Women and Awesomeness Part II

Chairman Benjamin Okalo addressing the women's group

The following is part of the weekly update I wrote, to keep everyone involved about the progress of the group.  We also had a VERY successful Customer Care workshop yesterday!  The women learned from the banda manager Solomon and a KEEP Nature Walk guide Enosh, I provided the role playing scenarios.  Tomorrow we have a Tour Guide workshop, and on Friday we're doing a jiko installation practical! (see below)  Very awesome and exciting things going on at KEEP this week :-)

Last week started off really positively.  There was another meeting with the womens’ group on Monday, and this time Chairman sat in and gave his input about the group and the community tours.  He is REALLY excited about this initiative and had a lot of ideas!! I was so happy to have such positive support and participation from the executive board for this new program.  Chairman thought it would also be a great opportunity to involve the women in more of KEEP’s outreaches, like the jiko stoves and running workshops.  Enosh is going to run a workshop next week on how to install the jikos, and the women are going to be going around the village advocating for the jikos.  Every installation they complete will get them 400 shillings!!  So it would be a great opportunity for some income generation for them, and it will help get rid of the three-stone hearth that uses a lot of firewood and also produces a lot of unhealthy smoke.

Enosh leading a workshop on Customer Care

                                           

So next week we have a Customer Care workshop planned for Monday, and I’m also having Adult English class sign up.  I’m expecting a lot of women to sign up, I want to have a class on Wednesdays and Fridays for anyone interested, and I will hopefully be able to split up the group into two skill levels.  We are also doing a guacamole making class on Tuesday!  The women requested it, because they want to know how to make it for visitors who maybe don’t like traditional food (this kind of forward-planning shows how excited the women are for the village tours – I really hope we can do some runs in the next few weeks! 

Women and Awesomeness

So I have spent about a month total here in Kakamega Rainforest, and I have been really overwhelmed with projects connected to KEEP and the EcoLodge bandas, but overwhelmed in a good way.  Every day there is a new challenge! Even challenges that supersede things like rainy seasons, flooded streets, power outages...I have felt some personal challenges the past few weeks.  It is hard to find your place of use when you're brand new, and also very different from the people.  It takes time to gain trust, in those you work with and in the community.  It also takes time to gain confidence, and that has been my main struggle.  Its hard to learn everything about an organization in only 10 weeks, let alone create some projects that may actually be beneficial.  There have been days when I even question my own worth...what was all of that studying and investment in this education for?  What do I ACTUALLY have to offer??  But today I found some use for myself.  The past few weeks I have been thinking really hard about what I can do to connect the people in the community to the tourism part of KEEP.  I wanted to model what I had seen from other GVI projects with the implementation of a community/village tour, something that will be organized and implemented by a local group of people, where tourists can actually walk through the village and learn about how people LIVE.  How they cook their food, where they sleep, how they farm, what their children are like...I wanted to make this connection because its something that I crave myself.  I want to know everything, and I want to be accepted by the community.  I want to feel at home, not like an outsider...I want to really know how people here live, and so I can live like them too.  And I thought, if I want to know these things, maybe other people do too...and it can give both parties an opportunity to learn from and about the other.  So, I created an advertisement for such a tour, came up with the basic plan, and asked to meet with the women's group.

And that is what happened today, and at 2:00 I sat anxiously at the conference table at the bandas with my proposal and advertisement, with a sign in sheet and waited.  Then, it started to rain.  POUR actually, and my heart sank.  It would be really hard to travel in the rain, and lets face it, who wants to dredge across town to speak to a mzungu they don't even know.  But I stayed anyways, and slowly by slowly (polepole) women showed up, although they sat as far away from me as possible at the other ends of the table...and we had VERY awkward conversations about the weather (which here...is just rain...so its not even that deep of a subject).  But after about 30 minutes, there were 15 women seated around the table, and all talking excitedly among themselves.  I took a deep breath and told myself to be confident, I had something to share, and it was positive.  So I started talking, and in some very shaky and certainly broken KiSwahili, told them who I was and where I came from, and what I wanted to offer as a project.  One of the women next to me, whose name is Beatrice, was clearly the leader of the group and helped me to translate.  Just after the first few sentences, I saw women's eyes light up, and lean forward and whisper to each other.  I gained confidence, and started to talk about the income-generating opportunities this would bring, the ability to learn more English and customer service skills, and the sharing of knowledge of their culture and their history.  Suddenly, everyone started clapping!  Beatrice told me they were really happy with the idea, and that it was really exciting and they all wanted to be involved.  From that moment on, they took the meeting by storm!  They started to form committees and set up the program, all had ideas to share and everyone was talking excitedly.  I just had to sit back while they hashed out ideas, elected team leaders, and started brainstorming roles and responsibilities.  They started to talk about how the income earned would be divided, they want to use it as a group and divide it to the registered members, to help send the children in the community to school.

It was AMAZING.  I felt pure elation.  I FEEL pure elation.  At the end of the meeting, there was chapati and beans that we all shared.  Everyone was smiling and clapping and shaking my hand...I felt like I belonged.  I felt like I had done something positive, and I felt like I was a part of something really cool...I was doing development, I was doing what I had always dreamed of doing.  I walked home with a great feeling in my heart.  Some of the women walked home with me, and we were all talking excitedly and as I turned onto my road to go home, they shook my hand and gave me a big smile.  I felt so accepted and happy...and productive and everything that had been a struggle was all worth it for that moment. 

The next steps are: getting some tours done!! We need visitors and tourists...so if you're in the area and want to experience and contribute to some community development...please stop by ;-)  For the time being, I will be going on the tours, giving feedback, and running some customer relation workshops (aka, how to deal with white people). 

In the words of Pam Beasley from the office from the Beach Day episode "yeah...its a good day"

Another New Life

My first week here in kakmega has been incredible…I honestly could write at least 10 blogs about everything that I’ve seen and learned about in just a few days.  That is probably why its so hard for me to actually write a blog…its just completely overhwleming.  I come home from the day exhausted, although that might be the change in altitude (we’re at 1500ft, as opposed to the balmy below sea-level life I was living the past 3 months).  Overall, I have to say I’m ecstatic about the work that I will be able to do here.  There is a LOT to be done, and thinking about it all at once is actually really intimidating.  Also thinking about how little time I have left…9 weeks really sounds like the shortest amount of time in the world.  Especially because I could live here…the surrounding s are beyond beautiful.  The rainforest is beyond words…which is why I have these lovely pictures!

The best part of the experience right now is the homestay.  I have a lovely mama and baba who treat me so well!!!  I feel completely over-taken care of, but its really nice.  For example, today I went on a nature walk into Kakamega, and got completely drenched by the rain.  The rain is like nothing I’ve ever seen before…huge buckets of water come onto your face and you are practically choked and blinded by all the water coming onto you at once.  So I was soaked, and freezing, because it actually is kind of chilly here (75 degrees when its raining…but compared to t 100+ I had been living in, its absolutely frigid)  I came home barefoot (my forest boots too soaked to walk in) and felt like I was going to die.  My maa ma brings me a jiko, which is basically a portable woodstove, to me in my house (yes, my own house) in my living room (yes, I’m on my own little couch now J), and she also brings me piping hot chai and some mandazis too, because I do look pretty pathetic right now.

The work is hard, the work takes a long time and can sometimes be frustrating, but the work is invigorating and I am never just sitting on my thumbs.  There is so much to do here, and it gives me seemingly endless energy.   I have an objective plan that is 5 pages long, and its only covering 5 weeks.  My long-term objectives for the project are:

-          Get the KEEP bandas Eco Tourism Kenya certified

-          Create a business management plan for the KEEP bandas, to develop proposals to make it more sustainable and also more appealing for tourists

-          Vamp up the Curio shop with locally produced and manufactured products such as crafts and jewelry, and also basic necessities for the tourists

-          Put KEEP onto the internet through their website, creating profiles for various tourism/hotel search engines

-          Create one-page flyers for each KEEP activity to put into a visitor catalog for tourists to look through and create a program

-          Encourage more community development with alternative lifestyles associated with eco-tourism, such as cooking classes, traditional dances, traditional story-telling, and village tours.

I’m here for only 9 more weeks, and I feel so overwhelmed by the schedule I’ve set for myself.  I have to remember that in this time, I also have to do my MASTERS THESIS WHAT!?

Oh boy, remember to breathe…and also to not try and get it all done in one week.  I’ve decided to take  this weekend and focus on some tangibles that I can get done.  The next two weeks are my own personal observations and getting my hands into some real work, and then the following weeks I’ll hopefully have enough of a routine that I’ll be able to work in my own surveys, interviews and questionnaires, etc.  I’ve got Bon Iver going, and I’m letting this vibe ride.

The real work has begun.  Wish me luck!

Workplace/Workspace

So, this is me on vacation!  Please disregard the bags under my eyes...I'm not sure where those are from...actually they may be from the most uncomfortable 10 hour bus ride of my life.  The night bus from Mombasa, which left at 10 pm and was SUPPOSED to arrive in Nairobi at 6 am, but actually arrived at 9 am, was an absolute nightmare.  My legs couldn't fit in the seat, so I guess it didn't matter that I was sitting next to the most overweight and cologned man on the bus.  And no, this is a 'high class bus', so the windows don't open, you are forced to suffocate.  I guess I need to move on from it though, because these past few days have been heaven on earth, I've gotten work done, and I've gotten some serious me-time alone.

Me-time alone is mostly listening to NPR, drinking lots of instant coffee, taking hot showers, and taking impromptu excursions into Nairobi (mostly to find fruit...or explore Nakumatts).  The time off has enabled me to read halfway through Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which is a liberal from Vermont's philosophical nightmare, and is also one of the most brilliant pieces of literature I've ever read.  I've finished one Reflective Practice Question (RPQ) for my Capstone portfolio, and I have an outline for the second one!  The 2nd RPQ is little broader, and the third, I can't even get into, because there is no structure at all.  I want to write about my social identity crisis in Kenya...I'm a relatively poor, grundged out liberal working-class masters student back in the states.  Here I'm an ignorant, rich, Godless, kanga-donning phony!  Well not to everyone, but to those locals are the most vocal.  Vocal locals, phrase coined.

I'm digressing, because that is a whole new blog that I don't want to get into right now, I'm in a nice workspace and my mind is clear.  Which leads me to the topic of this piece...how strange it is to work in the field and also work in the Western bubble-space my mind "needs" in order to function.

I love living in the village I work in, I love to "rough it" and think I can take on anything, or in my case nothing.  No electricity, no fresh running water, no meat, no laundry, no showers, no chocolate, no cheese, no leaving your head uncovered...no communication with friends and family in the states.  However, when it comes down to me needing to write a 30 page thesis, complete with three 5-7 page RPQs, biographies, learning plans, proposals, Human Subject reviews...somehow I fall short of being able to take on the nothing.  I need this environment:

I need music, I need coffee with NPR in the background, I need linoleum floors, I need unlimited free wireless internet.  I need everything, or I produce nothing.  What does this say about my line of work? It says its freaking hard to try and do something academic when you're working in the field, practicing the theory you spent so long learning about.  It makes me wonder how people like Jane Goodall could do what she did.  I'm whining aren't I?  Maybe its just easier to say its easier to work in this environment.  The productivity test is beginning, I'll see how much I can do now, when I have all the comforts at hand, and what I can produce in the next 10 weeks while I'm living an isolated and remote lifestyle in Kakamega forest.

Alright, blog time over, back to work time!  Cheers everyone!

KEEP and the last day of my life as a Volunteer!

Hello!!! I know its been a few weeks since posting, but I have moved from Tsavo to Wasini island, both places with absolutely NO electricity, therefore no ability for me to be able to post my wonderful thoughts on the interwebs!  I am back, for a few hours, before leaving again, so I would love to bring everyone up to do date on whats been going on for the past month, and also to announce a very exciting new venture for me!

So, Tsavo - was incredible.  We worked in two different villages in Tsavo West National Park, Kidong and Lekole Lepolosi.  Both were absolutely incredible experiences that I will never forget, and I also gained a lot of professional skills in working with CBOs (Community based organizations).  Both groups embody a joint organization called "Poachers to Protectors", and we got to hear their amazing stories about beginning alternative lifestyles to poaching bush animals in the national park.  Their lives were extremely hard before, and very dangerous.  Rangers in the parks are licensed to shoot on site if they see poachers in the parks, and they also had to fight for their lives every day with lions, elephants, hunger and the type of poverty that comes with a 'easy come, easy go' lucrative business.  They gave it all up, and with the help from organizations like GVI are working towards creating alternative, sustainable, and eco-friendly livelihoods.  They have a website going up soon, which I will be sure to post as soon as its ready.  Here is a picture of us working in Lepolosi with some Maasai community members on crafts making projects:

We also got to feast on roast goat and roast shoat!!! Which was absolutely delicious...all in all two of the best weeks of my life.

Actually, the last two weeks were equally as incredibe...I spent them on a boat doing marine research in Kisite National Park!!You can read all about that here: http://www.kws.org/parks/parks_reserves/KMNP.html

and see all the beautiful pictures of where I got to snorkel :-)  Here is a picture of my absolutely favorite fish, the Emperor Angelfish

Now onto the great news...my internship placement!!! I will be working for KEEP (Kakamega
Environmental Education Program) in Kakamega rainforest!!!  The site is here if you want to read more, please do!!  I'll be doing work with their eco-tourism program development!! It is absolutely perfect for my Capstone, and I'm so excited to be working on my own.  I cannot wait to post pictures of the site here, it looks like I"ll be headed up there in a few weeks.  For now, just peruse these random google images:

 Fluffy Colobus Monkeys!!