The GoDown

Friday, October 5

I might’ve just spent the best hour I’ve had so far in Kenya squished into the back of a Jeep with seven other people I just met stuck in Friday afternoon Nairobi traffic. We talked about all kinds of music, the elections, poetry, songwriting, recorded some stuff for a radio talk show and exchanged some phone numbers. Let me backtrack. I just got back from seeing where my ICRP internship for the next few months is going to be and I think it just may be the hottest internship I could possibly get. I am so excited!!

Part of our program here is doing an Integrative Cultural Research Project (ICRP) where we find some kind of local internship or develop a project for the purpose of integrating us more with the locals, improving language use, appreciating the cultural values, etc. We worked with our University of Nairobi program directors to find places we were interested in doing an internship. So I’ll be working at the GoDown Arts Center in the Industrial Area of Nairobi. It was started in 2003 for all different kinds of art and we just went down there today to check it out and sort of get a feel for what we’d specifically like to do there. They’ve never had interns before, but I think that’s going to be a really good thing because it opens it up a lot for us and, looking at the wide variety of stuff they have going on down there, I have lots of options. They’ve got a variety of dance and acrobatic troupes, a TV station, a radio talk show, music recording studios, galleries, and about 30 studios for local and international artists. There are various organizations having to do with the arts that house their offices and studios there, so I can affiliate myself with any one of them. (See www.thegodownartscentre.com, I haven’t looked at the website yet) I told them that I’m interested in doing some kind of community based art work if they have anything like that going on, so next week they’re setting me up to talk to some of the people doing work like that. One of the guys works doing art workshops in slums like Kibera and another is a dance troupe that takes kids out of the slums and teaches them how to dance. There were some other people too that I’m going to talk to. Mainly, I’m just so excited to be able to hang out down there all the time and see what all is going down at the GoDown (teehee) and in the art world of Nairobi which seems like it’s really been emerging within the last few years (everything in Nairobi has really flourished in the past few years, since 2002 when President Moi was finally gone)

Day to Day

Monday October 1, 2007

Kiswahili words and phrases are coming more and more naturally to me. I can say all the basic conversational things now. I’m not really capable of having that interesting of a conversation at this point in Kiswahili, but I can manage.

Each night before I go to bed I have to scrub my feet off with the washbasin and scrub brush in my room, particularly if I wore sandals that day because my feet get so dusty they’re completely brown by the end of the day. The sidewalk next to the park isn’t paved so it gets really dusty whenever it’s not raining and really muddy whenever it is.

I laughed when I saw my face on my University of Nairobi student ID. It’s so bleached out you can hardly see my face probably because the cameras are adjusted for Kenyan complexions. I remember in photography class when they taught us how to adjust our cameras for “ethnic faces.” I’m sure that was the case here. You’ve gotta take the skin color thing with a grain of salt. Mostly it just makes me laugh whenever all of us in the program are out walking somewhere in the city, like some giant walking white circus exhibit, everyone stares. It’s great fun.

I feel very complimented whenever someone tells me I did something like a true Kenyan. It’s the ultimate compliment. The other night my sister’s friend saw my ugali on my plate and said “Good girl! You’ve got a true portion of ugali there, no tourist portion!”

In Mombasa, Jamie and I finally figured out the trick to flushing Kenyan toilets as all of us had been having a great deal of trouble in this particular area. It’s all a matter of the FFF, that is, the Firm and Forceful Flush. I won’t even mention some of the other jokes that came out of this. Without the FFF, man, it’s never gonna work.

Mexican soaps broadcast in Kenya make for quite the comical evening. This top notch acting filmed at least 10 years ago is made even better by the fact that their mouths don’t follow what they’re saying since it’s dubbed into very expressive English.
Yes, you may perhaps think that I am wasting my time here watching this, but I insist, it’s quite a cultural experience!

I’m starting to get into really into hip-hop which is easily the most popular music here at least for the younger crowd. A couple of my sister’s friends are DJs at various clubs in town so I’ve gone to some slam poetry nights and I’m into it.

One girl in our K group constantly inserts the greatest puns into our conversations. I love it! No one bothers to make puns these days.

I spent this past weekend at the Nairobi International Film Festival which was amazing!!! And all free!! Lots of really good, powerful films, often with some kind of link to Africa in them but not always. It’s going on until Friday of this week! Yay!

Politics and Other Pursuasive Phenomena

Monday, October 1

Politics is a huge thing in Kenya at the moment because within the next 2 months a new president of Kenya is going to be elected. I am so much more up on the news here than I ever am in the US. I watch it each night in both Kiswahili and English. Each morning the headlines in the paper are always about the race. Mwai Kibaki, the current president is running for a second term with the Party for National Unity, while his opposition, Raila Odinga, is with the Orange Democratic Party. There are other candidates running too, but they’re the main ones. It’s so cool being in Nairobi, the center of it all and not experiencing it at a distance the way it is in the US. Our house is just across the street from Uhuru Park which is where all the political rallies take place, so we hear whenever there’s something going on there, and then see it on the news that evening. Yesterday morning a big caravan went by with Kibaki on it giving a speech from the top of a van. Later more trucks drove by with people singing reggae music about the praises of Kibaki. All the city is abuzz with all the latest election news every day.
It’s so interesting watching the election process unfold in a “developing country.” It’s similar in a lot of ways to the way it works in the US, but a lot of things are different as well. Basically, it’s a lot less formalized than the US. The candidates didn’t even declare they were running until a few weeks ago. Actually Kibaki just officially announced his campaign this past Saturday, while Odinga’s campaign launch is set for this coming Saturday. An interesting thing about this is that both of their campaign launches were supposed to be last week, but mysteriously Odinga’s got cancelled at the last minute. Very fishy. Another difference between the two is the way the youth get out and riot all the time at the rallies. Riots occur all the time about stuff like this, especially during elections. This is also the reason why our classes aren’t with other Kenyan students at the UoN. More so in the past than now, the university used to go on strike about various things and the students would take to the streets and riot. This could easily cancel classes for a month or so, which, if we were in those classes, would totally screw up our program. Anyway, it’s exciting and I’m eager to see how it all works out. (I think I’m for Raila although I’m not super certain about that.) Kenya got independence from Britian in 1963 and after that Jomo Kenyatta was the first president. The country really seemed to be on the right track to getting itself out of all the crap colonization left it with as best as it can. Then Moi became president and I guess he was ok at first, but then became like a dictator and ruled for 24 years and every single Kenyan I’ve talked to says he is a huge part of the reason for all the bad things here, mainly the corruption in the government became rampant because of him, and that corruption causes a lot of the other problems this country faces. I get the impression that the country just went completely downhill from anything Kenyatta helped it do when Moi was in power. The presidential power here is kind of an unchecked power and people here revere the president as a god, above the law. (in fact I’ll get arrested if I urinate in the presence of the president’s picture!) It’s kind of a blind trust in the president-much of it brought on by British colonization….which by the way, messed up this country so good. Nearly all the obstacles to the problems here are related in some way to European colonization. Anyway, then they finally got rid of Moi and Kibaki was elected in 2002 and he seems like he’s done his best to help out. It’s so hard to figure out whether candidates are good though, because when you talk to many Kenyans, much of it revolves around what tribe people are a part of and many tend to have loyalty only to their tribe regardless of a candidate’s political positions. (Another result of colonization, when the British did their best to pit the tribes against each other so that they would fight amongst themselves rather than unify against the British). Anyhow, I have yet to figure out the real story about each of these candidates. It's always a good conversation topic though.

Mombasa Safari

Monday, September 24, 2007

Last week our program took us on an all-expenses paid trip to gorgeous coastal city of Mombasa for Kiswahili camp. The eight hour drive started out on the world’s bumpiest road. Now this was no gravel road, this road to Mombasa. This was like rumble strips times 10. I didn’t know roads this bumpy could exist, honestly. My head kept hitting the ceiling and window and there were a couple times when I was sure this was my last day on earth. Only about 1 ½ hours was like that though and the rest felt like smooth sailing in comparison. (A new highway is between Nairobi and Mombasa is almost complete fortunately) I loved the ride though, apart from thinking I might die. The scenery looks just like the Lion King and there were baboons and zebras along the side of the road just hanging out, eating some grass and stuff. It was so cool!!!!!! I loved seeing the rural areas after only seeing the huge metropolis of Nairobi.

We stayed at the swanky Mombasa Beach Hotel right on the coast and certainly “not real Mombasa” where we had Kiswahili class each morning and fun outings and beach lounging and adventuring around the city all afternoon. It was way fun, especially to hang out with all of the people in my program all together and all the members of my family commented on how dark I looked when I got back. One afternoon we bargained with the guys on the beach for an afternoon of snorkeling. We went out on wooden sailboats handmade by our guides out of a single mango tree to the reef out in the ocean where we got snorkels and masks and got to look at some of the coolest fish I’ve ever seen, just swimming around in the reef. I saw the deepest color red starfish and puffer fish and little neon green and blue fish and zebra fish and rainbow-color changing fish, and gigantic vibrant shells with scorpions living inside that would reach out and these prickly dangerous looking sea anemones.
Another day we went on a nature hike in this reserve where we saw giraffes, monkeys, the biggest turtles I’ve ever seen that were 130 years old!!! All of them just walking around not in cages or anything. We saw hippos and antelopes and all kinds of storks and other birds. Then we saw snakes and crocodiles and other lizards. We went to Fort Jesus, the 16th century Portuguese fort and walked around the old town of Mombasa which was way cool. I wanted to spend a lot more time there than we did, but we’ll definitely be back sometime, probably on Christmas break.
Other than that it was lots of fun relaxing time and Kiswahili time chilling with our professors who are really really great to hang out with. All but one on our program is having their birthday while we’re here and we had the first while in Mombasa! So I think by the end we’re going to have this birthday party thing down! Best reason ever to throw a party! At the hotel restaurant at dinner the entire staff came out in a parade with huge torches and a cake and sang to her. It was a great night! This trip came at a perfect time in the adjustment process and was just what I needed then. I came home feeling so relaxed and ready to be in Nairobi again (although I was jealous our program wasn’t in Mombasa the whole time, mainly because of the beach and how cool the city is). Nairobi’s getting pretty cool in my book too though. Weather’s great, summer’s on it’s way.

the idea of time

I'm logging onto this and realizing how much time has really gone by and how different my thoughts are from just a few short weeks ago about Kenya. Already nearly a month has gone by that I've been here. I have a feeling time will only speed up faster and faster from here. It has felt very long and very short at the same time. I haven't written about our week in Mombasa extravaganza yet! I will soon, it was fantastic!

By the way, if anyone wants my mailing address here, email me at my kzoo address. Mail is great...hint, hint!
And email me updates on all the news in the mitten (or wherever you are)
So far my attempts to upload photos have been thwarted by a) slow computers b) my impatience and lack of effort c) not knowing how to upload more than one photo per post...any advice? email.

Chakula ya Kenya

(Kenyan Cuisine)

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Many of the typical Kenyan dishes are common throughout all of East Africa. The character of the foods tends to be simple and filling, with some kind of starch with meat although I try to get a lot of fruits and vegetables in there too. Kenyan meals nearly always include some kind of meat, usually beef or chicken. This was a little tricky for me to get used to because although I’m not vegetarian, my diet at home rarely included meat. The first 2 weeks or so, my fingernails started growing a lot more quickly than usual. I don’t know the reason, but something in my diet I assume, maybe meat? One traditional Kenyan food available everywhere is ugali, that I think I’ve tried to describe before. I didn’t really like it that much at first, but it’s delicious now. It always has to be eaten with something like meat and sauce or kale or cabbage, because it’s pretty bland on it’s own. We also have rice a lot or pilau which is brown rice with pieces of meat mixed in sort of like a stew. Chapati is also a common meal in Kenyan households, borrowed from Indian cuisine, similar to a tortilla with rice or chicken. Chapati is one of my favorite meals…Ninapenda chapati sana. For lunch often we go out and grab something quick from Nakumatt, the grocery store or a bakery or local joint, which are kind of hit or miss-sometimes I’ve gotten some pretty tough chicken stew. Often I’ll get a samosa or sandwich from a bakery-sandwiches are always considered appetizers by Kenyan standards and never a meal, so they’re usually really cheap.

Breakfast in my house is pretty simple, which I like a lot. I know some of the other students have elaborate breakfasts of tea, eggs, meat, fruit and ugi (breakfast porridge drink) every morning. I am happy that I get to walk in the kitchen, pour myself a mug of tea from one of the numerous thermoses around the kitchen (tea is the drink of Kenya…I probably drink 4 glasses a day) It’s made with milk and sugar and so doesn’t usually taste like the typical tea I’m used to, but it’s delicious. Then I pour a bowl of cornflakes or have some toast and jam.

In the city there are lots of nice restaurants of all varieties. There is a strong Indian influence, but it tastes a lot different than real Indian food, still good though. And there is a really nice American style coffee house that has really yummy and very American tasting burgers and toasted sandwiches. Also interesting to me is the wide variety of Mexican food available at the American place. It’s slightly more expensive than other restaurants (a whopping $4 for a sandwich, which isn’t bad obviously, but cheaper can certainly be found) With money I’ve found it’s wiser to not convert to American all the time, because you’ll think you’re getting a good deal and you’re really not.

I am surprised there are really no American chain fast-food restaurants anywhere. I’ve not seen a single McDonalds since coming here or any other American restaurants for that matter. I have seen restaurants with American names though, like there’s a Taco Bell, which is a bar that ironically serves no Mexican food, and the other day we saw a restaurant called Hooters that looked nothing like it’s American counterpart of the same name.

Maintaining

**Note-I added a lot of posts at once so they'll be in chronological order if you start with the first one added today. I'll get a few pictures up asap!

It’s amazing how much time one can kill just maintaining. I can wake up, make my bed, charge my ipod, handwash my clothes, hang them all up, read the newspaper, take a shower. And already it’s afternoon. But I’ve managed to avoid the constantly running television once again. Previous to this trip, I disliked TV most of the time, seeing the way it completely absorbed people and abandoned real human connections for for empty entertainment. In these past few weeks that dislike has grown into an infuriated hate. I am so frustrated by the barrier to real human connection the television provides, the ability to turn your mind off and numb it whenever you want—and at least in my house, thatgoes on a lot. “What else are we going to do?” my sister says. Talk? At least once in awhile maybe? I like the Kenyan news though, sometimes it's in Kiswahili and sometimes in English. They get straight to the point and never have the fluff stories you always see on American news stations. I'm getting better at getting conversations with my sisters going. I just get restless sometimes, especially after dark, which occurs around 6:30 each evening when it’s dangerous to go out and I'm stuck in the house. I watch TV with them sometimes, but other times go and write or read a book or do a crossword. It's forced me to be creative and I keep coming up with new things I can do with myself in the evenings.

I still value the artistry and creative potential of movies and TV shows, but most of what is on has no creative value, and in my opinion, pretty limited entertainment value as well. That might sound snobby or something (sorry for those who like Desperate Housewives and One Tree Hill), but it’s dangerous when it goes this far, it’s an obsession with something so empty. Also, I don’t want to let it hinder the relationship I’ve begun to develop with my sisters. I came here yearning for real conversations about real things with people, and I’m becoming bored talking constantly about American movies and American television. America is an expert at exporting it’s “culture.” That is one lesson I’ve learned a countless number of times even in my short time being here. Any advice on how to adjust to this way of life and not let it get me down?

I’m also feeling kind of isolated here. The 10 of us Kalamazoo kids have kind of been clinging to each other these past few weeks because it’s one of our only options. I think were all feeling sort of similarly. Yet we live far away from each other, and I don’t really want to spend all my time in Kenya hanging out with people from home. It’s difficult to integrate at the university because our classes are only with each other; there are no Kenyan students in our classes which makes it difficult to integrate oneself with the campus. My sisters are nice enough, but not always interested in including me and getting to know me. They have their own lives and don’t go out of their way much for me. That is nice in a way, because then I don’t feel I’m being a burden to anyone and I’m free to just do my own thing, but at the same time, it’s isolating constantly conversing within a small bubble-mostly with myself. It's getting better though every day. I know I'm a slow mover with these kinds of things and it just takes me some time. In the spring before we left, Kalamazoo had us write about what types of things we anticipated would be the hardest, or most stressful to get used to. I remember that I wrote about the Westernization or Americanization occurring at an exponential rate in Kenyan society because I'd heard from past students how surprised they were at how revered Western culture is there. So here we go, I guess I predicted well.

In other news, I learned how to ride both a matatu and a bus yesterday. They're pretty fun and a good time to chat with people even if the ride really toughens up your knees-esp. when you're 5'8 like me. and I saw the Nairobi National Park and lots of animals-namely, cheetahs and lions!!!! yay!! And we’re going to Mombasa tomorrow for 5 days to practice Kiswahili! The character of Mombasa is supposed to be much more rich and community-oriented than the commerciality/business orientation of Nairobi. All the tourbooks talk about Nairobi like it's the place where visitors always start out, but don't stay in for long because doesn't have much vibrant character. Most everyone who lives there are newcomers who've moved there from their tribes for work. That's the case with my family and most of the other families I've talked to. The Kenyan economy has been doing really well these past few years and so there is a rising middle class which is great, but the gap between rich and poor is still huge-especially when you see the suburbs like Karen (Blixen, Out of Africa fame) that used to be for the rich white plantation owners outside the city and then slums like Kibera existing nearly side by side. But the rising middle class will provide a kind of stability I think.