The Adventures of Alex and Will: 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.