Filming Day That We will always Recall

Let me tell you MainaThis is the most memorable project I have ever done in my line of work. We had to travel to Ndaragwa, Central Kenya, to document this family history. Going to the venue was smooth with no hitches at all. We got there, the couple was super hospitable. You know in the rural areas how one gets overfed…(anyway hatukuwekewa ka mchele…so drama haiko hapa) The family documentation project was successful.

So now, on our way back, that’s when the drama started. If you have watched the ‘Wrong Turn Movies’ you can relate to this. Sasa si vijana wa Nairobi wanataka kuona views za Lake. No sooner had we started enjoying the scenic views than the car got a puncture after hitting a very sharp stone. Sema instant deflation pap! Yes I know changing tyres is an easy task…kitu ya dakika mbili tu!It was around 4:30pm, in the middle of nowhere, anyway it was around Lake Ol-bolosat

Haya, I forgot to tell you that it was a borrowed car and my friend hadn’t completely familiarized himself with the car. So I took out the wheel spanner and the jack. Maina let me tell you, someone had swapped the actual spanner with a bigger-sized one. The spanner’s size was bigger than the wheel nuts. Sema kujaribu u-juakali wote hapo

Out of nowhere, it started raining. Mvua aki! So we paused a bit. After the rains, we embarked on our mission. We visited the neighbourhood asking them to assist us with their spanners. You completely know how it goes down in shagz, you first have to create a quick rapport before proceeding with your begging(for lack of a better word). Unfortunately, only one person had a car in that area zone. He gave us his spanner only for it to fail There were no signs of nduthis passing by. The nearest town centre was around 35 kilometres away

Remember the story of the good samaritan? Twendelee na story, out of nowhere,  a man shows up walking. At first, we were to ignore him with the assumption that since he’s not driving, he wouldn’t be of any help. But Mungu ni nani! We approached him and he said that he had a cross( a speacial type of a spanner that resembles the cross). He went to his house and brought it with him, and guess what? The cross worked since it had different size combinations. We thanked him and of course tipped him( We didn’t want karma to follow us on our way back to Nairobi)

Haya, buckle up! We cruised through the forest(Aberdares, outskirts though) on a rough deserted road.

After roughly 1.5 hours we managed to get to a tarmacked road.  Gilgil was our first destination to get our punctured tyre repaired. We got a mech who took his sweet time in repairing it. There was a queue though. We took snacks as we waited for him to get done. We were leaving Gilgil at around 10pm. Next stop was supposed to be in Nairobi.  We drove carefully all along till we got to Kijabe and found a roadblock. The reason as to why we were stopped was because our hazard lights were on and it was a Subaru. Haya the officer goes straight to check the insurance. Aki polisi wewe! Since it had drizzled, I see him wiping the windscreen so that he could get a good view of it. Alaaaa! The insurance had expired 2 days agoTeren Teren…”Kijana mbona huna insurance?” He asks. So my friend steps outside to confirm..true to the word it had expired. Sasa I forgot to tell you that the owner of the car wasn’t in the country, he had travelled all the way to Dubai. Utaanzia wapi kumtafuta?

After making a few calls he managed to reach him. The owner said that he renewed the insurance but didn’t replace the sticker that was there. So after a few push and pull the officer said that we have to buy him some tea since it was too cold outside. The cold that was there weeeeh. Wacha tu!

After all that, we managed to proceed with our journey. It was getting close to midnight. Kufika around Limuru, we agreed to use Limuru road to shorten the route. Ata we didn’t go past a kilometre. With the fog and mist that was there you could hardly see past  20 metres We saw it fit to use the Kikuyu route. Drama ziliishia hapo I was getting home some few minutes to 1am.

Despite all that, we managed to successfully document the family history which was interesting to watch and listen to. The beauty of documenting your family history in a video format is that the future generation will get to watch and connect emotionally with their origin. There will be no broken telephone conversation as the information will remain original from the narrator. 

Lensically Creative Media is here to help you in creating memories for your future generation. We are open to travelling across Kenya to get to you