Africa: Hot Shaves and a Visit to ITV
We are up early to get Alex back together with his laptop which he left uploading in the office last night. The drive is supposed to pick us up at 8:30 a.m. We are still cooling our heels 45 minutes later when Maina arrives to give up a lift. The frustrating thing is that we are fairly certain the office is only a handful of blocks away, but we are not entirely certain of which way to head out. Our anticipation of getting to the office is for naught, as it is locked up. So close, and yet so far away. I lent Alex my laptop so that he could at least get on the internet with the Airport. That kept him going until the keys arrived.
The early morning view from our pad.
Every construction site is shored up with unmilled lumber
Hanif encouraged Alex and I not to shave during our Ruaha and Mufindi trip with the promise of a proper shave when we got back to town. We head over to an Indian barber to fulfill our hot shave fantasies. I have come to enjoy the beard that has grown in, so I opt for just a little clean up on the bottom. It always a little disconcerting to have someone with a razor at your throat. But there were enough witnesses that I thought I would be alright.
Photo © Harvey Reed
After we got all cleaned up, we headed over to the facilities of IPP Media. IPP runs two TV stations, four or five radio stations and a newspaper, The Guardian. They seem to be well positioned as a major player in the East African media market. We are meeting with Lema, the IT Director for the IPP group. He is interested in having a portion of his staff join the Pixel Corps. We start out looking at a group putting together web sites. Check out Dar Hotwire for some of their work.
The designers of the ITV web group (from left) Shija and Kanuti, our host Lema and Alex.
A quick snap of the main ITV studio. We are not supposed to be taking pictures
DJ Baby Kabae behind the mic.
The Channel 5 video team. They are all using Final Cut Pro to cut DV.
The pre-press room for the newspaper. They are well equipped with G4’s with fancy Lacie monitors.
We had been hoping to meet with their staff today, but we will have to come back in the morning. We head back to the office to get online. We seem to be living from connection to connection. The rest of the afternoon and evening are spent at the office.
Chantal, Harvey, Maina and I head over to a chinese restaurant for dinner. We are a little surprised to find that it is about $10 a person, when we are more accustomed to $3-5. The ambiance is nice and the food extremely well presented, so we don’t mind too much.
Our big meal out. Harvey just couldn’t wait to get started.
We finally head over to Hanif’s house to get a change of clothes abound 11:30 p.m. Getting everything gathered and ironed takes an hour or more. Taking all of our things from Hanif’s seemed like a good thing at the time, until we remembered that the room we are staying in are on the fifth floor of a building with no elevator. We finally get to bed around 1:30 a.m.