Mzungu in a hat

You'd think there isn't a lot I could do to make it any more obvious in my tiny jungle town that I am, in fact, not a Kenyan. I wear strange clothes and odd shoes and do not have a baby strapped anywhere to my body. I do not carry things on my head, I have straight hair, and let's not forget that I am white, a detail that can be seen from a 1/2 mile down the road.

The other mzungus and I have become accustomed to being the talk of the town, to being stared at and proposed to. So I really couldn't get any more weird, right? Wrong. I am apparently the only mzungu who regularly wears sunglasses and a huge floppy white sun hat. I know it's ridiculous, but I look pretty ridiculous already and why not keep cool (cooler) and get the sun out of my eyes while I'm at it?

I swear I get even more weird looks from Kenyans when I wear my hat, although Megan thinks I may just be hat-sensitive. But people do look at me even more strangely. Lately too, I've been getting my hand kissed a lot by kids and adult males. The latest development though is with a group of 6 little boys who I walk past on my way to the office a few times a day. Yesterday as I came down the path, one boy started to salute me - hand to forhead and all - and instruct the others to do the same. This morning, same group of boys, lined up on either side of the path and all saluted, complete with a "ten-hut" and a little stomp by the leader-boy as I walked through. I checked with the other volunteers and no one has had that experience. I think it must be the hat.

Home sweet hut

Megan and I have moved into our new hut/home. It's large enough for two twin beds, two bednets, a bookshelf, and our bags. It's actually quite nice and now that we're out in nature throughout the night we can appreciate the dazzling stars and the cricket noises. I do not appreciate the bugs that dive-bomb my face every time I put on my headlamp, but I am learning to adapt.

I woke up early yesterday to wash my laundry in a bucket. I've discovered that there are some skills I just never learned in my previous life. I'm coming home with a whole new list of talents: washing clothes in a bucket, balaning on the back of a boda boda with a shopping bag, making Nescafe, walking while small children try to climb me like a tree...

Haller Park visit

Tusker

I'm sitting on the roof of the house, typing a blog entry and drinking a Tusker. Alcohol is frowned upon in this village - it's very conservative; no alcohol or smoking, no exposed shoulders (tank tops), no pants, and so on - so the only place we can drink a beer is on the roof of the house. And since Megan and I move to our hut tomorrow, this is really the last chance we'll have for a beer in a while.

Tusker is a Kenyan beer. The label pictures it's namesake, Tusker the elephant, who is famous for killing one of the founders of the Tusker beer company. Only in Kenya.

Latte in Mombasa

Walk to Vuma

Lost in translation

Despite the open and welcome community, all of the work that the EAC has done here, the patience the folks here have for the mzungos (white people), and the goodwill of the Vutakaka Center, there remains a huge gap between the cultures of the European/American volunteers and the people who live here in the village.

Tricia told us a story about a time that she had to fill in for a teacher at the after-school tutoring program. She got to the room and discovered that she had tons of kids, but no lesson plan, no chalk, and no idea what she would do.  Thinking fast, she grabbed a hand puppet and brought it up next to her face, saying in a squeaky voice: "JAAAAAMBO!"

The children went out of their minds.  Imagine, in a place with no television, no puppets, no stuffed animals of any kind, kids confronted with a furry thing on the end of a mzungo's hand must have thought she had been eaten. Or possessed.  They began screaming, pulling their hair, and running from the classroom as fast as their little legs could carry them.  One boy ran all the way home and didn't return. Other children were shaking and crying and just distraught.

Another story, a little more pertinant to my line of work, is about the adult health class.  They met one day to talk about safe sex and condoms. To demonstrate proper condom use, the instructor brought the handle of a shovel to class.  She held up the condom, showed how to check the expiration date and unwrap it, and then unrolled it down the length of the handle.  The class understood, all seemed to be well.  This being Takaungu, people talk and before long the talk filtered back to Vutakaka.  The women who had attended the class were in fact using condoms as they were taught.  They had gone home and removed the handle to a rake or shovel. The next time they had sex, the women used proper technique to put the condom on the handle, which they kept next to the bed during intercourse.

Bizarro summer camp

I can't quite shake the feeling that I've flown halfway around the world to get to my junior high summer camp.  Okay, so it's still Africa.  Instead of being woken at 7 by reville, we hear the call to prayer at 4:30.  And instead of going to the commissary to buy M&Ms or Snickers bars, we go to the house next door to buy masala-sprinkled french fries and fried dough rolled in sugar.  And instead of filling our plates each day with hamburgers and spaghetti at the lunch line, we spoon rice or pasta and some type of stewed vegateble or sauce out of hot pots.  But otherwise, it's just like summer camp.

There's the camp gossip and cliques among the volunteers who I'm sure I'll describe in more detail at some future point.  I'm coming to be familiar with the way along the path between office and center, office and beach.  There are scheduled activities - a volleyball game every Thursday, a party on the roof this Friday - to look forward to.  I see everyone in the same clothes so much it begins to look like a uniform. My day has become centered around the food - lunch and dinner are the highlights of the day.  Lights out is early and in the middle of the night I have to fumble for my headlamp to find my way to the bathroom.

Work

The general idea in volunteering for EAC, aside from getting the chance to live in Kenya among goats and palm trees, is to perform some sort of work related to health. When I first talked to Suzanne, the executive director, about this, she was excited at the prospect. The EAC began (and still is) a community empowerment organization. They have a primary school for young children, after school tutoring for older kids, a sewing class and cooperative, adult education classes and other various programs. BUT, they were also about to open a health clinic and Suzanne was very interested in having volunteers with health backgrounds.
Health is a big concern here. Last week a baby died after falling in a bucket of water. On our first night here, another small child was covered somehow in boiling water. There's an awful story about a Takaungu woman went into labor, began having difficulties, and wound up bleeding to death while trying to ride a bicycle 4 km to the road in order to catch a mutatu to take her to the hospital. Malaria is almost universal here and people experience recurrences frequently (once you're infected you're never free of the sickness, even with treatment). And 7% of the population has HIV. The nearest hospital is a boda boda and mutatu ride away and even if people can afford to get there, they're not likely to be able to afford the cost of being evaluated and treated.
Last Tuesday Megan and I sat in on the weekly meeting regarding the new Community Health Worker (CHW) Program. The EAC has hired 10 community members to be trained in first aid, nutrition, sanitation, common illnesses, disease prevention, HIV and sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and more so that they can visit people in their towns, provide help and monitoring and refer them to the EAC clinic if treatment is necessary. There are a number of CHW models, but all focus on a particular disease or problem, such as HIV. I'm not aware of a program that is attempting to be quite so comprehensive as this one. Which brings us to the problem. At the meeting it quickly became apparent that the team (Suzanne, Tricia, the nurse (Sarah), trainer, and EAC coordinator) had been working very hard and for a long time to pull together all of the pieces of the program. There were medication kits to discuss, the hiring of the CHWs, training schedule and logistics and uniforms. The curriculum for this month long, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week training does not exist yet. And the training begins around the 1st of September. Megan and I volunteered to take the maybe 50 different information sources available to us - books, presentations, pamphlets, and a few lesson plans - and synthesize it into a uniform and comprehensive training curriculum.
Our second project is to help with the completion of the community health survey. The EAC created a survey with over 250 questions to measure the health of the community. Some of the question are about education and income (does your house have electricity? How many goats does your family have?),others are about food (how often does your family drink milk? eat meat?), and most are about health (how many children are in your family? when is the last time someone had malaria?). So far they've managed to complete around 40 surveys, but there are 60 more to do so I'm looking forward to tromping out to huts and sitting with the locals to ask for this information.
A third project is to come up with the tracking sheets for the community health workers - what information should they record when they visit a family? This will help with sharing health information as well as for measuring the success and identifying gaps in the program. Likewise, the medical clinic, once opened, will need to have patient charts and records for the same reasons.
Meanwhile, we sit in the office to do our work and marvel at the pictures in our reference book (is that a pig biting a man? Why is there a piglet in the picture? Oh my god,look at this picture of a guy catheterizing himself!). We critique the posters that another volunteer is drawing to use as lesson illustrations (jeez, the penis is getting larger in each frame) and chat about what we're doing here, next weekend, at home, in school, and so on.
The beautiful thing about all of these projects is that I couldn't have picked work that was more suited to my interests and experience. I was a little afraid I would wind up digging latrines or teaching school classes which are things that would contribute to the community but are not things for which I have any skill at all. I'm excited that I can really dig into these health projects and complete something meaningful in my short time here.

The story with the internet

So there is no canoe involved, but getting to the internet does require a 30 minute boda boda ride (me perched on the back of a bicycle) and a 25 minute matutu (me and 17other Kenyans in a van careening down the road with ear-splitting BANGs and RA-TA-TA-TAts).  Luckily I can write my blog entry back at the office and bring it to Kilifi with me. So I'll be posting (and checking email) just a couple times a week.

Volunteers on the TK beach

I’m fine, how are you?

Walking between the office and the center we pass many people who are socializing, carrying water or other supplies, herding animals, working, or just playing. Tricia explained that it was customary for foreigners to be the first to greet people you pass or see while walking – and there are a LOT of people to greet. Megan and I quickly picked up "habari ya yako" and "habari zenu", the greetings, and "nzuri!" the response. Small children run up and say "how are YOU?" to which we reply "I'm fine, how are YOU?" to their delight and they follow with the question "how are YOU?" This goes on for a while. Very Constant Gardener.

Other volunteers and Tricia know many people and a walk with them always involves a stop to chat with someone about their homework or family or plans for the day. People are excited to meet me and Megan and remember our names when we see them later in the day. (I wish I could do the same!)

As we walk, young men approach and ask who we are and where are we going. (I think all of the young women are already busy at home with babies – I just heard about a 17 year old girl with two children already.) A lot of them are familiar with the Center or know others who work there, so we'll be given messages to pass along. They want to know where we are from and how long we'll be here and what do we think of Takaungu. One asked if I would marry him and take him to America so he could become a professional football player. Once he learned my age, he asked if I had a younger sister in America….I'm hoping this will be an uncommon occurrence.

Takaungu

My village is four miles down a dirt road from the main dirt road. There is quite a range of houses here – some have electricity, most don't. Most are single story (ours being an obvious exception, it must be the tallest building in town) and houses are made from coral brick or mud and sticks.

This is a predominantly Muslim village, although I understand a good number of Christians live here to. There are five, count em, five mosques here who all conduct their prayer calls at the same time and seem to have a competition regarding who's is the loudest and longest.

There's a house nearby that serves French fries from 4-4:30 every day and provides dessert for us twice a week. Another store sells chapatti (kind of like a fried tortilla) and beans, which has been our lunch a couple of times so far. A store called "Mohammed Ali's" sells fabric, pencils, snacks, and other sundries, the Takaungu answer to Walmart. There's a government run primary and secondary school, though students who wish to go to high school have to commute to Mombasa, and a Muslim school which provides religious instruction in the afternoons.

Men have a difficult time finding jobs and we see many sitting around during the day. Kids walk back and forth between school and home. Women – who almost always have a baby strapped to them – may be seen carrying water and firewood around and are invariably in the middle of some task.

There is a very low crime rate here, practically nonexistent even, perhaps because everyone knows everything about everybody else. Even so, we keep the door to the house locked at all times and return before dark. At night the house allows in all of the sounds of the evening – we hear the neighbors talking, kids playing, goats, cats, dogs, and some strange other noises I just can't identify.

Mombasa market

First impressions

I didn't realize that I had quite so many preconceptions about Africa until I stepped off the plane in Mombasa. I looked around me and expected to see…bushes? Tribesmen? Stripes on everything? Africa, Kenya just sounds so exotic that the biggest shock upon arriving was just how normal everything seems.

Megan and I were met at the airport by an EAC representative and we spent the night (it was 12:30 AM by the time we arrived) at their apartment in the Mombasa suburbs. The next morning, after breakfast and instant coffee, we left for Takaungu, the village that will be our home for the next month. We drove along a busy dirt road, the driver swerving to avoid potholes and attempt to run over a snake on the road (he explained that all Kenyans should try to kill snakes to prevent the snakes from killing Kenyans). We drove past sisal plantations and stands of trees. While the part of Kenya I flew over on route to Nairobi was very brown, near Mombasa everything is green. There is plant life everywhere – mango trees, palms, banana bushes, cashew trees and a million other plants I can't name. As we drove, we passed Kenyans pulling huge loads on makeshift wheelbarrows, balancing large packages on their heads, and lots of kids playing by the sides of the road.

A couple of hours later, we arrived at our new home and discovered that instead of sleeping in a hut for the next week, we'll get to stay at the EAC office which is actually a very large house in the middle of town. Much nicer than any place I've stayed on my travels before, there are four bedrooms, four baths, two kitchens, a large living room, the office itself, and best of all, an amazing roof looking over the village. After months of psyching myself up for really roughing it in the wild jungles of Africa, it was rather surprising to find myself in a place with lights and a spot to plug in my iPod. There's running water and a refrigerator and a cook to prepare our meals.

We met several of the other volunteers and had a tour of the Vutakaka Center (more on that later) and then orientation. I have to say, I'm extremely impressed by the EAC's organization. In one day, Tricia, the volunteer coordinator, gave us an overview of local culture and history, described the evolution and goals of EAC, hinted at some possible projects, explained the systems for food and laundry, told us the rules by which we need to abide, and taught us the Swahili greetings that we can't get through the village without, and somehow managed to make us feel welcome, excited, safe, and relaxed.

In transit

Two and a half novels, 14 sudoku puzzles, 5 crosswords, one really bad Michael Douglas movie and 34.5 hours ago I left Seattle and I'm still in transit.  I've made it as far as the Nairobi Airport and should be meeting up with Megan in the next few hours after which we'll catch our flight to Mombasa.  We'll stay there overnight with the director of the EAC and then travel to Takaungu (and our hut) tomorrow.

 

The guy in front of me to board the plane from Zurich to Nairobi was just returning from the International AIDS Conference - easy to tell as he was sporting the obligatory free conference bag - and I asked him how he found it.  (Answer: depressing, too much talk, not enough action, not enough money.)  His name was Adolf which surprised me because (1) Kenya has lots of British influence but I never figured that Germany had a hand in and (2) he was middle aged and didn't that name go out of favor about 60 years ago? 

 

All I can say so far about Kenya is that the country looks brown from the airplane window. The flat earth is occasionally broken by small hills that look as if they could be read as braille if your finger was large enough.

 

 

Destination: Takaungu

See arrow.