First post: The Diary of a Kenyan Campus Girl

Are you bored with always visiting the same sites? Welcome to the Southern Blogosphere! This blog explores and presents interesting blogs and sites from the developing world. 

I work at Finn Church Aid as Media and Public Affairs Officer. Because my life now keeps me at one place (Helsinki, Finland), I decided to find out what bloggers from the South are saying. So I decided to start this blog. Here are some reasons why:

Firstly, because by reading blogs from the South you get an idea of what people living in the developing countries consider worthwhile telling about. And blogs make great reading because they are personal and frank.

Secondly, the reason I want to work at Finn Church Aid is not because I want us to have the finest website and the newest applications – I want to tell that we live in a common world. I am interested in how people live and what they think, I want to understand the world around me, and I suspect I am not the only one.

The Southern Blogosphere obviously will not be an all-inclusive description of blogs from the (so-called) South, but an account of my adventures in the blog-world. I’ll try to write my blog in the way that each text will communicate something about the atmosphere of the blog I’m presenting, and can be read as independent texts. Those who want to read on, can then proceed to the blog itself, and from there, drift to other blogs…

I can assure you that my adventures in the Southern blogosphere have been enjoyable, fun and eye-opening!

The first blog I have the honour of presenting, are actually two blogs from the same blogger. “The Diary of a Kenian Campus Girl” is a narrative of a brave, cheerful student girl. Savvy (the author’s name in the blog) studies at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya. However, the blog is not about her studies but about all other interesting things. And this girl definitely knows how to write! Her style is daring, descriptive, open and full of wonderful self-irony.

“There are 3 types of people when school opens. Those that say, “How can I stay in campus? It is soo booring…” and then they head for home. I just want to ask, if u can be bored in campo, home ndio hutaboeka? get real…if u are bored in school, u’ll be bored at home coz u are most probably a boring persona anyway.

Then there is the type that is actually bored coz they have a more exciting life outside campus, but mark  my words, it is not at home where they have fun.

Finally, there is the me type. I don’t claim that campus is boring, and neither is it exciting. But I do have good times, catching up with my pals. With pals like mine, who know everything from the colour of ur underwear to whom u made out with last nite, it is fun to be in campus.”

I have no doubt about that!

Savvy goes clubbing with friends, observes life and people around her, writes about idlers on street corners, sugar daddys and Chinese copy phones. One of my favorites is a blog from her weekend trip to visit a friend in Uganda – I felt as if I had been there with her!

Savvy falls in love, but the young man takes too long to make up his mind. When he finally calls her, Savvy shows that she can make decisions:

“Actually…am over you. Am sorry but it’s the truth. Sometimes it’s not what you say but what you don’t say. Silence for that long…” Where do these words that sound like lines in a movie come from?” 

“You see, am not one of those people who agonize over decisions. If I mean yes, I tell you. If I mean no, I say it. And once my mind is made up, it’s hard to change.”

Way to go, Savvy.

I loved the blog Harambee Stars vs. Ugandan Cranes, in which Savvy sneaks out of church to be in time for an important football game:

“I’d bet heavily on the game: I was going to change my twitter name from Savvy Kenya to Savvy Uganda, and possibly my nationality too if the stars lost to the Cranes.

Having left church around noon, and changed from my dress to jeans and carried a borrowed vuvuzela, I got into a matatu around 1p.m. to town. Now, my small brother was in possession of the tickets and had been at the stadium since noon. He was giving us (my other bro and I) one hour to get to the stadium or he’d sell our tickets. I kept telling him am almost in town even when I was stuck in traffic because the Chinese constructors (contractors?)had decided Saturday was the best time to divert traffic to roadside paths.

By the time I finally got to the stadium, it was 3.30pm and my brothers were already inside. Somehow, we managed to communicate and they wrapped my ticket around a small flag they’d bought and threw it over the wall of the stadium. Of course, there were few spiderman wannabes who scaled the wall but since I had my ticket no need to resort to desperate measures.”

Once Savvy almost got arrested because she was caught handling fake money (she had not noticed her note was fake). She had already been arrested once before, for a minor traffic offense of not tying a seatbelt. A “fat, obnoxious cop” takes her phone, though only after Savvy had managed to tweet about the arrest (!)

“The cell wasn’t so bad. It was dark like all the rest, but the women were friendly, some had complicated cases like fraud, others had been in for days and were dying for a shower, and all I was worried about was my phone so I could tweet away the anxiety (if your case is not heard on a Friday, you have to spend the entire weekend in custody till Monday.) or call my mum.”

Phew, Savvy walks out the same day.

“Buckle up next time. Alternatively, know someone big in the police ranks and you’ll be let go at the police station.”

An almost-forty-years-old Finnish Media Officer/mother-of-two certainly does not belong to the target group of this blog. However, I have really enjoyed reading about Savvy and getting to peek into the every-day life of a Kenyan student.  

At the beginning of this year, Savvy graduated from the university. She got her first job in Rwanda and moved there. And she started a new blog: Savvy Kenya (The Adventures of a Former Campus Girl). http://www.savvykenya.com/

I was very relieved! It would have been sad to lose Savvy. She is now working with an organization called Art of Conservation. AoC works in poor rural communities surrounding the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, teaching schoolchildren about the importance of maintaining a healthy environment for both people and animals, especially the mountain gorillas which Rwanda is famous for.

Savvy writes about settling in a new country and compares Rwanda and Kenya. She loves Rwanda. But.

“The first thing that disturbs me is people’s reaction to white people. Don’t get me wrong, if a white person goes to a remote village in Kenya, everyone is bound to get curious and a little excited. It’s allowed. But here, it’s a little too much.”

When Julie and the rest of the team, I included, drove up to Rushubi Primary School to prepare the classroom for lessons this year, all the kids in the playground stopped what they were doing to run to her. They had surrounded her so much she could hardly take a step. Some of the little kids were falling over and getting stepped on; it was almost a stampede. Whenever she’s driving, kids who know her shout her name, which is great, and she honks at them. Those who don’t know also call out, mzungu, mzungu and ask for something. Most kids almost always wave, at first I also waved back till I realized, oh, I’m not included in the waves. So now I don’t wave back.
There is always an association in people’s minds of white people and an unlimited amount of money, which is common all over the world and more so here.

The second thing that bothers me is the newness of things. When I first came here, I was so excited to see almost everything looks new. The roads, the buildings, the fences… when we drove through the countryside, the farms looked like they hadn’t been around for long, the houses looked like people had just begun to live in them. It’s been only 15 years since the genocide so this should not surprise me, the country is still rebuilding. At first it was exciting to see how new and organized everything looks, but now it just makes me a little sad. I like the way there is a permanence to old things. An assurance that since these buildings have been here for so long, they’ll still be here many years to come. If you go to our home in the village, where my grandmother still lives, there’s a feeling that we’re all totally settled and the place has been and will always be there. With new things, you can only hope that they’ll last, that just maybe this is the last time they’ll have to rebuild.

The third thing that has me sleepless at night (let’s just say it’s not the source of the sleepless but I think about it whenever am awake) is the education system in Rwanda. This is the third week of January and schools have not yet opened officially.

The last thing that bothers me is lack of openness. The fear of the police. The way there are some things you can’t talk about. The way you can’t criticize Kagame. He’s a great man but he’s not perfect. But these things take time.

I just hope there is some way I can contribute towards Rwanda’s development. It needs the support of the rest of East Africa.”

Savvy is a middle-class, well educated African, who clearly wants to do something meaningful in her life. What will become of this interesting young woman?

Unfortunately, I now need to leave the Southern blogosphere for the time being and head home. In Helsinki, there is now 50 cm of snow on the ground and our yard is in serious need of some shoveling.

I would be grateful for comments about this blog, and if someone would like to suggest a blog they are following to be presented here, you can send me email at: ulla.karki@kirkonulkomaanapu.fi

Bye for now,
Ulla
…and next time it will be a very different kind of a blog