Berkley Center

For nearly five hours, I sat on an upcountry bus and watched out the window as the scenery gradually morphed from the bustling streets of Nairobi, Kenya to the rural countryside with subsistence farms built into the rolling hills. Finally, the tout motioned for me to exit the bus as we reached the small village of Kwa Vonza. It was a Saturday afternoon and children entertained themselves, pulling make-shift toy trucks along the dirt-trodden paths between the humble concrete shops. Women lined the roadside with freshly picked mangoes carefully piled in front of them. A young bunch of men emerged from behind a Coca-Cola stand eager to give the mzungu (white person) a ride via boda boda (motorcycle). Momentarily ignoring their insistent calls, I found what I was looking for –a small wooden sign with an arrow pointing up the hill: –Nyumbani Village 14 km.

All I knew about Nyumbani Village was that it was a community of children left orphaned by the HIV pandemic that impacts many regions in Kenya. It is estimated that every 14 seconds a child is orphaned in sub-Saharan Africa. In rural areas like Kwa Vonza, where most people are subsistence farmers and poverty remains a significant issue, the prevalence of HIV is a growing problem. Husbands often leave home for extended periods to go to Nairobi in search of employment. During which time, they may engage in extramarital affairs, which increases the likelihood and spread of HIV infections to their wives. Many who test HIV-positive in rural areas lack access to adequate healthcare or cannot afford to get eat properly and maintain levels of nutrition that would allow them to survive for long periods of time with the virus. In rural Kenya there is the growing issue that the parent generation is dying out, leaving grandparents and the parent’s' children to fend for themselves. Thus, this is the need that Nyumbani Village addresses.

After a bumpy ride to the Village, Stacy, my guide for the afternoon, greeted me at the guesthouse for a short tour. “"You came on a great day. We have a performing arts group from Nairobi here for the weekend and they are giving a performance tonight." She explained that the performance group, Pamoja (togetherness), was made up of 10 physically disabled women and men from Nairobi. They first visited the village in December and enjoyed the energy and liveliness of the village's children so much that they were returning to hold workshops for the kids and put on a performance that night.

Our first stop on the tour was a peek into Pamoja'’s dance workshop. A crowd of children surrounded the doorways and windows of the administrative building. Positioning myself at the back, I peered inside to see a young man with only one leg spinning around 360 degrees and coming to graceful stop. I watched as the children attempted to emulate his movements. Many found themselves off balance or unable to make it all the way around. Their lively audience of youngsters giggled and pointed. Noticing the amusement on my face, Stacy commented, "“I think the reason the children like them so much is because being an orphan is like having a disability, and they can relate to the performers." I had never though about it that way before. It is quite logical that being an orphan could be construed as a disability. When you lose both parents, you lose your providers. Orphans must then struggle everyday for things most people take for granted like clean water, food, shelter, and education. Ultimately, it places limitations on the sort of lives they live.

Stacy went on to tell me how the children end up at Nyumbani. “They must be double orphans, which means both their mother and father died. They also must have no extended family that would otherwise be able to support them. Once they arrive, the children are placed with in a household with one grandparent and up to 10 other orphans, some of whom are the actual grandchildren.”

Following Stacy's lead, we climbed into the village's rickety jeep and set off to further explore the village. As we began, Stacy filled me in on the background of Nyumbani Village. It was created in 2006 with joint funding from USAID and the Roman Catholic Church. Their plan is to create a community of 1,000 orphans and 100 grandparents living in this self-sustaining village by 2012. The village provides for all the needs of the children, including medical care, primary and secondary education, and technical skill training. Their mission is to “foster healing, hope and opportunity” for these children and ultimately return them back to their home villages as productive members who are better off than they would be otherwise.

What amazed me most about the tour was the sustainability aspect of the village. I had visited many aid projects before, but to me, none of them seemed to have posses such a massive effort towards self-sufficiency. We passed fields of sunflowers to produce sunflower oil, acres of hardwood trees to manufacture their own furniture, greenhouses, fields of recently harvested maize, sand dams for harnessing water, and a stable of cows, which produced the village's daily 70-gallon supply of milk. Although the village was founded by a foreigner, an outsider to both Kenyan and Kamba culture, every aspect of life had been taken into account when they designed the components of the village. I am not usually so optimistic about aid projects, but for some reason (perhaps it was simply the community atmosphere or maybe the fresh air from outside of Nairobi affecting my senses) Nyumbani Village seemed different than the development I had seen elsewhere. I often heard empty phrases like “"building capacity" and “"empowering people" thrown around development organizations in Nairobi. But here, I could clearly see the connection of how aid was being used to build concrete skills and leadership qualities that would transform these orphans into contributing members of society.

After returning to the guesthouse for a short tea break, we made our way to the outdoor stage, which was a simple cement block extending from the backside of the church. I found a seat along the concrete steps while Stacy went running off to deal with the lighting situation. After chatting with the teenage boys sitting next to me, I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the assemblage of children that surrounded the stage. Immediately, a young boy climbed onto my lap, and I proceeded to hand over the camera duties to him. The older boy next to me started talking to him softly in Kamba, not knowing what he was saying, I asked the older one, "“Is this your brother?"

“"He is my son."“

"You have a son?" I asked very quizzically, knowing he could not be older than 13 years old. “

"We live in the same house," he responded very matter-of-factly.

I watched them interact. The older one showed the younger boy what buttons to press. It really does work, I thought to myself about Nyumbani's artificial family structure. However, nothing about the relationship between these two boys seemed artificial.

Night was falling quickly. The lanterns on stage provided the only light source. The drums livened the crowd, and young children squealed with excitement as the performers took the stage. The young man who led the workshop approached the center with a partner. The partner laid on the ground with his legs extended upwards. The young man leaned forward and balanced himself on top of the partner's feet and spread his arms to either side, resembling a flying bird. Their manager, a British man, mentioned earlier that almost one in 10 people in Kenya have some type of disability. While that figure may be a bit of an overestimation, everyday I come across many disabled people idly slouched on the dirty city sidewalks, begging for change. Observing the grace and confidence in which they executed each movement of their body, I began to think differently. Up to that point, my only impression of the disabled were the depressing scenes from the city, but here were 10 young people refusing to let their disabilities become a hindrance. As I would later come to know, their achievements rivaled some of the most accomplished people I know. The young man with only one leg had a collection of four Kenyan gold medals in swimming.

As the young boy on my lap swayed to the beat of the drummer and percussionist, I sat in awe of my surroundings. Stacy's words from earlier replayed themselves in my mind: Here are two groups of people, both with their own type of disability.”

The word disability implies some sort of limitation placed on your ability. But that night, I did not see any limitations. I did not know the story of the boy, who was bouncing on my knees and I never will. He could be HIV-positive; however, all I could know by looking at him was that he was a double orphan. In spite of his circumstances, he had created a new family with his “father” sitting beside him. Stigmas surrounded both the performers and these orphans, yet neither allowed it define or limit their ambitions.

I came to Africa three months ago to learn about development and to make a difference. I pictured myself collecting loans and evaluating the feasibility of extending credit to new customers for an established micro-finance institution. Instead, I work with a grassroots non-governmental organization teaching 27-year-old women from Nairobi's informal settlements how to save the equivalent of one dollar a week in order to open a juice stand. It hasn't been easy. I find it challenging to work in a country that is divided along tribal lines, whose government is riddled with corruption, and where the Gross National Product per capita is under $1,600 compared to the United States’, which hovers near $50,000. I constantly question what development means and how to measure if I am making a difference, but as I watched the performers and the reactions of the children and noted the environment that surrounded the modest outdoor amphitheatre, it made sense.

I am sure Nyumbani Village and Pamoja face their own significant challenges, and I am an outsider observing their lives from a jaded Western point-of-view, but during that moment, I saw development. There were orphans, grandparents, and disabled performers defying society's stereotypes and attempts to marginalize them. They thrived off of each other’s' energy, which emanated a sense of confidence and an ability to achieve without limitations. It is brief moments like that, which sustain me and give me hope that development is possible.