Taking Risks in Townships

On the 13th November, headlines announced the death in an apparent carjacking of a honeymooning bride in the 'township' of Gugulethu, near Cape Town. Big news in the UK, as the bridegroom was British. I remember thinking, well, what were they thinking, being in a township late at night, that was stupid. You might detect a little less sympathy than there should have been. It turns out that the taxi driver has been arrested, and is claiming that he was paid by the bridegroom to do away with the woman he'd just married. No idea on that, but it does seem that the murder had nothing to do with the location - except as cover perhaps, so the story doesn't really tell us how dangerous Gugulethu is.

Gugulethu is actually home to a place which pulls in tourists and other people with money, Mzoli's Meat. I've heard a couple of (linguistic) academic papers on what goes on there - apparently there's a Jewish Xhosa-speaking comedian who gigs there (the linked video is worth watching). So maybe it's not so bad after all, just something went very wrong.

We're heading back to Kenya later this month. It also has some spots I wouldn't go at night (eg much of downtown and the biggest 'township', Kibera). But people are normally more worried about other areas, rather than their own. I, living in Karen, don't like going downtown at night. Others who live nearer town don't like to come to Karen at night. Who's the stupid one?

A Day of Disappointment in England, but something a little more serious elsewhere.

Well, England didn't get the 2018 World Cup. I was thinking of writing something before the result of that vote came out, when there was still some tension, but it's a bit late for that now.

Meanwhile, in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) they're waiting on the results of their elections. A friend writes that international TV has been shut off, and the borders shut, after the government claims there was widespread fraud in the North, which has not been under government control for the last 8 years. Apparently international monitors have not found widespread fraud in the North, but it seems clear that the results, which were approved by the Electoral Commission, give the opposition candidate Ouattara a majority, so the president's rep in the commission decided to tear the results up. Not a good sign for democracy, maybe not as bad as the closure of the borders, and the fatal attack on some of Ouattara's supporters yesterday.

Ivoriens, behold Kenya and shudder! An attempt to steal an election there cost over 1,500 lives, and the country pulled back from the brink of much worse. And stealing elections doesn't just cause immediate violence, but helps to create a culture of impunity and corruption which makes the overall governance, and therefore life of the people, much worse. Better to lose an election honestly than win one by deception.

Things I'm noticing about life in the UK

We've been back in the UK for over a month now, and have spent a couple of weeks away on holiday, and a bit more of that catching up with friends. Last night we were unexpectedly children free, and popped round to see some friends. We walked over, down suburban streets, around half past nine. Of course we would never do such a thing in Kenya, walking out after dark (though most Kenyans have no choice on that matter). But the other strange thing was that there was no-one else on the street - not even in a car. Deserted, which felt... different.

Another less profound thing that I've been noticing is the amazing lack of insects in the house. Just hardly any (though there's a fly buzzing around this morning).

A few things have changed while we've been away - for the first time I've topped up a phone at the cashpoint, and unblocked a pin number. Cool. Faster internet. BBC iPlayer is totally wonderful. Thank you BBC, we love you! But apart from that, life goes on much as normal. And despite the occasional new building here, there's not the sense of growth and development that you get in Nairobi. Reading is much as it was, but Nairobi is full of new housing estates, all over the place, burgeoning traffic (not necessarily a good thing, but it shows the growth), new shopping centres, expansion in general. It's an interesting contrast.

Disgruntled of Karen on the Failings of the British High Commission and Zain phone registration

Mustn't grumble. But every now and then things need to be said! Yesterday the kids' school forwarded us a letter from the British High Commission saying that we would now need to "apply directly to the British High Commission in Pretoria" to renew our passports, and that this would take around 4 weeks. No reason given. And I'm not sure how one could apply directly to them in any case. These arrangements are ridiculous for a country that has tens of thousands of British citizens in residence.

But that's not all. It's the icing on the cake. I have registered, and re-registered on the Foreign Office's site, as a Brit living in Kenya. But did I get this email? No, as I said, it was forwarded from the school. So the meeting about this organised here in Karen on Saturday at 10 (Karen Club, in case you need to know...) was news to me. Can't make it anyway, but it would have been nice to have been told.

In fact, in early 2008, when Kenya was rocked by post-election violence, Americans had at least weekly updates of where it was safe to go, what precautions to take etc. And what did us Brits get from the High Commission? Nothing. Not a squeak. In a potentially dangerous situation, the British authorities did absolutely nothing to inform its citizens. Apparently writing an email would have overwhelmed their resources. Around May, 3 months after everything was over, they arranged some meetings about security. Horses and bolts and stable doors come to mind. And apparently the advice was to look out for yourself, as they wouldn't do anything.

It costs about double to get a passport here, to cover consular services. I'm wondering what those services are meant to be. And while I'm griping about the Brits, it's time to mention a Kenyan friend whose valid application for a UK visa was turned down. Among the concern was the hosts wouldn't be able to afford to put our friend up - and yet the accompanying documentation showed several thousand pounds going into their bank account - in fact the hosts are most likely millionaires. It seems that the lady hadn't spent the proper time looking at the documentation. That and the fact that our friend has been to Europe and come back before was ignored. And I know it's difficult deciding who gets a visa, but really...

Well, I promised more disgruntlement, so here it comes... We have to register our mobile phones or they get cut off. OK. We're getting daily texts from Zain, our phone company, to remind us. But can you register your Zain phone in Karen? It would seem not. Not at the Zain merchant, nor at the supermarket. So we went to Junction (around 6 miles away), and we couldn't do it there either. When we rang Zain to comment that it wasn't possible, the first operator hung up. Safaricom users don't seem to have this problem, so it would seem that Zain doesn't actually want customers, and is screwing up the registration process.

All this negativity is getting to me, so I'll tell you that we had lunch at Java Junction, and the service was friendly, efficient and speedy (it felt like 5 minutes after ordering), and the food was fine and good value. Well done! Things really can work well here, which I guess adds to the frustration when they don't. Sorry for grumbling.

Getting ready to be a bloke in the UK

Well, next week we'll be leaving Kenya for the rest of the year, and establishing ourselves in the UK for nearly six months. However, still being the same person, I might carry on and post some random musings here now and then.

An interesting thing about this process is how the well-established expats and others react when we say this. The conversation goes something like this:

"We'll be going back to the UK for six months"
"Are you coming back?"
"Well, I said for six months, so that would imply that we were" (OK, I'm not quite that direct)/ "We have return tickets"

When I question people about this, they say that when people leave for good, they often say that they'll be back soon, and often intend to, but stuff happens, and people find something else to do . The fact that we're holding on to our house is taken as stronger evidence of our intent to return than the return tickets.

The longer we've stayed here, the more people have treated us as... well, 'real' people. I suppose 'real' here is opposed to 'transient'. It gets tiring investing in relationships with people who keep on leaving, so I can understand that others, for whom Kenya is home, treat newcomers -not exactly with caution - but with a little reserve.

Getting ready to be in the UK is interesting as well. Wonderful friends have been helping us to find a house to rent, which seems to be going through OK, though the credit rating agency is being rather slow - when you come from abroad you just don't tick the boxes in a standard way. Our youngest two have spent more of their lives here than in the UK - the youngest was barely one when we left. So doing things like going to school in England will be new. And getting places in schools has been interesting as well. We've abandoned trying for the schools they would have gone to if we'd stayed there, and settled for ones that seem reasonable, rather then running the risk of having them going to different schools in different directions. We've been dealing with two different councils in doing this, and one of them has outshone the other - we'll forgive them for asking to see our UK visa before granting us a school place.

So, overall, quite looking forward to reconnecting with friends, church and family, but not glad to be leaving here. But I think the stresses on the children are greater than on us.

Some Rhino Charge Pictures

Some vehicles didn't want to drive there. Below are Team 38, who went on to win, and who started and finished at our checkpoint.

And off they go! The guys on the back mainly act as scouts to find viable ways through the bush.

Things tended to go wrong with the cars...

No. 2 is trying to get past 36, who is stuck (the car doesn't move from here till the next day). In the process the driver's window explodes, and the door gets some damage.

All for now. I'll post some more soon!

The Rhino Charge

Well, yesterday was the Madaraka (autonomy rather than independence) holiday here in Kenya, and the day before was the annual Rhino Charge. The Rhino Charge is an amazingly entertaining 4-by-4 challenge where the winner is the driver who manages to cover the distance between around 12-14 checkpoints not in the shortest time, but by taking the shortest route (and finishing within the allotted 10 hours). It's so much fun, as unlike in Formula 1 where cars whizz by, you can watch a car for several minutes as it attempts to get over some rocks, or up an improbably steep hill, using a winch, which it's quite clear is pulling the bush more than it's pulling the car. All this is done to raise money for wildlife conservation, in particular for the now-completed fence around the Aberdare mountain range. It's just as well it's for the environment, given all the crushed euphorbia and aloes I witnessed last year - none of that this year though, as the terrain was quite different. Just lots of bushes.

Our church runs one of the checkpoints, and I went along with the boys to help out, having had a great time last year. We happened to be near one of the most challenging parts of the course, in a dry river bed, where several cars broke down. This was not the 'gauntlet', but we were in a part of the course that was closed to spectators, so I managed to witness some significant mayhem and risk-taking with just a few other onlookers.

Our own 'rhino charge' up to the checkpoint was quite a challenge as well. The final part was up a dry river bed, with what must have been some quite spiky volcanic rock, of which one small part bit into the side of a new-ish tyre, and produced rapid deflation. I drove on a bit to avoid blocking the way for the rest of the cars coming up, took a wrong turn, and drove under a tree, forgetting that I had a roof-rack on top. I heard something, assuming it was the branch brushing against the top of the contents, but our oldest boy said 'Dad, the roof rack's come off'. I think I said something like 'Don't be silly'. But there it was, sitting with all its contents, on the ground. Almost undamaged - a clean removal. A couple of the people in the car behind, who heard but didn't see the incident, have worked in Somalia, and thought this was a roadblock!

People quickly gathered round, changed my wheel for me, and carried the roof-rack up to the campsite. A real team spirit.

For me about the best thing about the whole time was being out in the bush (no settlements in view in any direction - we were south of Magadi, almost in Tanzania) with a group of good friends. The couple of Maasai guards walked several miles to reach us. They were very amused at our food, and weren't able to suppress loud laughter at the bacon and egg rolls they were offered. They opened them in disbelief - I think it was all unknown (the eggs were scrambled). We also had little walks, watched the near-full moon rise, and prepared to serve the drivers who came through. The five-hour drive back to Karen brought me back to a different world, realising how much the time out there had done me good.

I hope to post photos later - that would be a first!

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.