Confetti from a Giant's Wedding

I am currently reading Richard Dowden's Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. It's a great book with some of the most insightful thoughts about Africa, Somalia and Somalis that I've read in a long time. He's also a good writer.

Tonight I was struck by his fanciful description of the landscape as he is driving south from Hargeisa, Somalia, "into a world of sand, rock, thorn trees and plastic bags [italics mine]. Given away free in markets, millions of blue and pink thin plastic bags blow across Somalia like confetti from a giant's wedding."

This is just as true in the desert in Northwest Kenya. Littering is not a concept that holds any sway there.

This became clear to me one day when I was walking through the streets of Kakuma and my backpack fell open. Peter, my guide, stooped down to help me retrieve the things that had fallen out. He put my camera and water bottles back in my pack, then he showed me a phone card.

Has this been used? he asked.

Yes, I said.

He zipped up my backpack and dropped the phone card on the ground.

I was shocked. I wanted to pick the phone card back up and put it in my pocket, but all I had to do was look around in order to see how pointless that would be. Water bottles, plastic bags, paper, cans, feedbags. Junk everywhere.

I remembered someone telling me that plastic bags were going to be banned in Kenya. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous. With all that corruption, they're going to worry about plastic bags? I thought. But then I saw how bad the problem was .... and I thought, Well at least they're doing something.

So I asked Peter, What about the plastic bags? Is it true they're going to be against the law?

He seemed puzzled. How can they be against the law? he asked. If you are moving from one house to another house, where would you put your clothes?


NOTE: The ban was enacted on January 6th of this year. And there must be something about plastic bags that brings out the poetry in people. Here's what the National Environment Management Authority's Acting Director General said in his statement:

“Our country has many colours and when God was creating the world, he only allowed plants to give us flowers, so when our landscape becomes flooded with many artificial flowers of varied colours due to poor management of plastic bags and wrappers, then it becomes a problem."

Nicely put.

A Chance Meeting in Which I Find Out About the Sudan Scholarship Fund

I am finally feeling somewhat back to normal--I flipped the calendar from November to January!--and now I'm ready to talk about one of the more heartening experiences I had in Kakuma. While I was waiting in Lodwar for the plane to Nairobi, I chatted with a gentleman--a former Lost Boy who is now a U.S. citizen--who travels around to test students in refugee camps. The high performers, he told me, are given scholarships to Nairobi University.

This is his wonderful blog (I am the woman he mentions, who took a shower four time a day!) ... please check it out: http://sudanscholarship.com/

I had, in fact, met one of the scholarship students at a restaurant in the camp. My friend and guide, William, can and did talk to anyone about anything, and he struck up a conversation with some Sudanese young men who were sitting at the table next to us. The conversation was mainly about this week's referendum, in which the South is voting whether or not to declare independence from the North. I was stunned by how articulate and informed the young men were. The conversation took place in English and Sudanese and I sometimes had trouble following it, but what I did determine was there is hope for South Sudan if these are its potential leaders.

Will you go back to Sudan after the referendum? my guide, William, asked.

East west ... one of the young men replied.

Home's best, William said, completing his sentence.



My chance meeting with Daniel at the airstrip was also heartening for another reason. Misery loves company. We talked a little about the conditions in Kakuma and agreed that it was hot.

He had been staying at the Guest House too and had seen me going to the shower several times a day to wet myself down.

I had a little trouble with the heat, I admitted.

You could die in heat like this, he said kindly.

I know, I said, because I think I almost did.

It meant a lot to me that someone who had lived in the camp for several years agreed that conditions there are tough. It didn't make me any less plump, white and Midwestern, but it helped.

Freedom of the Press and the Kindle

Bear with me as I try to connect these two subjects. I've been wanting to talk about my experience with the Kindle while I was in Africa and news of Okey Ndibe's arrest is the prompt.

My thinking is rarely linear.

I read today that Nigerian writer Okey Ndibe was arrested at an airport in Lagos and questioned for several hours. His passports--U.S. and Nigerian--were seized. He has been a person of interest to the Nigerian government since he spoke out about elections there.

I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Ndibe in Kenya, at the Kwaani Literary Festival. He is, quite simply, one of the most charming men on the planet. I developed quite a crush. He's also a great writer.

The subtext throughout the Kwaani Festival was the devastating impact a lack of free press/free speech has had on Africa's writers. Many of the writers who spoke there are in exile. Mr. Ndibe lives in the U.S.

Here's the pivot: In Kenya, it's hard to get your hands on a book called It's Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong. It's a lively, readable book about John Githongo, who blew the whistle on corruption in the Kibaki administration. In a final chapter of the current edition, Ms. Wrong writes about how copies of her book are being passed around as pdf files. "This greedy appropriation of more than three years' work dismays me, but perhaps there is something poetically fitting about a story of illicitly recorded confidences and website leaks being filched, in its turn, via the internet."

I downloaded it, while I was in Nairobi, onto my Kindle. I couldn't have easily obtained the book any other way. And I paid for it.

So, I wonder, what role might e-readers play in getting around government censorship?


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jan/11/press-freedom-nigeria

It Comes Down to a Cupholder?

In northwest Kenya, near Kakuma refugee camp, it's all about water. Children wave plastic yellow containters by the side of the road, begging for water.  Under the searing sun, I saw an emaciated man digging in a dry river bed, trying to find water. Around the camp, people carry plastic baggies filled with water rations.

Things are reduced to basics: water, food, toilets. I had a meltdown there, just trying to make it through the day.

In many parts of Africa, the short rains did not come this year. There have always been cyclical droughts, but climate change and deforestation have made the problem worse. It was very hard to see it first hand.

We all know, or should know by now, that the U.S. is, per capita, the second greatest emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the least, but is among the areas feeling the greatest impact of climate change.

And so I've been carrying around a pain in my heart when I read, in the Columbus Dispatch, an article about how fuel efficiency is not driving auto sales: "You have about 5 percent of the market that is green and committed to fuel-efficiency," said Mike Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation, the largest auto retailer in the country. "But the other 95 percent will give up an extra 5 mpg in fuel economy for a better cupholder."

The Drug of Choice

What you see here are crewmembers chewing qat (as it is called in Somalia) or mirra (as it is called in Kenya). Mirra is or is not a drug, depending on who you're talking with. In any case, it's legal in Kenya and the attitude towards it is extremely accepting, even among highly religious people. It seems to viewed as something as harmless as, say, a shot of espresso.

Mirra comes from a slow-growing tree or shrub that grows well in Northern Kenya. Its use is pervasive in Kenya, Yemen and Somalia. Consumption causes mild euphoria and excitement.

In Lamu I was told that nearly all the men partake (the estimate 90% was tossed out) and that this is why the town is so sleepy in the morning. The plane with the mirra doesn't arrive until 10-11am. Our guide told us that when journalists are arranging interviews, he always tells them to wait until around 11. Then the subjects will be very talkative.

In Kakuma refugee camp, I saw women and men relaxing with a bag of stems during the long hot afternoon.

Obama Street

This photo was taken in the Ethiopian section of Kakuma refugee camp. On Obama Street there is also an Obama Restaurant ("Yes We Can").

It would be impossible to overstate the importance of Obama as a symbol of hope, status and recognition for the people of Kenya and all of Africa. It was the first thing that people said to me when they learned that I was from America--Oh, Obama!--and sometimes the only thing they wanted to talk about. On elevators. On the street. In taxis. In the refugee camp.

On Lamu Island, one of the elders said: We have a Luo [Obama's father's tribe] in the White House. Now if only we could get a Massai prime minister in the UK, things might finally change ...

Images of Kenya

Here is a little video with some of my favorite images from Kenya. My camera, damaged in the car accident (see previous post), functioned pretty well with some fiddling.

The women with the bead necklaces are Turkana, the tribe that lives around Kakuma refugee camp. Married women have a metal band around the neck, in addition to the beads, that serves as a wedding ring.

The town with stone buildings and very narrow pedestrian streets is Lamu. It's an island and that's where the water shots were taken.

I only took two photographs in the refugee camp. Those photos will be in separate posts, along with more about my wonderful Turkana guides, William and Peter. And Paul, who rescued me when I flew into the wrong airport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D34HfTeqU8U

Open Mic without the Mic

Last night I was too sick to go to the open mic reading that is part of the Kwani Litfest here. But I heard that the government yanked the permit to use a mic at the last minute. Dangerous minds at work, I guess. The readings went on as scheduled, they were just very hard to hear.

It has been good to see many exiled writers come back safely to read at these events. And yet there is still some nervousness about how free the Kenyan writers living in Kenya really are. Now I see why.

The Price of Things in Nairobi

Saline solution: $15
Cell phone time: pennies/minute

I have a cold, which is very bad timing as I leave for Kakuma refugee camp tomorrow.

A Conversation with a Kenyan "Freelance Guide" About the Weather

I am walking into town. A black man falls into step beside me.

Karibu! he says. Welcome to Kenya. Where are you from?

The U.S., I say.

Oh, he says. You do not look like an American. I thought Australia. Where in the U.S.?

Ohio.

Ohio, he says. A very important state. You voted for Obama.

Yes, I say. We did.

Do you like him?

Yes, I still do. But change has been slow.

Yes, yes, he says. Change is slow.

What about you? Do you like Kibaki? I ask, referring to the Kenyan president who also ran as an agent of change.

Mmmm, he says. Change is slow.

We walk in silence for a while. After a while he asks brightly, What is the weather like in Ohio?

Cold. I hear it's snowing.

Snow! he exclaims. It is always warm here. Do you know what I saw? In the airport a man was crying because he had to go home. He said he was sad to leave our climate. Can you believe that? A man! Crying!

Yes, I say, I can believe that.

This snow, he asks. I don't understand. Once, I went up Mt. Kenya. My hands, they went like this. He shows me his hands, like a claw. Is it always like that?

Yes, I say. It is.

What do you do then?

We stay inside. In our houses.

Inside! he says. That is bad.

Now you understand why that man was crying, I say.

Yes, yes, he says. It is because he has no freedom.