Author: Ecki

The groups are working ambitiously on their projects! The photography group was in Mathare today to finally take their pictures. Our musicians were very creative as well and continued writing their song together. The film group disappeared into their privat film studio and only showed up at dinner time. Everyone is working quite hard these days. In the evening we came together to have dinner, hang out and talk about our day.

Waking up in Nairobi again, we had breakfast together and started our mid term evalutation afterwards!
We dealt with our personal challenges and successes which we have faced during the exchange until now. Also, the participants had the chance to write letters adressed only to the team or the whole group. In these they could write about their wishes, thoughts, doubts and positive experiences which they wanted to share with the group or just let the team know.

This morning after breakfast we sat together and each small group was able to present the concept of their project. We talked about a few improvements and the groups got together again to continue the work. After lunch we hopped onto matatus which brought us to a mystical place. It was a glade between two mountains with a waterfall, splashing through the rocks and trees. We took countless pictures and walked back to the matatus. Back in Tigoni we had time to relax until dinner. Then we had our country meetings.

Today was dedicated to the work in small groups which had come together the past day. After breakfast we met outside for some warm-ups and really waking up to be productive afterwards. For lunch and dinner time we always came together again. Otherwise the groups were able to exchange first ideas and discuss more about their topic. In the evening we had our country meetings.

The aim of this day was the division into small groups, which would then work further on our topic. In the morning we brainstormed on everything we have learned until now and wrote all the topics and subtopics down to a mindmap. After this the participants were free to use their time individually. The teamers had the task to summarize all the mindmaps into one big mindmap. In the end, three groups came togehter: music, film and photography. They will be working together for the following weeks!

Today the focus lay on theater. Babu, who is also called Joseph Wairimu, taught us about theories in the morning. We talked about the definition of theater, about the needed items to actually be able to act and create theater. After lunch we started acting. We laughed a lot while working on the tasks that were given to us. Everyone was supposed to tell a short story from the past day with an extrem emotion. After this, we got together in couples and worked on a short scene which we then presented infront of the whole group. We had A LOT of fun. Later on, we talked in our safe spaces. After dinner we had a bonfire in the forest, where we sang songs until we got tired.

Our morning began with Charles giving us a music workshop. We talked about the meaning music has to us, what is needed to create music and how it can be used in film and speech to achieve a certain atmosphere. After lunch we directly continued with the next workshop, this time: Film und 360°. We learned, that a scene can be filmed in many different ways, depending on the frame there will be a specific message sent out to the audience. Finally, we were supposed to choose two topics and film a short frequency.

Joseph Wairimu, an actor who is going to work with us on theater visited us to stay fort wo nights. After dinner we watched the movie „Nairobi Half Life.“

Let’s go to Tigoni! This morning at 9.30 a.m. we jumped onto the bus to take the journey. On our way, the bus was filled with voices, music and a lot of laughter while the sounds of the city slowly drifted into the silence of the landscape. Arriving in Tigoni, we seperated into the rooms we were given and had lunch. Later on, following the program the groups, that had researched on the topic already before the exchange presented their results and we discussed a bit about the informatio that was given. We were all pretty happy to hear, that the rest of the afternoon was meant tob e free time. On the football pitch parts of our group played a game against the football team from Tigoni. After dinner we had a group reflexion and ended the day with the documentary „Shootback“.

This morning after breakfast we received our todays guest Victor, also called Holvic. He told us a lot about the libraries that he has founded in Mathare, about his motivation and future plans for his project. Afterwards he answered all our questions and we had lunch together. In the afternoon Melissa and Luca had prepared a special game for us: the world trading game. This is a role game through which global trading structures and structures of power can be exposed and shown. The game does this in a clear way to understand complex relations. Afterwards we talked About our thoughts and feelings that had come up during the game and reflected on it.

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.