danced to music from different regions of Kenya with multiple dance partners. Sara found one dance partner who taught her some very unconventional moves as Alexis, Steve, and Victor watched and took pictures. While she was dancing with him, another guy tried to dance with her and when she declined, an old man sitting in a chair behind her smacked her on the ass and yelled something at her.

Even though Sara and Alexis were exhausted, they agreed to go to one more dance club. Many of the clubs here have multiple names, but this one seems to have the most: Octopus, Fisherman’s Wharf, Bottoms Up, Captain’s Wife, and Candy Shop. We opted not to pay the 100 Shillings each to go into the dance club part and instead had a drink in the bar area next to the window so that Sara could watch the prostitute activity in the front (could you guess from the names?) and Alexis could marvel at the lack of women inside. After our drink, we were taken home. Victor escorted us in to turn on a light for Joseph the seventeen-year-old Samburu Night Watchman. We called for him, but there was no answer. Victor found him asleep under his blanket with the radio blaring in his ear near a backdoor. We tapped on the door to get his attention repeatedly until he finally awoke and moved to the front porch. As you can imagine, it made us feel very safe. We locked up and went straight to bed.

We had forgotten how long things take in Kenya.

Friday, July 14, 2006
We woke up early this morning intending to be clean, fed, and ready to go by the time Makena, Victor, or Steve showed up at the center so that we could go to the big Nakumatt at Mega City. We were eager to figure out if we would be able to get a printer and the weird odds and ends we needed to make our equipment work. We had breakfast while heating up pots of water to bathe with. We filled our small basin/large bowl with the warm water and headed for the bathroom for a standing, self-service sponge bath of sorts. Afterwards, we felt surprisingly clean, probably in contrast with how dirty we had been before.



Victor arrived and we told him of our plan to go to the store in town. Victor informed us that Steve had called him to say that he had family issues which had prevented him from returning the previous day. Victor asked if he could borrow Alexis's computer, which she had planned to take to town with her to connect directly to the internet at a cyber cafe. Somehow this led into trying to sort through the donated equipment and trying to set up the G3 we had bought, which sounds like it is getting power but won't go on (this made us both VERY sad, especially because we had lugged it around for so long - Alexis had been with it since she was in LA). During this time, Steve showed up in his borrowed car and apologized for the day before explaining that his family troubles were resolved but he had some kind of gum problem that was causing him a great deal of pain and swelling in his cheek.

A couple of hours later, we piled into Steve's car and all headed to Mega City. Steve made a detour and stopped off at one of the community centers that we would be working with. They deal with youths aged 10-29. We were warmly greeted at the very nice center, which had several buildings and a yard and, from what we could see, was equipped with pool tables, a computer room, counseling rooms, and an outdoor meeting/eating area.

We then went to the Mega City, where we were dropped off. We wandered through the large store looking for the random items on our list. We were able to find a few things that we needed, but no printer. We did find a kodak machine kisosk that does prints from digital cameras, which was exciting. We purchased our items and moved across the way to an "cyber cafe," which seems like a weird description for a place that provides computers but no food or drink. We spent the next 3 hours or so e-mailing, taking care of administrative business, doing research, and trying to upload pictures and update our blog.

As instructed, we called Steve to alert him that we would soon be ready to leave Mega City. Since he was back at the center, we decided to make our own way back. He said that he would wait there for us.

We finished up and started down the road in the direction that we thought would take us to Kakamega Road where we could catch our beloved #10 matatu to MambaLeo again carrying with us one large jug of water. People stared and offered us rides and escort as we made our way down the road for what seemed like a really long time. We finally made it to the road and the bus stop where we waited for our matatu while school kids laughed and stared at us.

We arrived back at the center after 4pm, where we were greeted by Steve and Victor. We walked inside and set down our things. When we walked to the reception area, thinking that now we would have the meeting we had been waiting for, but found that Makena was the only one there. We asked if Steve and Victor had left. She said yes. We asked if they had left for the day. She said yes. We asked if she came into work on the weekends. She said no, but if we needed her to call Steve or Victor and they would find her. We told her to have a nice weekend and she left.

We sat there together in the empty reception area confused. What had just happened? Why had they left without saying goodbye? Were these just cultural differences? Had we somehow offended them? When were we supposed to meet? Were they coming back the next day? Were we not going to meet before beginning the trainings on Monday morning? Where were we? How had we gotten there? Did we want to be there? Doubt and fear had begun to wash over us. What had we done? Did we make a bad decision? We've definitely done it before...

We warmed up some lentil soup and ate. It felt like we were just renting a room in this strange center. We felt totally lost and disconnected.

We decided that we still had work to do and since we would have to wait and see if we had really made a mistake by coming to this crazy place, we should focus on what we were able to accomplish and worry about the rest later. We set to sorting out all the equipment, color coding it, testing it, and moving it to another room. We made a point to try and call Steve and then to send both him and Victor a text message asking if they would be in the next day since we were so eager to meet with them before Monday. We received no response.





We worked into the wee hours of the morning, joking about the possible situations that we could be in and being scared by the strange sounds coming from all directions. When we were satisfied with our organizational efforts, we turned on Michel Thomas Teached French and tried to sleep.

Settling into our new life in Kisumu...

We made it through Heathrow with surprisingly little trouble, except that Alexis had to empty all of her messily packed, bizarrely composed carry-on luggage at security to have it searched, swabbed, and rescanned. We were both able to watch Take the Lead, which, if you haven't seen it, is an amazing cinematic masterpiece in the Dance Movie genre.

We allighted in Nairobi and made it easily through immigration. We collected our bags and boxes, after watching the airport employee toss them carelessly onto the conveyer belt. We were stopped at customs and questioned about the contents of our baggage. We shadily each answered the questions differently but simultaneously, which might have confused the customs officers. We presented a crumpled letter that Alexis had drafted quickly as we raced to leave for the airport, which mentioned that the items were donations that had no monetary value and offered a brief inventory. We were scolded that Abila was supposed to provide us with an official letter, but we were allowed to pass.

Outside, we saw Mwenda's cheery face waiting for us and he motioned us to a taxi stand. Mwenda was the director of the St. Lawrence University Kenya Semester Program in the Fall of 1999, which we attended and Alexis and Sara met. Mwenda seemed surprised that we had so much luggage, although we are quite sure that we mentioned it. So far nobody seems to believe us when we tell them how much luggage we have. Mwenda was able to negotiate for a minivan to take us to the Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi.

On the ride to the hotel, even in through the darkness, we noticed how much the city had changed. There seemed to be so many more neon lights and some neon palm trees and other structures.


We arrived at the hotel and after unloading the minivan, we went to our room. Although Mwenda seemed to want to go to bed, since he was traveling early the next morning, we made him talk to us in our room while we ordered and waited for room service (samaki na sukumawiki na ugali or fish with greens and grit cake made of corn flour). Mwenda gave us the bus schedule, which he had kindly researched for us, and advised us not to depart for Kisumu the next day, like we had planned, but rather to stay for two nights in Nairobi. We agreed and ate hungrily.



We watched some MTV Base for local and foreign music videos before going to sleep in the freezing cold room. We woke early, worried that we might miss the buffet breakfast. We ate and began our day of preparatory errands in Nairobi.

Our first item of business was to exchange money. We walked to a Bureau of Change and stopped in at the travel agent next door. We talked with Simon the travel agent extensively, exploring every possible option for travel to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and briefly visit some beachy destination before returning to the States. He was very patient with us. We left without any reservations, but we have an idea of what we might do after departing from Kisumu.

We continued on to the Yaya Centre, a shopping mall we used to frequent, which is full of wazungu (foreigners, usually white people). We bought some things, got some coffee, and tried to use the internet unsuccessfully for way too long. Alexis met a nice, drunk man who told her that she looks like Condoleeza Rice.

We went across the street to the Chemist so that Alexis could purchase some Malerone, the best anti-malaria medication available. We had hoped that it would be cheaper than $6 per pill (Malerone must be taken daily for 2 days before, during, and seven days after time spent in the malaria infected area), but found that it wasn't. Because they didn't have enough on hand, the kindly pharmacist offered for her assistant Moses to take us to the other branch of the pharmacy, where we could get the amount necessary for our entire trip. Alexis decided to take the amount available there, but they were unable to take credit cards and we did not have enough cash.

Instead of traveling to the other pharmacy, we chose to go across the street and try the ATM at Yaya Centre. We found that we were unable to get cash because the ATM only takes Visa and we had MasterCards. We returned to the pharmacy, where Moses then escorted us back to Yaya Centre to show us where the Barclay's Bank was. We approached the ATM there, but it was out of order. Alexis waited in the bank while Sara went next door to purchase a SIM card for Alexis' phone. Unfortunately, Barclay's could not give Alexis any cash and the SIM card did not work in Alexis' phone. We decided to purchase a cheap cell phone and a new SIM card.

While Sara dealt with the cell phone issue, Alexis went back to the pharmacy and traveled by car with Moses to the Nairobi Women's Hospital, where the other pharmacy is located. While there, she asked about getting a typhoid shot. She was informed that they do not offer typhoid shots, but they do offer typhoid treatment once infected.

Once Sara got the phone up and running (the number is 011 254 727 314 374 [call us anytime - incoming calls are free to us!]), she made a call to Steve at the Abila Creative Center to let him know that we had arrived and would be traveling on the 1pm bus and arriving in Kisumu around 8pm the next day. He was overjoyed to hear that and was exceptionally warm and enthusiastic, as well as impressed by Sara's pathetic attempt at Kiswahili.

Alexis arrived back from the pharmacy and we started our walk back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped in at a few shops, including a hair salon, since we were both in desperate need of haircuts. We walked through a clothing store and back into the little salon.There seemed to be a little confusion about the desired style (not that we desired much style) but we were seated and our hair was washed. We were able to get some nightclub recommendations from the hairdressers as the apprehensively cut our hair. After the trimming, our hair was clipped up and we were each fashioned with a terry cloth headband and placed under an enormous enclosed hair drying machine, which is normally used to set a more mature woman's hair. We were given Kenyan magazines and left to cook under the hot machines. When our hair was sufficiently dry, it was combed out and then greased with a combination of hair mayonaise and hair lotion and then combed again to sit flat against our heads. Sara, who was finished first, made the mistake of trying to shake out her hair a little bit. Once the hairdresser noticed, he quickly recombed it flat against her head.

We returned to the hotel and prepared for a night out in Nairobi by watching some Tyra, the news in Swahili, and napping. That night we got a taxi to the Westlands where we thought we were going to a club called Mamba, but ended up at a restaurant/bar called Tamambo, which is owned by the owners of the famous Carnivore restaurant and dance club. We decided to have a drink and plan our next move, since Tamambo seemed to be more men in suits sitting around drinking than we were hoping for that evening.

Into our second drink, we had made friends with two tables of nicely dressed men, one a group of lawyers who had come from court and the other the manager of the Tamambo, the manager of the Carnivore, and some fancy business men, one of whom was referred to as the King of Kisumu. They entertained us with drinks, warnings of malaria in Kisumu, promises to come see us, declarations that we had picked a bad night to go dancing, vivid descriptions of the scenery on the drive to Kisumu, dirty jokes, marriage propositions, and the exchanging of phone numbers. We agreed to go to a nightclub called Florida 1000 with them, but unexpectedly made a running escape once the King of Kisumu took hold of Sara and wouldn't let go.

We started at Florida 1000, but quickly left to find another club we had been told of called Dolce. We walked down the street, trying to follow the conflicting directions we were given. We were able to find the club and descended inside to an empty dance floor and a sprinkling of people at the bar. We had a short conversation with the DJ and spent the next three hours dancing with the occassional visitor from the bar. The DJ's shouts of "this one is for Sara and Alexis" into the microphone would come over the speakers from time to time.

We arrived back at our hotel and went straight to bed. Sara was up throughout the early morning sick the way that Americans get sick when they travel to Kenya, which was not making her excited for the 8 hour bus ride to come. Sara medicated and for the last time we loaded out luggage into a minivan and headed for the city center to the Easy Coach station. We arrived an hour early, and purchased tickets for ourselves and our luggage. Alexis then waited by the luggage, now overprotective of it from all the time spent with it, while Sara was escorted by an Easy Coach employee to the Uchumi market down the street. Sara uncomfortably grocery shopped while her escort followed her up and down the aisles.

We watched them load our luggage on the bus. We boarded the bus and settled in. Alexis immediately fell asleep and stayed that way for almost the 8 hour ride. It was a long, bumpy, dusty, hot but beautiful ride. We finally arrived in Kisumu around 9pm and were greeted by Steve and Victor who had arrived in a very small car. They were so friendly and we were so happy to see them, not only because it meant that we were finally free of our luggage. We looked at the car and informed them that there was no way that we could transport our luggage in it, even without the passengers. Steve called for a friend to come and help us while we waited for them to unload all the luggage.

After loading what we could into the car, including tightly packing ourselves into the backseat, we waited for their friend to arrive and got to know the people we would be working with for the next month or so. They were very appreciative of our efforts. We talked and joked. When their friend arrived, they were unable to fit the remaining luggage into the car. Alexis had the brilliant idea to open the boxes and take the items out to transport them. This worked with only minor embarrassment on our parts since it meant our clothes, which we had so missed, including our underwear, went flying around loose in the trunk.

We finally made it up the bumpy dirt road to the Abila Creative Center, which is a large house with offices in the front, a kitchen, and a living space with multiple bedrooms in the back. We found Joseph, the very young-looking Samburu night watchman laying across the front porch. After unloading the luggage for the last time ever, we were shown to our room which has a private bathroom and is furnished with two foam pads for beds. Steve and Victor were very apologetic about the lack of beds, but we didn't care.

The center is equipped with sinks and showers with what look like functional faucets, but the pipes don't lead to a water source and we have no running water. After getting us some water for washing from the well, Steve and Victor left us for the night. Since we hadn't eaten dinner and we didn't have any drinking water, they told us that they would take us shopping in the morning and we would meet to discuss our project.



We undertook the arduous task of organizing all the donated equipment as well as our own personal items. We realized at around 1am that somehow the photo printer that we had been so excited about had not made it into our luggage. We got over the disappointment and slept (with our heads under the covers to protect us from the mosquitos which we had quickly found buzzing in our ears).

The next morning Steve and Victor arrived at 9ish and left soon after for a meeting. Makena, the office assistant, arrived and we spent a long time talking to her. We tried to go down the road to buy some food and water on our own, but on our way were met by Victor, who escorted us to a vegetable stand where he brokered our purchase of eggs, vegetables, and ugali flour. To satisfy Alexis' need for caffeine, Makena took us down the road, where we went on a search for Nescafe and powdered milk. After several unsuccessful attempts, we finally found what we needed and purchased a small basin to use for bathing. We returned to the center, where Alexis and Makena cooked the newly purchased food. The four of us ate lunch together.

At around 4pm, after we cleaned up and chatted with Makena for a long time, Victor informed us that we should not wait for Steve any longer and could go to the store. We told them that we wanted to go to the Nakumatt, a huge department store that we had seen from the bus on our way into town, hoping they might have some of the electronic equipment and accessories that we needed. Makena led us down the street and took us to a Nakumatt by matatu (a decorated minivan bus). It wasn't the big Nakumatt that we had been expecting, but we hoped that we would be able to find the items we needed.

Makena escorted us through our shopping, probably thinking we were crazy judging from the odd items we were purchasing, until we finally convinced her that we could get home on our own and that she should please go to her choir practice. She told us which matatu to take and which stop to get off at. She left us by ourselves to do our shopping. A few minutes later she returned and told us that we should not stop to use the internet because it was getting late and we should leave asap and go straight back to the center.

After discovering that the smaller Nakumatt did not have any of the electronics we needed, we purchased our items and left with three shopping bags and one 10 liter jug of water. We exited the center to shouts from taxi drivers and requests from street children. We went back inside to regroup. A woman from the post office told us where to wait for our matatu. She wanted to wait with us, since she was so concerned about our well-being, but we convinced her to leave with the warning not to take any matatu that didn't have a #10 on it. We watched many many matatus pass until finally we loaded ourselves into a #10 to MambaLeo. We climbed in and out and reorganized our belongings, as needed, until we finally reached our stop. We got off and took the walk up the road to the center to the chorus of children calling out "wazungu" and "how are you?" We arrived at our new home.

Alexis made a dinner of lentil soup, which we shared with Joseph. We ate dinner, did some research, set up our mosquito nets, and settled into bed listening to Michel Thomas teaches French.

Look out Nairobi. Here we come!

We can't believe it's already time to leave for Kenya. Tomorrow we will meet Mwenda, who was director of the St. Lawrence University Kenya Semester Program when we were students, in Nairobi.

We've done a lot of sleeping in London, which we like to attribute to jetlag. But around all the sleeping we have:

Met dancers from the Royal Academy of Dancing who took us to an underground salsa club where we were forced to dance until 5:00am

Walked by the London Eye

Gone to an arcade

Walked by the House of Parliament and Big Ben

Met with a documentary filmmaker and nurses from Alexis' mother's work

Attended a Bangladeshi Menhdi party (pre-wedding party) for Alexis' mother's co-worker



Went for a few at a pub with a typical New Yorker photographer living in London



Got sick from eating take-away kebab



Gone to Shrewsbury, Shropshire to visit with Lex's aunties and uncles

Had high tea at Alexis' Uncle Dick and Gail's house

Been hosted by Mel, Steve, and Oscar



Had a spin on the turntables at the Shrewsbury library



Had a traditional English Sunday lunch at Marche

We made it...to London

We started with a schedule for the week and quickly fell off track. Among other things, we had many donations of film and equipment to pick up around New York City. We had to move Sara out of her apartment and into storage, which made Sara homeless like Alexis. Everything that was coming with us on our trip was moved to East Williamsburg to Kristin's apartment.

Our flight to London was scheduled to leave at 8:01pm on Monday night. We had hoped to be at Kristin's packing up all of the cameras, film, computers, audio recorders, tape stock, clothes, etc. by 12:30 or 1:00pm. After running around all day on foot collecting various items for the trip on what felt like the hottest day of the year, we finally arrived at Kristin's at 4:00pm, sunburnt, tired, and so sweaty. We were able to borrow a scale from a friend of a friend. Knowing that the weight limit per checked bag was 70 lbs., we tried to combine heavier things with lighter things in the various bags and boxes we had to take with us. We were a little concerned when the scale read 12 lbs. peeking out from under the massive boxes. We wrapped the more delicate equipment in our clothing to keep it from breaking in transit. Alexis' mother called 20 minutes before we needed to leave for the airport and informed us that we could leave some of our baggage at the airport in London. We were ecstatic to hear this, but didn't realize at the time that since we had packed without the knowledge that we would be leaving some of our luggage at the airport during our stay in London, we had neglected to make sure that the bags that we would have with us had the neccessary amount of clothing for our stay.

With some help, we were able to pack two extra large cardboard boxes, three large bags, two carry-on suitcases, and two backpacks before the minivan taxi arrived. Three strong men loaded all the baggage into the minivan, leaving just a small space on the floor for Alexis. We rode to JFK listening to our sweet Polish taxi driver singing along to remixes of golden oldies. We arrived at the airport and unloaded. We dragged all of our stuff to what we thought was the right place and were told that we had to wait in a line around the corner that was reserved for our flight only. We dragged our stuff to that line, where we waited for two hours. Our flight was delayed, thank god, as the line crept slowly forward.

When we finally reached the check-in desk, we were told that our two boxes and one of our bags were over the 70 lbs. limit. We had to rip open the boxes and bag and quickly try to redistribute the weight among the 5 boxes/bags. We were told to move out of the way, since they were suddenly in a hurry and the flight was to take off in minutes. We moved over to a scale that, as it turned out, was six pounds off, which meant that we had to repack everything again. We finally had each bag at or below 70 lbs. We were told that we would have to pay $180 for our extra bag. The woman behind the desk told us that we had five minutes before our flight took off, that we had to run around the corner and pay the fee, and that she would hold on to our tickets and passports while we did it.

We ran to the ticketing desk, where everyone was taking their sweet time doing nothing. Alexis spoke to a woman who told her that if we wanted to pay by credit card, we could do so at the check-in desk. We ran back to where we had come from and the woman who had held our passports was gone. We spoke with another woman who told us that we would have to wait for her to return. In the meantime, she told us not to worry, that the plane wouldn't leave without us because it would take too long to unload our bags, and that she was hungry and wanted to go to lunch. The woman with our passports returned and had a conversation with the other woman all about lunch, when they should take it, how to coordinate to maximize the time that they could take, etc. She told us that she couldn't process our payment and had the other woman take us back over to the ticketing desk, where we were left ticketless while the woman left to get her supervisor. While she was gone, an agent became available and asked if he could help us, but since we had none of our paperwork, we were left standing in front of him feeling helpless.

The woman and her supervisor returned and began aggressively questioning us about who told us to return to check-in. "What did she look like?" "Which one is she?" We told her that the person who had told us was blond and no longer there. "No, everyone who was working here is still here. Which person told you?" "Curly blond hair or in a ponytail?" Finally, the agent who was all set to help us, diffused the situation and was able to process our payment. We grabbed our bags and he escorted us to security. But on the way, thinking he was helping us, he grabbed someone else's bag and took it with us to security. Upon realizing that he had stolen another customer's bag, thinking it belonged to us, he ran back to where he had come from.

We got to security and were putting our things on the conveyer belt, when suddenly the women from check-in were pushing in front of us, while repeating, "they won't leave without you, but you're going to take a while. We have to get lunch." The man at security told us not to worry, there were still a hundred people waiting to get on the plane.

We made it through security and ran to our gate. There seemed to be a huge line of people waiting to board at Gate 5. Sara ran to the food court to get some food, since we both had not eaten all day. She found herself behind the women from check-in, who were taking an extraordinarily long time getting their food. Suddenly, over the loud speaker Sara Feldman and Alexis Hudgins were being paged. Apparently, the huge line of people was waiting at Gate 6. We ran to board the plane and were told that our carry-on suitcases had to be checked. Alexis frantically retrieved her camera and lenses from her carry-on. We got on the plane and found that we were not even sitting together. We settled in next to strangers and hoped that dinner would come soon.

Six hours later, we arrived at Heathrow Airport in London. We made it through immigration. Reclaimed our bags and boxes, which it seemed had survived the journey. We headed for customs. We made it outside and happily left two boxes and one bag at the Left Baggage desk. It felt like such a relief until we realized that we still had one large bag, one carry-on suitcase, and one backpack each to transport on one bus and two trains from Heathrow to Barbican.

Finally, exhausted, and many staircases later, we arrived at Alexis' mother's apartment, where we passed out and slept for hours.