Travel Advisories and Sheena
It has been awhile since I posted to my blog, so helloooo out there!! Hope you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you. Well I heard on the news that the U.S. and Japan have both issued travel advisories for Kenya; I think the official advice is, “Don’t Go to Kenya.” It sounds a bit overly cautious to me, but then, I live in a village so remote that most Kenyans wouldn’t know how to find it -- if they’d even ever heard of it.
There have been a number of violent incidents across the country since campaigning began for the constitutional referendum on November 21, usually following a rally for the wrong side. Ten people (or three if you ask the Kenyan media) were killed in Kisumu last weekend because there was a Yes (banana) rally there, and as you know, Kisumu is a strongly No (orange) town. There was an MP (Member of Parliament) whose SUV was set on fire in Kakamega, a mostly No town. The MP was campaigning for the Yes team. No one was injured but the message was clear.
Peace Corps volunteers have been banned from traveling to Kisumu this weekend because there is another rally planned for Sunday, and in general we’ve been advised not to travel anywhere for non”work related reasons. We’ve also been prohibited from leaving our sites the week of the referendum, which sucks because we were all planning to meet up somewhere for a nice American”style Thanksgiving. Now I’ll just have to find a really big chicken in my village and figure out how to roast it over a charcoal stove.
Anyway, my sense is that despite what you see on the state”controlled news here, most of the country is against the proposed constitution. If the No team wins on November 21, the country will smile, nod and go about its business. If the Yes team wins, I think there will be a bit of chaos to say the least, because Kenyans will assume the election was rigged or that bribes were offered to encourage Yes votes. And if there is chaos, I am guessing Peace Corps volunteers will be evacuated, which is a possibility too stressful to think about right now.
Well I went over to a friend’s house today and she invited me in for tea. For some reason in Kenya when you are spontaneously invited for dinner or tea, in most cases, your host will serve you and then stare at the TV ignoring you until you excuse yourself to go home. Maybe it’s their way of avoiding having to make awkward conversation with someone they don’t know very well. Anyway, this woman popped a movie into the VCR, and we spent the next hour-and-a-half watching “Sheena.” Now I don’t know how many people out there have ever heard of this movie; I definitely hadn’t. I wish I could at least tell you what year it was made, but the cover was just a shaky, illegible photocopy, indicating that it was probably a bootleg my friend bought in Chinatown. Uh, I mean, in Kisumu (which, in the context of street vendors, is just one big Chinatown, but with Luos screaming racist names at you because for some reason they think that will persuade you to buy their crappy knockoff stuff.) So it was either made in 1984 or 1964.
“Sheena” stars Tanya Roberts, one of the old Charlie’s Angels, which if I knew anything about American pop culture should tip me off to the year this movie was made, but since I’m pop culturally retarded, maybe someone can help me out by posting a comment. The storyline, as far as I can gather, is about Sheena, a blond chick who is orphaned as a little girl in the African bush, and brought up by a Maasai queen in Samburu, in northern Kenya. The queen can communicate telepathically with all the animals of the savannah, and passes this power on to her white daughter. Sheena grows up knowing only the ways of her adopted African land, but again inexplicably speaks English with an American accent and is the only person in her village who wears skimpy faux”suede hot pants and a tiny toga as opposed to the traditional full-length red robes of the Maasai. (Of course her wardrobe is not inexplicable, it’s just blatantly gratuitous.) And she rides a zebra and swings on vines, which, as far as I know, Kenyans have never done, not to mention the fact that I’m not aware of any viney trees on the savannah. But I could be wrong. And I’m convinced that zebra was actually just a white horse painted with black stripes
because horses are easier to ride than zebras.
Anyway, considering that the movie was made over 20 (or 40?) years ago, I won’t hold it to any reasonable standards of cultural sensitivity or accuracy, but I will have lots of fun making fun of it. Like the way the Maasai are portrayed as mono-syllabic savages who dance around chanting and waving spears and performing unexplained rituals like bringing a seemingly dead man buried up to his neck in the sand back to life. In truth the Maasai are the one tribe in Kenya that has gone to great lengths to preserve their traditions despite the pressures of colonial missionaries and modernization (and this has had both good and bad consequences, as they are the only tribe that still actively practices female circumcision, more accurately referred to by human rights groups as female genital mutilation, or FGM.) And even today they can be seen carrying spears and wearing traditional costumes. Maybe the reviving a dead man from the sand ritual is an actual Maasai practice, who knows. But the movie seems to intend to portray the Maasai as nothing but grunting warriors with backwards ways through the way it consistently refuses to explain anything, but rather seems to just present a bunch of black people dressed funny doing things most Westerners wouldn’t recognize. And of course the white “African” girl ends up with a kind of obnoxious, kind of dumb white guy who teaches her the “proper” ways of the whites, like the idea that mouths are not only for eating, but also for kissing.
Interestingly, the movie is also anachronistic in the way it portrays its African female characters. The Maasai queen was a strong and respected woman in her tribe, which seems really implausible in Kenya. Admittedly I don’t know much about the Maasai or their traditions (beyond the spears and FGM I just mentioned) but unless they are vastly different from every other tribe in Kenya, I don’t see how a woman could hold a position of status the way this queen was portrayed to have done. Also the female characters from Nairobi were strong, domineering types, the type of women Western men fantasize about -- confident and sexually liberated -- which I’ve never seen here, not even once (which is not to say that they don’t exist, especially in Nairobi, but even the ones that do exist are not brash and outspoken like this character, who appeared to be modeled after your choice of American pop diva.) One other scene sticks out in my head, where a Kenyan cop says to his subordinate (who is inexplicably white and not Kenyan, like many of the characters in the film), “I expect you to catch those people.” And the white dude (who is also much older than the Kenyan) says, “You will not be disappointed.” Or at least that’s the gist of their conversation. I have never, ever seen a Kenyan speak to a foreigner with such a tone of authority, and as I’ve mentioned in other posts, I ascribe this to a pretty universal inferiority complex that still lingers from colonial times. Most Kenyans, especially those in rural areas, don’t feel that it’s their place to tell a foreigner – whom they automatically believe to be more educated, to have more money, and not to be “backwards” – what to do.
What’s even more interesting than all this is the way my friend seemed to accept the movie without questioning its cultural accuracy, and I’m not sure whether to attribute that to an ability to suspend disbelief in the name of entertainment, or to a general lack of awareness of the subtle and not”so”subtle Western bigotry and arrogance contained in the movie. The answer is probably a little of both.
Anyway, I excused myself in the middle of the movie at about the time the bad guys burned down Sheena’s village. (My friend had also started breastfeeding her baby, which in Kenya is perfectly okay to do anytime, anywhere, in the presence of any company. I have seen more boobs on matatus and at markets than on any given day in the women’s locker room at the gym.) Part of me wants to go back and finish the movie to see what other outdated clichés and subtle racism emerges, and the other part of me knows that besides providing that interesting window into the evolution of Western political correctness, I’m not going to get anything else out of finishing it. Well, unless you count being amused by how many types of wildlife they can gather in one scene that would never actually hang out together in their natural habitat. Lions and baboons and zebras and waterbuck”all residents of the savannah, but not drinking buddies. Well, anyway, if anyone out there has finished reading this post and still doesn’t feel like going back to work, feel free to Google the Maasai, specifically the Samburu subtribe, which is what the movie was about, and see what you can find about their traditions. Let me know what you learn.
There have been a number of violent incidents across the country since campaigning began for the constitutional referendum on November 21, usually following a rally for the wrong side. Ten people (or three if you ask the Kenyan media) were killed in Kisumu last weekend because there was a Yes (banana) rally there, and as you know, Kisumu is a strongly No (orange) town. There was an MP (Member of Parliament) whose SUV was set on fire in Kakamega, a mostly No town. The MP was campaigning for the Yes team. No one was injured but the message was clear.
Peace Corps volunteers have been banned from traveling to Kisumu this weekend because there is another rally planned for Sunday, and in general we’ve been advised not to travel anywhere for non”work related reasons. We’ve also been prohibited from leaving our sites the week of the referendum, which sucks because we were all planning to meet up somewhere for a nice American”style Thanksgiving. Now I’ll just have to find a really big chicken in my village and figure out how to roast it over a charcoal stove.
Anyway, my sense is that despite what you see on the state”controlled news here, most of the country is against the proposed constitution. If the No team wins on November 21, the country will smile, nod and go about its business. If the Yes team wins, I think there will be a bit of chaos to say the least, because Kenyans will assume the election was rigged or that bribes were offered to encourage Yes votes. And if there is chaos, I am guessing Peace Corps volunteers will be evacuated, which is a possibility too stressful to think about right now.
Well I went over to a friend’s house today and she invited me in for tea. For some reason in Kenya when you are spontaneously invited for dinner or tea, in most cases, your host will serve you and then stare at the TV ignoring you until you excuse yourself to go home. Maybe it’s their way of avoiding having to make awkward conversation with someone they don’t know very well. Anyway, this woman popped a movie into the VCR, and we spent the next hour-and-a-half watching “Sheena.” Now I don’t know how many people out there have ever heard of this movie; I definitely hadn’t. I wish I could at least tell you what year it was made, but the cover was just a shaky, illegible photocopy, indicating that it was probably a bootleg my friend bought in Chinatown. Uh, I mean, in Kisumu (which, in the context of street vendors, is just one big Chinatown, but with Luos screaming racist names at you because for some reason they think that will persuade you to buy their crappy knockoff stuff.) So it was either made in 1984 or 1964.
“Sheena” stars Tanya Roberts, one of the old Charlie’s Angels, which if I knew anything about American pop culture should tip me off to the year this movie was made, but since I’m pop culturally retarded, maybe someone can help me out by posting a comment. The storyline, as far as I can gather, is about Sheena, a blond chick who is orphaned as a little girl in the African bush, and brought up by a Maasai queen in Samburu, in northern Kenya. The queen can communicate telepathically with all the animals of the savannah, and passes this power on to her white daughter. Sheena grows up knowing only the ways of her adopted African land, but again inexplicably speaks English with an American accent and is the only person in her village who wears skimpy faux”suede hot pants and a tiny toga as opposed to the traditional full-length red robes of the Maasai. (Of course her wardrobe is not inexplicable, it’s just blatantly gratuitous.) And she rides a zebra and swings on vines, which, as far as I know, Kenyans have never done, not to mention the fact that I’m not aware of any viney trees on the savannah. But I could be wrong. And I’m convinced that zebra was actually just a white horse painted with black stripes
because horses are easier to ride than zebras.
Anyway, considering that the movie was made over 20 (or 40?) years ago, I won’t hold it to any reasonable standards of cultural sensitivity or accuracy, but I will have lots of fun making fun of it. Like the way the Maasai are portrayed as mono-syllabic savages who dance around chanting and waving spears and performing unexplained rituals like bringing a seemingly dead man buried up to his neck in the sand back to life. In truth the Maasai are the one tribe in Kenya that has gone to great lengths to preserve their traditions despite the pressures of colonial missionaries and modernization (and this has had both good and bad consequences, as they are the only tribe that still actively practices female circumcision, more accurately referred to by human rights groups as female genital mutilation, or FGM.) And even today they can be seen carrying spears and wearing traditional costumes. Maybe the reviving a dead man from the sand ritual is an actual Maasai practice, who knows. But the movie seems to intend to portray the Maasai as nothing but grunting warriors with backwards ways through the way it consistently refuses to explain anything, but rather seems to just present a bunch of black people dressed funny doing things most Westerners wouldn’t recognize. And of course the white “African” girl ends up with a kind of obnoxious, kind of dumb white guy who teaches her the “proper” ways of the whites, like the idea that mouths are not only for eating, but also for kissing.
Interestingly, the movie is also anachronistic in the way it portrays its African female characters. The Maasai queen was a strong and respected woman in her tribe, which seems really implausible in Kenya. Admittedly I don’t know much about the Maasai or their traditions (beyond the spears and FGM I just mentioned) but unless they are vastly different from every other tribe in Kenya, I don’t see how a woman could hold a position of status the way this queen was portrayed to have done. Also the female characters from Nairobi were strong, domineering types, the type of women Western men fantasize about -- confident and sexually liberated -- which I’ve never seen here, not even once (which is not to say that they don’t exist, especially in Nairobi, but even the ones that do exist are not brash and outspoken like this character, who appeared to be modeled after your choice of American pop diva.) One other scene sticks out in my head, where a Kenyan cop says to his subordinate (who is inexplicably white and not Kenyan, like many of the characters in the film), “I expect you to catch those people.” And the white dude (who is also much older than the Kenyan) says, “You will not be disappointed.” Or at least that’s the gist of their conversation. I have never, ever seen a Kenyan speak to a foreigner with such a tone of authority, and as I’ve mentioned in other posts, I ascribe this to a pretty universal inferiority complex that still lingers from colonial times. Most Kenyans, especially those in rural areas, don’t feel that it’s their place to tell a foreigner – whom they automatically believe to be more educated, to have more money, and not to be “backwards” – what to do.
What’s even more interesting than all this is the way my friend seemed to accept the movie without questioning its cultural accuracy, and I’m not sure whether to attribute that to an ability to suspend disbelief in the name of entertainment, or to a general lack of awareness of the subtle and not”so”subtle Western bigotry and arrogance contained in the movie. The answer is probably a little of both.
Anyway, I excused myself in the middle of the movie at about the time the bad guys burned down Sheena’s village. (My friend had also started breastfeeding her baby, which in Kenya is perfectly okay to do anytime, anywhere, in the presence of any company. I have seen more boobs on matatus and at markets than on any given day in the women’s locker room at the gym.) Part of me wants to go back and finish the movie to see what other outdated clichés and subtle racism emerges, and the other part of me knows that besides providing that interesting window into the evolution of Western political correctness, I’m not going to get anything else out of finishing it. Well, unless you count being amused by how many types of wildlife they can gather in one scene that would never actually hang out together in their natural habitat. Lions and baboons and zebras and waterbuck”all residents of the savannah, but not drinking buddies. Well, anyway, if anyone out there has finished reading this post and still doesn’t feel like going back to work, feel free to Google the Maasai, specifically the Samburu subtribe, which is what the movie was about, and see what you can find about their traditions. Let me know what you learn.
posted by Justina at 7:44 AM
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