Kenya stories...

... that I know you will all want to hear.  I will try to be descriptive yet brief.

There will be more stories that I will be telling as I go through footage and remember more.  Here is one that was not recorded in any way that I would like to share.

Also, ugali is the cornmeal doughy stuff that Kenyans eat all of the time.


Becky was sick in the morning.  Something about feeling nauseous and tired.  I feel like it was more the later.  I left with all of my equipment in the back of an old 1986 Volkswagon Passat that was painted bright green at 7:30.  We had been filming farmers around the rural area for a couple days and the rain hadn't helped the dirt roads.  We bounced through the mud, getting stuck twice, on our way towards some specific farmers that we had lined up to interview.  The first interview went well.  When we asked her to show us around the farm and her homestead she was embarrassed yet proud.  I think the embarrassment came from the camera I was holding.  I am sure that people found it to be a bit excessive, but I had to do my best to make it look natural and organic.  I had spent the last two and a half weeks carrying around the large tripod, camera bag and strange looking camera with the large, fuzzy mic attached and was used to how silly it must have looked.

Our second interviewee also found the camera to be more off-putting.  Martha was a middle aged woman who was rounder than most.  Though middle aged, she kept referring to herself as "old".  Much like people in the early 20th century, Kenyans don't believe in smiling at the camera.  When people see a DLSR photography looking camera, the pose, not knowing that I am taking video.  The interview was fairly quick and after her stone-faced remarks were made, she also took us around to see her farm.  She had a bit more to show.  Their family had lived on the farm for the past century as far as she could tell.  Her forefathers had hand-dug a well over 50 feet deep that had cool, fresh water inside.  This place had become a hub of comfort for the neighborhood because of the security that well brought.  It was also far enough away from the eucalyptus trees that the well maintained its water level.  Her grove of eucalyptus was planted a bit over two years ago.  They were some of the first farmers to start with Komaza and the trees were large and healthy.  The trunks were strong and thick and the branches reached high overhead, a good fifteen to twenty feet, bringing shade.  The air smelled fresh and alive and as it moved through the tops of the trees you could hear the leaves grace each other.  She obviously took pride in her tree farm and it showed.  Every time I would turn the camera towards her to try and catch a more candid moment, she would turn to me and pose against a tree, leaning her weight against it as if to say, "We are strong".

We finished the tour of the farm with her picking some fresh cassava for us and teaching us how to eat it raw.  She led us back to where we had left some of the other equipment by her house and I started packing up.  As I was putting away some of the reflector stands from the interview she and our guide/translator started speaking Swahili very quickly.  After she was done speaking she turned to us and gave us that strong look again.  Our translator turned with a smile on his face and announced that we would be having a late lunch at her house later.

After we communicated that we had one more interview and that while she cooked, we would quickly go and get that done, we left for the last farmer's house.  This was an impromptu interview and it was very informal.  She didn't want to be interviewed as much as she wanted to show us her farm and how well it was doing.  Again, she stood tall and proud with her trees.

We had to push start the car again and so we arrived at Martha's house sweaty and dusty.  She led us to some arranged seats and stools around a short table.  Our interpreter and driver became increasingly excited because they knew, unlike their Mzungu companions, that Martha had graciously taken one of her chickens and cooked it and that we were in for quite the treat.  Martha wanted to show that she was well off and also honor her guests that had come from so far.  She told us that "welcoming and feeding visitors brings blessings on her house" as she took a pitcher of her clear well water and poured it over our hands into a basin, cleansing them from the dirt of a hard, sweaty day.  I felt extremely comfortable and safe there.  She brought the chicken and the ugali and set it in front of us.  Lime was cut and the juice was dripped over the chicken with a bit of salt.  Water was then poured over the chicken to create a type of chicken lime broth after the chicken was removed and put on another plate.  This was for dipping the chicken in and also the fairly tasteless ugali.  She made us stop before we ate and said a prayer, blessing the food and those who ate it.  Afterwards we timidly looked at her and each other and then reached for the food.  It was delicious.  The chicken was meaty and rich.  The ugali complimented it quite well and soaked up the flavors of the lime and chicken like a sponge.  We ate communally, as brothers, as Martha watched with a small smile on her face.  Matt, our Komaza representative, ate little because he doesn't like ugali much.  I think it was because he was afraid of getting sick from the untreated water.  I didn't want to offend anybody and so I drank up after taking a good look through the glass and water to look for unknown particles.  I had brought my camera to document the experience, but it didn't feel right to bring it out.  This was not moment where technology needed to barge its head in and greedily snatch the light, colors, people and soul of the moment.  No, it was a moment of reverence. We were participating in a type of cultural sacrament.  I would not ruin that to get an extra four gigabytes of information.  Instead, I would take the wing that was torn off from the chicken plate, ignore the small feathers that were still embedded in the skin and start to tear away the small bits of tough flesh while rolling a small ball of cornmeal in my right hand.

When we left I shook Martha's hand.  I made sure to grasp her hand strongly, put my left hand on my right forearm as a deep sign of respect, look her in the eye and say, "Asante.  Asante sana."  I had become part of her, and her, a part of me through that simple meal.  Through that Kenyan sacrament.