To Start a Library

Ever since my first trip to Kenya in 2011, I have been trying to send books to the Shine Academy in Kibera in order to start a small library for the kids. What started out as a relatively straightforward initiative turned into a tremendously difficult and protracted undertaking.

Over the past 12 months, I have searched for sponsors, explored shipping routes from Hong Kong to Kenya, befriended African traders in the notorious Chungking Mansions, and struggled against the bureaucratic monster that is Kenya Post. It slowly became apparent that I had grossly underestimated the challenges involved in shipping books to Kenya from Hong Kong. The following is a brief account of what happened…

Getting the books

The very first thing I tried to do was to source the books locally in Nairobi. There were a small number of English bookshops in Nairobi and each had a rather poor selection of children’s books. Although books were supposed to be exempt from import duties, this was largely at the whims of the Kenyan customs officers. Thus these books were often imported and cost more than their marked UK/US retail prices. Quality local titles were also very hard to come by. Acquiring books in this way was unfortunately not an option.

Next I tried to look for organizations that donated books to Kenya. But sadly, all the organisations I found targeted mainly primary and secondary schools – while Shine Academy supported children that were a little younger. The organization Room to Read operated only in Tanzania at this point.

Finally, upon returning to Hong Kong, and after a couple of false starts, the Hong Kong Ladies Recreation Club kindly agreed to donate approximately 200kg of age-appropriate books to the school (approximately 1,000 books).

Books all packed and ready to go at the Hong Kong LRC Library 

Delivering the books

Having secured the books, the next hurdle was getting them from Hong Kong to Kenya. I ended up exploring many avenues, and each became more creative as the obvious options were eliminated.

• Shipping via courier was prohibitively expensive.
• Shipping by cargo container via Hong Kong was still extremely expensive, and the large range of quotes that I received from various companies left me with little confidence that anyone knew what they were doing.
• Shipping by cargo container via Guangzhou was cheaper, but it would have involved either smuggling the books across the border to Guangzhou, or else getting the Chinese Ministry of Culture’s approval for importing printed material into the country, neither option was viable.
• I also explored shipping by cargo container via Uganda (which was cheaper), then overland to Nairobi from Kampala – this would have involved a couple of shady cross-border transactions along the way, which was again, not viable.
• Then I tried advertising for volunteers to take books from Hong Kong to Kenya on websites such as Couchsurfing and Asiaxpat, but unfortunately there were not very many willing “book mules”.
• In addition, I approached various corporate social responsibility departments of shipping companies such as Kenya Air Cargo and FedEx, and they took a long time responding.

By this time, I was starting to get a little desperate. I remembered that there were many African merchants that did business in Chungking Mansions. The building was featured in the Hong Kong cult classic “Chungking Express” and most recently in a book called “Ghetto at the Center of the World” by Professor Gordon Matthews (who I ended up meeting in the Mansions). Stepping into the Mansion’s rabbit warren of shops, restaurants and hostel has been described as stepping on to the set of “Bladerunner”. Apparently 80% of all mobile phones in Kenya were traded through these Mansions. I was hoping that the books could also hitch a ride with these Kenyan traders.

Entrance of Chungking Mansions

Apart from visiting the Indian restaurants there from time to time, Chungking Mansions was a completely foreign world to me. And to be honest, it was a little intimidating at first to go there by myself, given its dodgy (and largely undeserved) reputation as being a centre of shady activities in Hong Kong. So I sought the help and guidance of Maggie Lin, who spent a year in Chungking Mansions doing her masters research on trade routes between the Mansions and Africa. 

With Maggie’s contacts and insights, I learned that the Kenyan merchants that visited Hong Kong mainly traded in mobile phones, watches and jewelry. These merchants would buy the goods at Chungking Mansions and take it back to Kenya via their hand carry luggage. Often, a whole suitcase of such goods would not only cover the plane ticket but also allow the trader to make a tidy profit. Unfortunately, the Kenyan merchants that did bigger shipments via cargo containers (for furniture and used automobile parts) were based in Guangzhou. Again, the Chinese Ministry of Culture would be a major obstacle.

Despite the Chungking Mansions lead being a dead end, I learned a lot along the way. I became good friends with Maggie, who was undeterred by the fact that I had tracked her down over Google in a rather stalkerish manner. Together, we started hanging out at the Chungking Mansions on free weekends.  I was also lucky enough to attend an English lesson for African refugees run by Professor Gordon Matthews and enjoyed swapping political views with some of the mansion’s African residents. All in all, it was a great opportunity to experience and understand a hidden side of Hong Kong.

Finally I got a break. Fedex Hong Kong kindly agreed to sponsor a one-off shipment to Nairobi. As Fedex did not have on the ground operations in Kenya, it shipped the 9 boxes of books via Hong Kong Post and absorbed the costs of doing so. After 2 months of searching, the books were finally on their way to Nairobi!

Collecting the books

The 200kg of books were packed into 9 large boxes. The boxes left Hong Kong in late November and arrived at the Nairobi central post office in December 2011. Here is where the real pain began…

Now Hong Kong Post assumed that Kenya Post would deliver the boxes directly to the school. However, Kenya Post did not have that service. Instead, they required the recipient to pick them up and pay the related duties. The misunderstanding caused months of to’ing and fro’ing between the two post offices without any resolution. In the mean time, heavy storage costs were being racked up (to the delight of local post office officials).  The boxes were stuck in a quagmire of bureaucracy…

Books in Nairobi, after 8 months of storage 

Finally after 8 months (!!!) of paper shuffling and misleading advice (from an unsavory intermediary looking to make some money), I collected the boxes in person in Nairobi, but not after another half day of painful negotiations in relation to the final “storage cost” payment. The boxes were infested with roaches when we opened them, but the books were otherwise undamaged. 

Half a day of negotiating in this hell place 

What this experience has taught me was the cost of doing business in a developing country. Services and processes that we take for granted in developed countries don’t operate in the same way over there. A relatively straightforward transaction can become bogged down in an inefficient system (which can sometimes feel like it was intentionally designed to frustrate and impede the average user).

This experience has also made me appreciate so much more the amazing amount of progress that Impoverished Children has achieved in Kenya. I can only imagine the bureaucratic nightmare that Catherine and Javier had to endure in order to establish the Shine Academy and continue its daily operations.

This story however, does have a happy ending, as evident from the photos below. And at the end of the day, seeing the kids’ faces light up as they opened the pages for the first time, really made it all worth it.

What kind of bird is that?

Opening the pages of the story for the first time...

I can read! 

The 3 Most Requested Songs from Shine Academy

I've been taking my laptop, mobile phone and portable speakers to the school everyday. My laptop is hooked up by my phone to the internet, so the kids have access to the world wide web. It's been an endless source of wonder for the children and an extremely useful teaching tool. We use it for many different things. 

Firstly, we use the laptop to show pictures and videos of  the topics that we are teaching in class. For example, when learning about the letter V, the kids are able to see a picture of a violin, hear a piece of music played by a violin, and then watch a video of a violin being played. Imagine their surprise when they saw that a violin is played by a bow, and wasn't strummed like a guitar. 

Secondly, we use it to teach songs and sounds. The kids absolutely love the video below, which helps them to learn the phonic alphabet. The Pre-unit class could memorise most of the song after playing it just two times! These sorts of educational videos also help correct any mispronunciations, which is important as the kids don't speak English at home. 

The children have also used the laptop's camera to make videos of themselves doing many activities. This includes conducting plays, public speaking, singing and dancing. The possibilities with using technology to teach are really endless. 

Just today, the kids met "Mama Kun" and "Baba Kun" via skype. They were extremely excited and eager to show my parents the dance that we've been practicing in class. There were also screams of glee when they saw that my mum had joined in the dancing. 

Skype screenshot taken by my parnets  

However by far, the kids' favourite activity is make song requests during our dance class. So without further adieu, here are the 3 most requested songs from the kids of Shine Academy. 

1. Jambo Bwana

This is arguably the most famous Swahili song. 

2. Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) by Shakira

South Africa World Cup Theme Song

3. Furi Furi Dance by Jimmy Gait and DK

The song is sung in Sheng (a slang version of Swahili) and Pidgin-English and comes with its own dance moves. 

Back to Kenya

I am sitting in airport waiting for my plane to Nairobi via Doha. It's been almost a year since I was last in Kenya and I can't wait to see the kids at Shine Academy again.

I'm looking forward to seeing their big bright smiles and to be surrounded by laughter and shouts of "Teacher Kun".

The older kids' English must have improved over the past year and I can't wait to to converse with them and learn more about them.

The thing I anticipate the most is to meet the new baby class of 2012. These twenty-five kids have been selected from the worst family backgrounds. They were given the precious opportunity to go to school and shine by generous donors from Hong Kong and Australia. I'm so excited to meet each child and learn his or her name.

I don't think I have ever been this excited to go to school. Can't wait till Monday!

My First Day

My first visit to the Shine Academy was also the first time I visited Kibera. Kibera is known as the largest slum in Nairobi and one of the largest in Africa. As we drove along Kibera Drive, the road that led into the slum, we passed by a posh shopping mall, the French Embassy residence and rows of beautiful apartment buildings. As the road turned however, the apartments came to an abrupt stop. It felt as if someone had suddenly changed the TV Channel, from a daytime soap opera to a World Vision ad. The difference in atmosphere was that jarring. The smooth asphalt of the road gave way to dirt, pebbles and potholes. We bumped past a dusty field with a few clumps of trees, littered with vendors selling vegetables. Then, before my eyes, a brown sea of ramshackle shacks spilled into a valley as far as the eye could see.

I learned on that day that the distance between affluent suburbia and desperate poverty was about 100 metres, separated by live electric fencing.

The Shine Academy was situated in an area in Kibera called Olympic. Olympic was described by Javier as “upper-class slum”, somewhat of an oxymoron, but an apt description nonetheless. I later saw other parts of Kibera in much more dire conditions. The road that led to Olympic could be accessed by car, and was lined with shops cobbled together from pieces of wood and iron sheeting. Most of the slum could only be accessed on foot, so this was a luxury. Furthermore, some shops even had electricity, and it was possible to buy a cold drink on a hot day. Unfortunately, the relative affluence of the street also made it the prime target for rioters in the slum. And when the riots did occur, which were several times a year, the only protection between the rioters smashing up shops down the road and the teachers and kids at the school was a set of nondescript gates made from flimsy corrugated iron sheeting.

The school was a modest brick building with 3 main rooms that served as classrooms. There was also a kitchen (with two large metal pots), a storage room (with a big bunch of unripened bananas from the school’s single banana tree), a lavatory and a small room that served as Catherine's office. The yard consisted of reddish-brown dirt strewn with small pebbles, and was the size of half a tennis court. 

It was only later that I realized what a spacious facility this was compared to the other schools in the slum. One high school I visited in another part of Kibera called Lindi managed to cram 400 students  in nine classrooms on two floors over an area of about a quarter-acre block (about the size of a standard suburban Melbourne allotment). The high school building was patched together by hand, using random bits of wood and iron sheeting. The floor boards had gaping holes (through which one could see the students in the classroom below) and creaked threateningly under every step. It was a marvel of DIY engineering and a potential death trap.

Catherine greeted me warmly as she opened the tall iron gates on the first day. I was particularly struck by her smiling eyes, hearty laugh and commanding presence in front of the children. It’s a funny thing about primary school teachers, the best ones always walk a fine line between being very much loved and a little bit feared by the kids (only when they've been naughty). I could tell right away that she was one of these, when the kids gave her their absolute attention as she introduced me as “Teacher Kun”.

And the kids, where do I even start? I fell in love with them from the very first recess when they proceeded to clamber over me like little monkeys. A few of the older boys and girls were eager to introduce themselves in English. Some of the younger ones were simply happy to cling onto my arms or legs. I improvised with games of Simon Says, tag, and pretended to be a kangaroo to many squeals of glee. I soon had a small mob of little kangaroos hopping behind me in a large circle around the school yard. They were the easiest children to delight and please.

I only had one problem.

Much to my dismay, all the kids looked the same to me. Yes some were a little bit taller than others, but I couldn't even tell the boys apart from the girls, for they all had their little heads shaved.

“Don’t worry, they all look the same at the beginning” Javier joked.

It took me many more days to learn all their names.

View of Kibera, from the south

The Shine Academy school building and school yard

Such beautiful kids - but how to tell them apart?

Google map of Kibera

View Larger Map

A Serendipitous Beginning

I went to Kenya with very few expectations and quite a bit of trepidation with regards to safety. My Chinese mother was convinced that I would catch some terrible disease and never return. A scan of the Australian DFAT website revealed warnings about terrorism, muggings, robberies and the list went on. It also specifically warned to stay away from slums like Kibera. Okay I thought, I can be sensible and stay away from dangerous areas of Nairobi. Not too hard right?

My friend was doing a research project in Nairobi for the summer, and I had arranged to join him for a few weeks in Kenya. It would be my first time in Africa and I was glad for the break from my demanding job in banking. I had left Hong Kong with plans to go on safari to see some game animals and spend a few days on the coast. Between those two plans, I had hazy notions of volunteering, perhaps meeting some locals and leaving with some cool souvenirs. And then something serendipitous happened. I somehow ended up in Kibera.

It was one of the best experiences of my life. For 4 weeks I volunteered at the Shine Academy, a school set up right in the middle of Kibera by a couple from Melbourne – Catherine Whiting and Javier Martinez. The school supported 50 kids and their families, picked from the most desperate backgrounds. As I later found out, the word ‘desperate’ was an understatement in many of the cases.

It was at the school that I saw with my own eyes the huge amount of positive impact that two people could make in an impoverished community and using very few resources. I witnessed the power of love and compassion to create change, and that it was infectious. I saw what courage and sacrifice looked like in action and learned that they always went hand in hand. I was inspired. I was challenged. I was humbled. I never knew I could learn so much in such a short period of time. I left with a renewed belief in the goodness of people and a profound sense of hope for the future.

I am writing this blog with the aim of recording my experiences and the lessons that I learnt along the way. It is for my own benefit really, as memories tend to become fuzzy and important details are forgotten with time.

It is also my hope that this blog will help raise awareness for the Impoverished Children Project and the Shine Academy. It is incredible work that Catherine and Javier are doing in Kibera, and it is their story, much more poignant than my own, that needs to be told.  

Catherine, Javier, me, teachers Sheila and Winnie with the kids of the Shine Academy