My birthday in Oum Hadjer
As my birthday began, I struggled to remember a time I had felt grimmer. I'd lain awake all night feverishly with my stomach like a hot cannon ball, the contents of which was deciding which way it was going to expel itself. Eventually I had to creep to the vile hole before dawn and have several explosions of watery diarrhoea. Unable to eat, and taking rehydration powders and arrets. Steve medicined me with an antibiotic for diarrhoea which by the end of the day had worked really well.
Feeling like death off to the shoot again. I had the idea of filming children running out of the withered crops onto the sandy soil, in what in my mind was a liminal shot, showing how close to the edge of the desertifying region they were. We shot this, with local children happily running for us. One little girl carrying a little sister on her back as she did so. Tchang being priceless as usual.
After this was over I had to be driven off, with Doctor who was suffering the same thing, into the bush to poo again. Despite the varieties of fauna able to strike at the vulnerable Kenny posterior I found having a poo in the bush far nicer than the vile cockroach and fly infested hole in the compound. Returning to the village I sat in the air-conditioned car for a bit feeling dire, till I requested to be taken back to the compound. I slept there for two hours, Passiri said he checked on me three times, and woke feeling a good deal better and able to carry on. Around lunchtime someone gave me a bottle of cold coke, which seemed then to be the most delicious drink I had ever tasted. I needed the sugar I think.
In the afternoon I was well enough to get back to work. A sub-plot among the locals about who was coming in the car with us, who would be photographed and so on going on as we went about things. Incredible heat today up to 49 C, the hottest temperatures I'd ever experienced.
We were being shown some of the initiatives started by the local charity and crossed the river at the end of town and drove off into the bush. An extraordinary moment. Suddenly the car was surrounded by dust in the air swirling all around us, and we were in the middle of a mini-tornado, a dust devil. We watched it go off into the bush. I've always dreamed of twisters, and to find myself in the middle of a mini one was quite a birthday present.
One of the activities the local charity was encouraging was planting saplings to hold back the spread of the desert. The local school headteacher had involved the children. Except they had broken for summer holiday so nobody had watered them and most of the trees died. We were shown a couple of rows of wretched saplings protected from goats by a nest of thorny bushes around them. These for a reason I didn't quite understand were stretched across a road along which people were driving and riding. We filmed the head teacher and the man locally responsible for them discussing them gravely. Meanwhile the chief of our village, sitting with his nose badly out of joint for not being with them. As we shot men went by with camels, which helped emphasise the desertification theme nicely.
Then deeper into the bush to see a water conservation pond constructed by the local charity. It was nearly sundown at this point, and the air was alive with dragonflies, and the lusher land at this point suddenly incredibly beautiful. Brad filmed the Chief standing by the water at sundown, and was in filmmaker's heaven.
Couldn't face eating in the evening, but was distinctly improved after sundown. I had intended to keep my birthday quiet, but at the end of the day I was surprised when Steve brought out a tray full of biscuits and three candles and everyone sang Happy Birthday. A day that ended far better than it had began, and one of the most extraordinary birthdays I can remember.
Below: children in the withered crops, preparing to run. We were shooting them from above from a drone. By the road were the saplings were in their little thorny nests. A group shot of all local dignitaries and a few random people, the chief standing by the artificial watering hole, and bugs in the compound. Birthday candles for me. The biscuits were given to children in the village later.
Feeling like death off to the shoot again. I had the idea of filming children running out of the withered crops onto the sandy soil, in what in my mind was a liminal shot, showing how close to the edge of the desertifying region they were. We shot this, with local children happily running for us. One little girl carrying a little sister on her back as she did so. Tchang being priceless as usual.
After this was over I had to be driven off, with Doctor who was suffering the same thing, into the bush to poo again. Despite the varieties of fauna able to strike at the vulnerable Kenny posterior I found having a poo in the bush far nicer than the vile cockroach and fly infested hole in the compound. Returning to the village I sat in the air-conditioned car for a bit feeling dire, till I requested to be taken back to the compound. I slept there for two hours, Passiri said he checked on me three times, and woke feeling a good deal better and able to carry on. Around lunchtime someone gave me a bottle of cold coke, which seemed then to be the most delicious drink I had ever tasted. I needed the sugar I think.
In the afternoon I was well enough to get back to work. A sub-plot among the locals about who was coming in the car with us, who would be photographed and so on going on as we went about things. Incredible heat today up to 49 C, the hottest temperatures I'd ever experienced.
We were being shown some of the initiatives started by the local charity and crossed the river at the end of town and drove off into the bush. An extraordinary moment. Suddenly the car was surrounded by dust in the air swirling all around us, and we were in the middle of a mini-tornado, a dust devil. We watched it go off into the bush. I've always dreamed of twisters, and to find myself in the middle of a mini one was quite a birthday present.
One of the activities the local charity was encouraging was planting saplings to hold back the spread of the desert. The local school headteacher had involved the children. Except they had broken for summer holiday so nobody had watered them and most of the trees died. We were shown a couple of rows of wretched saplings protected from goats by a nest of thorny bushes around them. These for a reason I didn't quite understand were stretched across a road along which people were driving and riding. We filmed the head teacher and the man locally responsible for them discussing them gravely. Meanwhile the chief of our village, sitting with his nose badly out of joint for not being with them. As we shot men went by with camels, which helped emphasise the desertification theme nicely.
Then deeper into the bush to see a water conservation pond constructed by the local charity. It was nearly sundown at this point, and the air was alive with dragonflies, and the lusher land at this point suddenly incredibly beautiful. Brad filmed the Chief standing by the water at sundown, and was in filmmaker's heaven.
Couldn't face eating in the evening, but was distinctly improved after sundown. I had intended to keep my birthday quiet, but at the end of the day I was surprised when Steve brought out a tray full of biscuits and three candles and everyone sang Happy Birthday. A day that ended far better than it had began, and one of the most extraordinary birthdays I can remember.
Below: children in the withered crops, preparing to run. We were shooting them from above from a drone. By the road were the saplings were in their little thorny nests. A group shot of all local dignitaries and a few random people, the chief standing by the artificial watering hole, and bugs in the compound. Birthday candles for me. The biscuits were given to children in the village later.
Comments