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.

Travel Journal - Kajiado, Kenya

5:30 am. I awake with a start as a man’s shrill cry comes over a loud speaker calling devotees to prayer at a nearby mosque. In Arabic he repeats several phrases, singing that none are to be worshipped but Allah, and my personal favorite, prayer is better than sleep. Now fully awake, and musing about the muezzin, I climb out of bed and quietly step outside to watch the sunrise. Its morning in Kajiado and in the growing light another market day is beginning. The air is cold, but the winds have calmed. And this small, dusty outpost about 75 Kilometers directly south of Nairobi feels like a scene straight out of the pioneer American west. Small, stunted trees grow crookedly in defiance of the bleak, windswept atmosphere. And the local population seems to do much of the same, as their lanky outlines sweep past in the grayish light of morning.

This is Kajiado, and it’s booming at present. Housing is being furiously erected and laborers are constantly seen ferrying large bags of Portland cement, lumber, and jerry cans of water on flat bed rickshaws. These two-wheeled contraptions appear to be the rear axle of a car, which has been converted, complete with a front handlebar, for the purposes of human propelled cargo movement. As in many parts of the country, enterprising young men with strong backs and a fearless disposition, can be hired to move anything along the frenetic road system, dodging matatus and cattle on their journey through the scorched expanse.

The town itself is a U-shaped affair with a tarmac loop passing several gas stations, an open-air market, and a multitude of storefronts on its way diverting from, and then reconnecting to the A104 as it continues south towards Namanga and the Tanzanian border. The loop is easily traversed in 25 minutes, though a brisk walk may cause you to miss the diversity and color that is the town’s most redeeming quality. Kajiado district in general is a place inhabited by the Maasai. But in Kajiado town, a decided Somali-Muslim influence predominates. That’s not to say that the Maasai aren’t present, just that they are intermixed with robed Muslim men and women, and more than a few west Asian traders. Ironically, there is even a Maasai store, which happens to be an all-purpose trading post, run by an Indian family. But this makes the small town vibrant and interesting.

We like to stay at a guest house run by the local Anglican Church, smack in the middle of town. The rooms are very clean, the showers are hot, and they throw in breakfast for 700 shillings per person, or about eleven U.S. Dollars. The rooms are part of a 1 story row of buildings perched on the edge of a hill, allowing the cool evening breezes to come straight in from the south. And unlike many of the establishments in town, it is on a large compound, giving you the sense of space, in the growing congestion.

The soko, or open-air market, is one place you must experience. Most days, purveyors are set up in a cement walled and tin roofed area. But on Wednesdays and Saturdays the chaos is increased and moved to an adjacent, fully open air venue, where tree limb and burlap enclosures have been erected on a dusty plain. Here, you can get everything from freshly ground spices and milled grains to hand picked fruits and vegetables. The atmosphere is raucous, with plenty of yelling, and young men lugging massive bags of goods around. They will knock you over if you don’t heed their calling “wewe!” I have, more than once narrowly escaped impalement on stalks of sugar cane, or smothering by huge bundles of flying kales. There is also the usual assortment of used clothing and random goods vendors if you are in the market for kitchen utensils, drapery or tire sandals. Just make sure that you haggle for goods. I find walking away twice before settling on a price is a sure strategy. The food prices are generally fixed and low, but it’s a free for all when it comes to anything else.

Day of Peace - Letters and Laughter

Jennie and I want to acknowledge Carol Dunn, Mary Jones, and her grade school class for writing letters to the standard 8 students here in Orinie. In observance of the International Day of Peace, the kids wrote about themselves, their community and what the concept of peace meant to them.

The idea came up a few months ago when Jennie and I cautiously wandered over to the school and promised to teach a few lessons. At that time our mere presence within line-of-sight of the primary school caused a riot. If I had to explain what it would be like to land on earth as a Martian, I now feel qualified to do so. Walking into that school felt like descending from the mother ship into a crowd of gasping, leering, mute with anticipation, and generally amazed children. There are kids here who have never seen pavement, so I would like to think that having seen us will shake out to be at least as strange and interesting an experience.

But all too quickly, we were just teachers, demanding attention from students and grading assignments. Jennie became the crazy mzungu who teaches reproductive health intermixed with science curricula, so hers was a more racy identity. But for me, the arduous task of teaching English composition was saved only by bribing the children with candy and national geographic magazines.

In conjunction with Carol and Mary, Jennie arranged for a Peace Day letter exchange. We did a letter writing session, where peace was discussed, and first drafts were scrutinized. Finally, we created letters that the class was proud to send out over the Atlantic. The kids here wrote amazing letters, in, what is their third language after Kimaasai and Kiswahili. But in truth, the hardest part was telling them to be patient as more than a month transpired before we received letters with the Indiana postmark.

The school buzzed with the news that letters had arrived. Instead of the usual grazing goats looking through the glassless, iron barred windows, hundreds of students watched expectantly. The letters were read and re-read and then passed around. They had so many questions about slang, and pop-culture references, and why Americans spell differently than British writers do. They really got to see a day in the life of a little Midwestern town through the eyes of their age mates—it was amazing to watch.

Jennie walked them through a discussion of social similarities and differences, as well as their ideas of peace. They responded with thoughtful notions and more than a few laughs about the way Americans see the world. They pondered how we can spend so much time indoors and how that affects our social interaction. And they marveled that while most of us don’t live with goats, we often have dogs sleep in our beds—that’s just weird. Most of all, they noticed how a little writing experiment made everyone feel much more connected, and that its hard to hate or fear someone after you have shared a little space and time.

Apart from all this, Jennie and I find it incredibly difficult to sort out how worthwhile our efforts are, and whether or not they are sustainable solutions to the problems we are seeing. When being here gets tough, we turn to questioning our purpose, and if what we are doing is helping make lasting change for the better. But Carol really emphasized to us that investing in children is always a sustainable and purposeful endeavor. So amongst the hard questions and loosely defined work roles, this interaction with the kids was clearly a great thing, and the closest thing to immediate gratification we have had since coming. The kids had a blast, they learned a lot about American culture, and we felt that we had accomplished something, while small, that will stick with all of us for years to come, so many thanks to all that were involved.

The goatfather

Taketi herds about 75 goats for his family, which means that he is up by 5 am to drive them to the river for water. By 7:30 he is at school while the goats wander, and by 2pm he is back out into the bush rounding them up. He herds goats 7 days a week, and he does it well, at least that’s what I would like to believe. And though he is only 8 years of age, he has found a way to extort gifts from each and every garden owner that his goats pass on their daily migration to and from the riverbed.

I wasn’t keen to it at first. The goats amble into the yard, prompting me to chase them. And there is Taketi, smiling away, ignoring the fact that the goats are making fast work of our crops. “I have come to greet you” he says in his 3rd grade Kiswahili. I happen to be at about the same level and so I respond by asking about school, news of his home and how his goats are doing that day. He peeks behind me into the house and says, “kuna zawadi leo”? Which, roughly translates to, “do you have any gifts for me today”? To which I usually produce a piece of candy, a banana, or even just a cup of water. His tiny stature doesn’t allow him to see over the live fence, so most times he is either jumping for a peak, or leaning awkwardly to see what’s happening through the wall of thorns. Some nights, as the sun goes down, he even helps me add thick thorny branches to fortify the barrier because his tiny little hands can so ably sneak past the thorns that ensnare me in fits of cursing.

I have slowly had the chance to meet neighbors and learn about his racket. It’s simple, but effective. Give him gifts and he will keep his goats out of your yard. Cross him—deny him treats or toys from town—and you will find goats nibbling away the precious shoots and leaves that you have so dedicatedly sown. His little tire sandals and big pearly white smile don’t fool me. He’s running a little goat syndicate complete with payoffs, retribution and old world black mail. If I tell him we have no treats, he usually gives me one last opportunity by asking “Jennie yupo hapa”? I tell him that Jennie is around, but we still don’t have sweets, and to this he turns slowly, eyes me one last time as if to say, “Your crops are goat food sucka,” and then meanders home.

Travelers beware. If you’re looking for the mugger in a hoodie, you are sure to get taken. The real robbers here are the adorable children that warm your heart and talk you into giving them all your stuff. Taketi has already booked half of the things I own, and I will probably just wheel a couple of suitcases to his place when we leave. I marvel at how we came 10,000 miles to realize that there’s a Dennis the Menace in every town.

Lifevest Lingerie

We got home safely this week from Nairobi, but not exactly in the way that I had envisioned. Like normal we grabbed a matatu from the City Centre stage and suffered through the dust, noise and danger that is modern Kenya's finest mode of transportation. We arrived with our lives and person intact in Kajidao, and set up a meeting with one of our counterparts. Julius was also worried about the looming water crisis and set about solving the problem. This was music to our ears as we have been saving bath water to wash our clothes in before dumping it on the few remaining green plants we have in the backyard. Its been pretty tight here water wise, which made our experience in Nairobi slightly more bizarre.

We met with our APCD on Thursday, and discussed, among other things, our emergency action plans. This roughly translates to discussing all of the worst case scenarios, and then laughing at the possibility of ever having to implement them. For example, on this particular trip, we discussed the riverbed we cross to leave our village. Its a dry beach for 11 months of the year, and a seething torrent in heavy rains. Under normal circumstances, if the river is raging, you just don't cross. This is a widely accepted method of coming away with your life, even if you don't get to town to buy peanut butter or luke warm soda. But like I said, we weren't there to discuss what normally happens.

A month ago, we had discussed the very same river crossing issue at site visit. I had laughingly suggested that, should we need to leave when the rains come, we could use a rope and some flotation devices to help each other across. Tie one end to a tree as the other person wades across, and then repeat on the opposite bank. So you can imagine my shock when we were handed a "life vest sign out sheet." I quipped that they must have made this form specifically for us, and got a rather annoyed glance in reply. Anyhow, we found ourselves the next day holding life vests in Kajiado, walking to a meeting with Julius.

Julius shares our concern over lack of water. In fact he took it so seriously that he arranged water and a ride for us back to the village. But like I have continually said about this experience, the aspect which I assumed was the strangest, took a close second to the massive tanker truck that appeared to chauffeur us to Orinie. We spent the final hours of our day, bouncing along the dusty track that leads to our home, squished between two truck drivers, a huge bag of vegetables, and two life vests, all headed, strangely enough, for one of the driest places I have ever been.

We arrived at dusk and helped the guys load our dispensary tank with water. At the request of Julius, I was to put a lock on the tank, which put me in an awkward position standing amongst a crowd of thirsty locals. I didn't get a hard time from anyone really, though I could tell they weren't happy. I was saved however by a scream from our house. I ran in to find Jennie in a pile of our dirty laundry, cursing like a sailor. In our absence, a mouse had set up his home in our clothing, and had found a way to nibble all the important aspects of our undergarments. We had made it safely, and with water, and had to laugh at life vests and risque underwear, because it was just another day in Orinie.

Dust Football

I have started playing football in the evenings with the kids here. The field is rough, extremely potholed, lacking goal posts or sidelines, and definitely not flat. But they don’t care, they just play.

As the sun sets, crowds of students battle in the rising dust. The action stops frequently to restitch the ball due to thorns and sharp broken glass. The kids huddle around and find some way to fix the ball, and then, amid screams and much chaos, play resumes. It’s so much shabbier than any field I have ever seen and I have no response to “Nicko, how do you see our field”? In the end, I guess what I see are kids, too enveloped in fun to notice how much they lack. And for their sake, I hope that this reprieve stays with them, and gives them joy through all the difficulties they face. There is so little here, and the small moments really do matter. Every little bit of enjoyment is squeezed out, reused and savored.

The fading of the light makes continuing almost impossible, and yet, there is always one final goal to score. “Last one is the winner.” At some point an enormous hum comes across the field, and for a minute we are covered in bees—millions of honey bees. They are migrating right through the middle of our match, and everyone is on their knees, shirts pulled up over heads, screaming, laughing. The bees pass, and one enterprising lad scores as the defense is still half-shirtless and cowering. The ball pops for a final time and it’s not repairable due to darkness. We all wander home coated in dust, sweating, and laughing at the bad plays I have made. This is how the games are savored, walking home in the dark, arm-in-arm. “We’ll do it again tomorrow, only maybe you won’t miss. Maybe you can actually send it in the direction of the opponents goal, just a suggestion, nothing personal. Do they have football in America? Do the kids sleep with their cleats on?”

I can see their outlines in the fading light, jumping, sprinting, arms raised, mouths open, eyes wide, chests heaving, feet furiously seeking the ball. They are playing because they can forget about herding goats, or hauling water. They can forget about typhoid, malaria and AIDS. They can breathe in the cold evening air, and exhale all the worries that 12 year olds carry here. The weight is lifted, even if only for a moment, and I can see their gleaming faces in the moonlight. They are children who must grow up fast. But for an hour or so, they are football stars, and I think I shall always remember them this way.