Late arrival notes

[Well this post is now 10 days out of date, but I thought I’d post it for consumption anyway. It was written 3-4 days after we arrived, while first impressions were still fresh, and before (as you can see below) Courtney caught malaria and everything got put on hold (she’s much better now). Today is our first day back at the office and we’ve resumed work on a quarterly report for an American NGO on a CABDA project with orphans and vulnerable children and their caregivers. We’re having fun working on it because its an actual application of some of our schooling, and all that stuff about qualitative and quantitative indicators is finally seeming useful. It may be a busy week as we start working again, we’re going to complete this report, head south to Vihiga to meet some beneficiaries of Stephen Lewis Foundation funding (to begin developing a couple of case studies from the project), and head to Kisumu to buy a cellphone and some amenities. Anyway, here’s what I wrote over a week ago!]

March 17/18
Well, there are many (many) hiccups and surprises, and there are health concerns, and I am worried about Courtney [worries which proved well-founded when she got Malaria!], but I really love it here. I’m sitting alone in an elevated restaurant in our complex sipping chai tea, the national drink. It’s served just the way I like it – milky and sweet . The milk is cooked with the water and the tea leaves, which is given to you in a small teapot that pours a good three cups. They must cook it fresh, as it took 15 minutes for the tea to arrive. They give you a bowl of unrefined sugar ( the same stuff that is becoming fashionable in the coffee shops at home) made only 34km up the road at the Mumias Sugar Factory. One spoonful makes a very delicious desert tea, and has been offered to us on several occasions. ‘Anytime is tea time’ is indeed a common expression here. If we were being served food someone would bring us a jug of water and a large bowl and pour water over our hands for us to wash before eating anything. There is only sometimes a bar of soap in the bowl and it takes a lot of water to rinse off soap, which I feel bad about using, but sanitation is very important considering everything we are coming into contact with. We receive excelling service in our hotel and in restaurants. Part of this may be a high expectation upon the workers here, but I feel that our skin colour puts us into a different consideration. I frequently feel I’m assuming a distinctly colonial position as I sit in British styled dining rooms being served by highly deferential African waiters. But we’re just silly Canadian kids and we’re trying to be friendly with everyone and show that we are equals. We befriended one of the restaurant workers, Sammy, who has been very friendly with us. But there is still a level of formality in all interactions, much of which we are culturally unfamiliar with. I think we get away with just being cute as we try to speak Swahili in appropriate ways. Today we learned a Luhya word (as I expected, most urban people in Kakamega speak their mother tongue – one of 17 dialects of Luhya – Swahili, and English) to say to people we met ‘in the field’ today – ‘milembe’ – meaning peace/greetings. The roomful of people we addressed (!) that didn’t speak English got a kick out of us using it – - more on that later. Courtney’s really good at noticing social behaviors and finding out what they mean. For instance, she noticed when certain people shook our hands, they would hold their biceps, which turns out to be a sign of respect. Now we can use it with people we should show respect to, and win social points! She might not realize it, but Courtney’s long experience schmoozing in social circles translates very well here and she is extremely observant. I know she is overwhelmed and still coping with changes, but I have to say she has acted absolutely perfectly in every situation we have been in and has been the best travel companion I could ask for.
We are certainly in an odd situation – everywhere we go, we are the only white people we see – and there are lots of people here (70,000 in the city and 400,000 in the division). Certainly we stand out, and we are objects of attention when we go down the streets. People generally treat us with respect, curiosity, or excitement, though. Smiling at children seems to please them and make them laugh. Other people just ignore us or speak about us amongst themselves – we often hear ‘mzungu’ (white person) in Swahili conversation around us. This morning we took ‘boda boda’ rides to work at 8 in the morning, which we first did with Ephy yesterday. Boda bodas are bicyclists with padded seats behind the riders seat. The streets are filled with boda bodas and you can get one as soon as you step out onto the road. The riders’ balance and strength are very impressive as they lug us around over bumpty dirt/mud roads, rocks, and (scarily) through traffic. Yesterday Ephy told us that 20 shillings was an appropriate price for a ride to work. This morning the two of us went out and grabbed two boda’s – were told them where we were going and told them we would pay 20 shillings. He said no – 110 shillings – I said no, 30 shillings – he said ‘ok’. They try to give us mzungu prices! Really though, it’s a ridiculously small amount of money to pay for what they are doing for us, and once we have more change/small bills I will be happy to pay more for their work – but not necessarily because it is mzungu price.
But we are received as honoured guests most everywhere we go. We shake everybody’s hands and learn their names, we are brought food and tea and asked how we can be helped or what we would like to know. We are received well because we are guests, but also because of our being with Ephy and CABDA, for whom the people they work with are grateful. Today we visited the offices of a government representative where an elected group of residents of the sublocation (the smallest division of space in Kenya) had gathered for training on caring for springs in the area (there are 8 springs in the sublocation). We didn’t even know where we were going or who we were going to see when we pulled up to the office (having just been told we are going ‘into the field’ – also I should clarify that by office I mean a piece of land with a rudimentary building on it, a small field of maize, some animals wandering around, and a pit latrine behind it). We got out of the car and all of a sudden people started streaming out of the building (about 25 in all), clapping their hands, singing in Luhya or Swahili, dancing, and wrapped us in colourful cloths. Ephy leaned over to us and whispered ‘oh yeah, you’ll have to dance’ – so we started shuffling our feet to the rhythm, and a couple people grabbed our hands and danced with us. Courtney pulled back and snapped a couple pictures of me dancing. After this went on for a few minutes we danced our way into the building and were sat down in front of everyone while the group sang for another few minutes. When this finished the people officiating the training, Ephy, and the government representative took turns gracing and thanking us and one another for the work being done, the training, the driver, the people, etc… Everyone stood up and introduced themselves, then we were asked to introduced ourselves and say a few works, with Ephy translating us to the group. It seemed to go well, and they were pleased with the local words we know. It was fun, I had a big grin on my face the wold time. Unfortunately when they came to serve us lunch (probably the least appetizing so far), Courtney got one whiff of the food and ran out to the latrine to throw up (she didn’t). She was sick the rest of the day. We’re still kind of fragile, and we had slept very badly the night before (also the milk we had at breakfast probably upset her stomach). Anyway, we skipped a visit to a spring and drove back to town to get some water (Dasani – Coca-Cola is everywhere). We then stopped by Ephy’s husband’s office, checked our emails, and found out we have received a grant from CIDA (HOORAY!) for the trip – which will greatly improve the work we can do here. We relaxed at home for the rest of the day and got to sleep around 11.
I’d still like to recount our visit to a primary school where we were swarmed by curious children, but we are getting picked up soon. Courtney took some gravol last night, slept well, and is feeling healthy this morning, just groggy. I am still blowing my nose lots but other than that, good.
From the Kakamega Sheywe guest house,
This is Neil,
Signing out.