It's been a while since I've written anything, don't really know why, partly because I’ve been lazy, actually completely because I’ve been lazy. But so much has happened in the past 5 weeks that I’ll be writing about it for a long time to come. On the 15th of May mike came back from his trip to India and told me that I was heading to Pakistan for a couple of weeks and access whether NWI (non-profit that I work for) can start a project in Pakistan. On the 17th I flew out to Pakistan. It had been 2.5 years since I’d been to the motherland. I was hoping to see it in a way that I had never seen it before. I were to go around the country and identify an area where we could start a health based, poverty reduction or social justice project. Mike had left everything up to me so I could do anything and I could do it the way I wanted.
The trip turned out to be a lot more than I had ever imagined it to be. I saw Pakistan in a way that I can only be grateful for. To me Pakistan was what I saw growing up primarily in Islamabad and Lahore, where i went to nice private schools, hung out with kids in souped up cars and an array of servants at their beck and call. I wasn't oblivious to the fact that there was poverty and despair among the majority of people but it was never to close to feel so it never hit me. It was something you read in the paper or heard on the news but never came into contact with yourself. This time around it was different. I was a different person when i returned back to Pakistan and i attribute that a lot to my experiences with ICROSS in Kenya.
I traveled through the southern Sind and the western Baluchistan province and on the way stopped over in the 3 major cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Met with lots of amazing people, ranging from devoted doctors working in a small town hospital for a lot less than what they could get in a big city, to government officials who really want to see their town, city and country progress and are doing their part towards achieving that. I saw pessimism in the cities when sitting amongst rich privileged kids and i saw immense optimism in the small towns and villages.
Was surprised by the work and reaction of some of my old friends. Most of them turned out as I thought, not bad in anyway but just oblivious to what is being done for development in Pakistan, but very critical of what is being done while sitting in their air-conditioned homes sippin on Rum n Coke but there were some that pleasantly surprised me and I will write about one of them pretty soon.
Pakistan at this moment in time is a very exciting place to be in. There is development going on everywhere, people in cities and villages are more politically aware than ever, there is debate going on all over the 20 private tele channels, in villages people are asking questions, questions like "Why don't I have enough electricity? Why can't my daughter go to school? Its this optimism that I took from the place, not the fact that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court being sacked is a sign that things are deteriorating in Pakistan but that the amount of debate and criticism that the Government has received because of that was never imaginable before.
I will write more soon, love to hear anyone’s comments regarding this.
Love Ali
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Helen of Nakuru (Part I)
Who says angels are not to be found here on earth. The past week I spent time with a few that even Gabriel would be proud of. Meet Helen, she works as an ICROSS field officer in Nakuru, Western Kenya. Helen is part a great team of ICROSS field officers who provide support and training to the HIV/AIDS patients in and around Nakuru.ICROSS has set up support groups in different areas around Nakuru for both HIV+ patients and volunteers. Most of patients have been abandoned by their family and friends and find refuge in their support group where they find other people like them, where they can share their stories, get love from them and the ICROSS volunteers. They are taught vocational skills, given medicine for their aches and pains and some diseases, but more importantly, the LOVE that they so desperately seek. The hug, the touch that they were longing for so long but no one was willing to give it to them.
Helen lives in Bondeini, about a 15 minute bicycle ride from downtown Nakuru. There, she heads a couple of support groups for both community volunteers and HIV/AIDS patients. She meets with the support groups once every week where she trains them on a wide range of things such as personal hygiene, nutrition, educates them on STD’s, proper use of condoms and how to make a living for themselves by making and selling necklaces and bracelets made of beads.
One of the many success stories at these support group meetings is MARY ACTIENG; she is part of the Bondeni group. She has been a member of the group for the past 2 years and was in good health and good spirits. Helen had found her 2 years ago in an abandoned house not far from Bondeini. Helen was out on a Home Visit to see another HIV/AIDS patient when the neighbours pointed out Mary’s house. Helen found a very weak lady lying on the floor unable to move anything except for her eyes. Mary had not eaten and drank anything for almost 4 days. Testing later on showed that her CD 4 (immune system test) count was way below the normal level. Seeing her in this state Helen started working her magic. She cleaned up Mary, cooked for her, stayed with her for a week till she got up on her feet. Helen got her necessary testing done, had her put on antiretroviral medicine and filled her house with food before leaving her. Then Helen contacted her family who had abandoned her, educated them on the fact that Mary is not different to them in anyway, she will not make them sick and finally convinced 2 of her children to start visiting their mother. Today, Mary was living the life of a reborn person and is very active in her support group as she feels that she can impact the lives of dozens of others patients like HELEN had done for her.
I accompanied Helen on her visit to the hospital in Nakuru where she met with a few of her support group members who were admitted in the hospital. (to be contd......)
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Heading to Nakuru
Well i’ve been missing in action for the past couple of weeks, part of it was procrastination of putting in what I have on my journal on to the computer, I was in the Bush (forest) though, and part of it was just being busy and too tired at night to do anything meaningful. I’ve been enjoying my time with Jesse over the last couple of weeks. Jesse is a senior at Washinghton University in St. Louis. He is a very smart and level headed kid, anthropology major who like most intelligent people has no clue of what he wants to do with his life. The other day we were watching Al-Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and after the movie Jesse wanted to change to his major to environmental science, but i guess that documentary has that affect on a lot of people. I’m pretty sure most of you must have seen it but if not then please do, i guarantee you that it will change the way you think about the life you are living.
pics added (http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi )
Coming back to Jesse, he is part of a group of 28 kids from a bunch of liberal arts colleges is in the US who are in Kenya for a semester. Jesse in his last month is working with ICROSS as his Independent Study project. Jesse and I had been in Longausua, southern Kenya, mostly Masai land, monitoring maternal health care at the ICROSS clinic and working on a proposal for a small new project in the area. I’ve put the pics online. We both had a hell of a time, lived in the BOMA, a traditional Masai home. The captions and pics will explain it all. I’ll hopefully write in detail about what we did there and the project that we hope gets approved. After getting back from the BUSH jesse and I spent 4 days re-writing the entire Annual Report for ICROSS, probably made it worse. I’m going to attach a copy in the email with the hope that most of you ignore it but if you are brave enough please feel free to read about what ICROSS does.
Well today on the18th of April, I woke up to find out that I’m heading to Nakuru in Western Kenya. It is a city of about a million and ICROSS has several projects in and around the city. Although Kenya has about 7 percent of its population affected with HIV/AIDS the small towns around Nakuru have a staggering 1/3rd of its population with HIV. My job will be to get as many personnel stories as I can, put them up on blogs and websites so that you guys know about them. Look at the project from the Policy stand point. See where ICROSS and the GOVT policies are affecting the people and get to learn as much as I can from this whole experience. I should hopefully make it back on the 24th just in time to witness MILAN kick MAN UNITED’S butt in the UEAFA Champions League, go KAKA (Milan and Brazilian midfielder), thats right all you Man U lovers you’re going down, and also watch the KIWI’s take the ICC World Cup.
Well i’m going to call it a night right after this song “Man Atkeya Bay Parwa Dey Naal” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, written by Baba Bulleh Shah is going to end, funny how a 17th century Sufi’s poetry is helping a guy in a remote village in Africa. Anyways most of you must be thinking i’m crazy.
Good night and good luck.
pics added (http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi )
Coming back to Jesse, he is part of a group of 28 kids from a bunch of liberal arts colleges is in the US who are in Kenya for a semester. Jesse in his last month is working with ICROSS as his Independent Study project. Jesse and I had been in Longausua, southern Kenya, mostly Masai land, monitoring maternal health care at the ICROSS clinic and working on a proposal for a small new project in the area. I’ve put the pics online. We both had a hell of a time, lived in the BOMA, a traditional Masai home. The captions and pics will explain it all. I’ll hopefully write in detail about what we did there and the project that we hope gets approved. After getting back from the BUSH jesse and I spent 4 days re-writing the entire Annual Report for ICROSS, probably made it worse. I’m going to attach a copy in the email with the hope that most of you ignore it but if you are brave enough please feel free to read about what ICROSS does.
Well today on the18th of April, I woke up to find out that I’m heading to Nakuru in Western Kenya. It is a city of about a million and ICROSS has several projects in and around the city. Although Kenya has about 7 percent of its population affected with HIV/AIDS the small towns around Nakuru have a staggering 1/3rd of its population with HIV. My job will be to get as many personnel stories as I can, put them up on blogs and websites so that you guys know about them. Look at the project from the Policy stand point. See where ICROSS and the GOVT policies are affecting the people and get to learn as much as I can from this whole experience. I should hopefully make it back on the 24th just in time to witness MILAN kick MAN UNITED’S butt in the UEAFA Champions League, go KAKA (Milan and Brazilian midfielder), thats right all you Man U lovers you’re going down, and also watch the KIWI’s take the ICC World Cup.
Well i’m going to call it a night right after this song “Man Atkeya Bay Parwa Dey Naal” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, written by Baba Bulleh Shah is going to end, funny how a 17th century Sufi’s poetry is helping a guy in a remote village in Africa. Anyways most of you must be thinking i’m crazy.
Good night and good luck.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Perks of Having a Pakistani Passport
Well what happened today was truly remarkable, certainly something that I will keep telling for a while. Woke up Monday morning realising that as I had only gotten a one month stay stamp on my passport for Kenya, I needed to get my passport restamped. Now I do have a six month multiple visa so I was going to have to go in just to get the passport restamped, no visa renewal!! Anyways, so I asked Danny what needed to be done, Danny acted as if it was going to be a no bigge, instructed Jose to take me to the place in Nairobi which was a 45 min ride on the Matatu (Public Transport vans). So Jose and I head out for our seemingly rudimentary journey. We got to the place at noon to find out that it was closed till 2:00 pm. Disgusted by the situation I asked Jose to take me to a bookstore as I needed a book on Swahili and also needed cheap but really nice sunglasses, I’m sure you guys know what I mean.
So we got the book which I love and the glasses which were 100 bob ($1.5), so far the day was going perfecto, got the book I wanted, got glasses and now was heading to get the restamping done. When I got to the place I proceeded to the first counter only to find out that my case was going to be dealt at counter 6. When in line at 6 the guy from 7 called me over only to tell me that I needed to go to 5 so I went to 5. Counter 5 had a lady sitting behind it, now whenever I see ladies I feel so much more relaxed, because more often than not they have a lesser of an ego and are willing to listen. So the lady tells me to fill out a form and see Yolander on the 7th floor. I thought, okay finally something in the right direction, a form is always a good start.
Jose and I head to the 7th floor, once we get there I see a sign saying INTERROGATION and thought okay, that’s kind of strange but who cares it wasn’t like they were going to investigate me right. From here onwards things started to insanely wrong. I got to Yolanda’s office and find another gentleman there who asks me how he can help me. Well I tell him why I’m there and he takes my PAKISTANI passport and tells me to follow him. He takes me into the waiting room of the Senior Immigration Officer, comes out after 5 mins and tells me to follow him again to the last room on the floor. The room looks kind of shady as it has bars and is locked from the outside. At this point I’m so bewildered that I’m tongue tied, I think I knew inside that this was not a waiting room but was in denial. The room had broken chairs and a table on one side. I was told to wait there till I’m called. Inside were two of my fellow INMATES; I like the feel of the word, me a convict, anyways, they ask me what airport I got arrested at and I think that they’ve lost it and tell them off. They both laugh and state the obvious to me, “You are arrested my friend, why you think they locked you from the outside”.
I wait there for about an hour thinking that this is a big mistake and as soon as the officer calls me everything is going to be sorted out but no one shows up. Now I start getting worried, start calling people, call Danny and Patrick at ICROSS tell them what’s going on. And then about an hour and a half later Jose shows up to meet the convict and tells me “Man you are arrested”, “I know that, you punk” I replied, “but what the hell for”, at that point I realised that Jose was more nervous than I was and thought to myself that this was not good. Jose went on to tell me that they looked me up on Google and found out the company I worked for in the US and somehow decided that I needed to be deported to either to Pakistan or back to the US. They told Jose to go back and buy a ticket for me and meet them at the airport in a day’s time. This did not make any sense to me, I did not overstay my visa, I just came to extend my stay within the dates of my SIX MONTH valid visa. I asked Jose to beg any officer just to listen to me, there had to be a confusion.
Well Jose left and I felt like laughing about the whole thing. This does not happen to real people; it happens in the movies, this really can’t be happening. But it was and I couldn’t do anything about it. Jose returned a couple of times without success and then finally the miracle happened; around 5 a lady showed up and called for me. She was an immigration officer, more like an black angel to me, okay I shouldn’t say black angel, for all we know angels might all be black but I’ll blame this one on Hollywood, they always show the white angel to be the good one. She takes me to her office and for the next half hour I go over everything with her, how I was just there to renew my stamp and I wasn’t illegal and had done nothing wrong nor was planning on anything like that. She looked at all my documents and told me what I already knew that there was NOTHING illegal about what I had done and there was no reason as to why I should be kept in prison.
I couldn’t thank her and God enough. Then came in another immigration officer, who I later found out was sent when Patti from ICROSS made a couple of phone calls to the Immigration Office. This guy asked the immigration lady for my file and she refused to give it to him (god I love her for that) but he went on to tell her that the reason why I’m being held is that I FIT the DAMN PROFILE and I needed to be kept for interrogation regardless. Now some of you must be wondering what the PROFILE is? WELL, I AM IN MY TWENTIES, MUSLIM, AND CARRY A PAKISTANI PASSPORT. YEAH YOU HEARD ME; I AM A MUSLIM THAT’S WHY I WAS BEING SUBJECTED TO THIS SHIT. Well my friends I never felt prouder of being a MUSLIM AND A PAKISTANI, if that’s what this world has come down to, then be it, I will fight back and not in the way they expect, not by blowing up shit but by reason, by intellect, by FAITH.
I was made to give a lengthy statement where I was deemed the accused criminal; for what? I do not know. But I gave it to them and if making me a MUSLIM makes me a convict then I’m ready to be in jail everyday for the rest of my life. All that talk about human rights and human dignity is horse shit if you’re a young MUSLIM in today’s world. The West wonders why people get crazy enough to do the mean things they do, well if a guy is accused of NOTHING and put in prison; he won’t exactly want to be your BEST FRIEND now would he. But we live in rational age; I still believe that this is why the best way to deal with this is with patience and reason and not with REVENGE, cause that’s what a lot of people in the west want; young Muslims to act irrationally, so that they can justify their own crazy actions.
Anyways, so after giving my statement to the immigration officer, I was told to wait while she takes my case to the superior officer. She also warned me that I still might have to leave the country right away. She came back after a half an hour and gave me good news, I could stay for another 2 months after which I’d have to leave, although remember my visa is valid for SIX months, but I guess maybe after 2 Months I’ll become a terrorist so I can’t stay more than that! But hey, I was still very happy, here a couple of hours ago I was in prison about to be deported and now I can stay longer. I really thanked the officer a million times. My passport was kept and I was told to come back the next day at 10 am as the people who would be able to do that were long gone. I picked up my bag pack and JOSE and I left the 7th Floor to find Patti and Boja from ICROSS waiting to greet us outside.
I was back at 10 the next morning was made to wait another couple of hours till I got my passport back. A free man again, haha, I could finally go out and help the poor again. Funny how the world goes after the ones that want to make it a better place.
Well finally I’m headed to Samburu in Central Kenya with Dante, Joe and Saruni for a week where I’ll celebrate my birthday and hopefully get to poor and suffering but happy people of Samburu tribe. I’ll be writing about that soon
Peace Out.
p.s check out the new pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi
So we got the book which I love and the glasses which were 100 bob ($1.5), so far the day was going perfecto, got the book I wanted, got glasses and now was heading to get the restamping done. When I got to the place I proceeded to the first counter only to find out that my case was going to be dealt at counter 6. When in line at 6 the guy from 7 called me over only to tell me that I needed to go to 5 so I went to 5. Counter 5 had a lady sitting behind it, now whenever I see ladies I feel so much more relaxed, because more often than not they have a lesser of an ego and are willing to listen. So the lady tells me to fill out a form and see Yolander on the 7th floor. I thought, okay finally something in the right direction, a form is always a good start.
Jose and I head to the 7th floor, once we get there I see a sign saying INTERROGATION and thought okay, that’s kind of strange but who cares it wasn’t like they were going to investigate me right. From here onwards things started to insanely wrong. I got to Yolanda’s office and find another gentleman there who asks me how he can help me. Well I tell him why I’m there and he takes my PAKISTANI passport and tells me to follow him. He takes me into the waiting room of the Senior Immigration Officer, comes out after 5 mins and tells me to follow him again to the last room on the floor. The room looks kind of shady as it has bars and is locked from the outside. At this point I’m so bewildered that I’m tongue tied, I think I knew inside that this was not a waiting room but was in denial. The room had broken chairs and a table on one side. I was told to wait there till I’m called. Inside were two of my fellow INMATES; I like the feel of the word, me a convict, anyways, they ask me what airport I got arrested at and I think that they’ve lost it and tell them off. They both laugh and state the obvious to me, “You are arrested my friend, why you think they locked you from the outside”.
I wait there for about an hour thinking that this is a big mistake and as soon as the officer calls me everything is going to be sorted out but no one shows up. Now I start getting worried, start calling people, call Danny and Patrick at ICROSS tell them what’s going on. And then about an hour and a half later Jose shows up to meet the convict and tells me “Man you are arrested”, “I know that, you punk” I replied, “but what the hell for”, at that point I realised that Jose was more nervous than I was and thought to myself that this was not good. Jose went on to tell me that they looked me up on Google and found out the company I worked for in the US and somehow decided that I needed to be deported to either to Pakistan or back to the US. They told Jose to go back and buy a ticket for me and meet them at the airport in a day’s time. This did not make any sense to me, I did not overstay my visa, I just came to extend my stay within the dates of my SIX MONTH valid visa. I asked Jose to beg any officer just to listen to me, there had to be a confusion.
Well Jose left and I felt like laughing about the whole thing. This does not happen to real people; it happens in the movies, this really can’t be happening. But it was and I couldn’t do anything about it. Jose returned a couple of times without success and then finally the miracle happened; around 5 a lady showed up and called for me. She was an immigration officer, more like an black angel to me, okay I shouldn’t say black angel, for all we know angels might all be black but I’ll blame this one on Hollywood, they always show the white angel to be the good one. She takes me to her office and for the next half hour I go over everything with her, how I was just there to renew my stamp and I wasn’t illegal and had done nothing wrong nor was planning on anything like that. She looked at all my documents and told me what I already knew that there was NOTHING illegal about what I had done and there was no reason as to why I should be kept in prison.
I couldn’t thank her and God enough. Then came in another immigration officer, who I later found out was sent when Patti from ICROSS made a couple of phone calls to the Immigration Office. This guy asked the immigration lady for my file and she refused to give it to him (god I love her for that) but he went on to tell her that the reason why I’m being held is that I FIT the DAMN PROFILE and I needed to be kept for interrogation regardless. Now some of you must be wondering what the PROFILE is? WELL, I AM IN MY TWENTIES, MUSLIM, AND CARRY A PAKISTANI PASSPORT. YEAH YOU HEARD ME; I AM A MUSLIM THAT’S WHY I WAS BEING SUBJECTED TO THIS SHIT. Well my friends I never felt prouder of being a MUSLIM AND A PAKISTANI, if that’s what this world has come down to, then be it, I will fight back and not in the way they expect, not by blowing up shit but by reason, by intellect, by FAITH.
I was made to give a lengthy statement where I was deemed the accused criminal; for what? I do not know. But I gave it to them and if making me a MUSLIM makes me a convict then I’m ready to be in jail everyday for the rest of my life. All that talk about human rights and human dignity is horse shit if you’re a young MUSLIM in today’s world. The West wonders why people get crazy enough to do the mean things they do, well if a guy is accused of NOTHING and put in prison; he won’t exactly want to be your BEST FRIEND now would he. But we live in rational age; I still believe that this is why the best way to deal with this is with patience and reason and not with REVENGE, cause that’s what a lot of people in the west want; young Muslims to act irrationally, so that they can justify their own crazy actions.
Anyways, so after giving my statement to the immigration officer, I was told to wait while she takes my case to the superior officer. She also warned me that I still might have to leave the country right away. She came back after a half an hour and gave me good news, I could stay for another 2 months after which I’d have to leave, although remember my visa is valid for SIX months, but I guess maybe after 2 Months I’ll become a terrorist so I can’t stay more than that! But hey, I was still very happy, here a couple of hours ago I was in prison about to be deported and now I can stay longer. I really thanked the officer a million times. My passport was kept and I was told to come back the next day at 10 am as the people who would be able to do that were long gone. I picked up my bag pack and JOSE and I left the 7th Floor to find Patti and Boja from ICROSS waiting to greet us outside.
I was back at 10 the next morning was made to wait another couple of hours till I got my passport back. A free man again, haha, I could finally go out and help the poor again. Funny how the world goes after the ones that want to make it a better place.
Well finally I’m headed to Samburu in Central Kenya with Dante, Joe and Saruni for a week where I’ll celebrate my birthday and hopefully get to poor and suffering but happy people of Samburu tribe. I’ll be writing about that soon
Peace Out.
p.s check out the new pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Night watchman and the laziness of Kenyans
Well, there's a lot that happened in the week that past and not a whole lot at the same time, I know I need to be institutionalized but I will explain. For starters, I haven't gone to the Bush, just chilled at the base, ate, worked out a lot, did proposal reading and report writing so in that sense nothing really happened but I also heard from Georgia, found out that I got into their Public Policy program so i'll be starting my grad school in september, meaning that I have my life planned for the next 5-6 years till my Phd is completed. And then there was Pakistan's unceremonious exit from the world cup! huh! That was one of the most sad days of my entire almost 26 year old life. I was truely devasted, and I mean devasted, this was way worse than the last time i got dumped even, there are no words to explain the sickening feeling and then the news of Coach Woolmer's murder. At first I was just angry at the whole situation but now I sympathize when everyone involved with cricket in Pakistan. I pray Bob Woolmer's soul rests in peace.
I'm usually up till 3 or 4 in the morning as the internet starts working after 9 pm and my best buddies at that time are my favorite 5 people, 4 of whom are in the picture, a.k.a the guardians of the ICROSS Base. From Left to Right, Pili Pili - Maasai for 'spicy', the youngest of them all, Old Lion, Mrs Mama the mother of Pili Pili and Mr. Eyes Eyes sitting in the front (pronounced yes yes - doesn't mean yes yes though; Eyes means fast and agile in Maasai)
Eyes Eyes is the man, he's the skinniest of the them all but by far the ballziest, that dog's not afraid of nobody. You come at him with a stick and he'll attack right back, but I think he really loves me and as long as I have his trust none of the dogs dare to do anything. Pili Pili is just a huge little kid, just wants to play all the time and the Old Lion well, he like 15 years old but refuses to die, I'm told he was the shit back in the day, a hell of a guard dog and a playaa as well, it is said that he would dig under the fence and go out to party whenever he could, if you know what i'm saying. One of my favorite guys at the base though is my 3 am smoke break buddy, Charles. Charles is the night watchman at the base. He's a nice man with a very kind heart, has a wife and 3 kids and one on the way and makes only 6000 Shillings a month.
Now to put that in perspective, I spend around 500 - 600 shillings every day here, a decent meal is 200 -300 shillings and thats not at a Mzungu (white man) restuarant, cause Karen the city which is 10 km from here has a lot of Wzungus living there and a Salmon at the restuarant there is about 800 - 1000. This means that if my dear Charles were to go to Karen he could only have 7 meals with his whole months salary, don't know how he'd feed his family of 5 with that much money. But Charles survives and is happy, at least most of the days. Every night he tells me how he has pressure from everyone in his family to somehow make more money but he can't, he's been stuck making the same for the past 6 years, during which I'm pretty sure Gas prices along with everything must have doubled.
This brings to the hot topic amongst some people who I work with, the outsiders, the white people. What I get from them is that Kenyans are very lazy by nature. They are where they are because they don't like to work. Coming from the West where everything needs to be done ASAP, I can understand where they come from but I feel that they have got it absolutely wrong. I'll give you guys an example. Danny from ICROSS got shot in the leg a month or so ago and I went with him to the hospital to get his bandage changed. I think the time the nurse took to do the bandage was more than the time a 6 year child would take to do the same and during it she kept on having a conversation with a collegue, about what, I don't know but I can bet anything it wasn't about the complexity of the bandage. Coming out of there I was starting to feel the same way as westeners who come to this part of the world feel that KENYANS are soo lazy and they deserve to be poor bla bla bla. When i got back i mentioned this whole thing to Mike and Mike as he always does had a wonderful take on the whole thing. He was off the opinion that we in the West are unsettled and are trying to get somewhere, trying to establish our identity where as the people here have already reached their destination, their identity, they have a culture that can be traced back to thousands of years and thats just the way things are done here, slow and steady. I on the other hand think that for the price that these guys are being paid here they should work half as fast as they do presently. Lets take Charles for example; he make lest than $100 a month. Now please think about this a little, if you were paid $100 a month for a nightwatchman job, enough for 7 meals at a good restuarant in Kenya, would you being doing your job diligently, I thought not.
The talk about integrity and hard work all seems like bullshit doesn't it, hell, if I were in his position I would probably be the first to rob ICROSS. So the problem is not that these people are lazy, its that we would be lazier if we were doing these jobs at the pay that they are getting.
Well, any who, I'm heading to the field this week so i'll have a lot of pics and a lot to write, till then good night and good luck.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The EURO NEWS team
I was very excited about this post. It was my most eventful few days, I got a chance to spend 3 days with two very exciting people, one, a free lance journalist and camera person, Terry Winn with an illustrious past and exciting future and a very calm and serene Julian Gomez producer from Euro News, and like icing on a cheese cake fantasy, I spent Saturday night with 28 very courageous and beautiful college students from 3 Universities in the US who are in Kenya for 4 months, studying and experiencing first hand life in urban and rural Kenya.Terry and Julian were here to film a documentary for the World Water Day, march 23, for which they were going to film the Maasai using the Solar Disinfectant Water Project to get cleaner water for their daily living.
Terry and Julian arrived late Thursday night and on Friday morning the Bush Team (Saruni, Joe and I) with its latest members, Terry and Julian left for Longausua - Masaai Land. On the way I learned about the fabulous stuff these guys had been involved with over the years. Terry I must say is 'DA MAN', a war journalist, worked in Russia for years, been in over 100 countries and also has a Non-Profit with a very unique philosophy behind it (www.pix-aid.org),a must view. On the way Terry shares his war time and Russian stories as we all enjoy the wonderful scenery on both sides of the Great North Road.
Finally we get to Longausua and I'm very excited to meet the kids in the school next to the ICROSS clinic. I had made a promise to them last week after seeing them kicking around what seemed like a paper football. I told them that I would get a real football for them next time I came. As I approached the school I saw the kids gathering behind me with huge smiles on their faces. I handed the ball to a teacher who was very grateful as he said that the football came when it was desperately needed. I wish you guys would have been there to witness the joy a small thing like a football can bring to life of dozens of kids. It seemed like a scene out of the movies, it was drizzling and dozens of kids were chasing after and kicking the new football that they were so excited to have. It was an image that could bring tears in eyes of anyone. But the tears I had in my eyes were tears of joy, tears that were thanking God for giving me the opportunity to witness this (http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi).
Next we headed for the Maasai Mantyata (kind of masai village - a collection of masai huts) where Terry was going to film how the Maasai use the Solar water purification technique. The Maasai are very adamant about having their particular way of doing things. They for centuries are used to drinking water right from small lakes and water puddles in the forest. The same water that their animals also drink which has led the numerous water born diseases being very prevalent in the region. The Maasai do not like to boil the water as they say that the taste of the water changes, so what ICROSS has convinced them to do is pour the dirty water in plastic bottles and put them under the sun for 6-8 hours, during this time the UV rays from the sun through the plastic inactivate a lot of the bacteria in the water for up to 48 hours, during which they can have the water to drink and to wash their utensils in. Pretty neat right, well they say the Egyptians invented this 2000 years ago. This method has reduced the water born diseases cases by 30 percent in the area in the last 11 years.One of the scenes that the guys had to capture was the women going down to the water source and getting the water, so we all followed a few women and little girls only 8 or 9 years old down to the water source. Please do go to pics to see how filthy the water that they previously drank without boiling looks like, it’s the same water that the dogs were having when Terry was filming the women pouring the water in the 4 gallon water bottles. Well after the water was collected we witnessed something very incredible, those 8, 9 year old girls strapping the water on their foreheads while it hung on their backs and walking 30 mins with it back to the village. Well, I thought I'd give it a try and trust me, I who thinks that he is pretty athletic would have barely been able to make it back and wouldn't ever try it again whereas these girls were carrying these bottles without breaking a sweat or having a frown on their face. They were just doing something they did every day. Makes you wonder what the hell we complain about in our lives; waiting an extra 15 mins for the meal at a restaurant, the traffic jam due to an accident, not getting our H1-B visas on time. Just thinking about the things that I felt were troubles in my makes be sick and ashamed now.
After the Euro News team got their footage we headed back to the base. It had been a very tiring day and the next day turned out to be the same where we went to a different location to shoot the Masai girls getting water and the Euro News crew filming it. We had a addition to the team though, Jesse Goldfarb, an American boy who is a junior at St.Louis University and will be working for ICROSS in a month's time. Hopefully Jesse and I will be involved with a lot of development projects in the months and years to come.After we got back Saturday evening, Mike sat down with Jesse and I to go over what he had in mind for us for the next few weeks as he is heading out to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to develop the maternity health programs in those countries; which brings me to the part that I am most excited about. Mike has been talking to the director of CARE international for East Asia including Pakistan about a project dealing with women’s' rights issues in Pakistan, and as the whole ICROSS philosophy is getting the project done without the bull shit involved in the middle, which means not paying the outsiders to come and use up most of the money of the projects for things like staying at the Holiday Inn for a month, but to train from within the affected community as no one knows how their problems can be fixed better than the community itself. If the solution comes from within the society rather than from a outsider, that’s what makes it credible, that’s what makes it work. Anyways, so guess who is going to setup the project, Yes!! it will be me. When Mike told me that I’ll be flying to Pakistan in a couple of weeks to talk to the leading social justice activists there and try to figure out all the logistics, for that moment, I was the happiest man on the planet. I thought I wouldn't be able to do something like that for years in Pakistan. Maybe after my PhD. and that also was a maybe! but here was my chance, within my first 2 months of Developmental work. It is more than a dream to be able to serve my own people, even before the start of my grad school. I have a million and a half ideas already in my mind on how to write the proposal, how to get to all the people, Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis all over the globe to contribute to this. To reach out to all who think that changing the lives of hundreds or thousands requires some sort of a miracle; one that certainly they are not capable of. But if a guy like me can be a part of something like this in 2 months then I think each and everyone who has the desire to do this can be part of making that change.
I would greatly appreciate any help that you guys could give me in identifying who to meet or ideas for where there the greatest need lies for such a project, or any other advice that you guys want to give me.
Badae.
Terry and Julian arrived late Thursday night and on Friday morning the Bush Team (Saruni, Joe and I) with its latest members, Terry and Julian left for Longausua - Masaai Land. On the way I learned about the fabulous stuff these guys had been involved with over the years. Terry I must say is 'DA MAN', a war journalist, worked in Russia for years, been in over 100 countries and also has a Non-Profit with a very unique philosophy behind it (www.pix-aid.org),a must view. On the way Terry shares his war time and Russian stories as we all enjoy the wonderful scenery on both sides of the Great North Road.
Finally we get to Longausua and I'm very excited to meet the kids in the school next to the ICROSS clinic. I had made a promise to them last week after seeing them kicking around what seemed like a paper football. I told them that I would get a real football for them next time I came. As I approached the school I saw the kids gathering behind me with huge smiles on their faces. I handed the ball to a teacher who was very grateful as he said that the football came when it was desperately needed. I wish you guys would have been there to witness the joy a small thing like a football can bring to life of dozens of kids. It seemed like a scene out of the movies, it was drizzling and dozens of kids were chasing after and kicking the new football that they were so excited to have. It was an image that could bring tears in eyes of anyone. But the tears I had in my eyes were tears of joy, tears that were thanking God for giving me the opportunity to witness this (http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi).
Next we headed for the Maasai Mantyata (kind of masai village - a collection of masai huts) where Terry was going to film how the Maasai use the Solar water purification technique. The Maasai are very adamant about having their particular way of doing things. They for centuries are used to drinking water right from small lakes and water puddles in the forest. The same water that their animals also drink which has led the numerous water born diseases being very prevalent in the region. The Maasai do not like to boil the water as they say that the taste of the water changes, so what ICROSS has convinced them to do is pour the dirty water in plastic bottles and put them under the sun for 6-8 hours, during this time the UV rays from the sun through the plastic inactivate a lot of the bacteria in the water for up to 48 hours, during which they can have the water to drink and to wash their utensils in. Pretty neat right, well they say the Egyptians invented this 2000 years ago. This method has reduced the water born diseases cases by 30 percent in the area in the last 11 years.One of the scenes that the guys had to capture was the women going down to the water source and getting the water, so we all followed a few women and little girls only 8 or 9 years old down to the water source. Please do go to pics to see how filthy the water that they previously drank without boiling looks like, it’s the same water that the dogs were having when Terry was filming the women pouring the water in the 4 gallon water bottles. Well after the water was collected we witnessed something very incredible, those 8, 9 year old girls strapping the water on their foreheads while it hung on their backs and walking 30 mins with it back to the village. Well, I thought I'd give it a try and trust me, I who thinks that he is pretty athletic would have barely been able to make it back and wouldn't ever try it again whereas these girls were carrying these bottles without breaking a sweat or having a frown on their face. They were just doing something they did every day. Makes you wonder what the hell we complain about in our lives; waiting an extra 15 mins for the meal at a restaurant, the traffic jam due to an accident, not getting our H1-B visas on time. Just thinking about the things that I felt were troubles in my makes be sick and ashamed now.
After the Euro News team got their footage we headed back to the base. It had been a very tiring day and the next day turned out to be the same where we went to a different location to shoot the Masai girls getting water and the Euro News crew filming it. We had a addition to the team though, Jesse Goldfarb, an American boy who is a junior at St.Louis University and will be working for ICROSS in a month's time. Hopefully Jesse and I will be involved with a lot of development projects in the months and years to come.After we got back Saturday evening, Mike sat down with Jesse and I to go over what he had in mind for us for the next few weeks as he is heading out to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to develop the maternity health programs in those countries; which brings me to the part that I am most excited about. Mike has been talking to the director of CARE international for East Asia including Pakistan about a project dealing with women’s' rights issues in Pakistan, and as the whole ICROSS philosophy is getting the project done without the bull shit involved in the middle, which means not paying the outsiders to come and use up most of the money of the projects for things like staying at the Holiday Inn for a month, but to train from within the affected community as no one knows how their problems can be fixed better than the community itself. If the solution comes from within the society rather than from a outsider, that’s what makes it credible, that’s what makes it work. Anyways, so guess who is going to setup the project, Yes!! it will be me. When Mike told me that I’ll be flying to Pakistan in a couple of weeks to talk to the leading social justice activists there and try to figure out all the logistics, for that moment, I was the happiest man on the planet. I thought I wouldn't be able to do something like that for years in Pakistan. Maybe after my PhD. and that also was a maybe! but here was my chance, within my first 2 months of Developmental work. It is more than a dream to be able to serve my own people, even before the start of my grad school. I have a million and a half ideas already in my mind on how to write the proposal, how to get to all the people, Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis all over the globe to contribute to this. To reach out to all who think that changing the lives of hundreds or thousands requires some sort of a miracle; one that certainly they are not capable of. But if a guy like me can be a part of something like this in 2 months then I think each and everyone who has the desire to do this can be part of making that change.
I would greatly appreciate any help that you guys could give me in identifying who to meet or ideas for where there the greatest need lies for such a project, or any other advice that you guys want to give me.
Badae.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
The past 2 days I spent with Joe and Saruni among the Masai removed all the doubts I had about staying in Kenya or with ICROSS. I had the oppertunity first hand to see what no tourists get to see and it was truly a life changing experience.
On Tuesday the 6th of March Joe and Saruni were heading out to Nyonyori which had one of the first ICROSS outpatient centers built in 1986. For that we whould have to travel 1.5 hours South of Ngong passing Kiseria, (safe land - in Masai language) a town where the Masai women walk tens of miles to come and shop, and the men sell their goats.
The Masai are the warrior tribe of East Africa, they are fearlous people who live is extreme harsh conditions, consider the entire land to be their home, they are sheep and cow herders and will travel tens of miles each day with their animals. They can stay without food and water for a couple of days and just keep walking with little rest. I'm not talking about 200 pound grown men doing this, I'm talking about 70 year old women. They used to be expert hunters and you will hear countless tales on how the Masai Warrior would kill a lion with one spear and a shield. The Masai have been researched to have less than ordinary amounts of adrenaline in their system, a low than normal heart beat and muscle mass.(PICS ONLINE: http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi)
At the Outpatient center in Nyonyori I was greeted by Mr. Johnson who is the nurses assistant at the place. The nurse was off for the day. Like all the Masai he had a big smile on his face when he shook my hand. A tall man about 6 feet, slim like all the Masai, opened up the center for me to view. Inside were 2 rooms one for the patients to wait in and the other for the nurse's examination. Johnson explained to me that the common diseases that were treated at the center were diarrhea, typhoid and malaria. They see an average of 10 - 20 patients a day and also provide vaccinations for polio and tetanus. There's probably a lot more he told me that I am forgetting cause of the my remarkable IQ of 55. This was the only Clinic within an hour driving distance in any direction. The Masai people walked 30 km to get to the clinic to be seen by a nurse, mind you this is not a hospital, there is one small room where the meds were stored and meds are supplied by the Kenyan Govt on a quarterly basis. If there is a shortage of supplies ICROSS chips in. Mr. Johnson is a trained health professional from ICROSS while the nurse is an employee of the GOVT. Just like in Nyonyori, ICROSS partners with the Kenyan Govt in most of these Clinics.
Johnson told me that he has seen tremendous progress over the years where training and treatment has led to the number of diarrhea and malaria patients decreasing greatly over the years.
ICROSS like hundreds of Organizations may not be running perfectly there maybe holes here and there but the work that I see them doing first hand in the remotest areas on Kenya where there is no REDCROSS, no UN or other major Non-Profit presence is tremendous. Even if I do believe some of the stuff thats posted in the comments for the earlier blog, how do I discredit the information, the joy that is displayed to me by a Masai who tells me how ICROSS has changed his life for the better.
It doens't matter if Mike Meegan lied about where he did his Phd from in a grant proposal, what matters is that he has been here for 27 years setting up a community health system, remember COMMUNITY in there, where trained locals are treating and improving the lives of other locals. The bigger picture is not what Meegan or ICROSS are doing, its the fact that there are thousands of locals who are helping themselves out and ICROSS is just aiding them in doing that. I will write about meegan and what he's done, again not just what i've seen but what hundreds literally hundreds of Intellectual minds have said about him, remember non of us are perfect, but this post is not about that, its about the incredible Masai.
We left Nyonyori at about 6 pm to head back for our 1.5 hour journey back to the base and on the way Saruni the wise Masai, sang Masai songs and explained to be what the background for each one was. He enlightened me with Masai war tales, on how they used to hunt lions and the songs that the women would sing when the men took the animals to higher pastures during the drought which hits every 10 years.
The next morning Joe, Saruni and I were planning on leaving for the Dr. Joe Barns Clinic in Longasua which is Masai land, about a 3 hours drive south, very close to the Kenyan - Tansanian border. Joe had advised me to take my camera as we would be seeing a lot of wildlife along the way. We left at around 11 am, picked up nurse Sylvia from Kesayria (the masai town from yesterday an hour away from the base) and a long sanitation pipe as a new bathroom was being built at the clinic. We got on the Great North Road which I was told runs all the way down to South Africa. On the way I took pics of the animals I saw on the sides of the road (pics online). We got to a town called Sibili which was about 15 km away from Longausua where the clinic was - here we had Nyama Choma (goat meat), the best roasted goat meat I ever had, tender enough to melt in your mouth. The diner was in a small hut where there were several Masai's eating. There were broken wooden benches, raggy curtains but there was also George Michael being blasted on a small color cable TV. We washed our hands with what was boiling water to me and then according to Masai tradition dried it with paper (thats what they told me but I think they were just trying to save on their TP budget). Then came the cook with the meat on a wooden platter, he cut the meat off the leg of the goat in front of us and we had the raw meat dabbled in salt which was placed on the four corners of the platter. I can't say this enough, but that was the best goat meat I have ever had in my life. After the meal we were now off to Longausua, another 15 km, shouldn't be too long I thought, wrong, it was all on a dirt road that was not fit for a bull to walk on, let alone a truck, but God Bless the Toyota company for getting us there. On the way we saw ostriches, antelopes, hiennas and the Masai, some of them dressed tradionally and others wearing uniforms. Sylvia told me that these are all kids who go to school situated right besides the clinic. This mean't that there were kids walking up to 30 km a day to go to school. Here is where you truely see the thirst for knowledge, we think we like to learn, we think we deserve things, tell me, is it us who deserves a college education or these first and second graders who walk 30 km a day to learn? It reminded me of how glad and blessed I was to be here and strenghened my resolve for spending the rest of my life trying to make things better for kids like these in the world. Their only fault was that they were born to a Masai family instead of the Hilton family, but then again who's to say that they want to be born to a Hilton family. Come to think of it they would hate it, the Masai's are said to be one of the most serene people on the planet with no depression what so ever, so maybe the Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears should have been Masai, maybe there'd be a lot less craziness in their lives.
To us who have lived most of our lives in the West or like the West even in third world countries, the end matters. It's always about the result, the score, the conclusion and never about the journey. To the Africans its about the journey to get to destination and not the destination itself, a concept that if we learn to appreciate or even understand we'll be looking at things from a whole new perspective.
Badae (later)
On Tuesday the 6th of March Joe and Saruni were heading out to Nyonyori which had one of the first ICROSS outpatient centers built in 1986. For that we whould have to travel 1.5 hours South of Ngong passing Kiseria, (safe land - in Masai language) a town where the Masai women walk tens of miles to come and shop, and the men sell their goats.
The Masai are the warrior tribe of East Africa, they are fearlous people who live is extreme harsh conditions, consider the entire land to be their home, they are sheep and cow herders and will travel tens of miles each day with their animals. They can stay without food and water for a couple of days and just keep walking with little rest. I'm not talking about 200 pound grown men doing this, I'm talking about 70 year old women. They used to be expert hunters and you will hear countless tales on how the Masai Warrior would kill a lion with one spear and a shield. The Masai have been researched to have less than ordinary amounts of adrenaline in their system, a low than normal heart beat and muscle mass.(PICS ONLINE: http://picasaweb.google.com/alirzaidi)
At the Outpatient center in Nyonyori I was greeted by Mr. Johnson who is the nurses assistant at the place. The nurse was off for the day. Like all the Masai he had a big smile on his face when he shook my hand. A tall man about 6 feet, slim like all the Masai, opened up the center for me to view. Inside were 2 rooms one for the patients to wait in and the other for the nurse's examination. Johnson explained to me that the common diseases that were treated at the center were diarrhea, typhoid and malaria. They see an average of 10 - 20 patients a day and also provide vaccinations for polio and tetanus. There's probably a lot more he told me that I am forgetting cause of the my remarkable IQ of 55. This was the only Clinic within an hour driving distance in any direction. The Masai people walked 30 km to get to the clinic to be seen by a nurse, mind you this is not a hospital, there is one small room where the meds were stored and meds are supplied by the Kenyan Govt on a quarterly basis. If there is a shortage of supplies ICROSS chips in. Mr. Johnson is a trained health professional from ICROSS while the nurse is an employee of the GOVT. Just like in Nyonyori, ICROSS partners with the Kenyan Govt in most of these Clinics.
Johnson told me that he has seen tremendous progress over the years where training and treatment has led to the number of diarrhea and malaria patients decreasing greatly over the years.
ICROSS like hundreds of Organizations may not be running perfectly there maybe holes here and there but the work that I see them doing first hand in the remotest areas on Kenya where there is no REDCROSS, no UN or other major Non-Profit presence is tremendous. Even if I do believe some of the stuff thats posted in the comments for the earlier blog, how do I discredit the information, the joy that is displayed to me by a Masai who tells me how ICROSS has changed his life for the better.
It doens't matter if Mike Meegan lied about where he did his Phd from in a grant proposal, what matters is that he has been here for 27 years setting up a community health system, remember COMMUNITY in there, where trained locals are treating and improving the lives of other locals. The bigger picture is not what Meegan or ICROSS are doing, its the fact that there are thousands of locals who are helping themselves out and ICROSS is just aiding them in doing that. I will write about meegan and what he's done, again not just what i've seen but what hundreds literally hundreds of Intellectual minds have said about him, remember non of us are perfect, but this post is not about that, its about the incredible Masai.
We left Nyonyori at about 6 pm to head back for our 1.5 hour journey back to the base and on the way Saruni the wise Masai, sang Masai songs and explained to be what the background for each one was. He enlightened me with Masai war tales, on how they used to hunt lions and the songs that the women would sing when the men took the animals to higher pastures during the drought which hits every 10 years.
The next morning Joe, Saruni and I were planning on leaving for the Dr. Joe Barns Clinic in Longasua which is Masai land, about a 3 hours drive south, very close to the Kenyan - Tansanian border. Joe had advised me to take my camera as we would be seeing a lot of wildlife along the way. We left at around 11 am, picked up nurse Sylvia from Kesayria (the masai town from yesterday an hour away from the base) and a long sanitation pipe as a new bathroom was being built at the clinic. We got on the Great North Road which I was told runs all the way down to South Africa. On the way I took pics of the animals I saw on the sides of the road (pics online). We got to a town called Sibili which was about 15 km away from Longausua where the clinic was - here we had Nyama Choma (goat meat), the best roasted goat meat I ever had, tender enough to melt in your mouth. The diner was in a small hut where there were several Masai's eating. There were broken wooden benches, raggy curtains but there was also George Michael being blasted on a small color cable TV. We washed our hands with what was boiling water to me and then according to Masai tradition dried it with paper (thats what they told me but I think they were just trying to save on their TP budget). Then came the cook with the meat on a wooden platter, he cut the meat off the leg of the goat in front of us and we had the raw meat dabbled in salt which was placed on the four corners of the platter. I can't say this enough, but that was the best goat meat I have ever had in my life. After the meal we were now off to Longausua, another 15 km, shouldn't be too long I thought, wrong, it was all on a dirt road that was not fit for a bull to walk on, let alone a truck, but God Bless the Toyota company for getting us there. On the way we saw ostriches, antelopes, hiennas and the Masai, some of them dressed tradionally and others wearing uniforms. Sylvia told me that these are all kids who go to school situated right besides the clinic. This mean't that there were kids walking up to 30 km a day to go to school. Here is where you truely see the thirst for knowledge, we think we like to learn, we think we deserve things, tell me, is it us who deserves a college education or these first and second graders who walk 30 km a day to learn? It reminded me of how glad and blessed I was to be here and strenghened my resolve for spending the rest of my life trying to make things better for kids like these in the world. Their only fault was that they were born to a Masai family instead of the Hilton family, but then again who's to say that they want to be born to a Hilton family. Come to think of it they would hate it, the Masai's are said to be one of the most serene people on the planet with no depression what so ever, so maybe the Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears should have been Masai, maybe there'd be a lot less craziness in their lives.
To us who have lived most of our lives in the West or like the West even in third world countries, the end matters. It's always about the result, the score, the conclusion and never about the journey. To the Africans its about the journey to get to destination and not the destination itself, a concept that if we learn to appreciate or even understand we'll be looking at things from a whole new perspective.
Badae (later)
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