White Teeth, Long Neck

Anthropologists and other researchers use the word “emic.” When conducting research on a group of people, they learn from the people being studied how they define a certain concept. While researchers may have western and standardized definitions, if the people within a culture define a concept differently, the study results are often skewed. During the conference, Professor Violet Kimani from the University of Nairobi describes a study she conducted around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. This area of the country is a no-go zone for VSO volunteers for two reasons; bandits frequently shoot at passing vehicles and there is continued fighting in the Sudan, which borders northern Kenya. Many of the tribes in the Turkana region are nomadic or they are forced to become nomadic, to migrate due to drought, war or bandits.

When studying this group, Kimani asks them what they call someone who has AIDS. “White Teeth,” they reply. Asked why they would call a disease by the name “White Teeth,” they explain that when someone reaches the final stages of the disease, they lose weight and their skin tightens all over their body, especially on their face, pulling their mouths open to reveal lots of white teeth. They also use the term “Long Neck,” even though a patient's neck doesn't actually lengthen, it simply appears to grow longer as the patient loses muscle mass.

Community Ladies with Their Goods

Mamas With Their Wares

During the conference, handmade items are displayed on the second floor of our library. These items, made by the Mamas from our partner communities, include painted gourds to eat porridge from (porridge is very much like the grits we eat in the American South, but porridge is slightly, but only slightly, more soupy), painted terracotta pots, woven baskets, homegrown Soya beans and rice and a rattan basket for cooking. This last item is especially interesting because it saves fuel. When cooking beans or rice, the Mama will cook them for 10 minutes, drain them, then pour the food into a cloth-lined woven basket with a cloth-covered lid. The food sits for three or four hours and is ready to eat.

A large cooker, handmade with a leather-covered lid, cost 250 shillings, or about $3.50 USD. I bought the smaller cooker that looks as though it will hold three or four quarts. The cost was only 150 shillings, or about $2.00 USD. Amazing. Handmade, attractive, practical and it's only about $2. When it's not being used for cooking, the lined basket acts as a container for household items. I cook on a two-burner, countertop stove and will certainly use the basket for beans and rice, to conserve fuel. The woven cooker is becoming one of my most treasured possessions and I hope to take it with me to the next country I live in, maybe India or somewhere in South America. (But before taking up residence in a new country, I'll spend a few months with my family in the U.S., perhaps taking a cross-country trip with my Mama and children to enjoy smooth highways once again!).

During the conference, the Mamas sell all their goods. I buy a pack of Soya beans, which seems to be Soy beans. They suggest the beans should be cooked just like other dried beans; soak them for several hours in water before cooking. It's also possible to roast the Soya beans in a pan, then grind and brew them, like coffee. The beans are said to have a unique and quite good taste. Maybe I'll try that, too. In the photo of the Mamas with their wares, woven baskets are seen on the table behind the ladies. These sell for 60 shillings, or about 80 cents USD. The painted gourds are about 40 shillings (50 cents USD) and terracotta pots are 100 shillings, or about $1.25 USD. Amazing and amazingly beautiful.

Me and Louise Mell

Louise Mell's Twin, Beldina Opiyo

Louise Mell, a former co-worker and dear friend, is one of the most wonderful people in the world. And she's a sport to boot. With a sharp intellect, a wicked sense of humor and a dash of smart-ass, Louise has a way of making everyone feel deeply loved. When she cuts her eyes in a way that says “don't bullshit me,” well, no one bullshits her. To my chagrin (and delight), Louise has a twin in Kisumu, Kenya. Beldina, or Dina, as we call her, has a way of saying so much with simply a setting of her lips and a raising of her eyebrows, as though she's saying “don't bullshit me.” Or, “don't be a fool.”

Dina and Louise share the gift of giving everyone the “mama” look that soon melts into the “I adore you” look of softness around their eyes and mouth. I'm posting Dina's lovely photo on this blog. See the loving little devil behind those eyes? The wisdom and the bullshit detector? During this shot, Dina was sitting on Lucas Ngode's desk, in our temporary “Conference Registration” room, sort-of hiding from conference attendees and sort-of eating lunch with Liz, Tony, Florence and me. With Dina and Louise, you know exactly what they're thinking, because it's either on their face or it's coming out of their mouth. Thank goodness for these honest, loving and forgiving women who remind us with a look not to be fools!!!

Beldina Opiyo

Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Ruprah of Kisumu, Kenya

Jagoo!!

Wedding Disco

For the first time since being in Kenya, I dress up. No flat, wide shoes with thick rubber soles to navigate over rocks. No technical clothing to absorb the sweat brought out by the intense humidity. No hair pinned up to tame a mass of moist tresses. Only hair flowing free and long. Make-up carefully applied, lipstick over a foundation of chapstick followed by a layer of gloss and shine. A blue, silky skirt resting around my waist and caressing my hips and legs, all the way to the ankle. And a pair of camel-colored slingbacks with off-white piping and narrow heels. How does the song go? I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and gitty and gay. Well, maybe not gitty, but definitely feminine, something I haven't felt in nearly three months.

Mrs. Ruprah is wearing a lovely black saree with shiny turquoise embroidery catching and throwing the moonlight. She asks me to clasp a black velvet choker around her neck. Her earrings shimmer, the bangles on her arm dazzle. She's wearing a bracelet of red cloth with tiny brass bells attached, a typical wedding ornament provided by the hostess to female guests.

Mrs. Ruprah jingles when she walks.

We're going to Sonya's house, to celebrate the marriage of Sonya's brother-in-law, Raju, to Goldie, a woman who lives in Nairobi. Goldie will not be at the party, she is in Nairobi holding her own celebration. She will arrive Sunday night, after she and Raju are married in Nairobi, and she'll be brought to Kisumu to the house across the street where she'll live in a room on the second floor with Raju's extended family downstairs. Sonya's family lives across the street from the Ruprahs, in the corner house, where they've strung thousands of lights, colored and clear, flashing and flickering in trees and on the roof top.

Drumming is heard as Samuel escorts us out of our yard. We walk in the darkness to Sonya's gate, where a uniformed security guard allows us to enter. We cross the marble verandah and enter the house between thick glass doors. To the right, 15 mattresses are laid side by side across a large room. Couches and chairs have been pushed to the wall, banking the staging area. We pass this room and move down the hall and out the back door, onto the covered patio surrounded by a wall. Beyond the wall, the men have gathered, some sitting, like Mr. Ruprah, and others standing around a cooking fire. Raju, the Ruprah's son (who has the same name as the groom), is stirring oil and spices in a giant skillet with a spoon as big as an oar. The men toss in earth-colored herbs and spices as the mixture tries to boil. But this is where the men congregate, so we return to the house, to the front room carpeted in mattresses, where the women congregate.

We remove our shoes and step carefully across the mattresses, taking a seat on a couch. Stripped of my lovely shoes, I'm conscious of my deformed-looking big toes where my toenails have fallen off. The ladies enter, remove their shoes and manipulate yards of cloth around their bodies so they can sit comfortably in a tight group, almost shoulder to shoulder, facing toward the woman in the center who plays the drum. Some of the women look at me and speak, others do not.

Lying on its side, the drum has animal skin stretched across both ends, with one side larger than the other, producing a deeper and richer boom. Opposite the drummer, another woman hits a spoon against the wooden drum, providing a higher pitched percussion. In Punjabi, they discuss which song they'll sing. Lots of laughing and teasing leading into song. Then voices fall away as lyrics are forgotten, the drum beat slows then stops followed by more talking and laughing and false song starts. I'm enchanted, watching the way these 50 or so women (they keep coming in and coming in and finding spots to sits amongst their friends, on the floor, on couches, on laps) act as though they're all sisters, as though they've known each other forever. They are easy with each other, with their head tosses and thrown comments, with a single conversation amongst the group instead of 20 conversations whispered to a nearby ear.

Young girls squeeze amongst the grown women, anxious to get their hands on the drumming spoon. A toddler, about 18 months, wearing a smart, tiny dark brown suit, waddles between the ladies, more unsteady than usual on the mattress, until he reaches his mother, who is playing the drum. She allows him to fall onto her shoulder, but she drums and drums, managing to keep his tiny hands from upsetting her beat.

I'm told they're singing love songs and songs about marriage. Perhaps those are the same thing. Perhaps not. This is an arranged marriage.

A striking young woman in an aqua dress, with billowing skirt, brings around a plate filled with tiny, colored, bead-like candies, mixed with spices and herbs. I say no thanks because I'm not sure how to eat it, but she encourages me to take some by scooping it with the spoon and dropping it into my palm. Watching the women, I pinch the tiny balls and eat them slowly, tasting spices and sweetness in the crunching. After 20 minutes, the plate comes around again and I confidently scoop the candies, enjoying the refreshment while stomping my feet to the beat.

I'm getting used to hearing strange words rapidly spoken (or sung). Getting used to not understanding what is being said and not necessarily needing to know. With so many new sensations and emotions swirling around, it's often a relief to not follow conversations. To simply sit and watch, letting words and laughter and hand gestures wash over me. Amazing how without knowing words it's so easy to tell if someone is earnest or playful or chastising or simply providing information. Luo, Kiswahili, Punjabi. Their sounds come in crescendos, softly, harshly, day and night, registering but not understood. And that's okay. For now.

During a lull in the drumming, we hear the front gate clang and women's voices, singing, move toward us.

“Jagoo,” Mrs. Ruprah laughs and everyone hurriedly stands to put their shoes on.

“Juggle?” I ask, and they respond, “Jagoo!” So we move to the front door and spill into the yard, propping against porch rails and cars as a parade of women come from the dark night beyond the gate and approach the house, led by a woman in red whose face is illuminated by her crown of flames. She has a circular tray on her head filled with colorful flowers and six lit candles. The parade grows and follows her under the color-strung trees, around the house and onto the patio where a dj has set up 10-foot tall speakers. Four young men, black and Indian, crank up the music, an Indian rap with heavy bass beats. The ladies use the large patio as their dance floor and perform traditional Indian dances as the flaming tray is passed from woman to woman, around and around, until the men move onto the dance floor, taking the flaming tray onto their heads. Then the young boys and girls.

We dance and eat delectable Indian food, even a little goat and chicken. (Though Hindus are normally vegetarians, Sikh Indians sometimes eat meat, except for beef, because the cow is still sacred in India.) Nearing Midnight, we prepare to leave. Two ladies come by carrying a large tub from which they hand out brown paper bags filled with sweets, baked goodies that soak the brown paper with oil. Mr. And Mrs. Ruprah, Raju and I walk home under the stars holding tight to our goodie sacks. No cars, no bodas bodas at this hour. We own the road and practically dance across it.

Imprints of Africa

As you can see from the picture below, the equatorial sun has imprinted sandal straps onto my feet. Also visible in the photo are new toenails on both big toes. The right toenail finally dropped off in Mid-March, three months after leaving Kilimanjaro. Asians in Africa have left their imprint on my palm. At a Sikh Indian wedding luncheon last Friday, Priti, a 21-year-old architecture student who works part-time in her father's business, drew this henna pattern on my hand. Africa has a way of seeping into a person and leaving its mark.

The marks are not always so visible.

Africa Leaves Her Mark

Goldie on her Wedding Day

Home

Raju and Goldie marry today. Many, many family members and friends loaded up in a coach early yesterday morning and headed to Nairobi from Kisumu. This evening, they return, tired but happy, bringing Goldie with them. To her new home. She'll stay here two weeks, then following tradition her father will come from Nairobi to collect her and Raju. They'll stay with her family in Nairobi for a week, then she'll return to Kisumu to live with Raju and his family forever and ever. She'll return to live in Kisumu, to build a life with people she doesn't yet know, to bear children and raise them in Kisumu for the rest of her life. Just like Mrs. Ruprah did 35 years ago.

At 9pm, Mrs. Ruprah calls to me through the open windows of my little house. I dress hurriedly and we go to the party across the street, where Indian rap music is already directing our feet, to meet the new bride. She remains upstairs until it's time to cut the cake. When she appears, she is very shy, looking down, throughout the cake cutting and while dancing with her new husband in front of this crowd. Everyone feeds the new couple tiny bits of cake. Couples sandwich the bride and groom, feeding them simultaneously, then step aside for the next two people to step up and put cake in the newly-weds' mouths.

Goldie is bedecked and bedazzling in her jewelry and ornamentation. Everyone wishes them happiness, forever and ever, in their upstairs room in this Kisumu hamlet by the shores of Lake Victoria in the heart of Africa. Happiness forever and ever, for their children and their children's children.

White Flower

Red Flower

Compound Tour

Today, I tour the Ruprah's compound photographing flowers and trees. The white flower is growing next to my little house, which is its backdrop. The red flower grows on a shrub at the back of the compound, next to a large pavilion, which is a cement-floored structure with a high roof and wired for electricity. Mr. Ruprah encourages me to set up my computer under the pavilion to work. He says they throw parties for a hundred people and fill the pavilion with tables of food and a dance floor. He promises to host a grand party soon so I can see how many people will fit in their yard. The pavilion is surrounded by tropical plants, enormous trees, delicate flowers.

After studying books on Kenya's trees and shrubs, I'm still trying to determine names for the exotic, lush plants growing in the yard. But we can't wait to know their names before capturing their beauty, so I'm posting these photos. As Shakespeare said (attributing the words to Romeo), “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Kiboko Bay

Ed and I cycle out to Kiboko Bay for lunch. Ed is a a fellow VSO volunteer from the UK who works as financial advisor to Pandipiere, a Catholic center servicing the residents of Nyalenda slums. The bike ride takes about 20 minutes to the lake's edge, though we stop at a fundi (handyman) under a tree to fix the chain guard on my bike. Somehow it's become loose and my pedal clanks, clanks against it with each pump. Also, my front tire is nearly flat. Once fully inflated, we cruise down paved streets until the pavement ends at the Impala Reserve opposite the Kisumu water works. We bump along on the rocky dirt roads, passing huts and cows and men weaving furniture from Water Hyacinth growing in the Lake Victoria. We lock our bikes to a black fence and admire the new pool next to the lake, complete with lounge chairs "imported" from Nairobi. Mostly white people recline by the clear, cool water.

Ed and I sit on the patio of the restaurant overlooking Lake Victoria and talk for hours. Let's go to the coast, huh? Mombasa? Melindi? Lamu? Let's go to all three cities. By bus or overnight train? How much time taken off from work for this trip? It's fun to plan/dream of a trip to the coast in a first class train cabin. Better than the second class ticket that offers an uncomfortable chair with very little chance of sleeping. Two fellow VSO volunteers, Tom and Wendy, are in Mombasa living 15 minutes from each other. Surely we can stay with them for free.

For lunch, I have lamb chops and mashed potatoes with carrots and beans. Ed has fried fish with chips. We split three scoops of ice cream; vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. When we finish eating/talking, we peddle over to Dunga, a fishing village. Cows stand on the dock. Fisherman sit under a pavilion where the fish are weighed. I take photos of boats, men, cows and mountainous shorelines. As we're on our bikes headed out of the village, a young man named Kennedy approaches and asks if we know about the Mimosa. Or the sausage tree?

Kennedy tells us to follow him and we do, somewhat reluctantly, to a spot in the grass where a few Mimosa branches are growing. They're no taller than the grass. He tells us the Mamas pull the branch from the ground, chop the root, boil it and give a cupful to a child with a stomach ache. He reaches down and touches the delicate branches and before our very eyes, the tiny leaves fold up to meet in the middle and the branch seems to press itself closer to the ground. Strange to see a plant in motion without the aid of wind. “If a fly lands here,” Kennedy says, “the plant will fold around the fly and absorb it.”

He leads us to the Sausage Tree, so called because there are giant, flesh-colored pods hanging from the tree looking almost like fat, uneven sausages. There are only two Sausage trees in the village and it is taboo to cut them down. The pod fruits are fermented to make the local brew. The bark is boiled to make a stomach remedy. One side of this huge tree's trunk is stripped clean of bark. “If I go out on the lake,” Kennedy says, pointing to Lake Victoria, “and I drown, but they cannot find my body, they will bury these sausage pods in place of my body.”

He shows us the Jacaranda tree, with it's milky blood, beckoning us past those huge trees and onto a narrow footpath running between houses. Have you seen the Hammerhead bird house? Come, come this way. Two guys walk from behind and pass us, where Kennedy is leading into the woods. I imagine they're trying to lure us behind the houses so they can rob us. Ed is hesitant as well. We push forward, following Kennedy, without communicating our suspicions to each other. But I'm thinking, “We'll just jump on our bikes and ride fast if they try anything.”

These thoughts pop into my head because Mr. Ruprah, my landlord, said three people were shot near Kiboko Bay recently. Three men and three women were in a UN vehicle, pulled off the road and looking at hippos in the water. “Thugs,” as the local bad boys are called, surrounded the vehicle and robbed them all, shooting into the car and hitting three people. Luckily, none of them died, but I think about those thugs as Ed and I cycle to the bay and as we push our bikes on the narrow footpath behind Kennedy.

'How did I let this happen? There's no turning back," I think.

Ed is pushing on, too, both of us trusting Kennedy. We turn a corner and he points up to a clump of rags and rope and plastic draped in the fork of two tree branches, about 25 feet up. It's the Hammerhead nest and I'm relieved. Even more relieved when two children approach and Ed greets them in Luo. The dirt road is only 20 feet to our right, our passage to safety. Ed and I both visibly relax to hear about the Hammerhead.

“They're very clever birds,” Kennedy says. “While the outside of their house is ragged layers of cloth, inside the walls are smooth. And there are partitions sectioning the house into rooms. They are very clever, these birds.” Indeed. Kennedy didn't give us this short tour out of the kindness of his heart so I ask if he'll take 20 bob for the tour. He says fine. Please come back if we want to take a boat trip or to arrange a guided nature tour. He can take us all over the village and bay area, showing us the trees and birds. I'm charmed, for just yesterday I checked a book out of the library called “Kenya Trees and Shrubs” to help identify the many beautiful, flowering trees in Kisumu.

Later, when Ed and I are at my place enjoying a cup of coffee, I tell him I became scared when Kennedy was drawing us deeper and deeper into the bush and away from the busy lakeshore. Ed said he had the same thoughts and fears. We were both wearing backpacks and looked like tourists, easy marks for easy money. Except, we're not tourists and we don't have lots of money. Throughout his tour, Kennedy kept a smile on his face and showed us everything he promised. He was simply showing us his experiential brochure promoting a much longer and more expensive tour for our next visit.

He didn't even notice we thought he might kill us.

Dunga Fishing Village, Kiboko Bay

Lala Salama

Remember making blanket forts as a kid? Draping them over chairs and tables, then crawling underneath and giggling with siblings and friends? That's what my new bed is like; a play fort. Before, in my old house, I slept on a single bed with a foam mattress, an old, misshapen mattress with a dip in the center through which I could feel the wooden bed slats. I'd sleep to the side of the narrow bed, on my side, with a pillow covering the valley. Getting into bed each night was a hassel, tucking in the net, finding the most padded portion of the mattress and trying not to move throughout the night. The net blocked out most of the low-wattage light, making reading nigh impossible without the addition of a headlamp.

But now I've moved into a new house! My own space! Two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen (with piped water and a sink!) and separate shower and toilet rooms. It's the servant's quarters attached to a detached garage of a large home. I like to think of it as a carriage house. The landlords have furnished the house with beds and sitting room furniture. My bed is actually two double beds, side by side, creating a huge patch of bed real estate covered by a lovely, floral bedspread and matching pillows, the kind of bedclothes women adore. The spread matches the burgundy velvet couch in the sitting room.

No more foam mattress. This bed has a mattress of cotton canvas sewn square and stuffed with cotton, suspended on a spring platform!!!

Mrs. Ruprah sends Samuel, the guard, to fetch me to her last night. She is sitting in a white plastic chair on their driveway, just down the steps from their marble-floored verandah. In her lap is a huge mound of white netting, collected around an iron hoop. Very exotic.

Mrs. Ruprah is lovely and wears the traditional Sikh outfit of a long tunic top flowing below her knees and covering loose pants. Each day, I look forward to seeing what she'll be wearing. The fabrics are all beautiful, some glittering, some with beads, mirrors and sequins sewn on. I'm in love with the Indian fabrics. In lust with the Indian fabrics and Mrs. Ruprah says she'll take me to her favorite fabric store and introduce me to her seamstress, who'll measure and sew a custom suit for 500 shillings (about $7 USD). That doesn't include the cost of the fabric, which is sold in 42-inch wide pieces long enough to make a saree, including a scarf. The prices run from 1,000 shillings for unadorned fabric to 3,000 for the most fantastically ornamented and embroidered fabric. 3,000 Shillings is about $40 USD. So to have a custom-made suit of the finest fabrics, and worthy of weddings and other special occasions, costs about $47 USD.

Mrs. Ruprah hands over the massive net and a set of embroidered Indian linens to drape over the velvet couch and chair. There is so much pleasure piled in my arms now – so I take the treasures to the carriage house and immediately hang the net and drape the linens. The net stretches over the wide, wide bed, forming an erotic, gossamer canopy, perfecting for frolicking under. Climbing inside, there is so much room; to stretch out and to play. The high wattage bulb is bright enough to read by. I can even sleep with books on the bed instead of having to un-tuck the net to deposit the books on the bedside table. Sleeping with books is not my ideal first choice of a sleeping partner, but they are surely the safest. This is Western Kenya where 40 percent of the population is HIV positive and 90 percent of those who are positive do not know their status. So books will remain my cherished sleeping partner.

A cool breeze steals in from outside, from under the giant trees, slipping over my head and into the tent. Crickets howl and cars pass infrequently on the paved road just beyond the purple gate. I hear the TV from the Ruprah's bedroom, faintly, and am content to lie in the cool tent and stare at the ceiling, gaze at the roundness of the net's high gathering spot and watch the occasional long, red ant crawl up the wall. Just relaxing and enjoying the space.

Content.

Moving Days

Night before last, I start packing my possessions in a large suitcase and duffel bag. It doesn't all seem to fit so I stuff things into the box of coloring books Jennifer Miller shipped over. Shoes fill one large plastic shopping bag from Nakumatt.

On the way to TICH yesterday morning, I stop by the Ruprah's and pass the bag of shoes to Samuel, the guard. I leave TICH at 4pm, arrive home and gather the packed goods, then walk to the main road looking for two strong boda boda drivers. I explain I'm shifting house and ask if they'll help. One guy says, “20 bob,” and I say, “No, you'll get more than that for moving heavy stuff.” They come home and I bring out the suitcase and dufflebag and the box of books and a bag containing the water filter. They work to balance it all on their bikes, securing it with rubber straps.

We walk to the Ruprahs, me carrying a box with a bag over my shoulder. All the way over, the bigger guy tells me his story. He struggles with English but does well to tell me he was orphaned young, has two children, has a hard life, he's trying, trying to get by but it's tough. I listen and nod and agree. For 15 minutes, he struggles with his English to tell me how difficult his life it. We drop off the goods, I pay the guys 100 shillings each.

I return home to get the ironing board and a tray containing papers (passport, immunization records and money) in an envelop hidden under the tray liner. One more trip this evening, just one more trip, and tomorrow morning, on the way to TICH, I can drop off the last bits. I'll be moved! Walking along the road with the ironing board level in front of me, balancing on the tray with important papers, I'm cautious to stay out of traffic. A very nice young man walks beside me and asks if he can help carry the load. “Thanks very much,” I say, “but it's not heavy, just cumbersome.” He understands.

A boda boda comes from behind ringing his bike bell and I squeeze out of the way. But he manages to bump into me anyway, coming from the right, and the ironing board and tray fly out of my grasp, landing in the ditch. The boda boda driver doesn't say “pole” (sorry), but keeps going. The woman on the back of his bike just looks at my stuff blowing through the ditch. The other young man, who had offered to help, runs over and begins to help gather up the papers and passport and money. We collect it all, every last bit, and I'm grateful to the young man for his help.

Somehow, squatting in the ditch, picking up my belongings now covered in sandy dirt, I don't mind that the boda boda scattered my possessions. It's 5:30 and afterwork traffic is busy, so many people walking and cycling past, looking down at me in the ditch picking up dirty paperwork and a sandy ironing board. But I don't mind that the guy didn't say “pole.” Because the bigger picture, bigger than this ditch and scattered papers, is that I'm moving into my own space!!

I drop the board off at the Ruprah's and sit with them on their verandah until it darkens. Then I head home. One more night. Just one more night.

6am. I'm up, taking down the mosquito net, stripping the bed and slipping it all into a bag. I load up my make-up, nightclothes, grab the sleeping bag pad and tie it all onto my bike. I reach my new home by 6:45am and begin putting clothes on hangars, books on desks, toiletries on sinks, scarves on shelves and tables and chairs, adding a bit of color and softness.

By 7:45am, everything is out and up and I'm home! I'm driven to add beauty to this space. Visions of color schemes and fabrics for curtains dance through my head. I visualize a refrigerator, which means chilled wine and eggs and mayonnaise (which means sandwiches!) and cheese and cold beer. A burgundy velvet couch and chair dominate the sitting room, along with a long table painted white and chipping. In the US, the table would be called shabby chic and would fetch a lot of money. I'm seeing a room-sized rug pulling the furnishings together. I'm seeing me lounging in a cool wrap on the soft couch, Mozart playing (or Bach or Chopin or Wagner or Handel or Vivaldi) in the background, a glass of chilled white wine on the side table and a book about East African trees and shrubs, printed in full-color, on my lap (or a collection of short stories or plays or poems. Any literature to ease my soul's inner ear). This is a different Kenya than I entered eight weeks ago, with orphans as house servants and a 10-year-old boy securing the gate.

Here at the carriage house, grown men work shifts to secure the gate 24-hours a day. The Ruprahs own a gold Mercedes and a Nissan. They say they'll take me to town or to the market with them. No walking. No bike riding. I like to walk and bike, but enjoy the mental image of passing through the streets of Kisumu in a car where people can't stop me to share their dreams (or their nightmares) and can't yell out “hey, white lady.”

It's another Kenya. An entirely different Kenya.

Crazy Like Patsy Cline

The love sent by family and friends is my secret weapon against Kenya, carried always in my inside left breast pocket. Their love for me is the sap in my spine, straightening me, keeping my head level, keeping my mind perpendicular to the floor. No tilting.

My family and friends give me strength. I must be strong because there is so much need here. So much need.

I sent Jennifer Miller a note last week saying I maintain a balance of being open while protecting my personal boundaries with Kenyans who constantly approach and ask for things. Who am I bullshitting about balancing openness and personal space?

Me, mainly.

Then a creak, a pop, like tons of ice shifting down a mountain. Tilting. This shit seems hard. But I ignore its hardness and go to a funeral. And then I have a break down.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. Maybe it was spending the day at Eric's funeral where dogs are kicked and drunks are hit (it is the African way) and young men drink while burying their friend and women wail. While walking home that evening, two brothers, Churchill and Andrew, run down the darkening street to catch up with me, claiming to be taking a pleasant stroll, but I know they ran just to talk to me, to be my friend, to go to the US with me. They run in the dark pretending to be causal, they're very polite, but I cannot be every Kenyan's friend! And don't they consider I might be frightened when people run on darkened streets to catch me?

Flashback to journal entry, Sunday, April 10:
“Sometimes I grow tired of being in Kenya. Like today. I get tired of smelling hot smoke from yard fires and from wringing heavy clothes by hand. Sometimes when I hear a rooster crow I want to scream. There is constant noise; people shouting, dogs barking, gates banging open and closed, cars crunching down dirt roads, people worshipping through loud song and clapping (for hours and hours), hammering everywhere and bizarre, terrifying calls from huge birds. I get tired of not being able to walk down the street without someone (typically a man) introducing themselves and wanting to be my friend, or wanting to tell me their dreams. I long for my own space, my own home, to decorate and run naked in if I please. I resent rocks in the road making it impossible to walk without looking down, rocks that tear up a pair of good shoes in one trip. I want a refrigerator so I can drink a cold beer at home instead of going to a bar. And I want a refrigerator so I can have cold milk instead of room-temperature milk on cereal and mayonnaise for sandwiches. And so bread will keep for more than two days and I can live like a human being again. But mostly I grow tired of Kenya because it causes me to feel too much and think too much, with orphans in our yard and funerals every day. I want to stop feeling and stop thinking for just a little while, for just a few hours.”

And then I break down.

It begins Sunday afternoon, once I've washed two tubs of clothes and hung them out. After I read Faulkner's “As I Lay Dying.” I suddenly feel tired and sit on my bed, under the mosquito net, and ache to hold Jaime. I cry for Jaime, silently, so no one will hear because all the windows are open and Paul and Mercy and Joyce and Modis run hither and thither and mostly past my bedroom window. I rock on the bed, aching to hold Jaime, and lift my arms, imagining her in them, crying silently.

Could this be hormone-induced? There's certainly a strange, hollow feeling in my gut, near my ovaries. So I cry and rock and wonder at the source of the pain until I sleep. Monday morning, I awake and find I don't want to get out of bed. Don't want to lift my head from the pillow. Tired. Immense headache. I text the Reverend and say I won't be into work and I curl up and cry and sleep. Chris from VSO calls and I say I'm home with a headache and he says it could be Malaria, go to Dr. Sokwala for a test. I go back to bed and read and cry and feel disoriented, thinking 'maybe it is Malaria.'

I grab my pack with the emergency medical card and flag down a boda boda, pointing to Dr. Sokwala's address on the card: Ogada Street. He doesn't know it, but I climb on the back anyway and we head to town. I stare at the ground, sort of despondent, though I don't really know the definition of despondent. But suddenly I don't care... about a lot of things. I don't care that I'm not looking and smiling at others. I don't care that I'm not at work. I don't care that I've put the burden of finding Dr. Sokwala on this nice man. I don't care that I don't care. Very peaceful in my not caring. It is the African way.

I'm wearing my glasses but cannot focus my eyes. From nowhere I hear the words, “the truth will set you free” and scenes flash through the sunny haze. My father, drunk, in the middle of the night, taking every bottle out of the cabinet and smashing them with curse words onto the formica kitchen table. Ketchup and mustard, mayonnaise and broken glass commingling in front of my sleepy 4-year-old eyes... Waking one morning with a breast infection, the sickest I've ever been. Jaime is two weeks old and I'm 19 and I can't lift my arm to hold Jaime, to nurse her. Overnight, my left breast becomes hard and red and hot to the touch. I call Daddy in the next town over, crying, please take us to the doctor because Jaime is so tiny and hungry and I can't lift my arm to lift my baby to nurse her. Daddy comes for us... Granny banging the piano with her fat fingers, me sitting next to her on the stool, my feet just touching the floor, uncle Bill standing over us as we all sing, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days, all the days of my life.” Uncle Bill, my father's brother, Billy Joe Brown, puts his hand on my shoulder as we sing and when we're through, he says, “Cindi, Honey, you have a very nice voice.” I smile down at my feet just touching the floor. I remember his hand on my shoulder when reading Mama's email three weeks ago saying Uncle Bill passed away. Uncle Bill passed away. I swallow the news, swallow the grief, swallow hard, sending it down down down to the hollow in my gut near my ovaries. I can't lift my arms to lift her. It's the African way. The truth will set you free.

What is my truth? I feel unloved, uncared for. Not my truth with a capital “T,” just my unfocused truth on the back of a boda boda headed some place we don't know how to find. What's my other truth? I CANNOT CARE ABOUT EVERYONE IN KENYA AND REMAIN WHOLE.

We see Daktari's office. I enter and sit on the right, facing other patients. The room is 12 feet deep from front to back door and about 8 feet wide. Five people are ahead of me. I stare at the floor and seep weep. I avoid looking at the others because I cannot stop seeping weeping. The tears roll until I pull the travel pack of Charmin toilet paper from my bag. Jaime and James gave the Charmin as a gift. A very wise gift for Africa. I miss them and look at the floor, seeping.

The receptionist says, “Madam, you can go in now.” So I rise and walk through the door with a wet face and Dr. Sokwala is surprised by my tears and almost hides it.

“I'm sorry” I say sitting across from her. “But I can't stop crying.” She offers a box of tissues.
“What's wrong?,” she asks.
“I have a headache since yesterday and am disoriented and tired.”
“What anti-malarial do you take?”
“Lariam.”
“What day of the week do you take it?”
“Tuesday.”
“Do you feel this way every Tuesday?”
“No.”

Never...

“Lariam's most common side effect is depression. We may want to switch your medication. But I'm going to send you for a malarial test, okay?”
“Okay.”

She asks me to rest on the examination table while she checks my liver, kidneys and glands for swelling. Nothing noticeable. She avoids the hollow space near my ovaries.
“How old are you?” she asks.
“41.”
“Oh, you can say only 41 because you're young. I'm 56.” She works to level my brain, un-tilt my mind, with her soft laugh.
“You'll get the test results and bring them back to my office this afternoon. I think they'll come back showing nothing, then we can talk about changing your Malaria medicine.”

They take my blood at the lab at the Nakumatt plaza. An hour later, I pick up the test results and return to Dr. Sokwala. She reads the test results and says, “Are you happy?”
“Yes, it's not malaria.”
“I think,” she begins, “that you're not sick, you're adjusting. Everything here is new; new food, new climate, new friends, new language. Your friends are far away. It's very hard and if you don't admit it's very hard, then the stress will manifest itself physically. Some people get sick, some people cry.”

Admit it's hard? That's the cure? Ahhhhhh. This shit is hard.

I tell her everyone approaches me, asking for things and she says, “Give it back to them. Tell them you're not a tourist, you live here. You're a volunteer and you don't make any money and you're helping through your work and then, you'll see, they'll turn around and will begin to sympathize with you! Stop being a victim.”

There it is. My Truth.

I created this victimhood. Now I must un-create.

The tears stop. The tilting stops, reverses, once again my mind is perpendicular to the floor. But despondency scares me – whatever it's definition – and in the very early morning hours with crickets popping and in the late night hours with thunder popping, I think 'This shit is hard, this shit is hard.' Admit it and despondency will live in someone else's hollow gut.

No more bullshitting.
No more victomhood.
This shit is hard.

Sam Pulls Through

Sam turns up in my office door, saying he has a place to view. I'm skeptical, but don't want to miss any leads. He promises it is nearby, in a good neighborhood and has good security. After work, we walk over. It's actually on my way home, just around the corner from TICH. I've walked and rode past this house every day on my way to work. Sikh Indians live in the main house. The guard lets us in and we sit on the front porch with the landlady.

Neighbors stop by. Sonya, the Mama from the house across the street, is with her husband, father-in-law, two daughters and a nephew who looks like a girl. Sikh males wear their hair long and wind it up under turbans. This little boy looks about two years and his hair is pulled into a pony tail with wisps floating around his face. Sonya says if I move in, I am invited to her brother-in-law's wedding celebration in a couple of weeks.

Mr. Ruprah comes out and we talk price and he says the place will come fully furnished, anything I need, “no problem. Is no problem.” He says “no problem” a lot and I like hearing it. I also like the little carriage house with its openness and brightness. It needs painting inside and out. “Is no problem. We paint. What color?” They plan to paint the exterior of their home and the carriage house beginning May 1. The paint is peeling away drastically and the purple band around the house has faded to gray, just like the gate. The entire house and compound will look fantastic with a new coat of paint.

I want to live here and sit on their verandah drinking tea and going to wedding parties.

Mr. Ruprah is asking 15,000 kshs per month and I ask if he can go lower. He says 14,000. I say let me check with VSO to see how much they're willing to pay. Over the next few days, I text Chris at VSO and he texts back and finally he says VSO will pay 10,000. I tell Mr. Ruprah I want to rent the place, that VSO will pay 10,000, that I'm willing to pay the difference from my own funds – but keep in mind I'm a volunteer. Can he come down on the price? He says 13,500 and I accept. We shake hands. (3,500 shillings is about $50 USD). They'll start painting the interior tomorrow, no problem.

They paint, two coats, and it's lovely, lovely, lovely.

Viewing Eric

Hallelujah and Amen!

Into the Ground

Eric's Funeral: Part One

Getting There

Eric is from Seme, a community about 40 minutes by matatu from Kisumu. Lake Victoria is visible for much of the ride. I meet Walter at 10:25 in down town Kisumu and we walk to the matatu station. He carries a bouquet of fresh flowers with ribbons, placed tenderly in a plastic bag and sprinkled with water. On the way, we pass through Jomo Kenyatta Park, to use their public restrooms. It's the first time I've walked through this central city park and I don't want to leave. A long, white building housing a restaurant under green and white awnings sits across the expansive and very green lawn, reminding me of the elegant horse track in Saratoga Springs, New York. Reminding me of prosperity and leisure. Two things I sometimes forget exist. And the restaurant, with it's huge patio overlooking the lawn, is a perfect spot for drinking a cold Coke or a beer and writing. Walter greets an older man who turns out to be a friend of Walter's late father, who, along with this man, was a political activist in Kisumu. Walter says politiking is in his blood having grown up watching his Dad. He says President Kibaki is visiting West Africa today and will be near Seme, where the funeral is being held.

Kenya's President Kibaki was the great hope for Kenyans when he and his rainbow coalition party were elected in 2002. They promised to stop corruption. Some progress has been made. But there's much left to do and people feel corruption is still just as bad, or could return to the extreme very easily. Each day, the newspaper headlines call for Kibaki to dismiss his cabinet.

We walk to the market across from the matatu station where Walter buys two trees, each about a foot high, for 50 shillings total. He'll plant them near Eric's grave. As we seek out the matatu going to Seme, a street boy shadows me. Walter, without a word, hands a Coke vendor 20 shillings and points to the boy, who takes the Coke gladly. We wait about 20 minutes for the matatu to fill up, then drive north around the lake. Seme is next to Kit Mikaye, a giant natural rock sculpture made of three huge, stacked stones. Kit Mikaye means “first wife” and the structure does resemble a woman's figure, large and powerful, who might dominate her husband's second, third or fourth wives.

We alight at Kit Mikaye, along with Tom, who lives in Nyalenda, and walk back along the red dirt “highway” until we hear music. About 200 yards from the highway a red tarp is strung between trees and energetic, modern music bounces out to meet us, as though there's a festival in the bush. Mama Eric once had a mud house here, but it crumbled. Now only bits of wall enclose bushes where rooms once enclosed people. A temporary “house” has been constructed from tree branches and grasses. In the doorway stands Mama Eric. Just outside the hut, Eric rests in his coffin, a woven mat protruding from the roof to shade Eric's glass-encased face.

A scrawny dog rests in the shadow of the coffin. We stop to view Eric while Walter says a prayer. Though only 26-years-old, Eric looks like an old man. He died Tuesday a week ago, 11 days before the funeral. His family didn't have money for the coffin or for transporting the body from Kisumu, so the funeral was postponed and postponed while Eric's body was kept in the city morgue.

We step under the tarp and are ushered, encouraged, to the front, the very front, where cushioned couches wait. Taking the most comfortable seat doesn't seem right, but they insist on the mzungu sitting up front and I don't want to offend. I actually just want to melt, invisible, into the furniture, but that doesn't happen—could never happen. Several guys from Nyalenda are there and we shake hands. Walter walks away to photograph Eric and as I'm sitting, looking at Kit Mikaye across the field and highway, I hear a toy whistle being blown. Incessantly. Wondering if this is part of the ceremony, I look to see a tall, thin young man, clearly drunk, stumbling through the dusty bush toward the tent. He grins and stops in front of me. But he doesn't really stop for part of him, mostly his head and shoulders, keeps moving in circles. He shakes my hand and speaks in Luo and one of the ladies sitting behind me throws a stick at him to scare him away. His hand, covered in dirt, deposits soil into my hand. As he jerks away, blowing his whistle, I notice dirt and dried leaves clinging to his back, as though he's fallen down recently.

The reverend presiding over the service sits up front, facing us. He's skinny, something most old men in Kenya have in common. He wears a light blue suit of thin material. His socks, while the same color, sport different patterns. One has woven vertical stripes while the other has a fisherman net's design. A woman comes from the make-shift hut/house and places two faded, quart-sized Kimbo containers on the table where the reverend is earnestly writing on loose-leaf paper. Kimbo, a vegetable solid for cooking, has the tag line “For the tastiest food.” She has placed ornamental grass in the containers. The wind blows, lifting and lowering the tarp overhead, and cascading the Kimbo containers. But the reverend doesn't stop writing. It's only 30 minutes later, when he completes his list, that he stands and walks about the area, picking up chunks of hardened earth and breaking them against tree trunks. He returns to the table, empties the Kimbo containers and places the earth at the bottom. He then lovingly arranges the grass so it stands secure. The containers won't be swayed by the wind.

Eric's Funeral: Part Two

Hallelujah and Amen!

The tradition at Luo funerals is for friends and family to speak about the deceased before the clergymen take over. Walter is the first person to speak. He talks for 15 minutes, followed by a young woman, followed by an old woman, followed by an even older woman, Eric's tiny, creased grandmother. It's all in Luo, every word. Not one word of English, though Walter occasionally translates the more important messages, like when to stand and when to sit.

The choir arrives and is made up of ladies of all ages, each one wearing a white, lacy scarf tied around her head. They sing and clap with fervor, one solitary voice ringing out the verse while all other voices mesh as backup. It's quite lovely and uplifting. The dog keeps coming into the inner circle between our front seats and the reverend's table. At first, Walter throws dirt clumps and sticks at the dog, to move him out of the “sanctuary,” much as the ladies tried to scare away the guy with the whistle. But now the elders of the church have arrived and the reverend says the choir will go to the road and escort the elders back. The choir sings and claps, walking in unison to the beat, and as they surround the elders, headed our way, the reverend, just behind me, pulls back his right foot and lets it fly into the dog's ass. There's a shrieking howl and I jump, for the dog is at my feet, and he runs from the tent. I feel his shock, feel it for awhile because the reverend didn't care about the dog being in the center until the elders were approaching.

There are seven elders and they stop in front of Eric, serenaded by the choir, and the main guy raises both hands, a bible in his left, and he yells out a prayer up to the mat shading Eric. The preachers take their places in front of us, on cushioned couches, as young men from Nyalenda lift Eric's coffin and bring him under the tarp, lowering him onto a coffee table. The ground is uneven, so someone places a stick under the table leg and now Eric is with us, only inches away. And his mother weeps.

Each preacher gets up to deliver a sermon and every one of them speaks in Luo, never a word in English. And the choir sings as the men take turns preaching. Then one fellow, a small guy in blue short shirt sleeves with a belt buckle that reads “Ford,” for the Ford Motor Company, gets up clutching his bible wrapped in bright yellow oil cloth. Every one of the preachers has a bible that looks as though it's been read at least 4 million times, any color once existing having been worn away by sweating, gripping hands. And this one short guy puts on a performance, practically screaming his message, and spraying me with every word. First, I turn my head because his voice is so loud and its intensity offends me (and I can't, just can't watch any more spit sailing my way). And just when it seems the protruding veins in his neck and forehead will surely burst, baptising us all in his blood, his face goes completely slack, with a slight smile, and he says “Hallelujah,” which the crowd answers with an “amen.” Every time he's about to explode, as I feel his spittle hitting my face and knees and shirt, he steps forward with his slight smile and says “Hallelujah.”

“Amen.”

I want to walk away, seriously think about protesting his very obvious “performance” by removing myself. But I sit quietly while my mind screams “sit down!” He goes on and on and jumps and jerks his arms and spews on more people in the audience, until the choir members are rocking and holding their faces in their hands and speaking in tongues. Well, they're not actually speaking in tongues, just Luo, but they're each saying their own personal prayer in response to the frenzied, spittle-filled words being hurled at us.

Finally, the short preacher stops and asks the choir to sing and he moves back to his spot next the other preachers and I hope and pray he doesn't talk to me after the service.

Mama Eric stands to speak and a heavy-set woman stands next to her, for physical support. Mama Eric's grief slaps me like the reverend's foot on the dog's ass. Tears form and roll from my eyes. A mother loses her oldest son and I cannot imagine the pain she's in. Or can I? She says the word “mzungu” repeatedly and later Walter tells me what she said. It's seems since Kenya was a British colony, Kenyans think mzungu, or white people, know how to do everything. And when a white person says he or she will do something, they do it. Mama Eric was comparing Eric to an mzungu, because any time he told her he was going to do something for her, he did. Then her voice catches and she sobs, though she's working hard not to, and when she hesitates, to reclaim her calm, the woman at her elbow begins to sing and the choir joins and soon everyone is singing, giving Mama Eric time to compose. She does. But she doesn't speak much more before sitting down again.

A young man who lives in Nyalenda, whom I met in the slum, stands in front of the group in his very white, long-sleeve shirt and dark slacks, and begins to speak in English, saying, “There is someone with us today who cannot understand anything that is being said in Luo.” And the ladies in the crowd shout at him, telling him to speak in Luo. So he tells them something in Luo and begins to speak to me directly, in front of the group, in English, thanking me for being there, for everything I've done. Too late for melting into the furniture. I'm ashamed to be thanked simply for showing up. And he asks me to greet the crowd, so I stand and turn and cannot believe the number of faces turned toward me. There are more than 200 people under the tarp. Walter says he will translate. So I tell them I'm honored to be with them. I'm saddened to not have known Eric, but have been told by Walter and several young men in the congregation that he was a wonderful man. I tell them I look forward to getting to know Eric better by getting to know them. I thank them for allowing me to join them on such a sacred and solemn occasion.

The faces looking toward me are upturned, many leaning forward, intent on what I'm saying. I see compassion and recognize genuineness. One young woman's face tells me she finds me sincere. I love her face.

Eric's Funeral: Part Three

Into the Ground

It's time to give contributions, so space is cleared in front of the coffin and the choir sings and everyone lines up to pass by Eric and drop money in a plastic bowl. It takes awhile for everyone to pass, but once we're out of our seats and standing in the sun, the reverend calls several young men to lift the coffin, to carry it the 12 feet to the grave. Young men scramble into position, gripping the home-made handles, and lift Eric. The choir surrounds the men while the preachers take their place at the gravehead. Placing the coffin on the ground, young men leap into the hole to receive the box and lower it. But the hand-off isn't smooth. It can never be smooth when the grave is barely wide enough to hold the box. Young men brace their feet against grave walls, hovering, to bend and lower the coffin, tilting this way and that, into people-free space.

It's never smooth.

Mama Eric sits in a chair next to the grave, her ever-present friend at her side and the bouquet of flowers on her lap. The choir sings and men leap up onto the dirt mound, swinging shovels and dirt toward the coffin, flinging red dust onto Mama Eric. Women begin to wail. Several women. Many women, walking and wailing with tears flowing, and they lean forward and speak of their agony between wails, marching to the choir's tune. The small preacher in the blue short sleeve shirt stands before me with a big smile on his face, pumping my hand. Tells me his name, which doesn't catch. Behind him, on the other side of the grave, come loud and quick bursts on the toy whistle. As I look into the short preacher's face, I hear the women wailing and the whistle blasting and cannot concentrate on what he is saying.

The preacher is saying, “We heard there was going to be a white man here today,” and I swear he's salivating, as though he's picturing me as a cooked and stuffed turkey. “You have come here to preach God's word?” he asks. The whistle blasts three hard times. “No,” I say, waiting for him to release my hand, “I'm here as a volunteer at a college.”

It's no use. I cannot pay attention to his dancing, happy eyes when women are in pain a few feet away and a drunk guy is tripping over the dirt pile, blowing his whistle and being rejected by the men who shovel. The drunk wants to shovel, but they brush him away, sometimes gently, and keep throwing dirt into the hole. As the dirt piles up over the coffin, Walter and his friends from Nyalenda plant the trees. I take photos of the group bending and packing soil around the tiny trunks. Walter says a prayer over the trees, blessing the locale with prosperity. The short preacher asks me to visit his church, because when people hear a white person will be there, it draws a big crowd.

The drunk guy breaks branches from a bush next to the grave and pokes the branches into the dirt. Someone lays the floral bouquet at the head of the mound. These are the only markers for Eric's grave and soon they will wilt. A few older people want to be photographed by the grave. Then a few more, including Mama Eric. Then younger people want to be photographed and when they see the digital image on the camera, they all laugh out loud and press their heads together to glimpse the tiny camera screen. The young man in the bright white shirt, who thanked me for being there, is standing at the head of the grave, waiting to be photographed with a few young women. The drunk guy steps behind him but is brushed away. Only, he doesn't go away, so the young man in the long shirt sleeves pulls back his hand and slaps the drunk guy across the neck and face and I stop breathing. Paralyzed. My eyes widen and I want to speak but don't. Can't. And I don't take the photo. Walter is nearby and I call him over and say, “That guy just hit the drunk guy,” and he says, “that's the African way,” with an apology in his voice. I must be shaking my head from side to side.

I take the photo and as the group disburses, Walter calls to the drunk guy and motions for him to stand by the grave to have his photo taken. He does, with a smile.

It's time to eat, so we pack up the camera and walk about one-half mile to the next group of houses, where the young man in the long white sleeves grew up. Under a huge, spreading tree, couches are placed in a giant square. A coffee table sits in the center. People coming from the grave site carry couches and chairs and cushions and put them in the shade of houses and trees. Under the giant tree sits a group of about 30 men, most from Nyalenda and most are drinking. Walter introduces me to each one, then we go into a small house across the way. It's just me, Walter and two boxes for chairs and a coffee table.

The white-shirted guy brings in a tray bearing dishes of fried calf liver, dried fish, shredded, steamed cabbage, ugali, sumaki wiki, stewed chicken, rice and goat. It is a beautiful spread of food just for me and Walter and we dig in, eating with our hands from the tray and from the bowls. I'm very hungry and very grateful for this delicious food. They bring us water to drink and water to wash our hands with afterwards. The 30-odd guys are heading back to Kisumu, a few of them on bicycles, which will take about two hours. We say goodbye and walk to the road to hail a matatu. Trucks carrying soldiers pass by, headed back to Nairobi after providing security for the president's visit. Overhead, two helicopters buzz, carrying ministers of this and that and possibly the President of Kenya. Matatus going to Kisumu are packed with people who came out to see the president.

But we finally squeeze into a matatu and soon stop to drop someone in a community. I recognize the place, it's the town where George, a co-worker, grew up. I look for George down the center street. The chances are nil that I'll see George, for he lives in Kisumu and rarely goes home. But I believe I will see him. The first man I see on the street is facing away, but his build is like George's, his gait leisurely and sure. The woman to my right wants out, so I exit the matatu and look back into town, to see if it's George walking with a friend. And it is George! He looks up to the road without me having to shout at him and sees me immediately. I wave and he waves, smiling, “Where are you coming from?” he calls. But I'm being commanded back into the matatu. “I was looking for you,” I yell, “because this is your home. See you Monday.” I watch George and his companion turn behind a house and am happy to see him glance back once more before he disappears. After this hard day, I am happy to see George's friendly face turn toward me once again before he disappears.

House Hunting Safari

After being in Kenya five weeks, I realize I need my own private living space. The wing of the house Ian and I are sharing is too small for two people who do not know each other. So I begin looking for a new home. Elizabeth the librarian tells me about Sam, a guy who finds places. Sam found her “apartment” in the home of an Indian women just around the corner from TICH. He's not a real estate agent, this Sam, just a guy who makes a living connecting landlords with tenants. “How much do you pay him?” I ask Elizabeth. “Oh, I bought him a Coke.” A large Coke goes for 30 shillings.

It's hard to tell how old Sam is, perhaps late 30s. He has a bare spot near the center of his head as though someone swiped him with a sword. Sam shows up at TICH one day while I'm hosting a meeting in my office and he stands in the hall beckoning to me. He has a place for me to look at. “You'll take it, I know,” Sam says. Elizabeth wants to go along to make sure the neighborhood is good and security is plentiful.

Sam points from my office window to the front of TICH where two men stand outside the gate. He tells me they are real estate agents, the place is a boda boda ride away and I can pay for everyone. That's 20 bob both ways for each person at 5 people: 100 shillings. (I insist on paying Elizabeth's, too, since she's helping me out.) But I wonder why two guys who'll make money from this real estate venture are asking me to pay for the bike rides. Same old answer: because I'm white.

As we near the gate, Sam says if I decide to take the space the guys will get a fee of a 1,000 shillings. Gee whiz. I tell Elizabeth the charge is a 1,000 shillings and she's shocked. “They're licensed real estate agents,” I tell Elizabeth. “Really?!” she says with doubt, “When someone starts talking about their credentials, I want to see their license,” and she begins talking to the Licensed Real Estate Agents (LREAs) in Luo. Elizabeth grew up in Kisumu so she knows the way of the city.

We take boda bodas and they head toward Ring Road and Nyalenda, the slums. This is my first clue I won't like the place. We ride and ride and ride, more than a mile along Ring Road. My second clue. I want to be within a 15 minute walk of TICH. We pull up to a gate opposite the Jaralem Academy. A man in torn clothes opens the gate. The LREAs talk to the guy for much too long, then we proceed to the back. Not the front, but the back. A dog skulks nearby (clue #3). The ground is sandy, no walkway (clue #4). The LREAs keep using the words “self-contained” and look as though they expect me to levitate at the news.

The landlady, a local, gets the key. The room is accessbile from an outdoor hallway-- no going through the rest of the house. She opens the door into the tiniest, dirtiest room I've ever seen. Big clue #5. I try not to show my anger or disgust. “You like carpet?” the LREAs ask, “she'll put in carpet. She'll paint. Whatever you like.” They say “self-contained” and open a door to the toilet, a 3 by 4 foot room with a seatless, nasty toilet and a showerhead (no separate shower room). Next to the toilet room is a space of about 4 by 4 feet. Sam says "kitchen" and I blink and look again, study the bare walls for any sign of a pipe carrying water. Nothing. Just a solid floor and solid walls in a tiny, tiny space.

The LREAs ask Eliabeth what she thinks and she says, “It's not my decision.” They ask me and I say, “I'll continue looking at other places.” Couldn't get out of there fast enough. We exit the gate and I spy boda bodas on Ring Road. “I'm not waiting for them,” I tell Elizabeth, “and I'm NOT paying for the LREAs boda boda ride back.”

“They think you're going to come from the US and live there?” Elizabeth muses. “I wouldn't live there.” We climb onto the boda bodas as Sam catches up to us. “Do you want the place?” “No, Sam, please keep looking.” “She'll do whatever you like to the place.” “Sam,” I say, “whenever I hear 'kitchen,' I think water pipes and a sink. That place had nothing resembling a kitchen.” I now doubt Sam's judgement.

“I'd like to pay for their boda boda,”Sam says, indicating the LREAs. “Fine,” I say, “pay it. But don't ask me to pay it.” The first time I'm rude since being in Kenya. But my heart is sinking at the thought of that tiny, dirty space surrounded by sandy earth and lacking a kitchen. We cycle away from the insane LREAs. I won't allow myself to be disheartened and instantly remind myself the most perfect place will come along. Back at the office, I pull out my journal and begin to write as though I've already found the most perfect space. “Write it Down, Make it Happen.” This book has inspired me through some tough times. Jaime often reminds me to write it down, make it happen. So in the journal I write:

“Life in Kisumu becomes more lovely and meaningful with each passing week. I love my new place. It is beautiful and comfortable. Friends love to visit and I'm especially creative in this space, writing and studying. I love the people who live nearby and feel absorbed into their family. They keep me from feeling lonely. Cooking here is a joy and I love, love, love my new refrigerator. It has enhanced my life greatly. Beautiful art, flowers and music are always available here, along with wine and stimulating conversation. This location is central, the neighborhood is pretty, safe and quiet. It is quite ideal and I immensely enjoy going to social events with my neighbors. In this new place, I feel pampered and more human, cared for. This delightful space recharges me, revives me, cocoons me so I can go back out into the world and give of myself more efficiently. My spirit is constantly lifted in this new environment.”

Now those words are out in the universe, making it happen (hopefully!).

Christmas in April

Jennifer Miller sends a package via FedEx and here's the list where she describes what she lovingly shipped to children of Kisumu, Kenya:

"10 composition notebooks, 13 coloring books, 8 colored pencil packs, 7 Crayon packs,1 Yoyo for Paul (maybe you or Ian could teach him how to yo-yo), 9 pads, 1 box of pens, 1 box of pencils, 1 bag of sweetarts and 1 bag of nerdies – I hope this is something that will not melt."

The package arrives at TICH today, delivered by Securicor. I am standing out front when the truck comes through the gates and three young men climb out of the cab. I sign for the box, go to my office and open it. Jennifer has written a sweet note in a pretty card and it brightens the day and my desk. These niceties, these pretty, thoughtful things women give to each other are what I miss.

Walter comes by my office and I give him three coloring books and crayons for his son, Trevor, and two other children who live with them. I insist on Walter taking two composition books for Pamba Zuko. I set aside two for myself, along with two notepads from OfficeMax. After work, I balance the box on the back of the bike and walk it home. Paul and Mercy are in the yard playing. Next door, Jessie and Chris, 5 and 6-years-old, call out “Hey, Cindi.” Trevor, around 9 years old, is also in the neighbor's yard, along with a new girl I haven't seen before. Her name is Waambi. Now that we know all the children's names, I point to their German Shepherd and say, “What's his name?”

Chris says, “Scooby.”

“You named him after Scooby Doo?” I ask, totally surprised they have Scooby over here.

“Yes,” they all say.

I MUST sing, “Scooby, Scooby Doo, where are you? We've go some work to do now.” And the kids all laugh.

Mercy, an orphan, is 12 and attends boarding school sponsored by our landlady, Phoebe. Mercy is home this month for Easter break. There's a new guy, Modis, living at Phoebe's. He looks 15 but is actually 25 and seems to be employed to work in their house. And, of course, there's Joyce. After counting the children, I collect coloring and composition books, crayons and colored pencils and take them outside where the children are playing, divided by the fence between our yards. They brighten when they see the goodies and say “thank you, thank you.” The younger children get crayons and the older ones get colored pencils.

I take the Duncan yo-yo to Paul, who is in the back with Modis and Mercy, cooking over coal fires. I show him how to wind up the string and release the yo-yo using wrist action. He catches on immediately. A mini-CD comes with the yo-yo so I bring my laptop out back and we all sit around it and watch the yo-yo experts from California, two young, hip dudes, demonstrate the various tricks. Heavy metal music accompanies the video, which the kids seem to enjoy. We look at all the sections, including bios on the yo-yo experts and the musical bands included in the soundtrack. Not only does Paul catch onto yo-yoing quickly, he also takes a fancy to the laptop's touchpad. I show the kids photos of my family and the last weekend in Atlanta. Paul clicks the “mouse” to advance photos. They want to see more, so I show them Kilimanjaro pictures and they always laugh and point when they recognize me under layers of clothing and hats.

When Ian arrives home a little later, the children are in the neighbor's yard, coloring. They hold their books up and show him their artwork.

As I'm leaving for work the next morning, Trevor is sitting on his doorstep, coloring a kitty cat in a basket with his colored pencils. I comment on what a great job he is doing and push my bike toward the gate. He says, “Cindi.” I turn around and he's holding the book up next to the fence. “Can we do this?” and he shows me a page in the coloring book where children can write letters to Dalmatian Press, with suggestions on making the books better. When the children mail in their comments and suggestions, they become a member of the Dalmatian Press Puppy Pack (DPPP). Trevor can read and write English very well so I tell him to fill out the letter, including his name and age, and we'll mail it to Dalmation Press. They're in Franklin, TN, and I tell him I know exactly where that is because my cousin, Sonua, lives in Nashville and Franklin is a suburb of the Home of Country Music. Well, I don't tell him about country music and Nashville, just about Sonua and knowing Franklin's locale.

Trevor must be around 9, perhaps 10, and he's busily concentrating, coloring a kitten in a basket. I make a mental note: he should have crayons instead of those colored pencils. He's the same age as many of the street boys who approach me on Oginga Odinga Street, rubbing their bellies and holding their hand out saying, “bread.” Those boys should be home, in a yard with a gate, coloring kittens in baskets with crayons, dreaming of writing letters to Dalmatian Press in the United States. Jennifer writes in her thoughtful note that she and others are anxious to send more things for the children, once we determine the best way to get packages to Kisumu. A few books, pencil packs and two bags of candy are left. We're saving them for Pamba Zuko, to give to the children of Nyalenda when the shelter is built. Perhaps in the near future we will pull some of the children off the street and back to Nyalenda, where they will eat regularly, without begging. Is it too pie-in-the-sky to think they may one day join the Dalmatian Press Puppy Pack?

Trip Down Memory Moutain

Neal Garvin, a fellow trekker on Kilimanjaro, sent a CD of photos he made on the climb and safari. He also made videos and put those on DVD. Neal shipped the disks to me from Connecticut two days before I was leaving for Africa. I watched the videos yesterday for the first time. Oh, what memories of freezing mornings, cheerful porters and not being able to walk and breath at the same time! Neal did such a fantastic job documenting our trip I'm posting some of his photos here including; our trek up the treacherous Western Breach (I'm at the end of the line); Joann (Neal's wife) and I on the roof of Africa overlooking the clouds; and an interior view of Ole Dorop's hut. This last picture is quite remarkable because the hut interior was totally dark. Even after our eyes adjusted, we could barely see, yet we continued to talk and interact normally. Neal didn't tell us he was about to take a picture, so when he snapped, he caught Ole Dorop in mid-laugh. Only later did we look at the photo and know what the inside of the hut looked like. You can read details about our Kili climb on this blog (December 2004).

Inside Ole Dorop's Boma - Tanzania

Me and Joann on Kili

Western Breach of Kili

My Role at TICH

It occurs to me I describe life in Kisumu without telling what goes on at TICH, the college where I work. As their marketing and communications advisor, I've been busy putting together a marketing business plan, targeting TICH's niche markets of students, partners, donors, members and organizations requiring consultancy in development. Most TICH staff members have lived and studied abroad. Their English is very good and all meetings and communications are in English, giving me no impetus to learn Kiswahili or Luo. (Speaking these two languages is essential, however, when working with communities such as Nyalenda. Luckily, Jose, a fellow VSO volunteer from Holland, is arranging four days of Kiswahili training for us in Kakamega in late May.)

Development is a huge topic in Africa and everyone, including slum-dwellers, are well-versed in the vernacular; People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), vulnerable persons, capacity building. The sick Mamas in the slum can talk to you about the psycho-social needs of orphaned children. Students wanting to work in the health industry and to help these “vulnerable” persons come to TICH for diplomas and degrees.

TICH, in its sixth year, continues to grow. Two programs in Community Health and Development, a PhD and a master's program, have been approved and will be launched as soon as the Commission for Higher Education awards TICH university status. Students follow a rigorous coursework curriculum and also experience hands-on, practical training by going into the field every Wednesday. Field visits are performed by students and staff, who work in partnership with community members to determine which programs will most benefit the community. Students collect data for baseline surveys, write their reports, guide the communities in implementing recommended programs and follow up on the community's progress, all of which is documented in their research papers. Through this partnership program, students learn theoretical and real world concepts while communities receive the benefit of shared knowledge and techniques that improve their health and agriculture.

TICH has friends around the world and they'll all come to Kisumu later this month for the 4th Annual TICH Scientific Conference, co-sponsored by UNESCO, a division of the United Nations. This year's conference theme is: “Linking Research to Policy for Evidence-Based Action Towards the Realization of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).” MDG's are goals set by the UN and adopted by developing countries. Each country puts numbers to the goals and aims to reach their objectives by 2015 (See the blog post from February for Kenya's development goals).

It's quite exciting to be part of the conference planning committee. University professors and guest speakers will join us from Ethiopia, the UK, Tanzania, Australia, Uganda, Canada, South Africa, Botswana, the US, France, and Holland. Physical preparations are under way at TICH. Our water system is being repaired with a new tank and piping. The old well in the central courtyard, once covered with wood slats, has now been demolished and filled with dirt. New gravel is being laid and floors are being painted. We're even ordering a screen for the LCD projector (seems someone complained last year when the presentations were projected onto the bare wall).

Everyone here is busy working on their research projects, preparing class materials, developing the Enterprise Department (five chickens arrived this morning, huddled into one corner of a cage, on their way to the field), making travel arrangements for our conference guests, preparing the conference agenda, printing banners and moving computers to a new e-center. In addition to the three-day conference, we'll host several workshops before and after the conference. An Israeli organization and TICH are co-hosting a four-week workshop in entrepreneurial projects. Visiting academics will convene to optimize TICH's master's degree program. Three editors from African peer review journals will conduct a one-day workshop instructing attendees in writing research for publication. And, finally, two workshops will be held to explore social determinants of health status and tackling health improvement through community partnerships.

Quite an exciting time here at TICH! I'll keep you posted as the conference draws nearer. To learn more about what TICH does, visit www.tichafrica.org.

Diversions

In Kenya, road detours are called diversions (just as they are in Britain). Doesn't a diversion seem more pleasant than a detour? After leaving the new Nakumatt Mall, where I bought a long distance discount calling card (to call my children and my mother!!!), I decide to walk along Ring Road. It's a less congested way to get home even though it's the front line of Nyalenda slums A and B. There are a couple of diversions along the way. I'm first stopped by Samwell Rojoro, a reverend currently living in Nairobi who wants to work in Kisumu where his family lives. He asks if I have any jobs in the church for him. Actually, no, but we never know who we might meet, I tell him, and take his name and mobile number and move along. I pass row after row after row of wood kiosks/shacks. I pass sewing shops with colorful cloth draped on open doors and ladies sitting behind Singer sewing machines, pumping with their feet to move the needles up and down. Butcheries pop up occasionally with huge meat chunks hanging in the day's heat. Beauty salons are frequent, as are video stores with movie dialogue blaring from a back room. People call out “hello,” “How are you?,” “Hi Madam” and “Hey white lady.”

One very large man, who could be a bouncer in a nightclub, calls to me saying, “Madam, will you greet me?” So I step off the side walk to shake his hand. There are several other men standing nearby, watching me closely. My new friend has a white cap fitting snugly on his head. He tells me they are gathered here for a funeral. I turn to look around and notice the truck parked on the side walk, ready to receive the casket, to take the dead woman to her family's burial place 12 kms from Kisumu. “Pole,” I say. While still holding my hand, the big guy tells me his name is “Godwill” and the deceased is his cousin's sister. Doesn't that make her his cousin as well? “Sister” means different things. It could be their biological sister or someone from their tribe or even someone from their church. I can smell alcohol on Godwill's breath and see in his eyes he has a good buzz going, but he's not quite drunk yet. He asks if I'll pay my respects to the deceased woman. Yes, I indicate with a nod of my head.

We walk away from the road, down a dirt path for nearly 100 yards. Because I've been in this neighborhood with Walter and Tony, I am comfortable following Godwill into the slum. He says the deceased woman's name is Susan. We come upon a group of people under a tarp strung between two houses. A woman is standing and speaking in Luo. It's alien to me to approach a group of mourners whom I don't know. This is the second time I've “attended” a funeral since being in Kenya and the sensation is becoming a little less strange. People welcome an outsider just because their skin is white and I'm slowly becoming okay with being the person with the white skin who is afforded the honor of paying respects to their deceased love ones. Everyone is looking as I follow Godwill through the crowd, past the woman who is speaking and into a narrow doorway. The room is dark and the casket is on the ground. I grab Godwill's arm at the sight of Susan. She seems tiny, her simple coffin seems small, less than half the size of caskets in America. The dead ladies always seem so small.

I knell by the casket to get a better look and notice Susan looks young, perhaps late 20s. She's wearing a white, white lace dress that flows down and over her toes. There is no glass separating her from the dimly lit room. She is leaving behind three small, fatherless children. I stand to follow Godwill back to Ring Road. He points to an elderly man and says, “Here's the father of the deceased, will you greet him?” I shake the man's hand and say, “Pole for your loss.” He returns my grip and smiles. Why is he so kind to a strange white woman pulled off the street while people eulogize his dead daughter under a nearby tarp?

Godwill describes himself as a “business man,” with his clothing store just back there on Ring Road, did I see it when I passed? He wants me to visit his shop, but I tell him I'll come by another day. Tomorrow? “I can't give you a definite day, but I'll be coming by here regularly,” I say. He thanks me and shakes my hand, giving me the coded handshake for intimate friends. Even though he's a bit high, even though he's hanging by the road instead of listening to Susan's ceremony under the tarp, I'm moved by what Godwill and his community are going through. “Please be careful on your way to the burial” I say. His eyes register appreciation as he releases my hand and I secretly hope, hope, hope Godwill is not driving.

Raise the Roof

The attached photo of the main water source into Nyalenda was taken at the spot where Walter and his organization, Pamba Zuko, plan to build a shelter/structure to house their programs. The land, donated by the owner, is centrally located in Nyalenda. The stream serving as their water source actually separates Nyalenda A from Nyalenda B, a strange division created by the municipal government. So this spot is ideal for bringing the young children and widows together for income-generating programs, education on children's rights and AIDS prevention and training in water sanitation.

My wonderful, former co-workers at Experian gave me a going away gift of $100. As with Kourtney's gift, I brought it to Africa with plans to use it to improve someone's life. Walter, Tony and I got together last night and again today to look at the drawings of the shelter/building to be constructed on this site by the stream. We've determined 30,000 Kenyans shillings (or about $350US) will buy the materials for the shelter. Labor will be provided by community members, many of whom are members of Pambo Zuko and lifelong friends of Walter and Tony. So the $100 from the Fabulous Folks at Experian will go toward the initial building materials of sand, cement, timber and nails. Walter is encouraged that just the sight of building materials being delivered to this little parcel of land will be enough to lift the spirits of Nyalenda's residents.

Thank you Fabulous Folks of Experian!! We'll document the construction and I'll be sure to keep you updated on just how far your monies go to enrich the lives of these very bright and deserving people!!

Main Water Source for Nyalenda

Crazy Day: Part II

Talk about Naive

Tony and I cycle into town after work and lock our bikes together around a sign post. We walk to where Walter displays his handmade wares for sale. He has a spot at the entrance of a shopping center, along with the other guys who hawk their goods on the side walk. I'm impressed with Walter's handmade flower vases and clocks. It's after 6:40 and my internet cafe time is slipping slowly away from me. Walter packs his stuff in a giant, faded cardboard box that no longer stays closed. He ties it up with rope and puts it behind the sliding locked gate of the center where security guards will watch it until tomorrow morning. As he's working to box up his stuff and Tony is on the phone, two street boys comes up to me with their hands out. Tony begins talking to the boys in Luo, then he says something to Walter. Walter secures his box behind the gate and calls the boys over to a woman sitting on the curb selling bananas and oranges. Each boy picks out an orange and begins eating.

Tony gets off the phone and talks to the first boy, who is hiding a plastic bottle containing glue. He exchanges the bottle for bananas, telling me to never give the boys money because they use it for glue. He holds the bottle for me to sniff and all I can say is “dang!” because it's much more potent than one might imagine. When we were growing up, we called it airplane glue and used it to put together model airplanes and cars. It's been a long time since I smelled airplane glue. Suddenly, I look around and see other boys carrying their bottles and wonder how I've missed it this long.

Talk about naïve.

And didn't I see boys at the matatu station fighting over what appeared to be an empty, plastic bottle? So that's why they were tussling over the bottle. The bottles are not capped, allowing the glue to harden and turn somewhat brownish. It doesn't take much glue, usually just the bottom and a side of the bottle is coated, but it's still strong. This is how they spend their days, sniffing and looking through hazy eyes with their hands out.

Walter and Tony know these boys, though, better than the boys know themselves. They know because they've been there. Perhaps not on the street, but from the slums with little hope and hooked on drugs. When Walter and Tony talk to these boys, it is with compassion and firmness. They get tough when it's required and they calm the boys and talk to them like the humans they are, unlike many people who are afraid of boys on glue, or any street child who asks for money. Sometimes people hit the boys.

Walter, Tony and I go to an Indian restaurant and order Cokes while we look over the plans for the Pamba Zuko shelter to be built in Nyalenda. I visit the cyber cafe for 20 minutes, just before it closes, and arrive home around 9pm. I charge the new phone (!), shower, read a fluffy novel entitled "Hot Flashes" and munch on banana chips (they taste just like potato chips!). What a crazy day. From buying a mobile in a very prosperous Safaricom sales room filled with music and conditioned air to standing on the street with two locals, meeting their friends and the street boys high on glue. When we first arrived in Kisumu, just walking down the hectic streets, past vendors, hawkers, street children and blaring music, was disorienting. These days, I'm standing on the side walk talking to the people who once frightened me and feeling safe with Walter and Tony. I like this view from the inside much, much better.