Eastward Ho!

Up to Kakamega on Tuesday (an hour north), with a list of last-minute chores to do on the way: charging batteries, ordering a land-line for Naomy's house, buying phone cards... We passed the crying stone of somewhere-or-other, a small boulder perched on a huge stone column, from which water continually and enigmatically seeps. Banking and internet catching-up to be done when we got there, then restaurant food for the first time in a week and home, dropping off on the way a headmaster friend of Naomy's who assured us that the drive to Nairobi would only take three-and-a-half hours in a car. Ha!

We left for Mombassa around six Wednesday morning as the sky began to lighten, and it took seven hours to reach Nairobi, excluding our breakfast break just past Nakuru. We found chips and soda in Nairobi, while Naomy found her insurance documents and her old friend Julius - then off on a hopeless quest to reach Voi by nightfall. Defeated by bumpy roads, we pulled over at the Ali-Sam Guest House in Emali, to be welcomed by hot foam mattresses, many flies, and a two-hour wait for tough-as-old-boots roast goat.

Setting out early this morning, however, we were glad we'd stopped where we did, as the road was being rebuilt and the crazy matatus, enormous juggernauts and us had to share a terrible make-do farm track of a road for about 100km to Mtito Andei. Here, more flies shared our breakfast, though the trinket sellers had some bargains for us! I took over driving, just as we reached the best Kenyan roads we've driven on - I had the same luck yesterday. So we whizzed through Tsavo and Voi and on toward Mombassa, stopping only to photograph passing zebra and baboons, and the odd baobab tree. This is how you'd expect the main supply road into Africa from the huge port of Mombassa to be - and how it might all be if Kenya had a little less corruption and a little less debt. But all good things must end, and the last hour or two to Mombassa we hit the worst roads we'd seen, with the verges often better going than the carriageway.

Mombassa at two in the afternoon is hot, but Hemstrong (chair of the Bunyore Welfare Association of Mombassa, mysteriously important guest at the Harambee in Bunyore last weekend) had invited Naomy to call in - so we waited, melting, for an hour, while he rang every fifteen minutes to tell us he'd be there any time now. Finally he arrived, and took us literally round the corner to his house and a cool-ish soda. As well as the soda, our 90 minutes with him gained us a good introduction to the Lion King game his sons were playing on their PS2, instructions to get to Watamu ("only 45 minutes away"), some vaguely worded support for Naomy's work in the future, and an explanation for his mysterious popularity with the local Bunyore politicians: Naomy asked about his political ambitions and he explained he was merely interested in serving the community, and couldn't really say whether or not he'd be interested in standing as an MP ...

So onward, ever onward to Watamu - which had somehow moved a further hour up the coast, and where we were warmly welcomed by Miranda, Swiss-German wife of a Massai whose family own the Malob Guesthouse: pretty much the cheapest place in town. She showed us the beach, helped us sort out Naomy with an accessible bathroom, and pointed us to the cheap and tasty-enough Roasters restaurant. And, after a 1000 km drive, we went to bed.

- Mark

Getting ready for the road

A quieter day. Up early enough to walk about the area a little with Heather - many surprised stares and smiles - a little like in China. Today we ran out of water - this is apparently going to be the norm in the area in January, but our big tank should be full by then. The mains pipe broke recently, however, so we have nothing in the tank and no mains supply - this scares me a little! There's water from somewhere which gets boiled and cooled for drinking, and is clean enough for washing, but there's no water in the taps, or filling the loos up. This should be an education.

We saw more of Kisumu today, driving in and walking around with Anne and Rebecca. While buying fruit, we bought off a group of persistent street boys with a bunch of bananas which the stallholder distributed: while she organised the street boys into an orderly queue (!), we made good our escape from requests for 10 shillings. A short drive towards Lake Victoria and we were passing the security guarded mansions of the rich - we stood and contemplated the contrast staring over the wide brown waters. A hippo-boat captain explained how ornamentally-introduced water hyacinth had nearly choked the lake, and stopped all shipping, until a Kenyan researcher found a weevil that ate it - the few sorry specimens at the waters edge didn't look like a threat to shipping anymore. We'll be back earlier another day to the Impala Sanctuary, and to see hippos from a boat.

There are unsaid things here (as everywhere, I suppose!). A Kenyan newspaper report the other day told of the death from "pneumonia" of Mandela's son-in-law, following his wife, who died a year ago. That's not necessarily an unspoken AIDS story, but I haven't seen or heard any spoken ones yet, in this country with a huge rate of infection and many, many deaths. Where are all the HIV-positive people? There's lots of HIV test adverts, seems like there's lots of education and public information of the "Take Great Care" variety, but I've not heard named anyone with HIV antibodies, or anyone who died of AIDS (I checked through the death notices in the papers a couple of times ...), and I haven't seen any signs or articles or organisations of or for people with a positive antibody status.

Gay people are even more invisible: this months "Parents" magazine has a moving story of a man struggling to understand his brother's out-of-the-blue suicide. In the note he left, he talks about a "problem he identified in the 1980s" which he'd tried everything to fix, which was why he was killing himself, and which he was not going to reveal even then. The surviving brother noted he never had girlfriends and wondered about impotence, but neither him nor the magazine mentioned the "g" word as a possibility ...

Of course, this is all seen through my white western eyes. More listening and learning to be done!

- Mark

Jamhuri (Republic) Day

After being so well looked after since we got here, today we got up early and cooked. First time in three months - good to do, but exhausting. We made 'English Breakfast' (bacon, sausages, eggy bread, fried and scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, cornflakes, tea, etc.) for eleven, with one frying pan.

Heather and I made everyone hugely uncomfortable by seating all in the dining area, and not sitting ourselves - I could hardly bear the discomfort on Paul and Esther and Susan's faces, and wanted desparately to let them go back to eating in the kitchen, but Heather remained firm and by the end of breakfast she had everyone talking, letting her know what they'd liked and hadn't (sausages OK, cornflakes yeeuch!)

Washing up bacon-greasy plates and pans in an unfamiliar kitchen with no running water, limited hot water and "dish-washing paste" instead of fairy liquid or ecover is no joke. I think it took us two hours...

We headed off in the car again to call on Naomy's mother - she was out strolling somewhere, so we waited; chatted; met Robert (Naomy's brother) and Sylvia (his wife), both teachers; met lots and lots of children; and eventually caught up with 'Mama' on the way back.

More cooking - this time Sunday dinner: people a little more relaxed this time sitting together, although this might well be a slow process! Kenyan chickens are very different than what we're used to - killed and plucked for us by Paul, the meat much chewier, though with more flavour. There's also very little breast, thought the tiny bit I tried was delicious. Washing up was quicker this time with help from Rosa and Mo, (and a few pointers from Rebecca) - still, we slept well after our unaccustomed labours ...

- Mark

Saturday Harambee

I can't believe it's two weeks to Christmas Day - I love being away from all the Christmas consumerism! We've had no boring and greedy conversations about wanting millions of presents, no worrying about buying hundreds of gifts, and the few cards we sent were posted ages ago. It would be great to be able to pop home for one crisp, cold day and an Xmas party, but other than that I don't think anyone will miss it all that much. Here, Christmas apparently has some kind of religious significance (other than the worship of the Market) ... that'll be interesting!

The Emehayu local group of the disabled was started in 1993 by Naomy and others. When Naomy left the country, she thought it might fold, but it's grown slowly in strength and numbers, and now has 42 members, rent-free use of some rooms, and a knitting and sewing employment project using equipment donated from the UK. Survival (or poverty) seems to be very much the key disability issue here, and Emehayu's main focus is on finding ways for disabled people to earn a living. Today they held their first Harambee (fund-raising party), and Naomy was Guest of Honour, with us as her entourage.

There was much waiting around, and many speeches - and we had been placed in front row seats, so couldn't even nip to the loo easily! After we'd all spoken (as "guests from England"), the invited politicians arrived, with seven or eight others in tow, and all of them made a speech. It was, I would judge, a good political event for the group - and a good re-entry for Naomy, who made a great speech - but they were disappointed to have raised only KSh 11,600 (plus a politician's pledge to press for a further KSh 5000). They'd hoped for KSh 50,000 (335 quid) which was probably over-ambitious. (If anyone wants to make their Christmas season with a donation, email us now!) Lani's existence and disability active-ness was a source of some excitement, and we've promised to return with her when she visits in January.

It's worth mentioning the skill (and dogged persistence) with which the group's chair and patron took it in turns to translate all the speeches between Kinyore and English, largely in our honour. Kinyore is the language of the Bunyore (see next post down) and is the mothertongue of most people we meet day-to-day.

Saturday ended with another foray into neighbouring Luo territory (this time to to raid the Kisumu supermarket for food. Back home, in the glow of a hurricane lamp, Rosa and I played guitar and sang and laughed for a while - then dinner, then bed.

- Mark

Hairdos, puppies, rites of passage

Melissa had her hair done this afternoon, which might have taken less than three hours if the hairdresser hadn't been doing two or three other women's hair atthe same time. They were very friendly, though, at the Roselin Salon in Majengo, and there was lots of time for Naomy's Botswana-bought car to have it's new Kenyan number plates put on; for bottles of pop to be bought and drunk; for H to enjoy driving around a lot; and for us to find the internet access in the post office in the next village.

To use the four fairly fast connections at the "Posta" in Mbale, we needed scratch cards - like mobile phone top-up cards. But the Posta in Mbale was out of stock, and didn't know when they'd have any again. After a minute's thought, the man at the counter decided to help us out if he could, and rang the Vihiga Posta (in Gambogi, Naomy's nearest village) - who had some!

So Heather drove off to get cards, while Rosa and I wandered around Mbale for a while (Naomy was also having her hair done by this time). Heather got a bit lost, and returned with the cards just as the Posta was closing, but another friendly guy, Kennedy, let us stay on a further hour while he waited for the last postal truck of the day. Heather just happened to ask him if he knew anyone with puppies, and before long we were on our way to his place to see his bitch's litter of nine. The plan, I'm told, is to choose one or two to be guards at Naomy's place, starting just after Christmas.

And did I mention that Naomy's carpenter invited us to come to the celebrations preceding a local circumcision ceremony in a couple of weeks? Only boys are circumsixed here, apparently - Luyha (A group of seventeen tribes, including the Bunyore, which Naomy and almost everyone else we meet regularly belongs to) have never circumcised girls, and the neighbouring Luo don't circumcise at all (we reckon they give bicycles as a rite of manhood instead, given the quantity milling around Kisumu!). The day after the party we're invited to, a group of 10-15 year old boys will eb taken to the woods, where they'll be cut, and where they'll stay, with no contact with women, until they're healed. As Naomy put it, "this is when they are told many bad things," about being 'proper men'.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, unless you want brutalised and terrified men, separated very effectively from women - I can't really imagine what it's like, and I'm scared to ask! But maybe if we go to this party, I'll get a chance to learn more...

- Mark

Little House on the Equator

Heather met Naomy in 1995 at the NGO forum of the UN's Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, in the disability issues tent with Lani (then 13). Naomy had become involved in disability issues in 1993 when the (non-disabled) head of a local special school asked her to represent him at a national meeting of the newly set up United Disabled Persons of Kenya. Inspired by this, she set up a local "extremely grassroots" organisation of disabled people, and was soon a disabled people's rep on the Kenya Council of Churches.

She left school teaching a few years later to work full time in disability issues - first in Zimbabwe, then in Botswana. For the last five years, she's been saving money from her earnings and using it to build a house in her home district of Vihiga, Western Kenya - where we're now staying.

Naomy had made sure to warn us, many times over, about the lack of electricity here, how simple it would be - so we're amazed by how big and comfortable it all is. H and I have an en-suite bathroom, the lack of electric fans is not really a problem - we're pretty much on the equator here, but we must be nearly 1500m above sea level, and it's almost cool at night, and not at all the oppressively humid, mosquito-ridden atmosphere we'd begun to fear!

Paul looks after the place for Naomy, and always hears the car coming and has the gates open before we get there. His wife, Esther, washes our clothes and floors, and brings us bucket-loads of hot water for washing ourselves. Susan (not in the photos below), who was Naomy's maid for many years, has come on a visit and is helping out with cooking and other chores. Naomy's friend Rose has been staying, too (though she's gone off for a couple of days to cater for a wedding), and she has been in charge of feeding us a huge variety of simple and more complicated food. With Rose away, Naomy's niece Rebecca takes charge in the kitchen, and Naomy's daughter Anne helps out too, in between revising for her exams at the beginning of the new school year in January. Naomy's sister Lydia was here to welcome us, and Naomy's neighbour Gladys drove her car to collect us from the bus station (Naomy's not yet confident to drive in the local city, Kisumu). And Gladys' youngest son Brian visits most days, too.

The water supply is very intermittent (so they've installed a big tank to store water when it is on), there's no electricity and no phone, and there are lots of padlocks, bolts, ornamental window bars and other security precautions - but this is a very good, relaxing, warm comfortable, secure and generally great place for us to have as home for the next eight weeks.

- Mark