Apologies for the delay. 6,000 words and 400 pages of reading later, I'm ready to face Semester 2, which is convenient since it began today. What was supposed to be a two week break hasn't felt like much of one thanks to writing up all of our findings reports on Kenya, designing a professional website, and doing a book review for an academic journal. But ... nice to start the semester with only upcoming assignments instead of last semester's too. It's also been a good distraction from the fact that I'm back in a very cold, very wet, dark place. To modify a famous quote: Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kenya anymore.
But we can still pretend.
Bikes and bananas.
With a respondent at her home in Tikeet.
Heading to the river.
The Masters in Public Health and International Development,
Masters of Environmental Change and International Development,
and Masters of International Development of
University of Sheffield's class of 2012.
(What a mouthful..
this explains why I have little desire to go to my graduation ceremony..)
Pink toes. Can't get enough.
With my French classmate Manon, and dear adopted family
at the Veronica Home.
Some hooligans I found on the side of the road.
They turned out to be 3 siblings -- a brother, Willy, and twins Faith and Lillian -- my friend Ina worked with in 2008. She helped their grandma (who cares for them) start a shamba (garden), which is now massive and thriving. The boys in the black and white shirts are Isaiah and Camou, who I worked with 4 years ago at the drop-in school for street kids in the city. All 5 of them have grown about a foot since then and are all
attending the local primary school. Amazingly sweet seeing their faces again.
Well, that was fun.
Manon and I spent Sunday basking in glorious sunshine next to a frigid blue pool. Then we packed up and things got interesting. The lodge manager called a matatu to come take us to Nairobi. The matatu was on it's way.. then broke down. So a taxi took us to Gil Gil, 10 minutes away, where we got out and were promptly engulfed by 20 loud, obnoxious men, telling us to get in their kangurus (shuttles). We found one taking a direct route, and the guy behind Manon proceeded to tell her why she needed an a Kenyan boyfriend as well as the one she already has, while the guy behind me handed me his card and said, "Give me your e.mail address!!!" Kenyan men really know how to woo a woman, let me tell ya. They proceeded to talk EXTREMELY LOUDLY about the Al-Shabab goings-on in Nairobi, while the driver, who looked about 90 years old, proceeded to drive so slowly, it took us twice the time it should've to get to Nairobi. I wanted to nudge him just to make sure he wasn't asleep, which is strange, since the normal impulse I have towards Kenyan drivers is to beg them to please, please, please slow down before we all die.
We finally got to Nairobi and found the dear white faces of Lauren, who I interned with in 2008, and her hubby Daniel. They took us out for amazing Ethiopian food, and then to the airport. Just before boarding, the rest of our class showed up, accompanied by two Kenyan government officials. Long story short: they were in Nairobi, Texan guy in the class took a photo of something that wasn't supposed to be photographed, and an hour later they were all arrested and escorted to the prison on suspicion of terrorism. Somehow, they convinced the guards they were innocent students who had to catch a plane in an hour, so the officials came with just to make sure they were leaving the country. Good thing our professor wasn't around to witness that ordeal.
The flight home was turbulent, and all the modes of transportation after that felt cold, boring, and endless. Sheffield is grey and lonely, but I'm thankful for my own space, and not living out of a suitcase for the first time in over a month.
And now, because I can upload whatever I want to in mere minutes.... a video. And because everyone needs some baby laughter in their day.
Pictures to come.. love to you all.
Safari means journey in Swahili. Fun fact of the day. Big journey ahead for Manon and i..
Saturday morning we head to the transport hub of Kitale and board a shuttle (or 'kangaroo', aka minibus) to take us 6 hours south, to Lake Elementaita Lodge. It's posh and touristy, but our trip fees cover one night there, and we plan on making good use of both the pool and complimentary meals. Sunday we jump on a matatu and head the remaining 2 hours to Nairobi, strategically before it gets dark, but late enough so that we don't have to kill more than 7 hours in the airport. Trying to limit our time in Nairobi due to the conflicting terrorist reports, but it's a catch 22 when you're either spending 9 hours in the international airport, or 5 in the city itself after dark. Hopefully the dozen others from our class who've been holidaying in Mombasa show up and are also on the plane to London when the clock strikes 12. After that, 2 trains and a bus back to the north of England.. suffice to say Sheffield feels extremely far away right now.
Had a great stay out at the kids home last night, apart from a rooster crowing in our room (at least it sounded like it) at 2, 3, and 4am, respectively. We picked ticks off the dog, played wapi pesa ('where's the coin?' .. I have my Uncle Neil to thank for this game, which is a huge hit here), joto na biridi ('hot and cold'), painted nails, got our hair played with for about 3 hours, pulled stones and grass out of the beans for tomorrow's dinner, ate way too much chapati, potatoes, and cabbage, sang and danced before bed, waved everyone off to school this morning, and returned home to wash clothes that are all rusty red from the dry season's dust.
Off to bed. Prayers for traveling mercies over the next few days much appreciated. Love to you all!
One of the main things that kept catching me off guard while hiking through the bush was tripping over bones in the sand. There would be a leg bone here, a jaw bone there.. clearly animal bones, but considering how hearty Pokot's goats and cows are compared to us white weaklings, that wasn't as comforting as I'd hoped..
In one of my first interviews, a dozen women of various ages surrounded me to answer questions. Kids were running all over, boobs were hanging out, plenty of horking was going on, but everyone was listening and answering. 5 minutes in, a very old grandma came out of a nearby hut, dressed in traditional Pokot clothing, with stretched out earlobes and huge beaded necklaces. She strolled over to me, we shook hands, and she proceeded to stand over me and shout something loudly in Pokot. The women looked at me awkwardly and laughed, and my translator buried her head in her hands. I asked her what the woman had said and she mumbled bashfully, "she is wondering if you're a boy or a girl." Nice. Thanks, grandma.
In the same interview, a man wandered over and sat down with us. Our class had discussed the difficulties of interviewing tribes like the Pokot, where it's often unacceptable to speak with a woman without her husband present, and he can often dominate the interview or affect the way she answers. I started asking the women some detailed questions about what happens to their circumcision scars after giving birth. They chuckled and looked restlessly at each other, and gave a few harsh exclamations. To my surprise, my translator said, "they are refusing to answer this question with a man present, and are telling him to go away!" The man shyly picked up his stool and walked off, and the women happily proceeded to give me the gorey details. Out in the boonies, some issues are are more easily resolved than expected. Thank goodness for that.
Aaaand some things are harder. I came across a household with a husband and his two wives. After speaking with the wives for 20 minutes, the husband took over, informing me that as soon as her husband leaves to go work in the fields, an uncircumcised woman will go find another man to sleep with, whereas a circumcised woman will stay faithful to her man. I couldn't help myself. "Okay, tell me how this works then," I said. "I have a boyfriend. He is in America. I am here in Kenya, far, FAR away from him. I am not circumcised, yet I am not looking for any other men here, nor do I have any desire to be with anyone but him. So maybe... it's possible?" My translator said all of this to him as he and his wives' eyes widened. Then he started laughing and said, "You need to give us some of this medicine you are taking!" We briefly discussed the idea of self-control vs. medicine before he grew bored and left.
The focus of my studies the past 5 months has been on women's health issues, but the theme that keeps emerging is the huge role men play in every single one of those issues. Female circumcision is no exception. While the decision to circumcise is made by the mother or daughter herself and performed by women in the community, it is ultimately the man who chooses to marry only circumcised women, meaning uncircumcised women are shunned from the community -- no marriage means no children, no money, no land, no livelihood, no family, nothing to exist for.
I have to add this photo of the coolest interviewees ever. A Mum and her daughter, who were hiking through the bush with their machetes.We sat under a tree and talked. The Mum was deaf, and the daughter had a unique lip-reading/signing system to communicate with her. The daughter was just 20 and married, with her own daughter, but was insistent that she would not be circumcised. When I asked her why not, she was the first interviewee to tell me, very firmly and decidedly, that she saw absolutely no benefit in circumcision.
This was a critical point I'd wondered if I needed to communicate to them, but this young woman made it quite clear that she and her tribe are acknowledging those effects, and are ready to change ancient, inherited traditions for the sake of the following generation.
Another funny thing about doing research in the bush is that you're drinking huge amounts of water, but there are no toilets. Nobody even has pit latrines because the Pokot believe a parent's and child's feces should never mix. Fair enough, but that means doing it in a bush, which leaves your back open to wild animals, or, more gravely, traumatizing some innocent young child wandering around collecting firewood. This concern became bigger and bigger as we walked through the most desolate stretches of land and still kept bumping into surprised groups of kids. Eventually it became easier to hold it than to try finding a semi-private bush somewhere. I think my next research project will be on the prevalence of urinary tract infections among researchers in remote areas.
Hello from Kitale, Kenya! The Sheffield/London/Nairobi/Pokot trip went reasonably well. The Christmastime family cold I thought I'd avoided hit en route to Kenya, and I was in the throes of sneezing and drizzling everywhere the one day we stayed at a nice, sunny hotel with a pool. Nothing like having a cold in a really hot place. We reached the Marich Pass field centre in Pokot and after the first nights' sleep, I had over 100 bug bites on me. Very itchy ones. It was literally like having the chicken pox, and I'm still not quite convinced it wasn't pox, except that I've had them before. Fairly certain it wasn't mosquitoes, since no one else had more than 1 or 2 bites the whole time, we had mozzie nets, and I'd be in the thick of malaria at this point if it was. Which leaves bedbugs or fleas as options, neither of which are pleasant to think about for too long. Suffice to say, I'm recovering, and thankful Dad sent me with a large tube of hydrocortizone, which is nearly gone..
Doing research was amazing. Doing research in a place called Tikeet was doubly amazing. I wish I could put photos up from here. I got to walk around all day, with a translator, in 110 degree heat, over white sand and red rocks, cactus and bushes, from little mud hut to little mud hut, and sit and talk to unfathomably strong, resilient, rural African women about their lives. My project was focusing on the connection between female circumcision and education/medical knowledge. It was a touchy topic, but I never got turned down, and actually had multiple women present for most of the interviews. The last day I spoke with a group of male elders from the community, which was equally interesting. Probably most challenging/exciting was driving an hour from the field centre (already in the boonies) to the even more remote Tikeet each morning, having the driver drop us off on the edge of a sandy road, and trekking into the bush with no houses or people anywhere in sight, feeling like we might be in the middle of the Sahara. Past researchers have seen leopards, lions, and elephants in Tikeet, which was naturally on the forefront of my mind the whole time me and my little 18-year old translator were walking. (Thankfully the only wildlife spotted were 2 snakes and a very large lizard.) All of a sudden a hut would pop up in the distance, and if anyone was home, we'd do an interview in the shade of a tree or bush. Some houses were empty and many only had toddlers running around them, as the adults were out with their goats or finding food. The sun was so strong, and there were never any clouds. On the last day, I realized a mental timer started ticking in my head whenever we started walking, because I could feel I only had so much water and time before my feeble white girl self would end up as a pile of bleached out ribs in the sand. It was impossible to carry around the amount of water you'd actually need to stay hydrated all day, meaning the first 10 minutes back at the field centre were always spent chugging litres of it. It was strangely fascinating dealing with such intense elements; it almost feels like you're doing some twisted research project on yourself. But most fascinating was interacting with a tribe who somehow live their whole lives in nothing but those elements.
It was also great working with a group of students all focused on different elements of development -- health, environment, and social issues. We were able to learn from each other and see how so many different issues intertwine.
After a week in the same clothes, sharing a toilet with 37 others, and cold outdoor showers with monkeys watching you, it is so good to be back in familiar, slightly cooler Kitale. Manon and I will be here for a week, visiting new and ongoing projects that TI's been doing. Thanks for your prayers and e.mails. Miss you all!
Nothing like being home for Christmas when you were a 2-minute gate sprint away from spending the holiday in the Minneapolis airport (nothing against Minneapolis).It is mostly good and a little weird to be home.
Sunday Ina and I hopped on matatu #1 from Kitale, got on matatu #2 in Kandui,had our passports stamped in Malaba, Kenya, walked across the border, got on matatu #3 in Malaba, Uganda, and made it to Jinja, Uganda by 4pm. We had a great stay with 2 of Ina’s Finnish friends who are working at Jinja’s YWAM base -- ate real Indian food, saw Lake Victoria, hiked out to the Nile and it’s amazing waterfalls, walked through the Jinja markets; Ina managed to find a sauna to relax in during our last night!Oh, Scandinavians…
Uganda felt much more westernized than Kenya; people speak more English and seem friendlier. What surprised me is the massive population of Indians -- at least in Jinja, all the supermarkets and a good percentage of restaurants are run by people from India. Even though Amin booted them all out quite harshly less than 30 years ago, the government has since invited them back, acknowledging what a staple they are to Uganda’s economy. Obviously many of them accepted the invitation, and I for one am glad – having Indian food vs. the Kenyan same old same old was such a nice change.
Tuesday we got on matatu #4 to Busia, walked through the border again, got passports stamped, and got on matatu #5 to Kisumu. Stayed at the nicest hotel in town (for a whopping $10/night), walked down to Lake Victoria, ate at an Italian restaurant (that also served Indian AND Kenyan food), had ice cream for the first time in ages, and wandered through all the markets until getting on matatu #6 back to Kitale. 6 hours of dusty, bumpy, sweaty ride later, we were glad to get home.
Riding in a matatu is one thing I’m not sure I’ll miss once I’m back in the US. More often than not, it involves sharing a mini-van-ish bus with 20+ people, plus a bunch of chickens with their feet tied up, plus everyone’s luggage, hitting pothole after pothole while going somewhere around 120k/h and trying to avoid speeding semis and the other matatus driving maniacally on both sides of the road. Babies are crying, people are arguing with the conductor about fares, random old men are falling sleep on your shoulders. Being tall totally has it’s drawbacks on matatus, because when you hit a bump, your head constantly hits the metal framing on the ceiling. An added bonus on our last leg home yesterday was hitting a bump, cracking my head on the ceiling, AND having a metal screw bust through my seat right into my back. Yowzers.
Some shots:
We Heart Matatus!
Yikes. And Ew.
Obama Koikois!
Ina finally found a Kenyan wearing a shirt from Finland.
View from the matatu window...
Beans at the Uganda market.
The Nile!
Sitting by a Nile waterfall.
Lake Victoria at Sundown.
Walking the home stretch. So dusty and hot..
Now for the goodbyes.. today is the last day visiting the Nema House (where Noise is now in residence!), tomorrow is the last day at Oasis, Saturday will be the last day at HBF, and Sunday I will take my e-ticket to the Kitale airstrip, hand it man working in the office, which is about as big as an outhouse, and get on a tiny plane to Nairobi, to start a 30-hour journey home. Good times.
On Monday, I was picking up some things at the supermarket when a girl about 12 or 13 came up and timidly asked in English how I was. I said fine, and she walked away. 5 minutes later, as I was about to leave, she approached me again and asked if she could come home with me --not an uncommon request here; kids assume you can just stuff them into your suitcase and take them back to America. When I explained I lived in Kitale, she told me her name was Joyce, her father was dead, her mother had left her, and she had no place to live. Noting her good English and plain but still clean, new-ish clothes, I asked where she was staying now. She said with an aunt just outside of town, but she treated her badly and refused to pay her school fees.
This combination of life problems is the typical formula for a street kid – no parents, relatives who don’t care, and no school to keep them educated or occupied, so they turn to the streets, and consequently glue, drugs, alcohol, and prostitution, as their only alternative. I told her to meet me the next morning and we’d talk.
She never showed up the next morning, so Ina and I headed to Oasis for a few hours. When we returned to town to meet up with Daniel, Joyce ran up and hugged me, saying she’d been waiting there since 6am. The 4 of us went out for lunch and Daniel asked Joyce lots of questions about her situation. When we finished, Dan said he wanted to take Joyce to talk to Anne, TI’s social worker.
The next day we found out that Anne went all the way out to Joyce’s home with her, only to discover she lives in a house with her birth mother, stepfather, and younger siblings. The school Joyce said she used to attend did not even exist, nor did the small town she said her aunt lived in. Also, her name is not Joyce, it’s Noise. (Yes, Noise.) However, Anne said as soon as she’d started walking down the road to Noise’s village, there was an overwhelming smell of alcohol. The house itself was in a swampy, slum area, and Noise’s parents were totally indifferent to their daughter and her whereabouts. When Anne confronted Noise about lying, she was very apologetic, but also seemed genuinely confused and disoriented about her situation. Anne told us she suspects that whenever Noise’s mother leaves the house, her stepfather gets drunk and rapes her, forcing Noise to stay away from the home as much as possible.
Even though Noise’s original story was a bit fictitious, her real situation is enough to make her a viable candidate for the street girls home.Ironically, the same day I met Noise, Lillian, who was been at Nema House for over 4 months, ran away, meaning there are just 4 girls there currently, with room for more...
Party On..
The TI Christmas Party yesterday was a huge success. Around 260 people showed up, the majority of them kids that TI sponsors. Massive amounts of rice, cabbage, beef stew, chapati, and bananas were consumed, pictures taken, songs and skits shared, and – interestingly, to me – all the kids mingled easily with each other versus staying in their own groups.
The highlight of my day was having Linda on my lap most of the time, seeing her eat a huge meal, laugh at Mama Virginia on a teeter totter for the first time, and go down the slide with me. For all the ways it can ravage the body, I am thankful HIV allows those it affects to have some happy days that outweigh the hard ones.
Ina, Sarah & I cutting up ridiculous amounts of cabbage.
Sarah from Nema House in the guava tree--
consequently picked bare by the end of the party..
Getting everyone seated and served...
Mulongo, chowing down.. believe it or not, this guy is 8. He was malnourished the first few years of life, so he's making up for lost time...
Beautiful Teresa, from Oasis, loving the chapati...
Linda, new Christmas dress and all, eating mchelli (rice).
How many kids can you fit onto one teeter totter?
Mama V, getting pushed on the swing by her kids..
Linda & I on the slide.
Ina and I are off to Uganda tomorrow, with a stop-off in the town Obama’s grandma hails from. Woot woot!
The departures have begun. Yesterday we all ate a final banana pancake breakfast together and said goodbye to Lauren, Nate, and Drew as they headed home for Christmas. I don’t think any of us quite realized how much like family we’ve become until they left; it was a hard goodbye. The rest of us have been wandering the house in a daze wondering why everything is so quiet and then remembering that the teenagers are gone…
As we discussed over a bonfire Saturday night, the tough part about going home is having all the people who know exactly what you’ve experienced be so far away when you need them most! It will be an adjustment for all of us.
HBF Sleepover.
Before the departure, we were able to pull off a slightly chaotic but ultimately successful sleepover at HBF, sending house parents Ben and Virginia for a night in a nice Kitale hotel. They were thrilled to get a break, and we managed to win over the kids by cooking spaghetti for dinner (they love it so much they call it “super-getti”) and eggs for breakfast. To Ben and Virginia’s credit, their house of 30 kids runs like a well-oiled machine without them. Without ever being asked, the boys got firewood, the girls got water from the river, and no one fought or caused any problems. (Apart from a bunch of intoxicated Matissi tribesmen in a circumcision ceremony marching around the house yelling at 5am… that was exciting.)
It is amazing within Kenyan culture how instinctively the older kids look after the younger ones. This is especially obvious at HBF, where many of the older kids were the sole caregivers to their younger siblings before they were put in the home. So when Ben and Virginia left, all the responsible, parental instincts kicked in at high gear and we just watched in amazement! Susan, who is 13, took care of Baby Dan the entire time; getting him to sleep, feeding him (always before herself), changing diapers, bathing him. Linda had malaria again, pretty severely because of the HIV, and Elizabeth (16) slept with her and took her out to the cho 6 times during the night.
Some photos...
Nate & Martin.
Susan & Baby Dan, playing with an
aluminum can lid, as all babies do.....
Getting Ready for Breakfast!
Eggs, Bread, and Chai for 35.
Baby Dan, loving breakfast.
The Girls Bringing Water In.
Vero & I, Sneaking a Nap.
The Blanket Project.
Back in October, we were coming back from Nairobi on the night bus when Nate looked out the window and saw some street boys getting ready to go to sleep on the sidewalk. As hot as it gets during the day here, the nights are always surprisingly cold, and this got Nate thinking about all the Kitale street boys who have nothing but the holey clothes on their backs at night.
With a vague idea and God providing all the funds before Nate even prayed for them, he went out and bought 25 smallwool blankets. Each of us got 2 or 3 fabric squares, wrote notes to the boys, and signed them Baba (Father) or Yesu (Jesus). Then we took it all to Nema House, where the ex-street girls sewed the squares onto the corners of the blankets.
On a Sunday morning at 3am, Drew, Nate, and Alex loaded up a pick-up with the blankets and met Geoffrey, who runs the Oasis school and knows most of the places the street boys sleep. The guys were able to cover 25 sleeping boys with 25 blankets without a single one waking up. Before leaving yesterday morning, they were able to do another successful run with another 25 blankets. There is a chance the boys will pawn the blankets off for glue, but Nate decided to risk it and give them at least one warm night knowing God hasn’t forgotten about them. The only annoying part was that it was too dangerous for us girls to go with so we had to stay up in the livingroom waiting for the report…
2 more weeks left in Africa. Trying to make the most of it even though school is out and most of TI’s projects have finished for the year. This week is TI’s Christmas party, with over 200 kids coming from all of the projects! Next week Ina and I go to Uganda to visit some friends for a few days. And somehow the next week is Christmas… the heat and sun here has me convinced I’m stuck in a perpetual month of August.
Jambo from Kitale! 24 agonizing hours of hot and dusty bus ride later and we are miraculously back home. During the 24-hour bus ride down to Malindi, we were beginning to wonder if the trip was really worth it…
Boy were we not disappointed.
Hello, Indian Ocean!
It was kind of hard to believe Malindi is in the same country as Kitale. For starters, it is incredibly humid and hot with no rain, versus Kitale’s dry heat with downpours every few days. It’s very touristy, with a massive population of Italians – it is nicknamed “Little Italy” because of how many Italians visit and have summer homes there. When you walk by Kenyan kids on the street, instead of typical Swahili greetings you hear ‘ciao’. When we asked them “sasa?” (the slang way of asking what’s up), the kids didn’t even know how to respond! Weird. Instead of bodas bodas, they use tuk tuks to get around. There is white sand everywhere instead of red dust, and food prices were through the roof because of tourism. And the sun is about 15 times stronger than in Kitale.
Not that we’re complaining. Spending every day at the beach AND the resort swimming pool, eating Mombasa mangoes, and sleeping in an air conditioned room was pretty much paradise for everyone (horrific sunburns aside). For the record, the Indian Ocean is WARM (like bath water), and the sand is gold and silver. It’s beautiful.
Some shots..
The Silver and Gold Sand on the Beach.
All wearing our kokoi skirts before going out for Thanksgiving dinner.
On the wine list: BELLINGHAM!?!
Two Massai men watching Lauren and Drew build a sandcastle.
Turtle Bay in Watamu, where we snorkeled.
Boys Running on the Beach at Sunrise.
Sunrise over the Indian Ocean. Not too shabby...
As great as a vacation as we all had, we were surprised at how quickly we got antsy to get back to Kitale. It was strange being at such a ritzy resort and eating such expensive food while you're missing street kids back home and the beans and rice we eat everyday.
This weekend we are wrapping some projects up before Nate, Drew, and Lauren head home on Sunday. Last night we took the Nema girls out for dinner, and this weekend 4 of us are babysitting all 30 kids at HBF and sending house parents Ben and Virginia to a nice hotel for the weekend. This involves cooking massive amounts of spaghetti for dinner and eggs for breakfast, which is a very special treat for them… and for us... to be cooking in such mass amounts…
