Kibera and Karen

29 July 09: We spent yesterday at Soweto Academy in Kibera. We visited classes, got a tour of the well Elizabeth helped put in, and listened to plans for selling some of the water. Kenya is in the middle of a severe drought, and the school's access to water is a valuable asset, something the school is not used to having. Elizabeth asked a lot of questions, made suggestions, and I nodded and said “um hum” a lot. The drive to Kibera from the neighborhood in Kenya where we’re staying is a remarkable study in contrasts. Shortly after passing through the gate to our hotel complex, we negotiate a “friendly traffic stop.” That is, at least what the sign informs us, a sign that is complete with its own cartoon mascot who really does look friendly—I’ll get pictures of all of this in the next few days. And before I forget about gates, you should know that gates here are walls, often metal, often topped with razor wire, and always manned with a guard or two. Every home or business has one, and every home or business is surrounded by a high brick wall that’s topped with either broken glass, electric wiring, razor wire, or simply sharp metal spikes. Most of Nairobi is a gated community. Kibera, though, is not. Roads change from asphalt to dirt to rocks as you move into Kibera. The road in front of Soweto Academy reminds me of drives to trailheads in Colorado, except for the fact that it’s in the middle of a bustling slum of around a million people. And the gates disappear. Soweto has a gate, but it’s unguarded and open for most of the day. In fact, most of Kibera seems open. People, dogs, chickens, and goats crowd the streets. Business seems to take place in front of small shops, which is to say, it takes place in the street itself. And, yes, there are no gates. With Joan, one of the school’s directors, we walked up a rock hill off of the school’s play area, entered a small alley, turned right, and found ourselves weaving around hanging laundry up a narrow passage with doors on either side every ten feet or so. A trickle of water had cut a serpentine channel in the middle of the pathway, and water, trash, and sewage seeped along its course. Each door opened to a single room shared by a family. The one we visited housed a husband, wife, and four children. The room could not have been more than ten feet by ten feet. The door was the only source of light. Today, back at Soweto, I arrived, met Mr. Johnstone, the school’s head teacher or principal, and was ushered to the front of a class of nine girls. There are fewer girls than boys at the school as families in Kibera do not see the point of educating a girl beyond the age at which she could fetch a few cows as her marriage price. A few quick observations about teaching in Kibera: students are not ready to talk in class, do not ask questions, need a great deal of encouragement and reassurance before they will do any work in small groups. They are used to lectures. They are used to preparing for state exams. They do not know what to make of me. They are also bright, quick, polite, diligent, and they are all of these things working in what is for most of them their third language. They are able to ignore the smell of sewage from the small creek running behind their classroom building and the sound of children playing across the street. Oh, and as they smiled at my attempts to speak Swahili, they are kind. By the end of the forty-minute class they had all written about half a page of description. I will take what they wrote back to Denver with me, teach my students at Kent the same thing, and send back the Kent students’ responses to the Soweto students’ work and the descriptions they produce. It’s late, and I haven’t made it to Karen yet. Karen is a suburb of Nairobi named for Karen Blixen, the author of Out of Africa. We visited her estate, shopped at a crafts store founded by Richard Leakey, fed giraffes (twiga), and ate tapas at Talisman, a gorgeous indoor-outdoor restaurant. All of this was one day. I’m still reeling from that. I’ve also yet to write about my conversations with drivers about uncles and aunts--that is, what we call them and what Kenyans call them (“No, that is not good. We are right”). And I need to write about music in Kenya, especially American 80s music, and old-school country and western music. “Don Williams, really, Don Williams.” “Yes, and Kenny Rodgers. You know, the 'Gambler.'” “Yeh, I know it.” And then we sang it together. We really did. The contrasts begin to approach the ridiculous, the sublime. None of it makes a lot of sense, should make any sense. In short, I like Kenya a lot. Lala salama, Kreg (I'll be traveling to Kisumu for a few days, so I won't be able to post anything. But I'll write some and post all of it when I get back to Nairobi on Friday.)

My Swahili is not going so well. My mistakes, though, Elizabeth continues to find a constant source of humor. So there’s that. I am fluent in all of the words that found their way to Disney’s Lion King. “Simba” is a lion. “Rafiki” is a friend. And “hakuna” means none or no as in no worries, hakuna matata. Beyond Lion King, though, I’m hopeless. No, not hopeless, but “yes” sounds like “no”—ndiyo.

No teaching today, but we are heading down to Kibera tomorrow in the morning. I’m still not exactly sure what the plan is, but I’m looking forward to seeing the school and meeting the kids. I will try to say something in Swahili, and they will laugh a lot.

Today we went downtown to the National Museum. In addition to an important collection of early hominid fossils, there was a great exhibit of photographs called “Kenya’s Living Treasure.” The pictures were large, sepia prints of Kenyans from a variety of tribes and regions, and the diversity was striking—the Muslim influence in the coastal region standing in sharp contrast to images of Maasai warriors with bright shields and tall, sharp spears. Outside the museum, we waited behind a large group of school kids who seemed to be about the age for kindergarten. School children here all wear uniforms, bright sweaters and shorts or jumpers, redolent of Kenya’s British colonial past. And as small Kenyans seem to do when they see white people who take notice of them, they started asking “How are you” and waving. Kenyans all learn English as soon as they start school, and “How are you” is clearly the first thing they learn. So before viewing “Kenya’s Living Treasure,” we spent a few minutes shaking tiny hands and saying a lot of “Fine, and how are you”s.

On the way to the museum, we needed to change some dollars into Kenyan shillings. Our driver, Patrick, suggested a place between the hotel and the museum, not the shopping center Elizabeth had in mind. As soon as we took a few steps from the car, a uniformed guard met us and ushered us inside. There a woman behind a small desk asked us our business. We told her, and she pointed to an opaque, sliding glass door. We entered a small office big enough for one chair, closed the door behind us, and sat in front of a bank teller window—glass window with speaker cutout and sliding, two-way drawer for exchanges. Elizabeth slid dollars across, and the woman on the other side of the glass slid shillings back.

“Asante sana” (thank you very much) and we were back outside where the guard met us and stood next to us while our driver made the block. The guard apologized because there were no parking spaces.

“Hakuna matata” I said before I noticed our car moving slowly up the street. “Oh, there he is.” And then we were back in the car with the guard just on the other side of the door, never once without privacy or protection, the former being a version of the latter.

There’s something disconcerting, of course, about being so protected, specifically, the fact that you are in need of such protection in the first place. But I feel very safe here. After all, there are the bank guards. And the school kids seem to like me. I am fine, and how are you?

Lala salama (peaceful sleep or goodnight),
Kreg

We've Arrived

Karibu (welcome in Swahili)--

Yesterday, no, it was Saturday in Houston, I ate lunch at Chuy's. I then flew from Houston to London. By then it's 8 in the morning (times are local, as that's how you have to experience time). The next flight took me to Nairobi, and we arrived at 9 Sunday night. So now Elizabeth and I are here in Nairobi, Kenya. I've had breakfast, walked around the hotel, and, as I may or may not be teaching this afternoon, started thinking about what I will be teaching.

Oh, and one bag is lost, visa lines are long--long in terms of time spent in them; the lines do not actually have very many people in them--and winter in Kenya is a lot like spring in South Carolina. All of that, and my passport finally has its first stamp in it.

Back to teaching: I'm planning to have the students I meet in Kibera write some sort of description of one thing or place they encounter in the course of a normal day—Kibera is a large slum of more than one million people not too far from the center of Nairobi and our very posh hotel. We'll work on the elements of description, workshop the descriptions they write, and then I'll collect them to bring back to Denver. My students at Kent will do the same thing in the fall, write responses to the students in Kibera, and I'll send back the Kent students' descriptions and responses. After that I'll see how long I can keep the exchange going.

The plan for the day is evolving, so I'm not sure what today will bring. That's OK, no, that's good. I do know that I'll try to see as much as I can, take a lot of pictures, and then post them all here.

Kwa herini for now,
Kreg