A blog from August....

The exchange rate between miles and kilometres moved a small bit closer to parity following intense Sunday morning market trading. One mile now converts to just over 1.1 of a kilometers.  

Suicide bombers across Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to strike demanding a review of working conditions, specifically retirement benefits.

In the crossword in Sunday’s newspaper, 17 down begins with A and has 7 letters but no clue is given. We think it could be  ‘What fruit makes cider?’ yet we have absolutely no reason to believe this is the case.

A hairdresser who works in no shop and goes alone to Saturday night nightclub in tight-hot pants asks for a drink from an Irish volunteer. He refuses because he has no money but asks for a haircut in return. It too is refused because she cannot cut hair.

Not far from abject poverty, teenage sex on sale for €10 and death at not much more, I lie in waist deep turquoise water, floating over white soft sand, bathing in warm sunshine yards from beach sofas, cool draught beer and Ashes cricket.

For such brilliant weekend spent in Diani Beach, Ukunda, South of Mombasa, Kenya, ridiculous fiction seemed a lot like ridiculous fact…neither really makes a lot of sense.

A glass 1/4 full or 3/4 empty?

Jon Bon Jovi, the wise old head he is, never sang about being a quarter of the way there.  And with good reason.  It’s not much to sing about. 

6 months into my VSO stint is all…Andy Dufrane hadn't even made a dent in the wall at Shawshank by this stage for heavens sakes. 

Yet the Eighteen Months which remain towers over me like a huge Mountain, casting a long dark shadow over almost all my recent thoughts. Its the sinister man in the long coat standing behind the beautiful clerk in the bank in a Hitchcock movie.

Jaysus, you’d swear I have it bad out here or something. Or that I’d left some heavenly wonder Tir Na Og at home.

‘Woooah, we’re a quarter of the way there, get a fucking grip ya big gobshite’ the blond blow-dried blubber lipped yank would cry.

I get regular updates from other volunteers who were in my pre-departure training course (keep the coming folks!).  Very few peoples’ placements are ideal…mine is closest to attaining such a mark to be honest. I have very few complaints.

I live beside the Indian ocean in a lovely small village. I’m heading to a white sandy tropical beach this weekend, and a few more times in October.  Going white-river rafting down the source of the Nile in November…and don’t even get me started on my plans for Christmas.

‘Woooah, we’re a quarter of the way there, you’re a jammy fookin bastard Halley’ the over-played Californian punk would pelt out.

VSO remind us, and I in turn remind myself, of the fact that in the first 6 months, volunteers really are not meant to achieve much – no shit. 

So now is the time to put the shoulder to the wheel, set the cat amongst the pigeons, put a bit of grease on the axle, pull up the sleeves, send the elves to work, wake-up the worms, send the birds to get the bread… to get things done so to speak.

Now is also probably the time to start making up stuff to fill this darned blog!

Hope all is good where ever you may be reading this.

For less than a bag of fish...

I had just finished a meeting with a group of young adults in Cheramai in Kilifi Township where I outlined what SCOPE could offer them in terms of generating income – the usual splurge about training, marketing, advice and access to finance.

The self-help group work with a local businessman to sell liquid soap in their community of which they get a generous 50% cut of sales. It generates for them a small 700ksh a week.  SCOPE are now offering a chance to boost this.  Importantly, a white guy or mzungu (me) is offering them this.

“Sawa (ok), any questions?”

“Can you give us uniforms”

“What?? No. But I can help you sell more so you can afford them”

“Can you give us mobile phones?”

“What? NO! I do not have money”

“Can you buy us lunch?”

I pour petrol over me and set myself on fire, Buddhist monk style.

If there is one thing that pisses me off here is that everyone thinks the mzungu can give them money:

A bag of tiny shrimp sized fish called Omena from Kisumu beside Lake Victoria is a ‘Coasterian’ (people who live on the Coast) delicacy.  I know, I know - they live beside the ocean but it’s the fish from the lake that they like! Anyway, it gets transported from the west to the coast and sold for 7,000ksh a bag which in turn is sold to the consumer market for 9,000ksh

A bag of fish costs 9,000ksh

As part of Zilpa’s income generation strategy – you might remember Zilpa who has the 8 orphaned girls aged between 12-17? – she purchases one bag and uses the profit to buy clothes in her shop which in turn is used to feed, clothe and educate her children.

Of course one bag with 2,000ksh profit (which comes every two weeks) is not enough to support her shop or to cater for her girls needs. While her situation continues to improve, this fact continues to cause much consternation.

Whilst visiting her shop, Zilpa introduced me to one of her orphaned girls - Elizabeth – who is 15.  She shyly shakes hands and says hello, smiles meekly and leaves me and Zipla to talk business.  Lately, young Elizabeth has begun to look to make her own money to pay for such luxuries as Sanitary Towels amongst other less necessary items like a nice clothes – items the family cannot afford. 

On the coast of Kenya in a tourist town like Kilifi, Elizabeth could earn 4,000ksh for sex with a tourist. Enough for clothes and sanitary towels. There are over 15,000 or 30% of  girls aged between 12-18 living in resort towns who earn income in the Child-Sex Tourism industry, most of which on a casual basis.

15 year old girl for sex 2,000 - 4,000ksh.

Walking outside Zilpa’s shop, we meet two sisters age 14 and 16 who don’t live with Zilpa but whom she provides with breakfast and dinner. The girls live in a poor family of 14 children and their father also has another wife with three children so there simply is not enough food for all.  The girls need help from where they can get it.

Both these girls could make 8,000ksh for sex without a condom – that’s double the price for no condom. Enough money for food for all the family for a week.

16 year old girl for sex without a condom 4,000 -  8,000ksh.

Frequently when I meet Zilpa, the youngest girl who lives with the family – Christine who has lived with Zilpa since she was two when her mother died of AIDS – comes to greet us. Christine is 12, barely 4 foot whose shyness is betrayed by laughter whenever we joke. 

She says she wants to be a doctor when she grows up (she spends a lot of time with Doctors, a legacy from her mothers disease) so when I meet her, I tell I have a cough and have come to see the doctor. She burst into laughter and her face erupts like a sparkling bonfire of happiness – it’s absolutely captivating and wonderful.

Despite this dependency on Mzungu money which I know completely to be wrong, I’ve agreed to sponsor more bags of fish for Zilpa. ‘Sponsor’ as she will give me back 10% of the profit – so it’s an investment not a handout or so I tell myself.  This will help sustain her income and thus help continue to support so many girls in her local community.

Everything I believed in, I’ve read and listened to tells me this is not the answer.  But the dark realities are so much more powerful than that and for all our work on self-sufficiency, this is the best I can come up with.

Anal sex with a 12 year old girl, like our doctor Christine, costs 5,000ksh.

*Information supplied from ‘The Extent and Effect of Sex Tourism and Sexual Exploitation of Children on the Kenyan Coast’ by UNICEF and Government of Kenya 2006.