I received this image when our team was visiting Hani and Danielle's team on our last shooting days. Our teams were sharing vans and drivers and I remember our groups were processing the end of our respective trips in different ways: Kelly, Pete, and I were exhausted--further exacerbated with the bumpy ride to the outskirts of the city, and wondering what would happen to all the people we got to know. We arrived, pulled ourselves out of the van and stood in front of a block of makeshift shelters; our friends were working busily somewhere in that maze. These two fine gentlemen fought through the language barrier and led us to them.

This was shot at a wildlife sanctuary. You can't see it, but all the tourists with their prosumer cameras, pleated khakis, and carefully protected skin are straining to get a good look at the baby elephants. Michelle and I grew weary of the spectacle, and found that observing the fellow tourists was much more interesting. I love the posture of the woman at the center, carefully and politely trying to get around for a better view.

His name is Peru. His interest is comedy. He told us this on the first day, surrounded by his brothers and using English when we were advised that they would be too embarrassed to try. No excuses; play like a champion. That is correct.

I don't know what to say about this man toiling in the street as I never shook his hand and learned his name. I want to say that he's resilient and, here, fighting through the economic turmoil that Kenyans were struggling to endure. Perhaps he was a victim of the matatu* strike that was in place during our visit. (That, and the New Years holiday gave us clear streets in the heart of Nairobi for a few days.) The irony was, of course, that in their efforts to quell police harassment and unfair regulations, the working man couldn't get to work. The streets were lined with pedestrians in commute, having to leave home hours earlier, and returning home hours later. Resilience is a necessity.

*Matatu: minibus transportation. We couldn't find whether these were state regulated or not, but that's largely irrelevant. Policy enforcement was, as we saw, almost nonexistent. Some issues that were being contested were passenger limit and safety measures. Many Kenyans are unable to afford Matatu transportation; our driver was repeatedly hounded for a ride to the other side of town.

Rodgers took this photograph. My camera was slung around his neck, set to Manual after a crash course in the basics of exposure. Rodgers isn't a jerk--he's really very nice and funny--but he managed to get an image in the forty shots he took that is better than any of the thousands I took. So it goes.

I gave him the camera because we were making our way through one of the biggest slums in the world, and he would have a better vantage with which to take photos while Pete and I would capture video footage discreetly. What I mean to say is, while Pete and I were carefully walking around with white knuckles gripping our video cameras and hoping the picture wouldn't be too shaky for Kelly to edit later, Rodgers wouldn't be hassled with his camera, and he got to hold the body up to his face to compose each shot carefully. We bemoaned that we looked like Americans by the hour--it became one of our several mantras.

But I was saying about "one of the biggest slums in the world": we were astounded, and delighted, to see this entire society. Sans, of course, any running water or public services of any kind. No law enforcement, even if there was an understanding. No infrastructure of any kind actually--the closest sign of such that we could find was the rampant piggybacking on power lines for electricity and cable television. (Yep.) Shops were set up along the alleys selling food that we were enormously tempted by, bootleg DVDs and karaoke machine rentals, and school supplies. Day care programs, butchers, and hotels were set up around each "block" and, though thousands of people were "sharing" one toilet, people were surviving.

Still, while imagining what the day-to-day in such a place consists of, we had to wonder where you can go from a place like this.

That's Titus in the jersey up front, and Joshua in the white playing back up. If you're reading this, pull up your Lady Gaga library and press play. This was one of several common scenes that we became familiar with every day, after taking the journey through town and trudging up the stairs to plop down on the couch with the guys. I remember the first day we met them, we sat across from each other in the living room, placidly staring at each other, calmly asking and answering questions of each other. They were shy, and we were awkward, but we gradually became comfortable and casual with each other, earnestly and urgently submerging into conversations of family, responsibility, expectations and so forth -- the kinds of sound bites that, as a rule, would only take place organically either before the cameras were unpacked or when they were put away. So it goes, yes?

What can we say?

Home is any or all of the following adjectives: odd, eerie, dismal, exhilarating, goading, cold, biting, teasing, wrong, comfortable, routine. And I know this sounds dramatic, but because we have changed and also because we don't know yet how we've changed, we must readjust to our lives while readjusting our lives. Our lives here, that is.

I hope our team juxtaposes our memories and thoughts onto this space as we process and unload our experience with the coming semester. I know a Best Shot of the Day series will be coming, and the other teams will have stories no doubt of the faces that were, shall we say, grown accustomed to?

Perhaps this will be an attempt to answer that inevitable, "How was Africa?" question.

A more difficult, better and more hilarious question I recently received was, "So, are you going to criticize our consumeristic lifestyles now?" The subtext being, of course, that Africa comprises of poverty and despair. While this is true (for more places than the entire continent of Africa), we must realize that slums are largely incapable of existing without the other side -- wealth. Rapid urbanization means an enormous amount of capable workers come to a city with hopes of employment (that or, perhaps a more accurate way of putting it, they take their chances in the city).

Poverty, despair, wealth and urbanization are vague key terms. They are bolded in the textbook, but some of us reading this post think in images, sounds or smells and have replayed a memory with those words, so we put a specific and visceral entity to these encompassing vocabulary words. Despair, and not only because of some kind of guilt, is on us, the North Americans who were blessed and financially supported to take the journey. Perhaps we'll find some semblance of an opportunity for significant alleviation. Even if we don't, we've met several who have given their lives to service and, selfishly, we pray that our love will attempt to mirror the depths of theirs.

Thank you for reading and praying, please continue to do so. More to come.

There are too many things to relay -- we will do our best to catch you up.

Yesterday we went camera-less to meet our subjects. Kelly, Pete and I brought Daniel, Dale and Piper to Father Ted's house. The thing you have to know about Father Ted is that he was assigned by Mother Teresa. Have you heard of her? More information will be given, but he worked -- and still does -- with the Sisters of Charity, which is one of four ministries that he currently serves. Father Ted's house involves caring for ten or so (it's hard to keep track) young men ages nineteen to twenty-four. The family also involves others who still live with their families, or remnants of them, and husband-less mothers. We anticipate horrifying, and humbling, stories but for now:

We are appalled at how fun these guys are. As Dale and I admitted to each other after the visit, these are the kinds of guys that we hope to be cool enough to hang around. Aside from the reggae, which we're slowly warming up to, we reallllllly want to bring them back so we would be... more cool.

Day One

Quick update to our loved ones to tell you:

We have arrived. Safely. And in totality. (Andrew Hornor arrived today.) We're wrapping up our first 24 hours in the country with a team New Year's celebration out. We spent today with some of our clients. Father Ted and Reverend Shadrach came to orientate us (yes, it's a word) and we left our cameras behind for this day.

Jet lag has its hold on most of us; others do not tout a sleep cycle to begin with so they are immune AKA tired all the time anyway (Danielle, Hani).

We are well, overwhelmed and with heavy but convicted shoulders yet. Just about where you expected us to be, yes?

Kelly has taken to bed early after a few bouts of nausea and aches -- she will be better (her words) and we believe it as well. Please pray for her and our budding immune systems.

I'm going to pass the laptop around and let everyone tend to their digital obligations. Please continue to pray for us, send us kind words. I've already read some out to the table this evening and we cheer in response. Bunch of braying Americans? You bet!

Happy New Year!

Tomorrow is Kenya

Our story will begin like this: I set off upon a journey. And the people we meet - Reverend Daniel Ogutu, Pastor Shadrack Ogembo and Father Ted - will say, A stranger came into town. Or, in this case, twelve strangers and one old friend. Professor Volkers lived in the area for several years already and has been visibly excited to show us around his turf. He did call it his turf a few times, yes. This link will provide you with the basic layout of our clients there (slumdoc.blogspot.com). Hopefully, we'll be able to keep a steady stream of information flowing through this blog while we're there.

To recap further, in case you don't know, what we're talking about is the last production leg for a feature documentary that Professor Volkers is producing on the world's slums. Globally speaking, that's 1 in 6 of us that live in an "overcrowded, underdeveloped area of housing." One of us lives on $1.08 each day. For whatever reason, and exacerbated cyclically thereafter, one of six of us are poor, unemployed and unemployable. The documentary seeks to create a portrait of the people that give these words flesh.

So, we're packing up our cameras, raising and organizing funds, getting the appropriate shots, asking for prayers and preparing for stories to wrench us from our comfort zones.

Last year at this time, a similar-sized group flew to the Philippines and met some people we'll never forget.

Over the summer, Professor Volkers and Jess Brauning, Dordt's first Digital Media graduate, traveled to Guatemala.

And here we are now, anxious and attempting to participate what we are unable to. Aside from:

There will be four teams the group will break up into.

Professor Volkers and two students will document the day-to-day of a slum family. This will be the footage primarily shot for the documentary. Those two students are Dale Vande Griend and Piper Kroeze.

Rev. Daniel Ogutu heads up a program that feeds children who are fortunate enough to be enrolled in school (this is extremely helpful, assuming the children might otherwise be working for food); fosters leadership training for former criminals and also sports evangelism in the Mathare valley. Most of all, I believe we are looking forward to shaking his hand and asking him how he keeps his energy up. Vern Eekhoff, Daniel Kauten and Michelle Nyhoff.

Pastor Shadrack Ogembo feeds slum children. That's the information we have. Feel envy for the team that will document this; they will come home with seven kids. Hani Yang, Danielle Roos, Luke Kreykes and Andrew Hornor.

Father Ted runs a home for youth who lived in slums or another vein of serious poverty. The clients range from 17 to 26 years old. The incentive is to continue to provide education and/or proper living. Pete Hessels and Kelly Cooke. This is the team that I am on, but will make sure to report from the other teams as often as possible.

Oh, by the way. You will meet the group in more detail. Hopefully some of them will take on some posting duties as well.

And now, here's something we hope you'll really enjoy.

Some of these children are enrolled in a school. They regularly attend and take part in all the terrible, lovely elementary school goings-ons that most of us remember fondly as a given to growing up, as a necessary right. Some of these children, however, are not enrolled in a school and do not gripe about each other during recess, do not mess around in a classroom and will not be wearing a green and white school uniform any time soon.