Day: July 13, 2011

John Ramsey has enjoyed success as a comedian in America, among his credits having reached the late, great HBO U.S. Comedy Arts festival in Aspen and performing on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham. But for the past year, Ramsey has served as a volunteer in Kenya. Not so funny, right? That didn’t stop him from trying, though. You can read about his experiences adapting his sense of humor for what Africans find funny on his personal blog — and in many instances, he found out “Why My Jokes Don’t Work in Kenya.” And yet. Ramsey did adapt to his surroundings, learned enough Swahili, and earned himself a gig on Kenya’s, and East Africa’s, most popular “late-night” show (which happens to be 7:30 p.m. Thursdays), Churchill Live. Hosted by “Churchill” Dan Ndambuki, the show reaches 10 million viewers across an area of 40 million where many people still don’t own a TV. Sit back and enjoy this clip, which has a different pacing than American TV, and afterward, Ramsey tells me the backstory. Ramsey tells me: I’m over here volunteering as a legal fellow for an organization called the International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org). Although the organization is most well known for its fight against human trafficking, in Kenya, we do two different kinds of work.  We represent young children who have been raped — and help ensure the Court system works...