Feet Back In the Water

Village Beat meet the Indian Ocean. Ahhhhhhhh. After a month and a half of desert winds and acacia trees keeping shadow over us, we finally made it to the lovely Muslim coast of Mombasa- where coconuts are abundant and a general air of peace lingers over the city (well, relative to most other Kenyan towns). Our translator/fixer/best friend Lemuya (pictured here next to Marianne) put his toes in the sea for the very first time. In awe of every crab and shell and wave ripple and piece of trash floating in the bay, he shouted and gasped with utter joy. To say the least, it was a beautiful reminder of how nothing should be taken for granted. Every moment is new, even if you believe you've experienced something similar. Thanks Lemuya, for inspiring us with your grace and curiosity, and transforming your first day on the coast into a first day for all of us.
xo

...and over here is the livingroom.

Resident:
"someone who lives at a particular place for a prolonged period or who was born there".

Did you find Simon?

12:30 am, cinched up the green surplus backpack with a camera and light and headed out through the lobby of the New Palms Hotel in Mombasa.
12:31 am: Guard asks, "Why are you going out alone at this hour?" "To find a friend" - a statement that was ambiguous and surely misinterpreted.
12:31-1am: dodged the massive, colorful grasping nails of hookers, the spittle of drunks and the ill-intent of the shadow-lurkers while stopping to talk to anyone who looked friendly about the whereabouts of our friend and street boy Simon (pictured here). As I walked around like Zelda, it occurred to me that it strikes most people here in Kenya as extremely odd to see whitey walking around past his bedtime asking about street children in broken Swahili. It's enough to become what's happening on any block. I produced this photo for onlookers to consider. They'd snatch it, rip off 10 sentences of coast Swahili in 10 seconds, each in some way saying "Yes, I know him, but he has gone to _____". After a half-hour hour of mauling, the photo and I were covered in glue and the party lines were that Simon was either dead, in Nairobi, or could be found in "just-around-the-corner-let-me-show-you-town" (i.e. Hey Jackass, can I rob you?).
1am: I gave up for the night, not wanting to lose the camera or our lucky backpack.
1:15am: One of the especially young street-girl/ prostitutes shouts at me from across the street of a sinister looking club called Casablanca. She says "Bring me that photo!!" I do. A guy slightly bigger than me with home-court advantage says again, "I know him. He's at Tonanoka Center. I take you there now". The girl says I can trust him. After a long look, I decide not to trust him tonight. Bidding thanks I play dumb/tired and stroll down a random street to lose their attention. Some of them casually follow for a block or two and eventually go back to their corner roost.
1:20am Sitting, waiting for inspiration and a quiet street, a tuk-tuk pulls up, stops, driver looks over and beeps. I ask him, "You know Tonanoka Center". "I know it, surely" says he. "Twende" (We go), thinking it couldn't hurt to go to this place on my own, enjoying the anonymous whisk of a tuk-tuk ride.
1:30am 2-3 miles from my hotel street, thinking to myself, "F&ck this is stupid", we pull up at the Tonanoka center, which is nothing more than another abandoned soccer field. It's very dark and the chances of finding anything positive were nillish. As I was saying "OK, we go back", 3 kids wander out of some scrap metal shelter to see about this peculiar noise in their hood. I jump out and show the photos one last time. The 3 of the 4 "boys" were now looking more like withered, malnourished 40 year-old men. They passed it around, hemmed and hawed, scratched and shook...with the exception of Amos, probably 13 years old, who quietly said, "Najua, iko karibu...[something something something]" (I know him, he's here).
With that rare kind of instant, mutual trust, I ask him if he wants to ride along and show me where this place is exactly. He hops into the tuk-tuk and we go further down the dark road.
1:45am Amos is whispering directions over the lawn-mower sound of the tuk-tuk as we go rightleftrightleftleftleftrightupdownaround and finally he says "Hapa, ngoja". (Here, wait). He jumps out and runs through a gate built 100 years ago into some place that looks like a graveyard. The sign on the gate was hand-painted and read Anglican Church Training Center.
Totally skeptical, the tuk-tuk driver turned the engine off and we sat down together on a log.
1:50 After a few minutes of eavesdropping on my driver as he argued presumably with his wife, out of the dark and through the gate comes Amos...with some guy that skip-walked a lot like Simon. As he walked towards us through the headlights of the tuk-tuk, he couldn't see us, but I could see him. The flashbacks began immediately. In moments, I could see him sitting on the beach talking to us last year wearing our crappy wire mic, hearing him tell us about the land taken from him by a malicious relative who still wants to kill him, about how the people of Mombasa won't help his friends because they're outcasts, about the corruption rotting Kenya from the streets to parliament, about his dream to start his own business, starting small with selling eggs on the street, moving up to a small street-side vendor, then renting a place to cook for and seat patrons, then a bigger one, on and on, looking skyward as he spoke.
Here he was again, one year later, and down this dark road in the late evening was not a graveyard, but instead the quiet dormitory of the C.I.T.C. Mombasa College of Catering.
He was as shocked and excited as I was to meet again. Last we heard from him, one year ago was a rushed phone call from a borrowed phone, on the eve of our departure from Kenya, to express his gratitude for our gift of eggs, a stove and a bucket to start his curbside business. His call made a long, hard trip completely worthwhile and thinking about it still chokes me up. I have no idea tonight if our presence in his life last year made any consequential difference for him, but it's possible that Simon's potential was ripe and really only needed the slightest nudge. There are thousands of kids in this country that only need a nudge.
Now here he stood again. Simon was in school, studying to do what he dreamed- proud as hell. We're meeting with him tomorrow to catch up properly.
3:30am I'm finding it hard to sleep.

Thank You Rosanna

Marianne and I. Just a little excited about our new duds.

Lost Boys

We came back to Meru to track down Veronica- a 15 year-old girl who lived on the Meru streets last we saw her. Upon arrival, this cat- Moriera- saunters over and says he's her proud new husband. He took us to their place on his family's small plot just up the hill from the street corners where she previously spent her days. The newlyweds live together in a small shack, wallpapered with beautiful pop stars on shiny magazine pages. Outside their door is a generous banana tree, a cow paddock and a grove of passion vines. We spent a few days hanging out together, catching up with her in her new life while she made chapatis and chopped sugar cane for us- her guests. Marianne led the neighborhood kids in some art lessons which led to face painting. Erik and Julius brought the riddim with another one of our signature beat-box sessions.

Sniper Over Meru

For a mere soda, we were able to access this peaceful little perch above the chaotic Meru market and taxi stage. Erik's minimizing his 6'6-edness to get what we need.

MC Maji Moto feat. The Sponsors

Introducing MC Maji Moto (hot water), otherwise known as Lemuya, our translator/fixer/best friend here. Once you've seen the 999th acacia pass by, something about Kenya makes you start rapping about milk.

Nothing goes to waste

You're lucky smells can't be blogged.

Where's Waldo?

After 2 weeks in Kenya and 2 DJ gigs in Isiolo, Erik is legitimately famous.

"Mzungu Mrefu" (Tall White Guy).

chai and mandazis = coffee and donuts.

Emmanuel (right) and Steven (2nd from left), after an early morning cup of chai. Steven's still sporting last year's trench coat, but he's here now, clear and present, having cut down on the glue. Back from the far away land of hallucinated lions and limousines, he gets the "Most Improved Street Kid" award. Things are looking up.

Episode 1: Back to the Frontier

Week 1 here. We let the pocket-cams roll as we cross through dimensions...

More coming soon.

Attir

The boys and girls of Attir- a Turkana village just outside of Isiolo- lead a far-out life. The boy on the right likely tends to a herd of goats or cattle, all alone, over hundreds of square miles. The girl on the left is probably 10 years old. The beads around her neck signify that she is engaged to be married. Life has been this way for the Turkanas for ages, but something is sending this generation to the city in droves.

Goat Town

Roughly one-half of the beings in Bulapesa are goats. This one is about 20 minutes old. As soon as Mama finishes the most nutritious meal she will ever eat, he'll take his first, wobbly steps.

Take me to the river...

Anneliese and Paul, telling a few stories under a giant Acacia.

The Mayors of Isiolo

Right to left are our friends Abdulrahman and Rosanna - who founded the Isiolo children's home "Fursa". We've become good friends. It's nice to have people to trust who know how to get things done around here. Sitting beside them is Kaome, taking down a liter of fresh camel yogurt. We met him last year the first morning he walked the streets of Isiolo. Thanks to Rosanna and Abdulrahman, he's now living at Fursa, showing signs of actually enjoying his childhood. Having returned to Isiolo, we're now able to see the effects of a year upon the former street-children at Fursa. For some, it's revolution.

Sokom Jinga

Sokom Jinga: "Crazy Market". A relatively safe place for a street kid to crash.

Reunions

This is Paul. He's 20 now. He lives on the Isiolo streets and is one of our main characters. Seeing him again, right where we met him a year ago, with the same old marketplace backdrop, was a beautiful moment. His normal, guarded cool broke wide open with genuine surprise and happiness to see us again.

with the Mutilyas

So this is the week 1 crew enjoying the hospitality of he Mutilya family, our first friends in Kenya. Not much has changed in their Bulapesa neighborhood. They did manage to route in some electricity, so while we eat Mama Musyoka's famous beans and chapati, we can watch some of Kenya's priceless music videos.

ONCE AGAIN...

Village Beat is back on their feet, tearing around the East African nation of Kenya, dust cleared from our eyes, hearts wide-open, and excitement pumping through every vein and cell as we dive back into the communities where we've discovered beloved friends and new family. We'll be updating The Indestructible Beat blog of our adventures for the next few months, so stay tuned and please don't hesitate to join in to the beat with your stories and ideas! It takes community to be immune to the system!
We've also got our website up and rolling, so to find out more about Village Beat and our documentary film, Tough Bond (working title) go to www.villagebeat.org!
love love love love and asante

What Just Happened?

In January of 2009, we traveled to Kenya to volunteer.  Our simple goal was to enlist our minds, our hands, and our hearts, however we could, in the fight against poverty and human suffering.  We gave ourselves 6 months.  Initially, we worked in an urban HIV/AIDS clinic outside of Nairobi, followed by a one-shot famine relief effort, delivering a ton of maize to one of the country’s rural pastoralist tribes.  A single month of relating to sick, starving, and dying people, dropped the full weight of Kenya’s – and Africa’s- worst problems squarely upon our consciences.  Dizzy at the crossroads, feeling angry, without a clear path to which we could apply ourselves, we decided to just be still amidst the whirlwind, watch and listen, right where we were- in a small, dusty frontier town called Isiolo.

There, under the calls of street merchants, the bleating of goats, and the rumble of cargo trucks bound for Ethiopia, we heard the voices of children. We stopped to look down towards our hands and were irretrievably captured by their eyes, having come out from their shady verandas and acacia trees, smiling and curious, but tattered like castaway princes and princesses. The path ahead became strikingly clear. We knew that our lives were about to change, and by our efforts, we vowed, so would theirs.

We spent the next four months in the streets, the slums, the bush, and the cities of Kenya trying to understand how there were so many children left alone to roam the streets and fend for themselves.  We took particular interest in their use of glue, as a drug, to escape their harsh street realities of perpetual hunger and fear, as well as quiet the memories of their haunting pasts of violent abuse, neglect and loss.  Our visceral response- a mixture of disgust and sadness- at the sight of children, even toddlers, inhaling a mixture of glue and gasoline from empty plastic whisky bottles, openly in public, while an indifferent community steps over and around them, signified that we were far from home.  We asked ourselves, “What forces could absolve us, as humans after all, from the responsibility to care for the young and vulnerable in our own communities?”

We wanted to find out how these children got to the streets in the first place, what they did to survive, and finally, what options they had to lead a better life.  Everyday, we were witnesses to some part of this riddle. Every night, back in our simple slum apartment, we would contemplate whether we were witnessing root causes, or merely symptoms of a larger social disease. Our search for reason and resolution led us to homes from which some children came, into bunk-rooms of orphanages, to toxic dumpsites on the fringes of humanity, into offices of local authorities and social workers, and finally into the air-conditioned Nairobi high-rise towers of the Kenyan government. We found that while many people shared in their understanding of the plight of street children, there were many more who lived comfortably in misconception, prejudice and detachment. Still, worst of all, no one would claim responsibility.

Our inquiry and experience culminates as a documentary film, with the core of our investigative footage and storytelling coming from relationships with specific street-child groups and individuals in 5 Kenyan towns, as well as a considerable number of aid groups, dedicated to a variety of strategies.  Our film will challenge those who accept the misery of children as a part of Kenyan life, and perhaps explain why 2% of Kenya’s 15 million children live alone, without a family, village or nation to care for them. 

-----We have arrived safely back in the U.S. and are establishing a home-base within lovely Santa Barbara and Los Angeles for creative venture and phase II of the Kenya experience: editing and post-production work on the film. Stay tuned to The Indestructible Beat for updates and please don't hesitate to contact us here or at BEATfilm@gmail.com. We will be scheduling presentations and lectures commencing August 2009. Please contact us if you are interested! Thank you all and keep BEATing your Indestructible Beat!