me.
and 30 pastors.
crazy parties like you wouldn’t believe.
been filming in Paraguay at ICOMB (some words that stands for all the big-shot pastors of every country in the world get together and rave on mad drugs for 3 days)
by rave i mean discuss church biz and by on mad drugs i mean eat a lot of farmer sausage.
So i had 4 (ish) videos to do:
1. 19 pastors, video them greeting the whole Menno world conference from their respective countries. (for a video celebrating the Mennonite Brethrens existance for 150 years)
2. video of Randy Friesen: Menno Missions kingpin greeting the whole world for MBMSI’s latest batch of DVD’s they are sending to the world.
3. Interview this guy named Victor Wall at a television studio.
4. Get footy and sick pics of Paraguay like this was the BBC and i was filming Baraka
So far on level of amazing the shots are:
1. eeh 8/10
2. mm 7/10
3. totally got effed and we are doing it next week. 0/10 fail.
4. been stuck in a university for the last 2 days. 2/10 fail.
this week: 3 and 4 NEED to happen
In other news:
Picture paraguay. if you can’t picture paraguay picture some other south american city of 1.8 million (or so). by that i mean houses made of red brick, its hot. 8pm. still 18 celcius. I’m in a university. Think the UFV campus compressed down to 1/10th its size. there is lush vegetation in the form of trees and gardens all around the campus. everything is very compressed. tight walkways, some of the roofs are that corragated metal tin. The rooms are typical nearly 3rd world affair. Picture the house from Fight Club. Every time we use a toilet it needs to be fixed to allow the water to refil, the windows are streaked with grime, the walls should have been white. One time. They are a yellowish tinge. The fan in the ceiling has shed its plastic casing and has revealed its motor and electrical guts for all to see. it circles lazily in the ceiling casting running shadows along the tiled floor in the fading light of the day.
I’m on the top bunk reading “To Kill A Mockingbird” and listening to Bibio on my ipod. Mike, my chinese UBC engineering student partner is playing starcraft on his laptop beneath me. (no jokes) while we banter here and there about brazil, spiritualism and any other sort of thing that pops into our heads.
It is quite for a while. the sun skinny dips itself into the horizon. lazy minutes roll by. the world darkens.
“Hey Clint…”
“Yeah what?”
“…is that lightning?”
It looks like someone is taking wedding photos outside our window. Which is impossible because we are on the 3rd floor.
“hmm”
We take a look into the horizon and galloping towards us: a black wall,kicking out flashes of light like it was a mobile rave. We watch through the darkened, grime covered window for about a minute before heading out onto the balcony on the other size of the building. Mach 3 is how fast this storm is heading. this continental cloud landmass stretches across the entire horizon, looming. at the university: all is calm and quite.
“This is gonna be so, so sick.”
suddenly wind from a refrigerator blasts through our complex and doesn’t let up. 20km, 40km, rocking 60 at least has the trees going epileptic. lighting coming and it doens’t let up. 1 second space between hits. regular thunder battle rollin’ through town. the sky is black when it isn’t electric. closer. closer. closer.
I jump up onto a half-completed wall to sit and watch the show.
“man, haven’t seen a storm like this in a long time.” -Clint
“I’ve never. ever. seen this.” -Mike
And then its on us. raindrops on steroids. near vertical. might as well have gone swimming. Fog outta nowhere, engulfs all. What once was a good view of the vistas and corrugated steel roofs of the slums has become a wall of white. lighting. too much. no delay between the hits just non stop rolling with it, a strobe light the size of a city. ghost forks snaking like cobras dancing through trees. no thunder. just light. nobody is touching down tonight, its all for show. no use trying to take pictures: all you would get is the purple white of burning ozone. every once and a while the maelstrom saves up a big one. the strobe light slows… slows…
then your blind.
it was midday for a second there except purple. nuclear winter. soaked now and can’t stop yelling into it. Clouds are so low you could scoop a handful of the stuff and put it on your dessert. Yelling at a ceiling 4 feet away and something up high, deep inside it, dead in the heart of that living, breathing thing yells back.
its 3am. time for bed. need to wake up at 6:30.
