About a week ago I moved into a glorified shack behind my office building, after a few weeks of doing the guest-house hop. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. Some perks of living at the office:
1) I don’t pay rent. This is important if you’re working as slave labour to begin with. (Yeah, I know. Africa. Slavery. Irony. Poetic justice. Too soon? Most definitely.)
2) I can roll out of bed at 7:58am and be dressed and in the office by 8:00am. If you’re at all familiar with my ongoing struggle against the evil forces of punctuality, you understand how crucial this one is.
3) I have access to free TV and internet, 24/7. It’s like staying at the Hilton (sadly, no pool or room service). More on the joys of Kenyan television later…
4) There’s a kitchen with a fridge, a tank of gas for cooking, and (sometimes) running water, so every day’s a campout! Which is great, as long as you ignore the giant roaches in your muffins and the ants (everywhere!) I’m in the process of making little ant-size chef’s hats to help make things feel more natural. And please, if you care about hungry people in Africa…I haven’t eaten anything but egg and cheese sandwiches all week…I’d do anything for a delicious steak. Nothing fancy, T-bone maybe, medium-rare. The address here is: Africa Now, P.O. Box 2514 Kisumu, Kenya.
5) My own personal around-the-clock security guard. The Queen herself doesn’t have it this good…
So life here is good, nothing really to complain about. My living situation is ideal, my work is engaging, and the greatest thing about being on another continent is that all the stresses of my daily life back home just seem to fade away. Life becomes simpler, it’s easier to focus on doing things that make me happy, relaxed, free. I feel like I’ve been on holiday for the past month, which is nice considering that I have been on holiday for the past month. It may be winter in the southern hemisphere, but this is still my summer, after all.
My weekends are spent hand-washing clothes, wandering around town, lounging in cafés and reading. I usually pick up a newspaper on the way to the Grill House, where I get a pot of coffee, eggs, sausage, toast, the works, all for the equivalent of around $3 US. Sometimes I bring a book along and read for a few hours. So far I’ve ripped through Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty (inspiring and well worth the read, if you can get past the cringe-inducing title), and Civilwarland in Bad Decline, a collection of wicked short stories by George Saunders.
On Sundays I wander over to the Kibuya market, where I get my fruit for the week (I’ve also haggled for some pretty boss football jerseys). On my way back home I might pick up a cold Tusker (the local brew) at the Nakumatt in town, East Africa’s answer to Walmart, and then settle in to watch some football, of which there is no shortage on Kenyan television.
I’m realizing as I write this that my life here is pretty brilliant. I’ll get on with describing my leisure-time activities at a later date. For now, though, my bed beckons and I’m in no mood to refuse that siren’s wail. Until the next, we bid you goodnight.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
We call it 'Riding the Gravy Train'
We’re sitting around a large wooden conference table in the back room of the Emuhaya Financial Service Association, where managers from 6 of the 7 regional FSAs have gathered for their monthly meeting. I’m seated next to Anthony, Africa Now’s programme coordinator and my boss for the next few months . He’s invited me to come along with him so that I might get a better feel for how the banks are run. Anthony’s the kind of guy who uses words like “unfruitful” and “vexing”, whose impeccable sense of style and neatness is clearly evidenced by his matching ties, and whose driving skills are politely referred to by his co-workers as “cautious”. He's a decent man, though, and I have a strong professional respect for him.
“Our position is clear,” Anthony says in his sharp, serious tone, each word enunciated with more precision than is perhaps necessary. “It is very clear. It is up to the FSAs, and the FSAs alone, to decide with whom they contract and with whom they choose to do business. If the managers decide – together, of course – that partnering with K-Rep is in their best interest, Africa Now will back that decision 100%.” The meeting thus far has been revolving around areas for expansion of the village banks; at the moment, the discussion is of the possibility of partnering with K-Rep, a major commercial bank in Kenya, for the benefit of management services. “However,” he continues, “if you examine the contract and find that their management fees of 15% - thats's 15% of income, mind you, not profit - is not to your liking at this time, then you must not be hesitant. Do not be afraid to speak your minds when dealing with these people, do not fear them!”
I search the eyes of the managers seated around the table, 3 men and 3 women, looking for a sign of their intentions. There’s not much to go by. A silent deference greets the flood of corporate jargon that makes up much of Anthony’s vocabulary. Blank stares fill the void left in the wake of his speech, a speech that might have been intended to inspire self-confidence but instead seems to have only served to intimidate. One thing’s certain: there’s now little doubt as to who in this room has the most experience when it comes to business matters.
Part of me wants to admire his willingness to talk straight business with the managers, despite their timidity. It is helpful – scratch that, essential – that they master the vernacular of the business and banking worlds; otherwise, there is little hope of competing with the large, well-established commercial banks of Kenya, banks that would be more than happy to take over the fledgling FSAs. After all, they’ve already accomplished the difficult task of creating a market for banking services in rural villages, and they’ve done so almost single-handedly. These managers have worked tirelessly over the past few years to educate and train first a banking staff, and then each of the thousands of shareholders, account holders, and borrowers who come to their banks, about the most basic principles of saving and lending, interest rates and late repayment fees, asset financing and fixed-deposit accounts. Now that the society has been exposed to these ideas and a banking culture has emerged, its not surprising that larger banks would want to enter the scene. And quite clearly, this is becoming an increasing threat to the still-vulnerable village banks that have only just begun to gain a solid footing.
To be sure, learning the hard way, school of the hard-knocks style is probably the quickest and most effective way of ensuring that a lesson sticks. Any of the orphaned, glue-sniffing street boys around Kisumu can testify to this. And better to get some tough love from Anthony before the FSAs are sent into the far-less-coddling jungle of the banking industry. Maybe I’m just too soft for the cutthroat corporate world. But something in me wants to yell out, “Stop! Slow down and explain yourself! Can’t you see they’re not retaining even half of what you’re saying?!”
At one point later in the meeting Anthony makes reference to “The Four P’s” of marketing. I have a vague recollection of what these P’s stand for, but I’m not entirely sure just which P’s he’s talking about. I have a hunch that others in the room might be somewhat less certain. When nobody stops him for clarification, I swallow my pride and risk sounding very dumb, “Anthony,” I ask hesitantly, the first time I've raised my voice during the meeting, “what exactly are the four P’s?” He tells me. The four P’s, it turns out, are used to determine the extent of any potential new market, and they include: product, price, premises (or place), and promotion. Shame creeps in as I realize those many hellish hours spent in Bronfman have proven all for naught.
But then I notice movement around the table. Looking up, I see that every last manager at the table is writing furiously on their single scrap of note-paper, making sure they don’t waste this precious morsel of wisdom. All hail the Marketing Mix! It dawns on Anthony that the managers’ silence, which he had previously been interpreting as tacit agreement, might actually be that of confusion and embarrassed fear. He looks at me and I think I can see the exact moment of revelation as it crosses his face. He pauses for a beat, then looks away and continues:
“On the issue of marketing, there’s something else we’ve been working on. I didn’t intend to bring it up here, but Africa Now is currently in the process of developing a fresh-fruit processing center in the area. The idea is to set up an industry for dried fruit production amongst local farmers, who will then process and export their products. They will be able to obtain a much higher selling price than they are currently getting.
“I’m having trouble, though, finding a site to locate this drying center,” he explains. He asks the managers to survey their customers, who are mostly small-scale farmers, regarding the production levels of bananas, papayas, mangos, and pineapples in the area. They are then to report back on potential sites for a processing center that would be centrally located for maximum accessibility. One of the managers asks about the possibility of the FSAs investing in the venture themselves. “Well to be honest, I hadn’t given that any thought at all,” admits Anthony. “But it is definitely an idea worth looking into.”
As we leave the meeting and load into the Land Rover waiting outside the bank, Anthony asks me how I think it went. I tell him I found it interesting. “I think I talked too much,” he confesses. I ask if the managers had ever brought up the possibility of investing bank funds in a project before. “No, never. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard such talk,” he replies.
I’m a bit in awe of the whole thing: being witness to an industry, especially one that is so fundamentally engrained in the Western world, as it forms itself in the limited environment of a developing country is a bit surreal. Moving from a business model that earns income on operations alone to one which seeks out external investment and financing opportunities is a fairly huge step, and I think I’ve just seen the first seed of inspiration being planted in the minds of the managers. If I were to totally embrace the spirit of unabashed nerdiness that is running rampant through this post, I might follow up on that analogy by saying that I'd like to do what I can to add some water to that seed in the hopes that it will grow. Though on second thought, some things are better left unsaid.
“Our position is clear,” Anthony says in his sharp, serious tone, each word enunciated with more precision than is perhaps necessary. “It is very clear. It is up to the FSAs, and the FSAs alone, to decide with whom they contract and with whom they choose to do business. If the managers decide – together, of course – that partnering with K-Rep is in their best interest, Africa Now will back that decision 100%.” The meeting thus far has been revolving around areas for expansion of the village banks; at the moment, the discussion is of the possibility of partnering with K-Rep, a major commercial bank in Kenya, for the benefit of management services. “However,” he continues, “if you examine the contract and find that their management fees of 15% - thats's 15% of income, mind you, not profit - is not to your liking at this time, then you must not be hesitant. Do not be afraid to speak your minds when dealing with these people, do not fear them!”
I search the eyes of the managers seated around the table, 3 men and 3 women, looking for a sign of their intentions. There’s not much to go by. A silent deference greets the flood of corporate jargon that makes up much of Anthony’s vocabulary. Blank stares fill the void left in the wake of his speech, a speech that might have been intended to inspire self-confidence but instead seems to have only served to intimidate. One thing’s certain: there’s now little doubt as to who in this room has the most experience when it comes to business matters.
Part of me wants to admire his willingness to talk straight business with the managers, despite their timidity. It is helpful – scratch that, essential – that they master the vernacular of the business and banking worlds; otherwise, there is little hope of competing with the large, well-established commercial banks of Kenya, banks that would be more than happy to take over the fledgling FSAs. After all, they’ve already accomplished the difficult task of creating a market for banking services in rural villages, and they’ve done so almost single-handedly. These managers have worked tirelessly over the past few years to educate and train first a banking staff, and then each of the thousands of shareholders, account holders, and borrowers who come to their banks, about the most basic principles of saving and lending, interest rates and late repayment fees, asset financing and fixed-deposit accounts. Now that the society has been exposed to these ideas and a banking culture has emerged, its not surprising that larger banks would want to enter the scene. And quite clearly, this is becoming an increasing threat to the still-vulnerable village banks that have only just begun to gain a solid footing.
To be sure, learning the hard way, school of the hard-knocks style is probably the quickest and most effective way of ensuring that a lesson sticks. Any of the orphaned, glue-sniffing street boys around Kisumu can testify to this. And better to get some tough love from Anthony before the FSAs are sent into the far-less-coddling jungle of the banking industry. Maybe I’m just too soft for the cutthroat corporate world. But something in me wants to yell out, “Stop! Slow down and explain yourself! Can’t you see they’re not retaining even half of what you’re saying?!”
At one point later in the meeting Anthony makes reference to “The Four P’s” of marketing. I have a vague recollection of what these P’s stand for, but I’m not entirely sure just which P’s he’s talking about. I have a hunch that others in the room might be somewhat less certain. When nobody stops him for clarification, I swallow my pride and risk sounding very dumb, “Anthony,” I ask hesitantly, the first time I've raised my voice during the meeting, “what exactly are the four P’s?” He tells me. The four P’s, it turns out, are used to determine the extent of any potential new market, and they include: product, price, premises (or place), and promotion. Shame creeps in as I realize those many hellish hours spent in Bronfman have proven all for naught.
But then I notice movement around the table. Looking up, I see that every last manager at the table is writing furiously on their single scrap of note-paper, making sure they don’t waste this precious morsel of wisdom. All hail the Marketing Mix! It dawns on Anthony that the managers’ silence, which he had previously been interpreting as tacit agreement, might actually be that of confusion and embarrassed fear. He looks at me and I think I can see the exact moment of revelation as it crosses his face. He pauses for a beat, then looks away and continues:
“On the issue of marketing, there’s something else we’ve been working on. I didn’t intend to bring it up here, but Africa Now is currently in the process of developing a fresh-fruit processing center in the area. The idea is to set up an industry for dried fruit production amongst local farmers, who will then process and export their products. They will be able to obtain a much higher selling price than they are currently getting.
“I’m having trouble, though, finding a site to locate this drying center,” he explains. He asks the managers to survey their customers, who are mostly small-scale farmers, regarding the production levels of bananas, papayas, mangos, and pineapples in the area. They are then to report back on potential sites for a processing center that would be centrally located for maximum accessibility. One of the managers asks about the possibility of the FSAs investing in the venture themselves. “Well to be honest, I hadn’t given that any thought at all,” admits Anthony. “But it is definitely an idea worth looking into.”
As we leave the meeting and load into the Land Rover waiting outside the bank, Anthony asks me how I think it went. I tell him I found it interesting. “I think I talked too much,” he confesses. I ask if the managers had ever brought up the possibility of investing bank funds in a project before. “No, never. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard such talk,” he replies.
I’m a bit in awe of the whole thing: being witness to an industry, especially one that is so fundamentally engrained in the Western world, as it forms itself in the limited environment of a developing country is a bit surreal. Moving from a business model that earns income on operations alone to one which seeks out external investment and financing opportunities is a fairly huge step, and I think I’ve just seen the first seed of inspiration being planted in the minds of the managers. If I were to totally embrace the spirit of unabashed nerdiness that is running rampant through this post, I might follow up on that analogy by saying that I'd like to do what I can to add some water to that seed in the hopes that it will grow. Though on second thought, some things are better left unsaid.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Paving the highway to hell
Now that I’ve finished my third week of work with Africa Now, it’s about time I brought you, my faithful readers, up to speed on my most excellent adventures in Kenya. Admittedly, I’ve been slacking on the transcribing of all my deep and meaningful experiences here, so without further ado, I shall do my best to turn this mother out.
My first week interning couldn’t fairly be described as work; it was more of a whirlwind tour of all the many projects that the organization currently has underway. Beginning with the community water and sanitation project (COWASA), we - that is, myself and Dana, my comrade and fellow intern here (she’s also a fellow McGillian) - were taken around to sites in the Kisumu area where Africa Now has developed a number of deceptively simple solutions to problems of water management.
The great irony of Kisumu is that, despite sitting on the shores of Lake Victoria, the second largest body of fresh water in the entire world (after Lake Superior), the town itself is without clean, running water. There’s currently a massive public works project underway to install pipes throughout the city, but government initiatives are notoriously slow-going. The provincial headquarters for Nyanza, one of the largest buildings in town, currently sits empty and only partially completed, as it has for over ten years – a testament to the corruption of Kenyan bureaucracy. This is where an NGO works best – in cutting through the red-tape and focusing on solid, measurable improvements, it can take the first steps up the development ladder (to rehash a tired and inaccurate analogy – I think development is more like that damned rope we had to climb in gym class that burned like hell and painfully revealed my failings as a human being by they fourth grade) in the hopes that the government will soon get its act together and follow its successfully-proven lead.
Among Africa Now’s various projects aimed at facilitating access to clean water, it has installed these large concrete water tanks at many local primary and secondary schools, which are designed to catch rainwater run-off from roofs, storing it safely for the duration of the dry season; they’ve also built running springs in locations where stagnant, unsanitary groundwater wells once stood, thus providing a natural source of clean water to communities. Inevitably, all this brought out the IDS nerd in me, and I quickly bonded with Haron, Africa Now’s water technician and the engineer for all of these water facilities. He was given the unenviable charge of taking us around and answering all of my many hydrologically-challenged questions, which he did with enormous patience and often with frightening amounts of detail – for example, its undesirable to locate a new spring site in an area with too many eucalyptus trees, as their roots tend to soak up too much ground water; instead, banana trees are preferred for their more fibrous roots, which actually help to store water in the dry season. A masterful teacher and peaceful traveling companion, Haron earned my respect and admiration almost immediately.
In addition to the water sites, I’ve also visited a dairy goat research center - dairy goats, as opposed to dairy cows, being more cost efficient and practical in impoverished regions, as they require much less grazing land and can produce relatively large quantities of milk; a bee-keeping farm that raises honey to be distributed and sold through major regional supermarkets; a community training session on good governance, which was run more like a university lecture than the PTA-type meeting I was expecting; a number of fishing communities on Rusinga Island (about a 3 hour drive from Kisumu along the banks of Lake Victoria); and last, but certainly not least in my mind, I’ve been to see the village banks.
These are functioning, operational banks that are open for business in small rural areas, each run by a board of directors composed mostly of women from the local community. Most are being actively, enthusiastically used by locals to hold their sometimes-meager (yet all the more important) savings. In addition to encouraging savings practices, the village banks, or financial service associations (FSAs), also allow community members to take out small loans that can be used to help sustain or grow business operations. In addtion to the basic saving and loaning services offered, the banks provide villagers with the opportunity to open accounts to pay for school fees, to become shareholders (which entitles them to receive dividends and vote on bank policies), and to hold pension accounts. Though the principles of micro-finance may seem a bit dry when you read them out of a textbook (or in a blog, for that matter), seeing them in action, completely changing the way entire communities behave with regard to planning for the future and expanding their farms or businesses, is both inspiring and somewhat overwhelming.
Yeah, I’m a huge econ dork; but perhaps more pertinent to this discussion, I’m also generally a cynic when it comes to the possibilities for improvement and development in the poorest areas of the world. Africa, with its chronic underdevelopment and perpetual excuse-making, be it corruption, culture, or colonialism, is particularly inviting of this cynicism. But these banks look to be a bright spot on the bleak landscape of development policy-making. That’s not to say that they are the single solution to the troubles of the developing world (the “magic bullet”, as Jeffrey Sachs would term it), and they certainly have their fair share of issues to deal with, but that’s what I’m hopefully here to help with.
It's such a relief to feel as though there’s something I can actually do here to make things a little better. It seems almost too easy when working in developing areas to get mired in good-intentions, and ultimately do little in the way of making effective progress. Looking back on my attitude before coming here, I very much feared the worst and accepted that my trip could well be a waste in terms of tangible results (though certainly not in terms of gaining personal experience). That said, I’m genuinely encouraged by the potential for improvement that my time in Kenya appears to offer, and hopefully I’ll be able to do something worthwhile with my limited knowledge and, yes, with my good intentions.
My first week interning couldn’t fairly be described as work; it was more of a whirlwind tour of all the many projects that the organization currently has underway. Beginning with the community water and sanitation project (COWASA), we - that is, myself and Dana, my comrade and fellow intern here (she’s also a fellow McGillian) - were taken around to sites in the Kisumu area where Africa Now has developed a number of deceptively simple solutions to problems of water management.
The great irony of Kisumu is that, despite sitting on the shores of Lake Victoria, the second largest body of fresh water in the entire world (after Lake Superior), the town itself is without clean, running water. There’s currently a massive public works project underway to install pipes throughout the city, but government initiatives are notoriously slow-going. The provincial headquarters for Nyanza, one of the largest buildings in town, currently sits empty and only partially completed, as it has for over ten years – a testament to the corruption of Kenyan bureaucracy. This is where an NGO works best – in cutting through the red-tape and focusing on solid, measurable improvements, it can take the first steps up the development ladder (to rehash a tired and inaccurate analogy – I think development is more like that damned rope we had to climb in gym class that burned like hell and painfully revealed my failings as a human being by they fourth grade) in the hopes that the government will soon get its act together and follow its successfully-proven lead.
Among Africa Now’s various projects aimed at facilitating access to clean water, it has installed these large concrete water tanks at many local primary and secondary schools, which are designed to catch rainwater run-off from roofs, storing it safely for the duration of the dry season; they’ve also built running springs in locations where stagnant, unsanitary groundwater wells once stood, thus providing a natural source of clean water to communities. Inevitably, all this brought out the IDS nerd in me, and I quickly bonded with Haron, Africa Now’s water technician and the engineer for all of these water facilities. He was given the unenviable charge of taking us around and answering all of my many hydrologically-challenged questions, which he did with enormous patience and often with frightening amounts of detail – for example, its undesirable to locate a new spring site in an area with too many eucalyptus trees, as their roots tend to soak up too much ground water; instead, banana trees are preferred for their more fibrous roots, which actually help to store water in the dry season. A masterful teacher and peaceful traveling companion, Haron earned my respect and admiration almost immediately.
In addition to the water sites, I’ve also visited a dairy goat research center - dairy goats, as opposed to dairy cows, being more cost efficient and practical in impoverished regions, as they require much less grazing land and can produce relatively large quantities of milk; a bee-keeping farm that raises honey to be distributed and sold through major regional supermarkets; a community training session on good governance, which was run more like a university lecture than the PTA-type meeting I was expecting; a number of fishing communities on Rusinga Island (about a 3 hour drive from Kisumu along the banks of Lake Victoria); and last, but certainly not least in my mind, I’ve been to see the village banks.
These are functioning, operational banks that are open for business in small rural areas, each run by a board of directors composed mostly of women from the local community. Most are being actively, enthusiastically used by locals to hold their sometimes-meager (yet all the more important) savings. In addition to encouraging savings practices, the village banks, or financial service associations (FSAs), also allow community members to take out small loans that can be used to help sustain or grow business operations. In addtion to the basic saving and loaning services offered, the banks provide villagers with the opportunity to open accounts to pay for school fees, to become shareholders (which entitles them to receive dividends and vote on bank policies), and to hold pension accounts. Though the principles of micro-finance may seem a bit dry when you read them out of a textbook (or in a blog, for that matter), seeing them in action, completely changing the way entire communities behave with regard to planning for the future and expanding their farms or businesses, is both inspiring and somewhat overwhelming.
Yeah, I’m a huge econ dork; but perhaps more pertinent to this discussion, I’m also generally a cynic when it comes to the possibilities for improvement and development in the poorest areas of the world. Africa, with its chronic underdevelopment and perpetual excuse-making, be it corruption, culture, or colonialism, is particularly inviting of this cynicism. But these banks look to be a bright spot on the bleak landscape of development policy-making. That’s not to say that they are the single solution to the troubles of the developing world (the “magic bullet”, as Jeffrey Sachs would term it), and they certainly have their fair share of issues to deal with, but that’s what I’m hopefully here to help with.
It's such a relief to feel as though there’s something I can actually do here to make things a little better. It seems almost too easy when working in developing areas to get mired in good-intentions, and ultimately do little in the way of making effective progress. Looking back on my attitude before coming here, I very much feared the worst and accepted that my trip could well be a waste in terms of tangible results (though certainly not in terms of gaining personal experience). That said, I’m genuinely encouraged by the potential for improvement that my time in Kenya appears to offer, and hopefully I’ll be able to do something worthwhile with my limited knowledge and, yes, with my good intentions.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Hey white boy, what you doin' uptown?
I’ve been in Kisumu for around two weeks now, and what a fortnight it’s been. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this place: not the heart-skipping scenery I see every day traveling outside of town through the Rift Valley, nor the sight of so many people (so, so many) who make their livings hawking their wares on the street or in corrugated steel shacks adorned with hand-painted advertisements, nor the feeling of being such an extreme minority.
Even if I get used to this latter point, nobody else here will let me forget what color my skin is. Mzungu is Swahili slang for “white man”, a somewhat derogatory term, but as any Caucasian who’s been to East Africa can surely confirm, it’s interpretation is totally context-specific. Most often it comes from the mouths of the uninhibited; the sufficiently inebriated, or kids under the age of 12 - either breathlessly uttered with dropped jaw as our vehicle passes them by on the unpaved, pothole-ridden paths (euphemistically referred to as roads here), or else screamed at the top of the lungs as we pass through the front gate of a primary school, setting off a chain-reaction chorus from the littl’uns, who you’d think were flocking to see a three-eyed albino with a bad hair day rather than two fairly unimpressive university students from Canada. Teenagers might mutter it while rolling their eyes or spit it out insultingly, while older men and women just tend to give confused stares, either remembering their manners or else too startled to say anything. I’ve never been as big a deal as I am here, and, ironically, I’ve never desired more to just blend in and be able to observe, unnoticed and unbothered. But them’s the breaks, I suppose.
The city of Kisumu itself is quite small, more a town than a city really, though I still haven’t been able to get my bearings downtown due to the incessant swarm of people on the streets. You can’t ever stop to look around and orient yourself, as you’ll instantly be picked out as an outsider, a tourist, a potentially dupable customer with shillings to spare. It’s overwhelming, but moving around gets a bit easier with each trip I make into town. I’ve been living in various guest houses since I’ve arrived, though I’m making efforts to find longer-term accommodation soon; once I do, I’ll begin feeling better orientated to my surroundings. Already I can feel that I have a tentative grasp on the multitude of social, political, and cultural differences and divisions to be found here. But the process is slow, no doubt about that, and I’ve decided that sometimes its best to just sit back, soak it all in, and accept that, at least for the time being, I’m just along for the ride.
Even if I get used to this latter point, nobody else here will let me forget what color my skin is. Mzungu is Swahili slang for “white man”, a somewhat derogatory term, but as any Caucasian who’s been to East Africa can surely confirm, it’s interpretation is totally context-specific. Most often it comes from the mouths of the uninhibited; the sufficiently inebriated, or kids under the age of 12 - either breathlessly uttered with dropped jaw as our vehicle passes them by on the unpaved, pothole-ridden paths (euphemistically referred to as roads here), or else screamed at the top of the lungs as we pass through the front gate of a primary school, setting off a chain-reaction chorus from the littl’uns, who you’d think were flocking to see a three-eyed albino with a bad hair day rather than two fairly unimpressive university students from Canada. Teenagers might mutter it while rolling their eyes or spit it out insultingly, while older men and women just tend to give confused stares, either remembering their manners or else too startled to say anything. I’ve never been as big a deal as I am here, and, ironically, I’ve never desired more to just blend in and be able to observe, unnoticed and unbothered. But them’s the breaks, I suppose.
The city of Kisumu itself is quite small, more a town than a city really, though I still haven’t been able to get my bearings downtown due to the incessant swarm of people on the streets. You can’t ever stop to look around and orient yourself, as you’ll instantly be picked out as an outsider, a tourist, a potentially dupable customer with shillings to spare. It’s overwhelming, but moving around gets a bit easier with each trip I make into town. I’ve been living in various guest houses since I’ve arrived, though I’m making efforts to find longer-term accommodation soon; once I do, I’ll begin feeling better orientated to my surroundings. Already I can feel that I have a tentative grasp on the multitude of social, political, and cultural differences and divisions to be found here. But the process is slow, no doubt about that, and I’ve decided that sometimes its best to just sit back, soak it all in, and accept that, at least for the time being, I’m just along for the ride.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Suburban Discontent
The following are my last thoughts before coming to Kenya, which I never got a chance to post. Much has happened since, and it feels like they were written years ago; nevertheless, I submit them here for your perusal. I'll post more about my life since I've been here as soon as I have the time to write. I promise.
From May 21, 2007:
My last week home has seen a strange transition in both the content and pattern of my thoughts. Maybe stange isn’t the right word. Interesting. Psychologically noteworthy. The first few nights back in suburbia were relaxing and peaceful, if totally mundane, affairs. Hanging around the house (such a sterile off-white! so antiseptically clean!), lying in a hammock, reading and eating and realizing why I don’t have television in Montreal (Dancing With The Stars, anyone?) With all this unstructured time on my hands, it doesn’t take long for me to revert back to my old high school form. By my second night I feel the teenage angst seeping back into my veins, running through the wires and corrupting the spirit. My thoughts turn toxic and decidedly unproductive. Evenings are the worst; I sit around, my eyes glaze over, reading the same sentence of Go Down, Moses five, six, eleven times as my mind wanders to thoughts of a city where creative impulses are nurtured, not quashed, and eccentricities embraced, not feared. A city where all the flaws and problems and hardships of life are right out in the open, raw and on display for anyone to see; where such filth and grime coexists with the glitz and glamour of Montréal nightlife in a bizarre symbiosis that is fascinating to watch from my third-floor balcony on Avenue des Pins. I look out over the brightly coloured roofs of Plateau Mont-Royal and my senses are stimulated to the fullest degree. In this moment, my body is on a couch in upstate New York, my eyes are trying to focus on 19th century Mississippi, but my mind is caught up in a Montréal dusk-dream.
I am never more enthralled by Montreal than when I’m in Delmar, NY. Here, my family’s 2-story colonial is across the street from a mirror-image of itself, as if East Poplar Drive itself acts as the mirror, reflecting not only physical structure but its occupants’ very aspirations, values, and preferences for vinyl siding. Here, Poplar is about as far removed from Pine as can possibly be imagined, and the naming of streets after trees seems perverse in both cases. [Sidenote: I remember a book from when I was growing up, about a man who moves into a plain, cookie-cutter neighborhood and builds a house that’s brightly coloured and shaped like a boat. All the neighbors are outraged, incensed by his unconventional taste. They take their complaints to him in turn, but one by one, the man convinces his neighbors to redesign their own houses to better match their personalities, and the whole town becomes a brighter, better place to live. Moral of the story? The world needs more boat houses.]
In spite of all their seemingly vast differences, though, my lives in Montréal and in New York both share in all of the luxuries and conveniences that living in the modern Western world entails. Before I drag myself into a bottomless pit of clichéd middle-class pseudo-philosophizing, I will just say that the next few months will be witness to a stark break with all that I have known in life thus far. I’ll be in western Kenya for the summer, in the city of Kisumu working with Africa Now, an NGO that specializes in enterprise development amongst impoverished, often rural, communities. What does this mean? I’m not sure, exactly. I expect to work on micro-finance projects that deal with the establishment and growth of village banks in rural areas, where it is difficult for large, commercial banks to access a profit margin sufficient to make opening a local branch worth their trouble. But even my specific tasks are uncertain as of yet.
My intention is to learn about global development in action, on the ground, in the field, with eyes wide open to all of its various successes and failure. In particular, my interests lie in examining the prospects for small-scale business growth in impoverished areas of the world. More importantly, I’m at long last venturing outside of my secure North American bubble of clean water, shopping malls, SUVs, and the like. I can’t say I have the vaguest idea of what I should expect, despite the hours of training, preparation, and cultural sensitizing I’ve already gone through. This is for the best, I’ve come to realize, and I’ll continue to resist my urge to form baseless expectations for my trip as my departure date nears.
And so I’ll do my best to keep this updated for anyone who’s interested in following my experiences, though ultimately this is more for the benefit of my own thought-organization and reflection. I promise to keep tree-hugging and granola-munching to a minimum while I’m gone, and I should be across the pond and a world or two away (I’m going to the third one, apparently) the next time I’m heard from.
From May 21, 2007:
My last week home has seen a strange transition in both the content and pattern of my thoughts. Maybe stange isn’t the right word. Interesting. Psychologically noteworthy. The first few nights back in suburbia were relaxing and peaceful, if totally mundane, affairs. Hanging around the house (such a sterile off-white! so antiseptically clean!), lying in a hammock, reading and eating and realizing why I don’t have television in Montreal (Dancing With The Stars, anyone?) With all this unstructured time on my hands, it doesn’t take long for me to revert back to my old high school form. By my second night I feel the teenage angst seeping back into my veins, running through the wires and corrupting the spirit. My thoughts turn toxic and decidedly unproductive. Evenings are the worst; I sit around, my eyes glaze over, reading the same sentence of Go Down, Moses five, six, eleven times as my mind wanders to thoughts of a city where creative impulses are nurtured, not quashed, and eccentricities embraced, not feared. A city where all the flaws and problems and hardships of life are right out in the open, raw and on display for anyone to see; where such filth and grime coexists with the glitz and glamour of Montréal nightlife in a bizarre symbiosis that is fascinating to watch from my third-floor balcony on Avenue des Pins. I look out over the brightly coloured roofs of Plateau Mont-Royal and my senses are stimulated to the fullest degree. In this moment, my body is on a couch in upstate New York, my eyes are trying to focus on 19th century Mississippi, but my mind is caught up in a Montréal dusk-dream.
I am never more enthralled by Montreal than when I’m in Delmar, NY. Here, my family’s 2-story colonial is across the street from a mirror-image of itself, as if East Poplar Drive itself acts as the mirror, reflecting not only physical structure but its occupants’ very aspirations, values, and preferences for vinyl siding. Here, Poplar is about as far removed from Pine as can possibly be imagined, and the naming of streets after trees seems perverse in both cases. [Sidenote: I remember a book from when I was growing up, about a man who moves into a plain, cookie-cutter neighborhood and builds a house that’s brightly coloured and shaped like a boat. All the neighbors are outraged, incensed by his unconventional taste. They take their complaints to him in turn, but one by one, the man convinces his neighbors to redesign their own houses to better match their personalities, and the whole town becomes a brighter, better place to live. Moral of the story? The world needs more boat houses.]
In spite of all their seemingly vast differences, though, my lives in Montréal and in New York both share in all of the luxuries and conveniences that living in the modern Western world entails. Before I drag myself into a bottomless pit of clichéd middle-class pseudo-philosophizing, I will just say that the next few months will be witness to a stark break with all that I have known in life thus far. I’ll be in western Kenya for the summer, in the city of Kisumu working with Africa Now, an NGO that specializes in enterprise development amongst impoverished, often rural, communities. What does this mean? I’m not sure, exactly. I expect to work on micro-finance projects that deal with the establishment and growth of village banks in rural areas, where it is difficult for large, commercial banks to access a profit margin sufficient to make opening a local branch worth their trouble. But even my specific tasks are uncertain as of yet.
My intention is to learn about global development in action, on the ground, in the field, with eyes wide open to all of its various successes and failure. In particular, my interests lie in examining the prospects for small-scale business growth in impoverished areas of the world. More importantly, I’m at long last venturing outside of my secure North American bubble of clean water, shopping malls, SUVs, and the like. I can’t say I have the vaguest idea of what I should expect, despite the hours of training, preparation, and cultural sensitizing I’ve already gone through. This is for the best, I’ve come to realize, and I’ll continue to resist my urge to form baseless expectations for my trip as my departure date nears.
And so I’ll do my best to keep this updated for anyone who’s interested in following my experiences, though ultimately this is more for the benefit of my own thought-organization and reflection. I promise to keep tree-hugging and granola-munching to a minimum while I’m gone, and I should be across the pond and a world or two away (I’m going to the third one, apparently) the next time I’m heard from.
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