kenya journal, from 1992-1994:
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“I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on any account, for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found another for myself. I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible, but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or mother’s or neighbor’s instead. The youth may build, plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“The statement that man can live under almost any condition is only half true; it must be supplemented by the other statement that if he lives in conditions which are contrary to his nature, and to the basic requirements for human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting, he must either deteriorate and perish, or bring about conditions which are more in accordance with his needs.”
Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
“Whether small or great, and no matter at what stage or grade of life, The Call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration, a rite or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown, the old concepts, ideals and emotional patterns no longer fit, the time for passing of a threshold is at hand.”
“The statement that man can live under almost any condition is only half true; it must be supplemented by the other statement that if he lives in conditions which are contrary to his nature, and to the basic requirements for human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting, he must either deteriorate and perish, or bring about conditions which are more in accordance with his needs.”
Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
“Whether small or great, and no matter at what stage or grade of life, The Call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration, a rite or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown, the old concepts, ideals and emotional patterns no longer fit, the time for passing of a threshold is at hand.”
“The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed – again, again and again.”
“’Call to adventure’, destiny has summoned and transferred his spiritual center to a zone unknown. This fateful, region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight.”
Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces
“To understand the misery and confusion that exists within ourselves, and so in the world, we must first find clarity within ourselves, and that clarity comes about through right thinking. Right thinking comes with self- knowledge.”
Krishnamurti, First and Last Freedom
“The one thing we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety...to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment.”
Evans-Wentz, Milarepa
In November of 1992, I left my home of America at the age of 30 and traveled to East Africa, to begin two years of Peace Corps service in the country of Kenya.
Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces
“To understand the misery and confusion that exists within ourselves, and so in the world, we must first find clarity within ourselves, and that clarity comes about through right thinking. Right thinking comes with self- knowledge.”
Krishnamurti, First and Last Freedom
“The one thing we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety...to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment.”
Evans-Wentz, Milarepa
In November of 1992, I left my home of America at the age of 30 and traveled to East Africa, to begin two years of Peace Corps service in the country of Kenya.
What follows are entries taken from journals I kept during my stay there. I am hopeful that the descriptions selected give an interesting perspective to the reader regarding life as it was for a suburban man, who traded a life in the states for a mud hut existence in Africa. In addition, my motivation is to share various excerpts from books that I was reading at the time to fully round off this effort. Many of my writings are written in fragmented form. I am hopeful that this fact does not detract from the reader’s enjoyment.
Naivasha, Kenya: Oct 1992 – Dec 1992:
Naivasha, Kenya; a city two hours away from the capital city of Nairobi.
Part of the process of becoming an official Peace Corps ‘volunteer’ involves two to three months of Peace Corps training in the country of service, living with a host family and passing through an arduous schedule of daily classes in language, host culture and job-specific training.
Upon satisfactory completion, a ‘trainee’ becomes a full-fledged ‘volunteer’ and begins their two years of service at a site not of their choosing. These sites can vary greatly; from an urban assignment with Western accommodations to a mud hut existence in the rural countryside. Regardless of the ‘site’, a myriad of challenges will be presented to the volunteer. It is a merging of personality and setting; the Peace Corps does its best to insure that the match is a good one yet it all comes down to the Peace Corps volunteer’s decisions and coping methods in dealing with the daily challenges......
As Peace Corps trainees, my group of sixty-seven will stay in villages with Kenyan families outside the city center of Naivasha, Kenya. Each of us will find our way into the town of Naivasha every morning (by foot or public transportation) to attend classes. My home stay village will be Nyamathi, a small farming village, which lies some six miles up the main road from Naviasha.
Our group spent our first night, after a long flight from Chicago through London to Nairobi, in a run down hotel in Naivasha. The beds were moldy, the showers collective and cold, the noise was continually loud, yet I think most of us slept soundly after the long trip.
Our group spent our first night, after a long flight from Chicago through London to Nairobi, in a run down hotel in Naivasha. The beds were moldy, the showers collective and cold, the noise was continually loud, yet I think most of us slept soundly after the long trip.
After our first day touring the city of Naivasha, my first sense of the city is described in the following poem:
‘Kenya, Africa,
Dirt roads,
Small shops, potholes, smiling kids,
Corn on the corner,
big bricks on lots in piles,
Unfinished work for tomorrow,
Stares at shoes, Western movies on video, Souls starved and dried for lack,
Lack of what?
Beauty around, flowers, palm trees, sound of goats, food plentiful,
Yet we search for what we do not have.’
The next day, we all gathered at the Peace Corps training center (called Malaika; a stone’s throw from Lake Naivasha with giraffe and tall green thorny trees) to meet with our new Kenyan families. I was assigned to Joseph Nganga and family.
‘Baba Joseph Nganga met me at the Training Center. My questioning was guarded, as it seems that Kenyans are very proud and private. There are customs and superstitions I know exist but I do not know them, so it is important to be silent and observant.
After being briefed at Peace Corps Malaika, Joseph and I and my belongings were taken up the main tarmac to the turnoff to the village of Nyamathi and then up the mile or so on a rugged dirt road to his compound. Baba Joseph and wife Jacinta’s home lies high in the mountains with Lake Naivasha some eight miles in the distance. Never in my life have I seen such expansiveness; with Lake Naivasha appearing like a kaleidoscope reflecting ever changing hues of shade and light.
I was first met at the entrance to his compound as night approached by two of the youngest, Anna and Moses, ages five and three, and by John, age 9, who presented me with a flower necklace. Mama Jacinta was next in line who met me with a kiss, followed by her repetition of the Swahili greeting ‘Karibu, Karibu’ (welcome) while she clutched for the one bag left in my hand. The children all stood in line as Baba, in his good humor, introduced each as they shyly stepped forward; Martin, age 11, John, age 9, Anna, age 5, Moses, age 3 and baby Terry.
Dirt roads,
Small shops, potholes, smiling kids,
Corn on the corner,
big bricks on lots in piles,
Unfinished work for tomorrow,
Stares at shoes, Western movies on video, Souls starved and dried for lack,
Lack of what?
Beauty around, flowers, palm trees, sound of goats, food plentiful,
Yet we search for what we do not have.’
The next day, we all gathered at the Peace Corps training center (called Malaika; a stone’s throw from Lake Naivasha with giraffe and tall green thorny trees) to meet with our new Kenyan families. I was assigned to Joseph Nganga and family.
‘Baba Joseph Nganga met me at the Training Center. My questioning was guarded, as it seems that Kenyans are very proud and private. There are customs and superstitions I know exist but I do not know them, so it is important to be silent and observant.
After being briefed at Peace Corps Malaika, Joseph and I and my belongings were taken up the main tarmac to the turnoff to the village of Nyamathi and then up the mile or so on a rugged dirt road to his compound. Baba Joseph and wife Jacinta’s home lies high in the mountains with Lake Naivasha some eight miles in the distance. Never in my life have I seen such expansiveness; with Lake Naivasha appearing like a kaleidoscope reflecting ever changing hues of shade and light.
I was first met at the entrance to his compound as night approached by two of the youngest, Anna and Moses, ages five and three, and by John, age 9, who presented me with a flower necklace. Mama Jacinta was next in line who met me with a kiss, followed by her repetition of the Swahili greeting ‘Karibu, Karibu’ (welcome) while she clutched for the one bag left in my hand. The children all stood in line as Baba, in his good humor, introduced each as they shyly stepped forward; Martin, age 11, John, age 9, Anna, age 5, Moses, age 3 and baby Terry.
We entered the house and Baba led me to my private room, the boys followed carrying my luggage. My bedroom would be small, with a bed and desk, and chair, and one small window looking out to Joe’s plantation. There would be no electricity or running water. I would use a lantern and would need to get by with a gallon of water a day in which to bathe.
After we put my things away, we returned to the main room for supper. Food was immediately presented to the men in the main family room; Baba and myself, as the other boys sat nearby.
The family room consisted of two large leather couches, a wooden table, comfortable chairs, a radio, yarn macramé covering almost everything, old Western calendars on the wall, a picture of Mary mother of Jesus and plastic flowers in tin cans.
My first presentation was my photo album, which was warmly received, and was reciprocated by their family pictures. Following dinner, Baba took me outside to show me his livestock and shamba (farm). The land is difficult to farm; yet small plots of green fields can be seen amidst the brown for miles upon end. Baba is proud of his farm, in which he grows a variety of vegetables and keeps livestock. He has two cows, some chickens, rabbits and a gray goose.
After we put my things away, we returned to the main room for supper. Food was immediately presented to the men in the main family room; Baba and myself, as the other boys sat nearby.
The family room consisted of two large leather couches, a wooden table, comfortable chairs, a radio, yarn macramé covering almost everything, old Western calendars on the wall, a picture of Mary mother of Jesus and plastic flowers in tin cans.
My first presentation was my photo album, which was warmly received, and was reciprocated by their family pictures. Following dinner, Baba took me outside to show me his livestock and shamba (farm). The land is difficult to farm; yet small plots of green fields can be seen amidst the brown for miles upon end. Baba is proud of his farm, in which he grows a variety of vegetables and keeps livestock. He has two cows, some chickens, rabbits and a gray goose.
As the sun set, we found some berries, round and green on a bush, to share with the children.
As night came on, the lantern was brought out and lit, and the kids gathered around me and began to stroke my hands and arms, as I showed them my torch, or flashlight, to their great excitement. Mama Jacinta asked if I had a camera, and after I retrieved it from my room, I handed it to Joseph, and soon everyone took turns with the camera, the flash going off....
Following this ‘fun’, the television (powered by a car battery) was turned on in order to watch an Arab religious drama. I later came to learn that the story was of Hindu nature named ‘Ramayana’, the story of Rama and Sita. Little Anna and I would, in later weeks, come to sit side by side on the red couch, and sing or chant ‘Ramayani’ in endless repetition.
As the show started, neighbors began to slowly filter their way into the house and took up empty spots in the dark to join us in witnessing the strange saga in the ‘box’. The show was subtitled in English, and those who could read playfully bantered with those who could not in deciphering the story line. People in the television were flying and magic swords were turning and Hanuman was growing into a giant. My understanding is that those who watched did not know that the scenes were fabrications and not real which added to the excitement and wonder. The childlike innocence in the people here is real and refreshing. Sensing in myself that I was in for an incredible two years, I went outside and looked at the stars in the sky.
First Day at Malaika, Peace Corps Training with Other Volunteers:
Today was my first trip to Naivasha by matatu to attend my first full day of classes at the Peace Corps training center (a one-mile walk from the city center). Matatus are the main form of public transportation in Kenya. Less than five percent of rural Kenyans own cars and so the majority form of travel is by public transport or by foot or bicycle. Matatus come in all types and sizes; from small personal trucks with two wooden benches and canopy and generally holding eight to fourteen people and their produce and poultry to larger buses transporting folks longer distances. The rule of thumb is to try and cram in as many people in the vehicle as possible. Most vehicles are in questionable condition, put together by a string and so breakdowns and accidents are common. Each bus or truck is unique in its own right; in its size, its condition and in its colorful and eclectic painting. Most play African music to full volume.
It is relatively easy to find transportation going into town in the morning. Generally, I went with Rob Charron, a fellow trainee and village neighbor. Rob and I met at the junction of two dirt paths at 7am and then took the one-mile walk down to the main road leading to Naivasha. At the tarmac, you simply put your hand down to the various matatus that flew down the highway, and hopefully caught a ride (this took anywhere from two minutes to never depending on the time of day and conditions). In the morning we generally were dropped off around the matatu stage in Naivasha and then we walked the mile to Malaika.
Following my first day of school, I was faced with my greatest challenge to date: to return to the hectic matatu stage in Naivasha, to find the right vehicle and to return safely home before dark. (I wanted to take this one on myself).
Negotiating the city streets and geitting to the market is an adventure in itself let alone finding the correct matatu in the chaos of the bus stage.
Negotiating the city streets and geitting to the market is an adventure in itself let alone finding the correct matatu in the chaos of the bus stage.
HhThe bus stage is the center of urban life in Africa; it pulsates and presents everything imaginable. I once saw a naked man walking carrying a burlap bag in a city center. Or two policemen chasing a thief. A mother in hairscarf selling oranges out of a box. A young boy moving a goat on a rope. Entering the city center is like moving into the center of a vortex; it reflects a sense of controlled chaos, the merging of old and new, the coming together of the Third World with modernity.
One can imagine the trepidation I faced as I entered this scene (a white in a sea of black, unfamiliar language) on my third day in Africa.
Horns were honking, street vendors shouted in competition for gaining my attention, radios blared, as different sizes and colors of matatus weaved their way in and out of the marketplace. I found myself in the middle of this and it was intimidating as young men physically pulled me. I tried to understand what was happening as I threw out new words I had learned in my two days of training, “Ninataka kwenda Nyamathi.’ (I want to go to Nyamathi).
I was worried if I was being directed to the right matatu. To double check, I asked the man, the ‘tout’ at the back of the vehicle where the vehicle was going. The ‘man at the back’ was more of a young boy who worked in the market at probably a variety of jobs, (there is probably a 60% unemployment rate in urban areas), seeking to pick up a tip in some form. He was one who pulled, either to a shack to buy tea and donut, or to a general store to buy provisions or to a matatu. Often, the touts sit in the matatu, and pretend they are passengers, for the first vehicle that is filled is the first to go. Sometimes, about seven of us mzungus (Westerners) got in a truck with six young Africans, thinking it would soon leave, only to be driven wildly around the city for about thirty minutes to other stops to entice other travelers. The driver sometimes got out to get a beer, another driver would get in, the touts would all get off, and we would be returned to the original main stage, none the closer to the objective.
Once on the bus or inside the canvas covered cage of a flatbed truck, and often crunched in some form (Africans know where to sit or can recognize the traps), you pray that the vessel is taking you to your intended destination.
My first attempt did not go so smoothly. My mistake was that I did not remember where my stop was off the main road. The stops in the area surrounding Nyamathi all looked the same to me. My effort was also made difficult because my vision was obstructed as I found myself with my face planted in the armpit of a mama as an older village elder sat on top of me. I was caged in the back bed with fifteen others covered by a tarp. My only recourse was to mutter: “Nyamathi, Nyamathi’ (the name of my village) as we approached the area and pray that I would be released at the right stop. (the matatu stops generally ever quarter mile as people get off and on, things unloaded..) I found myself dumped off and crawled out of the cave of the small Toyota flatbed into the African dusk. I paced the highway with only a sense of direction toward the Nganga house (somewhere up and two miles away). Finally, I found two teenage boys, Stephen and Andrew, who were herding cattle to walk me home. Because they did not speak English, and I spoke little Swahili, I was not sure where they were taking me. It was getting dark and I knew not if I was being taken captive or if I was being led in the proper direction. I tried to enjoy the time, relax and trust the Lord, despite the stress naturally inherent within the situation. Despite all this sense of helplessness and uncertainty, after about one hour and one mile following the boys in the semi-darkness as they asked others along the way about the Nganga’s, we arrived at the Nganga’s just as the hues of the sunset turned to dark.
*
Tonight is a bad night (and my first taste of African superstition). It shows how things and emotions can change so rapidly. I came home from school, a great day and smooth matatu ride to the farm in daylight; Anna and Moses, sprinted down the dirt trail to greet me, Baba Nganga, was outside working on his duka (small general store), excited with prospects for his new business venture as mama was close at hand bringing in the laundry.
One can imagine the trepidation I faced as I entered this scene (a white in a sea of black, unfamiliar language) on my third day in Africa.
Horns were honking, street vendors shouted in competition for gaining my attention, radios blared, as different sizes and colors of matatus weaved their way in and out of the marketplace. I found myself in the middle of this and it was intimidating as young men physically pulled me. I tried to understand what was happening as I threw out new words I had learned in my two days of training, “Ninataka kwenda Nyamathi.’ (I want to go to Nyamathi).
I was worried if I was being directed to the right matatu. To double check, I asked the man, the ‘tout’ at the back of the vehicle where the vehicle was going. The ‘man at the back’ was more of a young boy who worked in the market at probably a variety of jobs, (there is probably a 60% unemployment rate in urban areas), seeking to pick up a tip in some form. He was one who pulled, either to a shack to buy tea and donut, or to a general store to buy provisions or to a matatu. Often, the touts sit in the matatu, and pretend they are passengers, for the first vehicle that is filled is the first to go. Sometimes, about seven of us mzungus (Westerners) got in a truck with six young Africans, thinking it would soon leave, only to be driven wildly around the city for about thirty minutes to other stops to entice other travelers. The driver sometimes got out to get a beer, another driver would get in, the touts would all get off, and we would be returned to the original main stage, none the closer to the objective.
Once on the bus or inside the canvas covered cage of a flatbed truck, and often crunched in some form (Africans know where to sit or can recognize the traps), you pray that the vessel is taking you to your intended destination.
My first attempt did not go so smoothly. My mistake was that I did not remember where my stop was off the main road. The stops in the area surrounding Nyamathi all looked the same to me. My effort was also made difficult because my vision was obstructed as I found myself with my face planted in the armpit of a mama as an older village elder sat on top of me. I was caged in the back bed with fifteen others covered by a tarp. My only recourse was to mutter: “Nyamathi, Nyamathi’ (the name of my village) as we approached the area and pray that I would be released at the right stop. (the matatu stops generally ever quarter mile as people get off and on, things unloaded..) I found myself dumped off and crawled out of the cave of the small Toyota flatbed into the African dusk. I paced the highway with only a sense of direction toward the Nganga house (somewhere up and two miles away). Finally, I found two teenage boys, Stephen and Andrew, who were herding cattle to walk me home. Because they did not speak English, and I spoke little Swahili, I was not sure where they were taking me. It was getting dark and I knew not if I was being taken captive or if I was being led in the proper direction. I tried to enjoy the time, relax and trust the Lord, despite the stress naturally inherent within the situation. Despite all this sense of helplessness and uncertainty, after about one hour and one mile following the boys in the semi-darkness as they asked others along the way about the Nganga’s, we arrived at the Nganga’s just as the hues of the sunset turned to dark.
*
Tonight is a bad night (and my first taste of African superstition). It shows how things and emotions can change so rapidly. I came home from school, a great day and smooth matatu ride to the farm in daylight; Anna and Moses, sprinted down the dirt trail to greet me, Baba Nganga, was outside working on his duka (small general store), excited with prospects for his new business venture as mama was close at hand bringing in the laundry.
All was right. After dinner and television, I paraded around with some of my new Western possessions, and Moses, the youngest boy, slipped on some spilled kerosene on the floor, next to the tea brewing in a pot, and severely burned his arm. What resulted was chaos and chatter; talk of ‘bad luck’, ‘spirits’ as I retreated to my room. (Of course this is my interpretation of things but it was clear that a link was made between my things and Mose’s terrible accident). Moses especially suffers when the bandages need to be changed.
There is a strong undercurrent and belief in witchcraft here that will be evident throughout my two years in Kenya. But the politeness and niceties turned to wild for a moment and I realized just how out of my element I am here.
Hj
*
There is a strong undercurrent and belief in witchcraft here that will be evident throughout my two years in Kenya. But the politeness and niceties turned to wild for a moment and I realized just how out of my element I am here.
Hj
*
Very nice evening at home with Mama and kids laughing, as Joseph and I discussed politics (Joseph and Jacinta speak English). Dinner was a chicken slaughtered by Baba Nganga, potatoes, rice and spinach. I cannot say how much I appreciate Baba and Mama’s approach and faces. What a great family! Every day I become more comfortable with surroundings and my place here.
At Peace Corps school, and studying with sixty-five other Americans (two have returned to the states), I have been able to establish some good initial friendships. The group is composed of many different ages and races and backgrounds. The majority of trainees are just out of college.
The experiences to date here have been very interesting to say the least. The Ngangas are enjoying my new use of the Swahili language. On my first day home, I said, “Today I had a wild ride on the ‘matiti’”. Mama looked at me first with shock and then with a smile. Evidently, ‘matiti’ is close but does not actually describe a truck. Matiti is a women’s breast. Joseph had to pull me aside for this one. I also told them that the first day on the matatu, in reaching for something, I pulled off a woman’s hairnet (a no-no, it is extremely shameful for a woman’s hair to be exposed in public). Mama loved this one and shared it with all the house guests.
I was just interrupted by Baba, “Shut your door. We want you to be secure.” (There have been tribal clashes in the area before). We began joking, I said, “But I am scared” through the door. He said, “You make me laugh, the family is laughing.”h
It is clear that the political situation in Kenya is tense. Today in group class, we had some dreary commentary on the upcoming Kenyan elections (the first multi-party elections in over twenty five years). Coupled with the current president Moi’s growing anti-U.S. sentiment and talk of a potential civil war looming (Most African governments are brutal and authoritarian), the future is uncertain. Evidence of potential danger was found just this week; as the Peace Corps Training sign was demolished in Naivasha. #1. Dissidents are now said to be Americanized rather than Communists. #2. The sign demolished. #3. Talk of certain Moi altering, declared victory and civil war.
Kenya, despite the harmony and peacefulness of its people, is deeply divided by tribe (there are over sixty tribes in the country and ongoing tribal clashes and land grabs continue which are often supported by government politicians and the military police). My main concern is for the Kenyan people, that the coming election is peaceful and the right solution is reached.
A second concern is that I do not want to be sent home because of the danger. We will move to our sites in two months in tandem with the elections.
Cock-a-doodle-do. I was woken up at dawn by the rooster and Joseph’s ritual turning on of the radio (government news mixed with Dolly Parton and Hank Williams, Lionel Richie) as my eyes focused out my room and then window to the African countryside. My room is tiny with paper wall covering in a magenta tint pattern tacked against the mud wall. A small wooden door attached to the only window was slid open and all I could see was the brown countryside and scattered green trees, the blue sky.
Joseph asked if I planned on going to church with the family. I thought it would be a good idea for I knew that the majority of Kenyans were Christians (there is a small minority of Indian-Muslims mostly on the coast and scattered throughout Kenya).
Joseph and family are Catholic and their church was about one half mile up the mountain in an old brick schoolroom. As we arrived at the church, I followed Baba’s lead and introduced myself to all on the way in my awkward Swahili, ‘Habari, Hujambo, Nzuri, Jesus, Prince of Peace, Let go of my eggo (greetings)’.
Joseph asked if I planned on going to church with the family. I thought it would be a good idea for I knew that the majority of Kenyans were Christians (there is a small minority of Indian-Muslims mostly on the coast and scattered throughout Kenya).
Joseph and family are Catholic and their church was about one half mile up the mountain in an old brick schoolroom. As we arrived at the church, I followed Baba’s lead and introduced myself to all on the way in my awkward Swahili, ‘Habari, Hujambo, Nzuri, Jesus, Prince of Peace, Let go of my eggo (greetings)’.
Baba and I began our journey this morning alone (again, a separation of men/women). Because of Mose’s injury, the family decided to not come as a sign of mourning (my interpretation). However, after two minutes on our way to church, we saw baby Anna crying and running up the dirt road to meet us. I stood where I was, and Baba met Anna halfway and walked her sternly home. He said he was not upset, but Anna gave way to temptation, and she could not come to church, unclean and not dressed properly. Her leaving home without informing Mama was a serious error. There are very stringent rules and the young should follow them.
Nonetheless, I brought this up, because halfway through the service, Anna entered the church schoolroom, all cleaned up with big brother Martin. She walked right to me in a two-man pew where all the elder men sat together and squeezed her way in between an elderly man and myself. I know Baba did not approve and I initially avoided her, but it was nice that Anna has grown very attached to me as she stood to about my hip in her red dress and knit sweater and white shoes. The three-hour service was all in Swahili with much singing and praise, the people separated by sex and position within the church. There were jokes and some related to the political situation. (Again, this is the first situation in my life where I do not understand the language and need to do guesswork). I smiled at the kids, yet serious and respectable towards the procession and the adults, avoiding eye contact with the elders (according to Peace Corps cultural training). The Peace Corps cultural training attempts to prepare us to respectfully work within our new cultures. We will learn as we go. Elders are clearly put in a position of great respect in Kenya. There is great wisdom and humor, a quiet dignity, as they blend in beautifully in the community.
After I shook hands with many people following the end of church, I exited and looked for Martin and Anna, and we walked holding hands across the large bright green pasture to the dirt path in the direction of home.
Nonetheless, I brought this up, because halfway through the service, Anna entered the church schoolroom, all cleaned up with big brother Martin. She walked right to me in a two-man pew where all the elder men sat together and squeezed her way in between an elderly man and myself. I know Baba did not approve and I initially avoided her, but it was nice that Anna has grown very attached to me as she stood to about my hip in her red dress and knit sweater and white shoes. The three-hour service was all in Swahili with much singing and praise, the people separated by sex and position within the church. There were jokes and some related to the political situation. (Again, this is the first situation in my life where I do not understand the language and need to do guesswork). I smiled at the kids, yet serious and respectable towards the procession and the adults, avoiding eye contact with the elders (according to Peace Corps cultural training). The Peace Corps cultural training attempts to prepare us to respectfully work within our new cultures. We will learn as we go. Elders are clearly put in a position of great respect in Kenya. There is great wisdom and humor, a quiet dignity, as they blend in beautifully in the community.
After I shook hands with many people following the end of church, I exited and looked for Martin and Anna, and we walked holding hands across the large bright green pasture to the dirt path in the direction of home.
Friday night at the homestead. Little Anna asleep on the couch by 9 pm as Martin attentively watches television with his large absorbing eyes. Television is played voice-dubbed with French or Italian stage actors. Mama brings in chai, or evening tea, with her hair in a scarf and pretty face. Baba nearby, works on his duka (his new small shack general store situated at the entrance to his property) figures with Moses on his lap. Mama returns to the kitchen to continue her labor. All of this is within twenty feet. I just picked one of two bananas from a plate and tossed one to Martin to share. I am slowly finishing dinner, cabbage and ugali with chai and milk. Ugali is a common Kenyan food served with many meals. It is a kind of dense angel food type bread, flour boiled in water. It is generally placed in a huge mass in the center of the feast and participants grab at it with their hands.
Baba and Martin put on their coats and gather a torch (flashlight) to go outside for something. I do not ask where they are going. (Nights are very quiet in the countryside. I will venture outside very little at night in my two years. Most of my time will be spent reading and studying by lantern and an early sleep.)
Tomorrow is our first Peace Corps party, which should be a fun time. I will play sports and seek interesting discussion. I am tired due to school from 8 am to 5 pm, the transit followed by study at home from 6pm to now, at 9pm. Easily, twelve hours a day of intense thought and stressful actions. Need to relax. It is strenuous to say the least.
*
Up and into town to the Training Center for Saturday study. Met Peter Mtungu, who is a local secondary school science teacher. We shared a good chat on a long walk to town along the paved highway, a zebra or two, the blue African sky and white clouds dancing on a leisurely day. We had caught a matatu at the Nyamathi stop heading into Naivasha on market Saturday. Halfway through the ride into Naivasha, a distance of some four miles, the matatu had a flat tire. As the men got out to survey the damage and change the rickety tire, I decided that it was a good day to finish the trip into town by foot (Route 11 as the Kenyans say).
After I had been walking for about forty minutes, (I didn’t notice the matatu passed me), I saw Peter walking on the other side of the road. We joined and he told me that the matatu changed the tire, and after proceeding for a bit, the second tire came off, and the matatu almost tipped over. He was clearly shaken. I am learning that public transportation is clearly a dangerous sport here in Kenya; there are almost daily reports of fatal bus or vehicle crashes on the radio and in the daily newspaper.
Last night I read the Bible and Proverbs and I am looking to understand the ‘fear of the Lord’. Proverbs 8 says that it is ‘to hate evil, and mentions pride and arrogance’. Baba Nganga is very interested in teaching scripture. Last night’s lesson was on Abraham.
*
Trip to Indian Ocean coastal town of Mombasa .
After four weeks of training at Malaika, we were given the opportunity to travel and visit an existing Peace Corps ‘volunteer’ (in contrast to ‘trainee’) at their sites to get a feel for life outside the comforts of Peace Corps training and our homestay families.
I was assigned to travel by train some 400 miles east to the coastal area of Mombasa and visit Doug Balko, a teacher, at his site of Kaloleni.
‘On the night train to Mombasa. Too cool. Cabins for four, windows exposed to children running barefoot along the tracks in small villages, shacks, with frantic glances hoping for generosity in the form of coin shillings from kind foreigners. Outside of the villages lie expansive views of endless valleys, very arid with scattered trees and a variety of wildlife....zebra, ostrich, giraffe and gazelles. It is like going back in time (the train, like 1910, the terrain and animals, like thousands of years). The landscape is similar to what I would expect to find in the northern regions of Kenya. I have read a bit about Richard Leakey and family who have studied primal man and found evidence of skulls of the earliest ape-humans. Some theories assert that the birthplace of man was in the area of the Turkana by the Jade Sea in northwest Kenya.
An additional treat was in catching a sight of Mount Kilamanjaro in Tanzania at a distance, appearing like a white cone sitting atop the line of horizon, as the sun set out my window.
The yellow train I am riding on has a rich history. Evidently, the British (who colonized Kenya from 1898 to 1962) built the track from Nairobi to Mombasa early in this century using both African and Indian slave labor. A huge challenge came in the form of hungry lions and malaria.
There are many tourists on the train. A couple from Canada, on a two-month safari across Kenya and Tanzania, had many positive things to say about Kenya and its people. Tonight we went to the bar, five or six cars behind us, to join Kenyans and fellow Western travelers in celebrating another perfect African night under the big sky. I bought a beer for one of two Kenyan policemen as we laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. It is a strange feeling, you want to get close and have fun, yet you must be careful. We have been told time and time again about the danger that lurks in Kenya for a Western traveler. The situation keeps one alert and everything is new and exciting.
After four weeks of training at Malaika, we were given the opportunity to travel and visit an existing Peace Corps ‘volunteer’ (in contrast to ‘trainee’) at their sites to get a feel for life outside the comforts of Peace Corps training and our homestay families.
I was assigned to travel by train some 400 miles east to the coastal area of Mombasa and visit Doug Balko, a teacher, at his site of Kaloleni.
‘On the night train to Mombasa. Too cool. Cabins for four, windows exposed to children running barefoot along the tracks in small villages, shacks, with frantic glances hoping for generosity in the form of coin shillings from kind foreigners. Outside of the villages lie expansive views of endless valleys, very arid with scattered trees and a variety of wildlife....zebra, ostrich, giraffe and gazelles. It is like going back in time (the train, like 1910, the terrain and animals, like thousands of years). The landscape is similar to what I would expect to find in the northern regions of Kenya. I have read a bit about Richard Leakey and family who have studied primal man and found evidence of skulls of the earliest ape-humans. Some theories assert that the birthplace of man was in the area of the Turkana by the Jade Sea in northwest Kenya.
An additional treat was in catching a sight of Mount Kilamanjaro in Tanzania at a distance, appearing like a white cone sitting atop the line of horizon, as the sun set out my window.
The yellow train I am riding on has a rich history. Evidently, the British (who colonized Kenya from 1898 to 1962) built the track from Nairobi to Mombasa early in this century using both African and Indian slave labor. A huge challenge came in the form of hungry lions and malaria.
There are many tourists on the train. A couple from Canada, on a two-month safari across Kenya and Tanzania, had many positive things to say about Kenya and its people. Tonight we went to the bar, five or six cars behind us, to join Kenyans and fellow Western travelers in celebrating another perfect African night under the big sky. I bought a beer for one of two Kenyan policemen as we laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. It is a strange feeling, you want to get close and have fun, yet you must be careful. We have been told time and time again about the danger that lurks in Kenya for a Western traveler. The situation keeps one alert and everything is new and exciting.
The group (about six Peace Corps trainees) I was traveling with arrived at the Mombasa train station early the next morning. The place had a kind of Gandhian feel only for the fact that many people who live in Mombasa are of Indian ethnicity and the train station itself went back several decades. There were porters, and street merchants, and travelers, and many dressed in white against the backdrop of the dark of the enclosed terminal. Doug and Wendy, two volunteers who served as teachers in the north, came to pick me up.
We took a stroll through the mostly Muslim city on a quiet Sunday. We shared a brew at Istanbul’s, a corner open air bar as hookers bantered with locals. A young father sat next to us enjoying Cokes with his two quiet daughters. We stopped by an Indian restaurant for lunch but they had no food so we decided to head to Doug’s site of Kaloleni, some fifty miles north of Mombasa. We traveled by large bus through new terrain I had never imagined existed. The bus rolled along the sea at times and then traveled through dense coconut tree forests with a floor of green vegetation and white and brown, and black cows grazing, and small villages sprouting up along the sides of the road.
Doug lives in the village of Kaloleni just fifty miles north of Mombasa. His compound is on the site of a Youth Polytechnic, and he has a nice three room dwelling with electricity and running water. I cannot tell you how great a hot shower feels when you have not taken one for over four weeks.
After I checked out Doug’s place and settled my things (I would learn to travel lighter), we decided to head to the small town for some chow which consisted of fried chicken, chapati and soda. On our walk through town following dinner, the sub-chief stopped us and an invitation was extended to come for a visit at the village chief’s compound. We were led down a dirt pathway to the chief’s compound. The chief was clearly a person of great wealth testified by his large compound, plantation, and many livestock. The Chief and Doug did most of the talking. We were treated to a baby coconut, a large more mature coconut, and manazi, a coconut wine drank out of a mango hollowed out with a straw and filter to avoid bugs. As night approached, we said our goodbyes, and one of his young boys escorted us home with a gallon of the spirits. Doug, the boy and I walked in a line through the coconut plantation as the call to worship from a neighboring mosque danced in the air.
The next morning, I was awakened by the mosque’s bell and realized I was again in a different spot, far from home. Doug and I spent most of the day in a visit to Wendy’s village by mountain bike. The trip took us through long stretches of coconut tree forests, up and down a simple dirt road dotted with tiny villages. People would appear out of nowhere and their colorful dress would provide brilliance against the green and brown of nature, the sharp blue sky.
As we rode our bikes, a group of students appeared in red or green school uniforms with their dark black faces and big white smiles. They came as if out of a dream dancing like a swarm of bees, floating. We stopped to watch a chameleon that a child was carrying on a stick; its eyes pivoting, reflecting light of the hot sun, changing its colors as we moved to shade.
We arrived at Wendy’s site in the late morning as the students were having singing practice. We met Wendy at her school, greeted the staff, and shared lunch of chapati and beans in a small mud hut. The sound of kids playing at recess in the open field, their shouts and joy floated in and infused me with energy. The staffand their small children bantered playfully as we ate. Following lunch, we took a stroll to visit Wendy’s village as young children appeared and peeked around trees, and gently came over to sit at a distance instinctively choosing shade. Cows grazed under tall coconut palms, mothers worked, pounding maize, drying corn and rice on mats in the hot sun.
The next day, Doug and I traveled south to Mwangu by bus to visit some other volunteers who worked in a village south of Mombasa. Many Peace Corps volunteers choose to spend weekends and much time with other volunteers away from their sites (this is a choice many take). Tonight I am spending the night at Brad’s house with Rob (Rob, is my closest Peace Corps friend who is also a Business Advisor and my neighbor in Nyamathi). Brad is a bit strange for he is an example of a volunteer who has isolated himself too much from everyone. (there is a positive balance; a danger in too much isolation, psychological evacuations are common, I will learn the potential precipice one can take in isolation). Brad’s place is 100 feet from the beach, a solitary stretch of Indian Ocean. Tonight Rob and I checked it out by moonlight. This night there was a sixth of a moon, sliver of light, north star below over silhouettes of tall palms, crabs scurrying at the sound of our footsteps.
We took a stroll through the mostly Muslim city on a quiet Sunday. We shared a brew at Istanbul’s, a corner open air bar as hookers bantered with locals. A young father sat next to us enjoying Cokes with his two quiet daughters. We stopped by an Indian restaurant for lunch but they had no food so we decided to head to Doug’s site of Kaloleni, some fifty miles north of Mombasa. We traveled by large bus through new terrain I had never imagined existed. The bus rolled along the sea at times and then traveled through dense coconut tree forests with a floor of green vegetation and white and brown, and black cows grazing, and small villages sprouting up along the sides of the road.
Doug lives in the village of Kaloleni just fifty miles north of Mombasa. His compound is on the site of a Youth Polytechnic, and he has a nice three room dwelling with electricity and running water. I cannot tell you how great a hot shower feels when you have not taken one for over four weeks.
After I checked out Doug’s place and settled my things (I would learn to travel lighter), we decided to head to the small town for some chow which consisted of fried chicken, chapati and soda. On our walk through town following dinner, the sub-chief stopped us and an invitation was extended to come for a visit at the village chief’s compound. We were led down a dirt pathway to the chief’s compound. The chief was clearly a person of great wealth testified by his large compound, plantation, and many livestock. The Chief and Doug did most of the talking. We were treated to a baby coconut, a large more mature coconut, and manazi, a coconut wine drank out of a mango hollowed out with a straw and filter to avoid bugs. As night approached, we said our goodbyes, and one of his young boys escorted us home with a gallon of the spirits. Doug, the boy and I walked in a line through the coconut plantation as the call to worship from a neighboring mosque danced in the air.
The next morning, I was awakened by the mosque’s bell and realized I was again in a different spot, far from home. Doug and I spent most of the day in a visit to Wendy’s village by mountain bike. The trip took us through long stretches of coconut tree forests, up and down a simple dirt road dotted with tiny villages. People would appear out of nowhere and their colorful dress would provide brilliance against the green and brown of nature, the sharp blue sky.
As we rode our bikes, a group of students appeared in red or green school uniforms with their dark black faces and big white smiles. They came as if out of a dream dancing like a swarm of bees, floating. We stopped to watch a chameleon that a child was carrying on a stick; its eyes pivoting, reflecting light of the hot sun, changing its colors as we moved to shade.
We arrived at Wendy’s site in the late morning as the students were having singing practice. We met Wendy at her school, greeted the staff, and shared lunch of chapati and beans in a small mud hut. The sound of kids playing at recess in the open field, their shouts and joy floated in and infused me with energy. The staffand their small children bantered playfully as we ate. Following lunch, we took a stroll to visit Wendy’s village as young children appeared and peeked around trees, and gently came over to sit at a distance instinctively choosing shade. Cows grazed under tall coconut palms, mothers worked, pounding maize, drying corn and rice on mats in the hot sun.
The next day, Doug and I traveled south to Mwangu by bus to visit some other volunteers who worked in a village south of Mombasa. Many Peace Corps volunteers choose to spend weekends and much time with other volunteers away from their sites (this is a choice many take). Tonight I am spending the night at Brad’s house with Rob (Rob, is my closest Peace Corps friend who is also a Business Advisor and my neighbor in Nyamathi). Brad is a bit strange for he is an example of a volunteer who has isolated himself too much from everyone. (there is a positive balance; a danger in too much isolation, psychological evacuations are common, I will learn the potential precipice one can take in isolation). Brad’s place is 100 feet from the beach, a solitary stretch of Indian Ocean. Tonight Rob and I checked it out by moonlight. This night there was a sixth of a moon, sliver of light, north star below over silhouettes of tall palms, crabs scurrying at the sound of our footsteps.
*
Back in Naivasha and field trip into capital city of Nairobi
My Peace Corps group 66 (the 66th group to come to Kenya, the first group coming in 1963) is broken up into five sectors; teachers, town planners, special education, agriculture and business specialists. I have come to Kenya to be trained as a business advisor, and my group of fourteen (out of the remaining sixty-one (six trainees have returned to the states)) took a field trip today into Nairobi.
The principal purpose of our journey was to visit the Ndugu Society; a large charity organization that works in some of the slum areas in the city of Nairobi. Their primary focus is on the many homeless young people that live in and around Nairobi.
The third world homeless ratio is staggering as many youth are abandoned or forced to come to Nairobi or other city centers in search of work. On almost every street in Nairobi one can see street beggars (Joseph tells me that some people will purposely maim themselves in order to improve their chances for a handout). Mothers with infants unable to get up, their belongings tied to a rope and perhaps their other children roaming the streets, are a common sight as are people with terrible skin diseases and elephantitus. In terms of children, young boys often resort to sniffing glue and petty theft. Young girls are often forced into prostitution.
Within and on the outskirts of cities, you see huge temporary shack cities, with rusted tin salvage pieces used as fences or roofs. It is a scene of sharp contrast to the shiny Mercedes and modern life of business and professionals, twenty story skyscrapers, and khaki-dressed mzungus coming out of the Sheraton ready for safari.
The Ndugu Society works in such a slum as described, and today my group had the ’privilege’ of seeing it first hand. The leader of the Ndugu Society met with us at their business incubator and headquarters and showed us around the compound. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen (Kenyan); physically beautiful and so sharp and purposeful, compassionate.
Following the tour of the headquarters, we loaded up in a large white van, and headed to one of the slums, the ‘field’, where Ndugu was doing some of their best work. The group assists the people of the slum through loans and education. Their attempt is to assist the people in improving the quality of housing and sanitation. Small schools are being built to provide a wide variety of educational classes in health care, general literacy and establish positive places for kids to gather. When we arrived, children surfaced, and each Peace Corps person, generally had a child on each arm as we walked around the slum.
It is difficult to describe the sense, the feel, and the confusion you have in this place. The people look at you with eyes that are like a kaleidoscope of emotion; there is great pain and great joy. Open sewage runs along the side of the dirt roads like tiny creeks. It had rained, and mud was everywhere. People stood at the entrance to their ‘constructions’, their houses, cardboard, and salvaged pieces of wood jumbled yet in order, smoking on a cigarette and staring. Little kids ran by the mass gathering and then away pushing a car they had made with salvaged wire on a tether. This was the height of day and I wondered what this place might look like at night. You know that many people were away in the day and trying to grab a piece of something from the mass, to garner, to squeeze something tangible from the exchange of man and man, commerce.
Everything comes together in such a place and you wonder if there are any clear solutions to the human predicament; the contrast of rich and poor and whether there is anything that can be done to bridge the gap. Is there a solution? Solutions and compassion. There has to be a solution, there has to be a solution.
To date, the ‘solution’ that I have seen comes in the form of Western imports; battery-run radios, Western music and movies, hair care products, beer and cigarettes, McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is part of the equation. We export the best and the worst to the Third World.
“Any discussion of world poverty that does not come round to demanding a radical change in our habits of consumption and waste, our tastes, our profligate standard of living, our values generally is a hypocricy. There are no technical answers to ethical questions.’
Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends
“All problems emerge out of unwillingness.” Tara Singh, Course in Miracles
*
“Any discussion of world poverty that does not come round to demanding a radical change in our habits of consumption and waste, our tastes, our profligate standard of living, our values generally is a hypocricy. There are no technical answers to ethical questions.’
Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends
“All problems emerge out of unwillingness.” Tara Singh, Course in Miracles
*
This morning was great, on my way to Malaika; I was witness to a scene that reflects the strength and harmony of family life in Kenya. Baba Joseph was leading the way with Martin at his side, who was wheel barrowing the television down the rutted dirt road, as Baba corralled him with his arms, and guided his way. Martin had been asking to come with us into town for some time. Baba was in his usual good cheer as he laughed and joked with Martin looking back at the family with a thumbs up. I closely followed, with John, who was not able to join us, for his chore was to take the cow outside the farm to the communal grazing plot and remain home as ‘man of the house’. He had envy all over his face, yet a concealed grin, which is just like John, the family jester at nine years old. Martin was intense and prideful in keeping the television upright and not stumbling himself.
At the top of the hill, Mama Jacinta and young Moses and Anna watched the whole procession, mama proudly watching her men, growing, helpful and cheerful, together. You could see Mama and the kids up on top of the hill waving and giving shouts of encouragement, and then they disappeared behind the tall wood fence of the compound. The three of us said goodbye to John and we worked our way down the one-mile dirt path in banter and laughter.
I think there certainly is some advantage to the old way that exists here in Kenya in terms of the structure of the family and given roles. Every thing seems to fit together well.
*
It does take a great amount of patience to be⁷ an effective Peace Corps person. As a visitor in another place, you have very little control over what happens and often you do not understand what is happening. Sitting in a meeting or visiting with Kenyan friends, you will sit for hours. You only have your gut and intuition to assist you. (Language is an interesting variable; I never will become fluent, can have basic conversation, but following the vernacular mother tongue (60 languages) or quick Swahili is difficult for me.)
Everyday, there are hundreds of encounters, where you can choose to ignore or not. I choose to not ignore and as a result I stumble much of the time. I realize how often I misinterpret. It is almost like being born again. Some volunteers choose to simply ignore much and to build a wall around their places in order to maintain some control over their lives. This is a very practical approach and quite common. My nature is different in that I have difficulty in such an approach and open myself up to the situation that brings on many questions and reflection.
By losing control, you gain control.
(I will later learn this interesting approach through St John on the Cross, a brilliant Catholic saint from the 13th century. One could call it ‘reverse logic’ or ‘Buddhist self-emptying’).
St. John writes:
“To reach satisfaction in all
desire satisfaction in nothing.
To come to possess all
desire possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire knowledge of nothing.
To come to what you have not
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.”
St John on the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel
I am learning that there is not only one way. It is eye-opening in entering another culture.
*
St. John writes:
“To reach satisfaction in all
desire satisfaction in nothing.
To come to possess all
desire possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire knowledge of nothing.
To come to what you have not
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.”
St John on the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel
I am learning that there is not only one way. It is eye-opening in entering another culture.
*
Friday morning the big news came; my future site will be in the village of Rigoma, a rural area in the Nyamira District tucked deep into the Gusii Highlands in the Western Province. A Peace Corps volunteer has never lived there. It is extremely rural and is supposed to be one of the most beautiful parts of Kenya with rolling hills, small patchwork shambas and extremely rich soil yielding bananas, tea, corn, beans, avocado... I could not be happier with this result.
My main Peace Corps boss asked each of the trainees to answer two main questions regarding their site preferences: Do you prefer coastal or not? Urban or rural? I wrote my preference for rural and non-coastal so there is some say in communicating site preference. In six weeks, the remaining sixty or so ‘trainees’ will be shot out into the country in all directions; some landing in the capital city and some in rural areas both east and west.
Tonight I joined the family for dinner at Mary and Steve’s, nearby neighbors of the Ngangas. Moses (age four) just knocked on my locked door, he said, ‘Fungua mlango’ or ‘Open the door’, so I did and the kids came barreling in almost knocking me over in joy. They are so happy with their big eyes, dimples, big smiles, and white teeth. The last few days I have felt a bit lost, a bit down, so concerned in getting along with 70 new volunteers and staff, a bit tired at the home stay, seeking sleep. I think I am quite ready to get on with the next step and Rigoma. Concentration till then, on silence, own agenda, focused on the moment, self, detached from externals.
Last night was our first family visit to another home, the home of Baba Washendo, for a splendid African dinner of githari and rice. Githari is one of my favorite dishes made of fresh beans, tomatoes and potatoes as in a stew. We left our compound in the dark of night; Baba with flashlight and Anna on his back, Mama carrying the food, Martin with Moses, John and myself. It was one of those nights when the wind gave a sense of wildness to the journey. Despite the pitch-black darkness, the family moved ahead in a pack, through fields and on uneven dirt paths. Very quietly, Baba turned the flashlight on and off, wary of strangers, turning a commonplace event into an adventure. The journey was of about 2 km, and the family moved in agility without a stumble although I felt it ‘was impossible to see’ and fell several times. It was nice being a part of the procession. I am curious about the natives’ ability to see in the black. I do not know if it is by a superior ability to see or a sense in the feet or confidence. Regardless, I think as humans we put great limitations on ourselves.
While playing in a blanket tent house with John and Moses this morning under trees, I noticed Mose’s eyes in the dark that brought back a memory like a dream. I flashed back to Bellville, Texas, where just two years before I was working in Houston as a pharmaceutical sales representative. There was a small barn antique store in Bellville, Texas, on one of my country sales routes. On one of my rural days, I had extra time, and stopped at an antique barn in search for a gift for a friend. I was drawn to a picture in the corner of the dark store. The picture was of a pencil sketching of eyes in the dark, eyes of a ‘frightened’ (?) black woman I believe, drawn in pencil in 1967. The eyes were fearful, bright in the dark.
Mose’s eyes sparked the memory. Why was I so drawn to that picture? I did not buy it, but after driving away from the store, I was urged and moved to return for one last look. Why? I grew up in suburban white Kansas City. I had never thought of the Peace Corps before, or Africa for that matter. I was locked into a job. What drew me to that picture? I think that somehow, the spirits, or my subconscious was slowly erupting. I am beginning to believe that there is an intelligence that gives us signs of our future. (It may be related to predestination).
It is dangerous to look for signs but I know that there is a linking of old and new. I believe that there is a golden strand.
*
While playing in a blanket tent house with John and Moses this morning under trees, I noticed Mose’s eyes in the dark that brought back a memory like a dream. I flashed back to Bellville, Texas, where just two years before I was working in Houston as a pharmaceutical sales representative. There was a small barn antique store in Bellville, Texas, on one of my country sales routes. On one of my rural days, I had extra time, and stopped at an antique barn in search for a gift for a friend. I was drawn to a picture in the corner of the dark store. The picture was of a pencil sketching of eyes in the dark, eyes of a ‘frightened’ (?) black woman I believe, drawn in pencil in 1967. The eyes were fearful, bright in the dark.
Mose’s eyes sparked the memory. Why was I so drawn to that picture? I did not buy it, but after driving away from the store, I was urged and moved to return for one last look. Why? I grew up in suburban white Kansas City. I had never thought of the Peace Corps before, or Africa for that matter. I was locked into a job. What drew me to that picture? I think that somehow, the spirits, or my subconscious was slowly erupting. I am beginning to believe that there is an intelligence that gives us signs of our future. (It may be related to predestination).
It is dangerous to look for signs but I know that there is a linking of old and new. I believe that there is a golden strand.
*
Baba and I had an interesting discussion last night regarding his father’s involvement in World War II from 1939-1945. Kenyans were used by the British government to fight the Japanese in North Africa, India and the Far East. Not only did the British take advantage of Kenyan natural resources (principally tea, coffee and bananas) during their colonial rule (structures set in which the British still benefit today), they also took on slave labor for a variety of means. According to Joseph, his father was taken on a five-month journey across the Indian Ocean, where many died on the ship and were simply thrown overboard. His father fought in Bangladesh, India, Burma, Egypt, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Tanzania and Sudan. The story was well delivered by Baba who is funny with his innocent eye movements and fluctuating tone. His use of vocabulary and presentation makes him one of the greatest orators I have been privileged to hear.
His father’s situation is testimony to the injustices by the white man, and it is simply disturbing and eye opening to me. Evidently, after a 40-day leave following his first war effort, Joseph’s father refused to return to service, and the British came and dragged him out of the house for two more years of service.
Baba said his father was very fearful of the Japanese and their fighting ability. He also said that part of his father’s stint was in the North African desert at some post without food. His father used to kill crows with rocks in order to eat. This provides an interesting picture not found in history books or on the silver screen.
Living overseas gives one the opportunity to see the other side of the equation.
*
*
My playtime this evening was great. Listening to Mozart, I played with the kids out in the shamba as the sun set throwing a glow on all. The youngest ones, Anna and Moses, could not get enough as I threw them high in the air or spun them in circles. John and Martin, the older boys were in an attack mode, and so we darted around and played scenes out of the World Wrestling Foundation we watched on television. We would run and jump through the cabbage patches, sugar beets, corn stalks in huge laughter and then collapse as the night came on. Then we would just sit and listen.
After the kids were called into the house, I elected to remain outside and I stood alone on a stack of firewood, surveying the surrounding fields with Lake Naivasha in the distance. Two children, taking a shortcut through our shamba, looked back at me while they stopped to share some gum bought at our duka. The older brother led the way, with his little sister close behind with her hair in a scarf. They stood for a moment and then waved and then returned silently to their home, little dots vanishing in the dark. This is Kenya; hard-working children, politeness, family structure, respect, something as one piece of gum shared is enough, silent barefooted travel through shambas. The image of the two children, passing through rows of corn, hoes in hand, silent curiosity, innocence, and beauty. All I had seen in America prior to my arrival regarding Africa were pictures of starving children and savages with spears. It is different than we are taught I think. Why are we not shown the other side?
*
Two weeks after receiving word of my site assignment, I was able to visit my site for the first time in order to check out the area and to arrange housing. The plan was to first travel to Kisii, the nearest city center to Rigoma, to spend the night and then to travel to district headquarters and on to the village of Rigoma. We have been told to exercise caution for news has come that the U.S. has just invaded Somalia, a country to the north of Kenya.
On the bus to Kisii, (I traveled with three other Peace Corps trainees), I met up with a young man named Ezra, who invited me to visit his family who lived just outside of Kisii. He had not been home for two years and was returning home as a success for he had a good job at a Nairobi casino. He was bringing home money and a gift of a bed and a sewing machine to his mother and expressed his wish that I visit his village as his guest. After some thought, I decided to dive in and go for the adventure rather than join the other Peace Corps who had planned to stay together for the night at a hotel in Kisii town.
After alighting the large bus in Kisii, Ezra and I took a smaller matatu to take us to his village some five kilometers away. There was something very exciting about leaving the other Peace Corps trainees, and entering into the unknown world of Africa that was to be my home for the next two years.
When we got off the matatu at his village, Ezra asked me to wait at the road, as he gathered his family to help him carry his goods down the dirt path.
Standing alone, it did not take too long for me to be surrounded by strangers asking me an array of questions in Abagusii. (Although Swahili is the national language, there are over sixty separate languages based on tribe). Ezra returned with some of his family members and friends and they took me down the path to his family compound. Surely having a white man visit generated excitement throughout the village. (This elevated status would always be uncomfortable and awkward for me; at first it was appealing, and then with time, it often came with apprehension because I began to interpret it differently. In foreign cultures as a minority it is very easy to be put into a box and manipulated in a sense. There was an understanding that all Americans are millionaires among Kenyans and often the various expectations that come from such a belief were difficult to break, especially with strangers. The truth is that I would live in a fishbowl for the next few years and it would prove to be a great challenge.)
Along the path I was led, older men cut branches and lay them on the trail as I passed, and there was some chanting along the way. In retrospect, I believe that they played out the scene of Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem, Hosanna. (Am I crazy?)
The whole village area was abuzz. We first strolled through his densely populated village and met with many people in the hot afternoon. Although Ezra’s family was very poor, we were given some goat meat for dinner and a Coca Cola.
Elders began to enter the tiny mud hut as darkness approached. I sat in the corner against the brown, a lantern centered on a blue wood table. The men passed a large tin can filled with corn busa, a fermented liquor made locally, generally heated and drank warm. There was much talk going on that I did not follow. In my interpretation, the discussion became an argument but maybe it was not.
The elders, a big mother in old flowered pajamas, and some elderly men, talked for some time and then turned to Ezra and I. I was the first white man to ever visit the area. In retrospect, the topic of discussion was about myself. If an alien entered your domain, what would you first ask them to do? Evidently, they had decided that it was time for me to dance. The Kenyan music was turned on the radio, a twangy Gusii tune, and a wiry uncle in baggy rags got up from a rickety wooden stool and began bouncing up and down to the sound. He raised his hands welcoming me to the action. All the faces in the hut encouraged me to join him and so I slowly raised myself from my stool to cheers, and began the bounce, throwing in some Bill Cosby action. I found myself centered in this tiny mud hut in the middle of nowhere, the uncle’s and elders’ shadows cast on the mud wall, the cheerful haggard faces so happy, and I am dancing, soon surrounded by the old woman and the elders with canes and a select few witnessing the procession in the night.
Later that night, Ezra, Joel (Ezra’s brother who told me that stars are fireflies) and I ventured across the compound to another mud hut to retire for the evening. We sat around a short wooden table, a handmade metal Blueband butter container with wick serving as a candle in the center, as we played a game of cards. Ezra’s beautiful sister walked into the hut wearing a nightgown and disappeared into my sleeping room. I did not know what to do, the brothers looked at me in silence. What was happening?
I waited and continued as if I did not see anything. After about twenty minutes, the sister left the hut. Later when I entered the room to sleep well past midnight, there was a very old Christmas card with a picture of Jesus illuminated by a candle lying on the stool next to the bed. Ezra checks on me to be sure that all is okay. He then returns after I had fallen asleep, and proceeds to get in bed with me. (I guess brothers sleep together here for there is a large people to bed ratio). I remember waking in the early hours as Ezra put the blanket around my shoulders, patting and humming to me, strange.
The next day I awoke to a completely empty compound. I was not sure where everyone went but was asked by a passing person to wait, so the family could say goodbye and I could take a picture. I waited for maybe three hours until most of the family could be assembled. I also agreed to ‘sponsor’ his brother Joel to Nyamira, where I was to visit with the headman of the Nyamira district and get my papers so to speak. The family escorted Joel and I to the cement road. We waited for a matatu to take us to the Kisii market and then caught another to take us deep within (50 miles) the Gusii Highlands to Nyamira. The large metal matatu was packed and due to my naivete, I found myself crunched in the corner and lost circulation in my legs patiently enduring the four-hour trip (a two hour wait in some village, nobody told me anything, nobody got off the bus). We arrived in Nyamira in the late afternoon, I said goodbye to Joel, and rented myself a room at the Florida Inn.
Along the path I was led, older men cut branches and lay them on the trail as I passed, and there was some chanting along the way. In retrospect, I believe that they played out the scene of Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem, Hosanna. (Am I crazy?)
The whole village area was abuzz. We first strolled through his densely populated village and met with many people in the hot afternoon. Although Ezra’s family was very poor, we were given some goat meat for dinner and a Coca Cola.
Elders began to enter the tiny mud hut as darkness approached. I sat in the corner against the brown, a lantern centered on a blue wood table. The men passed a large tin can filled with corn busa, a fermented liquor made locally, generally heated and drank warm. There was much talk going on that I did not follow. In my interpretation, the discussion became an argument but maybe it was not.
The elders, a big mother in old flowered pajamas, and some elderly men, talked for some time and then turned to Ezra and I. I was the first white man to ever visit the area. In retrospect, the topic of discussion was about myself. If an alien entered your domain, what would you first ask them to do? Evidently, they had decided that it was time for me to dance. The Kenyan music was turned on the radio, a twangy Gusii tune, and a wiry uncle in baggy rags got up from a rickety wooden stool and began bouncing up and down to the sound. He raised his hands welcoming me to the action. All the faces in the hut encouraged me to join him and so I slowly raised myself from my stool to cheers, and began the bounce, throwing in some Bill Cosby action. I found myself centered in this tiny mud hut in the middle of nowhere, the uncle’s and elders’ shadows cast on the mud wall, the cheerful haggard faces so happy, and I am dancing, soon surrounded by the old woman and the elders with canes and a select few witnessing the procession in the night.
Later that night, Ezra, Joel (Ezra’s brother who told me that stars are fireflies) and I ventured across the compound to another mud hut to retire for the evening. We sat around a short wooden table, a handmade metal Blueband butter container with wick serving as a candle in the center, as we played a game of cards. Ezra’s beautiful sister walked into the hut wearing a nightgown and disappeared into my sleeping room. I did not know what to do, the brothers looked at me in silence. What was happening?
I waited and continued as if I did not see anything. After about twenty minutes, the sister left the hut. Later when I entered the room to sleep well past midnight, there was a very old Christmas card with a picture of Jesus illuminated by a candle lying on the stool next to the bed. Ezra checks on me to be sure that all is okay. He then returns after I had fallen asleep, and proceeds to get in bed with me. (I guess brothers sleep together here for there is a large people to bed ratio). I remember waking in the early hours as Ezra put the blanket around my shoulders, patting and humming to me, strange.
The next day I awoke to a completely empty compound. I was not sure where everyone went but was asked by a passing person to wait, so the family could say goodbye and I could take a picture. I waited for maybe three hours until most of the family could be assembled. I also agreed to ‘sponsor’ his brother Joel to Nyamira, where I was to visit with the headman of the Nyamira district and get my papers so to speak. The family escorted Joel and I to the cement road. We waited for a matatu to take us to the Kisii market and then caught another to take us deep within (50 miles) the Gusii Highlands to Nyamira. The large metal matatu was packed and due to my naivete, I found myself crunched in the corner and lost circulation in my legs patiently enduring the four-hour trip (a two hour wait in some village, nobody told me anything, nobody got off the bus). We arrived in Nyamira in the late afternoon, I said goodbye to Joel, and rented myself a room at the Florida Inn.
The next morning I met with the head governmental officer of the Nyamira district, followed the correct formality of introduction, and then made my way to Rigoma, another journey some forty miles in the other direction. Luckily for me, I ran into Edward Magori, my future Department of Social Service sidekick, who escorted me to Rigoma. We spent the day traveling the forty or so miles to Rigoma by matatu and by foot (we walked the last eight miles). It was very exciting as we approached the village of Rigoma, after passing so many villages and wonderful sights by foot along the way. Once we arrived in Rigoma, we found an acceptable place for me to live (the first place shown was a huge house and enclosed fenced yard and garden (2000 Ksh a month). I settled on a modest two room brick dwelling at 300 Ksh a month. I ordered some furniture from a village carpenter, met with many people and then Edward escorted me to Kisii.
After I bought some beers for Edward and a soda for his sister at a Kisii bar, we said our goodbyes and I retired for the night. The next day I returned home to the Ngangas.
*
After I bought some beers for Edward and a soda for his sister at a Kisii bar, we said our goodbyes and I retired for the night. The next day I returned home to the Ngangas.
*
On my last night at the Ngangas, Baba taught me how to slaughter a rabbit. Mama cooked my favorite dinner of chapati, potatoes, cabbage and rabbit meat. We said our goodbyes. Baba said I have made a name for myself in the community through my love of children and helpful nature. Tomorrow is graduation so I have finished polishing my shoes and I am ready to go. The family will all be there, it should be a nice occasion.
The day after graduation, I traveled to Keroka, transporting all my gear with the help of a village man named Martin. Martin, was a bit mysterious, and looked on with suspicion, for he was a Luyah, a man from another tribe among Kikuyu (Joseph was a Kikuyu). We had befriended on one of my walks up from the main road to the Nganga compound and I found his story interesting. Martin worked as a sharecropper, and earned a sparse living working another man’s field. He had stopped by the Nganga compound on one occasion after our first meeting but it was clear that the Ngangas were uncomfortable with a stranger on their land (maybe a spy). I sympathized with the young man’s predicament, for as his story went, he had a wife and child living in a faraway village he was attempting to get back to. It was difficult for him to save any money. Therefore, I offered to pay him a two weeks wage to escort me to Rigoma.
The first day we worked our way from Naivasha to Keroka (a distance of about three hundred miles, three buses and eight hours). The city of Keroka was the target for it lies just eight miles away from my village of Rigoma and is a city center. We would spend the night at a small hotel and then the next day I would travel to Rigoma by a small truck and send Martin back to Nyamathi. I was a bit spooked to say the least; traveling with a stranger I sensed was a good man, carrying goods that if bartered would feed a family of four for two years in the middle of the chaos as the only white guy amidst thousands of Africans brings a certain mindframe. Add to the fact that I did not speak the language and it was clear that this was a big step and big decision I had made to choose Martin, who sat across from me in a tiny hotel room.
I wrote: ‘Very paranoid, over $2,000 worth of goods, 70,000 Kenyan shillings worth, (four years of income for the average Kenyan), transported to my site of Rigoma. Martin, my Luyah friend, has escorted me to this point, assisting me in the carrying of my luggage on three matatus. Tomorrow I will send Martin back to Naivasha and then I will catch a small matatu and go into the Gusii Highlands, on a rugged dirt road just eight miles to my village of Rigoma.
Martin just left claiming he wanted to try and contact a mama he knows in the city. I hope so. It is dark. Perhaps he is making a contact to come rob me tonight. The skepticism continues. There is no lock on the door. An old man just entered to put in a light bulb so I can have some light. Martin went out for beers so he can return with a man and cut me up in little pieces, ha. Someone in the room above is pounding, dragging things across the ceiling as loud music and a steady drone of African speech and laughter encroaches on all sides. Many know I am here for I may be the first white man to spend the night here.
The bulb man certainly went back to the bar alerting the poor, drinking crowd to the poor scared mzungu (white guy) with lots of stuff. Martin returned alone, without a knife, maybe he will try and poison me and then steal away into the night. Paranoia, it will destroy you, as the saying goes. It is necessary to be careful, yet I am so skeptical, definitely not gullible. But my self-imposed stress is weary on the bones – careful. Always looking for escape routes – James Bond. The city is dangerous as is trying to interpret something I have no chance in grasping; sometimes I may be right, sometimes wrong.
Peace Corps training, by necessity, instills a dose of fear, in encouraging volunteers to be very careful. In city centers, it is dangerous especially at night. My good friend Dan was robbed twice in one day in Nairobi.
It is now 7 p.m.; Martin sits in the bed across from me. His eyes are focused when I look at him. He is listening to Eric Clapton on the Walkman. He is now thinking of how he is going to stab me with my toothbrush, plucking out my eyeballs to steal my things. (fear to jest)
I trust, learn to enjoy. These are extreme circumstances, yet they are tests to strengthen me. Trust and patience. This is God’s test for me. I will read and go to bed. So far, I have been protected from harm. I will pray and give thanks to the Lord for his guidance. (Most other trainees rented cars collectively to be dropped at their sites.) My solutions are usually unique. (Do you understand that I am in the midst of perhaps 20,000 Africans and it is loud and boisterous, the elections just a few days away?)
Rigoma, Dec 1992 – Nov 1994
First days in Rigoma.
Two days and one night in Rigoma and so far it has gone quite well. I have met hundreds of Gusiis in area. As I walk through town, all eyes are on me as I trade Gusii greetings with those I pass (most of the young people aged 15-30 speak some English, but most speak Abagusii). Yesterday, I shared my first meal at the compound of the Magori’s with new friends Henry and Josephine. I had a snack at Benson’s of corn cooked in water and salty dirt from South Nyanza Province (he prided himself on the dirt). Today, I ate a pineapple for breakfast, had lunch at Benson’s of boiled bananas and roasted corn, and ate a snack this afternoon at a hoteli (small restaurant shack). So far I have met many characters as young men hang around my new home and enjoy listening to my Walkman and eyeing my Western possessions.
I know there are those with good intentions and the evil element exists as well, which has me a bit spooked. I have just finished a discussion with David, a young man affected by malaria who has a slight limp and walks with a cane. I see him as a concerned friend. He told me that at night I could be killed and that ‘it is important to not travel at that time’. Many seem so happy to see me yet others stand at a distance and look with a blank face and then comment as others laugh. Thus far, it is impossible to not notice the Kenyan gift of hospitality. I have decided to be highly visible, openly friendly and open my house and things to others.
Edward has now come to take me to dinner and I will soon return. Back: a quick 40 minute visit; Edward, Ruben and myself on one side of the table and four kids on the other. (How large the families are here). By lantern, we shared a dinner of ugali, white potatoes and cabbage followed by hot milk. Open to questions: ‘Why are you brown and we are black? Can you send us to America?’ Again, I must combat this misunderstanding that I have unlimited wealth and powers. It will be a never-ending battle. There is something neat about sitting in a mud hut at night, the lantern warm, and the company in good cheer. The people here are beautiful and full of life.
Peace Corps training, by necessity, instills a dose of fear, in encouraging volunteers to be very careful. In city centers, it is dangerous especially at night. My good friend Dan was robbed twice in one day in Nairobi.
It is now 7 p.m.; Martin sits in the bed across from me. His eyes are focused when I look at him. He is listening to Eric Clapton on the Walkman. He is now thinking of how he is going to stab me with my toothbrush, plucking out my eyeballs to steal my things. (fear to jest)
I trust, learn to enjoy. These are extreme circumstances, yet they are tests to strengthen me. Trust and patience. This is God’s test for me. I will read and go to bed. So far, I have been protected from harm. I will pray and give thanks to the Lord for his guidance. (Most other trainees rented cars collectively to be dropped at their sites.) My solutions are usually unique. (Do you understand that I am in the midst of perhaps 20,000 Africans and it is loud and boisterous, the elections just a few days away?)
Rigoma, Dec 1992 – Nov 1994
First days in Rigoma.
Two days and one night in Rigoma and so far it has gone quite well. I have met hundreds of Gusiis in area. As I walk through town, all eyes are on me as I trade Gusii greetings with those I pass (most of the young people aged 15-30 speak some English, but most speak Abagusii). Yesterday, I shared my first meal at the compound of the Magori’s with new friends Henry and Josephine. I had a snack at Benson’s of corn cooked in water and salty dirt from South Nyanza Province (he prided himself on the dirt). Today, I ate a pineapple for breakfast, had lunch at Benson’s of boiled bananas and roasted corn, and ate a snack this afternoon at a hoteli (small restaurant shack). So far I have met many characters as young men hang around my new home and enjoy listening to my Walkman and eyeing my Western possessions.
I know there are those with good intentions and the evil element exists as well, which has me a bit spooked. I have just finished a discussion with David, a young man affected by malaria who has a slight limp and walks with a cane. I see him as a concerned friend. He told me that at night I could be killed and that ‘it is important to not travel at that time’. Many seem so happy to see me yet others stand at a distance and look with a blank face and then comment as others laugh. Thus far, it is impossible to not notice the Kenyan gift of hospitality. I have decided to be highly visible, openly friendly and open my house and things to others.
Edward has now come to take me to dinner and I will soon return. Back: a quick 40 minute visit; Edward, Ruben and myself on one side of the table and four kids on the other. (How large the families are here). By lantern, we shared a dinner of ugali, white potatoes and cabbage followed by hot milk. Open to questions: ‘Why are you brown and we are black? Can you send us to America?’ Again, I must combat this misunderstanding that I have unlimited wealth and powers. It will be a never-ending battle. There is something neat about sitting in a mud hut at night, the lantern warm, and the company in good cheer. The people here are beautiful and full of life.
My new place proves to be nice. It has two rooms, about ten by twenty feet each that are separated by a single wood door. It is newly constructed and made from local bricks with cement floors and a tin roof. My choo, or toilet is outside, with cement floors and tin sides and top. The ‘toilet’ simply has a hole over which to squat and let it out into a ten-foot deep pit. (It is new and clean in contrast to my first choo in Keroka behind the hotel; crammed full to the top as white maggots crawled in mass at the surface, yikes?!) Adjacent to the choo is a small area in which to bathe in seclusion (a real luxury).
There are two paths that that run on two sides of my house that get a lot of traffic. The main dirt road through town is just fifty feet away. There are very few cars that pass though, maybe twenty a day (small matatus or military vehicles) so most of the traffic is by foot (maybe six thousand people pass a day). From my main room’s window I look out over tea fields and huge trees shooting up into the sky. The area is nothing but rolling green hills and dirt paths with crops such as tea, corn, beans, banana trees, avocado trees, flowering bushes and small patches of forest. About 80% of the homes are made of mud and grass kept clean and always cool. The mud huts are extremely simple; maybe a wooden table, and stools and a bed. People often sleep on animal hides. Drinking water is kept in a clay pot in the corner of a room, a gourd on the wall keeps milk. There is usually a separate hut for cooking and a granary to keep corn and beans.
The town center of Rigoma runs for about one hundred yards along the road with businesses on each side and surrounding the village center (a grazing field and soccer field). There may be some twenty businesses in the village; six general stores or dukas, two butchers, two carpenters, two seamstresses or fabric sellers, three hotelis which sell principally tea and mandazi, a donut type bread or a piece of chicken and ugali. The businesses are principally made of tin sheets, wood and cement, painted brightly in blue, red or green with handpainted signs and advertisements for common products; beer, soda, cigarettes, soap...
Brown creeks run at the base of connecting hills and bisect the land, generally in small forests. The mud in these areas is excellent for making bricks. Of course, people are very industrious and keep perfectly manicured farms, every square inch used for cultivation. Almost every family has a cow for milk and chickens bring eggs. Tea yields cash as do various excess vegetables on market days. Corn is taken to an area mill to be crushed into flour. Some families are involved in fish farming (keeping small ponds) or beekeeping. Mud hut dwellings are built by local materials. More modern houses require the purchase of outside materials in the form of cement and tin sheets. (The difficulties lie in a large density of population; polygamy was once common. In 1970, perhaps a family of eight had access to ten acres of land. In 1993, the figure may be three acres of land to a family of eight. This reality forces people into the city. Adding to the difficulties are increased demands for cash (higher school fees etc), and inflation. In my first month inflation went up 100%. (Said to be related to Moi’s printing of excess currency for political bribes).
There is a peaceful feel to the village even though the shadow of upcoming elections and potential danger lurks. On the short wave today, a news report indicated that 16 people were killed in Eldoret (200 km from Rigoma) at a political rally. Where tribes (not tribes as in savage but tribes as in common language/grouping. Most Kenyans speak three languages and are very knowledgeable of world affairs) intermix, there is a greater chance for violent actions. Rigoma is about 99% Abagusii. (Not to say there is no violence; mob justice is common.) Papers often print stories about people being burned alive or bludgeoned to death by angry mobs.
Elections are now three days away and I have no idea how they will go, peace or civil war? How would I get out of here? Being in the center of nowhere is not too comfortable. Realize that there are hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps ten thousand per square mile, for miles on end...
Today I took a long walk to the village of Magombo with Edward and Benson for market day.
Women and their daughters sat on plush green grass in the shade; their products for sale, mostly in the form of fresh vegetables and fruits, or used clothing and imported plastic goods. In the town center where the men congregated, a political rally was taking place as small trucks drove in circles and men hoisted portraits of Moi as others hoisted portraits of challengers. The men chanted political slogans.
Edward, Benson and I bounced throughout the crowd, and in and out of hotelis and businesses, the two greeting men they knew from neighboring villages.
We had a vantage point of the scene below as two opposing cars pulled alongside one another and the men began to argue and then it grew into a fight. Soon, masses of men joined in the fray as wooden clubs came down on each other and rocks came volleying in from the periphery. Military police stood to the side and soon a shot was heard in the air.
Benson, Edward and I were walking side by side when the shot was heard, and immediately I saw great fear on their faces and soon found myself running fast and following their footsteps in a sea of people escaping the danger.
Benson and Edward were smiling when we reached a safe place, and we began our return home.
On our walk back to the village, we passed flowing rivers and strolled through small lush forests. There are paths everywhere through the forests and farms and trees with bright flowers and a wide variety of birdlife. The weather is a perfect temperature for the majority of the year and often sunny with a deep blue sky. There are long rain and short rain seasons when it rains almost daily at an almost clockwork pace. The soil is red in color and quite fertile; supporting two bean and corn harvests per year. Everywhere there are mud huts and large families, working together to provide for each other. The colors are so vibrant it is as if I am living as a character in a cartoon. It is hard to believe that I am here.
Election Day, Kenya. Day of rest and rain. Very quiet as most of the town went to nearby polling stations. I will keep up on the results by the short wave radio. The early reports are that there has been peaceful voting. I do not know what I will do if violence erupts in the country. I have no contact with the outside world.
I finished reading Walden today. He left the city at the age of thirty to live at Walden Pond for two years and two months. Zarathustra was also 30 years old when he went into the mountains and left his home. I think 30 is a good age to begin questioning and exploring. After the given self has been constructed by place and circumstance, and that tie has been broken, the question is what remains?
‘I have read in a Hindu book that there was a king’s son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he had lived. One of his father’s ministers, having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul, continues the Hindu philosopher, from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme.’
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Moi won the election and there was little violence throughout the country. It is now time to start my work.
* * * **
Benson, Edward and I were walking side by side when the shot was heard, and immediately I saw great fear on their faces and soon found myself running fast and following their footsteps in a sea of people escaping the danger.
Benson and Edward were smiling when we reached a safe place, and we began our return home.
On our walk back to the village, we passed flowing rivers and strolled through small lush forests. There are paths everywhere through the forests and farms and trees with bright flowers and a wide variety of birdlife. The weather is a perfect temperature for the majority of the year and often sunny with a deep blue sky. There are long rain and short rain seasons when it rains almost daily at an almost clockwork pace. The soil is red in color and quite fertile; supporting two bean and corn harvests per year. Everywhere there are mud huts and large families, working together to provide for each other. The colors are so vibrant it is as if I am living as a character in a cartoon. It is hard to believe that I am here.
Election Day, Kenya. Day of rest and rain. Very quiet as most of the town went to nearby polling stations. I will keep up on the results by the short wave radio. The early reports are that there has been peaceful voting. I do not know what I will do if violence erupts in the country. I have no contact with the outside world.
I finished reading Walden today. He left the city at the age of thirty to live at Walden Pond for two years and two months. Zarathustra was also 30 years old when he went into the mountains and left his home. I think 30 is a good age to begin questioning and exploring. After the given self has been constructed by place and circumstance, and that tie has been broken, the question is what remains?
‘I have read in a Hindu book that there was a king’s son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he had lived. One of his father’s ministers, having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul, continues the Hindu philosopher, from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme.’
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Moi won the election and there was little violence throughout the country. It is now time to start my work.
* * * **
Today was my first day of formal work. I reported to the Rigoma governmental offices today and checked in on the headman in charge, District Officer Ngesa. Rigoma serves as the division headquarters for the Nyamira District with its offices tucked back, some fifty yards behind the town center. It is a relatively new compound, with Mr. Ngesa’s office along with a row of semi-completed rooms and meeting hall. The police compound is close by and houses Mr. Ngesa and members of the military police who serve to protect him and administer quick and punitive justice.
The public comes in from villages surrounding Rigoma for needed forms or to see public officials about various business. Approaching Mr. Ngesa’s office was a bit intimidating; a policeman in green fatigues stood just outside his secretary’s door smoking a cigarette.
After introducing myself to the secretary and sitting for a bit, the secretary’s phone buzzed, and I was asked to enter Mr. Ngesa’s office. Mr. Ngesa’s office was just like any other public officials with a look of simplicity and order. Moi’s portrait hung behind Ngesa’s head to remind one of a higher authority and of Ngesa’s allegiance. (Moi’s portrait hung in every business, school and governmental office). This was no time for Moi jokes or discussions on educating the public on free speech or the weights and measures at the Tea Buying Center. I stumbled through my Swahili until it became evident that we were to communicate in English.
Ngesa was not so interested in my work as he was with my ‘security’. He informed me that his role was to assure my safety. I was to work with the Department of Social Services and to help the area women in their development projects. I said ‘thank you’ and was released.
I then ventured over to the Department of Social Services office and found that there was not one. The department did not have an office, or a working staff, with the exception of Edward Magori, who served in a kind of a gopher role for other department officials. I did not take too much offense to this, for maintaining my freedom to work independently was a priority. (not being tied to the office).
Edward and I would work closely together in my two years working with area income generating projects and entrepreneurs. We would travel far and wide and work with beekeeping projects, brick making cooperatives, tailoring groups, livestock keepers, fishpond projects and a youth group in the making of stained natural wood photo frames.
This portion of my work, which came about in daily interactions, would provide some incredible experiences. There is something ‘intrinsically’ valuable about addressing a group of twenty adults and fifty school children in Swahili, teaching bookkeeping on an old chalkboard under a banana tree overlooking the Gusii Highlands in Africa. Or visiting an old man’s farm to see his porcupine cage and to support his energy. The experiences, on a daily basis, were so overwhelmingly human, focused on survival and nature, and brought something new and needed.
That first month in January allowed me to secure two other work opportunities. Peter Osinyo, a rotund happy guy who would become my neighbor, recruited me to assist him in teaching adults math, reading and business skills a couple of afternoons a week. The Biticha Adult Education Center was held in a small classroom at the Primary School where mamas and babas would come in after a day at the shamba to learn. This setting would prove a microcosm of my Peace Corps experience; entering a situation in which I did not know (if mama or babas would show up, what their learning levels were) and relying on my own judgment to positively adapt. In this setting, a kind of spontaneous eruption would be designed based on the audience being sensitive to each participant.
I also agreed to teach business education and English at the Biticha Secondary School and later became a math teacher at the Biticha Primary School. These commitments would be labeled ‘secondary projects’ by the Peace Corps, and helped round out my experience and fill the days. I would find that schedules would forever be changed due to a variety of circumstances; funerals would shut down the village, a boy is abducted by witches and is hexed stop all activity for the day, rains affect travel, people fall sick....(one of my favorites: by tradition, if one stubs ones toe on a rock or wood on the way to an engagement; simply return home!)
* * * **
Ngesa was not so interested in my work as he was with my ‘security’. He informed me that his role was to assure my safety. I was to work with the Department of Social Services and to help the area women in their development projects. I said ‘thank you’ and was released.
I then ventured over to the Department of Social Services office and found that there was not one. The department did not have an office, or a working staff, with the exception of Edward Magori, who served in a kind of a gopher role for other department officials. I did not take too much offense to this, for maintaining my freedom to work independently was a priority. (not being tied to the office).
Edward and I would work closely together in my two years working with area income generating projects and entrepreneurs. We would travel far and wide and work with beekeeping projects, brick making cooperatives, tailoring groups, livestock keepers, fishpond projects and a youth group in the making of stained natural wood photo frames.
This portion of my work, which came about in daily interactions, would provide some incredible experiences. There is something ‘intrinsically’ valuable about addressing a group of twenty adults and fifty school children in Swahili, teaching bookkeeping on an old chalkboard under a banana tree overlooking the Gusii Highlands in Africa. Or visiting an old man’s farm to see his porcupine cage and to support his energy. The experiences, on a daily basis, were so overwhelmingly human, focused on survival and nature, and brought something new and needed.
That first month in January allowed me to secure two other work opportunities. Peter Osinyo, a rotund happy guy who would become my neighbor, recruited me to assist him in teaching adults math, reading and business skills a couple of afternoons a week. The Biticha Adult Education Center was held in a small classroom at the Primary School where mamas and babas would come in after a day at the shamba to learn. This setting would prove a microcosm of my Peace Corps experience; entering a situation in which I did not know (if mama or babas would show up, what their learning levels were) and relying on my own judgment to positively adapt. In this setting, a kind of spontaneous eruption would be designed based on the audience being sensitive to each participant.
I also agreed to teach business education and English at the Biticha Secondary School and later became a math teacher at the Biticha Primary School. These commitments would be labeled ‘secondary projects’ by the Peace Corps, and helped round out my experience and fill the days. I would find that schedules would forever be changed due to a variety of circumstances; funerals would shut down the village, a boy is abducted by witches and is hexed stop all activity for the day, rains affect travel, people fall sick....(one of my favorites: by tradition, if one stubs ones toe on a rock or wood on the way to an engagement; simply return home!)
* * * **
My mornings began at the town center:
A young skinny girl with a sack of corn on her head,
Travels across the green pasture in bare feet,
The morning dew cleaning her feet,
An old mzee with funny hat and worn cane,
Sits on a bench watching his cows graze,
A young man sits on a stool mending shoes,
With a couple of idle friends sitting by,
Watching the day pass with crackly radio blurting,
Sits on a bench watching his cows graze,
A young man sits on a stool mending shoes,
With a couple of idle friends sitting by,
Watching the day pass with crackly radio blurting,
Two sisters in green and yellow school uniforms, shuffle off to school munching on corn,
Men in suits start early walking to their jobs far away,
A man on a bike pedals fast with a crate of bread behind,
Three men in the cool of the morning begin the slaughtering of a cow,
Men in suits start early walking to their jobs far away,
A man on a bike pedals fast with a crate of bread behind,
Three men in the cool of the morning begin the slaughtering of a cow,
Duka owners and hotelis open their doors at the break of dawn,
Sweeping in front of their stores with a branch,
A warm kettle of tea,
And mandazis frying in fat,
Big black and white crows flying and screeching in search of food,
A mama lays out wimbi on a slab of concrete to dry in the morning sun,
A warm kettle of tea,
And mandazis frying in fat,
Big black and white crows flying and screeching in search of food,
A mama lays out wimbi on a slab of concrete to dry in the morning sun,
Sokoro begins the day on his sewing machine mending friends’ clothes,
A herd of cattle taken to market along the road,
Hit with a stick by a man in an old suit,
A deaf mute man carries water in buckets in a wheelbarrow,
his two dogs following close behind,
Women in the back of stores,
Wash clothes hanging them to dry on wires,
Stretched between a chicken coop and a choo,
Little kids running in circles,
Matatus pass through town,
Picking up commuters; to work or to market,
Young children with big glass bottles of milk,
in tiny hands,
Hit with a stick by a man in an old suit,
A deaf mute man carries water in buckets in a wheelbarrow,
his two dogs following close behind,
Women in the back of stores,
Wash clothes hanging them to dry on wires,
Stretched between a chicken coop and a choo,
Little kids running in circles,
Matatus pass through town,
Picking up commuters; to work or to market,
Young children with big glass bottles of milk,
in tiny hands,
Taken to customers,
It is the morning,
The beginning of another day, Enjoy it!
Today, I spent four hours at a Gusii wedding, sitting, uninterrupted, in a church pew listening to Gusii language without understanding. Daniel, an owner of a duka and good friend, invited me to his wedding at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on the outskirts of town, just down one of hundreds of dirt paths and through forests and fields and people living off the land. (Kenyans in this area are principally either Catholic or SDA, which mixes interestingly with the traditional belief in witchcraft). I was especially impressed with the singing which is out of this world, angelic. There are songs for every occasion and people of all ages know hundreds of traditional and religious songs. Kids sing and old people sing and the birds sing. On this day, the choir which was the majority of the church, just opened their mouths and the harmony and clarity, the quality of the singing was past anything I have ever heard.
The woman who sat next to me was writing me notes in English to help me understand what was being said in this union of husband and wife by the pastor:
1. Woman is honored because she is the weaker sex.
The beginning of another day, Enjoy it!
Today, I spent four hours at a Gusii wedding, sitting, uninterrupted, in a church pew listening to Gusii language without understanding. Daniel, an owner of a duka and good friend, invited me to his wedding at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on the outskirts of town, just down one of hundreds of dirt paths and through forests and fields and people living off the land. (Kenyans in this area are principally either Catholic or SDA, which mixes interestingly with the traditional belief in witchcraft). I was especially impressed with the singing which is out of this world, angelic. There are songs for every occasion and people of all ages know hundreds of traditional and religious songs. Kids sing and old people sing and the birds sing. On this day, the choir which was the majority of the church, just opened their mouths and the harmony and clarity, the quality of the singing was past anything I have ever heard.
The woman who sat next to me was writing me notes in English to help me understand what was being said in this union of husband and wife by the pastor:
1. Woman is honored because she is the weaker sex.
2. Woman is to obey man at all times.
3. A man must keep a woman busy.
Most Kenyan men prefer a larger variety of women; Daniel later told me that he liked his wife because she could carry lots of firewood. Her name is Alice. Female circumcision is also common among the tribe of the Abagusii. Kids are beaten in school. The military are ready with swift and punitive punishment. Corruption is deeply embedded within the community. There is little voice of opposition. Violence comes in spurts. The people are clearly joyous and do not complain. It is a complex place.
Most of my days are spent in a triad; between my home, school and the town center. Every day I walk down dirt trails and past the hundreds of people I know; villagers and strangers from afar, all ready to interact with the new mzungu of the village. Many hours are spent simply sitting with people at the town center and talking with businesspeople. I often venture high up into the rolling hills to find a new place of beauty; a new grove of trees, a stream, a new type of flowering bush, a quiet rainforest to catch a new species of bird. Everywhere are people and kids, adults inviting me for a visit; an offer of food, milk out of a gourd, ugali and spinach, tea and milk. I usually sit outside one of the mud huts on a stool brought out for me if there is sun, sitting next to corn drying on a mat, a naked child running and hiding, chickens darting and making noise.
I realized I was in Kenya,
Today in the pounding rain,
Under an overhang with a family, Mama, cousins, brothers, children,
3. A man must keep a woman busy.
Most Kenyan men prefer a larger variety of women; Daniel later told me that he liked his wife because she could carry lots of firewood. Her name is Alice. Female circumcision is also common among the tribe of the Abagusii. Kids are beaten in school. The military are ready with swift and punitive punishment. Corruption is deeply embedded within the community. There is little voice of opposition. Violence comes in spurts. The people are clearly joyous and do not complain. It is a complex place.
Most of my days are spent in a triad; between my home, school and the town center. Every day I walk down dirt trails and past the hundreds of people I know; villagers and strangers from afar, all ready to interact with the new mzungu of the village. Many hours are spent simply sitting with people at the town center and talking with businesspeople. I often venture high up into the rolling hills to find a new place of beauty; a new grove of trees, a stream, a new type of flowering bush, a quiet rainforest to catch a new species of bird. Everywhere are people and kids, adults inviting me for a visit; an offer of food, milk out of a gourd, ugali and spinach, tea and milk. I usually sit outside one of the mud huts on a stool brought out for me if there is sun, sitting next to corn drying on a mat, a naked child running and hiding, chickens darting and making noise.
I realized I was in Kenya,
Today in the pounding rain,
Under an overhang with a family, Mama, cousins, brothers, children,
Looking out,
Three brothers in a row,
big, small, big, Fast legs scurrying,
Three brothers in a row,
big, small, big, Fast legs scurrying,
In unison, and in line,
on a beaten path,
a cow pasture.
Have I mentioned how green everything is here?
Today I had two lessons at Biticha Secondary School. I am teaching primarily grammar, so it is a good lesson in teaching and I am refreshing myself on the subject. The subchief and a women’s group leader (why are they all men?) showed up at my place, for a discussion. Their expectations are so high, I do not know if they are thinking that the Westerner has all the right answers or simply feeling me out for the big dollar. I will meet with owners of businesses and women groups and ‘tell them what they should do’ according to the subchief. In some ways, I wonder what effectiveness I will have in teaching them skills on keeping a cash book, or how to structure their group, and finding tangible results will be difficult.
What is needed is capital in combination with improved business skills and I have few outlets for cash, and do not wish to perpetuate the ‘white man money myth’. In their eyes, however, I can transform their economies and way of life. After all, the villagers talk of America and its ‘golden pipes’ of tea and children being given vehicles at birth, so what else can I expect?
In my eyes, I hope that they will get an interest in learning and that I can have some positive impact. My expectations are very low, and theirs is high, it should be interesting.
The difficulty is in deciphering through all the rhetoric, their motives and to find those with a genuine motivation to act. When I do meet with a group, often it is difficult to read into the true motivation of the group, and whether the group is an authentic enterprise or a group that has a skeleton structure in the event some monetary aid becomes available. This deciphering takes some effort, and given my own difficulty in understanding the language and subtleties, it is an arduous task. I should visit at least twenty groups in the next few months, and those that seem authentic with genuine interest will receive my greatest attention. Still, the white man coming, and the hope for money, coupled with the personal requests at many stops during the day, has put me in a very difficult position. The urge to share is wholly natural to me, but the price to pay is enormous and may become the root of many of my problems. What really can be done? Let us take it all with a laugh, be positive, and roll with it baby.
Claustrophobia.
Density of population and noise in the Gusii Highlands: Imagine a football field; you live in one mud hut, there are ten other mud huts on the football field and sixty people. Almost every adult carries a radio with them everywhere they go played to full volume. Children scream and cry. Parents yell at their kids. People have conversations from sixty feet. All in another language that often sounds like a bark. There are six cows and twenty chickens on the football field described. Now imagine 4,000 football fields. 70% of them contain people and huts as described. 30% contain immaculately manicured farms. Such was my realm. Now place yourself within this setting as the only Westerner. There was not one place of land to escape to. The only time I was left alone may have been when I went to my favorite place to bathe; down the dirt path some 300 yards, past two or three compounds and into a small forest of trees. Brown cool water in the shade, sitting on a favorite rock, planes of light shooting through the leaves, the sound of tropical birds. I had imagined that the Peace Corps would be more peaceful. Instead it is incredibly intense; there are moments of great peace but for the most part it is a continual battle against the strong push of foreign matter; (people, noise, behavior, encroachment, values, beliefs, requests). < this is a negative posture: journaling as venting and revealing lacking understanding and acceptance
on a beaten path,
a cow pasture.
Have I mentioned how green everything is here?
Today I had two lessons at Biticha Secondary School. I am teaching primarily grammar, so it is a good lesson in teaching and I am refreshing myself on the subject. The subchief and a women’s group leader (why are they all men?) showed up at my place, for a discussion. Their expectations are so high, I do not know if they are thinking that the Westerner has all the right answers or simply feeling me out for the big dollar. I will meet with owners of businesses and women groups and ‘tell them what they should do’ according to the subchief. In some ways, I wonder what effectiveness I will have in teaching them skills on keeping a cash book, or how to structure their group, and finding tangible results will be difficult.
What is needed is capital in combination with improved business skills and I have few outlets for cash, and do not wish to perpetuate the ‘white man money myth’. In their eyes, however, I can transform their economies and way of life. After all, the villagers talk of America and its ‘golden pipes’ of tea and children being given vehicles at birth, so what else can I expect?
In my eyes, I hope that they will get an interest in learning and that I can have some positive impact. My expectations are very low, and theirs is high, it should be interesting.
The difficulty is in deciphering through all the rhetoric, their motives and to find those with a genuine motivation to act. When I do meet with a group, often it is difficult to read into the true motivation of the group, and whether the group is an authentic enterprise or a group that has a skeleton structure in the event some monetary aid becomes available. This deciphering takes some effort, and given my own difficulty in understanding the language and subtleties, it is an arduous task. I should visit at least twenty groups in the next few months, and those that seem authentic with genuine interest will receive my greatest attention. Still, the white man coming, and the hope for money, coupled with the personal requests at many stops during the day, has put me in a very difficult position. The urge to share is wholly natural to me, but the price to pay is enormous and may become the root of many of my problems. What really can be done? Let us take it all with a laugh, be positive, and roll with it baby.
Claustrophobia.
Density of population and noise in the Gusii Highlands: Imagine a football field; you live in one mud hut, there are ten other mud huts on the football field and sixty people. Almost every adult carries a radio with them everywhere they go played to full volume. Children scream and cry. Parents yell at their kids. People have conversations from sixty feet. All in another language that often sounds like a bark. There are six cows and twenty chickens on the football field described. Now imagine 4,000 football fields. 70% of them contain people and huts as described. 30% contain immaculately manicured farms. Such was my realm. Now place yourself within this setting as the only Westerner. There was not one place of land to escape to. The only time I was left alone may have been when I went to my favorite place to bathe; down the dirt path some 300 yards, past two or three compounds and into a small forest of trees. Brown cool water in the shade, sitting on a favorite rock, planes of light shooting through the leaves, the sound of tropical birds. I had imagined that the Peace Corps would be more peaceful. Instead it is incredibly intense; there are moments of great peace but for the most part it is a continual battle against the strong push of foreign matter; (people, noise, behavior, encroachment, values, beliefs, requests). < this is a negative posture: journaling as venting and revealing lacking understanding and acceptance
* * * **
A trip to get mail. I had to take a matatu to the village junction at Tombe and then caught another to Nyamira to pick up my mail (maybe forty kilometers). On the return trip, there was no matatu in Tombe, so I walked the 10 kilometers home. In Tombe, it was at the peak heat of the day, the sun was bright and hot, the dust swirled. The village of Tombe sits on a hill with few trees. The village is like the others consisting of one dirt road cutting through with wooden shack businesses on each side. It was so quiet walking through the town that I swear you could hear a door hinge. The big sun sat high in the sky. People sat in front of various stores like shadows and like a domino effect, others appeared mysteriously from nowhere or peaked through windows. I am in the middle of nowhere. Slowly walking down the middle of the road, I swear I somehow started to walk like Clint Eastwood (I have not seen a mzungu, or Westerner for six weeks; you amuse yourself at times, actually push the edge of sanity). Suddenly, I became a gunman from a Western movie. I looked for a dog to spit between its eyes, my arms to the side, ready to draw. It was quite strange. In reality you can do whatever you want to do for you are the mzungu, an alien being.
The diversity of geography in Kenya is great. Just over and down the hill of Tombe, the stark and dusty village, the hot turned into cool with a view to rolling valleys, green tea fields, and pastures with resting cows and people at work in their fields. I took off my shoes and walked barefoot on the packed clay road lined on each side by towering jacaranda trees with views both up and down the valley to a multitude of patchwork farms that dotted the landscape to infinity. Down at the base of the valley, I stopped at a rushing brown stream, took off my shoes and nursed my then sore feet in the cool stream. Soon ten kids appeared at my side to take a close look, mesmerized by my white calves and feet. The children had brought cattle to the river to cool, the mini-forest and lushness bring a garden of Eden feel. The area is so picturesque, yet with time the newness wears off, and as I become more secure in my environment, my external senses turn internal. I must daily breath in nature, sit out at night, and enjoy long walks in this African paradise.
******destruction of selves: speaking oddly
The diversity of geography in Kenya is great. Just over and down the hill of Tombe, the stark and dusty village, the hot turned into cool with a view to rolling valleys, green tea fields, and pastures with resting cows and people at work in their fields. I took off my shoes and walked barefoot on the packed clay road lined on each side by towering jacaranda trees with views both up and down the valley to a multitude of patchwork farms that dotted the landscape to infinity. Down at the base of the valley, I stopped at a rushing brown stream, took off my shoes and nursed my then sore feet in the cool stream. Soon ten kids appeared at my side to take a close look, mesmerized by my white calves and feet. The children had brought cattle to the river to cool, the mini-forest and lushness bring a garden of Eden feel. The area is so picturesque, yet with time the newness wears off, and as I become more secure in my environment, my external senses turn internal. I must daily breath in nature, sit out at night, and enjoy long walks in this African paradise.
******destruction of selves: speaking oddly
It was brown hue dirt dust and wind against the tin sheet A-Frame, “Crawly lizards, scurrying little bastards’, thought the mzungu. Fighting the amoebas, a thin man looks for a dead leaf to wipe his ass. Strategically squatting to avoid passersby; tree vegetation borders lead the way, trodden paths, little barefoot rugged feet, cattle and their horns, discarded sugar cane balls, eaten corn of cob. Here comes four-year-old Toreen flying with a bucket on her head! The Flying Nun! It is like living in a cartoon, the colors, the characters. No Mister Magoos or Uncle Charlies, however.
Dacko compares himself to an old man sitting in a Western deserted cowboy town. Dacko says, ‘Hey Marge’, your breasts are looking pretty nice all high up on two turnips, barley fritter face, on a skillet, push pin eardrop, flower of my life.’ The thin man returns on his walk back from the choo, he sits himself looking at a reflection of a mirror at the person over ten thousand miles away in the tropical forests of Africa.
Greenness and squared areas of fertile cultivation, banana trees, high golden ears of corn intermixed with the leaves of beans not ready to hoe. Bright flowers of bright pyrethrum, goats and brown cows, speckled black, proud cocks and hens and their eggs. The man greets the day with a stretch and big yawn. The beginning of a day, fluttering birds, black and white, yellow-green diving and dashing. The early sun warms the area. Little kids are off to school, a school wooden box on their heads, a handmade purse full of exercise books and worn pencils. Some warm corn in their pockets, or the sweet small green fruits of tall trees, as a snack.
The old man in the Western, gets up and washes his face in a basin, a woman practices a violin, a small black haired boy in pudgy jeans and an embroidered shirt. His daddy the miller tying his tie, on the way to work, horse and buggies bringing in, stagecoaches, a group of passing men, with parched lips, dust covered faces and skin bags, tumbleweeds tangled gnarly fragments, passing through town. The barber, the hoteli and bar, the unused piano in the corner, the owner’s wife outside washing clothes, with a total view of nothingness. Dacko walks her way, as he doesn’t pass a woman he knows without first a simple acknowledgement, “Hey mama darling, prettier than a little white eety-beety teacup in your daughter’s doll house. And aren’t you the doll of all dolls, mama pretty sweet as lemonade punch.’
The man watches the kids pass and counts his blessings. God has really blessed the young, how do you direct their futures? ‘I wish people would do less directing except in the movies’ the man thinks as he washes his feet. White and yellow eggs, frying in a pan, within reach, the sound of a short-wave radio. Six years till the year 2000.
*
Edward and I visited a group in the village of Mboga, a six-mile walk towards Kisii. We were a bit late, but we had some valuable discussion. We will return again and I think our next lesson with them will be on realistic goal setting. (Edward is a quiet one in a group, maybe a cultural thing due to his age. My main objective now is to try and get him to tuck in his shirt and carry a pen, ha.). The women’s group had 10,000 Ksh (approximately $200US), with which they wanted to build a youth polytechnic (a trade school). In order to build a trade school, they would need 500,000 Ksh or more. With monthly donations of about 200Ksh a month, it would take them about 200 years to save enough money to build.
It is now almost 8pm, following a bucket bath, one gallon of warm water, washcloth and soap, followed by lotion, quite nice. There is something soothing in the warm water, especially soaking the feet. There are few rain catchment tanks in Rigoma in contrast to Nyamathi, so most of my water comes from boreholes or from piped water from natural springs, brought to me by neighbor children. Most of my bathing is done in the river.
I am really getting comfortable in the community here; Linet and friend bringing me milk, old man Ondiek stopped by for a visit, Edward to play backgammon with four young boys around, David bringing his pet doves. It was amazing watching him herd them home with a twig.
* * * **
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.” “Shall we always study to obtain more of those things, and not be sometimes content with less?”
“The state endeavors to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which result from the use of excess things.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
'The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.’
*
Edward and I visited a group in the village of Mboga, a six-mile walk towards Kisii. We were a bit late, but we had some valuable discussion. We will return again and I think our next lesson with them will be on realistic goal setting. (Edward is a quiet one in a group, maybe a cultural thing due to his age. My main objective now is to try and get him to tuck in his shirt and carry a pen, ha.). The women’s group had 10,000 Ksh (approximately $200US), with which they wanted to build a youth polytechnic (a trade school). In order to build a trade school, they would need 500,000 Ksh or more. With monthly donations of about 200Ksh a month, it would take them about 200 years to save enough money to build.
It is now almost 8pm, following a bucket bath, one gallon of warm water, washcloth and soap, followed by lotion, quite nice. There is something soothing in the warm water, especially soaking the feet. There are few rain catchment tanks in Rigoma in contrast to Nyamathi, so most of my water comes from boreholes or from piped water from natural springs, brought to me by neighbor children. Most of my bathing is done in the river.
I am really getting comfortable in the community here; Linet and friend bringing me milk, old man Ondiek stopped by for a visit, Edward to play backgammon with four young boys around, David bringing his pet doves. It was amazing watching him herd them home with a twig.
* * * **
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.” “Shall we always study to obtain more of those things, and not be sometimes content with less?”
“The state endeavors to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which result from the use of excess things.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
'The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.’
James, Varieties of Religious Experiences
* * * **
Returned from a trip to the Nganga’s in Naivasha. It was great to see them again after so many months. It was a wonderful feeling getting off the large bus, seasoned, at the right stop without the anxiety, and carrying a big load of bananas in a burlap sack and jar of wimbi flour as a gift from villagers in Rigoma and heading up the hill against the wind strong. After a quiet night of stories and a hearty meal, I spent the next day traveling to the Peace Corps center to greet some fellow volunteers I had not seen since we left Naivasha.
The Nganga house was happy as usual. Baba Joseph was happy that his cow had calved, there were a couple more chickens and their dog gave birth to some pups. I knew that I wanted a pup, and Baba had no problem with this, so John and I, went out to take a pick from the litter. I went for a fat one, a boy, colored a light brown with white and black patches. The dog winked at me and I knew he was mine. John said I should name him ‘Jim’ or ‘Bosco’. I chose Bosco and the next day we said our goodbyes and I headed back to Rigoma. Everything is perfect as it all falls into place. When I accept the flow, and see the bad as necessary for the good, it is easier. Eliminate bad luck. No Plans. No goals. No expectations. Anything can happen.
I write about my first impressions of the city center on my first trip on the Gusii Express:
‘Gusii Express to Naivasha, lady throwing up, stewardesses or stewards fight their way on ship (a large bus) at stops to shouts to sell boiled eggs or warm sodas, music blaring, heat and mustiness inside. Survival at town centers, dirt and discarded trash, every transaction negotiated, con men, a young homeless boy carrying a piece of salvaged wire, a chunk of wood outside the bus, gazing at the litter strewed on the ground as a boy in the U.S. might look for a four leaf clover. Hawkers, bottles of sodas in a cardboard box, cheap calculators and big red combs, razor blades, a ball point pen pushed in your window. Young boys in funny hats, fighting for their daily bread, growing up fast in an increasingly dangerous game in the African sludge, the city. This is their playground, their habitat; dirt, waste, the sound of repeated horns, loud music from all corners, pushing and shoving, arguments. Their method for dealing with it is by smiles and laughter. Take what is dealt, in good cheer, even in the worst of circumstances. My lesson for the day.'
* * * **
Returned from a trip to the Nganga’s in Naivasha. It was great to see them again after so many months. It was a wonderful feeling getting off the large bus, seasoned, at the right stop without the anxiety, and carrying a big load of bananas in a burlap sack and jar of wimbi flour as a gift from villagers in Rigoma and heading up the hill against the wind strong. After a quiet night of stories and a hearty meal, I spent the next day traveling to the Peace Corps center to greet some fellow volunteers I had not seen since we left Naivasha.
The Nganga house was happy as usual. Baba Joseph was happy that his cow had calved, there were a couple more chickens and their dog gave birth to some pups. I knew that I wanted a pup, and Baba had no problem with this, so John and I, went out to take a pick from the litter. I went for a fat one, a boy, colored a light brown with white and black patches. The dog winked at me and I knew he was mine. John said I should name him ‘Jim’ or ‘Bosco’. I chose Bosco and the next day we said our goodbyes and I headed back to Rigoma. Everything is perfect as it all falls into place. When I accept the flow, and see the bad as necessary for the good, it is easier. Eliminate bad luck. No Plans. No goals. No expectations. Anything can happen.
I write about my first impressions of the city center on my first trip on the Gusii Express:
‘Gusii Express to Naivasha, lady throwing up, stewardesses or stewards fight their way on ship (a large bus) at stops to shouts to sell boiled eggs or warm sodas, music blaring, heat and mustiness inside. Survival at town centers, dirt and discarded trash, every transaction negotiated, con men, a young homeless boy carrying a piece of salvaged wire, a chunk of wood outside the bus, gazing at the litter strewed on the ground as a boy in the U.S. might look for a four leaf clover. Hawkers, bottles of sodas in a cardboard box, cheap calculators and big red combs, razor blades, a ball point pen pushed in your window. Young boys in funny hats, fighting for their daily bread, growing up fast in an increasingly dangerous game in the African sludge, the city. This is their playground, their habitat; dirt, waste, the sound of repeated horns, loud music from all corners, pushing and shoving, arguments. Their method for dealing with it is by smiles and laughter. Take what is dealt, in good cheer, even in the worst of circumstances. My lesson for the day.'
* * * **
I am in Africa. Long shadows pass on the red clay ground of big crows flying overhead. I hear their screeching as they glide and stop on the tin sheets on the top of rickety stores.
Fear. I sit where I sat,
Thinking after that,
Lurky, leechy, laughing darkness,
The voice that breathes,
Danger in ears.
Blackness, a shadow sweeps,
Shiny steel, sharp,
Silent screams in my head,
Danger in ears.
Blackness, a shadow sweeps,
Shiny steel, sharp,
Silent screams in my head,
A figure in the corner.
‘We want to have certainties and no doubts. Results and no experiments without seeing that certainties can arise only through doubt and results only through experiments. When we must deal with problems, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness. We wish to hear of only unequivocal results, and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness.’
Jung, The Portable Jung
Sitting while some plantain soup is slowly cooking; the green banana, onions, garlic, tomatoes, oh, my! Beatle’s white album ringing in ears. A walk out to wash hands in the evening, oh, the coolness of the evenings. Right through you, really, there is so much to do; read a book, write in my journal, prepare lessons. Sitting in the night cool shade, leaves alive, the sound of breathing air through the tall trees. Moon behind a bad eyes series of clouds.
Another day. Good lesson at Biticha. Bosco came to town with me and he was kicked by a donkey and very easily could have died. He is still quite small and while I talked with some elders, Bosco worked his way next to a donkey and was sniffing its legs. Ondiek, an old man, knew something that I did not understand. Bosco had worked his way into a position of danger. Sure enough, the donkey kicked and Bosco flew about ten feet in the air and landed, yelping in great pain. I carried him home in my arms. Many concerned friends visited; Jonas, the butcher and Ondiek. People are amazed at how I treat an animal and how big Bosco has become. The idea of animals with souls I do not think works here. I asked an old man what he named his cow and I thought he was going to croak.
(the old man).
Bosco is now very fit and healthy. He received his doghouse today. The town loves him, as I do. After he was kicked by the donkey, the town took a great interest in my coddling of Bosco. Animals here are treated crudely. Most dogs are scrawny and are about half the size of the young and shiny Bosco. People cannot believe that Bosco follows me like a shadow and is very well behaved. He greets everyone he passes, wagging his tail, and is very friendly. People joke about his human diet of meat, eggs and milk. He provides great comfort and follows me to school and around the area visiting the homes of friends. When I ride my mountain bike, Bosco follows me in a sprint.
After an eight-mile journey to a women’s group with Edward and Bosco in the rain, we returned home to a fire and a warm meal of potatoes and rice. Bosco is a Godsend. Everywhere we go, people greet Bosco.
* * * **
Jung, The Portable Jung
Sitting while some plantain soup is slowly cooking; the green banana, onions, garlic, tomatoes, oh, my! Beatle’s white album ringing in ears. A walk out to wash hands in the evening, oh, the coolness of the evenings. Right through you, really, there is so much to do; read a book, write in my journal, prepare lessons. Sitting in the night cool shade, leaves alive, the sound of breathing air through the tall trees. Moon behind a bad eyes series of clouds.
Another day. Good lesson at Biticha. Bosco came to town with me and he was kicked by a donkey and very easily could have died. He is still quite small and while I talked with some elders, Bosco worked his way next to a donkey and was sniffing its legs. Ondiek, an old man, knew something that I did not understand. Bosco had worked his way into a position of danger. Sure enough, the donkey kicked and Bosco flew about ten feet in the air and landed, yelping in great pain. I carried him home in my arms. Many concerned friends visited; Jonas, the butcher and Ondiek. People are amazed at how I treat an animal and how big Bosco has become. The idea of animals with souls I do not think works here. I asked an old man what he named his cow and I thought he was going to croak.
(the old man).
Bosco is now very fit and healthy. He received his doghouse today. The town loves him, as I do. After he was kicked by the donkey, the town took a great interest in my coddling of Bosco. Animals here are treated crudely. Most dogs are scrawny and are about half the size of the young and shiny Bosco. People cannot believe that Bosco follows me like a shadow and is very well behaved. He greets everyone he passes, wagging his tail, and is very friendly. People joke about his human diet of meat, eggs and milk. He provides great comfort and follows me to school and around the area visiting the homes of friends. When I ride my mountain bike, Bosco follows me in a sprint.
After an eight-mile journey to a women’s group with Edward and Bosco in the rain, we returned home to a fire and a warm meal of potatoes and rice. Bosco is a Godsend. Everywhere we go, people greet Bosco.
* * * **
A very good day today; a nice lesson at Biticha with the adults. My adult lesson was electric, teaching and learning about writing and the alphabet. About half of the class could not write their names. I picture one lady in particular recopying her name, struggling with a pencil in her hands and teaching Benterero, the concept of addition and subtraction with a handful of rocks. Benterero’s wife, Josephina, sat nearby, working on algebra problems. All of the students sat on rickety children’s benches in the brick schoolroom, with dirt floor and open windows to the African countryside; green and brown, the kids ending the day at the nearby Primary school playing at the final recess. I am motivated to scribble:
Hope,
Out my window,
Shaved headed young children,
Out my window,
Shaved headed young children,
Smooth skin, running like gazelles,
Hand gestures, a smile,
Communicating through an interpreter,
Addition in Africa,
A classroom of twenty adult students,
A classroom of twenty adult students,
A pencil and paper,
In rugged hands,
Soil, and rain, and hardship,
A cycle of kids, African demands,
A sanctuary; the schoolroom,
Lost childhoods, a window to the past,
In rugged hands,
Soil, and rain, and hardship,
A cycle of kids, African demands,
A sanctuary; the schoolroom,
Lost childhoods, a window to the past,
Inside, innocence, hope,
Eager faces, togetherness,
A circle, a community,
A beautiful bond,
There is hope in this world,
Children and learning...
Teach the adults and watch,
The children play.
* * * **
Eager faces, togetherness,
A circle, a community,
A beautiful bond,
There is hope in this world,
Children and learning...
Teach the adults and watch,
The children play.
* * * **
Tonight, news of the US Embassy attacked in Somalia, nine Americans killed. Somalis are now moving into Kenya causing havoc in the Northern territory. America thinks that they can come in and restore order....it is just not possible. Opening up a new can of worms. Children throwing stones at convoys. Confidence gained at initial ease of movement. But the evil element cannot be controlled by outside infiltrators who have no knowledge of environment. Trying to alter natural courses of events only creates more confusion.
Today, a lesson with adults, bookkeeping and 21-math game with cards, a good lesson. Edward Magori, my sidekick and co-worker, was along as usual. He is a great guy, goofy, and a big kid, with a great sense of humor. We travel the paths together to meet villages afar, it is good work. We have a song we like to sing as we walk. It is called, “Everywhere we go we see breasts”.
Generally, the people are not waiting for us for time is just time here. Often, they are not sure; if we come, we come. And when we arrive, the village comes together from the fields, prepares a feast, and then a discussion and lesson is given according to the perceived need. (Mostly cashbook or marketing lessons given under a tree, a beat up blackboard and chalk is brought and the village gathers to watch).
* * * **
* * * **
Bosco has a new friend, the neighbor’s dog; he is having a slumber party tonight in his nyumbani (house) A cool rain tonight, a dinner shared with Muma of tomatoes, spinach leaf, carrots and garlic/soy sauce, damn good. Breakfast of uji (porridge) brought by Heidi, Muma’s wife. Snack of ndazi (donut-like) and tea at Daniel’s hoteli, visiting with Kobi, a Winnie-the-Pooh, smily roly-poly of a young lady. I have forgotten what it is like to have sex...it has been so damn long. The rural Kenyan culture does not allow for casual female guests. To be in love? Whoa. And it must wait. Fate, God’s plan...I have trusted that for too long. I have been in love a handful of times in my life and it is a good thing.
Edward brought to my house in the dark of night a native woman I know from my visits into town. They came while I was bathing by lantern. She was covered with a large piece of fabric, like a sacrificial lamb. Edward and I talked over the cement wall as Opa sat silently by a single lit white candle. He asked me if I had the pregnancy pill (at that time there was no one time pill). I laughed and explained to him that the pill is something the woman must take every day. I finished my bath and then entered the main room where they sat, Opa still covered with her head down and silent. Edward told me that Opa wants ‘to do it’ and ‘how long would I need?’. I sent him off for a couple of sodas and said, ‘give me 30 minutes’ with no intentions. After Edward left, I attempted to explain to Opa that in the West, men and women can have friendships and that what I mostly desire is a female friend to hang out with. Well, I decided to take her into my small bedroom. We sat on the bed, as she pulled back the fabric on her head. I leaned forward and tried to kiss her but was only met with kind of a locked jaw and awkwardness. (the next day Edward told me that ‘people don’t kiss here, only in the big cities’). I then decided to take off my shirt and Opa’s as well, and when our bodies met, the smooth skin and warmth, I could not help but move forward. It was a mutual thing and very nice.
* * * **
Edward brought to my house in the dark of night a native woman I know from my visits into town. They came while I was bathing by lantern. She was covered with a large piece of fabric, like a sacrificial lamb. Edward and I talked over the cement wall as Opa sat silently by a single lit white candle. He asked me if I had the pregnancy pill (at that time there was no one time pill). I laughed and explained to him that the pill is something the woman must take every day. I finished my bath and then entered the main room where they sat, Opa still covered with her head down and silent. Edward told me that Opa wants ‘to do it’ and ‘how long would I need?’. I sent him off for a couple of sodas and said, ‘give me 30 minutes’ with no intentions. After Edward left, I attempted to explain to Opa that in the West, men and women can have friendships and that what I mostly desire is a female friend to hang out with. Well, I decided to take her into my small bedroom. We sat on the bed, as she pulled back the fabric on her head. I leaned forward and tried to kiss her but was only met with kind of a locked jaw and awkwardness. (the next day Edward told me that ‘people don’t kiss here, only in the big cities’). I then decided to take off my shirt and Opa’s as well, and when our bodies met, the smooth skin and warmth, I could not help but move forward. It was a mutual thing and very nice.
* * * **
After moving to my third place; in a mud hut on the compound of Mabira:
A day of nothing....a mzee and friend (many Abbott and Costello’s or Laurel and Hardy pairs) took me to a cool place, under a banana tree in the shade. We sat for a couple of hours, and talked about nothing in Swahili and English. There are some very funny characters here. They sent an old mama to gather changa to drink, a bitter vodka-like moonshine brought in a glass pint bottle. The man repeated instructions for the mama to not dig around the banana tree, so I could come whenever I wanted to relax. A nice visit and laughter. They had found a perfect pocket of sunshine and breeze and quiet, something I would search for many times again, again and again...
...Chasing Tina Edna through the cornfields, around banana trees and hedges. Her little limbs and low center of gravity handle the turns with expertise. I would catch her and she would laugh or she would escape as I would stalk her. She loves it. It is exercise and fun for me. Tina (age 7, Nashie, age 9, Osoro, age 4) would principally become my main hobbits and good subjects on which to study the youth culture in Kenya. By this time, in my walks and through teaching, I must know over 400 kids by name in the village. I also enjoy the many elderly people and especially the misfits and borderline insane elders that roamed the village seeking liquid spirits or local marijuana. Then came the solid citizen young people and middle agers. I also found those who believed in witchcraft interesting. (A boy loses the ability to speak while walking at night running into witches who put a hex on him. This shut down the whole village for a day. I visited his compound on the day in question as hundreds of villagers sat; the boy sitting on a chair writing on a tablet with two of his friends standing by, the women in a group socializing, and the men at a distance discussing the solution. I interviewed the head elder and he told me what had happened. Evidently, they were waiting on a counter-witch to come and spit on leaves and undo the hex. Edward, my co-worker, also tells me stories of witches who dig up graves. An elderly man of the village was chased and cut up in pieces after reportedly causing the deaths of two men. He was boasting of his powers and then taken to the high chief, who told him to return to the site of burial, as men prepared the graves. The story goes that as he approached the compound, snakes ran into the graves, signaling him as the culprit indeed. What followed was a chase in the village, by a mob of angry young men armed with machetes, who trapped him in a hut, kicked the door down, and proceeded to kill him. I was teaching adults at the time of the chase as a young boy sprinted across the field to tell the adults I was teaching about what was happening. Ten minutes later, another boy came, and said the man was dead. Soon, my whole class ran out of the room and was followed by the two hundred students of the primary and secondary school. I followed on my bike, and stood at a distance from the mud hut, while hundreds of villagers formed a line, and entered the house in question, gazing at the dead man, and coming out, the majority laughing...The longer version has it that the man in question was the uncle of a teacher I knew at the Secondary school whose name was Julius. The day before, I had told the staff at break that I was given a cat by a friend and that the cat was bothersome and I no longer wanted it. Julius offered to take the cat off of my hands and so earlier that day I had taken the black cat to Julius and told him that its name was Kemunto (after a neighbor girl; Kenyans do not name their animals like us crazy mzungus). Well, two days after the man was killed by the mob, Julius’ father died of a mysterious disease. It ends up being true that Kemunto is the name of Julius’ mother. And so the days following Julius’ father’s death, (and his uncle killed one hour after my giving of the cat to Julius), mothers would come to me at the adult class, shake my hand, and look at me strangely, muttering ‘Kemunto’. I was a bit spooked. A couple of days later came Julius’ father’s funeral and we went as a staff to attend it. Julius’ family’s compound lay high on a hill, and as we approached the procession (hundreds of people; men under the canopy of cut trees and banana leaves in chairs with elders talking through a microphone and women and children on the grass section of the compound), people begin to mutter ‘mzungu’, ‘mzungu’. We follow the line to the back of the house where the coffin stood on a table and the men prepared the grave. I walked up to Julius, his father’s face with plugs in his nose showed through the plastic window, and Julius shaked my hand. We sat in a position of prominence under the canopy in chairs. Time passes, speeches are made in the unintelligible language and suddenly a chicken ran through my legs. (Chickens are released to solve a witch crime). Suddenly, the murmur of the burial group increases, and I hear ‘mzungu’, ‘mzungu’ again. Violence is common at funerals but I escape this one and still not know today if my imaginations hold any validity. The funeral ends and our principal says some words, and as teachers, we move along back to school. On the way, I ask big Joseph, a friendly fellow teacher, about my fears, and he gives me words to ease my suspicion. Nonetheless, it was an interesting chain of events, and I leave Rigoma to gather some fresh air.
* * * **
PMA. Positive Mental Attitude. No voiced negativity. Life circumstances. Not disillusioned. Life affirming thoughts. Back to my reading review 1994; Carl Jung, dream analysis and projections, Aristotle, Ethics, The Philosopher Ruler, Plato the Republic, Bible, Nietzsche is sometimes absurd and too rebellious in his extremes, the root is good, Zen and Tao. As Kalu Rinpoche states: “All is attitude”
* * * **
News following my trip.
Joma. The move arounder with gnarly toes, curled in laughter, a forever grin, and always a ‘Weaver, Habari yako?’ in slurred spitting mockingly way. His was bliss and exuded it. Always in the same place, sitting with young kids selling sugar cane by the tiga along the dirt road cutting through town. Or pushing a wheelbarrow filled with dirt. Walking swiftly on an eight kilometer walk to Keroka, mud, stones, rain, cement, heat, anything, never wore a pair of shoes. ‘Joma! Joma!’ I never sensed a slowing in his wit, yet he was labeled ‘slow’. His speech was ironically muddled and always ended in a gasp and wheel of laughter, considered stupidity. I just enjoyed greeting him and making an exchange. At times I felt I may be rude to him, as I mocked his cadence and laughter. Yet I think he liked it. I hope he liked it. Joma, died last week,and is buried. A story of Joma and his bull, only Joma could give it water. Since Joma’s death, the bull has been kicking, and not allowing anyone to water it. I want to see Joma’s bull. A cry for Joma. Shocked by a wire at the tea factory. Taken from this world in a jolt. A truck and men in green jackets. I bet he said, ‘What’s this?’ and picked up a wild wire. Joma wasn’t afraid of asking. He may have been taken for his greatest attribute. May Joma see light and rest in peace.
An old silver haired magokoro, or extremely old person. I see her walking up and down along the gravel road digging at plants for food. I buy her tomatoes, bananas, and a couple of times slapped her a fiver (5 ksh). I visited her house, an old brown and rickety compound, little trees, beans and corn and dirt paths making an ‘X’. The little old one slowly lowers herself on the ground, her name is Nyabuche. She goes into the house for something, very slowly, cat-like, yet now I see her hands, knobbled gruly fist in a ball like a cat. I catch a glimpse of the inside of her dwelling, and it is like Fort Knox, no Xanadu, Howard Hughes, CITIZEN KANE, ‘Red Bud’, stockpiles of old corn stalks and firewood, and twigs and a little path winding through, sun on empty table, from open door on other side, corners hid in shades. What an interesting tale, this little old woman in a shoe, the children were her imagination. Seeing, voices, talking to oneself. IT IS RIGHT HERE.
* * * **
Oct 1993. Clinton's US escalates war in Somalia, warships halted off Haiti coast, American embassy hurried, Part-of-Big-Union-PLO v Israel putting kerosene on fire, UN/US policy, NAFTA, Health care restructure/sham. "If we wanted to blow up Somalia it could be done." Clinton adds. Blind decisions, first year. The EC and opening up Western borders.
But how is the DOW? Forty-two points up? Top Heavy earning. CocaCola and Lobbyists and consultants. White haired, white shirt, appropriate cheerleader tie, leaders coached, painted with prepared statements, there are few brown or yellow in the bunch, "That's right. You got it. Show enthusiasm. Look away from the camera at times." High five. "Right on dadeo, and you are such a coach!" What major decisions at home? Where is L.A. post Rodney King riot growth and improvements in Watts?
‘A Raisin in the Sun’. Pottier, black and white, family struggling in New York city. Where are their stories now? TOP COPS. And what trash? But I watched it. That is the direction of the American mind.
‘Lao Tan asked, ‘May I ask your definition of benevolence and righteousness?’ Confucius said, ‘To be glad and joyful in mind; to embrace universal love and be without partisanship.’
Government of the sage. Confucius was a philosopher and politician. What words do we hear out of our politicians today? How advanced are we?
* * * **
* * * **
Oct 1993. Clinton's US escalates war in Somalia, warships halted off Haiti coast, American embassy hurried, Part-of-Big-Union-PLO v Israel putting kerosene on fire, UN/US policy, NAFTA, Health care restructure/sham. "If we wanted to blow up Somalia it could be done." Clinton adds. Blind decisions, first year. The EC and opening up Western borders.
But how is the DOW? Forty-two points up? Top Heavy earning. CocaCola and Lobbyists and consultants. White haired, white shirt, appropriate cheerleader tie, leaders coached, painted with prepared statements, there are few brown or yellow in the bunch, "That's right. You got it. Show enthusiasm. Look away from the camera at times." High five. "Right on dadeo, and you are such a coach!" What major decisions at home? Where is L.A. post Rodney King riot growth and improvements in Watts?
‘A Raisin in the Sun’. Pottier, black and white, family struggling in New York city. Where are their stories now? TOP COPS. And what trash? But I watched it. That is the direction of the American mind.
‘Lao Tan asked, ‘May I ask your definition of benevolence and righteousness?’ Confucius said, ‘To be glad and joyful in mind; to embrace universal love and be without partisanship.’
Government of the sage. Confucius was a philosopher and politician. What words do we hear out of our politicians today? How advanced are we?
* * * **
A passing car. Did I hear it or not? Voices out my isolated grass hut, the sound of a cow mulching out my window. Miles Davis on the audio, thinking of movie 'Days of Wine and Roses' with Jack Lemmon, Mack the Knife, people have always been the same. Happy and bad times, we must look on the good.
It is solemn and quiet. The sound of dry leaves blowing over a white painted porch in late autumn. The crisp breeze against the face. A stretch to the sky unbothered. A dog to greet. Africa. On a plane of peace, and my feet in a stream, a valley, tall grass thick in their greenness, families on the hill picking tea. A green fish pond, birds, small dashes of yellow or black, a mini Teradactaline green and maroon bird with long feathers glides to a stop. Two big cranes with white wingspans coast to the tops of trees. Goats on hind legs, sheep, cows dashing in hedges, chickens of all variations. An old man and a cane, a group of school kids, two cows and a four-year-old herder, a boy with a stick and sometimes rock. The path is well traveled.
‘Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond!
Basho, A Haiku Journey
The voices.... and no idea.
Silence in my head and face. A beautiful night to see the stars. Negative interpretations. Reading body motions and cadence of sound. Whisper to me in and out. I will put you in a tree or bush. A bird may take you away to a trout in a stream. Then to the pan of Mr. Devon Milbrest, a shoe salesman from Denver, whose trash is picked up by a dog Spinner. Spinner takes home the fish remains, where a cat gets, bites man serving papers, who dies.
* * * **
The voices.... and no idea.
Silence in my head and face. A beautiful night to see the stars. Negative interpretations. Reading body motions and cadence of sound. Whisper to me in and out. I will put you in a tree or bush. A bird may take you away to a trout in a stream. Then to the pan of Mr. Devon Milbrest, a shoe salesman from Denver, whose trash is picked up by a dog Spinner. Spinner takes home the fish remains, where a cat gets, bites man serving papers, who dies.
* * * **
My second meeting with the traditional herbalist - witchdoctor? A regular mzee with his bag of tricks. Tricks or treats? The oldest con game known to man? I will know soon. Yet an interesting experience. Tree bark in water. Tree ash in can to be mixed with water in old gin bottle and corncob cork given to me to heal a bad back. Muma took me to the wooden shack behind the butcher shop after hours by lantern and the little man with quick gait and shining eyes, blue golf hat; a respected village herbalist.
The police is on..or is it Sting? A nice pace to conclude the evening, potatoes and bananas boiling for dinner. The sound of children laughing and the frisbee’s thud to the ground. Tina, Nashie, Osoro playing in the small cow pasture, some yellow dried bean husks bundled in the corner. A beautiful young woman named Rosa, with an empty bottle comes for milk at the Mabira compound where I am guest.
I had an interesting debate with a man in town today. A central point of it was my explanation for my need for freedom, that the only 'person' I want to answer to is God. The man's face, contorted to my un-African beliefs replied, "But you must have someone telling you what to do." The man retorted, 'How do you know who you are or how you are doing without someone else telling you. You cannot see yourself, only others can see you.' He became frightened, brought up David Koresh, the Davidson sect leader. After many years later (in retyping this journal), I have come to respect this man’s wisdom in which I missed in my naïve arrogance. I have come to believe that spirituality is in the I-you relationship and the man had much to say but I missed the opportunity.
Later reading: “This is the trait of humble people: They do not dare deal with God independently, nor can they be completely satisfied without human counsel and direction.”
St John on the Cross
I feel blessed tonight...very solemn. A nice afternoon in adult education and lesson on profit and loss.
After class, I stopped at the town center to watch a soccer game. For dinner, I visited the house of my friend Pacifica's, with her children Erica, Janeti and infant Cyprian. They are a great unit, the secretary of our school and her three girls, whom I visit every Wednesday night and take a hunk of meat to cook and we eat together. (Edward told me the husband left because Pacifica had three girls and no boys.) All are so hard working and together. I will never forget the wonderful people here and the opportunity given to smile, to take interest, to be a part of things.
Mimicking sounds. Me in my hut, the children within earshot behind shrubs. Mamamama. Mamamamama. Ohohohohoh. ohohohohooh. Then I will throw in a Giglioaraopopra. Laughs. I go outside to catch Edward pruning tomatoes and the kids putting small tomatoes on sticks and throwing them high into the air, coming down in sugar cane or tall rows of corn fifty yards away. The Gusii radio is on. I am surrounded by eight kids and I look at them, and they tilt their heads back with a laugh, then comes the sweetest most lovable smiles, their eyes shine. We meet and gaze at each other for what seem minutes, our beings connect, there are just smiles and a glow, radiance, condensed love for each other. A moment when time stops, in between climbing trees and gazing for bad tomatoes to toss. I have never experienced such a strong feeling of love I get from these young children, these incredible happy faces, the energy. The love is coming out I know, and the love I feel coming back cannot be explained.
I have gained an insight, wisdom to know when it is time to put away all agenda, and recognize that a moment fully to be enjoyed, or, to be lost in, is at hand, when time is lost. Edna was gathering firewood, bundles of twigs from in between tea bushes, slowly, deliberately. I had stopped and squatted, just watching her in her slow deliberate work. Finally, she finished and sat next to the bundle of twigs lying on a rope waiting to be bundled. Everyone was away, all was quiet as night approached. All that could be heard were muffled voices from afar, and birds. Tina just sat, and she recognized IT; two friends with an opportunity for complete silence and a union with God and nature. Soon, I caught on to her wisdom, and we both sat in silence for eternity, grinning. One of the greatest experiences of my life. My love for her was recognized and fully absorbed. Love indeed knows no words. A lesson from a six year old.
It was simply hollowness, all energy flowing. I was looking ahead, humming, or we. A union of everything, a lightness, a peace...yes, full circle.
Warning. ‘Do not touch Tina. (Neighbor lady). She has something that can change your blood, or seeing. That thing cannot be cured by medical. Cured by traditional mamas. Wear red, no worries. Touch or allow her to step on you or through your hands. If you get it, you can tell by looking at your hand, see those things which were around you coming to your hands like a mirror, get a thorn and beat her anywhere until the blood comes out.’ Edward Magori told me on Nov 20, 93.
Note: On Dec 2 93, I wrote as told: ‘Tina was sent home. She looked at a child and the child fell sick, swelling stomach, crying. Sent home to be washed instead of being killed or beaten bitterly. Washing is for removing evil spirits--goat is killed, skin of goat wraps her, traditional medicine, stopping her from eating goat meat.’
A big tree, the wind and two friends.
Tina Edna (age six), my favorite child,
laughter and smiles.
The wind grasping leaves from a tree,
and sending them on a journey towards us,
and we would try and catch them spiraling.
Tina, spinning, arms stretched over her face in laughter,
and sending them on a journey towards us,
and we would try and catch them spiraling.
Tina, spinning, arms stretched over her face in laughter,
watching the white man,
who by chance has entered her life,
and shared her joy.
Jumping up and down,
throwing sticks at the leaves to assist the wind,
spinning,
falling down on the ground in laughter,
and watching,
the white man with such a deep love,
it is a bond I wish not to try and describe.
the white man with such a deep love,
it is a bond I wish not to try and describe.
A fortress and hobbits. Smooth running - hierarchy of lessons. Thorn bushes will catch you. Crafty children who could outsmart the ‘Home Alone’ boy live here in Africa. A six-year-old girl, sitting on a kanga, rocking her little brother between her legs (Tina). The type of bird that steals chicken eggs is spotted. Tina laughs 'Ha' sharply, picks up a rock and waits till the right moment to toss, a shout 'Ho'. She laughs and sits down again and begins singing. An alertness and quick thinking that is part of playtime. It is instinctual, passed for generations. There is no posted board, no asking, it is done without thinking, just a part of life. Tasks for boys: Watch kids, herd cattle, dig in shamba, pick tea, cut wood, make bricks, sell vegetables to dukas. Tasks for girls include: watch kids, clean, gather firewood, water, pick tea, wash dishes, sweep compound, milk cow, cook, wash clothes. The kids are so tough, resourceful, together. There is no drudgery, complaining, everything is done with a dance and a song.
* * * **
Bosco was pronounced dead this morning. Yet, I checked on him at 11am, and something urged me to not give up. I have brought him home, as he lies on the ground, under the shade of a flowering tree, spinning in circles, crying. I have given him perhaps two gallons of water, and am encouraged. It has seemingly purged his system, as he throws up yet is in very bad shape. Yet, there is life in him now, and if he can live on liquids, milk and soup, he may just make it.
Violent convulsions, Johnny Menta, nearby watching. I thought Bosco was going to see his maker. Now he rests, his eyes glazed, he is in a bad way.
Now Bosco is yelping in such great pain, with the screams of kids playing beyond, the twangy sound of the Gusii radio, the loud moos of cows. I hear a woman wailing on a kid with a long stick. The sounds are enough to drive one mad. I am dirty as shit, no water to clean myself, and my dog is dying.
A haunting story. Getting involved in euthanasia with my dog. Overdose of chemical. Comatose with interspertent circles and head slams, bitter crying moaning, his sounds outside my hut. Two attempts to suffocate him, three hours later, moans, it is killing me. I cannot kill him. Neighbor visitors enter, pronounce a friendly death, THE HAMMER OF MY ATTEMPTS. Hell. Darkness of darks. His moans are haunting me. The worst night of my life. Tried to kill Bosco. Evil barks in retaliation, gathering strength. The neighbors know what I tried to do. Howling now. I yell, ‘someone kill him’. Moaning. Silence. A howl. I went to stop his air after hitting him with a branch around skull and ribs. 6 attempts. 10 pm-3 am. Brick to head. DEAD Dec 15 93.
Last night was a nightmare. Trying to relieve Bosco's suffering brought on greater suffering. Trying to suffocate him only to be brought back to life 3-4 times. Howls, evil growls, crying in the silent night. Comatose, yet still breathing, then a wimper, cry, moan and rabid bark. Each time coming to me, haunting me, chilling my nerves. I am trying to ease beloved Bosco's pain, yet he keeps coming back, in the deepest suffering. His head, ribs, body broken, I still see his eyes, he winks, like when I picked him up as a pup. The breathing will not stop. Exhaustion, a bad dream, repeated, over and over again.
I had given Bosco to Edward (my co-worker) to take care of for I will leave the country in one year and I did not wish to keep him on the Mabira compound. Bosco contacted a form of tick disease from some younger pups at Edward’s compound (Edward lives in a triplex, a new cement and brick apartment building closer to town. Pacifica, my secretary friend with her three girls and Isaac, the village modern ‘doctor’ who treats patients out of a tattered Where there is no Doctor textbook are the other two tenants. (Isaac also allows a couple of young ladies to live with him, where he teaches them, they do his laundry, and at some time they get a nursing certificate).
Isaac, is mostly a pill and injection administrator. About a week ago, I noticed that Bosco was weak and not himself on a long walk to a women’s group meeting. He lagged behind and his coat was as if dirty. I thought it was a passing thing but kept close attention. One day, an old mama who lived in a mud hut just behind Edward’s compound told me that Bosco was dying and that I needed to leave it alone: “He is witch-crafted’ she says and ‘nothing can be done.’ This same woman has a son who has a form of epilepsy that she attributes to witchcraft as well. Going to the back of the apartment complex, urged by the old woman’s warning, I went to see how Bosco was doing. He was clearly worsening, and ignoring the old woman’s suggestion, I decided to do something about my dog.
This involved carrying my dog to the village center, setting him down, and waiting for the next matatu to Kisii. The plan was to visit the district Livestock and Agricultural headquarters in Kisii and to get an ‘educated’ opinion and treatment for Bosco. Well, of course, my gentleness with a dog, and simply the fact that I cared so, threw many into great interest.
We arrived in Kisii in mid-afternoon and I carried Bosco to the Livestock office and met with a government veterinarian. In professional manner, he inspected my weak Bosco, identified some large gray ticks, gave him two injections and then wrote a prescription for the Kisii chemist. He gave me instructions for the next three days and sent me to the chemist. Bosco could only be carried, and so we proceeded through the busy town and arrived at the chemist as she was getting ready to close for the day. The chemist took the prescription, and handed me the chemical powder in a packet with three syringes and repeated the instructions to mix the chemical with water and give Bosco three separate injections in the morning on the next three days.
Returning to Rigoma at night, I returned Bosco to his place, and waited the next day to give him his first injection. The next morning came, I went to Isaac, explained the situation and gave him the packet of powder and instructions. He mixed the first injection and gave Bosco the shot in Bosco’s hindquarters as the Kisii veterinarian instructed. I returned Bosco to his spot, set him down, staying with him and then left him to rest for the day. Later that day, I came to check on his progress. Bosco was clearly in great pain and could not get up. It was as if his lower body were paralyzed. He could only use his front legs and work himself in a circle using his front paws as his jaws snapped at me. At this point, I knew that something was wrong and located Isaac and asked to look at the chemical packet. Upon closer inspection and in reading the fine print, I realized that the particular medicine packet had enough potency for a large cow. Bosco had been overdosed.
The decision now was to put him in a wheelbarrow, and return to the Mabira compound, where I could keep closer watch, and determine what course of action to take. As I wheeled him along the wide main dirt road, Bosco could only slap his head up as if to bite me, and looked deformed in a way. We arrived at the compound of Mabira. I placed him outside my mud hut under the flowering tree with white petals on the ground in the green grass. My yard is small and surrounded by a high green fence of thorn bushes surrounding my cube giving privacy. All that was left was myself and my three little children (Nashie, Osoro, Tina) and older siblings (Teresa, Edward, Johnny Menta) to survey the damage. Bosco again only could work himself in circles as his haunted growls grew worse. My first course of action was to purge him with water. I would open his locked jaws against his will, pour the water down and then lift him up by his ribs in an attempt to get him to drink. He fell to the ground like a bag of rags. The attempt in purging his system went on from mid afternoon to dark as various people visited. Nobody gave any advice. Most stood and watched my ‘strange’ actions. (How they perceived them I do not know).
In the darkness, there were periods when it was silent. Every half hour or so, the circling and moaning would start softly and then reach a peak quickly and then die. I was contemplating on what to do. It was clear that my beloved pup, who brought so much joy to others, was dying. Even if he was to survive, I felt he would be deformed in some way. At the sound of his intense suffering and after reviewing the situation, I decided that the best course of action was to end his life.
Isaac, is mostly a pill and injection administrator. About a week ago, I noticed that Bosco was weak and not himself on a long walk to a women’s group meeting. He lagged behind and his coat was as if dirty. I thought it was a passing thing but kept close attention. One day, an old mama who lived in a mud hut just behind Edward’s compound told me that Bosco was dying and that I needed to leave it alone: “He is witch-crafted’ she says and ‘nothing can be done.’ This same woman has a son who has a form of epilepsy that she attributes to witchcraft as well. Going to the back of the apartment complex, urged by the old woman’s warning, I went to see how Bosco was doing. He was clearly worsening, and ignoring the old woman’s suggestion, I decided to do something about my dog.
This involved carrying my dog to the village center, setting him down, and waiting for the next matatu to Kisii. The plan was to visit the district Livestock and Agricultural headquarters in Kisii and to get an ‘educated’ opinion and treatment for Bosco. Well, of course, my gentleness with a dog, and simply the fact that I cared so, threw many into great interest.
We arrived in Kisii in mid-afternoon and I carried Bosco to the Livestock office and met with a government veterinarian. In professional manner, he inspected my weak Bosco, identified some large gray ticks, gave him two injections and then wrote a prescription for the Kisii chemist. He gave me instructions for the next three days and sent me to the chemist. Bosco could only be carried, and so we proceeded through the busy town and arrived at the chemist as she was getting ready to close for the day. The chemist took the prescription, and handed me the chemical powder in a packet with three syringes and repeated the instructions to mix the chemical with water and give Bosco three separate injections in the morning on the next three days.
Returning to Rigoma at night, I returned Bosco to his place, and waited the next day to give him his first injection. The next morning came, I went to Isaac, explained the situation and gave him the packet of powder and instructions. He mixed the first injection and gave Bosco the shot in Bosco’s hindquarters as the Kisii veterinarian instructed. I returned Bosco to his spot, set him down, staying with him and then left him to rest for the day. Later that day, I came to check on his progress. Bosco was clearly in great pain and could not get up. It was as if his lower body were paralyzed. He could only use his front legs and work himself in a circle using his front paws as his jaws snapped at me. At this point, I knew that something was wrong and located Isaac and asked to look at the chemical packet. Upon closer inspection and in reading the fine print, I realized that the particular medicine packet had enough potency for a large cow. Bosco had been overdosed.
The decision now was to put him in a wheelbarrow, and return to the Mabira compound, where I could keep closer watch, and determine what course of action to take. As I wheeled him along the wide main dirt road, Bosco could only slap his head up as if to bite me, and looked deformed in a way. We arrived at the compound of Mabira. I placed him outside my mud hut under the flowering tree with white petals on the ground in the green grass. My yard is small and surrounded by a high green fence of thorn bushes surrounding my cube giving privacy. All that was left was myself and my three little children (Nashie, Osoro, Tina) and older siblings (Teresa, Edward, Johnny Menta) to survey the damage. Bosco again only could work himself in circles as his haunted growls grew worse. My first course of action was to purge him with water. I would open his locked jaws against his will, pour the water down and then lift him up by his ribs in an attempt to get him to drink. He fell to the ground like a bag of rags. The attempt in purging his system went on from mid afternoon to dark as various people visited. Nobody gave any advice. Most stood and watched my ‘strange’ actions. (How they perceived them I do not know).
In the darkness, there were periods when it was silent. Every half hour or so, the circling and moaning would start softly and then reach a peak quickly and then die. I was contemplating on what to do. It was clear that my beloved pup, who brought so much joy to others, was dying. Even if he was to survive, I felt he would be deformed in some way. At the sound of his intense suffering and after reviewing the situation, I decided that the best course of action was to end his life.
The dark moonless night, the battle of death and life, Bosco’s fight and my own sense of ‘murdering’ something I loved, the accumulated sense of aloneness in this strange land, and having walked the precipice of insanity presented something words cannot wrap around. Core words might suffice; horror, helplessness, surrender, pain, love. How I loved Bosco and his friendship and I know not if I did the right thing and feel great and deep sorrow. He is gone. How strong he was and excited in being social, in roaming the African countryside, along the rolling hills of beauty, and the coolness of forests, to greet everyone who showed a gentle spirit. I crushed his skull. Oh, please Lord, help me. I am so very sorry.
* * * **
* * * **
A new kid. I laugh. Moses. Crawls through the hedges, the funniest grin, he does what he wants, his commands in Gusii, grabbing everything in sight. Dancing to Mozart. He's eating. Slopping on rice and beans, from the sufuria, the cat knocked over, twice, on the dirt floor.
Merry Christmas from Momanyi’s; a slaughtered goat, throat slit, blood flying, dinner lies on large green banana leaves on a dirt floor. I am part of a circle; five faces surround a lantern doing math problems. Granny, the youngest, sneaks into the kitchen, bringing out sweet mandazis, tearing the sweet donut-like bread to share with all. Dancing with stick outside to laughter, the kids circling, clapping, stomping their feet, singing a Gusii song. Mzees visit in the dark of night for busa, a man without a home in rags, herbs in pocket to eat, mumbling to himself. An ex-teacher who has lost his mind or taken it to another dimension? I make a dog and bird with a shadow cast, the kids laughing, my dog attacks their dogs. The lost man in seclusion later tries by himself with silly grin. Sharing a bed and blanket with young Owenga. Christmas in Africa. Up at the crow of the cock. Little figures huddle around a fire. Sitting on the top of the world, a view stretches forever. A roar through the valley in the morning mist. A moment in the life to remember.
Merry Christmas at Mabiras. Escorted by Pacifica and baby Arisha through cornfields to cousin Thomas' house to a warm welcome. Children outside and other non-relations. I enter and greet the core of the family inside a small room. Calendars of past years line the walls, hand weaved storage baskets and simple chairs in the corners. All is centered around a large pot in center of room. African moonshine, corn busa, a long straw, mzees, brothers surround taking their turns. Cassettes are put in and out of the boom box, men dance, and old mamas, Mama Francisca while breastfeeding. Sudden energy or a floating like slow movement. Little children come in to get lost in the mass. A sudden argument, two brothers square off both beyond the drunk stage of comprehension, muttering, pointing, a community of drunkards fighting, an ugly sight. The eldest brother, stands in anger, ‘Tiga!’ (stop), and temporarily slows the eruption. A hierarchy here I appreciate. Suddenly, the whole drunken ensemble takes sides, time to return to my peaceful abode. The sounds of shouting, singing, jubilation surround me.
How I love these kids....the Mabiras. Tina Edna. Always singing. Dashing here and there. Always close to her friend Weaver. I watch on the sidelines at a soccer game at the village center, a thousand people, four deep around the field. Tina Edna sits on the ground five feet away playing a game with rocks. At church, her and Nashie sit at arms length, looking at me. Nashie is a tall lean, sprinter, gymnast, actress, decathlete without even knowing it. She is always outside my cube, deeply comical, 'Weaver, habari yake?’. Osoro, his head tilting to side to side, climbing a tree, his quiet approach at my cube, he asks to use the 'Barabara' (Frisbee). Edward, a 16 year old, the best young man I have ever met, hardworking, responsible, sober. Johnny Menta, a young boy of 11, not yet a man, water? what do you need? Veronica, a sprouting lady of 16, funny, nice voice, ‘Ahh, Weaver.’ They are the greatest family I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Chores, roles, playfulness, humor, togetherness.
I am called back to the house full of dancing kids. The whole bunch. Do families dance together in the states? Osoro falls asleep as the men sit for chai (tea). Sister Pacifica within two minutes, sees it and carries him off to bed. The girls off to a neighbors to share in a song. Beautiful. Parenting by kids, a hierarchy, a separation between male and female. Mama, breastfeeding Aricha, falls in my lap. Time to go home. As I sit here in my cube, something lures me out to get involved, to be a part of this genuine love and loss of inhibitions.
* * * **
* * * **
Reversal of Fortune?
Babs McQueen, mother of Steve, is working at Kentucky Fried Chicken, as breakfast cook; Chicaquick morning nuggets, in the desert in the Mowabe, has met both Howard Hughes, used to crash at her pad after a meal of egg sandwiches and bread and the guy from that movie Paris, Texas.
Babs met David Ishman, an Islamic used car dealer in Winslow, Arizona. David gets in trouble with his boss for asking customers, "Perhaps you should buy down, you need to give alms to the poor."
They all met while playing cards at Bert Smith's, night manager at Dunkin Donuts. Bert is very short in stature. He greeted his guests with his fat hand in his sweater, all kinds of warfare on the walls. Bert set out silver dishes for serving and paper plates. His guests were people who worked for restaurants who came in and dumped their savings from work in a dish, it was the Restaurant Club of Southwestern USA. Babbs always brought old greasy chicken, old rolls and 'whats left over from the gravy tray.' Bert brought two-day old donuts. Usually, eight to ten people from restaurants and 'that guy from the car place' were at these meetings.
David likes the opportunity to drum up business. He brings flyers and hands them out. He carries the keys to a 'new' Ford Mustang. Babbs is always sure Betty Bigbra Cunningham will arrive, a neighbor of Bert's who looks after Inky, Bert's cat with hickies on its neck.
The Honeymooners is on the TV, they finish eating and sit at card tables on the patio. The tables are arranged in two sets of four, seven people are here tonight. The first joke is about Bert and the cat fur around his mouth. Bert reminds everyone about that last "America's funniest Home Videos" or the Oprah story on Jeffrey Dahmer. But when they stopped short in talking, someone would bring up the Bert case or say, "Hey Bert. You think your sword and shields will keep them away?" Bert only took it out on his staff at Dunkin Donuts. Bert would put grease on the floors by the fry pits. Bert asked for a platform for behind the counters at Dunkins so now it looks like a six-foot guy and towering people to serve. It is beginning to cause problems.
Babbs came because it is social. It is good to get out with other people. Hell, she has met Howard Hughes and the guy in that movie.
So we have got these people in this trailer on the desert, you see, sitting out under the full moon, playing concentration, drinking red wine, and you fly away up in the stars and you spin and spin and then stop. What is life? How should it be played? Glory be to we who seek, and lose and win. Kinda like a card game concentration, played by African children with different type bottle caps.
* * * **
You live in a house with your family. Over the years, ‘life’ has been overcome with all of its demands and joys; somehow the human spirit has been triumphant. Out of your father’s, grandfather’s and ancestor’s travails, a pace and structure of life has been established. You have not ventured outside your circle, for you are struggling with existing. You have lost out before to those more 'educated'; the government, the big boss. Out of your problems, you have fought for the existence you currently share. All the good and bad decisions present you with your common status. Through this, your dignity is in question, for modernity and efficiency gives the true worth of a man. The race around the circle.
Your neighbor, from a faraway land visits. His house has overgrown. To maintain his lifestyle, he has ventured onto your doorstep with a smile. He wants to help you.
• ‘Business’ mission to Bosnia, plane crash, Ron Brown dies, Economic Foreign Policy. ‘McDonalds offerings to Bosnia just having received ethnic purging. This is our pill for you. Big Macs in fancy packaging. Total disruption of naturalness. Let’s throw in Ronald McDonald! Troops and the Hamburgler! Yes. It all makes sense now.
• New Communist candidate for Russian presidency. West worried. His platform: “We want an economy which is more in line with our tradition and history.’ No shit. Natural. You cannot teach an ostrich to climb trees. We are a bunch of monkeys.
I GUESS YOU GOTTA CRITICIZE BEFORE YOU CAN CORRECT, AMERICAN IS A DAMN FINE COUNTRY, BLESSED IN MANY RESPECTS, BUT WE GOTTA CHANGE THE DIRECTION AND MESSAGES. IT MAY BE OUR DESTINY TO SAVE THE WORLD BUT NOT WITH RHETORIC AND FORCE.
* * * **
This Peace Corps thing is about losing self. Sitting under two tall trees, while your group discusses a solution in unintelligible Gusii and in laughter for two hours. You sit and lose yourself, watching children play at recess, trying to decipher their games and rules for play. A group of seventy boys of all sizes, play keep- away, or soccer, with a ball of discarded plastic pieces and twine. Girls play a game of hotbox, one in the middle, tossing a small ball trying to hit the stick figure dodging. A group of girls run long distances across the large field, playing tag. I watch some of my favorites and their activity relationships with other children. The meeting ends, you ask, ‘Good?’ Yes. OK. I was with you.
Lose Negativity.
Complete attention.
Die to Yesterday.
Give without thoughts of end.
• ‘Business’ mission to Bosnia, plane crash, Ron Brown dies, Economic Foreign Policy. ‘McDonalds offerings to Bosnia just having received ethnic purging. This is our pill for you. Big Macs in fancy packaging. Total disruption of naturalness. Let’s throw in Ronald McDonald! Troops and the Hamburgler! Yes. It all makes sense now.
• New Communist candidate for Russian presidency. West worried. His platform: “We want an economy which is more in line with our tradition and history.’ No shit. Natural. You cannot teach an ostrich to climb trees. We are a bunch of monkeys.
I GUESS YOU GOTTA CRITICIZE BEFORE YOU CAN CORRECT, AMERICAN IS A DAMN FINE COUNTRY, BLESSED IN MANY RESPECTS, BUT WE GOTTA CHANGE THE DIRECTION AND MESSAGES. IT MAY BE OUR DESTINY TO SAVE THE WORLD BUT NOT WITH RHETORIC AND FORCE.
* * * **
This Peace Corps thing is about losing self. Sitting under two tall trees, while your group discusses a solution in unintelligible Gusii and in laughter for two hours. You sit and lose yourself, watching children play at recess, trying to decipher their games and rules for play. A group of seventy boys of all sizes, play keep- away, or soccer, with a ball of discarded plastic pieces and twine. Girls play a game of hotbox, one in the middle, tossing a small ball trying to hit the stick figure dodging. A group of girls run long distances across the large field, playing tag. I watch some of my favorites and their activity relationships with other children. The meeting ends, you ask, ‘Good?’ Yes. OK. I was with you.
Lose Negativity.
Complete attention.
Die to Yesterday.
Give without thoughts of end.
Do acts without thought of fruits.
Lose pettiness.
Lose pettiness.
Love and listen.
SKY 101. Again, I went to my favorite spot of 1994. Although on the path, there are few passer-bys to disconnect a direction, as the sun set. I lay on the cold green grass, looking up at the various hues in the sky and slowly moving clouds, shapes at dusk. The colors are not bright, faint blue and grays of one hundred shades. I remember that the sky has always been there, and it gives me an opportunity to think or get lost if I wish. The sky reminds me America does not seem so far away now. The sky, a blue unseen and shots of light at the closing of a day. A sharp cool surrounding breeze, it breathes through fields of chai, and brushes my face. To enjoy and see the sky. People go their whole life without truly seeing the sky, studying it in movement and grace and solemnity and respectfulness.
SKY 101. Again, I went to my favorite spot of 1994. Although on the path, there are few passer-bys to disconnect a direction, as the sun set. I lay on the cold green grass, looking up at the various hues in the sky and slowly moving clouds, shapes at dusk. The colors are not bright, faint blue and grays of one hundred shades. I remember that the sky has always been there, and it gives me an opportunity to think or get lost if I wish. The sky reminds me America does not seem so far away now. The sky, a blue unseen and shots of light at the closing of a day. A sharp cool surrounding breeze, it breathes through fields of chai, and brushes my face. To enjoy and see the sky. People go their whole life without truly seeing the sky, studying it in movement and grace and solemnity and respectfulness.
The fish earrings. Outside my hut under a pink purplish flowering vine. Little kids trying to catch a bee inside the smooth feathery lining of long petals. A trap, a try to the ear. Bzz and laughter intermixes. The older children, Johnny Menta, Pacifica, and Veronica rummage through my toolbox, with argumentative bantering in fun; a measuring tape, small screwdriver drills, sunglasses, cologne, ziplock bags, and a pair of earrings in a plastic pouch. Veronica, putting up light blue fish earrings to her face and grinning in a mirror. Shifting them up to set in her thick light hair, the earrings lying on her ear. What is beauty? What is right?
The next morning, I woke to discover the earrings gone. There is a fine line between letting something taking its natural flow, and trying to stand for pride or notions of right? and re-guide it, interrupt it. How we/I make my/our world. The negative way in which I interpret things around me.
The next morning, I woke to discover the earrings gone. There is a fine line between letting something taking its natural flow, and trying to stand for pride or notions of right? and re-guide it, interrupt it. How we/I make my/our world. The negative way in which I interpret things around me.
The voices are here, chickens and muffled voices, sharp gasps of tone, is it questioning? Different children at 20, 30 and 35 yards in conversation or singing. People pass on the path chanting things, the beating of a sufuria, a spoon in a can, commands. I go out to bathe, with a bucket of water, soap in some trousers, barefoot with towel around my neck, to a cool breeze through dry fall-like leaves to a makeshift shower. I have many eyes and must postpone, walking outside on smooth dirt and twigs, crackling. I come in and sit down. Ed stomps in, stomping and chanting, no words, to interpret? The confusion with my life here.
* * * **
* * * **
Darkness takes on a total adding to fear, as Jung alludes to in his: Collective Unconscious. All the heritage of fear and man gathers a roll. Primal to darkness back to cave man, somehow they can become lessened to suppression. The further man is away from his natural existing self-sufficient core to nature the further he lapses into controlling factors. Controlling what?
In relation to dreams, I think the dream is the darkness, the evil coming into attempted good actions, a reshuffling of the deck. Perhaps those issues we are trying to come to perception in our waking life, or unresolved issues, disputes with dream members, where you were the worst trounced, a pivotal experience, and you strike back in darkness. You try to remember them the next day, and you feed it, you think in- depthly of the past. The key is to die to the moment. Hell, I dream all day long. Thinking of then. The dream in the day is as much nonsense as the one at night.
Rain on my parade,
Hollow black faces line the street,
The music is muffled,
Distant voices of admiration from afar,
Dark and murky,
Discarded papers ruffle in the wind,
Discarded papers ruffle in the wind,
On a journey unknown,
Moanings of ancestral trappings,
Moanings of ancestral trappings,
Stirring in the statuesque shapes,
Waiting to be set free,
My parade must continue,
My radiance must shine,
Looking for the land of milk and honey.
My binoculars scoping the valley from Momanyi’s compound high on the hill:
My parade must continue,
My radiance must shine,
Looking for the land of milk and honey.
My binoculars scoping the valley from Momanyi’s compound high on the hill:
Green.
Orange shirt,
green dress and gold dancing on a field of green.
A black cow.
Golden brown ears of corn.
All three or four in activity, kicking a ball high,
a little girl with a stick walking in circles.
Hearing voices and imagining things?!?
One hundred and one interactions per day,
Want to get out of this negative jibe,
I am dancing with utter weirdness.
I feel like Walt Disney.
You get up..
in the morning, and there are twenty people to greet on the way to your car. Five ask for you to take their picture because you are carrying your camera. Two want to look through your briefcase, asking ‘Why do you do things this way?’ You get in your car, a man gets in the passenger seat, begins playing with your radio, five ask for a ride. You go to McDonalds for breakfast. Strangers sit next to you, ask you for food, money to buy a soda. You go back to your car, two people want a ride...on and on.....
Put all foolishness aside. A class of forty students, all of different sizes and ages, tall Ondiek and little Rasaro, mature young men and women and little boys and girls. Four to a desk, school boxes on the floor, I come to class, and a frenzy of noise and activity. Hesabu, time for Hesabu (math), students continue with various projects, playing musical chairs, finishing an assignment in Home Science. Children shuffle through twenty notebooks, share pens and rulers, it is a slice of chaos. I stand at the front of the class, Hesabu, kitabu, kalamu na karatasi. (and pen and paper). Some are very obedient, yet the majority do not understand or ignore my plea. Half the class does not understand and are confused by my words and actions. Yet, I keep trying.
One hundred and one interactions per day,
Want to get out of this negative jibe,
I am dancing with utter weirdness.
I feel like Walt Disney.
You get up..
in the morning, and there are twenty people to greet on the way to your car. Five ask for you to take their picture because you are carrying your camera. Two want to look through your briefcase, asking ‘Why do you do things this way?’ You get in your car, a man gets in the passenger seat, begins playing with your radio, five ask for a ride. You go to McDonalds for breakfast. Strangers sit next to you, ask you for food, money to buy a soda. You go back to your car, two people want a ride...on and on.....
Put all foolishness aside. A class of forty students, all of different sizes and ages, tall Ondiek and little Rasaro, mature young men and women and little boys and girls. Four to a desk, school boxes on the floor, I come to class, and a frenzy of noise and activity. Hesabu, time for Hesabu (math), students continue with various projects, playing musical chairs, finishing an assignment in Home Science. Children shuffle through twenty notebooks, share pens and rulers, it is a slice of chaos. I stand at the front of the class, Hesabu, kitabu, kalamu na karatasi. (and pen and paper). Some are very obedient, yet the majority do not understand or ignore my plea. Half the class does not understand and are confused by my words and actions. Yet, I keep trying.
I was called into the principal’s office today at the Secondary school and was told that next term I would not be teaching business studies. Evidently, my lesson on public corporations did not go over too well. When I wrote the word ‘corruption’ on the board, and discussed that corruption is possible due to the fact that public corporations are non-profit entities and that the board are government appointed, I sensed in the class that something was wrong. The kids froze. Principal Onono told me that the reason for his decision was that other teachers needed more hours. I would continue to teach English, however.
* * * **
* * * **
Can I make the Bible my one book and avoid this intellectual exercise and pride in being wise? It is indeed the difference between the Bible and the occult. I have reached a great threshold, the pyramid of decision, which way?
RIGHTEOUSNESS ME SIN
It is here / Tree of Knowledge
Humility / Creative
Sheep / Pride in self
Surrender to Group / Separate from masses
Avoidance of seeing dark side / Unconscious, evil drives
The Light / Judgment
With the masses / Individuality
One Way / Many ways
God / Me
With the masses / Individuality
One Way / Many ways
God / Me
Today is Good Friday and April Fools Day, an interesting combination. Things here are weird. I am invited to Gladys house (age 17) for lunch, she puts me in a room, I sit by myself for an hour, she periodically drops in as the whole family is outside. We talk in spurts. I show her a newspaper article that covers her little sister's notebook. (All the kids cover their notebooks with newspaper articles, photos). The cover picture is of a bust of a naked white woman with one breast. The article is on mastectomies. We finish the meal, Gladys discusses how she longs for Nairobi and does not really like the rural life. She likes new clothes, people looking smart but all the men suffer from venereal diseases. The food is finished and she asks me, "What kind of toothpaste do you like?" She likes Colgate. Then she brings a toothbrush and Colgate for me to brush with. So we brush our teeth at the end of a meal (I ate by myself) and I leave.
I look back and all I see are struggles and joy under the African sun. As the weather changes, clouds appear, and the rain comes, my moods also change. A moment, sitting on a wooden bench, by myself, next to Kenyans discussing a topic in a foreign tongue. Old men, in funny hats, and worn shoes pass on their way to another town. Black crows circle and perch themselves on the tops of tin buildings. A smiling young woman passes, just fresh from the river, bringing water to help her on her daily chores. Two boys run across the soccer field, the little one pushing a plastic lid with a wire, the big one chasing as they fall in exhaustion and in a happy state on a grassy knoll. A passing matatu, crammed with people, sugar cane and a barrel, boxes on top. I finish my rest, trying to lose myself, a spectator, I am not here. Walking in front of open stores, peaceful greetings to shop owners, a group of men in discussion, I find myself at the duka of a good Christian friend, Nyakundi. Hiding in the corner, beautiful Josephine, waiting to catch an uncrowded matatu, to return to teachers college, happy, full of herself, in peaceful silence. A shared soda, and discussion of her little ones, school, my return to America, sitting on a sack of corn seed. Jonas, the butcher, carrying a slab of beef from a just slaughtered cow, heads to conduct business. No business hours, no watches, yet a clockwork timing, an unconscious efficiency. I sit, and think of my life here, how lucky I am to be a part of all this, and silently get up and walk down the road, not too concerned where this road will take me. Faith.
Smily was trying to write from his bed as a change of pace. His life as of late had been commonplace. "lack of choices can play havoc on a man," he thought as he leaned on his side. "What brought me here and why am I here?" Life's paths and detours like a ski slope down the white Rockies, gray granite slabs and changing skies.
"I have been here for two years and I still do not feel at peace, looking for the new step as my salvation", Smily was scared at repeated cycles and his insight forced him to smile.
"How did this white man find himself in Africa; isolated in a time machine underworld of confusion?" The heat of the lantern and smell of kerosene kept him awake as he wrote in nighttime isolation under the African stars. Spiders on the walls and rats scurrying, the discussion of neighbors surround. Quite a change of setting from middle-class America.
He had been brought up a promising lad. As a toddler, Smily was referred to as the 'cherub' and Jonathan Winters. He was president of his elementary school, my God, read the morning announcements on the loudspeaker.
Sixth grade; baseball practice, bubble gum and cherry koolies, a round of golf, swimming at the pool are activities which place a type of attitude and understanding upon a young boy.
Leaning back, Smily realized he was a pretty funny kid.
But back to these cycles of reaction to a new environment which brought him to the apex in a mud hut in rural Africa. "Where do we get our adaptation skills?" Smily has been getting very deep as of late. He is 32 years old, almost 33, "I have never read a story about a 32 year old guy, almost 33." Smily ponders.
He has been living his last two years in Africa, he is writing now with the wind blowing in the night. His mud hut could be an igloo, but he is in Africa where everything is dark, or from the earth; grass roof, river, mud paths, crops surround him. Smily is very white and he lives in confusion, "A fish out of water gazes at his reflection," he starts his poem.
"My business meetings with the village elders and women have not been going too well as of late", the talk of Smily's protector-guilt spectator breaks the flow. He insists on bathing in the river, speaking the local language and being friendly with all. "But it is such a bloody fake," faces and faces race forward him, mockingly laughing, echoes and clowns, a three ring circus, the dog and pony show. The ferris wheel and salt and pepper shaker, the gravity drop and octopus. All emotional rides of the spirit into unnecessary waters.
"I came sane. The 1992 World Series Champions were the Toronto Blue Jays. Rozanne was the #1 rated TV show. Johnny Carson on every night at 10:30. Here if it rains, it will be muddy, walk slowly around cows, there is no sense of bearing, I am losing my mind, falling into a deep pit." Not the pit again! always at the right time. It must be time to move on.
In reality, in three months Smily will get on a jet plane airliner to whisk him back to the US, his home base.
But for now he must go to sleep and wonder if he will dream America or Africa? He is now a Gusii, a respected member of a village, externally a very positive adaptation, internally tossed and turned, losing grasp of his past. The second line of the poem falls: "Inevitability of the returning splash to break the wonderful image created, is that image the reality?"
"I have been here for two years and I still do not feel at peace, looking for the new step as my salvation", Smily was scared at repeated cycles and his insight forced him to smile.
"How did this white man find himself in Africa; isolated in a time machine underworld of confusion?" The heat of the lantern and smell of kerosene kept him awake as he wrote in nighttime isolation under the African stars. Spiders on the walls and rats scurrying, the discussion of neighbors surround. Quite a change of setting from middle-class America.
He had been brought up a promising lad. As a toddler, Smily was referred to as the 'cherub' and Jonathan Winters. He was president of his elementary school, my God, read the morning announcements on the loudspeaker.
Sixth grade; baseball practice, bubble gum and cherry koolies, a round of golf, swimming at the pool are activities which place a type of attitude and understanding upon a young boy.
Leaning back, Smily realized he was a pretty funny kid.
But back to these cycles of reaction to a new environment which brought him to the apex in a mud hut in rural Africa. "Where do we get our adaptation skills?" Smily has been getting very deep as of late. He is 32 years old, almost 33, "I have never read a story about a 32 year old guy, almost 33." Smily ponders.
He has been living his last two years in Africa, he is writing now with the wind blowing in the night. His mud hut could be an igloo, but he is in Africa where everything is dark, or from the earth; grass roof, river, mud paths, crops surround him. Smily is very white and he lives in confusion, "A fish out of water gazes at his reflection," he starts his poem.
"My business meetings with the village elders and women have not been going too well as of late", the talk of Smily's protector-guilt spectator breaks the flow. He insists on bathing in the river, speaking the local language and being friendly with all. "But it is such a bloody fake," faces and faces race forward him, mockingly laughing, echoes and clowns, a three ring circus, the dog and pony show. The ferris wheel and salt and pepper shaker, the gravity drop and octopus. All emotional rides of the spirit into unnecessary waters.
"I came sane. The 1992 World Series Champions were the Toronto Blue Jays. Rozanne was the #1 rated TV show. Johnny Carson on every night at 10:30. Here if it rains, it will be muddy, walk slowly around cows, there is no sense of bearing, I am losing my mind, falling into a deep pit." Not the pit again! always at the right time. It must be time to move on.
In reality, in three months Smily will get on a jet plane airliner to whisk him back to the US, his home base.
But for now he must go to sleep and wonder if he will dream America or Africa? He is now a Gusii, a respected member of a village, externally a very positive adaptation, internally tossed and turned, losing grasp of his past. The second line of the poem falls: "Inevitability of the returning splash to break the wonderful image created, is that image the reality?"
He remembers through his only lesson in mythology his teacher gave him was Narcissus, that that self- image is a crazy thing. Illusion and truth. The darkness behind the eyes. Why do you want to see? Wallow in the depths, never search for the light. "Enough to make one tired I should say so," Smily admits.
Smily fell asleep, as he is accustomed, to dreams within dreams, and repetitive awakenings in confusement, turn to the East or the West?, the sun will come up, the rooster crows, and I continue on this journey controlled by whom? is it me or He?
The sun rises, Smily wakes up groggy, trying to recapture his escaping dream content. Faces and aloneness, his reality of existence now awakes him. He gets out of his dirty bed, steps into dirty slippers, and starts his day. Five steps to his radio to turn on KBC Breakfast Hour; Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Julio Iglesias and Lionel Richie. "Wow", Smily thinks, "another day to salvage."
He dips a cup of water in his clay pot, pouring the water over his head, the water falling into a green plastic bucket. The cool water feels good on his face. Then the dirty water is sprinkled on the dirt floor and swept. A cup of water can go a long way in Africa. Everything is scattered, cluttered and messy on his desk and cupboard, dirty dishes. "If I just lived in the now, finishing each task to its natural conclusion, it could be easier." Smily has looked at Zen lately.
Smily has established a routine while in Kenya. It centers around simple tasks in surviving; getting food and washing and being an ambassador to the whole town, thousands of people staring and shouting his name.
His variety of friends, go from a one-year old baby, to a one hundred year old grandma Nyabuche, the gnarly old woman in a shoe, without the kids, seen on the side of the road picking weeds for food. She calls him grandson, gazes in his eyes, and asks for some pocket change. Her mumbled voice in thanks is like all the grandmothers that ever lived thanked Smily at that moment. Every step are friendly faces, people in a dream, a space age odyssey back in time on another planet.
Smily has many friends to greet; old men smile and raise their hands. Little children on the way to school, shopowners and mamas with infants. Everywhere Smily goes he is accepted, and asks questions to understand his new world around him. It is difficult, though, he passes three processions in a row of sick people, malaria is deadly. A young woman in a wheelbarrel with cloth over her face, brothers wheeling her, her mama behind looking frightened. Death. Darkness.
It never stops. At home, a brother of the village, died yesterday but one (as the Gusii say). Edward Nyiego, the second eldest son, in simplicity and good cheer, is choosing a pine of timber to take to the bereaved families to make a coffin. "No not a casserole, shithead, a timber to make a coffin!" Edward picks up a timber and holds it up on end to see if it is long enough, the man will rest in peace. He smiles.
To get lost in others lives without really having one of your own has been Smily's way now for two years. "Where is it taking me?", Smily asserts, "I hope the rule of karma holds true." "Yet, still, this has been an incredible experiment." Smily is happy with his life at this juncture and looks forward to his return to the states, or as a fish, returning to the water.
He is reminded of his poem of last night and returns to it.
"A fish out of water gazes at his reflection,
Inevitability of the returning splash to break that wonderful image created,
is that image reality?
He adds: Can we maintain it? Do we shape our environment, or does our environment shape us?
Ah, so many questions present themselves when you indeed take yourself out
Smily fell asleep, as he is accustomed, to dreams within dreams, and repetitive awakenings in confusement, turn to the East or the West?, the sun will come up, the rooster crows, and I continue on this journey controlled by whom? is it me or He?
The sun rises, Smily wakes up groggy, trying to recapture his escaping dream content. Faces and aloneness, his reality of existence now awakes him. He gets out of his dirty bed, steps into dirty slippers, and starts his day. Five steps to his radio to turn on KBC Breakfast Hour; Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Julio Iglesias and Lionel Richie. "Wow", Smily thinks, "another day to salvage."
He dips a cup of water in his clay pot, pouring the water over his head, the water falling into a green plastic bucket. The cool water feels good on his face. Then the dirty water is sprinkled on the dirt floor and swept. A cup of water can go a long way in Africa. Everything is scattered, cluttered and messy on his desk and cupboard, dirty dishes. "If I just lived in the now, finishing each task to its natural conclusion, it could be easier." Smily has looked at Zen lately.
Smily has established a routine while in Kenya. It centers around simple tasks in surviving; getting food and washing and being an ambassador to the whole town, thousands of people staring and shouting his name.
His variety of friends, go from a one-year old baby, to a one hundred year old grandma Nyabuche, the gnarly old woman in a shoe, without the kids, seen on the side of the road picking weeds for food. She calls him grandson, gazes in his eyes, and asks for some pocket change. Her mumbled voice in thanks is like all the grandmothers that ever lived thanked Smily at that moment. Every step are friendly faces, people in a dream, a space age odyssey back in time on another planet.
Smily has many friends to greet; old men smile and raise their hands. Little children on the way to school, shopowners and mamas with infants. Everywhere Smily goes he is accepted, and asks questions to understand his new world around him. It is difficult, though, he passes three processions in a row of sick people, malaria is deadly. A young woman in a wheelbarrel with cloth over her face, brothers wheeling her, her mama behind looking frightened. Death. Darkness.
It never stops. At home, a brother of the village, died yesterday but one (as the Gusii say). Edward Nyiego, the second eldest son, in simplicity and good cheer, is choosing a pine of timber to take to the bereaved families to make a coffin. "No not a casserole, shithead, a timber to make a coffin!" Edward picks up a timber and holds it up on end to see if it is long enough, the man will rest in peace. He smiles.
To get lost in others lives without really having one of your own has been Smily's way now for two years. "Where is it taking me?", Smily asserts, "I hope the rule of karma holds true." "Yet, still, this has been an incredible experiment." Smily is happy with his life at this juncture and looks forward to his return to the states, or as a fish, returning to the water.
He is reminded of his poem of last night and returns to it.
"A fish out of water gazes at his reflection,
Inevitability of the returning splash to break that wonderful image created,
is that image reality?
He adds: Can we maintain it? Do we shape our environment, or does our environment shape us?
Ah, so many questions present themselves when you indeed take yourself out
of the water, and gaze deeply at the cosmos."
"I smell like shit, a dirty animal," Smily brings himself back to the now. A bar of soap in the pocket, and slippers and to his bathing place in the Gusii forest. Smily looks all ways, then sheds his clothes, and climbs down into the stream unnoticed. The sun sneaks through the shadows like a spotlight and he finds himself a smooth rock to secure himself. The birds sing and all is quiet, the wind in the trees. Ah the coolness of the stream and Nature cleansing. Waterbugs and spiders in webs keep Smily company. "I cannot believe I am still in Africa," he shakes his head.
The tens of thousands of encounters on this continent, the silence of endless nights, the hidden prayers and blessings gathered, the joy, oh yes, the joy, the dancing glorious joy!"
Warming in the sun, a film of muddy river water evaporating into the air, the breeze and pollen touching him. The spirits have smiled upon him, his soul journey, or is it sole journey? to this continent. It has been kind of a dance, the birds and cows, children and old have all lifted him, brought out his very best. Only he and his faulty thinking have brought out the very worst.
Smily thinks to his twenties, playing the yuppie role to his best: desire, pleasure, oh that elusive pleasure! It was like pushing that boulder up the hill. "Why did I push and where was I going?" The boulder killed him and he was reborn.
It came to him in a battered Ford Escort, hood tied down and temporary tire, crossing the interstate across Kansas and Colorado. Oh, I-70, the yellow brick road. At thirty years old, all his possessions in the back, being tossed on the road by passing semis, his eyes shed a layer. The golden hues of the sun, the beauty of the prairie at that moment! By societies standards, that man was a failure, unemployed, in a borrowed car, few possessions and escaping from his past. But, oh how wonderful the future looked for the first time! To be free!
Now Smily is in Rigoma, Kenya, some two years after that event. He is now clean, it is 1:20 p.m., and he sits and thinks of his strange life and prospects for the future. The fish will return to the water in three months! The water with all its old rules and familiarity. "After teaching an old dog new tricks, can he use those tricks in the old setting?" The complexity of life and the escape of the beaten path. Throw up your arms, and accept the flow? Or force through societies pressures and inflicted demands? Patience and gratitude and prayer nurtures faith. It is time like this when Smily may just stretch on his bed, read a book or shadow on the wall, and forget all these questions.
He wakes up after a brief passout to Edinah's calling, "Weaver, Inaki Ogoteba." She wants to play. Edinah is clean! All shiny and black with not a spot of mud on her. We play catch with a ball of discarded plastic and twine. The family is soon headed to the family’s house of the deceased.
Smily has been a teacher. Just a toa-ongeza (addition/subtraction) corn kernel game teaching Swahili and maths with Edinah and Nashie. Omwalimu. Parents are away, kids are hyper. "I am too kind to these kids," which is true in relation to their parents approach. "What is kind?". Yet I am learning that their parents approach prepares the children for the environment, a tough difficult world in a different way. I cook a corn muffin sweet bread and give to children, it is like "Don't show them the luxuries, they might be tampered." Again, it all is relative. Comparison breeds feelings of emptiness and breeds desire. That is what the West has done on one level.
Different size corns of cob, ready to roast, on an open jiko charcoal fire, brought by schoolkids. A father, Thomas, my age, whittling an ugali spoon from a fresh cut tree. A gift of genuineness. Primary brightness hues of tone, a yellow-green sparrow like dashing of color in the variety of trees. Shadows and sun- drenched red bricks against a thatch hut, cow tied to. Hedge around most compounds. Inside, clan members co-exist. Boiling pots of water, on crackling fire, ugali and boiled bananas. Man’s best friend, a rebuilt old radio, within earshot of mzees. Kids playing soccer with ball of twine, barefoot, cow shit, chickens. A couple of mud huts for twenty family members, each with three rooms, cut trees for support, several layers of mud for walls, dirt floors, thatch roof. Five to a bed with shared blanket. The cock crows, a day begins. Fire for heat, milking of cow, school uniforms on, little legs off in silence to learn. Corn to plant, beans to hoe, a basket of tea to be picked. The sun and heat, brightness, the greenness of fields of tea, cows herded to watering hole. The activity of the day; morning in the fields, afternoons to perhaps stroll into town to visit. Mzees on benches, canes in hands, funny hats, laughing and staring at passersbys. The sound of the pitterpat of a motor, the tinga in operation brings mamas and kids with sacks of corn on their heads to be crushed into corn flour, for ugali. Market day brings mamas and young girls from afar, to lay out mats, and set out produce to sell. Bananas, avocados, tomatoes, greens and pineapples, mothers teaching daughters a way of life. A soccer game in the town center, and sound of cheers. Darkness approaching, time to go home, laughter and mumbled voices heading in the direction of home and family.
"I smell like shit, a dirty animal," Smily brings himself back to the now. A bar of soap in the pocket, and slippers and to his bathing place in the Gusii forest. Smily looks all ways, then sheds his clothes, and climbs down into the stream unnoticed. The sun sneaks through the shadows like a spotlight and he finds himself a smooth rock to secure himself. The birds sing and all is quiet, the wind in the trees. Ah the coolness of the stream and Nature cleansing. Waterbugs and spiders in webs keep Smily company. "I cannot believe I am still in Africa," he shakes his head.
The tens of thousands of encounters on this continent, the silence of endless nights, the hidden prayers and blessings gathered, the joy, oh yes, the joy, the dancing glorious joy!"
Warming in the sun, a film of muddy river water evaporating into the air, the breeze and pollen touching him. The spirits have smiled upon him, his soul journey, or is it sole journey? to this continent. It has been kind of a dance, the birds and cows, children and old have all lifted him, brought out his very best. Only he and his faulty thinking have brought out the very worst.
Smily thinks to his twenties, playing the yuppie role to his best: desire, pleasure, oh that elusive pleasure! It was like pushing that boulder up the hill. "Why did I push and where was I going?" The boulder killed him and he was reborn.
It came to him in a battered Ford Escort, hood tied down and temporary tire, crossing the interstate across Kansas and Colorado. Oh, I-70, the yellow brick road. At thirty years old, all his possessions in the back, being tossed on the road by passing semis, his eyes shed a layer. The golden hues of the sun, the beauty of the prairie at that moment! By societies standards, that man was a failure, unemployed, in a borrowed car, few possessions and escaping from his past. But, oh how wonderful the future looked for the first time! To be free!
Now Smily is in Rigoma, Kenya, some two years after that event. He is now clean, it is 1:20 p.m., and he sits and thinks of his strange life and prospects for the future. The fish will return to the water in three months! The water with all its old rules and familiarity. "After teaching an old dog new tricks, can he use those tricks in the old setting?" The complexity of life and the escape of the beaten path. Throw up your arms, and accept the flow? Or force through societies pressures and inflicted demands? Patience and gratitude and prayer nurtures faith. It is time like this when Smily may just stretch on his bed, read a book or shadow on the wall, and forget all these questions.
He wakes up after a brief passout to Edinah's calling, "Weaver, Inaki Ogoteba." She wants to play. Edinah is clean! All shiny and black with not a spot of mud on her. We play catch with a ball of discarded plastic and twine. The family is soon headed to the family’s house of the deceased.
Smily has been a teacher. Just a toa-ongeza (addition/subtraction) corn kernel game teaching Swahili and maths with Edinah and Nashie. Omwalimu. Parents are away, kids are hyper. "I am too kind to these kids," which is true in relation to their parents approach. "What is kind?". Yet I am learning that their parents approach prepares the children for the environment, a tough difficult world in a different way. I cook a corn muffin sweet bread and give to children, it is like "Don't show them the luxuries, they might be tampered." Again, it all is relative. Comparison breeds feelings of emptiness and breeds desire. That is what the West has done on one level.
Different size corns of cob, ready to roast, on an open jiko charcoal fire, brought by schoolkids. A father, Thomas, my age, whittling an ugali spoon from a fresh cut tree. A gift of genuineness. Primary brightness hues of tone, a yellow-green sparrow like dashing of color in the variety of trees. Shadows and sun- drenched red bricks against a thatch hut, cow tied to. Hedge around most compounds. Inside, clan members co-exist. Boiling pots of water, on crackling fire, ugali and boiled bananas. Man’s best friend, a rebuilt old radio, within earshot of mzees. Kids playing soccer with ball of twine, barefoot, cow shit, chickens. A couple of mud huts for twenty family members, each with three rooms, cut trees for support, several layers of mud for walls, dirt floors, thatch roof. Five to a bed with shared blanket. The cock crows, a day begins. Fire for heat, milking of cow, school uniforms on, little legs off in silence to learn. Corn to plant, beans to hoe, a basket of tea to be picked. The sun and heat, brightness, the greenness of fields of tea, cows herded to watering hole. The activity of the day; morning in the fields, afternoons to perhaps stroll into town to visit. Mzees on benches, canes in hands, funny hats, laughing and staring at passersbys. The sound of the pitterpat of a motor, the tinga in operation brings mamas and kids with sacks of corn on their heads to be crushed into corn flour, for ugali. Market day brings mamas and young girls from afar, to lay out mats, and set out produce to sell. Bananas, avocados, tomatoes, greens and pineapples, mothers teaching daughters a way of life. A soccer game in the town center, and sound of cheers. Darkness approaching, time to go home, laughter and mumbled voices heading in the direction of home and family.
Walking home from Muma’s, a mud hut village, I am looking very white, with a bundle of just washed clothes over my shoulder. Muma (not David Muma, but Muma Aoma Muma) has just taken a new bride from a distant village. They now have an eight-month old infant boy who cries every time he sees me. Either he must be taken away or I must leave. Nearby is a newborn stray pup, yellow in color. Theresa, Muma’s wife, moves into this new environment, an extended family of twenty on three acres. Theresa’s responsibilities will be to wash clothes, keep the mud hut clean, swept and the walls smeared. She will cook and tend to the elders in the village.
Muma, wears a Rambo t-shirt. He is a rugged man, who digs in the fields, keeps chickens and watches cattle. He is my best friend who discusses the Bible and Bhagwan with me. The inside walls of his hut are covered with Newsweek photos I have given him. What a great and solid man he is.
I begin my walk home with some eggs in my pocket that Muma has given me. I stop at Makori’s duka where old men are huddled in discussion. It is sports day; a soccer match is at the town center and so there are an additional thousand people in the village from the surrounding area. There are hundreds of school kids circling about in bright school uniforms; patches of vibrant blue, yellow, red and green move like separate waves in the sea of black. Cheers.
I say goodbye to the old guys and walk 5 feet to the next action. I joke with the group: ‘I am walking until I meet the Masai (the tribe seen on Western TV with spears), what should I buy? 1⁄2 kilo of meat?’ ‘No, Tigers like white meat’, one replies. We decided on a goat, a sheep, a chicken and 5,000 shillings. Leave it and run away is the solution.
Five feet away, I enter the next circle at the duka (general store) of Daniel. I talk with Mama Grace, keeper of cattle, married to Peter, and Conslata, my eleven-year old student at Biticha Primary. They are bantering about the ‘right church’ (Daniel is a 7th Day Adventist and Grace is Catholic). At the center of much Kenyan religious debate is whether the Sabbath is on a Saturday or Sunday.
I head across the dirt street, and brother Paul comes to repay thirty shillings I had lent him to take a journey to Nairobi to see about a job.
Then it is ten steps to the Hoteli of Daniel, with sister-wife. (He keeps insisting that Kwomboka who works at his side is his sister (‘I should marry her’, he says) when everyone tells me that she is his wife.) This is my daily stop for morning breakfast; mandazi and tea.
I then walk across the town center, greet some mamas selling vegetables, and check in at the tiga (flour mill where my friend Veronica works). Her husband and daughter Granny are sitting on a bench and Granny, age 3, comes running with a huge smile and hits my thighs with her palms and then her little legs carry her to a hiding place behind the old tin sheets painted blue hammered on a wood fence.
There are more old men and women to greet; Wilson and grandma Magokoro, who sit outside Wilson’s duka. I greet friend Wilson, the mzee, who is the owner of my favorite duka. He hand painted a sign years before which hangs against the brown tin sheet announcing his business: Mafuta ya Taa (Kerosene for Lanterns). All he sells is kerosene stored in a big red barrel and matches in a wood hut. His pride and joy is a swarm of bees in the corner of his closely cramped store. A flurry of bees takes up the counter. People know to stay away. Some are bit but that is funny. I once was stung three times on the head. I explained the discomfort, he pulls me closer to the hive inside with hundreds of bees in a flurry showing me the size of the hive that runs inside and outside. Thanks for the memories. These people are funny.
Muma, wears a Rambo t-shirt. He is a rugged man, who digs in the fields, keeps chickens and watches cattle. He is my best friend who discusses the Bible and Bhagwan with me. The inside walls of his hut are covered with Newsweek photos I have given him. What a great and solid man he is.
I begin my walk home with some eggs in my pocket that Muma has given me. I stop at Makori’s duka where old men are huddled in discussion. It is sports day; a soccer match is at the town center and so there are an additional thousand people in the village from the surrounding area. There are hundreds of school kids circling about in bright school uniforms; patches of vibrant blue, yellow, red and green move like separate waves in the sea of black. Cheers.
I say goodbye to the old guys and walk 5 feet to the next action. I joke with the group: ‘I am walking until I meet the Masai (the tribe seen on Western TV with spears), what should I buy? 1⁄2 kilo of meat?’ ‘No, Tigers like white meat’, one replies. We decided on a goat, a sheep, a chicken and 5,000 shillings. Leave it and run away is the solution.
Five feet away, I enter the next circle at the duka (general store) of Daniel. I talk with Mama Grace, keeper of cattle, married to Peter, and Conslata, my eleven-year old student at Biticha Primary. They are bantering about the ‘right church’ (Daniel is a 7th Day Adventist and Grace is Catholic). At the center of much Kenyan religious debate is whether the Sabbath is on a Saturday or Sunday.
I head across the dirt street, and brother Paul comes to repay thirty shillings I had lent him to take a journey to Nairobi to see about a job.
Then it is ten steps to the Hoteli of Daniel, with sister-wife. (He keeps insisting that Kwomboka who works at his side is his sister (‘I should marry her’, he says) when everyone tells me that she is his wife.) This is my daily stop for morning breakfast; mandazi and tea.
I then walk across the town center, greet some mamas selling vegetables, and check in at the tiga (flour mill where my friend Veronica works). Her husband and daughter Granny are sitting on a bench and Granny, age 3, comes running with a huge smile and hits my thighs with her palms and then her little legs carry her to a hiding place behind the old tin sheets painted blue hammered on a wood fence.
There are more old men and women to greet; Wilson and grandma Magokoro, who sit outside Wilson’s duka. I greet friend Wilson, the mzee, who is the owner of my favorite duka. He hand painted a sign years before which hangs against the brown tin sheet announcing his business: Mafuta ya Taa (Kerosene for Lanterns). All he sells is kerosene stored in a big red barrel and matches in a wood hut. His pride and joy is a swarm of bees in the corner of his closely cramped store. A flurry of bees takes up the counter. People know to stay away. Some are bit but that is funny. I once was stung three times on the head. I explained the discomfort, he pulls me closer to the hive inside with hundreds of bees in a flurry showing me the size of the hive that runs inside and outside. Thanks for the memories. These people are funny.
Next I walk to the posta (post office) of Mboga, which has the one telephone that sometimes works. In front of the duka, people usually are playing an interesting form of cards or checkers. Standing in front of the post office on this day sat the chief Manduku from Mbogo. He is like the Big Chief paper tablet guy, huge, with big hands and commanding deep voice. Like most elders, he wears an old suit jacket and carries a staff or cane. God he is big. He is like the guy from Tom Sawyer, a big man in knowledge and presence as well. He is a good chief too. I have been sponsoring some beekeeping projects (I like them because once the boxes are built ($30 each) there are no other expenses, there are quarterly harvests and no disease and the honey is good for health. I have been working with two groups on marketing ideas (bottling, labeling and selling in Kisii).) Manduku does not like the idea so much because there is little labor involved. ‘The young men need to be kept busy.’ It is not so much economics here but in keeping the people working.
On my way to the dirt trail behind the city center and past the governmental offices, I pass some young boys I know often herd cattle this time of day under the towering jacaranda trees. There are two boys who when they see me run in full sprint for a handshake.
I then escape the activity of the town center and enter upon the narrow and smooth red dirt trail that runs past compounds on my way to my home at the Mabiras. School boy students, play a makeshift game of volleyball with a string and ball of plastic and paper. I stop and get in the game for a bit.
I am trying to get to one of my last encounters, just after there is young Kwamboka, Engaro, and Mochiri to greet. Kwomboka, age seven, stands in the middle of a vegetable patch, barefoot in the soil, wearing a red winter coat with furry collar around a patterned dress of flowers, with a huge axe on her shoulder.
Well, the best part, as night was approaching, is towards the end. It is like a novel I once read, about a man who lives in a rural setting, and calls on this southern flower, tea and whispers in the corner, a slow and regular visit. I am coming along a straight path just before home, and approach her place, greeting two of her little cousins as she comes spinning around like a young Japanese woman, it is like she is flying, gentleness, innocence, beauty. A soft voice, a connection, something to enjoy. Flora.
* * * **
CONFORM (V). 1. To keep with generally accepted rules or standards. 2. Obeying something.
To conform to something that is totally different than one’s conditioned way, for the sake of survival and acceptance, naturally results in a bit of resentment and frustration. This is true especially for a person who believes in individuality and the right not to conform. (and different as a guest)
Yet, when the situation repeatedly presents itself and one’s survival to co-exist offers no other alternatives, it is essential that the individual puts aside his old beliefs and conforms to the new rules of the situation. The environment, the majority beliefs of its culture and members, wields tremendous power.
The person may flee, yet if he must relate to his fellow men, to live harmoniously, he must outwardly lose his old rules of measurement in order to conform to these new modes of accepted behavior. Now a tremendous conflict may result from this; a conflict between the old conditioned rules and the new rules imposed upon the man in question. Pride must be distinguished and the man must enter the situation of ‘I do not know.’
How he deals with this issue is of tremendous significance. His judgments of the people forcing these new rules on him will tell him much of his judgments of people in his original environment. If there is a great deal of inward frustration in this adaptation, coupled with the lack of a sounding board, the imbalance in the person’s outward acting and inward feeling may result in a neurosis or psychosis.
On my way to the dirt trail behind the city center and past the governmental offices, I pass some young boys I know often herd cattle this time of day under the towering jacaranda trees. There are two boys who when they see me run in full sprint for a handshake.
I then escape the activity of the town center and enter upon the narrow and smooth red dirt trail that runs past compounds on my way to my home at the Mabiras. School boy students, play a makeshift game of volleyball with a string and ball of plastic and paper. I stop and get in the game for a bit.
I am trying to get to one of my last encounters, just after there is young Kwamboka, Engaro, and Mochiri to greet. Kwomboka, age seven, stands in the middle of a vegetable patch, barefoot in the soil, wearing a red winter coat with furry collar around a patterned dress of flowers, with a huge axe on her shoulder.
Well, the best part, as night was approaching, is towards the end. It is like a novel I once read, about a man who lives in a rural setting, and calls on this southern flower, tea and whispers in the corner, a slow and regular visit. I am coming along a straight path just before home, and approach her place, greeting two of her little cousins as she comes spinning around like a young Japanese woman, it is like she is flying, gentleness, innocence, beauty. A soft voice, a connection, something to enjoy. Flora.
* * * **
CONFORM (V). 1. To keep with generally accepted rules or standards. 2. Obeying something.
To conform to something that is totally different than one’s conditioned way, for the sake of survival and acceptance, naturally results in a bit of resentment and frustration. This is true especially for a person who believes in individuality and the right not to conform. (and different as a guest)
Yet, when the situation repeatedly presents itself and one’s survival to co-exist offers no other alternatives, it is essential that the individual puts aside his old beliefs and conforms to the new rules of the situation. The environment, the majority beliefs of its culture and members, wields tremendous power.
The person may flee, yet if he must relate to his fellow men, to live harmoniously, he must outwardly lose his old rules of measurement in order to conform to these new modes of accepted behavior. Now a tremendous conflict may result from this; a conflict between the old conditioned rules and the new rules imposed upon the man in question. Pride must be distinguished and the man must enter the situation of ‘I do not know.’
How he deals with this issue is of tremendous significance. His judgments of the people forcing these new rules on him will tell him much of his judgments of people in his original environment. If there is a great deal of inward frustration in this adaptation, coupled with the lack of a sounding board, the imbalance in the person’s outward acting and inward feeling may result in a neurosis or psychosis.
Or, if the person can see the positive lessons in this new way of being, coupled with the light that soon his momentary adaptation will be lifted, and he will return to his original home, then perhaps this ‘second conditioning’ can be seen as making him a more rounded person. Then all of the difficulties and frustrations met, were all well worth it, another side of the brain has been opened.
It is time to leave and I am grateful. The Mabira family and I met in their house and a prayer was made. I gave grandma a blanket and cooking pan. The kids walked me a short distance to a dirt path where they went off to make bricks and I went on down the road, said some brief goodbyes to shopkeepers and caught a small truck to Keroka and then on to Nairobi.
It is time to leave and I am grateful. The Mabira family and I met in their house and a prayer was made. I gave grandma a blanket and cooking pan. The kids walked me a short distance to a dirt path where they went off to make bricks and I went on down the road, said some brief goodbyes to shopkeepers and caught a small truck to Keroka and then on to Nairobi.
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