:Title: Letters from the Front Lines :Author: Meron Moroz :Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 22:00:29 PDT :Modified: Sat, 31 May 2008 22:09:15 PDT :URL: http://www.ned.com/group/solid/news/9/ A place for the letters we get from our friends. ---- **Comments** :Author: Meron Moroz :Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 22:07:55 PDT :Modified: Sat, 31 May 2008 22:11:21 PDT I've really let the SOLID group slide for a while. :( Phil and Maggie were just in Kenya. We did get a number of letters from them while they were away. From others too; I've been negligent in posting. But I'm gonna' *let that go* and just start this thread off with Phil and Maggie's coming home letter. Hello friends, We're home safely, yesterday, and as a way of connecting my worlds, thought I'd write you about our last evening in Kenya.... For the last time we walk to the matatu stage and climb onto the #25 matatu (a 14 seater mini-van) for Baba Dogo, pull out of the staging area past crowds of people, honking matatus and busses, yelling conductors soliciting passengers, blasting reggae and gospel music. Past the garbage filled Nairobi River and a woman spreading out laundry on the banks, past destitute men and exhausted workers lying asleep in the shade of small trees, past the markets that spill over the sidewalks and the shoulder to shoulder crowds, past Seldom Butchery and the Seldom Hotel and the Glory Driving School with it's red and white chequered vans and trucks (unnerving name as the deceased in the daily paper's obituary pages are described as being 'promoted to glory,' the same paper that regularly reports matutu crashes and bus roll-overs), past a stretch of green valley and then alight at at a busy roundabout where chickens are tossed from the top of a bus, a man sweats pulling a cart of maize, and a matatu swerving into the service garage causes me to jump wildly. This is where we met our friends from the textile factories in the export zones a year and a half ago. It's five in the evening. We walk away from the Ruaraka industrial zone towards the church in the Mathare North slum where our good-bye party is being held. People everywhere, but the locals say the streets are empty, that the people displaced by the violence have not returned. The stalls are closing, the sky is filled with clouds of toxic black smoke rising from the flames of the daily burning of garbage. Scattered plastic, running water smelling of sewage, concrete blocks of housing with multi-coloured laundry hanging over the balconies, past burnt out buildings and empty ones, hard packed dirt roads and then we are at the church and into a clean room with a concrete floor, wooden benches, and our Tuendelee Mbele friends, the EPZ (Export Processing Zone) family. For the last time, we talk with Lydia, who has told us how she coughs blood when there's sandblasting (using chemical sprays to blast the colour out of clothing for that popular faded look) going on in the washing room next to her part of the factory. "The people in the washing room come on two shifts. We in the production section just work one shift - all the time." "You know," says Lydia, "we want to change our country. It's bad when people are sleeping." We talk with Miriam, a sewing machine operator, who uses every oppportunity to bring HIV education to the factory, and with Faith, who wants to bring change to Ruaraka and to the nation and to the world. With Tabitha who had left work early a few days ago in order to speak with us, risking punishment which might be having to sit in an office all day doing nothing (and not getting paid, etiher), and who has a forester diploma but couldn't get a job and yearns to do that work sometime during her lifetime. She's worked in the EPZ for seven years, now. All of them, single mothers. We chat with Abby, a Canadian in Kenya for six months and who is transforming the workers through her very popular weekly social justice literacy class, using popular education approaches to facilitate awareness about colonialism, gender, and so on. I took over her class on our last Saturday, with a focus on peace-building and understanding trauma, related to the post-election violence. We are enthralled by a fabulous theatre performance that the group has created to build awareness about the conditions in the factories. We laugh and cry. They are enthralled by Phil's music - working girls blues and union maid and his song about AIDS education - but the highlight is when he sings 'Ruaraka' which those of you who have seen our presentation have heard, a story of their lives and struggles. The eruption of cheering, singing, laughing and clapping said that Phil got it right. A line about 'Marching to Uhuru Park' (where 10,000 workers went during a big strike in 2003) brings whoops and hollers, and the line "Otieno's got a union," brings cheers for their beloved organizer, who is so overjoyed that he dances wildly around the room for the rest of the song, which ends with an outpouring of appreciative applause. And I am smiling and smiling. The people of Tuendelee Mbele understand that we are just a couple of people who care about workers' lives and they say thank you by decking us out in sandals and beaded necklaces and for me, earrings - all in Kenyan colours, black for the people, red for the blood shed at independence, green for the land and white for peace - so tremendously fragile in this troubled place. They give us each a small piece of heart shaped pottery, because we have encouraged them to speak from the heart in men and women's circles and about their HIV work and their visions. And then suddenly, Vincent and David say we have to leave now, we have to leave now, now. It's turned nine pm and looking out from the gates of the church compound the street is dark and deserted. We have to leave, it's not just unsafe for us, no one here walks outside after nine if they can avoid this. I'm startled at the sudden anxiety in the room, remember that Mathare was hard hit during the violence and everyone carries that as well as the knowledge of night dangers. But how? Walking is not an option so Otieno rouses a matatu driver who has parked his van within the compound and he agrees to take us to the roundabout where Phil, Abby and I can get a taxi back into the city. We climb in hurriedly, lock all the doors, feel grateful for the tinted windows that hide the three white people in the van and careen through the gate and safely through the dark. In the morning we go early to the airport, down the highway past blocks of worker housing and fields empty except for dirt paths filled with workers crossing to the bus and matatu stages where they wait stoically for another day of precarious survival to begin, and the occasional cooking fire where something to eat can be bought if one has a few shillings to do so, and to the airport where suddenly we are surrounded by white people for the first time in a month - except for the morning that we visited an elephant conservation centre - and onto the airplane which is mostly empty as tourism has not yet returned. So good-bye to Kenya. And hello to all of you from both of us. Maggie ---- :Author: Meron Moroz :Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:20:26 PDT Not *exactly* the front lines but Anna writes from the ICAD AGM in Ottawa. She's a new board member : ) Hi All, Just checking in from the ICAD AGM in Ottawa.... Had a very interesting first day with the board....feeling slightly (read extremely) over my head, and there will be a steep learning curve as four very experienced board members are stepping down this year because of other commitments, and four newbies on board... we will definitely need a dictionary of all the acronyms!!!!! It is a great opportunity for SOLID to get further recognition, and also to become a little less insular on our little island, and witness some of the other amazing groups doing great work across Canada. Finished a little early this afternoon, so ventured out for a run along the canal...despite threatening rain...anyway, about 20 minutes in the skies opened up and I got pummeled with hail and a huge downpour, not to mention the most impressive thunder and lightening (the deafening kinda thunder...right overhead)....yeah, running along a wet path out in the open in the middle of an open field....the only thing missing was an umbrella...who says exercise is good for you. ;) Nothing that a hot shower can't fix, and I am just getting ready to head out to the ED's place for dinner with a bunch of board people, dignitaries, and politicians...yikes. Hope it doesn't go on too long as I am quite knackered from the lack of sleep, and don't know how much charm I can muster... Anyway, will fill you all in when I return. All my best, Anna ----