motorcyle diaries in kenya

i am no che guevara and don't have books and movies named after me, but i have a tale to tell about getting a motorcycle license in kenya.

i signed up with Budget Drivers School who advertise "Very cheap and the best instructors." Okay, should have been my first clue, but Rocky Driving School admitted they kind of forgot to maintain or take care of their motorbike and thus couldn't offer me lessons at the time.

Day one
I was told I could show up "any time i wanted" which i found strange, but i took their word for it. i showed up on a monday at 1pm and was sent into a small classroom with two tables and lots of chairs. at least 30 people were crowded around a small table with a table top road set up and dinky cars. my instructor "brown" directed me to sit at the empty table and he started driving the dinky cars around. i thought perhaps i had come to the wrong place - was this a daycare or driving school? who plays with dinky cars on a play map of a town? well, my 3 year old nephew does. perhaps he could come get a kenyan license.

so the play map has a traffic circle with 4 lanes with 3 and 4 lane roads branching off 4 sides as well as a parking lot and a side street. we didn't really receive any instruction about kenyan road rules. just told to follow the blue car there with the red car here. so, i start, with my understanding of canadian traffic circles. "NO! you can't do that! start again." i was told. utter confusion on my face. the next student, grabs the red car, proceed to swerve the thing all over the road, make several u-turns, drives through the parking lot, goes through the traffic circle (or roundabout known here) and after about 5000 turns ends up behind the blue car. "Very good" says Brown, "did you understand that alida?"

"is that for real?" i question.

"yes, of course. what is the problem?"

"well, why did the car have to change 4 lanes from the right side of the road to the left, only to move back 4 lanes three seconds later in order to turn right?"

"well, you have to move to the slow lane of traffic, of course, and then move back into the right lane, or fast lane, so that you can slow down and make a right turn" replies Brown (by the way, his real name, not a "The Office" episode)

"i am sorry, but kenyan road rules may actually cause fatal crashes, rather than prevent them"

"well, when in rome, do as the romans"

so, for the next hour, i have to drive dinky cars around a play map around road blocks and thru parking lots. i am hoping they have snack time or something.

finally, it is time for actual riding on a motorbike. Brown hands me a gigantic helmet and a rubber rain jacket. the helmet is fit for a giant and has no chin strap. it immediately falls in front of my eyes and i am still standing on the street. I ask Brown where the straps are. He has never seen straps on a helmet and I show him where the attachments are inside for the straps; where they once were. He surmises that a student must have removed them at some time because they didn't like them. We get on the motorbike, he turns around, and insists that i do up all the buttons on the cheap rubber rain jacket for my safety. jaw gaping, i reluctantly button up the whole jacket and pray that we don't crash since the helmet will fly off before i hit the ground.
we stop at the gas station and he has them put in half a litre of gas. that should get us far! he actually has to shake the bike around to swish the gas around in the tank to see if it actually in there.
we drive to an empty field with a dirt road around it. Brown shows me the clutch, gas, gears and foot brake and tells me to start driving. he points out that the front brake is missing (again thanks to a previous student) but it doesn't matter because the rear brake is more important. i notice the clutch is almost vertical and i find it difficult to release slowly. that might because it is also partially broken. i start driving it around the road, and notice that it has no side mirrors, the spedometer doesn't work, the right side of the handlebars seemed to be attached with a piece of rubber, and the headlight is taped on. i ride around a couple of times and he motions me back to the centre of the field.

"so how was that?" he asks.

"well, most of what is on the bike is broken, and the helmet keeps falling in front of my eyes" i reply.

"oh, but is much better to learn on this bike, because it keeps you alert. if everything worked, you would fall asleep."

i then have to ride in small circles around a tuft of grass and move onto figure eights formed from random stones. i have to stop at one point because i am so dizzy that the grass is blurring together.

"great, we're done. i just have to stop at my house. i forgot something" says Brown and we head to "his place." i stand reluctantly in the parking lot. what driving instructor takes his student to his house? (don't worry, i was limbering up to use my self-defense moves).

we return to the office downtown to return the bike and high quality equipment. the school owner is yelling at someone at the phone and i slink out as quietly as possible so i do not suffer the same wrath.

Day two
i return tuesday morning, ready to play with cars again. but instead, 60 students are stuffed into benches in the too small room reciting road signs - or "sings" as the schedule indicates. i notice then, that someone in the office has a spelling problem. Friday is spelled "fhariday", saturday is "satir" and all signs are "sings." This does not bode well.

The instructor does not actually teach or explain road signs. the students are expected to memorize them off the handout given and then stand up and recite them for the rest of the class. most students mutter under their breath and no one pays attention. they are texting on their phones or yawning. the instructor walks in and out of the room, randomly deciding that the rehearsing student has made a mistake, like reading the signs out in a horizontal fashion instead of a vertical one. they have to start again.

fortunately, i escape having to recite them that day.
Brown and i take out the stellar bike again, once again, filling it with half a litre of gas.
i drive around in more circles while Brown relaxes and picks at the grass. i do notice though, that the dirt road i ride on simulates real conditions in that it is filled with potholes and garbage. i even get to compete with other cars - those being filled with learning drivers who seem to be terrified of the motorbike. they stop the car and freeze any time i come near them.
school children stop and stare. somehow they can tell it is a woman on the bike and they stop and stare as if it is the 8th wonder of the world. when i ride near them, they scatter and scream.
i drive in more small circles, figure eights for "my safety." apparently these are defensive driving mechanisms.
i am happy, though, that it feels totally natural to ride a motorbike. it must be in the genes.
day two is done. i haven't broken anything or fallen down. and the instructor didn't take me home.

day three
back to playing with cars on the wooden board. the instructors step up the difficulty and throw in road blocks all over the place. i have to try to figure out how to get around the road blocks, while obeying absurd kenyan road traffic laws. he then puts in some very easy situations, that as an experienced driver i figure out easily while my kenyan counterparts struggle. however, they seem to get the long routes with a million turns before i do.

before we head out to the motorbike, i have a word with the driving school owner. i admonish her for having such poor equipment and dangerous helmets. she shrugs and says the helmets came without straps. i assure her that they did not and show her where the straps should be attached. she becomes angry with Brown for not telling her that things are broken and how is she supposed to know if she doesn't ride a motorbike? She demands that he have straps attached for tomorrows class and doesn't care where he finds them.

back in the field, Brown tries to convince me that straps are not necessary and that the helmet falling in my eyes is to "keep me awake" while i am driving. if everything worked so well, i might fall asleep behind the handlebars. i then explain what working neurosurgery is like and the patients i took care of because their helmet came off. his jaw drops and his eyes bulge. he has never heard of anyone having to be fed by a tube or having their bum wiped because of such a severe head injury. he assures me he will find some straps somewhere.

Day four
i can't escape having to recite the road signs. while waiting for my turn, Brown tries to make me fill out information forms for future students and i put the pile of papers back on his lap. he then starts stretching his neck to and fro and saying "oh, i need a massage..."
"so, go get one" i say.
"oh, but where?" whines Brown.
"where ever they give massages" and i turn back to my handout so i don't blunder during my recital.

when i stand up and take the stick so i can point at the road signs painted on the wall, everyone stops their phone playing and yawning and sleeping. the mzungu girl is up and is she going to get everything right? i apparently state something wrong in the "regulatory" signs and some men in front of me start giggling.
"is there a problem?" i ask.
they keep giggling. apparently leaving a zone of 40km an hour is pretty funny.

then i start reciting the "information" signs. i say "restaurant ahead" and i am stopped by the instructor. "you don't need to say ahead, it just means that the restaurant is there. maybe it is behind you."
"okay, fine. restaurant. refreshments. camping area. caravan area...."

then i have to demonstrate the hand signals. when i start with left signal, which involves whipping your right arm up and down three times, then turning it in three giant circles. i get in trouble for turning my arm the wrong way. i tell the teacher that is it probably dangerous to be doing the front stroke with my right arm when i should be having them on the steering wheel in order to actually drive the car. i sit down and then get in more trouble from Brown for having had my left hand in my pocket while demonstrating the hand signals. Apparently, if i were to do that during the exam, or chew gum loudly in front of the police officer, i will fail the test. not because i don't know how to drive, but because i have my hand in my pocket.

Back in the field, i drive around while Brown lays in the grass. i am driving through a bumpy part when i see a half naked man bent over in the bush. his bum is facing me, his face is to the busy road. he is trying to go poo and i nearly hit several pot holes. i am shocked at first, but then i feel bad for him as he is still trying to go on my 4th way around the field. the poor guy must have been constipated.
when i stop in front of Brown, i explain about the man, not so hidden in the bush. he tells me "he is nuts and lives in this field." i tell Brown the man is mentally ill, but that Brown, himself, is nuts.
I ride in my circles and figure eights for half an hour.
on my final ride around the field, the clutch actually falls out of its resting place and is hanging off the handle bar. i have to put it back in place and hope it still works as i try to slow down. when i tell Brown, he says it is to keep me awake, and smiles.

Day five
Having taken the weekend off, i return monday morning for my last lesson. i manage to spend only 30 minutes driving the dinky cars before we head out.
as we drive to the field, i see combat police lining up on the road. riot police on a monday morning is not a good sign. the politicians had finally agreed on something on sunday and announced the cabinet. Brown tells me the Mungiki gang was demonstrating that morning (as he drove the wrong way through the traffic circle and then the wrong way down a one way road).
I stall the bike several times and swear it has something to do with the half working clutch. Brown is convinced it is my inability. I do my routine and at the end of the lesson have to take Brown on the back of the motorbike around the field several times to practice having another person on the bike. As i am speeding up, he suggests he puts his arms around my waist. i told him if he touched me i would throw him off the back of the bike before he knew what hit him.
(this is after last week when he asked if i had a boyfriend or fiance, and then called me several times over the weekend - phone calls i did not answer)
At the end of the lesson, he seems to have "forgotten" something at his house again. I ask if he takes his male students to his house. He acts very astonished and says "i don't do funny business! i am saved!"
okay, saved man, stop taking me to your house then...

Test day
Tuesday morning, i show up bright and early and i head over to the testing centre with 2 other students. it turns out they are social workers with a catholic agency and we work in the same area and will all be riding yamahas around the village.
we arrive at 8:30 and wait for something to happen.
at 9am the police officer in charge comes out of his office and we all stand at attention. for the next 45 minutes he gives a speech about how we should not be nervous and that we have practiced well and that no one will fail. the speech then becomes more sermon like when he starts telling us how we should and should not dress. if we are "showing our stuff" with low cut shirts, that reflects bad character and what will people think of us.
then, reflecting on mondays violence involving the gangs, he instructs us all to "pray and go to ch---"
"Church" replies the crowd.
(a kenyan thing that you complete only half the word and then wait for the audience to finish the word).
He finished his sermon with the instructions to "let the ladies go first because they have to go home and take care of the children and cook food for us."
i stifle my gasp and tell my new friends that i will withhold my comments until after i have passed the test.

we then sit on the grass in the hot sun for more than 2 hours waiting for something, anything to happen. i suspect the police officers are taking a nice long tea break.
finally they start calling in people for their oral exam and playing with cars (yes, they even have dinky cars in the exam). i am near the end and the police officer is surprised that a lady was left to the end. i manage to withhold comments. he calls me "fleln" (instead of fernhout) and he asks me where i work and what i do. i tell him i am a nurse in a village not far away.
"what is your lore?" he asks
"what is my role at the hospital?"
"no, what is the lore?"
"the role of what?"
"the lore of the road?"
"oh, the rule of the road?" ( i then am able to figure out which tribe he is based on his switching the letters r and l).
i answer his traffic questions, repeat road signs, and drive a dinky car around a traffic circle.
i am then instructed to go drive the motorbike in 3 circles around the parking lot and stop in front of the office. he will be able to see me from the window, while quizzing other students.

so, i get on the motorbike, and all other activity stops in the compound. all eyes are on the white girl driving the motorbike. it is probably still being talked about in people's houses.

i get called back in the office and congratulated on passing.
"Alida Danfelle" now has a license. i try to correct the fact that my middle name is spelled incorrectly throughout, but that is what is on my Kenyan ID card, so i stop arguing. as far as kenyans are concerned, i am alida danfelle.
as the police officer is filling out the paper work, he asks me to sponsor his son to go to school in canada. i clarify that he means pay for his university education. yes, of course that is what he means as he laughs. i tell him i am still paying for my own education and i also laugh. as long as he gives me the license. if he doesn't and still talks about sponsoring his son, i plan to point to the "no corruption" signs all over the walls. fortunately, i do not have to resort to that and happily take my papers.
but it is not over. then i am directed to another place. i squeeze my way through a broken door into a shack area. although 6 men are waiting their turn, i am told by this police officer that it is "ladies first." i don't argue as i have spent almost 7 hours sitting on a patch of grass in the hot sun to get my license, when the whole process could have taken no more than 30 minutes.
finally, i have my 20 papers signed and in order, but i do not yet receive my interim license.
i am instructed to return to the driving school the next day to get my certificate and then proceed to the Revenue Authority office where i have to pay more money.

so finally, today, i submitted my pile of papers saying i am a competent motorbike driver.
and i have not yet driven a motorbike on a road with other traffic.
this is kenya.
and this is my motorcycle diary.

a bike... at last

i love riding a bike. a good bike that is. one with gears and brakes that work.
i wasn't very impressed with the one speed chinese bikes in the supermarkets and the "mountain" bikes had their pedals put on backwards and non-functioning brakes, while still new in the store!

so, as i was walking into a nairobi shopping mall, and i saw a group of guys leaning on specialized bikes, outfitted with helmets and all, i just had to ask where they got their bikes. they looked at me suspiciously but finally gave me the number of their "manager." i found out later that they initially thought i wanted to accuse them of stealing bikes!

i got in touch with "the manager" who happens to be one of the few professional cyclists in kenya (david kinja) and we met at his "shop/house." i was practically drooling on the array of bikes, all used bikes non longer considered worthy by their owners from north america and europe. i chose a blue and white GT frame and he set about overhauling it for me. i certainly paid more than i would have in canada, but hey, the thing took a 10,000km boat trip to get here!

in january i was able to load it on a plane and bring it back to eldoret with me. it feels so good to ride a bike around the village, flying by the men as they are pushing their one speed bikes up the hills. but i do smile and wave:-)

i look forward venturing out more! i don't dare leave it anywhere though as it kind of stands out and kids like to play with it during church... but my kenyan father (Baba) was very impressed with it and was so surprised that he could lift it up with only one hand!!

my Baba (kenyan father) takes it for a test spin. i am
pretty sure he wanted to keep it.

my village vehicle. hopefully it copes well in the rainy season!

but what i love most is this...

i could give this blog a number of titles.

Why the children?

I want to beat drunk people with sticks.

Running into the pain feels like diving into a pool full of rocks.

So you have gathered that i have had a rough week. as a disclaimer, i had many a rough week while working in calgary also. i cared for many patients whose situations broke my heart. i counseled dysfunctional families on christmas day while they denied alcohol abuse. i cried myself to sleep on more than one occasion after the death of a patient.

i just didn't post my thoughts and experiences to a blog. partly because i probably would have been sued by the health region, but also because i had a patient roommate who listened to my venting and b*&%ching. but now i have you. the people who read this blog. i come home to an empty house and talking to the wall or the racing grannies on my mantle is not doing the trick.

so, if you want to hear about my days, continue reading and accompany on my journey. what i am sharing is simply what i am dealing with and trying to cope with. so if you continue reading, consider yourself my new global roommate.

the past couple of weeks have been trying. i have been witness, by sight and sound, to atrocities i could not imagine could happen. i have been part of some counseling sessions at the local girls highschool. i have listened to stories from teenage girls about the trauma they have experienced. one saw a kikuyu man burned alive just down the road while people shouted "we will have nyama choma (roasted meat) today!!". another slept in a swamp for two nights because chaos was ensuing all around her. yet another was forced to walk in the streets of kisumu shouting down kibaki in front of a strange funeral procession involving a snake and people dressed in wigs.

i have visited several IDP (internally displaced people) camps within a 50km radius of where i live. tens of thousands of people living in squalor because of their last name. or because they rented a home from someone with the wrong last name/tribe. i have sat with an elderly man under a tree while he explained that he was literally chased off his land and all his maize burned to charcoal. i have had 50 children hanging off my body (literally a child hanging off each finger) until i organized games on a lawn to distract them. i took hanna, an 11 year old, and her mother to emergency after she broke her arm while collecting firewood. i navigated the health system for her hard-of-hearing mother and then assisted the people in the cast clinic to set hanna's arm. with very little medicine for pain, i wrenched her arm one way, while the technician pulled it the other way, and all the while listening to hanna scream for mercy.

then there are my sundays. several sunday afternoons were taken up with arguing with people using and abusing a family of orphans. an uncle and his wife tried to stop them from going to a boarding school, because then their "income generating project" would be gone. they admit to using the children to get food and other items from "well wishers." they asked how they would feed their own children or get free things without the orphans around? then there was the headmistress at their former school. she had neglected them while they were there and then refused to release any of their belongings. we had to make several shopping trips to get new mattresses, clothes and school supplies.

things at the hospital get no better. i mercifully missed the birth of a stillborn baby, but inquired about the other baby in the nursery. a teenage mother gave birth at home and brought the baby that morning because it wasn't doing well. my short visit into the nursery turned into 5 hours of trying to resuscitate this premature newborn, only for her to die while i held her head in my hands. again, i wrapped the baby and offered her to the mother to hold, which she refused. instead, i sat beside her on the bench, the lifeless child in one arm, my other on the mothers back, and this time i could not hold back the tears. i quietly wept and asked esther to tell the young girl that she had done the best she could and we had done the best we could.

today, sunday, was another unenjoyable day. i went with one of our volunteers and several people from catholic relief services to the home of 5 orphaned children who have no support. we finally met the grandmother and two uncles, all of whom were drunk out of their minds. we spent several hours trying to figure out who was to care for these children (i mostly listen and try to quietly advocate through an interpreter). at one point the grandmother tried to get in a fist fight with the youngest uncle, of whom i suspect is sexually abusing the children, and then screamed "take these children away! i don't want them!" the anger inside me was trying to push itself out through hot tears. but i would not let them come. it was finally settled that an uncle and aunt would present themselves, sober, to the catholic clinic later this week for further talks. we left the food, soap, and clothes with the seemingly most responsible person, however, the drunk grandmother is known for stealing anything from the children.

but what i love most is this...

as i pick up cheryl and winnie, two of the orphans, in a bear hug, and swing them in the air, their exhilarating laughter tickles the most inner part of my ears and swells my heart beyond the capacity of my chest.

it is the only thing that keeps me going and gives me hope.

yet, even with all the frustration and pain, i have never loved a job more.

as an aside, i saw this quote on someone else's website. i guess i know i am not locking my heart in a coffin and that the laughter of innocent children is a piece of heaven on earth.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

camps in kenya

last week i visited several camps for internally displaced people in kenya. tens of thousands of people living in tents, makeshift shelters, under tarps. homeless, with nowhere to go. some live close enough to their farm that they can go work on it, but their home was burned to the ground. even a 99 year old man was chased away because he lived in a house owned by someone of the "wrong tribe"
i have not been able to formulate thoughtful words about my experiences, but as per usual, i took hundreds of photos. i posted some of them to a web album. let the images speak without my words.

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/RefugeeCamps

i also have some of myself with multitudes of children at the camps, posted under "me in kenya"

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/MeInKenya


if you feel at all compelled to support the displaced people in kenya, you can donate to crwrc for this specific purpose: http://www.crcna.org/pages/crwrc_donate.cfm

money donated will be used directly to purchase items such as blankets, soap, cooking utensils, and medicine for the displaced people.

rafiki zangu

it never ceases to amaze me. that it takes moving 10,000km and multiple time zones away for me to truly appreciate my friends. i wait until i move to another continent to ask for prayer, when i really needed it right there in calgary. it took me moving to a small african village to realize that the same problems exist around the world and we are all working towards eliminating them, but help appears in different forms.

take my friend amy. she huddles in the back of a van with prostitutes and drug addicts, teaching them, testing them, listening to them, and above all, caring for them. she laughs at my lame stories and encourages my "rogue" activities to include the "c" portion of ABC! (okay, not your sesame street alphabet - "c" stands for condom. another blog, another day). i miss sitting together in kensington coffee shops drinking fancy coffees. i can tell her anything, or just sit in silence and feel like we had a heart-to-heart.

then there is elise, monitoring a plethora of IV lines snaking their way into her patient in ICU. she hums and sings in a melodic voice to her unconscious patient, comforting them, caring for them. and doing it all while wearing stylish pink crocs. she has introduced me to "dressing like a girl" and the mantra "I am smart, I am beautiful" to be repeated on a frequent basis, especially before exams.

you will find that patti moved from a nice, quiet area in her german town, to the inner city filled with drunks and drug addicts, so that she can minister to children desperate for a loving touch. i see her every few years but it feels as though no time has passed at all. we reminisce about days of old while she takes me on adventures to german villages and christmas markets to drink warm wine and eat fat sausages.

cindy has a heart for teenagers with big problems. she offers them refuge from unstable situations to bask in unconditional love. her passion for her friends is unbeatable. i will never be as good a letter writer or encourager as she. she has traveled to unbelievable places but finds contentment and a "mission" in small town alberta. her adventure has sent her head over handlebars on mountain biking trips and camping with a 6 month old. her energy never ceases to amaze me.

neda runs off her feet at work, but never neglects to make sure her patients have received a warm, comforting bath and are turned to face the beautiful view of the mountains from their hospital window. i miss our sewing sessions in my calgary living room and going to persian restaurants to try new food. i even miss administering her weekly needle in the med room at work!

i have so many incredible friends. it would take days to write about them. Karen, who sends me constant letters of encouragement, whether i live in calgary or kenya. Janice, who prepared a care package with some of my favourite things, to arrive on a frustrating day. Roula, who gave me a book about how to flirt and takes me to salsa lessons. Joe, who gives me tips on not what to talk about in front of cute boys (BM...W, i got it joe). Magda, who shared many cups of tea and frustration with me back in the dutch days, and still keeps in touch no matter where i go.

i could not be who i am without my friends. if i have any good qualities, it is not that i was born with them. i have been molded and shaped by the goodness of those kind enough to nuture me with their unconditional love and patience.

rafiki zangu. my friends.
asante sana. thank you so much.

finally something funny...

i have this black skirt that i bought at superstore last summer for $8. it is a stretchy cotton skirt that is versatile enough to wear as a tube top dress(haven't tried that yet!), or folds downs to be a normal skirt. i have grown to love it because it is easy to move in. especially when we do home visits. i usually have to climb over, under, or through wooden or barbed wire fences.

it has caused me some embarrassment however. last november i was up in kitale, kenya with the relief team on a food distribution. we were eating at a restaurant and i was heading into the main building. i stepped over a stone barrier, but the bottom of my sandal caught the back hem of my skirt. when i put my foot on the ground, it took my black stretchy skirt with it, fully flashing my big white butt! thank goodness, the restaurant was empty and no one was temporarily blinded.

the men at the supermarket were not so fortunate last week (or maybe they thought they were fortunate). i went to a place called Tuskys supermarket in downtown Eldoret to waste some time while my key was being cut. I decided to use their bathroom before I set out on my journey back home. all was fine until i walked out of the bathroom and back into the supermarket. I had a coffee mug hanging off my bag and I felt like it was leaking coffee on my butt even though it was empty. I moved it twice before I heard a low, short whistle from behind the blanket counter. Things were feeling a bit airy so I put my hand on my behind and discovered the hem of my skirt was stuck in the waistband. yup, flashing my double half moons at several supermarket workers.at least i had nice pink underpants on.

probably the first and last time they will see a white girls bum. needless to say i was a tad bit embarrassed, fixed my skirt, and ran out of the store. i spent the next two days holding the back of any skirt down over my butt should i cause further temporary blindness in kenya. the hospitals are full enough!!!

(and, yes, i still do wear the skirt. it is just too comfortable and versatile to retire!)

lost

bbc africa radio reports one tragedy after the other. the current situations in chad with rebels storming the capital, and somalia, in which msf workers were killed, make kenya's troubles pale in comparison. still, there has been so much lost in this country in one short month. i can't speak to chad or somalia, but i have had a taste of the atrocities and the losses here in kenya.

kenya has lost its reputation for being a peaceful, stable country. a place known for its hospitable nature and safari tour companies, must now try to restore trust in the rest of the world that it will not spiral into a hateful, precarious state.

kenya has lost its tourists and therefore a major source of its "imported" income. this income provides a very large piece of the governments income. it has now migrated to other countries, much like the wildebeests making their pilgrimage to better places. one might think, oh big deal, a few tourists are gone. think of it this way. tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in that industry alone. it was stated in the paper, that for every person gainfully employed, 10 people are fed. 30,000 jobs lost in a matter of weeks= 300,000 people don't have food to eat.

billions of honestly earned dollars have been and will be lost. did you know that kenya is one of the major exporters of flowers and tea in the world? due to the dangerous road conditions, trucks have been unable to move the goods out of the country, dollars literally wilting, more job layoffs happening. and it is not just the big businesses hit. a local man was unable to ship his truckload of mangoes to nairobi - instead they rotted on the side of the road. other people's vegetables "confiscated" by the youth "protecting" the area. people's liviliehoods lost.

innocent people have lost their lives. over 1,000 people in 4 weeks. i know it is a drop in the bucket compared to rwanda's genocide, but each life lost impacts scores of family members and friends. the fact that 999 other people suffered the same fate does not lessen the pain.

hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes. if they have not been torched by rowdy youth, they have been told that they are not welcome back, in no uncertain terms. church members in eldoret stated in an interview (on bbc) that their fellow parishioners who were of kikuyu origin cannot come back to live, work, or worship. despite the fact that they have been neighbours for 30 peaceful years. with their homes lost, the displaced people are not finding a welcome mat in any other part of the country either. habitats lost.

women and children have lost their innocence and dignity. it is reported daily that rape is out of control. men who leave their area to fight, leave women and children vulnerable to sick men preying on the sidelines. in the camps for the displaced, women lie in fear for being attacked and assaulted, raped by strangers taking advantage of the most vulnerable people. and the children are privy to this all. they watch their mothers and sisters being violated again and again. it is predicted that the HIV/AIDS fallout is going to be huge.

vulnerable people in the most destitute of circumstances have now lost the ability to access even the most basic health care. in the villages surrounding me, people with HIV/AIDS are terrified to leave their home to receive their ARV medications. the clinic workers have been going to camps looking for them, trying their best to protect the people they have come to love. immune systems will collapse, infections will take hold, and more victims of this chaos will go uncounted, simply because they had a virus.

students and teachers have lost a month of school. some students have lost their school altogether. a children's home and school near eldoret was recently torched because "foreigners managed it." families who have been on the run have nowhere to send their children to school. children have lost their teachers because of the teacher's tribal heritage.

trust has been lost by everyone in almost everything. even i don't trust what people tell me, i don't trust the "youth protecting me" , i don't trust an innocent person greeting me on the street. people don't trust their neighbours or people they have called friends for years.

if people do not lose their pride and anger, to gain peace and forgiveness, kenya will lose its future. that is a loss that no one can afford.

alidajoy jepkemboi

I was sitting at my computer on facebook when she died. only 100 metres away a labouring mother passed away in the operating room. she had tried to give birth at home, alone, but was not succeeding. so somehow she made her way to the hospital. the baby was breech and in distress. as they were prepping the mother for a c-section, she died. they did the c-section anyway and were able to deliver the baby. nurses resuscitated her for an hour and the baby survived. motherless, with no name. all the while i was tapping on a keyboard.

i learned of the little girl the next day and started visiting the nursery for feeds, hugs, cuddling, and some awful lullaby singing. she is the only one who would tolerate it. but she didn't have a choice. the mother came unprepared, likely did not plan to keep the baby. so little "no name" was wrapped in a torn sheet and crocheted hospital blankets. my colleague got some onesies from home, but she was still diaperless. with money from a well wisher, i decided to get her a good start fashion wise. i bought a dozen cloth nappies, more onesies, blankets, and some "sharp" outfits. i returned from town on saturday, looking forward to a happy reunion.

i greeted the staff in the delivery suite and was laughing about something when i noticed they were bagging a baby. my balloon burst. it was not our little orphan girl, but a new boy strangled by the very cord that had been giving him life for 9 months. they had been bagging (breathing for him with a bag hooked to oxygen) for more than an hour. his heart rate was strong but he stubbornly refused to breathe on his own and his pupils were fixed and dilated. the doctor instructed the nurses to stop bagging. my coping skills are to start doing "stuff." i removed the IV, cleaned and dressed the little boy. I wrapped him snuggly in a blanket and placed his lifeless body in the mothers arms. I asked my colleague to explain the importance of grieving and spending time with her child that she had nutured for 9 months. i don't yet know "grieving process" in swahili and felt inadequate to explain. instead i choked back my own emotions while washing my hands. i didn't have time to grieve. our orphaned girl needed to be fed.

i warmed the formula and sang "you are my sunshine" while slow dancing around the nursery with her in my arms. my lullaby repitoire is limited. she heard alot of twinkle twinkle little star and you are my sunshine. she ate hungrily, i wrapped her in a nappy far too big for her 2.7kg, dressed her in a new outfit and wrapped her in a new blanket. she looked like she knew she looked good. the extended family came to the hospital to get the mothers body for the funeral. the women cooed over her and the grandmother pronounced that she would be named after me. alida jepkemboi. they will return next week after the funeral to take her home, after they decide who will care for her.

i went back to the delivery room and found the 2 nurses swamped. another woman had just delivered a baby boy and the nurse was delivering the placenta. since i know nothing about delivering babies, it has become my job to clean and weigh the babies. i was delighted to hear him crying but i was not happy for the woman on the other side of the small room who had just lost her son. she had to lay and listen to the commotion. inbetween these two women, another had just rushed in, miscarrying and bleeding profusely on the floor. the second nurse was caring for her. three women experiencing very different emotions only feet apart from eachother. once i had the newborn wrapped and proudly shown to his mother i went to check the wards.

i found a labouring mother vomiting and helped her clean up, while trying to reassure her in my limited swahili. i see a clinical officer run by to the female ward. an elderly woman has just passed away and he must pronounce. i go to see if i can be of assistance but there is not much they can do. i return to ask the nurses and doctor what i should know about contractions because there is another woman in labour. i return and place my hand on her stomach for the next 15 minutes to time contractions. i hold her right hand with my left and she won't let go. i feel the babies feet kick my hand at the top of her stomach. amazing. like what you would imagine angel wings to feel like. her contractions are 4 minutes apart and i go to report to the doctor. the woman follows me and tries to hop into a bloody bed. i convince her to sit on a clean stool. there is nothing more i can do. i don't know how to deliver babies. but i do know how to feed them.

so i take our little orphan home for the night. i feed her, make funny faces, and feel the warm stream of pee she released all over my legs. she smiled after she did that. i swear.
i set up the cot on a chair beside my bed and drape the mosquito net around her. i set my alarm to go off in two hours, but i am not used to having a baby in the house so i check to make sure she is breathing every ten minutes. we make it through the night. i give her a bath with lavender baby wash in the morning and she loves the warm water. i returned her to the hospital at 1100 because i am afraid if i keep her longer i will want to keep her forever.

her uncle and his wife come on monday morning. they decided that they will raise her. they have three girls at home under the age of 10, so she will fit in well. the father has a good job and the mother stays at home with the children. they still have enough energy to take care of a baby. they take her lovingly and are receptive to instructions regarding how to cup or bottle feed her, mix cows milk for her(formula is prohibitively expensive) . they say they have been instructed to name her after me. i had protested with the staff and suggested that the well wisher also be honoured as he had a part also. the staff decide that joy will substitute for joe and that she will be alidajoy jepkemboi. i feel kind of embarrassed, but secretly i am truly honoured. the family and i promise to keep in touch.

alidajoy jepkemboi. i will miss her.

headlines

headlines are usually depressing.

Aid workers die in somali blast.
Man shot in front of Second Cup.
Gunmen hold Pakistani children hostage.
Gangs on rampage in western kenya.

tragedy occurring
every minute
of every day
in every country.

where is compassion? understanding? forgiveness? reason?
i am listening to the radio, listening for changes outside my small village of Plateau. a reporter in Eldoret was coming from the airport and witnessed a hacked up body on the side of the road. he was reportedly dragged out of a matatu for being of the "wrong" tribe and hacked to death by a gang of youth. this is but a minor fraction of the violence and hatred occurring just kilometres away.

no one seems to understand these radical changes in kenya. heads shake, hands wring, hearts cry. it was looking hopeful. kofi annan even got the feuding politicians to shake hands and smile in public. i returned to my village and downtown eldoret seemed pretty normal. people buying food, the market was packed, the glue boys asking me for money.

i don't know what will happen. but i am happy to be back in my village with friends and family. as difficult as this time is, i would choose to be nowhere else. i came to share burdens with my african brothers and sisters. i am doing nothing radical. i am just being with them. i am holding their babies. i am shaking their hands. i am speaking peace.
i look forward to some more hopeful headlines.
Peace prevails in Kenya.
Children stop dying of diarrhea.
Second Cup to give free lattes.

here's to hoping...

tanzania photos

here is the link to my picasa site where i have been posting selected photos. i can't possibly post all my photos because i take hundreds, but this should give you a taste...

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/

i will also try to formulate some new blog posts, but i have to get my neurons to communicate in an organized fashion first...

mt. kili and other delights

greetings from tanzania. i arrived sunday evening and was welcomed by julia and meaghan, american girls who are working in and around arusha.

tanzania is so very different and so very the same as kenya. fortunately, they speak swahili, so i am practicing my poor language skills and learning more words everyday. their matatu's or "dala dala's" are actually fuller than ones in kenya. i have had to stand a few times. however, they don't have giant crater holes in the road, so swerving all over the road is not exsistant.

i have been fortunate enough to go visit villages with meaghan and see the work going on there. yesterday i went to the village of mwika in the foothills of mt. kiliminjaro. the scenery is stunning. however, this village has a 30% HIV rate and loads of orphans. i spent most of the day playing with 25 kids. half of them are also HIV+ and i could feel enlarged lymph nodes in most of their necks. one child is so anemic, i don't want to even know what his red blood cell count is. i would likely empty my blood into his body to help!

i also went on a home visit to see an elderly lady with a large facial tumor. they took me to see her as i am a nurse and it is reassuring to them to get a "professionals" opinion. Josephine is HIV+, and has a large facial tumor that has completely eroded all the tissue on the left side of her face, and has eaten away so much of her cheek that she now has a complete hole filled with dead tissue. she is in a lot of pain, but i can tell that they are trying hard to keep the wound clean. they had been referred to Dar es Salaam for further treatment. they can't even afford to go down into town to get a CD4 count. there was not much i could "consult", but i advised on how to clean it, control pain. I just tried to be encouraging, because that is about the only treatment she can get. perhaps i should get a prescription pad, that just says "hope" or "encourgament" on it.

the drive back to arusha was beautiful. we had gorgeous views of mt. meru and mt. kiliminjaro and we drove into the horizon of the setting sun. it was a blessing.

i still don't know when i can return to my village. the reports i get from co-workers is that it is calm and safe, but my return will be decided by the emergency response team. my hosts here in tanzania have been fantastic and have made me feel at home.

i do long to return to plateau to be with "my people" to be part of the healing process. i hope it will be soon.

thank you to everyone who has sent me emails to let me know that they are thinking and praying for me. please also do the same for the people in eldoret and plateau. i have also been praying for the hearts of the youth who have been perpetrating the horrific crimes. they need a radical transformation of mind and heart.



mt. kiliminjaro (taken from a car while moving 100km/hr)



"mt. kili" closer up



me with josephine - the lady with the facial tumor



sunset (again from a moving vehicle)

leaving on a jet plane

no, i am not being evacuated. but i am not returning to my village for an undetermined amount of time. i am going to visit a friend i met in a training this past summer. she lives just over the kenyan border in arusha, tanzania.



i have been in contact with my friends in eldoret and plateau. plateau is still "calm" and "safe", however all local roads are blocked. the small hospital that has seen little action for months is now handling gunshot wounds and machete slashes. the teaching hospital in eldoret has 200 more patients than beds and have been running out of guaze and basic supplies.



they have begun escorting people out of eldoret now on busses, but under heavy police escort. no one is going in. hence, i will not be returning to my village any time soon.



so, early next week i will be leaving on a "jet plane" (probably something much smaller) to arusha, tanzania. a positive outcome is that i can see a friend, see somewhere new, learn about her work with HIV/AIDS, and add a new country to my facebook map.

wazimu

one day in swahili class, my teacher asked me about canadian politics. i gasped, initially, because i thought he wanted me to discuss politics in swahili. i can talk about the weather and bargain in the market, but my swahili language capabilities are not that good! i was relieved when he said i could converse in english!

as we talked about the different styles of politics in canada versus kenya, my teacher taught me a new word. "wazimu" is how he described kenyan politics, and this was while it was peaceful. wazimu means "mad" as in "mental illness mad." it has become a new favourite word of mine.

wazimu is the state of kenya right now. truthfully, i am quite isolated from the riots, violence, demonstrations. the closest i see them is the same as you, on the internet. yet, i am close because i have spoken to several friends and colleagues in eldoret to keep abreast of the situation.

i felt a change in the air last saturday. the results had not yet been announced but there was anxiety as it was taking so long for results to get in. i walked to the local shopping mall and noticed that most shops on the street were closed. few people had ventured outside. however, as i approached the mall, i saw the longest line of cars trying to get into the parking lot. the majority of the license plates were from the UN or an embassy. i thought it strange that they should be holding a conference there (it has a conference area inside) on that day. when i arrived inside the mall, all but a few shops were open. i wondered where all these people were going. and then saw the lines in the grocery store. everyone was stocking up like it was the end of the milennium.

i was on a quest for a radio so that we could listen to election results, and had to go to another nearby shopping mall. as i wandered into the electronics section, two employees cornered me and tried starting a heated political debate with me. needless to say they were pro-kibaki, and were trying to get me to say the same. i maintained neutrality and explained i just wanted a cheap radio!! i did ask why all the expats seemed to be stocking up and they said things might get bad and i should stock up for 2 weeks. it sounded a little extreme to me. i bought the radio and left.

but walking back through the neighbourhood, the tension was palpable. i felt like i could push and pull the air and that it would spring back at me if i leaned too hard.

well, the air has split in western kenya. i live 15km outside of eldoret, a major area of violence and bloodshed. i have confirmed that my friends and colleagues are safe, but they have not left their houses, even out in the farming area. their food is limited and they have no access to airtime for phones. i have been sending airtime so that they can at least contact their families.

amidst the violence, i have experienced "everyday grace."

first, i had no desire to spend the christmas holidays in eldoret. as much as i love my kenyan family and friends there, i wanted to be with some other friends for my first christmas out of the country. i had also witnessed the level of passion that people exhibited when campaigning, and i didn't want to witness that passion go awry should their chosen leader lose. about a month ago, i witnessed a murder by beating of a petty thief. if people were willing to beat someone to death over a cell phone or a bunch of bananas, what would they do for their leader?

second, my friends and i that were spending christmas together almost booked a week in the city of kisumu. we were on the verge of booking when we recieved an email about a different option and we abandoned lake victoria for lake baringo. it turns out that kisumu was one of the first places to break out in violence. according to reports, every supermarket has been burned to the ground and thousands have fled the area for the ugandan border.

third, my friends and i were supposed to spend 5 days in lake baringo and paid for it in advance. now, we stretched out the activities as much as possible but were bored to tears after 4 days. despite that we are all poor, tight-wad mission workers, we decided to leave a day early. we drove the little station wagon through washed out roads and over rocks, past young children selling honey on the road. our cell phones had little to no signal for about 2 hours. less than 24 hours after we left, and during the time we had previously scheduled to be in the area, violence broke out in baringo the minute the election results were announced. had we clung to our money and stayed an extra day, we may have been on an almost deserted road with no communication while people went berserk around us.

but, my heart is still in a headlock. as i had written in a blog some time back, i came (or was called) to kenya to "run into the pain." i want to share and suffer alongside my kenyan friends. instead, i am sitting in a walled compound in an upscale area of nairobi in no immediate danger, while the people i have come to know and love are hunkered in their homes fearing for their lives. i feel helpless that all i can do is pray. because quite frankly, it feels like the prayers are bouncing off that wall of tension.

i know that God's hand is in my life. i was traumatized after witnessing that murder a little more than a month ago, and i don't think my heart could have taken what is happening in eldoret. but i still long to hold the hands and hug the women and children in my village. i feel as though i am abandoning them.

as for the next few days, our office held a security meeting today and we have made contingency plans to evacuate (the expats to begin with followed by the kenyan staff) if necessary. i hope and pray it does not come to that. but the next 48 hours are extremely critical and it rests in the decisions that the political leaders make. cling to pride, or bow to humility. different outcomes that will affect millions of lives.

pray that the wazimu will end.

safe

i just wanted to let everyone know that despite kenya experiencing turmoil and chaos, i am in a safe place.

i am in nairobi staying with a friend. she lives in a very safe place with walls, wires, and guards.

i had spent christmas in lake baringo (see photos on my picasa site) with friends which went very well and was very peaceful. by the grace of God, we left a day early due to boredom. i read in the paper today that violence erupted in the area less than 24 hours after we left (the exact time that we would have been on a road with little phone access).

eldoret, the town i live close to is completely chaotic, with the death toll at 25 and counting. the people in my village of plateau are safe, but have no access to getting phone credit or food. no one is leaving their house. again, "everyday grace" intervened. i would have had no transportation and little communication.

i am safe and do not feel in any danger. but please pray for peace and wisdom for kenya. it is imperative that people can move past this and reconcile and forgive.

normal

i love hearing about normal things. i love hearing about how you carved 6 pumpkins for halloween. i love hearing about the cute guy you saw at safeway. i love hearing about the crafts you made with your kids, and the birthday cake for your church function. i love hearing about snow, and how many times you had to shovel it. i love hearing about trips to the shopping mall, or the bad haircut you just got.

and since i love hearing about your normal stuff, i will tell you about my normal stuff. i might live on a different continent than most of the readers, and granted a few details of my life are different, but i still do normal stuff.

i still press my snooze button at least 4 times before i get out of bed. i still make coffee in my french press for breakfast. i eat muesli or oatmeal for breakfast. i take a "shower" in the morning, with the only difference being that i have to heat my water with a coil and my shower head is my hand and a bowl.

i did laundry this morning. only this time, it took 2 hours to wash my underpants, one pair of jeans, two pairs of pajamas, a sheet and a towel. i hung them outside to dry before going to work.

i zap my lunch in a microwave and eat mr. noodles (ramen) because i am too lazy to cook. i check facebook after work to see what my friends are up to around the world. then i ironed all my clothes because i am scared of mango bugs laying their eggs in my clothes. i listened to emmylou harris while ironing.

when i am bored and/or need to procrastinate on the long list of things i have to do, i pop a dvd into my computer and watch ugly betty or scrubs. the nice thing is there are no commercials!

i bought some flashing christmas lights and strung them around my living room window. i bop around the house to boney m's version of "feliz navidad." i am too cheap to buy an ugly plastic tree, but i have an angel ornament made out of a piece of beer can (the irony!) and an ornament a friend sent me from canada. on my fireplace mantles are two "racing grannies" dressed up like myself and a friend. when i feel homesick, i wind them up and watch them hobble across the mantle with their walkers.

i don't have to shovel snow or mow the lawn for that matter. i have several built in lawnmowers and fertilizers. my neighbours sheep come over and do the job for me. my grass is nice and short and i haven't busted a sweat for it. when i start a garden i will have to put a fence around it to keep them out. but that is a small sacrifice for free lawn moving.

i live in a 3 bedroom house and i don't like cleaning it! nothing new there!! sometimes i don't have running water, but i have rain water outside that does the trick.

i have a sewing machine, and if i ever get around to it, i want to start quilting again.

i still have the notion that i should check my messages every time i walk in the front door even though i don't have a landline. i have finally figured out most of my cell phone although i still jump a mile when it vibrates.

i do normal stuff. i procrastinate, i go for walks, i go to supermarkets and shopping malls. i look at cute boys (well, once in awhile) and wonder if they look back. i do normal stuff. i will tell you my normal stuff if you tell me yours.

vehicular guardian angels

over the past year some good friends and colleagues have given me "guardian angel" pins and momentos, reminding me that i am being watched over. us dutch reformed people don't talk about guardian angels much, so i used to think of them more as a nice symbolic gesture.

i have become quite convinced as of late, that there really are guardian angels, and that i personally employ an entire fleet of them. i like to think of them as my vehicular guardian angels. in the past i have engaged myself in some activities that i thought were "risky" such as paragliding lessons, zip-lining in costa rica, and bombing down the sides of mountains on mountain bikes. i now think these activities are fairly tame compared to stepping foot on a road here in kenya.

i look back in astonishment and a bit of laughter at the "rides" i have experienced...

*hitched a ride in the back of a pickup, had to sit on bags of cement and wedge my legs between metal gates. i got a free ride for about 500 metres and several bloody scratches on my legs.
*hitched a ride in the back of a pickup into town. this time i got to sit all the way on the floor. good thing too, because the driver sped with a lead foot all the way to town.
*hitched a ride in the cab of a dump truck driving past my village. i sat between three men who all just sat and grinned at me. when i looked over at the steering wheel i noticed that in the place where the turn signal should be, uncoated wires were sticking out of the steering column. i grinned back and prayed the driver would not electrocute himself.
*rode on the trailer of my kenyan brothers tractor to the highway. i was a new colour on arrival as i was completely covered in red dust.
*caught a ride on the back of a pickup, but as it was a school bus with 30 children standing in the back, myself and the school bus attendant had to stand on the bumper and hang onto an overhead bar while flying through the countryside. i prayed to be knocked unconcious right away so i wouldn't feel the pain when i fell!
*hired a cab from town to the village although the car looked a little worse for wear. the driver assured me it ran well. while driving on the dirt road home, the keys actually fell out of the ignition while the car was moving! that was a new one. the car stalled twice, the driver had to get out and fiddle around with unknown car parts to get it started again.
*the vehicle for the community program is an 1986 isuzu trooper. it still runs... kind of. to get it out of the garage, i usually have to pop the hood and jiggle the battery connections. we used to have to turn it off to switch into first gear and reverse. while it was running we only had second and fourth gears. that part is now fixed, but i still have to jiggle the battery wires.
*the matatu ride i described when i first arrived was tame and safe by comparison to taking matatus up-country. due to lax (no) enforcement of laws, i am usually happy if the doors close. one conductor put so many people on that people's bums blocked the sliding door from shutting. last weekend, the conductor stuffed 25 people into a matatu. for reference, a matatu is roughly the size of large mini-van. i sternly asked him if he was wanting to be in the next days newspaper under the headline "25 people die in matatu crash." he laughed but i was not amused.

overall, i am so fortunate and grateful that i am still in one piece and have not suffered any major harm. i did recently enroll in the "flying doctors" service however! i am entitled to one flight evacuation per year!

january will bring motorcycle lessons so that i can get my kenyan license. i look forward to the ability to control my own mode of transportation! i am also getting a decent mountain bike that i hope will serve me well in this back country terrain. but i will try not to test the fleet of angels any further than necessary:-) they are already working overtime!

glue boys & child soldiers

Ishmael Beah is a former child solider from Sierra Leone. He wrote a powerful book called "a long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier" which I bought and read in one day this past summer. Amazing and disturbing book. I recommend it.

It has helped me to have more empathy for all the glue sniffing boys that roam the streets of any city here in Kenya. They are boys, who through no fault of their own, have become drug addicts as early as age five. They steal, harass, and sing songs off-pitch when they are high - but they are boys, they are someone's son, they are desperate, they are hungry and they are alone. I don't know how they got to where they are, but most 7 year olds don't go looking to do drugs, or to become soldiers.

I just found out from a friend's facebook wall that Ishmael Beah will speaking at one of my alma mater's (Calvin College) in January during the "January Series". January 11, 2008 to be specific. If you live in Grand Rapids or anywhere near it (to me "near" is about a 5 hour driving distance), I highly recommend you go see this guy speak. It is free, but I imagine you will have to line up for this one!
So, if you can, I highly recommend going to see Ishmael speak. I doubt you would regret it.

http://www.calvin.edu/january/2008/

heart in a headlock

i've been addicted to imogen heap lately - listening to her music again and again. the title track from one of her albums is "heart in a headlock" and while jogging down a dusty dirt road near my house, i realized this a perfect diagnosis for my internal chest pain.

many days, as i meet people in the village and listen to their stories, a tight, suffocating sensation develops in my chest. a single mother with 4 children, ostracized from the family, without food, water, firewood, or even a toilet, sits coughing on the ground describing her desperate living situation. headlock tightens. but i learn her name is grace, and then she smiles and laughs at a joke. the headlock loosens.

a grandmother, close to 75 years old, finds herself raising 10 grandchildren. some are as young as 2 years old. all of her children have died. she should be resting, her children caring for her. but she has no choice, she must now clothe and feed hungry mouths. headlock tightens. she shows me around her farm full of corn, bananas, passion fruit, and maize. she is able to earn enough money to send her grandchildren to school. the headlock loosens.

i meet a man named Joseph at the World AIDS day planning meeting. he tells me that less than five years ago he laid in a hospital bed weighing 23kg (just over 50 lbs) with a CD4 count of 7 (normal is in the thousands). he was nearly dead. headlock tightens. he was started on ARV's, now weighs 50kg and has a CD4 count of 700. he became a community health educator and started his own beadwork business that now employs 10 other people, all of whom are HIV+. the headlock loosens.

while waiting for a friend downtown one day, i witness an incredible act of violence against another person. headlock tightens, this time near strangulation. i ask my friends to pray. they do and share their own struggles. i feel connected even though we are far away. the headlock loosens.

injustice and violence tighten the grip, grace and love loosen the grip.

my heart is in a headlock.

Crumbs from our table

On the streets of Nairobi, Eldoret, and Plateau, I see people wearing clothes from North America, sometimes even from my hometown. Last week in Nairobi, I saw a woman wearing an Oilers jersey, on an Eldoret Avenue, a “Cassie Campbell Street Hockey Tournament” t-shirt, on a dirt road to the farm a young boy with a Toronto Maple Leaf jacket. Initially, one might think, “that is so cool!” Years ago, during my first trip to Nigeria, I thought it was kind of cool. Now, I have reason to pause when I see this.

The amount of used clothing here first struck me as I went on a search for Kenyan fabric that I might quilt with. My experience in Nigeria had been that there was beautiful Nigerian cloth everywhere – in markets, in stores, on the street corners. Women took great pride in their outfits (and Nigerians even have a reputation here for being well-dressed). I had made the incorrect assumption that this would be the case in Kenya. There is the red Maasai cloth and some bright cottons called kikoy, but even these can be difficult to locate. I started observing what people were wearing, and where they were getting it. And something started to bother me.

We (and I am included) in the “First world” or “Northern Hemisphere” apparently send our leftovers to less developed countries. And it is not always the nicest clothes that get sent. I saw a small child with a “Miami mice” t-shirt on. That has got to be at least two decades ago!
I think of the story of Lazarus the beggar in Luke 16 eating the crumbs off the rich mans table. “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” The rich man ended up in hell while Lazarus was seated in heaven and the rich man was begging for Lazarus to “dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” Like it or not, we are the rich man and the majority of the world is Lazarus. What are we called to do? What are we going to do? I, myself, am so supremely challenged by this. Do I wear my linen and give my leftovers? Do we just give away our old and unwanted clothing, the crumbs from our table after the feast?
And it is not just the “developing countries” that get the leftovers. A friend who volunteered in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina said they had to spend money getting rid of horrendous clothes donated by generous people. He said, and I read in various articles, that people had donated prom dresses and 1980’s one-piece silk jumpsuits. Now, imagine you live in the Superdome with 10,000 other people and you don’t even have a toilet. Are you going to want to put on someone’s old prom dress?
I think about some of the things I have donated in the past, and I am embarrassed that I expected someone else “less fortunate” to wear it. I thought, “well, they should appreciate having clothes at all!” What a poor attitude on my part. Why should someone, anyone, get my old leftovers. Are they not deserving of something new, just like I would buy for myself?

Something else that began to bother me was the lack of a local, indigenous clothing market or industry. Now, I don’t expect people to dress in their traditional clothes from 50 or 100 years ago, but it has been hard to find anything that has been made in Kenya other than school uniforms. I started to ask questions of my host family, friends, and colleagues. I have been told that four textile factories in the Eldoret area alone have closed in recent past, resulting not only in a loss of locally produced clothing, but a major loss in jobs. One colleague commented, “the used clothes are very cheap and so it makes us very happy to get such cheap clothes, but many local factories have closed down now because of it.” National Geographic, in the Africa issue last year, also reported that the influx of used clothing is essentially destroying the African textile industry.
This was reinforced by an article in the Daily Nation, a popular Kenyan newspaper, titled “Man sees hand of God in recall to garment firm.” The story is that William Odumbe had a well paying job in a garment factory which was shut down seven years ago. Unable to find a new job and forced to rely on his brother for help to buy food for his children, Mr. Odumbe said, “that was the time I wanted to look for a rope and hang myself, but something inside me told me to carry on.” Now, seven years later, another firm has decided to re-invest in the factory, update the equipment, and Mr. Odumbe was the first man they hired back. His joy and restored dignity practically leaps off the newsprint.

Now, you may be wondering how your skirt or dress shirt went from your closet to the market stalls in Eldoret? Well, used clothing establishments get an excessive amount of goods donated to them. Rather than throw away the excess, they sell it in large bundles to people here in Africa, and it takes a nice holiday cruise over the Atlantic. Once the bundles arrive, entrepreneurs buy a whole or part of a bundle in bulk and head to the market to make a buck. Some people just buy a stack and sell each piece for about 50 cents. Others are selective and find the best quality pieces to hawk on the street. It is common in downtown Eldoret to see a man wearing 10 suit jackets. At first I thought they were like the homeless in downtown Calgary, wearing every layer of clothing they had ever owned. Then I realized that they were selling the men’s suit jackets but they were their own walking stalls. Some of the clothes are actually still in good condition, others are years old, or have rips and stains (and are then sold much cheaper).

I am not sure that there is a surefire solution to these issues. I am certainly not against donating used clothing to the various outlets that accept them. After all, I grew up on second hand clothing, and have frequently donated my clothes that no longer fit or are flowing out of my closet. So, I don’t want to say, “Stop donating clothes” as there are people who will genuinely get a second or third use out of it. Recycling clothes also keeps them out of landfills.

When we do donate clothes, perhaps we should consider why we are giving it away. Is it filled with stains? Consider cutting it up into rags and use it to dust or clean your toilet. Is it way out of fashion? There are programs in high schools that accept old prom and bridesmaid dresses and re-fashion them into dashing new ball gowns for low income girls. (Cinderella project in Calgary, at least three of my bridesmaid dresses went there) Think about why you want to get rid of something and imagine a person on a downtown street in Calgary or Nairobi wearing it. Are you giving linens or crumbs?

photo link

i have started to upload photos to picasa, as i can work offline with it and it is connected to my gmail and blog. if the connection was every fast enough i could probably make nice slideshows. but at the moment i have 5 minutes of battery time on the computer left, so I will post the link to my public gallery here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout

i hope it works... i hope to upload some more photos soon.