back up to bodo

I’ve put off writing about Bodo for a while now mostly because I just really don’t know how to write about it. I strongly dislike writing but I also know my memory is not strong enough to hold onto all that I’m experiencing here so I’m forcing myself to sit down and write. I’m going backwards in time quite a bit with this post, hopefully I will catch up soon…

February 20th, 2009:

Part of my program is to do a 10-day rural homestay to compare with our 6-week urban homestay so we sloooowly made our way down to Mombasa from Nairobi by an overnight train that was straight out of 1920. I loved the train! This was nothing like the commuter rail I take so frequently in Boston. We were first class, had a sleeping cabin and were served meals on board in the dining car – even the silverware was ancient!

Yeah, it was hot. Yeah, the train took 14 hours to get to Mombasa at 25 MPH. And yeah, the bathrooms were disgusting BUT at sunrise we all woke up to the most gorgeous view outside! True African bush for as far as we could see filled with acacia trees, mud huts and the random giraffe or zebra munching away on whatever green they could find. We then chugged our way into Mombasa as children living out in the middle of the bush ran up to the tracks to wave and shout greetings at us – it was a great welcome.

February 21st, 2009:

Sweaty, sticky and in desperate need of a shower we were denied all forms of hygiene and shuttled right into the middle of Mombasa to purchase kongas, our new uniform for our rural homestays. A konga is two large pieces of brightly colored cloth with a message across the bottom in Swahili. Usually the messages have a double meaning, one literal and one sexual. I kind of think about it like adding “in bed” to the end of your fortune cookie after a meal in a Chinese restaurant!

Continuously sweating from Mombasa’s intense humidity, we were dropped off in groups along Biashara Street (business street) to bargain down the best prices we could find for used kongas. We wanted used ones because the new ones come starched or waxed and are very uncomfortable until they have been worn and washed a couple times. I also felt confident that if it was used, the double meaning of the saying wouldn’t be too bad since another woman was willing to wear it before me.

I purchased two full kongas, one pink/black and another green/black, and two headscarves, one green/purple and one red/black/white, all washed and soft.

After a frustrating lunch trying to find anything vegetarian AND filling or nutritious (you can only pick one here, never both), we were back on the bus and on our way to Bodo, our rural village. I can assure you, we smelled like roses.

Two hours later we arrived in Bodo, a village of about 300 people eagerly awaiting our arrival. About 75 wide-eyed and excited children greeted us as they anxiously waited to meet their new siblings for the next 10 days.

Bodo was a sight to take in, it was straight out of a National Geographic with mud huts, thatch roofs, sand and palm trees everywhere. All of this was a lot to take in at first but nothing compared to how hard the heat hit me. I finally feel like I understand the meaning of “oppressive heat”, my body did not take well to the climate but its all part of the experience, right?!

Side note: I am currently reading The Poisonwood Bible and feel like many of my first impressions of Bodo were similar to the girls’ first impressions of Kilanga in the book. Though Congo in 1959 is not similar to Kenya in 2009, the village of Bodo and the village of Kilanga have many striking similarities and as I read Poisonwood now, after my experience in Bodo, I keep finding myself making connections and parallels to village life and social norms within the two villages. If you haven’t read Poisonwood – go get yourself a copy and read it! At page 197 I’m already obsessed.

I’m going to post this now, then write more later. I need to eat lunch and write a paper for class.

Love!

Elisette

ps: picutres to come in the next post - I'm on a hunt for internet that is fast enough to upload.

Valentine's Day Katika Kenya

March 9^th, 2009

Whoa!  A half hour to myself?!  This is such a rarity in Kenya – I cherish each moment I have to myself and its definitely time to catch up on my blog.. I apologize for being so MIA – the last six weeks have left my head spinning in multiple directions and its time to slow down and record some of my experiences and hopefully a couple funny stories.  When I find some faster internet (it must exist!) I will upload some pictures too.

Let’s back up quite a bit: February 14^th, 2009.

Valentine’s Day is HUGE here.  Its one of the many imports the US has spread to other countries and its been added to my “American Things I’m Ashamed Of” list.  V-Day is the most stereotypical version you could imagine.  Suggestions for how to celebrate with your lover were headline news in print and on TV for the week leading up to it.  Flowers, balloons, candies and cards were for sale everywhere – not one of these things is typically Kenyan in anyway, especially the flowers.  Apparently in some tribal cultural beliefs, live flowers and unsafe to have in your home since they could potentially have spiritual powers and harm you or your family.  However, on Valentine’s Day, it is considered a lovely gift for your lover.  My home stay is filled with various arrangements of silk flowers that collect dust, reminiscent of my Israeli grandmother’s apartment in Jaffa, Israel. 

My brother Cliff consulted with me many times on what to buy his girlfriend Pricilla.  We eventually decided on flowers and a picture frame with a picture of the two of them camping – she loved it.

They’ve been together for about a year now and are an interesting couple.  She’s Kikuyu and he is Luo – rival tribes culturally and especially politically.  I know my Luo host parents love Pracilla and support their relationship.  My mom is fed up with tribal divisions and yells at the TV screen during news stories about the severe rift between tribes, especially these two.  Cliff says Pracilla’s parents are supportive but Pracilla revealed a bit of her tribal alliance earlier today when she asked me if I voted for Obama…

Let me back up a bit.  In Kenya we’ve felt an overwhelming excitement about Obama as president.  He’s Luo, or at least his father was which makes him Luo.  Realistically though, I doubt he has much of a connection with or knowledge of the “typical” Luo characteristics – I still can’t quite tell the differences, I’m not sure there really are so many...  But there was a saying here by Luos that went “There will be a Luo president in America before there is one in Kenya” which is all too telling of the current political situation in Kenya with a false Kikuyu government in power over the elected Luo one.  So on the whole in Kenya, there is major support of Obama, he’s well loved here.  Kenyans have thanked me for electing him and the children in our neighborhood sing songs about him.  He’s a huge source of pride for Kenya.

However, Pracilla asked me the other day if I voted for him and why I voted for him.  I wasn’t sure where she was taking the conversation so I simplified and explained that I’m a democrat and Obama was the democratic candidate and that I disliked (understatement!) the opposing candidate.  She made a face and said “Oh.”  I then asked her if she liked him and if she was happy he was elected.  She said. “He’s fine but his decisions don’t affect me so I don’t really care.”  I couldn’t hide my surprise at her comment and looked from her to my brother who was sitting next to her.  He told her to stop being “tribal” and to stop being “ridiculous”.  I tried to calmly explain to her that 1. He’s much better than the other candidate and that 2. His decisions definitely do affect her in Kenya.  I tried to explain how his environmental and economic policies have great impact on developing countries (among many other things) and that his decisions about foreign aid will directly impact Kenya.  She couldn’t care less and her boyfriend/my brother just kept repeating “stop being tribal!”.  I decided to let the conversation drop, though it was very calm and an interesting exchange. 

I am genuinely worried about the future of this country.  Its 2009 and journalists and talking heads on the news are already speculating about the expected violence for the 2012 ‘elections’.  The corruption here is rampant and nauseating.  There is scandal after scandal and no accountability for politicians.  It seeps into every realm of society and its grown to such a huge problem there are too many problems to know where to start! 

I look at other African countries with similar corruption problems in their past and fear the worst for Kenya.  Obviously, no situation is fit to generalize from but history continues to repeat itself, just with better technology…

1.     We’ve heard some scary tidbits that add up to a pretty grim picture: There was a large shipment of arms that was funded by the government to go to southern Sudan.  Rumor has it that the shipment never made it to Sudan, it is being held in the north as a stockpile for the Kikuyu when they decide they need weapons (next ‘elections’?)

2.     “some people” are making lists of Luos in Nairobi (it might have been just Kibera).  I am still unclear as to who is making the lists and of course, no one will answer why..

3.     On Friday there were riots/bonfires in the streets of Nairobi – don’t worry, I was in Mombasa and they were way on the other side of town from where I live in Nairobi.  The cause: A UN report was released stating that the chief of police and the attorney general were responsible for extrajudicial killings of hundreds of people.  When Kibaki made a public statement that they would not be loosing their jobs or that their actions would be condemned or punished in anyway, a gang called Mungiki started rioting.  Two people were lynched in daylight – I’m not sure who/why but somehow connected.  This all lasted less than a day but people are angry and I feel like they have every right to be.  This government was not democratically elected and there are no channels for Kenyan citizens to voice their opinions peacefully, or any way at all.  Their “representatives” are worthless, there are not lobbyists or advocates for the constituents.  Their only resource is protest which leads to violence.  Actually, interesting Kiswahili fact – The verb to vote is kupiga which literally means to beat, as in hit!  But one can piga mswaki (to beat (brush) teeth) or one can piga the phone, but still the verb to vote is the same verb as to beat which might explain much of the post election violence… food for thought.

Ugh, its past my bedtime..

I was going to write about the slum we visited on the 14^th, the awesome youth organization within that slum that I loved and then the Zambia vs. Kenya soccer game we watched at the end.  I’ll have to write that tomorrow.

so instead of writing what I wanted to I rambled…

I’ve definitely become a little bit Kenyan!  Kenyans are the most verbose people I’ve encountered. Their language Swahili has one-word sentences which would translate to 4 or 6 or 8 words in English, but when Kenyan people speak in English, they can go on forever!  Even when you strategically try to ask simple yes or no questions (there really is no such thing out here..) Okay time for bed, more to come soon.

Lala salaama! (good night)

Elisette

a little delayed...

Right now I’m sitting in my living room watching international MTV, listening to the evening call to prayer from the loudspeakers of the mosque next door and smelling my Mama’s cooking from the kitchen.  She says I’m not allowed to help tonight, but I know she’ll gladly let me wash the dishes later!  I have no idea where to start, I need to write more frequently because so much happens each day.  I’ll start with school and go from there:

Classes start at 8:30am each day so the 5 people that live in my neighborhood meet up outside our security gates at 8 and walk to school together.  We walk along the dusty, rocky streets along with the young children in their school uniforms that shout “how are you!?” over and over again every time they see a muzungu (white person) – but imagine it in a little kid voice with the most adorable Kenyan accent – so entertaining.  We’ve been testing out different responses which get different reactions.  If we just wave back they smile, if we say “good!  How are you?” they giggle and repeat “How are you?” back to us (we think thats the only English they know since they don’t learn English until grade 3).  But if we respond in Swahili (“Nzuri sana! Na wewe?”) they look so confused and run away laughing – its wonderful.

Along with the adorable children, we walk to school as women with heavy parcels perfectly balanced on their heads walk towards their kiosks to set up shop for the day.  Butchers and fruit vendors set up their displays and stray dogs, chickens and goats try to find whatever scraps they can.  We are into our second week of school so the neighborhood seems to be used to us but the first few days we were definitely a spectacle.

Once at school we have our morning lecture, usually Kiswahili, from 8:30-12:30.  We are broken down into groups of 5 and I love the members of my group.  We spend most of our time laughing at the funny language and accidentally mixing in other foreign languages we speak, like Spanish or Hebrew or Arabic.  Many of the words have Arabic roots as does Hebrew so its easy to swap in some words.  Many of the verbs sound like they could be conjugated in Spanish and “si” means ‘yes’ in Spanish but it means ‘no’ or indicates the negative form of a verb in Kiswahili… Other than that the language actually sounds Asian or like Pokémon characters!  Its entirely hilarious to learn this language and when classes go 3.5 hours long with one break we often get punchy and delirious.  Our 5 rotating teachers all have distinct personalities and different teaching styles which keeps the rotation exciting.  My grasp of the language is minimal right now but it will jump quickly when we do our rural home stay starting on Saturday! 

After morning lecture we have a lunch break until 2pm.  We usually go to the few restaurants nearby, an expensive touristy café called Java, a cheap and delicious Ethiopian restaurant and an Asian place I haven’t tried yet.  The women in the house next door to school also cooks traditional Kenyan food (rice, beans/lentils and chipatti) and I’ve eaten from there the last two days, its cheap, tasty and convenient.  After lunch we often head to the cyber café for a quick and often frustrating email check then back to school for afternoon lecture. 

The afternoon lecture is either a society, health or development lecture by professionals in the field, often from University of Nairobi or a hospital or an organization based in Nairobi.  The true health and development lectures haven’t started yet, they start March 9^th and I’m looking forward to that.  We’ve had mostly history and society lectures mixed in with randomly placed topics like “Informal Economies” which is crucial to understanding Kenyan culture since 70% of the population participates in informal income generating activities. 

After afternoon lecture we head home to Kibera and often stop for some slooow internet for a bit on the way home.  At home I help my mama cook dinner and then the rest of the night is spent on the couch watching news in Swahili or watching soccer, depending on which teams are playing.  I go to bed so early here because there isn’t much else to do and I’m exhausted by the end of the day and wake up so early.  There are no weekends or free days to sleep in either.  In 6 weeks we have had two full free days which are spent doing homework or research for our independent projects or group research projects... 

more to come!  Internet is too slow to continue right now.  ugh.  

send me email updates! even just let me know what's going on in the world -- I'm so disconnected!

Elisette