Hello Everyone!
I’m in Nairobi right now and the last two weeks have been full of adventure. I flew from Nashville on August 9th and met up with Poppy Buchanan (fellow Nashvillian and founder of Burning Bush, Inc. www.burningbushkenya.org ) and Brenda McKaig of Rising Fawn, GA (an expert in wool, spinning and weaving www.risingfawnfiber.com ).
Poppy and Brenda were wonderful traveling companions during my first two weeks here and it was sad to say goodbye on Friday. We traveled together to the small, rural village of Ndathi near the base of Mt. Kenya. It is about an hour’s drive northwest of a town called Nyeri in central Kenya (over very rough roads). Burning Bush helped to construct the Samaria Maternity Home and Clinic at the home of Susan Kaburu, RN in Ndathi. This clinic serves the needs of a very large area surrounding Ndathi. Susan and her family were wonderful hosts. The staff and Susan’s daughters, Anne and Njeri work hard to help keep the clinic running and were so nice to get to know. I was also able to meet Esther Maina and her husband, Steven — incredibly driven people who are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of others in the community through micro-lending and other enterprises. Brenda McKaig came all the way from Georgia to share her expertise on wool production with Esther.
The community of Ndathi — and most of Kenya, is very religious — many conservative Christian communities (of all denominations) scatter the landscape. I was a stranger to daily devotionals and long, 3 to 4 hour church services, but was welcomed with open arms nonetheless. These first two weeks have been quite an education on so many fronts — as always, I find more questions than answers….. I have gained insight into healthcare, micro-lending ventures, missionary and NGO aid work — everything about development in Africa is difficult to wrap one’s head around. This experience is so valuable and I know I will think on it for a long time to come.
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Since I am behind in writing, I will catch you up with some highlights:
GIVING BIRTH
Shortly after arriving, I spent several days touring around to small, rural, private clinics in the area near Mt. Kenya. with Poppy, Susan and two women from the UK, Eileen and Emma. Eileen and Emma work at Bournemouth University in the UK were on a mission to explore the state of healthcare in Kenya – particularly in relation to continuing education for nurses and library resources.
During the tour, we stopped by the hospital in Nyeri. It is an open-air place with individual one-story buildings scattered about as wards. There are many open areas of grass in between the wards where family and friends sit and wait. The wards are very simple and many of the windows are open to the outside. We came upon the maternity ward and before I knew it… all five of us were smack in the middle of a very crowded and eventful labour room!!
The head nurse of the maternity ward knows Susan and said that it would be alright for us to come in —- FIVE women were giving birth and we were in the middle of it! It was so funny because Emma and I are not medical people, and we overheard the nurse say, “sure, you can all come in — you are all medical” – we just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders nervously. I didn’t take any photos — they asked me not to and I wouldn’t have out of respect and the fact that I was in a bit of shock at the moment.
There was one woman on the right, just next to the curtained doorway as we entered the small room — they had a big light pointed right at her as she was working hard to deliver. The other four women were just to our left — side by side on delivery tables – there were doctors and nurses huddled around each one and then the five of us, smashed together as we made our way in between all of them to a small corner. The head nurse was tall and regal — she wore an ornate white nurse’s cap and stood calmly talking to us in the midst of it all. There was one newborn wrapped in a blanket in small crib next to us… every once in a while it would cry or cough. The really wild thing is that most Kenyan women (and all of the women in the room with us) were giving birth without any pain killers and they weren’t making a sound! — made us foreigners feel like wimps! We left the way we came and passed back through a crowded waiting room full of expectant mothers waiting for their turn!
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GAME DRIVE AT LAKE NAKURU
On Saturday (August 18th) we planned to set out early in the morning to make a trip down to Nairobi then on to Lake Nakuru for a game drive. However, it rained and rained in the Ndathi overnight and the road from the clinic was an absolute rutted, muddy mess. We canceled our meetings in Nairobi and waited for a couple of hours to make a try for Nakuru. Gabrielle, our driver, was determined to get us out of there. We were hardly outside the clinic gates before we were stuck. Our Nissan van was really in for a tough quarter-mile or so. It took and hour and a half and the help of 20 or more neighbors pushing and rocking and digging and sliding to get us on our way! Finally, we were on the road to the Great Rift Valley and my fist game drive!
Lake Nakuru is one of many lakes located in the Rift Valley. The valley is a spectacular sight — especially nice as we drove down from the Aberdare mountain range. Lake Nakuru is a national park / reserve —- home to hundreds of thousands of flamingos that lace the sandy shore in a ribbon of pink. We saw huge groups of bamboons along the road… many with tiny babies clinging to their backs. We also saw buffalo, zebra, giraffe, impalla, gazelles, rhino, and even two ostriches! It was a beautfiul day and a great drive. We didn’t see any lions or leopards… but I have a feeling they saw us! : )
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HIKE TO THE SAGANA RIVER THROUGH THE FEARED FOREST
On my last day in Ndathi, Susan’s cousin, Gerald took Simon (Susan’s 14 year-old nephew) and I on a hike to the Sagana river. It was a gorgeous day and we walked through parts of the village that I had not seen before. Small wood and aluminum-roofed homes we scattered about amongst crops of maize, potatoes, beets, snow peas, and banana trees. We made our way up and down a large hill… passing many people, some sheep and the occasional cow along the way. Gerald has always lived in Ndathi and he knows most of the people in the community.
We eventually came upon a small valley that separated the farms from the dreaded forest — land of the elephants! Elephants live in the forests in this region and routinely ruin farms and occasionally kill people who cross their path! The community has started putting up tall electric fences in an effort to deter them. Fortunately, there has been a great deal of rain lately and the elephants on this side of the village were finding food elsewhere. When they are in the area, they tend to roam about during dawn or dusk. Gerald felt confident that there were none in the area.
We huffed and puffed up a large hill and through the forest — it was cool and peaceful under the trees. We came across little groups of sheep and Gerald pointed out a few piles of old elephant dung. We also saw trees that had been knocked over by elephants. When this happens, villagers will come in the night to cut the trunk from the unearthed stump. (it is against the law to take lumber from the forest… so they try to get away with it at night).
We finally came upon the Sagana River. It was so nice and crisp and clear —- the river is scattered with big black rocks (most of them volcanic). It was beautiful and peaceful up here in the mountains. I stepped out on a few rocks with Gerald’s help (I didn’t want to take too much of a risk with my camera). Simon was enjoying jumping about and eventually fell in!
On our way back, we came upon a group of 8 or 10 women carrying huge piles of fire wood on their backs — it is just hard to imagine how strong they must be to do this. Life is so difficult here… especially for the women. Women carry the weight of the world on their shoulders here… expected to take care of the children, the farming, the animals, cook, clean — it is just hard to really convey how much they do. The division of labor (or absence of it) is a real problem here.
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FAMILY REUNION AND A TRIP TO THE SLUMS
I finally met my long lost cousin, Dr. Tom Gale —- he is a semi-retired political science professor at USIU in Nairobi and has lived here for 33 years. He lives in room at the YMCA Central in Nairobi. He is great to talk to and is so very passionate about improving the lives of children in east Africa. He started teaching French to primary school students in 1980 and now teaches at around 46 public primary schools in and around Nairobi — during school terms he goes to two or three each afternoon after teaching at the University in the morning. He also teaches at a school or two on Saturday mornings.
Over the years, he has photographed the children at these schools and then coupled them with essays written by the middle school-age kids. The essays are first-hand and very powerful — the topics range from home life, education, things that make them angry, pregnancy, rape, HIV/AIDS, gender roles and sexual harassment. He has published three books and is working on a fourth. I wish that everyone could read these stories — they provide a vivid picture of the troubles in this part of the world. I would like to try to find a way to make it easy for him to have some distributed in the US. You can find one of his books at Amazon.com: African Children: Their Faces and Their Thoughts
Yesterday (Saturday, August 25th) Tom took me on a walk through Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi (and in all of East Africa – over 700,000 people live in a 630 acre area). He brought a bag of pencils to give to the students that go to the public schools where he teaches French. It was quite an experience. I was nervous… having heard countless horror stories of violence and robbery in Nairobi… especially in the slums. However, I had a good feeling in my gut — I needed to see this place and I couldn’t have been with a better guide. It also helped that a young muscle-bound guy named Peter came along too. Peter is finishing up college and is in Africa right now studying communication between and within NGO’s. I did not bring my camera and only wore the basics… my worn shoes, pants, and a T-Shirt. No sunglasses, no hat, no jewelry, not even my passport/money belt. I only carried enough shillings in my pocket to satisfy any prospective robber and off we went. He planned our trip for the morning in order to cut down on coming across drunks. We walked from the YMCA to a bus stop a couple of blocks away near the city center.
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The bus ride to Kibera was informative, as Tom has seen this city change significantly over the past 33 years. I had my guard up, but didn’t feel in danger. Tom is very very tall, in his 70’s, and his walk is slow, confident, and friendly. As you would expect, he is wonderful with the children. Every so often we would come across some children who recognized him, and knew the French song that he teaches. They would say “Mr. Tom”, “Bonjour” or whisper a little verse of the French song… he would immediately smile and ask them which primary school they go to. Today, he was giving pencils to students who go to Kibera Primary and Toy (spelling?) Primary (Toy is an area in the Kibera). We did not venture toward Lindi… (it is the most dangerous part of Kibera), but he did show us how to get there. He has actually walked through every part of Kibera over the years. Anyway… we were fine. We came across an area where an big group of muslim women were preparing food in a courtyard for a wedding. They were very nice and invited us in. We then went by a Madrassa (not the kind that we fear in the West — this one is there to help the kids – some money for the construction was given by the famous Leakey family). The children were wonderful and the people were friendly. In some ways, it reminded me a little of traveling in Uighur towns in Northwestern China… except, for the most part, everyone here is really, desperately living in poverty… filth and sewage in the dirt lanes… . We did see water pumps and we were happy to find that the cost was a pretty fair price of 2 shillings per 20 liters. (there are roughly 65 shillings in a U.S. dollar).
The kids here… they could be you or me… any one of us. Some of us are so fortunate and so many of us born into places like Kibera, without hope of any kind of future. This was a walk I will never forget.
I’m sorry I don’t have photos to post with this update — eventually, when I get home — I will sort them all out and be sure to update this TravelPod blog..
I hope you are all happy and well at home. I will update again when I have a chance!
love,
Stacey
p.s. – please excuse the typos!