Jambo from Kenya

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It has been quite a while since we sent you all an update on our progress. Sincere apologies, to be honest the main reason for the delay is that we were not at all sure what to write. It is difficult to be uplifting and humorous following the last few weeks. It has been eye opening for us, it has been life changing, and we have enjoyed it in a weird kind of way. We have both been very emotional at various points following the different things we have seen and people we have spoken to. We have been amazed, surprised and shocked in both good ways and bad ways. It has not been what we expected, it has been better and it has been worse. There have been days when we wanted to take what we were feeling and bottle it up so that we never forget, and other days when we just wanted to forget it all and be back drinking mojito's after work in West India Quay our friends.

So rather than bore you all with a blow by blow account of our lives in Nairobi, we thought you would appreciate some of the highlights that we have enjoyed during the last one month. Here it goes….

Kibera - Nairobi’s Largest Slum

First impressions when you arrive in Kibera? It’s difficult to say, the mud from the rain is the most obvious annoyance when you arrive as it is everywhere and has the added worry that you are never sure what it consists of. After that it is the smell, mainly like a rubbish dump but with a not too subtle mix of open sewer and the very pungent burning rubber. They seem to burn this everywhere and we really don’t know why. Next thing you notice are probably the shacks that people live in, or mainly from what we have seen where they have shops or small businesses. Corrugated iron predominantly, in no way safe and remind you of a boy scout project - amateur and built from whatever was around. There are some mud huts but these don’t look like they will last the rain. Finally it’s the people. To be honest they are not sad or particularly desperate looking. Just trying to get by with what little they have. They are generally polite and courteous although it is not easy to tell whether this is just because we are mzungos (white people). There is however a slight edge in the atmosphere that has us always on our guard, although again whether this is the slum or our reaction to it is hard to tell.

So that’s Kibera, we have been working every day in one of the main landmarks which is the Jamii Bora Branch office; run by manager Andrew Otieno and his busy team of helpers - Regina, Esther, Mama Hamsa, Leah, Abraham, Josephat, Lydia, Elijah and many more. The highlight of Kibera has been the people we have met here and a sincere Thanks to everyone in the branch for making us feel so welcome. If it was not for everyone’s patience and willingness to help us improve our Kiswahili (we have been doing some language classes while here so that we can chat to the locals) we would not have learned so much about how a microfinance branch works on the ground in Kenya. During the last month, we have been going to work in the branch almost every day and meeting the people of Kibera who come to Jamii Bora both to save and take micro-credit to help them improve the small businesses that they run. It has been particularly busy over the last week or so with Christmas coming and everyone needing to increase stock for their businesses. Having step-by-step walked members through the Jamii Bora savings and loans schemes we have managed to gain a much deeper understanding as to how microfinance actually works; most notably the pitfalls. If anyone is particularly interested in hearing about those, send us an email and we will tell you all about it!

The Makina Clinic and Orphanage

While in Kibera we have also been working with the Makina health clinic with their accounts in order to help them secure external donations. Andrew, the manager of the Jamii Bora branch, is responsible for running this in his spare time. The clinic is small and provides outpatient services to locals. It is staffed by local volunteers. There is also an Orphanage alongside the clinic staffed and funded locally which houses 17 orphans, many of which were orphaned during the post election violence 2 years ago (including twin boys now aged 3). Conditions there are very tough, as there is minimal external funding, and currently no caretaker so the kids look after themselves. A local lady cooks for them each evening. Andrew is currently looking at a new location for the children in Kibera, and trying to bring in further external fundraising. We hope to be able to help the children here more in January, and to keep in touch with Andrew to see what further help we can provide in the future.

Regina’s House

Regina is the main (in fact the only) loan officer in the Jamii Bora branch in Kibera. We work with her most days to help to take deposits and give loan payments. One day Regina got news that a tree had fallen on her house. As she is the only loan officer (and needs to approve all cash in and out) we had to close for a few hours and quickly went to investigate the damage. It turned out that it was a big tree and had knocked almost half her house. Thankfully, no one was injured. Regina lives in quite a nice old colonial house, previously the train station master’s house in Kibera. The house was now supporting the full weight of the tree. But Kenyans are made of firm stuff, and pretty much everyone we have met has a story of personal difficulty or tragedy. So in true Kenyan style, Regina just got on with things. She did take one day off, and Andrew and us had to run things in her absence. It was a Saturday, the busiest day of the week but we were up for the challenge. It was a bit chaotic and the queue was longer than normal I am sure but we got through. And Regina is now safely back at work and has managed to get her roof fixed to keep out the rain so things are looking up.

Mama Hamsa

Mama Hamsa, one of the staff in the Kibera branch, quietly mentioned to us one morning that she wanted to introduce us to some women that she works with so off we went expecting to meet a few of her friends. Instead we were taken to this large community hall with gates and some security in the middle of Kibera where there were probably four different local women support groups meeting as they always do on a weekly basis in the separate rooms around the building. Mama Hamsa is the founding member of two separate groups in Kibera, both of which are designed to help the local women get by. Many of these women suffered serious abuse during the post-election violence in Nairobi two years ago. Both of these organizations are something which we hope to do a little more work with in the New Year to see if there is anything we can do to help.

Mchanganyiko

Mchanganyiko - which means “mixture” in Kiswahili representing the mixture of tribes all of the women are from - built the community hall in Kibera which also has a function room which they hire out to locals for weddings, parties, training events and any occasion of importance really. When catering is needed they hire the local women who participate in the various support groups. Also, all funds raised are invested back into improving the facilities that the women can use. Essentially, the idea is that there is a safe place for all women in the area to go to and meet with their friends on a regular basis to chat and get a break from life in Kibera.

Women’s Vision

One of the support groups we met whilst visiting, Mama Hamsa founded back in 2003 with 40 other local women. Since then they have been meeting every week to put aside 25 shillings each (equivalent of 20 pence sterling) which they put into their group savings account. Mama Hamsa describes these women as being those with vision - a vision of owning their own homes someday, somewhere outside of Kibera. This group, with no external help whatsoever, has recently purchased a plot of land for Ksh 175,000 in Nairobi which is thought to be big enough to build 100 housing units, imagine 100 very small flats. Now they must start again and are saving toward the funding needed to build themselves their new homes!

Caledonian Ball

“What are you guys doing next weekend? Would you like to come along to a black tie dinner next Saturday?”

Those words will remain with us forever more. Des, Yolanda, Harry, Thea and Toby are an Irish family living in a lovely house in Nairobi, and were fantastic hosts. The Nairobi Annual Caledonian ball, complete with Haggis and Ceili dancing was a world away from our day job in Kibera, and exactly what we needed. We partied hard until the early hours and then retired to their guest room. Breakfast was followed by a 2 hour massage for Dee and then lunch before we had to trot home. A wonderful weekend.

Our Hosts

Last but certainly not least a few words on our wonderful hosts; Saida is a Kenyan lady who runs a Womens Rights NGO in Nairobi and Neffi is her now 1 year old daughter. So Niall was living with a house full of women for a change which Dee reckoned was good for him. Now he knows how Dee’s Dad feels on a daily basis, living with Dee’s Mum and her 3 sisters!
Saida and Neffi have been great to us while we have been here, in particular Saida has listened to us vent many a time about our daily adventures in Kibera…. A sincere thanks to both of them for keeping us smiling the whole time we stayed there and looking forward to seeing them both in the New Year.

Time for a little Holiday from the Holiday

So to help us get our thoughts together, we are going to take the next week or so to travel around Kenya, see the coast and get some sun and relax before we return to our families for Christmas. We are coming back to Nairobi in January, and will decide then whether we stay longer or move south to see more of Africa.

Hope all is well with everyone who has tuned in for this delayed update. Looking forward to seeing many of you over the Christmas break either in London or in Cork.

All the Best,

Niall and Dee

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Photos

Two Scrubbed Up Caledonian Ball Attendees
You would hardly recognise them!

Neffi's 1st Birthday
The hostess with the mostess

Comments

[juliush.sherman]

Welcome News
I was so glad to receive your report on Kenya, as I was concerned about your long silence. What experiences you are having! My youngest daughter Cornelia traveled in Europe for a year when she was about twenty, and once sent us a postcard that said, "What these eyes have seen." Now I am thinking "what your eyes have seen so far" and have yet to see in your further travels in Africa and Asia. If you have time, I would like to hear about the pitfalls in microfinance that you alluded to in your blog. Be well, take care of yourselves, and all best Holiday Wishes to both of you.

[Michelle Duffy]

Awe Inspiring
Wow Naill and Dee, that's amazing what you've been doing, what an experience for you both, reading it somehow makes normal travel seem quite shallow. Hope you both have a lovely Christmas and a well earned break at home, I bet you're going to find it strange to be back to all the confortable trapping of our Western lifestyle. Much love to you both, M xxxx

[Dave]

Good Stuff
"I would like to hear about the pitfalls in microfinance that you alluded to in your blog".......me too Travel to 3rd world countries certainly gives you a different view of the world... and you want to help everyone...give a man a fish and he can eat one meal..give a man a rod and he can eat forever....funny how its the woman that handle the money ...same in Asia...