FOR THE COMMUNITY - NAIVASHA

I arrive at the designated location five minutes to time. I am glad as I have not travelled in a while and the fatigue has taken a toll on me. I am here to learn. Having not been away from my family for any number of days I already feel I miss them. But I let my mind focus on my objective. Already the lobby is filling up with people and as far as I can tell this young crowd might just prove to be interesting. I get my room keys and venture back to the lobby where I strike up a conversation with a few people. It feels good to be asked where I come from and what I do. 

That is a question one is not often asked and it makes one feel important. Here the group eventually settles in the conference room for introductions to each other and an introduction to the UWEZO team. Am impressed that it is made up of young blood. In this day and age you need people who are down to earth and approachable. We are tired of titles and attitudes that create an impregnable wall that keep us from approaching them. Soon our very lively instructor mike takes over. He has the charm of a French man and am almost sure he may sweep one or two girls off their feet. It is going to be like this for today and the next day I think and so I relax.

The morning will find us in the hall beginning  deeper training on UWEZO. I am glad to know that they are the people who ironically helped us start our own group in my area two years ago. I am happier to know that their work and research covers so much more than I could possibly imagine. Putting education and literacy for kids at the top of our agenda has been our group’s mission ever since formation am happy we are on the same page. Within this room also is a sample of how diverse Kenya really is. 

There are representatives from parts of the country that I have only ever imagined about. There are ideologies that are new to my way of thinking. Our diversity I conclude is the heart beat of Kenya and Africa as a continent. Soon we get down to the real business of logistics. They make me a team leader and am a jubilant person. I know it seems weird but the chance to lead  should be taken as an indicator of things to come. The future looks good. We are handed a map and money and informed of directions to our locations. Adventure has always been my second nature and I am more than glad to discover.

Today will start by first loosing my direction and having to treck back for about two kilometers. At this point am convinced that I should actually be a healthier person and I should put exercising at the top of my agenda. It is beautiful country though and am glad I came. At the end of my trek am sitting at what you would probably call a shopping center waiting for my Village elder to show up and am thinking to myself someone should do something about modernizing this place. But sometimes our thinking is not always correct. It may take a bit of time to happen. 

I must have stayed too much in my own town which has distorted my view of the world. Travelling is an awesome thing. I will always totally appreciate the efforts of UWEZO for taking us out of our comfort zone. My fear of people must have vanished along with the morning mists as I strike up a conversation with some women standing by the shop. Eventually after about 20 minutes here comes my Village elder. For some distorted reason I had almost assumed it would be a man. It must have been the fact that it has been drummed up in us that men tend to take the head in almost everything. A sigh of relief? That would remain to be seen. But she is a jovial old woman who knows more about her village than I know about who is my neighbor. Thank you for the Nyumba Kumi initiative for allowing us the time and space to know my next door neighbor. I plan to correct this when I go back home.

We soon reach the school. Thank God I have been to “shagz” school so am not shocked at what I see. The headmaster is very inviting and soon we get down to business. He takes me round the classrooms by which time we have allowed the village elder to leave. For some strange reason the kids are happy to see me. I love kids and at this point my heart is doing a little jig of appreciation. Such are the things that keep us young. They don’t care about their environment ( a class or two has a dirt floor that is literally raising dust) some classes are a bit squeezed but the thirst for knowledge is evident on their young faces. Ahhh …sigh…. For a school that looks like this I had not even began to imagine they would have a computer lab or have the knowledge on computers. C’mon this is the preserve of high and mighty school in a town setting, I am thoroughly impressed. Someone here did not let the politics of the present age distract them from implementing ICT in a school like this. Hail to such a good deed it deserves a mighty applause from the rest of us still waiting on free laptops. I am thinking at this point that I should urgently do something about my own kids and the knowledge of ICT. With immediate effect I know that I will be putting in a child friendly version of typing tutor and the basics on my laptop..selfishness immideately flies out of the window

MT LONGONOT

On the second day of our practical assignment we get on the tarmac road that has  impressed me with how smoothly it rans past  the misty mount Longonot, towards Narok. It is a busy road with tracks using this as to go towards Nakuru and beyond and also the busy Maasai Mara lies in the same direction. In the distance are ranges that really no one in this area knows how to call them.However my conclusion of this place is that it is beautiful in an extraordinary sort of way.

 Our destination for today is Kigecha village in Naivasha with houses as sparsely distributed as any in an arid area. My spirit is expectant because am here to learn. As far as my eyes can see, there is only acacia trees, shrubs, dry grass and some effort at farming maize which is not doing too well because the rains have failed to come. Being from the central highlands of Kenya I know this will be a trying time to me physically as well, as my area is not so hot and we are used to having almost everything including water when we need it. My partner having come from here is better adjusted and I suppose he is secretly betting with himself that  I will may not be able to make it through the twenty households we are supposed to sample. Well I will definitely surprise him on that one. My determination to know is stronger than my somewhat weighty issues of the body.

Having reached a bit earlier than the village elder we decide to start on the first house as we await her arrival and because it is well known to my college. Knock Knock Knock and we enter into this household. Nothing could have prepared my mind for the beautiful smile that only a child can master. Immediately a man appears within the compound as well. And we introduce ourselves. Having had a day and half of training in the how to go about approaching folks with the idea of the Uwezo initiative am at first overconfident as to the use of my mother tongue to a concept I could only think about in English.

 So this is what it means to come down to the village level. Practical’s are really never the same as theory and am here and am glad for the practice because I know only too well that the knowledge is going to be very important to my area as the District Coordinator of Nyeri South. Luckily I have a partner who is not only fluent but has managed to help make light of silly mistakes that I have been making. After successfully completing the first house the village elder informs us she is on her way but nevertheless we proceed to the second house. The villagers are quite helpful in helping us find the house but I have a sneaky suspicion that they might be hiding something when the man offers to escort us there.

Here we meet an old woman. I have no idea that this meeting of old people would be the trend for the rest of the day. She at first is very apprehensive and here I opt to keep my silence and smile through the whole thing. After what seemed like an incredibly long 10 minutes we leave the homestead and there my partner confirms my suspicion, they brew liquor here and they are very weary of strangers asking what seems like personal questions but the drama will not end as a woman soon follows us asking if we are here to help take care of children’s education and why we would choose to go to a homestead where the children are already grown up instead of hers where she has two children in upper primary. I have seen the need I would like to help but currently am not here to do just that but to research on how the child’s environment affects their performance in school. The explanation we have to do leaves my mouth dry as once again my mother tongue fails to keep up with me.

After a while our village elder arrives and am relieved as today she seems in a good mood. This I hope is going to be an interesting day. We choose the farthest corner to start with. Little do I know that that house would turn out to be almost four kilometers away? As the day progresses I wonder why this place is so sparsely populated? Do people just choose to live far apart in semi-permanent houses? Why is it that all the houses we go to have only children starting from a certain age and not younger? I will shock you here dear reader. We found only one house with a baby below one year old in the twenty houses we went to. Women are not willing to give birth or is it just my imagination? Therefore I seek the answers from my partner and the village elder.

The story of this community is a sad one. It is the tale that has plagued right thinking Kenyans for a while now , when two people cannot agree. In spite of the happy faces or the wealth in terms of sheep/goats, cows, donkeys and bicycles they live in fear of raids. You may sleep one night and wake up to an empty cow shed. The majority of people have adjusted and learnt to live with it. They have learnt to pick up the pieces and live in spite of their problems, they have learned to love and appreciate what they have. They have lost children to more than just a raid but to disease as well as liquor but that does not affect their spirit. Mhh that is a good point to consider for the rest of my days.

I have been walking the whole day by now. It even started to rain a bit of which am accused rather fondly of coming with the rain. I probably should come here more often then. At this point we are down to our three last houses. Am hungry as there was no place to get a decent meal anywhere in the bush and we had to fulfill our objective. We have been looking for Baba Maasai who is better known as “Mu turukana’. 

Well I don’t know how people come up with this nicknames but they tend to make matters easier when locating anyone. I mention this particular person because this household changed forever the way I think about things. Here we will find a woman with four kids. She clearly is in charge and by now it is actually really raining hard. So she invites us in. I have seen kids excited and happy about someone but not to this extent. Have you ever looked at the world through the eyes of a child and wondered if you could ever see things the same way again….okay let the pictures speak for themselves. She has really nothing of value. Even the house is made in a crude way with stones and wires and yet she has everything. I was touched.

As dusk tinges the acacias and grassy fields with a golden glow and the dusty pathways become a kaleidoscope of the the setting light, we reach our final house. She has three very happy girls with her. It is a great thing to have finished my assignment. I feel like a young child having won an award. So this is what it means to make a difference. You have got to get down with the common people and understand where they come from.

Soon we are in Mai Mahiu. I would only wish at this point that there are vehicles heading to Naivasha, a shower, food a nice evening and a warm bed but there are none and we settle for a Trailer. Oh even a snail goes faster but am glad to head to what we have called ‘home’ in the last few days. By the time we arrive everyone has settled for supper and are busy chatting over the day’s activities. Am bone tired but it was a good day. A lovely blessed day. Later we have some real group fun.

We are almost to the end of our journey of learning as I will choose to call it. I have discovered there is far more within me than I knew. The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire and a fire has been lit within me. I must change my world. It does not matter how small my efforts are, but I must change the world.

I will work with this ideology that is UWEZO and inspire my community to do something at the grassroots level.  It is my hope that over time, of which point I will quote from UWEZO, ‘the communication of actual literacy and numeracy levels will lead to a realization among the public and policymakers that schooling is not enabling children to gain skills, which in turn will lead to a greater concern with how children can learn. Literacy is indeed important for mankind and Kenyans as a whole.

“There's something about the flower that grows through the rocks, the pavement; through logs and stone or brick walls... all roses are beautiful; but the rose that emerges unexpectedly through the asphalt has a beauty of soul. The flower that reaches through the brokenness of the wall has a beauty of spirit. You stop to look and not only to look but to cherish! Somewhere along its journey, it decided that it would reach for what was unseen, keep going in the direction of something that wasn't felt, it decided that it would be. That it would become. And it did. And there is something irreplaceable about that.”
― C. JoyBell. C

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