After the Nairobi Mombasa travels we had a quiet week in Iten (hand) washing clothes, sitting in our sunny green garden and hanging around with the Kenyans and the Irish Patrician Brothers.
We finally went to see Kamariny Stadium, the rundown municipal stadium where all the greats do their training. We are probably the first white people EVER in Iten who waited two months before visiting it. Most mzungus only come to Iten if they are athletes or their groupies. We went to watch Bro Colm put his team through their paces and it was fascinating to hear him listing off the races each had won in national, African or Junior World Championships. He mostly works with juniors and has only two seniors in his training camp, one of whom is David Rudisha. The Beijing World Championships were just about to start and as we sat with him, he and David were texting each other. Rudisha won gold in the 800m at that event (for those as clueless as I was prior to coming to Iten). Kenya went on to top the medal table in Beijing, with Jamaica in second place and the USA in third place. Their respective populations (44m; 2.7m and 319m) shows the real significance of those rankings. I heard a story later about how Kenya treats its elite athletes – they get very little government support and have to fend for themselves much of the time. When Rudisha was travelling to the 2012 Olympics in London he looked for a business class seat as he's very tall but word came back from the Kenyan Olympic Committee to say only officials travelled first class! He won gold in the 800m in London, setting a new World record at the same time.
Colm reckoned about a third of the Kenyan team in Beijing had been coached by him at some point. I wondered whether we should claim the Rudisha gold medal by virtue of he being trained by an Irishman.
As we were waiting for Colm to arrive, we had been watching other athletes on the track and I was taking a few action photos with my iphone. As I looked through them I noticed how hardly any showed the runners with their feet on the ground. True enough, as I checked in real life it was amazing, their feet hardly seemed to touch the track at all, they land on their toes and are so light they bounce up again in nanoseconds.
In November Colm will host his annual event where he handpicks promising school-age athletes and gives them an opportunity to be coached for several weeks at his training camp. He has to fundraise for this as most of the athletes come from poor rural families and have neither training kit nor living expenses. I know some of the Athletics Clubs in Ireland to which he is giving talks during his stay at home in September are taking up a collection for him. A topic to which I shall return in a later post.
Running with the Kenyans (5yr olds are Kenyans too)
Iarlaith has taken up running for his Transition Year Gaisce Award challenge and I, being Kenya's first (and only) Helicopter Mom get up at 6am with him and go out for a 7km jog three mornings a week. If truth be told I jog with him for the warmup and then he's gone. Siobhra has now joined us, anxious to regain her place on the Kildare GAA team when we return. Iten is buzzing with runners at that time and we share the dirt tracks on which everyone runs. We also encounter little children walking to school for a 6.30 or 7am start, looking in amusement at the only jogger they have ever seen in their lives. Some run along beside me for a short time laughing and trying to show me up - but little do they know they have now given me the opportunity to truthfully update my CV to include 'Running with the Kenyans' in the Hobbies section.
As it happens, having finished the Mau Mau era book about colonial Kenya, hoping for some light relief, I moved on to 'Running with the Kenyans', a book written by a Guardian journalist. The book I had just finished about Britain's Gulags doesn't really end that happily for the victims, despite Kenya getting independence a few short years later. The first President, Jomo Kenyatta, decided it would be better to have a smooth transition which involved not having any recognition of Mau Mau's role in challenging colonial oppression or investigations into what happened to the Kikuyu population in the detention centres, the depravity of which is detailed in the book. The white settlers were allowed to keep all their stolen land and in that bizarre world which is colonialism the Kenyan government even had to borrow millions of pounds from the British Empire's Treasury to buy back their own land at market rates from settlers who wanted to leave following independence. In fairness the Fennelly report would be light reading after that. The sordid period seems to have been swept under all carpets although I read recently of some survivors who finally got compensation this summer in London, in a court case several years long and fought all the way by the British Government.
So the Guardian journalist, Adharanand Finn, (of Irish descent with hippy parents apparently) spent six months in Iten running with the Kenyans. He and his family lived in the house where we now live and it is very interesting to read his accounts of things which form part of our lives, like the pigeons constantly fighting and dancing on the tin roof of the house so it sounds like someone is breaking in or buying milk and eggs from Geoffrey in the little wooden kiosk right outside our gate. It hasn't quite inspired me to train for a marathon in the Masai Mara but I might do the Kildare Carers Association 10km when I get back (invest in your future as Newbridge wag, Mary Doyle, would say). Siobhra was very unimpressed by Mr Finn's children who only lasted one day in the local school.
A week after we arrived back from Nairobi we decided to get in a trip to Lake Nakuru National Park before the kids went back to school. On the way down we visited James Hennessy and a charity he runs in Mogotio, a semi arid region close to Nakuru. A Corkonian, James has been living in Kenya on local wages for eight years, speaks fluent Swahili and is Bro Colm's cousin (second cousin twice removed type of thing). The charity is called Development Pamoja and is mainly funded through Ireland, with Electric Aid as one of the donors, a colleague organisation of St Stepehen's Green Trust. Hopefully I'll get a chance to tell them how impressed I was with the project. They have recently built a dispensary which is the first for the local community and they focus on disability, particularly cerebral palsy, a very neglected area in Kenya.
They have a sessional physio, doctor and lab technician who provides services to a very rural population at an affordable price. Our little car nearly didn't make it on the very rough track out to their remote premises. They also have two greenhouses and a farm they use for both demonstration and income generation purposes. They built two large lined attenuation ponds which fill with water during the rains and which is used to irrigate the greenhouses and crops. They also grow fruits and and have the ever present chickens and goats. A shed has been built for the dairy cows which are coming soon. They offer a service to local farmers to help them with the construction of the ponds if they buy the materials. Drought has been a problem for the past few years and they say their ponds have already had an impact.
We stayed in James's friend and work colleague's apartment in Nakuru in an airbnb setup. We had the entire two bed apartment to ourselves and Mary cooked breakfast and a delicious dinner for the princely sum of e15 each per night.
James even offered to try and get us into the national park at residents prices as they are about a quarter of the tourist prices, but no luck. We were in the Park very early to catch the Big Four which reside there, and while we saw buffalo and a rhino the lions and leopards eluded us. However we were also happy with getting up close and personal with the giraffes and zebras, lots of gazelles and various monkeys and baboons.
Back to school.....
We got many confirmations from locals throughout August that all schools started back on Monday 31st so we had everything sorted well in advance: ironed uniforms, polished shoes and sharpened pencils. However a few days beforehand it emerged that St Patrick's would ease their way into the week, teachers might return Tuesday, boarders might dribble back Tuesday and Wednesday and sure there's no hurry. Siobhra was up and ready on Monday but when we went to her school at 8am the gate was locked and we found out it'd probably be open by Wednesday. There was talk of a teachers' strike and by the time Wednesday came around it was confirmed - the public school teachers were on strike but the children still had to attend school. Siobhra is in a private school which was operating as normal.
Iarlaith decided he would be fine for Thursday, a decision which nearly got him a caning. When he went in, the teachers had given work to the boys who were present on Wednesday and the Maths teacher didn't want to hear the excuses of those who said they hadn't done it because they weren't in the previous day. She made those boys kneel beside their chair and then proceeded to walk around the room caning them on the backs of their legs. She left Iarlaith till last and when she got to him she said 'I suppose I can't hit you'. He said his legs were a bit wobbly when he got up - glad of his mzungu status. For the next week the boys stayed in the classroom by themselves occasionally getting a visit from a teacher who handed out work. As all teachers live on campus they were in the vicinity and kitchen and secretarial staff were still working. Striking teachers don't picket the schools but stage rallies outside their union offices or in public parks.
The following week the Principal of St Patrick's said the school was being closed and all boarders (apart from Form 4 who start their KCSE or Leaving Cert exams early November) were to go home. Iarlaith hasn't had any school since and the strike has been Kenya's hottest topic for the past few weeks. The teachers are seeking a 50/60% increase which the Kenyan Supreme Court has ordered the Government to pay. The Court Order upholds a decision of the Labour Court in a dispute which goes back to 1997.
From our discussions with teachers it seems their pay is very low - from about €160per month for junior teachers to about €450 for teachers at the top of their scale. Many things in Kenya are quite cheap but even the top salary is not much above subsistence level and many have to farm or undertake other income producing activities to supplement it. Kemboi, a young teacher who lives in the house beside us grew tomatoes in the garden during the summer and sold them to the local market stalls. Compare this with the pay for President Uhuru Kenyatta whose monthly income is €9,800, not to mention his income from his family's massive company, Brookside Dairies. We're a bit perplexed by the status of teachers in Kenya given how much education seems to be valued.
In one of Iarlaith's conversations with his classmates he explained the Irish minimum wage law to them and when he said it was €8.65, they were incredulous and said ' Wow, €8.65 a day?'. When he told them it was an hour they were just speechless. It's not easy to explain how this is not a living wage for many Irish families.
Siobhra was in school as normal for the past few weeks until the government threw a spanner in the works weekend before last by ordering all private schools to close as well, although not all complied. And despite her initial joy she wasn't too upset when we got a text last Thursday to say school was back the following day, a court ruled the government could not order private schools to close.
Iarlaith is undertaking self directed study (ahem) and is doing a placement in the nearby Kerio View Hotel for his Transition Year credits. He gets to work behind the bar which wouldn't happen at home. Kieran whose Tambach Teacher Training College job is on hold also due to the strike is travelling to the local (private) schools to do photo shoots of pupils and teachers. He gives them the photos on a memory stick and some are planning to sell them to parents as a fundraising venture.
In the meantime I have been keeping myself busy working for the Diocese of Eldoret. Late August I followed up an introduction to Bishop Cornelius Korir of Eldoret made by a work colleague several months ago. The Diocese has management oversight of many of the social services in the area, through their social services arm, Caritas Eldoret - something similar to Crosscare in Dublin. In Iten there are several special schools and residential units for children with physical and intellectual disabilities and I thought one might have some use for my skills.
Kieran and I went to meet with Bishop Korir, expecting he might point me in the right direction. But twenty minutes later we were in the office of the Director of Caritas Eldoret - my offer of helping in the area of Foundation funding and grant writing being enthusiastically received. Another fifteen minutes later and we were being taken on a site visit to meet with the Coordinator of the Small Homes Department to see the orthopaedic unit which requires funding for more tools and materials so they can manufacture and repair the mobility aids of the children. Small Homes are residential units for children with disabilities, housing up to 30 children and using local State schools to educate them.
Traditional beliefs see disability as a punishment for the family's sins and children are often kept hidden at home and not educated. The Diocese operates an outreach service encouraging families to allow their children to live in the Small Homes so they get an education and are given mobility aids which aids their integration into the community. They also work with families educating them to see the potential in their child and change their views on disability so they can be advocates. One of their graduates is a man in a wheelchair I see going to work each morning in the local county offices in Iten. Through funding from a foundation he went to university and achieved a Masters in Finance and now lives in Iten with his wife and children.
Another project we visited that day was the SILC Department, funded by U.S. Aid, which runs a very successful Savings and Internal Lending Communities model, something like a micro credit union (although more democratic, more transparent and less bureaucratic) which assists small businesses.
We then visited the Education for Living unit which is managed by the Christian Brothers and whose building was funded by Misean Cara (Irish Aid) in those shipping container units we also saw in Nairobi. This programme works with people with HIV/AIDS and those affected by the disease. It includes trying to break down the stigma and reduce discrimination against those who have it, including young children. You know it's Africa when you end up dancing with your hosts to the singing of the Education for Living choir at 11 in the morning. Unfortunately I don't have photos to prove it, but anyone who knows Kieran will know his dancing is generally reserved for events which involve alcoholic consumption so this was a special occasion. Our final visit was to St Brigittas Hospital which provides general hospital services to a slum community just outside Eldoret. The effects of the post election violence of 2008 is still being felt in Eldoret and many families have not recovered from being displaced from their homes or losing everything they owned. That's it - I was hired, and even given a title, Project Officer with Caritas Eldoret!
Next blog I'll write more on the work I've been doing including being an observer at peace talks between tribes in a conflict in Baringo County which has claimed over 100 lives in the last year.
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