Bungoma Town

I’ve been in Bungoma for the past 4 days. I have to admit that my travel exhaustion made the first couple of days a bit of a wash. I basically went to work and to sleep. But I’m settling in nicely and starting to feel right at home. I’m living in a hotel for the first week and a half that I’m here so it’s been quite cushy. I have a largish room with a flushable western-ish toilet (no toilet seat) and even a little breakfast nook in the entrance. I fully expect my living standard to drop by the end of next week. I’ll give you an update on that though at the end of next week.

In some ways, it’s much easier to report on the amusing tourist things in Nairobi than my experience of Bungoma. It is at once larger and smaller than I expected. I’m happy to say that I can get almost anything in town, but it’s rural enough that cows, donkeys, goats, and chickens are common sights along the road. The first morning I woke up to the sound of a rooster cock-a-doodle doing. He actually cock-a-doodle doed several times that morning. You’d think once would be enough. The night also comes alive with the sounds of crickets, mosquitoes buzzing and even lights up with fireflies. In a nutshell, I feel closer to nature than I’ve ever felt in a Western city.

The people are very friendly. They consistently tell me, “Kariboo” (welcome in kiswahili). I’m surprised by how much Kiswahili you hear in the streets. I’m trying to pick up as much as possible. My co-workers speak Kiswahili to each other unless addressing me or Caleb. Everyone speaks English though so it’ll take some effort to learn Kiswahili. I think I’m going to hire a teacher.

The most exciting thing I’ve done since coming to Bungoma is participate in evaluating CREADIS’s HIV/AIDS programming by helping them conduct interviews. We drove from village to village asking women and men about how their lives have changed since CREADIS entered it. I was at once happy that their lives have gotten considerably better, but also sad at their dependency on the organization. We really want to strive towards making people independent. Some of the women told us they prayed to God that CREADIS would continue giving them support.

Others were more positive about their new livelihoods. I want to tell you two of the stories that I found particularly inspirational. One woman cared for two vulnerable children. She, herself, was HIV +. Unlike many other people she is living openly, or as they say here, “living positively.” Currently, she cares for 14 children who have nowhere else to go. She feeds them from the money she makes selling vegetables. Although this feat alone is phenomenal, I found her desire to support others the most amazing. She spoke of how she’d received counselling and support from CREADIS. She started her own support groups independent of CREADIS with those skills. Now, she gives support to others. She’s also an example to her community because she not only living with HIV, rather than dying as so many others, but she’s also succeeding.
The other young man spoke to me about raising his family from poverty to at least having enough food to eat. His parents and his sister died leaving him to raise his younger brother and nephew. CREADIS gave him some chickens, which laid eggs and made more chickens as chickens are wont to do. With the profit from the chickens, he bought a goat. Then he sold the goat in order to lease some land. Now he’s growing his own food for him and the children. More positively, the children are back in school with full bellies making them able to learn.

These are just two of the stories that I heard while interviewing people. I feel so lucky that I’ve had the chance to ask people about their lives.