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.