Nairobi to Kisumu

Leaving Nairobi, friends and host family included, was very hard to do. Eight weeks with seeing my friends everyday and seven weeks living with my host family was an amazing time and it was coming to an end. Orientation was hard to leave just because we were all getting to know each other and it was weird knowing that we were not going to be with each other every second of every day. Leaving Nairobi was even worse. We were just getting used to and familiar with our families and the city and now it was time to leave. Looking back on the program guide, one week of orientation, seven weeks of classes and six weeks of an internship sounds so easy. But there is a lot of shuffling around and getting thrown into new environments with new people. I think the hardest part for me was just coming to the realization that a good chunk of the program was over. After our internships, we had a week of exams and then it was really over. I have enjoyed every second of this program and home now feels like a distant fantasy land. If leaving orientation and Nairobi was this difficult, leaving altogether will be quite a challenge. I’m not looking forward to that.
There are eight of us out of the 24 that are living in the Kisumu region. Four of us are in the city and four are on the outskirts. We left for Kisumu on Sunday morning and arrived there around 4:30. Jane took us to a restaurant across the street from the bus stage where we would meet our families. My new host mom, Mama Gift, arrived after we ate to take me home. It was about a thirty second walk. I am a fan of our location. There is a large estate of houses called Railways, right next to the city center. My new family consists of Mama Gift, Baba (Father) Gift, a three year old boy named Praise but we call him Junior, a 10/11 year old girl named Gift and then two older cousins, Daisy who is 18 and Otieno who is around my age. It is very common in Kenya for the parents to be called Mama and Baba + one of the child’s names. It is a lively house to say the least. Junior is a lot of fun. I was telling Keith, 17, and Carrey, 15, about my new family a couple of weeks ago. I told them I had a three year old brother and a 10 year old sister, “Not much different than you two.” Mama Gift is a teacher at a local private school and Baba Gift is a sales rep for a local radio station. Kisumu is a little bit hotter than Nairobs (Nairobbery is its nickname) but it has since cooled down quite a bit as the rainy season approaches. It’s still hot though. After a painfully bureaucratic process of security my internship, I ended up getting an internship at Victoria Boda Boda and SACCO (Savings and Credit Co-Operative). We had tried many other places before Victoria because it is a little ways away from the city but we either never got answers back or they made up some BS excuse. As we later found out and confirmed from higher sources of which I am not privy to know their names, I was believed to be a spy. While I like the title of being a spy, it didn’t work out to well. Corruption is on every level of business, public and private here. They were worried about an American spy coming in to check on their finances. While it is quite funny, it is also disturbing. This is supposed to be money for the poorest of the poor to help develop their lives. Victoria is a cooperative society which means there is nothing to hide. The money in the pool comes from all of its 1200 clients. There is no outside money or capital of any sort to be filtered away into someone’s pocket. Victoria has savings accounts and shares accounts. The savings are for saving and the shares accounts are for loans. As a member of the society, you are to contribute a minimum of 23 shillings, (about 27 cents or so USD) to your account (ie the big pool) six days out of the seven day week. While this doesn’t always happen for various reasons, Victoria has grown enormously in Kisumu. Many years ago (I have no idea how long ago) it was started as a cooperative society to give loans to parents so they could buy their kid a bike to go to school. Good schools in the outside communities are far and few between which leaves people less likely to go to school. Bikes also improve their quality of life as they can get places faster (grocery store, hospital, you name it). Since then they have expanded into a full micro finance institution. They give asset loans for houses and such, school loans, bike loans and what we call a biashara boost loan. Biashara means business and these loans are for micro businesses. So what have I been doing? I’ve joined the road warriors. We’ve been traveling around the outside rural areas of Kisumu to collect payments, run workshops on savings and loans, answer questions and to hear the members complains and comments. A cooperative society is not like a regular bank. Banks have outside investments. Victoria big pool of money only comes from the small contributions made by its members. With that said, only a certain few people can have access to a chunk of the big pool at a time. Some loan requests get delayed for months and those people get very upset. Last week I went out to a rural area where we met a youth group of motorcycle and bike taxis. They had been asking for loans to by a new motorcycle to replace a bike for a few months. The delays keep coming and that’s the nature of a SACCO. One man, about my age, came up to me, and made a passionate plea in Luo. I don’t speak a word of Luo so my coworker Nancy translated for me. Since I was from the rich USA, the man wanted me to give him a word of encouragement and reason to keep fighting to stay alive. I asked Nancy to repeat that again in hopes that I had heard it wrong. Nope. If you know me well, I am seldom rendered speechless. I always have something to say. After getting over the initial shock, it took me another 80 or 90 “Mississippi” to think of something to say. I told him that he had made the first step to bettering his like by wanting more and that Victoria will help him get there. “You just have to be patient.” Hardly inspirational words but he was satisfied. It is hard to be patient though when a good portion of your daily income is not going to food but is going to your savings. A big problem I see here is that some people are satisfied with their current living conditions. Living conditions of which we would find just plain awful. Wanting more is the first step and it was encouraging to see this youth group want more.

Mombasa

The next weekend after the tear gas: Mombasa. My friends Dan, Kyle, Hannah, Paige and myself made the journey to Mombasa. We had Friday off of class so we left on a night bus Thursday night. I slept for about ten minutes out of the seven and a half hour cruise. We got in a little after 5 am when it was still pitch black. We waited out in the bus lounge for a half hour or so until we went to our hotel. After a much needed three hour sweaty nap, we headed out on the town. Mombasa is hot. Really hot. In St. Louis in the summer when its 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity, no one goes outside unless it’s the walk to their air conditioned car. Life does not stop in Mombasa. In fact, people continue to wear jeans and long sleeve t shirts. I will never understand. The first place we went was to an old military fort called Fort Jesus. I could explain its significance but after writing down the tear gas story, I’m all out of descriptive adjectives. I suggest Wikipedia. We took a tour with a local guide for about an hour. It was hot so our level of attention was very low. After the tour we continued with the guide to see old town. As the name suggests, this is the oldest part of Mombasa that is where the first Arabs settled. After the tour we went back to the hotel for showers and naps. We ended up going out to a club right down the street from our hotel. Unlike Nairobi, you can actually walk around at night with a fairly high level of security. That’s not because of police but because of witchcraft. Yes, witchcraft. Mombasa is heavily populated by Muslims and they believe strongly in witchcraft. People are so afraid to break steal or mug someone because they believe they will be cursed by a witch. For whatever their reasons, it was nice to walk at night. The club was a pretty good time. The only bad part was the large presence of prostitutes. As Dan and I walked to the bathroom, we were stopped multiple times by women asking if we needed anything. We felt pretty good about ourselves for all the attention until we realized they were prostitutes. We had some good laughs over it and then continued to drink our Tuskers responsibly and listen to the Kenyan remixed music. The next day was beach day. We went south of Mombasa to a place called Forty Thieves Bar, Grill & Beach on Diani Beach. It was the best day I’ve had in Kenya in a long time. The beach was a perfect white and there was not a cloud in the sky. Paige and I rode camels down the beach, Dan, Kyle and I had bro talk while playing Frisbee and we relaxed in the water. If there is one criticism I have of the beach in Mombasa, it is that the water is like bath water. The Indian Ocean on the Kenyan border gets the sun head on causing it to be very warm. When I first did my Baywatch run and dive into the water, I was expecting a great deal of relief from the hot sun. Nope. Not even refreshing. It was definitely colder than the outside air though. What a great day it was. That night we went back to the hotel, showered and then went to eat. After that, we retired to our rooms and went to sleep. Paige found a tree house hotel near Forty Thieves that we are going to stay at for a few days after the program. Beaches, tree houses and tropical weather? I’m excited.

Tear Gas

After another three week break from blogging, I’m back again. Lots to talk about. I moved to Kisumu last Sunday but before I get to that, I’m going to back up a few weeks and talk about the end of Nairobi. As in the past, the weekdays have been like any other weekdays at school so unless you want to hear about subjects like the effect of negative ethnic politics on development or the strengths and weaknesses of the new 2010 Constitution, I will move straight to the weekends. Three weekends ago, the last weekend in Feb, I went to a Kenya Premier League soccer game with my Kiswahili teacher, Emmanuel. Gor Mahia is the most popular team in Kenya so we decided to go to that game. Gor is a really good team but is known for its rowdy fans. Last year, seven fans were killed during a clash with another team’s fans. Unlike most clashes in Kenya that result in death, this was regular citizen A killing regular citizen B. Not Policeman A gunning down citizen A as he was running away. Anyways, as we got to the stadium, I was getting really excited: it was opening day. After a long offseason, it was a new year for the KPL and Gor. The mood outside the stadium was electric. Gor wears a green and white jersey and since the opposition team was new and therefore had not but a single fan there, the line to the gate was a sea of green. I decided to wear my Kenya national jersey because I figured that would be a neutral jersey incase all hell was to break loose. This thought came to me before I knew that the other team, Posta Rangers, would not have a single fan. Walk around the stadium, I was called some rather colorful names, in English, Kiswahili and shang (Swahili slang). Emmanuel and my host brothers Keith and Carrey translated as fast as they could. Some of the nicer comments were “You wazungu… you do realize that Kenya is not playing, right?” and just a plain old “$*&# you”. Again, those were the nice comments. After we successfully bribed the ticket agent for tickets, we got in line to go in the stadium. As we were waiting in line, a police truck rolled up and out came the po po. Instead of police hats, they wore full helmets complete with a visor/shield. Instead of handcuffs, they each were packing four canisters of tear gas. Instead of a gun, they carried a reinforced night stick. As I found out later, they are not allowed to carry guns for the same reason prison guards can’t carry guns. They are afraid they will be over powered and the fans will now have a gun. This was another reminder of exactly where I was. TIA. Once we got into the stadium, we saw a huge group of people going nuts on one side of the field while they were singing the Gor anthem. Emmanuel asked me where I wanted to sit and I pointed to the mob. He clearly answered “Hapana”. That means no. He said this is where a bunch of drunks and thungs hung out and that it was a serious security concern to sit there. Especially for me to sit there. He pointed to the opposite side of the stadium where about a hundred fans were sitting and we went to sit there. I think I’ve drawn out this story long enough so I’ll get to the good part. Gor, who was a heavy favorite, found themselves down 3-0 in the 79th minute. After the third goal was scored, I said to Keith, “Better get the riot police ready”. As a joke of course. A few minutes later, the game was stopped for no apparent reason. We were all looking around looking for an explanation. In a few minutes we found out that fans were throwing things, bottles, shards of glass and rocks, at the linesman. He had missed an offsides call in their point of view so they retaliated. After a brief meeting of referees and linesmen in the middle of the field, they decided to keep the game going. But two minutes later it was stopped again. He was getting pummeled with bottles again. All of the players walked off the field this time. Fans from the rowdy side started throwing whatever they could onto the field and were coming down from the stands to the barbed wire fence that surrounds the field. The game was then officially called by the referees but the fun was only just beginning. A group of fans were shaking the gate to the field to try to get in. There was a huge chain locking the gate and the task looked formidable. From the other side of the field where we were sitting, I asked Keith if he thought they would get in and he said “They always do”. People were starting to run out of the stadium but Emmanuel told us to stay put because he didn’t want us to get caught in a stampede. Good choice. I said I also wanted to stay for the inevitable tear gas that would come if they got on the field. Again, I said this as a joke. After a full five minutes of attempting to break down the gate, they succeeded. The fans came pouring on to the field like they had just won the NCAA tournament. Most started grabbing the advertisement banners that surrounded the field and then threw them into the middle of the field. Enter the security forces. About twenty full SWAT geared po po started a march on the field. In a fourth of July spectacle, the tear gas started flying. In the movies, tear gas is thrown on the ground and then the gas starts to slowly come out. Not in Kenya. They explode like a firework. The fans started throwing them back at the security forces which made for quite the spectacle. About five or six canisters went off in total. The tear gas started spreading in the stadium and it was headed right for us. We stared running away but we did not succeed. It hit all of us full force. It stung pretty badly for about five to ten minutes. As the fans started to run away, we made our way down to leave as the situation appeared under control. When we got back to the house, my host Mom said this was business as usual for the KPL. This is another reminder of how far this country has to go. I could have told this story in about three sentences but I wanted to tell it all for my benefit. It will be a good story to look back on in the years to come.