Open Air Cinema in Kenya: Taking Notes and Changing Venues

I was talking to a man as I flipped through pictures on my laptop. He noticed a landscape picture all in white and asked me what it was. Snow, I said, and he just stared in astonishment. As we flipped through pictures of Switzerland in winter we talked of skiing and sledding and hiking in snow up to your knees. He was amazed. We talked about what cars do in the snow, and how trains were better in snow than cars. I guess Kilifi town doesn't have winter blizzards... Today was the first day where I gave full control over to the girls.

I have picked two leaders among them, Salma and Grace, and they know what to do. They are responsible and serious about the opportunity to manage open air cinema events for the next couple years. They carry notepads with them and stop frequently to take determined notes. Today I found them kneeling next to the generator sketching out the schema of electrical cords. I had talked to them earlier about the way which we lay the extension cords.

We make sure to keep the power for the audio on one circuit, and the projection power on another. Audio can surge and boom, depending on the signal. It can trip circuits because it can be unpredictable. If an audio powerline surges too much and trips the circuit, the projector will not lose electricity, which is bad. Like end of the world bad. Or at least I make it sound that way (projector bulbs are expensive and far away from Kenya). I've explained this all to Grace and Salma and they're doing their best to remember because this weekend there will be a written test about everything under the outdoor cinema sun.

Tonight, we moved fields to Bukungu Stadium, in central Killifi. It's a big open soccer field with public bathrooms, which apparently is enough to dub it a Stadium. The girls a doing a great job talking to the audiences. It's fun to hand them the microphone and encourage them to be confidently loud, playful, polite, and professional all at the same time. They speak in their local vernacular. With lots of Karibu's and Asanti-sanna's (welcome's and thank you's).