Life in Kenya

Life in Kenya

The edge of town.

Coming into this experience I imagined Kenya would be somewhat similar to India, being probably my closest frame of reference. I have never been to any part of Africa before and was frankly blown away by how ordered, clean and calm the place is. I think it helps that Kericho County is widely regarded to be the cleanest of Kenya’s 47 counties and the town of Kericho itself contains just 150,000 people. I imagine that the ‘India feel’ of total chaos would be very strong in some parts of Nairobi but unfortunately we will not get the opportunity to see it. It just means that I will have to come back to Kenya at some point in the future!

The only part of Kenya that comes close to replicating the chaos of India is the road travel. Between the massive trucks that steam their way through the town between Nairobi and Nakuru, we are expected to navigate our way around using the local transport providers. These come in a few different forms: Proboxes, Matatu and the dreaded Boda Boda. I’ll start with the boda boda that we have all been specifically banned from using whilst on the Balloon programme. These are motorbikes that whip around town, dodging traffic in ridiculous ways. According to the Kenyans you would be lucky to find a boda boda driver that has insurance and is not smashed, even at 7 in the morning. Considering it’s more or less illegal to drink here before 5pm on a weekday, it is an impressive feat for these drivers. We are left using Proboxes and Mutatu that are somewhat akin to the tuk-tuks seen in South-East Asia, in that an outrageously inappropriate amount of people are shoved in. However, in Kenya people will often travel for 100s of miles in these comically crampt conditions.

Boda Boda with the their long umbrellas.

As part of this programme, we have been partnered with volunteers from Kenya who have passed through a similar selection programme as we did in the UK. I was surprised to find that there was significantly higher competition for places amongst the Kenyan volunteers, however, on reflection it makes perfect sense. The entrepreneurial spirit here is strong and many of the volunteers here are hoping to use the learning and experience of this programme to kick-start their own businesses.

This close interaction between us and the Kenyan volunteers provides an excellent platform to mix and engage with a wide range of Kenyan cultures as they come from all over Kenya. They are all great fun and make the whole experience much more manageable for us UK volunteers. Some examples that stand out are avoiding getting ripped off by street vendors, and navigate the mobile payment system M-Pesa that is widely used here. However, in so many other ways we are learning invaluable things from our Kenyan counterparts that will allow us to work more effectively in the coming weeks.

Cross-cultural working is a phrase in vogue that would trigger even the most sedate HR professional. This was little more than a buzzword to me before this trip, however, now I believe that I can confidently claim to have learned at least a bit of what this is. We UK volunteers have had to rapidly adjust to the Kenyan way of working. For me this was most keenly felt in the attitude towards timekeeping. Lateness is not something that I appreciate or take with any grace in the UK, however, I am learning to adjust. When a time is set for a meeting, it is often taken to mean the time at which you set off to arrive for said meeting, regardless if you are 10 minutes away or half an hour. In many ways I am beginning to understand this attitude as people, in general, work far harder than people in the UK with days starting often before 6 and finishing around 9 o’clock. If you work that long, everything will get done… eventually.

Emmanuel enjoying a banana and avocado face-mask.

I am fortunate enough to be partnered with a gentleman of the highest order called Emmanuel Kiprotich Tarus. I will be sharing a room with him in our host home for the next 7 weeks and I could not be happier! Our host home is lovely and is frankly better appointed than my 1^st year university accommodation. I am getting used to some new concepts such as bucket showers, eating with my hands and hand-washing clothes under the kind tutelage of Emmanuel. It’s very easy to fall into the routine of these sorts of activities which make perfect sense when living here. For example, It’s not that people don’t have things like washing machines, it’s more that there is very little point buying one. If you can’t be bothered to do your washing a ‘Mamafua’ (laundry lady) will be happy to do a full bucket of clothes for you for around 100Ksh (~£0.70).

                Our ‘Mama’, as we have been instructed to call her, is a wonderful lady with two older children. Arnold, who is 23, lives and works away from home in the tea business and her daughter Sandra who is just 18 years old is working part-time for a tax firm in town with hopes to go and study at university in Australia. Our Mama is kind and always provides us with excellent food, knowing the true way to look after her boys (food blog is in the works). Mama has hosted multiple rounds of Balloon volunteers and informs us that the Community Manager, Sammy, always asks her whether she would like to host some girls for a change. Her response is always the same, ‘No, I want boys because they are simple’. A fair statement in my opinion.

Emmanuel is from Eldoret which is classic Kenyan running county. In fact the colloquial name for Eldoret is ‘The Home of Champions’, such is the national pride associated with Kenyan running prowess. He is of the Kalenjin ethnicity who dominate the Kenyan running scene. In fact, Emmanuel has even seen the likes of Mo Farrah training in their altitude winter camps. The Kalenjin maintain their own language and distinct cultural identity, which makes Emmanuel particularly effective as he can seamlessly switch between Kalenjin, Swahili and English and is therefore able to communicate with almost everyone that we come across.

The range of ethnicities within Kenya are visible and endemic, shaping the interactions of many people. It is made more complicated as each of the widely recognised ethnic categories have several recognised sub-ethnicities, further complicating the picture. One aspect of this highly visible ethnicity that really struck me was seeing Maasai people in traditional dress selling flip flops beside the road. The only images that I have ever seen of the Maasai involve traditional dances for western cameras giving an image totally at odds with what I am seeing here in Kericho. Fundamentally, there should be nothing surprising about a Maasai person engaging in typical metropolitan activities. It is apparent that a form of western exoticism has informed my view of the Maasai who represent just one of the myriad ethnicities that make up Kenya and Eastern Africa as a whole.

Emmanuel’s middle name, Kiprotich is particularly fascinating to me as he informs me that in his culture the middle name is given due to the time at which a baby is born. Emmanuel was born at around 5 or 6pm giving him a middle name that translates as ‘the time at which the cows come home’. This is particular to the Kalenjin culture who have a strong heritage as pastoralists, with the raising of cattle being central to many of their traditions. Dowries are still given in the form of ‘cows’ with the cow acting as a currency relating to its value. For example, you could give the value of 3 cows in cash as a payment to another family for their blessing.

The Church.

We were fortunate enough to be here at Easter weekend, an important date for Kenyans who are, on the whole, deeply religious country. There are countless numbers of churches here with a massive variety of denominations. Our Mama attends the African Gospel Church and we were lucky enough to be invited along. I was a little apprehensive going into it as I have read so much of how Christian Evangelism was integral to the hard and soft colonising mission. With the damage done by such activities being central to much of my university work on Modern Africa. It is something that I have been guilty of, dutifully packing the Christian Aid Christmas parcels at school that were only handed out to Christian communities in Africa. An activity that can be interpreted as a damaging privileging of aid and an expression of soft power.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the entirety of the service was led by African women, a double-whammy of progressive practices. It contrasted with much of what I had read and imagined about the white male led mission, in a far more positive way. The preaching was engaging and fluid in a way that makes the traditional UK experience of church seem unbelievably fusty and outdated. Having sung in the Birmingham Cathedral Choir 4 times a week for nearly 2 years, I have first-hand experience of how soul-destroyingly boring church can be. Instead the gospel church was the enabled with projectors and speakers guiding the congregation in song and prayer. Furthermore the gospel readings were made engaging and personal as each apostle was given their own personality with which the congregation could identify. On top of this, aspects of contemporary culture were synthesised with the readings. One that attracted quite a laugh was when it was mentioned that civil authorities in biblical times could be bought off, much like in modern Kenya.

                Music forms a strong part of the Kenyan experience and, as you might imagine, the Gospel Church is no exception. Led by an absolutely fantastic female choir, and a slightly dodgy male section, we were thrown into a mixture of Swahili and English tunes. It was all expertly led through microphones, with projectors and TV’s showing us the words. The only saving grace for us UK volunteers was that Swahili transcription is generally phonetic. But further than this, the Kenyan volunteers all seem to know the words to every song that anyone plays, even the most minor hits from the UK. In fact Emmanuel, who is a man of unlimited surprises, is a big fan of traditional Scottish music with Loch Lomond being his particular favourite! It is a coincidence that blew me away as I also love the song, having used it for my Grade 8 singing.

                Life in Kenya is fascinatingly different, but as with many of the places I have been, the apparent quirks of culture make perfect sense in context. Everything that I have seen so far confirms my belief that working abroad is a privilege that shouldn’t ever be overlooked.