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Published: September 29th 2009
Hello again from Kenya,
It’s now Day 23 here and time is flying by! I am beginning to feel more at home here at Kakamega. Getting to know the area better, the people better etc. I feel more comfortable in my surroundings. I guess this is normal over time. I am even able to go running outside now, even though people stare at me and think I'm weird!
People have been asking about how the town of Kakamega is like where we are living, so maybe I will try to explain. It’s a town with a plenty of people and plenty to see. The town is not very developed and looks pretty dirty. It has a main open market where you can go buy your fresh fruit and vegetables which is about a 5 minute walk from our place. There are also a number of small businesses that sell all types of electronics, books, etc. They also have about 4 banks and 2 supermarkets. These supermarkets are quite small and don’t have much of a selection to chose from. However, the town will soon get its own “Nakamat” which is what I’m told like a Wal-mart, where they will
be able to get a variety of items without having to travel over an hour south to the city of Kisumu. The Nakamat is supposed to be open for business mid-November, so unfortunately we won’t get the privilege to shop there and so we will have to deal with the limited local shops. It was supposed to be open months ago, but like typical Kenyan time it’s taken a lot longer than what they said, so I doubt it will be ready in time.
Almost all the roads are dirt roads with the exception of a few of the main roads that are black tar with no traffic lights or road signs. After an afternoon of rain these roads and the side roads can get filled with majors puddles and very very muddy due to lack of sewage systems. During the day the main roads are filled with Boda-Bodas, Matatu’s and motorbikes with occasional cars/trucks. The main roads and side roads are always filled with many many people walking everywhere with women usually caring water or their recent market purchases over their head! I thought that they must be carrying it like this for a reason. So I finally
tried this one day on the way back from the market (after we got caught in the rain storm and had to wait at the market for 30 minutes until it stopped). I had a very heavy bag and I placed it on top of my head! To my surprise it was way lighter on my head and a lot easier to carry! These women are very smart. I wonder why men don’t do this too? Actually you don’t really see men carrying items like women do since it’s the woman’s job to fetch the food and water in their culture.
There are also cattle and goats everywhere and also chickens "crossing the road", which you hear at all times of the day and night. At night you also hear the constant howl of wild dogs and they always end up getting in a brawl of what sounds like it's right in our backyard every night! And like clock work we always wake up to the sound of the people chanting at the new Hindu temple a couple doors over from us at 6:45am. It’s actually nice to wake up to the chanting in the morning. They also have
a night service at 6:45pm so we hear them as we eat dinner each night as well. We also live right beside a nursery and orphanage so at all times of the day we hear the children playing and singing, which I love to hear!
Last Monday it was a holiday here to celebrate the ending of Ramadan, a Muslim holiday, so everyone had the day off. Candace and I tried to relax for a bit and run some errands in the town, however, we had a lot of work on our plates so we tried to get caught up on Monday.
On Tuesday and Thursday this week we went to visit two more primary schools where we got to visit the children and teachers of each school. The first one we visited was in the town of Lumino. This school is ACCES’ smallest school with 64 students. It doesn’t have its own building structure, so the church allows the school to use its building for classes. The 3 classes are partitioned with plywood. We had a chance to play soccer with them with their new ball Candace and I bought them. They loved it! And then Candace
showed them how to do thumbs up and as they learnt to do this she was taking pictures of them and they all wanted their thumbs in the picture! So cute. And then I taught them how to sing “Head and Shoulders”, which they followed along and loved! They kept on wanting to do it over again. It brings me so much joy to spend time with these amazing and such innocent kids. Whenever I start to get a little homesick or get a little stressed, I think of the kids that we are ultimately trying to help and it gets me back on track.
The other school we visited was in a town called Munasio and this school as well has their classes in a church and other mud structures as classrooms. It also doesn’t have a water well. This time we couldn’t play with the children as we arrived there when they were in class, but we got to sit in their classes in the back seats as if we were pupils. Although we sat there quietly trying not to disrupt them, they were all always looking back at us and smiling all the time. I even
got to brush up on my Biology reproductive organs while we were watching in class! Haha. After shadowing a few classes, we went over to the outdoor area where there were a couple of benches and about 6 people meeting as part of the school’s Community Management Committee meeting was taking place. These are a group of individuals in the community that the parents chose to guide the school and the community development. The committee is comprised of business owners, to farmers, to priests etc. from the community. This CMC was talking to us of their challenges of finding land so that ACCES can help build a school on the land and also get a water well put in place for the entire community. They were also talking to us of their hardships of parents not able to afford to buy maize for the Uji meal for the children and school materials. It’s so hard to hear of their hardships as a lot of these just seem unsolvable. But as we sat there, Candace and I asked them what kind of solutions they think could help the current situation. It took them a little time, but soon they were thinking
outside the box and outside the thinking of just getting more funding from ACCES. They thought getting income generation projects for the parents and community that which ACCES could help support by giving them seeds to start the projects. They are even already in the process of fundraising within their own community so that they can purchase land for the school-they are already at 1/3 of their goal! This is a great achievement as many communities depend on the funding of NGOs to help them and they end of relying on them for all future expenses, however, this way is not sustainable as NGO funding can run out one day and this doesn’t leave the community self-sufficient. So the way of helping a community long-term is to help them become sustainable on their own. For example, you can help them to start a project like giving them seeds for an income generation project and then they make money for future purchases of their own seeds and with the profits from the fruits/vegetables they sell they are able to feed their families and send their children to school.
We also got the opportunity to meet the Kenyan Advisory Committee, which
is made of 6 well known and respected people of the community from professors to business people. They provide ACCES’ Board of Directors back home with advise on many crucial decisions they have to make in Kakamega. They play an instrumental role with ACCES as they are here on the ground able to give well-rounded feedback to ACCES in Vancouver.
On Saturday the ACCES Office staff were so kind enough to take us out to the Kakamega Rainforest, so we spent the morning hiking to a beautiful viewpoint where you can overlook the rainforest. So breathtaking! On the route we saw birds and monkeys!
Then on Sunday Candace and I went to church as we are both Catholic and wanted to see how mass would be here. We were told that the mass at 10am would be in English, but it wasn’t and it was all in Swahillii! That’s ok though as we were able to figure out what was going on and respond in English as the format is pretty much the same as ours back home. The only big difference I noticed was the music and dancing. Their music and singing is much livelier and everyone
claps and sways to the music. And the best part is that they also have dancers! There is a group of about 10 little girls in pretty white dresses that dance up and down the aisles during the singing. They are adorable and so pleasant to watch! I wish I had a picture to share with you, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate to take pictures while the service was taking place! Also, when the bread and offerings are brought up to the alter to the priest, something like 40 people also come up each holding a food item like sugar or lettuce or tomatoes etc. I think this must be for the church and the Priests and nuns to eat for the week. The mass was very long (an hour longer than at home!) and it felt even longer due to the fact that it felt like a sauna in there with about 1000 people and no fans or air conditioning! Nevertheless, always a great experience to come to mass in a different country and culture. It seems like religion is a big part of everyone’s life here in Kakamega. Everyone goes to church on Sunday morning
to which ever church you belong to. Everyone seems to belong to one of the churches.
Last, but certainly not least, we visited ACCES’ Programs Director at the hospital on Tuesday to meet her newborn daughter, Lisa Leslie, weighing 3 kilos. She was born on Sunday September 20th. She was so little and so pretty. The hospitals here are quite different from home. First off, the lights were all off as the electricity was cut in the area for the day, although they do have generators, they try to save that electricity for emergency use, so it seemed pretty dark. Also, the babies don’t have a nursery where they all stay, they are always with the mom’s in their rooms so Lucy had to have her mother-in-law with her 24/7 to take care of the baby as she was in pain from her C-Section surgery. Also, I didn’t see much electronic equipment like our hospitals have. Lucy’s double room only had their beds, bathroom, and just IV equipment. Oh, and I almost forgot one more thing in the room, the gecko on the roof! So Lucy will stay at the hospital to recover and go on Mat Leave for
only 2 months! Here in Kenya you only get 2 months and fathers can take 10 days of Paternity Leave to help at home when their child is first born (which is a new). When I told Lucy that we get 1 year of Maternity Leave, she couldn’t believe it! Yet again another thing to be thankful we have in Canada among the other NUMEROUS things! Asante!
Until next week…
Miss you all!!
Karen
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Ainsley
non-member comment
wife! cool pics!