Kengama

You wouldn't expect to find many Jews in Kenya, and you certainly wouldn't expect to find many in the countryside. At least Kyle Schutter and I didn't. But we were humbled in our trip to Kengama, a beautiful town in the north with large hills and views of Mount Kenya.

After reaching the city center, we took a twenty minute motorcycle ride to visit a farmer named Henry, attempting to sell him a biogas system, which converts anaerobic waste like cow dung into electricity. As we were riding, Kyle said that many farmers haven't seen a white person in twenty years. And nobody has ever seen a Jew, I added. Kyle wholeheartedly agreed.

When we arrived, Henry graciously gave us tea and a tour of his farm. While stopping in his reading room, he innocently remarked that he doesn't work on Saturdays. Sure enough, it came out that he is Jewish. Yes, a black Jewish farmer who takes his Judaism more seriously than most American Jews do. He keeps Sabbath every Saturday with the thirty other Kengaman Jews. He strictly obeys the high holidays and will only allow his children to marry other Jews. Black,white Hispanic, whatever---as long as the person is Jewish, he approves. His 19 year old daughter is taken, but his 28 year old son and 16 year old daughter are still available...

And it is his dream to visit Israel one day.

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Getting work, any type of work, is especially important to people in the countryside. According to many women, jobless men will spend their 20 schillings (25 cents) on alcohol to sleep and pass the time. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for them to do. And when they cannot sleep, they will frequent prostitutes or resort to sexual violence. This is very important in the context of the China jobs debate. Many liberal Americans oppose China creating harsh, low paying jobs in Africa; they argue it props up kleptocrats. But when you meet people whose livelihood will die without work, whose droopy, listless eyes almost make you cry, it changes your perspective.

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Kenya's government supplies free condoms to reduce the spread of HIV. This policy remains relatively corrupt free in urban areas. In the countryside, however, officials charge a dollar per condom. Many men would use them but can't because it's cost prohibitive. This seems like a great volunteer opportunity for privileged high school students in Kenya---take them to sparsely populated areas and have them hand out condoms.

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I start work for an NGO (umande.org) that specializes in sanitation problems tomorrow. I will edit their website and donor materials. Given that Kenya's most prominent newspaper has more grammatical mistakes in it than my high school newspaper did, I should be of value. And getting to do fieldwork should enrich the experience.