Cheborge

Although it may seem like I’m here on vacation, I’m actually here as a student/researcher/free laborer. I’m learning about microfinance by observing and interviewing women in a savings group—a “merry-go-round” or RoSCA. The savings group is particularly designed by Rays of Hope for vulnerable women: widows and those who are HIV+.

So (almost) every Wednesday I travel by matatu to a nearby village called Cheborge with Rachel to join these mamas at their weekly meeting. Rachel teaches the women from a biblical perspective the importance of saving and stewardship while I sit quietly in the corner and observe. I take field notes and scribble furiously in my little notebook.

To supplement my observations, Rachel organized for face-to-face interviews with the participants. I used a poverty assessment survey downloaded from USAID’s website and added it to a questionnaire I had created that inquires about personal history and involvement with the savings group. So at one meeting, Rachel organized for several women to make themselves available the next Saturday for me to visit them and interview them. 13 women volunteered. I was so skeptical as to how it would be earthly possible for me to visit 13 women’s homes in a day. [For those of you who don’t know, African’s live by the proverb “Visitors are blessings.” I don’t think I’ve ever visited a home and not been offered chai or a meal or a hand in marriage. And the rudest thing you can do is refuse an offer of chai.] So in my mind I figured we’d get to hopefully at least three women, and maybe even five or six. Wrong. Caren, who is a 20-year-old Kipsigis girl who knows mother tongue and English, agreed to come with me on Saturday and act as a translator. The two of us arrived in Cheborge at 10a and didn’t get back to Litein until 7p. We walked and drank chai and took slices and mdazi and ugali and biscuits and, nine hours later, we had successfully visited and interviewed 12 Kenyan widows.

Caren and I had such a nice time with the women. I found myself being escorted by five of the widows (they liked to tag along to the next couple of houses after I interviewed them), walking through a field of maize surrounded by fields of chai surrounded by more fields, and I couldn’t help but laugh at my circumstances. I’ve never felt the truth of the phrase “I’m in the middle of nowhere” quite like I did that day.

I’m a huge fan of chai, but after Saturday I hardly wanted to hear it mentioned. We must have had ten hot mugs of it in the course of the day. And I prefer Mum’s sweet chai à she makes it with sugar, but sugar is too expensive for most of the women in Cheborge to afford. And of course Mama Chiri’s first suggestion when I got home was “You’ll take chai to fight the tiredness.” Whew. Caren and I refer to ourselves as champion chai drinkers now.

This is me attempting to sing with the widows. Meetings begin with a devotional and always involve a traditional song or two. Most of the songs are call and response, so I’m able to repeat some of the words. We all stand to sing and we usually sway and clap or do some other sort of motion with our hands. It’s wonderful.