The Evolution of a Hero, or, How to Live in a Movie
Alessandra Argenti isn’t afraid of anything. She’s open to everything. To use a terrible cliché, she turns shit into gold. That’s how you live in a movie. This is something I have long wondered how to do.
Movies are full of drama, romance, excitement, and emotional catharsis. Stuff happens in the span of a two-hour movie that wouldn’t fit in most people’s lifetimes. But Alessandra has mastered the art. The 30-year-old documentary filmmaker is my roommate in Nairobi. We live in a big house on a canyon with 14 other people and four dogs, two of them are Alessandra’s. They were strays she rescued before moving from her home of Milan, Italy, and bringing them with her to Africa. One of them is a pitbull named Game. Alessandra and Dan, a Kenyan badass profiled earlier in this blog, have the most adorable baby I have ever met.
I am sure it’s fate that I ended up living with Alessandra. I always wanted to meet and study a true Earth Mother in the 1970’s sense. I also wanted to know what my teenage idols did once they disappeared from my hometown of Menlo Park, California. Now I know.
You know that older girl you noticed when you were a teenager, the one who was beautiful, dressed inventively, hung out with every stripe of person in every age group, laughed generously, participated in underground subculture like raves or punk rock shows, and then one day, just vanished? I have long suspected that those girls (who were already too generous to join the “popular people” despite exceptional credentials) got bored of underground subculture, drugs and punk rock boyfriends, so they moved on to the next level. But what was the next level? I thought maybe it was becoming an Anais Nin type, writing and making art and living in New York or Paris. Sure. But those people aren’t African Heroes. That’s the next level: moving to Africa to hang out and help. Part lifestyle and part humanitarian service, this is not a common achievement. Most expats are regular people who try to inhabit the same parameters abroad as they did in London or Los Angeles. They will never live in a movie, marry an African or become heroes.
Alesssandra roams our vast garden with her baby, singing in Italian and watering plants. Sometimes her friends from the slums come over. Other documentary filmmakers always stop by, orphans spend the night, and Italian visitors like Andrea, a man we call Jesus for his benevolence and uncanny resemblance to the prophet, sleep on the couch for weeks. They sit and drink tea and talk about poverty and recycling or make hip hop music videos. When one of our dozens of roommates or houseguests behaves inappropriately or with incredible gall, Alessandra cries “Mamma mia!” with a sleepy smile. One frequent visitor eats everything he can see before returning to malnourished poverty in the slums. Last week he ate five pieces of bread covered with peanut butter and an entire pot of risotto within two hours. Mamma mia!
It’s not easy to get in and out of our neighborhood because you need a car. Since Alessandra and Dan share a car, she’s often stuck at home for days. This is something that would annoy most people, because our house is quite isolated. Exiled African rebel commanders, European ambassadors and members of Kenya’s parliament live next door behind walls and gates guarded by German Shepherds. They don’t come over for tea. I find Alessandra on these lonely days cooking a feast in the kitchen of pizza with homemade dough or lasagna with real béchamel, an impossible find in Kenya. She always shares, even with the monosyllabic roommates.
After moving to Kenya two years ago, Alessandra lived in an orphanage in a Nairobi slum for eight months. You can read the story below or listen to her tell it. She is a wonderful storyteller so I highly recommend a listen.
She was invited by the orphanage founder, a hip, generous community activist and politician from Kenya named Mugabe Were. She met Were through a mutual friend because his wife lives in Italy. Were was murdered this winter during Kenya’s post election violence. His orphanage fell to shambles. The Italian charity that had been funding it withdrew their support. The orphans were freaked out. They thought they would have to go back to living in a garbage dump. But Alessandra took control of the situation, and now works for free as the Italian charity’s point person. They resumed their support with a shipping container full of clothes, bicycles and supplies for the orphans. When one of the orphans disappeared from the home last week, Alessandra asked after him. She discovered that George had returned to his poor, burdened grandmother’s house after fighting with another orphan. He feared reprisals. Alessandra made a visit to his grandmother’s house and persuaded George to come back to the orphanage and make peace. “I think I would make a good diplomat,” she said as we left.
Hero Q&A
Emily: So from what you told me yesterday you were a [video DJ] in dance clubs and raves in Milan before you came to Kenya. How did you transition to living in Kenya and making videos about underrepresented groups of people?
Alessandra: It’s not a meditated transition, it just happened. I knew that after six years of VJing, starting with illegal raves, and continuing with concerts, theatres and nightclubs, I was getting bored. I was feeling that my mission in life was to work with video, but I didn’t know exactly how. I thought it was VJing and using art, but then I thought that art is nice but it’s not a direct message.
I didn’t even think to live in an orphanage. I left Italy to study the African culture through the tribes, through the elders, studying the dances and interviewing the witch doctors and the people but Mugabe Were [the Kenyan city councilor] come and say:
—“No! Before knowing the tribes of wild Africa, you should come to Nairobi and see what is the modern aspect of Africa. You cannot go and say ‘This is Africa’ you should come and see what people in slums and cities are doing. This also is part of the modern Africa.”
—So I say, “Yes, it’s true.” I went to Dandora where he said:
—“I’m doing a cultural center, come to Dandora.”
—I said “But there was an orphan center, I visited it in 2005 there were like 50 kids.”
—He said, “No I’m moving the kids to my new building,” which I realized later was just in front of the [biggest] dump [in East Africa]. And it was not possible for 50 kids to go there unless you want to kill them in a few years. So the kids never moved from the center, which is Villa Teag, I ended up living with the kids and realized that the cultural center was just in his mind, it was not a real thing. It was just an orphan center! With beds and things for the kids. But I said:
—“I should not give up. If I am in Dandora, I should do something.”
I start to meet a lot of people, youth, this artist group called Koflani Mau Mau that are one of the most famous hip hop singers in Kenya. And I start to realize that youth, even if they are living in a poor slum, they are really full of strength and creativity. They proposed me so many documentaries, music videos, so in the eight months I ended up living in the orphan center every day for me was like living in a movie. I was not shooting a movie, I was living in a movie. That’s why I ended up doing several video clips, a documentary called “Trash is Cash” about the dumping site in Dandora, one of the biggest in Africa, and I really produced a lot. I think in those eight months I produced like three years in Italy.
Emily: And a video clip, is it a music video?
Alessandra: Yes
Emily: With Koflani Mau Mau and various musicians from the neighborhood?
Alessandra: Yes but basically with Koflani. They were the ones who stimulated me more because they do hip hop but it’s conscious hip hop. They don’t want a video with naked women, big cars and money raining. No. I can’t do any hip hop video for showing naked women and so on. So they really stimulated me in their daily life. They are a good example of strength and positivity where even if they wake up, they have one meal a day and they are surviving for less than one dollar a day they create so much every day they are in the studio recording, they are promoting their songs they are around Kenya making concerts for like 200 shillings each like they are paid like $3 each per concert but they really believe in what they are doing. So I found we were really similar, we were both really believing in what we were doing
Emily: And the orphan center, what was it like living there? Did you have electricity, did you have your own room, what did you eat?
Alessandra: Eating was a problem I think in the first month I lost like five kilos. Just because I didn’t know where to get food, there are no shops like here – pizza or butcher or drinks – so I had to find out in the shacks which one was selling what. So at the beginning food was a problem but I eat everything so it was not because I didn’t like African food. It’s very good, I never felt sick, I was eating everything from the donuts in the morning to the tea in the evening.
Then electricity was the main problem because working with computer and video editing sometimes I was stuck waiting the next day to edit again, it was like…electricity almost 16 hours on 24.
Water was a problem, no hot water, but you can survive, it’s not cold here. There was water in the morning, but all the mothers and the workers were washing clothes because in Africa you will never find a family with a washing machine. They are used to wash things with hands. SO, in one hour, say at 8 to 9 there was water at 9 it was already finished because every family with five-six kids were washing their clothes. So when I woke up there was already no water. All the day no water because the tank was empty. By evening, the tank was full again. So my best moment was evening when everybody was sleeping, I was getting my water for the day after. And the shower, I learned to do it with the water tank. Cold water, cold shower.
Emily: So you just pour the water over your head?
Alessandra: Yes yes yes.
I had my own room that was… a shame. It was a shame when I arrived, I was really mad at [Mugabe] Were because he just put a bed and a sofa, not even a place to put my dresses that stayed in the luggage for almost one month, not even a kitchen where to cook, the walls were dirty and, ahhhh, it was terrible. So the first thing I bought some paint, colored paint, I painted orange, blue and white it was amazing. I start to put my pictures, I bought my furniture I bought my cooker, at the end was small, but a very nice room.
Emily: What was it like to live with orphans, all day every day and every night?
Alessandra: At the beginning it was difficult because they wake up at half past four in the morning. They were 60 and in Kenya schools start very early so…[sigh]…every morning I was woke up by those 60 kids. And I was really sleepy and mad at them but then I start to hear and they were just laughing, at half past four in the morning. They were playing with the water, making joke, they were laughing all the time and screaming, like really happy kids. So for me was like, a good morning. After half an hour I used to sleep again until 8. But then, it was really nice for me because they were always happy, they were always friendly to me, they used to know me, know my dogs name, call me imitating how I call my dog, some words in Italian that I used to say even if I’m speaking English. So, they were all my friends. They were like little elves around.
Emily: Okay, after the orphan center you decided to stay right? So give us the quick history.
Alessandra: I decide to stay because after Dandora I was happy but broke because nobody was giving me money for my documentaries or music video clips. So I decided if I want to stay in Africa, either I work in an NGO or I work in a TV studio, but I was in the point when I left Italy – to not stay enclosed in a room all the day in front of a computer. So to do what I really wanted to do I was in need to it independently, like freelance.
So I met this other Italian guy from [Naples] named Vincenzo Cavallo and we decided to open our own NGO that is called Cultural Video Foundation. And we deal with multimedia as an instrument to develop, inform and educate people among the slums and the rural areas of Kenya. So this is our passion and our mission. Because in our society information is a power. So we want to use it in the right way, not just to enrich ourselves, or to make publicity for somebody else.
Emily: Having lived with you for four months I think you’ve adapted very well to Kenya. You have your dogs now from Italy, you have a baby, you live with your fiancé, and you have a household. So, you know, expat life always seems to be a temporary thing where you live there for maybe one year or two and then you go back to your country. But, you seem to be in a different situation where you might stay here for a long time.
Alessandra: Yes yes. I don’t see much future in Italy. I miss my friends a lot but I don’t see a big future for me in what I want to do, unless I change ideas and I decide to become a video editor full time and stay in the studio eight hours a day. I’m too wild. So I think in Africa I’m realized. I’m happy I have a good family so, I think for now I want to stay here.