Either side of the digital divide

As I continue with my week of living in the past, here is a great article about the future.

It comes compliments of Fortune Magazine, via Kristen Andresen of the Bangor Daily News...

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/08/06/100141340/

What do you think of it all?

S

Living in the past

A friend has asked me to live for a week as though it were 1978 in Nairobi.

That means living on the quiet side of the great Digital Divide... no cell phone. No e-mail. No iPod. No Facebook. No Skype.

He says I have to hire someone to transcribe my writing for work or buy a typewriter. A typewriter!!

I am going to do one little cheat, though. I'm going to keep using my digital camera.

Because my one concern is you, dear blog reader. What will happen if I stop posting regularly? Will your over-taxed technology eyes get pulled away?

I'm hoping to tempt you back here with the possibility of contraband photos.

I am writing this post on Tuesday, and setting it up to go live later this week. I'll pre-compose another post for early next week, then I'm asking you to check back in the middle of next week to see how the experiment went.

I'll post my contraband and some thoughts.

But I'm thinking the task might not be as hard as it sounds. Most of the people in Nairobi are still living like people did 30 years ago (except everyone has a cell phone).

I'm thinking, when it's my friend's turn to live as though it were 1970s North America, he'll have a harder time adjusting.

And he'll be the one wearing bell-bottoms and a sparkly t-shirt.

8 Months goes multimedia

Download 1_min_dawn_eqd.mp3

A soundscape of dawn over Lake Victoria. 

Can you hear the fishermen in the canoe?

I'm currently limited to 60 second mp3s, but am hoping to post more soon.

If anybody has suggestions for how I can get rid of the hissy dither, I'd be glad to hear them.

8 Months goes interactive

It's called post

Write a letter...               Put it in the mail...

(this is Ian in Vancouver, btw)

*an object moves through space and time*

It is delivered...              And received...

(this is George, my favorite Kenyan)

It's called post. Do it.

If you document it, we'll post your posting in a post.

I'll send you post in return.

From the keyboards of Kenyans...

Well, one Kenyan at least.

In the spirit of inter-cultural education, I'm posting her comments on some recent blog posts.

This is Juliana Omale, one of my bosses at AWC.

Hey Sara,

I have thoroughly enjoyed your observations from October 4th and back to September 12th (which tells you the last time I read!!) The matatu piece is rib-tickling but also thought provoking. Actually the logos and designs are responsible for a whole informal sector industry in graphics and auto body-work (keeps a lot of people busy and they earn some money for their labours).



In Nairobi and a lot of other places, getting your matatu to fill up especially in the off-peak time depends on the age of the vehicle, its livery and the attitude of the crew. There are a lot of angry parents of teenage girls who run off with matatu touts and drivers (many to a sad end once the romance peels off and its time for reality checks) and the matatu sub-culture among young people cannot be ignored. I like to think of it as Expression on wheels.

Your observation about food is very deep. When I was little, my parents never stopped reminding us about people going hungry in our rural villages (those were remote far flung regions in those days). My mother used to recount to us a time in her life after her father died when all they got was a boiled potato, sometimes cut into half dipped in salt and a big measure of water to wash it down.

These days I tell my own kids that the hungry live not too far away from us. Perhaps next door or amongst their classmates. I had friend (now deceased) who would shed tears when her daughter and twin sons pushed back their half eaten meals.

She would stop what she was doing to sit herself in their faces and shovel the food into their mouths until their plates were wiped clean or if they began to gag from being to full and crying, she would let them off with a reprimand and proceed to finish off every last morsel on the three plates.

I used to joke with her that mothers were the ultimate scavengers, eating cold food off their kids� plates all the time. My kids couldn�t understand Wacuka but they learned quickly that when we visited Auntie Wacuka , it was best to ask to be served a measure that could be finished. NO WASTING FOOD.

In your blog about the little boy at the Coptic, it is true that Coptic is relatively cheaper than most private hospitals. Actually it can be classified as a mission hospital (affiliated to religious organizations � in this case the Egyptian Coptic Church, I believe) � which tend to offer quality service at a highly subsidized rate. Kenyatta National Hospital is a public facility � the largest teaching and referral hospital in East and Central Africa.

Health care is cheap and the benefit to patients is that they are attended to by Kenya�s finest doctors and health care personnel. The only trouble is that the public health system is understaffed, health workers overworked and the queues are at best impossible.

Yet many Kenyans cannot access quality healthcare even in the public health infrastructure. On paper it is free, but they are required to pay Ksh 20/- for registration, laboratory charges, X-rays and other diagnostic services It is not uncommon to receive a prescription for which one must pay. Its no wonder that the poor will continue to die from preventable illnesses, and the burden of disease continues to rise.

Best, Juliana

Of food, funds and footwear

I was pulling the meat off the chicken when Agnes stopped me.

�You are throwing away food in a poor country?�

She was helping me make lunch for the office happy hour on Friday.

I�d made a big pot of chicken stock out of a couple of chickens, handfuls of red onion peels and other vegetable ends. The stock was the base for my latest recipe: pumpkin, chicken, collards and groundnut stew.

When I looked up from the chicken, Agnes had one corner of her mouth upturned and the opposite eyebrow raised.

She was teasing. Kind of.

�I know Kenyans love bones,� I said. �But everyone is expecting a North American meal from me, and most people in North America only like bones in barbeque ribs and T-bone steaks.�

My turn to tease, but Agnes and I both knew we were talking around a real question.

|We talked about how bones aren't considered food back home. We debated over the stock too, after I left the cloudy dregs in the bottom of the pot.

�But that�s the best part,� Agnes said.

I talked jokingly about the French ideal of perfectly clear, golden stock. She shook her head.

�Here, we like thick soup. You have to scoop the marrow out of the bones and mix it in that broth to make it right.�

We compromised. I left the bones in the soup, but kept the broth clear.

Doing the dishes after lunch, I saw George and Alex had both picked the chicken bones clean, but left the collards and half-bowls of stock behind.
_______________

�Sister, sister, please. Give me something.�

The boy�s hand is about four inches from my face. He�s stroking his open palm like he�s wiping away a persistent crumb.

�Uhn uhn,� I say.

We are walking down the road outside Yaya Center: ex-pat central. As with so many Kenyan kids, I can�t guess how old this boy is. The top of his head is about even with my shoulder.

�I�m hungry. Please. Give me some money for food.�

�You can keep asking,� I say. �But I�m not going to change my mind.�

The boy�s been walking along beside me for about a block. I�ve got my arms crossed and my head down. I can�t quite bring myself to look at him.

�Mama, sister. Please. Buy me something to eat.�

I�ve made a rule that I won�t give money to kids who are begging on the street. It�s not based on any clear philosophy, except that I�ve heard about swarms of kids who appear when you hand one child a few shillings. I have a hard enough time saying no to one kid, let alone a crowd of them.

My rule is, I suppose, some kind of psychological fall back position.

I think the boy can tell I'm uncomfortable. He's getting more insistent.

�Why not? Please. I am hungry.�

�No,� I say.

I keep right on moving as he stops and watches me walk away.

Behind my back, I hear him say, quietly, �Fuck you.�
____________

Heavy-headed and sullen, the small boy looked as bad as I felt. He was crouched on the ground outside the Coptic Hospital�s pharmacy, his head resting on the old wooden bench where his mother and I were sitting.

Guessing by the envelope that read �Chest X-Ray�, the boy had just been diagnosed with some kind of lung infection. I�d just found out that I had typhoid and bronchitis. 

I empathized with his drooping eyelids and generally lethargic air.

Coptic Hospital is a good, church-run medical center in Nairobi. For general care, the service is fast and decent and not as expensive as Kenya National or Nairobi Hospital.

Patients at Coptic have to pay for every service in advance. That means four or five trips to the cashier�s desk. For me, that meant, $7 US to start a file, $4 to see the doctor, $7 for a blood test, $18 for antibiotics, expectorant and Ibuprofen.

I had made my final payment and was waiting for the chemist to assemble my drugs.

Just as she started talking to me, I noticed the woman beside me was still holding the bill for her son�s medicine, not a cashier�s receipt.

�I am defeated,� she said. �They want 1100 shillings. I only have 600. �

She dropped her hand with the receipt into her lap. Her other hand held a red cloth change purse. It was conspicuously flat.

I looked at the x-ray envelope again and wondered about the price of the test.

I took a closer look at the mother and son. She was wearing a decent second-hand dress and his pants and t-shirt weren�t too worn. But it�s the shoes that give people away. Her sandal soles were worn thin in the heal. The vinyl around the buckles was deeply cracked and looked about to snap. The boy was wearing plastic flip-flops, the universal indicator of poverty here.

In Kenya, plastic flip-flops are solely for bathroom use. You only wear them in public if you can�t afford anything else.

Another Kenyan woman sitting farther down the bench talked to the sandal-wearer in Kiswahili. After a short exchange, the mother left her boy sleeping on the bench and walked over to talk with the chemist.

I turned to the woman farther down the bench. �She needs 500 bob, huh?�

The woman nodded. She was wearing black leather high heels with buckles over the pointed toes. The toddler in her arms was wearing a frilly pink dress to match her pint-sized Mary Janes.

�I told her to ask if they have any cheaper medicine,� she said. �She wants to see if she can buy five days� worth of drugs and then come back and buy the rest.�

�Oh that�s no good,� I said.

Once the boy�s symptoms start to abate, I was thinking, she won�t come back... not with the cost of the rest of the drugs, plus the expense of time and money to come down to the hospital from Kibera or Eastleigh.

I was shaking my head. So was the woman farther down the bench.  Skipping the full course of antibiotics, the boy's infection might return in a couple of weeks. Also, over-use and misuse of pharmaceuticals is helping all sorts of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

�So, if she can�t manage, do you want to split the difference?� I ask. �Each of us pay 250?�

�Let�s hear what the chemist says.�

The boy�s mother came back to the bench empty-handed.

The woman in heels and I dug through our bags and handed over bills. The boy�s mother didn�t quite look me in the eye when she said, �Asante sana, sana. God bless you.�

The boy was still sleeping, head on the bench as I left.

It�s only when I got home that it occurred to me, once his symptoms abate, she might just sell the rest of the medication to some other mother with a sick kid and use the money to buy them new shoes, or food.

_____________

The Rift Valley, Kericho and Nandi Hills are the primary agricultural zones in Kenya.

The green terraced hillsides and maize-covered fields produce a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables for sale across the country, as well as tea and coffee for export.

When we stop in a small village on our way to Kisumu, women crowd the car. I can smell the sweet, ripe fruit that they are shoving in the windows.

My colleagues are negotiating prices. They get one woman down to a little under 75 cents US for a perfect, yellow pineapple. People here have food, but not cash.

In the colder climate of the Rift Valley, the roadside goods are potatoes, carrots and peas.  I buy a bushel of fresh peas for about $2 US.

That evening, the peas are in a big pile beside me in the front courtyard at home. I�m sitting on an overturned bucket, slowly working my way through the pods.

�You look like a girl from a village,� saysJoy, my landlady.

She is teasing. Kind of.

Joy's daughter Ruby is my roomate, a 28-year-old lawyer with a shoe fetish.

Ruby�s shoes are scattered around this courtyard: there are open-toed pumps with flowers by the gate, ruched black ankle boots and pink mules near the door, old-school Converse high tops and black Vans on top of the cistern.

There are more shoes inside. More than 25 pairs are arranged on a shoe stand at the bottom of the stairs: zippered, buckled, pointy-toed and round; bright green, orange, pink, white, silver, black, gold; Mary Janes, kitten-heels, sequined stilletos, flats, sling-backs, beaded sandals.

I have never peaked in Ruby�s bedroom, but I bet there are more shoes in there.

�I will help you with some of these,� Joy says. She reaches down to grab a handful of  peas. �I cook sometimes at the house. For fun.�

�I hate to cook,� Ruby says, walking away.

She has told me that she also hates cleaning. And doing laundry. Her mother sends a house girl over ever Saturday to clean the house and wash Ruby�s clothes.

As we shell, I am watching a bucket slowly fill with water for my washing, which I will do by hand.

I am happy to pick peas and wash clothes, but as Joy stands over me on my bucket-perch, I�m thinking about cultural differences and wondering if she is judging me. I say, �Cooking is relaxing for me. I love to cook for my friends.�

I also acknowledge that I might not like it so much if I had to do it, if I never had the option of paying someone to scrub my dirty clothes or cook for me.

Joy helps me shell peas for a while, but I only get through three-quarters of the bushel that night. They go into another new recipe: fresh pea soup with cumin.

A few days later, when I�m looking for the soup, I see the remaining three pounds of unshelled peas in the fridge. I know I�m not going to get around to using them.

I pull them out and for about two minutes, I stand in the middle of the kitchen, wondering what to do.

I remember when I was a kid, people saying, "Finish your supper. Don't you know that people are starving in Ethiopia?" It never made sense to me. How was eating every soggy carrot on my plate going to help anyone in Ethiopia?

But here, left-overs do make a difference. I know that just a 30 minute walk from here, kids in Kibera are digging through garbage piles, looking for dinner.

In my memory, I hear Agnes ask me, �You are throwing away food in a poor country?�

I tie up the bag and toss the peas in my backpack. I don't know who I'm going to give them to, but I am sure that someone close by can use them.

Kenyan Journalism 101

The reporter puts his hand up in a gesture that is half �what are you going to do?� and half �see how obvious my point is?�

�If I write a story that�s critical of Raila, I�m in trouble here,� he says. The 28 correspondents in this conference room chuckle and nod in agreement. �The day the story is in the paper, I can�t sleep in my house.�

I am in Kisumu today, helping to give a workshop today on gender sensitive reporting and human rights. Raila, the chief challenger for the Kenyan presidency, is also in town today. He�s from this part of Kenya, bordered by Lake Victoria.

Although I�m in the midst of giving an hour-long session on human rights and essential journalism skills, I�m really getting a crash course in journalism in rural Kenya. Another correspondent chimes in.

�Raila was in my village a few weeks ago. After the rally, once the procession had started, a bunch of youths stoned his car. Most people weren�t around the car, but I had pictures to prove it. I wrote a story about it that was on the cover of The Nation next day.�

The Nation is one of the two major daily newspapers in Kenya.

�For many days, people were coming up to me, hassling me �Hey, bwana, what are you writing this for?� It�s only because I have a good reputation for telling the truth in my stories that they didn�t beat me.�

This, I tell the group, is my point. By being ethical, fair and balanced in their strories, their readers and listeners will begin to trust what they report.

But the media here in Kenya, despite being more free and fair than the press in many African countries, is still rife with bias. Poverty plays a big part in it.

Most of these correspondents make about 15000 Kenyan shillings a month, according to Oloo Janak, chair of the Kenyan Correspondents Association. That�s about $250 dollars USD: much more than most Kenyans make, but still very little money on which to support a family.

Despite generating 70 percent of the content for the various media houses, correspondents are paid very little. And they are paid by the story. That means, by spending the day here, instead of covering Raila�s visit, they are giving up a chance to make significant money.

Nikki at Journalists for Human Rights told me that most reporters in Africa make most of their money by being paid to attend press conferences. Janak says that doesn�t happen much in Kenya. But across Lake Victoria in Uganda, he says reporters often negotiate the price of press conference attendance and favorable coverage before they leave the office.

Here in Kenya, Janak says, it�s more a case of �the brown envelope.� Many reporters take money from politicians and other wealthy interests, for writing stories that are neither fair nor balanced.

�Kenyans are smart, no?� I say. �People here pay attention to the news; people talk about politics. They know, just like you know when you read the paper, if a reporter is telling you the whole story of not.�

We talk about bias in reporting, how it can creep into what stories we choose to cover, who we decide to interview, how we interview them, and then into the language we use in our stories, columns and scripts.

As we talk, the correspondent are adding examples and suggestions, but they really get excited when I say, �Look, I don�t believe that anyone is objective.�

They all laugh.

�What should you do, say, if your aunt is running for a civic seat in your town?�

�I assign someone else to cover the story,� says one good student.

�Yeah, I assign it to another reporter,� someone else says, �and then I tell him how to write it.�

Everyone laughs again.

Despite the humor and understanding today, as we talk about the essential journalism skills that underpin fair reporting, I know that there are some of these reporters who will accept bribes to write stories with particular slants.

The bribe might not always be as overt as Janak�s �brown envelope�. The reality is, if John is trying to support a family on less than 15000 shillings a month, he can�t afford to pay for his own transportation to interview a political candidate. So he will let the candidate�s driver pick him up and drop him off.

If a business man wants to buy him lunch while they talk about why tea pickers aren�t really all that underpaid, the reporter will listen. As he�s sitting at his desk, putting the story together, he is likely to remember that his full belly is thanks to that business man.

If John chooses to interview someone who says it�s not fair to paying people less than two dollars a day to pick tea for a multinational corporation with a bulging profit margin, the reporter knows that the business man is not likely to take him out for lunch again. He might send thugs to the man�s home. At the very least, the business man will not grant the reporter�s next interview request. And that may mean one less story for the reporter to sell to Nairobi, one less meal on the table.

�But media houses have their own agendas, too,� one correspondent says. �There�s no point in writing a story that goes against their editorial policy.�

Here, not getting your story on the front page doesn�t just mean lower status in the newsroom, it means not eating dinner or not paying your child�s school fees. And if your story is seriously critical, it might mean not making it home for dinner, or not making it home at all. Ever.

It�s not just rural reporters who are threatened with violence.

�You see, in some Nairobi newsrooms, all the computers are networked,� my colleague Arthur tells me. �That means other reporters and editors can sit at their desks and watch as you write your story. They can be deleting as you write. And if they really don�t like what you are writing, or if they are close to a politician, they can just call him and say �Hey, so-and-so is writing a bad story about you and the intro goes like this�� Next thing you know, you have thugs on the phone or at the door, saying you had better change your story, or else.�

I have had people call me to complain about stories. I�ve had people send messages to my boss, complaining about how I covered an issue. But I�ve never been physically threatened.

I don�t have an easy answer for these correspondents. Do what you can. Write as close to the edge as you dare. Be accurate and fair in your reporting. Hope that your reputation will protect you. Hope that as the Kenyan press becomes gradually more free, threats and violence against journalists will become less common.

Because journalists everywhere do have an intimate relationship with human rights. The rights to freedom of expression and association make it possible for us to work in a *relatively* free press. Media are also the vehicle by which other people exercise their rights to free expression and opinion.

They are also the educators for the majority of Kenyans. People here do read the papers. They talk constantly about news and politics. Kenyans eat dinner at eight o�clock, once the evening news program have signed off.

In fact, as I sit writing this in a bar overlooking a darkening Lake Victoria, about 25 people are gathered around a small television. Even the bar tender has abandoned his post to watch reports about recent presidential poll results and Raila�s visit to Western Province.

I know, and hopefully 30 rural correspondents are now reminded, that the more in-depth and accurate those stories are, the more dynamic the civic dialog (human rights and all) will be. And hopefully, the more the Kenyan press develops a reputation for fair reporting, the more likely those correspondents will be to make it home for dinner, with a few more shillings in their pockets.