Last weekend my mom and I got back from a short trip to Masai Mara, the southern part of the Serengeti here in Kenya. Masai refers to the Masai tribe (more on that later) and Mara refers to the Masai tribe (more on that later!). Takwenyo and Sopa are Masai greetings for females and males, respectively. If someone greets you in this manner, you say Iko or Ipa. Other words in my paltry Masai vocabulary: Asheoling means thank you; Ijo a means how are you; and Olesere means goodbye.
Masai Mara comprises 1/50 of the Serengeti, and features one of the highest concentrations of natural wildlife on the planet. Now is the season for the famed migration of the wildebeest, so we saw a lot of wildebeests crossing the Mara river. The animals start migrating from Tanzania to Kenya in June, so by August, the highest concentrations can be found. There are between 1.6 and 2 million of them! We saw lots of lions, elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, gazelles, antelopes (diktiks, topis, and elands), and a few buffalo, warthogs and hyenas. Cheetahs, hippos and finally, a rhino. Evidence of a leopard in the form of a baby wildebeest carcass strung on a tree branch.
I learned a lot from Samuel, our guide who seems to love offroading in his Jeep and watching animals do their thing. He excitedly taught us about the difference between giraffe "horns" and real horns (like male antelopes have)--horns are bony, and "horns" are keratinous. He also taught us some anthropology: lions engage in community breastfeeding; male wildebeests have harems (they are forever running around defending their females and babies from being stolen, or pursuing other males' "property"); hyenas are predators of lion cubs; cheetahs can jump 10 feet high and 30 feet long; and elephants live up to 60 or 70 years old and are dangerous predators of Masai people (as are buffalos). Samuel is also a fan of The Lion King and the circle of life/the food chain. As thousands of wildebeests risked their lives crossing the river full of crocodiles, he told us, "So many wildebeests! No wonder the crocs and lions eat them up! If not, there would be no grass left, even the roots would be eaten." The man makes a point.
The whole thing was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it, it was right out of the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. The only thing I didn't like at all was how close up we got to the animals. Tour guide jeeps were so eager to get up close to the wildebeests crossing the river that they'd park on the banks, with tourists getting out of the car or sitting on top of it. It throws the animals off; when this happens, the wildebeests wait or turn back, unable to cross in the presence of people on foot (they are ok with people inside the cars, apparently). We also drove right up to the lions, so close we didn't need to zoom in to get an incredible photo. Yeah, it was amazing to be that close, but it was also very disconcerting, especially when you see eight Jeeps surrounding cubs and their mother, eating the morning kill. Kind of like watching a movie scene being filmed, rather than nature unfolding itself.
It made me reflect: 1) how different are we from animals, and 2) what right do we have to be so intrusively curious about them? and 3) what gives us the ability to pursue that curiosity? I bet wildebeests don't have maps they've drawn up of our migrations, or hold tours showing their fellow beests how we mate in social groups. Something from our trip to Masai Mara tells me, in a way that is distinct from my other ways of knowing (faith, logic, scripture) that I am not just any other animal "evolved" from natural history. The height of my emotions; my ability to reason, to calculate; my capacity for guilt, remorse, shame; and even just the mere fact that I was sitting in that Jeep watching a pride of lions eat a zebra carcass, taking pictures and learning about their way of life as we humans have discerned it, reinforce my intuition that I have a deeper purpose in my existence, and that is to uphold good and stand up against bad, to be grateful to whatever awesome Power made me what I am right now, and to correct myself when I misstep, because I will be called to account for it. This is really inarticulate (and with extremely poor grammar) but it was just a fleeting moment of profound clarity.
Anyway, we also went on a nature walk. Our guide was Daniel (that’s his Christian name, I forgot his Masai name). Daniel taught us about the history of the Masai tribe’s relationship with the Kenyan government since the 1940s. It was at that time that the government independently decided to make Masai Mara a national conservatory (a part of the Serengeti where the Masai live—Mara means spotted in Masai, referring to the spots of bush dotting the flatlands). They drove the Masai out with excess force, as Daniel put it. The Masai retaliated indirectly by burning grassland (endangering herbivores) and killing wild animals, particularly endangered species. Finally, the government called a meeting with the Masai chief to reach some sort of accord. After almost two years of talks, an agreement was reached whereby the government would lease the Masai Mara land from the tribe, and give 19% of park entrance fee profits to the Masai people. With their profit, the 300,000 Masai here in the south Serengeti do things to benefit their villages, like build water dams to ensure their cows have enough water in case of drought. Interesting.
Some other things about Masai Mara I found intriguing/worrisome: the Jeeps drive over croton bushes and through herds of wildebeests, which I thought was really disruptive and disrespectful of the natural habitat. Rangers carry out controlled burning of grassland for the gazelles--they like flatland because they're able to see prey more easily, but burning grassland is bad for trees and birds that nest on the ground. (Do they do this for the tourists, because tourists will find gazelles more pleasing to the eye than birds/trees? You gotta wonder.) There are also excavations in certain places, and the introduction of (I think man-made) gravel so the dirt roads are less slippery for tourist vehicles. And tour guides regularly off-road, and allow tourists to step outside their cars. Sure, off-roading sometimes allows you to see that amazing animal you would not have otherwise reached, but the fact remains, you're an intrusion.
I'll post pictures when I can!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
A random thought on 'charity'
One of the dilemmas we’re running into with the high school applicants—particularly the girls—is that many of them, as orphans, are staying with benefactors or distant relatives. These guardians often strike a deal with their charges: clean the house, and we’ll take you in (and sometimes also pay for school). Of the girls we interviewed, several were concerned that going to day school rather than boarding school, and relying on the kindness of benefactors, would result in their spending too much time doing housework and chores to focus adequately on their studies.
This is problematic for the students, but it’s also a symptom of a larger social issue. Sure, that benefactor wants to spread around his/her good fortune to the needy orphan. Yet, he/she still wants to get something out of the deal—perhaps to keep the orphan accountable, or perhaps because he/she has unmet needs that a poor girl with few options in life could fulfill. (What is an unmet need, anyway? A cleaner toilet? Fresh cut fruit for breakfast?) Perhaps this benefactor would hire a real servant otherwise, if not this orphan Sudanese refugee student. He/she might think, I’m helping this child change her life. And it’s partly true, no? But not if she can’t get good grades because she is doing chores with the greater part of her free time, in order to earn her keep.
Why is this problematic on a social level? Because while many of the haves will always be ready to give charity to the have-nots, it’s also true that many of those same charitable haves (the so-called well-off) will also always want there to be a ready pool of people to hire for menial jobs like cooking, cleaning, and raising their kids. They want this workforce to be readily available for them while they do other things with their time: travel, make money, or do whatever. They want this workforce to work long and hard, sometimes for fair compensation, sometimes for a bargain. So how can these well-off, well-meaning individuals expect to bring up the poor classes who they profess to want to educate? How can they give them a hand up in life while simultaneously requesting that they stand at attention, ready to sweep the floor or cook the family’s evening meal? By supporting the idea of the orphan girl’s education while (perhaps) resenting the notion of her spending the greater part of her time and energy not in polishing wood banisters but in learning English and math?
I don’t hold the well-meaning well-off in contempt for their wealth, or for their desire to help the needy. I have no right. I think our Creator has a good reason for providing each of us with whatever means we have; I believe in a divine plan. But at some point, I think we all need to look around and take stock of where we are and what got us to where we are. And then I think we need to think about how we can be part of affording others the luxury and the freedom of making the choices we are able to make as a result of what has been afforded to us.
This is problematic for the students, but it’s also a symptom of a larger social issue. Sure, that benefactor wants to spread around his/her good fortune to the needy orphan. Yet, he/she still wants to get something out of the deal—perhaps to keep the orphan accountable, or perhaps because he/she has unmet needs that a poor girl with few options in life could fulfill. (What is an unmet need, anyway? A cleaner toilet? Fresh cut fruit for breakfast?) Perhaps this benefactor would hire a real servant otherwise, if not this orphan Sudanese refugee student. He/she might think, I’m helping this child change her life. And it’s partly true, no? But not if she can’t get good grades because she is doing chores with the greater part of her free time, in order to earn her keep.
Why is this problematic on a social level? Because while many of the haves will always be ready to give charity to the have-nots, it’s also true that many of those same charitable haves (the so-called well-off) will also always want there to be a ready pool of people to hire for menial jobs like cooking, cleaning, and raising their kids. They want this workforce to be readily available for them while they do other things with their time: travel, make money, or do whatever. They want this workforce to work long and hard, sometimes for fair compensation, sometimes for a bargain. So how can these well-off, well-meaning individuals expect to bring up the poor classes who they profess to want to educate? How can they give them a hand up in life while simultaneously requesting that they stand at attention, ready to sweep the floor or cook the family’s evening meal? By supporting the idea of the orphan girl’s education while (perhaps) resenting the notion of her spending the greater part of her time and energy not in polishing wood banisters but in learning English and math?
I don’t hold the well-meaning well-off in contempt for their wealth, or for their desire to help the needy. I have no right. I think our Creator has a good reason for providing each of us with whatever means we have; I believe in a divine plan. But at some point, I think we all need to look around and take stock of where we are and what got us to where we are. And then I think we need to think about how we can be part of affording others the luxury and the freedom of making the choices we are able to make as a result of what has been afforded to us.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Meet the Team...pictures soon!
I've mentioned in earlier posts the names of team members I'm working with on this refugee scholarship project, but I wanted to introduce them properly, because theyare phenomenally capable people whose dedication astounds me as much as the hardship they have survived and continue to overcome every day.
It is approprate to start with Mario, as he is the first of the so-called Lost Boys we came to know back in California. Mario is a graduate of University of San Francisco, and my mom was introduced to him by a Christian missionary, Ursula. My mom traveled to Somalia and Haiti with Ursula before realizing that she could accomplish more on humanitarian trips if she ventured out on her own, unfettered by organized religious/bureaucratic organizations. She continued to keep in touch with Mario and his Sudanese friends-Deng, Mamer, and a lot of others who knew each other either from refugee camps or after coming to the US. They were almost all involved in NGO work for Sudan, so my mom and I got involved through them. Last year, she went to Kenya with my dad to meet some of the students who she was introduced to by Mario and who she now sponsors. As I wrote before, this year, our aim is to expand the program, God willing. We haven't gotten any outside funding yet (grants, etc) but to continue to see the project grow (and there is a desperate need for that!), we plan to actively pursue other sources of funding.
Anyway, another member of the team is Deng, also studying in the US. Deng is a softspoken but adamantly just man who plans to get his masters in public health at Touro Univ. in Vallejo, CA. He is a college graduate. He is with us in Kenya right now, but just returned from his marriage in Sudan to a young woman he met in Kakuma refugee camp. They have two kids. He is forever arguing for us to make the most fair decisions regarding students: for instance, not discriminating against Ugandan applicants just because they are in Uganda (and thus harder to keep track of), and not discriminating against students who seem to look better off (what, do we need them to look dirty and bad to sponsor them? he asked last Sunday).
Kwai is another member, but I think I devoted plenty of time to him in my last post. A blessing to the project and more importantly, to SUdanese refugees in Kenya, period.
Then there's Mayen. He's also a refugee who was kidnapped by the SPLA but escaped with Chol, another one in Sudan right now for a school project (Chol did a lot of the organizational work for the project here in Nairobi while me and my mom were in Mexico and at home in CA, respectively). Mayen has two brothers, both of whom are in the US/Canada. They won the lottery like Mario did. He should have gone too, but his paperwork was lost. He's studying catering in college. He's a loyal, hardworking, resourceful, honest, accountable guy, always ready to help his people and their cause. As he told us in Nakuru: I don't care if I have to sleep under a tree, as long as the work gets done. I am learning from his example. He also likes rap music, so I'm going to make him some CD's once I have access to my laptop again.
And finally, there’s Agou Jon. He goes by Agou but I’ve only known him as Jon. I met him over email last year when he wrote to me, telling me about his studies. He had gotten admission to Moi University to study medicine. Moi is a prestigious public university here in Kenya. It’s even harder to get into med school here than in the US, which is saying a LOT (trust me). But he had no money to pay (like everywhere else in the world, studying to be an MD is extremely costly). So he gave it up, and decided to study communications instead. Of course, he excels at it, and USAID is doing creative projects using the radio to bring education to Sudanese, but I can’t help thinking that he would be of much greater service to his people as a doctor. And at least equally as importantly, I believe he’d get more satisfaction from it. Just my .02. Personally, I hope he finishes his current degree and then pursues funding (maybe a Universal Unity scholarship?) next year for medicine. The cost is $7,000 per year for four years. Anyone have any ideas? He is just so capable and dedicated. For instance, on Sunday in Nakuru, we divided up the labor of drawing up cost estimates for each candidate we’d narrowed the list down to. He took university students and I did high school boys and girls. He had class on Monday, but still came at 6pm with a neat Excel spreadsheet detailing everything. Knowing how prepared he would be, I did the same by hand (no laptop), calling all the schools I could in order to find out term costs in each school (each term is priced differently, and there are four forms in high school, three terms per form). I am inspired by his work ethic, as I am by Chol’s, Mayen’s, Kwai’s and Deng’s.
As I mentioned before, some of these students knew each other long before we got to know them as individuals. Mayen told us about how they all knew each other before this, back in Ethiopia and Sudan. Apparently, Chol snuck Mayen out of the SPLA camp at one point, and then himself escaped. In Kenya, Mayen met Mario. They were refugees trying to survive. Mario would bring food, Mayen and others would search for water, and still others would bring firewood back to the bush. Everyone knew Mario because he would bring the food and then distribute it, first to the little ones (like Mayen, back then) and then to the adults. Hearing this made me realize that there’s a whole history I know nothing about, and I have to be humble and keep my eyes, ears and brain wide open to learn as much as possible as I insert myself into this social network.
It is approprate to start with Mario, as he is the first of the so-called Lost Boys we came to know back in California. Mario is a graduate of University of San Francisco, and my mom was introduced to him by a Christian missionary, Ursula. My mom traveled to Somalia and Haiti with Ursula before realizing that she could accomplish more on humanitarian trips if she ventured out on her own, unfettered by organized religious/bureaucratic organizations. She continued to keep in touch with Mario and his Sudanese friends-Deng, Mamer, and a lot of others who knew each other either from refugee camps or after coming to the US. They were almost all involved in NGO work for Sudan, so my mom and I got involved through them. Last year, she went to Kenya with my dad to meet some of the students who she was introduced to by Mario and who she now sponsors. As I wrote before, this year, our aim is to expand the program, God willing. We haven't gotten any outside funding yet (grants, etc) but to continue to see the project grow (and there is a desperate need for that!), we plan to actively pursue other sources of funding.
Anyway, another member of the team is Deng, also studying in the US. Deng is a softspoken but adamantly just man who plans to get his masters in public health at Touro Univ. in Vallejo, CA. He is a college graduate. He is with us in Kenya right now, but just returned from his marriage in Sudan to a young woman he met in Kakuma refugee camp. They have two kids. He is forever arguing for us to make the most fair decisions regarding students: for instance, not discriminating against Ugandan applicants just because they are in Uganda (and thus harder to keep track of), and not discriminating against students who seem to look better off (what, do we need them to look dirty and bad to sponsor them? he asked last Sunday).
Kwai is another member, but I think I devoted plenty of time to him in my last post. A blessing to the project and more importantly, to SUdanese refugees in Kenya, period.
Then there's Mayen. He's also a refugee who was kidnapped by the SPLA but escaped with Chol, another one in Sudan right now for a school project (Chol did a lot of the organizational work for the project here in Nairobi while me and my mom were in Mexico and at home in CA, respectively). Mayen has two brothers, both of whom are in the US/Canada. They won the lottery like Mario did. He should have gone too, but his paperwork was lost. He's studying catering in college. He's a loyal, hardworking, resourceful, honest, accountable guy, always ready to help his people and their cause. As he told us in Nakuru: I don't care if I have to sleep under a tree, as long as the work gets done. I am learning from his example. He also likes rap music, so I'm going to make him some CD's once I have access to my laptop again.
And finally, there’s Agou Jon. He goes by Agou but I’ve only known him as Jon. I met him over email last year when he wrote to me, telling me about his studies. He had gotten admission to Moi University to study medicine. Moi is a prestigious public university here in Kenya. It’s even harder to get into med school here than in the US, which is saying a LOT (trust me). But he had no money to pay (like everywhere else in the world, studying to be an MD is extremely costly). So he gave it up, and decided to study communications instead. Of course, he excels at it, and USAID is doing creative projects using the radio to bring education to Sudanese, but I can’t help thinking that he would be of much greater service to his people as a doctor. And at least equally as importantly, I believe he’d get more satisfaction from it. Just my .02. Personally, I hope he finishes his current degree and then pursues funding (maybe a Universal Unity scholarship?) next year for medicine. The cost is $7,000 per year for four years. Anyone have any ideas? He is just so capable and dedicated. For instance, on Sunday in Nakuru, we divided up the labor of drawing up cost estimates for each candidate we’d narrowed the list down to. He took university students and I did high school boys and girls. He had class on Monday, but still came at 6pm with a neat Excel spreadsheet detailing everything. Knowing how prepared he would be, I did the same by hand (no laptop), calling all the schools I could in order to find out term costs in each school (each term is priced differently, and there are four forms in high school, three terms per form). I am inspired by his work ethic, as I am by Chol’s, Mayen’s, Kwai’s and Deng’s.
As I mentioned before, some of these students knew each other long before we got to know them as individuals. Mayen told us about how they all knew each other before this, back in Ethiopia and Sudan. Apparently, Chol snuck Mayen out of the SPLA camp at one point, and then himself escaped. In Kenya, Mayen met Mario. They were refugees trying to survive. Mario would bring food, Mayen and others would search for water, and still others would bring firewood back to the bush. Everyone knew Mario because he would bring the food and then distribute it, first to the little ones (like Mayen, back then) and then to the adults. Hearing this made me realize that there’s a whole history I know nothing about, and I have to be humble and keep my eyes, ears and brain wide open to learn as much as possible as I insert myself into this social network.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Back in Nairobi!
It occurred to me that I didn't exactly introduce what me and my mom are here in Kenya to do. Basically, we have accrued through my mom's non-profit organization a sum of money that we would like to now invest in Sudanese refugee children's education here in Kenya. My mom got to know some of the "Lost Boys of Sudan"; students who won a lottery established in the U.S. to bring Sudanese boys living in refugee camps to study in American universities. She developed a relationship with them and as they graduated from universities like San Jose State and University of San Francisco, she realized that they were determined to go back to Kenya and work for change for Sudan. And she wanted to be a part of it. She is already sponsoring 5 or so Sudanese students going to college in Kenya, so this was an extension of a network that was already in place, by God's grace.
So Mario, Deng, and other students from the U.S. (who come back to Kenya when grant money and other means are available) put the word out to the Sudanese refugees studying here, some of whom are my mom's students. They were happy to put up fliers in refugee camps like Kakuma, and schools where Sudanese refugees study. In this way, by the time we got here on Thursday, there were over a hundred secondary school and university students (or hopeful students) waiting for us with their biographies, life stories, and copies of their grades and other documents that might help us make a decision.
Over the weekend, we were in Nakuru, a two hour drive from Nairobi. There are lots of Sudanese refugee students there and we had an even longer day of interviewing than we had in Nairobi the day before. But it was great to meet all the students. My heart broke for the ones who were very nervous, as well as for the ones who had lost a parent (or both). So many have no idea where their parents are. So many have lost their parents to the war. So many woke up from hiding in the bushes from bombs at night, to find that family members were missing in the morning.
So many walked to Ethiopia, then out of Ethiopia and back to Sudan when war broke out in 1991, and then Kenya when life in Sudan became too dangerous to continue. They didn't know they were en route to Kenya. They were just following the masses of refugees.
We spoke more with Kwai, who I mentioned in my first post: he's the coordinator of the donated Sudanese community office in Nairobi. It's called PARAD: Penkyou Agency for Relief and Development. He's an awesome guy, and a great resource for the students. He went with us to Nakuru and was one of our greatest assets. We didn't know much about him until we finally shared a couple of meals together. He was a former SPLA fighter (Sudanese People's Liberation Army; we met others who were kidnapped as children by the SPLA and then taken to Ethiopia before the Ethiopian war, and fed and clothed until they were old enough to either escape or be sent out to fight with AK-47's). He fought for the SPLA and then somehow got to Kenya as a refugee, where he was a teacher in Kakuma camp. Then he got to this post at PARAD, where he helps anyone and everyone in the Sudanese community.
Kwai was deployed by the U.N. (last year? can't remember) on a peace mission tothe Murlee tribe of Sudan. I am finding from interviewing students that one of the most commmon reasons for poverty and refugee status is the Murlee warriors. The Dinka and the Nueri tribes are frequently attacked by the Murlees, who steal children and cattle. Apparently, they suffer from STD's and some of them are left barren; Kwai says he hasn't seen any Murlee boys in their community, only Dinka and Nueri (perhaps stolen or bought). They even wanted to buy him when he was a young boy!
Anyway, so he was deployed with a team of 7 other Dinka and 2 Kenyans to Sudan. Their mission was public health: they didn't want to hold the Murlee accountable, they only wanted to give them what they obviously lacked: food and water (probably the reason for their reliance on thievery to subsist). They came expressing their desire to help with finding water, and drilled holes to 100 meters searching for a water source, with no luck. The Murlee got angry, starting to mistrust the team, and Kwai said he was truly afraid they'd attack. So he called the U.N. and got permission to drill to 120 meters, and a plane dropped more supplies so that they could continue their mission. They found water and drilled a lot of holes, and the Murlee celebrated with their tribal dances and by smearing cow dung, blood and saliva on Kwai and his team.
Despite their portrayal as guerrilla warriors and terrorists (as far as I know), the SPLA doesn't seem to be held in contempt by the Sudanese people I've been talking to. They steal kids and give them AK-47's, but I think in Sudan, where you have the Murlee and the Arabs terrorizing peaceful tribes, the SPLA stands against them, and is probably not too badly received. In fact, they seem to be somewhat well-received; in another moment of danger, when leaving the Murlees, Kwai had to call for emergency protection and the SPLA came to his rescue, surrounding the area with troops while a U.N. plane came to airlift his team out of Sudan.
Yesterday and today were devoted to compiling all the students’ information, including grades, schools, family status (Which is an indication of need…orphan? One parent? Father or mother? Who currently pays school fees, if anyone?), how many terms they have left (there are three terms per year for a high school student), and all sorts of other helpful information. We also narrowed down the list to about 12 university candidates, 12 high school boys, and 10 high school girls. It was definitely a two-day job, with me on the phone to all the high schools I could reach to confirm fees, and Jon making an excel sheet of estimated costs for all the university candidates. Yesterday, we also visited three girls’ schools, as educating girls is a priority of ours. We were not impressed with any, but got a lot of insight into what life is like for a student. You’re not allowed to go to your room anytime you want (as a boarder); they lock the rooms from 6am to 9pm because otherwise people steal from the rooms. Crime is such a danger in schools that you can’t even keep any pocket money with you; you have to leave it in the main office and take it out as you need it.
Today, we had two more last minute interviews, one for high school and one for college. One of the candidates was a 17 year old boy whose mom currently works for the SPLA and earns $100USD a month (the reason for her joining). She tries to support her son, but she has four kids. They are all in Kakuma refugee camp, and she is back in Sudan. Their father was killed. He is a straight-A student. The only hindrance to his studies is his ulcers. I think he’s so afraid to eat because of the grinding pain that he simply doesn’t eat except for the sake of survival (in fact, most Sudanese I meet only eat twice a day, or even just once, just something to keep them alive, even in Kenya). He is so thin! I talked to him at length about food at schools, and it’s hard because the schools have a set menu and his ulcers make it impossible to eat some of what they give. I asked him to buy bread with some money, but he can’t take any outside food to his boarding school; if he does, the administration will search him and take it away! Why? For fear of stealing. Yes, even a loaf of bread.
Sudanese are definitely treated differently in society. Today I was reminded of this fact yet again. We had borrowed a stapler at the motel we did most of our work at yesterday. Today, we borrowed another stapler. It looked very similar to the one we were using yesterday, and I wondered if one of us had mistakenly taken it from the motel in Nakuru. It turned out that we hadn’t, it was just a very similar-looking stapler (broken in the same way). But Mayen, one of the boys on our team, then mentioned to us that yesterday, someone called the police and told them that two Sudanese boys had stolen a stapler from the front desk. The truth is, we were all using that stapler! I had borrowed it earlier in the morning and returned it; he had come back because we needed it again. I was so angry…how unfair. The things they have to deal with in terms of discrimination, on top of lack of food and having gone through so much.
Ok this is the longest blog ever, so I’ll have to save some of this for later.
So Mario, Deng, and other students from the U.S. (who come back to Kenya when grant money and other means are available) put the word out to the Sudanese refugees studying here, some of whom are my mom's students. They were happy to put up fliers in refugee camps like Kakuma, and schools where Sudanese refugees study. In this way, by the time we got here on Thursday, there were over a hundred secondary school and university students (or hopeful students) waiting for us with their biographies, life stories, and copies of their grades and other documents that might help us make a decision.
Over the weekend, we were in Nakuru, a two hour drive from Nairobi. There are lots of Sudanese refugee students there and we had an even longer day of interviewing than we had in Nairobi the day before. But it was great to meet all the students. My heart broke for the ones who were very nervous, as well as for the ones who had lost a parent (or both). So many have no idea where their parents are. So many have lost their parents to the war. So many woke up from hiding in the bushes from bombs at night, to find that family members were missing in the morning.
So many walked to Ethiopia, then out of Ethiopia and back to Sudan when war broke out in 1991, and then Kenya when life in Sudan became too dangerous to continue. They didn't know they were en route to Kenya. They were just following the masses of refugees.
We spoke more with Kwai, who I mentioned in my first post: he's the coordinator of the donated Sudanese community office in Nairobi. It's called PARAD: Penkyou Agency for Relief and Development. He's an awesome guy, and a great resource for the students. He went with us to Nakuru and was one of our greatest assets. We didn't know much about him until we finally shared a couple of meals together. He was a former SPLA fighter (Sudanese People's Liberation Army; we met others who were kidnapped as children by the SPLA and then taken to Ethiopia before the Ethiopian war, and fed and clothed until they were old enough to either escape or be sent out to fight with AK-47's). He fought for the SPLA and then somehow got to Kenya as a refugee, where he was a teacher in Kakuma camp. Then he got to this post at PARAD, where he helps anyone and everyone in the Sudanese community.
Kwai was deployed by the U.N. (last year? can't remember) on a peace mission tothe Murlee tribe of Sudan. I am finding from interviewing students that one of the most commmon reasons for poverty and refugee status is the Murlee warriors. The Dinka and the Nueri tribes are frequently attacked by the Murlees, who steal children and cattle. Apparently, they suffer from STD's and some of them are left barren; Kwai says he hasn't seen any Murlee boys in their community, only Dinka and Nueri (perhaps stolen or bought). They even wanted to buy him when he was a young boy!
Anyway, so he was deployed with a team of 7 other Dinka and 2 Kenyans to Sudan. Their mission was public health: they didn't want to hold the Murlee accountable, they only wanted to give them what they obviously lacked: food and water (probably the reason for their reliance on thievery to subsist). They came expressing their desire to help with finding water, and drilled holes to 100 meters searching for a water source, with no luck. The Murlee got angry, starting to mistrust the team, and Kwai said he was truly afraid they'd attack. So he called the U.N. and got permission to drill to 120 meters, and a plane dropped more supplies so that they could continue their mission. They found water and drilled a lot of holes, and the Murlee celebrated with their tribal dances and by smearing cow dung, blood and saliva on Kwai and his team.
Despite their portrayal as guerrilla warriors and terrorists (as far as I know), the SPLA doesn't seem to be held in contempt by the Sudanese people I've been talking to. They steal kids and give them AK-47's, but I think in Sudan, where you have the Murlee and the Arabs terrorizing peaceful tribes, the SPLA stands against them, and is probably not too badly received. In fact, they seem to be somewhat well-received; in another moment of danger, when leaving the Murlees, Kwai had to call for emergency protection and the SPLA came to his rescue, surrounding the area with troops while a U.N. plane came to airlift his team out of Sudan.
Yesterday and today were devoted to compiling all the students’ information, including grades, schools, family status (Which is an indication of need…orphan? One parent? Father or mother? Who currently pays school fees, if anyone?), how many terms they have left (there are three terms per year for a high school student), and all sorts of other helpful information. We also narrowed down the list to about 12 university candidates, 12 high school boys, and 10 high school girls. It was definitely a two-day job, with me on the phone to all the high schools I could reach to confirm fees, and Jon making an excel sheet of estimated costs for all the university candidates. Yesterday, we also visited three girls’ schools, as educating girls is a priority of ours. We were not impressed with any, but got a lot of insight into what life is like for a student. You’re not allowed to go to your room anytime you want (as a boarder); they lock the rooms from 6am to 9pm because otherwise people steal from the rooms. Crime is such a danger in schools that you can’t even keep any pocket money with you; you have to leave it in the main office and take it out as you need it.
Today, we had two more last minute interviews, one for high school and one for college. One of the candidates was a 17 year old boy whose mom currently works for the SPLA and earns $100USD a month (the reason for her joining). She tries to support her son, but she has four kids. They are all in Kakuma refugee camp, and she is back in Sudan. Their father was killed. He is a straight-A student. The only hindrance to his studies is his ulcers. I think he’s so afraid to eat because of the grinding pain that he simply doesn’t eat except for the sake of survival (in fact, most Sudanese I meet only eat twice a day, or even just once, just something to keep them alive, even in Kenya). He is so thin! I talked to him at length about food at schools, and it’s hard because the schools have a set menu and his ulcers make it impossible to eat some of what they give. I asked him to buy bread with some money, but he can’t take any outside food to his boarding school; if he does, the administration will search him and take it away! Why? For fear of stealing. Yes, even a loaf of bread.
Sudanese are definitely treated differently in society. Today I was reminded of this fact yet again. We had borrowed a stapler at the motel we did most of our work at yesterday. Today, we borrowed another stapler. It looked very similar to the one we were using yesterday, and I wondered if one of us had mistakenly taken it from the motel in Nakuru. It turned out that we hadn’t, it was just a very similar-looking stapler (broken in the same way). But Mayen, one of the boys on our team, then mentioned to us that yesterday, someone called the police and told them that two Sudanese boys had stolen a stapler from the front desk. The truth is, we were all using that stapler! I had borrowed it earlier in the morning and returned it; he had come back because we needed it again. I was so angry…how unfair. The things they have to deal with in terms of discrimination, on top of lack of food and having gone through so much.
Ok this is the longest blog ever, so I’ll have to save some of this for later.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Kenya, so far
so we had a whilrwind first two days in kenya, starting early morning friday to see all the college students we had lined up to select for scholarships. lots of students came to the donated sudanese "office" in nairobi, and we ended up splitting up into two teams with me and mom working separately, so we could see everyone in a timely fashion both for the students' sake and ours. some of these kids came from really far so we had to see them, no matter whether they were promising or not.
to hear them describe what they go through as you try to figure out how they live, how they study, what their plans are, is really something else. another post.
after a hectic first day, this morning we woke up super early (like 2am) because we couldn't sleep. late night i had been compiling all the student information into one coherent master list, so at 3 or 4 mom and i decided to work on it together as neither of us could sleep anyway. so we ate the emergency quaker granola bars and finished the list, two separate ones, one for college and one for high school candidates.
then at 6 we started to get ready to check out of the hotel already for nakuru, where we are now. nakuru is a couple hours away from nairobi, and it is where a lot of high school candidates are. so we came here. there were lots more high school students waiting for us than college. we ended up seeing 35 yesterday, not sure yet how many today. we just got done and went to eat food, and then came here. we are restless but zombielike because of the jet lag.
on the way to nakuru we were told we'd have to stop and vacate the car and be inspected by police because there have been recent cases of people with guns in buses like ours, but it didn't happen.
the sudanese are definitely treated differently here. you can tell they are different by their facial features and they are a lot blacker than kenyans. we don't understand swahili but we understand they are called by their nationality "sudanese" sometimes and this evening one of the students claimed he needed 3,000 kenyan shillings (conversion: 67 KSh = 1 dollar) to get home because the police stop him and take money from him, and he's in trouble if he doesn't have the cash.
there are lots of stories like this going around. i tend to believe them despite how awful they sound because they are so alike among sudanese refugees, and because they tell you the truth even when they don't have to (for instance we ask, what are your grades? they will tell you B- or whatever they are even when they didn't bring their documents. they could just say A, right?). anyway.
i am surprised to find who i like working with and who i almost cannot tolerate. i really like john agou, and deng, and chol, and mayen. i am on a short string with mario, who is from the US and got 8,000 through Univ Unity to check things out in Sudan. i just lost my patience after awhile. and after the 30th interview you're just like please...but mayen is really honest and hardworking, and chol always has a smile on his face, and john has a cool head but he notices a lot of things, and kwai is another one who is coordinating everything behind the scenes. we couldn't do this without them. they made the lists and told everyone when and where to come, and had staplers to staple documents, and gave us the applications as the students came in to ensure steady flow to get things done efficiently, etc. etc. we really have to be grateful.
now we have the even more daunting task of going through all this information and selecting the students. we wanted 5 girls and 5 boys for college and 15 high school students in roughly the same gender proportions. it's tough to find college girls, easier to find female high school candidates. but we have so much information on so many candidates, and because we split up into two groups over two full interview days, we have to communicate so everyone is up to date on every candidate and we can all make a fair, informed decision. not to mention that we haven't done proper justice to the essays of each applicant, so we have to do that.
we are also taking photos of each applicant to put together with their scanned autobiographies and other school documents, to create a profile online of each of these students, so that their efforts in applying to Universal Unity scholarships will not be in vain, God willing. our hope is to put each of their profiles up on the internet, and publicize it so that donors can be connected with these students and can put money toward their tuition, kind of like kiva.org. this was reshma's idea and i think it is an excellent one. we want to show appreciation for the fact that they came all this way and overcame so much hardship to pursue their desire to study, jumping through our hoops of paperwork, essay, and face-to-face interview. none of this could have been easy.
tomorrow we are going to see lake nakuru, apparently there are flamingoes there so we will hopefully visit for awhile. nakuru is not a big city, but it is definitely a town and not a village, so there is a lot of commerce and traffic here. i want to walk the streets more and get more of a feel of what life is like here before we leave on monday morning. and of course, we have a LOT to talk about regarding the candidates we have interviewed!
to hear them describe what they go through as you try to figure out how they live, how they study, what their plans are, is really something else. another post.
after a hectic first day, this morning we woke up super early (like 2am) because we couldn't sleep. late night i had been compiling all the student information into one coherent master list, so at 3 or 4 mom and i decided to work on it together as neither of us could sleep anyway. so we ate the emergency quaker granola bars and finished the list, two separate ones, one for college and one for high school candidates.
then at 6 we started to get ready to check out of the hotel already for nakuru, where we are now. nakuru is a couple hours away from nairobi, and it is where a lot of high school candidates are. so we came here. there were lots more high school students waiting for us than college. we ended up seeing 35 yesterday, not sure yet how many today. we just got done and went to eat food, and then came here. we are restless but zombielike because of the jet lag.
on the way to nakuru we were told we'd have to stop and vacate the car and be inspected by police because there have been recent cases of people with guns in buses like ours, but it didn't happen.
the sudanese are definitely treated differently here. you can tell they are different by their facial features and they are a lot blacker than kenyans. we don't understand swahili but we understand they are called by their nationality "sudanese" sometimes and this evening one of the students claimed he needed 3,000 kenyan shillings (conversion: 67 KSh = 1 dollar) to get home because the police stop him and take money from him, and he's in trouble if he doesn't have the cash.
there are lots of stories like this going around. i tend to believe them despite how awful they sound because they are so alike among sudanese refugees, and because they tell you the truth even when they don't have to (for instance we ask, what are your grades? they will tell you B- or whatever they are even when they didn't bring their documents. they could just say A, right?). anyway.
i am surprised to find who i like working with and who i almost cannot tolerate. i really like john agou, and deng, and chol, and mayen. i am on a short string with mario, who is from the US and got 8,000 through Univ Unity to check things out in Sudan. i just lost my patience after awhile. and after the 30th interview you're just like please...but mayen is really honest and hardworking, and chol always has a smile on his face, and john has a cool head but he notices a lot of things, and kwai is another one who is coordinating everything behind the scenes. we couldn't do this without them. they made the lists and told everyone when and where to come, and had staplers to staple documents, and gave us the applications as the students came in to ensure steady flow to get things done efficiently, etc. etc. we really have to be grateful.
now we have the even more daunting task of going through all this information and selecting the students. we wanted 5 girls and 5 boys for college and 15 high school students in roughly the same gender proportions. it's tough to find college girls, easier to find female high school candidates. but we have so much information on so many candidates, and because we split up into two groups over two full interview days, we have to communicate so everyone is up to date on every candidate and we can all make a fair, informed decision. not to mention that we haven't done proper justice to the essays of each applicant, so we have to do that.
we are also taking photos of each applicant to put together with their scanned autobiographies and other school documents, to create a profile online of each of these students, so that their efforts in applying to Universal Unity scholarships will not be in vain, God willing. our hope is to put each of their profiles up on the internet, and publicize it so that donors can be connected with these students and can put money toward their tuition, kind of like kiva.org. this was reshma's idea and i think it is an excellent one. we want to show appreciation for the fact that they came all this way and overcame so much hardship to pursue their desire to study, jumping through our hoops of paperwork, essay, and face-to-face interview. none of this could have been easy.
tomorrow we are going to see lake nakuru, apparently there are flamingoes there so we will hopefully visit for awhile. nakuru is not a big city, but it is definitely a town and not a village, so there is a lot of commerce and traffic here. i want to walk the streets more and get more of a feel of what life is like here before we leave on monday morning. and of course, we have a LOT to talk about regarding the candidates we have interviewed!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Liberation Theology
I'm writing this post fresh off the beginning of what I hope will be a lifelong commitment to the betterment of public health in the rural highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Sounds like a lofty statement. That's probably because it is.
Anyway, it was an amazing experience, meriting its own blog (estufasenchiapas.blogspot.com). I got back a couple days ago, ate my weight in junk food, and am leaving for Kenya tonight. Hey, they said it was our last summer and I believed them, so I figured I better do it big.
Chiapas was about getting stoves to families that cook with open fires, and Kenya is about educating Sudanese refugee kids. Disparate projects, but they seem to have one disturbing theme in common, the topic of which is this blog entry: liberation theology.
It's no surprise that religious groups are doing good work in resource-poor areas. After all, one of the basic tenets of any religious faith is to help those in need. It's not disturbing to me that Christians (or Muslims or Jews, for that matter) are putting Sudanese orphans through school or contributing to the empowerment of native Mexicans in Chiapas. What is disturbing (to me, that is) is that an undeniable byproduct of their aid is the conversion of the disenfranchised to the faith of their benefactors.
Now, it may well be the case that I am the only one bothered by this observation. Perhaps the recipients of faith-based organizational aid are unfettered by, or even grateful for, the importation of institutional religion into their cultures and communities. That's not for me to say, and there has been such a profound interweaving of ideas since as far back as the 16th century that the complexities are pretty great.
I believe in God, but inseparable from my faith is my conviction that everyone should use their own eyes, ears and brains to figure out what makes sense for themselves. For some reason, the disenfranchised of this world have endured the structural violence of hegemonic relationships for so long now that some of them seem more apt to accept what they are told (even by those who created those hegemonies) than to think for themselves. As Jaime from Medicos del Mundo told me and my crew in Chiapas a couple weeks ago, if you tell an indigenous man that this piece of paper is worth $1,000 pesos, he will believe you. This observation, to me, is potentially almost as disturbing and destructive as Hernan Cortes was to the Aztecs, or as NAFTA has been to the campesino. I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.
So how do we empower the have-nots to think for themselves? How do we get to the point where as we objectify them by talking about them as the "have-nots", they too are creating social constructs in which we are pinned as the "haves", creating a way of seeing the world that makes sense to them and in which they have agency and can affect change?
Health and education are the only things I can come up with.
Health + education = agency. Health and education = object --> subject.
This post was supposed to be about liberation theology, so I guess I should say things about that now.
Mainly, I am concerned about the mixing of charitable work and religion. I think it's perfectly fine to share your religious beliefs with others. I definitely do. But sharing beliefs is different from building a church in the local community and tying aid (whether it's education, medicines, housing) to evangelism. In my opinion, it creates in people an unnecessary association between a hand up in life, and a particular way of thinking about the world (ie, Christ is going to save me). It creates in someone whose needs are so great that they don't have the luxury of choice, particular ideas about reality that ought to be his or her decision to make. And in fact, in many of these communities, despite big churches and crosses, people maintain their native ideas about life. And they are often in direct conflict with European religious constructs.
Case in point: I receive emails from Sudanese refugees living in Kenya trying to scrape money together to go to university. One of them wrote to me addressing me as his "sister in Christ". I don't believe that Christ is going to save me, I just believe in God alone, so I mentioned that to him. He wrote me back, and it was a worried email in which he apologized for having "misspoken" and written about Christ. He reassured me that he believed in God alone. And then he asked me again about school fees.
Am I to hold him in contempt for verbally conforming to my own beliefs in the hopes that it will secure some financial stability for his schooling? Definitely not. But I know that there is a strong Christian presence in Sudanese refugee aid efforts, and I am frankly suspicious that it has directly resulted in a large number of "Christian" refugees. What they want/need is a hand up in life, and there isn't much they are not willing to say or do to get it. I would, too, in their shoes.
Nor, however, do I hold religious NGOs in contempt. They are not force-feeding their beneficiaries with their own brand of theology. One can even see the conversion of native Mexicans to Christianity during aid efforts (ie, liberation theology) as an inevitable byproduct of such charitable projects. But I strongly believe that those spearheading these projects should be aware that instead of urging their own religious beliefs (voice them, yes, but voicing is different from evangelizing), they should exhort their charges to use their brains and think for themselves, and then give them the freedom to make their own choices.
And what is freedom? How do you give it to a person? By fighting to increase their access to health and education, I think.
Anyway, it was an amazing experience, meriting its own blog (estufasenchiapas.blogspot.com). I got back a couple days ago, ate my weight in junk food, and am leaving for Kenya tonight. Hey, they said it was our last summer and I believed them, so I figured I better do it big.
Chiapas was about getting stoves to families that cook with open fires, and Kenya is about educating Sudanese refugee kids. Disparate projects, but they seem to have one disturbing theme in common, the topic of which is this blog entry: liberation theology.
It's no surprise that religious groups are doing good work in resource-poor areas. After all, one of the basic tenets of any religious faith is to help those in need. It's not disturbing to me that Christians (or Muslims or Jews, for that matter) are putting Sudanese orphans through school or contributing to the empowerment of native Mexicans in Chiapas. What is disturbing (to me, that is) is that an undeniable byproduct of their aid is the conversion of the disenfranchised to the faith of their benefactors.
Now, it may well be the case that I am the only one bothered by this observation. Perhaps the recipients of faith-based organizational aid are unfettered by, or even grateful for, the importation of institutional religion into their cultures and communities. That's not for me to say, and there has been such a profound interweaving of ideas since as far back as the 16th century that the complexities are pretty great.
I believe in God, but inseparable from my faith is my conviction that everyone should use their own eyes, ears and brains to figure out what makes sense for themselves. For some reason, the disenfranchised of this world have endured the structural violence of hegemonic relationships for so long now that some of them seem more apt to accept what they are told (even by those who created those hegemonies) than to think for themselves. As Jaime from Medicos del Mundo told me and my crew in Chiapas a couple weeks ago, if you tell an indigenous man that this piece of paper is worth $1,000 pesos, he will believe you. This observation, to me, is potentially almost as disturbing and destructive as Hernan Cortes was to the Aztecs, or as NAFTA has been to the campesino. I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.
So how do we empower the have-nots to think for themselves? How do we get to the point where as we objectify them by talking about them as the "have-nots", they too are creating social constructs in which we are pinned as the "haves", creating a way of seeing the world that makes sense to them and in which they have agency and can affect change?
Health and education are the only things I can come up with.
Health + education = agency. Health and education = object --> subject.
This post was supposed to be about liberation theology, so I guess I should say things about that now.
Mainly, I am concerned about the mixing of charitable work and religion. I think it's perfectly fine to share your religious beliefs with others. I definitely do. But sharing beliefs is different from building a church in the local community and tying aid (whether it's education, medicines, housing) to evangelism. In my opinion, it creates in people an unnecessary association between a hand up in life, and a particular way of thinking about the world (ie, Christ is going to save me). It creates in someone whose needs are so great that they don't have the luxury of choice, particular ideas about reality that ought to be his or her decision to make. And in fact, in many of these communities, despite big churches and crosses, people maintain their native ideas about life. And they are often in direct conflict with European religious constructs.
Case in point: I receive emails from Sudanese refugees living in Kenya trying to scrape money together to go to university. One of them wrote to me addressing me as his "sister in Christ". I don't believe that Christ is going to save me, I just believe in God alone, so I mentioned that to him. He wrote me back, and it was a worried email in which he apologized for having "misspoken" and written about Christ. He reassured me that he believed in God alone. And then he asked me again about school fees.
Am I to hold him in contempt for verbally conforming to my own beliefs in the hopes that it will secure some financial stability for his schooling? Definitely not. But I know that there is a strong Christian presence in Sudanese refugee aid efforts, and I am frankly suspicious that it has directly resulted in a large number of "Christian" refugees. What they want/need is a hand up in life, and there isn't much they are not willing to say or do to get it. I would, too, in their shoes.
Nor, however, do I hold religious NGOs in contempt. They are not force-feeding their beneficiaries with their own brand of theology. One can even see the conversion of native Mexicans to Christianity during aid efforts (ie, liberation theology) as an inevitable byproduct of such charitable projects. But I strongly believe that those spearheading these projects should be aware that instead of urging their own religious beliefs (voice them, yes, but voicing is different from evangelizing), they should exhort their charges to use their brains and think for themselves, and then give them the freedom to make their own choices.
And what is freedom? How do you give it to a person? By fighting to increase their access to health and education, I think.
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