Love and Marriage

Posted by: Helen

One of the best things about living in a new culture is realising all the opinions that you’ve built up over a lifetime, might just be complete rubbish.  Life here exposes my beliefs as one of many possible versions.  Mine are simply local to the society I was raised in.

 

Discovering new ways of looking at the world is thrilling; today I’d like to show you how 11 months of conversations have shown me there’s no single view of marriage.  Join me for a tale of love and marriage that might just change my life...


_________________________________________________

I am married in Kenya

I’m at work, telling an office-mate about the weekend trip that Dan and I had taken together, and she looks more and more confused.  Finally, she asks: but why do you call Dan your boyfriend?  Are you not serious about him? Very serious! I assure her, we’ve been together for almost 10 years. Her response is simple: then he is your husband.

 

Here in Kenya, the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ show a commitment made between two people not necessarily joined by law.  In fact most Kenyans I know started their married life not at a courthouse, but at a bride price negotiation, a crucial settlement between families.  The groom’s family pay bride price, or an amount of livestock in exchange for her hand in marriage (or sometimes the cash equivalent of 10 goats = 1 cow).  I first learnt about this, when writing Monicah’s story last year.


(‘Boyfriend’ seems to signal a relationship that’s new, or something extra-marital.  If I mention my boyfriend, Kenyans have been moved to ask me, so do you have a husband (as well)?). 

In Kenya’s conservative society, this bride price transaction gives societal cover for the couple to now live together, have children, and save for the big white (legal) wedding every Kenyan lady dreams of.  She has been bought for her husband’s family, to which she now belongs.   A married woman leaves her own family forever; her relatives cannot stay overnight in their house, for most tribes her children belong to her husband’s family, and if she socialises with her own parents, it is never in the company of her husband.  Telling my married male colleague about plans I had for my parent’s visit back in March, I described the trip Dan and I would take with them.  This is so strange in my culture!  He exclaimed, You mean you’ll walk around with YOUR parents, in public, the four of you? He actually shivered.

My two oldest male colleagues have wives who have given birth to 6 children between them, but neither couple is lawful.  My legally married (female) colleague is shocked by this, and believes that no woman should settle for bride price alone. Those guys are providing no security for their wives!  She tells me that either man could choose another woman to be legal Wife Number One at any time, leaving the mother of their children to be only a second wife, a much more lowly position.

Four wives are better than one

 

Polygamy is legal here, and has been a traditional part of Kenyan culture for generations.  Whilst my (urban) Kenyan friends often talk about it in the past tense (I’m always being told, my Grandfather had 3/9/12 wives), or as something which now only exists in ‘rural areas’ (read: in a less educated Kenya), the practice is still admired by many.  The Chairman of a local branch of my organisation smiles at me and says: When I have more money, I will take a second wife. I ask him why he needs more than one, and his answer is based firstly on economics, he tells me:

Two wives can work more, have more children and a bigger family contributes more income.  Once I can afford another wife, I will take one.  Plus, we Kenyan men need sex.  How do the British men last 9 months when their wife is pregnant?

(Sex during pregnancy is clearly taboo for this marriage). 

It seems that a discussion on marriage is not complete without also looking at children.  Let me explain how the questions of how many children, and how they are raised cut right to the heart of love and marriage in Kenya.

Families: bigger the better

Kenyan families have always been large, and polygamy is certainly a factor.  The common theme in tribal beliefs seems to be that children equal status and money.  In the 1970s, the average Kenyan mother had 8 children (!!), and today’s average is still 4.8.  Sometimes it seems that having just one child is as good as none.  For a marriage to work, they must arrive in large numbers.

My colleague tells me how tough life is at the moment, how tight their money is stretched by raising children from her husband’s marriage with a late wife, and some local children she has taken in from her church.  But there will be another, in December, she sighs, patting her tummy.  My unasked question is: but why another when you struggle to feed those you have?  She must have seen it on my face, and so replies, We only have one child together, and it is not enough. 

Childlessness is a sensitive subject anywhere in the world, but a curse in Kenya. It seems that all married women have children, perhaps because the familial agreement is rescinded if children don’t follow on swiftly.  For the wealthy, there are other options it seems.  Sitting in the maternity ward, carefully nursing her newborn baby, my colleague’s wife was approached by a well-off couple.  They offered us money for our child! he told me, still in shock.

How to have it all

Having many children is important at every level of Kenyan society: the glossy, successful female CEOs and Senior Executives profiled in the newspaper are always mothers.  In fact, it’s much easier to be a working mum in Kenya, than for mothers in the UK.  Kenyan women can hire round-the-clock, live-in ‘help’ for housework and childcare for as little as 7000 bob in Nairobi, much less in other parts of Kenya.  For less than £50 a month, women can go back to work.  No trying to ‘do it all’ in this culture, juggling childcare, housework and impressing the boss - women of all income levels are supported back into the workplace with the minimum of fuss: even our office cleaner explained why she was run so ragged this month, because you know I am operating without a housegirl. 

While this situation seems to scream of female empowerment, there are several thoughts lurking beneath the surface which trouble me, because they move so far away from my home culture:

Firstly) do men marry for the extra income?  Margins are so tight for the average Kenyan family that the ‘double income’ we see as a sign of wealth in the UK, can be essential here for basic survival.

Secondly) What about these young women who live in strange homes performing menial domestic tasks all day for just over $1 a day in a big city?  What are their dreams?  They daren’t dream of education, not in a culture without washing machines or ready meals.  My housegirl left to get married, grumbles a colleague, my sister is sending us a new girl from our rural area.  I ask him why put a scared teenager on a bus to Nairobi for the first time, when there’s such unemployment in this city?  He looks at me like I’m stupid.  Because the girl who raises my children must speak my local language, of course!

And here we come to thought number 3) which troubles me.  I’m told that many women hire help for the house, simply so their focus doesn’t stray from their husband.  A Kenyan friend articulates what I’ve seen everywhere in Kenya: men expect many children from their marriage, but are not expected to help raise them.  And every minute a woman spends attending to the child in the home, is time not spent attending to her husband’s needs.  I’m sure this is a grumble in marriages worldwide, but this economy provides a ‘solution’.   If the housegirl takes care of all chores, our working Kenyan mother has no excuse not to meet all the marital duties her husband expects of her, especially the business of making more babies, whether she chooses to or not.

Does marriage burden women?

My opinions are simply a product of where I come from, I know that.  And I try not to leap to conclusions, to see injustice everywhere - I know I'm not a cultural expert.  But it's difficult; from all these conversations, I start to form an opinion that marital duties in Kenya are a real burden placed on women.  Allow me to tell a story to back up my claim.

Babies in Kenya are carried on mothers' backs, within a kanga or lesso (piece of fabric) tied around her body.  My colleague describes what happens when women from her village board the matatu (public service minibus), but forget the child.  Stooping down to quickly squeeze onto the tiny vehicle, the child’s head resting on her back is clanged violently into the metal door frame.  Everyone in the matatu is allowed to slap the mother for being so stupid.  I ask her how often this happens.  All the time, rural women carry their baby for miles so forget it is there. Unlike the matatu passengers, I didn’t judge the women.  It was no stretch of my imagination to see a tired young wife, carrying her sixth child.  She has no voice in when or how she reproduces.  Slung onto her back, the baby is not a precious life, but simply a burden to be carried.

Let me share a more shocking example from a recent new item.   A newborn baby was found in the fields of Kalifi county, seriously disfigured and with an unattached hand; this three-day-old child had been abandoned and then mauled by dogs.  The baby's 23-year-old mother was found and charged.  She blamed her crime on her husband - things were bad between them, and she couldn't cope with another child.  Officials actually pleaded in the paper for mothers who felt overburdened to please take unwanted children to adoption services, and not simply throw them away.  It seems this is not an isolated case.

Baby Malaika is doing much better after surgery and
has been allocated a children's home

A VSO friend suggests a solution to these burdens: polygamy.  She tells me her colleague is delighted that her husband is taking a second wife.  This younger woman will be subservient to her, do most of the housework, and bear the full load of duties in the marital bed.  She is so pleased! my friend tells me.  Is this the true definition of having it all?

Whatever your views on polygamy, there is a view that taking another wife only legitimises what happens anyway, as someone commented to me recently: there is no expectation of fidelity within a Kenyan marriage.  I’ve seen with my own eyes how some Kenyan men don’t even pretend to be faithful to the mother of their children.  It troubles me that again this burdens their wives back home.  In a country where 6% of the population is HIV positive, extra-marital sex is the top reason in some reports for why Kenya has a higher HIV prevalence rate than some of its African neighbours.  Most HIV-positive Kenyans are women, but the vast majority have only ever had one sexual partner: their husband.

Times are changing

Opinions differ on whether the situations I describe belong to an older Kenya, or if they now exist only in rural areas, and I doubt my whistle-stop tour of gender politics will find a definitive answer.  I can only report what I’ve been told.

But I'm seeing another very clear theme come through: younger, urban, educated couples are throwing off traditional beliefs and with it the burden on women I’ve described.

My 20-something male colleagues model themselves on ‘western’ families: one husband, one wife, both having a career.  In previous generations, education could only be afforded for a ‘first born’ or perhaps only for sons, but my colleagues know investing in senior and higher education for the ir children is vital, so maybe they can only afford 2 or 3.  Three graduates is better for the family than a massive brood of 12-year-old school leavers.  My colleague says, if I am blessed with only girls I am still a happy man.  They talk about their wife’s needs; they change nappies, and answer the night-time cries. 

Another clear step away from older beliefs is taken by two people of different tribes.  These couples have less shared traditions, no truck with mother-tongue.  They raise their children in Swahili, to see themselves as Kenyan first and foremost, with no ethnic bias.  They are already open-minded by dint of their union, and they talk about... love. 

There are statistics to back-up my belief.  Once the nation with the fastest population growth on earth (from 2.9 million in the 1920s to 30 million in the 1990s), the 2000s saw Kenyans having many fewer children.  There are 40 million people in Kenya today. 

Are we seeing Kenya move closer to what I (and the UK) define as marriage?  Am I allowed to see that as a positive move, towards greater equality and with less burden on women? If it gives me ‘hope,’ do I sound arrogant? 

I won’t pretend that the Global North has love and marriage all figured out, when two thirds of British marriages fail.  And I do understand how marriage is vital to provide for women in a society in which they cannot legally own land.  But I still prefer the equality integral in my definition of the word ‘marriage’, can’t let go of my sense of right and wrong.

Some cultural difference are harmless though, and I happily adapt to make things easier for everyone. At first it was strange to call Dan ‘my husband’, having never tied the knot back home.   But, weirdly, I’ve found I like demonstrating the commitment that the word means here.  It makes me wonder whether I’ll miss using the word when we return to the UK, and how to demonstrate my commitment to him in a way that makes sense in my home culture... 

...no promises ;o)

Our TV debut

Monday: My organisation received an invite to an event at the UN compound, in Gigiri, north Nairobi.  It’s tomorrow, says my boss. The President is speaking. Would you like to go?  I leapt at the chance, of course, and also invited Dan, lest I feel the wrath of a man who loves a little international politics…

Tuesday: We sat together on the matatu heading north through hilly, leafy suburbs (the OTHER Nairobi), wondering if Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki would actually show.  I think he will! says Dan, spotting policemen standing to attention every 100 yards along the road in readiness.

 

The UN compound is the global headquarters of UN Habitat and UN Environment Programme.  It’s green, landscaped, full of white people.  Through a light security check (a British passport goes a long way), and we were striding between flags of the world, UN lanyards swinging from our necks.  We decided to not actually step onto the red carpet laid for the president and instead kind of skirted round it.

 

We met up with a few VSOs who are in placement with various UN agencies, and generally marveled at the posh coffee and well-paid, well-dressed people you find in the UN’s only global HQ located in the developing world.  It was surely for that reason that big-wigs from UNDP had chosen Nairobi to launch the first ever Africa Human Development Report today, this one on food security.

 

The launch of the report was in an enormous room, unmistakably UN-y.  Maybe 500 people from many, many different nations were seated at long tables with headphones for translation and microphones for question-time.  We sat down sheepishly, feeling like SUCH BLAGGERS, and enjoyed an opening performance of Kenyan dancing.  As Kibaki entered the room from the back, the room fell deathly silent, everyone craning their necks to watch him walk from the back of room, surrounded by very burly security.

There was a fancy video, and interesting speeches, highlighting the causes of food insecurity, which leads to famine.  The UNDP is currently led by its first female Administrator, Helen Clarke, who was President of New Zealand for 9 years.  I thought she was excellent.

I took away many things from the speeches, but mainly -

1. Famine no longer occurs in Latin America and Asia.  Sub-Saharan Africa has just as many abundant natural resources.
2. It is bad governance, weak institutions and poor policy-making that are the main reason why food is insecure; not climate and not drought.
3. A policy of educating women is one of the main approaches in building resilience to whatever the weather throws at you.
4. Young people are choosing not to farm, but employing new technologies will show them it is not the back-breaking industry of previous generations.
5. Hungry people cannot learn, cannot work, cannot grow the economy or build the nation; food security is vital for Africa.

Then Kibaki stood up to speak, and a uniformed military officer moved to stand behind him.  My Kenyan friends reminded me that a car accident and subsequent stroke have robbed him of the energetic way he used to give speeches.  But it was still strange to see a national leader with less public-speaking skills than the average pastor in a church on Sunday.  He defended his government’s record on food security and thanked the UN for their efforts in compiling the research.  Then there were smiles, handshakes, photos and he was gone. 

We left soon after to use the facilities and get a tour of the buildings, sculptures and salad-bars of the UN compound from the lovely Harvey Garcia, fellow VSO who works with UNIDO on coastal pollution in East Africa.

Then having heard all about food insecurity and the perilous position of Africa’s starving poor, all the guests sat down to a lavish banquet.  No joke.  After a few wry comments on this startling juxtaposition, we tucked greedily into an amazing buffet.  There was even a PUDDING TABLE.  It was, as UN-ers Andrea and Amy commented, a good day to visit the UN.

Sunday: I saw you on TV! says friend Lucy. The only people  featured on the NTV report were President Kabaki, and you guys!  I saw you several times in the report.  We couldn't believe it, but a quick google proved her right.  The realisation that us INTERLOPERS were the focus for the audience-cam AND also caught in the back of shot coming back from the loo on national television made us giggle for a good long while.

Screen shot below, or click the video further down to learn more about the event, and play 'Spot the Jonchards'…

Kenya's Banksy Vs The Vultures

Nairobi can often seem an ugly, scruffy city filled with rubbish, traffic and smog. It’s not a city that is immediately lovable to the outside eye, and most of it won’t be winning any prizes for architecture or culture any time soon.

Despite this, Helen and I have learned to love our host city. Particularly at weekends, when it’s quieter, there’s less stress, and you can do a bit more “wandering” and a bit less “marching purposefully and glowering at everyone who hassles you”. Too many people give up on Nairobi too soon, or decide that they will simply avoid the city centre completely because it’s “unsafe”, and instead stay in the posh, white expat areas of Westlands, Karen or Runda.

Wandering through the CBD (central business district, as they call the city centre) on a recent Saturday, we came across something which made us stop and stare, and which filled me with joy. It was a series of graffiti murals on the walls around City Market, the big meat market in a run-down part of Nairobi.

The murals were painted in the middle of the night in March this year, and despite the anger and efforts of city hall, have managed to remain so far. They depict, basically, Kenya’s biggest problem: Terrible, corrupt leadership.

I don't pretend that British politicians are all whiter than white. All our UK readers will know this isn't true, after recent scandals over mis-use of the expenses system and disturbing collaboration between politicans and sections of the media. But equally, the public outrage caused by these scandals and the punishments handed out do show that we value good, transparent, public-serving leadership very highly. What if we didn't have that? What if we couldn't rely on our politicians at all?

It can be frustrating to talk to some Kenyans about politics, and hear them talk about voting loyally along tribal lines, and worse, to sense the feelings of helplessness, apathy, inevitability when they talk about politicians. I feel like too many Kenyans just think that corruption, poor leaders, suffocating tribalism and divisive rhetoric are just “the way things are, and the way they’ll always be”. It’s this that feels like Kenya’s biggest challenge, not poverty or famine.

So it was a beautiful, wonderful thing to see these protest murals. They depict MPs literally as vultures, scavenging off the hard work of ordinary Kenyans. I think it’s the perfect analogy. In Kenya, people often refer to politicians “eating”, and its exactly what happens – not just that they have big, fat bellies from plenty of food in a country which knows what it means to starve. But also that they “eat” the money and resources meant for public good – roads, schools, hospitals. Instead, this money frequently gets siphoned off, misappropriated, or simply vanishes into thin air, into the pockets of Kenya’s “leaders”.

After the tribal violence at the last elections, incited and encouraged by Kenya’s top politicians, which saw over a thousand people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, many Kenyans are sick to death of things being the way they are.

Another part of the mural lists the many scandals that have hit the headlines over recent years, each of them adding to a picture of corrupt, self-serving, inept politicians. In the list are the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scandals made famous in Michela Wrong’s phenomenal book “It’s Our Turn To Eat”, about Kenya’s former anti-corruption tsar and whistleblower, John Githongo (I cannot recommend this book highly enough!). Anglo Leasing was one of several phantom companies who were awarded Government contracts at massively inflated prices, despite not existing and without any public procurement competition. It is estimated that through these companies, $600 million of public funds were fraudulently misappropriated by top Government ministers, allegedly including the then Vice President, Finance Minister and Justice Minister. Githongo came to the conclusion that this corruption went all the way to the top, and was at least partly intended to finance President Kibaki’s re-run campaign at the 2007 elections.

Finally, on the right hand side of the mural is a list of the “leaders Kenyans want”, listing the qualities that they should look for when casting their vote at the next elections.

As the campaigns for the next Kenyan General Election in March 2013 heat up, the newspapers are full of the political machinations and manoeuvrings of MPs and those seeking to be the country’s next President. Tribalism still seems to dominate the power struggles, even though the newspapers here are self-censoring and never mention tribe. Four of Kenya’s leading figures, including two Presidential hopefuls, await confirmation of their trial date for crimes against humanity at The Hague, accused of inciting the 2007/8 post-election violence. And it’s hard not to see the delaying of the elections to March 2013 (rather than August or December this year, as originally planned) as simply MPs wanting a few more months of their world-beating salaries (a recent expose in the papers here suggested that they earn about £6,300 a month in salary and “allowances”, and most of it is tax-free). Talking to our Kenyan friends here, we feel depressed that more violence, like that at the last election, seems increasingly likely.

But when you see murals like these, you’ve got to have hope. Hope that Kenyans know what they want, know what they need, and will demand the Kenya they deserve, in the end.

I've just spotted that The Guardian wrote a great piece about these murals – have a read:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/21/kenya-graffiti-artists-politicians-vultures

The Ninth Month

This post is starts with a 'Hello!' to my Grandad, Ron Trenchard who is an avid fan of this blog.  Thanks for following our adventures Grandad, we're looking forward to seeing you in the summer, and celebrating your 95th birthday in October with all the family x

________________________________



Last year, I mentioned to Allys that things in my placement at Kenya Union of the Blind (KUB) were OK, but very slow going.  No-one seemed very interested in working with me and whilst lots of activity had been promised, nothing had yet materialised.  ‘That’s really normal Helen, don’t worry, my placement was the same.  But wait until the 9^th month, that’s when it all kicks in!’.



Allys was right on the money, because as month 9 arrived this year, several projects came to fruition, and I found my skills suddenly in demand.  These past few weeks I’ve found myself in situations that have really felt like VSO volunteering (at last); this is how I thought it would be when we first applied.  The work has taken me to beautiful western Kenya, a scruffy Rift Valley hotel and Kenya's biggest slum.


If you're at all interested in my work , read on for the highlights and photos of three very different places....

It all started in Teso District, Western Kenya

VSO agreed to fund a visit with my colleague to Western Kenya.  My plan is to produce some case studies, so the organisation can explain to donors how it makes a difference in the lives of real people.  I was going to interview members of a very successful KUB branch.  Teso is a few miles from the Ugandan border, and a 9 hour drive, North-West of Nairobi.



People here are more likely to have a visual impairment because of poor sanitation, lack of education about hygiene, few doctors, a fast road to the border that creates accident victims every month and a warmer climate, ideal for the insects which spread infections that damage the sight of local people.  Women, who are mostly responsible for housework and raise children, are most at risk.  It's a common story that poverty leads to disability, and disabled people stay poor, as job opportunities are scarce in a community still so frightened by disability.

Alex

Despite all this, charismatic local KUB Chairman Alex Ekirapa has built a network of small groups in Teso District that have started income generating projects to improve their lives, together.  I found that people had real hope and joy in the work that was being acheived, and complete trust in Alex to link everyone together and keep the ideas flowing. As a totally blind, independent family man, Alex is an awesome role model to the community, who would traditionally have simply hidden their blind children.  I met a father who Alex had persuaded to send his blind son to school.  Having not thought his son could be educated, the father agreed when Alex found a place for him at a special school.  The son went to school for the very first time aged 17, and is loving it.

Interviewing Jacqueline, who is the star pupil at Alex's
school for partially sighted women farmers; they learn how
 to grow crops for food and cash

Jacqueline

More interviews: this blind lady leads a community
chicken-rearing project, so I was gifted with
 a live chicken.  Seriously.

Next up I went to Nakuru Town, Rift Valley



My boss strides into my office one day and says he thinks I'm a good facilitator.  He's asking me to design and faciliate a workshop in Nakuru Town for our new HIV outreach work, as the regular programme team are elsewhere.  The session was to address the problem: how can we make HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres (VCT) more friendly to those with visual impairment?  I know next to nothing about these issues, but I thought, why not?  I'll give it a go...


A note on VCTs: they are a very common sight in Kenya, a part of life.  They are places where you can be tested, and know your HIV status, and receive all the counselling and after care you might need, regardless of result.  You see a lot of VCT tents by the side of road, and more permanent ones in clinics and office buildings.  We even saw a Valentine VCT on 14th February, covered in love hearts: 'Know your Status - find out TOGETHER!'  Kenyans are urged to visit, to know their status and learn to reduce their risk of infection. 


The trouble is that VCT staff don't know what to do if their client is blind.  Some think that disabled people don't have sexual desire, so why would a blind person need a VCT?  Others are just unsure how to handle the test for someone with visual impairment, as in a VCT you see and read the chemical results yourself.  Having a sighted guide is therefore essential - but VCTs are places of extreme confidentiality, so what to do?

The Nakuru workshop was attended by both blind people, and VCT staff together in an effort to sensitise each other on the challenges involved.  Feeling very much like I was winging it (the central skill of any VSO volunteer) I was hoping strong faciliation and a good group would get us through the four-hour session and calm my nerves. 



I decided we'd start with testimonials: people would tell their story and talk about the challenges.  It worked really well, and people spoke very honestly.  A few shocking stories were told: a Community Health worker admitted she thought all disabled clients must have been raped, and a blind lady who'd been a nurse before she lost her sight told us 'abortion was our policy with pregnant disabled women 30 years ago - but we've come so far, we can change more people's minds.' 





I led them in some group work, working on solutions to the problems discussed, and by the end we had volunteers (from both 'sides') to join a working party to lobby locally on these issues.  I was really very proud, and my colleagues were sure the format would work in other regions as the projects is rolled out.



And last week I went to Kibera slum in Nairobi

I know my Development colleagues would call it an 'informal settlement' but the folks who live there call it a slum, so forgive me.  Dan has written about working in Kibera, but this was my first visit.

I've been supporting the work of KUB's Kibera branch all year, and it's been a real pleasure - Chairman Joseph Kiongo is persistant, energetic, hard working and appreciative.  Together we wrote a small proposal to fund training of disabled people in Nairobi's slum areas and it was funded!  We mainly needed bus fares and lunch money so that people with so little would be motivated to attend.  Networking with other Disabled People's Organisations, Joseph gathered a band of five facilitators (all with disablities themselves) to train KUB members and others with disabilities on Starting a Small Business, Keeping Records and starting a Revolving Fund (microfinance) group.  He'd warned me to come wearing wellington boots.

Once I'd arrived, my first job was to help Joseph find some of our members who were lost on their way to the training hall.  Shouting 'Uko wapi?' (where are you?) into his mobile before striding off through the slum, all I could do was follow. Kibera is never a nice place to be, but it's rainy season right now and the place is really flooded - the famous railway line that runs through the slum was a foot under murky water.   The only way I can describe it is through film images: a Jewish ghetto in Eastern Europe in the winter of 1940; the dockside dwellings in Shakespeare's London.  Kibera is always overcrowded but in April it's mud, filth and flood beneath the overwhelming population. The KUB members we found were all stranded before a flood, clutching their white canes, waiting for us to show them where to step next (up-turned railway sleeper, jerry can, large stone).  The questions screaming in my brain was how do you usually get around? how do you live? when you fall who helps you?? but I didn't ask them - just a cheery Mambo! and off we go, guiding them to the training room, a small tin hall packed with people on thin wooden benches.

Energetic Joseph, leading a warm-up

The trainees were all very pleased to see a mzungu in their midst and all looked up as I gave the 5 minute speech about KUB and VSO, that Joseph had asked me to give 2 minutes earlier.  I spoke in English and they all listened politely.  The rest of the training was in Swahili. They don't all know English, Joseph explains.  Of course.

Group work

Our facilitators

The faciliators were all great, delighted to be given the opportunity to speak to other disabled people about what can be acheived if they work together.  Even being told: you can start a business, have your own income and play a part in society, was a big message for some of the folks in the room.  It was very satisfying to see the results of a proposal and meet those who benefit from our work.  After the training all of us trouped back through the floods to have a lunch of cabbage and ugali, squeezed into a tiny slum cafe.  It felt like such a good day.

They think it's all over...

...But it’s not yet!

It’s sad times here in Nairobi, as we say goodbye to our good friends, fellow VSOs and South B neighbours Eddie and Allys, who head back to the UK this week at the end of their VSO placements. Perhaps inevitably, talking with them about their future plans, going to their leaving party and helping with their packing has left Helen and I feeling a bit like we are leaving Kenya as well.

There are other reasons why we’re feeling like our year here is nearly over. We’ve had to give the obligatory notice to our tenants to move out of our flat in St.Albans. We’ve made plans with Helen’s brother to see him in Dubai on our way home – which has necessitated arranging our flights from Nairobi. And we’ve been hesitantly starting to think about trying to figure out our first few weeks back in the UK – moving back into our flat versus London Olympics versus finding meaningful employment! It’s all feeling very real and very soon, all of a sudden.

It’s also because of a more gradual process that many of our VSO friends will recognise. Time seems to move faster and faster as our year has progressed. And it’s in the nature of the VSO thing that you have a constant stream of “hellos” and “goodbyes”. VSO has three ‘intakes’ of new volunteers each year, so we’ve already welcomed two new groups of volunteers since we arrived, and said goodbye to two departing groups as well. Welcoming new people means that you feel like ‘an old hand’ far quicker than you expect to. It feels like no time at all since we arrived, bleary-eyed and confused, at the airport in Nairobi. And yet we’ve given presentations to ‘newbies’ about our experiences and advice for them; and we’ve led tours of Nairobi city centre to help orientate nervous people who, only a few short months before, were us.

It leaves me with a whole mess of emotions and thoughts. Part of my brain has leapt forwards to July and is already on the plane, excited about seeing people we’ve missed, thrilled by the idea of eating 12 months-worth of high quality cheese that we’ve yearned for, worried about finding a job. At the same time, I’m terrified at how little time I have left in my placement at Special Education Professionals, and worried that I haven’t, and won’t, have done enough for them. Then there’s the feeling that I’m kind of exhausted by the continuing ‘newness’ of this life we’re leading. The daily challenges of making oneself understood in an alien country. The endless effort required to try to be ‘Kenyan’, to try to fit into the crowd when, for a million different reasons, you can’t. Sometimes, I can feel my ‘flexibility and adaptability’ draining out of my toes. I’m sick of being hassled just for being white. I’m fed up of Nairobi traffic. I’m done with a country that just seems incapable of playing music at a reasonable volume. And sometimes, I don’t feel like I have the energy to meet another new person, to make another friend who we’ll leave behind in a few months. And then, just as often, I feel sad that this amazing adventure is nearly at an end.

And then, Helen gives me a slap. Ok, not really, but she tells me to stop being such an over-thinking, intense, worrisome person. We remind each other that it aint over yet, that we’re still in the middle of this utterly unique year of our lives, and we need to squeeze every last drop out of it. There’ll be plenty of time for vexing later. Right now, we have things to do. We still need to push things forwards at work, determined to leave behind some small changes, tiny improvements, baby steps of progress. We have new parts of Kenya to see. We have friendships to consolidate, and new, awesome people to meet. We still need to become fluent in Swahili (it’s starting to seem unlikely), and learn to make chapatti. We still need to keep blogging about stuff that fascinates us.

Helen loves her quotes from The West Wing, and this week’s favourite is:

“Let’s leave it all out on the field, old friend.”

I don’t know who she’s calling old.

Go West!

Don’t worry, this is not a tribute to the Pet Shop Boys.

Western Kenya has been a huge gap in our travelling and knowledge of our host country thus far. Ok, so Helen has done one or two suitably surreal and chaotic trips with her work, but I had failed to get further west than Nakuru. It was becoming shameful. Swahili teacher Lucy and husband Nick talked enticingly about eating fish from Lake Victoria. Eddie and Allys talked about their love of Kisumu. Fellow VSO Catherine goaded us about seeing what a real VSO placement was like, in a remote rural area. It was time to suit up and head West-side, to the provinces of Nyanza and Western, to the lands of the Luhyas and Luos (Kenya’s 2nd and 3rd biggest tribes respectively).

The Kakamega-Rarieda-Kisumu swing-by…



View Kakamega-Rarieda-Kisumu in a larger map


This felt like the most backpacker-ish trip that we had taken in Kenya. It was low budget (running out of money, argh!). We had big backpacks. We took the bus. We looked like youngsters on their ‘year out’. And for the first time, we were going on a trip alone. Just the Jonchards. It felt risky. Would we survive each other’s company? And crucially, why on earth had we chosen to do this trip during the Long Rains…?

I don’t really want to write another minute-by-minute, “And then we did this, and then we did that” type of blog, so instead, I present to you five anecdotes, five portraits, if you will, to paint a picture of Our western Kenya…


1. Rainforest = a forest with lots of rain

Our first destination: Kakamega rainforest. The only rainforest remaining in Kenya, Kakamega was originally part of the ancient Guineo-Congolian rainforest which swept from one side of the continent to the other. We got off our bus after seven hours at Khayega, the closest village to our part of the forest. From here, we would get a piki (motorbike taxi) into the forest to KEEP Bandas, our home for the next two days. As we stepped off the bus, dark rainclouds were gathering in the sky…

…And we were immediately surrounded by motorbikes and shouting. “Where are you going Mzungu? I will take you! Me, I am the one!” We had just managed to drag our rucksacks dazed from the crowd when Helen pauses, and a horrified look crosses her face. “Oh god! I’ve left my waterproof on the bus!”. I was not amused. During rainy season, the one thing you need with you, is a waterproof.

“Don’t worry my friends, we will go, we will chase the bus!” says a piki guy. And so after a brief haggle over the price, we head off at high speed, each on the back of a motorbike, in hot pursuit of an EasyCoach bus. It’s like a comedy version of a James Bond car chase. Almost immediately, the rain starts.

[ I’d like to pause for a moment to simply say this. British people, we think we know about rain. Yeah. No. We don’t. We know nothing about rain. That water falling from the sky? Tis but a drizzle. Kenya knows about rain. Torrential, pounding, thunder-booming, lightning-fired downpours that turn already dodgy roads into rivers of red mud in the space of minutes. At around 4pm every afternoon during the Long Rains, the heavens open. ]

And so we race on through the horizontal sheets of rain. We realised afterwards this was possibly the most dangerous thing we have ever done. I’m astonished neither of us crashed. But we survived to tell the tale, so it’s ok.

By the time we catch up with the bus, we’re soaked to the skin. But we have Helen’s waterproof! And we’re determined to get to the forest bandas before dark. So off we go again, clinging to the back of our motorbikes, with the rain thundering on.

As we close in on the forest and the roads get smaller, there’s no more tarmac and the mud roads become essentially impassable. Our drivers stop us at a line of shacks in the middle of nowhere. “We cannot go further”, they say. “The rain it is too bad”. We manage to persuade them not to simply leave us, and instead we wait in a small shack-cafe, hoping the rain will at least slow down from its current, deafening crescendo. While we wait, the owner brings us chai and tells us “You should move seats, we expect a river here”. We’re confused. “Where, here?”, we say, looking around the small shack/hut we’re sat in. “Yes”. And indeed, within minutes, a pouring river of muddy water is running right through the middle of the ‘café’ from the back door to the front. The owner laughs, embarrassed. “Imagine if a hotel had this problem in America!”.

Well, eventually the rain did slow down, by about 15%, and our piki guys decided they could make it without killing us or them. And we drove on, going deeper and deeper into the rainforest until we arrived to a warm welcome at our bandas, more drowned than even the proverbial rat ever was.


It was all worth it for the stunning view over the rainforest at dawn



Our banda!







Forest life



BLUE MONKEY!

2. Hangin’ with the cows

It’s Friday, and after our soggy time in Kakamega, we’re now visiting fellow VSO Catherine at her placement in Rarieda, near the shores of Lake Victoria. It’s pretty much in the middle of frikkin nowhere, in a beautiful but very poor rural area. Catherine works for an organisation called Rafiki wa Maendeleo (friends in development), who work with this impoverished community on education and training, health, advocacy and economic empowerment.

Catherine's place

She lives in a house very close to the Rafiki compound, and so we’re staying with her there. It’s a fairly standard volunteer house, but because of the rural location, Catherine has none of the luxuries of Nairobi. We might complain about occasional power cuts and water shortages, but here, there are no supermarkets (barely any shops), electricity is limited to a small solar charger, water absolutely must be conserved so it doesn’t run out, and showering involves a bucket of water in a small shack.



Helen enjoys a cup of tea
and reading time on the veranda

VSOs can get a bit competitive about who has the most challenging placement / worst living conditions / most hassle from strangers in the street, but really, there are pros and cons to every volunteer’s situation. The big ‘pro’ of living where Catherine does, especially appealing to Nairobians like us, is peace, quiet and green. We spend a couple of calm, slow hours sitting on her terrace, watching the cows which graze around her house (they sometimes come and eat her washing), listening to the birds and thinking big, vague thoughts about nothing and everything. It’s blissful.



Hello cow!

3. On an island eating fish

That same day, we take Catherine’s recommendation to catch the ferry across Winam Gulf to Mbita – an island in Lake Victoria. I’ve loved ferries ever since childhood holidays to France, so the promise of a ferry ride on Africa's largest lake and eating fish sounded like pretty much my perfect day.

The ferry ride takes an hour and involves cars, people, fish, cows, chickens and building materials all crowding on. We head out into the lake, surrounded by big craggy mountains and still water. It feels kinda prehistoric.

View from the ferry

Lunch!

On the island, we head to ‘Mbita Tourist Hotel’, where we discover a small ‘beach’ and paddle our feet in the water before settling down to a delicious fish lunch (Lake Victoria’s famous tilapia – amazing). It’s another moment of peace to be savoured, and after our months in the big city, it’s fascinating to spend time in a place which revolves so much around water. Here, it’s all about fishing. People’s days are dictated by the ferry times on and off the island. It’s a whole other Kenya. It makes me realise how much I’ve missed the lakes, rivers, streams and sea of little old Britain. I guess we’re an island people after all.

Paddling at Mbita

Making friends on the way to the ferry

4. Children have more energy than I do

Saturday morning, and together with Catherine, we’re off to help with Rafiki’s “PSS” – Psycho-social support. This programme is all about supporting the local children, giving them time to play and socialise away from their usual tough lives, as well as giving them a good meal. More than 70% of the community in Rarieda District lives in poverty, HIV infection rates are twice the national average and 35% of children are orphans.

We get pikis to Masala school and immediately get drawn into the biggest crowd of kids in the middle of the playing field. There are about 100 children in total. Some are in smaller groups, doing drawings, reading stories, but the majority are on the field, ready for some serious games and clearly excited to see Mzungus. The PSS work is not easy, Catherine has warned us. Largely because the vast majority of the kids only speak their local mother tongue, not much Swahili, and even less English. So finding ways to explain activities and interact properly is a challenge.



Catherine in serious 'Tickle Attack' mode

Catherine quickly takes charge, shouting out “One, Two, Make a Circle!” – the children all join in with the well-known chant and begin to hold hands – “Three, Four, a Biiig Circle, Like a Sufaria in the Kiiiitchen!”. And so it begins. For a few awesome, exhausting hours, Catherine, Helen and I try to remember every kind of game we can think of that we’ve ever been taught that could work with a huge group of young children who don’t speak your language. There are clapping games, chasing games, copying games, and lots of running around tickling each other. The language barrier doesn’t matter much when you’re all just there to be silly, and it’s made a lot easier by Catherine’s Chief Interpreter, a young boy with the excellent name of Daniel who has good English and explains what we’re saying to the others.

Helen and Catherine lead The Macarena. Yes. The Macarena.



Mexican wave - sort of

It was a real highlight of our trip, and we’re so glad we went. Although I soon regretted involving the kids in a form of circuit training which involved lots of jumping and crouching and left my legs in agony for the next four days. I’m getting too old for this…

5. Kisumu is a groovy place

Our trip finished in style with a night in Kisumu. Kenya’s third city, Kisumu is renowned for its nightlife, relaxed vibe and ubiquitous tuk-tuks (three-wheel motorbike taxis). The highlight of the evening, for me at least, was hanging out at Dukes of Breeze (thanks Eddie & Allys for the recommendation!) with Helen and Catherine, enjoying a cold drink, listening to the rain, and chatting about all sorts. Good times. After the insanity of the traffic and hassle that is daily Nairobi life, it felt great to be somewhere far more relaxed. Plus, Dukes had AMAZING vegetable tempura and samosas.

Good times in Dukes of Breeze, Kisumu.

Special thanks to Catherine for being our guide, being excellent company, and introducing us to Monopoly Deal. Although we are still upset with you for filling our brains with inane children’s games...

“Down on the banks of the Hankie Pankie,
Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bankie
Saying E-a-pop-pop
I-a-pop-pop
O-a-pop-pop
POW!”