Mwizi

November 15
Patrick isn’t sure if he might have signed some man’s death warrant because he tried to steal his phone yesterday. He was going to his matatu stop near Kangemi, where he lives and was hanging out joking around with some of the matatu drivers because he knows them and felt a hand reach in his pocket. He grabbed the hand and turned to look at the guy who twisted away. This has happened to me a few times too where I felt someone try to reach in my pocket or bag and as soon as I saw them and turned they laughed as if it were a joke and backed off. The man had gotten Patrick’s wallet partly out of his pocket but didn’t take it and then Patrick realized his phone was gone and pointed to the guy out of the crowd to the other matatu drivers he was with. They all set out after him through this crowd of people and finally caught up to him. In the meantime, another of the matatu drivers had found Patrick’s phone on the ground, the guy must have dropped it, so nothing was stolen from him. Still the group was pursuing this thief to beat him up, as is so commonplace in Kenya whenever a crime is committed in public. The mob mentality becomes so hot as soon as someone yells “mwizi!”-thief. The man was thrown out into the middle of the crowd that had formed and all these guys started kicking and hitting this guy. Patrick came into the middle and said “hey, I got all my stuff back, everything’s ok, stop” and he pulled the guy up off the ground, but the crowd just kept beating him up. One of the guys told Patrick that he should just get out of there because there wasn’t anything he could do. Patrick didn’t know what else to do and left. He tried to tell the people to stop beating up this guy and they wouldn’t. Today when he was telling the story before class, Fred, our poli sci professor said probably if Patrick hadn’t gotten his stuff back they would have killed this guy. A lot of times the mob will even burn a thief to death right there on the spot. It’s good that as soon as you realize you’ve been robbed people are really helpful to help you find the thief and not let them get away, the same way they did when I found out my camera had been stolen, but it’s so scary what happens when they actually do catch them. It makes me a little bit glad that my camera actually did get stolen and I didn’t find the person took it, because I don’t want to know what could have happened. As Patrick said, “I wanted my phone back, but really, is that worth a man’s life?”

People always talk about the need for security in this country, and it’s true, security is a big issue. But a country doesn’t build security by building more walls and barbed wire fences and hiring more Maasai warriors as their guards and getting more guard dogs. (The Maasai tribe have a really strong history as warriors) The reason for all this insecurity is because of the huge huge gaps between the rich and the poor here. Over half the people that live in Nairobi live in the slums like Kibera-that’s over 2 million people living in shacks made of sheet metal with no sanitation, electricity or roads. And yet the Kenyan parliament is among the highest paid government officials of any in the world-they get paid more than US politicians despite the widespread poverty. Less than 30% of the population have access to electricity, about 40% no access to clean water. If the country worked to build its domestic economy and create jobs for people-there are so many trained people here without jobs-unemployment is 25% nationally-this would do so much more to solve the internal security issues. Then you wouldn’t see barbed wire and glass glued to the tops of fences absolutely everywhere you go. Then people wouldn’t have to literally lock themselves from the outside in each night-outside walls and guards, inside gates, house doors and windows, gate to the upstairs, and finally the bedroom door. My house doesn’t lock this way each night, but some of the other students’ houses do. I’m merely protected by a giant wall with barbed wire fence, a night guard and a locked door.

This is why the political situation here, although I’m very interested in it, is very frustrating to me, because ultimately Kenya’s future and ability to further its development really lies with its leaders and so far it’s leaders haven’t done nearly enough in my mind to further Kenya’s situation and have instead acted very opportunistically and selfishly to build their own power and make more money for themselves and their small enclave of rich and loyal supporters. I don’t really like any of the candidates running for president, and I’m not really sure who I’d support. At this point, my mind is starting to change over to Kibaki, who is the current president running for reelection, because although he’s been involved in corrupt business, he also has helped the country move forward in a number of ways. And I’m not really sure what Raila would do with the presidency, it’s a little scary, because the president has so much unchecked power here, so it’s a really big deal who it is. We need a Kenyan Nelson Mandela who actually cares about the country and helping the people improve their situations. And we need a new Constitution that puts checks and balances on political power-not the one we currently have that was written by the British-Raila says he’ll do that within 3 months of the election if he wins, but honestly, all the candidates are literally promising the world to the Kenyan citizens, I don’t know how many of them will actually happen

Day to day

November 13

We had a great dinner last night at Haandi, what the tourbooks all call the best Indian restaurant in Africa, and I definitely agree. It’s mad expensive for Kenya, but the YWCA paid for it all because it was this meeting of all these people from all over the world meeting about the YWCA’s youth exchange program. I met people from Norway, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Kenya last night at this dinner. It was way fun, the people were pretty cool and so so so so yummy.

Our family room couch is gone and it’s really not cozy anymore. Aunt Monica took it (Rachel’s hostmom) because she sent her couches to get recovered 2 months ago and the guy who was supposed to do it basically stole them. Long story. Anyway, so she took our couch to replace hers. Now we have to sit in the straight-backed dining room chairs to watch TV or read or anything.

Stacey and I made a mini-documentary this weekend for a project on Women in the Media for Gender and Development class. (She brought a video camera) We interviewed all kinds of people on the streets of Nairobi and at the university about their perceptions of women’s portrayal in the media. It was so much fun and turned out so much better than we were expecting, the editing actually turned out really good. Plus we had some great conversations with a lot of people and might have made some new friends at the university. Making new Kenyan friends…always great in my book! And we did our presentation today and I think we blew Lilian away, she thought it was great and gave us contact info to show it to the head of the journalism department at the university because I guess she knows a lot of info about women’s role in media and media production-for our paper on the topic. It made me happy, and I expect we got a good grade..

Crossing streets in Kenya is an art. I find it quite similar to the game I used to play on my calculator in high school math class all the time called Frogger where you’re this little frog trying to cross an 8-lane highway with cars whizzing by. Yeah, that’s pretty much what Kenyan street crossing is like. You’ve gotta back up at times and dart at times and be decisive about what you’re doing and remember to look right-left-right instead of left-right-left (Kenyans drive on the left side) and wave at people, and put your hand out to block cars from hitting you and the entire road is never all clear at the same time so you just go at it lane by lane and hopefully there’s a median in the middle. No, its really not that scary, it just was the first few days.

Elevator doors in Kenya open and close so freaking fast! They always try and squish you! This has caused a few funny occurrences with me not jumping on fast enough and the doors trying to smash me and the people inside all sticking their arms and legs in the door and trying to pull me in, then us having a good laugh about it once I made it.

I think my blood is thinning like a Kenyan’s…even if its slightly cold in the mornings now, I always wear a jacket or sweater and a scarf because I get cold. It’s kind of a nice feeling though to wear warm clothes.

I am so much less aware of my race than I was even 2 weeks ago. I forget I’m white and everyone else is black a lot of times. It’s such a good feeling. Now I’ve just gotta focus on the Kiswahili learning, because that still is pretty shaky, but getting better and better all the time. My cousin Derek told me to let him know when I’m ready and he’ll teach me Sheng (Kiswa-English-slang, what the young people speak)

I like Kenyans so much!!! They’re so friendly and open and approachable in general, more than Americans are I think. And they’re never in the same kind of hurry Americans always are in, which makes them late a lot, but also willing to always help you out and nothing is ever more important than sitting and visiting. When they invite you for lunch, you know you might be there all day. I love it, we need to do that in America quite a bit more.

Hawkers

November 13

So from now up until the election there is this wonderful phenomenon of people walking the streets selling things for more than dirt cheap known as hawkers. They’re selling shirts for 50 bob (less than a dollar), 18 in 1 dvds for 100 bob (1.50, yeah the quality sucks, but for that price I don’t really care) Better yet the DVD collections have amazing (funny) names…such as the 18 in 1 collection I bought today titled..get this “Round the World Fistworld Struggle for Hegemony” It has movies like the Rocky movies and Fight Club, I liked the movies on it but I bought it partly for that title. Rhoda told me that as soon as the election is over, the hawkers will be cleared out because they’re actually illegal because they clog the sidewalks a lot, but right now Kibaki’s allowing them because he wants their votes. Kenyans, they know how to work the system, and I’m gonna take advantage while I can.

For the longest time I couldn’t understand what people were calling them with their accents. I thought they were saying ‘hookers’ not ‘hawkers’ I was like, “What? The hookers are out selling WHAT on the streets?!?”

Camera is gone

November 12

Way way way bummer news. Pretty much the worst thing to get stolen (besides my passport) did: my digital camera, out of my pocket at a club this past weekend. More than anything I was so bummed about the probably 500 pictures that were on it not downloaded yet, probably from the last 6 weeks or so. I don’t know if I’ll get a new one-they’re more expensive here than in the US and I’d just be terrified to take it anywhere again. I was dumb to bring it though, I should have been smarter, I’ve been really smart with everything up to this point. I might go the disposable camera route, safer anyway. That’s what Lisa’s doing-hers got stolen out of her bag about a month ago. Ironic that the two art majors and the ones who were most into the picture-taking got their cameras stolen. It's still just a pit in my stomach whenever I think about it. I’ll miss my camera…it was so nice and did all kinds of stuff and was super small and I haven't found the same model here anywhere. But, as Maude from Harold and Maude would say, “Here today, gone tomorrow so don’t get attached to things!” I was super angry the next morning after it happened, went for a long long run for an hour or so, saw my oral lit professor, came home and was in a great mood for the rest of the day. Ah, running, the cure for so many ills. By the way, I’ve lost at least 10 lbs, a lot of us have since being here.

KISUMU!!

November 10

This past week on Monday (Jumatatu) the Kalamazoo program took us all on a week long excursion to Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya after Nairobi and Mombasa. Kisumu is northeast of Nairobi right on Lake Victoria in Luoland, near my family’s hometown. This is right in the heart of Raila Odinga’s (one of the presidential candidates) prime constituency so we saw all kinds of parades and demonstrations and yelled ODM!!! out the window of our LandCruiser a lot. Rachel even got a bike taxi back from town one day to lower the price when she showed them her ODM Hexagon pin. Yeah, have I mentioned, elections are heating up and it’s all people can talk about right now? Besides that, the two main candidates are pretty much in a dead heat right now.
ANYWAY, our LandCruiser got in a small accident on the way there in a gas station parking lot. It was kind of funny actually, our driver Isaac backed into a matatu parked in the very middle of the parking lot. It broke the whole back windshield of the matatu and there wasn’t even on a dent on our rock of a vehicle. The only slightly annoying part was just that it took like an extra 1 ½ hours to get it all sorted out with police and such. It’s already a super long trip to drive to Kisumu on a horrible road. We had lots of fun in the car though. We had one of our same drivers from Mombasa, Juma who is really fun and is never without a smile on his face, and Isaac turned out to be pretty cool too and felt awful about holding us up because of the accident. We’re requesting they drive us when we go to Maasai Mara in a few weeks.
We got to Kisumu in the evening just before sunset, staying at the Sunset View hotel and it was decent. It was funny to us that this is definitely one of the top end hotels in all of Kisumu, and yet it was pretty simple. The water wasn’t always on, there was no ventilation, at least in our room so it was kinda sauna-ish (Kisumu’s a lot hotter than Nairobi, it’s like the coast). We opened the window at night a little to get some breeze after we were all safely tucked under our mosquito nets (because screens in Kenya aren’t too common, although considering the heat and lack of air conditioning, I think they could be a wise investment worth considering) and there were mice that scratched in the walls. We did have a pool though, a nice lobby and really yummy food each night (except the first night, the food was horrible for some reason and took like 2 hours to come) The other nights it was a buffet and really good.
Tuesday morning we headed out to see the Kisumu YWCA and the programs they do there. We heard all about the programs and groups and then headed out to Nakumatt (equivalent of Meijers) to get rice, beans, water, ugali, schoolbooks, pens, pencils, etc, to bring to AIDS orphans and widows at one of the YWCA’s places a little way outside Kisumu. It was a fun but also weird day. I knew that we were doing a good thing getting this stuff for them, but kind of the structure of parts of the day felt weird to me, like we were the rich benevolent white people coming to bear gifts, essentially that’s what we were I guess though. When we came the women all came out singing and dancing out to the cars which was really cool. That’s traditional Kenyan greeting. Then we sat down in special chairs for us while they told us more about the programs there and we could ask questions. Then there was entertainment: all the kids performed songs and poems and skits for us, some of them illustrating the peer education program they have to teach people about AIDs and how its contracted, etc. Then we handed out the food. At first it was fine, we were just giving it out, eating bread and biscuits with them and getting to know some of them. I was hanging out with a big group of about 7th grade girls, I really really liked talking with them.
Then it got weird. They started making it so that the kids all had to line up to get their food ration from us and go up to this table and hold out their hands to receive it like they were receiving some kind of gift. It felt so paternalistic and made it so much more apparent basically how rich we were that we could bring them all this food. I know it was a good thing to do, I just hated how it was done. No wonder they think white people are loaded when we make such a big deal just about bringing them some food, like a big show of how nice we are. Then, to make matters worse, the widows who live there had made us this really nice lunch and we had to go inside to this different room away from all the kids to eat a big lunch of ugali, chicken, spinach, rice, etc. The kids were just outside hanging out eating their bread and stuff that we brought them. I didn’t want it to be like that, we should have eaten with them, eating the same food they did. But I learned later, that’s the way guests are treated, especially ones who bring gifts like we did and if they treat you as well as they can manage, it’s like a karma thing, they believe more good things like us will come to them in the future. Still, I had a lot of fun talking with the kids, hanging out.
In the evening we walked out to Lake Victoria and watched the sunset. The lake isn’t swimmable because there are invasive water hyacinth on the surface that cover the entire shoreline and make it look like the lake is a lot smaller than it really is. They’re really beautiful though, even if they’re invasive. Also the water’s kinda polluted. It was a gorgeous sight though, sunset over the lake with Uganda in the distance.
Wednesday we went in the morning to TEMAK, Teenage Mothers and Girls Association of Kenya, an NGO that shelters teenage mothers and teaches them marketable skills to be able to make a living. Right now they house 60 women and children but have a long-term construction project underway so that eventually they can house 700 people. One of the skills they teach women there is craftsmanship skills of all varieties. So we spent quite a bit of money.
Jamie had a scary accident there, during our tour she passed out from heat, fell through a door she’d been leaning on, hit her head and back on a toilet and had a seizure for like 5 seconds. She came right out of it right away and got right up, but it scared the crap out of all of us. She had a CAT scan at the hospital later and everything’s all right.
In the afternoon we went to the market stalls. The vendors were way cool there, so much less hassling than the ones in Nairobi, they were just chill and way more relaxing to bargain with. Then we out to the fishing village to see how the fishermen’s lives go, talked to some people, got a tour from one of the fishermen. We also had a boat trip out in one of the fishing boats!! It was so nice but way too short. Roseanne, one of our Kenyan professors who came with us, had a death grip on Patrick and I the whole time because she thought the boat would tip over. Lake Victoria!!! Birthplace of the Nile!
Evening, we relaxed, swam, ate some din-din and met these US doctors staying at our hotel working with Operation Smile that fixes cleft palates and Jamie got some medical advice about her episode. Also, there was this huge thunderstorm in the evening. It was super windy, pelting rain and the power was out in our room all evening and flickered on and off a lot in the lobby and corridors. The floor of our hotel room kind of flooded because so much rain blew in under the door making it feel a bit like the Titanic with the flickery electricity and everything. It was adventurous though and I had fun.
Thursday we drove out to Bondo about an hour from Kisumu, where Lilian is from, the other professor who came with us. We worked all day with community members on this harambee project finishing a primary school building at this big complex. We plastered walls all day, which is really difficult actually. We were all terrible at it and instead of slapping on the plaster in a nice smooth pack ended up kind of streaking in on and having most of the plaster fall on the floor. I think we were pretty entertaining to the Kenyans though and they were great. I did get my head cut open by some Kenyan guy’s trowel though when he was getting into the plastering and my head somehow got in the way. I shouldn’t say cut open, it was pretty minimal. Then we had a huge feast with everyone, community people, school staff and administration out at Lillian’s mom’s house. Her mom had my host mom’s job as YWCA director before she took over. Lillian actually used to live in my room when she was my age! Ha!
Friday we drove home. Kind of uneventful except the lunch place we stopped at made most all of our group sick the next day…the runs..I think it was the chips (fries). Oh and we also had to stop once and pull off the road with a bunch of other people because a “wide load” was going by. Yeah, wide was an understatement. They were the biggest trucks I’ve ever seen in my life taking up more than the whole road carrying in 3 pieces a giant ferry. Fun, eventful trip.

Recent Thought Developments

October 24

I thought that coming to Africa and seeing the influence of the West would really strengthen my radical liberal feelings and American cynicism, causing me to want even more badly to fight the System. But in a way, I’m feeling a strong sense of appreciation for the democratic systems we have in America, imperfect as they may be. We do have something valuable in America-a stable, peaceful government that the vast majority abide by, whether they like to or not. And we can voice our opinions relatively freely without fear of consequence-we’re not going to be immediately fired from a government seat for endorsing a presidential candidate. We also don’t have to worry about the military overthrowing the government the way many African nations do. Thus, African governments have to use a lot of their money keeping the military happy at the expense of economic growth and productive developments like education and roads. It’s such a waste, but I don’t really see an answer for it because if a country reduces the size of the military, the likelihood of a military coup just increases.
One evening I showed my sister this Ani DiFranco song where she goes on this long rant about America and her response was, ‘Gosh, you’re always so angry about America. Doesn’t seeing what we have here, especially in our government make you appreciate what you have?’ I said, yeah, but I’m cynical only because a lot of what goes on in the American government frustrates me because it doesn’t reflect what America claims to have-freedom and justice for all. However, I was taken a little bit aback though and thought it over awhile. She says she doesn’t get involved in politics because it’s so corrupt, but I argue with her and say, how is anything ever going to change if good, reasonable people like you don’t participate? Building Blocks citizenship lessons in action! Nevertheless, although I get annoyed by American governance, especially in recent years, I do appreciate the legacy we have. But the actual people in those positions really determine how well a government structure holds up, no matter how decent the system is.
One thing I have gotten infuriated by is the way the entire continent of Africa has been completely screwed by past Colonial rule. “Africa is not poor, Africans are poor”is the adage we have heard so much since coming here and it’s so true. And so much of it originates from Colonial rule-the British pitting tribes against each other, making tribes at least in Kenya today so afraid to trust each other, breaking up the existing decentralized governments on coming into Africa and creating a legacy of centralized, hierarchical, easily manipulated governments so that now, whatever tribe is in power gets all the perks from the government, overdeveloping certain institutions to maintain control like the military so that they’re still much more developed than they need to be. There’s a lot more but I won’t recite all of my poli sci notes here. Anyhow, these are a few kind of new yet kind of old, yet refreshed ideas I’ve been mulling over.

I came home yesterday angry at a lot of things in Kenya, it was just a bad day. Will got his backpack stolen in Kenyatta market and that morning Jamie and Stacey witnessed a man being beaten to a pulp by another man in a suit while a crowd watched. They said his face was half gone when it was over and he just staggered off. They were on their way to the matatu stop. And I was tired. And my eyes hurt, as they often do at the end of the day from the dust. And I was sick of my boogers being black every evening when I got home from breathing black fumes from trucks and buses. And I was sick of people associating “white” with “rich” and assuming I always had money to hand out to them or buy their stuff. And I was sick of men yelling stupid things at me and I was sick of a lot of other less important things.
But I was happy to see my family when I got home. My mom came home from Sweden yesterday and brought lots of presents, mostly of the chocolate variety. I also got Chinese bootlegs of the OC Season 2 and Sopranos season 1 for about $5. They're poor quality and my money is probably supporting something terrible, but for that cheap, I had to give into my moral apprehensions...I guess everyone does at some point. I never thought I would be one of those OC people, but Kenya has a way of getting you into American TV (or awful Spanish soap operas for that matter-I can’t say I like them, but I do know the storylines now and they are strangely entertaining). I have decided 2 things though when I’m back-I’m still not going to watch any TV and I’m going to spend way less time surfing the internet.

Day to Day

October 22

Something I just remembered: on our flight over here we were over the Sahara desert for like 4 hours. It was daylight and clear so we could see it the whole time. A little bit freaky. I thought, man, even if we crash and survive, we’re still going to die because there is absolutely nothing but sand!

There are these “sad trees” I really like because they cry. I don’t know what they’re really called. Someone told me the pores are so large in the tree’s leaves that they can’t hold all their water so they drip constantly. I used to think whenever I walked in the park under them and they dripped on me that it was starting to rain.

The US embassy has the nicest library I’ve seen here. The books are recent, they have computers with fast internet. The things you take for granted in the US.

Art Workshop at the Sudanese Refugee Camp

October 21

Saturday was magnificent. I woke up early, a little nervous and anxious. I was meeting this artist I met at the GoDown to go out into one of the slums outside of Nairobi near his house to do this art workshop with Sudanese refugee kids. He’s done this for awhile, paying for all the supplies and snacks he gets for the kids out of his own pocket. He’s in the process of trying to expand it and get outside funding so that he can pay for some of the kids to go to school (because they can’t go now. Technically up to secondary education is free, but you still have to buy books and uniforms and all, so if you’re really poor, you can’t go to school) First was the anxiety of getting there-I sort of knew where I was going and made sure to ask a number of people along the way. I got part way there, then was told the matatu I was on didn’t go all the way where I wanted to go, so I had to switch to another one and made it almost to the spot where this guy said he’d pick me up in his car. I texted him and he met me where I was. We went out to Riuru and met up with his wife and a friend in the church in the slum (which was a square room made out of sheet metal). There were about 35 kids about ages 5-12 (there were 60 last week, but a lot of them left to go swimming that day). We did painting. John led them in some painting and color exercises after we sang some songs and I introduced myself in Kiswahili, then I became the subject for the day. All the kids painted their interpretations of me. It was so much fun and they were really good! I want to see if I can get a portrait or two from him. In the process of the day I had red paint explode all over me, and the kids thought that was pretty entertaining.
Afterwards we drove to the open-air market nearby to pick up some veggies and they invited me for dinner. On the drive back to their house the car ran out of gas because the gas gauge didn’t work. Fortunately we were about a 10 min. walk from home. Rosemary made dinner in their 2-room house and I played outside with the chickens and rabbits and their 3-year-old son. 3-year-olds are the perfect age for me to understand Kiswahili (although his is better than mine)!! We had spinach with onions, tomato and nyama-choma and ugali. It was super yummy, and good meat.
Then I made it home on the 1 hour matatu ride alive. Then all the K kids came over for a birthday party for Patrick. A fun night indeed.