Peace Corps, Paris or BUST

I have been trying to write a blog for ages now. I’ll start on something that I find interesting or think you guys might find interesting; like the fact that I had to climb out of a matatu window because there were two touts (dudes that take your fare) fighting in the matatu and the car was so old that getting the door open was pretty much impossible. The Kenyans laughed at all of us as we climbed out of the window but we thought to ourselves, “They’ll probably be doing the same thing if the touts don’t calm down and someone doesn’t manage to get the door open”. The touts continued to fight as we went on our merry way. For all I know they’re still in that matatu arguing about Lord knows what.

I was in a tiny town near Nairobi for a little over two weeks with four other volunteers. Half of that time was planned because we wanted to be there for Christmas. The next phase of our plan was to head to Kisumu for New Years Eve; but as you all well know that didn’t happen. After our two weeks at the site near Nairobi the Peace Corps moved four of the five of us into a part of Nairobi called Westlands. Westlands is kinda like being back home. There are big apartment buildings and hotels; malls and lots of diversity. One of the only differences is that there are about a million cab drivers trying to get you to use their cab when all you want to do is find the internet café that’s probably only about 50 feet away.

We spent 2 nights in Nairobi and arrived in Nyeri; (a town near Mt. Kenya) on the 10th.
Peace Corps moved all of the volunteers that can’t go back to their sites (mainly those of us with sites in the western part of Kenya and some in Rift Valley) and weren’t evacuated to Tanzania or Uganda here. We’re staying in a very nice hotel with probably what I would consider the best food I’ve had in Kenya thus far. I am enjoying it a great deal. Maybe I’ll put back on some of that weight I’ve lost.

At the Hotel we’re doing several things…well the Peace Corps is making us do several things; I assume so that we don’t go stark raving mad. It’s mostly busy work; such as revising the Peace Corps Kenya welcome book and other documents that we complain about all the time and of course language classes which I was not so keen on in the beginning but have since changed my mind. Now I’ll get to learn some KSL (Kenyan Sign Language) which I am excited about.

So, since I’ve stopped and started many a bog entry over the last couple of weeks I thought I’d just throw in some stuff from each entry and let you all enjoy my randomness…

December 30, 2007:
Being in Kenya at the moment is a bit surreal. At home you tend to listen to the radio and watch the news and feel so far removed from all the bad things going on in the world. In most cases I would just say how sad things are and simply move on because none of it’s directly happening to me. It’s a bit surreal being here. We’re in a safe place and we have all of the amenities that we need such as electricity and running water (most of the time) as well as all the movies we can watch and computers with DVD players to watch them on. And I kinda have that feeling of being removed from the situation because though it is all happening around me I’m still an American and the violence is not right outside my door and there’s always that assurance that I can go home anytime I want to because this place isn’t my home. Though that makes me that much sadder about the experience my colleagues back at my site are going through. This IS there home this IS where they have to stay. They can’t just get on a plane and go somewhere where everything is fine.

As for those of you that don’t know what’s going on I’ll give you the quick and dirty of it all. On December 27th there was a Presidential election in Kenya. The two biggest candidates were Mwai Kibaki (the previous and technically current president of the country from the kikuyu tribe) and Raila Odinga (from the Luo tribe).

The majority of the Kenyans that I’ve encountered wanted Odinga to win. They were ready for a change in the country. As you may know based on my previous blogs many of the people in Kenya that hold government positions or power positions in general are corrupt. Many of them obtained their jobs through bribery, lies and schemes and continue to do those things in order to keep their positions. One of the biggest things that surprised me when election time came around was the blatant outright ways in which the politicians would bribe the people.

One day I was walking through my little village and kept seeing large crowds of people just milling around waiting. I asked one of the Mama’s what was going on and she explained that a politician was coming to speak to them and the main reason they were all waiting was because the politician was also going to hand out hundred shilling bills. What I found very strange about this fact was that all of the politicians did this and all of the villagers came and collected the money from each and every politician. I finally asked someone who they would vote for if they were accepting money from all of the politicians and they simply said, “Oh; whoever gives me the most money will get my vote.” All I can really say to that is; WOW!! I could never have imagined it if I hadn’t seen it all with my own eyes.

January 1, 2008:
New years was a bit of a bust, to say the least. We couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. We ended up spending the night listening to the BBC, hoping to hear any news on the election madness. At around 11:45pm we all decided we couldn’t stay out of bed for fifteen more minutes so we all got in bed. I was the official time keeper and yelled out “HAPPY NEW YEAR” at midnight. I think we were all asleep about 5 minutes later.

January 1, 2008:
Something about tribalism/racism that I didn’t get in America and that I definitely don’t get here is; well, here everyone really IS the same. I know that’s kind of a childish naïve statement to make but I feel like it’s true. At least in terms of looks; for the most part everyone looks the same. Same hair, same skin color (although they tend to differentiate between shades of brown), same eyes; but the hatred that they seem to have for one another definitely equates, in my opinion to that of the KKK and the Black Panthers and I just simply cannot wrap my head around it.

Different tribes traditionally did different things to survive and lived in different parts of the country. I’m not sure how deep the animosity ran between them before their colonization by the British but I’ve been told by many Kenyan’s that Kibaki’s tribesmen (the Kikuyu’s) were favored by the British for some reason. They obtained more land and were able to make better lives for themselves and their families while many of the other tribes suffered. After independence in 1963 the new President (Kenyatta) chose not to serve the country as a whole but to give preferential treatment to his tribe, again the Kikuyu’s. They are the largest tribe in Kenya.

The people of Kenya look at what has happened in the country in terms of development and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the areas in which Kikuyu’s live are much more developed than any others. All of the other tribes are angry because they feel like it’s their time to benefit and they believed that Raila Odinga; the opposition candidate was going to bring about change.

January 5, 2008:
I just got an update on the towns nearest my village and things are apparently not so good. There are no vehicles going in or out of the towns due to road blocks and lack of fuel which means that there is no food coming into the towns. They haven’t seen bread since the day of the election and rice that should cost 20/- costs 200/-. And I know it’s probably the last thing I should worry about but now I’m concerned that my cat’s not going to get any food because she was left with one of the teachers on the compound and if they’re not able to get basic food I doubt they will feed her or be able to for that matter.