Week 7

February 11^th, 2008

Not a whole lot went on today. I wrote a lot of papers and did a lot of Swahili studying, which I have decided is the most difficult language to learn in the world and I am DREADING the quiz we have scheduled for Thursday. Luckily, I have a meeting with Fred tomorrow at USIU so I should be ok…maybe.

Tonight I went out to dinner at Gipsies with Laura, Jackie, and Mike and then we headed over to Club Afrique with the rest of the group. Club Afrique is where Eric Wainaina performs every Sunday. He is a really good friend of the group and Diana interns at his company Rainmaker. He is a very popular and prolific musician in Kenya, who also happened to graduate from Berkley School of Music in Boston.

It was a really relaxing atmosphere and I am probably going to end up going most Sundays. The club has a section of comfortable booths and good food and the music Eric plays seriously just calms my entire being. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Club Afrique on Sundays is indeed therapeutic.

February 12, 2008
There’s a new boy at Shangilia. He’s five and his name is Antone and his story is seriously heart-breaking. He was found last week on the streets in Kangemi, all alone and absolutely no guardian in site. The person who found Antone brought him to Shangilia and our director, Njenga, confirmed that he is within the standards of Shangilia…destitute, seemingly orphaned, 5-years-old and walking around the streets of the slums. Yeah, I would have to say he fits the mold of a Shangilia student.

The woman who brought him to Shangilia said that his family had been displaced by election violence and somehow they left Antone behind. He isn’t from Kangemi, so Lord knows how he got there. The woman said he didn’t talk much and she could only get some information from him before he stopped talking again. So all that I know is that he is 5, his name is Antone, and his family has apparently left him.

I tried all day to get him to talk, but I couldn’t. Even if I just called him over to ask how he was doing, he would just hold on to the bottom of my shirt and stay completely silent. I could not get him to say a single word, it was actually painful. The only time he spoke was when I asked him to read off the vowels I had written on the blackboard. He basically whispered them, but it was a step. I am making it my personal project to work with him.

February 14, 2008
I woke up sick, again! I swear to you…I love Kenya, but Kenya hates me! I finally made myself go to the chemist (pharmacist) because this is the 4^th time I have been really sick since I have arrived, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Luckily, it wasn’t stomach sickness, but a blinding head ache and a sinus infection. I had to call out of interning, which was frustrating because I love my kids and I just wanted to teach in my pre-unit class! Ken, Josephine, Everline, Martin, Grace, Anne. Antone, and Lilian need me to teach them how to read!!!!!!!! So I stayed home and logged the man hours on this grant proposal research, deciding who I can hit up for money and which organizations will be most likely to cash out on my rather large grant. Then I made myself some lesson plans for next week!

I spent the rest of the afternoon studying for Swahili….it was not pretty! Apparently “quiz” actually means “exam” in British-English. So what we all thought would take 20 minutes, took an hour and a half, and it was seriously difficult. I couldn’t even finish it! And then that of course made me really stressed out and I got extremely worked up and just wanted to go home because I am thinking I did not do so hot on this “quiz.”

Instead, Carrie, Diana, Jackie, Ayah and I went to Open Door which is a really cool Indian Restaurant with awesome food. We drowned our sorrows in tandoori chicken and prawns.

And now I am home and my friends have made me relax already!

February 15, 2008
Today was the hardest day that I have had in Kenya. I almost completely broke down at my internship this morning.

I spend Friday mornings at Shangilia before class starts. Jackie and I arrived at 9 as usual and we started off by talking to the staff in the office about what they would like us to focus on in terms of this grant proposal. Then I went to my pre-unit class to see all of my kids Lilian (age 5), Everline (age 8), Ken (age 4), Josephine (age 4), Antone (age 5), Anne (age 5), Martin (age 6), and Grace (age 5). I love all of them, but one of them is a stubborn little girl. I’m pretty sure she may even be more stubborn than I am or ever was. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I think the girl has some symptoms of ADD so it makes it difficult to work with her in the classroom, even though I love her to death. So this morning one of the teachers in the classroom was getting extremely frustrated with the stubborn one because she either wasn’t writing fast enough or wasn’t writing at all. The teacher got so angry she whipped out a rod of some sort, I didn’t even see it coming, and started beating the girl with it! Whacking her in the head and chasing her under the table and continued to beat her while the poor child was screaming and crying. No one else even reacted to it, which is awful because it means it is normal. I know that private schools and organizations are not subject to the law that outlaws corporal punishment in public schools in Kenya, but this was just awful. All over Shangilia there are signs that say “End Child Abuse!” and “Child’s Rights are Constitutional!” and then they beat the kids when they don’t write properly! What the hell! It doesn’t make any sense! I was so upset. I can’t believe it’s normal practice in Africa. I'm going to talk to the director about it the day I see him because I find it incredibly unacceptable. Cultural difference or not, I don't think it is ever okay to beat a child with a rod.

Fast forward 20 minutes. I was talking to one of my other students outside during break. She has a shaved head, like a lot of the younger girls at Shangilia, except this girl has a big scar on her head where absolutely no hair grows. Today, she was being pretty open with me, so I decided to ask her what happened there. Turns out her father got angry at her and set her head on fire. After the horrible morning in the classroom I couldn’t handle it. I stopped asking questions and just read her a story instead.

I knew that there were going to be difficult days in Kenya, specifically at Shangilia, but I hadn’t been expecting corporal punishment and children being burn victims due to their own parents.

On a more positive note, Antone actually spoke today. I got him to say “yes” and “good,” and it was so exciting for me. He is interacting a bit more on all levels. He’ll hug me and give me five, or come sit on my lap during break. So at least we are progressing in that department.

I’m going back tomorrow afternoon because I want to see my kids. Hopefully things will go better.

February 16, 2008

The time has come for me to be proactive in my quest for funds for Shangilia. Only 10%-15% of grant proposals actually get funds, and I don’t want to leave the country having done nothing for them. The organization needs quite a bit of money in order to start their new compound. A German NGO, Cap Amur, donated 6 acres of land to Shangilia in 2004 and they just do not have the funds to get it done. Nothing has been started and they are still going through the legal matters with regards to actually securing the land. Right now the children have a little cement compound, cramped classrooms, and they sleep two to a twin bed, which are all bunked in threes. There are 224 children there.

I will be writing an email to my student council coordinator from Sacred Heart Academy, asking her to get a fund raising campaign off the ground.

If any of you would like to make a donation, no matter how small, I would greatly appreciate it. Most of the money will be given to Shangilia during the last weeks that I will be in the country, but a certain portion of it will be spent on actives which bring the children from all of the organizations we work with together. Last semester, the students raised funds to have a “fun day,” in which they provided transportation, food, games, and a location to all of the children we work with so that all of them could get together and have a chance to leave their compounds, which is something the children rarely get to do.

If you are interested in sending a donation please send me an email at molly.canty@gmail.com

From there I can inform you of how the money gets to Kenya seeing as how no one should dare to trust the Kenyan postal system….

Here is the organization’s webpage if you would like to know more about it before deciding to make a donation:

http://www.shangilia.org/