Saturday, December 20, 2008
Naivasha at night
There is so much work to be done.
Monday, December 15, 2008
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
Monday, December 8, 2008
Am I really in Kenya?
This was the question I asked myself on Saturday. I travelled to
When I arrived in
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
On Sunday I went to my friend's Church –
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
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.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
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
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.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
a day in the life of...
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.
Monday, December 1, 2008
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.