Oi Aidinha Louca!
Olha so que experiencia mais linda. Serena, pesquisadora italiana - que
conheci aqui no McLuhan Program - resolveu ir para a Africa em uma missao
de uma ong norte-americana!
Cansada re "receber", decidiu-se por "compartilhar"!
Parabens, Serena!
Siga em frente! Que Deus lhe abencoe e nos de coragem, de lhe imitar!
FORTALEZA & DETERMINACAO, AMIGA!
Filomena Bomfim
P.S.: Sugestao para o titulo: ...E de gente assim que o mundo precisa!
--------------------------- Mensagem Original ----------------------------
Assunto: Nairobi...take some time to read me
De: "serena"
Data: Qui, Abril 19, 2007 3:39 am
Para:
Ciao everybody,
a little tiny preamble is needed for the once that
don’t know where I am. I hope you will accept my
apologies for not writing you before, but you
know…it’s always the same story of being sucked into
everyday life.
Habari? (how are you?)
Mambo? (What’s up?)
Kiswahili is a fun language even if I don’t understand much of it…yet!
Unfortunately, I am getting very much stressed for the English that
people speak here. The accent is very disturbing and it’s already
contaminating mine :( There are many
things I would
like to share
with you but I
really don’t
know where to
start from…
OK, let’s start from the children…
oh yep… Africa for me is about children.
Not a big surprise considering that the project I am working on is for
kids.
Let’s also say that it’s an honor to be part of it and that the people
I am working with are amazing, only other two Italians and all the rest
are locals. The project is massive and involves different sponsors and
supports only in Kenya more or less 4000 children, together with other
7000 in Uganda and I don’t remember how many in Rwanda . It’s manly
focused on providing them access to education, but also, depending on
each specific case, health and nutritional assistance together with
psychosocial support. Parts of the children are sponsored by USAID fund
but all the rest are sponsored from Italian families.
As part of the project they already built tree schools and they are on
the process for the fourth one. Twice a week I usually go to one of
them named Little Prince, made for the kids of the slam. Its fun to see
these kids with their dirty uniforms playing on a clean ground and
attending proper classes, when you know that they were born and still
live in a slam, where houses are made of mud and iron plaits, with no
electricity, no bathrooms and no water.
You should see the nursery once; they are so much fun, very friendly,
curious and happy to have me there. You should to see their faces when I
arrive, they jump from their chairs and they want to touch me, and play.
They are not that used to have msungu (white people) around, so I am
quite an event for them.
What about Kenya.
It’s surreal and ordinary…sweet and harsh…calm and chaotic…amazing and
horrifying at once!
So, it’s a place of sharp contrasts for sure.
It feels familiar as well as unusual, so it makes me feel at home and
at the same time as a complete stranger.
Whatever the city offers is mostly divided between where locals go and
where msungu and Indians go. Of course the difference is usually made
from the money that they have in their pockets, en fact the places
where you usually find a lot of msungu is in the malls and restaurants.
Food is good, lobsters are amazingly good and also cheap. Alex…I have
been to the carnivore, it was unique and fun, but very touristy and
also after a bit all that meet and its smell was too much, but the
ostrich was the best!!
There are no street signs, so there is no much choice, either you know
your way or most probably you will get lost!! Moreover there are not
public transports but only these funny crazy minivans, named matatu.
They run like crazy all over the place and of course they carry more
people they should. You can easily see that most of them have crashed
many times and I can definitely say that they are much crazier than
Neapolitan drivers!
Anyhow, when I get out of my office is the time that light starts going
away, the street gets invaded from this massive amount of people, all
walking, slowly and with a unique elegance. The light keeps on changing,
it becomes darker but at the same time more and more yellow. Even if I
see it everyday it’s still impressing.
Kenya is also
about
outstanding
natural
settings, like
Navasha Lake
and Amboseli
Park. There
are thousands
of different
kinds of birds
and trees are
simply
majestic.
How lovely is to wake up looking at Kilimanjaro. The sun wakes up from
the opposite side of the big mountain, it goes up very quickly with
extremely intense red shades. At the end of the day instead a lot of
animals, especially elephants, zebras and wild beasts, move all together
into one direction to go to sleep, it’s an extraordinary scenery. We saw
a lot of lionesses too and they look surprisingly peaceful. Giraffes
instead have such elegant moves, and also the elephants despite their
size seem to dance.
Country clubs are also very sweet, especially the once
in English colony style. They look like paradise on
hearth, tropical plants and flowers, swimming pools,
and all you can desire.
This week I am attending the UN-Habitat Governing Council, its very much
fun to be within the UN global crowd once again. Although, being
surrounded from all the delegates and representatives and listen to the
usual UN style speeches is making me miss NYc a lot.
Last week instead, on the 30th of March, I accompanied
Evans, one of the social workers that work for us, in
the home visits that he usually gives to the families of
the kids that we sponsor. We spent five hours walking
within Kibera (the biggest slam in Africa , more or
less 800.000 people) from a house to another and we
also visited two schools. It’s very hard to describe
what I have seen, I guess because it was so much
unfamiliar and surreal to me, and also so upsetting. I
have seen poverty and misery on TV many times, but of
course it’s not comparable.
Anyway, I don’t really feel like going into details right now, lets just
say that if before I thought that people that I am working with and all
those ones that are dedicating their lives to help these people were
doing an honorable job, now I believe they are giving so much more. They
are offering a hope not only to the kids but also to their families.
Hope in a better future to all these orphans that have nothing to dream
about and first of all nothing in their plaits. Hope for the parents
that are sick, usually HIV, or simply live in misery and ignorance, and
have nothing to offer to their children. Of course, my intention is not
to ruin your day with all this misery, but only to share with you what
my eyes have been seeing in the last couple of weeks.
What more…
… weather has been lovely so far. A couple of days ago instead the
first rain arrived, which mostly means that electricity goes off quite
easily and I find myself back at medieval time reading with a candle
and adjusting my daily schedule to the natural light. Also, I really
would like to meet the person that bought an electric kitchen, just to
tell him/her…you are a looser!!
I am staying in a lovely house, full of comforts, private bathroom, big
garden, ecc. the only little shame is that we are not that central, but
I have a sweet red Suzuki to move around and I am very close to a
beautiful exotic park with swimming pools :)
Of course people are the thing
that amazes me at most.
Even if they are so diverse from me, they communicate me a very nice
and comfortable feeling. It’s tricky, even if in Nairobi they are kind
of used to msungu, I always find people looking and staring at me,
especially the kids that of course are more spontaneous.
Kenyans seem very elegant, friendly and respectful people. There are so
many tribes and each of them has got different peculiarities and customs
and of course different languages. They are very much prude people,
respectful of others space and they would never kiss in public. I
cannot even show my belly here. But if you see them dancing is another
story, they move and dance like they are having sex. I am not
exaggerating, local music sounds are quite soft and slow, and bring them
into these sensual and erotic couple fore playing-dancing.
Anyway, I lack my freedom here. The city is ok but still dangerous,
especially for a white girl. I have always to be careful, I cannot go
there and there, I cannot go around on my own at night. I feel I am
missing a part of myself that I really love.
So let me scream it …………….I miss my freedom.
But I gotta also say that I am discovering a lot of new things, a new
part of myself too and at the end I am very glad to be here.
I am not using my Italian number
but you can reach me at 00254 / 728 592 75.
I usually receives sms, except from the American cells, apparently
American companies allow their customers to receive info from Africa
but replies are no permitted. And you can also find me on MSN as
seregnaa@hotmail.com and on skype as seregnaa.
You will find some pics attached or in the next
email. Africa powerful connection didn’t allow me
to download them on flickr.com/, and also I had to
compress them and reduce the quality, but still they
can give an idea of what I am talking about.
Hope life is treating you well.
Send you a lot of love and busu
Serena
No comments:
Post a Comment