Mama Rose and More...

So things are really amazing, god this time is going to go so so fast. I moved in with my homestay family! I have a mom named mama rose and two older brothers. Moving in with Mama Rose has really made this experience feel like it’s going to be a home, a routine, a real life changing living experience. I love her so much, I can’t even say. I have two older brothers who also live here, but they both work so are rarely home, but they seem sooo nice, we talked last night. They are both named Tom, and Big Tom is mama’s son, and Tom is her nephew. Big Tom is a graphic designer, and Tom is a trained chief. I told Mama and them the story about my convincing the Kenyans and the other kids to go out the other night, which they all thought was great, hysterical, and brave. The boys start laughing when I tell about one of the three guys who proposed to me, and then we were trying to figure out the name of the place I went, which I couldn’t remember. Then they said, “was it K1?” and I remembered that was it, and they laugh and Big Tom goes, “if any fellows ever try to take you to K street (a seedy area kind of nearish that club where people sometimes go after) you tell them that you have two older brothers who will kill them. No one touches my little sister.” I love it, I’m just part of the fam.

Mama Rose was so welcoming last night, and is an AMAZING cook. Today I went to their church, which is the Nairobi Pentecostal Church. Pentecostal religions revolve around transposesion—meaning catching the spirit, or even speaking in tongues, and there is a lot of singing and lively chiming in. Let me tell you, it was an interesting experience---and the singing is actually really cool—kind of like a Baptist church but bigger, loud music, dancing people, and then all of the music has a kind of African beat, and the lyrics are first sung in English and then in Swahili. I was actually amazed by how political even church is here—a lot of the prayers revolved around pleas for peace and tribal reconciliation in this time of election, economic stability, etc. The sermon however was especially amazing. It was all about de-stigmatizing HIV/Aids, and began with a group of kids doing a funny skit in Swahili, so I only caught the basics, but it was all about not discriminating against people who have the virus. Then this unbelievably articulate man talked about relinquishing both social and self stigma, and the hush hush nature surrounding HIV in order to “love our neighbors as ourselves…” okay so I thought the Christian doctrine of his speech was of course, crap, but the message was really powerful, and I sat there thinking, okay---this is a positive use of religion to have a practical impact on people’s lives. He began his speech by making everyone get out a piece of paper and write down their honest, first response to a total stranger telling you that they are HIV positive. Then you had to write down your honest reaction to your significant other saying that. Then you had to pretend you had been diagnosed, and write down how you’d like others to respond. I think this effectively served to show that we, as humans, treat/respond to others differently than we might respond to ourselves—the point I think that the man was trying to make. He also talked a lot about accepting people for who they are—and not trying to change them, and said that often Christians say that they want to reach out to others, but when someone who is different, or who doesn’t believe, or who lives a different lifestyle is around—they alienate them. He talked a lot about just loving people for who they are—different or not, healthy or well. Anyhow, it was incredibly interesting, and in parts quite moving. The service itself was also fascinating—a woman near me fell down possessed by the spirit and began talking in tongues. We actually read a lot about transposession in from ritual to theatre---so it’s pretty incredible to see it actually happen. All I can say is I am sure as hell seeing a whole different world and way of living.

Okay, so mama rose. God I love her---I feel soo close to her already, she is going to be both an incredible mother and friend. I was nervous that I would have to be super proper around her—but that is not the case. I can just so be myself, and I feel such a bond with her. My friend Julia, one of the kids I really like is having a hard time at her homestay because her mother went up country (to the coast) for a funeral, and no one is paying any attention to her, and she has to share a room with 3 other girls. Well when she asked her family if she could go to church with them they asked if she was saved, and she said no, so they said no and left her. So I told mama and she was so shocked and upset that she insisted that we bring Julia to church and then home with us so that she would feel supported, and then when she had choir practice she sent the both of us home for lunch…she is also really good friends with the homestay coordinator, a nice guy names Sam who is obsessed with Barak Obama and lives near his anscestral village (near Kisumu) so he is going to take us there for a night to meet Barak Obama’s grandmother! Anyhow, mama called Sam to say that Julia is struggling, and could he please check in on her and her family—amazing right? She is just so loving, kind and FUN. We live right on the border of Kibera, next to this incredible, endless market that is the start of Kibera called Toy Market. This is where all the cute secondhand clothes (from America) are sold super cheap. I told mama that I needed to get a sweater because it is much colder here than I prepared for and a pair of jeans, because you wear them all the time. So she said she’d take me to market. I don’t even know how to describe Toy, basically it’s a million little shanty stalls, all covered because they are so close together, with tiny little walk ways in between—but it’s a maze that is essentially endless. So we go to this store, and she picks out like 5 pairs of jeans, 10 shirts, and 5 sweaters for me to try on. And by try on, I mean you go into this little “dressing room” that’s about 1 ft. by 1 ft. covered in burlap sacks and with a tiny curtain. So we play dress up for like an hour, we’re having SO much fun. She tells me she’s always wanted a daughter to do things like this with. She has the best laugh and when I come out in the jeans she goes, “oh my god you are so tiny, I did not realize how tiny you are, you will have to eat more! You need to gain 16 lbs!” Kenyans like their women with some meat… when I come out in a top she likes she says, “oh you look just like a little doll.” So we pick out what we like—I find these amazing jeans, this awesome jacket and like 5 adorable shirts. She bargains with the boss man (a Kenyan tradition, no matter what, no matter where, you NEVER accept a first offer or the written price---bargaining is a cultural necessity.) We get what we want, and then it begins to pour—so we walk back through the maze—and on the way laugh as we try to pick out the funniest, ugliest outfits imaginable, and joke that mama should go try them on. So we get a little lost---because it really is this indescribable maze of little make-shift constructed shops, and we laugh about the adventure we are having, what mama calls, “our adventure par excellance!” We come home, soaked, and change and mama makes chai—the Kenyan drink which is AMAZING—milk, ginger, tea leaves, water and sugar. Then we sit and talk for two hours. She tells me all about her husband who died in 1992 of HIV, and who was unfaithful etc. And how she and her youngest son miraculously escaped infection, which is why she became a Christian—because she thinks that god performed that miracle. Regardless, it’s a miracle. We talked about how hard it was to see her husband go out, get drunk and not be able to say anything because in Kenya wives really have no power over their husbands. We talked about raising her 3 sons, and their relationship. It’s so crazy because even though she is in Kenya—a society that does not at all practice the kind of parenting you guys did in terms of freedom, she is so similar. She told her boys that she didn’t care if they wanted to go out etc., as long as they honestly communicated where they were, who they were with, and what they were doing. We talked about how you guys did much the same thing. We talked about everything, god I just love her---I can seriously talk to her about anything—it’s unlike anything I ever imagined. She is SO smart, and perceptive, and a good listener. That is the thing about Africans (well she’s unique) but still, they REALLY listen, they really care. Stopping and talking to someone on the street who they know is more important than being anywhere on time—so everything always starts late. Really finishing a conversation is more important than going somewhere—doing something. Life here is not all about the future—about doing things in order to prepare for the future, it is much much more about just being in the present. But having mama as a support system—someone with whom I can honestly talk about struggles with, ask about cultural differences or things I don’t understand—and the fact that I have a place that feels like a real home makes everything feel so much more comfortable—more settled. God, I love this place. You guys have to come here. I can’t even tell you how amazing Kenya is, and the people in it. I also am sooo glad that I decided to study abroad. Living in another DRASTICALLY different culture—as really America and Africa are like polar opposites with really NO shared cultural norms, learning another language (really as a means of getting deeper into that culture), being in a world where everything is different and learning how to both live with and thrive in that is such a valuable experience.

I also LOVE the teachers. They are amazing. Odoch and Jamal the academic directors are the best. The Swahili teachers are sooo good---and only 5 students to a class and the other lecturers are amazing. The kids are also very nice, fun and interesting.

I just now had dinner with mama and the Toms—we watched al jezeera (which is one of the most prevalent news channels here.) It was so interesting to actually see it…and I can tell you that the American press grossly distorts their programming. It was one of the smartest, most balanced news channels I’ve seen---very diverse opinions, interesting, honest experts and actually not biased or terrorist propaganda. In fact---it is MUCH closer to the truth than say, CNN or other American news channels. It’s so amazing how America distorts everything to fit into the message that those in power want to send.
I am about to go to sleep---I’m so tired!

I’m sure that there is much more to write…but that will follow soon.

As we say here, lala salama (sleep peacefully).

I miss you all--give me the scoop!