As I look back on my time in Kenya, I realise how much I have grown as a person. Could it be because I was 11,000 km away from home? Or perhaps it was because I was constantly being pushed outside of what I knew, forced to adapt to the unexpected at every turn?
Getting the opportunity to witness people’s issues in real life tends to change your perspective on everything. Western notions of determinism and autonomy can feel very distant when you are confronted with the realities behind these theoretical concepts. One of the questions researchers whose work I had read before leaving examine is why some people do not seek aid even when it is available. Is it because of financial constraints, or perhaps a distrust of institutions? In general, I found that people in Kianyaga had a high level of trust in their neighbours and relied heavily on one another for support, whether it was farming advice, childcare, personal loans, or even funeral arrangements. In this context, I realised that building trust with potential clients is perhaps the hardest part of providing legal aid as the trust in institutions was extremely low. This became particularly clear when I was tasked with conducting community outreach to expand our pool of potential clients.
Kenya also operates under a common law system, as Canada does; however, customary law is not only present in people’s everyday lives but also recognised within the judicial system. Each area has a chief who knows the people in their jurisdiction and is tasked with helping resolve disputes and facilitating the needs of their community. Working with chiefs this summer made things both easier and more difficult. On the one hand, I had someone whose phone number I could call or text if I needed anything: a level of access to local authority that I had never experienced before. I could never imagine having my deputy’s phone number and being able to text them in Quebec, so having that first point of contact with the chiefs was incredibly valuable. On the other hand, the considerable authority that chiefs hold also has its drawbacks. A chief whose interests do not align with yours can become a major obstacle, particularly when dealing with sensitive property disputes.
Property is deeply divisive in Kenya. From my parents’ stories, it appears that this is also true in Benin. The tension between customary and formal legal systems becomes particularly visible when questions of land arise. Historical land policies, informal occupation, and government allocations made decades ago without adequate documentation or follow-up have all contributed to the complexity surrounding land ownership today. Even now, Kenyan courts continue to hear cases where people’s claims to land are challenged despite holding a land title, particularly where questions arise about how that title was obtained. Experiencing these differences made me wonder: how can the average Kenyan be expected to build wealth for themselves and their family when accessing and defending the land they believe they own can be so complicated?
I believe that these realities help explain why access to legal services can be difficult, but building trust is even harder. Through the legal clinic, I tried to help people navigate these issues, even when the process became extremely frustrating because of administrative delays and reluctance to engage with a caseworker like myself. Yet, as my project manager reminded me, these problems will remain in Kenya after I leave, while I will return to my life in Montreal. That thought stayed with me. It reminded me that, for the people we worked with, these were not temporary frustrations. They were questions about their homes, their livelihoods, their families, and their futures. And that is perhaps the most important lesson I will take with me from Kianyaga.
