in garissa.

During my second day in Garissa, I facilitated the communications/documentation component of the workshop. Despite my foreign accent – i.e. too fast to comprehend despite all efforts – the partners were engaged and interested. Of course, in an attempt to truly prevent any dozing, we sent everyone out “into the field” to find a story. The overall goal was to help people understand that there is a story in even the most normal environments and that they should be recorded diligently for communications purposes. While I think the overall lesson was a bit lost, Godfrey and I stumbled across Mzee (a nickname) who was working as a welder.

This area of Kenya is sometimes hostile to mzungu intrusion, so I spent most of my time taking pictures and catching bits and pieces of the conversation in Kiswahili. Mzee was a mobile worker, part of a class of workers called, in a loose translation, those who work under the sun. However, Mzee told us that he was now of a different class as he was using a mobile welding machine and sitting in the patchy shade of a tree. He was trained at the North Eastern Province Technical Institute and makes about 15,000 Kenyan Shillings a month, about 200 CAN$.

Other shots of Garissa include the unbelievable amount of filth that covers the city and the expansion of new high-range real estate. The Almond, a famous local hotel, boasts the same clean lines and Southern Californian feel as the photo below.