Africanization

Hope you all are well. Its 6pm on Thursday night, and i'm laying on the bed in the guesthouse. Im now in Kuria district, in a town called Kehancha, in the very southwest of Kenya. I got here last Friday night, and will be leaving on Saturday morning for Nairobi for a couple of days before I head north to the last village. Its thunderstorming like a sob right now, as it has every day since I arrived. This area definitely has a very different feel than the places I was at previously. The people are not nearly as friendly, and there is a lot more begging, and from the conversations I've had, a lot more corruption as well. But I visited the land on Monday to start formulating another sustainability plan anyways. The land is about 30 acres of beautiful green virgin land, on the river that separates the Kuria tribal lands from the Maasai lands - if you are not aware, the Maasai are the red robe wearing kenyan pastoralist tribe that survives mostly on a mixture of cow's blood and milk - the Kenyan government likes to promote them in tourist guides, even though they make up something like 1 percent of the population. Looking out into rift valley province, it was kind of surreal to be standing in the very fields where the two tribes historically fought battles over stolen cows, killing the enemy with primitive machetes and knives if he resisted the invaders. And when I say historically, I mean 2009. Wierd. Hence the reason for the broken barbed wire fence all around the property...the fence seemed to be in the way of the war, so they just fought through. Guess the organization will have to suck that cost up. We passed a few dudes with machetes on the tramp through the brush back to the dirt road, and I couldnt help but wonder... Tuesday we went to a school for more of the research, and Wednesday as well. We stopped at a building (i dont dare use the word bar or hotel for fear of misleading some to believe that this was a structure actually worthy of conducting a business) for a beer, but seeing as it was late afternoon, we left after one in order to catch a last matatu. we got one, squeezing 10 grownups into a toyota station wagon (two people sit under the steering wheel section - i dont know how the heck the guys drive that way, but hey, they make it work, so 4 up front, 4 in the middle, and 2 in the trunk) and we took off on the 10km drive to the next town, right on the border with tanzania...we made it about 7 km when we ran out of gas. so we started walking, and made it into town just as night was coming...a thunderstorm was coming in as well, and people were scattering..except for the 3 of us, looking like asses standing out in the oncoming hurricane in the electricity less darkness.... this was like the buildup to the climax in the movie...darkness, wind, swinging broken creaky doors all over, rain coming in....after about 10 minutes we caught the last guy going towards our town, and managed to cram in just as the sky opened up. this drive was about 45 minutes over terrible hilly, dirt roads in the dark. i was about to pee my pants when the guy came to a stop in the middle of nowhere, just one cattle trail heading off to the left, so I hopped out for a "short call" regardless of what the other passengers thought. at that point i didnt care, but upon finishing I turned to thank everyone for waiting, but saw that the driver wasnt around... then i heard the yelling, and through the rain i could see one guy dragging another one on the ground kicking and screaming back toward the taxi. I guess he didnt pay but the driver caught him. the driver was trying to get him in the car to take him to the town or the police, but seeing as that they still practice mob justice on criminals here, the guy wasnt ready to go.. he was cryign and screaming like a little girl wrestling in the rain. we are watching from inside the car...this went on for about 4 minutes probably, and only stopped when a guy showed up out of the woods and paid the guys share...the driver relented on taking him to the town because my guy here is in good with the chief of the tribe, and assured the driver that they would come get him later. all in all it was a ridiculous drive home, about 2 hours after we started...about 10 miles away as the bird flies. we showed up soaked and hungry at 830, ready to eat dinner and crash. today was chill, just worked in town with the aid of functioning electricity on excel reports for a good part of the day, and i got the hole in the soccer ball fixed. i took a break and got hustled in a game of pool this afternoon, and walked home jsut in time to miss getting drenched again. This place knows how to rain something serious. Im looking forward to Nairobi for a couple of days. I could use a real shower, and I really want to use a toilet. Functioning or not, I don't care - squatting sucks. Hopefully I make it there with my computer and am able to get something up here again. Stay thirsty my friends.

Surprise!! There is a new post!!

Hope all is well. I have been reminded recently that I have not been updating the blog too often. So here goes. I am in Mbakalo, the first town I originally came to after leaving Nairobi, and have been here for one week, since last Tuesday. The last week in Ugenya I visited a school on Monday and Tuesday to complete evaluations, and spent a lot of time generally doing nothing, since my entire reason for staying the extra week was so that I’d be able to watch the superbowl. I spent some time in the town almost everyday; it was only about a kilometer down the road from the hotel. I would pass the time walking through the market, and one day I decided I would count how many storefronts I could find advertising ready-made coffins. I counted three workshops in 200 meters on the main road. Then I got bored or something. The superbowl was ok… some other mizungus came to the hotel to watch, and we partook in several bottles of cheap Kenyan liquor. Somehow during this time I figured out how to make my cellphone call America, so for those of you on the receiving end I apologize for the ridiculousness, but feel special, because it means you are one of the few whose numbers I remembered. On Tuesday I made the return trip to Mbakalo, and this time it only took 2.5 hours. I told you that the way we came 2 weeks earlier seemed rather indirect…I knew it! 2 points of interest on this trip….the first, I was sitting in the front seat of a bus type thing…its like the home city ice truck that deeps flipped, but the back is converted into seating…anyway, I got to sit up front due to my large muscular build, and got a front row seat to the standoff between our 7000 pound truck…and a guy with 10 feet of sugarcane strapped across his bicycle. For about 5 minutes they argued who should back up and use the other 20 feet of this particular road’s width. For some reason this side of the dirt road we both were using seemed better than the other. The whole time I was thinking back to sixth grade history class when they told us how the flatboats on the canals would have the captains fight to see which boat would have to back up to the lock so they could pass. I was absolutely ready to put 100 bucks on the guy with the bike. Going face to face with a 25 passenger bus takes a real pair when all you have is a huffy. The only other interesting part of the trip was the sign I saw painted in large, crisp letters over the office door of the apparent second in charge of the city…. “ASS CHIEF’S OFFICE” I’m not exactly sure what the hell that guy does, but it sounds like a pretty good job.
Ive been here in Mbakalo for a week now. Most days start with a biscuit, a shower from the pan of water on the floor of the outhouse, and a leisurely stroll to the medical clinic. Ive been meeting with the womens groups that received microfinance loans this year, splicing extension cords, visiting some of the water/well/latrine infrastructure projects that were put in through a grant from the lake Victoria water protection board or( something like that), and writing a plan with the head leadership to make the programs they have here sustainable, since right now programming is inconsistent due to variations in grant funding and funding from donors to the headquarters back in the states.

Most nights we head back around 5 or so, and play football with the neighborhood kids until it gets dark at 630 or so. After that its pitch black outside, and inside, except for the one lightbulb in the dining room that runs off of a solar panel. We get a dinner around 8, then its bedtime, since there is nothing else to do in the dark. There is another intern here now, who arrived here the same day I did, and we have been going back and forth on the idea of going down to hike Kilimanjaro before I leave. By the way, is this the most amount of snow ever in the states? The only time I see the news I see everyone getting dumped on. That sucks. It actually rained again today. That’s the second time in a month and a half. Stay warm my friends.

afriCAN

Well Happy Groundhog Day everyone! Thanks for taking time out of the busy day to check in here.

New paragraph…it looks like I got 2 sentences done yesterday. I am not doing so well at the blog writing. But I am doing well with the journal, which I have never been able to do, so that is super. Today is Wednesday, and Im sitting on the balcony at the Camunya hotel. In the last several days, I haven’t done a lot of anything crazy… One of my jobs while here was to finish up a research project on the efficacy of the hiv/aids prevention curriculum. The previous intern started the project with 3 rounds of questioning last summer, and I am following up with the 6 month later evaluation. It is not difficult, just entails traveling to the school and giving them a survey to fill out, probably 2 to 3 hours from the time we leave until we return. We have to do the surveys at recess time, however, so we can only do one school a day. There are 12 schools in total, but now that the 4 in Ugenya are done I happily on my way with that. No more for at least 3 weeks until I move to Kuria, south of here and south of Lake Victoria, after I head back up north to Mbakalo for a week or so.

The weekend was exciting though. On Saturday I spent the day with Calvin going over the goals of the organization here and creating a plan to create income with a poultry farm in order to reach those objectives. The organization has 4 acres of land, and a building, and has planted bananas that are producing, but because no comprehensive plan has yet been put together no one really had an idea what the money that should have been coming in from the bananas would be used for. ( there is no money coming in because the lack of a plan means that there is no caretaker, and thus, the neighbors are all getting fat off of the 2.5 acres of free bananas.) The local organization had no specific goal… aids is a problem, and poverty is a problem, but no one yet has decided how the organization is approaching it…and like they say, it is hard to get where you are going if you don’t know where you want to be…, so all the donations and land grants going towards the building , and fencing, and planting, and fertilizing…has yet to produce any fruit (pun intended). It was so frustrating to me to see so many plans and status reports for the bananas and for the building that have been coming in from the local coordinator and all of the interns that have come here since 2006….when nothing has been done, except for planting the bananas, because no one put the separate aspects of developing an income generating asset and then targeting the financial needs of that nonprofit if it wanted to be totally self sustainable. Hope that made sense. Anyways, with some tough questions, and a realistic look at what is really needed here, versus what is a waste, essentially I think we did in about 5 hours what hadn’t been done in 4 years. I will be putting the final report down and getting it off to headquarters in the coming days. All in all it looks as if a loan of about $5,500 dollars, which I have planned to be repaid in three years, will allow the organization to become totally self sustainable, creating 3 full time jobs, operating a daycare for 50 young children of child headed households (due to both parents dying from aids) which will allow the older children to complete their educations, and also provide total educational sponsorship for 2 more children at a time. (this includes books, uniforms, food for the family at home, shoes, uniforms, school fees – primary is free, but secondary costs- a major barrier to many children getting an education in developing countries- and medical care. Right now the organization has 38 sponsored children, but the problem is that it is not sustainable – they are totally dependent on a sponsor from the us sending the money each year, which can easily change, and thus is not the best way to attack the situation, in my opinion. This project will enable the organization to add 2 more children to the list of those who will complete an education, and do it in a sustainable way. Its amazing what such a small loan to those with no collateral can do – the wonders of microfinance. I just finished reading three cups of tea, and am excited to start Banker to the Poor by Mohammed Yunus. Besides that, I have just been working out, playing soccer, watching soccer, and trying to put up with the terribly repetitive music that blares from the market all day. How was groundhog day? i still don’t know the outcome…the sun was too bright for me to see the computer screen!! Stay warm my friends.