One of the problems of blogging an extended stay such as this is that the new and unusual situations of your stay become commonplace. Whereas, when I arrived, seeing wild animals roam the streets was novel, I hardly notice them anymore. Fortunately, I was on the ball when I snapped the photo below as a herd of cows rumbled along the pathway in front of my house.
Highlighting this juxtaposition amid the Kenyan landscape is essential to understand the culture. Men work strenuously to push handcarts along downtown avenues while drivers cruise by with mobile phones abuzz. International soccer matches are streamed via satellite while armless women care for their babies on the street. During facilitation sessions here, we provide lunch stipends to our students which are pocketed rather than spent. Money can be transferred via cell phones but there is rarely a night without power outages. It seems that everywhere, the traditional and the modern are forever thrusting themselves into my visage, relentlessly making me marvel at the pace of progress and the unyielding nature of the past. In that vein, I really enjoyed taking this picture during rush hour as we left Kisauni.
Last week, the YCI volunteers were working in tandem with the Kwacha Afrika members to lead gender training workshops in a conservative suburb of Mombasa called Likoni. For the first two days of the training, we had the participants split by gender, so that the programming and discussions could be focused. The third day allowed the two genders to come together and discuss leadership in their community.
It is striking to hear some replies that we received. According to one male youth, women were inducing rape by wearing short skirts. On the other hand, some women were calmly acquiescent when describing how they were required to submit to sexual intercourse whenever their husbands wanted. But those were only the exceptions. For the most part, the facilitators received many thoughtful and encouraging answers from the youth. Female participants were not afraid to speak of how they should take on equal control of their household's finances, especially if they were a main contributor. Male participants were particularly good at espousing the equal rights of women. In my opinion, the most well-received portion of the training was a female Kenyan lawyer who talked about the Sexual Offenses Act and human rights. All-in-all, the feedback we received was favourable. At this point, I would credit a lot of success with the talented Kwacha youth, particularly Georgina, Aisha, Chamto and Samson. The picture above is of Samson leading the combined group in a leadership seminar.
Meanwhile, I've been trying to keep abreast of the Winter Olympics, mostly for the men's hockey tournament. I had been hoping to find some satellite coverage of the games, but then I stumbled across a newspaper article attempting to explain ice hockey to the average Kenya. My hope just faded. Please, somebody tell me they TIVO'd the games...
oooh, the first picture reminds me of my childhood....once you go a bit rural in Armenia, like Byurakan, for example, you need to quickly become desensitized to the smell (and look) of dung everywhere...hah!
ReplyDeletewho uses TIVO in Canada?
Sorry for the late reply. That reminds about some pictures I was intending to post. I completely understand what you mean about being desensitized to smells: I live beside a garbage dump.
ReplyDeleteI thought TIVO was a universal term? Guess I was way off...