Last Night

Leading up to last night, I spent most of the day at home on the laptop, synthesizing my notes from research I've been doing here. I've been surveying the largest flea markets in Nairobi to better understand small shops. There are huge flea markets here; there's one, in the middle of a slum, with 10,000 stalls! Anyway, yesterday was one of the most exciting days working on my laptop I've had in a while, because things seem to be coming together for this idea I have to increase the income of poor shop owners - more on that in a later post. This put me in an exceedingly good mood. So when I got a call from someone I met while doing the research in a local market, asking me to meet him at a club, I figured "what the heck".

I left my place at 7pm and caught a local minibus, or "matatu", to town and met my new friend, Ebo, at the Samba Bar & Grill. The matatus are an interesting phenomenon. They are extremely numerous on the streets, as numerous as cabs in NYC. Most of them are basically VW buses fitted with rows of bench seats that pack in 14 passengers. When you get on, you have to crouch down like you're entering into a foxhole, and scoot to an available seat. Each matatu has its own personality. The one I took last night played reggae and had NBA posters on the interior walls and ceiling - the driver is apparently a Dallas Mavericks fan. It's 25 cents for a ride to town - can't beat that. A coke is also 25 cents here - wasn't a coke a quarter in the US like in the 1960's?

To set the stage, keep in mind when reading this story that it feels like everyone is staring at you, all the time. A feeling which is constantly reinforced when you look up and catch them. You don't see any white people all night; not in the clubs and not even in the street, despite there being a lot of people walking around and loitering. After staring at you, many of them try to say something to you. When walking, strangers say something to you about once every 10 seconds. They say "hey mzungu (white man)", or "How are you?", or "John" (as if all mzungus are named John), or something in their local language. So you walk fast to avoid the cat calls from turning into prolonged interactions, because if you don't, you will never get to your destination. It feels like your life is on stage and there is an audience watching your every movement. You feel famous, but not necessarily in a good way.

Continuing. I meet up with Ebo and another friend of his, Dalvyne. Turns out it was a reggae bar, as many are here. Or at least, it sounds like reggae, until you learn to recognize the African influence on the genre. We then push off to another club and dance for a while. Dalvyne needed to head home around 10pm so we walked her to the nearest matatu station. I say my goodbye quickly, but Ebo takes his time. All the while, people started spotting me, staring, and pointing. Then 4 guys suddenly approach me and start saying hello in random languages that are obviously not mine. One says "ni hao" and bows, the other says "konichiwa", and so on. Another comes and shakes my hand, but doesn't let go and says "Where do you go?" To put this in context, when I'm walking past a group of local men and they say something to me, sometimes it's not with the intention of actually talking to me, but rather to use me as a prop for an inside joke. This becomes obvious when they speak to me in a local language, which they would never expect me to speak. They say a few words, then they and their friends laugh - in these scenarios I try to keep moving. So I think this interaction at the matatu station was one of those moments. They also could have been the matatu helpers, in charge of recruiting passengers. Either way, it made me nervous because it was late, so I called on Ebo and we got the hell out of dodge.

While walking back to the original club, we spot another and decide to try it out based on the music pouring out the doors and into the street. We get in and the music is spot-on. Everyone is dancing, so we follow suit. The contagious vibe calms my nerves. At one point, during the climax of a great song, I break out my "most into it" move, and I actually hear people cheer around me at the same time. I think, "Wow, I must be really killing it if they are actually applauding my moves." I look up a few moments later to realize that there is a TV over my head, and people are watching a cricket game. They were not applauding my "most into it" dance move as my inflated expat ego assumed, they were applauding a cricket play - ego check.

As the night continued, I made an interesting cultural observations. I love these observations of unexpected and very different social phenomenon. For me, it's the dessert of traveling. This one was on the dance floor. As it turns out, Kenyan men dance together. And I don't mean like in the US when male friends dance near each other, I mean facing each other, locking eyes, wearing a big smile, and synchronizing their dance move. This is the way it goes down: one of them will tap the other, then enthusiastically show a dance move that is to become the theme of the interaction, then the enthusiasm will spread to the other and both will synchronize and repeat the dance move, over and over, sometimes for multiple songs, without talking. It looks like they're having the time of their lives. It actually looks like a great bonding exercise for friends. This, in the US, would surely be perceived as gay and therefore avoided, but the association doesn't exist here, even though, ironically, Kenyans are less tolerant to gays. Then, suddenly, a random guy approached me, tapped me on the shoulder, and signaled for me to follow his dance move of swinging arms. At which point I realized that this was not just an activity between buddies, this was also something you do with strangers. This happened multiple times to me throughout the night. It felt weird, but I had no choice but to play along. If I didn't mimic them they would give me this look of "Hey, what's your problem, man; you don't accept my offer to bond?" So I'd give in, but try to work my way out of it before the end of the song. I just couldn't follow through with it as enthusiastically as they do - maybe some day. I could just imagine assimilating to this tradition, then coming back to the US and doing it in a club and getting clocked.

Then a few strange things started to happen that brought me back to reality. Guys started bumping into me, often. But I couldn't figure out if it was happening to me more often than others, or if people were getting drunker and dancing more off-balance and I was just sensitive to it. Then the bartender refused to give me a napkin - weird. At that point I got worried I was in a "local club" where mzungus were not welcome. There were no mzungus in the club, but sometimes there aren't even mzungus in the "mzungu clubs", so it's impossible to know if I'm somewhere I don't belong. Some girls were giving me welcoming smiles, some were aggressively refusing to look at me and even running away from me, like I'm a leper. However, none of the men were shy about looking. Some gave me smiles and thumbs up, but a few gave me disapproving looks. Keep in mind that, like everyone else, I'm dancing, but to make things worse, my dance style is as foreign as my face. I sit down and suddenly a girl stops in front of me and takes a picture of me, without asking, which just added to the twilight zone moment I was experiencing. I felt like I could, for the first time, somewhat empathize with the poor when rich tourists ask to take pictures of them because their poverty makes for an interesting shot. If you notice, they are never excited at the prospect. I could have taken her picture of me as a compliment, but that night it just made me feel like more of a freak.

I guess this is my new identity. An identity that is never going to wash off, so long as I'm here. No matter how well I master the local language or how many local friends I make, I'm still going to look like me. People here will always react this way to me. It's going to take some getting used to.

Some Perspective

I met somebody that had quite an impact on me recently. I was talking to some shopkeepers in a local market when I met her. We started chatting and I introduced myself. She gave me her name, Chantal. Chantal, as I found out, is Rwandan, and appeared to be about my age. She said she's been in Nairobi for 5 years. I asked why she left Rwanda five years ago. She said because she could not stand to see the neighbor that murdered her mother and most of her family with a machete. She then proceeded to open up completely about the most horrifying story I've ever heard someone tell in the first person. I'll summarize.

In 1994 Chantal was nine years old and lived in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, with her parents and 10 siblings - all Tutsi. The day the genocide started, they were having a family reunion at her house. She recalls having fun playing with cousins. The fun was interrupted by chaos, machetes, and blood, as her neighbor broke in and attacked them. This neighbor was a close family friend, someone they had broken bread with on many occasions. Unfortunately the neighbor was also a rebel sympathizer and heeded the call of the rebels to exterminate the Tutsi's. Her father was the first to be killed. Followed by the majority of her siblings and extended family. And when I say killed, I'm not talking about a quick death. They were chopped to pieces, slowly and methodically (first hands, then feet, etc.). A few people were allowed to survive temporarily, to be used as slaves. Chantal and the few remaining siblings were kept hostage and made to sleep in the jungle, where it seemed to rain every night. They were even forced to eat food that had been soaked in the blood of their family. While dying, her mother told them to try to escape to their church, because she thought it would be a safe house. Chantal and a few siblings eventually made it to the church, where they found a lot of other survivors crammed in a small room. It's hard to imagine, but their luck went from bad to worse. The pastor turned out to be a rebel sympathizer and lead the death squads to church. The pastor opened the doors and the rebels poured in, slashing and raping. Chantal was hit in the back of the head with a machete and fell to the ground, a wound which gave her permanent hearing damage in one ear. While on the ground she was forced to watch a rebel raping her twin sister. However, her twin sister decided that she was not going to let herself be raped, only to be hacked to pieces afterward, so she reached for the raping rebel's grenade, pulled the pin, and blew herself up, taking the rapist with her. Chantal managed to make it out alive by playing dead, lying amongst the other dead bodies for days.

After the genocide ended, her and her two surviving siblings ended up in an orphanage. She spent the next decade just trying to survive. She went through a series of emotional states, including feeling numb to everyone and everything, not knowing if she would ever be able to love or be loved. She also resented the fact that she was never able to bury her parents; she thinks their bones might be at the Rwanda Genocide Museum. She eventually left Rwanda because everything reminded her of the genocide, causing crippling flashbacks. She couldn't deal with seeing the murderers on the street, people who were never punished. Her murderous neighbor has yet to even apologize, and has the gall to say "hello" when he sees her. She also said she doesn't think much of the US and the UN, because she saw them come to rescue their own and leave the locals to certain slaughter. As she puts it, "The white people even took their dogs with them, but no black people were allowed" - enough to make you sick to your stomach.

But since moving to Kenya, things have been improving for her. She found god, and is determined to forgive all those who committed the acts - something I'm pretty sure I could not do. She's also trying to tell her story to people, in an attempt to come to grips with it, which is why she requested I post it here. She writes poetry as an outlet and has a remarkably positive outlook. You would never know such a horror story would exist in the memory of such a warm person. She is one of those people that makes you happier to be around. I'm sure the experience left her with deep emotional scars, but you wouldn't know it when you're with her. She's taken what life gave her and is performing jiu jitsu on it.

My problems just became trivial.

Day 1

Today was Day 1 in Nairobi. First things first, I watched the last two episodes of Breaking Bad, which my safari caused me to miss. Probably wasn't the best planned sequence of events, but after watching two hours of drugs and murders, I went for my first stroll in Nairobi. Left the apartment, which I found on airbnb, and walked down Westlands Road, which is part of the Westlands neighborhood, also known as the expat neighborhood, and the target of the Westgate terror attack. There were a lot of people walking on the road, mostly wearing business casual, walking to a from work, I'm assuming. Interesting fact: in the USA there are 797 cars per 1000 people; in Kenya there are 24 cars per 1000 people. That's a huge difference. In that way it is much less polluted here because everyone takes public transportation, known as minibuses or "matatus". But the vehicles are not well maintained and spew out black diesel smoke, which which can make it hard to breathe sometimes on the street.

Every day in this country seems to be partly cloudy and perfect temperature. There is red dirt lining the sides of all the roads, as well as small shopkeepers and people selling food, like grilled corn, which is actually quite tasty. Everybody looks at me, usually for a few seconds. I thought there'd be more whites in the expat area, but not so much. This has a combined effect of making me feel more like a fish out of water, and makes the experience more interesting. Fortunately everyone seems nice, especially when I tell them why I'm here, that really opens them up and helps remove their mzungu sales pitch. "Mzungu" means white man in the local language. Funny enough, the literal definition of mzungu is "someone who roams around aimlessly", because the first whites in East Africa were explorers.

There are a lot of security forces walking around with AK47s, which is both reassuring and disconcerting, but I'm sure the same was true in NYC after 9/11. I went to the local mall today to get a cell phone, felt nervous the entire time, but that's where all the best shopping is so I decided to test the waters. I found myself unconsciously looking for unconventional places I would hide if I heard gunshots, like behind food on the shelf. I walked briskly. The plan is to lay low in the short term, both for my comfort and my mom's sanity, and ease my way into the city.

I talk to a lot of people when I am meandering. They always ask what I'm doing here, when I tell them I'm here to reduce poverty by increasing the income of the poor, the conversation naturally leads to their source of income. I'm surprised by how much a brief conversation seems to help them. Just some basic thoughts on business go a long way. I guess I forgot how a lot of business is not intuitive, especially in a developing country where most people's main concern is getting food on the table that day. Had a conversation with a lady today about her aspiration to open up a small bakery. I convinced her to start baking at home first and try to create sales from there, after which a brick and mortar store would carry less risk. Her eyes lit up with the plan. She immediately wanted to become friends. It's a great feeling to use my experience in this way. It taps into an emotion that didn't exist in my previous career - or ever, for that matter.