Reflection

Gardens Inside The Fort

The following is a copy of a reflection I wrote for a devotional booklet to be used on Shepherd of the Valley's upcoming trip to Tungamalenga, Tanzania. It is based on the 'birds of the air and lillies of the field' text from Matthew.
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Worry.
It is an interesting word.
In Kiswahili it is Wasiwasi.
As a condition or state of being, it occupies much of my time.
Bills . . . schedules . . . daily routines . . . my possessions . . .they all feed it.
Apparently, I like to worry.
A lot.

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, I'm coming to understand travel and the art of undertaking a journey -or safari, if you prefer- as an exercise in leaving worry behind. The whole endeavor seems to be a process of stripping worry away. Setting off for a distant land you leave behind the bulk of your belongings, possessions, and sources ofworry. Boarding the plane you check more non-essentials below. If push came to shove you'd also be fine leaving behind most of your carry onas well. It is all well and good, but you could get by without it.What remains, then, is the traveling trifecta of tickets, passport,and cash.

Landing in an unfamiliar place like Nairobi, Mombasa, Kilimanjaro, orDar, it quickly becomes apparent how much of your well ordered life is beyond your control. The illusion, easily maintained in your comfortable day to day world, that you are in charge of it all dissolves as you find yourself immersed in foreign words, customs, and scents. You learn, again, to trust . . . to have faith. Surrounded by the other, you begin to realize how utterly dependent you are on the stranger -the neighbor, and the goodness of God working through them.

As the myth of the control dissipates, worry fades away. . .

Peace to you all, from just up the African coast.

-p

The Daily Grind

-From The Roof Looking In: The Dining Area-

with the 1/2 way point coming up at the end of this next week and several inquiring e-mails, i thought it would be appropriate to describe daily life here. . .

classes, appropriately enough, take up the bulk of my time here. we meet on the second floor of the house, in a room that once hosted the queen of england, daily from 8:30-12:30 with copious amounts of time for coffee and tea breaks scattered about. afternoons and evenings are normally occupied with reading passages and essays, all in swahili of course.

fun/freetime involves jogging -or thinking about jogging- daily at 7am. my normal route takes me from Fort Jesus along Mama Ngina drive past the president's summer home down to the mombasa golf club. most of it is under the cover of towering, vine covered trees while the last stretch is along the ocean. it isn't a massively long route but is a good way to get the blood flowing.

books are also fun! i normally spend a couple hours in the afternoon reading on our balcony. everyone brought a good book or two, so we're all sharing each others stuff. i read barack obama's 'audacity of hope' and am currently working on the autobiography of Malcom X. occasionally abdul, the house's owner, fires up his projector and sound system to play DVD's . . . my first encounter with 'Little Miss Sunshine' was this past Thursday on Abdul's wall. Very funny movie. there's also pubs (i've decided 'baron's' is my place, beaches, and the daily -zunguka/expedition through the jumbled-up alleys of the city to keep life hopping.

the group is a good mix of grad/undergrad students: 4 yalies, 3 ohio univerity folks, 2 east tennessee state, 1 columbia guy, and 1 girl from harvard. guys are outnumbered 1 to 3 in the house, but it is all sawasawa (fine-fine).

i'm getting to know folks around town as well. living in a tourist zone in the city, all of the shop-keepers are trying to become our best friends. today i was suckered into buying a bracelet from my 'rafiki' nicholas. i'd been able to put it off for a couple weeks now, but finally caved. it was only a few dollars for me but it made his day. i'm also getting to know people who have nothing to do with the exchange of money for goods and/or services, which is nice. i've attended the kenyan evangelical lutheran church in town for the past few weeks & am starting to get to know people there too. next week sometime i hope to get in touch with their leaders to learn about life in that part of mombasa. word on the street is that they might try working me into their reading (if not preaching) schedule.

food has been good. we cook our own breakfasts and lunches while dinner is prepared for us 6 nights of the week. the food is generally good. i'm trying to learn to like fish. lots of rice and potatos and other starchy carbs. it is generally all 'African' food (whatever that means) with some Indian and Chinese influences here and there. There are several decent restaurants in town, so a decent burger is never too far off in a pinch.

generally, life is grand! i find it hard to believe that we're already over three weeks into the course . . . time sure is flying by.

When in Rome . . .

Mombasa Nights

I spent most of Saturday night, or at least 3 hours of it, in a Mobil gas station parking lot with a motley crew of people chewing on twigs.

It was one of those scenes where you occasionally ask yourself, "Now just how did I wind up here?"

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The day started out normal enough. 6 of us (4 wanawake and 2 wanaume) went to explore Tiwi beach, about an hour south of mombasa island when you travel by tutuk's speeding through the streets, an overcrowded passenger ferry that starts to leave before you are all aboard, the omnipresent matatu/dalladalla/bemo/mini-van/public transport, and taxi.

Tiwi beach was beautiful with crystal clear water and sugary white sand. Best of all, it was mostly deserted. We were able to simply relax on the beach and enjoy food and drink from Twiga lodge. It was a great afternoon. The extra-amazing part is that, despite the presence of the Vervet monkeys hanging about, I came through completely unharmed.

Around 5pm, a fellow classmate and I left the wanawake on the beach and headed back to Mombasa for 'Nyama Choma' or burned/grilled meat. We met up with our TA and his cousin (who goes by the alias 'Big C') for a great manly meal at the Camel's Joint restaurant. I'm not sure what animal parts I ate, but they were sufficiently choma-ed and surprisingly tasty. From the Camel's Joint, we were invited over to Big C's house to meet our TA's auntie and uncle.

This is where things started to get a little weird.

The family was incredibly hospitable and welcomed us in with arms wide open, despite the blackout that hit their part of town. After my eyes adjusted I could see that the room was filled with Big C's family and several family friends, including -for reasons I still don't quite understand - the family's Islamic teacher. We -zungumza'ed (or chatted) for quite a while. The uncle can best be described as a cantankerous old coot of Pashtun/Indian/Taliban/Maasai ancestory. He was hard of hearing but big of heart, had difficulty walking but loved to give people a hard time. Quite the character.

After an hour or so of -zungumza'ing, he declared 'Lets go to the Petrol Station!' at which point the whole family sprang into action. Big C, my TA, classmate, and I were in one car while the Uncle, Auntie, Islamic Scholar, small child, and neighbor went into the other. The cars sped off into the night toward the Mobil station. And then we just parked.

The scene was pretty amazing. The whole edge of the gas station parking lot was lined with people sitting in cars. According to Big C, being the ony 24 hour petrol station in town, this was the spot to see and/or be seen. "You can see all of the lovely women going to the clubs here, it is very fun." he said. Uh-huh, fun. Perhaps if you were chewing Miraa non-stop, this would've been very fun.

Miraa. That is where the twigs come in & what pushes this whole sit-n-watch scene over the edge. It is a popular/traditional custom here to chew the skin off of the miraa plant for its relaxing yet stimulating effects. Chew away they did, grasping a bit of plant skin in their teeth and pulling it away to create spahgetti like strips that they'd then chomp into balls of cud, held together by pieces of juicy fruit gum.

It was quite the scene . . . Uncle and Auntie chomping away. . . Security guards asleep in their company car next to us . . . the Islamic Scholar chilling out in the grass . . . Big C talking non-stop with one conspiracy after the other . . . slowly sipping soda while twigs were flying out the windows. . .

About 12:30 am, exhausted and with a full Sunday ahead, I asked to be driven back home. Big C obliged and then, from the reports I've heard, they returned to the parking lot and kept on watching, chewing and -zungumza'ing until well past 3.

The whole thing was quite the interesting experience. Very welcoming yet a little bit odd. In other words, a truly authentic Mombassa night.

Kuzungukazunguka

Who Are The People in Your Neighborhood?

Kuzunguka: To Wander Around
Kuzungukazunguka: To Wander Around Aimlessly in Circles

the verb '-zunguka' pretty accurately sums up this past week. wandering around this ancient city has been nothing short of amazing. it is totally cosmopolitan in an entrely non-western way. it is unlike anyplace i've been in east africa before. . . the africa i'm used to is the interior land, hundreds of miles inland and hours removed from other outside cultures. mombasa, on the other hand, is a true melting pot of sorts.

for hundreds of years mombasa has been a trading center with the whole eastern hemisphere. one of nine city states located along the kenyan coast, it has been trading with the chinese since the 10th century, was ruled by the sultan of oman (via an governor in zanzibar for centuries) and has been under the rule of the portuguese, germans, and british as well. all of these cultures have left there mark, often times in ther neighborhood in whcih i'm staying.

wandering around brings you past mosques and traders' dhows docked in the harbor. the portuguese fort jesus dominates the entry to the harbor while the scent of indian samosas and curry flood the air. i'm sitting in an internet cafe where men are speaking in not kiswahili but arabic. three times in the last week people have stopped to ask me if i'm german. 'bongo flava' music pumps out from street vedors' booths while the call to prayer radiates from the countless minarets that dot the skyline.

beyond the constant surprises i find when turning a corner on my daily wanderings, life is going well. classes are decent. practicing my limited swahili skills is a definite exercise in humility. housemates/classmates are all really cool. waking up to the sunlight crawling through the window with the sound of the ocean in the background is refreshing. breakfast on the balcony overlooking the harbor and world beyond is priceless.

in short, life is good. very good.


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fyi: photos are slowly being added, though they take precisely forever and a day to upoad at the internet cafe run by a sweet little ol' lady with big glasses from India. you can find them by clicking on the link to my photo album on the right.

Sina Pesa. (Sina Moyo?)

Sunday afternoon several of us walked downtown to find an ATM, internet, and some lunch. From our house in Old Town we walked two blocks over to Fort Jesus and then took a right onto the road that ends with an inexplicable statue (which is quite likely explicable if I'd bother to ask what it was about) in the shape of a golden trumpet.* From the trumpet* we turned right and headed downtown. Nevermind the fact that it was pouring rain outside.

We got a little bit lost by not turning at the second roundabout with a statue in the shape of a dolphin, but all in all it was a fairly successful adventure.

The streets were pretty empty, perhaps because it was raining or because it was Sunday . . . maybe because of both. A group of 10 wazungus walking in the rain certainly attracted a lot of attention. Within a couple minutes we had an entire entourage following us through the city streets. Some wanted to sell us umbrellas (smart), others wanted to show us the way to our destination (very helpful), others -mostly children- were asking us for money (heartbreaking).

"Je una pesa?" (do you have money) "Nina njaa." (I have hunger) "5 shillings for bread, mist-ah," these were the words encountered along the way. My normal response was "Sina pesa," or I have no money.

A bald faced lie.

It isn't that I haven't encountered these situations before, I definitely have. This was not the first time that that seemingly little-white-lie crossed my lips. I've run across this enough that it has become an almost impulsive response. Normally I just chalk those enounters up, for better or worse, to part of the ambience of life here in the developing world.

This time, however, it feels wrong . . . heartless even. I didn't even blink as I dismissed these kids in need. I imagined them running back to their homes loaded up with cash from gullible Westerners.

I was wrong.

Walking back from the Blue Room, where I checked my e-mail, ate a big burger and had complimentary ice cream I saw those same kids. I barely noticed them at first. Walking in the pouring rain, sheltered by my umbrella I caught them in the corner of my eye. They were curled up, three of them -asleep like cats- on the large window sill of an abandonded store in an empty downtown street, barely staying dry.

They were alone
I walked by
Turning a blind eye.

I did nothing nor do I know if there is anything I could have done.

Life in the city is not the village life I am used to. Where an abandoned or orphaned child would likely be taken in by relatives or neighbors in places like Tungamalenga, Iodi or Makambala here -at first glance- it appears that he is left to fend for himself. I hope and pray that this is not the case, but truly I don't know what to make of it all . . .

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*Update/Correction (6/9): Apparently the golden 'trumpet' is actually am Arabic teapot, a symbol and reminder of the days when Mombasa was ruled by Sultans from Oman. My bad; Pole Sana. The dolphin statues, however, remain a mystery.

Katika Mombasa.

greetings from warm and sweltering mombasa. it is wonderful to finally be here. i arrived in town around 1pm saturday afternoon and was soon swept back into east african life. all it took was the scent of diesel exhaust mixed with burning coconut husks, dust, and charcoal for me to know that i was back in familiar territory. it is an weird combination of scents for sure, but i trust that those who've traveled this territory before know the smell all too well. somehow i find the mixture oddly comforting.

our housing is pretty unbelievable. we're located right on the ocean in a big-old-hulking concrete-bunker of a building. it isn't the fanciest of places; rust and mildew are evidence of the effect mombasa's heat and humidity have on buildings. if you scrub away the dirt, it isn't too hard to imagine how grand this whole area must've looked back in its glory days. i lucked out and got a private room with a slice of ocean views and the roofscape of old town. most of the 12 people in our group are up on the third floor. the family that has owned the place for generations lives on the second and the other guys, plus the teaching assistant, live on the first floor.

there isn't much to report yet . . . no whacked out adventures of any sort to speak of. (despite their wonderful airport, the dutch continue to creep me out, but that is an entirely different story.) classes seem like they should be okay, 8-12 every morning in a breeze filled room with the ocean crashing against the shore 2-3 floors below us. while it feels very much like a dream, the essay i need to write for tomorrow reminds me that this i'm very much expected to be wide awake and not awash in a tropical daze.

baadaye. . .

ps having this written entirely in lowercase letters is not me trying to be hip and /or trendy. it is a purely functional choice given that the shift key on this keyboard is more or less busted.

pps i will try to get picture uploaded to go with this and other posts if i can figure out how to do so. while it is a bit frustrating not to be able to automatically upload things, the fact that i'm able to use the internet here (in an old store front facing a street shared by cars, motorbikes, and donkey carts) is pretty remarkable.