Professor Julie

It’s time to buy myself a jacket with elbow pads and Lennon glasses because I am teaching full time this week. What you may ask could I be teaching? Well what an interesting question. The answer is of course Power Point! Yes that’s right the computer program. Now Julie, you may ask, I didn’t know you knew that much about Power Point. Well funny you should ask… I’m not exactly sure why I am currently trying to explain Clip-Art and Slides to 40 or so students, I may have briefly mentioned that I knew how to use the program. This logically led to my teaching it all week. To be quite frank I agreed because I was under the impression I would only be talking for one class. Instead I am teaching both the morning and afternoon classes of 20 or so students for three hours each. I’m doing a shockingly good job for not really knowing anything about Power Point, or teaching, or the local language. But apparently knowing a little is going a long way or that is to say I am making it go a long way, stretching my ‘thin as a wire’ knowledge to last over the whole week. Let me briefly explain about the computer class. Have I at already mentioned that the main funder for my organization is Wal-Mart? Yes the evil chain of low priced crap is actually rather big in the fund raising department, at least here in Kenya, Where they have their factories. Anyway the section that Wal-Mart funds is the vocational training section including the dress-making and computer skills class, which at the same time as teaching life-skills and necessary job skills for free, we also educate the students on HIV etc. So now that you know why I am teaching a computer class I’ll go back to explaining how I’m doing. To all of you who have taught before I know you will understand what I mean when I tell you how very hard it is to teach the same lesion twice in one day. I am forever forgetting so crucial part of presentation making and the result is the class 2 doesn’t know how to do slide animation yet because I forgot to tell them and class 1 doesn’t know about pie-charts because I only remembered pie-charts later in the day. I mean really I’m not very good. Thank god computer training is like 70% your own teaching. I’m covering my 30% pretty well I guess. I’m really loving the power-trip though. You say something like ‘please change your fonts’ or “lets everybody open a new slide” and EVERYBODY DOES IT! I also really love writing on the board. It gives one a sense of peace and order, my handwriting magically becomes legible, my spelling immaculate. As I look out over the class people are taking notes! Of things that I’m writing! The feeling this gives me is a mixture. I’m happy to be finally contributing, but I also feel I am depriving them of a real education. But really how many ways can you teach Power Point. Today is the last day and I am passing out the final test, a test I made and typed and printed. It’s almost a test for me as well; if they pass that means I actually taught them how to use Power Point. If they do not then perhaps I should stick to the gas stations.

Tea Time

A quick note on tea time. It is my very favorite part of the day. It happens around 10:30 in the morning and is the most wonderful thing in the world. Everyone gets together, argues, makes jokes, fights over the bread and drinks tea. That’s pretty much it. I just think we should all have mandatory tea time, in every office in every city in the world. I will start the revolution, my friends and together we can bring tea time to every person in this great earth of ours.

Facilitating Gender

I’m standing in front of 20 people when it suddenly occurs to me: I believe my boss has greatly misinterpreted my resume. This has produced interesting results. The first of which being the assumption that I know how to do anything at all. The second being the misplaced confidence in my somewhat lacking community outreach skills. This week at my internship we had a Capacity building training. Let me take a short break from my story to complain about the term Capacity Building. Firstly it means almost nothing; it is used every couple seconds to describe anything from improving the police force to training peer educators as is the case in the story. I have decided to kill the next person who uses the term. Moving on to the “you know what” building training session, it is the second day, lunch time. My supervisor comes to me and says, “Are you ready to lead the Facilitation session on Gender”? I look baffled, so she asks if I remember when she asked me yesterday if I could do it. I remember her only asking me if I liked the training and I said yes sure. Was this the moment she was thinking of? I told her I wasn’t aware that they wanted me to do that today. She says something like”ah ok so it’s ok if you do it now?” Now? Yes right now. Ok so here it goes. I have something like 5 minutes to make some notes on gender studies and now I’m standing in front of the 20 people only 3 of which are women. All of which are 20-28 years old. This is where I have my revelation. The first couple minutes aren’t so bad. I stammer of course and can feel my voice trembling as I try to talk slowly in English. Besides my greatly lacking facilitation skills, I have the added advantage of trying to explain gender equality and sensitivity to many many men who have spent the first two days of the session making off color jokes and flirting with anyone who got close enough. This by the way is completely normal male behavior but still makes it a little awkward when you ask them about gender stereotypes and one guy says he thinks girls shouldn’t climb trees. “mhmmm mhhmm” I say as I write it on the board, barely containing my feminine rage. “So what else do you think are some stereotypes in Kenya?” Silence. This is pretty much how the whole thing went. So I’m off to a good start I think. Next week apparently I will be teaching a computer class( another imaginary skill on my resume?) Wish me luck.

Adventures in the Wild Kingdom

The mouse looks at me from across the room. I look at him; we stare without blinking as the tension builds. I’m not sure when in my life I stopped screaming when I saw a mouse in my general vicinity. I think it might have something to do with working around mice and hamsters for the last 6 months at Petsmart. That must be why I am suddenly very uninterested in the mouse that is about the size of half my thumb. I could have much worse things living in my dresser. I could have one of those giant spiders named after the town I live in. I could have some kind of lizard like the ones the guide books say can kill you if given enough time; instead I have only tiny geckos living in the shower. Since I have not yet been to the game parks my experience with local wildlife is only the tiny mouse that I have named Will, the occasional gecko, the goats, chickens, and cows who seem to like spending time in the street by my office building. The goats tend to give me my space but the cows on the other hand seem to think the narrow allies belong to them. One day at work I was sitting, minding my own bussiness when a chicken walked in. He had wandered in through the open door and looked for all the world to see like he knew where he was going.. far be it for me to say any different. He quickly realized that this was not the place he was thinking of and hurried out the door... perhaps to try the place across the street. Along with these animals there are about a thousand crows everywhere. They are like seagulls and pigeons combined in their annoyance and filth. They are also about three times as big. There are also the local gangs of hoodlum street cats who are really pretty terrifying. More than one person here has told me that these cats are the “gangster kind of cat” During the day they aren’t so bad at night you keep your distance and watch your pockets. God help all those who get on their bad side. If these are the animals that a domestic city life has to offer, i'm looking forward to the actual game parks.

My shower is trying to kill me

For some unknown reason the pipes in the sink and shower in my house electrocute all those who have the nerve to use them. This is not so with the toilet, who shows considerably more constraint and humility, and does not in fact electrocute you. The sinks are only mildly cross when you use them and therefore you receive only a gentle buzz of current. The shower on the other hand, becomes enraged at the very moment your hand nears the knob. Using some kind of towel of cloth to turn on the water seems to only make matters worse. Today though I must have angered it because I swear it jumped out of the wall to attack me. Normally the electric jolt is bearable for the couple seconds your hand is gripping the knob. Today though it saw me coming and decided to change our dynamic. In the end I won and the oh so proud shower was defeated. Now you may ask, ‘why Julie does your shower electrocute you?’ I really could not answer that, and neither could my host mother when I asked. She simply shrugged and moved on. So I will simply shrug and continue to battle the arrogant plumbing. Next time on ‘Julie battles Kenyan amenities: The electricity that never was….’

OHHHHH BAMA

For those of you in the United States who still think Obama is your president you might want to take it up with a Kenyan. Not only is Obama worshiped like a God here, there is some intense doubt as to the real country he is running. After the first few weeks of being here I gave up saying “I am from America” and now say simply “I am from Obama-land” That’s right folks the USA has a new name. Don’t get me wrong, this is a far cry better than when people said “America” and then spit on the ground. Now they say “ Amerikaaa Obamaaa yes! He is a Kenyan your country run by a Kenyan!” Sure is, I say. Obama’s father was not born in this city but that does not stop his picture from being painted on the side of most busses and his face sketched on walls and photos of him hanging on dashboards and mantles where previously a picture of Jesus or Jay-Z used to be. I have not had one conversation with a single person in this country that did not come around to Obama at some point. The first thing a bus driver asks me when I get on the bus is “ahh merika, you vote Obama?” Yes yes I did, I say. May I get on the bus now? I wonder whether if I had said no if that might mean I couldn’t get on? But who in their right mind would say no to that question in this country? Already people tend to not believe you when you say yes. Generally though, Obama is a cultural icebreaker. I’m used to professing a vague distance from my country, if only for safety purposes. Now I’m actually free to profess a pride in my nation and president, and in fact must love my president or else. This is convenient since I also unabashedly, unconditionally, love Obama. In fact there is already a picture of him on my wall. All bow to the god of Amrika.

NGO-ing

As it turns out in Kenya, working at an NGO not only pays well, but is not considered to be a magnanimous profession, fancy that! The people who work at most NGOs are not praised for being martyrs to a cause but simply smart for getting into the only business besides tourism that has any money at all right now. This is not to imply that people are skimming from charity meant for destitute peoples, it is simply that the pay grade for any worker at an international NGO is far higher than any other job in the country. This means, among many things, that people working in NGOs are not as single minded or passionate about their cause. It also means that people take very long tea breaks and watch the news when things are slow. It’s really fascinating that everybody watches the news religiously, not just the evening news but also during the day when they have a Kenyan C-span that films the parliamentary sessions. The government here is something I don’t think I will ever understand, not just the structure but the entire concept, (based loosely on British?) However I really love watching the parliamentary sessions. Everyone is so passionate and angry. When officials make speeches they bang on desks and other parliament members applaud or in anger jump from their seats. It’s nothing compared to the south Asian parliament riots or fistfights but it makes for good television. It is extremely convenient for the TV and newspapers all to be in English, it makes keeping up with the local events really easy. As things become easier at work I start conversations about how so and so should be sent to jail and isn’t it too bad about so and so. Oh but don’t worry, I haven’t missed a single step in American news as Kenya is in the midst of an Obama craze that rivals the beanie baby craze of 2000.

The Kenyan dating scene

One interesting little fact about Kenya that I didn’t know before coming is that they are polygamous. This in the words of my Swahili teacher does not just mean that they have more than one wife. “The mens they take as many as they can afford, not just for a wife but many many girlfriends.” In Kenya people are still using a dowry system, or bride price. Therefore the number of women you maintain directly relates to the amount of money you have. Hence I was told by a co-worker an appropriate response to a man hitting on you might be to ask how many goats he can give you. “If he says over 50 he’s a keeper. If not you keep looking, because you can do better.” Good advice. Though I have only had 4 or 5 marriage proposals, including one from the man who sold me my cell phone and then proceeded to call it every day, I think I am now prepared for the negotiations. I’ve decided I won’t settle for less than 80 goats. But they will have to throw in a cow to just for good measure.

Internship

My internship started by my visit to the office which is in a small village suburb of Mombasa call Mikindani. After meeting the staff and hearing 13 names of which I now only remember one which is victor, I was introduced to what exactly the NGO does. It is now four days later and I think I am beginning to get what it is they do. The organization is called Hope Worldwide, they are HIV prevention and testing facility, they are also a youth center/ school for life-skill classes such as computer and dress making. They are a community outreach and gender sensitivity training facility. They are also about a million other things. It took for days to understand this because of the fact that I understand a little less than half of anything anyone says. Also because none of this is written anywhere as most of the activities are mish mashed together and very loosely defined. Because of my difficulty grasping the nature of the place or perhaps in preparation for this I was invited to observe some of the programs in action to better understand. This amounted to sitting in a shell gas station for two days, where as I sat by the gleaming hub caps and overcalled workers, learned many, many things. The first of which is that sitting in a Kenyan gas station for 7 hours you WILL get burned in the shade with only a 15 proof sun block. Perhaps I should explain. Part of the VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) HIV project is the work program. This work programs partners my NGO with a company, say Shell gas stations, and then my NGO sets up a tent and a small testing facility at said business and offers the counseling/testing to the workers. So along with my grand education on sunburn and the fascinating science of fixing a tire, I learned also how to test for HIV and the general counseling and referral techniques of the NGO Councilors. As there was a good amount of time between costumers there was plenty of time to talk about the NGO programs with the two female testers. My now extensive knowledge included most of the above information on Hope worldwide as well as some very helpful hints about the Kenyan dating scene. And on the next episode of ‘this stuffs to crazy to make up’…..

The Kids

So I was really right about the kids driving me crazy eventually. This I see as only the inevitable. They are kids, there are a lot of them, the house is small, and I am a shiny new toy. All of this adds up to occasionally having to go to bed earlier than normal. I am a moving jungle gym and a source of endless hilarity. This is as frustrating as it is wonderfully rewarding, which I can only assume is what parenthood is like. As I write, the oldest boy who has climbed onto my back asks me what ‘frustrating’ is (I kid you not), and I say uhhhh….. The oldest boy is Salam or something that sounds like that. He is extremely curious, I still fight back laughter when I picture him reaching into my purse and coming out with a feminine pad. ‘This is to eat?” he says. “Uh no” I say, and then I stuff it back in the depths of my bag, mumble something and stifle the giggle in my throat. The oldest girl is Ashwag, she is a big fan of my cell phone. The younger boy is Atnan, who is my favorite so far. He is always breaking out these Bollywood dance moves and singing silly wordless songs. He also falls asleep on my bed every night at 8, like clockwork. The youngest is a girl named Fatima, she is three, and in saying this I must admit this little girl terrifies me somewhat. She is sweet, and tiny and hits harder than if her little arms were crowbars. Really those tiny punches are just brutal, and boy can she scream. When I got sunburn yesterday I had to hide from her, I know that sounds crazy but she punches really hard. I like her most when she is half asleep. Pictures to follow.…

Mrs. Communication

One thing about Kenya that becomes really frustrating is that fact that though most people speak “English” you are never speaking the same language. In a conversation you find yourself dropping pronouns and other useless parts of speech to try and make communication easier. Though this seems to only make things worse, and combined with the slang (or shang in Swahili, yes that’s right they have a slang word for slang) version of Swahili/English you end up never understanding what anyone is saying. I ask a matatu( small bus) driver “is it all right if I sit in front” he says “yes is going to tao( shang for town)”. This was not actually my question but it was helpful nonetheless. The problem I think is not that they don’t understand this word or that word in English, but more that I am speaking a whole lot faster than everyone else. Kenyan speech is extremely slow and vague, so that it will take 5 minutes for a question to be answered and you’re still not sure about what the answer was but you certainly got a lot of information out of asking. This in the end makes the whole communication thing worth it. Oh and the concept of sarcasm is also something very hard to convey. My host mother will ask how my day is and I will say “oh it was good but I wish it could have been warmer”. She will give me a look like I am crazy and I will explain that I was kidding. The kids at my home stay are teaching me Swahili, for now I can say thank you’ and the word that means Forener which I hear 50 times a day. It is Muzungu. Though the older kids call me by my name, the youngest calls me Muzungu julie’s, which is just super cute. So for now I am content to just ask people to repeat everything they say and do the same when talking to anybody and everybody.

 
 
 
 

My roommate has Typhoid

So on the fourth day my roommate and I were in Kenya she comes down with Typhoid fever. She was only feeling a bit sick the day before, then some normal flu like stuff and boom, Typhoid. In America she spent a ton of money on a vaccine for typhoid that she comes to find out is only 75% effective. She’s pissed but doing fine and since they caught it early there should be no problems. The first few days I was in Kenya what really baffled me was the casual way that people (foreigners who had been here for months) talked about the rare illnesses they had gotten. One girl says to the other “oh yeah I remember that trip to the beach , that was right after you got over your E. Coli poisoning” or “yeah everyone here gets Malaria it’s no biggy” and the most common one, “just wait, a month here and you too will have ring worm”. These things alone are not so very scary but combined they seemed to be saying “Welcome To Kenya… Try not to Die!” And I shall!

Host Family

I spent the better part of the day teaching the kids how to use a laptop. It’s not really what I set out to do today but you can’t really not show them when they are sitting on your shoulders. Even as I write this they are fighting over who can use the earphones which are playing Abba at the moment. The oldest girl really likes it, which I found surprising. I know eventually these kids will drive me crazy, if the look on their mothers face when I complemented them is any indication. For now though they are a welcome distraction. This is my second day at my host families. I was encouraged by my organization to spend the first few days with them. I was dreading staying with a host family. I didn’t like the feeling of imposing on them. I still don’t, but it’s not as bad as I thought. In a few days maybe I won’t even care that my host mother gave me the biggest room in the house, and half of the living room couch and if that wasn’t enough she gave me the dresser from her own room. Saying that you don’t need it or it’s not necessary does nothing, so why bother I guess. It still feels like I am some kind of prodigal daughter returned from her wayward ways. Speaking of wayward ways, explaining what a tattoo is to a bunch of kids is very hard to do. The oldest said I should draw the same thing on her, and I said that I wasn’t the one who drew it, she did not believe me. I was worried that this was looked down on in the strict Islamic culture of the coast but when my host mother saw she seemed to think it was funny. She is a very nice person, quiet but full of all kinds of useful information. Over tea today she told me about how her marriage was arranged when she was my age. She wears a buibui when leaving the house, which is like a full Burka. I was really intensely interested in whether she wore it in the house, whether she felt that women who don’t wear it are wrong. The answer to both is no. Before my group left for their host families we were warned that our family would probably have a “house girl”, like a young housekeeper. Even with the warning I’m still thrown off by it. The girl is really young like 15 maybe younger. I can’t tell if she lives at the house or not. She doesn’t speak English but even so, she doesn’t speak much at all anyway, even in Swahili. It’s super awkward but I’m told that even lower class homes will have a helper. That doesn’t really keep me from feeling like crap but at least she has a job which means she is doing better than something like 20 percent of the country.

A quick note on Swahili food…
I really wasn’t expecting this much Indian style food, but I’m really excited about it. Everything has coconut milk in it, from a fresh coconut. Awesome.

Cultural Exchange

It has been years since I have seen the cartoon Popeye. I had forgotten how ignorant old cartoons were. I’m sitting on the couch in my host families living room covered in children. There is one on my lap, one on my left, on my right and one sitting behind my head dripping mango juice on my shoulder. I have only known the kids for 15 hours. It seems strange to have already won their love when things are still awkwardly polite with my host parents. Children are never hard to please. I gave them toys and candy the second I got here, I’ve never felt so adored. The youngest one is 3 then 6, 7 and 9, two girls and two boys. They have just returned for lunch from the madrasa (Islamic Sunday school). They entered in a flurry of clothing being thrown everywhere and head scarves torn off. My host family is ethnically Arab; their families came from Yemen several generations ago. But back to the racist Popeye, he has taken a trip to India on the show and as he and his girlfriend olive oil walk around marveling at the “savages” and buying trinkets. “oh look at that Popeye, please buy me the magic lamp”. I feel myself squirm under the pile of Kenyan children. Tourist guilt is not new but never goes away, at least I’m not as bad as Olive Oil, she just called a Buddha statue a “she”. After Olive is abducted by an evil man in a turban one kid asks me why he looks so funny, ( big nose, long neck, your basic Indian stereo type) and now I’m really at a loss. I shrug and we switch to Scooby Doo. And so it begins.

A quick note on the wonderfulness of Kenyan TV…
Any country that combines the dry wit of British sitcoms with Indian Bollywood, Middle Eastern news, American melodrama, and of all things Mexican Telenovela ’s is the best place on earth. That is all.

Kenya

It’s super hot here. Like hells oven. I’m not sure if this is because I’m not used to it or because it truly is this unbearably hot. My waitress at the hotel asks if I am ok as I wipe a gallon of water off my face. I say I am ok, just hot. She looks confused and says but today is rather cool. Great…