More on Life in Kehancha

I have now been in Kehancha for over one week and I have a few small observations to report...

- The main market area is jammed with people offering services that are seemingly out of reach for the average resident...dry cleaners, electronics repairman, and an excess of taxi drivers for the tiny village all seem useless given the extreme poverty. Vendors offer mounds of rubber sandals, trousers screen-printed with President Obama's portrait, and rows of machetes in stalls along the road, but rarely do you actually see any transactions.


- The MP (member of parliament) seems to own most of the town. In addition to his extensive banana grove, rows and rows of cassava, sweet potato and kale, he also owns the only real hotel in town. I learned this when I came to the hotel (named Pre-Mara, because it is right before the land of Masai Mara. Very logical.) for a meeting and saw dozens of cattle and sheep grazing in the courtyard. I asked one of my colleagues Who owned all the livestock? and he replied the owner of the hotel, who also happened to be the MP. It's an interesting microcosm of the Kenyan bureaucracy.

- By now I am used to the children (and sometimes adults) calling Mzungu! after me as I walk by...this means white person, and some in some translations person not to be trusted. Yesterday I saw a woman nudge the toddler at her feet and point to me so he wouldn't miss the mzungu passing by. Later, sitting outside our house, I had three children rubbing my skin (no, it's not painted on) and stroking my hair while I read. Bhoke explained that while they might have seen someone like me in the past, never had they been so close to touch.


- As I am identifying orphans in Kehancha for our sponsorship program, a theme is emerging. Among the educated and prominent leaders of the community, it is not uncommon to take in one or two, and at times six or eight orphaned children and care for them as your own. I've asked many teachers for information about orphans in their classes and many will recall a specific child whom they have lived with and cared for in this way. It's amazing to me that while government resources fail to provide a safety net, private individuals (who are by no means wealthy) pick up the slack.

- Finally, a word about Mr. Bush. I have met one person, a doctor with a private clinic, who is unfailingly loyal to Bush. He cites the billions of dollars the Bush administration funneled to Africa for things like mosquito nets and antiretroviral drugs as the reason for his support. Indeed, this is a reality and it has very tangible effects here; some of the poorest orphans I've spoken with sleep under nets and at least some Kenyans are taking advantage of the free ARVS, provided they can afford transportation to the clinics which supply them. You can't deny that these resources are useful, though it makes you wonder why all the money is for reactionary measures, and Kenyan sex ed still strongly emphasizes abstinence as the main method of preventing HIV.