Katy Goes To Kenya

We Meant Well: Development Gone Wrong

2011-09-27T07:36:00.001+03:00

Hello Old Friends,

Every now and then I read or hear of something that really makes me reflect on my experience in Kenya and what I learned about Development through FSD and ACCES. Driving home tonight, listening to NPR, I heard an interview with one Mr. Peter Van Buren, a state department employee who was sent to Iraq for a year as part of the reconstruction mission.

I'll let you listen to the interview or read the transcript yourself, but basically, Van Buren describes what happens when everything that can go wrong on a misguided development effort, does. Unfortunately, it was on a 62 billion dollar scale. I was aghast, but not surprised, at his anecdotes of wasted funds and top-down projects cooked up with no thought to long-term sustainability or even appropriateness.

The State Department was essentially ordered to spend money on the reconstruction––to try anything they could think of to improve Iraq or win the "hearts and minds" of the people. For example, someone on the mission had the brilliant idea to use funds to build a chicken processing plant, without pausing to think...

1. Is there a need for a industrial chicken processing plant? (Not really, buying them live at the market seems to have worked fine for the past 5,000 years)

2. Do most people have refrigeration to store the chicken pieces (no)

3. Who will run the plant after the U.S. leaves (who knows!)

4. Where will the chickens be raised or sourced? Hmmm...

So the U.S. spent $2 million in tax-payer money building the plant, before realizing that they should have answered the above (and many more) questions first. Thus, after it was complete, the plant sat idle––except on the occasions a reporter or diplomat wanted to see it. To show the plant, the State Dept. would send a nearby shah's son to buy every live chicken in a five-mile radius to process. They would run it long enough for the visitor to see it functioning; the visitor would be impressed with the success of the Reconstruction, leave, and the next day the plant would be dark again.

The stories are pretty funny until you think of the myriad ways in which the funding could have been more effectively used at home or abroad... then they're DEVASTATING.

I really hope you listen to the interview or read the transcript––I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. To me, it's a very strong argument for accountability and, you guessed it: teaching sustainable participatory community development methodology.

Love to all of you,
Katy

Heifer International Brochure

2009-10-27T01:42:00.002+03:00

Hi, All!

I'm doing well, taking classes at UCLA Extension and looking for a job. I think about Kenya almost daily, but haven't taken the time to write. Even though I should be packing right now (I'm going home for a week tomorrow to help with Katrina & Kier's wedding), I'm compelled to write.

Will got the Heifer International holiday catalog in the mail today, and I read it with great interest. I think everyone's pretty familiar with H.I.'s model: Donations go toward providing area-appropriate livestock to very poor families all over the world. I was surprised to see that H.I. also gives to families in the US, in Arizona and Arkansas.

The brochure has very inspiring pictures of folks, especially children, with their new livestock. There are even a couple of testimonials from Western Kenya--my old hood. The people in the 'snaps'--as Kenyans say--look just like friends I made in the rural areas there. I miss it!

In reading the stories and looking at the pictures though, I can't stop thinking of nitty-gritty questions about the program, especially about its sustainability...

The first that came to mind were:

How do families qualify for a cow, goat, etc.? Do they proactively seek H.I. out or does a H.I. rep approach them? Is there a waiting list?
What do the recipient families do to earn the cow, goat, llama, donkey, chickens, etc? Does H.I. give them out for free? Do participants have to attend training on animal husbandry before they get the animal(s)?
Do the participants' neighbors get jealous? How do they deal with that? What if one family gets a cow, and another gets a goat which is only worth a third or fourth of the cow?
There's a "Pass It On" requirement--the family has to give a female offspring from its animal to another family in the area. How is the other family chosen? If it's not H.I. choosing them, I'll bet you two chickens that there's bribing going on! But I guess that's not the end of the world, is it?
And most importantly, what sort of long-term studies are done to determine whether participating families' quality of life improved temporarily or more permanently?

I don't mean to sound cynical, it sounds like H.I. is doing a lot of good. But you know how skeptical I am about straight-up aid these days... I still don't know how you tell when something like this provides the exactly the leg up someone needs or if it's a temporary band-aid on a systemic problem.

Katy in LA

P.S. Just went to their site and found this page. Encouraging! Love the video about gender equality training!

Home!

2009-07-08T04:03:00.002+03:00

I'm back! And awake at four in the morning (love the jet lag.) I got in at about 3 yesterday and made it all the way til 8 pm without falling asleep. :) Will brought me a pastrami sandwich at LAX, which is amongst the most amazing things I've eaten in recent memory, as well as fresh fruit I couldn't get in Kenya: cherries, strawberries and peaches. Tomorrow I'm going to see if we can get sushi at Katsuya in the valley.

I'm happy to be home and not nearly as culture shocked as I thought I would be. I think backpacking for three weeks and spending my last couple of days in Nairobi helped a lot with that. Nairobi is rife with shopping malls, coffee shops, European retail stores, big buildings and lots of traffic. And the suburb I was stayin in, Karen--after Karen Blixen of Out of Africa--was mzungu central. it might as well have been Pasadena. If I'd left straight from Kakamega, I think I'd be in major shock.

My first impression of LA flying in today was, "Jesus, look at all that smog." Driving home, I was overwhelmed by all the concrete. Everywhere. Not a fan. Los Feliz still seems lovely, but not nearly as green as I remember. I guess anywhere pales in comparison to the green of the Kakamega Rainforest and Western Province tea plantations directly after the Long Rainy season. LA really feels like a legitimate desert.

And so many cars!! The 10:1 car to pedestrian ratio here is the inverse of Kakamega's. I'm used to sharing the sidewalk/dirt road/bicycle path with loads of people: seeing their faces, greeting them, getting solicited to get in this or that minibus, buy vegetables, give 5 shillings, etc. Here it's just machines! Cars talking to each other with their turn signals.

I'll only in LA for two days: On Friday, Will and I are going to Sacramento for Cousin Kristine's wedding, then we'll be in Oregon for a week visiting Lizzie, then to Orinda for a few days (the 18th or 19th to 23). So I'll have to wait until then to see most of you LA folks. Sacto and Bay Area peeps, I'll see you soon!

Love and thanks,
Katy

P.S. Even though I'm back, I have a lot of old posts that I started writing in Kakamega, but never finished due time constraints or bad internet connections. So don't be surprised if you see a few posts/e-mails back-dated from the Spring.

Guest Houses and Street Food

2009-06-26T11:04:00.004+03:00

It’s amazing to me the range of price options there are when travelling. You can spend as much or as little money as you want. There is always someone who will cater to your desire to drop more dough and usually someone who will sell something to you for less if you try hard enough. Although I look forward to the day when I can take luxury vacations (maybe when I’m retired?) I’m enjoying being a dirty backpacker again.

The best way to travel in Africa on a budget is to camp—a lot of backpacker guest houses, a.k.a., hostels, have camping areas for $2 per person per night. Since I don’t have tent or sleeping bag, I’ve been going the hostel dormitory route, which usually runs me about seven to 10 bucks a night. Dorm rooms sleep anywhere from four to12 people, all in bunk beds. So far, they’ve all been co-ed, which means you get to change in the bathroom. The lighting décor ranges from an exposed florescent bulb to an incandescent with a basket-cum-light shade over it. If a hostel doesn't have a dorm room, I'll get a single or even try to find someone else to share a doube with! Even in these, there are usually shared bathrooms.

The showers typically consist of the shower head mounted somewhere in the bathroom, and most places have hot water. The bathrooms generally feel like something between a public beach bathroom and Motel 6. You provide your own towel and soap, and it’s always a good idea to bring a roll of TP just in case there isn’t any. ;-)

Flamingo Guest House in Zanzibar, where I stayed last night, didn’t have hot water in the shower, but made up for it by having fine-mesh screens on the windows and an overhead fan that ran like a jet engine. I had my first night unmolested by mosquitoes in months. Mosquitoes are bad flyers, and if any of them did get through the screens, they were overpowered by the fan. I don’t know how, but with non-screened windows, some mozzie invariably finds its way inside my net and bites unmercifully on any exposed part: hands, face or feet. My face looks like a hormonal teenager’s right now.

The only downside of staying in dormitories is sharing your room with a bunch of other dirty backpackers, whom you are also trusting not to steal your stuff. But they're generally a trusty bunch through an unspoken backpacker's code. And for me, being in close contact with other travellers is actually a plus, since I’m on my own. It’s a great way to learn about what to see, what to watch out for and where to get good, cheap food.

I learned about a Ugandan delicacy called the Rolex this way. Outside the gates of the Nile River Explorers Backpacker’s compound in Jinja, a fellow travler informed me that you can get a chapati (fatty flour tortilla) with a fried egg and veggies for 1,000 Ugandan shillings (85 cents). The vendor chops up some tomato, onion and green pepper and fries it on an iron skillet over coals. He breaks an egg over the mixture. Once that’s cooked, sliced avocado is added and the whole thing is rolled up in a chapati. It’s basically a breakfast burrito and fills you up for hours. I met a broke primatology student from Nairobi and Rotary-funded sociologist interviewing gay sex workers in Mombasa who were able to stay a whole extra day at in Jinja after discovering the Rolex, because it was so cheap. They ate one with bananas and Nutella for breakfast, a veggie/avocado combo for dinner and meat Rolex for dinner.

So, if you eat at street vendors like this, you’ll hardly spend any money and will get to eat fresh and like a local. If you go to the tourist lodges, you’ll spend more than you do at home. I know eating street food can be a little risky, but my rule is if I watch it being cooked, it should be okay. So far, so good… plus, you know what Dad says: you'd be surprised what the human body is capable of handling! ;-)

Zanzibar

2009-06-23T18:53:00.006+03:00

Well, I wrote a lovely long post in Jinja about kayaking on the Nile, but the computer at the hostel ate it without any remorse what-so-ever... if I have time I'll try to rewrite it...

I'm in Zanzibar now, fresh off the plane from Nairobi this morning. After taking the biggest rattle-trap bus in the world across the the worst road in the world (Kakamega to Kapsabet) and getting launched a good foot in the air out of my seat at 20-second intervals for an hour straight, then just mildly slammed around for another eight, I decided I was done with bus travel in East Africa. Especially the seven-to-nine-hour trip variety. Of which this was the fourth. No mas!

Just because I had had pretty good luck with the Akamba buses in Uganda did not mean I would get another newish bus with good shocks empty enough to allow me to lounge across the whole back row. Like we said at CG, Past perforane is no guarantee of future results! My bus on Sunday was full and stinky. AND in Kenya there are no hawkers who sell you meat on a stick and bananas through the windows. I was really getting used to that in Uganda. Back in Kenya, I had to actually get off the bus to buy my drinking yogurt and meat pie lunch at the rest stop. Though the pastry part of the meat pie was top-notch—I haven't had better anywhere.

Flying here felt so civilized. Getting a cold drink (even if there was no ice in it)and even my first sandwich in months. Chicken with some spicy Indian-tasting sauce. Though it tasted great, my stomach was a little unsure what to do with the sandwich. Ironically, Western food now makes me feel weird; I haven't had any trouble with African food for months.

All but a handful of the people flying were wazungu, which was a little weird. One mzungu was super-blond, super-tan and super skinny. She was wearing heels, low and tight jeans, a black tank top and carrying a Diesel denim purse slung over one shoulder. I thought for sure she was from the O.C. and felt a little embarrassed to be from the same state. However, when we were climbing up the stairs to the plane, I saw her passport: Italia. Of course!! Suddenly, I didn't mind her look which I previously found obnoxious -- in fact it endeared her to me. She's from Italy! Of course she's allowed to look like a young Donatella Versace! Suddenly, I felt ashamed to look like such a grubby backpacker.

Anyway, on to Zanzibar... some observations.

Stone Town feels like a cross between the little island of Hydra, Greece that Katrina and I visited in 1993 (fishing port and lots of stone—surprise surprise) and the old town slum of New Delhi (lots of wires suspended over narrow alleyways and people cooking outside by their doorsteps.)
I am only hearing Swahili and English, which feels strange because in Kakamega people speak English, Swahili (of which I understand a wee bit) and their mother tongue -- Luhya (the local tribe's language of which I understand one word -- Hello.) Zanzibar is a Swahili island so Swhahili IS their mother tongue. It's nice that I can always understand a little bit of what's going on, whereas when coworkers/friends/people in the villages spoke Luhya I would zone out completely and wait for bits of Swahili or English.
All the women wear long black robes and head scarves pinned under their chins as Zanzibar's 85% Muslim. The call to prayer is rather lovely.
Things are expensive! The tourist stuff (carvings, jewelry, bags, etc.) is a good 50% more pricey, after I work REALLY hard to bargain it down. This is really going to curb my thank-you present buying, which has been going full-force up until now... I'll have to hold off until back in Nairobi, which has the Masai Crafts Market, which I'm assuming has good prices. It's too bad, because there's a lot of cool stuff here.
Per everyone I've talked to, it's actually safe to walk around after dark. I won't be doing it if I don't have to, of course, but how nice that I don't have to go scrambling for cover at 6:45, sunset on the equator.
The carved doors really are fantastic.

Tomorrow I'm taking a ten dollar spice tour to see where saffron, vanilla, and cloves come from (this is the Spice Island after all!) Thursday, I'm heading to the other side of the island to chill out on the beach. I've cut Mombasa from my itinerary all together for two reasons: One, it saved me $75 on flights, and that's a lot. Two, I've had a nasty head cold (non-stop snot) for the past three days from all the early mornings, bus travel and low-level stress associated with being on the road, and the last thing I want to deal with is getting in and out of another city. I am very happy to stay in one place a whole five and a half days.

Speaking of staying in one place, I won't be doing a lot of it in the next month or so... Here's my itinerary from now until August:

Now til Sunday - Zanzibar (hostel and beach hut)

July 29 - July 3: Masai Mara (camping)

July 3 - 5: Nairobi (@ Tara & Alan's gorgeous rental estate in Karen)

July 6: Fly from Nairobi to London (any one know a friend near heathrow I can crash with for a night?)

July 7: Fly from London to LAX

July 8-9: U.S.A.!!!! Home sweet Los Feliz

July 10: Drive to Sacramento

Jul 11: Cousin Kristine & Eduardo's wedding in Grass Valley

July 12: Fly to Portland to hang with Lizzie

July 17 or so: Fly from Portland to Sacramento, drive to Orinda

July 17 - 22: Bay Area

July 22 or so: Drive from Orinda back to LA

IN LA!! Start looking for job.

Some time in Aug: NYC & Boston with Will to see his fam

August 22 - ??: Possibly, hopefully be a camp councilor in Catalina with Will.

September: Back to normal life, full-time job search, avoid planes, buses and any sort of travel at all costs.

Another call to prayer! I'll try to write more tomorrow.

Jinja, Uganda

2009-06-15T12:26:00.007+03:00

11/21/09: I found this unpublished in my entry list and so am posting it now. After I wrote it five months ago, the computer I was using crashed, and I thought it was gone forever, but lo and behold, I guess it was saved. So here you are! Reading this now, it seems like another lifetime!

-----
Each time I think I've found the slowest internet connection in East Africa, I am again proven wrong. The Red Chili Hideaway hostel connection in Kampala, Uganda is the new winner. I'm dying to read all your Facebook comments on my last entry, but alas, I've given up on e-mail as it keeps crashing, and am going to just post this to let everyone know that I'm safe and what I'm up to.

I spent today tandem whitewater kayaking on the White Nile in Jinja. I was originally going to take a kayaking lesson, because I've always wanted to learn, and a lesson is much cheaper here than at home, but Daniel pointed out that if I went that route, I would be paddling in circles in calm water vs getting to run the class five rapids. Which I know for a fact are great, from our trip here over Easter weekend. So I went for the tandem and was not disappointed. It was incredible, and we only rolled over in one rapid-- I think it was "Silverback."

But it rained again after lunch. Ugh. What's up with me and getting drenched by cold rain on the river? At least it wasn't a torrential downpour like last time. It was so bad that all ten rafts (it was a holiday weekend) had to paddle to an island in the middle of the river, turn the boats upside down, and crouch in the shallow water under them. The water was warmer than the air. It was goosebump city for me, and I couldn't talk my teeth were chattering so much! Hah! It was still a great trip once the rain let up somewhat.

My tandem kayak guide was Peter, a sweet 21-year-old (if that!) Ugandan, who was full of bad jokes (reused, no doubt). He said if I got cold, he would be happy to warm up the kayak (by peeing in it) and that the missing chunk of his lucky paddle had been eaten by a crocodile. Actually I don't if that was a joke -- there are parts of the Nile rife with crocodiles. Some of the guides had actually kayaked those sections and said beating off the hippos and crocadiles each time they were out of the whitewater got tiresome pretty quickly. They said they wouldn't do that trip again, no matter how good the rafting was.

Peter was a fantastic kayaker and great guide; I felt like I was in good hands. And the trip reminded me of how much I love being on the river--any river-- in a kayak, raft or just floating in my life vest. I ate my lunch of half a pineapple and some crackers that tasted like animal cookies that way: floating on my back down the river in my life vest, like an otter.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take a six hour plus bus ride (joy!) to Kibale National Park on the western side of Uganda to go chimp tracking. It's a haul, but Corey, my primatologist friend from Kakamega recommended it highly, so I'm going to make the trip out and back to do it.

There is also good gorilla tracking in Uganda and Rwanda. The British and Aussie girls who used this computer before me did that yesterday. For five hundred smack-a-roos to the Rwandan or Ugandan Wildlife Authority, you get to sit with a troupe for an hour. Are you kidding me??!! For an hour?! However, they swore the experience was priceless. Of of the two girls even showed me a video on her camera of an young-adult male taking a swipe at her. Hah! Their guide said that was pretty typical for that gorilla thought.

I was a little sad to leave Bugagali Falls this afternoon as it's a beautiful, beautiful place. There was even a fancy restaurant next to the hostel and campsite that served BREWED coffee and had CHEESE in their omelets. Yes, I succumbed and splurged for a $9 breakfast and it was WORTH it. :-) Mark my words, I am never having instant coffee or a cheeseless omelet again once I'm home!!

I think some people never leave Bujagali Falls; they just convert to the camping/river lifestyle.

One thing that would keep me from joining their ranks was the fact that there was no glass in my bunk room window -- just wire mesh to (sort of) keep out the mosquitoes. And 100 yards away, at the camp bar, drunk American, European, Australian backpackers--and a few locals--party late into the night, every night. I am getting too old for that. Fortunately I'm a champion sleeper, and can deal with it. One of my talents.

More soon. Lots of love,

Katy

The fancy restaurant next to the hostel where I had an omlette WITH cheese for the first time in five months, and real brewed coffee vs. instant!!! There are monkeys that hang out on the railings and will grab your toast if you turn around. Cheeky monkeys!!

A picture from the restaurant's website. It's faster to link to theirs then to try to upload my own. The hostel wasn't as fancy obviously, but the view was just as incredible.

Katy Goes to Uganda

2009-06-14T16:46:00.004+03:00

Written on a bus going from Busia (Kenya-Uganda border) to Jinja, Uganda...

It's such a rush to start a trip, especially when you're doing it alone and on public transportation. I was sitting in my first matatu of the day in Kakamega, waiting for it to fill up with enough people to leave, when the thought struck me: I can go anywhere right now. I don't have to go to Jinja, I can get off and get on any other matatu at the stage, and not even ask where it's going. I have $100 in shillings in my money belt and a backpack with everything I need. I am not due to be anywhere for six days. I am completely self-contained and completely free. I can go wherever the spirit moves me.

Of course I stayed put, because I really did want to go to Jinja, but the feeling was elating.

I also felt good because I felt like I vaguely knew what I was doing: that the ride Mumias should cost about 100 shillings, that "I'm getting off here" in Swahili is "Nashuka hapa", that to get a tout selling stuff through the minibus window to go away, you stare at him blankly, and of course, that I should scootch to the edge of my seat to allow a little room for the butt of the woman sitting in the aisle "non-seat".

I didn't think twice when said woman got up to make room for someone to pass, and had her entire posterior pressed up against my cheek. No sweat!! We are all sisters!!

I have become culturally competent!!! (At least enough to get by!)

In addition to being satisfied with my new freedom of movement and basic ability to get around, I feel liberated not being an FSD intern/ACCES volunteer any longer. From the day I got here in January to my last day at work on Friday, I've been trying to fit in as much as is possible: to dress, talk and behave like everyone else in Kakamega. To be culturally aware and respectful, conservative in my dress and to act more like a "local" than a loud American. I've been trying to be a good representative of FSD, ACCES and the U.S.!

Now that I'm on the road, I'm only represent myself and am not expected to fit in: I really am a mzungu (foreigner/white person). It's nice not to have to think constantly about how my appearance and actions are being perceived. Right now, I'm wearing a t-shirt and cargo capris vs. my usual long skirt and shirt. Happiness!

I'm also pleased for having found a matatu WITH an airbag and seatbelt earlier today (although I know you're not supposed to sit in the front seat because most accidents are head-on) and for buying myself a nice little 20 shilling "wedding" ring from a guy selling cheap jewelry and biscuits (cookies) at the Mumais matatu stage. It's nice to have evidence to back up my "Sorry, Bwana*, I'm married" line.

The fact that I'm now on vacation doesn't hurt my mood either. Yesterday, when packing up my room, both impressed by and frustrated with how much crap I'd accumulated in 5 months, I almost didn't want to travel. I just wanted to jump on a plane to Nairobi and high-tail it back home. I was worried I'd be lonely, that my rough itinerary would prove to be a little too rough, and lastly, that I would go nuts with all the time I'm planning to spend on buses, ferries, matatus, piki pikis (motorbike taxis), boda bodas (bicycle taxis) and planes. But I'm actually very happy at the moment: I've got two seats to myself and more leg room than you'll find on business class. I'm writing in my journal and watching miles and miles of lush African countryside go by. It's the usual mix of banana trees, fields of corn and sugar cane, huts with thatch or tin roofs, cows being herded by little boys in ragged t-shirts and women carrying firewood and plastic shopping bags on their heads: all familiar and yet somehow different. I think the trip is going to work out alright.

*Bwana = Mister.

When aid is appropriate...

2009-06-10T17:15:00.005+03:00

My cousin Kristine sent the following response to my last entry about development vs. aid:

This is really cool. I would argue that you are not a hypocrite, you are learning. You set out to do some good in the world, help people, and you are refining your definition of what it means to help people. Personal independence and interdependence are skills that are often overlooked. Initiative and collaboration as well.

I would say that Aid has it's place. Sometimes, as it seems to be the case with this school, people need a handout to get them on their feet. If you were to come across a man who is having a heart attack, you would not lecture him about the benefits of reducing his stress, eating fewer animal fats and more vegetables- you would give him CPR, and maybe a triple bypass. After that, you work on the root of the problem, and bring in preventative (sustainable) medicine.

The question would then be: when is it a time for aid, and when is it a time for sustainable development? And perhaps not one versus the other. Each one in its own time and place.

I was hoping someone would ask this, so that I could answer! When I was telling Will about my new philosophy he asked the same thing, which promoted me to consult my colleague Liz on the subject. She's doing post-graduate studies in Community Development and Project Management and is planning on a Master's in Public Health.

Basically, she said the exact same thing as Kristine:

"It's fine to arrest an emergency through aid, but you have to make sure that you take steps to prevent the situation from reocurring. Otherwise, people will just need the aid again. You don't come up to a hungry man and start telling him about farming; you have to feed him first so that he has the energy to learn and practice what you've taught him."

I also asked about a project a CARE friend of mine did: donating500 mosquito nets. Liz said that it's fine to donate them, but that unless the donor does a good job of educating the recipents on the benefits of using them (less sickness and substantial savings on malaria treatment) the recipents won't save money to get a new one when the originals wear out.

Me, I would argue that they shouldn't be given out free at all—maybe just an educational seminar and a discount on a net... but it's a fine line.. I'd be curious as to the psychology of getting gifts and donations... When do you really value gifts and when do you take them for granted and come to feel entitled? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that..

In other news, the last day of my internship is Friday, and I start my travels on Sunday. It's bittersweet! I'm excited to be on the road, and closer to getting home to my beloved Los Feliz, but I will miss so much here!

Also, I've been posting a lot of pictures on Facebook, but it struck me that you don't all use Facebook, so here are some links.

Chelsea's Soy Bean Training Project (can't remember if I've sent this):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=123643&id=500050978&l=09c72abe82

A friend's house party:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127759&id=500050978&l=91c9c91191

Catering Committe Shopping for Joseph (a co-worker)'s Wedding:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127759&id=500050978&l=91c9c91191

I'll post the actual wedding pix ASAP, too! It was a blast!!

Love,
Katy

P.S. C.G. Peeps, I'm thinking of you. I hope none of you have to join me in the unemployed boat, unless you want to.

Aid vs. Sustainable Development

2009-06-03T14:45:00.007+03:00

After being here a few months, and reading a fair amount of literature about various projects implemented by foreign NGOs, I am starting to have somewhat strong feelings against aid. What is aid? Aid is giving out something for nothing, with the recipient having no way of obtaining that resource again independently. For example, donating clothes, a building, a shipping container of medical equipment, etc.

What’s wrong with that?

The problem is that outright aid creates dependence, instead of independence. It makes the recipient reliant on the donor. As one of my co-worker Elizabeth’s development professors writes, "a social welfare paradigm...leads to the creation of dependency syndrome among the recipients of handouts…people get hooked to assistentialism, a state of helplessness waiting for rescue missions. In the case of handouts-for-work, people usually don’t see the need to sustain the projects they [have] started once the source of such handouts is exhausted or depleted. They will sit and wait for the donor to come back, no mater how long it takes.”

True, it feels really good to give someone food or shoes or clothes or a new pit latrine—“Look! The orphan has shoes now! Because of me!”—but doing so just fixes the superficial problem, rather than getting to the root cause of the issue. Why doesn’t the kid have shoes? What caused that? In my mind, aid is selfish: It makes us, the donors, feel good about ourselves. But what happens after we’re gone and the shoes wear out? How will the child get new shoes? She’ll have to find another donor. Giving that pair of shoes fixed the immediate issue at hand, but doesn’t get at the root of the problem.

The alternative to aid, which I do believe in, is participatory community development (PCD). PCD is going into a community, finding out what the community's goals are, and supporting them initially to accomplish these goals themselves. Teaching people how to fish instead of giving out fish. Participatory community development is more involved, expensive, and certainly less gratifying in the short-run, but in the long run, it’s more sustainable and breaks the cycle of aid dependence.

No doubt, right about now you’re saying, “Waaaaait a minute, Norris, wasn’t your FSD project to donate a rainwater harvesting system to a school for orphans and low-income kids?” Yup, it was. And I’ll b the first to admit that my project was part aid. FSD and you, my donors, gave the school the tank, pipes, etc. outright. So for that, I’m a hypocrite—it would have been more sustainable if I’d helped the school management committee, parents and even orphans establish income generating projects, through which they could earn their own money to buy a tank themselves… In retrospect I probably should have done that, even though they wouldn’t have had that tank for years to come.

I think that when I read all the needs assessment surveys done by previous volunteers, and visited the school, I was overwhelmed by the fact that this school had no water, and wanted more than anything to help them get it. I guess I was blinded by emotion.

But as Kelly, the centre principal, has reminded me, the project will help the kids stay healthy and reduce the amount of time they spend fetching water, therefore keeping them from missing school, and hence getting an education. And as we know, education key factor in getting out of poverty and becoming independent and able to support one’s self. And the lifetime of this thing is a gopod 50 years...

And there were some participatory development aspects to the project it as well, in the form of capacity building and training:

Our plumber Patrick trained members of the volunteer Centre Management Committee (CMC) on how rainwater harvesting systems work.
I made sure the CMC, Kelly and my co-workers were involved every step of the way, from submitting the proposal, to planning the system, to hiring tradesmen, to purchasing the materials to helping with the digging, painting and mason work. They now know all the steps involved and if they want to implement a similar system elsewhere, will know how to. Even the kids who live around the center pitched in during their April holiday and learned a lot.
In writing the proposal together, Kelly, my coworkers and the CMC learned a lot about the grant writing process.
I reiterated again and again and again to the CMC that they have ownership of the tank and are in charge of all repairs and maintenance going forward. Due to the massive amount of volunteer time they invested in it, I’m optimistic that they will actually take care of it.
The last element of the project was a brief lecture by Maggy, our community nurse, to teach/remind the kids about healthy sanitation and hygiene.

So, the project wasn’t a perfect model of development, but at least I didn’t just descend with my own work crew and install the system. It really was a community effort. And going forward, I’ll make sure the organizations and initiatives I support focus on development over aid. I would requet you do the same. When making a donation, ask yourself: "Is this money going toward sustainable development—training and capacity building with the goal of self-sufficiency? Or is it going towards aid—giving something for nothing and creating a system of dependence?"

----
The book I quoted above is Demystifying Participatory Community Development, by Francis W. Mulwa, PhD of Development Studies. I would encourage anyone volunteering in Africa, or anywhere for that matter, to try to get their hands on a copy.

Micro-Credit Day

2009-05-28T08:59:00.005+03:00

Hello, Friends!

Hope everyone is doing well. I'm tired from staying up late last night to watch the Manchester United vs. Barcelona game with the ex-pat (motley) crew last night. David, my co-worker, told me to root for Barcelona, and they won two-nill. Coincidence? My host dad is a Man U fan though, as well as a lot of other Kakamegans, so he was disappointed with a capital D this morning. Hah! It's funny how much Kenyans follow UK footie. It was like the Superbowl for them.

It's unfortunate that I'm exhausted because Steve, the IGTS (Income Generation Training and Support) Coordinator and I have a full agenda today. We're going to visit existing loan clients in to see what they're up to (and hopefully collect some payments), do a needs assessment for a new women's group that wants to apply for a loan, and lastly, Steve is going to teach his weekly small business management class to about 15 'community learners'. After they finish the course, they'll have the opportunity to write a business plan and apply for a loan. Since funding is so limited this year, not many of them will get one.

Our loans are a little bit strange though—they're more grants than loans. Here's how it works for individual clients. We have four groups too, which I'll write about another time:

Applicants attend a once-a-week small business management class at one of our four community learning centres (CLCs) for 10 weeks. We use the classrooms after the regular students have gone home for the day. Steve covers topics like risk & reward, competition, bookkeeping and customer care.
At the end of the course, interested applicants fill out a business plan and loan request form. If the student doesn't speak English or can't write (yikes!), Steve translates and fills it out for them in English (All official business in Kenya is conducted in English).
An ACCES panel reviews the applications and short-lists the best ones. I think I'm going to be leaving Kenya right before this happens. Boo!! I’d really love to be part of it…
Steve visits the short-listed applicants' proposed business sites to check them out. For example, if someone wants to set up a kiosk to sell used shoes, he'll check out the site to see how much foot traffic it gets, if the people around seem like they have money to buy shoes, if there's secure storage, etc.
With the additional info from Steve's site visits, the panel decides whom to give the loan-grants to.
The recipient gets the money, and sets up their business. They have a one month grace period before they start paying it back.
The first repayment goes to ACCES to cover admin costs and the nine subsequent payments are made to KES, Kakamega Entrepreneurs Society. KES is a savings and credit co-op (SACCO) which we partner with. We are not licensed to make actual loans, so basically the client is putting money into a savings account (as far as I understand things.)
Steve visits each client every few months to see how they're doing: if they're making a profit, having problems and maybe reconcile their deposit receipts with the amount KES has down as them having deposited. KES keeps track of account balances on an Excel spreadsheet, so I’m sure mistakes are made.
In theory, the client "pays back" the rest of the balance over nine more months.
Once the client deposits 10,000 shillings (about $120) in their KES account, he or she gets to keep the money, and, in theory, use it to expand their business.

So I guess the point of giving our entrepreneurs "loans," then having them pay them back, then turning the money over to them at the end, is to (1) get them in the habit of saving/paying off a loan and (2) to establish a relationship with a SACCO to be able to take out real, bigger loans in the future.

It seemed pretty strange to me at first, because when you think about it, we’re basically giving out money. However, in light of the reduced funding at ACCES, as well as the dismal individual repayment rate of our clients, I think the IGTS program is headed toward providing loans vs. loan-grants for groups (since they do better repaying), and agricultural support for individuals. We’d subsidize individuals buying goats, chickens, banana plants, corn seeds and the like.

Switching from grants to loans will help a lot in terms of general program sustainability too. But it will mean we'll have to be a lot stricter on payment collection. (We're anything but strict right now.) And "real" loans will mean we'll have to introduce all sorts of complicated things like guarantors, collateral and default collections. Not fun. Or maybe we'll just do the small business training and support part and let an actual MFI handle the loan part.

Hugs,
Katy

P.S. Will has been home for a week now and is doing very well. Though his mom just left today to go back to NYC. ;-( Though it was so wonderful of her to stay as long as she did to provide moral support and home cooking. Anyway, drop by to say hello to Will if you're in the Los Feliz area.

P.P.S. I guess I should tell you how the teachers are doing on their reduced salaries — they're hanging in there. No one has quit yet. Many of them are taking loans from the teacher welfare group they're all members of to make ends meet for now. If you're the praying type, pray that our CIDA grant gets renewed!

Good News/Bad News

2009-05-11T09:16:00.001+03:00

The Good News (there's a lot of it!!)

Will

Will's surgery last Friday went very well. The surgeon and laser surgeon guy (that's his technical title, by the way) were in and out in three hours. Since they warned us that if they ran into complications, it could take as many as 1o hours, three was great. So, Will is sore, and understandably not excited about still being in the hospital (it's been almost a month now), but is relieved that everything went OK. He has one more surgery, on Monday, and hopefully will be back home in Los Feliz on Tuesday.

After I got this great news on Saturday morning, I felt comfortable enough with Will's situation to head to the Kakamega Forest for the rest of the weekend. Along with Chelsea, a fellow FSD intern (who's going home on Saturday, sniff sniff!) and Carolyn, who is working for another scholarship organization in Kakamega, we stayed in Corey's little forest house. Corey is a primatologist friend of ours collecting data on two troops of monkeys for a Columbia study. So, the four of us had a lovely girls' weekend and Chelsea, Carolyn and I learned what it's like to be a biology researcher in the field. In a word, glamorous. Here are the pictures—we saw dozens of Blue and Colubus monkeys. The Village Troop was completely comfortable with humans and if we stayed in one place, would run all around us.

RAIN

The rains came back on Sunday night—Mother's Day. It's been raining every day since, and sometimes all night, too: maybe Mother Nature is playing catch-up for the week she missed. So, I'm glad the farmers are out of the woods for now. Still, don't forget when you're driving your SUV and running your AC all night that you're not just changing the climate at home, your changing it EVERYWHERE. And here, people don't have the ability to adapt to climate change as easily as we do... If it stops raining here, rest assured that people will starve. I would say just a small percentage actually has the money to think about irrigation...

ALEXANDER RYAN

Danielle & Phil had their baby on Tuesday!!! I am so excited and can't wait to meet him. Everyone seems to be doing well. Bummed that I have to be so far away at a special time. Can't believe Danielle didn't schedule her offspring around MY travel itinerary! :-)

The Bad News: The budget for the rest of 2009

At work, we got our final budget numbers from Canada on Monday and they're pretty rough. I guess our grant from CIDA ran out in March, and it's unclear whether we're going to have a new one... We'll find out in June or July. The part that was the hardest for me was the fact that we're cutting teacher's salaries from about half of what they were to 150 shillings ($1.20) a day. That's how much I paid the mason's assistant for the rainwater project. The mason himself got 300. But the teachers are college-educated, trained professionals. Here's about how far 150 shillings will take them (keep in mind they are not paid for holidays or vacations.)

Soda - 25 shillings on the street, 40 at a midrange restaurant
Beer in Kakamega - 100 shillings (cheaper in the villages)
Brunch at Golf Hotel, nicest place in town - 500 shillings
Roundtrip matatu ride to Kakamega from the schools - 100 to 160 shillings
1 kilo of ugali flour - 40 shillings
Firewood for a day - 35 shillings
Glass of fresh juice in Kakamege - 30 shillings
Malaria test - 75 shillings
Medicine to treat malaria - 800 shillings

I am deeply disturbed by the whole thing, knowing how hard these teachers work. True, some of them only stay in our non-formal schools for a year, until they can get job at a public or private school (better salary, benefits, and a longer contract,) but some of them do it for the love of the kids. I can only hope that most of them have spouses who are also working. I've been stressing out all week over what I can do, but feel pretty helpless. I figured it would take about $1,500 per month to keep the 40 teachers at their current salaries. Should I give them some of my savings? Or at least curtial my Tusker lager intake and donate the money instead? As much as my first instinct is to throw money at the problem, would making a donation to ACCES to help with teachers salaries be a sustainable solution? What would be a sustainable solution?

The teachers get the news late today at the annual teacher meeting at the offices. We'll see how they take it.

Rain, The Recession and Reagan Med Center

2009-05-08T11:05:00.015+03:00

Today is a strange day.

First of all, the sky was hazy this morning on the way to work. Normally its clear and bright; I've not seen it like this before and it seems unnatural. It also hasn't rained in five days. The maize is starting to look a little lackluster. The word on the street is that it should rain EVERY day in the rainy season, with a break of one, or two days at the most. So this is irregular. Elizabeth's theory is that the rain patterns are changing because people have cut down so much of the Kakamega forest for firewood and settlements. My hunch is global warming may have a hand in it, too: the rains were pretty late this year. I've never paid so much attention to rainfall, but I've never lived in a agricultural community that doesn't use irrigation, either.

Second, the office is feeling very sedate today. We got word a few weeks ago that we'll have to cut our program budgets by 50%, and the reality of our new situation is sinking in. My understanding is that private donations from Canadians are down 30%, we will not be getting any of the usual grants (Rotary Club Canada, Wild Rose Foundation, etc.) that have been part of our annual budget for years, and CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) may cut our funding for this year entirely, or if our grant is renewed, it will be for a reduced amount.The recession has caught up with Kenya.

Thus, no new scholarships for 2009 for orphaned or extremely needy students (normally we do two rounds of scholarship applications per year), no personal effects or school supplies this trimester (toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, maxi pads, pencil, 3 pens and some binder paper) for the the existing high school and technical school students we sponsor (we may even have to drop some of the students entirely), no medical camps, no staff training or development, some elementary teachers may be fired (which is crazy, because they're stretched thin as is), no 10 o'clock tea, no mandazi (fried dough) on Fridays and no new mirco-loans. Additionally, two vacant positions will not be filled and we are considering moving to smaller offices.

Also, we are all grounded from doing local travel to the Centres until the final, revised, halved budget is approved in Canada. So I haven't been able to go out with Steve to continue teaching English to the adult learners or to start meeting our five loan groups. I want to pay for Steve's transportation with my own money (a trip to the field on a matatu is only about 2 dollars), but that wouldn't be fair to everyone else who's had to stay put. So I'll wait. I guess I could also try to go out alone, but I need Steve's help in translating in Luhya and Swahili a lot..

So even though this is all pretty devastating (to the kids the most), Kenyans are generally an upbeat bunch, and my coworkers are making the best of it -- joking when they can and rolling with the punches. We'll come through it. We're looking for additional grant funding possibilities on-line and I'm even checking out Kiva which Audrey at CG turned me onto, to see if we can partner with them. I'm excited about the Kiva possibility and would be thrilled if it works out. When I get a job and have an income, I'll look forward to sponsoring an orphan's school fees.

And lastly, as a lot of you know, my boyfriend is at UCLA Reagan hospital right now undergoing a series of pretty involved surgeries for a bacterial infection (long story—he blogs about it here). Today, I am coming to understand the meaning of the phrase "worried sick": My thinking is foggy (more so than usual!), my stomach is in a knot, I feel warm, my temples are tight and I feel exhausted, even though I got an (almost) full night of sleep. Everyone's been really supportive of both me and him, but I sucks being half way across the world when you wish you were home. Don't worry though: I'll be OK, and more importantly, he'll be OK, but I will be happy, relieved, and grateful when this is over and he doesn't have to deal with being sick or in pain, constantly having blood drawn and tests done, having to decipher various medical opinions, being stuck in the hospital, having to deal with insurance crap, etc, etc!

And actually, in writing this post, I'm feeling better already... therapeutic blogging.

Love from Africa and thanks for your support,

Katy

Rainwater Harvesting Project photo album

2009-05-04T15:57:00.008+03:00

I finished my FSD project! Though in the spirit of participatory community development, I should say, "The community finished its project, which I supported them in executing!" Which is the truth.

Here are the pictures. Hooray!

I originally scheduled two days of construction and it took seven. Typical. You should see my lessons learned document. If I wrote a "What I knew about rainwater harvesting systems going into this" doc, no doubt the lessons learned would be twice as long.

And yes, I know I didn't come here to do a water project, I came to do micro-credit and women's empowerment, but once I got here, I found that the greatest need in the community is water for our learning center school kids. Clean water will keep them healthy and able to avoid typhoid, diarrhea, cholera, etc. etc. If you want to see the grant proposal I wrote to FSD for the project (which took me a good week to put together!) I'd be happy to send it. I'm quite proud of it, and feel like I have a decent handle on grant writing now. When I get back and need a break from job searching day in and day out, I'd like to continue to try to write grants for ACCES.

Now to work on the micro-credit program, which will basically entail working with Steve (the micro-credit coordinator) on how to make the program viable, since our funding from Canada has been cut more than 50% in the last month. Oy.

Big hugs,
Katy

Life and Death in Kakamega

2009-04-06T15:29:00.004+03:00

Last night while having dinner, my host mom, who is an instructor at a teacher training college, announced that one of her students had died—he had drowned while swimming in a local river. He went under in a part of the river that was especially deep from old gold mining drilling. I'm guessing there was some sort of undertow or current as it seemed like he knew how to swim. It wasn’t clear to me from the story.

A friend tried to save him, but realized that he was getting pulled under too, and swam back. Some brave villagers by the river also tried to help, to no avail. Unfortunately, one was drunk, and ended up drowning too.

I was surprised to hear it, but not nearly as so as I would have been two months ago when I got to Kenya. Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard about someone dying or having something awful befall them about every fortnight. It seems like death is more a part of life here.

For example, in February, my boss informed us at a staff meeting that her brother had just died of HIV. She is my age, and is one of the sweetest, smartest and most honest people I’ve met in Kenya. However, it sounds like her older brother was not so good-hearted: after he was infected, he neglected to inform his wife, because he was too cowardly to tell her he had been unfaithful. She became infected and also died a few years ago.

Kate, another intern, works in a Catholic orphanage called “Divine Providence” two days a week, and in a local hospital lab the other three. I ran into her while walking home the other day and inquired about her day. She responded: “It was fine, but we lost one of the babies. When I came in this morning, it wasn’t there. Sister Pamela was vague about how it died; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some sort of accident. There was already another baby in its crib though—some street boys found it brought it in.” Despite the dark subject, Kate reported this all in the relatively matter-of-fact way she has, which always amuses me.

In Early March, Stellah, a college student interning here, told me that her uncle had stepped on a sharp stick while barefoot, and three days later had died from tetanus. By the time he realized he had an infection, it was too late. She would be away for a few days for the funeral.

Again, Kate, upon joining me for drinks in late March: “Sorry I’m late – something always happens at the hospital right before 5 and I can’t leave. These guys brought in a friend of theirs in because he couldn’t see or hear. He was just convulsing on the ground. They said he drank a bad batch of the local brew [which I’ve heard can contain awful things like embalming fluid.] I had to stay because they wanted to run a malaria test. Hah! It’s definitely not malaria. He’s probably going to be blind and have nerve damage the rest of his life, if he makes it at all.”

I communicate all this not to be depressing, but just because it stuck me how infrequently I come across death at home, and how commonplace and a part of daily life it’s become for me here.

The only person who’s died recently from something unavoidable is my FSD Program Coordinator’s father, who just passed away from prostate cancer at 93. Which is pretty impressive considering that the life expectancy here is something like 49. Hundreds of people came to the funeral. Neighbors, friends and family from out-of-town camped out under the stars on the family compound and mourned for a whole week. Luhyas, the main ethnic group/tribe in Kakamega, bury their loved ones on the family's compound, so that’s where Peter’s dad was laid to rest—at home where he’d lived for decades. His grave was behind his mud hut and in between his two wives’ huts, decorated with metallic streamers.

If you want to hear more about African funerals, my friend Emily wrote a pretty fascinating account of one when she was in Zambia. Scroll to the entry marked 10th May, 2005.

Cheers, be grateful, and watch out for those rusty nails,
Katy

Practically a native...

2009-04-01T21:18:00.000+03:00

After two months here, feel like I’m assimilating pretty well, and can almost qualify as an honorary Kenyan. The evidence:

I wear a skirt-sarong around the house.

I've had malaria.

I've hoed and planted the family shamba (field).

I consider doing dishes with running water a luxury.

My commute to work is on the back of a bicycle.

Sharing a 14-person passenger van or pickup truck, a.k.a, matatu, with 20 other people and a few chickens doesn't seem abnormal.

I buy my produce from wooden stalls by the road or off of sheets of plastic laid on the ground.

I buy clothes second-hand, from wooden stalls by the road or off sheets of plastic laid on the ground.

I don’t expect the electricity or water to work for 24 hours straight, and if it does, I’m surprised.

I expect the Internet at the office to work during the morning, and that’s about it.

I share one stapler with eight coworkers.

I don’t tip.

I don’t expect mixed drinks to have ice.

The family rooster is my alarm clock.

I'm not in the least surprised when a new government corruption story breaks.

I can use a squat toilet like a pro.

I pray before and after meetings, even though I don’t really understand when it’s in Swahili.

It’s not time to go to sleep until the mosquito net is up.

I say “Ei!” when surprised by something, as other interns have pointed out.

Excessive use of “By the way…” no longer seems excessive.

I’m starting to forget what lettuce, celery, broccoli, asparagus, spinach, radicchio, peaches, plums, berries, blue cheese, Parmesan cheese, string cheese, actually any decent cheese, soup, drip coffee, espresso, sandwiches, tuna, salmon, etc. etc. etc. taste like. Actually that’s a lie, I think about it all the time. I hear there’s sushi in Nairobi. It may be worth the 10 hour bus trip.

Speaking of which, nobody I know here has a car, save Julius and George my go-to taxi drivers whom I call for a ride after dark.

I boil or UV treat all drinking water.

I compost or burn my trash (aerosol cans are fun!)

When I go into a restaurant, the first thing I look for is the sink to wash my hands before eating.

I’m on a wedding planning committee for a co-worker.

I don’t necessarily think someone is necessarily well off if the have house help.

I eat dinner at 8:30 or 9:00 p.m.

I don’t expect toilets to actually flush properly.

I lock my windows shut after dark even though it’s 85 degrees in my bedroom.

I agree that soccer, rugby and cross-country are really the only sports worth watching.

I lock the front door using padlock.

I call corn "maize," the trunk the "boot" and use U.K. spelling (colour, centre, etc.)

If someone says that some is "black," I know that it means they have really dark skin, as opposed to being "brown." (My host mom is brown, my host dad is black.)

I know that the first ingredient in any good Kenyan meal is cooking fat.

I am pretty sure that reggae, regatone, hip-hop, church music, and African music (which sounds a lot like Latin music) are the only musical genres that exist. Oh, and Daniel’s Kenny Loggins on his Blackberry. My iPod was stolen the third week I was here, still working on getting it back… hah!

Why I’m clearly still a mzungu, besides the obvious difference of being a different color than everyone else:

I prefer the office's Western toilet to the pit latrine (I swear to God, some of my coworkers, who seem completely Western otherwise, use the outdoor office outhouse instead of using the toilet inside).
I don’t go to church every Sunday.
I am dying to open my window after dark.
I don’t love with sukuma wiki, the bitter greens that are the staple vegetable here.
I am of the opinion that the chocolate here sucks--Cadbury’s is to blame there.
My Swahili is not the best and I can only say Hello in Luhya – Mrembe.
I cannot walk in heels on the dirt roads like all the women do.
I will never understand this country’s infatuation with dubbed Mexican soap operas or World Wide Wrestling Federation Smackdown.

Though, I am starting to like Storm Over Paradise and Pasión more and more...

The Long Rains

2009-03-31T15:29:00.010+03:00

It's rained during the afternoon for three days in a row, so I think it's official that the season of the Long Rains has begun. Which I am very happy about, for the following reasons:

1. The rain cools everything down. Normally at this time in the afternoon it would be about 89 degrees in my little partitioned office. But it's refreshingly brisk. Seeing that I basically missed Winter this year, it feels great.

2. Our maize (corn) will grow. I spent Saturday with my host dad hoeing, fertilizing and planting the field next to our house (a.k.a., "shamba") and he said that as long as we got rain within a week, the maize would start sprouting and the seeds wouldn't die. After the rain Sunday afternoon, he proclaimed, "God loves us!" I told him I'd gone out to a village and had done a rain dance with the witchdoctor. ;-) Planting was hard, hard work, but a lot of fun. I've got some nice blisters on my hands and I think the soles of my feet may be permanently stained the color of the orange dirt.

3. The people will eat. A large number of people out here in the sticks of Western Province are subsistence farmers. So if it doesn't rain, and their crops don't grow, they are in big trouble.

So, it's a good thing all around. With the exception of women's hairdos: weaves, braids and extensions do not like getting wet. No good at all. Fortunately, most women have a shower cap or cloth to protect their hair, or in a pinch, a plastic bag. My hair just turns into a frizz bomb, which is nothing new..

To answer my questions from a few weeks ago:

What about everyone on the streets trying to get home, etc?

If you're inside and it starts pouring, you stay where you are and wait it out. If you're on the street, you duck under an overhang for however long it takes. If people see you running around and getting soaked, they will invite you to come under their thatch vegetable stall or whatnot. It's understood that meetings, etc. will be delayed accordingly.

What about all the mud-dung/ structures out in the villages? Do the walls hold up?

I think so... apparently these huts can last for forty years. You just re-dung the floors and walls once a year (it doesn't smell or anything) and re-thatch every couple of years.

What about the puppies at my fellow intern’s host family’s house? Dogs are NOT let inside here, so I guess they’ll just find a shed or barn to camp out in?

Awww, how sweet and American of me worrying about the dogs. I'm sure they're fine.

What about the all the women who line the road and sell used clothing and random kitchen supplies on my way home? Will they have to stop selling all of rainy season? Or is it so predictable that they know when to pack up?

Predictable. You can kind of tell when the clouds are gathering and it's about to rain -- it reminds me of the South West. The produce market operates if its a light rain, but everyone covers their goods or packs up if it starts pouring. Kids will continue to have recess and play soccer, hangout outside, etc. unless it really starts coming down.

What about the gang of street boys? Are the trash piles going to get too wet to sort through? Where do they sleep anyways? There’s another intern who just got here who is going to join an org that works with street kids, so I’ll find out soon.

Oy. Don't know about that one. Though everything dries pretty quickly in the sun, I can't imagine that getting soggy helps the garbage any. Yikes.

I've pledged to myself to keep these pretty short, so I'll sign off.

Love,
Katy

P.S. Mom & Dad: I got malaria last week but am fine now. It was like a getting food poisoning with a headache and joint aches. The great part was that my doctor's visit only cost 300 shillings ($4), my lab test was 50 shillings ($.65) and my malaria-and-pain killing medicine was only 8 bucks. Doctor Odongo was both the doctor and the cashier. Love it! And no insurance paperwork! Even better!

You can thank Will for making me go to the doctor, when I thought it was just an upset stomach and that I would be fine in a day. Hah! And yes, I was taking my Doxycycline (anti-malarial) but I guess it's not 100% effective, eh? :)

Lake Nakuru midterm retreat

2009-03-20T23:12:00.002+03:00

Hi All,

Sorry I've been slow about posting and thank you Hanwen for bugging me to.

So, I did try again to get to Imbale last Tuesday, and was able to make it out to the school, though Joseph had to come with me to the matatu stage (stop) and put me on the right one. Imbale is quite lovely -- the teachers lounge where they correct papers and such is outside at a picnic table under a thatch canopy and a lot of the school yard (a.k.a., the area behind the church which donated the land) is shaded by large eucalypti.

The site coordinator and teachers were very helpful and got all the older girls names and signatures for me quickly. I told them that Canada had approved our request to recommence the uji (porridge) program which had been cut from the 2009 budget. Thus, the kids had not been getting any porridge for two months. The site coordinators said that that was wonderful because the kids are pretty lethargic from being hungry. Keep in mind, the children at these schools are mostly orphans and from destitute homes -- most school kids in Kakamega are fine and seem to have plenty to eat--even if it is just beans and rice. Which is quite delicious.

When I got back to the office late in the afternoon, Liz was pissed off because she found out that we were only going to get four pads per girl, plus booklets on puberty and menstruation. Sigh. Oh well, better than nothing I guess. And the booklets will be good, because I don't think they have anything like that currently.

In other news, our midterm retreat to Lake Nakuru last weekend was fantastic. Angie and Damaris (our two site coordinators) hired a matatu which felt extremely roomy and luxurious with only the seven of us, plus driver and companion, as opposed to the normal 20 or so. It was a pimped out with a DVD PLAYER (I kid you not) on which we watched music videos the whole five hours there-- the selection included Sean Paul, Mariah Carrey, the Pussycat Dolls, and of course, lots of our favorite Nigerian hip-hop artists, P-Square. About one third of the trip there was on unpaved roads which did cause some skipping.

We stayed at a guest house in the park which we thought was quite nice, but that is according to our new Kenyan standards. In the U.S., I'm not sure if it would even get one star. It had a shower, much to the excitement of all the other interns who take bucket baths at home. At these times I keep my mouth shut, getting a hot shower every day.

I knew there would be flamingos at Lake Nakuru, but had no idea at the rest of the wildlife we'd see-- water buffaloes, storks, water bucks, baboons, vervet monkeys (who stole the bananas out of our van -- stupid monkeys) zebras, gazelles, wart hogs, impalas, three giraffes, three white rhinos, one black rhino and even a female lion! Here are my safari pictures.

The day after the safari we went to the Simba Wildlife Lodge in the park to have a snack and drinks. It was sooooooo nice -- 400 bucks a night I think. I think the way to go is to stay in a cheap guest house/hostel (ours was 500 shillings pp per night, which is about 6 bucks) and self-cater, but then have drinks or use the pool at one of the really swanky places.

Saturday night, we moved out of the park since it's a $60 fee for every 24 hours you're there (for Kenyans it's $4) to nearby Nakuru and stayed in another guest house. Again, we thought it was great, but if it had been the first place we'd seen getting off the plane in January, we'd have thought it was a dump. There was no stove in the kitchen, so the owners fired up some jikos for us to cook on (charcoal burning stoves).

After dinner, Daniel wanted to dance (quel suprise), and our driver/host really wanted to see this Kenyan rapper who was playing in town, Jina Kali, or something like that. So we piled into the safari van again (now party van) and went back out around 10 pm -- at night! Going anywhere after dark is an event, considering I'm usually at home with the windows shut and locked by sunset. The venue was like any decent partially outdoor club in L.A., and it was fun to see all the young vibrant Kenyans in their sexy, "smart" club attire: a good reminder that not all of Kenya is impoverished. Personally, I had to swallow my pride and go in trainers and clam diggers. Sexy.

The concert was good except for Jina Kali didn't come on until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning. Oy. I didn't think he was anything special but the Kenyans loved him. I got to see Damaris, our Kenyan site coordinator, dance up a storm and sing the words to every song. Very cute. On the downside, every time we walked through the crowd to get to a place to dance, the two guys would have to extract several prospecting hands from their wallet pockets, and the girls would have to cover each others' behinds, else they be grabbed. I was on patrol for Damaris.

And I hate to say it, but I didn't see a bad dancer out of the thousand or so people who were there. Kenyans have got rhythm, I tell you! I tried to blend in--ha ha hah. Speaking of blending in, we saw a few other mzsugus in the crowd; I am always amused by how immediately suspicious I become-- what are they doing here? Traveling? Working? Volunteering? Studying abroad?

The other interns say that they react similarly. We joke that most of the rules from thingswhitepeoplelike.com (which should really be called "what upper-middle class yuppies like") apply to us, including #71 Being the only white person around. Anyway, I know I'm going to get heat from you guys about being racially insensitive and unPC, but isn't it allowed if you're making fun of yourself?

Back in Kakamega, I saw some mzungu backpackers yesterday and thought they looked hilarious. It would be like seeing a bunch of random tourists tromping around Orinda or something -- what are they here to see? Maybe the Kakamega Forest? Dunno. I felt a little bit protective of Kakamega-- Are Kakamegans like wildlife that you want to watch? Hm. It's one thing if you're proud of your community and want to show it off, it's another if you feel like you're being objectified or observed out of curiosity by someone who you know--despite their grubby clothes--is several times wealthier than you.

On a similar note, I can never be mad at all the kids, teenagers, mamas, etc. who giggle at me in the street, because in a way it gives them power over me. Which is fine, because I'm the one invading their town, knowing that 99.9% of them will not be able to be a tourist in my town. As much as I try to fit in and LIVE here, in many ways, I'm still a cultural tourist. Not sure if what I'm saying makes sense or not: I guess it's just different dynamic touring a place that is economically similar to the U.S., like Western Europe, vs. visiting a country that is much poorer.

Anyway, off to have my favorite meal at Dona Caf for lunch: beef, cabbage/carrots and rice. (Kenyans like to abbreviate "cafeteria" or Cafe to Caf, Computer to Comp, etc. Hah!

Maxipad Mission

2009-03-10T01:34:00.000+03:00

Maxipad mission

Written Monday afternoon 3/9/09

This morning, Clara (office administrator) and Elizabeth (Gender & Health Coordinator) announced that Always (of maxipad fame) is donating supplies to local girls who can’t afford their products. This is great news because at the nine primary schools ACCES runs, the older girls in 6th, 7th and 8th grade will often stay home and miss class when they have their periods, because they can’t afford pads. (Though come to think of it, what did women do before pads? I’ll have to ask…)

The Always people are coming through Kakamega tomorrow, and to get the supplies, we have to give them school rosters with the girls’ names and signatures, signed and stamped by the school nurse.

Given this mission, Clarah, Liz and Maggy and I all dropped our plans for the day and divvied up which schools each of us would go to. I’d never gone out to the field on my own before, but it was now or never. The girls need pads!!! Liz didn’t know how many they would actually get, but I was hoping for a year’s supply each.

I grabbed my blank rosters and walked from the office to the gas station where the matatus (passenger vans) pick up passengers. Once they fill up (i.e., smoosh 20 or so people in the 15 seats) they can leave for their destination.

I think I’ve mentioned before that it’s to one’s advantage to find a van that’s almost full to avoid having to sit around. The downside of this system is that the touts will fight over passengers, and it’s impossible to walk by matatus without being asked “Madame, where are you going? Where are you going?” I’ve even seen the touts take old mamas by the arm and physically lead them to their vans. Hah!

Normally, someone from ACCES finds the right matatu, haggles over how much we’ll pay and I just stand back and watch the show. But when I got to the station alone, I was swarmed by matatu touts, harassing me to get in their van. I didn’t see the minibus we’d taken the last time, so went with a tout whose matau who said he was going to Imbale. A few people in the matatu even motioned for me to come join them – Kuja! Kuja!

Though I’ve been to five out of the nine ACCES schools, I couldn’t necessarily tell you which road each is on. I haven’t actually seen a map of the greater Kakamega area, except for the very general one in my Kenya Lonley Planet. All I remember about the Imbale school was that it was a really rough dirt road, and it was further out than the other schools – it took maybe an hour or 45 minutes to get there.

Once happily situated in my van, feeling proud of my new independence, I decide the next order of business was to get some food, as I’d be gone all day and only had tea and bread for breakfast. Vendors will walk from matatu to matatu selling snacks, so I bought some bananas from a woman selling them from a basket.
Shortly after, some street boys, probably about 9 or 10 years old, came up to my window and started asking for pesa (money). I’m sure their ripped t-shirt and trousers had once been different colors, but they’d long since become a light brown/grey color that is the uniform of street boys. I instead gave them a banana each and told them to stop sniffing the super-smelling glue from a small, plastic much-refilled container one had.

I was surprised when they gave me back the bananas through the window. Ingrates!
However, a young bespeckled guy sitting behind me, wearing a button down and slacks, informed me that I had bought Cooking Bananas, not Sweet Bananas. Right.

So I waited for another vendor to come to the window and bought some peanuts (ground nuts here) and cookies (biscuits) and shared with the two urchin boys. After that I shut my window to try to get them to leave me in peace but they loitered.

Meanwhile, the guy behind me had gotten out of the matatu in search of a Sweet Banana vendor for me. He came back a few minutes later, followed by a cart banana vendor. Hah. So I got my sweet bananas after all.

When the matatu finally filled up, we pulled out of the gas station/matatu stop and headed off at around 10 am – only an hour or so wait! Great. A nice woman next to me, in a smart (sharp) grey skirt suit, looked at my instructions from Maggy: first I was to go to Imbale, then Shivagala school. She looked at the paper a little quizzically. Not a good sign.

After bumping along for 45 minutes in the rickety matatu, picking up and dropping off passengers every 200 meters, we hadn’t turned onto the dirt road that I remembered. I asked the tout again – “Are we going to Imble?” “Ndyio, tunaenda” (Yes, we’re going.) Hmm… I was starting to think that maybe he’d lied to me just to get me on the matatu and take my fare (not unheard of, especially with mzungus (foreigners).

After another 10 minutes, I started seeing signs for a town called Mbale and assumed that When we pulled up to the Mbale market, I alighted (got off), hoping that Imbale was a nickname for Mbale or something. I was immediately swarmed with boda boda (bicycle taxi) and piki piki (motorbike taxi) guys looking to supply me with transport on the next leg of my journey. I showed them my paper and they passed it around, all looking at each other and grabbing it from one another and asking questions about my destination.

I told them I was going to a shoole kidogo, a small school where the kids were orphans and didn’t wear uniforms like most school kids. Finally one said he knew it, so we agreed on a price and I got on the boda boda. We pedaled through the market and started heading to the “interior”. He pedaled slowly and pretty soon I realized he had no idea where he was going. I told him to turn around and

Long story short, Mbale and Imbale are definitely NOT the same place, and after asking more people all over town if they knew Imbale, I had to go back to the office, defeated, because it was too late in the day to try to get to Imbale (my little jaunt started at 8:30, and I didn’t get back until 2:30). Mbale is probably only 20 miles away, but such is transportation in Kenya. I thought it was all quite hilarious and would have been a fun adventure and a great story, if it had not been for my failed mission. I was pissed off at the possibility of these girls not getting their pads because of my ineptitude. I swore that if I couldn’t get those names again on Tuesday, I would take the money for the pads out of my seed grant money or my own pocket.

When I got back to the office those who had not gone out to the field were apologetic but also agreed with me that it was pretty funny. I plan to try again Tuesday with a home-made map and a little help from a co-worker in getting on the right matatu.

More soon...

Chopped Liver

2009-02-25T14:01:00.000+03:00

I had liver last night for the first time I as long as I can remember. But what am I here for, if not to try new things? I didn’t like the smell at first, but got used to it and finished all but one of the little chopped pieces I took. That’s right, chopped liver.

The hub of culinary innovation and diversity Kakamega is not. Food options are pretty straight-forward and it seems to me that every meal is composed of a starch, a protein (if you can afford it), and some shredded greens.

The starch options are: white rice, fries, ugali (a stiff porridge made from corn flour) or chipati (like naan).

For protein you’ve got chopped beef, chopped liver, oxtail, chicken, kidney beans, lentils or fish, including the head. Oh, and goat and lamb!

About the only "side dish" I've seen is stewed cabbage and carrot.

And that’s it! I have yet to encounter a meal which disproves this theory.

Except for the predictability of it all, I’ve been very happy with the food, because there’s nothing I like better than beef stew, rice and naan. The fish, liver and tough chicken have taken more adjustment, but can also be good. I’ve also gotten used to the ugali, which reminds me of Cream of Rice, a.k.a. “mush” we would have for breakfast growing up. It’s served in a giant mound the width of a small pizza pan and four or five inches high, then cut into slices. You take a hunk/slice, then break off pieces of with your fingers, roll the piece into a little ball, make a divot in the middle of the ball with your thumb, then load it up with meat, soup (meat juice) or greens. It’s the same idea as Indian naan or chipati—it acts as a scooper.

Fortunately for me, the beef stew is really good at our house. My host mom makes it with tomatoes, onions, garlic, maybe some green pepper, curry powder and some packaged spice mix which no doubt contains MSG.

When we had fish, also stewed with the above-mentioned ingredients, she asked if I wanted the head. Ehhhhhrrrr... Apparently if you serve fish to a Luo (Obama’s dad’s tribe) without the head, he or she will refuse to eat it. “How do I know it’s fish?” Mama Susan says they’ll ask. How indeed.

When we had chicken, the whole thing save the feet and head, went in the pot (I’m sure you didn’t see that one coming). I stuck to eating the drumsticks and avoided the neck and carcass--I couldn't tell where the breasts were. I remember reading somewhere that because Americans eat so many chicken breasts, the dark meat is often frozen and sold to Eastern Europe and the feet go to China. Imagine different parts of the same chicken being consumed tens of thousands of miles away from each other.

Besides breakfast, I eat about 1/3 of my meals with my hands. Anytime you have ugali, you won't see silverware. To facilitate all of this, there are sinks to wash your hands before eating in restaurants and dining rooms. If you don’t have running water, you take turns pouring a pitcher of water over each other’s hands over a plastic basin.

Dessert is a slice of mango, pineapple or watermelon, all of which are the best I’ve had anywhere. There are oranges too, but they're nothing special. I didn’t like mango before I came to Kenya, and now I have it every chance I get.

(Fruit salad at the Golf Hotel, the fanciest place in town.)

In general, the fruits and vegetables here are smaller than back home – 1/3 to ½ the size we’re used to, but have about twice the flavor. I may have to start buying organic and seasonally when I get home, after being spoiled by the produce here…

Yours,
Katy

Update: I wrote this on Feb. 18th and it is now the 25th, and currently I am tired of the monotony of the food and want a sandwich in the worst way. With lettuce. Which I've not seen once in Kakamega.

From dust to mud

2009-02-24T05:28:00.000+03:00

2-23-09 6:30 pm

You haven’t heard it rain until you’ve heard it rain on a tin roof. It sounds like a continuously crashing wave at the beach…

I’ve been going out to the nine elementary schools ACCES runs the past few weeks, and out in the countryside, everyone’s got their fields ploughed and ready to plant corn. I wonder if this downpour signals the start of the rainy season… I think it usually starts in mid-March. It also could just be a late afternoon shower, like the ones we had everyday the first week I was here. I welcome the rain as it’s so hot in the ACCES office in the afternoon, I can hardly work. It’s also been really dusty.

However, as I sit here inside my host family’s house, having my Cadbury’s “drinking chocolate” for Tea, I have to wonder how Kakamega deals with the Long Rains, since so much of life here is carried out on the streets and in the open…

What happens to our three chickens when it pours like this? Where will they go?

What about my host parents, who aren’t home from work yet? My host mom takes a motorbike-taxi a half hour to and from work every day – is she getting soaked? I think my host dad walks. What about everyone who takes boda bodas? Are you supposed to carry an umbrella? Just get soaked?

What about all the mud-dung/ structures everywhere? Do the walls hold up?
What about the puppies at my fellow intern’s host family’s house? Dogs are NOT let inside here, so I guess they’ll just find a shed or barn to camp out in?

What about the all the women who line the road and sell used clothing and random kitchen supplies on my way home? Will they have to stop selling all of rainy season? Or is it so predictable that they know when to pack up?

What about the gang of street boys? Are the trash piles going to get too wet to sort through? Where do they sleep anyways? There’s another intern who just got here who is going to join an org that works with street kids, so I’ll find out soon.

Oh, just figured out what the chickens are up to – I can see them out the window and they’re having a field day in the grass, getting soaked, looking at the sky. Go figure.

The Boda Boda Life

2009-02-17T16:30:00.001+03:00

This is an experiment to see if a picture will get e-mailed out and posted on my Facebook Notes page. I think this photo, or "snap" as they all say here, sums up my life in Kakamega pretty well. My coworker Elizabeth took it, while riding another boda boda, on the way back to the office after lunch. It was too darn hot to walk. Yikes, I realize my highlights are growing out... not sure what to do about that. Cut it all off? But then I won't have anything to keep the back of my neck from burning...plus, I can't imagine any of the salons here, many of which are also electronics shacks, have any idea how to cut misungu hair. Maybe in Nairobi? Hmmmm.

Mom and all -- looks like you can click on a picture from the actual blog post itself to see it full size.

On Selma and breastfeeding in Africa

2009-02-13T16:41:00.000+03:00

I'll try to make this shorter than last week... got a little carried away about the chickens..

Will let me know about a video that was posted to You Tube of Selma Hayek breastfeeding an African baby on Friday, which he said was viewed more than a million times in less than a day. Hah! Good on her! (as an Aussie would say) He also informed me that the "worst part is, apparently Sierra Leon has the worst childhood mortality rate in the world (25% don't make it to 5, or something unbelievable like that) because they're rarely breastfed, because the enlightened Sierra Leoni men won't have sex with their wives while they're breastfeeding, so the men make them stop...." NICE, guys, nice.

I told my coworkers Liz (Gender & Health Coordinator) and Maggie (Nurse) about the breast feeding thing and they're aghast! Liz wants to know what the rate of breast cancer is in Sierra Leone and says it's probably be higher than normal from the women NOT breastfeeding. She also says that if you breastfeed exclusively it acts as a family planning method. Biologically that makes perfect sense. Who knew!

I was going to go out to the field (aka to one of the nine elementary school/adult education centers we run) with Maggie today to hear her give a talk about preventing mother to child HIV/AIDS transmission, but a kid had an epileptic attack this morning at one of the centers, so she took off to attend to that. The kids in our schools are orphans, ex-street kids, or from reeeeeally poor families, so she found a place that will give the kid free health care. (Very glad to hear that.) So we'll do the talk tomorrow.

I know you're disappointed that *you'll* be missing the talk, so in case you're curious, it's not that hard to avoid transmitting AIDS to an infant, as long as an HIV positive mother:

* doesn't feed the baby from a breast that is infected or if a nipple is cracked or bleeding (I'm laughing at the idea of Eli reading this at work...)
* bottle feeds if the baby has any mouth sores
* uses condoms to prevent reinfection. Becoming reinfected ups the amount of HIV in the mother's system, which increases the likelihood of transmission.

Despite the small additional risk of breastfeeding, it's still recommended that rural women breastfeed instead of bottle feed if they're HIV positive because

* of the benefit of the antibodies and nutrition in breast milk
* they may not have the money required to buy formula
* they may not have the time to gather wood to sterilize the water for the formula
* they may not have the time to prepare formula 12 x per day (women here work HARD)

It's funny, breastfeeding in public is completely normal here. Moms will nurse in the middle of the market, church, wherever. I think it makes sense--what's the big deal? But of course, this is coming from me, she who thinks beaches should be topless to avoid tan lines, like the South of France! (I know that Danielle's rolling her eyes as she reads this!) I showed Liz and Maggie a "cover up" I found on-line that you can buy as not to offend anyone when breastfeeding in the U.S., which they think is hilarious. I did a double take on seeing the blond women with a little pink baby modeling the cover-up, as I've seen nothing but cute African babies for three weeks straight now, and forgot that babies even come in any other color but dark brown.

In closing, I think it's ironic how here in Kenya, displaying a breast is natural and acceptable for women, and yet wearing shorts is scandalous. Not that that stops some of the University Girls—as we are fond of calling them—from dressing like hoochies. At least until their parents get home! I guess some things are universal! :-)

Cheers to Ms. Hayek!

Your misungu,
Katy

P.S. Yeah I know that wasn't much shorter than last time... I'll work on it..

What is normal?

2009-02-07T08:53:00.000+03:00

7:30 pm
Things are starting to feel normal for me here, but it’s funny how strange they might have seemed two weeks ago.

When I got home an hour ago, I had late afternoon tea, which means chai and bread with margarine. Kenya is, after all, a former British colony! The half-water half-whole milk combo used for tea is boiled in the morning and kept in a thermos all day so that it’s still hot for afternoon tea.

I can smell the beef stew cooking in the kitchen... Mama Susan is making dinner from scratch like she, and the vast majority of other Kenyan wives do, every night, seven days a week. (I would not be a very good Kenyan wife.) On a side note, we have been having meat almost every night, which I was not expecting. Daniel, one of the other FSD volunteers, said that is definitely not the case with his host family.

Steve, who’s in 8th grade, just got home from school, after leaving this morning at 5 or something crazy. After seeing how hard these kids work, I will never have a shred of pity for American school kids again! :-)

My host dad is in the process of locking all the windows and closing the drapes, as we do ever night when it gets dark for, as they say here, “security.”

Before she started cooking, Mama Susan gave me my clean folded laundry, which a house-helper hand washed and line dried today. She comes once a week to help with laundry. In Kenya, it’s demeaning to wash another’s underwear, so I do that myself.

There’s a hose going from the kitchen sink going out the window, filling up a giant 50 gallon tank in the kitchen annex, to use when there’s no water. There are several of these jugs around, which made sense to me when Mama Susan says they went for four days without water one time.

I’m also saving this Word doc a lot, so that I don’t lose it if the power goes out. It went out for a half hour on Wednesday, when Mama Susan was right in the middle of making dinner on the electric portion of the stove (it has gas and electric burners, but we’re out of gas). When it didn’t look like the power would come back on after 10 minutes, she busted out the wood-burning stove (there’s a fireplace in the kitchen) and finished cooking on it. I was SO impressed.

I can hear the 7 o’clock news is in Kiswahili on the TV. I try to listen sometimes to catch words here and there, but have to wait for the 9 o’clock news in English if I actually want to understand anything.

Finally, the two kukus and jugo (chickens and one rooster) just came in for the evening – every night around dusk, they meander into the kitchen annex clucking away and wait for one of us to come and lift up the upside-down basket that constitutes their coop. Then, they head under it, with some flapping of wings and more clucking, to hit the proverbial hay after a long day of poking around the shimba (family garden.) This is probably my favorite part of the day as they crack me up every time. I took a video of the daily ritual last night so I can share when I get home. (I can’t imagine trying to upload video on a dial-up…)

Speaking of kukus, an interesting fact I just learned tonight: apparently, if you only have hens, they’ll take off and find a neighbor’s rooster to shack up with. If you only have a cock, he’ll leave, in search of hens. So you have to have both sexes for them to not run away. We will keep the chickens until they stop laying eggs, but the rooster’s not so lucky – he’ll hit the dinner table much earlier in life and be replaced. :-( Mama Susan says she herself doesn’t like to do the deed, but fortunately Steve and my host dad are experts.

On Tuesday, I knew we were having kuku for dinner, because Mama Susan said that she had ordered one from a guy on Monday (ours are too young to eat ). I was expecting to witness the slaughter, but el pollo had long since made it into the stew pot by the time I got home. The method (skip this if you’re squeamish) involves holing the wings down with your feet and cutting the head off with a knife, as quickly as possible to spare unnecessary pain. As soon as you de-head it (I can’t bring myself to say be-head), it goes straight into a pot of boiling water, which helps with the plucking/defeathering.

I was a little bit disappointed to have missed it, because I’m a big proponent of “If you can’t deal with killing it yourself, or at least seeing it being killed, you shouldn’t be eating it,” but at the same time, I think it’s probably better that I didn’t witness my dinner transitioning from animal to food, as I would have (a) passed out (b) cried or (c) intervened and tried to recue the chicken. And quite possibly would never eat chicken again – after all, Danielle doesn’t eat lamb as a result of seeing one slaughtered in China...

The chicken wasn’t bad – the meat is significantly darker, and MUCH tougher her than in the States, as a result of there being no such thing as a NON free-range chicken in Kenya. Once you get used to the extra chewing, it’s quite flavorful. The liver is a delicacy and goes to the head of the household, aka the father. It probably goes without saying, but the entire chicken, save the head and feet, went into the pot.

Mugo (moo-go), our Kiswahili teacher from orientation, also teaches life skills to Peace Corps trainees, which includes instructing them how to kill their poultry. You can’t get pre-packaged chicken here, so it’s do it yourself, or go without. (Skip again if you have a weak stomach.) He told us a story about one volunteer was eager to do try her hand at doing it, but mid-neck cut, freaked out and started crying (this would be me, btw). Mugo told her she had to finish the job, as the chicken was in pain, but she was in hysterics and refused. Finally, another volunteer intervened and put the poor bird out of its misery. I guess no kuku for her during her two years of service! As my stomach was churning and I was getting light-headed hearing all this, I was thanking God that the whole Peace Corps thing didn’t work out for me.

Time for dinner... I’ll send this after, as it takes a while for the dial up modem to do its thing.

Love from Afrika,
Katy

P.S. Yes, it's Friday night and I'm home on the computer. Rockin'! :)

First Days of Work

2009-02-03T16:45:00.000+03:00

It's 4:30 pm and I just finished my second day with my host organization, ACCES, African Canadian Continuing Education Society. Canadian is part of the name as the whole place is funded by the Canadian International Developmet Authority, the Canadian counterpart to USAID. They/we have the following programs:

1. Nine primary schools (grades 1-8), 4 of them which have adult education contingents.

2. Scholarships for children whose families would otherwise be unable to afford secondary school (high school), vocational training or university. They are going to give 263 full scholarships this year. Currently the common area is full of bags for the students, each containing a blanket, sheet, laundry soap and a few other necessities.

3. Health, (esp. HIV/AIDS) & Gender Education for those schools, as well as Health Care.

4. Small business management education, at the four adult education centers, and small business loans for those who have completed the class series.

I'll be helping with the last two—women's empowerment and micro-credit.

I currently have a little desk in an partitioned-office with Maggie and Elizabeth. Maggie is the ACCES nurse and is soft-spoken, sweet, smart and unassuming. She is petite and has short hair (shorter than Doris') and is a new mom. Elizabeth (Liz) is the Health Education Coordinator, is friendly, imposing and says she's as tall as I am (she's got about 8 inches to go.) Liz jokes that Maggie's new son is huge, and is going to be bigger than her in no time flat.

When I showed up for work yesterday, Liz had on pinstripe slacks and a button down. D'oh!! If I had known the office dress code, I would have brought my work pants! Oh well. I've been getting lots of compliments on the two peasant skirts Katrina made for me, and Liz said that they're perfect for going into the field, where the women won't listen to what you're saying if you're not wearing a long skirt. Too funny.

Steve is the Micro-finance guy, is very nice and laughs easily (though most here do). He usually has a Christian radio station on in his office. This place feels like a principal's office combined with a community center -- kids and parents coming and going, folks from the community coming in to talk about their loans, etc.

Lucy is the Scholarship Coordinator, and is currently acting as Program Director as well (she's as busy as I'm sure David is doing two jobs). She is tall and lean. Her personality is direct, caring, friendly. She doesn't mess around in getting stuff done. So far I've seen no evidence of the Kenyan Time here. Everyone is in by 8... maybe this will be the dawn of a new, earlier schedule for me?

There's a nice breeze that blows through the open windows and the sounds that waft in from outside include kids playing, goats bleating, cows mooing, birds cawing, and maintenance men sawing tree branches for makeshift fences by hand. It's a very pleasant environment overall. I don't have my own computer (again, should have brought a laptop) but folks here are in the field enough that I think I'll be able to use one (like now) at least once a day, depending on workload. There's a short gray and white cat that runs around too, and though I'm not supposed to touch any animals I may surreptitiously befriend it.

I've spend the past two days divided between reading ACCES literature and tagging along with Liz and Steve making visits to the program sites.

Yesterday I went with Liz via boda bodas (a bike with a seat on the back for a passenger that usually cost less than 50 cents to go anywhere in town) to one of the schools that hadn't turned in their paperwork for January. She met with the site coordinator (principal) and two Peer Mentors briefly, and after took me into the five classrooms that comprised the school. They were just like the schools you see in CARE, Save the Children, etc. brochures -- dirt floors, mud/cow dung walls (don't worry, it didn't smell) and 25 or so ADORABLE barefoot, wide-eyed kids in each, wearing regular clothes instead of uniforms (which is standard here) sitting at little wooden bench/desk combos that fit four or five across. There was a blackboard in the front of each class and an enthusiastic teacher. We visited the 2nd/3rd grade combined class and the second Liz and I walked in, the kids jumped to attention and replied to the teachers request to welcome us: "Karibu!" in almost perfect unison.

Even though these classrooms were pretty bare bones, the kids seemed happy, full of energy, and to be learning a lot.

Today, I visited a school (via matatu, boda boda and finally by foot) with Steve, where he lectured a group of 10 adult learners on small business management. They were all women, mostly older, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was because Steve is a charming guy. I didn't understand much because it was all in Kiswahili, but I got the jist that they were discussing Risk, Reward, Opportunities, Challenges, and such.

Most of them will do some sort of farming: sugar cane, tea, cabbage, kale, carrots, corn (or maize as they call it here), wheat, etc.

Phone and mailing address

2009-02-02T21:43:00.000+03:00

P.S. Call Me! Send me stuff! :-)

My cell here: +254 (716) 415-353.
We're 13 hours earlier, so just switch the am to pm and add 1, e.g., 4 pm PST is 5 am Kenyan time.

I will be working 8 to 5, so anytime between 5p and 10p on weekdays is fine, or on the weekend after 9 am or so. You can also text me.

Mailing:

My name
c/o: FSD
P.O. Box 1124
Kakamega, 50100 KENYA

Most of the roads here don't have names, and the houses/shacks certainly don't have numbers, so everyone just drops off and picks up mail at the Posta. Love it.

Fires & Obama-mania

2009-02-02T21:35:00.000+03:00

Hi, all,

Apologies for the delay in writing. It’s been a busy week of orientation and I have limited computer access. (I really wish I had brought a laptop!) I moved in with my host family on Saturday, and living with them couldn’t be further from the mud-floor, pit-latrine, bucket-shower life I was imagining. They have a shower with instant hot water (usually you flip a switch and wait 10 minutes for the water to heat up), a new refrigerator and a computer (with wireless dial-up internet - I don't think there's a landline). They’ve made me feel very welcome and even painted the whole house before I arrived (Of course it wasn’t JUST for me, but having a house guest is definitely good motivation to finish home-improvement projects.) My host parents speak near perfect English – it’s going to be hard to learn Swahili when I can revert to English so easily. My host father (babu) works for the government doing gender equality training and some social work and my host mother (mama) teaches primary level (elementary school) teacher certification (AND human resource management once a week.) And cooks dinner from scratch every night. I don't know where she finds the energy. She says "one gets used to it!" My host father whistles all the time while he’s working around the house and has a deep, jolly laugh. They're both extremely sweet. Susan (host-mama) is letting me help her cook Luhya and Kikuyu traditional food (she is Kikuyu and he is Luhya). They have three children, ages 11, 15 and 17. All three go to different boarding schools, but there was a fire in the dorm of the youngest, (Steve) so he’s home while the school looks for alternate housing. The fire was at 5 am, but these kids start EARLY, so they were long off to their pre-breakfast study session. Nuts.

Speaking of which, it’s been a bad week in Kenya for fires. In Nairobi, a Nakumat (basically like a Target) burned to the ground killing 27 – including a Kenyan celebrity actor. There were reports that when the fire first began with a generator, people started heading for the door, but the guards thought they were stealing so locked the doors. Ei yi yi. Additionally, there was not adequate water available for the firefighters. Then, on Saturday, a tanker overturned on the road a few hours from Kakamega. As scores of locals ran to steal the petrol, some idiot lit a cigarette. You can imagine what happened. So far, over a hundred people have been reported dead. My host mom said that the same thing happened 3 years ago, but that Kenyan's don't learn. The president has declared that all flags fly at half-mast this week and that the tanker victims get top notch medical care (this is ironic to me considering how many others around the country have no health care, period, or are dying of preventable diseases like malaria. Hello, PR.

On a more positive topic, this country is IN LOVE with our president, their own native son. Walking down the main drag (the A-1), I’ll get, in this order of frequency “Hihowareyou,” “misungu” or “Obama!” Misungu means “foreigner,” or, literally “explorer.” It’s not derogatory, just descriptive. But it does get old. Obama’s face also graces the back of matatus (minibuses), posters for sale and the odd t-shirt or roadside banner. Most of them feature el presidente in front of a Kenyan and American flag. Awwww. My host parents said that many Kenyans are looking at the US as a positive example of a country that’s overcome racism, and are inspired to stop their own tribal racism. The majority of folks here identify more with their tribe as opposed to being Kenyan, though hopefully as they intermarry more and more, that will lessen. The major political parties are aligned along tribal lines, which can result in violence during elections. Apparently, other Americans were being congratulated “on a peaceful election” before I got here. The things we take for granted!

Time for bed. I miss you guys! I have yet to have a dream about Kenya – they’re all about home.

Love,
Katy

Hajambo from kakamega!

2009-01-26T16:42:00.001+03:00

Hello from the kakamega cyber cafe! I started a post yesterday but about 20 min into it, it started raining and the power at the internet cafe went out (this is normal). i'll be careful this time and save as i go, though i think it's stopped raining for the time being.

so much has happened already i could spend hours writing about it, but i'll pick a few things...

smells

the first thing that hit me getting off the plane in Nairobi was the smell. it reminded me so much of India, a bit like grain fermenting or decomposing. very ripe. also, once in the terminal, another familiar India scent: serious BO. Deodorant has not reached east Africa, I'm afraid. in the guest house where we're staying for orientation, every time someone walks by, their scent precedes and follows them. good stuff.

kiswahili

today we had a couple of firsts with damarus and angie, two of the three kakamega program coordinators. 1. our first kiswahili lesson -- it turns out that the language is kiswahili and the people are Swahili. who knew. kiswahili is very phonetic and a lot of fun, but my head is swimming with vocab and phrases and i'm so afraid that i'll wake up tomorrow and remember nothing.

food

at lunch today, we tried eating with our hands kenyan style for the first time. there's a white corn mush called ugali, that you use to wrap around other pieces of food and pick them up with. i really liked it. angie is easing us into kenyan food: until today, all the food has been familiar at the guest house restaurant- curries and omelets (sadly no cheese). We've been having meat at every meal but once we're with our host families after orientation, meat will be less common.

But no worries about not getting enough to eat -- apparently all the women in the program GAIN wait, in reaction to all the starchy and fried food. The men lose weight. (weird.) Fortunately Trina's skirts have drawstrings, heh heh.

kakamega

The A-1 highway and a few other roads in kakamega are paved, but the rest are dirt. The town has two gas stations, a few restaurants, and people everywhere. there are bike taxis, bodabodas, all over the place. they have a little padded seat on the back that you ride, sidesaddle if a woman. boda bodas and these little vans with four rows of seats, serve as public transport. the "conductors" of the vans, aka matatus, mash as many people as possible into them, (i've seen four per row and these things are barely wider than a minivan), so the strategy is to find one that's already pretty full so you won't have to keep stopping to pick up more people along the way to your destination. angie also advised us to put on a seatbelt as soon as we get in so that we'll only have to share the row with two other ppl (there are three seat belts per row) and also to avoid getting a pricey ticket if pulled over.

the matatu we took from the kisumu airport had rusty floors and tacky curtains but was outfitted with a flat screen tv. during the 1.5 hour ride, which was one of the bumpiest in memory, we were treated to music videos of p-squared, this hip hop duo. u-tube them and you'll be in for a treat. a lot of matatus also have crazy decals on the sides with random english words or phrases. ours had "respect" on it. word.

speaking of english, all the signs and more than half the tv here is in english (we had british cnn this morning covering the SAG awards). i don't know what i was expecting, but i'm surprised that english is so prevalent. everyone in the streets speak kiswahili, but also know pretty decent english. i guess that is what happens when you are a former english colony (also like india).

kakamega feels a lot like many of the indian small towns i visited in 2006. i'm glad to have had that introduction to rural developing country life, or it might be a little shocking thinking that this is my new home for six months. there are vendors along the roads selling their fruits, vegetables, bike parts, used purses, locks, used books out of makeshift stalls (tree branches and weather-worn plastic sheeting) or just on some plastic on the ground.

attire ranges from perfectly pressed fancy dresses for church (yesterday was sunday), to ratty t-shirts and dirty slacks to |smart| oxfords and ties for students. a lot of the women wear one or two inch heels despite the dirt roads. also, though the sun is really strong, i havn't seen a single pair of sunglasses and only a few hats in the form of baseball hats on guys. very odd. i haven't noticed any kakamegans in regular glasses either, but my fellow intern and roommate, Katie, said she saw a few people wearing them. cancel that, the guy who just sat next to me and is checking facebook has a nice pair of glasses that would do reilly proud.

going to sign off for now and get some of the amazing mango juice from the vendor downstairs. so far my stomach has been fine, but i'm armed with tums, pepto, imodium ad and cipro if/when delhi belly hits.

cheers,
katy

ps the internet connection here is horrible, so i haven't been able to look at all my email as it takes about 4.5 min to log into g-mail and another minute or so to open an email. hopefully when i'm at my host org or house next week one of them will have a better connection. in the mean time i figure this is probably the best way to reach as many of you as possible.

also, i'm not doing much editing in the interest of time, because i want to share as much possible. so sorry if the writing's not great.

Leavin' on a jet plane...

2009-01-23T19:07:00.000+03:00

Hello from Heathrow! I finally have time to do a blog post! My latest news and rants:

Moving sucks. I absolutely hate it and it never gets any easier. The only good part is the purge that accompanies moving. I estimate I got rid of a good 20% of my material possessions, if not more. Though when Shawnte saw all my boxes in the living room she said, "Norris, you've got a lot of crap." Yeah yeah... I come from a long line of hoarders, er, collectors, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

It's been a shopping frenzy for me and Will this week - we hit Ross to get sandals I can wear to work ($19), a waterproof jacket for the High Rainy season ($12) and some long shorts for sports ($12). I love Ross! All my gym shorts are running short length, thus tooo short for Kakamega!

I also got a UV light to zap water in my Nalgene to make it potable. Very high tech. Will said that The future has arrived (or something like that but much more clever) when he saw it.

Two packages arrived in the mail just in the nick of time - very exiciting. Katrina and Liz Wellington sewed me two awesome skirts. And by awesome, I mean past the knee, A-line, and enough material in each to use as a laundry bag. Will said that I looked like one of the chicks from the radical LDS church in Texas. Hee hee. So basically, very conservative, which is perfect. Trina even sewed in pockets for me. Aunt Elena sent some really nice Mary Kay face sunscreen to use as she says the sun is much stronger on the equator. Good stuff.

For gifts for my host family, Cristin suggested something Obama-related, which was brilliant. I got five differnt t-shirts from a designer on Vermont in Los Feliz (the same guy who's put all of the "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" posters on Sunset I think.) Someone told me there are plenty of Obama T-shirts in Kenya, too, but oh well. At least these are made in the US.

Speaking of my host family, I got a packet about them last week. There are three children, 12, 14 and 15, I think, and the parents sound lovely. The kids are at boarding school, but per Fredrick (my CARE friend) African boarding schools are no-frills, hard work, and, potentailly involve waiting in line to fill one's water bucket, not necessarily getting as much food as a teenager would prefer and, of course, being bullied by upperclassmen. So, it will just be me and the parents at home.

Also, I was surprised to learn that their house has a flush toilet, running water, a refriderator, and, get this, INTERNET. When I read that, I thought: "Wow, that's nice, but am I still going to have as authentic experience as I was hoping?" Which is silly of me, I'm sure I will. What is Authentic, anyway? Just my Western notion.

My guess is Angie (the Kakamega FSD coordinator) put me with them because they have a freezer: when I interviewed with Angie, I asked if there was anywhere in town that I could store an ice pack, just in just in case my back went out.

Aight, getting sleepy -- going to look for a bench that doesn't have the bum-proof arm rests on it to take a nap. Thank you everyone for all your help in getting me here, especially Will, who has been like a personal assistant the past week. He'll think twice before voluteering to help out next time! :-)

Lots of love,
Katy

Pack list

2009-01-12T22:38:00.000+03:00

Over any loneliness and am a little bit giddy at not being at work on a Monday morning. I'm packing my backpack for Africa now so that I can put the rest of my clothes in storage (save some to wear until the 22nd.)

Here’s the FSD pack list…how funny that this is about what I would pack for a two week vacation, and these clothes are going to last six months! I will basically be wearing the same thing week after week! :-) I wonder if the short pack list is to encourage us to travel light, or, because this is the typical wardrobe of someone in Kakamega and it would be odd if volunteers brought twice as many of everything…

Underwear
Sturdy cotton socks
A light jacket and/or sweater
Light waterproof jacket and umbrella
1-2 long-sleeved warmer shirts/tops
1-2 pairs of casual pants/capris for home and travel
1 pair of long shorts (optional, for sports)
3-4 skirts, knee-length or longer (for women)
4-5 shirts to wear to work
2-3 more casual shirts to wear on the weekend, traveling, around the house, etc.
At least one nice outfit for special occasions, e.g. church, festivals, special functions at the host organization.
A pair of comfortable, sturdy shoes for running or sports
1 pair of dressy, comfortable sandals to wear to work
1 pair of rubber flip-flops for bathing and wearing around the house
Rubber rain boots (can also be purchased inexpensively and easily in-country)
A bathing suit
Modest sleepwear
Sun hat

Packing is proving to be harder than I expected though. I only have one work skirt that goes past my knees which I don’t care about getting hand washed and line dried every week.

Plus, all my work shirts are fitted (after years of having everything too baggy, I started having tops taken in so they actually fit). I want to be as conservative as possible… Hmmm… today may include a trip to goodwill!

When I was on vacation in India for three weeks, which is similarly conservative, I definitely missed wearing tank tops and shorts... how sad that this is the last time my shoulders and knees see the light of day for some time!

Enthusiastically,

Katy

The moving begins...

2009-01-12T07:46:00.000+03:00

For the first time in a long time, I feel a little bit lonely. It's probably just because I've been surrounded by friends non-stop of late. We moved Shawnte out of the apartment today, and it’s very empty and echo-y. I brought the patio table in to use as a dining table for the next few days, and still have two chairs and the TV, but that’s it for the furniture, outside my bedroom.

Glad to have Eddie Cat Halen to keep me company – he’s a little bewildered as to where his couch in front of the window went, not to mention Shawnte's whole room, and is sticking close to me.

Shawnte’s new studio is fantastic though, and I’m so excited that she has her own place! Mo and I installed shelves and a desk in her walk-in-closet-now-office, and it was so much fun to do something hands-on. I wonder how much I’ll be working on a computer in Kenya, and how much I’ll be doing more active work. Not even sure if ACCES (the org I’ll be working for) has computers! They must though…

Off to start packing...

Cheers,
Katy

Goodbye, CG!

2009-01-10T02:54:00.000+03:00

Thank you for everything!!!

I will miss everyone!!

Cheers,
Katy

I can't believe it!!!

2008-12-30T05:55:00.000+03:00

I am so humbled by everyone's generosity.

I just finished adding up donations from the last week and a half and realized that through gifts from friends and family, my FSD program fees are almost entirely covered. All I have to worry about now are the costs FSD doesn't take care of: my airline tickets, vaccines and malaria meds, evacuation insurance and living costs outside of room and board. All of that adds up to another $3,400, but that amount is much less intimating than the FSD fees of $6,500.

One month ago, I was soooo worried about if I was going to be able to make this trip work financially and if I would be able to volunteer for six months or would have to do a shorter trip, and if it was even the right decision given the economy. But folks have come out of the woodwork to help make it happen. Old friends and new friends and friends of friends and even families of friends. So many unexpected donors who I could never have predicted would contribute.

I feel so lucky and am grateful that the burden has been lifted off my shoulders. All I have to worry about now is getting ready to go, and studying up on micro-finance and Swahili to actually be useful there.

Peace Corps letter

2008-12-19T09:52:00.000+03:00

I recently got an e-mail from Peace Corps with the following message. As you know, I applied to volunteer last January...

Peace Corps sent you an important letter regarding the status of your application on December 13, 2008. Please review the contents of the letter and contact the Peace Corps if you have questions.

I was dying to see what it was, since they've been sending me additional requests for medical information since I started the medical review process last April. Since Peace Corps takes care of your medical insurance while you volunteer, they're notoriously thorough in evaluating the health of applicants. Their examiners' favorite issue of mine to inquire about--though I've got many-- is my lower back. It goes out about once a year, which causes me to limp for a few days and maybe stay home from work for a day to rest it. Annoying? Yes. Painful? Yes. Would it hinder me from serving as a Peace Corps volunteer Africa? Well, not unless the computer instructor assignment I was nominated for required lifting CPUs onto rickshaws.

Since Peace Corps has already requested and received from me: a 3-page Plan for Pain Management, my physical therapist's notes, a detailed orthopedist assessment, and, most recently, a lower lumbar MRI (which, to my amazement, my insurance actually covered),
I couldn't think of what else they could possibly want. A wax model of the two trouble-making vertebrae in question?

You may be thinking "Why is Katy still getting info from the Peace Corps if she's going to volunteer with FSD?" I dunno. I suppose it's curiosity. And pride. Since the whole bureaucratic application/medical review process has taken sooo long to play out, I've been curious to see what their final offer would be -- which country, when the departure date would be, etc. After being strung along for what seems like forever, I want the the satisfaction of rejecting them and taking my sweet time to respond to their Invitation to serve.

The actual letter came yesterday. I could tell from the thin envelope that there was only one piece of paper and a CD inside, which I assumed was my MRI being returned to me. College rejection letters came to mind.

Well, that was that. Rejected.

Even though being accepted was a moot point, my eyes watered up after I read the letter. I don't know why. Because they were saying there was something wrong with me? Because it took away my feeling of being in control and that whether I went to Africa with FSD or PC was my decision to make?

Shawnté, who has seen me open scores of anti-climactic correspondence from PC, saw what was going on and gave me a big hug. Which I needed. And truth be told, it was pretty validating to have an official name ascribed to my issue: "Discogenic Low Back Pain with Disk Protrusion and Sciatica." Super.

So, I guess it just goes to show that things happen for a reason. If I hadn't met Will, and found FSD, I'd be pretty crestfallen right about now. Instead, I'm excited, hopeful and grateful. So, thank you, Universe. And no, FSD will not require me to do any heavy lifting.

Save the date — January 10th

2008-12-09T05:35:00.000+03:00

Though I swore I wouldn't throw any more parties after the All Things British 30th Birthday, I'm going to make an exception and have one last hurrah for a fundraising/going away party on January 10th. MaryEllen is going to let me use the BEAUtiful photography studio she manages as a venue. I'm kind of excited; this is much more swanky than my usual house/backyard/carport shin-digs.

Maybe we'll do some African trivia... If you get a question right, you get a raffle ticket. If you get it wrong, you'll have to take something from a table of household stuff I'm trying to get rid of. Or donate five bucks! Hah!

Cheers,
Katy

Stuff!!

2008-12-07T10:41:00.000+03:00

Today I made a list of all my worldly possessions, so I could get a good idea of what I need to store and what I can loan to Shawnte or Will while I'm gone. I'm looking forward to getting rid of a lot of it, but Will reminded me to be careful not to sell and donate so much that I don't have enough left for an apt when I get back. It's a fine line, I tell you!

If anyone is in need of say, a toaster oven or some nice lamps for 6 months, let me know!!

Public Knowledge!

2008-12-02T08:06:00.000+03:00

Well, the cat's out of the bag — a colleague announced at a meeting today that I was leaving for a higher cause. Which sounds like I'm going to become a woman of the cloth or something. I don't think they realized that it was not yet common knowledge, but I don't mind. I only have 5 weeks left at work, which is downright startling.

Spent an annoying half hour at the post office at lunch to getting a new passport today. Though U.S.P.S. stipulates that you must come between 10-12 to do anything passport-related, of course the only employee who handles passports wasn't around. She's "in the bathroom" her coworker said. So, I waited. She later walked in with a soda and shopping bag.

In other news, I low-balled everyone else on half.com and sold my 5th edition of "World Religions" for $45. I feel bad underpricing all the starving students, but it's sold!

E-bay & The Goodness of Roomies

2008-11-30T00:10:00.000+03:00

Listed some stuff on eBay today to try to make money/get rid of things. Sometimes I wonder if the effort of photographing, posting and shipping the stuff is really worth it. But so many things are too nice or I paid too much originally to just donate!

I have listed: A "World Religions" text book (hopefully will get 50 bucks!), some pretty Indian curtains I got for the British party last summer, and a set of silver seafood forks Mom gave me from Phair's when it was going out of business. I've had them for 5 years now and have yet to buy a crab. Purge, purge, purge!

Shawnté's sitting across from me at the kitchen table doing bills and just gave me a check (also my x-mas and next b-day pres) with the mandate to "Go do good, Norris." Awwwwww... My little heart overfloweth with gratitude. As hard as it is to ask folks for money, I'm realizing that it's actually making this experience a lot more meaningful. I feel like I'm not just going for myself anymore, as I would have done with the Peace Corps, I'm representing all my family & friends who are giving something up to make it possible, and need to work extra hard to make sure their money is put to good use. So as nice as it would be to drop all this and join the Peace Corps and not be completely broke when I come home (save my retirement plan) it feels good to know that a little bit of everyone else is, in a sense, coming with me.

First Dontation!

2008-11-28T23:23:00.000+03:00

Grace just gave me my very first donation check, along with a "Here you go. Go get your Swahili on." Hehehe. I hadn't heard back from anyone on my first fundraising e-mail to close friends and family, (except for mom saying, "This is really good, Honey") so it was a welcome boost.

Several people have mentioned I should throw a fundraising party, too. :-) They just want a party! But it's a good idea. Maybe I'll have a going away party and charge admission. No freebies here!

I continue to have pangs of anxiety for several hours at a time, thinking about whether I'm making the right choice to leave such a good job in the middle of this recession. I know I'm not going to find anything as solid when I come back. But as Ruth said, "It's now or never!" And I can make due with a lot less, anyway. I already am: No more manicure/pedicures, new clothes or stuff for the apartment, etc. However, the biggest savings is coming from skipping all of the (wonderful) invitations to go away for weekends... It's amazing how much $$ all those flights ate up. So, I'm getting cozy with just being in L.A. It's really not so bad.

That's all for now.

xoxox,
Katy

I'm finally going to Africa!

2008-11-26T08:49:00.000+03:00

Hello!

Here it is -- the ASK! Hee hee hee. After raising money for so many causes, I never thought I'd be doing it for my own project. But here goes.

Warning: In my usual Katy-style, the letter's a little long. Sorry.

----------

Two weeks ago, the Foundation for Sustainable Development accepted me into their "Pro Corps" international volunteer program. On January 23, I'll be getting on a plane to Kakamega, Kenya to partner with a local community organization which facilitates sustainable community development through micro-credit.

Also known as micro-lending or village banking, micro-credit refers to making small loans to those who are too poor to meet traditional banks' borrowing standards. Borrowers use the capital to start micro-enterprises, like buying a goat and selling its milk or buying supplies to start a laundry business. Micro-finance was pioneered by the Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

Reducing poverty and increasing self-sufficiency in Africa is extremely important to me. However, getting to Kenya to volunteer won't be easy: my FSD program fee for six months is $6,575 and airfare, malaria medicine, visas, etc. are another $3,430. (Yes, my jaw dropped, too!) I hope to meet the fee primarily through my own savings, but I also need your help. If you can find it in your heart (oh yes, I'm begging now! ;-) to help support my working in micro-finance, I would be very grateful. I'm hoping that the Obama fundraising approach—small donations from a lot people—will also work for my campaign.

Some examples of where funds will go:

$30 will get me 100 miles closer to Kenya
$50 will cover Swahili language lessons
$75 will cover room and board with a local host family for one week
$100 will cover my orientation, or several weeks of on-going FSD training
$125 will partially cover my emergency medical evacuation insurance (fun)
$200 will provide seed grant money for my micro-finance project

If you can help out, please make any checks payable to "FSD" with my name in the memo, and give to me. All donations are 100% tax deductible. I will submit checks to FSD in one batch in January, before leaving. You can also donate through PayPal (link on left), though they charge you a 5% transaction fee—boo!

I am very grateful for you support and encouragement, whether financial or otherwise. Drop me a line if you have any questions or suggestions, or if you know of anyone else who might be interested in supporting this project.

I've added some FAQs below with more details if you're interested.

Many, many thanks,

Katy

----------------

FAQs

Sooooo, why volunteer?
Why not? Over one sixth of the world's population lives on less than $1 US a day, and another sixth lives on less than $2. And though you may say, "everything's cheaper in developing countries," a buck still doesn't get you very far, especially if you have a family to take care of. Living on the margins means making hard decisions—like whether to buy medicine for a sick child or food for the rest of the family. I feel driven to do anything I can to help reduce poverty and after volunteering with CARE for two years, I want to help on the "front-lines." I also have a deep love of experiencing different cultures; volunteering aboard gives me a chance to live in a foreign country AND help those who need it most.

Why do you have to pay?
In developing countries like Kenya, unemployment rates can reach as high as 80 percent and wages as low as one dollar a day. The local NGOs that FSD partners with have very limited budgets and no way to pay for the expenses entailed to recruit, train, house, feed and generally support a volunteer. Therefore, FSD charges volunteers a fee to cover those costs.

Who will you be loaning to?
The org I'll be working with grants their loans primarily to groups of women. The groups take joint repayment pledges and communally decide whom loans should go to. The incentive to repay is based on peer pressure—if one person in the group defaults, the other members are on the hook for it. These types of groups have extremely high repayment rates, typically around 98%.

Why women?
Loaning to women is more effective in reducing poverty than loaning to men, because women devote a higher percentage of their earnings to food and health care for their families. Women also have higher loan-repayment success rates.

What happened to the Peace Corps?
Well, as they say, [wo]man makes plans and God laughs. In this case, I met Will. We've been dating for nine months now and we'd rather not be separated for 27. (Peace Corps service is 2 years + 3 months training.) So, I decided to look for a shorter program.

Of the alternate volunteer-abroad organizations I looked into, Foundation for Sustainable Development seems to be the most thoughtful, culturally sensitive and committed to sustainable change—it is part of their name! I want to make sure that the time I devote to volunteering will make an impact that will last beyond my stay.

And though Peace Corps has the obvious benefit of being free (sigh), a lot of research suggests that volunteers often have more fulfilling experiences and make a greater impact when working though non-governmental organizations, since they are less constrained by U.S. and foreign government bureaucracy.

Is Kenya dangerous?
FSD and the Peace Corps did have to evacuate some volunteers in early 2008, due to the political situation, but they're back now, and so far so good. In Kakamega, I'll need to be in by 8 PM every night and if I must go out, to take a friend. Read: Rockin' nightlife! So it doesn't sound like the safest place in the world, but on the other hand, hundreds of volunteers have gone before me and come back just fine, so I'll be careful and stay alert, but am not overly concerned.

Are you going to have Internet access? Hot water?
God I hope so—at least regarding the hot water! But I'll survive if not. I am told that there are several Internet cafés in Kakamega Town, where I'll be working, so I should have e-mail access.

What's Kakamega like?
Kakmega is in Kenya's Western Province in the fertile highlands close to Uganda. It's near a rain forest and from February to May is the "High Rainy Season" when it rains most of the day, every day. I've heard you can get cheap galoshes.

Being so rural, it's fairly conservative: Women wear skirts below the knees and are seldom seen in pants (so long, jeans!) Almost everyone in Kakamega District belongs to Kenya's second-largest tribe, the Luhya. Also, most of the population are devout Christians, but there is also a significant Muslim presence. A favorite Kenyan pastime is to share a cup of chai tea (my favorite!) and chat with neighbors or passers-by. And they can sing - check it out this video!

Trusty Lonely Planet says of Kakamega, "There is no real reason to stay in this small but busy town, but if you arrive late in the day, it can be convenient to sleep over…before heading to the Kakamega Forest Reserve." So come stay with me on the way to the rain forest.

Will you get to travel?
FSD encourages volunteers to stay in their villages as much as possible to become real members of their host communities. However, Kakamega is close to Lake Victoria and the Kakamega National Reserve, so hopefully there will be some opportunities for weekend trips. After the program, if I have any money left, I would love to travel a little and see some of Kenya's famed wildlife.

What are you going to do when you get back?
I don't know! I'm certainly not anticipating it being easy to find work, given the current job market. I'll most likely stay in the Internet-industry, but won't rule out a career change. Maybe Marketing. Or studying Internet information architecture. Or I'll fall in love with social services and join a non-profit. My career coach/friend, Danielle, is not too keen on my ambivalence… :-)

So, what's Will think about all of this?
Will has been 100% supportive the whole way, helping me edit essays and look into different programs, but is definitely happy that I'll be going for six months, as opposed to 2-plus years. My hope is that he'll land a good TV-writing gig and will be so busy that he'll hardly have time to miss me.

That's it! Thank you, again!!