I haven’t blogged in a while because well nothing really has seemed notable. It’s really been business as usual: collecting poop, driving around on the bike dodging baby goats and people, and hanging out at home. So these are mostly just my thoughts of late. Please forgive this non-linear, somewhat random ramble.
I have been more frustrated lately, a little bored with work I guess, and all of those Kenyan traits that are hilarious at first, but on an off day just drive me up the wall. In fact, let’s just make a little list of those quirkily little daily things (some that drive me nuts but) I definitely don’t want to forget, and often forget to mention.
1) Going into a store and not knowing if the 1 person in there owns the place or is a customer because they sit (not behind a counter) and don’t say anything to you. AND, it is very likely the owner has stepped out for a minute or 2 hours.
2) Customer service in general. People acting like you are ruining their day by asking them to do their job (like make a copy or answer the phone)
3) Busses coming at me head-on, assuming I will get off the road and let them have my lane since I’m just a motorcyclist.
4) Crossing another pedestrian on the sidewalk and hearing them say in a low voice “hello” or just “mzungu” right as you pass them, so you have no time to react or even clarify that they said anything
6) Men asking me for a job, or my personal favorite asking me for advice starting a business. Clearly because I’m white I am a business wiz.
7) People asking me to buy things they selling (sausages, men’s socks, candy…) and when I say I’m not interested, asking me just to give them money. “Ok. just promote me.”
Since freshman year of college, or maybe before then, I assumed once I graduated I would go to “Africa” and that it would click, it would feel right, and that I would basically never look back. Maybe I would spend just a few years or maybe I would settle in. But in my time here I’ve found this is not the case. I do not feel like Kenya is the place for me. I’m trying to let myself be ok with that. And, at the same time I’m working on being content where I am. Ok so this isn’t it for me. It is ok that I really hate some things here some days, but I need to not mope about it. My life is still wonderful. I have incredible opportunity and freedom. I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry to find that fit, that long term place that feels right. I’m here now and Naivasha is pretty incredible.
The other day I was frustrated; something hadn’t gone as planned and I was late. But driving the motorcycle down the road I with an amazing sunset before me I couldn’t help but smile. The country song “just another day in paradise” came to mind. So Naivasha isn’t where I want to spend the rest of my life, or even the next year, but without a doubt, it’s an amazing place.
Some things here are beyond quirky or a little frustrating. Sometimes it’s not small things. Sometimes it's pretty big things that make living here hard. There are reports that during the Westgate attack, the Kenyan army and police were drinking beer and looting the mall…during a 4 day hostage crisis! I can’t think of many things more disheartening. How can that happen? Closer to home, a woman I know in the village was recently attacked and raped in her home by someone she knows. She is poor and lives in a mud home. While her door was locked, the man simply had to make a small hole in the mud and unlock the door from the inside. I hear this and went to her home with Nancy to get something for her. I saw blood on the couch where she had been hit on the head with a paint tin. After seeing what I could do to help, I just went home and cried. How can this happen?! How can people do this to each other? What hope is there for a women like this, who works to support herself and her son, when she can be abused like this so easily. This is not a country thing, this is a humanity thing. Maybe I just need a thicker skin, but it really hit me. It has also relit something in me to do more. I sit and talk about caring about these issues, but when I not working in sanitation, I’m eating banana pancakes and catching up on Breaking bad. Why do I do that?
Don’t leave with the impression that it’s all bad. There are some good – plenty of great- things. On a positive note, I have the pleasure of almost daily interactions with an adorable boy named Paulo (below).
If I leave Africa without adopting a 2-4 year old boy, I will be thoroughly impressed with myself. And occasionally I see this cute girl, who is the daughter of a man I work with.
I have not gotten involved with the local human rights group (yet) but I have been playing soccer semi-regularly both in the village and at a school where my Swahili tutor works, which has been wonderful. I also have some wonderful friends in Nairobi. While I don’t get to see them all the time, last weekend I spent in Nairobi doing everything from playing (dominating) Yatzee to petting/riding/eating ostriches.
Sometimes I forget how blessed and strange my life is. And then I remember.
And just to even things out, let me leave you with a list of hilarious and entertaining things that I never find time to write about, but I hope never to forget:
1) Listing to Dolly Parton, Seal, and Michael Bolton in any café at lunch.
2) The looks I get when I drive a Kenyan on the motorcycle. A complete role reversal.
3) Posters of Asian babies in tons of homes with cliché sayings like “Happiness isn’t yours until you give it away”. Never black babies.
4) Babies wrapped in 3 blankets, a sweater, and a hood (independent of a sweater or sweatshirt) in 80 degree F weather
5) An old grandma wearing a 50 Cent t-shirt while she collects firewood
6) Men in jeans that I think I bought at Limited Too when I was 11.
7) Matatu names such as “Farty shots” “Hotter than July (July is winter here), and “the jolly escort”
8) The fact that you may need to specifically ask for working seatbelts and a rearview mirror when you rent a car because, why would those come standard.
