June 08, 2011 03:15PM EDT

Sure-Footed Ponies: The Quiet Before the Storm

Tags: Sure-Footed Ponies  Andrew Mudge 

ENTRY 10: The Quiet Before the Storm
June 6, 2011—Maseru, Lesotho
Being on a shooting hiatus can be relaxing and rewarding. But now, unsure of funding, the reality of our second shooting session looms in the not-so-distant future.



It's been nearly two months since my last blog entry, so I want to assure my faithful readers (well, my mom) that I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Since early April, I've enjoyed the relative quiet of our film's shooting hiatus. Apart from two trips to Johannesburg, I've mostly laid low in Maseru, editing the scenes we've shot so far and fundraising to complete the rest of the film. The house has been quiet, inhabited only by Meri and myself, a far cry from the international circus that went on for the majority of the summer.

We let the lawn grow into an acre of lush green pasture, despite our landlord's admonishment that we were creating an Eden for mosquitos. The yard finally caught the eye of a neighborhood shepherd, who charmed us into providing lunch for him and his young apprentices while his livestock mowed the grass. We had done this two months earlier with a boy and his cattle. This time around, the sheep were somewhat less obtrusive, and didn't leave frisbee-sized droppings all over the property. I imagine that our green pastures and complimentary bowls of spaghetti have become the talk of our vicinity's livestock guardians.



On the occasional Sunday, my friend Matseliso and I go to the Anglican church, within the same compound as the sleepy mission where I first stayed when I arrived in Lesotho. The church offers an English and Sesotho service, and I always choose the latter. We sit quietly towards the back, mesmerized by the faces of people in prayer, transported by the songs. There is nothing that moves me more than when the Basotho people sing.

I've spent afternoons following up with old acquaintances. It's during quiet times in the company of friends that I'm reminded about how much AIDS continues to have a grip on Lesotho. Two people I knew from my last extended visit to this country have now passed away. Nearly all my friends here have lost at least one relative from AIDS-related diseases. Saturdays are for the burials, and on this day the roads around Maseru are backed up with the traffic of funeral processions. I was speaking with a government official last week, who remarked that if the rate of HIV/AIDS continues, this country may not exist in 30 years. I find it hard to wrap my head around grim and abstract statistics like these, but it's plainly obvious that the disease affects many lives around me.



The season of harvest is rapidly surrendering to winter, and now the work of the rural people is the collection of firewood. In the urban areas, the inky darkness between streetlights is lit up by fires watched over by off-duty security guards, peripatetic shepherds, and street kids in wrapped in blankets. A few nights ago I brought some leftover Chinese food to a cluster of boys who have set up camp under a bridge. From under their balaclavas and blankets they muttered words of thanks in Sesotho, and allowed me to warm my hands by the fire for a moment. I'm impressed by resilience of these people. To sound like Wikipedia for a moment here, this country is the only one on the continent that gets regular, seasonal snow in areas of permanent settlement.



TR arrived two weeks ago, and we're quickly moving through our pre-production checklist, having already finished a five day location scout with Carlos, our director of photography. Cecil and Pieter are locking down crew and equipment deals up in Joburg while TR, Papali, Meri and I are attending to the production needs here in Lesotho. One of our upcoming locations is a large Chinese-owned textile factory that makes garments exclusively for Gap.

This brings me to an interesting anecdote from the year 2007: The day before I was to leave for a trip to Lesotho, I walked into the retail giant Old Navy (owned by Gap) in Natick, Massachusetts. My intention was to find an article of clothing made in Lesotho and trace it back to the factory where it came from. I purchased a plain T-shirt, hunter green. When I got to Lesotho, my mission turned out to be much easier than I had expected. I simply asked which was the Gap factory and was pointed in the right direction. Much to my surprise, the owner of the factory didn't turn me away, and in fact invited me right onto the work floor. Incredibly, on that particular day they were making the very T-shirt that was on my back. I walked down an aisle dividing an ocean of women seated behind cramped work stations, emphatically pointing between my shirt and the rolls of hunter green fabric the women were loading into their sewing machines. It was one of the more surreal experiences I've had in this country.

But I digress...

By far the greatest challenge ahead of us with this second session is staying within budget, while at the same time maintaining a high production value. The costs of making this film are higher than we anticipated. The dollar has weakened to the South African rand, and petrol is prohibitively expensive—I saw one taxi driver taking a page out of the Flintstones, pushing his car along (by foot) in a traffic jam. The pleasure I take in having finally learned how to say "fill 'er up" in Sesotho is routinely dampened when the gas attendant returns my credit card and says, in the Queen's English, "eight hundred fifty rand," (which comes to about 125 bucks!).



The goods news for our little film is that the United States Embassy and PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) have recently given us a grant, which will help us get the film in the can. The embassy also organized a screening at the local movie theater (and the only one in the country), where we showed clips of the film, and hosted a Q and A afterwards. The response was fantastic. It's going to be quite an event when we have the premiere next February.

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Want more Sure-Footed Ponies? Get caught up:

Sure-Footed Ponies: An Introduction
Sure-Footed Ponies: The Beginning
Sure-Footed Ponies: Return to Lesotho
Sure-Footed Ponies: Tortoise's Pace
Sure-Footed Ponies: Rain, Rain, Rising Rivers
Sure-Footed Ponies: Where There is no Sunscreen
Sure-Footed Ponies: Finding Our Tau
Sure-Footed Ponies:  Great African Location Scout
Sure-Footed Ponies:  Cameras Rolling, Cue the Lightning
Sure-Footed Ponies: Session One Picture Wrap