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.
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.
posted by Sara Feldman at 10:00 AM
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