The problem with giving

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Using their hands and plain earth, these children have made their own transport toys — a motorcycle and two trucks

Ezekiel, Anton and Vincent were crouched in the mid-morning sunlight of the meadow facing the church of Kajulu, the Kenyan village where I lived through most of November.  To the south was St Peter’s Kajulu School and eastward, beyond rolling hills, stood the odd stacked stone formation locals call Kit Mikai. The man in the shade of the only tree in the  meadow, watching the three boys intently, was me. In their hands were two heavy motor vehicles — a van and a truck — and a motorcycle. The truck even held a payload of gravel. Making rumbling and rolling sounds, they raced the vehicles across the turf, taking care not to scrape them against the ground. If that were to happen, they knew, their precious toys would simply, become nothing more than mounds of brown damp meadow mud. (Click here to see the video of these children at play.)

The remarkable mud toys had been made by the oldest of the three, Ezekiel, 8. As I tried to strike up a conversation with them, other children began to appear. It seemed it was playtime. Some children began marking a grassless spot under the tree for a game of hop skotch. Soon enough, yet another toy entered the picture: a football. Well, a sort of football.

While Kajulu’s budding Arsenal kicked their leather around, it struck me that it could not actually be leather. It was an odd blur of pale blue and white as it flew around. When I asked, I was shown a tightly wound sphere made of polythene and plastic shopping bags wadded it into a tight ball, and tied with twine, which the children called atwacha. Another toy the made by the children for the children.

Football for Kajulu’s children is a sphere made of tightly wadded plastic shopping bags

My own children and their many friends back in Bangkok cannot play a game without an accessory that has cost someone money to acquire. Football needs a football, and if it’s not a jabulani, it might not be accepted. Racing requires a complete racetrack rig and precise miniature cars and motorbikes. Fantasy games would require some sort of game box with some sort of joystick. My children would probably fall asleep from boredom on a desert island. The children of Kajulu would create their own toys and their own games. If Ezekiel could do so much with the clay under his feet, what wonders would he possibly produce from non-toxic food-grade multi-hued playdo?

I think this was how my idea of buying gifts for the children of Kajulu entered my head. At the time, I really didn’t think it would do any harm.

The teenage mothers in Anna’s group had been unequivocal: they’d like to get books of knowledge. I carried back two large, heavily illustrated, large-print books of questions and answers. One explained human biology, especially reproductive biology in which they had a keen interest. The other answered intriguing questions (Why can’t elephants jump? Why are Africans black?) in clear unjargonistic English. Both books were instant and durable hits. Problems began when they realized that the colorful mpira (football) bulging in my gift bag was not for them but the children of the meadow.

But they’re not a club, they protested. One of them will take the ball home and then no one else will get to play with it.

But you girls don’t even have an interest in football, I argued.

Well, there’s no rule that you can’t play handball with a football. We play that.

And so on, back and forth, with no conclusion. I noticed one of the meadow children taking the debate in from the doorway. He scampered off and I knew the news of the mpira would be all over Kajulu inside the hour. The next day, every child who had ever played in the meadow was waiting for me at 10 in the morning, when I usually began my session with the girls. No one said anything about the football; they just followed me wordlessly.

The ex-Chief, James Outa, gives the meadow children a new football I bought for them

The girls had a point; without a custodian to administer the use of the football, it would end up belonging to the strongest child in the group. Anna’s girls were serious, responsible and older than the meadow kids. They agreed to make the mpira available to the meadow kids on demand. Later, in a small ceremony on the meadow, the respected ex-Chief, James Outa, announced the mpira to the children and explain the rules about its use. I had the pleasure of watching the first bare foot land the first kick inaugurating the new mpira.

Ezekiel was nowhere to be found. He was not a football type; he was a Michelangelo type. He showed up shyly after we put out the word for the little boy who made wonderful mud toys. With some pleasure, I handed him two boxes of mouldable plasticine playdo in six dayglo colors.

His eyes told me he had not a clue what he had been given. I opened one tub, tried to pull a little dough from it but recoiled involuntarily at the stickiness and the slight oil that was now on my fingers. Perhaps I was too old for this kind of thing. Surely children loved goopy things. After trying to explain in simple English what you could do with playdo, I gave up. “Don’t worry,” I assured the adults who were watching. “Children are creative. Especially this child. He’ll figure it out.”

But the next day, Ezekiel had nothing to show me except an apologetic smile. And the third day, I found him making shapes with mud again. I still cannot answer to my own satisfaction why I’d thought playdo was superior to the plain, plentiful, gloriously goopy and free mud that Ezekiel used.

Michael, at 14, can herd cows, build a hut, and cook, but he can’t read. However, his mind is unexpectedly nimble with logic and numbers

Michael himself had asked for books, so that’s what I brought back for him. Exactly the same age as my son at 14, Michael is Oby’s nephew and ward. His father, living in a hut outside Mama Salome’s compound seems not to have much to do with his son’s welfare, education or upbringing, all of which Oby shoulders. For aging Mama Salome, Michael is handy to have about the house. In the morning, he lets the cows out to graze, moves the donkeys out of the compounds, tethers the beasts, and does a bunch of errands before taking himself off to primary school.

I brought him a book of vehicles and war machines, which I thought would be good exciting boy stuff. The other book contained big-print questions and simple answers on a range of topics. If he could read only one a day, he’d be a wise man in 365. Impulsively, I also picked up two tricks balls for him, which lit up from inside like undersea fish whenever they were bounced. Just to satisfy myself that he’d not have any difficulty with the book, I pointed Michael to a piece in the question-answer book and asked him to read it out aloud. What’s under the earth? While I waited, Michael stared at the words.

I pointed to the letter the. With some fumbling, he said,” Th-the.”

Michael cannot read. He cannot write his name. The contrast with his age mate, my son half a world away, could not be more stark. My son would have no idea what to do with five stampeding cows every morning; he would not be able to use mud and his hands to build himself a hut. Or mix cement to plug a hole in the wall. Michael can do all that — but he cannot read.

On an impulse, I took another book out of my gift bag, this one on Sudoku, and explained the rules to him. Even before I was done, he had begun calling out numbers and telling me where to put them. His mind worked like lightning, much faster than mine. He finished the entire puzzle in a matter of minutes. In a better equipped setting than Kajulu, someone might have suspected that Michael was dyslexic. That someone might have noticed also that his spatial logic and numeric ability were above average. Steps might have been taken to channel him in directions that would build upon his skills. But in Kajulu, with no father or mother to watch over him, and only a caring but distant uncle, Michael may grown up labelled ‘illiterate’. He has already been accused twice of stealing from Mama Salome’s guests. One sad evening, he may discover the pleasures of illicit hooch in the market at The Hall. I left the Sudoku book for him to play with. I also gave him the two luminous trick balls. In the gathering darkness of Kajulu’s evening, he bounced them. I swear his eyes lit up.

Mama Salome’s maid Helen and the fancy dress I gave her as a gift (right)

My most disturbing insight into the unintended effects of gifting came from Helen, the cheeky young woman who comes to work as a maid in Mama Salome’s house. She arrives each morning dressed in a threadbare oversize peach-colored tee shirt, the same one every day, and works tirelessly till evening. Her hands washed my clothes, boiled warm water for me, cooked ugali. When I left Kajulu for my India interlude, I had handed her a tip of 100 Kenyan shillings. A dollar plus change. Indian rupees 55. Her eyes had grown as round as her mouth in pleasure and surprise. Something told me that in her life this was like winning a lottery.

On my way back from India, in Nairobi, I picked up a fetching outfit for Helen, from the  mitumba (second-hand garments) market in the slum of Kangemi.  When Helen saw the mysterious black and red dress I’d bought for her, she ran off and changed immediately and did the rest of the day’s housework in her new dress. I noticed that she also became fastidiously attentive to my needs, coming to my room to my collect my laundry, pressing it neatly and bringing it back. In fact, I began to feel a little uncomfortable at the number of times Helen now visited my room asking if I needed any help with anything.

Later, talking with ex-Chief James Outa the subject of poverty and HIV came up. “Women here face such poverty,” he said, “that one might agree to sex with a man who’d given her a few hundred shillings. She would feel so overwhelmed at receiving such a fortune that she would not be able to say no to anything he asked.” Outa told me that much of HIV’s spread in Nyanza was attributed to infected older men seducing younger women with such small gifts as a meal of chicken and chips, or some little money. I thought of Helen. I had given her 100 shillings, and then a sexy dress. Had I conveyed something unintended to her?

“Helen can probably not believe that anyone would spend so much time on her as to go to a market and search for a dress,” said Oby, when I asked him later. “Now she wonders how she could possibly let you know how much you gesture meant to her. That is why she’s constantly checking if you need anything.”

There is a gulf between us and those we empathize with. My wisdom today is that even well-meant acts of generosity can intrude into and disturb the lives of those we do not begin to understand. It is one thing to wish someone well; but when one wishes to impose a better life on that person, one must tread very carefully.[/text_output][/vc_column][/vc_row]