Quinn and I are currently volunteering with Engineers Without Borders at MSU in the Khwisero District of Western Kenya. This is my second and his third time volunteering here.
Before I traveled to Kenya for the first time I heard the story of "The Kitten at Francis' House." Francis was the informal head of our Kenyan team at the time. In other words, he lived in Khwisero and he was the person who hosted us and facilitated our work. One day during dinner at Francis' house, a new kitten paid the EWB travel team a visit. The girls on the team exclaimed about its cuteness and someone started feeding it under the table. Soon, the kitten lost its table manners and started meowing and asking for food at every meal. The feeding schedule continued. Unfortunately, the ladies of the house saw the aggressive kitten as a nuisance. One day when everyone came for dinner, the kitten was gone, never to be seen again.
There is a cat at the place we are staying now. At first, I thought it was just your typical underfed Kenyan cat, meowing for food. When I picked it up a couple weeks ago to put it outside, my hand ran across its enlarged nipples. That's when I realized the cat was female. The next day, I heard a tiny meow coming from the corner of the dining room. As I approached the source, I came across a kitten whose size barely managed to match its miniscule meow. It was white with black and tan spots. It staggered across the floor, as if it had just learned to open its buggy eyes. Since then, I have met two of the cat's other kittens. I have also discovered that Renee, one of my travel team members, had been feeding the mother cat large chunks of Ugali, the local cornmeal staple. I have had the same urge, but I know the story of "The Kitten At Francis' House." Renee does not know the story, or is more optimistic than me. Renee grew up in Trinidad, with parents who cooked food specifically for their domestic animals. She returned home last week, so I don't know whether she has noticed that the ladies who cook for us are constantly dragging the mother cat out of the house, trying to keep it outside while we eat. Today one of the ladies picked the mother cat up by the ear, and flung it outside.
I feel bad for the animals of Kenya. There is the puppy at the neighbor's house whose ribcage and pelvis are visible. There is the kitten who roamed the market underfoot yesterday, only to be kicked when a man realized he had stepped on its paw. (Afterward as it limped across the concrete floor I came close to looking for a legal loophole that would allow me to bring it back to the U.S.) Impoverished Kenyans tend to value animals for their products and services, but little beyond that. In a country where so many children and adults are struggling to eat, I am starting to see why.
Human beings tend to underestimate how much their environment impacts their thoughts and behaviors. Of course, I believe that our nature impacts us too. But the older I get, the more I think about how the environment causes individuals to become who they are. For example, two weekends ago when our EWB group visited the Kakamega Rainforest, we came across a very angry person. He was a matatu conductor. (Matatus are the overpacked public vans that criss- cross Kenya, providing transportation to just about anywhere you might want to go.) The matatu conductor is the one you talk to when you want to ride on the matatu. When you are renting out a whole matatu like we were, you negotiate a rate with him. The matatu conductor that day ended up not being much for bargaining, and he tried to make us pay an exorbitant white person price. He had hate in his eyes and a bad attitude in his speech. Renee was doing the negotiating, and when the conductor didn't like her knack for bargaining he turned to Quinn. The conductor's words and expressions said something to the effect of "This woman is nothing to me. She is a piece of shit. I only want to negotiate with you because you are a man and she has me cornered." Quinn told him that Renee was the boss, so he'd have to negotiate with her. As I think back on it, I wonder what kind of situation the conductor grew up in, and what lead him to being abnormally rude. No doubt, he came from a very competitive background. In a place like Kenya, where most people are struggling just to live, I now understand how poverty can make you mean. Poverty can change people. Poverty can alter how people see the world and rationalize their surroundings. Sometimes it can even ease or erase the guilt of punishing the tiniest of kittens.
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