I've created this blog so that I may post news and bits from Africa, but also for a man named Joseph Mboya Musau.
I met Mboya in 2003 while studying abroad in Kenya. He worked for the Centre for Wildlife Management, run by the School for Field Studies, where I was studying and living.
Mboya's a great guy. He's funny and very sweet and would do anything for you. He was the one in charge of picking up our mail in Nairobi and he was damn faithful about it too, knowing that he would have to face the wrath of lonely research students if he didn't deliver. He also ran the camp's duka, or shop, and if we saw something we liked in one of the few supermarkets we got a chance to visit, he would go to the ends of Nairobi or further to try and get it for the duka. This included drinkable yogurt, which sounds foul but is actually one of the most delicious things I've ever had, nevermind the fact that I think the natural probiotics in it kept me quite healthy in the last weeks I was there, free from the scourge of stomach illnesses plaguing the other campers.
While I did spend plenty of time with Mboya in '03, I didn't really get to know him all that well, mostly due to the staff/student relationship guidelines set up by the school which kept the staff from hanging around us much, and also because I was embedded in my research and writing my paper at the time. In January 2006 I returned to Kenya with my college friends Rachel and Melu, and who was there to meet us in the airport? Mboya, who was shocked that I remembered his name. "How could I forget it?!" I said. With that he grabbed my bag and we were friends once again.
In 2003 email was somewhat scarce in Kenya, and while it is still not commonplace there, it's more accessible to people. This made staying in touch with Mboya and all my Kenyan friends much easier. When I returned from Kenya, I immediately emailed Mboya to send my greetings. He replied with some unsettling news: he had lost his job at the school, not because he was fired or a bad worker, but because not enough American students were going to the school, and there wasn't enough money to pay his salary anymore. Mboya had worked at the school since he was 16 (he is now around 32ish) and was completely unprepared to be thrown out on his own to find work. He was sad about this, I could tell, but he was more concerned for his 13 year old sister who had just started secondary school. He had been paying her school fees, as his parents could not scrape together enough money from the proceeds from the sale of produce from their land, as a three year drought had made their farm all but infertile. He never asked me to send him money, nor did he tell me what would happen to his sister if she got kicked out of school, but I will be honest, I imagined the worst case scenario. To have the opportunity at 13 to go to school and suddenly not be able to afford it is devastating, but in Kenya, it's worse than that. In a country where, according to the CIA World Factbook, 50% of the population lives below the poverty line and 40% of the population is unemployed, there aren't many options for a poor 13 year old girl who's just been kicked out of school. There were dark thoughts that swirled in my head: prostitution, fragmentation of the family, and the not so dark but just as grim: marriage to an older man, perhaps as a second or third wife. That's when I put my foot down. I called my friend Rachel and my parents, and between the three of us we can up with 3 months tuition, a mere $165, and I wired Mboya the money. All was well.
That was in April. Now it's September, and the school year has restarted. I received an email from Mboya earlier this month, but due to my own negligence, I didn't read it or respond right away. When I finally did respond, I found out that Mboya's sister is on the verge of being kicked out of school. The family does not have enough money to pay her school fees and they were due September 4th. He is panicking. I need him to stop panicking, and that's why I started this blog. I started this blog to put a human face on a continent many people might not think about every day. I started this blog so I'd have a better way to help a person in need.
After Hurricane Katrina, I donated a good chunk of cashmoney to the Red Cross. I was so disappointed when some of that money had gone astray, had been used to buy jewelry or to get a tatoo. I was so discouraged by this, that I vowed to start helping specific people. While organizations working in Africa are great and helpful and important, I decided that if I could help Mboya Musau's sister get through school it might be one of the best things I ever decided to do, and I knew that it would be helping a person directly. And if she goes on to be the first woman president of Kenya, hey, I'll know my time and money was well spent, and even if she doesn't, I know that my friends and I will have helped a girl and in many ways, changed the course of her life.
Because the money must be wired to Kenya tomorrow, I've put a paypal button in this blog. It's 100% safe and linked directly back to me. You can make a donation with your credit or debit card. If you would feel better writing a check, comment on this blog, I will send you my address. If you do make a donation, I will send you a letter of thanks with the amount you donated for tax purposes, but do take note that this is not a registered 501(c)3 charity and your donation may not be tax-deductible.
Thanks again for your time. Check back here for updates and news from Africa.
Allison
Mboya and me (looking busted). Yes Mboya wears his parka despite the heat!
I met Mboya in 2003 while studying abroad in Kenya. He worked for the Centre for Wildlife Management, run by the School for Field Studies, where I was studying and living.
Mboya's a great guy. He's funny and very sweet and would do anything for you. He was the one in charge of picking up our mail in Nairobi and he was damn faithful about it too, knowing that he would have to face the wrath of lonely research students if he didn't deliver. He also ran the camp's duka, or shop, and if we saw something we liked in one of the few supermarkets we got a chance to visit, he would go to the ends of Nairobi or further to try and get it for the duka. This included drinkable yogurt, which sounds foul but is actually one of the most delicious things I've ever had, nevermind the fact that I think the natural probiotics in it kept me quite healthy in the last weeks I was there, free from the scourge of stomach illnesses plaguing the other campers.
While I did spend plenty of time with Mboya in '03, I didn't really get to know him all that well, mostly due to the staff/student relationship guidelines set up by the school which kept the staff from hanging around us much, and also because I was embedded in my research and writing my paper at the time. In January 2006 I returned to Kenya with my college friends Rachel and Melu, and who was there to meet us in the airport? Mboya, who was shocked that I remembered his name. "How could I forget it?!" I said. With that he grabbed my bag and we were friends once again.
In 2003 email was somewhat scarce in Kenya, and while it is still not commonplace there, it's more accessible to people. This made staying in touch with Mboya and all my Kenyan friends much easier. When I returned from Kenya, I immediately emailed Mboya to send my greetings. He replied with some unsettling news: he had lost his job at the school, not because he was fired or a bad worker, but because not enough American students were going to the school, and there wasn't enough money to pay his salary anymore. Mboya had worked at the school since he was 16 (he is now around 32ish) and was completely unprepared to be thrown out on his own to find work. He was sad about this, I could tell, but he was more concerned for his 13 year old sister who had just started secondary school. He had been paying her school fees, as his parents could not scrape together enough money from the proceeds from the sale of produce from their land, as a three year drought had made their farm all but infertile. He never asked me to send him money, nor did he tell me what would happen to his sister if she got kicked out of school, but I will be honest, I imagined the worst case scenario. To have the opportunity at 13 to go to school and suddenly not be able to afford it is devastating, but in Kenya, it's worse than that. In a country where, according to the CIA World Factbook, 50% of the population lives below the poverty line and 40% of the population is unemployed, there aren't many options for a poor 13 year old girl who's just been kicked out of school. There were dark thoughts that swirled in my head: prostitution, fragmentation of the family, and the not so dark but just as grim: marriage to an older man, perhaps as a second or third wife. That's when I put my foot down. I called my friend Rachel and my parents, and between the three of us we can up with 3 months tuition, a mere $165, and I wired Mboya the money. All was well.
That was in April. Now it's September, and the school year has restarted. I received an email from Mboya earlier this month, but due to my own negligence, I didn't read it or respond right away. When I finally did respond, I found out that Mboya's sister is on the verge of being kicked out of school. The family does not have enough money to pay her school fees and they were due September 4th. He is panicking. I need him to stop panicking, and that's why I started this blog. I started this blog to put a human face on a continent many people might not think about every day. I started this blog so I'd have a better way to help a person in need.
After Hurricane Katrina, I donated a good chunk of cashmoney to the Red Cross. I was so disappointed when some of that money had gone astray, had been used to buy jewelry or to get a tatoo. I was so discouraged by this, that I vowed to start helping specific people. While organizations working in Africa are great and helpful and important, I decided that if I could help Mboya Musau's sister get through school it might be one of the best things I ever decided to do, and I knew that it would be helping a person directly. And if she goes on to be the first woman president of Kenya, hey, I'll know my time and money was well spent, and even if she doesn't, I know that my friends and I will have helped a girl and in many ways, changed the course of her life.
Because the money must be wired to Kenya tomorrow, I've put a paypal button in this blog. It's 100% safe and linked directly back to me. You can make a donation with your credit or debit card. If you would feel better writing a check, comment on this blog, I will send you my address. If you do make a donation, I will send you a letter of thanks with the amount you donated for tax purposes, but do take note that this is not a registered 501(c)3 charity and your donation may not be tax-deductible.
Thanks again for your time. Check back here for updates and news from Africa.
Allison
Mboya and me (looking busted). Yes Mboya wears his parka despite the heat!
posted by Al at 8:35 AM
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