Catching Up: Life Back in Nairobi

I have been really bad about blogging recently! But now, I am finally all caught up. The past three weeks I have been back in Nairobi and have been spending most of my time just going to class and preparing for my independent research. Even though I have been super busy, I have been having a ton of fun. Aly came to visit me for week!! And I also turned 21! Two other girls on the program also turned 21 the same week as me, so we went out to the clubs in the Westlands (an area of Nairobi).

My first Saturday back in Nairobi, my host family took me to a family wedding and wedding preparations. The night before the wedding, the groom's family (aka, my host family and over 50 extended family members) threw a giant get together where we feasted and danced (the Swahili equivalent of the bachelor party). After dinner was served, all of the groom's female relatives dressed up in Kangas and dance around him while singing traditional Swahili songs. The next night, we attended the wedding ceremony at a nearby church, where they did vows but also sang hymns (like The Lord is my Shepard) in Swahili and ended b y singing some Swahili songs together. Then we all migrated to the reception, which was held at an African cultural center, just outside of the city. The reception was UNBELIEVABLE. Over 600 people attended and it was catered with traditional Kenya foods and the reception facility was gorgeous. About halfway through dinner, the power went out for a good 15 minutes, but no one seemed to be that perturbed. After most of the guests had finished dining, the wedding party arrived. The bride and groom were ushered in by at least 50 other people singing and dancing, which quickly turned into a giant dance party in the middle of the reception hall.

My favorite part of the reception was watching the old grandma's dance around and sing like nobody's business. While we were watching the dance floor, my host sister leaned over to me and said "the funny thing about African grandmas is that the older they get, they larger their butts get" and then started to imitate the old grandmas shaking their hips.

Last Friday we went on several field trips. First we visited Carolina for Kibera, which is a non-profit for the kIbera slums. They have HIV awareness and safe sex campaigns, clean-up campaigns, and also promote soccer groups, similar to MYSA. They help fund and run the Tabitha Medical Clinic, which is build SMACK in the middle of the slums. The facility is AMAZING, and contains a examination rooms, a full lab and x-ray room, a pharmacy, and a recovery center for women who obtain risky and illegal abortions. The admittance fee is only 50 Kenyan Shillings (or about 65 cents). This is the only primary care clinic serving Kibera (home to about 1 million). In addition, the run a group called "Binti Pamoja" (meaning Daughters United) for teen and pre-teen girls which runs peer education and leadership workshops for HIV/AIDS educations, general sex education, and women's empowerment, addressing issues such as rape.

In Kibera slums, this little kid was playing all by itself.

The view of Kibera from the Tabitha Clinic. The multistory apartment complex you can see on the horizon are were the government is relocating slum residents. It is generally just regarded as a slum upgrading project and has been completely ineffective thus far.

This pile of trash was at least 9 feet tall.

All over Kibera there are tags by Solo 7. There also is an incredible number of stray dogs.

After spending the morning at Carolina for Kibera and touring all of their associated center, a small group of us went to visit the Kibera School for Girls. The KSFG is a non-profit organization started by SIT students. The school only admits 15 girls per grade, despite receiving over 400 applications last year. Only the smartest and neediest girls are admitted. About 1/3 of the children are HIV positive. They provide the children with food as well as medical care, especially for those who are HIV positive. They also try to work with the parents to educate them about HIV and ARV treatment. The school is still expanding. Currently, they have about 35 students, grades kindergarten through 3rd, and every year they expand as the oldest group graduates to the next grade level. We met the founders of the school (who are only several years old than us) and hung out with all the students while they ate their lunch. The girls where SO cute and sweet. They were really shy when we would ask them questions, but jumped at the opportunity to read me a Dr. Seuss Book.

One of the girls at KSFG

The girls sat in a giant circle, eating Githeri (basically just beans and corn).

This past week we have begun preparations for our ISP (Independent Study Project). Beginning April 9th, formal classes and activities end, and I am set free to conduct my own original research wherever I want within Kenya. Everyone has really interesting ISP topics: My friend Erinn is going out into Maasai land to study the 'Gendered Use of Fire'. Another one of my friends, Alex, is spending her ISP in rural villages on the coast studying the Waganga, or traditional birth attendants. Two girls are working at the Kibera School for Girls, one of them is working with the women's group to help them create new products to sell. Several other students are doing research in the Kakama refugee camps, which house IDPs from the post election violence in 2007 as well as refugees from the Rwandan genocide.

I am researching Islamic Banking with a focus on microfinance. I will do my research in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Malindi, and maybe Lamu. This week I spent a lot of time at Jamia Mosque in downtown Nairobi. I spent a lot of time in the Mosque library, in the "women's enclosure." I also met some women and a man who work at the Jamia Mosque family resource center. I am super excited for this project, especially because I will be attended the African-Middle East Conference on Microcredit, which is going to be held in Nairobi two weeks from now (yes. I am a big nerd).

Tomorrow, we leave for Tanzania for a week. I am SO EXCITED! Here is our itinerary:

First we arrive in Arusha, where we will stay at a compound run by an ex- Black Panther who has been living exile from the U.S. for the past 35 years. While in Arusha we will sit in on proceedings for the Rwandan Genocide Tribunals. Then we are traveling to a rural Maasai village, where we will stay for 3 days and observe their traditional ceremonies (goat sacrifice Ahhhh!!!). Then we will travel to meet with Hazabe bushmen. The next day we will climb Mt. Ngorongoro (actually a volcano!) and climb the crater. When we reach the crater, we will be going on a game drive, aka safari. Then we will camp on the Mountain before we climb down the mountain the next day. Then we return to Arusha, where we will climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I am SO EXCITED. So expect a new blog series when I return next weekend.

Here a some pictures from the past three weeks:

My study abroad group, posing in front of Jazz.

Me and some friends hanging out at our favorite pub, Club Kiboko.

My host family's kitten, Naughty, playing jungle in the bushes in our courtyard.

PWANI PART 7: Back in Mombasa

Back in Mombasa we would spend our morning in lectures, mostly from representatives of NGO's and Non-Profits based in Mombasa, such as FIDA (Women's Federation of Women Lawyers) and Action Aid Kenya. We also has a lecture on traditional medicine by the funny 78 year old Muslim woman who has us taste a bunch of herbs, most of which just tasted bitter and aweful.

Later on in the week we had several field trips. On Thursday we visited KEMRI (Kenyan Medical Research Institute) and heard about the research that they are doing in Kenya, including research on malaria and HIV. We also were able to visit their wards where they carry out most of their clinical trials. I was absolutely shocked that they took us through every single crowded ward, giving the patients (mostly children) and their mothers no privacy. They walked us through the children's ward and the malnourishment wing. After that they took us to the high priority ward where children who demanded more attention were kept. Our tour group just stood their as a woman helped her child who had just come out of a coma. The young girl had been unconscious for three days due to cerebral malaria an the researcher giving us the tour of the facility blunty stated that she would never fully recover and would suffer from social defects. They even took us to the room where they kept the premature babies. Despite being shocked by the complete lack of patient privacy, KEMRI has an amazing facilty, and they have high tech labs that help track CD4 and virus levels in all of their HIV/AIDS patients undergoing ARV treatment.

While in Mombasa, our classes and trips usually ended by lunch so that we could spend the afternoons exploring. But mostly we just hung around Old Town, especially on the roof of the hostel. Here are some pictures I took off of the roof:

On friday, we visted the a factory in Mombasa, run and owned almost entirely by the Akamba tribe. This factory was were almost all of the wood and soapstone carvings (animals, masks, bowls, etc, etc) sold in tourist shops in Kenya and Tanzania are made. This one tribe pretty much has a monopoly over the entire industry. We were able to walk around and talk to different crafts men, who seemed to carve out intricate animal figures and designs without the slightest effort or attention.

We also discovered that everyday at 5 pm, the old men (mzee) would have coffee and chai by the water. Some of the them would also drink some beer or chew on mirah (a grass plant that is a mild stimulant, somewhere between coffee and cocaine). So, one afternoon we decided to join them and chat and chat a little while drinking their delicious chai (the man in the specs below is the tea brewer). The man in the white hat in the picture below didn't speak any English, but the second time we came back for tea (after a failed attempt at swimming) he had decorated the whole area with flowers. The Mzees where definitely always a highlight of the evening.

Also, on Friday we took a little trip out to Pirates beach to go swimming and relax before we headed back to Nairobi. The water was clear blue and literally hot like bathwater. It was so shallow you could walk out for a good 10 minutes without having the water pass above your armpits. We met a beachboy named Marco Polo who got us some Tusker and several of the girls rode the camels up and down the beach.

Here are just a few more pictures from around Old Town Mombasa.

PWANI PART 6: Msambweni and Funzi Island

One Saturday, my brother Sudi decided to take me to a neighboring village, Msambweni, to see some traditional dancing. My friend Sarah came along too, since she didn't have anything else to do that day. The day we decided to go was probably the hottest day we had experienced so far. Just the walk from the village to the main road was exhausting. When we got to the road, Sudi decided it would be better to take piki pikis (motorcycles) instead of trying to catch a matatu. The piki piki ride was so much fun! We rode past the beautiful countryside, and we would catch breezes of hot air. It was so hot out, even the breeze wasn't refreshing. When we arrived in Msambweni , we visited a beautiful beach, with water that was clear and turqoise and extremely fine, white sand. After walking up and down the beach, we went to watch the traditional dancing at the festival being held in downtown Msambweni.

Then, on Sunday, our last day in Shirazi, they charter a dhow to take us to Funzi Island for the day (for what I am sure was a little reward for making it through the week). First we took a very small little motor boat out into the mangrove keys until we reached our dhow, which we took the rest of the day. It was a beautiful ride, and we even saw some dolphins! We sailed right to a huge sandbar, right next to Funzi Island. When we got close enough I dove straight off of the hull of the boat into the warm water and swam to the sandbar-- it was one of the best feelings in the world. We spent the morning running around the sandbar and returned to the boat for lunch. But by the time we finished lunch, the sandbar was completely submerged under water. Then we went for a brief tour of one of the two villages on Funzi Island before taking the dhow back to Shirazi.

Me and my classmates on the small motor boat to Funzu

The dhow we took to and from Funzi

Me, sitting on the hull of the dhow.

The Sandbar.

a small fishing boat.

Funzi boats

In addition to fish, they like to eat rays and octopus. (ew)

A small hut on the shore of Funzi island.

Later that night all of the mama's decided to hire a women to paint henna on our hands and feet as a going away present. The whole time we were getting the henna done, the mamas would start yelling "Harusi! Aiaiaaiaiaiai!" and laughing because women always get henna done on the night before their wedding.

Then, the next morning we all packed up the bus and left Shirazi. Except for the fact that I was completely covered in a heat rash… I don't think I was ready to leave. After staying in Shirazi for 10 days, I felt like I was just getting comfortable.

All of the host parents in Shirazi.

PWANI PART 5: Mganga na Hurusi (the Medicine Man and the Wedding)

While in Shirazi we also has a small research assignment to do. My friends Sarah, Alex, and I were assigned to research traditional medicine in Shirazi.

When we first thought about traditional medicine, we thought of herbal remedies and the like. But traditional medicine also encompasses enchantments and the use of "genies". So, do you remember the genie in the lamp? Well, it turns out that, since Arabs have been trading with East Africans for a long time, that the original genie in the lamp was actually a genie in the gourd. Genies are invisible creatures than can attach themselves to humans. Genies can be cast by individuals who have the capabilities. One of the women in the village said that sometimes the council of elders send genies to people who are disrespectful or doing something bad for the village. There are many different types of genies and they all have names and are associated with different colors. So when you are exercising a genie, you are suppose to wear the colors that the genie likes. And to ask a favor of a genie or to get rid of a genie, you often have to sacrifice and animal. What was really interesting is that while doing our research once we mentioned genies to whomever we were interviewing, it seemed that every illness or misfortune was attributed to a genie. I even met a doctor in Nairobi who believes in genies, and claimed to have had a genie himself before.

So, on our fourth day in the village, we went to visit the medicine man. We followed his for a good 20 minutes out to his hut on the far outskirts of the village. One we arrives at his house, he sat us down outside and showed us all of the different plants he uses to cure different illnesses. Most of the plants have multiple uses, depending on if you use the roots or the leaves, whether you wash yourselves in a tea made from the leaves or if you digest them. Also, since Shirazi is a Muslim village, they use verses from the Koran while applying the remedy. The medicine man told us that while he gets cases of general illness, he also gets people who need to improve their luck or barren women who want to get pregnant.

Some dried and ground herbs.

The Medicine Man making Maziwa za Kuku (milk of the chicken)

On Friday, one of the village women was being married off to a man in another village and we were invited to the wedding. The wedding was held under an awning of the bride's house. The women and men sat separately, the men were all wearing their white robes and kofias and the women were all dressed in brightly colored khangas. There was a long ceremony amongst the men, which included a lot of paper signing and praying from the Koran. After that was finished, a woman went over to a huge drum and started drumming and then the women all got up and lined up at the door of the house. Then they began singing a call and response song. My mama grabbed me and pulled me into the group and before I knew it we were all shuffling into the tiny house, still singing and laughing. We went all the way to the back bedroom, where I saw the bride sitting on the bed, dressed in green (the color of Islam). Then the poor husband (who looked completely petrified) pushed his way through the crowd of singing yelling women to the bedroom. After a little while the crowd dispersed and we went outside to eat. We asked several of the women what exactly was going on in the bedroom, and they said "oh, they are just drinking chai." But later, when talking to Mama Mary, she said that if the bride was known to be a virgin (or suppose to be a virgin) the women would have waited outside of the bedroom until the couple consumated their marriage and revealed the stained sheet. But, they were not doing that part of the ceremony because the bride already has three children, and therefore not a virgin. She is only 22 years old, but has a 9 year old daughter, who she had when she was only 13 years old.

My fellow students and I dressed up for the wedding

The women in the village preparing for the wedding

The start of the wedding ceremony

The men conducted a ceremonywhile the women observed, sitting on the opposite mat.

Drummer woman

The mother giving away her daughter to her new husband in the bedroom.

One of my friends was ushered into the bedroom after most of the women had left because he host mother wanted her to get a picture of the bride. She found the bride sitting on the bed crying. It turns out that the woman was upset because she was not allowed to bring her three children with her to her husbands village and was leaving them behind to be cared for by their grandmother. When I asked my brothers about this, they said that when I woman is married, it is the husbands decision if he wants to accept any of his wifes children, and often times they do not want the woman to bring any children to his home that are not his own.

PWANI PART 4: Mnazi, Korosho Choma na Kucheza

MKWEZI NA MNAZI

In Shirazi, they use the coconut tree (mnazi) for everything. And all of the young men know how to climb the coconut trees. Some of the trees have little foot holes carved all the way up the side, which are easier climb. But they also climb the trees without the foot holes. First they take a long blade of grass and tie it in knots so that it makes a big loop which they then wrap around their two feet. Then they are able to climb all the way up the coconut tree using just their bare hands and feet. Once they climb to the top, they would throw down coconuts for us to drink. It was amazing to watch them climb the trees because they were so fast and because some of the trees they would climb were REALLY tall.

Can you see the man hanging onto the trunk?

The use coconut juice in pretty much everything they cook, including rice and mandazi (friend little donut things). They drink fresh juice from the young coconuts (madafu), that is, the coconuts fresh from the tree. The use the aged coconuts (nazi), the coconuts that have fallen naturally from the tree, to make coconut milk. They have a special stool with a double serrated knife fixed on one end so that they can sit and scrape the pulp from the nazi (which they often crack open by smashing the nazi on a rock). Then, to get the milk out of the coconut, they stuff the shredded coconut into a woven tube and then twist the whole tube so that the coconut milk pours out into a bowl.

The remains of the coconuts are also used. The fibrous shell is used to weave mats and also a kindling for their fires. The hard internal shell of the coconut is used as a bowl, and some men in the village even make them into candles to sell to tourists and in the nearby villages.

They also use the palm leaves from the coconut tree to weave into mats or fences or roofing. They also use the palm leaves as kindling for their fires.

Lastly, they can make a coconut beer straight from the coconut tree. Men climb to the top of the tree and collect a juice that comes out of the top of the tree. Then they let the juice collected ferment over night and it becomes a very potent beer. When my brother took me to see them collect the mnazi, he told me that is was a very bad idea to climb the trees while drunk because you can fall off. I guess that is Shirazi's equivalent of don't drink and drive: usipande unapolewa.

A man collecting Mnazi from the tree to make coconut beer.

After the coconut is cut open with a panga (machete) we would drink the juice straight from the shell.

KOROSHO CHOMA

In addition to all of the coconut trees in Shirazi, there was a fair number of cashew nut trees (korosho). Cashew nuts actually grow on top of a yellow fruit that grows on the tree. One afternoon my silbings showed me how to roast the cashews (Korosho Choma). First we built a fire on coconuts and coconut palms and places a concave pan with many holes in the bottom on top of the coconuts. Then we placed the raw cashews (still in their shell) in the pan and cooked them until they were roasted black. Then we would knock the pan into the dirt and cover the hot cashews in dirt to cool them down. After several rounds of roasting, we collected all of the roasted cashews in a box and took them back to the house. There we took hardened coconut shells to smash open the cashews to collect the roasted nut in the center. By the end of breaking open all the shells my hands were completely black with ash. But, these were by far the most delicious cashews I have ever eaten in my entire life.

Raziki carrying coconut palms to use as kindling for the fire.

Bob stirring the cashew nuts in the pot

Bob, Raziki, and Mwanacombo roasting the cashews

Raziki collected the roasted cashews from the dirt.

Cracking open the cashew shells

the finish product of roasted cashews

KUCHEZA USIKU

One night after dinner my family was resting outside on our mat when we heard a lot of commotion nearby. Soon I heard singing and yelling and my sister, Mwanacombo, asked "unataka kucheza?" (Do you want to play?). When I said yes, she led me out to a yard next to my house, and there were at least 30 children, from 3 years old to 15 years old dancing and singing outside in the sand. From that night on we would always go outside and dance after dinner. We would sing call and response songs and dance in a giant circle. Then we would do dances where we would all pair up, and everynight the older girls would shout "mazungu mmoja tu!", which basically meant, each person only gets to have one white person to dance with. It was amazing how these little 11 year old girls could shake their hips around. We would play until one of the parents would come out and tell all the children to go to sleep.