Wednesday 27 January 2010 and Thursday 28 January 2010

Because I am beginning to settle into a routine in my schedule here in Kenya, I may begin to have fewer posts. However, this does not mean that things are going to get boring, hopefully! This post is particularly lengthy, so you will see section headings below . . . as always, I hope all of you are doing splendidly if I haven’t said that before!

More about my program

One of you reminded me that I have not yet discussed details of the program I am involved with here in Kenya. I think I’ve explained that the program is MSID, Minnesota Studies in International Development, but not much more. The structure of the program is as follows. After spending our week of orientation in Nakuru National Park which I mentioned previously, I am currently in the classroom phase, which lasts for a total of 7 weeks starting this week. During the classroom phase, I learn Swahili, Country Analysis of Kenya (history, culture), and Development Studies. The internship phase of 6 weeks follows this classroom phase. During the internship program, most of us will be required to use Swahili! Swahili is especially prevalent on the coast, which includes my place of internship, Mombasa, Kenya. Mombasa is a beautiful port city right on the Indian Ocean, so I am very excited about spending some time in the city and on the beach as well as at my internship, which you’ll hear more about later! After the 6 week internship, everyone will meet back in Nairobi and stay with their families there for one final week of wrap-up before the program officially ends at the beginning of May. I will be staying a week longer to explore anything I haven’t seen already and possibly surrounding countries. Here is my schedule of where I will be when including dates:

Program Schedule:
Jan 23 – Mar 12 Classes in Nairobi
Mar 12 – Apr 23 Internship component of the program in Mombassa, Kenya at FIDA Kenya
Apr 23 – 30 Final week of wrap-up in Nairobi
Apr 30 Final day of program
May 1 – 11 Further travel in East Africa for Gillian
May 12 Gillian arrives in the US!

Daily Routine and Classes

As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I have settled into somewhat of a routine for school and activities with my family while in Nairobi. Currently, I wake up at 6:45 to shower and get ready for school. Before school, I have tea with Métrine (house help to the family). For those of you who haven’t been to Kenya or don’t know this, Kenyans drink chai tea a minimum of 3 times daily. I drink chai for breakfast; we have a break for chai at school at 10:30am, and then my family and I take chai intermittently as we get home, the earliest time for this being at 4pm. I love the chai here- Kenyans mix half milk, half water, boil it, add the tea leaves and then add sugar to the tea. Everyone drinks the milk/water/tea mixture from the thermos and each adds their own sugar. Along with tea, Kenyans have bread and Blue Band (vegetable butter) or jelly or cookies (this is what we do at school). Even at work my host mom will break in the morning for tea! Some of my classmates say that this is a way to curb hunger for some, but in my family and at school, it is more of a social time for everyone to slow down and talk for 15 minutes or so. One of the things that our orientation told us about Kenya is that everything here is about relationships, relationships, relationships! At the orientation, this point was stressed particularly in reference to our internships as offices and organizations “do not run the same way in Kenya as they do in the US,” according to MSID program leaders. According to them, much of this is a trickledown effect of government inefficiency, and results in the fact that many Kenyans either don’t have work or they sit at a job for which they get paid, but there is no real work for them to do at their job. Because systems (government, business, other organizations) are not even as efficient as the US (Kenyan’s words), relationships are the means by which things are accomplished and many times relationships are just more important than getting things accomplished in the first place. This orientation to daily activities is an adjustment for me as I usually try to stay very busy producing things in the US.

Anyway, after tea/breakfast, the walk to school is about 20 minutes. I live inside of a gated compound, so I walk out of the gate and then by other compounds on the way to school as well as a market with live chickens, clothing and lots of fruit! In Kenya, all markets are open markets, so you must barter with the seller to try to get the best price for what you are buying. I haven’t done this yet, but plan to this weekend, so stay tuned for news about how much more I end up paying that Kenyans . There is close traffic on the road, but there is usually a dirt sidewalk that has been created by other people walking to the main road where my school is- Ngong Road.

Pic: This is the market that is across the street from my compound. People sell everything from food to clothing to chickens. Apparently, after I took this picture, a person in the market asked Metrine, the Kenyan I was walking with, 'why did you let her take that picture?' in Swahili!

Pic: This is me and a few friends sitting across from our school waiting for our next class to start. This day was pretty cold, so we were trying to soak up some sun before going back to class!

Pic: This is our school. I took this picture from where I was sitting in the last picture. We use one of two classrooms on the first floor: the first wooden door on the left or the third wooden door coming from the left (it looks like it might be open in this picture). This is a building on the University of Nazarene campus, which has classes mostly at night, so MSID uses the facility during the day.

The school day is split up into three two hour sessions, with a tea break after the first session (10:30) and lunch after the second session (12:30). The school day begins at 8:30am and ends at 3:30pm, unless we get out early, which has been common this first week. My classes have been great so far. We have been spending a lot of time learning Kiswahili (Kiswahili is Swahili in Swahili) so far as this will be important for our internships. I know how to talk about where I live, what I study, where I’m from and about my family, so some of you have been in my classroom conversations! We’ve also learned many standard greetings. Like in the US, whenever anyone asks you about news you might have, you always say that things are fine. As my Swahili teacher said, even if your house has burned down the day before or you are in the hospital, you still respond with “Nzuri” or “Nzuri sana” (fine or very fine), although you can say “Fine, but my house burned down yesterday” and mention something really terrible that has happened as long as you don’t elaborate!

The country analysis course I am taking is so far a history of Kenya- we’ve discussed pre-colonial and the beginning of colonial history in Kenya. Our professor addressed the differences between French and British colonialism: the French attempted to culturally assimilate people while the British used brute force to control people (killing people, burying them alive), but mostly focused on government structure rather than cultural assimilation. Today, former French colonies are still culturally and politically tied to France (Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon), but former British colonies (Kenya) are more independent, if struggling, as a result of the violence that occurred in these countries under British rule.

Kenyans love the United States. Recently, part of this can be contributed to our election of Obama, whose father was from Kenya, but the relationship is deeper than this. According to one of my professors, Kenyans love the US as a result of the Peace Corps Program that began (1963) right as Kenya gained independence in 1963. As opposed to other nations that wanted to control , ‘develop’ or exploit Kenya knowing nothing about the country or its people, US Peace Corps volunteers came to Kenya to live with local people, learn about them, and work with local people to support already existing development infrastructure in Kenya. Also, the US has encouraged Kenyan development in other ways. Recently, the US pulled $7 million worth of funding from the Kenyan education system after it uncovered corruption in the Kenyan Ministry of Education. I thought that most Kenyans would be outraged by this, but actually, one of my professors and my host parents were very happy about this decision as it calls out the Kenyan government its corruption, which no one in the international system or in the country (complaining about the government won’t change anything) usually does or is able to do. US funding has the ability to have consequences for the Kenyan government and we are not complying with corruption in this case, which Kenyans appreciate. Also, parts of the new Kenyan Constitution are based off of the US Constitution.

This diatribe about Kenya and the US was meant to preface a conversation we had in the country analysis class that continues on this theme: my professor, like other Kenyans I’ve met, seem to think that the US has everything figured out! Before joining the MSID program, one of the advisors who works with MSID, Abdul, thought that there was no poverty in the US at all! Our professor asked us why we thought the US was able to become a strong nation after becoming independent from our colonial power and what could Kenya do to do the same? While this was a thought exercise for us as students and not really him asking what we thought as Americans, I was surprised at his ready comparison of the US settlers and African nations as ‘both having gained independence from Britain’ and the contrast of ‘wow, has the US succeeded!’ My first response to this question was that we were the colonizers. Comparing the indigenous populations of the US and Kenya, Kenyan people are certainly doing better than the Native Americans in the US who are marginalized nations within the US. If anyone has any other thoughts on comparison of the US system with other younger nations or other thoughts on my professor’s question, I’d be interested in comments!

My third class is Development. So far, we have had one class in Development (as the program focus has been on country analysis and Kiswahili) in which we did group presentations, so I don’t have a feel of what the class will really be like yet and how the professor will teach. However, that being said, I think that this class will be a forum for asking very hard academic and personal questions about our role in development as students, citizens of whichever countries, global citizens, etc. My professor commented that he has dealt with these questions (what is the nature of development today? Why is this? Is this form of development the best form? How to we amend our system if it isn’t the best? How do we measure development? What is our personal responsibility in development?) for 26 years. Because of the challenges of answering these questions and the inevitable and seemingly uncircumventable politics involved in the current development industry (corporations, government interest, natural resource exploitation), he said that himself and many others who study development are distressed at their inability to find even hints of answers to these questions. I am currently feeling distressed about many of these questions, but not ready to give up on the quest, which is both academic and deeply personal. I will be interested to see where this class leaves us all who are studying this semester.

Getting back to my daily schedule, I will sometimes visit people or the supermarket after school and then come home, drink more tea, hang out with my host brothers and watch the news. I have started watching the news in Swahili and looking up the headlines with my dictionary. Yesterday, Sean quizzed me on the new words I had learned! I eat dinner with the family and then watch English news at 9 with my family. We frequently have great conversations about the news if we don’t get too tired (mainly my parents explaining things to me) and I am continually impressed with their knowledge and openness about explaining and talking to me about every story of the day. I usually go to bed at 11ish or so after either corresponding with you all, writing a blog post, or reading. My host dad let me borrow a book by Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya’s first president and also an anthropologist, still renowned in Kenya as the father of the country of sorts), so this is what I am currently reading, slowly but surely. Emphasis on the slowly as there is always so much to do here!

Pic: This is Sean, my 8 year old host brother! He is very smart and had just finished singing/dancing to a Michael Jackson song for me, so I think that this is some sort of Michael Jackson pose. He's great and we have lots of fun together!

Host family, health care in Kenya

So, I want to shout out to my host parents and family for a minute. My dad, Ken, is a lecturer (teaches medical technicians) and student (medical student) who gets up at 4am daily to read and goes to bed after the news at 10. My mom, Joann, is a nurse manager who is in charge of her whole unit and other units at the hospital where she works. She leaves the house by 6:30am, stays up to watch the news until 10 and also knows everything about politics as well as being active in the church! Anyway, other than being super hardworking, they have both been so kind to me since my arrival! My mom asks how my day is everyday (expecting real news) and generally oversees that I am happy and that I have what I need here; my dad always offers about three different food options for me at dinner if he thinks something is not to my satisfaction (which is never the case as I enjoy the food here probably too much) and they both always engage me in conversation! Last night, the power went out for a few hours (this happens commonly in Nairobi, but usually during the rainy season, not now during the dry season) and he came out of his room with the flashlight (“Gillian? Oh, you are here! I thought you had gotten trapped downstairs with the lights off!”) to make sure I was okay, even though he had just gone to bed.

It is interesting to talk to them both about their jobs. My dad teaches and also works in a government funded clinic in Nairobi. Nairobi International Hospital is a very good hospital in the city. Other than this hospital, however, most hospitals face many challenges. He said that there are very few resources to treat people where he works. Specifically, he said that mothers will come in with their sick babies and just hold them day after day until they die because there are really no resources or enough doctors to do anything about many of the situations. More encouragingly, my mom works in a private hospital where the scene above does not occur. It is one of the few well-funded hospitals, so good care is possible there. The public private divide is an issue here.

My parents also talk to me about their youth. Last night, we all had a conversation about showering with a basin. This refers to the practice of washing in which a ‘shower’ means cleaning yourself with a basin of water and not even a pitcher or cup to pour the water over you, although today many people use cups or pitchers to assist in this process. My parents both grew up using this method to wash, but both said that they could no longer remember how to be very effective at this! Although my family has a hot shower, some of my classmates must use this method in their homestays. My dad told me an interesting story in which he was required to help someone wash as a kid. In his village, when he was about 8, a traveler from the Netherlands happened upon their village after getting his money stolen and getting lost, only to find the village. My dad’s grandfather helped him out for a few days before the Dutch Embassy helped him get back home. During his stay, he did not know how to shower with a basin, so he asked my dad to run up on the roof and pour water on him repeatedly. This meant that my dad had to repeatedly climb up on the roof with a small pitcher of water until the man was done showering! I couldn’t believe that this traveler made him do that as a small boy, but we were all laughing about it as he told the story, so it was funny more than anything.

As I mentioned previously, I have tea with Métrine, the house help, but someone who is basically part of the family, every morning before school. One of the things she told me about my host family is that my mom and dad are both from different ethnic groups in Kenya. In Kenya, everyone descends from an ethnic group (there are 42 different ethnic groups/tribes in Kenya), whether they live rurally or in the city. Métrine said that because of this, my host family is very welcoming and open to people from all places and ethnicities. I don’t know if this is the reason or if it is for some other reason, but I am so grateful to that everyone has been so kind to me here! I miss you all, but it is nice to live with good friends during my stay in Kenya!

Quick Update on the Constitution

I want to follow up on my previous comments about the Kenyan Constitution. Yesterday, a few decisions were made about this draft version of the Constitution. One, Kenya will have a Presidential system instead of a Presidential/Prime Minister system with two leading the country. This is more consistent with what Kenyans want, according to polls that have been done in the country recently, but it still leaves room for centralized power if too much power is given to this position. Two, members of the presidential cabinet can no longer be MPs (Members of Parliament). Currently, MPs who are appointed to the cabinet do not have to resign their posts as MPs. In the past, this has created a situation in which the President and Parliament are very closely linked, centralizing power. The separation in the current draft of the new constitution will hopefully allow the parliament to check Presidential/cabinet decision-making more effectively.

Also, the Constitution will re-decide devolution in the country or how many districts the country will be split up into. The new draft proposes more than twice the number of current constituencies. The idea behind new constituencies is a plan to redistribute resources in Kenya. Currently, many Kenyans migrate to either Nairobi or Mombasa as all of the country’s resources that don’t go to paying MPs goes back into these already developed areas. A commentator on the news opined that the draft constitution does not effectively accomplish the redistribution goal. The new Constitution suggests that taxes be collected from everyone, and then 20% of the taxes will stay in the constituency and 80% will go to the central government. So as my dad described it, nothing will be collected in some regions (people have no money) and of the nothing, 80% will go to the central government! I asked my dad if middle to upper class Kenyans, particularly in Nairobi and Mombasa where people have money, would mind if their tax dollars are given to others in need rather than staying in their own provinces, as is an issue in the US. He said some would, but many would not. From the news and our conversations, I gather that people want badly a system that lessens government centralization and corruption.

A constitution was drafted earlier in the 2000s, but did not pass the referendum. There will not be referendum while I am in Kenya to the best of my knowledge, but I will keep giving updates as they occur!