Programmer Gertjan Zuilhof teamed up with Indonesian filmmaker to watch Edwin in Kenya. They ignored the Masai Mara and Mount Kenya Parks. They went to the dark and dirty parts of Nairobi.
Most people visit Kenya on a tourist safari group package. We saw them coming and going in and out of our hotel, while we profited from
the group discount and stayed. The hotel was gated and guarded and most tourists never enter the city of Nairobi that even by locals is nicknamed Nairobery. But we did not come to stay within the gates, so we went out, followings the flights of the Marabou Storks that scavenge the more dirty parts of the city.
Marabou Storks in Nairobi.
The big birds (with a wingspan like a Condor) rested in trees everywhere in the city, also right opposite the hotel. I asked a taxi driver where they would find there food. They fly far he said. As far as Dandora. At that point the word Dandora had little meaning to me, but that would change.
To get something of the ground in a place you don't know and never been to before you need at least one resourceful local who it willing to help. Luckily I found people like that all over Africa and in Nairobi it was Jimmy Ogonga who showed us the way. Jimmy is running a small but sophisticated arts organization and he had the names and numbers of the filmmakers and artists we should meet. He also out placed his nice assistant Jenipher Nabs to Edwin's film production.
Jimmy Ononga trying one of Edwin's kretek cigarets.
When Jimmy heard we would like to follow the Marabous to Dandora he made it clear we could not just go there. In the middle of Dandora is a huge dumping site (that is where the Marabous feed themselves) and around it are the worst slums of Africa. The area is controlled by gangs. Good and bad gangs. Good gangs are the hip hop gangs. Only they can protect you. He would phone somebody of Ukoo Flani MauMau, one of the more famous hip hop formations. He did so on the spot and the same afternoon we would meet the notorious rappers MC Kah and G.rongi.
G. rongi, the Hip Hop star in his garden.
Rapper MC Kah in rapper G. rongi's garden.
Very nice cool guys those hip hop stars and we hang around in the nice garden of G. rongi for the rest of the afternoon. Smoking things that are only legal in Holland and of quite bad quality in Kenya. G. rongi's house was situated in a very rich neighborhood and we wondered how he could have the street credibility to get us around in Dandora. But G.rongi introduced us to the khat chewing Robert who was setting up film activities as a social worker in Dandora and who was a hip hop musician as well.
So a few days later we indeed went to Dandora. Edwin wanted to find some local old people to play the dialogues Tan Chui Mui had written for him (see blog 28). Robert invited us in the back room of a local bar.
Musician and social worker Robert and Edwin.
The idea was to let the people who came for audition play a game of true or dare. The recording of it would make clear who would work the best for the movie.
Edwin and assistant Jenipher Nabs during Dandora auditions.
Now we have to admit that we came later than announced to the bar. By the time we arrived most of the aspiring actors were already drunk.
Audition in a Dandora bar.
We had a very funny and entertaining afternoon, but no actors that could be used. Yet, the going to Dandora was not completely useless. Like so often when warned for dangerous places in Africa, Dandora turned out to be just like any other slum neighborhood. Not a nice place, but mainly a place where normal people try to survive by running little shops and little businesses. On his last day Edwin would shoot a music video with Robert in the neighborhood.
And the rappers pointed us in another useful direction. We asked them where we could see and hear local life music and after some hesitation, it was a normal week day, they mentioned Simmers. Not a place they would go to, but we could try. Clearly the place was not cool, but they were nice enough to bring us anyway. It was a place for men in suits and prostitutes and great Congolese life music. In the audience we spotted an interesting looking older man. A musician on his night of. Also from Congo. Yes, he could play in a movie. Pas de problème. We could call him Bikas and Bikas would be the star
of Edwin's movie. So in the next chapter we go to another slum, Mlango Kubwa, to the little room where Bikas lives and where Edwin shot the movie.
Auditioning Musician Bikassy.
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