travel in kenya

9/18/06

What a trip to the town of Kitale to see Mt. Elgon! Kitale is north of Kakamega about three hours and and sits at the foot of Mt. Elgon which is the 12^th highest mountain in Africa. The town itself has some industry which makes it more prosperous than Kakamega. The major industry is a seed producing company which is the only supplier of seeds in Kenya. The surrounding area is absolutely breathtaking. Besides the mountain, there are rolling hills which are planted primarily with maize and even though the maize was recently harvested so the stalks have turned brown, the whole area is overwhelmingly green. The area outside Kitale is fairly sparsely populated compared to the other areas I have visited in Kenya. The farms themselves are large and spread out and there are even places you don’t see anybody living. Once you get up on the mountain and look at over the plains below, the view is even better! And there are other mountain ranges that surround the area in the distance. Once again, it is just not the scenery I ever thought I would find in Kenya.

I was accompanied by my young neighbor Andrew. He is typical of almost all Kenyans, except for going to Uganda, he had never traveled outside Kakamega to see any of the scenic spots in his country and literally had never seen any of the wild animals that live in Africa. The first day in Kitale, we visited the tiny museum(which made me remember Grandma Violet’s museum in Three Forks). The museum had a small reconstructed village of the Luhya tribe. It was great to be with Andrew because he could explain the significance of the way the bomas were arranged and why the houses were built with the features they all have. The museum also had some wildlife on display. The highlights were the crocodiles and the snakes. There were two pretty big crocodile in very small ponds surrounded by a not very secure fence that you could probably reach over if you wanted to. The best part was a sign hanging over the ponds which said something like, even though these are friendly animals, they might be dangerous. The snake pit was not very deep and had virtually no upkeep with couple of small trees. In the trees were my worst nightmare, a green momba and a huge black momba. Apparently there are many mombas in the rainforest on the mountain but everyone assured us that they were very shy and hid from people. That still didn’t stop me from nervously watching all the trees when we were hiking in the forest. After the museum, everyone recommended we visit a wildlife sanctuary. So Andrew negotiated a price with the taxi driver. The wildlife sanctuary was still under construction so it wasn’t really open. However the assistant manager showed us around. A lot of money has been invested in the place. It has a lodge, a couple of bars, a conference room and some funky caves that are kind of like Disneyland or the Flintstones where inside they have built benches and tables out of rock and cement so people can sit and drink their sodas. The neat thing was that they were mostly using all natural materials from the area for construction and employing only men from that area as well. They also have a game park with some sitatunga antelope which are almost extinct and a couple of élans. They also have a small pond about 8 feet deep with a boat. Africans are deathly afraid of being in water so all the men were really terrified when we went for a short ride in the boat. Oh by the way, the taxi driver and what I thought was his co worker went with us on the tour. Later I found out that the second guy was not a co worker but just a customer who had decided to come along for the ride!

The next day, we took another taxi to Mt. Elgon. It is a National Park and a game reserve as well. Besides Andrew and I, the taxi driver and his legitimate co worker also came on the tour again. You are required to be accompanied by a ranger while touring the park. Our ranger was a very young girl in a military uniform who carried a loaded AK47. We only saw a few animals like baboons, water buck and lots of monkeys including the black and white colubus, which have really neat flowing coats that fly out behind them when they jump from tree to tree. The main attraction is several caves where several times during the year, a big group of elephants migrate to so that they can lick the walls of the caves which have a high salt content. Unfortunately, they aren’t there at this time of year because Andrew has never seen an elephant. To get to the caves, you have to hike through the rain forest which is exactly like I have envisioned it all my life. Also, one of the caves had a beautiful waterfall in front of the entrance and we were able to walk into the cave behind it and the view from inside through the waterfall was spectacular. On the way home we stopped at yet another game park, this one was developed by a woman from Maine who is married to a Kenyan man who is now a member of parliament. At this game park, Andrew got to see his first giraffes(and feed it pellets) and his first rhinos. So the trip ended up being really enjoyable and I loved being in the huge quiet forest where we didn’t see one other person, something that is pretty rare in Kenya.

9/12/06

My time is speeding by in Kakamega. Once again, now that I have returned, people have begun to trust me and open up and I have learned a great deal about Kenyan culture. Today I learned that Kenyans work very hard to avoid confrontation. I believe this is because they are such a close knit society and conflict between people disrupts the entire group. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure for people to resolve conflicts in a different way. The most common way to deal with conflict is to use very diplomatic language to create a situation in which there is no chance for a conflict to arise. I have encountered this method while dealing with people here but have a difficult time understanding because they use a lot of underlying innuendo to convey the message and I know I am quite often missing the point.

Another thing I have discovered is that Kenyans rely on formally organized groups to form bonds outside of their family and neighborhood and they believe strongly in the power of groups to educate and to empower people as well. Being unoccupied in Kenyan is really looked down on, those people are called “idlers.” Therefore, by participating in a group and making an effort to better yourself and your situation is seen as a good alternative to being idle. It seems that the goal of many of the groups is to work on ways to improve their communities. One of the youth groups that my young neighbor belongs to is in the process of finding ways to recycle plastic bottles and bags. Oh, by the way, I mentioned before that I was tutoring Andrew in a few subjects while I am here and now I am also teaching him dog training as well. Of course I am the expert because A) I am crazy about dogs and B) I watch the Dog Whisperer regularly on TV. Anyway, Andrew is very entrepreneurial and sees dog training as maybe being a lucrative business in Kenya. Only time will tell.

The worst crime you can commit in Kenya is to steal something. Because people have worked so hard for what little they have, it is really egregious to take something that is not rightfully yours. All over Kenya, if a thief is caught in the act, they are pursued by the mob, sometimes tortured and almost always violently beaten to death. This happened in Kakamega last month to a man who went to a man’s house to repossess a VCR he had sold to the man but hadn’t ever been paid for. He was mistaken for a thief and beaten to death by the neighbors. It is such a bad crime that it is not left to the police to handle because of course, there is no confidence in the police to enforce the law.

Finally, everyday I see many things that just make me sad. On the boda boda ride on the way to work every morning, I pass a vacant lot near downtown Kakamega where several men in very ragged clothes are sitting around a fire. It is the official place for homeless men to congregate during the night. There is a lot of garbage dumped near there and I usually see a couple of guys picking through the garbage. When you pass by during the daytime, you see lots of old worn out coats that are hung all over the signs. These are the coats that these men use to keep warm at night. Yesterday I saw an old man hobbling down the street without any shoes, which is not that unusual here. But the awful thing is that his feet were swollen to about 3 times the normal size and looked unbelievably painful. And today at the hospital, there was a naked woman with just a blanket wrapped around her waist, walking on the hospital path shouting incoherently while people just passed by without taking much notice of her. So many times here I have heard the comment from people that unless a sick person has the money for medical treatment, they are just left to die like an animal. Can you imagine such a place existing in this day and age where resources are so scarce that no resources are “wasted” on the sick and the weak. The best word I can use to describe what I experience in Kenya every day is ‘mind boggling” and beyond our wildest American imaginations.

9/9/2006

In pursuit of producing my DVD, I spend today talking to a couple of my clients who may be participants in the video. It was wonderful to learn about how entrepreneurial these two people had been and how they had been able to take a very small loan of about $125 and use it to create fairly profitable businesses. One man that I talked to had decided after working for a woman’s grocery business for a while, that he would never make enough money working there to be able to get married and have a family. And even thought he was making peanuts, he was able to save enough money to buy a boda boda and operate it to increase what he was making. After that, he started participating in the FAHIDA program and using the loan proceeds from that program, he started a small kiosk near a school where he sells items to the school kids. It has been highly profitable for him and he makes enough money now to send his son to private school. He has used some of his profit from the business to get a drivers license and now he is in the process of saving enough money to buy a used car and start a taxi business, which he says is really needed in the area. That way his wife can run the kiosk and he can do the taxi driving at night and they will make a very good living.
My woman client is a sort of personal shopper. She gets her clients from the university, professional people like magistrates and lawyers, and the government offices where people make the most money in Kakamega. What she does is to take notice of what kind of clothes and styles those people wear and when she goes to Uganda to buy the mitumba, she finds quality clothes that those people will buy. Once she gets the clients, they actually begin ordering specific things from her as well. She has done very well because she is able to charge a good price without people trying to bargain with her and in essence they pay her for shopping for them. It is a very unique concept in Kakamega and I am really impressed by her business savvy.
I also talked to one other women who my colleague Benard suggested I talk to because she has been really excellent at paying back several loans and is currently paying on a loan of about $800 which is a considerable sum in Kakamega. Come to find out, as she very matter of factly told me, she is not running a conventional business. In her words, “she has been a hooker throughout” and she has been paying back the loan from the proceeds of that business. I think Benard was a little surprised when I told him that. However, she assured me she is planning to open a boutique at some point! She was really down to earth and funny and I really had fun talking to her.
Once again, when I arrive at the groups we are servicing, the people are unbelievable friendly in welcoming me back, to the extent that since they knew I had been sick, they have been praying for me.

return to Kenya

9/9/2006


I hopped my way across the world from Dallas to Chicago to London to Nairobi to stay for my second night in Kenya in the city of Kisumu. A stop in Kisumu is almost always mandatory because of the mega Nakumat supermarket there. The choices include many western products and make eating in Africa a more interesting adventure. Rather than the hospital, I stayed at the Sunset Hotel and had a beautiful room with a balcony right on Lake Victoria, in a quiet part of town called Milimani.
My little house was just as I left it, literally, including food we had left in the fridge for over a month! Like a mother hen, I was overcome with the urge to clean and put my own smells in the place. This time, I brought several photos and things to decorate the walls so I have been able to make it a very comfortable home. But because this is Africa, I currently don’t have running water and the fridge doesn’t work. Oh well.
Sunday night, the Lutomia’s, my landlord, invited me to a family supper. One of their sons is married to a girl from Boston. She and the son met only briefly when he was visiting the US. They carried on a long distance relationship and got married. She continues to live in Boston and he lives in Nairobi. It must make for an interesting marriage. Anyway, dinner was served in the living room and was chicken, cabbage soup and chapatis. The TV was on with the volume turned pretty loud as it often the case in Kenyan homes, but it made it hard for me to carry on a conversation with someone across the room. I am having to get accustomed again to understanding their accent. We watched a Mexican soap opera dubbed in English while we ate. The soap opera was really dramatic with many diabolical characters and everyone really enjoyed following the intrigue. It was so nice to be included in their family. It is certainly not a daily situation that exists at home.
It was very nice to come to work on Monday and I got a wonderful warm welcome back from everyone at my office. Many people on the lane where I lived recognized me from before and were friendly. I have gotten the go ahead from the KREP head office for the DVD project that I am so excited to complete while I am here, but was informed that there aren’t any USAID donor funds earmarked for asset purchases. So this is my official plea for donations to my project if anyone is interested. Donations will of course be tax deductible. You can mail or give the money to Bob and he’ll put it in my account and I assure you, in spite of all the corruption in Kenya, I promise to use the money for which it is intended! The project I am working on is producing a business training course using a DVD. I will be using Kenyan business people who have successfully started businesses using KREP loans and interviewing them to illustrate certain business concepts we are trying to teach. I think the DVD will be very interesting to the students because it will be in Kiswahili and will feature fellow borrowers who have actually used the business concepts we are teaching to solve problems in their business. The DVD will be used as an introduction to the concept, and then the trainer can pause the DVD and expand on the concepts and do practical exercises with the students. I am really excited about the concept and it is really challenging to make it all come together like I am envisioning. I feel like it is so serendipitous that I came to Kenya and ended up working in an area. where I can use my experience from the US to perhaps make a contribution. So the above mentioned donations will be used for a TV, DVD player, a TV stand and some other classroom equipment like a chart easel and whiteboard.
So as the day went by on Monday and I did my usual routine I saw many people I had become acquainted with and everyone was so nice about welcoming me back. The young girl from the bookstore where I shop invited me to lunch and told me all about her upcoming marriage. Notice I said marriage, not wedding. When people get married in Kenya, the man has to pay a dowry for the woman and pay for the wedding so it is very expensive. So as a result, most couple only have family present while the priest marries them and then if they can afford it, will have a celebration later.
On Monday evening, one of the sons from where I live came to visit. He is a guy in his early twenties and shared with me that he had spent the last several years living in Uganda, hanging with a bad crowd and partying all the time. He has now decided to get his life straight so he has returned to Kakamega to continue his education. However, because he wasn’t serious about school before, he does not have a good education and has asked me to tutor him in several subjects, including computer, French and English. So, I guess I will be spending a few hours a week with him teaching him what I can. He’s a good kid and I kind of hope maybe spending some time with him can encourage him to keep going this direction. You know, at the risk of sounding like a bleeding heart liberal(which I most likely am) I am glad of the chance to be here and to be able to find so many ways to give back to people. As many of you know, my personal philosophy is that our true obligation in life is to generate positive energy or whatever you want to call it to give to the world while we are here and I feel fortunate that I am able to accomplish a small part of that while living in Kakamega. By the way, did you know that Kenyan salt is not as salty and Kenyan sugar is not as sweet? It’s a mystery to me.