Our new blog!

Please enjoy our new blog at www.voicesofkisumu.blogspot.com!

We made it back from Kenya!

We are so excited to let you all know that we will have a booth of photography and videos of the youth that we worked with in Kisumu, Kenya at photo ny (http://www.artfairsinc.com/photony/2006/), an international expo of photography galleries and installations.

While in Kisumu, we came to understand that in this country notorious for corruption, in an area where HIV/AIDS, prostitution, rape, alcohol and substance abuse, discrimination, crime, poverty, and unemployment are among the first and most commonly mentioned issues by these young people, they are forced to make life and death decisions on a daily basis. Under such circumstances, it becomes easy to lose hope. One of the most important things to aid young people in overcoming the multitude of destructive forces and barriers that exist in their lives is a sense of value in themselves. The understanding of self-value encourages them to sacrifice the instant gratification of high-risk behaviors for the hope of a brighter future. Through training, group and individual work, discussions, and ultimately an exhibition of their work in Kisumu, we found that hope can come from validation of their thoughts, messages, projects, and expression through simply having people show up to look at what they have created.

We have decided to take this project further, and so we will be presenting some of the work of these young people at photo ny. Our booth (#40), Voices is an exhibition of photography and video depicting issues facing the youth of Kisumu, Kenya through their own eyes (as well as some of Alexis' pictures of the process).

Voices will exhibit at photo ny at the Metropolitan Pavillion located at 125 West 18th Street in New York City. If you are in the area, we would love for you to attend.

Schedule:

Thursday, October 5th
Opening night reception: 6 - 9 pm
Tickets - $65 only available through the box office at 212.620.5000 ext.344
The proceeds will benefit Rubin Museum of Art

Public Hours:

Friday, October 6th
Noon -7 pm: Public Hours

Saturday, October 7th
Noon -7 pm: Public Hours
Sunday, October 8th
Noon-6 pm: Public Hours

Public hours tickets are $15 for a one-day pass and $25 for a three-day pass ($5 discount with student ID).

We hope to see you there!

This year marks the start of the Voices project. With further exposure and the aid of much needed donations, both monetary and in the form of video and digital cameras, printers, and computers, this will be one of many exhibitions and the start of a meaningful avenue of expression for the youth of Kisumu, Kenya. Additionally, Sara is currently working with Abila Creative Center to grow its internship program by welcoming volunteers with skills they would like to pass onto the youth of Kisumu.

Day 5 Training

Friday, July 21, 2006

We arrived at Tuungane and went to the cyber café to check our e-mail while we waited for Victor to arrive. Alexis received an e-mail from Bryan stating that he had purchased a ticket to Kisumu and would be arriving on the 29th. He suggested that it might be nice to make it a surprise for Sara. Alexis responded with a list of needed equipment and a suggestion that to keep it a surprise would be a bad idea.

We were impressed when Victor arrived on time. We had discussed the difference between Kisumu time and New York time the day before, asking if we should add 45 minutes to whatever time we were given to meet. Victor told us that he was now working on New York time.

We asked who we were going to be meeting with and he told us that none of the Tuungane groups were expecting us and so we had the morning off. This was a welcome relief. We decided to take the opportunity to go into the town center and look for a Euro AV adapter and other assorted electronics equipment that could markedly improve our situation.

We walked from Tuungane to the center of town through the jua kali (strong sun) sector, which refers to any informal business area, in this particular area the mechanics work on cars and matatus without shade of any kind. Victor mentioned that the boda boda drivers calling out to us were mad at him because they felt that his agreement to walk with us was taking away their business.

We reached the center of town and went to one of the electronics stores. They had the male version of the plug but we needed the female version. Victor pointed out to us that VCRs are more expensive than DVD players, which was discouraging because we were still struggling to understand if our PAL TV and PAL cameras would work with our NTSC VCR. We were referred to another electronics store and then another. The whole time that we were zigzagging across that one block of Oginga Odinga Road from electronics store to electronics store Alexis was thinking about the ridiculousness of the situation since Bryan would be able to bring the things that we needed when he came from the states. Finally, with the help of a drawing by Alexis, we were able to find and purchase the Euro AV adapter at one of the stores.

We headed back to Abila for lunch. Steve met us there. Alexis heated up some of the rice and beans that she had made for dinner the night before. The rice and beans had both remained rather crunchy even though we had cooked them for a very long time. Alexis was apologetic about the food. Steve, who had studied food technology, tried to choke down the food all the while making fun of Alexis’ cooking ability. Sara and Victor quietly ate their lunches as Steve went on to tell Alexis that beans should be bought at the outdoor market since the beans that we had bought had probably been on the counter of the Nakumatt for a very long time and that there were probably weevils in the beans. Finally, Steve announced that although he had been through hard times and always made a point to eat the food available to him, he was not going to be able to finish the food in front of him. After thinking briefly about the possibility of weevils in the beans, Alexis was unable to finish her food either.

We cleaned up and headed to Okok with Victor. This time we took a shorter route, but we still had to travel part of the way by boda boda. This time was less traumatic than the first time, but Sara’s boda boda had a piece of metal on the bottom that would scrape against any uneven ground, making her very nervous. Because we had allowed so much time to get to Okok, we decided that when the boda boda drivers had us get off to walk up a small incline that we would walk the rest of the way to the school.

The Okok students seemed surprised at how early we were. We gave them a brief overview of how the video cameras work, the job of the cameraperson, and the job of the soundperson. We invited students to take over the filming of the training. We went over interviewing skills with them and then had them break up into groups using the audiorecorders and video cameras to conduct interviews of each other around issues affecting their communities. They also used the digital cameras to take photographs representing these issues.

At the end, we came back together and the students presented their photos. One group had taken two versions of a picture of a guy sitting on the grass holding his head to represent unemployment. One photo was taken at the level of the subject, the other was taken from above him. Alexis asked the students which photo was more effective at illustrating the issue. The group of students unanimously agreed that the one taken from above made the subject look more pathetic. Alexis felt that this was a breakthrough since it was the first time that a group seemed to understand how choices in photography can affect the emotion portrayed by the picture.

As we were packing up to leave, Sara got a call from Bryan asking if she wanted to meet him for coffee on July 29th. He had received Alexis’ e-mail and had called to tell Sara that he would be coming to Kisumu. The conversation was cut short because we had to finish packing and leave the school in order to make it back to the center on foot by dark.

While Sara was on the phone, Alexis had been caught up in a conversation with the Deputy Headmaster in which he expounded on his undying love for George Bush “the greatest man to run your country,” asked how we were able to successfully prevent all teenage pregnancy in the US, which somehow this turned into a talk about the right to abortion, and eventually had him stating that he would go to Iraq in a second to fight for George Bush and the US. Alexis kept arguing with him. He told her that he liked the way she argued and was sure that she could change his mind.



On the walk home, we conducted an impromptu walking interview video shoot with the Deputy Headmaster. We attracted a lot of attention, gained a following of children, and almost got knocked by multiple boda bodas. After a very near miss and the appearance of the flashing battery light, we decided to cut the interview short.

Two of the Okok students, Paul and Wycliff (Wiki), walked with us most of the way to the center carrying our backpacks. Wycliff asked about recording his music onto the video camera without a picture. Alexis told him that she had a program on her computer that he could record audio through. He told us that he raps and would like to record his songs.

Victor walked us to the center to show us the hiding place for the keys. We charged the cameras, fed the watchman Joseph a margarine sandwich, and went to bed.

More to come...

Day 4 Training

Thursday, July 20, 2006

We woke up, packed up, and headed to Tuungane. Steve and Victor picked us up and drove us to Nyalenda, arguably the second largest slum in Kisumu. We had to wait for some time because many of the participants had been there earlier but had left. Someone had been sent to bring them back and, as we were told, they were coming.

We were impressed by the efficiency of the group. It was the first time that each person was able to complete each project successfully. Victor attributed it to the good leadership under a 23-year-old named Odessey Ismail.

Steve asked us if we wanted to have lunch down by the lake. We were concerned about charging our equipment, but Steve assured us that we would be able to do so in a safe place. We dropped our equipment off at Steve’s brother’s house to charge and headed down to see the lake for the first time.

We had heard about the car washing at the lake, but it was still a shocking sight. Matatus were lined up in the lake as men soaped and rinsed them. We headed into one of the open-air shacks where fish is served. We sat and Steve ordered for us as men pedaling fancy fur sandals, stereos, CDs, and other assorted items showed off their wares. Alexis and I requested to try the brown ugali, which we were told is made of millet. The food arrived and we had a whole fried tilapia smothered in sukuma wiki. Victor was dubbed “the flesh puller” as he assisted us in finding the edible meat. The food was delicious.

We left the lake and returned to Steve’s brother’s house to Alexis, Steve, and Victor singing along to Best Friend by R. Kelly, Kelly Price, and Ron Isley. We gathered our equipment and composed ourselves before heading to Kisumu Girls Secondary School.

We arrived at Kisumu Girls. Our group turned out to be a lot smaller. Steve suggested that we have the students use the video cameras to record the process. We gave them an intro to shooting and handed out the two digital video cameras. We then gave them an intro to interviewing and passed out some audio recorders. The girls excitedly interviewed everyone they could using the audio recorders and the video cameras. They also took digital photographs to illustrate the issue that they were focusing on for the day. One group took a photograph to illustrate rape cases. They took a purple flower, ripped it up and crushed it with a rock, set it on the ground with sand and the rock, and sprinkled green leaves around it. When presenting it to the class they explained that the flower represented a young girl, the rock represented the rapist, and the green leaves represented Kenya because that is where this takes place.

Afterwards, the girls asked when we would be coming back. The teacher informed them that because of their exam schedule, we would not be able to return. The girls protested. The teacher asked us how many trainings would be necessary to impart the skills they needed. We fumbled and explained that the learning process was continuous.

After some back and forth, we agreed to return the following week. The girls cheered. One girl, who had just moved to Kenya from Seattle, remarked at the difference between the girls’ sad faces when they thought we weren’t returning to their happiness after we had set a date.

We asked Victor where we were going the next morning. He asked us if we had the schedule he had printed out at the beginning of the week. We told him that we did not. He told us that he couldn’t remember.

We returned home and Alexis attempted to make rice and beans for dinner.

Day 3 Training

Wednesday, July 19, 2006


We woke up early, so proud of ourselves and realized, while we were assembling our equipment, that the door to the office where the videotapes and all of our other equipment were kept had been locked and none of the keys we had would open it. We called Victor, who told us to call Steve. Steve told us to look in the desk drawers for the key. One of the drawers was locked and the other was so full of papers that it wouldn’t open. We gave up and left, now late again. We walked to Tuungane to meet with the Smart Ladies. We had been informed that Tuungane is actually funded by Bush’s PEPFAR (Presidential Education Program For AIDS Relief).

We were right on time, but Victor did not arrive until 45 minutes later, at which point the girls had come and left and needed to be fetched. When we finally began, we were told that we had a limited amount of time because the girls were scheduled to be leave for a mobilization project at 1:00.

We found that most of the girls did not speak at all. There were a couple of girls who spoke a great deal. One of the girls discussed the group. She told us that most of what the girls discuss when they are together revolves around relationships. She mentioned the difficulties of communicating with the opposite sex, especially around VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing). Alexis shared about her own experiences with similar communication difficulties.

Since we were so pressed for time, after the lecture on photography we had the girls break up into small groups. We suggested that they talk a little bit about their interests to one another, just enough information to introduce their partner to the group. Then they took pictures of their partners that were to show some of their partner’s personality. Unfortunately, some of the Smart Ladies would come and go as they pleased, which complicated the exercise. During the hurried introductions, we found that Alexis’ camera had malfunctioned and all the pictures on her camera came out blurry. The Smart Ladies left to mobilize as we packed up our stuff.

About a half hour later, we ran into their pick up truck at the Kibuye outdoor market where we were buying groceries. We found that the produce at Kibuye is so much cheaper than in the supermarkets, but the experience is so much more interactive. Four avocados, four tomatoes, 3 bell peppers, or two eggs at the market cost 10 shillings or $0.14, but you also have to endure the yells of “wazungu, welcome” and the overcharging because of our skin color and subsequent negotiations to bring the price down.

We returned home by matatu and ate lunch. Victor had told us that we had to leave for Okok Secondary School at around 3pm to get there at 4pm. He actually arrived at the center by bike before 3pm, but then busied himself with things around the center until 3:45.

Okok is the only group we are working with who is in the opposite direction from town. We walked down the road and caught a matatu. We alighted from the matatu at a dirt road. At the mouth of the road were about 10 guys on boda bodas, which are bicycle taxis with a padded seat over the back tire and sometimes a handle under the driver’s seat. We had seen them around town and had been scared of them.

Suddenly Victor was negotiating with one of the guys and was then motioning us to get on. We hesitantly sat on the padded seats, grabbed the handles, and put our feet on the small footrests protruding from the center of the rear wheels. Off we went down that dirt road. It was not a very smooth ride. Alexis found that her hands were awkwardly tucked under her guy’s butt. Sara was having flashbacks of her bike accident as she listened to her guy cough and wheeze as he pedaled along sweating profusely. She tried a couple of times to ask in Kiswahili if he was sick, but he didn’t seem to be understanding. We both held on tightly as we rode along with our heavy backpacks bouncing up and down on our backs. There were two points where we stopped and had to get off and walk up small hills and then get back on to continue the ride. As we walked up the second hill, Alexis’ boda boda guy suggested that she give him money then since she probably wouldn’t be able to later. She politely declined, assuring him that she would make sure that there was time to pay him.

After what seemed like forever, we stopped and were instructed to get off. We didn’t see Victor anywhere, but his boda boda driver was standing in front of us. We stood between the three boda boda guys as they told us to give them 90 shillings. That sounded like a high price, so Sara said that she would call Victor and see what price he had negotiated. Just then Victor came strolling down the road. He told us to give them 60 shillings. We did and started up the road.

Okok Mixed Secondary School is built on a small hill. On the small grassy hillside sit four classrooms (Forms 1 to 4). Okok has no electricity. We walked up the hillside and into the narrow office of the principal, where we signed the visitors’ book. We were then shown outside to the top of the small hillside to a group of about 25 students. We looked at them and they looked back at us. Given that we were so late, we now had very little time to work with these students. We did another presentation much like the one for Liberty. This time we had an additional audience as the primary school up the road let out and the students, all dressed in red uniforms, lined the fence separating Okok from the road.



When asked about the issues and challenges facing their communities, we got many answers similar to those we had gotten before. One young man brought up the issue of youths’ desire to emulate American fashion, which can sometimes drive them to steal money from their parents to afford the expensive Western items. Victor leaned over to Sara and said, “rather frank, is it not?” Sara replied, “it’s good.” Victor responded, “is it?”

We asked for some personal stories to illustrate the ways in which these issues and challenges affect these young people. One girl told a story about a friend of hers who began to participate in high-risk behaviors and eventually contracted HIV. She said that her friend told her that she does not want to die alone and so she is going to knowingly spread the disease and is currently doing so. We were surprised by the lack of response from the other students to the horrifying story.

When we were finished, the Deputy Principal brought us bottled soda. We politely drank the sodas before heading off down the road back to Mamboleo. We decided to walk to the main road, rather than endure the terror of another boda boda ride. Alexis took many pictures as Victor and Sara walked on ahead. We met many characters along the way, some of whom asked for money and gifts. Alexis befriended this crazy (possibly drunk) man who ran and got his bicycle and rode up to us to request that Alexis take a picture of him and that Sara give him a gift. We were impressed by the beauty of the landscape and the sky during sunset. Victor talked about his appreciation of the simple farming life as the cows were coming home and fires were being lit to cook dinner.

We reached the main road just as it got dark and were bombarded by boda boda guys and others. We boarded a matatu equipped with interior neon lights and marveled at its club-like atmosphere. We left Victor at Posho Mil and headed home.

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.