Actually Here!

Habari! Karibu!

Hi everyone, sorry it’s been a while to get this going, I have not had reliable access to email. But that is changing! So I have been outside of Nairobi for about a week now and have had a lot happen. So a lot of catching up to do!

First off, the plane ride here is looong. We flew to Dubai, and then to Nairobi on this incredibly posh airline called Emirates. While it’s hard for me to sit still for 24+ hours of traveling, I did get to watch “Waitress,” and “Becoming Jane,” so it wasn’t that bad. While flying to Dubai we flew directly over Baghdad, Kuwait, Tehron, and Afghanistan. Here is an excerpt from a journal entry I wrote while flying over these places:

I just looked at the little in flight map and saw that we are flying over Baghdad, and then Afghanistan. Being right over those places sent chills down my spine. It made them real to me, these places so filled with history and tragedy… Right now I am looking out my window as we fly over the mountains of Afghanistan. Wow. I can’t even describe them baby. It is the most vast, expansive terrain I’ve ever seen. The magnitude of these sandy, ridged, dunes, like a picture out of newsweek is breathtaking. If I look close enough I can see narrow, weaving roads, and little villages in the crevices. Seeing a sight like these is the beginning of the ways in which my imagination will expand. I wish you all were looking at this window with me: it makes me feel small, and like in my 21 years I really haven’t seen anything at all. I am so excited to see something so incredible different. Seeing what I’ve only imagined in the context of Osama bin Laden hiding in these mountains (in which searching for him seems like the biggest waste, they are literally ENDLESS, so many crevices, I think that you could hide out here forever…), or soldiers dying here, actually being here, makes all of that real. I realize how sheltered we are in the US by the mere virtue of distance. We, the people, don’t ever have to deal with the reality of our countries actions because we are so far removed from the places. Bagdahd, Iraq, Rawanda---those are honestly just names on a map to me---because they are so far away from my paradigm that I never really have to encounter what has happened there. Simply flying over these places, without even stepping foot in them, they become real to me, these actions, these lives, this different way of living. It’s awe inspiring, there is something spiritual about this part of the world, I can’t describe it yet—I think that at some point I would like to come back to and spend time in the Middle East. The world feels like such a big place to me right now. I am flying directly over Baghdad right now, it’s right below us, and Tehran is right above. It’s like Time Magazine comes alive. It’s visceral. I feel so terrible for all of the solders who have made this long journey, who have spent months, years in these isolating, endless mountains. I never really imagined what that flight must have been like before….Now we’re flying over Kuwait. It’s so strange to actually be above these places that I don’t know if I ever really believed existed.

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After we finally arrived in Kenya we went to a guest house for orientation in Karen, which is right outside of Nairobi. There we talked a lot about different cultural standards, expectations, practices, politics etc…all of which are drastically different. I am definitely undergoing some kind of culture shock, as it’s just soo much to take in, and impossible to understand a lot of what’s going on around us. We then took a tour of the city and drove through Kibera (the second largest slum in the world, and the largest in Africa), the industrial sector, the city center, the informal sector, Mungabi (another poor part of town, recently in US news because of violence committed there by a group called Mungiki.) We actually found out a lot about this group and their reasons for committing such violent acts. Mungiki was originally created by politicians to silence the voices of opposing parties. Now that these same politicians have come to power, they are refusing to pay Mungiki. Mungiki feels betrayed, and as our academic director guesses, perhaps is acting out of nostalgia for past wealth and glory. Actually, all of the killings attributed to Mungiki were not random, and did not impact bystanders or foreigners, but were just specifically directed at members of their own tribe by whom they felt betrayed. This brings me to an important point about Kenyan politics: they are all based on tribal allegiances. I will get to witness this first hand as the national presidential elections take place at the end of November, or in early December. Should be an exciting time, to say the least!

The next day we did what is called “a drop off.” They literally dropped us off in a specific location, without any briefing, with a task that we had to complete. I got dropped off with 3 other students at the Massai Marketplace—one of the biggest markets. This is a pretty overwhelming scene, especially for the first literal time we’d been off a bus and on the ground in Kenya. I’ve never been more aware of being white, (well maybe except in AFAM 204,) but this is a totally different awareness. People stare at you everywhere. There is no way to blend in here—whites are the clear racial minority--which is such an interesting, welcome (however difficult) new way to experience the world. Vendors at this market charge tourists (or essentially whites, called Mzungus) exorbitant prices, so our task was to buy an item at 10% of the price the vendor initially gives us. To do this, we had to speak to them in Swahili, and only Swahili. As soon as we arrived at the market about 10 brokers swooped down upon us, asking our names, where we were from—and then edging in between us so we became separated (my personal tour guide introduced himself as Ben, “Nairobi’s Picasso.”) So my name was Monique, and I insisted, “Nina toka Kenya, hapana America!” (Which means, I’m from Kenya, not from America!) Well, he didn’t buy that—but I continued to lie out of my ass—which by the way is the name of the game in Kenya. Kenyans lie about EVERYTHING--their name, jobs, homes, etc. until they know a person very well. So we are being herded into this market, totally separated, and everyone is clearly scared. Well I flat out tell Ben that we won’t be buying anything, to leave us alone, and that I can see through his game—and I demand that he tell his cronies to leave my friends alone. He’s clearly taken aback, but doesn’t back off. So we get to this stand and I see a necklace I like and Ben tries to sell it to me for 900 shillings (brokers sell the goods at a much higher prices, and take their commission out of the money that is over the vendor’s asking price, by the way one dollar is equal to 64 Kenyan shillings.) I argue with him for about 5 minutes saying I will only pay 100 shillings, until I realize that the vendor is right there…so I just ask her how much it costs (200 shillings) and I say I’ll give her 20 because “mimi ni munifunzi, sena pesa” (I’m a student, I don’t have money) and she says okay, so we make the exchange in front of Ben. Well he backed off after that, we completed our task, and I bargained for several other things that people wanted down to 10 percent—don’t ever argue with a little Jewish girl about a matter of 10 shillings…we won’t budge.

Other highlights include an extended make-out session with a giraffe—(Sorry Chris, I was lonely, and giraffes have antiseptic tongues…in addition to being quite passionate kissers…) We also took a beautiful walk in a part of the game reserve, which is essentially 400 acres of wilderness. We saw hyena holes, warthogs, and were chased by a dominant male giraffe (see the blurry picture of people running, and the giraffe in hot pursuit, there is also a picture of him standing about 10 feet away, before he began chasing us.)

I love the academic directors and the other students are really nice. We move in with our homestay families on Saturday, so I will update you all then, as well as give more info about the program and what else I will be doing.

I also got a cell phone, so to call me either use skype or an international calling card.
Once you get a card, follow the instructions.
To call out of the US, if needed (the calling card might not need this, I don’t know) the code is 011. Then the country code for Kenya is 254. Then my cell number is 710646795. So you’d call 254710646795. I’d assume texting you’d do the same, which is actually really cheap! Cool? I can’t wait to talk to you guys, and will, of course, pick up if I can.

Check out the pictures of the giraffe action, Mungabi (the picture of a market and people), and a picture of the vast mountains of the middle east (taken from my plane window.) I’m taking as many pictures as I can—but walking around with a digital camera screams “tourist,” which in turn screams, “trouble.” SO I am figuring it out…along with a million other things.

I miss you all, call or send an email to jrposner@wesleyan.edu, I’d love to know what’s up.

Lots of love,
Jess