I should probably talk about all the animals here at one point. Probably the wildlife highlight so far, much more so than the solitary giraffe ambling in the desert, are the monkeys; in Kakamega and also in Ndanda, monkeys jump back in forth among the trees, looking for bananas. Last week I was cut off by a troop of maybe 25 baboons wandering through the jungle behind the mission. It was cool but also a little scary, as apparently they can be dangerous if provoked and I was on alone and on foot. I kept my distance.
Of course most of the creatures I see are not nearly as exciting. Butterflies (kipepeo or "little fan") of all colors are always flapping around, termites build tunnels of dirt up my walls, huge grasshoppers leap across my lawn and wasps with huge, threatening stingers buzz around my office. Last week I saw a small spider with a huge pair of fangs- on closer inspection i saw the fangs were on the wrong end of the body, a decoy to warn off predators. Long lines of army ants march across the jungle and occasionally swarm through people's houses ("surround your bed with kerosene and wait for them to leave...") I have three or four geckos living with me, who feast on all these little ndudus. All these bugs are at the same time fascinating and repulsive.
Back in training my next-door neighbor came to class with a good story. He had arrived home and found a great comotion around his choo (outdoor toilet). "We saw something in the bathroom," said his baba. "We don't know what it is, but it had more than a hundred legs and it was at least a half a meter long."
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
March 16, Palm Sunday, Ndanda - I just returned from a trip to Masasi, about 30 km away. I rode in a dalla-dalla, a minivan, with some 25 other people, threegoats, two chickens, five leaky jerrycans of gasoline, three sacks of maize flour and a six foot stack of buckets. We stopped every 500 meters so the tout could try to flag down new passengers, and the driver leaned on the horn for the entire hour-long ride. as there were no seatbelts i broke one of peace corps traveling policies, but at lease i wasn't hanging the side of the vehicle like several other passengers. the ride cost about 90 cents.
I'm a chemistry teacher stationed at ndanda secondary school in Tanzania's deep south. Ndanda is a mission town complete with two secondary and several technical schools, a water-bottling company, a towering white church and a modern hospital (the only functional hospital in hundreds of miles.) My school, once one of the best in the country, was nationalized in the 1970s and since has gone through a long, steady decline. The laboratories are rotting and nobody knows who has the key to the library. There are not enough school supplies and the textbooks are fourty years old. teachers often skip all their classes and then charge students extra for tuition after hours; last term there were 13 teachers for 720 students. The (ex) second master stole about 2000 dollars, so for the last three weeks of the term students ate porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. problems here are far beyond the ability of any one person, no matter how dedicated, to fix.
When I first arrived in Africa I was repelled by what seemed to be crushing poverty and ugliness. There were no Mcdonalds or SUVs. Women here cook with charcoal and burn garbage in pits, electricity is a rare luxury and clean water does not exist. It took about a month to adopt to life here, studying Swahili by candlelight and drinking warm coca cola at the nearest hotel. NGOs here drive around in jeeps and gape at the locals, but if you ever get the chance to come here, walk around the market and drink chai with the villagers and ride dalla-dallas - its a lifestyle you'll never forget. Safari Njema! (travel well!)
I'm a chemistry teacher stationed at ndanda secondary school in Tanzania's deep south. Ndanda is a mission town complete with two secondary and several technical schools, a water-bottling company, a towering white church and a modern hospital (the only functional hospital in hundreds of miles.) My school, once one of the best in the country, was nationalized in the 1970s and since has gone through a long, steady decline. The laboratories are rotting and nobody knows who has the key to the library. There are not enough school supplies and the textbooks are fourty years old. teachers often skip all their classes and then charge students extra for tuition after hours; last term there were 13 teachers for 720 students. The (ex) second master stole about 2000 dollars, so for the last three weeks of the term students ate porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. problems here are far beyond the ability of any one person, no matter how dedicated, to fix.
When I first arrived in Africa I was repelled by what seemed to be crushing poverty and ugliness. There were no Mcdonalds or SUVs. Women here cook with charcoal and burn garbage in pits, electricity is a rare luxury and clean water does not exist. It took about a month to adopt to life here, studying Swahili by candlelight and drinking warm coca cola at the nearest hotel. NGOs here drive around in jeeps and gape at the locals, but if you ever get the chance to come here, walk around the market and drink chai with the villagers and ride dalla-dallas - its a lifestyle you'll never forget. Safari Njema! (travel well!)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
January 29, Dar es Salaam
I've taken up running since I've gotten to East Africa. In Kitui I woke up before anyone else, so I escaped both the heat and the stares of my Kamba neighbors; in Ndalat, land of the long distance runners, I (occasionally) ran in the late afternoon. One day a local athlete, Edward, invited me to his house for chai. Edward is 27 years old, married, and still lives in a little hut made of clay and cowdung. Both he and his sister are world-class marathon runners; his younger brother is a medical student at the University of Texas (?) where he got an athletic scholarship. After the usual greetings in vernacular he comments on the quality of my shoes and asks me about my training.
-"What training?" I forgot I had ran past his house that morning.
-"I ran twenty-five kilometers this morning. Later this afternoon...twenty. Every morning, twenty or twenty five kilometers - afternoon training is optional but twenty kilometers every morning."
At no point in our conversation did Edward express even a hint of mockery, but after a few cups of chai with him and his sister I stopped running past his house, in fact I stopped running period. I tried biking once or twice (according to Edward, "Ah! Very good exercise!") but couldn't quite get into a routine. Two days before I left Ndalat I saw another runner flying past me and swore that I would get my ass in gear after christmas. In Kakamega, mainly out of sheer boredom, I ran up and down the block while riot police fired gunshots in the air. The Indian women seemed largely unimpressed but the security guard, Bernard was more conversational.
- "Ah! Mzoezi wa Mwili! (exercises for the body)" Luo people often begin their conversations with Ah!
He also never expressed anything apart from the utmost friendliness, but I never felt comfortable running around Africans. Even in Dar es Salaam where beach jogging is common and where I can keep up with the locals, I do my damndest to avoid crowds.
-"What training?" I forgot I had ran past his house that morning.
-"I ran twenty-five kilometers this morning. Later this afternoon...twenty. Every morning, twenty or twenty five kilometers - afternoon training is optional but twenty kilometers every morning."
At no point in our conversation did Edward express even a hint of mockery, but after a few cups of chai with him and his sister I stopped running past his house, in fact I stopped running period. I tried biking once or twice (according to Edward, "Ah! Very good exercise!") but couldn't quite get into a routine. Two days before I left Ndalat I saw another runner flying past me and swore that I would get my ass in gear after christmas. In Kakamega, mainly out of sheer boredom, I ran up and down the block while riot police fired gunshots in the air. The Indian women seemed largely unimpressed but the security guard, Bernard was more conversational.
- "Ah! Mzoezi wa Mwili! (exercises for the body)" Luo people often begin their conversations with Ah!
He also never expressed anything apart from the utmost friendliness, but I never felt comfortable running around Africans. Even in Dar es Salaam where beach jogging is common and where I can keep up with the locals, I do my damndest to avoid crowds.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
January 22 Email
Mambo,
Mom finally convinced me to send out an email informing you all that I am, in fact, alive and comfortable, waiting out Kenya's turmoil in Dar es Salaam.
In training we had one session where our teachers, all from various tribes, described their cultures and the stereotypes about themselves; the Luos were the academics, the Kikuyu were businessmen, the Nandi could run fast, etc. At the time we all laughed and the teachers didn't take themselves too seriously; however I realized over the next couple weeks a strong undercurrent of resentment among even the most educated Kenyans. The politicians never even mentioned the tribes by name and created grand names like Party of National Unity or Orange Democratic Movement, but their support came entirely from monolithic ethnic voting blocs. American analysts predicted the election would involve some violence, although not as much as those of '92 or '97. Observers believed that the elections could be a watershed for Africa and the entire country was hopeful.
Thirteen of us gathered for the holidays in Kakamega forest, the last remaining rainforest in Kenya, and ate Christmas dinner in small outdoor bandas where Colobus monkeys stole our bananas. The next day we returned to Kakamega city, where one volunteer lived in a gated compound with electricity, running water, a gas stove, refridgerator, DVD projector; all the comforts the rest of us wished we had in our own homes. Even so I wanted to leave before New Year's Day - the boys in my village were finishing month-long initiation ceremonies and their extended families would be celebrating. The elections, on the 27th, went smoothly but the Electoral Commission was slow to release the votes and people became anxious. The thirteen of us were from the three western provinces which overwhelmingly supported ODM and its opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, and we believed things would turn ugly if he did not win.
An hour after the electoral commission announced Pres. Mwai Kibaki winner rioters burned down two small shops and a church across the street - apparently they were owned by PNU supporters. Police came the day afterwards and while the rest of Kenya burned Kakamega was filled with tense silence. Meanwhile the political situation continued to deteriorate and other parts of the country were still racked by violence. In Eldoret, my hometown, 30 people burned to death while seeking refuge in a church. Riots in Kisumu, Mombasa, Kisii, Migori, and Kibera all received international attention yet no intervention could bring the two sides to talk to each other.
We passed the time eating and playing cards and were always perfectly safe - even when we left the compound thugs and policemen both told us they had no problems with us, that we were guests. One soldier asked my friend to buy him a soda. After a couple days the police left, shops reopened, people cautiously resumed their lives. Because of the ongoing violence elsewhere and the political impasse in Nairobi however there was no question of us leaving; occasional gunshots did not bother us but we were afraid we would not return to our sites.
After ten days Peace Corps decided to temporarily shut down western Kenya and flew us to Dar es Salaam. They put us up in a hotel on the beach and tried to keep us busy while we waited for news. After about a week our director told us we would not be able to return immediately to Kenya, that we could try to transfer to another country or we could go home and wait for the country to clear up. As of this writing there are no plans to shut down the country altogether but it will be some time before the three western provinces reopen.
Kibaki and Raila are still at odds; recently Raila's ODM party won Speaker of the House and tensions cooled somewhat. Both sides continue to spout rhetoric but there are signs the violence is beginning to subside and I believe the vast majority of Kenyans are embarrassed and exasperated by their leaders. My host family remains in their village outside Eldoret and wants me to return; I still haven't called them told them I won't be coming back. I'm trying to transfer into Tanzania, but if I don't find a spot there I'll return home and wait for Kenya to reopen or try for a position in another country.
kwa heri,
Joseph
Mom finally convinced me to send out an email informing you all that I am, in fact, alive and comfortable, waiting out Kenya's turmoil in Dar es Salaam.
In training we had one session where our teachers, all from various tribes, described their cultures and the stereotypes about themselves; the Luos were the academics, the Kikuyu were businessmen, the Nandi could run fast, etc. At the time we all laughed and the teachers didn't take themselves too seriously; however I realized over the next couple weeks a strong undercurrent of resentment among even the most educated Kenyans. The politicians never even mentioned the tribes by name and created grand names like Party of National Unity or Orange Democratic Movement, but their support came entirely from monolithic ethnic voting blocs. American analysts predicted the election would involve some violence, although not as much as those of '92 or '97. Observers believed that the elections could be a watershed for Africa and the entire country was hopeful.
Thirteen of us gathered for the holidays in Kakamega forest, the last remaining rainforest in Kenya, and ate Christmas dinner in small outdoor bandas where Colobus monkeys stole our bananas. The next day we returned to Kakamega city, where one volunteer lived in a gated compound with electricity, running water, a gas stove, refridgerator, DVD projector; all the comforts the rest of us wished we had in our own homes. Even so I wanted to leave before New Year's Day - the boys in my village were finishing month-long initiation ceremonies and their extended families would be celebrating. The elections, on the 27th, went smoothly but the Electoral Commission was slow to release the votes and people became anxious. The thirteen of us were from the three western provinces which overwhelmingly supported ODM and its opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, and we believed things would turn ugly if he did not win.
An hour after the electoral commission announced Pres. Mwai Kibaki winner rioters burned down two small shops and a church across the street - apparently they were owned by PNU supporters. Police came the day afterwards and while the rest of Kenya burned Kakamega was filled with tense silence. Meanwhile the political situation continued to deteriorate and other parts of the country were still racked by violence. In Eldoret, my hometown, 30 people burned to death while seeking refuge in a church. Riots in Kisumu, Mombasa, Kisii, Migori, and Kibera all received international attention yet no intervention could bring the two sides to talk to each other.
We passed the time eating and playing cards and were always perfectly safe - even when we left the compound thugs and policemen both told us they had no problems with us, that we were guests. One soldier asked my friend to buy him a soda. After a couple days the police left, shops reopened, people cautiously resumed their lives. Because of the ongoing violence elsewhere and the political impasse in Nairobi however there was no question of us leaving; occasional gunshots did not bother us but we were afraid we would not return to our sites.
After ten days Peace Corps decided to temporarily shut down western Kenya and flew us to Dar es Salaam. They put us up in a hotel on the beach and tried to keep us busy while we waited for news. After about a week our director told us we would not be able to return immediately to Kenya, that we could try to transfer to another country or we could go home and wait for the country to clear up. As of this writing there are no plans to shut down the country altogether but it will be some time before the three western provinces reopen.
Kibaki and Raila are still at odds; recently Raila's ODM party won Speaker of the House and tensions cooled somewhat. Both sides continue to spout rhetoric but there are signs the violence is beginning to subside and I believe the vast majority of Kenyans are embarrassed and exasperated by their leaders. My host family remains in their village outside Eldoret and wants me to return; I still haven't called them told them I won't be coming back. I'm trying to transfer into Tanzania, but if I don't find a spot there I'll return home and wait for Kenya to reopen or try for a position in another country.
kwa heri,
Joseph
1/27, Dar es Salaam
Mwakaribishwa, or "you're all welcome," is a line taken from a omnipresent Kenyan song, the first verse:
Jambo! Jambo Bwana!
Habari gani! Nzuri sana!
Wageni! Mwakaribishwa!
Kenya Yetu! Hakuna Matata!
Jambo! Jambo Bwana!
Habari gani! Nzuri sana!
Wageni! Mwakaribishwa!
Kenya Yetu! Hakuna Matata!
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