I'm Back

As I write this I am sitting in my hammock in the fragrant evening breeze at Mwamba. It was like coming home, when I arrived back here. As the little 16 seater plane flew over Lamu I could see the sand dunes where I had played; driving through Malindi it felt like I had never left. I had a great welcome from everyone here, some who were surprised to see back I think.

I have tentatively started work although as yet the stuff I want to get stuck into is closed off to me. They haven't yet got formal permission for me to go on the reef and so I am land bound. I did get to explore some cool rockpools on super-low tide and play with the new project camera. There were some outrageously coloured starfish there, which was exciting.

Today instead of snorkelling I planned to go our on the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) patrol boat to make notes on tourist numbers and behaviour around the 'coral gardens', as KWS have a concern about too many visitors potentially negatively impacting the coral. However, this morning the KWS sergeant, Mr. Tinga, called and asked did I have money for fuel. I politely explained that I wasn't chartering the boat, but merely tagging along with their usual routine. He said that was fine, so I went off to pack my bag ready to head out. Five minutes later the phone rang with message, “No patrol today because there is insufficient fuel.”

Frustration is a part of life in Africa, as Colin reminded me when I got back. Not able to go snorkelling or on the patrol boat I sat in the office doing what ever silly tasks I could think of, like organising paper references, all the time miserable and angry at the boredom and futility of it. Its tempting not to bother at all and write the day off, but ultimately that would feel even worse. As an impatient person, by even European standards this place is going to teach me some hard, but worthwhile lesson on patience and serenity and a stronger relationship with God as I cry out, “Lord, give me strength!”  

On a positive note!

I realised that all my entries up to now have been quite negative and mostly about my coping mechanisms in the first month. However, of course, I’ve been doing some really fun things here. My main project is working with a mzee (elder) called David Ngala, who is a self-appointed guardian of the forest. Arabuko-sokoke is 420km² of a forest which once stretched from Somalia to Mozambique and is the only significant chunk left. It is one of Myer’s 25 hotspots for biodiversity and endemicity with 500 plant species, 270 birds and 52 mammals. Even this last chunk is threatened by illegal extraction of bushmeat and trees, most of which is for subsistence by the extremely poor communities around the forest.

                David and I go into the forest looking for evidence of these illegal activities, recording information about stumps or traps we find in order to build up a picture of what’s going on. Once we even met someone carrying building poles out of the forest. David just said that he was guiding me on a bird hike through the forest!

                We see a lot of logged trees, many of which only a small portion is taken and the rest left. It can be really sad to see, but it’s good to remember that at least in Kenya the park has a boundary, some legal status and protection. That’s a lot better than most African countries! We see some traps, but not too many, so thankfully the poverty doesn’t quite stretch to this level of need to provide food from the forest. Also unlike in Western and Southern Africa there is no cultural attachment or prestige about bushmeat, hence there is no illegal trade. What does exist is the insatiable hunger for wood, for building, fuel, charcoal and the carvings sold on the coast.

                We spend all day in the forest. It’s a real privilege to work with him. He’s a wealth of knowledge about the woods and animals and even traditional medicine. No day is complete without some casual racism about wazungu! For example, “why does a mzungu only half fill his cup of tea? So he doesn’t burn his long nose!” lots of funny nasal accent of wazungu speaking Swahili too. Aiesh! He calls me his son, which perhaps is his way of rationalising that he has a mzungu for an assistant. I do everything for him from writing his blog, data entry and report writing. It’s really good.

                Two weeks ago I took a half-way holiday to Lamu for the Maulide festival. Lamu is an ancient Swahili port on an island near Somalia. Maulide is to celebrate the Prophet’s birth and seems to be an extended and very disorganised party. There are people from all around the world, you see Swahilis from everywhere, Somalis, West Africans, Arabs etc. all in their traditional dress. It was nice not to stand out for once! There were donkey races, dhow races, swimming races and lots of singing and drumming. It was quite a spectacle. The one day I walked up to Shella on the north part of the island. In the morning I trekked through the dunes. It was really beautiful; lots of birds, no people and the first natural beauty I had just seen without having to pay or report to the office why I wasn’t paying. That afternoon I just lay on the empty beach at the back  of the island; very indulgent! The day after I went out on a dhow with local fishermen. We set off at 3am in the dark of a moonless night, the phosphorescence in the water was spectacular, The sun rose as we headed out to open water. It was a really basic narrow dugout with two outriggers to give stability. We used single lines and bait to catch predominantly triggerfish and white snapper. We finally got back at 1pm and I was quite sea-sick, sunburnt and tired! It was a good experience though, especially because it was just some local guys. Lamu was amazing, but I paid for it when I got back. After packing a lot into 3 days I got a really bad fever. I was wiped out for the rest of next week!

World's Apart

Frances' whole family. He is above his dad

As I wrote this in my diary I was surrounded by a rural African scene: A few bird are calling, people are chatting gently as they go about morning tasks. The living space is centred around a couple of mango trees with three corners marked by small mud huts made out of the red earth and thatched with palms. A few chickens and ducks run around as well as a goat or two, while the women cook on open stoves. This is my friend Frances' home.

From the coast is took two hours by matatu. When we arrived I met the whole family, Mum, Dad, his 9 siblings, his older brother's wife and their 3 children too. All living and subsisting on what can be produced from the same small shamba (small holding). Only his older brother has a job as welder and is an important provider for the whole family. Frances is the only one who has completed his high school education and can speak English.

During the journey on the previous day Frances had told me about his time at school. He was sponsored by the ASSETS programme from A Rocha, which helps the poorest families around Arabuko-Sokoke forest to go to high school, which isn't free in Kenya, but essential for any kind of stable employment. The programme provides a bursary for a portion of the fees based on need, which in Frances' case was 60%, so his family had to find the remaining 40%. Unfortunately they couldn't provide this so Frances had to work as well, which often meant doing casual labour at home and missing portions of school. His final mark was a D plain.

After leaving Frances' home we went to Pwani university in Kilifi to look for a college course for Frances. It transpired at Pwani that he needed a C plus minimum to get on these courses. In a very polite way he explained his whole story to the admissions officer, about his hardships and problems of getting to school. Of course the admissions guy couldn't change anything, he just tried to get Frances to understand that, “Unfortunately you can't make orange juice into passion juice.” Frances was devastated; he had his plans dashed. Everyone meets difficulties when they try to achieve in life. Myself, I am struggling to get into Marine Biology because I don't have the diving experience, which is so expensive to build up. For Frances I think it is harder for him to deal with these challenges because no one in his family can give him that support. He even said that when he was working so hard to get money for school people in his village would laugh at him for putting himself through such hard work. We had a really good chat on the matatu home about his future. Nevertheless I couldn't help feeling sad that he had such a long way to climb compared to me.

The next night I was due to give a talk about the ASSETS programme at Turtle Bay, one of the hotels here on the coast in Watamu. Visiting Frances' home had given me great preparation for understanding what was going on. Walking into the hotel was so shocking. Everything was so ornate, clean and beautiful. Compared to what I've seen over the past weeks it was the most luxurious place I felt I'd ever seen. I was led to the pool area where everyone was dinner and gave my speech. The dozen people or so that came were interesting in what was going on, although it was clear that they didn't have a very good idea of what was happening outside the hotel walls. On woman even asked, “What do you mean poverty surely there's loads of money here because of the tourist trade?”

Tourism here is not great. Sure it brings in for some, but much of it doesn't filter through, one reason being many of the tourists never leave their cozy compounds. As a result many locals only see wazungu (white people) walking round in their skimpy clothes, driving in flashy cars with their gold and accessories. In addition many people walk around giving out sweets to children and money to people who look poor. Of course the locals have got wise to this and some exploit this misguided generosity, e.g. there's a guy with elephantisis in his leg, and has been given money many times to get it treated.

Sadly many tourists also want not particularly wholesome holidays and in fact many Italians come for sex holidays so there are many prostitutes and even “spouses” who are hired every year when their “husbands and wives” come to Kenya for their two months. There are also many drugs and other problems as, mostly young local men, try to emulate westeners, funded by petty crime and conning gullible tourists. What this all means is that society on the coast is quite broken and steeped in sin and ordinary Kenyans are constantly reminded of their inferiority as they sturggle to get a slice of Mzungu's money pie. Of course what I've mention are extreme cases and not 100% of the time, but what seems universal is the polarised view that Kenyans have of Wazungu. A Rocha is the only place I've seen so far where the distinction between white and black is almost non-existent, which can have funny consequences outside the centre, Mwamba. One time when shopping with Henry the Indian shop keeper looked at me and said, “get this one for your job boss,” adter a moment to figure out what he meant I pointed to Henry and said, “Hey, he's the boss, I'm the assistant doing the carrying.” At Pwani university the admissions guy said to Frances', “Sorry I can't help, but don't complain; look even your donor has come to the Uni with you!”

The reason for this drawn out explaination of these two world's and their interaction is because for a long time I was very uncomfortable with the situation. I felt a lot of guilt compared to Frances and a lot of embarrassment being lumped with the Italians. After a talk with Roni (wife of the director, Colin) I realised its not the material difference that's the problem it's the inferiority that many Africans feel, or as Roni calls it, the yoke of oppression.

As I'm sure you know, Jesus had a huge heart for the poor and as Christians we need to remove any concept of superiority. In Romans 12 v 10 it says, “Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves,” and v 16, “Live in harmony with one another, do not be proud; but willing to associate with people of low position. Do not think you are superior” A message repeated so many times in the bible.

In summary the best thing to do is to show humility and kindness (obvious huh?) in a wholesome way, not lording around handing out sweets to the poor African children. It's a a big task, especially when people have so many preconceptions, but one friendly encounter can have great repercussions. 

A steep learning curve

I've now been in Kenya for one month and it has been a huge learning curve. Africa is the most culturally distinct place I've ever been too and it's not even that different on a global scale. The first impressions when I arrived from my transfer plane into Malindi was of the colour of the place . Vibrant flowers of pink and red lined the main road where women in brightly coloured lessos walked past red ochre huts and wandering goats. Boys were selling mangos, men chatting on motorbikes waiting for a fare, chickens, cows and goats galore. A typical African snapshot!
The A Rocha centre (Mwamba) itself is a secluded collection of small buildings surrounded by beautiful bushes and flower filled trees just back from the beach. From the centre all you hear is the crash of the Indian Ocean, crickets and the trade winds blowing in the coconut palms.
My first week was blissful coming from the freezing cold of the English January, the heat was delicious. I would stand in the sun and just soak the energy. The beach was incredible and and especially the water, which is warm and clear. Only 15 minutes swim off shore is a coral reef, perhaps not the best in the world, but for me it is just astounding. The colours and diversity of fish and life is so intense that you have to just float and stare in order to take it all in. As I gfot out after my first swim with the evening light sparkling on crystal waters and white coral sands it was one of many times in that first week that I had to pinch myself.
The best part however is the people. A Rocha operates as a community; eating, joking, praying and working together. People care for every part of you, which is such a contrast to other places I've been. I think Christians are particularly good at this. God is so good to me!
The second week I started to discover more about Kenya, which was a steep learning curve. Firstly I saw in the news that the Northern areas of the country were suffering from drought and famine. Although it wasn't happening here on the coast, it was so much more real that when one hears about things like this in the news at home. I also realised how badly the incredible wild areas of Kenya were threatened. I basically had a large injection of the need here in Kenya, which filled me with passion for the work ahead.
After this I began to realise that some aspects of the Kenyan culture were just wrong from my perspective. Through stories and some of my own encounters I came to realise that the pole pole (slowly slowly) pace of life in face just wastes time and oppurtunites. Worst is the way people interact with money here. As a mzungu (white man) they will charge you any price they can get away with. Even when I went to a hair salon that Belinda, the hospitality manager at Mwamba, recommened and called to let them know that I was coming, did they try and rip me off. Maybe many tourists here just pay without realising, but it must annoy some. In addition there is an "aid" mentality here of people expecting something for nothing. Colin, the director of A Rocha Kenya, does really useful work in the area, but the park wardens still expect him to pay; they don't even help! There are so many stories of people not doing their job, or doing the bare minimum but still expecting to be paid. If some Kenyans just tryed a little to provide quality service they would make so much more money, but they just squeeze their assets dry. The worst way that this is expressed, of course, is in corruption. Nothing gets done, because everyone is taking their cut. The other day I saw the govenor of shipping's plush mansions with green lawns sitting above a cracked mud/dust bowl, which used to be a lake dotted with people trying to catch the last few catfish in the drying waters.
Just inland from the thin coastal strip with its tourism money is extreme poverty. The other day we were doing a bird count. The surrounding hills were bare of bushes and the numerous skinny cattle tramped about in the basin which should have been full of water. In the middle of this environmental disaster a group of children were pulling a mosquito net (probably donated by Western NGO concerned for their health) through the shallow water trying to catch fish. I was told that these tiny sprat only 1 inch long would be dryed and eaten whole. I just stood on the bank looking at the stinking black mud on their skinny legs and prominent ribs not really knowing what to say or do. Finally in a bizarre act of compassion I jumped into the water with them, to which they laughed and screamed with delight. Only after was I told the water is full of disease like Bilharzia.
Whoose fault is it these kids are scrapping food from disease ridden mud? Is it colonialism which suppressed the African psyche not to think for the future and just squeeze resources or is it corruption which prevents any meaningful organisation of people and resources?
My work here is also frustrating because there are so many little problems which get in the way of work. For one the national grid in Kenya is extremely hazardous with power cuts every day and on Thursday's there is no power because of rationing. The internet is through a mobile phone dongle only, for the whole centre. It used to come on a high speed cable, but the cable was dug up and stolen for the price that Chinese scouts would pay for the copper. Perhaps this could be a worrying hint for the African continent. Selling their future for pittance to a new colonial era of China. Despite it taking a long while trying to understand all what's going on here it is a great learning curve, one which is teaching me a lot of patience. Power goes out ... change tack. When I do sucees with something it's all the more sweet!