Thursday, May 27, 2010

Masai Mara

On Monday morning we packed up and shipped out with the nurses on the 6 am bus to Masai Mara, an amazing national park and wildlife refuge in southern Kenya. After 10 days of hard work, we were ready for a few days of rest and sightseeing. But, alas, safaris are demanding! We were up each day between 5 and 6 am to jump into our Land Cruisers and head out on morning game drives.

Luckily, we had the pleasure of staying at Sekenani Camp - perhaps one of my new favorite places in the world. After a long drive from Maseno, walking up the stone steps to the dining room (pictured above) was like stepping into another world. We all stayed in beautiful A-frame tents, complete with running water, electricity, and a private porch with amazing views (our view attached above).

In two days, we went on a total of 4 game drives. I'll try to list all the animals we saw:

- Lions (pictured above, mamas and cubs, though I'd also like to add that Katie captured a video of lions mating).
- Giraffes (pictured above)
- Thompson gazelles
- Rhino (mom and baby)
- Hippos
- Hyenas (*we actually heard these from our tent, but can only imagine what they look like based on The Lion King).
- Buffalo
- Zebras
- African elephants (a whole herd!)
- Impalas (there were tons!)
- Wildebeests (which don't migrate until July, thankfully, and therefore we were able to visit in the less crowded "low season.")
- Vervet monkeys
- Vultures
- Ostriches

I'm sure I'm missing a few, but beware friends and family - you have a solid 1500 photos of our safari to view when we get back home! I'm also attaching the requisite artsy photo of Dan, standing up in the Land Rover with the camera, capturing some absolutely stunning photos and video of the landscape.

We also took the opportunity to wrap up the St John Fisher Nursing project with a few interviews. It was wonderful to hear about the powerful experiences the nurses had... We're excited to put the video together and hopefully raise the support to keep this program going.

We made it back to Maseno late last night and checked into the Maseno Club. We are back at Mbaka Oromo today, teaching and filming, so stay tuned for further updates!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Friday, May 21, 2010

The morning walk to Mbaka Oromo

Most mornings since our arrival a week ago we've walked the hour+ to Mbaka Oromo School. This may sound far, but the walk is breathtaking (and mostly downhill!), so the time flies.

We thought that since this was such an important part of our day, it would probably be good to take some photographs along the way to get a sense of our journey.

I'm not sure what order these will post in (these posts/photos have all come from my Blackberry), but we start at the Maseno Guest House, where we are staying. (Thank you, Monkey, for jumping into my photo this morning!) Then we continue up through Maseno University and out into the hills where, if it's rained heavily, our hiking shoes come in pretty handy in the mud!

We're hoping to get to an internet cafe soon to try to upload some of the amazing photos we've taken with actual cameras. They'll put these Blackberry photos to shame!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Mbaka Oromo choir time!

(In addition to our video shoots, we are also doing some teaching here in kenya. The following is an update by Katie on her progress with the Mbaka oromo choir.)

I am sitting in the library one afternoon when I hear the sound of sweetly singing voices traveling across the courtyard. Realizing that the choir master Charles must have started choir practice, I rush over to the classroom to join. But Charles isn't in sight. Instead, one boy plays the drum and leads the other 60 or so children, all sitting in chairs, through each of the songs they are preparing for competition.

I don't know about you, but when I was in school and a teacher was late or absent, all the students would just goof off or even leave! Not these kids. They practice 3-4 times a day during their breaks, lunch, and games time. They are learning 11 pieces ranging from English hymns and folk tunes to songs in Kiswahili. I am working with a select group to bring a new style to their repertoire -- collegiate a capella.

We are singing a song that my a capella group sang this past year called New Soul by Yael Naim. Although Charles helped us get started the first day, it has pretty much just been me and the kids all week. Sometimes it has been hard to tell if they are enjoying the experience, but then there will be a shared moment of laughter (at me? with me?) or a shared joyous realization mid-song that "hey, this actually sounds like music!"

There have certainly been barriers. Communication has been the biggest, both in terms of language (whereas we us lala as nonsense singing syllables, it means sleep in Kiswahili, a cause of much student laughter and some confusion) and musical ability (teaching music by rote means I have to try to sing in the basses own octave, again causing much laughter) Also, I am just getting my "teaching legs" and still discovering what works and what doesn't.

But regardless of any challenges, I am quickly learning about the universal language of music. It is amazing to be joining forces with Charles, one of the most passionate and dedicated musicians and teachers I have met, and his band of beautiful voices. I start each session feeling tentative and a bit overwhelmed, but I always leave with the children's voices ringing in my ears, which is just a wonderful gift.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Habari from Maseno!

(Forgive spelling errors and photo quality - this blog update is brought to you by Blackberry!)

Greetings from Kenya!

Well, we made it. After close to 24 hours on planes and in airports, we emerged from the Kisumu airport weary but electrified by the bustling Friday night scene before us. The road is full of life... People walk, bikes weave, cars endlessly pass each other (hoping to get back into their lane before meeting oncoming trucks). There are smells of open cooking fires and the sounds of music from the dimly lit doors of village pubs. There are people everywhere... And now we are among them.

We write to you now from Maseno, a small town in Western Kenya with a spectacular view of Lake Victoria. Our first few days have found us following a visiting nurse contingent from St. John Fisher College. Documenting health care in a developing country is quite a new experience for us, one filled with challenges. During a community health screening at Mbaka Oromo primary school (pictured here) we saw hundreds of children cycle through a series of basic health tests. What struck me most was that these kids waited in the school yard, smiling, wrestling, laughing and in general just being kids. But during the health screening, we found out many feel sick at least once a week. Some have worms and jiggers (a foot parasite). Many eat only once a day. As video makers, it's a tough job to shoot video that reconciles these two truths about children. Balancing an identifiable need with the reality that joy exists, even in the most disadvantaged of situations, is a tricky business. For all of us it was an interesting experience and one that reinforced our desire to make an awesome video that will sustain this program and help raise money for the new health dispensary (more on that in the coming days).

On Monday we accompanied the nurses on their trip to Maseno Mission Hospital. We saw patients in all sorts of very difficult medical predicaments. Many cases of malaria, AIDS and the most heartbreaking... a child in a coma, his temperature near a fatal level. Even though we believe that telling this story is necessary to combat these awful health conditions and encourage more people to get involved, it simply doesn't feel right to video tape someone in their most vulnerable and fragile state. There are too many images out there of fly-covered African children, and we don't need to contribute to that stereotype. But we do need to tell the truth, and the truth is... there is great suffering here. While one nurse assisted with a child's high fever, the child died in her arms.

Yesterday, we switched gears a bit and headed up to Mbaka Oromo Primary School to do some teaching. Katie has been hard at work, teaching the award-winning choir one of her a capella songs from her Skidmore group (much more on this from Katie in a post to follow soon!) Dan and Erin headed to the library to begin a series of classes on video for the 6th and 7th grades. As many of you know, part of our fundraising included purchasing 5 Flip Cameras to bring and leave here, in order to create a sustainable video training program here at Mbaka Oromo. We began tentatively, explaining to a group of incredibly attentive and respectful kids about Good Eye Video - that we make our living in America with cameras! By the end of the class, Dan had each kid taking 5-second videos of themselves, showing them how to properly frame their faces in a medium shot and speak loudly into the camera. The whole class giggled and cheered as the camera was plugged into a projector and they saw their work up on the wall. We will have more on this (and higher quality photos!) as our classes get more in depth in the coming days.

Thanks for bearing with this long inaugural post from Kenya. We will work on more frequent updates, and hopefully some video soon. We hope we can do some small justice to the beauty of this place and the unbelievable sense of welcoming we've received!

Tutoanana!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Kickstarter Success - Kenya, here we come!

Oh, how long we've waited to see that green check mark next to our project. As many of you know, we launched our campaign with Kickstarter last month, and it was a blast to see our friends, family, and some kind strangers get involved in our project. On Saturday, May 1st, our project closed and far surpassed not only our expectations, but our fund raising goal of $10,000 in only 24 days. Now, it's time to get to work! We depart on May 13th for a month and invite everyone to check back regularly for updates as we endeavor to deliver on all of the projects we've been lucky enough to be involved with for this trip:
We have our shots, sunscreen, and cameras ready to go - wish us luck!

-Erin, Dan... and Katie!