December the 21st
Sorry for the very large space of time which has occurred between now and the last time I wrote in this thing. This is due to a number of important reasons. First and foremost, I had university exams which, for the first time made up an extremely large portion of my final grade. This doesn’t mean, however, that I studied any more than I usually do, which isn’t very much in the first place. Nevertheless, simply thinking about these exams and pretending to myself that I was studying for them consumed a vast amount of my time these past weeks. Furthermore, I had an inordinate number of final papers to write, 5 to be exact, all due within a week of each other and from 5-15 pages long. I actually got quite into the writing of them and enjoyed myself more than I think I ever have before writing a paper, at least for the Geographies of Development final which was titled, Where is the Love?, after the Black-Eyed Peas song. Finally, my dog (katika US) alikufa, or died, somewhat unexpectedly. Many may already know this, but this event made for a few teary evenings and a fair amount of moping around. On the flip side, all of this is behind me now and I am feeling quite on top of the world at the moment. My internship is going to be quite fantastic at the GoDown I believe. I am leaving to climb the second highest mountain in Africa on Sunday, to reach the summit at sunrise on Christmas morning. The election is less than a week away now. Today I finally received my Christmas package which was sent a month ago. I am spending New Years on the coast in Mombasa. And I realized that I won’t be attending a single class until April which is the longest break I believe I’ve had since I entered preschool. The world is my oyster. Furthermore, I’ve also been reading a few travel books and have caught the bug in a big way and am planning a number of exciting excursions so long as the money holds out. Tanzania, Uganda or Rwanda with my host sister, Egypt, South Africa, Zanzibar and Lamu are all in the mix. Not that I actually have the money for all that, but at least some of it will happen.
Some exciting things that have happened in recent weeks:
I am now an official registered alien in Kenya. I have a special Pupil’s Pass in my passport and a big stamp acknowledging my alien status because I have been here for 3 months and visas run out after that time and you have to renew it, become an alien or figure something else out. They have all of my fingerprints 4 times given by me in a room full of men with huge guns and many many many papers filled out by me after a 4 hour wait. Yay Kenyan bureaucracy!
Speaking of guns, I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but they’re something I will never get used to. Soldiers and security guards walk around all the time carrying AK-47s and it freaks the hell out of me. It gives me reason enough to shut up and keep my head down though.
The weather is nothing short of amazing right now. It’s become summer, really. Not that it wasn’t great before, but in the past week or so it’s become really balmy and hot during the day, just like summer should be and I love it. Even though it’s hot, I just bask in the sunlight and think of all the shriveled-up, pale people in the Midwestern United States and smile.
We finished the OC season 2 last night…whoa, dramatic ending, and this show will forever be associated with Kenya for me even though it all occurs in California. I started up a new TV season, Weeds, courtesy of my Secret Santa who gave me the first 2 seasons.
Today we went hawker shopping to find stuff for our mountain climbing excursion. Found hiking boots, snacks, scarves, earrings, books, gloves, long underwear, a hot water bottle, a new watch. Spent a total of about $50. Expensive day in Kenya, cheap day in America.
I am so incredibly dirty all the time!! Having these braids only gives me an excuse not to shower very often since my hair doesn’t have to be washed. I realized the other day as I was standing in line at Nakumatt that in the fluorescent lighting my upper arm had a grey-tannish unnatural tinge to it because it was covered in a layer of dust. This is partially not my fault, sure, the not showering part is, but even when my skin acquires this color as it has on a few other occasions and I scrub and scrub, it sometimes refuses to come off…Joys of living in a smoggy, dusty city.
My taste for foods is changing so much. I get really excited now when we’re having rice and beans for dinner or sukuma-wiki and ugali. (Sukuma was the most disgusting thing in the world when I first came, it’s really bitter and dark green leafy stuff that looks like spinach but tastes nothing like it) I wonder if it’s going to be hard getting used to eating the usual foods I eat when I’m in the US again because I have really rich foods so rarely. I made no-bake oatmeal cookies the other day (since we don’t have a working oven), ate 1 ½ and my stomach felt like crap for the rest of the night, from all the sugar I think. Whenever I eat really rich foods now they’re more amazing than I can ever remember food tasting, but I can only eat a little bit.
Have I mentioned that I LOVE KENYA?! For some reason more than ever the past week or so I’ve really been in love with everything about it. The heat, the flowers, the people, my family, the relaxation about everything. I think it was partly finishing up classes and realizing I’m completely free and have no obligations and can do and go whatever and wherever I want
I was presented with an endearing gift from Rhoda today, a wooden statue of an African woman with her hair blowing in the wind and her head is partially chipping off. She’s had it for years but said she thought I’d like it more and said if I didn’t want it, she didn’t mind, but I love it. I named her Rhoda, after Rhoda and she stands guard at the dining room table.
Kenyans in general are a lot more blunt and upfront when they have a problem with something. I also love this quality in terms of speaking of race as well and they’ll just come out and say it. “This is this way because you’re white” For example, when I complain about not having anything to wear when we’re going out while my sisters are spending hours getting all dolled up, they say, “Seriously, don’t worry about it, you’re white, everyone will love you no matter what you wear.” In the US, we tiptoe around the subject of race so much and think we’re probably offending someone if we even mention it, and Kenyans have no problem talking about it. It seems a lot healthier to me. I get sick of political correctness.
Here’s a blip from my GoDev paper about how my perceptions of race have altered a bit:
“I grew up in a virtually racially homogenous community without a lot of direct exposure to other races and the effects of racial tension and came to Kenya in hopes of experiencing what it felt like to be in the racial minority in a place, which I certainly have felt. However, I will always be seen as privileged because of my skin color, which I am and never be seen as the economically disadvantaged racial minority, unlike racial minorities in the United States.”
This was something I didn’t really think about when I came to Kenya. I knew it would be a trip to be a white person in a black country, but didn’t really think about how the experience would be different from being a racial minority in a primarily white country. The difference is that whites are the privileged ones pretty much wherever they go. Even if I don’t fit in with everyone else, I still get preferential treatment sometimes-things like getting into clubs and not having to show my ID and begging them to let my sister in (who is 4 years older than me), or walking into the grocery store with a huge shopping bag and not having to turn it in to the bag counter (maybe they’re just sympathizing because they think I don’t know any better). Some things that might be the same though as other races experiencing being in the minority is the way you always question people’s motives for talking to you..do they want something from you or do they genuinely want to get to know you because they’re interested? Are they asking to take your picture with them because you’re their token white friend (a Somali couple asked me if I would have a picture with them yesterday while I was sitting in the park. When I asked them why, they said they wanted to send it back to their family and show them that I was one of their friends. I just laughed and thought it was kind of funny and chatted with them for a little while) I understand completely why being in the racial minority makes you paranoid about anyone who tries to talk to you. For awhile there a few months ago, I was a completely closed-off unfriendly jerk to anyone who approached me on the street and avoided making eye contact with anyone because it was always badgering you for something-money, a visa, to look in their shop. Then I started to feel bad when I realized how mean I was being even accidentally to people I knew who saw me across the street or something. It’s getting a little better now, and I’m a lot more comfortable in my surroundings to feel ok being friendly to people and not like I’m going to get ripped off if I actually smile at someone. I’ve been sharing a lot more laughs with people and a lot more random conversations with strangers because of it.
21 December 2007
01 December 2007
Masai Mara
Moja (1st), Decemba--i yie yie it's decemba!
This past week Wednesday to Friday we went to Masai Mara National Park for 3ish days. This was our last K-sponsored trip, the rest of our traveling we do is on our own. 3 of our professors came with us, Roseanne, Lillian, and Fred. I don’t think it’s the biggest national park in Kenya, but it’s the one that all the tourists want to go to because it’s supposed to be the best. The park is south of Nairobi about 3 hours drive and filled with all kinds of animals…the heart of Lion King. Hey, I found out the other day there is an actual place called Pride Rock, you know the place where the lions live in Lion King, it’s in Lake Naivasha about an hour away from Nairobi…I really wanna go.
Anyhow, in Masai Mara we did nothing but eat really delicious food, hang out at our “campsite” and go on game drives. It was so so so so much fun and I wished we could have stayed at least 2 more days, but I guess it’s expensive (not like K’s making a profit out of me going to Kenya or anything, I found out the other day tuition for international students at the University of Nairobi is something like 2,500 US dollars…and I’m paying K’s regular tuition price to be here? Anyway, that’s a rant for another day)
First we arrived at our “hotel” in the afternoon on Wednesday and got our “tents”. Ok, they were technically tents but, have you ever seen a tent that had a bathroom, shower and electricity? The bed was really comfy, they folded back your blankets in the evening and gave us all hot water bottles to keep us warm at night. We went to dinner at the lodge which was 4 courses of basically gourmet food-salad, soup, main course, dessert, with cheese and crackers and fruit salad at the end. If we stayed any longer than we did, we all would’ve gained 10 pounds because every meal was like that, and delicious so you wanted to eat it all.
In the evening we went on our first game drive, which consists of driving around the mara in our Land Cruiser with Juma, the same driver we’ve had for our other trips (we requested him for all our other trips after he took us to Mombasa and we all made friends with him) and looking at the animals we can see. There were little doors that opened on top of the Land Cruisers for standing up and picture taking and once we figured out that we could ride sitting on top of the Land Cruiser, it was really fun. How many times do you get to ride around on top of a car with the breeze and the sun and all kinds of animals? The path was also really hilly, so it was kind of a roller coaster too, adding to the excitement. Juma has taken groups to the Mara maybe 15 times so he’s a great tour guide, knew where to find all the animals and could tell us all about them.
We saw so many animals: all kinds of antelope, gazelles, impalas, élan, topis, wildebeest, zebras, ostriches, bushbucks, hippos, storks, herons, baboons, jackals, hyenas, and my favorites-twigas and tembos (giraffes and elephants)!!! There were probably a lot more that I’m forgetting. We missed out on the simbas (lions) even though we searched hard for them. Oh well, it was so fantastic and yes, looked just like the Lion King-hey, that’s most people’s relation to the way Africa looks. The plants and trees were great too, we kept passing these giant thorn bushes that had 2 inch long brilliant white thorns and giant dark black berries on them. We saw a herd of elephants taking a mudbath about 30 feet away from us! It was so cool to see the animals in a relatively untouched (I mean, apart from the Land Cruisers driving around) environment, rather than in a zoo, just doing their own thing. It made me really want to be a scientist and be able to study them.
In the evenings we ate dinner, hung out on our "porches," played cards, chatted with other people staying there, played Capture the flag, looked at stars after they turned the electricity off at midnight-clearest, brightest sky I've ever seen, ate the best brownies and chocolate sauce ever-or maybe it tasted that good because i haven't had anything like it in a long time, played with the bushbucks that hung out all around the campsite and were kind of like puppies but shyer, sat around a campfire and listened to a Kenyan guy play Bob Marley songs on a guitar.
We also went on a long game drive all day Thursday, it was gorgeous out and really warm and great breezes sitting on top of the car the whole day. Part of our reason for being there apart from checking out the animals was to study the relation between tourists and the Maasai people whose land the park is on. In a way, it helps to preserve their lands because they still can herd and graze their cattle and move freely all over the land, in and out of the park, and even between Kenya and Tanzania without a passport, wherever the grass is good because they’re a pastoral tribe. But mostly, it just commodifies their way of life and turns it into a circus act, tourist attraction, it was pretty sickening at times. Like Thursday afternoon, we visited a Maasai village where they showed us some of their traditional dances, gave us a tour of their houses and village and then we went to their market. Although it was interesting to see, we know they get paid just to show tourists this stuff and it felt so wrong being there, just that my presence as another package tourist there was destroying something. I guess I’m being kind of vague in the details right now, I’m going to write a paper on it in a week, so I might write more on this later. I got what I think will be a fantastic picture of the Maasai starting to come out of the gate of their village to greet us and right at that moment a plane flew really low right overhead-there’s an airstrip in the park for the super wealthy to come visit that way. It perfectly depicted these contradictions.
Patrick, Fred and I had a good conversation that night at dinner about all of this and the way that tourism can be executed in a positive way that actually benefits the community living there rather than exploits them, like if the hotel we stayed at was owned by local Maasai rather than the elite Kenyatta family-one of the richest families in Kenya. At least it’s Kenyan, not European, but still, it’s not much better. What I saw though, was some Maasai warriors dancing for us tourists like a circus act, being paid peanuts for it. I clapped along reluctantly like they expect us to, pretending I enjoyed it and wasn’t noticing all the contradictions and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s dehumanizing. Yes, they get paid for doing this, but they’re not doing the naming-ceremony dance because a baby is being named, they’re doing it because we paid to go on this tour. And it’s money that only gets them by, doesn’t sustain them for the long run, and which continues to keep them down and unable to get ahead. This is not positive development, it’s exploitation. And Fred said, this happens to the Maasai and wouldn’t to other tribes because they’re one of the minorities, and no one cares about them.
All in all though, it was a really really really good trip. It made me think more deeply about some things I’ve been considering a lot already during this experience. I am learning so much, but Kenya’s hard, it’s really hard seeing all of this injustice and harsh reality that you hear about. I’m having kind of a hard time even writing this, even though I’ve hardly gotten into the details. It’s sometimes hard to justify even having a good time here when there is so much unfairness. How can one be satisfied with their own life when there are other people right next to you being so used? Everywhere, it’s everywhere I go-in Nairobi, in the Mara, in the rural villages, in the slums, in the second-hand markets, in the communities like Karen that the white people use to try to close themselves off from facing the realities of the severe injustice. What is my place in being here? Do I even belong here? What am I doing here besides supporting an unfair system? I know I am learning, but is it enough? Can I even do anything to help change this system and these legacies and can my place as an American be used to help change this?
This past week Wednesday to Friday we went to Masai Mara National Park for 3ish days. This was our last K-sponsored trip, the rest of our traveling we do is on our own. 3 of our professors came with us, Roseanne, Lillian, and Fred. I don’t think it’s the biggest national park in Kenya, but it’s the one that all the tourists want to go to because it’s supposed to be the best. The park is south of Nairobi about 3 hours drive and filled with all kinds of animals…the heart of Lion King. Hey, I found out the other day there is an actual place called Pride Rock, you know the place where the lions live in Lion King, it’s in Lake Naivasha about an hour away from Nairobi…I really wanna go.
Anyhow, in Masai Mara we did nothing but eat really delicious food, hang out at our “campsite” and go on game drives. It was so so so so much fun and I wished we could have stayed at least 2 more days, but I guess it’s expensive (not like K’s making a profit out of me going to Kenya or anything, I found out the other day tuition for international students at the University of Nairobi is something like 2,500 US dollars…and I’m paying K’s regular tuition price to be here? Anyway, that’s a rant for another day)
First we arrived at our “hotel” in the afternoon on Wednesday and got our “tents”. Ok, they were technically tents but, have you ever seen a tent that had a bathroom, shower and electricity? The bed was really comfy, they folded back your blankets in the evening and gave us all hot water bottles to keep us warm at night. We went to dinner at the lodge which was 4 courses of basically gourmet food-salad, soup, main course, dessert, with cheese and crackers and fruit salad at the end. If we stayed any longer than we did, we all would’ve gained 10 pounds because every meal was like that, and delicious so you wanted to eat it all.
In the evening we went on our first game drive, which consists of driving around the mara in our Land Cruiser with Juma, the same driver we’ve had for our other trips (we requested him for all our other trips after he took us to Mombasa and we all made friends with him) and looking at the animals we can see. There were little doors that opened on top of the Land Cruisers for standing up and picture taking and once we figured out that we could ride sitting on top of the Land Cruiser, it was really fun. How many times do you get to ride around on top of a car with the breeze and the sun and all kinds of animals? The path was also really hilly, so it was kind of a roller coaster too, adding to the excitement. Juma has taken groups to the Mara maybe 15 times so he’s a great tour guide, knew where to find all the animals and could tell us all about them.
We saw so many animals: all kinds of antelope, gazelles, impalas, élan, topis, wildebeest, zebras, ostriches, bushbucks, hippos, storks, herons, baboons, jackals, hyenas, and my favorites-twigas and tembos (giraffes and elephants)!!! There were probably a lot more that I’m forgetting. We missed out on the simbas (lions) even though we searched hard for them. Oh well, it was so fantastic and yes, looked just like the Lion King-hey, that’s most people’s relation to the way Africa looks. The plants and trees were great too, we kept passing these giant thorn bushes that had 2 inch long brilliant white thorns and giant dark black berries on them. We saw a herd of elephants taking a mudbath about 30 feet away from us! It was so cool to see the animals in a relatively untouched (I mean, apart from the Land Cruisers driving around) environment, rather than in a zoo, just doing their own thing. It made me really want to be a scientist and be able to study them.
In the evenings we ate dinner, hung out on our "porches," played cards, chatted with other people staying there, played Capture the flag, looked at stars after they turned the electricity off at midnight-clearest, brightest sky I've ever seen, ate the best brownies and chocolate sauce ever-or maybe it tasted that good because i haven't had anything like it in a long time, played with the bushbucks that hung out all around the campsite and were kind of like puppies but shyer, sat around a campfire and listened to a Kenyan guy play Bob Marley songs on a guitar.
We also went on a long game drive all day Thursday, it was gorgeous out and really warm and great breezes sitting on top of the car the whole day. Part of our reason for being there apart from checking out the animals was to study the relation between tourists and the Maasai people whose land the park is on. In a way, it helps to preserve their lands because they still can herd and graze their cattle and move freely all over the land, in and out of the park, and even between Kenya and Tanzania without a passport, wherever the grass is good because they’re a pastoral tribe. But mostly, it just commodifies their way of life and turns it into a circus act, tourist attraction, it was pretty sickening at times. Like Thursday afternoon, we visited a Maasai village where they showed us some of their traditional dances, gave us a tour of their houses and village and then we went to their market. Although it was interesting to see, we know they get paid just to show tourists this stuff and it felt so wrong being there, just that my presence as another package tourist there was destroying something. I guess I’m being kind of vague in the details right now, I’m going to write a paper on it in a week, so I might write more on this later. I got what I think will be a fantastic picture of the Maasai starting to come out of the gate of their village to greet us and right at that moment a plane flew really low right overhead-there’s an airstrip in the park for the super wealthy to come visit that way. It perfectly depicted these contradictions.
Patrick, Fred and I had a good conversation that night at dinner about all of this and the way that tourism can be executed in a positive way that actually benefits the community living there rather than exploits them, like if the hotel we stayed at was owned by local Maasai rather than the elite Kenyatta family-one of the richest families in Kenya. At least it’s Kenyan, not European, but still, it’s not much better. What I saw though, was some Maasai warriors dancing for us tourists like a circus act, being paid peanuts for it. I clapped along reluctantly like they expect us to, pretending I enjoyed it and wasn’t noticing all the contradictions and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s dehumanizing. Yes, they get paid for doing this, but they’re not doing the naming-ceremony dance because a baby is being named, they’re doing it because we paid to go on this tour. And it’s money that only gets them by, doesn’t sustain them for the long run, and which continues to keep them down and unable to get ahead. This is not positive development, it’s exploitation. And Fred said, this happens to the Maasai and wouldn’t to other tribes because they’re one of the minorities, and no one cares about them.
All in all though, it was a really really really good trip. It made me think more deeply about some things I’ve been considering a lot already during this experience. I am learning so much, but Kenya’s hard, it’s really hard seeing all of this injustice and harsh reality that you hear about. I’m having kind of a hard time even writing this, even though I’ve hardly gotten into the details. It’s sometimes hard to justify even having a good time here when there is so much unfairness. How can one be satisfied with their own life when there are other people right next to you being so used? Everywhere, it’s everywhere I go-in Nairobi, in the Mara, in the rural villages, in the slums, in the second-hand markets, in the communities like Karen that the white people use to try to close themselves off from facing the realities of the severe injustice. What is my place in being here? Do I even belong here? What am I doing here besides supporting an unfair system? I know I am learning, but is it enough? Can I even do anything to help change this system and these legacies and can my place as an American be used to help change this?
Weekend shopping, braiding, eating
Ishirini na sita, 26 Nov.
Fun weekend. Saturday morning Michelle, Gloria and I went out to the Toi (spelling?) Market in Kibera, which is a huge 2nd hand market where clothes are really cheap. Got really muddy and got quite a bit of stuff, like 6 new shirts for about $8 total, some used books to read-Roald Dahl, some Shakespeare, Mark Twain and a few Kenyan authors. All of our birthdays are coming right in a row-we’ve already had Rachel’s, Patrick’s, Annie’s, and this weekend was Piper’s, next week is Wills’, the following week is Erin’s.
So since it was Piper’s birthday a bunch of us came over to her house in the evening and made a fantastic dinner. We’d found actual corn chips at one of the grocery stores (the one in Karen, where all the white people live) and made nachos with guacamole, cheese, homemade salsa, I was in heaven. Then for the main course we made fettuccine alfredo, plus Piper’s househelp made chapati and dengu, which is most of our favorite Kenyan meal. Then her parents walked in, home from work with all kinds of soda and juice for us. It was a fantastic filling meal, Piper’s family is way cool, she has younger host siblings and her parents are really friendly and chatty. Then later we went out to Westlands.
Sunday morning I got my hair braided-it’s about 2 feet longer than it was before and perhaps the coolest my hair has ever looked (and it’s blonder-the hair extensions are blondish). And now I hardly ever have to wash my hair! Yay! It took about 3 hours to do, the woman who did it, Naomi really seemed to like me and she offered to teach me how to braid in Kenyatta Market, where she works. It’s heavy having hair this long, but I’m used to it by now. Sunday afternoon we went out for a family lunch, the first real family lunch we’ve all had together and I found out during it that it was all in my honor since we hadn’t really done this since I’ve been here.
Fun weekend. Saturday morning Michelle, Gloria and I went out to the Toi (spelling?) Market in Kibera, which is a huge 2nd hand market where clothes are really cheap. Got really muddy and got quite a bit of stuff, like 6 new shirts for about $8 total, some used books to read-Roald Dahl, some Shakespeare, Mark Twain and a few Kenyan authors. All of our birthdays are coming right in a row-we’ve already had Rachel’s, Patrick’s, Annie’s, and this weekend was Piper’s, next week is Wills’, the following week is Erin’s.
So since it was Piper’s birthday a bunch of us came over to her house in the evening and made a fantastic dinner. We’d found actual corn chips at one of the grocery stores (the one in Karen, where all the white people live) and made nachos with guacamole, cheese, homemade salsa, I was in heaven. Then for the main course we made fettuccine alfredo, plus Piper’s househelp made chapati and dengu, which is most of our favorite Kenyan meal. Then her parents walked in, home from work with all kinds of soda and juice for us. It was a fantastic filling meal, Piper’s family is way cool, she has younger host siblings and her parents are really friendly and chatty. Then later we went out to Westlands.
Sunday morning I got my hair braided-it’s about 2 feet longer than it was before and perhaps the coolest my hair has ever looked (and it’s blonder-the hair extensions are blondish). And now I hardly ever have to wash my hair! Yay! It took about 3 hours to do, the woman who did it, Naomi really seemed to like me and she offered to teach me how to braid in Kenyatta Market, where she works. It’s heavy having hair this long, but I’m used to it by now. Sunday afternoon we went out for a family lunch, the first real family lunch we’ve all had together and I found out during it that it was all in my honor since we hadn’t really done this since I’ve been here.
Useful kiswahili
November 26
I told some Kenyan men off in Kiswahili today who were following behind me being extremely obnoxious and rude as I was walking home which made me feel kind of proud of myself. I won’t say exactly what I said, but basically I told them they should grow up and shut up along with a few other choice words. An older Kenyan woman was walking near me and started laughing at them. No, actually that’s a lie, she didn’t start laughing but she gave me a look and smiled like she admired my sticking up for myself.
I told some Kenyan men off in Kiswahili today who were following behind me being extremely obnoxious and rude as I was walking home which made me feel kind of proud of myself. I won’t say exactly what I said, but basically I told them they should grow up and shut up along with a few other choice words. An older Kenyan woman was walking near me and started laughing at them. No, actually that’s a lie, she didn’t start laughing but she gave me a look and smiled like she admired my sticking up for myself.
Day after turkey
Ishirini na tatu Novemba
23 November
Today was a really good day. Some days up until now have been either Oh my god! This day was so amazing! Or Oh my god! This day sucked (there really weren’t too many of those) but today, and the last few weeks in general have been a pretty consistent, contented, non-sporadic Good. My sister Monique came home from boarding school this morning and is home for about a month. She’s the 15-year-old, I really like her. I wrote a really good paper this morning about development issues we witnessed on our Kisumu excursion. It was supposed to be 5 pages and I was close to 10…then I took out a few things, widened some margins, you know…this is a problem I don’t often have. I had a really good time writing it. Then I hung out with Rachel and Erin and then a few others wandered in after they got done with their internships for some good day after Thanksgiving chats and hanging out under our tree.
Thanksgiving yesterday…so much fun. The 10 of us got our afternoon classes canceled yesterday (I didn’t have any anyway) and got to go the Pan Afric hotel where we got our own little room and everything we’d ordered for Thanksgiving….so so so yummy. However, my stomach has definitely shrunk since I’ve been here. I ate as much or maybe less than I usually do on Thanksgiving and felt completely stuffed to the point of exploding for at least the next 6 hours. I ate nothing for the rest of the day. So yeah, what’d I eat? All the best stuff… We’d written up our ideal Thanksgiving menu about a week ago and the restaurant made nearly all of it. Stuffed turkey that would probably rival most of the turkeys you folks were eating, soup, salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, chocolate cake, ice cream and yes, mac and cheese!! And cheese and crackers (I have been quite cheese deprived these past months) The mac was so delicious…I never really eat it in the US but I’ve been craving it these past few months and this surpassed expectations. Ok, I’ll stop raving about the food, I was pretty stoked about the cheese though. I had everyone do the thing we used to do on Thanksgiving where we wrote on little pieces of paper what we were thankful for and then read them all anonymously during dinner. It was sweet and very thanksgiving-y. Then we sat around the table chatting for 2 or 3 hours feeling the genuine Thanksgiving vibe. Then that night after I gave the Aboks the hand-turkey card I made for them, Mom (katika US) called and I got passed around the Leonard-Revis thanksgiving table. Oh happy day.
On another note:
These are a few things I know I’ll miss about Kenya, or at least that make me laugh:
-Flowers flowers everywhere in every single color and vibrancy you can think of
-Baboons walking along the road (not downtown but on the way out to Karen I’ve seen a boon or two, zebras and the occasional ostrich too on our drives to Mombasa and Kisumu
-morning downpours out of nowhere, gorgeous afternoons
-dressing rooms in 2nd hand stalls where the vendor holds up a sheet for you to try on pants behind
-messing up Kiswahili words and somehow having the meaning always be something bad!
-hawkers tables with 18 movies on 1 disc for 150Ksh ($2) or earrings for 10Ksh
-our tree on the quad at the university
-grilled mahindi (corn) sold on every street corner for 5Ksh or less
-chapati na dengu
-chaotic matatu stages, like the one on Tom Mboya
-relaxing on rooftops, in parks, in pubs, in the K room
-Mangos
-scrubbing my feet before bed every night
-the look of surprise when you speak Kiswahili, or jump into a kiswa conversation people didn’t realize you understood
Matatus (Or ma3’s since tatu is 3 in kiswa and they used to cost 3 shillings to ride) I love them! They’re big white 14 passenger vans often with a yellow stripe painted on the side and the number route they drive. After dark it’s unsafe to drive in them because the drivers are occasionally drunk and can drop you off in the middle of nowhere (I haven’t done this, no worries, just heard stories) but they do have blacklights on the inside at night. They usually have meaningless words written in big letters on the outside like “The Hulk” or “Sparkletown”-I really don’t think anybody knows what these mean. Or they have pictures of famous people, usually American hip hop and r&b singers, or, in the case of a matatu I saw a few weeks ago, Barack Obama giving 2 thumbs up! Inside you’re always packed in, I’ve been in a matatu with 25 people riding at once (they’re supposed to hold 14) The music inside usually blasts your ears out, can be offensive and/or really terrible but always has a catchy, sunny beat, (usually because it’s reggae) and can be extremely entertaining-like when it’s a reggae version of Jesus Loves Me This I Know or This Little Light of Mine. Sometimes you make friends when you and the people next to you are singing the words. When you go the same routes consistently the matatu drivers know you and look out for you. They drive crazy, you sometimes think you’re going to die and the drivers of the different matatus fight over you because they all want you to ride in theirs. And they’re cheap and everywhere.
23 November
Today was a really good day. Some days up until now have been either Oh my god! This day was so amazing! Or Oh my god! This day sucked (there really weren’t too many of those) but today, and the last few weeks in general have been a pretty consistent, contented, non-sporadic Good. My sister Monique came home from boarding school this morning and is home for about a month. She’s the 15-year-old, I really like her. I wrote a really good paper this morning about development issues we witnessed on our Kisumu excursion. It was supposed to be 5 pages and I was close to 10…then I took out a few things, widened some margins, you know…this is a problem I don’t often have. I had a really good time writing it. Then I hung out with Rachel and Erin and then a few others wandered in after they got done with their internships for some good day after Thanksgiving chats and hanging out under our tree.
Thanksgiving yesterday…so much fun. The 10 of us got our afternoon classes canceled yesterday (I didn’t have any anyway) and got to go the Pan Afric hotel where we got our own little room and everything we’d ordered for Thanksgiving….so so so yummy. However, my stomach has definitely shrunk since I’ve been here. I ate as much or maybe less than I usually do on Thanksgiving and felt completely stuffed to the point of exploding for at least the next 6 hours. I ate nothing for the rest of the day. So yeah, what’d I eat? All the best stuff… We’d written up our ideal Thanksgiving menu about a week ago and the restaurant made nearly all of it. Stuffed turkey that would probably rival most of the turkeys you folks were eating, soup, salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, chocolate cake, ice cream and yes, mac and cheese!! And cheese and crackers (I have been quite cheese deprived these past months) The mac was so delicious…I never really eat it in the US but I’ve been craving it these past few months and this surpassed expectations. Ok, I’ll stop raving about the food, I was pretty stoked about the cheese though. I had everyone do the thing we used to do on Thanksgiving where we wrote on little pieces of paper what we were thankful for and then read them all anonymously during dinner. It was sweet and very thanksgiving-y. Then we sat around the table chatting for 2 or 3 hours feeling the genuine Thanksgiving vibe. Then that night after I gave the Aboks the hand-turkey card I made for them, Mom (katika US) called and I got passed around the Leonard-Revis thanksgiving table. Oh happy day.
On another note:
These are a few things I know I’ll miss about Kenya, or at least that make me laugh:
-Flowers flowers everywhere in every single color and vibrancy you can think of
-Baboons walking along the road (not downtown but on the way out to Karen I’ve seen a boon or two, zebras and the occasional ostrich too on our drives to Mombasa and Kisumu
-morning downpours out of nowhere, gorgeous afternoons
-dressing rooms in 2nd hand stalls where the vendor holds up a sheet for you to try on pants behind
-messing up Kiswahili words and somehow having the meaning always be something bad!
-hawkers tables with 18 movies on 1 disc for 150Ksh ($2) or earrings for 10Ksh
-our tree on the quad at the university
-grilled mahindi (corn) sold on every street corner for 5Ksh or less
-chapati na dengu
-chaotic matatu stages, like the one on Tom Mboya
-relaxing on rooftops, in parks, in pubs, in the K room
-Mangos
-scrubbing my feet before bed every night
-the look of surprise when you speak Kiswahili, or jump into a kiswa conversation people didn’t realize you understood
Matatus (Or ma3’s since tatu is 3 in kiswa and they used to cost 3 shillings to ride) I love them! They’re big white 14 passenger vans often with a yellow stripe painted on the side and the number route they drive. After dark it’s unsafe to drive in them because the drivers are occasionally drunk and can drop you off in the middle of nowhere (I haven’t done this, no worries, just heard stories) but they do have blacklights on the inside at night. They usually have meaningless words written in big letters on the outside like “The Hulk” or “Sparkletown”-I really don’t think anybody knows what these mean. Or they have pictures of famous people, usually American hip hop and r&b singers, or, in the case of a matatu I saw a few weeks ago, Barack Obama giving 2 thumbs up! Inside you’re always packed in, I’ve been in a matatu with 25 people riding at once (they’re supposed to hold 14) The music inside usually blasts your ears out, can be offensive and/or really terrible but always has a catchy, sunny beat, (usually because it’s reggae) and can be extremely entertaining-like when it’s a reggae version of Jesus Loves Me This I Know or This Little Light of Mine. Sometimes you make friends when you and the people next to you are singing the words. When you go the same routes consistently the matatu drivers know you and look out for you. They drive crazy, you sometimes think you’re going to die and the drivers of the different matatus fight over you because they all want you to ride in theirs. And they’re cheap and everywhere.
Background painting in Kibera
Saturday, November 17
This morning a group of us took the bus down to the primary school in Kibera where Erin’s internship is because the kids there are performing a play for Christmas. The school wanted Erin to help paint the background for the play, so she recruited Lisa and I, the 2 art people to help draw this background. We spent all morning and a good portion of afternoon painting Joseph being presented his coat of many colors, him falling in a pit, and him talking to the Pharaoh. It was a lot of fun, a rainy day, so we got pretty dirty-Kibera is muddy even when it’s not raining and the backdrop turned out great.
It’s fun getting involved with what other people are doing at their internships, but also stresses me out about my ownBad news about my internship at the GoDown, it kind of fell through because the supervisor for us resigned or something, I don’t know all the details, but it sounds like we can’t really do anything until January for it, and even then we’re not at all sure what we’ll be doing. No one seems really eager or willing to help or to help us develop a project with a specific focus. I’m going to talk to our supervisor at the university about it, but it sounds like we’re kind of on our own to come up with a solution.
This morning a group of us took the bus down to the primary school in Kibera where Erin’s internship is because the kids there are performing a play for Christmas. The school wanted Erin to help paint the background for the play, so she recruited Lisa and I, the 2 art people to help draw this background. We spent all morning and a good portion of afternoon painting Joseph being presented his coat of many colors, him falling in a pit, and him talking to the Pharaoh. It was a lot of fun, a rainy day, so we got pretty dirty-Kibera is muddy even when it’s not raining and the backdrop turned out great.
It’s fun getting involved with what other people are doing at their internships, but also stresses me out about my ownBad news about my internship at the GoDown, it kind of fell through because the supervisor for us resigned or something, I don’t know all the details, but it sounds like we can’t really do anything until January for it, and even then we’re not at all sure what we’ll be doing. No one seems really eager or willing to help or to help us develop a project with a specific focus. I’m going to talk to our supervisor at the university about it, but it sounds like we’re kind of on our own to come up with a solution.
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