House of Courage: An internship in Mombasa, Kenya

I go running. In my efforts to train for the Twin Cities Marathon on October 7th, I have stuck to a loose schedule of running for the last two weeks. I get up early in the morning and run through the villages up toward the power house company of Kenya, Bamburi Cement.

Running in these conditions are some of the most treacherous I have ever experienced. Unlike Nairobi, and my experience in Montana last summer, the elevation is not as high creating an extreme training for the lungs. No, Mombasa is very near sea level, but my lungs are getting a new type of excruciating work out.

I like to call it The Burning.

Yes, The Burning consists of several different types of burns occurring in the morning hours. You have your diesel burning coming off of the exhaust of cars, matatus and heavy trucks that pass you by. There is the wood burning that comes off of the many morning fires that are lit on the side of the road for cooking the morning’s mahambri for breakfast. And, of course if you’re really lucky, there are your classic tire burnings. I don’t know why the tires are burning, they just are.

I thought the dirt and gravel road was treacherous in Montana, but that was nothing compared to the Old Malindi road. The vehicles and bikes are cutthroat and will pass each other on either side with disregard for possible on coming traffic, much less people. The sides of the road have no discernable walk and are even worse terrain than the road.

Keeping footing and dodging human and live stock traffic is a delicate balance. The other day I nearly had my first collision with a kid (not the goat variety, usually they make better efforts to get out of the way). I was running along on of the only pieces of sidewalk (put together by our good Bamburi Cement Company) with a small girl walking to school ten feet in front of me. I took a brief second to look down to make sure my feet were moving on solid ground and when I looked up she had walked five feet back and was now looking straight down at her shoes. I don’t remember much but that I did a quick side step, slipped in some mud and crashed skinning my left knee and forearm.

I quickly got up and kept running with the bloody scabs. It’s already a big enough spectacle to see the white man running in the villages of Mombasa: best not to see the white man down in the mud griping in pain. The little stared at me in complete horror as I kept going. I turned back and smiled.

This was the worst incident. There have been many more positive ones. From people yelling, “go mzungu go!� and “Bravo Bravo!� to my excursions to the beach where the Kenyans join me and keep a stronger pace that keeps me going.

Today I ran ten miles and was on the beach to see the early sunrise over the Indian Ocean. It was good.

Posted by Ben Marcy at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

As I may have mentioned before, I live directly behind a mosque. At times I do experience the spiritual sensation of hearing the takbir "allahu akbar" (God is the greatest) at the numerous calls to prayer throughout the day over the loudspeaker. It is especially fantastic late in the evening as I sit in the hall of the house with only a few kerosene lamps lighting the hall. The house is built with an open roof in the kitchen area at the end of a hall. It creates a tunnel of easy wind drifting through, making the colored sheets, in front of the doors to the multiple rooms, dance in golden luminescence as the imam sings the prayers of Islam.

But every so often that song goes to static. The loudspeaker cracks and the imam does the world renowned call of audio assessment, “Mic test….test….1,2…. 1,2,3….check, check…..�

So for every amazing experience there are some things that are universal. Let me give you another example more work related.

This last Saturday, the House of Courage Initiative performed for a VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) outreach in the heart of Mombasa town along Kenyatta Avenue. With International Center for Reproductive Health administering health tests in the main building, the group acted as the MCs of the day going from 10:00AM until 4:00PM in the front courtyard. With sound equipment and Swahili Coast Music blasting we danced, we did banter back and forth, and performed for the crowd stopped along the street. I estimate that over 200 people at one time were stopped from their weekend activities and watching the hilarity of these great performers. The spectacle is something I have never seen in America.

Yet at the end of the day how do you assess the outcome of an outreach? Ahhhh the quantitative versus qualitative studies of public policy rear their ugly heads. Is it the number of few people that came through the front doors of the building to get tested as a numeral figure of progress? Are all of the people watching the performance touched by the message of responsible health practices or were they just there to get some free entertainment.

My supervisor and I had a shouting match the other day about how the HOCIs funders are changing the parameters of assessment of outreaches. If you do two outreaches, two days in a row, in the same place, 150 attendance on the first day and 170 on the second day, what was your total number of audience reached?

320 (total audience of the two days)? 170 (off the assumption that 150 of the people on the second day are the same people that were there on the first day)? Number of referrals for testing? Number of condoms given out?

“Benja! How the hell do you know who we’re reaching?�

“Yusuf,� I yell. “How the hell do you know who you’re reaching?�

“I don’t know!� Yusuf says.

“Me either!� I say. A moment of silence. “Well I’m glad we figured that out�

Yusuf, “Me too�

We just don’t know…

Posted by Ben Marcy at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

A quick entry on the sometimes sad and sometimes funny irony of Mombasa, perhaps all of Kenya, and perhaps the developing world.

As you walk through Mombasa Town (the main island city center of Mombasa District) or most of anywhere else in Mombasa, you will notice not only traditional Swahili, and Muslim dress is prevalent but also quite a lot of clothing that is obviously from the identified "West." This clothing is the donated through aid agencies and sold on the streets of Mombasa to any and all. You'll see advertising on t-shirts for 1987 UNC Tar-Heels volleyball and hats promoting Midas Brakes. This last weekend I was walking through the village of Miritini to hilled area with arid vegetation. As my small group came over the hill, I witnessed a breath taking view of the west coast of the island where the fresh water river of meets the Indian Ocean.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small mud hut on the side of a hill. Hanging on the clothes line was a turquoise green Jacksonville Jaguars Fred Taylor jersey.

The most amusing incident happened as I was walking down the heavy traffic of Moi Avenue and coming to a corner to turn onto Digo road a tall, muscular, dark skinned Kenyan came around the corner. He was wearing a cut off t-shirt with the Confederate Jack running down the torso with a skeleton riding a motorcycle in the middle. Printed on the shirt was the inscription, "The South Will Rise Again."

Welcome to Kenya.

Posted by Ben Marcy at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Kazi is kiswahili for work.

My work at the House of Courage Initiative (it’s full title as registered under the Ministry of Social Services of Kenya) is challenging. It's not a challenge in the sense one might think of western work that can overwhelm an individual with multiple tasks and cause one to keep long hours. The challenge is finding a place within an organization that has established itself as well as my organization has.

I believe one of the common misconceptions about organizations in what one would determine as developing countries is that they don't have the knowledge or expertise to communicate messages to people of the area. This is far from the truth. Many of the organizations I have observed along with the House of Courage are exceptional at creating engaging presentations of information on such issues as HIV/AIDS, and have first rate information on addressing community concerns and questions about content. I was fortunate my first week with the House of Courage to watch them perform at an Islamic primary school called Qubaa Academy. The group was very professional in its preparation, going through nearly 20 minutes of verbal and physical warm-ups in which I participated. The group put on a show of fantastic revelry and relative simplicity. For an hour and a half the combination of actors and puppets kept nearly 400 children entertained and informed.

Along with the performance aspect of the full group, the members also train people across Mombasa on reproductive health and safe health practices. For this purpose there are multiple programs in place that are funded by numerous NGOs and government entities of Kenya.

Coming into that situation, I am impressed but also pushed to explore what options are there for me to create an impact. I believe I have found that through looking at some organizational structure of the organization. As they have grown the House of Courage Initiative has had to keep up with the demands of growing as an organization. Finding sources of funding to keep up with growth and even creating income-generating activities (IGAs) are difficult in an economically depressed area.

This could perhaps be best illustrated by the current situation at the community center the group owns and operates. Up until last November the facility maintained electrical power connection through an agreement with another partner in the community. When that partnership dissolved, the center was without power and unable to continue activities in which it used technology such as TV/Video programs and computer tutorials for youth. To get a new power connection would cost 35,000 Kenyan shillings or rough $540 US. This money is not easily available for the organization as they focus most of their money into sustaining current projects and compensating members. Even if the group were to look at saving money for an extended period it would be several months, perhaps years before they could arrange that amount of money.

For my part, I am going to focus on an FSD challenge grant that is available in the next few weeks. With this new power connection we, House of Courage members and I, hope to recreate an atmosphere at the center that was present before the loss of power as well as create new sustainable programs that could create income for the group to establish greater independence and not rely on foundation grants in order to maintain its programs.

Posted by Ben Marcy at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Sijui-

This is the negative conjugated verb of "to know" as to say-"I don't know."

I don't know where to begin with this entry as over the last week I have moved from the very nice, "hotel" as it is called, of the YWCA to my home across the city in the village of Mtopanga with my host family. I live in a house that is part mud hut, part concrete with an open area in the middle to catch rain water for washing clothes, dishes, and one's own self.

I live with number of people. This number is constantly in flux as some are out working or going to other homes within the village. To give a rough estimate, I have one mama who is in her late 50s, four brothers (one who is the father figure as being the eldest male in the family) two sisters and two sisters-in-law one uncle and two to three nephews. I have the exact layout on paper in front of me but to give an exact description would take more time than I have at the moment.

Life at home is continually an adjustment process. As a man there are certain roles which I do not traditionally take on (washing dishes, cleaning parts of the house or even bringing food in for meals or clearing it after dinner). I'm taking the process slowly and gradually introducing myself in to different aspects of life and becoming more than an honored guest and also trying to break some of the masculine roles that are understood in the culture.

My family is wonderful. My main contact in my family is my brother Omarr or as we call him Socrates (Soki for short after a great football mid-fielder of the 1980s). He's in his early 30s and has lived in the village his whole life. He He has shown me around the village, taken me out to the beaches of the Indian Ocean and will be teaching me how to cook this weekend. Today we got up at 6:30AM to run as part of my training for the marathon I am running in October. We went down the main road of Mtopanga through the neighboring village of Bamburi. We dodged morning matatu drivers, men pushing massive carts of goods and goats. Children heading to school were laughing to see an Mzungu and black man running so early. I'm very fortunate to have someone who has such good relations with people in the community as my comrade.

I will be updating again on Friday with more details of my work and home life.
Asante sana

Posted by Ben Marcy at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)