The world wide interweb

It's heeeeeeere!

According to just about every news outlet on the planet, SEACOM has flipped the switch to ignite high speed internet in East Africa. As someone who spent much of her first days in the country hunting for a fast connection like a Masai warrior hunts for lions, I am overjoyed. The fact that I have been able to video-chat and upload my stories from a coffee shop in Dagoretti Corner is impressive, but imagine being able to use...gasp!...SKYPE! The future Medillians' phone bills from Nairobi will be far less painful.

Of course, Kenya is taking its sweet time hopping on the high-speed bandwagon, as Kenya tends to do. Just ask anyone dodging the crater-sized holes on the side of Ngong Road. Someday, we're told, internet cables will line those holes. But as with so many things in this country, the capacity is there and the infrastructure...oooh, the infrastructure.

Once the cable installation is finished in Nairobi (2012?), it's hard to say how much of an impact it will have on the average citizen's pocketbook. But one thing that should be discussed when it comes to this high-speed hooplah is how it will affect the media.

If I had to guess, I'd say only good can come of this. The online sites for newspapers like Nation and The Standard are filled with broken links and yesterday's news. And the station I work for doesn't even have a website. A youtube channel that got updated in 2008? Yes. But a website? No.

I've told stories of "the death of newspapers" over dinners here, and no one can believe it. But perhaps with greater access and faster connectivity, Kenya too will join the new media world.

Time will tell, and if I know Kenya, it's gonna be awhile...

Big Kate Diaries

On Sunday, Kenya and I shared our one month anniversary. Now this relationship has been rocky, to say the least, but still, I decided to celebrate the occasion with a safari to Masai Mara.

Um...good decision.

Often when you travel with someone you discover things about them you never knew before. This can move your relationship forward or stop it in its tracks, but for me and Kenya, well, we've fallen truly, madly, deeply in love.

I don't want to challenge the universe to make life hard on me, but I feel as though no mater what happens over the next 5 weeks, my safari has made the entire trip 100 percent worth it. I spent 3 days wondering what I did to deserve the beauty around me.

If you have the means, I highly recommend the Governors Camp in Masai Mara, my friends. It is so choice. I took about a million pictures and an hour of video, but here is a condensed 5 minute peek into the single most beautiful place I have ever been.

o-h-i-o

Life is funny.

Yesterday I happened upon a story that wasn't there when I started. I'd been sent to cover a nothing story about a water company making a donation to a basketball camp. Luckily, we were late and missed the event, but in its place we found a bunch of hearing impaired athletes in Kent State jerseys. Obviously, I had to see what was going on there. The result was, actually, pretty cool.

Boot n' rally

This week I was temporarily sidelined by some bad Ethiopian food. I've been so proud of how my stomach has handled the Kenyan cuisine, but, apparently, my system is no fan of our neighbor to the north. I took Wednesday off to recover, but by Thursday I was thrust right back into the fast-paced world of Kenyan motor sports.

Rally driving is pretty cool in America, but in Kenya, it's just plain awesome. These crazy drivers bound all over the desert, dodging wild animals and potholes like you couldn't imagine. I haven't gotten to take in a race in person yet, but the driver I interviewed as a lead-up to this weekend's race invited me to travel with his crew next month. I intend to hold him to that.

Language barrier

I've been told many times that if you're going to say something on the air, it should sound like something you would say in real life. Be conversational, right? This is one of those rules I understand about television. In fact, I even like it.

But I feel confident that no one, in the history of a Kenyan journalism school, has been taught this rule.

As I waited in line to voice my script yesterday, the reporter next to me stumbled over and over the word "expedited." She could not pronounce it to save her life.

"Why don't you change it to 'sped up?'" I interjected.

Cue the daily looking-at-the-mzungu-like-she-has-five-heads.

Later that day, a news editor looking over my script made a few changes...

Before: One South African official points to rundown facilities.

After: South African High Commissioner to Kenya Tony Msimanga says this is due to the fact that our facilities are not up to standards.

I don't think it's just a Kenyan thing. When I watch CNN International I often wonder how the British anchors have the lung capacity for some of these leads.

Call me a brutish American, but I gotta say, I'm happy the prompter back home reads at an eighth grade level.

The poetry of sport

I LOVE sports. I mean, I'm not kidding you, love them. I think a big part of it is the sounds. Gym shoes squeaking on the court, a volleyball reflecting off a sweet block...I mean...that stuff is good. But mainly, it's the roar of the crowd.

In Kenya, crowds are easy to come by, especially at national events. On Saturday, I covered a match between the Kenya women's volleyball team and Tunisia. It was NUTS...and this was just a game that would QUALIFY them to play in a game that actually mattered. The sense of national pride really seeps out through the sports here, and it's a beautiful thing I feel lucky to witness.

When I got back to the station, it took me six minutes to write the script for the highlights. When my editor read it, he said, "That was like poetry." I think that means he liked it, but I also think it means I was damn excited when I wrote it.

A K24 colleague often says if there were no sports, she would not be a journalist. I'm starting to think I agree.

VoxPop

Vox populi: Latin for "voice of the people."

In Kenya, a Vox Populi, or VoxPop, is equivalent to an American "Man On the Street" story. At home, I groan when I'm asked to do an MOS. (Who caaaares what these non-experts have to say about property taxes, or whatever people are all mad about that day?) But in Kenya, it's fun hearing all these new and different opinions. And let me tell you, Kenyans like to be HEARD - even when you're just asking about them Ronaldo going to Real Madrid.

Unfortunately, these sometimes-feisty opinions aren't always restricted to camera time. As an American, you'll hear the voice of the people quite often, as many Kenyans view Americans in their country a sounding board for their views on the US. I got a little VoxPop of my own at a Nairobi club this weekend, thanks to my president's trip to this continent.

As I stood in the tiny bathroom hallway of a Westlands night club, a very drunk woman entered to join me, my housemate, and about 8 other ladies.

"OBAMA, GHANA, KENYA! KENYA, GHANA, OBAMA!"

"I'm pretty sure that was to you..." my housemate whispered to me.

The intoxicated newcomer went on. "You think Obama is yours?! He's MINE..."

And a few moments later, "Your president is punishing my country!"

Her not-as-drunk friend stepped in to apologize for the intoxicated ramblings. But when I replied, "Thanks, I'm sorry, Obama is not punishing Kenya, you know," even the sober woman turned to me, dead serious, and said, "Obama. Is punishing. Kenya."

Consider your vox heard, people.

(Re)source list

No cameras. No computer. No toilet paper. No problem!

At K24, there is a constant want for resources...and after about a week, you're pretty used to it. Don't act surprised about the fact that there's no computer paper for the one-out-of-ten printers that works, or you might seem spoiled.

It takes a lot longer to get everything done here, but in the end, you can still do your job. Today I wrote a story about some athletes whose lack of resources is far more trying than my own. After that, I won't be complaining about the lack of desk chairs around here anytime soon.

The weirdest story I have ever written...

Over the past few months I have done stories on pirate impersonators, cat food shelters and even a heroin addict. This story was more bizarre than all of those combined.

Here's the anchor lead-in:

THE STATE OF DECEASED SPORTS ADMINISTRATOR JOSHUA OKUTHE'S BODY IS UNKNOWN IN LIGHT OF A COURT BATTLE BY HIS ALLEGED CLAN MEMBERS. A RULING FROM THE HIGH COURT IS SEEKING TO PREVENT THE FORMER ATHLETE'S CREMATION - BUT IT MAY BE TOO LATE...

(...are ya hooked???)

Swahili lesson of the day

"Rambo" means "pretty." So, if someone in the office keeps calling you rambo, it does NOT mean they think you look like Sylvester Stallone.

Lesson learned.

No photos, please.

I decided to use my day off, Sunday, to venture out to Karen, an affluent neighborhood named for Karen Blixen, of Out of Africa fame. Karen houses Nairobi's National Park, where lions and rhinos roam free mere kilometers from downtown. I wanted to try my hand at a matatu (the crazy buses that drive around with their doors open) to get there. I had mild success, though I landed at the wrong park entrance, so a nice wildlife service employee offered to walk with me to the elephant nursery I sought.

As we walked, we got to talking, and of course, he first asked me what I was doing in Kenya. I told him I was a journalism student interning with a local TV station and suddenly his eyes lit up with recognition.

"K24!!! Oh my! It's you!"

Apparently, he had seen my athletics story, and boy was he excited about it. I suppose it's not tough to notice the random mzungu at Nyayo stadium, but still, it felt good to know that my Kenyan debut did not go unwatched. Here it is for you non-Nairobians:



Note: Apologies for the poor video quality. I can only upload modem quality files with the internet here, and sometimes audio is a casualty, but I promise at air all the AV are there!

The rules are...there are no rules.

It's time to throw out the playbook, people.

For the last 9 months, I have had the basic tenents of broadcast journalism beaten into my skull with great vigor. Write to your video. Write in and out of bites. Sequence, for the love of God, sequence! But in Nairobi, as I clung to those ideals, I became ever more frustrated with my work at K24. You see, the basic laws of broadcast are just not so basic here.

1) Write to video: Last quarter my favorite broadcast professor had to work hard to get me to think first about the shots I had, then the words I would use to tell the story. At Medill, you're supposed to shoot first, write later, and you want your track to match your video. At K24, you're lucky if you have video in the first place. A correspondent may have done the leg work while you're back at the studio writing and trying your best to guess/hope/wish/pray they got the shots you wanted. If you shoot the video yourself, it still has to be digitized when you get back to the station, and that can take up to 5 hours on a busy day. If the person digitizing is feeling rushed, you may get your interviews, and not much more...so if you tailor your script to the video you think you have, you will likely be re-tracking in no time.

2) Write in and out of bites: To avoid being repetitive, we're told not to explain the soundbite coming up, just to set it up. I'm pretty great at that back home, but here, 75% of my quotes are in Swahili. I don't even know what the people I'm quoting are saying when I start writing, I have to wait until someone can come translate for me. That also makes the next law of journalism somewhat trying....

3) Report both sides: Ummm...hmm. If someone here understands me, I am pretty much interviewing them and putting them in my story, so, sorry. We're talking sports, not nuclear disarmament negotiations...settle down.

4) Sequence your shots: Wide, medium, tight does not seem to be a common practice with camera people here. Shaky, bobbly, short....but not wide, medium, tight. If a shot last more than 4 seconds, well that's pretty much airing too.

5) Technical specs can make or break a piece: I have not yet encountered a camera capable of white balancing. I've barely encountered a camera capable of focusing.

6) Full makeup and professional dress: HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

The thing is, my stories here aren't going to be perfect, and the second I accepted that, they got a whole lot better. A very wise man often tells me, "just do your best." At Medill, I'd say he's crazy and I need to do way better than my best for an A, but here, my best seems to be just about all I can do to stay sane. When you've got 10 seconds to write and shoot a standup, 12 minutes to edit the package and no time to worry about the fact that you look like hell, well, this happens. And ya know what? It's not so bad.

Apparently, I'm white.

I've gotten pretty used to being the only caucasian in the room.

Okay, I've even gotten pretty used to being the only caucasian in the building.

And at first, I didn't even really notice. Obviously, I can tell when little kids are staring at me and pointing me out to their parents, and I know when I hear the words mzungu, malami or Obama in a nearbay conversation, someone's talking about me. My roommate overhears people discussing me in Swahili, and she says for the most part, if it seems like people are being weird, it's because they just don't know how to act around me. In some cases, she says, they're afraid of me. That's kind of hard to hear, but I think given a little more time they'll see I'm a just a normal human being and a reporter like them.

But yesterday, well, yesterday I was frustrated. It was one of those Kenya days where you do nothing but wait. Wait for a ride, wait for the press conference, wait for your interview, etc. I wasn't even bothered by it, which made me feel like I was finally starting to fit in here. Then we entered the chambers of the Minister for Sport, and got ready to report on her meeting with the Chinese ambassador. As I stood to the side with a slew of reporters, taking notes and balancing the extra mic cords on my shoulder, a print reporter made his way through the crowd to ask me, "Are you with them?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, and he replied, "Chinese? You're one of them?"

A sea of reporters surrounded me. A SEA. I had a K24 mic banner IN MY HAND.

I asked Tony afterwards, "Do I look Chinese to you?" He said, "Well...you look white, so..."

It's hard to imagine that happening in the States. Not the whole someone thinking I'm Chinese thing (although, yeah that'd be a bit a stretch), but the blatant assumption on the basis of race. Can you fathom the response if you were at a press conference with the ambassador from Venezuela and you assumed a Hispanic reporter you'd never seen before must work for them?

That alone was a minor incident, and not one that really affected me, but it brought to mind an issue I've been meaning to discuss. I knew I would look different than everyone else, but I was ill-prepared for how differently I would be treated. Kenya's colonial and tribal histories are clearly complex, and there is no way I could fathom the complicated emotions that are now tied to race in some people's minds. I'm not saying everyone should treat me like I'm local, because, obviously, I'm not. But while not everyone acts oddly around me, the ones who do say such peculiar things.

The other day in the morning news meeting, one reporter started describing his story idea in Swahili. Quickly, another journalist tried to help by saying, "Excuse me, we have a white person in the room, you need to speak English." I think, in her mind, I really don't speak Swahili because my skin is white, and not because, you know, I didn't grow up in East Africa.

This trip has often reminded me how lucky I am to live the life I do. But when I see the way people look at me, or realize how they're treating me differently, it makes me so thankful for my upbringing. I'm thankful my parents taught me the importance of understanding and appreciating other cultures. I'm thankful I went to a diverse high school and went on to study at a highly international college. Understanding different perspectives and knowing how to treat everyone like an equal human being regardless of their race, gender or socioeconomic background is a great strength for a reporter (and for that matter, a human being).

I know that's a quality I was afforded because I have access to so many cultures, and not everyone in Nairobi has the same exposure. But I guess now, I just hope that through my work at K24 I can bring a little more acceptance to one Kenyan newsroom and a few Kenyan living rooms.

Under presser

A professor once told me: "Someday you'll cover an event at The Drake. You're gonna wanna drink the champagne. Do NOT drink the champagne."

Journalists in the States do their best to remain impartial, at the very least, on the surface. So at press conferences and events, we try not to indulge in gifts, like food, from our sources.

In Kenya, I'm pretty excited when I cover a press conference, because I know it means I get to eat lunch that day.

Many press conferences, or pressers, here come complete with buffets. If you don't eat, everyone thinks you're rude, or perhaps even crazy. And that's not the only way they differ from the States.

Today I attended a press event for an upcoming "bootcamp challenge" at Paradise Lost, a gorgeous national park on Kiambu Road. At noon, my colleague and I were picked up in a van containing the rest of Nairobi's sports media, and carted off to the presser. When we got there, Tony, my colleague, said he didn't like the way the sun was hitting the speakers' table, so he moved it to a completely different spot. No problem.



Then the press conference began, and the bootcamp challenge sponsors decided to show us an example of what some of the weekend's events would be like. To do so, they asked the press corps to try them out, and the camera men for every reporter shot and aired said displays.



Talk about becoming part of the story. When Tony and I went back to the newsroom to write our scripts (mine in English, his in Swahili) his came complete with self-taken shot of himself in a rowboat. When we were editing he tried like hell to put a shot of me taking notes (no I did not participate in the demonstrations!) into my story and I screamed until he took it out.



You see, last quarter a band of renegade pirate impersonators covered me in buccaneer garb during a shoot, and I got a stern warning that I had better not use those shots. In my defense, those pirates attacked me, and I never would have used a shot of me holding a sword, but I definitely saw where my professor was coming from.

You can't be part of the story, no matter how silly it is. I may have to bend on a few of my journalistic principles here (I mean, a girl's gotta eat), but that one is sticking with me.