let’s get awesome

last february, around my brithday, i went down to arkansas with my band to play a super fun show with some friends, drove back to new york, got on a plane and was in burma 48 hours later. this year i played guitar and banjo with madigan at the amazing bluestockings/icarus project benefit, had some birthday meals with a whole bunch of people (many of whom stayed at the house through the blizzard) and then straight on to the plane to nairobi. the juxtapostions sure were similar– spending really nice time with friends– feeling connected and part of a community and then flying halfway around the world to a place where i know no one.

but this year is somewhat different. i’ve got this new(ish) job and it’s been having a pretty major impact on my life in ways both good and bad. it doesn’t leave much time for thing such as other kinds of work, hanging out, cooking, and going to the beach (although by summer, i vow to have that sorted out). i have to get up early every morning…and i don’t get to work on as many fun side projects and collaborations. wah wah wah. i’m aware that most grown-ups have real jobs that require them to wake up in the morning and work all day…etc. but i spent the last 6 years carving out a lifestyle that enabled me to support myself doing work that i mostly enjoy and believe in while maintaining autonomy and control of my own time…so yes, i’m whining.

but, at the end of the day, the ‘job’ is pretty cool. i’m learning a lot. i edit powerful films that are used in very real ways. and then sometimes i get to travel and work with people who are doing amazing things to change the world. which is why i’m currently in kenya.

getting here was a serious journey, the most serious part of which took place in good old new york city. the blizzard didn’t feel that big. and they don’t even plow in red hook. my housemate has a 4 wheel drive SUV (which generally I scorn, mock, and disapprove of…but not on this day…on this day, I approached him, tail between legs). we cruised through the snow, straight to WITNESS, stopping to tow 6 or 7 cars lodged deep inside snowdrifts. i loaded up the equipment and we drove through deserted white streets to the city to pick up some malaria medication which i’ll not likely take. then: back to the house in red hook where we found out that JFK was closed until 5:30pm.

my flight was scheduled to depart at 8:30pm. i called british airways and reached their voicemail system. it’s a very unique system that somehow only recognizes british accents. i tried to speak my flight number and departure time, “ate thurtee pee emm,” and the response was “i’m sorry, i cannot understand your reply.” after several attempts, i tried: “ait theuhty pie aim.” it worked! but really, my british accent is not remotely passable and the machine could not understand from which airport i was departing(jai aif kai). so I found myself waiting on hold for an hour until i finally reached a human. the human told me that she couldn’t tell me anything and that as far as she or anyone knew, the flight was still on time.

so, off we went to the airport. upon check in i was told that my flight to london was likely going to be delayed by an hour or two– just enough for me to miss my connecting flight to nairobi. but, we boarded at 9:30, only an hour late. not bad, i thought– maybe i’ll even make the connecting flight.

we sat on the runway at jai aif kai.

and sat…

and sat….

and fucking sat….

from 9:30pm until 7:00am we sat on that plane.

i watched a million bad movies and nodded in and out of sleep. there were two hasidic women from brooklyn sitting next to me. the older one noticed my tattoos. she asked me if i were jewish and why i had tattoos. i told her the story behind the flowers on my arm and she berated me for not being more jewish and for doing things that would disappoint my (dead) mother such as getting tattoos and not yet having babies. then she told me about being in aushwitz when she was 3 years old and why tattoos are so disturbing to her. i told her i could understand. she said I could never understand– and on top of that, why was i going to africa to support people in their struggles instead of working with my own community, the jews? while i’m pretty clear that my community is not comprised solely of ‘the jews’, the traveling-around-the-world-instead-of-working-for-change-at-home part of what she said struck a chord.

when i finally got to heathrow, i had missed my connecting flight by close to 12 hours. luckily british airways seems to treat their passengers decently, and they put me up in the fancy heathrow hilton, where i had internet access and gorged myself on complimentary buffets. the next morning i woke up and walked over to the airport to catch the plane to nairobi which, as far as flights go, was totally uneventful except for a really nice nap.

hakima from WITNESS and korir and munini from CEMIRIDE, our partner organization in kenya, were at nairobi airport to greet me and all of the equipment i was lugging. we drove back to the presbyterian guesthouse, about fifteen minutes outside of downtown nairobi, where i’ve been ever since. the training is being held in a conference room here at the presbyterian compound. we take our breakfast and lunch here as well.

there’s a mosque next door and boy, they are way louder than the presbyterians. the call to prayer blasts from the minarets at 5:20am every morning. from that point on i’m awake and pretty busy until around 5 or 6 in the evening. not a lot of time to hang in nairobi– of course everyone’s constantly telling us how dangerous it is and that we shouldn’t even go outside. we ate at this indian restaurant and they insisted we take a taxi 200 yards back to the hotel. i was here about 8 years ago and i guess it was dangerous then too. but i managed to walk around the city with a super 8 camera for a week straight and hang out at bars watching cameroon beat france in the world cup without too many problems. all the nairobi locals that we were working with had stories about being mugged or jumped…so i guess it’s true. i’m skeptical of categorizing a city or a population as ‘dangerous.’ regardless of the liklihood of my assault and battery, there’s been no time yet for wandering on this trip. today is our day off and will soon get up and go into the city to the market.

nights are interesting because i’ve been having trouble getting to sleep. the first night, hakima and i set up a movie theater in her room using our video projector, and watched badlands on the wall from underneath her mosquito net. the next couple of nights i lay in the dark with a flashlight writing, reading, listening to music, and teaching myself how to play chess on the laptop.

beyond all of that, the work is good. CEMIRIDE deals with minority rights issues in kenya. they’re all super cool, young and excited. in kenya, the majority ethnicity is kikuyu. the CEMIRIDE staff is comprised mainly of people from different indigenous groups in the north. the project we’re working on with them is around a land rights case with a small indigenous group in the rift valley. they were pushed off of their land by the government in the 70’s to make way for a game reservation and have been actively struggling since the mid-nineties to regain collective access to their land. it’s deeply tied to their livelihood– as pastoralists, their land is crucial for grazing. the land which they’ve been allocated in its place is pretty arid. it’s also strongly tied to cultural identity– birth, death, and other rituals had been held on that land for centuries. their case is coming before the african commission for human rights in may. it’s the first time the commission is hearing video as evidence, and there’s a good chance that the ruling will be favorable. unfortunately, the human rights commission doesn’t really have any teeth, so the second stage of this process (if the ruling is good) will be to make a video pushing the kenyan government to implement the decision– appealing to local and national decision-makers, ministers of tourism, and even tourists from the global-north. mostly, for the kenyan government, it seems to be about economics: the game reserve is good for the state economy (while the former occupants of the land have not right to development and see almost none of the money coming from government sanctioned or initiated developments). conservationists and environmentalists also support the creation of game reserves but that seems pretty contradictory when it’s coupled with this kind of displacement– this is land that people have maintained for generations. at the very least, if there’s going to be a nature reserve at all, it seems that the people who really know the land, and are part of the land, should be the ones running it and getting the revnues generated from– while living on it. i’m hoping that the second video will also address this need for a more humanist environmentalism.

the past four days hakima and i have been conducting a training covering basic camera techniques, storytelling, character development, interview strategies editing, building a video advocacy plan, and using video as evidence. the formal part of the training ended yesterday and we handed off the camera, tripod and rest of the equipment to the CEMIRIDE folks to keep. hakima flies home tomorrow and i travel to the rift valley with four of the CEMIRIDE staff to help them get started shooting. they’ll be conducting interviews with community members and focusing on how this whole land grab has impacted their lives as well as the resistance to it. it should be interesting. the game reserve is now a big tourist attraction and because i’m a mzungu (white person), it’ll pretty much seem like we’re tourists visiting the reserve. really, i don’t know what to expect, but it should be interesting.

i travel a lot, but this time i really miss home– mostly because i’m so happy there right now. in the house, in brooklyn, in general. mostly it’s because of all of you, whom i consider my family– who make me feel very loved and inspire me every day.

i know i’ve only been gone a week. and i know i haven’t seen some of you in months. but, still, i miss you.