Nzuri Sana

Last week was very interesting and exciting. It started with a trip to the Ashton Apparel Factory on Monday. As I mentioned earlier in this blog, Wal-Mart is a big funder of Hope Worldwide. When I first saw this I was VERY skeptical. But I have learned, in my time here, that Wal-Mart’s involvement with Hope Worldwide is in response to the bad publicity they got a few years back for treating their employees horribly. Hope Worldwide has an HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness program with the people who work in Ashton Apparel Factory- a factory that supplies clothing for Wal-Mart (and Jones of New York). HWW also provides vocational training (computer classes and dress making classes) for the factory workers and their dependents. I went with one of my co-workers, Kameri, to drop off some forms from one of the computer classes, at the factory. I met the manager of the factory and was given a full tour. It was really intense. The security was really high, we had to tell the guard why we were there, who we were there to see and then he had to confirm it with that person before he could let us in. We were led through the main factory floor (which was packed with tons of people and machines) and walked up some stairs to the manager’s office, overlooking the entire factory. It was like something out of a movie. The manager was Indian and was very welcoming to me, but all I could think about was how corrupt he was. The workers are treated VERY poorly at Ashton (even though the conditions have improved over the past few years). The factory workers are paid on an individual and group “target” basis. If they don’t meet their target number of garments in a day then they won’t be paid their full wages (which aren’t even enough to support them…most workers have other jobs on the side to just get by). This means that they have to work non-stop until their break or the end of their shift (apparently shifts are a new thing- until about a year ago, Ashton employees worked all day). I have never been in a factory before and it was a very eye-opening experience. There were so many people (1,800) working in the building, with only inches of workspace. Everything was just so crowded, hot and cramped. I have always been relatively aware of where my clothes come from, but this took it to a whole other level. I think it was really good for me to see. The sad thing is that Ashton may be one of the better factories because they were happy to give me a tour. I’m sure other factories would not be so happy to show me around…which is a scary thought because what I saw was already pretty distressing.

The rest of my week was pretty normal, but Friday was awesome. I went to work, as usual, did some small things and then went into town so I could run a few errands. I was going to meet Amanda in town around 3pm so we could go to the Kangaweya market on the North Coast. I had some time to kill so I went to Dorman’s coffee shop and had a nice cold drink and started reading my book. Then I noticed that Dr. Catherine Maternowska (aka. Kati) was passing my table, so I said hi and we began talking. A little background on who Kati is: When I was working at UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, my boss put me in touch with Kati because she was doing work in Mombasa. Those of you who read the New York Times magazine about women’s rights work in the developing world may recognize her name because she wrote an article about female sex workers who work with truckers in Zambia. So, I shot her an email, not expecting much because she’s a pretty big deal, but to my surprise she responded within a day. We realized that we were connected in another way: Mary, one of the FSD site team members, also works with her. So anyways, long story short, we have been meaning to meet up and talk about the work she does here. We got that chance on Friday and spoke for about an hour. It was SO interesting. Apparently her mentor was Paul Farmer (!!!) and she lived and worked in Haiti for something like 7 years. She’s currently doing work on sexual and gender-based violence. I learned a lot from speaking with her and was greatly inspired.

Moments after she left, Mary (from FSD) walked by and we started chatting. She told me that my project (which I submitted the grant proposal for) received full funding from FSD!! This made me SO happy especially because a) My project was the only project from the Mombasa interns to be funded and b) I was competing with all the other FSD interns around the world for the prize money. It made me really happy to hear the news and really encouraged me. We are holding the training session tomorrow, and I will write soon to let you all know how it goes.

This weekend I went on safari with Amanda and Graham. It was a lot of fun. We saw a ton of elephants, a lion and a lioness, water buffalo, zebras and many other animals. I was kinda disappointed because we only saw 2 giraffes (and they were really far away). But Graham and I are going to Haller Park in a few weeks and apparently there are a lot of giraffes there.

Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up to. I best get to bed though to rest up for the busy day ahead. Hope everyone is doing well!!

Oxoxo Anna