Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings from beautiful Mombasa, Kenya. I am writing with some great news today – I have received an extension of my Fulbright Fellowship, which will allow me to stay in Kenya for a full year until November 2008. I will still come home for a visit in July, but then will head back to Kenya to continue my research until the late fall. I also was awarded a dissertation fellowship from the American Association of University Women, which will support me for another full year so that I can finish writing my dissertation when I return to Ohio. I am very excited about this opportunity and grateful to have the support of such an incredible organization. The AAUW supports research to increase equity and access to education for women and girls around the world.
The Taita International School has been closed for three weeks for the April holidays, so I took the opportunity to travel and continue my research elsewhere in Coast Province. I have spent the past two weeks in Lamu, a small island off the northern coast of Kenya on the Indian Ocean. Lamu is a special place – a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the oldest and most-intact Swahili settlement in East Africa. It is hard to describe Lamu without resorting to clichés – the place has a mystical appeal and is known by many as the “Kathmandu of Africa” or a “travellers’ paradise.” I was first introduced to Lamu as a student and a tourist in 1994, and initially thought of the place as a “timeless” and “unchanging” society that has preserved traditional Swahili culture and Muslim traditions. However, after my third visit to Lamu, and experiencing more of the local culture through the eyes of women leaders, I have discovered a complex and dynamic society that is facing many of the same issues that are present throughout Kenya today.
The geography of Lamu is striking. The Lamu district includes an archipelago and mainland region that lies on the northeastern coast of Kenya, just south of Somalia. Lamu town is the administrative center of the district, and the oldest town in Kenya with over 1,000 years of continuous settlement and trade. All transport on the island is by boat, donkey or foot, as there are only four motorized vehicles on the entire island. Travel away from the island is entirely dependent on boats, and must be timed during the high tides. The “streets” of the town are narrow alleyways and labyrinthine corridors winding around ancient stone, sand and coral homes, with open sewers filtering underneath (sanitation and waste management is a major problem). Beyond the old town, new settlements are growing, and their names reflect the globalized sensibilities of modern Lamu – Kandahar, Kashmir, Bombay. Beyond these settlements, the island flattens out into an immense expanse of “shambas” (farms) of coconut, mango and cashew trees. There are also large areas for grazing cattle, goats, and sheep. On the far side of the island facing the open ocean, the landscape rises into large sand dunes, which dips down to a 6-km long, crescent-shaped beach.
The Lamu population is 95% Muslim and is characterized as a Swahili trading town where ethnicity and race tend to be fairly fluid categories, and intermarriage is common. The population of 20,000 or more people is a creolized mixture of Swahili, Bajuni, Omani Arab, Persian/Shirazi, Kore, Kikuyu, Luo, Indian, and European people. For the majority of the Muslim Swahili residents, modesty and chastity are the hallmarks of this conservative culture, but there is also a hidden element of romance and allure. Women in Lamu are often clad entirely in black “buibuis” or “shugas”, a full-length black robe, with a black “hijab” or headscarf and sometimes even a “ninja” which covers all but their eyes. However, once you go inside their homes, you realize that underneath the buibui, they are elaborately adorned with beautiful clothing, henna designs on their hands and feet, and ornate golden jewelry. Men are also covered with a full-length white “kanzu” robe and an embroidered cap or “kofia” worn on their heads, which is also worn over other clothing.
A sign at the Lamu jetty greets visitors with this message: “Lamu County Council welcomes you to Lamu. Beach wear and scanty dresses not desirable in the town. Thank you for respecting our cultures.” This conservative attitude puts off many visitors to Lamu. But a little modesty goes a long way, and I found that when I covered myself with long skirts and a scarf draped around my shoulders, I was greeted warmly by both men and women. The “Rough Guide to Kenya” explains an interesting aspect of Swahili modesty: “Outsiders have tended to get the wrong end of the stick about Swahili seclusion. While women are undoubtedly heavily restricted in their public lives, in private they have considerable freedom. The notion of romantic love runs deep in Swahili culture. Love affairs, divorces and remarriage are the norm, and the buibui is perhaps as useful to women in disguising their liaisons as it is to their husbands in preventing them” (Trillo, 2006, p. 537). The veiling of Muslim women was a topic of conversation throughout my interviews and observations in Lamu, and I hope to write about it more in my research at some point.
I traveled to Lamu for a “spring break” with two other U.S. Student Fulbrighters to celebrate Maulidi, an Islamic festival celebrating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. This is a revered event throughout East Africa, and Lamu hosts what is considered to be the best Maulidi Festival in the Indian Ocean region. The tradition started when Habib Swaleh traveled here from the Comoros Islands in the mid-1800s and founded the Riyadha Mosque. It is said that he is a direct descendent from the Prophet Mohammed, and that he brought the Maulidi tradition to Lamu which has survived to this day through his hundreds of descendents. An estimated 50,000 Muslim pilgrims travel to Lamu every year from throughout the world to celebrate the revered holiday, which is a month of activities culminating in a three-day festival. Some people even say that “two trips to Lamu are equal to one trip to the Hajj” at Mecca in Saudi Arabia. I met many new friends from Kenya, Tanzania & Zanzibar, Somalia, Ethiopia, Libya, Egypt, Iran, the UK and elsewhere. I even met a Somali-Ohioan, a man who moved to Columbus, OH almost a decade ago as a refugee from the Somali civil war. We met in a café one day and talked for almost 3 hours - he was also excited to meet me since I am from Columbus and we know a lot of the same people and neighborhoods.
The events of Maulidi kept me really busy for the first week I was in Lamu. We spent a lot of time watching the singing, drumming and dancing at the Riyadha Mosque, which was the center of the religious festivities. There were also nightly performances of Taarab music in the town square, with men singing religious songs with a band playing flutes, drums, synthesizers and stringed instruments. The National Museums of Kenya also organized a number of secular events as well, which made it feel like a county fair with donkey races, dhow (sailboat) races, a football (soccer) tournament, a children’s Arabic calligraphy competition, henna painting, and daily gaming competitions in the town square with old men playing strategic games such as dominoes, bao (like mancala), and dumna (like chess). My favorite competition, however, was a “greased pole contest” at the jetty, where young men tried to balance on a greased pole to grab a flag at the end before slipping off into the cool waters of the Lamu harbor. It was really hilarious to watch.
After the Maulidi events, I spent a couple of days relaxing with my friend and fellow Fulbrighter Valerie at the beach. On Sunday, we went on a dhow trip with some local guys and spent the day sailing, fishing, snorkeling, swimming and sunbathing at the beach on Manda Island, just across the harbor from Lamu Island. One of the guys, Bakari, caught a black snapper fish with a spear, and our other friend Baji roasted it on a charcoal grill with lime juice and chili. It was truly delicious and melted in our mouths. We also ate rice cooked with coconut milk, vegetarian curry, and a dessert of mangoes and bananas. I also spent two other days at the beach with friends over the next week, and am sure that Lamu’s beaches are the most beautiful in the world – white sands, a long stretch of sand dunes, large waves, and the great Indian Ocean on the horizon.
We also spent a day at a “shamba” (farm) of our friend Omari Hassan and his family. We walked and rode donkeys for an hour or two across Lamu Island to the remote shamba in the interior, near the sand dunes. The shamba was like an oasis with palm, coconut, mango, cashew, pomegranate and guava trees. We spent the day playing with Omari Hassan’s four nephews (aged 6-10 years old) who were really silly and ornery and fun. We played cards, sang songs, chased each other up and down the sand dunes, and followed as they led us on a tour of the shamba and encouraged us to taste every piece of fruit they could find. It started raining a little bit and we ran back to the house to cook with Omari’s sister, who said that we had brought the rain as a blessing to their shamba. She taught us how to grate coconuts with a tool called a “mbuzi” and to strain it with a woven raffia sieve called a “kifumbo.” She added rice to the coconut milk and cooked it over an open fire, along with a delicious vegetable curry and beef stew. We ate from a common bowl with our hands while sitting on a woven raffia mat called a “mkeka.” After lunch, we relaxed on the mkeka for a siesta under a large acacia tree. Then we roasted cashew nuts over an open fire. The cashew shells are so oily that they catch on fire, and we had to douse them in the sand to let them cool down before shelling them. The boys had a competition shelling the nuts and then we ate the warm roasted cashews with sweet ginger tea. Tantalizing!
Throughout the next week, I stayed in Lamu and was busy with research interviews and meetings. I met with members of local government and leaders of women’s groups, and tried to learn as much as I could about education and organizing among women in Lamu. I interviewed the Lamu District Gender and Social Development Officer, who told me that there are over 400 active women’s groups in Lamu District alone. She is from Taita and shared some interesting insights into the similarities and differences between cultures, religions and women’s organizations in Taita and Lamu districts. She discussed the “geography of women’s organizing” and talked about how women’s groups operate differently and take on different roles, projects, and income-generating activities based on their environment and local economy. This is a theme that is really emerging from my research and conversations with people throughout Kenya.
I also met with Ombuya Amele, the Lamu District Adult Education Officer, who informed me about the challenges of providing adult education services in rural Kenya, and especially in a district as diverse and widespread as Lamu. He said that there are just 100 teachers for the whole of Lamu district, but the need is far greater since there are such high rates of illiteracy, especially among women. He believes that women’s groups are uniquely placed to deliver these services and are a valuable partner for raising awareness and education among adult women in Lamu.
Another day I met with Hadija, an American art historian who has lived in Kenya for the past 30 years, and who has married a local man and settled in Lamu with her family. She is the editor of Lamu Chonjo, a magazine promoting the Lamu Archipelago and reporting about community development issues facing the area. She said that she has confronted many gender issues as the mother of two girls in Lamu – wanting them to both appreciate their local Swahili culture but also strive to understand the world and their opportunities beyond Lamu. It was fascinating to listen to her ideas about female space, Swahili women’s culture, and the major obstacles to women’s and girls’ education in Lamu. She was an excellent person with whom to discuss and interpret these issues since she represents a bridge between the U.S. culture and Lamu, and could explain things in a language that I could really understand.
Another Westerner who has made Lamu her home is Julie, a former VSO volunteer from the UK who has started an NGO called “Lamu Safi” (Clean Lamu). Julie specializes in sanitation and waste management, and has worked to sensitize the local population about proper waste disposal, composting toilets, and recycling. She works with women’s groups on garbage collection and ecological restoration. She also works with youth groups to use drama and role playing to raise awareness about environmental issues in schools.
I also met with Amina Hussein Soud, a Lamu native and former Fulbright Scholar who studied at Yale University and has a Master’s in Environmental Studies. She is currently the director of Red Cross and the Spanish-sponsored organization ANIDAN, an orphanage and school in Lamu. Amina is a superwoman – the mother of 4 children, a wife, a community leader, a scientist, a humanitarian…. We had a fascinating interview about the role of women’s groups in Lamu in promoting microfinance, in developing small businesses, in encouraging girl child education, and in contributing to community development. Amina said one thing that I will never forget: that as a woman in Lamu, she works behind the scenes, while men want to take all the credit - but that she can get a lot more done as long as she understands that. Good advice.
I also met with Maryam, who also studied in Cleveland and returned home to Lamu. She taught me about the ways that women’s groups are educating the public about domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, girl child education, microfinance, and small business development. Maryam revealed that divorce and domestic violence are very common in Lamu, leaving women and children particularly vulnerable. However, she also said that it is a controversial issue to discuss domestic violence, or provide services for women survivors, as it is a small town and one could be accused of trying to break up families. (This reminds me of the secrecy surrounding “My Sister’s Place” in Athens.) She said that the role of mothers is essential in promoting girls’ education in Lamu, as women are now sensitized to the importance of educating their girls and ensuring that they can become self-sufficient.
Then I met Rukiya, a mother, grandmother, and community leader who has been a central figure in promoting girls’ education, poverty eradication, and women’s empowerment in Lamu. She was born and raised here and has lived her whole life in the working-class neighborhood of Langoni. She is a respected elder and has been particularly active in promoting “merry-go-rounds,” or small microfinance groups that have helped women to save and invest their money for income-generating activities. She discussed many of the biggest problems facing women in Lamu – divorce, drug abuse, domestic violence, unemployment, lack of child support, HIV/AIDS. She also discussed how Islam promotes women’s rights and how women can refer to the Qur’an and Sheria laws to demand equality and protection.
Another day I visited the Lamu Education Development Foundation Trust, a community-based organization that supports girl child education and family empowerment in Lamu District. Their director is Amina Kale, a teacher and community-based educator who is also a dynamic leader in the community. Their mission statement reads: “To mobilize people to work together in promoting educational standards and other sectors of development for the present and future well being of Lamu and Kenya.” They also support Kikozi, a “merry-go-round” or savings and credit association with over 600 members in Lamu District. They are particularly involved in educating women about microfinance, small business development and cooperative marketing to assist in raising money for school fees for children. Many of their board members are prominent teachers and educated professionals in the district who are invested in promoting opportunities for girls to excel in education.
Last but not least, I met with a Kikuyu woman from Mpeketoni on the mainland of Lamu district, who started a small community-based group called the Lamu East Poverty Eradication and Education Women’s Group. She told me more about the relationship between the mainland and Lamu town, and the differences between different ethnic and religious communities in the district regarding women’s education and organizing. Her group is primarily involved in agriculture, tree planting, waste management, and small business development.
After two weeks in Lamu, I left last Tuesday. I am now in Mombasa, the largest city on the coast, where I am sweating in the humidity and enjoying the island breezes and full moon. I have been making use of having some down time, and have been catching up on writing my field notes from my intense interviewing and observations in Lamu. I found an amazing place to stay in the Old Town, near Fort Jesus, with a family who rents out the top floor of their home to American students for Swahili studies and international exchange programs. I have the whole top floor to myself and have set up my writing table and laptop on the balcony overlooking the ocean. It is one of the most inspiring settings I have ever had to write, to think, and to be. Mombasa is an endlessly fascinating city and a truly multicultural space influenced by the fusion of African, Arab, Indian and European peoples. From the ancient Fort Jesus through the meandering streets of the Old Town, to the colorful market filled with carts and stands piled high with tropical fruits, vegetables and spices, to the textile shops filled with sumptuous fabrics, this is a city that appeals to all of my senses of romance and drama. Mombasa is a truly cosmopolitan and diverse space, where the whole world seems to meet and reside together. One local professor recently told me that Mombasa is a city that has historically welcomed people of every race and nationality and religion and language, and that the rest of Kenya and the world could learn a lot from this society about conflict resolution and embracing diversity. He is organizing a conference this summer on Swahili culture and conflict resolution, and I hope to have the opportunity to participate and learn more about this topic.
This weekend I visited John Nyambu Njore and his family in Nyali, on the north shore of Mombasa. I stayed with John’s family back in 1994 in Wundanyi, when he was just 12 years old, but today he is 26 and just became a father when his daughter Martha Kimbaya was born two weeks ago. I am excited to see him again, to meet his wife and daughter, and to reconnect with him as an adult. It is really wonderful to have long-term friendships with people here, and I am grateful to have the chance to cross paths with this family again.
I will return to Taita for a while to continue with my fieldwork there with women’s groups and adult education classes in Mwatate and Wundanyi. I am also planning another trip to Nairobi in the near future. I have been invited to participate in some interviews with women’s groups and displaced women in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in the Rift Valley, in cooperation with an intern from the Kenya National Human Rights Commission. I am looking forward to learning more about the issues confronting women in the IDP camps and meeting with women leading the peace and reconciliation process.
So, that is my life of the past month. I hope that you are also happy and healthy wherever you are. Please do write to me sometime and let me know what is up in your world – I am really missing home and am craving hearing some news from my friends out there…..
In peace and freedom,
Cat
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Happy Easter!
Dear friends and family,
I send you Blessings and greetings from Kenya. I hope you are healthy, happy, and enjoying the beginning of springtime. I am writing to update you on my life and my research in Kenya, and am relieved to say that I am taking a break from ranting about politics ☺
I will say that the political crisis seems to be improving since the peace deal was signed by President Mwai Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga on Feb. 28, and was passed by Parliament in mid-March. However, Kenya is still facing a major crisis due to the post-election violence, mainly about potential food insecurity and resettling the estimated 600,000+ internally displaced people. Please join me and keep praying for peace and justice in Kenya.
I am now back in Mwatate, after spending three weeks in Nairobi. The long rains have come, bringing fresh air, an abundance of water, fresh fruits and vegetables, and green foliage. The farmers are planting again, grateful for the rains that will produce their largest crop of the year. It is really beautiful here and I am grateful to be in a rural community where it really feels like spring back in Ohio.
The Taita International School is continuing to grow and change. We have almost 90 children now enrolled in the school’s nursery, primary and secondary classes. The dormitories for girls and boys are now full to capacity! I have moved into the girls’ dorm and am enjoying spending more time with them, braiding hair, telling stories, studying, and playing. The boys were sad and jealous when I moved out after Joe left – they said that they will really miss having us live in the boys’ dormitory with them. I think it is mostly because of Joe - he always let them listen to his IPOD and brought them chocolate treats from time to time. Many of the boys have told me that they really admire Joe for his kindness and commitment to hard work.
We also received a shipment of 6 boxes of beautiful books sent from Joe’s mom, Nancy Beres. Thanks to all of you who donated funds to help make this happen. We received an entire collection of leather-bound Encyclopedia Brittanica, another set of World Book encyclopedias, a Bible, and a few dozen wonderful children’s books (including my favorite Dr. Seuss stories). The children and teachers are very excited to have these resources available for their library and for research projects. Thank you!!
A group of nursery school students participated in a poetry and drama competition for Mwatate Division, and they won! Then they went to Mombasa, where they competed with other schools from around Coast Province. Many of the little kids had never even left Mwatate before, and they were excited to see the ocean, to watch the fish, and to ride the Likoni ferry across the harbor. They performed a skit with half of the kids acting as judges and the other half were children, and debated on behalf of children’s rights. They won third place in the province. Sammy, a four-year-old boy, recited a moving poem about HIV/AIDS. His poem won first place for Coast Province, and he was selected to participate in the national poetry competition in Nakuru, which is eight hours away by bus. He will travel there with the nursery teacher, Mr. Mwachia, on April 8th. This is a huge boost for all of us, and has everyone in the community praising the school.
We had an amazing and lively Easter church service at the school this weekend. The children sang and danced and rapped and laughed – they had so much fun! The staff congratulated the students for their talents, and Leonard Mjomba (the patron of the school) made them all laugh when he got up and danced for them. He encouraged them to nurture their talents for music, singing, dancing, and public speaking, and said that these were valuable skills for life and important parts of their culture that they should not lose. The janitor then gave the sermon about the significance of Jesus’ resurrection at Easter, and encouraged the children and youth to celebrate their lives, believe in themselves, and to keep Jesus in their hearts. I am impressed with the deep spirituality and religious devotion of the children and staff at the school, and of the Taita people. I really feel that the Sunday church services are a powerful way to build a sense of love, community, and cultural appreciation in the school.
The day before Easter, I traveled to Wundanyi to visit the Nyambu family, who were my hosts during a two-week homestay back in 1994. That was my first visit to Kenya as a college student, and their family left a deep impression on me. I will never forget the kindness of Mama Lisper, her deep faith and spirituality, and her devotion to her family and her work as a farmer, a mother, and a wife. We had a joyful reunion this weekend, and I was amazed to find out that her children, who were 12, 10 and 5 when I lived with them, are now all grown up. Her eldest son John is married and they are expecting their first baby. The younger children, Judy and Niko, are both in college in Nairobi. Judy and I had a wonderful time reconnecting and it turns out that we were neighbors in Nairobi! She has invited me to come stay with her then when I return to the city from time to time. I also met Lisper’s husband, Paul, for the first time, and we had a lively discussion about politics in Kenya and the U.S.
My research is continuing well and I continue to be amazed by the wonderful contacts that I have made here. Since I sent my last message to you, I spent three weeks in Nairobi and conducted many interviews and made valuable contacts. I attended a reception for International Women’s Day at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Nairobi, where I met a group of women affiliated with the Association of Women Journalists of Kenya, a women’s professional association that encourages reporting and community outreach on gender issues. I also met bankers, lawyers, politicians, diplomats, scholars and activists. The most valuable contact I made at the reception was with Dr. Helen Anyiso-Oduk, a professor at Kenyatta University who specializes in gender philosophy and who is also involved in the Gender Roundtable Discussion Series that is organized by my KU advisor, Godwin Murunga. I met with her later that week for lunch and we had an incredible conversation about changing gender roles in various Kenyan communities, about which she wrote her dissertation.
I also visited Kenyatta University’s Department of History, Archaeology and Political Studies, which is my affiliated department in Nairobi, and had a very good meeting with my advisor. I visited the library and received a tour from the head librarian, who introduced me to the different departments and collections and has offered to facilitate my research when I return to Nairobi. I was impressed to find a huge collection of Africana literature, particularly related to education, gender issues, history, culture and politics.
Later that week, I visited the University of Nairobi’s library and bookstore with my friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Opolot Okia, who is a historian. We enjoyed perusing the impressive collection at the UON library and I purchased several books from their bookstore that would be difficult to find back in the States. I also went back later that week and met with a researcher in the Institute of Development Studies, where I learned that I can also register as a research associate and get access to their special library collection as well as publish my research findings in their working papers series. I am really considering doing this, as some of the professors there are doing cutting-edge research on gender and development, and informal education and employment.
Later that week, I interviewed representatives of several women’s organizations who I met at the reception at the ambassador’s residence that I attended back in November. I visited the offices of the Society for International Development and Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization (Progress/Development for Women), where I got information and contacts for future meetings. I met with a woman who works with the Forum of African Women Educationalists (FAWE), a regional organization that works for gender equity for women and girls in education in 33 different Sub-Saharan African countries. She gave me some valuable insights into their work with governments, universities, and teacher training programs in various countries. She also told me that there is a FAWE office for Kenya in Nairobi, and that I should contact them to get more insight into how they are working in schools and universities to promote gender equity in Kenya. They are really involved in training teachers in gender-responsive and non-sexist teaching methodologies. They also work to sensitize Ministers of Education and university administrators about the importance of gender mainstreaming, or ensuring that the leadership of schools includes at least 30% females, to work toward gender equity. They also work with adolescent girls to teach them about puberty, or how to practice good hygiene and to make their own sanitary napkins. She said this is important since menstruation is one of the major causes of teenage girls’ absences and dropping out from school, and can become a major barrier of shame if the girl cannot afford to buy menstrual pads.
Later that week, I met with Gladys Boss Shollei, the CEO and editor of the Kenya Law Reports at the National Council on Law Reporting. This government agency was created through an act of Parliament in 2000, and Mrs. Shollei has led the organization from its inception through the past 6 years. She said that the law reports were not documented for over 20 years from 1980-2000, and it had become difficult to work in the judiciary since the Kenyan legal system is a Common Law system and decisions are supposed to be made based on precedents. She had been a law professor at the University of Nairobi and was determined to document the legal history of Kenya. In the past six years, they have increased their staff to 42 people and have had 15 law students as interns each year. They have successfully documented and printed 15 of the 20 years of precedents and have collected and printed all of the legal cases since 2000. All of this information is also digitized and available online. She explained that women’s rights are really limited in Kenya, and that it has been difficult to pass laws supporting women and girls such as the Children’s Act of 2001 and the Sexual Offenses Bill of 2006. However, the judiciary has been successful in creating a Family Division, which specializes in cases of domestic violence, divorce, child custody and support. She said that this division is the one that most women deal with, and that they are getting more support and training for gender-responsiveness among judges and lawyers. She argued that women have difficulty accessing the legal system in Kenya since they often are not educated about their legal rights nor do they have the resources to pay for legal representation. However, there are women’s organizations that support civic and legal education, and that also offer pro-bono services to represent the women. She is a member of two of these women’s professional organizations - the Kenyan Women Judges Association, as well as FIDA, the Federation of Women Lawyers of Kenya. She has also been involved in trying to promote women to become more involved and more prominent in the Kenyan judicial system in order to promote more gender sensitivity and gender responsiveness from within the system. She offered to introduce me to three of the leading women judges in Kenya, including the first woman to be a judge in the High Court. She also generously invited me to visit her rural home in the Rift Valley Province near Eldoret, which was an area where a lot of people were displaced and which was the center of a lot of the violence in January. I am hoping to do this later in April or May, as I think it will be important for me to visit and meet with some of the displaced women to learn more about how women’s groups are working to assist victims of the post-election violence and to teach affected women about their rights and options.
I also had an interview one day at the United Nations Population Fund. I learned more about their educational outreach programs to teach Kenyans about reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, family planning, gender-based violence, and alternatives to female circumcision or female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned that 38 of the 42 ethnic groups in Kenya practiced female circumcision at some point in their history, and that this practice continues in some communities and is often strongly defended. Recognizing the cultural importance of having a rite of passage to help teach girls about the transition of adolescence, the UN Population Fund assists women’s groups in various communities to develop alternative rites of passage programs that teach information about adolescence, puberty and reproductive health, but do not practice genital cutting. These programs are gaining wider support in their communities, and demonstrate the importance of informal education among women’s groups in Kenya.
I was amazed by the UN compound, which is the UN headquarters in Africa. I would love to work there someday. The compound is huge, filled with gardens and fruit trees, and flies flags from every country on the planet. They host offices of UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNESCO, the United Nations Environmental Program, and other development programs. The multicultural, international staff includes scholars and activists from around the world, and I heard at least a dozen languages spoken in the cafeteria. I also visited the library and found an abundance of materials that will be useful in my research. Primarily, I learned more about the UNESCO-sponsored Kenya National Adult Literacy Survey, which was conducted in 2006 to assess adult literacy in the country. This study estimates that over 60% of adult women in Kenya are illiterate, and recommends that women’s groups and other community-based organizations are valuable partners to the government in delivering non-formal education for women in Kenya.
Last but not least, I had a series of valuable and helpful meetings with my friend and former professor, Tom Wolf. Tom was the director of the Kalamazoo College Study Abroad Program when I was an undergraduate student, and he was my teacher and advisor. We have kept in touch and have met from time to time ever since 1994. He is currently working as an election monitor and researcher with the Steadman Consulting Firm. Tom knows everything about Kenyan politics. He also lived in Taita as a Peace Corps volunteer and researcher in the late 1960s and early 1970s, speaks fluent Kidawida (the local language), and knows dozens of local families. When we met in Nairobi, he introduced me to other friends of his who also work on gender and development issues in Kenya. They listened and helped me to think through some of the issues I have been grappling with in my research, and gave me valuable feedback, insights and direction. For this, I am truly grateful.
So, that’s my life in a nutshell. As you can see, I’ve been very busy but life is good and I am happy and feeling stimulated and productive. I hope that you too are doing good work wherever you are. Please keep in touch and let me know what is going on in your life.
In peace,
Cat
I send you Blessings and greetings from Kenya. I hope you are healthy, happy, and enjoying the beginning of springtime. I am writing to update you on my life and my research in Kenya, and am relieved to say that I am taking a break from ranting about politics ☺
I will say that the political crisis seems to be improving since the peace deal was signed by President Mwai Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga on Feb. 28, and was passed by Parliament in mid-March. However, Kenya is still facing a major crisis due to the post-election violence, mainly about potential food insecurity and resettling the estimated 600,000+ internally displaced people. Please join me and keep praying for peace and justice in Kenya.
I am now back in Mwatate, after spending three weeks in Nairobi. The long rains have come, bringing fresh air, an abundance of water, fresh fruits and vegetables, and green foliage. The farmers are planting again, grateful for the rains that will produce their largest crop of the year. It is really beautiful here and I am grateful to be in a rural community where it really feels like spring back in Ohio.
The Taita International School is continuing to grow and change. We have almost 90 children now enrolled in the school’s nursery, primary and secondary classes. The dormitories for girls and boys are now full to capacity! I have moved into the girls’ dorm and am enjoying spending more time with them, braiding hair, telling stories, studying, and playing. The boys were sad and jealous when I moved out after Joe left – they said that they will really miss having us live in the boys’ dormitory with them. I think it is mostly because of Joe - he always let them listen to his IPOD and brought them chocolate treats from time to time. Many of the boys have told me that they really admire Joe for his kindness and commitment to hard work.
We also received a shipment of 6 boxes of beautiful books sent from Joe’s mom, Nancy Beres. Thanks to all of you who donated funds to help make this happen. We received an entire collection of leather-bound Encyclopedia Brittanica, another set of World Book encyclopedias, a Bible, and a few dozen wonderful children’s books (including my favorite Dr. Seuss stories). The children and teachers are very excited to have these resources available for their library and for research projects. Thank you!!
A group of nursery school students participated in a poetry and drama competition for Mwatate Division, and they won! Then they went to Mombasa, where they competed with other schools from around Coast Province. Many of the little kids had never even left Mwatate before, and they were excited to see the ocean, to watch the fish, and to ride the Likoni ferry across the harbor. They performed a skit with half of the kids acting as judges and the other half were children, and debated on behalf of children’s rights. They won third place in the province. Sammy, a four-year-old boy, recited a moving poem about HIV/AIDS. His poem won first place for Coast Province, and he was selected to participate in the national poetry competition in Nakuru, which is eight hours away by bus. He will travel there with the nursery teacher, Mr. Mwachia, on April 8th. This is a huge boost for all of us, and has everyone in the community praising the school.
We had an amazing and lively Easter church service at the school this weekend. The children sang and danced and rapped and laughed – they had so much fun! The staff congratulated the students for their talents, and Leonard Mjomba (the patron of the school) made them all laugh when he got up and danced for them. He encouraged them to nurture their talents for music, singing, dancing, and public speaking, and said that these were valuable skills for life and important parts of their culture that they should not lose. The janitor then gave the sermon about the significance of Jesus’ resurrection at Easter, and encouraged the children and youth to celebrate their lives, believe in themselves, and to keep Jesus in their hearts. I am impressed with the deep spirituality and religious devotion of the children and staff at the school, and of the Taita people. I really feel that the Sunday church services are a powerful way to build a sense of love, community, and cultural appreciation in the school.
The day before Easter, I traveled to Wundanyi to visit the Nyambu family, who were my hosts during a two-week homestay back in 1994. That was my first visit to Kenya as a college student, and their family left a deep impression on me. I will never forget the kindness of Mama Lisper, her deep faith and spirituality, and her devotion to her family and her work as a farmer, a mother, and a wife. We had a joyful reunion this weekend, and I was amazed to find out that her children, who were 12, 10 and 5 when I lived with them, are now all grown up. Her eldest son John is married and they are expecting their first baby. The younger children, Judy and Niko, are both in college in Nairobi. Judy and I had a wonderful time reconnecting and it turns out that we were neighbors in Nairobi! She has invited me to come stay with her then when I return to the city from time to time. I also met Lisper’s husband, Paul, for the first time, and we had a lively discussion about politics in Kenya and the U.S.
My research is continuing well and I continue to be amazed by the wonderful contacts that I have made here. Since I sent my last message to you, I spent three weeks in Nairobi and conducted many interviews and made valuable contacts. I attended a reception for International Women’s Day at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Nairobi, where I met a group of women affiliated with the Association of Women Journalists of Kenya, a women’s professional association that encourages reporting and community outreach on gender issues. I also met bankers, lawyers, politicians, diplomats, scholars and activists. The most valuable contact I made at the reception was with Dr. Helen Anyiso-Oduk, a professor at Kenyatta University who specializes in gender philosophy and who is also involved in the Gender Roundtable Discussion Series that is organized by my KU advisor, Godwin Murunga. I met with her later that week for lunch and we had an incredible conversation about changing gender roles in various Kenyan communities, about which she wrote her dissertation.
I also visited Kenyatta University’s Department of History, Archaeology and Political Studies, which is my affiliated department in Nairobi, and had a very good meeting with my advisor. I visited the library and received a tour from the head librarian, who introduced me to the different departments and collections and has offered to facilitate my research when I return to Nairobi. I was impressed to find a huge collection of Africana literature, particularly related to education, gender issues, history, culture and politics.
Later that week, I visited the University of Nairobi’s library and bookstore with my friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Opolot Okia, who is a historian. We enjoyed perusing the impressive collection at the UON library and I purchased several books from their bookstore that would be difficult to find back in the States. I also went back later that week and met with a researcher in the Institute of Development Studies, where I learned that I can also register as a research associate and get access to their special library collection as well as publish my research findings in their working papers series. I am really considering doing this, as some of the professors there are doing cutting-edge research on gender and development, and informal education and employment.
Later that week, I interviewed representatives of several women’s organizations who I met at the reception at the ambassador’s residence that I attended back in November. I visited the offices of the Society for International Development and Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization (Progress/Development for Women), where I got information and contacts for future meetings. I met with a woman who works with the Forum of African Women Educationalists (FAWE), a regional organization that works for gender equity for women and girls in education in 33 different Sub-Saharan African countries. She gave me some valuable insights into their work with governments, universities, and teacher training programs in various countries. She also told me that there is a FAWE office for Kenya in Nairobi, and that I should contact them to get more insight into how they are working in schools and universities to promote gender equity in Kenya. They are really involved in training teachers in gender-responsive and non-sexist teaching methodologies. They also work to sensitize Ministers of Education and university administrators about the importance of gender mainstreaming, or ensuring that the leadership of schools includes at least 30% females, to work toward gender equity. They also work with adolescent girls to teach them about puberty, or how to practice good hygiene and to make their own sanitary napkins. She said this is important since menstruation is one of the major causes of teenage girls’ absences and dropping out from school, and can become a major barrier of shame if the girl cannot afford to buy menstrual pads.
Later that week, I met with Gladys Boss Shollei, the CEO and editor of the Kenya Law Reports at the National Council on Law Reporting. This government agency was created through an act of Parliament in 2000, and Mrs. Shollei has led the organization from its inception through the past 6 years. She said that the law reports were not documented for over 20 years from 1980-2000, and it had become difficult to work in the judiciary since the Kenyan legal system is a Common Law system and decisions are supposed to be made based on precedents. She had been a law professor at the University of Nairobi and was determined to document the legal history of Kenya. In the past six years, they have increased their staff to 42 people and have had 15 law students as interns each year. They have successfully documented and printed 15 of the 20 years of precedents and have collected and printed all of the legal cases since 2000. All of this information is also digitized and available online. She explained that women’s rights are really limited in Kenya, and that it has been difficult to pass laws supporting women and girls such as the Children’s Act of 2001 and the Sexual Offenses Bill of 2006. However, the judiciary has been successful in creating a Family Division, which specializes in cases of domestic violence, divorce, child custody and support. She said that this division is the one that most women deal with, and that they are getting more support and training for gender-responsiveness among judges and lawyers. She argued that women have difficulty accessing the legal system in Kenya since they often are not educated about their legal rights nor do they have the resources to pay for legal representation. However, there are women’s organizations that support civic and legal education, and that also offer pro-bono services to represent the women. She is a member of two of these women’s professional organizations - the Kenyan Women Judges Association, as well as FIDA, the Federation of Women Lawyers of Kenya. She has also been involved in trying to promote women to become more involved and more prominent in the Kenyan judicial system in order to promote more gender sensitivity and gender responsiveness from within the system. She offered to introduce me to three of the leading women judges in Kenya, including the first woman to be a judge in the High Court. She also generously invited me to visit her rural home in the Rift Valley Province near Eldoret, which was an area where a lot of people were displaced and which was the center of a lot of the violence in January. I am hoping to do this later in April or May, as I think it will be important for me to visit and meet with some of the displaced women to learn more about how women’s groups are working to assist victims of the post-election violence and to teach affected women about their rights and options.
I also had an interview one day at the United Nations Population Fund. I learned more about their educational outreach programs to teach Kenyans about reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, family planning, gender-based violence, and alternatives to female circumcision or female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned that 38 of the 42 ethnic groups in Kenya practiced female circumcision at some point in their history, and that this practice continues in some communities and is often strongly defended. Recognizing the cultural importance of having a rite of passage to help teach girls about the transition of adolescence, the UN Population Fund assists women’s groups in various communities to develop alternative rites of passage programs that teach information about adolescence, puberty and reproductive health, but do not practice genital cutting. These programs are gaining wider support in their communities, and demonstrate the importance of informal education among women’s groups in Kenya.
I was amazed by the UN compound, which is the UN headquarters in Africa. I would love to work there someday. The compound is huge, filled with gardens and fruit trees, and flies flags from every country on the planet. They host offices of UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNESCO, the United Nations Environmental Program, and other development programs. The multicultural, international staff includes scholars and activists from around the world, and I heard at least a dozen languages spoken in the cafeteria. I also visited the library and found an abundance of materials that will be useful in my research. Primarily, I learned more about the UNESCO-sponsored Kenya National Adult Literacy Survey, which was conducted in 2006 to assess adult literacy in the country. This study estimates that over 60% of adult women in Kenya are illiterate, and recommends that women’s groups and other community-based organizations are valuable partners to the government in delivering non-formal education for women in Kenya.
Last but not least, I had a series of valuable and helpful meetings with my friend and former professor, Tom Wolf. Tom was the director of the Kalamazoo College Study Abroad Program when I was an undergraduate student, and he was my teacher and advisor. We have kept in touch and have met from time to time ever since 1994. He is currently working as an election monitor and researcher with the Steadman Consulting Firm. Tom knows everything about Kenyan politics. He also lived in Taita as a Peace Corps volunteer and researcher in the late 1960s and early 1970s, speaks fluent Kidawida (the local language), and knows dozens of local families. When we met in Nairobi, he introduced me to other friends of his who also work on gender and development issues in Kenya. They listened and helped me to think through some of the issues I have been grappling with in my research, and gave me valuable feedback, insights and direction. For this, I am truly grateful.
So, that’s my life in a nutshell. As you can see, I’ve been very busy but life is good and I am happy and feeling stimulated and productive. I hope that you too are doing good work wherever you are. Please keep in touch and let me know what is going on in your life.
In peace,
Cat
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