Bashir Mamow - Nairobi, Kenya

Bashir Mamow – Kenya

My name is Bashir Mamow, and in the past summer I’ve been working in Nairobi, Kenya. I worked
for an organization called, D.F.K, which is an abbreviation for Discordant Families of Kenya. The word
discordant refers to the situation where one of the parents in a family is afflicted with HIV/AIDS. For
example, the wife can be HIV-negative, but the husband is HIV-positive. The main goal of D.F.K. is to increase the living standard of discordant families, empower them, and create partnerships with other establishments such as schools, children’s homes, clinics, and other miscellaneous institutions so that a network of support is created for all of the discordant families that D.F.K. supports.

I arrived in Kenya on June 16th, and I was welcomed by the one of the directors of D.F.K . I was taken
to a host family living in the affluent part of Nairobi, and I was immediately stunned at how big the
house was. The family had a maid that made all the food and cleaning, and on top of that, it was said
that the country’s president lived in the same neighborhood. The living situation was a complete contrast to the areas I was sent to work, one of them being Saika, where I worked as a teacher for primary school students in mostly English and math. The area was not as bad as Kibera, which is East-Africa’s largest slum, but in terms of living standards the area shared many similarities. The most apparent was the filth and garbage that were spread everywhere. In addition, the area lacked widespread electricity, and the few houses that had electricity would have pretty inconsistent power.

The experience with teaching the children was very fun and rewarding. The kids were so energetic
and eager to learn. The teachers and school staff were also very welcoming. The challenge was
mostly the language barrier. I knew they could understand me, but they would always reply in
Kiswahilli. I had to use a lot of non-verbal communication or translation from other teachers.

I was also sent to work on several IT-projects for various NGOs. One of projects was to make it easier
for the staff at an underprivileged to keep track of student payments. The challenge was to create a
database that not only contained all the necessary info, but also to make it easy enough to use for
people that were not used to computers. So I had to recall all the stuff I had learned about Excel
and macro programming, and apply it for this particular case. In addition to the database, I also
developed several websites, where the challenge working with crappy internet connection and a lack
of good web designing tools. In the end, I was pleased with the results from the IT-projects, and my
superiors were also very satisfied with the results.

My overall experience was that I had very good time in Kenya. I don’t quite get all the fuss people
make about how unsafe Africa is. If you use your common sense and don’t get too flashy with
expensive items, then chances of actually getting robbed are slim. Though, a thief managed to climb
in through our balcony, and stole most of our electrical items…. One of the things that annoyed me the most was that most people (understandably) assumed that I spoke Kiswahilli. Some people would accept that I didn’t speak Kiswahilli, but others would actually be pissed off. It was particularly the taxi drivers and the guys working on the Matatus (buses) who would angry at me for not knowing the language. I personally think it was due to Kenyans being more skeptical towards Somalis, which I can understand due to political atmosphere between the countries.

Another annoying aspect of living in Kenya was the off again – on again electricity. This especially
made it more challenging doing the IT-projects on a computer that relied on continuous charging. I
sometimes lost valuable work because of this.

All in all, I met all of incredible people and made some resourceful connections in Kenya. The experience was fun and rewarding. I would recommend anyone to work in Kenya!