A Week Away

As reported last week, I've pretty much finished the outline for the Tenwek Video and this past week has actually been all about shooting.

Monday was a preparation day, I worked on interview questions and got some old lights down from storage in the "studio space" which is more of a garage these days. I set up the lights and checked to see what worked and what didn't. I also went through a few more old photos and such. In the evening John and I went to town to pick up some batteries. It was a long day and I still had to pack my things at the house.

Tuesday morning we were to leave at 9 AM once John was finished with his radio program. Due partly to my own lateness we didn't get going until about 9:30 and with a few stops on the way we rolled into Tenwek at about 11 AM. We got to work as soon as we were there trying to follow up on making appointments to conduct interviews. Most of our subjects were not available that afternoon so we decided to take a field trip. We went to the home of Rev. Ezekiel Kerich, the former hospital administrator, and were warmly welcomed to his home. We had been unable to contact Ezekiel ahead of time, so it was very nice of him to receive us and agree to be interviewed. I also learned at that time that his wife Anna had been one of the original African nurses who were hired and trained on the job to help the first missionary nurses, and she also agreed to be interviewed. John and I stayed there for some time and had tea with the Kerich's before returning to Tenwek.

Wednesday morning we were supposed to meet with Geoffrey Langat, the hospital's CEO, at 8:30. I was very proud of us being on time and fully equipped. Unfortunately, Geoffrey was in Nairobi and wouldn't get back until around 11:30. This was not really his fault he had been called at the last minute for a meeting, but it required quite a lot of shifting of our schedule. We did manage to re-arrange another interview that was scheduled for later in the day and then also got a hold of a residency student who came as soon as he was available.

Lunch time was a good chance to meet several of the visiting staff which is both fun and annoying. The fun part is in socializing and seeing what has brought various people to Tenwek, the annoying part is having to explain to each of them individually what I'm doing here and where I'm from (that's a good 10 minutes itself) and all the other questions that need to be answered. I guess it's only fair because I ask them the same questions, but it's a pain to go through it 3 or 4 times during lunch.

In the afternoon we did 3 more interviews. We started with Barbara Pinkley at the School of Nursing, then in the CEO's office we did one with Jonathan Bii, the director of Community Health and Development, and finally with the CEO, Geoffrey, himself.

In the evening I went to see the Roberts family, career missionary eye doc and family, who said they had some old photos of the lab work at Tenwek. I got over there at about 6:00 and they had already finished dinner, but Jenny asked if I wanted to eat there, so I got some beans and rice and remembered just how much I love this staple Kenyan meal. I mean really it sounds so plain but tastes so good!

Getting back on track, Dr. Ben Roberts invited me to join him and several men, both visiting staff and Kenyan interns, for a Bible Study at 8 PM. So i hung out and played with the kids a bit and then joined the fellowship. There was something really relaxing and unique in that BS (Kenyan abbreviation for Bible Study and NOT something else). It was one of the few times I've ever been in a BS where everyone shared and we had a really great discussion about 1 Samuel 24 which is one of the most interesting passages in the Old Testament. For those who can't think of it off hand, it's the passage where while chasing David in the wilderness King Saul goes into a cave to "relieve himself" and of course the cave turns out to be the one David is hiding in. Based on that brief description it doesn't seem like there are too many practical life applications but we found several from the whole text.

Thursday we started by interviewing John's brother Rev. Frederick Makibior, who was the first Kipsigis missionary to another tribe and worked alongside a group of WGM missionaries among the Maasai people. After finishing that interview we returned to the CEO's office to try and catch the Bishop of AGC before a hospital board meeting. We were still setting up when he arrived, but he graciously allowed us to talk to him for a few minutes before going into the meeting.

The plan was then that we would wait for the meeting to let out and interview Rev. Nathaniel Korir, who has served on the board since like 1964 or something. If I'd known how long the board meeting would take I would have planned to use that time to shoot something else, but John and I just waited patiently. We did have two interns come by to do short interviews telling about working at Tenwek, but otherwise we waited. The board meeting let out at around 2 PM and then they all ate lunch. Once finished with lunch we were still unable to interview Nathaniel because the entire board was heading to the visiting staff quarters (aka guest house) to dedicate the new wing. So John and I were requested to attend and film that event, we left our lights set up in the CEO's office and ran our cameras and tripods down the hill to shoot the small dedication service, then dashed back up the hill to finally get our interview with Rev. Nathaniel. This was possibly one of my favorite interviews once we got it, but it was a long time in coming.

After Rev. Nathaniel's interview John left to return to Kericho for a celebration of his son's college graduation so I was left to lug our equipment on my own to the next location. I went to meet the head chaplain, Rev. David Kilel, in his office. The office turned out to be too small for a regular 3 point light set up or even just 2 lights. I wound up with just one light casting long dramatic shadows, but it looks rather nice. David has served as head chaplain since around 1975 so his interview was also very enlightening.

The last stop of the day was at Dr. Russ White's office not for an interview that day, but set up the lights for one at 7:30 AM on Friday. Sadly for me, his office is right next to the CEO's office which was back across the hospital grounds and up on the second floor. So there I went lugging all my equipment back up the hill and finally the stairs. (Yes, you're supposed to be pitying me now.) Fortunately, I got into his office just before he was called away for 3 surgeries. Left alone in the Medical Superintendent's office I listened to the rest of the James Taylor Live Album he had playing through his iPod and imagined him sitting at his desk and how i would light the scene. Right as I was finalizing my lighting scheme and checking it in the camera all my lights went out. As power outages are far from uncommon in Kenya I didn't really mind at first, but then I realized that the power was on and then only items in the room with no power were on the 110 volt circuit (Kenya standard is 220 like Britain, but with a lot of items coming from the US many places are wired for both). I realized that I must have overloaded the circuit breaker and the big problem now was that I had to figure out how to re-set it when all technicians were off for the day. Thank God, a lady came in to work in one of the other offices and she was able to call the technician who was on-call. A few minutes later he was there and able to fix my problem without any trouble. Knowing the Russ would be in and out of the office during the night I used scotch tape to mark the places where my lights and tripod belonged so I could set them off to the side a bit.

Friday morning I was up bright and early to be to Russ' office at 7:30. When I arrived he was there just finishing straightening his desk. I reset my lights, plugged in the microphone and we were on our way. Things went great through the first question, then just as Russ finished his answer the lights went out again. Russ knew where the circuit breaker was and so jumped to go flip it back. When he came back he switched off everything he had plugged into the 110 so my lights wouldn't overload it again. We took on the second question and once again just as Russ finished his answer the lights went out. While Russ was out flipping the breaker again I decided I could sacrifice one light for the sake of moving smoothly through the rest of the interview. I think we got 2 more questions answered when the lights again went out. I was stressing. However, this time it turned out to actually be the electricity going out for a moment. With Russ back in his chair we resumed and had no more power failures, although we did have 2 people come by and interrupt us, but finally we made it through the interview.

After finishing Russ' interview I attended and filmed the dedication of the new Tenwek Hospital sign. For any who are freaking out like I was about them tearing down the familiar yellow sign bearing the slogan "We Treat, Jesus Heals," the good news is that this new sign does not replace the old one but sits along the road just before the old familiar one.

Coming out of the sign dedication I only had one interview left that I knew I NEEDED to get and that was all set up to happen in the evening so I found I had some extra time to shoot some general hospital footage. I set out therefore and just looked for interesting angles to shoot the buildings or grabbed some shots of people. This took me up to lunch time where I joined some of the other visitors for spaghetti.

In the afternoon I met with a friend of our families who now works at the hospital. We sat and talked for about 2 hours before I took off in pursuit of a little more footage and then returned to my room to prepare for the final interview. This last interview was with our field director, Jim Vanderhoof. It was one of the simplest and shortest interviews I had because really i just needed to have him read a few comments from my outline so I could throw in something other than narration at the beginning of the video. We did just a few takes on each of the 3 short paragraphs and then I packed the stuff up.

With Jim's interview down and the sun setting it was time to relax a little. I again was invited to join the Robert's family and other guests for dinner. It was pizza night in celebration of Isaac Robert's birthday. It was a very relaxing evening which was exactly what I needed, a small breather before a long Saturday...

On Saturday morning I caught a ride with Vanderhoofs back to Kericho. We had to leave at 8 AM in order to be here for the Bible College's graduation service. Being a photographer I was volunteered to film the event. The ceremony had a large guest list and many of those guests had to make speeches. I couldn't help but be reminded that this is a major differnce between US culture and African, In the States we would have ONE guest speaker and a class representative. Here there's a speaker for the day, class reps from both the 3 and 4 year courses, a few board members, The chief guest (the former president in this case) and about 3 other politicians. Most shocking to me is that several of the politicians speeches were merely, "congratulations to the graduates and let me tell you all about my political agenda." They had nothing to do with the event we were there for. I guess I'm not fully used to everything in Africa.

The graduation service went from about 11 AM (it was supposed to start at 10) until about 4 PM. I stood through most of it and taped about 2 hours worth. When I finally got back to my house in the evening it felt VERY GOOD to sit and watch a movie.

Okay, so on to the week ahead or half through at this point. I've finished logging the footage I shot last week (that is writing down what each shot is and where it is on the tape) and spent all day today working on interview logs where I write down what each person says in their interviews. This is a very tedious process amplified by the fact that I'm a slow typist and easily distracted by the millions of other things going on in our office. However, I'm proud to say that today, Tuesday, I made it through 1 and 1/2 tapes out of the total 5 interview tapes. Once i finish this process I'll be on to capturing footage and assembling the story with interview clips and narration. At this point I'm feeling like i will probably end up doing the narration myself which makes me a little nervous. It's not that I'm intimidated by microphones, but I don't think I have a very dynamic presence and so I fear that the final product may suffer. There's still some time before we'd be recording the narration so I hope to come up with a plan B or figure out how to put some excitement into my reading.

Well that's the report for now, God Bless.