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.
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. 
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