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I'm writing from one of the most idyllic places, Zanzibar, in front of a view that should probably on a tourist leaflet in a hammock in front of a stretch of white sand and turquoise water. It is really hot, my guess would be 35 degrees, but it's the humidity that's such a shock, everywhere you go here you feel as though you just walked through a light rainfall. I don't think it's possible to get cold here, and I get cold easily.
After two nights in Stone Town, we are staying in a resort, something I've never experienced before. It is incredibly relaxing, which I need after my freezing weeks in France and my stressful weeks in Kenya. But, even so, I can't wait to get back to Nairobi on Thursday and I'm dreading leaving for South Africa on Sunday, going back to Kenya only makes me miss all when I leave. I'm going to be on full mzungu mum duty when I get back, we have the school's 'Thanksgiving Day' on Friday which will be fun and I need to spend my last few days with the girls making sure they are all set before I leave.
Flying back to Kenya last year was such an odd feeling. I was exhausted from moving to Paris to Lyon and my time in Paris and then flying through out the nights on two different flights which made it difficult to get much sleep. So a large parted of me felt sick of travelling, sick of sights seeing and just wanting to go home and sleep, though I wasn't quite sure where home was anymore. And then I landed in Nairobi and felt the heat and the strong sun shining, battled my way through the normal low level of chaos at Jomo Kenyatta Airport and pushed my way past the safari tourists and airport staff trying to convince me to get a taxi to find run over to Charity and give her a huge hug. Our friend David, a driver, drove us to her place and I realised that here was home all along.
But I have to admit, the chaos was familiar but the red dust everywhere, the shared toilets, the bucket showers and the kiswahili reminded me of how flying for 12 hours can transport you to a totally different world. I slept so deeply, through the neighbours (all the houses in Charity's little area share a partion wall), the roosters (I knew I was back now) the Mosque's call to prayer and the shouting children and the next morning woke up at 7 (late for Kenyans) to go out to Machakos, the older girls' home where Cherotich and Maria have been transferred. It took about half an hour to get into the city and meet our friends who had hired a taxi and then another two hours to get out to Machakos and then another hour talking to the director in her office. It felt like the longest wait of my life until I could see my girls.
They seemed so little at first, I forget they are just five years old, although now I realise both of them have grown a lot and Maria is getting a pair of ridiculously long legs. Maria has also lost two more teeth and her two front teeth have still not grown back, but she usually gets annoyed with me whenever I point this out, I'm not sure that anyone has explained to her that teeth grow back! Cherotich, ever the baby, of course has still not lost any teeth and loves to inform Maria of this.
There reaction at first to me was strange. The couldn't look at me, but both had the biggest beams of my face. It took us a while to get back into our groove again, but now Cherotich is back to being to her normal role of attention seeker/diva but she thankfully she has found a new, much smarter straegy. Instead of actually throwing tantrums, something she used to do at least three times a day, she pretends to throw tantrums. She will hide her face and pull on me and cry and sometimes does it so convincingly that I believe her. At this point she will poke her face up with a huge smile and start laughing hysterically at me. What can you do with a child like that!
Maria is as proud and strong as ever. I can tell she is struggling with all the change, back to the children's home, then to a new children's home, then a new school and me coming in and out. But she is taking her English so seriously, she doesn't blurt out fragments like the other children she carefully thinks of how to form a sentence and then comes up to me and tells me it. She's getting so tall and graceful, and has thankfully learnt to smile for cameras.
Sorry, I just got distracted by three Italians, one of them a man in very tight speedos coming over to ask me if I spoke in Italian so they could decide whether to move from a neighbouring resort to here.Could I speak German? No. Could they speak French? No. Oh well, broken English it would have to be, supplemented by impersonations and sand drawings of mice and spiders which apparently live in a abundance at their resort
After that visit to Machakos, I had to leave the girls for a week. We spent the week over Christmas in the North Western part of the Great Rift Valley with Charity's family. It was so special, seeing such a different side of Kenya and gave me a new appreciation of how the majority of sub-saharan Africans lives. The vast majority of people live of subsistence farming and it is really hard work. Charity's mama has a reasonably large area of land and a small tin house with a dirt floor. She and the two of her eight children who still live at home have to work the land to get enough food to eat and enough of their cash crop, maize to sell at $10 for a huge bag once a year. I helped out moving the already picked maize out to dry out in the sun and after just an hour I was exhausted. These 50 year old woman and 12 year old kids have to be so strong to work all day.
As the resident mzunug, everyone was constantly checking if I was ok. "Are you OK, are you tired?" after helping with the maize. "Are you ok?" After walking to a nearby farm for milk. "Are you ok?" After helping scrub the laundry (hand washing three days' worth of laundry for five adults,a seven year old and a baby takes a long time). I was applauded for any work I did, but all of them have to work doing house hold chores that would take us twenty minutes with a machine for hours without complaining.
But they do get the advantage of living in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is just farmland, but absolutely gorgeous farmland that streches on for ever with no hint of anything more than a small building. I had a lovely time hanging out at Shosho's, the kikiyu work for grandmother, and was happy to let the entire family adopt me (Shosho introduces me as her lastborn even though she has two children younger than me). When I wasn't working showing how unfit I am, I drifted in and out of the house chatting with 15 year old Jennifer or 17 year old Amos or twenty yeard old Rhoda, Charity's sister and helping look after her 8 month old baby Victor, who is the sweetest cheerfulist baby and happily puts up with Precious harassing him until he realises it is me or Jennifer or Charity who is holding him and not Rhoda and starts crying 'mamamamama'.
On Christmas day we went into the big smoke (read the irony there) ofBurnt Forest, a nearby town where Charity's sister went. Zooming along a dirt path and then the motorway while everyone stops and stares open mouthed at the mzungu is a pretty hilarious feeling. Charity's sister's house was filled with 16 children, her six plus various family members who were staying for the holidays. The children all the children took care of me and showed me round the town, round their farm and how they were learning French at school (imagine 15 small people all fighting for attention yelling "Bonjour. Bonjour" with Kenyan accents) and taught me Swahili. I wish I could describe all of them but it would take too long but in the tradition of Kenyan children everywhere, they were all very cute and funny.
I had bought gifts for all the kids which we managed to share round all of the children, but two of the older boys Gabriel and Steven missed out. They talked me into buying them radios, apparently the only possible thing they wanted, which ended up only costing $3 each but were a pain to find. So with 15 children in tow the mzungu wandered round every shop in Burnt Forest asking for a radios and then having to have all 15 children intercede and explain in Swahili when the shopkeepers looked at me blankly. But we found the radios and I foreer became cool in Gabriel and Steven's eyes which is the highest compliment you can get from 11 year old boys.
Christmas Day was un-Christmasy in that we had no tree or Chriamas carols, but the huge extended family of children running around in between the adults and the table loaded with food, was all familiar. One thing I don't usually do at home though is slaughter a sheep, something which I was unfortunately still at Shosho's place in Ngrarua when they did it (they offered to wait until I was there) but I saw plently of the aftermath and ate it too, including the liver and the offal, which I can't say is something I'll be doing again for a while.
That evening it rained and rained and the world turned into mud and we couldn't get home. Charity's sister's already crowded house couldn't really fit all the extra people so me and Charity were sent over to the Government District Officer's huge house across the road, which not only had running tap water but also a microwave and TV and electric jug. I even had my own bed to sleep in and it was fascinating to talk to the DO about the corruption in Kenya.
The next day we skipped the motobike and walked two hours back to Burnt Forest. Apart from getting very sunburnt and Precious deciding to give up and wanting to be carried half way through,it was a lovely walking through the countryside while Charity and Rhoda told me about the land they had grown up in and the Election violence that hit in 2008. Not a lot of people outside of Kenya realise it, but there was a virtual genocide in the last election. This area was one of the worst hit and Shosho's land was burned and she, Rhoda and then five year old Precious had to run through the night and hide to escape being killed by men with machete's who killed the hundreds of people who weren't so lucky. Everyone here has a story about that time and some of them are heartbreakingly tragic but I was struch how they really wanted me to know, not do anything, not give them anything, but to just listen and try and understand in a small way what they had lost. The people who returned still live next to their neighbours who attacked and killed them something I could never have guessed from the neghbours who dropped by and greeted me, had Charity and Rhoda not explained what they had been talking about in Swahili unbeknownst to me.
After Christmas, we went to stay in Eldorent a bustling busy city of 200 000 people for two days. We stayed with some family friends (the cousins, of the lovely family I stayed with in Nyeri last time I was in Kenya). Here I meet David, the most insane three year old I have ever met (and I worked at Nairobi Childrne's Home) and his little sister Shiro as wella s Ruth their aunt who is the same age as me who I got on really well thing. One of the things I treasured most about this trip was making friends with Kenyans the same age as me who have to fight so much harder to get to university or get a job.
After Eldoret we went back to Burnt Forest where Precious was angrily waiting for us (she had wanted to come to).I don't think I've ever talked much about Precious or Jane, Charity's seven and ten year old daughters, but I should because they are two of my favourite people. Jane is smart and calm and beautiful and very responsible. Precious on the other hand is affectionately known as "the small brat". She is a complete tomboy, wears her hair torn off (although it is a real effort to get here to the "Barbara", by which she means "barber") with a squekey high voice who loves to get told off while I try not to laugh in the corner at her hiliarious antics. She also has come with such words of wisdoms like "I'm tired like a pregnant elephant", "Charlotte, will your babies be mzungus?" and when asked why she was going outside: "to be happy".
After a week we had to say lots of really sad goodbyes and promises to come back one day, fight with the matatu driver who had promised to pick us up after we reserves seats and then cram into five seats with Jane, Precious and four of their cousins on our laps for the six hour drive back to Nairobi.
- comments
Ruben Hey Charlotte!! Always a pleasure to read your blogs, its so awesome that you are enjoying your time in Kenya. I kind of envy the temperature, we came back to more cold and snow :/ Hope all is well. bisous
Janet Charlotte, I really hang out for every update. Fabulous!
Katie Mattie All I can say is... so jealous!