What I Miss (August 10, 2006)

People often ask me what I miss most about the U.S. The things I miss are kind of weird, and some of these things I don't even miss unless I have a strange (day)dream or zone out during work. For example, in terms of food I do miss access to lots of soy/vegetarian food options, and I miss strawberries. I don't actually miss physical things so much, but I do miss my friends and family, and I miss good coffee/cafes and the conversations that come with them. I miss the geniality of knowing an area and having a place to kick it that isn't oriented around alcohol or church. And sometimes when I'm asleep I miss places, like the midwest. Totally weird since I have not really spent a considerable amount of time in any midwestern-y area. The other places I miss include the Bay Area, D.C., and New York City. Talk about totally random cravings.

And all this missing doesn't mean that I don't like or appreciate what's out here. I love the fact that I can buy a slice of pineapple on the side of the street. I can make friends with the shopowners of the places I go to frequently. I can just stop by and say hello to people; I don't have to schedule a special appointment or call and make sure way in advance that they're free. Social life is a bit more laid back. People are friendly, and life is pretty sweet.

Anytime the missing gets to big I have to travel or start a new project. Otherwise it's too overwhelming. I don't know if it will subside over time, and I don't know if I want it to. It's weird, sometimes I feel very much at home, but other times I realize that no, I'm not at home and this is not my country and I can't pretend that just ecause I'm an American working here that I'm not an American (with all the labels and privileges that come attached). It's so easy to be idyllic and get lost in everything, but when I think about it it's jarring. Like I'm playing a game or a role in an alternate universe where I'm not responsible for anything but get to take a lot. It seems wrong on many levels, but I'm not really sure if I should try to ameliorate the unease or if it's good that it's consistently there.

The Choo: Latrine Etiquette & the African Weight Loss Diet (July 30, 2006)

This summer we've had a visitor, an intern/grad student from the US who's volunteering at a local non-profit run by one of the researchers affiliated with the NGO. Despite the fact that this woman voluntarily came to semi-rural Africa, the concept of a latrine seems challenging. So I've decided to outline all the many things that come with using a pit latrine.

Specifications:
To clarify, our latrine is actually quite nice (as far as shit holes go - ours is a literal shit hole, so this is not a remark on the quality of its construction). It has a raised cement floor (to avoid flooding), cement walls, a tin roof, two pits, a shelf on each side of the pit (a shelf is a graded area to help things slip back into the hole that may have missed the first time), and in the "ladies" pit there are blocks on the sides. I've been told that if the wind blows correctly, the scent of the latrine actually travels downwind instead of lingering in its quadrant of the yard.

Now it's true, there are cockroaches in the pit (and at night if you wear a light they might scatter back into the hole), but what can you do? These suckers have survived the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. You just can't fight evolution. I like to refer to them as "my friends." Thus updates are not so icky that they gross out the listener. To wit: "my friends were really chatty tonight" when the squeaking is particularly loud, or "my friends were having a rough night" if they get lost on their way back down the pit. Honestly it could be worse. They could fly.

Blocks or Shields?
You might ask yourself, why are there blocks in the latrine? (imagine two cement bricks on the sides of the latrine hole). Most women here will agree that these blocks are used to help you balance as you squat - your feet are half on half off. For greater clarity, imagine facing towards the door with your feet pointing straight ahead. These same feet are 1/2way off - not laterally but forwards a bit so your heels are higher than your toes. Not only does it relieve some of the strain on your knees/thighs, but it also allows for greater accuracy, which brings me to the next point.

Accuracy & Aim
Now the visitor, in addition to complaining of the smell of the latrine everytime she uses it, has decided that blocks are not for balancing. Apparently they're a "shield" for splatter. You can only imagine our horror when we heard this. I mean, people actually stand on those blocks (granted, in shoes). No one expects urine to coat the floor of the latrine; that's why there's a hole. She's not the only person with accuracy problems, though. We have a mystery shelf pooper.

A shelf pooper? The shelf pooper is the worst kind of latrine user. This person lets go but MISSES the hole. Instead their business hangs out on the shelf, going nowhere. Proposed solutions have included building a slip and slide and greasing it up with Kimbo (oil) to avoid these situations. But really, how hard is it to miss? There's a delay. You go, you listen, and if you don't hear a pause before you hear a "thunk" you should readjust your position, my friend.

Etiquette & Things to Remember
So there are just a few things you have to do to avoid being the asshole when you're using a latrine:

1. Hold your breath and try breathing through your mouth. Don't complain -- no one cares.

2. Always leave 1 roll of toilet paper in some accessible place for the next person. If you're having a rough week, invest in your own TP stash or replenish often. Nothing sucks more than reaching the pit, letting go, and realizing there is no TP.

3. Use the blocks as blocks. They're not your shield.

4. If you miss, get a stick and rectify the situation. No pun intended.


Now to transition to the subject of diet, one of my personal favorite topics. When I first left for Busia, I honestly believed that increased walking paired with limited diet would result in inevitable weight loss. I mean, I've seen pictures of other people, so it had to be true, right? WRONG. Apparently western Kenya is the exception to the weight loss rule. So instead of losing weight, I've gained weight. Then I had a nasty run-in with a meal about 3 days into being here (very normal, surprising it didn't happen sooner). In fact, there IS a secret to weight loss in Africa. What no one tells you is that this secret is diarrhea. Taking a non-random sample of my colleagues I learned that pretty much everyone is sick about once a month with some kind of stomach bug. So apparently we have systemic flushings. This makes the lessons in latrine etiquette even more pressing. No one will like you if you're sick AND messy.

Cooking & Chapati (July 25, 2006)

Being of subcontinental descent, I think I'm particularly snobby when it comes to "Indian food" and all things similarly derived. Imagine my surprise when, arriving in Busia, I learned that there are chapati here! Little did I know that this chapati is not like the standard Indian fare and instead is soaked through and through with oil. That's right, it's an oily piece of fried wheat bread. The first bite is satisfying, but then the vegetable oil starts to congeal in your esophagus and stomach, and by the time you're done you wonder why anyone would eat such a rock and why you decided to punish yourself.

But I actually like chapati, so I called up my mom and asked her for the recipe. Now I have never made chapati, and I think the extent of my capability topped out when I was 5 and was in charge of the rolling pin aspect of chapati preparation. Yesterday I tried the recipe out, and I am pleased to report that we had oil-free chapati liftoff! Now they weren't the best chapati ever made, but they were pretty good. I travelled all the way to Kisumu for the flour and for an appropriate preparation dish. Talk about psychopathic.

So funnily enough, I am getting in touch with my desi cooking roots out here as a much needed break from the food here. This is not to say food here isn't good, it's just a bit routine, and it all consists of stripping food of any and all nutrients by soaking it in oil and cooking out all the insides.

Letter from Kenya #2 (July 14, 2006)

Habari zenu, and whassup!

So this email comes fast on the heels of the previous one, which is not an indicator that I'm reneging on my "1-2x/month" statement, but rather shows how time passes between writing an email and actually sending one. I've also decided I'll just go ahead and be long-winded, but I'll index for the reader's convenience :)

Contents:
1. Swahili & Cute Neighbor Kids
2. World Cup Finals
3. Sunset + Contact Information

1. Language & Kids
First and foremost, Swahili is finally coming, slowly but surely. I bring this up because learning to speak (granted, in phrases and bits) has been like switching from black and white TV to high-definition technicolor. The very best part, though, is getting to talk with the cute neighbor kids.

Now you're probably wondering what kind of creepy person harasses little kids. Apparently me, but here's why I do it: Everytime I walk anywhere, about 90% of the kids in the area will chant, "Mzungu, mzungu, how are you!" ("How are you?" is the first phrase they're taught in English in school). Usually I respond by saying, "I am fine! How are you?" and they giggle and run away.

Recently I decided to switch things up, and I've gotten in the habit of responding in Swahili instead ("Nzuri, habari zako?" - good, how are you?; or, "Mimi si mzungu; mimi ni Camille"- I'm not a European, I'm Camille!). Now there is lots more giggling and still lots of running away. Sometimes, though, they'll stop, and we'll talk for a while. This is great because a) kids talk more slowly than adults, b) I am about as conversant as a 2 year old, and c) I'm picking up way more "border slang." And of course, there is the added bonus that they're about as cute as human limits allow.


Some fun additional things I've learned about language. Here in Busia, nearly everyone adds an "a" to words that start with "m". So for example, in Swahili there are lots of nouns that begin with m:

mwanafunzi (student)
mwalimu (teacher)
mtoto (child)
mzee (term of respect for an elder man)
mzungu (European)

And the list continues. In many of the local Bantu languages, particularly Kiluhya, words start with a "ma-", so "mtoto" becomes "Matoto", "Mzungu" becomes "mazungu," etc. Oh, for further clarification, vowels are pronounced as they are in Spanish with emphasis (usually) on the penultimate syllable, for those who are trying to "hear" the difference.


2. World Cup Finals
The finals were amazing, great, fantastic! We settled into the luscious digs of Chauma where we feasted pre-match and then relocated to the "VIP seats" (i.e. the open chairs ahead of the TV, which is conscientiously suspended from the ceiling).

Meanwhile, the end of the match was a great sight because one of our housemates (Lorenzo) is Italian! Nearly half the restaurant cheered for him, and he could hardly breathe for the rest of the evening. (Sorry Antoine). Meanwhile, rumors abound as to why Zidane would make like a goat and head-butt the Italian guy. We (the American staff) have all decided that someone said something particularly nasty/racist to him (e.g. "terrorist"). On the funnier side, now the entire Kenyan staff refers to "flipping out" as "pulling a Zidane" in Swahili. (Sorry again, Antoine).


3. Sunset
As stereotypical and exotified as it sounds, my favorite thing so far has been seeing sunrise and sunset, which are consistently at 7AM and 7PM, respectively. The sky looks like every postcard you could imagine, sans requisite elephants/giraffes. The trees lean slightly over the road, and about a billion shades of red and gold drape across the sky as the sun sinks over Uganda. Even on the craziest days, these thirty minutes allow just a little time to breathe easy and breathe deep, to get focused and be thankful for everything and everyone here.

Until next time, be well!

Kwa heri,
me

Sub-Letter #1 (July 5, 2006)

Hi friends!

I'm sorry that updates are so manic; I write these days in advance and then sit on them until I can get to the internet cafe (pending of course, that the power is working) and sit on my hands waiting for them to mail out. :) I'm still working on how I'll be able to post pictures, etc, but hopefully I'll be able to do it in pieces and get something going by the end of the month.

So the first lengthy email has gone out, but I thought you all would appreciate the following anecdotes:

1. Nairobi to Kisumu
Remember how I said (very sarcastically) that men would only hit on me here for my green card? Well, I'm sorry to say I was proven right in under 48 hours. While on the ridiculously long bus ride to Kisumu I definitely ended up next to a guy (Henry) who talked to me THE ENTIRE TIME (despite near complete silence on my part). And what, pray tell, was the topic of his conversation?

He started by saying that he liked to make friends and was actually fairly normal. However, around 30 minutes in the conversation took a quick detour, and he ended up telling me how beautiful the Kenyan coast is (which is true, from what I hear). So he kept talking about taking me to Mombasa or Lamu (two really beautiful and big coast cities) and about taking me away for fishing and camping and vacations and all sorts of things. At this point I'm pretty mortified but have no idea what to do since we have at least 6 more hours on the bus. THEN he starts asking if I'll take him to the U.S. next time I go back. This wasn't the part that topped it off though, the best part was when he asked if I was married and if I was open to marrying (!!!). I told him I'm not heading back for about a year, but he was insistent that "friends" would take one another to the U.S. I tried to be polite, but around hour 5 I firmly declined and said I could promise nothing. This seemed to actually take care of everything, ha.


2. Field visits
So on my first day at work I got to go to the field (which basically means following a team of staff out as they conduct interviews/surveys) to Butula, a nearby district. One of the team members, Bukeke, is fairly awesome and is 2nd in command for the logistics side of the Rural Water Project (the project I co-lead with for the field research side).

Bukeke asked me about my ethnic background and whatnot and finally said, "You don't look like an American, you look Asian." [note: Asian in Kenya means South Asian, i.e. Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi, not East Asian].

I responded by telling him I was "Asian-American." So he asked if I liked Indian films or if I was assimilated. I said it was probably a bit of both. His response? "So are you a mzungu, or....?" At this point I ended up laughing. "Mzungu" is a term that is pretty much restricted to white people (especially Europeans and Americans), but also apparently refers to people who are "Westernized." What makes this funnier is that my housemates (the wazungu - plural of mzungu), have been referring to me as Mhindi (Indian), a title I certainly don't identify with. To take it a step further, Anne and a few of the field staff have told me that Asian-Africans (i.e. native Kenyans of South Asian descent) are not "brown" but are instead "light black" people. Being between all these different categories has been interesting and seems to fundamentally disturb other people more than me, mostly b/c they're trying to figure out where to put me. It's interesting to see how it will fall, especially as I pick up more Swahili.


That's all for now, but I'll try to keep the weirdness coming. Be good and be well!

With love,
me

P.S. Antoine! I never thought France would beat Brasil - congratulations!

Letter from Kenya #1 (July 4, 2006)

Hi friends and fam,

To give you a brief orientation before I dive in, here is a brief character and setting list!

Characters:
Willa, Anthony, Anne, Eva, Ian, Me - Field RAs who are new and continuing in Busia
Paul, Lorenzo, Muthoni - Field RAs who are all returning to the U.S. as their terms conclude
Jon - a grad student who's running several projects re: HIV/AIDS in the area; he is the first of many grad students who will be cycling through here
MSF - Medicos Sin Fronteras (aka Medecins Sans Frontiers, aka Doctors Without Borders)

Places:
Nairobi - the capital of Kenya, which is located in the mid-South
Kisumu - the third largest city in Kenya, about 2-3 hours SE of Busia in the NW quadrant of Kenya
Kampala - the capital of Uganda, about 3-4 hours due west of Busia
Busia - a small border town at the Kenyan/Ugandan border in the West near Lake vic [see WikiMap]
Lake Vic - Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and the source of the Nile River
Wazungu House - The house where all the Field RAs live, sans Eva. "Wazungu" means "Europeans" in Swahili (in this case, white people). My presence kind of messes with the Wazungu-ness a little
Chauma - local restaurant & pub with color TV (!!!) including World Cup games, nice people, and a lot of the wazungu (IPAK + MSF) and Kenyan field staff

The story so far:
Getting to Busia is a lot more difficult than getting to Nairobi. For those who are curious about the capital city, I can't tell you much. I stayed in a hostel/campsite filled with American and European backpackers, who are a story unto themselves. Additionally, I spent my first 14 hours in Kenya sleeping, so I missed out on a lot. I did not, however, miss out on the 50+ mosquito bites I accrued sleeping without a bednet at said hostel, who had run out of aforementioned bednets. What I briefly experienced can be summed up in the following from Muthoni, who hails from Nairobi:

"In Philadelphia you feel safe but will probably get mugged. In New York you don't feel safe but probably will not be mugged. In Nairobi you don't feel safe, AND you'll get mugged."

About a day later I took a 7 hour bus drive to Kisumu, and from there I met Willa, who took me back to Busia via taxi. Since then, things have been great and pretty much exactly what I had expected. There are all sorts of fun things that are unique to the area. For example, here there are bike taxis, which are not to be confused with bike rickshaws. Basically you sit on a padded extension that hovers just above the rear wheel while some poor guy carts you around on his "boda boda" (so named because these bikes used to travel across the "border border"). Given that skirts are the dominant attire for women, I've been doing a lot of side-saddle riding.

In my opinion, we are spoiled rotten here. I knew that the NGO we're working with had been in the area for over 10 years, but I didn't realize the pervasiveness with which NGOs change and shape communities. Busia seems relatively affluent (despite its very high poverty rate), partially due to its location near the lush Rift Valley, and partially because of its strong smuggling trade. While it's certainly rural, it's not the stereotypical conception of "the bush," in my opinion. In this district, NGOs are by far the highest paying employers unless you move to Nairobi or Kisumu.

But the affluence is matched with significant differences. At the end of the day, everyone I work with has a college/high school education and is making way more money than the rest of the community. Most own their houses and have cement walls and metal (or higher quality) roofs.This is the same place where tons of other families are living in homes with mud walls and thatch roofs. And these mud wall homes are much nicer than the other homes built from leftover shipping materials and tree debris.

When you throw in the field RAs, we live a fairly embarrassing and lavish life. For about $2.00/day (142 Ksh) I can eat well three times a day, buy a litre of bottled water, travel across town and back via boda boda, and frequent the local internet cafe. Meanwhile, little kids walking by on the main road don't have shoes and half don't have any other clothes except their school uniforms. Many of the people around me will only eat an incredibly non-nutritious meal once today, and none will have access to clean water. In some ways this experience is familiar, and either way, it is sobering.

While I'm enjoying myself, I'm definitely trying to keep my eyes open. There are a lot of things I would like to do and see while I'm here, but I'm trying to stay grounded. It's easy to forget who and where I am and pretend that the people I work with (who are wonderful) live lifestyles that are the norm, not the exception. Sawa, we'll see.


Until next time, be well!