Three Piece Suits

Well my hand is still swollen from punching children.  It’s not so much punching as giving them a ‘pound’.  In case you’re unfamiliar, the term ‘pound’ refers to something that is in the same family as a high five.  The difference is in the fact that it’s a) not high and b) the five fingers are clenched together in a fist.  Other than that it’s essentially the same thing… two people will make contact with their hands in a seemingly pointless act of celebration.  The kids here love it.  What are we celebrating?  Well from my side of things I’m celebrating the fact that children will work for free.  They’re celebrating a job well done filling bottles with trash.  in other words they’re cleaning the environment in a fun and easy way! HURRAY!  Why do they want to hit my hand so hard though?  That’s beyond me.  mr newton taught me that my hand is hitting their hand just as hard as their hand is hitting my hand even when my hand isn’t moving.  They never learned their lesson though. I did.  After a few hundred pounds you begin to realize that high fives are a much better option (my hands are still aching).

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So for the past few weeks, when I’m not pounding children, Greg and I have been working on this presentation for Safaricom, making new brochures, and designing the center’s website (become a member! www.mathareproject.webs.com).  Safaricom is Kenya’s largest cellphone company.  I was able to somehow nail down a meeting with their “sponsorship manager” to talk about a possibility of them becoming an ‘advocate’ of our center (we want them to give us a lot of money).  The presentation went well.  They were out of those giant checks and the press was a little late so we didn’t get anything then and there.  We now have to write up a short proposal to send them.  We were going for about 200,000 US dollars.  It looks like it’ll be more like 9 or 10 grand…if we get anything that is.  Enough to take care of our budget deficit this year at least.  In other words, if we get this all of our children will finish school this year.  If we don’t… well there might be an increase in Mathare street children come August… but let’s think positively!

The problem is that we’re going to run into a similar problem next year as our donors in Germany can only raise so much money.  I’ve already applied for one grant to buy that land I was talking about in an earlier blog post.  And I’ve already been denied.  This woman from safaricom recommended we apply for a grant from safaricom’s grant giving foundation for the land.  We’ll be working on that for the next few weeks I suppose…  something I’m not really looking forward to.  We’ll also have to throw together another presentation, Greg found us some contacts in the Kenyan government (we’ll get to wear our three piece suits again!).  Still deciding on what angle to take on this though.  Legislation? Donations? Contacts of powerful people who will donate? we’ll see.  I’ll keep you posted.

just a sampling of the kids helping with this fence.  except the first one is one of my street boys, Patrick, standing on trash that is blocking the river that runs through mathare. and the last one is teacher George with two of his kids

tryin…

So I’m neck deep in this bottle fence project. Initially I thought that the boys at the center could fill all of the bottles. This turned out to be an extremely naïve and idealistic notion. Liam’s library took about 6,000 bottles to complete, this fence is going to take 5-9 grand depending on how high we make it. and since filling each and every bottle requires committing a considerable amount of both strength and time I realized that a different tack was necessary if I was ever going to see this fence built. So I’ve started going around to a few local schools to ask for help. This is really great because it gives me the opportunity to not only build the relationship between the center and the surrounding community but also to teach the children about environmental stewardship (that and I’m no longer ‘mzungu’ I’m ‘takataka’… not sure which title one is better). So far everyone has been extremely supportive and excited about this project. The kids are great because they are working for nothing but the knowledge that they are helping the environment and the occasional high five from yours truly. I’m excited to see how their enthusiasm grows once they actually see what it is that they’re working so hard to create.

The deputy headmaster at St Benedict Primary, Teacher George, has been especially great. He not only allowed me to enlist his school in this seemingly ridiculous project (building a fence out of what?), he took it an extra mile or two. He told friends at neighboring schools about this project and enlisted their help as well. I visited the school he used to work at with him just this afternoon. Every time I talk to new kids at a new school I get extremely excited… and worried that it won’t even stand….but anyway George also started the first ever St Benedict Primary Environmental Club. The club’s first project is this takataka fence. But I’m confident that this club will take on many more projects and learn much more about the environment long after I’ve gone home. And that’s really the goal with this project: change the mindset here. These kids will teach their friends, families, and neighbors about the role environment plays in their lives. Then they can make some real changes. That, to me, is far more important than some fence.

In other news I’ve started to playing in a 5 on 5 adult soccer league in Mathare. This is great because it gets me out of the work/monk/volunteer circles that I’ve been so committed to. It’s also nice to play ‘football’ with people that I can push around and who don’t just swarm the ball like my kids at the center (we play soccer every Thursday with the kids).

But the news I’m most excited about is this: I’ve been asked to help with one of the church choirs. I haven’t composed anything for them yet, only made voice leading suggestions and things like this. But it sounds like me and the director are going to start setting some of the psalms to music. So not only is this really fun it’s also a huge resume builder: can you say “composer in residence”? I sure can

A New Year

We made it.  We ushered in a new year.  With it come hopes, dreams, and resolutions.  I myself don’t have any “Ney Years” resolutions.  All of my resolutions came some months ago and are perhaps better described as Nairobi Resolutions (‘The Nairobi  Resolution’ sounds like a treaty that ended a war) or Volunteer Resolutions (too dull…).  I don’t have a good name for them.  Maybe it’s better just to describe them.

Jumping straight to specifics, Alex and I very quickly learned that the center we worked with was, is, and will get along fine without us.  That is, as long as nothing happens to their main source of income. I’ll get to that in a minute.  The staff is all highly trained, good natured, and hard working.  Each and every person who works there understands the importance of their work; how it’s an essential step to take if Kenya is going to move forward.  One staff member, Fred, doesn’t even get paid.  The time and energy he gives to the center is entirely a gift for the children he works with.  So when Alex and I showed up we were met with welcoming arms…but not with any real work.  At first it felt like we were simply there to play with kids.  Which is great.  I love kids.  Doesn’t really do a whole lot though… outside of maybe being being a role model maybe.  And as neither of us are trained as social workers we felt a little out of our realm.

After a few weeks passed we learned that the center relies heavily on a single German family for capital.  That might be an understatement.  Almost 100% of the money that the center uses to pay school fees, buy school uniforms, pay (some of) the staff, repair their building, buy food, etc, etc, etc, comes from this one German couple.  This puts the center in a peculiar situation.  If anything were to happen to this German family (car accident, WWIII, collapse of global economics (oh wait…)) the center would most likely fall flat.  The 117 kids that this center is providing opportunities for would be reduced to what they were before the center found them: kids living on the streets of Mathare; children without any means to better themselves.  No support system.  No bootstraps to pull themselves up with.   Needless to say, this is a worrying prospect.

So after talking with some of the staff I found that they had some ideas that would reduce the center’s readability on foreign donations.  The idea that caught Alex and my attention was to buy some land in Mathare to rent out to the community, thus helping the center generate a sustainable income while developing the surrounding slum as a whole.

My initial idea for this housing was to use a method that Liam used during his stint in BVC.  That is (and some of you might remember this) building out of garbage.  Liam and Michael used plastic bottles filled with trash as the bricks that now supports a beautiful Guatemalan library in Esquipulas.  When I showed this to Dan he became extremely excited.  Not about the apartments I wanted to build, but about the fence that they need to protect their garden: “we’re building a fence out of takataka!” (takataka being the Swahili word for trash).  I said great.  and just like that my two main projects in Nairobi were born.  The best thing about this is that the ideas came from the center that I’m trying to help.  Since it’s their ideas the continued success and maintenance of these projects is much more likely than if some wazungu showed up and told them what they needed.  That is if we can accomplish them.

The land that we found isn’t just a blank canvass.  It already had a first floor of apartments on it.  While this is good because it means that income will be generated after only a month of purchasing the property, it also means that a takataka apartment building won’t be happening anytime soon.  The Fence is going to have to suffice as the symbol of environmental and hygiene that Mathare so desperately needs.  There is SO much garbage everyone.  The people in Mathare pay taxes for trash to be removed but the government doesn’t so much as pretend they’re working on it.  So this creates all kinds of drainage and sanitation problems.  As Alex put it a few weeks ago, “it’s a cholera outbreak waiting to happen”.  So with any luck this fence will teach people a way to use their government’s complete disregard for their wellbeing as a cheap way to build.  Some of my kids at the center have even told me, without me prompting I might add, that they will build their homes out of takataka when the time comes.  If that’s not inspiring I don’t know what is.  It makes sitting in piles of trash while packing these bottles so full of garbage that they’re literally as hard as bricks worthwhile.  I should mention that I have a few photos on my facebook page that’ll give you a better idea of what it’s like at the center.

Fundraising is a huge hurdle that we have to leap over.  The land that we’re looking at now is going to cost about $15,000-$18,000.  This is a one story apartment building that people already live in so finding occupants and building are not problems.  Part of the money generated will have to go straight back into maintaining the building the rest of which will go straight towards the budget of the Saint Benedict’s Street Children Rehabilitation Center.  I know that everyone reading this is now cringing because you all can see it coming… “crap, crap, crap! He’s about to ask for money”.  But that’s not really the case.  I realize that this sum of money is almost unattainable.  So I’m not going to ask you for money.  What I need from you all is your connections.  I need you to be my fundraisers.

In other words, and to circle back ‘round to my intro, I’m resolving to finish these projects and that’ll only happen if your New Year’s resolution is to give me a hand with it.

There’s an accent Chinese proverb that goes something like: many hands make small work.  With that they built a pretty great wall (ah puns!).  So here’s the deal, there about 30 people who read this blog (yes I have those statistics).  Now, if all 30 of you raise $150 we’re already a third of the way there!  and that’s not so hard, all that takes is you and 9 friends to throw in 15 bucks (about what a movie ticket costs now right? Or that case of beer?…that is if it’s something like natty light or a dirty thirty). Then bam, you did your part.  So let’s make that our goal.  That might not be the route that some of you want to take though.  Some of you undoubtedly have workplaces that do fundraisers every month or church’s you’re involved with, use that if you like.  Whatever it takes.  And just because I’m saying 150 doesn’t mean that you have to stop there.  The more you can fundraise the quicker this’ll happen and easier my life will be.  The only reason I’m saying 150 is because I feel like this is manageable for most people… and because it just so happens to be the amount I make in a month.  So as incentive to you, and to show that I’m serious, I’m going to offer an entire months pay, $150, if I can get 30 people to pledge that they will raise at least that much.

Just shoot me an email saying that you’re down. simonmsperl@gmail.com. It’s that easy.

Every English teacher that I’ve ever had has told me something along the lines of, ‘start with an attention getter’.  Being a product of my time I’m going to try a little trick that countless blockbusters have used: starting at the end.

So Dan turns to me and says, “don’t worry, it’s just like riding a horse.”  Upon hearing this my initial thought is, oh great.  Horses + this continent + me does not equal what most people would call success.  Last time I tried that equation it ended with me laying face down on the grass with paramedic Zach Merten cleaning wounds and 20 beautiful women attending to me every need (if you are wondering this was all a part of my plan).  But that’s another story for another time.  This time the circumstances were a little bit different.  Instead of a horse we were riding on top of a truck that was made for transporting (maybe 50? 75?) goats.  And when I say on top of, I mean on top of the bars of the roof.  Sometimes seat belts are not really an option.  Needless to say the stakes were a little higher compared to my last horseback riding experience.  Falling off would make me permanently lose feeling in more than my lower back.  Not that I was too worried about that.  This is, after all, one of the main modes of transportation here.  Plus my attention was focused on the storm clouds we were heading towards.

So how did I find myself here?  Let’s go back, let’s go back.

 

I suppose I should start at the beginning.  Alex and I found ourselves in Nairobi Kenya due to a slight misunderstanding of what we were meant to be doing in our previous volunteer site, Sumbawanga Tanzania.  We thought we were there to teach and work in orphanages, our gracious hosts suspected we were there for entirely different reasons.  Luckily, Father Francis, a Saint John’s Seminary graduate, was looking to start a new bvc site in Nairobi next year.  He didn’t have to wait an entire year.  In fact Alex and I showed up only a few weeks after his initial email suggesting this to Saint John’s.  What Fr. Francis had planned for us was to work in a street children rehabilitation program in a nearby slum called Mathare.  The program essentially acts as a support network for children who are not in school for one reason or another.  All of the help that is provided by the program is provided sustainable ways.  For example, primary and secondary schools in Kenya are free for all students.  However, a student cannot attend a school without a uniform, notebooks, and pencils/pens.  They even have to supply their own desk and chair.  So when a family cannot afford these things the child does not go to school.  The street children project doesn’t simply give the kid a pencil and a pat on the back.  There is constant interaction between the program director and the staff with each child’s family and their school.  In other words, the program doesn’t simply take responsibility for all the children.  We help the families and the children themselves take responsibility.

One of the interesting things that the program does is it helps kids who have drug addictions (most commonly sniffing glue) or other problems that living in Nairobi might perpetuate and removes them from the toxic environment.  They are sent to boarding schools in remote places around the country where hopefully their problems can be resolved.  Dan, the program director, was planning on visiting one of these sites this past Thursday and invited Alex and I to come along. The name of the village is currently escaping me but it was about 4 hours north of a town called Isiolo… if that means anything to you.

We woke up early on Thursday to catch our first matatu (essentially developing nations’ alternative to using buses is to use hundreds of vans instead (dala dala is TZ’s version, kombi is South Afica’s…)) into the city to meet Dan and his girlfriend Sonia.  Here we hopped onto a long distance matatu that took us to the foot of Mount Kenya (which, by the way is only a few hundred meters shorter than Kilimanjaro and way to cheaper to climb, so if you’re planning to come visit me and want to climb a Kili we’re climbing Mount Kenya instead (you can still say it was Kilimanjaro. No one will be able to tell from the pictures)).  Here we stocked up on water and other supplies, had lunch, than jumped on matatu number 3, north bound for Isiolo. As soon as we drove into the parking lot in Isiolo the heavens opened up and dumped buckets of rain.  Apparently this was the first rain that they’d had since that last rainy season.  Dan overheard someone say that the wazungu (Alex, Sonia, and I) brought it with them.  It seems that our rockstar status has been maintained… maybe even elevated to witchdoctor…? We waited out the storm in a local pub.  Once the storm cleared up (it was almost 3 pm by this time) we got into our fourth and final matatu.  We had to wait for other passengers to fill the remaining 11 or so seats.  We had no way of knowing how long it would be until we left.  During this time a business woman by the name of Rose filled three seats up with food she was planning on selling on the other end of the journey.  What this entailed was the matatu driving back and forth between her whole salers for over 3 hours.  Each time the van moved I thought, ah finally we’re on our way.  Each time I was wrong.  Around 6 or 6:30 I finally knew it was time to leave because we had the three food seats filled to the ceiling, who knows what on the roof (at least a mattress and a chair), and a person for every seat (the sign on the van’s inner wall concerning capacity doesn’t mention how many people can be carried if some of the seats are being used for personal belongings, the capacity is the same regardless how much crap people bring into the vehicle with them).  So where did the extra people sit? Oh don’t worry they squeezed in.  Alex and I were sitting on either side of a small aisle.  The extra travel companion we had in our row somehow managed to get part of their behind on both Alex and my seats.  I realized two things on this leg of our journey: 1.) Personal space is a western idea.  2.) If something is annoying and there is nothing you can do about it or you are unwilling to do anything about it, then don’t let it bother you.  If you’re still annoyed; do something about it.  If you can accomplish this, things like having 300 pounds of woman try to squeeze into a space where a child would barely fit becomes really hilarious.  It’s even funnier when seats open up in the back of the van after dropping some passengers off but for some reason (described in quick kiswahili) she refused to move.  We arrived at our destination at about 9 pm.  Not bad.  Had the dinner that our gracious hosts provided out under the stars, and then went to bed.

The next day was interesting.  Walking around the village I felt like we were among extra’s in a B film about Africa.  Between the traditional garb that some of the people were wearing and the desert climate I realized that this is the area that people picture when they think about Africa (that is if they’re not thinking about wars).  Gauged ears the size of a silver dollar, extravagant headdresses, beaded necklaces the size of frisbees, the whole shebang.  It is especially great when they pull out their cell phones.  Cell phones in Africa are very common as the land line never caught on.  Actually there was an old telephone pole in this village.  The student who explained what it was to me didn’t have a word for land line.  Instead I let him explain what was for a good 5 minutes.

During our grand tour of the village and the surrounding area we visited the wells that the local people drilled in a dried up river bed.  The river has been dry for the entirety of the drought that they are currently experiencing, about 6 months, but apparently the wells never dry up.  The ‘communities’ or tribes that are from the area are traditionally nomadic.  With the introduction of westerners they have found a way to split the community in two.  Those who want to/can study or work in more ‘developed’ ways live in the village.  The other half or so are off with their herds.  It’s extremely interesting to talk about this situation.   Dan is especially knowledgeable about this fusion of cultures.  While we talked at length about this I just want to share two short stories:

1.)     The first Europeans to colonize that area were the Italians.  When they saw that no one had any permanent form of housing they quickly built houses for everyone.  The Africans looked at the houses and said, ‘great thanks’.  They didn’t live in them of course.  But they did make use of the houses that the Italians gave them… as barns.  I love that story.

2.)     During one of his graduate level classes Dan had to poll people to find out what ‘development’ meant to them.  Apparently there wasn’t much of a common thread in the definitions that people gave.  Some people said it meant that you owned a television.  One man even explained that his father was more developed than he is because he could afford to have more than one wife.  The point being ‘development’ doesn’t really mean one thing.  It differs from person to person depending on what they have grown up with and what they perceive as progress or as good.

That night we had copious amounts of the goat that we killed that day (the nightmares are worse when you kill a goat compared to a chicken). The cool thing about this is that they use almost the entire goat.  The bile sack (for lack of knowing the real name) and the lungs were the only things left for the cats.  So of course I had to try everything (at least everything they prepared that evening).  Not a huge fan of liver and spleen.  I’ve gotta say though, intestine and stomach are delicious.

 

The next day I grabbed some of the students and made them take me swimming (they swim in those bottomless wells and it’s way hotter up there than here in Nairobi).  This was one of the highlights of my time in Africa so far.  A crew of maybe 15 kids all hanging around a well, maybe 6 of us in the water at a time, all laughing and singing and splashing.

A few hours later it was time to start our journey home.  We waited by the roadside in the shade for the first vehicle to drive by in the direction we were heading.  That’s right it was our goat truck.  It’s not like we were really hitch hiking, these trucks are commonly used as buses.  But let me tell you me, it’s way more exciting than a bus.  More leg room too (although my behind is still sore 3 days latter).  During this leg of the trip it did rain on us briefly. No problem, we had raincoats.  We also saw two elephants that the driver was kind enough to pull over so that we could get a better look.  He even got out and taunted the first on until it charged him. It would have been less funny if he actually got trampled or if the elephant rammed the truck.  I’m sure he could’ve tipped us over (maybe that was just me and my western ideas of top heaviness).

The rest of the journey was rather uneventful. We stayed the night in Isiolo in a really nice hotel.  Nice meaning that the cockroaches were small and there were locks on the doors.

Role credits.

Epilogue: my phone broke.  Not sure how.  This is why I don’t by nice things.  That, and I’m poor.

Also I have my new address that I know you are all anxiously waiting for so that you can send me care packages filled with good novels, Wisconsin cheese, corn chips, and salsa : )

Simon Sperl
Benedictine Fathers – Amani Conference Center
P.O. Box 32101-00600
Nairobi, Kenya, Earth

Long story short, we moved to Nairobi

I had a blog post all ready to go about some minor things that were happening in S’wanga about 3 weeks ago now. Getting Malaria, a “water crises” that I wouldn’t have noticed if no one told me about it, etc. Before I could get that post up on my blog some new things came to light. So I refrained from posting anything until things got settled. There simply were too many ins and too many outs. Too much running through the dude’s head. But Long story short, we moved to Nairobi Kenya (shoot me an email if you want the full story). Things are settled now. Everyone’s safe. Nairobi may be my new favorite place on earth (I’m saying that now. in a few weeks you probably will be reading a post about how much I hate NaiRobbery… hopefully not).

habari

I’ve realized that if Sumbawanga has taught me one thing it’s that I now know what it’s like to be a rock star. Can’t go anywhere without kids yelling and chasing incessantly. Cute at first. By now we mostly want to dutch kick them. Mostly. It’s actually really good incentive to work on our Swahili. Our goal is to be able to go up to one of these kids who are yelling “MZUNGU! MZUNGU! GOOD MORNINGI! MZUNGU” at us (mzungu essentially means person of European decent (aka gringo) and ‘good morningi’ comes at all hours of the day) and tell ask them in Swahili ‘what? You now have our attention. What is it that you want?” For now we’ve settled for correcting their grammar: “WAzumgu” (gringoS). But I think our Kiswahili is getting better. it’s a little frustrating at times because everyone feels the need to remind us that James was fluent. “Why aren’t you speaking Kiswahili? James spoke perfectly. AND he spoke kifipa”. We’re working on it! So far we’ve refrained from asking why their English isn’t better even though it’s one of their national languages. So far…

We had a few crazy weeks there of battling thieves and diseases. We had a running joke that we would wake up in the morning with a list of things that we wanted to accomplish and accomplish none of them. But things have settled down a bit. Starting to get in the swing of teaching and helping out in the orphanages. Getting into routines. And everyone on this front is still healthy…. Although we have routines now we still have to be malleable. For instance, just today I was supposed to teach at 8. So I walk into my classroom a few minutes early only to find another teacher who wants to teach Swahili instead. Meh

The most exciting thing I can talk about might be the chicken I killed the other day. I was over at Marianna’s orphanage having lunch with Kaja (another mzungu volunteer) and the kids. Afterwards Kaja asked me if I’d kill the kuku for dinner the following evening. In my best impression of someone who doesn’t think twice when they kill a fly, I say, “sure… whatever”. Supposedly if the younger children see a chicken slaughtered they have nightmares. So in order to keep them from watching we have to find a nook that is out of sight. It just so happens that on this particular day the nook was their outdoor classroom. Anyway, Kaja walks me through everything: stand on its legs, hold its head over the bucket, cut off the head as quickly as possible. Problem was… I think I had the dullest knife in the world. I sawed away at that poor chickens neck for anywhere between 30 seconds and a minute. The whole time Kaja was yelling, “just do it quickly!” When I finally made it through I was so stunned that I was holding a severed head in one hand and a bloody knife in the other that I forgot to hold down the still flapping body. This helped the blood that was spurting out of the mutilated neck go just about everywhere but in the bucket. Blood all over a chalkboard sounds more like a scene from a McCarthy novel than anything else. But there it was. My unskilled hands proceeded to mutilate as Kaja and I attempted to defeather, gut, and chop. Stella, the eldest orphan, was truly disappointed with our work. She basically shooed us out of the classroom so that she could at least finish things correctly.