Going to Prison and Why I Love It

It is 10:00am on an overcast, muggy Nairobi morning. Faux-leopard print bedecks the couch I sit on in a small room located near the front entrance of Nairobi’s Industrial Area Remand Prison. Prison officers and Kenyan CSO* workers crowd the room and everyone looks very smart. Even I chose a suit today over the flip-flops and skirts which usually constitute my interpretation of business wear in Kenya. Comfortable silence rests on the meeting as we all take tea. Mandazi, sausage and samosa—one each—served alongside mugs brimful of sweet, milky chai. I love this about Kenya, the ubiquitous tea time and formality that accompanies as we silently partake. From workmen clustered under dusty, tarped street-side cafés to Parliamentarians, every Kenyan takes tea. Stir, sip, chew. We wait for the last person to finish before beginning our meeting.

Introductions circle the room as everyone recites greetings, their name and the organization for which they work. Aware of the one Mzungu in the room, the guests speak English. My turn: “Habari zenu. Ninaitwa Hannah Beckett. Nafanya kazi International Justice Mission.” I switch back to English having just exhausted a quarter my Swahili knowledge, though building rapport.  “Your English is conc,” Kenyans tell me. Short for concentrated, “conc” means I speak in a strong, fast-paced American accent.

Today the twenty-five stakeholders gathered at Remand represent various organizations providing social services in the prison (spiritual, medical, educational, legal aid etc.). The following two hours' discussion focuses on how to improve coordination between CSOs and the prison service in order to serve prisoners holistically. As IJM’s representative at this meeting, I get to talk about our work and how CSOs and the Kenyan Prison Service can better partner together. 

Snag a suit, say you work for an international NGO and there you have it... instant gravitas. No one knows I am just an intern, not to mention a waitress only six months ago. I love this about my work with IJM— an abundance of opportunities and constant supply of challenges.

The last three months have flown by and busyness characterizes my time here thus far. When I return home from work I just spent the last nine hours interacting, listening, talking, planning and problem-solving. Mentally exhausted, I consciously have to switch off my brain from continuing to think about work and relax, so I also postpone the blogging.

That said, it is nice to be back and I will try to make up for the paucity. Let’s start with work…

I love it.

I absolutely love my job. I do not even excel as an Executive Assistant (improving though, I hope), but enjoy most things about my role. I have an excellent boss who genuinely cares about the work, the staff and seeing change in Kenya. Because he serves as the Casework Director, I get exposure to all areas of our work and ongoing cases. Though rarely boring, my days can seem routine: taxi, coffee, greetings, stillness, devotions, work, lunch, work, coffee, walk, grocery, home//repeat.

I do not get to go to prison every day, sadly (strange statement, that), but I do enjoy a large variety of tasks. Roughly fifty-percent of my tasks pertain to the daily activities of scheduling, editing, meetings, organization and follow-up. The other fifty-percent, and the half I prefer, relates more to long-term projects like research, external partnerships and improving casework processes. I particularly appreciate the hands-on involvement I have and feel more confident to voice ideas, suggest improvements and propose projects than when I arrived. (Event planning stands as the one exception to my above statement. The soul-sucking, stress-inducing duty of office visit and event planning contravene every part of my personality.) However, without a doubt, the best part of my job is my interaction with fellow staff.  

Before arriving in Nairobi I looked forward to getting to know my coworkers and that experience has brought such joy. The dedicated, professional and fun team astounds me at how hard they work and what they accomplish, sometimes in difficult circumstances.

Our lawyers, for example, routinely endure Nairobi traffic and sit for hours in court, only to hear a judge cursorily dismiss them because he has not expended the necessary time to write the judgment needed for case resolution. Our investigators may spend weeks planning an arrest only to encounter a tip-off that spoils the entire operation. Despite this, the staff perseveres without despondency.

Since I arrived three months ago IJM has achieved convictions of two perpetrators of child sexual assault, seen the release of twenty-five innocently imprisoned Kenyans and celebrated the restoration of five of our clients. This represents only a small portion of the daily work done by the group of people I can now call my friends as we joke, laugh, lament, struggle, pray and achieve together. In future I will share more work experiences and successes, but in the meantime... did I mention I love my job?

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*Civil Society Organizations

Travel + Two Weeks

I have now lived in Nairobi for two complete weeks. Orientations, shopping, work projects, taxi rides and meeting people have packed the last 14 days. I feel like I could write half a dozen posts about everything already. On one hand everything is still really unfamiliar - I can only (semi) confidently walk two places without getting lost (work and the grocery); On the other hand I have already helped plan one big work event and have enough projects to keep me busy for at least another two weeks straight with nothing else added. 

Here's some highlights of the last couple weeks:

Travel

Basically everything in London
made me freak out from a TV
show or movie reference

All my travel went exceptionally well. For my 24-hour layover in London I booked a bed at the Pride of Paddington hostel so I could sleep and see the city. I (shockingly) navigated the Tube ("chube" people, seriously?) and walked around through the city for several hours, but because I'd have to mortgage at least 2 future children to buy anything in London, I stuck with sightseeing. The city was cold but awesome, I'd love to go back with more time. 

Staying at hostels never fails to disappoint for gathering stories... After my somewhat terrifying at the time, but funny later, experience at a hostel in the red light district in Frankfurt in 2012, I told myself I'd never book a mixed gender dorm room again. Well... that cost ~ £18 more at Pride of Paddington! No way. Mixed dorm it was. So I finally make it back to the room around midnight, the other two guys staying in the room are already asleep. I'd just gone to bed when someone else comes in, turns the light on (rude), stands in the middle of the room and gets totally undressed. Then he proceeds to ask me if he may make a phone call. "Umm... Yes, yes you may. If you turn off the light... and put some pants on." 
Yeah, I never learn.

For Molly - Jammie dodger and tea

Soho

 Kenya

Beautiful, as I remember, but different this time. Loiyangalani, where I lived before, sits in the barren, northern bush where trees are few, the tan, rocky horizon stretches out before you and a perfectly unblemished blue sky vaults above. Here, red dirt paths slice through vivid green clusters of trees, tropical flowers bursting out in spurts. Tangled vines crowd the buildings, crawling over the barbed wire or glass topped security walls, and puffy, white clouds will cluster together to give us some rain. Night reveals more stars then you can imagine shining unimpeded in Loiy, while singing from the village is the only noise you can hear. City lights, traffic noise and snippets of Swahili, Hindi and English conversations clutter cool Nairobi evenings. I like them both. 

The infamous traffic lives up to its reputation, I once sat for 2 hours to go 9 miles. Fortunately this is prime Kiswahili learning time as I talk with taxi drivers - they love sharing about Kenya and teaching me the language. Someone held out a baby for me to take through the window as we crept along amid rush hour. Can't say I've ever had that happen before. 

I can live fairly inexpensively buying local food and produce, but anything imported costs a lot. I can buy huge, fresh avocados or mangoes for about 25 cents apiece (my soul sings). So far the main detractor of living here is the lack of mobility. I can't just hop in a car and go somewhere or even walk through the city by myself, my Alaskan heart already craves some time outside of a big city. I'm hoping to visit Hell's Gate National Park and Lake Naivasha in the next couple of weeks though. 

Last weekend I reconnected with my dear friends, Paul and Callie Teasdale, who live and work with their kids Zack and Annabelle as missionaries in Loiyangalani, Northern Kenya (a village near Lake Turkana; scenes from The Constant Gardener were shot here - that's the claim to fame). They traveled to Nairobi for supplies and, this time, to pick up their parents for a visit. It was a great visit time with lots of coffee, Ethiopian food and a sleepover with Annabelle.

Work

No time for hesitation at the IJM office as I have jumped in with both feet to the work here. My boss oversees our legal, investigations and aftercare departments so meetings, case updates, events and correspondence fill his schedule. I honestly don't know how he accomplishes everything on his plate, so I'm glad I can help a little with the load. I really get a good look at all facets of the office's work and I love that, but I can see even more clearly how prevalent violence against the poor and vulnerable is. Corruption and depravity pervades, scarring both body and spirit. I'm disturbed hearing and reading about the unthinkable abuse forced on children in our CSA (child sexual assault) cases, but equally discouraged seeing the cowardly impunity some law enforcement officers use to intimidate and accuse innocent Kenyans in our police abuse cases.

But don't think things are hopeless, there is always hope. Even this past week I witnessed an entire room full of professionals from law enforcement, public education, the government, NGOs and churches join together to passionately discuss ways to collaborate and improve the services in the prison system. A perpetrator faced justice this week and a little girl will live without fear from him. She won't be alone on her path to heal either as IJM and external counselors walk with her and the family to restore wholeness to their lives.  

I love what I get to do and know that I don't walk through this alone either. 

Preface

"One time in Yuma..."
My older brother had two friends - twin brothers from Arizona - who often prefaced stories with the phrase "One time in Yuma." You never knew what story would follow, only that it promised to be an extravagant adventure. Hearing that phrase evoked a sense of expectancy in me as I waited for the rest of the tale, certain it would be epic.

I have never been to Arizona, much less Yuma, but I do love a good story. Since I graduated in May 2012 I have done a bit of my own adventuring, and aside from some cell phone pictures and a smattering of new Facebook friends, I recorded little of it. I spent 3 months in Northern Kenya, 3 weeks road-tripping and hostelling through France, Italy and The Netherlands interjected with 6 weeks in a dormitory in central Germany. A visit home to Alaska preceded moving to the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C. for 6 months where I had my first experience living alone. An apartment in the city, taste testing every cupcake shop in the district and hours riding the metro was all good fun. After a month in Missouri I moved to the most excellent city of Portland, Oregon where I'll live until December.

I journey next back to Kenya; this time to Nairobi for 10-12 months with International Justice Mission to support their work of bringing rescue and restoration to victims of sexual assault and police abuse. More details on will follow, but that trip is the primary impetus for this blog. As I invite people on this journey I want to share in the work and vision by letting them experience some of my life for those months. I want them to care about what IJM does and be filled with joy at the good things happening in Kenya by seeing the work from my perspective.

I need friends on this next adventure. Friends to send reminders of home, encouragement, prayers, reality checks, pictures of snow, humor and (let's be real) friends for giving me money. I will not truly be able to repay those friends, but I can welcome them, and this blog is one way to do that.

So welcome!  Thank you for reading, and please stop by again. I hope to share some of my own expectancy of great adventures, and I would love for you to be blessed by seeing God's spreading hope and renewal in Kenya.

 

From my first trip to Kenya - My dear friend, Ndarrop,
 and I had Swahili lessons together!