I think I have actually adjusted to living here in beautiful Musamia. I am determined to start writing more often- but this is a little catch up blog-I promise in the future they'll be shorter and more frequent!
So I currently live in the Western Region of Kenya, in a small village called Musamia about 5 miles outside of small city called Kitale. Kitale sits smack in the middle of the breadbasket of Kenya, the produce grown here feeds the rest of the nation. I have never seen so much corn in my whole life. To say Kenya is lush is an understatement-its green in every way possible, I’m here during the rainy season and everything is growing rampantly all around me. There are deserts to my north and savannah to the South, but right here its forest and farm forever. I’m working with a small organization that teaches farmers how to institute organic and bio-intensive methods into their farming. Traditional African farming is organic, but the British instituted “conventional” farming across the country and Monsanto and others have put their heavy foot down here. The soil is terribly depleted from heavy chemical use, and people have started to feel the health effects of constant exposure to these chemicals. I am not a farmer, though living at Gaia Gardens and being surrounded by the sweet likes of JT, Kyla, Rachel, Robert, certainly helps. I love that nearly everyone I know in Atlanta likes to have a little soil under their nails. Since the organization is primarily an educational one I’m putting my background as a teacher and an Ed Director to good use, as well as some of the organizing skills I picked up on the Obama Campaign. I've been making multi-media teaching resources for them-(specifically for older women farmers who are not literate), developing a logo and more reporting documentation, and helping to format their strategic plan. To say I love the folks I work with is an understatement. From the first moment I met them I felt completely embraced by the sweetest people I’ve ever met. I am pretty sure it’s because the director of the organization is the most likable person on the planet, and has attracted a whole staff of similarly friendly, easy going, open-hearted people.
I stay in a relatively western home with one of the staff people from my organization, Lindah. The organization arranged for her to move out of her families compound and come live with me while I’m here because they were convinced that navigating Musamia and Kitale on my own would be an unrealistic expectation. Also Kitale shuts down at dark everyday around 6:30pm and it’s best to safely at home by then. The idea of being alone after 6pm every day would be pretty unbearable for me. I feel really lucky, I am pretty sure I am benefiting a little by being the first volunteer from the American Jewish World Service to be sent to this region, or to this organization. Future volunteers may be trusted to go at it more on their own. I love living with Linda, she's a great friend and has taught me so much about Swahili and Kenyan culture, and she's friends with nearly everyone in a 30 mile radius-so I meet other really great, interesting folks. A "relatively western" home means; I have running water, a somewhat unpredictable but hot shower, and electricity. My standard of living here is just a little simpler, but fairly similar to that of the Kenyan friends I’ve made in Nairobi or Mombasa. This house usually houses British teens here to teach at a local school. Some American volunteers in bigger cities live in really nice places that are meant specifically for “muzungus” –white folks- and have several amenities that I don’t, but there’s nothing like that here in Kitale. How I am living may be very similar to a Kenyan outside of a larger city, it’s far different than the majority in Kitale. Most of the people I know and work with in Kitale do not have electricity, though they may use things that look like car batteries to power some appliances in their homes. They do not have running water or indoor plumbing in their homes. They may have a well or a bore hole outside to obtain water. These are the homes of the middle class in Kitale, folks who have been to college and work good jobs. I haven’t truly been to the slums here so I can’t honestly speak to the difference, but its hard to imagine. There is no water or indoor plumbing at the office for my organization (or in the whole village of Kiminini where the office is). There should be electricity, but it hasn’t worked since the second day I arrived two months ago. After a few weeks of struggling to figure out how to work in the office they allowed me to work from home- since I need a computer for most of what I am doing, and my battery will last all of 45 minutes.
The kitchen in my house has a two burner gas range that we light with matches, no fridge or oven. Somehow despite this I am pretty sure I’ve made some of the best meals of my life here, partially because I cook 3 meals a day, I have someone here to enjoy my cooking, and making food comforts and relaxes me. Linda helps me navigate living here in so many ways that I pretty much have decided to take over the cooking in return. It's really exciting to introduce her to the crazy things I’ve learned to make over the years, there aren’t any other places to eat Iraqi, Hungarian, Polish, Japanese, Korean, or Ghanaian food in Kitale. She does make the most delicious chapatis nearly every week that just melt in your mouth. I’m determined to learn but I’m pretty sure there is a genetic divide between cooks and bakers, and I land firmly on the cooking side of the equation. I got sick from eating at a restaurant in Kitale on my third week, so I’m more cautious now. I learned not to call it food poisoning, because here that phrase mostly refers to intentionally putting poison in someone’s food with intent to kill them. I got some really strange looks from Kenyan friends when I would say “I’m sick, I have food poisoning.” I’m back (regrettably) to being a vegetarian except when I travel to major cities, and while I’ve loved tasting Swahili food in Mombasa and Nyama Choma in Nairobi, there isn’t much food in Kitale that would exzite me enough to want to eat out.
I intentionally wrote exzite. It’s one of my favorite Kenyaisms, Kenyans always pronounce ‘excite’ as ‘exzite’. Kenyans who have been through high school or more generally speak phenomenal English, with a heavy British influence. I tease my friends here that I’ve learned about as much about British culture living in Kenya as Kenyan culture. Kenyans have embraced British culture in a way that continues to surprise and rattle me. I still expect some hatred of the British, but it’s hard to find, something closer to adoration or respect is much more common. Kenyans are generally conservative, and idealize certain kinds of European propriety, and have often right wing views on Christianity, on issues of evolution, abortion, sexuality. At the same time elements of traditional culture are widely maintained when it comes to almost all life cycle rituals. I think part of the reason it has taken me so long to write is that I’ve been muddling through trying to understand the complexity of culture here, and the sometimes confusing and sad impact of colonialism. It’s still strange to hear Kenyans say that their culture has been ‘lost’. Many modern Kenyans express a type of distance from their own culture that you would normally expect from someone in the Diaspora, not someone living on the continent.
If you can trust Wikipedia, there were far more Whites living in Kenya during colonization then in Ghana, due to the temperate climate and resources, they believed it would become the next South Africa, and exuded pressure on it as such. There were around 30,000 White settlers in Kenya in the 1930’s. (There were only 20,000 in South Africa's first white colony.) Thanks to scorching heat, and the intensity of malaria, settlers never seriously considered West Africa home in those kinds of numbers. I realized this a long time ago, after living in Ghana and would say "if it weren't for malaria, the whole continent would have endured the treatment of South Africa.” But I never realized how close Kenya came.
Christianity has stamped out most of what younger Kenyans know about their traditional religion. I have yet to find a Kenyan who feels as if they can speak knowledgeably about traditional Kenyan religion. Some how there is an amazing divide between spiritual or religious practice which is overwhelmingly Christian and Muslim, (more Christian here in the west and more Muslim towards the coast) and traditional practice when it comes to life cycle rituals. Dowry here is not a joke. If my parents had any aspirations of owning cows and goats they could happily marry me off to even the most western of Kenyan men. Bride price is a bond between the husband and the wives family. You never really finish paying for your wife, to do so would be to end this relationship, so you pay slowly, over many years, adding more every time a child is born. It’s interesting to hear women here talk about it as a demonstration of respect between their partner and their parents. I’ve only heard one man talk of being baffled by his sisters being valued in numbers of cows. Supposedly I’m worth about 13 cows- a goat, a pair of boots, and some blankets, which I think is a lot.
I’m hesitant to write about what I’m learning here, I’m no expert, and without being here it’s hard to convey the full picture of life here. I would love feedback encouragement questions. I’m promise to write shorter and more frequent blogs from now on. Much love from the continent!
Shira
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