Naivasha at night

My last night in Kenya. We decided to go to the streets to meet the CSWs on their own turf. I was more than mildly apprehensive. At night Naivasha becomes a different place, a darker, more sinister place. There are no street lamps in town...just gloomy light from the various boarding houses, bars and clubs that come alive at night. Lorres and trucks line the streets - its trucker city with many drivers making the town their stop over point on their way to other parts of Kenya. We set off at 10 with the interns and 2 former CSWs who Fuhomi helped find jobs. They seem excited to show us their former turf...I'm just nervous about what I'm going to see. We unload out of the car at around 10pm and stroll along the street towards a bar. Within less than a minute our guide has met with some of her former collegues. She introduces us and we begin to talk. A small crowd of women gradually surrounds us...wondering who these people are who just want to talk to them and listen to them. There's the whole range...teenage girls, young mums, older ladies. It seemed like a communal outpouring of pain as they talked animatedly about how when rape them they can't go to the police, how the police accuse them of rape, how men steal their belongings, how people yell "prostitute" at them in the street, how they fear their kids growing up and meeting them in town and night and finding out what their mothers do for a living, how they get drunk and take drugs as a way of escape, how they have to do this job to feed their children...I felt a bit powerless as I listened to this mountain of problems. But I could see the very act of standing and listening with respect, treating them like human beings was having an impact. We listened and listened and after around an hour we prayed. Prayed for a way out of this hell, for provision for their kids, for healing for their pain, for God's love to penetrate their lives. It must have seemed a strange sight. A crowd of prostitutes praying on a street corner. But also something amazing I think. Afterwards we went into a bar to relax a little and take in a bit of the night life. Seedy would be a large understatement when describing that place. Prostitutes were dancing provocatively on the dancefloor, trying to show themselves off. Another heavily pregnant woman was sat at the bar, talking to a potential client. After a while they disappeared into a room at the back...coming back after 5 minutes once business was done. A young girl, no older than 17 sat with a sad face at the back of the room - new to the job it seems. The only people out that night were drunk men and CSWs. And there are so many CSWs - flocks of them...each group with their own area - teenagers, young women in their 20s, older ladies... The interns have been at a club making contact with other women...there were only CSWs in that club tonight. Apparantly one woman was dancing trying to attract clients - but she was so pregnant - and so drunk. It was a pitiful sight. After a while we decide to head back to the car - and back home. It feels good going home with our two giudes. Knowing we don't have to leave them on the streets anymore. I just wish they weren't the only 2 that night. The whole atmosphere of that place at night seems oppressive, dirty, hopeless.

There is so much work to be done.

20p a time?

Here’s some things the Fuhomi interns were telling me over the past few days…

"Prices for commercial sex workers in Naivasha

20 – 100KSH (20p - £1) – usual clients – truck drivers, drunk men from local clubs

200 – 500KSH (£2 - £5) – usual clients – local men from all backgrounds, including pastors and church elders.

500ksh + is paid by tourist drivers and tourists themselves. Foreign tourists pay more – Europeans demand more from the women and are the most abusive. They pay less if the woman doesn’t know many positions.

Prices charged also depend on appearance. The more physically attractive a woman is – the more she can demand from a client.

HIV+ men pay 10,000ksh and above for sex without a condom. They pay to go “freestyle”. Some men tell CSWs their status before – some tell them afterwards. One left a note – “it was nice spending time with you – this money is for your coffin.” Some clients will refuse to use a condom. Other clients tear their own condoms. Some CSWs refuse to sleep with such clients whilst others think of their kids and go ahead with the job.

Some clients buy CSWs food instead of paying them – they’ll buy them food but deduct it from the salary. Other clients are violent towards the women, sexually assaulting them and then refusing to pay them. Some clients steal CSWs’ money, their clothes or their phones. Ironically it is the CSWs who are arrested the most by the police who charge them with soliciting and even rape!

CSWs do their business in clubs in town or lodgings. Places like Kafico, Total Bliss, Heritage, Sweet Banana, Fischers, Antonios, Silver Hotel, Guest Inn, Blues, Crayfish, Fishermans, Gilgil…they’re full of CSWs at night time."

I think this speaks for itself. There are over 2000 women in this business in Naivasha alone and the number is growing. I feel kind of powerless in what seems to be a sea of desperation at times. With food prices high these days, many ladies in the flower farms are working during the day in the farm and then going to town at night to supplement the 150ksh a day wages they get picking flowers.

Think about this stuff the next time you buy flowers from Sainsburys…or Tescos….or Asda…or Morrisons…all these supermarkets buy flowers from Naivasha.

As for Fuhomi – things continue. Some ex CSWs are still working for a local NGO – they have been given work until the end of January and then will go on a 2 month break until the boss gets back from abroad. Unless they can find a market for their goods – then they’ll be able to stay on longer. Which would be good as I really don’t want to accommodate the idea of these women who’ve come so far having to go back to the streets in order to feed their kids.

I sometimes wonder if I stepped into a parallel universe when I arrived in this place. People are the same the world over so theres little difference in a way in that I have friends, we hang out, we watch movies, we take the mickey out of each other, we go to the office and work, we meet for lunch…

But the day to day challenges of life are on a different level…in some parts of the world people are complaining about having to buy Tesco’s own brand tomato sauce rather than Heinz. Here some of my friends’ are wondering where tomorrow’s dinner is going to come from. I don’t want to back up the horrific misportrayal of helpless poverty stricken Africa that the Western media gives because that isn’t what its like at all. But the West’s financial mess is really having a bad knock on effect here…high food and fuel prices are draining people’s salaries. And its damn stressful living like that. Having to be responsible for so many members of your family because you are the only wage earner. Having to figure out how to pay the house rent when you only have enough money for food. It’s really, really stressful. And I can see the strain on my friends faces at times. I don’t think I had appreciated the emotional stress of having so little money in a world of high prices. It means sleepless nights for many. It makes me think yes I need to speak up against things like the European Partnership Agreements which are unfairly forced on African countries, damaging their economies and stopping development. I need to speak up against corruption. I need to give from the money I have which I use to buy crap which I rarely use or wear just a few times a year…I need to use that money more wisely. I was listening to a guy I’ve gotten to know over the past few weeks talk about how God gives us things, gives us money - and sometimes takes them away – but for a good purpose as he can use what we may see as a loss to be somebody elses gain. This guy’s phone was stolen last week and that is how he was looking at it…he’s a cook for one of the ex-pats around here and quite a philosophical one too. I’ve been humbled by his humility – and his wisdom as well. Quiet wisdom – worth listening to. Some of my friends here …they have dreams of going to uni, of getting jobs and doing something they enjoy in life…but these dreams are too often frustrated…that’s more of a loss than I think I’ll probably ever experience. The loss of hope…I guess it what drives me on with this kind of work.

Am I really in Kenya?

This was the question I asked myself on Saturday. I travelled to Nairobi Saturday morning on a matatu - it was the first time I'd been on a matatu since coming to Kenya and I must confess I prefer travelling by mat than by car! We zoomed from Naivasha to Nairobi with the usual over speeding and erratic driving – love it! I got to read an entire paper... a rare occurrence these busy days.

When I arrived in Nairobi I walked into the centre of town and got on a bus to Langatta to go and see a friend. There was a massive free reggae concert being held near her house (it was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) so there were hordes of young people flocking to Langatta… meaning that as we came back to town we got stuck in what is known here as “the jam” – i.e complete nose to tail traffic from junction to junction. In the afternoon we headed to Ngong Racecourse to a craft fair where there was supposed to be lots of charities with stalls selling their products. I wanted to do market research to see what kind of crafts were on the market…. to try and figure out what competition there would be for Fuhomi CSWs if they were to start making some kinds of crafts. As we arrived, I quickly realised that this was no charity affair. The majority of the stands were manned by Europeans selling highly priced, exclusive ranges of various furniture and ornaments - on one stall there was a lampshade selling for around £500! There was the occasional charity dotted amongst the sea of overpriced goods but they were few and far between. But the strangest thing was -- out of all of the masses of people at the event -- around 80% of them must have been European. It was bizarre -- hardly a Kenyan in sight! Some girls walked past wearing hotpants -- I did a double take -- if a Kenyan girl wore those in Naivasha they would probably be forced, physically, by other people to cover up! I felt like I'd walked into a summer fair being held at an exclusive private school in rural England. It seemed most people were ex-patriots or missionaries. And that's another thing I don't get -- missionaries are supposed to get on a level with the people they are trying to reach -- but this kind of event was so beyond the level of normal Kenyans it was ridiculous! I know I was there to do market research but I still felt strange and extremely uncomfortable. The thing which really took the biscuit for me was when I was stood at a cheese stall, next to a rather large European lady. I watched in disbelief as the lady shed tears because there was a particular kind of cheese she could never get in Kenya but had managed to get at this particular stall. "It's so hard... it's so hard” she sniffled - without a hint of irony! I felt physically sick and had to drag myself away from the stall before I said something offensive!

Once I had gathered all the information I needed from the charities which had managed to get into this exclusive event and I had endured enough of white Kenya, I escaped onto a matatu and went to meet another friend further down Ngong Road. Once I had met her and her friends, we had to wait for another matatu to get to her house. By this time another jam had hit so we stood on the street corner, watching packed mats creep past us and wondering when we would eventually get home! We began to sing songs which we had sung as kids in Sunday school -- getting more than a few amused looks from people around us waiting for the mat! Back at my friend's place it was good to just talk… and talk… and talk…. and talk some more to catch up on the last few months.

On Sunday I went to my friend's Church – Mavuno Church which is a plant from Nairobi Chapel. They meet in a massive tent on some land next to Mombasa Road, on your way to the airport. It was an inspiring service -- as it is Christmas the preacher was speaking about how Jesus is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 6) and how we cannot have peace in our lives unless we have Jesus in our lives. The church seems quite active in their community as well -- they have been buying beds and mattresses for prisoners in the local prisons as in Kenya, criminals have to sleep on the floor as there are no provisions for them. In the evening I came back to Naivasha – thoroughly shattered but satisfied from a good weekend.

Today I did some goalsetting with the interns for their work with commercial sex workers. They were telling me some things which really shocked me -- and I thought that I had gone beyond being shocked when it comes to this kind of thing. Apparently there are three categories of clients that CSWs have. The lowest range are usually truck drivers who will pay between 20 and 100ksh for a job ( around 20p - £1). The middle range pay £2 - £5 -- they are often the drivers of the tourist buses which come to Naivasha to take tourists around Hells Gate National Park and Lake Naivasha. Then you have the upper range – rich men, tourists and European flower farmers. These guys pay £10 and above… but apparently the Europeans are the worst when it comes to abuse. They use the women in the worst ways and make them do disgusting things -- and then underpay them if they don't have “ experience" in these things. The European flower farmers are also paying rent boys for sex it seems. Men who are HIV+ will pay around £100 for a CSW to sleep with them without a condom... that is those who disclose their status. Others will not disclose their status until afterwards -- 1 guy left a note saying "it was nice spending time with you and here’s some money for your coffin.” and the stories go on and on…..

The good thing is though that the interns really want to make a difference to these women's lives. They love these ladies -- they want to spend time just listening to them because a lot of these women just need someone to be there to listen to all of the stress that they are undergoing and offer an understanding ear when they need to talk about the abuse they have endured. The interns are going to try and get hold of female condoms, rape alarms and other things which will help the CSWs protect themselves. But most of all the interns are keen to show these women that they are not judging them -- some of these CSWs find it hard to believe that the team are Christians because the only experience they have had of Christians in the past is judgement. They think all Christians are supposed to be judgemental people who live their lives by a set of rules… so they question whether the team are really Christians as they have been so loving and accepting of them! It's good that these women are getting a real encounter with Jesus -- not a fake one like they have had in the past. The team are also looking to do lots of market research to figure out the best way of helping these women to get regular, stable, sufficient employment. It's going to take time but the vision is there. When you know that there are girls on the streets and in the clubs just a few minutes drive away, selling their bodies for 20p - you have to hold on to that vision and strive to make it happen.

Registration!

After the events of yesterday and the day before I was feeling a little strained. Then I got a timely e-mail from my friend who told me I should read Psalm 34. This verse stood out “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (verse 18). So at the moment I am quite upbeat -- the pressure is relieved a little because although I realise our little organisation is working with brokenhearted people, we are not the only ones who are reaching out to them... one of the CSWs told us that she dreamt about Jesus the other night… so yes… we’re not the only ones reaching out here.

Tonight I can hear a chorus outside…. my night-time canine guardians are howling -- in unison -- and it seems that the dog next door is joining in as well! The dogs simultaneously terrify and comfort me. When I'm lying in bed and I hear growling and barking outside my window I'm not sure whether to feel scared or reassured! The rain is also pounding down. I feel kind of cosy inside.

Leaving aside the dogs the last few days have been somewhat interesting. Yesterday was the day we were to check on the progress of Fuhomi’s registration. We left for Nairobi very early in the morning, arriving at the charity registration office at 9 a.m. The government registration offices consist of a corridor of doors with a constant flow of people coming in and out and a seeming complete lack of official procedure. There is a bench outside the office doors which you sit on whilst you wait for your chance to be seen about your application. There is no queueing system… just a "jump in the office when somebody else comes out of it" system. So we waited for our chance and then jumped into the office. We were greeted by the sight of a small lady sat at a large desk behind what can only be described as sea of files. I'm not sure if it was disorganisation or an overload of work -- probably a bit of both but the amount of paper on show was rather intimidating. The lady told us to go to another office to find our file so we went next door to ask them to trace it... another lady who was wearing possibly the most bored expression I have seen in a long time, chewing gum and moving at the pace of a tortoise tells us that she will go to look for the file in another office. We return to our bench and wait. 10 minutes. Nothing. 20 minutes. Nothing. 30 minutes. Nothing. We head back to the office to ask the lady how her search is progressing. "I'm looking for it in another office" is the update. We wonder how this is possible, given that she hasn't stepped out of that office since we have been waiting on the bench. So we jump back into the office of the lady swimming in a sea of paperwork. She sends another woman to find our file. We head back to the bench to wait for another 45 minutes. The lady comes and goes, and comes and goes, and comes and goes. “Umeipata?” (have you found it?) I ask. “Bado” (not yet) is the repetitive reply. We have been waiting now for over two hours. So we jump back into paperwork lady’s office. She tells us that our file is in an office which is locked for today so there is nothing that can be done. We enquire as to what will happen to the progress of our registration application. Officially, our application is being processed and a decision will be made on our registration within two months after we have been vetted. However, unofficially, according to an internal memo which has been circulated around the Ministry, no new charitable associations are to be registered at the moment. Unless of course you can pay the Director a nice bribe of 40,000 kenya shillings (approximately £400) -- if you can stump up that kind of cash then you can make your application and get your certificate within the day! Very efficient service in some respects you could say….;) We are a Christian organisation -- so we’re not about to start building the foundations of our organisation on a bribe given to a corrupt official. Me thinks that would not be wise. I think the idea behind the system is to make people wait so long for their certificates that they lose hope and therefore, give up waiting and just pay the bribe. One person I know has been waiting for over a year for a certificate for her charity -- eventually the Ministry gave in and she is about to get it. So we are digging our heels in and preparing ourselves for a long, bumpy ride. At best we can get a letter from paperwork lady saying that our application is pending... it helps having a colleague who is from the same ethnic group and speaks her language.

The interns in the meantime have been carrying on with the seminars for the secondary school students -- over the past few days they have been covering all sorts of topics - looking at how to manage conflict, relationships, peer pressure, personality and adolescence… they've touched on some crucial issues... like prejudice and tribalism - it's been good to see students talk about these things - it's their holidays yet they turn up at 8:30 a.m. every day for these sessions - something which I think reflects well on the team.

I came back to my house yesterday evening to find a number of European flower farmers having a Kiswahili lesson in my lounge. The lady who I'm staying with had the bright idea of asking the farmers if they could give the CSWs who have been training in jewellery making (but will have no work for the next few months) jobs. As they finished their lesson and got into their cars we went to say hi -- and ask for jobs. One of the guys said he would talk to his boss and see what he could do. Flower farm work isn't ideal -- but it will pay the rent and stop them going to the streets until training and work with the NGO resumes and until Fuhomi has been able to look for a market for the products that they make…it’s a ray of hope- at least for now.

a day in the life of...

The call to prayer is floating through my window… the mosque in Naivasha is not so far away so I hear the call sounding out across the town around this time every day.

Today the interns ran the first day of a series of seminars on some key issues for secondary school students. Around 30 students turned up which was encouraging for the first day. Today’s sessions were on human rights and stress management. These kids don't have much of an idea of what their rights are and how they can demand them so it was good to see the interns making them aware of these kind of things. As I watched them standing at the front and holding their own in front of students barely 2 years younger than them I felt so proud of them. Some of these interns used to be my students when I was teaching -- they were just 14 years old when I first met them back in 2004. I have had the chance of watching them grow and turn into leaders of their own generation. It's been a privilege.

In the morning some of the commercial sex workers who we sent to another NGO for training in jewellery making (the NGO has been paying them for the products they make and selling them on) called us -- the person who runs the NGO is leaving the country for three months so they will not have any work for that time. My colleague and I stood there as they asked us what we could do as they do not want to go back to the streets. Our organisation is young -- it will take us time to look for buyers for their goods so at the moment we have to depend on this NGO to give them work by finding a market for them. I'm sure that given time these women will be able to organise themselves into a group and we as an organisation will be able to find a market, but that is not going to happen overnight. In the meantime we have the headache of knowing that house rent is due on Friday…It's hard... standing in front of somebody who you know very well may be forced to sell her own body by the end of the week.

At lunchtime, another of my former students turned up at the church where the workshops were being held. She was in a bit of a state. Her sister gave birth to her first born child on Saturday – the delivery was smooth and she was just fine on Saturday night. On Sunday morning the family got a phone call to say the new mother had passed away from high blood pressure. She was 23. The heartbreaking thing was she had been in a terrible state at the end, bleeding through her nose, falling onto the floor and being too weak to stand up. The nurses just stood there and watched -- she died there -- on the floor. I sat and listened to the story as this girl told me how she hadn't eaten since Sunday -- food tastes like sand right now. It makes me angry because it is so unnecessary. With better treatment her sister could still be alive, and even if she were to pass away -- where was the dignity which should have been her human right? The culture around here means that people are discouraged from talking about those who have passed away… but I could see the release in this girl's face as she talked about her sister, how much she loved her, what kind of a special person she was. We went to see the family and take the baby to hospital. I'm a bit concerned as she's drinking cow’s milk which I don't think and be very good for a newborn. The doctor didn't see her though as he was busy in a meeting.

So all in all it was quite a tough day. But at the end, before we went home we prayed… it's good to get things off your chest and talk about them with God. I know it must hurt him seeing these things… we're just waiting to see what he will do during the course of the week.

Stories of madness

There’s a crescent moon outside with two stars above it. It looks like a smiley face…the sky is so clear at night here… the sun setting over the lake is quite a sight to see. The past few days have been so busy, crammed full with meetings. It's been productive -- we've done expectation setting, reviews and evaluations, defining the vision of the organisation -- it doesn't sound so spectacular I guess but it is all part of building the foundations which I hope will last for some time. Naivasha is like a mini desert. You walk through the town and the dust is so bad it's like wading through sand. It makes a person feel like showering three times a day just to get rid of the dust which seems to find its way into every cranny and crevice. I spent some time on Sunday catching up with friends -- the last time I was in Naivasha was back in January, three days before the post election violence hit the town. I realised today that the road which the Fuhomi office is on is a road that played host to scenes which were broadcast around the world on the news. I remember watching the BBC and seeing hundreds of men on that very road with machetes and sticks, outside a supermarket that I have used pretty much every day since I arrived. It is hard to imagine this happened less than a year ago. As I was talking to one of my friends she was telling me about a man we both know who had been helping some of those gangs in January, the gangs that were going from house to house burning and killing; helping them by telling them where people were hiding. I see this guy pretty much every day. He used to be in a home for former street boys.

My friends were telling me of some of the things they saw and the situations they went through. It is strange sitting across the room from somebody who you've known for years and years as they tell you calmly about how they saw people dragged out of their houses and attacked by mobs; as they tell you how they hid their friends and prayed for their lives as men with machetes gathered outside the gates and demanded they be let in to find those who were hiding. They tell you how one lady who is in an IDP camp got a phone call from a neighbour of hers from the area she had fled -- a phone call where he begged for forgiveness. Apparently he had seen six small children going to hide in toilet, a pit latrine. He went to that toilet and grabbed the children and pushed them down the hole, into the pit -- and then put a stone on top. All of the children died. I shuddered when I heard that story - these are the stories that don't make it onto the news and I'm sure there are many more similar to that. Those politicians who are scared of arrest warrants that will probably be issued by the International Criminal Court and who are saying there should be amnesty -- they have so much blood on their hands. This level of evil -- it's terrifying. It's terrifying to see how illogical and irrationally brutal human beings can become -- people who you think you know, people who you think could never be capable of carrying out such atrocities. I could never be a humanist… human beings can be the most terrifying things on this planet. There’s a verse in the Bible which talks of how God is high above human beings and how he is above our understanding. We cannot understand his ways. I'm so glad. It's comforting to know that there is someone higher than us… someone who is incapable of this kind of madness... someone who has a level of purity beyond the reach of human beings. It gives me hope.