Siendani uru

This evening, I was returning from football through the bustling, haphazard traffic and noise of Kisumu town on the back of my piki-piki ride with 'motorbike-boy'. Looking around, I felt how much I enjoyed being a part of this crazy community most of the time - with all its buzz, creativity and energy.

Other times, it can get a bit overwhelming, wearing or maddening. Like when you go out of your gate and all the children notice you yelling 'Mzungu, how are you?' in their bright voices over and over and over again. Or the myriad money magnets who are attracted to the white skin-man and several times a day you are hassled for straight cash or to buy them something. Or the problem of there being no water in the pipes for the 5th or 6th day straight, so you need to buy water from the human donkeys who ply their trade by lugging a trailer of filled water containers from home to home. All the effort they make earns them about 10pence a water container - about a pound a trailer...

Water-boy

Recently, though, Emma inadvertently came face-to-face with a less savoury face of Africa. Emma's matatu travelling to town was suddenly surrounded by numerous street-boys with angry faces carrying rocks grasping through the windows of the vehicle to trying their best to grab whatever they could. They were taking advantage of a security issue, a stand-off between matatu operators and police. At this point, all the passengers had no choice but to get out the matatu and start walking to work, no matatus were driving anywhere. `Instead, a convoy of riot police with shields and guns pointed were travelling to the 'stage' where the buses converge. As Emma walked with the crowd of other commuters, her eyes stung from tear gas. Later, she also found out that bullets had been fired into the air, while a police car had been set on fire. Needless to say, Em was late for her voluntary work at a local school, and was a little afraid.

Thankfully, things are calm now and REAP were displaying their teaching at a local university, Maseno last week, where a 'Women and Climate Change' topic was being hosted. REAP's stand attracted crowds of visitors, which was encouraging. Emma displayed her teaching resources made of recycled material. Much of REAP's teaching is relevant to climate change as it encourages good stewardship of the environment.

Em talking to a tall Danish lady about making low cost school resources

REAP display at Climate Change conference

Sharing knowledge...

Susie and her sanitary project (and a weirdo in the background)

Talking to people at Maseno climate change conference

Another story about living in Kenya, and then Im finished...Joash, our Swahili & Luo teacher was reviewing body parts in Luo with us. He told us that 'siendani' is the word for 'bottom' and then explained that it is very important for us to know such words. He illustrated that point by telling us that there was an American preacher who had wanted to make a bit of an effort with the language and so asked on the streets what a good greeting would be for the congregation. He was told to greet the congregation with 'siendani uru' which is what he did. What he had said was 'your bottom to all of you', a very rude thing to say in Luo! Supposedly no one knew where to look or what to do after he had said it, but I would loved to have seen that preacher's face when he heard what he had been told!