Going home

I have just three whole days left in Kenya… I cannot wait to see everyone and sleep in my own bed, but I’m not sure I quite feel finished with this place. Six months is a tricky amount of time it turns out. Just enough time to know how to get the right matatu and find the best place to buy cheap DVD’s. And to become friends with people beyond the stage where everyone is friendly to you just because you’re foreign, to actually being genuinely attached to people.

It helps that I’ve stopped needing to have my leg checked at the hospital every two days and that the climate is pretty perfect (if at times a smidge cold) at the moment. There aren’t many mozzies around and there are enough sunny hours every weekend to remember you’re still in Africa. I’ve been here long enough that I’m dressing like a normal person again, rather than the volunteer/colonial look I had going on in the beginning. You very quickly realise that living in Nairobi is basically the same as living in any major city, and there is no need for linen trousers and long sleeves. Most Nairobi girls run around in heels and skinny jeans, not long skirts and sandals. In fact almost every time we’ve gone out we’ve felt pretty underdressed compared to the immaculate Kenyan twenty somethings who make us look like scruffy students.

I’m going to miss the music which five months ago sounded all the same and now we find ourselves searching for on youtube. Bus journeys at home are going to seem deathly dull compared to the bumpy tummy turning matatu rides. Although I’m pretty bored of stew, rice and beans I’m going to miss cheap fruit and vegetables and the availability of everything everywhere- stalls line nearly every street and you’re never far from whatever you need. Unless you’re in Buru Buru and happen to be needing a latte or nice sandwich. But even there we tracked down a decent pizza place.

Some things remain just as baffling as the day I arrived though. I have made a pitiful attempt at learning Swahili for which there really is no excuse, living with Kenyans who constantly talk to one another in Swahili. And apart from actual different languages, there are so many other small rules of communication in Nairobi that I can’t imagine as an outsider ever grasping. And I don’t think we have an equivalent in the UK. Sometimes tribe matters, sometimes the area of Nairobi you live in matters, sometimes where your family are from, sometimes how you dress, sometimes how good your English is, sometimes the colour of your skin, if you look Somali, if you look West African, if you know the latest slang, if you know policemen, if you have mzungu friends, if you have connections in high places, if you have friends in dangerous places… more factors than I could attempt to understand. And I'm probably wrong about most of those above. Most simply put, you have to be street wise. And being street wise is complicated, and different depending on which street you‘re standing in.

As much as we whinge about how much hassle we get being mzungus in Kenya and the attention we get, I suspect it’s probably simpler than being Kenyan in Nairobi. Most of the time for us it’s pretty simple. The majority of people ’hassling’ us just want to say hello, quite a lot of people want you to give them money or buy them something, a few want you to find them a job in your country and a handful actually want to steal from you. Sometimes it can be hard knowing the people who just want to be your friend for normal reasons. It’s not clear cut either, many people who I consider friends still ask me for things and expect me to help them more than I am able to. But even that is different here. It is normal for an average Kenyan family to receive several cards in a week from friends asking for contributions to their wedding/daughter’s university fees/father’s operation. It’s the spirit of ‘Harambee’, of people all pulling together, which helps most people live their lives. And no matter how little you have, you contribute something. Why shouldn’t they ask me too?

A couple of weeks ago I travelled back to Butere with Angelina. When we arrived we were shocked to hear that one of the students had just that day suddenly passed away. Nancy was only in her early thirties and had two small children. Her husband was unemployed and had not paid a dowry for her, as he couldn’t afford it. Unless he paid the dowry to her parents, he would not be allowed to bury her and she would have to be buried by her parents. For the funeral, a new dress for Nancy was a necessity and also new clothes for her husband and children. A coffin alone would cost a lot of money. And so the day after we arrived, we all sat around the office and decided what everyone would contribute. The tailoring teacher would buy material to make the dress Nancy would be buried in and they would buy new clothes for her family. Later we heard that everyone chipped in so that he could pay the dowry - some money and a few cows- to her parents. Elizabeth put it this way- ‘Now, no one is bothered by me. If I die? Eh! they will appreciate me…’

I am going to miss this confusing place, it would be nice to transport all of the people I met back to Scotland with me. But I know I'll come back one day, and I'll leave my safari hat at home next time.

A bit of a break

I have left it so long I don’t even know where to begin with this entry. To start with now, I am writing from a little seaside cottage south of Mombasa listening to the waves and waiting for fresh calamari to be cooked for dinner.  I haven’t seen any coastline since January so I feel like I deserve a little boast about finally being within a stone’s throw of a beach. It’s not quite the peaceful shore of Loch Etive at home where you can only hear birds, the occasional boat and the wind. On Diani beach as soon as your foot touches the sand at least four beach boys descend forcing seaside education or seashell necklaces on you. But it’s the Indian ocean and it’s low season and as soon as the tide comes in leaving just a few feet of beach, it’s practically exclusive.

Diani Beach

My mum, auntie and sister are nearing the end of their two week visit to Kenya and our beach break is very welcome after a hectic first eight days. Despite my rants about Nairobi traffic on here and elsewhere I don’t think anyone really believed how bad it is (or didn’t listen) until we spent the first 4 days largely stuck in a jam visiting various friends in different corners of the city. Apart from being a little stressful it was nice and a bit surreal having my family meet the people I’ve been spending time with over the past four months.

With my mum and my Kenyan mum!

On our last day in Nairobi we made a trip to visit the Maasai women Ibrahim’s been working with. I mentioned them a couple of posts ago, and since then I’ve accompanied Ibrahim to Ngong hills to see them twice. Both times we went we took a matatu to Kiserian which took about four times longer than it should have since they kept stopping to fill up with more passengers. Once we got to the little town at the foot of the hills, we crammed ourselves in the boot of a car, the equivalent of a matatu outside of the city. It wound its way up through Ngong hills and dropped us on the other side where some ladies were sat around a tree beading Vivienne Westwood clutch bags with the slogan ‘I LOVE CRAP’. I sat around and talked top a few of the Maasai while they worked, most of the older ladies didn’t speak English so I mainly just  sat back and watched them bead, enjoying the fresh air and green away from Nairobi. They largely ignored me, were happy to smile in photos and told me I was welcome back any time.  The first time I got lucky and shared the front seat of a car matatu with an old man on the journey back to Kiserian. As soon as I sat down he pointed to the toddler on his lap and said, ‘You mind?‘ I said I didn’t, and he plonked the little girl on my lap until her mother lifted her out of the window when we reached the town.

First visit to see Vivienne's beaders

However when I visited with my family it was quite a different story.  We got an actual driver to take us all the way from Nairobi, the visitors in the back seat and Ibrahim and I sharing the front. When we got to Kiserian we stopped and met Josephine, our main contact in the group. We watched them load five crates of soda bottles into the boot before three Maasai ladies crammed themselves in beside them! We drove through the hills further than I’ve been before. Josephine told us there was a good road the car could take into the valley so we wouldn’t have to walk so far. I don’t think the driver (Ibrahim’s unsuspecting friend) was too impressed when she pointed out said ‘road’. Even calling it a track would be taking liberties a bit as we got out of the car and walked in front of it finding the least stony, bumpy route we could through the very green and vegetated valley. Eventually we were met by about 15 Maasai ladies where we unloaded the crates from the boot and each took a side of one carrying them the last leg of the journey to where we were meeting.

Carrying crates through the valley

We arrived to the very surreal site of three sofas and a coffee table  in a clearing surrounded by around twenty more Maasai sat around beading away. When they saw us they stood and sang to welcome us. The next couple of hours flew by in a blur of singing, speeches and beads. We had a little tour around- inside a traditional manyatta (little hut with walls made of dung) and the spot where the men had slaughtered the goat they were cooking for our lunch (the head was still there). The whole time, more and more women were arriving from every direction. We were presented with a kanga each and a little beaded item before they all spread out their own work and we made our way around and bought a few bits from as many as we could (there’s only so many beaded things a person can have- bottle openers, hair clips, bracelets, keyrings…)
After we made the obligatory speeches saying how much we appreciated their hospitality we wandered back to the car, by now at the main road surrounded by several hopeful looking people who were after a lift to Kiserian. We piled in and I was handed a baby in the front seat this time (people are amazingly happy to hand their babies to strangers here). Half an hour later the baby was lifted from my arms by its mother at which point she told me he was ‘very sick’ and she was taking him to hospital. So far so good as far as catching whatever the baby had goes.

Rona receiving her kanga

Between then and now, we went on a three day Maasai Mara safari. We saw some pretty exciting sights but the best part was standing with your head above the open roof of the safari van whilst driving across huge open plains not entirely unlike a scene from The Lion King.

 

The only thing which has ever so slightly spoiled the past couple of weeks is a massive hole in my leg caused by an insect bite gone wrong. I took it to the doctor who decided the best thing would be to just cut the whole thing out. I think he got a bit carried away (he asked the nurse to please stay in the room while he did it as we wasn’t 100% sure what he was doing. Always encouraging) and I now have to go every second day to get the dressing changed and I haven’t been able to swim. It doesn’t help that every nurse/doctor I see says something different- ‘Oh, it’s healing very well, it’s very clean’, ‘It’s not healing well at all’, ‘It’s still infected’, ‘It won’t take long, maybe a week’, ‘It will take a VERY long time, you will have to cover your legs for the whole year’… At least my leg didn’t fall off/get eaten by a lion (though if anyone asks in later life, the scar on my leg is from that time a lion got me on safari in Kenya).

What I miss, what I will miss...

The other night we had a LONG power cut from 4pm until the middle of the next day. With nothing to do I was driven to make a list of things I miss about home. Instead of going on all night and depressing myself I decided to write down all of the things I might miss about Kenya when I leave. Obviously I miss people, so they're not included. Since I'm well over half way through my stay in Nairobi now I decided to post my lists!

Sea air and open space (think it's Islay)

Things I miss about home...

1. The sea
2. Not being stared at every day
3. Fresh air and open spaces
4. My piano
5. No mosquitoes
6. Driving around pretty places on (relatively) smooth roads
7. A working shower with hot water
8. British magazines and newspapers
9. Not having to be scared and super alert all the time
10. Knowing lots of people all in one place
11. Bus routes, which buses stick to
12. Clean feet and no dust and streets which have drainage instead of rivers where roads should be
13. My feather duvet
14. Coffee shops
15. Live music
16. Wearing nice clothes

Chapati making

Things I might miss about Kenya...

1. Spicy milky tea
2. Lunch for 50p
3. People being extremely honest (blunt. e.g. 'Eilidh you've grown fat'. Cheers.)
4. Hospitality
5. My time keeping being considered pretty good by African standards
6. Matatu rides and matatu music
7. Willingness of people to pass babies around to strangers in any public place
8. Idleness and 'NO IDLENESS' signs everywhere
9. Avocados
10. Staff meetings including toddlers
11. Fresh, fresh fruit and juice
12. Lack of health and safety 
13. The sun
14. Unpredictable days and hilarious things happening all the time
15. Chapatis 
16. The sense of achievement/relief/gratitude for life after getting anywhere alone and/or by matatu

Vivienne Westwood and the Jam

Back in November, before I came to Kenya, I read this article in the Guardian. I remember it as it fitted so well with my placement and I remember saying to people that I JUST need to meet Vivienne Westwood and she would sort out SMAK for me. Basically the project links up big fashion names with low income groups (mainly women) in Kenya and commissions them to do part or all of the craft work involved in their product production, paying a fair wage and helping them to work out a sustainable business plan for when the project ends.
Well, it just so happened that last week I was in Ibrahim’s bead workshop looking at some purses he was decorating for a new order he’d been working on in the Maasai Mara. I really recognized the logo on the purses and when I went off and looked up the name of the man who Ibrahim was working for, discovered that he was indeed making Vivienne Westwood purses! He had been head hunted to train a group of Maasai women in speed work, as whilst their work was good, they were too slow in completing orders. I tried to explain to Ibrahim how much of a big deal Vivienne Westwood is in the UK, but he remained cool as a cucumber about it all.
On Thursday he was due to go and visit another group of women just outside Nairobi and invited me to go with him. We went first to the GoDown art centre in Nairobi where the project is based and met Jeremy Brown and Vincent Odour, who are both mentioned in the Guardian article. The tag line of the project is ‘Not charity, just work’ and it seems to live up to it. Vincent’s job is to work with communities, mobilising women to get involved in the project and organising training and capacity building sessions with them. Having grown up in a slum, he is well suited to the job and has a lot of enthusiasm for it. So good that he is leaving it soon to set up his own consultancy firm. Unfortunately he was unable to contact the women, so Ibrahim was told to go back to his workshop rather than hanging around waiting for them. This decision reflects the very business minded way the project works. No time is wasted, orders have deadlines and the quality has to be the best. So we headed back to Ziwani for the afternoon (after lunch and a sneaky visit to the monkeys in city park).

Cheeky monkey

The monkey visit was during a somewhat rare moment of sunshine in rainy season Nairobi. For the past week and a half the city has been subject to daily downpours. And when it rains, it REALLY pours. On Tuesday, Kimberley was caught in the rain after work and after an hour in a soggy bus queue without an umbrella was forced to give up and get a taxi, which took another hour and a half to get home. On Wednesday we both came home mid-afternoon to avoid the rain and subsequent traffic jam. On Thursday we both made it home but our landlord got caught and on Friday it was my turn. The rain started at four and consistently bucketed down until six. Angelina and I left SMAK, trudged to the matatu stage at Gikomba market and waited around twenty minutes in the sludgy mud as it got dark. Angelina decided we would never get home that way so we crammed into the front of a TERRIFYING matatu into town. The driver hurtled through the streets as it started raining again, people were scattering like ants in every direction and he boarded the pavement several times to skip past queues. I squealed and Angelina found my terror hilarious. We then waited a casual hour and a half in the rainy bus queue before an hour long journey home. After leaving work at six we got home just after ten. SUCH fun.
As I write, we have just reached our Global Giving project target! In fact we have gone past it and are still making more. Thank you SO much to our family and friends for being so generous. I have spent the past two Saturdays with Angelina doing basic training sessions with the day care girls just using the few resources we already have. Already the children are happier- engaged in more activities, spending time outside playing and a daily checklist is making sure that duties are carried out thoroughly. We are really looking forward to organising sessions with the mothers now and will begin looking for an Early Childhood Development teacher soon. Thank you thank you thank you for choosing to give to SMAK!

THANK YOU 

April Showers

Rainy season has well and truly begun in Kenya. Everyone in the house mocked me so much for putting wellies on to go to the supermarket this afternoon that I was peer pressured into wearing flip flops. How wrong they were! It took twice the amount of time as usual trying to avoid mud and we came home filthy. Five year old Dan was somehow cleaner than us when we got back.

Should have worn wellies!

I escaped Nairobi downpours the other week to travel to Eldoret on a Mary’s Meals mission. It was a bit exciting/terrifying setting off on my own, but I took the ‘easycoach’ which was half empty, comfortable AND came with free biscuits. The journey was completely drama free and I arrived in Eldoret in one piece after six hours on the bus. I had a great time visiting schools with Mary’s Meals partners and got a lift back the next day with them in time for Easter weekend.

Happy with new backpacks!

Since we were quite disorganized we didn’t go away to the beach or anything exciting over the long weekend, but we had a nice relaxing time. On Saturday we travelled North of Nairobi for a morning of songs and celebration with DECEMAC- Development Centre for Marginalised Children. The children were very cute and we were given a huge free lunch after perhaps slightly too long a time being preached at by various pastors. We thought we had gotten away with not taking part until the end when we were asked to stand and make a speech. I rambled off something about how grateful we were to be there, although I think we were a bit of a let down seeing as we didn’t mention God in our speech.

Orphans at DECEMAC 

Most of Easter Sunday was spent sitting in a nice café reading the free magazines from the UK and having quiet time. On Monday we took our family's daughter Fiona, who's home for Easter holidays, to Karen to visit the giraffe center and a farm where we held some animals and had a shot on a pony.

Fiona, Kimberley and Summer the pony

A couple of weeks ago we had a great day at the National Theatre for SWAN day- Support Women Artists Now. It was arranged by Sophie and was a full day event featuring various female artists including poets, musicians and painters. It was a great, relaxed day with another free lunch and lots of singing and dancing.

We managed to avoid the dancing 

After all of these free lunches it was VERY exciting to spot a sign advertising fitness classes in Buru Buru. I’ve been stuck with finding a way to exercise since getting here so although slightly apprehensive, Kimberley and I dragged ourselves along yesterday morning to an empty dance studio with two big, fit looking male instructors. This was intimidating to begin with but we decided  this could only be a good thing as basically we now have our own personal trainers for about £1.50 an hour. By the end of an hour and a half of fairly standard aerobics we were a bit dead but feeling great. In A LOT of pain today but delighted to start reversing the effects of too many free meals!

Wild West Part 2

Waking was about as gentle as falling asleep in Sabatia. Rihanna pumped out of the house several doors down and the water pump pumped even louder from right outside our door. We emerged from our room around 7:15 to find Angelina on all fours scrubbing away at the floor before moving outside and scrubbing the area around the door. You see the saying ’Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ a lot around Kenya and they really mean it. Aggressive scrubbing of the whole house and outside happens EVERY morning. Even at the Nairobi office everyone spends the first hour cleaning. There is a lot of dust, but really…

Teacher Carole at the water pump outside our front door

 Our time in Sabatia began with meeting SMAK staff and students and hearing about their various (and many) challenges. Nearly all of the challenges have their roots in lack of finance; Girls unable to pay fees, no money for practice material, girls can’t afford lunch or transport costs and so walk long distances to class and go hungry all day, lack of child care options mean babies are brought to class or mothers have to leave early to pick up children from school… the list goes on. Despite these challenges the students are hard working and their teacher Carole tells us they are, ’So good, they are all SO good’.

On our second day we met two women’s groups in the local area.  Both times our arrival was met with singing and dancing and smiles, making us feel very welcome, and expectant faces, which made us feel more than a little inadequate. In the morning we sat sheltered by a tree in a garden and heard about Maelendeleo ya Wanwake women’s group who take it in turns to visit orphans and offer assistance where they can. They each contribute a little money every month to help people in the community and expressed a strong desire to be trained to care for the bed ridden HIV positive, to learn more about the disease and how to manage it. Hopefully at some point in the future SMAK will be able to hold workshops for affiliated groups such as these where two or three members can come for training which can then be shared with the rest of the group.

Receiving eggs from  Maelendeleo ya Wanwake   

The second meeting in the afternoon was held at the home of one of the women in Shiyiro women’s group. Again we were met outside by singing and dancing before sitting inside in the shade around a low table with around twelve group members, and Grace and Elizabeth. Most of these ladies were older and on first impressions I thought their activities would be similar to the first group, with them doing what they can for the community. What we found though, as we listened and Elizabeth translated, was that nearly all of the elderly women were the sole carers of their grandchildren, orphaned as a result of AIDS or accidental deaths. The more we heard the harder the stories of a lost generation became to listen to. Afterwards, back out in the sunshine, all I could hear was Elizabeth’s voice saying over and over ‘….but her son died… her daughter died…all of her children died leaving her with six grandchildren and no income… her children are all dead…’

Shiyiro women with one of the ladies' cows which were given by the Ministry of Agriculture to help the women sustain an income

Shiyiro women support one another and their families through necessity. They either help to provide for their orphaned grandchildren or the young widows in the group. When a woman’s husband dies, often the brother of the husband will ‘inherit’ her, her children and her home. Either that or the family of the husband will just take the house, leaving her with nothing. The group then assists the woman and her children in building a new home. By and large, the women discourage widows from allowing themselves to be inherited, as often they end up caring for their new husbands’ other children as well as their own. It is common for men in this area to have several wives. In fact the house we were visiting was next door to the home of the husband’s second wife. When I asked  don’t the men feel guilty about taking so much and contributing so little, I was met with hoots of laughter and looks of disbelief.

The rest of our time in the West was spent being introduced to everyone everyone knew. We were plonked in front of a school to tell them about our country (questions included, ‘What is your cash crop? Who was the first president of Scotland? How often do you have elections?’ we got stuck at some of the hard ones) We visited Grace’s family farm by way of motorbike (piki piki); Angelina and I shared one and we definitely struggled uphill… And we were taken to a local polytechnic and CDF office.

Up in the hills near Grace's farm

Before heading back to Nairobi, we spend one night with Angelina’s 93 year old mother in her rural home with no electricity, a huge, productive garden, a cow and a roof so full of honey from her bees that it was seeping through the ceiling. Before it got dark and we were forced to an early bed, we had a nice relax in her garden soaking up the fresh air and admiring the photos of her 15 children and huge extended family bordering her living room. The walls were also covered with her own certificates. She seems to have done every course she’s ever come across and apparently STILL attends various training sessions even today. A bit of an incredible woman.

Outside Angelina's mother's house

A change from traffic jams in Nairobi

A 5am start the next morning and half hour walk to the bus in the pitch black along the dirt road brought our time in the wild west to an end. We gladly returned home to Ruth and her chapattis and tea on Friday evening laden with fresh fruit and vegetables given to us by each group we had visited in the West and brought back to keep us going for at least a week.

Wild Western - Part 1

On the evening of Saturday 12th March, four grenades were thrown out of a car window towards Machakos Country Bus Station in Nairobi, around an hour and a half after we had driven past the station on our way home from town. At least six people were killed and many injured. The next morning we got up unnaturally early for a Sunday and went to catch a bus to Western Kenya from the scene of the attack. Machakos is a busy, chaotic bus station and even at 6am on Sunday morning it was hectic and intimidating, with men rushing to carry our bags to the bus for a payment. Angelina let a couple of guys help us and we noticed one had a bandaged finger, which he told us was injured as a result of the blast the previous night. She questioned him about it for a while in Swahili before loudly shouting at them in English, ‘No! You can’t afford them! My girls are TOO EXPENSIVE FOR YOU!!’ At which point the men got off the bus laughing. Thanks Angie…

So after seven weeks in Nairobi and given the events of the previous night, I was very excited to be getting out of the city. This made around the first hour of the eight hour bus journey bearable. The heat didn’t help and we were NOT amused when after three hours the bus pulled up at a lay by in the middle of nowhere and Angelina informed us this was the toilet stop. We thought she was kidding until everyone started piling off the bus with men going in one direction and women and children the other, heading off into the bushes. At some point in the middle of the journey a man got on, stood at the front of the bus and loudly tried to sell some dodgy health supplements to everyone on board and wouldn’t get off for MILES. The last few hours were the worst as the road surface deteriorated, it was HOT and people kept getting on and sitting next to us with their flapping, clucking chickens.

Anyway, after all of this we finally arrived in Sabatia, a tiny market town in Western Kenya. SMAK has a tailoring project there which was begun at the start of this year and we were staying in a room behind the workshop, in a row of other small homes. We quickly realised it was going to be a week fully free of luxury. Kimberley and I topped and tailed a single bed and Angelina slept on a sofa in the living room. Water was from the pump outside, the toilet was drop style and the shower was a bucket of cold water. All cooking was done on a little jiko outside. We were made to feel very welcome by Grace, the Project Manager, Carol, the young tailoring teacher and Elizabeth who volunteers and helps with the project. So on Sunday evening we ate, had a little explore, chatted and went off to our cosy sleeping arrangement to the rural sounds of loud thumping music played by all of our neighbours.

Carole, tailoring teacher

Elizabeth

Grace, Manager