"Relaxed rapport between outsiders and rural people can and should be established early in the process. [...] Personal demeanour counts, showing humility, respect, patience, and interest in what villagers have to say and show, wandering around and not rushing, and paying attention, listening, watching and not interrupting" .
(Quote from Rural appraisal: rapid, relaxed and participatory, by Robert Chambers).
Tuesday 19th to Sunday 24th of June:
Arrival to Maili Saba
My departure from the Rudolf Steiner school in Nairobi can be described as a little stressful, very early morning: It is still dark and just a few minutes after 5am when I understand that the taxi that the school secretary has kindly ordered for me will not show up. Between walking to the main road alone at night or wait for the morning traffic jam to make me miss the bus to Kitale, I ponder... The watchmen try to find me a solution, but it is finally Uber app and a committed driver who will save my day and ride me on time at the Easy Coach station.
The 9 hours bus ride goes unexpectedly fast, with a stop every 3 hours, a neck pillow and Nat Geo Wild in loops on the common screen.
Following Juliet's instructions, I ask to get off at Maili Saba, a rural area located approximately 12 km from Kitale town. In one glance one can see that the agriculture of maize (cornmeal) is widespread here. Unable to reach Juliet on her phone, I ask around until a piki-piki driver (motorbike) asserts me that he knows her. A few bumps later, Juliet and her husband Sam welcome me in their house, filled with the joys and sorrows of Malaika (3 and a half years old), Jamali and Jabali (2 years old).
Ugali vs Meatballs
We usually eat ugali and sukuma wiki (a dough made of boiled maize flour, served with minced and boiled kind-of-kale leaves), but on Friday the 22nd is the day of Midsummer in Sweden, and Music Party in France. I take this as an occasion to celebrate with my hosts and cook a "European meal" with whatever I could recognise on the market. I manage to cook a soja version of the Swedish reindeer stew with mashed potatoes, that I serve to Juliet, Sam, their children, Violet and a few neighbours. This meal comes after we have taken a French "apéro": cheese and red wine.
Semi-structured interviews: Understanding the Waldorf school pedagogy.
On Thursday, I held semi-structured interview with the two School leaders (Juliet and Violet), one teacher and the farmer (Juliet´s husband, Sam), in order to understand the specificity of Waldorf schools pedagogy in Kenya.
I started by introduction myself, as a practice before standing in fromt of a bigger and less well informed audience. I explained my role in the process of construction of the new school. I am a professional architect from a Swedish architecture company, who will help them designing a school that meets their needs and fulfill the criterias that they believe are important. For that, I must learn from them, the local know-hows, traditions, materials, etc. I am not a decision-maker, I don't have the money, I am not in charge of fundraising. I am a facilitator who will guide them to find and reveal the best suitable design solutions. We will then translate those into comprehensive plans, layouts and construction principles, materials and methods.
You can see below a hand-written compilation and summary of the findings from those semi-structured interviews.
Commenting on project references: Discussing spatial and technical aspects
That same day we also validated the program of the first phase of construction, that is to say 2 kindergarten classrooms, one big kitchen and a covered hall for eating and other activities.
With the support of printed pictures of different references of similar projects that my colleagues and I have been gathering in the last months, as well as a slide-show presentation of the soon completed Econef Children Center in Tanzania, we started discussing spatial, technical and aesthetic aspects such as position of windows, type of cooking stoves or roof shape.
Visit of a potential plot and analysis
The analysis of this potential plot, together with an updated Budget and Construction Timeline is meant to be sent to the Funding organisation that The Humane School and Förening Sofia count on to finance the first stage of the construction. Understanding the reality and seriousness of the project will hopefully speed up the Funding process.
Informal transect walks and many greetings
On Friday, Sam´s cousin shows me the way to the market. On Saturday, Juliet and Sam take me for a long walk around and, caught by a somewhat expected heavy rain, we take refugee in the first house we find and wait in their sitting room for about a hour. On Sunday, it is Sam´s brother and his girlfriend who invite to show me around and share some of their life stories.
We often stop and shake hands. "She is a parent at the school", would Juliet explain to me. They exchange a few sentences in Swahili and surprisingly continue walking while still talking in their back, without looking at each other. I familiarise myself with the body language and a few new words of Swahili.
Visit of the construction of a mud house (traditional local technique)
The neighbour, Sam´s brother, is building his house in the traditional mud construction technique. Wooden pillars are stuck to the ground, approximately one foot (30 cm) deep. Those pillars support the roof construction made of wooden trussed covered by corrugated metal sheets. Double rows of wooden sticks and branches are nailed horizontally between the pillars and the gaps of about one foot are filled with a mix of raw soil taken directly from around the construction. Nothing more than water is added to the soil and if one can see thin stalks sticking out of the walls once they have dried, it is not fibres meant to reinforce the soil mix and prevent the cracks but merely grass and roots that have been dig out with the soil.
Management talk
This week I have drawn a Construction Timeline Proposal, taking into account different steps in the construction process as well as the seasonal fluctuations (dry and rain seasons). I also started adapting templates of Budget Calculation that I took from Asante´s project in Tanzania, ECONEF Baobab House and Children Center. I need to discuss, revise and complete those management tools with the valuable inputs of School leaders and the Board of The Humane School.
Settling down in Maili Saba
It is unfortunately not easy to combine everybody´s agenda, specially that it is "Half-time", with means that the children and teachers are on holidays this week and the school is closed. Everybody seems busy with their daily chores and I adapt day after day to the local life conditions. Not that lacking internet, taking cold showers from a bucket, standing the screams of 2 years old boys, being called "Mzongo" wherever I go or always having my feet full of dust (or mud depending on the weather) is anything new to me, but it took me some days to emotionally comply.
I try to get myself into the slow pace of rural Kenya and let the frustration of non-productivity flow away, remembering the wise words of the social development practitioner Robert Chambers. (see quote at the beginning of this article).
Hopefully next week we will make even bigger steps in the participative design process!