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.