#MyDressMyChoice: Protest over Nairobi miniskirt attack goes viral

The grainy mobile phone video shows a mob of Kenyan men surround a woman and grab, grasp and yank her clothes until she is naked. Several such videos have emerged recently of attacks by males who deem a woman to be provocatively dressed. The attacks have created a groundswell of anger that saw mostly women protesters flood downtown Nairobi on Monday.

Rachel Machua wore what she called “a little black dress … my normal outfit” to Monday’s protest. She views the recent attacks as stemming from socio-economic conditions: Lower income men are attacking successful, well-dressed women.

The attacks are not overtly religious in nature, though this is a conservative, mostly Christian country. The women at the march described “normal” levels of sexual harassment over the years and said that peers will warn other women that “you’re gonna get undressed” for wearing a particular outfit.

“Kenyan men are in different groups. My father wanted me to be here and said you can dress however you want. Then there are others who think you are out of their reach and they try to victimise you,” said Machua (26), who runs an aid group called Transforming Generations.

Women play an active role in Kenyan society. The country’s foreign minister is a woman, though few women hold high-ranking elected office. Parliament is a virtual men’s club, unlike in neighboring Rwanda, where more than half of parliament is female.

Women at Monday's rally chant slogans in support of the woman who was attacked and stripped. (Pic: AFP)
Women at Monday’s rally chant slogans in support of the woman who was attacked and stripped. (Pic: AFP)

After the recent attacks, elderly Kenyan women are said to have rescued the naked victims by giving them a shawl to cover up.

James Wamathai, said he was marching because he believes in equal rights. “I think it’s really horrible and no women should have to go through that,” said Wamathai (33), who does commercial media work. “It’s a weird sexual fetish. If you see some of the videos some of the men are groping the women. … But it’s not based on anything (like religion) because in Africa we didn’t used to wear clothes.”

Just 100 metres from the march’s meeting point, park worker Ulda Akinyi emptied trash. Akinyi looked at the demonstration with disdain, and said she has instructed her three daughters to dress conservatively for fear of attracting unwanted attention. “Wearing miniskirts is the devil’s work,” said Akinyi.

Men gathered against a nearby fence. Most said they didn’t support the cause. A man who gave only his first name, John, said he didn’t want Kenya’s women to “seduce” him by wearing revealing clothing.

“It’s like three-quarters naked if you are wearing one of those short skirts,” said David Ndongo, who works on one of Kenya’s mini transport buses known as matatus, where women can also face harassment.

The hashtag #MyDressMyChoice is trending on Twitter since yesterday, with many users voicing their outrage against the incident and their support for women to dress as they wish.

Source: Sapa-AP

Quail farming: The new ‘side hustle’ in Kenya

While Kenyans went about their daily lives, a flock of birds, hidden in plain view, fluttered onto our dinner plates and captured a nation’s imagination.

Social media pundits describe them as a pyramid scheme. Skeptics sneer at this idea. Locals in the markets, at chama meetings and around their dinner tables never tire of discussing them. You see, these little wild things are at the epicentre of a health revolution in this nyama choma country. They should be. We Kenyans take ourselves too seriously and build too many castles in the air to notice nature’s solutions all around us. This time it has come in the form of a bird the size of a small fist.

A helping of two quail eggs a day is said to be the answer to multiple problems. One of its benefits is a rather well-known secret on the streets. Every witchdoctor’s cut-and-paste poster that hug school walls, lamp posts and every nook available, emphasises an endemic problem. “We cure male weaknesses!” is their tagline. Well, a simple quail’s egg is said to improve blood circulation as it strengthens the heart muscles, increasing the male libido and stamina.  Packed with protein and low in carbohydrates and fat, a quail egg is not only considered a superfood, but an aphrodisiac too. Don’t overdo it though. A poor chap from Nairobi’s Komarock suburb gulped – on a friend’s advice – 30 raw quail eggs during a sleep-over at his girlfriend’s house. He woke up on the other side of town where people rest in peace.

The nutritional value of quail eggs is said to be about three times greater than chicken eggs. (Pic: Flickr / ilya)
The nutritional value of quail eggs is said to be about three times higher than that of chicken eggs. (Pic: Flickr / ilya)

Like everyone else, we dread poverty and aspire to the good life. We have to. The ugly face of poverty tends to relentlessly peep into our living room windows, its ugly grin announcing the fate that awaits anyone who slips. From local politicians, office workers, informal workers, public administrators, and even the jobless, every Kenyan is a hustler. The broke sod in the pub has to run errands, wash cars and wipe tables to earn just a cigarette or drinks.

Now quail farming is the new side hustle. It has attracted thousands of would-be entrepreneurs who have been bitten by the famous ‘wildebeest migration’ bug. Here’s how it works: One person tells his friends that his half-acre strawberry farm brings in a million bob every three months. The next thing you know, his friends have taken up strawberry farming and it becomes the in thing.

A quail farmer was featured in the local newspaper last year. His quail business was minting a fortune and incurring negligible expenses. You see, a quail bird is low-maintenance: it gobbles 20 grams of feed a day, unlike a chicken that consumes 120 grams. Within a few weeks, there were small banners on shop fronts, walls, and, street light pillars proclaiming the magical powers of this brown-freckled bird. Enterprising Kenyans quickly did their research and sent off their applications to the Kenya Wildlife Service to become… quail farmers.

Quail farming is a million-shilling business with the promise of boosting many incomes in a country where the masses are constantly chasing the elusive shilling. To qualify to be a quail farmer, one completes an application form from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), a government agency in charge of the country’s wildlife. Their officers then come around to inspect the cages for housing the birds. They need to be kept in a warm and dry place in well-ventilated cages that are far from modern pollutants. After their applications have been approved, farmers pay a fee of R150. Permit holders are also subject to impromptu inspections and any violations of the permit’s conditions can result in the licence being revoked.  Last year the government handed out more than 5 000 licences, and thousands more are still pending.

The opportunities are boundless if one can capture the still young Kenyan market. However, KWS say the market is becoming saturated, so many farmers are now eyeing the more lucrative Chinese market. There are over 172 000 Google search results about quails from Kenya. The quail farming business has also taken off online – you can now purchase chicks or eggs from a number of sources.

In December 2013, a single tiny quail egg was retailing at slightly more than a dollar in Kenya. Considering a chicken egg costs 8 US cents, quail farmers were making a killing. A day-old quail chick was retailing at an average of R45. The problem with the wildebeest migration bug is that now the lucrative quail market is flooded by too many entrepreneurs and we are experiencing a glut. Like a gift from the skies, now the common man can enjoy the benefits of this bird which was previously only affordable to the middle class. Now, you can purchase a day-old chick for R15 while a quail egg costs between R2 and R3.

The gist of the matter is that this quail business is not only about money. As any health and nutrition buff will tell you, natural food is best! Lately our country is experiencing a surge in lifestyle diseases as western corporates scramble to satiate our rising appetite for junk food. The rich AND poor are dying in droves from cancer, diabetes, hypertension and heart-related ailments. Our government has actually banned the importing and selling of GMO food products.

The reality is that cheap processed food is available everywhere, and is easier on the pocket, but the Kenyan middle-class is awakening to the fact that money is not true wealth, health is. Going green and eating healthy is the new rave. And consuming quail meat and eggs promises a plethora of health benefits. It’s said to be a detoxifying agent, an immune booster and stress reliever. It helps with digestive tract disorders, stomach ulcers, anemia, tuberculosis, heart problems, bronchial illnesses and diabetes. It can alleviate migraines and give you healthier hair, while keeping hypertension, digestive disturbance, gastric ulcer, liver problems and blood pressure under control. A quail egg a day may indeed keep the doctor away.

With all these ‘super natural’ powers, I suggest government should fund two quail eggs a day for each child in public school instead of wrestling with a costly laptop project that’s way beyond their depth. The quail phenomenon is a healthy socio-political, economic, and spiritual answer to Kenyans’ problems. Right now, I’m off to have my own dish of fried aluru (quail) accompanied by wild vegetable herbs and brown ugali (a cake made from corn).

Munene Kilongi is a freelance writer and videographer based in Nairobi.

Tanzanian women marry each other to escape domestic violence

Safety: Mtongori Chacha (left) and her wife, Gati Buraya, with their children. The women say their union saves them from abuse by men. (Pic: AFP)
Safety: Mtongori Chacha (left) and her wife, Gati Buraya, with their children. The women say their union saves them from abuse by men. (Pic: AFP)

It is 12.30pm and an older woman emerges from her tiny mud house. A younger woman is making some porridge outside.

These two women are husband and wife: they are traditionally married and they have children.

This practice is called nyumba ntobhu in western Tanzania. It is a traditional form of same-sex marriage. The two women share a bed as a couple, they live together, bear children in their union; they do everything a married couple would, except have sex.

In the Mara region, nyumba ntobhu allows older women to marry younger women in order to have children of their own and assist with the household chores. Women say nyumba ntobhu also helps them overcome problems of gender-based domestic violence.

Mtongori Chacha (56), who is married to a woman, Gati Buraya (30), says the traditional practice arose as a result of male violence against women.

It is also an alternative family structure for older women who do not have sons to inherit their property and whose daughters have moved away to their husbands’ villages. It offers a form of security for elderly women so they do not live on their own.

Chacha and Buraya have three children. Chacha says she decided to marry Buraya because she was unable to have children in her previous marriage to a man, who she says physically abused and tortured her.

To bear children, women who are married under nyumba ntobhu usually hire a man and pay him when the younger woman falls pregnant.

The hired man will also enter into an agreement with both women that he will not demand paternal rights to any children born out of the agreement.

The older woman is the guardian of the children and they usually take her surname.

Chacha says the man who impregnates the younger woman is paid with food or a goat.

In some rare cases, a man may return to claim a child, but Chacha says this can be avoided by choosing a man who is not known in the village or who is known to be irresponsible. These men are known as “street men”.

“I decided to run away from my marriage as I was humiliated and sometimes beaten nearly dead. At 45 I was not able to have children and I had to look for a new family to give me an heir to my property,” Chacha says while she feeds two of her children.

She says she could not accept the fact that she would die without children of her own. Her parents were rich and had many cattle so she chose to marry another woman who would give her children.

“Here, a woman will pay a lobola like any system of marriage in African culture, and the ‘wife’ is supposed to obey and live under the rules of her ‘husband’. Nyumba ntobhu is blessed by all the family members and accepted by the society,” says Chacha.

Agnes Robi (61) says she decided to pay six cattle to marry Sophia Bhoke Alex (25) after her six daughters moved away.

“She has given me one baby girl already, while we are still praying for her to get a baby boy who would take over this compound when I die,” Robi says.

It’s not uncommon for women to be prohibited from inheriting property in Tanzania. Initially, the culture of women marrying women was practised as an option for barren women. It enabled them to claim the children borne by the other woman as their own. This was a way of providing security for their old age.

But now it’s not only for those unable to have children. Some women choose not to marry a man because they say they want to avoid domestic violence.

Bupe Matambalya says she witnessed her older sisters “beaten nearly dead” by their husbands and decided that she would never marry a man.

Some villagers discourage the practice, saying it leads to an increase in the spread of HIV.

In some cases, nyumba ntobhu can be a polygamous marriage. The older woman will marry two younger women, who will both bear her children.

But nyumba ntobhu does not always save women from domestic violence. Take the case of Jesca Peter (25). She experienced domestic violence and humiliation even from her nyumba ntobhu husband.

“I was married to Nyambura, a 63-year-old woman. She had paid a dowry of six cattle and I moved into her compound. Within a few years of that marriage, Nyambura demanded that I have to look for my own food,” she says.

She says her union with Nyambura was unhappy and she was used “as a slave to just work and produce on her farm and look after her cattle”.

“She wanted children from me, which I bore her, but the relationship was unfriendly.

“We lived like a cat and dog. I was simply a slave for her,” says Peter.

She fled from the marriage and her parents had to return the cattle paid as a dowry.

Tanzania’s Minister of Information and Culture Fenela Mukandara says gender violence is prevalent in the Mara region, which is why nyumba ntobhu is becoming more common.

“When women decide to marry each other and live by themselves, it means there are extremely violent acts in that place.”

Florence Majani for the Mail & Guardian.

Mali battles Ebola outbreak as African death toll passes 5 000

Mali is scrambling to prevent a major Ebola epidemic after the deaths of an Islamic cleric and a nurse, as the official death toll in the worst ever epidemic of the virus passed 5 000.

The two deaths in Mali have dashed optimism that the country was free of the highly-infectious pathogen and caused alarm in the capital Bamako, where the imam was washed by mourners at a mosque after his death.

It came as the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the outbreak – almost entirely confined to west Africa – had passed a gruesome landmark, with 5 160 deaths from around 14 000 cases since Ebola emerged in Guinea in December.

The WHO and aid organisations have frequently pointed out that the real count of cases and deaths could be much higher.

In Mali, the latest country to see infections, the clinic where the imam died has been quarantined, with around 30 people trapped inside including medical staff, patients and 15 African soldiers from the United Nations mission in Mali.

Police officers stand in front of the quarantined Pasteur clinic in Bamako on November 12 2014. (Pic: AFP)
Police officers stand in front of the quarantined Pasteur clinic in Bamako on November 12 2014. (Pic: AFP)

The nurse who died of Ebola had treated the imam at Bamako’s Pasteur clinic.

Teams of investigators are tracing health workers, and scouring the capital and the imam’s home district in northeastern Guinea for scores of people who could have been exposed.

The deaths have raised fears of widespread contamination as they were unrelated to Mali’s only other confirmed fatality, a two-year-old girl who had also arrived from Guinea in October.

A doctor at the Pasteur clinic is thought to have contracted the virus and is under observation outside the capital, the clinic said.

A friend who visited the imam has also died of probable Ebola, the WHO said.

Traditional burial sites blamed
Mali’s health ministry called for calm, as it led a huge cross-border operation to stem the contagion.

The WHO said the 70-year-old cleric, named as Goika Sekou from a village on Guinea’s porous border with Mali, fell sick and was transferred via several treatment centres to the Pasteur clinic.

Multiple lab tests were performed, the WHO said, but crucially not for Ebola, and he died of kidney failure on October 27.

He had travelled to Bamako by car with four family members – all of whom have since got sick or died at home in Guinea.

The imam’s body was transported to a mosque in Bamako for a ritual washing ceremony before being returned to Guinea for burial.

Traditional African funeral rites are considered one of the main causes of Ebola spreading, as it is transmitted through bodily fluids and those who have recently died are particularly infectious.

The nurse who died treating Sekou, identified by family as 25-year-old Saliou Diarra, was the first Malian resident to be confirmed as an Ebola victim.

 70 perecent death rate
The virus is estimated to have killed around 70 percent of its victims, often shutting down their organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

Ebola emerged in Guinea in December, spreading to neighbouring Liberia and then Sierra Leone, infecting at least 13 000 people.

Cases are “still skyrocketing” in western Sierra Leone, according to the WHO, although Liberia says it has seen a drop in new cases from a daily peak of more than 500 in September to around 50.

The US military has scaled back plans for its mission in Liberia to fight the Ebola outbreak, and will deploy a maximum of 3 000 troops instead of 4 000, said General Gary Valesky, head of the American military contingent in the country.

But the move did not signal less concern about the threat posed by the epidemic, he told reporters in a telephone conference.

Britain’s foreign secretary Philip Hammond announced plans Wednesday for hundreds of Ebola treatment beds in Sierra Leone within weeks, admitting the global response had been too slow as he visited the former colony.

The Ebola outbreak has also hit the world of sport.

Morocco were stripped of the right to host the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations after insisting on a postponement.

Angola had emerged as the frontrunner to replace Morocco as eleventh hour hosts but pulled out of the running on Wednesday.

Organisers the Confederation of African Football are due to announce the replacement hosts in the next few days.

In New Zealand, police on Thursday ruled out the presence of the deadly virus in one of three mystery vials discovered in mailboxes this week.

Tests on the two other vials have not yet been completed.

The vials were contained in suspicious packages sent to the US embassy and parliament buildings in the capital Wellington and to a newspaper office in Auckland.

Meanwhile in the US, nurses demonstrated outside the White House on Wednesday saying they are woefully ill-prepared to handle an Ebola case.

They were among thousands of health care workers taking part in protests in the United States and overseas amid fears the Ebola epidemic might spread beyond west Africa.

Two nurses are among the nine confirmed Ebola cases that have been treated in the United States.

Dutch adventurer heads to the South Pole after driving a tractor from Holland to Cape Town

After driving a tractor the length of Africa, Dutch adventurer Manon “Tractor Girl” Ossevoort is setting out to fulfill a decade-long dream of chugging her way to the South Pole.

Asked whether people think she is crazy, the 38-year-old actress replies with a wide smile and bubbly confidence: “Only if they haven’t met me.”

She’s at least partly right.

“The world needs people who are a little crazy like this,” a burly South African tractor mechanic says as Ossevoort clambers onto a huge red Massey-Ferguson in a shed north of Cape Town.

Wearing a mini-dress in the summer heat, the ebullient new mother of a 10-month-old baby girl perches on the seat and chats about her epic trip as mechanics put the final touches to her beloved tractor.

Ossevoort will spend about 12 hours a day in that seat – having swapped her summer outfit for Arctic gear– as she heads for what she likes to call the “end of the world.”

She will make a 4 500-kilometre round trip across the largest single mass of ice on earth, from Russia’s Novo base on the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole and back.

The MF 5610 and support vehicles for the trip to the South Pole. (Supplied)
The MF 5610 tractor and support vehicles for Ossevoort’s trip to the South Pole. (Supplied)

When not pushed to the limits by the hostile environment of frozen mountains and deadly crevasses, she will have plenty of time to admire the scenery.

“Ten kilometres an hour would be good,” she says. “Fifteen would be nice, 20 lovely.”

Ossevoort travelled alone through Africa, but in Antarctica the tractor will need to creep forward day and night, so French mechanic Nicolas Bachelet will share the driving.

That way, they hope to make 100 to 200 kilometres a day and complete the trip in four to six weeks.

“I think I’ll love the experience, travelling the last leg in relative silence over this vast and white continent,” she says.

“It’s a beautiful last phase in a long pilgrimage.”

In total, she will be accompanied by a team of seven, including crew who will film the journey for a documentary.

 ‘Belly of a snowman’
Ossevoort began her trip in 2005, taking four years to drive from her home village in Holland to Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa – and then missed the boat that was due to take her to Antarctica for the final leg due to delays.

Frustrated, the former theatre actress spent the next four years back in Holland, writing a book, working as a motivational speaker and desperately trying to get back on a tractor.

With sponsorship from Massey-Ferguson and other companies, she and her tractor will finally fly to Antarctica from Cape Town this week and set off for the pole around November 20.

While fulfilling her own long-held dream, Ossevoort will be carrying with her thousands of ‘dreams’ collected from people in Africa and around the world.

Scraps of paper and emails have been converted into digital form and will be placed in the belly of a big snowman she plans to build at the pole – to be opened only in 80 years’ time.

“I want to turn them into a beautiful time capsule of the dreams of the world so that in the future children and people can read something about our dreams and not only about politics or war.”

Fear holds people back from pursuing their dreams, she says, and many believe that “putting them into reality is as impossible as driving a tractor to the South Pole”.

“The tractor for me symbolises this very down to earth fact that if you want to do something, maybe you will not be so fast but if you keep going and keep your sense of humour you will get there.”

The pull of her own dream is so strong it has trumped being at home for her baby Hannah’s first Christmas.

But she has the full support of her partner, airline pilot Rogier Nieuwendyk, who will look after Hannah while she is away.

“We’ll be there to meet her at the airport when she comes home,” he said, cradling Hannah in his arms as she phlegmatically watched her mother prepare to leave.

Ossevoort’s tractor is named Antarctica 2 in honour of legendary explorer Sir Edmund Hillary, who travelled to the South Pole on a tractor in 1958.

His vehicle was equipped with full tracks, however, while Ossevoort’s has normal inflatable tyres which have been slightly modified for better grip on the snow and ice.

Her progress can be followed on the website antarcticatwo.com.