Kenya Dig It?!

Missing your host family, is sort of the strangest. Because they are family, they are the people...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:21:54 -0500

Missing your host family, is sort of the strangest. Because they are family, they are the people that took care of you abroad, often the people you spent the most time with outside of your American friends. But it is hard to stay in touch, and to relate from afar. I miss the sound of mama’s voice, talking on the phone rapidly in Kikuyu to her friends. I miss family dinners, and watching El Nombre De Amor and Don’t Mess with an Angel. I miss how cool it was inside the house, the relief of entering after our walk home from school. It is strange to love people so much in this very specific way, and not no how to communicate it. We send e-mails back and forth that say the same thing, always. But I have to keep the connection. They are family. I love them in the same way I love my various families here.

My host mama is so charming, but also so real. She wasn’t afraid to tease or to say when she thought things were silly. She wasn’t afraid to question what I was doing in Kenya, when there are so many things I don’t know about my own country. And I have never met someone who loves her child so much. During the first few weeks of Kev being at boarding school she told me she couldn’t sleep or eat, because she missed him so much and was so worried about him. Mama has a big, happy laugh and smile and I think of her as Mama, I call her Mama, even to my own Mom (who also calls her Mama).

I know I know I know, this Kony debate is getting sort of antagonistic and I don’t want to add...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:40:31 -0600

I know I know I know, this Kony debate is getting sort of antagonistic and I don’t want to add fuel to the fire, because it is not about it being positive or negative, exclusively. In one of my classes my teacher keeps bringing up the point that when arguing and debating things we tend to assume (and she says she thinks this is, potentially, a more American way of thinking) that there it is as clear cut as right and wrong, etc etc. So here is a just another point of view on the situation:

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/08/african-voices-respond-to-hype.html

And for those in support of Kony, I realize that this focuses on the voices of Africans who are against the campaign and that there are likely some in favor. But they bring up a point that I have yet to read in all of the articles and other things posted throughout the Kony 2012 hype: even if the principle of what the campaign is doing is good, the videos do sort of play of the sort off the imperialistic attitudes towards Africa and puts the Ugandans in the role as ”victims, lacking any agency”. It’s not so much that I am against the goals of the campaign (I haven’t looked into it quite enough, to be honest), but I am concerned about the sort of romanticized view of aid that is portrayed in their videos.

I talked to Opishe today, and it was so nice and natural to hear her voice. She sounded good, she...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:43:06 -0600

I talked to Opishe today, and it was so nice and natural to hear her voice. She sounded good, she sounded the same, she sounded like she really existed and is not a figment of my imagination. Each year I come up with new complications in my understanding of how we relate to each other and how we stay in touch with each other. I mostly don’t understand it at all. Don’t know what is best, don’t know if I should embrace and encourage the heart string tugs or if they make things hurt more than they make things happy. But I think, they make things hurt in the nice way. Sometimes (most times) I wish we could be everywhere at once.

A year ago today the Pack had just won and we were watching the sun rise, walking to get breakfast after staying up all night. It was a very American night, but it was good for us, for our bonding, etc.

The first night we went out in Kenya we went to this tiny bar/restaurant near Tom’s house or maybe Mike’s house. 4 months later my dad and I stopped in there to get a soda and use the bathroom and the bartender remembered me. I am hungry for that. For the daily morning greetings from the Jamhuri keepers, the thought that maybe, a little bit, someone was watching out for me. Our walk to school always started while it was still cool, and Nairobi was still asleep. We would walk past the market, everything covered in plastic, in case it rained. I felt like I knew secrets most mzungus weren’t supposed to be in on. I miss that city, I miss wandering around in it, I miss feeling like some part of me belonged there, and owned it. Mzungu mzungu mzungu, I even miss that, even though sometimes it was too much of a reminder that I didn’t really belong there. Even though sometimes it made me cry. But mostly in Nairobi, it was just a nice way to start a conversation. I am aching for the market, for random social interaction, for joking and charming and bartering, for my Kenyan self. (And always, when I give myself the chance, the sickening ache for Mishi and Babu, who may well have forgotten me by now because I’m just not sure how to stay in touch with them and my mail never gets there.)

I know, it’s a bit of bore for me to hash and re-hash, but I need a place to put it all, so I can come back to it later.

Tonight, as I sit packing for Boston and thinking about how last year at this time I was packing a...

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:26:00 -0600

Tonight, as I sit packing for Boston and thinking about how last year at this time I was packing a much bigger pack for Kenya, I am transported through little flashbacks, and got the heart-wrenching sort of nostalgia for things that you know you will never be able to experience the same way. It’s not just “the Kenya” it is the way your relationships with people were while you were away, the way you were while you were away, and, as is the same with all things, the way things slip through the cracks, because how can you possible remember days and months in just minutes?

Mostly all I keep picturing are my shoes covered in red dirt, and that is what I miss, me, two feet on the ground, in a place. I miss leaving for school early, before the sun was fully up and walking past the orange building. I am sick with missing, which has not happened to me, in any form, since I’ve been back. It’s winter. Even though Wisconsin is fighting winter, it can’t stop the winter inside of me, and winter is still and always my season. I miss the “long” walk to school, and how we always took our time and bought mangos and had the nicest talks, and showed up to class 15 minutes late. I miss the sound of mama’s radio drifting from her bedroom because she couldn’t sleep without it.

But mostly, what keeps coming to mind is the walk to school. Us, walking, sure of ourselves, because even if we only made a small part of Kenya our home, that 3 mile chunk of Ngong was ours, is ours, we know every building. Walking through the ghost of Adam’s market in the mornings, everything covered in huge plastic tarps until afternoon when the market opened. Stopping at Nakumat for chocolate and newspapers before class. Buying airtime at the dry cleaners.

It is strange to miss things, and becomes stranger and stranger the older I get, because, there are simply so many things to miss. It’s a little bit wonderful and a little bit hard. It is strange to me that I can transport myself to old feelings, and that each feeling is so different. I need to write more next semester. More letters, yes, but more little stories, little bits of beauty like I used to. More snippets of Kenya, more snippets of everything.

Kenyakenya blablabla. I am trying to do my homework, but mostly I am thinking about Mishi, and how...

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:07:00 -0500

Kenyakenya blablabla.

I am trying to do my homework, but mostly I am thinking about Mishi, and how instead of sleeping (like she was supposed to be doing) she would stay up and ask me lots of questions, like “ni nini?” (what is that?) and pointing up at my mosquito net and other things that I can’t remember. Or playing hide and seek, where we would hide in the same spot everytime, behind the extra mattress propped up against the wall, the way Mishi tried to trick me nightly, the way she would get mad at me when I couldn’t play with her. Na Babu. He’d wake up earlier than everyone, and stay up later (he was 3), but he was always full of energy. Big energy. He could be big happy or big sad, but it was contagious. The way he would come to me to help him get dressed after his shower, the tiniest thing that made me feel like I had a place in the family.

I miss seeing the same 25 people everyday. I miss being so in tune with that many people at once. I feel so misaligned with everyone now. I grind my teeth more. Jama’s phone message, just the sound of his voice, made our eyes water. ”I wish the best to all those with you, and those you will come to meet.” and funnier, “…we are actually entering a forest, as we speak, in honor of Wangari Maathai”. But mostly just the rhythmic song of his voice, that has this eerily magical soothing effect.

Walking home from school, through Adam’s market, eyes pealed for the perfect gladiator sandals or boots, while the stand owners would try to sell us shoes that were 3 sizes too small. The process of teasing, coaxing, laughing, exchanging names, mini stories, when trying to buy something. Eating mangos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The dirty roads. The relief of stepping into my house after walking for an hour in the hot hot sun. The comfort of the key in my pocket, of knowing that I had a home. Safaricom commercials.

Talking about development for hours. Then taking a chai break and talking about it for more hours. The pride of learning a place on your own. Swahili swahili swahili, the way the language opens it up for you to tease, to whine, in the most charming way, even to strangers. ”Bwana. We. Tunakaa hapa. Tunajua bei kweli.” I fell in love with Kenya the way I would have fallen in love with any other place in which I learned to trust myself. I am happy that it was in East Africa, but I will not pretend that this would not have happened somewhere else. Kenya is magic, but I think that everywhere is magic. It wasn’t exotic, it wasn’t like going back in time, I didn’t leave feeling it was an overwhelming part of myself, but rather find it engrained in little bits here and there, like little glass shards or splinters. Kenya does not scream or ooze from my bones, it is not all transforming, I did not go to a “third world country” and have my world turned upside down. I did not look at people and automatically think “I am so happy for what I have” or “I am so happy for what they have”, in fact, I tried to avoid comparison altogether. I would not pretend that I went to Kenya and fell in love with Africa. Which is not to say I didn’t love it, but like all proper love, I unfolded all of its bad habits, along with all of its charming qualities. Learned to understand the way these things played off each other. Learned that separating a place from its present (and thus its past) is impossible, and to not hate the “westernization”, because in order to grow, at this point, Kenya needs to embrace these takes on western culture, to make them their own, they are too integral, too important, and at this point, it is more offensive for the global north to claim them as their own anyways. In the same way, as writers, we write little lines from books down in our notebook margins and spin them into whole new poems and stories, that are ours alone.

But in the same way I miss my cousins when I haven’t seen them in a while, or miss being 7, I miss Kenya. Not because it charmed me endlessly, not because it was always polite, or never got on my nerves, but just because, well, why do we love/miss anything?

…because I’m getting a new phone and don’t want to forget. Text...

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:08:05 -0500

…because I’m getting a new phone and don’t want to forget.

Text from MOM while I was waiting for plane. Probably the only text she’s ever sent that I didn’t type for her. IT’S PERFECT.

Hiya, Kenya nakumiss sana. Nimekosa kuongea katika Kiswahili. I miss a lot of things about Kenya,...

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 21:55:47 -0500

Hiya, Kenya nakumiss sana. Nimekosa kuongea katika Kiswahili.

I miss a lot of things about Kenya, particularly being able to go outside and slip into Swahili, because I was able to impress myself with the natural way it rolled off my tongue, how comfortable I felt in a place where I was so seemingly foreign, how much more comfortable I feel here now, because Kenya taught me to be comfortable with myself.

I don’t miss it in a stomach churning, tear-jearking sort of a way (it seems like, perhaps, that wouldn’t be the Kenyan way), but in sort of lovely way, like Kenya is this secret I have that no-one quite knows about. I’m still terrified of secrets that only I know (lakini kuna methali inasema “Hakuna siri ya watu wawili” [there is a swahili proverb that says “There is no secret between two people]). So mostly, I’m just terrified of secrets altogether. But this one, complicated, untellable secret of Kenya is empowering, though perhaps also a little bit disconnecting.

But today it was hot, and the sun felt Kenya hot and I could almost imagine I was walking down Ngong on my way home from school, the sun heat making me a little dazed and weak, an looking forward to the coolness of home, to plopping on the couch next to Mariam and watching music videos or soap operas.

And I wish everyone could meet Mama and Kev and Mariam, and that they could meet everyone, but also think that maybe they would not all understand each other. I am so happy my parents got to meet them, that Mama tells me we all became family by the time I left Kenya. Some people take longer to miss, but I feel that person ache I get when someone is not around, when someone is unreachable, for Mama, Mariam, and Kev. And for the MSID staff. They were people I interacted with everyday, people I loved and who loved me, people who took care of me when I was far away from the people who would normally take care of me. I am happy to say that at 21 I already have a nice handful of families that I belong to. In high school, I would write about finding my niche, would repeat over and over again “what hour is it and where do I belong?” and perhaps I don’t have a satisfying answer, but I do have one. It is now and I belong everywhere.

I miss blackouts and taking with Mama or listening to the radio through her phone. I miss Mariam singing along with the radio while cleaning. I miss Kev laughing, miss teasing Kev and Mariam and that feeling you have, that warm, silly, feeling of comfort. They took good care of me.

I’ve become stronger and that scares me because strength is it’s own weakness of sorts. But if you want to go global, you have to be able to be strong enough to love people thousands of miles away, people hard to reach, people who you may not see for years and years. You have to be strong enough to be able to be a ghost and be OK with that, or at least OK enough to not let it haunt you too much. But sometimes I think I forgot I went to Kenya at all. Today, somehow, was a nice reminder, that I was actually there and that there is a little bit of Kenya in me now. I have a family there. I hope I make it back soon to see them.

Nakupenda sana Kenya.

Nimekula asali udogoni, utamu ungali gegoni. I ate honey in my childhood, and its sweetness is still in my tooth.

Being home has been wonderful. No one has just had me sit down and talk about Kenya but has allowed...

Mon, 30 May 2011 00:29:41 -0500

Being home has been wonderful. No one has just had me sit down and talk about Kenya but has allowed stories to slowly unfold themselves. Maybe some stories will get lost, but that’s OK. I am nervous because nothing about being home has been bad. I am worried it will get bad, that everyone else will move on from Kenya, be sick of hearing about it, while I am still trying to talk and process it. I am equally scared that this will not happen, that Kenya will sort of fade into a dream. But really, everything seems like a dream after it’s passed.

I haven’t taken the time to worry, and I think that might be a new life philosophy. The only small thing I struggled with was a social anxiety that I had never felt in Kenya. Kenyans are not quite so hard to impress as Americans. And culturally, there is not really such thing as an embarrassment. The first week was full of sub-conscious nervous stomach aches. I then decided that making a conscious effort to impress people was far too exhausting. It’s probably more impressive to not be trying to impress people anyways.

Panda is home, all my experiences/loves/confusions of life have seem to merged together nicely (at least internally) and I feel “at peace” whatever that might mean. Trying not to assume/wait for the impending doom, though impending doom is usually a sort of natural thing I make for myself. Happy I went, happy to be here, happy to tell you what I think about it, though it is likely to be different at any given time.

Someday I’ll elaborate on this, and tell you all about readjustment, but I’ve been to...

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:43:07 -0500

Someday I’ll elaborate on this, and tell you all about readjustment, but I’ve been to excited to see people and not to think about them or write about them or to them, so you may have to wait awhile but let me just say this:

I have never felt so sure that this is exactly where I belong for the time being. I am so happy to be here.

Mom arrived and we whisked her away to the coast. Mombasa was friendly but hot, I lost my temper,...

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:17:18 -0500

Mom arrived and we whisked her away to the coast. Mombasa was friendly but hot, I lost my temper, as seems to be a little bit of a trend in the last few weeks, perhaps getting anxious about coming home. We went to Mtwapa to visit Kwetu and my home-stay again, it was nice to see everyone and remind myself that I had made some sort of relationships and lasting impressions. My little brother and sister walked us all the way to the main road, Babu holding my hand the whole way. Reeta called me the other day and told me that she was going out the other day and that the kids asked her “are you going out to meet Savannah?!” It’s nice to know they loved me at least a fraction as much as I loved them. I still can’t process the idea that it will likely be years until I see them, and that they may not remember me. I miss Babu’s contagious laughter and Mishi always trying to trick me.
Then we jetted to Lamu, a lovely island with roughly 2 vehicles on the whole thing and in contrast hundreds of donkeys for transportation. Somewhere along the way we all got sick, mom and dad first with perhaps something different than myself and Amanda. But it seemed wrong to leave Kenya without puking anyways, so I it just fulfilled another thin on the checklist.
I come home in 6 days. I feel nervous. Anxious. So excited to see everyone, so nervous that I somehow have lost my patience, have lost a lot of things here. Become bad at articulating my feelings. That people won’t care about my feelings. Must have had weird dreams about being home last night. Trying to enjoy my last few days, but feel ready to just come home, to sort myself out, to see some people that never let me down, some people who will reassure me. To see the people who I’m afraid won’t, to gauge how I will react. They say when you have culture shock you shy away from everyone, get angry at them, etc etc. I already weirdly feel like hiding under a rock. But maybe because Kenya provides you with no privacy, and sometimes you need that. I can’t remember the last time I slept in a room that didn’t have other people in it, or sat in a room that didn’t have other people in it, and I can feel all of our thoughts running into each other in our sleep, and I just need space, lots and lots of room for my thoughts to float around in. Oh boy. I don’t even know what I need.

Regardless of my handful of fears, I couldn’t be more excited to just see all of you. No more letters or texts or tweets or blogs or e-mails or facebook chats. Just your faces.

Next time you hear from me, I might be stateside.

NICE TO NICE TO KNOW YA

Sun, 01 May 2011 01:41:39 -0500

Dad has been here for about a week and a half, and we’ve been runnin around. First to Simon’s, then I had tests, then out and about in Nairobi. Summer of love is off to a good start: drinkin/dancing/chattin with friends, ELEPHANTS, rugby, the most meat you’ll ever eat in your life, market, mom.

I’ve likely thought a million things between the last time I wrote and now, but I will try to summarize them somehow.

Another happy little pile of letters we’re received. Little gifts hidden inside. These things make me excited to come home, make me feel connected by heart-strings and words and mutual affections. Letters full of advice, full of kind wise words, full of love. Al writes about Wisco and says “It’s in our bones, and sometimes my bones ache.” Which is how I feel about all the places I hold close to me, as though they are a part of me, and my bones are in a nearly constant state of aching. I like it just that way. Kenya has been hard, but rewarding, and my return to Nairobi made me feel like Nairobi is one of my homes, I know it here, I love it here. The city gets a bad rep, because people are less outwardly friendly, because of the crime, but it is a place full of discussion, it feels like something is brewing. I am really sad that I won’t be able to use my Swahili at home, I’ve gotten so fond/proud of my ability to communicate in the language, an ability that will be lost at home, for the most part. We’ve been talking about our Kenya personalities are different, and that is strange to me, because it is just this handful of people who will know my Kenyan self when we get home. Swahili sort of lacks the concept of embarrassment or humility, is more straight forward, is a lot opposite from me. I am more confident and sassy in Swahili. I will miss the language, the respect it gets me just by saying a few phrases. Swahili has been an intricate part of my college career, and it will be strange to have senior year without Swahili class.

Kenyans keep telling me I’m a Kenyan, telling me I should get permanent residency, and I know they don’t mean much by it, but it makes me feel like this is home, like I could live here, though I don’t know if I ever will. They say “ai, wewe ni Mkenya’ and I say “Ai, ndiyo, mimi ni mkenya kidogo tu” (I’m a little Kenyan only). Living here is different than visiting here. You approach the whole thing differently. I’m not here to observe, I’m here to be a part of the life. I’m here to see things as an American-Kenyan, not as an American, not as a Kenyan. I went to the National Museum, and looking at the pictures remembered what I used to think of Africa. No, not think, those thoughts have long absconded, my brain invaded with too many new thoughts for those to stick. But the feeling I used to have about Africa. Pictures of little kids dressed in dirt covered “western” clothes, sitting with their Grandpa, draped in a Maasai blanket. Whatever the feeling there was from that, that strange foreigness evoked from those pictures, whatever illusions we build up. In the end people are just people, these are just kids hangin out with their grandpa. The mystery of it is sort of lost, and I think that I missed the mystery. But now I am happy it is gone, happy I don’t think of Kenya and Africa as some magical place, not any more magical than all the other places in the world. It is magical, but it is not that different, when it comes down to it, people are just people, and we will be people forever, until we aren’t around anymore.

Kenya yetu, nitakukosa kabisa. Natumaini kurudi siku moja, pengine mwaka ujayo au pengine katika miaka kumi. Kweli, sijui, lakini Kenya uko katika moyo yangu sasa. Unazobadilisha wazo zangu kuhusu maendeleo na kuhusu watu wa duniani, wazo zangu kuhusu kila kitu. ”nakupendaa sanna weeeee”. Umoja ni nguvu, na Kenya sasa mimi ni pamoja na wewe kabisa.

Summer of love 2011, here we come, full of a new love that we will spend all summer, all year, all of our lives trying to figure out. America, see you in two weeks. Beyonce house, my pinckney babes, shorewood, el cafe family, I’m coming HOME. I hope you’re ready to spend the summer on our bicycles, as I try to process the last 4 months with you. As I try to make incorporate my American life with my Kenyan one, try to meld a new sort of Savannah (I think we’re onto 3.0?!), try to get my priorities straight. This summer is about love, I promised myself that a while ago. Love love love, no heartache. Loving the confusion that comes with returning to one home while leaving another one. Loving all of you who have stuck with me, wrote me letters, sent me messages, let me know that you can leave a place and still be loved, that you are disposable, but only to a certain extent. And Kenya, I’ll be seeking you out back home.

Sorry this is so cheesy, I swear there is a poet or a writer or whatever that is somewhere inside of me, but this trip has been more about being a person, and realizing that we are not at all what we do, and thus I’ve sort of let the “writer” in me drift off for a while. I had to, so I could be here rather than wherever else I usually am. “Try to resist the urge to share your experience before you’ve had it.” I think I did that. I think I will do that. If you ask my “how was Kenya?” I won’t answer your question. It’s an ongoing experience, it won’t be over when I get home.

THANKS FOR KEEPING ME IN YOUR POCKETS, EXCITED TO COME HOME NOW TO TELL YOU I LOVE YOU IN PERSON.

but until then, I’m off to the coast with the ‘rents and Panda, and computer is not invited. so PEACE OUT Y’ALL, see you soon.

"I know there is a moral to this story, I just don't know what it is"

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:38:03 -0500

It’s my last night in Mtwapa, tomorrow morning I go to Mombasa to take the bus back to Nairobi to see my dear ole pops. That, in itself, is something I can’t digest, because I have been under the assumption, my whole life, that you have to mourn endings, but here I just don’t have the energy. Maybe if I think about endings too much my life will look choppy and and weirdly incomplete or something.

The awesome thing about MSID is how individualized it is. None of us have the same experience, or even close to the same experience. The “bad” thing about MSID is how individualized it is. We each end up doing something that no one else can understand, not even each other. Another thing is, our experience so heavily influences our views on development. But it’s only one experience. We sometimes mistakenly take our experience to be everyone’s experience, when we have only gotten a good long stare into one little piece of the populations’ lives. And the other thing is, that this is important. This experience is important. It HAS taught us a lot, about development, about ourselves, about people, in general. I am excited to spend a few days next week trying to soak in everyone else’s experience. But I know I simply can not understand theirs, and they can’t understand mine. And my parent’s are coming and they will see all of the places I stayed and spent time at, but since they didn’t actually spend time there themselves, didn’t interact with everyone on a regular basis, they will only get a rough sense of what my stay here was like.

I came here to get something that was my own, because I have a habit (bad or good?) of trying to share everything with everyone, and I need it to be that way, for the most part, but when you’re feeling lonely this just creates a whole new world of loneliness because it feels like you have given everyone a piece of you and forgotten to keep a piece for yourself. This is my piece. I will cradle it, examine it, love it, hate it, try to tear it into bits, try to piece it back together, will cling to it when I’m lonesome. But it is mine. I wish you could have it, but you can’t, there is no way for me to share it with you, though I will keep trying. But really, it is just me sharing myself with you, which is just not the same thing. I think I am afraid of something that is my own. That somehow having this means that I have to love through this thing, like it is some sort of skin-thin shield between myself and everyone else. But perhaps I can love around it instead. Or love with it.

I don’t know what gives me the right to write about love like this. I don’t know if writing about it makes me sound naive or silly, though mostly I am afraid that it does. But maybe that’s just because we trained to think that believing in something is silly. I feel like I sound younger now than I did before I left for this trip. I feel like no one will understand, but a lot of people will try and we will love each other for that, for trying to understand each other. And sometimes, we might even manage.

I came home from a weekend with friends, celebrating my birthday/mombasa/life to find my whole...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 13:34:56 -0500

I came home from a weekend with friends, celebrating my birthday/mombasa/life to find my whole side of Mtwapa more buzzing than usual. And then I saw why. I massive fire in the flats a block from my house. I mean massive. I actually didn’t see the building that was on fire but I did see the flames licking the sky, big and bright red. This caused two sort of interesting emotional clashes. One was nostalgia, because when Satchel and I were little there was one night that we drove past a huge house fire, or someone told us about, or something like that. Anyhow, we ended up watching the fire for what felt like hours, with Paul. Maybe it sounds cruel, but fire is fascinating, and it was a strange sort of learning experience. It’s a fond memory, even if that’s strange to say. The other feeling was utter frustration. The only fire trucks have to come all the way from Mombasa. That is 30 minutes at least. They showed up with no water. THEY SHOWED UP WITH NO WATER? In Kenya, this is upsetting but not necessarily surprising to anyone. It is sort of assumed by all Kenyans that they have to take care of themselves. But a fire truck, with no water? Why did they even come. It sparked a small but nice conversation with my mother at dinner. We talked about how fast fire can wipe out everything. And, though I actually don’t know if this is true, I told her the government provides services like fire trucks (but do you have to pay for them like you do ambulances?). It was amazing though, nearly everyone was outside to watch, fascinated and also terrified by this disaster and the reminder that it could happen to them. I feel pretty confident in assuming they don’t have house insurance in Kenya. My mom says that the only people who help are red cross. I know that in America we complain about our government not representing us fairly, not taking care of all its citizens, and I think it is a fair complaint, and something that should not be taken lightly. But we have to remember to appreciate the fact that the fire trucks will show up in 5 minutes and will have water, and that we can trust this to be true, for the most part. If someone gets hit by a car, the ambulance will come if you call them, and you will not have to argue with them for 40 minutes and continue to call them back while someone lays lying in the road, bleeding from the head (this happened to my friends in Nairobi).

But it was a nice day for bonding with my family. My swahili IS getting better, even if everyone still laughs at me, and I have the proper Mombasa intonations the “eeeehs” and “mmmms” and general sounds and faces of what seems to be disinterest. My little 7 year old sister has taught me the Mombasa/Kenyan sass that is required to gain respect around here. And my feeling are becoming more complicated. Because I’m ready for the comfort of home, but this place is starting to be inviting, finally, after weeks of me tiptoeing around it, and I would sort of like to be able to stay longer to see what happens. But I am so excited to see my pops in just 3 days. But my feeling about each place I’ve been to in Kenya, about Kenya as a whole, about development and what development even MEANS, about people, about home and friends, about my heart, they just keep changing. It’s sort of a necessary confusion, the confusion everyone told me about, though perhaps not following the constantly reiterated predictions of “YOU ARE GOING TO BE SO DIFFERENT WHEN YOU GET BACK” because yes, but maybe not so different too. Or maybe I will be different. But I when people tell you that it feels like they are trying to tell you, in advance, what your experience is going to be like, and that is frustrating.

Oi vay. I am tired so I am going to peace out and try to make more sense tomorrow.

READ THIS. Tell me what YOU think. Pleaassee.

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:05:42 -0500

Development. It’s occurring to me that maybe some people don’t think about it at all, and maybe I think about it too much. The more I learn about it, the more I see of it, the more mind-boggling it becomes. Because what is development? And who and how do we determine what is developed and what isn’t?

It’s a big messy-ass world, OK? So large scale development doesn’t work, because it depends on trickle down, and there is just no such thing as a good trickle, in any instance, and so much money is lost. It is sort of just like a broken sink, the money just sort of leaks out and by the time it reaches the right place, there isn’t so much money left. So the obvious choice is sustainable development, empowering the people, helping them learn to use their resources to better their situation. And god, it sounds great and simple and sugar and spice and all things nice, but just how the hell do you do this? I know, I always am preaching “don’t forget about culture, don’t forget about culture”, but what does that even mean? Should organizations even run based off of western business ideals? Are these business ideals the same and should they be? Why are we, or anyone from a country other than the one in need even there? I’m serious. I know we are there to provide resources, and education, but it seems to me like these sorts of things are just messing things up. Or maybe they aren’t. That’s just the things, at this point these “developing” nations are sort of straddling a weird line between westernizing and holding onto their traditional values. And maybe when it comes down to it, when you erase the stupid economics of it, our values used to be the same. Maybe they still are.

Here is one key thing I’ve noted about development: a lot of Americans and Europeans who work in development do so because it is what they are passionate about, because they are willing/able to sacrifice a certain amount of monetary/lifestyle comfort to work for organizations and try to make a difference. The same can not be said for all the locals who run NGO’s within their “developing” countries. They are working, because they need a job. Which is not to say that none of these people are passionate, but just that their passion, is perhaps, not always the main motivation for wanting to take the job. And what does THIS mean? How important is this motivational passion in getting things done efficiently and effectively? I honestly don’t know. But most importantly, how can we help a country “develop” if we can’t all properly all decide on what development is? and why is the west the one determining what it is? Why aren’t the Mamas who do all of the cooking, cleaning, and child rearing and on top of that own farms so that they can sell a few vegetables deciding what development? Why is it only people who can read and write that get to decide? And say you do gather everyone who it effects opinions on the matter, THEN WHAT? (the west, it should be noted, should not have much of an opinion at all, since the main opinion is driven by the desire to somehow help them increase their power in the world market OR driven by the guilt they feel about being able to hoard more materialistic items in their houses than other people). And somehow, those of us who have tried so hard to “crucify our Americaness” are suddenly offended when we run into people in these “developing” countries who have the same materialistic desires we were so desperately trying to escape. So do we forgive these views in these people and blame America again, for distilling these values through our supposed “development” or do we complain about them the same we complain about all the materialistic people we spend our time shunning?

What is culture? What is development? And what is MY role in development? In my note I have written in all caps “our role as outsiders should be to simply CREATE AND ENVIRONMENT FOR SELF DISCOVERY”. Even empowerment is assuming that this large group of people can’t empower themselves, and that seems just as offensive, if not more so.

At the beginning of the course we were told by one of our teachers that he thinks the best thing would be for all the aid groups to just get out, promptly, without trying to set up any preparation. He said sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. What he really said, which I think is so true and roughly poetic is “revolutions require a calculous of pain.” I didn’t believe him. I think I do now Maybe if we get out, people will be forced/able to empower themselves without all of these foreigners getting in the way of their affairs with questionable motives. Even those of us with “good” motives, might not. Maybe we’re trying to make up for the guilt we have with loving a country that is seemingly so awful to all the other countries that are less powerful. Or maybe that’s just me. Or maybe that’s not me. I don’t know. That is what has happened in Kenya, and it needed to happen, and I will promise to write myself in circles, trying to make these paradigms clear so that I can tell people about them.

OK, but on a much less serious note, Anna just told me she has been picturing me “dancin in the livin womb” which is just great, and a good ending to my head exploding thought process. Loving you all through all of this self-confusion, can’t wait to come home and annoy you by talking about it all the time.

culture shock?

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 01:01:00 -0500

I have, what can only be called, “holy shit” sunburn, and by this I mean, the sunburn that people see from afar, say “holy shit” and then proceed to put their hands on you as, like a child testing the parameters of a hot stove. This actually hasn’t happened to me, because most Kenyans aren’t so interested or understanding of sunburn, but I have seen it happen to other people in the states. ”Savannah Choma” is what I will call myself for the next day. (Nyama choma is a sort of barbecued meat). I look pretty awful, and worst of all I look like all of the mzungu tourists I see, who spend the whole day sitting by the pool COOKING themselves.

I only have a week and a half yet, and though I won’t miss the nearly constant sound of babies or kids crying, I will dearly miss my little brother and sisters, who are charming and devious as can be. Sefu and Somo are Biasha, one of the house-helps, kids. Sefu is just about 6 months old (Luca age!) and does your average sort of baby things. Somo is darling, and mostly always screaming and laughing. She used to scream (in a playful way) everytime I came close, and now she just does it when ever I touch her, but she likes me to pick her up and pretend she is an airplane. Babu is goofy and the only boy on the scene, he has the most contagious laugh you’ve ever heard. Mishi is devious but talks to me the most, always asking me questions, always telling me things, but also always trying to trick me. And Chidada is the oldest of the kids, she likes to read my books, my letters, she mostly just seems thirsty for reading. They are so fun and so much trouble. They have a almost nightly ritual of beating each other up until everyone cries, which was disconcerting at first until I realized that Satchel and I used to follow that routine daily as well.

I am talking to Laura about multi-culturalism, which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot here. She, multi-cultural without having a choice, me uni-cultural and seemingly stuck that way. Being in Kenya has made me realize how intrinsically American/western I am, and it scares me. Yesterday my friend was telling me how she met some people from Edinburgh, and for a split second I remembered how much I loved Edinburgh and thought “yeah, I could go there some day, I’d like that” and then I sort of felt ashamed because I am in Kenya thinking about Scotland, when our MSID group spends so much time saying, “PHEW, THANK GOD WE DIDN’T STUDY ABROAD IN EUROPE” and being a little bit elitist about our choice to study in AFRICA. I feel terribly conflicted. I feel as though I have trained myself that loving America is sort of an embarrassment, a sure sign of ignorance, and here I am trying to love Kenya, the homeland, and struggling, due to things to complex to even explain. I sort of feel like I am big disappointment to someone, most likely to myself or to my ideological version of myself. What do these things say about me? And what do these things mean in terms of “development”? I swear, everyday I just see words and ideas fall through the cracks, due to cultural and language gaps. And how do you bridge these? It’s not a matter of being open-minded, it’s not a matter of learning each others language. You would have to spend so much time with each other to understand each other, truly. And I am just so used to understanding people almost immediately, that here I have a lot of trouble feeling closeness with people here, and mostly I thrive on closeness. The culture shock is not the shock of being in a new culture. It is the shock of realizing that you have grown up a certain way, in a certain culture, and how much this drives you. It is terrible to say, but sometimes it makes me feel a little hopeless about the whole thing.

It’s interesting and impossible to explain and likely something I will spend much of my time thinking about from now on.

May You Sleep On the Breast of Your Delicate Friend

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:23:50 -0500

Sorry about the delay, apparently the Nairobi rain had slowly been corroding my hard-drive and it finally died. Good thing Apple is like a global virus and there is an apple store just a matatu ride away. It’s fixed now, at least for a while. Things have been vastly improving, in most ways. Took a weekend vacation from home to clear my head (or really, to muss it up), got to see my ever favorite Jammin Jama, and came home feeling happy about my situation. Starting to love Mtwapa and Mombasa, starting to get used to sticking out and to walk with a little more confidence, starting to not be afraid of everyone who approaches with me thus making new friends. Yesterday, I got the best care package full of so much candy, some toys for my little bros and sisters, and some new TOMS. THANKS MY DEAREST COUSIN KAREN. And my computer is fixed just in time for me to do the annoying task of waking up in the wee hours of the night to register for classes back home. And thanks for the lovely messages.

I have two weeks left in Mtwapa, then it’s back to Nairobi to meet up with ye ole Billy C! A little sad about leaving my dearest Audrey, who has become a bit of a savior during my time in Mtwapa, and definitely a lovely friend. She is such a comfort, really. A little sad about leaving my little brother and sisters, I get the sense that it won’t be easy to be in touch with them, and it is strange to love little kids so much and to get such a good sense of their personalities and simultaneously know that you will likely not get to see them grow up, or know of them at all once they are grown up. That being said, I am a little bit excited to be departing from Kwetu, it is a cause of lots of frustrations, daily accusations of being selfish because I don’t offer gum to my advisor and all of the students in our class, because I don’t offer to share my meager peanut butter on white bread sandwich with all 20 staff members or make a sandwich for everyone. My advisor seems to not understand the host family situation, or hunger and the choices seem to be: be harassed for eating lunch or bring enough for everyone, everyday and don’t expect the favor to be returned. I could literally go on this rant forever, and have (you’ll find out which one of you lucky kids gets the honor of receiving that letter!)

My feelings about coming home keep changing, before I was anxious to be home, now I am just ok with it. Sunday, I came home hungover and slept and woke up different. I felt comfortable and tired of always waiting for what is going to happen next, and always waiting for people to do what I expect them to (not an accusation towards them, but towards myself). My brother and I have a bad habit of envisioning just how things are going to be and then sort of waiting for these visions to come true and being heartbroken when they don’t. And all of these visions seem to start from a very tiny spark with which we build a sort of imaginary fire. (Sorry to lump you into this brother bear, but it is something unifying). No more of that. And a little less of my decisions depending so heavily on other peoples. Patience is not a virtue, when it comes to things like this, and I torture myself waiting too many days out of the year, and it is OK to have these visions and sort of naive hopes as long as I don’t let them dictate my life too fully.

Reading the Brothers K AGAIN, dying from it’s brilliance, laughing out loud by myself, near tears before work meetings. The way it addresses religion and people and love and family is so spot on. The character development makes you love each character the way you love a person, with all of the same complexities that come with knowing a person and being able to point out their flaws while still loving them with a fierceness that you only have for your closest friends and family. It says a lot of important things about all sorts of things, and it is helping me, somehow, digest Kenya and digest my own changes. It sort of helps me explain and understand how I love people, makes me feel a little less crazy for loving people but reminds me that people have to come around at their own pace and even love can’t change this. Maybe I give the book too much credit, but I’m big on words and feelings and this book is full of both. And I keep thinking about “the horror of unlove” (Berryman) and what it might mean, and this book sort of helped see it in a new way. There is unlove, like the complete absence of love: indifference. And then there is unlove, which is not the me as hate, but is just sort of misplaced love or not knowing how to love. Ya know? Like trying to love someone, but through this misunderstanding of how to love them, hurting them and unloving them instead. Oh god, I could make a person sick with confusion here.

And harelip prayers (READ THE BOOK, GOD, OK?). I think I am full of them.

So, I’m feeling cheery and excited to see the ‘rents and excited to see and smell my dear old Wisco. Love to all, happy spring (when it rains it almost smells like home).

Love me til my heart stops?

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:56:39 -0500

Seemingly so many things to tell, don’t know where to start. Yesterday we explored Mombasa a little bit, then went to the beach. The locals thought we were tourists and kept trying to sell us things. ”Snuck” into a resort to buy some ice cream. It was creepy. 40 people hanging out by the pool when the ocean was literally feet away. Weird old white people on vacation, who never leave the resort. I couldn’t help laughing, but I couldn’t quite tell if I thought it was funny like I joke, or funny like something that makes you feel queasy. Got a free ride though, by pretending we were guests at the hotel.

In Kenya, I go to places I would never even think to step foot in at home. Like the clubs we go to. We went to a club last night, a “splash club” and it creeped me out. If I really gave it further thought, all of the clubs we go to would creep me out. This one had a pool. And a stage. And some dancers and acrobats. Presumably there for the locals, because there weren’t many tourists there, but it seemed so kitchy and catering to some strange crowd, I couldn’t get into it. It reminded me of show choir, dance recitals, and a strip club all combined. I miss house parties. It’s these sort of things that you feel like you should be aware of, when trying not to be a tourist. But at the same time just things you have to let go of in order to allow yourself some fun. And really, how do the locals feel about this stuff? Isn’t that what not being a tourist is, trying to share the views of the locals? It’s pretty fruitless, really. Here is something I struggled with a lot: Old white men, practically senile, who were dancing/kissing these young gorgeous Kenyans. Prostitutes, I suppose. And my disgust had nothing to do with the women, but with the 65 year old Europeans who came to Kenya on holiday, for sex. Something about the way their eyes salivated. I suppose the women will survive the traumatizing experience, but will the men?

I can’t quite properly enjoy myself in Kenya. Every time I am enjoying myself, there is a little twinge of me missing friends, of wishing someone was here with me, the second I’m having fun it is like I can’t wait to be home having fun, but with a pile of friends. Not that the people on the trip aren’t my friends, because I love them. It’s nearly impossible to explain, but I love the challenge so let me try. You know those times you are maybe laying down and looking at the stars and it smells like trees and it is warm, but not hot, and maybe you’re near water, so you can hear the little waves. Or maybe this is not YOUR version of this, maybe yours is different, but you know what I mean. That sort of thing that makes you sort of in love with everyone you know, but also sort of heart broken. Like you wish they could know how much you love them, collectively and individually, all at once. So you try to write them letters, in your head, but by the time you get back to a place with paper and pen the feeling is sort of lost, and you couldn’t write about it anyways. So they will just never know. This, combined with the feeling that you can never know how people feel about you. It’s the whole fun of the world, I know. I just have the biggest urge to see all of my friends and family and give them the biggest hugs. Physical affection, our attempts at transferring these feelings to each other. I need to see my friends, so they know I love them, even though they know anyways, but do they really? I need to see my cousins, because I haven’t seen them in too long, since Summer of Pain, as I will call it, summer after Freshman year. Because I’m older.

Will I be processing things forever? I think so. I just want people to process with. I want summer in Madison and a train ride to portland and a mini-road trip to Nashville. I want to take advantage of my new comfort with travel, I want to see everyone, at once. I’m not sure what my motives are, or if they are good, but I don’t care. Everyone else keeps saying they never want to leave here. I wish I could feel that way. But as is ALWAYS my problem, when I am enjoying myself and I’m by myself I feel the distinct need to figure out how to describe it to everyone. And since it seems almost impossible, I just want to be home. You know that feeling, when you are with your friends or family and the love vibes just sort of fill up the room? I miss that. I need that. I can’t wait to come home. Though I suspect that my love for this place is growing everyday. But I know, distinctly, it won’t be greater than my love for home. Do I write about love too much? Do I think about love too much? Yes.

Every Time I Sit Around I Find I'm Shocked

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:21:34 -0500

This environment reminds me so much of Summer of Fun 2010, and brings with it a strange wash of nostalgia and also all of the feelings that went along with that summer: hesitation, freedom, love, delusion, and the struggle to figure out what to do with ones free time. The way the heat sort of drowns you so you can’t think straight. Summer is not my season. Kwetu smells like Weeona, reminds me of Weeona in a large number of ways, makes me think I should be sitting on the beach eating home-made salsa and swimming across the lake and back multiple times a day. My season emotional association is totally getting messed up in Kenya.

A new girl (Audrey) came in yesterday and together we are planning the preparation and planning of the demonstration plot here at Kwetu. It is going to be quite task along with taking care of the bees with Benson since neither of us know about gardening in Kenya and the soil we have to work with is clay. And we aren’t quite confident we will be provided with proper funds to fix it up. But I am excited to have a plan, even if it is tentative, excited to have another new Mzungu to talk to. I think I get to meet the bees today, assuming I don’t pass out from the heat of the bee suit.

Remember when Kenya was just a dream? I spent last summer writing essays, applying for scholarships, planning, but I don’t think I believed I would actually get here. And yet, here I am, daydreaming of Summer of Love 2011, and trying to guess what sort of things it might have in store for me. Time to try to get some work done, or pretend to get some work done, or something.

SAP: Savannah Adjustment Process

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:21:07 -0500

Don’t even get me started on the REAL SAP’s, useless excuses for development. For all of those whom I might have worried, it’s all just fine here. I am starting to find my pace, and learning there isn’t a whole lot of pace, everything at my house moves sort of slow like honey and sometimes it’s a little hard to find where I fit in, but I’m learning. My mama sat with me while I finished my dinner and talked to me a little. It wasn’t a lot. But just a little was enough to make me feel better. I’m realizing my hesitation maybe has to do with pre-concieved notions I have about how things should be, and my assumptions about what my role was supposed to be. A little observation time and I little decompressing time at the beach with friends is just what I needed. The ocean was so warm. Suspiciously warm. I am obviously a product of my environment because I missed the cold water I am used to.
I’m talking to my dearest Laurney about studying abroad. This blog is a place for me to say things that people are not supposed to say. I don’t regret coming here by any means (I don’t really regret many things, sort of a waste of time right?). But it’s sort of a leap to go somewhere far away from all of your friends and family. I know that part of the reason I came here was to impress people. To impress myself. I know a lot of people who travel all over. I assumed it was my calling, as I often assume that their lifestyles are somehow a map for my own. Undoubtedly I will come home more adventurous, less hesitant, for confident. But perhaps not with the strong inner desire to always be on the go. I like where I am. Maybe I’ll go somewhere else someday, if people I’m attached to go with me and I need a change of scenery. I don’t know how to internalize or externalize this experience. I don’t know what this experience. It’s supposed to change your life, but for me, right now, it seems to keep reaffirming what I had suspected about myself. So I’ll come home with a little more confidence. With a lot more knowledge about development. What is my responsibility now that I know these things?

Lives are not comparable. Not even close. To try to compare cultures is useless, to try to understand them more effective, more sensical. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the things there are to know. Sometimes I think maybe I should not try to know them all. I miss writing. I write lots of letters. I hope they say good things. I stopped keeping my journal after it got rained on. I now rip the blank pages out of it for my brothers and sisters to draw on. Without thinking about it. That’s normal, but it’s not normal for me. I like to feel everything 10 times more than I should. So yes, I love this experience, but I will be happy to go home and feel things. To feel all of THIS. I am trying to feel it now, but I think I am just a gal who needs to write and talk and write and talk in order to process things. I’m stubborn when it comes to the ways in which I run my emotional life. And Kenya has too much to process. And every part of it is the experience. The place I am sitting to process, is part of the experience itself. So I can’t fully swallow it.

God, people must think I’m crazy.

Mid-Kenya Crisis

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:16:00 -0500

I’m struggling hard to find my balance in Mtwapa. Real hard. Daily panics, where I jump from being OK, to near tantrum mode. Culture shock is very hard to explain. Because it is not actually that the culture is shocking, it is the realization that you do not fit into this culture, and that you don’t know how. That you don’t even know how to ask about simple things, or about how to fit in, because you are not sure what sort of boundaries you cross just by doing that. The language barrier and cultural barrier is actually exhausting. I almost never feel comfortable here, and constantly feel like I am doing something wrong. I am sure it will get better, but for now I can not help but count down the weeks. (I keep tempting myself with days, but I think if I saw the number it would be daunting). I should be amazed by my experiences, but I keep being overwhelmed instead. It’s not something you are supposed to admit, but since there is no way to change the course of events I can say things like this: I am ready to go home. It will pass. But I feel sort of trapped and unsure and tired and mostly I just want to see a familiar face, and feel that little punch of relief. Jama comes to visit me next week or the week after, I am so excited to see him.

Work is good, but there is this strange dichotomy of having all of these people taking me under their wing, but these same people being the ones who make me feel sort of inadequate. No one in Mombasa believes I know Swahili and they have no reason to. They talk too fast, they use perfect grammar, they have different accents, they all talk at once. I can’t understand what they are saying, and I get daily head spins trying to. I’m trying to embrace it but it’s frustrating. I don’t even try speaking, for the most part, because my swahili is so limited and slow-paced it seems useless half the time. My little brothers and sisters are the only people who speak to me in Swahili, because they don’t know english, and I think through them I’m improving.

I get this creeping sense that everyone here wants something from me, and it’s not my friendship. I’m American, and it is assumed I have money. And a swimming pool. Someone told me the other day that all American’s have swimming pools. That Americans don’t know how to cook. That there is no sense of community. The same exact generalizations I accuse America of all the time when I am home, but here I find myself defending. It makes me realize that despite how materialistic our culture is we still have some sort of heart in the US. Particularly the circles I run in. When little kids see me they yell “JAMBO” and then everyone in the work van says “they’re saying hi to you, you know”. On my worst day of panic, this happened, and apparently my response sounded negative. A co-worker asked “it annoys you?” not meanly, just sort of a passing comment. Of course I can’t say YES because that would make me heartless. But when I already feel like I am sticking out, all alone, this little thing emphasizes all of the fears and discomforts I am already having.

I’ve been trying to explain how their assumptions are wrong. But it’s hard to prove. When I’m nervous and not sure what my role is I am flighty and useless. I seem clumsy and lost ALL the time here, and not in a charming way.

5 weeks til the ‘rents start arriving. 8 until I am home. I feel like I am slipping through the cracks of everyone’s minds while I’m here, mostly because I feel so much more disconnected. It feels like a long time. Some of this is not Mtwapa culture shock but just straight up home-sickness. Maybe the heat is making me more delusional than usual. Kenya, if anything, has taught me perhaps what I already knew. How much I depend on the people around me at home and how much I love everyone there. Wisco, I have a feeling that as soon as I cross the Illinois border and enter your beautiful farmland my shoulders will slump in relief. Even if I love Kenya, which I think I do (not quite confirmed yet), my loyalty to the people I normally surround myself with makes it really hard to be away from them. I always say I will always follow people I love, rather than places and Kenya seems to be confirming that. I don’t know what this says about me, and for the time-being I don’t care. So please, take me with you.

Feel better already after writing that. I think I just needed a little time to decompress. To sum it up using some wise words my brother wrote: “It’s gettin better all the time. I’m moving forward most the time. Nothing can come between us, living parallel lives.”