Is This Right?

I read in the newspaper (The Daily Nation) that a Matatu driver killed 3 people in Nairobi the other day. He was trying to pass some cars on the curb and hit a woman with a child and a young man. He went to court and they sentenced him to five years of prison for each person. That means he will go to prison for 15 years, but, he is allowed to serve the three sentences at the same time. This only leaves him with five years of prison time. However, in Kenya, a day and a night are counted as two days. This cuts down his time spent in prison to only two and a half years for killing three people. The Matatu drivers are the most dangerous drivers on these roads and many people are killed every year in crashes or by being hit but there is never any true justice. I understand that the Matatu driver didn't intentionally kill the three people but manslaughter of three individuals in the states would be 25 years or more, never two and a half. I can't imagine what the families are thinking.

Happy Birthday

So yesterday was my birthday. Tom came early yester-morning and spoke with all the staff about the camp next week. I worked on the net a little bit and worked with some case workers on the bios as well. Then we had the party...

Jackson roasted a goat and everyone was talking and drinking and limbo-ing, etc. All my host families stopped by too which was cool; so did Collin and Jeni (two Mzungu ministers who've been hanging out with us here at Ngong Road Children Association lately). Once the music came out, everyone started dancing with each other. At first, I didn't join in but then I felt the need to dance. So once I joined, I was put into the center of the circle where Tom dumped the FIRST bucket of water on me. I was soaked but I decided to keep dancing anyway. Everyone continued to dance and talk and drink until it was time for me to cut the cake. There wasn't a knife because it was used to cut the goat, so I was joking around acting like I was going to cut the cake with my hand. But then, a second bombardment of H2O was thrown on top of me so I felt that it was time to cut the cake, with my hands. This was a mistake; Jackie, Nixon, and a couple others starting grabbing the cake and covering my face with it. I then took some cake and got Jackie and Nixon back; when I turned around, everyone was grabbing cake and chasing each other around. Once everyone's faces were covered with cake, the cake fight died down. Then people started to wash off and head home.

Paul and I got to the office first this morning and we were frankly not very surprised at what we saw. Anyone who went to college knows that a good night is followed by a rough morning. There was dirt, cake, and goat everywhere. Paul and I began sweeping, mopping, wiping cake off of walls and doors and doing the dishes before the case workers and Tom got back to the office.

Overall, I'd say the birthday was a success (so much better than Paul's, no big deal).

Last Weeks

Yesterday, I went out with Naomi to the Ngando area and took pictures of people working and living in the slums. We didn't want to approach people we didn't know because they may have charged us money so we only took photos of people who's children are in our program. I think I got some pretty decent ones that will be used either on the website or in Peter's presentation when he visits the states. Recently, I've been trying the food in the slums, like the french fries and the corn that they roast over an open flame. It's actually not that bad, I'm just not eating anything that isn't hot or cooked in one way or another. Also, I only have nine more children left for headshots out of 226 which is awesome. Keith and I, I think, have finally figured out this whole Dropbox thing so if you are reading this and have a child in the program, you'll be able to access updated pictures of them online whenever you want; at least that's the plan.

Paul hasn't quite had as much luck with his job here though. None of the places he went kept stats that he was looking for. Either they were too old, not about children, or didn't exsist at all. Paul and I have both noticed that Kenyans don't like to dissapoint you so they kept sending him to other places even though they didn't have the stats he was looking for either (or they would offer him their own views on the children in Kenya).

Also, we're celebrating my birthday tomorrow which should be fun. They throw water on whoever is having the birthday for some reason (nobody actually knows why, they just do) so I'm bracing myself for that.

What's Happening

Paul and I only have two weeks left here in Nairobi, one of which is the August camp which will either go by really fast or really slow. I'm still really enjoying what I'm doing and I'm constantly making new videos and taking new photos.
We had omena for the second time yesterday, that's the little fish (minnows) that stare at you while eating them. In the photo above, you can see omena, ugali (the "white blob"), and sukumawiki (the "green stuff"). We also went to Carnivore last night, they didn't serve any game meat but I got to try some ostirich meatballs which were decent. We did a little drinking, a little dancing, a little eating, it was a good time.
I'm going to have a pretty busy week next week as well. I'm still figuring out what to do with Dropbox with Keith, I'll be editing all the videos, and making sure all the pictures get into the right place too. Paul and I are also moving back to Rose's from Andrew's. Andrew is very kind and a great host but the commute from his house to the office is about an hour and twenty minutes one way and he works late. Paul and I spent more time in his car with him than being awake in his house, it took away from any quality time that could've been spent with him. So, Rose is happy to take us back in and we'll be moving back to her house monday.
Finally, every I travel, I buy an art piece for myself that is unique to the country I'm visiting. I bought two ebony wood, hand-carved sculptures today at the Maasai market for the price of one, the power of having a Kenyan woman with you while purchasing goods. That's about it for now, I'll keep you all updated.

Witches and Demons

So this week, Keith and I have been working together to try to find a way for the sponsors to access updated pictures of their sponsored child whenever they want. We are using a website called Dropbox to do this. It's a free file-sharing software that we can store up to two gigs of date onto (that's a good amount of free data). We are attempting to find a way to maintain the privacy of the child while maintaining the fluidity of mass email alerts and quick photo uploading. I'm running into some issues with this though; we may need to create an account for each child that the sponsor can check in to whenever they want (I feel like that may be the best way to keep upmost privacy for the child and sponsor) or we could just keep a folder of every child in one large folder and have the sponsor scroll down to their sponsored child and view the photos (this would be easiest for us but would take away some of the privacy aspect). We're still figuring it all out but I think this will be a really great system.
I have also been working on the "Voices of Ngong Road" videos this week and will be getting five more children today to answer the three questions.

An interesting thing Paul and I have run into when discussing religion with the case workers was the fact that they believe in witches, witchcraft, and demons. There has actually been witch hunts in Kenya while I've been here and I've seen women who were killed on the news because they were accused of being witches. This was a huge throw back to old American history with that whole Salem witch trial phase we went through. Men and Women accused of witchcraft have actually been burned alive on stakes here, I never thought I'd be alive when something like that could happen. The case workers were trying to give me reasons why they believed they were witches, they kept talking about how they ran around naked at night and scared people in their homes. I told them that that was called "streaking" and that a lot of people have done it, that doesn't mean they're witches. I respect Kenyans and how almost all of them are Christian, I think it's great that religion can bring millions of people together like it does here. The only problem is that sometimes, paranoia caused by these religious leaders and beliefs cause the death of many innocent people. This isn't just happening here with Christianity but it happens everywhere with all different religious sects. That's my little humanity issue rant for the day, thanks for reading.

Cold Milk

So last night, Paul and I moved to Andrew's house. It's a decent sized house but it's a step down from how we were living at Rose's. It's about an hours drive each morning to work which is a pain, they don't quite serve the same westernized food we were eating at Rose's, and the shower gives you a little electric shock if you touch the handle wrong (I'm still learning). But despite all this, I was extremley happy this morning to find that they had cold milk. I'm not talking about luke-warm or cool milk, I'm talking the real deal; ice cold, delicious milk. This is the kind of milk that dreams are made of. Other than drinking water out of a tap, eating fruit without having to worry about dieing, seeing more white women, and driving on the right side of the road; cold milk was the one thing I was craving here in Kenya.
I was also suprised to learn from Andrew that during the "cold" season here (which is July), children have to avoid eating or drinking cold items because it can sometimes cause a cold or even tonsillitis. I thought Peter was joking around when he was telling us he couldn't drink cold beer because it gave him the flu but I guess there's some truth behind it.

I've been working on some things that Paula has asked me to do lately. Along with taking more and more pictures, I'm making short one minute or less clips of children answering three questions:

What do you like best about Ngong Road Children Association?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What message would you like to give to your sponsors?

I worked with five children today (three of which said they wanted to be a pilot when they grew up) and will be getting the other ten later this week. Then I'll just have to edit the clips together for each child to make a watchable clip.

Hannington Odhiambo

Hannington Odhiambo is a 15 year old boy who has run into some rough times. Peter was ready to kick him out of the program because he kept running away from home, skipping school, and had a terrible attitude so I was told. I spoke with him two weeks ago about how he was behaving and acting and I think I got through to him. I asked the case workers not to speak while I was talking with him other than to translate at times. I told him that for the next two weeks he had to go to school early, do all his school work, and help his step mother out when she asked for help. I'm not sure what exactly I said to get through to him but he went to school for the past two weeks every day, did all his school work, participated in class, did his chores, etc. Murathi (the principal at his school, Nelson Mandela Academy) told me that he is a changed boy. I think one thing that may have helped him was that I told him he needed to stop acting like a child and making childish decisions and start being an adult. I will be checking up on him every once in a while while I'm here and I am planning on writing some letters to him once I'm back in America, just to keep track of him and make sure he's continuing this new path. No child should have their education taken away from them, especially one that I believe is just misunderstood.

The Matatu Coalition

After riding in the car with Peter a couple times, I decided to videotape a ride and what it was like in Kenya. The clip you're seeing is a Matatu attempting to pass another one but in the process, almost hitting us. The reason Peter didn't move over until the last minute is because there was a cyclist on the left that he didn't want to hit. I was laughing because that was frankly pretty exciting and I wanted to catch something like this on film. Matatu drivers are very competitive here but they're all part of a Matatu coalition-like thing. You can't just buy a Matatu and start working, you have to pay the leaders a certain amount of money to be able to do this. If you don't people have been killed and their Matatus have been burned.

Anyway, this weekend is going to be fairly exciting for Paul and I. We've each had a fairly busy week so this Saturday, we'll being going to a movie and having some somasas and beer. And then Sunday, we'll be going to the club for some 12 dollar massages and a swim. And a quick update on the sushi here, Paul and I were perfectly fine. It was very delicious and filling for only being nine bucks.

This is also going to be our last weekend at Boniface and Rose's house. Paul and I had a lot of fun there and Boniface is a very interesting person who has a lot to say about everything, he's great to talk to. Our next homestay is going to be with a man named Andrew I think, I heard that he also has a nice home with a working shower so that should be nice before the holiday camp in a couple weeks.

Mzungu - A Person of European Decent

So today I was going to go to Meru but I ultimatley decided not to. It's about a three hour drive away and I had some work at the office to do. I recieved some emails from Paula and Keith about my videos and they gave me a lot of good suggestions. Keith talked to me about Gervas singing a religious song in his video and I how I should stray away from that because we want to keep Friends of Ngong Road a non-denominational organization. I completley agree with this; after Gervas told me he could sing, I asked him to sing me a song that he'd be comfortable doing and that's the first thing that came out. I wasn't really thinking about Friends of Ngong Road and keeping it non-denominational at the time because the majority of the music you hear here is religious. You also see this at the Saturday program, the only songs they sing are Christian. I do agree however in keeping Friends of Ngong Road disconnected from any specific relgion, that's one of the reasons I like it and one of the reasons I chose to intern for them.

Something else I'd like to talk about is how strange a feeling it is to be called a name based solely on the color of my skin. I don't mind being called "Mzungu" by children or Peter or workers in the office (I just call them "Mafrika") but when strangers on the street try to get my attention by screaming "Mzungu" at me, it's almost hurtful. If a Kenyan was to walk by that same stranger, they would politley say "bwana" (which is Mr. in swahili) or say hello to try to get their attention. I've felt like a minority before when I traveled to Tibet, Japan, or Morocco but never to the extent as in Kenya. I know "Mzungu" isn't a racist term, in fact, Paul and I say it all the time if we see one walking down the street or driving by but after a while, you realize that that word comes with a lot of preconcieved notions about a white person. I am not insulted by the term and I will continue using it but I just wanted to say how strange a feeling it is to have the color of your skin be the only thing people think about when they first see you. I'm glad I've felt this though, it puts me in another man's shoes, ones that I've never truly tried on before.

Jagiet and Meru

This week, I've been visiting the two Jagiet Academies where the majority of our children go. I took photos of any children I haven't gotten a headshot of yet and I almost have every single headshot I need, now I'm just going over the list and finding kids I still need. I've also been working with Noah Ngugi on his Day in the Life video. He's a cute little, 11 year old kid who loves school and skipping rope. When I asked him if he had a talent, I gave him examples like singing or football. He said he likes singing and football but prefers dancing and skipping rope. So in the video, I'm trying to make skipping rope as interesting as possible, it looks good so far.

Tomorrow, Peter, some of the case workers, and I will be visiting Meru where a few of our children go to school. I've been taking my Malaria medication the past couple days because Meru is a Malaria infested zone. Peter says I'll be fine because we're only visiting during the day but I have a hard time believing that every Malaria-infested mosquito is nocturnal. Also, tonight, Rose is taking Paul and I to a Japanese restaurant because we've been craving sushi. We're not sure if sushi is OK to eat here but we haven't seen anything on the internet warning us against it so we're going to give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Church

So yesterday was a pretty good time, we went to a club and swam, ate burgers, chilled in the sun, etc. But before all of that, we went to the Salvaition Army Church; it was quite an experience. Paul and I were the only two Mzungus in the entire church of 200 or so people and the entire service was in swahili except for words like "praise" and "worship." So Paul and I stood when everybody else did and sat when they did, and we even waved our arms around a little bit but stopped cause we didn't want our pasty arms being seen by everybody behind us (we were in the second row so that was a lot of people). The singing was interesting and they even had a little dance in the middle of the service, not very intense moves but they were in sync and that's what counts. I even sang How Great Thou Art in swahili which was fun, although Rose's kids were staring at me the whole time but I think I showed them what's what.

The whole service was a little more than two hours long and it was all interesting except for one thing that kind of annoyed me, the sermon or the "message." It wasn't like most services I've been to where the pastor or priest attempts to teach a message by speaking to the congregation. It was more a man, yelling at the congregation, running around the entire church shouting into his mic. He sat in a chair, ran up on stage, walked in defined circles, hid behind a wall, and the whole time screamed swahili into a mic for half an hour. He got pretty close to Paul and I a couple times and we could see he was drenched in sweat. Throughout the entire sermon, people would yell "Amen" or "Alleluia" from different parts of the church and everybody seemed to enjoy it. It was a very different experience for me; I've never enjoyed having God screamed at me but it was interesting to see the different responses from the people in the congregation. I'm glad I went because it taught me a lot about the religion in this culture but it would be tough for me to sit through two more hours of that.

Day in the Life 2

This is a video of Alice Lavender. She is sponsored by my aunt and uncle and goes to General Service Unit (GSU). She is a very sweet young woman and really wants to help those who need it. I admire all these children's ambitions, it's shocking sometimes to see their persistance when faced with the hardships they have to go through.

Other than that, today is yet another Saturday program so I'll be going out there when I'm done here to take some more pics and to hang out with the kids. Peter is also planning on taking Paul and I to a place called Carnivore; it's a restaurant of some sort where you eat all kinds of strange African delights such as hippo, gnu, giraffe, ostirich, zebra, etc. cooked on traditional Maasai swords. I've been doing some research on it and some people say it's great and others say it's terrible. Peter said it would cost about $20 to $30 but some websites say it's about $45. I also saw a review from last month that said they stopped serving game meat which worries me. I would love to go if they served what Peter said they do so I think Paul and I are going to call them to see what the deal is.

Topride Maasai

So today we went to Topride where two of our first children in the program go to school. Neither of them meet the actual criteria of children allowed to enter the program because that was decided after they were techhnically enrolled (but each still do have some problems at home or have lost a parent). It's a great school and is deep into Maasai country which is pretty interesting. On the way there, I also saw some Zebras which I've never seen in the wild before so I thought that was cool (although the girls in the car didn't seem too impressed by them).

We also met a young Maasai man who approached us while we were waiting in the car for Veronicah to finish speaking with her assigned child. He seemed very nice but only spoke Swahili so I could only pick up a few words. But I found out that we were saying that if we gave him Mary then he would give us 14 of his cows. I told him "ng'ombe ishirini kwa Mary" which means "20 cows for Mary." He laughed and agreed (we didn't actually give him Mary but oh well). He also didn't allow me to take a picture of just him so I just cropped Mary out of some of the picture.

Right now, I am working on Alice Lavender's Day in the Life video and still getting all the headshots. Paul is working on the stat stuff still and he says it's ending up being a lot more than he thought it was going to be but he'll be fine. We also moved to our third homestay a couple days ago and Rose and her family are very westernized compared to other Kenyans. Usually, when I travel, I prefer to experience the culture to the fullest the entire time but I figure since I'm here for so long and that I'm not technically on vacation, a little westernization won't hurt.

Day in the Life

Here's the Day in the Life video I made for Gervas Ouma. I'm not sure how long it will take for it to load in America but here, it takes forever. I made this with Windows Movie Maker, I could've done some better work with a better camera and better software but I think this is pretty decent for now. We got new internet service which made this possible (it's extremley fast with just one or two people on line but once you get passed four people, the speed drops dramatically). This service is still a lot better than what we had but it seems like it won't get any better here in Kenya.

General Service Unit (GSU)

Yesterday and today, I went to GSU or General Service Unit. It's a military boarding school and the men who join the military service of GSU are the ones who attempt to keep the people under control with force during riots (they worked a lot last year during the post-election violence).

I met all the children in the program who go there and got headshots of every one of them except one, I'll get him at the August camp. I also took a video of Alice Lavender who I chose to videotape for the "Day in the Life" videos. She did a very interesting poem which I think will be a great part of the video. I also photographed the entire facility and some of the students. I was planning to be there for three days but it only took me one and a half to get everything I wanted done (which I'm glad about because it takes about an hour to get there and back in a Matatu, that's rough). I also have time to edit the video which is good. My next school visit will be Topride this Friday; we only have a couple students there but it's good for me to see all the schools.

The pictures you see are a bunch of third graders that followed Paul and I around and some banana trees (all the students take an agricultural/farming course during their stay at GSU and this is one part of their garden).

Happy Independence Day

So today was a good day. I finished Gervas Ouma's "Day in the Life" video and spent some time at the Saturday program. Then, tonight, we've been partying for the American Independence Day. Paul and I grilled burgers and hotdogs for all the board members, case workers, and some others who decided to come. It's still going on right now but I'm finished partying for the night, hence the blogging. I'm sorry that there is no posting of photos or videos today but no new photos were taken and a video would take at least a decade or two.
Paul and I will be going to GSU (one of our schools) Monday so I'll be starting on my video of Alice Lavender then. She is the sponsored child of my aunt and uncle, Kari and Dave, so I thought that was pretty interesting. Anyway, that's it for now but I'll let you all know if anything new comes up.

Pleats

I don't have too much to say today; I've just been working on Gervas Ouma's video and labeling all the kids' headshots lately. A funny thing happened this morning though, I put on my khakis that I got at Old Navy and I noticed that Mary (my host family's maid) attempted to pleat them. Now I have two random lines going down my pants that seem very out of place for casual pants.
The reason that I put the picture of a flower I took up is because everywhere I travel, if I ever see an interesting plant, I try to get a good pic of it. I thought this was a pretty good one. Also, we found out that Jackson's cousin in Tanzania died so this can be for him too. Katunzi was really close with him. This brings up an interesting cultural point though about Kenyans; everytime a loved one passes, friends of the family collect money and give the family their cash to pay for the funeral and any other payments. They don't have life insurance here so this is a great way to help out. I saw this first-hand when all the case-workers through in money for the cause.

Kenyan Weather, Culture, and Peter

The weather here is getting a little more chilly, July is the Kenyan month of "winter" so everyone is wipping out their winter coats. I went to a slum market the other day and bought a sweater thing for 180 Ksh, approximatley $1.50. Peter had a friend of his run over to the seller and ask her how much it would cost, then she came back to get me and we went together. If I went with Peter's friend right away, the seller would have raised the price to 500 or even 1000 Ksh ($7-$15). It was a little smelly and wrinkled and stained when I first got it so I asked my host family to wash it for me; they washed, dryed, and ironed it so it's fairly wearable now.

I want to talk about a few more cultural things or just random stuff I've noticed about the Kenyans. One is the liquids they drink. Most Kenyans like warm milk, warm beer, or warm soda pop with their warm meals after a hot day. Peter told us that when he was in America, he drank cold beverages but once he tried them back in Kenya, he felt like he was getting a cold. Everything's hot here (except for July). Second is traffic laws. They are mainly obselete here. If someone's going slow, you pass them into oncoming traffic. We were driving one time and we saw two matatus driving at us, blocking the entire street. One pushed the other out of the way so that they wouldn't hit us and Peter had to partially swerve out of the way to avoid getting hit (I got the whole thing on video to show you Mzungus what its like). Third, which I find very interesting is the "second" names of Kenyans. They have last names, but also a second (similair to a middle name). So for example, when I was given the name Kajairo, that is just another name that people can call me, Olynyk isn't usually mentioned unless it's under official circumstances. The second names for Kenyans usually have something to do with the way they were born (time, place, etc.). Another thing which is a little more serious is the treatment of women here. From what I've seen, women are taught to be a little more submissive here and they are degraded fairly often. The dancing at times, especially in the clubs, can be very degrading towards the women but they always look like they're enjoying it (if an independent American women was brought here and treated like that, I would get out of the way).

Finally, I'd like to tell you a little bit about Peter. He's grown pretty close to Paul and I the past few weeks and has told us a lot about his life and family. His dad left his family when Peter was very young because he was looking for a job outside of Kibera and Peter's mom died when he was 11. Peter was left with his siblings to try to survive in the slums. The older siblings didn't want to take care of the younger ones so they left Peter's home to find jobs for themselves. Peter found a church that supplied lunch for him and he also met a woman who basically became his new mother. She fed him dinner almost every night and he would sometimes sleep at her house because he and her eldest son became good friends. Peter also doesn't know his actual birthday but he guessed the year and date one day in school when all the kids were telling the teacher their birthdays. He assumed it was around the same year that all the children were saying. Over the years, some of his siblings have passed away; one story we heard was about his brother 15 years ago who was shot with an arrow by some tribesman who were trying to rob him. He never went to the hospital for it because he felt fine but he died a few days later. Peter's father returned into his life once he was an adult and they spent a little time together but Peter was never very close with him. He died a few years after returning. I am always learning more about Peter Ndungu and his life story and it amazes me as to what he has achieved over all these years. He made it out of the slums when most are born, live, and die there.