Village Life

Yesterday I finally got to spend a day with the women in Atheyle. This week I will be spending one whole day with each of the communities I do my women’s groups in. At 7:30 yesterday morning I met with a social worker on attachment with SIMAHO who wanted to join me in my village adventure. I was wearing my blue dhira (pillow-case dress) and was ready to be a village mama for a day. We walked up to the matatu stage and waited… and waited… and then a matatu came and we waited for people to fill it. Then it was full and we got kicked out/asked to leave and jump in another matatu. Then we waited for the tire on our new vehicle to be fixed and for it to fill before we finally hit the road around 9. Interesting side note: the tools for the tire repair, along with a pair of sandals and other presumably matatu-related paraphernalia, were stored under the cushion of the driver’s seat.

After some short-lived confusion about our purpose for coming to visit the women (“no, not for a meeting, we just want to see what the women do every day and help out”), we were assigned to a mama. She first showed us to her goat and cow pens. Ingenious constructions of mathenge branches (a sticker-ridden weed that grows EVERYWHERE in Garissa) put up around an area to keep in the animals. The cow pen had a fence of branches about 2 feet high and about a foot thick inside of which were they calves who are still too small to travel with the larger herd to go for water. The baby goats were inside a dome of mathenge which provided just enough room for them to fit crowded in together and was surprisingly sturdy; it stood up to the kids climbing up on the walls inside. It looked a bit like a beehive.

Next we started for the river to get the every other daily supply of water for cooking, cleaning, bathing… etc. We started out on foot, but were overtaken by the woman’s daughter who came with a donkey cart and asked us to hop on. Donkey carts are really amazing things. The cart itself is made of two long pieces of wood running parallel on either side of the donkey and boards attached across to sit on or to put water, produce… etc. There are two tires which are huge and look like they belonged to a tractor (a small one) at some point. The parallel sticks are tied to each other by a rope or sometimes chain links that are hitched over a wooden saddle sitting on a blanket or two. These are tied many times by any manner of thing which could be used: old rope, new rope, nylon bands, old clothes, chains… etc. The result is a surprisingly sturdy cart and a smoother-than-expected ride. The whole time I kept thinking about the poor donkey though, pulling a heavy cart through the sand and getting swatted with a stick every so often to encourage him to keep pace. Poor guy. Eventually I got off and walked. Partly because I wanted the exercise, partly to save the donkey from my added weight, and partly because I was tired of getting smacked in the face with low-hanging or overgrown bushes (why is every tree or bush that grows here covered in spikes?!). On the trip I just kept looking at the beautiful (who says sharp cant be beautiful) landscape around me and thinking about the people I was with. I’m lucky that these women are willing to share their lives with me. My coworker Rose, the mama with her baby tied with a leso to her back, her son, her daughter and myself made up our group. We ended up meeting with another two carts driven by mother and daughter, respectively (the daughter being about 8 I would guess, and handling the donkey like a pro) before arriving at the river.
There were a few other women and children from the village who had arrived before us to fetch water and everyone unloaded their jerry cans onto the bank to be filled. We all just started grabbing any of the cans and filling them by wading to our mid-calf into the river and pushing the mouth of the bucket below the water. Simple enough. Well, I managed to get my dhira soaked as well as my garabta (head scarf) since I’m not a professional at water avoidance like the mamas – although, it didn’t seem to matter since after we filled all of the cans people started jumping in. The mama I came with took off her dhira and got in for a bath in her slip and the kids just jumped all the way in wearing their clothes. Rose and I just lifted our dresses and waded in since we weren’t dressed appropriately enough under them to jump in too, but it was really tempting. Even though yesterday wasn’t a hot day by Garissa standards, the cool water still felt amazingly refreshing and the sun was out to dry you off fast. We all had a few good laughs at my expense. When filling the jerry cans something would rub against my foot every once in awhile causing me to squeal, kick my feet up, and run back to the shore. I did get less scared once everyone started jumping in though and now think going back there for a swim one day sounds like a great plan!

It’s probably a good thing that Rose and I didn’t decide to jump in because shortly after the bathing began a man from the village arrived. He was bringing the camels down for a drink and arrived ahead of the herd. To my surprise he helped one woman who was washing clothes in the river and talked with Rose and I about the benefits of being literate and having an education. His name is Ahmed Hassan and he was very excited to talk to us and answer all our questions about camels. We had a brief battle about whether the water in the river is dirty – he argued that no, it wasn’t because it cant make them sick since their stomachs are so strong. I replied that even though it might not make them sick every time, it is still dirty (point proven when the camels came and peed and pooped in the water, though I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way). We had planned to go back to the village with the mamas but he promised to take us to the shamba after the camels watered so we stayed behind when they took the water jugs (now strapped and positioned exactly onto the carts) back to the village. The mama we came with insisted on staying and accompanying us on the trip to the shamba even though she had her baby with her, it’s a long walk, she’s nursing still, and its Ramadan currently which means she is fasting all day (no food or water). Maybe she was nervous about leaving us with the men? So, we waited on the bank of the river talking about Kenya and life until the camels came. The sand is so soft on the bank and Rose and I were relaxing and enjoying the view when suddenly I was almost run over by a camel. I had no idea they had even arrived until they were right next to me walking down the slope to enter the water. They were within inches of my body and camels are really big so you can only imagine how monstrous they looked to me from a sitting position. At one point they came so close I ran/fell onto the other side of Rose and curled up against her cracking up at myself for being such a chicken. The guys had a good laugh about the chicken white lady.

Camels really are amazing animals. They remind me of dinosaurs in some ways: the sounds they make, the look of them (strange faces and bushy eyebrows), and their huge feet. I hadn’t brought my camera with me because I wanted to fully experience the day and sometimes feel like having a camera doesn’t let you get a good feel for everything, but in that moment I really regretted the choice. I plan to go back another day and I’ll bring my camera then. Seriously though, the image of 20 camels of all sizes wading into the river… it was an amazing site. Ahmed Hassan then milked one of the camels with another man while standing on one leg and balancing the bucket on his knee. His head was about level with the camel’s tits. I asked him if I could try and received a firm “no” in response. Though, today I was told by a coworker that it’s a bad omen for women to milk a camel because it will cause the camel never to bear milk again. Hmm, I’m gonna have to find a really open-minded Somali to let me try and milk a camel. I wonder how they feel about letting a woman ride one…? He offered us a taste but we both quickly declined after looking in the bucket at the little specks of “dirt” from the camel’s tit that were floating in the milk. I did end up trying it later though (only a cap-full) and I didn’t get sick.

On the way back to the village we passed through the community shamba. It’s a collection of gardens and fields that the community owns collectively. The farm comes us up on you so suddenly out of the desert. One moment you are walking through sand, past brown bushes with killer spikes and seeing only the occasional spot of green, and the next you are in the Garden of Eden. Banana trees, mangos, papaya, guava, and maize being grown alongside a winding moat of water pumped from the river. It is really impressive what they have going on there and so, SO green!! It feels like a completely different part of Kenya. It’s nothing like the rest of Garissa and one of the most surprising things I’ve seen since coming here. I tried to ask how the money from the produce comes back to the villagers, but it was hard to get an answer because the only one who even spoke enough Swahili to talk to Rose was the mama’s son. But he said that they pay for the water for the shamba, then pay the workers, then the money goes into an account for the community. But I’ll have to get more information about their shamba at the next meeting. Before leaving we were given many guavas and papayas (sadly the mangos aren’t in season – I’m dying a little bit every day). We then went to a second shamba where they were growing tomatoes and were given yet another bag bursting with tomatoes. The kindness of these communities is wonderful. We tried to have the mama keep some, but she would only take some few tomatoes because her family doesn’t like papaya (join the club, mama).

The whole day was such an eye-opening experience and I’m so thankful that I was able to do it. I have two more days this week that I will spend in the field with the other communities I work in and I’m really excited for the opportunity. It’s nice to get outside the city and get closer to understanding how people live in this area. I feel very fortunate to have had this experience.