Friday, May 18, 2007

I realized the other day that it has been a long time since my last post, and I apologize for that. I have been super busy and have not had a lot of time to write. I will write a longer entry (or 2) when I get back to the states though to get you all updated on the last month of my stay in Kenya. But for now, just know that ISP went very well, the paper, the presentation and just the experience in general was amazing. It was really hard to leave Kisumu, and I am hoping that I will get to go back sometime soon. But we'll see if that happens...

Speaking of my return, I guess I should let you all know what the deal with that is. I am flying out tomorrow (Saturday) night, getting into NYC on Sunday evening around 6. So starting on Monday I will be fully accessible by American standards! My cell phone should be back on in the first few days when I am back, and I will be back to my old obsessive email habits.

And, I think I should also let you all know what my plans are for this summer, since several of you have asked. I am working with an organization called the Student Conservation Association (SCA). They place students in national parks around the country doing various conservation efforts. I am going to be in California working in the Inyo National Forest, about 150 miles north of LA. I will be working with 5 other college kids and 1 team leader, doing reforestation to prevent off road vehicles from going off their designated trails and ruining the surrounding environment. I will be camping for most of the summer, which I think will be really really fun. It will be an adventure for sure, but one that I am really looking forward to. I fly out to start my job on May 29, leaving only about 8 days in Fishkill...

I definitely have a lot of mixed emotions about coming back home. I am really excited, but also really sad to be leaving. And I'm not really sure yet what's gonna hit me in terms of reverse culture shock, but I'm sure it will be an interesting experience, and I'll let you all know how it goes.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

The other side of Kenyan life

Just as a disclaimer, this entry might be a little bit of a downer. It’s not that I have started to get depressed or overly homesick or anything, but there are a lot of things about living in Kenya and Kisumu that get me down sometimes, and I wanted to share them with all of you.

I’ve said several times how much I like Kisumu, and this is true. It’s a great little city and it’s got a great atmosphere – most of the time. But like every other area of Kenya, it has its own set of problems and issues.

The poverty here is very different than the poverty in Nairobi, and while I did have some exposure to the extreme poverty there, for the most part I wasn’t around the poorest of the poor. In Nairobi, my house was in a pretty good neighborhood, and yet it was only about a 5 minute walk from Kibera slum. That kind of poverty is really overwhelming and in your face, but at least it presents itself all at once. So it may knock you over the first time, but after that you can start to accept it and get on with things and you know what to expect next time. In Kisumu, it’s a little different. The poverty here reveals itself a little slower, and doesn’t really give you a chance to fully digest it right away. Just when you think you have started to get a handle on it, you see something else that knocks you right back off your feet.

The first thing I noticed about the poverty here was the street kids. As the name suggests, these are kids that have no home. Most are males, and are either orphans, or have been abandoned by their families for various reasons. In America, these kids would have foster homes, orphanages or other places to go, and while these places may not be the best, they are better than the streets. I’ve seen kids as young as 6 or 7 and it’s heartbreaking every time I see them, no matter what age. They all huff glue and turpentine, since being high and passing out is easier then feeling lonely, hungry, cold and depressed. Many of them walk around high all day and just stare at people with glazed over eyes. If they are sober enough when they see me to realize that they are looking at a Mzungu (a white person), they usually ask me for money or food, or say some incomprehensible insult. I have a policy of not giving out money to anyone, and usually do not have any food on me, so I just walk by them. That is one of the most heart breaking parts. I want to help all of them, but I know they will just use the money to get high, and that’s not helpful. There are a few rehabilitation programs for them, but no where near enough. One of the guys that my roommate works with used to be a street kid, and actually went to one of these homes. Now he has a wife and a baby and is helping to run a youth football league here that is helping a lot of kids (much like MYSA from a few weeks ago). So there is some hope, but it’s hard to see that when I have to walk by a group of 5 street kids on my way out of the grocery store who are just waiting for handouts.

Many of these kids spend their whole lives on the streets. And when they get older, their adult life is no better than their childhood (if you can even call it a childhood) was. I see many of these grown men walking around downtown. Their clothes are just as tattered as their young counterparts and I have yet to see either one of these grown men or a street kid with a pair of shoes or sandals. Their hair is disheveled, and they carry the few possessions they have in old bags over their shoulders. There are no programs that I know of for these older people, they just seem to be forgotten about. They will also ask me for money just like the younger kids. I had a banana that I tried to give to one of them, but he told me that he didn’t want it and asked me if I had any money. I wonder what that money would have gone to… Many of them are not even lucky enough to have clothing at all. Some walk around wrapped in plastic bags, and my friends have even seen people walking around in just a T-shirt.

These people have no where to sleep but the streets, and it is not uncommon to come across several of them either downtown or a little bit further out, where I work. They sleep at any time of the day and are usually passed out from some kind of drug or drink. I was eating lunch at a small cafĂ© near where I work, and I saw a woman just lying on the side of the road, passed out. No one was paying her any mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was even alive. A few minutes later I saw her head move, so that fear passed. This is not an uncommon sight here – people passed out anywhere they can find some grass and some shade. Some on cardboard, others just sprawled out where ever they happen to fall over. It’s so hard to walk by these people every day and not do anything – but what can I do? I know that is kind of a cop-out, but I can’t give them money, I can’t start any kind of program, and while I may be able to give a few of them food, that won’t even make a dent in the larger problem. So it’s been hard.

Another thing that has been getting to me is the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. I talked about this a few entries ago when I talked about the village I stayed in, but it’s worth mentioning again. While HIV is big a huge fact of life in the US, I haven’t really been too exposed to it. But here it is a constant fact of life. The prevalence rates in this area are probably over 30%, the highest in Kenya. It’s really sobering to be sitting in a room and suddenly wonder how many of these people are infected with HIV/AIDS. And it’s not if anyone is infected, but rather how many. And there are programs where people can get free treatment, but there are never enough drugs. Another issue with this is that the drugs need to be taken with food, something that is a big issue for many people. So they stop taking the drugs or take them irregularly, which can have larger consequences of drug resistance, spreading the disease, etc. So curbing the affects of HIV/AIDS will take a lot more than just free drug programs, abstinence only education and charity. It’s an overwhelming problem, as are most issues in development.

Like I said, I do really like it here, both Kenya and Kisumu. But there are some facts of life that I haven’t (and hopefully never will) get used to. And so while most of the time I am optimistic about the future of these places and have great experiences here, I would not be giving you all a fair portrayal of my time here and my experiences if I did not share the hard aspects as well as the good ones. While there have been a lot hard things about living here, it’s the hard stuff that you learn the most from, right? And I can say with confidence that my good experiences in Kenya have outweighed the bad, and even the bad ones were not a total loss, since I have learned so much from them – both as a human being and as a development student. So don’t let this entry get you down, once I finish school, I’ll be back here to change a few things!