Clean Water For All

After a few days without internet access, I’m back in Nairobi and can resume my updates.  I’ll have a post with lots of pictures of the safari soon, but first I wanted to share a few observations around Kenyan hospitality.

When a house guest comes for a visit, hospitality can kick into overdrive in Kenya.  For virtually every meal I ate at someone’s home, not only would I be served first, but many times the children and even the other adults would refuse to serve themselves until I had at least started eating.  Often the children and workers would eat in a second sitting after us.  And trust me, the other volunteers and I tried insisting that they eat with us, but we were rarely successful.

I thought the level of adherence to hospitality customs was particularly interesting when I arrived at my latest host’s home.  As you may have seen in my last post, my former host, Joshua, had major car problems on our trip.  When we finally made it to our destination the next morning, my new host (Emmanuel) asked if Joshua could spend the day with us, but he politely explained that he needs to get his car fixed and then spend another 8 hours driving home.  Before he could get on the road, they first sat down for tea.  After tea, we all went to take a “quick” tour of Emmanuel’s school (both Joshua and Emmanuel run schools in Kenya).  After a very interesting but thorough tour, we of course had another round of tea.  That was followed by a short presentation by the students.  At that point it was lunchtime, and of course we couldn’t send Joshua off without lunch.  While we arrived that morning around 8:30 am, Joshua didn’t end up starting work on the car until early afternoon and finally hit the road around 2:30 or 3:00 pm.  What I found most interesting was that not only did Emmanuel keep politely offering things, but Joshua kept politely accepting.  I suppose it would have be considered rude for either of them to have acted any differently, even though they both knew Joshua had a long trip ahead of him.

Joshua, Emmanuel, and the headmaster

I’ve encountered this custom several times while at the villages as well.  Often after meeting with a women’s group, there was no way I was leaving without drinking at least two cups of tea and eating something.  Even once when a storm was clearly about to hit, we still stayed for almost an hour, resulting in us standing in a random barn for 30 minutes on our way home to escape the torrential downpour. Overall I think it’s a nice custom, but be forewarned that there’s no such thing as a “quick visit” in Kenya.

I’ll be continuing work on the Kibera water kiosk model over the next several days, but I’ll also post a link very soon to some of the 250 pictures I took on my safari yesterday.

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I like to take at least one weekend day to write about something non-work related.  Today, I thought I’d teach you how to respond to 80% of the questions you’ll be asked if you ever visit Kenya.  What’s more, I can do that with just one word, Mzuri.

Random Kenyan boy

You see, at some point in every Kenyan child’s life, somewhere around the age of 3 or 4, they’re apparently taught what to say if they ever see a Mzungu.  That phrase, which must be yelled with tremendous enthusiasm is, “How are you?”

After you answer with Mzuri, which means good, the next question will always be, “How are you?”   The following question will usually also be, “How are you?”   In fact, it’s pretty common for a group of children to repeatedly yell that over and over, regardless of what you answer, until you’re out of sight.  Of course, they may also decide to join you and wander a mile down the road while holding both your hands.  One kid who was maybe 5 years old saw me from a good 50-75 yards away and after shouting, “MZUNGU!”,  went into a dead sprint until he caught up with me.  At which point he asked, “How are you?”

Of course, if you really want to freak them out, you could respond back with something like, “Mzuri.  Habari asabuhi?” (Good.  How are you this morning?).  At that point, some will answer you with “Mzuri”, but others will burst out laughing and start yelling that there’s a Mzungu speaking Kiswahili.  By the way, if a Kenyan is laughing at you and you ask what they’re laughing at in Kiswahili (Unachecka nini?), they won’t answer you and will instead just laugh more.

Kenyan children

Tomorrow is Market Day in Kiminini, when there are live performances to promote products.  I’ve seen these in passing, but have never gone to check them out up close.  Weather permitting, I’ll head over tomorrow and take some pictures.  I also hope to show some of the marketing mock ups for the water filters, so make sure to come back and see them.  In the meantime, enjoy your weekend.

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As promised, I thought I’d take the weekend to upload my backlog of photos.  I’ve been privileged to meet some wonderful Kenyans and volunteers since I’ve been here.  I’ve also enjoyed all the animals that wander around the streets or come to visit me in my hut.  I’ve posted well over 30 pictures in Flickr (link to the right), but here are a few of my favorites.  I’ll continue to upload pictures and posts every day or two, so don’t forget to check back regularly.

Alastair (KCP Volunteer) and Steve (Kenyan college student)

Paka Mweosi - my adopted pet (Black Cat in Kiswahili - clever, huh?)

Josie, Esta, and Emmanuel - Friends and Kiswahili tudor

Random baby sheep on the side of the road

Kiki and Caleb - Kids in the extended family

House guests

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I thought I’d take a break from the serious stuff and share some random observations I’ve found interesting as well as some pictures of where I’m staying.  Keep in mind that these observations are based on my very limited time here so far.  If any Kenyans find mistakes in what I’ve written, please let me know.

• I’ve been told that if someone gets caught stealing, the thief tries to run to the police station for safety.  If he’s caught by the people in the community, the consequences are far more dire.
• Caucasians are called Mzungus.  Interestingly, some people I spoke with said Barack Obama is a Mzungu because he has “light skin” and talks like an American.
• In Kiswahili, the primary language in Kenya, many words or phrases are different if you’re speaking about a living thing versus an inanimate object.  For example, “where is ____” is different if you’re asking where a person is versus a table.  There is no distinction based on the “gender” of the word like in many languages.
• You don’t subscribe to a monthly/annual phone or internet plan here.  Most people prepay for minutes.  There are little shops everywhere that sell cards in many different amounts.  You can go by 30 minutes of cell phone service, text the code to the phone company, and off you go.  It’s actually a pretty efficient system.
• Kenyans, especially less wealthy ones, by and large deal with expense management on a very short-term basis.  The same person drove me around in Nairobi for a few days and filled up the car with a couple gallons of gas ever day instead of just filling up for the week.  Similarly, I haven’t seen anyone buy more than a week’s worth of cell phone minutes.
• There are very few leisure activities other than sitting with family and friends and talking.  Other than the lack of rock climbing gyms, it’s not too bad.  There is television, but it doesn’t seem to be a cornerstone of leisure activity like in the US.

Here are some pictures of where I’m staying.  There will be more on Flickr later today.

Common Ground for Africa

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Guest Hut

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Inside my guest hut

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Chickens taking cover in the rain

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