My excursion into Civilization

23 April 2012-- my granddaughter, Margaret’s 1st Birthday!

written from the outdoor section of “Artcaffe”, Nairobi, surrounded by big trees. While I know I’m not in America, this feels quite similar!  Today’s ‘Art’ is Bob Dylan’s 1960s recordings on an excellent sound-system, and I’m indulging in good facsimiles of my American favorites: lasagne, merlot, green salad (!!), a cappuccino cheesecake, and drinking a wonderful mocha!!  Plus, the restroom is so pleasant, and attractive... it could be in a chic US or French restaurant!

Yesterday I spent 9 hours in land travel...  from the shores of Lake Victoria to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. I started out in the predawn dark on a motorbike, slipping and sliding through the MUD, created by the previous night’s rain the night; we then needed to abandon the motorbike to walk, Hezron carrying my suitcase. 20 minutes late, we met up with my coworker, Lillian and some others, for a taxi ride to Homo Bay.  With four of us squished into the front seat, the driver actually did an excellent job periodically maneuvering through mud (not unlike driving in deep snow). Fortunately, we got to Homa Bay in time for my ‘upscale’ bus, on which I actually had a reserved seat, complete with arm rests. During the 7-hour journey, I’m guessing we climbed around 1000 feet in elevation, across the western third of Kenya.

Though upscale, this bus had little wiggle-room, so I was unable to unearth my camera from my backpack. I did get some wonderful mental pictures of the landscape. I wish I'd been able to photograph a wonderful image, a challenge to Kenyan unity, the juxtaposition of contrasting worlds and cultures: at a small rural market, a man in a suit and tie was walking by a Masai man, who was wearing the stunning, traditional blanket, tending his cow.

When the bus was not jerking, or climbing hairpin turns, I was able to read. Thanks to my Kindle, I’m able to somewhat keep up with the monthly reading list of my Oak Park Book Group. This month’s selection is Nickel and Dimed by Barbara E... a book I’ve been wanting to read for some time. I’m enjoying her account of immersing herself in the ‘culture’ of the low-wage worker of the US. While there are significant differences, here are a number of parallels between her venture and my life in Kenya, where I, too, am trying to immerse myself another culture, though not for scientific or literary purposes.  Here’s what comes to mind: 

**  B.E.:  At the end of her first chapter she writes: I had gone into this venture in the spirit of science, to test a mathematical proposition, but somewhere along the line, in the tunnel vision imposed by long shifts and relentless concentration, it became a test of myself, and clearly I have failed.

     J.L.:  A week ago I felt, for the first time, similar to Barbara Ehrenreich, that I had perhaps failed in my venture.  Not that my efforts hadn’t been beneficial (they have), but that maybe I was cracking up, and would need to bail out and go back to the US early.  Life in Mbita is NOT easy...  there’s a lot of hardship and stress, even for a privileged American like me; add to that the loneliness  and isolation from almost 4 months living as the only mzungu within a mile, along with various frustrations and cross-cultural mis-communications, such as being uninformed of changes in school schedules and plans. Last Sunday I spent hours trying to plan travel, for my vacations and to return home, with no success: neither phone nor internet provided specific times, costs and routes or boarding locations for transportation. [It’s not easy to plan travel in Kenya, because it is usually done by travel agents for westerners. One place I wanted to visit was the beaches of eastern Kenya, on the Indian Ocean; it seems that most Kenyans never even get to Nairobi, much less to the beach... this spring the principal of CGA, older than I, went there for a meeting, for the very first time in his life!]  When I finally gave up on making plans, I decided to treat myself to a movie rental from Amazon... but that didn’t work either... I discovered that they don’t rent to overseas locations!  So I resorted to pulling out the last-remaining, and least-enticing, DVD I’d brought with me, but it ended up being too old for my computer to ‘read’!!  I felt like the last straw I was holding onto had snapped, and that my sanity was also about to snap, that I would need to head home for good.  Fortunately, I was able to pray, have a good night’s sleep, and wake up to a good, new day. The day after that I was able to connect by Skype with my “women’s group” from church, and then Nancy & Don, missionaries who started SEEK and CGA, finally arrived. So, I’m thinking that my safety valves are in place and I will make it until the end of the school year next November! 

And... now I’m here in Nairobi, indulging in my favorite foods in the most “American” section of town... evidence of my success in persistent travel planning!

**  Another parallel, which I’d quote from B.L. if I could find it, is true of both of us in our cross-cultural situations:  we each do our best to immerse ourselves in this 'other' culture, but the big difference between us and the locals is that we each have the safety-net of knowing that we both have the option of bailing out; we have 'privileges' that they don’t have: ethnicity ( for me, nationality), education, job opportunities, good health and medical coverage, as well as financial resources. 

It's time for me to post this, then get to the stores in this American section of town to search for kitchen supplies that I haven't found anywhere else!  [ Note: I didn't find measuring spoons, cups, cookie sheets or pancake syrup here either... the American woman I spoke with in the store said she brought those from the US.]

PS. The "Palm Sunday" posting I've intended to get up for a month crashed; I'll try again...