A funky time of flux and running pumbas

Alrighty, sorry about lagging on the blog deal. But I’ve got an excuse or two, so Hillbill, just wait and see.

Since my last post, a part of my life can be defined in a sentence or two. I wrote. And then I wrote some more. In the last week of our Independent Study Project period (May 2-May 8), I spent the better part of each day perusing interview notes, reading journal articles, conducting follow-up interviews, and attempting to organize my thoughts about community and social media. Writing this paper was unlike any paper back at Colbs because my audience wasn’t just a lone professor. I was writing this paper for a number of individuals and organizations that may actually gain something from my writing. It was the sort of pressure that made me scrutinize every sentence, but I enjoyed it. Media space/journalism has become an increasingly tempting future I may want to explore. I learned a lot from this project and I felt that I was contributing to something more than a grade or my own writing skills. At times my project became a bit intellectual, almost stepping away from what’s actually happening in reality to a theoretical fantasy world. But that fantasy world was also exciting because I began to understand the possibilities for media in Kenya, and they are bordering revolutionary. I keep coming back to a phrase coined by a sally bro I know. Jacobo Marty once said, “The realization of possibility nourishes life.” It’s a lot of blah, but if you’d like to take a gander on some rainy day just let me know and I’ll email ya a copy of my final paper.

Living with my homestay family and becoming more a part of the community around me added so much to my project and my last month in Nairobi. I now appreciate the series of unfortunate events that prohibited me from going to the refugee camp and I would not have wanted it any other way. Throughout the semester I was a bit frustrated by all our traveling around Kenya and Tanzania. On one hand it’s mad cool to move around and foster a wider world perspective, but on the other hand Nairobi and my homestay digs were already a place so different from my home that I just wanted to spend as much time there as possible. The first two months of this semester represented a time in which I could only understand (and thus become a part of) a certain degree of life here, culture and all. There was some barrier I would always hit, something that inhibited me from truly understanding what was going on. Most often I think that barrier was all in my head.

This may sound a bit negative, but it’s what I’ve felt and I’m just going to let it flow. For a while, I felt as if I could explain everything. Political corruption? Ah, that just has something to do with who Kenya’s leaders are accountable to and the sense of entitlement amongst the political elite. The dude walking around in full Maasai get-up? He just wants to make some bills. After a couple of months, I thought I had grasped the whole picture of the general Kenyan culture and how that culture influences daily life. Yeah, it’s a weighty statement, one that I was pissed at myself for even thinking. Maybe part of this view comes out of the fact that where I was living in an urban metropolis, so many Kenyans have no time to build upon the existing culture because their days are consumed by the basic necessities of life. There’s literally no time to even think about something outside the daily tasks. But this past month has given me glimpses of something more. I’ve realized that part of living somewhere away from home involves patience amidst whatever it is you’re experiencing. In order for the pull of home and the foreignness of the unknown to fade, there’s got to be a whole lotta patience in the mix. There needs to be a patience to see what’s not at first apparent. It’s all about the layers.

My past month has also been defined by transition. After everybody was done writing, the whole group trekked it out to a swanky beach resort in the coastal town of Malindi to wrap up the program. We went a bit mzungu chzi chzi (crazy tourist) with the three swimming pools, buffets, and outrageously large beds. Each student also presented his or her ISP topic. Back in Nairobi it was time for peeps to head off in all directions. In an effort to see more and experience things much different than what I know, I’ve necessarily chosen to be in a constant state of flux. So many people move in and out of the mix with these transitions, and this time the flux kinda got to me. One day in particular threw me into a bit of a funk. On this day I had to say goodbye to a dear homeslice by the name of Kags. Not fun. Then I joined my friend Erinn’s American family as they walked and talked around part of Kibera. We spent awhile in the hills just outside the slums where I had run countless times before. As we were walking on the narrow trail towards the slums, five finely dressed men tried to mug us. All in all they were crummy thieves and didn’t have any weapons, so they only got away with a broken camera case with no camera. The whole deal lasted all of 10 seconds and started with Erinn mightily yelling at the first man who grabbed her arm. Erinn’s mother got pushed to the ground but held fast to her camera. Right after, we kinda bolted into the slums and onto a main road, quickly walking back towards Ayany. As we were walking on the main road, a great many people were telling us that they were very sorry for what had happened. From this part of the slums, anyone outside could see our little incident unfold on the hill. Afterwards, I had to say a quick goodbye to Erinn, a sal who also became a very close homeslice.

It was about the time when I got back to my homestay that this funk sorta settled in. Part of it came from what had just occurred. It wasn’t so much the act of getting mugged that shook me up, but the fact that we had been mugged in a place that I frequented so often this past spring. As a mzungu group of five with a few cameras, we were prime meat for thieves. That situation would never have arisen if Erinn or I had been on our own in those hills. So I was bummed for helping create the conditions that led to some people taking such strong and violent action to make a few bucks. But even more than that, the reaction of the Kibera residents hit me as an unfortunate response to unequal circumstances of existence. To me, people saying sorry as we walked through on the road meant that they were ashamed of the stereotypes of Kibera and how those stereotypes are perpetuated by incidents such as this. It was almost as if to say; “We’re sorry, that isn’t what it’s like to live here. Kibera is not THAT.”

The other part of the funk came from these two best buds heading out. As I walked through Ayany later that afternoon, I realized just how much a part of my Kenyan experience Erinn, Kags, and a few others had become. These are the sallys I had adventured with and contemplated with and found mad tasty homemade peanut butter with. Without them, it felt as though I were at Colby after finals when everyone else had dipped out. It’s an eerie feeling and one that has the potential to drive a person crazy. I think I approached this semester as a very independent experience, one that I was determined not to be too mzunguish about. But I’ve found that I’m not as independent as I thought I was, and maybe that’s a good thing. Without these folks, my time in Kenya would not have been a period I look back upon with such joy and nostalgia.

Amidst this funk, I scrambled out to Hell’s Gate National Park for a couple of days with a friend who was still around. We rented bikes and saw lots of running warthog (pumba) butts, fearless zebras, and an unknown varmint with big teeth that chased us away from a primo snack spot.

A few days after the program, the Perkins family came out to visit. We explored Nairobi, visited Amboseli National Park, and chilled on the island of Zanzibar, which is definitely not a chilly place. Right now I just want to post this so y’all don’t think I’ve gone AWOL, but I’ll talk about this family trip and Uganda a bit in my next blog, which will be much timelier than this one. Oh yeah, I’ve made it to Kampala and found the fabulous Petie Pabs. It’s my third day here and I just started my internship with the Uganda Debt Network, but more on this later.

Enjoy the summertime steez for those of you back home. And, as always, I’d be tickled to hear about your hooliganisms and adventures, even if it’s just a story of a seemingly uneventful day.