The Vilanculos project

One dual advantage and disadvantage of having volunteer experience at this stage of my travels, is that I’ve unwittingly developed expectations. I can’t help but feed on my experiences in the 11 weeks prior to arriving in Vilanculos and this has undoubtedly shaped my view of things. That said, I have tried to maintain some objectivity in the views I'm about to share with you

First off, let me lay out what the schedule for a typical week looks like:
• Monday: 6.45am: wake up, get ready, have breakfast; 7.45 – 11am: teaching at the pre-school; 11am – 2.30pm: return to camp for lunch and rest; 2.30 – 5pm: planning session for adult English class; 5 – 6.30pm: return to camp for rest; 6.30pm: dinner time; 9pm: lights out (the generator is turned off; its pitch black so all you will be doing is sleeping at this stage)
• Tuesday: 6.45am: wake up, get ready, have breakfast; 7.45 – 11am: teaching at the pre-school; 11am – 2.30pm: return to camp for lunch and rest; 2.30 – 5pm: teaching adults English; 5 – 6.30pm: return to camp for rest; 6.30pm: dinner time; 9pm: lights out
• Wednesday: 6.45am: wake up, get ready, have breakfast; 7.45 – 11am: teaching at the pre-school; Time off to spend as one pleases; 6.30pm: dinner time; 9pm: lights out
• Thursday: 6.45am: wake up, get ready, have breakfast; 7.45 – 11am: teaching at the pre-school; 11am – 2.30pm: lunch and work on building project (we are building a house for one of the local guys who helps around at the school); 2.30 – 5pm: planning session for informal English tutoring held on Saturday mornings and outline play activities for the children at a local orphanage we visit on Saturday afternoons; 5 – 6.30pm: rest; 6.30pm: dinner time; 9pm: lights out
• Friday: 6.45am: wake up, get ready, have breakfast; 7.45 – 11am: teaching at the pre-school; 11am – 2.30pm: return to camp for lunch and rest; 2.30 – 5pm: teaching adults English; 5 – 6.30pm: return to camp for rest; 6.30pm: dinner time; 9pm: lights out
• Saturday: 7.45am: wake up, get ready, have breakfast; 9am: teaching English in an informal setting to local kids in the neighbourhood; 11am - 12.30: return to camp for rest and lunch; 12.30 – 2.30pm: planning for teaching at pre-school; 3 – 5pm: playing with children at local orphanage; 5 – 6.30pm: return to camp for rest; 6.30pm: dinner time; 9pm: lights out
• Sunday: WHOLE DAY FREE; you can usually eat when you feel like it and dinner is about the only scheduled thing on this day (well that and lights out)

The pre-school was started by locals and AI works in conjunction with local teachers to run it. There are about 60 odd children aged 2 – 5 who for the most part speak no English, little Portuguese and a lot of Shitswa (the local language in Vilanculos). Communicating with them is therefore quite the challenge; for me it’s usually a mixture of hand gestures, pidgin Portuguese and facial expressions – it sort of works. The local teachers do try to mediate a lot of the time, but of course they are not always around so one needs to improvise in those circumstances. What I find most frustrating about working at the school is that I feel the children are not actually learning anything. Some of them have been in the school for well over a year and have only been taught to count to 10 in English and Portuguese; can say the alphabet and that is about it. We only teach for 45 minutes out of the 3 hours or so that we are there and we spend the rest of the time playing with them. That is not to say that the children don’t learn as they play but I feel they don’t seem to know much at all. Of course I admit comparing them to the kids in encountered at TAPA in Kenya, where 3.5 year old Bravin could count and write 1 – 100 in English, knew the alphabet and was well on his way to learning how to read in Swahili and English. I’m not aware of the standard children in Mozambique need to be at before they enter the mainstream education system. Perhaps there is no expectation that they know anything at all, in which case our work at the school is giving these children something over and above what others their age will have. If that is not the case, then clearly we need to rethink how much of an impact our work is having. On the positive side of things, I'm told that since AI started working at the school, the children no longer get hit by the teachers; there is actually a naughty corner just outside the school with a drawing of an unhappy smiley face on the wall and the naughty ones are sent there as punishment - they hate it! We also cook food for the children each day (I'm told that may well be the most decent meal some of them will get; its usually spiced rice with vegetables) and provide first aid treatment

As was the case in Zanzibar, I thoroughly enjoy teaching the adults English. The coordinators here have already done a good job of splitting the class into beginners and advanced and I’ve been assigned to the beginners' class, admittedly more challenging. We however usually have a translator who helps facilitate the learning process and the students are also very keen to learn. The experience is also helping me to pick up some Portuguese, which does no harm at all. From what I’m told, the advanced class is also a very keen lot and the volunteers who teach that class, thoroughly enjoy it too. Thumbs up all around

The informal English class held near the camp on Saturday mornings also tends to be good fun. This is just a way to reach out to the local community and help them pick up the language. Fun games and learning activities are usually the order of the day for these sessions. The age range is 2 to 25 and we split them up into age groups for teaching purposes. I really enjoy it; I was with the younger kids last Saturday and we had fun learning all about apparel. Some of them are learning English in school so hopefully the supplementary practice they get with us will help them learn the language faster

The orphanage we visit on Saturday afternoons is a bit out of town. We take along a lot of toys and games to play with the children. They were good fun last Saturday though again, the language barrier limits the extent of the benefits of our interaction. Some of the older kids use this “play” time effectively by practicing their English with us. They were all lovely children and seem to be well cared for; all in school and one got the sense that they lived more like a family, looking out for each other

You may have noticed the emphasis that seems to be placed on planning in this project. The time slots dedicated to planning CANNOT be used for anything else and we are expected to brainstorm and come up with fun, creative ways of teaching during these times. In theory, I think this approach makes sense, in practice, I don’t think it always hold true. I’ve had no teaching experience prior to the last 12 weeks but I find that having a plan does work in setting the scene or tone of a class but what ends up being taught sometimes is driven by the need of the students more than anything else. This is especially true for the adult education classes where we don’t follow a set curriculum and have no milestones to be achieved over a fixed timeframe (unless self-imposed). Our planning is detailed, to the extent that we write out exactly what we are going to do in the classes and fall short of jotting down a minute-to-minute plan of events. It seems rather over the top. Aside from the feeling of being pigeonholed, it takes away part of the fun that the experience is supposed to bring, I find. The ladies who run the show in this project are also very strict with time keeping and with the least provocation, issue written warnings, etc. We are not allowed to take any time off from the project to do anything else, regardless of whether this has little or no effect on how smoothly things run. Its almost like being in secondary school again, I mean Catholic boarding school here! After free styling in Kenya for 7 weeks, this is a tad too far the other end of the spectrum and while I’m trying to not let it get to me, I have to admit that I’m struggling. I also know I’m not being ridiculous here cause it seems the other volunteers share my displeasure about this side of things. I’m told feedback has been given but clearly it's not radically altering the state of things

Even if things don’t improve in a few areas on the project in the coming weeks, I’m sure I will still leave with a sense of achievement. At the very least, I will know the Mozambique national anthem by heart as we sing it at the pre-school every single morning!

The journey to Mozambique

My last week in Nairobi was fairly unpleasant, putting it mildly. Amongst other things, I was battling with the flu for what seemed like the umpteenth time. By the middle of the week, I was in a fragile state and had to spend a day in bed to at least get some rest. The medication [really OVER medication] ensued but it seemed to work in a nonchalant fashion as by the weekend I was still blowing and coughing out multi-coloured “things”. Needless to say, I was ready to go!

I was up at the unfriendly hour of 3am on Monday to get ready and head to the airport. I had spent the weekend with my lovely friend, Miss T, who lives in Nairobi (and had done so for the last few weekends) so I said goodbye to her with mixed feelings (sad to leave her but jubilant to leave and hopefully be able to regain my health as this town proved rather unkind to me in that regard). I was at the airport by 5am and went through the motions of checking in, still half asleep. Of course, I was slapped right awake when they told me the charge I’d incurred for excess luggage (I didn’t go easy on the curio and gift shopping in Kenya, I confess). I negotiated and got the price down somewhat but it was still a staggering amount to pay, I felt. We were airborne by 8am and I took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep though the flight to Johannesburg was only 4 hours long and we arrived a little ahead of schedule.

The Tambo airport in Jo’Burg is rather impressive if only for its sheer vastness; it’s generously endowed with all the mod cons. The immigration procedure was very straightforward and within minutes I was done, luggage retrieved and fervently hugging my dearest friend, Miss M, with whom I was going to be spending the next 24 hours before catching my flight to Mozambique. She’d taken a day off work to spend time with me as we’d not seen each other for about 3 years and not only was a full catch up session long overdue, we were supposed to plan our road trip to Namibia and Botswana. She first drove me to her lovely home in the suburbs of Sandton. The parts of Jo’burg I saw on the way were beautiful and well developed. SA is definitely on top of its game, I was tempted to think; though I’ll save my in-depth analysis for when I see the rest of the country later this year. Miss M then announced that she’d booked me into a spa for half a day of beautification followed by an evening of comedy. I was totally unprepared for this kind and thoughtful gesture; I’d envisaged a long lunch followed by sleep. I accepted her offer with a grateful smile knowing that this was exactly what I needed after that last week in Nairobi.

After dropping off my luggage, we went for a lovely lunch accompanied by a glass of wine each and planned our trip. The spa session was splendid! I got a full body massage, a pedicure and a facial; I felt brand new. The beautician admonished me for not taking good care of my skin: “overexposure to the sun and lack of exfoliation”, she said. I was too relaxed and sleepy to explain my activities of the last 11 weeks so I just took her “advice and recommendations” quietly. It was dusk by the time we were done, so we headed to town for the comedy show. The show featured international comedians and there were 7 of them in total. I don’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as the first couple of comedians made me laugh; their names I shan’t forget: Dean Edwards -NY based comedian and Trevor Noah - a South African comedian. The rest were funny too, just not as much as those two. It was a great evening and I went to bed that night giggling and reminiscing about some of the jokes with Miss M.

I was actually very sad to be dropped off at the airport the next morning. She had made my first taste of SA sweet and I wanted to stay. Nevertheless, I checked in, said another sad goodbye and went off to kill the hour I had before the plane took off. This time there was no big deal with excess luggage; I had the presence of mind to leave some of my luggage with Miss M and travel with just the one bag for the rest of the trip, till we link up for the Namibia-Botswana leg
The airline that took us to Mozambique was a small one and there were no more than 40 people on the plane in the end (we did a stopover in Kruger, another part of South Africa, to pick up some more passengers). After 2 hours or so of flying, we arrived in the beach town of Vilanculos. The Indian ocean was in full view, even from the airport; and the weather was an excellent 24 degrees Celsius.

The volunteer program coordinators were there to pick me up, as promised. A short drive later, we were at the volunteer camp, which consists of a cluster of huts and a swimming pool (yay!) and is located a stone’s throw from the ocean (yay!). There are about 12 volunteers in total at the camp now, all European. Each hut houses 4 volunteers, each with a single bed and a set of bamboo shelves; there is also an en-suite bathroom with a shower and toilet.

I arrived just after lunch so introduced myself, hurriedly dropped off my luggage and was off to work. I later found out that there is hot water (yay!) if only in the evenings, 3 meals a day cooked by a local chef; a combination of western and local food (yay!) – okay I will stop yaying now! Unfortunately, electricity does not get as far as our camp so power is available on the camp for only 4 hours a day via a generator. Can’t really complain about that; work seems to take up the whole day and the vicinity is so beautiful so any free time should be spent enjoying the outdoors. By the end of the first day, I knew I would definitely be enjoying my time here

PS. The internet situation in Vilanculos is a tad tricky so I envisage getting in touch once a week or so. Also, things did not exactly go according to plan with the Kenya and Uganda photo and video upload, as referenced earlier. I will try to get them up as soon as is feasible and let you guys know

Kenya: the good, the bad, the f'ugly...and the interesting

As my time in Kenya draws to an end, I find myself in a reflective mood. I just wanted to summarise my perspective on this dear land that has been my home for the last 7 weeks. My list is by no means exhaustive; I’ve limited it to key observations. In spite of some of the comments I will make, I know I’ll miss being here especially because I doubt any of the upcoming countries in my trip will be anything like it

The Good
1. Kenyans are very friendly people. Their hospitality was obvious from the moment I arrived and has been consistent. If a Kenyan walks into a room full of people, it is not uncommon to find them dishing out effusive handshakes (matched with wide, pleasant grins) and in some cases adding a hug or kisses on the cheek. Now, being blessed with one of those generically African faces, I’ve had many incidents where people reel out words to me in Kiswahili, often in that friendly way that suggests an inside joke, assuming that I’m Kenyan. This warm reception is sometimes followed by a slight disappointment that I’m not one of them.
2. The landscape and scenery of this land is breathtakingly beautiful. That is also true for the other East African countries I’ve been to but I’ve found myself in awe every time I’ve driven past the great rift valley or rows and rows of hills and flat lands with acacia trees. I made a trip to a place called Hellsgate a weekend or two ago, which is located in Naivasha, a town some 2 hours away from Nairobi. I’m told it was the shooting place for one of the Indiana Jones movies as well as the first Tomb raider movie. The road to Hellsgate is littered with rocky mountains, dusty roads and hot water springs. It makes for a great bike ride and hike. Of course this is only one of many gorgeous places in Kenya; I’ve mentioned the Maasai Mara, where I went on Safari, Nakuru (with the lake and flamingoes); there’s also Mombasa (the beachfront town which I’m told is a lot like Zanzibar), just to mention a few.
3. The more developed parts of Nairobi are very developed with amenities and facilities akin to what can be found in the West. There is a shopping mall near where I live that has shops, restaurants and cafes comparable to any shopping mall in London. When I find myself at a coffee shop sipping a vanilla latte, using wireless internet and surrounded by people of all nationalities, I have to remind myself that I’m in Nairobi. Of course, this level of development in a place like Nairobi comes with its woes, but we’ll get on to that shortly

The Bad
1. Unfortunately, despite the point made in “3.” above, Kenya is still classified as a developing country, which suggests that most of its people live at or below the poverty line. The disparity in income between the rich and the poor is vast and the evidence of this is blatant. Places like Kibera, one of the largest slums in the world with over a million inhabitants, is located a 20-minute walk away from the affluent shopping mall I described earlier. Its shocking to think that whilst half-eaten plates are being cleared off restaurant tables in said shopping mall, there a people just down the road who can barely rustle a square meal a day.
2. It is fairly logical that the display of affluence in the face of such poverty simply incites and outrages the poor masses. Since the government and powers that be are doing nothing to level the playing field, people take things into their own hands and deal with the situation as they see fit. Unfortunately, muggings, car jacking, armed robbery and the like are very commonplace in the country. Security [or lack thereof] is a major issue, which affects people of all races. It is unsafe to drive around at night as there is a good chance (especially if you are alone and/or female) that you will be followed home and mugged or even killed. Pickpockets operate round the clock in the city and there is sometimes nothing one can do to stop them. The car jacking is so bad that sometimes armed men raid even buses and other public transport modes. I have been very lucky (fervently knocking wood for my last few days here) that in my time here I’ve had not a single incident.
3. I may have had a whine about this issue already but have to mention it anyway: I didn’t know that Kenya (especially Nairobi) got reasonably cold in its “winter” months of July and August. After basking in the sun in Zanzibar, I came breezing in expecting similar weather only to be surprised by cold, overcast and miserable days that remind me too much of London. Of course, I was wholly unprepared and have had to wear layers of clothing each day of my time here in an attempt to keep warm. I’m one of those people who just don’t do well in cold. When winter hits in England, I wear layers of clothes plus a warm jacket, thick stockings, boots, ear muffs, wooly hats, large scarves, gloves; you name it, I’ll be clad in it. So being unable to adequately protect myself from the cold has been a tad frustrating. I’ve consequently nursed a cold from the day I arrived. It often morphs into a flu-like situation that has me sipping tonnes of ginger and lemon tea, popping pills and wearing even more layers of clothing. It of course doesn’t help that we don’t get hot showers in my host home (though I managed to work out a deal where I get a lukewarm bucket of water for splahbaths) and the house gets very cold at night because there is no heating. In fact, as I speak, I’ve been trying to shake off the flu for the last few days with a dismal amount of success. I will not be missing that side of things, that’s for sure

The F’ugly
1. Given that there has been a drought in the country for the last few months, following a pathetic rainy season, there hasn’t been enough water to go round the country for the last few weeks. There has been a water rationing system going on and most recently, electricity rationing was also introduced (power in Kenya is derived from one source: that generated from a dam, which evidently dried up with the drought). A power-rationing schedule has been issued, which of course, is never followed; they turn the power off and on as they see fit. The power is usually turned off in the day (regardless of business needs) meaning that businesses grind to a halt if they do not have alternative power sources (bear in mind that generators are very expensive to buy and run). The ruckus this causes is obvious. The water rationing is none the better; parts of the city dwell in stench as a result of it. In my house, baby wipe showers have become the order of the day (yes, that means you wipe yourself down with baby wipes to keep clean). The longest I could go for was three days before I needed water to touch my skin. Its unclear when the situation will be ameliorated; for now its indefinite
2. A few posts ago, I shared my thoughts on the existence of IDP camps in the country. I found myself at a literary festival shortly after I’d visited the first IDP camp, where conveniently, I happened upon a panel discussion of the post-elections violence and its implications on the country. For context, the audience and panelists were mostly middle class. Many positive things were said especially in relation to the IDP camps. It seemed the people present were aware of the situation and regularly discuss what needs to be done to eradicate it (unfortunately, this is not universally true of Kenyans; I’ve met some myself who do not know what IDP stands for). My frustration though was that no one seems to be actually DOING something about it. It’s all well and good to discuss other people’s woes over a bottle of beer and its something completely different to mobilize a few friends to drive out there regularly and give these people some food and supplies (since clearly the government is not going to do it on a consistent basis). The sad thing, and I’m glad someone pointed it out, is that if nothing is done NOW, the next elections will be even worse as the number of disgruntled people with nothing to lose would have multiplied. Its effectively a time bomb waiting to explode

The Interesting
1. It seems the memo issued by Angelina Jolie and Madonna on adopting black children made its first stop in Nairobi. I say so because it’s fairly common to see black children being carried around by white mothers. In fact the other day, I sighted a family of white parents with one white child, one Indian child and a black baby (bearing too much resemblance to the Pitt family). I hope these people understand what they are doing by raising these kids in the Nairobi I have described to you. If it’s just a fashion statement, then they have another think coming. I have nothing against adoption or reaching out to others in need but complicated issues can arise in families of differing races (like language, culture, etc) and the income divide mentioned previously (the white families are usually affluent, certainly by Kenyan standards) further exacerbates said complications. But that is just my view
2. A fellow volunteer and I were having a discussion the other day and she expressed her displeasure at the fact that the people she’d encountered during her time here did not express as much gratitude for her generosity (i.e. the fact that she had traveled miles from her home country to help people in need) as she’d envisaged, but rather found ways to exploit her by overcharging her for goods, asked her to buy them things or in some cases fell short of taking the very clothes on her back. I had to explain to this young lady, whose naiveté I found charming, that in a country with so much poverty and wealth that is flaunted but not made accessible, it is only natural that people become exploitative, corrupt, even violent and see dollar signs when they look at foreigners. It’s not right, simply natural. She appreciated this perspective but only in hindsight. Our discussion did make me wonder how many others there are, who come to Africa with preconceived ideas that are a tad unrealistic

Mozambique is my next stop. I’ll be there for a total of 27 days, living in the beach village/town of Vilanculos. I will be teaching basic English to adults and pre-school aged children (the lingua franca there is Portuguese so I may well pick some of that up). I am excited, if for nothing, to at least breathe fresh ocean air and enjoy the sun once again

Zanzibar pictures up...finally!!!

I know you guys will be proud of me [i certainly hope you will be] for getting my act together and setting up a website for the Zanzibar pictures [yay!!!!]. The plan is to set up webpages for all my pictures as i go along. Unfortunately, i managed to mess up the videos i took in Zanzibar so there are none but i've learnt my lesson and promise to have the videos for Kenya and Uganda (including one of my bungee jumping!) up when i get those two sites up and running

Click here to get to the pictures and feel free to leave comments as well!

ps. I'll leave the site open for public view for a short space of time so if you want to maintain access to the site, please drop me an email at: obnahil@gmail.com and i will add you as a member

Spare the rod and spoil the child?

“Spare the rod and spoil the child”, I’ve heard it said many times, usually as ample justification for disciplining [read: hitting, slapping, flogging, etc] a child or teaching them the straight ways of the world. I never adhered to this school of thought, at least not in the literal sense, and being back on the continent, where the idea seems to be fairly pervasive, I find myself asking, yet again, if it really is a good justification. Now I’ve had a fair share of floggings in my time and I’m sure many an African [black person, I dare say] of my age group would confess to suffering the same woe at some stage in their upbringing. I never did accept it and being one of those people who passionately abhor violence, never understood any of the justifications put forward by its proponents. I wanted to share my thoughts on the reasons why I hold steadfastly to this view and perhaps those who think otherwise can take a shot at convincing me

First and foremost, in my experience and as far as I’ve witnessed, adults who hit children tend to do so in a state of anger or frustration [plus, surely it takes that to raise your hand at someone]. Children will always be children, up to some trick or the other and will even sometimes be found doing things they have been categorically warned against. And while I understand the frustration and/or anger that this may sometimes inspire, I’m not so understanding of how that translates into whipping out the old belt or stick to “teach them a lesson”. Hitting someone when you are angry is wrong, period. It doesn’t matter if they are an adult or a child. It’s also ironically, incredibly childish and just the sort of behaviour that mature people do not display. The idea of resorting to violence [cause lets face it, that is really what it is] as a deterrent or solution to any problem is to my mind counter-productive. It also sends children very wrong signals: that it’s okay to hit someone to prove a point…and we don’t understand why people pick up machetes and slaughter each other when there is a disagreement of sorts. We are breeding a society of vigilantes without even seeing the wrong in it. I say this particularly in reference to the post elections violence here in Kenya (Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda popped to mind as well, incidentally) and people expressing surprise at how easy it was for a seemingly peaceful country to break into complete and utter mayhem!

I had an experience with one of the teachers at the school the other day, where one of the kids, after being repeatedly scolded for distracting her classmates and just being annoyingly disruptive, she (the teacher) proceeded to scream at the child, dragged her to the back of the class, instructed her to kneel down and was about to do God-knows-what to the poor kid, when she saw my have-you-lost-your-mind? look. Her question to me then was “what do you do with a child like this?”. “You say you don’t hit children Nana, but how do you deal with this child? Tell me!” she beseeched. The reality was that singling out the child in front of her friends had embarrassed her so much that she had already burst out crying and sobbing uncontrollably. I ignored the teacher, calmed the child down and soon got her to get on with her work. It took a lot of composure to explain to this lady, a while later, that embarrassing the child in front of her friends was more than enough punishment and that hitting her would not have proved her point any more or less. This situation highlights my second issue with hitting children: that people refuse to think of alternative ways of disciplining children and it’s just unforgivable. How about we adopt an approach where hitting the child is not an option? Think, pursue all other avenues of discipline and tell me if you find absolutely nothing that works. Another incident that springs to mind is one that a housemate of mine witnessed at the orphanage/school that she works at. She happened upon one of the teachers mercilessly slapping and pulling the ears of a five year old. She actually walked out of the room because it was getting to ridiculous proportions. She later found out that the child in question was HIV positive, something he was fully aware of, and had bitten one of the other children in a fight. Somehow kicking (apparently another male teacher joined in with that act) and slapping the living daylights out of the child would deter him from ever doing that again. Did they ever consider that this was just an angry child who needed psychological help perhaps? Or even start by understanding what motivated him to do that…no, none of that, lets beat him silly and he’ll know better next time! A blatant display of intolerance for using brain cells and adults just being very lazy at dealing with the challenges that working with or raising kids present. I could give more examples but I think I’ve made my point here

There also seems to be an obsession with “putting the fear of God” in children. Smacking them silly will make them know what is acceptable and what is not. They will know not to repeat their heinous crimes if they get a good beating. While this is true, it also comes with various psychoses; I’ve seen a few of the children flinch when you come close to them and make a gesture any where near raising your hands at them. You instill fear all right, but in some cases these children become scared of their own shadows. They become timid and develop all kinds of complexes. Surely there are better ways to teach a child not to do something. Heck, sometimes they just have to learn from experience!

I’ve been told, in relation to this topic, that someday if I have kids, I’ll spoil them rotten. Well if choosing to not hit them equates to that, then so be it. Working with the children I’ve encountered so far on this trip, just strengthened my resolve to not resort to disciplining children in the “traditional” African way. So “Spare the rod and spoil the child?”, “Yup, guilty as charged!”

Unsung heroes

Morbid circumstances can be found aplenty, working in and around Kibera such that you almost get used to it, almost. But nothing quite prepared me for what I was exposed to during a visit to campsites for internally displaced people (IDPs), with some fellow volunteers last Friday.

By way of background, for those of you that can remember, in December 2007, elections held in Kenya were contested along tribal lines and soon broke down into violence with people being slaughtered with machetes, homes and property being burned down and people being forced to run away to seek refuge in other parts of the country. International bodies like the UN and Red Cross came to the rescue providing temporary camps, food and medical supplies for the refugees and displaced persons. Of course, they did not come to stay forever, so when the mayhem ended, tempers were cooled down and a new government was in place, these organisations left. Promises were made regarding these IDPs; a measly circa USD400 was given to each family as compensation from the Kenyan government for the woes that the elections brought and to this day most of these people still live in UN donated tents and in the case of the really lucky ones, partially completed houses that were first put up by the government as part of said promises. These people were mostly uneducated farmers that had their land stolen, properties burned down and were chased away from their homes without a cent to their name. The IDP camps are mostly located in remote areas where there is hardly any electricity; one has to walk at least 2km or so to BUY water from boreholes; children have to walk for hours to get to and from school, in most cases barefooted as their parents really don’t rate shoes high enough on the priority list; they are essentially a luxury and these areas are so, so dusty that you only have to walk a foot or so to get covered in dust; a gust of wind just spoils the matter completely; needless to say majority of the children have blocked noses and nasty coughs. There are so many children under the age of 4 in these camps. As one can imagine, uneducated farmers left in the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves soon run out of recreational activities so procreation becomes the new form of recreation. The average family has four to five kids. They cannot afford contraception even if it were accessible, which is really sad for how much more expensive is it to raise a child? It doesn’t exactly help that it’s the dry season so everything they plant just withers; as previously mentioned, water is another luxury so God-given rain is all they can rely on to cultivate their crops. With no education and limited skills, no one is rooting to give them jobs, which then gives them more time and energy to procreate. I was mortified as I listened to one story after another whilst we visited a few homes in the two camps we donated food to. They rely on donations from organisations like the one I work with for livelihood. The government shows up once a quarter with bags of maize and yet another litany of promises; promises that they are so tired of hearing that they are just grateful for the food they receive. The UN donated tents are falling apart in some cases so it’s not rare to see parts of the tents being held precariously together with maize sacks and such. You can only imagine how they cope when it rains and gets cold. Even in the cases where the families have brick houses provided by the government, furnishings are limited to a bed; yes, a family of as many as seven share a bed; there is a kitchen with a few utensils and they’ve been kindly provided with water cans that once-upon-a-time stored sulphuric acid, as indicated by the bold writing on said cans

Now, being an overt worrier, I’m prone to classify circumstances in my life as problems with the least provocation. My so-called problems however, usually have solutions; real ones that stare me in the face. Some of these solutions are a decision, phone call, email, text or conversation away. These “problems” I speak of are borne of inaction more than anything else. Then I hear the stories some of these families have to tell and I’m even ashamed to think I have any problems at all. I mean what do you do, when you are chased away from your farmland and home with machetes; you, your husband and your six children; you find one of these IDP camps and call it home; you soon find out you have HIV and so does your second to last born; your husband leaves on account of that saying he wants nothing to do with you; you have no education and no one will employ you; you have all of 3 sets of clothes, its none the better for each of your children who have to walk barefooted to and from school and to fetch water each day? How do you find the courage to wake up each day and face this life? How do you comfort your children and tell them all will be well? You pray that you have at least one more day to live just so they have someone with them. You wake up with a smile on your face cause you know you have to be strong for them regardless of the despair you face. You cook whatever food you have, make sure they are as full as can be before you tend to yourself. You kiss their tears away and try to indulge them with a few jokes and hugs for really what else can you do? That is just one story. There are so many others; there are presently thousands of IDPs all over Kenya who literally have no hope. Where is the government whose election brought them to this place in the first instance? Now that they have what they want, these people have been forgotten, their interests relegated very far to the background. “Where is the justice in that?”, I ask.

So tonight, before I allow another hot tear to stain my pillow as I muse about my “problems”, I will remember these IDPs, these unsung heroes who dare to live under circumstances that I know would leave me suicidal