After a few days of traveling and several days of hauling gear, long, hot, bumpy van trips, mediocre food, okay sleep, mosquitos, sometimes feeling unsafe, often overwhelmed, constant emotional roller coasters, tears, laughter and lots of thinking…we took a day off.

Waking up this morning it was so satisfying to know we could, sort of, be tourists. No pressure, no responsibility, just time to relax and try to just enjoy the day. After a team breakfast, Justin from LIA said he had a day planned of some souvenir shopping, sightseeing and a native dinner experience.

Piling into the van without the gear was a welcome start to the day. Heading into the heart of Addis Abba my thoughts went to the slums where we had been in the last several days. It was hard for me to reconcile the “freedom” I had to go where I wanted, eat where I wanted and have the general freedom to do pretty much whatever I wanted. Read the rest of the entry >

This day started normal enough. We got up, met as a team, prayed, had breakfast, went over our shooting schedule and tried to get the best footage possible. Had I known that the previous night would change me forever, I may have questioned my desire to hurry and get back to the slums. For  more on that…read on.

Today was another exciting day of interviews. Similar to Fikadu and the day before, we were visiting another “graduate” of the street kids program Habtimu. And like the day before we are going into an exposed setting within the Mercato market. Pick pockets, extreme poverty, merchants, drugs, and potential issues lurking around every corner for a large film crew trying to be inconspicuous. Once again we had a police escort that gave us a small sense of security, but we are warned to stay in a tight pack and to watch each other’s backs. Going to Habtimu’s house was a humbling experience. I had met Fikadu and Habtimu the year before and seeing them still doing so well and having their own home is such an amazing and exciting thing to witness. While filming Habtimu at his house you could sense his pride and self confidence of being “off the streets” and living a more empowered life. One of the coolest parts of the interview was listening to his dreams of singing and helping others like him, and listening to him sing a song he had written. We then followed him to the market and filmed where he used to sleep on the street, and we filmed him doing one of his jobs, which was shoe shining. As the crowds gathered and we started to get a little nervous because of the scene we were making (picture here) I scanned the crowd and there THEY were. The boys I had met that morning, around 2am to be exact. I was shocked on how I had to suddenly hold back the tears because I was overcome with relief that they were there, in front me, alive and curious as to what was going on. At this point, let me switch to what some of the crew experienced from 12:00-3:00am earlier that day….

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