Sunday, July 31, 2011

Painting, Massai Village, and the Anglican Cathedral

Paul has been promoted from garbage man to painter and, in fact, on occasion, Paint Supervisor!

Maji Mazuri has four locations where it serves children and youth. The first facility it created, about 20 years ago, is called Maji Mazuri Children's Center. It was created to serve several different populations. First, it has about 20 orphans who live there and go to a neighborhood school. Secondly, it has a pre-school to take care of young children so that their parents can go to work. Thirdly, and most uniquely, it houses about 20 very severely mentally and physically handicapped children, some as old as teenagers. These are children who have been abandoned or whose parents are incapable of taking care of them. If it were not for Maji Mazuri, many of these children would not be living. Many cannot move on their own, need to be hand fed, changed, etc. The Maji Mazuri staff does an extraordinary job of taking care of these most difficult to care for children.

The facility is well-designed functionally. However, it is a very unattractive facility, to put it mildly. It is made out of cement blocks and is all “white”. It has not been painted in years and looks pretty run down. There are three floors that surround a cement “courtyard” similar to a prison. There are about 30 rooms on the three floors – dormitories, school rooms, a teacher's room, a physical therapy room, a food storage room, an office, etc. Some of the doors and windows have bars for security purposes – to protect offices, food, etc. Like most small NGOs, Mazi Mazuri has very limited resources and gives highest priority to providing services to children as opposed to maintaining its physical plant.

Paul decided to make the building more attractive his Maji Mazuri project. He bought 11 gallons of paint and painting supplies at a hardware store in downtown Nairobi (in itself, quite an experience) and went work. All of the 30 doors are either wood or metal and, and as of this date, most have been painted – blue on the first and third floors and orange on the second floor. It has “transformed” the outward appearance of the building.

There have been 8 students from Cambridge University volunteering at Maji Mazuri during the same period of time we have been here. They are great! In addition to the services they have provided to the children at all four Maji Mazuri operations, they painted the two largest rooms, the dormitory for the maximum care children and the largest school room. This is where Paul got his Painting Supervisor title but as a practical matter, spent most of his time following the high flying students and cleaning up. They did the rooms in two days – the dormitory is a quiet blue and the school room a dynamic orange. The entire project will be completed in the next couple weeks with the help of PY, Meredith, and Alyssa.

We have not just been painting. The other day, Wanjiku took us to a Massai village to deliver donated clothes. Basically, this village is just an open field. It happens to be located in part of Karen, which is the wealthiest town in Kenya, and is the home of most of the country's white people, descendents of the British people, who first settled here. As a result, ironically, this open field is adjacent to some very large, wealthy estates.

The Massai are a tribe which has traditionally moved throughout the country raising cows and goats, and sheep which they use for meat, milk, and clothes. Because of serious droughts which effect the grazing of the animals and because of the encroachment of civilization, many of the Massai have been forced to settle in villages. They live in VERY SMALL huts made of dried mud and dung and grasses and there is no electricity, and, therefore, no light. The entire hut is not more than 10 feet by 10 feet. They COOK, eat, and sleep in the huts. When we bent over and entered the hut, we could not see because it is so dark. As our eyes adjusted, we could see that there was a fire in the middle of the hut where they do their cooking and a couple “beds”. Usually, four to six people (for example, two parents and four children) live in a hut. It was warm and cosy but the smoke was unbearable. The huts are surrounded by animals.- the Massai count their wealth on the basis of the number of animals they have. The most significant aspect of the adventure was the warmth and grace of the the people, who welcomed us to their village and into their homes. They were genuinely happy to have us visit and were very welcoming.

We have been going to church at the Anglican Cathedral and it has been a wonderful experience. We have been going to the contemporary service – great music as only the Africans can do it. The sermons have been very contemporary and directed at the current issues confronting the country. Two weeks ago, the sermon was on the subject of corruption, which is rampant in Kenya (and has always been), especially in the highest offices of the government. The sermon was very pointed in criticizing government officials and, most likely, many members of this very wealthy congregation, were squirming in their seats.

Last week, the sermon was given by a visiting guest who was very handicapped. He was an excellent speaker and talked about how Kenyans do not do much to help the handicapped in their society. In fact, he dealt head on with the tribal belief (still held by many rural Kenyans) that people have handicaps because they have sinned. He said that the whole subject of handicapped persons has nothing to do with sin and, in fact, God loves all people, including the handicapped and that all people should love them and create an environment where they can flourish.

This may be our last report (and, then, again, it may not be) as we have a heavy schedule ahead of us. In a week, PY, Meredith, and Alyssa arrive. All three will be volunteering. Meredith is going to produce a formal video, interviewing several Maji Mazuri staff and clients to tell the Maji Mazuri “story”. It will go on the Maji Mazuri website and be used for promotional purposes. A few days after that, Terry and Barbara Davis and others arrive at Rafiki for a special celebration and we plan to join them. Then, PY and Meredith go off to climb Mt. Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya and, possibly, the second highest in Africa (do not quote us). Then, Jamee and Michael join us and the seven of us go on a six day safari to top off the Kenyan experience. And, of course, there are still seven more doors to paint and a small class room to paint orange!

An Addendum

A couple additional comments to add to “Paul's Trip to Kasarani and Back”: While riding in a bus or matatu, one should not be surprised to see one conductor get off the vehicle, mid-trip, and disappear only to be replaced by another conductor, who has come out of nowhere. It can happen at any time in any place – no routine. One has to be alert if he has told the first conductor when he wants to get off as the odds that the information has been passed on to the second conductor is remote. On occasion, even the driver climbs out of the cab, mid-trip, and another jumps in and takes over.

Another phenomenon is the when the vehicle, fully loaded with passengers, pulls into a gas station to refuel. It can happen at any time. Speaking of gas stations, if the traffic is heavy and the bus wants to turn left at the intersection and if there is a gas station on the corner, the bus merely drives through the gas station to beat the crowd. Every bus for itself!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Paul's Daily Trip from Ngumo to Kasarani and Back

I am off to work as a painter at Kasarani, the Maji Mazuri orphange.It is about 20 miles or 2 ½ hours away. You ask, “How can that be?” I will explain.

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I walk out of our ”estate”, protected by high walls and guards, and enter the real world of Kenya. I am looking for matatu 33 to take me to downtown Nairobi. The number “33” is on the front of the matatu so it should be easy. However, there are some 33s that go to Nairobi and some that only God knows where so one needs to be careful to ask the “conductor”. Although we are both speaking English, it is sometimes hard to communicate. I climb into the matatu.

A matatu is the size of a large golf cart. It could probably seat 4 to 6 people comfortably. However, a matatu is designed to hold 15 people: 13 passengers, a driver, and a conductor – 5 rows of 3 people each. You climb in all bent over and squeeze into your seat. We are packed like sardines. If one person moves a muscle, we all move several muscles.

There is a good seating strategy but it is difficult to implement. If you sit in the front seat with the driver, you have to look at all the near accidents as you are being approached, sometimes in your lane, by speeding cars, matatus, and busses. If you sit in the second row, you are sitting over the motor and your knees touch your chin. If you choose the back row, the seats are elevated so you need to ride bent over with your head touching the roof. I have decided there is only one good seat – the single seat on the left hand side in row three. I have a one in thirteen chance of getting that seat. Actually, the odds are not that good because everyone else in Kenya has figured out that this seat is the best one and you always find it filled.

The driver sits in the front row on the right hand side. (We are in Kenya). The conducter sits in the third row on the left hand side. His job is to shout out for new customers, bang on the side of the matatu to tell the driver when to stop and when to go, open the sliding door to let people in or out, and collect the fares. The “fares” are very “fair” - not more than 50 shillings (about 50 cents) and usually 20 or 30 shillings to go anywhere in the greater Nairobi area.

We are off and running! No, off and “walking”, no, off and “crawling”, no, off and stopped. The traffic is horrendous – worse than we experienced in Nigeria, Ghana, or India. We are in “stopped” mode a great deal – which partially explains the 2 and ½ hour trip. Every once in a while, we “break out”, when there is a stretch of clear highway. At this point, the driver attempts to “make up” for lost time by driving as fast as the matatu will go, scaring the hell out of everyone, only to come to a grinding halt in a very short distance, and another period of standing still.

And the music! Half the matatus play ear splitting Kenyan and American music and, of course, the speakers are right next to your ears – as is everything else in the matatu. You cannot choose a seat based on speaker location – they are located in different spots on different matatus I have bought ear plugs, which I pull out periodically.

Anyway, we make it to downtown Nairobi. It is time to switch to the 17B bus to Kasarani. The 17B bus is only about a block away and although there are a lot of other busses going other directions, it is not too difficult to find the 17B once shown the routine. The busses are a step up from the matatus but are still well short of busses to which we are accustomed. Once you get on the bus, you think the hard part of the journey is over. Not true. The 17B bus does not start until all 55 seats are filled! I once sat for over one hour waiting for the seats to fill – the last four seats took almost 20 minutes. I almost paid for the empty seats but that would have been in bad taste, to say the least.

We are off and running – no, not really – same traffic problems. Other than the traffic, you think the trip is going to be relatively peaceful. Not true. Most of the busses to Kasarani have self-appointed (not legal) preachers. When you get on the bus, you never really know which person is going to turn out to be a preacher. On one occasion, a nice lady sat down next to me. When the bus started, she also started. She stood up, faced her empty seat and right over my head, preachedfor 35 minutes, yelling at the top of lungs in Swahili! Time to pull out the earplugs.

The Chinese are funding and supervising the construction of a 6 to 8 lane super highway which will replace the road to Kasarani, on which we are traveling. However, at the present time, it could not be worse for travelers because you not only have to travel over the current pot hole filled, highly congested road, you need to travel immediately adjacent to all the earth moving equipment being used to build the new road. The dust is so heavy that.... We reach Kasarani, a fifteen mile trip in 45 minutes to an hour.

I paint all day. (A different story) I walk down the dirt road to the highway. I flag down a 17B bus. I decide to sit in the front seat where I can see everything out the front window. Then, I look down. The floor board is missing. I am sitting right over the engine, or the drive shaft, or whatever. No matter what it is, it looks like it could grind me up if I fell in the hole. I move to the next row back. Bad mistake. This is where the bus conducter hits the side of the bus to signal the driver to stop or go. Some of the busses are all contained in one unit. The driver can hear the conducter's signals with a relatively modest slam on the side of the bus. On other busses, the driver is an a separate cab from the passengers. In this case, the conducter has to hit the side of the bus right at seat two with what sounds like a sledge hammer.

As a side issue, sometimes the busses and matatus do not come to a complete halt when you want to get on or off so one always needs to be alert.

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We return to Nairobi. I transfer from the 17B bus to the 33 matatu and repeat the matatu experience on the way back to Ngumo. I got up at 6, left for work at 8, arrived at Kasarani at 10:30, left Kasaranit at 3, and got back to Ngumo at 5:30. Can't wait until tomorrow!

Paul and Susan Trip to Maji Masuri in Nairobi, Kenya

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Hello All,

It has been a week since we left and this has been the first time we have been able to write an E-Mail. We have been too busy every day and too tired at night. We were in the air or in airports for three days with the exception of a few hours in Istanbul where we “relived” our wonderful experience of living on the Hippodrome. We arrived at 2 a.m., worked our way through customs, got our visas, traveled to the Maji Masuri office, and hit the sack at 4 a.m.

On Saturday, we moved to our home, within a short walking distance of the office. The home is in a middle-class walled compound called an “estate” which is protected by a gate and guards. We have our very basic bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom is a bed, a chair, and a rack to hang clothes but no bureau, tables, shelves, etc. so we are pretty much spread out on the floor. We put up our mosquito netting every night and take it down in the morning.

We have a flush toilet! It works well except when there is no water pressure at which time we fill the back of the toilet by bucket. There is no ((and there will not be any) hot water so we heat the water on the stove. There is no shower or bathtub so we mix the cold water with hot water in a bucket and take daily bucket showers at which we have become pretty good. We are paying approximately $240 a month for our room and $30 a month for such things as our laundry. We have just had our laundry done by a young lady who lives in the house, who washed the clothes in a bucket in the backyard and hung them out to dry.

The food situation is better than India or Kenya because Susan is cooking the dinner and we are eating western food! We are buying our own food but because refrigerator capacity is extremely limited, we are eating variations on hamburger and pasta.

The family is very nice. It consists of a husband, Robert, who is a minister; a wife, Lillian, who has a data entry job; and Lisa, a two and one half year old who is going on ten – very cute, vivacious, full of life, wild and crazy – sets the tone for the entire house. In addition, there is a young lady, Ajir, who takes care of Lisa and does the household chores. And, there are two young men, one going to college and one who has a job, who are close friends of the family. And, there are two other volunteers, one from England and one from New Zealand. So, there are just 10 of us sharing the two bathrooms and one kitchen – all cooking different food!

Starting on Sunday, and for the last five days, we have visited the various Maji Mazuri sites, spread out over Nairobi. It is a bigger operation then I expected. It is impossible to describe the programs in detail (we may try later),

In Nairobi in Methare, the slum area of 400,000 people, the projects consist of a primary school called Headstart (K through 7) for 150 children; a micro finance program for 250 women; a computer training program with 10 computers; a program of activities for 50 primary and secondary children outside of school; and a tremendous program for 50 college age youth.

Not far outside of Nairobi is an orphanage for 50 children extremely handicapped, mentally and physically.

In the country, about one to two hours out of Nairobi, they have a developed a 36 acre site that includes a school for 200 primary and secondary students, some from the Methare slum who now live on the campus and some from the surrounding Masai community who return each day. It also includes a large farm and a brand new clinic to serve the entire area. Lastly, they operate a primary and secondary school for 320 students in a completely different location outside of Nairobi in the country. Every program is of a very high quality and is having a significant impact on the lives of literally thousands of children.

Kenya has one thing in common with our experiences in India and Ghana – the traffic and the roads. Some roads are decent, most are not. The traffic pollution is oppressive. The traffic is so heavy and so uncontrolled that it takes a very long time to go anywhere. It takes over an hour to go 10 miles to the slum area and nearly two hours to get out to the country projects. Unlike India, Kenya, or Nigeria, we are taking public transportation – an unbelievable experience.

The primary mode of transportation is by matatu, a vehicle that holds 14 passengers all crammed very tightly together. There is a driver and a “conductor”, who collects the money and who bangs on the side of the vehicle to tell the driver to stop or go to let people on or off. There is LOUD blaring music on every matatu. Lesson: Do not sit in the front seat near the speakers. Each ride costs from 20 shillings (20 cents) to 40 shillings (40 cents). On the road is every vehicle for itself – sort of like bumper cars. The driving challenges are made greater by pedestrians dashing at every small opportunity to squeeze through and between, cars, trucks, and buses. Yesterday we passed an accident were someone had just been hit by some vehicle. Police were on the scene so I think the person on the ground was getting help. The other type of vehicle we take is a 22 passenger bus which is only slightly more civilized.

There are approximately 10 other volunteers working at Maji Mazuri at the moment. Now that we have seen all the sites, we are all going to have a meeting with the staff tomorrow morning and everyone is going to decide what he or she would like to do and which site they would like to work at based on the volunteer's skill and the site's needs.

Tune in tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Hello Again,

We have had our organizational meeting. For the next two weeks, most of the Cambridge students are going to interact with the students at the various schools. The activities will include everything ranging from playing with the preschoolers and helping the primary school teachers to playing soccer with the high school kids.

Susan is starting off working at a Maji Mazuri program called Headstart. It differs from Headstart in the US because the school serves children from toddlers to eighth graders. This school has 300 kids all crowded in a very small space located in the Mathare Slum. The baby classes as they are called may have 30 children per classroom measuring 10 ft by 16 ft It is designed to give them all a “Headstart” that is prepare them to compete in the opportunity to continue their education after secondary school. It is competitive in the sense that 8^th graders have to pass a very tough test in order to get into high school and high schoolers have to pass a very tough test to get into college. The attrition rate is very high at both levels and if the students do not move on to the next level, they are pretty much destined to live a life and have occupations that reflect their educational level. We happen to be here at the end of their school year and everyone at each top level is studying very hard – the pressure is tremendous. The government pays for primary school. Kenyans must pay for high school and college themselves.

Susan is also involved in “Mavuno” a micro-finance program which Maji Mazuri operates in the slum called Mathare (400,000 people). The essence of the program is as follows: Five residents (most, if not all, women) of Mathare form a Group and borrow money from Mavuno to start a joint business. Each woman receives five shillings

(approximately 5 dollars!) to start a business, such as a vegetable stand, a sewing business, a shoe store, etc. They must then pay the debt off every week until it is paid off. If the Group is successful and current in their payments, they may borrow a larger amount (10 shillings). If they continue to be successful, expand their businesses, and pay off their loans, they can borrow up to 50 shillings (approximately $50). There are currently about 250 women involved in 50 active businesses and the number is growing.

We have seen two businesses that are part of the micro finance program. One was a woman who has a stand in Mathare selling fresh vegetables. The other business is a restaurant also in the slum. Susan had the wonderful opportunity to have lunch there. At first, the tiny building looked uninhabitable but once inside, we found ourselves in the kitchen where there were two rough wooden tables with benches. The proprietor was very welcoming and served a delicious Kenyan meal.

We participated in a fascinating Mavuno meeting yesterday. Mavuno, the name of the microfinance program, has never had a written “Constitution” or set of written rules and regulations governing and describing the organization. So the staff is writing one. The Kenyan “team” is made up of a couple of young, recent college graduates, who are staff members, and three or four very street smart young people who know how the program is, in actuality, working. They had already done some preliminary work on the documents. Susan and I and three other volunteers (one a recent graduate with an Economics major from Cambridge, another a young lady from China, working on her Masters in social work, etc.) were invited to join them and contribute our ideas. Twelve of us sat around for four hours in a dark, cement block room with no water and little lectricity, etc. and “banged out” a very good second draft of the document. The team will review the document again on Friday. These twelve people, all of whom actively participated, were from four continents and we all worked together on a common successful task. It was wonderful!

Paul is not a teacher. Paul is not a social worker. Paul is not a farmer. Paul cannot play soccer with Kenyan high school students. Maji Mazuri does not happen to serve old people. What can Paul do? Of course, pick up garbage:

Maji Mazuri has a very effective garbage pick up program for high school and college age young people, all of whom have grown up in the slums. The leaders of these two programs called the Youth and Teens programs are also from the slums and are people who have come up through these programs themselves. These leaders are truly remarkable folks. Their overall competence, maturity, intelligence, leadership skills, mastery of the English language, etc. after having been born in and grown up in the slums, is truly hard to believe. The Youth and Teen programs includes a lot of information programs designed to help young people grow up in the slums without doing drugs, getting pregnant, stealing, etc. and maybe move out - a very hard thing to do.

They have also started a modest slum clean-up program. The city does not pick up any garbage from the slums. Therefore, most garbage just piles up. In addition, since there are very inadequate toilet facilities (four central locations for 400,000 people), there is a lot of waste from this source also flowing down polluted trenches to a very polluted “river”. The young people have handed out garbage bags to several dozen slum dwellings and every Saturday, they pick up the garbage bags, put the garbage bags in wheelbarrows and dump them along the main road. It is illegal to dump the garbage on the road and there are fines involved, so the young people dump the garbage at “odd hours” and since the city does not want so much garbage on the main street, they pick it up.

The young people also take shovels (three) and rakes (four) which are used by a dozen or more people to clean the garbage out of the polluted trenches so the sewage can flow down to the river. Last Saturday, along with a number of other volunteers, Paul became a full-fledged garbage man for about three hours. He was particularly good on the rake. (We volunteers are going to buy some more wheelbarrows, rakes, and shovels for the young people).

The people of the slums are very appreciative of the program and it is providing a very good example for others to follow. It is, of course, a drop in the bucket when you are dealing with a slum of 400,000 people but Maji Mazuri and the young people are to be highly commended for their efforts in very challenging circumstances.

Tune in again some day, if you wish.