A tale of minor corruption, Kadhi courts and another Mbiti link

Yesterday I had a chat with a lady who was trying to get her late husband's pension, which she has a right to. Apparently everything is OK, apart from the fact that money's not coming. She told me that everything here works with a bribe, but that's not how she does things. She keeps on going back, going up the chain until she gets access to the boss who normally will set things straight. She seemed confident that eventually she'll succeed. Good for her!

Incidentally, different ministries seem to have different reputations. She said the treasury, who she is dealing with, is the worst. But if you have all your papers in order, immigration seems to work well with no money changing hands. Good for them! In most countries immigration services are among the worst, as the clients are not citizens, and don't have votes. But Kenya bucks that trend, for some reason. But then I have been waiting for my car's registration document for over two years now....

Yesterday the high court proclaimed that Kadhi courts are illegal. A diplomat friend described this as 'interesting timing', given that the case was lodged six years ago, and this judgement comes out around 3 months before the referendum on the constitution. And apparently they're illegal even if in the constitution. So at least they're not unconstitutional... (?)

And you'll find a full record of the lecture by John Mbiti by Ben here. It's long, but that's because there was a lot to say.

Prof. John Mbiti, Dialogue, and Bible Translation

Yesterday I went to a talk by the eminent Kenyan theologian John Mbiti. The rather long title of the talk was 'Spontaneous Dialogue between African Religion and Christianity through Evangelization and Bible Translation: Some Observations'. The host was the University of Nairobi, but due to student unrest against interference in their elections, it was moved to Tangaza College (quite handy for me!). I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account, but mention some of what I found particularly interesting.

One of Mbiti's central theses is that 'African Religion' (he spoke of it as if it were monolithic) prepared the way for Christianity (quote from his handout):

"African belief in God existed before the arrival of missionaries. They did not bring God to Africa, rather it is God who brought them here. African religiosity was very receptive to Christian message and enabled the message to make sense, to sink into spiritual soil.

New element was naming of JESUS CHRIST as messenger of the God in whom Africans already believed."

What was of particular interest to me was his section on 'Bible Translations as facilitators of Encounter and Dialogue'. He congratulated the "Enormous translation achievement into 718 African language...", and mentioned that many Africans hear rather than read the Bible. He then had a nice way of describing Bible translation, as an 'exercise in inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue' - we have to dig into the meaning of the Biblical words, and also (and this is where the dialogue comes in) into the meanings of the words in the local language, the language being translated into. He has had to come face to face with this, having recently (in his late 70s!) done a translation of the New Testament into his own mother tongue, Kikamba (the 3rd such translation, I think).

What he means by this is that the religious vocabulary of a language which doesn't have a Bible translation will reflect the belief system of the people that speak it. Using those words in a Christian context therefore results in some sort of dialogue. How are we to understand these words in a Christian context? For example he said, in response to a question, that he didn't like sin. He went on to say it was a most troublesome word to translate, the find the right terms for, and he had to use different words at times.

Many might at this point respond that it would not be better to use these 'traditional' words. For example the first Bible translators into Zulu were most exercised about the appropriate word for 'God'. Some were not happy with the word (U)nkulunkulu, meaning 'the great, the great', being the creator, but also having grown on a reed. However, it was used in the Bible, and now, according to Hermanson, the word is seen by Zulu Christians as being the proper word for God. And before anyone judges that, the English word 'God' wasn't a Christian word either, but it seems to work just fine. In fact, of one Mbiti's points yesterday was that 'all' African languages used the traditional word for God in the Bible. Actually, this is not quite correct, as there are some exceptions, such as Kalenjin, where the original word for God also means 'sun', and some did not want an apparent confusion in the Bible. But it is generally true - we read of Mungu, Nyasaye and Ngai in Swahili, Luo and Kikuyu Bibles.

We all understand the world with terms we are used to - anything new needs to be added by building on to that knowledge, not rejecting it wholesale. If such understanding is ignored, it doesn't just disappear, but remains (mainly) untouched by the Gospel.

So, it was an interesting talk, stimulating some thought. Whether you agree that African religions revealed God or not, waiting for the revelation of Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that we come to a new faith through the prisms of what came before. Which means that, for a Bible translator, it is of the utmost importance to understand the true use and meaning of the words one is translating with.

Strengthening Obama's "Mother Tongue"

OK, I admit it. Obama's mother tongue is actually English (even the 'birthers' don't deny that). But Kenyans, and many other Africans, generally use the term 'mother tongue' to mean the language of one's community (e.g. Kikuyu, Kalenjin etc.), whether one speaks it well, or at all. A bit like saying that someone from Cardiff who speaks only English has Welsh as their mother tongue.

Well, where was I? Obama is a Luo name (not Irish, despite a funny song to that effect), his father was a Luo, and the Luos speak (Dho)Luo. They live on the shores of Lake Victoria, in the West of Kenya.

Anyway... a Luo student came to see me the other day. He said that something to the effect that he'd realised that what we had done in class looking at multilingualism wasn't just words, but actually corresponded to reality. Comforting! He had been educated first in his mother tongue (whichever definition you use), and told me he could read fluently by his third year. Nowadays, though, the practice (but not the policy) is to use English in kindergarten, even in the countryside, where most people live, and where most children arrive at school not knowing it. This might seem to make sense, as one needs English in Kenya to get on in life. But it means that there's a big disconnect between the child's daily experience and school. Never mind that the child doesn't actually know what the teacher is saying at the start.

And schooling, at the beginning, isn't primarily about learning about language. It's about learning how to write (this works best in one's own language, or failing that, another one you know well), learning how to count, learning how to think. And you can't do much of that if much of what you do is repeating what the teacher is saying in a language you're struggling to learn. Various studies have shown more effective learning in the mother tongue, greater pass rates (as long as the exam is in the right language), lower drop out rates. And even learning English can go better if the child has first learnt other things in their own language - some studies have shown this, much to everyone's surprise.

So... my student, telling me that now many children can neither read Luo or English well, wants to develop some further school materials, some more reading materials. Some must already exist somewhere, as he was successfully taught in Luo, but the more the merrier!

The other big barrier to the use of 'mother tongues' (or Swahili) in school is teachers' and parents' attitudes - most think English is the way to go, right from the start, for the reasons given above. Ngugi wa Thiongo, a Kenyan writer who has mainly written in his mother tongue, Kikuyu, sees this attitude as something requiring "Deconolonising the Mind", the title of one of his books.

More Aid Issues

Yesterday's post on whether aid really aids generated a little discussion, or rather the link to it on Facebook did. So I'm doing a brief follow-up for those of you who don't see that link.

First, there's a whole area of study in this area, and I'm no expert, but one gets to hear and read stuff, and some of it raises some concerns. One story that sticks with me, also from the blog I quoted yesterday, is this:

I vividly remember Claire Short visiting our Dfid offices in Dar es Salaam in 2000 and haranguing a young Oxford graduate for still having 5 million in the bank when it should already have been spent in the Tanzanian education sector.
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of the minister’ the graduate complained.
‘Don’t give me excuses!’ she shouted, ‘give me results! That money should not still be in the account, get on with it! It’s a disgrace!’

Some aid money has to be spent, whether the appropriate checks and balances have been put in place or not. And that, obviously, is a problem. Targets of course are good things, but they can cause problems! It can create the problem of needing to be seen to be helping, more than needing to help.

A couple of other issues came up. With permission, I'm using some words from a friend, who has some experience in the world of aid:

Having such a wide range of activities covered under the one word "aid" is tricky because in challenging some of the shocking failings in one area anything else positive gets discredited - baby with the bath water stuff. While there are problems with the system of aid, there are also pressing problems in the world that require solutions, solutions that will likely be imperfect. All too often the critics of aid (generally without specifying details, it's great that this lady is specific) don't offer positive solutions, which is a shame. And while I am completely committed to trade as a solution, simply trotting off the cliched "trade not aid" line is does not count as a solution, it is massively over simplified. From my experience attempts at trade solutions are open to similar abuses and corruption as the aid solutions they are trying to replace. It seems to me that, as you say, so much comes down to trust and relationship. Perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised at the priority of relationship over process given its centrality in the trinity...

So, yes, often it doesn't work, but let's not throw that baby...

Another issue that came up was the use of images designed to maximize the portrayal of suffering, when raising money. A link was provided to a very interesting blog entry where the author had asked friends in Malawi to pose for the camera both as doing well, and as destitute. Take a look. Here's how it starts:

We’ve all seen it: the photo of a teary-eyed African child, dressed in rags, smothered in flies, with a look of desperation that the caption all too readily points out. Some organization has made a poster that tells you about the realities of poverty, what they are doing about it, and how your donation will change things.

I reacted very strongly to these kinds of photos when I returned from Africa in 2008. I compared these photos to my own memories of Malawian friends and felt lied to. How had these photos failed so spectacularly to capture the intelligence, the laughter, the resilience, and the capabilities of so many incredible people?

The truth is that the development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive. Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public. I found it outrageous that such an incomplete and often inaccurate story was being so widely perpetuated by the organizations on the ground – the very ones with the ability and the responsibility to communicate the realities of rural Africa accurately.

Carry on reading! Turning Point, who I linked to yesterday, will only use positive images of the children they work with. Good for them! Let's never forget that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.

Does Aid Really Aid?

I can't really answer the question, but have just read an impassioned piece on a blog,

New UK Government - Please, please DO cut overseas aid!!!which sees most aid money as wasted, or even sometimes doing more harm that good. It's worth reading, whether you agree or not. Here's the opening paragraph:

I may not be best placed to say this, as an expat wife living in Africa - but when I hear on the radio that the new UK Government have pledged NOT to cut foreign aid to developing countries, but instead will look to make cuts in other areas of public spending (IE nurses pay), my blood boils. In fact, absolutely HUGE cuts can be made in development budgets. After eleven years of living around here, I know that the sheer waste in this area makes you want to cry.

It's a subject that African Expat Wife (who seems to live in the same part of Nairobi as us, in Karen) has dealt with before, in fact more than once. And it's not an indictment of all attempts to help. She lists Turning Point Trustamong her favourite Kenyan charities (and I'd agree). It seems to be the big money, and the lack of local knowledge, that are the problems. [By the way, the links are triggering a new line for me - I'm not sure why]

In our daily lives here, the issue of who to help and when can be quite complicated. It turns out that we are more likely to help people we know and trust - not very surprising really. Being caught between wanting to be generous, and being scared of building dependency (or being conned) probably means we're not very consistent.

Overcoming Barriers for African export

I've just read an interesting article in the Economist about the challenges faced by the only African coffee company to export processed coffee to the UK. Here's a paragraph:

'Although Mr Rugasira pins part of the blame for his struggles on trade barriers against African products, he reserves much of his criticism for outdated attitudes to Africa in the West. When he first started pitching Good African coffee in Britain he ran into “50 years of prejudice”. His firm was founded in Uganda, which meant that when Mr Rugasira turned up at meetings “people were expecting Idi Amin”. People also “assumed we were trying a scam; assumed I was looking for handout; couldn’t believe there could be value added in Africa,” he recalls. “No one makes any distinction between older generations of African businessmen and the new generation.'

Africa makes great coffee. Java and Dormans are two good Kenyan brands. It's a shame that other African coffee producers haven't been able to break into the UK market yet. Let's hope that changes, and that any prejudices against this won't continue.

Writing about someone else's country

This blog is, as the name suggests, primarily about living in Kenya. And I'm not Kenyan. That's not bad, because often the outsider can notice things the insider doesn't (the converse also applies). But it can also go badly wrong, in that any negative comment, or any comment that can appear to be negative, can be taken as evidence that writer looks down on, is contemptuous of, Kenya (or Kenyans). And being from the ex-colonial power, it might not be too hard for someone to believe I'm working from a colonial mentality. And believe me, that's not my goal. Like anywhere, good stuff happens here, as well as bad stuff.

The main problem for this blog is that it makes me less willing to tackle issues where I might like to say something, for fear of offending Kenyans. Just thought I'd let you know!