Monday, March 29, 2010

Way up in the air.

In the midst of the blur that has been the last few weeks in Nairobi, I realized that I’ve failed to keep y’all in the loop. My b.



A few weeks ago, while we were still in Mombasa, a traditional medicine healer talked with us about her work and the relationship between traditional and Western medicine. This healer’s complete confidence in her medical techniques was amazing. Who knows if her ginger root actually did anything to reduce stress levels. It was her belief (and the belief of her patients) that brought legitimacy to her practices. Belief enables a reality of truth that is distinct from our Western double-blind study proof that we need to determine the truthfulness of anything. Say there’s a new drug developed in the US. For this drug to ever reach a human market, it must go through a series of rigorous tests and examinations that prove its potency. We need this rational process to determine the truthfulness of the drug.



This scientific basis to explain truth is one way to think rationally about medicine, technology, philosophy, etc. Yet I think we sometimes confine rational thought to this very narrow definition, thereby delegating any other thought as something other than rational. A friend of mine coined an idea that offers an alternative to this Western-style rational thought. He said there’s a distinct system of thought called cultural rationality. It’s the idea that rational thought can manifest itself through unique cultural perspectives. For example, the traditional medicine healer’s cultural experience regarding her work has, in her eyes, legitimized her practices as rational. I’m falling short of what I want to say, but basically I just want to be cognizant to other systems of thought that may be just as rational as my own Western idea of how to think logically.



Back in Nairobi, we flew through a week filled with a Kiswahili oral exam and development lectures by a mad smart agricultural economist. Though our goal was to touch on ALL of Kenyan development, academic tangents successfully inhibited this pursuit. Kenyan professors love tangents. I think it’s just a different teaching style. In the US, a university class usually stays very focused and on schedule. In Kenya, I need to treat our lectures as informal discussion and change my expectations if I want to learn anything.



We also had the opportunity to attend an International Monetary Fund panel discussion at the University of Nairobi. We listened as the Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, the IMF Managing Director, and a few reps from civil society discuss Kenya’s current economy and its future financial opportunities. Quite the interesting power dynamics at work. It appears that the IMF has moved away from its dreaded structural adjustment framework (read: conditionality, lack of ownership, one-size fits all) to a more acceptable approach to loans. Our professor believes that this change in policy is due to the influx of grant money and investment from China and India. This grant money is building a Kenyan infrastructure without trying to drive development this way or that. So the IMF member states have to change their ways if they want to compete. Serves ‘em right.



Trying to make good on my walking and talking dreams, I went back to the University of Nairobi a few days later to interview some students for a project. It was simply grand to just walk around campus and try to spark conversation with random people. I failed a few times, but talked with two political science students for a good 30 minutes before I realized I had to book it back home. I’ve realized that Kenya, and specifically the Nairobi metropolis, is the ‘real Africa’. It’s a place situated between the Western idea of modernism and the traditional way of life. It’s real and authentic, maybe more authentic than the exotic images we have of Africa as an endless savannah occupied by villages of simple peoples.



The following weekend, Luke, Mama and I trekked it out to Mama’s rural home in Siaya, Kenya. My Mama is originally from this area of Western Kenya, so on the way out there she was made for an excellent tour guide as she pointed out all the places she had lived, schools she had worked at, and stores she had shopped at. The drive was green and mountainous. So many fields of chai and bananas and other goodies. The weekend was spent cruzing around town on bada badas (bicycles) and meeting all sorts of relatives and friends. It was a marathon of epic proportions. Mama kinda treated us like small children, but we countered with a solid argument: We had been in Kenya for 2 months...so we were basically Kenyans. If you say this in Kiswahili it really drives the point home.


But let’s talk about the stars. In the words of Mama, “the stars are so near and so fresh.” That about sums it up. Luke and I sat out on some lawn chairs late into the night trying to figure out why one of the stars was blinking. We also had a sweet discussion one night that has continued and developed since we’ve returned from Siaya. It’s basically this:



1) The action of DOING has no inherent purpose. Its purpose is constructed by who and how you are.



2) Thus it is more crucial to decide who and how you are before you decide what you DO.



I consider this to be my most undeserving opportunity. I have the ability to decide who and how I am BEFORE I decide what I will do. In the US, we place way too much importance on the action of doing, which is not shared by the rest of the world. Having agency to decide who and how you are is a universal process. Most people in this world cannot decide what they do, but maybe we can all decide how and why we are regardless of what we are doing. In other words, it’s really your attitude that defines you rather than your career.



My ISP prep has been working me over. Getting access to Kakuma Refugee Camp is a truly bureaucratic experience. I’ve been all over carnation looking for the one person who says, “Yeah dude, you can live in the camp for a month, no problemo.” I want to explore the relationships that exist in regards to the right of freedom of expression for refugees. I would be so ecstatic to interview refugees and humanitarian relief workers about the importance of freedom of expression. I think it could be a challenge to my own views. I place a high value on the right to say what you want, but what if I come out of this experience with the perception that the majority of refugees don’t give a hoot about their right to say what they want? Maybe their ability to find the day’s food is so much more important. I’m optimistic about how it’s all going to turn out, but right now I feel like I’m in a hot air balloon. Everything’s just up in the air, way up in the air.



During some of my background research I checked out the differences between a ‘right’ and an ‘entitlement’. Entitlements are given to an individual by a governing body as a means to access rights. However positive these entitlements can be in our society, sometimes they can be detrimental to equal distribution. In Kenya, for example, the Kikuyu tribe has a distinct sense of entitlement. The resident anthropologist, Donna Pido, believes that this entitlement is the single greatest problem in Kenya. The Kikuyu tribe was central to the Mau Mau Revolution, a movement that acted as a catalyst for the fight for independence in the 1960s. Yet the Kikuyu’s fought for land, whereas the fight for independence was a broader struggle for a sense of identity as a nation. Over the years the Kikuyu tribe has blurred the difference between these two struggles, and thus rooted entitlement in their role as freedom fighters during the fight for independence.



This past week has been filled with academic rigor in the most pure sense. And it’s taken a toll on me. I sunk into an everyday routine. I was totally comfortable with my daily life. I didn’t even have to think during my walk to school. It was automatic. That’s something I never wanted to feel in Kenya because it’s a sign that I am not pushing myself to explore more or push myself out of my bubble. Though I was in school everyday this past week, I always had this urge to shrug off the academic work and go home. I can push my self intellectually when I’m at Colbs, but I can’t talk with my Kenyan host mother about abortion everyday.



During this automatic routine, I started to become tired of being seen as a dollar sign to so many Kenyans. If I enter into a conversation with someone and get a sense that they’re motives are financial, then I instinctively retreat and thus prohibit the conversation from reaching its full potential. But I’m trying to move beyond this attitude and engage someone in conversation regardless of his or her perceived motivations. A great façade for the money-mentality is the ‘exchange of ideas.’ Give it a shot sometime when you want to make a buck or two.



I am reminded of the color of my skin everyday, and it’s worn me down. But I don’t hold any anger or resentment towards this reception. It’s simply reality. A reality that so many people in our world deal with each and every day.



Hills have been my refuge. We’ve got a bunch of them outside the Kibera slums, and it’s so refreshing to jog up and down these hills in the late afternoon.



So here I am. Everything’s up in the air, and I’m okay with that. We’re in Arusha, Tanzania for the next week chilling with an exiled Black Panther in his mini-Utopia, checking out a crater filled with wildlife, and searching for some bushmen. Just your everyday tourist adventure. And the exiled Black Panther’s dog has some sweet dreads for a tail. Doesn’t get much more utopian than that.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Cooking up some Nonsense.

Mombasa is a bustling port city located in southeastern Kenya home to quite the salad bowl of Arab, Indian, and upcountry Kenyans. Throw in some amazing Arab spices, a bit of heat, and you’ve discovered the Swahili culture, a largely Islamic way of life very distinct from the overwhelming Christian presence in Nairobi. We only spent a night in Mombasa before shipping out to the small coastal village of Shirazi, but staying right on the coast in this fresh new place was to inviting to pass up. So a few us decided to take a walk around.


This idea of walking and talking is quickly becoming my most cherished pastime here in Kenya. My friend Luke is very good at striking up conversation with random people, and we’ve both decided that exploring Nairobi is where it’s at. We can often talk of street smarts and book smarts, but I think there is an altogether separate brilliance that comes from the ability to connect with people through conversation. I’ve found that my most interesting and exciting experiences have come out of walking around town and talking with people I meet. The formalized “cultural” experiences offered by my program can only go so far to paint reality. And besides, hearing stories from people is just dandy. It’s been hard to step out of my comfort zone though, especially when Kiswahili gets involved. Stepping off that ledge has been like jumping off a 100-foot cliff into a pool of orange jell-o. You’re at the top looking down and thinking, “that’s a long drop and what if that orange stuff is lava?” But then you jump, it’s awesome, and you can eat all the orange jell-o you want.


The night I spent in Mombasa helped foster this newfound idea. A few of us were down by the water talking and checking out the moon when we heard some laughter close by. Our jabbering had woken up a homeless dude who was sleeping on the pier. Rather than just say sorry and walk back to the hostel, my friend Luke started chatting with the dude. His name was Jerry. We spent a good hour sitting there by the water talking with him. Whether or not his stories were true didn’t matter, his optimistic and refreshing perspective was mad bomb diggity. He talked of travels to Panama hiding aboard a cargo ship and his struggle to live without a home or family in Mombasa. He talked and we listened.


The next day we drove the two hours south to Shirazi. We spent 9 days there living with different families, studying Kiswahili in the morning, and doing whatever in the afternoon. I lived with a baba and mama who were older and had some children living with families of their own. The eldest daughter was staying with us while she cared for her newborn son. A 6 year-old boy named Idriss also lived with us. Along with his crew of rugrats, we spent our afternoons throwing disc and trying to knock cashew nuts out of trees.


Just like the rest of the world, soccer was a big deal in Shirazi. A lot of the teenagers in our families played on the local team, and one evening I got to hop in the back of a big yellow truck with 40 players and superfans. We sped off at top speeds, dodging mango branches and piki-pikis (motorcycles) as we traveled to a nearby village for a game. Flying down the road hooting and hollering with a bunch of Kenyans was quite the grand ol’ time. By the time we reached the soccer pitch, the whole truck was singing the Remember the Titans rally song. Big intimidation factor.


Mission, let’s get to the kitchen. This became my goal in Shirazi because for me the kitchen represented a separation between the men and women of the family. There were times throughout the week when I got really frustrated with my host father because he would just sit around and do nothing while my host mama worked tirelessly. She worked so darn hard. All day, everyday. This seemed to be the family dynamic in many of the homes around town. And it really ticked me off at times. Idriss, Baba, and I even ate separately from the women of the house. I was determined to spend some time with my mama by helping cook. It usually resulted in my non-English speaking mama laughing at me while I fumbled about, but it was a way for me to break away from the distinct gender roles. If I had seen a woman tell her husband to make his own darn dinner one night, it probably would’ve given me as much satisfaction as dropping some sweet cliff in the Utah backcountry.


Besides the patriarchal system, there was some extreme chillaxing going on in this little village. The relaxed attitude in Shirazi was so polarized that it can only be described as extreme. I had a real hard time getting used to the fact that Shirazi folk (especially the men) spent a lot of time resting and that everything was SO much slower than anything I was used to. Before this I thought of myself as pretty relaxed, but compared to most peeps in Shirazi, I may just as well have been running around with an Epipen in my leg the whole time. Hammocks would be a hit there. The slow pace of life may be in part due to the amount of time it takes to do things in a place without many of the amenities we take for granted in the US. No available laundry machine? Alright, let’s spend the next 5 hours washing our clothes by hand. No easy-bake oven? Let’s spend an hour looking for firewood and then grill some fish. I experienced this a bit in Nairobi, but Shirazi really drove home the idea that for many the basic daily tasks of life become the focus of each and every day.


There was a lot of swimming in the mangrove forest-surrounded harbor and brushing my teeth under the stars. Dinner sometimes became a hazardous activity as I burned my fingers in stemming hot ugali (ground maize-staple along the coast) and then stabbed myself with fish spines. Yowzer. From my food pyramid perspective, my family in Shirazi did not eat very nutritiously. Maybe this was partly because they couldn’t afford all the veggies and fruits, but they also seemed to be making a decision to eat lots of meat and grains. This ugali stuff, for instance, has just about as much nutritional value as a toothpick. But people love it. I bet my family would say that they eat well, which makes me wonder if our accepted ideas of a nutritional diet are as universal as we think they are.


Maybe the nutritional value of a diet should be determined by what the goals of the day seem to be. I value foods that give me the energy to adequately perform the work of the day. Yet I also import foods like mad and screw up lots of people’s lives and home environments (indirectly) to get that banana and my daily dose of potassium. I may be called a Taker. I take the situation in my environment and mold it to fit my own needs or wants. My family living in Shirazi eats whatever fruit happens to be in season. Rather than alter their environment they adapt to fit into it. They could be called the Leavers. I think there needs to be much more overlap between the Takers and Leavers, and that they both have something to learn from each other.


We ate some saucy fish and tried to climb a baobob tree. And that’s a wrap on Shirazi.


We returned to Mombasa for 5 days of guest lectures, rooftop laundry washing, and more swimming. We had a fair amount of free time to do whatever, and the narrow streets of the Old Town area became a bit of playground while we were there. One afternoon it started to monsoon while a couple of us were walking amongst these narrow streets squished together by the overgrowth of homes and buildings. It was invigorating. If there had been a stampede of wild goats I would’ve been totally ready to sprint along.

The chai that I had every morning in Shirazi was top-notch, probably better than peanut butter in liquid form. Back in Mombasa, my friend Kags and I were determined to replicate the magic in a mug that was Shirazi chai. We wheeled and dealed for the numerous spices (cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, other good stuff) and bought some pure Kenyan tea in the spice market. We’ve yet to perfect the art of chai-making, but we’ll get there. All chaimasters start out making hot water with a hint of cinnamon flavor.


Since returning to Nairobi on Sunday I’ve been researching up the wazoo. It’s time to decide on an Independent Study Project idea. Basically, we’re given a month to pursue a research topic of our choice and then pump out a massive paper. You can do anything and go anywhere in Kenya. I’ve become very interested in the civil society working in Kenya, and specifically the ability of the press to coerce accountability and transparency within different power structures. Hopefully, I’ll be working with an independent press in Kakuma Refugee Camp for my project. It’s become apparent that the political class in Kenya is also the business class, which produces the corruption that is so rampant in Kenya. This corruption is a stark indicator of impunity within the government, but the lack of accountability extends beyond the national governing body.


In Kenya, development/aid projects are so intertwined with every aspect of life. From free lunch for students to television programs, foreign development organizations are pumping money into Kenya as if that’s just how it should be forever. To some, the whole development field can be seen as a parallel government with no accountability. Often development project managers are only truly accountable to themselves. The donors can be persuaded that everything is running smoothly and the people receiving help have no means to project their voice. Sometimes the only impetus to do ANY meaningful work is to get more funding. In the refugee camp, the independent press (http://kakuma.wordpress.com/) I’ve found has a very tense relationship with the UN and other NGOs running the camp. I want to explore why this is and explore how people living in the camp can have a stronger voice to keep the development agencies accountable to those they are trying to help. It’s still in the works, and getting permission to go to the camp takes a bit of grunt work, but hopefully it’ll work out.


Wherever you are in this green and blue place, I hope your time is beached as. Here’s a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ as you go on your way:


“If they’d nurtured and cared for human nonsense over the ages the way they did intelligence, it might have turned into something of special value.” -Yevgeny Zamyatin