Other new friends

From the top ....
-white browed robin chat
-beautiful sunbird
-wire tailed swallow
-kenya rufous sparrow
-amethyst sunbird

For body and soul

Any travel to a different place should include new tastes and new foods. While most of what I've been eating here is somewhat familiar, perhaps the outstanding feature is how fresh everything is.
Mostly what you'll read and see in this blog is grown/raised in w. Kenya, and is in the market soon after its harvested. Its a very lush area, receiving rainfall through the year, but also abundant sunshine, and though we 're on the equator, temperatures are moderated by altitude - Kakamega is at 5,000 ft.
Check out the fruit/veg basket in my kitchen - sweet potato, green pepper, oranges, bananas, avocado(from the garden), tomatoes and onions.





A staple food in Kenya is ugali - a stiff cornmeal
porridge (or stodge, as some unimpressed visitors label it)
Its eaten with the right hand, and usually with sukuma wiki (greens, usually chard) and chicken or beef stew. Here's my version with ugali (L) cabbage subbing for greens with tomato and onion(R), and chicken( top centre).

Joel found it quite amusing that I had never slaughtered a chicken, and so he was my teacher.
We went together to market, and he chose one for me, and the bird came home trussed up in Joels keeping on the rear of the Yamaha.

The head was quickly removed, and then the body immersed in boiling water to allow the feathers to come off easily. (see feathers by pail)
Once shorn, Joel removed the organs and intestines (much to the dog Akwenye's delight for obvious reasons) - see banana leaves as the cutting surface at left.
Chopped up into pieces, Joel went home with some, and the rest went into my oven.



Alive at 5, on the plate at 7 - I've never had fresher meat, although it was tougher than home, but thats how life is in Kenya.


And to finish off this episode, here are the liquids that begin and end the day -
Kenyan brewed tea comes piping hot, very milky, and extremely sweet. Morning tea is a feature here at CHES with the staff gathering for a lovely cuppa and a chat. I think my Irish upbringing allows me to enjoy the tea, but I'm not sure what the folks at Silk Road would say about it.
Tusker is the best known Kenyan lager and goes down a treat at sunset.















So, while the food may not be for connisseurs, its fresh and fairly abundant, and though the population pressure on the land in w. Kenya is huge, it is one of the few areas of sub Saharan Africa that is food secure for the most part.
However, I am eating more and better than most.
From a lucky man in Kenya - kwaheri.

Market day in Kakamega

Wednesdays and Saturdays are the big market days in Kakamega.
Here are a few photos from my wanderings-

Shoes - we have black, or black
Cloth for sale
Joy and Josephine were hoping i was in the market for a wife or two!

Sewing for a living.

Beans

Pots for sale

Mangoes from a cool hat guy

Fingerlings from Lk Victoria - tried them-no thanks!

Onions and tomatoes
Bicycle boda boda - very common taxis to get around cheaply
Dudes selling wigs
Cassava root

Days in the life ...

My plan had been to write on the major news story in Kenya this week - the national referendum on a new constitution that took place on Wednesday. The background to this vote was the defeat of a previous attempt at reform in '05, and then some serious post general election violence in early '08, so there was certainly an element of drama in the air as the forces in favour and opposed rallyed their supporters in hectic campaigning as I arrived in the country.
However the girls stories topped the politics......



Winfred - CHES house, Kakamega, Aug'10

CHES provides scholarships to needy girls allowing them to attend boarding schools in the Kakamega district of Western province in Kenya.
These tend to be church run schools - RC, Anglican, with a strong emphasis on religious values (CRE - Christian Religious Education is a mandatory subject).
This did not surprise me, but talking to the girls about their school day did.
4:30am - Wake up call
5 - 6am - Independent reading
6 -7am - Cleaning dorms, school, and/or working in school shambas (gardens)
7 - 7:15 - Breakfast
7:15 - 8am - Homeroom or assembly
8am - 4pm - Classes with 1/2 hr for lunch (usually 11 -40 min classes)
4- 5:30pm - Games, sports
5:30 - 6pm - Dinner
6-9pm Evening prep, review,
9pm Lights out.
How many Canadians, teachers or students, would handle that kind of schedule!
but the amazing thing is they love it, and in fact some girls I spoke with were not looking forward to going home for the August holiday because conditions there would be a lot more difficult than school.
As I talk with the girls, some are clearly daunted to be speaking with an elderly mzungu (white person) and they are sometimes reluctant to talk about their lives as I try to gain insight; but by enlarge the fortitude they display, and the hope they live with thanks to CHES, humbles me on a daily basis.
In September the girls will return to boarding school, and I hope to be able to travel around the district to make school site visits - on my new Yamaha 100 motorbike!! More stories I'm sure.

Oh, and the new constitution? Passed peaceably by an over 2 to 1 majority, giving Kenyans new hope for a more democratic and equitable future, one for the CHES girls to be a part of.

Faces of Kenya

As the plane left Amsterdam for Nairobi I found myself out of luck - squeezed between the aisle and the window seats, but as it turned out, squeezed between two faces of Kenya.
By the window was Florence, a rounded Kenyan grandmother, returning from a Seventh Day Adventist conference in Atlanta - we quickly fell into conversation, and equally quickly she wanted to share her joy in Jesus Christ her saviour. Twenty minutes later her efforts were only renewed when I admitted to being a lapsed Ulster Presbyterian, however in the 21st minute I made it clear that the newspaper and world news were now demanding my attention, and she turned hers to "Singing with Jesus" which she'd picked up at the conference.
In the aisle seat was a younger man of Indian descent. Born and raised in Nairobi, he now works for HSBC in Birmingham, and was returning home to a traditional Sikh wedding, actually to a young woman from Kakamega, the very Kenyan town I was heading too. His future father in law is a prominent businessman in the town.
The Christian missionaries certainly found fertile ground in Kenya, and today religion abounds with church on Sunday being an established part of the culture as Florence ably demonstrated. The Indian community is a part of the British legacy when many were brought to Kenya as indentured workers to build the Mombasa - Nairobi railway and subsequently to become a successful business class. Faces of Kenya.
Some days later I'm in Kakamega, western province, and I'm meeting one of the girls sponsored by CHES (Canadian Harambee Education Society - see post 1 for info). Christine M is bright and ambitious. Although she comes from a poor rural background, thanks to CHES and a Canadian sponsor, she's been able to attend a good girls boarding school for 4 years and is now within a few months of writing her final exams. Christine hopes that her marks will be good enough for college/university, and if this is so, then she will be eligible for government grants to make this a reality. The immediate reality is that she's going home now for the school holidays, which means working with her family to harvest maize, sell some at the local market and dry the rest for family use, till the land and plant a new crop. Another face of Kenya.


Christine M - CHES house, Kakamega, 31/07/10