THE WEEK THAT WAS

So you wake up in the morning. No, it’s not morning yet. You wake up at 5 am. This is not the time you usually wake up and you are not awake by any natural process – though you really need to pee you could have ignored that for a few more hours. You are woken up by music, not the good type of music. The shouting-neighbour-praising-the-lord-5am-in-the-morning type of music

Now, this neighbor of mine does this everyday since I started this holiday. I even got used to it and could sleep through it most days. Sometimes when he is away I would wake up some minutes after five maybe to adjust to the strange environment then I would go back to sleep. Today however, he is not alone; they have visitors at their church that came for a Week of Power crusade. My good born again neighbor has accommodated three of them and today they are a choir of groaning voices. How do you sleep at three in the morning because of a revival and make to wake up at five to praise?

I use my ear phones to plug my ears, I cover my head with the pillow then pull the blanket over my head – its really hot around here, even at 5 am and soon I start sweating. The voices, like a persistent tracker, still seek out my eardrums and torment them. So I sit up look at where I believe the heavens are and ask the great one above ‘is this really, really necessary?’

I wait for a few seconds, and then I grab my phone. Am an early morning and late night face-booker, am not an addict, am not. Just because it’s the last thing I do before I go to sleep and the first thing I check out in the morning doesn’t mean I am an addict. It doesn’t. Facebook is boring this early so I check out twitter, these people don’t sleep.

There is this hot chick I follow who wakes up in the morning and tweets ‘ God send his only Son to earth to deliver us from our sins, his only son, and yet we are all Gods children. So clearly we are all a bunch little of girls’. Hahaha that was funny
This guy from BBC Africa is talking about a Tanzanian court that slaps a life sentence to this former Rwandan prime minister and her son. From the way he talks about her condition I imagine the sentence went like this ‘this court.......................................... and therefore sentences you to two months in prison by which time you will certainly be dead, otherwise the court orders that you remain in jail until such time as you will be pronounced dead’
Jokes aside, this international trial took ten years for people who are directly involved in the crimes against humanity. Mrs. Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty of extermination, ordering killings and aiding rape. Her son led a militia and participated in all these heinous acts.

I couldn’t help but think about our own struggle with the ICC, how long it’s going to take and if Kenyans are going to get justice at last. I have written in this blog before that I believe the process was flawed, that there are people with more ‘responsibility’ as Prosecutor Ocampo calls it than people like Sang. However it would be a very big flop if the prosecutions would delay beyond 2012. Knowing Kenyans and looking at the current trends from opinion polls and rallies, I have this sickening feeling that power is going to land in the hands of the people who are on trial or who have been campaigning against the ICC all through.

The price of 2 kg packet of maize floor is retailed at 170 Kenyan shillings here; Sugar goes for 150 a kg. But that is not the kind of things we Kenyans hold ‘peaceful’ demonstrations for. You might think am a hater by now. But check the trends. Fuel prices go up, there are a few protests here and there, the government takes two shillings off the prices, there is an artificial shortage and now we are just thankful that at least there is fuel. Doesn’t matter how much it costs. Very clever

Back to food. I know the price of sugar because of a conversation I had with some farmer in the joint I take breakfast – I prefer buying tea instead of hustling for all the ingredients that make it then spent time converting and mixing them. The gentle farmer tells me that for the past one week, half a kilo of sugar has had a different price every day he goes to the shop to purchase it. He has resorted to joining me on my breakfast table. He thought it was a consolation until he was told the price of tea has also gone up. I advised him to grow sugarcane or keep bees as long term sugar problem solutions.

The poor farmer will not participate in peaceful demonstrations. He says it’s a waste of time. What will he eat while parading? He asks .However, I believe that if they decide to settle IDPs in the government land close to the village he can spare a week to parade in Nairobi, courtesy of a leader of course and some twisted organization. But for sugar or flour? He would rather hustle to feed himself than parade on the streets.

Now we are sure what Obama’s mission in Libya was. He had managed to convince the US population that the military intervention was to protect civilians against air attacks – those being attacked in southern Sudan are not very civilian. The mission was to unseat Gadaffi - of that we are clear - and control Libyan Oil – that is just me thinking aloud. Gadaffi has been too stubborn even before the war. Refusing to cooperate with western powers in many a occasions so it doesn’t really come as a surprise that after Iraq the next place the US go to protect ‘civilians’ is Libya.

On Sunday I got bored by that small radio I listen to. So I went out to the river to read this supposedly mystifying collection of stories that did not turn out to be that mystifying. I wanted to have an experience of the overrated feeling of tranquility enhanced by interaction with nature at its rawest. I sat on a big rock and dipped my feet in the river. The sound of singing birds and feeble branches defying the soft breeze that didn’t seem to go in any particular direction soothed my mood, behind me were trees and shrubs growing on a vertical cliff, there were plenty of rocks everywhere in the big space left by the el- Niño flooding. A few shrubs grew among the rocks. There was no sun

I read a story about this community that lived below a volcanic mountain. They grew fruits and vegetable but sometimes the volcano will erupt and destroy the trees and their homes. They believed that the eruption was caused by a king of the mountain that would get angry and make the lands vibrate. Every time the earthquake comes in preparation for the hot river that will flow from the top of the mountain, the people will go to their church, take flowers to Saint Antony and pray that he will persuade the king of the mountain to spare them. By some twisted luck, this worked enough times for the people to maintain their beliefs.

Whatever you believe this week, it doesn’t matter what science, logical reasoning or historical evidence has proved. Hold on to it. Believing worked for the people of the mountain, it can work for you too.

WOMEN RAISING RURAL ECONOMIES

Today I showered with sweet potatoes and water, right after I ate a big piece of this cassava cake in the picture, and some tea, before I came here to write this intro. I will go to lunch in 2 hours, wait lets make that one and a half. I can’t wait to have pumpkin chapattis. But before I do that, I will tell you how sweet potatoes ended up in my bathroom, how pumpkins turned into chapattis.

It’s a Saturday evening and our solar power system is bugging us as always. Now, this power lets me facebook as much as I want but when I get down to writing a script or a story it starts this annoying beep it makes that really gets on my nerves, and cuts the supply after 10 seconds. Today its annoyingly insistent
We decide to do some fieldwork to fill the evening. Attending a women group session in which pregnancy and childbirth is meant to be discussed is not one of the things in my top 100 priorities especially on a Saturday evening. So I do it, one because am meant to learn what they do for the sake of making them a blog, two because its part of my work and three you don’t want to hear the other options I had for the evening, actually there weren’t any.

We board this motorbike and nothing interesting happens on the way except the fact that there wasn’t any difference between the sharp corners and the straight stretches- the speedometer or whatever they call it didn’t move a lot. The thrill felt good though. I don’t want to write that we were welcomed very warmly, had very nice tea then I realized my aunt was one of them- felt more awkward. Pregnancy and childbirth, a group of 11 women, and my aunt.

We talk with my aunt- basic things like how I was doing, how is school, family, home, you get the drift. And then the main business starts. This group is called Tenebo women group – Tenebo means together in Maa. The women in this group are just phenomenon.

I have seen groups within the two years I have volunteered for different NGOs and the two holidays I have spent here. I have been a member of groups, some I don’t want to talk about, the others; well I don’t think they are doing that bad considering the others I don’t want to talk about.

The point is, this group is different, and they enjoy some level of cohesion and commitment to task I have not seen or felt anywhere. We ask them what their objective is.

The chair lady starts with ‘ tunata kua ikifika mwisho wa mwaka hata sisi tunasaidia kwa boma..... (We are aiming that at the end of each year we also help in our families....)’

My supervisor Sam keeps the conversation going ‘pia kununua chrismas.....’

This is met by loud protests from the women from them I could figure out several words ‘Rent, school fees, vitu kubwa kubwa (big things)’. That is the level of vision these women carry

And for this vision they have done big things. Since its formation, on October last year(less than a year ago), the group has supported each woman in buying a dairy goat. A four months old dairy goat is worth more than ten thousands. The 12 members each got one. At the home the meeting is held mama Kibibi now has two fully grown female dairy goats and one male.

They recently started a rabbit keeping project, the rabbits are six and they are planning to extend that too. Talking about keeping, they also have a bee keeping project and already have several beehives.

The women in this group have a vision for the products from their farms. They plan to use them to make cake, start a bakery. Why?

‘We are adding value’ Mama Khadija says ‘it would be cheaper and more challenging to sell sweet potatoes, cassava and those other things as they are especially here in Nguruman’

The other things include cassava, millet, soya beans and pumpkins. They are dried, grounded into flour and then used to make cakes. The women believe selling cassava scones is more appealing. I agree.

The sweet potatoes also make bar soaps. I ask them if they think there is a market for these things and they say they have tested them in the market and they are optimistic about the reception.

There is a lot of water in Nguruman. This group sees that as an opportunity to make some extra shilling and also help fellow women who are hit by a persistent water problem around the division and beyond. They are planning to start a purification and supply project in which they will fetch the water in Nguruman, purify it and supply to the women who walk long distances to get water that is not even safe for drinking. At an affordable cost.

I notice that most of them are holding small green books

‘This is our savings plan’ the chairlady responds. ‘Every month each woman gives 400 shillings in our meetings held twice a month, part of the money is deposited in our account and part of it is left with the host of the meeting. The green books are used to record each member’s contribution’

I do a quick calculation of tea and chapattis then I tell them I want to host a meeting. There will be a lot of change for the host I figured. They laugh and say members only.

I can’t keep track of all the random choruses of future plans. The group has had lengthy meetings discussing what they want to do in depth. They have dreams and they know the only way to really get them is to share them.

From those choruses I gather they are planning to expand the bee keeping project, have a fully equipped bakery, start the water purification project and expand soap making. By the end of this year, their savings would have grown enough to be able to advance loans to individual members of the group.

They will also be eying the loans given to small groups by the government and other organizations.

This introduction to the group disrupted their business for a while but then we got to the part I thought would be the most boring. I can’t say I had fun but I learned a number of new things.

Here are just a few random thoughts; Some women have milk in their breasts long before they give birth, some pills given in clinics develops the unborn child’s brain (now I know I should be mad at her mother), headache is a danger sign during pregnancy, pregnant women don’t eat some foods because they fear the unborn child will grow very fat with a big head (this part is really sensitive, they are making facial expressions) and other things

I would have added some pregnant advices but I’ve got to head. My lunch is waiting patiently for its devourer. pożegnanie