Documentary making (road trip)

Tuesday the 11th of June 2010 my input to the UNEP consultancy (team) EFA was working on abruptly ended as I was assigned to be the fulltime assistant of Alex Gabbay, a film maker from the UK. Being head of the information unit and facilitator for his project all eyes were on me to get this thing started. After hectic days of logistical/financial organisation, in which I tried to satisfy everyone 24/7 we managed to start filming and I managed (only just) to stay sane.

Before I go through our journey let me tell you about the challenging story! We were assigned to capture Sierra Leones progress on the MDGs, focusing on education and opportunities for young girls in particular. We soon discovered teenage pregnancy is the central theme here. The storyline is Sorie Kondi and his interpreter Foday P. Sorie is a Kondi player (wooden box with metal keys) and he is blind. He’s got a teenage daughter that stays with his sister. So Sorie is on a road trip to discover MDG progress. I cannot say more about the story but be sure to watch BBC world one night this summer to see how this unravels logically...For now please make do with a snippet of the locations.

We started filming in Freetown, spent Sunday on the Banana Islands (where the female chief indicated that they were waiting for NGOs to turn the BI into paradise) and left for Makeni on Monday the 17th.
Makeni: people cycle! It’s not too hilly, the roads are reasonable but most importantly the traffic is fine for cycling. We had trouble finding accommodation and even though we had 4 Sierra Leoneans in the car, my travel guide proved the most helpful in trying to find a decent place to put our heads at rest...after Makeni. We were too late to use our guide in Makeni but ‘thank god’ we didn’t have time to do research before we left so we had to meet up with journalists in as many places as possible to get some inside information.So our Makeni journalist and his brother had a wonderful, spacious and clean house where we could stay for 10USD a night incl. Breakfast (tea, bread and mayonnaise that’s never kept in the fridge anywhere and is almost a guarantee for ‘run belly’ –speaks for itself right?- in my case), water, ‘light’, as they call power from 19pm-2am, and a fan were included. No net but lots of spray, net in front of the window and the fans blow away mosquitoes too.We filmed in Mangay Loko, Sorie’s home village and I spent a day translating footage with Erickson, the information unit webmaster.Shockingly it’s the easiest thing to find teenage pregnant girls. Girls are so keen to have material wealth, too poor to pay for certain necessities for school etc. that they easily sleep with men. It makes you wonder how privacy of the body is perceived here. I’ve heard stories of 4 sisters all impregnated by the same man and therefore having to drop out of school, 1 sad father who put all his resources into getting his girl into private school who’s now a suckling mother at 16 and a girl who thought she’d found love and is now sitting at home being ignored by ‘the father’. Teenage pregnancies and girls dropping out of school are sadly common. Girls generally perform better in school, schooling is almost a luxury (high expenses), and families generally don’t/cannot give girls the second chance.
Koidu/Sefadu: An amazingly green, hilly route leads you from Makeni to Koidu, or Kono as everyone refers to (which is the district name). The first 60km from Makeni is solid Chinese highway, but the remaining 2.5 hours drive is ‘solid’ African style road: bumpy and unpleasant if you’re trying to sleep in a car without head rests. I’m sure the Chinese will finish their job as the quickest way to Koidu (diamonds, wealth, fame...) is via Makeni. Our arrival (e.a. finding accommodation) went a lot smoother than in Makeni. No driving and waiting around. We drove straight to our reserved rooms in Uncle Ben’s guest house which has immaculately clean rooms and good service. Strangely enough we (Alex and I) never shared a guest house with our colleagues/travel mates. They stay in cheaper places or with family and friends so they get to save their accommodation money (per diems) for their families. ‘The’ story we captured in Koidu is that because many families are poor and Koidu has quite a few rich men strolling about, dealing diamonds etc. Young girls get married out at an early age in exchange for a little prosperity for her family.
Kenema: Known for having the biggest church in the country and ‘light’ (electricity) 24/7! If not, there are always the beloved generators that drill away throughout the night to keep you cool. For the first time in weeks/months I slept under a blanket because I had AC. Yes, I work for en environmental organisation but a room without windows needs some illusion of fresh air. So I had to have the AC on to ‘de-stuff’ the place and the added bonus was I could sleep under a blanket, which I do admittedly really miss. Little things mean a lot. I thank the sky for the rains at night as I do get to enjoy a little cover more and more.
Tiwai: After having ignored the biggest church in town but interviewing a reverend about stigmatisation, abortion and contraceptives (we did not get the responses you’d stereotypically expect from a Christian) we drove on to Tiwai (river) Island Wildife Sanctuary where we met 2 girls, -impregnated by their teachers- in the mainland village Kambama. Originally we were told we’d meet 2 girls of which one was impregnated by her teacher but it soon turned out that the father of one of the girls was misinformed by his own child because she was so afraid of his reaction. Now that he is aware of the whole story he’s sent his daughter to her mother’s village whilst he remains in Kambama, unable to face his daughter. Both girls want to go back to school but cannot as long as the teacher is still teaching in school. For them, their ‘belly business’, as pregnancy is referred to here, is not so much the problem. Women get pregnant. All the time. They just want to finish their education. Unfortunately most families cannot afford to send their children to school twice. So when you get belly, you no get school.

After wrapping up the road trip a day earlier than planned we rushed back home to Freetown where days of translating and transcribing awaited us. Contrary to our planning we ended up editing only 1.5 days instead of 5. And I edited for about 2 minutes. Great capacity building if I may say so myself. No one was to blame but father time. We did manage to squeeze in a camera workshop in which we practiced different kinds of shots.

Now that Alex has left for his 3 weeks holiday I haven’t been able to get my couple of days off yet. My colleague of the information unit managed to take his immediately leaving me with the new volunteer. I do intend to travel to Kabala (north), known for the cool breeze and hills, before I leave. I really need to experience an un-work related trip. Struggling with public transport, being ripped off for being white etc. Looking forward to that, oh yes.

I will be here for less than a month from now on and feel slightly disappointed about my progress on the annual report. It’s a process of waiting for feedback. Hopefully the AR will be on the website before I leave. At least I did manage to (monitor) updating of the website, do some UNEP consultancy, facilitate the making of a documentary and various other bits and bobs along the line. So overall I’d say a successful experience I’ll treasure deep at heart.

And yes, this is probably the last blog as I do not foresee anything thrilling happening the coming weeks besides negotiating my future and possible the hills and breeze of Kabala. That is where I’ll be compensating for not taking enough photos the past 4 months...