Week 9: Am I actually finished the report?

I am sitting here trying to think of what happened this week, and I am having a hard time remembering. I know I submitted a grant application for Mathare, and I think I have finally finished my report. We'll see. It isn't the first time I thought I was done. It took me a ridiculously long time to put it all into Canva. Canva is a software where I input all my writing with visuals. I thought I was done after that, but then my professor had more edits, so I had to make some modifications that pushed all the text down and required a whole bunch more time to get everything right again. Now it has been sent to a professor from the

University of Nairobi to review. So fingers crossed he will not have any edits. This is one of the pages of the report. I not only did the writing but also created the chart and infographic. Unfortunately, I am not fast at making things like that.

My professor arrived from Canada this week. She met me and the kids at the mall for lunch and then showed me where the UN offices in Kenya are. We couldn't see much because of security. This week international youth day is being hosted by the UN in Kenya and we were invited to go, but we won't be able to go because we are taking a little trip to the coast. I am missing quite a few things because of this trip. My professor will be meeting with her South Sudanese contact and the professor from the university of Nairobi. Their names are on the report as authors. I have learned a lot about the process when there are multiple authors listed for reports. Some names just seem to be there to give the report credence. I am also missing a meeting with the testers for a training that I have been tasked with improving. I will just have to rely on the the notes my classmate takes and my professor. I did attend a meeting where we presented our proposition to Mathare. 

As I said, I'm missing these meetings because we are off to the coast. It was our last chance to go and I wasn't sure the UN thing was happening since the organizer went home for a visit and was unresponsive to us. As it was, the only train I could get was the night train. I am writing this from the train. We depart at 10 pm and arrive in Mombasa at 3:35 am. It is going to be a long night. It is stuffy and the seats are as upright as possible. That is the price you pay for 1500 shilling tickets. I'm a little nervous about this trip, but also looking forward to the beautiful beaches. I've done my research, so I think we'll be good.

Other things we did this week is go to the temple. The Nairobi temple was dedicated just before we came here. It is beautiful. I am so thankful that there has been one close to us while we have been here. I visited the distribution centre and I'm sorry to all you that were hopeful of getting the new sleeveless garments--they are sold out. The only ones they had were 2XL. 

Malachi took this one

We went out this luxury hotel for the day. Malachi was happy because there was a heated pool. It was pricey, and since I knew we were going to the coast, Lizzie and I just watched from pool side chairs. The hotel is kind of colonial, but cool to see nonetheless.

Week 8 Environmental upgrades for Mathare

 This was a pretty slow week for us. One thing about being here is that I often feel like I don't really know what is going on. It reminds me of my early days in Japan. Although most people can speak English, they all speak Swahili. Basically the only time anyone speaks English is if they are speaking directly to me--except at church. Church is 100% in English. But other than that, I am often in the dark. For example this last Monday I went to Mathare to work with expecting to work with the leader. I confirmed with him the night before that he would be there. But when I arrived, I was met by one of the volunteers there and we walked to the far side of the neighbourhood for big event.

There were a bunch of government officials there who talked about cleaning the river. And some singers--one guy wore a costume of plastic water bottles stuck all over him.

After about 2 hours of speaking, we went and planted trees along the road. The tree planting was really a photo op. The holes were pre-dug and then several people crowded around a hole, worked water into the soil around the tree, and slowly lowered it into the hole. I was pushed into  one of those phot ops.

As we walked, the girl that took us there told me all about the work she is involved in. She helps rescue girls that were forced into marriages they didn't want, and women that are being beaten by their husbands. It is dangerous work and sometimes she has had to leave home for a few weeks at at time while men search for her. She also helps rape victims. Their stories are horrific. This girl does this all voluntarily. She got to her 3rd year in social work and then had to stop to get more money. She says she helps them because there is no one else.

On Thursday I went back to Mathare, but this time I took the kids because I knew that Thursday was a big cleanup day. I bought us all some gloves and off we went. The city was providing big trucks to haul away garbage so the volunteers were going around raking the garbage into piles to be picked up. At one of the locations, we were all handed rakes, so we went to work. I have never done anything like this before. Often when I thought I'd gotten everything from an area, my rake would snag on something below the surface and I would discover a whole new layer of garbage.

I don't know how much we actually helped because we were using tools that other people would have been using. When we finished, we gave them our gloves, which I think was the bigger help. Note all the children standing near Lizzie and Malachi. Kids flock around us so much more when I bring them with us. We really heard the word "mzungu" (white person) a lot that day. Even after we were done and walked back to the Mathare Roots office, many kids walked right along with us.

Malachi especially gets so much attention. Adults are often endeared by him--they often put their arms around him. And the girls...this week schools closed for their winter break. We were driving somewhere and were stuck in bad traffic beside a school bus of girls around his age. Once they noticed us they kept begging us to "push down the window" (where Malachi was sitting). The driver eventually conceded and rolled down his window. There were cheers--girls asking for his number and a shy Malachi smile. They all begged us not to go when the road opened up. The driver was quite amused by it all.

Elizabeth also gets attention. She says it is something she doesn't like about being here and that she feels uncomfortable in her own skin. In her case it is people calling to her from across the street. Today at church there was about 6 or 7 missionaries there that were going home, so the bishop invited them all to bear their testimonies. The first missionary that spoke (I believe) was trained by Packer. He is in Packer's Facebook profile picture. The bishop said he was a favourite. The missionaries took up all of sacrament meeting and then some. I think we ended 15 minutes late. Afterwards, one of the missionaries talked to me.  He was from Burundi and knows Packer too. He said there is a cat named Packer Gorner in Mombasa. When he found out I was from Canada, he wanted to talk to me in French. I told him to talk to Elizabeth which he did after church. He told me her French is very good and she doesn't have a Quebecois accent. He also asked for her number because he is going home in 2 days. haha

On Saturday we visited Karura forest. It is a beautiful protected forest right in the middle of Nairobi. I've written about it before. 

In the park area, there is a play thing made of logs that Malachi got Elizabeth to play tag on. But since there were only 2 of them, it fizzled pretty fast. But then I got them to see how fast they could touch all the upright posts. That kept both of them going for quite awhile. 

I only have 2 weeks left in Kenya. The time is going by so fast. I feel like I still have so much to do! I know these next 2 weeks are going to fly by. We will do our best to live it to our fullest.

Week 7: Lots of work, but countless dik-diks in return

 I worked a lot this week--everyday in fact. Everyone in the office I worked in left (to go in the field) so I was by myself the last couple days. Since I wasn't even interacting with IMPACT employees, my plan was to work from home on Thursday, but I forgot my mouse at the office, so I had to go back. There is no way I can work in Canva without a mouse. I finished the brochure for Twala. I will share it on here. 

Let's just say that Chatgpt and I spent many long hours getting that to look right. Chat is quite an annoying perfectionist. I sent it off to the powers that be from IMPACT and to the person in charge at Twala. I got good feedback from IMPACT, but the person from Twala never said anything, so I'm not sure what she thinks. The director at IMPACT has sent me all this info to look over from their social enterprise (side business that helps to fund IMPACT) so that either means he was trying to find something more for me to do, or he thought I might have something useful to contribute.

I was also asked to write a generic concept note that they could adapt for all their agroecology projects. They said that this way, I could still help them design projects after I go back to Canada. This felt way out of my comfort zone! First of all, I never even knew what a concept note was until I came here and was asked to do one for Mathare. I had to google what is a concept note and how to write one. Second of all, who am I to design a project for them?! I just worked on a regenerative farm in a temperate rain forest. I don't know very much about gardening in arid and semi arid climates. So that was very hard for me. I wrote one for them to use for helping to legitimize pastoralists. Pastoralist are often blamed for degrading their rangelands while other concerns like renewable energy and conservation is given priority over their needs. But actually they use very careful practices to protect the rangelands so that it will be available to use over and over. They practice a lot of agroecology practices. It didn't really touch on my own knowledge and experience, but they seemed more interest in that sort of focus. 

I sent it off for the team to review and give me feedback...and it has been crickets. So I am not sure what to do about that. I have been thinking about it ever since and second guessing what I wrote it on. I plan to write another one more about growing food and better utilizing their kitchen garden spaces, so hopefully they will like that one better. 

As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't even going to go in on Thursday. I spent the time working by myself in a vacant office, but the director arranged for the kids and I to have this amazing trip. When I met him, he commented that I hadn't really had any field experience and asked when I was leaving. He provided a driver and car to take us up to Samburu to go for a game drive there. So on Friday we were picked up  and driven 2 hours north to Archers, Samburu and driven around the park. Communication was not clear to me. I didn't know where we would be staying and even that we would go to the park that day. 

The game drive was so much fun. We saw so many different animals that we hadn't seen in Nairobi, like elephants, a rare species of zebra (grevy's zebra), oryx, gerenuks, kudus, gazelles, jackals, so many dik-diks and a different kind of giraffe. If you are like me, you don't even know what most of those animals are. I hope these pics help. 

Grevy's Zebra

Oryx

dik-dik-they are so small and camouflage well. They remind me of Ali and a bunny.

baby kudu

Gazelle

gerenuk

Jackal

another dik-dik--you can see this one's horns

After a hot day of driving around with no air conditioning--nobody seems to use it here--we drove to where we were staying. It was a mystery to us. Honestly, as we were driving, I had some thoughts like "please not there." All my fears were for naught. We stayed at a beautiful home owned by a French Canadian woman called the dik-dik lodge. It had a pool. The kids were happy. That night we were fed a fancy meal cooked by her chef. 

However, when it was time to go to bed, we started noticing the bugs. The kids room had an ant problem. There were so many ants that Malachi stomped on. Luckily my room didn't have that problem. BUT, when I was getting ready for bed, I saw a HUGE spider that moved super fast...so I went in and woke up Elizabeth. (They were told before we came to Kenya one of their jobs would be to deal with the creepy crawlies.) Everyone else was in bed. So she dutifully got up and brought Malachi's shoe. She looked thoroughly disgusted but moved forward to take care of it. And then it moved...it was so fast--like a cockroach! And it came right towards us, which sent us stifling screams into the hallway. That was the end of it. There was no making her deal with it at that point. And it was no longer in my room so we went to bed.

The next morning we got up early to continue our game drive. Unfortunately neither of the reds had a good sleep, so they were very tired and grumpy at the start. That made it a little awkward since we were being taken around by someone just trying to show us a good time. Thankfully when they pulled out the cold drinks and Elizabeth had a sprite she perked right up. It was like night and day. We spent a lot of time in the morning trying to find lions. We asked so many other safari tours, and the director made calls to the people who study them...but it is hard to find lions in that park. While we were searching, we saw 2 Somali ostriches--a male and a female. The male was doing his mating dance which was really cool to see, until it worked...and then it was a little "disturbing." Elizabeth said she didn't want to see that much of nature. haha.

Eventually we did find one lioness. We were able to drive up really close to her. So close that we had to roll up the windows. That was pretty awesome to just be able to observe her sitting in the shade. 

After finding the lioness we went for lunch at this amazing little safari resort at the other end of the park. It had a pool but the kids hadn't brought their suits. We had a buffet lunch where we were treated super well because the director knows everybody. One of the workers was his cousin. While we were eating, a troop of baboons came to the watering hole. Some of them were massive!

After lunch the kids swam (I had to buy Lizzie a bathing suit bottom from the gift shop and Malachi went in his clothes.) Strangely, most of us the people who used the pool were older people. There were only a couple other kids. 

We did more driving around and saw elephants and a family of Impalas and so many dik-diks.

Impalas

this is an anthill!

 It was super fun and memorable. This morning we drove back to Nanyuki and then back to Nairobi. It is nice to be back in our own space again. But I miss the more rural areas. The city is so big and crowded. Tomorrow I'm back at Mathare. I have so much left that I want to do and so little time. 2 months is just too short.

I couldn't resist this video of Malachi trying to get warm before jumping into the pool. He'll probably kill me for it. 

Week 6: We venture into the Kenyan hinterland

 On Monday I went to Impact (the organization I'm here to work with). There are other student interns staying in the same place as me that go there too, so I was told to go with them to be picked up at 7:30. I discovered in the morning that they weren't going because they were being picked up from here to go "in the field." The other students told me to just got wait at the end of the street and an Impact vehicle will see me and pick me up. They also said not to worry if I was passed because sometimes they are full and another will be by shortly. It turned out that no one had told the drivers about me, but luckily I have experience with being forgotten, so I didn't wait long to contact Impact and one of the vehicles had to turn around and come back and get me. And thus started a rather awkward day for me.

Since the person who oversees interns wasn't there, I think they really didn't know what to do with me. One lady took me around and introduced me to everybody--at least 30 people. I didn't remember most of their names. Then I was given a desk and left. I knew I was there to help with a grant application, so I just started reading about it. After about an hour, someone came and gave me a couple 40 page booklets with their strategic plan and 2024 report. Shortly after, everyone left the office and I could see them having a meeting outside. I knew I wouldn't understand anything anyways, so I just stayed and worked on reading the booklets and preparing the grant application. So yeah, my morning was awkward. Later I was talking with a staff member and found out that he was working on the same grant application only with McGill university, so then I was without a purpose.

In the afternoon I met with the head of operations and she assigned a girl to work with me. Soon they had a work plan for the week. They would have a driver take the kids and me to Twala, to stay for 3 days and another staff member that would be in the area would take around with him to all the things he was doing. On Tuesday afternoon a driver arrived in an outback style jeep. The kids were pretty excited, but that wore off really fast because the road was so bad. Shortly after we arrived in Twala, Lizzie was sick. I actually really enjoyed the drive but I wasn’t sitting in the back.

I think I mentioned earlier that Twala is a women's cooperative. It is a pretty amazing place. We got to stay in this place that provides an immersive Maasai experience. And I was assigned to help them improve their brochure. So that is what I have been working on. I'm no marketer, so it isn't an easy assignment, but I will do my best to help them. We were the only guests that were there at the time and were treated very well. The cooperative has helped these women to gain some financial independence and challenge a lot of harmful Maasai taboos. But they also honour their heritage. We participated in a song and dance with the ladies, were provided with a campfire every night, and ate more traditional foods. We didn't eat true Maasai style food--milk with cow's blood, but it was still different from what we had ever eaten. 

dancing with the ladies

traditional Maasai hut

This was where we waited for 3 hours before the meeting started

The area had these cool rocky outcrops

Twala provided us with traditional blankets for campfire

the ladies that performed for us

Magdaline, our guide

I was taken around to Impact's meetings with Indigenous groups in the area. The first meeting was with the leaders of 3 communities in the area to discuss water sharing. All the meetings were in Maa, so I didn't understand much ( I managed to catch a few words that chatgpt  interpreted for me.) The water meeting had some pretty outspoken participants, but in the end, they all came to an agreement. They also took me to a school that Impact is supporting. They teach trades like plumbing, carpentry, masonry and hairdressing for the Indigenous youth in the area. The courses are only 3 months and they come out certified in the end. I was given a tour and in every class someone had to speak to me about what they were doing. The school is very new--they 2nd cohort is just finishing up their programs, but so far it is looking beneficial. It is affordable--only 5000 Kenyan shillings and many of the kids found jobs rather quickly. They also learn computer skills and about running their own business.

 The next day I was taken to a meeting where they met to discuss what they had done with the funding they had received from Impact and what they would like to do for the next phase. The meeting was supposed to start at 9--we didn't start until 12. Even then, they didn't have enough for a full quorum, but eventually it filled right up. Once again the meeting was in Maa, so I couldn't understand much, but it was just fascinating for me to look at the people. Most of them showed up with at least some form of traditional Maasai clothing--especially the women. They were very striking. Most of the men showed up with sticks or clubs. Apparently it is a status thing. It didn't take them too long to agree on what they wanted to do with their funding. They all wanted to use it for land restoration.

On our last day at Twala, many women came and displayed their beadwork for us. There were so many of them, it took us over an hour to look at all of them. And then I felt bad that I couldn't buy something  from every one of them. We got some fun little souvenirs. Malachi got a Maasai club known as a rungu. He plans to use it for his fantasy games. Of course, he was drawn to all the weapons. They had knives and a bow with arrows. Lizzie loved all the jewelry.  

We got back Friday afternoon. In all my driving around, I saw zebras, giraffes, baboons, dik diks and lots of camels. Oh and we saw hartebeests fighting. People keep camels in that area for their milk. They don't eat the grass, and are well-adapted for the increasing droughts they have. Another example of how climate change hurts the most vulnerable and marginalized the hardest. Water didn't use to be a contentious issue among the Maasai people, but they have had such long droughts and the area (I'm told) is not as green as it once was. 

I didn't see them, but that area has a lot of elephants. When driving around, we passed through special gates meant to keep elephants out. At Twala, if they get in, they will destroy the Aloe plants and use their tusks to break into the greenhouse. (Green houses here are not plastic, but more like a mesh, meant to keep it cooler and to keep out pests). Our guide at Twala told me that she would occasionally encounter elephants on her way to and from school. When that happened they had to carefully stay down wind of them--sometimes walking way around them. If the elephant smelt them, they would be in big trouble.

Week 5: We Returned to the North...kind of

This week we took the trek out to Naivasha to visit Elsamere. Naivasha is about 85 km from Nairobi in the Rift valley (a valley that runs from Cairo to South Africa). We had super heavy fog for most of the drive so going was very slow. It took us over 2 hours to get there and I didn't even get to see the Kenyan countryside. The city of Naivasha is on the shore of Naivasha lake. Elsamere is named for the lion Elsa. She was famous because the couple that raised her after she was orphaned helped to train her to hunt and then set her back in the wild. If you have ever heard of the book Born Free, or the movie Born Free, or even the song Born Free, it is about this lion. The couple that trained and released her made lots of money off the books and left it all for a conservation trust along with their land. That is what we visited. We paid for lunch and a boat ride. While we waited for the boat ride we were taken to a little room and shown the documentary about the couple and the large cats they rehabilitated. In the middle of the documentary, they came in and paused it and told us it was time for our boat ride. I assumed the boat ride would take us to Crescent island--another park with no predators so you can walk around the island and see the wildlife up close--but that wasn't the case. We just went around a small portion of the lake. The boat wasn't much bigger than a large canoe with an engine. This made the reds quite nervous because there are hippos in the lake. The driver of the boat pointed out luxurious property after luxurious property--all owned by non-Kenyans. Malachi got to drive the boat.

I promise there is a hippo in this pic

And yes, we saw hippos--lots of them. (apparently at night they come right up to Elsamere to graze) but we didn't get super close. We could hear them. They sound kind of like large pigs. The boat driver also fed fish to a couple of fish eagles while we were out on the lake. It was pretty spectacular.

Since 2020, the lake has risen 3 meters. It was pretty amazing to see how much land was lost. There used to be a much smaller lake next to Naivasha lake. In fact, if you look it up on a map, it will probably still show that, but now the lakes have joined. There are a bunch of dead acacia trees in the water.

In other areas there are half submerged sheds. Fun fact: although countries like Kenya contribute very little to greenhouse gases and other environmental damage, the effects hit much harder here. Okay, that wasn't a very fun fact. When we got back we finished the documentary and sat outside watching columbo monkeys in the trees around us. They are fascinating to us, but they are pests to the people that have to deal with them. Columbo monkeys remind me of skunks.

We were given a nature tour of the property before we left. We warthogs grazing, the poo of various animals--from zebras to hippos to dik-diks, (dik-diks are tiny antelopes that are only 30-40 centimeters  tall). We also got to hold a tortoise. It was surprisingly heavy. They are very dense.

The other big thing of note is that we left Nairobi for a couple weeks and have come to Nanyuki. And to do this we crossed the equator--barely.

The city is pretty much right on the equator. But it isn't hot here. In fact it is a little cool. In Nanyuki we are staying at a house. There is a lady here that has a little compound and she rents little cabins out to interns. However, the kids and I are in the main house with her. It is a little awkward, but it is also a pretty cool experience. There are some students here from the Netherlands who are also interning at the same place I will be working. The house is super old, but we are comfortable. There is a girl who cooks and cleans, so we have been eating more authentic Kenyan food. There is a tiny kitty here who just always wants to be held and 4 or 5 dogs. Those things make the reds happy. They are always cuddling the kitty. Except now they are worried it has fleas because Lizzie has a bunch of bites on her legs and ankles.

Here I'll be working with an Indigenous organization, helping them to apply for a grant with the Canadian government in partnership with a Canadian Indigenous group. My first big task is to figure out who the partner will be. I think it will probably be the  Stolo people because that is what is near UFV. The leader of the organization here saw my CV and saw that I have experience in agroecology and also wants me to work with Twala, a women's cooperative north of here that grows aloe vera. I hope I get to see them. I don't know how much help I'll be as all my experience is in a growing in a temperate rainforest, but it sounds very cool. I just finished talking to the person who oversees interns. She wanted me to go "in the field" with her. Which means travelling around going to more remote areas for a week and meeting with different Indigenous groups. As I can't go off and leave the kids alone here for a week, they will arrange for us to go to more local groups. I'm excited.