esmaspäev, 27. september 2010

The Kenyan way

Everything goes the way it goes in Kenya and the only way to manage it is to go with it.

At the moment I have one free hour to spend in Kakamega town and it feels strange to have time for things like writing my blog. I have been in Kenya almost one month, but the time has gone so, so fast. Only 5 months left.

So. Yesterday had to arrive my couchsurfer, but the plans changed and she arrives today. As today is the first free day in the organization I volunteer for, I wanted to spend it to visit my friend in Busia that is about an hour away from my home village. So the morning started with the walk to the road to find a place with the network to call and ask about the arrival time of the couchsurfer. It had to be 12. She should arrive at 13.30 - so it is not so bad, I still should manage to reach Busia before it's dark. So I'm spending my free time to use the Kenyan style internet - sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

Few days ago, when I was walking home from the village centre... It was 19.30 - it means dark and it had rained - it means the road was in a very bad situation and because of these reasons no bicycle or motorbike taxi wanted even to drive or they asked really high prices, I realised the first time very clearly, how important is nature here. These two things: darkness and rain, that I sometimes even do not notice in Europe, are here the things that basically lead the all daily life. Usually it starts raining around 5 p.m and it goes dark at 6.30. So all the things should be done before 5 p.m, what means that it is very important to start early in the morning.

Therefore my daily routine looks like that:
6.30 chicken start making some noise, as well as cows and children
07.00 it is light outside - time to wake up
07.30 bringing warm water from the fire place and washing
08.00 washing cloths, because the warm day is good time for cloths to dry
08.30 drinking the Kenyan style tea with a lot of milk and eating white bread with butter - adding sometimes also tomatoes
09.00 daily activities with the program families
11.00 thinking, how is it possible to have so hot weather every day
13.00 somewhere, eating ugali and greens
15.00 getting some gift from the program families such as chicken or maize or 10 kg of bananas
16.00 if needed shopping food from the market and going home with the bananas or chicken, using the bicycle taxi
17.00 at home
17.30 it starts raining
18.00 whole garden is full of water, standing on the door and thinking how is it possible that it can rain so much in Africa
18.30 it's dark, lighting the paraffin lamp
20.00 eating dinner - ugali, rice or chapati
20.30 people start moving to the direction of their beds
21.00 watching the Kenyan dreams

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Volunteer work in Wefoco - there's a lot of it. There's 8 different areas with 23 women groups and about 100 program families that we are visiting and identifying the problems with food, education and medicine. We want to provide the help only to the families that are the most in need, as there are so many of them. We have seen child-headed families and many AIDS orphans. During the free time we are analyzing the situations in the families and planning the solutions. Often the evenings are the only time that volunteers meet, having a lot of different information and stories.

As life in Kenya is not very much predictable, then also we have accommodated and started living the "hakuna matata" style, not even thinking about the next day - mornings are for that. There are anyway so many things that could go "wrong".

1 kommentaar:

  1. Janika. Teele teele.
    Ja oledki seal. Hea, et Sinuga on k6ik kenasti. Hea on teada, et teed, mida tahad. Olen Sinu yle v2ga uhke. Imetlen Sind kohutavalt. Proovin k2ia Sinu viimaste s6nade j2rgi, mis minusse j2tsid... Naudi! S.

    VastaKustuta

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