Karibuni, welcome to Kenya!

“Welcome to Kenya, we hope you will like our country”. The first one out to welcome us was the pilot of Kenyan Airways flying us from Amsterdam. Since that day we’ve been welcomed by taxi drivers, by hotel workers, Swahili teachers, waiters, guards we’ve passed on the streets, people we sit next to in the bus or the Matatu and yesterday by a rapper on stage in Kisumu. I can’t be very wrong if I make a generalisation saying that Kenyans are hospitable.

So now I would like to welcome all of you that have considered buying a ticket to Kenya:

Firstly Pablo; you will love the ceilings here, even the cars have fascinating decorations in the ceiling. See photoes for teasers! Mamma, this is a paradise for textiles (even better than Sevilla!) and necklaces! Pappa, all the vegetation and flora will blow your mind! Martin, if you ever come to Kenya you will be needed along the road giving a hand in fixing the engine! Rasmus and Ingrid; I imagine you will like a cold drink by a swimmingpool out in the bush and a ride on the bicycle taxies in Kisumu! Steinar, I believe you could make something delicious out of the vegetables and herbs here. Kari; you will definitely enjoy talking to people in the Matatu and even climb Mount Kenya! Kristin and Øyvind; lions and giraffes are waiting for you and you will definitely have to do some teaching in the schools! Yvonne; there are donkeys all along the road! Mica; you will never have to enter a shop; there are markets everywhere, you can choose and pick and talk to the people! Concha; there are some beautiful butterflies here, only the Mariposa missing! Welcome to Kenya everyone! Those of you that I haven't mentioned are also welcome off course, we have a guestroom waiting for you!

The four FK girls!

The Fredskorpset exchange is a partnership programme. Irene and Josephine from Kenya are currently working in Norway and Mari and myself will be found teaching in their schools from the 8th of January. Here the four of us are together in Josephine’s house in Kenya!

Christmas in Sigowet

Not unlike home, christmas in Sigowet is very much about the three F’s: food, family, friends. In the morning a goat was slaughtered and prepared for the dinner. The ribs were boiled and the intestence prepared for an additional cusine. We also got mashed bananas, rice, tomato salad, a vegetarian dish, chapati-bread and a carrot and cabbage-salad. Bottles of Coca Cola, Sprite and Fanta were lined up for the guests to select what they desired. We sat along the four walls of the room facing the table in the centre, and we balanced the plate on the lap.

The party consisted of the mother and father with their five children, some cousins, a boyfriend, two families from the church, an additional priest and the two Norwegians. After dinner I went out to the field with the children. We played badmington, talked about DVDs and Reaggea music and I was impressed by the level of english the children here seem to have. One will start in first class in January and speak already very good English. He had one year of English in nursery school he explained. I have to point that English is his third language. First he speaks his mother tongue Kipsigis, then Swahili and English.

After tea and coffee (coffee here is very weak, almost like tea) everyone came together in the livingroom to pray and sing. They do some kind of high-speed prying that I have never experienced before. There is no hesitation even though the prayer is improvised. The skill is similar to the talent of a jazz player; They have a repertoar of melodies, rythms, chords and spins to pick and choose and after years of practice the ability it habitualizad. Talking of improvising I also have to mention the singing. It can be difficult to tell the melody apart from the rest because everyone seems to make their own matching version. The result is a beautiful multi-voiced, poly rythmic psalm where I can only recognize the word ‘Yesu’, meaning Jesus.

Tea and Coffee

Although Kenya exports loads of coffee, Kenyans are no coffee-enthusiasts. According to the director of the school I will work, coffee is found on their table because of the exchange programme with Norway. That is not a bad outcome I would say! I also have to say that I had my first Kenyan chai-tea in Samnanger. It seems like the Fredskorpset basic value of resiprocal influence is accomplished at least in one particular area. To describe the Kenyan coffee in three words it’s watery, powerless and timid. When it comes to tea the passion is more evident. A friend of ours even calles the tea “the holy spirit”!

Kericho district not only is the tea capital of Kenya, it is also the most important tea-growing area in Africa thanks to the famously reliable afternoon rain. The first tea was grown in Kenya in 1903 and today it is a major component of most tea sold in the UK and Ireland. Also the Kenyans are devoted tea-lovers. The chai; tea with hot milk, hot water and a lot of sugar, is served from huge thermoses that a Norwegian TV-kanne wouldn’t dare to challenge. Tea without sugar seems to be an unknown phenomenon here. And with the quantity of tea consumed every day in a Kenyan home, the price of sugar is essential. These days one kilo costs around 8 Norwegian Kroner or 1 Euro, which is very expensive. Our guides into the new culture have told us that chocolate or wine are unusual things to bring if we are invited for dinner. We should rather bring a kilo of sugar!

Vegetarian’s paradise

Pepper, onion, carrot, spinach, cabbage, garlic, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes. It’s all found in the field behind our house that our friendly neighbours have given us permission to use. If we don’t find what we are looking for here we can buy from another neighbour that produces tomatoes and corn surrounded by tea-trees. It won’t be any problem to survive as a vegetarian here! I got quite excited about the “suku ma wiki”; some green leaves made with salt and milk. They told us it meant “pushes the weak”, and I believed the name pointed towards the energy and strength you would feel after eating it. The other day we ate it again and my interpretation was declared false. The real translation was “pushing the week”, meaning that the meal is an everyday, unexciting stomach filler. The name pays no just to the taste!

Avocado, mango, fresh coriander and other kinds of green leaves and herbs that will be found on our dinner table the next year can be bought from the small stands in town. Cooking advices are included in the price!

Washing Clothes

“Can I borrow some washing powder?”, I asked my neighbours and they gave me a solid piece of soap. My face expression probably revealed my need for assistance and Rebecca was eager to teach me her secret knowledge on how you can’t explain verbally when you have enough sope; you have to feel it! My hands were apparently not well-skilled in that sense, I had a hard time trying to figure out the right feeling. We started off with a t-shirt. An easy one, according to my teacher. Gently and with certainty the piece of cloth seemed to slither through her hands, like a snake soaking soap. She made a few series of the sequence seemingly with little effort. My turn. A skirt. I aimed to make it slide smoothly, bathing it in the foam, but it looked more like the textile suffered from Parkinson. Rebecca gave me the confidence that the appropriate sensation comes with experience.

A week in Sigowet

Let me sum up the first week of my life in Sigowet. We landed at Kisumu airport early Saturday morning finding the spot a green, fertile part of the planet where outdoor life was highly appreciated and morning coffee was consumed in the garden café. We didn’t even have to enter the airport building to get our luggage, as two gentlemen handed it out just next to the airplane.

We had a coffee, two backgammon matches and a discussion on what on earth all these kilos we broght would be used for. Having spent a week here the Scrabble, the Trivial Pursuit, the playing cards, the books, the beads, the flash light and the tiny load-speakers have increased in value and are definitely worth the overload taxes.

Luckily Sammy, our neighbour and director of Resam academy where I will work, picked us up in Kisumu and took us to the extensive, pricey, wide-ranging, well-equipped “Nakkomatt” to do some food-shopping before entering the village. We bought Spanish olives, Dutch cheese, Indian spices, whole grain flour and yeast to make bread, English yoghurt and Weetabix for breakfast and candles for dark evenings. The contrast was significant being back on the road where we passed people walking and cycling to and from their homes that repeatedly seem to be more of a shelter than a house.

Heaven seemed to welcome us to Sigowet with letting all the rain fall in that instant. We could comprehend the reason for the hundreds shades of green, the rubber boots we were adviced to buy and the flood damaging the roads. The warm, generous welcome from the Family Kuley and their friends contrasted the cold and soaked climatic welcome. The floor in our spacious new house was cleaned by Sharon, the doors fine-tuned by a neighbour and the fridge repaired by the male members of the family. We were ready to move in to our new home.

After unpacking we were invited for dinner. I have to say a few words about ugali. We were introduced to the term already in the Swahili course in Nairobi. Our teacher would say “And we have the famous, tasteless what, Inga”? I would skilfully reply “Ugali”. And what is Ugali? It’s a made of corn flour and its quality and taste is not unlike mashed potatoes. Only a bit more solid. You have to cut it with a knife and to be a real African you leave the fork and bring the food to your mouth with your hand. Ugali is easily shaped as a ball or a miniature bowl before you wrap it with vegetables or fill it with sauce. According to our teacher one needs something to swallow the ugali with; to add some taste. The picture shows brown and white ugali.

In Nairobi we got used to the term Mzungu meaning European or white-skinned. We became familiar with representing the European continent or any continent outside Africa. Our Sunday walk through the street of Sigowet gave us a completely new position. Here we were also labeled Mzungu’s but as soon as we conversed with the people, we were asked if we were from Samnanger. It was surreal relating our origin to that tiny, out-of-the-way, unknown place in Norway. I’ve never ever been so far away from home explaing the local people I live four hours south of Samnanger, and not in the country next to Sweden, a city west of Oslo or south of Bergen. It truly made me think this must be a special place with extraordinary people and that the friendship with Samnanger kommune is a noticeable project.

Traces of the close friendship Sigowet division has with Samnanger kommune are seen everywhere; on a tank storing water supplies for Resam, on the selbu kofte of a woman we met on the walk through town and on the Norwegian tea-cups from which we drank our first Sigowet-chai.

A week in Nairobi

Mari and I have spent 10 days in Nairobi doing an intensive Swahili-course. Tomorrow we will head for Sigowet and meet our new friends there!

Before going to Kenya I finished the three weeks FK preparation course and two of the exams of the masters degree. I definitely felt more prepared for a year abroad after the FK course. We did games on cross-cultural communication, role-plays on conflict resolution, we had discussions on partnership-exchanges and a school project at Mandal college on migration. But most important I have met great people from different parts of the world that are in a similar situation, staying one year away from their friends and family and exploring new ways of living in Tanzania, Norway, Nepal, Malawi, Uganda, Mosambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Ghana.

“We finally have the tools and equipment to open the door, but we are still waiting for the gentelman who are driving the stairs, I think he got tired and left”, the pilot informed after landing on Kenyan land. Apparently he was not tired nor had he left. A short while afterwords we found ourselves safely inside the airport building.

My first worry was like always water, and as soon as I had the bottle in my hand I became patient both with queing and filling in application-forms. So the couple of hours we spent at the airport was just a slow motion welcome to Kenya that made me lower my shoulders and looking forward to learning to know this country.

Luckily for me and Mari, we had our Kenyan friends Irene and Josephine travelling together with us. They’ve already spent four months in Norway and are probably aware of the Norwegian mistakes we are likely to do here. Firstly they told us not to insist to carry our luggage to the rooms ourselves, and secondly not to feel guilty about other people doing it!

Almost every evening George and his son James have come to the guesthouse and we have gone out to eat dinner together. They are from the luo-tribe and have told us all the gossip about the kipsigis-tribe with whom we will live. Probably we will know the gossip about the Luo-tribe as soon as we land in Sigowet! George also took us to see the Karen Blixen’s house and other secrets around Nairobi. After seeing the movie ‘Out of Africa’ it was great to explore the spot live!

We have been told that Nairobi has become safer recently because the police have started to shoot the pickpockets. That’s also the reason she adviced us not to attract attention if we get robbed. We wouldn’t like the police to kill anyone.

Four hours a day we have been thought Swahili by teachers that want us to learn all the basics in 8 days. We are also eager to understand and remember everything we are told, but in the end of the day we have to admit that only practicing can make the new language stick in our head. It’s a funny language to learn though, with a lot of rhythm and repetitions, like weweninikakatoki-kind of sounds. When we struggle with the complicated grammar, prefixes and noun-classes our teacher says “that’s why you are in Africa, here everything is complicated, even the traffic!”