More pictures of the good life from the past four weeks in Kenya.
Boga poses with Flat Stanley
Photo shoot with the kids...
Riding my bike at sunset through Es'saba Village's narrow walkways.
The wet season ended at the end of June, which means that there has been considerably less rain in July. Every night now, there is a line of people waiting to fill up their jerry cans with water from the stream.
These kids are sent out every night before dinner to go fetch some water for their family.
Then they haul the heavy water up the hill. If they're lucky, their family lives close to the spring, otherwise, some have to walk for upwards of a mile.
I fetched some water one night myself, carrying it on my head like these girls. Luckily, Welliminah's house isn't terribly far from the stream. It was a workout though. I had a sore neck afterward. All the villagers laughed at the sight of me carrying water.
A beautiful view at sunset. See that large hill in the distance? We climbed that with Ben. Apparently the local story is that the rain Gods live there (although I don't think anybody around here actually still prays or believes in such Gods).
Boats on Lake Victoria's shore in Kisumu. I was there to arrange a field trip for the students in the program I'm developing. They'll go there in October to learn about the lake, take a tour on these boats, and do community service.
Welliminah told Patrick one night that she wants us to return to the airport in America looking very "healthy" (read: fat), to show our parents how well we were taken care of. She had this hilarious quote: "When you come off the plane looking fat, your parents will be so proud." So Patrick stuffed his pillow under his shirt after dinner one night to show them how fat he's become. Laughter ensued.
Students at Ebusiloli taking down and folding up the flag at the end of the school day.
Vincent receives a bath from Moraa.
A beautiful road on a walk with Ben.
Over the weekend, Patrick and I met our new classmate from Class 6, Shamim Okolloh. Shamim just so happens to be from Kenya - with family roots in the Bunyore area, where we are doing our projects. Although she's lived in Atlanta for several years now, she came back to her high school in Kaimosi to organize the school's very first alumni day. She invited us as well. The school is an all-girls boarding school and is nearly one hundred years old (the oldest alum present graduated in 1936!). Below is a picture of her addressing the over 1200 in attendance. First impressions of Shamim: impressive, confident, awesome.
She also spun a fast one on us and had us address the humongous crowd of students, faculty, and alumni as well, without any preparation. Afterwards, the students bombarded us with questions and picture requests. See below. My favorite question from one of the students: "Do you hate being governed by a black man, Barack Obama?" Apparently she didn't notice I was wearing his t-shirt. My reply: "No, I love it!"
Lastly, I'll leave you with Richie, the subject of the greatest photo I have ever taken (it's now my desktop background):
My dream of jamming with Bill Clinton - me on piano, him on sax - lives on. One day it will happen....it just has to (especially now that the Clinton School has not one but two former music majors!). In preparation for that moment, I've been jamming with Flat Bill here in Kenya (see picture to left). It will suffice for now.
What's a musician to do when he's got a sweet melody in his head but no piano or keyboard readily available to pluck it out? The answer: search Google for "java piano".
At five weeks and counting, this is the longest I have gone without touching a piano/keyboard since I started playing piano in second grade at age seven (surpassing the previous high of four weeks). I try not to be as melodramatic about my need to play piano as some of the people I met at Berklee College of Music ("I can't live without music, bro!"), but I'm honestly beginning to hanker for the opportunity to lay my fingers on ivorite (fake ivory - the ethical way to go!) keys once again. Making music just makes life more fun.
Patrick and I have begun co-writing a song that I am going to finish when I get back to the States. I first had the idea when I was in Kenya in 2007, but I never followed up on it, but Patrick has helped breathe some new life into it. It's going to be called, "How Are You, Mzungu?" You may recall from a previous blog post that "mzungu" is the Swahili word for "white person," which I hear regularly around here being shouted by surprised children as they take notice of me. But I failed to mention in that previous post that the word is also inevitably accompanied by the greeting "How are you?", which seems to be the first bit of English that every Kenyan child learns (and I have reason to believe that most of them don't even know what the phrase means, based on my attempts at returning the question to them).
But what is most interesting about their greeting is the way they say it. The kids - all of them, meaning I literally haven't heard a kid here stray from this rule - put the three words to separate pitches, making a little melody out of it. They say it very quickly, putting a little dip in the "are," sandwiched in between two higher pitches for "how," and "you" (for my musician friends out there, the solfège is Mi-Do-Re for How-Are-You).
So seeing how they have naturally constructed a melody out of the line, I'm really just pilfering it to make a song out of the only two things they say to me as I pass by them: "How are you?" and "mzungu." And isn't it convenient that these two things rhyme?
Here's the vision for the song - a typical African pop sound with beautiful, clean electric guitar, simple harmony, and groove-inducing drums/percussion. Patrick helped round out the lyrics in the chorus, which will be sung by some kijanas (kids): "How are you, mzungu? / I hope you're having a very nice day / How are you, mzungu? / I know you came from so far away."
Team Kenya - Patrick, Ryan Ubuntu, and myself, have finally been reunited for the first time since flying into Nairobi. Ryan has been touring the country giving human rights trainings, and during his stop in Kisumu, we were able to kidnap him for a night so that he can experience Es'saba village. We had an awesome time, and I know I definitely enjoyed the energy and great conversation he brought with him. I'm impressed by the work he's done too - he's got a great project and is making a real difference with marginalized populations in Kenya. Check out his blog: ryanubuntuinkenya.blogspot.com.
The picture below is from our walk with (who else?) Ben earlier today:
I enjoyed reading my classmate Kim's recent blog entry about South Africa's annual national holiday called Youth Day, a day that is "spent by youths having conversations about social issues and their role in addressing them." WOW! Although the holiday has a special historical significance to South Africa, it definitely needs to be exported internationally (although I worry about what Hallmark would do to such a day in the USA, especially on the cusp of the cheapened holiday of Father's Day).
As I wrote in a previous post, the world needs more of this thing called Youth, and I can't think of a better way to promote it than by meaningfully celebrating and cultivating the power and energy that the world's young people have the way that South Africa does every year according to Kim's description. Wes Moore, the author of the terrific new book, The Other Wes Moore, wrote in a Father's Day column that was published today on the Huffington Post that, "Young kids look for engagement and belonging; they need above all to feel that their existence matters." I couldn't agree more, and I think the mission of Youth Day completely gets at that.
Basically, I'm inspired. Thanks Kim! To read more of Kim's experiences working for a Community Foundation in South Africa, check out her blog, KC in the Western Cape.
Karibu is Swahili for WELCOME! Today, the Clinton School announced my new classmates, the Class of 2012! Click here to read about them - a seriously impressive bunch! I've been logging onto the Clinton School blog everyday expecting the announcement to come soon....so I'm thrilled that it's finally been posted.
Class 6, I can't wait to meet you all this Fall...in the meantime, have good summers and good luck getting settled in LR!
My classmates and I are takin' it to the streets this summer. What's "it"? Public service! Above, check out the map currently on display at the Clinton School showing where each of us are going this summer.
Here's a zoom in shot of my picture, along with my Kenya colleagues Patrick and Ryan:
For the full overview of all the projects, check out the press release below from the Clinton School detailing each of the students and what we're doing all over the world. To really make it connect, listen to the Doobie Brothers' classic hit "Takin' it to the Streets," while you read! :)
Thirty-seven graduate students will travel across the world this summer to complete public service projects as part of the Clinton School’s curriculum.
The students will visit 25 countries on six continents and partner with government, non-government and nonprofit organizations on International Public Service Projects (IPSP) in areas such as corporate responsibility, environmental conservation, public health, education, poverty reduction and economic development.
The fifth class to go through the Clinton School’s unique Master of Public Service (MPS) degree program, the students will travel to 13 new countries never before visited by Clinton School students. Those locations include Dominica, England, Ethiopia, France, Haiti, Indonesia, Israel, Panama, Peru, Pakistan, Palestine, Sierra Leone and St. Lucia.
With the addition of these locations, Clinton School students will have traveled to 47 countries to complete projects since the school opened in 2005.
“It’s exciting to see our students take the skills they learn here at the Clinton School and implement them into projects across the world,” said Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford. “We pride ourselves on educating our students through hands-on work, and these projects will be valuable to both the students and the organizations they’ll be working with.”
The IPSP is one of three, for-credit public service projects students complete in the two-year MPS program. They also perform group (Practicum) projects in Arkansas communities and final (Capstone) projects that culminate their Clinton School degree.
The students work with faculty members to identify, plan and implement their projects. They are expected to engage in a project that builds on the knowledge and skills gained in the first two semesters of classroom work at the school.
Project locations and host organizations are vetted and approved by Clinton School faculty. Students and faculty will remain in constant contact throughout the summer.
While most students leave the country for their international projects, traveling abroad is voluntary. Students may also choose to work for international organizations in Arkansas or in other parts of the country.
The students’ international project plans include:
Patrick Banks – Kijana Educational Empowerment Initiative (Essaba Village, Kenya) – Banks will perform a needs assessment of science resources and skill levels at several Western Kenyan schools and use the information to design a science curriculum that is better-aligned to country and international science standards.
Cory Biggs – Rwanda Judiciary (Kigali, Rwanda) – Biggs, a concurrent MPS/JD student with the UALR law school, will work to lessen government corruption in Rwanda by researching and determining ways to reduce the impact of misconduct or negligence of official duties among public servants.
LaTrenia Byrd – InnoCSR (Shanghai, China) – Byrd will develop a corporate social responsibility (CSR) factsheet for Bayer China, a multinational health care, crop science and material science corporation. Byrd will work with InnoCSR, a consulting firm that specializes in the innovation of sustainable CSR practices.
Kimberly Caldwell – West Coast Community Foundation; Community Development Foundation Western Cape (Western Cape, South Africa) – Caldwell will work to identify ways for two Western Cape community foundations to collaborate. She will help create a shared fund from which the foundations can offer joints grants and present her plans to the organizations for implementation.
Ratnasari Dewi – The Nature Conservancy (San Antonio, Texas; Jakarta, Indonesia) – Dewi will work with Human Resource Department of the conservancy, an international conservation organization, to redesign an orientation program for new employees, especially those who work in the Asia Pacific and North Asia regions.
Elrina Frost – Volunteer and Service Enquiry Southern Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa) – Frost will work with VOSESA to examine the impact that international voluntary service learning programs have on the volunteers involved as well as on the communities and organizations that host these volunteers in Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya.
Gralon Johnson – Glad Star Ministries, Inc. (Accra, Ghana) – Johnson will work with his partner organization, which works to reduce the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ghana, to create a more efficient, accessible and user-friendly client information database in its Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) program.
Valerie Hendrix – Bureau of Gender and Community Affairs (Roseau, Dominica) – Hendrix will work to promote a new gender equality policy on the Caribbean island of Dominica through a series of town hall forums. She will work with officials there to create a more gender society.
Ben Kaufman – TOMS Shoes (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) – Kaufman will work with TOMS Shoes, a company that gives a pair of shoes away to those in need for every pair purchased, to create a distribution plan to provide shoes in Ethiopia to children at risk of contracting a skin infection caused by exposure to irritant soil.
Mircha King – Labor Law Service Center (Shanghai, China) – King, a concurrent MPS/JD student with the UALR law school, will work with the center, the only organization that works to defend labor rights of the 4 million rural migrant workers in Shanghai, to create the capacity to become an independent, self-sustaining NGO.
William Jeter – Arkansas Agriculture Department (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) – Jeter will work with the department to develop a Haitian agricultural capacities assessment aimed at realigning the country’s struggling agriculture sector to help stimulate a prosperous agriculture economy.
Lindsey Johnson – Bo Hua Heart Hospital (Jilin City, China) – Johnson will work with staff and administration to develop strategies for public health education at a small, private hospital in northeast China that specializes in surgical procedures and seeks to ensure access for disadvantaged and minority populations.
Sarah Leer – PCI Media Impact (Castries, St. Lucia) – Leer will work to educate youth and children by developing school networks, both among the schools in St. Lucia and those on the other nine Eastern Caribbean islands. She will partner with Media Impact, which works to improve health, human rights and social advancement through creative use of media.
Mark Lienhart – The Mossy Foot Treatment and Prevention Association (MFTPA) (Addis Ababa and Sodo, Ethiopia) – Lienhart will collect information from MFTPA’s program for prevention, treatment and rehabilitation for Podoconiosis (Mossy Foot) patients in southern Ethiopia. The information will be compiled into a guide to be distributed to other interested partners throughout Ethiopia.
Jack Lofton – Arkansas Economic Development Commission – Film Commission (Little Rock, Italy, England and France) – Lofton will refine and update Arkansas’s production and location databases to utilize as tools to recruit international film productions to the state. He will meet with key film production companies throughout Europe during a two-week education and recruitment tour.
Mahmoud Mahmoud – Palestinian News Network (PNN)/Holy Land Trust (Ramallah, Palestine) – Mahmoud will assess PNN’s current standing in the field of independent media in the Arab world and work with PNN’s English language department to develop a program to facilitate volunteers and unpaid interns to work for the network.
Heather Malveaux – The Soul City Institute for Health & Development Communication (Johannesburg, South Africa) – Malveaux will work with one of the world’s top social and behavioral change programs to evaluate the process and impact of community dialogues surrounding the OneLove campaign, which aims to get men and women in Southern Africa thinking and talking about their sexual behavior in a time of HIV and AIDS.
Julie Meyer – African Prisons Project (Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda) – Meyer will conduct a resource analysis and needs assessment to help efforts to expand the African Prisons Project from its base in Uganda to Kenya and Sierra Leone. The project works to address both the lack of infrastructure and resources in prisons by building educational, health and recreational centers.
David Monteith – Shatil (Be’er Sheva, Israel) – Monteith will provide English-language services and teaching expertise to the regional offices of Shatil, which promotes social change and a healthy democracy in Israel by enhancing the efforts of existing non-profit agencies. He will also work to improve the advocacy efforts of local organizations supported by Shatil.
Adam Moreland – Nyaka School (Nyakishenyi village, Rukingiri District, Uganda) – Moreland will help develop a construction program to improve the living conditions of children at the Nyaka School, which provides free education and extracurricular activities to children who have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Rebecca Morrison – The Brotherhood of St. Laurence; HIPPY Australia (Melbourne, Australia) – Morrison will research evaluation processes at other HIPPY organizations across the world to find a program evaluation approach for HIPPY Australia, which works with families to prepare children for school and increase literacy rates.
Jeerawat Na Thalang – Rural Education and Development (READ) Global (Kathmandu, Nepal) – Jeerawat will help determine appropriate curriculum and content for literacy development training programs and organize training courses and evaluation processes for READ Nepal, an organization that empowers rural communities through education programs.
Ivanley Noisette – Bridge2Rwanda (Kigali, Rwanda) – Noisette will work with the Rwandan Ministry of Education and the Rwandan embassy to study the sustainability of the Bridge2Rwanda presidential scholars program and provide recommendations for the long-term success of the Rwandan higher-education model.
Erin O’Leary – Indicorps (Ahmedabad, India) – O’Leary will work with Indicorps, an Indian service organization modeled after AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, to create written guides for the program and its fellows to assist in conducting successful service projects and initiatives with the communities in which they serve.
Ryan Olson – Gay Kenya of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya) – Olson will develop human rights trainings surrounding the Yogyakarta Principles, which apply international human rights law to sexual orientation. Olson’s work will help his host organization advance the human rights of sexual and gender minorities throughout Kenya.
Nathanial Owen – Nyaka AIDS Foundation (Nyakishenyi, Uganda) – Owen will work to develop a fair-trade system to enable women in rural Uganda to sell their handmade goods in the United States for the foundation, which empowers communities impacted by HIV/AIDS through development programs.
Chanley Painter – Bridge2Rwanda (Kigali, Rwanda) – Painter will help complete an in-depth study including research and recommendations addressing how Rwanda can better prepare its best and brightest scholars to become competitive on exam scores and earn educational scholarships to American universities.
Kate Raum – Asylum Access (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) – Raum will help locate urban refugees and identify their legal protection needs for her the Tanzania office of Asylum Access, which works across the world to provide legal information, representation, advice and advocacy to refugees in their first country of refuge.
Sophia Said – Development Action for Mobilization and Emancipation (DAMEN) (Lahore, Pakistan) – Said will conduct a study to gauge the impact of DAMEN’s microfinance program on the social and economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs. She will also explore new strategies to improve the program and make recommendations based on her research.
Latif Salem – United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (New York, N.Y.) – Salem will assist UNDP in designing poverty reduction and economic growth projects; provide input to project documents, policy notes and issue briefs; and assist in conducting research on good practices and comparative experiences from UNDP country offices.
Debbie Sellnow – Children of Azuero (NIDA) (Las Minas, Panama) – Sellnow will work with her partner organization, a nonprofit dedicated promoting community health and empowering women, to educate Panamanian sex workers about the about the signs and preventions for sexually transmitted diseases.
Hallie Shoffner – PROMSEX (Lima, Peru) – Shoffner will develop a fundraising strategy and donor database for PROMSEX, a nonprofit that works to promote gender equality, empower women and eliminate gender-based discrimination and violence.
Anna Strong – The Comprehensive Rural Health Project (Jamkhed, Maharashtra, India) – Strong will work to grow organizational capacity and community impact for her host organization, which mobilizes communities to build capacity through grassroots movements to improve access to healthcare and freedom from poverty, hunger and violence.
Rebecca Swearingen – twocities art gallery (Shanghai, China) – Swearingen will work her host organization to collaborate with local art galleries, businesses, charities, and community members to build a plan for a community art event with the goal of fostering community between local galleries and business.
David Watterson – Kijana Educational Empowerment Initiative (Bunyore, Kenya) – Watterson work with his host, an educational nonprofit, to develop a comprehensive plan for a new Model UN program to engage Kenyan and American secondary students in cross-cultural dialogue surrounding issues of global importance.
Judy Watts – PCI-Media Impact (Castries, St. Lucia) – Watts will assist her host organization with a radio project that focuses on climate change in the Eastern Caribbean. She will create a manual for outreach activities and design a measurement and evaluation strategy for the organization, which works to promote human rights through creative media.
Latonya Wilson – Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (Johannesburg, South Africa) – Wilson will work her host organization’s Socio-Economic Rights Program to assist in designing a questionnaire and conducting interviews with civil society and government around the role of constitutional socio-economic rights in policy making.
