With love, from me, to you

Congrats to Women's Hockey for Gold!

Happy March Break for everyone at home. I am still working, as usual. Some more casual things about my life right now before I jump into what I've been doing with work. Currently Mzungu Mike and I have a verbal contract to not shave until we return home (or the day before). Since my facial hair is blond, Charles has begun to call me Jesus. Also I went overload on a meal last night and combined pizza with a burger to make a pizza-burger, it was one of the most delicious things I've had to date. My friend at this Internet Cafe has pink eye, and we're placing bets on who he is going to spread it to next. I was told about how one can go and buy a genie here in Mombasa, and although they are invisible, they will bring you wealth if you feed them and pay them tribute. I'm considering buying one so I can actually have an invisible friend for real. I hope he comes with either a bottle or an Aladdin lamp included.

Yesterday was the Career Fair, or Youth Education Forum. It consisted of over 450 youth, 8 speakers, and 5 or 6 businesses. Overall it was a success, though there were many faults, challenges we had to overcome, and lessons learned for everyone. Here is how the day went. I'll start with the challenges.

Kwacha Afrika and YCI arrived at 8 AM to set up chairs for the Forum which would start at 9. However, people did not actually show up until 8:50, with the majority walking in at 9:30-9:45. This meant we started an hour late, which screwed up our entire agenda, of which there were 2; one that was handed out to everyone that I was told to print by Emmy my boss, and a lone agenda that only the MC used that was completely different from the one that everyone else had. A few times, no one knew what was going on or what was next, so some things were thrown in like dances performed by youth and cutting out skits that had been scheduled.

The big failure came when lunchtime arrived. Mike and I had set up the tables for lunch in a very spacious area so that people could move around while lunch was served. However, others took the tables and placed them outside where there was a narrow catwalk where people could lin-up. Imagine a crowded, grumpy, and complaining 450 people demanding food. It took 2 hours to distribute, not to mention the food itself was late. As well, there was no water provided, so when eating spiced rice, or pilau, everyone was extremely parched. I had to deny so many people water, I felt terrible. Eventually it arrived, thank God. I also had a shouting match with a big man who was making a fuss over having to wait in line with everyone else. I told him to get in line with everyone else or go buy his own food. I wasn't about to let him go ahead of two mothers who had children (who they had brought to the forum) to feed.

The successes, on the other hand, were many. YCI and Kwacha Afrika achieved something they had never done before: a convention bringing together 8 speakers (including a fantastic official and orator from the Ministry of Labour) and 6 businesses from completely different sectors, half a thousand youth scattered throughout Mombasa with different backgrounds, levels of education, and areas of interest in one place to discuss the issues of youth unemployment. Through this, topics brought up were what employers wanted, what youth wanted, the concept of trade work over office jobs, and what youth could do to stay positive and build a better resume. As Emmy put it, "we achieved the impossible."

I know that many of you already know this, but for some it may be news. I am returning home early and cutting my trip by 5 weeks. I will not be going to Uganda, but returning to Canada once the Kenya project is over. There are a number of reasons for this, I will outline them to you here.

1) I feel that I've been ignoring my family over the last few years. After realizing from my time here that family is the most important thing to anyone, I believe I should come home early to spend more time with them and reconnect before I go away to university.

2)The people in Uganda do not need an unexperienced teenager trying to help when he has no idea how to teach English (I feel that I did not do an effiecient job of it in Zanzibar). Also, I will be making a hassle by having them put me up for a month.

3)By experiencing Uganda I would not be seeing anything unfamiliar to me. Tanzania, Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi have an extremely similar culture, language, and the same African mindset.

4)It's becoming very hard for me to operate normally here. The stress of living in a new and completely different culture from the one I am used to, as well as living with people who I have just met makes things harder on me. I get tired and frustrated faster, and less energetic with each passing day. Right now I strongly wish to return home, I can only imagine how much that feeling will be 8 weeks from now.
5)Amy and I are celebrated our one-year anniversary on February 22nd. In the space of that one year, I have only been with her for a total of 4 months. Amy and I have an incredible relationship, and I know I want nothing more than to spend the remaining months before university with her instead of another month in Africa now that I've sorted out the priorities in my life.

So you can all look forward to seeing me earlier than you thought you would. I know that even though I've enjoyed my time here in Kenya far more than I did in Zanzibar, it is time for me to go home to the land of ice and snow (which I'm not looking forward to after acclimatizing to 33 degrees). I'm counting the days to when I can see you all again.

Best wishes,

Evan

PS- To Mom's Grade 6 Class on Monday March 1st I'm going to Mwakirunge with the funds and asking the headmaster what materials he wants for the school there, I'll include the details of the visit in the next blog. Thank you so much for fund-raising for that school, all of YCI and Kwacha Afrika are very proud of and extremely happy that you would do that for others!

Late February

BLOGTIME!

The gender workshops went well. We kept men and women separate for the first 2 days of gender, and on the third day brought them together for a leadership session where the facilitators made them do teamwork games. All of the men were acquainted, and so were the women, so when talking about the sensitive issues surrounding gender people were very outspoken and were willing to contribute ideas. However, when the classes were joined, it was hard to break the ice between the men and women, since the latter did not feel comfortable participating with members of the opposite sex. As time went on and the games were played, the tension relaxed and everyone had a good time. One thing I did not foresee on Friday was the extended break-time for Call to Prayer. At 11:45 most people got up and left for the nearest mosque and did not return until 1 or1:15 after they were finished and had eaten lunch. I'll have to keep this in mind for future workshops in predominantly Muslim areas.

Friday I left the gender workshop early in order to attend an inter-school gender debate in the city. One school was for boys and the other was for girls, and both teams were pretty passionate about the motion being debated, "What men can do girls can do even better." There were many funny things being said by both sides. My favourites were "Behind every successful man in history there has been a woman," to which one boy retorted "why behind the success and not in front?" Also another boy said, "Men are allowed to have 4500 wives in some places. Why are women not allowed? Because a man is responsible to handle them all." The girls, on the other hand, said "That's because men are weak and can be easily seduced." My thought was "why would anyone want 4500 women, dealing with one is hard enough..." Then, the cherry on top was a girl saying "men leave the environment in a dirty condition and never clean it up." "If women can do things better than men, then what you're saying is that women are more dirty than men."

On Sunday white Mike and I went to Charles's mom's house, which is pretty rural and is half an hour outside the city. Charles is a local Kwacha Afrika volunteer, and is also the person who told me about "Thailand." It was a perfect day. We went for a 3 hour hike to a forested mountain, and I was expecting to climb it until Charles told us that we could go no further sincethere was quicksand and wild dogs that attacked you. We met his older brother, brother-in-law, mother, and his sister (who we already knew through Kwacha) Shiko turned up as well. At night we found a flat-topped 5 string guitar so we tuned that and wrote a song for Charles. Also Mike and I each got to chop off a chicken's head which we later ate for dinner. To get water for the morning bath we had to fill up buckets from a nearby puddle that accumulated water from a broken fresh water tap that is higher on the hill where the house is located. It was a great day, and we stayed overnigt and returned to town early the next morning.

This week is supposed to be very busy, since the career fair we have been planning for the last month is happening this Friday, so we have to finalize everything before then. I'll continue to keep everyone updated.

Also I was wondering how many people actually read this blog, I know the number is somewhere around 35 or 40 with my mom's elementary school class. After reading this could you just notify me that you're following it by making a quick comment below this. Thanks.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy belated Valentines Day! I hope that everyone did something cool for someone else!

Lately things have been pretty slack here in Mombasa. The matatu training was conducted by the Kwacha Afrika peer educators, who have been facilitating workshops about these subjects for years, and have much experience to draw from. Their teaching method was so effective, in fact, that we had hardly anything to do during Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Saturday I encountered something that I never thought I would see in East Africa. Melissa, Angela, and Rebecca had gone off for the day to see some ruins outside of Mombasa, while Joelle was spending the day with African Mike (the one who comes over for dinner each night). Mzungu Mike and I instead decided to check out a store we had kept hearing about called Nackomatt. Not knowing what to expect, we decided to walk the three kilometres in the midafternoon sun. Bad idea, we were pretty dehydrated by the time we arrived.

On the outside, Nackomatt looks like a well-to-do collection of various stores, nothing jumped out at us as being out of the ordinairy. Upon entering the building, however, we immediately saw the contrast from the typical Africa shop. Nackomatt was essentially a mini-North American mall, with tiled marble floors, high celing, air conditioning, and a coffee shop. The main attraction was just around the corner. If anyone knows what a Co-op is in Quebec, this is the perfect description. It was a grocery store selling every food product you could want, a frozen drinks section, a large pharmacy section, as well as a furniture section upstairs. It was huge! Mike and I stumbled through the corriders in awe of the shiny products that lay stacked on the shelves. We looked at each other with stunned looks, "can this really be happening? Are we in paradise?"

As it was, the prices were expensive (regular prices you'd find in Canada) so we did not buy much, only a Fanta, a milk packet, and I treated myself to peanut butter to make our breakfasts a little more interesting.

On Sunday 8 of us got into a car we had rented for the day and drove 2 hours south to a snorkeling area. We got on a rather large boat with a few other people, rented some gear, and drove out an hour into the ocean to a small sandbar where we jumped out. The water was great, and the coral was healthy on the outskirts, but the only way to get onto the sandbar once you were done snorkeling was to walk on top of the coral, whcih was beginning to die from previous tourists who had done so. I did not think this was good idea for a few reasons, one is that it damages an already threatened fragile environment, and two coral is sharp and occasionaly poisonous. As it was there was no other option so we carefully walked with our flippers (or for those of us who had them) over the coral towards the sand. Melissa cut herself twice, but she seems to be ok. On the way back we spotted a sea turtle, which was the best part of the day.

Before heading in to port we went to a small island that was inhabited by only 1200 people. Immediately I noticed the ratio of adults to children, it seemed that there were 6 or 7 kids for every one adult. The captain explained to us "there is no electricity on the island, so night comes early and there is nothing to do for 12 hours at a time. As a result, there are many children living here compared to the few adults." It would be interesing to see the population growth in 20 years from now....

So far we have had 3 meetings covering the gender training starting tomorrow, the career fair next week, as well as the Women's Guest Speakers Panel which is sometime soon....The career fair planning seems to be coming along extremely well, the youth are being mobilized across Mombasa (as a result of meeting with the youth leaders last Friday, where a monkey decided to poo on Kasena's head) and everyone is eager to be a part of the training. More on that when it happens.

Missing Canada and everyone over there!

Evan

Getting into February

Rebecca and I with the morning computer class
Kwacha Afrika's drama on HIV/AIDS stima
The Chief's Office
Mike getting a lift from Melissa to Kwacha Afrika

We finished the computer classes on Saturday with great improvement on everyone's part. It was interesting to teach the Internet session, since the computer we had for our theory class did not have access. In order to educate our students on what web pages and search bars were, we had to take them to the nearest Internet Cafe and crowd 18 people around 1 computer in a small and stuffy room while Melissa explained how to make an email account.

We only had one day off, so we went to the beach and relaxed with Charles, a member of Kwacha Afrika. He explained to me that beautiful women's thighs are called Thailand, which I found hysterical. The best part was he was dead serious. Also we attended a Swahili drama put on by Kwacha Afrika about HIV/AIDS stigma. Although we could not understand what was being said, the acting was terrific, much better than most performances (even professional performances) I've seen in recent years. Good job Kwacha!

This week we have been holding many meetings in preparation for the Career Fair, gender equity and leadership workshop next week, as well as the matatu workshop we began conducting today. The topics covered, as mentioned in the previous blog, are gender issues, HIV/AIDS stigma, and drug use. Matatu drivers are a marginalized group in society and are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and using drugs, which is why we are conducting this 3 day workshop with them. Also yesterday Melissa, Rebecca, and I met the tribal chief of the area in a meeting aimed to mobilize 300 youth for the career fair, one could tell he had a lot of power and responsibilty by the large amount of paperwork and the confidence he carried himself with. All he did was make 2 phone calls and afterwards said it would be done. Wow.

Some people have been asking me to describe my living conditions. I live in a medium standard neighbourhood known as Mtopanga along with Rebecca, Melissa, and Mike (who had to join us since his last house had bedbugs). The Somalian family living next to mine has a goat that gets very annoying, but is also very cute so we deal with it. The family we live with, the Kalu's, are extremely nice and accomodating, Mr. Kalu and I have already had many deep conversations comparing Canada and Kenya. Mrs. Kalu is obsessed with a CD of a Swahili artist that she listens to 1 or 2 times each night. The tempo in all the songs is the same, so it sounds like 40 minutes of the same song. Josephat (their nephew) joins us after his electrician college each evening, he is quiet but very funny whenever speaks. Michael, the son of the family and also a peer educator at Kwacha, joins us each evening for dinner; he invites us over to his house every so often to watch movies like Superbad, Pineapple Express, and the Hangover, he has a great sense of humour. I look forward each night to being in their company.

The water at the house has not been running for the last 2 years due to the 2-year drought the northern part of Kenya has been experiencing (Africa, although it contributes the least to pollution on a global scale (2%), feels the worst effects of climate change). Although it has been inconvenient here, I can't imagine how bad it must be where the drought is actually occuring. Daily, I believe I use approximately 30-40L of water for bathing, drinking, brushing my teeth, and flushing the toilet. In contrast, the average Canadian uses approximately 540-560L of water every day for the same tasks. In order to get water in the bathroom one has to carry water from the trickling tap in the front of the house to buckets kept inside. To flush the toilet we have to lift the top of the toilet where the water is usually held, and pour water in there until it is the certain height required to flush it. I'll take a picture and put it on the next blog to show everyone more accurately what the washroom looks like, it's hard to describe. My house is surrounded by a wall/fence, I'm using this description because the fence has pieces of tin attached to it to create some sort of privacy barrier between us and the neighbours. My living room and dining room is the same room, most of the chairs have cushions but one couch does not. The TV has 3 or 4 channels, but only one is in English. My bedroom, which I share with Michael, only has one place to hang clothes and no shelves, so any belongings we have are stored at the bottom of the "wardrobe," tucked underneath the bed or scattered/piled on the floor or in corners. Much like my room at home really. We have one fan for the night but it makes a cracking noise when it revolves so Mike and I take turns having the fan for the night. The girls room is next to ours and I believe they have a bit more storage space than us. There actually is no glass in the windows, to have limited access to air would be suicidal in this heat (literally, I mean you would die from the heat).

My meals at home are fairly simple and routine. For breakfast it is always 2 pieces of white bread with margarine and plum jam, one egg (which was a recent installment), tea, multivitamin pills and malaria pills. For dinner we have either rice or noodles with beef stew (stay away from the beef), or beans and chapati. Always there is fresh mango and bananas. For lunch I buy spiced rice and passionfruit juice. Simple simple simple.

Take care everyone!

Work has begun

Since my last blog we've been planning our computer classes, the Career Fair in a month's time, as well as getting information on HIV/AIDS stigma, gender stereotypes, and drug use for the matatu drivers, which begins next week. Right now we're working on the computer classes, and as I am typing this Angela is briefing her class on Microsoft Word. The class is catching on to the materiel much faster than the students in Zanzibar did, in fact yesterday we managed to get through all of the lesson plan for that day as well as half of today's. Michael and I are focusing on teaching Microsoft Excel, which is what I have experience in from teaching during the fall.

Here, as well as in Tanzania, the kids never stop yelling "Mzungu!" whenever we walk down the street. It's fun to walk through the areas where white people usually don't visit and see the surprised faces people give us. I had heard stories before coming here that Kenyans were rude, dangerous, and easy to piss off. Now I know from the little time I've spent here that the people are extremely welcoming and happy to have us in the neighbourhood. I too am happy to be here with them, but the mosque only 3 houses away from ours always wakes me up at 5 in the morning. I usually love the Call to Prayer, but you'd think they'd at least find someone who can actually sing well haha.

There are a few interesting things I've discovered since I've been here that I didn't notice as prevalent in Zanzibar. One is the sex tourism. On Saturday all of the volunteers and a few members of Kwacha went to a local club, the place was not packed, but a large portion of the people there were older people looking for sex among the local prostitutes. Mike and I turned down a lot of offers from women who were watching us play pool or dance with the youth from Kwacha Afrika and the other volunteers. I was glad to note the club had free condom dispensers in the washroom for those people, most of the time they're not refilled.

Another thing is the chewing of the local drug miraa, or khat. It's a plant legalized here, the major effects are attentiveness and not feeling the urge to eat or sleep. The effects are only mild, however, and are pretty much the same as drinking coffee. Trying to get people to stop chewing is an impossible task in my opinion. It would be the same as asking North Americans to stop drinking coffee or caffeine products; they are simply part of our culture, much like khat is. When I was at the beach on Sunday I noticed that about 60% of people were chewing it. It's also very cheap, only 600 shillings a kilo (about 7 bucks).

I also found out that the pirated copies of DVD's here can fit about 20 movies on them, and each one is only 100 shillings. Time for a movie marathon to the max!