September 16, 2005

8am and we’re in class. The students have helped me move about the school to locate enough chairs. Though we have only 12 students in class this morning, there are two workshops also running this morning and our chairs have been taken by those attendees. Dina is in class this morning, as is Elias, who is on our IT team and currently reports to me. Half of the students in class work for the CDC-Kemry (Keya Medical Research), so they have experience working on programs to assist rural populations. I give them an overview of communication as a field of study and we work throughout the day to narrow the focus down to rhetoric, or persuasion. In their work with rural communities, when our students are teaching new methods of farming or educating about health issues, they’ll need to understand how to communicate their ideas and gain compliance from their partners in the communities. That’s my job for today and tomorrow.

At 4pm, we end the day’s class and I take a boda boda to town to buy groceries. Being gone for two weeks, there is no food in the house. Once in town, I check emails and call Jaime from the internet café. Calls are 15 shillings per minute, about 20 cents, so Jaime and I can talk for 30 minutes at a cost of $5 USD. She sounds wonderful, though I wake her up. Hearing her voice makes me homesick and I worry she and her brother, James, may need me for things I’m not able to provide from Africa. It’s a recurring theme in our conversations…

“Are you okay, Sweetie,” I ask. “Do you have everything you need? Have you been well? If there’s anything you need, please tell me. There are ways I can do stuff for you, even from Africa.”

Jaime always reassures me she’s fine, James is fine and Frankie the cat is fine. My footsteps seem to spring after I’ve talked to my children. Because I want to be home before dark, I walk to Nakumatt quickly. On the sidewalk outside the store, I see Ned and two women approaching. I haven’t seen Ned in a few weeks and I smile and wave. He waves back. The women are very tall, much taller than Ned. I slow as they approach, turning to stop and talk. But Ned walks on, simply saying, “Hello, Cindi, How are you?” The women look at me suspiciously and they all saunter on. How strange that he didn’t stop and introduce me to his friends, who are surely Dutch volunteers working for a short period at Pandipiere. The Catholic center cycles through lots of young volunteers who come to Kisumu, live in the slums and work at the center for about three or five months. Ned gets to meet new volunteers constantly, mostly women, so that’s a nice social outlet for him. But I’m a little hurt he didn’t stop and introduce me to his new friends.

After rushing through the store, I decide to walk home instead of taking a boda boda. I need the exercise and there’s still plenty of daylight. I walk away from town, on a busy road recommended as the safest route. There’s a tiny, burgundy pocket of a purse with its strap over my left shoulder and the purse tucked under my arm. I approach an intersection and notice three boys coming from the left. There’s something unusual about them, making them stand out. Kenyans are usually very quiet and composed in public. These three young men are laughing very loudly and actually shouting. I calculate their pace and wonder if they’ll end up ahead of me or behind me. I try to slow so they’ll be ahead, but they stop at a tiny store. I walk straight, hoping they go another way. When I walk, I always look around, to make sure there are other people on the road. Today there are many people walking about, mostly men walking alone or in pair on both sides of the road heading in both directions. Plus, there are boda bodas passing regularly. I feel safe.

Normally when in town, I put my purse in the grocery sack, to avoid tempting anyone. Today, because there are plenty of people around and it’s still daylight, I walk quickly with my head up, the purse tucked, practically hidden, under my arm. With only three blocks to go, I look around to make sure there are other people on the road. Yes, many. And I don’t see the three boisterous young men. I’ll be home in time to clean up, cook dinner and prepare exercises for tomorrow’s class, which beings at 8:00a.m.

My thoughts disappear as I hear footsteps pounding behind me. This happens often, people running on the street to catch up to me, to talk. When I began living in Kisumu, people would run to catch up to me. At first, I told myself not to worry, that the streets are safe and people often run to catch up with me and talk. They want to be friends and most people are very kind. But a tiny part of my mind makes me stiffen when hearing running foostops, to prepare myself. For what? Not sure. Even if children we’re running up behind me, I’d think, ‘they’re not coming after me, they’re not coming after me” and usually that was true. If they were coming after me, they meant no harm.

As the footsteps pound harder, I begin to turn to the left, clamping my arm down over my purse, when I’m hit with such force, it knocks me off balance. The guy grabs the purse strap from behind but my arm is clamped so tight, it doesn’t budge. I’m still reeling from being hit and he’s pulling me further around, grasping the strap. My right hand swings out with the grocery sack, trying to keep my balance. I’m yelling, to alert people on the street. He hits me on the shoulders and chest, then grabs me by the arms and throws me to the ground, to the left. I tumble into a ditch and land on my head, my feet in the air. I’m still trying to keep the groceries from hitting the ground, though I don’t really realize that’s what I’m doing. My feet stay over my head for what seems like minutes. He bends over me, grabbing at the purse, and then I hear a rip. He has won.

It takes a few seconds to re-orient which way is up. I climb out of the ditch, still holding the groceries aloft, and looking around at the men on the street. The stand and look back.
“Help me,” I yell to them as I run. There are men behind me and men on the opposite side of the street. They all just stand, starring, as they stood and starred while the guy knocked me around in the ditch. My hair, clamped up high on my head, is now falling with the clip banging into my shoulder as I run. The theif wears a white t-shirt and he’s only 30 feet ahead of me. I’m running, wearing Chaco sandals and a denim sundress. And I’m yelling all the way down the street.

“Stop him!” I cry. “He stole my purse!!!” I’m yelling at the boda boda driver who has pulled up next to me and who’s peddling at the same rate of my run. He just stares at me as I run and yell. He can understand English. They all understand English. But they do not speak. Then another boda boda pulls up next to him and stares. I turn my sights on this new guy and plead, “Please stop the guy in the white shirt, he stole my purse!!” The guy speeds up and heads toward the thief. Can he catch him? Please, please, please, I say in my head.

When he gets next to the guy, he slows and the thief leaps mid-stride onto the back of the boda boda and they fly toward Nyalenda, the slums. I stop running and look around at all the men on the street, feeling very alone in the world. Then a gate opens and a Kenyan, about 35 years old and pushing his boda boda, comes out saying, “What has happened?”

“That guy in the white t-shirt on the boda boda stole my purse.”

The man immediately pulls his bike onto the road and says, “Twende, Twende!!,” which means, “let’s go!”

Not trusting boda bodas now, I say dejectedly, “You really think we can catch them?” And he’s says, “let’s try,” so I hop on, not really wanting to be chasing theives and preferring to be in my living room, listening to the BBC and quilting.

“They don’t normally rob people this early. It’s still daylight.”

“Yes,” I say, holding the groceries in my lap, trying not to think about everything that was in my purse. He’s flying, though, really putting effort into pedaling fast and we pass people on the street as he rings his tinny bell. I look at each boda boda, at each passenger, but as we near Nyalenda, the streets and sidewalks begin to fill with people. There are too many to see. When the road deadends into Ring Road, and the tiny shacks of Nyalenda spread out in front of us, stretching for miles in either direction, I feel overwhelmed. Night is beginning to fall. Dusk.

Embers light up from charcoal stoves where ladies are roasting corn on the sidewalk. A large fire burns next to the sidewalk. Vendors light kerosene lamps and place them next to their goods.
Points of warm light glow all over Nyalenda, but there’s no way we’ll find the two theieves. He turns right onto Ring Road, headed toward Pandipiere. As we roll past, I hear a woman scream and look behind the sidewalk, behind the hundreds of people walking in the street, and see a man grabbing a woman. He has her by the shoulders and she’s trying to break free. She screams but no one does anything. The guy hits her across the face and works to get a better grip as she continues to struggle, screaming, and people walk past without looking at her.

Fire leaps from lamp wicks and roasting corn embers while the woman yells and I think, ‘I’m in hell.’

“Please take me home.” I ask the man from my seat on the back of his bike, knowing we’ll never find the theives and feeling unable to protect myself, much less the woman being beaten by the man. I want to be home and will not feel safe until behind the locked gates with Samuel. My keys were in the purse, so I’m hoping the Ruprah’s have an extra key to the padlock on my front door.

“I want to give you something for helping me out,” I tell the driver. “However, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get into my house. Do you mind waiting a few minutes to see if I can get in and get some money for you?”

“I don’t mind,” he says. “But you don’t have to pay me. If you have the money, that’s fine. If you don’t, I’ll think of it as doing volunteer work.”

I smile in the lowing light behind his back. Volunteer work.

Inside the gate, Samuel tells me the Ruprahs are at temple, but Raju is home. He comes out and they’re dismayed to hear what happened. Samuel keeps shaking his head and tisking and saying, “So sorry this happened, very sorry. Pole sana.” Raju doesn’t know if there’s an extra key, but he gives me 20 shillings to give the boda boda driver. I return to the gate and thank him for helping me. Samuel thanks him, too, and shakes his hand. The driver gives me a copy of his ID card, complete with his photo. His name is Erick Otieno and I think he’s a good man.
Because I can’t get into my house, Raju invites me to sit with him and Mama, his grandmother. He tells her in Punjabi what happened and she’s visibly saddened, shaking her head and saying things I don’t understand. Her knee is bothering her so she doesn’t get up. Raju brings me a cup of tea, which is very thoughtful, and asks if I’d like sugar. I notice my knee is hurting and lift my skirt to find my knees raw and bleeding. Mama’s face scrunches up when she sees my knees and she calls to Raju. Soon, he’s bringing me cotton and disinfect. They take such good care of me as we wait for Raju’s mom, Mrs. Ruprah. Raju will pick her up from the temple at 9pm. It’s now just past 7pm, so they encourage me to sit back and watch TV. It’s on an Indian station and a soap opera-type show is playing. There is so much over-acting, I don’t really need to understand the words.

I get lost for minutes in the show, then I return to my reality in Kenya. I’m in Kisumu. I’ve been robbed. I’m sitting with the Ruprahs, the closest thing to family I have here. Tears flow and I turn so Mama won’t see. They took my cell phone, which I’ve had for less than a month. My blood pressure medicine was in the purse. Keys to the house and my office at TICH. About 1,700 shillings, or $21 USD, which is a lot of money to me. Most painful to think about is the memory stick, which held lots of precious documents and pictures. With the memory stick, I would write emails and blog posts at home and then spend less time in the internet café sending the messages and posting to the blog. But I don’t want to think about that right now and focus instead on the silly actors.

After a while, Mama starts talking to me in Punjabi and Kiswahili, which I don’t understand, but I know what she’s saying. She’s trying to comfort me. Raju comfirms this. Looking at my knee, it occurs to me I want to be back in the U.S. before it heals. I just want to run away, get out of Kenya, go to where it’s safe and there are people who love me, who would want to smash the faces of the stupid guys who robbed me. But I’m not in the U.S., I’m in Kisumu and I can’t even get into my house. When Raju does return with Mrs. Ruprah, she’s upset and anxious to make sure I’m okay. She looks in every cabinet and drawer in the house and we make several trips to my front door, trying various keys in the lock. No luck.

Well, she says, we’ll have to wait for Mr. Ruprah. He’ll be home around 11:30pm, she says. Mrs. Ruprah encourages me to take the lounge chair in front of the TV, in case I want to sleep before he arrives. I take the lounge chair and sit back against the cushions, trying not to get my dirty sandals on her furniture. Where’s Mr. Ruprah, I wonder. Oh, probably out drinking.

An Indian movie is on and it’s quite good, though I have no idea what they’re saying. There’s a strong, silent Muslim-type who wins the heart of a beautiful girl who has been used by men. They borrow a man’s car and none of them are aware someone has planted a bomb in the car. We watch, wondering when the bomb will go off and will they be in the car? He’s in the doorway of a jewery store where he’s selected a gorgeous necklace for the woman (did I mention he’s also rich and handsome?). He’s trying to entice her out of the car with the necklace and it works. But as she closes the car door, her long, gorgeous scarf gets caught and before she can free her scarf, the car blows up, annhilating her in the process. So for the rest of the movie, the strong, silent Muslim type lives with a Hindu family, where he has a contentious relationship with the wife and mother of the family, while he seeks revenge against the men who killed his girlfriend. And he does get revenge, but he dies in the last scene of the movie and by this time, the Hindu wife/mother has grown to love and appreciate him and she mourns and wails the loudest over his dying body.

The handsome, rich, silent Muslim type takes my mind off things for two hours. Then Mr. Ruprah arrives, bringing reality with him. I just want to be in my house, safe, where it’s quiet and I can think. Mr. Ruprah is drunk. He doesn’t have a spare key and has nothing strong enough to break the lock, so he decides to unscrew the padlock base, allowing us into the house.
So here we are on the patio at my front door; Mr. Ruprah, me, Samuel the guard and Mrs. Ruprah with Raju floating in and out of the scene. Mr. Rurprah can’t see well enough to handle the screwdriver, even with the candle Samuel is holding up for him. He needs another screwdriver, so he sends Mrs. Ruprah to the trunk of his tan Mercedes, instructing her to pull out a tool kit. It’s dark and she’s having trouble locating the kit.

“It’s on the left,” he yells across the compound. “Stupid woman! You can’t do anything right!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” I practically whisper while touching his arm. “She’s a good woman and a good wife. Don’t say those things to her.”

She finds the tool and brings it, but Mr. Ruprah is too drunk to operate the screwdriver and he doesn’t trust Samuel to do it correctly, so he hands the tool to me. Getting to the screws is difficult because the padlock is in the way. It takes pressure and concentration to turn the screw even the tiniest distance. Mr. Ruprah holds the candle so I can see, but he holds it directly over my hand so hot wax drips on it and I yell and push his hand back, telling him not to burn me. He’s saying, “Turn it, that’s it, unscrew it. Just unscrew it.”

“Okay,” I answer. But he continus to repeat it and the hot wax continues to drip on my hand. Mrs. Ruprah has a large knife with a wide blade. She thinks that if she can slide the knifeblade behind the padlock base, it’ll come out of the door faster. But first I must get the screws loosened and it takes awhile. I move from screw to screw while Mr. Ruprah tells me to “just unscrew them,” and Mrs. Ruprah occasionally sticks the knife behind the base.

“Don’t,” he yells at her, pushing the knife away and nearly burning me with the candle. I Unscrew some more while gritting my teeth. Samuel is behind us the whole time repeating what Mr. Ruprah says. Mrs. Ruprah inserts the knife, Mr. Ruprah yells and pushes it away and I try to keep from being burned by the candle.

“How long as these screws?” I ask in desperation.

“About two inches,” Mr. Ruprahs says.

Christ, they’re only out about an inch. Mrs. Ruprah slides the knife into place and twists it, to leverage the plate off the door. Mr. Ruprah barks, “Don’t do that,” and he grabs the knife from her, in front of my face, and throws it to the cement floor with all his might, just behind his right leg. The knife hits and the wooden handle immediately pops off. Mrs. Ruprah retrieves the pieces and takes them into the house. I just try to concentrate on the screws, knowing as soon as the door is open I’ll have a little peace andquiet. No locks. No security. But peace.

Finally, the screws will turn between my thumb and forefinger. The plate is loosened; the padlocked is off the building! They tell me the lock will be cut off the next day and replaced.

Goodnight.

It’s 12:15am. I shower and am in bed by 1am.

I don’t sleep, but instead think about the hot wax and Mr. Ruprah breaking the knife and how much I want to be in Atlanta before my skinned knees heal.