Notebook Nairobi
This is the blog of former LD reporter Cynthia Vukets. Cynthia is in Nairobi on a media fellowship with the Aga Khan Foundation Canada
What did you learn in school today?
April 5th, 2010
In Dogon Country, Mali, on my last week in Africa. I seem to already be contemplating my life!
It’s the end. Of this blog. Of my time in Kenya. Perhaps of my life as a carefree, unemployed, happy nomad. Perhaps not. Just a little “living at my parents, unemployed” angst going on right now.
But it is weird to already be looking back at Kenya. As with every experience, I wonder how it flew by so quickly. I felt the same way about my year in Wakefield, by the way.
I’d been back in Canada a week when a friend asked: “What’s the biggest thing that you learned, do you think?”
And I was stumped. Read More…
Trees make the best boyfriends
April 1st, 2010
My new best friendMy new best friend is a tree.
A baobab, to be specific.
We met while hiking in Mali. He’s a lot older than me, but we just seemed to really get along.
I’m in Dogon Country with a girlfriend who’s been working in Mali. It’s strange how you get used to a place and all it’s little quirks. I’d been going happily along, researching stories on poverty in the slums of Nairobi and on teen sexuality in rural Maasailand thinking ‘Kenya sure has a long way to go.’
Back to the hiking trip. We spent two days strolling from village to village, as if in another universe. All the buildings are made of mud. All the toilets are just holes in the ground. All the beer has to be transported in on the heads of local women.
For me, it was amazing to be able to just walk. The only trips I’d done into such rural areas had either involved working or dangerous animals so I’d been basically confined to vehicles. But I walked for miles; we saw only about 5 other tourists the whole time. And when we did we looked at them with disgust ‘what are you doing here? This is our private trip back in time.’
Women stir pots of honey "beer" at an outdoor market
Which is always the traveller’s dilemma. You never want anyone else to have the cool experiences you’ve had, so that you can tell cool stories at the pub. But then, the ladies who are carrying the beer into the villages on their heads, they deserve people to sell it to. Because this is a great tourist offering. If Mali could only market it a bit, I’m sure people could make real money. But how long until you can do the hike in a Land Rover? Or until the little girls ask for money instead of just wanting to hold your hand? Or until you can get sushi delivered to your rooftop bed?
But back to the baobab. We spent the night in a village. No electricity. But a wonderful outdoor shower with holes in the roof so you could see the stars. And the stars! I have never seen so many, or had them seem so close. So after dinner, we trooped out of our hut into the village square to stargaze. I found my tree, hunkered down into a very comfortable “seat” in his roots and gazed. Best date I’ve ever been on.
Dogon women carry firewood on their heads down the Bandiagara Escarpment. It's the same way they bring beer into their villages for tourists to drink
Tanzania in pictures
February 15th, 2010
Hungry zebra unaware of large safari truck two feet away in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.
This elephant is over 60 years old. He lives on the floor of the Ngorongoro crater with all the other males. The females and babies live on the rim and just invite the men up for one week a year. Sounds ideal.
Morning over the Ngorongoro Crater. Maasai herdsmen bring their cattle down every morning to drink from this saline lake because they believe it has medicinal properties.
Just because I’m white . . .
February 15th, 2010
Doesn’t mean I’m a guest at this hotel.
Really. I feel a little guilty saying this but . . . I sneak into hotels. To use the gym. To sun and swim at the pool. I haven’t yet pulled a dine and dash, but I’m sure I could. The thing is, I can just waltz right into any 5-star hotel, act like I know where I’m going and get away with it. There happens to be a 5-star hotel with a beautiful gym and steam room half a block from my house. Not that I’m naming names, but I go to work out there at least once a week. It also has functioning showers which is more than I can say for my apartment. No one asks my room number, so I don’t offer up the fact that I’m not, in fact, a guest.
I sheepishly told my neighbour, a Kenyan guy, about this guilty pleasure and he said “Of course! They could NEVER question you!” With a completely straight face. So it feels bad sometimes that I’m leveraging my skin. But with all the starch in the Kenyan diet, I figure I really need that treadmill.
Snapshot: Inclusive education
February 15th, 2010
These hearing impaired students go to Babadogo Primary School. Disability is still considered taboo here and many parents don't allow their disabled children to go to school at all. But inclusive education is catching on in public schools like Babadogo. The head teacher here told me she hopes it will help end stigma by "educating the future generation of parents to be tolerant of all diversities."
Climate changing culture
January 27th, 2010
This herd of 25 cattle used to be 500. The lack of water and grass brought on by the drought has killed off up to 90 per cent of Maasai herds.
But for the rest of their Maasai community, the loss of nearly 90 per cent of cattle herds has been devastating.
A prolonged drought has hit East African farmers and pastoralists hard. Many in Northern Kenya are now dependent on food aid from the government and international community to survive.
In Southern Kenya, next to the Tanzanian border, Maasai herders are beginning to drive their cattle home from the neighbouring country. They’d crossed the border last year to search for pasture and water.
Standing at a surface dam in Magadi Division, about one hour off the paved road, Lucy gestures towards a herd of about 25 cattle.
“That used to be a herd of over 500,” she says.
Read More…
Snapshot: Random acts of gardening
January 12th, 2010
I have my very first vegetable garden and I am very proud. It is only three pots, but in them grow carrots, lettuce, kale, peppers and cucumber. I often force people who haven't the slightest interest in vegetables to look at my pot garden. Then one day last week, I woke up to find someone had staked my cucumbers! With a stick from the backyard. It nearly brought tears to my eyes. And I still don't know who did it.
Quote of the week
January 12th, 2010
“The child cannot prevent the infection but it can be prevented.”
- Raila Odinga, Kenyan PM, on mother-to-child HIV transmission
Some fun facts:
- 34,000 kids are born HIV-positive in Kenya every year
- about 60 % of Kenyans don’t know their HIV status
- and 200,000 people who need to be on ARV’s aren’t
But the government has a new strategy. The National AIDS Strategic Plan. To halve the number of new infections and reduce HIV-related deaths by 25 % in four years. It’s going to take innovative new approaches, they say. Sort of like this one:
Convoy joy
January 12th, 2010
Me and the crew, cruisin government style
My first government-sponsored media trip. And I find out about it at 9:30 p.m. the night before.
“Do you know what it’s about?” I ask my producer.
“Farming.”
“Do you know what’s happening with transportation?”
“Call this guy.”
So I send said guy a text message because I’m worried he’s putting his kids to bed. He calls me back at 11:15 at which point I’ve already put myself to bed.
Up at 6:00 the next morning, just to make sure I don’t miss my ride up to Laikipia in Central Kenya.
“We’re leaving from Utalii Hotel at 7:30,” says guy I was supposed to call.
Even though I calculate that 7:30 Kenyan time can’t be earlier than 8:00, I’m at the hotel by 7:45. I really don’t want to miss my ride because I love getting out of Nairobi. Read More…
Just because I’m white . . .
January 12th, 2010
Doesn’t mean I have to look like crap all the time.
Repeat after me, people: cargo pants are for soldiers, carpenters and nine-year-olds only. Not for touring Nairobi. You really don’t even need them on safari, as you’ll be sitting on your butt in a car all day long and then chilling in your lodge all evening being waited on hand and foot. The chances that you’ll have to whip a jacknife out of your zippered inner thigh pocket to slay a charging baboon are slim.
And dear “dirty hippy tourist”: it’s ok to bathe here. Nairobi may be suffering from a water shortage but I’m quite sure your hotel/backpackers hostel has ample supply, even if it is delivered to your room in a bucket. So please wash. You’re making us all look bad. And you smell a bit funky.
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