It's a lot! 7/23-7/27

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A very exciting couple of days here! We have continued doing interviews with the girls and have learned a lot! On Wednesday, the 22nd, I did interviews with Marie Eaton a Fairhaven professor looking at experiences growing up as a child. She’s done other research with different groups in India and Thailand as well. Many, many themes came up throughout the interviews as well as differences between girls coming from more rural towns vs. urban settings. Many girls also expressed that without Slum Doctor Programme (SDP) they would not be able to attend secondary school. After our interviews in the morning I got to sit in on Rosemary’s, who is the head deputy or vice principal, English class. The girls did presentations on nonverbal cues, homophones, homonyms, synonyms and common pronunciation mistakes. Some girls definitely stood out as the main speakers and were very intelligent leaders of the class.
After this class we returned to the house for lunch and rested for a bit before we came back at 4:00, when the girls get out of school. They had tons of questions like what food I like to eat or is available in the U.S., if Michael Jackson and pop singers are devil worshippers like the tabloids say, music I like, singing careers, where I go to church, all the different careers in the US and more. A lot of great questions and I got to talk about profession in Kenya saying that there are different professions available to them in Kenya besides a doctor or lawyer as well as micro-finance. They weren’t terribly interested but it felt good to at least breach the subject. The rest of the day was filled with meetings assessing our work, expectations vs. reality and assessing what the program could improve on next year.

7.23.09
I just hung out this morning until 10. I called my parents and explained what I’m doing, where we’re living and what the different culture is like. At 10 the girls and I went to the school to go to PE with the Form 2 girls. In Kenya, for a secondary school about the size of Ombogo (150 students) there should be 6 teachers. At Ombogo they have 12 and there still aren’t enough teachers for every subject. Each teacher takes on multiple subjects to teach and sometimes can’t teach all the scheduled classes, as it was with this PE class. Directed by the girls we sang a lot of Luo songs where you’re called to sing and dance in the middle of the circle, then did some (8) jumping jacks or stars as they call them. Then I taught them partner tag and ships and sailors. I taught the latter game wrong but it still worked and we had a blast! They are such fun girls

They got out of school at 4 again and I went over because I promised a girl in Form 2, Faith, that I would exchange some dance moves. We were laughing and dancing, Faith as well as others wereteaching me a bunch of Luo moves that I picked up pretty quickly. One person even said I danced like a Luo which was a huge compliment. Those girls know how to shake it! Faith is such a good dancer and so much fun and Heather were talking with the girls as they aren’t the biggest fans of dancing. This moment really broke down the walls and made my relationships grow so deep with the girls. I got to know Form 2 the best as Form 4 had a lot of tests as they’re about to graduate and Form 3 had been gone on a field trip from Monday to Thursday.
At night though I went outside to see the rain. It was raining lightly and even some lightening! Bats were flying around and when I was outside with an older man name Ogobo came outside He and Zilpah were teaching me how to count to ten in Luo when Chairman Okundi came from Nairobi for a road opening ceremony. The road is connecting Kisumu to Homa Bay and has been in construction since 1964 and is going to be completed within two years.

Friday morning (7.24.09) after the Chairman arrived he mentioned that the President and Prime Minister of Kenya were going to be Kindu Bay, a town nearby, for the road opening ceremony. We decided we wanted to go as most of us students have never seen a president, plus the fact we’re kind of VIP with the Chairman around making it easier to see him. After some confusion on the details to get there and back, we hopped in two cars, one of which was the Chairman’s, and went to Kindu Bay. We were driving very, VERY fast in a Toyota SUV (I learned the real reason for an SUV) to get there in time and when we arrived, there were throngs of people waiting to see the President and PM. We were driven right to the front of the people and dropped off right by the red carpet and platform. We met the Minister of Roads, some of the engineers, the contracted company to construct the road and the Spiritual Leader of the Luo Tribe. Whenever we were introduced, Chairman told them I was an only child which everyone exclaimed and made a fuss about. We were then pushed aside to make room for all of the car detail. Cars were being driven all over the place for security purposes and to get all the political figures to move to the next event.
The President and PM arrived by helicopter and were at the event for no more than 10 minutes before they were rushed to the next area. Political violence erupted last year after the elections as it is claimed the President had extra votes put in for him as it was looking like he would lose his presidency. The PM is Luo and from the west part of Kenya so some of the main violence happened in Kisumu. It was decided that they were supposed to have equal power and run the country together but it’s obvious that the President holds more of the power (this is just a summary as I have been told and possibly not completely accurate).

Having this in mind it was really interesting when the PM and President spoke. This was at the next event which we were again whisked off to. It was held at a Muslim schoolground and there were beautiful traditional Luo dancers with painted faces and traditional clothes as well as a woman’s singing group with about 200 women dancing and walking around. Then the Minister of Roads spoke followed by someone else from the area (they spoke in English) and then the PM finishing with the President. The crowd loved the PM, laughing at a lot of what he said (I couldn’t understand as the speech was in Swahili). The president isn’t so eloquent; he is old and apparently was once a sharp young mind but has lost that in old age. Another issue spoken about I believe is a part of Lake Victoria that Uganda is claiming as theirs but Kenya says is theirs (I believe it’s an island). The president spoke about this and declared that undeniably the land is Kenya’s and the crowd really enjoyed that.

During this whole event the other car filled with people from our group had received a puncture nearby. Most of the professors and other student that rode in the car were able to make it to the ceremonies but Maureen was stuck fixing the puncture. She decided to go back to the house before we did (I’m sure she’s been to a million of these types of events) and received another puncture on the way back. We learned of this through SMS (text messaging) and stopped on the way back. We took a matata or van taxi on the way back and in Kenya taxi drivers don’t have customer service rules. The driver slowed down but refused to stop for a prolonged period of time even to Maureen’s protests. She already had help but we wanted to see her and where her parents-in-law lived so I was a little ticked off at the drivers.

We continued our drive back to the Okundi’s house and had lunch before we went to the school to do a needs assessment. Needs were assessed on the basis of facilities, water/sewage, IT, marketing, entrepreneurship, and extracurricular activities. I had facilities and water/sewage that a randomly picked group of girls presented on. At the school they only have Latrines, a fancy word for saying a hole in the ground that you squat over. Because of the water found in the area that surges during the rainy seasons is very salty, it corrodes at the latrine structures so much so that a couple years back a girl almost fell in. The same problem occurs in their bathrooms, the area where they bathe, which is made out of metal sheets that have been so corroded by the salt water pumped from the well they bathe in, that privacy is non-existent. Girls will wake up as early as 3:30 am now (study sessions start some days at 4:30 am) to take showers outside so people can’t see. Constant electricity is another problem. Although the school has electricity it is hydro-electricity and with the drought that’s been going on there has been water rationing which makes electricity availability erratic. That makes it hard to study as there are few lanterns and it becomes dark at7pm each night. I had six pages of notes but to me those were the biggest problems for the facilities. The question though always is where to get the money.

That night we planned to come back for their church service but it didn’t work out. If I haven’t mentioned this the school is Seventh Day Adventist although not all the girls identify with that religion or denomination. The girls put on their own service with only drums as musical instruments and their amazing voices on Friday then have their Sabbath/Church day on Saturday. Nobody else from our group was really interested in going to the girls’ service and I didn’t want to walk alone in the dark as we didn’t have dinner until 9:30 pm so I didn’t attend. Instead I went to sleep at my wonderful bedtime of 10pm.

7.25.09
Saturday was a fun day but definitely a day where expectations weren’t reality. We headed off the Homa Bay in the morning, a trip we had been planning for Friday but was canceled when we went to see the President. We mostly needed to go to the bank and get some money or smaller bills than those we had first received at the airport and Carol, the director of SDP girls who lives in Nairobi, came and bought supplies for the girls (this is included in the sponsorship money). We hadn’t actually been to Homa Bay as it is the other direction from Kisumu. It was definitely different from the rural area we’re staying in. There was an open market grouped by items being sold, examples being a butchery row, produce row, clothing row and shoes row. A lot of vendors sold imported Chinese merchandise, normally made of plastic and not indigenous materials. Marie pointed this out and it was strange to think about how there were no traditional crafts for sale- no baskets or jewelry and what that means for the local crafts people. We had a long discussion of this and also how to decline people’s requests for money or gifts politely. One way it’s hard to make relationships here is being white you’re automatically assumed to be rich, which in comparison to the living situations of people around here we are. However, we discussed the importance of people not depending on others to give them everything and other topics that one must wrestle with as he/she might want to assist by giving a lot of gifts directly to the people when donating money/gifts for them to sell in their business could be more helpful.

We discussed such topics the afternoon/evening of Saturday. On Saturday nights the girls have entertainment so I was super stoked to go hang out with them and watch a movie, possibly even stay the night at the school. At around 7:30 we got a text saying the girls were practicing for our going away assembly and so we shouldn’t come over. I was really sad because I felt like I didn’t get enough time to hang out with them no matter how hard I tried. Plans never seem to happen as they were supposed to which is one way I have to learn to be flexible. Instead we hung out with the Engineer and had wine time which was fun. We considered going out to Homa Bay to go dancing but the Engineer wanted to talk and you don’t say, Hey I want to go clubbing, to him.

7.26.09
Sunday was another day full of meetings but good and exciting meetings. We compiled information on all the different areas I mentioned earlier, hearing the requests and needs from each area. Some were more wishlist like and others were great. The girls generated a list of 19 very impressive possible micro-finance type projects the school could engage in to make a profit. The rest of the day I met with Kristi, the professor I’m working with; Tim, the director of SDP but soon to be the director of the service learning project; George, the principle of Ombogo; Maureen and Engineer Okundi. We had two other meetings to review the list and then decide what projects the school should undertake to start generating money. We set a timeline for a group of people at Ombogo to create two business plans, one for renting out the school bus and another for running a canteen (grocery type shop) as there aren’t any stores for kilometers. I’m very excited about these prospects as I think they will be money makers and will teach the girls so much about how to run a business.

After the meetings madness we got to go hang out with the girls and pass out the supplies SDP had bought for the sponsored girls in Homa Bay. The girls and Douglas and I were board as we had to wait for the students to finish their tests (they have class on Sunday too) so we stacked all the supplies in pyramids, color coded the soaps and made concentric circles with other gifts. I decided to wander and found the Form 2 girls doing laundry and hanging out so we went to the dining room, used more for recreation and study and had some fun dancing and singing. The girls have the most beautiful school song that Rosemary created. We recorded it so I will have to get the words and write them down although they won’t do justice to the voices. We were once again forced to leave at dusk as they had study time at 7 and we needed to get back before it was dark.

7.27.09
Monday. Monday was the hardest day yet. The day we had to say goodbye.

Unfortunately I woke up Monday morning feelings sick. I wasn’t hungry and just didn’t feel good all over. I woke up for breakfast but went back to bed until 11:30. Engineer Okundi was very worried about me, as I am the only child and all. He even said he had a doctor check in on me but I was sleeping. One of the blessings of being an only child I’ve discovered on this trip- I have so many adoptive families. I love my parents so much but it’s also fun to be invited into other families. Engineer said I’m his adoptive daughter besides his daughter Maureen and the other one Anne. He truly is kind to the core and I appreciate his concern, although I really wasn’t that sick. Sleeping in though meant I missed a lot of time with the girls and I wanted to be ready for the assembly. Marie, Tim and Kristi at this time were working on a grant to help George, the head Butler, who runs a CSO organization that functions as a co-op where people pay in and run some programs. The programs include crop growing, assisting the elderly and some other work with HIV/AIDS. I was looking forward to helping with the grant so I sat around and listened to the work they were doing in the afternoon, although didn’t input much.

After a little food at lunch I felt a bit better so I went to the school before the assembly. I ran into some Form 3 and 1 girls which was good because I didn’t get to hang out with them very much during the week. They taught me a bunch of Luo and Swahili words as well as some Luo/Swahili slang. I was supposed to meet with a Form 2 girl named Janet but she was sick as well so we didn’t meet, another expectation vs reality moment as the meeting continually was put off during my stay. Loice and Faith, the two Form 2 girls I got really close with, gave me cards before the assembly which made me cry of course at the prospect of leaving them, the fact that I may never see them again and that I wouldn’t be a part of their lives to see what would happen.
The girls had a huge assembly planned out for us that ended up taking 4 hours. They did skits, read poems, performed dances (traditional and contemporary) and did a hilarious new report narrating our trip thus far including: when heather and I found out what a latrine was and our faces after this discovery, the fact that a Baboon stole some of the Form 3’s food supplies out of the bus when they were on their field trip and one of the girls chased it away, and the discovery, dissection and embalmment of a Puff Adder snake found on the school grounds. The assembly was great and then Maureen called us up one by one to say a little about us and have us give speeches. By this time I was crying pretty steadily at the prospect of saying goodbye but I made it through my speech, barely, and was touched by the words Maureen so accurately said about us and the speeches George the principle and Engineer Okundi. George talked about courage leading to faith leading to hope and the hope he had for the school and the hope we had brought to be school. Engineer spoke along the same lines talking about the creation of the school by his wife, her vision and the work the students should accomplish at the wonderful school Ombogo.

Finally two graduate girls we had been interacting with throughout the week, one who is going to university and one who is not, gave really moving speeches on where they were in life and how much SDP had allowed them to get there. Mercy, the girl going to university, is a total orphan living with her uncle for the past two years taking care of him and working at a nearby school. Top of her class, no way to pay her fees, her SDIP sponsors with the help of Tim are now paying for her to go to Kenyatta University in Nairobi after her persistence to get accepted, even traveling all the way to the school and presenting herself.

The night culminated with traditional Coichilo dancers who are from the region the school is located in. With huge feather headdresses, bright clothing and attached bells they danced and danced for us and then we all joined in. I can’t think of a better way to say goodbye than a huge dance party. We danced for a long time then had to say goodbye which evoked tears from the girls. They gave us some wonderful handcrafted gifts as well as special notes saying goodbye. One girl gave me the best picture of some of the girls I got closest too where they dressed up in sexy clothes (they wear wool uniforms everyday that show no hint of womanly figures) and showing their kick butt attitude that allows them to overcome their struggles.


It’s strange the strong relationships built between the girls and I in the nine days we were there. I wrote them a goodbye note expressing my thankfulness in meeting them, experiencing their strength and intelligence and the hope that is ever present. The relationships were so strong because of those girls and I tried to impress upon them that they should have a Plan A, B, C, D….etc. because plans are always changing and success, whether it’s being a successful lawyer or doctor or being a mom or a wife, is defined by them, that they control their happiness and no matter what they should use their education to give back, expressing to them that helping others is my definition of success.
I want to come back here to Ombogo. I can’t believe this could be the last time I ever see the girls. So I’m going to take my own advice, take control of my life and return (as they say) God willing.

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