Beauty and the Beholder
Hilary, Heidi and I are taking a break while biking in Hell's Gate National Park. The sun is severely hot, so close overhead, and the roads are dusty. Sometimes, the sand is so deep in the road's grooves that our wide, knobby tires scoot out from under us. “I don't find Kenya beautiful,” Hilary says cautiously, peering as though she is waiting for a backlash from me or Heidi. I glance at the walls of the gorge rising straight up for hundreds of feet, showing off their stratifications, their lovely, geometric fissures, their strength in standing for eons and eons.
“I think I'm spoiled,” Heidi remarks, “because I've traveled to so many other beautiful countries in Europe and Latin America.” I want to say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but that seems trite and not nearly powerful enough to express what I see when I look at Kenya and Kenyans. For I see beauty and ugliness and sometimes beauty in the ugliness. Beauty in ugliness, just because it exists. For it's perfectly okay that Hilary does not find Kenya's landscape beautiful. As she searches for an explanation, it becomes clear she not only sees the rolling hills and their foliage, but she sees the unkempt environment, neglect, wasted raw resources. I see it, too.
But I see more than the dustiness, more than the landscapes made hazy by the sun's glare. Sometimes I'm not exactly sure what I see. And other times I see beauty so exacting my breath catches at the bottom of my lungs, trapped, until my brain furiously registers the sights and smells of a million grass leaves and pine needles and a gazillion feathers floating, past and present, landing on lion tracks pressed into soft sand, landing on zebra carcasses with fading stripes, muted stripes of decomposing flesh stretching against dried bone. Arresting beauty, heartbreaking beauty, especially in its ugliness. So I know what Hilary is saying.
I found beauty in the strangest place; Nyalenda, a slum in Kisumu. Just as promised when I met Walter on the darkened road one evening, I email him and we arrange to meet at TICH at 8am Wednesday. My initial concern about meeting this man on the street soon subsides. As it turns out, Walter grew up in Nyalenda with Tony, a co-worker and friend of mine. Seems everyone knows Walter and thinks of him as a fine man. So Wednesday morning, Tony, Walter and I walk 10 minutes along Ring Road to Nyalenda, turning into the neighborhood along their water source; a stream of water running faintly down to the river, about a half mile away from Ring Road. The river at the back of the slum flows into Lake Victoria. Tony still lives in Nyalenda, though he has a university degree and works in IT at TICH.
Tony and Walter have such huge hearts, for they know the people we are passing; they speak to them with warmth and coded handshakes and smiles. Their plans are huge. Get the government to change the plastic pipes to metal pipes running from the stream to the houses; build a well at the back of the slum, creating a single, treated water source for everyone so they aren't bathing and washing their dishes or putting their toilet-contaminated feet into the stream; building pit latrines for those who now use a plastic bag, which gets tossed along with hundreds of other feces-filled plastic bags into piles near the stream; constructing a tin-roof structure under which they'll gather the neighborhood children, to teach them ABC's and 123's and about children's rights, because so many of them are orphans living with guardians who do not care if the children are educated, if they loved. Huge plans coming from two very huge hearts.
And that's just for the children. Walter and Tony also plan to create income-generating activities for the widows who are raising their own children and the children of relatives and friends. There will be activities such as weaving mats from Papyrus, which grows along the river. And teaching them to fish. One widow, who looks like she's a teenager, has six children. She makes the local alcoholic beverage, illegally, and sells it to feed her children. Tony worries because she drinks much of the “illicit brew” herself. As we walk through and they introduce me to their neighbors, and as they talk to the old Mama at the back of the slum, who has land rights to where the water will be collected into a single, treated well for everyone, I marvel at the children, who may be naked, who may have runny noses and crusty eyes, but who have a light shining out of those eyes.
There's a light from most Kenyan eyes and this beauty captures my attention in the slums of Nyalenda. A will, an energy. It comes from adults as well, just not all adults. But it's still found in the children and this beautiful hope makes the entire slum radiate for me. Amongst the mud, and the hogs wallowing in the mud, the dogs chasing goats from between mud houses, was this happy energy and excited shouts and frenzied hand waving from the children. And a bright intelligence shooting from their eyes. I see it in children of all ages in Kenya, this potential. They are all pregnant with potential.
As I travel home from Lake Naivasha on Easter Sunday, John, my matatu seat mate points out the rice project in Ahero, how it failed, yet many of the people still, of their own initiative, farm their plot of flood plain to raise rice. I tell John about the potential I see in all the Kenyans, especially the street boys, but in Kenyans of every age and John agrees. He's headed to his home village, about 20 minutes north of Kisumu. John lives in Nairobi and is doing well for himself, but he can see the need of his fellow Kenyans. If only they had the resources, if only the government made sure everyone had clean, piped water, and electricity. If only every child could go to school.
If only.
I see potential and I see intelligent energy and I see beauty, even in the slums of Nyalenda. For Tony and Walter are proof that people can progress on a personal level. Proof that people who have made it up the ladder can turn back and reach a hand to those following. Tony and Walter have their hands stretched out, prepared to pull with great strength, probably greater than they realize. I will reach with them, and pull with them, the young widows and the children and the old Mamas. It will be an honor to be part of such beauty. For beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and delicate beauty is a nourishment unlike any other, a fragile nourishment to be protected and pulled up. I'll follow Tony and Walter into their tragically beautiful neighborhood, to meet their friends with AIDS and to prepare the little ones for school and to promote activities to keep teenage boys from turning to drugs. Those boys who are on drugs look out of dulled eyes, making it difficult to see their beauty. But it's there. The beauty and the potential. It's there, I can see it through the haze. If only we can get them to see it, too.
If only.
“I think I'm spoiled,” Heidi remarks, “because I've traveled to so many other beautiful countries in Europe and Latin America.” I want to say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but that seems trite and not nearly powerful enough to express what I see when I look at Kenya and Kenyans. For I see beauty and ugliness and sometimes beauty in the ugliness. Beauty in ugliness, just because it exists. For it's perfectly okay that Hilary does not find Kenya's landscape beautiful. As she searches for an explanation, it becomes clear she not only sees the rolling hills and their foliage, but she sees the unkempt environment, neglect, wasted raw resources. I see it, too.
But I see more than the dustiness, more than the landscapes made hazy by the sun's glare. Sometimes I'm not exactly sure what I see. And other times I see beauty so exacting my breath catches at the bottom of my lungs, trapped, until my brain furiously registers the sights and smells of a million grass leaves and pine needles and a gazillion feathers floating, past and present, landing on lion tracks pressed into soft sand, landing on zebra carcasses with fading stripes, muted stripes of decomposing flesh stretching against dried bone. Arresting beauty, heartbreaking beauty, especially in its ugliness. So I know what Hilary is saying.
I found beauty in the strangest place; Nyalenda, a slum in Kisumu. Just as promised when I met Walter on the darkened road one evening, I email him and we arrange to meet at TICH at 8am Wednesday. My initial concern about meeting this man on the street soon subsides. As it turns out, Walter grew up in Nyalenda with Tony, a co-worker and friend of mine. Seems everyone knows Walter and thinks of him as a fine man. So Wednesday morning, Tony, Walter and I walk 10 minutes along Ring Road to Nyalenda, turning into the neighborhood along their water source; a stream of water running faintly down to the river, about a half mile away from Ring Road. The river at the back of the slum flows into Lake Victoria. Tony still lives in Nyalenda, though he has a university degree and works in IT at TICH.
Tony and Walter have such huge hearts, for they know the people we are passing; they speak to them with warmth and coded handshakes and smiles. Their plans are huge. Get the government to change the plastic pipes to metal pipes running from the stream to the houses; build a well at the back of the slum, creating a single, treated water source for everyone so they aren't bathing and washing their dishes or putting their toilet-contaminated feet into the stream; building pit latrines for those who now use a plastic bag, which gets tossed along with hundreds of other feces-filled plastic bags into piles near the stream; constructing a tin-roof structure under which they'll gather the neighborhood children, to teach them ABC's and 123's and about children's rights, because so many of them are orphans living with guardians who do not care if the children are educated, if they loved. Huge plans coming from two very huge hearts.
And that's just for the children. Walter and Tony also plan to create income-generating activities for the widows who are raising their own children and the children of relatives and friends. There will be activities such as weaving mats from Papyrus, which grows along the river. And teaching them to fish. One widow, who looks like she's a teenager, has six children. She makes the local alcoholic beverage, illegally, and sells it to feed her children. Tony worries because she drinks much of the “illicit brew” herself. As we walk through and they introduce me to their neighbors, and as they talk to the old Mama at the back of the slum, who has land rights to where the water will be collected into a single, treated well for everyone, I marvel at the children, who may be naked, who may have runny noses and crusty eyes, but who have a light shining out of those eyes.
There's a light from most Kenyan eyes and this beauty captures my attention in the slums of Nyalenda. A will, an energy. It comes from adults as well, just not all adults. But it's still found in the children and this beautiful hope makes the entire slum radiate for me. Amongst the mud, and the hogs wallowing in the mud, the dogs chasing goats from between mud houses, was this happy energy and excited shouts and frenzied hand waving from the children. And a bright intelligence shooting from their eyes. I see it in children of all ages in Kenya, this potential. They are all pregnant with potential.
As I travel home from Lake Naivasha on Easter Sunday, John, my matatu seat mate points out the rice project in Ahero, how it failed, yet many of the people still, of their own initiative, farm their plot of flood plain to raise rice. I tell John about the potential I see in all the Kenyans, especially the street boys, but in Kenyans of every age and John agrees. He's headed to his home village, about 20 minutes north of Kisumu. John lives in Nairobi and is doing well for himself, but he can see the need of his fellow Kenyans. If only they had the resources, if only the government made sure everyone had clean, piped water, and electricity. If only every child could go to school.
If only.
I see potential and I see intelligent energy and I see beauty, even in the slums of Nyalenda. For Tony and Walter are proof that people can progress on a personal level. Proof that people who have made it up the ladder can turn back and reach a hand to those following. Tony and Walter have their hands stretched out, prepared to pull with great strength, probably greater than they realize. I will reach with them, and pull with them, the young widows and the children and the old Mamas. It will be an honor to be part of such beauty. For beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and delicate beauty is a nourishment unlike any other, a fragile nourishment to be protected and pulled up. I'll follow Tony and Walter into their tragically beautiful neighborhood, to meet their friends with AIDS and to prepare the little ones for school and to promote activities to keep teenage boys from turning to drugs. Those boys who are on drugs look out of dulled eyes, making it difficult to see their beauty. But it's there. The beauty and the potential. It's there, I can see it through the haze. If only we can get them to see it, too.
If only.
posted by Cindi at 11:37 PM
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