The really hard work begins

As I have said on this blog many times before, the VSO approach is to facilitate learning and build the capacity of people and organisations so that our skills remain when we leave. Unlike many voluntary placements, this is not just doing a job and heading back to a land of cheese, salaries and cities you can walk around in after dark, feeling good about yourself and having something worthy to talk about in job interviews. There’s a bit of that, obviously, but if it works well there’s so much more.



Me looking exceptionally elegant - really need a haircut



I've worked with individuals to support some various communications elements of the programmes,  but not done any team-wide work until yesterday. We began with partnership-building, not the ideal place to start sharing the skills my placement is designed to impart but operational pressures dictated. We need to find the right partnerships to help us reach as many persons with disabilities as possible; organisations which can distribute our simplified introductions to human and constitutional rights  and providing fora for the outreach workers we are training.  

Yesterday's session was not designed to be formal training. I wanted to prompt discussion and generate some creative ideas around how we identify partners, communicate with them and build something together which helps to meet our ambitions and the aims of our programme.



Maxwell putting the finishing touches to out Olympic
 running track. Sponsorships still available.



The VSO training - and volunteers' previous work experience - should provide lots of ideas and techniques to do this, but the reality is always going to throw up some surprises. I have introduced a couple of visual elements to the programme – an Olympic running track that we’re ‘racing’ round, with team members moving further along as we produce active partnerships, and maps on the wall where we’ll be marking the growing network of partners. 

The opening exercise, drawing portraits of each other to adorn the running track, seemed to have the desired effect as it raised a few laughs.





Drawing Mzungos is obviously a challenge
for my colleague Mercy



But the group discussions which followed never seemed to continue the momentum. Asking individuals questions within the discussion showed that they clearly understand the subject matter and have intelligent observations to share.

But contributions seemed a little stifled, with no-one wanting to volunteer information. It was surprising and frustrating to see a group of individuals who are usually so talkative, forthcoming and sociable turn so quiet. Most volunteers will know their homeland's working culture inside out, which is a huge advantage when trying to work out whether the contributions of people in meetings or team sessions reflect their levels of boredom, confidence, knowledge, attitude towards the subject at hand or most importantly the value they place on being there.

But when you are acclimatising to working life on another continent, there are so many elements and variables to success that make judging your work and refining your techniques much more difficult. The most important thing to ask is whether what you are experiencing is 'normal' here; the response might simply be alien or unexpected because just the way things are done in another place. The same applies to identifying development needs; volunteers have to be exceptionally careful  that their capacity building work is not  actually trying to undo an integral part of Kenyan working culture. For example, although it has not necessarily been the case for me, we are prepared for the fact that hierarchy is much more respected, so we shouldn't expect to stimulate a free-for-all creative meeting if the boss is in the room.




The team as drawn by the team



If this is the case in an organisation, volunteers will not change it within a year so they should not try. We have to quickly understand and accept what elements are fixed and which are flexible, and then work within those parameters. The only way to find out which is which is to sound out lots of other volunteers to determine what is 'normal', be patient, properly reflect on the work and get as much feedback as possible. I have had a lot of feedback but its all too positive for my liking. Encouraging really honest feedback will be one of  my biggest challenges, but will be critical to the success of my placement.

Only time will tell how successful it was, which is lucky because at the moment I have no idea.I've had feedback about yesterday ranging from the reassuring (facilitated well, people listening, people were quiet because not everyone had done the preparatory work) to requests for better seats and a soda. But at least I have now been reminded what capacity building cannot look like;  with me at the centre asking questions or prompting discussion.

Back to the drawing board. Or maybe not, considering our artistic efforts yesterday.


 



Walking in the footsteps of Mau Mau

A long walk through hilly, forested tracks, a sudden downpour of freezing cold rain, followed by a nice cup of tea in front of a roaring fire to dry off and a fish and chip supper. Have we moved back to Yorkshire? No, just visiting the equator for an unlikely reminder of home.

The birthday girl, Liz

 A friend’s birthday prompted a recent trip up to the town of Nanyuki, near Mount Kenya and officially on the equator (yes we have the cheesy photo to prove it, nervous smiles showing we had just seconds to spare before we were ambushed by determined curio sellers).

We had a fantastic day hiking the bottom of the mountain on the trail of the caves where the Mau Mau rebels hid from British forces. Our guides told us some interesting facts about the rebels, how they got food, where they hid their ammunition and just how tough these people were living up in those mountains for eight years.  They crossed the dense terrain through the trees to avoid be tracked across the ground, and gathered in caves close to waterfalls to cover the sound of their planning meeting.  The Mau Mau rebellion came in response to decades of often brutal oppressive rule, discrimination, enforced labour on white settler land – land which the indigenous population had once farmed as their own.  

The Mau Mau was lead by one of Kenya’s largest and arguably most influential ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were prepared to be ruthless to secure discipline and avoid betrayal by their own, especially as many Kikuyu fought alongside the British against them. Whether they were quite as ruthless as the colonial ruling powers (hope the British government is noting the distinction I’m making here for legal reasons!) were prepared to be (castration, setting fire to people alive) is open to debate, given some of the practices which have been revealed through the recent claim for compensation from the British government from four men interned in British camps. Whatever else it did, the bloody rebellion paved the way for eventual independence and for the Kikuyu dominance of Kenya’s post-independence leadership, arguably in the process defining some of the inter-ethnic tensions which characterise (and, many commentators say, cripple) Kenya’s politics today.

Nanyuki town itself is an interesting place. It hosts quite a lot of NGO regional offices because it one of the safest places further north in Kenya, just before you get to the wild arid lands beyond where local disputes and cattle rustling are notually left to the police to settle.

The Mau-Mau conference cave

It is also home to a sizeable white Kenyan population who still live outside the town on family lands that the Mau Mau never managed to win back from them. To give you an idea of what stock these mzungo are from, the royals are regulars out here and Wills proposed just up the road.



Nanyuki is also home to a large British army base, from where we were told British soldiers venture into northern Kenya to do arid land training for Afghanistan. So this might explain why, when we went out for a meal, we were offered fish and chips and burgers on the menu and could watch the Six nations rugby finale. A bit like being in a Wetherspoons but with better beer. Nanyuki also caters for the mzungo with some great little coffee shops where you can sit over a coffee or very nice hot chocolate and leisurely read the morning papers. A 3-4 hour journey from Nairobi for weather a bit like home and stodgy food-well worth the effort.

More pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/61370474@N03/5597885580/in/set-72157626447536066
Joanne



Could be Otley Chevin



The People of Kenya

Sometime not long after we arrived in Kenya Gareth and I were perplexed by the following joke:

Why do Kikuyu marriages last longer than Luo?
Answer: A Kikuyu won’t get divorced because it is expensive, whereas a Luo will get divorced because it is expensive.

This is funny I am told because it mocks the characteristics of two of the most promiment ethnic groups in Kenya (tribes as they used to be called) in short it suggests Kikuyus are tight with money and Luos are flash harrys (who eat a lot of fish). I have to admit that before I arrived here my ignorance did not run beyond knowledge that there was a group of people living in Kenya called the Masaai who wore traditional dress and still, in some places, roamed the land. There are in fact 48 different ethnic groups in Kenya and the Masaai are not the largest by a long shot. I think I can only now name about 10 of these groups and they are largely geographically rooted. In the north-west desert-like region of Kenya live the Turkana people who seem to have a very hard life and are very resistant to all that nature throws at them. North-East you have Kenyan-Somalis who are a group of their own and often tainted by association with the neighbouring land of the pirates, towards Coast the very colourfully dressed Digo, whose women apparently rule the roost compared to the men and the Swahili whose influences are much more Arabic and Indian than African. Then there are Luyha (who eat a lot of chicken), Samburu , Kamba, Kalenjin (where most Kenyan runners come from apparently) and so many more that I don’t even know all the names, let alone the associated stereotypes. Most Kenyans therefore speak their local language as a native tongue, Swahili as their second language and English as their third, very impressive! Even those born and raised in the city will associate their home as ‘the village’ and their identity much more with the region where their families are from than where they have spent their lives.



Testing the stereotypes: Three of Gareth's colleagues:
(left) Geoffrey, Luhya, only laughed when asked if he likes chicken, and then complicated matters by telling us that there are actually 16 Luhya sub-tribes!
(centre) Philomena, Kikuyu, ANDY's accountant (!)
(right) Maxwell, Luo, who loves fish but last night made himself a french omelette

 Of course Nairobi is a melting pot of all of these groups as well as the odd mzungu (white person) but dominated in political and economic life it seems by the Kikuyus and Luos. And tribal loyalties do run much deeper than we initially realized. You will hear accusations of jobs and contracts being awarded based on which group you are from, certain careers only being open to you if you are the right group (i.e Kikuyus work in finance, Luos are doctors and engineers) and within society people are more inclined to do favours for one of their own. Most significantly of course politics seems to follow this mould, who you are and not what you stand for gets you the votes, hence the post 2007 election violence fell heavily along ethnic lines.

It is a very complex social make-up and I do not pretend to understand a fraction of it. Sadly however the stereotypes are often much more harmful than the joke about divorce, as stereotypes are. But it seems, for all the fractious behavior that these stereotypes and loyalties encourage, they are not actually ingrained Kenyan beliefs but were introduced by the British during their rule. Divide and conquer does work after all.