Today, August 24th is the day Kenya starts counting – it is census time! Kenya takes a census every 10 years. Tonight everyone is instructed to be home between 6:00 and 10:00 pm in order to be counted. Each home is given a special number written on the exterior -- this number has been on our door frame for weeks.Enumerators will go door to door and ask each household a series of 30 questions.The government is looking for information on unemployment, number of deaths due to socio-economic reasons (starvation, HIV), number of people that have left the country in recent years, how many livestock, phones, vehicles each home has.There is also a question about tribe affiliation.This question has sparked some debate because tribe affiliation is not usually asked. People are required to share the tribe of their father.
The President decided today to declare tomorrow a National Holiday in order to facilitate the census taking. People are asked not to go to work or travel anywhere tomorrow. There is also some concern that there may be violence associated with the census -- possibly because of the tribe question, or because the Mungiki are threatening to disrupt the government activities, or because the people displaced by last year's post-election violence still do not have homes to live in and fear they may not be counted and, thus, further ignored.
The boys will not have school. Tim will still need to attend a Board of Governors meeting. National Holidays are somewhat a surprise here here in Kenya -- whenever the President wants one!
Even though a lot of effort has gone into publicizing this event, local Kenyans don’t think the census is ever very accurate.Several staff say they have never been counted due to the fact that enumerators do not come into the slums.Apparently it is usually an estimation that 600,000 people live in Mathare slum and 1million live in Kibera slum. The man in charge of this year's census is trying to correct that problem. 150,000 enumerators have been hired for the job.
Enumerators will go door to door and ask each household a series of 30 questions. The government is looking for information on unemployment, number of deaths due to socio-economic reasons (starvation, HIV), number of people that have left the country in recent years, how many livestock, phones, vehicles each home has. There is also a question about tribe affiliation. This question has sparked some debate because tribe affiliation is not usually asked. People are required to share the tribe of their father.
1 comment:
This is fascinating! This type of thing greatly interests me! I look forward to seeing/hearing/reading how it goes!
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