My First Month and it's Getting Hot

I have been in Kenya for one month and now it's getting hot!! Actually i am at present in Mombasa and its boiling. Over the past 4 weeks the work has unfolded and i have been given responsibility for several projects - registration of displaced children and running the team that will collate all the information. I will supervise them 2 days a week in Nairobi and then for the rest of the time i will review children's homes and set up a training package for heads of homes. This is a huge project and involves government officials, meetings and a lot travelling around the country. Yesterday i inspected homes in Malindi and today i'm doing Mombasa. Everyone's so desperate to be trained and really interested in taking the advice i'm offering so it is very rewarding work, but feels like a drop in the ocean. I am also training social workers, and it looks like i will be pulled into several more training events concerning child protection and advocacy, so i am coming back here next week to do that.
I was encouraged kicking and screaming into the Indian Ocean for a swim last night and was goalkeeper for the youth social workers, girls who are professional footballers, who played against the boys including Maasai beach craft sellers - I tackled a Masai warrior on the beach, surreal!!
I have now settled into my city life style and met some very nice, weird and very interesting people. I am meeting with a Maasai woman next week to talk to her about parenting and tribal customs - she is particularly interesting as she was recently awarded the 'Order of the Spear' (like an OBE) for her work rescuing girls from abuse. I have been to an art exhibition, a private view at Romoma Gallery in Nairobi which was great fun and i met a new bunch of people. Also i had my first weekend away with a Jewish American crowd of woman and neighbours who have decided i needed distracting occasionally. We all went to Niavasha to a beautiful farm and nature reserve - i think this is the most relaxing place i have been to so far. I went on a night game run and saw hippos and loads of other wildlife.
Some times i wake up and feel as if i'm in the wrong place and uncertain about what i'm doing here or of what benefit i am etc - other times i am totally enveloped in the work, in the flow, and running with stuff like i do when i'm home. I do have mixed feelings about the work i'm doing even though everyone here thinks its great. I'm sure its because i'm here short term and because this country really struggles with structures and implementation, and has done for years - its a huge problem for all sorts of reasons. Maybe i'll be able to work around it like every one else does, let see. My Swahili has improved and i've got a sun tan!! So far so good.
How are you all?

Settling In!

On Sunday i moved into my own place. I'm now renting a wing of a house just across from where i've been staying. It's taken me this long to check out the safest place to stay other than expensive hotels that is. I had just about gotten used to be waited on hand and foot. Everyone seems to employ staff, my bed is made daily and food prepared and loads more. It's all a bit strange but i have now stopped saying "asante sana" upteen times for everything. It's just very different and takes some getting used to. It is the done thing to tip everyone at the end of the week.
My new house was built by the family in the '70s, it has three cows, a nice vegetable plot and even a pool, which i'm going to try out later, but mostly it is surrounded by dense forest. Security is everything, the denser the better i think.
I've had some interesting conversations about culture, race and tribalism. I met a white British woman who told me that there were three different types of whites in Kenya; the settlers, who have chosen to live in Kenya, make it there home and integrate; the colonials, who are still here and were sent to sort Kenya out and make it profitable for the British government and themselves, they still have attitude; the expats, the worst, who come to Kenya for a year or two and live in isolation frightened to death to mix, and live in gated communities giving nothing to the country. I don't know whether she is right or not but it's very interesting chewing all this stuff over. She herself was a settler who came out in the 80s to do wildlife conservation work after university.
Where i am staying there is a fairly mixed community. It's a smart, clean and well to do area, with wealthy Kenyans, Asians, Americans and some British, and just down the road is the Argentine Embassy.
But i always have to mention the amazing wildlife, i'm constantly suprized, though i have to say last night i was kept awake by the loudest toads and tree frogs on earth i would imagine, combined with a squawking Ibis - very annoying, I'm quite knackered this morning!
Roy's booked his flight to come out and see me in November - i'm so excited!!

Homabay

On Thursday this week we travelled from Kisumu to Homabay and back. A very long day. The school we visited was in a very poor state. The children were sharing beds and it was very overcrowded. They were well fed and are being educated but their day to day care is an issue. The Catholic preacher who runs the school was arrogant and very argumentative with us - we are reporting him anyway and trying to sort out what should be done. Over 250 children are sleeping on damp floors without mattresses. I could say loads about this place but it might be said that conditions are better than they would be at home.
We had hoped to see hippos on Lake Victoria here but there was to much to do. We had dinner in a local traditional bar with the kenyan guy who works in the UN office.

On the way back to Kisumu we witnessed a very nasty accident between two motor bikes. A woman, in her late seventies i would say, who had been on a bike had been badly injured and was lying on the road bleeding everywhere - we couldn't touch her, HIV issues, so some of the local people put her in our 4x4 and took her and another, younger girl to the hospital/clinic. There was no doctor in sight when we got there. Because i had given them some paracetamol they thought i was a doctor. Anyway i paid about two pounds for some treatment and left them in the good care of the nurse running the show.
A very long and hard day not helped by the heat and the fact that we couldn't drink much - no loos to speak of and certainly no privacy.

Lake Victoria

Kisumu - Just back from having had lunch. Talk about extreme experiences!!
A colleague and i went down to the lakeside where she'd previously had good fish lunches, so i thought hey, that sounds good. There before us on the lakeside was a row of shacks, open sided, with iron roofs called "hotels". Not somewhere either of us would want to spend the night. Within seconds we had been spotted, and loads of touts descended on us asking us to "eat this restaurant". We walked the whole length of the row trying to ignore the shouts from these young people around us. I eventually stopped and just asked a couple half way through their meal which one of these places was the best. They said "this one", so we sat down after being told to inspect the fish and choose which we wanted. We stood there mesmerised by the open cooking and general rawness of the experience. Heat wasn't the word! A waiter came over to us with a bowl of water and some soap, and for the first time since i arrived i realised that i was going to be eating with my hands - real Africa.
Half way through our lovely meal, and with a great view of Lake Victoria, we were suddenly aware of at least a dozen young boys, aged 10-16 years, all holding glue sniffing bottles looking wild, and definitely hungry. The waiter that was attending us ran over and pushed one of the boys away and made him cry - i was shocked. The waiter said he didn't want the boys to disturb our meal - well too late i thought and i asked him whether the restaurants ever fed these hungry boys. I didn't finish my food, and fully aware that i couldn't give them money, i told the waiter to give it to them. He tipped the food into the carrier bags the boys had - so that is why they walk up and down by the hotels with their bags, collecting scraps!
I was upset and angry, but there was nothing else i could do. We left and went back to the base office where i asked what programmes they were running locally for the street children. I was told to talk to the children's department, which we are visiting tomorrow. I will!
So, one extreme to the other. When i arrived here in Kisumu i was distracted by the beautiful little shack of an airport terminal that greeted us, and how i'd never seen a waiting lounge in a marquee before. It was great and looked like someone's garden with mangoes hanging from the trees all around us.
The images of those children will stay with me for a long time. I know we've seen these things before, but never so real and never at my lunch table. Maybe i'm not so tough.

Nakuru and Eldoret

So much has happened in my first two weeks in Kenya, i really can't believe it. Last week i was driven to Nakuru to visit the camp holding IDPS, Internally Displaced Persons, and met with the organisations working in the field. There are so many camps all over the Rift Valley - the north and south Rift areas are the most affected but there are temporary camps all over Kenya. There is so much work to be done and a serious amount of organisation is still needed. The NGOs and local organisations are doing well with very limited resources. The main focus is on moving people, families and children out of the camps and back to their land and homes, or to temporary settlements.
On Tuesday this week i flew out to Eldoret. I just got back to Nairobi this morning after spending the last two days training the local workers on how to register children and trace their families so that they may be reunited, and returned to their homes with support. Some children are being cared for by CCIs, Charitable Children's Institutions, and they too are to be registered and reunited with families. The amount of work to be done is scary, and the most difficult part is that there are just so many children who are in desperate need of help, and we have to prioritise them. Those prioritised at present will at least get some limited help. There is also a focus on children who are looking after other children, living in what's known as Child Headed Households. I am now coordinating some of this work but i've also been asked to look at and advise on child protection policies, so it looks like i'm going to be busy! Next week i fly to Kisumu, by Lake Victoria to assess the situation up there.
I've take some great photos but I'm having real problems with sending and uploading them. The internet access is poor, very slow and annoying. It took me 30 minutes to send two emails the other day. hopefully photos will be up soon, videos even!!
The short rains seem to have arrived. In Eldoret it rained quite a lot and now in Nairobi too. The wildlife is amazing, blue, red and yellow birds, Great Malibu Storks everywhere, and even birds of prey in the gardens where i'm staying, and African Flycatchers too apparently. I saw zebras and baboons by the roadside on the way to Nakuru. Having lunch in the UN garden the other day i was ducking to avoid the Black Kite that was swooping in between the tables and umbrellas to get the leftovers - an amazing sight for me but they were all used to it.
Love to you all x