drinking tea and roasting maize

I have a confession to make. I've been corresponding with some friends and neglecting this blog.

Here are some excerpts from some emails...I'm feeling them more than ever now. I don't want to leave in 8 days! I remarked to Diana yesterday (friend from Dartmouth) that I can't remember ever being this conent, in life, in general. Something about being so deeply connected to the earth, the people around me, the struggle and beauty in existence. It's a connection that's easily suffocated in the States. And before you go thinking, "yeah, it'd be nice to live the simple life," let me tell you this connection has little to do with simpleness. There's nothing simple about surviving the way these people survive. What allows me to be content is not the lack of injustice, but working to end it with people who have no choice.
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The more people I meet, the more I realize that to an extent, people are more or less the same everywhere. There are people who are taking advantage of other people; there are people who are honest and trying to do the right thing; there are people who are lazy and people who see themselves as victims no matter what the situation…folks in the slums are no different. Culturally, Africa’s roots to collective society are near and go deep—but they’ve taken quite a beating from colonization and capitalism (more on this in a sec). I point to the communal experience I find in the slums not to say that it’s ok, by any means, that slum dwellers are forced to live the way they live, but to say, first of all, these are real people, with real dreams and real capacity for living life to its fullest, and second of all, we should admire their sense of community and then ask ourselves: why is it we don’t experience that? What are we missing? And what if there is something intrinsic in the way we’re living that keeps us from experiencing that? What if there’s something about the way our lifestyles are steeped in the exploitation of our fellow humans that is antithetical to living in community? What if our need to categorize people based on their economic status springs from a desire to make up for something that we’re unable to provide for ourselves? What if the poor continue to exist because in our commodified state, we need people to pity, sympathize with, and give charity to, in order to make ourselves feel better about being rich and not being any happier than the poor are? These questions bring the injustice of the slums to our front doorsteps…and we now see how both their community and the injustice they experience are tied to our own lived experience.
[“We are all prostitutes, for in a world of grab and take, in a world built on a structure of inequality and injustice, in a world where some can eat while others can only toil, some can send their children to schools and others cannot, in a world where a prince, a monarch, a businessman can sit on billions while people starve or hit their heads against church walls for divine deliverance from hunger, yes, in a world where a man who has never set foot on this land can sit in a New York or London office and determine what I shall eat, read, think, do, only because he sits on a heap of billions taken from the world’s poor, in such a world, we are all prostituted. For as long as there’s a man in prison, I am also in prison: for as long as there is a man who goes hungry and without clothes, I am also hungry and without clothes.” (286, Petals of Blood, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o)]
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so are they happy? b/c it does seem miserable (conditions wise) but perhaps they are just happy inside - it seems like having a community has given them more to look for in life, a different set of values (not materialistic).
Hehehe happy inside…I like that. mmm…it is miserable indeed. These folks are most literally living from day to day, hand to mouth—for example, I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Mita today (generally I don’t eat lunch here, because the people I’m with can’t afford it—actually I was just thinking today about how easy it is now for me to go from 8am till 8pm without food or water or even bathroom sometimes. The hunger sort of sits with you, but it’s not gnawing hunger like when your metabolism is going. It’s like, I could always eat, but I don’t need to think about eating. Even seeing food doesn’t bother me. I’m just slightly weaker) oh my, I even forgot what I was talking about. OK, I was sharing a pb&j sandwich with Mita today and I mentioned, peanut butter isn’t so popular here, right? And he said yes, because there aren’t so many peanuts (peanuts are a big crop in West Africa). He continued, since it’s the kind of thing you have to buy at the store, you couldn’t buy it and keep it in your house—in a night everyone would come to eat it and it’d be gone. Eating is the stuff that’s easy to talk about…the beating, the drunkenness, raw sewage, police raids, thievery…these folks are living pretty tough lives. Stay with them long enough and the stories start to come…a woman’s hit by a matatu, arm and wrist a complete mess, ribs broken, blood everywhere, and her relatives miraculously find a way to get her to the hospital, where they are flat out denied treatment—not even basic first aid care—not for scum from the slums…a mother watches her son shot to death by policemen, for thievery…the mother works 12 hours a day as a house girl, the father died long ago, the boy was trying to feed his sisters…less than a month later, the same mother watches her other son beaten to death, his lifeless body shot up by police…
But they are also happy. It’s a kind of happiness that’s kind of hard to explain. It’s a kind of resilience that catches your breath. From yours and my positions, it doesn’t really make sense…but put yourself in their shoes, and really, what else could a human do? They sing, they dance, they chew khat and play football and tell stories to children and laugh, laugh, laugh—with their neighbors, at me, with good friends…being with these folks, who are pretty much always in a good mood, I’m always in a good mood too. And it sounds kind of lame, but it is true that when you don’t expect much to begin with, any progress is fantastic. The best example I can think of is electricity, which is constantly going out here. If the electricity goes out in the States, people get pissed. They lose a project and they’re SO angry they have to do it over. But in Kenya, you don’t sweat it. We even laugh about it. You pick yourself up and keep going…what else can you do? It’s a happiness that doesn’t justify their oppression…but lives in the moment, in today, because it’s what they have.
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I see no divine reason for this kind of suffering. I wake up to Tyrese’s tiny body, curled into mine, shaking from a bad bout of coughing. He’s had TB since he was born. I think, what if someday he gets sick and doesn’t get better? The fear that his life might be lost is real…it’s not all consuming, it’s just wrapped up in the pain of his current, unjust situation, and in the possibility that it could get even more unjust… In this moment, thinking of learning a lesson from Tyrese’s suffering (thinking of me learning, or of him being able to look back on the experience having learned) seems almost satanic. All I want in this moment is this moment—as Tyrese’s body shakes and I rub his stomach, neither the fear nor the pain are as important as the affection we share.
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I spent the night in Majengo with some friends from SIDAREC. Majengo is considered a kind of dangerous area; typically if wazungu (whites/Europeans; singular form is mzungu) come in they’re definitely gone by dark. I’m the center of attention no matter where I go; but this morning at 7am people were greeting me a little crazier than usual, and their greetings carried an air of genuine desire to extend friendship. At the toilets, the attendant didn’t even make me pay, and said with a big smile, ‘people can’t believe you’re here, that you spent the night—we thought the slums were only for black Africans like us. How did you find the toilet? (meaning how did you like it)’ When I replied that it wasn’t too shabby and I was glad it was there (many slums don’t have anything for miles), he asked me to marry him. I told him I had to think about it.
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creating beautiful life

At the risk of being incredibly boring, I’m going to share a few snapshots (if you will) of my time here. They take place on different days, but I put them in order from earliest in the day to latest…the variety and complexity of the experience of one day here is portrayed in these blurbs.
It's fantastic and I don't want to leave!!!! 3 more weeks... :-)

We’re sitting in traffic, I’m a half hour late and day dreaming, listening to the noises of the city. I hear this quick thud and the woman in front of me screams. I look out the window and I see his shoe first, lying in the curb…then down the sidewalk 10 yards, his body in a pool of blood. Everyone in the matatu (14 passenger van which=public transport) turns to the woman in front of me for the story…I gather from her Kiswahili that a motorcycle was cutting through traffic fast and hit this man as he was trying to cross the street.
I don’t have to speak their language to understand the moments of collective gasps, souls in suspension, mourning, praying, but simple understanding that shit like this happens. I’m surprised to realize it’s not the kind of thing you process in the moment. When it happens, it’s just another scene, like the thousands I see everyday—of children wading in open drainage or crawling through heaps of garbage…of the old man on our road who’s wandering drunk at 9:30am, even on Sunday…of the man with TB who stopped me in Mathare because he hoped I was a nurse…of the crippled woman and her child, who lie on the sidewalk of one of Nairobi’s busiest streets, holding a cup for change…--only this time, it’s probably not a near death scene, but a death scene. Suddenly I understand how murder is possible. When you face death like this, as long as you don’t let it seep into your consciousness, it’s just another scene.
It’s later, when you replay it in your mind a hundred times, when you close your eyes and you see his shoe, his body, that’s when you start to appreciate the value of life. When you start to ask why you’re the one sitting on this couch, sleeping in this bed, and he’s the one whose life ended faster than he could take a breath.

Dennis is an hour late picking me up—he explains he was strategizing with some youth on how he should represent them at today’s meeting with the Chief. Luckily the group waited for us, and shortly after arriving at the Chief’s office we’re escorted in to meet him. The meeting includes representatives from various community based organizations (CBOs) in Mukuru. Their main request is to get a certificate from the chief so they can be recognized as a consortium of Mukuru CBOs. One goal of the consortium is to get a matatu stop closer to Mukuru—the closest stop today is a 15 minute walk, dangerous by night. They’ve been told by matatu drivers that they must upgrade the last stretch of road first…an ideal project for constituency development funds, but their MP is one of the most corrupt, and he’s been sitting on the funds—not a penny spent to date. So they will decide if they should further push for the funds or pursue other options for funding. Dennis wants to be sure youth are involved in the process, and after the meeting briefs me on the recent politics in the area. He’s a veteran of the political process, and I admire his long-term commitment and am grateful for his expertise. Back in the gym at the SIDAREC community center, we lift some weights and talk gender, politics, life in general. He glows when he talks about the youth and how he and the other older youth try to help them realize their talents and potential. Later he comes walking across the yard with a 6-7 year old boy, holds him up to me and says, “I want you to meet my really good friend. My really really good friend.”

We’re drumming like crazy, and all these little kids, from age 1 to age 8 or 9, 40 or 50 of them, are sort of crowded around watching. 6 year old girls with babies on their backs, older siblings holding the hands of younger siblings and friends…Moving, running, pretty soon a few start dancing. These kids can dance like no little kids I’ve seen…runny noses and they couldn’t look cuter in their mismatched, torn sweaters and barefeet…and David says something in Kiswahili, and they all scamper to the far end of the room and stand still, in a group. He’s told those without shoes not to dance…because the uneven concrete rips up their feet.

Farida, receptionist from the SIDAREC main office, comes and introduces me to her two boys—ages 7 and 5, Valentine and Tyrese.
The children form a circle around Farida, David and I as Farida tries to teach me the dance steps. I’m a slow learner, but she’s patient. You have to dance a rhythm to understand it. Even in this completely informal setting, the relationship between the drummers and dancers is like the equilibrium of life. Life is created here, and as I watch David and Farida, I understand that we are all participants in its creation. We continue creating life, amidst the struggle, because creating life is what makes our survival not only possible, but beautiful.

As we walk through the settlement villages for hours, to see the tailor, the second-hand clothing market, the movie theatre, the restaurants (called hotels here), the recording studio, the city council’s community hall and boxing gym (where some of Kenya’s best boxers got their start), stopping to chat with a few folks on the way, David occasionally apologizes when men/boys sidetrack us by talking to me, or shaking my hand, or hugging me. I laugh and assure him it doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to explain how much I hate my white skin sometimes. It’s not a guilt thing—I don’t feel guilty for being white. I resent not the fact that it causes separation between me and the Kenyans, but the way in which it separates. I curse the legacy that has come before me…the parade of white people, given tours through the slums, rarely doing anything good because of it…more often bringing CBOs or NGOs that are too lofty to actually ask the people themselves what they need…or worse, bringing individuals who come for one or two meetings with local youth, proclaiming they want to work on a proposal for a grant, receiving the grant, and never returning with the money…
I long ago learned to embrace the chorus of “mzungu!”s (white foreigner) that follow me as an opportunity to sing back, “wakenya!” (Kenyans). David and I keep a count of the number of children who can follow up their “How are you?” with “Fine” when I answer “I’m fine, how are you?” (although sometimes their laughter is cuter when I reply in Kiswahili).
I smile and wonder if one way to change the minds of white casual racists (my new nickname for whites who don’t intend to be racist but don’t recognize their white privilege (this is all of us to an extent)) is to ship them to Kenya for a couple months. At least then they would be forced to see themselves as racialized human beings.

Christine, Dennis and Benard take me down the road for roasted goat’s meat. The hotel looks like it’s probably a pretty big hang out spot at night. She points to the parts of the goat we want and soon a waiter brings them on a big wooden cutting board, cuts them into pieces, and returns with a plate of ugali and a bowl for washing our hands. We dig in, a ball of ugali in one hand and chunks of meat and bones en route to mouths in the other. My jaw has never had such a work out—my favorite meal in the States, ribs, suddenly seems awfully juvenile. The talk soon turns to the morning’s meeting—we agree the Chief is a worthy one—and politics remains the topic of discussion for the rest of the meal.

I jog home to beat the darkness. It’s 7pm...I haven’t eaten anything since dinner the night before except peanut butter on a hot dog bun at 10:00am; I haven’t drunk anything except a sip of water on my way out of Jill’s apartment (where I’d spent the night after chilling w/her Friday evening). I’m too dusty to sit down, too exhausted to shower, I’ve carried the smell of the slums on my shirt and I think of when Lucy said that more than a few hours a day in the settlements makes you dizzy. I know it’s said with the most compassion, and frank understanding that we can’t just ‘exist’ anywhere. I acknowledge that I shouldn’t feel less of a person because a couple weeks in the slums wear me out. In fact it would be extraordinarily pretentious to not be worn out—because I am a perpetual visitor, and most of those I’m visiting would much prefer to be in my place than their own. By virtue of being in their place, however, they have gained skills and will for survival that I cannot fathom. I think about how there are different modes of existence and while there are no spaces I won’t be in, there are some spaces that I cannot dwell in long enough to be in deep community with their members (community, yes; deep community that comes as the result of shared experience, much harder). I decide that this thought captures the essence of most injustice in the world. Coming to terms with the fact that many more of the world’s people live in these spaces than live in the spaces that my mode of existence will allow me to live in only means I’m more saddened, and more in love with the people, than ever.

I suck some rice down—I could never get tired of this stuff—and some chunks of goat meat—by now it’s 3 weeks old and I alternate between chewing a piece for a minute, and swallowing the chunk whole. I show Margaret (the maid) how to make peanut butter banana sandwich toast by wrapping it in tinfoil and tossing it in the fire (yes, even Kenyans have fires in their fireplaces during the winter).

I read a few chapters of Petals of Blood by Kenya’s one famous author, who’s barely been back to Kenya since he was exiled in 1977 for this book, and whose wife was gang-raped the last time they were here, because Kenyans felt like their story was being told by someone who only thought he knew them…and today, for the first time, I catch a glimpse of how the Kenyans feel. His story isn’t false. The plot is a true plot for most Kenyans—one of exploitation, neocolonialism, and stolen lives. It’s just that when that’s the plot of your life, the plot isn’t as important as the details. The laughter, the singing, the dancing, the friends who are always around and easy to find, the children who smile and hold your hand, the football matches and the weight lifting competitions, the theater—the communal experience. These are the things that can be mentioned, but not made to be the entire stuff of a book. But when they’re what you have—when the ‘tradition’ of yesterday is a tantalizing memory and the tomorrow you dream about may or more likely may not come—they’re what matter.

We’re watching tv, and Eve, Lucy’s daughter, says something like, “but there are a lot of suicides, in America?” And I say yeah, especially among teens, though I’m not sure what the rate is, everyone knows someone…say I would guess it might be comparable to the rate here? She smiles and says, “No no, here it’s very rare. *laughs* People are happy here.”