Ngong is the main road over on “my” side of town. Daystar is on a corner of Ngong, Kibera is just a few blocks away, and it’s also close to the Kenya Film Commission. Ngong is also the first ng- Swahili word I had to learn how to say. Usually it’s easier for mzungus to just drop the N and say Gong.

Some of me grew up here 10 years ago on my first visit to Kenya, then a sophomore in college trying to find my way. We lived off a side road of Ngong, and walked it every day to the bus, Uchumi (grocery), Nando’s (bad fast food chicken), or the Total gas station for quick Cadbury snacks. Go a ways down and we’d find dinner at the first Nairobi Java House at Adam’s Arcade.

My brother and I started our production company of sorts called Pseudobook here on lonely, often electricity-less nights between games of Spades with our parents. We watched a lot of Sunset Beach, Buffy, Meego, and WWF. We lost our Grandma Lungstrum, missed our cat Babe, and often wondered what we were supposed to “do” or to “be” in Africa.

I remember one conversation on the way to YaYa Centre where it seemed we all were depressed, frustrated at finding a place in our new life. I wanted to belong here, wanted to feel at home, wanted to do more than just survive.

Our lives weren’t in danger (generally speaking), so surviving was going to happen no matter what we did, complaining or not. How then could we move beyond merely surviving, and come into, possibly, embracing our life here?

There was no answer to that question. But expressing the question seemed to help gain some sort of perspective. It helped to move beyond expressing “Gosh I hate the slow or not-working internet,” to “Why do I hate it? Why does coming from the Land Of Plenty make me so annoyed to be where things aren’t the same? Why is it so important for me to be comfortable? Why am I fashioned to expect my needs to be fulfilled, for there to be power, for there to be running water, etc.?”

Now, for those who haven’t just traveled to other cultures, but chosen to live in them will note this initial experience. It often results in this spirit of “Golly gee, my 3rd world experience made me appreciate being super rich and white even more. I sure won’t complain in the USA anymore!”

And that’s okay. It’s a natural part of taking your experience home with you, assimilating it into an otherwise American experience. It’s a bit like college kids who love to say “Yeah I spent a semester abroad” and talk so highly of that experience “changing their life” – though really those are often just great 4-month vacations hanging out with other American students drinking a lot.

My first taste of living in another culture in 1999 (aside from Australia for a couple months when I was wasn’t the college kid study abroad story. It was something else. It was Chapter 1. And I felt that before I even came back then. I knew that living in Kenya was the start of something more than just a typical USA kid being disarmed by living with less.

And so I spent 8 years wanting to get back, waiting to get back, figuring out how to get back…And then I got back. Back to Kenya. Back to Ngong.

Today Ngong has changed quite a bit. There is 100x more traffic. Uchumi and the Total station are still there, but Nando’s has been bought out. There are also a couple of major shopping centers on Ngong, complete with movie theaters. Java House has now opened up 3 other Ngong area locations alone. It’s becoming the Starbucks of Nairobi.

I’ve loved every stop of this Kenyan adventure. The Ngong memories are always just a bit more special because of the history I have here. Now I can add the World Story Organization’s first year experiences to them. That’s pretty cool.

Tomorrow I leave Ngong to visit my friend Purity and her family before a final couple of days in Kenya with the Parkers. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I miss it already.

JustInKenya messing around with the bridge team

It’s true. 1 week from today, May 1st, I will fly home to America. This time with no return ticket to Kenya in the works.

Don’t ask me how that feels, or what I think about life and the world, or what to make of my year living in Africa. I might not be ready to answer that for a while. I may never be able to answer that.

Am I ready to come home? I don’t know that either. I think when people are ready to come back from someplace, it’s because they have things they missed, people, places, their “normal life” that they left behind. I don’t really think I have that.

Sure I have family and friends and baseball and movies and fast internet I’m ready to enjoy again. But “being ready to come home” also includes a bit of “I’m tired of where I am now.” And that’s certainly not that case.

There’s plenty of potential for continued work here for WSO. Daystar and our contact with the Kenya Film Commission are promising connections for future involvement in the Kenyan film industry. And that means I’ll be coming back!

One regret I have is not being here to see the completion of this bridge project. It was the key to getting me to Kenya in the first place. I’ve shot about 100 hours of video, and I’ll have to fake an ending to the movie until I can get back to film the finished bridge.

When I left a year ago my goal was to raise support for 18 months. That would put my support through October, which included a few months of built-in “down time” with a real computer to edit the bridge film. I do hope my supporters remember this, even though I will be back in the States this summer.

Editing a film is hard work, and very time-consuming. I’ll probably spend a few weeks just watching the footage and taking selects for potential shots that would work. Then another couple weeks assembling that footage in a very raw cut. And then the endless tweaking, color correction, sound editing, music, voice over narration, etc. can begin, and there is literally no time limit for that because they are infinite.

Anyway. I’ll get to that after next week. For now, I have 7 days left in Kenya, 7 days to enjoy this beautiful country that I’ve loved being a part of and will miss dearly.

A tuk-tuk tour through Malindi

Kwa heri = goodbye in Kiswahili

Aside from a final dinner out with Harmon and Sylvester (to The Old Man & The Sea) and rifling through get-rid-of “stuff” (clothes and…?), my time in Malindi, and by extension, the Galana bridge project, is coming to a close.

I took some video this week that I’ll share when I get back to Nairobi and can use YaYa Centre’s computer lab, the fastest internet I’ve found (~25k/sec). It’s a bit of fooling around with the bridge team and some parting words.

I went to the ocean today, had a drink with Harmon, talked about the next step in life, religion, girls, movies, New York, WSO, BTG, and so on. The usual. Sylvester will join us for a great dinner tonight.

I’ll miss Harmon and Sylvester’s fellowship the most when I leave Kenya. The Fellowship. The Fellowship of the Bridge as we came to call it.

There are a few other members of the fellowship, but at it’s core, it’s us three: the three that built Zemo Camp, that crash at the cottage in Malindi, that sweat and laugh and bend steel and mix cement 3 out of 4 weeks a month, for almost a year now.

It has been a great pleasure. The memories I’ve built on this project will never leave my brain or my heart. Unless my brain or my heart leaves me. But that’s another matter.

I am headed back to Nairobi for my final stretch of Kenya Livin’ tomorrow!

Kumi na tano = 15 in Kiswahili

With my great fish eye lens, I can take self portraits that include tall buildings, or in this case, tall bridge towers!

So happy Kumi Na Tano! April halfway through its journey, huh?

I write you now from the camp near the Galana bridge site. This is my last visit to the site while it’s still being constructed. Next time I see it, it will be finished!

But enough about me. I can get to that another time. This entry is all about YOU! Well, if YOU are a supporter of JustInKenya and WSO that is.

I take the 15th of every month to be especially thankful. I am only able to be here on this adventure because I have such a wonderful cast of generous people behind me! Thank you!

Please let this be a reminder to you monthly supporter types that if you haven’t sent in your April support, now is the time to get on that!

As always, you can use the big DONATE button over there on the right, or send your checks to the WSO office:

World Story Organization
1156 Dakota Court
Bowling Green, OH 43402

Thanks a lot! Take care, and grace and peace to you!

Yours truly presents our donation to the Kenya Film Commission.

As mentioned a month ago, WSO is partnering with the Kenya Film Commission to help with the first-ever Kalasha Film & Television Awards, Kenya’s version of the Oscars.

Sadly, I will be unable to attend the actual ceremonies, as the Awards have been pushed to May. I will be attending the nominee announcement ceremony later this month, though, for further good times and celebrations of WSO’s first year of work in Kenya.

So another week has passed! I’ve spent the past week on the other side of Nairobitown, where Hot Sun, Daystar, and the Film Commission are located.

I stay at a decent place called the Flora Hostel. Meals are included, but I have long since grown tired of them. One not accustomed to bad food can only eat bad food every so often, at least in my experience.

There are also issues regarding paper thin walls and crying babies and their equally crying 2-year-old brothers. This is a family that, for all I know, lives at the hostel. They were also here when I stayed in October, and again when I stayed in February.

I’ve had a couple get-togethers with the professor from USC who is also the screenwriter and producer for the feature film being shot currently in Kibera. I’ve heard many a story from the set that I have yet been able (allowed?) to visit.

I have a Daystar check-up this week, and have been noticeably snubbed by the Kenya Film Commission since I returned from New York. I’m getting the suspicion that the Kalasha Awards are being postponed again, which means that I will be unable to take part…

Otherwise, it is a beautiful, sunny Sunday in Nairobi. I’m out enjoying breakfast at Java House, working on some screenplays, and will soon probably go see Monsters VS Aliens. Or should I see Fast & Furious? (That was a joke?)

Oh, and most importantly, Major League Baseball is back today!

After a couple weeks of slow-going Kenyaction (a word I made up), my last full month here is beginning to take shape.

Tomorrow I am excited to join the production of a feature film being shot in Kibera. My professor contact at USC is in the country and is helping out with the Hot Sun Foundation’s full-length adaptation of the short film, Kibera Kid.

I was hoping for an in to this production, and I’m glad it came together while I am still in town. I’ll be sure to take plenty of behind the scenes footage and photos for you all (and for them, too). Hopefully I can join them for a few days this week and next.

On Easter weekend (10 days from now) I’ll be heading down to Malindi for my last visit to the bridge site. I’ll meet up with Sylvester and Harmon at the cottage and head in to the camp for the following week.

On the 20th I’ll return to Nairobi for my final stretch. I’ll be hosting a film workshop with a small group of students and (hopefully) attending the Kalasha Awards as an official sponsor.

Insert “Hard to believe” statements here. I came to Kenya on May 1 of 2008. I’ll be heading back on May 1 of 2009. Can I truly have been here a year already?

That makes me a little sad…Hopefully this wonderful foundation I’ve laid enables me to return soon and often.

Fisheye lens = fun!

So I’ve been staying with the Parker’s since I got back from New York, fighting my compounded jet lag and the leftover cold that I get every time I go back to the USA.

I have been back in touch with all of my usual WSO suspects and I should know sooner or later how the month of April, my last month here, should go. I don’t take anything for granted, though. At the very least I hope the Kalasha Awards remain a go (April 25th?) so that WSO can be a part of them in person.

Beyond that, my connection to workshop students from Kibera has become super busy with the HSF feature film (read the blog following that production here). I think the movie title sounds like a Taco Bell special. I may have to swing by the set one of these days.

But as far as my workshops go, I may end up just getting together with a few students I know and having more personal one-on-three workshops with them. I’ve got some Flip MinoHD cameras to tryout!

In bridge news, the towers have been completed! We put up some photos on the Galana River Project Blog that you should check out. I especially love the two-shot of the towers. It makes the bridge look not so daunting! But don’t be fooled.

I should know about Columbia University any second now. Today was the day last year that students found out, so I’m getting anxious! Of course you’ll stay tuned for the latest.

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