The Election

The biggest topic of news, conversation, and thought is politics. Politics spill over into about every aspect of life. The government controls most of the jobs, education opportunities, business and things like food distribution so any shift in the government affects huge numbers of people. Every election is considered a watershed year and this is looking like the mother of all elections. People are saying it will be the most hotly contested election in the history of the country. I hope not. One of the closer elections started what is called the Tribal Wars. As a way of shifting thoughts away from real issues tribalism was brought up and exploited. Loads of people attacked their neighbors who they used to be friends with. Mungiki was also formed then. The same feelings are coming out now.

Interestingly the politics are not about ideals, policies, or anything to do with government. It's about the nature of the people and the tribes they come from. All three of the political parties were started recently and will presumably disappear once the election is over. One thing the election is not about is corruption, even though people think it's the biggest issue. The problem is they are all openly corrupt. The anti-corruption branch is actually barred from looking at the major scandals because bad secrets might appear. No promises of fighting corruption have been given and none expected.

There are currently three candidates- the current prez is Kikuyu and is running again, the guy leading the polls is Luo, and another guy is a not very popular Komba. The kikuyu have traditionally dominated the gov and all the other tribes want their part of the pie. The Luo live in the Western part of Kenya which is relatively poor. The Komba live East of Nairobi in a desert area and are also really poor. Needless to say they both want more money coming their way. The tribes will always vote for their candidate so the real struggle is for the other half of the country which is the remaining 40 some tribes. It doesn't help that the Kikuyu have spread all over the country and are dominating business and land wherever they go. The last tribal war was their neighbors trying to kill the Kikuyu immigrants.

Oddly enough the state of one candidate's penis is a big issue. By Bantu custom a man is circumsized as an adolescent and then he is considered a man. Anyone not circumsized is not a man, but a boy. The luo don't circumcision so they get flak from the "real" men and occasionally get forcibly circumcised in the middle of the night. Apparently that happened to the luo guy when he went to college. No wonder he hates the kikuyu.

Politics is in many ways a farce here. Politicians drive around and people come out to cheer them on. The more they are and the louder they cheer the more they get paid. If you can mobilize a load of people for a rally you can make some serious cash. It doesn't matter that they cheered for all the other candidates as well. It seems the street boys are the biggest election winners though the organizers do pretty well as they walk around with their suitcases of money for distribution. Come election day some politicians are in for some rude surprises. Those hordes of people cheering for you didn't actually vote for you. While the election is a farce they are important. Whoever gets the job gets huge amounts of money from salary plus loads from bribes. They are some the highest paid politicians in the world. With much less than 1/100 of the US economy they get paid more than US representatives do. Once you get elected you serve for 5 years. During that time you amass enough money that next time you contest you will dominate. If done well you can pass on the seat to your son.

The biggest issue for me is security. December is the most violent month of the year and Nairobi is the most violent city in the country. Add to this the standard election riots and I expect some serious bloodshed. Attacks have already been made on politicians. Last time I read the paper had a picture of some guys coming after the presidential candidate with bows. He was looking pretty scared as he hopped onto a helicopter with his bodyguards behind him. I expect the rally routes and locations to be pretty intense. The problem is I will probably be traveling in and out of Nairobi.

In one populist measure the city has stopped harassing street hawkers. Now they are everywhere. It's fine with me but they pay no taxes and take business from the shop owners as well as clog the streets. Eventually they will have to be moved out and after 3 months making money they will refuse. End result is going to be a nasty explosion and a whole lot of looting. Hopefully after I leave.

The Students of Kiangochi Secondary School
The students at my school are a complete mix. Some are relatively wealthy with their parents having cars (which sometimes work) and college degrees while others have virtually nothing. Maybe their ancestral land which they scratch a living off of. The biggest employer in the area is the local highway where women can sell fruit. Otherwise there are a few quarries on the nearby mountain. Otherwise these students come from all over the village. When I go to the butcher I find his son is at the school, the duka- their daughter, the haircutter- students are working there, etc. Since most family compounds have 2-3 families and 2-5 kids in each family just about every compound has at least one representative here (a compound is a bunch of mud, mabati, or stone house sorrounded by 2-10 acres of farmland). In one class we have 4 cousins, in another one 2 brothers- 1 is the prefect and the other the chief troublemaker.
In terms of distance some kids are literally across the street while others walk for close to 2 hours each way (longer when it rains as some rivers are impassible). Thats a long day when you start before 6 in the morning and get home close to 7. Then you have chores to do... A number of kids move into friends or neighbors houses to be close to school. THey come Sunday night and go back Sat afternoon. Some have have parents in Nairobi and live with the grandparents or aunts and uncles. About 10% are double AIDS orphans and live on the family compound with the remainder of the family. Some are from Mungiki dominated territory while others come from this hill/mountain which is pretty peaceable
Ethnically they are mostly Kikuyu though there is a Komba outpost on the hill on the other side of the road. Some have had families here for generations while others just moved a couple years ago. Agewise they are somewhere between 15 and 20 something. I understand a couple of men are married and every year each class loses a few girls due to pregnancy or marriage (not necessarily the same thing).
Academically they are all over the board. Some understand virtually no English and consequently nothing else so they get close to 0% on all the tests. Others get in the A- to B+ range. Most of these kids are the really poor ones and live off contributions from the county council or the community funds. The school is beginning to get some respect but the students come here because it is the cheapest school for many miles. I have watched all the students with brains and money leave the school for greener pastures.
The upper 2 years are mostly boys while the first year is mostly girls. I assume this has to do with them dropping out. Also given the option people will spend on the sons more than the daughters. The son lives with you his whole life while the daughter marries and you rarely see here. Also girls are responsible for so many more chores they usually do worse in class.

Profiles
We have a one girl we used to call the Entreprenour as her main extracurricular activity was selling Changaa (illegal alcohol). Her father brewed and the mom helped sell it. For a while she was head of the girl guides. Not surprisingly she dropped out.

One boy is a double AIDS orphan who lives with his aunt who already has a full family. I don't know what happened to him but one arm is covered in horrible burns. He comes to school at 6:30 in the morning and studies with incredible focus. By the time you teach him he already knows the material and spends the class trying to keep the teacher off balance and push the boundaries.

One boy moved here from Ukambani (Komba land) so English is his 4th language. Despite hard work and focus he has never been able to get his grade above an E although he is the top athlete and regularly runs several miles to start off the day. His sister is known as a very good student and goes to an expensive school in Nyeri.

One girl has a mother in poor health and a father married to a woman who does not want her. She alternates between the two, never happy. With the mom she has to take care of the brother, do many chores, and has almost no money for fees. With the father she is not fully wanted and has to walk large distances to fetch the water. She came in with the highest grade of her class but due to various circumstances has had to skip school. Her grade is still strong and she is the leader and strength of the girld guides. One of the spunkiest kids I have ever met.

One boy moved here from Thika to live with his uncle at the School for the Deaf. After the uncle was basically fired for stealing the school said he was welcome to stay there for free as long as he was in school. The uncle is not wanted back so he is living alone in a deaf community.

One girl moved here with her mother a few years ago after the father had died and the family disowned them. They now rent land and the mother does whatever odd jobs she can to keep the girl in school. Despite their poverty the girl is almost never sent home for fees. She has a voracious interest in education and is always reading books.

Two boys have started a club of just the 2 of them where they take turns reading books and then discussing them. They make a list of all the new words and look them up. The one boy has come to keep his grandmother company and go to school. The parents live in Nairobi.

One girl lives between the school and the waterfall. While washing clothes there her younger brother and sister fell in and were washed over the falls. She almost followed them. She is quiet and totally committed to school. Occasionally we have boys who hit girls. We simply change the seats and put them next to her. They soon learn to stop hitting and their grades also suddenly pick up. Her favorite subject is religion.

Kikuyu

When the British came to Kenya they were looking for people to convert and land to take over and cultivate. On the coast everyone was Muslim and there already was a government in place. This didn’t fit their needs. As the British moved into Ukambani (Akamba tribal lands) and Tsavo all they found were dry lands and inhospitable lions which eat missionaries. Also not good. When the Brits got to the Kenya highlands they found happiness. The land is good, there were plenty of people living there, and best of all, it was cool with plenty of rain, a little like England. The land was also ideal for trade crops like tea and coffee so the British soldiers and missionaries took over the area. The main tribe was Kikuyu so they were the first to be converted and the first to have their land taken. Not surprisingly the Kikuyu were also the people to object to having their land stolen and native culture destroyed. They did this in the Mau Mau revolt where 100,000 Kenyans (virtually all Kikuyu) and 1000 British died. Soon afterwards the country became independent with the country named after Mt. Kenya, the Kikuyu holy site. The Mau Mau leaders were the obvious people to run the government and Jomo Kenyatta was elected president. With the capitol, Nairobi, in the middle of Kikuyuland the Kikuyu have been relatively well off compared to the other tribes. I don’t know if it’s the history or the native culture but Kikuyu are the most education oriented tribe in the country. After the Indians and the whites they are the most business oriented tribe in Kenya. Put these together and you have a tribe which dominates.
The Kikuyu (also known as Gikuyu) are the dominant tribe in Kenya. While less than a quarter of the people are Kikuyu they have a huge impact on the country. The president is Kikuyu, along with two-thirds of the cabinet, and a good chunk of the government. On the other side the biggest criminal organization, Mungiki, will not allow anyone but Kikuyu into their ranks. They also dominate in other ways- the noble prize winner Wangari Mathai is Kikuyu, as well as the greatest Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who now writes books in Kikuyu.
My experience is that they love two things: farming and business. Generally it’s not good to generalize about a group of people but it seems pretty accurate in this case. The basic strategy is to get as good an education as possible, use that to get as good a job as possible, and then start a business. Once that business is started you put all your time and energy into it and do the barest minimum in your job. This is done by virtually everyone: College professors, doctors, politicians. Doctors will get a job at a hospital then start their own clinic and put all their spare hours into the clinic. Every teacher I have talked to said they wanted to study medicine (in order to be paid well) or business. They only qualified to study education so now they either have their own business or have dreams and plans of starting their own. A regular conversation in the staffroom is what kind of business is best to invest in. It’s the most entrepreneurial society I have ever heard of.
The other thing Kikuyu love is farming. No matter how wealthy or poor they are they always want a shamba (farm, garden). Virtually everyone who lives in the towns or cities has a farm somewhere, usually in their ancestral lands. Kiswahili has two words for house- nyumba, and nyambani- one is the place you live and the other is your home. In town is the house but the real home is on the farm. If you ask directions in town people might know what’s on their street. If you ask the same person directions in their rural home they can tell you the names, characteristics, and personal stories of all their neighbors for miles around. All celebrations and burials are held on the shamba and most people prefer spending time in the shamba to the city. The nice thing about all of this is that families are far more connected. No matter what job you have or where you go the whole family comes back to the same shamba. This way you stay connected to your whole extended family for your whole life. There is also something nice about the idea that this place has been in your family for several generations and will be for another few generations. It creates a people with roots. Also, there is something wholesome with being involved in agriculture, raising the foods you will eat, drinking the milk from your cow, and raising the goat that you will slaughter.
There is a dark side to all this. Kenya was for decades the most fertile country in the world. For every woman there were something like 7 or 8 kids. The Kikuyu were especially big into kids. Most of the adults I talk to will tell me about their 8 brothers and 6 sisters or something like that. The traditional method of inheritance is the sisters get married and join their husband’s family, they get no inheritance, and the sons divide up the land between themselves. Shambas that used to be 20-30 acres are now down to 1 -2. Not enough land to support a family and anyway everyone wants the biggest shamba they can get. The result is that Kikuyu have spread all over the whole country in search of land. The pastoralists don’t make much money off their land and the Kikuyu people are the richest. The result is huge numbers of people have sold off their traditional lands to Kikuyu and are now dispossessed. I would guess a lot of local businessman have also lost out to incoming Kikuyu who have more money and are better at business. A lot of people are pretty pissed off at the Kikuyu. This was the reason for the brutal tribal wars of 1992. The Maasai started slaughtering the Kikuyu who had bought their lands and the Kikuyu did friendly things like poisoning their food. All over the rift valley there was bloodshed. There is still a fair amount of dislike and distrust of the Kikuyu. The government is sometimes called the Mt. Kenya mafia, because it is dominated by what are seen as corrupt Kikuyu. People are more peaceable now but sooner or later I think another tribal war will start up. If it does I won’t see it. Everyone is Kikuyu for hundreds of miles around.

Bread but no circuses

Julius Caesar’s recipe for staying in power was bread and circuses. If you can keep the masses happy then you can rule however you want. This works pretty well in the US. Generally everyone is fed and basic needs are met. The one thing there is plenty of in the US is circuses. Loads of media attention is spent on stupid things like the OJ Simpson trial and the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding blowout. We seem to care far more about the small personal issues with the high drama. Remember Elian Gonzalez and the guy who euthanized his vegetative wife. With all these things going on we pretty much ignore the blatant poverty, political corruption, pathetic urban education, and a complete lack of public health care.

In Kenya the government definitely has the bread element down. Any time there is a bad rainy season, truckloads of relief food are immediately sent in. This isn't evenly shared and a lot gets sidelined but nobody goes hungry. These food distributions are often done in conjunction with political rallies so you know where it's coming from. Similarly, every village in the country has a dispensary with a doctor who sees patients for free and proscribes medicine at rock bottom prices. The latest attempt at popular support is FPA- free primary education, where all kids go to primary school for free and each student gets one textbook in each subject. Massively expensive and immensely popular. Because of this program the president is popular despite his lack of a political party or any campaigning. If any of these basic things fails in a village their local MP is punished severely in the elections. On the other hand, Kenya doesn’t really doesn’t have any rock stars or other uber famous people. There are plenty of world class athletes, but most are runners and don’t have particularly ugly or eventful personal lives. The most popular television show is the news, which everyone watches avidly, and there’s not really any movie business. People otherwise famous are only famous for their talent. Nobody cares about a singer’s home life or who he’s having sex with. The only really well known people are the politicians. Newspapers are very popular with people spending hours discussing the various politicians and their viewpoints and performance. Ask any student, elderly person, whoever, about their MP and they will tell you the person’s name, personality, home area, and all the things they have or haven’t done. Ask any American about their congressman and see what kind of response you get.

There are all kinds of reason for corruption but between the press coverage and constant interest by the population it is going down, step by step. The press highlights some scandal and it gets too ugly. Members of parliament are forced to do something about it before they get implicated or accused of negligence. I can’t say that corruption is going down in the US. Partly because there is less corruption to begin with and partly because the corruption is endemic. Lobbying, gerrymandering, hiring retired politicians are simply the way things operate. A bigger reason for US corruption is that people just don’t care, there are too many circuses which you can mentally attend.

Harrambee

When Kenya first became independent the country was a mess. There had just been a civil war with 100,000 dead, the British who had run everything were pulling out, tribalism was rampant, and the country had zero cash. On top of this, Jomo Kenyatta, the new president had made various promises on improving the country and the people had assumed all kinds of good things would happen to them. Needless to say, the government was inundated with demands and requests- food, water, electricity, security, schools, etc. Kenyatta’s response was to start a tradition called Harrambee. I’m told it means “coming together” though I’ve never heard it used and in Swahili we use another word for together (pamoja). Anyway, the idea is that the community will come together and raise the money, labor, etc. and fix their own problems. This is a brilliant solution in that the people ask the gov for a lot less and development becomes a lot more meaningful. With the people invested in a project they really want it to work. When things come in from outside they are often cannibalized (e.g. phone wires cut down and sold) or neglected (water pipes or pumps) but not if you set it up yourself. The idea joined together a number of things Kenyans like- socializing, improving their lives, and food- and went over really well. It soon became the national motto, it's on their flag, and the whole country is filled with harrambee projects of one sort or another. If you want to get married, you hold a harrambee to get the money together. Sending someone abroad- hold a harrambee. There are a whole set of things associated with holding it. Whenever you decide to have one you organize a committee with pres, vice-pres, secretary, etc. and decide how much you’ll raise, what day you’ll hold it, etc. After that a bunch of cards are printed up and passed out to all the committee members. Each member then goes out passing these cards to all their friends and family who are expected to contribute something. If you contribute a lot of money you put you’re name at the top, poor people write at the bottom. I always put my name in the middle (like everyone else) so I don’t appear too wealthy or a cheapskate. As always, social pressure is a big motivator where everybody knows what everybody else put in.

When my school held a harrambee last year it was literally the social event of the year. Preparations started months in advance and included everybody within a 10 mile radius. We had big electric speakers, big name human speakers, an MC, a big tent, and all kinds of entertainment. Each of the local schools contributed dancers (including deaf kids doing Scottish gigs) and our kids also did poems and attempts at drama. It was a whole day deal with preparations beginning in the morning, people hanging out for hours listening to music, and then the entertainment and looong speeches for a couple hours followed by people dancing into the evening, followed by food and a gathering going on latenight. Every way to collect money was shamelessly used. Students went around selling guest ribbons for 500 shillings, and little colored feathers for 50 shillings. For about an hour or so we had a collection where they call out people’s names and they come up and put money in a basket. It’s a completely public affair where the MC calls out how much money each person puts in and everyone cheers. Kenyan cheers are very loud- three claps in unison, each louder than the last while stomping your feet. All in all we raised 130,000 shillings, a massive amount of money in a place where a long day of work is 150 shillings.

Harrambee pervades every aspect of Kenyan society. When my student’s siblings died there was an impromptu harrambee where the whole community comes to the home, cooks a meal, helps dig the graves, and gives money to the family. When there was drought up North the churches would take extra collections to send relief in that direction. Any catastrophe or happy event has a harrambee or at least a monetary collection. As a result virtually all of the schools, churches, dispensaries (local hospitals), etc. are harrambee. It’s one of the most impressive aspects of Kenyan culture. The only comparable thing I know of in the US is the baby shower and to some extent weddings.

Meru: The land of Manly Men and Miraa
I just spent the last week in the town of Meru, the center of the Meru tribe. I heard about this tribe in training. They are known for their machismo, aggressiveness, and the local drug miraa. I was introduced to the area in the matatu ride in. Two people argued quite forcefully about how much they paid and one old codger made comments about me in Meru. I could barely understand him because his mouth was filled with miraa. What little I got was that he was saying I was an idiot and his companions (I think wives) were making jokes about me. The driver and several of the passengers were also chewing miraa. This doesn't bother me but it was surprising coming from Kikuyuland were I have never seen anyone argue heatedly and where hospitality and friendliness are prime virtues.
Miraa is this drug which grows really well in the Meru area. It is a form of speed and is highly sought after in much of the world. The problem is that its power drops rapidly with time. The drug has to be chewed within 2 days. Pickup trucks get loaded down with the drug and head out at breakneck pace for the Nairobi airport. Any fines they get are minor compared to the profit so you almost get run over by these trucks flying by. Quite a few people do get hit by these trucks. The last night some of the volunteers tried the drug. It apparently tastes like really tough grass and must be chewed for hours. There is actually no high and no happy feelings but you can't sleep at all. Not sure why people spend the time, effort, and money on it.
Meru is also the home of some of the most sexist men in Kenya. The street kids will ask for money while touching woman's private parts. The female volunteer stationed there is pretty open about punching kids and adults who try anything. Comments are made there which would shock the generally conservative and polite Kenyans from other areas. It is also unusual culturally in that the men retain custody over the kids. Marriage breakup is pretty common and you suddenly get a guy who has five kids of his own. No man will stoop to do cooking, cleaning or raising kids so they dump the kids on their mother. All in all a bad setup. A kenyan friend of mine is dating a Meru man and she is very wary of him and any situations that may arise.
It is also one of the most violent areas of Kenya. One volunteer found someone shot to death outside his gate a few weeks ago. No one else was bothered. PC rarely sends females due to the mix of sexism and violence in the area. A girl from my group was moved out because of security issues. On the other hand there is a definite need for AIDS training in the area so public health volunteers are routinely sent there.
On the positive side the area is the most beautiful I have seen in Kenya. Rolling mountains dotted with waterfalls and all kinds of forests.

The Most Hated Man in Peace Corps Kenya
Late last year the Peace Corps office tried to get a hold of a volunteer. It turns out he wasn’t at site and no one knew where he was. Peace Corps are essentially surrogate parents and when a PCV goes missing it’s a big deal. In a country like Kenya there’s a pretty decent chance he’s in the hospital or dead. PC Kenya notified the head of PC in DC and many high and low ranking PC staff spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out what happened to this guy. They were about to do an extremely embarassing press release saying a volunteer had gone missing and they knew nothing when the FBI traced an ATM withdrawal to Zanzibar Island. Turns out the guy was on vacation.
The volunteer was using his PC site as a base to travel all over Africa. When you join Peace Corps you are given a special State Department passport. He had used up all the pages in his passport. People at his site barely knew who he was since he was never there. All the staff here were furious. They had spent hours trying to see if a volunteer was still alive and it turns out he had spent his whole tour on vacation. They tried to give him administrative separation (like a dishonorable discharge) but he resigned before the paperwork could go through.
In the past the role of the office was to train us and help us with any problems. Otherwise we are on our own. No longer. PC staff must now keep us under strict surveillance. We must notify them if we leave site for any reason, give two weeks notice and get approval before any vacation time, and our passports are kept at the PC office. Vacation and leave days are counted up to make sure we do not exceed our quota. Needless to say the volunteers hate this. They hate the notifications, the notices, and the general oversight. Many people take more than the allotted vacation so it cuts into vacation time. The staff are not fond of these policies also. Now they must know where each volunteer is at all times. If a volunteer is found elsewhere they get in big trouble. It is also very unKenyan. Kenyans tend to take time off whenever they wish and come back whenever they wish. What does the staff care if we got stuck in route and have to stay another night? The relationship has also changed from a working, friendly rapport to suspicious and skeptical. Many volunteers now lie about where they are going and staff are forced to do checkup calls to verify if the person is truly at site. Several good volunteers have been sent home as a result. My group calls traveling without notification stealth missions while older volunteers call it flying low. I have talked to PCVs who have flown low to America, Amsterdam, and London.
The vast majority of volunteers spend the majority of time at site but it’s also becoming clear with these policies that some volunteers are spending a fair amount of time on vacation.
The end result is unhappy staff, unhappy volunteers, and one guy hated rather strongly by all sides.
So far these policies have yet to affect me as I spend the vast majority of time at site teaching but I will see how the relationship between me and my boss works out.

Sounds of a Deaf School
My training had several deaf trainers and one deaf volunteer. Talking and, especially, eating with them was always a reflective time. Shut your mouth and use your hands. Much of communication was about choosing carefully what you wanted to say and then figuring out how to say that one concept. No small talk. Meals were especially quiet times. With this experience I expected that living in a deaf school would be incredibly quiet and introspective.
I was wrong. I have never, ever been in a place with this many sounds. In cities the vast majority of sounds tend to get blurred out. You know they are there but they become ignorable noise. That is not the case here. When I moved in I thought the kids were being abused. You would hear wailing and screeching and crying. Some of it is kids actually crying but most of it is just expressing your emotions. There might be a kid sitting next to a block of wood banging away with a stick and wailing “Aieee, aieee, aiee…” for hours. Turns out he is just bored. Kids will be walking down the path going “Aroo, aroo, aroo..!” just because they like the feel of the vibration in their mouth. It’s hard to tune out what sounds like intense human suffering, even if you hear it everyday and it really isn’t suffering. If an Event happens the whole place goes bananas. The electricity cuts off, a car drives in, somebody wins a game. It can be anything and the whole place erupts into a chorus of howls which last for a few minutes. Sometimes there really are kids crying but usually not for very long. The staff are all overworked and no other kids can hear it so they get ignored. Most kids cry a little then realize they aren’t such bad shape and they go on with whatever they were doing. On the other hand many kids naturally start making noises when they get excited. Somewhere along the line these howls and wails get suppressed as deaf kids become adults. The adults use a relatively quiet “Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm” when they want to get your attention or are excited. High pitched means really excited or happy.
The second loudest thing are my neighbors. On one side the guy loves his radio. He plays it from 6 to 11 or 12 every night and 5:30 to 8 every morning as well as lunches. The standard fare is blaring Kikuyu pop music though old style slow country is often mixed in. It’s very clear what songs are currently popular because there are only 5 or 6 and they are played ad nauseum (a lot like the US). On the other side there are three or four families. The only ones I really notice are the deaf couple. They also listen to the radio but that is minor. The woman usually uses speech rather than sign language. The problem is she can’t hear herself and can’t form words accurately. The result is someone who speaks 5 times as loud as anybody else but has the annunciation of a cavewoman. She also has a bad temper and tends to bang things when she is upset. It sounds like she is always yelling at her kids. I will here what sounds to me like “Mwangi, mwam, da, mwa ma! Marwa da mwa da!”. Mwangi is the name of her son and I currently know squat for Kikuyu. For some reason I have yet to figure out, I often hear banging at that house at 1 or 2 in the morning. It’s consistent, loud, and lasts for 10 minutes or so. The house is made of corrugated steel so the sound carries to everybody. I thought it was someone locked out trying to be let in but am probably wrong. The first few times I heard it it scared the hell out of me. To wake up with someone banging on what sounds like your door in the middle of the night is not conducive to rest. The main evening entertainment for the kids here is the television in the dining hall. There is one television and it is turned up very loud for those who can partially hear. It is the next building over and I can easily identify what program they are watching by the sounds. This kicks in around 7 every night and ends at bedtime, 9. I am also next to the athletic fields so I can usually hear whatever sport is going on. It is the opposite side of my bedroom so it has yet to bother me.
Another major source of noise is the animals. There is a weaver bird colony right outside my bedroom window. They are especially talkative around 5-7 in the morning. I feel like I could understand them if I knew their language. It seems to consist primarily of high pitched zs and qs. The earliest risers are the roosters who gain full voice around 4:30 though warm ups begin 3:30 or so. There are 3 main sources. The radio guy has one, the deaf couple have a couple, and the school houses around 4 or 5, depending on who’s been eaten lately. When they do their cock a doodle roo they also flap their wings against the cage, making a banging sound, also initially disturbing. When one crows another will answer a second later. I would have thought the roosters ran out of things to say months ago but I guess not. The sound that bothers me the most are the chickens going through my yard. I will be sitting eating lunch and a twig snaps outside. Glance outside and nobody’s there. A couple minutes later another twig snaps on the other side of the house. Is someboy sneaking up on me? No, chickens were scrounging through my yard again. Random rustling of grass with no one visible is pretty disconcerting. Especially as I am in the center of Mungiki territory and murder is a common practice around here. Crops are currently planted so all the chickens are put away for the next few months. Any roaming chicken becomes school property and gets eaten so this sound has disappeared for the next few months. The main nocturnal animal is the bat. They can be heard with metallic pings every couple seconds. These have never bothered me.
The sound which is always present but not always heard is the waterfall. There is a waterfall 4-5 km down the road which, if you listen, can be heard. It is a soothing sound which stays in the background all day but comes to the forefront at night. One day I will make the trek to see what must be a pretty sizable waterfall.
All in all not the introspective place I imagined but definitely interesting. The first month or so I had problems sleeping. The only time with no noise is 11-3:30 which is clearly not sufficient. Every month I have gotten better at ignoring the sounds and barely notice most of them now. It sounds (and is) insensitive but I have gotten pretty good at ignoring the howling kids. I am simply too lazy to check what their issue is and assume they can resolve it on their own.