Kenya never ceases to challenge and humble me!
on Beatriz Pujol (Kenya), 17/Jan/2010 11:41, 34 days ago
Kenya, Kenya, Kenya…..There is nothing like a daily dose of a reality check.So, I finished work early on Friday and went to the post office (my favorite place, you may remember!) to pick up a package. I was excited when I saw it was from an old colleague of mine, Matthew Bardwell. He was sending me autism awareness ribbons that I had asked for, yeah! I thought for sure this would be an easy time through customs- Not to be so! (NEVER think anything will be“easy” in Kenya, you are bound to be disappointed! As my friend Rachael always says, “Expectations reduce joy!”) The head customs guy who I have befriended and is supportive of my autism work here was out of the office. The guy filling in for him wanted to charge me 700 KES (about $8-9)! Thepoint here was not that I can’t afford that, it was that Matthew had bought these ribbons (which you can’t find here), paid to send them, they were sent back as “undeliverable”, he repaid to send them back and now I was being charged for them!! The guy was just doing his job and following the rules. On the green customs slip that you fill out in the US declaring what is in the package and the value, Matthew had written $20 and apparently the duty I must pay is a percentage of that value. (SO, if you ever send me ANYTHING please write $2 or something like that!) Anyway, once again, I flipped out at the post office. I went on and on about corruption and how 1.2 billion shillings (next update will fill you in on this subject!) are stolen from free public education and yet I am trying to help vulnerable children and you want to charge me 700 KES! You can imagine the scene! I left without the package and plan to return Monday to talk to the head guy. I have been trying to decide if I am giving into corruption. But after much debate and discussion with friends, I feel like the head guy is using discretion on what to charge and how to charge it. What do you all think?? My sistersays they are going to put a ban on me at the posta!So, I leave the post office and call my dear Kenyan friend, Jack and immediately start ranting to him about his crazy country! I go on and on complaining! Then I ask him how is (how thoughtful of me!). And the reality does comes. His mother had left the previous day to go to her home place to bury her sister who had just died. She and several family members had gone to the mortuary and on their return drive home, there was an accident with a lorry that killed everyone in one of the cars- 6 people died, including one of Jack’s cousins and some distant relatives. Thankfully, his mother was not in that vehicle. In the same week another cousin of Jack’s (a child) died and his brother in laws young nephew also died the same day. I cannot begin to wrap my head around death here. These stories are so common, this is notunusual. The amount of pain and suffering Kenyan’s must deal with on a daily basis is incomprehensible.Ok, I think I will leave it at this today… I have much more to write about, but all for the moment.