rain and race

The rainy season is upon us now. Every day, the sky grows dark and menacing and we all clutch our umbrellas anxiously to our chests, wondering whether we will be caught out in the downpour. When it rains here, it rains hard, transforming streets and sidewalks into lakes in mere minutes. The rains can last from an hour, to all afternoon and evening. It wouldn't be that bad if most of the city were paved, but it's not; brickwork and concrete randomly give way to stretches of dirt all over. When it rains, everything turns muddy. On the first day of the rains, unaware of the extent to which the mud would cover the city, I naively wore flip-flops to work. As the matatus and buses from our side of town no longer enter the city centre (yes, the plan was finally implemented a few weeks ago and thousands of Eastlands residents have been walking and grumbling ever since), I had to walk from the drop-off point, the mad Muthurwa market, into town to get my second matatu. The walk isn't so long, it takes maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but in that time I managed to cover my bottom half nearly completely with mud. Every time I took a step, my flip-flop would spray mud all over my legs, and of course my feet were covered instantly. I must have looked completely miserable, because everyone I passed, and even the guys walking past me hauling hand-carts piled high with charcoal and vegetables, were saying "pole, sister, pole". Pole, which means sorry, is used as a kind of catch-all expression of sympathy. If you're feeling sick, or if you stopped your toe, dropped something, a relative died, your house burned down... "pole, pole sana". It was a pretty ridiculous situation, so I just had to laugh and clean myself off as best I could when I got to work. Of course, I also had a forum to attend that afternoon. Very professional. Since then, I've worn closed shoes on my commute and have been much more successful in keeping myself relatively clean.

Soon I won't have to walk from the market into town anymore -- in fact, I won't be going through town at all, unless I want to. On Monday, we're going to be moving out of Buruburu to South C, on the other side of town. It should shave a good forty minutes, if not more, from my commute, so I'm very excited. The new place is a bit smaller than this one, but it's new and really nice. It's basically a "servant's quarters" behind someone else's home, so we'll come in the huge gate and walk around the house to get to our flat. The woman who lives in the house is the landlady, and I'm not really sure how I feel about her yet. We've only met her once and she was completely shocked and thrown off when she saw me. She ended up speaking with George in Kikuyu almost the entire time, which pretty much sucked for me as I literally only know three words in Kikuyu. She has been quite helpful, though, so maybe she'll warm up to me. I guess she doesn't get too many non-Kenyans looking for apartments.

One of the strangest things for me about living here is that I'm constantly perceived as white. I'm mixed race, and back home when I'm subjected to a game of Guess That Ethnicity (which happens surprisingly frequently, and always starts with people wanting to know where I'm really from, because obviously people of colour can't come from Canada), guesses range from Brazilian to Lebanese to Indian to Moroccan. Definitely "brown". Here, it's German or Italian or Russian or American. Once in awhile, people will call me mhindi (Indian), but most of the time I'm just assumed to be a mzungu (white person). Only those who know me well know that I'm mixed. The Sheng (street slang) term for mixed race is pointi, short for "point five", which I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with either. Now that I have more of a substantial tan, people on the street trying to get my attention will sometimes call out "hey brown skin" or "brown skin lady", which is at least accurate, if a bit blunt...

With the arrival of the rains, the calls for resettlement of displaced people have reached a fever pitch. Unsurprisingly, the politicians in Nairobi are ignoring the warnings about the insufficient shelter, the lack of sanitation and food, continued sexual harassment, cholera and TB outbreaks, the people who remain traumatized by the attacks and the hundreds, if not thousands, of children who have yet to return to school. Instead, they are concentrating on their childish squabbling about how the ministries should be divided between the parties, which new ministries should be created, and how big the cabinet should be. It's all about them and what they can squeeze out of the deal that was meant to bring relief to those suffering in the aftermath of violence. While I understand that a certain amount of reshuffling is in order, and responsibilities must be allocated, the way it's being drawn out and the fights that are erupting over various seats is completely insensitive and belies a lack of concern over what is happening in the rest of the country. I'm not surprised, but I am deeply disappointed at the way that, once again, greed and powerlust have trumped the needs of people on the ground.

This holiday weekend was busy! Although technically we had four days off, the only sign for me that Easter was here was that hawkers were selling palm leaves on the street. I spent most of the long weekend at the computer, banging away furiously and attempting to get the reports for both the Nairobi and Bujumbura workshops done in time for Tuesday night. I made it, but only after being in the office for about twelve hours yesterday. The full-length reports (30+ pages each) are sent back to the organization that funded the workshops, the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests (quite a mouthful, innit?). I got some positive feedback from them today, so I’m quite satisfied with that. The recommendations and a summary will then be published by us for release at the CBD Conference of Parties, and for wider distribution in our magazine.

There was one even this weekend that I couldn’t miss, though, and that was the Mathare Roots second anniversary celebration. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been two years since a group of friends from Mathare decided to get together and form their own group to address youth issues in their community. The organization has grown enormously since then. They had decided to hold the celebrations indoors after all, which was a wise decision as it rained for most of the afternoon. The location was Mambo village, a little theme-park type place about forty-five minutes out of town. It’s mostly for kids; there are boat rides and really horrifyingly frightening clowns, and those big inflatable castles that I always want to jump into. The major attraction, though, is the crocodile enclosure, where these prehistoric beasts lie around all day, somehow managing to look lazy and ferocious at the same time. The Roots crew had all jammed themselves into a matatu hired for the occasion, and for some of the younger children, the trek out of town was probably the first time they’d ever been that far out of Mathare. I must say that it was a bit strange to see all these people who I normally see in a very basic classroom in the slum, in such a clearly middle-class setting. Everyone loved it, though. As the chairman and one of the founding members of the group, George was ecstatic. I was so proud of him and glad that everything worked out smoothly.

We had a little bar all to ourselves, so the kids could run around to their hearts’ content. There were speeches, a hearty lunch and a cake. And of course, this being a Kenyan youth group, there was a dance competition. I have never seen such jaw-droppingly shameless dancing in my life. Pelvis thrusts, fancy footwork, booty-shaking, a bit of break dancing… it was truly awe-inspiring. When I asked Brenda, one of the winners, where she had learned to dance like that, she declared that her talent was God-given (I love that, the Lord gave me hips to grind). But it’s easier to be a good dancer, or at least an unselfconscious dancer, in a culture where pretty much everyone dances. There is no stigma about male dancing here, which is one of the things that always makes me so happy about Kenya. I love to see guys genuinely getting into dancing. I’m not ashamed to admit that George is a way better dancer than I am. Even the little eight year old boys have more style than me on the dance floor. It just comes with the territory, I guess.

After a long day of celebrations, about a dozen Roots kids trooped out to Buruburu to see where the chairman and his “wife” are living. It was nice to have people over – living so far out as we do, we don’t get that many guests. We may have a new apartment soon, though. When I was away, George was working hard to find us a new place, and made a verbal agreement with an agent in South C. Though we’re hopefully going to meet the landlord and sign a lease soon, I’ll believe that we have the place when we move in. I don’t trust those agents.

I also have some Western company these days. Melissa, one of the people that I traveled with on my first trip to Kenya with the Canadian Field Studies in Africa Program in 2005, has returned to Nairobi to volunteer with Roots for the next five months. She has just come from teaching English in Korea, and has brought another ESL teacher, Tracy from the UK, along with her. It has been really nice to have others around who actually like vegetables and understand what I mean when I complain about peoples’ flaky time-keeping.

I’m not complaining too much these days, though. It’s been two months since I’ve arrived, and I feel as though I’ve finally hit my stride, made some good connections and am developing more of an ear (if not quite a tongue yet) for Kiswahili. Work is hectic and takes a lot of energy, but I’m loving it. George and I are settling into a routine, managing to juggle both of our crazy schedules. Even with all of its frustrations and absurdity, Nairobi feels like home again.

Bujumbura was absolutely beautiful. The capital of Burundi, it lies nestled betwen Lake Tanganyika to the West, and verdant rolling hills to the East. I hadn't expected it to be so hot -- when I first arrived, I felt like I was on the Kenyan coast, where the air is thick and heavy with moisture. Like Rwanda, Burundi is a former Belgian colony, and has also had its fair share of ethnic strife. Instead of descending into outright genocide, the conflicts in Burundi were characterized as civil war. I'm not sure that there is such a straightforward line between the two, really. Though I asked a few people delicately about the war, no one went into much detail about it. Clearly, it was a subject that they wanted to avoid -- perhaps simply to focus on peace. Around the town, there were signs bearing the image of a dove, and my hotel was called "Amahoro", meaning peace in Kirundi. The peace treaty was signed in 2005, but there is still a fair bit of tension, which discourages tourists from visiting this beautiful country. I can definitely understand that concern. When I asked locals whether certain areas were safe for me to walk by myself, I would invariably get a response along the lines of "yes, it's fine, there aren't too many bandits there", or "it's very safe, just keep an eye on your purse." Not exactly reassuring words, so I was extra-careful when walking in town by myself.

Despite the need to be watchful, Bujumbura was a pretty laid-back city, with a real beach town feel. It's slow, relaxed and people are friendly (though compared to Nairobi, pretty much anywhere would seem slow). People speak mostly French and Kirundi, with a bit of Kiswahili thrown in here and there. On the first day, I walked down to the beach, accompanied by one of the hotel security guards who was actually called Sainte-Jean-Baptiste. It was a Sunday afternoon, and the beach was filled with young people hanging around, drinking and smoking and enjoying the spectacular view. On the other side of the lake is the Democratic Republic of Congo, and all you can see are rows of mountains shrouded in mist. Gorgeous. I wish I could have gotten a photo, but of course after all the "reassurances" of safety I didn't take my camera with me. The view was somewhat marred by the fact that the lake itself was completely filthy. Near the shore, the sandy beach turned into muddy grass, which then disintegrated into piles of garbage that had been disgorged by the lake. It was a bit unpleasant to walk around in sandals, having to avoid plastic bottles and bags and partly-decomposed bits of god knows what, while attempting to take in the view. It's really too bad, since it's such a nice spot. It turns out that I was very lucky to have a clear day, since it's the rainy season in Burundi. After that first day, it was extremely wet. At one point, it was raining so hard that we couldn't even hear each other speak.

The French-speaking African indigenous peoples are at a bit of a disadvantage, as they have even fewer resources at their disposal than the English-speakers, and as a result are a bit less organized. When it comes to international agreements like the Convention on Biological Diversity, the major texts are translated but the accompanying explanatory material is not. Or, more likely, it is translated but inaccessible to grassroots organizers in small African countries. So when it's possible, people are brought in to do translation work. At least now I know that all the translation I did was actually useful. The participants in this workshop came from Burundi, Rwanda, DRC, Cameroon and Gabon, plus Lucy coming from Kenya. I had met Odombo, the gentleman from Gabon, two years ago at a conference of the Indigenous Poeples of Africa Coordinating Committee in Malindi, on the coast. We recognized each other right away (as we are both quite distinctive-looking around these parts). It was nice to have someone I knew around. He's quite the charmer -- the only problem is that I can only understand half of what he says, he speaks so quickly and with such a strange accent.

I believe that all of the participants were from Pygmy groups. Pygmies are a related family of hunter-gatherer families that have traditionally lived in forests (and Central Africa certainly has enough forests). While "Pygmy" is a term that has been at times used in a derogatory sense, it seems to still be in common use. Like those from Uganda, the Pygmy group from Burundi are the Batwa, or Twa. Through Unissions-Nous pour le Promotion des Batwa, they have actually managed to gain recognition as indigenous peoples from the government, which is more than most African indigenous groups can claim. It may help that there are only a few ethnic groups in Burundi (the Hutu, Tutsi and Batwa are the only ones that I'm aware of, but there may be some other minority groups as well). That way, even with the recognition of the Batwa, the government doesn't feel overwhelmed by addressing the needs of so many different groups. Pygmies are typically somewhat short, and we did indeed have some pretty small participants, which resulted in a lot of good-natured jokes and made me feel right at home.

I did enjoy speaking French a bit, even though I didn't always understand peoples' responses because of the different accents. But when it came to the presentation I was to make in Lucy's place, I lucked out. Benon, one of the participants from Rwanda, had fled to Uganda when he was quite young. Since he grew up speaking English and never properly learned French, there was a translator in attendance for his benefit. The translator was from Burundi, a young man called Louis who spoke something like six languages. So I made use of his skills and the presentation wasn't that bad after all. I think I was so relieved about not having to speak at length in French that I forgot to be nervous, it was a miracle!

A really interesting aspect of the workshop was that although we discussed many of the same issues as the Nairobi conference, there was much more of a focus on internal issues. That is, there was much discussion about the problems of African indigenous organization themselves, particularly in Central Africa, and less on indigenous peoples versus states. I gather that there are a lot of issues funds reserved for indigenous peoples not getting to the people who really need it. Applicants for this money are often people who run an organization that doesn't actually do anything on the ground ("briefcase NGOs"), or who don't have an organization at all, or who are not indigenous. Since funding organizations are often unaware of the situation on the ground, they don't know whether the organization they are giving money to is genuine. Coordination between groups, particularly identifying who works on which issues and delegating tasks accordingly, has not happened for one reason or another. There have also been problems with delegates from Africa taking advantage of international conventions and meetings to go shopping, or to disappear somewhere in Europe. This causes extreme embarrassment for the sponsoring organization, and may prevent others from that same organization from participating in later conferences. It's difficult to strike a balance between sending people that you know are there to work, and giving new people a chance to participate. IIN is attempting to create a database of people active in indigenous advocacy in East Africa in order to help with the coordination of organizations, selection of participants for conferences, and so on. After this workshop, we decided that it would be a good idea to start one for Central Africa as well.

Aside from the great networking, one of the greatest pleasures of Burundi for me was the food. Bless that Belgian culinary influence, that has brought lovely little pastries, wonderful sauces and a decent variety of vegetables. On the first night, I ordered fish provencale and almost cried with joy when it arrived. I was presented with a beautiful boneless piece of fish topped with onion, tomato, zucchini, carrots and actual healthy-looking green beans. While it is possible to find these vegetables in Kenya, you will not see them at any but the most specialized of restaurants. While I try to cook with as many vegetables as I can, cooking has fallen by the wayside lately since our water has been off. Ah, vegetables, how I've missed you! The only downside was that the tea was completely horrible. Guess you can't have it all.

I was sorry not to have the chance to explore Burundi more (I was hardly even able to see Bujumbura since my stay was so short), but I have a standing invitation to return, as well as invitations to visit DRC, Cameroon and of course Gabon. My friend Odambo was telling me about a documentary he was making about the cultural preservation efforts of Pygmies in Gabon that sounded fascinating. I would love to meet some of the people that he collaborated with. So much travel to be done, so little time and money!

The workshop this week was fabulous. My organization, Indigenous Information Network, hosted a three-day preparatory workshop on the Convention on Biological Diversity, and environmental issues in general. We had about thirty-five participants, coming from various regions of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan. Communities represented were the Batwa, Maasai, El Molo, Ogiek and a couple of others that I'm sure I'm forgetting. It was a good mix of people living in urban and rural areas, and people in traditional and "modern" African and Western dress. The workshop was held in a combination of English and Kiswahili. With my few weeks of lessons, I could still only pick up a few words here and there. There's a saying here that Kiswahili was born in Zanzibar, grew up in Tanzania, got sick in Kenya and died in Uganda. I could definitely see that at the workshop -- the Tanzanian's Kiswahili was beautiful and pristine, no English mixed in at all, unlike here.

On the first day, we had a few presentations and group discussions on the CBD, what it means and how it affects indigenous peoples. Issues like the use of traditional knowledge in environmental management and conservation, sustainable land and resource use, the creation of protected areas, and access and benefit-sharing of resources were brought up. The way that environmental management has been done in Kenya and other East African countries in the past has been extremely detrimental to the livelihoods and cultural survival of IPs. In forest management, for example, the conventional method of conservation has been to evict hunter-gatherers from the land entirely, sometimes with a resettlement program and sometimes without. Experts from elsewhere are then brought in to decide how the forest should be managed. All this despite the fact that many hunter-gatherer groups still live in close interrelation with the forest, depending on it for food, traditional medicinal plants, and cultural and spiritual matters. They have lived sustainably in the forest for generations, and yet they are being told that they don't know how to manage it. The degradation of forests occurs largely as a result of the encroachment of logging and mining companies which enter with the blessing of the government, and the settlement of people from arid lands in the forest, since drylands are becoming less and less productive as a result of unsustainable use and climate change. The use of hunter-gatherer forest management techniques would actually help curb this degradation. It is only recently that the Kenyan government has acknowledged the benefits of participatory forest management and has begun to engage local and indigenous populations in policy making and implementation. There are also now provisions for those who practice traditional plant-based medicine to collect the necessary herbs and plants, with a special permit. However, eviction, unemployment and a lack of benefit sharing are all major issues that remain unaddressed. Other countries are not as fortunate as Kenya in terms of policy formation and recognition of local resource use.

On the second day, there were presentations from government representatives. We had someone from the Kenya Wildlife Service who is also very involved in indigenous activism, someone from the Public Complaints Committee on environment, someone from Kenya Forest Service and the Public Secretary on Environment. It was a great opportunity for the participants, since one of their biggest complaints is that they are often ignored or don't know how to gain the attention of government agencies if something like illegal dumping, logging or land grabbing is going on. This gave them the opportunity to raise their issues directly and get to know who they should be dealing with on questions of environment. Some of the government officials really squirmed, especially on issues such as the degradation of the Mau forest, to which they could only reply "yes, you're right, that is an issue and we need to deal with it." It was also good for the participants to hear that government officials are limited in their capacity -- limited by mandate, time and most importantly by money. There simply aren't enough resources to address all of these problems, so the IPs were able to see that more is needed in terms of civil society, since you can't wait around for the government to fix your problems.

On the third day, we all took a bus out to Oloshoibor in Ngong, about an hour away from Nairobi, to visit the Simba Maasai Outreach project (SIMOO). I had been there a few times before, but it's always a lovely spot to visit. This group has set up a biodiversity conservation centre, where trees and plants of importance to the Maasai have been planted and labeled. They also have a small cultural museum, and a number of guest huts set up to host tourists or conferences. The spot is very dusty but beautiful, with a dam, the Ngong Hills, and hundreds of acacia trees as a backdrop.

We took a tour of SIMOO as an example of a successful biodiversity conservation project, took a look at the museum, then had lunch. Before the tour, we had watched our lunch, a white and brown goat, being slaughtered. I think this was the third goat that I've seen being killed before eating it, and it was by far the quickest, which I was grateful for. As a former vegetarian and someone who attempts to be conscious of who and what is affected by my consumption habits, I think that witnessing the slaughter is actually quite a positive experience, though a bit gruesome. If I'm going to be eating an animal, I should at least appreciate the fact that a living being has been killed in order to feed me. (A warning to the squeamish among you, a few photos of the slaughter will probably be up on flickr in the next few weeks.) The blood was collected and drunk before it congealed. I passed on that -- if you're not supposed to eat undercooked meat in developing countries, I'm pretty sure that raw blood is out too. Some of the blood did spurt onto my toes, though. At lunch, everyone had a good laugh as I got one of the legs. Unlike everyone else who relishes tearing meat off the bone, I'm terrible at getting a grip on the greasy thing, and it's really quite a production. It wasn't bad, though. The only part I really could have done without were all the little goaty stray hairs.

We got a lot of positive feedback from the workshop, and I hope that it does result in more lobbying on all levels. If we can prevent the exploitation of indigenous knowledge, lands and resources by helping raise awareness of legal rights and the international processes that IPs can participate in, the workshop will have been a success. Already I am synthesizing the recommendations from the group work into a document to be presented at an open forum on policy formation that will be held by the ministry of environment next week. Some of the participants will also be attending the Conference of Parties on the CBD in May, so hopefully they will be bringing that knowledge and energy along with them. In the meantime, I'll be writing up reports on the workshop and some of the presentations for the next issues of Nomadic News and Environmental news, which IIN publishes.

The upcoming workshop in Burundi will be on the same subject, except in French. I leave tomorrow, and it's going to be a bit of an adventure since I'm flying on my own. Lucy, my boss, has a last-minute meeting with one of our funding organizations and couldn't come along with me as planned. So I'm really hoping that I manage to get my visa, get through customs and meet who I'm supposed to be meeting (a gentleman from Unissons-Nous pour le Promotion des Batwa) on the other side. But I'm sure that it'll be fine. Actually, my greatest worry is that Lucy asked me if I could do the presentation in her place -- an introductory talk on CBD mechanisms in French. Yikes. I haven't done a presentation of any kind in years, have always hated public speaking, and my French is pretty rusty. Talk about pushing me out of my comfort zone. But I had no choice but to accept -- it has to be done on the first day, and no one else is going to step up and do it. I suppose that I can't stay in my safe little bubble of report-writing forever. Wish me luck!

Nairobbery lives up to its name

This weekend was pretty awful. I don't want to go into too much detail (if you really want to know, ask), but in short, George was drugged and his phone and my camera were stolen in the course of an evening. It was partially our fault for not being more careful, but dammit, that was a strange and scary night. George is fine after having a bit of a miserable Sunday. While I know that they're just material things and the important thing is that everyone is okay, I loved that camera, and the phone will be difficult to replace. I managed to find myself another, much inferior camera for a pretty penny.

We've learned our lesson. No matter how comfortable you get, this is still Nairobi. Don't trust anyone, and always watch your drink.

It may interest some of you to know that Foreign Affairs Canada has removed the travel warning for Kenya. Travel status has been downgraded from "avoid non-essential travel" (where it's been for the past couple of months) to "exercise high degree of caution" (which is standard for developing countries). There has been an incremental rise in tourism in the past few weeks, mostly on the coast, but that hasn't given much comfort to thousands of hotel employees and tour operators and tourist market vendors who have been without income for the past few months. I don't know much about tourism, but I suspect that it will be one of the slowest industries to recover.

But whether or not the tourists return, the sense of relief is palpable. This weekend, I even felt that it was safe enough to go to Kibera, which would have been inadvisable, to say the least, about a month ago. One of the Mathare Roots members is from Kibera, so he organized a friendly match between the Roots team and a Kibera youth team. Kibera is much like Mathare, only bigger -- it is the largest slum in East Africa, and I believe the second-largest in Africa (second to Soweto in South Africa). Since we were going to the member's home for lunch and then heading straight for the soccer pitch, I only saw a tiny patch of the slum, and that was the "good" area. Our host's family was extremely gracious, cramming forty-odd people into their living room and courtyard, and feeding us all rice with a bit of meat and cabbage. They also had a cat and some kittens wandering about, which made me happy -- I miss my kitties! I got teased a bit for fawning over the kittens while the others were amusing themselves by shoving the wriggling creatures the face of the son of one of the members to make him shriek. Man, our pets in Canada have it easy.

As we walked down the main road to the pitch, I noticed a few people wearing ODM t-shirts, which I had never seen before. Kibera is Raila's constituency, so that area seems to have been a stronghold for him, which I've never understood. If he's such a great MP, why hasn't he advocated on behalf of slum residents? Anyway, it was interesting to see that, as well as the infamous 'No Raila, No Peace' slogan painted on walls and houses, alongside more hopeful messages urging for peace and security.

Like most others in Kenya, the soccer pitch is a huge expanse of dust and rocks. Most of the players wear cleats, but no one has shinguards, which results in some pretty interesting scars in that area. While the team played, the rest of us watched and cheered and were covered by a thick layer of dust. The members' kids wandered around and visited with everyone -- it really is like they're being raised by a community. Roots won, as usual.

There's a reason why so many of those who come from the slums are amazing soccer players. Firstly, soccer is a game that doesn't require a whole lot of equipment. The only thing that you really need is a ball, and a bunch of plastic bags tied together will do in a pinch. As hundreds of slum kids have demonstrated, you don't even need shoes. So soccer is an easy way to keep yourself busy when there's not a lot else going on. It's also seen by many as their ticket out of the desperation of the slums. When these kids see African soccer stars on tv, making millions by playing this game that they play everyday, they think, "why not me?" Those players aren't just athletes -- they're heroes and role models to young kids all over Kenya, and I would imagine in other parts of Africa and the world as well. When Lucky, our little friend from Mathare who visits sometimes on weekends, came to stay recently, he was drawing furiously away all evening. When he was finished, he proudly brought the book over to show me. I thought there might be some cars, some people, maybe some dogs -- whatever it is that ten-year old boys draw. But they were all soccer players. A goalie blocking the ball with his chest, a player running with motion lines all around. One of them was labelled Ronaldhino. Beyond that, there is the simple love of a game that one has grown up with. Many youth groups use football as a means of community-building, keeping fit and keeping its members motivated and giving them goals to work towards.

I know that it's trite, but spending time in the slums really reminds you of how much we take for granted. Water, food, education, a sanitary environment -- these are all meant to be rights that everyone should have access to, but to many, they are luxuries. And of course, it's not as if poverty is endemic to Nairobi, or to Africa. There are still communities in Canada without access to safe drinking water. And homeless people and "bad neighbourhoods" can be found in any major city. But seeing so many people all living crammed together, all in poverty is still very affecting.

Despite the knowledge that I am living in luxury, I still somehow manage to be annoyed by little inconveniences. This month has been disastrous in terms of our water supply. It's been off for five days, on for four, back off again for four, on and off like this all month. We do have jerry cans of water in case it goes off, but we try to be careful in ration it to essentials (mostly face, foot and handwashing) in case the "drought" lasts awhile. The frustrating part is that, unlike in South C, my last neighbourhood, this isn't a problem that affects the whole area, so it's not a city supply problem. It's that the building itself is badly maintained. There is water on the main floor, but at times the pressure is too weak to pump it up to us on the third floor. The worst part isn't the lack of showers -- that just motivates me to go to the gym! It's that everything gets filthy so quickly. The dishes pile up, the floor gets dirty from all the dust we bring in at the end of the day, and clothes remain in a smelly heap in the corner. I think our cockroaches have gotten worse because of it, though they still don't rival the huge mamas we had last time. It's all rather unpleasant, but when the water comes back on, it's like a miracle. You feel like dancing and praising the universe, and attack the cleaning with gusto. It actually becomes a pleasure to wash your laundry by hand.

Activity is reaching a fever pitch at work as the Conference of Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity approaches. On Sunday, representatives of indigenous groups from Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, and probably a few other countries that I'm forgetting, will be arriving. For three days we are hosting a preparatory workshop to brief participants on the CBD and all the relevant articles and provisions. The big important article for indigenous peoples is 8(j), in which parties agree to recognize, support and maintain traditional knowledge, practices and innovations of indigenous and local communities, insofar as they are relevant to biological conservation. The major challenge for indigenous advocates is to be recognized as major stakeholders in conservation and sustainable development, rather than some kind of special interest group. But more on that later. It's going to be a crazy week, and then next week it's Burundi and Northern Kenya, and hopefully I will be back in time for Mathare Roots' second anniversary celebration. It's good to keep busy!

beba, beba: a rant

The big fuss in Nairobi lately (aside from poking fun at Raila for suddenly becoming a bigshot with his own convoy) is that city council has suddenly decided to cut down on congestion in the city centre by taking drastic action against the hawkers and the matatus. They're going about it in a hilariously heavy-handed way that is sure to backfire. Forget working with the hawkers and matatu owners to find a fair solution: the city is simply attempting to ban all of them outright. No more hawkers or small matatus in the central business district, period. And all of this was to happen today, though of course it didn't. The town was stuffed with mats and wares, and touts from both professions attempting to bully potential customers with the regular cries of "beba, beba!" (carry, carry).

A market just outside of town has been built to accommodate the hawkers, but they will have to pay Ksh100 per day (a little less than a dollar fifty) to rent a stall, and there won't be enough room to hold all of them. This means that they are not only being asked to leave the best area for business, but that they will have to pay for that sub-prime space instead of getting the good spots for free, and that they will have to scramble in the mornings to get a spot at all. As much as the hawkers are a major annoyance, I do feel a bit sorry for them. Some had attempted a protest yesterday, and were pushed back with tear gas. Apparently, some of the past efforts to eject hawkers from the downtown core have turned violent, and both police and hawkers have been killed. I hope it doesn't come to that -- we've seen enough bloodshed this year. But if you've ever bargained with someone in the street, you know that those guys can be pretty damn tough and persistent. They're not going to give up easy. And if the hawkers are kicked out of town, how will people make their regrettable drunken shoe purchases after a long night of clubbing? I ask you.

As for the matatus, the owners of the Nissan vans and larger "moving bar" minibuses are fuming because the ban applies to them, but not to the owners of the larger, more uniform buses that are with companies like Citi Hoppa and Double M. They protest that the rules are unfair and that no one will take matatus now, which is true -- if you know that a matatu will drop you on the side of the road somewhere and a bus will take you all the way to town, which will you take? And there is no reason to be banning one form of public transportation and not another, since both are privately owned and contribute equally to the insane traffic jams. While matatus are a menace, they are always completely full, so their services are clearly needed. It would be smarter to impose a levy on private cars coming into the city centre, in order to cut down on the number of cars on the road with a single passenger. Another good way to cut down on traffic would be to put environmental and safety regulations in place for both public and private vehicles. Cars and matatus are usually bought, extremely well-used, from Europe. Many of them are a pothole away from the junk heap, constantly belching blue-black smoke, and yet they keep rattling along. Getting rid of some of those vehicles would do wonders for Nairobi's air quality, would improve the safety of public transportation, and would help clear out the roads as well.

It would also be nice if the transportation system didn't force everyone to come through town. Almost all public vehicles are either going to or coming from town, at all times, no matter where your final destination lies. Add that to ineffective roundabouts and traffic lights that are consistently ignored, and it's no wonder that Nairobi's traffic is a mess. Banning matatus is only going to make everyone angry, dear politicians. Perhaps you don't notice, what with your own drivers and two cars each, but trust me, public transportation is incredibly important. Find another way.