We spent the early part of this week familiarizing ourselves
with all of Jambo’s projects. At this
point, I’ve gotten to see most of them and had met people involved in all of
them, but I had not visited the Maasai Rescue House. Luis brought all of the volunteers to see the
rescue house and meet with the director, whose wedding I got to attend during
my first days here. This rescue house
was built by the Maasai community with volunteers from different groups. It is for young women who are escaping forced
marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM) and teenage girls who become pregnant
and may be abandoned by their families. Jambo
has helped to build a kitchen for the rescue house and install all of the
wiring for electricity to run to the building, which is the next step.
Currently, there are 26 young women ages 12-18 living in the
house. It is kept neat and tidy. They have a cook to make their meals and have
firewood and other necessities delivered so that the girls can really focus on
their studies and earn scholarships to secondary school and beyond. The director’s hope is that these girls will
become professionals and then return to the community to help others. He
invited us to return to spend time with the girls and talk to them about their
experiences.
We spent a good deal of time there discussing FGM, one of
the darker parts of Maasai culture. It
is explicitly illegal in Kenya, as is forced marriage, but there is little to
no enforcement of these laws. The
director of the home shared with us the strong beliefs this practice is tied to
and the need for education to prevent the practice. I am not going to go into further detail
about this issue, but if you wish to read more, I recommend: http://www.womenaid.org/press/info/fgm/fgm-kenya.htm,
http://womensenews.org/news-fgm-female-genital-mutilation-female-circumcision?gclid=CPCr1NOXlLECFcZV4godhBXWew.
The next day, we had a group meeting, where everyone got a
chance to share the things they have enjoyed thus far and what type of work
they envision for the rest of their time here.
Our group has BIG BIG plans! Ana, who is also a teacher, and I will be
giving a workshop to the Pre-school teachers on some curriculum development
ideas we have. We are going to build swings at the Kimuka school and implement
a system to weigh and measure the children every six months to monitor their
progress. Our group decided to split the
cost of the water tank for the Iyarat school and install it ourselves. We also are going to plant a garden of skuma
(kale), corn, potatoes and tomatoes for the rescue home. This group also
finished the fireplaces in the Kimuka Pre-school kitchen the morning we visited
the rescue home, so they are not afraid to get their hands dirty. I doubt I
will be here to see all of this work get completed, but I will have to have
some of my new friends send me pictures when it is finished.
I highly recommend that if you are going to come to Kenya
and share a living space with 7 other adults, do it with a bunch of Spaniards
and Columbians- they know how to eat! We have been having great meals here, and
I get to wake up with pan con tomate, which I had somehow forgotten how much I
love.
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