A Whole New World (Day 1 in Najile)

This really is a dazzling place I never knew. We’ve heard a lot about Massai culture and Najile but nothing can really make you understand it until your there. Our host dad asked us what our expectations were coming to Najile the other night. We really didn’t know what to say. Everything is so different. We arrived in Najile on Sunday afternoon. Najile is a village in Massai land, which is in the Rift Valley of Kenya. We bumped along the road through sand and dust, seeing Zebras, gazelles and impalas just hanging out like deer in Canada. How they knew how to get where we were going, we have no clue. It looked like we were driving down the middle of a desert. We are very thankful for our driver, Hudson, and Solomon and Simon for escorting us. As we got closer we began seeing homes every so often. Mostly traditional Massai homes, which are made of sticks, cow dung and mud, and built in a rectangular shape. We drove through Ewaso, which is a larger community that is home to more than just Massai people and a market center. My best description of it was that it looked like an old town in a western movie where everything had been made of cement and bricks but looks fairly abandoned. However we found it was not quite abandoned at all. There are many people who gather there, which we saw on Monday: Market Day. We first went to Matt and Stephanie Kistler's house. They are MCC Service Workers who are just finishing up a 3-year term and have two gorgeous 1-year-old babies. After a bit of time to relax after the drive (Driving here seems to be much more tiring than in Canada. Anyone who complains about roads in Saskatchewan could use a little perspective) we heard what the next days would look like and traveled to our host families. We had the privilege of staying with Solomon and Lydia and their family. Solomon was a wealth of information, encouraging us to ask any questions and spending hours sitting and visiting with us. We learned about everything from dowries to schooling to cultural dress. We heard him share about the struggle to balance the importance of education with traditional Massai culture. We don’t even know what else to say. We talked about so much but if you see us, ask and we’re happy to share. The next day Solomon took us to Najile town center in the morning. We saw the school that his wife Lydia started for young aged children as well as her shop and greeted a lot of people. Supa, Apa. After that we were picked up by Hudson and traveled to Ewaso to see the Generations at Risk program here, referred to as GAR. We met the staff and heard about their struggles to reduce the stigma around AIDs and encourage people to be tested and receive treatment and counseling. If someone is diagnosed and takes ARVs daily, while also getting proper nourishment, they can live a long life. Some factors that make this difficult for the staff are food security issues and cultural concepts of time (ARVs need to be taken at the exact same time each day). Another challenge is communicating to different age sets. Traditionally younger people aren’t able to speak to those older than them. GAR is working to communicate with people in different age sets to have them share with their peers. An example of this is the peer educator groups that are in schools. Later on in the day we were able to visit the peer educators at Ewaso Primary School and hear about what they do. Through skits and songs they teach each other and other schools about how to avoid HIV/AIDs in lifestyle choices and from our perspective they normalize talking about it. This helps reduce stigma and encourage testing and awareness. It was a highlight for us to visit them. We also spent a large part of the day walking around the market. This is where Massai and Kikuyu gather and exchange food, clothing, household needs, etc. There is also a separate market where they buy and sell goats and sheep. Simon explained the chaos to us as we watched this fascinating world. We were confused as to how they don’t get their goats and sheep mixed up with others. Simon explained that they just know. He would know all 55 of his goats because he spends so much time with them. Simon also told us that he was raising his goats to sell in Nairobi. I asked how he transports them there. He matter-of-factly responded that he would just walk them there. It’s just a short trip. One day’s walk with goats. I don’t know anyone in Canada that would walk his or her animals to market. Kristen Green and Megan Enns