The adventures of Julie and Sawyer

Sawyer is a mouse that lives in my room. He is small and gets into all kinds of trouble. Naturally at first sharing a space with a mouse made me uncomfortable but sawyer, as mice go, is nice enough. These are some of his adventures. The first time I met sawyer it was very brief. I was moving my curtain over the window in my room. I grabbed one end and yanked and out popped sawyer from the top of the curtain. He tumbled to the couch in a furry ball sat there a moment and took off. God knows how sawyer got to the top of the curtain or why he was there at the exact second I decided to close them but there you go. He is always doing crazy things like this. Why the other day I was simply looking through my drawers when there popped sawyer right among my socks, which was inconvenient to say the least. It seems sawyer had been stuck in there some time so I guess it is safe to say it was inconvenient for both of us. Once on my way to the bathroom we met in the hallway and did one of those cute little dances people do when one person tries to go one direction at the same time the other person does, going back and forth until one person, sawyer, decided the whole thing was too much silliness and turned around. Over the last few weeks he has gotten cheeky, he ran over my foot in the kitchen for no particular reason at all, and then he ate my nuts that were carefully hanging 4 feet off the ground, because apparently he can also fly. I should have known considering how we met. We have only had one real falling out. I closed a door on him, by accident, though he never did believe me about that. I thought perhaps I had injured him but he was fine, but out for revenge. This manifested as pooping on my table. I forgave him though; it was only fair after all. Now in further reflection it might seem strange to befriend the unwelcome, and perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my host family has been playing Cinderella nonstop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 4 months, or perhaps it is a bizarre coping mechanism for what might otherwise have driven me crazy. Either way I will miss Sawyer when I am gone, and wish him the best in what must surely be the first is a long line of adventures with future interns.

Updates

As my time in Kenya comes to a close I am saddened by the fact that I have only seen a small portion of the country and all its wonders. Last week I went on a safari and finally saw what the west of the coast looks like. The animals were surprisingly fascinating as was the whole “Safari Culture”. I have never seen so much Khaki clothing in one place before. Nevertheless the scenery was incredible differed from one mile to the next. The animals were so close to the road at some point I could have reached out to touch an elephant.
In the past month I have been working on several different work projects, the biggest one ending with a large community HIV education outreach which was extremely successful. I leave my internship with a feeling of accomplishment, however small.
My host family is still as welcoming as ever. The kids and I have developed a kind of routine. I come home they jump on me. I carry them inside where we all pass out on my bed till dinner. I will miss this, and them.
The last thing I have planned for my trip is a final project to be approved by my work and then I leave the plans in coworker’s capable hands, hopefully inspiring more sustainability than if I had just made the event myself. So hopefully I am leaving with having made some kind of difference but who knows.

Goat Slaughtering Party

The best thing about a party where you kill a goat at the beginning is that it can only get better from that point on. When my friend Adria had her going away party recently the goat in question was featured prominently, swinging from a tree. I won’t go into the gruesome details except to say that skinning a goat is rather harder than it sounds, and that intestine is really not very tasty. The rest of the party was extremely fun. After the goat was prepared we made Pilau which is rice with spices and potato, and had a grand time.

Lamu Chapter 3: The Bat Cave

Instead of getting an extremely overpriced hotel room, some friends and I rented a house for the week in Lamu. The house was three floors and a rooftop. In Lamu most of one’s time is spent on a rooftop. The house itself was and open air house, all the floors were connected by the open stairway that lead to the roof. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen. There were of course other rooms, but a strange one-eyed man lived in them so we did not venture near. He was, (I’m sure somebody mentioned this) the house guard. The house was dark and had a new, unfinished quality, but at the same time seemed neglected and abandoned. Parts of it were clean and Spartan while others were cluttered and dusky. And there were also a surprisingly large number of bats also living in the house. So while me, my friends, a one-eyed man and about 20 bats were cohabiting, high jinks were sure to ensue. On the bottom floor was where most of the bats lived. When moving through this floor the best thing to do was to not look up and pretend they weren’t there. One gigantic mother bat lived in the thatched covering on the roof, she had a baby with her, I named her Kate. During a dinner party on said roof we discovered that bats in the roof is not an ideal decoration to a party, and they tend to leak…..

Lamu Chapter 2: The Land of donkeys

The island of Lamu has only one car, they say, it belongs to the chief. Though how or where he drives it is anyone’s guess. The roads and alleys are barely wide enough to fit you and a passing donkey. Donkeys consist of the majority of transportation on the island, the other is by boat. This has both good and bad aspects. The good part is that it is very quiet and relaxed on the island the bad part is that the ground is almost entirely covered with donkey droppings. However this only detracts slightly from the quaint beauty and ancient reverie inspired by the town’s old buildings and labyrinthine streets. Five minutes after arriving on the island everyone knows your name and who you came with, within a day you know all the restaurant owners and dhow captains and dress makers and their names. Because Lamu is such an interesting mix of tourism and small town charm, everyone you meet has a funny nickname like “fish-brain” or “Charlie Chaplin”. For the first time in 2 months we are able to walk the streets after dark without fear or even strange looks. Some of the other tourists are even wearing TANK TOPS! It’s a crazy place this Lamu. Even though the entire island is Muslim it seems that the crazy antics of the foreigners is seen as harmless or at the very least fastidiously overlooked for practical reasons. This does not make Lamu a party island by any means, as there is really only one bar, two if you count one that floats in the middle of the estuary. But people don’t really come to Lamu to go to clubs. They come for the quiet and the peace and the wonderful overpriced pasta.

Lamu Island: Chapter one

Lamu is an island off the coast of Kenya near the border with Somalia. The bus to the ferry to Lamu takes about 7 hours. The ride feels slightly more jarring than exiting earth’s atmosphere. Half the time the road is not really a road. The terrain of the ride is rather bleak. Open treeless fields and marshes give way to dry forests where monkeys dart out of trees to narrowly miss getting hit by the giant bus going 60 miles per hour. Part of the bleakness of the ride is due to the severe drought that Kenya is currently suffering. The rainy season is about a month late, and people have started to get creative. But back to the ride, we finally arrive after 7 hours of unforgiving bumps that lift you several inches off your seat in an a way that makes everyone laugh the first time it happens but by the 100 time you fail to see the humor. We are now hurried onto a small dangerously overcrowded ferry where we sit waiting for another hundred people to be put on a boat made to seat 30. Just when we are ready to leave we see the creepy guy who kept staring at us on the bus, he has just got on the ferry with a large suitcase. “There’s the creeper” my friend whispers. Suddenly a man tackles the creeper to the bottom of the boat, a brief exhilarating scuffle ensues before the creeper is restrained by a man who (it has suddenly become apparent) is a policeman. The creeper is handcuffed and roughed up a bit, by this time a large crowd of cheering people have surrounded the two men. What you would then assume would happen next is that the cop would lead the man away, but apparently in Kenya prisoner privacy is not an issue. The man’s bag is ripped open and torn though by someone who is either an undercover cop or a Good Samaritan. He comes back with what looks like hollow sugar cane. This causes some excitement with the crowd as this seems to be the thing they were looking for. Now he is dragged away from the boat with a crowd of people surrounding him, he is not resisting and doesn’t even look that bothered by the whole thing. His face is peaceful as if this was his plan all along, instead of selling all those drugs to the hapless tourists in Lamu his real plan was to be tackled and dragged away in handcuffs. Now that the entertainment had departed it was time to add another hundred people to the boat and finally to depart for Lamu island.
Chapter 2: The land of donkeys

Greetings

In Kenya greeting people always begins with a handshake. Whether you just saw the person before lunch or you have never met before, handshaking always takes place. When you get to work in the morning, or when you enter a room of strangers or you meet a friend on the street or really anytime at all really it’s like a physical manifestation of the word ‘hey’. Though this ‘handshaking’ can take many different forms for different people you are greeting. There is in fact a science to trying to sense what type of hand-involved greeting is naturally expected to take place. For instance when greeting a new person a normal up and down handshake will take place…probably, but you should remember to be prepared for the other options as well. Now if you are greeting a young person who is male and you have already met, a handshake/ thumb snap will probably be required. (A thumb snap is when you grip your hands in a vise, press your thumbs together and simultaneously snap them, resulting in something that looks super cool) Remember not to get flustered and try again if the thumb snapping doesn’t work. If the young person is a female then a half-slap pause, grip, shake will take place. This is also true for male kids ages 13-16. If you are greeting a young child and the child is Muslim then you will gently place your hand in theirs and they will kiss it. This is really cute and makes you feel like you are worshiped. Next on the list is the “My hands are dirty because I am eating” handshake which entails placing your hand briefly on the back of their hand or wrist. Then there are the miscellaneous ones I have not yet categorized as logical and have just randomly appeared occasionally. There is the handshake where both people kiss the backs of each other’s hands. Make sure you don’t initiate this handshake as it is apparently a specific tribe’s handshake. There is the one where you shake hands and one person scratches the inside of your hand. There is the handshake that is what we call in America the “limp fish”. And Last but not least the Fist Bump. I could keep going of course because there are three or four different types of fist bumps but I’ll save it for the book I’m writing.

Vindication

Last weekend my friend stayed with my host family and me. It was a pleasant break for me because instead of me the kids thought it would be fun to torture my friend for awhile instead. I cant say I’m not a little bit happy about that since I had been going on and on about this psycho three year old who haunts my nightmares. “I mean come on, Julie, she’s just a three year old how bad can she be?” they said. Well I’ll tell you a story shall I? I was in my room, sleeping on my bed, it had been a long day…. when suddenly somebody slaps me across my face. For those of you who know me pretty well you will know that nothing drives me closer to murder than being awakened from sleep, this includes adorable three year olds, especially when they laugh and try to do it again. All this went through my mind as my friend was been abused by the children. I now had proof from another person; yes the tiny psycho child is real. The other day I was talking with my host mother. I had not really mentioned anything about how crazy her youngest child was thinking, correctly that she was fully aware of this fact, but today I was still peeved about the latest broken thing in my room. I point to the little girl who has now passed out from her day of being evil. I say “this one is crazy”. “Yes” My host mother laughs. “I don’t know why though, my mother, she says that the worse a child is when they are young the shyer and quite they are when they get old.” I think about this, I think about my own childhood tantrums. I say “let’s hope” and we laugh.

Stag-Nation!!!!

Some fun facts I’ve learned since coming to Kenya.

Fact one: Women were put on earth for men, to do dishes cook and generally do all the essential things in life like raising offspring. I did not know this before coming here; I guess I was living blindly in the blissful ignorance of equality. Oh well my eyes are open now and I am free to pursue a life of babies and sweeping.

Fact two: I have been rather constantly made aware of the fact that 22 is really really old and I should have a husband by now and maybe a few kids as well. This fact seems to come right before the teacher of said fact offers to help me with that problem.

Fact three: According to the national newspaper women only go shopping before their periods, women will never leave abusive husbands because of their DNA and abortion rights groups in the country are secretly trying to cause HIV to spread faster.

Fact four: If your first wife and your second wife get along well they are probably planning to kill you.

Fact five: If a women stands next to a man who is wearing nothing and the women is wearing a skirt that goes above her knees people will stare at the women because she still looks more scandalous than the naked man.

Fact six: Swimming in a full Burka is surprisingly easy.

WTF moments vol. 1

Well the votes are in and it looks like Sketchy Interactions Won the poll. So here they are. Heavy on the sketchy with a side of OMG!
WTF moments vol. 1

Sonogram picture lying in the gutter

Women with baby attached to her breast using no hands while getting onto the bus( more shocking if you see it in action) like how was the baby staying on to that?

Man on the side of the road drinking from his gas tank.

Being told that the Anti-Christ has come several times a day.

Mentally unstable women first asked me and my friend for money than took her shirt off in the middle of the street and tried to sell it to us.

BOTH times my matatu was stopped by the cops, first time there was a small chase but it didn’t last long, the cops blocked the bus and then the driver tried to pretend it was my bus and he was a hired driver, this was the point where everyone( including me) starts to exit the bus rather quickly. Second time was a routine bribery stopping. Note( cops here carry riffles, really big mean looking ones, and they carry them on their arms facing up, which means if you are walking near them the gun points at your face. Lovely)

Street boy spooning with a stray dog: Really more poignantly endearing, than shocking.

Being asked by strangers if I would like to have an “obama”

Sketchy night clubs play 90s prom dance music, and decorate in the same fashion.

On the ferry coming back to the island, the ferry breaks, stuck in the middle for an hour trying to get the second ferry to tow it to the other side. (this ferry is 50 years old and wasn’t even replaced when the third ferry capsized and killed 120 people 5 years ago. They say taking the ferry is tempting your fate)

The posters in the matatus (buses) mix of super Christian messages plastered over half naked pictures of Alicia Keys

Everything written in the news paper! Especially science article on why circumcised people are less likely to get HIV( NOT True) Article was entitled how to save your marriage.

And last but not least, signs advertising the benefits of Corporal Punishment in primary school. Canning=Learning !

This has been vol. 1 of WTF moments in Kenya. Stay tuned for updates.

And on the Lighter Side…

At a four year old's birthday party I learned some interesting cultural customs that I think would be helpful for other to know about in case they find themselves in the same situation. Number one: the birthday girl is expected to hand feed each guest a piece of cake, this can become rather precarious when the girl is turning four and using a fork does not come naturally in this culture. Number two: a picture must be taken for every single persons turn to have cake shoved in their mouth. Number three: it is a common practice to spread icing all over the children’s faces, in seemingly intricate and well planned designs. Number Four: Try not to taste the cake. Number Five: Always assume someone will want you to make a speech before you are allowed to leave any event, even birthday parties. Number Six: Prepare interesting things to say during said surprise speech so you don’t embarrass yourself in front of six girls in party hats. Number Seven: Leave before the sugar rush hits and never look back.

Various Morbid Musings (read at own risk)

I’m lying on my bed looking up at the ceiling. My eyes are not blinking. They are not blinking in order to allow the tears to flow more freely from my eyes on to my hands cupped over my ears. These hands, the only thing between my ears and the noises of something dying in the night, forgotten, ignored. Like so many things in this country, it is dying or crying in pain and hunger. I think it is a dog but I really couldn’t guess for sure, I’m trying not to hear it. But I can’t not hear it and it will only be worse when it stops. For some reason this is the last straw in my quest to be unaffected by the things I see every day. The children with the wastes the size of my wrist and the sad eyes and dirty hands pressed up to me as if I was the savior they had been waiting for. There are some things in this world that you cannot, nor should not get used to no matter how often you see it, or hear it, or experience it. Poverty and suffering is one of these things. I thought coming to this placed to help would be better; I thought that volunteering for the cause would make that feeling in my stomach go away. Like when I was travelling as a student, I thought to myself how useless it was to be learning all these things when outside people were dying. I thought coming instead to work in the field would be easier. But it’s so much worse. You see more; hear more than any sane person can really take. You listen to a 13 year old who lives in a trash pile behind your office explain how his parents died from aids two years ago and last mouth the funding ran out on the program that was paying for his tuition and now he has nothing, can I pay for his tuition? Someone much colder than me told me he must be lying. I asked them why that would possibly matter. Like this boy is running some major scam, living in trash for two months, not eating, really getting into character just to politely ask for my help. And every day there are just more and more people suffering and how could I possibly think I could help them? It’s not that I’m not doing anything worthwhile; I really think that I am. I’m planning a youth outreach next month on HIV prevention and its going pretty well. It’s just that you can’t avoid being affected by the 12 year old prostitutes with their children and the women with bruises on their faces from their husband’s fists and the men all out of work lying in the street with nothing better to do than take drugs. The dog in the street has stopped crying and I take my hands from my ears. All that fills the air now is a tragic silence; somehow this silence seems much louder than the noise. The thick, oppressive air vibrates slightly, usually a sign it’s about to rain, but the sky is clear, and the infinite specks of light shine down on the roofs of Mombasa.

In the beginning… there were jokes

There is a running joke at my work involving me and any number of my male coworkers. The jokes are if not exactly PC in the American way they are at least inoffensive. This is because the organization is Apparently( I emphasize apparently because it was not apparent to me at all for awhile) a faith-based organization. This actually has no bearing on my work here but is interesting because it explains why the jokes are really pretty harmless. They run along the lines of so-and-so wanting to marry me. That’s pretty much it. There are fake wedding dates and my dowry is discussed at length. Will I need it all at once? hahaha. When I meet your parents? hahaha. As such it took me two weeks to figure out which were the jokes and which were genuine invitations. (Tip: A dead giveaway of a real invitation is being asked to someone’s church) I have had several invitations and I can’t really decide which one I should go to first. Will it be rude to go to one persons and not another’s? People here ask me what religion I am. After listening to the stories of my fellow interns who answered this question I congratulate myself for deciding to lie. After one or two attempts at trying to explain what Quakerism I gave up and am now simply a “saved” person. I had no clue what this meant when I was asked the first time. “Are you saved”? Saved? Saved from what? Oh right! Eternal damnation in the hellfire right… I forgot, yeah sure I’m safe, I mean saved. Yeah that’s me, Saved! Not that there’s anything wrong with devotion, it just tends to throw me when strangers ask if I have accepted the savior the way some people ask how I take me tea. ‘Oh so you’re here for 5 months? Wow, yeah and you stay on the north side of the city you say, ah yes. Very good. Very good. And have you accepted Jesus as your lord and savior? Yes oh good good. Is this enough suger? Ok ok, sawa sawa. Its not as if I were to say “no I’m not religious” as a spontaneous angry mob with torches shows up. It just saves a lot of confusion just saying yes to most anything asked of you. Are you Christian? Yes. Do you enjoy the  here? Uhh yes.  hot today ? Yes.  Julie  Somebodies name  married , right? Sure why not. See! It’s just much easier. It’s at about this time that it dawned on the audience why Julie was always accidentally agreeing to do things she has no knowledge of. Oh well.

Productivity

Someone once asked me what a typical day at my office is like. I was hesitant to answer the question as I thought it might make me look lazy or inhibited, but really that is only like 30% of the problem. I’ll give an example, shall I? I’m at a computer fiddling around with the extremely important and official pamphlet I am currently making when ahem a computer is need by someone with something much more vital to do. There are a few computers in the office, about a third as many computers as people who wish to use them. I move to a table to write some notes on activities I will be doing. Ah excuse me are you using that pen? I am told it’s within the realm of etiquette to take things from people’s hands with minimal preamble, papers, pens, this notebook, a sandwich. So it’s no big deal right? But it does seem to happen an awful lot. To be fair I was warned of this phanonminon (disappearing pens) in the first week. Though this has somewhat put a damper on my productivity, I am not one to be deterred from listlessness when it is clearly both convenient and prudent for everyone involved. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they bring the pens back. Often three or four days later, but still it is nice to think that things return naturally to their place of origin. Breaking brightly into my life before being sucked back into the void where pens go to die. This is naturally part of the charm of working here, no resources, no accurate working knowledge or training on anything you are doing, and certainly no clue as to what you will be doing say tomorrow. Awesome. Hearing other interns talk about their organizations I came to realize that mine has considerably more resources and employees even though it’s not nearly enough (thanks Wal-Mart). Also said employees show up every day and such. Sure there is the occasional nap but if anything this boosts productivity considerably. In fact along with mandatory tea time, nap time will also become part of the work place norm during my revolution. Today I made a great stride, I finished a Needs Assessment that I had planned to finish last month. Hooray!!!

Professor Julie

It’s time to buy myself a jacket with elbow pads and Lennon glasses because I am teaching full time this week. What you may ask could I be teaching? Well what an interesting question. The answer is of course Power Point! Yes that’s right the computer program. Now Julie, you may ask, I didn’t know you knew that much about Power Point. Well funny you should ask… I’m not exactly sure why I am currently trying to explain Clip-Art and Slides to 40 or so students, I may have briefly mentioned that I knew how to use the program. This logically led to my teaching it all week. To be quite frank I agreed because I was under the impression I would only be talking for one class. Instead I am teaching both the morning and afternoon classes of 20 or so students for three hours each. I’m doing a shockingly good job for not really knowing anything about Power Point, or teaching, or the local language. But apparently knowing a little is going a long way or that is to say I am making it go a long way, stretching my ‘thin as a wire’ knowledge to last over the whole week. Let me briefly explain about the computer class. Have I at already mentioned that the main funder for my organization is Wal-Mart? Yes the evil chain of low priced crap is actually rather big in the fund raising department, at least here in Kenya, Where they have their factories. Anyway the section that Wal-Mart funds is the vocational training section including the dress-making and computer skills class, which at the same time as teaching life-skills and necessary job skills for free, we also educate the students on HIV etc. So now that you know why I am teaching a computer class I’ll go back to explaining how I’m doing. To all of you who have taught before I know you will understand what I mean when I tell you how very hard it is to teach the same lesion twice in one day. I am forever forgetting so crucial part of presentation making and the result is the class 2 doesn’t know how to do slide animation yet because I forgot to tell them and class 1 doesn’t know about pie-charts because I only remembered pie-charts later in the day. I mean really I’m not very good. Thank god computer training is like 70% your own teaching. I’m covering my 30% pretty well I guess. I’m really loving the power-trip though. You say something like ‘please change your fonts’ or “lets everybody open a new slide” and EVERYBODY DOES IT! I also really love writing on the board. It gives one a sense of peace and order, my handwriting magically becomes legible, my spelling immaculate. As I look out over the class people are taking notes! Of things that I’m writing! The feeling this gives me is a mixture. I’m happy to be finally contributing, but I also feel I am depriving them of a real education. But really how many ways can you teach Power Point. Today is the last day and I am passing out the final test, a test I made and typed and printed. It’s almost a test for me as well; if they pass that means I actually taught them how to use Power Point. If they do not then perhaps I should stick to the gas stations.

Tea Time

A quick note on tea time. It is my very favorite part of the day. It happens around 10:30 in the morning and is the most wonderful thing in the world. Everyone gets together, argues, makes jokes, fights over the bread and drinks tea. That’s pretty much it. I just think we should all have mandatory tea time, in every office in every city in the world. I will start the revolution, my friends and together we can bring tea time to every person in this great earth of ours.

Facilitating Gender

I’m standing in front of 20 people when it suddenly occurs to me: I believe my boss has greatly misinterpreted my resume. This has produced interesting results. The first of which being the assumption that I know how to do anything at all. The second being the misplaced confidence in my somewhat lacking community outreach skills. This week at my internship we had a Capacity building training. Let me take a short break from my story to complain about the term Capacity Building. Firstly it means almost nothing; it is used every couple seconds to describe anything from improving the police force to training peer educators as is the case in the story. I have decided to kill the next person who uses the term. Moving on to the “you know what” building training session, it is the second day, lunch time. My supervisor comes to me and says, “Are you ready to lead the Facilitation session on Gender”? I look baffled, so she asks if I remember when she asked me yesterday if I could do it. I remember her only asking me if I liked the training and I said yes sure. Was this the moment she was thinking of? I told her I wasn’t aware that they wanted me to do that today. She says something like”ah ok so it’s ok if you do it now?” Now? Yes right now. Ok so here it goes. I have something like 5 minutes to make some notes on gender studies and now I’m standing in front of the 20 people only 3 of which are women. All of which are 20-28 years old. This is where I have my revelation. The first couple minutes aren’t so bad. I stammer of course and can feel my voice trembling as I try to talk slowly in English. Besides my greatly lacking facilitation skills, I have the added advantage of trying to explain gender equality and sensitivity to many many men who have spent the first two days of the session making off color jokes and flirting with anyone who got close enough. This by the way is completely normal male behavior but still makes it a little awkward when you ask them about gender stereotypes and one guy says he thinks girls shouldn’t climb trees. “mhmmm mhhmm” I say as I write it on the board, barely containing my feminine rage. “So what else do you think are some stereotypes in Kenya?” Silence. This is pretty much how the whole thing went. So I’m off to a good start I think. Next week apparently I will be teaching a computer class( another imaginary skill on my resume?) Wish me luck.

Adventures in the Wild Kingdom

The mouse looks at me from across the room. I look at him; we stare without blinking as the tension builds. I’m not sure when in my life I stopped screaming when I saw a mouse in my general vicinity. I think it might have something to do with working around mice and hamsters for the last 6 months at Petsmart. That must be why I am suddenly very uninterested in the mouse that is about the size of half my thumb. I could have much worse things living in my dresser. I could have one of those giant spiders named after the town I live in. I could have some kind of lizard like the ones the guide books say can kill you if given enough time; instead I have only tiny geckos living in the shower. Since I have not yet been to the game parks my experience with local wildlife is only the tiny mouse that I have named Will, the occasional gecko, the goats, chickens, and cows who seem to like spending time in the street by my office building. The goats tend to give me my space but the cows on the other hand seem to think the narrow allies belong to them. One day at work I was sitting, minding my own bussiness when a chicken walked in. He had wandered in through the open door and looked for all the world to see like he knew where he was going.. far be it for me to say any different. He quickly realized that this was not the place he was thinking of and hurried out the door... perhaps to try the place across the street. Along with these animals there are about a thousand crows everywhere. They are like seagulls and pigeons combined in their annoyance and filth. They are also about three times as big. There are also the local gangs of hoodlum street cats who are really pretty terrifying. More than one person here has told me that these cats are the “gangster kind of cat” During the day they aren’t so bad at night you keep your distance and watch your pockets. God help all those who get on their bad side. If these are the animals that a domestic city life has to offer, i'm looking forward to the actual game parks.

My shower is trying to kill me

For some unknown reason the pipes in the sink and shower in my house electrocute all those who have the nerve to use them. This is not so with the toilet, who shows considerably more constraint and humility, and does not in fact electrocute you. The sinks are only mildly cross when you use them and therefore you receive only a gentle buzz of current. The shower on the other hand, becomes enraged at the very moment your hand nears the knob. Using some kind of towel of cloth to turn on the water seems to only make matters worse. Today though I must have angered it because I swear it jumped out of the wall to attack me. Normally the electric jolt is bearable for the couple seconds your hand is gripping the knob. Today though it saw me coming and decided to change our dynamic. In the end I won and the oh so proud shower was defeated. Now you may ask, ‘why Julie does your shower electrocute you?’ I really could not answer that, and neither could my host mother when I asked. She simply shrugged and moved on. So I will simply shrug and continue to battle the arrogant plumbing. Next time on ‘Julie battles Kenyan amenities: The electricity that never was….’

OHHHHH BAMA

For those of you in the United States who still think Obama is your president you might want to take it up with a Kenyan. Not only is Obama worshiped like a God here, there is some intense doubt as to the real country he is running. After the first few weeks of being here I gave up saying “I am from America” and now say simply “I am from Obama-land” That’s right folks the USA has a new name. Don’t get me wrong, this is a far cry better than when people said “America” and then spit on the ground. Now they say “ Amerikaaa Obamaaa yes! He is a Kenyan your country run by a Kenyan!” Sure is, I say. Obama’s father was not born in this city but that does not stop his picture from being painted on the side of most busses and his face sketched on walls and photos of him hanging on dashboards and mantles where previously a picture of Jesus or Jay-Z used to be. I have not had one conversation with a single person in this country that did not come around to Obama at some point. The first thing a bus driver asks me when I get on the bus is “ahh merika, you vote Obama?” Yes yes I did, I say. May I get on the bus now? I wonder whether if I had said no if that might mean I couldn’t get on? But who in their right mind would say no to that question in this country? Already people tend to not believe you when you say yes. Generally though, Obama is a cultural icebreaker. I’m used to professing a vague distance from my country, if only for safety purposes. Now I’m actually free to profess a pride in my nation and president, and in fact must love my president or else. This is convenient since I also unabashedly, unconditionally, love Obama. In fact there is already a picture of him on my wall. All bow to the god of Amrika.

NGO-ing

As it turns out in Kenya, working at an NGO not only pays well, but is not considered to be a magnanimous profession, fancy that! The people who work at most NGOs are not praised for being martyrs to a cause but simply smart for getting into the only business besides tourism that has any money at all right now. This is not to imply that people are skimming from charity meant for destitute peoples, it is simply that the pay grade for any worker at an international NGO is far higher than any other job in the country. This means, among many things, that people working in NGOs are not as single minded or passionate about their cause. It also means that people take very long tea breaks and watch the news when things are slow. It’s really fascinating that everybody watches the news religiously, not just the evening news but also during the day when they have a Kenyan C-span that films the parliamentary sessions. The government here is something I don’t think I will ever understand, not just the structure but the entire concept, (based loosely on British?) However I really love watching the parliamentary sessions. Everyone is so passionate and angry. When officials make speeches they bang on desks and other parliament members applaud or in anger jump from their seats. It’s nothing compared to the south Asian parliament riots or fistfights but it makes for good television. It is extremely convenient for the TV and newspapers all to be in English, it makes keeping up with the local events really easy. As things become easier at work I start conversations about how so and so should be sent to jail and isn’t it too bad about so and so. Oh but don’t worry, I haven’t missed a single step in American news as Kenya is in the midst of an Obama craze that rivals the beanie baby craze of 2000.

The Kenyan dating scene

One interesting little fact about Kenya that I didn’t know before coming is that they are polygamous. This in the words of my Swahili teacher does not just mean that they have more than one wife. “The mens they take as many as they can afford, not just for a wife but many many girlfriends.” In Kenya people are still using a dowry system, or bride price. Therefore the number of women you maintain directly relates to the amount of money you have. Hence I was told by a co-worker an appropriate response to a man hitting on you might be to ask how many goats he can give you. “If he says over 50 he’s a keeper. If not you keep looking, because you can do better.” Good advice. Though I have only had 4 or 5 marriage proposals, including one from the man who sold me my cell phone and then proceeded to call it every day, I think I am now prepared for the negotiations. I’ve decided I won’t settle for less than 80 goats. But they will have to throw in a cow to just for good measure.

Internship

My internship started by my visit to the office which is in a small village suburb of Mombasa call Mikindani. After meeting the staff and hearing 13 names of which I now only remember one which is victor, I was introduced to what exactly the NGO does. It is now four days later and I think I am beginning to get what it is they do. The organization is called Hope Worldwide, they are HIV prevention and testing facility, they are also a youth center/ school for life-skill classes such as computer and dress making. They are a community outreach and gender sensitivity training facility. They are also about a million other things. It took for days to understand this because of the fact that I understand a little less than half of anything anyone says. Also because none of this is written anywhere as most of the activities are mish mashed together and very loosely defined. Because of my difficulty grasping the nature of the place or perhaps in preparation for this I was invited to observe some of the programs in action to better understand. This amounted to sitting in a shell gas station for two days, where as I sat by the gleaming hub caps and overcalled workers, learned many, many things. The first of which is that sitting in a Kenyan gas station for 7 hours you WILL get burned in the shade with only a 15 proof sun block. Perhaps I should explain. Part of the VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) HIV project is the work program. This work programs partners my NGO with a company, say Shell gas stations, and then my NGO sets up a tent and a small testing facility at said business and offers the counseling/testing to the workers. So along with my grand education on sunburn and the fascinating science of fixing a tire, I learned also how to test for HIV and the general counseling and referral techniques of the NGO Councilors. As there was a good amount of time between costumers there was plenty of time to talk about the NGO programs with the two female testers. My now extensive knowledge included most of the above information on Hope worldwide as well as some very helpful hints about the Kenyan dating scene. And on the next episode of ‘this stuffs to crazy to make up’…..

The Kids

So I was really right about the kids driving me crazy eventually. This I see as only the inevitable. They are kids, there are a lot of them, the house is small, and I am a shiny new toy. All of this adds up to occasionally having to go to bed earlier than normal. I am a moving jungle gym and a source of endless hilarity. This is as frustrating as it is wonderfully rewarding, which I can only assume is what parenthood is like. As I write, the oldest boy who has climbed onto my back asks me what ‘frustrating’ is (I kid you not), and I say uhhhh….. The oldest boy is Salam or something that sounds like that. He is extremely curious, I still fight back laughter when I picture him reaching into my purse and coming out with a feminine pad. ‘This is to eat?” he says. “Uh no” I say, and then I stuff it back in the depths of my bag, mumble something and stifle the giggle in my throat. The oldest girl is Ashwag, she is a big fan of my cell phone. The younger boy is Atnan, who is my favorite so far. He is always breaking out these Bollywood dance moves and singing silly wordless songs. He also falls asleep on my bed every night at 8, like clockwork. The youngest is a girl named Fatima, she is three, and in saying this I must admit this little girl terrifies me somewhat. She is sweet, and tiny and hits harder than if her little arms were crowbars. Really those tiny punches are just brutal, and boy can she scream. When I got sunburn yesterday I had to hide from her, I know that sounds crazy but she punches really hard. I like her most when she is half asleep. Pictures to follow.…

Mrs. Communication

One thing about Kenya that becomes really frustrating is that fact that though most people speak “English” you are never speaking the same language. In a conversation you find yourself dropping pronouns and other useless parts of speech to try and make communication easier. Though this seems to only make things worse, and combined with the slang (or shang in Swahili, yes that’s right they have a slang word for slang) version of Swahili/English you end up never understanding what anyone is saying. I ask a matatu( small bus) driver “is it all right if I sit in front” he says “yes is going to tao( shang for town)”. This was not actually my question but it was helpful nonetheless. The problem I think is not that they don’t understand this word or that word in English, but more that I am speaking a whole lot faster than everyone else. Kenyan speech is extremely slow and vague, so that it will take 5 minutes for a question to be answered and you’re still not sure about what the answer was but you certainly got a lot of information out of asking. This in the end makes the whole communication thing worth it. Oh and the concept of sarcasm is also something very hard to convey. My host mother will ask how my day is and I will say “oh it was good but I wish it could have been warmer”. She will give me a look like I am crazy and I will explain that I was kidding. The kids at my home stay are teaching me Swahili, for now I can say thank you’ and the word that means Forener which I hear 50 times a day. It is Muzungu. Though the older kids call me by my name, the youngest calls me Muzungu julie’s, which is just super cute. So for now I am content to just ask people to repeat everything they say and do the same when talking to anybody and everybody.

 
 
 
 

My roommate has Typhoid

So on the fourth day my roommate and I were in Kenya she comes down with Typhoid fever. She was only feeling a bit sick the day before, then some normal flu like stuff and boom, Typhoid. In America she spent a ton of money on a vaccine for typhoid that she comes to find out is only 75% effective. She’s pissed but doing fine and since they caught it early there should be no problems. The first few days I was in Kenya what really baffled me was the casual way that people (foreigners who had been here for months) talked about the rare illnesses they had gotten. One girl says to the other “oh yeah I remember that trip to the beach , that was right after you got over your E. Coli poisoning” or “yeah everyone here gets Malaria it’s no biggy” and the most common one, “just wait, a month here and you too will have ring worm”. These things alone are not so very scary but combined they seemed to be saying “Welcome To Kenya… Try not to Die!” And I shall!

Host Family

I spent the better part of the day teaching the kids how to use a laptop. It’s not really what I set out to do today but you can’t really not show them when they are sitting on your shoulders. Even as I write this they are fighting over who can use the earphones which are playing Abba at the moment. The oldest girl really likes it, which I found surprising. I know eventually these kids will drive me crazy, if the look on their mothers face when I complemented them is any indication. For now though they are a welcome distraction. This is my second day at my host families. I was encouraged by my organization to spend the first few days with them. I was dreading staying with a host family. I didn’t like the feeling of imposing on them. I still don’t, but it’s not as bad as I thought. In a few days maybe I won’t even care that my host mother gave me the biggest room in the house, and half of the living room couch and if that wasn’t enough she gave me the dresser from her own room. Saying that you don’t need it or it’s not necessary does nothing, so why bother I guess. It still feels like I am some kind of prodigal daughter returned from her wayward ways. Speaking of wayward ways, explaining what a tattoo is to a bunch of kids is very hard to do. The oldest said I should draw the same thing on her, and I said that I wasn’t the one who drew it, she did not believe me. I was worried that this was looked down on in the strict Islamic culture of the coast but when my host mother saw she seemed to think it was funny. She is a very nice person, quiet but full of all kinds of useful information. Over tea today she told me about how her marriage was arranged when she was my age. She wears a buibui when leaving the house, which is like a full Burka. I was really intensely interested in whether she wore it in the house, whether she felt that women who don’t wear it are wrong. The answer to both is no. Before my group left for their host families we were warned that our family would probably have a “house girl”, like a young housekeeper. Even with the warning I’m still thrown off by it. The girl is really young like 15 maybe younger. I can’t tell if she lives at the house or not. She doesn’t speak English but even so, she doesn’t speak much at all anyway, even in Swahili. It’s super awkward but I’m told that even lower class homes will have a helper. That doesn’t really keep me from feeling like crap but at least she has a job which means she is doing better than something like 20 percent of the country.

A quick note on Swahili food…
I really wasn’t expecting this much Indian style food, but I’m really excited about it. Everything has coconut milk in it, from a fresh coconut. Awesome.

Cultural Exchange

It has been years since I have seen the cartoon Popeye. I had forgotten how ignorant old cartoons were. I’m sitting on the couch in my host families living room covered in children. There is one on my lap, one on my left, on my right and one sitting behind my head dripping mango juice on my shoulder. I have only known the kids for 15 hours. It seems strange to have already won their love when things are still awkwardly polite with my host parents. Children are never hard to please. I gave them toys and candy the second I got here, I’ve never felt so adored. The youngest one is 3 then 6, 7 and 9, two girls and two boys. They have just returned for lunch from the madrasa (Islamic Sunday school). They entered in a flurry of clothing being thrown everywhere and head scarves torn off. My host family is ethnically Arab; their families came from Yemen several generations ago. But back to the racist Popeye, he has taken a trip to India on the show and as he and his girlfriend olive oil walk around marveling at the “savages” and buying trinkets. “oh look at that Popeye, please buy me the magic lamp”. I feel myself squirm under the pile of Kenyan children. Tourist guilt is not new but never goes away, at least I’m not as bad as Olive Oil, she just called a Buddha statue a “she”. After Olive is abducted by an evil man in a turban one kid asks me why he looks so funny, ( big nose, long neck, your basic Indian stereo type) and now I’m really at a loss. I shrug and we switch to Scooby Doo. And so it begins.

A quick note on the wonderfulness of Kenyan TV…
Any country that combines the dry wit of British sitcoms with Indian Bollywood, Middle Eastern news, American melodrama, and of all things Mexican Telenovela ’s is the best place on earth. That is all.

Kenya

It’s super hot here. Like hells oven. I’m not sure if this is because I’m not used to it or because it truly is this unbearably hot. My waitress at the hotel asks if I am ok as I wipe a gallon of water off my face. I say I am ok, just hot. She looks confused and says but today is rather cool. Great…