So I hadn't planned on posting twice over the weekend, but Saturday made me want to write. It was a bit raw last night, but I have not edited it, so it is also honest. Sunday morning already feels better.
Day 13- Guilt Tripping
One of the worst aspects of being a white person alone in Nairobi is the constant feeling of being a target. Any time I am walking alone, it is very clear that I stand out, and it is also clear that many people see me as quite different. Most days I only see one or two other whites all day, and in 10 or 12 bus/matatu rides I have seen a grand total of one other white, and the vehicles are always full. The expats have cars and the tourists take cabs, leaving just a few people in my situation.
In most cases the feeling of being a target is pretty benign- all the kids in Kibera singing HowAreOoo as I walk by, the street kids on the Ngong Rd. following me asking for a money until I am forced to give a firm hapana, the safari touts in downtown Nairobi looking to steer me to their preferred agent, or the merchants at the Masaii Market who see blood in the water as soon as I make my first purchase and will not let me browse without insisting on haggling.
Occasionally it gets more annoying, as in today when I was supposed to meet Ben in the city center at 10 and ended up standing around for about 30 minutes, which of course invites all kinds of people to start up a conversation, and I am too polite to ignore them. So I end up talking with a man who claims his name is Joseph and he was an orphan under the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, and he could not possibly ask for money, but... Or the next guy who just wants me know that Kenyans are friendly people, and oh by the way he is a pilot for safaris and his phone number is...
Meanwhile the guide books make you totally paranoid about talking to anyone on the street, and probably for good reason, but you feel like a total jerk if you ignore someone talking to you, as I did last weekend, and they turn out to be just a friendly passerby. In the end, it drives you to buy a newspaper and find a coffee shop where you can sit by yourself to wait, albeit for a cost of about $5.
Thankfully, when I am at Tumaini or at St. Al’s that feeling of being a target goes away. Certainly I am a curiosity, but at least they know who I am and that I am basically in Kenya to help out. Unfortunately, after today I feel a little less warmly about one person who I had enjoyed spending time with previously, and yet I also feel horribly guilty about expressing any negativity toward him.
Ben had insisted that I come meet his family today, and I agreed in spite of my previous plans to watch rugby, especially when he suggested we meet at 10 in the city center and he would take me home to show me his neighborhood, meet his family, have some lunch, and then see me off. I figured I would be back in the city by 3.
What I did not count on was Ben getting caught in terrible traffic and not arriving in the center until 11, and then us getting caught in more traffic heading out to his place and arriving close to 1, a full 30 km outside the city. Nairobi traffic is simply not to be believed. Imagine DC traffic, except the Beltway does not exist. Or Boston traffic, except 128 does not exist and the Pike and 93 are two lane roads. It is a total nightmare to get through the city, yet there is no ring road to go around it. Ben does this commute every day, leaving at 6 am to arrive to work close to 9.
What I also did not count on was Ben laying it on very thick about his personal struggles and those of the people in his neighborhood, and keeping me there until 4:30 to give me the full effect. The neighborhood where Ben lives is undoubtedly a step up from Kibera, but it is far below the standard I had assumed a professional, even a professional in community development, would inhabit.
The houses there are cinder block, with tin roofs, no plumbing, and no electricity. The roads are wide enough for a vehicle to pass through, but uneven and muddy enough that I would not want to try it too often. There are plenty of small shops, and a nice looking primary school, but it is impossible to imagine that it is so much nicer than anywhere within, say, two hours of where he works. And yet it must be the best he can afford.
He has three adorable sons between the ages of 2 and 8 and a nice wife, but all four of them were painfully shy, not able to say more than a word to me. His house has a very small sitting room/dining room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms, all withing a plot of probably 25 x 25. His wife graciously cooked us a big lunch of beef stew (of course) and rice, after Ben had asked earlier in the week if I ate fish and I gave him the honest if perhaps rude answer. Better to be rude up front than be unable to eat a well-intended meal, I figured.
Ben laid out for me what the rent was (I am paying much more for my single bedroom at Tumaini, and it seems like a pittance), what he paid in school fees, and what he paid for transportation to work, etc. He told me what he earns as a consultant to CLC and Hands of Love, and made clear that he is barely making ends meet. He mentioned how his phone had broken, but he could not afford a new one. All somewhat shocking for a bright, college-educated man of nearly 40 years old.
He then brought up again his goal of creating partnerships between St. Al’s and Georgetown, and he was particularly interested in sociology research. I tried to point out that Georgetown had previously sent a couple of delegations to St. Al’s and wondered if perhaps he had spoken to any of them, as official representatives, but it did not really register with him. I told him I no longer worked there, and I had never been involved in any type of academic research when I was. But he persisted, and I finally offered to try to set up a meeting when I am back in DC if he could give me a proposal to take along. If the proposal makes any sense, I will see what I can do, but I don’t have many expectations.
Our next stop after lunch and a relatively lengthy discussion of US and Kenyan politics (Travers, I could really use a briefing at this point, my limited Obama/Hilary talking points are getting kinda stale) was to go to the local community center that Ben helps to run on weekends and his spare time. We had actually been by earlier in the day, but the youths were at lunch and Ben really wanted me to see them in action.
The community center is two small rooms in a pretty nice building (it has electricity). The room where the kids were gathered has a tv/vcr, a small library of educational tapes, a blackboard, and a few (but not enough) plastic chairs. The other room is for vocational training and had sewing machines and those hair-dryer things for women’s beauty parlors. There were probably around 30 kids in the room, ranging in age from 8-20, I would guess.
They told me briefly about their projects, including the vocational training, a small farming project involving a few sad looking tomato plants, HIV/AIDS education in the local schools, and a chicken-raising scheme that failed due to disease in the chickens. Then they told me about their challenges, which of course boiled down to not having any funding, and it is a truly legitimate challenge. The session wrapped up by watching a short video showing the horrible impact of AIDS on a few Kenyans in the early 90’s, a true scare-tactic video, and then a few skits/songs/poems from the students about AIDS.
And then of course they turned to me to see what I could do to help them. And I felt/feel terrible. The problem for them is that, unlike St. Al’s, they don’t have any full time support structure. They certainly need help, though they are not as badly off as others, but there is no place reliable to direct the fund-raising. That is not precisely what I told them, but that was the message I tried to convey. Once again, Ben promised a proposal for me before I leave, but I would be hard-pressed to ask anyone to give to such a program without more evidence that the money will be able to make a difference. Without stronger adult leadership, any contribution would be little more than eyewash.
In truth, the situation was a microcosm of one of Jeffrey Sachs’ points in The End of Poverty. While it is imperative that those who are in a position to give do more for the poor, it is foolish to ask them to give if there is not a good plan in place to use it. Sachs contends, and I believe, that stories of wasted/stolen aid money are overblown, but he still admits that there are instances where it rings true.
The situation also points out the vastness of the problem, and it truly can seem overwhelming. It is most certainly the sort of thing that cannot be totally sorted out by one man, or even by a small, committed group of individuals, Margaret Mead notwithstanding. And it makes it hard to square the idea of giving to one program, like St. Al’s, when you know that there are people who are just as needy but who have not linked up with the Jesuits or someone else with international reach and strong organizational skills. It is the sort of either/or game that can drive you crazy if you let it, and I am really wrestling with how to keep it from doing that to me.
At the end of the day, I am sorry to say I wished I had not come out there, but I really cannot blame Ben for bringing me. What I was really wishing was not that I had remained in the dark, but that there was nothing to remain in the dark about. I still gave Ben and his wife many thanks, and I will continue to thank Ben throughout the next week, especially after he was so very kind as to ride back into town with me and make sure I made my connecting bus, a huge expenditure of his time, but something that made me feel much better given the very real prospect of me being on my own after dark in one of the worst neighborhoods in Nairobi otherwise.
For my part, I paid his fare both ways, and also told him he could have my phone when I leave Kenya. I told him it was no good to me after I leave, which is not really true because I could continue to use it with a new SIM card almost anywhere in the world, but I felt a little better about myself giving him something for his troubles, and he seemed grateful for it.
Thankfully traffic was lighter on the way back to town (though it looked brutal for Ben’s return journey), and I was home in time for dinner at Tumaini, which was also a good thing, as they were celebrating the feast day of the namesake of one of the Sisters (apparently as big a deal as a birthday here), which made for a lively dinner with several songs, and soda and cake and ice cream following our (gasp!) chicken dinner. It brought me back to a 10 year old birthday party, minus the pinata and the unwrapping of GI Joe’s. Basically, it brightened my day enough to feel ok about writing this.
In the end, I hope this doesn’t come across as too bitter, I am very conflicted about the day in general. I signed up for this, I had to know it was part of the bargain. And while I don’t particularly enjoy guilt trips, I also know they are effective, and sometimes they are necessary. After all, I am also the one who asked all of you to read this blog.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
No NFL, But Maybe Rugby?
Kicking off the NFL season without spending all day in a bar seems a bit un-American, so I still might have to do something similar, except with Rugby World Cup. C'mon Pats and Ireland. And go rooks for the Sox.
Days 11-12 More than Halfway Home
First let me give a sincere thanks to everyone who has emailed me or commented in the blog with kind thoughts about my trip or about the blog. I truly appreciate the great thoughts and helpful suggestions from all of you, and I apologize for not responding individually in my limited time online, but you should know that your love has been a tremendous lift to me.
As for the action, it has remained at its previous medium pace, which is to say I still don’t feel like I am doing a whole lot, but now I am getting used to that feeling and trying to make the best of it. Frustration has turned to something like resignation, yet it has not made me regret the trip in least. I certainly cannot really blame my hosts here- they want me to do more too, but I am not sure that I have any skills that are particularly useful to them.
Thursday at least the power was back on, allowing me to resume my position in the library. I was there for a few hours in the morning, mostly reading on my own, doing some more sorting of the shelves, when I came across something that really made me smile- the 2006-07 Georgetown Basketball Media Guide. It is nice to see that some predecessor from the Hilltop had made sure there was a sports section in the library.
I also got a brief chance to talk with the biology teacher, Suzy, about her career. She seems quite young, maybe 24, and she approached me to ask if I was able to talk about careers. I immediately she assumed that she wanted me to talk to the students, and launched into my defensive explanation of how I did not think it was a good idea before I realized she just wanted to talk about herself. If there is one thing I have learned here, it is that I really need to work on listening to people.
Her questions were actually about obtaining a masters in public health, and what she needed to do for a program in the US. She is very interested in helping out with disease in Kenya, and I know there is a serious need for more help, so I was happy to tell her what I know, but unfortunately that is precious little. I promised I would do some research when I get home and email her the results (this is a reminder for when I re-read this later).
I went over to the office of Hands of Love around 11 and spent a few hours there with Access. Unfortunately, there seems to be some conflict between the various organizations that help St. Al’s, and I was not able to get my hands on all the student records, but I did at least get to enter the names and year of graduation for the entire current student body. I am pretty sure I am forcing a foreign concept on this group with trying to separate out first names and surnames, but I am also pretty sure I am not the first to do so.
In the mid-afternoon, I went back to St. Al’s to meet up with the gang for Games, the Thursday afternoon activity. I wondered where we would go, and the walk was pretty far, I would say over a mile up a hill, but when we got there it was spectacular- a huge polo field on top of the hill, with views out west to the Ngong Hills and no one else around, save a dirtbike park across the street.
I walked up there with my library buddy Jared and another Third Former named Cyrus who had been very helpful to me during the week. We talked the whole way about our different countries and I really enjoyed the conversation. I think they were disappointed to learn that Arnold was now the Governator and would not be making any more action films. I also might have burst a bubble by telling them the truth about professional wrestling, although I believe they felt better about their comparative lack of muscle mass when I explained steroids.
When we arrived, I presented them each with Red Sox hats that I had brought along to give as gifts (at the helpful suggestion of Bwana Brooks Goddard). It might not have been the ideal time to make the presentation, with the entire school also on the way, and immediately I had 4 or 5 other kids asking me for a hat, and Jared’s cap was quickly passed around among several classmates. I do have a few more caps to give, but will need to figure out a way to do it with less commotion
Then for the next few hours the field was alive with football (soccer), volleyball, and netball- a game for girls a bit like women’s basketball used to be- no dribbling, no jump shots, no contesting shots, but also no backboard and a smaller rim. I took part in volleyball, where I did not totally embarrass myself. I finally had to leave as the sun was setting and I had limited interest in walking through Kibera after dark, but the kids (and several of the teachers) showed no signs of quitting. It was great to see everyone away from Kibera and enjoying themselves so much, I only wonder if it would be possible to do it more than once a week.
The other reason I wanted to get home as soon as possible was to finish Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, and it did not disappoint. Once again, I was revisiting the biggest hits of 2004, this time the story of Dr. Paul Farmer and his incredible organization, Partners in Health. Farmer began running a clinic in Cange, Haiti while he was still at Harvard Medical School and it has become the model for healthcare in impoverished setting everywhere. Since then Partners in Health has expanded to take on daunting challenges in fighting deadly tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS around the globe, and Farmer’s dedication and advocacy has been tireless and nearly completely selfless. When I finished the book I gave it to Suzy, the aspiring public health worker.
It has been said the Farmer is both inspiring and discouraging, because his work is awesome, but also impossible for any mere mortal to replicate. His response to such talk is frustration, that he does not ask everyone to be him, merely to do their part. I took inspiration from him, but also found myself feeling somewhat incompetent- not because I did not have his dedication, that goes without saying, but because I did not have his skills. A good doctor can still do great work in a place like Kenya, even if it is only for a month. An aspiring lawyer and former college admissions officer does not have the same impact on the people, so I suppose I need to hope I can do good in another way, and maybe this journal is part of that mission.
Friday I returned to St. Al’s for the day without a clear task in mind, except to meet with the law club at 4 pm, the end of the school day. And without a clear task in mind, I admit I did not accomplish much. I briefly met a young man named Brendan, from Cambridge, BC High and BC, who had previously worked at St. Al’s at the conclusion of a semester in Nairobi, and who is now back in Africa with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. He was helping out with English classes and seemed to know his way around, so I wanted to pick his brain a bit on how I could be more effective, but he had to run off to another meeting. He told me he would be back in the afternoon, but I did not catch up with him, much to my disappointment.
Other than that, I read almost all of The Kite Runner and chatted a bit with the teachers. There was a meeting for Form IV parents and guardians to discuss the bridge year program, and I had originally intended to attend that until I realized it was going to be all in Kiswahili. There was also a small group of students who had gone for the day to a local giraffe center, and I might have been able to join them had communication been better, but I am now scheduled to go on a similar trip Monday.
So the meeting of the law club was the highlight of the day, and I went in without a great plan. I had intended to have debate about the death penalty, but found no one willing to take the pro position, so that ran out of steam pretty quickly. Even so, I managed to make over an hour of discussion, ranging from a boring explanation of inchoate crimes (thank you BarBri) to more interesting topics like the crimes of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. I was attacked, albeit civilly, for US policy toward Iraq and asked to give a strategy for Iran. I also got to try to explain why Mitt Romney might end up President. It strayed a bit from the law, but it was still fun and several of the students were quite engaged.
When I got home I once again ran into the friendly housekeeper who invited me to join her family for the day tomorrow. I felt terrible telling her that I already had plans for the day, as Ben had invited me to meet his family. She was really disappointed, apparently she had already told her parents that her American friend would be coming, but I have no way of being in two places at once, and Ben also appears to be putting some significant effort into our lunch. On the plus side, I did get her to write down her contact information, so now I know her name is Irene.
I finished The Kite Runner before dinner (another good read, but I will refrain from the book report) and then prepared myself for the inevitable Friday night fish dinner. Except that apparently the sisters are so concerned about me that they make sure there is an alternative to fish whenever it is served while I am there, which meant more beef stew, making 6 consecutive nights of eating some piece of beef (none of it filet mignon, I assure you). I am happy to avoid the fish, but I wouldn’t mind occasionally mixing in some chicken. Then again, I am certainly not going to complain.
So my second week at St. Al’s is in the books, and I only have one more full week in Nairobi. I won’t say time has flown by, but for as much as I have learned I feel like there is so much more still to be done. The weekend awaits.
Days 11-12 More than Halfway Home
First let me give a sincere thanks to everyone who has emailed me or commented in the blog with kind thoughts about my trip or about the blog. I truly appreciate the great thoughts and helpful suggestions from all of you, and I apologize for not responding individually in my limited time online, but you should know that your love has been a tremendous lift to me.
As for the action, it has remained at its previous medium pace, which is to say I still don’t feel like I am doing a whole lot, but now I am getting used to that feeling and trying to make the best of it. Frustration has turned to something like resignation, yet it has not made me regret the trip in least. I certainly cannot really blame my hosts here- they want me to do more too, but I am not sure that I have any skills that are particularly useful to them.
Thursday at least the power was back on, allowing me to resume my position in the library. I was there for a few hours in the morning, mostly reading on my own, doing some more sorting of the shelves, when I came across something that really made me smile- the 2006-07 Georgetown Basketball Media Guide. It is nice to see that some predecessor from the Hilltop had made sure there was a sports section in the library.
I also got a brief chance to talk with the biology teacher, Suzy, about her career. She seems quite young, maybe 24, and she approached me to ask if I was able to talk about careers. I immediately she assumed that she wanted me to talk to the students, and launched into my defensive explanation of how I did not think it was a good idea before I realized she just wanted to talk about herself. If there is one thing I have learned here, it is that I really need to work on listening to people.
Her questions were actually about obtaining a masters in public health, and what she needed to do for a program in the US. She is very interested in helping out with disease in Kenya, and I know there is a serious need for more help, so I was happy to tell her what I know, but unfortunately that is precious little. I promised I would do some research when I get home and email her the results (this is a reminder for when I re-read this later).
I went over to the office of Hands of Love around 11 and spent a few hours there with Access. Unfortunately, there seems to be some conflict between the various organizations that help St. Al’s, and I was not able to get my hands on all the student records, but I did at least get to enter the names and year of graduation for the entire current student body. I am pretty sure I am forcing a foreign concept on this group with trying to separate out first names and surnames, but I am also pretty sure I am not the first to do so.
In the mid-afternoon, I went back to St. Al’s to meet up with the gang for Games, the Thursday afternoon activity. I wondered where we would go, and the walk was pretty far, I would say over a mile up a hill, but when we got there it was spectacular- a huge polo field on top of the hill, with views out west to the Ngong Hills and no one else around, save a dirtbike park across the street.
I walked up there with my library buddy Jared and another Third Former named Cyrus who had been very helpful to me during the week. We talked the whole way about our different countries and I really enjoyed the conversation. I think they were disappointed to learn that Arnold was now the Governator and would not be making any more action films. I also might have burst a bubble by telling them the truth about professional wrestling, although I believe they felt better about their comparative lack of muscle mass when I explained steroids.
When we arrived, I presented them each with Red Sox hats that I had brought along to give as gifts (at the helpful suggestion of Bwana Brooks Goddard). It might not have been the ideal time to make the presentation, with the entire school also on the way, and immediately I had 4 or 5 other kids asking me for a hat, and Jared’s cap was quickly passed around among several classmates. I do have a few more caps to give, but will need to figure out a way to do it with less commotion
Then for the next few hours the field was alive with football (soccer), volleyball, and netball- a game for girls a bit like women’s basketball used to be- no dribbling, no jump shots, no contesting shots, but also no backboard and a smaller rim. I took part in volleyball, where I did not totally embarrass myself. I finally had to leave as the sun was setting and I had limited interest in walking through Kibera after dark, but the kids (and several of the teachers) showed no signs of quitting. It was great to see everyone away from Kibera and enjoying themselves so much, I only wonder if it would be possible to do it more than once a week.
The other reason I wanted to get home as soon as possible was to finish Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, and it did not disappoint. Once again, I was revisiting the biggest hits of 2004, this time the story of Dr. Paul Farmer and his incredible organization, Partners in Health. Farmer began running a clinic in Cange, Haiti while he was still at Harvard Medical School and it has become the model for healthcare in impoverished setting everywhere. Since then Partners in Health has expanded to take on daunting challenges in fighting deadly tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS around the globe, and Farmer’s dedication and advocacy has been tireless and nearly completely selfless. When I finished the book I gave it to Suzy, the aspiring public health worker.
It has been said the Farmer is both inspiring and discouraging, because his work is awesome, but also impossible for any mere mortal to replicate. His response to such talk is frustration, that he does not ask everyone to be him, merely to do their part. I took inspiration from him, but also found myself feeling somewhat incompetent- not because I did not have his dedication, that goes without saying, but because I did not have his skills. A good doctor can still do great work in a place like Kenya, even if it is only for a month. An aspiring lawyer and former college admissions officer does not have the same impact on the people, so I suppose I need to hope I can do good in another way, and maybe this journal is part of that mission.
Friday I returned to St. Al’s for the day without a clear task in mind, except to meet with the law club at 4 pm, the end of the school day. And without a clear task in mind, I admit I did not accomplish much. I briefly met a young man named Brendan, from Cambridge, BC High and BC, who had previously worked at St. Al’s at the conclusion of a semester in Nairobi, and who is now back in Africa with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. He was helping out with English classes and seemed to know his way around, so I wanted to pick his brain a bit on how I could be more effective, but he had to run off to another meeting. He told me he would be back in the afternoon, but I did not catch up with him, much to my disappointment.
Other than that, I read almost all of The Kite Runner and chatted a bit with the teachers. There was a meeting for Form IV parents and guardians to discuss the bridge year program, and I had originally intended to attend that until I realized it was going to be all in Kiswahili. There was also a small group of students who had gone for the day to a local giraffe center, and I might have been able to join them had communication been better, but I am now scheduled to go on a similar trip Monday.
So the meeting of the law club was the highlight of the day, and I went in without a great plan. I had intended to have debate about the death penalty, but found no one willing to take the pro position, so that ran out of steam pretty quickly. Even so, I managed to make over an hour of discussion, ranging from a boring explanation of inchoate crimes (thank you BarBri) to more interesting topics like the crimes of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. I was attacked, albeit civilly, for US policy toward Iraq and asked to give a strategy for Iran. I also got to try to explain why Mitt Romney might end up President. It strayed a bit from the law, but it was still fun and several of the students were quite engaged.
When I got home I once again ran into the friendly housekeeper who invited me to join her family for the day tomorrow. I felt terrible telling her that I already had plans for the day, as Ben had invited me to meet his family. She was really disappointed, apparently she had already told her parents that her American friend would be coming, but I have no way of being in two places at once, and Ben also appears to be putting some significant effort into our lunch. On the plus side, I did get her to write down her contact information, so now I know her name is Irene.
I finished The Kite Runner before dinner (another good read, but I will refrain from the book report) and then prepared myself for the inevitable Friday night fish dinner. Except that apparently the sisters are so concerned about me that they make sure there is an alternative to fish whenever it is served while I am there, which meant more beef stew, making 6 consecutive nights of eating some piece of beef (none of it filet mignon, I assure you). I am happy to avoid the fish, but I wouldn’t mind occasionally mixing in some chicken. Then again, I am certainly not going to complain.
So my second week at St. Al’s is in the books, and I only have one more full week in Nairobi. I won’t say time has flown by, but for as much as I have learned I feel like there is so much more still to be done. The weekend awaits.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
On A Roll
At least the Sox are. And also excited to see the Hoyas schedule in my inbox this morning. As for me....
Days 8-10 More Reading, More Thinking, Some Work
Monday was almost a completely wasted day as far as being in Kenya. St. Al’s was on holiday, I am not really sure why (Labor Day is May 1 here), but that was going to be ok, because I was scheduled to spend the day with Ben and Dennis working on the student database project. So I called Dennis around 8 to see where I should meet him, and he replied to say he was out of the office on appointments for the morning, but he would call me before 2 to bring me to the office.
That left me with little choice but to hang around Tumaini until 2, so I spent some time at the internet cafe across the street to read more about the Sox, and I mostly spent time in my room reading (more on that later). Finally around 1:30 Dennis called again to say that he would be out for the afternoon too, helping one of the graduates get her visa to go to the US for college.
Obviously that is the most important thing he could be doing, and I don’t blame him for bailing on me, but by then I had been sitting around all day and it was now too late to do anything useful with the afternoon either. I did resolve to check out the clothing market nearby to see if I could find anything useful to allow me to continue avoiding laundry (there are no laundromats in Kenya), but even that was largely a bust. Odds are I suck it up and pay for some extra boxers and t-shirts pretty soon.
Mostly, though, I read. Which was great, because I finished Jeffrey Sachs’ remarkable, inspiring The End of Poverty. I recognize that I am about three years behind on this one, but hey, I’ve been busy, right? In any case, it is without question the best economics book I have ever read (and I liked Freakonomics), and it gave me hope for the people of Africa just knowing that such a brilliant mind is in their corner.
At the same time, it was profoundly disturbing and depressing to read some of the statistics- not just about how poor the people are in Africa, not just about the devastating impact of diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, not just about the enormous geographic obstacles faced, but also about how poorly the rich world, and in particular the US, has done in helping these countries. I hope everyone gets a chance to read the book and thinks about these issues when they vote, but I would also like to point out a few of the most striking issues:
-As of 2004, the US spent 30 times more on military than on development aid. No other wealthy country comes close to that ratio, with only Greece and Italy even going over 10:1 among the 22 wealthiest nations. The war on terror cannot be fought by tanks and planes alone.
-As of 2004, less than .2 percent of US GNP went to foreign aid. A mere .7 percent of GNP from the 22 richest nations could potentially eradicate extreme poverty around the world within 20 years, and those nations have all signed on to various international agreements pledging that amount, but the follow-through is totally lacking. The other countries are almost as bad as the US, but the US is the largest economy and must take the lead for this to happen.
I haven’t been following the presidential races too closely since I have been gone, but I also don’t recall hearing much about increasing foreign aid from any of the candidate before I left either. Of course that is not surprising- no one has ever won an election based on promising to send more money to places most Americans will never see. But we need only go back a few generations to see what a dramatic impact such aid can have. Europeans should be even more willing to give aid to the developing world. After all, where would they be without the Marshall Plan, when the US gave more than 1 percent of GNP to rebuild Europe from 1948-1952.
Tuesday morning school was back in session, but conditions were not exactly ideal when I arrived. It turns out Kenya Light and Power had discovered that some Kibera residents had been stealing electricity, so they simply shut off the entire grid, including St. Al’s, meaning that the library was completely dark and there was no indication of when power would come back. The classrooms get enough natural light to get by, but I was forced to move down to the lower school and to stay in the teacher’s prep room.
So it was that I spent my morning through lunch, chatting with the teachers who came in between classes, but essentially without any responsibilities or contact with students. I did have more good conversations about the school, particularly with a physics/math teacher named Mr. Safari. I shared with him some of the lessons from my reading, but mostly we talked about why he was at St. Al’s, and how he had come there.
He had previously been a teacher at a public (i.e. funded) school, but chose to come to St. Al’s based on their mission and on his own convictions. His prior situation had offered better pay and much better working conditions, but he believed in the work of St. Al’s and he thought it was important to serve that community. His attitude is shared by most of the teachers there, many of whom could likely find other work, none of whom come from any great privilege.
It is easy to say you want to help people when you are like me and know you are returning to great comfort and more money that I need in two weeks. To actually live it out like the teachers at St. Al’s is impressive, and I only hope that the new school can be built soon to allow them to achieve government certification and ideally some more compensation for the staff.
In the afternoon I walked to the office of Hands of Love, a Catholic outreach organization in Kibera where Dennis and Ben have their office. Dennis was still involved in the visa application, but Ben sat down with me and showed me what they had as far as a student database on the laptop there. What they had was not in fact a database, but a list of questions that could be used to create a database, and a stack of files, one for each student in the graduates program, listing some, but not all, of that information.
I decided then that I would need to teach myself Microsoft Access- it couldn’t really be that hard, and it was the only database program available to us, with no internet capacity to allow me to search for anything else. So I sat down and built a database in Access and started to input the information. Most people who know me, particularly my former colleagues, will have a good laugh at the idea of me 1. creating an organizational structure and 2. spending my day at data entry, but that was what was required, and I was without question the most computer literate person in the room.
Ben’s plan for me is to have me do the same for the 240 current students at St. Al’s over the next few weeks, and while the work may not be the most exciting thing I can think of, it may also be the most useful thing I can do, but only if I can also teach people how to use the database when I have left. I believe that will be my biggest challenge (outside of collecting all the missing data- addresses, parent/guardian names etc. tend to be tough to pin down in this community), but at least it is something I can attempt.
In the evening, I finished another book that I had been working on throughout the day, particularly while sitting around at St. Al’s, a moving piece of fiction by the Kenyan author Ngugi titled Devil on the Cross. The book was evidently very controversial when it came out in the early 80’s, and you can see why. It is a scathing indictment of the colonial powers and of the Kenyan elite who aided them and still control much of the wealth in the country. It was originally written in the tribal Kikuyu language but was translated by the author, who may currently be living in the US (not sure about that now).
The book was recommended by Fr. Charlton before I came, so I had purchased it on Amazon, but I was glad to have waited to read it, as I think I understood its context much better, even after only a few days here. It has a real anti-capitalist bent, so I am sure some people might not enjoy it, but the interweaving of Kenyan history, culture, and religion was definitely worthwhile to me, and I hope I get a chance to find some of his other works.
Wednesday I reported to school again, this time hoping to take part in the teacher’s staff meeting to finally meet everyone and hopefully get into the schedule more formally, but just as the meeting was about to begin, Jill pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to speak with the Form IV class while the meeting took place. Of course I would be willing, but what did she want me to talk about? Careers in Kenya.
Now there are many subjects I consider myself an authority on, and even more that I am willing to talk about at length despite a lack of any real knowledge, but talking broadly to a whole class about their career opportunities without knowing them or knowing their country at all is a bit daunting, so I hesitated. I balked. I hemmed and hawed. I finally said it was a very bad idea. If I had some time and resources to research such things, it might make some sense, but my background as a college admissions officer at a highly selective institution in the US did not give me enough background to do anything of the sort.
Jill seemed disappointed, I am not sure what I had said to suggest I could perform such a role, but she conceded and suggested instead I gather the law club to talk to them about the law. Now that was more my speed, even if I know next to nothing about Kenyan courts. At least there are some broad principles to work with, and the British legal tradition to fall back on.
I did talk to about 40 students interested in the law, and I did a very basic lecture of how a criminal trial works, then turned it over for questions, which were all insightful and appropriate. We talked about the presumption of innocence, we talked about international law, we talked about the death penalty, we talked about the responsibility of the juror, we talked about the right to counsel, we talked about the inequality of justice for the rich and the poor, and we talked about conflicts of interest and other ethical issues.
One student raised the issue of a Kenyan who has recently been in the news for bringing suit against the Roman Empire, Pontius Pilate, Herod, etc. on behalf of Jesus Christ, which almost led me to explain FRCP 12(b)(6), but not quite. It got my brain flowing, and it got them excited too. I envy people who get that feeling from teaching every day, and I hope my brother Titanic is having similar experiences as the school year starts up back home in his first year as a full time teacher of history.
After class one student in particular, a young man named Lawrence, pulled me aside and asked to speak in private. He had even more questions about the law, and what he should be studying, and how to get to become a lawyer. I shared with him my own experience, and suggested that Kenya was likely to have a very different system. I also tried to bring up the negative aspects of the profession, and how many people I knew who claimed to hate their job, but, not surprisingly, I couldn’t really convey how awful it was to make thousands of dollars a year, provide for your family, and be involved in a respected profession. Nor could I tell him how he might get to a similar position himself beyond the usual platitudes of hard work.
In the afternoon I returned to the Hands of Love office for another crack at the database. There had been a miscommunication (shocking, I know), so there was no new data for me to input, and Dennis and Ben had a meeting outside the office for the afternoon, so I was left alone with the computer, to try and teach myself more about Access. I think I succeeded in making the database a bit more user-friendly, although I also found myself wishing I had taken some more time before diving in.
I also spent some time in the afternoon reading through a book I had been given by Jill to help me prepare a lesson for Education for Life next Monday. The book is titled This Way, Please: A Book of Manners. It was written by Eleanor Boykin for a US audience in 1948. I am still unsure how to convey wisdom like this “Meet arriving guests at the door, unless there is a maid to do this... Direct girls to a room where they may take off hats and wraps... Your mother will be in the living-room, ready as hostess to welcome the guests who will show their good manners by going to speak to her immediately. Your father will probably be around to make people feel at home too.” Somehow that may not be applicable to orphans who live in 10 x 10 shacks with 6 other people. Although I will remind them to have a big bowl of punch in the center of the room.
After I left Hands of Love, I came home to do some more reading, only to discover my light fixture, previously uncooperative, was now totally broken. I told the maid about it, and she brought the maintenance guy, who then disappeared for a long time, leaving me talk to the maid, who I should add has been one of the friendliest people here.
I am embarrassed to say I don’t know her name, and now I feel like I cannot really ask her. She is young, probably 24 or so, and always has a smile for me. This time, she wanted to know a bit more about me, and we got to talking about why I was here, where I live, am I bored, etc. I told her that reading is keeping me interested, and gave her Devil on the Cross to read for herself.
For her part, she told me she had been to college but had to drop out for financial reasons. She was very negative about her future prospects in Kenya, saying that she had no real hope for a better job, or for any real excitement in her life. She told me she would like to do something that was helping other people, but for now she could only be concerned with helping herself and her family. It was a pretty sad conversation, and I could not really do anything to make her feel better.
It is true that there are very limited opportunities in Kenya, and even if the economy grows and development aid helps, it is unlikely to mean much to her. She said she would like to visit Boston sometime, and I assured her of a warm welcome if she ever makes it, but I am sorry to say I doubt I will need to follow through on my promise.
My next reading project is Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, and it was all I could do to put it down to write this entry, so I suspect another book report will be part of the next blog entry. After that, I am done with all the “topical” literature I brought along, and will start heading back to the Western world in my reading, I reckon.
I hope everyone is having a good September so far, particularly those who are getting back to school, either as students or as teachers. I really miss all of you and look forward to seeing everyone again. Please feel free to send an email to let me know how everything is going, I am currently checking email once a day thanks to a membership at the internet cafe across the street. I may not respond to everyone, but I am interested.
Days 8-10 More Reading, More Thinking, Some Work
Monday was almost a completely wasted day as far as being in Kenya. St. Al’s was on holiday, I am not really sure why (Labor Day is May 1 here), but that was going to be ok, because I was scheduled to spend the day with Ben and Dennis working on the student database project. So I called Dennis around 8 to see where I should meet him, and he replied to say he was out of the office on appointments for the morning, but he would call me before 2 to bring me to the office.
That left me with little choice but to hang around Tumaini until 2, so I spent some time at the internet cafe across the street to read more about the Sox, and I mostly spent time in my room reading (more on that later). Finally around 1:30 Dennis called again to say that he would be out for the afternoon too, helping one of the graduates get her visa to go to the US for college.
Obviously that is the most important thing he could be doing, and I don’t blame him for bailing on me, but by then I had been sitting around all day and it was now too late to do anything useful with the afternoon either. I did resolve to check out the clothing market nearby to see if I could find anything useful to allow me to continue avoiding laundry (there are no laundromats in Kenya), but even that was largely a bust. Odds are I suck it up and pay for some extra boxers and t-shirts pretty soon.
Mostly, though, I read. Which was great, because I finished Jeffrey Sachs’ remarkable, inspiring The End of Poverty. I recognize that I am about three years behind on this one, but hey, I’ve been busy, right? In any case, it is without question the best economics book I have ever read (and I liked Freakonomics), and it gave me hope for the people of Africa just knowing that such a brilliant mind is in their corner.
At the same time, it was profoundly disturbing and depressing to read some of the statistics- not just about how poor the people are in Africa, not just about the devastating impact of diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, not just about the enormous geographic obstacles faced, but also about how poorly the rich world, and in particular the US, has done in helping these countries. I hope everyone gets a chance to read the book and thinks about these issues when they vote, but I would also like to point out a few of the most striking issues:
-As of 2004, the US spent 30 times more on military than on development aid. No other wealthy country comes close to that ratio, with only Greece and Italy even going over 10:1 among the 22 wealthiest nations. The war on terror cannot be fought by tanks and planes alone.
-As of 2004, less than .2 percent of US GNP went to foreign aid. A mere .7 percent of GNP from the 22 richest nations could potentially eradicate extreme poverty around the world within 20 years, and those nations have all signed on to various international agreements pledging that amount, but the follow-through is totally lacking. The other countries are almost as bad as the US, but the US is the largest economy and must take the lead for this to happen.
I haven’t been following the presidential races too closely since I have been gone, but I also don’t recall hearing much about increasing foreign aid from any of the candidate before I left either. Of course that is not surprising- no one has ever won an election based on promising to send more money to places most Americans will never see. But we need only go back a few generations to see what a dramatic impact such aid can have. Europeans should be even more willing to give aid to the developing world. After all, where would they be without the Marshall Plan, when the US gave more than 1 percent of GNP to rebuild Europe from 1948-1952.
Tuesday morning school was back in session, but conditions were not exactly ideal when I arrived. It turns out Kenya Light and Power had discovered that some Kibera residents had been stealing electricity, so they simply shut off the entire grid, including St. Al’s, meaning that the library was completely dark and there was no indication of when power would come back. The classrooms get enough natural light to get by, but I was forced to move down to the lower school and to stay in the teacher’s prep room.
So it was that I spent my morning through lunch, chatting with the teachers who came in between classes, but essentially without any responsibilities or contact with students. I did have more good conversations about the school, particularly with a physics/math teacher named Mr. Safari. I shared with him some of the lessons from my reading, but mostly we talked about why he was at St. Al’s, and how he had come there.
He had previously been a teacher at a public (i.e. funded) school, but chose to come to St. Al’s based on their mission and on his own convictions. His prior situation had offered better pay and much better working conditions, but he believed in the work of St. Al’s and he thought it was important to serve that community. His attitude is shared by most of the teachers there, many of whom could likely find other work, none of whom come from any great privilege.
It is easy to say you want to help people when you are like me and know you are returning to great comfort and more money that I need in two weeks. To actually live it out like the teachers at St. Al’s is impressive, and I only hope that the new school can be built soon to allow them to achieve government certification and ideally some more compensation for the staff.
In the afternoon I walked to the office of Hands of Love, a Catholic outreach organization in Kibera where Dennis and Ben have their office. Dennis was still involved in the visa application, but Ben sat down with me and showed me what they had as far as a student database on the laptop there. What they had was not in fact a database, but a list of questions that could be used to create a database, and a stack of files, one for each student in the graduates program, listing some, but not all, of that information.
I decided then that I would need to teach myself Microsoft Access- it couldn’t really be that hard, and it was the only database program available to us, with no internet capacity to allow me to search for anything else. So I sat down and built a database in Access and started to input the information. Most people who know me, particularly my former colleagues, will have a good laugh at the idea of me 1. creating an organizational structure and 2. spending my day at data entry, but that was what was required, and I was without question the most computer literate person in the room.
Ben’s plan for me is to have me do the same for the 240 current students at St. Al’s over the next few weeks, and while the work may not be the most exciting thing I can think of, it may also be the most useful thing I can do, but only if I can also teach people how to use the database when I have left. I believe that will be my biggest challenge (outside of collecting all the missing data- addresses, parent/guardian names etc. tend to be tough to pin down in this community), but at least it is something I can attempt.
In the evening, I finished another book that I had been working on throughout the day, particularly while sitting around at St. Al’s, a moving piece of fiction by the Kenyan author Ngugi titled Devil on the Cross. The book was evidently very controversial when it came out in the early 80’s, and you can see why. It is a scathing indictment of the colonial powers and of the Kenyan elite who aided them and still control much of the wealth in the country. It was originally written in the tribal Kikuyu language but was translated by the author, who may currently be living in the US (not sure about that now).
The book was recommended by Fr. Charlton before I came, so I had purchased it on Amazon, but I was glad to have waited to read it, as I think I understood its context much better, even after only a few days here. It has a real anti-capitalist bent, so I am sure some people might not enjoy it, but the interweaving of Kenyan history, culture, and religion was definitely worthwhile to me, and I hope I get a chance to find some of his other works.
Wednesday I reported to school again, this time hoping to take part in the teacher’s staff meeting to finally meet everyone and hopefully get into the schedule more formally, but just as the meeting was about to begin, Jill pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to speak with the Form IV class while the meeting took place. Of course I would be willing, but what did she want me to talk about? Careers in Kenya.
Now there are many subjects I consider myself an authority on, and even more that I am willing to talk about at length despite a lack of any real knowledge, but talking broadly to a whole class about their career opportunities without knowing them or knowing their country at all is a bit daunting, so I hesitated. I balked. I hemmed and hawed. I finally said it was a very bad idea. If I had some time and resources to research such things, it might make some sense, but my background as a college admissions officer at a highly selective institution in the US did not give me enough background to do anything of the sort.
Jill seemed disappointed, I am not sure what I had said to suggest I could perform such a role, but she conceded and suggested instead I gather the law club to talk to them about the law. Now that was more my speed, even if I know next to nothing about Kenyan courts. At least there are some broad principles to work with, and the British legal tradition to fall back on.
I did talk to about 40 students interested in the law, and I did a very basic lecture of how a criminal trial works, then turned it over for questions, which were all insightful and appropriate. We talked about the presumption of innocence, we talked about international law, we talked about the death penalty, we talked about the responsibility of the juror, we talked about the right to counsel, we talked about the inequality of justice for the rich and the poor, and we talked about conflicts of interest and other ethical issues.
One student raised the issue of a Kenyan who has recently been in the news for bringing suit against the Roman Empire, Pontius Pilate, Herod, etc. on behalf of Jesus Christ, which almost led me to explain FRCP 12(b)(6), but not quite. It got my brain flowing, and it got them excited too. I envy people who get that feeling from teaching every day, and I hope my brother Titanic is having similar experiences as the school year starts up back home in his first year as a full time teacher of history.
After class one student in particular, a young man named Lawrence, pulled me aside and asked to speak in private. He had even more questions about the law, and what he should be studying, and how to get to become a lawyer. I shared with him my own experience, and suggested that Kenya was likely to have a very different system. I also tried to bring up the negative aspects of the profession, and how many people I knew who claimed to hate their job, but, not surprisingly, I couldn’t really convey how awful it was to make thousands of dollars a year, provide for your family, and be involved in a respected profession. Nor could I tell him how he might get to a similar position himself beyond the usual platitudes of hard work.
In the afternoon I returned to the Hands of Love office for another crack at the database. There had been a miscommunication (shocking, I know), so there was no new data for me to input, and Dennis and Ben had a meeting outside the office for the afternoon, so I was left alone with the computer, to try and teach myself more about Access. I think I succeeded in making the database a bit more user-friendly, although I also found myself wishing I had taken some more time before diving in.
I also spent some time in the afternoon reading through a book I had been given by Jill to help me prepare a lesson for Education for Life next Monday. The book is titled This Way, Please: A Book of Manners. It was written by Eleanor Boykin for a US audience in 1948. I am still unsure how to convey wisdom like this “Meet arriving guests at the door, unless there is a maid to do this... Direct girls to a room where they may take off hats and wraps... Your mother will be in the living-room, ready as hostess to welcome the guests who will show their good manners by going to speak to her immediately. Your father will probably be around to make people feel at home too.” Somehow that may not be applicable to orphans who live in 10 x 10 shacks with 6 other people. Although I will remind them to have a big bowl of punch in the center of the room.
After I left Hands of Love, I came home to do some more reading, only to discover my light fixture, previously uncooperative, was now totally broken. I told the maid about it, and she brought the maintenance guy, who then disappeared for a long time, leaving me talk to the maid, who I should add has been one of the friendliest people here.
I am embarrassed to say I don’t know her name, and now I feel like I cannot really ask her. She is young, probably 24 or so, and always has a smile for me. This time, she wanted to know a bit more about me, and we got to talking about why I was here, where I live, am I bored, etc. I told her that reading is keeping me interested, and gave her Devil on the Cross to read for herself.
For her part, she told me she had been to college but had to drop out for financial reasons. She was very negative about her future prospects in Kenya, saying that she had no real hope for a better job, or for any real excitement in her life. She told me she would like to do something that was helping other people, but for now she could only be concerned with helping herself and her family. It was a pretty sad conversation, and I could not really do anything to make her feel better.
It is true that there are very limited opportunities in Kenya, and even if the economy grows and development aid helps, it is unlikely to mean much to her. She said she would like to visit Boston sometime, and I assured her of a warm welcome if she ever makes it, but I am sorry to say I doubt I will need to follow through on my promise.
My next reading project is Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, and it was all I could do to put it down to write this entry, so I suspect another book report will be part of the next blog entry. After that, I am done with all the “topical” literature I brought along, and will start heading back to the Western world in my reading, I reckon.
I hope everyone is having a good September so far, particularly those who are getting back to school, either as students or as teachers. I really miss all of you and look forward to seeing everyone again. Please feel free to send an email to let me know how everything is going, I am currently checking email once a day thanks to a membership at the internet cafe across the street. I may not respond to everyone, but I am interested.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Feats of Clay
Ok, so I am sure I am not the first one to write that headline, but I haven't see it anywhere in Nairobi. If anyone can DVR the inevitable NESN replay and save it for my return, I would love to see the game. And I was sure I wouldn't miss any baseball that I actually wanted to see while I was gone. In any event, congrats to young Mr. Buchholz. Here's my weekend:
Day 6 & 7- So This is Nairobi
Saturday I finally made it into the city center and saw downtown Nairobi in its full commercial flower. I tried to go in via bus, but the buses that came were typically quite full, so I was forced to take the matatu, which was not so terrible except that it left me off in a different place than I expected. Ultimately it was no matter, I was able to figure out where I was without much difficulty, and made it to my first destination rather easily, despite the swarming crowds.
Where I was headed was the office of Let’s Go travel, a travel agency with a good reputation for booking budget safari packages. From my reading, I had decided that I wanted to go to Masai Mara if at all possible- a large game reserve in southwestern Kenya, on the border with Tanzania and at the end of the Serengetti plains, home to the massive wildebeest migration everyone has seen on the Discovery Channel.
As luck would have it, the migration takes place from July-October, so I am here at a very good time for it. I had decided that I would like to spend my last 5-6 days here seeing the rest of the country, so I went in with those broad guidelines and a price in mind, and asked for the best available package.
The agent right away suggested a group camping trip that will take me first to 3 of the lakes of the Great Rift Valley- Baringo, Bogoria, and Nakuru, and then on to Masai Mara. Along the way I will see spectacular bird life at the lakes, as well as hot springs (geysers), hip-hopopotamuses, and crocodiles, and then at Masai Mara I should have a good view of elephants, buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, lions, and wildebeest, as well as possible views of cheetahs, leopards, and the endangered black rhymenocerous. The whole package is quite affordable and gets me back in time to make my flight on the 21st, so now I have that to look forward to as well.
Next stop was to find accomodations for the night before and the night after the trip. The Tumaini Centre is a bit too far away from where the trip leaves, and I also need a place with secure luggage storage to leave my excess baggage while I am away. I found a room at a decent hotel right in city center that is also reasonably priced, albeit 4 times more expensive than my current accomodations. So I will be at the Hotel 680 for the 14th and the 20th if anyone needs to get in touch.
After that it was still only noon, and I wanted to see what else Nairobi offers. The answer is that Nairobi offers pretty much everything for sale, but not much else to see. I walked all over the city, past the big tourist hotels and the cafes and bars. I walked through some outdoor markets. I walked out of the city center and up to the still closed Kenyan National Museum (“due to re-open in June 2007!”). I walked down Biashara Street to check out the African fabric shops. And by 2 pm I didn’t have much else I wanted to see and I was not yet ready to buy, so I went for the bus home, which took forever to arrive. But eventually I made it back to Tumaini and spent the rest of the afternoon reading.
I ate dinner with the residents again, and had yet another opportunity to explain American culture, history, and geography to the younger set. Everywhere I have travelled in Europe I have always felt like the people knew as much about the US as the average high school graduate, if not more, but Kenya has been an awakening in that regard. Even though their movies are our movies and their TV is also largely US exports, there is a huge gap in practical knowledge.
They wanted to know how many black people there are in the US, and then how they got there, and then what tribes they came from, which leads to a delicate conversation and an unbelievable amount of white guilt on my part. They wanted to know what other languages are spoken in the US. They wanted to know if we had any myths in the US. For many people, there is confusion about the difference between the USA and the continent of North America, or even the the entire American land mass.
Although they have heard of Boston from the marathon and Washington, DC from the news, they don’t have any sense for where they are geographically. I don’t really blame them, I know American knowledge of Africa is much worse, but I am somewhat surprised anyway. Somehow you figure when everyone speaks English, they also know about the USA.
After dinner I went back to my dorm and uncovered the TV to watch a Sunderland- Manchester United football match, featuring the return of Man U hero and Irish legend Roy Keane to Old Trafford, now as manager of Sunderland. Keano’s lads took it on the chin, with a 1-0 score line flattering them, but it was nice to have a chance to watch a little sport on tv, even with a very fuzzy picture.
I think next Saturday I will try to make it out somewhere that the expats hang out, likely the suburb of Karen (former home of Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa) to have an afternoon of Rugby World Cup action. New Zealand play Italy, Australia play Japan, and England play the US. None of those figure to be close matches, but at least I can have a few Tuskers.
Sunday I went to mass, once again offered with readings and homily in English (this time with a Spanish or Latino priest) and hymns in Swahili. After that I walked to the Sunday Masai crafts market next to the Ya Ya Shopping center, where I learned a few things about bargaining, the most important being that I am a sucker who is incapable of walking away from a negotiation. Even so, I picked up a few nice things, and now I have to figure out how to get everything home.
Later in the afternoon I had planned to go the Ngong Hills Hotel bar for their Sunday afternoon jam session, but found nothing going on when I arrived around 3. So I walked back toward Tumaini and instead stopped at the underwhelming Sherlock’s Pub in the Prestige Place Shopping Centre, intent on finally sampling Tusker. I was suitably impressed by the product, which is a bit sweeter than American lagers, due to the presence of corn I imagine. I could certainly get by on such a beverage for a while.
I was also pleased to discover I was just in time for the start of Arsenal-Portsmouth, a match that drew a large crowd of Kenyan Arsenal supporters. Personally, Arsenal is the one side I always root against in the Premiership, probably because they were roommate’s favorite club when I was in Ireland, and I just wanted to root against him. Dennis Bergkamp’s later domination of me in FIFA Soccer on Nintendo did not help me gain an appreciation for the Gunners. Even so, Arsenal were out to a commanding 3-1 lead by the time I had to leave for dinner, and the Tuskers had gone down quite smoothly indeed.
For the evening, I had been invited to dine with Fr. Terry at the Jesuit community in Karen. He picked me up and we also stopped to collect a Jesuit from Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington doing a sabbatical at Hekima College in Nairobi, and we drove the few kilometers out to Karen, where you would have no idea you were actually still in Nairobi.
There are about 12 Jesuits who live at the community in Karen, including Terry, who is the head guy- I forget the proper nomenclature. They live on a sprawling estate that was once part of Karen Blixen’s coffee plantation, and they run a retreat center there, with lovely views of the Ngong Hills in the distance, peaceful gardens for quiet contemplation, and modern conveniences throughout. It is a far cry from the atmosphere at Tumaini.
In the course of the evening I was asked by almost everyone if I was a Jesuit too, and everyone was interesting to talk to. I managed to have good conversations with Jesuits from Oregon, Wisconsin, Ireland, and Germany. Of course all of them were at least 30 years my senior. And of course the Jesuits do not have the same alcohol restrictions as the sisters, so I was pleased to be able to have a glass of Scotch before dinner, and enjoyed the time with two groups I have not spent much time with since my arrival- men and Europeans.
Terry drove us back after dinner, and even though it was only a short ride, it is pretty scary to be driving after dark in Nairobi. Even on a major thoroughfare, there are no street lights, lots of bumps and potholes, and even a road block that let us go very quickly once they saw the occupants of the car. Terry said they rarely hassle white drivers, I am not sure why.
So it is that I come to the end of week one in Kenya. It has been eye-opening and it has been something of a struggle, but it has also been a very rewarding experience. I knew coming in that I was not coming here for a party, but it has been a bit more austere than even I had anticipated.
My lowest moments come when I feel alone, and there are many of those moments here, but it is also easy to get past those times when I think of the fact that I have been so blessed in my life and that I have only a short time to be here and experience everything. I am constantly confronted by my own prejudices and forced to reconcile them with what I see around me. I am sure I can never become comfortable here in the 4 weeks I am in Kenya, and I really don’t even know how long it would take me, but I am grateful for the opportunity to test my character, despite how often I fail.
Already, I have met brilliant, passionate people and seen images that will stick with me forever. I am more thankful than ever for all that I have been given, and yet I have great hope for the young people I have met here. It is true that they have struggled and will continue to struggle, but there is community and energy and spirit and a real life for them here, and with continued hard work on their part and the necessary help from the rest of us, they will make it, and the next generation will improve on their successes.
Day 6 & 7- So This is Nairobi
Saturday I finally made it into the city center and saw downtown Nairobi in its full commercial flower. I tried to go in via bus, but the buses that came were typically quite full, so I was forced to take the matatu, which was not so terrible except that it left me off in a different place than I expected. Ultimately it was no matter, I was able to figure out where I was without much difficulty, and made it to my first destination rather easily, despite the swarming crowds.
Where I was headed was the office of Let’s Go travel, a travel agency with a good reputation for booking budget safari packages. From my reading, I had decided that I wanted to go to Masai Mara if at all possible- a large game reserve in southwestern Kenya, on the border with Tanzania and at the end of the Serengetti plains, home to the massive wildebeest migration everyone has seen on the Discovery Channel.
As luck would have it, the migration takes place from July-October, so I am here at a very good time for it. I had decided that I would like to spend my last 5-6 days here seeing the rest of the country, so I went in with those broad guidelines and a price in mind, and asked for the best available package.
The agent right away suggested a group camping trip that will take me first to 3 of the lakes of the Great Rift Valley- Baringo, Bogoria, and Nakuru, and then on to Masai Mara. Along the way I will see spectacular bird life at the lakes, as well as hot springs (geysers), hip-hopopotamuses, and crocodiles, and then at Masai Mara I should have a good view of elephants, buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, lions, and wildebeest, as well as possible views of cheetahs, leopards, and the endangered black rhymenocerous. The whole package is quite affordable and gets me back in time to make my flight on the 21st, so now I have that to look forward to as well.
Next stop was to find accomodations for the night before and the night after the trip. The Tumaini Centre is a bit too far away from where the trip leaves, and I also need a place with secure luggage storage to leave my excess baggage while I am away. I found a room at a decent hotel right in city center that is also reasonably priced, albeit 4 times more expensive than my current accomodations. So I will be at the Hotel 680 for the 14th and the 20th if anyone needs to get in touch.
After that it was still only noon, and I wanted to see what else Nairobi offers. The answer is that Nairobi offers pretty much everything for sale, but not much else to see. I walked all over the city, past the big tourist hotels and the cafes and bars. I walked through some outdoor markets. I walked out of the city center and up to the still closed Kenyan National Museum (“due to re-open in June 2007!”). I walked down Biashara Street to check out the African fabric shops. And by 2 pm I didn’t have much else I wanted to see and I was not yet ready to buy, so I went for the bus home, which took forever to arrive. But eventually I made it back to Tumaini and spent the rest of the afternoon reading.
I ate dinner with the residents again, and had yet another opportunity to explain American culture, history, and geography to the younger set. Everywhere I have travelled in Europe I have always felt like the people knew as much about the US as the average high school graduate, if not more, but Kenya has been an awakening in that regard. Even though their movies are our movies and their TV is also largely US exports, there is a huge gap in practical knowledge.
They wanted to know how many black people there are in the US, and then how they got there, and then what tribes they came from, which leads to a delicate conversation and an unbelievable amount of white guilt on my part. They wanted to know what other languages are spoken in the US. They wanted to know if we had any myths in the US. For many people, there is confusion about the difference between the USA and the continent of North America, or even the the entire American land mass.
Although they have heard of Boston from the marathon and Washington, DC from the news, they don’t have any sense for where they are geographically. I don’t really blame them, I know American knowledge of Africa is much worse, but I am somewhat surprised anyway. Somehow you figure when everyone speaks English, they also know about the USA.
After dinner I went back to my dorm and uncovered the TV to watch a Sunderland- Manchester United football match, featuring the return of Man U hero and Irish legend Roy Keane to Old Trafford, now as manager of Sunderland. Keano’s lads took it on the chin, with a 1-0 score line flattering them, but it was nice to have a chance to watch a little sport on tv, even with a very fuzzy picture.
I think next Saturday I will try to make it out somewhere that the expats hang out, likely the suburb of Karen (former home of Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa) to have an afternoon of Rugby World Cup action. New Zealand play Italy, Australia play Japan, and England play the US. None of those figure to be close matches, but at least I can have a few Tuskers.
Sunday I went to mass, once again offered with readings and homily in English (this time with a Spanish or Latino priest) and hymns in Swahili. After that I walked to the Sunday Masai crafts market next to the Ya Ya Shopping center, where I learned a few things about bargaining, the most important being that I am a sucker who is incapable of walking away from a negotiation. Even so, I picked up a few nice things, and now I have to figure out how to get everything home.
Later in the afternoon I had planned to go the Ngong Hills Hotel bar for their Sunday afternoon jam session, but found nothing going on when I arrived around 3. So I walked back toward Tumaini and instead stopped at the underwhelming Sherlock’s Pub in the Prestige Place Shopping Centre, intent on finally sampling Tusker. I was suitably impressed by the product, which is a bit sweeter than American lagers, due to the presence of corn I imagine. I could certainly get by on such a beverage for a while.
I was also pleased to discover I was just in time for the start of Arsenal-Portsmouth, a match that drew a large crowd of Kenyan Arsenal supporters. Personally, Arsenal is the one side I always root against in the Premiership, probably because they were roommate’s favorite club when I was in Ireland, and I just wanted to root against him. Dennis Bergkamp’s later domination of me in FIFA Soccer on Nintendo did not help me gain an appreciation for the Gunners. Even so, Arsenal were out to a commanding 3-1 lead by the time I had to leave for dinner, and the Tuskers had gone down quite smoothly indeed.
For the evening, I had been invited to dine with Fr. Terry at the Jesuit community in Karen. He picked me up and we also stopped to collect a Jesuit from Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington doing a sabbatical at Hekima College in Nairobi, and we drove the few kilometers out to Karen, where you would have no idea you were actually still in Nairobi.
There are about 12 Jesuits who live at the community in Karen, including Terry, who is the head guy- I forget the proper nomenclature. They live on a sprawling estate that was once part of Karen Blixen’s coffee plantation, and they run a retreat center there, with lovely views of the Ngong Hills in the distance, peaceful gardens for quiet contemplation, and modern conveniences throughout. It is a far cry from the atmosphere at Tumaini.
In the course of the evening I was asked by almost everyone if I was a Jesuit too, and everyone was interesting to talk to. I managed to have good conversations with Jesuits from Oregon, Wisconsin, Ireland, and Germany. Of course all of them were at least 30 years my senior. And of course the Jesuits do not have the same alcohol restrictions as the sisters, so I was pleased to be able to have a glass of Scotch before dinner, and enjoyed the time with two groups I have not spent much time with since my arrival- men and Europeans.
Terry drove us back after dinner, and even though it was only a short ride, it is pretty scary to be driving after dark in Nairobi. Even on a major thoroughfare, there are no street lights, lots of bumps and potholes, and even a road block that let us go very quickly once they saw the occupants of the car. Terry said they rarely hassle white drivers, I am not sure why.
So it is that I come to the end of week one in Kenya. It has been eye-opening and it has been something of a struggle, but it has also been a very rewarding experience. I knew coming in that I was not coming here for a party, but it has been a bit more austere than even I had anticipated.
My lowest moments come when I feel alone, and there are many of those moments here, but it is also easy to get past those times when I think of the fact that I have been so blessed in my life and that I have only a short time to be here and experience everything. I am constantly confronted by my own prejudices and forced to reconcile them with what I see around me. I am sure I can never become comfortable here in the 4 weeks I am in Kenya, and I really don’t even know how long it would take me, but I am grateful for the opportunity to test my character, despite how often I fail.
Already, I have met brilliant, passionate people and seen images that will stick with me forever. I am more thankful than ever for all that I have been given, and yet I have great hope for the young people I have met here. It is true that they have struggled and will continue to struggle, but there is community and energy and spirit and a real life for them here, and with continued hard work on their part and the necessary help from the rest of us, they will make it, and the next generation will improve on their successes.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Back to Back Posts!
Nairobi, Kenya
Tried to post some pictures too, but the connection is too slow.
Tried to post some pictures too, but the connection is too slow.
Day 5- The Roller Coaster Continues
So when last I left you, I was a bit down on things, but once again my mood has picked up. It actually started at dinner last night when I was once again one of the last arrivals, and thus forced to sit with the head sister and the only other male guest. The meal was much more to my liking- a beef stew, white rice, and oranges, so already it was an improvement.
The conversation also picked up a bit, with Francis, a Kenyan from the western part of the country, talking with the sister about his work in community development and in particular working on empowering young people through communication. These are typical buzz words in US educational circles, but they don’t seem to be very prevalent ideas in
The sister was also drawn into our conversation, and it was Francis who asked her what congregation she belonged to, a question I had been meaning to ask myself (at the suggestion of my Godmother, a Sister of Mercy herself). It turns out she is a Mary Magdalene sister, but the others in the house are of various congregations. She definitely seemed to warm up to me, and for once I actually stayed at the table for longer than it took me to shovel down my food.
At the end of the meal, the younger woman I met two nights before, she of the mischievous smile and the incisive questions, asked if we would like to watch a DVD after dinner. I was willing, but a bit hesitant when I found it was Hotel Rwanda, a powerful film but not necessarily something I needed to see twice. It turned out I was the only one who had seen it, so I agreed to watch and helped explain what was going on when the others got a bit lost. It was tough to watch again, but worthwhile to see, especially as it seemed like the Kenyans were largely unaware of the events.
This morning I reported to school, walking all the way on my own for the first time, and with no wrong turns. Jill told me that Ben would be coming by to take me to meet with the graduates who were meeting for their weekly reflection after their week of community service, and Ben showed up shortly after 9.
We walked out of Kibera and up a hill on the south side, and almost immediately it felt like we were out in the country, except perhaps for the ubiquitous barbed wire fences (although those may be present in the country too, for all I know). We walked to the
There was some mix-up on the meeting time, so we ended up waiting maybe 45 minutes before anyone else showed up, which seemed to make Ben nervous, like he was disappointing me, but I didn’t mind just sitting down, reading the paper, and taking in the surroundings. It was surprisingly cold, but I didn’t mind the fact I could see my breath (unlike Ben, who had not brought a jacket). Eventually Dennis, who is the leader of the post-graduate program, and Humphrey showed up, and we sat down to have a conversation while the kids arrived.
Our conversation was quite productive, as I explained to Dennis my background and tried to downplay my experience, which is consistently being exaggerated, as a counselor. Even if I had spent the last 7 years as a guidance counselor rather than an admissions officer, I doubt I would have enough knowledge of the Kenyan system and the lives of these students to serve effectively as a career/college counselor in the next two weeks. But I also want to be useful in some way.
So we discussed having me help to build a database of all 240 students at St. Al’s to be used in counseling them. Dennis said he has already begun to put together some aspects of a database, and I offered to take a look at what they have and also to solicit advice from my friends and colleagues in the states as to what they use and to see what we may be able to get pro bono. So if you are reading this and have any advice, don’t hesitate to email me. In any case, I appears I will be spending a few days over the next few weeks in their office to work on this project.
After our meeting, Humphrey left and we met with the remaining post-graduates. I say remaining, because of the orginal group of 20 graduates, one dropped out and around 10 have already started some kind of college program, leaving 8 to come to the meeting. Of those 8, still 5 more will be starting college within the next few weeks, including one girl heading to a branch campus of the
The group gets together every Friday for reflection and to share their issues with Dennis and Ben. During the week they are each assigned to various organizations in
The service projects are typically working with younger children, and the group seemed to enjoy their work. They also receive a small stipend to pay for their lunch. However, at this point their focus was squarely on college, and perhaps even moreso for the three students who still have not secured a place. Like almost every Kenyan I have met thus far, the group spoke very softly and was quite shy, but I did manage to have good conversations with a few of them during our tea break. I fear the girl headed for
I now have the weekend off and I am hoping to see some of
I will try for some first week reflections soon.
Kesho. (Until tomorrow, or whenever).
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Brain Download
Nairobi, Kenya- Internet Cafe
OK- Finally got around to getting everything onto disk and then onto the blog. This is really long, pretty much unedited, and yet still only about half of what is going through my head. Scary, I know. Tough start for Sox-Yanks, I hear, but that is why they play full seasons.
Day 1- Arrival at Tumaini
The exchange at Heathrow was a bit tight, but I made my flight on time and the 8 hours from London to Nairobi was not as bad as I had feared when I first got to my seat and was surrounded by screaming babies and angry parents. I slept for a good part of the flight and would have slept more if not for the man next to me deciding that 8 rum and cokes was a good idea, thus necessitating at least 8 trips to the toilet.
At Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the visa process was extremely easy- fill out a form, show my passport, hand over $50, and on my way to baggage reclaim. My bags also showed up quickly, and after a brief search I found my driver holding my name card. I had expected to be assailed by people trying to offer me a ride into town, but the entry hall, though crowded, was pretty subdued, perhaps because it was 6 am. The first ATM I tried failed, but otherwise I was happy to be on my way.
The ride from the airport was less reassuring. My driver was polite and rarely spoke to me, except to tell me how fortunate we were not to encounter much traffic. We rode along as the sun came up, past streams of Kenyan men walking in the other direction, where to I had no idea. We pulled off the main road and went through a few neighborhoods, and it seemed like the whole world was up walking to work, but I never figured out where work was. After a series of twists and turns leaving me totally turned around, we pulled up to a closed gate with a mural on it, indicating the Association of Sisterhood Kenya Tumaini Centre. The guard opened the gate and closed it behind the car, and both the driver and I signed in. After removing my bags and collecting his fare, the driver wished me well and drove off.
I had apparently miscalculated about the whole world being up for work, as there was no immediate sign of life inside Tumaini and little help offered by the guard. At least until I heard thin singing coming from behind a door marked chapel. A maid came along and told me to have a seat in the hallway, and eventually the service ended and several Kenyan sisters came out, along with a large group of primarily women who appeared to be Chinese. Most of them ignored me, until the last sister emerged, a squat woman who appeared to be in charge, so I asked her if I could check in with her.
She greeted me with a blank stare, so I tried to rephrase the question, adding more information about who I was, explaining that Fr. Charlton had arranged for me to stay there. None of it seemed to register with her, but she did break out the register and set about finding a room for me, and after a few more negotiations with the maid, she found me a place to sleep. She asked how long I was staying, and at that point I was almost going to tell her “not long, I hope” but I gave her my departure date, although I did not pay anything up front either.
She and the maid showed me to my quarters in what appeared to be an empty wing of the complex, and the room looked pleasant enough, with a bed, a desk, a set of drawers, and a shower and toilet complex at the end of the hall. All of that was as good as could be expected. More disappointing was signs indicating that all residents were required to be in by 9 pm every night, no exceptions, for safety reasons.
I found the breakfast room and found two tables occupied by what I later discovered was a missionary group from Hong Kong and two other tables occupied by sisters, none of whom even acknowledged my presence. There was also a table occupied by a lone white girl, so I went to sit with her and found out she was a German nursing student on a budget holiday, and she was leaving for home in two days. She was at least reasonably welcoming, but no great help in finding out where I was or what I was doing.
I asked over at the Hong Kong table if any of them knew a woman who worked at St. Aloysius and it was then that I met Stephanie, an enthusiastic, tiny Chinese woman who told me she was bringing a group to St. Al’s around 9:30, and asked if I would like to come. Unsure of what else to do or how I would get out of the room otherwise, I initially agreed, but upon returning to my room I felt very sleepy and, I will admit, pretty scared, and thought maybe my first impression at St. Al’s would not be very good right then, so I told Stephanie I would rest and unpack for the day, then join her tomorrow.
Unpacking was not too complicated, so resting is most of what I did. The bed felt comfortable and safe, while the rest of the world felt very foreign and not particularly safe or welcoming. It was undoubtedly paranoia more than anything, but it did not prevent me from sleeping a lot. Maybe the lack of sleep I had enforced on myself in Ireland was catching up with me too. Regardless, I slept for large parts of the day, skipping any sort of lunch, ate dinner quietly (a decent beef stew with elbow macaroni, salad, and fruit), and returned to bed to sleep again. My room is close to a major thoroughfare (Ngong Road), so automobile noises are a constant, but they did not prevent me from sleeping quite soundly.
Day 2- First encounter with Kibera
I woke up Tuesday morning and made a conscious effort to bring a new attitude to the day. The sun was out, so right away Nairobi seemed somewhat nicer compared to the grey day I had seen when I first arrived. I got the shower to produce hot water, so I was off to another good start. I ate breakfast again with my German friend Jana and agreed to meet Stephanie to walk to St. Al’s at 9:15 with a group of her friends from Hong Kong.
That left me a few minutes to return to my room, where I was reading when a knock came and I was told I had visitors. The visitors turned out to be Kiambi, the headmaster at St. Al’s, and Humphrey, my primary contact and the development coordinator for CLC Kenya. Their presence was unexpected, but nice, as it indicated once again that someone knew I was coming. They offered to walk me over right away, but I did not want to confuse Stephanie, so I told them I would join them shortly.
The road to Kibera involves a few turns, but it is essentially due south from Tumaini, and only about a 15 minute walk. The road first passes a fairly ordinary strip mall, then an outdoor market with dozens of stalls each selling seemingly random items, then passes through another street lined with stalls, before crossing a railroad track and descending into seemingly endless acres of tightly packed tin roof shacks, the largest sub-Saharan slum in Africa, home to nearly 1 million souls, Kibera.
I had attempted to prepare myself for the smell there, knowing that I have a bit of a weak stomach, and as a result, the strong odors did not surprise me, but they certainly had their effect on the group from Hong Kong, most of whom were covering their mouths and noses with cloths. I did not breathe it in too deeply, and I was perhaps glad to be somewhat congested, but it did not knock me out. A strong cocktail of body odor and sewage, leavened with smoke. It must be much worse in warmer weather, but it was nothing I could not tolerate.
Our group skirted around the edge of the slum and made our way to the southwest corner, along a road that circles Kibera. As we walked along, every child we encountered sang out “How are you?” to the obvious outsiders. We made our way past a large heap of garbage that had attracted a small group of goats, jumped over a small stream that appeared to be an open sewer, crossed a foot bridge where we were greeted with a hug and a “Jambo” from a rail thin grade schooler, and we were at Kiambi’s office, in a space St. Al’s shares with St. Cecilia’s primary school. The Hong Kong group dropped off their lunches in the office and went off on their way, leaving me to talk with Kiambi and Humphrey.
We sat in a small, cluttered office with concrete floors and wooden chairs. There was light coming in through the roof and there appeared to be some electricity in the building as well. I was asked to sign a visitors log, and then we got down to business. Humphrey started out by saying something about how we had left it open as to what I would be doing at St. Al’s, then essentially asked me what I wanted to do.
While that was not the opening I had hoped for, it was essentially what I expected, and it made me happy I had taken an extra day to prepare for the meeting. I began by explaining more about my background, about what I had studied in college, about an interest in education and working with young people, about my previous job, and about my impending career as a lawyer. I said I was open to all possibilities and that I hoped to help the students and the school in any way I could, and that I also wanted to get to know the people and place so that I could explain it better to people back home who might want to help in the future.
At that, the conversation picked up, and both Humphrey and Kiambi had several ideas of how I could be utilized. They first mentioned a program they conduct called Education for Life, on Monday afternoons, which deals with topics that might not be encountered in the classroom but which are important to learn. Subjects range from AIDS and drug education to personal grooming to proper conversational and interview skills. I offered that I would be happy to help, though I would not know where to begin, and they assured me I could be helpful there.
Next they seized on my college admissions background and suggested I could work with their students in helping to organize the college application process and career counseling work. The first class graduated from St. Al’s last year and is currently involved in what is called a bridging program, where the students perform community service during the week and get together on Friday’s for reflection while they wait to be admitted to college, which runs on a different term and which is not an option for many students due to costs and limited space. From the sounds of things, there is much work to be done with the graduating students, and I am going to be asked to play a role there.
Regarding my law studies, they also mentioned the law club, which meets in the afternoons as well. They apparently had a Kenyan lawyer mentor, but he has since left, and they asked me if I would be willing to meet with the students and discuss law with them. After making sure they knew the differences in American law and Kenyan law, I agreed it would be a fine idea, and they mentioned the club’s broader goal of social justice, which is very appealing to me.
Kiambi asked me if I had any interest in sports, and I told him I was very interested, leading him to smile broadly and immediately sign me up for sports duty. I did remind him that all of the kids could likely run circles around me, but that did not phase him. Thursday afternoons are sports, and I will be involved somehow.
Finally, it was suggested that I could potentially help out in English classes, and that I could otherwise be made available to provide additional one on one tutoring support for students who were struggling in a particular subject. With that, I suddenly had quite a bit on my plate, so long as everyone follows through and I work to get involved.
Our meeting lasted maybe 45 minutes, and then I was taken on a tour of the school. There is one classroom, for the 4th form (seniors) near Kiambi’s office. I later discovered all the classrooms are basically the same, with as many desks as possible packed in, a blackboard at the front, and a combination of natural light and a few exposed lightbulbs to brighten the room. There was a “lab” next door- I believe it was Humphrey who used the quotation marks, and for once I had found a high school with worse science facilities than Reiss. Not surprising, of course, but not nearly enough room to allow students to conduct their own experiments.
From there, Kiambi and Humphrey took me up the hill to the upper school, where most of the students reside. We made our way through a series of tiny alleys, all full with children who were apparently not in school, many of them likely too young, but also many of them not given the opportunity- St. Al’s could easily find 5 times more students who would like the opportunity above the 200 or so already enrolled. The walk up the hill was somewhat treacherous, scrambling over rocks and jumping over open sewers, and it was very confusing, but we made it to the upper building unscathed, and it was there I was introduced to Jill, the vice headmistress, who keeps her office there.
Her office was very dark indeed, as the electricity had gone out, and there was not much natural light to work with. She was very welcoming, and we discussed again some of the plans we had made in Kiambi’s office. We also went into more personal discussions, with me asked what I know about Kenya (embarrassingly little), some elementary Swahili to not sound like a total tourist, and then a discussion of US politics. Apparently Barack Obama has some strong support in Africa. They all were lovely to talk to, and seemed happy to have my help.
We then toured the upper school, stopping in to most of the six classrooms to introduce me to the students. A few of them had some questions for me, but they seemed a bit reticent to say much in front of their peers, a familiar phenomenon at high schools world wide. When we finished our tour, I was surprised to discover it was barely past noon, given how much I had seen and how much I had learned. Humphrey was heading back to the CLC office, and offered to take me along and allow me internet access so that I could let my poor mother know I was alive.
We took a bus along Kibera’s main drag, full of people selling all kinds of things, and not crafts, but seemingly random items that could have little use to anyone else in the area. There is clearly a story to where the goods come from, but I haven’t asked yet. The bus brought us back to Ngong Rd, and then we hopped into a matatu, the signature form of transportation in Kenya from what I can tell. Matatu’s are small vans, packed with people, driven along terrible streets but with regular routes.
Our matatu was headed west, away from Nairobi City Centre and toward the Shalom House, where CLC is located. I got online there, then Humphrey took me to a nearby shopping center to find a working ATM, and finally put me on a bus back to Tumaini. I got back around 2, went to the grocery store for some water and a snack, and retired to my room to read and nap until dinner.
Dinner was once again edible, to my delight, this time it was spaghetti with seasoned ground beef and an orange for desert. So I may not eat particularly well, but I won’t starve. I was joined at my table this time by three younger Kenyan women, probably in their late teens/early 20’s. I am not sure their story, they appear to be in training for the sisterhood, but one asked incisive questions about my chosen profession of the law, particularly curious about how one could defend a guilty man. I am not sure I gave her the best answer, but I know I have an idea for the next meeting of the St. Al’s law club. She also taught me more Swahili, which I have promptly forgotten.
I retired to my room and finished “How Soccer Explains the World” by Franklin Foer, then was asleep by 10. Kenya apparently makes me sleepy. The book is recommended if you enjoy a bit of soccer thrown in with your lessons in globalization. It was a very quick read for me.
Day 3- The Feast of St. John the Baptist
I went to Kibera with the Hong Kong delegation again today, this time all of us in a matatu, and arriving a little after 10. Tomorrow I think I will have confidence enough to walk myself. There is nothing dangerous about the route, I was just unsure of my bearings. When I arrived, I was shown to what will be my office, the counselors office that was recently vacated. They will be hiring a replacement, but for now, the space is open to me. Of course the lights weren’t working, so I moved to the library to set up. I was not given a specific assignment, rather I was just allowed to sit there and have people come to me.
My first visitor was a 3rd former named Jared, and we had a very fun conversation. He is the library prefect, so we had a brief discussion about the library, then we moved on to learning about each other. He was full of questions about the US. Probably the funniest was wanting to know if there were really robots like the Terminator. But he also wanted me to explain what was meant by a “cold” war, why the US was a superpower, whether there was an official relationship between US, Mexico, and Canada, and what the weather was like in Boston. He seemed very bright, but I also realized how far away from home I was and how young he seemed in comparison to similar aged students in the States.
Throughout the day I also had other students stop in for briefer meetings, and we discussed their favorite subjects and their career ambitions. To their credit, these students aim high, with responses typically being surgeon, lawyer, and journalist. They are proud of where they go to school and they seem to want the best from their lives.
Of course that enthusiasm was tempered by a conversation with my other visitor for the day, Ben Osaha, who works for CLC and St. Al’s in the bridging program. He was excited to meet me and to discuss the many issues confronting the students, and the reality check was quite sobering. We sat in a library with 2001 World Book encyclopedia and a few other random volumes, and of course no internet access (or even any computer). He told me that despite all best efforts, the highest mark on the KGSE from last year’s graduates was a B, which is not enough to get a place in the free public universities, and as a result 9 students had places at (expensive) private colleges and the rest had nothing.
He told me about how students had high aims, but they were simply not realistic for most of them, even with aid money coming in through CLC. He was upset that none of the graduates was interested in teaching, and that all seemed to view trades as beneath them. He longed for some students to take an interest in carpentry or welding, and he lamented the loss of jobs in the market with the information economy. We both agreed that giving students access to computers and the web would help show them other opportunities, and that a change of attitude was needed to convince them to view skilled labor as a step in the right direction.
Ben was clearly making a sales pitch to me, and it worked. He is a bright guy, a sociologist by training, and he was not afraid to say more help is needed. He is also likely to continue to show me concrete ways that money can help. His goal is entirely appropriate- he wants to create students who can be self-sufficient, not merely provide maintenance. To put it another way, he wants to teach these kids to fish.
The business climate in Kenya makes this goal especially difficult, with no tradition of corporate philanthropy, and a desire for immediate results from the recent movement of social responsibility in business. Investing in school age kids does not bear the same type of immediate fruit as investing in environmental projects, or sponsoring football academies. And even asking for help is a challenge inside Kenya, as the school is not officially certified by the government and would likely risk closure if it were inspected by education authorities, absurd as it would be.
All of that is where a new school building could go a long way toward improving the situation. According to Terry, they have now raised enough money for the project, thanks to generous grants from the US government, and they have the land, but permitting issues are holding things up. Even so, the hope is to have a new building some time in 2008, and that would be a tremendous step in the right direction.
Later in the day, I got to see the whole school community together at a special mass for the Feast of St. John the Baptist. It is unusual to celebrate a beheading, but I think they just needed a reason to have a midweek mass while the Hong Kong contingent was still there, and I know it had a great effect on them.
The readings were in English, but most of the songs were in Swahili, and I must say they do it right. The school choir was lively and entertaining, and everyone in the school joined in on most verses. Terry’s homily was brief, but it struck a note with me, simply asking how far each of us would go to stand up for our beliefs, whether we could follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist. I don’t think I am strong enough to lay down my life for an idea, but I think this trip is making me stronger.
Day 4- In which I feel useless
First I should mention dinner last night. Once again I took a nap in the afternoon before dinner, something I never do at home. Just to assuage any fears, I don’t feel sick in any way, just that I have nothing other to do besides read and write after I leave school, and I somehow get sleepy. Going out an exploring the city without someone with me and with only a few hours before dark is just not appealing to me.
In any event, I went to the dining room and was the last to arrive, and walking in there was a particularly pungent smell that made me say “uh-oh.” Anyone who knows my eating habits knows I am not a big fish eater, although I have recently become more willing to try things. In this case, however, what was on offer was a big ugly fish, staring up at me from the plate. I took some white rice, ate a banana, and dealt with everyone in the room asking what was wrong with me. My inquisitor from the night before seemed to be making fun of me, or at least getting a good laugh, so I made a quick exit back to my monastic room.
This morning I walked over to St. Al’s with Stephanie, taking a short cut through the slum to the upper school, getting me to the library by 8:30 or so. The lights in my office were not working once again, but it’s just as well, as the library is more interesting, especially when you have nothing else to do. I brought a book, so mostly I read the book, but today I did not really speak to Kiambi or Jill except in a passing hello, had a few brief conversations with teachers and students between classes, and otherwise wondered what I should be doing.
Having mostly time to myself, I set about looking around the library to see just what they had. By my count, aside from a few shelves of textbooks and 4 sets of old encyclopedias, there are around 150 books in the library, and almost none of them have much use to the students of St. Al’s. The history shelf has mostly US history, with only one slender volume on Kenyan history that I could find. The literature section runs from Maeve Binchy to James Faulkner, but with no Kenyan authors and nothing in Swahili at all. There is decent philosophy section, but I don’t think many of these kids are reading Mill, Locke, and Kant in their spare time.
In short, it was clear the library is a collection of well-intentioned but largely impractical donations from the US. I have been asked to help out with the library, among other tasks, and I don’t really know where to begin. The check-out process is predictably haphazard, but at least there is a process, and given the size of the collection I don’t see any great value in creating a card catalog- everything they have is there in front of you. Jared, the student librarian, seems eager to have my help in organizing things, but the only thing I did was alphabetize the fiction by author’s last name. If only my Gramma were here to help- she would know what to do.
My other notable event of the day was with the student head of the journalism club, who asked if I could speak to their group today after class. Apparently my credentials of writing for a student newspaper and having friends in the business were suitably impressive to them. Imagine if they knew I had a blog too? I readily agreed to the meeting only to find out it was cancelled due to the other activities this afternoon, mostly sports, for which I had no idea where to go to participate and no one stepping forward to bring me along.
So today was a disappointment, but I think it mostly pointed out a need for me to become more assertive in this situation. If I try that and fail, then I can get discouraged, but right now I think I am relying too much on others for guidance. It should also be pointed out that school is not officially in session until next week, although all of the students and most the teachers are around. So perhaps the more regimented school week will improve things too.
OK- Finally got around to getting everything onto disk and then onto the blog. This is really long, pretty much unedited, and yet still only about half of what is going through my head. Scary, I know. Tough start for Sox-Yanks, I hear, but that is why they play full seasons.
Day 1- Arrival at Tumaini
The exchange at Heathrow was a bit tight, but I made my flight on time and the 8 hours from London to Nairobi was not as bad as I had feared when I first got to my seat and was surrounded by screaming babies and angry parents. I slept for a good part of the flight and would have slept more if not for the man next to me deciding that 8 rum and cokes was a good idea, thus necessitating at least 8 trips to the toilet.
At Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the visa process was extremely easy- fill out a form, show my passport, hand over $50, and on my way to baggage reclaim. My bags also showed up quickly, and after a brief search I found my driver holding my name card. I had expected to be assailed by people trying to offer me a ride into town, but the entry hall, though crowded, was pretty subdued, perhaps because it was 6 am. The first ATM I tried failed, but otherwise I was happy to be on my way.
The ride from the airport was less reassuring. My driver was polite and rarely spoke to me, except to tell me how fortunate we were not to encounter much traffic. We rode along as the sun came up, past streams of Kenyan men walking in the other direction, where to I had no idea. We pulled off the main road and went through a few neighborhoods, and it seemed like the whole world was up walking to work, but I never figured out where work was. After a series of twists and turns leaving me totally turned around, we pulled up to a closed gate with a mural on it, indicating the Association of Sisterhood Kenya Tumaini Centre. The guard opened the gate and closed it behind the car, and both the driver and I signed in. After removing my bags and collecting his fare, the driver wished me well and drove off.
I had apparently miscalculated about the whole world being up for work, as there was no immediate sign of life inside Tumaini and little help offered by the guard. At least until I heard thin singing coming from behind a door marked chapel. A maid came along and told me to have a seat in the hallway, and eventually the service ended and several Kenyan sisters came out, along with a large group of primarily women who appeared to be Chinese. Most of them ignored me, until the last sister emerged, a squat woman who appeared to be in charge, so I asked her if I could check in with her.
She greeted me with a blank stare, so I tried to rephrase the question, adding more information about who I was, explaining that Fr. Charlton had arranged for me to stay there. None of it seemed to register with her, but she did break out the register and set about finding a room for me, and after a few more negotiations with the maid, she found me a place to sleep. She asked how long I was staying, and at that point I was almost going to tell her “not long, I hope” but I gave her my departure date, although I did not pay anything up front either.
She and the maid showed me to my quarters in what appeared to be an empty wing of the complex, and the room looked pleasant enough, with a bed, a desk, a set of drawers, and a shower and toilet complex at the end of the hall. All of that was as good as could be expected. More disappointing was signs indicating that all residents were required to be in by 9 pm every night, no exceptions, for safety reasons.
I found the breakfast room and found two tables occupied by what I later discovered was a missionary group from Hong Kong and two other tables occupied by sisters, none of whom even acknowledged my presence. There was also a table occupied by a lone white girl, so I went to sit with her and found out she was a German nursing student on a budget holiday, and she was leaving for home in two days. She was at least reasonably welcoming, but no great help in finding out where I was or what I was doing.
I asked over at the Hong Kong table if any of them knew a woman who worked at St. Aloysius and it was then that I met Stephanie, an enthusiastic, tiny Chinese woman who told me she was bringing a group to St. Al’s around 9:30, and asked if I would like to come. Unsure of what else to do or how I would get out of the room otherwise, I initially agreed, but upon returning to my room I felt very sleepy and, I will admit, pretty scared, and thought maybe my first impression at St. Al’s would not be very good right then, so I told Stephanie I would rest and unpack for the day, then join her tomorrow.
Unpacking was not too complicated, so resting is most of what I did. The bed felt comfortable and safe, while the rest of the world felt very foreign and not particularly safe or welcoming. It was undoubtedly paranoia more than anything, but it did not prevent me from sleeping a lot. Maybe the lack of sleep I had enforced on myself in Ireland was catching up with me too. Regardless, I slept for large parts of the day, skipping any sort of lunch, ate dinner quietly (a decent beef stew with elbow macaroni, salad, and fruit), and returned to bed to sleep again. My room is close to a major thoroughfare (Ngong Road), so automobile noises are a constant, but they did not prevent me from sleeping quite soundly.
Day 2- First encounter with Kibera
I woke up Tuesday morning and made a conscious effort to bring a new attitude to the day. The sun was out, so right away Nairobi seemed somewhat nicer compared to the grey day I had seen when I first arrived. I got the shower to produce hot water, so I was off to another good start. I ate breakfast again with my German friend Jana and agreed to meet Stephanie to walk to St. Al’s at 9:15 with a group of her friends from Hong Kong.
That left me a few minutes to return to my room, where I was reading when a knock came and I was told I had visitors. The visitors turned out to be Kiambi, the headmaster at St. Al’s, and Humphrey, my primary contact and the development coordinator for CLC Kenya. Their presence was unexpected, but nice, as it indicated once again that someone knew I was coming. They offered to walk me over right away, but I did not want to confuse Stephanie, so I told them I would join them shortly.
The road to Kibera involves a few turns, but it is essentially due south from Tumaini, and only about a 15 minute walk. The road first passes a fairly ordinary strip mall, then an outdoor market with dozens of stalls each selling seemingly random items, then passes through another street lined with stalls, before crossing a railroad track and descending into seemingly endless acres of tightly packed tin roof shacks, the largest sub-Saharan slum in Africa, home to nearly 1 million souls, Kibera.
I had attempted to prepare myself for the smell there, knowing that I have a bit of a weak stomach, and as a result, the strong odors did not surprise me, but they certainly had their effect on the group from Hong Kong, most of whom were covering their mouths and noses with cloths. I did not breathe it in too deeply, and I was perhaps glad to be somewhat congested, but it did not knock me out. A strong cocktail of body odor and sewage, leavened with smoke. It must be much worse in warmer weather, but it was nothing I could not tolerate.
Our group skirted around the edge of the slum and made our way to the southwest corner, along a road that circles Kibera. As we walked along, every child we encountered sang out “How are you?” to the obvious outsiders. We made our way past a large heap of garbage that had attracted a small group of goats, jumped over a small stream that appeared to be an open sewer, crossed a foot bridge where we were greeted with a hug and a “Jambo” from a rail thin grade schooler, and we were at Kiambi’s office, in a space St. Al’s shares with St. Cecilia’s primary school. The Hong Kong group dropped off their lunches in the office and went off on their way, leaving me to talk with Kiambi and Humphrey.
We sat in a small, cluttered office with concrete floors and wooden chairs. There was light coming in through the roof and there appeared to be some electricity in the building as well. I was asked to sign a visitors log, and then we got down to business. Humphrey started out by saying something about how we had left it open as to what I would be doing at St. Al’s, then essentially asked me what I wanted to do.
While that was not the opening I had hoped for, it was essentially what I expected, and it made me happy I had taken an extra day to prepare for the meeting. I began by explaining more about my background, about what I had studied in college, about an interest in education and working with young people, about my previous job, and about my impending career as a lawyer. I said I was open to all possibilities and that I hoped to help the students and the school in any way I could, and that I also wanted to get to know the people and place so that I could explain it better to people back home who might want to help in the future.
At that, the conversation picked up, and both Humphrey and Kiambi had several ideas of how I could be utilized. They first mentioned a program they conduct called Education for Life, on Monday afternoons, which deals with topics that might not be encountered in the classroom but which are important to learn. Subjects range from AIDS and drug education to personal grooming to proper conversational and interview skills. I offered that I would be happy to help, though I would not know where to begin, and they assured me I could be helpful there.
Next they seized on my college admissions background and suggested I could work with their students in helping to organize the college application process and career counseling work. The first class graduated from St. Al’s last year and is currently involved in what is called a bridging program, where the students perform community service during the week and get together on Friday’s for reflection while they wait to be admitted to college, which runs on a different term and which is not an option for many students due to costs and limited space. From the sounds of things, there is much work to be done with the graduating students, and I am going to be asked to play a role there.
Regarding my law studies, they also mentioned the law club, which meets in the afternoons as well. They apparently had a Kenyan lawyer mentor, but he has since left, and they asked me if I would be willing to meet with the students and discuss law with them. After making sure they knew the differences in American law and Kenyan law, I agreed it would be a fine idea, and they mentioned the club’s broader goal of social justice, which is very appealing to me.
Kiambi asked me if I had any interest in sports, and I told him I was very interested, leading him to smile broadly and immediately sign me up for sports duty. I did remind him that all of the kids could likely run circles around me, but that did not phase him. Thursday afternoons are sports, and I will be involved somehow.
Finally, it was suggested that I could potentially help out in English classes, and that I could otherwise be made available to provide additional one on one tutoring support for students who were struggling in a particular subject. With that, I suddenly had quite a bit on my plate, so long as everyone follows through and I work to get involved.
Our meeting lasted maybe 45 minutes, and then I was taken on a tour of the school. There is one classroom, for the 4th form (seniors) near Kiambi’s office. I later discovered all the classrooms are basically the same, with as many desks as possible packed in, a blackboard at the front, and a combination of natural light and a few exposed lightbulbs to brighten the room. There was a “lab” next door- I believe it was Humphrey who used the quotation marks, and for once I had found a high school with worse science facilities than Reiss. Not surprising, of course, but not nearly enough room to allow students to conduct their own experiments.
From there, Kiambi and Humphrey took me up the hill to the upper school, where most of the students reside. We made our way through a series of tiny alleys, all full with children who were apparently not in school, many of them likely too young, but also many of them not given the opportunity- St. Al’s could easily find 5 times more students who would like the opportunity above the 200 or so already enrolled. The walk up the hill was somewhat treacherous, scrambling over rocks and jumping over open sewers, and it was very confusing, but we made it to the upper building unscathed, and it was there I was introduced to Jill, the vice headmistress, who keeps her office there.
Her office was very dark indeed, as the electricity had gone out, and there was not much natural light to work with. She was very welcoming, and we discussed again some of the plans we had made in Kiambi’s office. We also went into more personal discussions, with me asked what I know about Kenya (embarrassingly little), some elementary Swahili to not sound like a total tourist, and then a discussion of US politics. Apparently Barack Obama has some strong support in Africa. They all were lovely to talk to, and seemed happy to have my help.
We then toured the upper school, stopping in to most of the six classrooms to introduce me to the students. A few of them had some questions for me, but they seemed a bit reticent to say much in front of their peers, a familiar phenomenon at high schools world wide. When we finished our tour, I was surprised to discover it was barely past noon, given how much I had seen and how much I had learned. Humphrey was heading back to the CLC office, and offered to take me along and allow me internet access so that I could let my poor mother know I was alive.
We took a bus along Kibera’s main drag, full of people selling all kinds of things, and not crafts, but seemingly random items that could have little use to anyone else in the area. There is clearly a story to where the goods come from, but I haven’t asked yet. The bus brought us back to Ngong Rd, and then we hopped into a matatu, the signature form of transportation in Kenya from what I can tell. Matatu’s are small vans, packed with people, driven along terrible streets but with regular routes.
Our matatu was headed west, away from Nairobi City Centre and toward the Shalom House, where CLC is located. I got online there, then Humphrey took me to a nearby shopping center to find a working ATM, and finally put me on a bus back to Tumaini. I got back around 2, went to the grocery store for some water and a snack, and retired to my room to read and nap until dinner.
Dinner was once again edible, to my delight, this time it was spaghetti with seasoned ground beef and an orange for desert. So I may not eat particularly well, but I won’t starve. I was joined at my table this time by three younger Kenyan women, probably in their late teens/early 20’s. I am not sure their story, they appear to be in training for the sisterhood, but one asked incisive questions about my chosen profession of the law, particularly curious about how one could defend a guilty man. I am not sure I gave her the best answer, but I know I have an idea for the next meeting of the St. Al’s law club. She also taught me more Swahili, which I have promptly forgotten.
I retired to my room and finished “How Soccer Explains the World” by Franklin Foer, then was asleep by 10. Kenya apparently makes me sleepy. The book is recommended if you enjoy a bit of soccer thrown in with your lessons in globalization. It was a very quick read for me.
Day 3- The Feast of St. John the Baptist
I went to Kibera with the Hong Kong delegation again today, this time all of us in a matatu, and arriving a little after 10. Tomorrow I think I will have confidence enough to walk myself. There is nothing dangerous about the route, I was just unsure of my bearings. When I arrived, I was shown to what will be my office, the counselors office that was recently vacated. They will be hiring a replacement, but for now, the space is open to me. Of course the lights weren’t working, so I moved to the library to set up. I was not given a specific assignment, rather I was just allowed to sit there and have people come to me.
My first visitor was a 3rd former named Jared, and we had a very fun conversation. He is the library prefect, so we had a brief discussion about the library, then we moved on to learning about each other. He was full of questions about the US. Probably the funniest was wanting to know if there were really robots like the Terminator. But he also wanted me to explain what was meant by a “cold” war, why the US was a superpower, whether there was an official relationship between US, Mexico, and Canada, and what the weather was like in Boston. He seemed very bright, but I also realized how far away from home I was and how young he seemed in comparison to similar aged students in the States.
Throughout the day I also had other students stop in for briefer meetings, and we discussed their favorite subjects and their career ambitions. To their credit, these students aim high, with responses typically being surgeon, lawyer, and journalist. They are proud of where they go to school and they seem to want the best from their lives.
Of course that enthusiasm was tempered by a conversation with my other visitor for the day, Ben Osaha, who works for CLC and St. Al’s in the bridging program. He was excited to meet me and to discuss the many issues confronting the students, and the reality check was quite sobering. We sat in a library with 2001 World Book encyclopedia and a few other random volumes, and of course no internet access (or even any computer). He told me that despite all best efforts, the highest mark on the KGSE from last year’s graduates was a B, which is not enough to get a place in the free public universities, and as a result 9 students had places at (expensive) private colleges and the rest had nothing.
He told me about how students had high aims, but they were simply not realistic for most of them, even with aid money coming in through CLC. He was upset that none of the graduates was interested in teaching, and that all seemed to view trades as beneath them. He longed for some students to take an interest in carpentry or welding, and he lamented the loss of jobs in the market with the information economy. We both agreed that giving students access to computers and the web would help show them other opportunities, and that a change of attitude was needed to convince them to view skilled labor as a step in the right direction.
Ben was clearly making a sales pitch to me, and it worked. He is a bright guy, a sociologist by training, and he was not afraid to say more help is needed. He is also likely to continue to show me concrete ways that money can help. His goal is entirely appropriate- he wants to create students who can be self-sufficient, not merely provide maintenance. To put it another way, he wants to teach these kids to fish.
The business climate in Kenya makes this goal especially difficult, with no tradition of corporate philanthropy, and a desire for immediate results from the recent movement of social responsibility in business. Investing in school age kids does not bear the same type of immediate fruit as investing in environmental projects, or sponsoring football academies. And even asking for help is a challenge inside Kenya, as the school is not officially certified by the government and would likely risk closure if it were inspected by education authorities, absurd as it would be.
All of that is where a new school building could go a long way toward improving the situation. According to Terry, they have now raised enough money for the project, thanks to generous grants from the US government, and they have the land, but permitting issues are holding things up. Even so, the hope is to have a new building some time in 2008, and that would be a tremendous step in the right direction.
Later in the day, I got to see the whole school community together at a special mass for the Feast of St. John the Baptist. It is unusual to celebrate a beheading, but I think they just needed a reason to have a midweek mass while the Hong Kong contingent was still there, and I know it had a great effect on them.
The readings were in English, but most of the songs were in Swahili, and I must say they do it right. The school choir was lively and entertaining, and everyone in the school joined in on most verses. Terry’s homily was brief, but it struck a note with me, simply asking how far each of us would go to stand up for our beliefs, whether we could follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist. I don’t think I am strong enough to lay down my life for an idea, but I think this trip is making me stronger.
Day 4- In which I feel useless
First I should mention dinner last night. Once again I took a nap in the afternoon before dinner, something I never do at home. Just to assuage any fears, I don’t feel sick in any way, just that I have nothing other to do besides read and write after I leave school, and I somehow get sleepy. Going out an exploring the city without someone with me and with only a few hours before dark is just not appealing to me.
In any event, I went to the dining room and was the last to arrive, and walking in there was a particularly pungent smell that made me say “uh-oh.” Anyone who knows my eating habits knows I am not a big fish eater, although I have recently become more willing to try things. In this case, however, what was on offer was a big ugly fish, staring up at me from the plate. I took some white rice, ate a banana, and dealt with everyone in the room asking what was wrong with me. My inquisitor from the night before seemed to be making fun of me, or at least getting a good laugh, so I made a quick exit back to my monastic room.
This morning I walked over to St. Al’s with Stephanie, taking a short cut through the slum to the upper school, getting me to the library by 8:30 or so. The lights in my office were not working once again, but it’s just as well, as the library is more interesting, especially when you have nothing else to do. I brought a book, so mostly I read the book, but today I did not really speak to Kiambi or Jill except in a passing hello, had a few brief conversations with teachers and students between classes, and otherwise wondered what I should be doing.
Having mostly time to myself, I set about looking around the library to see just what they had. By my count, aside from a few shelves of textbooks and 4 sets of old encyclopedias, there are around 150 books in the library, and almost none of them have much use to the students of St. Al’s. The history shelf has mostly US history, with only one slender volume on Kenyan history that I could find. The literature section runs from Maeve Binchy to James Faulkner, but with no Kenyan authors and nothing in Swahili at all. There is decent philosophy section, but I don’t think many of these kids are reading Mill, Locke, and Kant in their spare time.
In short, it was clear the library is a collection of well-intentioned but largely impractical donations from the US. I have been asked to help out with the library, among other tasks, and I don’t really know where to begin. The check-out process is predictably haphazard, but at least there is a process, and given the size of the collection I don’t see any great value in creating a card catalog- everything they have is there in front of you. Jared, the student librarian, seems eager to have my help in organizing things, but the only thing I did was alphabetize the fiction by author’s last name. If only my Gramma were here to help- she would know what to do.
My other notable event of the day was with the student head of the journalism club, who asked if I could speak to their group today after class. Apparently my credentials of writing for a student newspaper and having friends in the business were suitably impressive to them. Imagine if they knew I had a blog too? I readily agreed to the meeting only to find out it was cancelled due to the other activities this afternoon, mostly sports, for which I had no idea where to go to participate and no one stepping forward to bring me along.
So today was a disappointment, but I think it mostly pointed out a need for me to become more assertive in this situation. If I try that and fail, then I can get discouraged, but right now I think I am relying too much on others for guidance. It should also be pointed out that school is not officially in session until next week, although all of the students and most the teachers are around. So perhaps the more regimented school week will improve things too.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Live from Nairobi
Nairobi, Kenya
Jambo. At least that's what they say to the tourists.
Just a quick note to say hello, I am alive, and things are good here. I arrived Monday morning at 6 am, was at my accomodations by 7 am, and in my room by 8 am, then spent the rest of the day unpacking, resting, and trying to wrap my head around why I am here, not really even sure where I was. The welcome was not very strong initially, so I was worried. By the end of the day I knew my bed was comfortable enough, the plumbing worked, the food was edible, and we were right off Ngong Rd., but little else.
Today, by lunchtime (7 hrs ahead of the east coast), things are much better. I have been warmly greeted by the school, met with administrators from Christian Life Community Kenya, and started to figure how I can help. Kibera is just as it had been described- undescribable. The school is based on the edge of the slum, so it is not hard to get there, but most of the classrooms are in another building, a two story shack with 6 classrooms with natual light. Getting there requires navigating a warren of alleys, shacks, and open sewers up a rocky hill, and I am almost sure to get lost the first time I try it alone.
I will write more and try to post it later in the week. Because of the limits of internet access here, I think the rest of the Ireland trip may have to wait, or at least be seriously condensed. Things are looking up though.
Jambo. At least that's what they say to the tourists.
Just a quick note to say hello, I am alive, and things are good here. I arrived Monday morning at 6 am, was at my accomodations by 7 am, and in my room by 8 am, then spent the rest of the day unpacking, resting, and trying to wrap my head around why I am here, not really even sure where I was. The welcome was not very strong initially, so I was worried. By the end of the day I knew my bed was comfortable enough, the plumbing worked, the food was edible, and we were right off Ngong Rd., but little else.
Today, by lunchtime (7 hrs ahead of the east coast), things are much better. I have been warmly greeted by the school, met with administrators from Christian Life Community Kenya, and started to figure how I can help. Kibera is just as it had been described- undescribable. The school is based on the edge of the slum, so it is not hard to get there, but most of the classrooms are in another building, a two story shack with 6 classrooms with natual light. Getting there requires navigating a warren of alleys, shacks, and open sewers up a rocky hill, and I am almost sure to get lost the first time I try it alone.
I will write more and try to post it later in the week. Because of the limits of internet access here, I think the rest of the Ireland trip may have to wait, or at least be seriously condensed. Things are looking up though.
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