The people downstairs in the center lobby of Hotel Terminal in downtown Nairobi are being rather rowdy for a Monday evening. It is my final night in Kenya, and I lie comfortably full after delicious Ethiopian meal of doro wat and injera. After leaving Malaba on Friday, our group managed to make up for some lacking culinary options by feasting on Indian, Chinese, and Lebanese cuisines in Kampala. Now in Nairobi, I’ve substituted the Malaba staples of instant coffee and beans and rice with Nairobi Java House cappuccinos and tuna salad on a baguette. An ode to cosmopolitanism.
“Who is afraid of big bad Nairobi?” is Lonely Planet’s corny opening remark in their section on the capital city. Well.. I was. After having my dear friend robbed at gunpoint in one of the safest sections of the city earlier this year, I was more scared of Nairobi than I had been of Khartoum or anywhere else I have been. Having a bomb go off last week at a taxi stop nearby a popular hotel was less than comforting as well. Alas, Ryan and I had a pleasant day in Nairobi after getting off the bus at 5 30 this morning, having left the others in Kampala and traveled 12 ½ hours. We crashed for a bit before embarking on a massive walking tour of the city center. As the National Museum is closed, other than a few markets, government buildings, and the former US embassy memorial site, there was little we set out to see other than getting a general vibe from the city. We got lost a few times and enjoyed wandering. I’ve discovered that when traveling I often remark, “What is that familiar smell?” That would be the smell of burning trash.
Nairobi is clearly a different world from tiny Malaba, and its mix of African peoples I found most fascinating, as Ryan and I tried to discern the Somalis from the Sudanese from the Ethiopians. Most Africans would probably laugh at our struggle, but then again I’ve been asked if I am Japanese by Moroccans so I’m not too hard on myself. Overall, Nairobi commercial center was more organized and cleaner than Kampala, though we saw some pretty rough areas on the outskirts. Plus, Nairobi has Kibera, the largest shanty town in sub-Saharan Africa, a few kilometers west of city center. I would have been really interested to visit Kibera, but without a true purpose to visit I wasn’t comfortable going to gawk at people’s poverty. Living in Malaba we weren’t exactly surrounded by the normal tourist bubble anyway.
Backtracking, skipping Kisumu which was a great time of fresh fish on the shores of Lake Victoria, an amusing attempt to listen to some live music, city exploration and indulgent sun soaking by a hotel pool. We also spent an afternoon wandering around Kakamega forest for some needed outdoorsy-wanerings. Last Wednesday Colin, Tihtina, and Steve came to Malaba to log some footage and regroup for some final documentary brainstorming. And of course experience the wonder that is Malaba nightlife. We brought them to the usual urine-smelling bars and restaurants with nonexistent service that actually have nothing listed on the menu besides beef and chicken stew and ugali. We spent a few days last week in the field and the last half of the week finishing up writing/posting Kiva journals we had collected and composing profiles for more potential borrowers that PEMCI may post in the future. The PEMCI staff threw us a final going away BBQ of nyama choma, featuring roasted goat (after seeing a goat’s neck slit and its innards roasted on sticks next to me in the Maasai village in Tanzania I can barely stand to smell it) and chicken, ugali, and kale. The SOW team and a few of the field officers went out together afterwards for one last hurrah. The next morning we said our final farewells to the staff of Taifa Country Inn and PEMCI and walked for the last time down Uganda Road, past the lines of freight trucks, around the women selling roasted maize on the side of the road, dodging the swarms of boda-boda (bicycle taxis), up to the immigration offices to purchase a Uganda visa. We boarded a matatu and after a bit of a delay until it sufficiently filled, we were on our way to Kampala, a last minute travel change in an effort to stay together as long as possible. After five or so hours and one Nile crossing, we made it to the central matatu station for a rather chaotic introduction to the capital. We spent two nights at the Backpackers Hostel, which was full of guitar strumming, cigarette smoking, country-bragging backpackers.. not surprisingly. Saturday we walked for hours around the city, exploring random neighborhoods. Overall, Kampala commercial center was chaotic and stressful, especially in the transportation department, but had a nice selection of restaurants, many UN and NGO headquarters, an impressive university, and a great nightlife. We spent Saturday night listening to a very enjoyable band with a sexy, hip shaking dance trio. Next we moved to the popular discotheque Agnes Noir, for some reason pronounced by locals as “Angenoa.” A series of dance-off style circles ensued with our team, Kampalans, and some people from surrounding Rwanda and Kenya. The bar area had groovy carpeting that I’m pretty sure matched a bowling ally I frequented as a child. It was a solid night, our last together as an SOW team.
The next day Ryan and I left, while Max, Tihtina, Colin, and Steve stayed in Kampala and hopefully will be traveling to Kigali. I am extremely jealous as I have wanted to go to Rwanda very badly for a few years now, but I am also excited to go home. I haven’t been home for more than ten days since last July and I am anxious to spend time with my family, especially my sister who had been in Thailand for a year and got home just days before I left. I have a lot to think about this summer concerning a thesis topic and plans for next year, post-graduation which freaks me out more than I can express. Fulbright applications are due all too soon, and it seems like some big decisions need to be made before I’m quite ready to make them. In exactly a week I begin my internship at Equality Now in NYC doing fact-finding legal research on international women’s human rights issues.
I knew this month would go by in a flash, although it does seem like quite a while ago since my first night in Kenya, spent a few kilometers away in the outskirts of Nairobi. There is still a lot to do for the Clinton Global Initiative documentary on Kiva, as well as a longer movie we plan to make for PEMCI and a short film on the Maasai Mara Free the Children project. Still, one chapter of the SOW project and the summer has come to an end and I am so thankful for having another incredible experience on this continent. I have learned the enormous benefits of having a support system while abroad, having friends with whom to laugh over scary toilet experiences, complain about Internet connections and power outages, experience uncomfortable and unreliable transportation and help get through the sometimes frustrating times of working for an organization in a developing country, which functions on a different pace than most American organizations. Most especially, I have had the chance to share incredible landscapes, moving personal interviews, and humorous nightlife happenings with five remarkably talented people. The SOW team made all the difference in the best and hardest of experiences in this trip. Together we have seen the challenges Kenyan people face, but also the magnificence of the country and the hope and dedication of many people to improve their lives and the wellbeing of their families. My final hope is that our work with PEMCI and Kiva and the resulting documentaries will make a positive, empowering difference in their lives, as their lives have already so greatly impacted and inspired our own.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Rambles and Reflections
A day does not past when we do not hear of a community member passing away. Group members are absent or have to leave meetings early to attend funerals. Also common is a group member being absent due to a sick child. I'm increasingly interested in grief and approaches to death in societies where early death and serious illness is much more pervasive. What constitutes a "tragedy" in these communities? In the US, it seems like anyone who dies with children college age or younger, or is under 60 has met a tragic death. How does the death of a child affect a parent when such an event is not so rare, and is somewhat expected if one has upwards of 10 children as many people here do? I do not presume that the level of personal loss is less, but I suspect that the stages of grieving differ. Personally, I have experience grief over the loss of a loved one differently in part due to how society reacts to the loss, and how I have been raised to value life at one age over the other. My friend Alex taking his life at 20 years old was a much different death to grieve than the loss of my grandfather to cancer. How do people react to early death by road or construction accident compared to AIDS? I have met women whose husbands died the previous day, yet they are working a half day at the market selling cereals. How much of their apparent togetherness is a façade of strength, and is that expected by the culture? How different is the death of a husband when he has not helped provide for the family for years and spends his days on the road idling with friends or at the bar, like so many of the men in this community do? I wish I had more time to explore these questions, but probing into grief is far beyond a four week stay.
Yesterday, as I sat in a community loan meeting of HIV+ women who have come together in support of one another, these questions and many others filled my puzzled head. I sat across from one of the women I interviewed last week, a cereal seller named Kevin. At 45, the same age as my mother, she already had two grand daughters (sorry Mom, I guess Megan and I are slacking). She sells maize, dried cassava, millet, beans, and other cereals and wants a Kiva loan to diversify the goods she sells and make a greater profit so that she may buy chickens and goats to improve the diet of her family. Kevin is HIV+; her husband is deceased and was police officer who infected her. While I struggled to understand some of what she explained to Mike regarding loan repayment difficulties, I glanced outside and a flash of neon yellow caught my eye. I squinted into the sun and realized it was the back of a Reebok tee shirt, and that the wearer of it was a young man who was crawling on his elbows and knees. I could not see his legs from where I was sitting, but he was clearly severely handicapped and had to rely on speedy crawling to get around. He managed to keep up with the elderly gentleman in a soiled white coat who road a bike passed the meeting. My mind flashed back once again to Khartoum, where lame men and children positioned themselves on small scooters with their useless legs folded awkwardly underneath them and dangerously darted between the traffic to beg from car to car. From there my memories jumped to similar scenes in New York City, of the handicapped homeless and the gawking passerby's who drop a few quarters in a box and thank god they have not been cursed with that kind of life. Poverty is everywhere, but poverty is not the same. Here it is before your eyes, permeating your nostrils, dirtying your feed, lingering in your hair, and in your hand as a small child with flies buzzing around her mouth and eyes clutches you. This is not the Africa I have portrayed in mass rambling emails of the past. This is not the Africa I describe when people here ask me "how do you find our country," and it is not the Africa I can capture in film and turn into Shutterfly albums to share with folks at home. I do not write to evoke abstract pity like an adopt a child commercial, but too often I numb myself to the reality that is poverty, illness, and desperation. Instead I focus on the beauty of the landscape, the incredible generosity of the people, and the strength and perseverance of their spirits. These things are present in Kenya, but people are desperate here as they were in Sudan, India, Morocco, Tanzania, and many other impoverished places I have seen; poor men smoke and drink themselves into a stupor and street children carry bottles of glue to sniff. And all the while the women are responsible for keeping their families safe, health, and educated in addition to frequently supplying the only income to sustain their family and deadbeat husbands. Why am I Development Studies and Gender Studies major? To remind myself I can simply talk to Kevin, supporting her family and dying of HIV because her husband slept around, or to Evelyn whose husband is around and healthy but has moved out and stopped providing anything to support their 10 children. These experiences are what drive me academically and eventually professionally, and also what make me at times overwhelmed and a little crazy as I think of the contrast between what I am surrounded by now and where I will be in two weeks time, perhaps on a beach in the Hamptons or an office in New York City working abstractly on women's rights. I have rambled enough, but too often I forget what is actually going on around me in an effort to be culturally sensitive and efficient in my work. Now back to wars with the internet and perhaps a walk into town to pick up more potable water…
I couldn't post this right after writing because of… shockingly… the internet connection. Since I finished writing this morning, the director of PEMCI received an email from someone who read the journal I wrote on Evelyn. A woman in San Diego wants to find a way to give to Evelyn and support her children's education. The journal I wrote was primarily how Evelyn's children had to repeat primary school levels over and over again so that they can stay in school even though Evelyn can't afford to support them in secondary school. (Primary school is free in Kenya, but most parents in the community struggle to offer their children anything beyond the primary level) This is going to get tricky, as far as figuring out how to get her the donation without making it seem to the community that this is a likely result for them if their profile is put on Kiva. Nonetheless, it was definitely a needed positive affirmation that the work we are doing as Kiva journalists is having an impact on lenders and may inspire further giving.
Off to Kisumu this afternoon...
Yesterday, as I sat in a community loan meeting of HIV+ women who have come together in support of one another, these questions and many others filled my puzzled head. I sat across from one of the women I interviewed last week, a cereal seller named Kevin. At 45, the same age as my mother, she already had two grand daughters (sorry Mom, I guess Megan and I are slacking). She sells maize, dried cassava, millet, beans, and other cereals and wants a Kiva loan to diversify the goods she sells and make a greater profit so that she may buy chickens and goats to improve the diet of her family. Kevin is HIV+; her husband is deceased and was police officer who infected her. While I struggled to understand some of what she explained to Mike regarding loan repayment difficulties, I glanced outside and a flash of neon yellow caught my eye. I squinted into the sun and realized it was the back of a Reebok tee shirt, and that the wearer of it was a young man who was crawling on his elbows and knees. I could not see his legs from where I was sitting, but he was clearly severely handicapped and had to rely on speedy crawling to get around. He managed to keep up with the elderly gentleman in a soiled white coat who road a bike passed the meeting. My mind flashed back once again to Khartoum, where lame men and children positioned themselves on small scooters with their useless legs folded awkwardly underneath them and dangerously darted between the traffic to beg from car to car. From there my memories jumped to similar scenes in New York City, of the handicapped homeless and the gawking passerby's who drop a few quarters in a box and thank god they have not been cursed with that kind of life. Poverty is everywhere, but poverty is not the same. Here it is before your eyes, permeating your nostrils, dirtying your feed, lingering in your hair, and in your hand as a small child with flies buzzing around her mouth and eyes clutches you. This is not the Africa I have portrayed in mass rambling emails of the past. This is not the Africa I describe when people here ask me "how do you find our country," and it is not the Africa I can capture in film and turn into Shutterfly albums to share with folks at home. I do not write to evoke abstract pity like an adopt a child commercial, but too often I numb myself to the reality that is poverty, illness, and desperation. Instead I focus on the beauty of the landscape, the incredible generosity of the people, and the strength and perseverance of their spirits. These things are present in Kenya, but people are desperate here as they were in Sudan, India, Morocco, Tanzania, and many other impoverished places I have seen; poor men smoke and drink themselves into a stupor and street children carry bottles of glue to sniff. And all the while the women are responsible for keeping their families safe, health, and educated in addition to frequently supplying the only income to sustain their family and deadbeat husbands. Why am I Development Studies and Gender Studies major? To remind myself I can simply talk to Kevin, supporting her family and dying of HIV because her husband slept around, or to Evelyn whose husband is around and healthy but has moved out and stopped providing anything to support their 10 children. These experiences are what drive me academically and eventually professionally, and also what make me at times overwhelmed and a little crazy as I think of the contrast between what I am surrounded by now and where I will be in two weeks time, perhaps on a beach in the Hamptons or an office in New York City working abstractly on women's rights. I have rambled enough, but too often I forget what is actually going on around me in an effort to be culturally sensitive and efficient in my work. Now back to wars with the internet and perhaps a walk into town to pick up more potable water…
I couldn't post this right after writing because of… shockingly… the internet connection. Since I finished writing this morning, the director of PEMCI received an email from someone who read the journal I wrote on Evelyn. A woman in San Diego wants to find a way to give to Evelyn and support her children's education. The journal I wrote was primarily how Evelyn's children had to repeat primary school levels over and over again so that they can stay in school even though Evelyn can't afford to support them in secondary school. (Primary school is free in Kenya, but most parents in the community struggle to offer their children anything beyond the primary level) This is going to get tricky, as far as figuring out how to get her the donation without making it seem to the community that this is a likely result for them if their profile is put on Kiva. Nonetheless, it was definitely a needed positive affirmation that the work we are doing as Kiva journalists is having an impact on lenders and may inspire further giving.
Off to Kisumu this afternoon...
Rambles and Reflections
A day does not past when we do not hear of a community member passing away. Group members are absent or have to leave meetings early to attend funerals. Also common is a group member being absent due to a sick child. I'm increasingly interested in grief and approaches to death in societies where early death and serious illness is much more pervasive. What constitutes a "tragedy" in these communities? In the US, it seems like anyone who dies with children college age or younger, or is under 60 has met a tragic death. How does the death of a child affect a parent when such an event is not so rare, and is somewhat expected if one has upwards of 10 children as many people here do? I do not presume that the level of personal loss is less, but I suspect that the stages of grieving differ. Personally, I have experience grief over the loss of a loved one differently in part due to how society reacts to the loss, and how I have been raised to value life at one age over the other. My friend Alex taking his life at 20 years old was a much different death to grieve than the loss of my grandfather to cancer. How do people react to early death by road or construction accident compared to AIDS? I have met women whose husbands died the previous day, yet they are working a half day at the market selling cereals. How much of their apparent togetherness is a façade of strength, and is that expected by the culture? How different is the death of a husband when he has not helped provide for the family for years and spends his days on the road idling with friends or at the bar, like so many of the men in this community do? I wish I had more time to explore these questions, but probing into grief is far beyond a four week stay.
Yesterday, as I sat in a community loan meeting of HIV+ women who have come together in support of one another, these questions and many others filled my puzzled head. I sat across from one of the women I interviewed last week, a cereal seller named Kevin. At 45, the same age as my mother, she already had two grand daughters (sorry Mom, I guess Megan and I are slacking). She sells maize, dried cassava, millet, beans, and other cereals and wants a Kiva loan to diversify the goods she sells and make a greater profit so that she may buy chickens and goats to improve the diet of her family. Kevin is HIV+; her husband is deceased and was police officer who infected her. While I struggled to understand some of what she explained to Mike regarding loan repayment difficulties, I glanced outside and a flash of neon yellow caught my eye. I squinted into the sun and realized it was the back of a Reebok tee shirt, and that the wearer of it was a young man who was crawling on his elbows and knees. I could not see his legs from where I was sitting, but he was clearly severely handicapped and had to rely on speedy crawling to get around. He managed to keep up with the elderly gentleman in a soiled white coat who road a bike passed the meeting. My mind flashed back once again to Khartoum, where lame men and children positioned themselves on small scooters with their useless legs folded awkwardly underneath them and dangerously darted between the traffic to beg from car to car. From there my memories jumped to similar scenes in New York City, of the handicapped homeless and the gawking passerby's who drop a few quarters in a box and thank god they have not been cursed with that kind of life. Poverty is everywhere, but poverty is not the same. Here it is before your eyes, permeating your nostrils, dirtying your feed, lingering in your hair, and in your hand as a small child with flies buzzing around her mouth and eyes clutches you. This is not the Africa I have portrayed in mass rambling emails of the past. This is not the Africa I describe when people here ask me "how do you find our country," and it is not the Africa I can capture in film and turn into Shutterfly albums to share with folks at home. I do not write to evoke abstract pity like an adopt a child commercial, but too often I numb myself to the reality that is poverty, illness, and desperation. Instead I focus on the beauty of the landscape, the incredible generosity of the people, and the strength and perseverance of their spirits. These things are present in Kenya, but people are desperate here as they were in Sudan, India, Morocco, Tanzania, and many other impoverished places I have seen; poor men smoke and drink themselves into a stupor and street children carry bottles of glue to sniff. And all the while the women are responsible for keeping their families safe, health, and educated in addition to frequently supplying the only income to sustain their family and deadbeat husbands. Why am I Development Studies and Gender Studies major? To remind myself I can simply talk to Kevin, supporting her family and dying of HIV because her husband slept around, or to Evelyn whose husband is around and healthy but has moved out and stopped providing anything to support their 10 children. These experiences are what drive me academically and eventually professionally, and also what make me at times overwhelmed and a little crazy as I think of the contrast between what I am surrounded by now and where I will be in two weeks time, perhaps on a beach in the Hamptons or an office in New York City working abstractly on women's rights. I have rambled enough, but too often I forget what is actually going on around me in an effort to be culturally sensitive and efficient in my work. Now back to wars with the internet and perhaps a walk into town to pick up more potable water…
I couldn't post this right after writing because of… shockingly… the internet connection. Since I finished writing this morning, the director of PEMCI received an email from someone who read the journal I wrote on Evelyn. A woman in San Diego wants to find a way to give to Evelyn and support her children's education. The journal I wrote was primarily how Evelyn's children had to repeat primary school levels over and over again so that they can stay in school even though Evelyn can't afford to support them in secondary school. (Primary school is free in Kenya, but most parents in the community struggle to offer their children anything beyond the primary level) This is going to get tricky, as far as figuring out how to get her the donation without making it seem to the community that this is a likely result for them if their profile is put on Kiva. Nonetheless, it was definitely a needed positive affirmation that the work we are doing as Kiva journalists is having an impact on lenders and may inspire further giving.
Off to Kisumu this afternoon...
Yesterday, as I sat in a community loan meeting of HIV+ women who have come together in support of one another, these questions and many others filled my puzzled head. I sat across from one of the women I interviewed last week, a cereal seller named Kevin. At 45, the same age as my mother, she already had two grand daughters (sorry Mom, I guess Megan and I are slacking). She sells maize, dried cassava, millet, beans, and other cereals and wants a Kiva loan to diversify the goods she sells and make a greater profit so that she may buy chickens and goats to improve the diet of her family. Kevin is HIV+; her husband is deceased and was police officer who infected her. While I struggled to understand some of what she explained to Mike regarding loan repayment difficulties, I glanced outside and a flash of neon yellow caught my eye. I squinted into the sun and realized it was the back of a Reebok tee shirt, and that the wearer of it was a young man who was crawling on his elbows and knees. I could not see his legs from where I was sitting, but he was clearly severely handicapped and had to rely on speedy crawling to get around. He managed to keep up with the elderly gentleman in a soiled white coat who road a bike passed the meeting. My mind flashed back once again to Khartoum, where lame men and children positioned themselves on small scooters with their useless legs folded awkwardly underneath them and dangerously darted between the traffic to beg from car to car. From there my memories jumped to similar scenes in New York City, of the handicapped homeless and the gawking passerby's who drop a few quarters in a box and thank god they have not been cursed with that kind of life. Poverty is everywhere, but poverty is not the same. Here it is before your eyes, permeating your nostrils, dirtying your feed, lingering in your hair, and in your hand as a small child with flies buzzing around her mouth and eyes clutches you. This is not the Africa I have portrayed in mass rambling emails of the past. This is not the Africa I describe when people here ask me "how do you find our country," and it is not the Africa I can capture in film and turn into Shutterfly albums to share with folks at home. I do not write to evoke abstract pity like an adopt a child commercial, but too often I numb myself to the reality that is poverty, illness, and desperation. Instead I focus on the beauty of the landscape, the incredible generosity of the people, and the strength and perseverance of their spirits. These things are present in Kenya, but people are desperate here as they were in Sudan, India, Morocco, Tanzania, and many other impoverished places I have seen; poor men smoke and drink themselves into a stupor and street children carry bottles of glue to sniff. And all the while the women are responsible for keeping their families safe, health, and educated in addition to frequently supplying the only income to sustain their family and deadbeat husbands. Why am I Development Studies and Gender Studies major? To remind myself I can simply talk to Kevin, supporting her family and dying of HIV because her husband slept around, or to Evelyn whose husband is around and healthy but has moved out and stopped providing anything to support their 10 children. These experiences are what drive me academically and eventually professionally, and also what make me at times overwhelmed and a little crazy as I think of the contrast between what I am surrounded by now and where I will be in two weeks time, perhaps on a beach in the Hamptons or an office in New York City working abstractly on women's rights. I have rambled enough, but too often I forget what is actually going on around me in an effort to be culturally sensitive and efficient in my work. Now back to wars with the internet and perhaps a walk into town to pick up more potable water…
I couldn't post this right after writing because of… shockingly… the internet connection. Since I finished writing this morning, the director of PEMCI received an email from someone who read the journal I wrote on Evelyn. A woman in San Diego wants to find a way to give to Evelyn and support her children's education. The journal I wrote was primarily how Evelyn's children had to repeat primary school levels over and over again so that they can stay in school even though Evelyn can't afford to support them in secondary school. (Primary school is free in Kenya, but most parents in the community struggle to offer their children anything beyond the primary level) This is going to get tricky, as far as figuring out how to get her the donation without making it seem to the community that this is a likely result for them if their profile is put on Kiva. Nonetheless, it was definitely a needed positive affirmation that the work we are doing as Kiva journalists is having an impact on lenders and may inspire further giving.
Off to Kisumu this afternoon...
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
A day in the life of...
I’d like to see a study on the relationship between speed/availability of internet and power in a country and its development trajectory. So much of business conducted today depends on internet connection, especially as markets become more globalized and even businesses in remote locations must keep up to date with technology to compete with products and services coming from abroad. At the office where I worked in Khartoum, we faced power outages more often than internet failure. A power outage meant that not only the computers but the fans turned off, and as it was 50+°C during the day, sitting in the office without power was unbearable. Often we would arrive at the office to discover that the district where the office was located had lost power, sometimes randomly, sometimes due to a light rain the night before. The staff of the NGO would sit outside and drink tea, wander idly to a local shop, and wait for a few hours to see if the power would turn on later in the day. Many of those mornings I drove to the local “white person” café where there was a generator, a great cappuccino, and outdoor air-conditioning that came down in a cool mist from lines that hung between the trees. There I could read over reports, or study up on Arabic, or sit and people watch as upper class Sudanese and foreign aid workers sipped orange juice and imported croissants. Every few hours I’d check back in the office and see if the power was up and work could resume. We lost power or internet at least 3 times a week, sometimes for a full day but more often for an entire morning or afternoon.
Here in Malaba power is definitely more stable. We have had extended outages three times perhaps, lasting 1-3 hours, though especially in the evenings we are frequently plunged into momentary darkness over dinner. Our main work grievance is the Internet. Working as a Kiva fellow, we are expected to post roughly 15 journal updates as a group each week. Sometimes just logging onto the Kiva website can take more than 20 minutes, with each subsequent step of logging in and getting to a borrower’s page taking 3-10 minutes or just failing to load entirely. Only one of us can access the internet at a time. Some days the internet is unavailable, other days it works well for a few hours before cutting out. PEMCI is working hard to improve the internet situation at their office as it clearly impedes their work with Kiva. There are serious limitations to what they can do, and most likely they have one of the best internet set ups in town, certainly better than the few local internet cafes. The internet provider is based in Uganda, though a new cable is supposed to be laid in Kenya “soon.” As this morning was my turn to be in the office, I am feeling especially annoyed with the connection and am holding my breath it will stay on.
A brief description of daily life in the dusty border town of Malaba, population approximately 7,200 or so. Max, Ryan, and I awake between 7 and 7 30, amazed at how exhausted we feel despite going to bed far earlier than we ever do at home. As that is around the time I get up typically at school after going to bed not at midnight like here but at 2 or 3 am, I am surprised by how groggy I feel. Most of the time a slight headache persists until I can chug some bottled water and pop an allergy pill with the rest of my tablet cocktail of vitamins and anti-malarias. Basically I feel slightly hung over from dehydration and dust every morning even if my friend Tusker did not make an appearance the previous evening. We gather for breakfast, and whoever gets there first orders the “usual”: scrambled eggs over a piece of soggy but surprisingly yummy bread with some shaved carrots and cabbage on the side. Black coffee, milk tea, and passion fruit juice is ordered for myself, Max, and Ryan. The whole process takes entirely too long, but we enjoy the time to zone out and wake up for the day. We head to the office and find out the plan for the day, as well as evaluate the all-important internet situation. Usually two of us head out to the field, while the third stays in the office to write and upload journals and profiles for Kiva. I have been going to the field mostly with Mike, a loan officer at PEMCI, who now insists on speaking to me almost exclusively in Kiswahili. I understand roughly 20% of what he says, and can gather the general meaning about half the time from words I remember in Kiswahili or those that sound like Arabic. Mike has a great sense of humor and comes up to around my shoulder, but I trust him more than anyone else as my motorbike driver. We’ve gotten up to around 80 km on some of the back dirt roads, but he has yet to make me feel like my life is flashing before my eyes. So far, only rolling green fields, Ugandan mountains, mud huts, and roadside food stalls whiz past me. I’m pretty sure the motorbike rides are significantly less painful for me than for Ryan and Max… Reason number 20847 I am happy to be a woman. However, the bathroom situation in the field makes me a little less enthusiastic about my gender luck. I have seen my fair share of creative bathroom alternatives, but days in the field really test my ability to stop the olfactory system and multitask so that I may brush away buzzing insects while I am trying to go. Being able to stand and keep a distance from latrine holes would be a lot less frightening. Was that too much detail?
We leave for the field around 10 am and get in around 5 pm. Sometimes we pack a light lunch, but the sandwiches we were ordering from the hotel restaurant were pretty dismal, so I prefer to snack on fruit, crackers, or a hard boiled egg, depending on if we can get anything while we are out. Often one of the borrowers running a fruit stand will offer us some food, and I have come back with loads of delicious avocado that help spice up dinner. We attend both outreach meetings, during which the loan officer explains PEMCI’s loan protocol to prospective clients or groups, as well as existing community group meetings. These meetings can be painful at times, as most often I don’t understand what is being discussed. Struggling not to doze off, I find myself idly making lists, such as attempting to list every country in the world (did you know Comoros was an island nation in the Indian Ocean? Those little dingers get me every time.. not that I have attempted this before or anything…). On the productive side of things, while meetings are going on I check the list of attendees and crosscheck it with the list of people on Kiva. Those who match up I interview and photograph after the meeting in order to make an update. In these interviews we are looking to find out how the loan was used and how business is going, but also to provide more personal information so that lenders can find out more than is listed on the rather limited business profiles. One challenge has been dealing with discrepancies between what is listed on their business profile and what they tell us. For example, one man named Shaban, a retired school teacher turned cattle trader, told me he had 16 children (presumably with multiple wives- polygamy is not uncommon around here) and 18 grandchildren, while his profile said he only had 3. Sometimes clients only list their children with one wife, or lower the number of children because they think a high number will hurt their chances of receiving a loan from PEMCI, which is not really true. Other times, a client will have used part of the loan for emergency hospital fees when a child has gotten sick. Clearly this is a more than reasonable action of any caring parent, but we cannot report that on Kiva’s website really. These clients most often repay their loan eventually; it just may take a bit longer. I don’t think Kiva not including this information is morally problematic, as these circumstances are confusing to explain to lenders. It just makes our task of reporting more challenging, but also has allowed us to see the raw side of micro-lending in developing countries.
After returning from the field, we begin to compile our notes into journal entries and Kiva profiles, as well as catch up with the PEMCI staff and each other. Its rained a few days towards the end of our field time, which makes a fantastically muddy motorbike ride. When dinner time rolls around, its back to the Taifa Country Inn restaurant, where we sit at the same table, often in the same seating arrangement, with the same waiter every night. There are a few other places around town, but we got a deal with the hotel so meals are cheap and none of us have gotten sick so we usually stay here. Plus, I doubt many other restaurants play the Fresh Prince of Bel Air every night, with sporadic terrible American sitcoms and movies as well. Though, after a long day these shows are preferable to news stories of taxi driver beheadings and other mob killings going on in the Nairobi region.
Evenings are spent often working for a few hours in the office, especially if internet is working. A few nights we have gone to local bars with coworkers, and one night we even checked out the Malaba disco. For a mere 1.50 USD cover, we were able to sit in a small hut-type structure and watch the action on the dance floor… an outdoor concrete slab with 15 or so dancers awkwardly scattered, bumpin and grindin to a mix of Western and Kenyan favorites. I clearly joined for a bit as I tend to dance with the slightest bit of music, but even I could not muster up the motivation to stay for long. Malaba night life is often best left untouched, so early, quite nights are the norm.
Alright, that’s my more light hearted update on daily living Malaba style. This is embarrassingly long already, so I will most some more introspective thoughts in a separate post which I’ll load at the same time.
Here in Malaba power is definitely more stable. We have had extended outages three times perhaps, lasting 1-3 hours, though especially in the evenings we are frequently plunged into momentary darkness over dinner. Our main work grievance is the Internet. Working as a Kiva fellow, we are expected to post roughly 15 journal updates as a group each week. Sometimes just logging onto the Kiva website can take more than 20 minutes, with each subsequent step of logging in and getting to a borrower’s page taking 3-10 minutes or just failing to load entirely. Only one of us can access the internet at a time. Some days the internet is unavailable, other days it works well for a few hours before cutting out. PEMCI is working hard to improve the internet situation at their office as it clearly impedes their work with Kiva. There are serious limitations to what they can do, and most likely they have one of the best internet set ups in town, certainly better than the few local internet cafes. The internet provider is based in Uganda, though a new cable is supposed to be laid in Kenya “soon.” As this morning was my turn to be in the office, I am feeling especially annoyed with the connection and am holding my breath it will stay on.
A brief description of daily life in the dusty border town of Malaba, population approximately 7,200 or so. Max, Ryan, and I awake between 7 and 7 30, amazed at how exhausted we feel despite going to bed far earlier than we ever do at home. As that is around the time I get up typically at school after going to bed not at midnight like here but at 2 or 3 am, I am surprised by how groggy I feel. Most of the time a slight headache persists until I can chug some bottled water and pop an allergy pill with the rest of my tablet cocktail of vitamins and anti-malarias. Basically I feel slightly hung over from dehydration and dust every morning even if my friend Tusker did not make an appearance the previous evening. We gather for breakfast, and whoever gets there first orders the “usual”: scrambled eggs over a piece of soggy but surprisingly yummy bread with some shaved carrots and cabbage on the side. Black coffee, milk tea, and passion fruit juice is ordered for myself, Max, and Ryan. The whole process takes entirely too long, but we enjoy the time to zone out and wake up for the day. We head to the office and find out the plan for the day, as well as evaluate the all-important internet situation. Usually two of us head out to the field, while the third stays in the office to write and upload journals and profiles for Kiva. I have been going to the field mostly with Mike, a loan officer at PEMCI, who now insists on speaking to me almost exclusively in Kiswahili. I understand roughly 20% of what he says, and can gather the general meaning about half the time from words I remember in Kiswahili or those that sound like Arabic. Mike has a great sense of humor and comes up to around my shoulder, but I trust him more than anyone else as my motorbike driver. We’ve gotten up to around 80 km on some of the back dirt roads, but he has yet to make me feel like my life is flashing before my eyes. So far, only rolling green fields, Ugandan mountains, mud huts, and roadside food stalls whiz past me. I’m pretty sure the motorbike rides are significantly less painful for me than for Ryan and Max… Reason number 20847 I am happy to be a woman. However, the bathroom situation in the field makes me a little less enthusiastic about my gender luck. I have seen my fair share of creative bathroom alternatives, but days in the field really test my ability to stop the olfactory system and multitask so that I may brush away buzzing insects while I am trying to go. Being able to stand and keep a distance from latrine holes would be a lot less frightening. Was that too much detail?
We leave for the field around 10 am and get in around 5 pm. Sometimes we pack a light lunch, but the sandwiches we were ordering from the hotel restaurant were pretty dismal, so I prefer to snack on fruit, crackers, or a hard boiled egg, depending on if we can get anything while we are out. Often one of the borrowers running a fruit stand will offer us some food, and I have come back with loads of delicious avocado that help spice up dinner. We attend both outreach meetings, during which the loan officer explains PEMCI’s loan protocol to prospective clients or groups, as well as existing community group meetings. These meetings can be painful at times, as most often I don’t understand what is being discussed. Struggling not to doze off, I find myself idly making lists, such as attempting to list every country in the world (did you know Comoros was an island nation in the Indian Ocean? Those little dingers get me every time.. not that I have attempted this before or anything…). On the productive side of things, while meetings are going on I check the list of attendees and crosscheck it with the list of people on Kiva. Those who match up I interview and photograph after the meeting in order to make an update. In these interviews we are looking to find out how the loan was used and how business is going, but also to provide more personal information so that lenders can find out more than is listed on the rather limited business profiles. One challenge has been dealing with discrepancies between what is listed on their business profile and what they tell us. For example, one man named Shaban, a retired school teacher turned cattle trader, told me he had 16 children (presumably with multiple wives- polygamy is not uncommon around here) and 18 grandchildren, while his profile said he only had 3. Sometimes clients only list their children with one wife, or lower the number of children because they think a high number will hurt their chances of receiving a loan from PEMCI, which is not really true. Other times, a client will have used part of the loan for emergency hospital fees when a child has gotten sick. Clearly this is a more than reasonable action of any caring parent, but we cannot report that on Kiva’s website really. These clients most often repay their loan eventually; it just may take a bit longer. I don’t think Kiva not including this information is morally problematic, as these circumstances are confusing to explain to lenders. It just makes our task of reporting more challenging, but also has allowed us to see the raw side of micro-lending in developing countries.
After returning from the field, we begin to compile our notes into journal entries and Kiva profiles, as well as catch up with the PEMCI staff and each other. Its rained a few days towards the end of our field time, which makes a fantastically muddy motorbike ride. When dinner time rolls around, its back to the Taifa Country Inn restaurant, where we sit at the same table, often in the same seating arrangement, with the same waiter every night. There are a few other places around town, but we got a deal with the hotel so meals are cheap and none of us have gotten sick so we usually stay here. Plus, I doubt many other restaurants play the Fresh Prince of Bel Air every night, with sporadic terrible American sitcoms and movies as well. Though, after a long day these shows are preferable to news stories of taxi driver beheadings and other mob killings going on in the Nairobi region.
Evenings are spent often working for a few hours in the office, especially if internet is working. A few nights we have gone to local bars with coworkers, and one night we even checked out the Malaba disco. For a mere 1.50 USD cover, we were able to sit in a small hut-type structure and watch the action on the dance floor… an outdoor concrete slab with 15 or so dancers awkwardly scattered, bumpin and grindin to a mix of Western and Kenyan favorites. I clearly joined for a bit as I tend to dance with the slightest bit of music, but even I could not muster up the motivation to stay for long. Malaba night life is often best left untouched, so early, quite nights are the norm.
Alright, that’s my more light hearted update on daily living Malaba style. This is embarrassingly long already, so I will most some more introspective thoughts in a separate post which I’ll load at the same time.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Nakuru
I will write a longer entry soon.. Internet access has been pretty spotty in Malaba, so I need to just write in on my computer and transfer it when internet/electricity decides to be stable. We reunited this weekend with the other group in Nakuru, the 4th largest city in Kenya and a helluvalot more happening than Malaba. The bus ride there was super bumpy, and the 6 hour bus ride departing at midnight tonight should make us in fine form for work tomorrow morning. Nakuru was great though, finally some good meals and a guy from Nakuru, Dennis, took us around the whole time. Last night we bar hopped and wound up at "Dimples" disco, though we were too tired to last much past 1 am. I did get to meet a Kenya rap supastar who was performing at one of the discos. And I do enjoy riding home from the disco on the back of a boda-boda (bicycle taxi, main transport in many kenyan towns), I think there is potential for NYC. Today we walked 8 km to a gorgeous crater, the second biggest either in the world or the continent, after Ngoragora crater which i had visited in Tanzania. It was pretty warm, but great to move my legs and get a break from the motorbike riding we do all day at work. Theres a lot more to offer in Nakuru as far as shops, hotels, restaurants, bars, etc, but I'm still pumped to get back to Malaba. Ok this is an extraordinarily boring post so I'm going to stop and gather my thoughts not while at an internet cafe...
Monday, May 28, 2007
May 28: Mzungus in Malaba
Finally, internet.
Mobile Telephone: (the group number, but my cell phone so call/skype whenever!): 254 073 77 01 784. Possibly subtract the zero in front of the seven , haven’t figured that out yet. And of course, US country code first.
Hot and dry morning here in Malaba for our first day at the People Micro-Credit and Investment (PEMCI) office. Yesterday’s ride went rather smoothly, well, as smoothly as possible on an incredibly bumpy road. We left Salabawek at 6 am and traveled through Kisii and Kisumu to arrive in Malaba around 3:30 pm. We settled into the Taifa Country Guest House, simple accommodations with twin beds and shared bathrooms, but with mosquito nets and clean enough facilities. After exploring the main drag a bit in search of internet, it was clear that in this community we would be the only Westerners and as such are quite an amusement/novelty for everyone, especially the children. Malaba is a very small community, perhaps around 7,000 inhabitants, and the main border crossing for freight trucks. As a result, it apparently has a pretty high rate of illicit activities, from smuggling operations to truck-driver evening amusements. Our hotel has a “safe zone” sign above the door, and doesn’t serve alcohol, so we have avoided the Malaba night crowd thus far. Last night was bloody hot and I woke up at 5 or so sweating and I might have heard the call to prayer around then from the mosque down the road, unless it was just my delirium thinking I was back in Sudan.
Unfortunately our group had to split in half today, leaving Ryan, Max, and I in Malaba while Tihtina, Colin, and Steve traveled to Kisumu. We were having a fantastic time together and really benefited from collective creative juices flowing, but the split was necessary in order to be the most productive for our micro-finance partners. PEMCI can only take two of us out into the field at the time due to personnel and motor bike limitations. Its pretty wild and exciting, as we will be visiting people in the most remote and rural of locations who have received loans from PEMCI. PEMCI has given out approximately $30,000 in loans in the two years they have been in existence. The clients we will be covering in particular are those who have received loans through Kiva. Our job is to travel to the loaners and find out about their lives, their work, and how they have been using the loan. We will take photos, video, and conduct personal interviews with those who have and want to receive loans, and then update the business profiles on Kiva’s website.
Today I took my first ride on the back of a boda-boda, adapted from “border-border,” as this form of transportation was primarily used to cross the Uganda-Kenya border, though can now be found throughout Uganda and Kenya at least. For 10 Kenyan Shillings (approximately 15 cents) you can hop on the pack of someone’s bicycle for a ride down the main drag of the city. I went with a PEMCI employee to visit the home/shop of a man who melts aluminum and produces cooking pots. We interviewed him to begin a Kiva profile and I snapped a few photos of him standing in front of the pots. I swear it was more exciting than it sounds. The boys went into the field today, as I volunteered to hang back and organize setting up internet connection, re-arranging our room situation, and negotiating a good price. Basically I didn’t trust either of them to rival my haggling skills, which proved to get us quite the discount. So now I am finally getting a proper internet connection and make a double post update. I got a few evites today for parties at home which made me a tad homesick, but things are going well and we already have an exciting weekend adventure planned to Eldoret, where we will meet up with the rest of our group. That is all.
Mobile Telephone: (the group number, but my cell phone so call/skype whenever!): 254 073 77 01 784. Possibly subtract the zero in front of the seven , haven’t figured that out yet. And of course, US country code first.
Hot and dry morning here in Malaba for our first day at the People Micro-Credit and Investment (PEMCI) office. Yesterday’s ride went rather smoothly, well, as smoothly as possible on an incredibly bumpy road. We left Salabawek at 6 am and traveled through Kisii and Kisumu to arrive in Malaba around 3:30 pm. We settled into the Taifa Country Guest House, simple accommodations with twin beds and shared bathrooms, but with mosquito nets and clean enough facilities. After exploring the main drag a bit in search of internet, it was clear that in this community we would be the only Westerners and as such are quite an amusement/novelty for everyone, especially the children. Malaba is a very small community, perhaps around 7,000 inhabitants, and the main border crossing for freight trucks. As a result, it apparently has a pretty high rate of illicit activities, from smuggling operations to truck-driver evening amusements. Our hotel has a “safe zone” sign above the door, and doesn’t serve alcohol, so we have avoided the Malaba night crowd thus far. Last night was bloody hot and I woke up at 5 or so sweating and I might have heard the call to prayer around then from the mosque down the road, unless it was just my delirium thinking I was back in Sudan.
Unfortunately our group had to split in half today, leaving Ryan, Max, and I in Malaba while Tihtina, Colin, and Steve traveled to Kisumu. We were having a fantastic time together and really benefited from collective creative juices flowing, but the split was necessary in order to be the most productive for our micro-finance partners. PEMCI can only take two of us out into the field at the time due to personnel and motor bike limitations. Its pretty wild and exciting, as we will be visiting people in the most remote and rural of locations who have received loans from PEMCI. PEMCI has given out approximately $30,000 in loans in the two years they have been in existence. The clients we will be covering in particular are those who have received loans through Kiva. Our job is to travel to the loaners and find out about their lives, their work, and how they have been using the loan. We will take photos, video, and conduct personal interviews with those who have and want to receive loans, and then update the business profiles on Kiva’s website.
Today I took my first ride on the back of a boda-boda, adapted from “border-border,” as this form of transportation was primarily used to cross the Uganda-Kenya border, though can now be found throughout Uganda and Kenya at least. For 10 Kenyan Shillings (approximately 15 cents) you can hop on the pack of someone’s bicycle for a ride down the main drag of the city. I went with a PEMCI employee to visit the home/shop of a man who melts aluminum and produces cooking pots. We interviewed him to begin a Kiva profile and I snapped a few photos of him standing in front of the pots. I swear it was more exciting than it sounds. The boys went into the field today, as I volunteered to hang back and organize setting up internet connection, re-arranging our room situation, and negotiating a good price. Basically I didn’t trust either of them to rival my haggling skills, which proved to get us quite the discount. So now I am finally getting a proper internet connection and make a double post update. I got a few evites today for parties at home which made me a tad homesick, but things are going well and we already have an exciting weekend adventure planned to Eldoret, where we will meet up with the rest of our group. That is all.
May 26, 2007 Arrival and the Mara
After a long but smooth flight, with a layover in Dubai that made me miss the Middle East, we arrived in Nairobi a little delirious but more excited. We took a van to a home in Westlands, a posh district of Nairobi where much of the ex-pat, aid, and embassy workers live. A young man in one of my classes was from Nairobi, and his parents offered to house us for our first night in Kenya. We could not have asked for a more ideal circumstance, as Tom and Linda were extremely welcoming and knowledgeable about Kenya and development issues, as they both have experience in USAID, the Peace Corps, and other international projects. They treated us to the best Indian food I’ve had since I was in India and introduced us to a seventh member of our team, Tusker (Kenyan brew).
The next morning we left for Wilson Airport, where we had the coolest flight experience of our lives. In a small aircraft, we traveled with the pilot and two workers from Free the Children through the Rift Valley to the edge of the Masai Mara. Our team was invited by the Sanam Vaziri Quaraishi Foundation to film the beginnings of a project the foundation is conducting along with Free the Children. They are working with the Kipsigi tribal community of Salabwek of Narok South District in Kenya for a long-term community development project. The project includes four components: primary education, water and sanitations, alternative income program, and health care. The Sanam Foundation project is in the first phase of primary education, building a new school campus to accommodate the approximately 1,000 primary school and nursery children currently enrolled in an overcrowded, understaffed school.
We have stayed three days so far filming and photographing the progress of the project, focusing on its relationship with the community. Through interviews with teachers, administrators and students at the school, community members and parents, as well as the staff of Free the Children, we have compiled a wealth of information and images of the wonderful work that is being done. The partnership between the community and the workers and volunteers of the Free the Children project is remarkable, so rare in many aid-projects that alienate the local community. Visiting schools and playing with the children is a joy, and standing in front of classrooms, I am overwhelmed by memories of my time in Tanzania as an English teacher for deaf students in the village primary school. From the Kiswahili greetings, to the navy blue student uniforms, to the enthusiastic and respectful demeanor of the students, it is a quite a stroll down memory lane. It has invigorated my passion for sub-Saharan Africa, and I quite often am shocked by the ease of interaction with the males in the community, so different from my last rural experience in Morocco. Today a gathering of Mamas and Babas welcomed us with a song and rhythmic clapping; their expression of appreciation overwhelmingly touching as we rather awkwardly thanked them with our limited “Asante Sana”’s. We’ve gotten quite a bit of footage so far, and tomorrow promises to be a packed day of getting some stock footage of the “downtown” strip (maybe a block long of basic shops and a salon; we had to drive about 20 minutes last night to pick up Tusker), seeing the main water source of the Mara River, experiencing the local market, and wrapping up some final interviews. Sunday early morning we head off to Malaba, which is still rather mysterious for us and promises to be a long.. interesting… ride…
The next morning we left for Wilson Airport, where we had the coolest flight experience of our lives. In a small aircraft, we traveled with the pilot and two workers from Free the Children through the Rift Valley to the edge of the Masai Mara. Our team was invited by the Sanam Vaziri Quaraishi Foundation to film the beginnings of a project the foundation is conducting along with Free the Children. They are working with the Kipsigi tribal community of Salabwek of Narok South District in Kenya for a long-term community development project. The project includes four components: primary education, water and sanitations, alternative income program, and health care. The Sanam Foundation project is in the first phase of primary education, building a new school campus to accommodate the approximately 1,000 primary school and nursery children currently enrolled in an overcrowded, understaffed school.
We have stayed three days so far filming and photographing the progress of the project, focusing on its relationship with the community. Through interviews with teachers, administrators and students at the school, community members and parents, as well as the staff of Free the Children, we have compiled a wealth of information and images of the wonderful work that is being done. The partnership between the community and the workers and volunteers of the Free the Children project is remarkable, so rare in many aid-projects that alienate the local community. Visiting schools and playing with the children is a joy, and standing in front of classrooms, I am overwhelmed by memories of my time in Tanzania as an English teacher for deaf students in the village primary school. From the Kiswahili greetings, to the navy blue student uniforms, to the enthusiastic and respectful demeanor of the students, it is a quite a stroll down memory lane. It has invigorated my passion for sub-Saharan Africa, and I quite often am shocked by the ease of interaction with the males in the community, so different from my last rural experience in Morocco. Today a gathering of Mamas and Babas welcomed us with a song and rhythmic clapping; their expression of appreciation overwhelmingly touching as we rather awkwardly thanked them with our limited “Asante Sana”’s. We’ve gotten quite a bit of footage so far, and tomorrow promises to be a packed day of getting some stock footage of the “downtown” strip (maybe a block long of basic shops and a salon; we had to drive about 20 minutes last night to pick up Tusker), seeing the main water source of the Mara River, experiencing the local market, and wrapping up some final interviews. Sunday early morning we head off to Malaba, which is still rather mysterious for us and promises to be a long.. interesting… ride…
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