scene 1, take 56

Today was an adventure, an escapade, a fiasco; in other words, it was our first day filming in Ethiopia during the rainy season. But in all its chaos, it was also entirely marvelous.

I feel that we were blessed by the crew assigned to us. Not all of the Ethiopian students can be relied on to show up on time, but it seems that many of the more punctual ones are on our team. They all want to do everything they can to help - sometimes they can be overly helpful, actually - and they're all just so sweet and willing to serve.

We all met downstairs at seven thirty to load our equipment up and drive to today's location, which was a soccer field at a nearby orphanage. While we waited for our tripod and script supervisor to show up, we tossed construction rocks off of the field until Sam, our assistant director, found giant ants in a very unpleasant way. (About ten minutes later he split his finger open on his pocket knife. He had a wonderful day.) Our first few shots went well, but we had to redo them because our sound man had been pressing the wrong button. Things went well for a good while after that, until the camera overheated. So we broke for lunch...and then the storm clouds rolled in. So we went out to get as many shots in as we could before it started to rain.

We stayed out as long as we could; Ephraim, our gaffer, held a black cloth over my head, and one of our grips held a big pink umbrella over that so the camera wouldn't get wet. It was coming down somewhere between a sprinkle and a shower when Sam asked, "Wait...has anyone seen lightening today?" And I had. So we ran for it, and about forty-five seconds after we made it to the classroom building it started to hail.

Ephraim took the opportunity created by our rain break to share the gospel with all three of our actors, and by the time he'd prayed with them the rain was over, and everyone else was out playing soccer in the puddles. After the field dried up a little bit we were finally able to finish shooting, but everyone was so damp and muddy by the end of it.

All in all, it was a good day. A wet day, but a good day. Holding the shoulder rig for several hours was exhausting, and my arms feel like noodles, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute nonetheless, and for reasons unknown I'm looking forward to shooting all day again tomorrow.