Last e-Journal from Africa? (August 2008)

Hamjambo, mabibi na mabwana? (a Kiswahili greeting... "how are you, ladies and gentlemen?")

I imagine this to be my last open letter "from the field" for some time, as I turn my energies towards being here in Kenya, and perhaps to writing a book in the near future.

I wanted at the very least to follow up from my last bulletin, though, before turning entirely inward into novel-writing, to update you on Amos Wright and his family, the Liberian refugees I wrote to you about in late June. With the support of the friends and family who responded to my request for donations, we were able to send Amos enough money for his wife and children to make the journey home to Liberia, overland from Ghana. They are now settling into their "homeland", which the children have never seen as they were born in refugee camps, and are in the process of setting up house near Amos's mother – who eagerly awaits her son's return to join the family this October… I don't know how to properly thank everyone who reached out to help, but Amos puts it this way in the open email letter of thanks he sent for me to share with you:

"Dear All You Lovely People,

My children, wife and I are so proud that you have been a source of our joy and smiles in our extremely challenging times. We still don't know how we could have counted ourselves in the number of returning refugees had you not stretched out your blessed hands of concern to help us overcome one of our main challenges.

Thank you so much for every penny that you donated to help facilitate the repatriation of my family."

As I said in my June letter, Amos became a friend of mine in Ghana, where we both attended a Non-Violent Communication (NVC) intensive 6 day workshop. His incredible story, from Liberian security forces to Sierra Leone as a refugee and then to Ghana, gives you some idea of the depth of character and shining heart that Amos possesses, but it's hard to put into words... I hope that at least some of you get to meet this incredible person one day. I've attached two pictures of him and his family, which he sent along with his thank you message I excerpted above. After our NVC course, Amos and I were paired up as "empathy buddies", and we talk or chat online each week, offering each other support and listening in our day to day challenges and joys.

It's hard to compare my "challenges" with those of a refugee who lives on fifteen dollars a month and dedicates his time to mediating conflict and building peace, mostly as a volunteer… but I have to admit I've encountered a few in my time in Africa. And yet, separating out the difficulties and the joys is artificial and skims over the richly woven tapestry of experience here. Somehow the frustrations and the laughter and the stumbles and the dancing all jumble into one brightly coloured garment that I wear with wonder, feeling both at home and very much alien in this land of red earth and rain and wildness.

Alien. Although I've spent a great deal of my life feeling quietly out of place, like I have a secret cave in my heart full of strangeness, an awkward and unlovable gawky self that lives just beneath my skin and always threatens to be revealed, there's really nothing to make you feel "other" like being a visible minority, which I never was in Canada. Skin colour. All the layers of history that are twisted into the stories people tell each other, and themselves, about what a person's colour means or doesn't mean… it's a lot of baggage, a lot of walls that get in the way of just being a human being, interacting with other human beings, wanting to learn and grow in mind and spirit. I am WHITE here, glaringly white in a way I never knew before, when I had no colour label attached to my self image. Mzungu, foreigner. "Hey white lady, come here." In any crowd I pass through, there are a range of reactions.... laughter, stares, or feigned indifference and heads turning deliberately away. I am absolutely alien here, and alien with a particular shade of skin that has over a century of ugly and patronizing history attached to it. So it is that most of my first encounters with new people in public take place through veils -- adulation mingled with fear and shame, or deeply buried anger and envy coated shallowly with starchy politeness. I am studying Swahili, and the more I learn, the more aware I become of what is said about me as I move through the streets of Nairobi. I face my discomfort directly, when I have the energy, by striking up a conversation with whoever it is I'm having this experience with, trying to make a genuine connection that cuts through all the veils. Sometimes it works, and something in each of us shifts and softens and I feel a warmth spreading out from the centre of my heart that lasts all day, just for sheer joy of having connected to a fellow being in such trying circumstances. Sometimes it doesn't work, and I leave with a kernel of sadness in my heart, hoping that in some way in my life I will see at least the beginnings of a world where everyone can just be, can connect as human beings without fixating on the surface features that are different. I can't fix the power dynamics that are attached to skin colour almost everywhere in the world – except within myself. So I just continue on my way, feeling the joys and sorrows of connecting and of failing to connect, across the barriers.

At home. In other ways, Africa has embraced me like a long-lost child. Somehow, Africa peels away the layers of my defenses and reveals my own "orphaned-ness" to me… then she pulls me to the bosom of her red earth and tells me stay... you are home. I have been adopted by at least four families in four countries of West Africa, and a few here in the East as well. It's the irony of my time Africa – the parts I have seen, at least, from North to East to West and back again – that life seems so much more vibrant and intense with the constant spectre of death and danger in the wings. Life is uncertain. It is loud and bright, a mishmash of colour and sound and smell, it has teeth, and it doesn't stop for any individual. It's a wild, deep and rushing river, deadly yet teeming with life. You swim fiercely, or it rushes past you and spits you out on the bank for something to devour.

The stark contrasts here are even sharper because I find myself thrust from one end of the spectrum to the other almost every second day – it can leave a girl's head and heart spinning, leaving aside altogether the confusion of deciding what to wear each morning!

At the UN compound in the Gigiri area of Nairobi, I exist in a bubble of Westernized cosmopolitan privilege. Exotic, but a bubble nonetheless… in the Cafeteria, I can sip a cappuccino under swaying hibiscus hedges, watching shocking yellow birds dart down from the branches and steal beakfuls of unmistakably Kenyan, molasses-scented sugar from bowls of it left unattended on tables. The occasional troop of monkeys saunters by and peers in office windows, while inside the long multistory buildings, thousands of people from across the globe surf the internet, chat in all flavours of lilting English and French and a multiplicity of other tongues, and hold meeting upon endless meeting to decide what protocol to follow in this or that situation.

My home, in a sheltered neighbourhood near Gigiri, is another oasis. Our landlord is a German fellow who came to Kenya over 15 years ago and sensibly decided never to leave. He has the mellowed expatriate glow, the easy smile of a Northern European who has relaxed and expanded into the looser, less regulated world of Africa… but he's still German, and the place runs like clockwork. My tiny cottage is hooked up to an automatic backup generator, so my lights barely flicker while millions of others in the wider Nairobi area lose power and regain it at random intervals. I have hot water on command, water pressure that makes it a real shower, and a lusciously vine-embraced garden that is my own little pool of tranquility.

Having recently learned to drive (yep, it only took me twice the usual 16 years… but I did it!), I no longer have to suffer the freakishly unsafe yet occasionally thrilling matatu experience… a tooth-rattling public transit treat that I typically pay twice the going rate for, owing to my white skin. Driving in Nairobi, however, even in the comfort of one's own car, has its hairy side. For instance, the fact that "road rules" are on paper only and the reality is the simple jungle law of eat or be eaten. Or that most vehicles are ill-maintained, if they are maintained at all (I have personally witnessed an old scarred matatu being "repaired" by its driver at the roadside, with what appeared suspiciously like a fork, and having some of its loose innards tied back together with a rag). Or that most drivers are not "licensed" in any sense of that word that would mean a damn thing in Canada…

Of course, I did choose the most upside down and backward way possible of learning to drive. For anyone wishing to duplicate my recipe of Driver's License Madness, follow these simple instructions: Wait until age 32. Move to a foreign country where they drive on the left side. Choose a city that is to all intents and purposes a giant overgrown village where there are no street numbers, only landmarks, and all the motorways twist like anacondas mating. A city with potholed and poorly marked roads, little if any street-lighting, and just a lot of general motor vehicle insanity. Learn to drive on a hulking, diesel SUV without power steering. Manual transmission of course. Oh, and yes, last but not least… let this SUV be an imported car with the steering wheel on the… left side of the car, doh! Take lessons with local who speaks to you partly in Swahili and partly in English, and who frequently mixes up "left" and "right". Go for driving "exam", fill out endless forms, visit three government offices to pay "fees" and voila! You have yourself a bona fide Kenyan driver's license... and you can drive pretty much anything, anywhere if you can do this!

Anyway, somehow I have indeed mastered the art of driving, and am now as free as anyone else with a vehicle to screech along Uhuru Highway at 70KPH one minute, then crawl at 2KPH through a roundabout shortly thereafter while traffic cops mysteriously stand beside the automated traffic lights and give opposite signals, waving cars to "come on, hurry" through a red light and then to stop for green…. Well, small mercies -- at least here people are not honking continuously as they do in Bombay, where the traffic experience is taken to an entirely new plane of madness with the cacophony of millions of drivers hooting all day... and this goes on from 5AM to 11PM without a moment's cessation.

Driving has managed to increase the speed at which I jerk back and forth between worlds, because just a turn to the left instead of right in some areas can take you suddenly from wealth and privilege and high gated compounds, into jumbles of street stalls with piles of fruit and vegetables, old women in billowing skirts bent double carrying firewood on their long treks home, hustlers meandering along between the loosely formed "lanes" of traffic hawking everything from maps to magazines to pillows, people with missing limbs shuffling somehow along dirty sidewalks and begging for change… pulsing innards of Nairobi, where in some places a million people live on a piece of land equivalent in size to one golf course, under leaking tin roofs and on dirt floors that become mud in the rains, and where going to the toilet at the wrong time of day might mean being raped, so most folks go in a bucket and fling it out the window into the "street", such as it is.

For all the horrors that life in a slum brings with it, though, the communities within them are intensely tight knit and in some ways are like villages, only without the support of productive land that can feed and "employ" those living on it as it would in the countryside. My visits to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, have been some of the most enjoyable experiences of my time here, the times I felt safest, most welcome, and most fully able to connect to the people I was meeting in a meaningful way. Some of the work that youth groups in the slums are doing – and I am excited that the project I'm working on here means I get to work directly with these amazing groups – is phenomenal. On the smallest scale, groups of young people growing up in slums are organizing to provide services like waste collection, recycling and sanitation, that their own government seems unwilling to provide to these economically poorer areas, and often are using the small profits not for themselves but to support other community ventures, like schools.

The work I'm doing with Environmental Youth Alliance, in our contract with UN-HABITAT, means getting to interact directly with these groups and learn from them, while also providing the support and capacity building to help them expand their revenue generating projects so that they can become a source of decent livelihood for the group as well as increase the impact of the social good that they are doing with their work. It is about as rewarding as I can imagine work being…

I've left so many stories untold, so many funny moments just jotted down in bullet point form and left for "my book", whenever it may be born. If this is indeed the last update from the field, then I thank you all for coming along for this journey since I began documenting it in January 2007... wow, that long ago!

World Refugee Day 2008 (June 2008)

I am working on a few overdue chapters of my adventures here -- all about the mysteries of bananas that taste like potatoes, meeting Chairman Mao (OK, his full name is Norbert Mao) in Northern Uganda, intestinal malaise (parts 1 through 3 of a gurgling, groaning saga), random English on T-Shirts ("gettin' Lucky in Kentucky!") and signs ("no hooting!"), discovering my inner domestic diva (banana bread, anyone?), melting in Ghana and freezing in Kenya, and the strange, sometimes amusing flattery of being avidly courted through the wacky medium of text messages (which are THE way to keep in touch in Africa!). Not to mention the frustrations, heartbreak and occasional real joys of trying, however challenging the circumstances within and without at times, to be the change I wish to see in this world.

But those tales can wait a few more days or weeks, possibly years (time being rather elastic here)... I have a more important story to tell you today, and a request. While I'm not an ambassador (yet! *wink*), and I can't hope to compete with the exquisite Angelina Jolie, who as goodwill ambassador to the UN's refugee agency helped make a film to honour and highlight the realities of the millions upon millions of refugees in our world today, displaced by violence and disaster (check it out at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2162983/Angelina-Jolie-films-UN-video-for-refugee-day.html),

I am doing something on a much smaller scale...

Though I'm only beginning to wrap my head around the structures and policies that fail to address - and sometimes may worsen - the problems of these huge numbers of refugees, I have made a personal pledge to make a difference in the lives of one family of refugees as my contribution on World Refugee Day. I would like to help send my friend and fellow peacebuilder, Amos Deeahn Wright, his wife and children, and their bed and personal effects back home to Liberia, a country now in the hopeful phases of post-conflict reconstruction, where I am quite certain he will become one of his homeland's powerful voices for peace. It's also a birthday present to Amos, who celebrates his special day tomorrow, June 21st, on the summer solstice... I've pledged the first $200 towards the one thousand dollars they need in order to relocate -- in other words, I'm covering one family member. While UNHCR will pay for Amos himself to return home, they make no allowance for family or belongings, and each person will cost him $200 to transport by truck overland across West Africa, as will their combined effects. This is a burden beyond imagining for a family with nearly no income, who live in a camp and wake up every day facing the challenge of finding enough food, let alone try to save funds for an international journey. I dearly want to help him meet his goal of returning his family, together, back home by this July, and I'm asking you to join me in extending help to the Wrights, if you share my desire to make a meaningful, personal contribution on World Refugee Day. If everyone I am sending this to contributes as little as the cost of a movie or a meal this very week, then the Wright family could be home by early next month and beginning their new life in now-peaceful Liberia. If you'd like to join in, the easiest way to get the funds over here is to send them to my PayPal account. I am currently working with Amos to try to get him on PayPal as well, in the hope that if it works, I can then transfer the total amount to him easily, and will let you know when it's done if you prefer to transfer it directly to him (bear with us, though, things take FOREVER sometimes in Africa).

Whether you are in a position to help or not, whether you feel moved to do so or not, I would like you to get to know Amos, because he's someone I wish we could send all around the world to share his brilliance and bigheartedness with all of humanity. I met Amos in Ghana, where I attended a week long intensive training in Non Violent Communication (check out www.cnvc.org, and www.nonviolentcommunication.com). The NVC trainers who came to Africa as part of a summit for the African Alliance for Peace offered the course free to a wide array of locals, most of whom would never have the financial means to attend such a training. Amos heard about it through his volunteer work with Mediators without Borders, and we were more than blessed to have his presence in our group.

One of the assistant trainers in the NVC workshop, Donna Carter of California, was blogging about her experience, her way of sharing her adventure with friends and supporters back home. I quote a segment of her writings here about Amos, because they really capture his spirit and his story beautifully:

{ He talks with a syncopated yet measured, rich baritone. The very rhythm of Amos Deeahn Wright's careful speech mirrors the consideration he brings, not only to each word, but also to each person he encounters in his mission – to use mediation and nonviolent communication to build a foundation of peace in Liberia.

The ready smile that seizes Amos' entire face at any moment delights me and belies the challenges this man has experienced after escaping from war in his home country of Liberia when he was 25. He has lived as a refugee ever since, almost two decades.

Amos was with the Liberian security forces escort for President Samuel Doe on the day rebels captured Doe in 1990 during guerrilla warfare. Rebels eventually tortured and assassinated Doe, cutting off his ear in a video aired on television.

"I saw no safety in going back to Liberia," said Amos... He sneaked aboard a Ghanaian cargo ship and escaped to Ghana. There, he found himself in a refugee camp, young, without a country, and without financial means.

Money is limited; however, Amos has an abundance of guile, perseverance and enthusiasm. He saw himself at a crossroads. He opted to change his direction in life from soldier to peace-builder.

"When I got here I thought on the moment of transformation that the war was a result of the failure of the generation before me to accept a platform that we would enjoy as Liberian youth," he said. "On the contrary, we experienced war at the time we were supposed to be decision-makers of the country. So I can use my stay in Ghana to change the future of Liberia by going into peace-making activities."

In the refugee camp he became a classroom teacher, which each month pays 15 Ghana cedis, the equivalent of $15 U.S. dollars. The West Africa Dispute Resolution Center (WADREC) trained him as a mediator. He began volunteering as a mediator in the Ghanian courts. }

(Excerpted from May 22, 2008 entry at: http://www.donna-in-ghana.blogspot.com/ -- I encourage any of you interested in NVC or the Ghana event from Donna's viewpoint to read more!)

In honour of World Refugee Day, I send you greetings from Africa, and I share my hopes and dreams for a more peaceful, just world in the years ahead. And my heartfelt request to help me help Amos and the Wright family repatriate to Liberia to help build a strong and lasting peace there...

Hello from Acholi-Land (May 2008)

Kopa-ngo, friends! (Now you say "Ko-peh! -- there you go, speaking Acholi!)

This is, I think but can't entirely guarantee, going to be a short hello from the field... short because access to internet here is sketchy and I may not have time for more, and a hello so you all know I'm alive! Also I think that being here includes the responsibility to share some news from "live, on location" in Gulu, one of the districts at the heart of the LRA-conflict territory, where for years children were stolen in the night, sometimes even forced to kill their own parents as they went, taken into the bush and drugged, armed, trained and indoctrinated as child soldiers.... I had heard about this conflict for years, and wondered about its roots. Being here I think I am beginning to understand it better, now that I can actually hear from the people who've lived through it. I am utterly amazed by the resiliency, kindness and hospitality of the Acholi people, who have suffered nearly unimaginable horrors from all sides in the last few decades, and yet are committed to healing and reconciliation and moving forward with their lives in peace.

In the North here, millions of people were displaced and have lived, in some cases, for up to 20years in "temporary" Internally Displaced Persons camps. That is like being a refugee with fewer rights, because the international community via the UN/Red Cross do not have jurisdiction and influence over your wellbeing and access to resources. Your own government does. If, as in this case, your government is slanted rather heavily to a tribe or ethnic group other than your own, and that same government receives oodles of money from international aid and donations to "take care of you" but isn't held accountable by those donors for resolving the underlying conflict that displaced you (in which that same government is also guilty of atrocities), well... you could be in that hut without clean water or a place to grow your own food, and living off rations, for a long time. It isn't just unsanitary and harsh, it also erodes all the longstanding traditions and community ties and processes that kept your way of life together and thriving -- children are born and raised not knowing how to grow food, and when one day you get to "go home" to your village (or what is left of it), two generations of people may have ended up with strongly learned-dependency behaviours towards food and support, and have little in the way of education or practical skills for normal village life. In a nutshell, being an IDP sucks. Being one of a huge number of IDPs for 20 years sucks worse.

And what about the LRA, you say, who are at the centre of this displacing conflict? What you read and see reported in the media about the LRA conflict is filtered through a Western lens to the point that unless you are here and talk to the Acholi people, or hear about their situation from someone who has done so, you can't really wrap your head around it. Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army has, it is true, wreaked havoc under his insane leadership (although he has only very, very rarely been seen in person and spoken to by outsiders, he is widely believed by the Western medical system to suffer from hereditary schizophrenia -- which in local traditional terminology, to many, means he hears and interacts with the spirit world in a direct way, while normal folks don't). What few if any outside media report accurately on is how this fits into the longstanding grievance on the part of the Acholi people generally, who are a minority tribe in Uganda but whose numbers are huge across the border in Sudan (the contiguous group of Acholi people covers an area of land straddling this border -- yet another happy legacy of old white military men carving up former colonies with no regard to ethnic or other relationships amongst the actual inhabitants of these new "countries").

The Acholi were favoured for military, police and similar roles by colonial masters in what is now Uganda, being a traditionally "warrior" culture. Upon the withdrawal of colonial powers, this left them a resented minority in their new country -- in an analogous way to the minority Tutsi in Rwanda who had held positions of favour under the Belgian rulers, then were turned upon by the Hutu majority who'd been left behind by comparison. Conflict naturally ensued in both cases. Here, the result was that the Acholi among others were driven out of their homes and lands, and badly mistreated by the new "powers that be" in their newly formed independent country. Joseph Kony, an Acholi, is the nephew of a (now dead) female spiritual and military leader who founded a resistance movement against the Southern-Ugandan-dominated government. Her group was a proponent of the Acholi people establishing their own homeland and running it themselves along religious lines (most are Catholic but with a heavy influence of local, traditional spirituality). Kony began his leadership as a continuation of this movement, and like his aunt who "talked directly with spirits", he believes that God communicates directly to him -- unfortunately, at the same time as he advocates for "rule according to the 10 Commandments" [in itself, a troubling proposition], he proceeds to break most of them daily and has killed and tortured many, many people, including his own Acholi tribesfolk. The fact remains, however, that when he set out, he went into the bush as the head of a resistance movement declared to be directly on behalf of the Acholi, and was blessed by their elders -- this blessing has not been rescinded, and the current attempts to negotiate a peace treaty and have him sign it and come to justice are confounded by the insistence of the international community on enforcing ICC (International Criminal Court) indictments against him, of which some Acholi people do not approve. The Acholi population has suffered from all sides these past 20 years as the LRA and the Government forces fight each other and they are abused and trodden upon by both. Each side claims the other is entirely in the wrong and must surrender. Without going into all the painful layers of detail, the Sudanese government (based in Khartoum, the North part of Sudan) for its own reasons has allowed the LRA safe haven within its borders, and has armed and supported its struggle (and has long denied doing so).

At this point, with many lives lost, people crippled, and violence and trauma inflicted widely, the LRA is largely in retreat or hiding, and the peace process has been patiently and painstakingly helped along by the international community -- but at this critical point of concluding it and putting the official seal on the peace that has been slowly returning to this region and these people, Western cultural blindness among other things is getting in the way of successful resolution.

The Acholi are pressing for restorative justice according to the traditional "Mato-oput" system. Almost every traditional community in Africa has its own version of this, and it works very, very differently from "justice" as Western legal systems use that word. In my own opinion, most Western justice systems, being retributive and focused on punishment alone, are hopelessly ineffective and have a great deal to learn from traditional, reconciliation-based means. Laying the word "guilty" on someone and cutting them out of society for a number of years (supposedly equivalent to the damage of their crime somehow) heals no one and nothing. It does not bring peace, or forgiveness, and it does not compensate for the loss to the whole of society in any meaningful way. Mato-oput, like Gacaja in Rwanda and other such systems (such as the one that used to resolve the differences in Darfur between the settled farmers and the nomads, before the Khartoum-based Sudanese gov't began arming the northern-based nomads, who now simply raid and kill the southern sedentary farmers' villages instead of resolving land and resource-based conflicts on the tribe to tribe level), works very differently. In past, before external meddling and influence began arming and supporting one group over another, upsetting the balance of power and creating the much-hyped criss situations that CNN splashes about here and there, restorative justice along these traditional lines was the means for restoring harmony at every level, within the tribe or inter-tribally. It involves the whole community on both sides of an issue coming together under the guidance of their chiefs, elders or leaders, collectively clearing up the matter through total truth-telling, and then reaching consensus on how the loss or injury will be compensated -- community to community, as a whole. No matter how insane Kony is and how atrocious his crimes, getting him to sign a peace deal and disarm, and come out of the bush, will be nearly impossible until all sides agree to create a reconciliation-based process of justice for all parties to take part in. Attempting to apply the black and white, right and wrong, guilty and innocent logic of the ICC will just fail the Acholi people yet again...

In the meantime, young women and men and children have been returning in large numbers from the bush and are being rehabilitated by a variety of organizations here in Gulu. Yesterday, I visited St. Monica's Convent, where former abductees (usually now teenaged or in their early 20's), and children born in the bush to child soldiers, are healing and starting new lives. One young woman sat with us and told us her story. As she talked of being taken at age 15, forced to carry outrageously heavy burdens of food and water, plus her gun (and later, her child as well, conceived through one of the many rapes she endured as the sex slave of the male soldiers), we were gradually joined by a large group of children ranging in age from about 2 - 18. Each Sunday, they come together at the St. Monica grounds to sing, play and learn. One of the friends I'm here with, Isabel, had her guitar with her, and when the whole group of about 80 kids and youths had gathered in a circle with us, under a towering and shade-giving fruit tree, we all sang together, teaching each other songs in Spanish, English and Acholi. Later they divided up into boys and girls, and the girls played volleyball (the older girls carrying little ones on their backs, tied with long swathes of cotton) while the boys played soccer. Some of these children were abducted, others were born to soldiers and abductees in the bush and came out when their parents (who were also children) managed to ecape. One small girl of about 4 years old caught my eye as seeming different than the others. She had a protruding belly and a sort of squashed face, and she seemed to isolate herself from others and often hit those who came near her. One of the young women who lives at St. Monica's and had recently completed her vocational training in hotel and restaurant service, whispered to me that this little girl is Kony's child, according to sources in the bush. The mother is no longer alive. As I watched this odd little girl, I wondered what she had experienced from birth to the time she left the bush, whether the hereditary schizophrenia -- if that is indeed the correct diagnosis for Kony -- would affect her, and whether she would go through her whole existence being pointed at and and whispered about, and what her future held. It was, to say the least, a strange moment.

With that, I'll sign off. I'll be back to Kampala in the next few days and meeting with all sorts of NGO's and organizations there gathering information and contacts for an urban-youth resource centre project I'm helping with. Soon after that I'll be back in Nairobi and near the UN. But I hope that life will bring me back to Gulu and other parts of the North of Uganda again, and not too far in the future, to learn more of the Acholi language and hear more of their incredible stories of strength, survival and healing.

With love from Africa, I wish you all happy trails wherever you are!

Update from East Africa (April 2008)

I've relocated for at least the next 6-8 months or so to Kenya... no, please do not believe what you see on CNN (in general, actually). The entire country is not aflame.

After an intensely challenging time of painful upheaveal and struggle on almost every front in my life in 2007 in which I tripped over my own enthusiasm and did not take enough time to mourn some deep losses... well, I began 2008 with the realization that I had to start from the ground up and get re-centred, and that meant I needed to shut up and start following all my own good advice. So following the motto of whoever it was who said "90% of success is just showing up", I just showed up -- in India for a while, then in New Zealand for a long and wonderful rest with my family there, and I began doing sensible things like eating simply, sleeping enough each night, and enjoying daily hugs.

At long last, I have begun to feel my energy returning -- and with it, the reactivation of my nearly-dormant writing muscle! After my long, long silence, I've finally resurfaced. I feel the resurgence of my usual "tales from the road" writings coming soon...

So here I am at the UN Office in Nairobi (UNON), and about to undertake a half-year project working with my extraordinary friend and (by mutual adoption agreement) brother, Karun. I'm halfway through my MA in Human Security and Peacebuilding but have chosen for personal reasons to take 2008 off and to go back and complete the second half of the intensive curriculum from Jan-Jun 2009 instead. 2008 is being reserved for adventures and new experiences in my chosen "second career" field of peacebuilding, humanitarian work, and international development.

I promise a much more colourful (and also possibly irreverent and rambling) tale soon to catch you up on my travels in such far-flung locales as Nelson, BC, Colorado Springs, CO, India, and New Zealand. The traffic in Mumbai alone is worth one whole email.

If any of you intrepid explorers out there have been contemplating a vacation to Africa, then let me be the first to encourage you to come to Kenya... you could not pick a better time for great deals at some of East Africa's most wonderful locations, and seriously, the place ain't going up in smoke, don't buy into that media hype.

I would really like also to send out a broad-spectrum, but heartfelt, thank you to all of you who have extended your support morally, financially and materially to my undertakings as Fundraising Coordinator with my MA class at RRU for "Blueprint for Peace", our student-founded organization working in partnership with students in Uganda to assist internally displaced-persons in the North of that war-torn country. Speaking of Uganda -- with the reports of the LRA leader signing a peace agreement, I am praying for long-overdue demilitarization and the rebuilding of torn lives there and invite you all to give a moment's thought and prayer to the same...

Madam Efficiency Expert and the Sampu Camp Revolution (January 2007)

Sitting in Heathrow a the start of an 8 hour layover (my choice was 2h, which means missing your connection, or 8...), I think I'll take a stab at completing my travel-email-logue.

So having survived the horror of knowing that cobras were lurking all around (this caused me to stick closely to the pathways and check where I stepped quite carefully while walking), and having learned how best to kill a scorpion that has mistakenly assumed it will be your tentmate for the night (with a sturdy shoe, three good whacks usually does it), I was at least a bit better prepared for the daunting task of training half a dozen very tall, very strong, remarkably gorgeous (really, how one tribe has such a high percentage of stunning men is beyond statistical odds and quite unfair) and intimidatingly proud Maasai men and helping them reorganize their camp.

My first day was spent cleaning tents with the young Room Attendant, Joseph. He was so quiet I wondered if he spoke English, but once he warmed up I realized he really was quite fluent. Since cleaning is not usually the domain of males in this culture, I was not surprised to see him taking an upside down and haphazard approach - mop floor, strip beds, clean sink, go get new linens for beds, clean shower, take away old linens, sweep front porch, dust, go get new soaps for bathroom, go back again and get fresh towels... it's easy to sound like an efficiency expert when the miracle you introduce is as simple and effective as A) get all your supplies together first, B) strip the room, C) make beds and add fresh towels, D) clean bathroom all at once and replace soaps, and E) sweep and mop from back to front and zip up tent - the last bit being the real revolution, since you don't then walk all over a floor you just washed! Wow. I was relieved when Joseph grinned at me and said 'much better, I like it' after I made him try it 'my way'.

Upon inspecting the stock room where he went to get his linens and soaps and mop, though, I found it in chaotic disarray. So the next morning I determined to bring a bit of Swiss orderliness to this camp's stock room and save the investors from constantly losing expensive items like linen to weather and bugs. I managed to coax Weweiro, who was hired as the 'Pool Maintenance Guy' and apparently has a tendency to cleave mightily to his job title and resist doing any other jobs (even when the pool can't be used because the generator is out of gas and it can't be filtered!!!), into getting the sheet metal and nails together to put walls around the storage shed, which when I found it was basically an open chicken wire cage with a roof, which means it was a welcome mat for creepy creatures who just loved to inhabit and munch on the camp's valuable supplies. My ability to charm him into doing this managed to impress the rest of the guys, who then watched me closely and with great interest for about half an hour as I dragged item after item out of the clogged shed, all wondering if I was seriously stubborn enough to go through with it despite finding the occasional nasty spider or scorpion. When they saw that I was not backing down, they all suddenly looked at each other and, probably out of shame, since they all had at least a foot of height and certainly a lot of muscle over me, jumped in to help me lift out all the heavy items. I smiled to myself at my small victory. By the end of the day, we had that place in top shape and everyone was looking at me quite differently. They all started calling me 'madam' with a very earnest tone in their voices... madam, could you come and show me the best way to do this? Madam, may I get you some water? Madam, would you like to go on a game drive and see animals tomorrow morning?

The next day was F&B service training with Josphat. Admittedly, it's a camp, and we're not talking plated dinner service or anything. But for people who typically own one single dish per person at home, and for whom that dish might consist of a reused old margarine tub, the logic behind stocking cabinets with plates, side plates, teacups, saucers, serving dishes and so on is not a 'given'. So as odd as it sounds, my first hour was spent explaining how much easier it is if you put the plates in one row from back to front, the teacups in one row from back to front, and so on - as opposed to all the plates at the very back, then all the cups, etc, which of course makes for a lot of reaching every time you set a table. Next was the very amusing lesson about serving women first, refilling women's water and tea and coffee first, and so on. This was met with two very, very arched eyebrows and a slightly cocked-back head, as if to say 'you are an odd, odd bunch of people, you muzungus!'. But actually it led to a most enjoyable discussion about cultural differences in various areas of the world, and what they signify in terms of any given person's status. If I ever go back to Sampu to help them again, I'm going to bring cutlery dividers for their drawers and complete the Food & Beverage service revolution.

In the remainder of my week I managed to have a team meeting with the Game Drivers and Security, to meet with the Chairman and Treasurer, and to oversee a deep-cleaning of all the tents and the creation of par stock lists and procedures for inventory checks. I knew I had won them over completely when, upon my departure, all these 6-foot-plus, regal and strong-spirited men one by one asked me very humbly and beseechingly if I would please stay and be their manager forever. I very nearly cried to have to leave them at that point.

Back in Nairobi I had one more Maasai man to win over: John Kamanga, the director of the camp who works remotely from his African Conservation Company office (he has many projects and this is but one of them). I suspected from the beginning that he did not really think I could do much in a week, and that Faith had just been persistent in arranging this opportunity and he took it as 'oh well, she won't do anything but it won't cost me anything so I'll put up with her'.

I arrived at his office dusty, sweaty, windblown and carrying a pen and some handwritten notes (having had no computer access at Sampu) and found him very busy and distracted. So I sat down and typed up my report and recommendations while he was doing other things, and at the end of the day I delivered all 7 pages of what I'd done, what I recommended, and a SWOT analysis of his project. I was rewarded royally when he, too, said 'this is amazing. When can you come back to do more training with us?'. So obviously I'm already eagerly looking forward to my next vacation in Kenya working at Sampu Camp!!! To borrow a phrase used a lot by the men I worked with in the camp, 'if God shall open the door, may it be so'.

I had a few days left in Nairobi and Faith asked me to give a talk to her Environmental Entrepreneurship Youth Group, telling them my career history, which I did on Friday afternoon. It was great fun to learn what amazing business plans these young Kenyans are putting together, and hear about the variety of internships they are currently working on at various companies.

One of them, Kuria, is just extraordinary - a shining example of the kind of bright young person who can and will shape Africa's future for the better. Since she had a course to do on Saturday morning, she sent him as her delegate to be my escort and professional bargainer at the Marketplace in Nairobi. Wow, can he ever haggle! We took a full sweep walk-through of the market first, just to see what was there ('madam, come here, let me show you...' 'lady, come, I have good prices' 'hey sister, look here' and lots of tugging of my sleeve and pushing) and then we circled back to get the items I wanted. He negotiated locals' rates while I pretended to look like I didn't particularly care if I bought that item or left it behind, to help him persuade the seller. One exasperated stall owner, who had been quite dead set on charging me 'tourist' prices, finally looked at me, sighed, and said 'Your boyfriend here must be a Kikuyu [a Kenyan tribe]. They bargain like hell. You have a good one, I am sure you will be very happily married.' Kuria and I laughed and left with my purchases. It's pretty much always assumed when a Kenyan is seen walking with a mzungu of the opposite sex that they are a couple, for whatever reason.

That afternoon (which I guess is now yesterday afternoon, not so long ago at all), Faith joined us, as did one of her interns, Kirsten, who is working at the UN and also helping her with the entrepreneurship program. Kuria, Kirsten, Faith and I did the truly Kenyan thing and sat sipping Tusker lagers and passionately discussing world politics. We agreed, after many hours of discussion, that our generation is the one that will overhaul the UN and make it a 'real' UN, not the toothless thing that it is now. We will abolish the 'veto' power that makes it possible for powerful nations to be rogue terrorist states that ignore international law, and we will usher in the beginnings of a new era of global humanitarianism. Hurrah and excelsior! We toasted to our current and future aspirations to live lives of service and activism, and then at last it was time to say farewell.

We went our separate ways, Faith as usual escorting me like a guardian angel to my next destination, which sadly was to the airport for goodbyes. And even more sadly, it included a lineup around the airport just to get in (I flew out two days before the BA strike is due, so it was a mad hustle to get out ahead of time.) Having obviously been born under a travel-lucky star, I ended up in line with a delightful expat Kenyan heading back to LA where he lives, and we joked, laughed and assisted each other with all the irksome luggage and security and check in and such procedures which nowadays are fraught with inconvenience. Then when we split to our different seats, lo and behold! I found myself in the same row as the wildly charming English folks who had been 'my' guests at Sampu camp when I was 'managing' it. They regaled me with tales of their adventures upon leaving the camp (flat tires they managed to mend with string and bits of wood, imagine that) and their next stop in Malindi, and I told them all the rest of my adventures after they'd left me at Sampu. So with all that good company, I had no time to be weepy about leaving, and here I find myself, at a comfy Internet Cafe, awaiting my plane home.

And so, friends, I am signing off - the last chapter of my Kenya travel diary ends here... until the next adventure and next email diary, be well!

You know,Toto, I think we're not in Kansas anymore... (January 2007)

It was not exactly the Yellow Brick Road from Nairobi to the South Rift Valley. I'd got used to potholes by now but this was indescribably wild. "Road" is really not the right word for the vague and rambling path that had been sort of hewn through rubble, salt lakes, savannah, hills and such. I don't know if there is a word for it, actually! I was just glad to be in a brand new and enormous Toyota Land Cruiser (it had been picked up from the showroom the very morning that John Kamanga, the director of the campsite project I went to, drove me there).

The camp, called Sampu Camp, is a new project that is intended to be a model to be copied throughout the South Rift area. South Rift is composed of several conservation areas and quite a number of group ranches owned by Maasai communities. They are trying to develop camps such as this one to open a corridor for tourists from the Maasai Mara to Amboseli park - to capture the business currently going to one park, then driving all the way back to Nairobi, and then driving all the way to the other park. Since South Rift connects the two parks, and in fact all the wildlife you see in either park transits this corridor regularly, visitors wanting the real safari experience would be much better off taking this route. Since it is a fully community-owned and run operation, it takes time to get off the ground. Getting all the various parties and chiefs and so on to agree at each step is no small feat, and often there are ruffled feathers between all the various 'important people' over who gets to be chairperson, treasurer, etc and then what gets lost is 'what does the chairperson actually do for the camp anyway and who makes sure that gets done???'. Nevertheless, Sampu has been the recipient of several grants and some significant NGO assistance, and is quite impressive in its potential and location.

So there I was, one little blond Canadian girl going into Maasai land to offer some service training, infrastructure and suggestions for making this camp a successful business and a model that could be copied.

My first discovery was one of the best, and provided the most wonderful conversation starter for the duration of my stay, particularly given that Maasai culture in its most traditional form is, ah, not entirely supportive of women's rights and power, shall we say ever so diplomatically. My discovery was made upon introducing myself to the half dozen Maasai men employed at the camp: "Melanda" is very, very close to a fairly common traditional Maasai name. For BOYS. Well that got us all off to a good start! I got every one of them laughing about how I had finally found 'my tribe' in the South Rift and actually I'm a Maasai man but just in a very good disguise.

As it happened, the young men working at the camp were very much in the 'crossroads generation' of Maasai, very passionate about conserving their rich and amazing cultural heritage but embracing a great deal of Western thinking about the role of women, and what they have to offer intellectually and socially. I was happy to remind them, as we talked and shared our stories and information about our cultural, ethnic and national backgrounds and norms, that actually Western society has a rich and illustrious history of repressing and ignoring women too, and it's only been in the last 100 years that we've had a voice at all, anywhere in the world. I hate to allow people to carry around idealistic and fantastical notions about how 'advanced' and 'good' Westerners are when really we're just different and have our own bundle of good, bad and ugly like every other culture out there.

Another amusing discovery (well, I had to laugh or I would have cried) was that most people in Kenya believe that Canada is part of the United States. One person asked if Canada was in Texas. Another said, solemnly, "all very learned people know that Canada is one of the United States of America". It took me many, many evenings of gentle coaching and adamant lecturing before they could believe that in fact, I come from an independent nation with the queen on our money, a Prime Minister (I left out the part about how our current PM wants to be up Bush's bum like Tony Blair and is a total US wannabe, that would have been a detriment to my case) and government run health care for all (I left out the part about how the right wing nutjobs in our country want to dismantle it and love to tell lies about how it 'isn't financially possible', because again, that wasn't my point!). We finally understood each other when I asked them "is there a country in the region here that Kenyans have some political difficulty with and would not want to be mistaken for? A country whose individual citizens you like, respect and feel neighbourly towards, but whose government and international policies you object to and strongly oppose?" They said, yes, that would be Somalia. Aha! When I then said "well, you telling me that Canada is part of the US is like me telling you that Kenya is a province of Somalia". They got it at last!

As to the environs of the camp, South Rift is a few hours drive south from the Ngong Hills (of the movie), which are just outside Nairobi. Nairobi and the Ngong area were historically all Maasai land, but as urbanization took hold of that water rich area, the Maasai, nomadic herders, were crowded into the south. They had always occupied the southern areas, all the way into Tanzania, but had previously also stretched north into Nairobi (the name of which is a corrupted version of a Maasai word "Nilofi" or something like that, which is some reference to water from what I've been told). As a group, the Maasai now run the gamut from extremely traditional, truly nomadic herders still living only on meat, blood and milk, to those who have added farming to their livelihoods, to those who have turned to farming entirely, to those who have started running businesses or working outside the home for their incomes. Most combine all of the above elements, so the men I worked with and trained all had farms, and also had herds, and also had jobs! Those who were married had wives who helped with the farms, children who did the herding when not at school, and some hired outside workers to help with the farming and herding. A very busy people!

On one afternoon during my stay, I was given a tour of the local community area, and was fascinated to see the combination of traditional flowing red and purple cloths, stretched earlobes and decorative beaded necklaces and headdresses, to suits and shirts - and the differences had nothing to do with what their roles were or what they were doing. Some herders wear the draped cloth and beads, some wear western attire. Some business people wear business attire, others are cloaked and beaded. It's all a colourful jumble. I visited a "boma", where the "warriors" live for a period of time - this is a rite of passage for young Maasai men, who are circumcised at age 18 as a 'becoming a man" initiation rite and then live in huts together for a few years. Traditionally they would have gone out and hunted lions - I think you have to have a scar from a lion hunt to be a 'real' Maasai man - but now they are part of the conservation efforts and don't hunt but rather steward the wildlife. In this phase they grow and braid their hair quite long, and then when they leave the boma they shave their heads. Women similarly have initiation rites, which horrifically also include circumcision (which is actually referred to by human rights organizations seeking to ban the practice as "female genital mutilation" which is honestly a more accurate term for what is done to these girls). During my visit to the local health centre, which was donated and built by the British Army and serves the local community, the doctor told me that this practice causes terrible medical issues for women and also complicates childbirth enormously. There are a lot of such issues being worked on slowly as this culture, which is beautiful and strong and tied to the environment and nature in amazing ways, begins to reinvent itself in light of the growing focus on the rights of women. It is a fascinating struggle to see up close and not at all a simple matter to address.

The camp itself was amazing. It is graded "deluxe", not luxury, which I appreciated, because it allowed the real flavour of the 'safari' experience to seep into you while you were there, not having some veil of ridiculous and unnecessary convenience between you and the wild. Not to say it was uncomfortable, because it had great amenities. It made me feel like I was on Safari for real, or in the movie Out of Africa or something. Each tent was like a small and rather basic cabin, but with a fully equipped bathroom at the back, beds, and tables and chairs. The tents were placed around the outside of the camp and each had an extraordinary view -- some overlooking the river, some facing the escarpment and hills, some facing across the grasslands. The Mess Tent had the best view of all, with a view all the way to the mountains dividing Kenya and Tanzania. The camp was open but guarded and patrolled 24h/day, and as it happens the animals tend not to come into human occupied camps because they fear the light, noise and unfamiliarity of the strange creatures inhabiting the camps. This was not a lot of reassurance at first (what about lions? oh they don't come in here. Yeah, okay...), but as I grew used to it, I appreciated not being walled in, and being right out in the middle of the true wilds of Africa. And, since I'm here at the UN offices borrowing a computer to type this, I obviously was not eaten by a lion.

I did not actually get to see any predators at all, though on the game drives we did I got to see zillions of zebra, lots of Maasai giraffes (darker than the Rothschild variety), wildebeest, dik-diks (small antelopish things with no horns), impala, and one very unhappy buffalo. Apparently Maasai don't fear any animal at all, save for the lone buffalo -- these are the males who have failed to get their own herd and are eternally angry about it and take it out on everything they see. Even lions don't usually go for them, they are so dangerous. If you meet one whilst walking, you are likely to be killed on the spot if it's in a bad mood, which they usually are. So seeing one, even from inside a sturdy Jeep, was a bit of a nervous thrill.

My other wildlife encounters were of a smaller yet more frightening variety. Three cobras were found at the back of a very messy supply tent that we cleaned out, and scorpions were all over the place inside crumpled materials or under boxes that had not been moved in a while. I found three in my tent on one night. Needless to say, I was rather paranoid and checked every nook and cranny with my kerosene lamp and then again by the light of my cell phone (just in case the different light wavelengths revealed different things) before I went to bed each night. I also stripped and re-made my bed each time before getting into it, in case anything had crept into it while I'd been out.

There is so much more I should write about my week there - it was astounding and I can hardly wait to go back again! But for now I need to go, because I'm only borrowing this PC and I have several meetings with people here at the UN and later at the Red Cross that I now have to leave for. So I think I'll send another chapter from home - I'll be back in Vancouver on Sunday night.

Sending greetings and happy wishes and big hugs, and hoping to see most of you (who are in Vancouver) soon and share photos... I sign off as:

Melanda, the honorary Maasai man!

A Carnival, a Piece of Meat, a Punchline: Me (January 2007)

Having just survived the climb up and back down a termite-riddled, rickety lookout structure and having my breath taken clean away by the stunning view of Mt. Kenya’s silhouette in the misty dawn, I feel like it’s time for Chapter 4 – my last from Wajee. Today will be my last day here, and will be a busy one when it starts, trying to get as much done as possible.

I warn you all now, this one is a long one because I’ve had a jam-packed weekend and many stories to share!

Now where did I leave off? So on Friday last, Jagi arrived late at night. Everyone had been hustling all day to sparkle up the place for his arrival, but it was darkest night when he pulled up so we had to wait until the next day to see his reaction to all the improvements. (He was thrilled – by both the physical improvements and the infrastructure we’d put in place… this has to be the first time anyone has ever said the following sentence to me: “the auditors will just love what you’ve done here!” Wish I’d had a tape recorder for that one!)

The next morning Jagi took Flora and me on a day of touring the local sights and attractions that cemented forever my utter love of this part of the world, and he was the most passionate and knowledgeable guide you could hope for.

The routes to get to each of the local attractions are adventures in themselves and ideally would be done by mountain bike or on foot – but we had many places to see in one short day so took his Land Rover. Now, in paved and sterile little Vancouver, a Land Rover is no more than a big phallic symbol for a weak male ego – but in Africa, it just makes good sense. We passed a truck (a ‘lorry’, in the Kenyan terminology which takes its sensibilities from the UK, owing to its colonial past) coming down a steep hill and I feared it would lose its brakes and go hurtling into a stream never to be extracted! On either side as we barreled and bounced past were cows, goats, sheep, children, chickens, geese, and here and there women laying colourful laundry out to dry in a field. Then from the forest on one side emerged two traditional Kikuyu women, faces painted, walking with heavy burdens on their backs as women here often do. As they walked and talked, they were all the time busily weaving their colourful traditional baskets (I bought two such baskets at the Mihuti Market recently – they are gorgeous and are made from grass fibres on the vertical and re-used brightly coloured plastic bags on the horizontal weave).

First to Jajara Falls (meaning “rocky” falls in the local tribal language of Kikuyu). Hiking along a narrow trail, pushing through tall grasses with sharp edges, thorn bushes, fragrant herbs… crushed underfoot, they release a spicy green aroma with each step. Steep slopes, sometimes dry and crumbly and giving way, sometimes muddy and slippery. Rushing water louder as we approach, fresh cool moist air breaking the blasting heat of the midday sun, blessedly. Sweat trickles, tickly-prickly down the back! At last, a lovely cool perch on a rock by the falls, the soft mist soothing our burning skin.

Next, Igutha – which boasts both a waterfall and an organic coffee plantation/factory. Rows and rows of glossy dark green coffee plants with berries growing redder, soon to be picked and peeled and sorted. The water sorts the beans, how clever and simple! Low grade floats, higher grades sink – fascinating devices and special channels sift them into three distinct grades, and into chambers where they are washed and drained. Then to long, long drying racks in open fields, where they are sorted by hand and sun-dried. Off to market next go these happy beans, to be priced according to grade and shipped to roasters in North America and Europe who turn them into the shiny brown goodness that we grind up and make into our cappuccinos and espressos! Here, where the coffee grows and where people sweat and toil to sort and separate and husk the beans, they get only Nescafe instant packets… from the lowest of all the grades! Such a shame, that the growers never taste the highest quality product but instead export it all. Do we taste their sweat and labour when we sip our morning coffees, I wonder? Do we taste the red African earth and the rich rains, the yellow sun that dries this product and burns into the shoulders of those who pick through it for us, bean by bean? I think when I come home, I will taste all those things in my coffee forever. (And I’ll try to buy Organic, Fair Trade coffee as much as possible, too!)

Our next stop was fascinating. A local farmer blessed with particular ingenuity, Joseph Mwengi, has for many years now run his home on bio-gas. He has one cow, and its poop provides for all his family’s energy needs! Its stall is behind the house, on a ledge about 12 feet up from his garden/farm out the back. Its droppings are channeled into a deep cylindrical hole with a domed thingy on top that sort of floats on the manure sludge (yeah, ew, I know – but you know what? Not much of a smell!) – and by natural compression the methane is forced up a pipe that leads back into the house. They use the methane for lamps in each room and for the kitchen stove. He has created a variety of special portable clay ovens, which have small holes into which pipes send the methane. Voila! Perfect gas burners for each and every cooking task. And by the light of the lamps he has schooled all his very bright and ambitious children. His daughter, Purity, welcomed us and gave us a tour of their amazing home, and let us sign their guest book. It was filling up gradually with wonderful encouraging words left by tourists from all corners of the globe. The Mwengi farm is becoming rather an attraction in the area for visitors both Kenyan and international – it is a model of sustainable living, requiring no charcoal which is the standard energy source in Kenya, and it could be applied to many households. Apparently, last year, a German couple visited and were so amazed that they have been trying to get Jagi to find out the exact specs of how this bio-gas plant works, so that they can secure development funding to expand it. Potentially the farmer could sell the excess gas produced, and/or go into business setting up similar rigs at other homes. This same clever farmer has also solved his water problems by building the most extraordinary well/pump system that I can’t begin to describe… luckily I took pictures! It is made of an old tire, some tubes, some scrap wood, rope and some bicycle parts. He turns a handle and up comes water for his farm – or household – on demand.

Our last stop of the day was in Mukurwe-ini, the nearest town centre to Wajee (‘town’ meaning a few blocks of shops amid mostly fields and trees, of course). Along the way, we saw a lorry buying milk from farmers carrying big metal pails of the stuff. This milk lorry has a regular weekly route in the region, and dairy farmers – who have been given very high quality stainless steel sealed pails to put their milk in for sale – come and wait at the stops to have their product purchased by this collection service. It then takes the milk to Mukurwe-ini to a very modern processing station (which we visited), where it is tested, chilled and then put into tankers and sent on to larger towns and factories, where it is highly prized for cheese and yogurt making. The reason this milk supply is so safe and sought-after is that these farmers have been trained extensively by Canadians through an initiative called “Farmers Helping Farmers”. The Canadian farmers visit the Kenyan dairy farms and teach good animal care and hygienic practices, give free veterinary advice and care, and so on. They also co-funded the new high-quality lab/processing plant in Mukurwe-ini. Since the farmers profit so much from their milk sales, and know that the testing is very accurate, they are rewarded for following good practices as they would be ‘blacklisted’ if they sold watered down or contaminated milk. Thus a win-win situation that rewards honesty and good farming practices! There are apparently yogurt-making seminars at the plant regularly, too, for anyone wishing to expand from just selling milk to selling other products.

It was a long day… and then a long Saturday night! At first, it was quiet, and our happy little family of Wajee staff gathered at the campfire circle and watched the video “Beautiful People”, a humourous documentary about the Namib desert. As we watched, we sampled “amaroula”, a special cream liqueur made from the fruit of the maroula tree, which is native to Namibia, appropriately enough. It was particularly funny because part of this movie shows how the animals gorge on the fermenting maroula fruit, which have extremely high sugar and yeast content at the end of the growing season when they fall in masses to the ground. This gets the animals drunk as all hell, and they weave and wobble and roll around like clowns – elephants, gazelles, baboons, meerkats, wildebeests, all absolutely hammered, walking into trees and tripping on their own feet/hooves/paws/etc. … and then the next morning, ha! Animals with hangovers, if you can imagine that. It’s unreal to see these monkeys holding their poor aching heads, looking sad and sorry and wondering what happened last night. Amaroula, the human-made drink from this fruit, is actually a lot like Bailey’s, a bit more chocolatey. Very creamy. A nice sipping drink for movie-watching!

After the movie, quite a few local patrons descended on the bar so I went to bed and let them carouse on without me. They carried on all night! I hardly slept what with all their ruckus, and was horrified to find the next day that one of them – apparently the local ne’er-do-well, does this a lot – was STILL at the bar drinking beer, while poor Edna in her typical politeness had literally stayed up ALL night serving him drinks. Of course the watchmen were there to keep an eye out, but really. I told Flora to consider instituting this new crazy thing called “closing time” that we invented in Canada.

That same Sunday morning, Judy took me and Flora to her church (Catholic). The service was in Kikuyu so I didn’t understand the words, but the singing was beautiful. The offertory song was so lovely that it made me forget, briefly, the thought that the Vatican hardly needs more gold candlesticks off the backs of Africans earning less than $1000 per year…. Anyway, I don’t know who was more fascinated – me with the lively service, or the congregation with my glaringly white presence. Children popped in and out of pews to peek at me, then hid behind their parents’ knees and giggled. A gorgeous gurgling baby on the lap of the woman next to me was probably the only person small enough not to know that skin colour differences mean anything (or maybe I should say, ‘small enough to know that skin colour differences don’t mean anything’?), so he just smiled toothlessly at me and drooled. Scrumptious little round thing he was, with shiny chubby cheeks and a fetching knitted cap!

As I left, it was like a carnival was passing through. I kept wondering what was going on but apparently I was what was going on! At least 20 children followed me out and down the trails and roads towards Wajee camp. I wished I had some kind of a dance routine to entertain them or something; I felt like a pretty lame show for all that attention! But a handshake and a smile seemed to be enough to make them happy and I obliged. Later after I returned to the office, the two children who deliver milk to Judy every day worked up the courage to come and sit beside me at the computer and introduce themselves (Mary and Justice, 7 and 5 years respectively, sister and brother). Then they stroked my hair like I was some kind of big living doll they wanted to play with. So I gave them a sweet and chatted with them a while, and then they ran home to tell everyone the unbelievable story of this strange, pale, blond, blue-eyed creature they had spoken to!

The attentions I received in Nyeri on Monday were less enjoyable, I have to say. But I should back up. Starting out at 7:30AM on Monday morning, Flora and I journeyed to Mukurwe-ini (a very small town 5k from Wajee), and then on to Nyeri, for a variety of tasks, which took us to no less than the local office of the President (I got a picture with the D.O. and we exchanged business cards. Ooh la la, that’s networking for you!) and then the National Social Security Fund office to register Wajee’s employees (did you know they fingerprint everyone at every government office, every time you register for anything?? All 10 digits, no less!), and to various banks and offices. The experience at each and every office was… a lot of waiting around followed by more waiting around and then some waiting around. Bureaucracy is a bore anywhere in the world, but it’s at its peak here where just about everything is manual and done painstakingly slowly in pen and ink… aaack. Yes, I had a lot of spare time to practice my meditation techniques, that’s for sure!

Well when we were at last ready to go, burdened enormously with supplies we had bought for the camp, we had to make our way down a horrid busy street to the matatu station. Now, Nyeri is hardly Nairobi, but it is most definitely a city with all the attendant madness that can bring in this part of the world. And far from feeling like a vaguely amusing attraction as I did after church, I felt like a piece of meat in a cage being circled by sharks after being pawed, grabbed, and hooted at for three blocks. As we tried to get ourselves and our weighty packages into the right matatu, a man with devil-red eyes, intoxicated in the worst way, made himself obnoxious in his attempts to get me to follow him god-knows-where. So Flora, despite weighing no more than one of my legs I’m sure, went into protective mother bear mode, placed herself squarely in front of me, and drove him away, then took my hand and led me towards our matatu. The unpleasantness was momentarily broken when, as we marched off, I almost become a hackneyed punchline by actually slipping on a papaya peel – and very nearly taking a huge spill! Oh to have had a picture of that Stooge moment! It was really quite limerick-worthy, had I the brains to come up with one (“there was a young girl from BC, harassed by a man in Nyeri; she stepped on a fruit and went down with a hoot, and…” oh, whatever!). Suffice it to say that I have never been so glad to have a local ally with me, nor to finally get into a matatu however dusty and smelly, as I was then.

And the shower, once home again at Wajee, despite being freezing cold, was the best shower I’ve ever had, washing away the grime and ick of Nyeri and returning me to my state of peaceful appreciation that has been the more dominant theme of my trip so far.

The day after tomorrow, I go to Nguruman, for quite a different flavour – Maasai country. It’s a facility that is not even open yet, and has just one caretaker. So I’m having visions of me in the desert, surrounded by wild animals that want to eat or trample me, and one companion who speaks only Swahili whom I imagine to be saying “how are you, welcome to the lodge” when he is really saying “lady, move quickly, there is a wildebeest charging at you from behind”. Should be grand!

Until next time, I send you all big hugs from Africa!

A Peacock Falls in Love and Flora Avoids Jail (January 2007)

I have a new admirer. Aside from the routine, daily marriage proposals in the streets, at the market, and in every shop (apparently lots of folks would like to have a mzungu wife), I have attracted the attentions of a very persistent creature: The Peacock of Wajee.

Interesting thing about peacocks – the noise they make is a lot like the sound made when those two purple monsters honk each other’s orange noses… you know the Sesame Street ‘Siamese twin monster’ character(s), they always fight about which way to go? Well, for those who know what I’m referring to, you’ll understand. So naturally being a Sesame Street baby, I speak fluent peacock – who knew?!? Anyway it’s true love, on his part anyway… I’m still undecided.

On the business end of things, despite power fluctuations for three days (on/off/on/off – aaaaaaggghhhh I lost that document I was working on AGAIN???), we’ve managed to make some real headway on income, expenditure, accounts receivable/payable, and budget/forecast spreadsheets. I’ve also introduced two revolutionary concepts (don’t laugh): the “To Do List” and “Schedules”. WOW. Earthshaking progress, I tell ya! Actually it’s really gratifying to see how much of a difference these tools can make, and without any scorn I do totally see how it is the case that they are not yet ‘givens’ for this place as they are for us at home. So many basic needs are in question for so many people; the energy and time here is often spent dealing with crises, and lack of essentials. There has not yet been enough ‘spare energy’ so to speak, to create good infrastructure, systems and leadership. But everyone is receptive, eager to learn, and appreciative. And they have so much to share and teach, about experiences far different from my own.

I’ve learned about medicinal plants, bio-gas initiatives working to replace the dependence on firewood and charcoal (with its attendant environmental threats), sacred trees under which goat sacrifices used to (and still do) take place, witch doctors and government outreach programs designed to integrate these tribal healers by accepting their wisdom but offering basic sanitation classes to ‘improve’ the services they give their tribespeople. I’ve heard the passion in people’s voices about their country’s natural beauty and the need to conserve it, and I’ve witnessed unbelievable levels of dedication to self-improvement and education. Everyone from developed countries would be well served to visit developing countries for a lesson in gratitude (“studying is so boring; I hate broccoli; work is so stressful; the network is down again”… blah blah blah! At home where I'm from, we have FREE EDUCATION through secondary school, and most of us CAN go to post-secondary if we wish, even if we have to take student loans to do it. We HAVE the option of broccoli or a thousand other veggies. We HAVE jobs! We HAVE a network!) Every day I’m here I love these people more, and my heart wells up with gratitude for the many tools and support systems I have in my life back home. May I never take these gifts for granted as long as I live! (Now stepping off my soapbox...)

So aside from the power outages, we had some real drama the other day. Two men arrived from the local Licensing Bureau and literally demanded immediate payment of license fees unpaid since 2003 (I did say this place had been mis-managed before Flora, and I meant it!) or else they would haul someone off to jail. I sat quiet as a mouse in the back office listening. Papers were rummaged through. Voices raised, then hushed. Most of it in Swahili but a few English words here and there (“jail” “money” “arrears”). Flora, being savvy and diplomatic, rightly played dumb – being the new manager here only a few days, this was totally valid – and after many hours, they agreed to hold off on the jailing plan and let us sort things out. I was outraged after they left and could not believe that government representatives would behave in that way. I was assured that this is pretty normal and people just deal with it. Hmmmmmm...

Then suddenly, just after these two government official thugs leave, Jagi’s brother pulls up in a truck with some random bits of furniture being donated to Wajee. It’s quite nice, African style with raw wood and canvas strapping to hold the cushions in place. Really quite a sight, though, when placed next to the colonial English numbers that are in the Bar/Campfire area already! We’ll call it, um, eclectic.

Strangely, most of what I’m experiencing here (minus the peacock admiration and the government officials threatening to jail someone, of course) is very familiar. Reminds me of Hornby Island and my Dad’s place, actually! So maybe that’s why my ‘culture shock’ has been buffered… I was adapted early to the rustic life!

In other ornithological-romance news, we have a Magpie couple who hang out by the kitchen every day. They are quite the sweethearts, always snuggling and whispering in each other’s ears (well, I can’t tell if they have ears but I’ll just assume they do). And sharp as tacks, watching everything that goes on… and they are on anything shiny like a flash, if you drop something! These good-natured birds and the amorous peacock almost make me forget my hatred of the horrid geese, who despise me for no good reason and chase me every time they see me!

Carrying on with the wildlife updates, I had a HUGE praying mantis on my wall last night – I took pictures, of course. I’d never seen one except in pictures. They’re quite fascinating. Also we were visited by one of the local mongooses. I love mongooses! But I hope their presence does not indicate that snakes are also about… shudder.

Well that’s enough for today! Jagi, the director, is arriving today and will hopefully be pleased with the progress we’re making. I hope to arrange to stay on here until Wednesday but may have to go back to Nairobi with him tomorrow. I will be deeply sad to leave my family here, whether I go tomorrow or next week. My heart has grown very attached (you’re all nodding, you know me well enough to have predicted that!)

Okay my suitor the peacock is strutting outside the door trying to get my attention, I really have to go!!!

Did anyone order a goat? (January 2007)

I have email access at Wajee! What an unexpected gift...

Where did I leave off? I think I'd just eaten gizzards for breakfast and sworn it was the first and last time. Ha ha 'never say never again', Bond was right. Gizzards were served for lunch the day after I arrived here, too!

Well, on January 3rd Faith delivered me to Jagi, the owner of Wajee Nature Park and a passionate conservationist who serves on all kinds of boards and organizations dedicated to eco-tourism. He drove me and Flora (the new manager he hired to run Wajee and whom I'm here to assist) to Nyeri (of Treetops and Queen Elizabeth's visit fame), and then on to the even more rural area where Wajee reserve is located.

The drive was long, but uneventful... except for my slight jet lag, which resulted in several near-snoozes interrupted by the usual *smash* of our wheels going into a cavernous hole. Along the way we passed coffee plantations, bananas, pineapple farms (owned by Dole, of course), and dreadfully hothouses on the side of a lake growing roses for the European market. I cannot tell you how much bloodshed and loss of life, both human and animal, as well as damage to ecosystems, results from these flowers. The lakes are being slowly drained, turning good fertile soil into hopelessly saline waste, soon to be desert for cut roses that last a few days! Conservationists try to patrol the areas and hire locals to guard against both overfishing and misuse of water, but corruption and payoffs abound and often it turns to violence. Recently a well known Kenyan woman, a lifelong conservationist, in the Lake Naivasha area was murdered in her sleep, probably retribution for her vocal efforts to stop the insane use of the lakes waters for flower growing and attempting to patrol the hunting and fishing effectively. Anyway, this is not to depress you just to give you the other side of some of the products that end up for sale in the Western world... there is much injustice that lurks beneath some of the things we buy and enjoy daily.

We arrived safely at Wajee and it was well dark by then, and we held a meeting around the Camp Fire/Bar area with all the workers at the park to introduce Flora as their new manager and myself. They are utterly delightful people; hardworking, sincere and gentle. We open and close each meeting with a prayer, as is often the case in Kenyan meetings, I'm finding. I quite enjoy this spiritual aspect to everything that is done leaving aside religious differences at home, I think our western world is overly secular at the expense of experiencing spirit.

On my first night I stayed in a hut, and on day two I moved into a room in the main cabin, which is nice because nights here are very cold, due to our high altitude. Mosquitoes seem to be an every-second-day phenomenon for some reason; one day they're all over, the next they're not. Malaria is not an issue in this particular area nor, to my knowledge, is the Rift Valley Virus that some of you may have heard about on the news. I gather that is more along the coast, while I'm in Central Kenya at a higher elevation. In any event I'm taking malaria medication preventively, and spraying my skin with repellent appropriately... so I'm sure Ill be quite fine.

Since arrival, I've been adapting to the African rhythm of life and daily work. Things happen differently here. You call someone to come and see about X, he might arrive tomorrow, or not at all. You kind of go along, doing things as they come up, and try to keep the overall goals in mind and aim to get to the most important things when you can. Ive had to shed a lot of my own ideas of what a successful day means since arriving, and just go with it. So far we've typed up new menus, created letterhead, reviewed employee files and re-done contracts and job descriptions, and begun putting together the 2007 Plan and get a grip on the budget and marketing angles of things. Not bad, considering that most days involve about 11 random occurrences that have to be dealt with as we go. Lets see... people stop by and say they were promised a calendar (Jagi dropped some off when he brought us here) but are not on the list of names we have, which is a huge problem. These calendars are quite the commodity in this rural area. Someone comes by and wants to sell us cabbage, or a live chicken, or some fresh milk... or even a goat! No one knows if we need those items or if someone genuinely asked for or ordered them (did anyone order a goat?) and we have to check the kitchen and hum and haw over it. Our Groundsman, Kariru, is a specialist at Nyama Choma, the Kenyan roast meat dish. So he takes his time weighing up the goat and inspecting it, and the whole group discusses the possibility of purchasing this goat at length (I then have visions of seeing the goat one day alive and kicking, and eating it the next. Which is, after all, a more honest way to eat meat but quite unfamiliar territory to me!). Then another time, Jagi's brother, Mburu, comes by to tell us that his guinea fowl are sick and he needs to borrow money for vaccinations. A school group drops in for a paid tour but then get distracted because they all want to meet the mzungu (me... it means "foreigner") lady and shake her hand. Life goes along...

The resort itself is rather run down, having not been managed effectively in recent years. It is, however, located in a beautiful setting and is teeming with gorgeous birds and lovely trees. There are three waterfalls nearby, a perfect view of Mt. Kenya, a local market, and several organic farms. I've not managed to see all these yet, but did get a tour of an organic amaranth farm run by Jagi's brother his family seems to own a lot of the land around here on a hillside. The farming done here does not conform to our notions of rectangular plots by any stretch. Everything just flows into everything else in its own way. Rolling hills, layer after layer of green, disappearing into infinity. Banana trees, avocado trees, mangoes, interspersed with grains and coffee. Almost every tree you point to has some value, medicinal or food. Plants that look like weeds are really young cassava plants, or sweet potato or yam. They seem like they just sprung up there but in fact were deliberately planted the front yard of any given house along the road may look to my eyes like a slope and a ditch, but every corner seems to be used somehow. Amaranth is a new grain to Africa, amazing in its nutritive and medicinal values and its yield per acre of land, and at this farm they are attempting to gain organic certification so they can sell their grain for higher market price. They have dug large composting pits between the banana trees (which give great shade) and are using a Japanese-developed technology known as EM (Effective Microorganisms), which uses helpful microorganisms to speed up the composting process naturally.

After the tour of his farm, Mburu gave us a fresh papaya, some sweet potatoes, and amaranth leaves, and then later his sister dropped by to give us a sugar cane and some pumpkin leaves. Last night, for dinner, I finally tasted this flavourless corn mash (Ugali) I'd heard about, but it wasn't so bad because it was served with nicely stewed and flavourful pumpkin and amaranth leaves. I've tried almost every local specialty now, I think most are some combination of beans, maize and green vegetables, flavoured and prepared a bit differently in each dish. Truthfully, I've enjoyed them all but I will gladly eat a heap of sushi when I get back to Vancouver!

My photos and words just don't do this place justice. Even when I'm home and print the pictures to show you all, or email them to those of you far away, they wont even scratch the surface of the lush, organic, flowing nature of this location and I am failing to find words to express it all! Little shiny birds perch on branches outside the window singing all day, the voices of cows in the distance are interrupted randomly by the beeping of a matatu raging by on the dirt roads (which are constantly shifting with the rains, being just dirt that becomes mud when wet) or a chainsaw. Chickens run around on the ground. The local market is a field where women spread out blankets and sell tomatoes, passionfruits, arrowroot, or colourful woven baskets. Shops sell bits of almost everything but no one has items like tea bags for some reason. What is cheap and what is expensive has no relation to anything I understand or know to be normal. Insects are huge. Caterpillars as big as my hand hang off a tree branch, weighing it down. The rain is torrential when it comes, the sun is scorching. When you stop at the side of the road, you see endless layers of hillsides disappearing into the mists.

The locals are well informed both politically and globally, and love to chat about the state of the environment, upcoming elections, and what is being done about the most critical issues in Kenya and other countries.

And it's all wonderful beyond belief.