My sabbatical began on July 1, 2010. By the end of the first month I was on my way to the enigmatic continent of Africa. My reason for going was to visit my son, Paul, who was working on an internship with a Washington DC nonprofit called Think Impact. His charge was to research the needs of the people in a small village in Kayafungo, Kenya and to create a sustainable design for improving the quality of life there.
This photo shows me and Paul with a group of villagers in Kayafungo. This was taken after a ceremony in which these wonderful people danced and played music for us as we sat on a makeshift stage with 20 elders from surrounding villages. The woman between Paul and I is the chief's wife #2. Her name is Maureen and she is a fireball, very capable and important to the village. She's holding a copy of the Pasadena Star News. I brought a copy of this local paper with me for the purpose of entering it to their Star News on Vacation feature. It was published on September 20.
This gentleman is blowing into a sable antelope horn that makes a bellowing sound. He played this as part of the music and dance performance that I enjoyed upon my arrival in the village. It was the only wind instrument among a variety of drums and percussion instruments. As a saxophonist, I was drawn to this sound. The next morning while enjoying some chicken and bread with the chief, I mentioned how intrigued I was by this horn. To my great surprise and highest honor, he sent a young man down the road to retrieve this horn, and awarded it to me as a gift for visiting the village!
This video (above) shows an example of a sustainable project implemented in Kayafungo. I met this young woman (Alexandra) when I was in Kenya. She had just arrived to begin her fellowship for 2010-11. I also met some of the African women in this clip. As you can tell, they're quite dynamic. My son, Paul, has been accepted for a fellowship to return to this village next year to establish a sustainable business for manufacturing and distributing affordable shoes for the people of the village. Click here to read about the 2011 fellowships from Think Impact. I look forward to visiting once again.
Here's Paul with an African shoemaker who works out of a storefront on a dirt road leading into the village. They are working on a variety of designs that will provide appropriate foot coverage and functionality for the villagers at an affordable price. Affordable for these people means almost no cost at all.
The following news article describes Paul's involvement in the internship project leading to an invitation to return in August 2011 to carry out his fellowship:
In the summer of 2010 Paul Wood worked as a “Global Development Intern” for a non-profit organization called Think Impact. This “internship” is a study abroad style program where each selected candidate pays his of her own way to be sent to one of two developing areas in East or South Africa. Living in a small village in Eastern Kenya, Paul worked with a select interdisciplinary group of American college students on catalyzing ideas, leadership, and capital needed to leverage social innovation and local community resources to alleviate poverty. During his MFA Paul has been interested in designing low-tech affordable objects for developing areas, as-well-as utilizing some of the knowledge systems, tools, and social and territorial assets of the developing world to help inform product development and systems design in more advanced economies. Here he was able to practice CCA design research methodologies in the context of rural sub-Saharan Africa. He has been selected to return, in 2011, for the “Global Development Fellowship” where he will have the opportunity to set up a social business and product development strategy for distributing low cost shoes made from old tires.
I'm planning a return visit to once again join Paul next winter to take a closer look at the education system in Kayafungo.
I had a chance this past summer to visit an elementary school in the village, where I spoke with the principal and students.
The young students in the village are bright and eager to learn. You can see by the condition of the chalkboard and the desks that the school operates under basic conditions. The principal told me that all children receive an education up through 6th grade because it's free. However, that's as far as most of them go because they cannot afford the cost of middle and high school - $25 a year!!!
The students who are fortunate to go to high school find life difficult. They study nine subjects and study all day into the evening. Then they attend to their homework late into the night. I have some samples of their writing that illustrate the struggle. Here is a poem written by a high school girl:
School Life
Waking up early every morning
Taking a shower
Water as cold as ice
Same complaint
Some hesitates taking shower
But that is school life
Students move up and down
Following for consultations
For competition is tough in class
One has to spare wee hours of the night
For time is limited during the day
But that is school life
Students complain
Oh! My shirt is gone
My sock is missing
My money is stolen
Someone has broken my basin
But that is school life
In the dining hall
Some cry, Oh! I don’t take beans
I hate taking cabbage
I would rather go without
Instead of taking green peace
But that is school life
In the classroom
Some come top
Some bottom
Animosity, hatred, envy
Developing within the students
Drive to excel
But that is school life.
- Michelle Gahim
The following will be difficult for you to read, as it was for me. It illustrates the dire conditions that girls and women can face, even within their own families, while just trying to grow up and go to school. This is a letter written by a high school student to her father who is in prison. It was submitted as a writing assignment, and it graphically tells the story of unthinkable abuse. At least this young woman had the voice, through school, to express the conditions of reprehensible oppression that she has faced. Perhaps expressions like this can help lead to the elimination of the horrific treatment of females in places where ignorance, poverty, and inequity are allowed to exist.
Two things that strike me about this young woman are 1) she is a very good writer with an exception ability to commmunicate, and 2) against tremendous odds she has an outstanding Emotional Intelligence (see Emotional and Social Intelligence page).
Two things that strike me about this young woman are 1) she is a very good writer with an exception ability to commmunicate, and 2) against tremendous odds she has an outstanding Emotional Intelligence (see Emotional and Social Intelligence page).
Dear Daddy
Dear Daddy,
How are you? I know by now you’ll be wondering what made me write this letter to you or what really was my motivation. I know you are still the hard-faced, menacing daddy that I’ve known in my seventeen years of existence. I know that you still have that huge ego of yours that won’t make you accept reality, but as for me, I did accept reality and had to let go…
It all started back in the year 2002 when I was a small child but yet full of life. You and Mummy gave birth to me in the year 1992 and my two twin siblings followed three years later. They say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I have every reason to believe so because I don’t recall an incidence when I lacked anything. It was nothing but a happy family of five existing mutually back in Narok.
That’s when you, Daddy, my sweet, loving dad, turned into a brute, a wild animal. By that time, my breasts had not yet fully developed but they had started forming two tiny hills that raised my clothes. My mother always told me to stay away from men but since you were my loving dad, I couldn’t help being away from you. I was a daddy’s girl. You one day, when no one was in the manyatta, touched my small breasts and told me not to tell anyone about it. I was confused. But I thought it was just a slip of the hand. But at night when I was sleeping, I thought I felt a mass of weight on top of me. When I opened my eyes, it was you, Father, lying naked on top of my frail body. I was too ashamed to look at your nakedness since it is a taboo in our culture, but when I looked into your eyes, I saw hatred. You had covered up my mouth so any effort that I tried making by screaming was futile. Then, Daddy, you raped me. You raped me continuously that I felt unconscious. When I woke up, there was blood all over me and I knew what had happened.
I was no longer a virgin and my own father had slept with me. My moods quickly changed from being jovial to moody. Mummy noticed this and asked why. I did not tell her since just a look at your face would make me stop talking. I became like a stranger in our own house. You would occasionally try playing a good daddy but the incident of that particular night could not be erased.
Another day, when I had come home from tending the cattle and jealously admiring all my agemates walking back from school to home, you summoned me in your main manyatta. As I walked, I felt that everything around me including the trees and bushes were accusing me of being dirty. Unclean. No sooner had I touched the doorknob than you grabbed me from behind and covered up my eyes with a lasso.
Then you raped me for the second time. It was so painful, Daddy. Where did I go wrong? Why did it have to be me? All this rang in my mind as you satisfied your old dirty fantasies with a small child like me. I cried until no more. I was speechless. Then like a rag you picked me up and kicked me out, saying I deserved it. Deserved what, Father? Being sexually molested? As you threw me out, I hit my face against a stone and it tore my tender flesh right across my cheek to the lower lip. Up to date, if you look at me closely, you’ll see the scar running down. A reminder of what I was.
Daddy, you would wait for me in the river whilst I was going to bathe and touch my private parts. This became like a normal routine. I would no longer get shocked or surprised when you appeared in my room stark naked and rape me several times. This became like A, B, C, the first words a child can ever learn in life.
My relationship with Mother deteriorated day by day. I would not eat, sleep, or play with my friends like before. I was just sitting and gazing at the clear sky. One day, after you ambushed me when I was coming home from a small errand, you tried raping me but you heard footsteps and you quickly left, leaving my shuka torn. It was Mother. Trusting the mother’s instinct, she immediately knew someone had tried raping me. She demanded to know what had happened. Where I got the courage from I don’t know, but I remember telling her everything.
Woe unto Mummy for if she had known you were still hiding in the bushes, I couldn’t have opened my mouth. You came out of the bushes breathing thunder and fire. I have never been so terrified in my life. And because of confiding to Mummy what you have been doing, Mother got divorced since she knew you were no longer an angel but a devil. You chased them (my mother and my twin sisters) at night with nowhere to go. Such a heartless man! You did not care but I don’t think I cried as much as that day.
Ever since Mother left, I had taken the role of a wife to you. I would cook, wash, mend, sew, and finally, satisfy your sadistic nature. As the years were ending and in the process of ushering in the year 2003, you submitted my name as one of the girl initiates. My mother had told me this was banned in the current society, but when I tried talking things over, you beat the sense out of me. Out of anger, you took a naming rod and burnt my back with it. Even to date, my back has still got the scars to remind me of the fateful day.
Every evening the initiates would be taught how to behave like mature women. I felt like a mature woman already. On the eve of circumcision, when I got out from I finally felt somehow free. We danced with other initiates as we anticipated the D-Day. The next morning, we went and dipped ourselves into the river to numb our senses. I was the first initiate to be ‘operated’ on. As I entered the room, four frail looking but rather strong women grabbed me from behind and exposed my womanhood for all to see.
A woman was playing tin drums and I did not know why she did so. But after what took place, I understood why she did so. My whole female system was chopped off. I cried aloud but it was frowned by the drums. They sewed up a tiny hole allowing a pea size for excretion and menstruation. When I came back home, I was not at ease and the pain was unbearable. Pus and blood kept on oozing out daily from the opening. I confided this to no one but kept it all by myself.
Then barely after one month when my wound had completely healed, you raped me again. Such pain, aguish, and torment. As your body kept on moving against mine, more pus oozed and when you realized this you stopped. You called me a mini-prostitute going to sleep around with every man in our village. It was too much for me. I decided to run away from home.
At nightfall, when no on was on the look out and you had left to see a fellow elder, I ran away from home. I used an unused path that was forgotten long ago since I did not want anybody to see me or recognize my face and take me back home. I ran to the nearest urban center which was Naikiangare about twenty kilometers from home. I ran, allowing the thorns to cut my flesh and the cold to bit my skin, but I couldn’t stop for I was determined to get as far as possible away from home.
Strange voices and cries of wild animals in the forest pushed me to go further and further. About dawn around 6 am, when life was coming back into the city, I arrived at Naikiangare. People stared at me as if I was from Olduvai Gorge. My clothes, no I wouldn’t call them clothes but tatters, were dirty and in small bits. My body had bites from all sorts of insects ranging from mosquito bites to lice bites.
I walked to the nearest gate man and greeted him in humility. He answered me in pity and asked how he could help me. I asked him where I could get a woman to help me then I felt a black out all of a sudden. When I woke up, a woman and the gate man were standing next to me. I guessed the watchman was narrating how I was talking to him then I became unconscious. He was dismissed from the room.
The woman then came next to me and soothed me. I feel back to sleep. This continued for two days when I regained my energy and could no be fully aware of my surroundings. The woman came and introduced herself as Mrs. Huruma. She said she loved me and was concerned about me and she wanted me to tell her about my life and where I came from. When I remembered you, I cried but Mrs. Huruma let me be. I then narrated my story bit by bit, stopping once in a while to cry and let go of my pain.
Mrs. Huruma said I had come to the right place since she was looking after desperate girls like me. She promised to have you secured for what you did to me. She enrolled me in school and since I proved to be a bright student I was promoted to class five. But it was hard for me to concentrate in class since every time I read, I could not erase your memories and all male teachers were complaining about my pessimism in class. Mrs. Huruma talked to me and I finally settled down.
I worked hard in my studies knowing that one day I will be of use back in my community to make the girl’s child voice powerful. I soon finished primary school and graduated to high school. Three years of my stay in Mrs. Huruma’s place, she fulfilled her promise and you went behind bars for twenty-five years, this being your seventh year.
I had made friends and met other girls who had similar stories like mine while some had worse. We vowed to work hard and give back to the community and in a special way, help the girl child.
Anyway, Dad, that is why I had decided to write to you. Mrs. Huruma took me to counseling classes and finally let go of my pain and forgave you. I forgive you, Dad. For everything you’ve done, I forgive you. I have not heard from Mum and my sisters up to date but Mrs. Huruma is now my mother, the other girls my sisters, and God my father.
I am now in form three clearing my high school next year but planning to visit you soon in prison, and I hope to face you and tell you the hard but comforting words: I forgive you. Goodbye for now, Dad.
Your loving daughter,
Y----- T----
In no way do I want the readers of this letter to believe that this is a common or representative situation. I met many wonderful women, girls, and families that are living happy and safe lives in the villages.
I found the newspapers in Kenya to be high quality - full of stories about their great nation and continent, as well as international news. They have many fewer advertisements than our American periodicals, and the people eagerly read the paper every day. They're fascinated with President Obama whose father was a Kenyan, and soak up American news in general.
To keep abreast of current news in Kenya CLICK THE PICTURE BELOW to get access to the Daily Nation.
