Matunda, Mathare, and Maasai

Unfortunately, the field trip this past week turned out to be a complete let-down. We spent 1 1/2 hours on a bus to spend about 3 minutes standing on the edge of a pineapple farm, then 1 1/2 hours back so we could eat at Steers...a burger and fried chicken place downtown. I'm not sure why they thought this would be a productive use of our time. And now I have to write an essay, in Kiswahili, about the trip. What on earth can I write???? "The roads were decent, I slept most of the way there and back, and I saw a few pineapples growing. The end." Go figure.

But even though the trip was a bust, the rest of the day wasn't. When we were at Steers, Andre called up his connection at Mathare, the poorest slum in Kenya. Kasamba showed up at our lunch and when we'd finished, he took a group of us to walk around Mathare. Kasamba has lived there his whole life, but he's managed to avoid all the pitfalls that face people growing up there. He works as a manager of a small program that sells locally made crafts in Kenya and abroad so the women have a way of supporting themselves. He also helps to manage the many football (soccer...not American) teams that the kids play for. Now don't get the wrong idea when I say private school. The Kenyan government recently made all public primary schools "free"...but I use that term lightly. The family still has to pay for food, uniforms, transportation, books, etc. It ends up costing a fair amount for that "free" education. But families still want their kids to be educated, so they send as many of the kids as they can, usually the boys, and as a result the public schools are crammed full of kids with not enough teachers. Some schools have one teacher for every 50-100 students. Mathare has a few of those kinds of public schools, but they are really not effective. The one privated school, which we saw, is a much more efficient use of time and money. First off, the families only pay a tiny stipend, and only if they can afford it. There are lots of orphans attending the school who obviously can't pay for themselves, so the school and other families find a way to pay their fees. And this small fee pays for uniforms, books, a daily lunch, AND the kids are occupied from 7am til 6pm everyday, which keeps them out of trouble. Public schools only supervise their kids til 3pm. When we went to see the school, we first were shown some of the locally made crafts that the women of Mathare make and sell with Kasamba's help, both here in Kenya and in America. They make hand-woven purses & bags that are so so beautiful, hand-made batiks, and other small wooden crafts. I didn't buy anything at the time, but I definitely will in the future. Anna, Sara and Jesse...we're decorating our apartment with this stuff!!

Then we met the principal and vice-principal of the school. They talked to us for a while about how they operate, then we finally got to tour the school itself. It's nothing more than a bunch of tin shacks smushed together with dirt floors, a chalkboard, and one lightbulb in the ceiling. The shacks are tiny, so even though there's only about 15 students per class, they are squashed next to each other on benches with no chance for movement or stretching out. The 5 of us visiting were able to squeeze into the front of the rooms in some of the classes, but a few were so full we had to stand outside and look in the "window". It looks bleak...but these kids are amazingly smart! They're basically fluent in English already, they sing wonderful, harmonized songs, their artwork is impressive, and you can tell they all desperately WANT to be there. As a part of the school, they also get to participate in sports when classes are over, which is what takes up the rest of the day for them. I was very very impressed by the school's organization.

After seeing the school, Kasamba took us around to see where people live. The conditions in Mathare are absolutley disgusting and inhuman. The shacks are all made of tin, which gets hot in the sun and cold at night. They cannot keep bugs or animals out of the homes. Their are no floors, just the muddy ground. Many places have no form of lighting. People cannot keep themselves or their families clean in such conditions. As we walked around, children mobbed us screaming "howareyou! howareyou! imfine! imfine!" and many of them were filthy and had sores on them. They were also all tiny...malnutrition really affects them. The adults vary in how they act and appear. Some of them work very very hard to keep their families alive, so they try to keep themselves clean, they are sober and intelligent and kind. But a lot of people, particularly men, succumb to alcoholism and drugs. There were tons of drunks lying around in filth, some who would sit up and yell at us as we walked by. The worst of them are those who drink changaa. I think I mentioned this before, but changaa is a locally made alcohol that can be fatal if drunk. It's called "illicit brew" because the government forbids making it. But addiction makes people do horrible things, so it's still made and sold and people have gone insane from drinking all those dangerous chemicals. At one point, a lady came up behind me and started petting my braids. My hair is so thick right now that I actually couldn't feel her doing it, so Aubrey had to nudge me and say "turn around". When I did, there was a small lady with red eyes staring at me. She started talking in Kiswahili, but her words were so slurred I couldn't understand her. Kasamba said she wanted to sell me changaa for 10 shillings a cup. Then he told me that the reason she was so strange and loopy was because she drinks the changaa a lot and it has completely fried her brain. I politely declined, but she didn't leave us alone until we left. As we walked away, we saw her standing in the middle of the soccer field, trying to sell changaa to the girls practicing.

Speaking of changaa, we also got a chance to glimpse how it is made. There is a small stream that runs through the outskirts of the slum, and guys collect this water in huge, black barrells; they add the various chemicals that give it it's punch, and then they boil the mixture in the barrells over open fires by the river. Walking through the slum, we saw smoke rising from the river, and Kasamba took us to a steel fence on top of a wall enclosing the river where we took turns leaning as far out as we could to see them making the illicit brew. We had to be careful because, since making it is illegal, the guys who do it don't want outsiders watching them. And I think they can be dangerous if you're caught. So we got to see it for only a few seconds before we had to come back and head out.

The roads, if they can be called that, through the slum are the most disgusting and horrifying part. Raw sewage flows down them, full of human waste, trash, etc. There are no sewers so the waste has nowhere to go. And the ground is littered with trash. You can't even see the mud underneath all the plastic bags and paper bits covering the ground. I'm pretty sure I saw used condoms among the filth. It was disgusting...particularly because I was in sandals. I had to be extra careful where I put my feet.

But among all these horrifying conditions are some truly amazing people. I know it seems like no one does anything productive in these places because of all the drunks and crazies I described...but I'd say for the most part people are just desperately trying to stay alive. They want their kids to go to school and have a chance at a future and they work so hard to achieve this. The kids who were running around after us may have been dirty and under-nourished, but they were still bright and cheery and excited for the most part. The highlight of my day was when a tiny boy, probably no more than 2 years old, ran as fast as his wobbly legs could carry him into my legs and wrapped me in a biiiiiig hug. He was smiling soo big and looked so happy. He was one of the ones who had sores on his body and his nose was running so much that I got a nice big snot stain on my pants...but it didn't matter. He was the cutest kid I have EVER seen and I wanted to just scoop him up and take him home. Can you guys even imagine an American kid having such an amazing attitude if he had to live in a situation even HALF as bad as this kid does? This little boy has nothing...but he is happier than most of the people I know in America. And then there's people like the principal and vice-principal of the school we saw, and Kasamba and his friends. They work hard so that the kids of Mathare can have better lives. It's people like them that will save hundreds and thousands. If only the government would take a similar stance on the extreme poverty that exists just in their backyards. Mathare is just a couple miles away from the high-end hotels and highrises of downtown Nairobi. Even the cheapest possible waste management system would make such a huge difference in the living conditions there. And such a system could reduce the burden of disease these people face. I'd also like to see the conditions of the football field improved. Playing football is such a highlight for the kids, but most of them have to play in just sandals or even barefoot because they cannot afford sneakers...much less afford cleats! And the field is not a field; it's a rectangular area of mud with trash and broken glass throughout it. And it's not flat, so the ball goes every which way when it's kicked. They have goals, but no nets, and all the practice jerseys are the same color, so people just have to memorize which side they're playing for. And the ball looks as if its on its last legs. Donations of a new ball, new practice jerseys, and basic sneakers would make such a huge difference.

Anyway, that was our afternoon excursion to Mathare. I definitely plan to go back and volunteer if I can.

Yesterday was another Friday holiday for us, so I decided to go and visit a Maasai compound. One of our program managers, Simon, is Maasai and he took us to his home for the day to visit his family. He comes from an area just an hour or so outside of Nairobi. His home is in the Rift Valley, near a town called Ngong. We met him at this big mall in Nairobi called Nakumatt Junction, then caught a bus to Ngong town. From Ngong, we got tuktuks that took us halfway along the road to the Rift Valley. Then we disembarked and started making the walk down the edge of the rift valley into Maasailand. I took a video during the walk which I will attempt to post just as soon as I can charge my camera (I woke up this morning to discover we had no electricity again, so I couldn't charge the battery). After walking through completely deserted land and passing a few cows and donkeys, we found a small compound that belongs to Simon's family. It consists of 2 larger homes and 2 small huts for cooking. They have some livestock that were out grazing, so the enclosures were empty. The only man who still lives there is Simon's father. The Maasai are polygymous, so he has several wives. I believe they numbered 4. And because there are so many wives, Simon has 15 brothers and sisters who all have lots of children of their own. Most of them don't live in the compound anymore, but remaining were the 4 wives and a few of their kids. The youngest wife is 20 I believe. She has a tiny new baby...Simon's youngest sibling. Simon himself is 26, so his 3rd mother is younger than him! And his baby brother is younger than Simon's own daughter, Bethany, who just turned 2. The women were very sweet and welcoming to us. We numbered 7 and they had prepared for us a fantastic lunch of rice, potatoes, cabbage, chapati and chicken. After eating, we hung out in the compound for a while and the ladies brought out all the jewelry they make and sell. It's all these gorgeous, beaded necklaces, earrings, bracelets and decorations. Seeing as I hadn't bought very much yet and I really wanted some jewelry, I went a little nuts. But it was okay because Simon was with us and we got incredibly fair prices. I bought 5 bracelets, 3 necklaces and some earrings for 2000 shillings (or about $30ish). The Maasai women wear lots of jewelry at once, so they were pleased when I put on everything I was buying at the same time. With my hair in these braids and all the jewelry, it actually looked pretty cool! =P

After our shopping frenzy, Simon took us to see another compound where they still have the traditional Maasai huts. They're tiny and dark and hot and I can understand why they've switched to houses with a bit more room and more light. Then we walked to the local dam where all the water for the area is supplied. It was built in 1982 when the road through the Rift Valley was being constructed. In exchange for allowing the contractors use the local dirt for building the road, the Maasai of the area receivied this well built dam. It's nothing fancy and not very big, but its lasts through the dry seasons and has worked well for over 25 years now. Such development is proof that very little effort can make a huge difference.

We headed home around 6 and it was dark when we finally reached Nairobi again. My brother and his friends picked up me and Shalinda and drove us home so we wouldn't have to take a bus in the dark. Then I just took it easy, visited Aubrey for a bit before she left for Malindi (everyone in my area went to Malindi on the coast this weekend. I didn't go because in 2 weeks I'll be in Mombasa anyway...so why spend the money?). So I'm going to just take it easy, not go out, and get some work done. I have a couple projects and papers to do in the next 2 weeks before I leave, so that will be taking up a fair amount of my time from now on. But next weekend I'll be heading to Naivasha to go camping with a bunch of friends, so that should be really fun.

I'll catch you all later! Miss you!