Mathare, Stories, & Poverty

Today, Kinyua, Judith, me and a local lad visited several HIV patients in Mathare - a slum of about 3800 people - located a few minutes (by walking) behind my apartment building. Directly next to Mathare is a garbage dump. The stench from the trash was overwhelming. According to Kinyua, the slum residents make a living by sifting through the garbage and collecting and selling whatever could be recycled. During our visit, we could see a group of children playing, unsupervised, with odds and ends beside a foul-smelling stream that meanders through the dump.

Yesterday, Judith (the lady who has been accompanying us to the slums in the past few days) revealed that she was HIV positive. She discovered her status in 2006. She is currently on ARV Therapy with help from Doctors Without Borders. Raising four children (see Day 4) as a single parent (her husband passed away 5 years ago when their family couldn't afford to pay for his second-line TB medications), she earns a small income as a HIV/AIDS advocate for Kinyua's nonprofit. Her children do not know her status.

Then there are other stories, not just about the unilateral impact of HIV/AIDS, but also how this disease actually interacts/combines with personal tragedies to impoverish and devastate families. There is the grandmother left with the care of her two grandchildren after their mother died of AIDS. Many years ago, the same family fell victim to a property scam and were driven off their land. Then there is the Maasai mother - HIV positive - who ran away from her village with her daughters in order to protect them from being forced into marriage. We also met a single mother who supports her family of five by scavenging the garbage, and whose last born is now mentally handicapped after suffering from meningitis. HIV/AIDS also breaks families apart. Veronicah and Judith spoke to a couple estranged from each other because the wife kept her HIV status secret at the time of their marriage. The husband, angry and visibly resentful during out visit, is still in denial about his seropositive status, and now spends most of his time blaming her.

Poverty is the common denominator of all the homes and people we visited. In fact, according to Veronicah, it is poverty, not the lack of access to/availability of drugs, that kills. Kinyua, the Community Health Worker, says that the main issue is food. Malnutrition exacerbates the side effects of ARV therapy. Many, he says, have simply become discouraged from taking the drugs because they are too poor to afford a proper meal. What people really need, I think, are sustainable income-generating activities, whether it is starting a chicken farm, a commercial water tank, or a hostel to host mzungus. Anything but scavenging the garbage.

Day 6, Thursday, 5/8

Today, Amy and I visited Kambekisii, a slum of around 500 people (according to a resident, though there seemed to be way fewer people during our visit) located 15 minutes from Ngong/Karen road, together with Susan, Veronicah, and Rachel from Providence VCT in order to hold an "empowerment" session.

Kambekisii is situated directly next to a wealthy suburb, a somewhat poignant juxtaposition. Kambekisii's cluster of flimsy-looking, corrugated-iron shacks provides a stark contrast to the modern, western-style brick buildings (complete with tiled roofs and state-of-the-art water tanks, a luxury in Kenya) located literally just a few meters away. These two worlds are thinly separated from each other by a stone wall. Next to this wall is a ditch that drains away the waste water from the luxury homes. The slum residents, however, call it a "river" and do all their laundry there.

During the outreach, we were housed in a little wooden shack, where Amy and I gave a presentation on the basic facts of ARV Therapy in English (which Rachel helped translate into Swahili) to a small group of around 20 people. After that, we went around the slum distributing free brochures on HIV testing and prevention.

What I found interesting/puzzling was that though the staff demonstrated how to use a diaphragm (during which the women and girls giggled hysterically), there was, however, no instruction on the proper way to use a condom (there were men present in the audience). In fact, during her presentation, Rachel encouraged "total abstinence" before marriage, and told the villagers that she wouldn't even encourage the use of condoms. Though I could understand that technically, "total abstinence" is the safest way to go, I wonder how practical her recommendation is for these slum-dwellers (how do you teach abstinence to girls who have to prostitute themselves to stay afloat financially?).

I finally experienced my first "culture shock" in Africa. I was a little shocked when one of the young mothers, who was sitting directly in front of me, bared her breast and started (openly) breastfeeding her baby (I believe I was in the middle of a sentence when this happened, and I nearly choked on my words). Halfway through the meeting, the other babies too, started latching on to their mothers, who made little attempt to make the process more private. Was I the only one who was surprised by this collective (concerted?) public display of nudity? It seems like Kenyans (Africans?) have very a different notion of privacy as far as nudity is concerned. In any case, to avoid any potential awkwardness, I looked away whenever possible.

Oh, one of the villagers also gave me a Kenyan (Maasai?) name, "Kripotich" which supposedly means "the one who is born when the cows are coming out." Go figure.

Jambo!

Kenya has been quite an experience so far.

A summary of the past few days:

Day 1, Saturday, 31/7

Arrived in Nairobi at 8am at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Ran into travel document issues at the immigration. Threatened with deportation because I did not own a passport. An hour of drama later (which involved a crash course into the idiosyncrasies of Brunei's citizenship laws, some puppy-eyed pleading on my part, and divine intervention), I finally got through immigration. Picked up by Oliver, the coordinator from Fadhili Community (my host organization). Taken to his flat (which a volunteer described as "an island in a sea of slums") in Kawangware, a quickly expanding shanty about half an hour from Nairobi city, where I was to be housed temporarily until assigned to my project.

My first impressions of Kenya (as far as the drive from the airport to Kawangware is concerned)? Nairobi's a fairly "modern-looking" city in terms of architecture, and the highway connecting the airport to the city was in excellent condition. Billboards along the highway and shop signs flaunted fluent English (surprisingly, I haven't seen any that's in Swahili). I was also a little overwhelmed by the air pollution, and the fact that the weather's much chillier than I expected (low 20s).

My first experience of Africa was ironically a western one. In the afternoon, I went with other volunteers (who hailed mainly from the US, UK, and Australia) to Nakumatt Junction (the Kenyan version of Walmart) to stock up on necessities. Then we had lunch at Java, a multi-cuisine restaurant that catered mainly to local expats and foreigners. For a second, I thought I was in Europe; there were lots of mzungus (Swahili for white people), and several volunteers ordered scones and drank tea. I ordered an Indonesian curry dish that somewhat reminded me of home.

The rich-poor divide somewhat took me by surprise. Just a few minutes off the orderly, concrete highway, the roads rapidly deteriorated into a series of muddy and rocky paths. Glass-paneled buildings quickly gave way to little shacks constructed out of corrugated iron and planks of decaying wood. The traffic, especially in Kawangware, was extremely chaotic as the ubiquitous matatus (passenger vans) weaved in and out of traffic and pedestrians crossed the roads in a haphazard fashion. At Nakumatt Junction, on the other hand, BMWs and Mercedes graced the parking lot, and several traffic lights promised some measure of order and safety.

Later that night, we hired a matatu to go clubbing in the city. African beer is pretty cheap (around $2 for a bottle of Tusker). After drinks, we grooved to African music on a small dance floor. The mzungu girls in our group were hit on repeatedly by the locals (one girl was simply grabbed and kissed on the cheek by an intoxicated middle-aged man, and I had to help "extricate" her).

It was a tiring, but good first day.

Day 2, Sunday, 1/8

Watched orphaned elephants getting fed out of humongous milk bottles. Kissed (photo evidence to be uploaded later) a giraffe named Daisy (who wasn't always nice, as she dismissed another volunteer with a "head-butt" when she did not have any food to offer). Held a baby crocodile. Fed a bunch of somewhat aggressive monkeys out of my palms (several volunteers simply had their peanut packages yanked out of their hands). Went shopping at a Maasai market, but left early when a somewhat dramatic argument broke out (cause unclear) between two sellers. What an eventful day.

Day 3, Monday, 2/8

Orientation day. Found out I'd be working with the HIV Foundation with another volunteer, Amy from Canada, and staying with Naomi. Transported to my permanent lodging in Ngong town, about an hour from Nairobi city.

Day 4, Tuesday, 3/8

First day of work. In the morning, we met up with the project coordinator, Kinyua, and took the matatu to Providence VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center, more details later) in Karen. Veronica (a local volunteer at Providence) taught us how to use a HIV/AIDS testing kit. In the afternoon, Judith (another Providence worker) took us to visit her home and her four children. She showed us how to make ugali, a traditional Kenyan dish prepared by stirring maize flour above a charcoal stove. Later, her children (3 girls and a boy, ages 3-15) attempted to teach Amy and me hip-hop (ALL the Kenyan youth I've met so far can do hip-hop!). Later in the evening, we were invited for dinner in the home of Nicholas and Peninah, the founders of Providence VCT. We were treated to a delicious meal of rice, spicy beef, beans and maize, peas, collard greens, and fruits. The hospitality was truly amazing =)

Day 5, Wednesday, 4/8

As a safety precaution, all volunteers are staying indoors in view of the Kenyan elections that are taking place today (the 2007 Kenyan Elections ended with a lot of violence and bloodshed on the streets). Which gives me some time to update my blog.

My host mother's name is Naomi. She keeps the apartment extremely clean, and cooks for the volunteers with the help of her cousin, Aminah, the single mother of an infant child. Naomi's two nephews (Izzo and Isaac, 16 and 20 respectively) and niece (Josephine, 12) are also staying with us. Right now, there are seven volunteers (myself included) living in the apartment. More details about the family later.



I'm fairly excited about my project placement. We had a "coordination meeting" yesterday to plan out our activities for the next two weeks. Amy and I will be visiting several slums (Kambikisii, Matassia, Lenana) to do HIV/AIDS outreach. We will be talking to HIV-positive patients about the importance of nutrition, tracking their treatment adherence, as well as providing home-based care (cooking and cleaning?) for PLWAs (People Living with AIDS).