Fabric Shopping in Nairobi

We get off the matatu and find our way to Shalom church. That’s where we’re meeting Clemence. Clay-monce. She doesn’t speak English or French, and her Swahili is just so-so. Even Joan needs a translator, so Clemence’s friend Elizabeth comes along to translate. In fact, it’s Elizabeth we meet first and Elizabeth who negotiates a price for our order. She’s really more like Clemence’s business manager.

Who is Clemence, you ask? She’s a seamstress… recommended by one of the Kenyan Sisters as someone who does good work and needs the business. Both Clemence and Elizabeth are refugees from Rwanda and working to support families here in  Nairobi. Kenya has, in its short history as an independent nation, been very welcoming to refugees.

Joan and I have a plan to fill my suitcase with locally-made items which I can use for a fundraiser for one of the Sisters’ projects when I get back. Clemence is going to make us some handbags. Joan and I want to choose the fabric, so after we pick the designs and negotiate a price, the four of us head off to the market to go fabric shopping. “Negotiate” might be a bit of an overstatement… neither Joan nor I like bargaining, and after all we chose Clemence because we want to give her some business so we’re not very motivated to whittle her down in price. The $10 we might save as tough bargainers means a lot more to her than it does to us. After a respectable amount of discussion, we agree on 20 bags at full price.  Nobody says it that way, but that’s what the final number breaks down to. The advantage we gain, rather than getting a discount, is that we get to choose the fabric.

“It is a short way to the market,” Elizabeth tells us. “Ten bob.”

Ten bob refers to the bus fare… 10 Kenyan shillings – about 12 cents. It’s the fare you pay when you’re only going a stop or two. Elizabeth and Clemence start walking and we follow them. At first I recognize where we are – to get here from the convent, we took the bus along Ngong Road from Karen and got off just before Junction. For those who like maps, this is an excellent one showing the various areas of greater Nairobi:

http://mapkibera.org

Karen is West-Southwest of the city center. Junction is about half way from Karen to the center. I have a vague notion that Kibera is somewhere to the Southeast of where we are, but I’m not totally sure. Kibera is the biggest slum in Africa. I’ve caught glimpses of it from the bus when we take the other way, along Langata Road. If you follow the Kenya news, it’s where a train derailed a couple of days ago and toppled into several shanty homes that had been built right up to the tracks. Fortunately, that happened during the day when people were out at school or working and not home sleeping. A lot of people who live in the slum do have jobs, and some study at the local colleges. I think about my own college students back home… imagine how difficult it is to write a research paper for a college class when the 12’x12’ mud shack you share with six other people has no electricity (nor water nor toilet for that matter). Walking at night is not recommended anywhere in Nairobi, especially so in Kibera, and since Nairobi is near the equator the sun sets around 6pm, give or take some minutes, all year round. Hanging out at the campus library til 10:00 or 11:00 pm to do homework, like students routinely do on my campus, would literally mean a life-threatening walk home. It’s hard to work your way out of the slum but lots of good people live there who are earnestly trying to do that. 

Still, I’m hoping that this market we’re going to is to the left, away from the Kibera slum, rather than toward it.

At first, Elizabeth seems to be leading us along Ngong Road to the bus stop. Suddenly, Clemence says something to her. We turn a corner. “This way,” Elizabeth says. “It is shorter.” The badly potholed pavement of Ngong Road quickly gives way to equally uneven dirt as we make our way up a side street. Well, it’s to the left, at least, but the part of me that likes to be in control is on high alert. So far, everyone I’ve met today has been incredibly nice… the matatu driver who told us where our stop was, the guys weaving baskets who showed me how to turn off an obnoxious feature of my new phone while Joan was buying some minutes at a kiosk, Elizabeth and Clemence themselves – nobody has given me the least reason to feel unsafe. Still… the part of me that knows I don’t know what I don’t know can’t help but notice, as we wend our way along narrow dirt roads through a warren of faded structures, walls made of salvaged wood or cracking concrete, roofs of rusty corrugated metal, that we are absolutely the only European-descended foreigners here. More than that, I can feel by the way people look at us as we try to keep up with Elizabeth that we don’t really belong here. That’s not a feeling I’ve had in other places so far on this trip. Not to say we’re not welcome, but it seems like we’re not a normal sight. That’s OK, I tell my controlling self, Joan knows how to stay safe here. I ask her how much farther it is to the bus stop. “I have no idea,” she says. “I don’t know where we are.”

Oh.

“Walk behind me, will you?” she adds. “Keep an eye on my backpack.”

“Mmhmm.” Joan’s backpack is always massive. Every nook, cranny and pocket is stuffed full and looks temptingly as though it would burst open and pour its contents into the street at the slightest provocation. Sometimes it makes her start to tip over. I’m not sure exactly what is in there but at the moment, in combination with the uneven dirt road, it is slowing her down a bit. I try to dutifully stay behind her and keep an eye on it but we’ve already lost Clemence and Elizabeth is pulling ahead... my instinct leads me to pass Joan and instead sidle up to Elizabeth. I let her know when she needs to slow down and let Joan catch up.

“Go faster,” is all she says. She doesn't seem to think we belong here either.

OK. I form an uneasy bridge between Joan and Elizabeth until we emerge from the maze. Clemence is long gone. It’s a short wait for the bus and a short ride. So short I don’t even have time to get my coins out to pay for it. Elizabeth pays for us. I give her 20 shillings and she looks confused. It turns out Joan already reimbursed her. I only owe her 10. She cites a Rwandan French proverb as she gives me 10 shillings in change: “Good accounts make good friends.”

It is clear to me by now that Elizabeth is our friend and protectress. Even though the market we now enter is closer, taller, more labyrinthine than the neighborhood we just passed through, I am less guarded. Elizabeth walks us by several fabric stalls until we find one that has some patterns we think people back in California will like. Along the way, we pass stalls selling everything from undergarments to small appliances. I am tempted to stop our small group so I can buy a chapati (Kenyan flat bread) but we keep moving. We also pass a woman selling wooden spoons – I want to bring some of those home, too – but out of respect for Elizabeth’s time I stay focused on the mission: fabric.

While we’re at it, I do buy an extra piece of fabric to use as a skirt for myself. I need at least one appropriate piece of clothing to wear when we go up-country in a few days where, I'm told, it is very uncommon to see women in anything other than African skirts. I find a piece I like and we take an extra few minutes to find a market seamstress who will hem it for me. Her stall abuts the food area. Fresh local fruit hangs temptingly in the nearby stalls. Guys walking by with handfuls of live Christmas chickens brush against us while we wait. Clemence re-appears and scrutinizes our fabric selections. She approves.

Skirt hemmed (60 cents), Elizabeth leads us out the other side of the market and shows us where to catch the bus to get into town. We still don’t know exactly where we are, but we trust that she’s put us in the right place and, as it turns out, she has.

Clemence, Joan and Elizabeth at the market.

Photos

Rays of the setting sun illuminate banana & papaya leaves.

My mom's Christmas mouse in a kale garden.

Margaret's Shamba

– What are you doing today, Margaret?

– In the shamba. Digging.

Digging –

     The earth yields easily,

     willingly receives my hoe

     as collaboration, not attack.

Digging –

     red, brown, living earth…

     smells of herbs, tea, grass and ground…

     gentle African rhythms hover on the wind…

     cool air like velvet on my sweaty skin…

Digging –

     My hands blister

     against the splintered hoe.

     Margaret’s are thick, tough, sensitive.

Digging –

     yesterday we could not,

     but today the rain was light

     and other chores are done.

     Tomorrow is the day of the solstice!

Digging –

     – I want to make a new garden…

          – here, she says,

          – … and here.

Digging –

     – I‘ll help you then, I answer,

     and together in reverent silence

     we dig.

  ~Jembe ardhini, afya mwilini.

  ~ The hoe in the soil brings health to the body.

Food Lesson #4: When Chickens Get Sick

I am in the kitchen washing morning dishes. I like the way they divide work here, by the way, but more on that later. I haven’t put my contacts in yet but I can see something is going down in the kale garden. I squint for a better look.

It’s Margaret. She’s got a chicken in her hand. She bends over and holds the hen against the ground. Uh oh… I think I know what that means.

But wait! My eyesight is blurry so I can’t tell if her lips are moving, but it looks like Margaret is trying to calm the chicken down. She’s petting it with long, slow strokes. How nice… some of the chickens were sick yesterday – she must be giving this one some kind of calming-down cure, or maybe trying to feed it some medicine.

She pets the hen for what feels like a long time. My dish water is getting cold but even I am lulled into a tranquil state of mind. I could watch Margaret pet that chicken all day. Then somehow, seemingly without breaking her rhythm, a long daggar appears in her hand. The tip pushes into the hen’s neck on the downstroke and stays there a good long while, pressing deeper in with each downstroke of the rhythm, even though there is no more petting going on.

I go back to washing dishes. Later, Margaret tells me about sick chickens.

What To Do When the Chickens Get Sick

* separate the sick ones from their roost-mates that don’t look sick

* quarantine the sick ones in a separate pen

* give them as much food, water and medicine as they’ll eat

* give their roost-mates a day or two to make sure they aren’t also sick

* if the roost-mates don’t show symptoms in a day or two, eat them for dinner

* if the sick ones die of natural causes, don’t feed them to anyone, not even the dog

Some of the sukuma plants... the ones lined up in neat rows
& on the other side of the hedge is the chicken coop

It’s Praxides’s turn to cook dinner tonight. I whip up a batch of cookie dough to take advantage of the fact that she’s already got the oven hot. I’ve only been here less than a week but I’ve already figured out that the Sisters love it when people make cookies for them. I’m rolling little tea cookie dough balls in crushed almonds that I brought from home. Praxides opens the oven to check on whatever she’s got in there. “That smells really good,” I say, “what is it?”

Well I don't need to tell you what her answer is, do I?

Kenyan chickens are lean and tasty. Which reminds me, it’s time to go out and pick the sukuma leaves for the survivors’ breakfast tomorrow.

Food Lesson #3

ugali –
a very thick porridge made with fine cornmeal or corn flour, cooked in water about 10 min til smooth and sticky… crisplings will stick to the side of the pot - give those to Joan with some salt

sukuma aka Kenyan kale –
- a leaf food prepared like spinach with onion, tomato and bullion

- mix it with another kind of leaf to make the dish sweet and tangy 

- serve together with sliced (bite sized) meat, tomato, onion and bell pepper

to pick the sukuma leaves for the chickens' breakfast – 

*start with the prior day’s food scraps from the kitchen

*add 1 leaf from each plant to almost fill the bucket when compressed

*take small buds if they are starting to grow from the stem
...it's ok to use leaves the birds have pecked
*watch for snakes between the rows!

*it’s OK to do this in the afternoon to use for the next day’s feed

Taught to me by Margaret – cook, cleaner and fill-in farmer

Food Lesson #2: Feeding the Chickens

Every Morning (8:00 to 8:30)

Preparing the chicken food…

* chop the bucket of sukuma leaves
...it will be a 2/3 bucket when you’re done

* add 2 scoops of the stuff on the right (sawdust?)

* also add ½ scoop of the stuff on the left (millet?)

* add a slow stream of water from the cistern
...do this while mixing very well with a scooping hand

Distribute…

* in the pens on the right
...don't let chicks get out but do let hen out of 1^st pen

* in rest of feed trays
...then let hens along back and left out of their pens

Water…

* just do every 2-3 days or when water looks dirty

* wash & scrub containers at the cistern

* fill blue bucket with fresh water

* if chickens are fluffed up they might be feeling poorly
...in that case, add 1 T medicine powder to bucket

* be sure to use the low-edged water dish for babies

* give last pen on the right 2 

Afternoon (2-3 pm)

*snack time – one scoop of corn from storage room

* just scatter it on the ground

Evening (before it gets dark)

* they should all go back into the right pens on their own
...(the chickens go home to roost!)

* if there are eggs, put them in the basket in the millet room

* close pen doors for the night

On the Third Day We’ll Give You a Hoe

Being kissed by a giraffe... really he just wants
the food pellets in my hand

I couldn’t wait for the third day. Anthony was digging in the corn and I was eager to help him. To say Anthony is the gardener at the convent is a bit of an… but wait a minute. I don’t think I’ve mentioned how it is that I find myself spending a month at a convent in Kenya.

The Sisters here are affiliated with NDNU, where I teach. I met Sister Joan when she was a visiting scholar on my campus and decided then that I would visit her in Kenya if I could. It’s always nice to know someone local when you’re traveling – especially in a place like Kenya, which is so different from the US and where a cultural faux pas can have serious consequences. I am also working on a book about our Sisters and I wanted to experience the way they live in community here in Africa. Joan is mid-way through a 3-year teaching and program development commitment at Tangaza College and is currently one of 22 Sisters of Notre Dame in Kenya.

The convent is very close to the Karen Blixen home (Out of Africa) and the property is large enough that they can grow a significant portion of their own food – corn, beans, papayas, bananas, passion fruit, cabbage, squash, onions, carrots, chard, and of course sukuma wiki – Kenyan kale. Anthony is in charge of the farm. The fact that the Sisters live on a subsistence farm managed by an African farmer is an unexpected gift. I ask if it would be OK for me to help him.

“That’s fine, Patti,” Joan replies, “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it, but we normally don’t put visitors to work so soon.”

“On the third day we give them a hoe,” Sister Judy chimes in.

Joan laughs. “That’s right – for the first two days, you’re a guest… but on the third day we give you a hoe.”

“But didn’t you say Anthony’s leaving for the holidays on Monday?”

“Oh that’s right,” Joan says. “It might be useful for him to show you a few things before he goes.”

It’s settled, then. I’d wanted to find something useful to do to earn my keep, and this will be it. I am happy. Anthony graciously lets me be his “helper.” He shows me how to do weeding in the corn plot, which is not at all like weeding in the States. Back home we pull weeds and throw them away. If we’re really committed, we toss them into a compost pile. Here they turn them under with a hoe and leave them there to compost in place. Anthony shows me how to do it. As we work the rows, we also make a little heap of earth around the stalk of each corn plant to help stabilize it.

What a patient teacher Anthony is. He shows me how to do it then works silently beside me for a few minutes while I give it an awkward try. He’s not picky about holding the handle just right like many people can be when they're trying to teach something, doesn’t grab it from me and snarl – “do it this way!” His blood pressure doesn’t go up if I’m not standing just so. He seems to understand that I need a few minutes to observe and mimic… to get a feel for this new task. Eventually he says “Please – ” to get my attention. “Like this.” Thuk, thuk, thuk goes his hoe in the rich red earth. “It is easier to go forward.” And he’s right. We weed in the big corn plot until it starts to rain. What a pleasure it is to learn from someone who is on Kenya time.

Feeding time at the baby elephant rescue

She doesn't look so tough, but Sister Carolyn
works in South Sudan - not your easiest assignment!

On my second day I play tourist with Joan, Sister Carolyn, Sister Astride and another guest at the convent. We visit the giraffe interpretive center and an orphan elephant rescue center that does amazing work on behalf of Kenya’s elephants. I make Stephanie a foster parent for Quanza, a small elephant who was orphaned when her mom was killed by ivory poachers. Here’s her story, but be forewarned… it’s about the saddest mother-daughter story you’ll ever hear: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=284

We settle in back at the convent, and I get an early night’s sleep… I have to get up early tomorrow morning to learn how to feed the chickens!

Sounds of Nairobi #1

Trying out this website that allows you to upload audio. This first clip is of the birds and other animals that served as my alarm clock the other day... works pretty well as a sleep tape too!

http://yourlisten.com/pandrews/RhNjBkMG

Kenya Time

It’s a mad rush out the gate when my plane lands in Amsterdam… a 3-terminal sprint to make it to my connecting flight to Nairobi. Nor am I the only one. About half a dozen of us have connecting flights that already started boarding ten minutes ago… and we are leaving the Schengen Zone, which means going through passport control and another security check before boarding the next plane. And did I mention that the next plane has aleady started boarding?

Several of us bunch up at the passport control checkpoint. Three guys going to Buenos Aires, two of us going to Nairobi and another woman whose destination isn’t clear but who seems very much in a hurry. A young African man in airport uniform ushers us into the “Short Connection” line, which for some reason moves more slowly than the regular lines. Soon people who took the regular lines are passing us. We ask the guy who put us in the Short Connection line if there’s anything he can do to speed things up.

“Everyone in front of you has the same problem,” he says with a mild accent. “There isn’t anything I can do.”

The Argentines look pretty desperate. Line Guy takes pity on them and pulls out his phone. “Hold on,” he says. They hold their breath while he makes a call. “Your plane will wait for you.” Yay – success!

Now what about us? Line Guy starts to walk away. Eva, the other Nairobi-bound traveler bunched up in the passport line with me, calls him back. “What about us?”

He looks at our boarding passes. “Don’t worry. You will not miss your flight.”

“But it’s already started boarding,” I point out.

“And this line is not moving,” Eva adds. “Can’t you also call them and ask them to wait for us?”

He looks at us sternly. “Your plane will not wait for you. You will wait for your plane.” With that he walks away. Conversation over.

“Do you think it’s true?” I ask. Eva is from Nairobi so maybe she knows.

“Maybe.”

Eva and I are a team now so I wait for her after I go through the passport check. Once we are both on the other side, we resume our sprint until we can sprint no more. We high-five Kenyan style when we make it to the boarding gate. “Patricia Andrews?” the gate attendant asks me.

“Yes, thanks for waiting.”

Having made it to the gangplank we discover that, although the plane has been boarding for more than an hour, there are still people in line waiting to get on. Soon there’s even someone behind us – a well-dressed Kenyan 30-something on his way home for the holidays. Turns out he arrived in Amsterdam on the same plane as Eva. “Wait a minute,” I say, “you were on the same plane she was on?”

“Yes.”

“Then why aren’t you all out of breath like we are?”

“I’m on Kenya time,” he says with a smile.

“Ah yes,” Eva says. “Kenya time. Once they gave my uncle a short connection… it was here in Amsterdam also. He got here and said, ‘That’s too much in a hurry – I’ll just wait for the next plane,’ and that’s what he did.”

We all share a good laugh. I find myself hoping that I slow down to Kenya time the moment I get off the plane in Nairobi. As luck would have it, I have an excellent opportunity to practice that starting about 10 minutes before landing. Due to some weight and balance issues, the plane’s cargo had to be re-arranged before we could take off. This took a while and we ended up an hour behind schedule. Line Guy wasn’t kidding – we did indeed end up waiting for the plane. So I’m already a bit worried that Joan, the woman who is picking me up – might give up on me before I make it out the door. Then the flight attendant calls our attention to an important announcement – due to a fire, half of the Nairobi airport is no longer operational. When we disembark, she says, we will be taken by bus to the temporary terminal, which, she articulates carefully, “is housed. In a large. Tent.”

That doesn’t sound like the speedy and efficient processing I was hoping for.

It is now almost 10:00 pm on a moonless night. When the bus drops us at the temporary terminal, we find ourselves being herded into a dark hallway lit by battery powered emergency lanterns. With every step, both the temperature and the smell of sweaty homo sapiens increases. We turn the corner to find a massive throng of humanity waiting in disorderly “lines.” At least a third of them are in the visa line. I join them, regretting that I had not trusted FedEx to get my beloved passport to the Kenyan Embassy and back before I left.

Everyone is standing in the dark, confused. Someone faints. An minor altercation breaks out here and there. A medical crew walks by with a stretcher. I hold my place in line and fill out the visa application by the light of my trusty headlamp.

When the lights come on, people clap and cheer. It’s no cooler, and the smell isn’t any better, but the computers and fingerprint machines are working again, and soon the “lines” start moving. When I finally make it outside, three hours late, Joan is there waving at me with a smile on her face. “Welcome to Kenya,” she says… Kenya time indeed. I feel more relaxed already.

RT 2013: Canada-Bound

Road Trip 2013: Shingletown -- Garver Mountain Outlook -- Glacier National Park -- Calgary -- Banff -- BC -- back.

Nicaragua: Off to Mulukuku

Off to Mulukuku this morning, where one of our SNDs has been living for 30 years. Looking forward to seeing what a "bucket shower" is like!


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Nicaragua: Wednesday in Matagalpa

Busy student trip - packed with social time as most organized trips are so I definitely won't be blogging much.

Yesterday we spent the morning at the main school where kids with all kinds of disabilities begin their program here. Each kid has individual goals. For some, the goal is to learn the basic things they need to transition to a regular school. Because all the kids have behavior problems, simple things like sitting at a table with other kids are a huge emphasis. For others, they hope to move on to the more advanced vocational and therapy programs associated with the school.

The boy I was paired up with, Maguelito, has multiple disabilities including severe autism. We weren't very successful at sitting at the table for more than a few minutes, but I found that he really enjoyed flying around the playground like an airplane together, that he could get himself going on the swings without help, and that although he spent a lot of time pushing people away from him, he also liked hugs and even gave me a few kisses before the morning was done.

In the afternoon we visited the program for older girls and women with mental disabilities, where 17 young women get physical and psychiatric therapy, socialization, meds, job training and much affection so they can become independent enough to support themselves.

At the end of the day, it was great to hear all the reflections of our college students who, to a person, sincerely felt they (we) had learned more from the people we've met here so far than they from us. That's the attitude sister Rebecca began here with too - not thinking she was coming to Nicaragua to help people, but to have them show her how she could facilitate them helping themselves, and she has learned a lot from them along the way.

Today we will meet with the mother-leaders from each of the barrios of Matagalpa and have a little celebration, then tomorrow we are off to Molocucu, a 6-hour ride into the countryside, where another SND is working with the rural kids.


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Nicaragua: Familias Especiales

The weeks leading up to midterm break were especially busy so I didn't make my customary post to say I was going to... (fill in the blank), but... Hooray for Nicaragua!

Traveling with a great group of students from my school this week for an alternative spring break program learning about the programs our Sisters run in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. All of them are programs for special needs kids and their families, most of whom would otherwise be trapped in their homes for lack of basic things like wheelchairs.

I say "sisters" but really it's just one woman overseeing all 16 of the initiatives that have been developed here in the past 15 years. Today we visited a shop that specializes in yogurt, cheese and granola. All fresh and organic and operated by disabled adults and their family members. Then we got an enthusiastic welcome from a large class of kids with a variety of disabilities who spend time here each day while their caretakers have a few hours to work, shop or socialize. After lunch, we took a ride out to a farm where 6-8 kids each day participate in what is probably Nicaragua's only horse therapy program. The kids are loving and friendly in their way, and I was lucky to get to do one of the therapy sessions, riding along with a 9 year old girl who can't yet sit on the horse by herself.

This week's blog posts will no doubt be short as Internet is limited and our schedule packed full each day and because i didn't pack the keyboard! But I'll post pictures if I take some and will try to convey some of the adventure that is this place if I can.

Buenos Noches All!


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