What an amazing day. I visited the rubbish dump of Kisumu today. At first I was very scared to get my camera out, but I had to for the work I was doing. We went down to put the organisation’s tricycle into a real life situation and needed to show how a garbage collector could utilise the design to help them increase their incomes. The first thing I remember is seeing a guy pick up a carrot from the tip, rub it on his dirty shirt and eat it. To his credit, it was a totally healthy carrot, just couldn’t help but wonder how dirty it was. However these guys are desperate and to him it was the freshest thing he had seen all day, not to mention one of his five a day??!!
So Africa is starting to show its true colours to me. A week ago two Dutch guys I know were walking to a bar and had a gun put to their heads, phone and wallets stolen. They shouldn’t have been walking around at that time of night, so kind of their own fault. The police were told and went to find them, shooting one man dead.
This weekend we were out celebrating the manager of the Duke’s birthday, John. The night was pretty hilarious, we went out to The Grills Club, which is full of locals. We were all dancing around madly and fighting off slimy Kenyan hands, but all in all I had so much fun dancing about. Then the mood changed rather quickly… the group of us were stood around outside and were guessing maybe it was because only 2 of the 3 security guards were bought a drink, but one of them just started beating one girl in our group, he beat her to the ground with his stick and then continued to beat her. So another friend stepped in to try and help her and they beat him unconscious. Then beat my Finnish friend Heidi. All of a sudden all the tuk tuk and picky picky drivers joined in and it was mayhem. Somehow I managed to stay out of the fighting, thank god but I had to get my unconscious friend to hospital where he was x-rayed and finally came round. It was a shame the night ended that way, but the police have been involved and hopefully something will be done about this one security guard.
This week I have hung my paintings up in the Passion4Juice café that has been opened, also started on my tourist map of Kisumu, however this week I have met another organisation that took me to a factory that made fish leather. It was awesome. I never knew that fish could be made into such strong leather and it is using the waste product. The local women have to take the skin off as people want the fish in fillets, so normally this skin would be thrown away. So allowing the local women to gain more cash by the buying this product, utilising more workers in the process of turning it to leather and then using it in unusual and interesting ways on bags, wallets, shoes etc… the leather itself still shows the scales. One area I could be useful in this project is designing bags and jewellery that I can then teach locals to produce and ship them back to Europe for sales and revenue that will be generated back for the local creatives.
Being in Kisumu was getting me down a little this week, so a group of Dutch invited me to their project down in the south of Kenya, Kochia. Total rural Kenya, no electric, rain collected water and what I was hoping was going to be peace and quiet. However when we arrived there was a party for Berend’s birthday and some locals had put on their traditional clothing for dancing, the head dresses were made from feathers and were totally wicked.
The next day I went to a school/orphanage run by an organisation called ABBA that was both inspiring and depressing. The classrooms were mud floors, limited seats and tables and fitting maybe 90 children and one teacher into a space no bigger than 3m x 3m. Also the borders were two to a bed and when we visited the bedrooms and some classrooms had been flooded. But the Dutch people I went with had brought an entire suitcase of clothes, toys and dolls. Giving these to the children was the inspiring part, their little faces lit up and even the boys loved playing with the dolls. Whilst there I also witnessed something unbelievable…. A dog letting a kitten suckle for milk. So cute!!!
When I got back to the lodge Berend and I played catch with the children, which was a work out in itself. Running up and down the hill, tackling each other, it was a great fun way to spend the rest of the day. After which we had to bring the goats in, for their little size they were so strong!
Witnessed a funeral the other day, where everyone follows the coffin down the path wailing and screaming at full volume, then they stay there all night, maybe even days until everyone can get there to pay their respects. They are not allowed to sleep due to fear of ghosts and to protect the dead, so they play music all night long, keeping everyone awake and inviting anyone to join them. It’s a very strange and loud affair!
Also got roped into seeing an old ladies house, which had only a part of a corrugated iron roof left, and she had to sleep there whether raining or wind. The people I was with gave her money, but I’m not sure this was the right thing to do as her son’s breath blatantly smelt of alcohol and I’m sure that night he would have taken the money from his mother and used it for drink.
My final experience this week that I have to talk about is the toilet in Kochia, as I opened the lid I think all the mosquitoes in Africa started flying out, I ended up hovering over the toilet seat wafting my ass, I’m sure I was bitten!!!! But an experience all the same! J
