Photos

I've uploaded a handful of photos onto Picasa, most of which have come from the times I've had my camera with me on Jesus Cup duty.

http://picasaweb.google.com/simontreacy/KenyaSimonPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCJKc8525p8uFsQE#

What's going on?

Almost everyone here is bilingual, speaking at least English (the official language of the education system) and Kiswahili. Some speak many more languages than that. My friend Isaac, one of the Kenyans who works here, says that he can speak 6 tribal African languages and understand 6 others.

It’s a shame then that so few people seem to understand me. My accent, which is clearly not East African English, is unusual to most of the kids. I have been told that they would understand me better if I put on an American accent, but I wouldn’t want to inflict that on them. Instead, I’m trying my best to speak more clearly, separating the words as I go.

Outside of the classroom, however, Kiswahili is the language of choice. There are times when the amount of Swahili that goes on here can feel quite ostracising for me since I can only pick out one or two words at the moment. I feel like I miss out on an lot of information or instructions because so much is going on around me which I don't understand. But I’m trying to pick up enough phrases so that I can at least pass the time of day with someone before I revert to the colonial tongue…

I do feel a certain amount of pressure to learn the language though. People often reminisce about previous volunteers who learned Swahili fluently within a couple of months. Well, bully for them, I think to myself. Yesterday one of the boys pointed at a German volunteer who has been here for over 6 months, saying that ‘She can speak Kiswahili, why can’t you?’ I wanted to point out the unfairness of this comparison given that I’ve barely been here for two weeks, but I couldn’t be bothered to raise to the bait.

We had three computer classes yesterday. Previous classes had managed to change enough of the settings to bring down a network of 16 computers, which meant that it wasn’t worth bringing in a class of 50 or so students into a computer room which only had 14 working computers. So, instead, I gave a couple of computing theory classes, talking about what a computer is, its functions and uses, its advantages and disadvantages and so on. Amazingly, I felt the classes went very well and for the most part the students listened and even took notes.

By the time it came to the third class of the day, which was with the youngest students, Gary had managed to fix the network and so we let them into the computer room to practise typing in Word. This didn’t quite work out as lots of little hands makes for lots of mischief, especially with computers around, and the class involved a good deal of running around, repairing crashing computers, telling kids to stop pressing random buttons, and so on. By the time we’d got them all out I felt like I’d run a marathon.

I also discovered that one of the kids at Bosco Boys is called Safari Simba. What a great name! :D

Skin deep

Michael, one of the smaller boys, was sitting next to me the other day. He took my left hand and was looking at it earnestly and turning it over in his hands. Eventually he asked inquisitively, ‘Why isn’t your hand black?’, pointing to my palm. ‘See, mine is black here and white here’, he said, flipping his hands to show his pale palms. In his head, the irreducible logic was that as the back of my hand is white my palms should therefore be black.

The following week, the same Michael pulled gently at my hair and asked ‘Why is your hair like this but mine like this?’ gesturing towards his own closely-shaven afro. I feel that my brief explanation of genetics didn’t quite satisfy his curiosity.

On the ball

I’ve found myself playing a lot of football since I arrived here. The kids play at least an hour of games timetabled every afternoon and though some play volleyball or basketball, unsurprisingly the majority elect to head to the football pitches.

At first I played with the younger boys as at first glance the older ones looked pretty serious, kitted out in their various strips, and I thought I’d need some training before I took on those my own size.

The pitch is less than perfect. The large number of bobbles, divots and gaping holes makes the bounce as unpredictable as that of a rugby ball. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.

Somehow I’ve been persuaded to play in the Jesus Cup for the Bosco Boys Over 17 Boys Football team, despite my early protestations to not play. I have been warned that when mzungus take part, they are often targeted by the opposition. In Kenya, mzungus are softies (because we wear trainers to run, because we don’t do any manual labour) whereas Kenyans are ‘hardcore’. Clearly I need to get some training in before our first match next week!

Summary

Where am I?
I’m staying at Bosco Boys, a centre for ‘children in need’. Type Kuwinda, Nairobi, Kenya, into Google maps and work your way slightly to the north-west until you see collection of buildings next to a football pitch and a forest to the north. That’s Bosco Boys!

What is Bosco Boys?
Bosco Boys is a co-ed school by day and a boys’ orphanage by night. As summarised succinctly by Peter in one of the computer classes from this week:

In my schooll we are divided into two groups DAY SCHOLARS and BOADERS. In day scholar they normally pay but for we boaders we does not pay becouse many of us are brought here by various problems maybe you was a dtreet boy or maybe you does not have parents and so you were brought here as an opharn.

Where am I staying?
I live onsite, in a volunteer house which I have to myself since I’m the only male volunteer staying here at the moment. Next door live a few girls from Slovakia who live at Bosco Boys but work at different Salesian projects in the area. Gary, from Germany, lives with a Kenyan family, but comes to Bosco Boys during the weekdays.

The room is large and the bed is comfortable. I have a fridge and the shower is amazing and has always had hot water (so far). And yes, the Chinese diggers moved on after a few days leaving me to sleep in peace.

And the weather?
Almost perfect.

Cold first thing (what would be described as 'fresh' back at home), warm during the mornings and late afternoon (somewhere in the 20s), a lovely cool temperature in the evening. Only too hot in direct sunlight between 1 and 3 in the afternoon and only too cold once night properly sets in.

Hakuna matatu

I am starting to think the matatu is the reason that many Africans are more religious than we are in the West. It is because every time they step near any road they come close to one of these small minibus death traps which zoom Nairobians around the city and in doing so take a step closer to their maker.

The bus on the way back from town today (16^th Jan) was essentially a Disney ride without the characters dressed in costumes. We sat at the back, though sitting is a relative term as three times I found myself airborne somewhere above my seat. Countless others I was flung hither and thither and every whichway. It was a bumpy ride.

On the plus side, I’d made a friend on the matatu. A boy sat next to me and looked at me goggle-eyed with a big grin that screamed ‘I’ve just found a mzungu!’.

I had begun to get used to the looks I got as I walked around Nairobi. At Bosco Boys, a foreign visitor, white or otherwise, is no biggie. In some of the posh parts around here, it’s not big deal either as there are plenty of mzungus hanging around. But in many other places seeing a white person is still a novelty and something to raise an eyebrow at. Or, more accurately, stare, nudge your mate and unsubtly whisper ‘look, mzungu’. Pointing is recommended for further clarification of the mzungu’s whereabouts, as if the blazing milk white skin weren’t enough already.

Generally the adults try to play it cool – unless they’re trying to sell you something – but it’s the reaction of some of the younger kids which I love. Sometimes their eyes go wide in amazement that someone should look like I do. Other times they look at me quizzically, as if something must be wrong with me. It’s a sign that I’m settling in that I’m even looking at my hand now and thinking that it is kind of weird. I can see my veins and everything. Gross, man…

Anyway, I greeted this kid on the bus: ‘Mambo,’ I said. ‘Poa,’ he replied. The start of many a great friendship. We were soon separated by the sheer quantity of people that was shoehorned onto the bus. Everytime I thought, ‘right, now this matatu is definitely full’, I was proved corrected. Even so, he managed to catch my eye a couple of times and give me a big ‘hey, you’re a mzungu!’ grin. He waved, grinning, as he got off the bus. I waved back. It was a good moment.

Meanwhile my chaperone for the day, brother Deo (one of those preparing for the pre-noviciate) had conspired to fall asleep despite his head being gently flung from the seat in front to the headrest behind.

Deo had taken me with him to meet some street kids in situu in Nairobi centre. A couple of brothers go there every week to meet the kids, organise some games, talk with them and share some bread. For some, it could be the start of a process which leads to them getting some kind of help, such as into a project like Bosco Boys or a school.

This was real poverty. The contrast with the well-fed, well-looked after boys at Bosco Boys was stark. These boys looked like they had just spent the night sleeping in the dirt. Their clothes looked like their only clothes. We got a big game of football going in which I took part, at one point making a crucial Carragher-esque clearance of the line. One boy played through the whole game in a heavy jacket that seemed to be from a kind of factory. Playing in the midday Kenyan sun, he must have wished he had been picked to play for the ‘skinnies’ team.

Johnny foreigner

On my first Saturday here, some of the boys were given a bit of cash as a reward for academic results or improvement last term and I joined them on an outing to a huge sprawl of a market to the east of Nairobi.

I was chaperoned on this shopping trip by two of the older boys, Kelvin and Kelvin. Sadly, it was to be a frustrating afternoon for them since their 1000 shillings budget wasn’t quite enough to buy the football boots they were looking for.

All the shops in the part of the market we were walking around were basic sheds of wood, with row upon row of second hand or counterfeit clothes and multitudes of hawkers milling around them trying to get your attention. The track between the shops was just dirt and scattered trash.

I must have looked very conspicuous – sporting my sunglasses and cap – and if it weren’t for the Kelvins I would probably have been pestered more than I was. I still had my fair share of calls of ‘hi, mzungu!’ (white man) made at me, as well as lots of questions about which is my favourite EPL team as I was ushered towards a hut of t-shirts or shoes. I found it very funny when on one occasion we passed a few guys who, once I hadn’t responded to mzungu, shouted ‘albino!’ at me instead.

As we were returning to the bus, I noticed that some shopkeepers were shouting John or Johnny at me. I asked a Kelvin. ‘They’re guessing your name’, he said. I laughed, appreciating the cleverness of the tactic, though I would have been really freaked out if my name was actually John...

We had been told to get back to the meeting point to get the bus back at 4.30. The two Kelvins and I got back at 4.45. We were the first back. At 5.15, with a handful more boys, the decision was made to leave. ‘We told them 4.30’, the bus driver explained. ‘They’ll find their own way back.’ I found it bizarre that we had just left behind over half of the boys that had come out with us, but I was assured it was perfectly normal!

On the way back to Bosco Boys, we drove past Kibera, which was described to me (with a little pride, perhaps?) as the largest slum in the world. From the road which runs past it you can also see the flats which the government has built to relocate the slum inhabitants. A good idea, ne c’est pas? Except that I’m told the benefactors of this project have already sold on the flats to slightly wealthier people, keeping the cash and preferring to stay in the rent-free slum.