Friday, June 21, 2013

Kenya Time

Can you tell I'm operating on Kenyan time yet?  In Kenya, a meeting set at 9am probably begins at about 1pm, and a weekly blog probably becomes monthly - I'll be better about this I hope.

The Beginnings - Nairobi
I've been in Kenya for two weeks now and still can't get Aga off my mind.  Who's Aga? Some call him Agape (his real name) others call him Aga, but I like to think of him as the little lion man. You see, its Kenyan common knowledge that you can hear a lion from three miles away. Basically, Aga has the loudest roar of us all. He has the loudest, most hearty laugh I've ever heard, and there's not a single lady that doesn't love him. He is the true alpha male. The irony comes in the fact that he is a priest in training.

Aga and Fr. Frank (an American priest from UP) gave me and Kelly an in depth view of Nairobi including everything from the slums to the largest tourist attraction.  Here's the break down.

"Are you excited to let the lions see you?"
Asked Fr. Frank.  What's a trip to Africa without your classic safari adventure? We went to the Nairobi National Park where the people are in cages (cars) and the animals roam free. And we were out of our cage too...

 This man took us through the grounds to see an alligator from about fifteen feet (at which point my camera died of course). On the way in he mentioned that he saw lions in the spot we were standing in about ten minutes before, hakuna matata! All went smoothly though.  Well, not smoothly, there were a couple times while driving through the terrain that we had to all lean in one direction to prevent the van from tipping. It was well worth the whiplash though, look what I saw!

I spy...

One of those really tall couples

Ow ow look at those legs!

A group of 7 (typical Kenyan family size)





So the park was a blast, but the real learning took place in the slums. It was both intriguing and disturbing to know that this market, typical of a small mall in the US, and the slums were pretty much within walking distance of each other.

The Galeria: I never got to ride the Disney roller coaster :(

An empty sales stand, which doubles as a sleeping tent, that we passed on the way into Mukuru slum


To me, these neighbors were a prime example of the idea that "God gives, but he doesn't share." Its an old Haitian proverb that really speaks the truth about socioeconomic divide both in the first world and third world. All of the resources necessary to sustain humanity is at our finger tips, but we bear the responsibility of divvying up the loot - we should have payed closer attention to our sharing lessons in kindergarten.

Despite this divide, theres not been a time nor place since I've been in Kenya in which I've not witnessed truly grateful people. I learned from a local Christian worker that Kenya is home to a population in which 50% of people live on less than a dollar a day.  In the Mukuru slums, everyone lives under the poverty line, and most don't make any more than 50 cents in a day. When the dollar menu is too much to handle, I get worried. But my tour of the slum made me worry instead not for the men, women, and children that called the slums their home, but instead for many of the people I know back home. 

My experience in Mukuru taught me that the great tragedy of this world is not that people die, but its what dies inside of people while they’re still living. 

The strength and resilience of those in the slums was inspiring, as was their attitude that there is extreme opportunity in extreme poverty.  I had the pleasure of receiving a free concert by a church band and I saw in that moment that these individuals were all very alive and that living in the slum, simply meant living closer together as a community - facing the same challenges, helping each other out of corruption, and passing time together with conversation, faith, music, and anything else that involves a big group of people cramming together into a tiny, hot, sweaty room with the intention of getting to know one another.   Anyway, the music was great, and I even got to show off a little bit on the keyboard afterword! 

One of the band members joined us as we toured the slum and visited multiple homes exchanging introductions and more. He was the camera guy, so I unfortunately don't have pictures from the slum. But the camera guy also quickly became someone I'll never forget.

His name was Rich.  I thought that was doubly ironic considering he is very poor by our standards, yet he is rich with hope and ambition. He taught me a great deal about Kenyan culture and the slum conditions throughout the day. We discussed everything that two boys possibly could. Girls, rap and hip pop artists, swimming, the olympics, computer games, and even Hawaii.  The discussion that really caught me off guard was about homelessness. 

If you don't already know, homelessness is something I work very closely on with an organization in Portland called Operation Nightwatch, so I felt prepared for anything on this topic. I wasn't really as prepared as I thought...

Rich asked me how it was possible that there could be homeless people in America, when there aren't any in Kenya. Everyone in Kenya has a home, even if that means its made of a few sticks and mud. All I could really come up with in response is that some folks simply can't afford a place to stay. But that didn't really make any sense to him. They can't just build a place to stay? Its strange that the standards for living in America put people out of this option. While answering Rich's question I was even more shocked by the fact that he felt he had it better off than those living in the streets in America. And in some sense, I agreed with him. He had great dignity in the fact that he had anything at all. Rich is living proof that your excuse for not being grateful is just plain immature. To me, he is also proof that there must be a utopia in every human heart before there can be a utopia in the world.

All in all, my experiences in Nairobi and Mukuru reminded me of a song I listened to back in the day. Be My Escape by Relient K has a line as follows:

"The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair"

Let that sink in a second. What does it even mean? 
Something interesting I learned on the way back from the slums was that there have been multiple government operations that have attempted to relocate entire slums into better living conditions. The result: the folks in the slums refused to move. In truth, they are content in their conditions. Surely things could be better, but at the same time, the slums are all that many of the inhabitants have ever known to be home. They've not only accepted the card they've been dealt, but they've embraced it. And by listening to many conversations with families of the slums, I've come to understand why that is...

I'm not much of one to talk about God, but the Kenyans sure are. So given that, here is my interpretation:

If each one of us received what’s “fair”, we would not like the result all that much. In truth, when we ask for fairness, we’re often asking for special treatment, especially in the first world. The sins others commit that cause us to turn up our noses and call a foul are often the very same ones that we’re hoping will be overlooked. And so while life is unfair for many Kenyans, they perceive themselves to have the favor. And thus life is much less about what's missing, and much more about what's already there.

That's all for now. Next time (which will be soon I promise!) I'll write about my time spent so far in Kakamega and I'll introduce you to my host family and organization! And for those of you who've been asking what my blog title means, Ichariba Chode is a common greeting in what is said to be a home to the happiest people on earth - Okinawa, Japan.  







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