Letter from Kenya #1 (July 4, 2006)

Hi friends and fam,

To give you a brief orientation before I dive in, here is a brief character and setting list!

Characters:
Willa, Anthony, Anne, Eva, Ian, Me - Field RAs who are new and continuing in Busia
Paul, Lorenzo, Muthoni - Field RAs who are all returning to the U.S. as their terms conclude
Jon - a grad student who's running several projects re: HIV/AIDS in the area; he is the first of many grad students who will be cycling through here
MSF - Medicos Sin Fronteras (aka Medecins Sans Frontiers, aka Doctors Without Borders)

Places:
Nairobi - the capital of Kenya, which is located in the mid-South
Kisumu - the third largest city in Kenya, about 2-3 hours SE of Busia in the NW quadrant of Kenya
Kampala - the capital of Uganda, about 3-4 hours due west of Busia
Busia - a small border town at the Kenyan/Ugandan border in the West near Lake vic [see WikiMap]
Lake Vic - Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and the source of the Nile River
Wazungu House - The house where all the Field RAs live, sans Eva. "Wazungu" means "Europeans" in Swahili (in this case, white people). My presence kind of messes with the Wazungu-ness a little
Chauma - local restaurant & pub with color TV (!!!) including World Cup games, nice people, and a lot of the wazungu (IPAK + MSF) and Kenyan field staff

The story so far:
Getting to Busia is a lot more difficult than getting to Nairobi. For those who are curious about the capital city, I can't tell you much. I stayed in a hostel/campsite filled with American and European backpackers, who are a story unto themselves. Additionally, I spent my first 14 hours in Kenya sleeping, so I missed out on a lot. I did not, however, miss out on the 50+ mosquito bites I accrued sleeping without a bednet at said hostel, who had run out of aforementioned bednets. What I briefly experienced can be summed up in the following from Muthoni, who hails from Nairobi:

"In Philadelphia you feel safe but will probably get mugged. In New York you don't feel safe but probably will not be mugged. In Nairobi you don't feel safe, AND you'll get mugged."

About a day later I took a 7 hour bus drive to Kisumu, and from there I met Willa, who took me back to Busia via taxi. Since then, things have been great and pretty much exactly what I had expected. There are all sorts of fun things that are unique to the area. For example, here there are bike taxis, which are not to be confused with bike rickshaws. Basically you sit on a padded extension that hovers just above the rear wheel while some poor guy carts you around on his "boda boda" (so named because these bikes used to travel across the "border border"). Given that skirts are the dominant attire for women, I've been doing a lot of side-saddle riding.

In my opinion, we are spoiled rotten here. I knew that the NGO we're working with had been in the area for over 10 years, but I didn't realize the pervasiveness with which NGOs change and shape communities. Busia seems relatively affluent (despite its very high poverty rate), partially due to its location near the lush Rift Valley, and partially because of its strong smuggling trade. While it's certainly rural, it's not the stereotypical conception of "the bush," in my opinion. In this district, NGOs are by far the highest paying employers unless you move to Nairobi or Kisumu.

But the affluence is matched with significant differences. At the end of the day, everyone I work with has a college/high school education and is making way more money than the rest of the community. Most own their houses and have cement walls and metal (or higher quality) roofs.This is the same place where tons of other families are living in homes with mud walls and thatch roofs. And these mud wall homes are much nicer than the other homes built from leftover shipping materials and tree debris.

When you throw in the field RAs, we live a fairly embarrassing and lavish life. For about $2.00/day (142 Ksh) I can eat well three times a day, buy a litre of bottled water, travel across town and back via boda boda, and frequent the local internet cafe. Meanwhile, little kids walking by on the main road don't have shoes and half don't have any other clothes except their school uniforms. Many of the people around me will only eat an incredibly non-nutritious meal once today, and none will have access to clean water. In some ways this experience is familiar, and either way, it is sobering.

While I'm enjoying myself, I'm definitely trying to keep my eyes open. There are a lot of things I would like to do and see while I'm here, but I'm trying to stay grounded. It's easy to forget who and where I am and pretend that the people I work with (who are wonderful) live lifestyles that are the norm, not the exception. Sawa, we'll see.


Until next time, be well!