All good things come to an end

Here I am, with my last blog post.

I am writing from Nairobi's airport, sharing my last reflections regarding this experience and adventure that it has been in these past seven months.

Today I said goodbye to Emma and Valery, as we spent a few last days together. Us volunteers have lived a lot of experiences, laughs and struggles together in Shianda, and I am grateful for the moments that we shared and will always remember! 

From living periods without electricity, to walks in the areas sorrounding our house and the many moments and activities done with the locals in Shianda, we definitely shared a lot.

Perhaps some things did not go as we expected or wished, but I am happy to have made the choice to come and spend this time in Shianda, to play my part in helping the community develop. I believe that I tried my best and that I have learned a lot, while offering to the community my most sincere efforts.

I hope they will cherish and apply the information and practices that we have all shared with them, as we put our hearts into working with them.

I leave Kenya with some sadness, as although I am happy to go back to Europe and see my family, I enjoyed living in this countries with all its pros and cons. But I am sure that one day I will be back and spend more time here.

Asante Sana Kenya! 

Time flies, time flies

 Today is the first of August, my last month here in Kenya.

The last two months have definitely been full of activities and events. I have lost count of how many financial trainings I have done with the groups that we work with at WEFOCO! That was definitely very rewarding; I surely hope that they put the teachings in practice. This allowed me to go even more around the area of Shianda, getting to know a few more places as I worked with a few new groups. Working with the beneficiaries of WEFOCO is rewarding and challenging at the same time. Different languages, ages, cultures and habits of learning. For sure, one of the most difficult challanges was teaching something new to older women, who have all the right of being used to do things their way for many years. Nonetheless, they showed interest and willingness to put into practice new learnings and habits to improve their current situations.

   

Adaptation is key! Having done most of these trainings at the group's houses, sometimes we did it outisde (better light and environment) sticking the papers on the walls to have somewhere to write, sometimes we had to rush in a small room to run away from the storms. The important thing is to enjoy the moments, which I am sure I will miss once I will move away from Shianda. 

 

For June and July I had a great helper: David. He is a university student from Kisumu and he helped me with translation during our training sessions with the groups, his help was truly appreciated! Having the additional struggle of some people not knowing English, some only speaking Luhya (the local language), David really helped out with making sure that they understood the concepts that we were discussing and that they were active and participating. 

Recently, I also had the chance to give financial training to a school nearby Shianda (more were planned but some technicalities got in the way). It was very nice to host a session with both the teachers of the school and the students. Unfortunately all the schools are closed now, so I am not sure if I will be able to have more school sessions before leaving. During our first visit at Ahong'injo school I had promised to play a football game with the students once we would go back. So, the following week I kept my promise and had a fun game! Everybody asked me to sponsor their team, to open a football academy and to find them teams in Italy. Unfortunately I cannot do that, but if some of the readers are interested to help, please reach out!

  

Last week, Emma, Valery and I went for a long weekend trip to Lake Turkana. I had seen it on my lonely planet guide and seemed truly a fascinating place to visits, with its Central Island having three different lakes (so, a lake, with an island, with lakes inside, pretty cool in my opinion!). The journey there was a big adventure: many matatus, a lot of time, sleeping in random guesthouses with crazy heat during the night a night motorboat ride on the lake with the rain all around us (but not on us!) the island was definitely worth the hustle.

In Kitale, we met up with a guy I had casually met in Nairobi several months ago. That day we had to wait for hours for our buses: I was travelling back to Shianda and he was going to Kitale. We had exchanged numbers and the other day we met up and the four of us went to Kitum Cave in Mount Elgon National Park, supposedly the elephants go there to consume salt, necessary for their health.

I will make sure to enjoy all the small things of this last month, and to write a final blog post to conclude my journey here in Shianda!

Mattia 

Already Halfway!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Hello again!

A few days ago I passed my halfway mark, meaning I have around three months left before I have to leave Kenya. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it. Part of me would like to stay much longer, as things move fairly slow here, I reckon that it would be necessary to have more time to have an impact, to be able to overcome the obstacles that prevent us from having the impact that we would like to have.

During this first half of my deployment I have certainly learned a lot; not only about the technical aspects of what we are doing here, but also abut the importance of the system, and to adapt to things that are not in our control.

One of the reasons why I decided to come to Kenya was to face a very strong cultural shock, I have had the opportunity to live in different countries beforehand, but I purposely chose a project in a country whose culture was supposed to be very different from my native one. This proved to be true.

I will try to explain myself with some examples. In the past weeks I have been focusing on financial training (after identifying it as a pressing issue to the economic growth of the local communities). The already mentioned very different perception of time is certainly one of the first cultural barriers that we get to face. People tend to show up a few hours late to trainings (or at 1pm when the training was scheduled for 9 a.m.) and this takes energy. Additionally, it is very challenging to suddenly become a teacher (although I do have a bit of experience from University). What I mean is that the illiteracy of some of the group members makes the sharing of information much more difficult that one would expect.

Group picture from the Financial Training given to the
Chairladies and secretaries from all the support groups

Nonetheless, I would say that this struggles and challenges make the achievements even more satisfying! 

When I see that the women we work with are genuinely happy about completing the exercises we do together, or they understand the importance of working on their skills rather than us just distributing items, it makes the difficulties seem (if not easier) worth it. 

As they say, no pain no gain! 

Currently, after having had two days training all the groups together, I am once again visiting the groups (with the support of Valery and David - the attachee/intern that will work with me for two months -) and apart from discussing and making sure that also those who did not attend the trainings understand the concepts, I am giving them a small notebook each to make sure that each one of them keeps track of their finances. I hope they will make use of it, and in a month or so I will be able to see the results from the groups. Fingers crossed!

Financial training with a single group

On a separate note, around 10 days ago was my birthday. Three of our housemates had to renew their visas, so we combined the two events to cross the whole country: from Western Kenya we made it all the way to the coast! It was a 30 hours journey, with buses, trains and matatu but it was fun!

We spent the weekend in Diani Beach, it was very nice, peaceful and relaxing.

Mohammad, Ebba, Emma and Valery threw a small breakfast surprise party by the pool of the AirBnb we were staying in the morning of my birthday, that was very nice :) 

We also spent a whole afternoon playing beach volley, Mo went from complete beginner to semi-pro in a few hours! I tried kitesurfing again after not having done it for one and a half years, but the wind conditions were not the best so I did not have much success 😅 Such is life!

Our attempt at taking a group picture ended up
with both Emma and I falling inside the swimming pool!

On our way to the coast, I also got to show Valery, Emma and Mohammad one of my favourite "spots" of Nairobi: the Gikomba Market.

During my last visit in Nairobi I lost my dear bucket hat, so I had to find a replacement! 

The Gikomba Market is a very interesting place, it's fun but makes you think and reflect at the same time. 

In fact, it is the size of a small town where everybody is selling second hand clothes, most of which come from western countries. It really shows the impact of the behaviour of consumers in our countries, and how many clothes are purchased and "thrown away" while still in very good conditions.

During my two visits, I was happy to buy two pairs of pants and two buckets hats, everything in very good contditions and for a total price of 12 euros. Both times I went there, my group represented the whole wazungu (white people) in the market. It's very authentic, and that's also why I like it! 

A selfie of the four of us after I found two bucket hats 

A picture of the Gikomba Market, you can find anything here! 

We keep going,

Baadaye! 

Mattia

Trainings, rain and runs

 Hi all!

 

After the first month of adapting, the second has really flown by! 

 

Certainly, the focus of these last few weeks has been on getting the preparations ready for the training with the local groups.

Ebba and I have already conducted two of the training sessions, and we are very much looking forward to keep working with each group on the different topics that we have introduced so far.

Each training per se has been a bit of an adventure. Ebba had hers on a Monday, and I had mine on a Friday. After some time of waiting I started getting a bit worried because we were supposed to start at 9am, but by 10.30 only a few people were there. I guess the on-time European inside of me has not fully adapted yet to the very relaxed time perception of Kenya!

However, at the end all the people arrived and we had a very nice training session.

We focused on financial training, and they seemed to be very interested, curious and happy about the content that we discussed. Some of the topics they were quite unfamiliar with, but we worked together to make sure that they understood them. For this, we will keep visiting them to make sure that they implement them in their daily lives and can keep growing as farmers and as citizens! 

Jane (my mentor) was very helpful with translating in Swahili what I was telling them. 

This past month we also spent a couple of days in Nairobi because the others already had to renew their visas (I will have to do so very soon) and I decided to join them to see the big city.

It was a very interesting weekend! Certainly Nairobi is very different from Shianda, meeting a lot of new wazungu (the plural Swahili word for foreign/white person) was exciting and refreshing.

I love the fact that in Kenya smoking in the city is not allowed, and during the Free Tour our guide showed us one of the only places where people can smoke.

I have to admit that I was happy to come back in Shianda after a couple of days: much more peaceful, calm environment with a lot more nature and just a different atmosphere.

                             

For Easter we went to Ambururu Waterfalls with Esther and Joshua. It was very nice to spend the day with them there! A different kind of Easter, but a nice one nonetheless!

Emma, Ebba and I also finally went to the Kakamega forest to celebrate Emma’s birthday. We managed not to get lost (which is a great starting point in my opinion) but we did not see any animals apart from some birds and hearing some monkeys. However, the forest was truly beautiful and I am sure we will go again in a couple of weeks as we only explored a small part of it.

 

I am running even more than I had planned to, and I am very happy about this. Multiple times a week I get very early, and by 6:30 I am already running. During my long runs I get to explore new areas around Shianda. Sometimes I pass by places where they maybe have not heard yet of the wazungu in town, and people are very surprised to see me appear in the little paths between the farms, running in the mud. 

Yes, everything is very muddy right now! We are in the long rainy season and every afternoon we get very heavy rain. In fact, ten days ago we had a severe hailstorm and it was the biggest hail I have ever seen, I am happy it was a Sunday and we were in the house and not out doing things. I was worried about the farmers’ cultivations, but I think they did not have much damage.

 

I will write another update next month,

Baadaye! 

My first month in Kenya!

 

Unsurprisingly, I already feel like calling this place home. My arrival has been a bit different from that of Ebba, Emma, and Mohammed. 

I was lucky to find them waiting for me with a very warm welcome after my 24 hours trip before arriving to Shianda. 

In these past weeks I have felt a lot of emotions, most of them very pleasant, sometimes a bit of frustration but I can surely say that the current balance of the experience is so far more than positive!

 

From my second week in Shianda, together with Ebba, I got the chance to visit several of the group of farmers that WEFOCO works with. Apart from the differences in organization and schedule, it has been  enriching to talk to the different women that are part of these groups. 

Understanding their challenges is not always straightforward, one of the issues being going past the problems that they are well aware of, and for which they directly ask help for. But sometimes it is also necessary to go a bit further and more in depth apart from their explicit requests.

However, we are fully dedicated to supporting them, and we are trying to maximize our efforts and be as efficient as possible to help them with the more and less obvious issues.

Being on the receiving side of their requests is a very humbling experience. For them to ask for things in such a direct way is a sign that they really need it, and although we cannot give them everything they ask for, I personally feel very happy to be here and to play my role in helping them achieving their goals, and improve their quality of life.

The first picture is from one of the visits, here, they were showing us their sweet potatoes that will soon be ready to be harvested!

 

Changing topic, we also had to chance to go around the area for some visits!

Together with Mohammed, Emma and Ebba, we went to Kakamega to visit the so-called crying stone. It was a curios location to visit, and our local guide was happy to share all her knowledge with us. However, right after that we became famous for about half an hour: there were some locals (some students, some other were also tourists visiting the stone) which all had one thing in common: they all wanted to take pictures with us! We stayed there with them for quite some time as they wanted to take group pictures, individual ones with each one of us and also wanted all of our contacts: email, phone numbers and whatnot.

It was quite a funny experience, although it made me realize that I am happy to be a not-famous person!! 

The picture is with all the people that were also visiting, and they just wanted to have a picture with us :)

 

 

Here in Shianda, for now we mainly had good weather and the amount of rain has started to increase lately. However, last week we had a crazy rainstorm while Ebba and I were at Evelyn’s house (one of the chairladies) as we were visiting her group.

We thought we were going to get stuck there as it was already late afternoon and it was heavily raining and also hailing! We managed to get back home, but only to find that the power had gone out. Nothing too strange, as we often have some power cuts. That usually entails that we stay without electricity for some time, usually some minutes or one-two hours.

Well, not this time! The extreme rain from that afternoon had burned some of the electric wires on the main road, meaning that from Thursday, we only got the electricity in our house on Tuesday evening. It might not seem that long, but considering that at 7pm it is already night, and that the fridge and everything else in the house was not working, the four of us had some funny days and some candle-light dinners. We somewhat enjoyed it although eventually we were missing the comforts of electricity!

 

It has only been some weeks since I arrived here, but thanks to my housemates and colleagues, Esther (WEFOCO’s superhero-director) and the locals which are very friendly, I really feel comfortable and already at home. Especially the first two weeks were of adjustment, but once that period has passed, I got to start fully enjoying this experience.

 

I also have the luck to be able to go running early in the morning during the week (we all became morning people due to our routine) and I am really enjoying running in the unpaved roads, seeing all the people starting their days as we share some quick greetings as I run by.

 

The next month will be very interesting, as I will become even more involved with the local groups during the trainings that we are preparing for them, I am enthusiastic about working side by side with these people. They are very resilient and hard-working women, role models from which I have a lot to learn from. 

Below, you can see another picture from one of the groups that we visited: they were all wearing matching dresses during our visit :) 

 

I will be back with some updates in some time!

Mattia