Saturday, February 14, 2009

Valentines Day Kakamega

Here I sit, in our yard, plastic chair,laptop open, nice breeze, overlooking a tiny valley, back in Kakamega. Tanya is off to a nearby town to help teach leadership qualities to High School teachers. I’ll let her fill you in. I watched with admiration as she looked back and smiled at me from the back of the boda boda that carried her up the dusty hill this morning. Is this the same painfully shy (as she described herself) girl I met from Vancouver only 8 years ago? Just as I wrote this last sentence I remembered its Valentines Day today, so very appropriate to be feeling moved by her nice smile.

Speaking of moved, here is a list of the projects we have visited so far. I wish there was a dud. I wish I smelled a rat and I could close my mind (and wallet) to a few, but I have asked all the tough questions. I have even looked through account books; I have interviewed the participants when the leader was not in earshot. And they are all good, and all doing much more than I can detail below, without writing a book.

1) KASFOOC- supports widows who have land by teaching them how to farm and giving them small loans and seeds. Thirteen widows supported.

2) Musingu High School- this is my Club’s big project, supporting 8 super high achieving boys through 4 years of boarding school.

3) Bukura Tailoring School- a Tailoring school where a private Canadian pays the rent and teachers salary to train young women (about 15 per year) and men-soon to be self sustaining

4) Bukura Fish Farm Organization- a group of farmers (20) that meets each Thursday at a member’s farm to do work and discuss operations. RC Whitehorse will provide training $$ so this group can expand to teach others to profitably farm

5) Majimazuri.org- we toured the slums, the preschool, the school for the handicapped and went over the books of the microfinance arm. Awesome.

6) OikoCredit- we met the manager of their regional Office and toured one of the Micro Financial Institutes they support (PAWDEP). Due diligence as my Club and Cumberland club (as well as Tanya and I) are shareholders.

7) PAWDEP.org- This is one of the MFI’s Oikocredit supports. We talked to members who went from no cow, water or electricity to profitable dairy farms.

8) Rotary High School- a much needed high school near central Kakamega, very, very poor, not many students (50?) due to fees being high.

9) Friends Care Centre- we did due diligence at this orphanage as it is being supported by Valley View Elementary School. It supports local Grandmothers (100?) raising AIDs orphans. Also met at Directors house.

10) Daisy School for the Handicapped- this is the school being supported by my club. As I write this we have 50 of the desks built, 15 more desks to go. On time, on budget.

11) Rotaract Club of MMUST (a college sans text books!) - very enthusiastic group of about 60, we will meet with them a couple more times and join them on a tutoring session at Rotary High School.

12) RC of Nairobi South- we met them in Nairobi this past week. Two potential matching grant opportunities for my club here: cyber café for students or part of a major project- both in a dry little town of Meru.

13) RC of Vihiga- they have an earth dam project that they want to show us- a very good group in a very small village. We will meet them again this week.

14) RC of Langata- This was the liveliest of groups we met in Nairobi last Thursday- it was almost a party. Hope to connect them to Maji Mazuri (www.majimazuri.org), but they are booked solid with matching grants.

15) RC of Kakamega- a funny little club here, also booked with matching grants, but may have an open slot by end of year.

16) KEEF- a group of Canadians gets together and pools enough money to send a few boys to school-it’s about $500 CDN/ year / per boy. Managed to get enough to get about 8 boys into school.

17) CEDAR- this is a Canadian philanthropy group that interviews and puts hundreds of girls through school every year. KEEF was created in response to the need from boys.

That’s enough for now. Oh to be a millionaire and just be able to hand out money to all of them.

After I saw Tanya off this morning I went for a run. I was in the mood for a quiet one so I headed to the local soccer field to do laps. I couldn’t get there; hundreds and hundreds of men with sticks were screaming and whistling, blocking the street and "sidewalk". I asked what was going on, I was told “bullfight”. The crowd was blocking the main road. It just looked like a mob antagonizing a bull; one guy had a weird hat and a whistle, everyone seemed to be having a good time, except the bull [apparently they get two bulls to fight I learned later].


I turned and headed to the stadium across the road, to do laps. About 10 laps later I heard the mob approaching a nearby field and I saw 2 men chasing another bull onto the track I was running on- the bull turned off the track and walked on by with the two guys in tow. In the field next door to the stadium it looked like thousands of men were now screaming; one tree, about 20 feet off the ground must have contained 20 people. It wasn't a big tree. I assume the game was tormenting the bull until it charged and then trying to get away. I resumed my laps and eventually they all went away. No such thing as a boring run in Africa.

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