My view on My Kenya

What we see depends mainly on what we look for - John Lubbock

Minu Keenia - My Kenya

|

  Rääkimata Lugude Maa - The land of the un-told stories

Author Janika Tamm

http://petroneprint.ee/minu_keenia.php

Back cover:

In Kenya the question is not what your parents do, 

it is if they are still alive. You are not asked what

your favorite food is, but if you can afford one or

two meals per day. Nobody supports the voice and

the rights of the poor. Thousands of tragic stories

are shoved into silence as they are too common.

In Kenya every person has their own story.

Kuka, who was diagnosed as HIV positive at 4,

Rael who was raped at 7, Freddie who was thrown

out of his home as a teenager, and a lady who was

dying of cancer and of AIDS, just to mention a few.

This book contains twenty something stories that touched

me most during my work in Kenya as a volunteer.

Country that lies on the equator, where the sun rises

every day at half past six and where every child wants

to become a doctor or a teacher and where time and 

promises have a different meaning than in Estonia.

Early in December last year I received a note from a young Kenyan born architect in USA. It started “Tere hommikust” (Good morning, in Estonian). The reason for the Estonian greeting and the communication was his Estonian girlfriend, living in Tallinn, who was reading the book “Minu Keenia” (My Kenya). The young man needed to convince the lovely lady in Tallinn to move with him to Kenya. She was in the process of forming her opinion about Kenya and was using the freshly published book as one of the methods. Does it give a true picture of Kenya? Does it influence her view positively? Will it help in bringing a new Estonian to the multicultural scene of Kenya? These were questions that I could sense in his writing.

I could not answer. I had not read the book. The years that I had lived in Kenya I had never met Janika. I had heard about her from two other Estonians. All I knew was that she was a volunteer in a village somewhere in Western Kenya. The question remained with me – what would she write about Kenya?

A then the day arrived when I was holding my copy of “Minu Keenia” and I was burning with eagerness and anticipation to dig in and read. That eagerness disappeared very fast. It was a difficult book to read. Emotionally hard and difficult. The person who was staring at me from the pages of the book was hopeless, sad, a looser in life, starving, deprived and without any future. His and her name, age and personal details kept changing, but not his/her situation in life. Is that who a Kenyan is?? Is that what Kenya is??

No! No way! NO! That is NOT Kenya!!  … Yes … oh .. yes, that is indeed Kenya …

It IS NOT Kenya. Kenya is multifaceted, with more aspects to it than just village life. Kenya is vast, rich and full of diversity. Majority of Kenyans cope with their day to day life. They are not particularly rich, in a material way, but they are happy and thankful for what they have. What they have is very often a good and supportive family and possibility to look after one another, to bring up the next generation and hope that they will have a better, easier, richer and more beautiful life. Kenyans are always ready to help. I don’t know any Kenyan who does not regularly support financially the education of the grandchild of one or an other aunty or uncle, the food needs of some unemployed relative, the hospital bill of a sick or injured friend or relative, who has not provided a roof for a few month to a few years to some relative or a child, etc. When there is harvest, it is normal to give some to those less fortunate. That is the normal way to live as a Kenyan. And that is what gives Kenyans the strength to get up in the morning, to look for opportunities, to create solutions that work right here and to be happy and content with life.

YES, there are many families in Kenya  for whom putting food on the table is difficult. Of those there are many for whom it is nearly impossible to feed all the hungry mouths regularly and reliably. As part of Rotary projects and during my other travels, I have been to many poor homesteads. I often ask to see what food there is in the kitchen. It is sad to see an old sufuria holding barely a cup of plain uji that needs to feed the family with many children for that day. There are many children whose families can not afford “free” education, sometimes for financial reasons, sometimes for cultural reasons. Majority of Kenyans can not afford good quality health care. Janika in her book talks about a counterfeit mobile phone and Chinese bicycle that break down the day they are bought. What is even scarier than her scenarios, is that pharmacies across Kenya, with very clear consciousness, sell medicines that contain no active ingredients, have no medicinal value. A corrupt society, like Kenya, indeed is hopeless. It has indeed been deprived of its future!

The most important part that Janika’s book has, in my view, is to draw a picture for Estonians about the work and life of a volunteer. It requires a way bigger person that most of us, with even the best intentions, could ever find within us. To distribute money, that has been collected through massive work and major effort, while feeling the angst of ‘it is never enough’. There are more and more people who want more and more. Everybody is asking, hoping, begging. And to be conscious of the fact that the people who are asking for more and more are in reality capable, smart, skilled and talented. In Kenya there is a lot of talk about addiction foreign aid. So, where do you draw the line? How can you be a responsible donor?

The book also allows one to look at their own life from a different perspective and to review one’s own value systems and priorities. The pain and suffering and problems of people, children who are very far away have been brought into the homes of Estonians. How do Estonian react? Is the picture painted in the book convincing? Interestingly enough, I am already aware of people in Estonia, who after reading the book, have found a way to manage all their other commitments AND take on responsibility for the education of a child in Shianda village. However, does providing an education set that child on a path to become self-reliant?

Having finished Janika’s book, I must say, Kenya is still the land of untold stories. There are very many stories, happier, more colourful, more joyful, more beautiful, filled with fun, wondrous, rich stories that describe Kenya and Kenyan people, people who are open, good-willed, curious, respectful, who crack jokes and who love laughing.

The lady from Tallinn will, for sure, find here what she is looking for, no matter what it is as Kenya has EVERYTHING!

In Estonian with Comments