A brighter slate

It’s just past 10pm and it’s pitch dark outside. The school next door is abandoned for the day and my neighbours radio lies idle. The only sound that distracts me from reading is the dull crack of branches smacking or the tit-ta-rak of the black crows that scrape and claw for grip on it. 

It’s disrupting reminder that the roof over my head, like that of the majority of the houses in Mnarani, is made from corrugated iron.

Unlike rural areas in Kenya where Makuti (like thatched) provides the shelter on mud-huts, corrugated iron dominates urban Kenya.  In Kilifi where it appears like a small pool of tin or as a sea of iron rippling through cities like Mombasa or an ocean of rusted, warped brown and dull grey as in the slums of Nairobi.

It’s the relentless peaks and troughs that wave through roof tops of many a Kenyan home which says a lot about the country – untold juxtapositions of a developing countries ups and downs.

Kenya is one of the poorest countries in the world.  One of the continents economic and business powerhouses with a growing middle class and sizable wealth. Where huge billboards advertise to the sprouts of a new generation but tower over a desperately familiar one.

Kenya is one of the few countries where Ford car sales increased in 2008, one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets in the world, where local businesses regularly win continent wide awards for being the best.  Where some incredible houses are built on some of the most fantastic beaches in the world and a country whom is home to  the planet's  most breath-taking wildlife. 

Kenya is a famine ravaged hell-hole where existence is scrapped from the bottom of natures empty barrel on a daily unrelenting basis.  147 least developed out of 184 countries, 30,000 girls involved in Child Sex Tourism, 3 million people face starvation annually, over 1 million living with HIV/AIDS, a political instability which struggles to forget that it is it that was the cause of 1500 deaths in 2008, up 10% of GDP lost on corruption and 40% of population unemployed.

 Perhaps it’s biggest problems are 1. inequitable role of women in society – A Kenyan woman will have on average 5 children in her lifetime and with such little income for the household to survive on, the family size place’s a huge strain on survival and on the ability of the family to send all children to school – thus it is usually the boys and it cements girls to the role of child birth and to that of a housewife. The cycle continues.

 Break this cycle, girls…women, will want more and will seek employment which will increase family income, reduce family size and increase the families ability to invest in their own development.

 The other enormous problem is 2. Corruption.  Pick up any of Kenya’s big two newspapers, any day of the year, any day of the week and you’ll find a story on 'misappropriation' of funds.

 The governments self-protecting attempts to control it are appalling.  And for those who naively say that Corruption is in all countries, Barack Obama (yes some of us still believe), who’s father is from Kenya, summed it up accurately for Kenyans and anyone else who cares to listen like this:

 ‘But while corruption is a problem we all share, here in Kenya it is a crisis  – a crisis that's robbing an honest people of the opportunities they have fought for – the opportunity they deserve.’

 These are just two of the huge obstacles for Kenya to achieve equitable growth.

And while it is in fact far from a reduction of corrugated iron houses like mine that will occur over the next decade as huge troubling urbanisation will see an increase in pools, seas and oceans of rippling tin, to believe Kenya can move away from the corrugated iron inequality of huge poverty and burgeoning wealth, of a land of immense beauty and of fierce earthly hostility, of a huge income generating income industry like tourism that offers visitors a potentially amazing holiday but sometimes horrendous misery for the locals, to believe that Kenya can move away from this, I think, you do not need to be a Utopian ‘make poverty history’ idealist.

Change will only come from within* and unfortunately not from wrist band wearing concert goers. Fortunately though, the voice which announces the growing desire for a change, a change that the son of this country showed everyone is possible, is getting steadily louder.

 It is a change that is wanted, and one that is hopefully slated.

 (*Like every economy, attracting skilled and educated professionals will support change, facilitate growth and this globalisation will feed the hungry civil society - hence the role of the volunteer J!)

 

On a short winding walk to work

On my walk to work, winding my way through Mnarani Village’s dusty brown paths between space grappling corrugated iron roofed brick and mud houses I am always greeted by young children playing, mothers doing their washing or selling breakfast and school children mysteriously wandering about in school uniform during school.

The walk is pleasantly cool, the early sun hidden behind the cosy collection of  shacks. 

Just outside my house, around the corner and before the school ‘gate’  in the communal yard where clothes are relentlessly either being washed, hung up, dried or being taken down is where I buy my breakfast – samosas, hidden under brown paper on a big silver tray from a mama whose hygiene I have promised never to think about.  I have the first one on my mouth as I snake my way around another corner past the school, now silent and expectant for the coming break, the sound of classes in full flow with teachers preaching to young ears.  Past the noisy classes and through a tiny alley pressed against a pool table sized shaded shamba (garden to grow vegetables) and a front door revealing the guts of a kenyan family home and back into the sunshine out onto another communal yard where more infants sit with friends babbling the latest infant news who show no interest in me.

Down another small pathway and past a man who is always ironing shirts beside two more men who are roasting nuts.  ‘Arsenally’ scream two young boys around the corner, pumping their fists with big smiles.  I pump back which is greeted as usual with much laughter – I’m not sure anyone in Mnarani who doesn’t now me as Arsenally (i.e. Arsenal fan). They run away in jubilant excitement after our daily affirmation of support for the mighty reds.

Having my second potato, onion and chili samosa, I continue around another corner, ducking under washing lines drying bed sheets, clothes, wraps – sometimes dripping wet and always need to be avoided.

“Habari zano” (How are you all) I routinely announce to the mama’s (young and old women) sitting in the door way or of course, washing clothes.

“Salama, Habari yako” (Good, how are you?)

“Ye old dolls are always washing, like everyday, whats the fucking story. How many bloody clothes have ye got” is the response I’ve never quite managed the courage to ask back.

The sanitation in these houses vary but now toward one small section where sanitation consists of a small uncovered tunnel that leads under the house’s wall and empties it contents in full view just outside the house.  Turning the corner past the mama’s and away from the main thoroughfare,  I always hold breath to avoid the worst of the smell, where with the raw sewage, children openly add their number twos.  Luckily the plot of land where the tunnel leads is only used by unfussy goats and infant children, poking sticks into the sinister looking grey liquid with turgid shades of green. 

“Jambo” says the 2 year old, I guess, in his tiny voice and waving his tiny hand that reaches up from his tiny brown body sprouting out from under his tiny dirty clothes all of which seem to make is big brown eyes all the bigger and chubby cheeks all the chubbier.  Playing in shit never looked so cute. But doesnt help the appetite. I'll wait a bit for my final samosa.

After this, the path runs over a small bit of littered waste land which continues and disappears down  between two more houses onto another open patch of land bordered by more houses where an old try has been felled. Young children interrupt their playing to chant “Jambo Jambo” at me til I answer back…tiresome or cute, depending on the day of the week.  More washing and drying and finally on to the main Mnarani road and another 100m to the main tarmacked road.

Before I get to the main road, there’s a turn off that’s a small short cut to the road, which I used to take when I walked to work but these days I no longer walk all the way to work, it’s just to hot even at 8:30 to walk in the sun. But everyday, at this short cut the boda boda owners (bicycles with cushioned seats at the back) ask me if I want a lift. I’ve never accepted, yet the always ask.  That’s impressive strength of character I think.

So I usually get a Matatu – 20 bob -  or sometimes Piki Piki (motorbike which is faster) – usually 50 bob -  to work.  Before I get to the ‘stage’ or matatu stop where as well as a matatu, local Piki Piki drivers sit under the tree to wait for potential customers, I make sure I have only 30 shillings in one pocket, removing all other money into the other pocket. So assuming there is no sign of the Kilifi Matatu it unfolds like this:

“My friend, Kilifi?” says the first Piki Piki driver who spots me, rising to his feet.

“No thanks, Matatu today I think, sina mpesa (no money{btw, I hope you’re impressed with my Swahili}) ”

“How much you have Bwana (man)”

“Oh not good I say, let me see” hand digs into my pocket and ooh I wonder how much I have “damn, only 30 bob, look” I show my pathetic findings a give him my best 'I'm just 30 bob away from poverty’ look.

Now after this performance, it can go two ways. Either he looks at me with a look that says ‘why don’t you just climb on my back and carry ya there ya tight fucking Mzungu’ and says “Ok come, I take you” with painful reluctance.  Or he says shrugs his shoulders laughs and says “ah no, not for 30bob” and I have to wait for the matatu.

Now the real fun begins when I’m waiting twenty minutes for a matatu that never seems to be coming and I return to the Piki Piki driver and produce 40 bob from my other pocket. He looks at my like I’m a fooking alchemist.

“Ok” he laughs “let’s go” and I climb on to the back of the bike and whiz across the bridge toward Kilifi for work.

Grit for sale

The problem with writing updates for your blog is knowing what people want to hear about.  I try to think about what has happened over the past five weeks and think about what I might want to read about if someone else was in my position.

I would not want to hear about my Christmas spent on Zanzibar with a group of volunteers – a sole male squeezed cosily in amongst a veritable bevy of beeeeeautiful young ladies, prancing about gaily in their ‘Liverpool Title Hopes’ brief swimming wear. Nor would I want to read about Christmas Dinner on a beach, drinking copious amounts of Gin and beer and the ‘I was Good as Gold Mum. Honest!’ partying that followed (I was actually good as gold L).

It would piss me off to read about New Years Eve at a full moon party on Diani beach with 3000 other people dancing to a night of dance music and pathetically oohing and aahhing at a coast full of fantastic fireworks.  ‘Get me another jumper, I am fucking freezing’ I’d say on reading that the blogger spent in total almost three weeks off work on the beaches of the Indian ocean under glorious warm endless sunshine. 

‘Minus 12, is it? what’s this? the blogger had a chef for a week bringing him fresh seafood for lunch and dinner??’  No sir, no need to tell anyone about that. An excellent week and loads of presents from a wonderful situation friend after Christmas. ‘Whatever! Is my middle finger turning blue?’ I’d think.

‘The snow was fun last week, no it’s just pissing me off’ I’d mutter whilst reading that when the blogger returned to work last Thursday, he was told that the office was to be closed until 1st February for renovations and all projects were on hold until then. ‘Birr, shudder, shiver…I’m not in the slightest interested in any of that’ I’d think.

‘But what’s this?’ – I read the blogger visited one of his women on Friday to find she is to lose her house this month and after losing her business premises (shack) on the 30th December and I’d think ‘That more like it! That’s the real Africa I want to read about. Not it being an incredible holiday destination to dream about under my 34 layers of clothes’ 

So let me just write a Aaron Lennon blog this time (Small, fast but not very good) and say that I had a dandy Christmas in Zanzibar and New Year in Tiwi in the company of good friends.  Work is frustrating but the time off is giving us time to plan more and just because the office is closed, doesn’t mean some of our clients are not in need for urgent help. This some how is giving us work to do. 

2010 is the year the World Cup comes to Africa for the first time, there’ll hopefully be news from Kenya of arrests (and no consequential unrest) following 2008 Post-election violence, a new Kenyan constitution and maybe even the ferries for Mombasa will finally arrive. At work, a full year where SCOPE BDS achieves a lot if not all its objectives.  I look forward to telling you all about it in the weeks and months ahead - we're determined to achieve success.

Most importantly, please, please, some silverware?

Happy New Year everyone.  Roll on the rest of 2010.