Founder’s Day

Scouting Trivia:  Baden Powell is buried in Kenya.

This past weekend there was a camp out a few kilometers from his grave.  I went with 12 of the scouts from my school.  We camped together, cooked together, hiked, and did community service together.  It was the first time that they had ever been on a scout camp out – and probably the furthest that most of them have ever been from their homes.  It rained and they got wet and cold, but they survived and they did not even complain once!

In Kenya, the principal activity of scouts is marching and raising the flag at school assemblies.  Most scouts and scout leaders do not know about all of the other components of scouting.  While at the camp out I met a few Kenyan scout leaders that are trying to teach them.  They are sponsored by an NGO from Denmark to train scout troops.  They told me how to get a Kenyan Scouting Association handbook for the scouts, where to buy merit badges, and how to encourage the scouts to continue on their own.

I met a lot of inspired Kenyans on the trip, to which I am grateful.  For instance, on Sunday we were planning on remaining at our camp site and then going the next morning. At noon I was informed that we had to leave that day.  My scouts mobilized quickly and were able to take down our camp, making it cleaner than the surrounding camp sites, in about half of an hour.  Then, as they were finishing, I went to figure out how to get back to school.  The public bus that we took to the camp left town at around 12:30, and it was the only direct bus from Maua to the camp, a journey which took us around 6 hours.  As I was trying to find a private school bus that could squeeze us and take us I came across a scout by the name of Jean (the first French name that I have seen in Kenya).  He spent over half of an hour with me helping me to track down a bus.  After all that help I offered him a soda and he told me to buy my own scouts a soda before I considered buying him one.  This might well have been the first time in Kenya when someone helped me so much and refused compensation. 

Jean’s actions radiated the image of Baden Powell that is ingrained into scouts.  My own scouts had never heard the story of the young scout that inspired Baden Powell to spread the scouting movement.  I wonder if Jean had, or if even without hearing it, his involvement in scouts helped to shape the same ideology.  Either way, I hope that through scouting, and outside of scouting, Jean, myself, and every other citizen can help to mold the younger generation into such enlightened beings. 

The bus that we found was for a private boarding primary school.  The primary students were trained in all sorts of scouting cheers and songs, and my students loved it.  Once we finally arrived back at our school I was exhausted, but the scouts continued to sing the new songs that they had learned.

And some pictures:

The first one shows the scouts’ tent.  It is made out of maize bags that have been cut and sewn together into a plastic sheet.  There was a lot of rain, and they were soaked.  This is scouting in Kenya though.  You also notice that they do not have uniforms, which is because a uniform costs almost as much as school fees for a term. 

As you can tell, they were super excited about all my nifty American camping gear.  Here they are showing us how to use my water filter and MSR dromedary.

On the last day of the camp out all of the scouts go to Baden Powell’s grave, which is located at he outskirts of Nyeri. 

Pizza Party

I held a pizza party for the students that scored above a 50% on the end of term exam for any of my classes. 

I will give an overview of the process for those of you that have not cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven before.

First, you make the dough, sauce, and toppings.  I use normal bread dough for my pizza, although I do not use a recipe, so it may not actually be so normal given the number of iterations that I have gone through.

While one person is making the dough, another person can light the fire in the oven.  The fire stays for about an hour and a half.  Then, you have to remove the coals.  I have had all sorts of accessories made for the oven, including my most recent addition, which is a metal pizza paddle.  The pizza paddle was well worth the $4 I paid for it, because it keeps me from burning all of the hair off of my arms each time I reach into the 600 degree Farenheit oven to add or remove a pizza.  The way that I used to do it was not good at all.

Then the coals are removed using another locally made tool.  I put the coals in a box in order to save them for later use and keep them from smoking all over the place.

Then the pizza is put into the oven.  Most people do not use pizza pans, and I may try this one day, but so far I have used aluminum pans that I bought at the local super-store.

The pizza is put into the oven and the first batch only takes about 5 minutes to cook due to the extreme heat.  My oven uses locally available materials and does not retain heat very well, but if I wanted to I could cook 3 or 4 rounds of pizza and bread.  Although so far I have only made enough dough for 2 rounds.

Then you cut the pizza, let it cool, and enjoy.  This pizza is topped with homemade sauce (fresh tomatoes, rosemary, oregano, basil, garlic, ground pepper, hot peppers, salt, a little sugar, etc), onions, squash, potatoes, carrots, and cheese.

Book Report

In part due to having stayed here for over a year life feels normal and it requires more focus to find the aspects that might be interesting to share with people in America.

Classes have started, and apart from getting malaria, I have been doing well.

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I have also been continuing to read, and the latest two books, The Invisible Cure and Imperial Reckoning, have been particularly good. The Invisible Cure is about HIV/AIDS in Africa. 

In the book the author gives her perspective on the progression of international aid given to Africa to combat HIV/AIDS.  What is dis-heartening about the system she portrays is that there seems to be a very low correlation between amount of money given and successful programs.  Yet, western countries continue to give billions of dollars a year.  PEPFAR, for instance, gives around $500 million per year to Kenya alone and is widely praised at home in America.

The “Invisible Cure” that the author alludes to is, collectively, the mass of locally born programs, which often times do not receive western aid.  The directors of these programs usually volunteer and struggle financially to serve their communities, yet they continue to serve despite the challenges.  This is in contrast to aid funded programs which have larger budgets, but also have goals designed with as much interest for receiving funding as for serving communities.

Certainly, international aid has improved many peoples lives.  For instance, aid, to my knowledge, has been effective at distributing ARVs and, in Kenya, setting up counseling and testing centers.  The short-coming of these programs is that they do not feed the many hungry Africans that are receiving the ARVS, nor do they address, in terms that the local population internalizes, the root causes behind the wide spread of HIV in Africa compared to other regions of the world.

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The other book, which I am currently reading, is Imperial Reckoning.  This book makes me seriously wonder why Kenyans trust any programs that come from the west.  The author of the book began investigating the final days of the British occupation of Kenya for a PhD history thesis at Harvard.  Through her research she uncovered the story of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans that were tortured – some being castrated or excruciatingly electrocuted.  Almost the entire Kikuyu population was put into detention camps or barbed wire villages, where they had no food and no land to farm.  Even those that were not in the camps were put onto overcrowded reserves and not allowed to sell produce or cereals in the open market.

This happened here.  It happened in the 1950’s.  Many of the stories in the book come from interviews with the author.  Many Kenyans lives are clearly worse due to the past occupation by the British and yet the many white people here today are not kicked out.  This seems fairly phenomenal to me.

An interesting factoid that I learned from the book is that chiefs did not exist, at least in Kenya, before the British.  This shocked me because all of my life I have imagined chiefs as being an integral component of tribal society.  In reality, chiefs were Kenyans loyal to the British, who were willing to abuse their own people for a share of the profit. 

There is so much talk about corruption in Kenya today, but people usually forget the circumstances that led the country to where it is today.  For instance, people complain that the courts are not good and that if you want to get your case heard it is likely that you will have to pay a bribe, but most people in my circles do not mention the case of Jomo Kenyatta. The governor of Kenya came up with the idea that incarcerating Kenyatta would stop the spread of the Mau Mau movement.  Unfortunately, he did not have enough evidence to convict Kenyatta, so he charged Kenyatta with the ambiguous crime of “managing an unlawful society” and paid a British judge to convict him.

Although most of these atrocities were committed against the Kikuyu, Meru are quick to add that they are closely related to the kikuyu and that generally the bantus were lumped together.  Regardless of who was most attacked, the racial fight was ultimately between the white settlers and the legitimate Kenyans.

Knowing the history helps to put this society into context.  It also helps to put into context the people who are now purporting to help Africans.  With this context it is not surprising that some Africans believe AIDS is a weapon created by white people to destroy Africans. 

Pictures!

The first picture is of the green house that is covering my herb garden.  The purpose of the green house here is to decrease the intensity of the Sun and increase moisture retention.  The student in the front is Emmanuel and the student standing in the background is George.

Over the holiday I went to visit Emmanuel’s home.  Part of the tradition here is that after circumcision (around age 14) the boy/man builds his own house on his parents’ compound.  This size and type of house is very common and measures approximately 7ft. by 10ft.

Below is the form 1 class.  I am their class teacher, which, for me, means that I hold meetings with them almost every week and try to check up on them as best as I am able.

Happy Mango Season!

Since returning from vacation I have been wished a happy new year by countless people. When they ask what my New Year's resolution is, I usually tell them that I am resolved to write “2010” instead of “2009” on all forms that I may come across between now and the end of 2010.

Then I ask if the new year is worth celebrating more than any of the other current events. For instance, around the New Year the Minister of Education was involved in a scandal involving the theft of Ministry of Education funds. Maybe we could wish each other a corrupt free tomorrow or quick retrieval of the missing funds.

Better yet, maybe we can wish each other a merry mango season: 
“may your lips be stained orange for the coming month!”
or
“may you be blessed with a thousand toothpicks for removing the mango strings from between your teeth!”

Cow Attack! And Lentil Soup

When I came back from the States in August I brought with me a bunch of seeds, including thyme, oregano, Thai basil, dill, and a couple types of flowers. In order to keep them from dying I waited until the rainy season (December) to plant them. Being on the equator, even during the rainy season the Sun is very hot and so three of my students assisted me to build small green houses. We bought 6m plastic pipes, cut them in half, and attached yellow, partially opaque plastic to the outside of the plastic frames. This has turned out to work marvelously, and until the other day, I had very healthy 4 inch tall plants.  

But then it struck, like an elephant in the night. I was doing my evening hour of meditation and I heard a funny rustling coming from somewhere. There are always funny noises around the school, so I ignored it, put in my ear plugs and continued to meditate for the remaining part of the hour. When I removed the earplugs the noise was still there and I found that it was coming from outside. In the dark, I could barely make out what it was. Then as my torch scanned the black abyss, I realized that part of the darkness was really a cow. The bull had escaped from its pen and was easily destroying the green house, trampling on the baby plants and eating them too! With some harsh threats I scared the cow away from my garden and into the school's tomato patch, where it continued to eat happily until the night watchman came with a stick to chase it away.

The man that the school hires to take care of the cows had done a poor job that evening, and I hope that he will help me rebuild. Most of the damage was due to the cows hooves, as it was only trying to eat the tall weeds that had grown up around the sprouts. All in all, the damage was not so bad. One variety of flower was almost completely wiped out, and the parsley looked quite mangled, but at least a few will carry on.

The biggest trouble that I have now is figuring out what delicious food I am going to use each of the spices for. When I find someone asking me what foods each spice will be used in, I end up saying “that one goes well with meat.” 

Lentil Soup:
lentils
onion
carrot
tomato
thyme, oregano, basil
meat (a little bit for flavoring)

One exemplary recipe that makes use of these spices is lentil soup, which also happens to be a huge favorite of mine, dating back to the days when my grandmother would cook it for me almost weekly.  

On Sunday I prepared cooked it and invited Mr. And Mrs. Mutia over to sample it. Despite their friendly conversation, as we were eating it I found myself lost deep in thought thinking about my grandmother. It was not the same as the recipe that my grandmother used to use. For one thing, I used cow meat instead of the turkey-ham that she used and I also added a little brown rice to make it a more complete meal.  

I filled my biggest stock pot to the brim, and yet we managed to finish all of it between four of us. I do not know whether or not Mr. Mutia was exaggerating, but he told me that it was the tastiest food that he had ever eaten. In America I certainly would not accept this as true, but most Kenyans have never tasted a food spiced with oregano, thyme, or basil before, so maybe his accolades were at least partly true. 

I enjoyed this gathering very much. There was a Sunday last term when I invited some neighbors over for fresh pizza made from my oven. Maybe I will try to start a tradition, cooking different dishes making use of my spice garden each weekend.

So far, the dishes I can think of are potato salad, lentil soup, pizza, and pasta salad, as well as generic soups and stews.  

Maybe I can make good on some of those threats towards the cow and serve guests roasted cow rubbed oil and rosemary.

Vipassana Meditation

Revised version:

Over Christmas me and three other PCVs took a 10 day course on Vipassana Meditation. Vipassana meditation is a non-sectarian form of meditation that was used by the Buddha to train the mind to see reality as it is. The reality that the Buddha saw is that cravings and aversions are the basis of our sufferings and that this form of meditation can be used to change the way our “inner” mind perceives reality.

Today Vipassana is taught by S.N. Goenke, a Burmese “house-holder,” who has actively spread the technique since he left Burma in the 1950's. Vipassana is taught as a ten day course, via tape and audio recordings of Goenke. During this period, students live as monks, observing five precepts which include noble silence and not taking intoxicants.  

In addition to the meditation technique, Goenke also gives daily discourses on the Buddha's insight and the benefits of the technique. This may seem sectarian, because we associate the Buddha with Buddhism, but the Buddha never taught conversion from one religion to another. The truths that he teaches are universal, and it has only been since the time of his death that groups have ascribed rites, rituals, and auxiliary beliefs to his teachings, forming their own religion.  

The Buddha did, however, have direct insight into his past lives. It bothered me that Goenke made reference to this teaching during the course, because either a person must have direct realization of their past lives or else it must be taken on blind faith. When I asked the assistant teacher about this, he reminded me that the Buddha directed his followers to scrutinize all of his [ the Buddha's ] teachings. If one finds a “black stone” in the porridge, remove the stone instead of going hungry and letting the nutritious portion of the food go to waste. I was satisfied with this answer, because, for me, the nutritious portions of Vipassana were far greater in quantity than the troubling components.  

While I find that already I have received some benefits, the path is long and requires a life-time (maybe life-times) of practice. In order to describe how practice may change the habit patterns of a person, Goenke tells a story during one discourse. In the story, a mother gives each of her three children money to buy oil. On the way back from buying the oil, each one trips and spills half of the bottle. One is a pessimist and tells his mother, “I have failed. I have spilled half of the oil.” The second is an optimist and says enthusiastically, “I have made you proud. I tripped but I have saved half of the oil.” The third child is a Vipassana meditator and, without becoming angry of proud, he tells his mother, “the bottle is both half full and half empty. Although I spilled it, I am capable of filling it again” and goes to earn money to replace the oil.

Anecdotal stories are nice, but most people that practice Vipassana meditation has stories from their own lives. One such story came from a man that told me instead of previously yelling ten times a month, be now yells maybe eight times per month. Another man, who volunteered ten days to serve students at the course, told us that he is the happiest man in the world. Even the structure of the course suggests how many people it has benefited; the courses run entirely off of donations, first time students are not allowed to donate until after they have completed a course, and no one that helps with the courses receives renumeration. 

For more information about Vipassana meditation, or to find a Vipassana meditation center on any continent, visit www.dhamma.org.