Town meeting, the men side
This one goes out to Cristy.
July 25. At 2, there’s a “strategical” Save Lamu meeting, and we tag along to see what’s being discussed. Since we are the first to arrive at the office (d’oh, we were there at 2.15-ish – everybody knows that a meeting called for 2 will start the very earliest at 3), we decide to have a quick shopping session at the market. As we’re heading out, there’s a guy in front of the door. He turns out to be the environmental lawyer we’re working with, who arrived from Cape Town the other day. We introduce ourselves (and, since he’s Italian, he has the honor of being the first person here who knows where I come from), and tell him that the meeting is taking place upstairs, then proceed to go do our shopping.
During the meeting, a number of issues are discussed. For instance, we learn that there was a closed meeting with the prime minister and representatives from Lamu, but that the local people did not have a chance to ask questions. Instead, the politicians simply held their own speeches, in a clear-cut uni-directional type of communication. The same went for the public rally, where people were holding up placards protesting the authorities’ lack of transparency. People were asked to put down these signs, apparently by a member of the local community. As we were later discussing with Boss, “back in the day,” one could burn flags at public rallies. Nowadays, you get your right to free speech, in an enclosed space, 1 mile away from the speakers. In order to trust the system, there must first be a functional system, which is lacking here. Civil society’s involvement and actions are a lot more intense, and for good reasons: on the one hand, there are a lot more issues to address here than in the West, and on the other one, Kenya is a young democracy, so it makes sense that almost everyone here is part of an NGO (some even more than one).
The head of the elders’ council had taken notes regarding the PM’s speech. He apparently said that the Lamu port is a blessing, and that the town will become a metropolis. But the local people disagree with that, and really don’t want the port to end up like the Mombasa one, with more Kikuyu people moving here. Lamu people are not trained to work in harbors, to operate cranes, and so on, so the argument of more employment opportunities does not make sense here. It’s no wonder then that no one clapped about the port at the public rally. On the funny note, the man’s cell phone rings just as he was starting to get heated in his argument about the PM. So, obviously, he proceeds to pick up his phone and have a conversation. True Kenyan!
Also, one of the older women, whom we had met at Bustani a few days ago, and who’s extremely involved with civil society in Lamu, was at the meeting with the PM, and she has a few point about it. Apparently, the guy brought along a food transport, which he justified by saying he’d heard women complain that their men are not strong enough for them at night, because there’s no food. So he wanted to solve that. Now, in what parallel universe this would have been funny, I do not know. But saying such things, especially when in a public position, is despicable – why, oh why, would you do that?
As we sit through the meeting, I can’t help but think about the Harakati office as a “Poiana lui Iocan.” It really seems to be the center of civically-engaged social life in Lamu, a neutral environment where various organizations come together and discuss strategies, but also voice their opinions. Kind of what we hope the radio to achieve, but on a smaller scale.
July 28. Today is the big Town Meeting day – I’m really curious as to how things will turn out. In the morning, one of the guys was supposed to come over with the Swahili translation of the survey, guidelines and background info, but he’s quite late. I want to go to the meeting, so I join Boss, and leave Karen at home to wait for H. First, we go to photocopy the flyers for the meeting. While we are there, S. calls Boss, telling her that the Swahili flyer is also done. Since Boss has to go to the fort, she sends me to pick up the flyer, print it and multiply it. Finding S.’s office and getting the USB stick are my easiest tasks this morning. As I go to the first internet café I see, I learn that their printer is jammed, so they cannot print anything for me. The second place I go to, the printer has no ink…how fun is that? Finally, I reach the third place, and go upstairs.
This place has a working, ink-filled printer, and I ask one of the guys to print the flyer. However, the wireless isn’t working that well, so the guy tries every computer in the location (5 or so in total). The only one that eventually works is one where an older guy was working on some report. He’s nice enough to move aside and let the internet café kid print my flyer. Which of course has suffered some alterations when being switched from one format to the other, so it requires being printed twice – once to see that the text is messed up, and once after I fiddled with it and repaired it (notice the modesty). In the meantime, I make small talk with the older guy, who asks me where I’m from. Surprisingly enough, he knows where Romania is (“Aaah, neighbors! I’m from Turkey!”). He asks me what I’m doing here and I tell him that I’m working with a local NGO. Perfectly nice conversation you’d say, but then my printing is done, and I ask the kid how much I have to pay him. To which older guy replies that he’s gonna pay for it. I politely decline, saying it was a work thing, and that I need to get a receipt for my boss anyway. Of course, he asks me for my e-mail address before I leave.
With the flyer finally done, I go to the photocopy shop, make the copies, cut them, and head to the fort, where Boss was waiting for me. She tells me she’d been trying to reach me, thinking I might have got lost. As if that were possible in Lamu! We fold the flyers, as someone is talking about a so-called “internal colonialism,” referring to the central authorities’ attitude toward the people of Lamu. Then, we go sit on the women’s side (yes, there’s a men and a women side for this meeting) in the fort. There are more men than women, but the rapport seems quite reasonable. Most of the women seem somewhat bored. I then proceed to take pictures, as most of the information that is being presented by the guests is already familiar to me.
When I arrive at the meeting, a professor is speaking about Lamu. He talks about the increase in population, explaining that it is not due to the fact that Lamu people are now having 30 children each. In fact, he says, “Lamu people are migrating to Mombasa,” which makes “inward migration even higher.” He also brings to attention the issue of the environmental impact assessment, suggesting that “there’s a fear inside the government that it will not be positive.” The speaker also fears that in 20-30 years, Lamu will become a museum. “Already,” he says, “tourists come here to look at the buildings, at the donkeys, at boats, at anything but the people,” and this speaks to the relatively negative attitude toward tourism. Demands? That the government recognizes there are IDPs in Lamu, and that they are compensated fairly. That the government looks at who’s been given land in Lamu – 70-80% of the settlement schemes are in favor of outsiders. Moreover, the speaker says, local people are the best able to tell the government about the impact of any development project on the environment. He claims that the Japanese people who came here to conduct a feasibility study for the port were very secretive; “they didn’t even leave their business cards behind,” he says. Why the secrecy? It’s not particularly a brain-teaser: the stakes are high, and the economic benefits for the local people are once again going to be minimal. As M.B. put it, “we are not opposing this (port) project, we just want it to be clean (transparent and environmentally-friendly).”
