So despite my pledge to stay in last week, I ended up going to town and work anyway -- there was just too much that had to be done. But things were relatively calm, and on Friday, Maina Njenga called off the protests after hearing Raila say that the Mungiki members had the potential to be productive citizens (or something to that effect) and that he was willing to hold talks with them. Apparently, Njenga was "touched" by the comments and said that he believed that Raila will create jobs for the Mungiki. We'll see about that. People here are pretty divided about whether or not entering into talks with a group that has been engaged in violently terrorizing citizens is a good idea. In any case, the city went back to normal after only a few days last week.

This weekend, I took a break from the city and went to visit my friend Agnes in Oloshoibor, Ngong Hills. It's only about an hour outside of Nairobi but feels like another world. I had met Agnes in 2006 when I wrote a story on her group, Namayiana. It's a Maasai women's self-help group, which raises money through the production of really spectacular beadwork. They've actually become suppliers to Ten Thousand Villages, so if you go there and see beading from Kenya, it might just be from Namayiana. This time, Agnes was working on Christmas tree decorations -- multi-coloured stars with cowrie shells. I'm actually really curious about how much the group itself gets back from Ten Thousand Villages -- how fair is fair trade? -- but I didn't have the chance to ask in my short visit. Next time.

Usually when I visit Agnes, I spend most of my time with her son Isaiah, who is the same age as me. This time, however, he was off at college to study teaching. But I met his sister Rait for the first time, and her three young boys. One thing I really love about traditional (or semi-traditional) Maasai homes is that there are always a ton of little kids running around, ready to play and get into mischief. The thing I really don't love are the flies that swarm around everywhere, especially after it's been raining -- since the houses are in the same compound as the cattle and goats, the flies come right into the house and crawl over everything. I felt sorry for the youngest boy, Vinnie. He was only about a year and a half old and hadn't yet learned to swat the flies away from his face. As a result, his eyes were infected and crusty. He didn't seem to mind too much, though. All of the boys were just full of giggles the whole time I was there. I'm hoping to get another visit in soon.

Back in Nairobi, things are as hectic as ever as I am attempting to get some publications out and coordinate the Francophone indigenous delegates' visas and plane tickets to Germany. I also had a bit of a downer on the weekend, as my hard drive bit the dust and I lost all of my music and most of the photos that hadn't been posted to flickr. The music is a particularly irritating loss, as listening to music from home was one of my methods of combating homesickness. Oh well. Next time I'll have to be more vigilant about saving.

After weeks of waffling and infighting from the government and anxiety on the part of the public, a cabinet was finally named on Sunday. It’s a gigantic cabinet of 40 people, the largest in Africa by a good 16 ministers. This means that some ministries, such as the Ministry of Roads and Public Works, were split in two. Other new ministries had to be created. But still, for some reason the ministry that deals with gender equity remains the Ministry of Gender and Children, which I find very irritating. It’s also worth mentioning that out of the 40 ministers, only 7 are women. Pathetic. However flawed, though, the naming of the cabinet is a big relief. If it hadn’t been named now, I don’t know what would have happened. Though officially another election would have to have been called, it would have been nearly impossible with such a high number of voters displaced. There have been mixed reactions, as most people are happy that a cabinet has been named, but grumble that it is much too large, and will be inefficient and expensive to maintain. But at least now the tensions from people protesting about the delays have been resolved and maybe parliament can finally move on and start working on some programs, particularly for the IDPs.

The naming of the cabinet came at the end of a good weekend. On Friday, George and I went out to an Indian restaurant that we used to frequent when I last lived around here. I’d forgotten how expensive non-Kenyan food is here, but it was delicious and very much worth it. On Saturday, I attended a wedding in Kibera that my friend Sebi had invited me to. It was a very interesting wedding; the groom was Luhya, a traditionally Christian group, and the bride was Nubi, who are usually Muslim. The groom had actually converted to Islam, both in order to get permission from the bride’s family to marry her, and to fit in more with his community, as in that area of Kibera most of the families are Muslim. The wedding was a day-long affair, filled with dancing and food and traditions from both the Luhya and Muslim communities. There was a long procession through Kibera to reach the bride’s home, while the bride’s family and the groom were at the mosque making arrangements amongst themselves. There were fancy umbrellas, drummers and singers, and everyone danced and sang their way through the streets and muddy alleyways as Kibera residents looked on. We all crammed ourselves into a tiny, sweltering room and danced before the bride, who was at that point covered with a white sheet. Later, Sebi’s sisters decided that I needed to wear a tradition Nubian outfit like them, so they wrapped meters and meters of cloth around me. They had even devised a method of tucking a cell phone into the folds at the front of the outfit. Though the outfit looked good and natural on everyone else, I felt a bit like I was wearing a bedsheet and didn’t quite know what to do with the loose end, which kept falling off my shoulder. But they pronounced me beautiful, and the wedding guests seemed to agree.

After eating about our fifth meal of the day, we went to visit the bride again, as she was uncovered and receiving individual guests at home. She was wearing elaborate gold jewelry on her head and hands, had a silver tiara and was covered with lovely henna designs. I guess that usually one is meant to pay to see the bride, but since none of us had money, we were let in on credit. The rest of the night was spent dancing to the drumming and singing, as I tried with not much success to follow along with the traditional steps and movements. I had a great time.

For Sebi and his friends, the day was one of mourning as well as celebration. The previous day, one of their friends passed away. He was only 21, and was shot by police during the December riots in Kibera. From what they told me, he was not shot by accident; they had all been protesting and the police targeted them and opened fire without warning. Their friend was shot twice, once in his left arm and once in his side. The bullet passed through and shattered his spinal cord. He had been in the hospital for three months, and was hoping for a full recovery although he would have spent his life in a wheelchair. Instead, he died on Friday, leaving his friends and family devastated and stuck with a hospital bill that they can’t possibly afford to pay. So although it was happy day for Sebi and co. as one of their friends was getting married, there was also an undercurrent of pain. It was a very emotional evening.

A friend of mine, Silvanos, was also killed in Nairobi in December, in an incident unrelated to the post-election violence. His death was heartbreaking – he was an amazing person, one of the most caring, happy and optimistic people I have had the privilege to know. When he was killed, it was impossible to understand how something like that could happen to such a beautiful person. I still miss him a lot; Nairobi isn’t the same without him here. But at the same time, I feel blessed to have met him and to have been his friend. Sebi and his friends seemed to be looking at the death of their friend in a similar manner. In a place like Kibera, where your friends and family can be killed by the cops, lynched or die of AIDS with much higher frequency than other places, you have to develop coping mechanisms to allow you to carry on. Having a strong support system is one way of dealing with it. The community members look after one another, and friends are as tight as siblings and feel family-like obligations to one another. Somehow, most of them seem to maintain a positive attitude despite everything they’ve gone through.

Hopefully no one else will be losing friends anytime soon, because right now things are a bit unsettled. On Wednesday, the wife of the Mungiki sect leader and her driver were killed. On Tuesday, Virginia Nyakio and George Njoroge were abducted in Nairobi, and on Wednesday their bodies were found with throats slit in Gakoe Forest, Gatundu. Nyakio’s husband, Maina Njenga, is currently in jail for illegal weapons possession. He is suspected of being the leader of the Mungiki, although of course none of this shadowy business is fully confirmed. Some of you may remember the Mungiki from last summer, when there was a police operation to flush them out of Mathare. Many Mathare residents who were “suspected” of being Mungiki members (i.e. they were young and looked suspicious) were arrested, shipped out of the slum, shot and tortured during that operation, while a few police officers were beheaded by the Mungiki. The Mungiki are a gang-cum-quasi-religious sect, which maintains economic control over a few industries in Nairobi and elsewhere in Kenya with the threat of violence. They exert a lot of their influence on chang’aa brewers (local, illegal alcohol mostly brewed by and sold to slum residents), and on matatu operators by demanding fees for “protection”. They used to try to push for a return to “traditional” Kikuyu and/or African values such as circumcision for both sexes and strictly defined gender roles. These days, though, they seem to deal more in regular gang activities – drugs, alcohol, extortion and connections with powerful figures. However, there were reports of Mungiki members in Nakuru and Nanyuki stripping, beating and raping women who were wearing pants during the post-election unrest, so I guess the brutalization and subjugation of women with the excuse of reinstating traditional African values is still part of the mandate.

The Mungiki certainly organized themselves quickly after Nyakio’s death. There have been rumours that she was murdered by Mungiki members vying for status within the gang, but the Mungiki have been acting on the assumption (or knowledge?) that she was murdered by the police, and launched co-ordinated protests. Apparently the riots started simultaneously on Monday at 3am in more than eight cities across Nairobi, Central and Rift Valley provinces. Yesterday, I decided to stay home by coincidence to work on some documents here, although someone had called George in the morning to warn him about the news. So far in Nairobi, many of the major roads have been blocked and some cars and trucks have been burned. Today Lucy told me to stay home, as everyone else in the office is stuck in their own neighbourhoods because many matatu drivers have decided to shut down their routes for the time being. There has been some violence between the police and suspected Mugiki members, and something like 14 Mungiki members and a few police officers have been killed. It seems that civilians are not being specifically targeted, although as with any rioting, it is easy to be caught in the crossfire if one is not careful. The police especially are known to be overzealous, and those guys don’t hesitate to use force. I’m not sure who I trust less, the criminals or the police.

Needless to say, I am staying home until all of this blows over. I’m very thankful that we’re in South C, as it’s one of the safest neighbourhoods in the city and I’m not worried about security at all if I stay around this area. The matatus are still running here, although there’s no way I’m going into town now. I do worry about George and his friends, though. As he and some of his friends are young Kikuyu men, they are prime targets for arrest or attack by overenthusiastic police. All I can really do right now is hope that this resolves itself quickly so that we can all get back to our regular activities. This really demonstrates how crucial peace and security are to development – without peace, the economy goes down the drain, travel is impossible and everything grinds to a halt.

We’re finally settled into our new place. The move was quite the stressful experience, although I didn’t participate in the physical moving myself (lucky me!). The problem was really being bounced around by different landlords about the dates we were supposed to move out and in. It’s kind of a drawn-out story, but the short version is that due to landlords being inflexible and communicating very badly, we were left homeless for a night and had to scramble for a place to put our stuff while we waited for the new place to free up. George came through for us, though. He worked his contacts, found a place to store our things for the night and moved everything there with a friend. That night, we stayed at a cheap hotel in town, and the following day George and his brother moved our stuff into the new place in South C. Throughout this whole ordeal, I was at work fretting away… but all ended well.

As I mentioned before, our place is behind the house of our new landlord Nancy, although she never seems to be around. Her two young kids mostly stay with the housegirl. Housegirls are essentially live-in maids and sometimes nannies, who generally come from rural areas to live and work in the middle-class homes of Nairobi. They clean, cook, watch over kids, do the laundry, everything. They are paid in addition to getting meals and board, but I have no idea what the average salary would be. When I first came across a housegirl, Josephine, who works for Lucy, I was a bit shocked. Then I found out that it’s quite common to have full-time, live-in help. Still, it seemed like servitude and I was very uncomfortable having Josephine prepare my meals, delicious as they were. Now I’m not sure how I feel about it. If your employer treats you well (and that’s a very big if), it does seem to be a good arrangement for all involved, as the housegirls are able to make some money, as well as eating regular meals and staying in nice houses. But maybe I’m making assumptions, since the only housegirls I’ve ever known have been employed by friends of mine who are good folk. The position must open women up to all sorts of terrible, exploitative situations quite frequently. I’m thinking specifically of sexual harassment and rape, because of the power dynamic between employer and employee, and the housegirls’ constant presence in the home. It could be very easy for men to take advantage of their position, and it’s not as if many women press charges for harassment or rape here (or anywhere, for that matter). If a housegirl has to deal with unwanted advances from her employer, she either has to put up with the abuse, or lose her job.

Despite feeling pretty ambivalent about the housegirl phenomenon, I am kind of hoping that Mumbe, Nancy’s housegirl, will be willing to do our laundry for some extra cash. I’m just plain bad at hand-washing laundry. The day after we moved in, Mumbe came over with the two kids, David (5) and Brittney (11). Mumbe is a sweet girl, and so young. She’s just out of high school and already working full-time for Nancy. She showed me photos of her rural home, a few hours outside of Nairobi, and told me that she wants to continue with school to become a doctor. I don’t know how she’ll manage that, but I hope that she does make it back to school some day. She seems to be missing home. It must be really difficult to basically give up your own life and dedicate yourself to caring for someone else’s house and children. David would be quite the handful, too – he’s full of energy and gets into everything. Brittney’s a pretty sassy kid, but she’s bright.

The new place is much more Kenyan in its location and layout. In Buruburu, our apartment was sandwiched between two upscale grocery stores, and there were restaurants and bars within ten minutes’ walk. Here the only shops are little stands selling fruit and veg, and the closest nightlife (as far as I know) is a short matatu ride away. This is actually a good thing, since eating out and entertainment tipped me way over my budget last month. I’m going to make an effort to be more of a homebody for awhile, at least on weekdays. As our neighbourhood is much less Westernized and more residential now, it shouldn’t be so difficult. That said, town is only about half an hour away by matatu, if the traffic is good. Of course, it takes about an hour on weekday mornings because of jams. Damn roundabouts. We also got a fridge, which is so exciting and I think will save money in the long-term. No more guilty food-wasting!

The flat itself is divided up – the living room, bathroom and kitchen all have separate entrances, so you have to step outside to go to the loo. The bedroom and living room are attached. I really love the place – it’s cozy and feels more like a real home somehow. There’s also a small courtyard area between the house and the flat, so when it’s sunny I can pull out a chair and enjoy the sun. The only drawback to the place is the bathroom, particularly the toilet. Yes, we now have a squat toilet. It’s actually quite attractive, as squat toilets go – it’s white porcelain with a flush, and little blocks for your feet. It’s still not quite as dignified as a “throne”, but it’s actually not that bad when you get used to it. The shower is basically just beside the toilet, with no dividing area between the two, which is very common in small Kenyan apartments. It means that the shower drains into the toilet, which I still find a bit weird. I’ll take some pictures so that you see what I mean (though I’m very behind on my photo posting – it’s tough to find a cyber café were they’ll actually load). In any case, I’m glad we’re back in South C again and am looking forward to seeing what else is around this section of the neighbourhood.

At work, I’m scrambling to get a lot of publications finished before the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples in New York in mid-April, and the Commission on Sustainable Development in Germany in May. Also looking ahead to doing some fundraising this month to register for a conference for money in women’s rights, which will be in South Africa in November (if I can raise enough for about six participants, which could be a bit tough at a little over $1,000 a head, I might be able to make it to that one). That conference is hosted by the Association for Women in Development, which is a very interesting organization that I’m keeping in mind for potential volunteer work (or maybe even actual employment?) if I end up in Toronto. I think they also have offices in Cape Town and Mexico City.

We have a new guest at the office, as well. Her name is Rukia, and she runs an organization for HIV-positive women in Moyale, a town in the far North of Kenya, near the border with Ethiopia. She’s a real character, very outgoing and dedicated to her work. I’ve never met anyone in Kenya so open about being positive, and she’s a very brave and strong woman for being so. I know she must have taken a lot of abuse for it. Rukia was the first wife of her husband, who took two other wives without her consent. When he became sick, the two other wives took off, leaving Rukia to care for her husband for seven years before he died. She is still in pretty good health, and runs a bit of a side business importing goods from Ethiopia. Like quite a few of the older women I’ve been lucky enough to get to know here, she reminds me a bit of my grandma – full of stories, tough and funny, and a great cook. People from our partner organizations in rural areas tend to come to Nairobi for awhile, and hang out in the office during the day, chatting with us and having meetings with Lucy. I don’t know exactly how long Rukia will be in town, but I’m glad she’s here and hope that I get to make it up to Moyale before I go home.

Meanwhile, Roots has started on the development stage of the adolescent health program, which will bring information about sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, self-esteem, children’s rights and probably other topics into the schools of Mathare, particularly the “informal” schools which don’t run on a government curriculum. These schools are attended by children whose families are unable to buy the uniforms and supplies necessary to attend public school, and are mostly staffed by volunteers from the community. I desperately want to take part in the program, since it’s right in my field of interest, but since the school workshops will be taking place on weekdays, I obviously won’t be able to take part in those. I’m still attending about half the meetings though, since it’s interesting to see how the program is being formulated, and I help out where I can. The planning will run for a few weeks while the kids are out on school holidays, and hopefully the program will be ready in time for the new term.

On the side, I’m also looking for an organization or individuals who would be willing to sponsor Evariste, a youth from Unissions-Nous pour le Promotion des Batwa, the Burundi Batwa organization, to attend the World Youth Summit in Quebec City in August. He was accepted to attend, but needs to raise money for the plane ticket and I think accommodation as well. Evariste is in charge of the Youth, Sports and Culture department at UNIPROBA, is very dedicated and smart and I’m sure he would make great connections at the summit. I’ve been trying to search for organizations but it’s a bit tough when I’m swamped with work and have a bad internet connection! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

With all of this plus Kiswahili lessons and trying to fit food and exercise in there somewhere, life certainly remains interesting. I’m also trying to keep up with the news, which is not looking too good these days. The cabinet was supposed to be named on Sunday, but PNU and ODM have re-entered a deadlock and still can’t agree on the size and composition of the cabinet. If this coalition government ever does come together, I don’t see Kenya moving forward much in the next couple of years. The fact that they can’t even manage to form a cabinet after a month is indicative that neither side is taking the “sharing” aspect of the national accord too seriously.