Nina Saada’s Blog

I finished editing a couple of weeks ago and thought it’s about time that I put the evidence up on here! So here it is, my news documentary. It’s called Sacrificed, it runs at 20minutes and it was bloody hard work to do… but I’m pretty pleased with the result (unfortunately I wasn’t clever enough to embed the video on my blog so please follow the link at the bottom of this post).

A great big thanks to everyone who stuck by me and helped and supported me both in person and of course via this blog, throughout my time in Uganda and throughout the stressful post production stage too!  Couldn’t have done it without you.

The video is password protected (I’m not ready to unleash it on the world yet). So if you want to take a look please email me nina_saada@hotmail .co.uk and I can let you know the password.

I am very keen to hear views and opinions… after all you are the viewer and who really counts here!

 Don’t forget to: 1) ask me for the password to view it.  2) Watch it on a full screen with speakers if you can for better quality and 3) Leave feedback!!!!

Click here to view Sacrificed: a news documentary by Nina Saada

Sorry that this update is a little late, I’ve been back on home soil for over a week now but just haven’t had the chance to blog, so here it goes.

I’m still trying to get my head around the progress we made in Uganda, I knew we had some solid contacts but I never imagined we would get so many people to be vocal about such a controversial subject, and I certainly didn’t think we’d gain access to a prison. For me, it doesn’t really matter what becomes of my footage or how successful this documentary is or isn’t, I feel a massive personal achievement in what we’ve done and I’ve enjoyed every minute.

Down to the nitty gritty then; the prison. It was an experience and a half, the prison guards were so accommodating and friendly, they gave us a free reign to walk around and film, that would never happen in this country! The interview with the convict was tough, I’d say it was the most challenging interview I’ve ever done. Francis had been in there on death row for 11 years and had A LOT to say, I guess he just wanted to get things off his chest and get his story out there in the open. Francis has been sentenced to death for killing a young boy, a charge that he denies. He spent a long time telling me his story and protesting his innocence, but he also repeatedly said how sorry he was to the mother of the dead child, the community, the country and the president. He explained how he’d been young and impressionable and had got roped into something by a witchdoctor but had not committed murder.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about Francis’ case or his personality, hopefully the footage will speak for itself. What I will say is that it was bloody hard work talking to and co-operating with him, but I am so grateful that he agreed to speak as I think his input was intrgral to giving the ‘other side’ of the the documentary. So Francis, if you read this… thank you!

I’m now faced with the massive task of piecing all of this together. I’ve managed to acquire over 20 tapes worth of footage which I’m sure is way too much but seemed so right at the time, I just couldn’t stop filming! I’ve got a lot of editorial decisions to make too, like how much imagery of the little boy who was mutilated should I include? Is it right to show his scars? Is it right to show his face? If I protect his identity or don’t show what’s happened to him then how will people realise the actual extent of child sacrifice? That’s just one question, I’ve got thousands more about what I should and shouldn’t include… I’m open to lots of advice and suggestions so feel free to put any forward… you guys have been awesome with your comments so far, I’ve really appreciated all the support!

So before I head back to the edit suit… where I actually live now. I just want to say that going to Uganda was such an eye-opener, self-shooting was hard but at the same time it was the most fantastic experience and I’d go to Africa again in an instant.

There’ll be more blog updates so watch this space.

Nina

Ok my internet is timing out but just had to blog about this one… Today we had a major breakthrough. Don’t want to go into too much detail until it’s all done and dusted but bascially we have gained access to Uganda’s Max security prison. On Friday I’ll be interviewing a man on death row for a murder… a  ritualistic child murder!

Loads has been going on over the last week, there’s been lots of organising and running around setting things up… so I’ll put it in a nutshell and just talk about the highlights.

We went back to see Mukisa, the little boy who had his private parts cut off by a witchdoctor, we wanted to go back because we left in a hurry last time due to some pushy locals getting on our case. We hung out and played with him for a bit (such a happy boy) and took him a pair of sunglasses because he’d liked mine so much. He broke them within about 10 minutes…typical boy!

On Friday we we to a local school called the Divine Mission Juniour school, it’s been set up by a man calle Godfrey who had very little money but wanted somewhere for kids to go and get an education even if their parents couldn’t afford to pay. He set it up a year ago and it now has 300 pupils and is growing. It’s incredible how happy the children are to be in school, smiles everywhere you look even though this place, compared to Western schools, is so so basic… think woodens huts for classrooms. They have nothing but are so grateful to be learning, I think some British kids should go and spend a week in a real African school! The children put on a show for us and did an awesome African song and dance, it was brilliant to see. The headteacher told us how he was afraid for his kids because of the recent cases of child sacrifice.

We tried to get access to a spritual site on Thursday and Friday but had some problems as the people there didn’t want us to film or take photos. We had to get written permission from their boss who just happens to be a man who’s currently on remand for child sacrifice, it’s a very high profile case and the man in question also has preperty in London. We had a bad feeling about the place in the end and decided not to persue it… some things are just better left alone.

Spent Saturday night with the craziest witchdoctor imaginable. This guy, Samuel, was completely drunk when we turned up.’Never interview drunk people, children or animals’ sprung to mind… well he was like all 3 rolled into one. He was quite good fun though and showed us how he summoned the spirits in his special chant. I think I’ll have some interesting footage from this one. He talked us through all of his potions and spears and told us he happily sacrificed cows, goats and chickens but not humans. He also let me… actually made me… wear his cape. Won’t forget that interview in a hurry.

Apologies for the lack of blogging. The luxury of using the internet at Pascal’s school has come to end as all the kids and teachers have broken up for the summer… so now I’m using good old internet cafes and slow isn’t even the word! Remember dial up connections all those years ago? Well time that by about 10 and you’ve got Uganda.  So I might have to blog in retrospect quite a bit. Thanks for all your comments

Mon 15/06/09, Tues 16/06/09

This morning Santos took us to his son’s grave, it was about an hour away in a place called Amuria. He was his usual jolly, chatty  self all the way in the car but changed when we reached the spot where his son was buried. He got very upset and said how it hurt him a lot to come here and look at his son’s grave. I found quite it emotional to film him, it felt kind of intusive watching this man, who’s usually so strong and postive, break down. But I knew it was really important to capture that emotion for the documentary. It really got to me.

After that Santos took us to a doctors surgery in the town that is run by 2 of his friends, a husband and wife. They shared their horrific story with us about their 17 year old neice who was found beheaded just a few months ago. The 2 doctors were again very strong but their interview was heartrending, I know as a journalist you shouldn’t get emotionally involved but try not to feel upset when your interviewee is telling you how they found their girl’s body in one place and her head in another. It was hard to believe things like this were happening in such a small place. They explained how the police found the culprits (5 young men) because one had dropped their mobile phone at the scene, apparently they’d been offered a lot of money to bring the head of a girl to a man so it could be used for ritualistic purposes. The men are all in remand in the prison just around the corner from the doctor’s home. They said there was a 50/50 chance that then men might get off due to lack of evidence.\

A long morning.

In the afternoon we went to see the local chief traditional healer Matilda in her mud hut. It was very very dark and she didn’t speak any English so we needed 2 translators (I got a bit confused why), so I don’t know how the interview has worked on camera but even so it was a great experience to meet her. She had this strange voodoo- esq hut with herbs and instruments all over the floor. I hadn’t told her the purpose of filming with the hope I’d get something out of her, but when I mentioned the subject of sacrifice she was very very clear to say that she didn’t believe in it. She said that all traditional healers should have documents and be certified and all those that practise such things are fakes and give people like her a bad name. I believed she was sincere.

The question now is how am I going to find someone who actually admits to sacrificial rituals..? Answers on a postcard (or blog)

10 hours, 2 buses and the bumpiest road I’ve ever been on (was literally flying out of my seat) and we arrived in Soroti. We came here to see Santos, the man who lost his 4 year old son Gideon to a ritualistic sacrifice a few years ago. He’s now setting up the first ever NGO against child sacrifice and I wanted to spend some time with him and his family to get a feeling for how they live and what life is like now.

We met Santos on the Sunday morning and he showed us around and took us to his local church, where he introduced us to all his fellow church goers. Soroti is smaller and much more rural than Kampala, it was nice to escape the madness for a while. I didn’t realise how far north we were until Santos started telling us how up to a year ago thousands of IDPs (Internally Displaced People) had been living there to escape the LRA rebels, and Soroti itself had been invaded too. It was a bit unnerving.

He then took us to his home and we spent the whole day with him and his family, Santos runs a school and is dedicated to helping the community, he looks after many people in his compound. He showed us the exact spot where Gideon had been playing in a tree just outside the house when he was taken, then he took us to the spot just behind the house where they had found Gideon’s body. The tragic thing is that Santos and his wife had given the land behind their house to hundreds and hundreds of IDPs to build huts and take refuge there. It was one of these people who killed his son and left the body in his hut.

I interviewed Santos and his wife for quite some time and felt pretty sad by the end of the day. I couldn’t believe how strong they were being, starting up the Gideon Foundation NGO and trying to raise awareness whn they’d been through so much.

Fri 12/06/09

We went to the spiritual healers settlement on Makindye hill this afternoon/evening. Even though we’d met the people who live there a few days ago I was still pretty scared about filming, it’s a secluded place right up in the hills and although the people seemed friendly enough… they still had spears sticking up out of their fires and animal skin mats! When we arrived at the site we were welcomed by some of the residents and one guy, Godfrey, took it upon himself to show us around. We’d met him the other night and he’d been really relaxed and told us lots of interesting inmformation, but now it seemed in front of the cameras he was putting on an act… a bit like a spiritual tour guide. I had to take of my shoes and do prayer to the spirits to make sure they allowed me to walk around and film. Godfrey went on and on about the spirits and and dreams and lots of things that I couldn’t really understand, he showed us around one of their tiny mud huts where people with problems go to get healed, it had some pretty creepy things in. But when it came to what I really wanted to know about rituals and sacrifices he was quick to say they don’t dosuch things there and do not believe in shedding blood. I pushed a bit more but didn’t really get anything out of him… don’t know what I expected really, of course no-one’s going to admit to it on camera are they?

All in all an interesting evening, but not as authentic as I’d hoped. The place had seemed really spiritual and special when we’d gone there before but it kind of lost that feeling when Godfrey started asking for money for his time and  for the spirits (of course). He got pretty irate when we wouldn’t cough up… we didn’t fancy getting on the wrong side of a load of traditional healers so I gave him a few thousand shillings (about a pound or something) and we got out of there quickly!

Tomorrow we’re making the long journey to Soroti on the Ugandan post bus… should be an experience.

Thurs 11/06/09

Today we met Mukisa. He is a 3 year old boy who escaped a vicious attack from a man who is believed to be a witchdoctor. Mukisa’s story is heartrending, his family told us how he was found screaming in a pool of his own blood, left for dead in the bush. His private parts had been cut off and left somewhere else. The person responsible had fled the area, but it he was later found and it turns out he was a neighbour who lived just a few doors away. We arrived at Mukisa’s home, a small room in a poverty stricken village on the outskirts of Kampala. When we got there his auntie had just finished bathing him and was drying him in a towel, I caught a glimpse of his scar and felt choked, I couldn’t believe someone could do that to a child. Despite his ordeal Mukisa was so sweet and happy, he played with a football and loved wearing my sunglasses upside down! If it wasn’t for the dust I would have given them to him. We spent a good couple of hours with him and his family before bringing the cameras out, they were so poor but still offered us delicious Ugandan black tea. Mukisa’s eyes lit up when he saw all our equipment and he had a good play with the buttons and even took a photo of his daddy. By the time I came to do an interview I felt like had built up a rapport with the family, his aunts English was good so she did the talking but also translated some words from Mukisa and his father. It was an emotional moment when his aunt mentioned the name Otenge, the man arrested in connection with Mukisa’s attack, the little boy’s face dropped and he looked very upset. I asked what he thought of Otenge and his aunt translated that Mukisa said ‘I wish he could be cut too.’ Mukisa was going to the hospital that afternoon for more surgery. I was speechless at how brave and happy he was even though he had been through so much. We wanted to spend more time with Mukisa but our visit was cut short when we had a bit of a run in with some people claiming to be from an NGO and trying to protect the child (they had no documentation to prove this). We explained who we were (we had documentation to prove this) and that we had permission to film from his guardians. They got pretty confrontational when we wouldn’t show them our footage and we also realized they were filming us on a compact camera. Not very professional. We got out of there quite quickly.I was just sad that we didn’t get to say goodbye to the little boy. But we hope to visit him again before we leave. Late afternoon/ evening we went with the campaign car to the house of George Kanyeihamba, he’s a judge at the Supreme Court of Uganda and well known for being a thorn in Musevini’s side. He house was a stark contrast to where we’d been that morning, it was on the same street as some of Uganda’s most high profile people. He was a down to earth man though and very very passionate about child sacrifice. He gave a powerful interview, calling the situation ‘embarrassing’ for the country and comparing the spate of sacrificial killings to the atrocities carried out by Jospeh Kony. A heavy day.

Weds 10/06/09

First of all I just want to say that you haven’t lived until you’ve taken a Boda-Boda ride through the centre of Kampala in rush hour!! Scary isn’t even the word.

Today was one of those annoyingly bureaucratic days that every journalist hates. After a decent morning filming another Ugandan rapper, we embarked on our wild goose chase in Kampala city.  Our main aim was to find out if we could somehow get access to a prison to speak to somebody convicted of committing child sacrifice. We met with a woman from the police force who spoke to us for a long time and eventually, after numerous phone calls, told us to go to another building to speak to someone from the prison service, so after a long walk, an even longer wait and a big language misunderstanding (the receptionist  thought we were looking for someone from the ‘president’s office’ not the ‘prison service’) we met our lady, she told us to go to someone else, this went on for a while until we ended up in the Ugandan high commissioner’s office. They told us we could gain access to their prisons…providing we get our embassy to send their foreign office a letter who’ll then send a letter to their High Commissioner, who then will make a decision. Great…we only have a week!! Well the end result was that we tried to call the British High Commision and realised that none of their numbers work, not even the emergency one… slightly worrying perhaps? Let’s hope we don’t get in any trouble out here!

Anyway, all of this took so long that by the time we’d left the city it was getting dark and we’d run out of time ot go to Makyndi hill and film our traditional healers at their camp. We found a pub, had a Nile Special beer and wrote the day off.

Tomorrow’s a new one.

Nina