Mombasa news, Fort Jesus, GoDown Arts Center in Nairobi

Hamjambo? (‘You all have no issues?’ Appropriate response: ‘Hatujambo!’ meaning ‘We have no issues! Meaning you are good. This applies reagardless of whether or not you actually have any issues to report.) I hope you all are doing well! I am still in Mombasa (I am actually in Nairobi now, but wrote this blog a few weeks ago . . .) and am looking at my last week here before returning to Nairobi this coming Saturday (24^th).

Habari familia yangu (my family news)

I am continuing to enjoy my wonderful family here in Mombasa! Last weekend, my sister, Mbombo and I took our six cousins to the beach. It was nice to be back at the beach again and I had fun with the kids. We swam and played games. I taught the kids the game “Red Light, Green Light,” and they taught me a police, thief game that they knew. We went to the beach again today to sit by the water.

Other than going to the beach, every weekday evening, Mbombo and I watch Love Spell together, a Mexican soap opera dubbed into English featuring a very dramatic storyline! Currently, the main character is stranded on an uninhabited island with his best friend, who cannot walk due to some shrapnel in his leg (their boat blew up and they jumped off just in time, but the friend got injured!). His best friend is in love with the main character’s mother and the main character’s brother is out to kill the main character, steal his money and marry his wife! It is all very dramatic . . . it’s definitely one of those, ‘it’s so bad (poorly written, unrealistic, actors selected for their appearance), but oh so good (actors selected for their appearance, ridiculous but shocking and exciting events every episode!)’ indulgences.

I mention this not just because it is something I do here, but also because many Kenyan families enjoy watching these nightly soap operas. One of my friend’s families in Nairobi actually waited until the commercial break to pray before dinner! One of the lecturers that I saw in Nairobi hypothesized that this is because romantic love in particular, and some other emotions, are suppressed much of the time in Kenyan culture and the soap operas are a way for people to explore these emotions. I don’t know if that is true or not, but I do know that Love Spell is quite entertaining and often is the cause of some laughter during the day, which is always welcome!

Pic: So, this picture is the bathroom wall in my Mombasa home. The paint is chipped . . . but doesn't it look like a map of Africa/Asia!!?? England is even way up at the top! Hmmm . . . I just showed one of my friends . . . I might be alone in this, but I still thought it was cool!

Internship!

My internship continues to be amazing! My boss had me over at her house as a guest two weekends ago and we went out and heard live African music, saw live Luo dance, and danced ourselves! The next day we went to the beach together. At work, I have been working on going through the new Constitution as Coast Women in Development will be part of the civic education effort to teach people about the Constitution in the coming month.

Pic: This pic is of me and my boss and her son, Johnny on Easter morning (I stayed at their house the night before).

Pic: My boss took this picture of me on the beach with a camel!!

I guess I haven’t updated on the Constitution process in a while. The Constitution was approved with no amendments in the Parliament recently. Next, the Attorney General has 60 days from when the Constitution was passed by Parliament to officially publish the draft (he can only make grammar/format corrections) and then there are 30 days before the public referendum set aside for ‘civic education’ before the public will vote yes or no on the draft! Different organizations are assigned districts by the government in which they can carry out civic education. The debate is still going strong between the yes and no camps, which are covered in the news here every night, although now the no camp is switching its strategy and instead wants to amend the Constitution before the referendum instead of just voting against the referendum. This is an unrealistic strategy unless the timeline that I mentioned above changes.

People in favor of the Constitution include the Prime Minister and President of Kenya who would like Kenya to move forward with a new Constitution that they have worked for 20 years to write (reminder- Kenya’s current Constitution was written for Kenya by the British at independence). The current Constitution does not reflect Kenyan values and Kenya’s diversity at all, so the yes camp believes that the Constitution will be the beginning of Kenya finding its own identity as a nation as well as accomplish other reforms that Kenya has been waiting for.

The no camp is made up of mainly Christian church members who mistakenly believe that the Constitution legalizes abortion and protest the inclusion of the Kadhis courts (Muslim courts), which they believe means that the Constitution does not equally respect both Christianity and Islam. Kadhis courts exist currently in Kenya and have existed as part of the legal system in Kenya since independence. News sources and others have commented that it is ironic that the church should advocate for the deletion of the abortion clause in the Constitution on religious grounds, but then protest the inclusion of the Kadhis courts, this time arguing that religion should be separate from the Constitution. However, most people that I have talked to, even Catholics, are voting for the Constitution anyway. Even some catholic priests are coming out in the yes camp- on the news, one priest commented that, “I have read the Constitution well and nowhere does it legalize abortion.” The news I watch (KTN) has identified the church as the biggest stumbling block in creating a new Constitution as their efforts also in part caused the failure of the 2005 draft Constitutional process (reminder: Kenya went through a very similar Constitutional drafting process in 2005, but the public referendum failed in the end, meaning that Kenya did not get a new Constitution- this is round two in recent years for trying to establish a new Constitution in Kenya!).

For the record, the Constitution says the following on the right to life: “(1) Every person has the right to life; (2) The life of a person begins at conception; . . . (4) Abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law.” Until there is a law legalizing abortion in Kenya, abortion will remain illegal after the passage of the Constitution according to the yes camp. The no camp claims that this clause legalizes abortion. It is interesting how two different interpretations of the law can be so opposite!

Lastly on the Constitution, although one news station conducted a poll that showed 67% of Kenyans had not read the current draft, most people I’ve asked seem to want to vote yes and think that the Constitution will pass. However, I’ve noticed that one thing the Constitution might not change is Kenyans’ hope for their government. Other than the people I’ve talked to who are voting yes, there are a number of people who will refuse to vote in the referendum because they just don’t think anything will change because of it; the government has not done a thing for many Kenyans and people don’t think a new Constitution will change anything. It’s not that non-voters are boycotting as a statement or anything; the new Constitution is just not anything that they’re interested in or anything they think will change their life in any way. People have made their lives without the help of the government and so these people will never include the government as a possible place to access resources when they’re down on their luck . . . why should they participate in a government that has not affected their lives at all?

Lastly on my internship, this past week I met with survivors of gender based violence whose cases CWID was working on. When I get home, remind me to tell you more about this.

Other than working at CWID, I have worked at the Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya for the past two weeks. I go to FIDA on Mondays and Tuesdays when FIDA sees clients. The majority of the cases are maintenance cases where the father is not paying school fees for his children and the mother is commonly (not always) unemployed and has to provide for the child/ren. There are also cases of succession where the widow (who is usually not working) is left without any inheritance after her husband dies because the husband’s family has taken his properties and money, which is consistent with some customary law in Kenya. Lots of customary (local) law in Kenya discriminates against women and the current Constitution actually declares that customary law is superior to the Constitution. The new Constitution does not allow discrimination against women and many people are saying that women are one of the largest beneficiaries of the new Constitution.

Anyway, FIDA tries mediation with all clients first and if that fails, then FIDA will help the woman file a court case and eventually represent herself in court! FIDA used to act as pro-bono lawyers for women, representing the women instead of the women representing themselves, but because of the number of women who began to ask for services, FIDA began teaching women to represent themselves, which they also realized is a more empowering thing to do. Two Kenyan legal interns at FIDA have been showing me the ropes with the clinic (where new clients come in to FIDA) and the experience has definitely shown me the power of law in accessing rights. It is clear that without FIDA these women would have no access to the court system and therefore questionable access to any justice system that recognized their rights.

Other things

Today I went to Fort Jesus in Mombasa, a Fort that used to protect the bay around the island of Mombasa. Fort Jesus was created by Vasco de Gama when he lived in Mombasa and later the English colonizers took it over. The fort is in the shape of Jesus laying down- there are two arms, two legs and his head which are part of the structure, which was all carved out of the coral reef, not built up from the ground!! I found the fact that Fort Jesus was carved and not built to be amazing- look at the pictures below and see what you think. My guide also took me through ‘old town’ Mombasa, which is inhabited mainly by Muslims and the Swahili people. The Swahili people are indigenous to Mombasa. They are the parent group of the language spoken in all of Kenya, Kiswahili (Swahili are the people, Kiswahili is the language). Part of the reason Kiswahili was chosen as one of the official languages of Kenya (along with English) is because the Swahili people are a smaller group of people so this decision wasn’t political and the language was also the language of trade as Mombasa has been the center of East African trade with Asia since something like the 9^th century. Today, Mombasa is still the biggest port in all of the East African Coast.

Pic: Here are some pictures of Fort Jesus- yes, this was carved out of coral!

Pics: Here are some pictures from the market- the top one is from the famous spice market in Mombasa!

Flashback: The GoDown Arts Center in Nairobi

Another experience from Nairobi that I feel it is absolutely essential that I blog about is my visit to the GoDown Arts Center on the edge of Nairobi. My friends and I were interested in the artistic scene in Nairobi, which isn’t present in a lot of the city, other than the handcrafted items at the markets that are made outside of the city and brought in to sell. But other than craft items that are mass produced for tourists, what are artists doing in Nairobi?

Pic: Here is the entrance to the Center.

GoDown is not really known to most Nairobiites- they may have heard of it, but our taxi driver could only guess where it was (luckily, he was right, but the fact that he had never driven there, only heard about it, was surprising to me). The Center is basically a group of organizations and studios in an L-shape based around an old warehouse bordering the city and the Industrial area of Nairobi. We went around to the organizations and talked to people who were networking around Africa to try to improve the contemporary art scene in East Africa as well as a group who was using music to train street children (most of the people we saw were teenagers) to make music so that they could make a living gathering tips while singing as opposed to selling drugs or being penniless their entire lives.

Pic: Here are some of the boys playing music. I was able to take video of them with my camera, so if you want to see them actually playing, let me know when I get home!

At the East African art center, we had an interesting conversation with the owner of the group. He asked us if we liked Obama and we of course said yes, to which he was surprisingly disappointed! This is shocking as most people here love Obama! However, he said that if Obama had completed three things in his first year, he would support him today. These things were (1) to close Guantanamo Bay; (2) to re-establish relations with Cuba, who was ex-communicated from the Western world for political reasons; and (3) to end the war in Congo. After this conversation, I knew that the GoDown Center was the place where idealists felt at home! At the next organization, we watched a full performance of four songs performed by the boys who were learning music to stay off the street. They each took turns introducing the songs to us in English and telling us what each piece was about- they were truly amazing performers and the only reason I could tell that they weren’t a professional company is their short pants and lack of shoes and shirts for many of the boys.

Pic: This picture is of me and artist Tom Mboya! When I first met Tom, I was shocked that this was his name because Tom Mboya is also the name of an important person in Kenyan history who was actually killed for political reasons. However, I learned later that many people actually have this name as it is common for people to have similar names (both first and last) in Kenya. Anyway, his art was beautiful! It reminded me of Degas, except with brighter colors- you can see them a little here.

Pic: This is Martin, one of the artists we met- I LOVED this painting! It is three musicians and the middle one has a huge cowboy hat! The hat was a theme that was in many of Martin's paintings! I thought the colors were amazing!

The GoDown had some beautiful graffiti art. Here are a few pictures- you might recognize some faces . . .

Elephants!

I almost forgot! In Nairobi, we went to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where they keep baby elephants whose parents have died from poachers or for other reasons. They were SO cute!!

Here are a few pics:

Update on schedule

As I said earlier, I am headed back to Nairobi in a week where I will take exams, turn in papers and finish my program officially. On May 5^th, I am headed to Rwanda where I will be until May 11^th. On the 11^th, I will fly back to Nairobi and then fly back to the US beginning on the 11^th and ending the 12^th. I hope that the volcano in Iceland will be extinguished by then! My next blog will either be sitting in the airport or at home! See you soon and thanks for reading as usual!

*So, I wrote this blog a few weeks ago, but didn’t get a chance to post it until today. I am actually already back in Nairobi, as you can see from the dates!

Mombasa Part II!

So, I am still in Mombasa! I have three more weeks left after this one and I can’t believe that the time has gone so fast here! Three more weeks in Mombasa, one more week in Nairobi and then a week and a few days travelling and I will be headed home! Quick note: I am posting this blog right after another new one about Nairobi, so read that one as well if you’re interested! It should be after this one in order.

It is still hot in Mombasa, but I am getting used to it now. It was 85 degrees here last night (cooler than usual) and I almost put on a sheet to keep me warm! Usually, I sleep only in my pajamas because of the heat- no covers, although I have my mosquito net which hangs over my bed, so that keeps in warmth as well. Most days it is still around 95 degrees during the day, but the rains are starting to come now and it gets a little cooler at least while it rains (although it gets hot and humid after the rain). Another thing about the rains that I find interesting is that it usually only rains at night. If it does rain during the day, it rains lightly- the heavy rains only come at night. I asked my host mom about this and she said that this is how it always is- if any atmospheric scientist wants to explain this to me, it would be much appreciated! I will be interested to see if the trend keeps up while I am here!

Things with my family are going well- for the past week and a half, there were actually two German students staying at my house as well as me! They were here for school also, but left this past Thursday. They worked here in an orphanage and one of them taught German to some of the kids. They were both enjoying themselves, but neither of them had a classroom component to their work, so neither of them know Kiswahili enough to speak in sentences. I am glad that I was taught a little bit of Kiswahili, even if only for six weeks! My Kiswahili is nothing to envy, but I am able to say many things in Kiswahili (including introducing myself to groups when I visit them with work) and I frequently have conversations in Kiswahili with my family, although I have to say “tena” (again) a lot because I have trouble understanding. Funny language anecdote: when I try to tell people I have trouble understanding Kiswahili, I frequently end up saying that I have trouble getting married instead, as the verbs are similar (kuolewa v. kuelewa)- oops! However, my Kenyan friend and co-worker Lorine says that people understand anyway. Hopefully, she’s right, although I guess both are kind of true currently :).

Pic: Here is a picture of my bed. The white thing at the top is the mosquito net; I bring it down so I can sleep under it during the night.

The only other news with my family is that we all went out dancing last weekend. Well, Mama Selina did not come, but my sister, Bomboo, my brother, Albert, and BOTH of the domestic workers here, Pamela and Edwin, ALL went out!! I would never have gone out with the domestic worker at my other house, Métrine, simply because that is not the way things worked there. These differences are interesting to observe! I think part of it might be because of the family structure here- there are a lot of twenty year olds running around that the domestic workers just fit in as children of Mama Selina! I also went to church with Mama Selina and the grandkids the other day; here are some pictures!

Pic: Mama Selina and I before church.

Pic: Here are most of the kids that are in the house a lot; they are grandkids of Mama Selina: from left to right: Selina, Maxwell, Absom, Abasi, Julie.


Internship

I have been doing a lot of learning in my internship here with Coast Women in Development (CWID). Last week Monday, I went to visit a youth group called Hurenet that works in Likoni, Mombasa. Lorine (Communications Director at CWID) and I took the ferry to Likoni, which means we got to ride over the beautiful Indian Ocean! Many people take the ferry carrying bags full of potatoes or charcoal or other things- potato bag people include women who are also carrying babies on their backs! The ferry is free to take, which makes the city more accessible to many people.

Pic: Lorine and I on the ferry. You can see the ocean and the beautiful sky in the background!

Likoni is south of downtown Mombasa and the area includes markets and residential areas. Because selling goods at market is literally one of the only jobs available in Likoni, many youth are left unemployed with no vocational training schools to help them make the transition between school and employment. Many youth are also unable to seek many jobs elsewhere as there are not enough schools in the Likoni area for all of the youth that are there, so not all of them have received primary or secondary education. In the youth group I visited, only about half of the people I heard from had finished high school. The ones who did finish viewed their completion of secondary school as a miracle and something that they struggled to do.

So, Hurenet, the youth group, provides a space for youth to come together to avoid the other most common profession among youth in Likoni- selling drugs. This is the most profitable opportunity for youth with little education or vocational training. Other than providing a space, however, Hurenet trains young people in small business skills and owns about seven computers on which youth can learn how to work with computers. As the youth were talking to me, they emphasized how computer skills are essential in order to be successful. Computer skills are not taught in schools here at all as most schools don’t have anything like a computer classroom as we do in the US. So, Hurenet’s services are indispensable to these youth. There are about 150 students enrolled in Hurenet’s courses; I spoke with about fifteen of them. It was great to talk to these young people, although I think they treated me as a donor more than a student. The fifteen youths had come in just to talk to me that morning and one of them asked if I could fund her in further vocational training. The coordinator of the group also wanted me to stay in touch in hopes that I could work with the group in the future, even if I couldn’t fund them now. It was an awkward moment, but reminds me how much the color of my skin (and its history) has given me immediate privilege in life when others have not been so lucky. While not all white people have money (including myself) or immediate privilege, white people as a group have the ability to access economic prosperity much more than people of color. If anyone has any extra tax return money, I'm sure that Hurenet or other groups I've mentioned could put it to good use!

Pic: Here is a picture of me and some of the youth from Hurenet.

The rest of the week last week, I attended a training by Action Aid International for Women in Leadership in Coast Province (the province in Kenya of which Mombasa is a part. There are nine provinces in Kenya). It is especially interesting for this conference to be in Coast Province as it is one of the more traditional and conservative provinces in Kenya when it comes to women’s rights as we think of them in the West. The influence of Islam as well as many traditional cultures still prohibit the participation of women on all levels of society, in the home as well as in leadership. I thoroughly appreciated the opportunity to be at the training for many reasons. First, I got to meet forty women leaders in Coast Province! Many of the women leaders led groups in their area dealing with gender-based violence and land rights. Rape, as well as land ownership and land inheritance rights are huge issues in Coast Province. Land ownership is a huge issue in Kenya as a whole as women own almost none of the land here. Some of the women had held positions in government agencies or had represented parts of the Coast as Counselors, similar to mayors in the US. The training was mainly in Kiswahili, so this limited my ability to communicate with some of the participants, but many of them used English and Kiswahili in addition to writing in English, so I was able to communicate with them when they used English or if they were willing to help me through a short conversation in Kiswahili. The themes of the conference included leadership, advocacy, self empowerment and a few other things. We covered a lot in three days, so I am unsure of where to start!


Pic: This is a picture of the beach at the conference center . . .

During most of the training, I spent time with my boss, Betty, Programs Director for CWID, Lucy, one of the leaders for Tunaweza, Disabled Women Group, which I think I mentioned in my last blog, and a woman named Celestine. It was a great three days!

Pic: This is my boss, Betty (left) and Lucy (right) from Tunaweza strategizing about the rights of people with disabilities!

Lastly, on Monday, I met with FIDA (Federation of Women Lawyers- Kenya), an organization I’ve been interested in for over two years! This is the organization that I talked about in my last blog that helps women win court cases having to do with gender-based violence, divorce, and other issues facing women who otherwise would not have access to the law to ensure their rights. I am going to go to their office a day next week to observe, so I will report more on that later!

Pic: Here is a picture of me at FIDA. My blouse is from a market here in Mombasa- there are a lot of great clothes with great colors there! I enjoyed shopping downtown a few weeks ago . . . the blouse is a product of this trip . . . :)

Rural Kenya!

This Tuesday, I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t done yet here in Kenya. While I’ve driven past rural Kenya on my way to Uganda and have seen it out the window, I haven’t ever interacted with rural Kenyans! I am so glad that I had this experience as most of Kenya doesn’t have tall buildings and public transportation . . . it has fields and livestock and hand-built houses.

I traveled with Lorine to the Vitengeni District of Coast Province. To get there, we took a matatu one hour north to get to Kilifi, a bigger town North of Mombasa. This drive was BEAUTIFUL. The beautiful part was the endless sisal fields! They became a little less beautiful when I recognized that their perfect spacing and impeccable upkeep was a product of . . . yes, a corporation. But they are still a beautiful sight! When we got out of the hour long matatu ride, we thought the journey was over, only to learn that we had another matatu ride ahead of us! I love car rides, so this was no problem, but the nature of our next ride was something I have never experienced before!

While we were (break: got up to chase chicken out of kitchen!) still in a matatu, most of this hour was spent on ‘rural roads.’ Now, in the US, there are roads that are worse than the interstates and roads with potholes, but there are no roads like rural roads of Kenya. These roads were probably built in the 70s and have not been kept up since then. Part of the ‘roads’ were just pieces of concrete in the road in a splotchy pattern- maybe 40% of the road was covered in concrete and the other 60% was dirt and sand. Now, the other ‘rural’ roads are just sand, no road at all, which is actually a lot better than the partially finished roads. In the roads that still showed signs of having been constructed at some point, the matatu had to weave all over the road to find the areas that would be the least damaging to the vehicle as well as those that would be the least bumpy. Most of the ride felt like we were driving over large pieces of gravel to say the least.


Pic: Here is a picture of the sand/dirt roads. These were the good roads to drive on, in comparison to the half finished roads!

Now, I don’t say this because the roads bothered me. I didn’t mind driving on them for two hours for one day and actually thought of it as kind of an adventure. However, talking to the women at our destination gave me a different realization of what this lack of development meant for people in the area: the women we spoke with, who were using microfinance loans from CWID to jumpstart their small businesses, traveled the distance Lorine and I had traveled on Tuesday (after which we were both exhausted and ended up resting the entire next day to recover from) once per week. The women have to go to Mombasa to get things to sell at the market in their rural location. In addition to the ride being exhausting, it was also expensive. The trip was about $5, which is a lot for someone who lives on a microloan of $133 per six months. And they make this trip once a week, meaning that it costs them $120 every six months. This example shows one of the important parts of microloans. If $5 really is that much for people, if you can’t go to the market that first time and spend more money to buy goods, how will you have a small business selling things? Only with the loans can the women start the businesses, which is really the only employment opportunity in the area, especially for single women. Once the women have access to these microloans, they can support themselves (and their families) and pay back the loans, but this start-up cash is crucial.

Anyway, other than the transportation, the women told us about their lives. One of the women, had eight children to support and another women was supporting her son and his wife and children in addition to her last born who was still living at home! Lorine had to translate for me as the women did not speak English (although they understood it- that would be language number three for these women- ethnic group language, Kiswahili, English, similar to most people in Kenya), so it was hard to communicate, but it was still nice to meet with them! I introduced myself in Kiswahili, which always helps to form a relationship, but understanding is again the issue. After meeting the women, I also met the Counselor for the area who also happens to be one of the founders of CWID! I am still amazed at how many men I’ve met who are involved in women’s issues here- it is great. At the end of the day, Lorine and I were both exhausted! But it was a great day and I am so glad I got a chance to experience even a day in a Kenya that is more rural than where I live now.

Okay, well, there’s an update until today, so thanks again for reading and have a good life until I talk to you next!

More Nairobi . . . in pictures!

Pic: Here is a picture of Uhuru park in downtown Nairobi to start off this blog. Uhuru Park is famous as many historical protests have taken place there, comparable to the mall in DC. As you can see, downtown Nairobi looks the same as many other cities in the states!

So, this blog is going to continue my life in Nairobi series of blogs that I started with the blog about my family there. Instead of events, these blogs are supposed to focus on what it's like to live in Nairobi. Most of this will be pictures, but I will be writing a little bit about picture themes. I hope you enjoy!

What do Kenyans do for work? Industrial sector in Nairobi and other pictures

While my Nairobi family has steady jobs in the city with paychecks, they are relatively lucky for Kenyan society. Many Kenyans are either out of work or have to find/create work for themselves. For a field trip back in Nairobi, one of our professors took us to the industrial area of Nairobi where all of the corporations headquarters are housed in addition to the informal industrial sector.

Near the corporations, we were unable to take pictures for security reasons (PR security as well as actually security, I'm sure . . .), but there were many men standing out side of the gates with hope that there would be odd jobs they could do that day. My professor said that many people get up at four or five in the morning to travel an hour or more (sometimes on foot) in hopes of finding a day’s work, and then go back late at night after either finding work or waiting all day in hopes for work only to try again the next day.There are sometimes construction jobs for people as large corporations keep building large, Western style headquarters in this area. We couldn't stop in the formal sector, again, for security reasons (the corporations wouldn't like it if we got out to 'tour' the formal industrial sector). The formal sector shows the ignorance of corporations for the communities around them: while the buildings are nice, there are huge gates around the buildings and the public area surrounding the corporations is a mess- dirty and not well-kept up.

The informal sector was equally as shocking to me as the men waiting for work in the formal sector. The informal sector is largely men making goods from scrap metal and women making crafts or selling the work of the men. And even though "men making goods from scrap metal" comes out easily enough on the keyboard in front of me, the process is dawn to dusk back-breaking work: most of the men lean over pieces of metal they are working on and pound . . . all. day. long. Here are a few pictures from this day:

Pic: Here is a picture of some men working with the metal. This man in the front was basically pounding out the metal bowls you see nearby into perfect ovals. You can't see it, but in the back of this picture, there are many more men in very close proximity also pounding away at the metal. You can hear many people pounding when you are standing where I was.

Pics: Here are many final products of the men working in informal industry. They look like anything you would buy at a department store for the most part.

Pic: These are metal suitcases also made by the men. I never saw women working with molding the metal, but I saw a few of them spray-painting these suitcases. My host parents in Nairobi says that many Kenyan families give their children these suitcases to take to boarding school, almost like a right of passage.

Pic: Here is a woman making baskets. Isn't it beautiful? I think she's been doing this for a while . . .

Transportation work

Pic: So, I can't remember if I've put this picture on the blog before, but this van thing is a matatu, the method of transportation that I am constantly talking about! The conductor is the one with his arm hanging out of the window, ready to open the door for exiting passengers. This matatu is relatively bland in comparison to some matatus that are painted all sorts of colors and have large decalls. Many young men find work driving matatus or working as conductors. All matatus play loud music, unless their stereo is broken, that is. Many people say that matatu workers are usually caught up in drugs, although I'm not sure how many drivers/conductors this applies to. Even though the driving is sometimes crazy, I always feel safe on a matatu.

Pic: Here, I am sitting in the front seat of one matatu (with a cracked windshielf) and looking at a bunch of other matatus waiting to depart from this matatu stage. In Mombasa, conductors wear red shirts (Nairobi is less formal).



Pic: Another form of what I'm calling 'transportation work' are people carrying heavy things on carts like this man. Many people do this on the side of the street both here in Mombasa and in Nairobi. These aren't air-filled balloons he is carrying or even clothing . . . his cart is filled with . . . potatoes. This must have been a light day for him as many workers, especially in Mombasa work shirtless because of the heat. He also is not running as some couriers do on their way.

(End work section) Garbage . . .

Garbage is a major problem in Nairobi and in Kenya/the developing world generally. I know that garbage is not a pleasant thing to hear about, but it is one of the everyday things that one has to interact with in a developing country, or at least Kenya, I think, so I thought I would share it. Garbage fills up ditches, rivers and markets. One day my walk to school in Nairobi, I saw a few pieces of electronic garbage lying together on the side of the road. I don’t think it is going anywhere anytime soon, or was it organized to be there in the first place, but it gets bigger and bigger regardless and only electronic- no other kind of garbage- joins the pile!

Pic: Pile of electronic garbage!

Also, on the news the other day, there was a story about how a particular garbage pile next to a military air base was becoming a problem. Because of the garbage, many birds, storks in particular, were flying in the air above the dump. There were enough birds that safety of flights flying over the dumps in airplanes was in question: if a bird got sucked into a plane’s propeller, the plane would likely crash and burn as the storks are fairly large. There was even an animated visual on multiple news stations of this happening! They removed this dump because of this hazard, but many other dumps that pose threats to poor people, instead of the military, still remain. Here are some garbage pictures . . .

Pic: Enough said: garbage in the market. . . not all areas are this bad, but many are.

Pic: The gentleman in the back of this picture, is, yep, burning garbage. This is a common sight on non-city highways and in ditches. I've also seen garbage burning in a few fields in Mombasa, especially next to slum residences. I'm still not sure about the economic incentive to work burning garbage, but I'm guessing some of the people are paid to collect garbage and then do away with it by burning . . . something for me to find out. Also, if you look closely here, the young boy with the luggage has one of the suitcases from above! It is the green rectangle on the end that looks like it has straps attached.

Pic: A stream with garbage; I hope you can see it; I know it is kind of small!

Pic: A ditch that resembles many here- filled with garbage. The ditches also have another more valuable resource- water. I see people filling buckets with this water sometimes . . . and one time a water bottle in a ditch with a little less garbage, but garbage nonetheless . . . I sincerely hope that this person had a filter/purifier!

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Okay, well, that's it for now. Another blog on Mombasa should come soon . . . thanks for reading!

Mombasa!

So, I am still behind in some of the things I want to share with you from Nairobi, but I want to write about Mombasa while the information is fresh and while I am here, so that I can communicate real time about my life here!

Mombasa Home

I arrived in Mombasa on Sunday in the evening. I met my second host mom right away, Mama Selina, who picked me up from the bus station. We drove home, which is about a 30 minute ride from the bus station/city. I live in an area called Shanzu, north of Mombasa, if you want to use google maps to see where I am. My mom welcomed me into my home, which is built with drywall, stones and a corrugated tin roof. There are many trees around the house- coconut, lemon, avocado, and the list continues! It is a large place, almost long-house style, with three (I think) bedrooms, a den, living room and kitchen. The floors are all painted cement and there are no screens on the windows. I would describe this house as being more one with nature than my place in Nairobi! This is, however, a good thing, as an airy place is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY in Mombasa. It is HOT here. You think you’ve been someplace hot? Well, I don’t want to hear about it because Mombasa is hotter! It is 95+ degrees during the day and 90+ degrees at night (thanks to Alice for my thermometer which I used to collect this data!). Also Mombasa is on the coast , which means it is also humid. But there is wonderful wind from the ocean that comes and makes the heat tolerable. Anyway, it takes some getting used to and I think I am on my way, but it is still HOT regardless of whether I am used to it or not!

Pic: Tree in the back yard- have thought about breaking off a branch to use as fan.

Pic: More trees in the back yard! Aren't they beautiful?!

Pic: Last tree picture, I promise! . . . at least for this blog. This tree has coconuts if you look really hard. I had a better close-up of the tree, but I picked this one because you can see the corrugated aluminum that I've been talking about- this is the roof to the porch, but the same material is used for the roof of the house.

However, the heat brings wonderful plant and animal life. On my first day, I saw a multi-colored lizard climbing on a brick wall! It was beautiful! Also, there are chickens running about outside on a normal day; Mama Selina owns one of the chickens unless we ate it for dinner last night . . .

Pic: The lizard/salamander thing. Isn't he great? His tail was unfortunately cut short by some sort of predator, but he's still pretty awesome!

Family

More about my family: again, my family is very kind. My mom, again, is amazing. She took me to my internship on the first day as well as took me to the matatu (hippie vans that are used for transportation here) stop today as I was going by myself for the first time. She always makes sure I and everyone else eats before she does and makes sure I have everything I need. On my first day here, we were able to talk a little bit, so here is some more about her life: Mama Selina is a business woman who rents out houses, owns a bar nearby and rents out a motorcycle for people to drive. She told me that she uses microloans for most of her business, but that she sometimes finds the loans hard to pay back because of the interest rates. She also told me that she likes to travel, but doesn’t travel that much these. She is originally from a town near Kisumu in Western Kenya and from the Luo community, like my last family. However, unlike my last family who has family still in their rural village, Mama Selina has no family in her village. She is 50 and both of her parents have passed away; she is an elder in this community.

In this same conversation, Mama Selina talked to me about her life, which made me how much change she has had to live through. I am amazed by her courage to adapt to so much change, her ability to continue to learn more, and to host international students who she knows how to take care of despite other foreign things about us! Here is a little bit about her life as an example of what I am talking about. Mama Selina grew up in a village near Kisumu and went to school there. At the end of primary school (grade 8), a Congolese man said he wanted to marry her. Her parents wanted her to finish school, but two years into high school, her dowry was ready, and she was married at the age of 16! She was an Anglican, but after 10 years of not going to church with her catholic husband, she decided that she wanted to again go to church for the community and converted to Catholicism. We talked about relationships and how 30 was too old for a woman to get married in Kenya, while I told her in the US it is completely fine! She observed how the older generation Kenya tends to stay married no matter what while the younger generation does not. Different than other people I’ve talked to here, even though changes are happening, Mama Selina seems completely fine with it and, from when I’ve talked to her, she seems like she knows that some people live their lives differently today from how she lived her life, but that this is not bad, it is just different from how she grew up and lived most of her life. Even though her life has been so different from mine, she seems to understand what I am going through well!

Pic: This is where Mama Selina and I talked about her life. This is a porch that sits adjacent to the house. It is good to use during the day where the breeze can reach you, as opposed to in the house, where it can get hotter than outside.

One such incident when Mama Selina’s ability to empathize with a foreigner happened after the first night I was in her home. The first night there, I had been sitting on a chair for about 20 minutes when I saw what I thought was a large-ish insect behind me. I lifted up the pillow I was sitting on and saw two mouse faces staring back at me! I was definitely freaked out, but did not say anything at the time. I was further freaked out when mice kept crawling under the door to my room only to run away when they saw that my light was on. What would happen when I went to bed??, I wondered!! I was sufficiently freaked out by the mice, if unnecessarily so. A power outage that turned out my light for me forced me to reckon with this situation. I actually don’t know what happened as I just remember waking up the next morning being less freaked out about the mice. Anyway, when I saw Mama Selina the next morning, she said, “you saw some mice last night in your chair, didn’t you?” She had noticed them after I got up to go to bed. I was surprised that she asked this because I didn’t think that she had seen them at all, and even if she had, they were just mice, so what did I have to be scared of? She assured me that they weren’t really harmful and that she was going to (vegans skim) put poison out for them tomorrow. I had thought that mice might be commonplace for this house that a mouse could crawl into no problem through most doorways, but she knew that I was naive enough to be somewhat freaked out anyway. I saw them the next night, but wasn’t scared, thanks to her words as well as some from Eliza, who I e-mailed in a panic as the mice were running under my door (thanks, Eliza)!

Water

Another new experience here is the lack of running water most places in the house. There is a tank where there is running water, but it doesn’t run to the rest of the house other than the kitchen and the water has to be sterilized (boiled) anyway, so I don’t use any water out of the tap for anything I do. This means showering from water out of a bucket after the water has been boiled, washing hands with a basin and bowl before dinner, brushing my teeth with water I pour onto the toothbrush, and of course, flushing the toilet manually- by pouring water into the toilet to flush instead of pressing a handle. With this in addition to the mice, the first day held many new experiences for me! However, everything worked out fine once I learned the new routine, and I feel clean, despite the absence of these privileges that I couldn’t imagine doing without before coming to Kenya! Admittedly, however, comfortability in this situation is only made possibly by the fact that there are house help (one full time and one part time) who work at Mama Selina’s house to boil water, do laundry and prepare and serve food, along with Mama Selina, who also cooks at the house. This means that people boil the water I use to shower and set the basin on the table to use to wash my hands before dinner. I don’t do any of these things myself, which I guess is similar to having clean tap water on demand at any time in the US.

Family other than Mama Selina

Finally, to talk a little more about my family other than Mama Selina (sorry, pictures will have to wait again; I’ll try to take some soon). You’ve already heard a lot about Mama Selina, but what I didn’t tell you is that most of her 6 children live near (1 lives in the house with us and one is over all day and only goes home to sleep at like 10pm.). Many people are constantly coming over; there are at least ten grandchildren who I’ve met so far, although I am still working on names. Alfred, Mama Selina’s son, is 16 and lives with us, but he goes to school during the day, so I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to him that much, unfortunately. Gisele (called Bambo) is 21 and is the one who stays at the house all day, but goes home to sleep. She has just finished school, although I am unsure which school. Other children and their spouses come over frequently; Mama Selina’s family have welcomed me very kindly and I feel very comfortable with them. I am looking forward to getting to know them better, but I also know that I want to keep blogging as well as work on three papers for class in my time in Mombasa- so much to do!

Thoughts about urbanization in Kenya

The rural urban dynamic is rapidly changing in Kenya. I think I talked about this a little bit before, but I will share more as this observation is somewhat different than observations from before. I think I already said that many people (young people especially) are coming to the cities to try to find work. Even if they have to live in extreme poverty in the cities (slums, no running water, other things I will tell you about when I get home), there is at least the illusion that they can find class-altering opportunity in the city, which is nonexistent in the rural areas. As the slums evidence, most people still struggle a lot economically in the cities, but in the rural areas, there is little if any opportunity at all for class/economic mobility not to mention further schooling. According to my professors this semester, the news, and myself, this rural/urban opportunity differential basically results from the centralization of government funds in cities and the corruption of any other funds that go to government officials or unequitable development projects in rural areas that look good in the news, but that rarely have any long-term, sustainable, development effects. So, in rural areas, there are basically traditional village labor jobs such as tending to cattle, gathering water, making crafts for city markets, with which while one might be able to put food on the table, but which will never give anyone opportunity beyond being able to afford more than basic needs. So . . . people come to the city.

The reason I wanted to talk about this is because in some families there is a generational change occurring in where people call ‘home’ that could affect Kenyan politics in the future. My dad in Nairobi called his rural community his home, even though he was born in Nairobi and lives there, although he did spend a significant amount of time there when he was young, I think. His son (my brother Sean) was also born in Nairobi, but Sean can’t speak a lot of his ‘mothertongue’ (Luo, in his case, which my dad speaks fluently) and hasn’t had the experience of living for a long period of time in the rural area like my dad has. Similarly, in my new family, Mama Selina grew up in a village, but, as I said earlier, no one from her family is in her village anymore and her children live with and around here outside of Mombasa, not in the rural village near Kisumu. Her children probably will not go back to Kisumu, where other Luos call home. In Kenya, because political parties fall largely on ethnic lines, the geographical/tribal affiliation has a lot to do with politics! Currently, one party controls the Luo/Luya Western Kenya, while another party controls the central Kikuyu district. Other groups also factor in, but aren’t as large as these two constituencies. I am wondering if urbanization, specifically people not moving back to their tribal land, erodes these tribal/political ties at all or if ethnicity and politics will continue to be linked, even though politics/ethnicity will no longer be regionally divided in urban areas? It will probably be a while if this will happen at all, however, as many Kenyans still live in rural and ethnically divided villages and political constituencies. And my families, living in the city are currently the exceptions, although this is in the process of changing currently.

Internship

I want to talk a little bit (or a lot as is usual for me . . .) about my internship these first few days. I am working with a group called Coast Women In Development (CWID). I don’t know how I or my program got them confused with Women’s Network Center before (in a previous blog), but I am actually working for this group- this is the last time I will change my story, I promise! And this group has a website . . . here it is if you want to find more information: www.coastwomen.org. They do a lot of networking with other organizations as right now they only have a donor for their microfinance program. Other than their microfinance program, they work with disabled women, orphaned children, boys and girls, but especially girls, and raising awareness about gender-based violence and the children’s and women’s rights that are written in international (usually UN) agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/ - ratified by all states (although some with reservations) other than Tongo, Palau, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Nauru and of course the US- nice list of countries to be a part of, isn’t it? - or the Convention on the Rights of the Child (http://www.unicef.org/crc/ - ratified by all nations outside of the US and Somalia), but that most of these women have never heard of or have been unable to mobilize to advocate for these rights themselves.

(Wondering why the US has not ratified these agreements? One theory is the idea that if US institutions are going to ratify something, it will actually mean something, i.e. we will change our governance, which would mean that Congress would actually have to agree to ratify these things which they haven’t- this idea supports the notion that the US has a strong democracy as opposed to other states that can just sign the agreements and not change any of their actions (like dictatorial governments, where one or a few people can agree to ratify something, but change nothing as there are no institutions like the US has to ensure that anything will be carried out). Another idea is that the US just doesn’t like international agreements because we don’t like to have our sovereignty taken away by anyone, similar to why we didn’t sign Kyoto or why we like to bypass the UN and start wars. I personally tend to take the side of the second argument about sovereignty. The first theory begs the question about why we were/are able to torture people even though we ratified the Convention on Torture in 1994, way before anyone knew what an ‘enemy combatant’ was? To me, this means that US governance won’t change unless the US wants it to (so we really wouldn’t be bound to these agreements even if we ratified them). However, this, then, begs the question about why the conventions exist at all or are a worthy topic for discussion if states are not held responsible for following them. Personally, I still think they are important as enforceability will come over time as international institutions are gaining strength in the rest of the world, if not the US, and eventually, I hope this will happen in the US as well. I’d like to hear your ideas if anyone has any comments about this! Also, I should probably say that there are other theories about why conventions are ratified or not, so this is not an all-inclusive consideration of the arguments, although these are the main ones I remember from class, and I know two of the more popular ones.)

Still about internships . . .

I’ve also talked about a group called FIDA Kenya (Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya) before that I might be working with a few days a week after I talk to the director (it will mainly depend on whether they have work for me or not). One of the ways that CWID is different than FIDA is that CWID goes into rural areas and slums to talk to women whereas FIDA works within the court system, in downtown Mombasa. FIDA has more funding, one of the reasons being that they can collect more solid numbers with their impacts (ex. court results). Many times, organizations such as CWID will refer women to FIDA if they don’t have the resources to deal with the case.

Onto my actual internship: everyday, I take two matatus to work. I work in a slum North of Mombasa called Mshoroni. Even though it is a slum, I always feel safe there and I am always with people from CWID, so this is no problem. I am glad I get to see the slum area first-hand, as I spent most of my time downtown or in non-slum areas of Nairobi when I was there. Loraine from CWID said that, other than because of funding reasons, CWID is in the slum as it wants to be near the grassroots women instead of in the at times inaccessible and intimidating downtown area.

At CWID, I work with Betty, the founder of the group, and Loraine, who has been working with CWID for about two years. Yesterday, we went to visit Tunaweza, Disabled Women’s Group (Tunaweza translates as “we are able” as I learned it, but their brochure translates it into “Yes, we can”), a group of disabled women who work for the rights of disabled people, particularly women and women in leadership. In Kenya, disabled people have few rights outside of regular people, which translates into few rights that many of them can access. A case in point is education. According to the coordinator for Tunaweza, many people with disabilities in Kenya are in low economic classes because schools usually charge extra to teach disabled kids as there is no money in the schools for extra people in the classroom to help just one student. When families can’t pay these fees, disabled children do not go to school. Also, transportation is a huge issue as most transportation is run by the informal sector, which is unregulated. Although, come to think about it, there probably aren’t any regulations even on public transportation, although I have seen disabled people ride on public buses and not on matatus (informal). The day ended with a conversation between Loraine and I about the group, since I really didn’t know that much about it at that point!

Today at work, I went to a government testing office with Loraine to ask how grassroots women access the testing center. I think this would be like the equivalent of going to the State Lab of Hygiene or something in Wisconsin- it is the place where testing is actually completed in the lab. We learned that most of the tests are paternity tests, police cases (rape among other things), and health safety testing. Loraine was particularly interested in the paternity testing at the center. The center we were at is the only center of its kind in the entire Kenyan coast province, and people must get their blood drawn at the center, in person, for the paternity test, which means that women from all along the coast would have to travel to this center if they wanted a paternity test. According to the woman we spoke with at the lab, tests cost 5000 Kenya shillings (KS) per person ($1=75 KS, so about 67 USD!), which usually means 15,000 KS per family (mother, father, child), plus 5000 KS extra for additional children. Usually the people themselves must pay for the test and in very rare cases the government pays for these tests. The representative said that there are usually no more than 20 of these cases annually. This is surprising as it would seem that there would be more than 20 cases of people trying to get paternity tests in all of the Kenyan coast per year. I would assume that this would be a result of the inaccessibility of the tests because of their cost and travel for some (most?) families and the fact that rural people don’t normally use the state court systems, which the government lab worker said was the case. According to the office, the government test is a deal as other private hospitals charge much more. Also, another thing Loraine and I learned is that the testing center gives the results back to individuals, not a third party. According to the lab person we spoke with, everyone in the center is a scientist, so this means that no one there has expertise in counseling people before the results are returned and so counseling does not take place. Families are given the results and left to sort out the issues for themselves. We talked to the office less about rape cases, but she commented that in many cases rape is unable to be tested because women do not report immediately.

Anyway, so that is a lot about my life here so far, hopefully there will be more soon about my life here or in Nairobi- thanks for reading!