So much went on this past week, both internally and externally, so my apologies if this goes all over the place. Maybe we'll start with the external to give a bit of background.
Kapchorwa is a district in the foothills of Mt. Elgon, near the border of Kenya. There are several villages within the district, many of which lie on the side of the mountain and are not accessible by vehicle. I was dropped off at the edge of a cliff, to climb down to my home for the week. The scenery here is beautiful. Banana and coffee farms blanket the valley. Vegetation is everywhere. From my home I can see clear across to the other side. The living part of my home is a permanent building - made of bricks and concrete. Our kitchen building is semi-permanent - made from wooden poles and mud. The bathing "room" is outside, past the kitchen building and the latrine is still past that before the field where my family plants maize or irish during the rainy season. It is the dry season now though, so the field is just another place for our cows, goats and sheep to graze. We also have bananas and coffee, on several acres of land that I never figured out where the boundaries were. The village "roads" run right through everyone's farms and in many cases right through the front/back yards of families. The roads are just footpaths where the vehicles are people, mainly women carrying bananas or firewood on their heads, or children bringing back water to their homes. It's peaceful here. Simple. At night, everything gets quiet and the mountains get dark, only a few lights dot the valley. This week the moon was becoming full, so everything was bathed in a pale glow. The stars are spectacular, they are so clear and bright and seem so much farther than normal. The busyness of life is somewhere back on the main road, at the top of that cliff.
My family was Mama Winnie, Papa Benson, Tabitha (10), Ruth (9), Brenda (8), Samuel (5), and Deborah (6mo). Of the children, the only one who liked me was Deborah, who would bang on the stool with me or splash in the basins or just make noise in general. She is beautiful, looks just like her mother. Our days usually began with cleaning the compound, mostly picking up leaves and garbage by hand because sweeping wasn't possible with the wind. Then we milked the cow for tea, peeled matoke or duma for breakfast and spent time cooking. We had Eucalyptus trees, so that's what we used for firewood - the smoke from Eucalyptus burns your eyes and throat, so it's always better not to stand in the kitchen. Breakfast would be finished around 10, then after we ate we washed dishes and began preparing for lunch. Once lunch was cooked, served and finished, we would wash dishes again and do some other household chores, like washing the laundry, re-planting duma, going for water or smearing the kitchen building. Washing laundry was done by hand, the same as everywhere else here. Duma is a root, so once it is cut from the top part of the plant it can be put back in the ground and will continue to grow. Water was about 3/4-1 mile, not far distance wise, however it was up at the top of the cliff and through a few fields to the school - going there was the easy part, carrying back (on our heads) down to the house was far more difficult, especially with every person we passed laughing at the mzungu carrying water on her head. "Smearing" is the process of mixing cow dung, ash and water and literally smearing it on the floor and around the base of the building to keep the dust down. Since it is made of clay and can't be mopped, smearing is done once a week...probably my least favorite part of the week...
At 7-8 we would milk the cow again and begin preparing supper, which took several hours (as does every meal), after eating and cleaning up from supper it was time for bed. Simple.
A woman in our village passed away on Tuesday. She had been a friend of Mama Winnie's and died from AIDS, leaving behind her husband and one young son. On Wednesday we went to the home to see the family and Thursday went to her burial. It was hard. It was difficult moving past the "my experience" mentality to be there for Mama Winnie and be present for the family and the community. It was difficult being the white spectacle at an event that was not about me, or the few other mzungus there. It was difficult listening to the families decide what to do with the child with the community present and hearing this woman turned into an example for those who may or may not get or have AIDS.
I did get to meet up with some of my fellow students during the week. It was fun getting to swap experiences and stories about the kids, animals, silly moments. I had a goat that sounded like a child yelling "maaaaaaa" all day long. I was nearly walked in on bathing by a sheep more than once. I thought I was going to be murdered in the latrine in the middle of one night (actually funny, wasn't really going to be murdered). Some neighbors were convinced I was Korean or Chinese and didn't understand that American meant neither. I ate the things we grew, helped plant, took the cow to water, bathed under the afternoon sunlight and was exhausted at the end of each day. It was challenging and beautiful.
Internally is much more of a murky soup still. I'm coming to realize that my future isn't here and probably not overseas. This has been a bit strange for me, considering I was pretty positive that my life was going to be spent in some remote location in Africa. But I'm at peace with finding a path at home, my home. God has called me back more than once, and while I am not certain what that means, I'm becoming more excited to find out. Being here, especially being in Kapchorwa, has changed my view on poverty so much. In the west, we define poverty as living on less than something like $1.25/day. I'm sure my family lived on less than that, but I would not say they were living in poverty by any means. They had everything they needed, plenty of food, shelter, water, clothes, their children went to school. While they did not have an abundance of material goods, they didn't need them. Both my 'parents' chose to move back to that area to raise their families. There are people living in true poverty though, families who can't feed, clothe or educate their children; parents with AIDS leaving their kids to be raised by another family member. The community does need things, but these things aren't necessarily more money. They need clothes, they need school supplies, they need a better system to bring water to the farms. They don't need a washing machine, indoor plumbing, the latest and greatest farming technology - that's just not how they live. Poverty isn't always what we think it is.
I've also been questioning the role of foreign aid in "development". I think there are many good things that NGOs (both domestic and foreign) and other organizations can do, but at what cost? I wonder if it's possible to separate helping as the people want and need from the development that the west expects. Ideally, of course it's possible, but we're all human. How much help can we give expecting no change in return, and on the flip-side, how much 'help' can we give before we make a people dependent. There are things that the community, at this point, cannot do for themselves - lobbying to get a system to deliver water to the villages - but there are also other things that I'm not sure are so beneficial - sending clothing. Don't get me wrong, sending clothing and school supplies is a great thing, it truly does help in a needed area. But is it just a quick fix? Would it be better to teach people in the village how to make clothes? I'm not sure how much 'help' is actually helping...
It's also very interesting being in an area where many of the children have never seen a white person. It's unnerving being a celebrity for the color of our skin. Some children have been told that white people eat babies, so they are afraid of us (kinda funny actually), but the majority of the kids will leave their schools to follow us down paths, for no other reason than the fact that we are white. White people don't fetch water, carry things on their heads, cook, serve, milk cows, chop wood, etc. We are a distraction, we are constantly being investigated, touched, pulled at (some of us even licked), because of the difference in appearance. I don't know if it takes away from their lives, or adds something to it, having a visitor in their midst. Do we introduce things, ways of living, that they will never be able to access? Or do we show them a world far more extensive than the one they are aware of, and is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Are we reinforcing community, or are we breaking it apart?
It's good to be back. It's good to play on the internets. It's good to see my dormmates. It's good to scrub my feet. The experience was amazing, I will cherish it forever.
Next...Sipi Falls - and hopefully some pictures.
Kapchorwa is a district in the foothills of Mt. Elgon, near the border of Kenya. There are several villages within the district, many of which lie on the side of the mountain and are not accessible by vehicle. I was dropped off at the edge of a cliff, to climb down to my home for the week. The scenery here is beautiful. Banana and coffee farms blanket the valley. Vegetation is everywhere. From my home I can see clear across to the other side. The living part of my home is a permanent building - made of bricks and concrete. Our kitchen building is semi-permanent - made from wooden poles and mud. The bathing "room" is outside, past the kitchen building and the latrine is still past that before the field where my family plants maize or irish during the rainy season. It is the dry season now though, so the field is just another place for our cows, goats and sheep to graze. We also have bananas and coffee, on several acres of land that I never figured out where the boundaries were. The village "roads" run right through everyone's farms and in many cases right through the front/back yards of families. The roads are just footpaths where the vehicles are people, mainly women carrying bananas or firewood on their heads, or children bringing back water to their homes. It's peaceful here. Simple. At night, everything gets quiet and the mountains get dark, only a few lights dot the valley. This week the moon was becoming full, so everything was bathed in a pale glow. The stars are spectacular, they are so clear and bright and seem so much farther than normal. The busyness of life is somewhere back on the main road, at the top of that cliff.
My family was Mama Winnie, Papa Benson, Tabitha (10), Ruth (9), Brenda (8), Samuel (5), and Deborah (6mo). Of the children, the only one who liked me was Deborah, who would bang on the stool with me or splash in the basins or just make noise in general. She is beautiful, looks just like her mother. Our days usually began with cleaning the compound, mostly picking up leaves and garbage by hand because sweeping wasn't possible with the wind. Then we milked the cow for tea, peeled matoke or duma for breakfast and spent time cooking. We had Eucalyptus trees, so that's what we used for firewood - the smoke from Eucalyptus burns your eyes and throat, so it's always better not to stand in the kitchen. Breakfast would be finished around 10, then after we ate we washed dishes and began preparing for lunch. Once lunch was cooked, served and finished, we would wash dishes again and do some other household chores, like washing the laundry, re-planting duma, going for water or smearing the kitchen building. Washing laundry was done by hand, the same as everywhere else here. Duma is a root, so once it is cut from the top part of the plant it can be put back in the ground and will continue to grow. Water was about 3/4-1 mile, not far distance wise, however it was up at the top of the cliff and through a few fields to the school - going there was the easy part, carrying back (on our heads) down to the house was far more difficult, especially with every person we passed laughing at the mzungu carrying water on her head. "Smearing" is the process of mixing cow dung, ash and water and literally smearing it on the floor and around the base of the building to keep the dust down. Since it is made of clay and can't be mopped, smearing is done once a week...probably my least favorite part of the week...
At 7-8 we would milk the cow again and begin preparing supper, which took several hours (as does every meal), after eating and cleaning up from supper it was time for bed. Simple.
A woman in our village passed away on Tuesday. She had been a friend of Mama Winnie's and died from AIDS, leaving behind her husband and one young son. On Wednesday we went to the home to see the family and Thursday went to her burial. It was hard. It was difficult moving past the "my experience" mentality to be there for Mama Winnie and be present for the family and the community. It was difficult being the white spectacle at an event that was not about me, or the few other mzungus there. It was difficult listening to the families decide what to do with the child with the community present and hearing this woman turned into an example for those who may or may not get or have AIDS.
I did get to meet up with some of my fellow students during the week. It was fun getting to swap experiences and stories about the kids, animals, silly moments. I had a goat that sounded like a child yelling "maaaaaaa" all day long. I was nearly walked in on bathing by a sheep more than once. I thought I was going to be murdered in the latrine in the middle of one night (actually funny, wasn't really going to be murdered). Some neighbors were convinced I was Korean or Chinese and didn't understand that American meant neither. I ate the things we grew, helped plant, took the cow to water, bathed under the afternoon sunlight and was exhausted at the end of each day. It was challenging and beautiful.
Internally is much more of a murky soup still. I'm coming to realize that my future isn't here and probably not overseas. This has been a bit strange for me, considering I was pretty positive that my life was going to be spent in some remote location in Africa. But I'm at peace with finding a path at home, my home. God has called me back more than once, and while I am not certain what that means, I'm becoming more excited to find out. Being here, especially being in Kapchorwa, has changed my view on poverty so much. In the west, we define poverty as living on less than something like $1.25/day. I'm sure my family lived on less than that, but I would not say they were living in poverty by any means. They had everything they needed, plenty of food, shelter, water, clothes, their children went to school. While they did not have an abundance of material goods, they didn't need them. Both my 'parents' chose to move back to that area to raise their families. There are people living in true poverty though, families who can't feed, clothe or educate their children; parents with AIDS leaving their kids to be raised by another family member. The community does need things, but these things aren't necessarily more money. They need clothes, they need school supplies, they need a better system to bring water to the farms. They don't need a washing machine, indoor plumbing, the latest and greatest farming technology - that's just not how they live. Poverty isn't always what we think it is.
I've also been questioning the role of foreign aid in "development". I think there are many good things that NGOs (both domestic and foreign) and other organizations can do, but at what cost? I wonder if it's possible to separate helping as the people want and need from the development that the west expects. Ideally, of course it's possible, but we're all human. How much help can we give expecting no change in return, and on the flip-side, how much 'help' can we give before we make a people dependent. There are things that the community, at this point, cannot do for themselves - lobbying to get a system to deliver water to the villages - but there are also other things that I'm not sure are so beneficial - sending clothing. Don't get me wrong, sending clothing and school supplies is a great thing, it truly does help in a needed area. But is it just a quick fix? Would it be better to teach people in the village how to make clothes? I'm not sure how much 'help' is actually helping...
It's also very interesting being in an area where many of the children have never seen a white person. It's unnerving being a celebrity for the color of our skin. Some children have been told that white people eat babies, so they are afraid of us (kinda funny actually), but the majority of the kids will leave their schools to follow us down paths, for no other reason than the fact that we are white. White people don't fetch water, carry things on their heads, cook, serve, milk cows, chop wood, etc. We are a distraction, we are constantly being investigated, touched, pulled at (some of us even licked), because of the difference in appearance. I don't know if it takes away from their lives, or adds something to it, having a visitor in their midst. Do we introduce things, ways of living, that they will never be able to access? Or do we show them a world far more extensive than the one they are aware of, and is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Are we reinforcing community, or are we breaking it apart?
It's good to be back. It's good to play on the internets. It's good to see my dormmates. It's good to scrub my feet. The experience was amazing, I will cherish it forever.
Next...Sipi Falls - and hopefully some pictures.
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