Lights Out

Two Thursdays ago, on the 16^th of June, I woke up with a sore throat. I didn’t think much of it, until it was Tuesday and it still hurt to swallow. So I finally got enough sense to take a look in the mirror and discovered an ugly pink ulcer perched stubbornly on a bright red tonsil. Schools had cancelled on Monday and Tuesday so I had spent the days at home in Litein and felt a little feverish on and off both days. So Tuesday morning I asked Mum if I could go for a walk for some fresh air, tired of reading in my room. I ended up at Rachel’s house, where I found Baba Victor by himself. He’s a nurse at a mission hospital in a neighboring town, so I asked him to take a look at my right tonsil. Mama Victor came home then and I showed her my throat before she told me I felt warm. They both agreed that I should see a doctor. So after lunch, Baba Victor and Victor accompanied me to Kaplong Mission Hospital.

The nurse who saw me agreed with what my dad (my American father who is a doctor) had prescribed: a shot of penicillin. I expected to receive the shot in my arm, just below my shoulder, like every other shot I’ve gotten. But they gave it to me in an IV form, through a vein in the top of my right hand. I was in a small room seated in a chair by a table with my arm resting on it and the nurse sitting on the other side. Victor was in the room, sitting on the exam bed opposite me, for “emotional support” (I’m pretty sure he just expected me to cry and wanted to watch). Nurse Caroline did a wonderful job giving me the penicillin. It didn’t hurt at all. But many of you who know me know that I have a bad tendency to get light headed and to even pass out at the sight of my blood (particularly when donating blood). I was doing a good job distracting myself from the thought of something being strapped onto my hand and injected into my veins. I could feel the penicillin shooting into my bloodstream and asked Victor if there was still anything sticking into my hand. He told me to look for myself. Bad idea. I glanced and saw the cannula still attached to my vein. That’s when I knew it was over. I put my left hand up to my forehead and told Victor, “I feel light headed. Am I getting really pale?” His African eyes told him that I looked normal and he said, “You’re fine.” That’s the last thing I remember before passing out completely. I was slumped in the chair, my neck hanging over the back and my legs limp in front of me. The nurse was still looking at my hand, but Victor jumped off the exam bed to my rescue after he realized that I wasn’t “just relaxing” like he thought at first. He and the nurse carried me over to the bed and that’s when I came around. I remember dreaming about something before waking up to two blurry dark spots that became Victor and the nurse’s heads above me as they helped me lie down. “Shoot,” I said, laughing. “Did I just pass out?” I couldn’t hear anything Victor was saying. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I just did that. That’s so embarrassing!” I kept saying to Victor as the nurse left us. I was super hot still, but I could see and hear ok again. “You really scared me,” Victor told me. He said his heart was pounding the whole time! I really freaked him out, poor guy. I’m glad he was there, though. Gosh, the nurse would never have been able to get me out of that chair by herself. Victor said I was out for 40 seconds, which is a really long time, but I think it probably just felt that long for him because he was terrified.

I waited on the bed for some time, then sat up and eventually I was ready to go. Baba Victor was chuckling as I met him in the waiting room, and the other Kenyans were smiling too. I’m sure they all heard what happened. I felt sheepish. Victor and I die laughing each time we remember it happening. Poor Mum was extra happy to see me Wednesday morning. “Oh, Ann, I was so worried you might faint again in the night.”

It’s been almost a week and I feel much better. My throat doesn’t hurt at all and the redness and swelling of my tonsil is almost gone. And I definitely haven’t blacked out again.

“Mzungu, mzungu!”

I remember the first time I walked through the streets on my way to town with Mama Chiri. The children playing in the road outside our compound’s gate grew silent, their jaws dropped, and then came the shouts: “Mzungu, mzungu!” It’s the Swahili word for “white person”. When their friends heard the word, they came running, too. I am quite the spectacle. I figure this is the closest I’ll ever come to achieving celebrity status. The only way someone in America would attract these many eyeballs and this much attention is if they had three eyes or lime green skin. I honestly feel like a Martian sometimes.

Almost every day of the week I travel to ocha (that’s Sheng for “rural”) primary schools for de-worming programs with Mary Ben and Victor Rotich. Most of these kids have never seen a white person in real life before, and it shows. As soon as I appear on campus, every lesson is ignored as kids from each classroom start whispering and crowding the windows and even beckoning me to come and greet them.

One time, Denno (it’s a common nickname for anyone named Dennis) took me to town for a soda. The restaurant we went to is called New Salama Hotel. (Here, a hotel does not provide lodging. Just food. At first I didn’t understand why such a small town needed so many places for visitors to stay until I learned that hotels are restaurants. That makes much more sense.) We were sitting by the window on the third floor, looking out over the busy main road. We finished our bottled sodas and started to walk past other tables on our way out. One customer who hadn’t seen me earlier was so startled to see a mzungu that he gawked at me the whole way out, turning in his seat to watch me leave. He completely forgot about the glass he was holding and it slipped out of his loosened hand after he rotated past the table. The glass shattered when it hit the floor and the whole place, including me and Denno, died laughing.

Mum tells me that I’ve scored us several free rides and all of Dennis’ friends are extra generous towards me. I’ve never been so well-liked before. The children at the schools declare their love for me (in mother tongue) before I leave and a day doesn’t go by that someone (or two or three) doesn’t invite me to eat at his/her home. I’ve even had several marriage proposals. I’m flattered every time, even though I know it has nothing to do with who I am and everything to do with the color of my skin. Am I pro-racism if I like being treated differently for my skin-color?

I Do Things Backwards

Time to describe the intricacies of life in Litein.

The people here are warm and welcoming and love to laugh with me (or at me, but I’m used to that). Many speak English and they light up when I greet them in Kalenjin, their mother tongue. Chamgei? Mising!

The weather is gorgeous: the mornings and evenings are cool and chilly and remind me of the kind of weather at Pine Springs Camp in PA. It usually warms up by about 10 or 11a and stays in the wonderful mid-70s. And it rains probably five days out of the week, usually in the afternoon around 3p but there’s an occasional thunderstorm at night.

The landscape is wonderful: it’s hilly and green, comparable to middle TN, northwest GA, and western PA (everywhere I’ve lived). But the plants are more exotic, like a jungle. And it’s rare that I see a hill of solid trees: Kenyans take advantage of and farm every inch of it. So most land, even hillsides, have crops (maize, corn, wheat, potatoes, and tea, mostly) growing all along them or cattle grazing there.

In one of her e-mails to me, my mom asked if I was losing weight. Far from it. My Afrikan mum doesn’t want me to run by myself, so I’m still searching for a running partner. I do abs and push-ups in my room each morning and jump rope for a lil bit of cardio. But the Kenyan diet is ridiculous. Incredibly carb-heavy. For breakfast, I drink one or two mugs of chai. I also eat one or two hard-boiled eggs, or sometimes they’re fried. And then there’s the slices. It’s white bread with a thin layer of butter in between. The first week I was here they prepared six slices for me; that’s like half a loaf! Now my hosts know I can only eat three or four with my tea and egg and occasional banana. Dang.

Lunch is the same as dinner, except our carb at lunch is almost always rice, while at dinner we either eat chipati (a denser version of a tortilla) or ugali (sticky, firm mush made out of maize flour… the closest thing I could compare it to is mashed potatoes, but it’s much different). With the staple carb is served either plain meat (beef or goat!) and a vegetable, or they’re together in a stew. Soooo tasty. For real—I have fallen in love with Kenyan food. And all of it is coated in a yummy layer of cooking fat. Oh, and I drink one or two cups of freshly boiled milk from the cows outside. I never tried drinking whole milk in America, but I’m guessing this is fattier, thicker, and warmer than its American cousin. And it’s rude to refuse food, so I’ve really been putting it away. I do not want to step on a scale any time soon.

Transportation is insane. To get to town (Litein), we walk. It takes about ten minutes from my home, unless it’s rained recently, then it takes longer: none of the roads are paved, except for major highways. So every other time I go someplace, my shoes are caked in mud from the roads. And my muddy legs are much more obvious than my African friends’ legs. No fair. To get to the schools for de-worming or to visit a different town for the weekend, we take a matatu. There are two different kinds. One is a stuffy 12-passenger van that always carries many more people than 12 (I think I counted 20 people one time), plus an occasional squawking chicken or box of stinking dead fish. The other is a normal, four-door sedan. Most are Toyotas and plain white in color. But instead of just four extra passengers, I’ve been in one with 11 other people; that’s four people up front, four people in the back, and four people in the trunk (they’re wagons). And the last form of transportation is a boda boda. They’re motorcycles. I’ve seen four adults squeezed onto one several times before. Whenever I ride, I either ride with Mary Ben or Victor and they tell the drive to go pole pole (slowly). We usually only take them when we’re going someplace really rural on back dirt roads. I see them whip by on the pavement with no helmets and it scares me to think what would happen if the driver crashed. I have no desire to drive a car here. There’s hardly any pavement, and there’s even fewer painted lines. No speed limits, no police cars. People pass other vehicles whenever they want, especially on blind curves. I’ve never prayed so much in a car before. Plus, the driver is on the right of the car and they stay left on the road. I’d surely crash headfirst into the opposing lane of traffic.

[Pictures to come as soon as I figure out how to get them off my camera without a camera cord, which I conveniently left in the States.]

Introductions

My new home is Litein, Kenya. It’s Kipsigis (KIP sig eez) land. There are 42 tribes (and sub-tribes) in Kenya. Kalenjin is one of the major tribes, and it has nine sub-tribes. Kipsigis is one of them. So almost 100 percent of the people here in Litein are from the Kipsigis tribe.

I have two Afrikan mums here. The Kipsigis almost see themselves as one big family. So if someone is your parents’ age, you address them as Mama or Baba (Mom or Dad). It shows respect. To differentiate between the hundreds of mamas and babas living in a community, after Mama or Baba you insert one of their children’s names. So, for example, all of my friends would address my mom as Mama Hannah (or Mama LB or Mama Josiah or Mama Eli).

Rachel Sang is my official host, although I do not live with her. She is the founder and leader of Rays of Hope, an NGO that is doing transformational community development work in Litein and surrounding areas. She is Mama Victor to me and she considers me one of her daughters.

I live with Mary Ben Cheruiyot (or Mama Chiri). Ben is her husband’s name, but I haven’t met him yet. He works in Nairobi. She has a beautiful compound with several structures. I live in the main house where Mum and Susan sleep. Susan is Mum’s niece. She’s 18 and she left school early and now she helps out around the house. Her most commonly used English phrases are “I am coming” and “Let me assist you”. There’s another structure where guys sleep. Benard is a nephew who watches the cows. He stays here all the time, but he’s very quiet and he keeps to himself. Sometimes Johnston, one of Mary’s sons, and Benard (a different nephew) stay on the compound and eat an occasional meal with us. And Dennis stays here during the week but goes home on the weekends.

One of my closest friends here is Dennis Cheruiyot. He is a 21-year old university student who lives at Mama Chiri’s compound and volunteers at the local hospital (a 5-minute walk away). His older sister is married to Mum’s oldest son Elvis, so Dennis is seen as one of Mum’s sons. His English is wonderful and his company is priceless. Without him, I might rediscover what the word “boredom” means. Or maybe I’d just get my homework done faster. Either way, I am grateful for his friendship.

Victor Rotich is Rachel Sang’s last-born son. He is 18 years old and just finished secondary (high) school. He will go to Jomo Kenyatta University near Nairobi in September and his English is excellent as well. Victor comes with me and Mary Ben each day when we do de-worming programs at primary schools. My conversations with Dennis and Victor are almost parallel to the conversations I’d have with my American peers. They both know four languages (Kalenjin, Swahili, English, andSheng—a slang language that combines Swahili and English and is constantly changing) and they have become my personal tutors. I am now learning bits of Kalenjin, Swahili, and Sheng. Wazi jo.

Lastly, meet Ann Brown. She comes from America and she’s a fourth year university student. This is her first time to Africa and she’s been here for about three weeks. She loves it so far and feels very welcome in Kenya. Asante sana. Yup, that’s my usual introduction. (Africans are big on visitors and big on introductions. I introduce myself like this everywhere I go: schools, churches, ground breaking ceremonies… everywhere.) Only Dennis and some of his friends and occasionally Mama Victor call me Hannah. Ann is much easier to say, except it sounds more like “on”. I am On Brown. They laugh when I tell them that my name in America rhymes with banana.