Out collecting passport stamps

This is more of an informational note for those of you who I know might view an extended period o silence as worrisome...you know who you are. I'm heading to Rwanda tomorrow and will be travelling between there, Burundi and Eastern Congo for the next two weeks and internet will most likely be either non-existent or difficult to find so don't be expecting much. I'm positive I'll have adventures to talk about when I get back.

Home fry Heaven

After a month of eating super greasy eggs for breakfast my experience of eating eggs in Kenya has now been redeemed...until such time my stomach decides to once again to stage a revolt. Java House, my sanctuary of normal, very tasty, relatively cheap food, has come to the rescue. This happened on Sunday but I'm writing about it now since the greasy egg has reared its ugly head and I'm wishing for Home fry Heaven again. After church, Taryn, Annie, Dave and I went to Java for breakfast. My meal of choice...home fry heaven...not french fries but hashbrowns seasoned with I don't know what but it was good topped with tomatoes, onions, guacamole and scrambled eggs...and yes it is like being in heaven...egg heaven. Alas the weekend is over and greasy eggs are back, made bearable only because I also had a mango for breakfast.

Anyone up for being selfish?

I've never thought of myself as a particularly selfish person but a couple of events over the past few days makes me wonder whether other people may beg to differ.

Episode number one... its Sunday afternoon and I've gone to Yaya Center (shopping mall) for a few reasons, one being that the Masai Market is there all day Sunday. I was really only looking for one thing, a scarf/wrap for the mornings and evening when it gets a little cool for a t-shirt or the dress I was wearing on Sunday when it started to pour in the middle of the afternoon. I had what I came for and was heading inside to this amazing book store but had to walk through the mass of vendors to get to the door. I was walking by one lady who asked me if I was wanting to buy anything and when I said no not to day she said well how about you trade your bag for something? I told her I wasn't looking to trade my bag to which she responded, well how about your dress then...thinking that she hadn't really thought that option through (she wasn't selling any clothes) I said thanks but I'll be keeping my dress and moved on. There are a lot of nice things at the market and you are sometimes made to feel like you should at least buy something as you obviously have money to spend.

Episode number two...having left the shopping mall to go to Nakumatt, Kenya's Superstore, I got into a matatu because its too far to walk. Taking a matatu in the afternoon shouldn't be more than 20 shillings. I gave the guy 100 and waited for my change. He proceeded to give me 60 back and when I asked where the other 20 was he showed it to me and said "You'll buy me a soda?" I said no, he asked why so I told him I don't have to pay more just because I'm a mzungu (white person). He said "you aren't paying more, you're buying me a soda!" I again said no, and this is when I started asking myself this question, and he asked me whether it was because I was selfish...at this point we were at the stop I wanted, he gave me my 20 shillings and I got off.

So I’m left wondering what people think when they see me walking down the street. I’m definitely not the only white person in Nairobi but I’m definitely a minority. Some people think I’m rich which you could argue I am especially relative to the majority of people here. As a result some people also see me as some one they can get something from…like a trip to Canada for example which may or may not include getting married. When I was doing microfinance research a street boy asked me whether I could take him to Canada. I said I couldn’t and he said oh its because I’m a black African…which I told him had absolutely nothing to do with it, but he will think what he likes. I do like it here but there are times when it feels like being at home would be much less complicated.

So am I selfish? I want to keep my bag and my dress, I didn’t buy the guy soda, and I told the street boy I couldn’t afford to take him to Canada...which is the truth, but when have you given enough? How much is too much, too much money, too much stuff? Where is the point where you look at what you’ve got and say I’m selfish…?

In only an instant...

In an instant (or so) you can get on a bus and wake up halfway across a county, the colts can win the super bowl, cows can appear at your doorstep and life can hang in the balance.

That pretty much sums up the last week for me. Starting with the superbowl we started by ordering pizza which seems normal...sitting in the living room eating pizza watching football? It actually looked more like sitting in the living room eating pizza watching soccer, ruby, and the movie 'the island', waiting for the game to start. Once it did we were all looked like zombies but were awake after the action packed first few minutes. I watched with 3 americans and 2 guys from Denmark. One of the Danish guys walked in wearing a tom brady jersey and a new england patriots hat so I wasn't alone in my cheering from the bears. Staying up made for a fairly uneventful monday since I slept most of the day (which sounds like a pretty good way to spend a monday).

Tuesday I was up at 5:30 am to catch the bus Bridget and I were taking to Kakamega in the Western province of Kenya. Nairobi and Western province are about as different as say Toronto and the Okanagan. Nairobi is a big, polluted city and Western is like a massive garden just without mountains, they've got hills instead. We stayed in a guest house for two nights and had some meetings with partners we used to work with and are hoping to work with if our civic election education campaign gets funding. Then we went up to someones house for dinner, up in the hills that is. The guest house was really nice, it was the first shower where the hot water comes out of the shower head instead of a bucket in almost a month. They also have an environmentally friendly method of cutting the grass...cows. Yup, I came back from breakfast to find 5 cows in front of the door. The other thing about being in smaller towns is the transportation. Since moving across town isn't really worth driving they have boda bodas (spelling ?) They've attached padded seats to the back of their bikes where you'd put a mud flap or something. Anyway they're everywhere and cheap and a fun way to get around. They are fast enough that you get places fairly quickly but slow enough that you can take in everything around you. It was a little awkward with our bags but we managed.

Thursday morning we took a matatu to Kisumu, Kenya's third possibly second biggest city, and then got a ride up to a center about an hour into the hills. Its run by ARC-Aid a Norwegian organization I think. The main activity there is a 6 month development training course and we were there to visit 5 Congolese we had sponsored to do the training. We were only there over night, but got to sit in on some training, learn about some of their other projects and eat amazing food! They've started baking their own whole wheat bread and they had made it fresh when we arrived and we ate it for snack, lunch, and breakfast. Part of their plan is to start mass producing it and selling it locally because of the health problems people in the area are encountering. One problem, much like in Canada is that white wonder bread is the cheapest but also so refined that its unhealthy so people are starting to get adult onset diabetes. The other reason is that they are hoping to start putting a grain they call amarathas into the bread. The grain has been shown to be very good for the immune system, so they are hoping they can prevent diabetes as well as strengthen the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDS. The other thing about being in the rural areas is that white people are still a novelty, especially with the kids. In the city they'll look at you and say hi, but in the countryside you can cause quite a stir when they discover you and then whisper and giggle to each other about the mzungu (white person). I made a just few friends the day we spent at the center...sorry no pictures, I left my camera cord at home.

Friday morning we headed back to Nairobi which required a matatu to Kisumu and then the 8 hour bus ride to Nairobi. Matatu drivers tend to have a bad reputation for somewhat reckless driving compared to the rest of population, and the roads in that part of Kenya are narrow and winding their way through the hills and friday was not our day. We were two thirds of the way to Kisumu, close enough that we could see Lake Victoria when we were at the top of a hill when all of a sudden our matatu hit the breaks and swerved to the side as we heard a thud. A lady had gone to run across the road and didn't see us coming. She ended up lying face down in the middle of the road with her little girl running to her screaming and trying to lift her up. After a few minutes, while we were sure she hadn't made it she pulled herself into a sitting position but in very bad shape. Medical services aren't quite what they are at home and you can wait for a long time for help to come but almost a soon as she sat up an ambulance who happened to be transporting a sick patient to Kisumu pulled up and was able to take her. As you might expect no one in our vehicle was injured since the car usually wins in those situations but I don't know if we'll ever know if she made it. A few minutes later we were put into a different matatu and we went to catch our bus. The walk from the matatu station to the bus station took a little while but neither of us felt like getting on a boda boda in the traffic of Kisumu. The rest of the day was uneventful other than the power going out as soon as I walked into the door when we got home at 7:30 pm but the day was a reminder of how fragile life can be, you never know what tomorrow might bring.

Sorry to end on a bit of a sobering note but that's how my week ended. I had hoped to go home and watch a light hearted movie but when I put it into the dvd player it told me that the dvd wasn't formatted for that machine...ahh Africa. Tonight I'm going to see 'the pursuit of happyness' and going out for dinner and tomorrow I'm going to the Masai market after church so it should be a good weekend.

I'm also expecting to get a few less bitter e-mails about the weather this week since its reading week and I know at least some of you are headed south! Oh and as you've probably guessed, the picture at the top is me feeding a giraffe, giraffe kiss optional.

GO BEARS!

For those of you concerned about the absence of NFL in africa and my withdrawal symptoms fear no more my friend Taryn has somehow managed to get a satellite feed or something because we're pulling an all nighter to watch it...which is why I'm posting today not tomorrow because tomorrow what I write may be uncomprehendable. Due to the eight hour time difference we'll be watching the kickoff at 2:30 am monday morning...don't you wish you were here?

Anyway, to more interesting things for the rest of the population who could care less about football...kerianne this is for you...I just finished my first project proposal. Its kind of scary that this project is based on most of my research but oh well! Bridget will still look it over and submit the final copy but I am responsible for a lot of what's written in it. So the next big thing is a trip out of the smoggy city! I think my lungs must have a pound of exhaust fumes in them by now. We're going to Western province, near Lake Victoria, to help with some mediation training and check up on how things are going there.

Last week was mostly research, but I did get to visit Kibera. Most people now say that it's the biggest slum in Africa, maybe the world but I've had people give me varying numbers on its size. I think it's around 1 million people. Anyway, there's a pretty big microfinance bank called Jamii Bora that has a branch there so I was visiting some of the businesses of their clients. We went to a "hospital" that had a blood testing lab. Pretty basic looking but they offer the tests at half cost. Then there was a lady who bough a maize grinder which was busy working the whole time I was there since the staple food here is pretty much maize flour and water cooked into something that looks like mashed potatoes but definitely isn't. The last place we went to was a restaurant where I was fed what looked like green mashed potatoes and maize. Really they add some green vegetable to mashed potatoes and maize flour and it actually tasted pretty good but not as good as actually eating mashed potatoes. What I saw puts to rest any thought someone might have that the poor aren't willing to work or don't want to work. No one wants to live in Kibera or any other slum in Nairobi for that matter. Given even a small amount people are willing to work. The first loans Jamii Bora will give out are capped at 10,000 shillings or $160 CDN but you have to have at least half that amount in a savings account. Its pretty hard to get ahead here, walking through only a small part of the market in Kibera you see dozens of people selling the same thing and really low prices. It makes you wonder how much people can actually make from their business selling vegetables or used clothes. But lots of people are optimistic and still have hope. If they can somehow get their kids through primary school with good grades maybe they'll get a bursary for secondary school. The main thing is keeping kids busy so that they don't get involved with crime which is a huge problem here, like any city I guess.

That's all for now, I'm off to watch some football (not soccer)!

My home

Here are some pictures of my room and wonderful bathroom facility. Also I figured out how to change my blog settings so you can post comments without having to have an account, and if you don't want to post comments for everyone else to see feel free to send an e-mail!