Sloppy Joe

A little kid touched a friend's boob last night. She and I were walking in old town. He was bigger and braver than the rest of his friends, all in school uniforms. He said 'how are you' with a nasal tone making fun of my nasal sounding Mzungu accent.

She stopped all of a sudden. I didn't know why and but she had that stare. The way one stares down a bad dog. The boy ran. She was pissed. She said she almost hit him. I wish she had. I wanted to myself. But the moment was over, the boy was long gone.

Most of the women in the part of town I live in are covered in hijab. Which they take off at home for their husband. Her tits - were right there, behind a tight t-shirt.

Where am I in this? The mzungu is a walking symbol of wealth. A symbol of a social class that most people here dream of.... Tom Cruz strides across a red carpet …. it makes me want to spit.

So what? Spin around chains dipped in kerosene at night in the park with people living on the street... Maybe I'm a someday wanna-be buddha, son of a king, seeing suffering for the first time and wanting to take myself out of the equation. Not wanting to be a walking reminder of people's crap nor a walking excuse for people's crap.

There is a small boy that has been learning to dance with fire his name is Matano. He sleeps in the park. He wants to return to his mother in Lamu. He says she sent him away to find his father in Mombasa. He found him. He was hurt by him and abandoned. No money to return home. Living on the streets for over a year now. He is skinny, too skinny, they all are.

MotoMoto Circus was invited to Lamu. So the boy - he's coming with us. Feeling Pandora's box opening: “Here is your son. We brought him back to you.” ….. “Thank you? But I don't have any money to take care of him …. “ shit ….. (She would be looking for him if she had money right? - I would like to think) God - I hate being a stupid 'rich' white person - with no money to boot.
Most likely I will bring him back to Mombasa and try to get him enrolled in one of the shelters. It's a sloppy solution when you are surrounded by so many people who need parents … to shove a kid in with 60 others. It's a sloppy solution to be adopting every kids that pulls your heart strings. It's a sloppy solution to leave him there on the streets.
I'm going to go back in time and suggest better family planning . . . (sense of humor in tact)
Sloppy.
(pictures of Matano -- the last one he is using a shaker that Nemo made from metal cups)

.. So - I like getting analytical when faced with utter sloppiness. In 1950 the estimate was 6 million people. Today it is around 40 million. They say the annual growth rate falls around 3%. So starting at 6 million … I made this nice little graph in excel (actually OpenOffice). Drum roll ... That's an exponential curve! So while HIV and starvation have ravaged the country somehow the population has stayed at a fairly steady 3%. Curious.

There are sooooo many people here in Mombasa. A flood. They sleep in the homes of friends and relatives. They are all looking for jobs. None are very far from the street. Its 4:00pm I am about to head out to the afternoon practice. I can hear a madras next door and children chanting in Arabic.

A brother of one of the boys going to Lamu with us for MotoMoto … he was supposed to come with us, but hasn't been showing up for practices or meetings for over two weeks. If he shows up for the bus I am going to have to tell him we gave his seat away. Sloppy.

Ramping up.

I have moved and am now living about a 5 minute walk from the kids I work with. I now live in a entirely Muslim section of town and am feeling like I am back to square one in some ways in terms of getting to know the local culture. Because of my skin color everyone calls me Mzungu (semi-derogatory word for foreigner) and thinks I am a tourist with loads of cash.
(picture is from a beach show we had last week)

The coast around Mombasa is lined with hotels and clubs for the tourist industry. Our aim is to get some auditions and eventually get some regular shows to provide a steady income for the youths. The advanced performance troupe is made up of three Kenyan fire dancers and two percussionists in their early twenties – but we are trend setting and hope this opens the doors for many more.

We spent the last two weeks walking – at least 6 miles a day in blistering heat – trying to get to see the management of hotels. It turns out I am lightly pigmented and not built for equatorial UVB radiation. (but sunscreen helps!)


Challenges:

Getting street living Kenyans into these hotels with me is not easy. If I wasn’t there they wouldn’t get past security and even then we often had to wait outside for the entertainment manager to come speak with us.

Thatched roofs are a fire hazard. Most places are so worried about their roofs they won’t even let us perform on the beach 30 feet away.

Our first hotel performance….

Hotels want free demos – even though the paraffin and transport out there is expensive. But in this case I finally managed to convince the entertainment manager of a 4 star hotel to help us out. We were to have an audition (in front of guests …..) for 1000 shillings – which would cover our costs. Confirmed … double confirmed. I invited a ton of people and managers from other hotels. But then around 2pm in the afternoon right after I had burnt a CD for our music the manager at the hotel calls and say no.

Me: No? Really why?!

Him: ..hesitation… “Because we don’t have enough guests to get feedback.”

Me: Look, we are ready and willing to do the show for just you. We just want to show you what we can do.

Him: Umm thats nice, but it just looks like we are going to have 4 guests.

Me: Ok, how about we reduce the price. I have guests coming to see it.

Him: Oh .. thats nice. but we want to pay you – but maybe some other time.

Me: Can I call you back?

(check how much cash I have on me…. call back)

Me: How about we do it for free?

Him: Thats sounds great. See you at 9.

….. Cool … sorta. We really need to get the exposure and open the door – so I figured it was worth it.

(I am trying to get our students ‘independent’ making money for themselves … so me sponsoring shows feels like a step backward .. unless it turns out to get them a contract.)

…. So after much a due. Rounding up everyone. Buying the paraffin. Doing a last minute rehearsal. Taking several buses traveling for about an hour. We arrive. Two of the kids had never even seen such a fancy hotel. They were quite and wide eyed. I felt a bit like blacking out.

I went and asked for the manager. He had gone home ….. bad sign.

Finally this other guy came out. Big guy, looked like a bouncer. Stood there hesitantly and slightly angry - Twirled the gold chain around his neck.

Him: We don’t really have enough guests tonight. Sorry.

Me: Really? We came all this way.

Him: Yeah sorry. We just wouldn’t be able to get enough feedback about the show.

Me: We would be happy to just show it to you in the parking lot. We have one guest here that came just to see the show. (she had just shown up)

Him: Ok wait. I’m coming back.

(He walks off in a hurry)

… we wait. . . . I have a slight relief feeling … (at least I can go to sleep early tonight . . .)

Finally a woman comes out and say. “I am to show you to the private party”.

(party?)

So we are lead out of the lobby past the several pools and finally shown a room where we are to perform. There are about 30 people in there and look like Kenyan officials. Hmmmmmmm……

We get ready. Had over our CD. Run through our program. Just 3 individual dances. The performance space is really a little too small and the roof is thatched.

All of a sudden they are on and I am video taping their performance.

The Audience starts in a hush. The DJ begins to mumble …. “fire show” … “Look at this amazing fire show” … over an over .. its kinda surreal.

Our first performer finishes and the as the next starts – the audience gets more and more animated. The only ‘fire shows’ they are used to are very short acts of, fire breathing … I think they just didn’t know what to make of it.

Hotel Performance:


Three of our kids perform and we are out. The crowd LOVED it. The manager who told us to leave earlier was in shock and told us he would get us some money next week and book us again and again.

Here we are on Pirates Beach the next night - working on ensembles:


... this week we are head back to hotels with proof of having been at one.

Mtwapa will be missed

Two things I'll miss.

Mumtaz: The best beef birihani ever.






This cooky lizard. Ahh the stories ....

Small Scale Greenhouses in Kenya

Small Scale Greenhouses in Kenya.
Conception - Education - Investment - Construction -Production

I grew up around green houses. . . Mostly getting kicked out of them.

December 2008 - I worked with my host family in Loitoktok Kenya building my first.

Then in Feburary 2009 I invited Mr. Kimani (who taught me in Loitoktok) to come give a seminar about the benifits and construction of greenhouses. I brought in a local NGO - Eco Ethics International to pay for, teach business skills and help facilitate the conference.



We had teachers from 7 different schools and envorinmental club students.

Through the pushing, organizing of Dan Abrahams, a FSD volunteer with Eco Ethics, the first greenhouse on the south coast of Kenya was built with a men's and women's group in a small village named Munje. (*This project would not have been possible with out Dan - thank you so much!)

The kids of Munje were great. They helped us build and taught us Kidigo (their language)

Here was our first crop planted at the end of July.

And 3 months later!!!!!!

Its amazing!

They are harvesting 40kg every three days ... and the plants have not even reached full growth. Selling at 30 shillings per kg.

The community has nearly made back the money for their initial investment already! ... profit anyone?

The market is booming - there is nothing but demand. Most tomatoes are shipped from far away.

Here are some of the tomatoes. Delicious.

...... This picture speaks a lot to me .... the look so natural there next to the onions.


.. In case your wondering 'why greenhouses?' - let me know and I can send you a project proposal.... in brief:

1.High yields
2.Water economy
3.Fruit quality
4.Low labor input
5.Market timing
6.Prolonged production
7.Shortened maturity period
8.Low pest and disease problems
9.Reduced use of land to achieve the same results (ratio of about 1:10)
10.The ability to grow the vegetables for the school and community
11.Valuable skills for the students and community
12.A model for the community and neighboring schools
13.Reduced transportation costs for food

... beyond these reasons ...... I am seeing the local education around agriculture being extreemly valuble.
Not to mention - this is a country currently faces with the prospect of massive starvation.

... I am thinking a passion fruit greenhouse could be amazing ..... anyone want to help build one? - let me know! ( motomoto.kenya @ gmail.com )

the news

A job for Kenyan scientists
Myth Busters – Kenya

Some recent Headlines:

HUMAN-GOAT BABY!

“This marks the beginning of end times!” a crazed man yells.
A goat gave birth to something that looked vaguely human.

15 women burnt alive for witchcraft

"My mother has always been a role model to the entire village and why the mob had to kill her will remain a mystery to me forever," lamented 32-year-old Emily Monari.

…............

Kenyan scientists / doctors / psychologists – need to go out to these locations when news like this breaks out and explain things – like genetic mutations and evolution (in the case of the goat) ….... at the very least a group of scientists needs to be on national TV to explain these events........


in other news:
$60 Nairobi slum tours – are now available! Do your part to end poverty by taking these exciting tours!
See things you never though possible. Flying piles of shit! Malnourished children! The Kenya-Uganda Railway! Dozens of people sleeping in the same bed – inches from an open sewage system! Best of all ….. All these wonderful things are only a wall away from a beautiful golf course, which you can goto and relax after the tour for only $20....
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/10/22/kenya-60-for-a-slum-tour/

I actually see groups of foreigners being toured around by religious groups and vacation tourism companies here in Mombasa. What they tell the foreigners is that their money will go toward helping the children …. but I haven't heard of a case where it does.