Yes I am still in Kenya...

So many things have been happening the last few months. Work is going great. We have successfully started our leagues, eight of them, ranging from under 10 to under 18. We have 1500 kids playing competitive soccer in an organized league every weekend... SUCCESS! Also, my organization, KYFA, has been getting some national recognition. We have had some articles about us in the newspapers, radio shows and even a short television feature during prime time TV!! People are starting to ask about us and want to know what is going on with the local football teams. All the hard work and extreme stress is paying off! We are developing into a reputable, professional organization which is setting an example to the rest of the country that youth leagues can successfully be organized.

Kenya in general is good. The talk of the country is the upcoming vote on the proposed Constitution. The country has spent like the last million years developing a constitution (since theirs was developed by the British when they became independent). Now it is finalized and there will be a vote in August if they adopt it or not. This past weekend there was a rally in Nairobi for the "NO" campign, basically organized by religious leaders. Most people who are opposing the Constitution are doing it because of one clause about abortion. Abortion will still be illegal as it is now here, but the new constitution says that now it will be legal if the mother's life is in danger. The entire Christian community is outraged so they are basically the ones opposing it. Anyway, at the rally someone set off hand grenades and 5 people died and like 75 were severely injured. It was being held right in the main park in Nairobi and was really horrible and scary. Sometimes this country is insane. Otherwise politics do not affect us so much here in Kisumu because we are not in the capital.

THe whol country is pretty excited right now about World Cup, which I will be going to on Sunday. I'll be in SOuth Africa from the 20th of June - July 9th. I have tickets for 5 matches and hopefully I can get more when I am there. It is very cool to see a continent come together to support each other. It's a huge deal for Africa and people here are really proud of it, as they should be! It will be an amazing experience and I mean come on... how could I not go to the first World CUp to be held in Africa?!?!

Mbita

Last weekend I traveled to Mbita, which is a town on the southern shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya. To get there, we drove to the northern shore of the lake and took a 40 minute ferry across to Mbita. I went for the weekend to visit an American friend of mine, who works at a school there and has also started a girls soccer team. His team is comprised from girls all around that area and is sort of a "premier club" from that place. Their aim is to get young girls (11-14) and involve them in soccer as much as possible to keep them focused and in school and not pregnant. The district they are coming from has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in all of Kenya at around 40%. The entire generation from age 30-50 ish has literally been wiped out. The biggest source of income there is fishing, so what happens is traveling fishermen come and stay there for a few weeks at a time. They go out for fish and come back to the shore to "sell" the fish to women. This really means the fish are exchanged for money and sex and there you have the insanely fast spread of HIV and other diseases. Then about 60% of the current population is under the age of 18, or some crazy number like that. Almost all kids are total or partial orphans and most are living with extended family members or grandparents. There are so many issues there that are related to poverty and HIV. The life of a girl there is horrible. They are made to do domestic work all day and they are lucky if they are even able to attend primary school. Many are pregnant by the age of 14 or 15 and are married soon after that. Their future is bleak, to put it nicely.

So anyway, my friend has started this club to promote healthy activities for girls and to empower them to lead them away from this life they are seemingly doomed for. They came to Kisumu to participate in one of our tournaments last year, so that is how I know them. They had asked Ted to coach them for the weekend, since they get together one weekend out of every month for a sort of mini camp to train. So Ted and I went to coach and see the team. We got there Friday afternoon and has a short session in the evening. The girls are all so great. They all are between the ages of 12 and 17 and all except 4 are total or partial orphans. When they come to the camps once a month, they are sort of able to escape their oppressive lives and have fun and play football for the whole weekend. And they all LOVE football!

There is another American woman who helps out with the team, so her and I stayed with the girls at a cabin type place at night. It was so fun to spend time with them and talk to them. They are encouraged to speak English and Swahili when they are at the camp, instead of the preferable mother tongue which is called Dholuo. During the weekend, we did a football session from 8-12 Saturday and Sunday morning. Saturday afternoon they had an academic session for a few hours and we played a little more soccer in the evening. Sunday afternoon they all travelled back home. So basically the whole weekend, besides playing soccer and emphasizing that, there was a lot of emphasis on academics and also religion because my friends there are missionaries. We had 5 pieces of white bread and butter for breakfast and lunch every day (also a hard boiled egg for lunch). Then beans and rice for dinner... pretty typical Kenyan diet, so I was definitely excited to come back home and eat vegetables and meat haha.

I had a great weekend because fist of all, I was able to coach a little bit, which I never am able to do. It really made me want to be a part of an individual team. I mean, I love what I am doing with KYFA and I know that I am able to make a difference, but it is on such a big scale that is hard to see the results. When working with an individual team, you are able to make a real impact on individual lives and build those personal relationships. I really hope to be able to do this at some point. Also, I had not traveled in Nyanza Province, which is basically the area in Kenya surrounding Lake Victoria, so it was cool to experience a more rural setting. Plus the town is RIGHT on the lake which is really cool. I did not swim because it is sort of a swim at your own risk thing. There are a boat load of diseases you can get from the water and I just didn't feel like risking it. The locals swim all the time, but they are also getting the diseases all the time. Also, there are hippos so you can't swim at night, but during the day is not a problem.

This week I am back at work in Kisumu. All is well and we are starting our leagues next weekend. I am excited to finally have everything kicking off and games to watch on the weekend. The weather has been kinds "cold" recently. I have even left the house in the morning wearing long sleeves twice. Crazy!!

Football, friends and food

So I have been back in Kenya for about 3 weeks now. I already miss American food and hot showers, but otherwise it is great to be back. Work is going so well. I have 2 new staff members who are awesome and work along the same lines as I do, namely doing the right thing haha. So basically it is a new year, with new people and we even have a new office. Well two more stories added to the old office, so we have much more space to work in.

I have definitely figured out how to deal with the stress of my job and let things go. By surrounding myself with the right people, it makes me feel much more confident about leaving here in July and things really being able to continue the way they are now. With work being less stressful, it makes it much easier to have more fun in general.

My 3 American friends here just moved into the apartment building next to mine, so it is awesome to have them so close. We can literally stand at our windows and talk to each from 5 yards away... pretty sweet!

This past weekend I played in a local soccer tournament here. There is a girls team here who I practice with once in a while. The tournament was hosted by a local high school, but it was an open tournament. We played 2 games on Saturday and won both pretty easily. Today, we played 3 more games, including semi-finals and finals. We were playing the other good girls team from Kisumu in the semi's and we were winning 1-0 with about 3 minutes left. The officiating was horrible, no one disputed that, and one of our girls had an obvious handball in the box, almost near the 6 yard box and of course, the referee calls a free kick OUTSIDE the box. So the other teams goes crazy and the girls start swearing and screaming at the ref. Their coaches were calling them and telling them to walk off the field, which is what they did. This is the problem with a lot of soccer here. I have seen this scenario happen MULTIPLE times,but this was the first time I was directly involved because I was playing. Teams have no discipline and the coaches are the instigators in almost every situation like this. What kind of role models are they teaching the kids to abandon matches whenever there is a call by the referee that they don't like. Very frustrating to see...

Anyway, we got to the finals and ended up winning in penalty kicks. It was fun and I scored a few goals so people FINALLY realize that I can play soccer, even though I always say I do. The common response is "but Kelsey, they don't play soccer in America." Maybe now they think otherwise haha.

I am currently sitting in my living room at 4:30am watching the Super Bowl by myself. There are no American commercials, which stinks, and I think the broadcast is about 10 seconds behind the US, but it is live nonetheless. This will be my one major late-night sporting event, besides the Duke-UNC games, but it is totally worth losing sleep over.

I am probably one of 15 people in the entire country watching this game right now. Gotta love it...

The Mara

Last weekend, I went to Maasai Mara National Park with a few friends of mine. We left Kisumu at 6am on Friday morning and got to the park around 11am after 3 hours of good roads and 2 of hours of absolutely horrible roads. We drive in over this ridge and you look out and its just the best view ever. So we start driving through the park and immediately we're seeing herds of elephants, tons of zebras, wildebeest, antelopes and gazelles. We stopped by the river and saw huge hippos lounging around. After being in the park for like 20 minutes, our driver pulls a u-turn and we speed off the road through a random field and all the sudden we are legitimately 5 yards from a huge male lion just sitting on the ground. I was totally scared but of course, still hanging out the top of the car to take good pictures haha. It was unreal...

Later in the day we saw a leopard which had just killed a zebra and was eating it. We also went off roading and saw cheetahs lounging around. Buffaloes were everywhere and so we giraffes. We left the park on the far side from where we cam in and stayed at our lodge for the night. It was a tented camp, but each tent was huge and had 2 beds in it and was attached to a small concrete room with a toilet and hot shower. It was perfect.

We got up really early Saturday morning and went to search for more animals, especially a rhino. On the way we stopped to see a female lion which had just eaten a cow. It was still sitting near the cow and guarding it against all the vultures nearby which wanted to eat the rest of the carcass. We watched for about 30 mins as the lion would start to slowly walk away as the vultures creeped closer, the lion would turn back and look at the birds and they would freeze, then it would turn back and continue away. After walking 30 yards or so, it would turn and run back towards the carcass and the vultures would fly away. Pretty sweet to watch, especially because the lion walked directly in front of our car. Later on, we saw a pride of four male lions who would have been rebels in their original prides, but left and joined together. It was wild!

We saw a mom and baby elephant drinking from a watering hole and we were basically about 4 feet from there. It was so cute. We searched for a rhino the whole day but unfortunately didn't see one. During the morning, we saw the leopard again really close up and it was definitely the coolest animal we saw the whole time. The colors were so cool and bright and we were lucky because most people on safaris don't usually see leopards.

The whole landscape of the Mara is amazing and so beautiful. I always think tourists who go on safari are so corny, but it was hands down the coolest thing ever (or at least right up there with bungee jumping over the Nile...). Sunday morning we got to drive back through the park again, so we spent basically 3 days in the car just looking at beautiful views and cool animals. It was exhausting, but so worth it.

Oh Kenya....

Things have been going really well recently. I have just been totally submerged in work, which has allowed me to do more thinking and piece together my thoughts and theories about Kenyans/Kenya in general.

First, I have never been surrounded by so many mean, selfish people. I know ‘bad’ is not a very descriptive word, but that’s how I feel about so many people. They are BAD people. Now of course this is not the majority of people. The majority are warm and friendly and trustworthy, but the percentage of people who are not, is so much higher than I am used to. People have zero shame in stealing, lying, cheating and exploiting others. I am blown away by the audacity of some people and their willingness to brag about their corrupt and immoral ways.

Unfortunately, a huge number of these people are involved in football in Kenya. No wonder Kenyan soccer is never good and never goes anywhere haha. Because of my strict adherence to rules and my straightforward ways, I have made a good number of enemies. Not only are people mean to me, but they are mean to each other, to their friends. I am amazed how people can backstab and cheat their friends even with their friend’s knowledge and they next day they are back to being friends. Forgiving and forgetting and quite common. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the culture I come from, but I don’t forget when people talk bad about me or try to cheat me or blatantly lie to my face REPEATEDLY.

I feel like the things I am learning here are so different than my expectations going in. I’m learning more how to deal with bad people, than to deal with the good ones. Not to say I don’t work and spend time with amazing wonderful people every day, because I certainly do, but that’s the easy part, so why would I complain about it, right?!?

Money plays such an interesting role here. As far as I understand, there is a universal theory right now that dumping money into developing countries will not help them. Instead, we should build their capacity and strengthen the human resources within the country to help them build themselves. I totally agree with that idea form an American viewpoint, but from my newly cynical Kenyan viewpoint, I think it’s bull. Realistically, if you ask people in these countries, they don’t want to be trained. They don’t want to take 3 days away from whatever they do for work to come for a training. They don’t want their ‘capacity’ to be built. That takes time, that takes patience, that takes planning. They want money, today, now… in their hand so they can put food on the table. There is very little thinking about the future here, about how they can build up themselves. To them it’s a simple answer… “give us money.” They think, ‘Money will fix our problems, money will rid us of poverty, drought, HIV, famine, flooding, corruption.”

I think I am just becoming more confused as to how development “works” because is it working? Are people and places becoming developed? I don’t know the answers, but I know that truly the only way that is proven, is one person at a time. Today, I was watching a match in our under 12 league. This weekend is what we call mini-league but in American talk is playoffs. So this team is wearing replica Manchester United jerseys that we had given them since they were the number 1 team during league play. These small boys are on the field, playing their hearts out, wearing real uniforms and most of them wearing cleats (their coach had saved ALL his money to help buy the shoes) and one of them scores with a beautiful left-footed half volley from 10 yards out. They all run to the corner flag, ecstatic, and do a circle/dance celebration before returning to the middle of the field. Their (volunteer) coach pumps his fist on the side line and all the older brothers and older boys from that neighborhood who are there supporting the team are running along the sideline waving shirts in the air and yelling and celebrating. I just know that if these kids can stick to football, instead of local brews or drugs or prostitutes that plague the slum they come from, they will be “developed.” Giving people, especially kids, an enjoyable free life is what development is all about. I think the organization I work for plays a small part in that and I’m proud of that.

Anyway, that’s a little bit of my recent thoughts about Kenya and my experience here. Bottom line is I love it, I love the challenge and I loving proving to people I’m right by helping kids and teaching them to do the right thing. It’s kind of the ultimate “Ha, Ha” in the face of the bad guys.

11 months in Kenya...

So a few recent incidents. The first one involving the local witch doctor. 2 buildings down from me, there is a "traditional healer" who conducts his business from his house. He has signs all over the neighborhood advertising his business, which says how he cures "syphilis, gonorrhea, cancer, court cases, education, asthma, and vomiting all the times." This is no joke haha. So a few weeks ago, I wake up to a lot of commotion outside my apartment building. I walk out to the balcony and there is a huge crowd of about 100 people outside the witch doctor's house and there was a naked man down on the ground on all fours crying and moaning and eating grass while holding a goat on a string. Yea, this is still real. So apparently the story was another man had had a goat stolen from and he went to the witch doctor to try to get it back. So a few days later this crying naked man shows up with a goat. So it looks like the witch doctor placed a curse on him and he came back willingly to return the stolen goat. Along with the 100 or so people there watching, the police came and the media came. It was a huge crazy scene and so bizarre, I could barely believe it was happening. So I find out the next day it was a hoax. The naked crying man was hired by the witchdoctor to make it look like he had placed a curse on him to advertise for his business. Kenya is so strange sometimes...

Last weekend we hosted a nationwide girls tournament here in Kisumu. Of 32 teams that we supposed to come for the tournament, only 16 showed up. Very typical, but it made my life so extremely stressful the first day of the tournament. Turned out to be a very successful tournament and we had about 2000 or 3000 people watching each day. It was awesome!

Nothing else is very new. I have a few American friends who were here for the summer and they are all leaving soon which is sad. People seem to come and go quickly here.
Otherwise, just missing Mexican food and smooth roads...

Life...

Lots to report on. First thing...

My organization (read: me) hosted a soccer tournament for mentally challenged kids two weeks ago. It was awesome, but not without some ups and downs. So I had planned EVERYTHING to a t. There were 11 schools involved in the planning and over 160 kids were coming with about 30-40 teachers. I had organized to have all the kids bused into town for the day to play in the "stadium." This was NOT an easy task because most of the schools are a little ways out of town. So I had contacted some companies and institutes around to donate their time and products like bread, hard-boiled eggs and a DJ sound system. Coca Cola was to provide chairs, tents, sodas and water.

The morning of the event, when the Coca Cola equipment was to be delivered, the lady who I was in contact with informed me that the proposal had not been approved and she could not release any of the equipment or drinks. Now, I had spoken to her EVERY day that week and she had assured me everything was in place... And the worst part, she didn't even say sorry. I mean come on, who screws over mentally challenged kids who want to play soccer?!? I was so mad at Coca Cola and i had to scramble to go get everything so the event could go on. Despite horrible, dishonest, rude people who seem to be so frequent here, the event was AWESOME. All the kids got to play a lot. We made small, modified fields and had short games. The DJs played great loud music and the kids were dancing the whole time and smiling! They must have been so excited to tell their parents when they got home about the big day out at the stadium and playing football and dancing. Just to see all of them smile made every second of it worth it. We gave out some small prizes to all the teams and everyone went home happy. It was the first of many events to come for special needs kids in Kisumu.

I also went to conference two weekends ago in Nairobi for the Sport for Social Change Network (SSCN). It is coordinated by an organization called CARE (a huge NGO operating from Atlanta). The head coordinator for the network is Dr. Auma Obama, Barack's sister. So I spent the whole weekend with her and it was great. The conference was really interesting and quite productive. My organization is a part of this group of all people who work with sports and development from all over Kenya so I definitely learned a lot. I was also elected the overall committee for the whole network which is sweet!

So another recent highlight was last weekend. I met a girl recently who is living in Kenya and working for an organization which brings British medical students to Kenya for 2 week experiential learning programs. She coordinates the trips and there are about 30 students arriving and leaving every 2 weeks. The first group of students she had 2 weeks ago was here for a week and after the first week on of the got sick. Turns out it was swine flu and the Kenyan media and general public FREAKED out. The media runs everything here and people hang on their every word... it's kind of sad. So anyhow, one of the kids had swine flu and was treated and the whole group of 34 students had to be quarantined in their hotel for 6 days until they were essentially deported back to the UK. So my friend calls me on Saturday afternoon and asks if I would do her a wierd favor and come to the hotel and help them out as a decoy. So it sounds interesting and she asks me to bring a friend so my friend from home, Andrea, who was staying with me came along.

We get to the hotel and they fill us in on the plan. Basically, the hired 3 vans to look like the students were traveling in them. I sat in the front seat of the first, Andrea in the front seat of the second and a Kenyan guy in the front seat of the third. We drive out of the hotel and follow behind a police escort car as if we were driving to Nairobi overnight, as the students were supposed to do. So we would lead the press away from the hotel while the actual students would all get on a bus and head to Nairobi. They didn't want the faces of any of the students to be in the press because some of them were planning on traveling in Kenya after they got to Nairobi (which didn't end up happening because they were forced to leave). So we drive away from the hotel and flashbulbs are going off like whoa. Two press vehicles followed us for 30 minutes as we drove towards Nairobi. They were taking tons of pictures and cutting off our vehicle to get close. It was SO obvious there was no one else in the back of the vans, but apparently they were too stupid to notice. After 30 minutes, we stopped and got a ride back home with the police escort vehicle. The decoy mission worked and the students got to Nairobi without being bothered. Meanwhile, the next day mine and Andrea's pictures were in the paper and in the news as the swine flu students traveling back to Nairobi... it was pretty funny. The whole situation was so exciting and funny. We were glad to screw over the press because they are the worst here. Check out the article:

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/619190/-/ukfteu/-/index.html


Other than those things, life is pretty normal. Work is going well, I'm LOVING the hot showers at the gym, I still get called mzungu about 20 times a day on average, my Swahili is improving and I miss American food more than I can explain. So keep the updates coming on all of your lives.I love hearing from everyone at home!