Thursday, April 21, 2011

Nairobi, take three!

Lenana Palace

Maya and Kelly on mine and Kelly's king sized bed

So we flew back to Nairobi via Zanzibar International Airport, an airport with security so lax my passport didn’t get looked at once, and landed once again in the bustling metropolis of Nairobi. This time I’m here for a little over six weeks for an internship with an organization that we connected with through the program, Maji na Ufanisi. I am really excited to settle down in one place after travel so much over the past three months. It will be nice to get settled in a place and really get to know the city of Nairobi.

First order of business was to get an apartment. Based out of the lovely, but small Milimani Backpacker’s Hostel, we spent a few days calling landlords, meeting with agents, and seeing apartments until finally by some stroke of luck we met the beautiful, glam landlord “Nana” who allowed us to rent one of her apartments for the duration of our internship. The apartment is now affectionately known as “The Lenana Palace” named as such for its opulence that none of us have ever come close to experiencing in Montreal and also in honour of our landlord and because we live off of Lenana road. On top of all this it’s in a very safe and secure neighbourhood a two-minute walk from the office.

Steve trying out a fluffy bathrobe that came with the place!

Master bathroom, out of picture is our shower that has eight nozzles! 

Bri in our kitchen
We’ve now been at Maji for a week and it’s been a great first week at the internship. So far I’ve helped facilitate a workshop at which youth groups from all of the slums of Nairobi are trying to form a network to strengthen their bargaining power against the government. Maji is all about participatory development meaning that it seeks to empower people to find their own solutions to their development problems. It’s role is limited to facilitation and coordination. It was really interesting to see the “participatory development model” in action, to see it work really well at motivating the participants and getting them excited, and then to see it, when everyone was hungry and losing patience, to completely fall apart and morph into the “authoritarian development model”.  Also, this week we’ve helped to organize and then finally attend the groundbreaking ceremony for a sanitation block to be built in Kibera slum. The sanitation block is to be built on a piece of land that is entitled another group that we’re working with called Vision Sisters. The Vision Sisters will use the sanitation block as an income-generating endeavor. Vision Sisters is a women’s group comprised of women, mostly over 70, who live in Kibera and want to open a Women in Crisis Centre to serve women who live in Kibera. The WICC will eventually be attached to the sanitation block. It is exciting that the groundbreaking has finally happened given that Maji and Vision Sisters have been working towards this point for almost five years but I am hesitant to be too excited since there are many impediments that this project will inevitably run into. These include chauvinistic male politicians with too much power and too little respect for the need for the WICC, lack of funding, problems with contractors, etc. We’ll see what happens- the sanitation block should be completed in two months.

Not much else to report right now. Other than working, we’ve been spending an unfortunate amount of time at malls, mostly out of necessity. I look forward to getting outside and seeing the city of Nairobi more. Talk soon!! 

Andrew and Courtney hard at work

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Kendwa Rocks!

Haji, one of our scuba instructors

The program ended amid a whirlwind of activity and to avoid too much shock many of us decided to head north on the island to a beach called Kendwa. Actually, of the 38 people on the program, at one point, 29 of us were at Kendwa which is pretty special- never have so many people from the program ever stayed together after the program. It’s been a nice gradual transition from the program since it has meant only saying bye to a few people per day instead of everyone at once. Not wanting to go directly from being hyper-busy with school work to doing nothing, at Kendwa a bunch of us decided to get our PADI diving certification. We scored a pretty good deal with a company called Scuba Doo since it's low season and we were such a big group. I have been bitten by the diving bug and am now addicted to it. I love being underwater for that long and seeing so many amazing creatures. It is amazingly calming to be in that kind of environment- although that could be attributed to the perfect, warm, clear water and the white coral sand ocean floor. The day we completed our course we chartered a catamaran (again, we got a wicked deal given the time of year and our group’s size) and took it to Mnemba Island, an island off the east coast of Zanzibar. Those who did the course went diving while the rest of the group snorkeled. We spent the rest of the day cruising around on the catamaran, swimming, and relaxing. To top it off we saw two huge groups of dolphins swimming and jumping not too far from our boat. It was a perfect day.
Kelly and me on the catamaran!

After a week or so of being beach bums we got a car back to Stone Town and spent three more days meandering around Stone Town, shopping for souvenirs, and eating delicious food. Then, on April 7th, the remaining six of us made our way to the airport and flew back to Nairobi.  

Stone Town, Zanzibar



The last stretch of the program will encompass a week in Stone Town, the “soul” of Zanzibar Town which is the capital of the semi-autonomous (from Tanzania) island off the coast of Tanzania. Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and rightly so. It is an amazing mix of Arab, Swahili, and Indian cultures which is evidenced in the architecture as well as the inhabitants of the city. The call for prayer sounds five times daily from a mosque that neighbours an incredible Indian restaurant while merchants holler at you in Swahili from their shops. I absolutely adore Stone Town. It actually has a very European feel with thin winding alleyways and cobblestone streets.

I wish you could smell the smells of this market!
The inimitable Tim Johns shows our class around the market on a field trip
Our time in Stone Town has been extremely busy. Besides lectures we went on a few field trips, most notably to a spice plantation not far from Stone Town. The Spice tour was fantastic, we got to see how cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, nutmeg, turmeric, and many other spices and fruits are harvested and processed for sale. It was a very interactive tour, we had an excellent guide who would let us taste, touch, and smell everything we saw. My notes from the day are excellent- I rubbed cinnamon bark on the page when we saw our first cinnamon tree and even weeks later it still smells, and rubbed a cut turmeric root all over the page, dying it yellow after our guide let us dig up a root. Another great field trip was a walk through one of Stone Town’s markets. I love how lively the visit was; people are yelling at you, there’s music, everyone bumps into everyone indiscriminately. There’s fresh fruits and vegetables like okra, tomatoes, cabbage, and pears, as well as less recognizable traditional African varieties. There are spices and spice products, dried fish and octopus, and woven baskets and mats.

We are also very busy wrapping up our classes with final essays and exams, finishing final research projects and presenting them and also getting ready to separate from one another. For a mental break, the program took us out on boats to an island 45 minutes off the coast of Stone Town to snorkel for half the day. The water is crystal clear turquoise blue and extremely warm and it was so nice to spend time in the boats and in the water before heading back for more work.

Stone Town, being quite the tourist hub has some great restaurants. I’ve eaten very well this week. Probably the most memorable meal for me was one that I ate at Mercury’s- named after Freddie Mercury (did you know he was born in Zanzibar?) It was a plate of fish tacos: perfectly spiced fish in a perfect warm and crispy tortilla served with mango salsa with the perfect amount of green chilies and lovely guacamole. 

Malindi + Mombasa

The view from my tent


What a nice change of pace it has been to get to the coast. At Mpala I was beginning to feel as though we were seeing the same, beautiful nonetheless, but largely the same, scenes over and over: scorched earth with pale green thorny vegetation and intense, dry heat. As soon as we neared the coast the vegetation switched to palm trees lazily swaying in the wind, growing out of the sand-covered ground. The palm trees all have pseudo-ladders hacked into them so that palm wine tappers can climb up and tap their wine. In Malindi we camped on a private beach and would fall asleep listening to the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing into the beach. It was absolutely surreal. The beach was owned by a German man and his family. His home was there and he had a restaurant and bar on the premises too. The beach is perfect white coral sand and the ocean water is the temperature of bath water and the colour of perfect turquoise. The variation between high tide and low tide is quite dramatic as well with low tide retreating far out into sea and high tide threatening to drench our tents and producing amazing waves that we’d spend our afternoons body surfing on. Besides playing in the water, during our time at Malindi we did assignments, had lectures by the beach, and visited locals farms and had lectures by the farmers. My favourite part of this class is that my prof always buys samples of traditional African fruits and vegetables for us to sample. The best one we’ve tried is baobab fruit from the baobab tree also known as Rafiki’s house.

Map of the sacred forest in relation to Mombasa
After four days in Malindi we drove to Mombasa. On the drive there my class stopped in Kaya Rabai forest. This is one of a collection of forests that are considered sacred to the Mijikenda people who live on the coast of Kenya. The dress for a male Mijikenda is limited to a blueish-green sarong tied around his waist. We were greeted by an elder Mijikenda who escorted us through the forest. Rules of the forest: no shoes or socks (to ensure proper contact with the sandy forest floor which has healing and cleansing properties) and no running (so as not to disturb the ancestors and so as to prolong your foot’s contact with the healing, cleansing sand). Keep in mind that our visit took place at 1:30 in the afternoon under the hot midday sun. I don’t think we’ve ever experienced so much pain. Our feet were numb for hours after. It was absolutely scorching. The elder was so sweet and said we did a great job and thanked us for not complaining at all. He said that it’s OK to leap around a little bit. I would argue that “a little bit” is a gross understatement- we were jumping around in between patches of shade and speed walking through the tour. In all though, the forest was beautiful and I appreciate that we were allowed to visit given that only recently people other than the Mijikenda have been allowed to enter the forests. It was fascinating to hear about their beliefs and traditions. The Mijikenda are also very special because they’ve been especially successful at maintaining their traditional lifestyle and practices, no doubt in some part due to the fact that they and their forests are protected under UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

We arrived at our Presbyterian (a.k.a. dry) hotel in Mombasa in the afternoon and spent the night working on projects and essays. The next morning we said goodbye to our beloved Bunduz staff and trucks at the Mombasa airport and boarded our flight to Zanzibar. 

Welcome to Camping Paradise + Voi

The most incredible hot sauce I've ever had!



Mpala Research Centre, to the North of Nairobi with Mt. Kenya not far off in the distance, was described to us a few weeks ago as camping paradise/heaven. I tried not to let my imagination get ahead of me and build it up in my head so as not to be disappointed when we finally arrived there. But it’s hard to be disappointed by anything that Mpala has to offer. The tents were huge canvas tents with real beds inside- think Meryl Streep and Robert Redford’s tents in Out of Africa. My roommate Brianna and I would often open up the front doors so that we had a view of the river in front of our tents. The river was a beautiful sound to fall asleep to- it reminded me of being home by the mighty Mississippi. Each morning before we woke up, the staff at the site would come around with warm water and filled two buckets outside our rooms so that we could wash our faces with warm water as soon as we woke up. There was a FREE laundry service included in our stay which was a total treat because I am woefully inept at hand washing my clothes- they never get quite clean again. The food at Mpala was absolutely sublime. I should mention that the centre is where Princeton academics come to do research in East Africa. This means that it is completely funded by Princeton alum. While we lowly McGillians were absolutely blown away by the food, the Princeton students there had been keeping a comment book that had suggested improvements to all of the meals. My favourite meal there was a dish of excellent beans, a delicious veggie rice pilaf, and a beef stew. Dessert was perfect pineapple slices. The crowning glory was an amazing hot sauce that I think was simply ground up chilies. There were also jugs of cold water on all of the tables at every meal (cold water is unheard of here) and tea, consisting of a coffee cake and biscuits, was served everyday mid-morning. Another great thing about the site was a bonfire pit ringed with a bench with oversized colourful pillows. Amazing. Mpala is close to Laikipia National Reserve meaning it has a very high density of wildlife. During our stay we saw hippos and giraffes, as well as heard hippos. There were hippos right outside our tent one night which might sound cool but is actually pretty scary considering hippos can be just as dangerous as lions.

While at Mpala we continued with our classes. We did lectures in the airy library at the station and went on trips into the field with local guides. We looked at different plants and learned about the many multifarious ways in which people here utilize their plants.
After a luxurious five-day stay in Mpala we loaded up the trucks and embarked on a thirteen and a half hour (!!!) bus ride to Voi- a town in between Tsavo East National Park and Tsavo West. Google Map it- we went from Laikipia National Reserve (north of Mt. Kenya) to Voi in one day which means we travelled across half of Kenya in one day. We arrived at a beautiful lodge run by a lovely German proprietress with dinner ready for us. The lodge had a bar and a pool so we unwound from our dusty bumpy ride in the pool under the stars. It was perfect. I’m writing this as we drive away from Voi eastward toward the coast. We’re all very excited to get to the Indian Ocean, although our excitement is a bit tainted because the coast means that the end of the program is imminent. I’m trying not to think about that too much though and am still loving every minute of this adventure. Love you all! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!      

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Nairobi, Take two!

James and I in Kibera
Back in the organized chaos that is Nairobi and it’s good to be back! Our first day back was comprised of winding up session two projects and doing final exams and then for a treat they took us “out on the town” for dinner. Because of the strict risk management rules we aren’t allowed to do much on our own. So in order to give us some free time they took us to a huge country club-esque compound that had five restaurants, pools, karaoke bars, and dance clubs. I am fairly certain that we were the only people there except for a few white families out for dinner. A night out, indeed. In any case, it was a very fun night out given that we had no school work to worry about.  I split a delicious thin crust pizza and the cheapest bottle of red with the beautiful Anne Jeffery J We had the next day off and so they let us loose in a mall called “Westgate”. We spent the day shopping for a few necessities that we’d run out of, as well as souvenirs and ice cream! It was a bit surreal coming being in this bustling, air-conditioned mall after weeks of camping away from civilization.

The next day the real stuff started- we spent the next two days back in Kibera slum working with a few NGOs and CBOs doing very informal work and research. This visit was much better than the first one at the very beginning of the trip. I think it’s important to think of these communities simply as you would any other community instead of over-thinking it and defining it as some horrible, desolate place. I went in with that mindset and really enjoyed our visit this time. That may also have been due to the fact that I made a friend named James one day who walked around with us as we walked around Kibera. We visited the sanitation blocks in the neighbourhood of Soweto East- the neighbourhood that is acting as a test tube for slum upgrading projects that will be scaled up to the rest of the neighbourhoods in Kibera.

After this two day Urban Module we started classes for third session. This is the class that I am most excited for, the one I’ve been eagerly anticipating for the entire trip. It’s called Nutrition and Society, an enthobotany nutrition class taught by Professor Tim Johns. Tim reminds me exactly of Sean Connery except that he is exceedingly knowledgeable about plants and always has a laugh right below the surface ready to come out. The course looks at nutrition and also traditional African knowledge about nutrition and wild plants. It is right up my alley because it is at once a tough science class and a revealing anthropology class about the people in the communities that we visit. I appreciate its holistic look at nutrition and food security- studying either of these issues in a straight science OR arts way is extremely limited in use.