My last day in Kakamega has arrived!
It's a very odd thing that I have just 24 more hours in this town,
but as my host sister Grace would say, “It's nature, girl, that's
just the way things have to be.”
The past couple of weeks have gone by
in a flash. I'm not quite sure how to tackle this....
Well, let's start with my final
project. ACCES has a school called Shivagala Community School; this
school is located just a seven minute walk down the road from Shibwe
Sub-District Hospital, which has been growing and expanding for the
past fifteen or so years (that number is very rough, by the way). One
would expect for the children to just naturally be taken to the
hospital when they fall sick. But no, they are not. Though the
students are referred to the hospital by the community health nurse,
the parents normally do not honor the referrals. Why? Through many
conversations with people from the community, teachers, and doctors,
it seems to mainly be because of money restraints and that particular
community's attitude towards the hospital. The ACCES schools were
created for orphans and vulnerable citizens; therefore, yes, money is
an issue. The hospital is not entirely unaffordable. It costs under
$3 or $4 to open a file, get a hospital card (both of which are
necessary for first-time users), and to get tested for malaria.
Malaria treatment, by the way, is free. However, because of the
population that makes up this school, it can be very difficult to
afford to address their health needs.
There have also been misconceptions of
the hospital and their costs. For example, one person may hear that
somebody paid 3000 shillings for an overnight stay, and the next
thing you know, nobody will go for even an outpatient issue, let
alone inpatient. Combine the rumors with the cultural tendencies to
wait out the sickness, pray it away, or use a witch doctor, and you
have a total of zero kids from Shivagala being taken to the hospital
to treat their malaria or skin disease or typhoid.
Therefore, staff of ACCES and I
organized a sensitization meeting to be held at Shivagala Community
School for the guardians. About five Community Health Workers came
with the Community Health Extension Worker to present information on
the hospital: which resources are offered, prices, the importance of
their child's health and hospital visits. The meeting went fairly
well; about 75% reported that they had better feelings about the
hospital after the meeting than before (we had them fill out a
feedback survey at the end of it all). The CHEW recognized that there
needs to be more meetings in order to completely smooth over their
relationship and told me that she'd like to bring the chairmember of
the board and the head doctor to the school. So hopefully that will
happen and sensitization between the two can continue.
The second part of my project was to
organize for a planting day with the Income Generating Vocational
Activities coordinator and Shivagala's 4K Club (basically a
4H/farming club). This past Monday the IGVA coordinator, Accounts
Manager, Shivagala teachers, the 4K Club, and I planted sikumiwiki
seedlings along with various indigenous vegetable seeds in the small
plot of land that the school owns across the road. There were some
extra seedlings, so the students took those home to have their own
private plant. Under the supervision and monitoring of mainly the
IGVA coordinator and the Shivagala teacher in charge Justice, the
crops will be sold to community members and that revenue will be put
towards assisting in paying for the students' medical bills when the
time arises. Yeah!
I feel like I just made it all sound so
simply; however, in actuality, this project underwent a huge amount
of trials and errors. But I'd rather focus on the end result right
now seeing as it's my last morning and I don't want to stress myself
out just thinking about it! Hah! Nonetheless, it was a fantastic
learning experience for both my coworkers and I and I feel as though
we have been able to open so many more doors in reference to tackling
the referrals issues. Though I will not be there to put in my two
cents for any of it, I know my coworkers (former coworkers now?) will
carry it out and handle it even better than I can foresee.
Speaking of my great
coworkers, they held a farewell party for me yesterday! We drank
soda, ate awesome cake, and danced and sang. It was great. In true
Western Kenya style, it started storming right in the middle of it
all. So I was going to try to leave the office a tiny bit early after
my party; instead, I was there till about 6:30 or so, just hanging
out with my coworkers, the rain, the thunder, and the rivers forming
in the roads. I ended up taking a taxi for the first time here. But
on the road that goes back to where I live, a huge truck got stuck
going over some of the speed bumps—or as the Executive Director's
wife would say, speed mountains
(which is completely accurate). Cars, pikipikis, walkers, and
bodabodas were weaving everywhere, in and out and in and out of each
other to get around this truck. Cars even started driving on the
sidewalk! (It isn't really
a sidewalk, by the
way. It's a strip of pavement but mostly a dirt path that is on some
raised bit of land.) Thankfully, my driver was incredibly safe and
just took his time getting around the truck. It took us about fifteen
minutes and we only went off the road and into the dirt shoulder a
tiny bit, which is impressive. It was one of the most ridiculous
things I've seen since being here...I couldn't help but laugh at it
with my driver!
So
I suppose that's that about my work.
Two
weekends ago I was fortunate enough to be able to visit some of my
mom's friends in Odienya, which is about five hours and two mutatu
rides away from Kakamega. It was really fantastic meeting them...with
Sylvie (the daughter) it felt as though I was meeting a sister. She
is so wonderful. I was only able to spend an evening and morning with
her and her family, so I spent most of the time chatting with and
getting to know Sylvie and playing and messing around with her two
children. The next morning I went to church with the family. I'm not
sure how I forgot this, but whenever a visitor attends church, they
have to introduce themselves, including at minimum a greeting, their
name, and who they are visiting (or why they are visiting). Surprise,
surprise, I forgot Sylvie's
name! What?? How?! I instantly turned bright red (I like to call
myself the Rock Lobster when that happens) and laughed so hard with
Sylvie as she said to me “I'm going to get you back for this one.”
Whoops! I was so sad to have to leave her, her two amazing children,
and her father. I can see why my mom loves them so much.
Ohhhhh
the mutatu rides. The MUTATU rides! I almost forgot about the mutatu
rides! So Alice and I get on our first mutatu going from Rongo to
Kisumu. It's fairly comfortable, everybody's in good spirits, it's
dandy. Yes, it's a little overcrowded, but it's not too bad. About
half way back to Kisumu, we get pulled over. The police chief starts
lecturing the conductor for a good ten minutes, brings him around to
the driver, and handcuffs them together. This is all in Swahili, mind
you, so we have no clue what's happening. We heard “fifty
shillingi” somewhere in there, so we figured that the conductor
didn't drop enough money for him. Hold
up. Background
story:
there are traffic police checks along the highways. Oftentimes mutatu
conductors or drivers will drop a 50 or 100 shilling bill (between 65
cents and a bit over a dollar) for the officer if the mutatu is
overcrowded so that the officer will not cite them. This is kind of
just a given at the stops. My coworkers told me that these officers
even give a certain amount to their district headquarters, and a
portion of that goes to the national sector. I'm not so sure about
that, but then again, you never really know. So these bribes are
completely normal and basically expected.
Ok.
Play.
So the conductor and driver are now handcuffed together. Alice and I
asked the women sitting behind us about what was happening. They told
us that the two men were getting in trouble first for overcrowding
the vehicle and second for trying to bribe the chief. Wait. What??
I've been seeing anti-corruption signs and such around since I
arrived in Kenya, but I've never seen it in action! It was really
interesting. That's the last thing I expected them to get pulled over
for. Especially since Aga told us that at least in Nairobi police
will pull anybody over and literally look for things that are wrong
the the car or driver in order to get these bribes. So...I guess we
saw the opposite of that? It was pretty shocking.
So
then we all had to alight (yes, it's called alighting, not “getting
of the mutatu” or whatever...alighting) and the chief had the
driver and conductor give us our money back for the distance we had
not yet traveled.
Alice
and I went with a couple women we had met on the mutatu and walked a
bit back up the road to catch another mutatu. By the way, we were
kind of in the middle of nowhere. There were maybe two buildings in
the area. Anyway, so we thought we were so lucky because there was a
mutatu sitting just up the road, waiting to leave. We greet one of
the conductors and he welcomes us in. But then we look inside and
it's already over capacity. We tried to tell the conductor that we
would just wait for the next ride. They would have none of that,
though. After they made even more room for us by having people squish
in the back, we tried telling them that there was a police officer
just up the road who had just pulled us over for overcrowding. “Okay,
okay, no problem,” they said. And still insisted that we continue
on with them. Alice and I were so tired of trying to warn them, so we
just agreed and we went on our way. Now this was a bit of a larger
van than the others. At its fullest, it was supposed to have
3-3-3-3-3 (including the driver. Today, though, it went 5-4-5-5-4.
Uhmmm...so we just waited and waited for the chief to pull us over
once again. Alas, the whole team of officers had left by the time we
departed and the mutatu just went on its merry way!
Then
there was a man sitting next to Alice and I who kept insisting that
he was in love with us and wanted us to go to the beaches in Kisumu
with him. Normally when people joke around like this, it only lasts
for a couple of minutes. We laugh, we move on. This time, though, he
went on for at least forty minutes. Mind you, he doesn't speak any
English, so the conductor was translating the entire time (also, I'm
pretty sure he was a tiny bit plastered). For FORTY minutes! How was
he still having fun with this? And when new people would get on
board, this man would catch them up on how in love with us he was and
how he's going to take us back with him. It was entertaining for the
first half; the second half was just annoying. But the entertaining
kind of annoying. But still annoying. We had to be very up front with
him at the end of it all, but he kept asking “Why? Why?” to which
we said “Because no!” Oy vey.
Eventually,
he had to move back a row to fit more people in. He promptly fell
fast asleep.
On
the next mutatu ride we just sat in the back, ate our groundnuts (AKA
peanuts), drank our sodas, and relaxed. We made it back to Kakamega
without any issue or problem or dilemma.
Last
weekend was spent chilling and hanging out with friends and host
family. On Sunday, Grace and I met up with another intern (Jack) to
walk/hike/mostly walk to the Crying Stone. I'm not sure if I've
written about the Crying Stone yet, so here it goes. The Crying Stone
is a huge rock formation just fifteen or so minutes up the A1 highway
from Kakamega, situated right outside the town of Khayega. It
somewhat resembles a face and there is almost always water trickling
down from the top of it, even in the dry season. Apparently nobody
can figure out why this happens, not even scientists (I'd like to
know which scientists, though). There are many stories about the
stone, one of which we heard from one of Peter's friends in the small
village of Shikokho. First of all, this man was telling us that
people oftentimes will not/cannot marry people from within the same
tribe because of the high likelihood that the two people would be
related. He even did not marry the first woman he wanted to marry
because of it. So according to this man, the Crying Stone is really a
heartbroken woman who is crying because she cannot marry the man she
loves due to their shared tribe. Ah, sad.
So
the three of us made our way to the stone the back way, through the
countryside. Jack's 13-year-old host brother—who knows how to get
there—was supposed to come with us. However, when the time came,
the brother was too busy on the farm to come along. Jack knew the
general direction, and when we needed assistance, we just asked some
very helpful boys who decided to accompany us. The walk was
absolutely beautiful, by the way. We were walking through the
countryside, so it was full of views of rolling hills, maize
plantations, other plantations, greenery, and all the goodness that
rural Kenya holds. We made it to the stone only to find a pretty good
amount of locals demanding us to pay 200 shillings each to actually
go up to the stone. I'm sorry, what? The stone is not owned by
anybody, especially not Kenya National Wildlife Services (or whatever
it's called), and we all knew that. These people were just trying to
make money off of something that was naturally there. We did not want
to pay, but we were also not about to be those assholes who just
ignored the locals. We definitely didn't want to offend anybody or
cause any issues. So we decided to head out back to the road. I was
taking one last picture...like an idiot, I didn't notice that my
flash was on. “No pictures because you have not paid!” we heard.
Now that got to me. “You can see it from the road!” I said out of
annoyance, but only loud enough for Jack and Grace to hear. Jack
laughed, Grace was pissed, and I just said “let's go.”
Despite
that little slip up of my temper, the day was really nice! I look
back on it with so much fondness...I really wish it could have lasted
longer. But, like every other day, that one had to end.
Hmmm...
I
guess that's a pretty alright synopsis of what's been going on in my
life. I'm just picking up some last few things today and tying the
last pieces of strings of my to-do list together. Then I will be
picked up by an FSD site team member and taken back to Sheywe Guest
House to spend the last night with the rest of the interns. Early
tomorrow morning Alice and I will take the Easy Coach bus back to
Nairobi where we will spend our last two or three days in Kenya.
P.S.
Don't worry, the fire at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport has
not muddled any of our flying plans. We should still be getting home
without any worries!
It
has been a crazy past couple of months. I think that once I'm back in
the states for a little while I'll be able to understand the
craziness a little better. Either way, I am incredibly grateful for
the experience I have had. I've learned so much about development,
life, this other culture, people, things, other things, and such. I'm
not so sure if I've learned much about myself quite yet, but again,
in a couple months I think I'll have a better grasp on it all.
I
am going to miss everyone I've met here so much. But we always knew
that the time for the end must come, and now it is here. Kenya, you
did me good.
Another P.S. I'll post pictures in plenty once I get back to the states.
