SINGAPORE: The first time Mak Chun Kit went to Africa in 2004, he was a bright-eyed 25-year-old looking for an adventure.
Having already backpacked to many other parts of the world, the second-largest continent was to him “the ultimate frontier”. Enticed by clichéd images of wild animals and tribes, the “Survivor” reality-TV show fan yearned to be brought back to basics so that he could, in his words, “look inside yourself and see what you are made of.”
The Nanyang Technological University communication studies graduate found the perfect opportunity to do that in Tanzania, a country rich in wildlife. But it is also one of the world’s poorest countries – with one-third of households earning less than US$1 a day.
For five months, Mak lived in an orphanage that had no electricity or running water. There, at the foothill of Mount Meru (Africa’s fifth highest peak) next to a massive dump site, he had a profound life-changing experience. “Words truly cannot describe the impact it had on me,” he said.
It wasn’t the exotic animals or primitive tribes, but the 30 orphans he met and bonded with that left an indelible imprint – and whose lives would once again intertwine with his more than a decade later.
Watch: The experience that changed Mak’s life
BECOMING A ‘BIG BROTHER’
Mak recalled the first time he met the mostly primary-school-aged children. “They just came and grabbed and pulled me, and they were very physically comfortable with me from the get go,” said the documentary filmmaker.
Himself the youngest child at home, he said: “I was never good with children, you know – at gatherings I was the one who would stay away from the children.” It took him a few days to adjust to his new role as the “big brother”. “They took me out of my shell.”
Life was simple that summer. In the morning, Mak taught English to a small class of students at the local grade school. After lessons, he would walk back to the orphanage for lunch.
In those days, despite being a self-professed “no-frills kind of guy”, he said: “The hardest part for me was the diet.”
LIFE IN TANZANIA
“90 per cent of our meals was a combination of boiled beans with salt and ugali. Ugali is the staple which is maize flour. They just boiled it until it became like a mashed potato paste, and it was completely tasteless to me.
“That was lunch and dinner every day. There was no meat, no vegetables… I lost so much weight because I just couldn’t eat,” he said.
At a fundraisers in Singapore, donors were treated to cuisine made with Tanzanian staples like ugali. (Photo: Ray Yeh)
Afternoons were spent playing games and sports with the kids, and teaching them English. At about 4pm, everyone would go to the nearest water point to fetch water with buckets they balanced on their heads. “The back and fro usually took about 2 hours,” said Mak. Clean water was so precious that he felt guilty using it to shower.
His other option was to take a 10-minute walk to the river to bathe. Once, while doing so, “I saw a piece of turd floating down. I realised that we were doing all our business at the bottom of the river while all the cows and cattle did theirs upstream.” That encounter spelt the end of his daily bathing routine.
Instead, every Saturday, the Singaporean would leave the orphanage and go to Arusha – the nearest city – where he paid US$5 to check into a hostel and “shower like crazy and eat like crazy”. He called it his “pamper time”.
“It was also when I would go to the internet café to sit for 3 hours and write my journal, and then email it to my group of friends and family… My friends really loved those emails from me because it was such an extreme environment and experience.” On Sunday, he would return to the orphanage to start the week all over again.
IS THE FRIENDSHIP REAL?
Instead of the cutthroat world of “Survivor”, what Mak found in those five months in Africa was warmth – and a different kind of friendship.
“I learnt in 2004, when a child was very affectionate towards me and sat on my lap, that more often than not he asked for a pencil after that. So I struggled with it when I was a 25-year-old. ‘Oh my gosh, is the friendship real? Is their affection and passion towards me genuine?’
“I’ve come to realise that because of the way the world is, of power structures, we would never have the kind of friendship that I have with my university mates or my army friends. It’s always going to be lopsided and slightly weird.”
But as Mak grew older, he developed a better understanding of his relationship with his orphaned friends.
“I’ve been told by people close to me that it’s not a friendship. I guess it depends on how you define friendship. At the end of the day, we’re all getting something from each other. Even with two friends in Singapore, you’re getting some kind of a confidante, or a good time. There’s always an exchange.
“I guess with me and my African friends, maybe money is at play, so it’s a bit trickier. But I’ve never seen money as something evil or that it would taint anything. I just think it’s about how we manage our expectations.”
Mak and his Tanzanian friends, then (2004) and now (2015). (Photos: Mak CK)
10 YEARS LATER
After Mak left Tanzania in 2004, he managed to stay in touch with Daniel, the oldest resident at the orphanage. Then 20, the charismatic orphan who had the respect of the younger kids was the only one there with an email address.
The two friends kept in contact via email and the occasional phone call. Then, “real life kicked in” and the exchanges became less frequent, and eventually stopped after several years.
For Mak, over time his African experience felt “more and more surreal”. “After a while, it just became memories I had in photos and on my mini DV tapes.”
While Mak was busy pursuing a successful career in documentary filmmaking, developing an interest in unusual subject matters, his Tanzanian friends grew up one by one and left the orphanage. “I’d always imagined that they’d become young adults, chasing their dreams,” he said.
But reality was far crueller. In 2014, ten years after he first set foot in Africa, Mak got back in touch with Daniel. That was when he learnt that life had not been kind to many of his younger African friends.
The news unsettled him, and prompted 38-year-old to plan a second trip to Tanzania in 2015. “I genuinely cared for my friends and I wanted to see them again,” he said.
REVISITING AFRICA
But this time around, it was a completely different experience. “I was a very different person… a lot more cynical, a lot worldlier. I was able to look at my experience with a new-found perspective.”
Mak’s bittersweet reunion with his friends in Tanzania after more than a decade. (Photo: Mak CK)
When Mak revisited the orphanage, the joy he once felt there was replaced with a sense of dismay. “The roof was leaking. Cracks in the wall. My old room had become like a dump for garbage,” he said.
The transformation served a very specific purpose – to manipulate potential donors. “If you have a leaky roof, and you have visitors, they will donate money. If you have a beautiful roof, they wouldn’t donate money. So it’s economics. The more badly run, the older it looks, the more money they can get from donors.”
When Mak tracked down some the orphans he lived with in 2004, he realised that their lives had become even more depressing than the state of the children’s home. For example, Daniel’s wife was robbed and murdered, leaving him to take care of their young daughter.
Jackie, one of the girls, became a young mother trapped in an abusive marriage. John, once a top student in grade school, ended up living on the streets. And two orphans Mak once knew had already died.
BUYING HAPPINESS
“I went back with the camera because I filmed them 11 years ago. I thought I was going to film and maybe it’d be a little documentary about what happened to the orphans,” said Mak. “But when I realised how dire their situation was… I wanted to do more.”
And that was how “Buying Happiness” – the part-documentary and part-charity project – was born.
Mak spent a good part of 2016 on crowdfunding to raise money for nine of his African friends. Each of them had pitched to him and received funding for a personal project that they felt would turn their life around.
The filmmaker, with help from friends in Singapore, organised a series of events to raise funds. (Photo: Ray Yeh)
The award-winning filmmaker will be returning to Tanzania every few months to document the progress his friends make. And finally in 2019, the nine stories will be combined into a feature documentary that will provide a unique insight into poverty and the efficacy of charity.
“There’s a lot of research that says you shouldn’t give the poor money. Because they are going to squander it on drugs, on prostitutes and it may end up devastating their lives,” said Mak, who wrestled with the “Buying Happiness” idea for a long time.
That was until he met Fernando Trueba, an Oscar-winning Spanish director. “He’s a very wise man, probably in his 70s. He just said, ‘What are you so conflicted about? If you are in a position to help, help.’”
Mak stressed that now that the money has been passed to the Tanzanian orphans, the rest is up to them. “I’m very realistic that we don’t have nine success stories at the end of the film. And it’s all part of life,” he said.
“The film is for us to understand that abstract idea of poverty and Africa in a very tangible, visual, personal way. It’s almost more important to know why some of them eventually fail, than succeed. What were the factors at play? Is it personality trait? Is it circumstantial?”
To learn more about the “Buying Happiness” project, visit http://www.buyinghappinessfilm.com.
