I woke up this morning thinking about 9/11 as I do every year on its anniversary. I think about and miss New York City and generally say a prayer for those people whose daily lives are still very much present in the consequences of that day. But, as a pregnant woman, I was also filled with hope this morning that, despite the atrocities happening in our world everyday, one of these days we will get it right and there will be peace. At least that is certainly what I hope our baby experiences in his or her lifetime.
So Baby Welsien, increasingly called Simba (which means "lion" in Swahili and is not gender specific even though Simba in the movie "The Lion King" was a boy), is doing really well these days. Yesterday I had an ultrasound at 14 weeks and 2 days along in my pregnancy. It was amazing and so different from the first ultrasound I had at 6 weeks. First of all, when you are 6 weeks pregnant and have an ultrasound, the doctor says, "Do you see that dot on the screen? That dot is your baby!" because the baby is so small at that stage. At 14 weeks, however, our baby is a real person! As soon as ultrasound started, I could see that the baby was almost jumping around. Simba was moving its arms, legs, and shaking its head! I could even see where its eyes are (although they are still sewn shut) and the outline of a little nose. It looked like Simba was waving directly at me, saying, "Hi, Mom!" at 4 different times during the scan. As I waved back to my baby, I thought, "This is probably the most amazing moment of my life so far."
Sadly, Kristoffer was not with me because he had to go to Mombasa (the city on the Coast of Kenya) for work and my doctor wanted the scan done before the end of the week. I was lying there teary-eyed with the doctor who asked simply, "This is your first baby?" How could he tell?!
The scan did not indicate any signs of Down Syndrome, Simba's spine was fully and perfectly developed, and the doctor said that everything looked normal and healthy. I will have another one in 6 more weeks when I am 20 weeks along (halfway there!) and Kristoffer will definitely not miss that one. The doctor who does the ultrasound is different than my OB/GYN but he will give her all of the pictures of the scan and at my next appointment in two weeks we will get to keep them. If I can scan them and post them here I certainly will!
We have learned that pregnant woman are treated very differently in Kenya than they are in the US or Europe. In our countries, when you tell people you are pregnant they go crazy and get excited and congratulate you and constantly ask you questions about your pregnancy! In Kenya, however, it is really taboo to talk about a pregnancy or to even acknowledge one. We have speculated as to why this is...perhaps it is because Kenyans are superstitious and don't want to "jinx" the pregnancy? Or maybe it is because infant mortality is higher in African countries than in developed countries and many babies die? It could even be that for people who are very poor, as many Kenyans are, a pregnancy is not considered to be a blessing, but rather another mouth that they can't afford to feed. For these reasons, or others we have not thought of, Kristoffer's and my colleagues are not really acknowledging that I am pregnant. At first we felt awkward about it, but now we understand and respect that it is a cultural difference. In fact, Kristoffer's colleague told him that when she was a little girl she pointed out a pregnant woman and her father beat her severely for it. Yikes! But not to worry, we are surrounded by many expatriates who are eagerly following our pregnancy and so we don't feel totally neglected!
So Kristoffer has been in Mombasa for the last two days and our Danish friends have been visiting the Masai Mara for the last three days. Everybody comes home this evening so I am eager to hear about their adventures. Over the weekend we visited Nakuru National Park (about 2 hours north of Nairobi) and had a beautiful game drive. We also visited a very touristy restaurant in Nairobi called "Carnivore" which serves a lot of MEAT! They used to be known for serving plains game (like zebra!) but now the most exotic meats they serve are ostrich and crocodile. I will admit that I tried both - the ostrich was quite good but the croc was AWFUL! As one of friends said, it tasted like SWAMP (sort of like fish actually, but with the texture of chicken)! While I had previously not been eating meat here in Kenya, in my pregnancy I have really craved chicken and turkey so I am back to eating those a few times a week. Kristoffer, the truest vegetarian, has been a very good sport and is not protesting...although our plan is to raise the baby as a vegetarian. Talk about an identity crisis...Simba will be a Kenyan-Danish-American, Catholic vegetarian. S/he will have a hard time checking off boxes on official paperwork...but maybe can get a lot of scholarships because of it!
This weekend some of our Danish friends will leave, another one will come, and then Kristoffer and two friends will leave on Sunday to spend next week climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania - the highest mountain in Africa. While this was one of my goals in moving to Kenya, I think I have made peace with the fact that I'll just have to do it at another time in my life. Simba's health and safety are much more important than some little mountain :)
LMW
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
September 4, 2008 - A New Life in Nairobi!
We are very pleased to publicly post for the first time that Lisa is pregnant! It has been very hard for her to write a lot of blogs without talking about the pregnancy, because from the minute we found out (the day before our first wedding anniversary!) it has been the most dominant force in our lives. Now Lisa is relieved that the secret is out and she can happily turn this into a "Pregnant in Nairobi" blog.
Baby Welsien is due on March 11th and as of yesterday we are safely into the second trimester of the pregnancy. Lisa has been feeling really well for the most part. July was a month of nausea and exhaustion and August was a bit better in the nausea department, but she was equally tired! Her worst symptom so far has been terrible pregnancy acne (skin problems!) on her face and chest, but we are hoping that the second trimester will show an improvement.
We found a recommended OB/GYN here in Nairobi at the Aga Khan Hospital, which is the premier hospital in East Africa and has a brand new state-of-the-art maternity wing that we are very happy about. They have the best care around for babies born prematurely, and we are happy to know that fathers are allowed to stay in the hospital room with moms and babies (they have family "hotel rooms") and that moms and babies are not kicked out after 48 hours! So far we have been very pleased with the doctor: she is very encouraging, positive, and calm. We have friends who had a baby here last March and were very happy with the care they received.
Because this pregnancy came to us as a bit of a surprise, especially so close to Lisa's heart surgeries in May, we saw the doctor when Lisa was 6 weeks along. An ultrasound at that time showed that the baby already had a strong heartbeat (it sounded like white noise but you could see the rhythm very clearly) and, at only .5 cm big, we were instantly in love. All of our fears about the surgeries and the pregnancies were assuaged by the OB/GYN, the ultrasound, Lisa's cardiologist here and her cardiologist in NYC (via email). As much as she can, Lisa has been eating well and exercising...although both should get easier with renewed energy and decreased hormones in the second trimester.
Now...we know some of the questions you might be wondering:
What will Baby W's citizenship be? Baby W will be born with Kenyan citizenship, but will automatically get American citizenship because Lisa is American and Danish citizenship because Kristoffer is Danish. Therefore, our baby will officially be a citizen of the world, and master of three different continents.
Can your baby be President of the United States if s/he is born in Kenya? The jury is still out on this. Baby W's "Nene" (aka Lisa's mom) found evidence online that if you are born to an American citizen residing outside of the US that you can still be eligible to run for President. But the US State Department's website is not as clear. We will investigate further (because of course this is an urgent matter!) and get back to you, but if anyone reading this has expertise on the subject - please share!
What language will your baby speak? Baby W will hopefully be bilingual. Kristoffer will speak to the baby only in Danish and Lisa will speak to the baby on English. We might try to integrate some Kiswahili too...but let's not get too ahead of ourselves.
Will you find out what kind of baby you are having? No we will not! We are both equally excited about the moment of true surprise in March when the doctor says..."It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" We do have a few names picked out in either case, but Kristoffer is definitely rooting for a boy and Lisa is thinking that it just might be a girl! Maybe somebody wants to take bets?
Will you come to the US and/or Denmark before the baby is born in March? Yes, as a matter of fact we will! We arrive in the US for 3 weeks on December 6th and then head to Denmark on December 26th for 2 weeks. After that I will be cut off from air-travel so we will really make the most of our holiday vacation. We look forward to seeing all of our family and friends (or as many of you as possible!) and showing off Lisa's baby belly.
And when will Americans and Danes get to meet Baby Welsien? Next summer we plan to take a holiday to Denmark for a few weeks in June to celebrate "Far Mor's" 60th birthday (aka Kristoffer's mom) and then we will head to the US for a few weeks as well. But of course, guests are welcome to come to Kenya before then if they just can't wait to meet Baby Welsien. In fact, Lisa's mom (and hopefully her dad too!) will be coming for about 6 weeks when Baby W is born and we already have some potential August visitors lined up. Leave it to our baby to keep a pressing social calendar.
Thank you, in advance, for sharing in our joy. Having a baby in Kenya was not exactly part of our plan when we moved here, but we are so excited and feel very blessed to be expectant parents. We have had great role models in our parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and friends with children and we really look forward to the challenges and rewards of parenting.
Kristoffer & Lisa
Baby Welsien is due on March 11th and as of yesterday we are safely into the second trimester of the pregnancy. Lisa has been feeling really well for the most part. July was a month of nausea and exhaustion and August was a bit better in the nausea department, but she was equally tired! Her worst symptom so far has been terrible pregnancy acne (skin problems!) on her face and chest, but we are hoping that the second trimester will show an improvement.
We found a recommended OB/GYN here in Nairobi at the Aga Khan Hospital, which is the premier hospital in East Africa and has a brand new state-of-the-art maternity wing that we are very happy about. They have the best care around for babies born prematurely, and we are happy to know that fathers are allowed to stay in the hospital room with moms and babies (they have family "hotel rooms") and that moms and babies are not kicked out after 48 hours! So far we have been very pleased with the doctor: she is very encouraging, positive, and calm. We have friends who had a baby here last March and were very happy with the care they received.
Because this pregnancy came to us as a bit of a surprise, especially so close to Lisa's heart surgeries in May, we saw the doctor when Lisa was 6 weeks along. An ultrasound at that time showed that the baby already had a strong heartbeat (it sounded like white noise but you could see the rhythm very clearly) and, at only .5 cm big, we were instantly in love. All of our fears about the surgeries and the pregnancies were assuaged by the OB/GYN, the ultrasound, Lisa's cardiologist here and her cardiologist in NYC (via email). As much as she can, Lisa has been eating well and exercising...although both should get easier with renewed energy and decreased hormones in the second trimester.
Now...we know some of the questions you might be wondering:
What will Baby W's citizenship be? Baby W will be born with Kenyan citizenship, but will automatically get American citizenship because Lisa is American and Danish citizenship because Kristoffer is Danish. Therefore, our baby will officially be a citizen of the world, and master of three different continents.
Can your baby be President of the United States if s/he is born in Kenya? The jury is still out on this. Baby W's "Nene" (aka Lisa's mom) found evidence online that if you are born to an American citizen residing outside of the US that you can still be eligible to run for President. But the US State Department's website is not as clear. We will investigate further (because of course this is an urgent matter!) and get back to you, but if anyone reading this has expertise on the subject - please share!
What language will your baby speak? Baby W will hopefully be bilingual. Kristoffer will speak to the baby only in Danish and Lisa will speak to the baby on English. We might try to integrate some Kiswahili too...but let's not get too ahead of ourselves.
Will you find out what kind of baby you are having? No we will not! We are both equally excited about the moment of true surprise in March when the doctor says..."It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" We do have a few names picked out in either case, but Kristoffer is definitely rooting for a boy and Lisa is thinking that it just might be a girl! Maybe somebody wants to take bets?
Will you come to the US and/or Denmark before the baby is born in March? Yes, as a matter of fact we will! We arrive in the US for 3 weeks on December 6th and then head to Denmark on December 26th for 2 weeks. After that I will be cut off from air-travel so we will really make the most of our holiday vacation. We look forward to seeing all of our family and friends (or as many of you as possible!) and showing off Lisa's baby belly.
And when will Americans and Danes get to meet Baby Welsien? Next summer we plan to take a holiday to Denmark for a few weeks in June to celebrate "Far Mor's" 60th birthday (aka Kristoffer's mom) and then we will head to the US for a few weeks as well. But of course, guests are welcome to come to Kenya before then if they just can't wait to meet Baby Welsien. In fact, Lisa's mom (and hopefully her dad too!) will be coming for about 6 weeks when Baby W is born and we already have some potential August visitors lined up. Leave it to our baby to keep a pressing social calendar.
Thank you, in advance, for sharing in our joy. Having a baby in Kenya was not exactly part of our plan when we moved here, but we are so excited and feel very blessed to be expectant parents. We have had great role models in our parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and friends with children and we really look forward to the challenges and rewards of parenting.
Kristoffer & Lisa
Friday, August 29, 2008
August 29, 2008 - Politics
I have to say that this morning, as I watched Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination this morning (well...CNN showed long highlights but I was asleep for the live event), I couldn't help but ache for my classroom in NYC. I envy my colleagues who get to teach this historic moment in American history and I spent at least 15 minutes drafting lesson plan ideas in my head while I was eating breakfast.
Regardless of who individuals are voting for or if Barack Obama wins the election, I cannot imagine that every American watching that speech was not completely moved by the fact that an African American man is a candidate for President. I had goosebumps and I shed a few tears for sure...it was "awesome" in every sense of the word.
But actually, these days in Kenya I have been dealing with a different kind of politics. This week at work, a UNICEF colleague of mine and I had an extremely disappointing experience with another colleague from a different UN agency. It would be highly unprofessional of me to describe the situation in detail here, but I will say that I learned something very interesting.
You see, I expected that the UN system would be rife with political agendas and motivations, as any institution is. But for some reason, I naively thought that the politics at the UN would be different from other politics I have experienced...somehow more mature or worldy. This, as I learned this week, turns out to be completely untrue. The politics at the UN are the same as the politics of a high school in NYC or Washington, DC, the same as the politics at a major private university, and the same as the politics of an American small-town's musical theater company. Some people with a relative degree of power here defend it with their lives, at all costs, and at whatever expense it is to their colleagues. At this point, I am now in the middle of an unexpected and undesired battle, which will hopefully be resolved with mediation from high level administration on Monday. Sheesh! And I am just a consultant - I thought there would be no stress!
That's most of the news from Nairobi this week. Kristoffer has been a little less busy at work this week than last week, or at least he is going in to the office a little bit later than he was last week! We bought some furniture for our house from some friends who are moving back to Denmark today so we are only one room away from being fully furnished at this point. Sadly, it looks as though our efforts with a second internet company are failing and we will need to start our search again, or resign ourselves to not having internet at home. This seems unacceptable to me so I think we won't give up the fight just yet...perhaps we just need to change tactics.
Kenya is certainly proud today of its favorite "half-son" today (Barack Obama, that is) and, again regardless of political affiliation, I think all Americans should be too!
LMW
Regardless of who individuals are voting for or if Barack Obama wins the election, I cannot imagine that every American watching that speech was not completely moved by the fact that an African American man is a candidate for President. I had goosebumps and I shed a few tears for sure...it was "awesome" in every sense of the word.
But actually, these days in Kenya I have been dealing with a different kind of politics. This week at work, a UNICEF colleague of mine and I had an extremely disappointing experience with another colleague from a different UN agency. It would be highly unprofessional of me to describe the situation in detail here, but I will say that I learned something very interesting.
You see, I expected that the UN system would be rife with political agendas and motivations, as any institution is. But for some reason, I naively thought that the politics at the UN would be different from other politics I have experienced...somehow more mature or worldy. This, as I learned this week, turns out to be completely untrue. The politics at the UN are the same as the politics of a high school in NYC or Washington, DC, the same as the politics at a major private university, and the same as the politics of an American small-town's musical theater company. Some people with a relative degree of power here defend it with their lives, at all costs, and at whatever expense it is to their colleagues. At this point, I am now in the middle of an unexpected and undesired battle, which will hopefully be resolved with mediation from high level administration on Monday. Sheesh! And I am just a consultant - I thought there would be no stress!
That's most of the news from Nairobi this week. Kristoffer has been a little less busy at work this week than last week, or at least he is going in to the office a little bit later than he was last week! We bought some furniture for our house from some friends who are moving back to Denmark today so we are only one room away from being fully furnished at this point. Sadly, it looks as though our efforts with a second internet company are failing and we will need to start our search again, or resign ourselves to not having internet at home. This seems unacceptable to me so I think we won't give up the fight just yet...perhaps we just need to change tactics.
Kenya is certainly proud today of its favorite "half-son" today (Barack Obama, that is) and, again regardless of political affiliation, I think all Americans should be too!
LMW
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
August 20, 2008 - Good news!
Well...finally in today's paper, Kenya's Minister of Education spoke out AGAINST the reintroduction of caning schools, said that it would reverse the positive effects of the Children's Act 2001, and said that teachers are responsible for ensuring that children are not harmed while they are in school (either by teachers or other children)!!! I am so happy! Granted, perhaps I have taken this issue a little bit too closely to heart, but it is a huge relief to know that there are intelligent, sensible politicians in this country who can see when a policy decision would be seriously detrimental to society. Instead of reintroducing caning, the Ministry of Education is introducing new safety policies to assist in decreasing acts of student violence, drugs, and alcohol in schools.
In other news, it is a very busy week for Kristoffer, who is facilitating a School Feeding Programme training of all the District Education Officers (DEOs) who have jurisdiction in areas where WFP feeds children. It is a 4 day affair that has required him to leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark too! It is great experience for him though, is introducing him to many educational players throughout the country, and has probably increased his profile within WFP. Go him! But I'm sure he'll be happy to get a little more sleep next week!
We are also getting ready to have more visitors in a few weeks! Our great friends Morten, Morten, and Elsebeth from Denmark are coming to visit us! We are so excited - our first non-family visitors! Maybe we'll ask them to post a blog about how great it is here so that more of you will come :)
LMW
In other news, it is a very busy week for Kristoffer, who is facilitating a School Feeding Programme training of all the District Education Officers (DEOs) who have jurisdiction in areas where WFP feeds children. It is a 4 day affair that has required him to leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark too! It is great experience for him though, is introducing him to many educational players throughout the country, and has probably increased his profile within WFP. Go him! But I'm sure he'll be happy to get a little more sleep next week!
We are also getting ready to have more visitors in a few weeks! Our great friends Morten, Morten, and Elsebeth from Denmark are coming to visit us! We are so excited - our first non-family visitors! Maybe we'll ask them to post a blog about how great it is here so that more of you will come :)
LMW
Thursday, August 14, 2008
August 14, 2008 - 28 will be great!
Hi there! I realized today that I haven't blogged since my "caning in Nairobi" tirade and that wasn't a very nice way to leave you. The update on that is that some groups have spoken out passionately against it (thank you very much) but the Ministry of Education is still remaining silent on the change in policy. Silence on such an issue is never good.
Work is really busy for Kristoffer these days. He has the possibility of travelling to South Africa and Uganda in upcoming months for different conferences, both which would be very good experiences for him (and they will certainly look good on the old resume too). We are hoping that they work out. Because of rising food and oil prices, as well as food shortages here in Kenya, his job is a bit stressful these days. WFP's budget is essentially the same size, but the money is buying a lot less than it used to - especially factoring in enormous transport costs. So he is basically trying to push their money as far as it can go in order to feed as many children as possible. Not an easy task.
Work for me is picking up a bit. At least I am getting paid now! One of the things I deal with is constantly being in meetings with humanitarian stakeholders who are talking about the "reality on the ground" for displaced people in Kenya, which even at this distance from the post election violence is really not good...and then at the same time I attend meetings with high level government officials who say that the situation on the ground is improving, people are happy and getting back to their lives, and the government is doing a great job facilitating the resettlement. There always seem to be a conflict between the truth and the perception that government would like people to have. Of course we (UNICEF) are worried about the displaced children, a large and surprising percentage of whom are separated from their guardians and participating in risky behaviors or have become the victims of various crimes against them, and the atrocious conditions they are living under right now. My job is not glamorous or high profile, but I keep track of a lot of information and hopefully I am helping in a small way.
We had some American visitors this week! Two of my dearest high school teachers with whom I keep in touch - Craig Simpson and Kathy Cook of Andover High School fame - have friends from Sante Fe, New Mexico who were coming here for a 2 week safari. I had been updating them on security in the country earlier in the year, and so we got together for a lovely dinner when they stopped over in Nairobi before their safari began. It was really nice to meet new people with whom we have a friendly connection and to share a bit of our knowledge of this country with them before their big adventure. Thanks to Craig and Kathy for putting us in touch!
Since my last blog I also had a birthday (yesterday)! 27 was certainly interesting for me as a newlywed with two big moves, two new jobs, and two heart surgeries! I would say it was an eventful year indeed and look forward to seeing if 28 turns out to be as exciting!
LMW
p.s. The installation of internet at home has begun...but technical difficulties abound so it is not quite working yet. I promise more pictures (and maybe a working slideshow!) as soon as we have the capabilities. Plus we will look forward to some conversations on Skype as soon as possible!
Work is really busy for Kristoffer these days. He has the possibility of travelling to South Africa and Uganda in upcoming months for different conferences, both which would be very good experiences for him (and they will certainly look good on the old resume too). We are hoping that they work out. Because of rising food and oil prices, as well as food shortages here in Kenya, his job is a bit stressful these days. WFP's budget is essentially the same size, but the money is buying a lot less than it used to - especially factoring in enormous transport costs. So he is basically trying to push their money as far as it can go in order to feed as many children as possible. Not an easy task.
Work for me is picking up a bit. At least I am getting paid now! One of the things I deal with is constantly being in meetings with humanitarian stakeholders who are talking about the "reality on the ground" for displaced people in Kenya, which even at this distance from the post election violence is really not good...and then at the same time I attend meetings with high level government officials who say that the situation on the ground is improving, people are happy and getting back to their lives, and the government is doing a great job facilitating the resettlement. There always seem to be a conflict between the truth and the perception that government would like people to have. Of course we (UNICEF) are worried about the displaced children, a large and surprising percentage of whom are separated from their guardians and participating in risky behaviors or have become the victims of various crimes against them, and the atrocious conditions they are living under right now. My job is not glamorous or high profile, but I keep track of a lot of information and hopefully I am helping in a small way.
We had some American visitors this week! Two of my dearest high school teachers with whom I keep in touch - Craig Simpson and Kathy Cook of Andover High School fame - have friends from Sante Fe, New Mexico who were coming here for a 2 week safari. I had been updating them on security in the country earlier in the year, and so we got together for a lovely dinner when they stopped over in Nairobi before their safari began. It was really nice to meet new people with whom we have a friendly connection and to share a bit of our knowledge of this country with them before their big adventure. Thanks to Craig and Kathy for putting us in touch!
Since my last blog I also had a birthday (yesterday)! 27 was certainly interesting for me as a newlywed with two big moves, two new jobs, and two heart surgeries! I would say it was an eventful year indeed and look forward to seeing if 28 turns out to be as exciting!
LMW
p.s. The installation of internet at home has begun...but technical difficulties abound so it is not quite working yet. I promise more pictures (and maybe a working slideshow!) as soon as we have the capabilities. Plus we will look forward to some conversations on Skype as soon as possible!
Monday, August 4, 2008
August 4, 2008 - Too Much Freedom in Kenya
Kristoffer and I are back to work this Monday after a restful weekend. We continue to make improvements on our house and with the purchase of a new piece of furniture and some art this weekend, our upstairs living room is finished but for the perfect curtains (we are still hunting!). I am happy that today will be my second day of PAID work at UNICEF (wow that feels good!) and all is definitely well.
Unless you are a student in Kenya. Excuse my tirade for a few minutes, but I am horribly outraged by a decision made by the Cabinet (the President and Prime Minister's top ministers) last week to re-introduce the caning of students, or beating students with a stick, back into schools. To give some background on this matter, caning was outlawed in Kenya by the Children's Act of 2001, which increased the rights and protections of Kenyan students. This was seen to be groundbreaking legislation on the continent and furthered the world's view of Kenya as one of the most progressive African countries. In the last month, though, Kenya has been plagued by secondary student unrest, riots, protests, school vandalism and arson [all put under the category in Kenya of “mass action”].
There are many reasons for the students' anger: botched national exam scores last year, untimely mock national exams this year, overcrowded classrooms and limited resources, emotional trauma resulting from the post-election violence, to name a few. And the majority of Kenyans, not just a select few, believe that the reason for these disturbances is because teachers are not allowed to cane students. Now, I am not condoning the violence that students have committed because they have caused millions of dollars in damaged or destroyed property, have injured and killed students, and have completely interrupted an already difficult academic year; but instead of looking at the institutional reasons why schools in Kenya are failing students, the government would prefer to just blame the problems on the students and the fact that teachers can’t beat them into submission. And while it is deplorable that students have committed these crimes, who are their role models?!?! Politicians who financed and supported tribal violence that left over 1,000 people dead and close to a million people homeless after a completely un-free and unfair election!
To quote the Minister of Energy, a Cabinet member, in yesterday’s paper speaking on the reintroduction of caning, “We met as Cabinet last week and what we observed is that there is too much democracy that is quickly descending into anarchy. There is too much freedom in this country and what we are witnessing in schools is just a reflection of the larger society…The Cabinet has decided and teachers should listen to this: Let us not have child kings and queens in our schools, you spare the rod and you spoil the child…If a child does something wrong, he or she must be caned. As a Government we have said discipline has to be enforced in our schools.”
Too much democracy? Are you kidding me? I suppose that quote really says a lot about Kenya, but after 8 months I am still shocked! Sometimes I feel like this country is so backwards! And while many people think (Kenyans and many throughout the world…at least previously) that Kenya is such a great example for other nations, I think that is a load of crap! The government is just as hypocritical and corrupt as those in other African or developing countries. To make such progress by banning such inhumane treatment of students was wonderful, but to reverse the decision seven years later is worse than if they had never gotten rid of it at all. The fact that so many Kenyans support this decision – including Kenyans that Kristoffer and I know – makes the reality that much more appalling.
Okay…I suppose I’ll step down off my soap box now. I should be very productive at work today now that I’m all fired up!
LMW
Unless you are a student in Kenya. Excuse my tirade for a few minutes, but I am horribly outraged by a decision made by the Cabinet (the President and Prime Minister's top ministers) last week to re-introduce the caning of students, or beating students with a stick, back into schools. To give some background on this matter, caning was outlawed in Kenya by the Children's Act of 2001, which increased the rights and protections of Kenyan students. This was seen to be groundbreaking legislation on the continent and furthered the world's view of Kenya as one of the most progressive African countries. In the last month, though, Kenya has been plagued by secondary student unrest, riots, protests, school vandalism and arson [all put under the category in Kenya of “mass action”].
There are many reasons for the students' anger: botched national exam scores last year, untimely mock national exams this year, overcrowded classrooms and limited resources, emotional trauma resulting from the post-election violence, to name a few. And the majority of Kenyans, not just a select few, believe that the reason for these disturbances is because teachers are not allowed to cane students. Now, I am not condoning the violence that students have committed because they have caused millions of dollars in damaged or destroyed property, have injured and killed students, and have completely interrupted an already difficult academic year; but instead of looking at the institutional reasons why schools in Kenya are failing students, the government would prefer to just blame the problems on the students and the fact that teachers can’t beat them into submission. And while it is deplorable that students have committed these crimes, who are their role models?!?! Politicians who financed and supported tribal violence that left over 1,000 people dead and close to a million people homeless after a completely un-free and unfair election!
To quote the Minister of Energy, a Cabinet member, in yesterday’s paper speaking on the reintroduction of caning, “We met as Cabinet last week and what we observed is that there is too much democracy that is quickly descending into anarchy. There is too much freedom in this country and what we are witnessing in schools is just a reflection of the larger society…The Cabinet has decided and teachers should listen to this: Let us not have child kings and queens in our schools, you spare the rod and you spoil the child…If a child does something wrong, he or she must be caned. As a Government we have said discipline has to be enforced in our schools.”
Too much democracy? Are you kidding me? I suppose that quote really says a lot about Kenya, but after 8 months I am still shocked! Sometimes I feel like this country is so backwards! And while many people think (Kenyans and many throughout the world…at least previously) that Kenya is such a great example for other nations, I think that is a load of crap! The government is just as hypocritical and corrupt as those in other African or developing countries. To make such progress by banning such inhumane treatment of students was wonderful, but to reverse the decision seven years later is worse than if they had never gotten rid of it at all. The fact that so many Kenyans support this decision – including Kenyans that Kristoffer and I know – makes the reality that much more appalling.
Okay…I suppose I’ll step down off my soap box now. I should be very productive at work today now that I’m all fired up!
LMW
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
July 30, 2008 - Safari Pictures!
I am starting to get my act together on the pictures, even though we still don't have internet at home (grrrr). I will post them slowly so that you aren't overwhelmed all at once. This is a slideshow of pictures from our safari to the Masai Mara with Kirsten and Hans. The last few pictures also show the drive we took around Lake Nakuru. Hans gets full credit for all of the pictures - he is a great photographer and saved us from the miscommunication Kristoffer and I had of not packing our camera! The lions were definitely my favorite part, and there are some amazing pictures here that really show off just how beautiful they were.
Enjoy!
LMW
Enjoy!
LMW
Monday, July 28, 2008
July 28, 2008 - My contract!
It was a sad morning in Nairobi for sure when Kirsten and Hans left us to go back to Denmark, but the sun broke through the clouds a bit when I arrived at UNICEF to find that my contract was finally ready! It has been signed and sealed and as of Friday (August 1st) I am employed and paid by UNICEF for two months! This is great news because it will give me more credibility within UNICEF and for future work in Nairobi after this contract. Kristoffer and I are both happy, relieved and looking forward to the work I will be doing to assist UNICEF's efforts to provide basic education rights to children in post-election Kenya. I am also feeling fully recovered from my heart surgeries and my former sleeping disorder is completely resolved.
All is definitely well!
LMW
Sunday, July 27, 2008
July 27, 2008 - By Grace part 2
Kristoffer and I assured the women at By Grace that we would share their website and story with as many people as possible, and now that I have the website for you I will do so.
The website of the actual orphange is http://www.bygracecentre.org/. One thing that I didn't realize because it wasn't talked about so much when we were at the orphanage was that most, if not all, of the 250 children living at By Grace were orphaned by HIV/AIDS. 10% of Nairobi's population is infected with HIV/AIDS, which is higher than the country's average (6.1% of adults) because so many of the country's poorest people live in the slums of Nairobi where the disease is rampant.
Another interesting and useful website is http://www.brightfuturechildren.org/, an American organization that facilitates fundraising and volunteer efforts that benefit By Grace directly. The woman we met, Pixie, for example, is a volunteer through that organization. I know that many good causes are competing for your financial interests, but f you are interested in contributing to a project in Africa at all now or in the future, we can confirm that this is a worthwhile cause.
Kirsten and Hans leave us tomorrow and we will be in mourning for the week :) Yesterday we took them on a game drive through the Nairobi national park. We didn't see any big game like lions or rhinos (We never see them at the park! I am not convinced that there really are any!), but we did see the MOST interesting giraffe fight ever! It must be very rare to catch two giraffes in a physical fight, especially because they are animals with very good dispositions!, but we were just so lucky. They were pushing each other with their behinds and swinging their necks at each other's neck to try and inflict pain. We watched for a long time and it was totally fascinating. I am hoping to get our internet at home this week (do I sound like a broken record) and will try to post a video of the fight! Tonight we will go out to dinner for one last hurrah before Kirsten and Hans travel!
LMW
The website of the actual orphange is http://www.bygracecentre.org/. One thing that I didn't realize because it wasn't talked about so much when we were at the orphanage was that most, if not all, of the 250 children living at By Grace were orphaned by HIV/AIDS. 10% of Nairobi's population is infected with HIV/AIDS, which is higher than the country's average (6.1% of adults) because so many of the country's poorest people live in the slums of Nairobi where the disease is rampant.
Another interesting and useful website is http://www.brightfuturechildren.org/, an American organization that facilitates fundraising and volunteer efforts that benefit By Grace directly. The woman we met, Pixie, for example, is a volunteer through that organization. I know that many good causes are competing for your financial interests, but f you are interested in contributing to a project in Africa at all now or in the future, we can confirm that this is a worthwhile cause.
Kirsten and Hans leave us tomorrow and we will be in mourning for the week :) Yesterday we took them on a game drive through the Nairobi national park. We didn't see any big game like lions or rhinos (We never see them at the park! I am not convinced that there really are any!), but we did see the MOST interesting giraffe fight ever! It must be very rare to catch two giraffes in a physical fight, especially because they are animals with very good dispositions!, but we were just so lucky. They were pushing each other with their behinds and swinging their necks at each other's neck to try and inflict pain. We watched for a long time and it was totally fascinating. I am hoping to get our internet at home this week (do I sound like a broken record) and will try to post a video of the fight! Tonight we will go out to dinner for one last hurrah before Kirsten and Hans travel!
LMW
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
July 23, 2008 - By Grace
Our visit with Kristoffer's Mom and Hans continues to be eventful. On Saturday, the three of them spent the day climbing up and around Mt. Longonot, a volcanic crater just north of Nairobi. Kristoffer and I had climbed it in March (going up takes about 90 minutes) but had not climbed the rim of the crater (takes about 3 hours). The three of them, however, had a beautiful day for a climb and managed to do the whole thing (although their legs were sore the next day. It is a steep climb!). When Kristoffer and I climbed it we had only seen one lone giraffe, but this time they saw more wildlife.
The next day, the four of us visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Nairobi called "By Grace". At the WFP, Kristoffer is the "focal point" for developing relationships with orphanages and trying to find ways that the WFP can partner with them to assist more Kenyan children. Some of the women involved with By Grace, Jane (a Kenyan woman) and Pixie (an American volunteer), invited Kristoffer to come see the orphanage and so he decided to do it on the weekend and bring us with him.
Let me say, first of all, that I am sure there are hundreds of orphanages like this one in and around Nairobi but because this is the only one we've been to we happen to think that it is a special place. The actual orphanage is in a poor neighborhood, although not quite a slum, and its physical building is 3 floors and very run-down (actually disgusting, in my opinion). The 250 children who live at By Grace sleep in the rooms at night that are their classrooms during the school day and live with poor water and sanitation conditions. There are an additional 150+ children who do not live there but do come to By Grace for school, which follows the Kenya national curriculum taught by volunteer teachers. It is very hard to imagine that the conditions we saw, which were dirty and smelled like sewage, were better than other conditions the children might find themselves in if they were not living there.
After getting the tour of the orphanage and learning a bit about how the orphanage started (the "Mama" of the orphanage originally started taking street children into her own home, but then ran out of space and secured donations to rent the building across the street where the orphanage has been since 2002), we were greeted in their "play yard" (a small alley made of gravel) by all 250 resident orphans. They made several presentations to us of dancing and singing (it is a Christian orphanage so all performances were of a religious nature) before we each had to say something to the group. Kristoffer was a bit hit with the kids offering them advice on staying in school! I can honestly say that Kirsten and I were in tears when the children were singing to us about how hard their lives have been and how they have been saved by Jesus. It was extremely emotional to see these children, of all ages, living in squalor, who appeared to be so happy and grateful for their lives.
When all of this was over, each child came and shook each of our hands and thanked us for visiting them. Before leaving for the day, the leaders took us to see a plot of land nearby that they are hoping to buy; if they get this land they will build proper classrooms, dormitories, a play yard, etc. The work that these women do to provide a basic life and some security for these children is incredible, especially knowing that most of them would out of school, living on the street, or even not alive if not for By Grace. Hans and Kirsten were able to make a small donation to the orphanage that day, money that would be used to buy some fruit for the children to eat (they mostly eat 2 meals a day of rice or corn meal with fruit, meat, and milk as very rare treats). Kristoffer and I are hoping to establish a more consistent donation to the orphanage in the future.
I should mention something very interesting: based on a conversation we had with a Kenyan man back in January, Kristoffer and I knew that Kenyans are very opposed to international adoption. Kenyans believe that staying in your culture/tribe/family is the most important thing and if westerners adopt babies and bring them to other continents they consider that child to basically be stolen (Kenyans are not big Madonna fans, even though she adopted from Malawi). If a child has any family or tribe, those people will care for the child and a child should only end up in an orphanage under dire circumstances. OK fine - this we knew. But I asked the head teacher at By Grace if children were ever adopted domestically from this orphanage, and he was equally opposed to such a scenario. It appears that regular Kenyans wouldn't think to adopt from an orphanage (which seems very sad to me) and the orphanage strives to provide education and computer skill training in the absences of college so that children can get jobs when they are older and take care of themselves. Some of the children in the orphanage have relatives that visit or bring them home around the holidays, but usually the families are so poor or sick that they really cannot care for the children at all or the children have no living relatives.
It was both a heartbreaking and heartwarming experience for us to visit By Grace and I am sure we will back again! As soon as I am able, I will post pictures of our visit. I know I have a lot of pictures to post (house, Masai Mara, orphanage - yikes!)! Kirsten and Hans have been visiting the island of Lamu for the past few days and they will rejoin us in Nairobi tonight until they head back to Denmark on Monday. We miss them a lot when they leave and are wondering who our next visitor(s) will be!
LMW
The next day, the four of us visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Nairobi called "By Grace". At the WFP, Kristoffer is the "focal point" for developing relationships with orphanages and trying to find ways that the WFP can partner with them to assist more Kenyan children. Some of the women involved with By Grace, Jane (a Kenyan woman) and Pixie (an American volunteer), invited Kristoffer to come see the orphanage and so he decided to do it on the weekend and bring us with him.
Let me say, first of all, that I am sure there are hundreds of orphanages like this one in and around Nairobi but because this is the only one we've been to we happen to think that it is a special place. The actual orphanage is in a poor neighborhood, although not quite a slum, and its physical building is 3 floors and very run-down (actually disgusting, in my opinion). The 250 children who live at By Grace sleep in the rooms at night that are their classrooms during the school day and live with poor water and sanitation conditions. There are an additional 150+ children who do not live there but do come to By Grace for school, which follows the Kenya national curriculum taught by volunteer teachers. It is very hard to imagine that the conditions we saw, which were dirty and smelled like sewage, were better than other conditions the children might find themselves in if they were not living there.
After getting the tour of the orphanage and learning a bit about how the orphanage started (the "Mama" of the orphanage originally started taking street children into her own home, but then ran out of space and secured donations to rent the building across the street where the orphanage has been since 2002), we were greeted in their "play yard" (a small alley made of gravel) by all 250 resident orphans. They made several presentations to us of dancing and singing (it is a Christian orphanage so all performances were of a religious nature) before we each had to say something to the group. Kristoffer was a bit hit with the kids offering them advice on staying in school! I can honestly say that Kirsten and I were in tears when the children were singing to us about how hard their lives have been and how they have been saved by Jesus. It was extremely emotional to see these children, of all ages, living in squalor, who appeared to be so happy and grateful for their lives.
When all of this was over, each child came and shook each of our hands and thanked us for visiting them. Before leaving for the day, the leaders took us to see a plot of land nearby that they are hoping to buy; if they get this land they will build proper classrooms, dormitories, a play yard, etc. The work that these women do to provide a basic life and some security for these children is incredible, especially knowing that most of them would out of school, living on the street, or even not alive if not for By Grace. Hans and Kirsten were able to make a small donation to the orphanage that day, money that would be used to buy some fruit for the children to eat (they mostly eat 2 meals a day of rice or corn meal with fruit, meat, and milk as very rare treats). Kristoffer and I are hoping to establish a more consistent donation to the orphanage in the future.
I should mention something very interesting: based on a conversation we had with a Kenyan man back in January, Kristoffer and I knew that Kenyans are very opposed to international adoption. Kenyans believe that staying in your culture/tribe/family is the most important thing and if westerners adopt babies and bring them to other continents they consider that child to basically be stolen (Kenyans are not big Madonna fans, even though she adopted from Malawi). If a child has any family or tribe, those people will care for the child and a child should only end up in an orphanage under dire circumstances. OK fine - this we knew. But I asked the head teacher at By Grace if children were ever adopted domestically from this orphanage, and he was equally opposed to such a scenario. It appears that regular Kenyans wouldn't think to adopt from an orphanage (which seems very sad to me) and the orphanage strives to provide education and computer skill training in the absences of college so that children can get jobs when they are older and take care of themselves. Some of the children in the orphanage have relatives that visit or bring them home around the holidays, but usually the families are so poor or sick that they really cannot care for the children at all or the children have no living relatives.
It was both a heartbreaking and heartwarming experience for us to visit By Grace and I am sure we will back again! As soon as I am able, I will post pictures of our visit. I know I have a lot of pictures to post (house, Masai Mara, orphanage - yikes!)! Kirsten and Hans have been visiting the island of Lamu for the past few days and they will rejoin us in Nairobi tonight until they head back to Denmark on Monday. We miss them a lot when they leave and are wondering who our next visitor(s) will be!
LMW
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
July 16, 2008 - Masai Mara Safari
On Friday morning, Kristoffer, Kirsten, Hans and I left from Nairobi to embark on a true Kenyan safari to the Masai Mara in south western Kenya, on the border of Tanzania. The word Mara means “spotted” in the Masai language and this part of Kenya is called “the Mara” because the land is mostly open plains spotted by trees and animals. The land is also the native home of the Masai tribe – pastoralists who raise cows, goats, and sheep and live what we would consider to be a very primitive lifestyle (more on that to come). People from all over the world come to the Mara between July and October to see the “Great Migration” of around 1.3 million wildebeest (called “gnu” in both Swahili and Danish) and zebra across the Mara River from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Kenya. We were a little too early for the migration, but we did see thousands and thousands of “resident” wildebeest and zebra for sure.
The drive from Nairobi takes about 5 ½ hours and, to be honest, is not entirely pleasant. We wanted to see new parts of Kenya and so we made the journey by car…but we totally get why most other people fly! Most of the trip is just horribly bumpy, pot-holed, rough terrain but we did hit a few strips of good tarmac. It was pretty cool to see how much the country changes between Nairobi and the Mara; there is a town called “Narok” which is a transportation hub as it is the last place for fuel (or pretty much anything else!) before getting to the Mara and I think Kirsten and Hans were really fascinated to see all of the activity in this small town.
We arrived at the Karen Blixen Camp (www.karenblixencamp.com) in time for lunch; the reason for staying at this camp went beyond just the usual Karen Blixen Danish connection. We actually know the young Danish couple who own and operate this luxury camp (which is about two years old). The camp is located at a narrow point on the Mara River and from the main reception/dining tent we had amazing, daily views of 46 resident hippos, two crocodiles, and frequent visitors to the river such as zebra, elephants, giraffe, gazelles, impala, and baboons. It was easy to sit on the beautiful lawn and overlook the wildlife activity for hours. Also, our tents were amazing (and were bigger than my last apartment in Brooklyn)! The 22 tents at the camp have thatched roofs and inside look like rustic, old-school hotel rooms, complete with outdoor showers (heaven!). At night time you aren’t allowed to walk from your tent to the main tent without being accompanied by Masai guards, because the camp gets visits from hippos, lions, and other friends at night. The food was quite good and we definitely felt spoiled to stay in such an amazing camp.
Friday afternoon after we got settled, we met our Masai guide, Peter. Most people who come to the camp don’t have their own cars, so they are going in land cruisers with guides from the camp and other safari agencies. Because we had our own car, Peter came with us on all of our game drives to take us to places where we would be more likely to see specific animals than if we were venturing out on our own. Just like the guide Kristoffer and I had when we went to Naivasha at Christmas, Peter was amazing. Throughout our three days of driving with him, we learned so much about Kenyan animals and life on the Mara, the Masai people, the relationship between the Masai and Kenya’s tourism industry, and the changes that are taking place in traditional Masai culture.
Our first game drive was not very lucky – we didn’t see too many new and exciting animals, but Kirsten and Hans did see their first giraffe as we headed back to the camp in a rain storm. The second day, however, was very exciting. In the morning we took a lovely, peaceful nature walk with Peter and learned a bit about trees, plants and flowers, birds and some animals (from their dung and footprints!). In the afternoon, we took a game drive to a different area and finally came across our very first Kenyan lions! They were three lionesses, actually, resting within some bushes shaded from the afternoon sun. Two of them stayed asleep the whole time we were up close watching them, but one of them looked at us a bit more, even sitting all the way up to check us out at one point. They were so beautiful that I was shaking! That afternoon we also saw a live kill – not by lions, though, but we saw two jackals (sort of like foxes) hunt and kill a young gazelle. Of course, we were tempted to feel really bad for the little gazelle…but that is nature! We also came across a large herd of elephants that afternoon and enjoyed watching them eat so up close. What a day!
As if our second game drive hadn’t been enough, our third game drive was an even greater adventure. We left the camp at 6:30 in the morning with a packed breakfast to eat later in the morning. Our plan was to drive a bit of distance to this mountain park where some white rhinos live, and on the way we hoped to see some animals in the early morning hours. Well our hopes certainly came true! We quickly saw two lionesses (possibly two of the ones we had seen the day before) hunting for food. We didn’t see them kill anything, but in the surrounding area we could sense that all of the other animals were VERY tense as we watched the lions stalk through the high grass. As we continued driving, Hans noticed that there were two males lions in the grass. Good spot, Hans! Not only were they lying there but they were also feasting on a zebra! We parked to watch these amazing creatures, when another male lion approached and walked right in front of our car. When he joined his brothers, one of them left the group and walked behind our car. We could also see another female lioness in the distance. It was incredible! We were so lucky!
As we continued towards the rhinos we saw many, many hyena (which are usually hard to find in the day but it was still early morning) and they were actually eating a wildebeest! Such scavengers! And the vultures were all around them waiting for leftovers. We kept thinking that our day could not get any better! We did eventually stop in a hyena/lion-free area to eat our breakfast, and we had a beautiful view of some giraffes as we did so. If you have never eaten a packed breakfast out in the middle of the African bush, you should really try it! It was a little windy but the car provided some relief and it was extremely refreshing. We did finally make it to those rhinos and, of the four that live in that area, we saw three of them: one female, one male, and one baby. We were actually outside of our car walking with a guide and came across them so closely! But these rhinos must be somewhat used to humans because they were extremely tame and didn’t seem to either notice or be bothered by us. The baby rhino, we learned, was born during the post-election crisis when Kofi Annan was in Kenya to mediate the political stalemate; as it turns out, the guides who work there call this baby rhino Kofi Annan.
Our morning was amazing, but before we headed back to camp we paid a visit to a local Masai village. The village we went to is made up of about 25 families. Physically, the village was a large circle constructed of thick tree branches. Just inside were 25 huts/houses made of cow-dung around the circle with a completely open and empty center full of cow/goat/sheep DUNG because that is where the animals sleep at night. The thick branches protect the people and animals from animal predators at night, and then the young boys take the cattle out to graze and eat for the entire day. In order to get into the village, visitors (aka white people/mzungu) have to pay a fee – this money is crucial to the Masai’s economic survival. Once Kristoffer negotiated our price, our guide Peter introduced us to a young man named Elliot, who lived in this village and would be our guide inside. We learned that Elliot, 16, is the only boy in the whole village to go to secondary school and that he has aspirations of becoming a teacher. It sounded to us like Elliot is very eager to get out of his village – he said that it not his hope to live there when he gets older. It sort of made us wonder how the other young men, who did not get good marks in primary school, feel about having to stay in their village for the rest of their lives now.
We were greeted in the village by all of the women singing us a “Welcome Mzungu” song (literally…they sang the word for welcome in Masai over and over again followed by the word mzungu). Then the young men came out and did a traditional Masai Warrior dance and chant (which involves a lot of jumping). We noticed that one of the young men was wearing the mane of a lion as a hat on his head and were told that he is the oldest son of the village’s chief and in that position had to kill a lion, whose mane he was wearing. Later, we saw the scars he had on his body from the attack and learned that he had been in the hospital for 2 months recovering from the fight with the lion (which he won! How crazy is that?). Then we were encouraged to join the whole group in some singing and “dancing” (more like holding hands and walking around the cow-dung circle) for a little while and the women put jewelry on me and Kirsten. Note that we did not meet any of the Masai men – only women, older boys/young men, and small children/babies were around. And let me tell you how cute these babies were…except that it was a little bit heartbreaking to see them with bugs and flies all over them (but when you live in cow dung… that’s what you get).
Now the thing about this whole Masai greeting is that they were definitely putting on this “show” for us because we paid to come into the village to look at their life, and that is totally fine. They do actually live in that village, their houses are actually made of cow dung, and by our Western standards this was extreme poverty – that is not fake! But we sort of knew that they were putting on this show in their traditional clothes and jewelry for our benefit only, so we were all just kind of playing along. Underneath their traditional red clothing (cloth and blankets tied in various ways), the boys were all wearing shorts and t-shirts. I think the women’s clothing was a bit more “every day”. After the show we got a tour of one of their houses….talk about small, dark, and crowded! There were several small rooms in the house: one for baby goats and sheep to sleep (yes in the hut), one for the eldest son to sleep, one for the parents to sleep, one for all other children to sleep, and a room for cooking. After this tour, the women set up their jewelry and other traditional Masai keepsakes for us to browse through and buy. Their prices were SOOOO much higher than the prices we pay for the same stuff at the Masai Market in Nairobi so we didn’t buy too much (which to their dismay).
It was really an interesting experience – their culture is just so far from anything we could really ever imagine living. We also learned a lot about the Masai from Peter throughout our days with him. Older Masai traditionally only eat the milk, blood, and meat of their cattle, but younger Masai are eating more and different things, such as maize and rice (courtesy of programs like school feeding). The Masai still largely practice arranged marriages, as well as female circumcision. Peter could not believe it when we told him that in our countries female circumcision is illegal! The villages don’t have electricity and when the men want to trade or sell their cattle (which they are not largely in the practice of doing…they use cattle for celebrations/sacrifices/and making deals such as marriage dowries), they have to walk close to 100 km to the town of Narok to do so. But Peter also told us of some change that is happening within the Masai. For example, because he is educated (after secondary school he went to school to become a guide), he is allowed to choose his own wife and he does not have the same ear piercings (large, large holes) that non-educated Masai men have. The diet of young Masai is changing, and technology is making an impact so that some Masai even have cell phones. On the other hand, however, girls are still rarely educated in this culture and are not valued in the same way as boys.
After three days of these experiences, we were ready to leave on Monday morning. We were so grateful for Peter and for all of the amazing things we saw, as well as for the lavish hospitality of the Karen Blixen Camp. Our plan was to drive north from Narok to the city of Nakuru and to stay over night in the park there on Lake Nakuru. However, we couldn’t find affordable lodging for the night so we just drove up and around the Lake before heading back to Nairobi on Monday night. The national park around Lake Nakuru is known for having a lot of buffalo, rhino, flamingoes, and pelicans! We saw all of these animals in abundance here. In addition, we also saw about 5 more lions sitting right by the side of the path (literally, we almost missed them!), some more hyenas and giraffe. All in all, I think we saw every possible animal except for leopards and cheetah, which are extremely difficult to spot.
What a trip! After twelve hours of driving on Monday we were definitely tired (especially Kristoffer, who did all of the actual driving). Our big activity yesterday was picking out and ordering curtains for our entire house (with very helpful input from Kirsten and Hans) and having our new sofa for our upstairs living room delivered. It turned out beautifully! We love it and eagerly showed it off to our neighbors last night!
Kirsten and Hans have been here for one week and have seen and done so much! It was a great holiday and on Sunday they will be going to the beach island of Lamu for a few days by themselves. Kristoffer and I will stay back in Nairobi and enjoy our new sofa.
LMW
The drive from Nairobi takes about 5 ½ hours and, to be honest, is not entirely pleasant. We wanted to see new parts of Kenya and so we made the journey by car…but we totally get why most other people fly! Most of the trip is just horribly bumpy, pot-holed, rough terrain but we did hit a few strips of good tarmac. It was pretty cool to see how much the country changes between Nairobi and the Mara; there is a town called “Narok” which is a transportation hub as it is the last place for fuel (or pretty much anything else!) before getting to the Mara and I think Kirsten and Hans were really fascinated to see all of the activity in this small town.
We arrived at the Karen Blixen Camp (www.karenblixencamp.com) in time for lunch; the reason for staying at this camp went beyond just the usual Karen Blixen Danish connection. We actually know the young Danish couple who own and operate this luxury camp (which is about two years old). The camp is located at a narrow point on the Mara River and from the main reception/dining tent we had amazing, daily views of 46 resident hippos, two crocodiles, and frequent visitors to the river such as zebra, elephants, giraffe, gazelles, impala, and baboons. It was easy to sit on the beautiful lawn and overlook the wildlife activity for hours. Also, our tents were amazing (and were bigger than my last apartment in Brooklyn)! The 22 tents at the camp have thatched roofs and inside look like rustic, old-school hotel rooms, complete with outdoor showers (heaven!). At night time you aren’t allowed to walk from your tent to the main tent without being accompanied by Masai guards, because the camp gets visits from hippos, lions, and other friends at night. The food was quite good and we definitely felt spoiled to stay in such an amazing camp.
Friday afternoon after we got settled, we met our Masai guide, Peter. Most people who come to the camp don’t have their own cars, so they are going in land cruisers with guides from the camp and other safari agencies. Because we had our own car, Peter came with us on all of our game drives to take us to places where we would be more likely to see specific animals than if we were venturing out on our own. Just like the guide Kristoffer and I had when we went to Naivasha at Christmas, Peter was amazing. Throughout our three days of driving with him, we learned so much about Kenyan animals and life on the Mara, the Masai people, the relationship between the Masai and Kenya’s tourism industry, and the changes that are taking place in traditional Masai culture.
Our first game drive was not very lucky – we didn’t see too many new and exciting animals, but Kirsten and Hans did see their first giraffe as we headed back to the camp in a rain storm. The second day, however, was very exciting. In the morning we took a lovely, peaceful nature walk with Peter and learned a bit about trees, plants and flowers, birds and some animals (from their dung and footprints!). In the afternoon, we took a game drive to a different area and finally came across our very first Kenyan lions! They were three lionesses, actually, resting within some bushes shaded from the afternoon sun. Two of them stayed asleep the whole time we were up close watching them, but one of them looked at us a bit more, even sitting all the way up to check us out at one point. They were so beautiful that I was shaking! That afternoon we also saw a live kill – not by lions, though, but we saw two jackals (sort of like foxes) hunt and kill a young gazelle. Of course, we were tempted to feel really bad for the little gazelle…but that is nature! We also came across a large herd of elephants that afternoon and enjoyed watching them eat so up close. What a day!
As if our second game drive hadn’t been enough, our third game drive was an even greater adventure. We left the camp at 6:30 in the morning with a packed breakfast to eat later in the morning. Our plan was to drive a bit of distance to this mountain park where some white rhinos live, and on the way we hoped to see some animals in the early morning hours. Well our hopes certainly came true! We quickly saw two lionesses (possibly two of the ones we had seen the day before) hunting for food. We didn’t see them kill anything, but in the surrounding area we could sense that all of the other animals were VERY tense as we watched the lions stalk through the high grass. As we continued driving, Hans noticed that there were two males lions in the grass. Good spot, Hans! Not only were they lying there but they were also feasting on a zebra! We parked to watch these amazing creatures, when another male lion approached and walked right in front of our car. When he joined his brothers, one of them left the group and walked behind our car. We could also see another female lioness in the distance. It was incredible! We were so lucky!
As we continued towards the rhinos we saw many, many hyena (which are usually hard to find in the day but it was still early morning) and they were actually eating a wildebeest! Such scavengers! And the vultures were all around them waiting for leftovers. We kept thinking that our day could not get any better! We did eventually stop in a hyena/lion-free area to eat our breakfast, and we had a beautiful view of some giraffes as we did so. If you have never eaten a packed breakfast out in the middle of the African bush, you should really try it! It was a little windy but the car provided some relief and it was extremely refreshing. We did finally make it to those rhinos and, of the four that live in that area, we saw three of them: one female, one male, and one baby. We were actually outside of our car walking with a guide and came across them so closely! But these rhinos must be somewhat used to humans because they were extremely tame and didn’t seem to either notice or be bothered by us. The baby rhino, we learned, was born during the post-election crisis when Kofi Annan was in Kenya to mediate the political stalemate; as it turns out, the guides who work there call this baby rhino Kofi Annan.
Our morning was amazing, but before we headed back to camp we paid a visit to a local Masai village. The village we went to is made up of about 25 families. Physically, the village was a large circle constructed of thick tree branches. Just inside were 25 huts/houses made of cow-dung around the circle with a completely open and empty center full of cow/goat/sheep DUNG because that is where the animals sleep at night. The thick branches protect the people and animals from animal predators at night, and then the young boys take the cattle out to graze and eat for the entire day. In order to get into the village, visitors (aka white people/mzungu) have to pay a fee – this money is crucial to the Masai’s economic survival. Once Kristoffer negotiated our price, our guide Peter introduced us to a young man named Elliot, who lived in this village and would be our guide inside. We learned that Elliot, 16, is the only boy in the whole village to go to secondary school and that he has aspirations of becoming a teacher. It sounded to us like Elliot is very eager to get out of his village – he said that it not his hope to live there when he gets older. It sort of made us wonder how the other young men, who did not get good marks in primary school, feel about having to stay in their village for the rest of their lives now.
We were greeted in the village by all of the women singing us a “Welcome Mzungu” song (literally…they sang the word for welcome in Masai over and over again followed by the word mzungu). Then the young men came out and did a traditional Masai Warrior dance and chant (which involves a lot of jumping). We noticed that one of the young men was wearing the mane of a lion as a hat on his head and were told that he is the oldest son of the village’s chief and in that position had to kill a lion, whose mane he was wearing. Later, we saw the scars he had on his body from the attack and learned that he had been in the hospital for 2 months recovering from the fight with the lion (which he won! How crazy is that?). Then we were encouraged to join the whole group in some singing and “dancing” (more like holding hands and walking around the cow-dung circle) for a little while and the women put jewelry on me and Kirsten. Note that we did not meet any of the Masai men – only women, older boys/young men, and small children/babies were around. And let me tell you how cute these babies were…except that it was a little bit heartbreaking to see them with bugs and flies all over them (but when you live in cow dung… that’s what you get).
Now the thing about this whole Masai greeting is that they were definitely putting on this “show” for us because we paid to come into the village to look at their life, and that is totally fine. They do actually live in that village, their houses are actually made of cow dung, and by our Western standards this was extreme poverty – that is not fake! But we sort of knew that they were putting on this show in their traditional clothes and jewelry for our benefit only, so we were all just kind of playing along. Underneath their traditional red clothing (cloth and blankets tied in various ways), the boys were all wearing shorts and t-shirts. I think the women’s clothing was a bit more “every day”. After the show we got a tour of one of their houses….talk about small, dark, and crowded! There were several small rooms in the house: one for baby goats and sheep to sleep (yes in the hut), one for the eldest son to sleep, one for the parents to sleep, one for all other children to sleep, and a room for cooking. After this tour, the women set up their jewelry and other traditional Masai keepsakes for us to browse through and buy. Their prices were SOOOO much higher than the prices we pay for the same stuff at the Masai Market in Nairobi so we didn’t buy too much (which to their dismay).
It was really an interesting experience – their culture is just so far from anything we could really ever imagine living. We also learned a lot about the Masai from Peter throughout our days with him. Older Masai traditionally only eat the milk, blood, and meat of their cattle, but younger Masai are eating more and different things, such as maize and rice (courtesy of programs like school feeding). The Masai still largely practice arranged marriages, as well as female circumcision. Peter could not believe it when we told him that in our countries female circumcision is illegal! The villages don’t have electricity and when the men want to trade or sell their cattle (which they are not largely in the practice of doing…they use cattle for celebrations/sacrifices/and making deals such as marriage dowries), they have to walk close to 100 km to the town of Narok to do so. But Peter also told us of some change that is happening within the Masai. For example, because he is educated (after secondary school he went to school to become a guide), he is allowed to choose his own wife and he does not have the same ear piercings (large, large holes) that non-educated Masai men have. The diet of young Masai is changing, and technology is making an impact so that some Masai even have cell phones. On the other hand, however, girls are still rarely educated in this culture and are not valued in the same way as boys.
After three days of these experiences, we were ready to leave on Monday morning. We were so grateful for Peter and for all of the amazing things we saw, as well as for the lavish hospitality of the Karen Blixen Camp. Our plan was to drive north from Narok to the city of Nakuru and to stay over night in the park there on Lake Nakuru. However, we couldn’t find affordable lodging for the night so we just drove up and around the Lake before heading back to Nairobi on Monday night. The national park around Lake Nakuru is known for having a lot of buffalo, rhino, flamingoes, and pelicans! We saw all of these animals in abundance here. In addition, we also saw about 5 more lions sitting right by the side of the path (literally, we almost missed them!), some more hyenas and giraffe. All in all, I think we saw every possible animal except for leopards and cheetah, which are extremely difficult to spot.
What a trip! After twelve hours of driving on Monday we were definitely tired (especially Kristoffer, who did all of the actual driving). Our big activity yesterday was picking out and ordering curtains for our entire house (with very helpful input from Kirsten and Hans) and having our new sofa for our upstairs living room delivered. It turned out beautifully! We love it and eagerly showed it off to our neighbors last night!
Kirsten and Hans have been here for one week and have seen and done so much! It was a great holiday and on Sunday they will be going to the beach island of Lamu for a few days by themselves. Kristoffer and I will stay back in Nairobi and enjoy our new sofa.
LMW
Thursday, July 10, 2008
July 10, 2008 - Visitors!
Kristoffer and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Sunday - thank you to many people for their best wishes. In our first year of marriage we have rented two apartments and one house, lived on two continents (the latter of which is a continent to which neither of us is native), started three different jobs between us (two for me, one for Kristoffer), bought our first car, become residents of a foreign country...and so much more. All in all, an amazing year that neither of us could have predicted.
Our anniversary was followed by the arrival of Kristoffer's mom, Kirsten, and her husband, Hans. Sadly for them, they had a HORRIBLE trip here. They were flying through London (Heathrow), which is often a nightmare in good weather but turned out particularly miserable because there was a storm. They weren't able to land because of the weather and had to go to another, smaller airport where they waited for hours to get their luggage and then had to take a bus to Heathrow. They arrived too late to make their connection (obviously!) and had a difficult time getting another flight to Nairobi. Who knew all the flights would be sold out - I guess people are starting to come back to Kenya now since the election. Anyway, they ended up getting on the flight 24 hours after their original connection so they arrived in Nairobi 24 hours late. They were in desperate need of sleep (no hotels room were available for them) and showers but were otherwise in good shape. On our end, we didn't get the message that they missed their flight on time, so we waited at the Nairobi airport for them for 3 hours before getting the information that would not be coming in as expected. It was the most disappointing airport trip ever - who goes to airport and leaves without the people they were supposed to pick up?! We were sad, but relieved that they were ok.
Since they arrived yesterday morning, we have given them a tour of the United Nations and taken them to one of our favorite restaurants. They visited the Karen Blixen Museum today on their own and they played tennis and swam at our gym. They seem to really like our house (which makes us feel great!) and we are just really enjoying having them with us. Last night we had "Christmas in July" because they brought us Christmas and birthday gifts from them and other family members - it was SOOOO fun! We were like little kids :) Tomorrow we leave for the Masai Mara where will go on a proper safari and stay in a nicely tented camp owned and run by some Danes we know here. It is actually called "the Karen Blixen Camp". I hope to report back with new pictures and stories - remember, something is always happening over here!
LMW
p.s. internet is being installed at our house this weekend - phew!
Our anniversary was followed by the arrival of Kristoffer's mom, Kirsten, and her husband, Hans. Sadly for them, they had a HORRIBLE trip here. They were flying through London (Heathrow), which is often a nightmare in good weather but turned out particularly miserable because there was a storm. They weren't able to land because of the weather and had to go to another, smaller airport where they waited for hours to get their luggage and then had to take a bus to Heathrow. They arrived too late to make their connection (obviously!) and had a difficult time getting another flight to Nairobi. Who knew all the flights would be sold out - I guess people are starting to come back to Kenya now since the election. Anyway, they ended up getting on the flight 24 hours after their original connection so they arrived in Nairobi 24 hours late. They were in desperate need of sleep (no hotels room were available for them) and showers but were otherwise in good shape. On our end, we didn't get the message that they missed their flight on time, so we waited at the Nairobi airport for them for 3 hours before getting the information that would not be coming in as expected. It was the most disappointing airport trip ever - who goes to airport and leaves without the people they were supposed to pick up?! We were sad, but relieved that they were ok.
Since they arrived yesterday morning, we have given them a tour of the United Nations and taken them to one of our favorite restaurants. They visited the Karen Blixen Museum today on their own and they played tennis and swam at our gym. They seem to really like our house (which makes us feel great!) and we are just really enjoying having them with us. Last night we had "Christmas in July" because they brought us Christmas and birthday gifts from them and other family members - it was SOOOO fun! We were like little kids :) Tomorrow we leave for the Masai Mara where will go on a proper safari and stay in a nicely tented camp owned and run by some Danes we know here. It is actually called "the Karen Blixen Camp". I hope to report back with new pictures and stories - remember, something is always happening over here!
LMW
p.s. internet is being installed at our house this weekend - phew!
Friday, July 4, 2008
July 4, 2008 - Happy 4th of July!
While it is not Independence Day here in Kenya (that holiday is in December) it is certainly on my mind that my friends and family at home will be attending BBQs and watching fireworks today! It was just a normal working day here. I went to a meeting this morning and walked for an hour on the treadmill at the gym this afternoon. In 2 more weeks I can start exercising for real and I am very much looking forward to that. I fear that I have started to become a bit of a blob in the last two months!
On Wednesday, our cleaning woman, Catherine, started her work with us. When she came to the house, she and I then went to store to buy all of the supplies she would need, along with a uniform for her. Catherine was very happy with all of this, but I will admit that it was a very strange experience for me. She then proceeded to give our big house a good scrub which it really needed! As her frequency increases (by the fall she will be coming 3 times a week) and she can help with hanging up laundry (I cannot reach our clothes lines without a chair) and ironing I will be even more grateful. I think this was a good solution for us instead of having a full time person living with us.
We have also made progress towards getting internet at our house. We have found a good deal through the UN with a corporate internet service provider that is just starting to provide residential internet access. It is signficantly cheaper than the company we were using before so we are really happy about it; now we are just waiting for the appointment date and time.
Tonight we're having dinner at our neighbor's house (an American guy whose wife and kids are in the US for the summer) with our other neighbors and friends, Mike and Caroline (I worked with Mike at UNICEF in February and March), which we hope to be a very fun time. Making friends is good for us!
Happy 4th of July and have a great weekend :)
LMW
On Wednesday, our cleaning woman, Catherine, started her work with us. When she came to the house, she and I then went to store to buy all of the supplies she would need, along with a uniform for her. Catherine was very happy with all of this, but I will admit that it was a very strange experience for me. She then proceeded to give our big house a good scrub which it really needed! As her frequency increases (by the fall she will be coming 3 times a week) and she can help with hanging up laundry (I cannot reach our clothes lines without a chair) and ironing I will be even more grateful. I think this was a good solution for us instead of having a full time person living with us.
We have also made progress towards getting internet at our house. We have found a good deal through the UN with a corporate internet service provider that is just starting to provide residential internet access. It is signficantly cheaper than the company we were using before so we are really happy about it; now we are just waiting for the appointment date and time.
Tonight we're having dinner at our neighbor's house (an American guy whose wife and kids are in the US for the summer) with our other neighbors and friends, Mike and Caroline (I worked with Mike at UNICEF in February and March), which we hope to be a very fun time. Making friends is good for us!
Happy 4th of July and have a great weekend :)
LMW
Monday, June 30, 2008
June 30, 2008 - Couches, camels, and crashes! (actually only one crash)
Kristoffer and I are never short on adventure here in Nairobi. This weekend we had the goal of falling in love with some furniture...but as you can imagine, it is very difficult to plan falling in love! Our Saturday started with the door-to-door paying of some bills and led us to our hunt for the perfect couch (sofa) for our upstairs living room where we have our television. One couch that we liked a lot turned out to be too large for the space and the only other couch that we liked had been sold to someone else during the week. No! I was very frustrated, but Kristoffer kept hope alive even though we had already gone to every place we knew of that sells furniture. Luckily, there was an advertisement posted on a bulletin board at one of our malls with pictures of nice looking furniture. When he called the number, Kristoffer talked to a guy named Michael, who planned to meet with us about making some high quality furniture (as opposed to the furniture we bought when we were first lived here which is very poor quality).
Before meeting him though, he directed us to an up-scale interior design store to which he supplies the furniture they sell. At the store, we really did love several couches and other pieces of furniture, which had all been made by his company. They were simple, modern, comfortable, attractive, and not tacky (the biggest problem with most furniture here!) but at the store the price tags were very high. When we met with Michael later in the day we were able to custom design the couch for our living room and cut the price tag nearly in half by dealing with him directly instead of ordering from the store. How great! They started making the couch today - a large off-white sectional sofa that will fit beautifully in our cozy room (sorry to my friend Marcie who does not approve of sectional couches) - and it should be done in about 3 weeks. Once we get that and are happy with it, we will proceed to design more furniture with him for our downstairs living room and maybe some other spaces too. It started off as a frustrating day but turned out to be better than we even expected!
As we were driving around Nairobi hunting for couches, we came across the strangest sight. If only we had a camera with us (we keep saying we should keep one in the car at all times, but then we forget!) we would post the picture of 3 camels walking around Nairobi. Camels! Now Kristoffer has seen camels in eastern Kenya on the border of Somalia where they are very common and necessary to the way of life there, but here in the city?! It was totally bizarre, and they were definitely causing traffic!
Speaking of traffic...Kenya, and Nairobi in particular, is known for horrible traffic and a very high number of RTAs...random traffic accidents. Well last night, we were in our first traffic accident here, and actually Kristoffer's first accident ever. Don't get worried, we are totally fine and our car is fine too - it was just a very crazy incident. We were driving home from the mall in the late afternoon and we were on the main road where we had the right of way. We approached a T-stop intersection where we were turning right. Kristoffer had signaled and slowed down as he should have, but there was a car at the intersection turning right onto the main road and he basically didn't wait for us to complete our turn before he advanced through the intersection. The reason it was so bizarre is because he was there waiting, waiting, and waiting to turn as we approached but he just didn't wait long enough and ended up hitting us! Because our car is so big and high up, he just hit our back right tire and there was no damage to our vehicle, but the front left side of his car was mildly crunched. At that intersection there are all of these guys who wear bright yellow vests and sit by the side of the road and we always wonder what they are doing there. Well it turns out they sit there to observe the traffic and witness accidents - or at least that was their function last night. They immediately came over to us when our accident stopped traffic and spoke to Kristoffer as well as the Kenyan driver. It was obviously the other guy's fault which they said repeatedly; the guy didn't want to call any authorities because either he didn't have a license (which is very common here) or he didn't want the accident to count against his license, as it definitely would have. So Kristoffer agreed that our car was fine and this guy agreed that it was his fault, and we both went on our way. The whole ride home we were like, "Did that just happen?! He waited and waited until we were right there and THEN he pulled out?!" We were reminded that even when you are doing everything right here, you can't really trust other people to do the right thing because people seem to follow their own rules. It was just so bizarre. But now we have survived an RTA in Kenya and we hope there are no more to come, or at least that future accidents are as minimal as that one.
Yesterday was also the day that we interviewed Mary to be our housekeeper and cook. The interview wasn't horrible, but it didn't go that well. I think basically we didn't do enough research or talk to enough people about how these things usually go, so she had a little too much control over the situation. I am sure she would be a good cook and would keep our house very clean and orderly, but she wanted to live with us along with her 3 year old daughter and a girl who would live there to take care of the daughter while Mary was doing the housework. We are not quite ready to have 3 people living with us at this stage, and she wanted more money than we expected given that we would pay for all of her food and provide her with mattresses, uniforms, and a stove to cook on (apparently domestic staff would not cook their own food in our kitchen). So instead of hiring Mary, we are trying to hire a different woman who has worked for a Danish friend for a long time. The friend is getting ready to move back to Denmark though, so we are basically trying to hijack his help before someone else snaps her up! If it works out, she will come once a week until September, and then will come 3 days a week to clean, do laundry and ironing, and cook dinner on those days. She doesn't want to live with us, which is okay by us. We are really hoping this works out and think it is a good way to see how we like having staff first before ramping up to hire someone full time in the future. There are only two of us, after all, and we aren't THAT messy!
The only other interesting, although sad, news is that a Danish woman we know who is in Kristoffer's program with the World Health Organization was the victim of domestic violence last week. She had been living with her boyfriend, a Ugandan-born Kenyan resident who played basketball at the University of Notre Dame in the US during his college years. We aren't sure of the timeline, but essentially she broke up with him and afterwards he attacked her and tried to strangle her to death. She fought back, apparently biting his finger until he let go of her, and managed to escape. As horrible as this is, the worst part is that before she had a chance to report this to the police, he went and bribed the local and diplomatic police officers and pressed charges against her for biting him. So the police, to date, won't help her because the guy paid them off and in fact they are threatening her with jail time because she bit him. It is a horribly screwed up system! The Danish Embassy, much to Kristoffer's dismay, was not very helpful and did not really want to get involved. Luckily, our Danish friends who are close to her have gotten her legal help within the UN system and they should get everything sorted out soon, but needless to say it was an extremely sad and scary incident. We heard today that her sister came from Denmark to be with her through this ordeal and she is staying with our friends indefinitely.
As I started with, there is always something bizarre happening here! On Thursday I will start working on and off for the next month and will then be full time in August. Even though my contract at UNICEF won't be official for a few more weeks, my boss said I could start counting my days now for which I will be paid retroactively. I still have a crazy sleeping problem but last night I drank almost a whole bottle of wine before bed and yes, I did sleep very well for the first time in a long time. I don't think I should make that too much of a habit...but we'll see. Otherwise, I am feeling well and am eager to have things to do both for work and with Kristoffer's mom when she visits. It is a beautiful, sunny, warm winter's afternoon (it is at least 75 F) here in Nairobi and so I think I will go for a walk at the gym.
LMW
Before meeting him though, he directed us to an up-scale interior design store to which he supplies the furniture they sell. At the store, we really did love several couches and other pieces of furniture, which had all been made by his company. They were simple, modern, comfortable, attractive, and not tacky (the biggest problem with most furniture here!) but at the store the price tags were very high. When we met with Michael later in the day we were able to custom design the couch for our living room and cut the price tag nearly in half by dealing with him directly instead of ordering from the store. How great! They started making the couch today - a large off-white sectional sofa that will fit beautifully in our cozy room (sorry to my friend Marcie who does not approve of sectional couches) - and it should be done in about 3 weeks. Once we get that and are happy with it, we will proceed to design more furniture with him for our downstairs living room and maybe some other spaces too. It started off as a frustrating day but turned out to be better than we even expected!
As we were driving around Nairobi hunting for couches, we came across the strangest sight. If only we had a camera with us (we keep saying we should keep one in the car at all times, but then we forget!) we would post the picture of 3 camels walking around Nairobi. Camels! Now Kristoffer has seen camels in eastern Kenya on the border of Somalia where they are very common and necessary to the way of life there, but here in the city?! It was totally bizarre, and they were definitely causing traffic!
Speaking of traffic...Kenya, and Nairobi in particular, is known for horrible traffic and a very high number of RTAs...random traffic accidents. Well last night, we were in our first traffic accident here, and actually Kristoffer's first accident ever. Don't get worried, we are totally fine and our car is fine too - it was just a very crazy incident. We were driving home from the mall in the late afternoon and we were on the main road where we had the right of way. We approached a T-stop intersection where we were turning right. Kristoffer had signaled and slowed down as he should have, but there was a car at the intersection turning right onto the main road and he basically didn't wait for us to complete our turn before he advanced through the intersection. The reason it was so bizarre is because he was there waiting, waiting, and waiting to turn as we approached but he just didn't wait long enough and ended up hitting us! Because our car is so big and high up, he just hit our back right tire and there was no damage to our vehicle, but the front left side of his car was mildly crunched. At that intersection there are all of these guys who wear bright yellow vests and sit by the side of the road and we always wonder what they are doing there. Well it turns out they sit there to observe the traffic and witness accidents - or at least that was their function last night. They immediately came over to us when our accident stopped traffic and spoke to Kristoffer as well as the Kenyan driver. It was obviously the other guy's fault which they said repeatedly; the guy didn't want to call any authorities because either he didn't have a license (which is very common here) or he didn't want the accident to count against his license, as it definitely would have. So Kristoffer agreed that our car was fine and this guy agreed that it was his fault, and we both went on our way. The whole ride home we were like, "Did that just happen?! He waited and waited until we were right there and THEN he pulled out?!" We were reminded that even when you are doing everything right here, you can't really trust other people to do the right thing because people seem to follow their own rules. It was just so bizarre. But now we have survived an RTA in Kenya and we hope there are no more to come, or at least that future accidents are as minimal as that one.
Yesterday was also the day that we interviewed Mary to be our housekeeper and cook. The interview wasn't horrible, but it didn't go that well. I think basically we didn't do enough research or talk to enough people about how these things usually go, so she had a little too much control over the situation. I am sure she would be a good cook and would keep our house very clean and orderly, but she wanted to live with us along with her 3 year old daughter and a girl who would live there to take care of the daughter while Mary was doing the housework. We are not quite ready to have 3 people living with us at this stage, and she wanted more money than we expected given that we would pay for all of her food and provide her with mattresses, uniforms, and a stove to cook on (apparently domestic staff would not cook their own food in our kitchen). So instead of hiring Mary, we are trying to hire a different woman who has worked for a Danish friend for a long time. The friend is getting ready to move back to Denmark though, so we are basically trying to hijack his help before someone else snaps her up! If it works out, she will come once a week until September, and then will come 3 days a week to clean, do laundry and ironing, and cook dinner on those days. She doesn't want to live with us, which is okay by us. We are really hoping this works out and think it is a good way to see how we like having staff first before ramping up to hire someone full time in the future. There are only two of us, after all, and we aren't THAT messy!
The only other interesting, although sad, news is that a Danish woman we know who is in Kristoffer's program with the World Health Organization was the victim of domestic violence last week. She had been living with her boyfriend, a Ugandan-born Kenyan resident who played basketball at the University of Notre Dame in the US during his college years. We aren't sure of the timeline, but essentially she broke up with him and afterwards he attacked her and tried to strangle her to death. She fought back, apparently biting his finger until he let go of her, and managed to escape. As horrible as this is, the worst part is that before she had a chance to report this to the police, he went and bribed the local and diplomatic police officers and pressed charges against her for biting him. So the police, to date, won't help her because the guy paid them off and in fact they are threatening her with jail time because she bit him. It is a horribly screwed up system! The Danish Embassy, much to Kristoffer's dismay, was not very helpful and did not really want to get involved. Luckily, our Danish friends who are close to her have gotten her legal help within the UN system and they should get everything sorted out soon, but needless to say it was an extremely sad and scary incident. We heard today that her sister came from Denmark to be with her through this ordeal and she is staying with our friends indefinitely.
As I started with, there is always something bizarre happening here! On Thursday I will start working on and off for the next month and will then be full time in August. Even though my contract at UNICEF won't be official for a few more weeks, my boss said I could start counting my days now for which I will be paid retroactively. I still have a crazy sleeping problem but last night I drank almost a whole bottle of wine before bed and yes, I did sleep very well for the first time in a long time. I don't think I should make that too much of a habit...but we'll see. Otherwise, I am feeling well and am eager to have things to do both for work and with Kristoffer's mom when she visits. It is a beautiful, sunny, warm winter's afternoon (it is at least 75 F) here in Nairobi and so I think I will go for a walk at the gym.
LMW
Sunday, June 29, 2008
June 29, 2008 - 5 Years!
So...Kristoffer and I met five years ago today. Maybe it is a silly anniversary to remember, except that we have changed so much since we met! Last night we played a game as we were falling asleep (well, Kristoffer was falling asleep and I was just getting ready for my night of resting but not sleeping) to list all of the things that are different about the other person since we met. Our lists were so long! When we met I hadn't moved to NYC or started teaching yet, Kristoffer hadn't finished his master's degrees, we were both eating meat, and both of us weighed more than we do now! Those are only small things of course, but it is fun to think back on the last 5 years and how we got to where we are in Nairobi, Kenya now. I can remember one of our first conversations when Kristoffer told me that he always hoped to someday live and work in Africa. He did a great job making that dream come true!
Just a quick stop at the UN today but now we are off to go interview our housekeeper. More stories on furniture and camels to follow in the next blog...
LMW
Just a quick stop at the UN today but now we are off to go interview our housekeeper. More stories on furniture and camels to follow in the next blog...
LMW
Thursday, June 26, 2008
June 26, 2008 - Expats
There are some really great things about living in our house. For me, I love that we can walk on our street. It is very quiet with compounds of houses only (no apartments) and so much security. Our security guards call Kristoffer "Mr. Kris" (which he can't decide if he likes or not) and they are more strict about letting people into the compound than at our old apartment (which is a good thing). Christine said that it was like "Fort Knox" getting in to our house the first time she came. The compound is very secluded and quiet. We have already gone on two nice long walks, and Kristoffer has even gone for a morning run! Another thing I love is that our compound has a generator because, even though we lose power just as often as we did in the apartment, the generator kicks in right away and power is restored immediately. It feels like a luxury here but I am loving it! I will not miss 8 hour power outages for sure!
Speaking of luxury...we are finally caving in to the pressures of living in a developing country and are going to hire "staff". Our house comes with "SQ" (or servant's quarters) for two people, but I think we will only hire one - and we haven't decided if that one will live with us or not (depends on the person we hire I think). We are interviewing a woman named Mary on Sunday to be our housekeeper and cook. Isn't that SO crazy?!?! If you had ever asked me when I could imagine myself hiring a housekeeper/cook before living in Kenya, I would have cooly answered, "Well...the year after never of course!" And now here I am, imagining how nice it will be not to spend half of every weekend cleaning our big house and food shopping, and half of every night cooking dinner and cleaning it up. Mary supposedly has a license from a catering school and knows several styles of cooking (we'll have to see if one of them is "vegetarian"). If not her, than we'll find someone else. In Kenya, hiring domestic help is a big part of the economy and there is no shortage of (inexpensive) labor. We've also found a driver, named Justice, to use consistently instead of a taxi because he is a little cheaper, and Kristoffer will occasionally employ the compound's gardener to help with our backyard (rent includes maintenance of the greens in the front of our house only). Did I mention that our house has rose bushes?! There are at least 5 of them, in all different colors, and I think they will be really beautiful once we learn how to take care of them. When Kirsten and Hans are here we plan to ask for their help - they are great gardeners!
This week we picked out a paint color and Kristoffer painted one of the walls in our upstairs living room the other night. It is a creamy/orangey/yellowy color - very warm and friendly. It looks great on one wall but might be too strong for much more than that so we will pick out one shade lighter and have some other rooms painted in that (rest of the living room, hallway and entryway, kitchen). I think it will take us awhile to furnish and decorate the house entirely, so right now we are just focusing on key rooms where we spend most of our time. This weekend our hunt for furniture will continue.
As for me, I have come in to the UN three times now. I have to "check out" as a volunteer before starting a consultant's contract; "checking out" means walking around to have all kinds of people who never even knew that I was a volunteer sign off on a piece of paper that I have returned everything I never borrowed from their department (technology stuff, finance stuff, etc.). It actually takes awhile to do this and most people are like "Who are you?" when I ask if they will clear me as a departing volunteer! Sometimes they will give me a little speech about how the UN needs good people and do I really want to check out? That is when I say that I am waiting for my consultant's contract to be processed so the UN isn't losing me, but that I am rather happy to expect a pay check in the near future.
But about that contract...it seems that it had been approved while I was away but that in the last few weeks there has been a salary adjustment, and I will now be getting paid at a higher rate. Because of the new salary, though, the contract has to go through the entire process of being approved again which will take between 2 and 3 more weeks. When it is finally approved, Kristoffer and I expect to be travelling a bit with his mom and Hans. Ideally, I will start working part time next week "off the books" and will then pick up full time "on the books" when Kirsten and Hans leave. It is sort of confusing, but hopefully will work out for the best. I am lucky that UNICEF has been very patient with me and that my boss is still giving me a contract. She is on leave for the next several weeks anyway and I will be working for an Italian woman who is in charge of the education emergency now; from what I understand I will mostly be organizing, analyzing and finding meaningful ways to report data that people have been collecting for months but haven't really done anything with.
Finally, today Kristoffer and I realized that we actually know a lot of people here! This is sort of a surprising revelation to me because I have been gone for awhile and because I still think of us as being new here. During lunch in the UN cafeteria though, a few women I know came over to say hello. Kristoffer had also seen a few people he knew and I found out later today that some of my UNICEF colleagues were watching us eat but I didn't notice them. Kristoffer and I are now sort of having a contest to see which one of us is more popular. As we were leaving we saw two of WFP Danish guys talking to one UNICEF American women and were like, "How do they know each other?!" We joined them briefly and then as we walked away from all of this Kristoffer said, "It is a really small world here, isn't it?" because eventually all expatriates (expats) know all of the other expats!
Before I sign off, I'll just add that I think it is great that Kristoffer has blogged a bit more. He has the great fortune with his job to be able to see parts of Kenya that average tourists and international business people do not see. His views of "real Kenya", as opposed to the happy little expat bubble we live in, are very valuable and I am always grateful when he shares these stories. I also hope to eventually acquire a few stories of my own when I am working more!
LMW
Speaking of luxury...we are finally caving in to the pressures of living in a developing country and are going to hire "staff". Our house comes with "SQ" (or servant's quarters) for two people, but I think we will only hire one - and we haven't decided if that one will live with us or not (depends on the person we hire I think). We are interviewing a woman named Mary on Sunday to be our housekeeper and cook. Isn't that SO crazy?!?! If you had ever asked me when I could imagine myself hiring a housekeeper/cook before living in Kenya, I would have cooly answered, "Well...the year after never of course!" And now here I am, imagining how nice it will be not to spend half of every weekend cleaning our big house and food shopping, and half of every night cooking dinner and cleaning it up. Mary supposedly has a license from a catering school and knows several styles of cooking (we'll have to see if one of them is "vegetarian"). If not her, than we'll find someone else. In Kenya, hiring domestic help is a big part of the economy and there is no shortage of (inexpensive) labor. We've also found a driver, named Justice, to use consistently instead of a taxi because he is a little cheaper, and Kristoffer will occasionally employ the compound's gardener to help with our backyard (rent includes maintenance of the greens in the front of our house only). Did I mention that our house has rose bushes?! There are at least 5 of them, in all different colors, and I think they will be really beautiful once we learn how to take care of them. When Kirsten and Hans are here we plan to ask for their help - they are great gardeners!
This week we picked out a paint color and Kristoffer painted one of the walls in our upstairs living room the other night. It is a creamy/orangey/yellowy color - very warm and friendly. It looks great on one wall but might be too strong for much more than that so we will pick out one shade lighter and have some other rooms painted in that (rest of the living room, hallway and entryway, kitchen). I think it will take us awhile to furnish and decorate the house entirely, so right now we are just focusing on key rooms where we spend most of our time. This weekend our hunt for furniture will continue.
As for me, I have come in to the UN three times now. I have to "check out" as a volunteer before starting a consultant's contract; "checking out" means walking around to have all kinds of people who never even knew that I was a volunteer sign off on a piece of paper that I have returned everything I never borrowed from their department (technology stuff, finance stuff, etc.). It actually takes awhile to do this and most people are like "Who are you?" when I ask if they will clear me as a departing volunteer! Sometimes they will give me a little speech about how the UN needs good people and do I really want to check out? That is when I say that I am waiting for my consultant's contract to be processed so the UN isn't losing me, but that I am rather happy to expect a pay check in the near future.
But about that contract...it seems that it had been approved while I was away but that in the last few weeks there has been a salary adjustment, and I will now be getting paid at a higher rate. Because of the new salary, though, the contract has to go through the entire process of being approved again which will take between 2 and 3 more weeks. When it is finally approved, Kristoffer and I expect to be travelling a bit with his mom and Hans. Ideally, I will start working part time next week "off the books" and will then pick up full time "on the books" when Kirsten and Hans leave. It is sort of confusing, but hopefully will work out for the best. I am lucky that UNICEF has been very patient with me and that my boss is still giving me a contract. She is on leave for the next several weeks anyway and I will be working for an Italian woman who is in charge of the education emergency now; from what I understand I will mostly be organizing, analyzing and finding meaningful ways to report data that people have been collecting for months but haven't really done anything with.
Finally, today Kristoffer and I realized that we actually know a lot of people here! This is sort of a surprising revelation to me because I have been gone for awhile and because I still think of us as being new here. During lunch in the UN cafeteria though, a few women I know came over to say hello. Kristoffer had also seen a few people he knew and I found out later today that some of my UNICEF colleagues were watching us eat but I didn't notice them. Kristoffer and I are now sort of having a contest to see which one of us is more popular. As we were leaving we saw two of WFP Danish guys talking to one UNICEF American women and were like, "How do they know each other?!" We joined them briefly and then as we walked away from all of this Kristoffer said, "It is a really small world here, isn't it?" because eventually all expatriates (expats) know all of the other expats!
Before I sign off, I'll just add that I think it is great that Kristoffer has blogged a bit more. He has the great fortune with his job to be able to see parts of Kenya that average tourists and international business people do not see. His views of "real Kenya", as opposed to the happy little expat bubble we live in, are very valuable and I am always grateful when he shares these stories. I also hope to eventually acquire a few stories of my own when I am working more!
LMW
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
25 June, 2008 - One Woman
Most of my responsibilities at work have been centred around the School Feeding Programme. However, WFP’s Kenya Country Program also supports people living with HIV/AIDS in the Western part of Kenya and in the slums of Nairobi.
Many of the people living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya receive free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). The medicine is given by the government and international donors to help HIV/AIDS-infected beneficiaries live longer. Research has still shown, however, that Kenyans on ARVs cannot fully sustain their livelihood as they are too weak to work. Their ability to farm or otherwise support their families depends on a high-nutrient diet and an overall food intake well above the recommended daily amount. Without proper food, ARVs are ineffective. This is where the WFP comes in. We provide take home rations for about 60,000 poor people living with HIV/AIDS. When given our food and their ARVs, a sick and bedridden AIDS-infected person will be able to recover his/her energy in three months; thereafter the person will be able to take on labour-intensive work. Because of the strong family traditions in Kenya, where everything is shared among family members, we feed the whole families of HIV/AIDS-infected people; if we didn’t, the sick person would only consume a small portion of what we give them and the rest of the food would be shared. Often the beneficiaries are too poor to be self-sufficient even after the three months; therefore, WFP, through our implementing partners, provides different kinds of training to the beneficiaries such as: food security, agriculture methods, bee-keeping, fruit tree planting, knitting, craft making, etc. which all can be combined with micro financing/lending. After 6-12 months the beneficiaries are supposed to graduate from the program and then they are on their own. Not everybody graduates though but our graduates tend to be successful.
Last week (after Lisa came home), I went on a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mission to the city of Kisumu and the town of Busia in Western Kenyan. I didn’t travel alone, but rather joined Hamai, our Japanese JPO (same contract as mine, just supported by the Japanese Government instead of the Danish), as well as our head of M&E, Grace, a Kenyan woman about whom I will write a blog another time. Kisumu is on Lake Victoria and Busia is right next to the Ugandan border. Kisumu may sound familiar from the news or Lisa’s past blogs because the post-election violence hit that area very hard. We flew to Kisumu in a nice jet-plane and landed almost on the water. The weather was just perfect: 27 degrees Celsius, much nicer than our “winter” weather (19C) in Nairobi. The next day we drove for just a few hours to stop at the non-profit REEP, one of our implementing partners that distributes WFP food. The REEP centre is in a small community not too far from Busia and does many things other than distribute food to people living with HIV/AIDS. They do gender awareness in schools and other community settings, and they help girls or boys who have been the victims of rape. In the tribe native to Busia and surrounding towns, men who don’t beat their wives are looked down upon, so abuse and rape are both quite common. Surprisingly, Kenya has very strict laws to protect women from such crimes, but in these rural settings women are often afraid to speak out and, if they do, the matter is often settled between families with some cows or bags of maize.
The head of the REEP centre is Mary. We were supposed to spend most of the short visit evaluating our partnership but the visit was not short because Mary insisted on telling us, the white men (yes, in Kenya they consider Asian people to be “white”), every detail about her centre. Even though she was longwinded, we learned so much from her.
About 75 girls and boys are raped every year in this small community; more than one per week. Mary has made it her mission in life to create awareness about this problem, to educate children (mainly female) about their rights, to enforce the rule of law by prosecuting the male perpetrators and to help people living with HIV/AIDS. The centre has many counselors, including male counsellors, who almost looked like strong police men (and I soon learned why).
Mary told us a lot about cases of rape: not just one case, not just five cases, not just 20 cases. She talked and talked and talked and, even though I did hope she would stop at some point, she kept talking! Generally, Mary is feared by the men in the community, which has lead to many death threats made against her. Girls from rich families who have been raped will come to her and she will help them, with the leaders of their families thanking her deeply. But when poor 13-year-old (or often much younger) orphan girls come to her because a professor or priest had taken advantage of them, the leaders will try to quiet everything down and settle the problem with a few cows. But Mary would go straight to the media and force the law to prosecute the men, which has sometimes resulted in jail sentences up to 40 years. The media would ask her: “Are you happy now, Mary?” to which she would reply: “I am not happy before he is hung!” When the family of an old man who just died in prison came to her to make her feel guilty for putting him in prison in the first place, she would say: “I’m sure the girls of the community will be much safer now”.
I can’t bring myself to write in this blog all that we learned about the crimes committed against the victims Mary helps, but I personally have never heard such cruelty as in the stories she told us. During our visit, quite suddenly the door opened and in came a 14-year-old girl with a baby on her arm. The girl’s parents were very good friends with a Kenyan professor; when her parents died the professor began raping her, got her pregnant, infected her with AIDS and made her too ashamed to even go to school. Mary introduced us to her and explained to us everything that happened to her while she was standing right in front of us. She told us that the girl has decided to come out with her story, is now employed by the centre and her case is being handled. She wasn’t the only child Mary wanted us to hear about and meet…but at 14 she was the oldest, if you can imagine. If I had a lot of extra money I would sponsor this girl and the centre. Mary wants a full-time lawyer, a rescue centre and money to build more awareness.
On another note, many Kenyan NGOs have tried to hike up the local salaries of their staff to benefit from large donations. Mary, on the other hand, hired four people for the one-person’s salary we provided her. Most of her staff are people living with HIV/ADIS. We bought some fresh honey from the centre, made by the beneficiaries of the programme I described earlier, and were about to leave when Mary came up to me, pointed to small pickup truck and said: “After you leave we will take the guy inside that car to the police station. He raped a girl last night…do you want to see him?” Trust me, I had no desire!
The rest of the trip went well. We saw a distribution site, one of our largest warehouses, and interviewed more implementing partners… but none of Mary’s calibre: she is one in a million! It’s amazing what one woman can do!
Since my trip last week, I have set up a meeting with some key people at the Danish Embassy for next week. This is my first attempt to use my citizenship to attract resources for WFP programs. I was lucky to get some help from a close friend of mine, but I am sure it will be a long process. I will keep you posted.
KW
Many of the people living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya receive free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). The medicine is given by the government and international donors to help HIV/AIDS-infected beneficiaries live longer. Research has still shown, however, that Kenyans on ARVs cannot fully sustain their livelihood as they are too weak to work. Their ability to farm or otherwise support their families depends on a high-nutrient diet and an overall food intake well above the recommended daily amount. Without proper food, ARVs are ineffective. This is where the WFP comes in. We provide take home rations for about 60,000 poor people living with HIV/AIDS. When given our food and their ARVs, a sick and bedridden AIDS-infected person will be able to recover his/her energy in three months; thereafter the person will be able to take on labour-intensive work. Because of the strong family traditions in Kenya, where everything is shared among family members, we feed the whole families of HIV/AIDS-infected people; if we didn’t, the sick person would only consume a small portion of what we give them and the rest of the food would be shared. Often the beneficiaries are too poor to be self-sufficient even after the three months; therefore, WFP, through our implementing partners, provides different kinds of training to the beneficiaries such as: food security, agriculture methods, bee-keeping, fruit tree planting, knitting, craft making, etc. which all can be combined with micro financing/lending. After 6-12 months the beneficiaries are supposed to graduate from the program and then they are on their own. Not everybody graduates though but our graduates tend to be successful.
Last week (after Lisa came home), I went on a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mission to the city of Kisumu and the town of Busia in Western Kenyan. I didn’t travel alone, but rather joined Hamai, our Japanese JPO (same contract as mine, just supported by the Japanese Government instead of the Danish), as well as our head of M&E, Grace, a Kenyan woman about whom I will write a blog another time. Kisumu is on Lake Victoria and Busia is right next to the Ugandan border. Kisumu may sound familiar from the news or Lisa’s past blogs because the post-election violence hit that area very hard. We flew to Kisumu in a nice jet-plane and landed almost on the water. The weather was just perfect: 27 degrees Celsius, much nicer than our “winter” weather (19C) in Nairobi. The next day we drove for just a few hours to stop at the non-profit REEP, one of our implementing partners that distributes WFP food. The REEP centre is in a small community not too far from Busia and does many things other than distribute food to people living with HIV/AIDS. They do gender awareness in schools and other community settings, and they help girls or boys who have been the victims of rape. In the tribe native to Busia and surrounding towns, men who don’t beat their wives are looked down upon, so abuse and rape are both quite common. Surprisingly, Kenya has very strict laws to protect women from such crimes, but in these rural settings women are often afraid to speak out and, if they do, the matter is often settled between families with some cows or bags of maize.
The head of the REEP centre is Mary. We were supposed to spend most of the short visit evaluating our partnership but the visit was not short because Mary insisted on telling us, the white men (yes, in Kenya they consider Asian people to be “white”), every detail about her centre. Even though she was longwinded, we learned so much from her.
About 75 girls and boys are raped every year in this small community; more than one per week. Mary has made it her mission in life to create awareness about this problem, to educate children (mainly female) about their rights, to enforce the rule of law by prosecuting the male perpetrators and to help people living with HIV/AIDS. The centre has many counselors, including male counsellors, who almost looked like strong police men (and I soon learned why).
Mary told us a lot about cases of rape: not just one case, not just five cases, not just 20 cases. She talked and talked and talked and, even though I did hope she would stop at some point, she kept talking! Generally, Mary is feared by the men in the community, which has lead to many death threats made against her. Girls from rich families who have been raped will come to her and she will help them, with the leaders of their families thanking her deeply. But when poor 13-year-old (or often much younger) orphan girls come to her because a professor or priest had taken advantage of them, the leaders will try to quiet everything down and settle the problem with a few cows. But Mary would go straight to the media and force the law to prosecute the men, which has sometimes resulted in jail sentences up to 40 years. The media would ask her: “Are you happy now, Mary?” to which she would reply: “I am not happy before he is hung!” When the family of an old man who just died in prison came to her to make her feel guilty for putting him in prison in the first place, she would say: “I’m sure the girls of the community will be much safer now”.
I can’t bring myself to write in this blog all that we learned about the crimes committed against the victims Mary helps, but I personally have never heard such cruelty as in the stories she told us. During our visit, quite suddenly the door opened and in came a 14-year-old girl with a baby on her arm. The girl’s parents were very good friends with a Kenyan professor; when her parents died the professor began raping her, got her pregnant, infected her with AIDS and made her too ashamed to even go to school. Mary introduced us to her and explained to us everything that happened to her while she was standing right in front of us. She told us that the girl has decided to come out with her story, is now employed by the centre and her case is being handled. She wasn’t the only child Mary wanted us to hear about and meet…but at 14 she was the oldest, if you can imagine. If I had a lot of extra money I would sponsor this girl and the centre. Mary wants a full-time lawyer, a rescue centre and money to build more awareness.
On another note, many Kenyan NGOs have tried to hike up the local salaries of their staff to benefit from large donations. Mary, on the other hand, hired four people for the one-person’s salary we provided her. Most of her staff are people living with HIV/ADIS. We bought some fresh honey from the centre, made by the beneficiaries of the programme I described earlier, and were about to leave when Mary came up to me, pointed to small pickup truck and said: “After you leave we will take the guy inside that car to the police station. He raped a girl last night…do you want to see him?” Trust me, I had no desire!
The rest of the trip went well. We saw a distribution site, one of our largest warehouses, and interviewed more implementing partners… but none of Mary’s calibre: she is one in a million! It’s amazing what one woman can do!
Since my trip last week, I have set up a meeting with some key people at the Danish Embassy for next week. This is my first attempt to use my citizenship to attract resources for WFP programs. I was lucky to get some help from a close friend of mine, but I am sure it will be a long process. I will keep you posted.
KW
Monday, June 23, 2008
23 June, 2008 - Kristoffer’s Carbon Credits Mission
Sometimes I feel it’s almost impossible for me to get a better job than working for WFP. However, I initially missed some linkages between my job and the environment. So when the WFP Kenya Country Office wanted a focal point for carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, my hand went straight up. In short, industrialized countries can purchase carbon credits to offset their pollution through investing in environmental improvements in less developed countries.
One month later WFP had three visitors from a company called EcoSecurities (UK). The company buys/seeks carbon credit-eligible projects in less developed countries. I was in charge of the visit and the four of us (excluding a driver and a field monitor) went to the slums of Nairobi to look at energy-saving stoves under the school feeding program. International Paper (a company) donated 68 energy saving stoves to schools under the school feeding program a few years ago. The stoves help schools save on firewood (up to 70%), which is a great cost that can be more than $150 per month, and help the environment, including deforestation. The mission (one American, one German and one South African) was excited about the stoves and saw great potential for carbon financing, and of course all the cute kids helped to make it a great day. Lorna (our field monitor and my friend) took us to some of our best schools and I saw with my own eyes how a poor school can be turned around when a proactive head-teacher and the community work together.
The next day we visited the Ministry of Environment and then we drove for 5 hours towards Mombasa, the country’s second largest city and the biggest port in East Africa. Security regulation does not allow the UN to travel at night in Kenya and we were caught by darkness so we stayed overnight in Kibwezi in quite primitive rooms. Kyle, the American, was excited to try some local food (the only option) and they all took it very well. The next day we drove to Taveta on the Tanzanian boarder and right next to Mt. Kilimanjaro (sadly, we couldn’t see the mountain which was covered in clouds all day L). In Taiveta we met the heads of the local school district and I had to get used to facilitating the visit, explaining why we where there to the heads of all the departments in Taiveta district. We saw a large irrigation project which was made possible by WFP’s Food for Asset (FFA) program. FFA is a program where the community identifies a project and then community members work 12 days a month and are paid in food by WFP. The work has to be labour intensive and WFP only funds projects in food-insecure areas to help the people become food secure. FFA projects are mostly funded through our emergency operations, unlike most of our programs which are free handouts. The irrigation project was impressive and, by collecting water from a mid-sized river, maize was growing high and the project earned food for thousands of people.
The sad part is that the irrigation system could easily be extended but WFP stopped funding the project and, for some reason, the community didn’t come together to make the last extension by themselves. I think the reason is what an economist would call “low social capital”. People don’t trust each other, even within the same community. And if I was not sure that my family would benefit from my hard labour maybe I would not do it….but come on… that maize was almost reaching the sky!
We drove back to a town called Voi; a few elephants blocked the road and we had to wait for them to pass. The elephants were huge and even our Kenyan driver felt a bit intimidated because they were quite upset and had a little baby elephant. Their ears where flapping as we passed them in the UN Toyota Land Cruiser and the driver showed me once again that you can drive 100 km per hour on a hard unpaved road. The country-side was beautiful.
Then we reached Voi, a tourist town without tourists - post-election crisis! We stayed overnight in a high-end lodge with nice rooms, big windows overlooking the savannah, and a pond with a hippo and where elephants (20) and other wild animal came for a drink. With two swimming pools and an excellent kitchen, we enjoyed the 150-bedroom lodge which we had all to ourselves. This lodge had a swim up savannah with the swimming pool 30 meters from the pond with all the animals; it was quite amazing and Kyle and Sabina (German woman) were ecstatic.
The next morning we slept in and left for Mombasa. The EU-sponsored road was great and we were there in no time at the beach hotel. But Mombasa was unseasonably cold and windy so my first time in the Indian Ocean was postponed. We watched some Euro Football and went to sleep.
We spent the next day in Kwale district, which was beautiful but many of its crops were failing because the long rains didn’t happen in parts of the district (in Kenya they say “the rains failed”). We saw a family running for their lives as we approached a village; later the field monitor told us that the children were afraid we were coming to vaccinate them.
Later I saw something that almost brought tears to my eyes. The school feeding program provides lunch to the primary school children in this area and fortified porridge for children under five (pre-school). We were driving and it was a little after 1pm. Children in their school uniforms (British system) were walking by the road. They were around 4-7 years old and they were all carrying a plate of WFP food from their school. Instead of eating the meal at the school they were carrying the plate home to share it with the rest of their family… just one plate. An important reminder of why my work is so vital in this country.
In Kwale we saw some great schools where the communities had come together to plant maize and trees on the school compounds. The schools in Kenya often have quite a bit of land, the biggest up to 10 acres. Unfortunately, the scale of the tree planting was too little to be feasible for carbon credits.
After that we went to a presentation site where World Vision (an international non-profit) is training mainly woman in drought-resistant agricultural methods. In many Kenyan tribes, after marriage the women do all the hard labor (good thing for Lisa she is not from a Kenyan tribe!)! World Vision had a great agricultural presentation site which I am sure will make a difference for these women and their families. Our field monitor translated as the 12 women wanted to talk to us. It was their first time having visitors and they were very happy. They thanked us for the program and then the oldest woman said: “We need water. We need water for our crops and for our households.” Then it was obvious that we were supposed to reply, it was so formal. We were standing under a tree in the middle of nowhere, but not too far from Mombasa road (the major highway from Nairobi). So I spoke to them, encouraged them to motivate their husbands to work. It was important for us to see the project but we couldn’t deal with their lack of water right away because water falls under UNICEF programming and WFP doesn’t have the mandate to fund boreholes. Depending on the depth, a borehole costs around 50,000 USD. After the talk the old woman came to me, took my hand with both of hers and said: “Remember me! Remember me!”
So now I feel I owe a $50,000 borehole to an old woman in Kwale. She surely needs it; the long rains (April-June) also failed in this part of the district.
We drove 100 km back to Mombasa to spend the night and it rained and rained. Driving back to Nairobi the next day I was eager to see how far inland the rain had reached. Normally it just rains 5-10 km inland. After an hour’s drive we passed the road to the old lady’s village. The soil by the road was darker and I saw a large pothole with water in it. The old lady had gotten rain that night.
We made it back to Nairobi in one piece. Our driver for the week, Francis, had been great and our visitors seemed happy with what they saw, although the energy-saving stove project was probably the only one with carbon credit potential. The rules under the Kyoto protocol are fairly complex but I learned so much and the mission told me about the Adaptation Fund which has a wider approach. All in all, it was a great, great week. To top it all off my beloved wife came home from her extended “vacation” in the US. I never thought I could miss her so much.
KW
One month later WFP had three visitors from a company called EcoSecurities (UK). The company buys/seeks carbon credit-eligible projects in less developed countries. I was in charge of the visit and the four of us (excluding a driver and a field monitor) went to the slums of Nairobi to look at energy-saving stoves under the school feeding program. International Paper (a company) donated 68 energy saving stoves to schools under the school feeding program a few years ago. The stoves help schools save on firewood (up to 70%), which is a great cost that can be more than $150 per month, and help the environment, including deforestation. The mission (one American, one German and one South African) was excited about the stoves and saw great potential for carbon financing, and of course all the cute kids helped to make it a great day. Lorna (our field monitor and my friend) took us to some of our best schools and I saw with my own eyes how a poor school can be turned around when a proactive head-teacher and the community work together.
The next day we visited the Ministry of Environment and then we drove for 5 hours towards Mombasa, the country’s second largest city and the biggest port in East Africa. Security regulation does not allow the UN to travel at night in Kenya and we were caught by darkness so we stayed overnight in Kibwezi in quite primitive rooms. Kyle, the American, was excited to try some local food (the only option) and they all took it very well. The next day we drove to Taveta on the Tanzanian boarder and right next to Mt. Kilimanjaro (sadly, we couldn’t see the mountain which was covered in clouds all day L). In Taiveta we met the heads of the local school district and I had to get used to facilitating the visit, explaining why we where there to the heads of all the departments in Taiveta district. We saw a large irrigation project which was made possible by WFP’s Food for Asset (FFA) program. FFA is a program where the community identifies a project and then community members work 12 days a month and are paid in food by WFP. The work has to be labour intensive and WFP only funds projects in food-insecure areas to help the people become food secure. FFA projects are mostly funded through our emergency operations, unlike most of our programs which are free handouts. The irrigation project was impressive and, by collecting water from a mid-sized river, maize was growing high and the project earned food for thousands of people.
The sad part is that the irrigation system could easily be extended but WFP stopped funding the project and, for some reason, the community didn’t come together to make the last extension by themselves. I think the reason is what an economist would call “low social capital”. People don’t trust each other, even within the same community. And if I was not sure that my family would benefit from my hard labour maybe I would not do it….but come on… that maize was almost reaching the sky!
We drove back to a town called Voi; a few elephants blocked the road and we had to wait for them to pass. The elephants were huge and even our Kenyan driver felt a bit intimidated because they were quite upset and had a little baby elephant. Their ears where flapping as we passed them in the UN Toyota Land Cruiser and the driver showed me once again that you can drive 100 km per hour on a hard unpaved road. The country-side was beautiful.
Then we reached Voi, a tourist town without tourists - post-election crisis! We stayed overnight in a high-end lodge with nice rooms, big windows overlooking the savannah, and a pond with a hippo and where elephants (20) and other wild animal came for a drink. With two swimming pools and an excellent kitchen, we enjoyed the 150-bedroom lodge which we had all to ourselves. This lodge had a swim up savannah with the swimming pool 30 meters from the pond with all the animals; it was quite amazing and Kyle and Sabina (German woman) were ecstatic.
The next morning we slept in and left for Mombasa. The EU-sponsored road was great and we were there in no time at the beach hotel. But Mombasa was unseasonably cold and windy so my first time in the Indian Ocean was postponed. We watched some Euro Football and went to sleep.
We spent the next day in Kwale district, which was beautiful but many of its crops were failing because the long rains didn’t happen in parts of the district (in Kenya they say “the rains failed”). We saw a family running for their lives as we approached a village; later the field monitor told us that the children were afraid we were coming to vaccinate them.
Later I saw something that almost brought tears to my eyes. The school feeding program provides lunch to the primary school children in this area and fortified porridge for children under five (pre-school). We were driving and it was a little after 1pm. Children in their school uniforms (British system) were walking by the road. They were around 4-7 years old and they were all carrying a plate of WFP food from their school. Instead of eating the meal at the school they were carrying the plate home to share it with the rest of their family… just one plate. An important reminder of why my work is so vital in this country.
In Kwale we saw some great schools where the communities had come together to plant maize and trees on the school compounds. The schools in Kenya often have quite a bit of land, the biggest up to 10 acres. Unfortunately, the scale of the tree planting was too little to be feasible for carbon credits.
After that we went to a presentation site where World Vision (an international non-profit) is training mainly woman in drought-resistant agricultural methods. In many Kenyan tribes, after marriage the women do all the hard labor (good thing for Lisa she is not from a Kenyan tribe!)! World Vision had a great agricultural presentation site which I am sure will make a difference for these women and their families. Our field monitor translated as the 12 women wanted to talk to us. It was their first time having visitors and they were very happy. They thanked us for the program and then the oldest woman said: “We need water. We need water for our crops and for our households.” Then it was obvious that we were supposed to reply, it was so formal. We were standing under a tree in the middle of nowhere, but not too far from Mombasa road (the major highway from Nairobi). So I spoke to them, encouraged them to motivate their husbands to work. It was important for us to see the project but we couldn’t deal with their lack of water right away because water falls under UNICEF programming and WFP doesn’t have the mandate to fund boreholes. Depending on the depth, a borehole costs around 50,000 USD. After the talk the old woman came to me, took my hand with both of hers and said: “Remember me! Remember me!”
So now I feel I owe a $50,000 borehole to an old woman in Kwale. She surely needs it; the long rains (April-June) also failed in this part of the district.
We drove 100 km back to Mombasa to spend the night and it rained and rained. Driving back to Nairobi the next day I was eager to see how far inland the rain had reached. Normally it just rains 5-10 km inland. After an hour’s drive we passed the road to the old lady’s village. The soil by the road was darker and I saw a large pothole with water in it. The old lady had gotten rain that night.
We made it back to Nairobi in one piece. Our driver for the week, Francis, had been great and our visitors seemed happy with what they saw, although the energy-saving stove project was probably the only one with carbon credit potential. The rules under the Kyoto protocol are fairly complex but I learned so much and the mission told me about the Adaptation Fund which has a wider approach. All in all, it was a great, great week. To top it all off my beloved wife came home from her extended “vacation” in the US. I never thought I could miss her so much.
KW
Saturday, June 21, 2008
June 21, 2008 - Still Jet Lagged! AH!
So...the night before I wrote on the blog last I had a good night's sleep. The two nights since then have not been so good, and so I am left absolutely exhausted all over again. My body cannot seem to figure out what it is supposed to do! Either I can't fall asleep for hours, and then only sleep a little bit before I should be getting up for the day OR I fall asleep quickly but only stay asleep briefly and am then awake awake awake. I just want to not feel tired!
The good news is that Kristoffer came home last night and we are happy to have the whole weekend together. It seems like forever since that was the case (or the last weekend we had together I was post-op and so it was not that fun). Christine and I had a nice day yesterday which involved her buying some Kenyan souvenirs and me buying Kristoffer a surprise for our upcoming wedding anniversary. When we were shopping we ran into Officer Kirimi, the Diplomatic Police Officer who was handling our stolen sim card case, and he was so happy to hear of T-Mobile's debt forgiveness. He was really nice and said we could come see him at any time; it is nice for us to feel that we have a law enforcement ally over here. Also, when we were shopping around the Masaai market (with local, Kenyan items) I realized that I have lived here awhile because many of the vendors know me (some even by name!)! I got Christine a great deal on some things she wanted because I knew the lady selling them.
The last bit of news is that The UN Environmental Program has expressed interest in hiring me for 6 months. While I don't think I will pursue the position because it doesn't have anything to do with education (and in fact it is in the HR department which is not really my interest), it was flattering to know that my resume, which they received from the spouse office, was of interest to them.
We are off to look for furniture and paint now...still no internet at home, but hoping, hoping, hoping it will come soon!
LMW
The good news is that Kristoffer came home last night and we are happy to have the whole weekend together. It seems like forever since that was the case (or the last weekend we had together I was post-op and so it was not that fun). Christine and I had a nice day yesterday which involved her buying some Kenyan souvenirs and me buying Kristoffer a surprise for our upcoming wedding anniversary. When we were shopping we ran into Officer Kirimi, the Diplomatic Police Officer who was handling our stolen sim card case, and he was so happy to hear of T-Mobile's debt forgiveness. He was really nice and said we could come see him at any time; it is nice for us to feel that we have a law enforcement ally over here. Also, when we were shopping around the Masaai market (with local, Kenyan items) I realized that I have lived here awhile because many of the vendors know me (some even by name!)! I got Christine a great deal on some things she wanted because I knew the lady selling them.
The last bit of news is that The UN Environmental Program has expressed interest in hiring me for 6 months. While I don't think I will pursue the position because it doesn't have anything to do with education (and in fact it is in the HR department which is not really my interest), it was flattering to know that my resume, which they received from the spouse office, was of interest to them.
We are off to look for furniture and paint now...still no internet at home, but hoping, hoping, hoping it will come soon!
LMW
Thursday, June 19, 2008
June 19, 2008 - Back in Nairobi
Jambo! Greetings from Kenya!
I arrived here on Saturday night. My trip was long and uncomfortable, to be honest. British Airways was not particularly accommodating (and, in fact, tried to charge me additional fare for having changed my plane ticket even though I was assured that a hospitalization relieved me of that expense) but I did make it here in one piece. Kristoffer picked me up at the airport and I can honestly say I have never been so happy to see anyone!
Our house is amazing. It is big and bright and well made, as opposed to our apartment which showed no quality craftsmanship whatsoever. We visited with our neighbors on Sunday, a guy who I worked with at UNICEF and his wife, and it is nice to know that we will have friends close by. All we need now is furniture! We are going to upgrade some of the things we had made already and will buy some new stuff too - we have a lot of rooms to furnish. Four bedrooms and two living rooms! Of course we don't actually need all of that space, but it is nice to be in a cozy home and we have plenty of room for visitors. The UN also subsidizes part of our rent, so it isn't costing us much more to live in this house as opposed to our apartment.
I haven't done much since I got back. Kristoffer is travelling for work and Christine is here until tomorrow. Today I am at the mall at an internet cafe because we don't have internet at our house yet; this is my biggest outing of the week. I don't have serious pain anymore, but I have had the worst jet lag ever and that has made my aches even more achey. I hadn't slept for 2 days before getting a really good night's sleep last night (after some wine and some tylenol PM). The good part of my insomnia is that I was wide awake to watch the last game of the NBA Finals (from 4 am to 6:30 am) and was overjoyed for the Celtics' win. I think my body was already screwed up from the surgeries/anesthesia/blood transfusion and that losing 7 hours just screwed it up even more. Hopefully after last night (and no more daytime napping) I will be back to a regular sleeping schedule.
I should be meeting with my boss and colleagues at UNICEF tomorrow to look at my new (paid!) contract and figure out what my work schedule will be. I think for a little while I will work part time, also because I want to spend time with Kristoffer's Mom and Hans when they are here for 3 weeks in July, and perhaps when (if!) we get internet at home I can work from there as well. UNICEF has been very supportive and patient so I am sure we will work something out that pleases all of us.
I will say that it is a big adjustment to be away from my parents, especially my mother who was with me everyday. We were almost inseparable for 6 weeks and now I really miss them! It is strange that even as a grown woman, my mother can bring me a sort of comfort and care that nobody else can. Kristoffer is pretty amazing, though, and I am certainly happy to be home with him again.
That's all for now; I will write again soon.
LMW
I arrived here on Saturday night. My trip was long and uncomfortable, to be honest. British Airways was not particularly accommodating (and, in fact, tried to charge me additional fare for having changed my plane ticket even though I was assured that a hospitalization relieved me of that expense) but I did make it here in one piece. Kristoffer picked me up at the airport and I can honestly say I have never been so happy to see anyone!
Our house is amazing. It is big and bright and well made, as opposed to our apartment which showed no quality craftsmanship whatsoever. We visited with our neighbors on Sunday, a guy who I worked with at UNICEF and his wife, and it is nice to know that we will have friends close by. All we need now is furniture! We are going to upgrade some of the things we had made already and will buy some new stuff too - we have a lot of rooms to furnish. Four bedrooms and two living rooms! Of course we don't actually need all of that space, but it is nice to be in a cozy home and we have plenty of room for visitors. The UN also subsidizes part of our rent, so it isn't costing us much more to live in this house as opposed to our apartment.
I haven't done much since I got back. Kristoffer is travelling for work and Christine is here until tomorrow. Today I am at the mall at an internet cafe because we don't have internet at our house yet; this is my biggest outing of the week. I don't have serious pain anymore, but I have had the worst jet lag ever and that has made my aches even more achey. I hadn't slept for 2 days before getting a really good night's sleep last night (after some wine and some tylenol PM). The good part of my insomnia is that I was wide awake to watch the last game of the NBA Finals (from 4 am to 6:30 am) and was overjoyed for the Celtics' win. I think my body was already screwed up from the surgeries/anesthesia/blood transfusion and that losing 7 hours just screwed it up even more. Hopefully after last night (and no more daytime napping) I will be back to a regular sleeping schedule.
I should be meeting with my boss and colleagues at UNICEF tomorrow to look at my new (paid!) contract and figure out what my work schedule will be. I think for a little while I will work part time, also because I want to spend time with Kristoffer's Mom and Hans when they are here for 3 weeks in July, and perhaps when (if!) we get internet at home I can work from there as well. UNICEF has been very supportive and patient so I am sure we will work something out that pleases all of us.
I will say that it is a big adjustment to be away from my parents, especially my mother who was with me everyday. We were almost inseparable for 6 weeks and now I really miss them! It is strange that even as a grown woman, my mother can bring me a sort of comfort and care that nobody else can. Kristoffer is pretty amazing, though, and I am certainly happy to be home with him again.
That's all for now; I will write again soon.
LMW
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
June 10, 2008 - I am not 80-years-old...
...but I did have a very good visit with my pacemaker surgeron yesterday. Dr. Grossi, who is the Chief of Cardiothorasic Surgery at NYU (which I was too out of it to appreciate a few weeks ago, but it is really no small title!), says that I am healing well and that my pacemaker is working perfectly. It has already prevented me from fainting 6 times, which is a good reminder that I really do need it! He said I am allowed to lift my arm up now, but still can't exercise for 6 more weeks. The best news of all is that I am allowed to travel back to Kenya!
I will leave this Friday night and arrive Saturday night to see Kristoffer and our new house, as well as my sister Christine who is once again in Kenya for work. I may not start working full time right away, but at least I can get back to my life. My parents have been so amazing the last few weeks, but when my father commented that I was living the life of a 63-year-old more than of a 27-year-old my eagerness to get back to Nairobi only grew!
I will leave this Friday night and arrive Saturday night to see Kristoffer and our new house, as well as my sister Christine who is once again in Kenya for work. I may not start working full time right away, but at least I can get back to my life. My parents have been so amazing the last few weeks, but when my father commented that I was living the life of a 63-year-old more than of a 27-year-old my eagerness to get back to Nairobi only grew!
You know how web-based email providers like yahoo, gmail, and hotmail scan emails for key words to provide targeted advertising? Well, for the last two weeks gmail has scanned words such as "pacemaker" and "surgery" pretty frequently in my emails so that all of my advertising is for senior citizen life insurance, AARP membership and discounts, and assisted living facilities! So annoying! I look forward to emailing from Nairobi where I get ads for safaris and African merchandise - they are a little bit more my speed!
I hope to quickly get back to providing details and insight on unexpected events in Nairobi and the differences I notice living there. Maybe I will even post pictures of our new house! As soon as Kristoffer gets the internet up and running I will be sure to let you know :)
LMW
Monday, June 2, 2008
June 2, 2008 - Recovering + 10 Flights of Stairs
Well I haven't written a blog in a really long time, but I promise I have good reason. My last post announced that I would be having surgery to get a new pacemaker, and what an ordeal that turned out to be.
Kristoffer, my mom and I headed down to NYC for my surgery, scheduled for Tuesday, May 20th. The doctors planned to extract my pacemaker and the two leads (or wires that plug the device into my heart) and then implant a whole new system. When all went well, it was expected that I would be out of the hospital on the 21st.
Sadly, that was not exactly the way it all went down. My surgery took place in the cardiac catherization lab at NYU Medical Center with 3 doctors and several nurses, which is common for non-open-heart cardiac procedures. There were two problems, however. First, because I was only 19 when I got my pacemaker, doctors at Children's Hospital in Boston buried it deep in my pectoral muscle so that I wouldn't have a bump sticking out of my chest like a 90-year-old (no offense to any 90-year-olds reading this). When the NYC doctors went to remove the pacemaker I lost a significant amount of blood because the pacemaker was so deep. Problem number two was that the leads were very close to one of my veins and if the doctors had nicked the vein in trying to remove the leads, that would have lead to further bleeding that they could not have controlled because they were not in an operating room. I was told that proceeding at that point could have actually been fatal.
So, after getting the pacemaker out the doctors closed me up to recover a bit and then they scheduled a second surgery for the next day with a specialized cardiovascular surgical team. My new surgeon had done about 4,000 lead extractions before, which are much riskier and less common than pacemaker implantations or battery replacements; we were very happy to have an old pro on the job. None of us (us = me, my family, or my cardiologist) realized how tricky this process was going to be and we are very grateful that they stopped the first surgery when they realized they were in over their heads. After the first surgery didn't go too well, my father joined my mom and Kristoffer in NYC. They were all an amazing support to me, but it is clear to me now how scary it must have been for them when the doctor explained what went wrong.
Day 2 brought surgery #2, in the operating room, with a lot of doctors and nurses supporting my primary surgeon. For the first surgery I was heavily sedated and knocked out for the whole thing, but for the second surgery I was under general anesthesia and was not breathing on my own (that means I was on a ventilator) so that the surgeon had ultimate control over what was happening. When they began the procedure, they realized that I had lost too much blood the first time around for them to continue and so first they gave me a blood transfusion. Then they successfully removed the old leads without nicking my vein, and implanted two new leads and a new pacemaker. The new leads are positioned differently than the old ones to avoid some of the problems I had with them, and the pacemaker is not buried as deeply in my muscle as the first one was. This means that the next time I need a new battery (8-10 years, give or take a few) the procedure should not be as complicated. It also means that I do have a slight bump on my chest - so while I don't exactly look 90 the site is not as flat as it has been the last 8 years. The surgeon was not sure that he was going to be able to keep the pacemaker on the left side of my body and there was a chance he would have had to open my right side and implant the new pacemaker there, which would have made my recovery much more difficult. The very good news is that he was able to keep the new one on the left side and I am extremely grateful to not have symmetrical incisions.
Once the surgery was done, it took two more days for me to have the strength to be discharged. The first time I got out of bed to try and walk around I quickly fainted - not because of my heart but because I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink in over 48 hours! I also had significant pain and my blood count was kind of funny so they had to make sure I wasn't bleeding internally before they discharged me. Finally, on the evening of Friday, May 23rd at 5:30pm they dismissed me to "enjoy" my Memorial Day Weekend. My parents, Kristoffer, and I took a taxi uptown to my friend Jean's, our "home base" in NYC, for the night and when we arrived we encountered a new problem. For the first time in 5 years, all 3 of the elevators in her building were broken. No joke. All of them. Broken.
We went to a diner for dinner, stocked up on some post-op supplies at the nearest drug store and hoped that the elevators would be fixed quickly...but our hopes were to no avail. I was tired, in severe pain, and wanted to go back to the hospital where there was a wheelchair! After debating about getting a hotel (where? how much? what a hassle!) or leaving instantly to drive back to Massachusetts (in Memorial Day Weekend Friday night traffic?! no thanks!), the only practical option we had was to walk up 10 flights of stairs to Jean's apartment. After 2 heart surgeries, 1 blood transfusion, and 2 hours out of the hospital, that is exactly what I did. Kristoffer sort of held me from behind so that I didn't fall and we just took it very slow, but we did climb up those damn stairs.
At 5:45 in the morning we woke up to drive back to my parents' house in Plymouth and, sure enough, the elevators were still not working! So we had to walk back down the freakin' stairs! I kid you not. My mom and I decided that even an author or screenwriter wouldn't be so mean as to write such a story! Once we got down the stairs, though, we had an easy ride home and I have since been recovering. Kristoffer was able to stay two more days before heading back to Nairobi and my parents have been seriously pampering since he left.
Currently, I am no longer medicating. The doctors really wanted me to deal with my pain and not rely on drugs so much - so I weaned down to only taking pills before bed and now to not taking them at all. The only times I have serious pain now are at night when I am really tired - it is mostly aches and constant soreness. I have increased mobility but can't lift my left arm for about 4 more weeks. I don't sleep through the night, but wake up a lot to try and get comfortable, and I do get tired very easily so I take a lot of small naps. I am eating well though and my parents walk me and their dog regularly for exercise. I will see my surgeon and cardiologist next Monday and will hope for the "all clear" to travel back to Kenya.
Kristoffer and I had been looking to move out of our apartment for a little while and before my surgeries he had found both a house and an apartment for me to check out when I got back. Well, needless to say I haven't gotten back yet and Kristoffer had to make a decision without me. He chose the house and moved into it this weekend. He brought me a video of the house and it looks perfect for us - only a few years old, clean, bright, and pretty big. It is on a compound with 9 other houses in the very best and most desired neighborhood among UN staff, and we even know a couple who live there already. So, including my consultancy at UNICEF, I have a lot to look forward to when I get back to Nairobi!
Hopefully when I get back to my real life and my husband, I will get back to updating the blog on a weekly basis at least. Thank you to everyone who has corresponded with me, sent flowers, visited, emailed and kept me in their thoughts and prayers. Believe me when I say that every little bit helps!
Happy June,
LMW
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