Hi everyone!
It’s hard to believe that I am in the middle of my 8th week here in Nyumbani Village. I simultaneously feel like I’ve only been here for just a few days, and that I’ve been here for six months. The reason for this, I think, is that the day-to-day routine in the Village has completely changed since I first arrived. It has been so busy that time has really flown by, yet it seems hard to believe that all the events that have taken place have done so in under two months.
When I was first here, “volunteer season” was in full swing, with group after group coming to the Village to work on all sorts of wonderful projects. The Master Chef Nyumbani, Olympics, Fashion Show, and Nyumbani’s Got Talent events all contributed to the busiest week in the Village that I have had and may ever have, but it was wonderful to have such a large group of motivated volunteers working on projects that brought so much joy to the community. The dances in the Talent Show were so much fun to watch; they ranged from young children performing traditional Kamba dances and songs with traditional instruments, to teenage boys performing a hip-hop routine, to the shushus (grandmothers) performing their own group dance. What felt like all 1,200 people in the Village were packed inside the social hall to watch the event, and it was easy to see why children start preparing their acts months in advance. The competition was fierce!
In the week after all of these events, around 40 volunteers left the Village. This is when I learned about one of the most difficult parts of this job: all of the goodbyes! Nyumbani structures their volunteer program in way that discourages the idea of “voluntourism” (a concept I always find perfectly illustrated by this Onion article). In order to be a volunteer here in the Village, you have to be able to commit to staying for at least a month, or you must have some sort of focused project that you will be able to complete during your stay that will provide a long-term benefit to the Village. As a result, the Village attracts some pretty incredible people. Everybody is not only highly motivated to help out, but they all have respect for the fact that Nyumbani Village is already an extremely well-organized program. Having a whole group of people who share these traits and live together makes for a great “family” environment, and was definitely the biggest reason that my transition to living in an otherwise isolated, rural environment went so smoothly. I feel very fortunate to have met people with whom I am sure I will keep in touch for years to come, but it was very hard to say goodbye to all of them!
Nowadays, the Guest House – and daily life in general – is much quieter. There are only 4 other volunteers here, two of whom leave next week. This has resulted in a major change of pace, which I think is much more indicative for what most of the next year will be like for me. Evenings are much quieter, mostly consisting of watching a movie, reading a book, working out, or just sitting and talking around the table after dinner. The smaller number of volunteers has also allowed me to become closer with several staff members here, all of whom are wonderful people who enjoy working here. Several of the younger staff members also take their meals in the Guest House, and we always enjoy chatting together in the evenings.
Many staff members also try to help me improve my Kiswahili, which I’m happy to say is getting better every day! It has been interesting to learn Kenyan Kiswahili, which is a little different from that which I learned in Tanzania. Whenever people find out that I speak a bit of the language and they hear that I learned it in Tanzania, the answer is inevitably “ah, but in Tanzania they speak the REAL Kiswahili”. It took me a few weeks to figure out what that meant, but I’ve noticed that Kenyan Kiswahili is indeed a little more offhand, “slang-y” version of what you would hear in Tanzania. The best analogy I can think of would be comparing someone from England speaking Queen’s English to someone from Australia or, say, North Carolina.
Life in the “office” has also changed a lot since the bulk of the volunteers left. We are now entering late September, meaning that the shorter of the two rainy seasons is just about a month away. The short rains usually come in late October until late November or early December, and usually bring short, intense daily showers. They may be called the “short rains”, but it is during this time that we collect around half of the yearly water for drinking and cooking in the Village. This means that now is the time to switch into high gear in terms of preparing all of the Rainwater Harvesting (RW) systems in the Village, which is my primary responsibility here along with being Volunteer Coordinator. The other week, I went on a day trip into Nairobi to purchase additional PVC supplies for the construction and maintenance of the systems before the rains come. Last week, a team of 5 workers from a nearby community came and cleaned all 150 RW tanks, so that they would be free of dirt and debris. While they were working, I took the opportunity to go around the whole Village and take note of the various punctured pipes, damaged taps, etc., that would need to be replaced in the upcoming weeks. In theory, we should still have about a month to take care of all of this, but good ol’ climate change coupled with an El Niño year can bring all sorts of surprises. Just this morning we had a sudden and very unexpected downpour, a not-so-gentle reminder that we really need to make sure that we get everything done well in advance.
Along with my ongoing responsibilities with volunteers and the RW systems, I have looked for other small projects to get involved with on the side, especially now that there are fewer volunteers and I have a bit more free time. The first of these projects has been the greenhouse next to the Guest House. The greenhouse, probably 7m x 12m or so, had been sitting unused after an unsuccessful aquaponics project. Aquaponics systems use a combination of aquaculture (raising fish for food), and hydroponics (growing produce without using soil). The greenhouse had been build with a small pond inside, and an electric pump used to keep the water oxygenated. However, nobody realized that oxygenating a fish pond with unreliable solar energy is not a recipe for success, and the fish met an unfortunate demise. The new plan is to move the aquaponics project down to the Polytechnic, where it can tap directly into the large solar garden. This meant that there was a whole greenhouse ready for the taking! I spoke with Wyclif, who is in charge of the farms here, and over the course of last week we filled the empty pond with dirt, brought in topsoil and fertilizer, constructed a drip-irrigation system, and now we are ready to bring in some seedlings to start growing crops! Most housing clusters in the Village have their own “kitchen shambas” (shamba=farm/garden in Kiswahili) where they grow food to consume, and I thought that it would be a great addition to the Guest House. Other volunteers and I will be in charge of tending to the garden throughout the year, and the produce will be used by the cooks, John and Senator. The plan is to start with tomatoes, carrots, sukuma wiki (a very common green here that is similar to collard greens), and okra, but we will see what else we grow over the course of the year!
My other small “project” happened more by happenstance, but started while I was watching a pick-up game of football (soccer) on the pitch next to the Guest House. Because the bushes here have thorns that could flatten the tires of a monster truck, normal soccer balls last, as an estimate, 30 seconds before getting punctured. To deal with this, almost all games are played with balls made from plastic bags that have been balled up and wrapped with twine. They are immune to the thorns, but they are nothing like a normal ball. I went inside and Googled “puncture resistant soccer ball”, and found the One World Play Project, a US-based company that makes virtually indestructible, no-air-required soccer balls. Completely out of coincidence, I found out that our close family friend had worked with this organization before, when she and my dad had co-lead a soccer-based outreach trip for young girls in India. A few emails later, the Director of Africa for One World Play Project had informed me that there are 10 brand-new balls waiting for Nyumbani Village sitting in her house in Nairobi! We are planning to pick the balls up later this week, and I can’t wait to watch (and join in on!) some games soon.
Admittedly, the slower pace of the Village has lead me to start to think more about how I am going to spend weekends and find chances to explore Kenya outside of the Village. With public transport being quite inexpensive, I am optimistic that I will be able to travel around many different parts of the country during my time here. This past weekend, I was able to travel into Nairobi on Friday night, and spent a couple of days hanging out with the other Princeton in Africa Fellows who are based in Kenya. As an added bonus, on Sunday I found out that I had no work the following day due to a national holiday (which seemed to somehow take the entire country by surprise; it was as if nobody know it was a holiday until a few days beforehand).
On Saturday, we went for a hike in the nearby Ngong Hills, of “Out of Africa” fame. Sadly, we saw no sign of Robert Redford or Meryl Streep, but the views were pretty spectacular. We were joined by my friend and coworker, Joseph, who lives in Ngong, who helped show us around the Hills. A few years ago, much of the forests on Ngong Hills were cut down in order to build a massive wind farm that runs along the first two of the seven hills. There were some workers from the energy company who we spoke to briefly, who said that “just three of the wind turbines were enough to power Nairobi indefinitely”. I have my doubts, but it’s good to see Nairobi embracing renewable energy! The other highlight of the weekend had to be the food. While there’s nothing wrong with rice, beans, maize, lentils, and sukuma wiki every single day, the dinners of Chinese food, nyama choma (literally “roasted meat”), or delicious Ethiopian food really hit the spot. They even had WiFi (!!!) so we could stream some of the NFL opening weekend games. It was exactly what I needed to feel re-energized before coming back to the Village.
Thanks for reading! As always, below are some pictures from the last few weeks.
Shan
The night before the Olympics, we painted and attached ribbons to like 60 wooden medals for the "winners" of the Olympics
Mural at nearby Kitukuni Church, designed by my good friend Arturo, and painted by several volunteers
The first peak at Ngong Hills
View from the top, overlooking Nairobi (just left of center, off in the distance)
