Each expedition, we offer an opportunity for women from our group to shadow a Kenyan village woman, allowing a real taste of Kenyan life. Karen Timothy and her daughter Tara, shadowed Frida for an afternoon, working alongside her as she did her daily work. This is Karen's experience:
 |
| Tara, Frida and her family |
A Day in the Life
A friend once told me, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you have planned for the rest of your life!” Truer words were never spoken as I found myself trudging slowly along the rutted path to a home in the village of Vikolani - somewhere in Kenya, Africa. My daughter, Tara, and I were dressed in classic D.I. attire with the bright, colorful African kangas all women in the villages wear tied around our waists. The beautiful African woman leading us to her home we knew only as “Frida.”
 |
| Karen and Tara in front of new Tingey School in Gona, Kenya |
In a spur of the moment decision back in the states, Tara and I had decided to accompany my sister and brother-in-law, Sue and Curt Tingey, to Kenya to turn over a school they had built through the Koins for Kenya organization in a place known as Gona. We joined the July 2011 expedition and the rest is now history…but a piece of history that will accompany us throughout the remainder of our lives. Having just returned and not yet got our sleep schedule back to normal, I find myself “up in the night” and of a mind to make good on a commitment to do a blog entry about our trip. Of the hundreds of things I could write about, I have chosen to share an experience known to Koins expeditioners as “shadowing.”
Through some spark of inspiration that I don’t actually know the origin of, the leaders of Koins have set up a program where expeditioners can spend a day – or part of one – with a local woman, family or student and go about their daily walk with them. We do whatever they are doing in their normal course of living and in the process, are humbled and amazed by the strength, determination, and courage of a people whose lives are so different from our own.
Frida walked to the KCC to pick us up one afternoon so that we could go to her home and learn about the life of a woman living in a village in Kenya. She had made the walk earlier that day only to find out that we were scheduled to be teaching at a school in the morning and she would need to come back for us later that day. With a shrug of her shoulders she turned and walked the long path back to her home without the visitors her 5 waiting children had expected her to bring back. Two maddening things here: 1) Communication is quite difficult in the village. You think you have explained your intentions but the facts are often “lost in translation” even though most of them speak English – with a heavy British accent. Somehow Frida thought we were coming to her house in the morning, so that bit of miscommunication cost her an extra hour of walking since that is her only mode of transportation; and 2) There are no addresses or logical streets that would have allowed us to find her house on our own which necessitated her return trip that afternoon. They have all lived their lives there and know where everyone lives so they have no need of such things as addresses.
 |
| Frida prepared chai tea and cookies before the work began |
Walking to Frida’s house turned out to be about as fast as driving would have been. The road is so rutted, with giant crevices on every side, that the vans we had taken to the Vikolani school were no more swift than our unhurried stride. We were greeted at her home by 4 happy children and 1 non-plussed baby. The home was made of mud packed onto a stick frame with a tin roof. They obviously did not know the story of “The Three Little Pigs.” Once inside we were invited to sit on a grass mat that Frida rolled out onto their dirt floor. She introduced us to her children Patrick, Beatrice, Patience, John, and Eunice as their chickens strutted in and out of the room. After strapping Eunice to her back with a kanga (pronounced “conga”), we were told that we would first go out to her kitchen to make tea before we began our work. The kitchen was a separate mud hut with a thatched roof where she cooked over a fire with more chickens looking on. We explained that while we don’t drink tea, we would love to see how she makes it. This seemed to suit her and she proceeded to have Tara help start the fire and pour the tea leaves into the boiling water that was later flavored with sugar and some sort of milk from a box. The water looked clear enough so we assumed it came from the cistern outside the door. The cistern is a round cement holding tank that collects water from the roof of the house through rain gutters and a long pipe connecting the house to the cistern. While this water is vastly cleaner than the water we would soon collect from a watering hole, it would give those of us not raised on it a bad case of dysentery if we were to drink it straight from the cistern. Once the tea was made we went again into the house for tea and cookies. It was hard to eat their cookies knowing how little food they had and how much of an extravagance this must have been.
 |
| Karen pounding corn |
 |
| Frida and Beatrice take over pounding the corn |
With these amenities over it was time to go to work. We were told we would first pound corn. Tara and I donned our brand new leather work gloves and went out to find 2 huge poles and a wooden “thing,” for lack of a better word, that they poured corn and water into. We would then alternately hit the corn with our poles to try to coax the hulls off, separating the corn from the chaff. They humored us for awhile, then Frida and Beatrice took over and got the job done. That little 10-year old girl had obviously spent many hours at this job, as had her 7-year old sister. When I asked 13-year old Patrick if he was good at this, he said boys don’t do that kind of work. Hmmm.
 |
| Karen and Tara chopping branches for firewood |
 |
| Tara wields a machete well |
 |
| Karen arranges branches for bundling |
 |
| Preparing to carry branches back to Frida's house |
Next it was time to chop firewood. Beatrice took us over and plucked each of us a nice long sisal leaf. I turned to Frida waving my leaf and told her this chopping job was going to take the rest of the day if we had to do it with a sisal leaf! She burst into laughter and became my sister as I found that her difficult life had not robbed her of her sense of humor. Actually, the machete we were given to do the chopping was so dull that a sisal leaf would have worked just as well for me. While Tara did OK, I couldn’t hit the branch in the same place twice and Beatrice had to, again, finish my work. This was also not work Patrick had ever done so he just kept taking pictures. Once the branches were cut from the green bushes, the smaller twigs and leave had to be chopped off. Couldn’t do that either! You had to hit it a certain way and I was just annoying the branch with my useless hacking. Tara got her branches clean. Show off. Next we put those sisal leaves to work. Beatrice peeled them length-wise and tied pieces together making a very strong and efficient rope. We laid the sisal on the ground and stacked the branches on them. I was good at this! We then tied the bundle of sticks together and popped them on top of our heads! In order to get water before the sun went down we had to hold the bundle in place as we walked back to their home. Real African women don’t touch the sticks. You’ve never seen such balance.
 |
| Tara gathering water |
 |
| Karen takes a turn |
 |
| Buckets full, ready to return to Frida's home |
Next we had to go get water. We got several filthy plastic jugs and headed to the stream. It must have been ¾ of a mile away because it took awhile for us to get there. Once there, we were given a smaller plastic jug that had been cut in half and pierced with a long pole. We dipped the jug in the water and pour it into the larger containers. For many, this filthy water was drinking water but because she had a cistern, Frida was using it for cleaning purposes. She said she comes for water about 3 times a day. At the health department back home we were told not to touch this water since there was a parasite in it that could enter through our skin in about 15 minutes. We were careful not to fall in. I felt bad that we had to dump out about half of the water out of my 3-gallon jug in order for me to carry it back home on my head. I’m sure that made for an extra trip. After 15 minutes my neck and back were burning but I kept telling Frida I was fine each time she asked if I was ready for her to carry it. Somehow, having her carry the water on her head while carrying her 2-year old on her back just didn’t seem right. I know she does that every day but not on my watch. Several of the village women congregated to watch us “do Fridas work” so I proudly walked several steps with my arms outstretched so they could see that I could carry it without holding it if I really wanted to! I wanted to for about 5 seconds. Again, Patrick manned the camera since men don’t fetch water. Aarghh!
Back at home we rested for awhile. Frida kept saying how tired she was and it concerned me but at our protest, she walked us back to the Koins center after we had said our good-byes and taken a few more pictures. A few days later, Patrick came to spend the day at the KCC. We sat visiting with him for awhile and since our conversation topics were limited I mindlessly asked, “What’s your mom doing today?” Cindy looked up at me and smiled and I knew both of us were thinking the same thing…..” beating corn, chopping wood, fetching water.” That is their day. With not a chair to sit on or any help from the men or boys, African women grind out their lives in difficult tasks under dire circumstances. I can only imagine what it is like at 100+ degrees.
 |
| Tara and Patrick, Frida's oldest son |
I am still trying to process it all as I sit in my comfortable home able to drink water from a tap and take clean, fresh food out of a refrigerator. It seems like our trip to Africa was another time rather than another place. On the way to the airport Bret told us that 10% of the babies and 7% of the mothers die in childbirth because most of them have their babies in their huts. Sue and I had taken 2 armfuls of tiny fleece blankets made by her friend, Crystal, to the dispensary earlier that week and each new mother was given one to take home. Bret said that these blankets are literally saving their lives because they will now come to the dispensary to have their babies in order to receive one of these blankets….a possession. One morning at 4 a.m. Tara was sitting on the porch of the KCC unable to sleep. As she did so, a man came barreling down the path towards the dispensary pushing his pregnant wife in a wheelbarrow as fast as he could hoping for her to deliver the baby there. She did and was given a soft little blanket to wrap her child in. Lucky woman.
 |
| A mother and brand new baby receiving a blanket at the dispensary |
Karen has done a great job of summarizing her shadowing experience. I hope to be able to share many other experiences from the recently returned expedition. Life in Kenya is very different from our own.
Asante sana!
IVL
No comments:
Post a Comment