Classes at Living Positive and Rebirth

Claudia was out running errands on the day of my last classes. She was dropping supplies at the shop run by some of the mothers of our sponsored kids in the area. As she was standing at the shop, she saw a girl walk by with one of our Munio self-defense keychains in her hand.

In a prior visit, I was standing in the Mathare slum in Ngong (same name, different place from the Mathare in Nairobi). I happened to be standing between our van and another car. A pastor walks up to get in the car. We start chatting. The subject of what I’m doing there comes up. He pulls out a self-defense keychain given to him by his wife the night before. She was a teacher of the class I had the day before and I’d given her two.

For our last day of classes, we had two sessions at Living Positive and one at Rebirth. Before the classes at LP start, Claudia and I go inside to have coffee with Tabitha, the assistant director, and friend. I’ve been there multiple times before.

Tabitha tells us a story. A woman who is a member of the LP center was having marital trouble. Her husband kept threatening her, including with death. HIV-positive people, especially women, are seen as inferior to others in the same society, and are treated very badly as a result. He was using this against her. One evening, she spotted him rushing her from behind with a knife. She spun around and successfully fought him off. She grabbed her child and moved out. She told Tabitha that the self-defense classes she had on our prior visit gave her the tools and the courage to fight back.

We don’t often go back to the places we teach. There is too much need everywhere. As a result, we don’t see the results of what we do. But on the same day this trip, Claudia heard the story. Then in another part of town she saw the girl with the keychain. Maybe we’re making a little difference after all.

Living Positive

Below is Wangari. She is the linchpin of the classes at Living Positive. She is 23 years old. I met her through the Kenya Red Cross, where she volunteers. She is trained to install solar panels and is now studying plumbing and pipefitting. She grew up in Ngong.

This young woman has more outstanding leadership qualities than I could ever hope for. She is incredible. She speaks Kikuyu, Kiswahili, and English. She plays piano in her church all day on Sundays (literally, ALL DAY). She is one of the most pleasant and enjoyable people I’ve ever spent this much time with.

Claudia and I refer to her as our daughter. She calls Claudia “mom.” A few days prior, during a class, a woman punched me in the groin. Wangari leaned over and jokingly whispered, “You deserved that!” I thought, “That’s exactly what Lila (Ginger’s and my real daughter) would have said.” Lila, you have a twin sister in Ngong.

The women members at Living Positive speak varying levels of English. Some are OK, but many speak next to none. If they went far enough in school, they would have picked up a little. But many of the women attended little or no school. And any English they learned, they’ve forgotten.

Last time we were at LP, I taught and Wangari translated. But we’ve both figured out that she has taught the class enough, and both heard and absorbed my explanations, that she can teach the class herself. She doesn’t need me to say it first. So I would start, just to basically hand the class off to her. And she ran with it.

Below, Wangari is teaching eye gouging.

The classes were outside, in the open. This is a problem for us. We insist that no men or boys watch or participate in the class. The only exception is men who are part of the organization who brought us in and are trusted by the women/girls present.

But in the open, especially with a group of over 60 women, we attracted a lot of attention. Many women were watching. Many men tried. We wouldn’t let them get close or stay nearby. But we couldn’t kick them off a public road. So we tried to keep them back. It was a battle for Cedric and Tabitha.

As we were teaching, Sarah would stick with me to interpret and provide direction in Kiswahili to the women. Sometimes my pantomime approach was woefully insufficient.

After the class, we give a 2-kg bag of unga (corn flour) to each woman. The unga fills a more immediate need than the self-defense classes do. The second class was over 60 women. We lined them up to get the flour. The observers started converging very rapidly. It got very unpleasant and chaotic quickly. Tabitha handed out the bags, as she knew who was in the program and who wasn’t. Others tried to cut the line to get some. Still others just surrounded us. We were worried about the safety of anything in the van, and, frankly, the people with us. It was rather ugly.

Below is the line, before the flour was in sight and the chaos started.

I was told in advance to expect 20 women per class. So I got 60 bags of flour to be safe. There were about 35 in the first class. Uh oh. I only had two bundles of 12 bags each left. I gave our driver some cash and asked him to get another bundle of 12 bags. The class started growing. Tabitha told me to now expect 40 for the class. So I called the driver. He didn’t have the cash to cover a second bundle, so was returning to get more cash.

The class kept growing. We needed three more bundles. I confirmed with the driver that he was coming back for the cash, as I needed three now.

He came back. The Bank of Bryan dispensed cash. The class kept growing. He was not even out of sight yet, on his way to get more flour, when I called him and upped it to four bundles.

Tabitha is in the salmon dress on the right, below.

Off to the third class of the day. First, we had to go get more keychains from the house. Since the classes were so much bigger than expected, I’d run out. The team had all even given away their own keychains.

The next stop was Rebirth. It appeared to be a home primarily for young mothers. There were other girls there who didn’t have children. The director wasn’t there. A 20-year-old resident was in charge, so we didn’t get a full explanation.

The girls went around the circle and introduced themselves. Name, age, children, desired profession. There were two girls who said they were 14 years old and were “the mother of one.” Another “mother of one” was 15 years old. None of the three had to step out of the class to nurse a baby or anything, so I suspect their kids were part of the herd of toddlers playing around the house. Which means they may very well have been 12 or younger when they got pregnant.

Without the director there, I couldn’t privately ask about the sources of the pregnancies. In these situations, it is usually rape or a family member. Which is also essentially rape. The next choice is that when girls don’t have food, a guy will buy them some. After a few times of this, the guy insists on something in return. This last issue is very big in the slums. In the bush, it may be more straight prostitution to get food money. I’ve heard that the going rate is 50 shillings. At current exchange rates, that’s about 35 cents.

Below is Sarah. She has been a big help in some of the classes. I explained her story in an earlier post. We are working with her to identify what she wants to do with her life. She is leaning towards working with pre-schoolers in a teaching capacity. We are looking at options for training and opportunities for her.

We had a fun class. Wangari decided to take over tour photographer duties for the class. She’d worked hard in the prior two. So Sarah stepped up to a bigger role than usual.

These were our last classes for this trip. We had a total of about 275 women or girls in the classes, which is small. The prior two trips had 1,400 total. But the schools were in session then, so we could go there. This trip gave us a chance to provide more in-depth teaching.