The universe is working against us.

Okay, I get it! Someone really doesn't want us to show this Zombie movie. We've been sick, the actors got sick, the weather has been keeping us from shooting, we got sick AGAIN, the tape went missing, the bus crashed and is such a mess so we can't transport our equipment so we can't screen today!

MYSA event

Football is a very important part of MYSA.

Marcus from Shootback =)

We are not gay offcourse!

Shootbacks photo exhibition!

Rock n' Ball!

Niko na Safaricom

1st of december allready oh my god eey mungu whaaat???

Only 10 days until we leave now. Oh shiiit! The time is going so fast!

It has been a really nice experience to be here. I have to come back sometime soon to say hello to the family. To see Simran walk. Teach her how to say "Hestkuk". Meet our friends again...

But for now, I am really looking forward to go home and celebrate christmas! I hear it is a lot of snow and minus degrees at home. NICE!

<3

Sigri loves fried corn.

Yum yum!

Really good spice, have no idea what it is but it's sooo tasty!

Last shoot

Peter, Sigri and me have been working on a Zombie-movie of our own, but it has been a lot of delay with this project because of sickness (not only us, but also the actors), bad weather (rainy season is a really inconvenient period to shoot outdoors), delay on the other workshopgroups' shooting etc.

But yesterday we FINALLY shot the last scene - hallelujah!

Working on the scene with Victoria and the Zombie. Our main actress got sick, but beautiful Irene from shootback stepped in for her. She is awesome!

the Zombie (getting really tired)

Peter is the cameraman, really concentrated!

Shooting zombie sex scene!

Freddy helped us out!

The shooting was really stressful, because our main actor was really late and had to leave quite early. When we were shooting he was also very unpatient, and it was really frustrating for me. But we managed to shoot all our shots, so now it's just editing left. We were supposed to edit to day but we the electricity has been on and off all day ao we have to extend the editing...

Sleeping on the job

Leo.

Malaria & Thyfoid

After being sick for a week I decided to go to the hospital. Sigri went last thursday and found out that she has malaria and thyfoid. I was optimistic and thought I was getting better, but I wasn't. So yesterday I saw the doctor and he told me I had just the same as Sigri! weird that we got the same deceases at the same time...

Now I have taken about a million different tablettes, and I feel much better! :)

no concert afterall

We cancelled the concert because there was some riot there. Our friend was unfortanetly gone to the concert area before us and was there when the riot started. He was arrested by the police and had to spend half of the night in a cell, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Poor guy. Luckily for us, we were slow as always and heard about what happened and chose not to go there anyway.

Concert and graduation

Today we are going to a friend of ours graduation party and later we are going to this reggae festival (I think!). I'm really exited!

new workshop group

We are finished with the Shootback 1 group now. The workshops was very nice and I think they learned a lot. I know for sure that they have experienced the importance of good planning! Now they are working on their own and beginning a new film project. I think they will make a fiction movie to screen every third week. That's great! Maybe they make some really good movies and can send them to TIFF or NUFF!

We have a new group in a place called Maili Saba three times a week. They are a bit older than the first group, but has absolutely no experiece with film whatsoever. Most of them haven't even touched a camera before. It's a bit challenging to start totally from scratch, but fortunately they are very eager to learn. They are finishing their scripts now and will shoot their film on wednesday.

Next week will be so stressful! We have workshop Monday, wednesday, friday and sunday. The kids are shooting on wednesday and they need a lot of help with planning and preparations. We also have our own film project that we are shooting next week, so it will be no time to relax...

This is Halloween!

So what if nobody else celebrate Halloween in Kenya. That doesn't stop us from doing it! We had the best halloween ever, outside in the backyard with candles, beer, chocolate and, offcourse, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We even carved a pumpkin, and I found this strange carrot monster together with the other carrots some days before Halloween. We named him Janosch!

Sigri is a Hulder.

I am a witch!

Magic!

MOMBASA!

We took some days off and went to Mombasa. We stayed with a woman called Sony and her incredible cool 5-yearold daughter, Talia.

Sony

Talia.

The bus trip to Mombasa took 7 hours and during that trip the woman in the front seat threw up on me. We didn't take the bus above, I wish we did, I think the trip would have been much more pleasant.

We had one day on the beach. That was so nice. Here is Sigri after a chill day by the sea.

This is Robert. He followed us to the beach.

Camel.

Music that people in Kenya listen to ALL THE TIME!

Bend Over

Night Shift

One more night

Muslim Henna Paint

This is some weeks ago, we visited a lady who paints muslim girls. We wanted to try, so we went to her house and we got one hand painted like this. It looks nice, but I guess I could easily have painted it myself with pen.

hahaha !

Janosch is a girl

Yesterday, at 05 am, Janosch arrived our planet. After 18 hours of pain and struggeling, Nash gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl ever. Her name will be Simran (I think, not sure wheter it's decided or not yet). Here she is, 8 hours old:

MTOTO on the way!

Little Janosch (as we all have started to call him/her) is on the way. As I write, Nash is in the hospital. Her water has broken, so now we are just waiting for Janosch to be born. Can't wait to babysit =)

Tribe people

In Kenya there is more than 52 different tribes, with their own language and culture. It is really confusing.

SAFARI

Finally I managed to upload some photos from Masai Mara! Above is two lions cuddeling. Under is the coolest and weirdest animal in the universe - The giraffe.

We saw a lot of lions on the safari and they are so cool! They are so majestic and proud - and LAZY! Here is a lioness just chillaxing in the sun.




Here is Mr. Jakal (not sure about the spelling.)

And here is Simba.

My Computer is Dying

Ok. My computer just refruses to work, so I can't update my blog. Or, I can, but I can't upload photos.

We are fine. We just had a goodbye-party for Salome and Maketa, they left thursday. That was nice. Unfortunately, Janosch (Peter and Nash's unborn baby) still isn't ready to enter the world, so the girls didn't get to see him. We are so exited about the little chocolate mtoto and can't wait to see him/her. Hope he gets born on the 10th. That would be so cool: 10.10.10. Like 10 minutes past 10 would be perfect!

Now we are on Shootback and working with one of the film groups here. They are making two movies, and are working on the script now. They are very clever, creative and eager to make film. (thank god.) They are also very late every workshop, but it's just african time, I guess. Suits me quite fine, actually.

Mother and child from Mathare

MATHARE

We met a guy who calls himself The Lion. He is a football player, who lives in a middle class house not far from where we are staying. It is less than a year since he moved away from the place he grew up; the Mathare - the next biggest slum in Kenya.

He wants to show Sigri and me his childhood home, and assures us that it is safe, 'cause he knows everyone there. We are eager to go, but a bit concerned aswell. We know the conditions in Mathare is really bad. With nothing but our camera and (luckily Sigri remembered to bring some) money we find a Matatu and head of to the slums.

Music. LOUD reggae music. The Matatus always play really loud music. The road is bumpy. The man who have the tickets and controls the door is halfways outside the bus, door open, trying to get more passengers. Soon, the Matatu is full.

The boy next to me starts singing to the reggae song. He has never met a white woman before, he tells me. "It's my lucky day".

The Lion waves us out of the bus and we walk a bit. Loads of trash. We are standing on a height, looking over the huge slum. The houses are small and close together. They look very unstable, One floor, holes in the walls and only one room in each house. There is dirt, plastic, shit, rotten food and torn clothes on the ground and in the river. The smell of excrements hits me. How can anyone live here?!

We walk down some stairs, meet some friends of the Lion, walk on, try not to step into too much crap. The kids yell to us. "HOW ARE YOU?" They run towards us and repeat the question. It is almost like a song. "How are you. Picture" they say and smile. They surround us and we take many pictures of them. We walk on. Around every corner the children smiles and ask us "how are you?" and want to pose for us. They are so adoreable! The Lion introduces us to many people, his friends and his family. We visit some of the houses. One tiny room. Dirty. Some posters on the wall. One bed.

There is almost no space between the houses and we watch our steps all the time, not to step in excrements or chickens. There are chickens, hens, dogs, ducks and pigs just walking around, trying to find something to eat. The pigs and dogs look for food in the brown, polluted river. They look very unhealthy. The kids play right next to them, not afraid of falling into the river.

Some of the kids go to school, the tiny school with one room and to benches. There are many kids who just do nothing, just play, hang around by the river and don't have any scool or program to go to. Many of them are orphans, who have no adults who care for them. These kids are most likely to grow up to be criminals or prostitutes. They have no education, so it's hard to get a proper job. The rent is 1000 Kenyan chilling a month, and they have to have those money to have a house to sleep in. To some, selling their body or dealing with drugs are the only oppurtunity.

And still, this kids are so happy and smiling towards us...