Brave as a Kenyan

It takes an incredible level of courage to be a Kenyan. I think my mind has been trying to piece this together since I got here, and today watching children sing and dance at the most beautiful performance competition I have ever been to, something clicked. I can’t truly explain how vibrant and dynamic these children were, how absolutely engaged and alive. Kenyans fully understand star power, and a child who has charisma will shine brightly in the spot light. There were so many kids who had ten times the presence of any child actor on the Disney channel. It was an amazing collection of traditional folk performances, the first time I have really been able to see traditional dress, or songs and dances. It was like everything I thought Kenya was hiding somewhere for the last two months came out in full regalia. It was stunning. Somehow in all this I was also able to put together what seems like the most striking difference between Kenyans, and almost any culture I’ve been immersed in before. Kenyans value fearlessness in a way that is almost beyond comprehension. I would describe almost any Kenyan living here that I’ve gotten to know as brilliantly fearless, and most act as if this trait is simply second nature, effortless. Watching these kids perform today, many dancing with spears and shields, demonstrating power in a way that was both beautiful and overwhelming, I finally feel like it came together for me.

I think of myself as pretty tough, but nothing has ever tested me the way this country has. I have not lived a “safe” life, but I come from a country that values safety, that has lots of railings and seat belts, road signs and instructional videos. We are so cautious with our children; we want them to feel a sense of security that will lead to what we think of as a solid foundation. We keep them away from stoves and knives and lock them in little car seats when carrying them around. As adults we continue to protect our safety, with security systems and pension plans. It’s a life long process of protection. None of that exists here.

There are still remote communities (mostly Maasai) in Kenya today who get in trouble with the government because they send their young men out to kill a lion as a way to prove they are ready to join the community as an adult. And they do, kill lions, though some are significantly torn up in the process. It sounds completely cliché, but I’m thinking about it more in relationship to how a community views and values safety. Virtually every community here has some right of passage for boys, usually between the ages of 11-18, that involves them having some part of themselves removed, sometimes teeth, sometimes foreskin, with out anesthetic, and they are not allowed to cry or call out in the process. These kids are so tough, but they start being tough way before they get to that point. I was surprised to see a two year old show up at my house with a slingshot. I have a group of mostly 5-10 year olds who come by on weekends and draw wonderful pictures with my little box of art supplies. Almost all the boys carry a homemade slingshot, but when even the two year old, who barely even talk, showed up with one- somehow I got it. Childhood here is not a time for coddling and curtailing all dangerous activity, childhood is a time to groom someone for an incredibly difficult, demanding, and precarious life. I watched another toddler be given an open Swiss army knife to play with at a restaurant yesterday. Children are often expected to stand in moving vehicles in order to create an extra seat for an adult. Hardly anyone here ever uses seatbelts, some even hang on from the outside of the vehicle, on roads that are rotted through with potholes, in vehicles falling apart at the seams, and going almost twice the speed limit. I joked with my friends that I completely surpassed my threshold for fear and adrenaline the first month I was here. Now I’m unnaturally calm.

While you might say that there are elements of education that are needed, I think that there are also questions about values involved. What kind of people do you want your children to become? How do you properly prepare someone for the realities of the world in which they live? Being over-protective of children here might set them up to be vulnerable in a way that could be far more dangerous and detrimental in the long run. There is also a significant difference in the culture of the cities in Kenya and those of the villages, each with their own risks. Children here come from cultures that expect them to grow up and work hard, to be warriors in one way or another, to hustle, to parent large families, to not complain, to survive, to endure. I have actually also never been in a place where parents love their children more. The kind of immense unabashed pride that comes over the faces of fathers here when their children come into the room is something I honestly do not ever think I’ve seen before. I have seen all of the men in my office with their children, and I have never seen fathers so bursting with love and pride for their kids. They are so proud of how intelligent, beautiful, and strong their children are. Some of them are just middle aged fathers, but they have already lost a child. There are so many different kinds of dangers for kids here. So many parents have lost a child to illness or accident. How do you create resilience and awareness in a child while also guarding their safety? It makes me think of stories of people who join the police force or army, who are tear-gassed during their training. How do we give our children the experiences they need to survive, to be unafraid, to embrace risk and move forward despite it. There is a Swahili saying that says: mtoto akililia wembe mpe when a baby cries over a blade-give it to him. The child will either learn of its dangers or learn how to wield it, but sheltering him is not an option.

I have developed a type of fearlessness here. The first month I was exhausted by it, but now I barely bat an eye at experiences that once shot adrenaline straight into my blood stream. It is a surprisingly hard call for me. My logical brain says- I would never intentionally put a child in a situation that required them to be so brave, to absorb so much risk, to become virtually immune to the idea of danger. At the same time I put myself here, and I am so grateful for these experiences that push me beyond the limitations of my own fear, redefine my understanding of safety, and mock my former inhibitions. Spiritually, I wonder what I am being prepared for. And I so deeply honor being in the presence of so many young people who look danger in the face and ask “is that all you got?”, and for the incredible lessons they are teaching me. In many ways this is the most foreign and gorgeous aspect of the Kenyans I have met. I am glad they have stopped treating me like I am so incredibly fragile and clueless, though sometimes I still feel that I am. It took a month before it seemed fine for me to go to town on my own. I like that I feel myself getting tougher, that I found a new edge, and occasionally I think you’d have to put me in a war zone to get me to flinch after this.

I still long for the comforts, consistency, and safety of home- there’s is a point nearly every day when I hit some sort of wall. But I push past it, wo/man up, figure it out, and I’m just getting to the point of the process that I’m grateful for my own resilience and persistence. I work hard to separate fear that is natural (if I jump, I will fall), and fear that is manufactured (I should fear them because they are different). I push myself hard to face the manufactured ones, I feel angry when they occur in me, they are often the shadows of the classism and racism we are acculturated into in the US. However I have a very healthy respect for natural danger, hence I only drink bottled water here, do not ride the motorcycle taxis, and take my malaria meds everyday.

One day, I want my own kids to be strong, to be fearless, and understand that they are incredibly capable and resilient, while still ensuring their safety and providing them with security and comfort. I am not sure if it’s possible to completely merge these two value systems, to create immense bravery in an environment of intense security. I am not sure if I could ever be as brave as a Kenyan- to make it seem so effortless to be so courageous. I truly appreciate what four months here can develop in me, every day I learn from the amazing courage of the people around me, their incredible strength, and unbelievable insistence to face so much fear with such certainty and grace .

Zebra Love

---

I love Zebras. When I saw them wild in the Maasai Mara I felt an immediate affinity with them- like they had something to teach me. Its funny, I am usually adamant about how I didn’t come here to see animals, but the beauty of Kenya’s natural world will seduce you beyond any silly ideologies.

Zebras are thick! They have big bellies and big behinds, they are healthy and fit and round. It’s sad that my culture has so impressed on me that Healthy =Thin, that even seeing an animal out in the wild who is not as slim and dainty as her antelope friends makes an impact on my psyche. Zebras are social and friendly, they hang out with antelope, elephants, and giraffe, and they join in the wildebeest migration, speckling the savannah with flecks of black and white amidst a sea of brown bucking beasts. They even find their way into the suburbs of Nairobi- supposedly you can see them welcoming you as you arrive from the airport. I love that they can not be called either black or white, they are categorically both, not one any more than the other. They seem so naturally chill, they have the same easy going relaxed nature of the donkeys in town- who are by far my favorite domestic animal here. Only zebras are beautiful in a way that seems extreme, exorbitant, like God was having a playful moment and wanted to show off. What possible evolutionary advantage could there be to having bright black and white stripes? * Only a God with a sense of humor and a little flair could have created a zebra. Zebras are common but never ordinary. You can see them over and over again, but they will still catch your eye, with their cool Mohawk hairdos, sleek striped designs, and their playful ambling about. Despite the fact that they seem virtually the same in demeanor to donkeys, people must have just found them too beautiful to domesticate. (the web says-too unpredictable-which is also a nice trait).

There’s a way of seeing things in the natural world that can help you see yourself. I too, even when healthy and fit, am decidedly round and thick. I find joy in being in family groups, and in being social with those totally different then me, surrounded by languages I don’t understand. I also love being caught up in a herd, in the power of the group, in the movement of many in motion. I am a little bit striped, hard to put in a box, call me exactly black or white, I’ve tried for a long time now and it hasn’t worked, I’m finally giving in. I am peaceful, and playful, and at the same time not as domesticated as you might think, and sometimes more unpredictable then expected. I am working to see myself as beautiful, for being somehow strange, striking, unusual, unique. Myself. As what ever G-d made me in a moment of laughter and curious playful whimsy. After a lifetime of wanting to be more plain, to belong in some basic way, to find a corner of normality where I could hide; I’m learning from the zebras how to live simply in uncommon ways, to enjoy the fullness of my body that gives me the endurance I need for the experience I want in this world, and to love and live amongst whomever I like.

If you look the lessons are everywhere-so thank you zebra for a sweet lesson in self–love. May you all be blessed in the ways you beautify your own savanna :)

*For those who were wondering – there may actually be an evolutionary advantage to having black and white stripes:

Some scientists believe that the stripes act as a camouflage mechanism. This is accomplished in several ways. First, the vertical striping helps the zebra hide in grass. While seeming absurd at first glance considering that grass is neither white nor black, it is supposed to be effective against the zebra's main predator, the lion, which is color blind. Theoretically a zebra standing still in tall grass may not be noticed at all by a lion. Additionally, since zebras are herd animals, the stripes may help to confuse predators - a number of zebras standing or moving close together may appear as one large animal, making it more difficult for the lion to pick out any single zebra to attack. A herd of zebras scattering to avoid a predator will also represent to that predator a confused mass of vertical stripes traveling in multiple directions making it difficult for the predator to track an individual visually as it separates from its herd-mates, although biologists have never observed lions appearing confused by zebra stripes. –(Wikipedia) - *pretty cool!

Feeling at Home

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

Wholeness

I’ve dwelt in the space between brokenness and wholeness for much of my life. Born into broken family, a broken people, and sensitized to a world that has crater cracks of pain running through it. My paternal family came here from displacement camps after the holocaust, incapable of returning to where they are from. We are still unearthing relatives who escaped to Italy, South America, Canada, the USA, and still mourning for whom escape wasn't possible. I spent my early life seeking any small patch for cracks dug by neglect and abuse, before they spread into insidious canyons. So even here, in Kenya, so far from everything I’ve known, it is the familiarity of it, the confusion and wobbly sadness of this space between healing and wholeness that strikes me first. I start here, as in my own life, holding the sadness with compassion before I can look ahead.

In reading about Kenya’s history before I arrived, I was struck by a history of migrations. Unlike Ghana, where I lived during college, Kenya’s history does not begin with ancient kingdoms and long lineages of tribes. Kenya’s story always starts somewhere else, the Bantu migrated down from central Africa, Nilotic and Cushite peoples from Sudan and Ethiopia. Then you hear from the Arabs, the Portuguese, only after them the Maasai from the North, and the Kikuyu from the South, at the same time as the British, who brought the indentured “muhindi” East Indians in the thousands to build British railways.

Kenya’s diversity startled me, coming from the expectation of Ghana’s stunning homogeneity- where most villages deliciously feel like you are in one giant biological family who has been living on the same piece of land since the dawn of time.Here in Kenya, every face on the street has a different structure, a phenomenal range in subtle shades of brown. Men stand as tall as 6 and a half of a foot, though some stare me and my 5’4 right in the eye. But every Kenyan eats the same basic foods. I tease that there must be a drug in ugali, their soft corn meal doughy stable food, because they are so intent on eating it everyday. Only the Maasai are distinguishable by dress, the men wrapped in their long bright fabrics or red, purple, and dark blue. Most Kenyans dress in western style clothes, though women sometimes in African style matching tops and skirts- in more muted colors than you would find in the west of Africa. A country of immigrant peoples (like our own) found unity in simple foods, hybrid languages of Swahili and shang, and standards imposed by colonial impositions.

In the midst of this diverse country I felt a type of contained sadness, my expectations of finding a cultural community here similarly intact and tied to the land in the way I felt in Ghana was quickly washed away. Colonialism got inside Kenya’s in a different way- maybe because when you immigrate you loosen your original ties, you are made more vulnerable to the cultural tide shifting, and even more so to an Empire whose intent is to break you.

Sometimes it is the brightest child, the most sensitive and aware one that is the most vulnerable to trauma. Kenyans are ferociously brilliant and immensely hyper aware. In the smallest villages you will find people who will philosophize with you in the most expansive ways. One of my co-workers in the small town of Kimini deeply analyzes me daily. He pulls apart my slightest comments and gestures, mostly as an intellectual exercise. I enjoy his musings, sometimes I believe he can read my mind, though I have baffled his preconceptions of me, and try to keep him laughing. To look good here is to "look smart", when I dress up, women who have never spoke any other English words to me, surprise me with "you look smart!". I have wondered for a while why American Kenyans in particular have made such an impact of my life, some of my deepest and most layered relationships. I am starting to think it is because they are so comfortable in the element of air, in the intellect, in expansive ideas, in diversity and change. I’ve spent much of my life finding safety in my intellect, living in my mind when the realities of the body are more difficult to face. I felt seen and understood by the Kenyans in my life, loved for the ways I have flourished in my survival.

Ghana in contrast is unfamiliar to me in a hundred scrumptious ways. Ghana is so deeply rooted, so constant and steady, so embodied. One way to say hello in Ghana is Wa Po Me? How are your muscles feeling? It is like saying , “Are you in your body? How does that feel?” In a county where so much has stayed the same in hundreds of years, the question is how are you physically right now, because we can assume not too much else is new. In Kenya the common greeting “Habari Gani?” translates to “What is the news?” in other words, “What do you know? What is your awareness? What is changing?” It is hyper-vigilant and expectant of change. In crisis, in transition, the body is ignored and flowing with the numbing of adrenaline, the mind charges forward. What needs to happen right now? There is an acuity that occurs to the detriment of the physical, to create a level of flexibility that the body would otherwise resist.

When the rush wears off it leaves you exhausted, and repeated indefinitely a pattern of self neglect tears at the body. There is a sadness here is Kenya that is so familiar, palpable, heavy. Life here is painfully difficult in so many ways, and this feels exaggerated in Kitale where I am living, which has been a refuge for displaced people from the surrounding areas, after the recent violence following the last presidential election and other previous conflicts.

I have to admit that I longed to return to Africa to escape my own experience of transience and rootlessness, to relive my time in Ghana where I sank into the intensely deep connections, the warm arms of the constant sun, and the clearing power of intensely spicy food. But there must be a different kind of healing in this place, there is something so honest about it for me that has been so painful so far. I needed someone else to name the sadness to be able to step back far enough to write about it. I love the Kenya people. I love the people I work with like we have always been family. My roommate who is also a co-worker and I call each other mapacha-twins. After 4 days together we could communicate full ideas without speaking a word, anticipate each others actions, and easily shower each other with affection.

I expected to get here and write blogs about cute baby chickens, bicycle taxis, blinding brilliant flowers, friendly people, and the monkeys who cross the road, (and I still might) but I needed to start here. Here with a prayer for wholeness- for myself, and a country which is regaining its balance after decades of colonialism, violence, destabilization and transition. Who is finding their strength in their diversity, a peace with the past, identity in the swelling tides of immigration and modernization. May we find the balance between our minds, our hearts, and our bodies, and soon become reintegrated, centered, and whole. May our spirits seek to forgive and be forgiven, to find a love for self, and the ability to change in ways that create sustainability and peace. May we all find ourselves somewhere in an arc of history that bends towards justice, in a benevolent universe with sense of Divine love that is abundant in healing and renewal. Amen