Jumapili

We hiked the two exhausting hours out to the main road, dropped our luggage, and began looking for transportation into Kajiado. Looking north, I noticed a man laboring up the hill toward us on a mountain bike, loaded down with gear and towing a sizeable trailer. I turned to Jennie and said, in rather Kenyan fashion, “Look, it’s a mzungu!” Adrian was riding his bicycle from Switzerland to Cape Town South Africa. He had ridden down through France and Spain, caught a boat to Morocco, and rode his way through West Africa, stopping in Timbuktu for a night (because everybody has heard of Timbuktu), through the Central African Republic, and then finally down into Nairobi. He had spent a few months in Nairobi recuperating and touring around with a friend, and then had set out, the day before we saw him, headed south for the Tanzanian border. We spent about ten minutes with him before a matatu showed up and finished the conversation, but we did get a website address http://www.to-adi.ch/

I would say that this type of chance meeting is odd, because it is by my standards at home in the U.S. But for some reason, this is an altogether typical event in our lives here. Okay, it’s not everyday we meet someone on such an epic journey, but considering that he had, not ten minutes earlier, passed a Japanese man headed for Cairo, coming from Cape Town, gives you an idea of what I mean. Sometimes being a Peace Corps volunteer fits into what policemen have told me, “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of shear adrenaline.” We aren’t getting shot at, but things are a bit more interesting than a normal morning commute.

And so we set out for a Nairobi Christmas in our matatu, thinking of how amazing it must be to ride a bike that far. And it wasn’t long before we passed a small, determined looking Japanese cyclist, gritting his teeth under the strain of a rather long hill.

Leaving Kajiado to the north we encounter Isiniya and Kitengela. Western sensibilities would lead you to the conclusion that these areas are on a dangerous decline, but they are actually quite friendly cosmopolitan intermediaries between the bustle of Nairobi and the quiet border towns to the south. In both towns, litter covers the main thoroughfare and muddy side roads, where construction is happening faster than should be expected or allowed. Except for the gangs of roaming goats, nobody is working on trash removal as the local economy explodes. New businesses spring up almost daily, creating strange juxtapositions. One brand-new supermarket in Kitengela is particularly jarring with its bright white flooring and fluorescent lights, whirring checkout lines and expansive isles. From this paragon of consumerism, patrons step onto a muddy, trash laden embankment where hawkers and touts raise a frenzied din.

At some point, our route takes us over the Athi River as it winds its way out of Nairobi national park. One of the muddy shorelines serves as a car wash currently, which due to its profitability, seems to persist despite government fines and the arrest of its operators. The oil slicked river runs out of the park ostensibly saving the rare animals contained within from poisoning but leaving the regions human population in a rather awkward fix. I notice that ironically, one of the areas largest tree and plant nurseries is located across the street, sporting freakishly large banana trees, and enough bougainvillea to choke the Charles twice over.

After Kitengela, you reach the Athi river junction and the main Mombasa highway which runs into Nairobi. The highway is getting a much needed face lift at present which serves to both anger and excite matatu drivers who see it as an especially perfect opportunity to drive recklessly. The few parts gravel, and busted tarmac detour is an unhinged matatu driver’s paradise. Women line the road selling food cooked in shabbily erected tin enclosures. Hawkers wander in the middle of traffic selling T-shirts, auto accessories and anything else that can be passed through a car window quickly. Also intermixed are surveyors, construction workers, livestock from god knows where, and an assortment of hangers-on. This eclectic mix crowds the ill-defined route where drivers commonly use the shoulders for passing and avoiding crater-like potholes. I sit in the back of our matatu, somewhere between nausea and hysteria, staring at a sticker that says “don’t just sit there while he drives crazy.”

I just sit there, wincing every time a pedestrian narrowly escapes being struck, or livestock avoid becoming road kill. I have no idea how the whole thing works, but I have yet to witness any carnage. Through a seemingly intricate barrage of hand signals and traditional traffic laws, everyone seems to get where they are going while narrowly avoiding death, transacting business, or chatting away on cell phones. I just hope that no one notices my white knuckles and feverishly sweating forehead. I look funny enough as it is, perched on the tiny seat, clutching my luggage and swearing I will never again board another vehicle with the words “Thug Life” stenciled across the windshield. For now, squished between a business man and a goat, I dream of a hot shower, electricity, and an ice cold beverage which is after all worth risking your neck for. I can only imagine the stories Adrian will have to tell about encountering drivers during his trek, and I just hope that he makes it in one piece.

Maisha yako, Chaguo lako

A cold breeze blew through the pitch as players anxiously perched along the penalty box, side-by-side with spectators. For the moment the ball was motionless—the goalie poised in anticipation and the shooter nervously eyeing his shoelaces. A whistle broke the silence and the shooter lunged at the ball, shuffling his feet before striking at its middle with a laced arch. The goalie dove right, guessing at the shooters direction, and for the briefest of moments the village was captivated.

They had come together to acknowledge a day and celebrate life. These people had summoned the interest and capacity to place their arduous lives on hold and attend a function. They sang together, ate together and prayed together, all at the behest of an invisible force, both powerful and uniting, that required an entire day to pause and reflect. World AIDS Day—an annual event where we acknowledge that an unliving chain of nucleic acids is dismantling human lives the world over. This unstoppable bug made its way into the blood stream of 4.3 million people in the last year alone, crippling economies, devastating communities and orphaning children. Not exactly the rally cry we would have hoped for, but a desperate and necessary annual acknowledgement of our shared reality.

The ball sailed wide left, the goalies guess irrelevant, and one teams struggle vindicated. After a 1-1 draw, penalty kicks decided the victors of Saturday’s game between Orinie and Oleshaki. The game had been a rousing success, and even though the home team lost, an entire community had come together. In the fading light of a cool December evening, I handed over a shiny new Adidas trophy ball to the visiting village and concluded a very successful World AIDS Day celebration.

The African Inland Church, our sponsor organization, provided funding for the food, beverages and enough gasoline for the entire days festivities. Solar Cookers International pitched in to provide a demonstration of fireless cooking and energy saving thermal baskets. The Mamas used nothing but sunlight to prepare chai and rice for the spectators. The Demille family got together several months ago and shipped some footballs, without which the soccer tournament would have been impossible. And our friend and fellow PCV Milcah showed up with her youth group and entertained the trousers off the whole community. Hope Worldwide, Milcah’s sponsor organization, supports youth mobilization with the goal of training youth in life skills that they will in turn disseminate to the community through various means. In the case of Milcah and her Kajiado based youth group, dramas and song are the chosen method. They were both hilarious and inspiring and showed the youth in Orinie a glimpse of what is possible when creativity and public health knowledge are inter mixed with energetic teenagers and far too many caffeinated beverages. Its no small feat when outsiders are able to tell old mamas penis jokes and come away seeming like saintly harbingers of vital information.

In truth, Jennie and I sweat over this day for months, worried sick that we would spend the day alone in failure. But the morning came, a goat was slaughtered, the district officer arrived, football happened, music was enjoyed, and hopefully, a few more people walked away determined to take their personal health seriously. Our theme, Maisha yako, Chaguo lako (your life, your choice) really seemed to resonate with the youth. Jennie ran a poster contest in November with some of the kids here. They took the idea and ran; I would try to explain, but a picture is so much better. This was the 1st place winner, and by far the community favorite. That's a coffin at the bottom with the words, "AIDS can cause death" scrawled across. It would be hilarious if it wasn't way too close to home.