World's Oldest Student is Dead

He made headlines, in Kenya and internationally as being the oldest pupil in the world. He had taken advantage of the free primary school that the Kenyan Thieves Government had pretended to offer for free. His main aim for going to school was, he said, to learn how to read the bible.

At the (tender) age of 84, he enrolled at Kapkenduiywo Primary School in Eldoret. The post elections violence that rocked most parts of the Rift Valley and other areas in Kenya, Maruge lost his property and had to move to Nairobi. At one time, he almost quit school. He moved to Nairobi, moved to the not so affluent Kariobangi Estate, where he continued his studies.

In May this year, he was baptised during the celebration of the World Communications Day ay the Kariobangi Holy Trinity Parish in Nairobi, taking 'Stephen' as his patron saint. He died at Cheshire Home for the Aged, in Nairobi’s Kariobangi South estate where he has been staying, according to police and officials there.

“He passed away at 1.30pm; his body is still lying in the house. He has been sick and his condition had deteriorated lately,” an official at the home Donatila Ekuyi said.

Maruge, a widower whose life is about to become a major Hollywood film will never see his life epitomised on film. The film has been going back and forth, between the international producers, with a 'fight' as to where the film will be shot; South Africa or Kenya.

Given that the man championing for it to be brought to Kenya has tendered his resignation from the Kenya Film Commission, David Maingi was seen to be the one to help shape the country's industry, and have films like The First Grader shot here. After all, it is a Kenyan story... Maybe Maruge's death will touch the hearts of the thie...ahem, I mean the hearts of the government (people) to give rebates and tax breaks and make sure that the film is shot here, if only to honor the courageous man.

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Sad Saturday

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon, and having just done a productive instructors meeting at the Kibera Film School which is opening on Monday, ( a story for another day Nate and I are lying in bed watching badly produced afternoon TV shows. I flip the channel and there is the breaking news.

A plane has crashed over Nairobi's Highrise Estate. The plane owned by AIM was on its way to Kibera to take pictures / film. The plane, with 4 on board, hit an electricity post, caught fire, and then crashed next to a house in Highrise Estate the middle class apartments adjoining Kibera. The plane came down at around 3PM (Kenyan time, +3GMT) having taken off Wilson Airport.
It is feared that 2 of the passengers have died on the spot, while the other two have been rushed to hospital with intensive burns.The nationalities of those on board is yet to be established.

I don't normally report any news here but this is very close to me. On July 5, less than a month ago, I was on a mission similar to that - filming over Kibera on a plane that we had hired from ALS, an air charter company based at the same airport.

Whatever caused the crash, it is still sad.

Later I will post photos I took from that filming trip

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A tiny country called Africa

To help reduce the amount of ignorance that Americans, eer sorry, rest of the world has for Kenya and the rest of Africa, I will dedicate the next couple of posts to the Africa Awareness. No, I will not hold sessions and workshops to educate them, I will post some of the most stupid questiions ever asked, and the equally stupid answers they recieved.

These questions about Kenya were posted on a Kenyan Tourism portal and were answered by the website owner.

Q: Does it ever get windy in Kenya ? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK )
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see elephants in the street? (USA )
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Mombasa to Nakuru - can I follow the railroad tracks? ( Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only two thousand kilometres....take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Kenya ? (Sweden).
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Kenya ? Can you send me a list of them in Nairobi and Mombasa? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of?

Q: Can you give me some information about Koala Bear racing in Kenya ? (USA)
A: Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the pacific. A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe which does not ...oh forget it! Sure, the Koala Bear racing is every Tuesday night in Koinange Street. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is north in Kenya ? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Kenya ? ( UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Do you have perfume in Kenya ? ( France)
A: No. We don't stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Kenya? (USA )
A: Anywhere where a significant number of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in Kenya where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy )
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Kenya ? (France)
A: Only at Christmas.

Q: Are there killer bees in Kenya ? ( Germany)
A: Not yet, but for you, we'll import them.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Nairobi and is milk available all year round?
A: No, we are a peaceful civilisation of vegan hunter-gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Kenya who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca, which is where YOU come from. All Kenyan snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

Q: I was in Kenya in 1969 and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Mombasa. Can you help? ( USA)
A: Yes, but you will probably still have to pay her by the hour.

Q: Will I be able to speek English most places I go? (USA )
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first.

Thanks to the divemaster, Simon R.

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The Update

For 6 weeks, I was on Pre-prod, producing a feature film set in Kibera, the biggest slum in Africa. The cast is drawn from the slum, most with no prior filmin experience.

The crew, with the exception of the Heads of Dept, are also form Kibera. The film, Togetherness Supreme seeks to draw out and cultivate the talent of the people of Kibera in a manner that has never before been tried, double the challenge!

The feature was born out of a short film called Kibera Kid. Kibera Kid is a 2006 award winning fictional short film set in the Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the largest slums in Africa. It was written, directed and co-produced by Nathan Collett in collaboration with the youth of Kibera. This twelve minute film features Kibera actors in all the principle roles. It has played at film festivals worldwide including the Berlin Film Festival and it won a Student EMMY from Hollywood. It has been profiled by BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera English and many others.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera_Kid)

After the success of Kibera Kid, the Kibera Youth wanted more, and the Kibera Kid Feature Film was born. The cast is from Kibera, with with little or no screen exprience. Apart from the Heads of Departments, the rest of the crew are youth from Kibera. Most of them have never worked in production before, triple the challenge!


We went on location on 23rd March and has been rolling since. Today, is supposed to be the final shoot day... We are shooting on the RED camera, another first.

It is the first time a RED camera has been used in a slum, on a such a project and the first to be owned in Kenya. Despite the challenges of doing a project of such magnitude, the crew and cast are all in high spirits and everyday, I realise how deep an impact this project has on the people of Kibera.

To learn more, support us, you can ask me questions here, or email me- kookync@gmail.com. You can also visit http://kiberakid.blogspot.com to see more of what is going on on location....and to donate.

We also have a film maker making a documentary about the film, and you get her version of our film here - http://worthydocs.blogspot.com/

Onwards!

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A Raw Deal

We have this lengthy debates, DVP and I as to what we should eat, where, e.t.c. This is mainly because i don't care much for food and well, he.. he does. The man likes his food.

Whether he has to go head to head with it, he will still eat it.

Our food debates should be something the Americans sits down to watch. I never finish the food on my plate. I think it is genetic flaw. Thus, anything i order, has to be something that DVP will want to eat, as he HAS to clear my plate. This, as much as it is a good thing (not wasting food and all that), reflects badly on my hard earned lady status, especially in the restaurants we frequent.

We have perfected the art of exchanging plates, the mafia could learn a trick or two while switching briefcases. And i should stop watching those horrible horrible films...Note to self.

Often, the waiter will come around our table and suddenly, the plate that was in front of me almost untouched is sparkling clean, and DVP's... well, almost still full. He will do a double take and give me that look. You what what look. I know not to worry as I am paying for the food, and where they indicate the time it takes to prepare on the menu does not indicate the length of time i should spend not that same food. Back to my story.

We decide to break our sushi virginity. And we pick Misono, famed to be the best in Sushi making, un-cooking, preparing... whatever they call wrapping raw fish. We drive into the restaurant's parking and the minute we approach the entrance to the restaurant, a Kenyan girl in a Kimono hits the gong. I'm halfway running back to the car when DVP announces that that is a welcome dong. Sounded to me like those they play just before the Master slices your head off with some chopstick. Again, the movies I watch!

We walk inside and suddenly hit by the sweetest aroma of some grilling thing. Definitely not rice. We are at crossroads. One side was the grilling centre, the other was eat your food before it realises its dead centre. A waiter stopped us half way. 'The grilled section is this way' He said.
Yeah, we looked like grilled food people. Maybe the can smell the type of food you eat when you walk into that Japanese restaurant. And all we gave out was auras of grill-ology.

We sit in the raw food section, and take the menu. None of the Yaki-s, taka-s, make any sense to us. The waiter has since abandoned us. I bet he left snickering... ' The fools, they want sushi? let them figure the menu out first! After a couple of minutes, i contended defeat and called for help. The waiter went through each item and after he was done, I had forgotten what was what. To be safe, we asked for the 'boat' which contained a little bit of all their food.

We sat back and waited. Now, forgive me for being deliberately obtuse, but it thought the food would take all of 2 minutes. I mean, how hard can it be to put a raw fish on a plate? You see, in my mind this is how a sushi kitchen looks like this :

Yes, an aquarium shop. I do not envision stoves, or chefs dressed in funny white hats and white coats sweating under the heat. nope. I only see this Japanese guy dipping his hand in and out of aquarium, snapping the heads of the fish, and sending the waiter off on his jolly way to my table. All variables remaining constant, i.e. no traffic situations between the kitchen and my table, i expected to have the food faster than I could say sukiyaki. I more than said sukiyaki, i learnt the whole Japanese alphabet, i also learnt that the Japanese anthem has the oldest lyrics/text from the ninth century, but the music is from 1880 and it is expressed in only 4 lines. After about an hour, i figured that maybe the fish were on strike and were fighting back or they they had ran out of aquariums and had to ask the neighbour (who happens to be the Sri Lankan ambassador) , if they could serve me his pet fish. Finally, the raw food that took forever to prepare, arrived. I was blown away...


In some eerie way, that boat gave me disturbing images. Of being out at sea, capsizing and the fish having a ball. And the food on the boat being me...and my sailor friends. hrumph! the shivers!

Then it hit me why the food took so long. The chef had to count the rice in each bundle and make sure it was exactly the same number!

I let that boat sail. Still almost full. It was a shame really. But it did smell funky. No offense. My brief flirt with raw fish ended there. Any food that looked like it was going to reform and rejoin like those bones in hte bible, and walk away from my plate...or slither in this case, was not something i wanted to eat. I sat there, waiting for it to walk, slither, flip away... it did not. After DVP and i established that fish dont play dead, we tried it. I wish it had grown wings and flown away. A perfect excuse, and also gets me out of paying. Do not get me wrong, i did like some but not a whole dinner out of it. Sushi, medarlings, is an acquired taste and a raw deal for that matter.


I think you can get sushi here though!

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What Nairobi Women are made of

Warning - Some images might be disturbing.

I know that I walk around some Nairobi streets clutching my handbag as if my heart is hooked to it. That when my phone rings, I stop, look around nervously then slowly take it out of the bag. I then turn myself in to an impenetrable ball of human flesh and weakly croak- 'Hello'.

Gets so bad at times, that I will keep checking if my ipod is still in my pocket, even when I'm still listening to it. You never know with Nairoberry thugs. They'd steal the ipod and somehow, leave me with the illusion that I'm still listening to music. I shudder at the thought.

So this one evening, walking in town, taking very good care of my bag, pushing through the crowds. I'm tiny.. and walking in crowds is really annoying. Everyone is like up there, breathing all the fresh air and I have to walk under there, my nose in line with their asses. Cosmic joke if you ask me. That would be me in the red circle.


I know you are wondering where my bag is... but trust me, this is the best way to be in a crowd in a Nairobi bus station. Ensures you are rob-free. Oh, others were wondering where my clothes are? Gee, don't you have better things to wonder about? Ignore the fact that the crowd is Asian.. It was Hug-an-Asian Day then, so they all came out.

So here I was, minding my own business with this American dude who thinks it's awesome to be caught up in a Asian Hug galore. He spends his time fighting sofas in his house and making these and these music videos that might get US banned from the G8. I don't think he particularly cares about that anyway. Hi idea of fun is making co-corporate videos for airports who do not care about his work. No one has had the nerve to tell him that that is not a career. Yet.

Back to my story.

So we are walking in town - and there is this commotion, people shouting, blood somewhere... Being the American that he is, he said something like 'I'll be right back' or ' I got your back', but this is what i actually saw when i turned to look at him


I do believe that he was running to get the cops. Or showing me where to run to safety. Or he just got this urge to just run. Don't we all do that sometimes...

I moved nearer, camera in hand. First sight...

At first, i thought i had just walked into a movie set. With really good make-up but really bad crowd control. But when the young star reached out to me...

...I knew that he did really not want be in this low budget film. That no one had told him that he would be doing his own stunts. There were about 100 men (yes, males) standing around him... not participating. I wanted to know who was inflicting this on him. Then i saw her.

I wanted a better look. A woman, not more than 26 years old, was beating the crap (or the robbery) out of this man.

Look at her hand! What had the man done? snatched her phone. In normal circumstances, a woman would scream for help. Not this one. This woman ran after the boy, through traffic, and caught up with him.

I did not stick long enough to know what happened. Usually, such scenes end with this...I have seen one end like that and that is one thing i still wish i had never watched.



Off i went to look for the American...








This Angel would have fallen worse had she been here

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Wordless Wednesday

...well, not exactly.

I opened by blog and thought... I have nothing that has inspired me as a Wordless Wednesday post.

I went for lunch at Yaya, a mall near my office and came across this:


I guess when needs must..

This Angel would have fallen worse had she been here

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The Land of Opportunities

My boss thinks in her sleep. She says those are the best ones.

On Wednesday night, she thought. And her thoughts included me accompanying her to Los Angeles for a film locations expo. We are representing Kenya as a filming location, and meeting producers who might be interested in filming in Africa, and would like assurance that Africa does not always have to be described as writer Binyavanga Wainaina describes below:

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

That being true in every essence -pick up any book about Africa- I'll pay you if you don't have some sort of description as Wainaina describes above.

Being Kenyan, getting a US visa is top of the list with the likes of meeting Koffi Annan or eradicating world poverty. The trip was planned for 8th April, a less than a week from the night my boss thought. So when she told me on Thursday morning that she would like me to accompany her, i thought: now she's gone and lost it! no Kenyan has ever gotten a visa that fast.

At first, I checked the embassy's website for interview dates. The only available dates were 24th April. Too late. To some extent, I was relieved. Like any student in Kenya, i had dreams of studying in USA. But after seeing (well, hearing) horror stories about the US embassy, I gave up. my dream turned into loathe. The stories were long queues that started at 4 am and rejection of visa applications even without glancing at them. The last part i did not believe, but the first - i had seen my neighbour leave at 3.30am to go to the US embassy, which does not open till 7am.

Somehow, we got me an interview for Friday (the next day!) at 7am. I turned up at 6.30, and there were about 20 people before me! Never have I seen Kenyans that punctual. If only they turned up that early for other events in their lives - especially appointments and work. Good times! After undergoing through security check, and spending almost 20 minutes removing ,y bangles that have been on my wrist for years, I got through. Backtrack - i was kinda annoyed there. Surely, if it took me twenty minutes to take off the bangles, isn't that proof enough that if I was going to use them at weapons, then I wasn't the brightest of terrorist? The first part was the checking of papers by Kenyan girls with a faker American accent than Hugh Laurie in House MD. (I still love him). Then we sat back and waited for the interview. We are all in the same room, and we are called one by one on to windows that look like bank tellers booths to have our fingerprints taken. The next is the hard step, the interview. Everybody is listening into your conversation and it is very embarrassing when the guy behind the desk tells you - almost smugly - Your visa has been denied, you will find the explanation why on this pink sheet. Have a nice day.

I was the sixth or so person to be interviewed, and by the time my name was called, no one had gotten a visa. I sat there thinking about all the shattered dreams, all the dashed hopes... and it hurt. I was not concerned whether I got the visa or not really. for me, either way was fine. It's not like I was dying to go anyway. It would be nice to e able to go, I though, but I'm not excited at all.

So my name got called and I walked to the booth. The guy glanced at my papers and asked me about my company and the kind of films we do. I explained the difference between a production company and a production service company and a bit about why it was cheaper to film in Kenya than in South Africa.

A minute later he said - Mercy, your visa has been approved, please come collect your passport on Monday at 2 pm. I looked at him and said - Why, thank you!

So now I'm off to LA when I had completely given up on ever going to USA, all because i hold a Kenyan passport. But as I walked out, I could not help but feel bad for the guy whose conversation i happened to be listening into. He talked for a good 15 minutes without a pause about the poverty state in his family and how he was the beacon of hope for them , hence his need to study in the US, and i think his near desperation is what killed his chances. A part of me wished he had gotten my visa instead of me.

Why is it that Americans, (and pretty much everybody else) can get their visas to Kenya at the point of entry while we have to wait months to be granted the interview, then teeth clenching moments as we await the verdict?

Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

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Promises Promises..

I'm back to Nairobi, blessed beautifully busy Nairobi. Have no emails to catch up on as i have been online (yeah, so much for my holiday). I made plans and never accomplished any, including that major one of going white water rafting. It rained every frigging day, and by the time I had decided that i will do the bungee jump instead, it was time for me to head back home.

I have now decided that I will do the whitewater rafting within two months from now. I have to set a deadline now for myself as i will never do it if i don't...

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The Great Wildebeest Migration Cont'd

I left off when the floodgates of KICC opened. and people poured in. The 'intelligent' ones from the back of the queue walked to the front, and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the bunch. I had made a couple of friends by now and formed an alliance (not of evil). One of the girls i became friends with, like I, was not auditioning but had come with her friend for moral support. We decided to cheer everyone up by 'trying to decide' which song to 'audition for'. We sang popular songs, off key and a high pitches. The intention was to make others think that we were actually going to audition hence give them the courage. I mean, if you'd been listening to us, as a judge, you'd have changed your mind on EVER auditioning Pop Idols. I was pretty sure that the other contestants were consoled.

We got as far as the few meters from the main entrance of KICC and asked to stop. The director and some of the cameramen were set on the roof, filming the procession. I'm slow. I just figured out why they wanted the people in groups of 5. To make the crowd look bigger by adding volume. Damn me! I know I shouldn't have dyed my hair blond... it's seeping into my brain. There is one thing that most visitors fail to realize about Kenyans. We have too much pride and rarely get wowed by things like cameras and celebrities and such like hypes brought about by glamour. And this is not only evident in urban areas. I have worked with film crews from overseas who did not understand why the people (esp. rural folks) did not seem dazzled by the camera or clamoring to be in the shot. Only the kids seemed interested. The way i saw it, it was either they were too busy to care about activities that would not place a hot plate of Ugali on their tables or are too proud be the object of Mzungu's entertainment. Either way... Kenyans rarely entertain Cameras, unless they are actually actors / actresses.


The director, sitting high up on the roof was trying hard to make the aspirants 'look excited' and 'on the count of three, scream... we love Idols'. Needless to say, that took them about 20 minutes. Since they could not get the crowd to follow instructions, they played a trick on them. They divided the crowd into two and one crew member asked the first group to follow him. Half way through, the crowd realized what was going on. The group that had just left was being led towards the back! Too late! half an hour later, after being in the sun for over 4 hours, the auditions gave signs of life.

We queued up, and my sister ended up being the 200th - ish person. As luck would have it... Celtel Kenya, who happen to be one of the spponsors went round asking aspirants to to show their cellphone if they had Celtel SIM cards. I gave mine and my sister got a 'jump the queue' pass. What luck!

Long story short, I started typing the first part of this as she auditioned. She says they bloved her outfit... not her singing though as she did not qaulify for second round. She figured she was too nervous and could be felt in her voice. She made to re-try, but could not be let to re-audition.
We went back home around 5pm. My legs were killing me. We got home, i fell on the bed and woke up the following day at noon. Yeah, it was that bad.

She was disappointed, and since I dont know how to handle failure / rejection. This is what I told her.

'Look at it this way, it's better you were eliminated at the beginning stage, instead of going all the way to the the top and getting eliminated with nothing to show for it after all that hard work.'

That is what I call proper bullcrap. We both knew that the reverse is also true. Going past the first round could have given her the exposure. You would not wanna be the one to voice out her thoughts, would you. You leave her with them, and try your best to divert her mind from that - by helping her get into a music school.

And my task begins.

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The Great Migration (of the Wannabe Wildebeest)

Being the concerned big sister that I am, I woke up at 4.00am to make sure that my sister was ready to go. Suddenly, it hit me that that was way too early, even for the most competitive soul. So I went back to sleep.. but I couldn't. All I could think of was, 'What if I oversleep? What if I wake up at 9.00sm and it's too late for baby sis to audition? So I lay in bed and willed away the time. At 5,00 am, I woke her up. Half an hour later, we were out the door and on to the chilly sleepy street. I was planning on taking a matatu, but I thought that would delay us. So I paid a cab to KICC, where the auditions are being held. To my shock, really, we were the only ones!! I didn't get it. There is only one audition, in the whole country and no one is there just tow hours earlier?

We met some of the organizers who told us that we were way too early. Yeah. So we went for a walk, watching Nairobi wake up...and get samosas. On coming back, like 10 minutes later, there were 10 people or so at the gate. So the waiting game started. SEt tto start at 8 am, the organisers did not talk to us until some minutes to 9 am. Then they moved us from one gate to the next, and back to the previous gate. 30 minutes later, they asked the aspirants to get into groups of 4 or 5 people each. What did they thiknk would happen then? People would walk calmly and peacefully join hands? So a push ensued, causing them to abandon the plan. They opened the gates and let people in, in whatever groups they were in.

My laptop is low on power... have to continue this later

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