The Life and Times of Steph --- In Kenya

Flickr News

2009-05-28T10:15:00.002-05:00

To anyone still tuned it: I won't be using this blog address anymore, but I hope that at some point I am able to dream up enough interesting material while in the United States to keep a blog again. In the mean time though, I plan on regularly updating Flickr with pictures I take around the Midwest... Mostly while hiking, and there will be plenty of plants. If you're interested, tune in to Flickr for now!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30440787@N02/

Anyone reading anymore?

2009-04-26T01:24:00.002-05:00

It has been a very long time since I've posted. Honestly, in these last two weeks, all I've done is my schoolwork and some errands. I went out a couple times to take my mind off things, but wow, it was mostly school work.

I finished my research paper, thank goodness. It was 52 pages long, and when it was bound like a little book, I felt so proud. (I'll post a short version of my findings in a little bit.) It was an entire semester of work. Interviews, focus groups, surveys, literature, and WRITING. It could have been better, of course. There were time limits, financial limits, etc. But I did the best I could given my circumstances. I'm hoping when I get back to the US that I can edit it and possibly use it for my senior thesis somehow.

I'm currently in the London airport. It breaks my heart a little bit to leave Kenya. I know it has to happen, and I'm ready for it. I did my year abroad, I miss home... But still, this experience is over. Life was so exciting, always adventurous, but also so relaxed. I already miss Kisumu. I had to try so hard not to cry (extremely inappropriate in Luo culture), but that family loved me and I loved them. They took such good care of me, and as much as they could, treated me like I was a member of their own family. It was a very authentic relationships, and we learned a lot from each other. I can't help but hope that I can go back to see them.

I was always closer with my Kisumu family, but it hurt to leave my Nairobi family too. While they had some very different beliefs than me (such as listening to the radio allllllll night), they also always looked out for me and just cared about my safety. They paid attention to my likes and dislikes and wanted to see that I was comfortable.

As I mentioned, it's the sense of adventure that I'll miss. There are so many interesting places to travel here, little things to do... I don't know how I can adapt to a more routine life. But I think I'll try mountain biking, and more skiing in the winter. Life should be enjoyable and interesting.

In short, my abroad experience was good. The program I'm with, MSID, had some serious issues. The academic aspect was extremely lacking, but I read so many books on my own that I learned a lot anyway. Plus, how could you not learn when you're living in Kenya for almost a year? I can see my flaws so clearly now. I don't know if I'm any closer to being a completely laid back person, but at least I am self-aware enough to know that I have work to do.

The London airport feels weird. Part of the reason that it feels weird is that it's so natural. But I'm very aware of everything. As soon as we got into the airport people were rushing me. I wanted to tell them to slow down, no rush! We're all going to end up in the same place! Somehow I don't think this mentality will really fit in the hyper-drive US. Caution: I may be a little lazy, or annoyingly late.
There are also a TON of shops here. And there are things I want to buy. American consumerism never really leaves you, does it? There are stores with cute clothes, Clinique make-up, and lots of books. I'll try to hold back.

So I'll be home by evening on Sunday, as long as the flights go as planned. How crazy will that be, to walk into my house, see my cats, lay on a bed with PILLOWS......Oh my god. Pillows and running water. I'm looking forward to it.

COCKROACHES

2009-04-17T05:05:00.001-05:00

There are more in my laptop. I'm pissed. Chemicals will be used.

In other news... I'm back in Nairobi and out of Kisumu for good, unfortunately. I really loved that host family and enjoyed the city as well. But now all I have left to do is write my research paper (no small task) and then I can go home next Saturday.

I'm still alive!

2009-04-08T03:23:00.003-05:00

Sorry for not updating much everybody. I'm really busy! I'm leaving Kisumu in less than a week, probably on Sunday actually. Which means I'm winding up with my internship, my friends, my host family, wow. I'm packing in some "domestic tourism," which in other words means "HAVE AS MUCH FUN AS YOU CAN NOW!" We're going on boat rides, eating fresh fish from the lake, visiting our families' rural homes, and swimming galore. We even had a bonfire by the lake. It's nice to do some of the things in Kisumu that I've always meant to do but never had the time to.

Once I leave Kisumu, I'll have less than two weeks in Nairobi. I have some presentations to give, a 50-100 page research paper to finish, gifts to buy, and more domestic tourism to accomplish. I don't think I'll travel at all, but I plan on hitting up the butterfly sanctuary and the national museum when I'm not writing about widow inheritance.

I will arrive in the United States of America! on April 26th at 2pm, if all goes as planned, which it never ever does. But if you want to see me, you can find me in Culver's stuffing my face with butter burgers, deep fried cheese curds, and strawberry shakes.

The Things I Love

2009-04-02T06:09:00.000-05:00

My friends and I complain a lot while we're here, let's just be honest. Kenya can be tough. But I know for a fact that when I leave I'll miss it. So for my benefit in these last few weeks and for all of yours too, here is a list of things I like in Kenya.
-The fact that the sky is blue every single day, and the weather consistent. No need to check the weather, and you can wear the same clothes every day.
-Cheap and amazingly flavorful mangoes, papayas, pineapples, bananas.
-Roasted chicken! YUM!
-Brushing my teeth outside every morning.
-The ability to swim every day.
-$3 DVD's with an entire season of a TV show (just ignore the Chinese subtitles).
-"Pole pole:" a very relaxed culture! Feel free to be 2 hours late or not show up. In other words, I don't leave the house until ten every day.
-The stars are ridiculously bright wherever you are.
-Things are always interesting and exciting!

Bugs Version II

2009-04-01T03:14:00.000-05:00

Oh man you guys. I think I've reached my bug tolerance. As you probably know, our toilet in Kisumu is just a hole in the ground surrounded by sheet metal. And lately, our cockroach count has been growing out there. During the day it's fine and I can use that toilet just fine. But at night... My goodness. Lately I've been seeing cockroaches bigger than my pinky finger! And usually I have to go out there twice while it's dark. Last night I saw three huge ones and refused to go in. Thank goodness my host mom told me at night I can just go potty behind the house from now on. Hopefully no neighbors see my white booty.

Police: 1 Stephanie: 1

2009-03-31T02:41:00.000-05:00

That's right, I had another run-in with the police. But this time I won. (Read about the first time here: http://sspayneinkenya.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-brush-with-corruption.html)

Quite similarly to last time, I was in a taxi on a main road in Nairobi. I was with Alain (the guy I went to Rwanda with) and we were going out for a nice Italian dinner, so we were dressed nicely. And of course we came across a road block, quite typical in the Nairobi night. I hurriedly whispered to Alain that whoops, we weren't wearing our seatbelts (it was such a short drive, less than $3), but that these weren't traffic cops and I wouldn't bribe them at all, that I was going to be difficult. I'm not sure he got everything I said, but soon enough the cops were shining their lights on us and asking Alain to get out of the car. Of course, they asked for his ID but not mine. I could tell that they were debating the rules and if Alain and I should be let go. I motioned Alain over to me and told him to tell the policeman we were refusing any monkey business. Then Alain had an idea.

Alain's uncle is the Rwandan ambassador to Kenya (cool, eh?), and Alain has often accompanied him on interesting diplomatic trips, so he knew a little bit about those systems. Alain told me to pretend I was going to call "the office," and later to ask for the officer's name and registration number. I got out of the car and acted angry, and impatient. Eventually I took my phone out, and said, with much authority, "I'm going to call the office, this is ridiculous." Alain feigned annoyance. "No, don't do that, if you call them this will become a long ordeal!" Alain then spoke to the police in Swahili, saying, "If she calls her office, this will take so long, the diplomatic police are like that." I paced around a little bit with my phone in my hand, while the policeman hesitantly debated how much a bribe should be. Again, I picked up my phone, making a fake important phone call - "Can I have your name please? I think I really need to call the office." Once again Alain took the phone out of my hand, insisting that I shouldn't. The policeman looked from Alain to me and waved at us to get back into the car and go. Bribe free.

Chicken Update

2009-03-27T03:27:00.002-05:00

A few people have inquired about the state of the chicken that was given to me as a gift - for dinner. My chicken, which I named Gweno (Luo for chicken), is alive and well! It has a "NO EAT" order on it's cute little head. When it came to me, it was really skinny and unhealthy and someone had plucked its tail feathers (how rude!). But now, it's chubby and shiny and full of feathers! It is also part of our family of chickens. I guess it has to stay in Kenya, but I will maintain that my family not eat it. Unfortunately, it won't make eggs until after I leave! Boo! But I love my Gweno anyway.

FINALLY!

2009-03-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

I got my laptop back and I'm loading up tons of Rwanda pictures! Enjoy.

Homestead Update

2009-03-19T09:43:00.000-05:00

Robbery on the homestead! The other day, three of our four goats (the she-goat and her two kids) were out and about looking for green grass to munch on. At 6pm, they didn't return home! My family searched and searched, for two days, and they were no where to be found. Turns out that many people have lost goats or sheep lately to a THIEF! Who sells the animals during the night! Unfortunately, losing any sort of livestock is a huge loss. They're an important investment here.

The same day, a baby sheep was born! How cute! So we sold the lonely he-goat and got another sheep. So 0 goats, 6 sheep. I preferred the goats.

The Basics: Inequality

2009-03-19T03:42:00.003-05:00

I was brainstorming the other day on things that I could write about on my blog, and I realized that I've really skipped some of the most fundamental topics about Kenya. Things like poverty, religion, crime, etc.: These are so important and so obvious, but they are hard to talk about. First of all, I want to be fair and sensitive to the issues, and speak to them in a way that is accurate and politically correct. This is kind of hard right now, because what's considered impolite and polite here is SO different than in the US. Let me explain: Here, people don't act like we're all equal, because clearly we're not. Here, there are distinct classes. There are the poor, and the rich. And the poor wait on the rich and no one is uncomfortable with this. For instance, when I am at work, me and the boss will be given a soda. Me because I'm white, the boss because she's in charge. All the community health workers can look on and see that they are of a different "level," but this is accepted here. Of course at first, this made me really uncomfortable. I didn't want to be viewed differently, I wanted to "fit in!" YEAH RIGHT. Not possible here. I've had to let that go. If I try to push that I'm equal, it's actually considered very impolite. How dare I refuse that soda because 30 poor people are watching me! Now on the other hand, in the United States, we like to pretend we're all equal. We all say we're middle class, we deny racism, we hate to discuss inequal gender roles; and in many ways we are a much more "middle class" society in the US. In Kenya though, the differences are glaring instead of subtle.

My point here is that I've gotten comfortable with inequality. It doesn't shock me. I speak frankly about race, which can rub people the wrong way (with very good reason). On top of my desensitization, the vocabulary used in Kenya is quite different. You can outright call someone fat (I get it everyday), you can straight call someone "black" or "white" or "Indian," without the awkwardness there is in the US. To top off my discussion difficulties, I am so emotionally entrenched in these things. I have great bitterness about the way I'm viewed here, as a bag of money or a woman to receive cat calls. I have great bitterness about the government's blatant corruption, which is feeding my Kisumu family's poverty. So when I talk about things I can get angry.

I want to talk about these things though. I can't leave this country without explaining to all my family and friends exactly what the poverty is like, or without telling you how incredibly passionate religion is here. You would miss some of the most influential parts of this place. So this is what I will try to do in the next few posts: tell you the basics.

Mama Herine

2009-03-16T02:09:00.002-05:00

I could write a short book about my host mom in Kisumu. Oh, amazing, funny, and harsh Herine. She is sort and generally petite, but strong in that she packs a big personality into her small body. She even offers to run with me in the morning. Her hair is kept short, because it saves money. She has the dark skin, thick hair, and high cheek bones that are characteristic of the Luos in Western Kenya. The first thing I noticed abot her is her voice - it's commanding to say the least. It's like no one taught her the difference between the "inside" and "outside" voice. Every animal on the whole homestead listens to her. A dog wanders in the house, and she yells in Luo, and it quickly exits. Even the chickens listen.

These commands are not limited to the animals. All of us kids in the house, including now myself, get scolded. Sometimes I walk around barefoot and that is simply not alright. Or maybe I need to come to the table immediately for tea! We regularly laugh and happily follow her orders.

Don't let this assertiveness let you think she's too harsh or not fun-loving. She loves a lot like she speaks - fiercely. She takes care of all six kids, including paying for six sets of very expensive school fees. She feeds us all, takes care of us when we're sick, and still works a full-time job as a maternity nurse. Een me, once I was nauseated in the middle of the night, and she sat with me for hours while I say complaining and spitting into a plastic bag.

There are other things she loves, like her chickens. She says they "really help me a lot," because they give us eggs and occassionally we eat a chicken. This is essentially free food and free protein, for a family that works a lot but doesn't have a lot of money. She always feeds the chickens in the house, which teaches them to hang out there. Once one tried to lay its eggs on her bed.

Once, my host-brother Issac was treating our house with very potent chemicals to kill the cockroaches. There was a small chicken that I named "the ugly duckling," because it was the last of 18 chickens that had lived, but it was very weak and missing quite a few feathers. I really liked this one and I fed it specially in hopes of it growing up healthy. But back to the cockroaches, the slow-moving ones that had chemicals on them were a feast for the chickens. Issac put the ugly duckling into the cupboard to let it eat the dying bugs. I warned him, fervently, that the duckling would die from eating the poison. Being a 17 year-old boy, he just laughed.

The next morning, the ugly duckling couldn't walk and was having seizures. Within the hour it died in Winnie's hands. I was annoyed, since I had been taking special care of this one and I admired its will to live. When Mama found out what had happened, she described her feelings: "Issac is too annoying! I don't even want to see him at all today. He's too stupid!"

There are things she often mentions, like how "African men are polygamous by nature" and even "bad creatures." She speaks of the goodness of her children and their willingness to work, whether it's in fetching water, cooking, building a fence, or planting trees. She hates that her concrete floor was poorly made and has disintegrated into dirt again.

She is my fiercest advocate and a good friend. We laugh, have frank discussions, and learn from one another. There is no other woman like her in Kenya.

Epilogue: The Househelp

2009-03-15T02:36:00.000-05:00

It was a night in Gisenyi. I had the house to myself, everyone else had gone out to clubs but I was tired. I was in bed, almost asleep, when I heard something rustling around outside my window. I immediately froze, and my heart started thumping. Eventually the noise calmed down, and I snuck out of bed. I kept the lights off so I could see outside, and I crawled on the floor over to the window. I was as quiet as I could be. I looked outside my window and what did I see?

The househelp, sleeping outside in the cold lake wind, on cardboard, guarding the house.

The Househelp (it's a long one)

2009-03-11T01:58:00.002-05:00

Having househelp is ubiqutous in the wealth circles of Africa. This isn't househelp like me cleaning a house, as I did in high school or during summers. In many cases, this is full-time, live-in, servent kind of househelp.

Until coming to Rwanda, I hadn't had much experience with this. When I returned to Nairobi after my first stay in Kisumu, my host-mom had acquired an old Luo lady to come Mon-Wed-Fri to do the laundry, clean up the house, and cook a couple of meals. I was ecstatic. This not only meant that my laundry would get done far more frequently than before, but that the disgustingly dirty, cock-roach infested house might improve a bit. Francisca, her name is, really only spoke Dholuo and did a decent job of the laundry. She often overstretched my clothes, but hey, I wasn't the one paying her, so I didn't think I could complain.

Once, in a funny combination of Dholuo, Kiswahili, and broken English, she told me she would love me very much if I gave her one of my lesos (leosos are handy pieces of cloth used as a skirt or shawl or towlen or table cloth or sheet - you get the picture). She had noticed, undoubtedly through doing my laundry, that I had 4. Two Kikoy ones, coastal woven cloth of fairy high quality, and two khangas, Tanzanian dyed cloth of somewhat lower quality. I really did have plenty. And I knew she lived in Kibera, the huge slum next door, was widowed with a gaggle of children, and definitely didn't have water or electricity even though she was living in one of the biggest, most developed cities in Eastern Africa. How messed up would it be for me not to give away something I could replace with less than $5? After about 10 seconds of thinking, I handed her a Kikoy leso I bought my first time in Lamu with David. She said God would bless me.

But in Rwanda, I've come across a whole other kind of househelp than before. The first house I stayed in in Rwanda was that of Alain's sister, Liliane (Alan and Lillian in English). The house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a generous kitchen and sitting room. She was married, but in a sad turn of events, is now widowed and almost due with her first baby. So soon she'll need the space, but for now, it's a good place for the occasional out of town guests. In addition to Lily though, there are two permanent guests - a "houseboy," Mupenzi, and a "housegirl," Marie. Both speak only the mothertongue, Kinyarwanda, and are from the village, as people say here. They stay in the servants' quarters before the main house.

Mupenzi is sort of a guard, at night he guards the house (although I sort of doubt that), and he also opens and closes the spiked gate at the front of the house. During the day, he might cut the grass, with a special machete of course, or look after the plants. He also does random errands: getting phone credit, milk for mid-day tea, a taxi, or some roasted goat on a stick. Apparently he has been with Lil for three years, which is longer than she's kept anyone before.

Marie, who I saw a lot more, has quite the job, including cooking all three meals, cleaning the house, doing the laundry (don't forget it's done by hand here), ironing, and of course, waiting on all of us. With dishes and food, it was amazing - meals practically appeared out of thin air, whatever you want and whenever. And the food was good! Much better than Kenyan food. Barely any ugali, plenty of vegetables, nothing drenched in oil - yum!

They would always yell her name, at the top of their lungs, for her to bring them cheese, or beer (almost like WI, eh?), or God knows what. Lily said she liked her becuase she didn't need to be told what to do, she'd clean the rooms without a prompt. And her cooking's good. And after dinner she'll ask, "Lily, do you want tea?"

Marie is small, with about a centimeter of black hair. Lily says she's 27, but she looks about 20. She earns $50/month. She is given all her meals, housing, and even complete healthcare (this last part is very rare for a homeowner to give to a househelp). By Rwandan standards, this is awesome. But still, $50 of expendible income? Undoubtedly she sends most of it to her family, wherever they are. Maybe she has children, maybe she doesn't.

I don't know if this politically correct or not, but being waiting on, especially by a very poor person who I can only say "thank you" to, makes me super uncomfortable. I feel guilty that I'm reading a Jodi Piccoult novel and drinking beer while she works her butt off. Heck, the novel was practically half her monthly income. I feel guilty that she's doing all this work I know I'm perfectly capable of doing myself. Granted, I never yell her name, I put my own dishes away, and I Try to get her to smile a little. She tends to look very serious. When I ask Alain, or really any African about these gross inequalities, they all pretty much say the same thing: "that's just the way it is here."

Rwanda in Conclusion

2009-03-09T09:22:00.002-05:00

After another tedious bus ride, I have returned to Kenya. I'm glad to be back, if only because most of the time I understand what people are saying, I am fluent in Kenya Shillings, and I know my way around.

Rwanda is, like I've said before, gorgeous. So fertile, so green, so hilly... Wow. I saw so many amazing things while I was there. I saw a volcano that was steaming, and at night, the top glows orange! Talk about freaky. I saw funny things, like a baby sitting in the middle of a field with no mother around. (Baby looked happy though.) I also saw a goat on the back of bicycle. Another interesting thing: Alain and I were walking down the street in Gisenyi and two huge trucks full of very worn-down looking people with the UN Refugee Agency symbol on it. Alain told me about how the Hutus that committed crimes in the genocide had ran to the Congo to hide afterwards, but now they are being resettled. I asked Alain how he felt about it, and he said fine. I told him I was surprised he wasn't afraid, or mad. He said that the only thing that worried him was that the children of the Hutus wouldn't be socially educated like most people in Rwanda now - most people now believe that they are Rwandese, not Hutus or Tutsis (he calls himself Rwandese, not Rwandan, which I find strange but hey, it's his country).

Later we were on the bus from Kigali to Kampala, Uganda, and a lady got on the bus who was also very worn-down, in fact she wasn't wearing any shoes. She had clearly walked for days, and so some people gave her biscuits, we gave her juice, another man gave her some little money. I didn't get the whole story because it was told in Kinyarwanda, but somehow a bus left her and she walked for like 60 kilometers. Later Alain said that he thought she was a Hutu refugee like the ones in the trucks, and that she was probably being accused of crimes during the genocide. (Community courts in small towns are still full of cases of accused killers from the genocide.) He figured she was fleeing. Now, I have no idea how Alain got all that. She probably was a Hutu, but who knows. But no matter what, he thought that was her situation, and he gave her some food and drink anyway. That's how the Rwandese are now, after a genocide. It's fascinating.

I got a unique look into the Rwandese mindset about politics, Africa, corruption, and of course, the genocide. Because I was always staying with families and being with Rwandan people (I didn't talk to a mzungu face-to-face for almost two weeks, my god!), I was able to talk about a lot of things with a lot of people. I was lucky that way.

Another interesting thing is that I can really compare how different governments affect different countries in Africa. For instance, Rwanda is peaceful, safe, and is developing quickly. That's because the government isn't completely corrupt and irresponsible like Kenya's. Rwanda is still very poor, but the government is TRYING. That leads the people to have more faith, I figure, and maybe that's why crime is so much less there. Although the government is good, it's definitely less developed than Kenya. Getting money was a constant problem wherever I was. There are few ATMs, and the existing ones are frequently broken. Additionally, they are not 24 hours but only open when the bank is, so like 9am-4pm. I had to do some weird "cash advance" junk that took about an hour. Anyway, returning to Kenya was good, but a bit depressing too. Immediately I got the "mzungu" BS, and the streets were dirty, and the driving was crazy... Rwanda was just so beautiful and nice. I'd love to stay more time there someday, but I don't think it will be for a few years.

Gisenyi

2009-03-06T04:23:00.002-06:00

Today is my last day in Gisenyi, a very small town in Rwanda on Lake Kivu. Gisenyi is at the border of the Congo, with it's sister city Goma. The city is beautiful, and so quiet. The entire city borders the lake, so at anytime you can go have lunch or beer on the lake. And it's just so quiet for an African city, it isn't bustling at all. There are barely any cars. The food is delicious. There are brochettes everywhere (roast meat on a stick, seriously delicious, I'm getting fatter everyday), deep-fried little fish (also surprisingly delicious), and plenty of fresh chips (okay, french fries) to go around.

We're staying at a friend's house on the lake. The funny this is, this guy has a four bedroom house for about $300 dollars a month. It's a huge, beautiful house, and it's so cheap. If I'm ever filthy rich, this is the city my vacation home would be in. The lake is very clean and a good temperature in which to swim. What more could you ask for?

I've really just been relaxing here. Sleeping, eating, looking forward to the next meal... I've also been writing a lot of blogs for the future on all sorts of topics, so stay tuned!

Two other quick pieces of news:
1) My laptop is in Nairobi, but I won't be back there for a while, so I won't be able to upload any photos for a few weeks.
2) I'm fairly certain I'll be coming home at the end of the program. It costs a fair bit of money to change your ticket to a later date, and I don't really have any travel partners. This isn't 100%, but if I do come home at the end of the program, I'll be home April 26th or 27th. Did you hear that Grandpa?

Rwanda Update

2009-03-02T07:33:00.002-06:00

First off, I'm healthy and happy. I'm still in the capital city of Kigali. Saturday was "community clean-up day" here in Kigali, when everyone helps clean up the trash, trim the trees, cut the grass, fix the roads, etc. This happens every last Saturday of the month. Every single business closes, even informal little shops selling tomatoes, and most people help. The work ends at eleven but everyone just relaxes. What a far cry this is from Kenya.

And I forgot to mention this but my friend Dan reminded me, that they confiscated all my plastic bags at the border. They actually search through everyone's baggage at the border to ensure none enter the country. I lost three. Funny thing is, I hoard them in Kenya because they come in handy for trash, muddy shoes, or just plain transport, so I was pretty annoyed to hand them over. But once you're in the country, you can't find them either. Even a loaf of bread comes in waxy paper instead of plastic. I like this place!

Additionally and pleasantly, it has rained every day I've been here. Most Africans I have met hate rain. They won't leave the house, they'll run inside, they freak out and think they'll die if they get wet. So Alain and his sister hate the rain, but for me, I think it's wonderful! I haven't seen rain in Kisumu in weeks, and the ground looks like it's been years. The goats and sheep are having trouble getting enough food, and now we feed them our mango peels and our kale stems. They're losing weight. And when it doesn't rain in Kisumu, we can't collect rain water and that means more laborous trips to the river. I never realized how incredibly important rain is to people's and animals' survival.

Tomorrow I'll be traveling to Gisenyi, a small town on Lake Kivu. There we'll stay with another friend of Alain's and probably just relax on the lake most days. This is very much a holiday for me; I've been sleeping late every day and taking my time before going anywhere. I'm reading some novels my mom brought me at Christmas and catching up on the news.

I had really wanted to go to a national park, but it's very difficult and quite expensive. First of all, you have to get there somehow, which is many cases means you need a car. Public transportation here isn't as thorough and widespread as it is in Kenya. Once you get there, most parks require a 4x4 vehicle because of large game animals as well as bad roads. And there are park entrance fees, which for the cheapest type of park is still $70. Then most are so far away you need accomodation, which you need to reserve far in advance. It's just a bit too difficult and expensive. The only other alternative would be to do a full-out safari, which again, is expensive.

In the African countries I have traveled to, there isn't the same "nature infrastructure" that is all over the US. In Wisconsin, I can drive out to Devil's Lake in an hour, pay $7 to get into the park, and hike to my heart's content. Here, there is nowhere you can do that. Walking trails are few and far between, and Alain and his family think it's nuts that I'd want to do that. Everyone here says to me, "don't you want to see animals?" And I say, "Trees are nice!" And I'm officially nuts. Most parks, except for two in allllll of Kenya, require a vehicle. And even if you have your own car, you really need a guide or you'd get lost. There aren't maps, or signs. So seeing nature is tough, outside of the frequent farm land that is outside of cities.

But none the less, I'm eating lots of Rwandan food, meeting tons of people, and doing normal errands around the city with a family. That's an amazing experience all in itself.

Land of a Thousand Hills

2009-02-27T03:15:00.002-06:00

After a fairly tortuous but interesting 25 hour bus ride, I'm in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. This is the farthest I've gone from Kenya, and my first real travel out of my host country.

I'm traveling with Alain, a Rwandan I met in Nairobi and have become close with in the past few months. I'm lucky enough to have his and his family's support in Rwanda. That means someone to travel with, a house to stay in, real fresh hot Rwandan food... All for free. And someone to keep me safe! And show me the awesome restaurants! I'm lucky for this.

Let me provide some quick anecdotes about the bus ride. As usual, any traveling in Africa is filled with strange events. For instance, our first bus driver was absolutely crazy. He drove so fast that I worried for my life! But somehow we made it to Kampala, Uganda. Some crazy crazy lady was sitting behind us and would NOT close the window and night, and nights in Africa, at least in a lot of places, are damn freezing and I was so unhappy because my bones were cold. We ate two giant plates of Pilau (spiced rice with beef chunks) on our way through, because somehow that was all that was available. Alain and I drank a lot of soda and ate a lot of cookies. Bus rides are definitely an excuse to eat bad food.

We crossed the border to Rwanda around 11am. Rwanda is clean, green, calm, hilly, and incredibly beautiful. I haven't been here very long and I can already see how DIFFERENT it is from Kenya. No garbage, I'm not getting hassled, there is an actual speed limit with police officers you cannot bribe, and people seem NICE. I have a good impression so far. I don't know how much it is appropriate to talk about this stuff, but it seems impossible that there was a genocide here 15 years ago. Only thing is there are a lot of amputees. Anyway, we arrived around 3, perhaps, at Alain's sister's house in a very nice neighborhood a bit from from downtown Kigali.

Last night I was completely exhausted from not sleeping well on a bus that went all night. I feel a LOT better this morning. While we're here, we'll spend a couple days in a national park, a couple days in Gisenyi on Lake Kivu, and plenty of time here in Kigali. I'll keep everyone updated!

Dispatch from the Field

2009-02-23T07:54:00.000-06:00

I had one of my most interesting days in Kenya this week. It was a very long day out in the field. This week I'm making a huge push in research work; I'm interviewing tons of people, holding focus groups, etc. So Tuesday I interviewed over 30 people for my project. Right now it is wildly hot in Kisumu; I drink about two liters of liquids a day but I pee once in the evening. Often at the end of the day my head hurts, and I'm pretty sure I'm dehydrated. But it was very interesting to hear people's family histories about polygamy, or their stories about refusing to be inherited when they become widows because they are HIV positive. Luos are notoriously welcoming. This hospitality is nice, but can also drive you crazy. Every house you go to, you can't leave without taking at least two cups of tea and eating a couple of chapatis. I ate so much that day that I felt ill at the end and refused to eat dinner at home. The hospitality went so far that someone gave me a grand gift in Luo culture: a chicken. My first chicken gift! I was honored. I carried it all day, with tied feet, with it's head sticking out of a plastic bag. I was supposed to eat it, but when I got home, I just couldn't bare to! So now it's my pet chicken. It has lots of chicken friends on our homestead though. I named my chicken "gweno," which is the Luo name for chicken. Haha!

So later in the day, while still out in the field, I FINALLY had to go to the bathroom after drinking all that tea. So I went out to someone's pit toilet. As I was finishing and standing up, the floor caved in under me, and my left side fell into, well, shit. I yelled quite loudly and the head of the household came running to help me out. It was definitely gross and I cut my leg a bit.

That said, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Obviously, it was a badly build toilet so it wasn't dug that deeply and wasn't even used that much. Sometimes homes are required by the chief to build a toilet, so they build a bad one just for show. The one that is at my host family's house is 12 feet deep, and used everyday by at least 6 people, so you can imagine that falling into that would be a much bigger deal. Mostly now it's a funny story.

And I'm still alive and looking forward to more days in the field.

Another blog...

2009-02-20T03:12:00.001-06:00

I found another MSID blog! This student is Alana, she's also in Kisumu... Enjoy! I really like this one.

http://nimadikwakiswahili.blogspot.com/

I'm still alive!

2009-02-16T06:04:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone! Worry not, I am still alive. Just a bit busy lately. My midterm seminar for school, where we present our on-going research, begins Monday of next week. So I'm making a big push to get a lot of interviews, surveys, and focus groups done. It's a bit stressful. In Kenya, especially the rural areas, time has a seriously rubber component that can cause quite a bit of trouble for someone trying to schedule more than one thing per day. But I'm trying, partly because I want to have something to show at the seminar, but also because after one week of seminar, then one week of spring break, there are only five weeks of field work before we go back to Nairobi for good. Wow. And there are only two weeks at the end in Nairobi, so the end is in sight. I definitely have a fair amount of time left, but the fact that I'm more than halfway done is certainly becoming clear now.

That said, my plans for spring break are just about finalized. I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I am going to Rwanda and Burundi. Yes, they're safe these days. The genocide is long over. There are rebels in both countries from the DRC but the areas where they are I cannot go. Neither country has a travel warning so strong that my University would forbid me from going (for instance, the U will not allow me to travel to Somalia or Afghanistan). I'll be with a group of Rwandans that I know so it'll be safe! I'm looking forward to finally seeing more of East/Central Africa before I head home.

Things that get to me

2009-02-05T05:32:00.000-06:00

Before coming to Kenya, I knew I would see poverty and a harsh way of life. I thought it would bother me a lot, that I would have to condition myself to handle the sights I would see. I even imagined myself (notoriously sensitive to anything mildly disturbing and sometimes self-righteous about it) coming home crying on various occasions.

That has never happened. It was like as soon as the plane landed I grew a thick calloused skin. Poverty and death barely fazed me. In my first weeks I saw street children, barefoot with dirty clothes; people with open wounds begging on the roads; and wheelbarrows of goat heads. I've heard of young deaths, brutal mob deaths, and orphans taking care of countless younger orphans. It has been shocking at times, or maybe a little disturbing, but never as devastating as I had imagined. I don't know why this is.

There are however, a couple things that have gotten under my skin. The first is the treatment and condition of animals on the homesteads in Kenya. Cats and dogs are kicked when they are in the way. They are fed once a day, meager scraps, often mostly maize meal and broth. They are so skinny, they often don't look like they're able to have offspring, although they have some and sometimes a few live. For example, we had a puppy here in Kisumu named Rumi. It was super playful and super cute. It was the son of one of our adult dogs. When I came back from Nairobi, it was so thin, I knew it wouldn't live. I came back the next day and it had died. I was fairly upset, and when I showed that sentiment, my family laughed at me. Their animals die frequently; to even be able to feed them is an extreme privilege. It still hasn't gotten to me that much, maybe because if it did I'd never survive here.

The other thing is the boda-boda drivers, the men (yes, always men) that ride rickety old bikes with you on a cushion on the back. They will take you on a 30 minute ride for about 30 or 40 shillings, which is about 50 cents. And I weigh 68 kilos, and we're in an equatorial climate, so you can imagine how NOT easy it is. Sometimes they take me uphill. And it's all because I'm too lazy to even walk in the heat. In particular there is one boda driver that knows me. He has a brand new baby daughter, no phone, no other job, not even a watch. When I tell him to come at 8:30, he comes based on the position of the sun (he's surprisingly accurate). But he'll take me SO far for so cheap. And I know I shouldn't pity him, I'm a good source of business, but the fact that I pay this man less than a dollar to carry my lazy butt all over makes me feel guilty as hell and I can't help it.

Beyond that, I handle the sights and stories with more callousness than I would have expected. I'm not sure what else I can do.

New Photos

2009-02-05T04:03:00.001-06:00

Again, just a few.

Safari pictures have arrived!

2009-02-02T04:26:00.000-06:00

Enjoy them on Flickr.

2009 and five months in-country

2009-02-02T04:06:00.005-06:00

The month of January has come to a close --- how did that happen? Where did the month go?

I'm back in Kisumu and back at my internship. It was a difficult transition, I have to be honest. Going from the big city to the bush is always a bit of a shock, especially because of the pace change. I really have to turn my patience on. Everyday at work, and even at home, I have to encourage myself to be patient or open, otherwise I'd go crazy with the lack of punctuality and efficiency. But I'm developing a virtue I certainly did not have in the US!

Otherwise, January has been a month of interesting firsts. To start with, I got typhoid this month. I actually just got over it yesterday. One day I woke up in the morning not feeling so hot. My stomach was messed up and I had a headache. But I didn't sleep that well so I didn't think much of it. Throughout the day my stomach continued to hurt and I started to feel worse. But I went to the park with Sarah and Jen for a picnic. When I stood up to go home, I knew that something was seriously wrong. I couldn't walk, I felt incredibly nauseated, and all of my muscles hurt. I suddenly had to lay down, yes, in the middle of the park, with shoeless street children looking at me like I was crazy. My friends got me a vehicle and took me to the hospital. They took a blood test and told me I had a bacterial infection and that I had to take a broad spectrum antibiotic.

I took the medicine. As soon as the medicine was over, I started having other serious stomach problems. They got worse, and then I just couldn't eat. I came to Nairobi anyway, but as soon as I got there I went to another hospital and they tested me for typhoid. The stupid doctors in Kisumu didn't even do a simple typhoid test, and because they didn't, they didn't treat it properly and it came back. Now I can eat and I feel a lot better... I need to be more careful with my water, I guess.

This month I also learned to drive a car in Kenya. Fear not, the car had insurance and I'm alive! But driving here is seriously different. To start with, they drive on the left side of the road. There are no rules, and tons of roundabouts, and it's generally the most aggressive driving I've ever seen in my life. But slowly I'm learning to deal with it and it's pretty fun.

I also attended a football (soccer) game in Kenya's national stadium between Rwanda and Kenya. Rwanda won 5-0. I'm not sure who I was rooting for. I had a long talk with a prostitute. I learned to sweep the house. I chased chickens. I even went to the river with my little brothers to fetch water from the river and chased a little boy while threatening to eat him for dinner. It's been a fun month.

The research is going well, although slowly. It's a daunting task, doing so many interviews and investigating so many leads. I'm still excited and I still think I'll tell a good story.

So what's coming up? Pretty soon I can say that I've been in Kenya for six months. Hopefully this month I'll travel to Rwanda and Burundi for spring break with my new Rwandan friends. Hopefully I'll make significant progress on my research. Hopefully I'll continue to be happy and healthy!

New Photos

2009-01-23T03:37:00.003-06:00

Check out the Flickr site for an assortment of random pictures... I also have some that I haven't put on my computer yet of BRAND NEW! baby chicks. I'll post them by next weekend also.

A silly poem...

2009-01-22T09:14:00.002-06:00

From someone who never writes poetry but got VERY bored the other day...

A Love Poem to Kenya

Kenya, I don't know why I like you,
With your beggars and dirty streets,
And sweet smells of roasted maize.
With your rampant crime,
And welcoming hospitable people.
With your 30% HIV/AIDS rate,
And music playing in the streets.
With no concept of punctuality or tardiness,
And the most sincere greetings in the world.
With leaky tin rooves and holey mud walls,
And brightly colored khangas around every waist.
Kenya, I don't know why I love you,
With your baffling extremes,
but I do.

Returned to Kisumu

2009-01-20T05:45:00.001-06:00

I have arrived safely in Kisumu, after an interesting bus ride here. Well, they're all interesting to be honest. This time though, we passed two giant kegs, the size of a trailer home, that were filled with Nile Special, which is Ugandan beer. And we passed it off-road, so that was pretty exciting. There was also a serious cockroach infestation on the bus. But hey, I'm here now!

Still raining?

2009-01-17T01:41:00.002-06:00

Yeah, it's still raining. This is crazy. The rains aren't due until March. In other news... My friend Dan brought it to my attention that we have less than 100 days in Kenya, if we leave when our plane ticket says. I might stay to travel, but to think that I could come home if I wanted to in 100 days is making my brain hurt.

Tomorrow I go to Kisumu!

Weather!

2009-01-16T05:07:00.002-06:00

It actually rained today. I know it's not big news to all you snowy Americans, but it RAINED HERE. It's not the rainy season, and there's been a bit of a drought. In fact, it's so dry, that people are starving in the hotter regions of the country. They're eating unripe boiled mangoes. It's on the news every night and very, very sad. So I hope it rained all over the country today. But I'm tromping through the mud today, just like old times.

Research Topic

2009-01-15T00:20:00.004-06:00

Here is an edited-down version of my research proposal. It's still in progress so don't get too disgusted by the writing. In other quick news: I'm heading back to Kisumu on Sunday morning for better or worse. I'll miss Nairobi, but I like Kisumu a lot too. I also loaded some new pictures onto Flickr just for fun, a couple old and some new ones.

I. Background and Introduction

Cultures are often taken as given, timeless, and unchanging. Yet cultural change is a fact, even if it happens in some places faster than others. Today, Luo cultural practices are undergoing rapid change – particularly in the arena of marriage and family traditions. It takes quite a bit of time to thoroughly understand the particular rituals and habits that form an organizational premise for their culture. Many of these traditions involve marriage and family. In one example of a still-practiced tradition, the oldest son has a private house built for him outside of the general family compound. This is called a simba in Kiswahili. This is the house where his wife will move to, out of her own family’s compound. Once a woman spends one night in this house, she is considered married, although it is not completely official until a dowry is negotiated between the two fathers. Once the eldest son is married, another simba may be built.

These particular practices are still widely used in Luoland in Western Kenya, however other cultural practices are becoming less common, even becoming looked-down upon. For example, many grandfathers in the families have multiple wives. This was appropriate as long as the man could provide for all his wives and children. Most young men these days do not plan to take multiple wives, considering it sinful and inappropriate.

Another tradition that is becoming less common is that of wife inheritance. In the past, when a husband died, the wife needed to be inherited by a brother or other male in the family member, as well as the semi-orphaned children. The woman was not allowed to go back into her own family’s compound, so she needed a safe place to be taken care of and to manage a cohesive society. These practices are no longer considered appropriate or desirable. Luo culture is changing rapidly, with old practices shunned, while others are maintained.

II. Statement of the Problem

These intricate practices are being simplified in a sense, as the Luo community in Western Kenya decides to adjust their customs. This essay seeks to answer the question, what explains change in traditional Luo cultural practices, particularly surrounding polygamy and widow inheritance? Furthermore, how does a community go about making those changes? The first critical issue to examine in the field of cultural change is what is fueling these changes. There are many possibilities in this regard, from diseases such as HIV/AIDS, demographic changes, internal movements, or government policies. There must be something that triggers these changes.

Another important issue to address is where this change originates from once it is triggered. For instance, does the chief or other leader or a community mandate it? Does an NGO come in and hold behavior change seminars that they find appropriate? Do members of the community finally decide they are not satisfied with the current practices? The answers to these questions may also shed light on how a community decides which practices to change, as related to the triggers referred to previously.

Lastly, the implementation of cultural change is an integral part of the puzzle. Once something triggers cultural change, and the community decides or is influenced, somehow the change must executed. In the case of Western Kenya and Luoland, one particularly interesting instance is the “behavior change workshops” where cultural change is initiated. Understanding the course these workshops run will lead to a further understanding of the issues and of the way communities initiate the culture change they decide on, or perhaps in some cases, that is imposed from above. However, there are other ways of implementing culture change. In many cases, NGO’s and CBO’s are involved in educating, or sensitizing, the community. Additionally, the chief of the community is very important, showing that there are many parties involved in instigating cultural change. Each of these plays a different role in terms of strength and purpose, which must be understood to fully grasp the issue.

III. Objectives

This paper aims to discuss, using Luo culture in Western Kenya, Nyanza Province as the subject: 1) analyze the causes and triggers of cultural change in this particular setting; 2) understand in which way the community comes to a consensus or decision about which cultural practices are no longer useful and appropriate; 3) explore the ways in which cultural change is implemented; 4) how this proves or disproves some of the current literature on wider cultural change in the world; 5) finally, to provide recommendations on how to most appropriately, respectfully, and effectively implement cultural change.

There are also sections on literature review and research methodology, but somehow I don't think those are appropriate...

Running, or Dying, In Nairobi

2009-01-13T01:26:00.000-06:00

As I’ve mentioned in my blog before, Kenya has had a certain… effect on my body. I’ve had to buy all new pants. I don’t have a four-pack anymore. Which is alright with me for the most part, but being healthy is still important. I want to be able to climb Mt. Kenya at some point, or hike for miles and miles with a backpack on. I don’t want to be physically unable to do things. For this reason I got the crazy idea to start running in Nairobi.

First, I needed shoes. I have some hiking shoes that could double as running shoes but they really aren’t that comfortable unless you’re doing vigorous hiking. So I searched around second hand markets, but being white really got in my way. A pair of running shoes should be 1000Ksh (~$14), maybe 1500Ksh at the most. But no one would get lower than 2800 or 2500, even though they were just used Asics or Nikes. Finally, I convinced a friend of mine, Allan, to take me to a giant second hand market called Gikomba.

Have I mentioned that it’s giant? This is where all the second-hand clothes in Kenya come into the country. These are giant bags, the size of cars that are filled with the clothes you gave to Goodwill and Salvation Army. Have you ever wondered where all those clothes go? I know, there’s NO way all those clothes are really at Goodwill, and they’re not, they are sent to Africa. Here I have found Gap, Target, Limited, Nike, Asics, Adidas, and Levis, all in American sizes. Even bras, TONS of bras are in this country second hand and all worn out. Finding new clothes is actually very difficult here.

Anyway, Allan and I went to the source. It was scary. In Nairobi I’ve adjusted to hanging out in places with a mixed crowd, lately Rwandan, Burundian, those other white folks… So going to the market was a bit of a shock for me. Bargaining here was difficult too, because Allan was well dressed and well, I GLOW. But after walking away from two other pairs of shoes, we got a pair of grey and purple Asics for 1400Ksh (<$20).

I was outfitted for my new endeavor. Mind you this adventure took two weeks, searching for shoes that I could run in. Finally, I set a date to run with Steph. She kept swearing she wasn’t in that good of shape, but she lied. We started running and I was quickly out of breath.

Before I go any farther (in my writing and in my running) let me tell you about Nairobi air. First of all, the altitude here is high. I’m not sure specifically how high, but it hit me when I arrived here even in walking around. On top of that, Nairobi is terribly polluted. There are way too many cars for the small space, with constant “jams” as they call them.

Now that we’ve established the air quality… So it’s about a quarter of a mile, a couple city blocks, and I’m winded. My muscles are alright. I run a bit more and realize I Really Cannot Go On. Steph is bouncing around and running in circles while I blow my nose. I beckon her to go on. She bounces on and my head is throbbing. For some weird reason the running has kicked off some serious cramps (of the uterus!). I walk back home, clutching my stomach and trying to catch my breath.

As soon as I get home, I cough until I gag. I run the next day anyway, and limp home that time. Welcome to running in Nairobi.

The Particulars

2009-01-08T03:48:00.000-06:00

When my mom was here in Kenya, she often said that she really couldn't imagine what Kenya was like, and that coming finally made the pictures made sense (or something like that). So I want to explain a little bit about what Kenya is actually like, what it looks like, what it smells like.
In most areas, the ground is covered in trash. There aren't really public trashcans, and there are only one or two landfills in the entire country. So you can imagine what the ground looks like. When I first came, I didn't want to throw garbage just on the ground. But eventually you realize there isn't much point in not doing so; it's going to end up there anyway. In our neighborhood there is a garbage service, and you can put your garbage outside in a plastic bag. However, then the homeless people go through it and it ends up on the ground anyway.

Nonetheless it's worth mentioning a bit what exactly is on the ground. There are tons of scratch cards for airtime. They're bright little pieces of paper in green or orange, with little scratched-off barcodes on them. There are also a ton of Ken King bottles, which is the cheapest Kenyan liquor there is. Sometimes the bottles get filled with glue for little kids to sniff. Lovely, isn't it?

Kenya also has a variety of good, and bad, smells. When you walk through a densely populated area, so many different things come to mind. You can smell roasted maize, which you can buy for ten shillings as a little snack. Sometimes there are samosas or mandazi. Other times you can smell chang'aa, a home-brewed liquor that is dangerously strong. Beyond that of course there's garbage and raw sewage. Some parts of the city reek so much that I breathe through my mouth. The garbage is often burned on the side of the streets, so one of the most common smells is smoke and burning plastic bags.

On the side of the streets are countless informal businesses: little metal shacks where you can buy airtime, bread, margarine, gum, candy, soda, soap, buckets, cushions, etc. Other rickshaw shacks have a few tomatoes, a few mangoes, some carrots, and plastic bags full of whole milk. This is where, everyday, we get our ingredients for lunch and dinner. Beyond that, there are tarps laid out with used clothes and shoes, cheap bootleg DVDs, socks, hats, combs, scrunchies, etc. Anything and everything, either used or very cheap. These tarps and stands are on every street corner, for your convenience. They are often run by women. I almost trip every few minutes staring at the assorted goods.

I'm sure that America's streets will seem infinitely boring when I return...

First Brush with Corruption

2009-01-04T12:47:00.000-06:00

There is one story that is quite interesting that happened when I was with my mom that I omitted earlier, because I think it is a full blog entry all on it’s own.

Kenya is riddled with corruption, from the highest offices to the most lowly employee. The President appoints his tribal members and gives the best funding to his own province and district. Ministers reroute their portfolios funding into their own pockets. But the corruption that got in my way was that of the police officers. It’s well known in Kenya, even among whites, that the cops don’t really give tickets, they just take bribes. Any taxi driver or motorbike driver can tell you that’s how they get through their road blocks. If you resist the bribe attempt, you may well be thrown into a Kenyan jail, which is something to fear. It’s also well known that in the jails that prisoners are beaten, starved, and sometimes tortured. So you want to go with the bribe route and make it easier.

So my mom and I are in a taxi on our way to the airport when we see a police line on the road. I move to buckle my seatbelt (this is my first mistake). The policemen wave us over and then request that the driver show his documents, so he exits the car. The officer taps on my mom’s window.
“Where are you going? And why aren’t you wearing your seatbelt?”
“We’re on our way to the airport; I had just forgotten, I’m sorry.”
“You know the fine is 2000Ksh per person for that.” (About $30.)
“Per person?! That’s a lot! I’ve been in lots of vehicles in police lines and I’ve never been stopped for not wearing my seatbelt!”
“You can come into court tomorrow and settle it there.”
“We can’t exactly come into court tomorrow, my mom needs to fly out tonight, we’re on our way to the airport now.”
“Then you have to pay the fine now.”

So I look into my bag and explain to him that I really only have 2000Ksh because I have to pay the cab driver the other bit of my money. He takes it, of course.

My logic? This cop doesn’t care about the law, and just wants my money above all, so if I give him what he wants he’ll just let us pass to the airport. He knows I don’t know the rules and he knows I have to be at the airport so he has the upper hand here, for sure. As the taxi driver gets back into the cab I exclaim “What an asshole!” I feel like I want to cry. I know I just got screwed.

But I drop my mom off at the airport and that goes smoothly, although it was really sad to know that I won't get to see her, or really anybody, for over four months. When I get back with the taxi, I mention the disappointing experience with the officer, and he's surprised. He says that it wasn't even a traffic officer, and he had no right to take the money. The fine is actually 500Ksh instead of 2000Ksh. If I had even asked for a receipt he wouldn't have been able to do that.

Again, my logic? This guy doesn't care about the law, and he could easily make my mom miss her flight just for fun. He could also throw me in jail. The cops in Kenya are as scary as the criminals; they ARE the criminals. On TV, you can see, at least twice a week, a cop brutally beating someone who is running from them. The cops actually CHASE people and beat them. And they're not scared of the media seeing, of the public seeing, of anyone. They're scary.

So it turned out I didn't really have to pay the money (well, duh!), and that I had been totally taken advantage of. The cop knew I didn't know the rules and he knew I had to get out of there quickly, and he worked it for all it was worth. Hopefully in the future I can be smarter!

Four Months in Kenya - The Halfway Point

2009-01-02T02:57:00.000-06:00

January 1st marks my four-month anniversary of staying in Kenya, as well as the halfway point of my trip (provided I leave at the end of April). December was a good month, although unlike any other. At beginning of the month I left Kisumu and my internship to come back to Nairobi for exams. Being back in Nairobi was such a shock. I had electricity (although no running water anymore here in Nairobi, there’s a serious water shortage) as well as many more creature comforts. There’s coffee, places I can take my laptop, stores with clothes that actually fit, a multitude of good restaurants – it’s amazing. There are also a lot more white people here, in addition to a much more diverse group of people. In Kisumu it’s mostly Luos, with a few other Kenyan tribes and then some Indians and wazungu. But for the most part, people have similar facial structures and skin colors, speak a common language, and hold some common culture ground. In Nairobi however, there are all tribes and all sorts of internationals. It’s a relief for me in a lot of ways. I blend in here, I can walk around without being stared at (usually) and rarely does anyone call me out. It’s like a vacation for a mzungu, and I’m loving it.

Since I have returned from Kisumu I am enjoying Nairobi a lot more than I did before. Nairobi is definitely dirty and has serious poverty and crime issues. But here feels more like what I’m used to, it’s a busy city with coffee shops and places to explore. It’s big enough that I’m not recognized everywhere I go. While I have more friends in Kisumu, and I enjoy my house and family there, I welcome my time in Nairobi for open arms.

This has also been the time of holidays and my mom’s visit. I worried about whether I’d miss home on Christmas or around the New Year, seeing as Thanksgiving had been a little hard for me. Surprisingly, I wasn’t home sick at all. Of course that was helped by my mom being here, I had some family here and I wasn’t completely on my own. If anything I’m getting more used to being here.

I think I’m also falling in love with Kenya’s weather. I get to wear sandals every day. I have the best tan of my life, and my hair keeps getting blonder. Sure, it’s hot as hell in Kisumu between the hours of 1 and 4, but once you’re adjusted it’s quite nice. The sun rises and sets at almost the same time every day, and it only rains during the rainy season, and even then, rarely during the day. There are almost never cloudy days. Just blue skies and the bright sun! I could get used to this.

Exams and final papers went quite well. I am glad to be done with them and am looking forward to the next semester. This time around is quite different. Most of my time will be in Kisumu working at my internship, save for a few research conferences in Nairobi. While I work at my internship, I’ll be working on a first-hand field research project. This is a unique opportunity to do something, and try something, that usually only graduate students get to do. My own research will be an interesting test run for me as to whether I truly enjoy research, and if I’d ever be interested in trying for a PhD. My work is driven almost only by myself and my own initiative, and I’m looking forward to the personal challenge. (I’ll post up the research topic when I have articulated it properly for my proposal.)

Another upcoming point of interest is the beginning of deciding travel plans for my spring break at the end of February, and if I’d like to travel at the end of the program. Someone has brought up the idea of traveling to Zanzibar for spring break, which sounds fantastic to me. As for after the program, originally I had considered staying to work or something, but visa-wise, that looks impossible. A work visa in Kenya is over $2,000, which is way more than the job would we worth. I’ve had two job offers, one with the NGO I work with and then a partnering NGO, but it’s not what I want to do right now. So I think I’d like to travel, but where? And with whom? These are important questions that I’m going to start researching this month.

Other than that, I look forward to my return in Kisumu around January 20th and forward to more adventures in Kisumu and Kenya!

On her way back...

2008-12-29T04:17:00.001-06:00

My mom has left the country! She's home safely now, and telling me that she's going to rent the Lion King, probably to reminisce about our fun trip. It really was fun. After the Maasai Mara, we came back to Nairobi for just one night before taking the long bumpy bus ride to Kisumu. Once in Kisumu we stayed with my host family there for four nights. It was good for mom to see the other family that I live with, and now the family that I spend most of my time with. Our time in Kisumu was fairly relaxed, we had quiet mornings and early bed times.

One day however, we decided to take a day trip out to Kakamega Forest, the last chunk of an old tropical rainforest in Kenya. It's less than two hours away, you just have to get to Kisumu town to catch a matatu. Mom and I got out of the house and were on our way to the matatu stage, then we met up with David to come with us. We looked around for a matatu or a bus, but there weren't any. We were told to just sit and wait and that "soon" another would come to take us. An hour later, none were there. Turns out that in Kenya there is a fairly severe fuel shortage and that was holding up a number of vehicles. Lines were even stretching out of parking lots. (There was a government probe into this problem, but there were no good answers at the end of it. Not surprising.) Also, there was a police line somewhere in between Kisumu and Kakamega so no cars were willing to go near the police, preventing vehicles from traveling. So we asked around a bit more and finally we found a random guy who said that for 200Ksh each (<$3) he would just drive us there in a private vehicle. We excitedly accepted his offer, and hopped in the car. Then waited for fuel for about an hour.

Twenty minutes out of town and we're on a road that's falling apart, but it's quite beautiful. All of a sudden, smoke starts pouring out of the hood of the car, and we pull over. Something has sprung a leak, or broken, and we're not even halfway there. We all get out of the car (it's almost noon by now I think) and sit under some shade to see if there's any chance of it getting fixed. Eventuallly our driver tells us someone is coming to fix it... Half an hour later, no fixing, so we decide to just go to the lake and have a nice boat ride. Plan totally foiled in a typically Kenyan fashion. Even if we had gotten to Kakamega, we figured, with a police block and little fuel, we'd probably be stranded. Again, unsurprising.

From Kisumu we flew to Lamu, which was heavenly. I'm used to 6-18 hour bus rides on some of the worst roads imaginable. I'm used to the dust that gets all over you, and how hot it is in those buses in this tropical climate. But flying? About 2-3 hours to Lamu, barely any lines or waiting, and even little treats on the plane! I was so spoiled. Seeing the land that I've traveled on from a birds eye view was beautiful and quite moving, seeing all the little huts and herds of cattle.

Lamu was, of course, beautiful. We ate good food (okay mostly me, Mom had caught a stomach bug), drank some Tuskers, and got ridiculously tan on the beach. We went on two dhow rides (sailboat), one to a beach and another time to some ancient ruins. On our dhow ride picnic we had a huge slab of red snapper fish, mangoes, oranges, toast, and fresh chopped veggies. It was delicious. Our Christmas was lowkey, we just had a nice meal with dessert and lounged around our beautiful hotel. I couldn't have asked for more!

We came back to Nairobi a day before her flight to do some errands; she got some gifts and some things for the house. Now she's home, and I have a special treat! She will write a guest blog about her trip and her impressions of Kenya for me (haha Mom, now you're locked into it), and I'll post it here.

In the meantime, enjoy the new pictures on Flickr.

Quickly

2008-12-24T03:51:00.002-06:00

Back in Nairobi for a few hour lay-over before flying to Lamu for a Merry and warm Christmas on the coast. We are safe and happy, while we hear tales of snow in the Midwest. Mom and I want to say that we miss and love everyone. Merry Christmas from the Equator.

She's here!

2008-12-19T23:11:00.002-06:00

Everyone, worry not, my mother is here. She arrived about 12 hours later than originally planned. What happened was that her first British Airways flight was delayed by three hours, causing her to miss her second British Airways flight from London-->Nairobi. She had to run around the airport, from Virgin Airways to Kenya Airways, everyone trying to put her on a flight then telling her to go somewhere else. She did eventually get on a Kenya Airways flight that got her in Nairobi by 7am. When she arrived though, the luggage never appeared. Anyone who travels knows this nightmare, looking around the carousel over and over hoping that somehow you missed it, that of course it's coming. But in this case it didn't.

Good thing though, she had an extra set of clothes and some basic things she needed, and I have all the toiletries a lady could want here with me. We had to go on the safari without it, but when we got back the luggage was at our house in Nairobi, all in one piece, with nothing taken.

While in Nairobi we visited the giraffe center (enjoy pictures on Flickr!) and the Nairobi arboretum. Both were fun and we got to see some different parts of the city. My good friend David accompanied us. After that, we headed out for a safari in the Maasai Mara! It was absolutely amazing. We saw a cheetah family with cubs, lions eating a kill, herds of elephants, tons of huge giraffes, all sorts of gazelle and antelope, tons of beautiful birds... The list goes on and on. Mom said that it was like being in a Discovery Channel documentary.

I took a lot of pictures, but by some stupid move I erased them all... BUT WORRY NOT, viewers, there was a professional photographer with us who will send me all the pictures. Part of the reason all the pictures disappeared is that I got a new camera, and I was fiddling with it... Apparently I "formatted" the memory card......Which means all the pictures go bye-bye, and there's not even a confirmation prompt. Oh well.

Overall though, things have been really good. Mom hasn't been sick, her jetlag isn't too bad, and the baggage deal was quickly resolved. We've been safe and well fed. The next leg of our journey is to go to Kisumu by bus in just a couple of hours. There we'll visit a tropical rain forest, see the sunset over Lake Victoria, and meet the host family there.

Stronger than you think.

2008-12-13T02:12:00.002-06:00

Something interesting is happening in Kenya right now. It all started with a bill in parliament that would require members of parliament (MP's) to pay taxes, like the rest of the population. MP's in Kenya make about as much money as an American senator, even though the standard of living is very different here. In other words, they're filthy rich. The average citizen is keenly aware of this, and not that happy about it either. So when the bill was introduced, it received a lot of news coverage and citizens were very in favor of it. Of course, in line with the extreme selfishness and corruption we've seen in every corner of Kenyan politics (ie voter fraud leading to post-election violence last year), the parliament voted the bill out, maintaining their tax-free life.

The citizens were pissed. They didn't riot, and they protested minimally, but the media covered it thoroughly. Newspapers and television channels blasted the MP's for their selfishness, especially when the money they would be taxed could go to, say, helping the millions of orphans in Kenya. Shortly after the drama had subsided, parliament put out a bill that would highly censor the media, and allow the government to control what they say. The reaction this time was different.

Journalists have flooded the streets with their lips literally taped shut, or their hands behind their back. Every news channel is featuring it as their main story, talking about how Parliament shouldn't pass such a bill, that it was ten steps back. The response was amazing. Foreign diplomats to Kenya and community leaders said their words of warning.

The bill was passed, but it hasn't been signed yet. General protests and protests specific to journalists have continued. Just yesterday was Jamhuri Day, which is Kenya's independence day from colonial rule. At the celebrations, as President Kibaki spoke, people who were protesting were being beat by the police (standard procedure here in Kenya, they show it on the news daily) and carried out kicking and screaming. It was shocking.

Kibaki has yet to sign the bill, which is the only hope right now. Kenya has a vibrant media, there are three major newspapers and three major news networks that have shows in Kiswahili and English. They are quite critical of the government and they do not hesitate to reveal the all too-often scandals. It would be a shame to lose one of the few checks on the Kenyan government. You can follow the story here: www.nation.co.ke

On a more personal note... My mom is coming tomorrow! I am very excited. The itinerary is: couple days in Nairobi, camping safari in the Maasai Mara, a few days in Kisumu, and a tropical Indian Ocean Christmas in Lamu. I couldn't ask for more!

Exams and Retreat

2008-12-08T05:37:00.003-06:00

My exams are through! I think I really nailed them. I didn't study as much as I could have, mostly because I'm mostly on African time now, so I have gotten slow and possibly a bit lazy. But as I wrote my exams, I was feeling like I really knew what I was saying. So that's a weight off my shoulders. I have one of four papers done, but I'm working steadily and quite well.

During exam time we spent two nights in a nice guest house here in Nairobi. By American standards it was fairly nice, but by Kenyan standards it was pure luxury. I took a hot shower. I used a toilet. I ate vegetables. There weren't cockroaches. It was amazing!!! On a more serious note, it gave me a much needed break and time to think. I was able to reflect on the semester and realize how much I have already learned. I could be going home on Saturday with half the other kids, but I have chosen to stay. (Even though my Grandpa says I should come back now, and on bad days I agree.) I'm lucky enough to have the time and capacity to be here, to continue challenging myself and to continue learning.

I think I finally realized what a crazy thing I'm doing. It seems so day to day when you're here, but this is a big experience. It's exactly the kind of life I want, challenging, experiential, and international. This fits perfectly with what I want to do in the future, ideally working for the UN or a governmental organization doing something in the gender arena. This is exactly where I want to be right now in my education and career path, as well as personal development.

I thought about why I came in the first place, and how much I have fulfilled those goals. I came to scare myself, to gain career experience, to learn about a different culture, to see how women's issues differ in Africa, and of course to beef up my resume. So far I have done all of those things, and I will continue to next semester as well.

Next semester will be more in the field, which will continue to be challenging and rewarding. I won't have classes anymore, but I will have a large first-hand research project. The work I do next semester should be master's level; I'll have my own primary sources from the field and from the community I worked with (I'll post my proposal up when it's done in January). It will not only be an honors senior thesis but also something that maybe I could publish, or build off of on the future. I don't think I have ever been so excited about an academic paper before!

I'm feeling more optimistic and confident that I have in quite a while! Oh, and on Saturday night I went clubbing for the first time in Nairobi. It was a total blast and worth the lack of sleep I got. Gotta keep stepping out of the box I guess.

Nairobi!

2008-12-04T06:12:00.002-06:00

I arrived safely in Nairobi for 4am this morning. The bus was supposed to arrive here at 5:30am, so I had to awkwardly wake up my Nairobi host family. They were of course very welcoming, making me tea in the middle of the night and preparing my bed for a short nap.

It feels strange to be back here. Nairobi is HUGE! There are lots of roads, lots of lights, lots of people. Especially white people. I saw more white people today than I have in the past month and a half. I think I'm having a little bit of culture shock. Today, I ate a bowl of fruit and a scone. WOW. I also charged my cellphone in my OWN HOUSE. I watched TV. If this is hard, going back to the United States will be crazy!

Flickr Photos Updated

2008-12-03T03:25:00.000-06:00

World AIDS Day at Orongo!

Three Months

2008-12-03T01:49:00.002-06:00

It's hard to believe I've been here for three months - it feels like so much longer, to be honest. I've adjusted to Kisumu very quickly. The city is small, so anything I do, someone sees and reports it to someone else. But Kisumu has almost everything I need, an Italian restaurant, a coffee shop with wireless internet, a large supermarket, even some pools! The only thing it really lacks is a decent clothing store, which would be handy, seeing as I have gained a solid 15 pounds. All the pants I brought with me no longer fit. But that is neither here nor there. I like the city and I'm comfortable here, as I should be since I still have another long semester ahead of me.

Weekends in Kisumu are especially satisfying. A group of Americans has been established, including current MSID students Andre, Ashley, Sarah, and Joey. We also spend time with Jen and Tosha, two past students who now have a sweet apartment here with their husband and financee, respectively. On Fridays after work, we usually go to the Sports Grounds, a big park, for beers to wind down the week. We are the stereotypically loud Americans, laughing and complaining about our work weeks. After that, we go for an all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet that I think I've mentioned before. It's such an awesome way to close up a week! Later on in the weekend we often eat pizza and swim somewhere. It's fun and relaxing, although I have to admit I burn up a lot of money.

My internship is finally taking direction, although with a bit of assertiveness from me. Before I wasn't given enough work, but I think next semester I will be completely in the field, doing home visits and supervising the community health workers' orphans and vulnerable children.

But with these troubles at the internship came my first real homesickness. When things get tough abroad (like when I was in Germany), I've always had an inclination to think "I wouldn't feel this bad at home!" (Not necessarily true.) That, of course, leads me to want to be at home. And when you're grumpy about one thing, other things seem worse. For example, constantly being called mzungu, anytime I walk anywhere, gets exhausting. It's not considered rude here though, and people mean no harm. But when I'm grumpy, I want everyone to just shut up. It can also be hard to live with a family that simply is not your own, in addition to losing a great deal of independence. But all temporary difficulties aside, I'm doing fairly well and I intend to finish out the year.

The month of December will be a stressful one but also a good one. I have exams and about 40 pages of writing due by December 12th, so I am and will be stressed about that until it's finished and over. But after that, my mom comes on the 14th until 28th. We're taking a simple tour of Kenya including a couple of days in Nairobi, a few here in Kisumu, a safari in one of Kenya's amazing national parks, and a time on the coast, relaxing and soaking up the Equator sun. She'll meet and stay with my host families and see my internship site. Not only will this be fun for me, but I also think it will be important that when I come home, someone understands on some level where I was, what I saw, and what I experienced during my time here in Kenya.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T06:31:00.002-06:00

A lot of people have asked me how I celebrated Thanksgiving while in Kenya. The actual day was very uneventful... To be honest, it was a bad day at work for me, so I was grumpy a lot of the day. But after work, a friend and I went to watch the sun set at Hippo Point, which is a beautiful spot along the lake. On our way back, we ran into another friend of mine, Sarah, and we just stopped to chat. All of a sudden it began to rain, of course, so we ran into the nearest building. It was a member's only club, but we were soaked and knew we had to wait it out. Somehow Sarah and I convinced this fat old man to let us in for a beer, even though we weren't members and didn't want to pay the 200Ksh (~3$) to be a member. So, my thanksgiving dinner was half a liter of Tusker and a chocolate bar. But in the company of friends along the lake, I didn't mind.

However, on Saturday, I had a more proper celebration. Jen and Tasha, two Americans that are married/engaged to Kenyans, graciously hosted an elaborate dinner at their apartment. It was a large group of Americans, some Kenyans, and lots of food! There was turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, two kinds of stuffing, green bean casserole, squash... WOW. The spread was amazing and delicious. We indulged in some electronic-entertainment (aka watching a movie), then I went home to bed! All in all, not so bad.

Bugs, bugs, bugs.

2008-11-27T04:36:00.002-06:00

I think most of you had heard the scorpion story (got bit in the leg in a Maasai village), and there's where the bugs truly began. Living in Kenya is not for the faint of heart. It's ridiculously hot, there are lions, it's fairly unsafe... And the insects. Cockroaches, giant beetles, giant wasps, scorpions, giant spiders, fire ants; everything the US has but bigger and far more frightening. Since the scorpion bite, I've had a few run-ins worth sharing. Often when I enter the bathroom (hole in the ground surrounded by tin), I am met by a giant cockroach. I don't know if it's the same one or different ones, but this guy is huge: two inches long or so. I've taken to opening the door with one finger. They don't really cause any harm, but I think it's the giant cockroaches that weird me out the most.

I also have a cockroach infestation in my laptop. I first discovered this when I was sitting in a coffee shop with my friend Andre. All of a sudden a little cockroach ran out on my keyboard and I wasn't too surprised because they're really all over. I told Andre, and then he looked up and saw that there were a bunch running out the back of my computer. Now whenever I use it and it gets heated up, a few run out. Not sure how I'll solve that...

The other infestation I have is an interesting type of wasp that keeps making it's home on my towels. When I don't use one for a few days, I come back and there's a little home for just one wasp made on the towel. It's like a mud cocoon. Often the wasp isn't in there, so I just peel off the mud house, or whatever it is, and put it in the laundry bin.

The flies are also out of control here, but you get used to it quickly. They are literally in swarms. When I sit in the office, there will be about five on me, ten on the desk, and countless others swarming around. At first you try to swat them away, but eventually you just let them crawl all over. The beetles that are bigger than 25 cent quarters don't even phase me anymore. I'm toughening up!

What exactly do you do at Orongo?

2008-11-21T08:04:00.000-06:00

Good question! However, not an easy one to answer.

I have no normal schedule as to what I do, at least not yet. For the most part I shadow one of my supervisors, Moses. Examples of things I do:

Attend trainings on HIV/AIDS and TB
Attend trainings on the paperwork that US AID (United States Agency for International Development, the department that gives foreign aid) gives the women in the program
Run errands in town; bank, various government offices
Write reports on home visits
Visit people living positively with HIV/AIDS in their home, discuss nutrition, importance of adherence to ARVs, etc.
Help teach the orphans in the nursery school

Right now I am spending a lot of time just learning and observing. The organization works with a lot of families (over 1,000 orphans and vulnerable children alone), so I'm getting to know everyone so that they're familiar with me and that they trust me to some degree.

I'm hoping that in the future I can be doing home visits on my own. So far I am enjoying myself and I am learning a lot.

What happens when it rains in Kenya

2008-11-17T17:03:00.000-06:00

Bright, sunny day. I go outside to wash my face and hands – after a day in this nearly intolerable heat, I feel unbearably sticky. I see, in the very near sky, black masses of clouds. I call to my family that we are going to get rain, at first they are skeptical because it is still so bright, but after all it is the season of short rains.

Within a few minutes, the sky darkens, the droplets begin. This begins a fast-paced and important process in a rural Kenyan household. The laundry on the line must be taken down, the animals corralled. The firewood covered, the buckets placed out for collection: rain here is a useful and needed natural resource.

The family amasses in the house, which includes some frightened chickens (which one will we eat this week?) and goats as well. The rain quickly escalates, and I venture outside to observe the action. I lean on the still warm side of our mud and concrete house. The walking paths fill up, and I know that tomorrow’s transport will be very difficult and that vehicles will not be able to pass.

Address Change

2008-11-17T08:00:00.001-06:00

Now, you can send me mail at:
Stephanie S. Payne
c/o Moses Miruka
PO Box 4132-Kisumu-40100
Kenya

Please do!

A Typical Day in Kisumu, Kenya

2008-11-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

6:30am: There's a rooster crowing and the sun is coming into my open air room. I hear pots and pans clanging as my host sisters prepare water over a fire for bathing and breakfast.

7am: I finally sit up in bed. My back usually hurts because Kenyan mattresses are often cheap, so they bend in the middle. When I actually get out of bed, I have to untuck my mosquito net - Kisumu has frighteningly high malaria rates. I go into the sitting room and greet my family:
"Good morning!" "Good morning to you!" "How was your night?" "Oh, mine was fine. How about yours?" "Very fine thank you."

7:15am: There is a bucket of heated water ready for me in the stall outside the house. I gather a khanga (printed cloth with African patterns and a Swahili proverb printed on the back) to use as a towel. I scrub off, although my feet never come clean from the "black cotton soil" that is present here. Back in the house I apply 100% deet and sunscreen each and every day, seeing as I live a few kilometers from the Equator - this is not the most forgiving climate.

7:45am: Breakfast. Banana stew, peanuts, or bread. Rarely anything else. Tea, of course.

8:30am: Caleb, my boda-boda driver, arrives. He can arrive anytime from 8:15-8:45 though because he doesn't have a phone or a clock of any sort. He doesn't know English and I don't know much Luo (yet) so our friendship, and our conversation, has hit a wall. I get on the back of his bike and we ride to work, which is farther out of town. I am, of course, greeted by call s of "mzungu!" and other various versions of hello.

9am: The office is supposed to open at 8 but in Kenya, time doesn't mean a whole lot. So if the office is locked, I go to the main house. Tea number two and possibly another margarine sandwich on cheap white bread. If I'm lucky there will be mandazi, which is deep-fried bread from scratch, sort of like a donut.

9:30am: Moses, my supervisor, arrives. We work (a whole other blog post on what I do and don't do at work).

2pm: Lunch! Finally! By this time I am usually starving. Same thing every day at work: ugali, kale, and often eggs. My co-workers have discovered that I can pray really well, so now I always pray for our food (I actually can't eat without praying now, it's become such an automatic reflex). A woman comes around with a bucket and a pitcher of water to wash our hands. No soap though, so I'm not sure how helpful it is.

5pm: The day of work is over and I call Duncan, another boda-boda driver. The same story as before: lots of greetings on the road, and lots of greetings in the house. If I get home quickly, I'll have two hours before it's totally dark. Usually I'll sit with my family, talk to Velma and Winnie, and watch the chickens and goats, and play with the dogs and cats. Easy entertainment.

7pm: It's dark so the mosquito army has invaded. Prime target, my ankles and feet. We tretreat inside to attempt to work by the light of parafin lamps. But it's dim and you've been sweating all day, so I get woozy quickly in the dark. Usually I'll help Winnie cook in the kitchen, which is another building next to the main house.

8:30pm: Dinner! The hand washing and praying commence again. The cooking in this house is good, but there is very little variety. The Menu:
Beans and Chapati
Beans and Rice
Ugali and Meat
Ugali and Fish
Ugali and Eggs

9pm: Everyone quickly heads to bed. By 9pm it is pitch black and I'm exhausted. I happily crawl into my dipped bed and thoroughly tuck in my mosquito net and get settled before I do it all again tomorrow.

Flickr Photos Updated

2008-11-14T03:38:00.000-06:00

Enjoy.

Naked in the Nile

2008-11-12T23:46:00.000-06:00

What a wonderful weekend I had! Friday afternoon a group of seven of us headed out to Uganda to go white-water rafting on the Nile. I hope all you know what that is, because I'm tired of explaining it. Kenyans have no idea what rafting is, let alone "rapids," or "white water," or even "water fall." In general they stay away from that river and any type of excess adventure.

We had a great, and safe, time. Uganda is significantly less developed than Kenya, but far more lush over all. Everything is green and over-grown and incredibly beautiful. It's unlike any type of landscape in the US that I have seen so far.

We had an amazing dinner in Jinja on Friday night. It's always so nice to get a break from ugali and kale and have some American-leaning food. Saturday morning we had another amazing breakfast then headed out to the water. There was a big inflatable but very sturdy raft with seven of us Americans. Then of course there is a guide; someone who steers the boat and directs us on how to paddle, when to "GET DOWN!!!" etc. He was actually Australian and very cool. The first day there were about 8 rapids. It's pretty nerve-racking, because if you fall out, you're in for a swim. It's not necessarily unsafe to fall out, because the Nile has a lot of warm water but no rocks. But it's that warm water that will really get you. For instance:

On Silverback, the rapid with the greatest volume of water flowing through it in the world, we had to nail a waterfall perfectly in order to not flip the raft. The guide is yelling, "forward! forward!" and we're all trying to paddle together in order to nail it perfectly. All of a sudden we see the big drop we have to hit. And we hit it. Of course I close my eyes so I'm not really sure how we fall, but all of a sudden I'm in the water. I get pulled under for quite a while, and then I can feel the water spinning me in circles. I get up for a breath of air, and pulled down again. Slowly I get pulled out of the rapid and can get a few breaths of air until finally I'm back with the boat. I was the only one to fall out! I was fine and apparently I had a giant booger on my face.

The only downside to this was that I really didn't want to fall out for the rest of the trip. We had a relatively easy day, then stayed at The Haven, which was a sweet resort along the Nile. The view was gorgeous. We ate an amazing three-course dinner. That night one of the Americans got pretty sick though, so she had to go back the next day (maybe too much sun, maybe a stomach bug).

On the second day of rapids (Sunday), I had to really psych myself up for all the rapids and the knowledge that I might fall in again. But this time I decided to hang on for dear life and to keep my eyes open. When you're going through a rapid, you can see water crashing up in all directions. The raft goes nearly vertical, and you're thrown around. It's amazing when you can see what's going on - and the victory is so much sweeter when you know how crazy the rapid was and the fact that you're still hanging on!

I didn't fall again on the trip, but everyone else fell at least once except for Ashley. All in all it was amazing! I ate great food, I saw amazing scenery, and I kicked ass on the river. I didn't even get sunburnt.

And of course what you're probably wondering: why naked in the Nile? Skinny dipping, of course!

I'm white.

2008-11-06T07:19:00.000-06:00

The fact that I am usually the only white person I see all day is something worth discussing on this blog. I'm surprised I haven't gotten to that yet, how it feels to be white in a land where there are over 90% black people and then a few people from India.

In Nairobi, it wasn't so bad. I occasionally heard the call "mzungu!" but it was mostly children. Otherwise people didn't look at me any differently because I think they were used to seeing white folks. In Nairobi I was also able to go to places where there were loads of white people: nice restaurants, malls, coffee shops, etc. I could partake in American culture a bit and also spend time with other Americans. I could use slang and talk about the interesting parts of Kenyan culture.

Out in the field, it's a whole other story. I hear mzungu, or odiera (white person in Luo) constantly. Little kids literally chant "HOW AH YOO! HOW AH YOO!" as I walk or ride by. I am culturally expected to respond and ask them also how they are doing. But it's not just kids, it's also adults. It can be sexually harassing as well when it comes from men. It amounts to me constantly having to be on my guard, greeting people and positively representing white people and America.

Being white out here is also a double-edged sword. On one hand, people regard me as a special guest. They always run and get me a chair if I'm sitting on the ground. They always buy me a cold soda when I visit their home, and they make sure I'm comfortable. On the other hand, people can really wear you down. I get made fun of a lot, for the way I eat ugali, to the amount of food I eat, to the way I speak, to the way I dress - you get the idea. Most of the time I can laugh along with them, but it can be very exhausting at times as well.

One particularly frustrating thing is that any white person is just a white person, rather than a Swede, American, or Russian. I know that I am very different from someone from Russia: to start with, they speak a completely different language! But to a Kenyan, we're all the same. This leads to many people thinking I'm someone I'm not. To top it off, many people don't even know where the US is. I have been asked by professionals if the US is in North or South America more times than I can count! I have to be very patient when it comes to explaining where I am from. Sometimes I just want to blend in for once.

These are all problems that I can imagine any minority, including those in the United States, deal with on a daily basis: the feeling of being an outsider, everything you do being watched, the generalization of your heritage.. It's tough. Here in Kenya though it comes with the territory. It will be interesting to see if these things change after being in the same small community for six months.

Links and Questions

2008-11-06T04:31:00.001-06:00

Hello readers! I have added another link to a fellow student's blog. Adam's is very interesting and one of my favorites.

Also, if anyone has any questions about how things are while I'm here, feel free to comment and ask - I'll address them in a blog next week. Maybe there is something obvious that I have failed to talk about!

Thanks and lots of love,
Steph

Yes we can! Yes we can!

2008-11-05T03:46:00.003-06:00

... Is what we chanted as I marched through the streets of Kisumu at 9am this morning.

I woke up this morning at 4am to find out that Pennsylvania had gone to Obama. Shortly after, he got Virginia and other key states. It was clear he would win! CNN annouced their projection that Obama had been elected President of the United States of America!!! We immediately starting celebrating.

We all called our families in the US and Nairobi, then yelled Obama from the window as we clapped and toasted. Then, we patiently watched McCain's gracious and respectful concession speech, and Obama's moving victory speech. Finally, the parade started!

We heard chanting and honking and music, so we ran out of the house in our pajamas. Most of us we grubby and nasty, but as quick as we could we got on the streets. We chanted, we danced. I probably hugged half the city. Kenyans and Americans walked hand in hand through the streets in victory. Kenyan's certainly see it as their victory; they said "we're going to the white house!" and even staged some mock voting events here in Kenya.

Tomorrow was declared a public holiday by President Kibaki, so no work for me! And there's another parade that we'll definitely join in on. Funny that I am celebrating more in Kenya then in the US for the American elections... Americans have got to learn to party!

Obama!!!

2008-11-04T07:08:00.003-06:00

...Is what I often hear yelled in my direction as I make my way around the Kisumu area.

Today is the election, although I won't find out the results until tomorrow morning because Kenya is nine hours ahead of America. But it's a big day for Kenya too. Actually, if Obama loses, it won't be safe for me to be around here. I'll be on house arrest. Furthermore, I may be on house arrest anyway because the people are going to be SO EXCITED!

My plans for tonight? Slumber party at another American's house with satellite TV to watch the results as they roll in!

Mwalimu, update, and stereotypes!

2008-11-02T06:32:00.002-06:00

First of all, a short update:

I love Kisumu! It's a small town with lots of fun things to do. On Friday night, a group of us went to an all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet for less than $7. It was SO amazing, way better than any Indian food I've ever had in the states. And there was even dessert. I ate so much I couldn't sleep at night. Today I also went swimming in a pool that was on the lake. You can't swim in the lake because of various diseases, which is why the pool was necessary. But really I'm having a lot of fun. I have met two other Americans who studied abroad here last year, but are now married/engaged to Kenyan men. They know the best ways to get around town and the most fun things to do. For the elections on Tuesday, I'll probably watch the results roll in with them.

Next weekend I'll be in Uganda to go white water rafting on the Nile! It's two days on the river and apparently it's pretty crazy. I'm going with a group that was recommended by generations of MSID students, so don't worry it's quite safe. I'm so excited: this was on my top three list of things I had to do while in Kenya. This will actually be the last of the three! (The other two were camping and then going to coast. They were quite achievable!)

I also wanted to inform people that women do really carry things on their head in Kenya. It's one of those stereotypes that you always think you only see in movies, but totally happens. Even my host mom carries firewood and bananas on her head. When I want to make the neighborhood laugh, I try to carry things too. Everyone totally loves it and thinks it's the weirdest thing they've ever seen.

And last little tidbit: There is a teacher who lives next door to us who always visits the family. I don't know his real name, because we only call him "mwalimu," which is teacher in Swahili. He comes and for hours he'll just ask me questions. Does it rain in America? Are there black people? Do you have charcoal? What's the climate like? Did you come by plane? What's the time difference? Do you cry when people die? And more... These are all actual questions I've gotten from him. Lots of people drill me about America, but mwalimu is the most thorough. I've really come to enjoy our conversations. He swears that he'll come to America to see me graduate from college! I try to explain to him that I only know about two states (MN and WI) and that I don't believe I think like most Americans. He enjoys my replies anyway. :)

Two Months

2008-11-01T04:39:00.000-05:00

Two months in country – I’ve never been away from the US for this long. Even at the University of Minnesota, I go home about every two months. I’m moving into uncharted territory!

A lot has happened this month: an amazing adventure to Lamu, the conclusion of classes in Nairobi, my move out to the field, and the beginning of a six-month internship. These are big changes, big moves. After all, the internship is the purpose of this program and it’s why I came to Kenya.

What can I say, so far so good. My family is amazing and I have connected with them faster than I could have imagined. The internship is picking up now, and I’m beginning to understand the structure of the very successful and innovative program. I think that I will do good work with this organization.

Working at Orongo, even for this short time, has shown me a completely different side of Kenya that is very sad. In this area of Kenya, about 30% of people are estimated to be infected with HIV/AIDS – a staggering number. You can imagine how many children this has orphaned, how many families and lives this has disrupted. The organization I work with serves both widows and orphans, wisely putting the orphans in the homes of the widows and providing them with education, support, and income-generating activities. They create homes and safe places where there were none before. This is an example of a technique that I did not know about before I came here – I’m learning a new side of social services that I believe only study abroad can give me.

For that matter, I’m learning all sort of things this month. I can now do laundry for about three hours with my host sister. I’m not so hot at washing yet, but I am a good rinser! I can rinse the sheets and curtains, which is harder than it sounds. I’m also beginning to learn how to cook traditionally: with firewood over three stones.

But don’t let these clever anecdotes fool you: it’s lonely out here in the field. Without my daily American companionship, I don’t really have anyone to talk to in-depth about my day. Kenyans in general tend to have, at least around me, very thin conversation, in that it doesn’t go much deeper than the surface. I miss deeper friendships. I’m sure I will develop them though, as I really like my host sisters, Winnie and Velma, as well as one of my supervisors at work, Moses. Of course I will see my American friends on the weekend for some much needed American slang and conversation regarding the crazy intricacies of rural Kenyan life. But this is why I came, to see how far I could push myself and what I can handle. So far so good.

In this next month, I hope to settle more into a routine. I want to improve at Kenyan cooking and in general learn more about the duties that keep this household running. Learning the Luo language is also high on my list: people barely use Swahili out here, and knowing Luo would be a sweet skill. I shouldn’t forget that I want to have a nice Thanksgiving celebration with my family. Of course, by the end of the month, it will almost be the end of the semester and I’ll have two short weeks until my Mom comes to visit from the US. If things get boring, it certainly won’t be for long.

Orongo Widows and Orphans Support Group

2008-10-26T04:39:00.001-05:00

As the title suggests, I will be interning at Orongo Widows and Orphans. They even have a website! How rare this is for a Kenyan organization. These people are on their game! I think the website explains a lot... So I will write more at a later time.

I have arrived.

2008-10-26T03:16:00.002-05:00

After a very long bus ride, I arrived in Kisumu. Kisumu is Kenya's third largest city, but once you get past Mombasa and Nairobi, the towns become very small quite quickly. Kisumu is located on Lake Victoria, which supplies fish to the area. Unfortunately, you can't swim in it due to various diseases...

It's always very frightening to meet a new host family. Every time it has happened, I feel sooo scared and like I'm about to cry. I never actually cry, but I'm always on the verge. It was this way again. But this host family is so nice. Right away they showed me around the house and the surrounding area, which is something my Nairobi family never did. In Nairobi, I was left to figure out the way things worked, which took about a month. They also asked me right off the bat what I did and didn't eat (no liver, no intestines, prefer vegetables to meat) - again, something that has never happened in any host family I've stayed with. This relieved a lot of stress for me during meal times, knowing that I won't refuse anything. My new mama told me that if I didn't like something she wouldn't be offended and that she would even cook me something else. So nice!

The family is BIG, so let's do introductions. There is my mama, Herine. She is a nurse, although she is taking amonth or so of leave. She is strong and very direct, which I appreciate. She is married, but he lives and works somewhere else so I haven't met him yet. She has in total six children, four of which are at home. The oldest is Velma, who is 22. She is an occupational therapist and very nice! I think we will be good friends. The second is Winnie, who is 18. She is waiting to go to college (arranging it usually takes quite a bit of time here) so now she just works in the home. Then there is Alan, who is 14. He is in school pretty much all the time. The youngest is Fidel, who is 11. He's very playful and I think with time we will develop a friendship.

Now there is another family entirely of animals. Four sheep, a goat family with twins, countless chickens, two full grown dogs, a puppy, and a kitten. The kitten is my favorite. They all hate it but I love him! They gave me the great honor of naming him, and I named him Odo, after a Star Trek character I like a lot. Shut up, you non-trekkies!

The home is about a ten minute matatu ride from Kisumu town. It's build in the traditional Luo style, where there are multiple buildings. There's a certain order and rhyme to why they're built, but I don't understand that yet. Anyway there is a main building with the sitting room, dining table, and then my and my mama's bedrooms. There is a small building for the kitchen. Then another for the children. Last but not least is the hole in the ground for going potty and another small stall for the bucket bath that I have become such a pro at. These buildings are actually quite high-quality for the area; they are concrete with tin rooves and concrete floors. They are open air though, so it's sort of like camping. There is no running water or electricity.

I'm quite happy with this placement and I think it will work quite well! I will post again later today (after lunch and a bathroom break) about my internship - that's an entire essay all by itself.

From Lamu to Kisumu: across the country

2008-10-22T07:05:00.002-05:00

Wow. I don't know where to begin!

Last Thursday morning, I decided that I wanted to travel about 16 hours to the tropical island of Lamu, off Kenya's northern coast. David decided to accompany me. (No, we're not dating.) So on Thursday night, we found a night bus and hopped on! The trek is long and difficult. One can fly, but why do that when you can get there for less than $20 (1500Ksh to be exact). Ten hours by bus to Mombasa, 2 hours by matatu to Malinda, 4.5 very bumpy hours to the end of the continent, 30 minutes by ferry to the island: we arrived Friday at 4pm.

Lamu is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, second only to the area surrounding my family's cabin in Northern Wisconsin (the north woods will always be my favorite). Lamu is technically a number of small islands, but we spent most of our time on the main island. It is a traditional Swahili community, although there is a lot of Arabic and Indian (or Asian as it is called here) influences. Many white people (wazungu) visit but it isn't touristy per se, because there is an actual community there. The community is mostly Muslim, and all the women were in bui-bui's, or hijab, about half the time with only their eyes showing. Five times a day you can hear the Muslim call to prayer from numerous mosques throughout the city. It's beautiful, to say the least. The architecture and city structure is traditional Swahili, similar (but much better) to Mombasa's old town. The streets weave in and out with beautiful carved doors and built in sewers. It was ungodly hot, and their hot season is just beginning! There is a constant sea breeze, which is the only thing making the climate tolerable.

We mostly just relaxed. We spent a lot of time on the beach, where you can see the ridiculous sunburn I got (I was not very thorough with my sunscreen, 2 degrees from the equator). We also took a dhow ride, which is a sail boat that'll take you around the islands. Ours took us to another island, made us a delicious lunch, and let us fish/snorkel. Quite enjoyable! David and I met a Canadian couple who were very fun to chat with - I have to admit, I enjoy talking to other white people outside the MSID program who are in Kenya. I like to know how they survive, what they're doing, etc.

Eventually though, we made the long trek home. We had a "layover" in Mombasa for an afternoon, so I got to walk around the area and familiarize myself a little bit for when I go back, either with my mom or to visit friends. We arrived in Nairobi on Tuesday morning: I was in bad shape. Very very tired from the nightbus, and my feet and ankles were extremely swollen, not to mention the sunburn! But I did an entire day of school.

On Sunday, I found out that we're going out to our internships a day early, on Thursday. Which is tomorrow. I have a lot to do in a very short amount of time. In 24 hours I will have a new host family in a new city, with a new full-time internship coming on Friday. A lot of changes in a very short period of time. Wish me luck!

I don't know how internet access will be, although I'm sure I'll be able to get to internet at least once a week. It is just a matter of me living or working in Kisumu and if not, then how far away I am. Hopefully my internet addiction will continue to be fed!!!

By the way, I loaded a bunch of pictures onto Flickr. Enjoy!

Weather, internships, and family.

2008-10-14T05:55:00.003-05:00

Hello friends and family!

I am currently sitting on a sunny patio at a fairly American coffee shop with my laptop. I spend way too much money here, but I love to email my mom and my friends (and eat ice cream) , so it's worth the free wireless. The calendar tells me it's October, but it feels more like July or August... Kenya is perpetually tropical, with an extra kick of heat at the same time as Wisconsin's coldest winter months. It's a little baffling for my internal seasonal clock. I feel as though time has stopped and I'm on some never-ending, very challenging summer vacation. I can only imagine how it will feel to spend Christmas on the beach this year with my mom.

It has been a rough few days here. Lillian and Gloria, my mama's sister and her 3 y/o daughter, unexpectedly (and with a lot of drama) moved out. I have learned to love Gloria and to see Lillian as a friend and peer (she's not even two years older than I), so to see them go has been sad and unfortunate. In addition, there have been small skirmishes and tension between MSID students as we get on each others nerves: we spend about six hours a day together in class, so it's no wonder, in addition to the normal stresses of ex-pat life. And I have to admit, I've been irritable towards people myself. But shortly, we'll be heading out to our internships!

I have received a number of questions surrounding internships, so I will finally address them. I will leave for my internship on October 24th. I will be in Kisumu, as I think I've mentioned, working with widows and orphans with a Kenyan NGO. Students from this program have interned here before, which bodes well for me. I am very excited! I'm also nervous though. I'll be living with a new host family (who have also hosted before) in a much more rural setting: no running water, no electricity. I've been quite lucky with my first host family, so I'm really hoping that I get along well with this family as well.

It took a long time to get comfortable with my current host family. My mama has always been very good to me, and told me to just help myself and to feel at home. It took a long time to know HOW to help myself though. For instance, we have running water about half the time. It often just stops for no good reason. When we do have running water, I'm able to take a decent shower. But at first, the water was always cold. I just dealt with it, because hot water is certainly a luxury here. However, I also knew that hot water was possible, because I'd see the steam seeping out from under the door whenever my siblings showered. One day I finally said, off hand, "why can't I ever get hot water?" And they gave me a funny look and explained to me that there was a switch you had to flip in order to turn it on. Well duh. My host-mama giggled every time I showered for a week.

My siblings also took a while to be comfortable around me. At first they were constantly calm and well-behaved, as Kenyan children usually are when I'm around. I wondered if they ever got silly, or what they talked about when it was just them. With time, they've grown crazier and more talkative. Now they will tell me a little bit about their day, play games with me, and let me go with them on errands.

I really feel like part of the family. I help with dishes now, and I have even served the male guests like a true Kenyan woman (even though it pained me to do so). They worry about me when I get a cold, and they know what I like to eat and what I don't. For instance, last night we had intestines for dinner. Mama knows I don't eat any meat other than "regular" meat, so she made me eggs, without me even asking. That she went to that extra length (which also cost them extra money that I don't think they have) meant a lot.

We are SO culturally different but we have made inroads that are globally important. The lesson is that it takes a long time to even begin to truly know someone, especially from a different culture. Sometimes I say, "oh my gosh, it's like we're from different planets." Sometimes I say, "oh my gosh, we're all just human beings."

Hot doctors.

2008-10-08T07:44:00.003-05:00

Nairobi Hospital has some of the cutest, nicest doctors I've ever seen! How did I find this out? By going to the hospital today, of course!

Don't worry. It's nothing serious. For the past two weeks I've been having, on and off, extreme stomach pain. Sometimes, but not always, there would be what Kenyans call a "running stomach." (The Swahili verb for this is the same as to drive/to ride or kuendelesha.) You can imagine what I'm talking about. Anyway, it went away for a few days so I didn't worry. But this week it is back and it is really bad. So the stomach combined with the fleas (?) combined with the swollen scorpion bite means hospital.

This morning I embarked for the hospital at about 8:30. We arrived, and I had to pay about $12 just to be seen. A nurse asked me questions, then I waited again. Then I got called back, where a (cute) doctor talked to me about more specific symptoms, and ordered a stool sample. Crapping on demand is impossible, so I went to a coffee shop to down some espresso in hopes of helping things along. Sample obtained, I headed the long trek back to the hospital to drop off the sample. And wait. Another hour and a half and I was called back, to give the sample to the doctors. Wait again. Finally the doctor called me back, and explained the results. I have a version of salmonella, a cousin of typhoid but nothing terrible. He gave me a strong antibiotic and something for the stomach pain.

As for the fleas - who knows. The first doctor said they were fleas, but the second doctor told me it was a food allergy, probably from eating too much meat. Interestingly, my host family refuses to believe it is fleas. I guess we'll see; if in a week after cutting down my meat consumption I'm still the itchy mess I am today, I'll try to get all my clothes and bedding washed, which will be a labor-intensive job.

The scorpion bite is all swollen and red, but apparently that's normal.

Impressions on the Nairobi Hospital: Well, first of all, this is a private hospital. The public hospitals here are a mess. But none the less, the whole thing cost me about $80. By Kenyan standards, that's ridiculously expensive and thus, only affordable to the richest people here (many of them foreigners). By American standards though, it's a steal. The doctors were patient and very friendly, and I met a total of three. Hopefully I won't have to be going again anytime soon, but if I do, I won't be afraid!

Photos and another post.

2008-10-08T04:44:00.001-05:00

I just uploaded some pictures, finally, onto Flickr.
Also, read David's latest blog post: very accurate, funny, and entertaining!

One Month

2008-10-07T07:56:00.002-05:00

I celebrated my one-month anniversary of being in Kenya on the first of October. I was able to look back at the time I have spent here so far, how I felt at the beginning of the trip, how I feel now, and what I expect to experience before I leave.

I remember when I arrived that I felt amazed and helpless. First of all amazed because of all the little things that were different. The unpaved roads and sidewalks, the goats, the chickens, the stray dogs, the fruit/veggie markets, the traditional clothing, baboons, etc. It was amazing and I was in sensory overload. During orientation especially I felt ecstatic at being in Kenya, and I was looking forward to my home stays, the internship, and learning more about Kenya.

But I also felt incredibly helpless. I couldn’t even buy something in a store by myself! I couldn’t walk down the street alone, I couldn’t catch a bus, couldn't do anything. The program did a good job of scaring the shit out of us, telling us that everyone was out to get us. While Nairobi is dangerous and you have to be careful, Kenyans are generally incredibly generous and helpful. I was so afraid because of what people had told me.

However, with time I adjusted. All in all, I adjusted very well! There were little ups and downs, and there definitely still are. There were days when I’d wake up grumpy, or when the cultural confusion (which is perpetual) was too much to handle. But most days I was able to go with the flow and not be too homesick. So far I’ve had maybe one really bad day but it has passed, and now I know that all of those bad days will pass and that I will feel good again about being here and about what I’m doing.

So now, I feel much less helpless. I can take a bus downtown, I can walk alone when it’s light out, and I can even do some weak bargaining for the things that I need around town. While I am still constantly confused and have plenty of cultural bang-ups to keep the American laughing, I feel more in control of my surroundings and myself. I am still amazed sometimes at this country and these people. Sometimes I’ll just laugh and say to myself, “I’m in AFRICA!” It just sounds so silly. So far I can say I’ve been stung by a scorpion, mountain biked with zebras, ridden a camel, and made significant cultural connections. I’m happy! Of course, I am looking forward to my rural home stay and to the internship portion of this program. That’s really why we came, to be challenged and to be in a very different location, and the rural areas will certain satisfy both of those desires!

As for Kenya itself, I am just beginning to understand the diversity that is this country. On one hand you have the Westernized cities, with running water and electricity. There are a few shopping malls and even pizza (no McDonald’s and no Wal-Mart, thank goodness) to satisfy those American urges we have. There are cars and nice homes and people who understand where you come from.

But within those same cities are the slums where people don’t necessarily have running water or electricity. They, in many cases, have 8 people in a small tin shack smaller than a typical dorm room. You can imagine where they go to the bathroom, and what they’re eating. Without any city planning, the shacks are very close together and there are no planned streets. Someone unfamiliar with them can be dangerously lost because the shacks quickly become dense and complicated. The police cannot search for or chase someone in the slums because of how complicated the area is. The lack of urban planning leads to more infrastructure and safety problems than I can imagine.

Outside of the cities are the traditional people living in small houses made of organic material, or again, some sort of metal shack. These areas are a fascinating mix of Western and traditional (those are the best words I can think of), where nearly everyone has a cell phone and a watch. However, these areas are also underdeveloped in that they do not have hospitals or resources in that area. Kenya has pooled its resources into the cities, leaving behind a number of people who could share some of those resources.

And I have only been in a small area of Kenya! I haven't been to Western Kenya, or to the coast. So much to learn! This is an exciting and a complicated place that has been influenced by colonialism, capitalism, traditional values, tribal conflict, and other factors I haven't delved into yet. So much to learn!

Scorpians, goats, and other Kenyan adventures...

2008-10-06T07:56:00.002-05:00

My mom told me that people were asking about me since I hadn't updated for a while! I am doing quite well, but haven't thought of anything too interesting to say... But thank goodness, I had an interesting weekend so there is something to write.

On Saturday, David, Sarah and I went out to a traditional Masai village. The Masai used to be a pastoral cattle-keeping tribe, but now they keep cattle in certain areas of the country. In Kenya, they are the tribe that has stayed the most traditional. They are easily recognizable because they stretch their ears to huge sizes, particularly the women. They wear colorful jewelry and clothes, especially with the color red.

David knows an American at the University of Minnesota that had lived in this village, and so we went out without knowing what to expect. The village was in the Rift Valley, only about two hours from Nairobi. Greetings are very important in Kenya but especially with the Masai, so when we arrived I literally shook about fifty hands in a row. Most people couldn't speak Kiswahili or English, so communication was very limited. But everyone was so generous! We were fed well and we stayed in a mud hut, which is the way a lot of Kenyans live, without electricity or running water. The homes are built (and this differs by tribe) with sticks and mud, with no windows, just little ventilation holes. The women cook all their food over a fire and the pot sits on three stones, which makes the huts extremely smoky. When the wife was cooking, I couldn't even stand to be in the hut because my eyes just watered all over my face!

That day, we just walked around and chatted with our host before bed, but sleeping was very interesting. At one point I woke up and a goat was staring at me. Some cat kept jumping in the window too, and it was really freaking me out! But I eventually slept decently. In the morning, we went for a hike in the hills of the Rift Valley. Our host's children showed us around, telling us about the plants and the bugs and just generally being silly.

When we got back into the hut for the first of three lunches, I sat on the bed and took of my shoes. All of a sudden I felt a sharp, scary pain in my leg and I screamed and brushed something black off my leg. It hurt so badly that I immediately started sweating and had trouble breathing normally. The wife ran over and told our host that I had been stung by a scorpian! It wasn't poisonous, just incredibly painful. It hurt more than any tattoo or piercing I have gotten. It got very red and swollen and continued to hurt for a short while. Within hours though, the swelling was gone and I was fine!

The children in the village are fascinated by white people. I'm told it is a combination of being unfamiliar with us but also that we are always willing to play with them, whereas the adults of the village do not play with them and are very busy either in the home or with their cattle. They would play with my hair because white hair here is the beauty standard. Most of the women here relax their hair and try to make it soft and limp like white hair. And then, the children would touch my arm hair because most Africans don't have any body hair. The kids would touch my face, hold my hand, and crawl all over me. It was kind of cute! We played games with them, including some weird version of catch/soccor/football with a big rubber O-ring.

We had a good time and it was amazing to see such a different way of living. While the people do need and deserve running water and electricity, they are very happy. Water and electricity would help their health significantly, seeing as their life expectancy is approximately fifty years old. But more on this later... In the next couple of days I will post some awesome pictures from this weekend, and I want to share some general thoughts on Kenya thus far.

Added a link!

2008-09-29T07:53:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! I added another student's blog to the links list a little bit down on the right-hand side of the page. This is the blog of Stephanie F., the person I spend the most time with here on the program. She's an amazing writer, so read her first post. She captures so many things I've been unable to articulate thus far.

If you have the time you should also read Dan's most recent post: this blog is also linked to on the right. His post discusses the biggest slum in Africa, called Kibera, which is less than a five-minute walk from my Nairobi home.

Enjoy!

A more interesting weekend than planned...

2008-09-28T06:07:00.002-05:00

I have had a good weekend indeed! And I'm in the process of loading up some pretty cool photos to my Flickr account, so look at the photos!!!

Thursday night, to celebrate my birthday, I went out to a bar called Three Wheels with Andre, David, and Lillian, which we had gone to once before. Don't worry Grandpa, I only had one beer (but they are half liter bottles here)! Lillian is actually host-mama's sister and the mother of Gloria, but she is only 23 so she's kind of a peer. It's weird, she's so young and just like me but she's a mother, and she works all day. It's kind of confusing in my head. I've learned a lot about the culture from her though, especially the Kenyan view of romance (it's dead). But the interesting thing is that we got about ten pounds of meat. And ate it all. This is the second time I've decimated the nyama choma and I love it. Mom, you're in for such a treat when you come visit!

On Friday, we didn't have school, so David, Sarah and I went downtown to the University of Nairobi library. Going downtown is so strange, because suddenly everything is very.... Western and modern, or at least a lot more modern than what I'm normally seeing. It's almost disorienting, actually. I'm getting so much more comfortable here with the public transportation, which is good. The program really scares the crap out of us in order to keep us safe, but for a while I was too scared to take a matatu because of the threat of pick-pockets. Really all you need to do here is just keep your valuables safe, carry money in two places, don't go out after 7pm, etc... It's not that hard. Obviously it's a dangerous country, but a little knowledge will carry you pretty far. Anyway, the library was very outdated unfortunately. It didn't have anything remotely new, and was still using a card catalouge. A hand-written card catalouge, at that. But it was nice to become more familiar with downtown and to get out of my neighborhood.

Friday night we were going to go to Carnivore, a big nightclub here, for a Luuya night (2nd largest tribe in Kenya), but the plans kind of fell apart and I stayed home with my family.

Saturday, Sarah, David, and I went to Kiambu, a small town about 20 km outside of Nairobi. We went to a little place with a waterfall, some caves, a lake, ostrichs, and camels! (again, see Flickr for some crazy documentation) We all rode camels! [A note on camels: they're nasty and so much bigger than you'd expect.] And Sarah and David climbed DOWN a tree next to a cliff, but I just watched and made a video of it, because I'm kind of lame. Someone has to document, right? Anyway it was an adventurous day! It was a perfect little day trip.

There was one very embarrassing cultural mishap though, which I'm sure was bound to happen at some point. We hitched a ride into town to find a little cafe to eat at, ya know, get the "authentic" Kenyan experience (impossible when you glow like we do). So we found a place, a tiny hole in the wall, with about eight places to sit. The menu outside listed dengu, maharagwe, samosas, etc., so we figured we could all get something tasty and cheap. We sat down and of course, everyone stared and almost started laughing. We waited, assuming we'd be waited on or that someone would tell us how to order if we weren't doing it right. Eventually the woman who ran the kitchen came to us and gave us water with which to wash our hands (makes a lot of sense here, when it's the water that's hard on foreign American stomachs and immune systems). And then, without us asking for it, she brought us food. At first we just laughed awkwardly and took it, because it was chapati (a type of bread) and some other fair looking dish. At first I commented on the presence of broccoli, because I haven't seen a flowery vegetable since I arrived... But upon further inspection, it wasn't broccoli. Ohhhh no. It was something rubbery and tentacly. I thought it was maybe seafood, but the lady told us it was goat liver. I am not exaggerating when I say that it smelled exactly like how a barn smells. No lie at all, it was terrible. I took one bite and gagged and honestly none of us could choke us down.

In the US, this might not be so offensive, to leave food and to walk away. But here, where a lot of people go without good food, this is very offensive. Not to mention that some nice woman had made this food, that we had somehow goofed up, and we were now refusing her cooking. She was obviously hurt, and we felt terrible. There was really nothing to do because we really couldn't eat it, we tried but it was sooo bad. We appeared to be, and we were, ignorant and stupid Americans. We did not represent our skin color or our countries well.

That was a buzzkill, but we got a free ride back into Nairobi and cheered up a little bit. We had a very adventurous and fun day, and it was very cheap (<$10). That night my family made my favorite meal, Githerie, which is a Kikuyu dish with maize, brown beans, tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes. It's very heavy but super delicious. It was an extension of the birthday celebration which never ends here, apparently. I went to bed early!

Are you tired of hearing about my weekend yet? Steph and I today went to a very very upscale mall and I bought a tanktop for FIVE HUNDRED SHILLINGS! (That's about $7). It's pink and very cute. Now we're lounging and talking about boys in a coffee shop. No worries everyone, I haven't met any Kenyans! :)

The Preacher

2008-09-26T03:51:00.004-05:00

Lately I've had one of my first experiences with the effect that whiteness can have here: people believe you can get them connections into the US, and they'll use you for it.

My mama's church has a number of pastors: there's the big pastor who preaches on Sundays, and then the baby pastors who are in training. Well one named Vincent has been coming to our house a lot lately, talking to me, asking me about religion in the US (because I'm so knowledgeable!), etc. Eventually he came out and asked me to talk to pastors in the US, and ask them to bring him into the US. Apparently here you can't be a big pastor like the Sunday pastor until you've done some sort of work in the West. When he asked me, I wasn't sure what to say, because I wasn't sure what the relationship between my family and this pastor was, but I was pretty upset at the time. It's not that I don't want to help him out, but that I know he's only asking me because I'm white and American.

Later that night though, my family asked me how I felt about him asking that, and I told them that it made me a little uncomfortable and that I also didn't think I really had any legitimate church connections or US embassy/immigration connections a (a lot of people here thinks we can get them a visa or a green card, which is totally untrue!). My family then admitted that he was a pushy guy, and that they didn't 100% trust him either.

Anyway, he has been coming around a lot lately but luckily I've been away or sleeping when he has come. My mama finally told him that he shouldn't be asking me, that our program discouraged us from getting involved in this kind of thing. I wasn't around to see that so I don't know what will happen. I don't even know if I would have the guts myself to tell him off; he's a pastor! In the US, you give pastors/priests a lot of respect. According to my host family though, here it is easy to get that title and it doesn't afford you as much respect, at least until you head a church yourself.

Wow, so much to learn!

Birthday, etc.

2008-09-25T05:01:00.002-05:00

Thank you to everyone for their birthday wishes! The amount of messages I received was overwhelming - I feel extremely loved and blessed.

My day here was pretty lowkey, but very enjoyable. My MSID-Kenya program staff bought me a delicious cake and a biiiig card. My friend Steph here gave me a really sweet card, complete with a picture of me doing yoga in Africa...
After school, pretty much all of my American classmates came out for Chinese food, it was delicious! Not exactly the same as American Chinese food, but very tasty.
With my family, we didn't do anything too spectacular. We had samosas (beans or some filling inside a crispy bread) and a normal dinner. I wasn't sure what to expect for a "Kenyan" birthday so this was definitely alright with me.
The only strange thing was that I didn't have a single drink on my 21st birthday! I had school today, so it was probably for the best. Since we don't have school on Friday, I think I'll go out tonight instead!

This weekend I'll be staying in Nairobi but probably taking some daytrips... Possibly to a tribal dance, Nairobi National Park, and a giraffe orphanage! Hopefully I'll get some good pictures to share.

Quick update...

2008-09-23T08:28:00.001-05:00

I'm back at school and looking forward to Chinese food tomorrow for lunch.
I finally got just a couple pictures up on Flickr, and I will continue to work on getting more up this afternoon. I have also added a couple links of other students' blogs in Kenya onto the right side of the page. David is the one I hang with pretty often, and Rebecca is a student from the U that I have had Gender Studies classes with... They are all very different and worthwhile!
Enjoy!

Charging hippos, flat tires, and Tusker beer!

2008-09-21T09:16:00.001-05:00

It was a crazy weekend to say the least. This is a long tale, so you may want to go get a cup of coffee or tea for this. Hopefully I can get some photos up on Flickr sometime soon!

The four of us, David, Sarah, Stephanie F., and I set out for Lake Naivasha and Hell’s Gate Park on Friday afternoon. Sarah wanted to bring her bike, so we were going to meet her at the stage. First bump in the road: Sarah took an additional half an hour to get to the matatu stage, and wow, was that a creepy place! Some people who were very clearly mentally ill were hassling us more persistently than anyone here has done yet. Of course, we were warned of this, and it was a crowded place, but it was really frightening! But Sarah eventually came and we were on our way to the Lake!

We figured we’d head straight to a camp ground that we had read about in our guidebooks, called Fisherman’s Camp. We were not able to make a reservation ahead of time (kind of impossible for anything that’s budget or mid-range in Africa, it seems), but luckily they had plenty of space for us. We rented a tent and set up camp! That night we just relaxed and ate in the restaurant that was attached to the campground: very American, very delicious. Since it was technically my birthday weekend, I ordered one glass of red wine! Yes Grandpa, just one!
So at night then we knew there would be hippos near us. We heard some weird noises, so we wandered over by the measly electric fence. Hippos are actually one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. Their jaw span is about a foot wide (we saw it) and during the day, they knock over boats in lakes for fun! But they’re actually very territorial and get angry quickly. Anyway, so as walked up to them, we decided that if they were to charge us, we’d run up a tree. Just that talked angered a hippo, and we heard a grunt, and some moving hooves, and we ran as FAST as we could in the opposite direction screaming loudly. At about 11pm, mind you. Well the hippo didn’t make it past the electric fence, obviously, because I’m alive to tell you this in my blog! But we woke a lot of people up I think.

In the morning we got out pretty early and rented some bikes to take to the national park. The rental itself went smoothly and we started out on our way. We even got into the park smoothly! It was so beautiful. There were zebra, gazelles, and other grazing animals. It is one of two parks in the entire country that you can actually get out of a car, because big game are so dangerous here.

We decided to take a 14km loop that went through the park. It was literally uphill 70% of the way, I cannot believe I actually did the trail. Unfortunately, halfway through, one of the bikes got a flat tire. And not just a normal flat tire, but that kind where the bike barely works. But we kept on anyway! (What choice did we have?) When we finally got to the top of all the hills, it was a crazy downhill adventure! I had never mountain biked before, so it was pretty excited and scary going down. You could see for miles and miles, you could see the shadow of the clouds on the ground. You could see herds of animals and you ran with them as you came down the hills. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.

Once we finished the loop though, we had to head home. The bikes were getting tired and so were we. In addition, a big storm was blowing in. You could actually see it raining in the distance. We got caught in it, and decided to hold back for a little bit: then, all of a sudden, we remembered that our tent didn’t have a tarp underneath it. And that our sleeping bags were in there. And some of my clothes were out on a clothes line to dry.

We sent David back ahead of us to retrieve our wet sleeping bags and wet clothes and to start drying the tent out for the upcoming evening. But, we were left with three girls, and only two working bikes. Three WHITE girls, I may add: and in the village, we really stood out. So, since the walk back to the camp would be about 5 miles, Stephanie got on the back of Sarah’s bike, and I rode two bikes. I was riding one normally and pulling the other with my right hand, which was surprisingly difficult. The broken bike was heavy and didn’t want to move because at that point the rim was bent, because we simply had to ride it down the hill. There was no way we could get 7 or more km without a bike and beat the incoming storm. Needless to say, everyone stared at the three crazy white girls on their way back to the campground.

That evening we had another big delicious dinner, then sat around a campfire and drank some beer. We were in bed pretty early and our sleeping bags were only slightly damp. In the morning, David and Sarah chose to hike another 14km (no bikes this time!), but Steph and I headed back on our own. Getting a matatu on our own was quite the feat, but Steph is a better bargainer than I so I’m learning from her.

The whole trip was pretty amazing. I’ve never seen or done the things I saw/did! A good way to spend my 21st. It was also good in that I feel a lot more confident traveling around. I got over my matatu fear, I know more of what to expect, and more of what to pay. Anyone will rip you off given the chance. Someone tried to get us to pay Ksh2000 for something we eventually got for Ksh160! So they start ridiculously high just to gauge how stupid you are. It’s a rough country, that’s for sure… But I’m learning!

Costs:
Transportation: Ksh700 or ~$10
Lodging: Ksh1000 or ~$14
Bike rental: Ksh350 or ~$5
Park entry: Ksh150 or ~$2
Food: Ksh1500 or ~$20 (biggest expense by far, but the food was so tasty!!!)
TOTAL: ~$51!!!!

Upcoming weekend!

2008-09-18T08:13:00.002-05:00

I continue to do very well here! I feel more and more adjusted every day. Staying here until May actually seems doable. We are learning a lot in school and my Swahili is improving quite a bit! My host family and I are continually bonding. My host mama and I have had a lot of interesting discussions about politics (see the previous post), gender, and business. School never really ends here.

My birthday is Wednesday, so four of us are going out of town this weekend to celebrate. David, another Stephanie, Sarah, and I are going to take a matatu (and old VW bus that takes people places) out to Lake Naivasha, to camp in a tent and go to Hell's Gate National Park. Of all the parks here in Kenya, it's one of two that actually lets you out on foot or on bikes. So we are going to rent mountain bikes and ride through the park to see hippos, zebras, etc. We'll rent a tent and have an adventure! Things in Kenya are necessarily spontaneous, because matatus don't leave at set times and you can't really make a good reservation ahead of time. So we're just going to do our best! What a good way to celebrate my 21st. I will certainly take some pictures to post early next week.

Please keep the comments and emails coming, I love hearing from friends and family!

Love,
Steph

A note on the political violence of 2007, tribes, and inequality.

2008-09-16T07:38:00.002-05:00

In school we have been learning about the political violence that happened late last year in Kenya surrounding their presidential elections. In addition, I have been constantly asking my host mama and baba about what happened.

Granted, this is a very complicated and racially/tribally-charged issue. My point of view is skewed because I stay with a Luo family. Nearly all the information I receive, even in school, is biased towards or against one tribe or another.

Tribes are very important here in Kenya. It dictates what the family eats, the language they speak, the province or even neighborhood they live in. Even being here less than a month, I am learning who likes and dislikes whom, and how to identify the tribe a person is in based on their physical characteristics. It's disturbing how quickly this knowledge is passed on to us. To me, at first, everyone appeared to be similar but there is a lot of ethnic strife.

Colonial leadership partly contributed to this. The British leadership here never encouraged a united Kenyan identity. In fact, they prohibited political parties that were based on the national identity, and only permitted ones which stood for a tribal identity and platform of issues. Anyway, onto what actually happened.

So, the President in 2007 was named Kibaki, who is a member of PNU and a member of the Kikuyu tribe. The Kikuyus are the largest % of the Kenyan population and also one of the richest. They are situated in high populations in areas that are the most fertile, like the central highlands.

Raila Odinga was the challenger, with the party ODM. Odinga is a Luo, which is the third biggest tribe in Kenya (Luya being the second). So the papers, polls, and most people speculated that Odinga would win. The night of the election, as information began coming in, it was clear that Odinga was going to win. Then, the results stopped for a little while and then, the numbers drastically changed. In areas where there were not many Kikuyus, or even many people, a ton of votes came in that were for Kibaki instead of Odinga. According to my host dad, the numbers were so obviously fake because not even as many people lived in the areas compared to the numbers of votes that were coming out.

When the President was to be announced, the announcement took a while and the person announcing it was in a very special and secure location. When Kibaki was announced, the violence started. Again, according to my family, Kikuyus were targeted in areas where they were minorities. Then, they were targeted where there were larger populations. I think eventually it was sort of everyone targeting their enemies... In addition, foreigners, like Indians and Arabs were targeted as well.

Nairobi, and Kenya for that matter, is a very two-faced place. There is the coffeeshop I'm sitting in, with very nice chairs, tables, food, and a lot of white people. There are nice cars and houses and even a couple shopping malls. Then, there are the slums. People living in tin shacks, 7 people to a small room with no running water or electricity. There is trash all over, human waste all over, and water pooling with mold and mosquitos. People actually crap in a bag, then throw it onto the street. Now, here there are practically no drainage systems and so things flood quickly and water goes every which way. Imagine the quality of this water, that many people get onto their food and their bodies. It's not a pretty sight. These types of conditions, with no work to be found for the common person or for even the educated people makes people very angry, especially when they see the President giving millions of Kenyan shillings to already-millionaire athletes, or that every one of his ministers and top employees has guard-dogs, security officers, and multiple Mercedes'. It's scary. This also breeds the crime that has already hit MSID, with one bag stolen and some other dangerous incidents.

Apparently the poverty is also striking in rural areas, although in a different way. There is also not a lot of electricity there, and the food quality is low. I will see this when I go into the field in October.

We're still learning about the refugee status here in Kenya, since many people had to leave their homes as a result of being targets of ethnic violence. It's a very complicated issue and I certainly have a lot to learn...

Crazy, exciting, and dramatic weeknd...

2008-09-15T07:44:00.002-05:00

As the subject indicates, what a crazy weekend!

Friday I opted to stay in with my family instead of going out with a large group to a club that mostly white people attend. But it turned out really well: my family and I really bonded! On the weekends, they are so much more free and talkative. We had a good dinner together, lots of fascinating political/social conversation, and watched silly movies together. Little Gloria and I even cuddled a bunch!

Saturday, David, Stephanie and I decided to go to a Masai market, where traditional goods made by a mostly un-urbanized tribe are sold. Immediately we were hounded by people, "Sister, come look at my goods, I make you a good deal." It was incessant. At first it was annoying but eventually you get used to the craziness and it's fun. You also have to bargain HARD. I learned a lot about it. I got a scarf for 250Ksh (~$4) and a bracelet for 50Ksh (<$1). I'm excited to try again and see what I can get. The good are SO beautiful. Very traditional African stuff that is gorgeous. Just going downtown on the bus by ourselves was quite an epic adventure! We haven't really gotten out like that yet.

That afternoon, I got my hair braded at my mama's salon. Just two french braid pigtails, but it's so tight that it looks vaguely African. It's handy because now I won't have to wash it all week, which is good, because the availability of water is very iffy here. There was no water Thursday-Sunday this week, and this is in a very middle-class home.

That night then, a few of us (David, Jon, Adam, Shelinda, and I) decided to go out to a local bar just down the street. I had my first Tusker, which is an East African beer which comes in half-liter bottles. Needless to say, I only had one and a half because they're giant! But it's good beer, so I'm looking forward to more. We definitely stood out in the bar. We ordered "nyama choma," which means roasted meat. It was about five pounds of pure animal, just roasted and handed to us with a pile of salt to dip it in. It was actually VERY delicious! That's how I know I'm adjusting well, when a big pile of meat makes my mouth water...

But my food adventure continued! One of my worst fears here has been the fish. They just fry the fish and give it to you - uncleaned, unskinned, just a fish. Now if you know me you know I am very wary of seafood or even bones in food. And I knew the day was coming that I'd be forced to try this. Well we got back from the bar at 10:20pm, because here staying out late isn't too safe... and waiting for me was none else than a fish. And with 1.5 beers in me, I was totally ready for it. You essentially have to just break it's vertebrae apart and pull the meat out with your fingers. They eat the skin, but I wasn't feelin' it. But all in all it was good! Not too fishy, very tender, and good! Here the fish is very fresh so that helps. I'm very proud of myself. In addition, here, you are very accountable for your food. You see the live animal, you see the dead animal, you see the meat hanging in the store, and you see it chopped off and cooked (sorry vegetarians and vegans). But you know where it comes from and where it was raised. So now I'm much more cool with huge chunks of meat and bones in my food. It's very real.

Anyway, Sunday was also cool. My friend David got dreadlocks at my Mama's salon, so it's nice to bring her some business. We're still not 100% if the dreads will turn out or not though, since white hair is so different from the hair that most Africans here have. Even braiding my hair stumped the ladies, they said that it was too soft! Pretty funny.

So now this week it is back to school. I am learning a lot of good stuff and enjoying school very much. This weekend I may travel, but those plans are still up in the air. I feel much more adjusted this week with food, family, and travel. But still so much to learn!

One other quick note; I have not received any text messages even though I know that a few peopl have tried! So sad! I'm not sure why right now but I'll try to look into it... It should work if you text 254 714 924 051... Alas!

Photos!

2008-09-12T08:45:00.001-05:00

I started a Flickr site for my Kenya photos. It takes forever to load them up, so there are only a few right now...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30440787@N02/

Response to a comment...

2008-09-12T05:29:00.002-05:00

My good friend Jill from Minneapolis who I have had numerous Gender Studies classes with made a comment on my last post:
what do you mean more patriarchal? why do you think that is? is the form of patriarchy you are describing "universal" and monolithic in kenya and/or does it have anything to do with the particular social location of the women you've observed? please elaborate.

Jill,
Yay for some critical questions...

These issues are by no means black and white, and it is hard for me to "unpack my baggage," as we say, of being a white Westerner in the global south... My point of view is sorely biased and I'm still very new here... I wonder what I'll say on this topic in a few months...

I would say right now that things are more patriarchal in that it is easier to point out here rather than in the US, in addition to very strict gender roles here. For instance, my host mom owns a salon. She works from about 8am to 7pm, then comes home, cooks a huge huge dinner until it is served at 9pm, then cleans up and goes to bed. The entire time, my host dad watches TV and is served tea by the children, etc. The women definitely work more and serve the men. The men are not involved in the rearing of children at all... This is what I see in my family, and what I hear from the other students of their families. We were told that we would see that, and that it had infuriated students in the past, which is why they warned us.
I don't think it is necessarily monolithic or all encompassing. It may be different in very high-class families, although only one or two of us are staying with families like that. Those families are more like American families, where there is clear inequality but not the way there is here. Those families are about 5% of the population but hold about 50% of the wealth (cited to us by a teacher, I don't know the actual source so be wary of stats), and they are often American or British-educated. These families more resemble American families, where the men do some housework and some child-rearing, although they earn more money and are typically considered the head of the household.

We were also told that in the rural areas, where we will do our internships, the gender roles will be even more pronounced. For instance, in many homes, the women and children must sit on the floor while the men sit on the chairs and couches. A few students have been in Kenya all summer or have been in this region before, and have echoed that sentiment.

Having only been here for a couple weeks, my ideas about why this is may be incorrect: It has something to do with tribal tradition, first of all. We have started learning about pre-colonial history, and most of the tribes had very strict gender roles, particularly that the women had children yearly if physically capable, and stayed home to take care of the children and the home. The tribal leaders were/are typically the oldest men, although the women did have a say in things. So tribal/ethnic groups are VERY important here, actually more important than a national Kenyan identity (this causes a lot of problems for Kenya and is a result of colonial rule and post-independence leadership, but more on that another day).

Of course, then colonial rule came on about and introduced Christianity. In most areas of Kenya, Christianity is very important (on the coast there are some Muslims as a result of Arab trade routes in that area). Christianity here is also used as a justification for the strict gender roles. This is pure speculation, but colonial rule may have also reinforced gender roles as well.

This presents an interesting situation for American students, especially for the two of us that are majoring in Gender, Women, and Sexuality studies. We are not here to impose Western feminism, by any means. BUT, we have to draw boundaries about what we will and will not do. For instance, the program specifies that we should not be expected to serve our host-fathers or stay within the home all day; we are to be part of this culture (as much as possible) while maintaining our Western values, especially surrounding the importance of education.
Also interestingly, when I told my host-mom, Janet, about my major, she was enthusiastic about the value of it. She said that she believed women were one of the most oppressed and marginalized populations in the entire world.

The thing is though, with my host-mom, it's not an issue of pity. She is inspirationally hard-working. She owns a business and raises numerous children to be as industrious as her and to value school and their God. She works as much as the straight-A college students do. I haven't breached the topic of her point of view of gender differences; we're not that close yet.

Again, I look forward to being more cultually competent and hopefully to have some of my baggage unpacked... I also look forward to visiting my friends' homestays to see how they live, what their values are, etc. The rural experience should add to it as well.

A Note on Packages...

2008-09-12T05:13:00.004-05:00

Mostly for family: I have more information on how packages can be sent. They can indeed be sent to the address that I originally posted. There are, I think, 3 ways to send things. One is ground and it is really really slow. One is crazy expensive, hundreds of dollars. Then there is one in the middle that is medium-priced. I don't know the names so this isn't terribly helpful, but just don't pick the cheapest one, because it'll take forever. And it should get to me safely. Another important thing to do would be to write "no commercial value" and "no electronics" on the package. This will help the speed and then the duties that they might try to make me pay when I pick up the package.

Edit: I was talking about USPS. And I don't really know anything more than the medium speed, because the slowest takes months and the fastest is crazy expensive.

Family life, daily life...

2008-09-11T08:05:00.002-05:00

Well, I said I would update about homestays and family in this country and now I finally will! I meant to yesterday, but then I discovered milkshakes in a coffee shop (where I am now) and my internet plans fell apart. But first, day-to-day life:

The past couple of days have been pretty good. Mood wise, I continue to be up and down. Culturally, it is so different here that it is frequently overwhelming. But then I have little victories and I get excited. For instance, today I bought my lunch by myself. I also walked to this coffee shop myself. I am also getting better at navigating the terrain of Kenyan family life, so I am encouraged that in less then two weeks I am adjusting well.

Classes are continuing, although today we got out early! We’re supposed to be familiarizing ourselves to Nairobi, but there was a rain storm today --- very out of character for this time of year. Kenyans are saying that their seasons are disrupted due to global warming (there appears to be a consensus on that here). The short rains shouldn’t come until the end of October. Anyway, it has rained 3 out of 4 days here and so my shoes and pants are getting muddy faster than I can wash them (by hand, of course). Classes are going well though, the faculty seems to be of good quality and they are nice as well.

Now about my family and home. We live in Jamhuri Estates, which is a large area of flats where most of the students with the program live. The roads are very rough and unpaved. There are chickens running around every which way and stray dogs and cats everywhere --- I’ve seen two dead dogs already, just on the side of the road. Little shacks selling fresh fruits and veggies, or candy, line the road.

The flats really vary in quality; some have locked gates and some are more lower class. I live in a more simple flat. There are two bedrooms, one for the parents and then one where I am, in addition to my younger sister Tamara. Then in the living room there is another bunk bed where Lovell sleeps (top bunk) and then Lillian, my aunt and her 3 y/o daughter Gloria sleep (bottom bunk). The floors are just concrete, and the walls are unfinished. The kitchen has no counters, and they have to cook outside of the flat in the hallway. BUT. Very important here, they are middle class here. Next to us is the biggest slum in Africa, Kibera. Now that’s poverty. So they live simply here. It can be a little frustrating, but they do have an indoor flushable toilet and a decent shower, although you have to wear “slippers,” as they call flip-flops.

Family life is very different though. It is much more patriarchal than the US. Much, much more. It’s kind of hard for me to watch, but I’m going to keep my mouth shut. I’m not here to change Africa, just to participate and help in whatever endeavors they’re doing. Anyway, my host-mom works all day at the salon she owns and then comes home and cooks dinner. The TV is constantly on. They don’t talk too much about their day, and they definitely don’t joke around a lot. The TV is on during dinner, before breakfast, always. It may be because Nairobi is fairly Westernized, so it will be interesting to compare to my rural homestay in Kisumu.

The kids don’t play much, probably because they don’t have toys. They take school very seriously. Children are treated more like small adults. They have a lot of housework to do. They are never babysat or played with, they are just around. In the US intelligence is cultivated in children, but here they are just left to learn on their own. As a result, Gloria, the 3 y/o, has cognitive skills that are very different than Emma or Misa, some of the similarly-aged children I know in the US. Things are certainly different here…

Feel free to ask questions. And thank you for all your comments and messages, they make me feel at home and have something to look forward to. Tatu onana baadaye…

First days in Nairobi...

2008-09-09T09:05:00.002-05:00

We started class yesterday, although we didn't actually have any class! We were introduced to the faculty, then we ran errands. We bought cell phones, which is very handy for us "mzungus" staying in touch with one another and for you Americans calling me (Dial 254 714 924 051 or text me! Please!). That was quite the fiasco, and took a large amount of the day. Then we went to the immigration offices, where every single one of my fingers was fingerprinted twice. Yeah. Now that really took the rest of the day. Adventues in the city! Nairobi, downtown especially, is like any other city except very very few white people or non-blacks. I talked to my mom on the phone and she was asking about that; but here appears much more homogenous to me than the US. Of course here there are 42 recognized ethnic groups or tribes, but I can't recognize those differences. Otherwise white people are few and far between.

So today then was the first day of actual classes. Four hours of Swahili (I learned every possible greeting and then some ways to introduce personal details) and then some Country Analysis, where we are learning pre-colonial history. Both instructors are pretty good so far, and I think I'll be liking school.

More tomorrow on my homestay and food...

In Kenya!

2008-09-07T06:45:00.003-05:00

Well, I have arrived safely in Kenya. I have been here for almost a week already! I had written some posts on my laptop but am unable to transfer them right now... Anyway, we spent the first few days at Lake Nukuru National Park, having orientation and getting to know one another. It was wonderful! I saw baboons, vervet monkeys, giraffes, 3 lions, rhinos, hippos, warthogs, many types of deer, etc. etc... It was crazy. I was able to begin getting over my jetlag. The only downside was that British Air lost my luggage, even though I had a 3.5 hour layover... I got it on Thursday. But it was a good experience anyway, I had to learn to live on very little and I got super dirty, which will certainly come in handy here.

I also got to know the other Americans very very well. What a great group! One of my favorite people is another girl named Stephanie, who goes to school in Arizona. We're disturbingly similar people, and we have a lot of silly fun together. There are so many other great students though, and I'm glad to have gotten to know them well.

At orientation I learned a lot: specifically, where and what my internship will be. The internship begins in late October (earlier than I had originally thought). I will be working with widows and orphans near Kisumu in western Kenya, near Lake Victoria. The Kenyan NGO has meetings for the women and children (two separate programs, by the way), home visits, and income-generating activities for the women. I'm very excited for this! I think it is just up my alley. I also found out about my host-family for that duration of the year; they're in a very rural area and there are six kids, but somehow I still get my own room.

Yesterday we came back to Nairobi to be adopted by our host families. It was scary as heck! But mine is very nice. My mom is named Janet, and the dad is Michael. Their children are Valdo, Tamara, and Lovell, but Janet's sister Lillian and her 2 y/o daughter Gloria live there are well. Valdo is in 15 and at boarding school though, but still, it's a full house. I share a room with Tamara and Gloria, who sleep in the bunk above me. I still feel like a guest rather than family though...

This morning I went to church: WOW. It was very scary, to be honest. At one point I had to go up to the front of the church because it was my first day there, and shake the hand of the pastor. EEK. But hey, it was a good cultural experience and I think my host-parents will like it if I continue to go.

Tomorrow we go to school for the first day, to buy cell phones, get a tour of the city, etc. I'm excited to get started with a routine finally.

Some cultural notes: Time here is completely different. It's like rubber time. Everything revolves around tea time, and what's going on is eternally unclear and flexible. Trust me, it can be frustrating. Example: we went into the town of Nukuru on Friday to do a little shopping. We were told we would leave at 10, after tea. Well, at 10:30 we had tea. Then we didn't leave until 11:30. It's almost always like that, or just the details are fuzzy or they change. People are very relaxed and going with the flow. Now if you know me well, you know I am a control freak, and very punctual. I suspect I will have completely changed in that regard by the time I come home!
Also, relationships are very important here. Everyone knows everyone, family is important, they stop and talk to whomever they know in the road just to say hi and ask how their family is doing. Kind of funny, actually. Tea and religion are important as well.

Overall I'm doing pretty well. Thanks for all the comments people are leaving, it makes me really happy to see them and know that people are reading. From now on I should be able to update regularly, at least until I go into the bush, or "up country" as it is called here.

Love,
Steph

Pre-departure post

2008-08-01T19:19:00.004-05:00

Hello friends, family, and cohorts,

This will be the blog that I will write in during my time in Kenya. It's hard to say how often I'll be able to update when I get there; but I will certainly try as time and availability permit.

The top of the page says a little bit about the program, but I'll provide more details about the program I'm with. The University of Minnesota sponsors Minnesota Studies in International Development (MSID) in four countries in the global south: Kenya, Senegal, Ecuador, and India. It is a well-regarded and competitive program that sends students for a semester or an academic year. Students are taught by faculty from local universities with other American students, in addition to participating in internships and research projects. We also stay with host families instead of in a dorm. It is different from other programs in its focus on development (globalization, etc.) and its experiential components.

I chose the academic year program for a number of reasons, including the internship and research component that I will complete during my second semester. During the first semester I will be in Nairobi (urban area) taking classes in development, research methods, the history and politics of Kenya, and intensive Swahili. During the second semester, I will be in a rural location TBD, where I will have an internship with an indigenous non-governmental organization. The placement for this internship will be determined when I arrive in Kenya and have a chance to discuss the exact options with a program director. However, I hope to work with women in a social services context, related to what I have done in Minneapolis at a transitional housing facility.

I know a little bit about my host family: 3 kids, ages 15, 10, and 8; and the mother is a business lady while the father is a teacher.

I depart August 31st (whoa, two weeks...) and the program ends in late April, although if I find a traveling partner I hope to extend that for some time.

If you would like to send mail, at least while I am in Nairobi, you can send letters and associated love to this address:

Stephanie S. Payne
c/o MSID Kenya
P.O. Box 66731
00800 Westlands
Nairobi, Kenya

Please comment so I know who is reading, I'm sure I will look forward to your messages.

Peace,

Steph