Glow-in-the-dark underwear; girl talk
October 10th, 2007
A lovely quote I came across while indulging in some Tolkien on my afternoon off:
“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. Yet such is oft the case of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the Great are elsewhere.”
Thank you, Professor.
–
I learned tonight while doing my laundry that I have a pair of glow-in-the-dark underwear. I did not know this before – they’re green with little blue hearts all over them, and lo and behold, as the sun set while I was still a-washing, I noticed that the underwear in my hand had begun to glow. Fancy that!
I had another conversation about homosexuality today, this time with mama yangu, my mother. This one was far, FAR less awkward and not even disturbing to me at all. True, she did believe that it was “unnatural,” whatever that means, but she was much more open-minded and willing to listen to what I had to say. She also hilariously asked me if lesbians had sex (after telling me she knew gay men had anal sex, pronounced hilariously in a Kenyan accent “ayne-u-al”) and when I replied that if you asked a lesbian, she would say yes, she was boggled. But there was laughter throughout the conversation on both sides, which is a vast improvement.
She also later asked me if I had a boyfriend, and when I said no, she asked me when I broke up with him (hilarious as well). I explained to her the fact that all of my good guy friends back at school are gay, which I felt much more comfortable doing after we had talked. Mama Rose then told me that when I get back to the States, I ought to make sure they’re actually gay by kissing them and seeing if they feel anything. HILARIOUS. It sounds more insidious when written out, but this was all late-night girl talk over chai and chocolates, so I promise you it was much more light-hearted.
Boys, watch yourself for when I get back. Mwa ha ha.
Dammit I am again sunburned. I gain about 436 freckles here daily. By the time I return to your beautiful faces, I shall be one large brown dot.
That reminds me – I don’t think I’ve written about this here yet, but Africans are fascinated by my freckles. Every single African who I’ve met and has known me for more than a couple of days has pointed to the dots on my skin and asked me what they were. Most of them have thought that I was sick or had some strange condition. It’s a little difficult to explain the complexities of melanin production in Swinglish (our new name for Kiswahili-English combo, like Franglish) so I generally just tell them that that’s the way my tribe looks, and that all Irish people get freckles when they go out in the sun. Removing my watch to show the paler, less-freckly “tan” line also helps. It works remarkably well.
Speaking of tribes, I found myself explaining the Iraqi situation to a Kikuyu the other day, and after a few failed attempts, I said that “Iraq had three tribes, all are Muslim, but they do not get along,” and it suddenly made eons more sense to him. Never forget you are in Kenya, right? There aren’t a lot of Jewish people here, either, and it’s sort of frowned up, and Jamal told us that one student, upon being asked her religion (a common question here) used to say “I’m Jewish, from the same tribe as Jesus.” One person actually asked her if she had ever met the man. Brilliant.
And perhaps I had a little too much late-night chai and chocolate, yeah?
Today we had the afternoon off, after I gave my newspaper presentation. It was very well-received and created an excellent dialogue afterwards. We meandered over to Adam’s, had lunch, and then walked around Toy Market where I got a going-out-ish top that I plan on wearing tomorrow night. We’re going out for Cherrie’s birthday, who is turning 21 on Friday. The big 2-1! We must do it big, and we shall. A bunch of kids came back to my house afterwards and we watched Evan Almighty, which was cute enough, but more a family movie than a comedy like Bruce Almighty. The copy was very, very bootleg, but you pretty much can’t find non-bootlegs here in Kenya.
I also finished re-reading the entirety of the Shoebox Project (http://www.livejournal.com/community/shoebox_project/) today, all 40-odd megs of PDA, and it has made me happy in every part of my body. There hasn’t been any new shoebox for over a year now (or at least that I’ve seen), and while that makes me sad in every part of my body, if they never add a Part 26 I will not be upset. The entire thing is gorgeous, hilarious, beautiful, heart-wrenching and true, and I don’t care if you don’t enjoy slash, you need to read it. I do believe in commas. I do, I do.
From shoebox: It is a wonderful thing to be a part of something larger than oneself, and a terrible thing to be inadequate in the face of it.
True, no? True.
Tonight is Cherrie’s 21st birthday (at midnight) so we’re going out and going to get her sufficiently inebriated. Oodles and oodles of love all around. Today was our last day of lecture classes proper, and we now start to begin our ISP process and field visits. Mad, no? Time flies when you’re half a world away from home.
Big kisses, brother!
Pictures!
I’ve put up a few pictures on flickr. I hope they can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/10760281@N05/6a120h
here’s hoping!
Ignorant and Curious
October 8th, 2007
“Ignorant and curious.”
I am a student, and I am a researcher, and I am here in Kenya to learn and to experience and to grow. This is often a lot harder than it sounds.
Donna, who is a general badass and one of our lecturers here, is an American anthropologist and has lived between the States and Kenya for the past 40 years and is a font of invaluable information and advice. One of her main themes thus far is to “remember you are ignorant and curious,” in terms of doing research. Point being that it is not our job to preach our opinions or give judgment on the opinions of others – that comes later when we write our essays and analyze our conversations.
Donna has also said we should be writing things down, so I am trying.
Tonight I was working on one of my projects for my course, which is a Newspaper interview thing. We clip four articles about a topic (mine, of course, is AIDS) and then interview three people about them. I was working on mine tonight, and I interviewed two guys who are staying with my family for a few days while working for my baba. We’ll call them Clark and Gabe. We talked for about an hour about AIDS in general, and it was very interesting. For example, Gabe said that condoms were only 70% effective against HIV because the pores in the condoms were larger than HIV, so HIV could get through the condom (n.b. medically this is false). But the really important part came after we had finished talking about HIV and they were in turn interviewing me, informally, and the subject of homosexuality was brought up by Clark.
We were warned in our primary literature that most Africans, Kenyans included, do not tolerate homosexuality and consider the practice to be wrong. It is illegal here in Kenya, as it is in most African countries. But hearing that sentiment so strongly and so calmly articulated to me was nothing short of excruciating for me, Ms. Gay Rights USA. One of my informants said that he didn’t care if people were gay, as long as they weren’t in the churches and kept what they did private and out of sight, but the other said that while he didn’t think there was anything wrong with being gay, the practice is worthy of execution.
And I had to stand it. I had to stand it. I listened, and I gave my opinion when it was asked for, but the rest of the time, I had to sit there with rage bubbling under the surface of my skin and a smile on my face, taking it. It is all I can do to ascribe these sentiments to culture and lack of experience – both had admitted they had never met a homosexual – but it still sucked so, so hard. It was a bitch. No way around it. A razor-clawed, sharp-tooth, 30 metric fuck-ton of a bitch, foaming rabid at the mouth and bleeding from its eyes.
Cultural difference. When does anthropology conflate cultural difference with structural violence? Of course you don’t think there aren’t many gay people in Africa; you just told me that if someone is gay they should be killed, so why on earth should they come out?
For me not to argue my position pretty much goes against every fiber of my being, especially on this topic, and for me to swallow my anger and my righteous indignation and my shock and my dismay was, without question, the hardest thing I have yet to do on this trip.
I am learning. But what am I learning here? To tolerate intolerance? Or how to keep your informants talking? Either way, it leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth, and I am suddenly very glad I have not chosen anthropology as my only career path. But I guess my faith also tells me I must love those who despise me, and that extends to loving those who despise my friends. And if I become a doctor, I have to always treat the patient in front of me, be it treating a white supremacist or ignorant homophobe. So I shall learn, and I shall grown, and I shall learn to surrender. Not my will; Thy Will.
Much, MUCH love to all of you.
October in Africa; Carnivore
October 6th, 2007
October in Africa. A very long week is over, but I must say that I find myself very happy and very comfortable here in Nairobi. Some things suck, for sure, such as having to be home by dark and dealing with Africa time, which can be stressful for a punctuality junkie like me, but the longer I’m here, the more I’m finding Kenya to be an old friend I am re-discovering. There is something primal here I can not yet put my finger on.
Last night was most excellent. It was my first night out since leaving Chapel Hill, so literally the first time I had drank since my going away party, excepting a delicious strawberry daiquiri that I had at Truman with the girls. We began the evening at a local bar called Three Wheels, where I just had a rum and coke, but it was beyond delicious. I know I sound like an alcoholic, but the reason it was delicious is because all of the soda here is so good. They make it with cane sugar, so it’s infinitely better than the swill they sell in the states. After about an hour at Three Wheels, we took cabs to the restaurant.
A side note: there were a full 21 of us who went out last night to dinner and dancing. Our group is 25 students. Of the four who stayed behind, one didn’t want to pay (it’s expensive), one was sick, and the other two were too tired. I’m just realizing how insanely lucky I am to be in Africa with 24 amazing people. We were discussing this in the cab – there is literally no one in our group who I do not actively like. Everyone in this group gets along very well, and I can’t even begin to imagine what a difference this is making. It can make going out a rather big orchestration, but it’s worth it. I’m meeting the most amazing people here, people who are beautiful and intelligent and dedicated to social justice. I mean, I guess you have to be of a certain character to sign up for three and a half months in an under-developed country (whatever that means), but still.
Anyway, back to the narrative. Carnivore is the best restaurant in East Africa and in the Top 50 worldwide. It’s expensive, but very much worth it. You pay 1900 kish to get in, and then it’s similar to a Brazilian steak house – they walk around with swords of meat and saw you off a hunk of whatever you ask for. Carnivore used to be famous for serving game meat, but they’ve cut down in recent years. The only thing I ate last night that I hadn’t had before was ostrich, and it was very very good. The meal in general was very good, but not knock-down amazing. The times, however, were fabulous.
I sat next to Sean, who is quickly becoming a very good friend. We’re very unlike in some respects, but he’s a sweetheart, absolutely kind and generous. We get along very well, and his house is about 30 seconds from mine in Jamhuri, so we’re always walking back and forth to school and whatnot. Point being, boy does it big, and I do it big, so by the end of our delicious supper we were both sufficiently inebriated. I may have mentioned that people back home call me a “tank,” and this may have led to some chanting from my other friends as I downed the end of Kusini’s Mai Tai. I certainly earned my stripes last night in the eyes the group, especially considering that I had been previously unable to go out. Sean and I were the only ones drinking heavily during dinner. We were drinking and having Deep Conversation, heh. We were ordering a drink that is everywhere in Kenya, and it’s so amazingly good. It’s called dawa, which is Kiswahili for medicine, and it’s just a vodka gimlet with honey and a little simple syrup, but somehow it may be the best thing I’ve ever had to drink. It comes with a muddler dipped in honey, so you muddle the lime and honey together, and it comes on the rocks to cut the vodka a little. It’s beyond delicious.
Anyway. We got three rounds of dawa and then white wine with our dessert, so we were feeling absolutely fabulous by the time we made it to the conjoining club, Simba Saloon. Then, there was dancing! Oh was there dancing. I had my little black dress on, which is slightly scandalous in East Africa, but I needed to do something to reclaim my femininity. They can go ahead and stare, right? The music was very African, so it didn’t allow for the booty-dancing I had been in the mood for, but it was still a grand time to be out with everyone. We drank more at the bar itself – another dawa for me, then a round of kamikazes, and then we rounded out the night with a round of tequila shots that I absolutely did not need but did nonetheless. Actually, that was my first tequila shot ever. They taste like shit, I daresay, and I proclaiming my distaste for the liquor front and center. My apologies, Tania, I mean no ill will to your kin and kind. Everyone in our group was happy and loose, excited to be out and glad to be forgetting Swahili and Development for a few brief hours. No one bothered me at the club or came and tried to dance with me, for which I was very grateful, but I did have to vag-block for Sean at one point. A young woman (who we’re pretty sure is a commercial sex worker; they’re everywhere in Nairobi) came up and asked him if he had a wife. When he said no, she asked if he was looking for one, at which point he made the “rescue me” eyes at me and I swooped in a told her in Swahili that he was my “mpenzi,” which is “boyfriend/girlfriend/lover.” She left him alone afterwards, and we all had a good laugh about it.
We didn’t quite make it home till 3:30, and when we left the club at 3, it was still hopping. Crazy Kenyans. People go out here hardcore. My neighbor Karissa was locked out of her house, so we had a whole ordeal of having to find her mom’s phone number somewhere in my piles of paper so she could let back in. Running around in the pre-dawn hours outside the gates was slightly terrifying, so I’m glad I had a little liquid courage in me. I therefore didn’t get to bed till a little after 4 AM, and was up at 7:30 for school at 9. I may have not been quite entirely sober when I woke up and walked to school. I have literally no idea how I’m still awake now, as it’s 7:30 in the evening, but again – stripes have been earned among these new friends. We’ve also developed a code for the hookup with the local, which shall henceforth be called “sampling the local culture.” Blame Sean, not me.
We went to the trade show today – me, Sean and Karissa. My dad is an engineer and a builder/contractor/jack-of-all-trades, and was trying to sell wind-powered turbines for warehouses. There was a big trade show, so we went and walked around there for a couple hours. It’s right next to Kibera. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa, the second-largest in the world, and is about ten minutes walking from my house. I have yet to go and walk around, for I don’t want to go alone as a single woman, but Sean and I are going to start going during lunches next week, I think. We also saw some camels! Not in Kibera, because anything that walks on four legs in Kibera will soon be eaten, but rather at the trade show. I wanted to ride one, but I think it was only meant for children.
–
Now, now it is Sunday morning. I’m going to go downstairs and cook my family oatmeal, which I found at Nakumatt and they’ve never had, then a little church and probably just a day of work. I’ve yet to see Nairobi downtown, so perhaps I can get out for a few hours and do something, but if not, I’ve still got two and a half months here in this country. I can’t believe September is already over, however. I’ve also got to get to an internet café and post this and do some medical school application things. Perhaps that will have to wait till tomorrow.
Strange Tropical Disease Count: 1!
October 4th, 2007
Strange Tropical Disease Tally: 1 and counting! I oddly feel as though I have gained my stripes. I officially have giardia, an intestinal bacteria. I felt pretty crappy all through the end of Bodo and then through Mombasa, but I had accredited it to simple traveler’s diarrhea and the heat of Mombasa. But when another girl named Katie, who had also felt ill, went to the doctor and came back with the diagnosis, I immediately knew I had it. I went to Nairobi hospital yesterday with my shit in a Tupperware, and lo and behold, I was positive. I feel kind of baller, actually, mostly because of the 9 people who have been thus far tested, 7 of us have been positive (including myself), and all 6 others missed class in Bodo or Mombasa because they felt crappy. BUT I had the same thing, and I didn’t give in. I know that’s stupid of me, but I still feel kind of baller. This does not apply to Sean, however, as he has both giarda AND hookworm, so he gets a get-out-of-jail-free card. Poor thing. That reminds me – medical privacy here is hilariously non-existent. When Dr. Saio (our tropical disease doc) came out to bring Sean back for his test results from the waiting room, I said, “Make him better, this one is really sick,” and Dr. Saio (a strangely handsome middle-aged Italian who has worked in Africa for ages) said, “Well, he has an entire zoo in his stool, so we can start there.” We’ve decided to start calling Sean either “Zoo Butt” or “Captain Hook,” and I prefer the latter, I believe. But anyway! It’s not malaria, so so far, so good. You can wikipedia or WebMD giarda to learn all about the unpleasant symptoms (and oh boy were they unpleasant – especially on the “road” back from Mombasa, which at times was like being in a washing machine you got tossed around so much on the unpaved parts), but the bottom line is I’ll be fine now. I have meds and they are working their magic slowly. Part of giarda is that is absorbs all your nutrients out of your small intestine, rather than your body. I had no idea just how tired I had been for these past two weeks until today, when my medications began to take effect and therefore I began to feed myself again. Nutrients are marvelous things, aren’t they? Classes have been a little taxing. We’re in class from 8-5 with 12-2 off for lunch. It’s simply a lot of school and I’m so not used to it, especially after Bodo, when we had 3 hours of Swahili a day and that was it. But the semester is going along insanely fast. We only have one more week of Swahili, and then our oral exams – then we do field visits (probably for me to Kisumu, where I may be doing my ISP) and then we go to Uganda/Rwanda (!!!!!) for a two-week educational tour. We get back to Nairobi, have four last days with our families here, and ISP time beings. Holy ng’ombe! CRAP that reminds me I haven’t been teaching you Swahili! I know a lot now, and I was placed the top class. I’m the stupidest one in there, because Bodo improved my comprehension much more than my speaking, but I still feel good to be #4 out of 24. Not counting the girl who has had 2 years of college Swahili. Uhhh lesson. A little verbage! All Swahili verbs begin with “ku.” Kuenda, kulala, kuja, kula, kusheba, kupenda. Kupenda means “to like.” Swahili verbs have 4 parts: noun prefix – tense marker – object infix – verb. Forget the object infix for now. If you want to say “I like,” you say: Ninapenda (I like)Unapenda (You like)Anapenda (He/she likes)Tunapenda (We like)Mnapenda (Y’all like)Wanapenda (They like) So –na- is present tense. Remember: NAMELITA. Na = present, me = immediate past, li = past past, and ta = future. So if “You like” is unapenda, “You will like” is utapenda. GET IT?? IT’S SO EASY! Ok so it gets a lot harder, but now you can say you like things! Ninapenda wewe is I like you. Ninapenda Kenya sana = I like Kenya a lot. You pronounce it nee-nah-PEN-dah. Accent is always on the penultimate syllable. Anyway! It is late and I must take my meds and sleep. Tomorrow we’re going out to Carnivore, Nairobi’s most famous restaurant, and then out dancing. Good Lord do I need to go dancing and reclaim my femininity. I have hips and they move very well, god damn. I’ll try to put some pics up on flickr, but no promises. Much love! I’ll also try to call soon, as it’s been far too long since I did so. I also missed Bridget’s birthday! Bridget, I AM SORRY I WAS SO IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AFRICA BUT I STILL LOVE YOU BIG TIME AND I’LL TRY TO CALL SOON PROMISE. And happy birthday! Welcome to your last year of being under 21, ever! Ever ever! Hmmmm maybe these meds make me a little spacey? They also make my mouth taste like metal. ANYWAY. Tutaona na badaye! We will see you later! Get it? Tu = we, ta = future, and ona = see! Simple! Lovelovelovelove!
More pretension
September 30th, 2007
So it’s been a little more than two weeks since I’ve been on a computer. We spent that time on the coast on Kenya, in an extremely small village of Bodo and then in the city of Mombasa. I hand-wrote in my journal often while we were there (as there was little else to do) and I will type up those and post them below here. Read those first.
We also did several field visits while we were in Mombasa, first to KEMRI, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, and then the Tom Mboya center for mentally retarded children. KEMRI struck me to the core. Two years ago, they moved their facilities into a gorgeous new complex, which on the inside looks like any American university research laboratory. PCR machines, massive servers of medical data, nitro-frozen biological samples, high-powered microscopes. But literally next door is the local hospital/clinic, with hundreds of mothers with crying babies waiting in a line that will take all day to get through. We visited the intensive care malarial ward with toddlers in the throes of cerebral malaria, seizing uncontrollably; others, limp and comatose from the infection in their brains. We saw the malnutrition ward, which is a nice way of saying the place for starving babies with NG tubes in their noses and arms as thin as reeds. It’s more than easy to see where the international aid money is going, isn’t it? And these are the lucky few who make it to the clinic and can afford to be seen by a physician. Jesus. If I were ever uncertain as to what I want to do with my life…
I went to mass this morning, and for the past couple weeks I’ve had a bit of scripture that I couldn’t place floating in my head. Lo and behold, it was the first reading this morning, and it’s from Amos 6: “Woe to you complacent in Zion…You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches, you dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.”
How poor is poor? What is poor? These thoughts have been in my head ever since we got to Bodo. By all our American standards, Bodo is poor. There is no organized industry to think of, no infrastructure. People live hand to mouth, out of the sea and from the land. The whole town has maybe three or four televisions, and the vast majority of the houses have neither running water nor electricity. Few children make it through even 8th grade; even fewer go to secondary school, which costs the unaffordable fee of $500 US/year and is located an hour away when the roads are passable. There are endemic diseases there – other students had children in their houses with obvious typhoid and malaria and no money to get to a clinic and see a doctor, let alone buy medication. By any American standard, they are poor.
Yet to label anyone as “the poor” immediately brings a paternalistic attitude dangerously close. This is in no way my intent, but it is a real danger. Paul Framer writes much more eloquently on this subject (and on all others) than I, and had I Pathologies of Power here with me I could quote him, but alas I do not. Yet the people of Bodo are also rich. There is joy there; there is faith and community and triumph over everyday struggles.
Let me give you an example. My baby Bodo sister, Maua, is also my “somo,” or coastal Kiswahili for “namesake.” I am 95% sure she has Downs Syndrome. She is over a year old but is not nearly as developed, mentally or physically, as other children younger than her also in the village. It was my first instinct when I saw her face, and all my fellow students who met her instantly agreed with my conclusion. Furthermore, my family told me that she was very weak when she was born and had many complications, but was doing better after they had seen a doctor who had given them exercises to do with her. Yet the entire time I was in Bodo, I never heard her referred to as being currently sick, or treated as if there were anything abnormal about her.
Herein lies my dilemma. Upon my return to the states, I would like to see if there are any Downs organizations that specialize in providing care and treatment for Downs children in developing nations. For what will become of her? Where can she be educated by someone who knows how to educate people living with Downs? What happens if she has a chronic physical disability from her trisomy that is untreatable even in Mombasa? Yet I do not even know if her family and her community recognize her as being disabled as I, a white, educated American, do. I need to talk to an anthropologist first, and a medical one at that. I know I am one, but I need one who has worked in East Africa extensively.
But here’s the rub: if the answer is no, they do not perceive her as being sick, and for me to do anything would be to impose my own ethnocentric ideas into a culture where they do not translate, I’m honestly not sure I could stomach that. I know I would have to, but I know it would haunt me. Paul Farmer, also an anthropologist, critiques his profession for shortsightedness. He cites a work called Missing the Revolution that points out that none of the ethnography coming out from Central and Latin America before the peasant rebellions even hinted toward political unrest or upheaval, let alone revolution. He argues, and I am inclined to agree, that much of anthropology had confused structural violence with cultural difference.
From Infections and Inequalities, also Farmer:
“This New York Times piece ran under the title “A Cultural Divide on AIDS Research,” with the divide in question being between ‘American values’ and ‘African realities.’ Who would fail to conclude that these were two different worlds? Although the authors of the piece may not have chosen the title affixed to it, they closed by arguing that ‘Americans should not impose their standards of care on developing countries. Local health experts, bioethicists and affected groups are best qualified to judge the risks and benefits of any medical research.’
Impose their standards of care [sic]. . . . Americans may impose – through the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, say, or through foreign policy writ large – social and economic policies that drive up inequalities, leaving the destitute sick out of the frame of the analysis. But heaven forefend that we should require that the Third World poor be subject to ‘culturally inappropriate’ medical standards.”
Thank you, Dr. Farmer. Yet as for me, I do not yet know where exactly that line is drawn. I am yet too young and too ignorant to be able to discern such a line, if one even exists.
When do we say hands-off and let people live their lives? At this point, is that even possible? Is there anything in this world that is irreducible? As a Catholic and as a student of the works of great men and women, I am inclined to believe that the one thing that is irreducible in this world is life itself. My brother, I know, and many others will disagree with me, and will point towards Justice as that which is. And truly, perhaps they are ever-so-slightly more correct than I. Yet I am uncertain how to wrought justice in my world. But to prevent what we term “stupid deaths” from infections and diseases that no one dies from the developed world – this I hope I can one day do. Perhaps in doing so I can work some small part of justice. Perhaps.
O Lord, thy sea is so great, and my boat, so small.
Anyway, enough pretension for the moment, yeah? The other news of the day is that I probably have giardia. We were all a little sick in Bodo, but I was thinking that I should just suck it up and deal, but another girl in my group with the exact same symptoms I had went to the doctor today and has giardia. Holla! Don’t worry, it’s cureable. But I feel like in getting my first strange tropical disease I get a weird notch in my belt, yeah?
Anyway, all else is well here. I slept most of the weekend away. It’s already October, which is crazy.
Hope everything is well back home. Love you guys big time.
Back to Mombasa
September 26, 2007
Back in Mombasa. We left Bodo Monday morning with the whole town out to wish us farewell. I felt kind of bad because I’m pretty sure my family in Bodo is going to miss me exponentially more than I am going to miss them. They are all lovely, generous people, but honestly my times with them were very stressful for me. I probably would have requested a transfer if we had been there more than a week. Everyone I know who knows my family also agreed that they were exhausting. Stephanie doesn’t know how I swung it, ha – she’s amazed. But still, my experiences in Bodo were nothing short of amazing. On our last day there, we went out to the river for some crocodile spotting, which was beautiful and relaxing and reminded me how much I love the water and boats. We then had lunch on Funzi. But the most amazing part of the day was when we went back to the sandbar and swam at sunset as it was just appearing. I’ll never forget the gorgeous turbulence of the water with the outgoing tide mirrored against the slowly sinking African sun. It was blinding and brilliant. Our last sunset in Bodo. We had a bonfire on the beach when we got back, and we taught the kids the hokey pokey and the chicken dance, which was cute, and I found Ashley’s glasses in the sand, thus maintaining my father’s childhood nick name for me of Bright Eyes.
But now, Mombasa! I am falling dangerously in love with this city, even in just these past few days. Perhaps this is because it’s safe to walk along here until 10 or 11 at night, whereas in Nairobi you can’t be outside your gate past 6:30 unless you are getting a taxi to a club and then a taxi back. This can be very frustrating, because our office and our homestay are not in the center of Nairobi, so I still haven’t walked around downtown yet, even though we’ve been in Kenya for nearly a month now. I have a feeling that I’ll love Nairobi as soon as I just see a little more of it, but right now my heart is here in Mombasa at the coast.
Mombasa is pretty much a middle eastern city in the heart of Africa. The Swahili people came here and traded and settled two thousand years ago, and the city has grown and thrived ever since. It’s truly amazing how diverse Kenya is – 42 tribes! Muslims, Christians, Hindus, traditional religions – it’s such a complex and rich society. I don’t particularly enjoy the 4:30 AM wakeup call to prayer in the morning as there is a mosque next door with its speakers literally pointed into our windows, but earplugs fixed that problem last night. They also sell ice cream here! You have no idea how excited I am about this.
Yesterday we had a somewhat crazy lady come and talk to us about traditional medicines and healing. I was very interested, from an anthropological perspective, but the whole thing was more of a sales pitch than a lecture. She talked about one plant in particular – the Neem tree – and claimed that it could pretty much anything. This is fair enough, but she didn’t really back up her claims with anything. But, creepily enough, when she was going around the room and doing a little reflexology on us, as soon as she touched me she knew my throat was bothering me. I’ve had a smidgen of an ear infection these past few days, but I hadn’t been coughing during class or anything to give that fact away. Creepy. Our afternoon lecture was very short, so we went khanga shopping! I got a couple very cute ones that I will for sure be wearing back in the states.
Speaking of khanga, my Bodo family gave me two gorgeous gifts and many smaller ones upon my leaving Bodo. The two big ones were a gorgeous, hand-woven mat of many colors that is SO going in my room in Chapel Hill, and then a beautiful hand-woven straw hat that is purple and tan. They might be a little hard to get back to America, but I’ll make it happen. I also got some khanga from my shangazi (including one to give to Nora), a Swahili text book, a necklace, and a “gold” ring and makeup also to bring back to Nora (?). Confusing for sure, but the whole thing reminded me of the Bible, when the widow gives her last two coins to the charity, and Christ calls her more blessed than the hypocritical Pharisees that given ten million times as much – for they gave from their surplus, and she from her poverty. What amazing people I have met on this continent.
This continent. I felt a similar feeling tonight. We had dinner at Hamisi’s house, and afterwards went up to the roof to look out over the neighborhood. His building was the tallest, 3 stories high, and island among the shacks below. The call to prayer began, and I was moved. For among the shambled tin-roof houses packed to the brim, filled with fragility and struggle, a cry comes forth in the desert: God is good, God is great. What beauty I have seen here among the unshed tears of the desperate poor, the swollen, unfed bellies of their hungry children. O Africa. O Kenya. You are not forgotten. The God I pray to walks among your poor and weeps with you at the besides of your dying. There shall be justice in this world. The Lord shall give it, and we shall wrought it. This do I believe.
Cultural Fatigue?
September 22, 2007
The last day of the fast! Odoch, one of our academic directors (ADs) has said that if I make it the whole week he’s going to get a trophy for me upon our return to Nairobi. How exiciting!
I think that many of us here are experiencing a little bit of fatigue. We began this journey nearly a month ago, and since then, we’ve only had one actual day off. That was the first full day of our homestay, so that was the day when I went out with my family and got rained on at the motor cross show. We have some free time every day – we’re had a two-hour break between class and lunch here in Bodo every day – but we’re always together and essentially we’re always on duty. You’re never not in Kenya, you know? I wouldn’t call it homesickness, for while I go miss my friends and Chapel Hill dearly, I do not yet yearn to be back under the ancient oaks. I think cultural fatigue is the better word. It’s Saturday and we still have classes and things to go, and tomorrow on Sunday we’re having a group trip to the river and the beach. I appreciate the fact that we are doing so much, but I simply need a little Kate Time, and more than an hour and a half. This feeling is being echoed throughout the entire group here. But I think over the term of the entire course we have very few days off, and no proper weekends to speak of whatsoever. Alas, earwax. The Road goes ever on, ya?
Yesterday I played volleyball with the villagers. The day before we had played them in soccer and lost fantastically! We also lost at volleyball, of course, but I think I actually wasn’t too bad at it. My arms were pretty sore afterwards, but it was a great time and a lot of volleyball played everyday in gym class in 8th grade came back, even knowledge of how to serve and the instinct of blocking a spike. Holla! However, the last time I played volleyball was when I only had B-sized boobs. It’s much harder with a bigger chest, I’ll have you know.
I have enjoyed Bodo a great deal, and I have learned a lot, and I am extremely grateful for the experiences I’ve had here, but I’m ready to be back in Nairobi with real showers and Western-style toilets and the news. But it’s good to know that I can rough it when I need to. I feel as though if I had my own place and space, a smidgen of electricity and a phone connection that worked so I had some semblance of access to the outside world, I really could live almost anywhere (Depending on just how hot it gets, ha). I can get by just fine without running water in the house. This is all very good to know, as I do want to eventually be doing medicine in the places where it is needed most: developing nations, among the poor. We’ll see how I do when I get to Uganda or Tanzania.
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
September 20, 2007
A memory.
Last night, after we have had a crazy wazungu dance party on the porch of Stephanie’s hose (including a couple of grandmas (nyanyas) joining us and shaking their goods), a handful of us went down to the shore to swim. Only Sean, Stephanie and I went in the water with some of Sean’s brothers and cousins. But the nightswimming was beyond beautiful. Several others came and sat on the shore, chatting with the locals, but the water was so refreshing and beyond perfect. Under the half-lit African moon and a canopy of stars impossibly numerous, I swam in the warm waters of the Indian ocean with strange languages and beautifully unfamiliar tides.
How blessed am I. How incomprehensibly blessed.
Yesterday I performed the full Islamic fast of Ramadan – no food, no water, from sunup to sundown. I made it the whole day, but the last few hours especially were pretty brutal. I am proud of what I did, but today I’m back to drinking water as I’m slightly ill in the intestinal region. But my sister was very proud that I had fasted and told me that I had made the whole family very happy. Hindu was also saying she had been telling all her friends that her sister, Maua (my namesake, my somo), was fasting along with us. I’m the only student who has even attempted to fast for more than a day, so I think I’m getting a little bit of a reputation here in Bodo for being the crazy mzungu who fasts when she doesn’t have to.
Last night we had crab as part of our dinner, and it was so fresh and so delicious. We’ve also being eating a good deal of pueza, which is octopus. It’s very good, but nothing like the fried calamari we eat in the states. We’ve also been eating staple crops: potatoes, cassava, beans, mandazi and spaghetti, but noting like the way we eat it at home. They overcook it here and add sugar to it – no tomato sauce. It’s good, but it makes me crave some actual Italian food when marinara! Yum!
Bodo Pt 2
September 18th, 2007
Yesterday was better than the day before. I got a little more room from my family and I’ve figured out how to tell then that I am tired and that I don’t want to do Swahili at the moment, and they right away let me rest. I still think they’re spending way too much money on me, but perhaps that’s inevitable.
I made chapati last night! Well, rather, I watched my sister Hindu make it for the most part, but I got to make a little under half of it. Both Hindu and my mother were beside themselves when I knew how to knead dough. They were saying that I knew African things, and I’ll never forget how broadly mama was smiling. Hindu was translating for me, as she doesn’t know English, but I didn’t need any translation for her elation. I feel kind of bad, however. I was trying to make conversation and I said, “Ninapenda chapati,” which means “I like chapati,” and then Hindu and I went out and bought the flour and lard and went home and made it. I hope they didn’t do it just for me, but I have a feeling they did. They also buy me a soda every night to have with dinner. The first ight we were here, I was so tired and so from the journey from Nairobi (28 hours of travel, all told, to get to Bodo) and they gave me what I later found out was Fanta Blackcurrant soda. It was so cold, and so sweet, and in the moment it was beyond delicious. I must find this soda back in America, because it is astoundingly good.
One thing I did here that I had never done before was take a shower at about 8:30 at night just simply in the backyard. My mama and sister held up a towel for me cower behind, but I was still ass-naked in the dark. It’s not taboo here for women to see women naked in Islamic culture, because women aren’t able to be attracted to women. Also a funny notion to me. I still don’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to go into the “shower” stall, but there’s what’s lost in translation, eh?
I am still fasting. Nimefunga is how you say that in Kiswahili. People in my group are perplexed as to why I’m doing it, but I kind of think it’s the right thing to do while I’m living with a family that is fasting. I’m not planning on fasting when we’re in Mombasa, as we won’t be staying with a family, but while we’re here in Bodo I’m going to keep it up. I’m the only person in our group who is attempting to fast for more than a day. When in Rome, right? If I want to walk a mile in these people’s shoes then I’ve got to go whole-hog.
