Chickens and rhinos
November 10, 2005. Thursday, 6:54pm.
I can’t believe I had a 30 minute conversation with someone today about chicken farming. I’ve gotten a lot of confusing information about African chickens. Apparently there are some hens who lay eggs without yolks, regardless of whether they are fertilized or not. It sounded like one of those dubious local stories, like the one about how if you give a starving man water he’ll die, which is why Nandis always serve guests milk. In the U.S. even unfertilized eggs have yolks. But at least four other people have confirmed that these hens exist. I still haven’t seen one myself, but maybe it’s true, or else there’s a village-wide conspiracy to make me believe it. I am told that different hens are good for different things: laying eggs, hatching chicks, or making a nice soup. The really productive layers (2 eggs a day) won’t brood, and I’m told this has nothing to do with whether the eggs are fertilized or not.
I think my third hen is about to start brooding, but I don’t want her to hatch any chicks so I’ve taken all her eggs. Apparently if a hen starts brooding but has no eggs to sit on, she can sit there indefinitely on her imaginary eggs waiting for them to hatch.
‘Dude, chickens are stoopid!’ I said.
‘That’s why you want to hope that no one ever compares you to a chicken.’
My alternatives are to pour cold water on her every morning or tie her to a post outside so she won’t go into the coop and sit in one of the nesting alcoves. I decided that the humane thing to do is to let her sit on one egg.
Anyway, if there are any small-scale chicken farmers out there, feel free to post a comment and share what you know. Are Kenyans making this stuff up?
Oh yeah I still haven’t named my chickens. I have three hens-two red ones and one black one. I have four chicks now, and I’m expecting five more in the next week or so. Maybe the chicks won’t get names until they’re bigger, though. If a hawk steals any of them, it will be sadder to say, ‘A hawk took Bonzo,’ than to say, ‘A hawk took the yellow one.’
The PHO (Public Health Officer, the head honcho dude in charge of public health projects in our division) took me to see yet another water project right outside town. The group that is building it is writing a proposal asking for 600,000 Ksh (Kenyan shillings) from the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), which is government money disbursed by the MPs for grassroots development projects within their constituencies. But CDF is notoriously mismanaged and nepotistic because MPs generally funnel all the funds to projects being managed by their political allies, friends or families, or high profile projects that make them look good politically. So most other worthy projects end up getting nothing. It didn’t occur to me to ask the PHO if he thought this project had any chance of being funded; at the time it seemed a bit rude to allude to the corruption in CDF, even though the entire country knows about it.
I got an sms from another Peace Corps volunteer today that said, ‘Last night I was reading about Kenyan history and it made me want to murder a bunch of people first, and then terminate my service here.’ And I knew the feeling she was referring to, both in the context of Kenyan history and-even more so-in the context of today. Sometimes the odds feel overwhelming when nearly everything that doesn’t work right in this country is caused-and perpetuated-by corruption. Kenya is the second most corrupt country in Africa, after Nigeria. (That statistic makes me wonder exactly how you quantify corruption so that you can actually release rankings.)
A couple weeks ago a woman who works at a small chemist in town (basically a pharmacy selling over-the-counter drugs) came to see me. Whenever someone I
don’t know approaches me saying, ‘I’ve been wanting to come visit you for a long time,’ I know they’re going to ask for money. She gave me the usual sob story about how she’s struggling to pay her kid’s school fees and support her family and that she wants to go back to school to be properly trained to run the chemist, which the public health people have threatened to shut down because she’s not certified. She said she’s willing to do anything-wash my clothes, work as a janitor in an office. This woman finished high school and couldn’t afford to go to college.
The government provides free public education through 8th grade; after that everyone is on her own. Government loans for college students are a tiny fraction of tuition, even at public universities, so a lot of extremely accomplished students just can’t afford to attend. Also, competition is so stiff for the limited slots at public universities that most qualified students never have a chance to get a college degree. You’d think the obvious solution would be to fund more public universities. But noooo’they’re building a new presidential palace as we speak.
Her story got me a bit bummed out. It’s the story of everyone here. They need money. They need options. But their government is so mired in corruption, nepotism and selfish interests that it could care less about helping its own people. In fact, providing people with options - higher education especially - would run counter to being able to retain absolute control.
My role isn’t to solve everyone’s problems; it’s to initiate public health projects that give people skills and information so that they can sustain themselves after I leave. But when people need money today, I can’t help feeling like my job is nearly irrelevant. The woman kept asking if the people I teach will be able to get jobs. We can teach skills but if there’s no one willing to pay for those skills, what good are they? We can’t create jobs. I could hire this woman to wash my clothes, but what about all the other people out there just like her? And if I do hire this woman, what happens to her when I leave? I realize that I’m letting myself feel responsible for things I’m not responsible for, but I feel totally useless right now. I really need to stop feeling this damn compassion thing.
----------------------
The Bitter and Cynical Version
The truth is that there’s a widespread ignorance about my role in this community. People see a foreigner and assume that our purpose in being here is to give away free money. They think that since Kenya is poor and Westerners are rich, we owe it to them to share our wealth. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that I should pay for something, instead of a Kenyan paying for it, because ‘it benefits the community.’ What kind of manipulative logic is that? I’ve let myself be guilted into feeling like the fair thing to do is to give people my money just because I have more than they do. I don’t know where that feeling comes from. Maybe it’s just liberal middle-class guilt.
Maybe it’s helpful to think about my relationship with homeless people in San Francisco. I rarely give them money. Sometimes I give them food, but no handout solves their problems in any long-term way. I’ve stopped feeling guilty when I walk past a homeless person without giving him anything. Part of it is because homeless people have provided us (non-homeless types) an out - those signs they hold that say, ‘Even a smile helps.’ The homeless would rather be acknowledged through eye contact or a greeting than completely ignored as if they’re less than human. So hell, if smiling is all I have to do, I’m not parting with a dollar I don’t have to part with. And I can walk away guilt-free because I’ve said, ‘Sorry, man, not today,’ with a big smile on my face.
There’s no touchy-feely out in Kenya. People don’t care if you smile and say, ‘Sorry, really. It must be hard.’ Emotional validation has no value here. ‘Just give me the damn money, I don’t care if you’re sorry.’
There was one week when I helped Hillary revise his resume and write a cover letter. He really had no clue how to write a decent resume. Now it glows. I’ve also bailed him out a couple times financially, something I wouldn’t do for anyone else. He thanked me profusely and said he felt like there was really no way he could ever repay me. And in monetary terms, he’s right. But I’ll never be able to repay the things he does for me on a daily basis. His official role may be as my Peace Corps counterpart - a Kenyan who works closely with me on all my projects - but he’s also my cultural advisor (‘Yes, it’s weird even in Kenya for someone to walk into your house without knocking, so tell your neighbors to cut it out,’) my emotional support (‘I just called to say sorry that you’re feeling homesick,’) and my partner in crime (‘You hide the paper, I’ll hide the fuel.’) That sense of security is priceless. It’s a symbiotic relationship. I’m the rhino and he’s the weird bird eating the ticks.
In the long run I think I’ll discover that this symbiotic relationship extends to the rest of the community that I’m living in. But right now I just have to get over the fact that everyone just wants me for my money.
I can’t believe I had a 30 minute conversation with someone today about chicken farming. I’ve gotten a lot of confusing information about African chickens. Apparently there are some hens who lay eggs without yolks, regardless of whether they are fertilized or not. It sounded like one of those dubious local stories, like the one about how if you give a starving man water he’ll die, which is why Nandis always serve guests milk. In the U.S. even unfertilized eggs have yolks. But at least four other people have confirmed that these hens exist. I still haven’t seen one myself, but maybe it’s true, or else there’s a village-wide conspiracy to make me believe it. I am told that different hens are good for different things: laying eggs, hatching chicks, or making a nice soup. The really productive layers (2 eggs a day) won’t brood, and I’m told this has nothing to do with whether the eggs are fertilized or not.
I think my third hen is about to start brooding, but I don’t want her to hatch any chicks so I’ve taken all her eggs. Apparently if a hen starts brooding but has no eggs to sit on, she can sit there indefinitely on her imaginary eggs waiting for them to hatch.
‘Dude, chickens are stoopid!’ I said.
‘That’s why you want to hope that no one ever compares you to a chicken.’
My alternatives are to pour cold water on her every morning or tie her to a post outside so she won’t go into the coop and sit in one of the nesting alcoves. I decided that the humane thing to do is to let her sit on one egg.
Anyway, if there are any small-scale chicken farmers out there, feel free to post a comment and share what you know. Are Kenyans making this stuff up?
Oh yeah I still haven’t named my chickens. I have three hens-two red ones and one black one. I have four chicks now, and I’m expecting five more in the next week or so. Maybe the chicks won’t get names until they’re bigger, though. If a hawk steals any of them, it will be sadder to say, ‘A hawk took Bonzo,’ than to say, ‘A hawk took the yellow one.’
The PHO (Public Health Officer, the head honcho dude in charge of public health projects in our division) took me to see yet another water project right outside town. The group that is building it is writing a proposal asking for 600,000 Ksh (Kenyan shillings) from the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), which is government money disbursed by the MPs for grassroots development projects within their constituencies. But CDF is notoriously mismanaged and nepotistic because MPs generally funnel all the funds to projects being managed by their political allies, friends or families, or high profile projects that make them look good politically. So most other worthy projects end up getting nothing. It didn’t occur to me to ask the PHO if he thought this project had any chance of being funded; at the time it seemed a bit rude to allude to the corruption in CDF, even though the entire country knows about it.
I got an sms from another Peace Corps volunteer today that said, ‘Last night I was reading about Kenyan history and it made me want to murder a bunch of people first, and then terminate my service here.’ And I knew the feeling she was referring to, both in the context of Kenyan history and-even more so-in the context of today. Sometimes the odds feel overwhelming when nearly everything that doesn’t work right in this country is caused-and perpetuated-by corruption. Kenya is the second most corrupt country in Africa, after Nigeria. (That statistic makes me wonder exactly how you quantify corruption so that you can actually release rankings.)
A couple weeks ago a woman who works at a small chemist in town (basically a pharmacy selling over-the-counter drugs) came to see me. Whenever someone I
don’t know approaches me saying, ‘I’ve been wanting to come visit you for a long time,’ I know they’re going to ask for money. She gave me the usual sob story about how she’s struggling to pay her kid’s school fees and support her family and that she wants to go back to school to be properly trained to run the chemist, which the public health people have threatened to shut down because she’s not certified. She said she’s willing to do anything-wash my clothes, work as a janitor in an office. This woman finished high school and couldn’t afford to go to college.
The government provides free public education through 8th grade; after that everyone is on her own. Government loans for college students are a tiny fraction of tuition, even at public universities, so a lot of extremely accomplished students just can’t afford to attend. Also, competition is so stiff for the limited slots at public universities that most qualified students never have a chance to get a college degree. You’d think the obvious solution would be to fund more public universities. But noooo’they’re building a new presidential palace as we speak.
Her story got me a bit bummed out. It’s the story of everyone here. They need money. They need options. But their government is so mired in corruption, nepotism and selfish interests that it could care less about helping its own people. In fact, providing people with options - higher education especially - would run counter to being able to retain absolute control.
My role isn’t to solve everyone’s problems; it’s to initiate public health projects that give people skills and information so that they can sustain themselves after I leave. But when people need money today, I can’t help feeling like my job is nearly irrelevant. The woman kept asking if the people I teach will be able to get jobs. We can teach skills but if there’s no one willing to pay for those skills, what good are they? We can’t create jobs. I could hire this woman to wash my clothes, but what about all the other people out there just like her? And if I do hire this woman, what happens to her when I leave? I realize that I’m letting myself feel responsible for things I’m not responsible for, but I feel totally useless right now. I really need to stop feeling this damn compassion thing.
----------------------
The Bitter and Cynical Version
The truth is that there’s a widespread ignorance about my role in this community. People see a foreigner and assume that our purpose in being here is to give away free money. They think that since Kenya is poor and Westerners are rich, we owe it to them to share our wealth. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that I should pay for something, instead of a Kenyan paying for it, because ‘it benefits the community.’ What kind of manipulative logic is that? I’ve let myself be guilted into feeling like the fair thing to do is to give people my money just because I have more than they do. I don’t know where that feeling comes from. Maybe it’s just liberal middle-class guilt.
Maybe it’s helpful to think about my relationship with homeless people in San Francisco. I rarely give them money. Sometimes I give them food, but no handout solves their problems in any long-term way. I’ve stopped feeling guilty when I walk past a homeless person without giving him anything. Part of it is because homeless people have provided us (non-homeless types) an out - those signs they hold that say, ‘Even a smile helps.’ The homeless would rather be acknowledged through eye contact or a greeting than completely ignored as if they’re less than human. So hell, if smiling is all I have to do, I’m not parting with a dollar I don’t have to part with. And I can walk away guilt-free because I’ve said, ‘Sorry, man, not today,’ with a big smile on my face.
There’s no touchy-feely out in Kenya. People don’t care if you smile and say, ‘Sorry, really. It must be hard.’ Emotional validation has no value here. ‘Just give me the damn money, I don’t care if you’re sorry.’
There was one week when I helped Hillary revise his resume and write a cover letter. He really had no clue how to write a decent resume. Now it glows. I’ve also bailed him out a couple times financially, something I wouldn’t do for anyone else. He thanked me profusely and said he felt like there was really no way he could ever repay me. And in monetary terms, he’s right. But I’ll never be able to repay the things he does for me on a daily basis. His official role may be as my Peace Corps counterpart - a Kenyan who works closely with me on all my projects - but he’s also my cultural advisor (‘Yes, it’s weird even in Kenya for someone to walk into your house without knocking, so tell your neighbors to cut it out,’) my emotional support (‘I just called to say sorry that you’re feeling homesick,’) and my partner in crime (‘You hide the paper, I’ll hide the fuel.’) That sense of security is priceless. It’s a symbiotic relationship. I’m the rhino and he’s the weird bird eating the ticks.
In the long run I think I’ll discover that this symbiotic relationship extends to the rest of the community that I’m living in. But right now I just have to get over the fact that everyone just wants me for my money.
posted by Justina at 2:44 PM
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