Author Archive

In June the field trips ceased for a month.

I stayed firmly in the front of my desk typing and analysing the data we had collected in Sengwerland. We combined our records with at least one text that one of the community workers in Cheranganyi had written before. The Sengwer people had told us so many different stories that it wasn’t easy to find the harmonic narrative between different comments. But we were happy to have an Ogiek, Francis with us, who knew a lot about Sengwer culture, too. So he was able to clarify if there was something unclear to us in the data we were going through. Now I wish I could see the finished calendar but unfortunately I think it’s not going to be finished before I take off.

Other things that kept me busy were contributing to a future guidebook for community workers. Sang, another worker from Ogiek community asked me to write about how multimedia can help the workers and communities. I remembered lessons that I had learnt on an international course about Information Technology for Community Development, ICT4D in short, during my exchange semester in Tanzania. Multimedia is for the very most an information technology, so many of the course’s lessons applied to the context. But I have also seen the lessons being tested in practice while working with Ermis, which is the best lesson one can have.

As big as the various advantages of information technology and multimedia are, they always come together with challenges. One of the biggest is participation and ownership of the community. For example the request to document Sengwer culture came from the community themselves.

I just wondered that if there was a chance, would the people have wanted to film and record their own culture themselves. It often gives a stronger feeling of ownership of the products and independence from outsider expertise during the process. Knowing the technologies can also be a big asset and reason for pride especially for young people. But such participatory documenting activities were of course not planned or budgeted in the activities that I attended. I can only hope that whoever maybe reads the guidebook or will work with Ermis, multimedia and local communities in the future, will have the chance to include the community fully into the practise.

Another big challenge emphasized in the course were technological challenges. But I have to say that they seem to be really crucial only in traditional Tanzania. At least finding good quality equipment or computer literacy in Kenya is not a problem at all. Unfortunately I don’t know how many electronics-dealer is able to take back broken and old equipment and dispose them properly even here. With Ermis it hasn’t been a problem but if some equipment should be left to the communities to use, they might break a lot faster in challenging rural conditions. Let alone how un-ecological the electricity generation in countryside is. Even in our projects we don’t have another chance for electricity generation than diesel generator. Proper waste management and unexpensive renewable energy should be organized by public sector as they have the rescources. But meanwhile it’s unfortunate how much pressure on environment using technology still puts in here, especially when local communities are so dependent on already scarce resources

Apart from office work I travelled one week with a friend of mine who was visiting in Nakuru for the month. I really enjoyed having company for freetime, and even better, we share an interest in urban cultures. We spent a lion’s share of our holiday with exploring the creative and critival movements behind Nairobi’s business centre. It has been great to meet active and creative Kenyans who are taking their own culture in new levels. Some of them like writers and poets are of course part of the well-educated middle-class. But even in slums like Pumwani and Kibera, despite all the challenges of such surroundings, urban sub-culture is alive and independent. Music, theatre and street art are channels for the youth to express their life, dreams and challenges to the outer world in peace. It also brings the youth in slums together in peace when they speak about troubles and joys that are the same for everyone. The young guys and girls have made it all by themselves for themselves, saying that they only want ‘peace, love and politicians to stop stealing from us’. Too pity that they can’t spray this message outside state house as they wished

Soon the break was over and straight away when I had resettled I dashed for a new field trip. COMEG, the East Mau Conservation Group had asked Ermis to train over 30 villagers from all over East Mau to collect data for Participatory Forest Management Plans. The trained enumerators mobilized their fellow villagers for data collection with the help of questionnaries drafted by Ermis. When preparations were through, four workers of ermis visited all the villages to see the progress and bring the data for analysis. I attended the field trips on three days and visited two different areas during the visits.

My main task was filming as usual. This time even the facilitacion was a rather big job, though, because of the size of the areas and number of villages. Every round that I joined we had to visit at least five villages per day covering the distances with pikipikis, the motorbiketaxis. So in the short time that we had to spare for each village every contribution was useful. When the facilitator discussed with enumerators about the work in general, I had the time to see what the villagers had answered to the questionnaries. Many of them had made especially impressive maps but the questionnaries seemed still a bit tricky. So we discussed and clarified what hadn’t opened up and the work could continue

The information we collected and have later on analyzed is quite different from what was handled in e.g. Sengwerland. This time we don’t deal with indigenous knowledge and storytelling but practical information of infrastructures, resources of neighbouring forest and challenges in resource utilisation. The answers vary greatly but especially interesting are those about more or less successful conservation measures started by individual farmers, coping strategies in dry season and thorough suggestions for improving participatory forest management. At the end of the day we are supposed to come up with forest management plan that unites the needs, responsibilities and rights of both public power and localities. Crossing the wide brigde between authorities and localities isn’t easy anywhere, so I can only hope that this information will help in the process.

The volunteer time in Kenya is almost over, in two weeks I will already be flying home. I have to say that some things that I started with, like Giseem and Jump, haven’t continued during my stay. What comes to Giseem there were such challenges on the ground that we couldn’t affect on, unfortunately. (Activities by communities continued with Karima and Giitune and Mukogodo) but the Technical mapping element with MK remains a challenge.

And Jump is still on the progress, it was only stopped for this spring because Grace, our partner in the project, left to continue with her studies some months ago. Neverthless I have gained very special experiences I wouldn’t have had just as a tourist or through many other volunteer programmes. The results and impressive work that the organization is doing is of course reflected to the working culture, which is quite different than what I have experienced before. But I believe I have so learnt something new about coping with new environment, and that’s a good souvenir to take back home.

I apologize shortly for removing all the photos of the communities for a while. We want to make sure that the photos are not used without recognizing who they belong to – the communities. So soon you will be able to enjoy even more sights to forest communities in Kenya, when they just have been identified. Wishing a warm summer up to the north!

- your volunteer Sunna Cherop Muthoni

I barely had the time to wipe the dust of the trip to Uganda from my feet before I headed for my third field trip to Cherangani. Cherangani to north and west from Nakuru is the land of Sengwer people. The Sengwers had made a 3D model some years ago, but the features of the model had not been documented. So me, Francis and two new students who came for an attachment for Ermis travelled to Sengwer people’s cultural centre on sunday the 10th of May. We spent the following week talking with the elders about their traditional learning process, activities of different seasons, features of the model – basically all about Sengwer culture.

It seems to be commonplace that the trips always start with small adventures. We didn’t quite know how far we were travelling so unfortunately we arrived into Kitale, the last bigger town before our destination, a bit late. Charity, who works with the Sengwer, was waiting for us there way too early. She welcomed us with many angry phonecalls before we even reached Kitale, telling us to hurry our matatu to drive faster. She said we were so late that the next matatus had already stopped running and even taxis didn’t like to go to our direction because of bandits on the roads.. Neverthless we challenged the darkness and covered the last distance by at first a taxi packed with nine people, then pikipikis, the motorbike taxis, and finally with our own feet before arriving at sengwers people’s cultural centre long after sunset. But we soon forgot about all the troubles of the journey. The cultural centre was a very nice place with comfortable bomas for sleeping, wonderful views and a whole storage of items that the sengwers used to use when living in the forest.

We had a lot to do for one week, but the first morning started peacefully because so many elders from other parts of the forest were still on the way to the cultural centre.Meanwhile we admired and updated their big map and legend with the ones already present. I was happy to notice that Mzee Laima, who had been in the meeting in Mau, remembered me well and welcomed me the most warmly to Cherangani.

When everybody else arrived, we got to interview alltogether 12 elders including one woman. I had got snapshots to forest people’s cultures before but this was the first time I heard all of it from the beginning to the end. It is amazing how much all the communities I’ve met seem to know just relying on their memory, without practising all the traditions and livelihoods for so many years. The oldest mzee was 101 years old, but it didn’t stop him from walking, participating, and being one of the most resourceful people we talked with. I’m also excited in comparing the Sengwer’s eco-calendar with the the ones of other forest peoples of Kenya. Francis said they are all originally the same people, even the language tells it. So similarities in the cultures are many. But what makes a big difference is local surroundings. The Sengwers knew the appearance of stars, winds and movement of different animals among other things for each month of the year. The knowledge of nature is impressive, and according to Charity nobody had collected their inherited information before us. So it was good to know our work was well worth doing.

I’m sure that the elders appreciated our work together, too. It don’t think it’s common for forest people to gain such dignity and interest for their culture, see young educated world-citizens listening to their stories. At least we could clearly see and hear them smiling, laughing, going with the flow of storytelling. Often when something was difficult to put in words, they almost jumped up from their chairs and brought us all possible cultural items from traps to cloths and coocking utensils to demonstrate. And even better, they often also demonstrated events and and activities such as traditional prayers, grinding millet, even initiation and circumscision. The Sengwers told several times that they don’t take their youth to be cut in hiding, no! Their youth had to show their bravery in front of the whole community. I, once again behind the camera, really enjoyed filming on those moments.

Even after finishing days work we either watched Sengwer dance group from a video or sang and danced ourselves around the big map. The dances and songs reminded me of the ones we enjoyed after the meeting in Mau. I felt it really brought the group together. The people made sure that I would feel myself especially welcomed by giving me a Sengwer name. I was called Cherop Kapoon, which means directly “Rain Frog”. Rain was given to me because they said it never rained before we arrived. But when we came it raind indeed heavily for the whole week. Kapoon, the frog, is my totem animal. The reason to choose this particular animal didn’t become completely clear for me, though, but at least I heard it’s very humble and never argues with other clans. Whenever it sinks, it always rises up to the surface.

Apart from filming and enjoying the culture, I also felt the need to pay special attention to women’s indigenous knowledge, especially when I know that usually nobody else does. Difficulty is being objective, of course, and respecting the communities. If we want to record their culture as they see it, there’s no space for me to come and complain about something that is not right on my own opinion. But if, on the other hand, we don’t say anything, women will always be a silent minority listening to men’s stories of men’s culture. I just can’t believe that only men have special knowledge, especially when nobody ever seems to ask women. So I talked to the only mama present and got a glance to the less romantic part of the culture. But I also realized that there is indeed something that the mama knew and bwanas didn’t. We had so many stories of good and bad omens, hunting and circumscision – things dealing with mens life. But what mama told, for example, was that women are usually better medicinal healers than men, maybe because they’re present from pregnancy to birth, seeing children grow up to the adulthood. When the calendar is finished, we’ll see how much these issues were handled and talked about.

Otherwise it was very nice to have some company from Ndolo, Gilbert and Francis for the evenings. In the end I have spent so little time here with other young people, that I really enjoyed hearing something of kenyan student life. So I have really enjoyed all the field trips I have made and I’m looking forward to editing, seeing what kind of results my filming experience has brought.

Ever since march I have not needed to sit down in the office for long. It feels that every other week, just a few days before the weekend starts, I’m told to pack up and take off for another field trip – But no complaints! They have really been the most interesting part of the work.

When the Batwa had learnt all about participatory mapping from Kenyan communities, they wanted to have a 3D model for themselves, too. So on 26th of April me, Julius and Peter from Ermis travelled to Kisoro with 5 mapping experts from different universities in Kenya and Uganda. The trip itself wasn’t very long but the journey to the destination made it quite exhausting.

We traveled to Kampala through the night and thanks to extremely bumpy road and long-lasting bureucracy on the border I hardly got an hour of sleep. Right next morning we caught a very slow, fully packed and hot bus which drove to Kisoro for 12 hours. At least we reached the final leg just before the dark and were able to admire wonderful sights of mountains and valleys through the windows. I tried to concentrate on the horizon also because underneath the window there was nothing to see – just a rather scary emptiness above the bottom of steep valleys, whose slopes we were slowly climbing upwards. Well, the bus really was so packed that the pressure of other people around me worked cefrtainly just as fine as a safety belt. So I didn’t mind about steep turnings and other cars almost scratching our bus when passing by, just enjoyed the landscape.

At our destination we spent three days planning the future map of the Batwa. I was pleased to see that the whole meeting proceeded much more efficiently than the one in Mau, mainly because the facilitators were academics this time. But it certainly didn’t mean that the six Batwa representatives would have only sat listening with their mouths opened, having no idea about spatial jargon. Frankly speaking the english conversation between the academics accelerated once in a while, especially when discussing about the area to be mapped and stakeholders to involve in the process. Mapping specialists had designed some draft schemes to suggest different combinations of possible areas. But when the process was not explained to others, it looked like someone had already desided the area without asking from the Batwa at all. Discussion heated, in english, until Anges of the Batwa stood up and interrupted: I’m not sure what you were talking about but we do know where our communities live and what areas we want to include, so will you listen?

And this was not the only time. The Batwa really took care that from the beginning to the end the plan came out to be what they themselves wanted to. Thus during the meeting the specialists really had to explain even technical details for them, and to start thinking about the regions the way that the Batwa understand it. I’m quite sure that after this meeting and especially when the whole process will be through, the Batwa will be even more empowered.

One of the days of the meeting we made a field trip to a Batwa village, too. The destination was aggreed on a spot where all the three remaining forest reservs on the area: Bwindi, Mgahinga and Echuya, could be seen. The nearest to us, Echuya, is nowadays gazetted as a mountain gorilla reserve. Gorilla trip costs $500 per person at least for foreigners. I wouldn’t have believed how much money the reserve is making based on the looks of the village and Batwa’s situation. The richest hotels must be somewhere out of the sight of normal people. After the three remaining forests were finally gazetted, the Batwa have had no land of their own until just recently when some individuals and NGOs have started to buy land for them. So Batwa have basically had to work as slaves and squatters on other people’s grounds. And as they come from the forest, they have been regarded as some sort of sub-humen by other majority communities around. No wonder why the Batwa even asked the Ogieks in Mau, what excatly is your problem here, at least you have a land of your own. But, like said, I wouldn’t have been able to tell their oppressed situation based on the ways of the Batwa I met.

The community which we saw was quite much like any other rural village around here, apart from the surroundings and much smaller huts than usual. But even the Batwa themselves were rather small people. And the surroundings, well, like I mentioned it was just magnificient! All the people in the small community gathered together to meet us visitors, and we were introduced properly to each other through the chairman. They were sorry not to have even tee to offer to us, but I bet nobody didn’t mind because they danced and sang as welcome instead!

I saw local kenyan dances at the end of the meeting in Mau, mostly by Ogieks and Yaakus. Francis said the dancing was close to Maasai style and the singing, in turn, reminded me of joikus buy the sámi people back home. But the Batwas, they were special. Some women had high, some low voices, singing together in such a harmony as if they had been trained for a choir. Yaakus and Ogieks danced in a queue or circle going around the room, whereas the Batwa circle didn’t move anywhere but stood facing the centre where a few probably most talented dancers made such moves I had never seen before.

After the wondwerful welcoming ceremony we chatted with the elders and started encouraging them to remember the old times. Chris said he found a man who had actually been born in the forest. Even a bit younger elders convinced that they knew for example the sources of main rivers coming out of the forests, different types of trees growing in different parts of the forest, and many other features. The only problem was, they said, that they would need to access the forest again to remember completely. Nowadays the forests are more or less closed from anything else than wildlife, but hopefully the batwa will be allowed to visit their anchestral lands again for this purpose.

Otherwise it was very nice to meet other advaced people of the same field opf studies and relax in a nice company after the days meeting. On the last day, when the most of the people traveled back to Kisoro by car, me and Peter stayed waiting for the night bus in Kisoro, spending the day in a local market. The market was indeed a big event with all kinds of vegetable, hand-made and second hand clothes, mattresses, whatever you can imagine. And once again I was happy to notice how relaxed I was able to feel even when walking all alone aside kiosks and salespots wihtout any harrasment or bothering! If all the Uganda is as beautiful and people so kind, I really want to return there some day.

The next night passed once again without an hour of sleep in just as packed and loud bus as the one with which we arrived. We really tried to continue to Nakuru straight away but ended up spending the day in rainy Kampala, and finally arriving to Nakuru late the following night, tired but satisfied after the exciting journey.

Meanwhile, the other projects are supposedly still waiting for the bureaucracy to be finished. Frankly speaking I haven’t really hurried the work forward either, but instead used the chance to travel first to northern Tanzania to see my old studying friends. By the time of my departure the rains had finally started, making everybody in Nakuru so happy about the decrease of dust and severe drought all around the country. Of course I never thought about the effect of rains on travelling. The bus from Kampala to Tanzania, which I was supposed to take, never made it to Nakuru through muddy roads. Thus I ended up spending the first night of my trip at bus station’s waiting room with extremely loud bongo music video blasting all night long,.. I did make my way to Tanzania eventually, and enjoyed so much just talking with the dear people I have missed! On my way back in another bus company office in Nairobi a watchwoman I had never seen before asked me, why am I always travelling alone. Stumbling in my words when trying to reply, I really felt it was the time for me to have gone and see friends, even across the border.

After returning from Mau the long Easter was just behind the corner. I rested one day Nakuru and travelled for the rest of my time to lake Naivasha, which Grace had told me so much about. And it was even more beautiful as I expected! Place where I stayed was absolutely unafrican, but I allowed myself a little rest from being in the centre of attention. After all, they had a sauna and such good music in the most atmospheric restaurant I’ve heard once in a blue moon in here. The next day I made my way to crescent island game sanctuary. Not so much for the animals but for the absolutely beautiful scenery over the lake, and a bit more natural experience of walking all by myself around the old crater.

My final and wonderful experience was from a weekend in Nairobi. As dear friend as my small radio is to me, it is only a small radio. Also my chinese-made fake nokia from Tanzania is starting to ask for retirement, so I needed to go and find more decent medium for music and communication from the Big City. In addition Kwani Trust, a group of concerned Kenyan Writers, invited a couple of young talented writers to read their short stories aloud for anybody interested to come and listen to them on the very same weekend. And I went, and loved it!

Nakuru is not really a place for culture so in Nairobi I really enjoyed myself! Funny enough I’ve always felt art exhibitions or theatre a bit distant in Finland, but here I’m very excited about seeing them. At least it’s something very different, new and interesting from anything before. And when listening to Kingwa Kamencu, Kaume Marambii and Monica Arac Nyeko from Uganda reading short stories in a very warm and close athmosphere with maybe only ten other participants, I absolutely went with the flow and reflected the stories. I feel that especially Kenyan literature is such a way of connecting with people as they are behind their origins, that I really like reading and knowing more about it. It’s also such a side of Kenya which people outside don’t often think about so I want to change that idea, too.