Living in Africa

I really wanted to find out what it is like to live in Africa. Our short two days has given us lots of. Our little cottage is so cute but life is different here. Water is elixer of life, gold, here, each day you see people carrying water, on their heads or loaded down with 10 to 20 large plastic cans on a bike.

It is no different in our simple abode, rainwater is caught off the roof and feed into an underground tank. Every couple of days you have to flip a switch which pumps water from the underground tank to a tank on the roof. Water is gravity fed into the house. The other night I flipped the switch by mistake. Lou and I were in bed about to go to sleep when we heard what sounded like a heavy rain. The tank had over flown and water was running down the roof, not a huge mistake since it runs back into the underground tank.

Lou doesn’t care for ants, when she sees them at our home in Greensboro we call the exterminator. Huge ants are everywhere here, running across the counter while you are making dinner, bugs are just part of life here, no reason to get uptight. Last night while I was cooking dinner, I opened the silverware drawer and a lizard jumped out, he almost jumped on me, ran across the floor and into another cabinet, it scared me to death.

You can’t leave food on the counters because monkeys will come in a take it. At night you paddle lock yourself into your house, there are bars on all the windows and guards patrolling the property. With 80% unemployment, crime is an ever present concern.

Ernie and Lois introduced us to a couple of their friends today, Pete and Carol, who have been working with the local school system. Public schools are free but you have to buy a uniform before you can go to school. Of course the poorer you are the less likely you are to be able to ever afford a uniform. If you don’t go to K-2 then you can’t enter primary school. Over 500 children in the local town of Kilifi can’t afford the uniform so they never enter school. 1500 children are in the local school that has 19 classrooms, no books and a headmaster who beats the children who get to school late.

Africans come from one of hundreds of tribes, the Luo and Kikuyus are the largest. Obama’s father was a Luo, you can tell a Luo because their last names begin with an “O”. Last year they had their elections, the Luo supposedly won the election but the Kikuyus "stole" the election, I guess they had some hanging chads.

Violence erupted in Nairobi and Kofi stepped in with his plan, a Kikuyu president and a Luo prime minister. The government of Kenya continues to promise more but instead is sending a huge delegation to the inauguration on the taxpayers dime. 70 cents of every dollar sent for aid goes towards administration.

Lois was explaining her frustration that her workers would come to her and ask for money for a funeral after a loved one had died of a treatable disease but would not come for the loan to treat the malady. Most of the natives still believe in witch doctors or the village wise man and if it is declared that a medicine or modern way is evil the people will not use it.

Most if not all men have multiple wives or girl friends, almost none practice safe sex. If a man’s brother dies, he is expected to take in his wife and family both financially and sexually. It is not unusual for a man to have six or more kids with no way of supporting even themselves. Over 65% of the population is HIV positive but the government only reports 5 to 8%.

When a family member dies of AIDS the family is too embarrassed to admit the real reason for the death. Pete and Carol told us that the South African government sent thousands of condoms to the area recently. Each condom was stapled to a piece of cardboard rendering all the condoms useless.

Last night I couldn't sleep, believe it not I couldn't get a poem out of my head, all the pain we saw in Peru, all the starvation we have seen here and all caused by men. So here is my first atempt at poetry.

Ten

Ten little fingers, ten little toes,
Ten million people with so many woes.
Our seed is our blessing our seed is our curse.
Ten wives ten children, doesn’t make a man,
Conquering everything just cause he can.
How can we perpetrate so much hurt,
Murder and mayhem is the name of our game.
Yet we still beat our big chests and act like jerks,
Why do you love us, why do you stand,
God help us all understand.
Are we all equal, is this all planned,
Why have we turned a blind eye to the ten you command
Why am I so ashamed to be a man.