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Has anyone seen the Constant Gardner? A good portion of the movie takes place in Kenya and I was wondering what people thought. Especially if you have been to Kenya, what didi you think about how Kenya was portrayed? Was the representation of the informal settlements in synch with your experience?
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Re: Constant Gardner
Mon, September 26, 2005 - 6:50 PMYes. I thought it was the most accurate representation I've seen. If only it had the smells.
The world would be a better place if more countries were portrayed as real places. The experiences of the people in the movie were really different than mine but the feel felt a lot more authentic to me than other movies I've seen that have "Kenya" in them with all the jambo bwana bull.
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Re: Constant Gardner
Mon, September 26, 2005 - 7:06 PMI agree, it was pretty close to what I experienced, although as a white chick I was definately called out and got a lot more attention than the main woman did. It was pretty intense for me to watch. Part of it made me miss it and the other part remembered how stressful it could be. -
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Re: Constant Gardner
Mon, September 26, 2005 - 8:11 PMYeah, totally. That scene where she's in the front of the crowd in Kiberra watching that show and it was all comfortable and no one was staring at her was a little off.
I had similar feelings. It was shot beautifully, and the real experience is very different with the noise and smell and attention. But it treated Kenya as an actual place- which is sadly so rare in media. And it seems to me that very few african countries are portrayed in movies anyway, and a lot of times it's as "Africa" rather than an actual region. -
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Re: Constant Gardner
Tue, September 27, 2005 - 7:23 AMWell I am more anxious to see it now, I had seen the previews and thought it had looked great, so now that you say it portrays Kenya in a natural state I am more intrigued. Kenya was a bit unique while Brenda and I were there, there was an election going on and you could feel the tension in the air, especially in Nairobi (aka Nairobbery). I still use the fact that my current passport is fromt he US embassy in Kenya, which blew up a few months later, great conversation starter. Sorry, in bit of a sarcastic mood this morning I guess. -
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Re: Constant Gardner
Mon, January 16, 2006 - 9:31 AMOk I finally saw the movie, very good. It fit Kenya very well for me. I don't know if anyone else remebers the time Marla, took us to the neighborhood in Kenya to meet the puppet group that taught HIV awareness. That was what I remembered, how we went there and went to meet the guy who lead the group and then later see them perform. I just can't remember who went with us that time. I think Erin went. Any way, I think the movie was fairly accurate, I was struck by how the people spoke. Kenyans we very polite people especially in how they spoke.
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Re: Constant Gardner
Wed, September 28, 2005 - 2:38 PMThat's a good point. I was damn near assaulted a few times. My blonde hair was a liability. I hadn't thought about that aspect. And I could practically smell it. My stomach was upset when I left the theatre just like it was then.
It cracked me up when all the kids were giving them thumbs up and saying "how are you" over and over again. Because even the kids at Kai would do that all the time. -
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Re: Constant Gardner
Thu, September 29, 2005 - 7:30 AMAhh, ok Brenda, now reminds me of the time Mike and I were at the home stay in Western Kenya and we were out walking with our host brother, we came around a corner in the path and came on two small children, one around 5 and the other much younger. The older child started yelling "Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu" (for non-swahili speakers, it means traveler or white person) and jumping up and down clapping her hands. At the same time the little one started bawling and hid behind her sister, terrified of what Mike and I might be. It was the feel that came over me at that moment, These two children may have never seen a pale skinned person in thier lives and we may have been their first, their reactions were amazing, fear and excitement all at once. It was something I had not really thought about until I was encountered with it. But then again that was the same home stay where the priciple of the local school who was our host, asked us with a straight face if we had robots who did our chores for us at home, apparently he had seen "Its a small wonder" rerun on TV and though it was a real portrayal of life in the US in the 1980. So there is my "One Time.....In Africa.......". -
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Re: Constant Gardner
Tue, October 18, 2005 - 11:22 AMWhen I was in Kenya studying Swahili, we were told that Mzungu means someone who is a little crazy, a little "off," which is how the first whites came across when they came into the area. I suppose it still has something of that sense for the people who use it now -- that is, the native speakers. The whites who use it are mostly ignorant of its deeper meaning...
Like Jambo, which means trouble or something-the-matter. The greeting is technically 'jambo for Hujambo, which translates as "Nothing the matter?" I used to always try and get the hu- into it when I used it as a greeting (maybe like the people who pronounce the t in often... :) -
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Re: Constant Gardner
Tue, October 18, 2005 - 11:34 AMMy sense of Jambo was that it was originally a contraction or shortening of hujambo or hamjambo that was in common usage, but then in the heavily touristed areas it turned into something like a test- like if you are happy responding with "jambo" you are a honky cracker and didn't even bother to get the greetings right. I would make a point to respond with correct grammar ("sijambo" or "hatujambo" if my extremely rusty memory serves me) just to make a point, but I don't know that it made me less of a honky cracker, it just made me a cracker who spoke swahili.
Mzungu as I understand it can be translated as "one who goes around" like around in circles, because a kizungu is a roundabout in a road and kuzungu is to go around. Mzungu can certainly be used as an insult, but mainly I think it's just descriptive.
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Re: Constant Gardner
Sun, January 22, 2006 - 11:51 AMI loved the Constant Gardner- especially the part that showed the UN food drops in Sudan being followed by raids and massacres... When I was there in 99 (sadly the last semester before it was ruthlessly shut down)an alum came to visit- I can't remember her name- who was working for Doctors without Borders and spent a couple nights with me in the hut of wisdom sharing gut wrenching stories from all over East Africa, the horn and Sierra Leone. Especially disturbing were her stories about Sudan, how the World Health Organization was dropping food, knowing full well that anyone that received food would soon be massacred- when she filed an official report to them about it- it was covered up and denied.
Some of you probably already read it- I found it in the library there- but the book "Lords of Poverty" breaks down the whole profiteering off of aid in East Africa- calls out groups like the WHO, USAID, Save the Children etc.
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Re: Constant Gardner
Wed, January 25, 2006 - 6:27 AMThere's a Friends World connection to Constant Gardner that only some of us 'oldtimers' would know about. One of the minor actors in the film is a Kenyan named Sidede Onyulo. He played the pilot who was airlifting supplies to the remote provinces. Before his acting career, he worked in the Ministry of Cooperative Development. As part of my orientation (in 1980) at Kai, he came to speak to the students about the cooperative movement in Kenya. We also visited him at the University Of Nairobi at least once. He was a bright, energetic speaker who was a true supporter and friend to Friends World College. You can also see him in a more major role in a German film (made in Kenya) called "Nowhere in Africa". This film won the Oscar for Best Foriegn Language Film in 2003. Really a good film!
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Re: Constant Gardner
Tue, March 21, 2006 - 12:15 AMWhile I was in West Africa, I think I am still allowed to respond to this. I recently saw both the Constant Gardner and the documentary Darwin's Nightmare (www.darwinsnightmare.com) and must strongly reccomend the latter for a good contemporary film on the impact of globalization on Africa. While it may be harder to find in English, Darwin's Nightmare reveals the communities around Lake Victoria, in a terribly honest, poetic, and heartbreaking tale that I can honestly say is one of the most moving films I have seen in many, many years.
