An update long overdue.
Until September 6: Met various community people that are doing really great work in this community, met some community groups I may or may not be working with, familiarized with Tenwek, Silibwet, and Bomet, learned about some charitable organizations that I’ll probably be working with, studied my various HIV/AIDS resources, started forming ideas for lesson plans, learned a lot about BioSand filters, beekeeping, tea-growing. Caught up on emails. Settled into my house more.
September 6: Bye bye, Christine (the PCV I’ve replaced)!
September 8: Flying termites with a body length of about ½ inch and a wingspan of about 2 inches took off into the dusk sky as I sat outside cooking on my jiko. I thought they looked kind of pretty silhouetted in twos, fives, tens, until I realized how many there were, swarming around me, on me, frying themselves on the jiko coals. Robert, my homeowner, noted that they were coming from my wall, and as he and his wife helped me kill them by pouring hot water on the hole they were pooled around, the nasty things started pouring out the walls all along the perimeter of the inside of my house. We went around pouring hot water and Doom powder (Doom, while a fantastic name for an insecticide, has long struck me as the perfect name for a perfect mattress) on one pile of juicily fat yet scratchy-winged insects at a time. The worst of the nightmare was over about an hour and a half later. My dinner was ruined but I’d pretty much lost my appetite anyway. I texted some of my friends as the post-battle horror started sinking in. Luckily my dad called, and he thought it was funny, which made me feel a little better. I slept pretty well that night, no small thanks to my mosquito net.
September 9: In the morning I swept up a plump powdery pile of crunch and all was quiet, so I burned my trash with the bugs inside. Burning is how we dispose of burnable non-organic trash here. Other things go down the choo or in a pit. Then I went to Nairobi (yes I was running away but it was just good timing - the trip had been planned weeks before) to meet up with my friend Tessa. In the late afternoon I arrived at Upper Hill Campgrounds, a tidy compound in the middle of a bustling city where all manner of travelers pass through. I had lasagna for dinner and it was spectacular. As I ate, the flying termites redoubled their efforts, getting poisoned to death at twice the quantity and latching their dead bodies to my stuff with twice the passion. I was blissfully ignorant of this, however, sipping tea and chit-chatting with Tessa and a programmer from Seattle who insisted that 15000sh on a cow would be a great investment. How I feel about his argument:
Strongly Disagree Meh Strongly Agree
| - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - |
^
September 10-12: My brief hiatus at Upper Hill was refreshing. I chatted with tourists, volunteers, and development workers from Britain, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and the US. I took hot showers. I walked around Nairobi several hours a day and really learned a lot about the city, including the fact that I kind of like it after all.
I have a new understanding (however young and evolving) of development work and the implications and impact of what I’m doing, as well as those of other approaches to development. It was so enriching to be able to exchange ideas about development with two Upper Hill regulars who are doing development work in Kenya and come from backgrounds so different from mine. One thing in particular has weighed on my mind since our conversation: A person’s sense of self-worth is something I took for granted in my American “every child is special” education, yet in Kenya, there’s little if any such teaching in school, and so many donor organizations come in and pour money on people, leaving behind a belief that only outside money can help and not the competence of the citizens or the resources that are so plentiful in the communities. I found myself doubtful after talking to a tourist who was enthusiastic about things like giving chickens and cows to host families, and couldn’t understand why until I was able to bat around ideas with Tessa and those development workers. After all, who can argue that those chickens and cows don’t help? It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is, and I don’t think I’d be able to tell someone not to buy a Kenyan family a cow when the benefit to the family is so immediate, but I have a new understanding of why education is so important in the frontlines of development, and I’m especially in awe of local Kenyans that work in development and education, who empower their peers by example.
September 13/14: I got mosquito-bit on my right eyelid. My right eye was swollen shut. I suddenly cared more deeply than I have since I got to Kenya that I was Ugly. Swept up the bugs when I got back home. They’re mostly gone for now, though they’re still living under and in my house. I know this because I hear the telltale scratching, and every so often, I catch one squirming on my floor as the poison kills him. Wings and the occasional whole bug still turn up every day. My supervisor is helping me figure out how to solve my termite problem.
September 15: Had three short vomiting spells even though I’d eaten very little the day before, so everything that came up was liquid. Later I had a fever. Then it all went away. At night I made some soup and steamed my fingers.
September 16: Blister on my middle finger developed as I did some laundry. Then it grew into its own entity. Tried to chat with me. Naturally, I stabbed it in the side with a needle and let it cry itself out, one sticky tear at a time.
September 17: Blister grew back even bigger and brought a friend with him on the ring finger. Popped painfully as I did some more laundry.
September 18: Couldn’t believe how weirdly calamitous yet happy my week had been. I was in a really good mood because my break in Nairobi where I could be myself for a few days really made me remember how grateful I am to be here. I had a dream that night that Peace Corps sent me home and woke up really glad that I was still in Kenya. This was a breakthrough dream because dreaming that I’m at home has become routine, but usually the tables are turned; I dream about the comforts of home and wake up sad that I’m in Kenya.
September 19: Visited Silibwet Primary School, right in my town, where I talked with some teachers and the head teacher about HIV/AIDS issues that concern their student body. Learned a lot more than I could’ve imagined about the impact of AIDS on my community. Usually people are so quiet about it that hearing about the deaths of parents and even students was new to me. By being so serious about the problem and being honest with me, even acknowledging the stigma, they were very encouraging.
September 20: I woke up from a brilliant dream. I was back at Columbia, in John Jay Dining Hall (though it looked nothing like John Jay), getting some food, when the background music broke out into a two bar Disco-Funk rift, and as can only happen in dreams, I broke out into a two bar dance at the same time. When I woke up I could still hear the music, so I did a little dance in my bed. Then I plugged myself into my ipod and danced myself out of bed and into my clothes. I was still plugged into my ipod and grooving as I ate MILK ON GRANOLA (baked the granola myself just last night) and as I washed my millions of post-baking dishes. Just as I finished my dishes, completely without warning, I broke down and sobbed with homesickness. Bipolar? Karibu Kenya. Karibu Peace Corps. My breakdown was triggered by a memory of how the head teacher at SPS reacted when he found out I was an American with a Chinese background. Even after I told him and we talked a while, he asked where I was born. I said I was born in the US. Unsatisfied, he asked where my parents were born, and upon finding out that they immigrated, he was happy. I get this a lot. It’s nothing new. I used to get angry about it but now I feel pretty positive about it as an opportunity for cultural exchange. Tuesday morning, however, that memory overflowed my internal pitcher of homesickness. Sometimes I feel like I'm lying when I talk about diversity in America, because I face a glazed-over smile that seems to say to me, non-white Americans made it there at most a generation ago and aren’t really Americans, just people who lead a nice cushy life in the States and masquerade as Americans. It hurts me because I’ve left behind the majority of what makes me ME, almost every material evidence of all the memories from my life. I try to meditate on home every day, try to imagine mundane things, like driving on a paved road, anything to keep me from forgetting who I am. Even when I’m not actively imagining myself doing something that used to be routine, like pushing a shopping cart down an aisle with 40 different choices for ready-to-eat cake frosting, my thoughts are of home and family and friends. (Oh goodness, the feeling of carpet under my bare feet!) To be this far away, not just physically but communicatively, to be this far away and to be denied my own origin, the root of everything I am and love and have experienced, threatens to crush my thinly held composure altogether. Well, a good cry should never be underestimated. And neither should blogging. It looks like I’m having a regular month in Peace Corps Kenya, where swimming through termites, Quasimodo-eye, dancing with joy, and sobbing with homesickness all go hand in hand.
September 21-23: Visited schools and attended a “Book Week” celebration at my local library. The library is probably the finest institution mankind ever dreamed up. At the celebration, children from several primary and nursery schools performed skits, sang traditional songs, and recited poems. I also attended a crisp-making (they call chips crisps because they call french fries chips. Blame the British!) demonstration for local potato farmers that was largely a quality-control seminar. I met some really cool people and ate lots of crisps and got a big bag of potatoes for free.
- - -
I’m learning to love this country more and more. I’m starting to belong to my community. In Silibwet I have my main groceries guy at "Home Boyz General Store." In Bomet I have my ice cream guys and my yarn lady. And I have three business owners in three different towns collecting bottle caps for me. I love it.
My newest struggle, being accepted as an American, isn’t really a tough one. Most people, once they get to know me, don’t question it. Some people never imply that I’m not American, even when they ask why I look Chinese if I’m American. There are the rare few that never need to ask and never need to be told, the rare few who already know that it’s possible for me to be both, and they’re the best, because I never have to deny either part. And ultimately even though I do get sad, I have faith that things will change, slowly, polepole, even if I’m home by the time people in a developing country across the world can appreciate the gorgeous diversity I’ve always taken for granted.
Well, until next time, I hope everyone is well and that this post has been a good read. Any manner of stories from home are welcome, including what your most recent order at Coldstone was. Yep, I had a dream about that, too, a nice vivid one complete with smells and patting my belly. I woke up ready to place the order that I wouldn’t get to enjoy, in dream or reality:
cheesecake ice cream
black cherries
graham cracker crust
chocolate flakes
September 6: Bye bye, Christine (the PCV I’ve replaced)!
September 8: Flying termites with a body length of about ½ inch and a wingspan of about 2 inches took off into the dusk sky as I sat outside cooking on my jiko. I thought they looked kind of pretty silhouetted in twos, fives, tens, until I realized how many there were, swarming around me, on me, frying themselves on the jiko coals. Robert, my homeowner, noted that they were coming from my wall, and as he and his wife helped me kill them by pouring hot water on the hole they were pooled around, the nasty things started pouring out the walls all along the perimeter of the inside of my house. We went around pouring hot water and Doom powder (Doom, while a fantastic name for an insecticide, has long struck me as the perfect name for a perfect mattress) on one pile of juicily fat yet scratchy-winged insects at a time. The worst of the nightmare was over about an hour and a half later. My dinner was ruined but I’d pretty much lost my appetite anyway. I texted some of my friends as the post-battle horror started sinking in. Luckily my dad called, and he thought it was funny, which made me feel a little better. I slept pretty well that night, no small thanks to my mosquito net.
September 9: In the morning I swept up a plump powdery pile of crunch and all was quiet, so I burned my trash with the bugs inside. Burning is how we dispose of burnable non-organic trash here. Other things go down the choo or in a pit. Then I went to Nairobi (yes I was running away but it was just good timing - the trip had been planned weeks before) to meet up with my friend Tessa. In the late afternoon I arrived at Upper Hill Campgrounds, a tidy compound in the middle of a bustling city where all manner of travelers pass through. I had lasagna for dinner and it was spectacular. As I ate, the flying termites redoubled their efforts, getting poisoned to death at twice the quantity and latching their dead bodies to my stuff with twice the passion. I was blissfully ignorant of this, however, sipping tea and chit-chatting with Tessa and a programmer from Seattle who insisted that 15000sh on a cow would be a great investment. How I feel about his argument:
Strongly Disagree Meh Strongly Agree
| - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - | - - - - - - - |
^
September 10-12: My brief hiatus at Upper Hill was refreshing. I chatted with tourists, volunteers, and development workers from Britain, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and the US. I took hot showers. I walked around Nairobi several hours a day and really learned a lot about the city, including the fact that I kind of like it after all.
I have a new understanding (however young and evolving) of development work and the implications and impact of what I’m doing, as well as those of other approaches to development. It was so enriching to be able to exchange ideas about development with two Upper Hill regulars who are doing development work in Kenya and come from backgrounds so different from mine. One thing in particular has weighed on my mind since our conversation: A person’s sense of self-worth is something I took for granted in my American “every child is special” education, yet in Kenya, there’s little if any such teaching in school, and so many donor organizations come in and pour money on people, leaving behind a belief that only outside money can help and not the competence of the citizens or the resources that are so plentiful in the communities. I found myself doubtful after talking to a tourist who was enthusiastic about things like giving chickens and cows to host families, and couldn’t understand why until I was able to bat around ideas with Tessa and those development workers. After all, who can argue that those chickens and cows don’t help? It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is, and I don’t think I’d be able to tell someone not to buy a Kenyan family a cow when the benefit to the family is so immediate, but I have a new understanding of why education is so important in the frontlines of development, and I’m especially in awe of local Kenyans that work in development and education, who empower their peers by example.
September 13/14: I got mosquito-bit on my right eyelid. My right eye was swollen shut. I suddenly cared more deeply than I have since I got to Kenya that I was Ugly. Swept up the bugs when I got back home. They’re mostly gone for now, though they’re still living under and in my house. I know this because I hear the telltale scratching, and every so often, I catch one squirming on my floor as the poison kills him. Wings and the occasional whole bug still turn up every day. My supervisor is helping me figure out how to solve my termite problem.
September 15: Had three short vomiting spells even though I’d eaten very little the day before, so everything that came up was liquid. Later I had a fever. Then it all went away. At night I made some soup and steamed my fingers.
September 16: Blister on my middle finger developed as I did some laundry. Then it grew into its own entity. Tried to chat with me. Naturally, I stabbed it in the side with a needle and let it cry itself out, one sticky tear at a time.
September 17: Blister grew back even bigger and brought a friend with him on the ring finger. Popped painfully as I did some more laundry.
September 18: Couldn’t believe how weirdly calamitous yet happy my week had been. I was in a really good mood because my break in Nairobi where I could be myself for a few days really made me remember how grateful I am to be here. I had a dream that night that Peace Corps sent me home and woke up really glad that I was still in Kenya. This was a breakthrough dream because dreaming that I’m at home has become routine, but usually the tables are turned; I dream about the comforts of home and wake up sad that I’m in Kenya.
September 19: Visited Silibwet Primary School, right in my town, where I talked with some teachers and the head teacher about HIV/AIDS issues that concern their student body. Learned a lot more than I could’ve imagined about the impact of AIDS on my community. Usually people are so quiet about it that hearing about the deaths of parents and even students was new to me. By being so serious about the problem and being honest with me, even acknowledging the stigma, they were very encouraging.
September 20: I woke up from a brilliant dream. I was back at Columbia, in John Jay Dining Hall (though it looked nothing like John Jay), getting some food, when the background music broke out into a two bar Disco-Funk rift, and as can only happen in dreams, I broke out into a two bar dance at the same time. When I woke up I could still hear the music, so I did a little dance in my bed. Then I plugged myself into my ipod and danced myself out of bed and into my clothes. I was still plugged into my ipod and grooving as I ate MILK ON GRANOLA (baked the granola myself just last night) and as I washed my millions of post-baking dishes. Just as I finished my dishes, completely without warning, I broke down and sobbed with homesickness. Bipolar? Karibu Kenya. Karibu Peace Corps. My breakdown was triggered by a memory of how the head teacher at SPS reacted when he found out I was an American with a Chinese background. Even after I told him and we talked a while, he asked where I was born. I said I was born in the US. Unsatisfied, he asked where my parents were born, and upon finding out that they immigrated, he was happy. I get this a lot. It’s nothing new. I used to get angry about it but now I feel pretty positive about it as an opportunity for cultural exchange. Tuesday morning, however, that memory overflowed my internal pitcher of homesickness. Sometimes I feel like I'm lying when I talk about diversity in America, because I face a glazed-over smile that seems to say to me, non-white Americans made it there at most a generation ago and aren’t really Americans, just people who lead a nice cushy life in the States and masquerade as Americans. It hurts me because I’ve left behind the majority of what makes me ME, almost every material evidence of all the memories from my life. I try to meditate on home every day, try to imagine mundane things, like driving on a paved road, anything to keep me from forgetting who I am. Even when I’m not actively imagining myself doing something that used to be routine, like pushing a shopping cart down an aisle with 40 different choices for ready-to-eat cake frosting, my thoughts are of home and family and friends. (Oh goodness, the feeling of carpet under my bare feet!) To be this far away, not just physically but communicatively, to be this far away and to be denied my own origin, the root of everything I am and love and have experienced, threatens to crush my thinly held composure altogether. Well, a good cry should never be underestimated. And neither should blogging. It looks like I’m having a regular month in Peace Corps Kenya, where swimming through termites, Quasimodo-eye, dancing with joy, and sobbing with homesickness all go hand in hand.
September 21-23: Visited schools and attended a “Book Week” celebration at my local library. The library is probably the finest institution mankind ever dreamed up. At the celebration, children from several primary and nursery schools performed skits, sang traditional songs, and recited poems. I also attended a crisp-making (they call chips crisps because they call french fries chips. Blame the British!) demonstration for local potato farmers that was largely a quality-control seminar. I met some really cool people and ate lots of crisps and got a big bag of potatoes for free.
- - -
I’m learning to love this country more and more. I’m starting to belong to my community. In Silibwet I have my main groceries guy at "Home Boyz General Store." In Bomet I have my ice cream guys and my yarn lady. And I have three business owners in three different towns collecting bottle caps for me. I love it.
My newest struggle, being accepted as an American, isn’t really a tough one. Most people, once they get to know me, don’t question it. Some people never imply that I’m not American, even when they ask why I look Chinese if I’m American. There are the rare few that never need to ask and never need to be told, the rare few who already know that it’s possible for me to be both, and they’re the best, because I never have to deny either part. And ultimately even though I do get sad, I have faith that things will change, slowly, polepole, even if I’m home by the time people in a developing country across the world can appreciate the gorgeous diversity I’ve always taken for granted.
Well, until next time, I hope everyone is well and that this post has been a good read. Any manner of stories from home are welcome, including what your most recent order at Coldstone was. Yep, I had a dream about that, too, a nice vivid one complete with smells and patting my belly. I woke up ready to place the order that I wouldn’t get to enjoy, in dream or reality:
cheesecake ice cream
black cherries
graham cracker crust
chocolate flakes
posted by Anonymous at
3:28 PM
2 Comments:
hey jenly, I found this post really riveting - thanks for keeping me updated and all that. it sounds like you're having a really amazing albeit somewhat hellish experience. I've had a lot of nasty pest problems in my room before but nothing quite on the level of "juicy" much less "flying termite." my deeply horrified sympathies there. but hey! when you come out of this I bet you'll have that kind of captivating glint in your eye that only the truly weathered are able to achieve, like a pirate, or maybe just like someone who's done something truly meaningful. I'm going to write you a letter. want any japanese things? I will dig around for those shipping recommendations you mentioned. love, jenn lillie
By
Anonymous, at 6:01 PM, October 02, 2005
Hi Jenny,
Thanks for the entries. These are really great. I haven't been to cold stone for a very long time. At least over a year, maybe 2, just because I don't go out for ice cream very often, I guess. But just the other day I was thinking how delicious cold stone was sounding and that I should find someone to go with me. I wish I could go with you! We'll have to add that to the list of things to do when you get back... right after visiting NYC.
I knew about your mesquito bite on the eye from before... but just now it reminded me of that movie, Election. You've seen it, right?
The whole things about being away from home and being denied being who you are is some very powerful stuff. I think you expressed yourself very well. I'm sure it'll be very helpful for a lot of people reading it... and especially for any future non-white PC volunteers.
Much Love,
Michelle ;-)
By
Anonymous, at 10:06 PM, October 03, 2005
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