Torn from their roots, putting down roots

On Tuesday 12 January, just at noon as the equatorial sun was beating down on our heads, we visited the settlement of Chigaze, near Mai Mahiu in the Rift Valley. This was one stop in a very busy day planned by our hosts for the day, the Water for Peace Project, which has an affiliation both with CRWRC and with Christian Community Services, a development initiative of the Anglican diocese of Mount Kenya South. A couple of men from the settlement met our bus on arrival and explained how this village of about 140 homes, neatly laid out along a couple of dirt roads, had come into existence on the hot and dry valley floor.

Ethnic conflict has erupted many times over several decades in areas where the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest ethnic group, are a local minority. After the chaos that followed the December 2007 elections, Kikuyu families from a number of areas far to the north and west converged in the Nyemi area, between Nairobi and Mount Kenya, fearing that if they rebuilt the homes that had just been destroyed the cycle would only repeat itself once again. The Kenyan government gave each family a resettlement payment of Ksh 10,000 ($130), and the recipients said to each other, “If we eat this money it will be gone tomorrow, so let us put it together and see what we can accomplish.” Soon afterward the temporary camp where they were living was closed and they were forced to move again, with the help of an additional stipend of Ksh 15,000.

The leaders of the group arranged to purchase a large tract of land from private landowners near Mai Mahiu. That took most of the resettlement money; with the rest and with the materials provided by the government and donated by an NGO, each family gathered corner posts, sticks, rocks and mud for the walls, corrugated iron for roofing, and other building materials. Around each house, neatly fenced, is a shamba (farm plot) large enough to feed the family if carefully tended. Just a couple of years after they arrived, the houses are completed and the gardens are thriving.

Our next activity took us completely by surprise. “Please take a walk through our settlement, in groups of two or three, and wherever you see someone working in the shamba or doing laundry, please greet them. They will be happy to answer any questions that you may have about their lives and the community.” Susan, Chikka (our CRWRC "bridger") and I stopped to greet a young woman tending to her baby in front of her house, and she proved to be extremely reticent, perhaps unable to talk with us in English (or Swahili, with Chikka translating). But in a few minutes her mother-in-law arrived, a lively and gregarious woman of perhaps 70 (or 60? Or 50? it’s difficult to know) who was entirely comfortable speaking English and eager to tell us her story. Driven out of three homes near Eldoret in the past fifteen years, the last a five-bedroom wooden home that was burned down along with the rest of her village, she does not expect ever to return home.  She lives now with her son, his wife, and their baby in a small but well-kept two-room mud-walled house.  Life is much better here, she said, because at last she feels secure.

There is no primary school in Chigaze, but there is one a few km away that the children attend. Every plot is carefully planted in a variety of food crops, but no one in the settlement has found employment outside it, so there’s very little cash coming in. We heard a sobering object lesson, too, about how donor-driven development can go astray. A Canadian NGO, having learned that the new village has no water source, drilled a borehole to a depth that would ensure year-round water and installed a pump and several large storage tanks. In completing the project, however, they did not take into account the unusual local conditions: because of nearby geological activity—harnessed in geothermal turbines not far away to produce 30% of Kenya’s electrical power—the water deep underground is very hot. The water pump that was installed failed after a few months, because it was not designed for such conditions. But by that time the NGO had packed up its bags, taken its photos and written its reports on a successful project, and gone home. The residents of Chigaze cannot obtain replacement parts, and they lack the money to remove the broken pump and install one suited to their situation. So they must buy all of their water from tanker trucks.

Organic farming in the Rift Valley and Mt. Kenya region

A theme of the community leaders we met on our first two field trips was the need to develop new farming methods that increase yield and assure sustainability—in contrast to the vast expanses of maize, struggling to survive drought and kept barely alive by commercial fertilizer, that dominate the landscape across Kenya. Our first outing on Tuesday 12 January was to the village of Mai Mahiu in the Rift Valley northwest of Nairobi, where we started the day by planting trees among the recently planted maize and bean crop of a small Maasai community that is working with Christian Community Services, a development outreach of the Anglican diocese of Mount Kenya South. CCS is one of the groups with whom Christian Reformed World Relief works most closely in several areas of Kenya. Deep holes had already been dug in preparation, to ensure that when rains come once more in March and April the saplings will get plenty of water.

Each of us—twelve Calvin students, half a dozen community members who had just given us a short briefing on their work, and Susan and me—picked up a couple of tree seedlings, found a hole not yet occupied somewhere on the wide expanse of the planted fields, got down on hands and knees to dig a seedling into the soil a foot or so below the surrounding soil level, and then pushed enough soil back into the hole to provide support. In the arid climate of the valley floor, we were told, food crops wither unless you plant trees to give them shade. It was a beautiful scene—bright morning sunshine, the high walls of the valley and a volcanic peak, Mt. Longenot, in the distance—and the students seemed delighted to get their hands dirty and do some work in the fields.

Later that morning near Mai Mahiu, and again on the following day in the highlands near Chania, in the Mount Kenya region northeast of Nairobi, we visited several organic farms that share several techniques for improving crop yields and conserving soil fertility. Vegetables are planted in poly bags of soil, enriched with manure, that are then placed on the ground—with no holes for drainage, because water is in such short supply during the many months between Kenya’s two rainy seasons. At one farm we looked in amazement at tomato plants, trained to twine, that climbed well over our heads. They were heavily laden with ripening fruit, each vine rooted in a poly bag about 12 inches across. Maize was planted not in the usual rows but in clusters of six stalks in small depressions in the soil where organic matter had been dug in deeply before planting. The depressions catch water, and the rich soil will support three crops before it’s necessary to dig in more fertilizer. Cowpeas and other legumes are planted among the maize plants, as nitrogen-fixing “green manure.” The plants grow so densely that the field is impenetrable, in sharp contrast to the dry and spindly maize in neighboring fields. At the first farm we visited, in the dry valley, we found gigantic zucchini (“courgettes” here) that the students took back to the YMCA to give to the kitchen, along with some sugar cane stalks eight feet long. Most of Kenya got some rain in early January—a very unusual event—but there is very little green still showing in most fields. On this farm, where tall trees provide shade and careful contouring holds water, everything was flourishing.

Let me introduce John, a farmer and posho mill operator of 60 who conducts classes in his village in the foothills near Chania on improving crop yields. (“You are my age-mate!” he cried, on learning that I will join him this year in reaching that milestone—and for Kikuyu like John the age cohort is a central part of one’s identity.) He welcomed us warmly and extended his hand—missing several fingers from an injury long ago—and then took us on a tour of his farm, which is no more than a quarter acre in total. In one corner he showed us the artificial wetland he created to store rain runoff and grow arrowroot, in another the rows of huge squash plants and cabbages growing out of poly bags. Nearby in a coop were the chickens and rabbits that he feeds entirely with unneeded greens and trimmings from his crops, alongside a five-foot high pile of beans still drying on their vines til they are ready to shell. As we walked around John kept up a constant narrative about neighbors who can feed their families from their shambas for the first time in their lives, and he said he had solved the problem of poor attendance at community meetings to discuss AIDS prevention and treatment. He calls meetings to tell his neighbors how they can harvest vegetable despite drought and keep plants vigorous enough to repel pests without chemicals, and then while he has their attention he devotes half the meeting to STDs and their prevention.

Our students were greatly impressed by John. “He could persuade anybody to do anything!” wrote some in their journals. What I found especially interesting was the dynamic of community leadership that we were observing in action in Chania. The residents who briefed us about their work and took us from site to site are well-informed, committed, articulate—and very young. A few may have attended university, and all, I think, completed secondary school, which is far more schooling than is typical in the villages where they work. When they bring new ideas—how to conserve water, treat illnesses, overcome ethnic conflict, or simply grow more maize—no doubt they are given a polite hearing. And then ignored, because they’re so young and haven’t been farming for several decades. But when the same advice comes from older men or women in the community, it is far more likely to bring change. Anybody can go off to school and come home with impressive new theories, after all. But when someone like John embraces and acts on their recommendations, and when you see the size and vigor of the crops he harvests, you are ready to follow suit.

The contrast between the two areas we visited was dramatic: broad, open expanses of land in the Rift Valley, parched by the sun during the dry seasons; rolling hills where neatly organized fields alternate with patches of forest on the steep valley slopes of Gatundu South district. As we climbed up into the hills, from Chania to the village of Mataara, coffee plants gave way to tea plantations, where we saw residents of the villages plucking leaves and filling huge baskets that they carried on their backs to the sheds of the tea buyers nearby. Farther to the west tea growing is dominated by a few large corporations, but here in the eastern part of the Kenyan highlands it is a very local industry, and many families have a plot of tea bushes in addition to their farmland for growing vegetables.

Visiting two worlds in one day

Now that the students have returned home, there’s time at last to gather up my notes on the past three intense weeks and prepare some blog entries. I will post several more in the next few days—and (unlike this one) they will be short. I know the world has been waiting breathlessly for this blog to take shape. Or at least its two or three potential readers. Our hope is both to keep a record for our future reference—far from complete, but highlighting the most important events and reflections—and to keep family and friends informed of our progress here.

After our grueling air journey—nearly 30 hours in all from our rendezvous at the Grand Rapids airport til we landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport here at 6:30 am on Sunday 10 January—the twelve Calvin students in my January Interim course (IDIS W-41: “Building Communities in Kenya”) settled into cramped quarters at the YMCA, right next to the University of Nairobi campus in the center of the city. (We had 13 enrolled, but one withdrew at the last minute for urgent personal and family reasons.) Susan and I moved right into our lovely flat at Daystar University’s downtown campus, which is only about 3 km from the center. Getting back and forth each day has been expensive by taxi—that’s been a shock, that taxis cost nearly as much as in major US cities, even after we have learned the prevailing fares so we can bargain more effectively. And depending on traffic it can be quicker to walk (35 minutes, we learned last week on a day when we had a later departure). We’ve usually returned home after dark, when walking is not an option.

Nairobi is a city with an alarmingly high crime rate, but we have found—taking our cue from both Kenyan and American friends—that in many areas of the city walking is safe in daytime. There are two large and well-stocked supermarkets just a mile or so from our flat, and we’ve made that walk many times already, our backpacks heavily laden for the return trip. On the whole, living in Nairobi feels a lot like living in a South African city or in a major urban area in the US. We don’t carry a lot of cash around, lock car and bus doors and windows when stalled in traffic, and keep a close eye on our surroundings. And so far, having no car, we haven’t ventured out at all at night, to restaurants or cinemas or cultural events. But it certainly isn’t necessary to live in fear.

Our first day was lightly scheduled: just a trip to a cultural center where we ate lunch, took a walking tour of reconstructed village houses of Kenya’s major ethnic groups, and saw a lively demonstration of traditional dances. Saw them, that is, if our eyes were open—few of us could stay awake for the entire show. It was a good chance for Susan and the students to get acquainted with Chikka Yambo, our CRWRC coordinator, who is just terrific to work with. She is very organized, knowledgeable, savvy about security and about how to avoid tourist rip-offs, and helpful in a thousand ways, even though she joined the CRWRC staff just a few months ago and this is her first time making arrangements for a visiting group. She’s been able to make connections with a remarkable variety of CRWRC partners in the field, and as I look back on our weeks together I find that all of my goals for the course have been met, and more, thanks to her careful prep work and the extraordinary openness and resourcefulness of all the community leaders we have met.

On Monday our exposure to Kenyan culture and the challenges of development work began with a bang. We met the leaders of a small savings and loan association in Kibera, reputed to be the largest slum in Africa, where an estimated 650,000 people from every ethnic group in the country have come in search of a better life than they had in their villages and towns. It began as an informal camp for Nubian veterans who had served with British forces in World War II, located on government land along the main Mombasa-Nairobi-Kinshasa railway line. Today it’s a bewildering maze of rough dirt tracks, informal housing built of dried mud or concrete block or corrugated iron or recycled shipping containers or whatever else may come to hand. Since we visited Kibera in 2001 there are some visible improvements: along the roads (but not in houses) electricity is available, and an NGO is building public toilets here and there. But there are huge piles of refuse everywhere, and sewage still runs in open gutters everywhere. There is no regular water supply, and residents must buy their water from tankers or carry it from a nearby stream. We didn’t see the infamous “flying toilets” we have read about—plastic bags of human waste being lobbed onto the rubbish piles—but we could certainly smell them.

One change since 2001 that Susan and I found encouraging was the absence of school-age children during the morning. We were followed by a herd of younger children incessantly calling out “How are you! How are you! How are you!”, but older children showed up only at lunchtime, wearing a colorful variety of school uniforms. Government schools just outside the slum now serve large numbers of Kibera children, who do not need to pay fees thanks to a recent government policy change. (For secondary schools there are still fees.) Many residents opt instead for private schools inside Kibera, most of them church-supported, that have primary classes of 20 rather than 50, even though the monthly fees of Ksh 200-300 (USD $2.60 - $3.90) are a heavy burden for many.

We were worried about how our students would react to seeing Kibera on our first full day in Kenya. But we were all very impressed by the work of the Kibera Savings and Credit Association, and by reports that this is just one of hundreds of self-help organizations launched and operated by Kibera residents, with advice and limited financial assistance from church and nonprofit groups. Evelyn, its treasurer, is a licensed pharmacist but could not support herself in her home community, so she moved to Kibera a decade or so ago. (We’ve been given first names only on most of our visits, but I’ve been promised family names as well—I’ll fill them in when I have them.) The association began in 1995 as a revolving loan fund for already established businesses in the slum that need capital to expand, supported by the church that houses its offices and provides space for its weekly ymeetings. New members pay pay Ksh 5000 to join, and then they must deposit Ksh 100 per week (USD $65.00 / $1.30). After six months without missing a payment, they may borrow Ksh 15,000 ($195)—essentially borrowing their own money back, plus an equal amount from the association. This must be repaid with 15% interest within six months. The rate sounds high, but it’s far lower than banks would charge—if they made loans in Kibera, which they do not. If this first loan is repaid on schedule, a larger loan with longer repayment is available, and then a still larger loan after that is repaid, and so forth.

After our briefing, before we visited association members’ shops, it was essential to pay a courtesy call on the Kibera chief, Douglas Oma Nyakash, who welcomed us to Kibera and told us many times over what a privilege it was for us to be able to meet with him. Your professor, he said, is sitting just where Barack Obama sat when he visited Kibera. Then he dispatched two of the young men in his retinue to walk with us as security guards—very friendly and personable young men, eager to talk, and of course eager for a contribution when we were done. The chief, a government employee, supervises the police force in Kibera: 35 officers who follow the “community policing” model of working closely with residents, he said. Quite a task, when by his estimate they serve 750,000 people. (That’s his figure; “one million” is often cited—these are all guesses, but I think 650,000 is the most credible among them.)

Then we walked together to four businesses: a furniture workshop run by a very resourceful and articulate young widow, with barely room to stand around the desk that was under construction by the carpenter she has hired; a “posho mill,” a large electrical mill for grinding maize into the fine flour that is used for ugali, the polenta-like cornmeal mush that is a staple of the Kenyan diet; a fruit and vegetable stand; and a shop selling school uniforms and other clothing. Several of the owners are now on their third or fourth loans, and their short speeches followed a similar pattern: life in Kibera is difficult, but God has blessed me richly through the association and now I can pay my children’s school fees, and I hope with the Lord’s help to expand my business further next year.

The posho mill belongs to John Otieno, chairman of the association, who joined us for the morning. After we crossed the railroad tracks (Kenya’s main intercity line) from the comparatively uncrowded southern part of Kibera to the far denser housing on the north side, he invited us to come and see where he lives. The door was locked and he did not have a key, but since the next unit was open and temporarily unoccupied we could step inside to get a sense of what a typical Kibera home looks like: a single room, about 2 meters square, with a door and a small window on one side, concrete walls, and a corrugated roof. In the next unit, just like the one we saw, John lives with his 14 children and grandchildren. That’s where they sleep, dress, cook, and eat. (He didn’t mention a wife—my impression was that he cares for the children alone.)

Many residents also keep their chickens and goats in their units, to prevent theft. We saw a number of chickens scratching in the dirt here and there, tied by one leg to deter theft. Even more sobering than the dwelling units was the path that took us there, ducking under clotheslines and squeezing through narrow passages, picking our footing carefully to avoid the flowing sewage and piles of garbage, down twisting alleyways where women were doing their laundry and cooking while babies played in the dirt nearby.

The students’ journals showed that they were as much encouraged as depressed by what they saw. Several made the comment that the residents paid us little attention but seemed intent on

going about their work. Only once or twice did anyone beg for money, and if we greeted the adults we passed most returned our greetings readily, with a smile. Our overall impression was of an amazingly energetic and busy community, far too crowded and disastrously underserved by basic necessities, yet full of life. The shopkeepers do a brisk business, with produce and clothing and other goods coming in “from town” every day. But unless they attend government schools many of the children of Kibera never leave its confines, and they may grow up knowing no other life.

The energy can sometimes be tragically misdirected, and Kibera sometimes erupts in chaos in response to political and ethnic events. It forms a large part of the constituency of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and (as I learned from the very informative talk given last fall at Calvin by Christine Odewes, a Catholic lay missioner who served in Kibera for 7 years) every attempt to improve conditions by providing land titles has been blocked by the politicians who reap handsome profits by collecting rent from slum residents on the basis of fake title deeds. Every ethnic group in Kenya is represented in the slum, and it was one of the first flashpoints for ethnic violence after the December 2007 elections. It is also saturated by criminal gangs who prey on the residents and demand protection money from shopkeepers. It really boggles the mind to realize that this city of the poor, with twice the population twice of Grand Rapids, is enclosed in one small section of Nairobi that most of its residents would never dream of visiting.

On the afternoon of the same day we went from the bottom to the top of Nairobi’s social and economic ladder,passing through wealthy northern suburbs to visit the new US Embassy in Gitiri. Through wide tree-lined streets, past tall cement walls topped with razor wire, we caught an occasional glimpse of lovely gardens and patios and spacious houses. This is the area where UN and senior officials of Kenyan and foreign governments live, with their cooks and children’s maids and drivers and security guards.

The former US Embassy in the center was destroyed in a terrorist attack in 1998, killing 12 Americans and 28 others in the embassy building and more than 200 in an adjacent building. You can certainly see the lessons learned when you approach the fortress that has replaced it and the multiple layers of wall, fence, and security surveillance all around it. The embassy has 7 “watch stand” Marines responsible for overall security, as is usual, and a Marine commander. They oversee a staff of 700 locally hired security guards.

We were there to register our passport numbers (all but the Canadian and the Korean student) and to get a security briefing and a general introduction to life in Kenya. The Cultural Affairs liaison responsible for Fulbright recipients had lined up a large cast of his colleagues for the occasion. The security officers focused more on their work than on precautions visitors should take (fortunately I had already dealt with that in great detail in one of our on-campus meetings). But we got a wealth of relevant information—and many sharply expressed opinions—from the cultural attaché, Ellen Bienstock, from a couple of the political and economic affairs specialists, and from consul general David Abell. Overall it was by far the most informative and the most candid briefing of its kind that I’ve ever attended (the ones we arrange in Ghana tend to be rather brief and very general). The students were no less impressed: for the first time after such a briefing, several of them wanted to talk further about how they could go about preparing to work in the foreign service.

Abell has spent a long career in an enormous variety of postings, but his Arkansas accent and droll Southern tone remain. Among the comments he made: “The work of the American foreign service is to advance American interests while also upholding American values. Sometimes that’s very difficult, but not in Kenya. Some other countries have an easier job. The Canadians, for example, have values, but they have no interests. Or take the French: they have interests, but they don’t have any values. You’re not writing this down, are you?”

Calvin Interim--Building Communities in Kenya

We arrived in Nairobi safe and sound a week ago Sunday with 12 Calvin students, who are studying communities and development.  Things are going very well.  Our host, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee in Kenya, planned a rich program for us, and our students are amazingly open to experiencing and trying to understand Kenya. We have had full days, visiting CRWRC sites for most of the week. The first photo shows the warm welcome we received from a group of caretakers of orphaned children who have banded together for mutual support and receive some assistance with income generating projects such as raising rabbits.  


We've also had the opportunity to visit a couple of Kenya's fabulous national parks. At Aberdares, we spent the day in a 4 wheel drive vehicle, looking for game and spent the night at the Ark, a lodge overlooking a watering hole, which was surrounded by elephants when we arrived.  At 3 am a buzzer sounded in our room to alert us that rhino was sighted and we hurried out to see a mother and baby black rhino--amazing!  At Hell's Gate, the students were greeted by Maasai giraffe, zebra, and eland, took a strenuous hike and were the victims of theft of some of their lunch by baboons.

We've been in Nairobi for the first 3 days of this week and will be spending the next 3 days in the small village of Ulungu in the Kitui district, one third of the way from Nairobi to Mombasa.  David's class at Daystar University is on Tuesdays.  The first class met yesterday as a joint class with our Calvin students.  22 Daystar students showed up for the first class but he has been told it is likely to grow to 60 as students move back onto campus.  

We're getting moved into our house on the Daystar campus slowly because we are so busy with the interim.  We have great neighbors who are helping in many ways.  The weather here is fabulous and we are enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables as well as all the sights of Kenya. 

Ice on the Lake

With all our cold weather, ice bergs have started forming on Lake Michigan.  We took a break from packing on Monday and braved the wind to take a look and found that some of the ice formed volcanos that spouted icy water.  We were happy to get confirmation of lodging for our students at the YMCA in Nairobi.

Counting down to departure

What a contrast! Last Friday night we drove home from a visit to Janna and Barb in Asheville NC and (for a short stretch around South Bend) encountered some of the worst white-out road conditions of our lives--visibility about 3 feet in the driving snow, no sign of plowing, no tracks to follow, the only way to know you are on the road is seeing a reflector now and then through the swirling blizzard. Weekend temperatures kissed O F (-18 C). This Friday (assuming we check off the hundred more to-do items on our list by then) we depart for five months' residence in Nairobi, right on the equator but at an elevation where days are warm and nights pleasantly cool all year round. David will be a Fulbright Scholar/Teacher at Daystar University there, teaching a philosophy class and assisting with curriculum development, while Susan volunteers her time with nonprofit and church organizations on legal reform and community-based economic development. For January, we'll have 13 Calvin College students with us, visiting rural sites where the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee works in partnership with local initiatives in education, health, housing and microfinance. Our second visit to Kenya together (we were there for just two weeks in 2001; David made a very brief planning stop there in November); David's first Fulbright; our first extended time in East Africa; a wonderfully welcoming community and a lovely apartment at Daystar's main campus (at Valley Road and Ngong Road in central Nairobi)--we're excited! Stay tuned for updates and photos later. --David