Life in Africa

You'll have to forgive me for this text-heavy entry. I have yet to
find an internet connection here in Kenya that is adequate for
uploading photos. I will get to that eventually, I am sure. Rest
assured I have been taking plenty of photos. I even want on a safari
last weekend so I have plenty of nice shots from that, and a few from
around the village. Today you'll just have to settle for narrative,
and I commend you if you make it through it all.

***

I have settled into what can only be succinctly described as an
alternate reality in the past 13 days. The first few days here were
incredibly hard, adjusting to life without Nathan, without very
reliable communication technology, and learning upon my first day
here that the two projects I specifically came here to work on with
this organization (and why I chose it over other places) were either
defunct or had never existed in the first place. Apparently mass
miscommunication with interns is extremely common for this
organization, and truly it is prevalent with NGOs like this
throughout the "developing world," so my unpleasant realization was
nothing special. Thus, I've spent the past fortnight reconciling my
existence here, being away from the things, people, and creatures of
my former life and trying to figure out my meaning in the present
when the particular projects I'd had my heart set on do not exist in
the world.

I am still very much a sponge of experience at the moment. Yesterday
I went all over the area, taking three matatus (what they call the
public taxis here, which are smallish vans packed like sardines with
at least 15 people) and spending at least 4 hours in transport. I
was with fellow volunteers for the organization. I had a lot of time
to think and observe during that transit time, although I of course
was a bit preoccupied (literally) hanging on for dear life in the
vehicle driven by some of the fastest, most reckless matatu drivers I
have ever come across. At one point the vehicle slowed down as we
passed a fresh accident--a large passenger bus that had tipped over
into the nearby ditch, and we could see its wheels still turning.
The passengers who were better off were standing on the side of the
road, obviously stunned and injured. Everyone in the the matatu grew
quiet, and for a moment the driver seemed tempted to come to a full
stop as we observed the accident and the horrible aftermath. I felt
terrified and full of dread for the people still inside that bus.
But half a moment later we were speeding on faster than ever before.
I felt a twinge in my chest and pulled my seat belt a bit tighter.

As I looked out the window at the surrounding cicil plantations, to
distract myself from the ever-present fear of an accident, I thought
to myself, this is Africa. This is the place I have longed to return
to for six years, a place I have hoped to devote myself to in some
unknowable capacity for the entirety of my adult life now. This is a
place of overwhelming emotions, a place where I see everything in
greater exposure, in brighter and darker color--where I feel in
almost every moment how fragile and fleeting life really is, where
people and creatures live so close to the edge of life and death that
the two often merge together, and where we cannot all help but be
confronted with the reality of our own mortality, in nearly every
corner we look.

I am grateful for this. This bizarre sensation--is it a thrill? Not
exactly. It gives me reason to be to say thank you for each breath I
take in, for every meal I partake in, every step I take along the hot
paths (literal and figurative) of sand and grit I take to work and
home every day. This is what I love more than I could hope to describe.

***

I live with a Muslim family in a predominantly Muslim part of the
village. I arrived here about halfway through Ramadan, and so I have
been eating by myself for breakfast and lunch (though the family
provides the food for me, as part of my program fee) until today.
Today is Eid, the last day of Ramadan, and the first day after a
month of fasting. I myself observe that Ramadan is the strangest
mixture of asceticism and gluttony, where they fast all day and gorge
themselves all night. So it is not a strict "fast" as many frame
it. The family I participate in is mostly comprised of women. They
are somewhere in the process of cooking and cleaning the vast
majority of the time. The two younger women (my host sister and host
sister-in-law) both work as schoolteachers at two primary schools in
the village. Compared to many of the other host families utilized
the organization, mine is pretty conservative. Only yesterday did I
see my host-sister in law's hair for the first time (and I live with
her!). The family is split into two houses: one house, where my host
sister Ummi stays with her mother Ameena and father Mohammed.
Another, where I stay, with my host brother Salim, his wife Sharifa,
and the uncle Mzee Salim (Mzee is an honorific meaning "old man"). I
rarely see the father Mohammed as he eats separately from all of us,
usually in the living room in front of the television as he chain
smokes. Mohammed doesn't go to mosque and doesn't do any of the
things most Muslim men usually do, which I understand to be
incredibly unusual in this community. I have barely exchanged more
than 50 words with the man. His wife and his children, however, are
fairly devout in the practice of their religion, the women in
particular.

***

I think I live with the typical Muslim man from the coast of Kenya--
my host brother, Salim. He just married his wife Sharifa in mid-
August, so they are still definitely newlyweds. Salim usually lives
and works in Nairobi, but he has returned to the village for the
whole of Ramadan. This means he leaves tomorrow to return to
Nairobi, taking a one hour matatu ride into Mombasa, and a grueling 9
hour bus ride to Nairobi after that. Salim is a hard one for me to
figure out (which is part of why he is typical), because he is
obviously devout in his faith, strictly observing fasting during the
day (while working long hard hours at the family's shamba, or farm)
and talking to me often of Islam and Islamic beliefs and practices
and how he is happy to be married now. His wife stays here in the
village while he works in the big bad city of Nairobi. He tells me
that he often goes dancing and drinking in clubs in Nairobi, but that
he doesn't want his wife to know-- he tells me this when she is in
the very same room, somehow thinking that she won't hear or
understand, when her hearing and English comprehension is perfectly
adequate to catch what he is telling me. He also tells me that I
should come visit Nairobi sometime, and he'll take me out drinking
and dancing with his friends. I just kind of nod and smile because I
know he is trying to be nice in his bizarre way. I would like to go
to Nairobi sometime, but not in that capacity. Salim told me just
the other night that he used to be a delinquent, drinking and
frequently smoking "the marijuana," though he doesn't do that so much
anymore since now he is married. Just this morning he told me about
the many prostitutes there are in Nairobi. Salim talks to me a lot,
and though he is weird and says things that make me uncomfortable
quite often, I can't help but think I will miss him. The women here
don't talk to me very much at all--only to communicate about the most
necessary of things. Hopefully that will change after Salim goes
back to the city.

***

I am lucky to live with a family who has electricity and decent
running water, and a sturdy house (even though they keep cardboard on
their windows instead of glass or bars in some parts of their house)
that will not fall over in the rain. I visited an adjacent village a
few days ago, called Vuma, which is filled mostly with Giriama people
(the tribal people, who are worse off in terms of poverty than the
Muslim Swahili people, of which my host family is a part) and I saw
tiny mud huts with no windows which many, many people inhabit. I saw
young boys doing backbreaking work in a coral quarry--this place was
at one time, millions of years ago, covered by ocean water as the
coral is only about 15 feet below the soil, though when I mentioned
this to the local man acting as my guide, he laughed and told me he
did not understand (I could tell that he thought I was crazy).
People here also think that the wazungu (the white people, literally
Europeans) are crazy because we believe in mythical giant lizard
creatures called dinosaurs who were somehow mysteriously killed off,
and now their corpses are responsible for the petroleum beneath the
earth's surface. It really is one of the weirdest things you've ever
heard, if you stop and think about it, and I'm not sure how much I
would believe it if I hadn't seen fully reconstructed dinosaur
skeletons in museums with my own two eyes. But there is no museum
out here of any kind, and you can find men above the age of 20
attending the 8th grade. Attending secondary school is an absolute
luxury, and university level education is not found in the village.
The very few who have attended university no longer live in the
village, that is for sure.

***
I wanted to leave the moment I got here. While I tell myself it
would be much easier if only Nathan were with me, I'm not sure that's
entirely correct. Though I am enjoying myself, the thought of being
here for six months sounds excruciating to me at this point. But
this place is full of surprises and reversals, so I know that in
another two weeks it is entirely possible that I may never want to
leave, or I may be as homesick as ever (for a home that no longer
exists, try that on for size), or BOTH. Viva la contradiction. That
is what I love (and hate) about it here. That is why I can't help
but come back. That is why I want to stay even when I want to leave.