Compound Video

Hey,
We just wanted to give you a better idea of our compound, so Alex hosted this little tour to give you a visual of where we spend most of our down time. Just to warn you, it is a little long, and there are some weird unexplainable dropped frames from uploading, so sorry in advance. Enjoy!

Untitled from Will Miller on Vimeo.

Day trip to Lake Naivasha

"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen," Ben proclaimed as we got off the small plastic tour dinghy. Will forgave his parents for killing our plans to go clubbing the previous night; this had been worth it. It was just lunch time, and we had already seen more incredible wildlife in a single day than ever before in our lives.
Having rented a rugged (and painfully cramped) 4x4, the family piled in and set off for a pleasant Sunday day-trip. Feeling lazy, we opted against the steep four hour hike around the crater of a volcano and instead drove two hours to Lake Naivasha despite mixed reviews. We just wanted to relax and see some nice scenery, and our expectations were certainly exceeded.
We first tried the somewhat (in)famous Lake Naivasha Country Club, which was nice enough but unreasonably priced and quite colonial feeling. We took it as a bad sign that the only people in line for the tour boat were exceedingly dorky, rich tourists. Instead, we decided to backtrack and try "Hippo Safaris" because it seemed lower class, at least judging from their sign on the road. Excellent decision.
For much cheaper we got a private boat tour and walking safari around Crescent Island. From the boat we saw an array of fantastic birds (flamingo, great kingfisher, grey heron, spoonbill, african fish eagle, pelicans, and plenty more I can't name) and two families of hippos. At the island we were able to roam freely amongst the animals as there were no aggressive predators. We were constantly surrounded by a mix of wildebeast, waterbuck, zebras, giraffes, antelopes and impala. Upon further research we realized that the island is apparently not the most spectacular game park in Kenya, but we were oblivious of that at the time. Not seeing any feline predators was a fair sacrifice to be able to walk and mingle so close to the wildlife. We were so jubilantly excited the whole time that as soon as we got back in the car after lunch we all promptly passed out on each other's shoulders. Jon quietly chauffeured us home, stopping only to admire the impressive rift valley from a roadside outlook.

Call us!

There's another way to get in touch with us! You can dial a California
number and reach an actual telephone in our house. The hitch is that you
have to talk to a switchboard person (all speak English, and they're on
duty 24 hours) and ask for our extension:

(650) 833-6660, ext 3140 (US number, rings on phone)

In a few days we'll get a code that will let us make inexpensive calls on
that phone as well. For the time being we can just receive, or make calls
using Skype.

Will ditches Alex for Victoria

Last Tuesday night Alex and I were sitting at home thinking of what we would do the next day when a colleague of my Dad’s stopped by the house to borrow something and say hi. He was reporting on a story in western Kenya about male circumcision as a new preventative measure for the spread of HIV/AIDS. He was sent by Global Post in Boston to do a small video for their website and possibly for TV. My dad mentioned that we were doing video work and jokingly suggested he hire us. Surprisingly he was open to the idea, although he could only take one of us. I made the tough choice of ditching Alex and going with him on my first journalistic endeavor. I scrambled to pack and we flew out early the next morning.

Although the science behind it seems hazy at best, several studies have shown that circumcision can reduce the transmission of the HIV virus by roughly 60%. Millions of dollars are now being funneled into mass circumcisions and related education programs, especially by PEPFAR. We went to report on some of these efforts being conducted in the island fishing communities of Lake Victoria. AIDS levels were around 35% where we visited, due mostly to the promiscuity of fishermen who stop at each town to sell their catch at discount prices to any woman who will offer themselves in return. 

We landed in Kisumu, Obama’s homeland, and did our first interview with a Luo elder to get his views on the matter. We spent most of the day in transit, finally arriving at our hotel in the early evening after a two hour drive through beautiful countryside, an hour long ferry, and many phone calls. The next morning we finally arrived at Mfangano Island after another hour-and-a-half long boat ride.

Thursday was by far our most productive day. We got five hours of footage, so hopefully at least some of it is usable. We ended the day with tea, a nice fried-tilapia dinner, and a long sunset swim in the lake. In high spirits, I was very excited for the next day as we were supposed to visit the notoriously poor slum of Ringiti. I was prepared for real destitution and a wealth of powerful imagery, but I was actually quite disappointed. Because of over-fishing, pollution and generally poor management, the fish were gone and so were the people. It was a ghost town, a network of tin shanty-houses occupied primarily by seagulls scavenging on the ankle-deep litter and open sewage. The few people who were still there were malodorously drunk at 9am and quite annoying to interview. I was excited about a beautifully framed tripod shot I set up, but ended up frustrated as we were repeatedly interrupted by drunkards and the interview generally failed in every way. We decided to just give up and leave on the early ferry, so I didn’t even have time to get any good b-roll. Oh well, it’s all part of the job. We got back into Kisumu and were able to get a good interview with one of the research directors so it all worked out in the end.

In fact, the trip was wonderful and a good introduction to real video work here. Not only was it a successful first job, it was actually a bizarrely interesting trip. We accidentally hired an amazing translator, Oneko, an American-educated academic with an amazing people’s touch and an impressive ability to engage people in frank discussion about inherently awkward subjects. Despite having traveled extensively and having a very liberal stance on most subjects, he was clearly very connected to his people and is held in very high respects by everyone we encountered; a clear local leader. He was very knowledgeable and wise, and had a brightly optimistic outlook despite his heavy criticisms of the current state of Kenyan politics and culture. I really enjoyed our discussions over tea, occasionally playing devil’s advocate and getting him fired up. Everyone we met was friendly and accommodating, and we were treated with Kenya's characteristic warm hospitality (except for the occasional drunk fisherman). We talked about sex, spoke with charismatic tribal elders and chiefs, soaked up the beautiful scenery and ate fresh fish with our hands for every meal. Sounds pretty good to me.





Gregory Warner, journalist.

The ponderous Oneko

The circumcision clan
Vista from the hotel, first night

Alex ditches will for the slums

Ben and a Hari Krishna volunteer in front of the truck

Breaking the ice with Obama

Henry is to the left of me.

Glue sniffing

Ben on soup duty



While Will was out frolicking in and around Victoria (the lake, that is), Alex stayed back in Nairobi to do some real work.  With his trusty wingman Ben in tow, Alex devoted his Wednesday to seeking out the cream of Nairobi's female crop.  After a play at the International School, we were introduced to all of Camille's friends, and departed to Village Market for a nice dinner with a select few.  Food was good, and we managed to impress them enough to get invited to a Valentines Day dinner (more on that later).  

With the social situation solidified, Thursday was spent back with the Hari Krishna Temple.  This time Alex and Ben arrived early and helped prepare the food before traveling to the worst slum in Nairobi to pass it out.  The day's menu was rice with a kidney bean-potato soup.  Salvation, here we come!  Our first stop was a rehabilitation center for young boys.  One of the older kids, Henry, was especially friendly and we hit it off immediately.  We exchanged addresses, and promised to keep in contact.  I wrote down my email address, but was sure we would be writing letters as there wasn't a working computer for miles.  When I got home, however, I had a fresh email from Henry in my inbox!  I don't know how far he had to travel to get to a computer, but he warned me that he wouldn't be responding very soon since he had to go to pretty great lengths to compose this email.  

As we got off the truck in the slum, however, I quickly noticed a very different vibe.  We were no longer the life of the party - we were the rich privileged (and slightly resented) white kids.  Last time Will and I went to to pass out food with Hari Krishna we were surprised to see a few kids sporting only a plastic bag for us to put their food in.  On this trip however, a full plastic bag was a luxury most couldn't afford.  The vast majority of the people we served had no more than a shred of trash for us to put their food in.  After passing out the food, I had a couple minutes to snap some pictures and attempt to socialize.  Most people we met had about half the brain cells they should from sniffing glue, which made socializing tougher than it should've been.  We got offered both glue, and a locally made maize-based alcohol, which we politely declined.  People started to open up when I mentioned Obama (he really is a great ice breaker), but unfortunately we had to leave shortly after.  

Friday was spent solely in preparation for our climb of Mt. Kenya at the end of this week.  Alex did pushups all day, with only a short break for some crunches in between his usual chin ups.  

Food for Life

Our weekend was very relaxed; we spent most of our time "training" for our upcoming ascent of Mt. Kenya (playing soccer, swimming, and tossing a frisbee around the compound). We had Sunday lunch with some old family friends from the Miller's days in the Philippines who conveniently have a cute 16-year-old daughter (Camille) who goes to Ben's school. Apparently we piqued the interest of a few of her friends when we dropped Ben off on the first day, and we've already scheduled a dinner-date for this Wednesday with Camille and some girl named Jess. Lucky them.

Today was our first real encounter with rural poverty. Ben's principal advised us to volunteer with the Hari Krishna Temple "Food for Life" program that goes into different poor areas to give away food each day, including Nairobi's worst slums. Ignoring the religious affiliation of the program, it seemed like an excellent opportunity. We arrived early, wandered around the nearby market, and eventually found our way into the temple.  The truck was late, so we had a nice long conversation with a devout Hari Krishna follower about the principles of his Sanskrit religion. He was very agreeable and easy to talk to despite his proselytizing and occasional awkward contradictions. As soon as the truck arrived, we loaded about 100 kg of rice and 50 kg of lentil goop and departed for a very poor, semi-rural district about 20km north of the city. 

We stopped by at a small orphanage to drop off some food and got a quick tour of their meager facilities (hole-in-the-ground toilets).  We continued on to a small elementary school where we were greeted by ecstatic kids swarming the truck. We enjoyed rock star status as soon as the doors opened. These kids were hungry, and we had food.  Being Mzungus (Swahili for "whitey") definitely added to our allure as well.  We immediately set up a table and the kids formed long lines with their empty plates and tuppers. Some kids came up to us with as little as a plastic bag for us to put their rice in, and some didn't even have that. The woman Alex was spooning rice with said that we were probably the first white people some of these kids had ever seen.  

Anything that resembled a line quickly disintegrated into a chaotic scramble as the food began to run out.  We didn't have enough for the seemingly endless hungry mouths, but we remarkably managed to feed between 1500 and 1600 kids. After handing out the food, we went around with the camera and took some pictures.  Needless to say, the kids absolutely ate it up. After countless high fives and fist pounds, we said our final goodbyes and headed back. We stopped at the house of our Hari Krishna follower friend (who's name we can't quite recall) to drop off some sugar and pick up his broken bike, and we got to see his small concrete abode. Will had been engaged in a draw-out existential conversation about life and the Hari Krishna religion, and he generously gave us a book on the religion's founder. The gift obviously meant a lot - he obviously didn't have much money and Will graciously accepted.  

Along the way Alex had been snapping pictures out of the truck window, but didn't realize that this wasn't always appreciated.  Eventually a construction worker showed his distaste by hurling a rock in the direction of the truck.  Luckily we were pretty far away, but he definitely got his message across.  It's always hard to predict who will like the attention of rich Westerners with a fancy camera and who won't, and we might want to err on the conservative side next time. All-in-all it was a very eye-opening day and we had a memorable experience helping to feed Africa's hungry youths.

First cool animals

Right before it started to chase Will

Today we were committed to getting up early and going for a nice long run, but we both slept in after repeated wake-ups. Conveniently we have absolutely no real responsibilities or commitments at this point so we went for a short jog anyways. Yesterday our very kind neighbor generously lent us her car for the time we're here which solved most of our transportation woes. While chatting with her, she recommended that we check out the elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park, so after our jog this morning we took the Corolla for its first excursion to check it out. 

The goal of the orphanage is to help nurture orphaned elephants and rhino to adulthood so they can be released back into the wild. They raise money with tourists, but they really aren't supposed to have much human contact, so visiting hours are strictly from 11am-noon. The alleged 45 minute drive took almost two hours with traffic and we only had ten minutes to check out the animals, but it was completely worth the four dollar entrance fee. The elephants were totally cool, but the highlight was definitely the baby rhino. The bizarre looking creature was about 2 feet tall and oddly disproportionate. At one month old, it's about as small as it was when it was born and hasn't really started growing yet. It looked almost fetal, but somehow extremely cute at the same time. It walked up right to our camera, stumbling a few times before being whisked away by the caretakers. There were also two adult rhinos which we got to pet (through a fence). They don't call it rhino-skin for no reason; their hide is about an inch think and very calloused. They were surprisingly gentle, although I suspect if it were in the wild I would have been a human shish-kebab in no time. 

After 12 we decided to check out the nearby giraffe center. Again we paid a nominal fee and got up close and personal with some awesome animals. I'll let the pictures do the talking. We did end up seeing a giraffe in the wild on a quick nature walk, which was a little too exciting. We found it feeding by the fence, and it started walking toward us in a seemingly menacing fashion. Cornered by the fence, Will was forced to flee and escaped narrowly through the gate after a harrowing chase (the story is a bit embellished but factually accurate).  

We picked up Ben from school and came home with big plans to go to the local youth hang-out and meet some kids our age. We came up with elaborate plans to entice girls and embarrass Ben, but we ended up getting distracted by a pick-up soccer game between our expat neighbors and the local Kenyan worker-boys. Alex got his first taste of third world soccer, including the ceaseless cheating and bickering. It was a ton of fun, even though the level of play was a bit slow. Will is certainly sore, which isn't surprising considering how fat and out of shape he is. Alex the gazelle doesn't seem to be feeling it as badly, which just means he wasn't playing hard enough. 

Good night!

P.S.-Sorry the pictures are in backwards chronological order, we'll get it figured out for next time but its too much of a pain to fix these ones now