Kenya - September/October 2010

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First Friday in Kenya - Spend the day at the school and teach maths, sit through a Swahili lesson, RE, British bull dogs for PE, English and a song to the baby kids. We tried 12345 but that was quite hard so we did Twinkle Twinkle. They gathered around the desk so they could see my ipod on its speaker sounds. The Volume isn’t very good in the mud hut classrooms.. During PE the boys seem to be intrigued by the upper part of my arms and my lack of muscles! The squash it and poke it and when I ask why it is so interesting - they simply say ‘ you’re muzungo’. It’s that simple. They#ve all seen white people before but having one they can poke and prod at will is a bit more of a treat!

I walk home with the younger children all crowding round me to push my bike and carry my bag and hundreds want to hold a bit of my hand, each pulling a finger or a piece of skin to the point it hurts. I now totally understand what mum and dad were talking about. Can’t believe I am now here.
Go briefly to the orphanage and play with the pre school kids until the orphans come home. When the y do Peter asks me if I have a camera for him and then takes me to see their rabbit ‘mosh’, they pull it out by its ears and its wriggles and squirms and they laugh at my face of distress. They tell me that if I have anything for them, please can I give it to them directly as otherwise they won’t get it. Thinking of the box of clothes in the office - I find it hard not to believe them.
I leave on my bike with promises of coming back on Saturday with (the bike!) , stickers for their rooms, nailvarnish and ready for a game of football.

Josephs wants to accompany me and says he will just nip and get his bike. It must have been pretty far away because he sped off running and still took a while to come back leaving me to be surrounded by yet more children who came running to surround me and wanting to touch my hand. I high five them all and say ‘I’m fine, how are you?’ a million times in response to their questions. We cycled off together on the red dirt and holey roads and I make lots of ooh and aah noises as I encounter a particularly difficult hole! People stare but don’t seem overly bothered. Some men ask Joseph in jest ‘where are you taking her?’ The road out of TImau up the river lodge is up hill and my legs start to ache easily especially as I have very tight cords on!
I give Joseph his trainers and he is so proud and makes me take photos to show mum and dad. He then takes them off, knots the laces and heads off with them hanging over his shoulders ‘like the professionals do!”
After a quick shower Vanessa Murray comes to collect me and takes me the 10mins up the road to their land and I’m in a different world!

Drinks with Rose and Jimmy - the beautiful thatched roofed house - going to see if I can go back and photograph it. Think it would be great for World of Interiors.

Saturday
I have just seen my first monkeys. Heard the dogs barking at something up a tree and went to investigate. About 6 black and white monkeys with long bushy white tails jumping from tree to tree - exciting!

I have a dog sitting at my feet and a peacock contemplating coming onto my deck! It really is a remarkable bird up close. So many shades of blue oh her it comes!! So many blues. I wonder what it’s thinking. Oh it went as I went to get my camera. Think I should go over to the orphanage.

Ok so I’m now on Thursday of the next week. I was very excited on Tuesday to have my first hot shower. Some Amercians were staying at the River Lodge and complained that the water was still not hot. Florence went off to get the fire stoked up and lo and behold when I returned to my hut I had steaming hot water . What with the discovery of the little metal stove they have started putting in my room I almost felt like having a party - I exfoliated my body, gave myself a good clean, got out and even managed to stay naked long enough to moisturise and spray myself with deet. In all my excitement I could have stayed up late - wow I made it to 8.30pm!!!

Wednesday
My excitement over the shower has been short lived following a group session I had with the girls at the orphanage this evening in the little church. The pastor introduces it as a timeto use me for guidance as they as woman were in trouble, as people got pregnant and were sinners blab la bla - my eyes were so wise in amazement there was no doubt the girls noticed. THESE GIRLS ARE MORE INNOCENT ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT THAN ANYHTHING ELSE!I told them they could be totally open with me and it wouldn’t leave the room (I have to admit I feel guilty about this as I have been so shocked by what they have told me that I have asked advice from a couple of people). First they told me that they lack any underclothes; pants, petticoats and tank tops. Also that they are expected to bring toilet paper and soap from their relations otherwise they have to go without - they are all currently going without and to top it all off they aren’t provided with sanitary pads.I am so angry that I want to go outside and punch bloody lynet. Infact I do march outside and demand that she open the office so that I can get the clothes that mum sent over and that rightfully belong to the girls. I take the socks for the girls and hand them around.
Other things we discuss - diet. They eat the same thing ALL the time.
Some are struggling with subjects at school.

I try to read them Twilight but there eyes glaze over after the first two pages (wow I thought that would have been a huge hit!) so I give up and they ask me to teach them a song
Clothes - they are freezing on the way to school.
I teach them the first verse of Lord of All Hopefulness and they seem totally over the moon!
We go out and go for supper - I am given a huge helping of rice and stew - I give some to the kids as it is much. We sing songs and all laugh. I’m getting somewhere.
Walked home by a group of the boys at about 8.30. It’s as pitch dark as anything.

I didn’t sleep very well last night - my mind was whirring with all the things the girls had told me. Having spoken to Dad, I spend the morning asking questions around the orphanage - don’t try to be pushy but immediately the hackles go up when I start asking questions about Dad’s money etc and how it has been spent - when I ask to see the food they have bought they say we ate most of it last night. They show me a couple of bags of sugar (which is used for hot chocolate) and a couple of pieces of mouldy fruit.
I ask lynet to talk me through the weekly diet . She tells me that the children use the money they get for sweets etc

I speak to one of the caretakers - oh you can tell just by looking at him that he is a shifty bugger. He has wide bulging eye and a really creepy face. When I ask him what he does - what he immediately starts doing is telling me about how he needs a sponsor for something.
I say “I’m not interested in you - I just want to know what you do for the children”!
He says he looks after them and councils them. When I ask what it is the boys feel they really need - he say’s “more bible education!’ Oh I just know he is a joke and when I mention this to the boys later in the day they howl with laughter and say ’he is a pastor in word but not the heart.’# As the meeting with the boys progresses we see him starting to walk about the church pretending to sing songs.
Boys need - underpants , school uniforms, loo roll, soap and Vaseline for their skin !
Boys wanted to talk about - food
When I say about hot chocolate -they say they have had it for 2 days. Everything is a show while I am here.
When I ask them to be truthful - do they use the money from home for sweets, they swear to me no.

Saturday 18th September
Walk to the waterfalls with the scouts - joined by Alice and Blessing. Lovely walk, lovely falls. Very hot though and by the end I am feeling very dehydrated and burnt. Have 27 CHapatis made for the kids to eat - half for breakfast before we set off, half when we get there. The kids are also given eggs for breakfast - a first in a long time.
We rush back from the falls as the British army are due to come for a visit at 2pm - While we are waitingOn our ret we do the press on tattoos and they fight over them but all are happy with the results.
I then go to the girls room to look through all their clothes to see what each is lacking. We laugh hysterically as they pull out their assortments of second hand garments - some of which are more fitting for a power dressing business women of about 30 odd in the 80’s than young teenage girls in 2010. We swap and change between them and laugh (a lot) as we decide what each girl would wear on a ‘valentines date’ with one of the boys. Betty can hardly breathe she is laughing so much and lunges around the room having convulsions and sticking her head out of the window to gasp for gulps of air. I tell the girls that if I was younger I would like big Peter or Dennis and I am quite sharply told that I’m not allowed to take Dennis from Doreen. I can totally see why they like each other - each is totally gorgeous. Again, Betty screams with laughter as she reinacts a pose the two young loves struck earlier in the day as small Peter was snapping away on my camera!

The boys take much less time and I rush through them all scribbling down - pants, t-shirts, jackets and trousers as and when they are needed by each.
I decide not to go to church on Sunday morning as really I can’t be bothered - I arrive at 12.30 and the service is in full swing. However, I join the tv room where young Peter is holding court with the Sunday school asking the children to recite passages and sing songs for the reward of a boiled sweet.

I tell Linnet that I will take a few children at a time to the market to buy clothes etc.
‘No I don’t think that is a good idea, because the visitors are coming (the British army again!) and it will look bad if all the children are not here.’
Once I am told this a couple of times my finger comes out again and I say
‘Linnet if you don’t let me take the children to the market, I will TELL the visitors that none of them have underwear!’
‘Oh yes I see, I understand’ - a slightly embarrassed look is given and I walk out of the gates with Frida, Betty, Sharon and Christine . This is the first time Frida takes my hand as we are walking along but I purposely let it go when we enter the market and they walk ahead to a stall to look for pants and crop tops without a muzungo in tow. This is to ensure African prices as opposed to Muzungo prices which are given to me as I wonder around picking up various second hand garments (matumba) from George, Asda to Abercrombie and Fitch!

The girls take a long time and by the time I am getting to the end of the second four I am feeling weary and annoyed that they won’t just accept the first jumper or trousers which come to hand! But then I stop myself and think ‘why should they?’ I wouldn’t and I spend a hell of a lot on clothes - why should they when I am spending approximately 60ksh per item (approx. 45pence) I do hurry them though, so that I can return and get the boys - but I promise we will return next week for any items still needed.
The boys are a dream (and quick) in comparaison - I have 12 with me and we get a lot done in a short amount of time though as the stalls are now being packed up I miss out on getting them all ‘football’ beanie hats like I got the girls. Hats and gloves are a must for walking to school at 6am when it is freezing up here. I must get those next week.

The funniest with the boys is buying underwear - there is a big box of mixed underwear on a stall where the girls had rummaged until they found the crop tops and pants they needed. I go with the boys and we laugh hysterically as we pull out red lacy pants or enormous granny pants and suggest them for each boy! With 2 pairs of pants each made from cheap cotton (that will no doubt rip within a week) with elastic round the top with the well known football teams names printed a la Calvin Klein. There was Manchoster, Chelsee and Liverpold to name a few! (I would hasten to guess that most of the pants were too small for each recipient but they seemed to like the idea of the smaller and tighter the better so who am I to contradict!)
When I only have 110ksh in my purse left we start to wonder home though as we pass a pineapple vendor, the boys eyes begin to light up and they look at me questioningly licking their lips - how could I refuse? I am given 12 slices for the price of 11 and we go on our way.
As we leave the market big Peter turns to me ‘Alice , I am so happy.’
I could have cried there and then - i felt like Princess Diana - ahahahahahaahah JOKE

I leave St Stephens on a high but that is quickly followed by a bit of a low on Monday when after school I return to the home to feel slightly ignored and unwelcome. Joseph assures me that it is just Monday and everyone is a bit subdued after the weekend but I am definetly keen to get away. The only feeling of warmth I get is from Peter who asks me to look at an infection he has on his leg that hurts. I clean it and look at it and think that it is infected and should be seen by a doctore. I suggest I take him along with Simon whose leg is also swollen. Linnet agrees and we arrange to meet at the doctors at 9am on Tuesday morning.
21st September 2010
Or so I had thought. I arrive at 9am (White man’s time - ie on time!) and am one of the first in the queue to see the doctor but the boys don’t show. When I finally contact Linnet at 9.20am she tells me they are waiting for me at the home.
When finally they arrive they say ‘we have been waiting for you for a long time’ , Well so have I matey but I can’t seem to get that across. I am definitely the one in the wrong!!

On the whole I am enjoying Kenya though I am finding it a hugely frustrating place to be. The orphanage I am helping at is in chaos but rather than be guided by my observations which are purely meant as constructive critisicm (well actually I say them like they are constructive, but really the fury burning up inside of me at the way the place is run may well soon burst out!) are completely blocked - they just raise their voice over me as I speak and say ‘let me finish’ and they babble on in a non sensical way about god and Jesus Christ etc. Well how can I compete with the Big G and his son?!

Anyway the children are lovely but blow hot and cold with me so I am never very sure where I stand but I stand back and let it wash over me. On the whole I am a novelty in the town and greeted wherever I go on my bike - adults stare and children run up to me shouting ‘how are you, how are you?’ and wanting to shake my hand. It takes me an age to get anywhere - I am constantly pulling over to greet another child and shake another dirty hand. I dread to think what sort of bacteria coats my hand by the end of each day!
Today however, I experienced my first real experience of hatred (racism I would say!). I took two of the boys to the Doctor and unsure of what to do on arrival I approached a man in a white coat and asked him if I needed to sign the boys in - I had been waiting for approximately 45mins without seeing anyone to ask. He pushes me through a door into an office where I am met by another man in a suit who tells me I have to register the arrival of the boys, which I do and then I am told to go and wait outside a room 9 at the end of the corridor. Well The waiting room (or corridor with wooden benches lined up like a bus) was full of black women with children and the whole place erupted at my ‘superior’ treatment. The jostled me as I walked out and wouldn’t let me through - you know when they are talking about you - they say ‘Muzungo ‘(white person) a lot! I really felt awful as they screamed and shouted at the doctors and gestured angrily at me but I wasn’t angry for me but for the two boys I had with me - they were mortified. They didn’t want to be there with a muzungo either but they didn’t have a choice!

I bought them a coke when we left (probably approx. 2hours before we should have done if we had been made to follow the correct procedure!) in the hopes of making it up to them! They were very subdued.
It’s funny - today has definitely been a low day for me and the first day I have felt truly different - truly muzungo. Up until now I have been happily walking/cycling around enjoying the attention but not really thinking that I was any different to the people around me. I can honestly say that when you are the only muzungo in a town of black people you don’t see colour especially as I don’t have a mirror to look in and therefore have hardly seen myself over the last two weeks. In fact a funny thing happened the other day when I was looking at photos that small Peter had taken with my camera and in the background of one was someone on my bicycle. Now, the children are constantly taking turns whizzing up and down the compound and I wondered to myself which child it could be on the bike at the time. What I didn’t notice for quite a while that the figure on the bike was in fact white and therefore HAD TO BE ME!!! But on the whole my point is that when I look at the children, especially, I don’t see the difference in their skin to mine, I just see them and they are all truly beautiful, each in their own way.

Wednesday 22nd September (Dondie’s Birthday)
What a difference a day makes! Collected by Rose Cornwell at 8am. She arrives in her huge red landrover pickup with the back caged in. We drive to Nanyuki and it is a dream to have some Muzungo company - as we whizz down the road to Timau she spots a man whipping his donkeys, she slows down and screams in Kiswahili at him.
She tells me that she has a society for the good treatment of Donkeys over her run by her friends and that on the whole people are kinder to their donkeys than they were but she did not know that man.
When I ask what his reply was to her barrage that the donkey was god’s creature too, she simply answered ‘he said yes.’
We lumber around Nanyuki doing errands - a sack of potatos there, rabies vaccinations there, injections for the vaccinations and iodine - it seems Rose is a pseudo vet, treating not only her friends dogs but also the ‘woggie dogs’ as she called them. Rose was born in Kenya and cannot imagine life elsewhere. She met Jimmy at a horse show when he was over for …………………..
She is just how I would picture a colonial woman - sheis slim and small and a bundle of energy. She wears tight slightly bellbottomed black jeans, beige suede moccasin boots and a grey sweater. When we go to the hospice she pulls on a black baseball camp with a map of Africa and an elephant embroidered in red. Her mobile phone never stops ringing - It is very loud!
The Hospice - run by an Italian nun is a breath of fresh air compared to St Stephens - wide and open and a lovely strong smell of disinfectant. A garden surrounded by a concrete building open - lovely murals painted on the wall and a shrine with a small wall mounted urn for holy water.
We wonder round nd give a banana to each patient we pass, 2 biscuits and 6 peppermint humbugs.
I meet John the leper she had told me about at her house two weeks ago and he is totally gorgeous. His hands are bandaged up and he has special shoes to help him move about as his toes have fallen off. This apparently hasn’t hurt but now it has moved to the face and is affecting his eyes he is pain. He was wearing the coolest pair of sunglasses (rayban) so I told him and high fived his bandaged hand.
Another patient just wanted to touch my hair.

School -
Christine and Washington’s class - get three girls caned (not on purpose) for speaking in class. Had just wanted them to stand outside so they couldn’t disturb me anymore.
Peris hits me lightly with cane and by jings it stings.
Back at St Stephens the kids play with my iphone and ipod and Sharon and Doreen play with my hair.
Today is the first time that I manage to get about 14 of the kids to give me proper hugs before I go.
I walk off as the light begins to fade and am picked up as I leave TImau by Rick Stewart (muzungo) who drives me to the lodge - result.
I think I have lost my credit card but then I realise that I have found it which is great.

Monday 4th October - Nairobi
A lot has happened since I last wrote as now on way back to Britain with a broken heart. Feel guilty as not all for kids who though I am devastated to leave have slightly gone to the back of my mind since last Thursday and basically I have to say that the final chapter of my Kenyan diary has to be titled - ‘Barry Dean’ or ‘I fell for a 20 year old Squaddie’!!! (which of course was NOT supposed to happen).
When the British Army arrived at the River Lodge It was kind of nice to finally not be the only Muzungo in town but I had no idea what would be the effect of me being the only white girl on the compound. Dressed in Rose’s Tesco’s polar neck and my ripped jeans and feeling quite frankly distinctly average I stood behind the bar and chatted away to them all, just trying to be as friendly as possible, and just couldn’t believe how young the majority of them were - and how many of them seemed to have children at these ages. Believe me I felt OLD and very single despite my wedding ring which was still firmly placed on my fourth finger to detract unwanted BLACK pursuers. They were a nice bunch of guys but there was one that stood out with dark hair and a green t-shirt. He was gorgeous and had a look of Gael Garcia Bernal about him that made my stomach lurch a little. Not that he would ever be interested in me but he was also one of the first guys to show me a picture of his little girl and so I just smiled and got back to work - which I was shit at! I totally and utterly royally messed up - I have never wanted to be a barmaid and can honestly say I won’t ever do it again. I was just imagining a bit of fun but Florence and Carol were even more out of their depth and just left me to open tabs, write down stock and basically make a mess of things. Not that I realised this of course until the end of the night when only 3 guys remained and apologetically looked at me through the closed bar grill and helped out by topping up bar tabs so that we would not be so ridiculously out of pocket. I have to admit I was pretty happy that the guy in the green shirt was one of them!

I have got more of this entry but i'm not sure if i'll put it in so if anyone has had the time and energy to get down this far......................................

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Comments

[Alice P]

MMM can't edit this and think it might cause offence
There is a bit in this posting that might seem a bit racist but it is not meant that way at all. I just had problems with the guys in the town pursuing me so i wore a wedding ring to dissuade it! That is all. Of course.... if they were hot... i was quite happy to talk to them!! heheheheehe