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NOTES FROM KENYA |
Related PagesBaumann and Coffey have gone to Kenya to do volunteer work with indigenous women, preferably working on microcredit or economic self-sufficiency training. | |
NOTES FROM KENYA - Joanruth Baumann and Dick CoffeyDear All, Dick and I have been working hard, but not always on what we originally expected. We have both been working mostly with HIV/AIDS issues and people and have learned a great deal from it. Dick has been traipsing out through the cornfields, across streams and through the mud to reach the mud huts of rural folks with AIDS. He then tapes an interview with them (he has a translator). The project is the Memory Box project, where this interview and the photographs we take, is typed up and bound into a little book that these folks can leave behind for their children and families. It leaves a record of a life that would otherwise go unrecorded. They usually have never had a photo taken and, if left unrecorded, there histories are unknown to the children they leave behind. We thought the process would mainly be of service to the children left behind (frequently orphaned) but it turns out that the person themselves frequently feels greatly relieved. They are not only relieved that their family histories and life will be left recorded, but that the process itself validates them as valuable, worth the trouble and of importance to someone. They feel that with no physical record left behind, their lives didn’t matter, but this record assures them that they will not be forgotten. After Dick brings these recordings home, we have someone here translate them from Luo to English, and we write the histories on the computer. We then print and bind this story and the color photos in Kisumu and have them bound into little reports. These go into tin boxes we have bought, (made from beer or Coke advertising metal) along with the tapes in Luo and any other items the person wants to pass along. The box seems to be one of the only possessions these people have – certainly their most valuable one. Such a simple item and it means so much to them. The stories are fascinating and some are inspiring. The women here have few rights and the men can have many wives. We hear of mostly very young marriages (not formally – they just start living together), frequently because it was suggested that the man needed a wife and she was available. A go-between will introduce them. Sometime in the next few years, the man is expected to send a bride price to the father – usually 1 to 5 cows. If a woman is widowed, she is automatically ‘inherited’ by a brother of her husband or any other male in the family. Her husband’s possessions (nothing is hers) are usually grabbed up by the in-laws, and her new husband does not even have to provide for her. The new husband seems to have sexual privileges but few responsibilities. Women and children are left in poverty. Many other traditions – plowing, planting, etc. – require a sexual prelude. Between the many wives, assignations outside of marriage, planting practices, inheritance and frequent rape (50 % of girls report this is their first experience), the opportunities for HIV infection are high. Add to that no understanding of what HIV is or how one would get it and no education about it in schools and the problem gets worse. One of my projects has been working with young girls, providing them education on a variety of subjects from HIV, the use of an education, career options, self respect (no one knows what that is and are surprised that they should have it) and other courses that they ask for. An off-shoot of the HIV class that a Nairobi AIDS volunteer and I did for our “girl child” group, was that the primary and secondary school headmasters asked us to come do it in the schools. We have done that for the girls there now and they want us to come back and do it for the boys. This area around Lake Victoria has the highest HIV rate in the world – over 30%. The highest subgroup is the teenage girls. So the girls we were talking with are the most vulnerable people in the world! In preparation, we asked the girls to write on paper (that we provide, they don’t have any) what questions about HIV and sex they would have. We were very surprised at their lack of knowledge. Here are some examples of their questions: “What is self respect? What is HIV? Is it true that goat’s milk cures AIDS? Is it safe to not have sex when you are very young – will you still be able to have children if you wait until you are married? How can you survive without a boyfriend? How can we be safe from boys and save our lives? What would happen if we finished school before we got married? If you share a razor with an HIV+ friend, can you get infected? If we get HIV, do we have to go to the clinic? How do you cure HIV and how long does it take? How long after my period should I wait before I visit my boyfriend? Why do girls get pregnant? What do we do if boys want us to be their friend? Is it true that if an HIV+ man sleeps with a virgin, that he will be cured?” etc, etc. We incorporated answers to these questions into our presentations and tried to dissuade them of many of the other misconceptions they had. They are shy and we had to ask the (officious) teachers to stay out so that the extremely shy girls might ask us their questions and participate in our discussions. (They are afraid of their teachers and of retribution for anything said). The schools provide no education on this subject. They have also asked us to come back and do the careers segment to the boys, but I have declined. That is not in our mission and we don’t have the resources. The parents don’t seem to be any better informed than the girls and we have yet to find one person in our interviews say how they got it or place any blame. It is seen as an act of God, sometimes a curse and they live very resigned, even serenely, with it. Yesterday, at our little nursery school for orphans and severely at-risk children, we had another example of how hard it is to avoid infection here. One little boy (HIV-) bit another (HIV+) on the nose and it bleed profusely. By the time the other volunteer here, Kim from Australia, got to them, the HIV+ child was bleeding into the communal pail of water where the other children were washing their hands (with all their open sores and cuts). She looked into the mouth of the child who had done the biting and, of course, it was bloody. She doesn’t know if he had open sores or bleeding gums of his own, which would be an avenue for the other’s blood to enter his system. Now he will have to be taken in 3 months for an HIV test. She broke down and cried at lunch. She feels like nothing she can do keeps these children safe. I was at the hut by the lake of an HIV+ couple and watched the mom dig a thorn out of the bottom of her foot with a big old safety pin, then use it to clean her daughter’s fingernails. The children have worms and get malaria like we get colds. We take them to the little open-air clinic with fevers of 104 F. and they give them aspirin and expired amoxycillin. Two weeks later, they are sick again. Now we have a Cholera outbreak and TB is everywhere. Well, this is all sounding gloomy. Sorry. The folks themselves are so cheerful and happy. They deal well with all of this and have a wonderful sense of helping each other. Our nursery school teacher, administrator, school cook and a dozen community health workers all work for free. Their work takes them 30 – 50 hours per week but they expect nothing in return. Even the HIV+ folks we visit with are so upbeat. They all want their children to be respectful and productive citizens and they thank God for all they have. While at first, it looked to us that they have nothing, they obviously have something that many of us do not have…satisfaction with what they have been given, serenity in their lot in life and joy in their hearts for their God and their community. Our goup, Mama na Dada, is physically and figuratively the center of this little community on the beach. Their community health workers bring in the sick for treatment, visit them each week and provide mosquito nets, when possible. The at-risk children are brought here for bathing (in the goat yard, with all the cow patties, out of a bucket of lake water, and grease them with bag balm) and their clothes washed. They get millet and maize gruel and a grain/vegetable lunch each day. They fight a lot but Kim in working to reduce that and substitute learning and singing. We also have an HIV support group, a woman’s savings group (like micro credit but different), a demonstration garden, a goat project, a tailoring class, the Girl Child group and they fund about three scholarships each year so that girls can go to high school (families here can’t afford the $300/yr. fees). Few of the kids here even go to primary school. It’s free but the $4 uniform is too much. Well, I’ve talked way too long, and there are a few other projects too, but all seem to center on the above. We are trying to help write a grant proposal now to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization for funding to broaden the teaching of HIV info in schools in the area. The big goal is to get funding to finish the water project to provide the community with fresh water. Hope summer's come to Friday Harbor. We miss it. Our best, Joanruth and Dick Friday Harbor |
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