A Day in the Life

Sure Brian and I go on these exciting weekend adventures where we pet wild rhinos, wrestle crocodiles, and tame lions but what's an ordinary day like? Well, I will tell you.

Most days (at least the last few weeks anyway) I've been going into the slums. I've been working with the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager for YWE,  conducting Focus Group Discussions to understand how things are going for the school girls in our program. We've contracted outside consultants, so as to remain unbiased, and set up about one hour to meet with 10 girls in each school club to ask them a series of questions.

So my day usually starts between 8:30am and 9am; I check my email, work on a few projects, have lunch and then head to the slums, in my case, Mathare. I ride along with one of our TNS drivers and two or three of our consultants and we drive through the hectic streets of the slum to arrive at one of the schools. At one particular school, I find the school principal to announce our arrival and do formal greetings (customary in Kenya) and he arranges for us to meet the teacher who has organized 10 girls for our group discussion in a nearby classroom.

This school, is located in a three story building just on the entrance to an unpaved muddy side street. You wouldn't necessarily know a school even existed here if it weren't for the students pouring out the front door in their uniforms. They don't have a football (soccer) field nor any green space to play. As a result, they rent out a field from a nearby primary school and ironically have one of the best teams in the district. The halls of the school are dark and grey and the sound of students' feet shuffling about from class to class carries loudly through the entire building. It's hard for me to imagine any student easily concentrating on his or her studies in this environment.

Despite the loud noise coming from the hallway, we gather, with the 10 girls, into a small classroom across from the principal's office. The girls form a circle with their old rickety, wooden desks and stare at me as a novelty - it's apparent they don't see that many mzungus wandering through these halls. The principal also happens to be the teacher and patron for the Young Women in Enterprise club. He makes sure all the girls have joined and we get started with the questionnaire.

The facilitator asks a series of questions, some personal, some general, and some specifically about the program. One question is asked whether the girls think men or women are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in their community. The girls unanimously respond: women. She probes further to ask why and they convey that many young women engage in sexual activity for money, or they have low self-esteem and succumb to peer pressure. The facilitator takes note of the responses and then moves on to inquire about employment and what challenges the girls foresee in securing employment once they graduate from high school. Many respond by saying, tribalism, corruption and not enough jobs (i.e. high competition in Kenya). The facilitator continues on with her questions, many of the girls reluctantly responding allowing their shyness to win them over but some speak up and proudly respond to the inquiries.

After an hour's time we conclude the questionnaire and thank the girls for their time with us. The girls are pleased with our visit (a nice change from their normal routine) and offer to send us off in style. One girl stands up to lead the girls in a song accompanied by a series of clapping. After the last round of claps, we smile, pleasantly surprised and thank them for their send off.

Our team heads downstairs to the car to travel back to the office in the midst of the heavy 6pm traffic. We discuss our observations along the way and are satisfied by the overall responses and honesty the girls provided but also disheartened by the poor environment so many students must endure to receive their education. The girls really opened our eyes to their understanding of the world (Kenya) and I couldn't help but feel frustrated with what these young girls have to encounter in their daily lives.

We finally arrive back at the office and my day has come to an end. I meet up with Brian and we walk back to our cozy little apartment in Westlands. As I sit upon our couch, sipping a glass of wine, unwinding from the day, I can't help but think about the drastic contrasts that I encounter day to day. I travel to the slum, walk in streets lined with sewage, see mothers beating their children with wire switches and shake the hands of small children elated to see a white person in their neighborhood. I see young men concocting illicit brew, young mothers attending to several babies and senior citizens tired from decades of poverty. And then I come home to my cozy abode. Some days are really tough and other days are just days. But all in all it's a day in the life of someone working to help young women create better futures for themselves and I wouldn't trade it for the world.