Chebukuyi village becomes home for four months

The CHASE Expedition proved yet again that when you get the right group of people all wanting to make a difference, a lot can be accomplished. It is too difficult to find just one single stand out highlight from the entire trip – each week there was always another great story, another great memory. If you want to see what we got up to in detail check out our Facebook page – and there’s lots of great photos there too! As I wrote below, our work with the Maasai girls really made a big impact on me – but there were just so many more experiences which I’m sure I’ll write more about later!

When the 8 weeks were up, the UK volunteers all returned home – but I hopped on a bus – well 3 buses and 1 motorbike – and made the long journey back to Chebukuyi village. 30 hours later I found myself back in a very familiar setting – but at the same time very different to the last time I was here with the CHASE team. We visit this village with the CHASE team – and have worked with this community since the start of CHASE. For one main reason – this is Leonard’s (director of CHASE Africa) home village. His mother, Esther Nasike, was an amazing lady – and started a CBO (Community Based organisation) years ago, focusing upon improving public health in this remote village, by going round people’s homes and educating them on how to prevent the spread of common diseases. Therefore her children grew up with this and many have since spent their life working in community development, following in her footsteps.

Working alongside NACODE teaching community health

The reason Nasike felt so impelled to teach others was the sheer speed at which disease spread in such a community. Only ten years ago or so, HIV spread fast and wiped out a large proportion of the young adult population. The community is still troubled with some of the highest rates of typhoid in Kenya – and common diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea still kill many children every year. Even something as simple as hand washing can save lives here.

Therefore when I returned this time – I was on my own – and with only a couple of English speakers, I was definitely thrown in at the deep end! But I was ready to take on the challenge – how many people really get the opportunity to work and live in a truly remote village, totally immersed in the local way of life for months on end?!

These photos give you an idea of what the village looks like

Some of my neighbours

Isaac - at his grandmother's home and also my closest neighbour

Lwakhaha town- the closest shops 1km from Star of Hope

There was lots of work to be done – so I didn’t really have much time to sit around and get bored! As a consequence of Nasike’s work in Chebukuyi village, there is a newly opened school and orphanage for local children affected by the impacts of the spread of these common diseases. This would be my task for the next 4 months – to manage the Star of Hope Centre school and orphanage on a daily basis, making sure everything ran smoothly and the kids were all healthy and happy. 

Star of Hope was started in early 2010 as a small hut where Teacher Humphrey voluntarily taught some local village kids, whose parents could not afford to send them to school. It soon started growing, as more and more children were found to be in need of education, with such high numbers never had the chance to go to school. With the support of Leonard (my colleague at CHASE Africa) Humphrey took on the challenge of teaching more and more children, with the help of a couple of volunteers from the village.  In just two years, the centre has grown from a handful of kids learning in basically a small mud hut – to teaching over 75 children in a three roomed school building and having 20 of those kids as full time boarders! 

All this has come about with very little and limited funding – but a lot of passion and motivation to succeed. When I arrived at Star of Hope at the end of August 2011, the boarders had just moved in full time – and so alongside managing the school side of things – we now had 20 kids to look after – feeding, clothing and caring for them 24 hours a day is a big task. And with such a small budget – of literally around just £1 each day to feed and care for all 75 of these kids – the challenge became a whole lot bigger!

CHASE Expedition hightlight

In 2011 I spent 6 months in Kenya, arriving in late June – I spent the first two months with the CHASE expedition team as we travelled and volunteered at different projects across Kenya. CHASE 11 proved that even after 2 years acting as project coordinator and expedition leader, the same trip is in no way boring! It turned out to be one of the most empowering trips for myself personally – and mostly due to just one of the projects we worked with.

At the last minute we decided to go deep into Maasai land and visit a wonderful lady working hard to teach girls about the dangers of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). She lived a few hours outside of Kajaido town, a few hours south of Nairobi. After close to an hour on a dirt track road, we turned off the ‘main’ road and were soon driving deep into the bush. Sitting in the back of a pick up hanging on as we drove through dry river beds, scaled small rock faces and ducked from the overhanging thorn bushes - we picked up some local women along the way – we were apparently the only transport passing the road that day!

Mama Eva as we called her, works as the education officer for the region – but has a deep passion for empowering her own community. She invited us along to see what she gets up to. FGM has been performed for hundreds, probably even thousands of years in many tribes in East Africa. All are slightly different – but all with one very common theme – there are no physiological benefits for the girl. Mama Eva beliefs strongly in the fight against FGM – she has witnessed first hand the devastating consequences to women in her own village of this horrific initiation process.

FGM, or female circumcision is usually performed on girls around puberty age as an initiation ceremony into adulthood. Circumcision is also the main initiation ceremonial practice for boys – but here the similarities end. For boys on the whole, circumcision has no detrimental effects on the boys’ health – plus recently it has also been proven to have a positive impact on reducing the spread of HIV. However among girls there are no medical benefits to this procedure. Some of these effects include life long infection to the open wound; fistula (loss of bladder control); high loss of blood during the procedure; complications conceiving and giving birth; intense pain for the rest of their lives; and many girls die from blood loss. Therefore there has been a big push within the last few years to increase education about the effects of circumcision and try to mobilise local communities to educate each other. This is where Eva steps in and travels around local schools talking to the girls to empower them to say no to FGM.

However it is not always easy for girls to say no – even if they do not actually want to be circumcised, there is often a lot of pressure from their family and from the wider community. There can be many negative consequences for a Maasai girl if she is not circumcised – with many girls been shunned and thrown out from their family home. Even though it is an illegal practice in Kenya – this family and peer pressure is often overpowering.

For 5 days we accompanied Eva to different schools to talk to girls about women’s health, FGM and human rights issues. Each school was very remote – one actually only accessible by walking an hour through the bush to reach it. Many of the children were scared of us – having never seen a white person before I wouldn't blame them! At each school we got all the girls together in a classroom, normally from ages 9 to 14 years. With the help of Eva, we talked to the girls about their basic rights as girls – and the sheer importance they hold in their own community. In Maasai culture the women really do everything – from cooking and cleaning to fetching wood and building their homes. We talked with them about the importance of keeping good hygiene as a woman and the impact this has on their later life.

We then moved on to talk to them about FGM. What really shocked us that hardly any of them really knew what would happen to them during circumcision – and as a result, were quite happy to say yes. We thus educated them on the details of what would happen to them; and then what the possible side effects are. It was very evident that the girls were really taking in what was being said, when at the end when they had the opportunity to ask questions. What was really shocking was that many of the girls we were talking to had already been circumcised, but had not yet reached puberty.

Before speaking, we asked the girls how many of them want to be circumcised when they become of age – all hands went straight up. We then asked this question at the end – this time there were no hands. Girls were standing up and telling us they wanted to go and tell their friends to say no. We only hope they are able to stand up for their rights.

When a girl is circumcised her human rights are instantly stolen from her. She must then fight hard to regain control of her own life, her health and her future. 

first impressions

I have spent the last 4 months living and working in a rural Kenyan village. Chebukuyi village, situated just along the road from the Ugandan border, looks very much like the classic preconceived idea of what an ‘African village’ looks like. A wide red dusty road runs through the centre, with fields of high maize on either side. Goats are tethered and grazing by the side of the track road – and children are running by, chewing on sugar cane or wielding sticks of some sort. Women pass carrying jerry cans of water balanced precariously on their heads, as they gesture widely chatting to friends, discussing their crops or the latest village drama. Local matatus (small cars/ buses) fly by, literally stuffed full of, what on closer inspection turn out to be people – crammed in so tightly men sit with their shoulders and arm out the window, men huddle in the boot, the driver kindly shares his seat with a fellow passenger and of course there are chickens on every lap. The roof is strained with bags of crops and luggage strapped on, and usually empty jerry cans are strapped on to the back window, flying around at each tight corner. This may sound overly stereotyped – but this is really just what a usual morning looks and sounds like!

However beneath this rather quaint scene, there are devastating statistics highlighting the sheer poverty of this village and the surrounding area. I won’t bore you with all the details – but in brief here goes: the area has one of the highest and most constant high levels of typhoid in East Africa; malaria is as common as the cold; HIV wiped out a large proportion of the adult population 10 years ago, and the community is still suffering from the spread of the disease. Apart from this girls are married as young as 15, there are high levels of infant mortality, high rates of illiteracy, and there is very poor health care provision. It is rare for girls to finish high school – and many boys drop out early due to not being able to pay the school fees or pressure from parents to start working and contributing towards the family. This is a mere overview of some of the major issues facing just one small area in Kenya – and there are so many more villages even worse off.

I have been travelling to Kenya since 2008 – but only ever for 3 months maximum time. Travelling with the CHASE team – and teaching communities across Kenya about how to prevent the spread of common diseases, and how to care for the environment; I wanted to see for myself what it is really like living in one of these villages. What is it really like living in a mud hut – with no water, no electricity, no special treats, no luxuries for months on end? What does everyday life here look like? What does it feel like to live in poverty and how do villagers really survive? What does it feel like to survive on less than 50p a day? And most importantly – can I hack it? I was soon to find out…