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.