I was browsing books at a local Oxfam shop earlier this summer and picked up one novel that turned out to be a real treasure. I had not heard of Mako Yoshikawa before, yet now I am a fan. Mako Yoshikawa's first novel 'One Hundred and One Ways' is a must read. It
was published by Bantam in 1999. A national bestseller in the States, it has been translated into six languages, including German, Swedish, and Hebrew.
Yoshikawa herself has an interesting life that has inspired her novels. She was born and raised in Princeton, NJ, spent two years of her childhood in Tokyo. She has also lived in England, France, Switzerland, and New Zealand. She attended Columbia University, received a Masters in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at Lincoln College, Oxford, and has a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Active as a scholar as well as a novelist, she has published articles on incest and race.
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Here is the author's website for more information:
http://www.makoyoshikawa.com/
Date: Mon 5 July 2010
On the afternoon of June 20 2009, Neda Agha-Soltan left her family home to take part in an anti government demonstration in Tehran. Hours later she was dead, shot by a lone sniper, her death recorded on a mobile phone and broadcast around the world. Neda instantly became an international symbol of the struggle for freedom in Iran, her face familiar to millions of people around the world.
Director Antony Thomas gained exclusive access to Neda’s family for the making of this film which is both a personal story and a powerful illustration of the wider struggle for democratic freedoms in Iran.
| Event Type | Film |
|---|---|
| Event venue | The Human Rights Action Centre |
| Time | 6.30pm |
| Price | Free of charge |
During my stay in Kenya, it became very clear that the blood tie between family members, between individuals from the same tribe and between people living in the same village was of paramount importance to locals. Although people did appreciate friendship and value their neighbours, somehow people who were not ‘of your blood’ were not placed as much importance on as your family members and even more distant relatives. It was a given that if a person was your relative, you would help them no matter what.
In particular in villages and in the more rural areas of Kenya, family was all that one had. There was no social security system; the only security system that you had was your family. Most often, a family home would have been built by the men of the family on the land that had been passed down from generation to generation. Since the men of the family inherited the land that was left behind when their parents passed on, one’s uncles and their families were living next one’s father’s land and house. This is another reason for why it was easy to maintain good relationships with one’s relatives - every time you wet to visit your parents, you would visit your relatives as well.
Children were brought up on firm values that had been the core of each family system for centuries. Physical discipline was common in all households. Spanking and hitting children was still regarded the best way to bring discipline into them and to make them behave in the way that adults wanted. I didn’t meet one person who wouldn’t have been hit or spanked by their parents at some point in their lives.
One day, when I was in downtown Nairobi with my colleague Chrystel, we pumped into a former school mate of hers called Sara. They had not seen each other for some years and since neither party was in a hurry, we decided to go for a coffee together. As we sat down in a nearby cafe, the two of them started chatting about their current lives and what they were up to nowadays. Sara had married and had two primary school aged children.
‘My younger one is a boy and he is so naughty,’ Sara explained to us. ‘He hits his sister all the time and is very rude to her. So when he hits his sister, I have no choice but to hit him. Otherwise, he will never learn to treat his sister in a nice way.’
I listened in silence before responding. ‘ You know, there are so many other ways of teaching your children and telling them how they should treat others. First of all, you need to talk to the child and explain why it is not good to hit others. You can also have other ways of so to say punishing him. You can send him to an empty room and say that he can’t come back before he apologizes to his sister. Or you can tell him that he can’t eat anything sweet for a week or not watch TV for the whole week. This sort of discipline often makes children reflect on what they have been doing. Also, it is always good to ask him how he would feel if his sister hit him.’
Sara was looking at me, herself reflecting on what I was telling her. ‘Oh I see... I never really thought about other effective ways of disciplining my children.’
‘Children are cleverer than we often think,’ Chrystel chipped in. ‘They can understand much more than adults often think and talking with them can be very effective.’
Sara nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, I guess we tend to undermine their abilities.’
‘Also, you need to remember that you are a role model for your children’, I said. ‘What you do is how they will behave. If you hit them, they may think that it is OK to hit others.’
Sara’s eyes were wide with amazement. ‘ I never thought about that! I never thought that I am actually setting a bad example for my kids!’
Chrystel and I exchanged a look. ‘Well, it not as bad as you think. You can start doing it now, setting a god example for them on a daily basis. They are still young and can adjust quickly. Children are surprisingly good at adjusting as well,’ I explained and tried to make the atmosphere more cheerful again.
‘So... you not married yet?’ Sara asked Chrystel.
Chrystel shook her head. ‘No, no luck in this department.’
We laughed a little. I knew how hard it was for Chrystel to be in her late thirties and still be single in this society where marriage and family were everything and your social status was formed accordingly.
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For more information on the family structure in Kenya, see:
http://family.jrank.org/pages/1011/Kenya-Extended-Family.html
Although Kenya has been an independent country since December 1963, one can still clearly see the influence of the British Colonial times on the culture and the society. The British ruled Kenya for 70 years, which significantly shaped the economic, social and political policies of the country. Perhaps at least partially due to the strong British rule, Kenya has played a key role in stabilizing the turbulent East Africa and in keeping the east coast of Africa somewhat peaceful.
The people in Kenya reflect on the colonial times tenderly. They seem to think of those times as the Golden Era of Kenya. My colleague Chrystel told me that the British were somehow regarded as having saved Kenya from becoming totally corrupted.
‘The British taught us how to govern a country’, she explained to me. “They showed us how to do this without corruptions and how to maintain peace. If the British had not ruled Kenya, there is a chance that we would not be as well off at the moment. Maybe we would be in a situation like the Congo or Somalia where they are struggling with rebels and military power. At least people can live a normal life in Kenya. We also have problems, but we all think that the problems would be much worse if the British had not been here.’
As a result of the colonial times, everyone who has been educated in a private or governmental school is fluent in English. In fact, English and Swahili are the national languages of Kenya. Normally people know at least three languages: both of the national languages plus their regional language. It is common for people to mix at least two of the language when they speak. For an outsider, a conversation can sound funny since one only understand the parts spoken in English.
I am told that there are 42 tribes living in Kenya and they all have their own languages. These tribes at times have disagreements and still favour individuals from their own tribes. It is common for politicians to favor those from their tribes by allocating more money to the region that they are from. As you can imagine, such bribing has caused many disputes and riots to manifest. Even people living in cities are very aware of the tribes that they belong to.
The education system reflects that in the UK. The examination system and everything is exactly the same. According to the education professionals that I met in Nairobi, this is the reason for why it is the best education system found in the whole of Africa. A high percentage of the younger generation continue studies at university level and many families place high value on education.
‘They believe that pursuing higher education will pay off in the end, as the youngsters will get better paid jobs’, Chrystel said as we drove past the university campus that had recently suffered as a result of riots. ‘But then they often face unemployment soon after graduation. Getting a job has so much to do with who you know and who is a family friend.’
‘It’s the same in many countries’, I said. ‘Getting a job is getting harder and harder everywhere. In Europe, we have so many highly skilled and qualified people that there is great competition for any jobs. Many people who had a degree need to work in a job that they do particularly enjoy in order get work experience before they are even considered for any other job.’
‘Yes, life is getting harder everywhere,’ Chrystel said and shook her head sadly. ‘We have to pray to our Lord that He will make it better for us soon. We all have to stay strong and learn from these difficulties.’
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Kenya in brief:
http://www.statehousekenya.go.ke/kenya.html
Kisumu is a town located by the basin of Lake Victoria. The town spreads out from the bank of the lake, covering parts of the hills that stand next to the lake. From top of the hills, one has a very beautiful view of the whole of Lake Victoria, which is said to be one of the biggest lakes in Africa. The scenery of the lake, surrounding mountains and the dark green vegetation take one’s breath away.
Kisumu has a very different feel to it than Nairobi. Perhaps it is the water element that is contributing to the relaxed atmosphere that characterizes Kisumu. People are laid back and cheerful; everyone has time to stop, smile and say hello. The suits and business outfits that one can see in the streets of Nairobi has been replaced by loose beach type clothing. A great number of the cars and buses have been replaced by rickshaws and bicycles. Due to this and due to there not being many high buildings, the quality of air is much better in Kisumu than in Nairobi. It feels like you have entered a holiday town.
Kisumu has one of the biggest universities in Kenya. This is reflected in the population that lives in the town. When you are walking around the town centre, you can see a lot of students and young people waling about, laughing and enjoying an afternoon break from lectures. The city centre itself is full of bazaars and small shops. There are stall selling fruits and clothes, with loud music blasting out of most of them. Apparently playing cheerful music loudly is regarded a good trick to get people to come to your stall.
The city centre is surrounded by residential areas. They cover large areas around the lake and far beyond. There are gigantic supermarkets in the midst of them. You can also see compound areas where people live in big houses with gardens while being surrounded by concrete walls that have been build to prevent crime. I told told, however, that the crime rate is lower in Kisumu than in Nairobi. There is less poverty here and no big slum areas.To an outsider, people seem happier in Kisumu than in Nairobi.
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For more information on Kisumu, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisumu
In Europe, we are familiar with the Rift Valley from several TV shows and films. It is a regular spot for filming wild life footage; a scenery that captured the essence of African wild life. It seems as if all the different animals species found in Africa can also be found in the Rift Valley. Area-wise the Rift Valley is long and wide. It is also relatively steep, falling in between some of the highest mountains of the world, including Kilimanjaro.
Our trip from Nairobi to Kisumu took place in a comfortable coach. After navigating out of Nairobi, the vegetation grew denser and you started seeing a wider variety of plants, trees and pushes. The first part of the journey was much covered with trees. Once in a while we would pull through small villages that consisted of wooden huts. There was always a local supermarket, an internet cafe and a hostel in a village. All of these public establishments had clothing hanging at the front, with posters of their services being hung at the front of them. They did not have proper front doors.
My colleague Chystel explained that there was always one person in duty in order to keep the business going and, therefore, they did not feel the need to install proper concrete doors. I tried to imagine how it would be to sleep at one of those hostels that did not look bigger in size than one room.
After the stream of the small villages, we started climbing up a mountain and entered an area with coffee and tea fields. There was plantation of small green pushes everywhere. We could see a couple of people out in the field, picking up tea leaves and coffee beans and placing them in huge baskets. There were big country houses and hotels next to the fields. Chrystel explain to me that visiting the tea and coffee harvests were one tourist attraction. Many tourist preferred to stay here rather than in cities and to be close to the wild life. At night, one needed to be careful, however. That is when the big cat animals and the snakes were more likely to be moving around, looking for food. There were stories of tourists who had encountered lions and pythons, narrowly escaping danger.
We drove along the top of the short-ish mountain. From here, we had a wonderful view of the valley. We could see Kilimanjaro in the distance, clouded in the hazy sunshine. We could see giraffes walking about in the valley and flamencos standing in the steep water that had accumulated in one part of the valley. There was something magical amount the scene. As if the creations of God were all in front of our eyes, if we just looked hard enough.
We started descending into the Valley itself. All the while, cheerful drumming and singing was filling the coach. The driver seemed to love his music and the passengers were happily grooving along. The temperature dropped as we drove into the Valley. All of us started looking for out jackets and pulling up our socks. We were getting closer and closer to the wild life.
‘There have been incident when elephants have crushed into cars’, Chrystel said as she pulled down the sleeves of her top. ‘This is why some people are scared to drive through the Valley. Also, people living in the villages in the Valley need to be careful about when they go out and collect woods. There have been incident when elephants have attacked women out in the fields collecting woods for making a fire and being able to cook.’ Chrystel shook her head. ‘People don’t have a choice. They have to live their lives, but sometimes wild life comes on the way. Like poisonous snakes. Even certain monkeys are said to be aggressive towards women.’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Why women?’
Chrystel laughed. ‘Who knows... perhaps they can sense that women are weaker than men or that they are more likely to give nuts to the monkeys? Animals are very instinctive, you know.’
I continued looking out the window into the Valley. I was mesmerized by the wild life that I was seeing. This was something that I would not experience when I was back in Europe.
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For more information on the Rift Valley, see:
http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml
The most amazing aspect of Kenya to me was the nature. I have never seen anything like it in my life. In Europe, we are used to fields, sheep, forest, foxes and cows.... There are no giraffes, no elephants, no antelopes and no lions. Somehow the wild life in Africa seemed more alive, grander than what we were used to in Europe. Or it may just be the fact that it feels exotic to us Europeans, but it certainly does intrigue travellers and is one of the major tourist attractions in Kenya.
Even when one is in one of the cities and not so close to the real wild life, one is somehow in touch with nature. There are tall and magnificent trees everywhere, monkeys jumping from push to push and brightly coloured birds flying high above. When you are walking on the sandy streets or driving along the rocky roads, you can’t help but see at least three different types of monkeys and several different types of birds. The bigger animals, such as lions and giraffes, stay away from the city areas, primarily because they cannot find the type of plants that they eat in those areas.
A wild life park close to Nairobi offered me the first taste of their wild life, although I later learnt that it was only a starter for the main venture. The day my hosts decided to take me to the wild life park proved to be extremely hot. It was April and the sun was so close that it felt like it was burning out skin. We were sitting on a bus that was packed to its limit. The three of us squeezed into two seats.
‘What are these?’ My colleague Chrystel was pointing at my pigment on my skin. I had a tendency of getting darker pigment at places on my skin when exposed to a great deal on sunshine. I explained this to her.
‘Oh I have never seen it before’, Chrystel said in amazement. ‘Our skin is so dark that we don’t get any variations on it.’
‘My hair is also suffering under the sun’, I said and pointed to the blonder stripes in my hair. ‘These are the results of the sun. When I’m in the sun, my hair gets blonder, but also dryer, so I need to moisterize it a lot.’
‘Moisterize it?’ Chrystel looked at me in amazement again. ‘You need to moisterize it?’
‘Yes, like put a lot of conditioner on after I’ve washed it.’
‘Oh... because we don’t really need to wash out hair much. If we wash it, it starts breaking. So we only try to wash the scalp once in a while.’ Chrystel was examining my hair from top to the ends. ‘It must be a job to wash your hair. It looks pretty long.’
‘Yes, it is, but you get used to it.’ I added some spray onto the blonder and dryer bits of it.
‘So how do you do it? I have never washed hair like that proper.’
I explained my hair washing routine to Chrystel. It was funny how such every day things could be such an amazement to others. Like the hair care routine of African women was for me. Instead of washing and brushing their hair, they plated it in many different ways, had hair extensions done and their hair coloured in different ways. The African woman who you met once a week could sport a totally different hair do at each time.
We eventually reached the wildlife safari park. It was a hidden oasis next to a highway. The park had been built with wooden materials, with eucalyptus and acacia trees everywhere, giving shade to people and animals from the beaming sun. The park covered an impressively large area that was divided into sections in order to house different types of animals separately and to avoid unnecessary slaughter.
Although it is not the same as seeing animals out in the wild, the park does provide a good opportunity to see the animals close by. You get a good look at how they really are and how they seem to live their lives. You can see how they adapt to their environment by changing their colour according to their surroundings. I was amazed to see a gazelle change its colour from yellow to dark brow when it jumped from yellow hay to brown mud. The visit to the park made me look forward to our road trip across the Rift Valley.
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For more information on safari parks in Kenya, see:
http://www.go2africa.com/kenya/african-safari-guide/parks-and-reserves
There are thousands of orphan children in Kenya. This is primarily the result of a high incidence of HIV and Aids that is causing thousands of adults to die before they reach their 40s. In fact, life expectancy in Kenya is 45 years due to all the illnesses that are causing people to die at a relatively young age.
When I asked about the reasons behind the high prevalence of HIV in Kenya, my host Crystel told me that many men and women are not loyal to their partners. They have affairs with others, don’t practice safe sex and then pass on the virus to their partner. When you look at the population of the adults who have HIV, the majority of them are married with kids. When both parents contract the virus and eventually pass away, the children are left on their own.
Crystel also explained that another reason for the virus spreading quickly is that many men still have more than one wife. In particular in more rural places, polygamy is still very common. if a man contracts the virus, he will subsequently pass it onto all of his wives.
I was surprised by this piece of information. The majority of Kenyans were hard-core Christians and I would have though that they remain loyal to their partners.
‘Well, there is a contradiction there’, Chrystel said. ‘People have sort of lost touch with their values, or they don’t think that there is anything wrong with this behaviour as long as they go to church every Sunday. Also, many people are not very educated and they have no idea about safe sex and how to look after themselves. Luckily we have some NGOs doing work in this field now, like some branches of the UN, so people are getting more educated. The challenge is that so many people live in very remote area so it is very hard to reach them.’
Because of the number of children in Kenya, orphanages are a common sight in Kenya. Around Nairobi alone, there are at least fifty of them. When children are orphaned, some of them stay with their relatives, but others are given to orphanages due to poverty. Some families simply can’t afford keeping extra children in their houses. Still, relatives regularly visit the children in the orphanages when they are able to do so. Long distances between cities and rural places, plus illnesses that make relatives weak, prevent some children from seeing their family members for years. Nevertheless, when the children reach 18 years of age, many of them travel back to their home lands in the rural areas, if not for any other reason than to reconnect with their part.
There are a significant number of westerners living in Kenya who had started up orphanages there. Back in the 80s when there was much talk about the poverty, lack of food and water in Africa, a number of westerners moved to there in order to help. In particular, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania have high number os westerners living and working there. During my stay, I had a chance to visit a couple of orphanages that were run by the Americans and the British. These orphanages were good places for the children to stay at since they had regular donors in both countries. They also received volunteers and good from both countries on a regular basis. These orphanages were full of joy and laughter. No one would have thought that the children had gone through a lot of pain in their young lives.
‘Adoption is not a huge thing in Kenya’, Chrystel explained to my initial visit to one of the orphanages. ‘People still believe that your biological children are the only way to pass down your genes. Plus many don’t have the resources to have more than their biological children. Also, international adoption is not widely accepted since the children often have land left behind for them and people are very proud of their roots and origin. This is why they rather put their relatives’ kids in an orphanage, let them happily grown up as Kenyans and then give them their land to cultivate and live in when they are 18. But these orphanages need donors and volunteers. People from Europe and the US have done a lot for our country. We are very grateful.’
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More information on the high prevalence of AIDs and orphans in Kenya, place see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/545033.stm
My first impression of Nairobi was that I had returned to the 60s. The grey dirty looking concrete buildings next to brightly coloured skyscrapers; old fashioned cars driven by men dressed in brown suits; women wearing their hair up high in buns; children running around in patterned clothes. The cloud of pollution and the taxis with white stripes added to the impression. It felt as if I was travelling back in time.
The second impression was that Nairobi was smaller than I had expected. The city centre itself was surprisingly compact and small area-wise. There were markets, shops, western style cafes, restaurants and bars that filled a dozen blocks. Due to its small-ish size, the city centre was crowded. The first piece of advice I received was to be careful with my possessions in the crowd- apparently the poverty in the country had increased crime and pick pocketing.
For me, it felt slightly odd to be in a place where the majority of the people were black. I have never blonder and whiter in my life. The presence of some Asians made all the difference to the scene. Once in a while one would run into another white, which sort of like a relief that you were not the only odd one out. This is the second time, the first time having been in Pakistan, that I could easily imagine how it was to stand out and be discriminated against purely by your looks.
Once you spend a little bit of time in Nairobi, the city grows on you. You get to know the nice shop owners and their cozy little businesses. You know the cafes where you can enjoy excellent African food with good company provided by the staff working there. You learnt he western style cafes that tend to be filled with tourists and businessmen visiting Nairobi. You learn to navigate yourself through the crowded cities without getting hit by mataatos, the local mini buses that can take you cheaply to any destination outside of Nairobi.
Nairobi is a relatively new city. It started to grow when more businesses started to move there. The Governmental buildings and the main hospitals of the country are located there. My Kenyan colleague told me that all Kenyans are from rural areas. Generally, each family has a piece of land somewhere in a rural part of the country. This place is what they call their home. Most people have to live and work in cities, because that is where the jobs are, but whenever they have at least three days off from work, they travel to their home.
As soon as you leave the city centre, the scenery changes rapidly. The narrow concrete streets turn into sandy roads. The high buildings are replaced by greenery and farm houses. As you drive along, you can see people walking by the high ways; many cannot afford their own transportation or even the public one so their only option is to walk or run from place to place - at times you can find people walking and running miles and miles on end in order to reach their destination. It is every day life for school children to run for two hours in order to reach school and then run back home for two hours at the end of the school day.
Right outside the city centre, one can see the famous slums of Nairobi. The spread out from close by the city centre. It is not advisable for foreigners to go there and so I an only take a peak from the car as we drive past. The huts made with cardboard and clothes look like the wind could bow them a way in a second. Dozens of kids are running around; there are chickens jumping around with the children and dogs walking around without a destination. Next to the slums, there re markets where people are trying to make a living by selling their produce and handicrafts. Loud voices are bargaining over the prices of the produce. Even louder music is filtering out from small stalls and cars driving past. Reggae and gospel music seem to touch the souls of these people.
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For more information on Nairobi, see:
Mount Kenya was standing in the horizon as if it was the King of Kenya. Clouds were surrounding its top and hazy sunshine was making emphasizing its shape. The scene make me think of the film ‘Lion King’ and all the African songs from it filed my head. I had previously been to Northern African countries, which were likely to be pretty different from those in other parts of African, given that there was a lot of Arabic influence in the north. This made me curious about exploring the land of Kenya, which was well-known to us westerners though TV, films and books.
The Kenyan Airways place had started to descend a shot while earlier. We were approaching Nairobi. The flight had been very comfortable. I had particularly enjoyed the African music soundtracks on the entertainment system and the welcome song in beautiful four-part harmony that penetrated through the cabin as we walked into the plane.
There were quite a few westerners traveling to Kenya, most of them for holidays, some for business. The wildlife safaris were known to be exotic for those of us who hadn’t seen giraffes and elephants in the nature. I noticed that there were many families on board probably ‘the Lion King Effect’ - even the kids wanted to see Simba in real life.
Two years earlier Kenya had been through a rough time when riots erupted during an election time. Politicians did not have a good reputation; there was an unbelievable amount of corruption in the country and people felt powerless in dealing with it all. Politicians were said to rich, owning five houses and posh cars, while the percentage of the poor increased by the day in the country that they were supposed to be leading. In the riots in 2007, hundreds of people had died. As my Kenyan colleague had told me, riots and violence were the only ways in which citizens knew how to express their dissatisfaction. There was no culture of peaceful demonstration since those never had any effect on the politicians; they were simply spaces for people to gather and meet others who were also dissatisfied with the situation.
The day before I was due to travel to Kenya and to deliver some seminars at a university there, my Kenyan colleague had told me that the university was shut. Students were not happy with the university administration and so two buildings had been set to fire. Luckily the firemen managed to tame the flames before it was too late; yet half of a computer lab and a lecture hall were destroyed. Yet again, innocent students would suffer because of this. Now, the university had been called to recess in order to let the situation calm down before lectures could commence again. According to my colleague, this happened all the time in Kenya. Violence and disruption were the only ways for people to express themselves. Even the younger generation had learnt this. Now no one knew when the university would be opened again; everyone was waiting in suspense, not being able to leave the area in case they were needed at the university the following day, yet not being able to do much by staying at home.
I had no idea how my trip was going to turn out to be. If I could do not do anything at the university, perhaps I could do something at the orphanage that I had been in touch with when still in London. I would have to see what was possible. I was getting a feeling that this trip would be a very spontaneous one.
As we strolled out of the airplane, we were greeted with a heat wave. It was early hours of the day yet, but the temperature was already rising. We were very close to the equator. In addition to the native Africans, I could see a number of Asians here. When India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had been separated, a number of Asians had moved to East Africa. The British colonial link had helped in this regard.
After getting through the nightmarish passport control - we had to queue for nearly two hours because people who bribed the passport control personnel were let to skip the queue-, I was finally on Kenyan land.
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For more on the political system in Kenya, see:
http://www.123independenceday.com/kenya/political-system.html
One thing I learnt during my travels in Islamic countries is that the attitude to adoption is very different from that commonly found in westerns countries. Although the Quran clearly states that everyone should respect orphans and not steal their belongings, the Holy book also makes statements that imply that orphans are not really your children. Most likely as a result of this, it is not common to adopt children in Islamic countries. If a child is orphaned, he or she stays with the extended family. This family support system means that very rarely children are left without anybody. However, when this happens, family friends most often take the child under their wing. This is one major difference between the west and Islamic countries - the family network is generally much tighter.
One particular story stuck in my mind. we were visiting an old friend of my colleague for dinner. She was very kind to cook me a proper Arabic meal with their traditional foods. We were enjoying the chit chat, mainly about NGOs and development work in Jordan since this is the field that we were all working in. I was being educated on the situation of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees in Jordan when I asked about orphans. This questions was in my mind primarily because I had recently been to Kenya where they are thousands of orphans due to the high epidemic of HIV.
‘Adopting is not common practice in Islamic countries’, our host explained. ‘Most Muslims want their biological children and don’t even consider adoption. Somehow they seem to think that an adopted child is really not your own. Even when you can’t have children.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked, somewhat surprised. At that point, I had not read the Quran. Sometime later when I did, I found some passages in the Holy book that could imply adopted children are not really your children.
‘It says something about it in the Quran’, my colleague explained. ‘Their Holy book tells them to respect orphans and to help them, but at the same time states that they are not really your children.’
Yes’, our host continued to explain. ‘My brother and his wife couldn’t have their own biological child, yet they really wanted to start their own family. Since we are Christian, they started thinking about and considering adoption. Since Jordan is an Islamic country, there was no way for them to officially adopt here. They talked with different authorities, but it was just not possible or would have taken years and years. This is when we started helping him as a family. We started researching ways as to how to help them adopt and finally decided to do this in the black market. We found a person who helps orphaned children to find families. In the end, we could find a little boy to my bother and his wife. Now they are a very happy family of three.’
‘Oh’, I said in amazement. ‘Is there a black adoption market?’
‘Not as such, not a big one anyway’, our host elaborated. ‘There are some people around who help in this, but it is not common for people to seek adoption, as I explained. But if you ask around and get to know the right people, those children needing parents can find those adults wanting to be parents. It all comes together in the end.’
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More information on adoption laws in Jordan:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/ifpdial/info/national/jo.htm
