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.