At long last I have uploaded some pictures... you can experience East Africa according to Kelsey in full colour by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/kelseyshort
Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Book List
In case you are looking for a good book to read, I thought I would post my reading list for the last few months. Enjoy...
- Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb ~ A brilliant story of a foreigner growing up in Ethiopia. Highly recommended.
- Haunted by Chuck Palaniuk ~ From the author of Fight Club, really good in a disturbing sort of way... don't say I didn't warn you.
- The Famished Road by Ben Okri ~ Supposedly the number one read for "understanding the issues on the African continent" so says Lonely Planet. It was painful to get through for me, but still worth reading in the end.
- The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini ~ Brilliant! Read it before you see the movie I think.
- Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coehlo ~ If you are not already a fan of Mr. Coehlo don't start here... go buy The Alchemist.
- Alek by Alek Wek ~ The autobiography of a Sudanese refugee turned international supermodel. Not terribly well written but an interesting story.
- Unbowed by Wangari Maathai ~ I haven't actually read it yet but she is the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace prize... I'm looking forward to it.
- 28 Stories of HIV/AIDS in Africa by Stephani Nolan ~ Just a brilliant book.
- The Joys of Motherhood but I can't remember the author right now ~ One of my favorite books ever.
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe ~ Again just brilliant!
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The Stars of the Southern Hemisphere
In the arid Savannah landscape of central Botswana, there is a bush camp run by a South African many named Ben. Ben is an animated story teller, an immaculate host and, as it turns out, a bit of a drinker. This is the story of how I came to be riding in the back of his pickup truck, lost in the middle of Nowhere Botswana and holding an elephant tusk at three in the morning.
The Elephant Sands campsite is little more than a sandy lot beside a watering hole in the middle of endless scrub brush. Elephants frequent the watering hole to drink and play. I easily whiled away an afternoon just watching the elephants cooling themselves in the water; I'm really quite enamoured by the elephants, I'm not sure I want to return to a country where there is no possibility of seeing them on a daily basis. As I sat and watched the elephants, Ben was busy telling bush stories to an enraptured group of my travel companions. It wasn't long before he was offering to take us into the bush for the night for our own "bush experience". He guaranteed he would show us something that none of us had ever seen before. How could I possibly say no to an offer like that?
Eight of us decided to go. As the heat of the afternoon finally began to wain, we packed our things into the land cruiser and set off. The sensations of that afternoon were really quite tantalizing; the feeling of the sun scorching my face and the Acacia thorns whipping my arms as we careen off-road through the bush; the choking smell of diesel overtaking the musty smell of elephant manure; the sound of the truck gears grinding; the feeling of dirt sticking to my sweaty skin. We drank cider as we drove, and watched for giraffes, elephants and lions off in the bushes. I felt like I was in a Hemingway story; I loved every minute of it.
We finally arrived at another watering hole where Ben announced we would camp for the night. The watering hole was not large but it was picturesque, being crowned on the West side by a towering skeleton of an Acacia tree. The sun was setting and while I fiddled with my camera for that perfect shot, Ben and Jamu (the local guide) lit a bonfire and cooked dinner. We ate steak and pap (like ugali) and stew. We drank red wine out of plastic cups and talked about the heard of elephants we had seen nearby (with a brand new baby, maybe a week old Ben thought, and an elegant and frightening matriarch). Everything was perfect.
The stars came out and I was shown the Southern Cross. Being from the Northern hemisphere I feel somewhat lost when I look up at the stars here and don't recognize anything - but the Southern Cross finds South like the Big Dipper finds North and I felt reassured. As we finished off the wine Ben announced that we should all pile into the truck again and he would take us to find his guaranteed novel experience.
We drove for almost an hour, it was clear we were lost. But just as we were all starting to give up hope that would would actually find this mystery thing, the engine stopped and Ben hopped out, instructing us to follow. The smell of the diesel was suddenly taken over by something stronger - what was that? And then we saw it... the massive skull of an elephant peering at us from the bushes. And this is what Ben had guaranteed we would have never seen before - a dead elephant. He was right, it was definitely a first for me.
The elephant, it turns out, was an old bull who had fallen into a sink hole and died, probably about three months ago. Ben needed to go out and recover the tusks and give them to the Botswana wildlife service so they can be registered in the ivory registry. In about six months they will be auctioned off to an international market - anyone can buy them, but this way they get a certificate saying the ivory wasn't poached but collected after a natural death. So Jamu went about tying a rope around the tusk and lifting up the flap of decaying flesh covering the tusk (which produced a smell more retched than anything I have ever smelled in my life). Then we pulled. It took a great amount of force but eventually it slid off, quite easily actually.
The tusk was beautiful and smooth and amazingly heavy - about 40 kilos Ben said. I just liked holding it, even though the end still smelled like a dead elephant. We were trying to remove the second one, which was proving much more difficult, when we heard rustling in the buses and a low sort of rumbling. It was about five meters away, Ben wasn't sure if it was elephants or hyenas or lions but we decided we didn't really want to meet any of those, so we scrambled back into the truck and set on our way. Ben assured us he knew the way home.
He didn't. We left the elephant about eleven at night... we found camp (not the camp we had set up but the actual camp) at ten past four in the morning. It was a long night needless to say. It was all the longer as we realized Ben had a bottle of whisky in the front with him - as he got more and more lost he also got more and more drunk. Every so often Ben and Jamu would jump out of the truck and race of into the bushes and point at the stars and speak angerly in Setswan. And although we never saw them, we heard lions roaring in the bushes; whether it was true or our imaginations, they always seemed to be getting closer.
I can't say being lost in the bushes for hours in the middle of the night is an experience for everyone. Certainly most of the people with me were not really suited for it... but I loved it. It was cold and frustrating and I was tired and thirsty, but it really was one of the most real experiences I've had. It was an adventure, and there were lions... how much more Chronicles of Narnia could I get.
The Elephant Sands campsite is little more than a sandy lot beside a watering hole in the middle of endless scrub brush. Elephants frequent the watering hole to drink and play. I easily whiled away an afternoon just watching the elephants cooling themselves in the water; I'm really quite enamoured by the elephants, I'm not sure I want to return to a country where there is no possibility of seeing them on a daily basis. As I sat and watched the elephants, Ben was busy telling bush stories to an enraptured group of my travel companions. It wasn't long before he was offering to take us into the bush for the night for our own "bush experience". He guaranteed he would show us something that none of us had ever seen before. How could I possibly say no to an offer like that?
Eight of us decided to go. As the heat of the afternoon finally began to wain, we packed our things into the land cruiser and set off. The sensations of that afternoon were really quite tantalizing; the feeling of the sun scorching my face and the Acacia thorns whipping my arms as we careen off-road through the bush; the choking smell of diesel overtaking the musty smell of elephant manure; the sound of the truck gears grinding; the feeling of dirt sticking to my sweaty skin. We drank cider as we drove, and watched for giraffes, elephants and lions off in the bushes. I felt like I was in a Hemingway story; I loved every minute of it.
We finally arrived at another watering hole where Ben announced we would camp for the night. The watering hole was not large but it was picturesque, being crowned on the West side by a towering skeleton of an Acacia tree. The sun was setting and while I fiddled with my camera for that perfect shot, Ben and Jamu (the local guide) lit a bonfire and cooked dinner. We ate steak and pap (like ugali) and stew. We drank red wine out of plastic cups and talked about the heard of elephants we had seen nearby (with a brand new baby, maybe a week old Ben thought, and an elegant and frightening matriarch). Everything was perfect.
The stars came out and I was shown the Southern Cross. Being from the Northern hemisphere I feel somewhat lost when I look up at the stars here and don't recognize anything - but the Southern Cross finds South like the Big Dipper finds North and I felt reassured. As we finished off the wine Ben announced that we should all pile into the truck again and he would take us to find his guaranteed novel experience.
We drove for almost an hour, it was clear we were lost. But just as we were all starting to give up hope that would would actually find this mystery thing, the engine stopped and Ben hopped out, instructing us to follow. The smell of the diesel was suddenly taken over by something stronger - what was that? And then we saw it... the massive skull of an elephant peering at us from the bushes. And this is what Ben had guaranteed we would have never seen before - a dead elephant. He was right, it was definitely a first for me.
The elephant, it turns out, was an old bull who had fallen into a sink hole and died, probably about three months ago. Ben needed to go out and recover the tusks and give them to the Botswana wildlife service so they can be registered in the ivory registry. In about six months they will be auctioned off to an international market - anyone can buy them, but this way they get a certificate saying the ivory wasn't poached but collected after a natural death. So Jamu went about tying a rope around the tusk and lifting up the flap of decaying flesh covering the tusk (which produced a smell more retched than anything I have ever smelled in my life). Then we pulled. It took a great amount of force but eventually it slid off, quite easily actually.
The tusk was beautiful and smooth and amazingly heavy - about 40 kilos Ben said. I just liked holding it, even though the end still smelled like a dead elephant. We were trying to remove the second one, which was proving much more difficult, when we heard rustling in the buses and a low sort of rumbling. It was about five meters away, Ben wasn't sure if it was elephants or hyenas or lions but we decided we didn't really want to meet any of those, so we scrambled back into the truck and set on our way. Ben assured us he knew the way home.
He didn't. We left the elephant about eleven at night... we found camp (not the camp we had set up but the actual camp) at ten past four in the morning. It was a long night needless to say. It was all the longer as we realized Ben had a bottle of whisky in the front with him - as he got more and more lost he also got more and more drunk. Every so often Ben and Jamu would jump out of the truck and race of into the bushes and point at the stars and speak angerly in Setswan. And although we never saw them, we heard lions roaring in the bushes; whether it was true or our imaginations, they always seemed to be getting closer.
I can't say being lost in the bushes for hours in the middle of the night is an experience for everyone. Certainly most of the people with me were not really suited for it... but I loved it. It was cold and frustrating and I was tired and thirsty, but it really was one of the most real experiences I've had. It was an adventure, and there were lions... how much more Chronicles of Narnia could I get.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The Warm Heart of Africa
"The warm heart of Africa". That's what all the guide books call Malawi, except the Lonely Planet which calls it "Africa for beginners". I'm not entirely sure what either of those characterizations mean in everyday terms... Malawi is beautiful, both the land and the few people I met. There is poverty everywhere and as always the juxtaposition of beauty and poverty intrigues me.
The first day I arrived I was exhausted and feeling overwhelmed. I decided to go for a walk to the nearby village. It was a lovely walk, down a dusty dirt road with small households visible off in the trees. I could hear women chatting away in Chichewla (sadly not Swahili!) as I walked along in the afternoon sun.
Not long after I started walking I noticed some kids off in the fields playing soccer. They spotted me quickly and started running toward me - not an uncommon experience over the last few months, but oddly enough, this time they actually ran right past me. I watched with interest as they all started to lay down across the tire treads in the dirt road about 10 meters ahead of me. Side by side, at least 15 kids lay across the track and assumed a position with the fingers interlaced between their head and their legs crossed at the ankles. This "sleeping" position was only spoiled by the fact that in their excitement they were all stifling giggles and squirming with the effort to keep still. With some trepidation I began to walk past this litany of sleepers and after passing about the sixth child, one of them gave a sound and all of a sudden... they were all yelling and shaking their limbs about as if having some kind of fit. This was absolutely the last thing I expected them to do! I couldn't help it, I just started to laugh. The kids all jumped up and began congratulating each other on a joke well played. I kept laughing and eventually was able to shake all their hands. I told them it was a great trick, although I don't think they understood a word of what I said. The excitement quickly died off and the children all ran back to their abandoned soccer game.
Not one of them asked me for anything. It was truly one of the most rewarding experiences I have had so far. I will never forget their excitement.
The first day I arrived I was exhausted and feeling overwhelmed. I decided to go for a walk to the nearby village. It was a lovely walk, down a dusty dirt road with small households visible off in the trees. I could hear women chatting away in Chichewla (sadly not Swahili!) as I walked along in the afternoon sun.
Not long after I started walking I noticed some kids off in the fields playing soccer. They spotted me quickly and started running toward me - not an uncommon experience over the last few months, but oddly enough, this time they actually ran right past me. I watched with interest as they all started to lay down across the tire treads in the dirt road about 10 meters ahead of me. Side by side, at least 15 kids lay across the track and assumed a position with the fingers interlaced between their head and their legs crossed at the ankles. This "sleeping" position was only spoiled by the fact that in their excitement they were all stifling giggles and squirming with the effort to keep still. With some trepidation I began to walk past this litany of sleepers and after passing about the sixth child, one of them gave a sound and all of a sudden... they were all yelling and shaking their limbs about as if having some kind of fit. This was absolutely the last thing I expected them to do! I couldn't help it, I just started to laugh. The kids all jumped up and began congratulating each other on a joke well played. I kept laughing and eventually was able to shake all their hands. I told them it was a great trick, although I don't think they understood a word of what I said. The excitement quickly died off and the children all ran back to their abandoned soccer game.
Not one of them asked me for anything. It was truly one of the most rewarding experiences I have had so far. I will never forget their excitement.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Babel Fish
I am so in love with Swahili... okay to be honest I am in love with myself and all the Swahili I have managed to pick up in my two and a half month in East Africa. I formerly thought I was hopeless at learning languages, but I think perhaps I shall revise that story. Certainly I am not fluent or anything like that, but I am fairly proud of my Swahili gains.
Learning a language, as it turns out, is a somewhat mind-bending process. I remember one day, back at the hospital, the nurses asked me, "Kelsey, unataka chapo?" My brain immediately took up the challenge and translated "unataka" from Swahili to English as "do you want". Then the language engine of my brain sputtered and choked and missed a gear - "chapo" which is sheng for chapati, a favorite tea time snake, my brain heard as chapeau and translated from French to English as "hat". My response to the simple question "do you want chapati?" was therefore "what hat?" Needless to say this was met with quite a bit of hysterical laughter.
Of course that was ages ago and I've improved heaps since then. While on Zanzibar I managed to bargain for a scarf almost entirely in Swahili. I even came up with this sentence on the spot, no phrasebook or anything: "Jana, bei ya kwanze, elfu saba, halafu leo, bei ya kwanze elfu dumi no mbili!" It means: "Yesterday the first price was 7000 now today the first price is 12000!" I have no idea if it is grammatically correct, in fact it may well be a linguistic bastardization, but the vendor laughed so hard and ended up giving in to my price (5000) without much of a fight. Then when I pulled my money out of a knot in the corner of my wrap skirt he laughed again and said "dada (sister) you are like a maasai mama!" It was quite an entertaining experience, for both of us I think.
Finally my last language encounter, of which I am most please because I always hear people talk of this but I have never actually experience it myself (being the sad monolingual specimen that I am). I had been speaking with the bar tender at our campsite in Swahili all evening as his English seemed about as good as my Swahili. He came by our group after we had finished dinner - he was looking for a cooking pot which, unbeknownst to us we had borrowed earlier. He couldn't find the words in English but when he saw me he quickly switched back to Swahili. Overwhelmed by his words I told him "pole sema" or "speak slowly". So he repeated himself slower and, I'm sure, simpler and I managed to grasp what he was saying. I turned back to the group and pronounced, "Anasema ni souforria mdogo..." but then I floundered because I couldn't remember how to conjugate the word for "theirs". It didn't matter anyway because everyone was laughing and shouting "Kelsey, English!" And suddenly I couldn't find the words in English either. It was like all my words had fallen off their shelves into a mad jumble - nothing was categorized neatly anymore. I just wanted to say that the small pot belong to him, but instead I ended up pointing weakly and saying "The souforria, the souforria" Finally I regrouped and sorted it all out. The group was quite impressed and all commented on how handy my Swahili was - but I didn't feel handy, I felt linguistically shipwrecked.
I dreamed silent dreams that night.
Yesterday I left Tanzania and with it, the Swahili I have come to so enjoy. Malawi is beautiful. I really miss the Swahili though.
This is the story of how I begin to remember...
Editor's note: You might as well just dig out your Paul Simon Graceland album now and have a listen because I don't seem to be able to stop myself referencing the songs.
I come from a land of beautiful scenery - the rugged mountains and rolling prairies of Alberta will always take my breath away. I'll admit that sometimes I'm guilty of being a "scenery snob" and judging the sights of the planet always against my home: but the sight of the full moon gleaming over the vast Serengeti plain while the sun rose behind me, will always be seared on my mind as one of the most beautiful images on earth.
I wanted to post pictures of my four days on safari in Tanzania's Serengeti... but alas the computers here have failed me again. Oh well, you can all just wait in eager anticipation... I know I am also guilty of being a photo snob, but I assure you, I have some pretty amazing shots. For now you will have to be content with my writings, which pale in comparison to the real thing.
The whole concept of being "on safari" is somewhat of a throwback to colonialism with a definite tourist bent. In all honesty I was slightly ashamed to be riding around such beautiful terrain in a polluting four-by-four, holstering my camera instead of a rifle... but apparently not too ashamed because I still did it. I try to console myself with the fact that we have hired a local company with local guides and so at least my money is supporting the local economy.
The Serengeti plain is just that - a vast plain that at times looked like it could be actually be anywhere in Alberta, until a giraffe would walk by with that oddly graceful gait of theirs. Or the sight of the wildebeest migration - literally thousand and thousands of braying beasts dotting the plains until the dots merge together and become one solid black mass - would quickly snap me back to my African reality. Wildebeest have got to be one of the ugliest creatures around, with their awkward necks and bleach blond curtain of chin hair. Yet for all that ugliness, the sight of the migration is still nothing short of amazing.
All those wildebeest, having up to 8000 calves per day I'm told, create a veritable buffet for the predators of the Serengeti. The lions, leopards, cheetah and hyenas hardly need to work to pick off an assumably tasty little snack. The hyenas of course, are a dime a dozen, they waddle around like they own the place. We would even hear them cackling in the distance at night as we (tried) to rest in our tents. Also, we were luck enough to spot lions and even a beautiful leopard sulking in a tree. But the real treat, the best luck ever, was when we saw the cheetah make a kill.
Except for the lack of the serene British man narrating it, the whole thing was like watching animal planet - except way better because the smell and feel of the Serengeti was all around me. It was amazing too that it was all over so fast. The cheetah has lazed about for a while sitting up, watching the gazelles grazing, laying back down and rolling over. Finally, I suppose when he was hungry enough, he stood bolt upright and began stalking the herd. They had sensed his presence once earlier, but luckily gazelles have a rather short memory... within minutes of their tense alertness, they had completely forgotten what was over the ridge and "oh look... grass!" So this time when the cheetah burst from his hiding point, they seemed genuinely surprised.
I say burst but in actuality, it started out much slower than I expected. Not the burst of energy after the shotgun, but more a gentle gathering of speed with muscles rippling. Of course once he was in full flight is was beautiful and amazing to watch. His eye was set on a tiny little gazelle and every dart the gazelle made the cheetah was right on his tail. He finally pounced on the gazelle and the two of them spun out in a cloud of dust, from which the cheetah emerged, the little body dangling in his jaws. He marched proudly off into the buses to enjoy his meal. Like I said, very animal planet, very amazing. I saved my rendition of "Circle of Life" for the evening when the mood had subdued a bit and I was no longer speechless with the brilliance of the world we live in.
The Serengeti was amazing, I could have stayed there for weeks. But Tanzania of course had more interesting places for me in store. After the Serengeti it was off to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar island... but that is for another time.
I come from a land of beautiful scenery - the rugged mountains and rolling prairies of Alberta will always take my breath away. I'll admit that sometimes I'm guilty of being a "scenery snob" and judging the sights of the planet always against my home: but the sight of the full moon gleaming over the vast Serengeti plain while the sun rose behind me, will always be seared on my mind as one of the most beautiful images on earth.
I wanted to post pictures of my four days on safari in Tanzania's Serengeti... but alas the computers here have failed me again. Oh well, you can all just wait in eager anticipation... I know I am also guilty of being a photo snob, but I assure you, I have some pretty amazing shots. For now you will have to be content with my writings, which pale in comparison to the real thing.
The whole concept of being "on safari" is somewhat of a throwback to colonialism with a definite tourist bent. In all honesty I was slightly ashamed to be riding around such beautiful terrain in a polluting four-by-four, holstering my camera instead of a rifle... but apparently not too ashamed because I still did it. I try to console myself with the fact that we have hired a local company with local guides and so at least my money is supporting the local economy.
The Serengeti plain is just that - a vast plain that at times looked like it could be actually be anywhere in Alberta, until a giraffe would walk by with that oddly graceful gait of theirs. Or the sight of the wildebeest migration - literally thousand and thousands of braying beasts dotting the plains until the dots merge together and become one solid black mass - would quickly snap me back to my African reality. Wildebeest have got to be one of the ugliest creatures around, with their awkward necks and bleach blond curtain of chin hair. Yet for all that ugliness, the sight of the migration is still nothing short of amazing.
All those wildebeest, having up to 8000 calves per day I'm told, create a veritable buffet for the predators of the Serengeti. The lions, leopards, cheetah and hyenas hardly need to work to pick off an assumably tasty little snack. The hyenas of course, are a dime a dozen, they waddle around like they own the place. We would even hear them cackling in the distance at night as we (tried) to rest in our tents. Also, we were luck enough to spot lions and even a beautiful leopard sulking in a tree. But the real treat, the best luck ever, was when we saw the cheetah make a kill.
Except for the lack of the serene British man narrating it, the whole thing was like watching animal planet - except way better because the smell and feel of the Serengeti was all around me. It was amazing too that it was all over so fast. The cheetah has lazed about for a while sitting up, watching the gazelles grazing, laying back down and rolling over. Finally, I suppose when he was hungry enough, he stood bolt upright and began stalking the herd. They had sensed his presence once earlier, but luckily gazelles have a rather short memory... within minutes of their tense alertness, they had completely forgotten what was over the ridge and "oh look... grass!" So this time when the cheetah burst from his hiding point, they seemed genuinely surprised.
I say burst but in actuality, it started out much slower than I expected. Not the burst of energy after the shotgun, but more a gentle gathering of speed with muscles rippling. Of course once he was in full flight is was beautiful and amazing to watch. His eye was set on a tiny little gazelle and every dart the gazelle made the cheetah was right on his tail. He finally pounced on the gazelle and the two of them spun out in a cloud of dust, from which the cheetah emerged, the little body dangling in his jaws. He marched proudly off into the buses to enjoy his meal. Like I said, very animal planet, very amazing. I saved my rendition of "Circle of Life" for the evening when the mood had subdued a bit and I was no longer speechless with the brilliance of the world we live in.
The Serengeti was amazing, I could have stayed there for weeks. But Tanzania of course had more interesting places for me in store. After the Serengeti it was off to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar island... but that is for another time.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
For a good time, not a long time...
I can't believe that two months has gone by already! Friday was my last day working at the hospital and today (Saturday) I'm heading into Nairobi, with all my luggage and a sprained ankle, to start my safari tomorrow.
Friday started off average enough, I was working partly in pharmacy and partly in the pre-natal clinic (the nurses all wanted to work with me since it was my last day, don't I feel special?) But of course there had to be some excitement to see me off, so at about 10:30 we got a call to come up to Lillian's office (Lillian is one of the c.o.'s which are basically like doctors). When Halima and I entered the room, we found Lillian busy suturing a guy's head while a lady, clearly in labour, was lying on the floor in the corner moaning. Lillian informed us that the lady came in complaining of "a stomach ache" and was adamantly refusing that she was pregnant. She refused to have a vaginal exam done and even as her water broke on the floor, she repeated that she was NOT pregnant. To complicate matters, she had a c-section less than one year ago! Halima called for the Mathena (who is a certified midwife) and she came in with a rather tough love approach - hitting the lady until she allowed Mathena to do a vaginal exam. The exam of course revealed that she was in the second stage of labour and pretty much about to deliver right then and there. Being the youngest in the room they all decided that I should be the one to run to the maternity ward (down two long ramps) to fetch supplies. So I bust out of the room, past the hallway full of waiting patients and sprint down to the maternity ward. Minutes later I am sprinting past the same shocked client, my arms full of surgical drapes, a deliver pack, heaps of gauze and sterile gloves. I barely make it into the room in time to open the delivery pack as Mathena is delivering the baby. I take the baby in one of the surgical drapes , dry it off, do a quick assessment, wrap it up and head out to take it down to the maternity ward which has an infant warmer. So ten minutes after I last came sprinting past the eager audience, I emerge once more from the room, this time with a baby in my arms; an excited whisper goes through the crowd, of which I catch the word "mtoto" or baby. The baby and mother did very well and by the end of it, she even thanked us all for doing such a good job.
With that excitement out of the way we took out tea and my mum came round to take pictures. I brought chocolates for the staff as a thank you gift which were a huge hit. At first I set them out and nobody wanted to take them, then once they had tried them, all the nurses were scrambling to take three or four. They also all wanted to "book" the container that the ferrero roches came on (those little plastic boxes with the lid) as they thought they were "very smart" containers. The picture above is all the staff that were there on Friday; it took me about twenty minutes to round them all up, and for all that work, still most of them aren't smiling. Grace, my host mum, is sitting in the front, third from left. The other white lady is Barbette, another volunteer who was here for the last two weeks.
The long rains finally started in the evening and the rain pelting on the tin roof created quite a racket at home. But that didn't stop us from dancing up a storm in the kitchen - I had Grace and Bobo involved in a mid-dinner-cooking dance party extraordinary, with Footloose blasting. Bobo thought the whole thing was pretty hilarious, and Grace thought dancing was very good exercise. The evening also consisted of a good tick burning on the porch (we picked them off the cat) and a discussion about what insults kids use in Kenya to tease eachother. Moshela (from Sidai orpahange) had told us that when he was a child, the kids used to call him a "pregnant mosquito" and that made him cry. Bobo said the kids in her class go better, the reigning insult is to be told "you're married to a black, uncircumcised, pregnant mosquito". Ouch!
The evening finished with nyama choma for dinner: a special treat from Grace and Stanley for my last night. It was honestly the biggest rack of goat ribs I have ever seen! The meal was quite the feast with the nyama choma being complimented by salad and cabbages, chapati and soup that mum made. Honestly, Grace and Stanley have been so welcoming and such wonderful host parents; in a hundred ways they have really made my experience here in Kenya.
Today mum and I spent the morning playing in the field with the older kids from Sidai. Mum had brought skipping ropes, a frisbee, hackie-sacks and skip-its; all of which were a huge hit with the kids who had never seen such toys before. The girls especially figured out the skipping ropes right away. Of course the biggest hit was when I showed the kids how I can pull my finger off! You could see all their little minds working away: how does she do it? This little play time was of course how I ended up with a sprained ankle, but it was so worth it. When we went to leave the kids sang me a beautiful little song "goodbye Kelsey, goodbye"; it was adorable.
I can't believe my two months are over! Did I say that already? I am so excited to go on safari and see new countries and new people, but at the same time I'm sad to be leaving. I have told a bunch of people that I thought my path would lead me back to Kenya eventually, and I hope that truly it will.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sidai Outreach Day
Mama Kelsey is working at an orphanage called Sidai; it is located in the Mathare slum in Ngong. There are 25 children who live at the orphanage but there are up to 100 that take meals there, come for classes or generally hang about. Yesterday myself and two other volunteer nurses spent the afternoon at Sidai doing health assessments on the kids; Grace called it our "outreach day".
The whole idea was actually my mum's, she wondered if the kids should be checked for lice and other health ailments. From there we planned the afternoon and ended up getting the hospital to supply us with some supplements and equipment and such. The orphanage staff were really keen and thought it was a great idea. They were there the whole time helping us keep the kids under control and filling us in on whatever health history they knew for the children.
Casey and Barbette were my partners in crime; they are both nurses from the US who arrived to volunteer at the same time as my mum. After working for the morning at the hospital we packed up out things and headed down to the slum. Sidai itself is located in two small aluminum shacks, with dirt floors and no electricity. The larger room has a couch and desks for the children to take lessons at. We entered and began setting up under 15 pairs of watchful eyes. The children were all very excited to see what we were doing (and when they found out they would get a cookie at the end, they were even more thrilled).
So the children lined up and passed by each of us in turn. Barbette gave them Vitamin A supplements and Albuzol to treat intestinal parasites (Grace tells me they should be treated every three months regardless of a diagnosis, but this often doesn't happen). I'm pretty sure the tablets (which have to be chewed) don't taste good but the kids loved them; they just wanted to suck on them despite all our efforts to get them to chew.
Next they came to me and I did a quick little health assessment - listened to their lungs, felt their bellies, checked for lice, jaundice, rashes and scratches etc. Many of them looked completely perplexed by my stethoscope and watched me with great interest. They loved the part where I looked through their hair and got them to stick out their tongue. Of course there were a few who looked shy or didn't want to look anywhere but the ground... and the odd one that was downright frightened of the scary white girl.
Finally they finished up by seeing Casey and having their height and weight taken. Then of course the promised cookie - cheap cookies from Nakumatt could never bring such delight to children in Canada as they seemed to here! There were even a few kids who tried to sneak back in the line and go again, I think they liked the attention as much as the cookie!
We saw 64 children in total and overall I was surprised that most of the kids were in pretty good health. I expected to hear more rattly chests or even wheezes (the classrooms are very smoky and I can't understand how more of the kids don't have asthma), but heard nothing but clear breath sounds. I found no head lice (but mum gave them some Nix anyway and we explained how and when to use it). There were a few kids with scratches and cuts that we put some polysporin on. I did notice that many of them seemed pale and I wonder about their iron levels - the biggest source of iron in the diet here is from green leafy vegetables, which these kids don't get. I'm going to have to look into this.
I noticed two children who I highly suspect of having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which wouldn't be uncommon given the population the children are coming from. However when my mum described it to the teachers later, they had never even heard of it (even Grace, a nutritionist, had never heard of it). The teachers though felt it explained a lot about these children when we said FAS can make learning very difficult for the children. Even though these kids will never get the kind of education resources that might be available to them in Canada, the teachers seemed very conscientious and I think this knowledge may help them to have more understanding and maybe more patience with these little ones.
Finally HIV; I knew it would come up. There are two little boys who the staff know are HIV +, but both looked remarkably healthy (other than being thin and small for their age). The one little boy was especially cute and playful with me and mum says he is very bright. His mother is refusing all Western medicine for him as she believes Masaai medicine is better. I'm not quite sure but it sounds like the staff may have been taking him to the hospital for treatment at some point without her knowing. For now he is happy and active. Then there was one boy who, even from across the room, I could tell that he was sick. When he finally came up to me, very shy but very polite, I could see all the signs of full blown AIDS. The staff said his mother takes him to the AIDS clinic at Kenyatta hospital but hasn't been going lately (they're not entirely sure why but finances could be the issue, although treatment is free, the matatu fare to get there could easily be 100/= which the mother can't afford). I am pretty sure the boy can be treated in Ngong Hospital, which, being a government hospital, will provide all care as well as medications free of charge. We are working out the details so we can hopefully get him seen pretty soon and started on some treatment.
Overall the health day went really well - the children were thoroughly entertained by it all, the staff were very appreciate and we all left feeling like we had accomplished something. The orphanage is hot and sweaty and cramped and dark but I didn't mind - in fact I felt no nostalgia at all for my air conditioned, pristinely sanitized Western hospitals.
The whole idea was actually my mum's, she wondered if the kids should be checked for lice and other health ailments. From there we planned the afternoon and ended up getting the hospital to supply us with some supplements and equipment and such. The orphanage staff were really keen and thought it was a great idea. They were there the whole time helping us keep the kids under control and filling us in on whatever health history they knew for the children.
Casey and Barbette were my partners in crime; they are both nurses from the US who arrived to volunteer at the same time as my mum. After working for the morning at the hospital we packed up out things and headed down to the slum. Sidai itself is located in two small aluminum shacks, with dirt floors and no electricity. The larger room has a couch and desks for the children to take lessons at. We entered and began setting up under 15 pairs of watchful eyes. The children were all very excited to see what we were doing (and when they found out they would get a cookie at the end, they were even more thrilled).
So the children lined up and passed by each of us in turn. Barbette gave them Vitamin A supplements and Albuzol to treat intestinal parasites (Grace tells me they should be treated every three months regardless of a diagnosis, but this often doesn't happen). I'm pretty sure the tablets (which have to be chewed) don't taste good but the kids loved them; they just wanted to suck on them despite all our efforts to get them to chew.
Next they came to me and I did a quick little health assessment - listened to their lungs, felt their bellies, checked for lice, jaundice, rashes and scratches etc. Many of them looked completely perplexed by my stethoscope and watched me with great interest. They loved the part where I looked through their hair and got them to stick out their tongue. Of course there were a few who looked shy or didn't want to look anywhere but the ground... and the odd one that was downright frightened of the scary white girl.
Finally they finished up by seeing Casey and having their height and weight taken. Then of course the promised cookie - cheap cookies from Nakumatt could never bring such delight to children in Canada as they seemed to here! There were even a few kids who tried to sneak back in the line and go again, I think they liked the attention as much as the cookie!
We saw 64 children in total and overall I was surprised that most of the kids were in pretty good health. I expected to hear more rattly chests or even wheezes (the classrooms are very smoky and I can't understand how more of the kids don't have asthma), but heard nothing but clear breath sounds. I found no head lice (but mum gave them some Nix anyway and we explained how and when to use it). There were a few kids with scratches and cuts that we put some polysporin on. I did notice that many of them seemed pale and I wonder about their iron levels - the biggest source of iron in the diet here is from green leafy vegetables, which these kids don't get. I'm going to have to look into this.
I noticed two children who I highly suspect of having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which wouldn't be uncommon given the population the children are coming from. However when my mum described it to the teachers later, they had never even heard of it (even Grace, a nutritionist, had never heard of it). The teachers though felt it explained a lot about these children when we said FAS can make learning very difficult for the children. Even though these kids will never get the kind of education resources that might be available to them in Canada, the teachers seemed very conscientious and I think this knowledge may help them to have more understanding and maybe more patience with these little ones.
Finally HIV; I knew it would come up. There are two little boys who the staff know are HIV +, but both looked remarkably healthy (other than being thin and small for their age). The one little boy was especially cute and playful with me and mum says he is very bright. His mother is refusing all Western medicine for him as she believes Masaai medicine is better. I'm not quite sure but it sounds like the staff may have been taking him to the hospital for treatment at some point without her knowing. For now he is happy and active. Then there was one boy who, even from across the room, I could tell that he was sick. When he finally came up to me, very shy but very polite, I could see all the signs of full blown AIDS. The staff said his mother takes him to the AIDS clinic at Kenyatta hospital but hasn't been going lately (they're not entirely sure why but finances could be the issue, although treatment is free, the matatu fare to get there could easily be 100/= which the mother can't afford). I am pretty sure the boy can be treated in Ngong Hospital, which, being a government hospital, will provide all care as well as medications free of charge. We are working out the details so we can hopefully get him seen pretty soon and started on some treatment.
Overall the health day went really well - the children were thoroughly entertained by it all, the staff were very appreciate and we all left feeling like we had accomplished something. The orphanage is hot and sweaty and cramped and dark but I didn't mind - in fact I felt no nostalgia at all for my air conditioned, pristinely sanitized Western hospitals.
Friday, March 7, 2008
A Day in the Life
"Never have a picture of a well adjusted African on the cover of your book. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. Ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans, references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola: these are all taboo subjects."
Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenyan Author)
The above is an obviously scathing appraisal of how Africa has been written about by Westerners for decades. I don't want to add to the deluge of cliche, overly simplifies, stereotype-laden writings; I hope I have not thus far. I know I have often pointed out the differences between Canada and Kenya, perhaps I should spend some time looking for more similarities. So here, is my account of my day - nothing exciting or extraordinary, just an average day with a cast of characters going about their daily lives.
I wake up early, about 6:16am to the sounds of Stanley, my host father, bathing in the bathroom next to my room. Stanley will be off to work at the Nairobi court house long before I manage to drag myself out of bed. Outside I can hear other sounds of the night, crickets and roosters, and in the distance the cars and trucks rumbling along the highway.
When I finally stumble out of be, I get some water from the outside tank and put it on the stove to heat up so I can take a shower. We bathe with a basin of water and a bucket to pour it over yourself. I used to fall over all the time and get soap in my eyes, but I'm getting pretty good at it not - and bucket showering is a huge water saver!
After our morning rituals we are off to work. We technically start work at 8:00am but we rarely leave the house before 8:30am. It doesn't seem to be a big deal, most of the clinics at the hospital don't open till 9:00 anyways. We spend the first half an hour preparing for the clinics, cleaning and filling the vaccine containers, packaging medications etc... with plenty of gossip to keep the tasks interesting. Of course I don't understand most of the gossip because it is in Swahili, but every so often someone feels inclined to fill me in on the latest news.
I work mostly downstairs with Halima in the pre-natal and family planning clinics. She cracks me up with jokes and is always thrilled by my attempts at Swahili (which usually makes the patients giggle also). Halima is Somali by tribe and she likes to fill me in on the differences between Somalis and Kenyans, she is also my wealth of knowledge on all things Muslim in Kenya. She says she wants to go back to school one day and become a certified midwife. She loves working in the pre-natal and labour and delivery areas. She has four kids and a husband and says one day she will visit me in Canada. She is astounded by the fact that I tell her she could wear her head scarf in Canada and nobody would look twice at her on the street. She also loves my lip balm and thinks all Canadians are obsessed with cosmetics.
My host mother Grace, works upstairs as the head nutritionist, which means she plans all dietary needs for inpatients as well as counsels people on nutrition on an outpatient basis. Many of her clients need special nutritional counseling for disease conditions such as HIV, TB and diabetes. She is also a trained HIV/AIDS counselor and often works in the VCT center. She has her bachelors degree in nutrition and is going back to school in the fall to take a Masters in HIV/AIDS community education. It is quite obvious to me that she is really a pillar of the community; as we walk down the street she greats almost every second person we meet; she is well connected to community agencies especially related to health and HIV/AIDS; she knows all the neighbors and is constantly visiting someone who has a sick relative or a new baby; and she is active in her church. All last week she wasn't at the hospital because she was teaching an HIV/AIDS home based care course which will equip 20 lay people to become community health workers for People Living With HIV/AIDS. I went for a morning to her class; she is a very good teacher, very engaging. She is really quite an amazing person.
After work, as everyone is returning home, Grace and I sit on the porch "basking" in the gentle evening sun. Grace is washing laundry and I am sifting through the lentils. Victoria comes to bring us milk, she is the house girl for a family down the road. She used to blush whenever I said hello to her, but since I introduced myself she usually comes into the yard practically singing my name and she looks delighted when I great her with "habari?"
Grace tells Victoria to send the children over to say hello. Bobo and David come over, with Bobo's friend. David is 13 and just started Form 1 (Grade 9) at boarding school in Nairobi, but he is home for half-term break. Bobo is 9 so still in day school here in Ngong. David speaks politely with Grace about school and friends, while Bobo and her friend play a game that involves pinching each other. Then they start singing a song that starts with "Glory Hallelujah, the teacher hit me with a ruler" then a line in Swahili, then who knows because they are both doubled over giggling hysterically. Grace shakes her head and gives me a knowing smile, I laugh with the girls. The children scamper home and now that it is too dark to continue sorting outside, Grace and I head in to start dinner. I make chai (which I have become expert at, as Stanley says). Other than that Grace only delegates limited tasks like chopping vegetable to me as I have previously demonstrated my complete lack of domestic skills. Grace however whips up a delicious meal almost effortlessly (I feel pretty spoiled compared to all the other volunteers who have had not so lovely encounters with Kenyan cuisine, it's pretty sweet to live with a nutritionist).
While eating dinner we watch the Kenyan news and catch up on all the day's events. Lately they have mostly centered around the political crisis, but now that things are calming down, there are a few more varied stories. The other day there was a story about how an elephant was terrorizing the residents of a small town in central province. The KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) came out and shot the elephant and the townsfolk all came out to hack up the body and take it home to eat. There was a clip of one guy, grinning from ear to ear, carting off a massive leg, saying "the government should come out here more often and kill things for us".
So that is my average day and some of the people I have come to know. I actually wrote this over a week ago but haven't had the time/dedication to get to the internet and post it. Hence many things have changed; now that my mum is here she is totally interrupting my schedule :) We have been up to all sorts of little adventures with more in the works. I'm going to have to get better at coming to the internet cafe again... I have been lagging for a little while. Today is T- 1 week to my departure from Ngong - I can't believe I have been here almost two months already. I am looking forward to doing some traveling, and especially to seeing some elephants, but I don't know if I will feel like I'm quite ready to leave Ngong and the hospital yet.
Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenyan Author)
The above is an obviously scathing appraisal of how Africa has been written about by Westerners for decades. I don't want to add to the deluge of cliche, overly simplifies, stereotype-laden writings; I hope I have not thus far. I know I have often pointed out the differences between Canada and Kenya, perhaps I should spend some time looking for more similarities. So here, is my account of my day - nothing exciting or extraordinary, just an average day with a cast of characters going about their daily lives.
I wake up early, about 6:16am to the sounds of Stanley, my host father, bathing in the bathroom next to my room. Stanley will be off to work at the Nairobi court house long before I manage to drag myself out of bed. Outside I can hear other sounds of the night, crickets and roosters, and in the distance the cars and trucks rumbling along the highway.
When I finally stumble out of be, I get some water from the outside tank and put it on the stove to heat up so I can take a shower. We bathe with a basin of water and a bucket to pour it over yourself. I used to fall over all the time and get soap in my eyes, but I'm getting pretty good at it not - and bucket showering is a huge water saver!
After our morning rituals we are off to work. We technically start work at 8:00am but we rarely leave the house before 8:30am. It doesn't seem to be a big deal, most of the clinics at the hospital don't open till 9:00 anyways. We spend the first half an hour preparing for the clinics, cleaning and filling the vaccine containers, packaging medications etc... with plenty of gossip to keep the tasks interesting. Of course I don't understand most of the gossip because it is in Swahili, but every so often someone feels inclined to fill me in on the latest news.
I work mostly downstairs with Halima in the pre-natal and family planning clinics. She cracks me up with jokes and is always thrilled by my attempts at Swahili (which usually makes the patients giggle also). Halima is Somali by tribe and she likes to fill me in on the differences between Somalis and Kenyans, she is also my wealth of knowledge on all things Muslim in Kenya. She says she wants to go back to school one day and become a certified midwife. She loves working in the pre-natal and labour and delivery areas. She has four kids and a husband and says one day she will visit me in Canada. She is astounded by the fact that I tell her she could wear her head scarf in Canada and nobody would look twice at her on the street. She also loves my lip balm and thinks all Canadians are obsessed with cosmetics.
My host mother Grace, works upstairs as the head nutritionist, which means she plans all dietary needs for inpatients as well as counsels people on nutrition on an outpatient basis. Many of her clients need special nutritional counseling for disease conditions such as HIV, TB and diabetes. She is also a trained HIV/AIDS counselor and often works in the VCT center. She has her bachelors degree in nutrition and is going back to school in the fall to take a Masters in HIV/AIDS community education. It is quite obvious to me that she is really a pillar of the community; as we walk down the street she greats almost every second person we meet; she is well connected to community agencies especially related to health and HIV/AIDS; she knows all the neighbors and is constantly visiting someone who has a sick relative or a new baby; and she is active in her church. All last week she wasn't at the hospital because she was teaching an HIV/AIDS home based care course which will equip 20 lay people to become community health workers for People Living With HIV/AIDS. I went for a morning to her class; she is a very good teacher, very engaging. She is really quite an amazing person.
After work, as everyone is returning home, Grace and I sit on the porch "basking" in the gentle evening sun. Grace is washing laundry and I am sifting through the lentils. Victoria comes to bring us milk, she is the house girl for a family down the road. She used to blush whenever I said hello to her, but since I introduced myself she usually comes into the yard practically singing my name and she looks delighted when I great her with "habari?"
Grace tells Victoria to send the children over to say hello. Bobo and David come over, with Bobo's friend. David is 13 and just started Form 1 (Grade 9) at boarding school in Nairobi, but he is home for half-term break. Bobo is 9 so still in day school here in Ngong. David speaks politely with Grace about school and friends, while Bobo and her friend play a game that involves pinching each other. Then they start singing a song that starts with "Glory Hallelujah, the teacher hit me with a ruler" then a line in Swahili, then who knows because they are both doubled over giggling hysterically. Grace shakes her head and gives me a knowing smile, I laugh with the girls. The children scamper home and now that it is too dark to continue sorting outside, Grace and I head in to start dinner. I make chai (which I have become expert at, as Stanley says). Other than that Grace only delegates limited tasks like chopping vegetable to me as I have previously demonstrated my complete lack of domestic skills. Grace however whips up a delicious meal almost effortlessly (I feel pretty spoiled compared to all the other volunteers who have had not so lovely encounters with Kenyan cuisine, it's pretty sweet to live with a nutritionist).
While eating dinner we watch the Kenyan news and catch up on all the day's events. Lately they have mostly centered around the political crisis, but now that things are calming down, there are a few more varied stories. The other day there was a story about how an elephant was terrorizing the residents of a small town in central province. The KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) came out and shot the elephant and the townsfolk all came out to hack up the body and take it home to eat. There was a clip of one guy, grinning from ear to ear, carting off a massive leg, saying "the government should come out here more often and kill things for us".
So that is my average day and some of the people I have come to know. I actually wrote this over a week ago but haven't had the time/dedication to get to the internet and post it. Hence many things have changed; now that my mum is here she is totally interrupting my schedule :) We have been up to all sorts of little adventures with more in the works. I'm going to have to get better at coming to the internet cafe again... I have been lagging for a little while. Today is T- 1 week to my departure from Ngong - I can't believe I have been here almost two months already. I am looking forward to doing some traveling, and especially to seeing some elephants, but I don't know if I will feel like I'm quite ready to leave Ngong and the hospital yet.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Just a time filler...
After walking past the neighbors chickens for about the millionth time, I have finally realized that the genius of the joke, "why did the chicken cross the road?" likes in the fact that they really do just cross it to get to the other side. Seriously, as I approach all six of the chickens, looking wild with delight or fear, flap frantically across the road. Then as I walk past two of them, looking dejected or relieved, saunter casually back to the original side. On my next pass, the three on one side are reversing with the three on the other side, all of them looking like they're just meeting eachother for the first time. Next pass, one is looking perfectly happy pecking along her side of the road, then for no reason she darts, wide eyed and crazy looking to the other side. There is really no method to their madness... they cross the road, just to get to the other side.
We have chickens too at my house, but ours stay in their coop, they don't get to wander about willy-nilly, crossing roads. One had chicks the other day and I found one of them, escaped from the coop, running frantically around on the lawn with the cat in hot pursuit. I picked the little guy up and put him in a box until my family came home, because I wasn't sure which side of the coop he belonged in. They were so thankful and relieved that I had "saved his life", they couldn't stop commenting on how lucky it was that I came home in time to save the chick. I really didn't think it was that big of a deal, but I guess it was. I guess each little chick is valuable.
Sorry this was so random today... I'm having a bad day. I really just want to sit and not be noticed or looked at or pointed at or shouted at and the only place I can really do that is at the internet cafe. So here I sit, wasting shillings writing about chickens to a bunch of people in Canada who are going to be wondering, what happened? Where are the clever tales of cross-cultural misunderstandings? Where are the intriguing stories of the life of a hospital volunteer? Where did all the insight and crafty writings go? What is this obsession with chickens?
Oh well.
We have chickens too at my house, but ours stay in their coop, they don't get to wander about willy-nilly, crossing roads. One had chicks the other day and I found one of them, escaped from the coop, running frantically around on the lawn with the cat in hot pursuit. I picked the little guy up and put him in a box until my family came home, because I wasn't sure which side of the coop he belonged in. They were so thankful and relieved that I had "saved his life", they couldn't stop commenting on how lucky it was that I came home in time to save the chick. I really didn't think it was that big of a deal, but I guess it was. I guess each little chick is valuable.
Sorry this was so random today... I'm having a bad day. I really just want to sit and not be noticed or looked at or pointed at or shouted at and the only place I can really do that is at the internet cafe. So here I sit, wasting shillings writing about chickens to a bunch of people in Canada who are going to be wondering, what happened? Where are the clever tales of cross-cultural misunderstandings? Where are the intriguing stories of the life of a hospital volunteer? Where did all the insight and crafty writings go? What is this obsession with chickens?
Oh well.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Deal or No Deal
It's all over the Kenyan news and has likely reached North America by now; Kofi Annan has struck a power-sharing deal between President Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. The two leaders were on the steps of the parliamentary buildings, shaking hands and smiling. The deal is to be put into effect through an act of parliament which will re-open (it has been closed since January) on March 6th.
So far the reaction I have been sensing is somewhat mixed. My host family, sternly Kikuyu and Kibaki's people, feel this deal "gives too much". ODM supporters on the TV have voiced the opinion that it gives too little as the President still has the absolute power to dissolve parliament. Of course Aljazeera is rife with Brits eager to put their two cents in and most seemed pleased with the outcome.
It is has certainly been a trying time for Kenya and an interesting precedent for the international community. As one international observer pointed out, never has the international community had such a fierce and swift reaction to a political crisis in Africa. Often the international community has sat idly by while African nations disintegrate and they do nothing... think Rwanda, think DRC, think Sudan. Why the change of position with Kenya? Has the international community woken up and realized we need to take action? Or was it more based on the fact that Kenya is the economic powerhouse of East Africa and many Westerners have money invested here, not to mention favorite vacation sites?
And was the international community's reaction appropriate? Many Kenyans seem to think the international community was trying to infringe on their sovereignty with their threats of action if the Kenyan crisis was not resolved. While I'm not sure that supporting one political resolution is right (such as Condoleza Rice did when she said the US supports a power-sharing arrangement), I think it is well within the rights of the international community to refuse to conduct business as usual with a country in political crisis. But open-ended, non-specific threats against Kenya as many countries including Canada, the UK and the EU were doing... I'm not so sure about that.
And what about the whole power-sharing deal. There have been numerous political commentators on the TV listing all the African coalition governments that have failed miserably in the recent past. And the more I hear about the history of these two leaders in Kenya, the more it seems like their differences go much further back than simply the December 07 elections. Can Kenya overcome the challenges of a coalition government? And if the government falls, can the people avoid resorting to violence?
So far the reaction I have been sensing is somewhat mixed. My host family, sternly Kikuyu and Kibaki's people, feel this deal "gives too much". ODM supporters on the TV have voiced the opinion that it gives too little as the President still has the absolute power to dissolve parliament. Of course Aljazeera is rife with Brits eager to put their two cents in and most seemed pleased with the outcome.
It is has certainly been a trying time for Kenya and an interesting precedent for the international community. As one international observer pointed out, never has the international community had such a fierce and swift reaction to a political crisis in Africa. Often the international community has sat idly by while African nations disintegrate and they do nothing... think Rwanda, think DRC, think Sudan. Why the change of position with Kenya? Has the international community woken up and realized we need to take action? Or was it more based on the fact that Kenya is the economic powerhouse of East Africa and many Westerners have money invested here, not to mention favorite vacation sites?
And was the international community's reaction appropriate? Many Kenyans seem to think the international community was trying to infringe on their sovereignty with their threats of action if the Kenyan crisis was not resolved. While I'm not sure that supporting one political resolution is right (such as Condoleza Rice did when she said the US supports a power-sharing arrangement), I think it is well within the rights of the international community to refuse to conduct business as usual with a country in political crisis. But open-ended, non-specific threats against Kenya as many countries including Canada, the UK and the EU were doing... I'm not so sure about that.
And what about the whole power-sharing deal. There have been numerous political commentators on the TV listing all the African coalition governments that have failed miserably in the recent past. And the more I hear about the history of these two leaders in Kenya, the more it seems like their differences go much further back than simply the December 07 elections. Can Kenya overcome the challenges of a coalition government? And if the government falls, can the people avoid resorting to violence?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Mama Kelsey
Just a quick note to say that mother has arrived safely in Kenya, complete with much luggage... some of it is treats for me though so I am definately not complaining. I have been carting her around Karen with another volunteer, Rachel and sharing my extensive knowledge of Kenya/ Swahili / matatu skills - haha! My mum also has a blog, although I have no idea if she has written on it yet. If you are interested feel free to read it at:
http://beingtaira.blogspot.com
That's all!
http://beingtaira.blogspot.com
That's all!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
A Story of Stuff
Alternate Title: I'll give you 20 bob for that Iginla t-shirt
If you haven't seen The Story of Stuff, you should watch it. You can do that here:
http://storyofstuff.com/
I didn't write the story of stuff, I didn't even discover it (my sister sent it to me a while ago). But I did totally rip off the title for this blog entry - completely without permission. And here now is my own story of stuff.
Wednesday is market day in Ngong - actually everyday is market day, but Wednesday seems to be the big day. The market in town is partly "permanent" stalls and partly an open lot where people set up shop. Half of the market consists of food vendors, selling mostly gloriously fresh fruits and vegetables - carrots and cabbages, corn, onion, potatoes, kale arrowroot and amaranth, mangos, bananas, pinapple and pawpaws. There are also some dry goods - maize and beans, lentils, peppers and spices. And of course there are chickens and goats wandering the entire place, which I'm pretty sure you can buy if you can find out who is selling them. I think here is would be possible to follow the 50 mile diet and only eat locally grown foods - afterall, most of the vendors are little old ladies who can't have possibly carried that sack of potatoes all that far.
The other half of the market is where this story of stuff begins, or ends, depending on your perspective. The other half of the market is for clothing and household goods. It is possible to purchase almost anything here in the market - from collanders and cutlery to bedding and baby clothes. There is a particularly astounding amount of lingere, probably because Kenyan women tend to pile on the undergarments (not just underwear, but bloomers and petticoats too!) Some of the goods here are new and of about the same quality as you would find in a dollar store in Canada. But most of the goods are second hand.
"Does anybody else wonder where all this stuff comes from?" I asked some of the other volunteers one day as we wandered through a similar market in Nairobi. "No" they all answered in unison. Okay, so I guess I'm just crazy, but I can't stop wondering about all the stuff! Even the hawkers on the streets of Nairobi have more stuff to sell than I can comprehend. There are guys sitting on the sidewalks with 50 pairs of jeans - honestly, where does it all come from?
Then today, as I was walking through the Ngong smorgasborg of stuff, I made a startling discovery - a pile of clothes, all the with the Value Village tags still on them! I picked up a Calgary Flames, Jarome Iginla t-shirt, it's VV tag showing $2.99, "how much?" I asked the vendor. "40 bob" she replied, which really means 20 shillings because she doubled the price because I'm white. 20 shillings! That's about 30 cents for a shirt that probably cost $30 originally, but now can't even fetch $3 in Canada!
As I continue to look closely through the piles, I realize that everything here in Ngong, is ours from North America. All those t-shirts you got for free for walking for breast cancer or MS or inner city youth, they're all here. Your brownies/cubs/scouts uniform that your mum swears is packed away in the basement somewhere, it's here. Your Old Navy t-shirt that you were so in love with for like, a month, it's here. Your uniform from your first job at McDonalds, the one you kept "for posterity", it's here. Those neon sweatpants that you were so sure were going to come back into style by now, they're here. It's all here in Kenya, and at rock bottom prices.
So this is how this story of stuff goes: clothing (the stuff) is manufactured in various developing countries around the world. The stuff is carried by boat and plane and truck and train to North America's pristine shopping malls so we can buy it to make ourselves feel good about our nice fat golden arrows. When it's obsolete to us, we give it to the Sally Anne, or Value Village or put it in the bins at the grocery store parking lot to help kids with diabetes or stray dogs or whatever. When the stuff fails as even second-hand stuff in North America, it is put back on the train or truck or plane or boat, and returned to the developing world. What I don't know is if this stuff is donated into East Africa, or if it is sold; but I have a feeling that somebody on the wealthier end of things is making a profit. Is this system sustainable? Is it ethical?
Everybody in North America is at least a little bit aware that "made in China" or "made in Indonesia" is usually synonymous with deplorable working conditions and low wages. We put it out of our minds, as we swipe our debit cards, because we are removed from it, it isn't really real to us. But are we aware that the developing world is also the graveyard for our percieved obsolete goods? How long can we contine to use the developing world as both our provider and our dumping ground for our obsessive need from cheap stuff? What if Africa didn't want our junk anymore? Where on earth would we put all of our stuff?
Okay, so maybe you think I'm over reacting - afterall, clothing is fairly innocuous, it's useful, practical even. But my issue is not with the clothing, it's that we in North America are so painfully unaware of our own impact on the world. We don't know where our clothing goes after we donate it, we only know that it's not our problem anymore. And if we are dumping our old clothing here, what else are we dumping without the general public's knowledge?
Think you're being a responsible citizen when you recycle your old TV/computer/cell phone? Read last month's National Geopgraphic and you'll learn that your obsolete electronics are probably ending up in West Africa. On the coast of Ghana, children who should be in school are instead wandering junkyards of our electronics, breathing in fumes as they burn off the plastic to recover the metal parts which can be sold for pennies.
Yes, old clothing is fairly innocuous, but our idea that the developing world is our personal dumping ground, now that's going to be an issue.
If you haven't seen The Story of Stuff, you should watch it. You can do that here:
http://storyofstuff.com/
I didn't write the story of stuff, I didn't even discover it (my sister sent it to me a while ago). But I did totally rip off the title for this blog entry - completely without permission. And here now is my own story of stuff.
Wednesday is market day in Ngong - actually everyday is market day, but Wednesday seems to be the big day. The market in town is partly "permanent" stalls and partly an open lot where people set up shop. Half of the market consists of food vendors, selling mostly gloriously fresh fruits and vegetables - carrots and cabbages, corn, onion, potatoes, kale arrowroot and amaranth, mangos, bananas, pinapple and pawpaws. There are also some dry goods - maize and beans, lentils, peppers and spices. And of course there are chickens and goats wandering the entire place, which I'm pretty sure you can buy if you can find out who is selling them. I think here is would be possible to follow the 50 mile diet and only eat locally grown foods - afterall, most of the vendors are little old ladies who can't have possibly carried that sack of potatoes all that far.
The other half of the market is where this story of stuff begins, or ends, depending on your perspective. The other half of the market is for clothing and household goods. It is possible to purchase almost anything here in the market - from collanders and cutlery to bedding and baby clothes. There is a particularly astounding amount of lingere, probably because Kenyan women tend to pile on the undergarments (not just underwear, but bloomers and petticoats too!) Some of the goods here are new and of about the same quality as you would find in a dollar store in Canada. But most of the goods are second hand.
"Does anybody else wonder where all this stuff comes from?" I asked some of the other volunteers one day as we wandered through a similar market in Nairobi. "No" they all answered in unison. Okay, so I guess I'm just crazy, but I can't stop wondering about all the stuff! Even the hawkers on the streets of Nairobi have more stuff to sell than I can comprehend. There are guys sitting on the sidewalks with 50 pairs of jeans - honestly, where does it all come from?
Then today, as I was walking through the Ngong smorgasborg of stuff, I made a startling discovery - a pile of clothes, all the with the Value Village tags still on them! I picked up a Calgary Flames, Jarome Iginla t-shirt, it's VV tag showing $2.99, "how much?" I asked the vendor. "40 bob" she replied, which really means 20 shillings because she doubled the price because I'm white. 20 shillings! That's about 30 cents for a shirt that probably cost $30 originally, but now can't even fetch $3 in Canada!
As I continue to look closely through the piles, I realize that everything here in Ngong, is ours from North America. All those t-shirts you got for free for walking for breast cancer or MS or inner city youth, they're all here. Your brownies/cubs/scouts uniform that your mum swears is packed away in the basement somewhere, it's here. Your Old Navy t-shirt that you were so in love with for like, a month, it's here. Your uniform from your first job at McDonalds, the one you kept "for posterity", it's here. Those neon sweatpants that you were so sure were going to come back into style by now, they're here. It's all here in Kenya, and at rock bottom prices.
So this is how this story of stuff goes: clothing (the stuff) is manufactured in various developing countries around the world. The stuff is carried by boat and plane and truck and train to North America's pristine shopping malls so we can buy it to make ourselves feel good about our nice fat golden arrows. When it's obsolete to us, we give it to the Sally Anne, or Value Village or put it in the bins at the grocery store parking lot to help kids with diabetes or stray dogs or whatever. When the stuff fails as even second-hand stuff in North America, it is put back on the train or truck or plane or boat, and returned to the developing world. What I don't know is if this stuff is donated into East Africa, or if it is sold; but I have a feeling that somebody on the wealthier end of things is making a profit. Is this system sustainable? Is it ethical?
Everybody in North America is at least a little bit aware that "made in China" or "made in Indonesia" is usually synonymous with deplorable working conditions and low wages. We put it out of our minds, as we swipe our debit cards, because we are removed from it, it isn't really real to us. But are we aware that the developing world is also the graveyard for our percieved obsolete goods? How long can we contine to use the developing world as both our provider and our dumping ground for our obsessive need from cheap stuff? What if Africa didn't want our junk anymore? Where on earth would we put all of our stuff?
Okay, so maybe you think I'm over reacting - afterall, clothing is fairly innocuous, it's useful, practical even. But my issue is not with the clothing, it's that we in North America are so painfully unaware of our own impact on the world. We don't know where our clothing goes after we donate it, we only know that it's not our problem anymore. And if we are dumping our old clothing here, what else are we dumping without the general public's knowledge?
Think you're being a responsible citizen when you recycle your old TV/computer/cell phone? Read last month's National Geopgraphic and you'll learn that your obsolete electronics are probably ending up in West Africa. On the coast of Ghana, children who should be in school are instead wandering junkyards of our electronics, breathing in fumes as they burn off the plastic to recover the metal parts which can be sold for pennies.
Yes, old clothing is fairly innocuous, but our idea that the developing world is our personal dumping ground, now that's going to be an issue.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Matatu Joy
I believe I have mentioned matatus a few time now, without having really explained what a matatu is. If you have been to any developing country, you have no doubt experienced the local form of barely regulated, terribly convenient but slightly life threatening public transport. Thus are the matatus of Kenya.
The average matatu is a passenger van which loosely follows the public bus routes but runs much more frequently; in fact, usually the problem is not waiting for a matatu, but actually being manhandled simultaneously into three matatus that are competing for you business. Matatus technically hold 14 passengers but realistically they usually carry up to 20 (a few of the other volunteers swear they were in a matatu the other day with 24 passengers, a record I'm sure!) Each matatu has a driver renowned for their complete disregard of road rules, as well as a "wrangler" who sits in the back with the passengers and collects the fare/ signals the driver for a stop. The signal is usually something non-verbal like a whistle or tapping on the window with a coin - I have no idea how the driver hears this as the matatu is usually vibrating with the bass of some classic early 90's American hip-hop (Snoop Dog is a particular favorite).
The fares on matatus are pretty cheap, however they tend to be mysteriously variable. A normally 20 shilling fare (about $0.30 CAD) becomes 30 shillings if it's raining or 40 shillings if it's really busy. The fare of course doubles for muzungus, unless you make it obvious that you know what you're doing and how much to pay. Most of the matatu wranglers out of Ngong now recognize me and don't even try to ask for 40 shillings for my 20 shilling ride to Karen.
The decor of matatus could really be given a blog entry all on it's own. Externally matatus really only need to have a yellow band which designates them as a matatu, and usually lists the route numbers and destinations. There are sometimes fancy lights or other decorations and many have a slogan of some sorts on the windscreen or back window - often something along the lines of "Trust in God". There is a matatu driving around that says TORONTO across the windscreen and a VANCOUVER one also (I'm still looking for the LAC LA BICHE matatu!)
On the inside the matatus are usually elaborately decorated. The seats are usually covered in some pretty rocking shag carpet type upholstery, often complete with tassels. The shag carpeting extends to the roof while the windows and walls are often covered in random slogans cut out of fluorescent paper. Popular slogans include religious or hip-hop based words often randomly massed together. Some of my particular favorites include "Bust it for the Saviour" and "Too black for you". Some matatus are even equipped with blue lights to make the slogans really pop out and video screens for your riding pleasure. The video screens play the videos to accompany the pulsing Snoop-Dog or Gwen Steffani that leaves my ears ringing for hours after disembarking. Apparently the matatu owners believe pimping their ride will bring more business; I can't help but think that the money would be better spent on a bit of routine maintenance, but what do I know?
The safety of riding in matatus is questionable at best. Matatus frequently fly down the road at speeds much greater than there allowed 80 kph. They weave through crazy traffic and pass on the uphill in some curious middle lane that doesn't seem to actually exist to my western eyes. It's not uncommon to see two or even three matatus on the side of teh road with crumpled bumpers and dented sides and drivers arguing furiously in Swahili (apperently Swahili has no actul swears, but provided generously for personal insults). I myself have had to real accidents in matatus, just a few close calls (breaks squealing, that sort of thing), oh and once the matatu did scrape the side of an oncoming vehicle as the two flew down the road, but no body bothered to stop. A few of the other volunteers were in a matatu accident the first day there were in Kenya... but everyone was fine.
To finish off, here's one of the most popular matatu jokes I have heard:
The pope (insert religious leader based on audience) arrives in Nairobi and sees a red carpet being rolled out. He assumes it is for him then is surprised to see another limo pull up and a matatu driver get our and begin walking down the red carpet to great fan fare and applause. The pope, upset and slightly jealous asks a local man why they are cheering for a lowly matatu driver. "Well" says the man "the matatu driver has brought more souls close to God than even you!"
The average matatu is a passenger van which loosely follows the public bus routes but runs much more frequently; in fact, usually the problem is not waiting for a matatu, but actually being manhandled simultaneously into three matatus that are competing for you business. Matatus technically hold 14 passengers but realistically they usually carry up to 20 (a few of the other volunteers swear they were in a matatu the other day with 24 passengers, a record I'm sure!) Each matatu has a driver renowned for their complete disregard of road rules, as well as a "wrangler" who sits in the back with the passengers and collects the fare/ signals the driver for a stop. The signal is usually something non-verbal like a whistle or tapping on the window with a coin - I have no idea how the driver hears this as the matatu is usually vibrating with the bass of some classic early 90's American hip-hop (Snoop Dog is a particular favorite).
The fares on matatus are pretty cheap, however they tend to be mysteriously variable. A normally 20 shilling fare (about $0.30 CAD) becomes 30 shillings if it's raining or 40 shillings if it's really busy. The fare of course doubles for muzungus, unless you make it obvious that you know what you're doing and how much to pay. Most of the matatu wranglers out of Ngong now recognize me and don't even try to ask for 40 shillings for my 20 shilling ride to Karen.
The decor of matatus could really be given a blog entry all on it's own. Externally matatus really only need to have a yellow band which designates them as a matatu, and usually lists the route numbers and destinations. There are sometimes fancy lights or other decorations and many have a slogan of some sorts on the windscreen or back window - often something along the lines of "Trust in God". There is a matatu driving around that says TORONTO across the windscreen and a VANCOUVER one also (I'm still looking for the LAC LA BICHE matatu!)
On the inside the matatus are usually elaborately decorated. The seats are usually covered in some pretty rocking shag carpet type upholstery, often complete with tassels. The shag carpeting extends to the roof while the windows and walls are often covered in random slogans cut out of fluorescent paper. Popular slogans include religious or hip-hop based words often randomly massed together. Some of my particular favorites include "Bust it for the Saviour" and "Too black for you". Some matatus are even equipped with blue lights to make the slogans really pop out and video screens for your riding pleasure. The video screens play the videos to accompany the pulsing Snoop-Dog or Gwen Steffani that leaves my ears ringing for hours after disembarking. Apparently the matatu owners believe pimping their ride will bring more business; I can't help but think that the money would be better spent on a bit of routine maintenance, but what do I know?
The safety of riding in matatus is questionable at best. Matatus frequently fly down the road at speeds much greater than there allowed 80 kph. They weave through crazy traffic and pass on the uphill in some curious middle lane that doesn't seem to actually exist to my western eyes. It's not uncommon to see two or even three matatus on the side of teh road with crumpled bumpers and dented sides and drivers arguing furiously in Swahili (apperently Swahili has no actul swears, but provided generously for personal insults). I myself have had to real accidents in matatus, just a few close calls (breaks squealing, that sort of thing), oh and once the matatu did scrape the side of an oncoming vehicle as the two flew down the road, but no body bothered to stop. A few of the other volunteers were in a matatu accident the first day there were in Kenya... but everyone was fine.
To finish off, here's one of the most popular matatu jokes I have heard:
The pope (insert religious leader based on audience) arrives in Nairobi and sees a red carpet being rolled out. He assumes it is for him then is surprised to see another limo pull up and a matatu driver get our and begin walking down the red carpet to great fan fare and applause. The pope, upset and slightly jealous asks a local man why they are cheering for a lowly matatu driver. "Well" says the man "the matatu driver has brought more souls close to God than even you!"
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A Taste of Kenya
I am not a gastronomic tourist by any means - I'm a picky eater at the best of times, and not usually very adventurous with what I put in my mouth. But I'm trying to eat Kenyan cusine adverturously and it is paying off - not only am I pleasantly surprised by most Kenyan staples, I'm also a hit with the locals who find my love of githeri a shock and a delight. My host mother, who has hosted volunteers from all over the world, says her friends often ask her what she feeds the white people because it is a common belief here that white people are actually physically incapable of eating a Kenyan diet (I'm not sure what they think would happen, spontaneous combustion maybe?) So here, as best as I can describe, is a taste of Kenya.
The main staple you will read about in guidebooks is ugali and indeed it is eaten en mass by most people. It is simply maize flour, cooked usually over an open fire, to near brick consistency - literally, you could pick up a hunk of this stuff and do some pretty serious damage! Although the other volunteers have tried ugali and found it a somewhat terrifying experience, I have been quite enjoying it. Eating ugali is actually a refined art form - you eat it with your right hand, breaking off a piece, rolling it into a ball then flattening it and using it to scoop up whatever dish is complimenting it. Usually that is sukumawiki.
Sukumawiki is kale, usually prepared by steaming it with onions. The Swahili word sukumawiki literally means "to push the week." It is called such because it is cheap and plentiful and you can make lots at once then use it to push through the week. It however leads to great confusion for me when I'm delivering a baby and everybody is shouting "SUKUMA" and I'm saying "Sukuma? Wiki?"
Githeri, another staple is most popular among Kikuyus, which means I eat a lot of it. It is boiled maize and beans usually served with steamed cabbage or boiled potatoes. It is my typical lunch at the hospital canteen - I enjoy the taste but really I eat it because it cracks me up to watch people staring at me in complete amazement as I eat. Even the canteen staff giggle evertime I order githeri.
As I have mentioned before, chai is drank by the gallon here. It is often accompanied by a snack such as chapati, mandaazi (fried dough, kinda like a donut), boiled arrowroot or sweet potatoe. Dessert here is usally fresh fruit - which is amazing! We really don't have any understanding what fresh produce is in Canada (most of our produce has spent days on trucks by the time it reaches us). Pineapples, bananas, manoes, watermelon and pawpaw - the fruit here is just so good!
Finally the meat... it is actually eaten fairly infrequently, which suits my tastes just fine. Beef, pork and chicken are all readily available (hanging in the unrefrigerated window of the butcher shop, eyeballs and all), but the real speacialty is nyama choma, literally "cooked meat". You can buy it everywhere on the street, just random meat cooked on a little charcoal barbeque. It can technically be any animal, but it is usally goat, which I find to be rather chewy. I can't say I'm particularily a fan of barbequed goat, but I guess it's not so bad.
Last night I went with some of the other volunteers to Carnivore - rated one of the top 50 restaurants in the world by Lonely Planet. It is aimed of course at tourists and expats as the 2000 shilling (about $30 CAD) set price is our of reach of most Kenyans. The restaurant is, as the name suggests, a meatalicious extravaganza. You have a little white flag on your table and as long as the flag is up they will continue to bring you one kind of meat after another. There is also soup, salad and baked potatoes, but let's be honest, that is only for the weak. Oh the meat - chicken wings, chicken breast, pork ribs, beef steak, beef ribs, pork sasuage, lamb, osterich meatballs and crocodile - that's right, I ate osterich and crocodile! I'm pretty pleased with myself! All the meat is cooked over this massive grill at the center of the dinning room, the smell of charcoal wafting through the air. It was a fun night, and the ambiance of the place is fabulous, but I really don't think the human body was meant to ingest that much meat - at least mine wasn't, I'm still recovering!
The main staple you will read about in guidebooks is ugali and indeed it is eaten en mass by most people. It is simply maize flour, cooked usually over an open fire, to near brick consistency - literally, you could pick up a hunk of this stuff and do some pretty serious damage! Although the other volunteers have tried ugali and found it a somewhat terrifying experience, I have been quite enjoying it. Eating ugali is actually a refined art form - you eat it with your right hand, breaking off a piece, rolling it into a ball then flattening it and using it to scoop up whatever dish is complimenting it. Usually that is sukumawiki.
Sukumawiki is kale, usually prepared by steaming it with onions. The Swahili word sukumawiki literally means "to push the week." It is called such because it is cheap and plentiful and you can make lots at once then use it to push through the week. It however leads to great confusion for me when I'm delivering a baby and everybody is shouting "SUKUMA" and I'm saying "Sukuma? Wiki?"
Githeri, another staple is most popular among Kikuyus, which means I eat a lot of it. It is boiled maize and beans usually served with steamed cabbage or boiled potatoes. It is my typical lunch at the hospital canteen - I enjoy the taste but really I eat it because it cracks me up to watch people staring at me in complete amazement as I eat. Even the canteen staff giggle evertime I order githeri.
As I have mentioned before, chai is drank by the gallon here. It is often accompanied by a snack such as chapati, mandaazi (fried dough, kinda like a donut), boiled arrowroot or sweet potatoe. Dessert here is usally fresh fruit - which is amazing! We really don't have any understanding what fresh produce is in Canada (most of our produce has spent days on trucks by the time it reaches us). Pineapples, bananas, manoes, watermelon and pawpaw - the fruit here is just so good!
Finally the meat... it is actually eaten fairly infrequently, which suits my tastes just fine. Beef, pork and chicken are all readily available (hanging in the unrefrigerated window of the butcher shop, eyeballs and all), but the real speacialty is nyama choma, literally "cooked meat". You can buy it everywhere on the street, just random meat cooked on a little charcoal barbeque. It can technically be any animal, but it is usally goat, which I find to be rather chewy. I can't say I'm particularily a fan of barbequed goat, but I guess it's not so bad.
Last night I went with some of the other volunteers to Carnivore - rated one of the top 50 restaurants in the world by Lonely Planet. It is aimed of course at tourists and expats as the 2000 shilling (about $30 CAD) set price is our of reach of most Kenyans. The restaurant is, as the name suggests, a meatalicious extravaganza. You have a little white flag on your table and as long as the flag is up they will continue to bring you one kind of meat after another. There is also soup, salad and baked potatoes, but let's be honest, that is only for the weak. Oh the meat - chicken wings, chicken breast, pork ribs, beef steak, beef ribs, pork sasuage, lamb, osterich meatballs and crocodile - that's right, I ate osterich and crocodile! I'm pretty pleased with myself! All the meat is cooked over this massive grill at the center of the dinning room, the smell of charcoal wafting through the air. It was a fun night, and the ambiance of the place is fabulous, but I really don't think the human body was meant to ingest that much meat - at least mine wasn't, I'm still recovering!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sons of Menaseh
When I was a kid I had a bit of an orphan complex - okay I had a huge orphan complex! I was obsessed with little orphan Annie, Cabbage Patch Kids, the Little Match girl, Road to Avonlea... anything remotely orphan related. I was desperate to be orphaned, kidnapped, anything! I obviously didn't have a terribly realistic idea about what would happen if I were kidnapped - I of course ifgured I would be forced down a well to mine jewels for a crazy old lady (see The Rescuers) or trapped in a magic painting by a crazy man and forced to make magic paintbrushes (The Peanutbutter Solution, but don't watch it, you'll think I'm crazy). And of course the life of an orphan was bound to consist mostly of shenanagans and sisterhood, intersparsed with a few good songs, some dancing and the occasional escape attempt foiled by that darn orphanage owner! My sister and I used to play orphan Annie relentlessly - I was always Annie and she was always Ms. Hannigan. I think I may have complained aobu this arrangement at the time, but secretly, I wouldn't have had it any other way!
Here in Kenya, I'm getting a bit of a different outlook on the whole orphan situation. I have been spending some time at the Sons Of Menaseh home for children - a bonafide orphanage. It's probably perverse but when I'm there, I always feel the urge to break into a round of "It's a hard-knocked life" or "The sun will come out tomorrow". The kids would probably love it - they love songs and sing constantly. Their favorites include The Sound of Music and some Sunday school song about a hippo that Crystal taught them. Still, I try to contain myself.
It is actually quite fun to hand out at the orphanage. The children are, in most ways, just like kids in Canada - they laugh and play, giggle with friends, tease the other children and think farting is hilarious. Of course there are differences also; the oldest girls seem much older to me than their 13 years, they are serious and cautious; a few of the youngest ones seem more withdrawn than a preschooler should be; and all of them crave adult attention to extremes! I have been told a few of the children's stories, how they came to be living at the childrens home; some are truly orphaned, by AIDS or otherwise; some have been abandoned or neglected in their homes; a few have lived on the street for a while before being taken in by Joseph and Beatrice (the owners). At least one of the children are HIV positive. Stories like these could happen anywhere, Kenya or Canada, and yet to see them in such high numbers (this orphanage is only one of at least five just in my area) is alarming and heart breaking.
The volunteers at the orphanage help with daily routines, cooking and cleaning, they also help the children with homework and practicing English, but mostly they are there just to play, interact and care about the children. I think it is often these simplest of interactions that encourage the children and make them feel valuable. Of course there is an interesting downside to the volunteer role as well. As much as the kids love that you come and play with them, they also seem a bit indifferent to the comings and goings of the volunteers. This orphanage, and many others, have a constantly rotating contingent of foreign volunteers - meaning that sometimes the kids see new faces every couple of weeks. While I have no doubt that the volunteers do good and wonderful things by giving their time, it also means the children live with very little constancy in their lives - here today, gone tomorrow. I wonder how that impacts someone after a life time of people who care, but are going to leave, often suddenly.
The other night I spent the night at Sons of Menaseh and we had a pizza party with the kids - complete with pizza, pop, chips and Finding Nemo, pretty much a standard North American birthday party, minus the presents. Oh, and add the small drama of one of the children coming home after having run away two days ago. Actually it was great to watch all the children hugging him and welcoming him home, and to see the looks of relief on all the staffs' faces. Not Ms. Hannigan draggin Annie home, but Joseph and Beatrice hugging the boy in a very parental way.
Jospeh and Beatrice, they are truly beautiful people. They have two young children of their won and a few years ago they felt called to care for more. They opened Sons of Menaseh and are now raising 29 children from many different backgrounds. Their funds are often lacking and the building they rent is austere, to put it nicely, but they make do. They are immaculate hosts, very kind and welcoming. Joseph is the dreamer, the visionary - he has huge plans for their home, whether they are attainable or not. Beatrice is a bit more grounded - the organizer, the detailed one, she keeps things going on a daily basis.
In just under two weeks, my mum will be joining me in Kenya as a volunteer in a children's home. I know she is really excited abou this new experience and truthfully, I am excited also. I'm excited for her, trying something new and bringing so many life experiences to this. I'm also excited for me, because she will be someone to share the experience here with; to debrief with, laugh with, ride matatus with and pine for Starbucks with!
Here in Kenya, I'm getting a bit of a different outlook on the whole orphan situation. I have been spending some time at the Sons Of Menaseh home for children - a bonafide orphanage. It's probably perverse but when I'm there, I always feel the urge to break into a round of "It's a hard-knocked life" or "The sun will come out tomorrow". The kids would probably love it - they love songs and sing constantly. Their favorites include The Sound of Music and some Sunday school song about a hippo that Crystal taught them. Still, I try to contain myself.
It is actually quite fun to hand out at the orphanage. The children are, in most ways, just like kids in Canada - they laugh and play, giggle with friends, tease the other children and think farting is hilarious. Of course there are differences also; the oldest girls seem much older to me than their 13 years, they are serious and cautious; a few of the youngest ones seem more withdrawn than a preschooler should be; and all of them crave adult attention to extremes! I have been told a few of the children's stories, how they came to be living at the childrens home; some are truly orphaned, by AIDS or otherwise; some have been abandoned or neglected in their homes; a few have lived on the street for a while before being taken in by Joseph and Beatrice (the owners). At least one of the children are HIV positive. Stories like these could happen anywhere, Kenya or Canada, and yet to see them in such high numbers (this orphanage is only one of at least five just in my area) is alarming and heart breaking.
The volunteers at the orphanage help with daily routines, cooking and cleaning, they also help the children with homework and practicing English, but mostly they are there just to play, interact and care about the children. I think it is often these simplest of interactions that encourage the children and make them feel valuable. Of course there is an interesting downside to the volunteer role as well. As much as the kids love that you come and play with them, they also seem a bit indifferent to the comings and goings of the volunteers. This orphanage, and many others, have a constantly rotating contingent of foreign volunteers - meaning that sometimes the kids see new faces every couple of weeks. While I have no doubt that the volunteers do good and wonderful things by giving their time, it also means the children live with very little constancy in their lives - here today, gone tomorrow. I wonder how that impacts someone after a life time of people who care, but are going to leave, often suddenly.
The other night I spent the night at Sons of Menaseh and we had a pizza party with the kids - complete with pizza, pop, chips and Finding Nemo, pretty much a standard North American birthday party, minus the presents. Oh, and add the small drama of one of the children coming home after having run away two days ago. Actually it was great to watch all the children hugging him and welcoming him home, and to see the looks of relief on all the staffs' faces. Not Ms. Hannigan draggin Annie home, but Joseph and Beatrice hugging the boy in a very parental way.
Jospeh and Beatrice, they are truly beautiful people. They have two young children of their won and a few years ago they felt called to care for more. They opened Sons of Menaseh and are now raising 29 children from many different backgrounds. Their funds are often lacking and the building they rent is austere, to put it nicely, but they make do. They are immaculate hosts, very kind and welcoming. Joseph is the dreamer, the visionary - he has huge plans for their home, whether they are attainable or not. Beatrice is a bit more grounded - the organizer, the detailed one, she keeps things going on a daily basis.
In just under two weeks, my mum will be joining me in Kenya as a volunteer in a children's home. I know she is really excited abou this new experience and truthfully, I am excited also. I'm excited for her, trying something new and bringing so many life experiences to this. I'm also excited for me, because she will be someone to share the experience here with; to debrief with, laugh with, ride matatus with and pine for Starbucks with!
Friday, February 15, 2008
I'll never get an African Husband unless...
Subtitle: In honor of Valentine's Day; the mother of all non- holidays.
I know that Valentine's Day was actually yesterday, but the internet has been down for a few days, so I'm a bit late. Oh well...
My host mum can frequently be heard starting sentences with the above phrase. "Kelsey" she'll say, "you'll never get an African husband unless you can cook ugali!" Or, "Kelsey, you'll never get an African husband unless you stop spilling the chai!" Or, "Kelsey, you'll never get an African husband unless you can get those socks cleaner!" Okay, wait, this makes it sound like I'm treated like a house girl (servant) here - which couldn't be further from the truth. Mostly my family scarcely lets me lift a finger around the house, although I do insist on doing my own laundry and I'm getting pretty good at this whole washing by hand thing. The issue of me lacking a husband however tends to come up with pretty reliable regularity, both at home and at the hospital.
At home, my host mother is mostly joking about my poor chances of obtaining an African husband - mostly joking. She has a pretty good sense of humor, yet I sense her comments are at least a little bit based in genuine concern. What's not to be a little concerned about? A 24 year old woman insistent on wandering the globe and not actively looking for a husband - the biological clock is ticking and my domestic skills are still noticeably lacking.
I suppose it's understandable, afterall, most of teh women I see in the pre-natal clinic and maternity ward are around my age and having a baby - usually not their first either. And considering the average life expectancy for women in Kenya is 47 years my time is really running short if I want to raise my children, not just bear them. Editor's note: The life expectancy in Kenya has been drastically reduced because of the effects of HIV/AIDS, without which it is estimated the average life expectancy would be 62. To assume therefore that women over 47 are rare would be a fallacy.
At the hospital, there seems to be a lot more curiosity. One day two of teh nurses cornered me wanting to know if in Canada "women marry" or "women are married". It took a while for me to distinguish the difference. Apperently in Kenya women are married while men marry; the difference being that men are to be the initiators and more importantly, the payers of dowry. Dowry is important and in fact, if a man can't afford the dowry they can marry anyway, but he must announce himself to the woman's family as "the one who has stolen your sheep". He will be known as the thief until the debt is settled. I tried to explain that in Canada both men and women marry - ie: it is more of a mutual agreement or partnership. "But then, who pays the dowry?" They ask, looking slightly scandalized.
Yesterday at work, they really wanted to know if I would prefer a Kenyan husband or a white husband (don't get me started on how I tried to convince them that those are not necessarily opposing adjectives). This led to a thrilling conversation about gender roles and whether or not men should set foot in the kitchen. When I told them I could remember my father cooking meals, helping around the house and taking care of me when I was sick as a child (which usually meant an unnatural amoun of Vicks) they were very surprised. "Mother is everything!" They stated adamantly, as their only reply. "Mother is EVERYTHING!"
To be fair, my globe-trotting, husband evading ways do cause some concern in Canada as well. I'm not sure my grandmother necessarily want me married and pregnant, but I know she would sleep easier if I were safely back in Canada. And there were more than a few conversations in Lac La Biche about finding me a husband, preferably a local boy. It seems that both in Kenya and in Canada there is an understanding of the normal course of a life, and when you veer off that course, you're bound to attract a bit of attention. In Canada I think people are becoming a bit more accustomed to there being variations in that course, whereas here, the pattern is quite ingrained.
Valentine's Day itself here is a rather curious celebration of Westernization which has only really been recognized in Kenya in the last few years. It mostly showed up here as a side effect of the Kenyan flower industry which supplies most of the roses to Britain and continental Europe. Just as most of Canada's flowers come from central American countries. While there are a few displays of roses and chocolates in the supermarkets, I have yet to see an actual Kenyan showing any interest in celebrating. Most of them can't even say "Valentine's". Although it did seem to be an excuse for everyone from the guy at the post office to the teller at the market to ask me to be their Valentine.
Valentine's Day or not, I don't think it very likely that I will ever get an African husband, well at least not a Kenyan husband. I couldn't care less about skin colour, I just think it unlikely that I would find a Kenyan man who shares my goals, hopes, values and ideals. When cultures are so wildly different, how could two people cross such a massive rift without one or both of them feeling that they have compromised too much of who they are? I suppose it could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.
I know that Valentine's Day was actually yesterday, but the internet has been down for a few days, so I'm a bit late. Oh well...
My host mum can frequently be heard starting sentences with the above phrase. "Kelsey" she'll say, "you'll never get an African husband unless you can cook ugali!" Or, "Kelsey, you'll never get an African husband unless you stop spilling the chai!" Or, "Kelsey, you'll never get an African husband unless you can get those socks cleaner!" Okay, wait, this makes it sound like I'm treated like a house girl (servant) here - which couldn't be further from the truth. Mostly my family scarcely lets me lift a finger around the house, although I do insist on doing my own laundry and I'm getting pretty good at this whole washing by hand thing. The issue of me lacking a husband however tends to come up with pretty reliable regularity, both at home and at the hospital.
At home, my host mother is mostly joking about my poor chances of obtaining an African husband - mostly joking. She has a pretty good sense of humor, yet I sense her comments are at least a little bit based in genuine concern. What's not to be a little concerned about? A 24 year old woman insistent on wandering the globe and not actively looking for a husband - the biological clock is ticking and my domestic skills are still noticeably lacking.
I suppose it's understandable, afterall, most of teh women I see in the pre-natal clinic and maternity ward are around my age and having a baby - usually not their first either. And considering the average life expectancy for women in Kenya is 47 years my time is really running short if I want to raise my children, not just bear them. Editor's note: The life expectancy in Kenya has been drastically reduced because of the effects of HIV/AIDS, without which it is estimated the average life expectancy would be 62. To assume therefore that women over 47 are rare would be a fallacy.
At the hospital, there seems to be a lot more curiosity. One day two of teh nurses cornered me wanting to know if in Canada "women marry" or "women are married". It took a while for me to distinguish the difference. Apperently in Kenya women are married while men marry; the difference being that men are to be the initiators and more importantly, the payers of dowry. Dowry is important and in fact, if a man can't afford the dowry they can marry anyway, but he must announce himself to the woman's family as "the one who has stolen your sheep". He will be known as the thief until the debt is settled. I tried to explain that in Canada both men and women marry - ie: it is more of a mutual agreement or partnership. "But then, who pays the dowry?" They ask, looking slightly scandalized.
Yesterday at work, they really wanted to know if I would prefer a Kenyan husband or a white husband (don't get me started on how I tried to convince them that those are not necessarily opposing adjectives). This led to a thrilling conversation about gender roles and whether or not men should set foot in the kitchen. When I told them I could remember my father cooking meals, helping around the house and taking care of me when I was sick as a child (which usually meant an unnatural amoun of Vicks) they were very surprised. "Mother is everything!" They stated adamantly, as their only reply. "Mother is EVERYTHING!"
To be fair, my globe-trotting, husband evading ways do cause some concern in Canada as well. I'm not sure my grandmother necessarily want me married and pregnant, but I know she would sleep easier if I were safely back in Canada. And there were more than a few conversations in Lac La Biche about finding me a husband, preferably a local boy. It seems that both in Kenya and in Canada there is an understanding of the normal course of a life, and when you veer off that course, you're bound to attract a bit of attention. In Canada I think people are becoming a bit more accustomed to there being variations in that course, whereas here, the pattern is quite ingrained.
Valentine's Day itself here is a rather curious celebration of Westernization which has only really been recognized in Kenya in the last few years. It mostly showed up here as a side effect of the Kenyan flower industry which supplies most of the roses to Britain and continental Europe. Just as most of Canada's flowers come from central American countries. While there are a few displays of roses and chocolates in the supermarkets, I have yet to see an actual Kenyan showing any interest in celebrating. Most of them can't even say "Valentine's". Although it did seem to be an excuse for everyone from the guy at the post office to the teller at the market to ask me to be their Valentine.
Valentine's Day or not, I don't think it very likely that I will ever get an African husband, well at least not a Kenyan husband. I couldn't care less about skin colour, I just think it unlikely that I would find a Kenyan man who shares my goals, hopes, values and ideals. When cultures are so wildly different, how could two people cross such a massive rift without one or both of them feeling that they have compromised too much of who they are? I suppose it could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Road to Mombasa...
Nina mtalii... that is, I am a tourist. At least, this last weekend I was a tourist; a full out camera toting, English speaking, restaurant critiquing tourist. It's not that there's anything wrong with being a tourist (in fact at the moment, tourists are rather rare here owing to all the violence, which means most of the tourism industry is hurting and tourists are pretty much treated like royalty). But still, it feels a bit funny to abandon all my cares in Ngong and retreat off for a not-really-all-that-well-deserved break (afterall, aren't I sort of already on a break). So that means, this blog entry really won't be very interesting at all, I have no inspiring or intriguing tales of health care or cultural differences in Kenya, only a few funny stories about being a tourist. C'est la vie!
We (being myself and three other volunteers; Cameron, Crystal and Christina, the same group I went up Mt. Kenya with) headed out to Mombasa on Friday evening via the oh so scary night bus. The bus is oh so scary partly because it is at night and we have all heard the horror stories about the night time hijackings and robberies on the road to Mombasa; it is partly scary because it means we have to wander through lower Nairobi after dark to get to the bus station, something we have been throughly warned not to do; and it is partly scary because the road to Mombasa is not so much a road as it is a clearing of the brush that may be wide enough for a motorbike, but certainly doesn't look wide enough for a coach, let along the fact that it is supposedly a two lane highway! But such is Africa! Our bus was not hijacked (apperently that warning applies more to cars); and wandering through lower Nairobi was an exhilarating experience complete with advances from drunks and at least half an hour of wandering around lost until I was brave enough to try my Swahili to ask for directions ("sasa, sister, Accra road, iko wapi?" "kwanza kushoto, moja kwa moja, asante"); and the dirt road brought us to Mombasa hungery, sweaty, tired and covered in a thick layer of grime, but otherwise unscathed.
We arrived in Mombasa at 5:17 am, with call to prayer echoing through the still deserted streets of this predominantly Muslim coastal town. I found the atmosphere quite exciting and exotic (as most Westerners with romantic, dark continent complexes probably do), although in reality, Mombasa is really just a smaller version of Nairobi - painfully industrial, chaotic and hectic, visually unappealing and really fairly grimy. Apperently the town was given a facelift last year from the Mombasa marathon (buildings refinished, roads resurfaced, new street signs) but the visual effects only lasted a few months and even the residents are again complaining of Mombasa's unattractiveness.
We actually stayed about 30 kilometers south of Mombasa at Diana beach which required about an hour's matatu ride and a trip on the chaotic Likoni ferry. The ferry, which although free, is slightly treacherous as it groans in a very unreassuring way and is known as a bag snatching hotspot. It is packed with locals on their way to work and we were quite surely the only white people - leading to sea of faces staring at us suspiciously (apperently the tourists don't take the ferry on foot, they take taxis or hire boats, of course the usual tourists here are rich Brits with more money than they know what to do with). I liked the ferry though, it was exciting, with the salt air replacing the grime of the road on our faces.
We stayed in a really great backpackers guesthouse called Stilts (as recommended by countless other volunteers). Stilts is named such because all the buildings are on stilts to lift them up into the tree canopy where the breeze blows and keeps to keep you cool at night (which is a blessing since Mombasa is much hotter and more humid than Nairobi). Of course being up in the trees means you are also up with the monkeys... which both we and the monkeys find wildly entertaining. We were cautioned to hide our food carefully as the cabins are pretty much open and the monkeys are "seriously smart"... but of course no matter how carefully we hid our food under our piles of clothes, we returned to our rooms to find our belongings everywhere and our chocolate bars just empty wrappers on the floor. Somewhere out there, there are monkeys getting very fat on Cadbury's.
Our accomodation was just a few hundred meters from the white sand beach and clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Not being a fan of the ocean myself (it's out to get me, I'm sure) I was mostly content to hang out on the beach... of course I'm also guilty of getting bored easily, so after about an hour of sun bathing, Cameron and I decided to walk out to the sand bar ("it doesn't look that far" we assured ourselves). Hours later, we made it back to the shore; we never actually reached the sand bar but we did step on about sixty sea urchins (there are still quills in my foot), get wildly sunburnt, almost drown in the rising tide and I managed to destroy a huge chunk of coral with my foot which is now a pussing cellulitis on my right ankle. It was still a good adventure and we saw lots of interesting sea creatures like starfish and jellyfish and crabs and snails, but like I said, the ocean is out to get me.
The next time we went to the beach we wised up and rented a dhow (a traditional hollow canoe with a sail) and the accompanying locals to sail us out to the sand bar. This is really the way to go. For a couple dollars three friendly (often singing) guys sailed us around the open water for a while, then took us to the sand bar where we relaxed, went snorkeling (more crazy kinds of fish than I saw in Cuba even!) pestered the local fishermen with questions and explored the less treacherous coral reef. It was a lovely day!
We also made an excursion into Mombasa to visit Haller park; a former cement quarry that has been converted into a nature walk and conservation park. We were toured around and told all sorts of interesting facts about the flora and fauna. It was so good to see that conservation and the environment are also on the minds of Kenyans, especially considering these are areas that often fall by the way side in developing countries where immediate needs can often be more pressing. At the park we saw giraffes, tortises, hippos, antelope, buffalo, crocodiles and heaps of different birds, snakes and reptiles. Feeding time for the crocodiles was particularily exciting with them leaping out of the water to catch hunks of meat dangling from a rope.
Of course the highlight of Haller park is Maizee and Owen... the world famous ancient tortise/baby hippo couple that made headlines after the Owen the hippo, orphaned and rescued from the sea after the tsunami adopted Maizee the tortise as his surrogate mother. Maizee is actually the anglisized name; the real tortise doesn't have a name as the park only keeps them to maintain the lawns and they called the tortise Mzee to the media, which just means "old person". Anyway, the two aren't together any more as Owen finally wised up to the fact that he is a hippo not a tortise and he is now living with the other hippos; still a cute story.
Well, after another throughly enjoyable trip down the road back to Nairobi (this time slightly worse as we travelled during the day and the heat/humidity was aweful) I am safely back in Ngong and back to work at the hospital. My tourist break was really more tiring than refreshing but still, I'm glad to have seen more of the country.
Kelsey Aaron
We (being myself and three other volunteers; Cameron, Crystal and Christina, the same group I went up Mt. Kenya with) headed out to Mombasa on Friday evening via the oh so scary night bus. The bus is oh so scary partly because it is at night and we have all heard the horror stories about the night time hijackings and robberies on the road to Mombasa; it is partly scary because it means we have to wander through lower Nairobi after dark to get to the bus station, something we have been throughly warned not to do; and it is partly scary because the road to Mombasa is not so much a road as it is a clearing of the brush that may be wide enough for a motorbike, but certainly doesn't look wide enough for a coach, let along the fact that it is supposedly a two lane highway! But such is Africa! Our bus was not hijacked (apperently that warning applies more to cars); and wandering through lower Nairobi was an exhilarating experience complete with advances from drunks and at least half an hour of wandering around lost until I was brave enough to try my Swahili to ask for directions ("sasa, sister, Accra road, iko wapi?" "kwanza kushoto, moja kwa moja, asante"); and the dirt road brought us to Mombasa hungery, sweaty, tired and covered in a thick layer of grime, but otherwise unscathed.
We arrived in Mombasa at 5:17 am, with call to prayer echoing through the still deserted streets of this predominantly Muslim coastal town. I found the atmosphere quite exciting and exotic (as most Westerners with romantic, dark continent complexes probably do), although in reality, Mombasa is really just a smaller version of Nairobi - painfully industrial, chaotic and hectic, visually unappealing and really fairly grimy. Apperently the town was given a facelift last year from the Mombasa marathon (buildings refinished, roads resurfaced, new street signs) but the visual effects only lasted a few months and even the residents are again complaining of Mombasa's unattractiveness.
We actually stayed about 30 kilometers south of Mombasa at Diana beach which required about an hour's matatu ride and a trip on the chaotic Likoni ferry. The ferry, which although free, is slightly treacherous as it groans in a very unreassuring way and is known as a bag snatching hotspot. It is packed with locals on their way to work and we were quite surely the only white people - leading to sea of faces staring at us suspiciously (apperently the tourists don't take the ferry on foot, they take taxis or hire boats, of course the usual tourists here are rich Brits with more money than they know what to do with). I liked the ferry though, it was exciting, with the salt air replacing the grime of the road on our faces.
We stayed in a really great backpackers guesthouse called Stilts (as recommended by countless other volunteers). Stilts is named such because all the buildings are on stilts to lift them up into the tree canopy where the breeze blows and keeps to keep you cool at night (which is a blessing since Mombasa is much hotter and more humid than Nairobi). Of course being up in the trees means you are also up with the monkeys... which both we and the monkeys find wildly entertaining. We were cautioned to hide our food carefully as the cabins are pretty much open and the monkeys are "seriously smart"... but of course no matter how carefully we hid our food under our piles of clothes, we returned to our rooms to find our belongings everywhere and our chocolate bars just empty wrappers on the floor. Somewhere out there, there are monkeys getting very fat on Cadbury's.
Our accomodation was just a few hundred meters from the white sand beach and clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Not being a fan of the ocean myself (it's out to get me, I'm sure) I was mostly content to hang out on the beach... of course I'm also guilty of getting bored easily, so after about an hour of sun bathing, Cameron and I decided to walk out to the sand bar ("it doesn't look that far" we assured ourselves). Hours later, we made it back to the shore; we never actually reached the sand bar but we did step on about sixty sea urchins (there are still quills in my foot), get wildly sunburnt, almost drown in the rising tide and I managed to destroy a huge chunk of coral with my foot which is now a pussing cellulitis on my right ankle. It was still a good adventure and we saw lots of interesting sea creatures like starfish and jellyfish and crabs and snails, but like I said, the ocean is out to get me.
The next time we went to the beach we wised up and rented a dhow (a traditional hollow canoe with a sail) and the accompanying locals to sail us out to the sand bar. This is really the way to go. For a couple dollars three friendly (often singing) guys sailed us around the open water for a while, then took us to the sand bar where we relaxed, went snorkeling (more crazy kinds of fish than I saw in Cuba even!) pestered the local fishermen with questions and explored the less treacherous coral reef. It was a lovely day!
We also made an excursion into Mombasa to visit Haller park; a former cement quarry that has been converted into a nature walk and conservation park. We were toured around and told all sorts of interesting facts about the flora and fauna. It was so good to see that conservation and the environment are also on the minds of Kenyans, especially considering these are areas that often fall by the way side in developing countries where immediate needs can often be more pressing. At the park we saw giraffes, tortises, hippos, antelope, buffalo, crocodiles and heaps of different birds, snakes and reptiles. Feeding time for the crocodiles was particularily exciting with them leaping out of the water to catch hunks of meat dangling from a rope.
Of course the highlight of Haller park is Maizee and Owen... the world famous ancient tortise/baby hippo couple that made headlines after the Owen the hippo, orphaned and rescued from the sea after the tsunami adopted Maizee the tortise as his surrogate mother. Maizee is actually the anglisized name; the real tortise doesn't have a name as the park only keeps them to maintain the lawns and they called the tortise Mzee to the media, which just means "old person". Anyway, the two aren't together any more as Owen finally wised up to the fact that he is a hippo not a tortise and he is now living with the other hippos; still a cute story.
Well, after another throughly enjoyable trip down the road back to Nairobi (this time slightly worse as we travelled during the day and the heat/humidity was aweful) I am safely back in Ngong and back to work at the hospital. My tourist break was really more tiring than refreshing but still, I'm glad to have seen more of the country.
Kelsey Aaron
Friday, February 8, 2008
Blog Comments
I believe I have fixed the comment issue that a few of you had raised (ie: it wouldn't let you post comments unless you had a google account). At any rate, you should be able to comment freely now... and I would love to hear your comments, so please, go nuts!
Maternal Madness
Back in Lac La Biche, I used to do everything possible to avoid having anything to do with labour and delivery. It's not that it's not a throughly interesting area of nursing, it's just that labouring women freak me out! Seriously, they're crazy, they have every right to be so, but they're crazy nonetheless. Every time a lady would come to my desk and pronounce "I think I'm having my baby" a little shiver would run up my spine.
Here in Ngong, nurses do all the deliveries (they are shocked to find out doctors or midwives do deliveries in Canada). Apperently they have also trained the cleaning ladies to deliver babies, just incase the nurse is busy (busy doing what???) Of course they only handle uncomplicated deliveries here, usually only women who have had at least one baby previously. The closest hospital which can handle complicated deliveres and c-sections is Kenyatta National Hospital, about an hour away by car - but there's no ambulance so women must find their own way there, even if it means taking a taxi.
It has been maternity madness here this week - they just keep coming! I delivered my first baby on Wednesday (I did the whole delivery, start to finish, pretty impressive?) I'm not sure how the mother felt about haing the somewhat flustered looking muzungu delivering her baby, but the nurses were pretty excited - by lunch the news was all over the hospital and people were congratulating me on my initiation to midwifery. The whole delivery was a bit chaotic actually, 2 nurses shouting directions at me in English and at the lady in Swahili. I learned two very important Swahili phrases: "PUSH" and "It's a girl!"
Labour seems to be a very different experience here than in Canada. Women in labour here are very stoic, most are silent, many scarcely make a grimace with even the strongest contractions. I have no doubt they are feeling the same pains as women in Canada, it's just that the reaction is so different. There isn't even any pain control available to women here (unless they choose to deliver in a National Hospital, at a much greater cost). The nurses have a very different approach as well - of course I can't be sure as it's all in Swahili, but it sounds like they're just yelling at the women. And they punch them in the knees alot; I'm not sure what that's all about, but it doesn't appear very encouraging or sensitive.
I suppose the whole idea around birth is just completely different. Women usually come with their mother and maybe one other female family member, the husbands are rarely even at the hospital. And when the child is born, the mothers never seem that eager to hold it or anything. Most women are anxious to leave the hospital as soon as possible, they are up and showered and dressed and ready to go before I've even finished weighing and cleaning the baby. They are encouraged to stay 24 hours, but most don't.
Reactions to everything (the birth of the child, the sex of the child, everything) are just never what I expect here. The other day there was a baby born with a pretty serious birth defect. Of course, birth defects also happen in Canada - forming a human being from two cells is a pretty complicated process and there are about a million things that can go wrong. The difference is that in Canada, the defect would likely have been detected by ultrasound, the lady would have delivered in a major hospital and the child taken immediately to surgery. Here it was a complete shock. The child was born and the nurse, with a rather frightened expression on her face, whispered, "what is it?" "I've never seen it before" I whispered back. Then she told me to take the child to the next room so the mother wouldn't see it. I could still hear the calls of "praise Jehovah God" from the woman's family while I whisked the child away. I completed my assessment of the baby and finally the nurse brought the family into the room saying "come and see the way God has made the child". We referred teh baby to Kenyatta hospital, wrapping it up carefully while the family procured a ride - the mother never even saw the defect.
It was all a very surreal experience. As much as I avoided labour and delivery before, I now find it so fascinating, and see it as an area where good health care can really make such a difference. I work so much here in all areas of maternal wellbeing, from prenatal clinic, to well child clinics and immunizations. Women are the so receptive to health care and most are so keen to give their child the best chance they can. I'm finding myself more an more interested in the entire area of women and children's health.
Well, I am off to Mombasa this weekend to soak up the sun... should be a lovely weekend.
Kelsey Aaron
Here in Ngong, nurses do all the deliveries (they are shocked to find out doctors or midwives do deliveries in Canada). Apperently they have also trained the cleaning ladies to deliver babies, just incase the nurse is busy (busy doing what???) Of course they only handle uncomplicated deliveries here, usually only women who have had at least one baby previously. The closest hospital which can handle complicated deliveres and c-sections is Kenyatta National Hospital, about an hour away by car - but there's no ambulance so women must find their own way there, even if it means taking a taxi.
It has been maternity madness here this week - they just keep coming! I delivered my first baby on Wednesday (I did the whole delivery, start to finish, pretty impressive?) I'm not sure how the mother felt about haing the somewhat flustered looking muzungu delivering her baby, but the nurses were pretty excited - by lunch the news was all over the hospital and people were congratulating me on my initiation to midwifery. The whole delivery was a bit chaotic actually, 2 nurses shouting directions at me in English and at the lady in Swahili. I learned two very important Swahili phrases: "PUSH" and "It's a girl!"
Labour seems to be a very different experience here than in Canada. Women in labour here are very stoic, most are silent, many scarcely make a grimace with even the strongest contractions. I have no doubt they are feeling the same pains as women in Canada, it's just that the reaction is so different. There isn't even any pain control available to women here (unless they choose to deliver in a National Hospital, at a much greater cost). The nurses have a very different approach as well - of course I can't be sure as it's all in Swahili, but it sounds like they're just yelling at the women. And they punch them in the knees alot; I'm not sure what that's all about, but it doesn't appear very encouraging or sensitive.
I suppose the whole idea around birth is just completely different. Women usually come with their mother and maybe one other female family member, the husbands are rarely even at the hospital. And when the child is born, the mothers never seem that eager to hold it or anything. Most women are anxious to leave the hospital as soon as possible, they are up and showered and dressed and ready to go before I've even finished weighing and cleaning the baby. They are encouraged to stay 24 hours, but most don't.
Reactions to everything (the birth of the child, the sex of the child, everything) are just never what I expect here. The other day there was a baby born with a pretty serious birth defect. Of course, birth defects also happen in Canada - forming a human being from two cells is a pretty complicated process and there are about a million things that can go wrong. The difference is that in Canada, the defect would likely have been detected by ultrasound, the lady would have delivered in a major hospital and the child taken immediately to surgery. Here it was a complete shock. The child was born and the nurse, with a rather frightened expression on her face, whispered, "what is it?" "I've never seen it before" I whispered back. Then she told me to take the child to the next room so the mother wouldn't see it. I could still hear the calls of "praise Jehovah God" from the woman's family while I whisked the child away. I completed my assessment of the baby and finally the nurse brought the family into the room saying "come and see the way God has made the child". We referred teh baby to Kenyatta hospital, wrapping it up carefully while the family procured a ride - the mother never even saw the defect.
It was all a very surreal experience. As much as I avoided labour and delivery before, I now find it so fascinating, and see it as an area where good health care can really make such a difference. I work so much here in all areas of maternal wellbeing, from prenatal clinic, to well child clinics and immunizations. Women are the so receptive to health care and most are so keen to give their child the best chance they can. I'm finding myself more an more interested in the entire area of women and children's health.
Well, I am off to Mombasa this weekend to soak up the sun... should be a lovely weekend.
Kelsey Aaron
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Myth of Fingerprints...
So I recieved two wonderful treats today! The first was a surprise text message from my darling Lonestart Claire, the second was a lovely email from my sister... oh you guys love me so much. Anyway, Claire has said that although she is enjoying reading my blog, I haven't mentioned how I am. So, here, is the head to toe Kelsey assessment, just incase you're curious.
Physically I'm quite well, no malaria, no intestinal parasites (that I know of). I got a sore stomach during the first week but I think it was related to the gallons of chai being forced down my throught (they drink chai here about every 2 hours, it is tea made mostly from whole milk). I have told them I'm off the chai now, which means they usually pester me until I take at least a glass or two; but even that is better than six or seven daily, and my stomach seems to have adjusted.
I got a sun burn the other day, which created quite a stir. Grace said to me "sister, you sat in the sun and I was afraid you would turn black, but instead you are red! What happened?" I tried to explain that the sun burns my pale skin, which lead them to insist I cover all skin when ever I left the house. Obviously that is not going to work and I tried to explain the powers of sunscreen and that a little sun is okay, just not too much. Now, every five minutes outside, they are all checking to see if I'm going red yet. They were also pretty amused by pushing on my sunburn to see it go back to white, until I explain that it is a 'burn' and that does hurt.
The awkwardness of being the only muzungu (white person) around, seems to be fading as people in town get more used to seeing me around. Of course there are still days when I'm not in the mood to be stared at, honked at, hissed at, or generally molested to try to get me into a matatu or over to a particular market stall. But those days are fewer than I remember them being when I was in Ghana. When I was in Ghana I found it very emotionally uncomfortable to be so painfully visible; now, although it is sometimes annoying, mostly it's just amusing. I'm pretty impressed with myself for that.
Yesterday I was feeling a little bit homesick, not really bad, just a touch. Me and some other volunteers decided to combat our homesickness with a throughly Western afternoon - we went to the movies (in a lovely air conditioned theatre). For 350 shillings (about $4) we saw "I am Legend" complete with popcorn, pop and a chocolate bar! What a deal! Anyway, I feel much better now (and my lovely sister's email helped too).
I am really enjoying my work at the hospital now; it is so interesting to see their way of doing things and I feel like I am actually a little bit helpful now that I have my bearings. There are so many challenges in providing health care here, and it is a bit hard to negotiate how to help without just telling them what to do. I find it is best to just talk about what is different between here and Canada, most times they are really interested to know about how we do things there.
Even my Swahili is coming along... I can even form simple sentences. Most people find it pretty amusing when I come up with some sentence or another (they are still laughing over when I proclaimed "nimenunua maebe" or "I bought mangoes") It's pretty fun... and if only Scrabulous would let me use swahili words I would be amazing... seriously swahili has so many strings of consonants, it is a great scrabble language.
Overall, I'm doing very well. I'm learning so much and loving living here. I have been thinking occasionally about what I'm going to do when I get back to Canada, and so far I have no answers. I have been hoping that coming to Kenya would help me decide what I should be when I grow up.... but I still have two more months away so I'm not worried. Besides, I don't need any concrete answers, just some general ideas would be nice.
That's it for now,
Kelsey Aaron
Physically I'm quite well, no malaria, no intestinal parasites (that I know of). I got a sore stomach during the first week but I think it was related to the gallons of chai being forced down my throught (they drink chai here about every 2 hours, it is tea made mostly from whole milk). I have told them I'm off the chai now, which means they usually pester me until I take at least a glass or two; but even that is better than six or seven daily, and my stomach seems to have adjusted.
I got a sun burn the other day, which created quite a stir. Grace said to me "sister, you sat in the sun and I was afraid you would turn black, but instead you are red! What happened?" I tried to explain that the sun burns my pale skin, which lead them to insist I cover all skin when ever I left the house. Obviously that is not going to work and I tried to explain the powers of sunscreen and that a little sun is okay, just not too much. Now, every five minutes outside, they are all checking to see if I'm going red yet. They were also pretty amused by pushing on my sunburn to see it go back to white, until I explain that it is a 'burn' and that does hurt.
The awkwardness of being the only muzungu (white person) around, seems to be fading as people in town get more used to seeing me around. Of course there are still days when I'm not in the mood to be stared at, honked at, hissed at, or generally molested to try to get me into a matatu or over to a particular market stall. But those days are fewer than I remember them being when I was in Ghana. When I was in Ghana I found it very emotionally uncomfortable to be so painfully visible; now, although it is sometimes annoying, mostly it's just amusing. I'm pretty impressed with myself for that.
Yesterday I was feeling a little bit homesick, not really bad, just a touch. Me and some other volunteers decided to combat our homesickness with a throughly Western afternoon - we went to the movies (in a lovely air conditioned theatre). For 350 shillings (about $4) we saw "I am Legend" complete with popcorn, pop and a chocolate bar! What a deal! Anyway, I feel much better now (and my lovely sister's email helped too).
I am really enjoying my work at the hospital now; it is so interesting to see their way of doing things and I feel like I am actually a little bit helpful now that I have my bearings. There are so many challenges in providing health care here, and it is a bit hard to negotiate how to help without just telling them what to do. I find it is best to just talk about what is different between here and Canada, most times they are really interested to know about how we do things there.
Even my Swahili is coming along... I can even form simple sentences. Most people find it pretty amusing when I come up with some sentence or another (they are still laughing over when I proclaimed "nimenunua maebe" or "I bought mangoes") It's pretty fun... and if only Scrabulous would let me use swahili words I would be amazing... seriously swahili has so many strings of consonants, it is a great scrabble language.
Overall, I'm doing very well. I'm learning so much and loving living here. I have been thinking occasionally about what I'm going to do when I get back to Canada, and so far I have no answers. I have been hoping that coming to Kenya would help me decide what I should be when I grow up.... but I still have two more months away so I'm not worried. Besides, I don't need any concrete answers, just some general ideas would be nice.
That's it for now,
Kelsey Aaron
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Religion and Conflict
The other day Grace caught me humming some bible song I learned at camp... she was thrilled that I knew a Church song and made me sing it for here at least a few times through. The she started quizzing me about what other songs I knew and I ended up singing a bunch of my camp repetoire for her. Finally she asked how I knew so many Church songs since I had said I don't go to Church, I responded by saying I learned them at camp. She looked confused and asked what I was doing at a camp. I said playing and hanging out and such... this led to more confusion. It took us at least five minutes to figure out that when I said "camp" I meant a fun place to hang out and ride horses and have life changing experiencs. When she said camp, she meant a refugee camp. Quite a difference!
It is Sunday morning now and my host family is at church, which I declined to attend with them. I went the first weekend I was here, mostly out of curiosity and politeness, but I really don't think I can make it a weekly occurance. It makes me uncomfortable; to be fair though, Church in Canada also makes me uncomfortable, just in entirely different ways.
I have tried to explain the state of religion in Canada, but it doesn't seem to make any sense to most Kenyans I meet. I say that many people are religious, but that often we don't really discuss it outside of a religious group or gathering. It's not something you would ask in everyday conversation. But why not? "It's just different", I say, it's not something that's really important to know about a person. Then I try to explain that some people aren't religious at all. They really cannot grasp the idea of atheism no matter how hard I try to explain it. And the idea that some people are neither religious nor anti-religious, just that religion and God are not really important to them one way or the other, is a complete mind blower. How can God not be important?
Religion is very obvious here. As with much of Africa, Kenya has been throughly missionized and the vast majority of the country is Christian or Muslim, with a scattering of Sikhs, Hindus and those who follow their traditional beliefs. Most people seem very eager for me to declare myself as a Christian or Muslim. They don't seem to have a catagory for quasi-excommunicated Catholic, non-Christian Believer. I guess neither does Canada really, but in Canada people are much less likely to demand that you declare your religion at all. After telling many people at the hospital here that I believe in God but don't go to Church they looked at my with what looked like great suspicion. Finally one lady (a Muslim) asked if I knew how to pray. I told her that yes, I was pretty sure I did, and that seemed to satisfy everyone.
Then I went to Church with my host family, the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA). Two hours of my life ticked away while we sang hopelessly simplistic songs about the power of God. Then the praying started, led by "the evangelist" who stood at the front and prayed for nearly half an hour. This wasn't just speaking words to the air, for him it was a fully-body experience. He was shouting, whispering, gasping, raising his hands, falling to the ground, stumbling around, jumping, panting, reaching, punching. And all the while the congregation responded with shouts and amens and equal intensity. Okay, so maybe I don't know how to pray.
I am also slightly confused by the interactions between the political landscape and religion. Every weekend on the news, there are clips of various politicians, from both parties, attending services all over the country and speaking passionate sermons for peace to the congregation. Last week the news showed a clip of a mob of young men blockading a road and destroying a vehicle all the while shouting "God give us peace". Prayer here seems to be so "needs" based, which is understandable when often your basic needs are your sole daily work... but how do you sustain a faith that seems to constantly fall short. When you shout for God to give you peace and He doesn't, why keep shouting?
Perhaps I am seeing this all far too simplistically, afterall, how can I say that God is not meeting needs, when my Western idea of "needs" is so extravagant? And certainly there is something to be said for faith in spite of hardship. But still, I'm uncomfortable with religion here, with the way it was thrust onto people by missionaries, with the way it continues to be a source of hope without appearing to be a source of growth. This is absolutely a judgement on my part, and quite likely unfair, but it is what I see. It seems as though religion here is still about power being out of the hands of the people. Everyday people still need to ask to be provided for; like religion is simply the lingering effects of colonization, a colonization of peoples' spirits.
I hear that the preaching from the Church next door has stopped, people will be filing out into the grounds to talk and laugh with friends. I should probably head home to have lunch with my family.
Kelsey Aaron
It is Sunday morning now and my host family is at church, which I declined to attend with them. I went the first weekend I was here, mostly out of curiosity and politeness, but I really don't think I can make it a weekly occurance. It makes me uncomfortable; to be fair though, Church in Canada also makes me uncomfortable, just in entirely different ways.
I have tried to explain the state of religion in Canada, but it doesn't seem to make any sense to most Kenyans I meet. I say that many people are religious, but that often we don't really discuss it outside of a religious group or gathering. It's not something you would ask in everyday conversation. But why not? "It's just different", I say, it's not something that's really important to know about a person. Then I try to explain that some people aren't religious at all. They really cannot grasp the idea of atheism no matter how hard I try to explain it. And the idea that some people are neither religious nor anti-religious, just that religion and God are not really important to them one way or the other, is a complete mind blower. How can God not be important?
Religion is very obvious here. As with much of Africa, Kenya has been throughly missionized and the vast majority of the country is Christian or Muslim, with a scattering of Sikhs, Hindus and those who follow their traditional beliefs. Most people seem very eager for me to declare myself as a Christian or Muslim. They don't seem to have a catagory for quasi-excommunicated Catholic, non-Christian Believer. I guess neither does Canada really, but in Canada people are much less likely to demand that you declare your religion at all. After telling many people at the hospital here that I believe in God but don't go to Church they looked at my with what looked like great suspicion. Finally one lady (a Muslim) asked if I knew how to pray. I told her that yes, I was pretty sure I did, and that seemed to satisfy everyone.
Then I went to Church with my host family, the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA). Two hours of my life ticked away while we sang hopelessly simplistic songs about the power of God. Then the praying started, led by "the evangelist" who stood at the front and prayed for nearly half an hour. This wasn't just speaking words to the air, for him it was a fully-body experience. He was shouting, whispering, gasping, raising his hands, falling to the ground, stumbling around, jumping, panting, reaching, punching. And all the while the congregation responded with shouts and amens and equal intensity. Okay, so maybe I don't know how to pray.
I am also slightly confused by the interactions between the political landscape and religion. Every weekend on the news, there are clips of various politicians, from both parties, attending services all over the country and speaking passionate sermons for peace to the congregation. Last week the news showed a clip of a mob of young men blockading a road and destroying a vehicle all the while shouting "God give us peace". Prayer here seems to be so "needs" based, which is understandable when often your basic needs are your sole daily work... but how do you sustain a faith that seems to constantly fall short. When you shout for God to give you peace and He doesn't, why keep shouting?
Perhaps I am seeing this all far too simplistically, afterall, how can I say that God is not meeting needs, when my Western idea of "needs" is so extravagant? And certainly there is something to be said for faith in spite of hardship. But still, I'm uncomfortable with religion here, with the way it was thrust onto people by missionaries, with the way it continues to be a source of hope without appearing to be a source of growth. This is absolutely a judgement on my part, and quite likely unfair, but it is what I see. It seems as though religion here is still about power being out of the hands of the people. Everyday people still need to ask to be provided for; like religion is simply the lingering effects of colonization, a colonization of peoples' spirits.
I hear that the preaching from the Church next door has stopped, people will be filing out into the grounds to talk and laugh with friends. I should probably head home to have lunch with my family.
Kelsey Aaron
Saturday, February 2, 2008
I Heart Kofi
Well, as you may have noticed, I have been somewhat silent on the topic of the violence happening in Kenya. Although I wouldn't say this has been deliberate, it has definately not been accidental. I think that since I've been here, I've felt like I understand so little of what is happening, that I can't possibly act as a spokesperson to my friends and family back home. Whatever I say, I'm sure to be ommiting some important detail, or neglecting some legitimate point of view.
That said, I am going to try to shed a bit of light on my perspective of the situation... not the CNN version! CNN actually made me so mad right before I left; they continually showed this one clip of this frazzled looking white lady running up the camera, amidst a haze of smoke and undicernable chaos in the background and saying "the word I keep hearing, is RWANDA". What an infuratingly vague clip! It doesn't give any detail about who this white lady is, or what she is doing in Kenya. If she is just some tourist, why are they letting her be the voice to the West? She has no special training or any real concept of what is happening. On the other hand, if she is some expert in some international or humanitarian field, she should be fired because she is clearly an idiot. Either way CNN should not be showing such a sensationalist clip that contains no real info and only serves to inflame the imaginations of ill-informed Westerners.
Okay, the rant is finished, I just had to get that out of my way, now I can speak freely. I suppose I should begin by giving a bit of background about what the conflict is actually about. On December 27, 2007 Kenya held a presidential election. The two main contenders were the incumbent Mwai Kibaki of the PNU party and the opposition, Raila Odinga of the ODM party. Most international observers were calling for this to be a very close race. Politics in Kenya tend to be very racially charged and most people openly admit that they vote along tribal lines. Given that Kenya has 42 tribes, each with distince languges and cultures, that can obviouly get fairly convoluted. Basically Kibaki is a Kikuyu, one of the largest tribes with an estimated 24% of the population. Odinga is a Lua, a smaller tribe that has managed the gain support from numerous smaller tribes around the country based on their unofficial platform of being not Kikuyu.
Back in December the election results were announced somewhat prematurly with the elector commission declaring Kibaki the winner, even though voting irregularities were being reported throughout the country. Kibaki was sworn in quickly and began to name his cabinet before resolving the voting issues, which inflammed people even more. The violence broke out only hours after the result were announced, primarily in very poor areas such as Kibera (a Nairobi slum, said to be the biggest slum in Africa), and Eldoret (a major town in Western Kenya, along the route to Uganda). The violence was being commited along ethnic lines, with primarily mobs of non-Kikuyus attacking their Kikuyu neighbours.
As the violence erupted the government responded by restricting civil liberties, such as placing a ban on live media coverage and restricting the right to peaceful assembly. Because the right to assembly was resricted, the police were called out in large numbers to disperse any gathering, which has lead to frequent clashes especially in the capital. To date the police have not only busted up political assemblies, but also assemblies of religious leaders calling on their followers to promote peace, as well as an assembly of hawkers in the capital who were calling attention to the devastating effect the violence has had on their livelihood.
Most recently, there have been two assassinations of members of the ODM party. The MPs were not particularily powerful players and in fact, the most recent assassination has been blamed on a love triangle rather than the election disputes. The assassinations have however fueled accusations of conspiracy from both main parties. For the last week or so, the PNU and the ODM have been lobbing accusations back and forth that each side actually planned the violence long before the election to aid their own political agendas.
Although the EU and AU have both stated that the election itself did not seem to be free and fair, the violence that is happening now seems to trace to much deeper roots than simply an election dispute. If fact, most international bodies have not begun calling it "racial violence" rather than "political violence" although the media here in Kenya still prefers the term "political violence".
My own perception of the tribal issues is where I become hesitant to say anything - I really have such a limited view point. Even so, I have noticed a few things in my interactions with people. The first is that tribe is so important and all consuming here. Although I can't identify one tribe from another, I have been assured that a Kenyan can - your tribe is written all over you in how you look, how you dress, how you speak, even your name. Most Kenyans don't even really think of themselves as Kenyans first, they associate with their tribe first.
My host family is Kikuyu and I am living in a town with mostly Kikuyus, although at the hospital I work with people from all tribes (they of course feel a need to point out their tribe to me, even though it really means nothing to me, and most of the times I promptly forget it anyway). The Kikuyu people have been described to me (by both Kikuyus themselves and otherwise) as the most enterprising and entrepenurial tribe. A Kikuyu is financially keen and always has an eye out for a money making opportunity. Kikuyus, more than other tribes are willing to relocate to follow the opportunities, which is why you find them not as geographically centralized as the other tribes - there are Kikuyus in every part of the country. For these reasons, the Kikuyus are seen as being more affluent, but also possibly a bit less trustworthy. The deepseated resentment that seems to be among non-Kikuyus here, is that Kikuyus have been unfairly favoured by the government in power. People have stated that roads are built and maintained to Kikuyu towns, but not to Lua towns or Kisii towns. They say the Kikuyus have better water systems and are given land at better rates by goverment sellers. Obviously I have no way to verify these sentiments, but the injustice, real or imagined, seems to be felt by a large part of the population. And the ODM has played on this perception of injustice.
The violence is still isolated to specific pockets around the country. It is almost exculsively carried out by young men (this has been observed by the media, the police and even the new mediation committee that is working on the peace talks). Most Kenyans are frightened themselves and many have expressed to me that they are embarassed by the crisis. As the African dignitaries began entering the country for the mediation process, many people remarked that Kenya is accustomed to sending diplomats to such processes in other countries, not having them come here.
The effects of the violence have already had far reaching consequences. The shilling is slipping on the international market (which doesn't have a huge effect on mosy Kenyans, but has been nice for me I guess as I get a lovely exchange rate). Essential goods have becoming scarece in the interior of the country as most shipping companies have refused to move goods along the highways because trucks have been mobbed and burnt. This shortage is leading to huge inflation in the interior and everyday people cannot afford basic supplies. The railway from the coast to Uganda was partially destroyed in sections in Kibera and the Rift Valley so Uganda is feeling the effects as well on their prices and availablility of goods. Fishing on Lake Victoria has been almost stopped due to instability in the area and fish is now in short supply around the country. A large flower factory in the Rift Valley was evacuated and that industry is suffering as well. Hawkers on the street are suffering as people don't want to come out and spend money, everyone is saving in case of an emergency. But the biggest industry that is suffering is tourism. Kenya was previously one of the premier tourist destinations in East Africa and a huge portion of the economy depended on tourism - which has now almost flattened. Already 30,000 people have lost their jobs in the tourist industry. Hotels along the coast have closed, even street vendors are feeling the effects of the missing muzungus. On the news last night they were talking about how one single tourist, produces eight Kenyan jobs, and now the tourists are almost completely gone.
Kofi Annan arrived last week. Along with Graca Machel and others from the AU panel of Eminent African persons, they will lead the mediation between the two parties. Mr. Annan has announced that the first and foremost goal will be to end the violence, then other issues can be addressed. Already both parties have called on their supporters to end the violence and allow the mediation process time to begin addressing the issues. Although the call to stop the violence was not headed immediately, things seem to have calmed down by the end of this week, and hopefully the weekend will be uneventful (the talks will resume on Monday). Kofi Annan is a brilliant speaker; he speaks so softly and yet his air is one of such confidence and power that his audience is captive from start to finish. I am completely in awe of him. Not everyone seems to share this sentiment though, there have been clips on the news of angry people stating that Kofi Annan should go home, that Kenya needs a Kenyan solution. But many people I speak to personally seem to think that Kofi will get the job done, that his presence is what Kenya needs right now. I hope they are right.
Overally, I am safe, no need to worry about me. But thoughts and prayers for the Kenyan people and the peace process are, I'm sure, very welcome.
Kelsey Aaron
That said, I am going to try to shed a bit of light on my perspective of the situation... not the CNN version! CNN actually made me so mad right before I left; they continually showed this one clip of this frazzled looking white lady running up the camera, amidst a haze of smoke and undicernable chaos in the background and saying "the word I keep hearing, is RWANDA". What an infuratingly vague clip! It doesn't give any detail about who this white lady is, or what she is doing in Kenya. If she is just some tourist, why are they letting her be the voice to the West? She has no special training or any real concept of what is happening. On the other hand, if she is some expert in some international or humanitarian field, she should be fired because she is clearly an idiot. Either way CNN should not be showing such a sensationalist clip that contains no real info and only serves to inflame the imaginations of ill-informed Westerners.
Okay, the rant is finished, I just had to get that out of my way, now I can speak freely. I suppose I should begin by giving a bit of background about what the conflict is actually about. On December 27, 2007 Kenya held a presidential election. The two main contenders were the incumbent Mwai Kibaki of the PNU party and the opposition, Raila Odinga of the ODM party. Most international observers were calling for this to be a very close race. Politics in Kenya tend to be very racially charged and most people openly admit that they vote along tribal lines. Given that Kenya has 42 tribes, each with distince languges and cultures, that can obviouly get fairly convoluted. Basically Kibaki is a Kikuyu, one of the largest tribes with an estimated 24% of the population. Odinga is a Lua, a smaller tribe that has managed the gain support from numerous smaller tribes around the country based on their unofficial platform of being not Kikuyu.
Back in December the election results were announced somewhat prematurly with the elector commission declaring Kibaki the winner, even though voting irregularities were being reported throughout the country. Kibaki was sworn in quickly and began to name his cabinet before resolving the voting issues, which inflammed people even more. The violence broke out only hours after the result were announced, primarily in very poor areas such as Kibera (a Nairobi slum, said to be the biggest slum in Africa), and Eldoret (a major town in Western Kenya, along the route to Uganda). The violence was being commited along ethnic lines, with primarily mobs of non-Kikuyus attacking their Kikuyu neighbours.
As the violence erupted the government responded by restricting civil liberties, such as placing a ban on live media coverage and restricting the right to peaceful assembly. Because the right to assembly was resricted, the police were called out in large numbers to disperse any gathering, which has lead to frequent clashes especially in the capital. To date the police have not only busted up political assemblies, but also assemblies of religious leaders calling on their followers to promote peace, as well as an assembly of hawkers in the capital who were calling attention to the devastating effect the violence has had on their livelihood.
Most recently, there have been two assassinations of members of the ODM party. The MPs were not particularily powerful players and in fact, the most recent assassination has been blamed on a love triangle rather than the election disputes. The assassinations have however fueled accusations of conspiracy from both main parties. For the last week or so, the PNU and the ODM have been lobbing accusations back and forth that each side actually planned the violence long before the election to aid their own political agendas.
Although the EU and AU have both stated that the election itself did not seem to be free and fair, the violence that is happening now seems to trace to much deeper roots than simply an election dispute. If fact, most international bodies have not begun calling it "racial violence" rather than "political violence" although the media here in Kenya still prefers the term "political violence".
My own perception of the tribal issues is where I become hesitant to say anything - I really have such a limited view point. Even so, I have noticed a few things in my interactions with people. The first is that tribe is so important and all consuming here. Although I can't identify one tribe from another, I have been assured that a Kenyan can - your tribe is written all over you in how you look, how you dress, how you speak, even your name. Most Kenyans don't even really think of themselves as Kenyans first, they associate with their tribe first.
My host family is Kikuyu and I am living in a town with mostly Kikuyus, although at the hospital I work with people from all tribes (they of course feel a need to point out their tribe to me, even though it really means nothing to me, and most of the times I promptly forget it anyway). The Kikuyu people have been described to me (by both Kikuyus themselves and otherwise) as the most enterprising and entrepenurial tribe. A Kikuyu is financially keen and always has an eye out for a money making opportunity. Kikuyus, more than other tribes are willing to relocate to follow the opportunities, which is why you find them not as geographically centralized as the other tribes - there are Kikuyus in every part of the country. For these reasons, the Kikuyus are seen as being more affluent, but also possibly a bit less trustworthy. The deepseated resentment that seems to be among non-Kikuyus here, is that Kikuyus have been unfairly favoured by the government in power. People have stated that roads are built and maintained to Kikuyu towns, but not to Lua towns or Kisii towns. They say the Kikuyus have better water systems and are given land at better rates by goverment sellers. Obviously I have no way to verify these sentiments, but the injustice, real or imagined, seems to be felt by a large part of the population. And the ODM has played on this perception of injustice.
The violence is still isolated to specific pockets around the country. It is almost exculsively carried out by young men (this has been observed by the media, the police and even the new mediation committee that is working on the peace talks). Most Kenyans are frightened themselves and many have expressed to me that they are embarassed by the crisis. As the African dignitaries began entering the country for the mediation process, many people remarked that Kenya is accustomed to sending diplomats to such processes in other countries, not having them come here.
The effects of the violence have already had far reaching consequences. The shilling is slipping on the international market (which doesn't have a huge effect on mosy Kenyans, but has been nice for me I guess as I get a lovely exchange rate). Essential goods have becoming scarece in the interior of the country as most shipping companies have refused to move goods along the highways because trucks have been mobbed and burnt. This shortage is leading to huge inflation in the interior and everyday people cannot afford basic supplies. The railway from the coast to Uganda was partially destroyed in sections in Kibera and the Rift Valley so Uganda is feeling the effects as well on their prices and availablility of goods. Fishing on Lake Victoria has been almost stopped due to instability in the area and fish is now in short supply around the country. A large flower factory in the Rift Valley was evacuated and that industry is suffering as well. Hawkers on the street are suffering as people don't want to come out and spend money, everyone is saving in case of an emergency. But the biggest industry that is suffering is tourism. Kenya was previously one of the premier tourist destinations in East Africa and a huge portion of the economy depended on tourism - which has now almost flattened. Already 30,000 people have lost their jobs in the tourist industry. Hotels along the coast have closed, even street vendors are feeling the effects of the missing muzungus. On the news last night they were talking about how one single tourist, produces eight Kenyan jobs, and now the tourists are almost completely gone.
Kofi Annan arrived last week. Along with Graca Machel and others from the AU panel of Eminent African persons, they will lead the mediation between the two parties. Mr. Annan has announced that the first and foremost goal will be to end the violence, then other issues can be addressed. Already both parties have called on their supporters to end the violence and allow the mediation process time to begin addressing the issues. Although the call to stop the violence was not headed immediately, things seem to have calmed down by the end of this week, and hopefully the weekend will be uneventful (the talks will resume on Monday). Kofi Annan is a brilliant speaker; he speaks so softly and yet his air is one of such confidence and power that his audience is captive from start to finish. I am completely in awe of him. Not everyone seems to share this sentiment though, there have been clips on the news of angry people stating that Kofi Annan should go home, that Kenya needs a Kenyan solution. But many people I speak to personally seem to think that Kofi will get the job done, that his presence is what Kenya needs right now. I hope they are right.
Overally, I am safe, no need to worry about me. But thoughts and prayers for the Kenyan people and the peace process are, I'm sure, very welcome.
Kelsey Aaron
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