Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin July 26th, 2008

Woke up at 12, then back to sleep until 6.

Breakfast was rice porridge made in milk with a bit of sugar.

After breakfast, we joined the staff for morning devotions.

Then I had a quick meeting with Nazira to talk about the schedule and the rest of the week. We decided we wanted to spend the morning visiting the various projects in Tokmok and then spend the afternoon going over the rest of the logistics. This would also give her a chance to review the prepared document.

Our first stop was School of Blessing. We took a quick tour and had a quick interview with the principal. It was funny because I asked her to pretend she was working for some b-roll.

Then we went to the playground. I asked Nazira to model on some of the things. I then shot some b-roll of the various flowers in the playground. There was a woman with her family there that was really eager to get into every shot. I humored her and shot a little bit.

Our next stop was the orphanage. The kids had chicken pox so they had put some green stuff on. I also shot the cook as she prepared lunch. We took a quick tour, and then it was on to the next stop.

The Professional Institute is still under construction. We took a quick tour of the complete sections and then I got shots of them working.

We then stopped by Hope Center, a free clinic and school. We got a quick tour and saw another short term missionary team, mostly from California and some from New York.

We came back for lunch at School of blessing. Fried rice with carrots and a cucumber salad. It was a nice chance to get to know Nazira a little bit.

At 3:00pm, they prepared snack for us. It was fantastic. We had these flat biscuits with apple and other sort of toppings and a fresh homemade raspberry jam.

I was supposed to have a 2pm with Nazira, but I got bumped to 2:30, then I got bumped again to 3:30. Not that I minded, because there wasn’t much else I was doing. When I finally did get to meet with her, it was nice to know that she was just as organized as I am. She had the next few days all planned out and had contacted a whole bunch of people and set up a few interviews.

Marya, aka Marcia, was interested in helping out, but it’s hard to say what her role is going to be. I really only need one interviewer. But translation may take some time.

I talked to both of them about how to conduct interviews and showed them the example I did with John. We also watched part of the interview that Nazira did with the principal of School of Blessing. I gave her some pointers.

It seemed like they were excited, but at the same time really daunted by the task. It was just so much to do and so new for both of them. This was pretty new for me too, but I tried to stay confident and positive in their skills.

At 5:00, we went to the playground. It was a 30 minute walk. On the way, I asked Renata about Ruslon and Stoz. Apparently, both are really common names, and she didn’t know who I was talking about. Once I described Ruslon and his tooth problem, she began to remember. I could tell that she wasn’t really comfortable talking about him. She said that he had liked him or something. And to show his love for her, he would point toy guns at her and shout, “bang bang”.

At the playground, we saw a pool donated by RCCC (Rutgers Chinese Community Church). It was pretty cool to see. There were tons of kids playing around. It was also nice to be around water as there was no water in the rest of town.

The team performed Mission Impossible and then Jon gave his testimony. While Jon spoke, I went outside to shoot the kids playing. There was this small pipe with a small dribble of water. The kids would put their thumbs over it to increase the pressure so the water would shoot up. They worked together to wash their hands after eating ice cream and also used it as a water fountain.

As I was shooting video of it, one of the kids stuck up his hand to try and cover the shot. It was kind of a weird experience.

We got a ride back to the office for dinner. Dinner consisted of beef noodles with the slightest broth. The noodles were really good.

• Kyrgyzstan: Day 2 - 7/8/08 (0)
• Kyrgyzstan: Day 3 - 7/9/08 (0)
• Kyrgyzstan: Day 9 - 7/15/08 (0)
• Kyrgyzstan: Day 8 - 7/14/08 (0)
• Kyrgyzstan: Day 7 - 7/13/08 (0)

Tags: Documentaries, Interviews, Kyrgyzstan, Missions, Production, Trips

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