After a week of midterms and the being in the fast Nairobi grind-style life of studying for midterms and working, what better way to follow the week up than with a rural retreat for four days. So I was really looking forward to this rural retreat that marks the midpoint of my studies, travels, and adventures while here in Kenya. It was nice to get out of the fast Nairobi and into deep rural areas, a complete polar opposite of Nairobi. Every semester as part of the AU Abroad program, the people go on a rural excursion to learn about rural life in Kenya, and this semester we went to an area of Kenya called Ukambani.
Ukambani area is in the Eastern Province of Kenya (Kenya has eight provinces, similar to the states like in the US) in which the Kamba tribe is found, and where we went was about four hours away from Nairobi by bus. On US roads the trip would have been much quicker, as there was not really much of a road. There was road construction about the whole time, so for the length of the trip, it involved us driving on an ulterior dirt road that paralleled the main tarmac. This road was the windiest, bumpiest road I have ever been on and was much like a roller coaster, involving during a couple times the bus being up at about a 50 degree angle or higher and seemingly on one side to get around some areas. I have to be honest that I was not expecting anything less having heard about African (and Kenyan roads at that) before coming here. To be honest if I were in charge of development in Kenya that would be one of my first priorities is to make the roads better. With a country in which tourism is the number two industry it would make sense to have good roads for the tourists to get around. Unfortunately for the roads, agriculture is the number one industry and not many tourists go to the really agricultural areas that the dirt roads lead to.
When we arrived to our first town that we were going to be staying at, Machakos, my first reaction was that this area is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It was full of rolling green mountains that had terraced gardens/fields cut into the land and with goats and cows and chickens running around the area. It reminded me of a prettier version of the Appalachian Mountains on the drive that have made many times en route to Washington DC. But this was more exotic and more beautiful at the same time. During the afternoon in Machakos, we went to an agricultural development group called Osa Vinya, where we divided up into three groups to learn about their different projects and help out with them. One group made jam, one group learned how to make soap, and my group learned how to make bricks. Let me tell you that brick making is a lot of brick, and after going through the process, it made me appreciate even more buildings that are made of brick here and what the workers went through to build their houses or businesses. So the process for making bricks at Osa Vinya starts with an extinct safari ant hill (the best substance for making bricks, mud will also do but it is not as good of quality). You take a hoe or garden tool and you break off some of the anthill, and then you add a ton of water to it. Next you stand in the mud and step around in it mixing the dirt and water together until it is pretty thick. Then you take the brick mold and set it down, and throw in the mud, and pack it tightly but smoothly into the brick mold. Then you move away from the area and flip over the mudbrick and carefully shake it until it falls out of the mold. The bricks lie in the sun for a few days drying, and then they take the mud bricks and build an oven out of them, in which they light the whole thing on fire which dries and hardens the bricks even further until they are ready to be sold. Brick making is a lot of hard work and all of this is sold for about 12 Kenyan shillings (about 15 cents US) per brick. In about an hour our group of 5 AU students made 6 bricks, while experienced brick makers make a thousand bricks in a half days work (about 200-250 a person) and then call it a day. Brick making was my first taste of what this weekend would be like with learning about agricultural activities that are necessities, that we take for granted because machines do them, but in the rural areas of Kenya this is still done by hand.
After washing the mud off my hands and feet (with the soap that one of the groups made), we headed back to Machakos for the late afternoon/evening and were free to explore more until dinnertime. Instead of heading towards the town, I went out for a walk in the opposite direction away from town and more towards the mountains. I was mystified by the highlands…. I really could understand from the beauty of the land and the green around why the British kicked the natives off of their own land and wanted it for their own use. And, because technology has not progressed like in Nairobi and cars and whatnot are fewer here, I felt like I could have actually been one of those colonizers. (Here in Kenya I do get asked if I am British before I get asked if I am American, something that at first surprised me).
From the Green Highlands to the hot dry, but green Desert: Nyumbani Village:
The next morning we headed off towards Nyumbani Village. This village is a highly efficient, self-sustaining village that is a remarkable agricultural achievement and a green desert oasis located right in the middle of an area that has been through a long drought in Kenya. This village was founded by an American Catholic priest (who was an advisor to former US President George W. Bush on either environment or agriculture, I can not remember which), and is funded by USAID. I can assure you that in this case your tax dollars that go to foreign aid have not been wasted. This village was founded as essentially an AIDS orphanage center for families affected by AIDS. (In the early 90s in Kenya, AIDS had such a social stigma that children were not allowed to go to school if they were HIV positive, much in the same way the US was in some places before that too). From an agricultural and environmental viewpoint, this village is quite amazing. It is completely off the electrical grid (there is no electricity for at least 45 miles away from it), but yet it has power. It uses solar panels on the roofs of the buildings to utilize the desert sun), and this power goes into rechargeable batteries and generators that are typically switched off during the day and are flipped on at nite. The village always has enough water for both agricultural and human purposes as well because of the use of sand dams. These are an environmental breakthrough in the area and practiced in the middle east as well as dams are built out of sand on the streams in the area, which traps the water within the sediment, allowing for raising the water table and when water runs out pools are made in the sand. I have to be honest with you after reading three articles about them and seeing one on a tour of Nyambani, I am still not sure how they work but the village has water so it must work well in some way. After a delicious meal served to us for lunch that afternoon, we went on a tour of the village. This tour consisted first of a tour of the medical clinic (which I have to be honest is much nicer looking than that of Kenyatta Hospital, which I have visited twice with the Sarakasi Hospital Project- see earlier blogpost). The rooms were more private and cleaner, but at the same time it is a small private clinic in the middle of nowhere so its capabilities are limited. Within the hospital is also a room in which the very colourful, tightly woven baskets made out of sisal are for sale (this is a trademark of Nyambani Village). Walking around, you see old women weaving these baskets everywhere. Nyambani Village is an anomaly in Kenya, because the most of the households are run by the old “grandmothers”, or “Mamas” as they are called here in Kenya. I believe of the three hundred different “families” that are in the Village, there are roughly 50 Mamas and 4 older men that run things. This runs in confrontation with how most of Kenya is set up, as it is most of the tribes and most of the homesteads are set up in a patrilineal or patriarchal system. Walking around the village, I would be greeted in Kamba by the older women, who would keep shaking and holding my hand until I gave the appropriate Kamba response from a younger person greeting his elder. This response was sort of a flattened, elongated “aaaah” sound, and in the society the young do not greet the elders first, you wait to be greeted and then you give that response. I thought this was very strange and almost backwards from other experiences I have had in Kenya, in which I have been encouraged to walk up to and greet complete strangers and they would greet back and strike up a conversation (especially in the rural areas).
Anyways back to the tour. We went and saw the different gardens that they had there. This village does not use any sort of chemicals or pesticides, as everything is completely organically grown. They practice crop science here and natural fertilization, experimenting with different plants in different soils to see which things grow better, as well as crop rotation. I could see this as I would notice the soil changing from one garden area to the next, and with the different plants or same plants rather growing in different soils. Being from very rural Illinois with agriculture all around, I have always grown up with agriculture but have never really experienced it before or given it much thought, but this was quite fascinating. The village directors had foresight to plan everything, even sloping the ground up to water spouts and planting vegetables and other crops in areas where the extra water from the faucets runs off into. No water is wasted in this village, especially in this desert area. They also practice natural fertilizers from the manure from the normal farm of cows and goats and whatnot, as well as the very cleverly titled “humanure”, I don’t need to go into detail about that I think you can figure out what that is. I will say that no waste (human nor animals), as well as water goes wasted in this village. We also saw many bee hives (the Ukambani area, and especially Kitui, is Africa if not world famous for its honey I figured out”. We saw a sand dam and also got a tour of the actual settlement areas. It was well designed with four houses all centered around a central water spicket. I believe there were eight of these different settlements of four houses, and we went in one of the houses. Which were decent sized with at least 6 rooms in them. It was really interesting to see a Kenyan home because I had never been in a real one before, and it was especially interesting seeing the bedrooms. I had heard before from other people in my group who had been fortunate enough to be invited into homesteads that people cover their walls with random newspaper articles about the Western world and American, and we had a discussion and theorized that this provides these people with an escape/ there desire is to be American or Western and collect material wealth, and these people really do cover there walls with articles. In the children’s room that I saw the walls were lined both with sports articles about their favourite soccer player or team (as I would expect in any boys room anywhere in the world basically), but there were also articles about Obama, and American cars and an old interview from about 1998 with Britney Spears taken from some magazine like Seventeen or Teen People or something. It really was bizarre and I wish I could figure out why in 2009 some of these articles were up there. As I was walking around the settlement, a flock of children just ran up to us, and one grabbed ahold of my arm and did not let go, so what I did was picked him up by that arm, lifted him over my head and let him sit on my shoulders for the a lot of the afternoon. He really enjoyed that and I also played jump rope and a kick version of tetherball with the kids. While walking back to the main part of the village, I was called over for an event I knew was forthcoming on this trip and was looking forward to but sort of nervously curious at the same time.
We had planned to acquire a live goat, and then participate/watch in the killing of it and the skinning and gutting and roasting of it for our dinner that nite. (Goat meat is one of the main meats here in Kenya and is actually really good… it tastes like a sort of tougher rougher beef). I will say that the event did happen and was quite the experience. I am not going to go into real detail of the event because it was very graphic, but it was a once in a lifetime experience that I am glad to have gotten the experience in doing. I will say that I did not participate in the actually killing of the goat (no one in our program did as the guys who were doing that did all of that work, I don’t think I could have actually participate in that part). Some of the people did participate in the skinning, and I helped hold the fur out of the way to maximize maneuverability. (I want to say that some people on this trip were reluctant to watch/were thinking about becoming vegetarian after this incident, and I want to address that issue with my own personal feelings that meat is too good to give up. Also animals are treated well over here as everything is free range and not kept in tiny cages and what-not. An animal must be killed in order to eat it, and the meat taste the same whether seeing it done in the way it has been done for natively for many generations, or if it is bought packed from a store. It makes no difference either way, and in fact that dinner we had that nite was amazing.
After the goat had been prepared it took a few hours to cook, and we were preparing to have a bonfire that nite, so I and some of the other males volunteered to collect firewood. In the desert this was quite a trek and a real rural experience, as we had to walk about a kilometer to find enough big firewood and not just brush for the fire. We found two very big logs, and I cared one by myself that I would estimate weighed over 50 pounds at least the kilometer back to the bonfire by myself. (I wanted to have one of those “tell your grandkids” story that will go something like… “back when I was your age and living in Africa I was staying in this rural village without electricity and running water and was sent to get firewood and had to carry a log the size of you for a half a mile”. Hahaha I don’t know but it was fun and I enjoyed doing that labour. After dinner we made like real tribal traditional Kenyans and told stories by the campfire, and it was really interesting hearing some of the Kenyans telling stories passed down among their tribes, (stories about traditions, customs, rites of passage (depending on the tribe rites of passage included either circumcision or removing of teeth and other things to celebrate coming of age). It was a lot of fun hearing people tell stories, both the Kenyans and the Americans, both traditional stories and local urban legends, ghost stories from various areas. After that happened for awhile we busted out the technology and played catch-phrase (a word association game) that was equally as fun, but did not have the same satisfaction as the feelings I got while listening to old stories by the fire.
The next day we took another bus down a bumpy road to Kitui (which is the town that is famous for honey), and has the look and feel and experience of a typical very small town in Kenya (I will describe that more in a second). But first we went to Nzambani Rock. This is a rock that is pretty high up and an incredibly unique experience. After you hike part of the way up, you reach a spiral staircase that bolted into the rock that you climb up many stories until you reach the top of the rock. This rock is hundreds of feet high and offers spectacular views of Kambaland. Everywhere you look in all directions there are just rolling hills and mountains, and it really feels like you are on top of the world. I took many pictures from the top of this plateau but it was one of those settings pictures don’t even come close to doing the scenery justice, as there is so much to take in. We had a picnic lunch after climbing the rock at the base of the rock and then headed back to town where we could explore.
Kitui is a typical Kenyan rural town, and is much like typical small rural towns in any part of the world. There are essentially about six main streets that make up the center of town, three parallel streets with three parallel cross streets intersecting in a grid system sort of. You have your few grocery stores and hardware stores, as well as a couple banks, a post-office, a restaurant a bar, and that is your town. The only difference is that in Kenya, most of these rural towns the buildings with tin buildings and tin roofs, and with dirt streets and pathways. Kitui is exactly like this, as well as has its offshoot roads with dense foot traffic and a market and small shacks for houses off of the center of the town. This is also common of rural towns in Kenya, and reminded me a lot and had the look and feel of the informal settlements I have been in around Nairobi. The area is just poorer and that is why it had this look, but it is the normal town. The difference between the Nairobi settlements and rural villages is that the air is much cleaner, and the people are much more friendly and nice, as is typical in rural small towns across the world from what I have observed.
It was really fun to get to experience the rural villages and do some labour experiencing what every day life is there. I learned a lot and look forward to traveling more around Kenya and learning more from the different areas of this incredibly beautiful country that has so much to offer.
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