Home Visits and MK

After finishing the classes at SEGA, we had three more days to move on to a related group that SEGA and Nurturing Minds run. They have about 2,000 neighborhood (loosely defined) girls that they mentor. They have trained mentors and meet with the girls in career planning, education, health, and other issues. We had time for three sessions.

But along the way, we had a couple more stops to make. Claudia, a doula by profession, was going through baby-cuddling withdrawal after over three weeks away from her charges. A very serious condition, possibly fatal if you know Claudia. In addition, there were a couple of babies in need of professional cuddling.

Claudia is friends with a couple who have funded a significant portion of the school. They have also sponsored kids there. They are responsible for Claudia’s and my invitation to visit and teach. One of the original class of kids was still in the area. We went to visit. Above is the road to their home, in what is probably a middle-class neighborhood.

The couple has several children. She runs a beauty salon, as well as some tailoring and special occasion clothing rental.

They insisted on waking the sleeping baby for Claudia to hold. The weather had cooled somewhat by this time. It was probably only 80 degrees. The baby was dressed like the Michelin Man. The only reason Claudia is wearing the gray sweater is modesty. A woman showing her shoulders isn’t proper in this culture.

In fact, shorts are also verboten, except for primary school boys. A man wearing shorts is akin to being out just wearing his underwear. I did it anyway when outside the school. I’m probably an internet sensation by now, similar to the “people of WalMart” collections.

The school has a visitor’s house where we stayed. There is a chef there, Loveness. Loveness was very sweet and took extremely good care of us. She was wonderful. On our last day there, we went to her home to meet her family. She is a single mom, with, I believe, 5 kids. There are also a couple nephews living there. It appears Loveness is the only source of income but is doing very well for being a chef at a private school. She doesn’t deal with the students’ food needs at all. It is good to see the staff at SEGA paid well. If you want a top-tier school, then you need top-tier staff at all levels.

The bag on the left is Claudia’s, purchased at the Maasai market in Kenya that we frequent. It is beautiful.

If you want to keep the kids entertained, either start taking or showing pictures. Due to my lack of complete mobility, I chose the latter. It worked. They loved the safari and gorilla pix.

We had about an additional 90+ girls and women in the classes in outreach. Our first day was with 17 mentors, teaching them the techniques. They have to go into some pretty shady areas in their work.

Unfortunately, the girls they are mentoring live in those same areas.

The class for the mentors was outside, under a mango tree. At one point in the class, Claudia nearly got beaned by a falling mango. And she didn’t even get to keep it.

We struggled to stay in the shade, not always successfully. The sun is much more of an issue for the mzungus than for the locals. On this day, my sunburn was peeling from the outdoor classes at Living Positive the prior week. It was attracting attention, as they’d never seen that happen from sun exposure before. Below are all the mentors, with Claudia and me, and the Munio self-defense keychains we handed out.

The keychain class and the mango tree.

We then moved on to two days of teaching nearby mentees. A few of the mentors would join us for each class. The classes took place in classrooms. As usual, we had to chase some guys and boys off.

English was an issue with the schoolgirls. There was also a wide age difference. So Isabella had to translate for us. The translation is effective. But it really slows down the class. In Kenya, I can have a local instructor—Wangari or Cedric—teach so no translation is needed. Especially Wangari. She knows the curriculum by heart and all my stories that I add. So in Kenya, we can often speed it back up.

Keychains for the girls are always popular.

Below that is a girl executing a single-hand wrist breakaway. Notice her wide-open hand. We teach this (“live hand”). Flexing the muscles to straighten the fingers makes the wrist slightly larger, and thus slightly harder to hold. When your wrist is the size of a toothpick, as for many of the girls, it can make a difference.

You can actually feel this on yourself. Close one fist and grab your wrist with the other hand. Then slowly (“polepole” in Kiswahili) open and close the fist a few times. When your hand is open, you can feel your wrist expand.

The most dangerous technique that we teach—at least dangerous for the teachers—is finger breaking. We teach them, and they literally practice breaking the finger bones by practicing on our hands. You can see Claudia working with a couple of girls, protecting her finger by grabbing the girl's elbow in the lower shot. You can also see how Claudia’s finger is bent back towards her.

After a few days of these classes, our hands are swollen and sore from this. But we keep doing it because the girls need to learn it. It is a very effective technique. And painful, which adds to the effectiveness.

Below, a girl is practicing gouging eyes. This is possibly the most effective technique we teach. Easy and does the job.

This is not a technique I’d ever taught to girls this age in the US. It is that dangerous. But these girls live in a different world, in many aspects. The frequency of assaults. Risk of HIV if assaulted. Social stigma for the victim. If a rape victim gets pregnant, she may be forced to marry her rapist, if he is identified and found. Even if he isn’t found, the future prospects for the girl drop dramatically.

Below is a class shot. Claudia is on the right, front row. I’m in back, center. Only my arm is visible, which is plenty.