Irritable Vowels (And Consonants) Syndrome: Another Rant
Warning: This is an actual rant. Vitriolic bile included.
Dry Season Is Back, Give Me Money. Well, I don’t know if the sudden spike in people asking me for money actually has to do with dry season, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just one of those things that will never change, just as all those brain-dead idiots all across the country will never stop ching-chonging me.
(Incredibly, it is easier to get people to understand why it’s rude to beg me for money, or my laptop, or my chickens, than it is to get them to understand that “ching-chong” is not an actual Chinese word. And forget trying to explain why it’s mortally offensive to have it screamed at you by a grown-up, yet questionably intelligent, human being.)
The standard once-a-day beg from the regulars – the glue kids in my town, the crazy old lady with no teeth, the poor old gangrene man with stubs for legs who sits along the Nairobi-Uganda highway in Eldoret, the random drunk guy staggering down the road at nine in the morning – is something I’ve learned to tolerate, and laugh about.
It’s now funny to me that the same three glue kids always say the same thing everytime they see me:
“Chinese! Chakula! Nipe tano!” Chinese! Food! Give me five bob!
…even though I’ve never given them anything in the two years I’ve walked down that street, except for the 17 explanations about how my name isn’t “Chinese.” Apparently sniffing glue significantly reduces one’s short term memory, as well as one’s overall brain function.
But there’s something about experiencing the same pattern of so-called friendship literally dozens of times, with invariably the same result each time, that sucks out every last drop of trust and compassion for anyone but my closest friends.
The pattern goes like this:
1. Random stranger approaches me, acts all friendly, learns my name, what work I’m doing here, where I come from.
2. Random stranger, who now refers to him/herself as my friend, proceeds to suggest that we work together in the future.
3. Guaranteed, within the next two times we meet, I get hit up for money, or a job, or both.
4. I explain that I don’t have whatever it is that is being requested.
5. My new fake friend calls me a liar. “But you must have a job for me. You are a mzungu.”
If my new fake friend is really optimistic, he or she will ask again, the next time, or the time after that. “Hallo, Justina, my friend. Can you help me with one thousand shillings? I will return it straight away tomorrow.”
I mean, let me count all the different ways that statement is insulting, rude, and dishonest.
No, let me not waste my time.
Yes, let me waste my time. It will make me feel better.
1. I am not your friend. Friends don’t act all friendly towards anyone with white skin (I have argued and argued that I am brown, but my Kenyan friends – the real ones – insist I am white), and snub this same white skin the moment they realize there’s no money flying out of attached white hands.
2. Do you think that because my skin is “white” (light brownish) that a thousand shillings is nothing to me? That I have endless supplies of crispy thousand bob notes to pass out to all my fake friends? Did you miss class they day they taught the word “mjitoleaji”? Well, here’s the makeup lesson: IT MEANS VOLUTEER. I WORK FOR FREE.
3. You will not return it ever. Even if you won the lottery, you would not return it. Why do I say this? First, because I know you don’t actually consider me your friend (see #1). Second, because the following actual quote from a former – and might I add, corrupt – co-worker sums up a common sentiment among my fake friends: “Why do you care what I did with the money? It came from a mzungu. It is not our money, so why should we take care of it?”
Anyway, these are my fake friends. The ones who “borrowed” 200 shillings with the clear intention of never paying it back. The ones who borrowed my phone from 7pm every night until 8am the next morning to send idiotic love messages to their 15-year-old girlfriend, who was basically trading sex for money to travel home during school breaks. The ones who “borrowed” 1000 shillings to pay hospital bills for their sick wife, who was never really sick, and who never had a baby who supposedly died, which spurred another request for money to pay for funeral expenses. The ones who learned my name so that they could ask me for a job, any job, I’ll do anything, I don’t care, because I don’t have any skills but my family is starving because my husband is a good-for-nothing drunk. The ones who hung out with me so that they could ask me to set them up with one of my “white gal friends,” one who is just bursting with eagerness to find a Kenyan husband to bring back to America.
My fake friends are the ones who taught me the hard way that nothing productive comes out of indulging a request for money, or a job, or a visa to America.
And my real friends are the ones who suffer the consequences.
Because being asked for money by a real friend, someone whose sincerity and friendship I trust, is profoundly upsetting. It feels like a betrayal, and my first reaction is to want to end the friendship.
I got an sms last week from Nick saying that he had been promised a job and that he wanted me to give him 1600 shillings for documentation fees (driver’s license, etc.) I was in Kisumu for a meeting at the time, so I just ignored him. I was angry that he was asking me for money because it suddenly made our friendship seem like a lie, something he had cultivated just so he could milk me for money some day.
All this time I thought he knew better than to become the cliché that everyone else is. But just like all the people he regularly bad-mouths and looks down on for their ignorance towards white skin, when the time came and he needed money, who was the first person he turned to? Not his friend Justina. No, he turned to his mzungu, Justina.
When I got back to site, he called me. I was still fuming and didn’t want to talk to him, so I ignored his calls. I knew I would only explode at him if I talked to him at that point. Sixteen hundred shillings is a sizeable chunk of money for a freaking MJITOLEAJI, but it seemed as if my white (light brownish) skin had blinded my friend to this fact. I locked my gate, drew the curtains and bolted my door so it would look like I wasn’t home, in case Nick dropped by. Four hours later, I decided I was being an idiot, and went to the market to shop for dinner. Nick found me there.
I was calmer, but still annoyed. He made friendly small talk for a few minutes before saying what he had really come there to say, as if it were a mystery to either of us.
“Did you get my sms last week?” he began.
“I’m not going to give you money,” I blurted out. “Sixteen hundred is a lot of money, and I can’t give it to you. I’ve had too many people asking me for money, and they cheat me, and they lie, and I just can’t give anyone money anymore. Sorry. I’d like to help you but I can’t.”
Nick’s usually cheery face fell ever so slightly, only noticeable to me. “Okay,” he said bravely. “I understand. It’s okay.”
It was a devastating blow to him. I felt a huge sense of relief, and a deep sense of guilt that I hadn’t helped my friend when he needed help. And I felt livid anger towards all my fake friends who taught me what happens when I help people who ask for help. Nick wasn’t lying about what he needed the money for, or how much he needed. But I was tired – I am tired – of feeling a sense of obligation to help someone simply because I have more than they do.
I would rather sit with the immense guilt, and the uncomfortable tension that will hang between us for the next few weeks, than internalize the resentment and anger that always comes with “loaning” money that I know will never be repaid, and more importantly will never reap the returns that the borrower is hoping for, whether it’s a job, an income-generating project, or a visa to America.
Money doesn’t buy as much as people think in Kenya, where so many hopes are precariously buoyed, and dashed, by false promises.
There Is, Of Course, A Rational Explanation. Rich told me this story recently: Once upon a time there was a PCV who wrote a proposal for a project she wanted to start at her site. When the funding came through, she asked her supervisor, a Kenyan, to manage the funds for the project. He was an honest man, and she trusted him implicitly.
The supervisor told her, “If you give me the funds, I’m obligated to give the money away to anyone who asks for it. That’s the way it is in our culture. Please, ask someone else to handle the funds because I will not use them properly.”
It kind of makes you want to trust him even more, doesn’t it?
I think this story explains a lot about why Kenyans are constantly asking me to give them things. This is a collectivist culture. People are obligated to help others when asked, especially if it is obvious that they have something to give. If a neighbor sees that you have more than enough food in your shamba to feed your family today, he will assume that the excess is available for his own consumption.
Even today, Matthew (my chicken caretaker) saw my flourishing onion plants and said, “I will come and take some.” He didn’t say, “You have so many onions, is it okay if I take a few?”
He also told me that he had been helping himself to my onions while I was away last week, which was a bit irritating because he hadn’t asked if it was okay. Instead, there was this implied expectation that of course it was okay, because I have so many, and I wasn’t even around last week to eat my onions, so he might as well.
I think this is the same logic that makes it culturally acceptable to walk into anyone’s house and expect to be fed. It’s why people always make extra food in case they have visitors, and why it’s not considered rude when someone – or some five people – show up for dinner unannounced.
It’s also the logic behind the publicly-extolled, privately-despised practice immortalized in the Kenyan national motto, “Harambee.” A harambee is basically a fundraiser that you hold when you need a large sum of money for something big, like school fees or a wedding. You invite everyone you know, especially people who have money, designate a “Guest of Honor” (a euphemism for the person who is expected to give the most money), and throw a big party with food and sodas. In exchange, everyone who attends is expected to donate to the cause. It’s a good concept in theory, and goes back to this collectivist idea that you are never alone. Your family, your friends, your tribe, and your community will never abandon you in a time of need. People who are bound together, stick together.
But in this second most corrupt country in Africa, some people also use harambees to exploit the system. There is immense social pressure to attend a harambee and contribute money. If you don’t, the logic goes, no one will be there for you when you need help. So some people throw harambees just to make free money, and lie about a cause. That’s what the good pastor and con-artist Nelson tried to do, a few months before he made his great escape from my village with tens of thousands of shillings of his neighbors’ money. Fortunately for the harambee, he was a poor organizer, and attempted to throw it together two days before. No one showed up, because most people hadn’t even received their invitations yet.
Anyway, I do get worked up when people ask me for things. Even if I live here for 15 more years (please shoot me if I do) I will still get worked up every time someone begins a sentence with, “You give me…” And I will still blow steam out of my ears every time my real friends ask for money, and spend a day or two contemplating the best way to dump them as coldly and harshly as possible.
But having the understanding that the distinction between “mine” and “yours” is much more blurred here than it is in my own culture helps soften all those initial reactions. My real friends here have given me so much more than I could ever give them – things that are immeasurable because they’re intangible. Sometimes it feels unfair that I refuse, on principle, to give them money when they ask for it.
There’s no good answer to this conflict I have with myself, but it’s comforting to know that because they’re my real friends, they’re not keeping score.
April 16, 2007. I just got a letter from my beloved homestay family in Kitui asking for 28,000 shillings to install electricity.
They’re not keeping score.
They’re not keeping score.
They’re not keeping score.
Dry Season Is Back, Give Me Money. Well, I don’t know if the sudden spike in people asking me for money actually has to do with dry season, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just one of those things that will never change, just as all those brain-dead idiots all across the country will never stop ching-chonging me.
(Incredibly, it is easier to get people to understand why it’s rude to beg me for money, or my laptop, or my chickens, than it is to get them to understand that “ching-chong” is not an actual Chinese word. And forget trying to explain why it’s mortally offensive to have it screamed at you by a grown-up, yet questionably intelligent, human being.)
The standard once-a-day beg from the regulars – the glue kids in my town, the crazy old lady with no teeth, the poor old gangrene man with stubs for legs who sits along the Nairobi-Uganda highway in Eldoret, the random drunk guy staggering down the road at nine in the morning – is something I’ve learned to tolerate, and laugh about.
It’s now funny to me that the same three glue kids always say the same thing everytime they see me:
“Chinese! Chakula! Nipe tano!” Chinese! Food! Give me five bob!
…even though I’ve never given them anything in the two years I’ve walked down that street, except for the 17 explanations about how my name isn’t “Chinese.” Apparently sniffing glue significantly reduces one’s short term memory, as well as one’s overall brain function.
But there’s something about experiencing the same pattern of so-called friendship literally dozens of times, with invariably the same result each time, that sucks out every last drop of trust and compassion for anyone but my closest friends.
The pattern goes like this:
1. Random stranger approaches me, acts all friendly, learns my name, what work I’m doing here, where I come from.
2. Random stranger, who now refers to him/herself as my friend, proceeds to suggest that we work together in the future.
3. Guaranteed, within the next two times we meet, I get hit up for money, or a job, or both.
4. I explain that I don’t have whatever it is that is being requested.
5. My new fake friend calls me a liar. “But you must have a job for me. You are a mzungu.”
If my new fake friend is really optimistic, he or she will ask again, the next time, or the time after that. “Hallo, Justina, my friend. Can you help me with one thousand shillings? I will return it straight away tomorrow.”
I mean, let me count all the different ways that statement is insulting, rude, and dishonest.
No, let me not waste my time.
Yes, let me waste my time. It will make me feel better.
1. I am not your friend. Friends don’t act all friendly towards anyone with white skin (I have argued and argued that I am brown, but my Kenyan friends – the real ones – insist I am white), and snub this same white skin the moment they realize there’s no money flying out of attached white hands.
2. Do you think that because my skin is “white” (light brownish) that a thousand shillings is nothing to me? That I have endless supplies of crispy thousand bob notes to pass out to all my fake friends? Did you miss class they day they taught the word “mjitoleaji”? Well, here’s the makeup lesson: IT MEANS VOLUTEER. I WORK FOR FREE.
3. You will not return it ever. Even if you won the lottery, you would not return it. Why do I say this? First, because I know you don’t actually consider me your friend (see #1). Second, because the following actual quote from a former – and might I add, corrupt – co-worker sums up a common sentiment among my fake friends: “Why do you care what I did with the money? It came from a mzungu. It is not our money, so why should we take care of it?”
Anyway, these are my fake friends. The ones who “borrowed” 200 shillings with the clear intention of never paying it back. The ones who borrowed my phone from 7pm every night until 8am the next morning to send idiotic love messages to their 15-year-old girlfriend, who was basically trading sex for money to travel home during school breaks. The ones who “borrowed” 1000 shillings to pay hospital bills for their sick wife, who was never really sick, and who never had a baby who supposedly died, which spurred another request for money to pay for funeral expenses. The ones who learned my name so that they could ask me for a job, any job, I’ll do anything, I don’t care, because I don’t have any skills but my family is starving because my husband is a good-for-nothing drunk. The ones who hung out with me so that they could ask me to set them up with one of my “white gal friends,” one who is just bursting with eagerness to find a Kenyan husband to bring back to America.
My fake friends are the ones who taught me the hard way that nothing productive comes out of indulging a request for money, or a job, or a visa to America.
And my real friends are the ones who suffer the consequences.
Because being asked for money by a real friend, someone whose sincerity and friendship I trust, is profoundly upsetting. It feels like a betrayal, and my first reaction is to want to end the friendship.
I got an sms last week from Nick saying that he had been promised a job and that he wanted me to give him 1600 shillings for documentation fees (driver’s license, etc.) I was in Kisumu for a meeting at the time, so I just ignored him. I was angry that he was asking me for money because it suddenly made our friendship seem like a lie, something he had cultivated just so he could milk me for money some day.
All this time I thought he knew better than to become the cliché that everyone else is. But just like all the people he regularly bad-mouths and looks down on for their ignorance towards white skin, when the time came and he needed money, who was the first person he turned to? Not his friend Justina. No, he turned to his mzungu, Justina.
When I got back to site, he called me. I was still fuming and didn’t want to talk to him, so I ignored his calls. I knew I would only explode at him if I talked to him at that point. Sixteen hundred shillings is a sizeable chunk of money for a freaking MJITOLEAJI, but it seemed as if my white (light brownish) skin had blinded my friend to this fact. I locked my gate, drew the curtains and bolted my door so it would look like I wasn’t home, in case Nick dropped by. Four hours later, I decided I was being an idiot, and went to the market to shop for dinner. Nick found me there.
I was calmer, but still annoyed. He made friendly small talk for a few minutes before saying what he had really come there to say, as if it were a mystery to either of us.
“Did you get my sms last week?” he began.
“I’m not going to give you money,” I blurted out. “Sixteen hundred is a lot of money, and I can’t give it to you. I’ve had too many people asking me for money, and they cheat me, and they lie, and I just can’t give anyone money anymore. Sorry. I’d like to help you but I can’t.”
Nick’s usually cheery face fell ever so slightly, only noticeable to me. “Okay,” he said bravely. “I understand. It’s okay.”
It was a devastating blow to him. I felt a huge sense of relief, and a deep sense of guilt that I hadn’t helped my friend when he needed help. And I felt livid anger towards all my fake friends who taught me what happens when I help people who ask for help. Nick wasn’t lying about what he needed the money for, or how much he needed. But I was tired – I am tired – of feeling a sense of obligation to help someone simply because I have more than they do.
I would rather sit with the immense guilt, and the uncomfortable tension that will hang between us for the next few weeks, than internalize the resentment and anger that always comes with “loaning” money that I know will never be repaid, and more importantly will never reap the returns that the borrower is hoping for, whether it’s a job, an income-generating project, or a visa to America.
Money doesn’t buy as much as people think in Kenya, where so many hopes are precariously buoyed, and dashed, by false promises.
There Is, Of Course, A Rational Explanation. Rich told me this story recently: Once upon a time there was a PCV who wrote a proposal for a project she wanted to start at her site. When the funding came through, she asked her supervisor, a Kenyan, to manage the funds for the project. He was an honest man, and she trusted him implicitly.
The supervisor told her, “If you give me the funds, I’m obligated to give the money away to anyone who asks for it. That’s the way it is in our culture. Please, ask someone else to handle the funds because I will not use them properly.”
It kind of makes you want to trust him even more, doesn’t it?
I think this story explains a lot about why Kenyans are constantly asking me to give them things. This is a collectivist culture. People are obligated to help others when asked, especially if it is obvious that they have something to give. If a neighbor sees that you have more than enough food in your shamba to feed your family today, he will assume that the excess is available for his own consumption.
Even today, Matthew (my chicken caretaker) saw my flourishing onion plants and said, “I will come and take some.” He didn’t say, “You have so many onions, is it okay if I take a few?”
He also told me that he had been helping himself to my onions while I was away last week, which was a bit irritating because he hadn’t asked if it was okay. Instead, there was this implied expectation that of course it was okay, because I have so many, and I wasn’t even around last week to eat my onions, so he might as well.
I think this is the same logic that makes it culturally acceptable to walk into anyone’s house and expect to be fed. It’s why people always make extra food in case they have visitors, and why it’s not considered rude when someone – or some five people – show up for dinner unannounced.
It’s also the logic behind the publicly-extolled, privately-despised practice immortalized in the Kenyan national motto, “Harambee.” A harambee is basically a fundraiser that you hold when you need a large sum of money for something big, like school fees or a wedding. You invite everyone you know, especially people who have money, designate a “Guest of Honor” (a euphemism for the person who is expected to give the most money), and throw a big party with food and sodas. In exchange, everyone who attends is expected to donate to the cause. It’s a good concept in theory, and goes back to this collectivist idea that you are never alone. Your family, your friends, your tribe, and your community will never abandon you in a time of need. People who are bound together, stick together.
But in this second most corrupt country in Africa, some people also use harambees to exploit the system. There is immense social pressure to attend a harambee and contribute money. If you don’t, the logic goes, no one will be there for you when you need help. So some people throw harambees just to make free money, and lie about a cause. That’s what the good pastor and con-artist Nelson tried to do, a few months before he made his great escape from my village with tens of thousands of shillings of his neighbors’ money. Fortunately for the harambee, he was a poor organizer, and attempted to throw it together two days before. No one showed up, because most people hadn’t even received their invitations yet.
Anyway, I do get worked up when people ask me for things. Even if I live here for 15 more years (please shoot me if I do) I will still get worked up every time someone begins a sentence with, “You give me…” And I will still blow steam out of my ears every time my real friends ask for money, and spend a day or two contemplating the best way to dump them as coldly and harshly as possible.
But having the understanding that the distinction between “mine” and “yours” is much more blurred here than it is in my own culture helps soften all those initial reactions. My real friends here have given me so much more than I could ever give them – things that are immeasurable because they’re intangible. Sometimes it feels unfair that I refuse, on principle, to give them money when they ask for it.
There’s no good answer to this conflict I have with myself, but it’s comforting to know that because they’re my real friends, they’re not keeping score.
April 16, 2007. I just got a letter from my beloved homestay family in Kitui asking for 28,000 shillings to install electricity.
They’re not keeping score.
They’re not keeping score.
They’re not keeping score.
posted by Justina at 8:28 PM
2 Comments:
I stumbled onto your blog by accident and am glad! I am a RPCV/Kenya (2000-2003 in Deaf Ed) and just returned from my 2nd trip to Kenya. I met a few PCVs when I was in Kisumu and Rongo and felt sooo ancient considering it has been 7 years since I first arrived.
Justina, I totally sympathize with your angst about lending money to trustworthy (?) friends, etc. I was fortunate in a sense that my Kenyan colleagues at site did not really pester me for money...so when they did, I knew it was for a serious reason. One guy even borrowed 12,000ksh! It was my last year so I knew he was for real...true enough he paid me back right before I COS'ed. Your friend, Nick, seemed sincere. Other few times I gave anywhere from 200ksh to 2,000ksh and did not expect to be paid back....because in the larger scheme of things, it is small change. *shrug*
I was really careful about setting a precedent and stood firm on it(yes to small amts for weddings, funerals, harambees, etc. no to school fees, doctor visits, etc.) so it worked out for me. I hope you find a way to relieve this icky bobs request habit.
I'll be back to check up on you :)
glad to see your new posts! i can't imagine how stressful it must be to say "no" to your real friend and then feel bad about it. makes a lot of sense, though, to stick to your principles and avoid a situation where you'd be feeling resentment towards him.
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