Johnson's home base in Kenya was Mombasa, a coastal city of half a million people, a tourist destination that plays an important role in Kenya's economy. There, she said, she felt safe, living in an apartment by herself. She said she made many friends from among the Muslim-Christian population there. There were about 20 Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the region, she added - and 160 altogether in the Kenya program - so she was not completely isolated from her colleagues.
Leilani Johnson talks about her two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya as if it were something anyone would do after college
Doing what you can
By Lynda King/ Staff Writer
Friday, November 3, 2006
Leilani Johnson talks about her two years in Kenya as if it were something anyone would do after college. And for the Coventry Wood Road resident, who graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. and earned a master's degree in international public health from Boston University, it did seem only natural. Her father, quintessential town volunteer Bob Johnson, worked in India in the 60s as a Peace Corps volunteer, when the Corps was in its infancy.
"I grew up with the idea of it," said Johnson.
She got her wish to serve in sub-Saharan Africa when the Corps assigned her to Kenya.
Kenya, which tantalizes the dreams of many an adventurer with visions of wildlife safaris, ancient cities and stunning scenery, is also a place where violent clashes between nomadic groups are common, where mob justice might be the rule of the day. It is a place where many women depend on prostitution for their livelihood, where women are denied equal property rights, and where drug use and violence and discrimination against women help fuel the spread of AIDS - a problem of epidemic proportions in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya is home to home to over 1.2 million of the more than 22.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with HIV/AIDS.
Johnson's home base in Kenya was Mombasa, a coastal city of half a million people, a tourist destination that plays an important role in Kenya's economy. There, she said, she felt safe, living in an apartment by herself. She said she made many friends from among the Muslim-Christian population there. There were about 20 Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the region, she added - and 160 altogether in the Kenya program - so she was not completely isolated from her colleagues.
Johnson said the Peace Corps volunteers started their tour of duty in Kenya with a two-to-three-month orientation program - on public health, HIV, water, sanitation, the history of Kenya and language instruction (Swahili) - before being deployed to field assignments. She said her first assignment - helping to computerize the health care system at a medical training college in Kenya - did not give her enough of the hands-on interaction with people she was looking for. She wanted to get into something more health-related, she said, and wanted to be out in the community with people. After a year she became a member of the Crisis Corps, whose mission is to reduce HIV risk and spread by targeting drug users and commercial sex workers.
Shoveling against the tide
The enormity of the HIV problem in Africa can make efforts to fight it seem futile. But Johnson, who helped with statistical gathering in the program, said the US aid-funded project helped more than 500 people get the care they needed. And, she said, volunteers worked with the local government on ways to help. They were able to convince government officials to give patients money for transportation to clinics, which "was a huge issue." She said the average clinic was 30 to 45 minutes away, over difficult terrain, with part of the trip by ferry.
Johnson said that her team worked out of a drop-in center, but often went out into the towns to find clients who needed to be tested, and actually took them to get tested.
"Getting [people] tested was a huge component [of what we did]," said Johnson.
A large part of Johnson's role was to train people on the outreach team - the people who sought out clients for testing.
"About 70 percent of the outreach team were former drug users themselves," she said, "and knew where to find people and how to approach them."
But, she said, it was a "struggle for the outreach workers to get people to worry about their health. The drug users were in denial about their own level of risk. HIV wasn't as big a problem for them as drugs."
Johnson said her team also worked with commercial sex workers - some as young as 16 - who wanted to get out of the trade.
Johnson seemed unfazed by the dark world around her.
"There was a lot of support from friends and other Peace Corps volunteers," she said, adding that the two-month orientation at the beginning of her experience in Kenya prepared her for the "highs and lows."
The good, the bad, the scary
Johnson said the best thing about her tour of duty in Kenya was the people that she worked with most closely. She said the non-Corps team members she worked with were predominantly Muslim, and she was invited to a lot of Muslim weddings, funerals and family celebrations.
"The people were very friendly," she added.
She said there were also Al Quaeda sects in Mombasa - known to the U.S. government - but she said she felt protected by her Muslim friends.
She acknowledged that things got scary last year around Thanksgiving, when Peace Corps volunteers were ordered to stay indoors for a week, during local elections.
"The supervisors checked on us every day," she said.
She said the most frightening experience she had was witnessing a "mob justice event" while she was a passenger on a bus. She saw a truck drive into a hospital complex in an area where trucks were not allowed. The guard at the hospital started to rough up the driver, and then was joined by several more people.
"There was nothing we could do," she said.
Next stop . . .
Johnson's two-year tour of duty - interrupted by only one brief visit home - came to an end in July, when she returned home to Bolton. She said she misses it, and is currently pursuing opportunities with NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) back in sub-Saharan Africa. She said she wants to work on "complex humanitarian emergencies," and is currently looking at opportunities in Darfur.
Johnson said she's been very happy with her Peace Corps experience.
"It's important to help out and do what you can," she said.
But, she added, you need to "make sure the cause you're working for is really what you want." She said that the Peace Corps team she was on in Kenya lost about one-third of the group early on. Some, she said, left because "It wasn't for them." Others may have left because of site placement - some people were stationed at locations 10 hours from anyone else.
"If you can go with the flow, it really works," she said.
