Hey Toronto Bunchlanders! Joanna Goldberg is headed back to Kenya (for a visit) and she can’t bring all the toys that people have generously donated with her. Instead, she’s hosting a toy sale, the proceeds of which she’ll bring with her when she returns to the Mathare Mother Development Centre where she worked this last year.
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They’ve had quite the year
Take one cup of writer mom and a pinch of five-year-old daughter. Stir in a pint of volunteering and two tablespoons of Kenya. Mix well. We’ve been so proud to host this terrific blog about moving to Kenya for a year with your 5-year-old and we hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Joanna and Cameron’s adventures as much as we have. We’ve rounded up all Joanna’s post from the last year, so check and see that you haven’t missed anything!
Dive into the beginning of Joanna Goldberg’s yearlong “With Kidlet in Kenya” odyssey: Motivations to Chuck It All In and Move to Africa.
Mamma and Kidlet get culture shock at school: Excuse Me, Do you Discipline Students With Regular Beatings?
Costumes and candy and Doing Jewish in Nairobi: Mamma keeps Kidlet connected to life back home with her DIY Holidays.
Joanna Goldberg sends communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
When I first told my family I was seriously thinking of volunteering for a year abroad, they questioned why I’d do such a thing now, when my daughter Cameron was likely too young to remember any of it. What Cameron might or might not gain from the year away wasn’t something I had thought about in depth, as my decision to volunteer was largely a selfish one. It was something I needed to do for myself, an experience I hoped would help shift my career, bend my perspectives, expand my confidence and validate that I could fulfill my own dreams despite being a single mom with a small kid.
Joanna Goldberg sends communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
I’ve been trying to raise Cameron as a lover of all life forms since day one. So far, I believe I’m succeeding. She’ll report to me if she sees kids purposely stepping on ants. She’s told off any number of class mates for poking the chickens in the school playground (this is Nairobi, remember) with sticks. She isn’t afraid of any insects apart from daddy long-legs and picks up everything from worms and spiders to moths and beetles. In fact, I caught her cuddling and – eek – kissing a worm before. We’re vegetarians, of course, and since she was old enough to talk she’s been declaring “We don’t eat meat. We be nice to animals!” But living in Kenya with Cameron has brought her appreciation of creatures big and small to a new level, enabling close encounters with everything from echinoderms to ungulates.
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
Cameron reflects on her days at school. <My responses in parantheses.>
Cobra and kids
I saw a snake today in the playground! It was a black cobra! <What? How do you know?> The teacher said so. We saw its nest! <What did the teacher do?> Nothing. He said to leave it alone. But I’m going to look for it again tomorrow.
God and lesbians
Today I told Rutendo that a girl can be in love with a girl. And she got really mad at me and said they can’t. <Well, she’s wrong and you’re right.> But she gotreally mad at me. She said that if a girl loves a girl, then God will punish them. I told her that was not true. It’s not true, is it mama?
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
The rough life of a volunteer on the front lines of international development sometimes involves some harsh sacrifices. Like going to a posh, award-winning eco-lodge surrounded by stunning vistas and amazing wildlife for the weekend, for instance.
Il Ngwesi Lodge is Kenya’s only lodge both owned and operated by the Maasai community. It costs about $350 a night per person. I believe Will and Kate visited once or twice. It’s a place I wouldn’t dream of being able to visit on my meagre allowance, but a fellow VSO volunteer works for Il Ngwesi and invited about 20 of us to take over the lodge for the weekend at a fraction of the regular cost. Finally, my daughter Cameron would have her chance to have a jumping competition with those who really put their heart into it.
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
Me I can drive this bus faster
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
Back home, I received a somewhat bloated pay cheque every two weeks, regular payments from the recently collapsed conservative government, massive tax breaks and monthly child support from Cameron’s dad. Yet, the laundry, cooking, shopping, parenting, commuting to and from school, house cleaning and transporting is all done by the one and only, me. I even cleaned the toilets myself.
Here, I receive a monthly allowance equivalent to three nights out, some popcorn and half a phone bill back home. Twenty-five thousand Kenyan shillings – about $300 – is more than most Kenyans make, but it’s hardly generous, especially with a kid in tow and in a place as pricey and full of temptations as Nairobi. I’m usually broke, but my god how I’m spoiled.
Jacqueline
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
I’m in the field all week, which in NGO-speak means I’m not in the office but travelling around the country to participate in workshops, facilitate discussions, build capacities, blah blah blah. This week, it’s a series of trainings in pediatric care for grandmothers who look after orphaned children (not always their own grandkids). This week also happens to be school break for Cameron, so I had no choice but to bring my daughter to the field with me.
Back home, this would be impossible, of course. But I’ve lived in Kenya long enough to know I needn’t fret about how Cameron would amuse herself for an entire week while I was busy trying to decipher Bantu languages and Kiswahili so that I might write a brochure on the grandmothers’ key messages and perspectives.
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
My friend back home generously spent five times the value of the contents to send a package over to Cameron. A couple Saturdays back, Cameron and I set off into the city centre to face the ordeal of having to claim it. Apart from the location of all bus/matatu stages, Java coffee shops and the best places to buy fabric, I don’t know the city centre very well, which is why we jumped off the moving matatu at the wrong post office. Realizing my mistake, Cameron and I just started walking towards the next biggest post office I had casually heard about (the package delivery notice did not indicate where the package was, exactly).
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
Another school break, another vacation. Landing a volunteer placement in Kenya scores us endless possibilities for fantastic holidays, from weekend jaunts to a host of lakes just north of Nairobi to week-long excursions to the coast, islands, national parks, northern semi-arid deserts or mountain regions. This time around, I thought I’d resume my mission to find Cameron a cheetah in the wild – harking back to my original bribe to get her to agree to pack up and move out here with me eight months ago.
Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid
“Slums are not ‘the problem.’ Rather, they are the spatial manifestations of urban poverty, social exclusion, and inappropriate government policies. Indeed, they represent an active, grassroots attempt by the desperately poor to take care of themselves.” (Sclar & Northridge. Am J Public Health 2003;93:138).
The organization I work with in Nairobi, GROOTS Kenya, supports youth, caregivers and families in Mathare, an informal settlement (“slum”) about five kilometres north-east of Nairobi centre. As one of the largest slums in East Africa and the oldest in Nairobi, Mathare is home to an estimated 300,000 to 800,000 people, depending on one’s definition of Mathare Valley. It’s not as infamous as Kibera, an even larger slum south-west of the city, and receives a lot less international and local development attention.
