By Didier Winston Haguma, 15, Kigali, Rwanda
I was honoured to be among the three children selected from Rwanda to join others from the East African Community countries—Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda—to train in a filmmaking workshop offered by Lola Kenya Screen in Nairobi.
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On landing in Nairobi, Ogova Ondego, director of Lola Kenya Screen, was at at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to receive us. He welcomed us and took us to a lovely hotel in the centre of the city called Nairobi Safari Club.
One of our very first assignment as part of our training in filmmaking was a tour of Nairobi National Museum whose massive size was quite astonishing. It is beautifully decorated with artistic photos; the wildlife of Kenya is very wonderful and people of Kenya should conserve it because it is a treasure.
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At the museum, i learnt that the order of display of artistic photos is so attractive to visitors and depicts the true cultural background of Kenya, and it adds value to the tourism. I wish to visit my home national museum and share with them the best experience learnt from Nairobi National Museum.
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I also learnt of the bad historical periods of slave trade and colonialism which the people of Kenya went through. I observed that slave trade was facilitated by the railway line from the Kenyan Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to Uganda which was used to transport slaves and other goods from to the outside world.
My tour of Kenya Broadcasting Corporation was equally very interesting and inspiring, People at KBC introduced me to things like how news is prepared, how lights are turned on and balanced to enable cameras capture good image of the news presenter. I am saying it was inspiring because it is a job I can do without any hassles simply based on the five-day training skills I got from Lola Kenya Screen; the visit to KBC directly related to what I had learnt in the training session on how to operate a camera (how to fix lenses and positioning) and shoot for desired photo-sizes like close up, medium close, extreme large, large and very close ups. I was introduced to digital and analogue systems of broadcasting.
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The workshop itself was highly organised, conducted in an appropriate conference hall of reasonable size, very well decorated, having an air conditioner and closely situated near the restaurant. The trainers—Akpor Otebele and Prof Emmanuel Emasealu—were very highly skilled in their delivery of instructions.
Perhaps nothing can take away the great impression I had of Nairobi Safari Club, the hotel in which we stayed during our seven-day tour of Nairobi.
Nairobi Safari Club is a fantastic hotel with almost everything anybody could wish for; and my stay at the hotel was extremely enjoyable and has left strong memories in my mind. Interacting with other children was the best thing that ever happened to me; I managed to create contacts for networking from all the children present in the conference. We were highly honoured to sleep in a hotel which accommodates heads of states and governments, an inspiration to me to think big and become big in the future.
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My visit to Nairobi ended with a small farewell party organised by Lola Kenya Screen in collaboration with East African Film Network, East African Community and German Agency for International Development. We received our participation certificates and made our farewells. The following day we left the hotel for Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to catch our Rwandair express flight back home where we landed safely.
