Census Time

From Ngomongo Villages

Every ten years, Kenya takes a national census. As it turns out, today is the day. Good olde President Kibaki declared today a public holiday with 36 hours notice, and nobody even batted an eyelid. I love the way this country works. We've been instructed to stay at home and await the arrival of the people in red t-shirts.

The past few weeks have been pretty hectic. In good news, I have learned how to extract earplugs using a tweezers. In not-so-good news, I don't own a tweezers, so things will be tricky when all the girls go away travelling.

The end of the placement is nigh, school finishes this Friday, and two of the group have already gone home. It really feels like the beginning of the end, will be sad when it's all over, it's been a great summer. We're all currently embroiled in a turmoil of "end of placement" reports - everywhere I look I see spreadsheets and questionaires.

The past few weeks have been quite hectic, and there is an air of exhaustion around the house. School has been great, we've been holding a Summer Camp for the past 3 weeks, helping final year students towards their KCPE Exam in November. Class sizes have varied from 2 to 14 children, so the Volunteers have been able to give the children plenty of individual attention. There has also been lots of extra curricular activities, with debating and drama clubs being a particular highlight.

Last week, we invited two of the teachers over for dinner. Then, on a last minute whim, we invited another four, thinking they'd probably say no. Of course everyone accepted the invite, which meant we were cooking steaks, mash and veg for 18 people. You can imagine our delight when we got home to find there was no electricity. Power is being rationed here, because water shortages are impacting hydro-electric generators.

Somehow we pulled it together, and managed to prepare the feast on 3 gas rings. The night was a huge success, the teachers drank copious amounts of fizzy drinks and enjoyed the steaks. After dinner, we even had a song and a dance. If I never sing another Ronan Keating song, I probably won't be all that sorry.

It has been great to see the teachers outside school - you realise what good, fun people they are. We had a magical moment when we took them all out to a cultural centre nearby, called Ngomongo (pronounce that one!) Villages. At the end, we found ourselves in a childrens' playground. Suddenly teachers and volunteers alike were rushing to the swings and very rickety merry-go-round. Great how a playground brings out the child in everyone.

It has also been great to see the teachers working during Summer Camp in school. Only final year students are present, and everyone is much more relaxed. Mr Adam joins in the basketball games (and usually outplays all the kids), and Madam Florence joins in the athletics. Makes for a lovely atmosphere in Maweni.

I also went on my first safari about 10 days ago - to Tsavo East National Park. Was great to get away for a night. We seemed to spend most of the weekend eating (which was no bad thing) - also we saw elephants, giraffes, impalas, warthogs, lions and even a curious little animal called a "dik-dik". Tough name. We stayed in a really nice lodge overlooking the park. There was a curious lack of shower curtain, which meant you might find yourself brushing your teeth, with one of the lads standing right beside you in the shower. Not ideal.

In other nature-related news, we have (or had) a rat in the kitchen. Mark opened the cutlery drawer one morning to find the little fella looking out at him. I was in the bathroom at the time, and the screams from the gang were quite entertaining. Eventually we chased him out the back door and told him in no uncertain terms not to come back. I have a feeling he didn't listen though, I keep thinking I can hear shuffling in the cupboard.

And finally on God's little creatures, I've waged a personal war against the mosquitoes. We had an invasion in our bedroom last week - Mark killed 35 by hand before introducing the "Doom" repellent to the room, taking out another hundred or so. There were bodies everywhere, on the floor and stuck to the walls - it really wasn't pretty. I now light a mosquito coil at night, which serves the dual purpose of getting rid of the little critters, and masking the smell of unwashed sheets, clothes and feet. A win-win situation, you might say.

I had quite a surreal moment last week, when visiting a teacher's house. He met us at the bus stop, and held my hand as we crossed the road. We're talking inter-locking fingers here - the full monty of hand-holding. He is the same man who held my hand a few weeks back when I met him in a hospital waiting-room. It's pretty normal here, but takes a bit of getting used to for me. Think will try it on people back at home, see how it goes down.

So school's up on Friday - then it's another week of reports and spreadsheets for me, and then Dad is coming over for 2 weeks of travel and adventure. Good times ahead!

Say What?

So we've had a couple of Health and Safety issues over the past 8 weeks, but nothing too major. The most unusual (and some would say embarrassing) one was took place last Saturday morning.

On Friday night, myself, Dave and Emer had a few drinks and a chat in my house. The rest of the gang were in a nightclub, so when I went to bed I decided to use my earplugs, determined that they wouldn't wake me when they returned. The good news is that I didn't wake up.

The not-so-good news was that when I woke up, one earplug seemed to have fallen out, and I couldn't find it. Then I noticed that I couldn't hear from my right ear. Finally I had a crushing memory of pushing the earplug in with my little finger, and thinking to myself "this little bugger ain't gonna fall out". Right enough, there it was, buried well out of reach, and showing very little intention of making an exit.

So I paced the floor for two hours, waiting for a tweezer-owner to awake. When Mel appeared, we tried to pull out the offending article, but only managed to tear off the end of it, and pluck some ear-hairs. Not a terribly pleasant sensation.

Eventually I had to hang my head, and take the walk of shame to the local clinic, where the good doctor used a surgical forceps to remove the aforementioned item. I'm pleased to report that the only permanent damage was to my ego.

I hear the train a comin

The problem with writing a blog in Kenya is that so much happens every day, it's hard to know which parts to write about.

We spent the last week in Nairobi, where we had our "Global Perspectives" week - learning about large-scale development issues that impact on what we see in school. It was a fascinating week, and it began and ended with a train journey.

I'm a big fan of travelling by train - nice to be able to walk about, and in our case, to have a bed. Oddly, a bus journey from Mombasa to Nairobi takes about 7 hours, but the train takes 15 and a half on a good day. As it turns out, we travelled on good days, the train arrived on schedule both times, which is pretty rare by all accounts.

The train itself seems to date from the 50s or 60s at best, and maintenance since then would appear to be minimal. Approximately 4 minutes before we set off on Friday night, all lights in our carriage (and the surrounding carriages) switched off, and never came on again. This made the 6 carriage walk to the dining car pretty tricky, I managed to walk straight into a door coming back from dinner.

Naturally, buying the train tickets was quite the ordeal. We stood at the counter for a full hour, while the lady took 22 tickets, hand-wrote on each one, turned each one over, date-stamped each twice, turned them all over again, put them in order, hand-wrote 22 meal vouchers, stapled the appropriate ticket to each meal voucher, and then stapled everything together. We had asked for one ticket for 22 people, but of course that wasn't possible.

Nairobi itself is pretty crazy - one big traffic jam, with enough fumes to turn your tissue black when you blow your nose. More on noses anon.

We spent most of the week in the UN Headquarters, described as "The New York of Nairobi" - very plush campus, where they even have magic lawn-mowers. We heard from some very interesting speakers, with topics such as Education, HIV, child's rights and women's rights.

On the practical front, we visited two slums, including Kibera, reputedly the biggest slum in Africa, home to over a million people. We were guests of UN-Habitat, who are installing some water and sanitation facilities. It made the slum in Mombasa look pretty harmless - the scale was quite incredible. Great to see the positive work being done, with a new road also being built, to provide access right through the slum.

We also met with a group called KENWA (Kenyan Women with Aids), who provide support for women and families living with HIV/Aids. We assembled in a feeding shelter in a slum, and from there we went to visit a woman who has Aids. Margaret lives in a one-room shack in the slum, made of corrugated iron, and is recovering from a second dose of TB. She was bed-ridden for months, and in-and-out of hospital. While she was last in hospital, her 14 year old daughter was raped. Inspite of all this, her message was one of hope. With the help of KENWA, Margaret has decided that she is going to control the virus, rather than have it control her. It was a very powerful and emotional experience, we were all humbled by the warm welcome we received.

Again I was struck from the imbalance. The extremely wealthy and the extremely poor live in such close proximity, each rich area seems to have a slum nearby, where the servants return to at night. It's quite an eye-opener.

Health and safety are always a concern - particularly in a city as dangerous as Nairobi. Luckily our only incident occured when one of the volunteers was doing cart-wheels in a primary school, and collided with a student mid-way through cart-wheel number two. Having visited four doctors and one specialist, it turns out his nose isn't broken, but merely swollen.

I did have an interesting moment in the hospital, when we bumped into one of the teachers. Having shaken both our hands, he decided to hold my hand while we chatted, for maybe 5 minutes. I tried gently letting go, but he was having none of it. So there we stood chatting, hand in hand, in the middle of a busy Casualty Room. As you do.

On Saturday night in Nairobi, one of the UN officials invited us to his house for a dinner party. It was quite the surreal affair, with about 40 guests, including 25 volunteers from Suas and the Irish Consul to Kenya. The gap between black and white couldn't have been more obvious - forty white guests and two black cooks. Entertainment, alas, was mostly provided by me. Our host was a big fan of live music, so a couple of us brought along guitars and sang for our supper. Naturally, I sang Folsom Prison Blues - "I hear the train a comin...."

Chinese Chefs and Sun-Cream Explosions

"No lasagne today, the Chinese chef is off". One of the great quotes of the trip so far - in Nyali Beach hotel a couple of weeks back. Eventually I figured that the lasagne specialist must have hailed from China.

The trip so far has been full of these surreal moments. In class last week, a teacher was explaining rivers and dams to the students. He asked the class "Have you seen a dam?", and was quite surprised when all the kids put their hand up. Suddenly it dawned on him - "No, not Mr Adam (one of the teachers), A DAM!". All hands promptly went down again.

One thing I struggle with here is the attitude to time. In school, the bell seems to act as a rough guide, rather than signalling the start of the next class. It is not uncommon for our lunch to arrive at 2.30, even though lunch-break is from 12 to 2.

As a rule, I like nothing to get between me and my food. Particularly a two hour wait. Which is how long food takes in our local bbq joint, Boma Roasters. Last night my plate of chips took two and a quarter hours to arrive. Ironically, all the other meals (which were either chicken and chips or steak and chips) arrived a half-hour earlier. Understandable in a busy place, but we were almost the only customers.

In other chicken-related news, I’ve discovered that Rory the Rooster has a brother – our neighbours actually have a split-level cage, with a rooster on each level – one white and one red. I only realised last week when the rooster seemed to have a sore throat on every second crow. Seems the white chap has been struggling with his vocal chords a little, thankfully he’s back on full song now.

The weekend before last, a group of us did a mountain-bike trip, a 4 hour “moderate” cycle, mostly on dirt-tracks. Clearly the bikes could have done with a little maintenance – we had 2 punctures and 3 chain-snaps. Near the end I was standing on the peddles giving it boot-leather when my chain broke, throwing me up on the handle-bars and almost over the top. Every now and then, a gentleman experiences a special pain that makes it ok to cry. This was such a moment.

Tear-jerking pain aside, the trip was great, scenery was incredible and great to stretch the legs. My exercise regime in general hasn't been great, joined the gym four weeks ago and never returned (I put it down to being busy). We have a two dinner strategy in place, so some exercise wouldn't exactly go astray.

Last week, one of the teachers, Madam Florence, invited us to her house for tea. I guess it was the Kenyan equivalent of tea and scones, she served us up glorious cinnamon and ginger chai, and an incredible amount of mahamris and bhajis (think pastry snacks). In classic Mrs Doyle style, once she saw any dent in the food, she returned with another tray-full.

All 12 of us squeezed into her living-room and packed as many mahamris into our bellies as physics would allow. I fell victim to one of the most splendid chai-sweats to date; there was no air in the room, the chai was particularly hot, and I was eating mahamris at an alarming rate. The hospitality was wonderful, and we're hoping to have herself and her family over to our house for dinner soon.

The welcome everywhere has been incredible. Myself and the group visited a local church a couple of weeks back, and were invited to stay back for drinks with the pastor. He even made special reference to us in his sermon, mentioned "Irish potatoes", the "credit crunch", and asking us if sheep were intelligent. This question was somehow relevant to the parable of the prodigal son.

Mind you, we did earn our keep in the church. At the end of the service, myself and the gang were invited to the altar to sing - luckily we had prepared "Seek Ye First", and luckier still I had a sore throat so abstained from making any noise. It was well received, actually went much better than we had expected. Possibly this was related to my silence.

The service itself was cool - a full hour of music was provided by a 5 piece band, accompanied by much clapping and swaying from the congregation, and even some dancing in the aisle. A bit different from Mass back in Lucan.

Have been trying to teach a little touch rugby in school during PE classes - have a group of 3 girls who are quite interested, one of them is incredible - she constantly manages to run rings around me. As most people will tell you, that's not much of a feat, but this girl had never seen a rugby ball two weeks ago. It's incredible how quickly some of the children pick things up. I'd love it if she was able to develop her skills further, but it's probably not too likely.

Had my first great moment of grumpiness last Friday morning. We were running late leaving the house, everyone was faffing about, I was tired. And then I opened my man-bag to find that my sun cream bottle had opened and unpoured itself rather generously over my personal effects. Comments such as "It could have been worse, it could have been milk" were not well received.

Sun-cream explosion aside, it has been a wonderful few weeks. And on the upshot, I discovered a compartment while cleaning my man-bag, that I never knew existed. Ideal for storing a passport or credit card. It seems every cloud has a silver lining..

Kenyan Contentment

Today, the school principal gave me a lesson in Kenyan contentment. A Kenyan man, he told me, is only considered poor if he does not have a wife or child. As an example, he spoke about the wood-cutter at Maweni.

Cooking lunch in Maweni requires a lot of fire-wood, and a man is employed to chop wood. He has been present since the day I arrived at the school, and I’ve taken a keen interest in him. He works with a set of hammers, chisels, wedges and an axe. For days, the head of one of his hammers was loose, so after every 5 or so strokes, he would have to stop, and use a smaller hammer to tap the handle back in place.

From about 8 in the morning until we leave in the evening, he stoops over the timber, carefully inspecting every piece before he begins to dismantle it. What I find remarkable about this man is the attention he pays to the wood – he turns each piece around, eyes it up and down, taps and pats it – almost gets to know it – before he begins his work.

It is back-breaking work, and yet he just chugs away, his jacket and shorts ripped, a woolly hat on his head. He speaks to nobody; he has tools and timber for company. For this work, he is paid 300 Shillings per day (just under 3 Euros).

The principal tells me that this man is content – he can go to the market on the way home from work where he can afford to buy some cabbage, tomatoes and maize. He has a roof over his head, and a wife and children who he is able to provide for; therefore he has all he needs.

This Kenyan contentment seems to me to be counter-balanced by a feeling of apathy. Kenya is a country rich in resources, and yet through corruption and mismanagement, there are huge levels of poverty. And as far as I can see, people feel powerless against this. The gulf between rich and poor is incredible; MPs drive around in Hummers, while in slums like Kongowea (where we work), the majority of people live in constant poverty.

But Kenyan contentment somehow rises through the tough times – every morning in the school, students and teachers alike will smile warmly and say they are “just fine”. Children play games in the dust with pebbles and do cart-wheels, while teachers laugh and joke, and shake our hands with an infectious optimism. Maweni Primary school is a wonderful place to be in the cool of the morning.

It's a shame about Fred

This week I found myself in the strangest scenario so far. Standing on a dark street after midnight with one of the Volunteers, two armed police-men and five security guards, who were pinning our house-boy Frederick to the ground with their boots, and threatening to "bamboozle" him.

I guess you could call it a lesson in the dark-side of African culture, and I should probably start by giving some context.

Firstly, It seems that most middle-class Kenyans have a house-person. who washes, scrubs, mops, irons, runs errands, and lives in "servants quarters" in the garden.

Our house came with a house-boy named Frederick, who was related to our landlord. Fred had moved from difficult times in Nairobi to live in the tiny quarters in our back garden. If I were to describe Fred, I'd say he looked like a man who had seen a lot in his time. Pretty small and scrawny, he seemed harmless but a little odd. Hard to guess his age, maybe somewhere in his twenties.

Fred's quarters consists of one room and a bathroom. The main room is probaby the size of a large bathroom in Ireland, and consists of a bed (made of several sponge matresses) and a wardrobe.

Secondly, we have an MP living across the road from us, and his house is constantly guarded by two armed policemen. I had gotten chatting to one of them, Mr Nelson - a huge beast of a man who movess slowly, laughs loudly, and carries an automatic rifle.

Thirdly, most houses in our neighbourhood hire private security companies to protect them. In the event of an emergency, the security company responds and deals with the intruder. I think this stems from a lack of trust in the police-force.

I think we were all pretty uncomfortable about the idea of having a house-boy, it just felt weird to have a stranger come into our home during the day to clean up our mess. Personally the idea of having a servant just doesn't work for me. As a result, we decided to do our own washing and cleaning.

So Fred's job was reduced to sitting in his room all day, watching the tv that we gave him from the house. Occasionally we would ask him in to fix problems around the house, like when three of our beds fell apart. These he promptly fixed with a few crooked nails and a broken gas regulator. Fred didn't have a hammer.

I guess what I'm saying is that we didn't make much effort to develop a relationship with Fred, so when he arrived at the door bananas-drunk last Wednesday evening, we weren't sure how to react. He led me outside and clutched my shoulder, insisting he had something to tell me. He was very agitated and couldn't get the words out. Eventually we had to shut the door in his face. Not a very nice thing to do but we didn't see any other option.

An hour later, we heard banging from the garden, we looked out to see Fred performing various karate moves on his door - it seemed he had locked himself out of his quarters. Occasionally we would hear the sound of a key turning or falling, so it seemed he had keys, but just wasn't able to operate the lock. We watched for a while, unsure whether we should help him. Given he was so agitated, we thought it best to leave him to it. After about an hour of spectacular punches and kicks, he broke the door in. At this point we went to bed, figuring he was safe for the night.

Another hour later, we were awoken by shouting and screaming. Looking into the back garden, we saw two men carrying Fred (one by the hands, one by the feet). As he roared and bucked, they brought him out the front gate, around the corner and out of sight.

We had noticed one of the men was wearing a security guard's hat, so myself and Mark (one of the Volunteers) decided to investigate. From our garden, I spotted Nelson looking over his wall, and he called us over. Nelson suggested that Fred had entered a neighbour's garden, and had been arrested by a security company.

Back in our garden, myself and Mark got chatting to our neighbours, who also said that Fred had come into their garden, prompting them to call their security company. As we spoke, Nelson and his colleague Dennis appeared, moving in slow motion like a pair of giant slugs. Dressed in full army fatigues and police hats, and brandishing two ridiculously big automatic rifles, they were quite a sight.

Myself, Mark and the two policemen walked around the corner to find a security van containing an incoherent Fred, and 5 private security guards carring an array of sticks. After some chat in Swahili, Fred was removed from the van, and "questioned" by Nelson, accompanied by a few sharp slaps across the face. When Nelson started chatting to myself and Mark, the security-guards knocked Fred to the ground, and Dennis started hitting him across the back of the head.

I suggested to Nelson that maybe we could not hurt Fred, and instead bring him home and let him sleep, however the security-guards seemed to have other ideas. One suggested a "bamboozle" was in order (whatever that means), and another knocked Fred flat on the ground and held him down with a boot on his throat as the others encircled him menacingly. It was a pretty scary moment, and looked like things might turn very ugly.

Luckily, Nelson stepped in and said we would bring Fred home. The security guards immediately retreated and we walked back to the house with Fred. Nelson told Mark that the security guards wanted to take Fred away and punish him. If we hadn't been around, that would have been the outcome.

So at least we saved Fred from a severe beating, but he did lose his job. On Friday, he left us with all his worldly belongings packed in a shopping-bag. I feel very guilty that we had to get rid of Fred after one such incident. He pleaded with us to give him another chance, but I had to put the safety of the volunteers first. The really sad thing is that we'll all forget about the servant that we dismissed, and we'll never know what life he ends up living in Nairobi.

This, as they say, is Africa.

A spot of teaching

Interesting three days. At Suas, they say weeks 2 and 3 are the toughest. It seemed unlikely on Sunday night, when we had enjoyed a nice relaxing day, and were all delighted to be here.

Then came Monday morning. At chai break, right on queue, everyone was feeling the pain. The weather had turned, the staff-room was dark, teachers were missing, students weren't listening or didn't understand, and everyone was tired. This is Kenya.

But the team came through. People supported each other, those who felt ok helped those who felt rubbish. We had a lovely dinner on Monday evening, we all relaxed and by yesterday we were back on track.

Its incredible how quickly things can shift - one minute the team is feeling rubbish, then everyone is excited again. It can be something as simple as the sun shining, or a fun game of Cranium. That's all it takes sometimes. The kids who bring you down during a tough maths class, can pick you right up again when you see them playing "touch" rugby, piling on top of each other as a small herd of goats run across the field.

Alas the dreaded lurgy has hit the house. One of the gang got a stomach bug on Monday evening, and two more have a cold of some sort. It's a long day sitting at home and it feels like you should be at school, but sometimes resting is the right thing to do.

Am feeling a little sniffley myself tonight, hoping it doesn't hit me. Naturally a cold is pretty harmless, compared to the cases of malaria we've seen in school, but would rather not have to miss a few days.

As a result of other people's lurgy, I got to do some teaching today and yesterday, as I stood in for one of the team. I did maths with Standard 7 - children of about 13/14 years old, in a class of about 80 students. We were studying the area of a circle, and I spent about an hour walking around helping small groups. Its funny, everyone knew the formula for area of a circle, but they all seemed to get stuck on the same basic principles, converting fractions to decimals, or figuring out the radius, given the diameter. (Apologies for the nerdiness).

By the time you get around to everyone, the class is over and you haven't gotten back to anyone. I really don't know how the teachers do it, day in day out. When you explain it from the front of the class, everyone says they understand, when in reality they may not have understood the question "Do you understand?". It's so difficult for the children, everything is taught through English, and some don't even grasp the basics of the language.

As I sit here, we are all laughing anyd watching a purple hippo dancing to the "La Bomba" in a worryingly erotic fashion. Youtube throws up some wierd and wonderful stuff.

Time to sleep off this sniffle...