Kenyan Politics

After an extensive amount of research into Kenyan politics (by extensive I mean I have read 4 books about them and I read the current newspaper every day- hey, I do what I can with limited resources here), I can safely conclude that I have no idea what is going on with politics in this country.

Let me give an example: Kibaki is the current president. It is up to him to pick a time that he thinks is convenient to dissolve parliament. It is not until he does this that the date for elections can be set. He could do it tomorrow, he could do it the day after Christmas. Really, the election date could be anywhere between now and New Years Eve. Life is in this constant limbo, especially for us trying to plan a campaign because we do not know how long funds need to last for.

A brief bit of history: (Skip ahead to the break if you don’t care about this) It is likely that humans originated in Kenya by Lake Turkana and Tugen Hills. (Yes, I said brief I know, but I want to emphasize that Kenya might be home to all of us.) From the very beginning, Kenya has been divided on different tribal fronts. There are many tribes in Kenya with different cultures all competing for land and power. This remains to be a huge problem even today. Kenya won independence from Britain after the Mau Mau rebellion, a bloody ordeal costing the lives of anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 Kenyans, depending on who you believe. The rebellion started in 1952. The government’s senior most African official, Chief Waruhiu wa Kungu was murdered in broad daylight in Nairobi. A state of emergency was called. Thousands of British troops entered Kenya to squelch massive uprisings and violence from the Mau Mau, a group of anti-government insurgents. It is important to note that the insurgents never called themselves the Mau Mau and nobody is sure of the origins of this name, they referred to themselves as the Land and Freedom Army (LFA). The British declared special areas upon which anyone who failed to stop when asked would be shot on the spot, and prohibited areas where any black person would be shot on site. By 1954, Nairobi was under military control. At the end of that same year an estimated 77,000 Kenyans were in British concentration camps. People were forced behind wire fences around their villages in a process called villagization. The rebellion was considered over when the LFA leader was executed in 1956. The ordeal was enough to convince Britain that they no longer wanted Kenya. The first elections were held in 1961, parties were mostly tribal. Kenyatta became the first prime minister. On December 12, 1963, control of foreign affairs were handed over and Kenya became formally independent.

Kenyatta had to deal with issues in land reform. He emphasized harambee which means “pulling together” in Kiswahili. It became a way of fundraising where the rich were supposed to help support the country, self help, the idea worked well at first until it became a show of status-seeking. To move this along, there were many parties that separated under different leadership and new parties were formed. Moi, who was vice president, assumed power when Kenyatta died in 1978. He was from a tribal minority. At first he appeared promising to the country, but that quickly faded. There was an attempted military coup in 1982 which failed. Moi tried to crush any sort of opposition. He became extremely oppressive, hundreds of people were arrested for showing any sort of threat to him and their lawyers were mysteriously arrested as well. In 1987, Amnesty International condemned Kenya’s human right’s record with many people being held in jail in Nairobi and tortured. The government came down hard on journalists, censoring them as well. No more than 5 people were allowed to meet for political reasons without the government’s approval. Despite international pressure, Moi refused to allow a multi-party system until the Paris Group aid was suspended, he finally announced that there would be free elections and a multi-party democracy.

In 1992 Moi won the elections with blatant fraud. The economy of Kenya was collapsing. There were strikes and mass demonstrations. Opposition parties banded together to promote a single candidate for the 1997 elections, Kibaki. Moi still managed to win amidst violence and tribalism. In 1998 the American embassy was bombed. Throughout the whole term parties were being dissolved and manipulated. Odinga was a major player, but Kibaki won the 2002 elections. Kibaki founded his campaign on a new constitution (which has yet to be seen), educational reform (free education for all), and fighting corruption. The press is much more free than under Moi.

History lesson over. Now we are in the 2007 elections and the two main players are, once again, Odinga and Kibaki. I sit here in Meru awaiting for Kibaki to finally call for the elections. The political campaign I am working on is on the side of Kibaki. Most people I speak with fear Odinga in the way I feared Bush, but even worse. They fear that he will cause a civil war. He is violent and tribalistic. He is known for bringing his whole entourage to dinners and walking out without paying. The people in the constituency that I am working for say that Odinga knows that they are Kibaki supporters so if he wins he will shut them out and they will become even more poor. The only arguments against Kibaki I have heard so far is that he is too old and that he had not improved things enough in his first term.

I don’t know much about the presidential hopefuls, but one thing I do know from the bottom of my heart: Dr. Karumbu Ringera, the Member of Parliament aspirant that I am working for would be an incredible breath of fresh air for this country. She is a truly honest politician. It makes the campaign much more difficult in fact! She is running under the party Forum for Republican Party (FOREPA). Her goals are education, enterprise and empowerment. She really cares about the people. Her slogan is, “I am because you are,” which signifies her belief that we are all one. The goal is to help people to help themselves.

Politics in Kenya are extremely different from in the U.S. There is not party loyalty, only loyalty to individuals. So one person moves from party to party on a whim it almost seems. The main thing I struggle with is that politics are not issue based, they are personality based. There are basically no platforms from any of the candidates. People don’t vote because of what the politicians want to do, but rather for the personality they like the most.

It is common to buy people’s votes. MP campaigners are bombarded with people asking for money. Ringera is virtually revolutionizing the process by having a development based campaign. People ask for money, she gives them advice on how they can improve their situation long-term. Whether or not she wins, she has made a huge difference already and really helped improve the lives of people in poverty in the North Imenti area.

People seem to be taking to this new idea and Ringera has already implemented so many grassroots programs that her development record is stunning. She has used her NGO, International Peace Initiatives to empower women and the disadvantaged. Her programs that I have had to honor to help with include a fund for AIDS orphans and disadvantaged children to go to school. They are building a community house for orphans, powered by the community to keep kids in school and off the streets. They have a bead-making program for women with AIDS to earn an income. They have a bee-hive project as well.

Among other things, Ringera has started an educational initiative program to reward teachers who produce the best students in a subject as well as the students who come in first in their class. I fundraised in Boulder before I left and anybody who donated, I took that money and bought backpacks for the children who were first in their class as their prizes. It was really exciting to see these programs implemented (and now you know where your money went to anyone who donated, thank you so much!)

People are noticing Ringera. Everywhere we go, the incumbent, who is considered her biggest competition seems to follow. Other competitors have been using Ringera’s name to get people to come to their meetings, saying she will speak, but then they speak instead! Still, it is difficult when some people don’t understand the appeal of a development-based campaign and want money instead. Money talks for sure, even the allegedly free press here only covers candidates if they pay them to do it. Despite how newsworthy Ringera’s revolutionary campaign is, she receives virtually no media attention. She is at a huge monetary disadvantage, but at the same time her development is working and making a name for herself. On her campaign trail she has been to many places that other MP aspirants have never gone to.

It is a lot of traveling around and talking to people. It is frustrating to me because I am learning Kiswahili because that is just more practical, but in this area people speak Kehmeru more, so I have no idea what is going on. A typical day for me involves bumbling around, following Ringera, never having a clue what we are doing or where we are. Everyone seems to want money which tires her, and I don’t understand what is going on which tires me. But it is worth it to see Ringera give people advice that I know will help them when they come to her. Her advice will last them much longer than the little bit of money other politicians dish out. I really believe in what she is doing and it is such a great opportunity to be around her and learning from her.

The campaign itself is just heating up. Certain security measures have to be taken. We are living in a secure place, out of the way of where people think we are. There are guard dogs and a huge gate and guards on watch all the time. We avoid going anywhere at night and when we have to we duck down in the car. There was one other woman that was running for MP in the area and the week I arrived she was severely beaten up. I stay on my guard since I am associated with the campaign, but don’t live in fear by any means.

What is a white girl who doesn’t speak the language doing here? I ask myself that quite a bit. Apparently just having an American on the campaign with Ringera adds a decent amount of prestige to her campaign. That cracks me up because I never thought I would add prestige to anyone! When she campaigns I speak at the beginning. I think I am getting over my stage-fright a bit, the first few times I had to talk did not go so smoothly and I would prefer to forget them. People are extremely polite, they speak in English the first sentence or two, treat me as an honored guest and there is a copious amount of handshaking everywhere we go. Apart from just being there, I am writing Ringera’s campaign notes for her website. I do all sorts of odds and ends, read campaign books and summarize, summarize SWOT analyses and do whatever needs to be done. I am working for IPI doing some grant writing, budgeting, strategic development, creating forms and doing a lot of organizing and streamlining. I am also working with the education fund doing home visits and sorting through endless paperwork. I get to sit in on meetings and give input. It is an incredible learning experience to say the least.

Living it up Kenya Style

I have arrived in Kenya and been here a little over two weeks now. Though there is nothing pressing to write about yet, I thought I would update and describe a bit what life is like here. The couple posts are not the most insightful or provocative writing but I thought some background info might be good since I will be here for a while.

One thing striking about Africa that I need to remember is that many of the countries here are either still in political, social and economic turmoil, or have gotten out of it recently. It is crazy to think that I meet people that have survived coups and genocide. While I was worrying about my first school dance in middle school, people my age in some places were worrying about genocide and mass rape. Even to this day, the lives that some people lead are incomprehensible to me. It is hard to think about all the strife that is going on in Africa and how many of the political systems just don’t function. I just feel so fortunate, but I digress. Now, Kenya is looking good. Conditions here are much better than most third-world countries I have been too.

I am fortunate enough to be living with a family that I am sure is one of the wealthier families in the area. We are in Meru, Kenya. It is a busy town in the foothills of Mount Kenya. We are right on the equator, but because the elevation is so high it doesn’t feel tropical. It rains at night which is cozy for me under my mosquito net to listen to. I look out the window and see the colorful roofs of shacks in the valley below rushing to meet the purple and blue mountains in the distance. Papayas and bananas grow in my front yard along with tropical feeling trees. Birds that you see in pet stores and colorful books zip around the yard as well.

We are sandwiched between the mosque and the prison. We hear the call for prayer and the prisoners singing. The place is nice. I have a little closet for a room that the bugs seem to like. My room doubles as a storage closet for everyone else so if it were in a catalogue it might be described as rustic and cozy. It is a scary walk up an outdoor flight of stairs to the bathroom. Really though, the conditions are much better than I ever imagined. There is a flushing toilet (minus the seat), a shower with mostly hot water, real floors and windows and ceilings, real running water and electricity (most of the time). My only complaint is how unsound-proof my room is and the rooster that is outside my window that seems to start crowing at 2am until whenever I get up, every night.

One other girl about my age and I are the only white people in the entire area. It makes it hard to blend in and uncomfortable to walk on my own more than necessary because everyone is constantly staring. Some people are slightly derogatory, but most are excited to see me and want to practice their English.

Meru is a busy colorful town full of noise, people, trash and traffic. It has everything I could need and is a little overwhelming. Roads are dirt and the air is full of pollution. It will be interesting to see how the roads hold up through the rainy season that is just beginning. It is hard because I do feel a little trapped. I am trapped by the language barrier, trapped by standing out so much and trapped because it is not safe to go out at night.

So, what am I doing here? I am here helping with the political campaign for Dr Karumbu Ringera. More about that in the future. I am also helping with her NGO- International Peace Initiatives. Both are proving to be incredible learning experiences for me, especially the NGO, seeing how things are done and in that arena I think I have been able to help. The campaign is more difficult with the language barrier.

There are two stories that stand out to me so far that wouldn’t fit into any other category:

I was visiting a school for this education incentives program we are developing. I was talking to the superintendent afterwards when we were walking back to the car. (This school actually is the one named after Elsa, the lion from the movie “Out of Africa,” the lion lived there. It was an amazing place, lots of baboons, animals nearby but I didn’t see any, just very “Africa”.) Anyways, he has never been out of Kenya so I asked him if he could go anywhere in the world, where would it be. He told me Oeeo. I was really confused but he was adamant, Oeeo in the U.S. I’m running through all the states you normally hear- CA, NY, FL, TX, etc. even trying to think of theme parks or mountain ranges. He keeps saying he hears that Oheeo is the most wonderful place he could imagine. I am so confused and he tells me that it is where Obama is from. Suddenly I get it, Ohio (close enough, one of those vowel states in the middle). The man, if he could go anywhere in the entire world picks Ohio.

It’s interesting to see what a role model Obama is for everyone here. People constantly ask me if I am going to vote for him and oh by the way, do I know he’s Kenyan?

Another funny thing happened earlier this week. This tiny, frail old man, all dressed up in a suit complete with a bowler hat tips his hat at me as I walk by. I can tell he wants to practice his English. He says, “Hello Madame.” I say hello back and this little old man says, “Wuz up?” It was all I could do not to laugh. What movie did he learn that from I wonder? Scream? Oh what do they think of us crazy Americans!?

Leaving Zimbabwe

Well, time to leave Zimbabwe. It’s funny how I’m so incredibly nostalgic and hate to leave people and lose touch with them, but somehow I continue to put myself in situations where I have to do that. Oh the irony. I just hate how when I travel I’m constantly saying goodbye to people I love.
It’s also hard to leave a place when you haven’t even been able to begin to understand it. Goodbye to the place where everyone carries everything (and I do mean everything) on their heads. I never did learn to do that. To the place where we were given a chicken, a huge honor, and our camera man sliced off its head so we could cook it. Goodbye to the place where I got let into a secret world of music and dance. Late at night I got to hear mbiera music and dance as shadows were cast by candlelight on the walls of the mud hut, where the room was alive with bodies moving and thick with yells and whistles. That was the Africa I have imagined and hoped to see.
I’m leaving this place but nothing has come clear to me. This is a place where the women work so hard and most of the men drink, where family comes above all else, though I could never figure out how people could keep track of who is who with such large families. I do now see why people don’t use first names in Zim, rather they are identified by their relations to family. Goodbye to this place of such lively outgoing people, thoughtful and philosophical people, who never lose hope despite how poor conditions are.
I have realized how much we take for granted. Here, people wait in line for 8 hours to buy sugar or cooking oil and sometimes still don’t get it. Don’t even get me started on how much I want electricity. Here, students aren’t allowed to live in dorms because the government fears they will demonstrate. Many students walk to school two hours each way and often teachers won’t even show up. Here, I had to watch what I said, what I wrote and couldn’t tell anyone I studied journalism. I couldn’t take pictures in public.
It’s interesting, when people ask me why I don’t want to be in the U.S. when I travel, I say sometimes I hate it because I hate the current government. Try saying this to someone here with the third worst ranked dictator in the world. Usually when I travel I get sympathy, I explain that Bush’s government and agenda makes me feel sick and embarrassed to be an American, but after coming here I have realized that just because you hate the leader, it doesn’t mean you have to hate the country. The Zimbabweans embody that thought all the time. I have also realized just how lucky we are.
One good thing about Zimbabwe unlike anywhere else I have traveled; they don’t have a problem with Americans. This is one continent we have yet to screw up! Other places I often feel discriminated against, at least at first, for being an American. This is the first place that I haven’t felt discriminated for being American, but rather for being white.
By the way, I found the white people I was asking about in my first entry, they were all still at the airport! Other than the airport, I never saw another white person other than us. Even downtown and at the college, no one. I was talking to a white Zimbabwean at the airport. She was shocked I stayed with people who were black the whole trip. She asked me who I talked to. I wonder if she knows that English is the national language of her country. But by all means, it goes both ways. I was devastated downtown when a truck sped up and raced towards me, blatantly the only white person there, and tried to hit me. It was a near miss.
Walking around town with one of my new friends, complete strangers would ask him in Shona if I was his girlfriend. I would have thought it wouldn’t be so unheard of for interracial friendships or couples, but apparently it is. Even at the college (where all the classes are in English and there are no white people) girls made comments in Shona, “that’s what happens when there aren’t any white boys around,” When my friend and I passed. It’s just hard how I can’t blend in at all. In the village most people were curious to see whites, but some of the smaller children were absolutely horrified and hid behind their parents. There is a lot of pressure to represent my culture well when I may be the only contact they will have with it other than from a bad Hollywood movie.
I am sad to have finished the documentary which gave us incredible access to people’s lives in Zimbabwe. We were welcomed in like family. We got to sleep and eat and talk and dream with all these people. I got to meet four guys my age here who I know make the world a better place just for being in it. I will miss them all as I step off into the unknown yet again.
I’m off to Kenya next to help Dr. Karumbu Ringera with her campaign to be a member of Parliament. So many goodbyes, but no idea what the future brings. I met a man on the airplane last summer who told me a quote that rings so true it has become somewhat of a mantra for me: “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” I’m off on my own now and doing what I’ve always dreamed. I am so lucky to be able to do this and I need to learn to not miss the past so much and my old life. Any suggestions on that one? Really, some help would be nice! I miss it even though I realize I need to appreciate every moment of this trip as it all comes apart and together.

Church on a Saturday (Zim)

I went to church this Saturday. That might not sound like an exceptional statement to those who don’t know me, but those who do realize the gravity of the situation.
One of our crew members is a 7th Day Adventist. They apparently go to church from 9am-4pm (at least in Mhondoro, let me note that I know nothing about the religion) every Saturday. That would be enough for me, personally, to change religions.
By the time we got there, the whole congregation was waiting. The pastor switched to English just for us while the rest of the congregation had no idea what he way saying. They were incredibly welcoming, sweet and friendly people, but it was incredibly awkward. Their church is temporary because it is outdoors. It consists of a wooden frame and a straw roof. Women sit in the dirt and men sit on small splintery logs. The whole English sermon was geared towards the fact that they wanted to build a real church. They went on and on and on about how they needed money to build the new church. The irony of the whole situation is I thought the church was perfect as it was. There was such a simplicity of being in nature. You sit in the church and the cows amble by just a few feet away with their reassuring cowbells. The grass blows with gusts of wind out in the field and every so often a red flower would drift down from one of the trees as it began to shed. My god would love that church and not want to be separate from such natural purity.
But, for the congregation, it’s “providence” that their new best friends from America are going to raise enough money to build them a church. Great, so imagine the pressure, if it really is providence and all they built up. If we don’t raise enough money for them, will the whole 7th Day Adventist church in Mhondoro stop believing in God? That’s enough to stress a person out! Even the bible verse in their sermon was geared towards us raising money for them. What would happen if we couldn’t?
What compels these people to come sit in the dirt each Saturday for so many hours? I looked at these poverty-stricken people and realized that it is their belief in god that gets them through life. How is it that people that need god the most and tend to see the least relief belief in it the strongest? These people have nothing, they are literally starving, but they believe in god day after day. Will god ever answer their prayers? How do they still believe when god does nothing to bring them food or even basic sanitary conditions? I would think that with every senseless death of someone they loved they would believe less, that after all their praying for god their plates are still empty that they might doubt. Where is their god? Is it a lack of questioning, education, thinking for themselves, a need for control that they continue to believe in ignorance? Is it because without hope they have nothing and god gives them this? It is because they see god in every backbreaking sunrise and it doesn’t matter how hard life is because they are there? Is it because they don’t know how much better things can be in another place and how bad they really have it here? Do they just need something to believe in when yet another child dies? Where is their god in times like this? People are dying.
Their god is not my god. My god is around me and in the mountains, the ocean, the space between the stars. I am not fully sure where my god is, or what it is, but it’s not theirs. My god is not waiting for Jesus to come save me, waiting for things to improve. But I hope my god talks to their god to remind them they are there waiting patiently in this darkness. Are we supposed to be their god and raise the money for this church? How do you pick one cause over another in this starving country? How can there be too many causes to pick from, where is their god?
I don’t know where their god is, but I know one thing, their belief in god is causing these people to come together in hope. Maybe one person is telling them how to think, but maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe their god is their community, their hope, their support.
Sometimes I think life would be a lot less frightening with a belief like theirs, but I can’t do it, it’s not for me.
So I may have found myself trapped in church on a Saturday as providence for the congregation to build a church, so long as Robin and I could raise the money, but now I have been to church in Africa, and a beautiful one at that. As we walked back to the town’s center with our crew member’s mom we passed the bar. Her husband grabbed me and pulled me into the crowded room. (He told me several times on the trip that he wanted to get me drunk, I don’t know why he made this his mission, but he did). That’s a typical thing in Mhondoro, the women at church or working and the men in the bar.
There I was sitting in a bar on a Saturday. I realized I have spent much more time in bars than in churches. But I don’t think that makes me a bad person, we all find god in different ways.
After we got back to the camera crew, I told the boys that I went to church. I expected surprise, but it turns out two more of them are 7th Day Adventists. The other two are very religious as well. It’s interesting how the majority of people here are Christian. Did they give up their ancient religions without a fight I wonder?
I wonder what these boys think of me. On our third day of filming one of the guys told the others that he wanted to marry me. Now as he’s gotten to know me better, I can’t imagine if he could think of anything worse. There are such looks of shock on these educated, thoughtful, progressive university students faces as my layers are revealed. I don’t go to church, don’t cook, can’t sew, am not a virgin, can’t sign or dance, drink, go to parties and who knows what else. It’s funny because I feel so connected to these boys, but sometimes we are reminded that we live worlds apart. But maybe with these Zimbabwe boys and my U.S. self, just like the god of the 7th Day Adventists and my god, despite all our differences, threads reach across the gap and we can find solace in understanding and hope.

Zimbabwe hospital clinic (Zim)

(I walked to breakfast today with the presence of death on my shoulders. The son of our driver had died. It was not so much the sadness of what happened that haunted me as deeply as the lack of reaction from anyone who heard the news, including the reaction of our driver himself. It told me that in this rural area of Mhondoro, really in Zimbabwe itself, death is never far.
An hour later I found myself in the medical clinic in Mhondoro. When we walked up to the building to start our day we were greeted by cries of the sick holding their thin, haggard arms in a universal plea for help. They had formed a line all the way around the medical hut and out into the yard. Wooden carts pulled by oxen continued to bring in more and even more who couldn’t find the strength to walk.
I followed the doctor into the bare room with the stained walls and a mud-packed floor. The patient was a woman who had been there, laying on the single cot for 4 hours now. She had been here last week too. Like many others, they had walked into the night to get here. The lack of medical clinics in the area forces most to travel miles to get to any sort of primitive medical care.
As the woman was being treated I heard the mooing of cows and scuttle of chickens, only separated from us by a thin wall. The room was empty except for the cot, a wooden bench, a stethoscope and a thermometer, the only medical tools available.
Preschoolers sang next door in their rhythm of hope, but the closeness of the preschool to the clinic with just the mud separating us reminded me how imminent any sort of illness is in such a rural area. The preschool children are all as thin as old women. They often don’t have food all day because there isn’t any. Their clothes hang in tatters, but ironed tatters nevertheless. I wonder how long the skin will cling to their bones and they will be able to play instead of sit outside the clinic like so many children already are.
The woman on the cot had been brought in by her husband who sat nearby. Behind the mask of masculinity the culture puts on their men, I saw a glimpse of sorrow crack through the edges that any human would recognize, regardless of where they grew up. He moved to shift the position of his wife’s leg that she was too weak to move by herself.
I never saw the woman’s face and wondered if that is symbolic to me of the pain of so many in this rural area in Zimbabwe who all have death on their shoulders, binding them together, but who still have enough hope to iron the dirty clothes on their children.

Futuristic Ghost Town (Zim)

Petrol is now supposed to be illegal to sell in Zimbabwe. Where there used to be 3 day long lines just months ago to purchase the liquid gold that petrol has become in so much of the planet, now the stations lay empty like some futuristic ghost-town.
Obviously, from the cars packed with people, spilling out like chunky soup in an overflowing bowl, there is petrol in the country. It is all purchased on the black market, like most daily items in Zimbabwe. One way the petrol comes into the country is via South Africa. Semis load up gallons of the liquid gold into milky white plastic jugs. They pile them onto their trucks and pay off the border guards to get into the country. The semis barrel through the highways of Zimbabwe until they are flagged down at certain black market stops. Young men wait at these checkpoints. They grab the fuel off the trucks so quickly that it reminds me of a drive through Taco Bell, late at night in a college town. The semi then continues on as if it were never there and had never stopped.
Across the street from one of these points, hidden in the trees is where we bought our petrol. We slowed down and pulled to the side of the dusty road when our driver yelled to the young men drinking orange juice by the highway. Within seconds we were swarmed by the men we saw and more that came out of the trees. They asked questions about the two white women in the car and eyed us suspiciously. Eventually they relaxed and the jovial yelling that is bargaining in this country commenced.
Soon we had our petrol and were waving good-naturedly to the orange-juice swigging, tree-hiding men. We were off. A typical Zimbabwe filling station.

Land of Contradictions (Zimbabwe)

Why do I travel? One reason, I think, of many, is to understand the world and people better, but the irony of my travels is that with each trip I feel I understand it less. It is incredible to me that so many worlds can exist in one. Each of my travels has an impact that I don’t realize until later as the worlds impress their realities on me. Back home in the U.S. when things are chaotic, I think of the monks in Laos with their begging bowls walking the streets in the soft light of the early morning. Realities collide until nothing feels real and nothing is true. Their impact is real and lasting, albeit hidden.
I meet such wonderful, intelligent people that I humbled to only be able to communicate with because they have learned English as a second language, or maybe third. I speak with these people and we both know that I am able to travel the world and have first-world medical care and a future, where they will probably never leave their country that I have come to see because it is so different from my own. Why am I so lucky to have been born in a first-world country? I don’t understand. Is traveling creating unity by seeing more of the world or lines of separation because “they” lead such different lives from “us”? What do they think of me coming here?
Zimbabwe is so different from the U.S., but at the same time the obvious is so apparent that we are all human and want the same things. Just last night I had a conversation with some girls my age here about dating and love and relationships. Things, at least in the city, are more similar than different as times merge. Maybe it is due to times changing or western influence that we were all three able to giggle and laugh about guys despite our different backgrounds, but I prefer the romantic thought that it is because we are all the same underneath our culture. But if our culture is what really defines us, how do we know where our culture ends and who we really are begins? Are we nothing but products of our culture until we see beyond it? Can we ever really see beyond such undercurrents of socialization?
My experience here has had an overwhelming unity of emotion, and that is the feeling that nothing here feels real to me. Maybe it is because in the rural areas, it really is like one of the documentaries you see on TV or read about in National Geographic. I keep wondering why the reality of the situation has yet to hit me. It is a disconcerting feeling. I sit and watch the African sunset, I see the trees that are so distinctly Africa and wild baboons. I live in a mud hut. We have our lunches in traditional huts as well, women sitting on the floor, men on the bench built into the wall with the open fire in the middle and then we listen to traditional music as we wipe our hands of the traditional food. Is it all too typical that I need something unexpected? Have my previous travels jaded me instead of opened me up? Has it just not hit me yet? Even the singing, we had a welcome choir performance from the children the first day, it sounds like everything you hear in the movies. All the children have rhythm and those sweet yet unbelievable voices and harmonies that seems impossible for so many of them to have. Could the actuality of the mediums through which we see Africa before we have been here have ruined its authenticity? I am waiting to wake up and hope that I do before I leave and return to the U.S.
One thing I can be sure of is that to me Zimbabwe and my lack of understanding of the subtle ebbs and flows of the culture here makes it a land of contradictions.
I’ve come to this place to help with a documentary of a program in a rural area, Mhondoro. I flew into Harare, the capital. The plane was full of white people, white Zimbabweans, but I haven’t seen a single white person since. Where did they all go?
The history of Zim is spattered with propoganda and manipulation (though it’s worth noting that I realize this is the case for every country). I’ve been trying to piece together the history from a Zimbabwean’s point of view and found people are mostly in a general consensus.
The British, who were involved in colonizing Zim when it was Rhodesia, gave the best land to the whites. The whites saw it as fairly purchased from the government, which becomes important later. The blacks got the bad end of the deal and were grouped together on the worst land. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980 when it won independence and Robert Mugabe came to power, he wanted to give land back to the blacks to gain more support from them. He started taking way land from the whites, but the whites in this generation, this was the only home they knew. They were being kicked out with nowhere to go, not European, but not allowed to stay in their homes. They resisted this whole process. They were African and did not want to leave. The bloodshed between the people started when 5 or 6 black families moved into the white land and refused to leave. The fighting began when others followed suit. The land redistribution has left many farmers out of work, unable to keep up with changing technologies in farming and others who have been displaced and beaten.
As for the inflation that we hear so much about, Zim has the highest rate in the world, that began around the same time. Mugabe, wanting to take popular support away from his opposition parties decided to give 50,000$ to all the people that fought for independence. This money was not budgeted for in the government and it was unexpected by all the recipients. It was like they won the lottery, so they spent it frivolously. People with this new wealth would go to stores and buy everything plus order more. It severely devalued things which increased the downward spiral. When the money had less value, people began to demand land from Mugabe that involved this furthered the crisis of redistribution and displacement.
There have been opposition groups to challenge Mugabe. In the 1990 elections it was the Zimbabwe Unity Movement. In the elections, it was a gerrymander that prevented ZUM from taking over power. Mugabe won the election due to this redistribution. After elections there was an assassination attempt on a Zum candidate. Other members of the party quickly went into hiding.
In the 2002 election it was the Movement for Democratic Change. The MDC was started by people in labor unions who wanted to benefit the people of Zim. Many thought the party had a good platform and support for Mugabe began to wane. One thing that Mugabe did to combat this was to hire Professor Johnathan Moyer from 2002-2003. He launched a PR campaign mostly through catchy slogans and radio to convince people that the MDC was European and wanted to take away independence. People, especially in the rural areas began this and with this change of heart, along with some rigging of the elections, Mugabe won yet again.
It is worth noting that all the journalists were kicked out of the country and all independent press was stopped. The only press that exists now is highly censored. People have no right to meet and talk about politics. Ordinances have been passed to prevent groups of more than 5 meeting and talking about politics whether planned or by accident. There is no trial to deal with people that break these rules. They are beaten and taken to jail if they are lucky, disappear if they are not.
When he first took power Mugabe launched a type of genocide between the two main ethnic groups, the Shona and the Ndebele. He is Shona, the majority. He sent his troops to slaughter any opposition in the Ndebele. The massacre has gone virtually unreported.
Filming our documentary here we have to be extremely careful, I don’t want to think about what would happen if someone found our cameras. When we drive we encounter checkpoints put up by the police. We have to hide our cameras quickly and cannot film in public. But in private, people are more than willing to speak about the life here and how oppressed they feel. People here have told me never ever to mention that I even studied journalism in school. They say that this could be a life or death matter. It adds a whole air of danger and excitement to our project.
People here are basically sitting around waiting for Mugabe to die. They say that he is part of their people so they cannot kill him, and he seems like he won’t be defeated. But they are optimistic that he is getting old and are hoping that things will change after he dies.
The inflation is getting worse every single day. Everything has to be purchased on the black market. Exchange rates vary incredibly. When we arrived, we found out that there was no more bread. Supermarkets shelves are almost empty if the store is even open. There are a few scattered items here and there gathering cobwebs.
Petrol stations that a few months ago would have people waiting for 3 days to get gas are now deserted, all the petrol, like the rest of things must be bought through the black market. It is illegal to even sell it in Zim, yet people are obviously out and driving.
This is the situation we walked into to film this documentary. The first day we left Harare for Mhondoro, a poor rural area. The white people from the plane were definitely not hiding there. We were treated like celebrities. Children would all wave and want to touch us. Some people would walk, literally for miles to see their first white person. One of our crew members, a university student, was excited because he had never spoken to a white person before us.
One of the starkest contradictions is apparent in our crew compared to the people in the rural areas. We are filming about a program that this 21 year old man from Mhondoro Tatenda, started for the children in his village. It is called Machapro- Male Chastity Program. When he went to university, he realized the need to help kids in rural areas. He wants to change the view that women must have all the responsibility to be virginal and chaste. It is the man’s responsibility too. He needs to be as active as she does in HIV prevention. The way to do this is through chastity before marriage. He teaches respect and equal rights for women. On weekends they mentor the boys and try to keep them out of trouble and motivated while helping them to balance their heritage and culture with changing times. They sing and dance, play games, do career coaching, HIV education and storytelling. The idea is to support the boys and benefit the girls at the same time. They want to give these kids from such a poor background hope for the future.
Tatenda is the one that started the program, some people call him Machapro. He is skinny with big eyes and studies theater at the University of Zim in Harare. If he lived in the US he would be the president of the drama club, an overachiever who is enthusiastic about everything, never tires and starts all sorts of after-school clubs in his free time. He is the “producer.”
Talent, studying tax/economics is in charge of logistics. He is confident and commands a room when he walks into it but he still has this boyish mischievous feeling to him. Kenneth is the camera man. He is getting his BA in history and literature. He is quiet, but sneaks in moments of laughter and insight with me. Tafadzwa is going to be lawyer. He is tall and gentle. He is caring and makes me feel the most at home. He is one of the most insightful, philosophical, culturally aware and self aware people I have ever met, and an incredible writer. None of the guys drink or party which is rare in a country where alcoholism, especially in men runs rampant. They are not the norm. Grace is the only girl. She is thin and studying biochemistry. I try to make friends with her but she won’t speak to me much, but then again, I have never been very good at making friends with girls! Her task on the crew is to stay behind and help Tatenda’s mother with all the cooking. Despite Machapro vying for equal rights, nobody thinks this is strange until I point it out a week into filming, it was as if the contradiction was so deeply ingrained in their culture it had never crossed their minds.
So how are there such bright, intelligent people in some places, yet people in Mhondoro still put insecticide on their hands and live in mud huts with open fires and no ventilation. They have cell phones but no electricity. Tatenda emails on his own computer while those without education lack even literacy. The contradictions are not straightforward. They spiral around until all that I understand about Zim falls into a grey area.
Robin, the last of our crew is the one who made this all possible. She is from Boulder. She is kindhearted and gentle, funny and easygoing. She has a strength of leadership that is completely unknown to her and she cares about people very much.
So our group barrels around in a pick-up truck trying to interview people on a schedule when no such thing as a schedule seems to exist in Zim. Nothing happens on time. One thing is for sure, a documentary is an incredible vehicle through which to see this culture and get to go around and ask all sorts of questions and meet all sorts of people. This is one of the most incredible experiences of my life and I love the curiosity and access a documentary brings to travel.
Machapro is sort of a part of a project started by a local Mbiera player who travels all over the US and an American woman, whose names I won’t mention because I don’t want to bring attention to them. I was told that all NGOs have been kicked out of Zim, so they fly under the radar by having a club. It is a program for the community that includes a health clinic, preschool, sponsors children for school as well as other well-being projects. It has been extremely successful.
We eat some of our meals with this American woman. She has piercing eyes and is always talking about morphic fields. She is a trained healer and works with shamans in South America as well. She chews loudly and deliberately with her mouth open. She is methodical and direct. She can get things done in a society where it seems geared towards being indirect and inactive. The children look at her as if she is a deity and sing songs in her praise. She has improved many people’s lives here.
I can’t seem to wrap my head around anything here.
Eating is disturbing. I will be at the playground with all these children who come to school on empty stomachs. Then we go to lunch and part of me feels I should eat the food they give me because there are starving children in Africa (that I know by name now) but I’m so consumed with guilt about eating that I feel I can’t. It’s not being hungry here that bothers me too much, it’s the lack of running water. I drink so much water at home and have never thought anything of it. Here I get so thirsty my lips crack and my throat swells. They physical repercussions of not enough water are one thing, but the psychological ones are absolutely terrifying. It is a sense of panic, helplessness and terror for me.
Cows, or mombe as they are called here, and chickens scatter the landscape. Everyone lives in these mud huts with straw roofs. Family is huge and people are always coming and going. Extended families make up whole villages. Roosters crow at 2am and scorpions crawl with beetles the size of mice. Toilets are holes in the ground and water comes from stale muddy wells. The women work hard, cooking, cleaning and working the fields. The men, with something like an 85% unemployment rate here drink. The booze is an almost lethal type of moonshine. There is no money for food but it wouldn’t really matter if there was because there isn’t food to buy. Yet still, people find food somewhere.
Even in the city electricity is sporadic if it is there at all. The roles between men and women are stagnant in some places, viscous in others. The city is more progressive. It is hard to tell with the new generation of women that wears pants in the city, then reverts back to their ancestral roles in the country. Many people work in the city so children stay with grandparents and family in the country so they all lead these double lives from city to country.
An elder and spiritual leader that we interviewed said matter-of-factly that men and women have nothing to talk about so they should live completely separately except to sleep. Sleep huh. But like I mentioned before, the girls I talked to in the city were different and they talk to their guy friends about everything. Still, there is this sense of heritage and ancestral ties here that we can only imagine in the U.S. They have a history that we could never comprehend and I understand why they would not want to let go of such a richness. The contradiction for them is to embrace changing times, while holding onto an identity that is so rooted in the past.
The education system in the rural areas is lacking for sure but even in the cities sometimes the kids show up for school and there are no teachers there because the teachers cannot afford to live on they pay they get to teach. In the rural areas there is nothing but a blackboard and a few desks in the classrooms and the torn, out of date books are shared one book per three kids. Still there is this precarious balance between the past and the future, identity and resolve.
I cannot emphasize enough how important family is here. Because there is no electricity, people drink in conversation where we gulp up TV. The families are so huge and I have met so many people that I have no idea how they are all connected, but they ask me if I know who they are and their identity is completely based on who they are related to. It makes for some funny mazes of hand-drawn family trees for me that I use as cliff notes. With so much conversation it makes it quite isolating for Robin and I who don’t speak Shona, but you can still feel the closeness, a warmth that is difficult to encounter in the U.S. We were visiting a house where the grandmother was in a bed and there were 9 women gathered around her laughing and talking and just passing the afternoon. The room was the size of my bathroom. I can never tell who lives in a house or how many people sleep in a room with all the comings and goings. It seems as if it is interchangeable, people have many houses and switch around with relatives all the time.
Life is slower here, but with an urgency of survival that somehow at the same time isn’t urgent at all. I have met some of the kindest people and the most welcoming people imaginable. I feel like this documentary allows me to build a sense of community here rather than passing through as a traveler.
I feel there are so many layers of society and culture that I could never break though. I am like a goldfish in a hurricane with all sorts of laws of nature that I cannot see or understand. With two years of traveling ahead of me, I realize that I had better get used to that feeling!