notes from a lying panglot

Dear all,

I read over my past emails in Zanzibar and was thoroughly disgusted with way I've been presenting my experience here. Nausiated is I think the best word. I decided not to write until I could gather my thoughts together which, thank god, I've finally done.

Before I start it's vital I convey to you how difficult it is to describe my life here. For those who have travelled, or better yet lived abroad, especially in a third world country, this will make perfect sense. For everyone else I'm not sure what to say. Only understand that I am incapable of fully describing the daily whirlwind of emotions, constant introspection, challenges to my "world view", and the overwhelming amount of sights, sounds, smells, tastes I have to process every nanosecond. Caught in this storm, I have not had the patience to candidly describe my experiences, most often because I was still trying to understand them myself. Once I understood, once I had digested this new life, I didn't have the heart to share it. Is it possible to describe what went through my mind as I watched a cripple crawling through the muddy streets of Mombasa? Probably, but I chose not to dwell.

I suppose now that I've started in Mombasa and on the subject of poverty I suppose I should continue. Many of the streets are lined with grandmothers begging. Dirty, tired and toothless, they bow their heads and hold out their hands, crumpled under the weight of their poverty. How much of that poverty is feigned is beyond me so I walk by, eyes to the ground. I did it in Hong Kong at 10 years old and I did now at 21. On the bigger streets hang the street children, who without fail get money from an mzungu (a non PC word for foreigner - the Mau Mau used it during the fight for independence to describe the white colonials; it is on some level an insult). The street children have no parents, no home, and hardly any future beyond the hellish poverty they live in. The money they get goes to someone else - I don't know how they live. The girls are in the greatest danger. There are 9 and 10 year olds in Mombasa and Nairobi who are pregnant. Not surprisingly many die during childbirth. I wouldn't expect anything less when children have children. There is a belief in Kenya, and other parts of Africa, that the way to cure AIDS is to have sex with a virgin - the younger the better. The street girls are taken from their "home", raped (sometimes they're paid) and left for dead. Most girls who reach puberty, if they reach puberty, become prostitutes. Unprotected sex is more profitable than protected sex. When the option is starvation or a slow death which would you pick? HIV positive men believe that if they sleep with enough women the AIDS virus will leave their body. Contemplate the consequences of this myth.

Everywhere there are heaps of garbage; there isn't enough infrastructure for a adequate dumping system, let alone an environmentally friendly one. Children, sometimes months old, play in feces, rotting foods, razor blades etc. They make toys from the trash they find and eat someone elses left-overs. Is this disturbing? Of course. Is there anything I can do? Not now at least. Do I see it everywhere I go? Yes.

It's sickening to say this but I've gotten used to the poverty and the squalor. I had to. It's not as heart wrenching as it was the first week or compared to how I felt in Cambodia when I was 13. Thankfully the begger children in Mombasa have all their limbs - there arent many land mines in Kenya. However, I shouldn't get too cheery. I have yet to visit the slum areas of either Mombasa or Nairobi (I saw one figure: 70 people to one latrine in an area of tens of thousands of people). Urban poverty is far, far worse than rural poverty. At least the poor in Kaloleni had thier land and livestock. The destitute in Mombasa have nothing.

In this Mombasa vein let me describe again the matatus. I know I've written fondly of my rides home: the music, the people, the excitement. Let me re-describe the memory. Matatus are essentially mini-buses. They are meant to hold 12-14 people but often cram up to 20. Accidents happen every day. People die. The drivers drive impossibly fast to make enough money so they can bribe the police who stop them. The roads are horrific. My heart was in my throat a number of times as I watched the driver swerve left and right, coming dangerously close to multiple collisions, just so he could avoid the pot holes. One evening I went with my Mombasa homestay mother (Ramla) and one-year old sister (Amne) to an Eid celebration (end of Ramadhan festival). We were crammed into a bulging matatu, Ramla in the back and me in the front seat with Amne. I sat with this fragil body on my lap, her tiny hands clutching my hijab. I couldn't watch the road I was too scared. Had the matatu stopped suddenly Amne and I would've gone through the glass windshield - there are no seatbelts and no airbags. When I said matatu rides are exciting, I was trying to look on the brightside. I tried not to think about the possibilities, especially when my matatu got stopped by the police.

Now to Kaloleni...
I lived in a mud hut and my homestay was one of the more well off in the village. At least they had food everyday. Once Mei lost her fear of me we were "3 peas in a pod" in our little bed. Except I'd wake up almost every hour because Mei was really sick. She was coughing so bad she was gagging, she nearly vomitted a couple of times. I'd lie awake as long as I could just to make sure she wouldn't choke in her sleep. This was almost every night. There was nothing I could do. I had no medicine and neither did my family. All the children were sick. The parents all work and live elsewhere, leaving the children in the care of the grandmothers. This is I think, the only reason why my family was so well off (relative to other houses I saw). Just an update on the rain: "Kenya faces a humanitarian crisis following the displacement of up to 60,000 people by torrential rains in Coast Province." (the Daily Nation, November 16). I'm safe, Lamu is north of all the rain, but I don't know if my family in Kaloleni is alright. My brother Francis called from Malinidi so I'm assuming the children have left the area for safety reasons. Kenya is working hard at getting supplies to the affected areas (including Kaloleni) but I don't want to think about what life is like for them. Mud houses don't last too long in a lot of rain. Roads, houses, bridges, latrines all collapse. People drown. I want to know if the boys at St. Georges are alright. I don't know if I really want to continue. There's so much more. It's so much easier to keep this all to myself, I don't have to think about it all the time.

Everywhere we go men propose to us. They romance on the off chance one of us girls will fall in love and take them out of the hopeless hell they live in. Their hope is equal to their desperation. Some just want an mpenzi (lover) who will bring money and gifts every vacation season.

Poverty in both Kenya and the US has been part of my education. Learning about US poverty from Torrie, Shay, and Jasmine has been as eye-opening as what I see around me. It's frightening how blissfully unaware most white, upperclass Americans are about the world just beyond thir picket fenced neighborhoods (me included). I've heard Americans talk about poverty as if it only exists in countries like Kenya. True, destitute, slum povert like in Nairobi is hard to find in the US. But finding a family who doesn't know how they will eat the next day, though they live in a house and have a car, isn't hard at all. I balk at my ignorence when it comes to the many nuances of poverty. No matter how much my heart goes out to the people here, Torrie and Shay never fail to remind me of how imperfect life is in the US and the work that needs to be done there.

...what else...
I've already given you enough positive. I'll leve this letter as it is. I have neither the time, the patience, nor the will to describe the current economic, political and social issues facing Kenya. I'd just got more frustrated and depressed. I do not wish to an apathetic West, too much cyncism is bad for the liver (I can already feel the bile slipping into my bloodstream). Nor do I wish to describe the natural beauty I've seen here. It is such a contrast to everything else, I wouldn't no where to start.