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| The site of Kenyan World Ocean's Day |
My host dad reminds me at each meal. I smile and promise that I'll note it.
But it really is true, even if only partly. Widespread starvation is one of several hyperbole that sensitize any outside population to the needs of "impoverished", "marginalized", or "undeveloped" regions and people. So admit it: many westerners have the misconception that Africa has no food. That, in of itself, is a bold faced lie. ON the contrary, one can note that Africa has quite a problem with allocating it's most vital resources to the populations that need them most. Just turn on the daily news in Kenya. I just did: the story airing now compares one school in a local city to another in an adjacent city. The first is fully equipped with rooms, tables, chairs, chalkboards, books, pencils, and pens, a model American school. The adjacent city, lacking means, gives lectures under shelter of a rock.
These dilemmas crop up everywhere here. Take malaria for example. In many isolated places in Kenya, malaria is a huge deal. Family members, stricken with the illness and with treatment unavailable, fall terminally ill, many times resulting in death. However, where malaria treatments are plentiful (such as Mombasa), malaria is treated like the common flu. If you feel sick, you go to a hospital, get a test for malaria, and then get specialized treatment for several hundred shillings - maybe 2 or 3 dollars. That's undeniably cheap. But still there remains a problem with malaria in Africa.
Food is very similar. Food in Africa, seen from one context, may be lacking.Yet, in many regions, food is one of the most plentiful resources available, even for those without significant monies or resources. My host family - mother, father, and sister alike - have done their very best to show me that when resources are available in Africa, they are indeed plentiful. And they have done a great job.
Ever since arriving at my host family on Friday, I've eaten my fill and then some. While breakfast is generally very light (
chai (tea) and some bread or fruit), lunch and dinner are always a hearty serving of meats, potatoes, cooked veggies, fruits, rice, and beans. Combine that with a few of their delicacies, which seem to crop up at every meal,
chipati (a fry-cooked wheat flour tortilla) and
ugali (a dense African cake, made from cornmeal) and you've got quite a bit of heartburn.
Most food in Kenya is served hot, hopefully killing most food-born bacteria and pathogens. However, it's not one-hundred percent perfect. This morning and last night, for example, was a great time kneeling at the porcelain throne. But still, as one friend who I've met told me - in Africa, "we eat to finish." Each plate, no matter the portion size, is wiped clean. I've done my best to keep up, but Phoebe, my host sister, can certainly attest that sometimes I get full... very full. The family, my host father Abel, my mother Joyce, and my sister Phoebe, who is married and out of the house in Nairobi but visited this week, become my mini cheering section at dinners. Each time I pause to get a little digestion in with a well-placed question, Abel answers, then reminds me to keep going. With the room silent again, Abel jumps in:
"Scott. You may continue."
The differing perceptions of body size in Africa probably don't help. While in America many girls do anything they can to stay skinny, in Africa, weight gain is simply a laughing matter. Says a friend of Phoebe's to her as Phoebe smiles,
"Man girl, you must be eating well!"
So with that: guys... I may be unrecognizable when I return. 200 lbs of pure muscle. Get ready.
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| Inside a Matatu |
Other than that, things have been going very well this week. Saturday, with my family being 7th Day Adventests, was pretty slow, so I took the chance to go check out Likoni. I took the Likoni ferry over from the island to the mainland, and then went to go check out Shelly Beach, a well-known beach on the Likoni Coast. There, I met up with Aman and his host family. He has several college aged siblings, and it was fun to spend some time talking about the kinds of things my friends and I talk about at home - sports, humor, and girls , among others.
Taking the ferry alone was kind of a daunting experience. On the island side there is a central Matatu staging area. From there, everyone lines up in a hot and sweaty mess with several hundred other people. Once the ferry arrives the mass enters the ferry - it's all a dangerous place, mostly because thefts are very common. I kept my bag at my side and entered with the horde of travelers. The ride takes about 20 minutes.
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| The view across the ferry. |
Sunday was spent with my host sister Phoebe. She was leaving back to Nairobi, and so we went everywhere around Mombasa, visiting her friends and family for a last goodbye. At one point we visited Ndiema, a close friend of Phoebe's. While there they made us food. Meanwhile there were 30 or so children playing soccer outside. At the prodding of Ndiema I ran out with them - he said that all the children would have great stories to tell, playing soccer with the "Mzungu."
At one point a kid farted, and everyone paused. Suddenly all thirty kids were making farting noises. Kids here are no different than back home...
Later in the game I got a good laugh when I kicked a rock and cut my foot open. I looked at Ndiema and said next time we should wear shoes instead of going barefoot. He laughed at the comment. "Shoes? No shoes... welcome to Africa my friend!"
Spending time with Phoebe was also great - it was a nice first experience with an "older", and likewise, "female" sibling, and it was fun talking about things with her. Sister's have gotta be way nicer than brothers. We really shared a great time, and had some great conversation. At one point she said something that really struck me that her husband had told her.
"A wise man always changes his mind."
Can't forget that one. But it's true. A foolish man won't change their mind, regardless of the circumstance. The best example I can give is politics. Some people are devoutly republican or democratic, regardless of the information that is presented during each campaign. Others evaluate the merit of the ideas of each, and only decide (likely after several flip-flops) after they've exhausted all comparisons. I change my mind a lot too, so it made sense to latch on to that one.
Monday was my first day at work. I spent the earlier part of the day in a meeting. The organization I'm working for is planning a World Ocean's Day this Friday at a beach in a local town called Kilifi, and while they've been arranging it since February, I was assigned to be in charge of the site with a guy named Victor. Most of this week has been spent securing permits and contacting local officials for this, including yesterday, when Victor and I traveled to Kilifi and went from office to office, talking with the mayor, the president, the police, the tourist police, NEMA (National Environment Management Authority), the town clerk, the district commissioner...
In the afternoon on Monday I attended a meeting on climate change with some colleagues. The first speech was hilarious . You have to understand that in Kenya, there is no bad time to take a phone call. Multiple times throughout his speech he took calls. At the end of the speeches, the man and women who were supposed to give the closing remarks were gone, so they asked me to present. I had nothing prepared, but I gave it a swing anyway, and gave some generic thing about climate change and the parts of society it will impact. I think it was acceptable though.
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| A giraffe in Haller Park |
On Tuesday I went with several people from work to Haller Park, a natural game park north of town, for World Environment Day. The park was beautiful and the exhibitions were very interesting. There were several dignitaries there from the Kenyan Government, and as a result, I accomplished something I've spent 20 years in America trying to do. I got on national television - Channel 1 KCB, Kenyan Broadcasting Company. Also in Haller Park, the equivalent to squirrels are monkeys. One managed to steal a banana out of my backpack, which led to a subsequent photo montage, one of which is below.
Wednesday, as I said before, was spent in Kilifi. I got a ride down to Kilifi with the head of our organization, a man named Okeyo. The road to Kilifi was very small and very dangerous, but the ride was fun. We began to talk a little more about Kenyan politics, especially those related to environmental health and preservation. It's tough - while there is certainly an interest to clean up their streets, the governmental means are not there. He gave the example of an initiative that our NGO spearheaded a few years back, and put trash bins in front of many shops in Mombasa. While at first it was successful, unreliably trash disposal by city ended up turning each bin into a mini-landfill. The shop owners complained, and so the bins were removed.
Really the only place in town with consistent trash pickup is out front of the Mayor's office, where I've found the ONLY trash can in Mombasa. Okeyo laughed as he told me his idea to take all the trash and put it at the mayor's doorstep so that it would actually get removed from the city. I liked that... maybe that will be my project while I'm here.
Kilifi is a quaint town about an hour and a half north of Mombasa. The beaches there are awesome, and I can't wait for the event on Friday. When we returned from Kilifi, in the scariest matatu ride of my life, passing cars on the left hand shoulder (i.e. the sidewalk), I with a Dutch, a women in the Peace Corps who works at Eco-Ethics (and who happens to be from Aspen, CO with a degree from CU Boulder) to
Alliance Frances, which has been broadcasting free academy award winning movies for the past week. The venue was located on a rooftop on a main road in Mombasa. It was nice to get up above the noise and hustle-and-bustle of the street level.
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| Yo... that monkey stole my banana |
That night went well, but for a small bout of the stomach flu... I'm recovering today and hope to be back to 100% tomorrow. I went to the hospital this morning so they could do a few tests (one of which being a stool sample, which involved digging around the toilet with a tongue-depresser... which was... interesting). Things checked out good - I don't have malaria, but I do have a small bacterial infection. They gave me some antibiotics which I'll be on for the next week. Jerusa met me at the hospital to make sure everything was alright, and it was nice having a friendly face around.
For now, I'm resting and relaxing... till next time,
Scotty
