Playing With Technology in the USA

Okay so I've just rediscovered the Blogger feature where you can post photos. Whee! I'm going to go a bit nuts here, so bear with me. Check old posts for new pictures, too.


Typical moody countryside after rain.



I found this chameleon in my yard one day and decided to try to make it turn unnatural colors, like the shade of this folder.



My living room.



Every few months someone brings a camel to town and tries to sell rides.



Another volunteer and I tried to make tofu. We put the curds in an American-flag bandana and hung them to drain on a clothesline made of an old electrical cord. His neighbor was like, "Why do you disrespect your country's flag?" What greater display of Mom-and-apple-pie respect is there than soybeans?

Home for a Holiday Visit

Frankfurt Airport. I’m writing on a napkin. None of the shops here sell notepads. They sell plenty of perfume and booze, though. Not that I have any euros on me. I’m only carrying Kenyan shillings, which sounds really quaint and irrelevant from here. The developed world hasn’t been as much of a shock as I expected yet, except for winter. The weather report on the plane said temps here would be 23 degrees F and, well, they are. I’m freezing my ass off. I didn’t bring any warm clothes. I’m keeping myself warm with my inflatable neck pillow. There’s this huge Christmas light display here, festive and tasteful, and I’m probably the only person who isn’t completely numbed to Christmas lights. Me, and the Japanese guy snapping photos of it like mad.

I’m already noticing ways that I’ve adapted to Kenyan village life. Despite my last post, I’ve forgotten how to queue. I keep catching myself rushing forward to fill any empty space closer to the front of the line, and edging closer to the person in front of me to prevent any determined mamas from cutting in line. When I got on the plane in Nairobi my first observation was, “Everyone is white.” We were going to Johannesburg so I guess that made sense. And I’ve forgotten that not everyone lives on the equator because it’s 7:30am and still pitch black outside.

I know I'm in the west because: No one has ching-chonged me yet, and there’s a 100 percent chance no one will in the next three weeks. People are mostly odorless. No one stares. No one peers over my shoulder at whatever I’m doing (although I caught myself doing that to someone on the plane).

In Nairobi I asked a security guard, “Where is the South African Airways counter?” He pointed and said, “There.” I said, “Where?” He said, “There.” I said, “Where?” He said, “Just there.” I said, “Where?” He said, “You are not seeing?” NO, OBVIOUSLY NOT.

In Frankfurt I asked a guy at the information desk, “Where is the United Airlines terminal?” He pointed and said, “See the blue sign above the counter? You’ll go there and check in at 9 am. They’ll tell you which gate to go to.” Ah, communication.

Washington Dulles Airport, 3:45pm, EST. Well, it was only an 8.5 hour flight but it felt like forever, probably because I didn’t sleep. They managed to lose my bag, too. Merry Christmas, everyone. Your gifts are still in Germany. Or South Africa. Or Kenya.

As we were taxiing to the terminal after landing in DC, I caught a glimpse of an American flag flying somewhere on the tarmac. I realized it’s been 19 months since I’ve set foot in the U.S. The flight attendant said, “To all our passengers, welcome to the United States. And to our returning citizens, welcome home,” and I lost it. Big hot tears rolled into my lap, and the German girl in the seat next to me scowled and edged away. The guy at the customs counter said the same thing. “Welcome home.” Is it standard protocol or did they recognize the look of a battered American returning from the front lines of rural Africa? Maybe that’s too dramatic. But I’ve imagined this feeling for the last few months, although I forgot to imagine the Borders and Starbucks that I saw as soon as I stepped off the plane. American consumerism doesn’t disappoint.

Everyone has a giant phone now. Do they show movies or something?

My friend Zadok just immigrated to the U.S. He is marrying a Peace Corps volunteer who finished her service last year. I went to his going away party in my village. I met his family, visited his home and saw what he was about to leave behind. I was envious that he was going to America forever (Kenyans say people who immigrate to the U.S. never return to Kenya) and I was only going for a three week holiday, but I didn’t envy the isolation, the longing for the familiar and the frustration with cultural oddities that he’s about to experience. America may seem at first to be closer to heaven for many immigrants, but moving to another country always ends up feeling farther from home no matter how many people say the streets are paved in gold.

Addendum, Dec 22: I got an email from Zadok today saying he is great and having the time of his life with his fiancee and her family. Karibu Merikani! :)

A Matatu Story With a Happy Ending

Schools are having their graduation ceremonies and everyone is going home for the holidays. Traveling by matatu today was a nightmare. I was at the stage in Eldoret this afternoon, trying to find a vehicle back to my town. So were 150 other people vying for 14 seats. (In reality, they were vying for about 25 “seats” – empty space inside a matatu that you can cram a person into.)

Everytime a matatu pulled up, there was a mad rush of people pushing each other out of the way so they could board. Kenyans don’t queue. And no one takes it personally if someone else pushes them out of the way and snatches a seat.

As many times as I’ve seen this scene, it still annoyed me. There were at least five touts whose job it was to load people into vehicles in some sort of organized way, but they were all standing around doing nothing while passengers stampeded into the matatu like crazed bovine.

“DOESN’T ANYONE KNOW HOW TO QUEUE?” I said loudly, to no one in particular. Complaining loudly to no one in particular has become my main coping mechanism for idiocy and chaos. “YOU CAN’T JUST PUSH PEOPLE OUT OF THE WAY WHEN THEY’VE BEEN WAITING LONGER THAN YOU. AND WHY AREN’T THESE TOUTS DOING THEIR JOBS? THEY SHOULD BE TELLING PEOPLE TO QUEUE.”

“It’s true,” a man next to me said. “That’s the way it should be.” I hadn’t noticed him before, but he was standing there, watching people crush each other in the doorway of the matatu. He looked like he wanted to board, but wasn’t up for shoving and throwing elbows.

I was slightly surprised by his reaction. Kenyans usually just laugh or ignore me completely when I complain. I felt encouraged by his support, so I grabbed one of the touts by the arm and repeated, “Why don’t you tell people to queue? Isn’t that your job? You can’t have everyone trying to crowd onto the matatu at once.”

The tout just gave me a blank stare. He didn’t understand English. The man next to me quickly translated, and the tout responded the way most touts respond to suggestions from passengers – he turned his back on us and walked away. I started to think of things to say for my next round of loud complaining to no one in particular.

I didn’t have to. The tout must have taken our advice because people were slowly beginning to queue. It was a small miracle. I’ve only seen Kenyans queue up for matatus in Nairobi, and even then only for about three different routes (out of hundreds). I followed the man next to me to the back of the line, which already had 20 people in it. A minute later it stretched halfway down the block. And we were the only route whose passengers were waiting in line. None of the other routes seemed to notice or care that suddenly there was efficiency in their midst, and that maybe they could learn from it.

I was just impressed that someone had listened to me. People were boarding the matatu without pushing or otherwise trying to hurt each other, and the touts were even making sure no one was trying to cut to the front of the line. It made me want to say I told you so, but I couldn’t think of how to say it in Swahili.

Ona, nilikuambia hivyo.

Finally A Quiet Moment To Dish

World AIDS Day 2006. Well, we pulled it off successfully, sort of. The boda-bodas got to race, we registered 35 people to participate in an HIV workshop (pending funding), they got awesome prizes, free food and water, and bragging rights. In reality, we took a bunch of shortcuts so that to the public it looked organized. To give you a little sampling of the bigger frustration, the district coordinating body didn’t announce the venue until four days before the event. FOUR DAYS. My co-workers weren’t kidding about last minute “planning” skills of local leaders, although they left out the part about the finger-pointing and refusal to accept responsibility for failure...and curiously enough, the simultaneous eagerness to take credit for someone else’s work.

Eric, Neetha and Adrienne came to my site to help out with race-day logisitics. We passed out World AIDS Day stickers, caps and flags, water, biscuits and bread; numbered the racers, registered last-minute entrants, and motored through town as part of the parade. Students from a nearby university, which was hosting the main event, marched with banners and flags, and wore yellow t-shirts that said, “I Care To Know My HIV Status. Do You?” A matatu tout ran up to us as we were riding in our vehicle and said, “Let me ask you just one question. Those students marching, do they have AIDS? Because some of them are so beautiful, I hope not.”

Adrienne and I had ridden the route on our Peace Corps-issue mountain bikes a few days earlier to mark checkpoints and get a sense for how long the race would take. We stopped several times for pouring rain, food and water, and it took us six hours to complete the 54 km route. The boda-bodas completed the route in just over two hours on their clunky fake-Chinese bikes like the ones you see to the left.

There were the usual speeches, poems and skits, as well as a prize-giving ceremony for the racers, who had stuffed themselves full of bread, biscuits and glucose powder. That stuff is fascinating. Glucose is given to people when they’re sick, to kids as a snack during school, and as sustenance during strenuous activity. The best part is that you just pour a small mound into the palm of your hand and lick it clean, so after awhile all the boda-bodas had white powder all over their mouths and noses. It did NOT resemble a coke-snorting convention. Hehe.

Thanksgiving Day 2006. It is a Peace Corps tradition to match volunteers to American ex-pat host families for Thanksgiving each year. I spent Thanksgiving with a couple who works for a U.S. government agency in Nairobi, and allow me to make a note to myself for future reference: Foreign Service Officer = cushy lifestyle. The husband served in the Peace Corps several decades ago, and the wife has lived and worked all over the world. They invited me and two other volunteers into their cavernous home in the suburbs of Nairobi. It’s a 100 percent American house, with Kenyan flare – two giant, friendly dogs, a giant refrigerator, a giant washer and dryer, giant fluffy towels that smell like dryer sheets, flushing toilets, hot water, bathtubs, housekeeper and housekeeper quarters, satellite TV, soon-to-arrive wireless internet, landscaped gardens, two series of gates and guards, U.S. government-issue Land Rover, elaborate security system, marble fireplace, wood floors…oh, God, stop me now. Anyway, an oasis of American comfort (uh, luxury) in a developing country, and I didn’t even feel guilty being there. I’ve definitely been in the village too long. Thank God I’m going home to get a good dose of vulgar American consumerism and gluttony to make me appreciate the simplicity of Kenyan village life.

But I digress. Thanksgiving dinner was the works: a 20-lb turkey, mushroom gravy (real mushrooms!), autumn vegetables, salad (oh loverly raw vegetables), another turkey breast marinated in beer, butternut squash soup, pie, pie, pie…and they are wine collectors so for the first time in Kenya I actually drank good wine.

It made my day. It made my week and month, too. It was a vacation to a familiar place I’d never been to before, with familiar people I’d never met before. It’s pretty amazing how in Kenya you can put a bunch of American strangers together who really don’t have that much in common, and we easily find so much in common. It’s true a lot of it comes from a consumer culture we share (“Cranberry sauce. Where are we going to find cranberry sauce?”) But a lot of it also comes from traditions we share, and from a very specific set of values that we’re not aware we share with each other until we live in a place like Kenya that is so different, and baffling, and challenging to all the beliefs we assumed were pretty universal. They’re not. We can’t understand why they’re not, because they seem so obviously right, and true, and best. But we can share that inability to understand with other American ex-pats, and it’s comforting…it’s a realization that even 20,000 (50,000?) miles from home, we’re not alone.

Has It Really Been Almost a Month Since My Last Post?

Spontanaeity is the Spice of Life. On any given day I could easily end up in a place I never even knew existed. Like today. I am attending a day-long seminar on the topic of Tribal Clashes: Why Communities Should Live in Harmony. The woman at my organization who was originally invited to attend couldn’t go, and neither could her replacement. So at the last minute they sent the low lady on the totem pole – me.

Now I’m not convinced that I’m even an appropriate attendee for this seminar, since its objective is to engage members of various tribes in north Rift Valley in a discussion of how to co-exist peacefully. Not that I’m complaining. I get to be a fly on the wall while Kenyans debate and air all their grievances about their culture, their police, their local administration and their government. It’s not often that I would get to sit among such a large group of vocal, articulate Kenyans sharing their thoughts on an issue that frustrates them even more than it frustrates me – tribalism. Also I get to practice my Kiswahili comprehension skills. Current level: every other word makes sense.

Other Stuff I’ve Been Doing. I spent Thanksgiving with an American family in Nairobi. Adrienne and I miraculously pulled off a successful and widely gossiped-about World AIDS Day boda-boda race with the help of my wonderful organization and some other intrepid PCVs. I went to Iten to help Amber with a small-scale version of Camp GLOW in her community. I’m currently harboring a Peace Corps refugee named Adrienne (same as above) who has been driven out of her community by nervous, power-crazed nuns, until her new site fixes up her house. And I hired my friend Nicholas to teach me Kiswahili, because I’m way too lazy to practice on my own. He is a Luhya, which according to the Kenyan stereotype means he speaks decent Kiswahili, unlike the Nandis.