One of my more memorable days thus far was spent with Evan Thomas from Manna Energy Foundation and Tegan running around one of Kenya’s great Wild Game Parks and then feasting like a caveman at the Everest of all restaurants: Carnivore.
I generally prefer to be at the top of the food chain in my near vicinity whenever possible, so moving from the game park, which was home to over 40 lions and a gang of carnivorous baboons I’m sure could have taken my arms off had I motioned at their bananas, to Carnivore seemed like a rational option. In the park I feigned my invincibility by chasing after a pack of antelope; in Carnivore I was reassured of my mammalian dominance by the meat-wrapped medieval swords basting and roasting over the pit of fiery meatliness. Only nothing seemed less natural or more cut from the cloth of absurdity than Carnivore, truly a house of pure madness. If you walk in that building a proclaimed vegetarian, you should just home; furthermore, if you are not ravenously hungry, go home too. Unless ox testicles cost human lives to obtain, I can’t imagine anybody gets their money’s worth before the stretched sinews of their belt buckles force them to tip over their table’s little white flag to signal defeat.
Vincent and his wife had a baby boy a week ago today. They named him Fabregas, after the Arsenal captain and international striker by the same name. He didn’t even know it was a boy until the day it joined us all on this big mass of dirt. I’m going to see this boy on Sunday for the first time and I can’t wait… no country makes cuter babies than Kenya.
On a circular but related note, I met up with Vincent yesterday to pick up my big red bag, and he came to Andre’s Gym with his landlord’s daughter, who was young and cute and probably not who his wife would want him hanging out with at this point in their marriage. Anyways, he brought me back a massive bag full of vegetables that I’m going to struggle to finish, and a jug full of maziwa lala, what we might call “sleeping milk” in English. If you’ve ever had lassi in India, you will know what the strained and western-palatable version of maziwa lala tastes like. It’s like liquid but chunky yogurt. When I first had a glass in Kisii, I remember watching in horror as the server used my glass to kneed the chunky milk around inside its big plastic vat, mixing the neon-green top layer with the heavy cream-colored base and gathering enough to fill my cup. I took a sip of the mixture that looked and felt like curdled milk’s first cousin, and when the first couple chunks got past my lips I almost threw it back up. But then whatever was still in my mouth started to taste really good, and with great trepidation I took a tentative second bite out of my serving of milk. I liked it even more this time, and from that point I was hooked. They call it sleeping milk because it sleeps its way into its chunky, yogurty state, and as long as you never finish what you’ve got in your lala vat, you can continue to add freshly boiled milk for years and years. I guess it’s the bacteria never tires.
My vat of maziwa lala sleeping on our kitchen counter
The point of this post, though, is to talk about Vincent, my Kenyan brother. Because I want to show him in all his peculiarities and complexity as I continue to use his name, with the ultimate goal of fully bringing his persona to life on this blog after this year is done.
I trust Vincent with my life and I believe that he sincerely looks out for me when we’re navigating this country together. He knows I’m vulnerable to all sorts of violations of my person, my possessions, and my serenity by conniving individuals here, on the sole basis that I’m not perceived as “kienyeji.” Like when he advised me to never shake strangers’ hands because they can rub drugs on their palms that put you – and presumably them? – to sleep, or when he and his brother happily take me into their home and even carry my large bag through the wild streets of Nairobi at night. But he’s a wily one too, almost to the point of conniving himself, and always thinking, plotting, and planning his next step. He can’t be pinned down easily on a set course of action, nor does he satisfy himself with the simple pleasures, like preparing kuku choma, in the way that David does. He makes sure you “promote” his people, such as when he brought me to Sammy’s soap-stone studio, or when we purchased a cow together, and I think he sees my presence in his life – in particular in Kisii – as a boon for his family and his stature in his community. I’m his mzungu and nobody else’s. When there’s business to discuss, such as the proposition he made to me (on behalf of his father Johnson) that I purchase a cow for their farm, he takes you aside and lowers his voice as if “I’ve just got one more thing to make you aware of and secure your blessing for”, though these moments often involve some transfer of money. This happened when Vincent delivered my bag of vegetables and maziwa lala yesterday… he brought me aside as the landlord’s daughter stood nearby, probably knowing full well what Vincent was about to discuss with me, being a “learned” girl as she is, and lowered his voice to an almost whisper as he requested two thousand shillings for his baby boy’s medication. I was mindful at this point of the five hundred shillings of mine he had kept, or rather saved by bargaining hard with the individual who sold him our cow, and had used to transport the ten wazee (“elders”) to and from this individual’s farm. He explained that his baby boy was dealing with sicknesses, which I think is probably pretty normal and therefore quite likely true, and that he needed some money to give his boy food to eat and medication to make it through the first month. When I told him that this would be the one and only time that I would lend him money, owing to these extraordinary circumstances, but that he should take his time repaying me and prioritize his son’s health, there was a genuine feeling of brotherhood between us that I didn’t think money could make possible. Probably it didn’t, but the act of sharing in a time of need did. I felt closer to him at that moment than I ever had in the previous two weeks, and I think he subsequently cemented his credibility in my eyes when he offered, unnecessarily, to purchase with his own resources the goat we plan to kill next time I visit Kisii.
Today the three of us joined our massive community of friends at the iHub Nairobi to crisis map a n0n-crisis, processing and mapping the thousand plus SMS, Twitter, and Web reports on the proceedings of Kenya’s historic August 4 referendum. Despite the pains we at Uchaguzi had gone to in order to prepare for the worst-case outcome today, and despite the intense and polarizing campaigning Kenyans bore over the last months, wananchi went to the polls with one goal in mind: getting a pinky painted purple with dye to signal their ballot cast, nothing more nothing less. The mood on the streets was celebratory and a general excitement loomed at the stunning display of normalcy taking place in Nairobi, and mostly all of the country, which seemed to reinforce itself into a solid resolve of calm, quiet, and humility. As such, we had a relatively quiet day here at the iHub in terms of mapping crises… If you ask me about the energy in this place, it was as high and as positive as I’ve ever seen, and tinged with enough anticipation and determination to sustain the 40 or so volunteer mappers Rachel and I were coordinating for the day. We arrived at 6:30am and haven’t left yet, 18 hours later… Though unlike in Haiti, where the need was so huge you saw students pulling ten all-nighters in a row to purely map and map and map those Haitians who needed emergency assistance, we’re largely still here because this place is so addictively awesome. Check out some pictures from the past few days:
Tonight I ate dinner at the small ugali diner at the groundfloor of the iHub’s building. The waitress and chef like to push food on me that I can’t eat nor that I can ever justify paying 4x the normal price for. But I’ll eat here anyways because they make the best ox-tail soup, though I just found out that it comes in a powder-package I can buy at the store. Dammit. Anyways, I’m happy about this place because they gave me a new name tonight while we settled my 3-dollar bill. As the chef ate his spaghetti and kuku (chicken) in front of me, with his fingers in his mouth and all, Alice laughed hysterically at my admittedly unique predicament: that I’m a Bankrupt Mzungu. Mzungu without money. I told them that, unlike many a mzungu who passes through Kenya, I am a student and thus have no money. I said this after I’d been typing away on my laptop at my table for half an hour, but it’s a true statement given the way I live here, (minus our ballin apartment). The chef gave me a chuckle and imparted some of his wisdom: “pesa ni furaha,” or money is happiness… i rebutted that “furaha ni maana ya maisha”, or happiness is the meaning of life. He finished our circle of logic by saying that money is thus the meaning of life.
The Kenyan people are only hours away from voting on a constitution that, if passed, would radically change the institutions and mechanisms of control exercised in this country. Since its independence in 1963, only three presidents and a single set of laws have graced the good people of this diverse and beautiful nation with their . The first president took back his country from British colonialists and divided its land among the people – his people – as he saw fit. He ruled with a post-colonial world view and a draconian fist, and kept the constitution bequeathed to him at the hour of Kenya’s independence by his side for the rest of his reign. When he died in 1978, his vice president assumed his hallowed mantle and morphed into one of Africa’s poster-child dictators during the 80s and 90s. He failed to produce a new constitution in 24 years of rule, but left an important legacy of impunity in the name of Amos Wako, the man Kenyans have called Attorney General for the past 19 years. It’s his office that deserves much of the credit for ensuring that each corrupt and violence-mongering politician and civil servant in Kenya is currently behind bars, and that all courageous whistleblowers of corruption, like JOHN GITHONGO, has been granted their due security and compensation in the form of ongoing service to the nation. Kenya’s third president, the man currently leading the call for “Yes” on the proposed constitution against the aging second president’s “No,” is giving his last go at producing the document he failed to produce in 2005.
The importance of this moment in Kenya’s history could be lost in some of the snappy accusations and sloppy mis-information both the “Yes” camp and the “No” opposition have been hurling like mud at one another. Less surprisingly is that the real issues motivating the politicians who’ve taken up one side or another are being aired to the public just as clearly as the ‘ideological differences’ by which they claim to stand. For example, politicians on the “No” side have extensive and ill-gotten plots of land throughout Kenya that could face a forced surrender under a proposed new land commission, but the people in who follow their every word have been fed the mis-truths that they, the little guys, are the ones who the commission will be coming after. That’s the rumor, of course, and it’s less clear to me what the politicians on the “Yes” side – including president Kibaki and prime minister Odinga – in the document other than a repairing of the president’s violence-scarred legacy and probably a wave of support from western donors. I’ll limit my thoughts on the constitution to that because I’m posting here as a member of Sisi ni Amani, which has taken a decidedly apolitical stance on this polarizing document. The only side we can fall on, and thank god it’s a side that’s obtained a solid amount of air space next to the Yes and No tickets, is Chagua katiba kwa amani Kenya, or Choose the constitution in peace Kenya.
But the likelihood of a violence- and irregularity-free referendum is not something the good people in the Ushahidi community have decided to gamble on. Thus, the website UCHAGUZI has been launched and will be receiving information pertaining to the referendum from Kenyans of all stripes and affiliations during the next few days. Our team trained about 14 Kenyan volunteer crisis-mappers at the iHub today – including one TED fellow and her daughter – in addition to the 10 or so we trained at the CRE-CO (Constitution and Reform Education Consortium) main office yesterday. I also demonstrated the platform to some interesting big-wigs at UN-OCHA, which has the capacity to act on the alerts we receive and ensure that the appropriate security measures are taken, CRE-CO, the Hyvos Foundation, and the Rwandans and Ugandans who will be using Ushahidi’s platform to monitor their upcoming elections on August 9, 2010 and February 2011 respectively. We’ve prepared these volunteers to map voter irregularities, incidents of violence and intimidation, and other problems during and after tomorrow’s historical referendum on Kenya’s proposed constitution. A network of poll-watchers has been dispersed throughout the country with mobile phones and a list of potential alerts coded by number to send directly to us. In total, about 85 volunteers will be on-hand at the iHub or at their homes, in coffee shops, and wherever else they get their most reliable internet to process the thousands of reports that could potentially begin streaming in tomorrow.
It’s nice to see the coalition partners of President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga united so solidly on this issue, because their rivalry was at the root of the communal violence that tore through Kenya after the 2007 presidential elections. But the strength of their unity, seen most clearly in the green (for “Yes”) pajama-clad Odinga joking happily on stage while wide-grinned and big-cheeked Kibaki eeks out a chuckle, could portend a different road to disaster. Here’s to hoping that the clowns in parliament and the executive heed the wisdom of a classic hockey proverb: if you lose, say little. if you win, say littler.
To read more about what this constitution means for Kenya, follow along HERE
It’s time I recount the ridiculous adventures I’ve had since I last posted, because my silence is too much even for me to bear. I don’t know how I arranged the series of events that led to my acquisition of a cow, nor those that landed me a new plot of farm land in rural western Kenya on which I’m now expected to build myself a thatch-roof home. I chased after a posse of wildebeests and gazelles in one of Kenya’s wild game parks, and was lucky enough to avoid the 40 or so lions that live in the bush there, but the fat brown warthogs rustling in the tall grass had my name and number. I also participated in the slaughter of a big Kenyan chicken, which I cooked over an open fire for my new Kenyan family. And after taking a drink called Chang’aa, a locally-distilled version of vodka, and reading the next day’s headlines that 17 people were killed taking the same drink in Kibera, I am happy to be living and well right now. (A caveat: theirs was laced with methanol by a cheap pub owner. Mine was made by poppa Johnson at his farm).
This is the long and short of it. I met a young guy who liked to talk politics at the super-touristy Maasai Market held outside the super-touristy Yaya shopping center one Sunday. It was a sunny afternoon and Vincent was selling his soap-stone carvings to all the wazungu with wads of cash to blow, but I caught him off guard by asking him instead for the names of Kenya’s big 7 – aka the families who have run the show in this country ever since they surreptitiously acquired their ill-gotten wealth. He couldn’t get enough of somebody like me, caring more about Kenyans with their cash than he cared about these white people with their cash. I don’t think he sold a single soap stone that afternoon, because we chatted and chatted and got beers at a near-by pub from about noon to 5pm, closing time at the market. At one point our conversation was interrupted by the owner of that pub, who thought I was the Iniesta guy from the Spanish national soccer team… But we kind of decided that I would help him find a second, white wife and he would bring me to his home in Kisii, western Kenya, that Tuesday. I feel ambivalent about the wife thing, because he just had a kid and his wife sounds like an incredibly sweet woman when I talked to her on the phone… it’s pretty standard for Kenyan men to take multiple wives, a practice I think is garbage, but if he wants a ticket out of his near-poverty situation then I’m not going to stop him.
Tuesday night came quicker than I expected and I bid farewell to my friends here before hitching a matatu downtown, where Vincent and I would catch another matatu to his hometown. Only, Vincent had told me we’d be leaving right away. He took me to a swank bar owned by a womanizing, money-having MP instead, and if I wasn’t on alert for my safety already – walking downtown at night with a bag filled with expensive stuff like your camera isn’t something I’ll do often in Nairobi – I was starting to question how much I could rely on Vincent if he couldn’t stick to a simple plan like that. But I feel like I have a strong internal compass for assessing people in short periods of time, and I am no stranger to opening myself to amazing friendships built on a single random conversation. We left for Kisii on Tuesday night on a matatu with his always-high brother, David, and an older, chubbier man who claimed he would be driving us in the morning but for now would be taking his handle of rum in the back row with us.
The matatu took 5 hours, after what seemed like a road-side ambush in Maasai land (turned out the men who popped out of a ditch with torches in hand wanted to load sacks of maize onto our roof) and a bit of late-night nyama choma (sweet bbq beef and ugali), we stumbled into a swash-bucklers bar on the second floor of the Mubarak Hotel. The women in Kisii are the most aggressive I’ve ever seen anywhere, EVER. They order drinks on your tab, jump on you violently if another girl tries to dance with you, and go digging in your pockets as soon as you make the mistake of putting your hands on their hips. And these were just the waitresses. To them, I must look like a giant walking ticket straight out of Kisii town. The place felt seriously like what the wild west might have looked like back when cowboys ruled America. I didn’t feel like there was any semblance of a security presence here; no one to watch my back but myself and Vincent’s boys; and no purpose being outside if you could help it otherwise. We danced in the club till the sun rose and took the first matatu to Vincent’s village, in a soap-stone town called Tabaca.
I felt delirious walking the dirt road to his farm. Everybody we met was either Vincent’s uncle, brother, niece, or cousin. He hadn’t been home in three years, and here he was, with a mzungu to boot. Many of these people had NEVER seen a white person, let alone a white person walking through their town, in their lives. Can you imagine what that must feel like? I absolutely cannot. Poppa Johnson Mauruti, Vincent’s old pinstripe suit-wearing dad, shone down on us ominously as we cut through his farm to the top of the hill, where home was. David cooked me eggs with avocado and tomatoes, probably the best breakfast I’ve ever had, and in about three hours we were cooking a chicken – my KUKU Choma!! – his mom had purchased in my honor. We cut its throat, dipped it in a boiling vat, peeled the feathers and pulled the gelatinous yellow skin off its feet, then left the blood-splattered remains in the dirt for the two dogs to fight over. It was the most primal experience I’ve had in a long time, a drawn-out moment that still affects the way I think about eating meat today. It did not, however, turn me off from meat; in fact, it made me want to kill my chickens every time I choose to dine at the expense of one. We kept the ‘good guts’ for ourselves, which made for some pretty nice pictures in the cooking hut, and made ourselves a lunch so big I thought I was back in India with Alisha’s family…
David and I killed, defeathered, gutted and cooked a chicken during my stay at Vincent and his home in Kisii on July 21.
When it was time, we lifted our bodies off the grass hill and walked to the soap- and lime-stone pits, where the genesis of one of Kenya’s most recognizable artisan crafts industries can be found, in all its beautiful monotony. Machetes rise and fall on the blocks, each gripped tight by tough brown fingers, all pasted white by the pounding and flying of chalk. I bought an assortment of soap stones from Sammy, Vincent’s amazingly happy-hearted cousin, and the four of us we slept in a two-bed room in Tabaca that night that was crawling with bedbugs and cockroaches. Before Vincent and I left the next morning, Johnson gave me a plot of land behind his own home, which goes to show how much it means to them that an outsider would embrace them as family. I fully intend on one day building a home there, maybe a Maasai hut like the one we cooked our kuku choma in, or a sturdier tin-roof box like Johnson’s home. It could be a place I would send all my family and friends to if they ever travel to Kenya, where you would get the most kienyeji (local) experience possible and drink maziwa lala, or “sleeping milk” (aka milk that’s turned neon-green and yogurty) from my very own cow, which will be roaming their farm from now until eternity. Vincent and I left the next afternoon and arrived in Nairobi safely, only I was a bag full of farm-fresh produce richer and significantly better versed on life outside of Nairobi. Driving over the steep cliffs on that mountainous highway in the daylight, we finally saw what we couldn’t even grab a peek at on our trip out to Kisii: endless miles of Maasai Mara and Serengeti land sitting thousands of feet below us, where millions of animals would make their annual migrations over that sparsely vegetated land, and then scores of Maasai elders herding their cattle over dauntingly far distances to water and feeding grounds. It was a truly awe-inspiring journey that many of these guys take every day.
I kind of reflected on this impulse decision to follow Vincent home the other day and heard a small voice (probably the echos of Tegan and Ari) saying “What are you doing?! Are you crazy!!” I live on a lot of intuition I guess, and I’ll never let cautious voices drown out my desire to live my life the only way I think it’s worth living: with abandon, open to real friendships where you might not expect them, and only keeping the memorable experiences, which you can only hope are numerous. I couldn’t just take Vincent’s phone number and pretend to agree to meet him some time some day, with no intention of following through.. I went to his home and let a new family welcome me into their world; I showed him that I trusted him with my life but that I wouldn’t be bullshitted by him or his friends, many of whom were artists obviously more interested in my patronage than my friendship. I tried to surprise him by relating to him on a man to man basis, by challenging the assumed power dynamics of white man and Kenyan man, but also by letting our relationship transcend those noble-intentioned concerns at times, like when I refused to withhold my frustration at his inability to stick by an agreed plan for more than 30 seconds the last night we were in Kisii. I just think that people deserve better than to be treated with a parent’s deference, and nobody ever wants to feel patronized, even by the best-intentioned among us. I find that the most special relationships develop when we can both laugh at ourselves and each other, but by remaining conscious of the differences small and large that will always colour our interactions.
Who has difficulties forgiving others? Who has problems forgiving themselves? Do we draw the strength to do both from the same place within ourselves? We have machismo, a level of manhood to protect, right?
“Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.” - Oscar Wilde
Turning the other cheek is not in our nature, loving our enemies isn’t either, praying for our persecutors, who does that? None of it is possible through our inner strength (at least for now), but with our higher power, we can achieve such a level of humility and forgiveness in our lives and allow recovery to take root. True forgiveness only occurs when we treat the subject as a closed matter. If we bring up old hurts whenever feelings fly, then we have never really forgiven. To hold a grudge is to build a wall between yourself and another person. Forgiveness breaks down walls. A higher power came to break down walls and lead people to reconciliation. Before true healing could occur though, we had to let loose of all old hurts and start our day afresh. Because it is a daily matter, if you make it so. We don’t want our life collapsing on us from behind. Forgiveness gives us the clean start we need to heal all wounds. With the help of the higher power, we grew closer than ever before.
My short life in Nairobi has yet to compose a series of events as eclectic as today’s. Follow along for a small insight into the minutia of this little world I inhabit.
10am: Rachel Tegan and I had a morning meeting at Nakumatt Junction supermarket and mall, the posher sister of the Nakumatt Prestige near our home. Hot Sun Films was across the coffee table sharing ideas about our (working/potential) future plans to make amani films and peace photography together. The two we met were wonderful, both intriguing personalities in their own very different ways, and there was much to agree on and leave the meeting excited about. HSF is the film school in Kibera with whom we may travel the country and premier their new film, Togetherness Supreme. A big hello to my Vancouver people because this film is simply amazing, and will potentially have its Vancouver premiere at our Van Int’l Film Fest.
12pm: That was 10am. Skip to lunch, which is where I normally decide its about time for a workout, except we’re in Nairobi right and you can’t just find Fitness World on the fly? It’s been 4 long days since my arrival and I finally found my gym. Andre the Dutchman’s gym. King Kong was there too. Let me elaborate…
Andre is a giant, but stockier and far whiter than King Kong. King Kong is an intellectual, a deep thinker, one who spreads his wisdom on the art of boxing by twisting his thick neck and masticating his words as he tosses them at you over his shoulder. While urinating. But Andre showed King the ropes at his gym in Adams Arcade, and the chap went on to become the Heavyweight Champion boxer of East Africa. He’s a big boy, and Andre, as I already said, is no wet napkin himself. Hopefully I’ll be as successful at whatever I dedicate my energies to in life as Andre and Kong.
1pm: My workout was great but the better part came after, when a crew of Andre’s best Muy Thai fighters, kick-boxers, and classic 12-round boxers, Kong included, ascended to the upper floor to entertain a local TV camera crew here to make some news. While they did their burpees, high-jumps, and knee-to-nose devastators, I decided I’d blend in – or not – but still pull out my own pointer and shoot some pictures too.
Actually, Kong Andre and I had a great time chatting over the two hours I was there. I’m stoked to have a gym now, and a solid group of guys to train with.
2pm: Then it was 2pm, and we went back to the iHub for the second time since yesterday. The iHub is Nairobi’s fledgling hotspot for Kenyans, expats, and NGO people working in the tech community, and currently hosts Ushahidi plus a number of groups using digital technologies – specifically crowdsourced mapping software – to change their immediate social and political environments. But our 2pm meeting with Voices of Kibera, a project of Map Kibera, was actually in Kibera, so we quickly matatu’d to Kibera and reconnected with Jamie, Josh, Anahi, and Melissa from VoK, CrisisMappers, and Ushahidi. Voice of Kibera was holding a community training session for about 30-40 residents of the area to introduce them to this new online and SMS mapping tool. The map allows Kiberans to report what’s going on in their hood, whether its violent, peaceful, newsworthy or not, health-related, or an emergency, using their cellphones. Check out this incredible MAP, which by the way is probably the resource any city planner in Nairobi would secretly turn to if they happened to be wondering what this slum of 1 million people even looks like inside.
The training wasn’t only for Kiberans, but it was largely run by Kiberans – journalists in particular, who have signed on as first-response reporters and verifiers. When the Kiberan instructors would take their groups of 10-12 curious community members through the report submission process, they spoke slowly, clearly, and in a very jargon-free way that clearly had the entire table fully engaged, even asking important questions during the instruction. That is how you bridge communication gaps between academics, techy’s, or cultural monomaths and the less-educated, less-monied, and/or less-opportunitied people they ostensibly wish to help, empower, and/or enrich.
6pm: The VoK focus groups are over, I’ve matatu’d back to the iHub and met a young boy named Mike – homeless, but with a mom he returns home to at 9pm every night… – who we might bring into one of our photography workshops, and I’d like some food beyond the minimal fruit I’ve managed to eat today. Our solution is an Indian dinner with Rachel’s old study-abroad facilitators, Donna from USA and Adoch from Uganda, the happily-married couple whose oddities extend far beyond the rare fact of their inter-ethnic, inter-continental marriage. We take a head-smashing drive over Kenya’s immaculate roads (“potholes = corruption” I want to see posted on a billboard), landing at Diamond Plaza, where the South Asians have clearly carved out their gustatory niche. But nothing is very Indian about this dining experience, from the layout of the dining area (multiple tables under canapes extending from food-court-esque kitchens, with a parking area in the middle of the complex, like drive-in dinners), to the service (serving one dish at a time at first – a pair of papadums without sauce). Donna tells fascinating stories about the Masai she’s worked with and the new set of tribal customs they’ve recently adopted, turning such things as domestic violence, pin-prick female castration, and wife-swapping into punishable or condemnable offenses. Hopefully I’ll have more on that for you soon. Eugenia and Amalia, two friends from Tufts who are both living here in Nairobi together working on their own awesome initiatives, joined us as well for a feast masterfully selected by Adoch (pronounced “Ah-doche” with a hard ending on the ‘ch’).
12am: I’m writing this blog, though I should be doing a couple other things, but I enjoy capturing these moments and continue as if the clock didn’t tick. It’s twelve-thirty now, and I think I’ll get some sleep… It was nice chatting, g’night.
Today the Sisi ni Amani team spent our twelve hour layover between NYC and Nairobi in London, and we had the always-pleasurable experience of being hosted by who else but Adam White, our amazing Tufts mentor/friend and our favorite person currently residing in Europe. Aside from a lot of sun-drenched walking through London’s many beautiful and populated parks and squares, we had a great conversation at brunch in Hyde Park that allowed us to recalibrate our thinking on Sisi ni Amani’s fundamental purpose, goals, means, and assumptions.
Rachel and Adam celebrate our decision to skip Buckingham Palace… I marvel at hordes of pink-polo’d Korean students
We first discussed the state of Ushahidi, the crowdsourcing platform that allows individuals, groups, or pretty much anybody to collect information “from the crowd” and place it on an interactive and visually pleasing map, with additional tools for categorizing and time-lining the data. Ushahidi, we should remind ourselves (and Ory O, co-founder of Ushahidi, stated this powerfully herself at the World Bank Innovation Fair in South Africa last April), is purely a tool that allows us to collect the information we need to do our most important work: providing Kenyan peace leaders with the information and access they may or may not want to connect with one another in a secure Sisi ni Amani Peace Workshop or independently on their own terms. It’s a 21st century tool that nobody had access to on a mass scale prior to 2008; by virtue of this fact alone, it adds a brand new, and hopefully powerful, dimension to the daily efforts of the Kenyan peace movement’s many small and larger-scale leaders to change the world they live in. It allows us to gather information about peace-promoting activities that otherwise might never surface at the municipal, regional, or national levels on which we operate, and relay that information to others in the network who want new ways and new partners in their efforts to improve their country. But on a tree diagram, the creation of an Ushahidi peace map falls further down the stump of importance than, say, the tangible actions of bringing peace leaders together or enabling Kibera’s youth to photo-document their lives through the lens of peace. When the organizer of an inter-tribal youth soccer league and the leader of a women’s domestic violence-prevention group join forces in strategizing for peace for the first time ever, or when a young girl snaps her first ever photograph and sees that picture stimulate a dialogue in her community on the importance of bridging the local cleavages that threaten to beget violence, the service provided by Sisi ni Amani will be felt immediately.
So I’ll ask you to consider this question: is peace mapping for peace mapping’s sake justified or worthwhile? Since the beginning of advanced civilization, from the Chinese imperial empire’s attempts to conduct a census in 5 AD to the mind-boggling attempts by social network mappers today to visualize the ways humans interact beyond the boundaries of geography, the creation of maps has been essential to our understanding of the places we live. I am the most avid example of modern man’s reverence for maps you will find – especially pretty maps, whose pleasurable intricacies flick on in our minds a curiosity and insatiable want for the information and beauty contained within. A project we at Sisi ni Amani and Digital Democracy have in the pipeline is a crowdsourced platform for mapping oligarchies around the world, particularly in the developing countries where these oligarchs disproportionately wield the levers of politics, markets, and social influence, often with dire consequences for the institutions and economic growth of their own countries. We’ll call it the Oligarchipedia and let any citizen with credible information map and expose the power-brokers and networks whose daily and public lives are almost always embroiled in corruption, political jockeying, and all manners of intrigue familiar to the common man. This has been a digression, but watch for more on the Oligarchipedia in a future blog post by me. For now, suffice it to say that we at Sisi ni Amani are in utmost favor of maps like Ushahidi when they combine appeal and important data to catalyze action, understanding, and new-media literacy among a constituency of citizens working to effect social change.
So why question the centrality of our map to the fulfillment of Sisi ni Amani’s core vision of peaceful elections in 2012, and the strengthening of Peace’s underlying infrastructure in Kenya more broadly? Because as the first group of people to ever try mapping peace for peace, our analysis of our efforts might prove more important for Kenyans and technology-curious peace-activists all over the world than anything else we accomplish while in Kenya. Investigating the stories behind each incoming text message could produce fascinating insights into the use of technology for mobilizing social agents – from where, a violence-prone or stable community? from whom, a young boy or a politician? how many, part of a cluster or the lone text within 50 miles? – but the resulting map won’t shed much light onto the actual number of peace initiatives in an area (and the obvious progression in thought being the amount of violence in that area). Because it maps reports and not cases, our map will illuminate more about the texting-habits of Kenyans by region rather than the bigger, more important question of why area x is violent but has so much peace, or so little peace, or none apparently at all.
Moreover, Ushahidi actually mapped various peace initiatives during its original crisis map of the Kenyan 2007/8 post-election violence, and although it clearly didn’t feel the need or have the capacity to map every single instance of peace in the country at that time, it basically mapped peace for peace-mapping’s sake. While the information we intend to have mapped within 6 months will provide a powerful narrative of ‘the other side’ of peace, hope, and conciliation in a country otherwise scarred by recent and intense violence, and provide an invaluable repository of information for youth, journalists, NGOs, and peace activists who want to connect with the courageous leaders profiled on our map, it will always be just a map, incapable of surpassing the collective force of the Kenyans who strive to live and breath the air of non-violence, internal balance, and love. But when you combine such a strong visual collective of crowd-fed information with the human networking we hope to catalyze with our grassroots partners in the Kenyan peace movement, this map will become a powerful force for social change indeed.
Today I leave for Kenya! Flight no. 2 on Virgin Atlantic airlines, that great subsidizer of Sir Richard Branson’s atmospheric gallivanting. As I sit here with Rachel Brown, my whirlwind of a companion and Sisi ni Amani co-founder, in the overflow seating area of New Jersey Airport’s most-unglamorous food court, the thousands of moving elements that give this project its sustenance and shape seem to have miraculously come together for one collective hop in Kenya’s direction.
Cody and Rachel smile the night before leaving NYC for London/Nairobi!
For Sisi ni Amani, this is the crossroads of theory and action, planning and implementing, the drawn-out moment where scheming and dreaming will soon become assessing and adapting. For me, this move to Kenya will take my own maxims and truths for a ride with countless unknown others – and in the way that thesis meets antithesis to create synthesis, which becomes the next thesis to start the process anew, I may wander so far astray off the path that you might not recognize parts of me when we meet again. Who knows. Kenya might change me in flashes – like at my first breath inside Kibera slum, my first tinge of slight disgust inside the USAID suburbia complex, a pickpocketing, a Masai wedding, all powerful moments on their own – or it could shock me with just one great moment of cataclysm (pray not) or elation… or I could overlook the changes taking place within me entirely like a frog slowly, happily boiling in water, but be affected in good ways and bad all the same. I, of course, am anticipating nothing but incredible personal growth from this journey. I can finally say that after 10+ long months of planning, from that very moment on Rachel Brown’s Couch, Tufts University, when Sisi Tunaenda Kenya (“We Go To Kenya”… follow the progression) was decided, to this moment now, a small dream long and lovingly sat-on now assuming life-form, Sisi ni Amani feels it’s prepared to brighten the lives of good people in a powerful way.
Cody and Tegan before departing from NYC!
Tegan Bukowski joined Rachel and I in NYC yesterday on the last of three days self-organizing with Digital Democracy’s staff, which took us on a lovely transit between a Brooklyn neighborhood of Polish immigrants and hipsters (pass no judgement, we remind ourselves), and south-central Manhattan’s Chelsea area, the location of DigiDem’s shoebox-sized office. We used the first of our funds raised at Inspire Change, our Vancouver fundraiser held on June 24 at the Buschlen Mowatt Art Galleries, to purchase the equipment for our photo workshops and the development of our peace mapping initiative. It’s definitely exciting to literally have the tools in our bags to finally carry through the activities I’ve spoken so much about. Another development we’re looking forward to concerns a global grassroots mega-project being produced by producer Ridley Scott called Against All Odds, which will be a compilation of hand-held video recordings documenting a single moment in time on July 24 from all corners of the world. They’ve asked Digital Democracy to contribute footage from, where else, but Kenya! That means we’ll be receiving video cameras in Kenya after our arrival to capture some powerful footage of Kenyans simply being Kenyan. Look forward to updates from me about Against All Odds in the near future!
“Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way… Love, compassion, altruism are the fundamental basis for peace. Once these qualities are developed within an individual, he or she will create an atmosphere of peace and harmony. This atmosphere can be expanded and extended from the individual to the family, from the family to the community, and eventually to the whole world.” - The Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize
“Totalitarianism is the institutionalization of resentment.” - Jan Gross, author, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
Resentment
I want to talk about the notion that the political emotion of resentment, which often manifests itself in an eruption of political violence, is perhaps a necessary tool of the resistance of ‘encamped peoples’ to their perceived oppressor. I can only draw upon my experience working and living with men who, through their years of drug addiction and destructive lifestyles, have done to themselves what no human, gang, or state-sponsored military could ever do to destroy and tear apart an individual, either through an attack on their physical being or on their souls. The distinction between the men and women of the world who suffer under state-oppressive forces – which, we cannot forget, attack the psychology of a people as forcefully as they attack their persons – and those whose drug addictions push them into a destructive spiral towards death, an effective ‘self-encampment,’ is that the latter have no recourse of solidarity in the world as they fall into the isolated self-loathing of their addiction. Revolutionaries revel in the thrill of their fight. There is no pride to be shared with one’s fellow addict, no enemy to resist but oneself, and no forgiving oneself for the utter abomination one has made of the life they often feel they don’t deserve.
This is as far as the two are distinct. Both groups have enemies that they must overcome, but particularly difficult for the addict is the fact that the enemy cannot be defeated, removed, or even resisted. The enemy of the addict is the addict himself. The addict must not only score a temporary moral victory over his inner ‘addict’ by entering into a period of physical detox at the beginning stages of his treatment (his path back to sanity) – the parallel with an oppressed people being the striking effects of violent displays of protest – but he must quickly find a way to recognize andlet go of his resentments towards himself - the process of embracing, and ultimately loving himself, his enemy – if he has anychance of surviving. I saw men come and go through the ‘spiritual kindergarten’ of narcotics anonymous without ever giving themselves the chance to reconcile with their pasts or expunge the demons of their inner self, and thus deny themselves the ability to transcend their spiritual void and achieve a higher spiritual outlook on life, free of all resentments. “Packing R’s” is the term these men use on a daily basis for building up resentments and storing them in their mental repositories, where they fester and grow until they reemerge with force to throw the addict back into active addiction. What reemerges is conflict and perpetual hate. The outcome of resentment for the addict is death. What is the outcome for those of us fortunate enough not to have active and life-threatening addictions when we fail to let go of our resentments?
It takes a tremendous amount of spiritual fortitude to embrace one’s enemy with love and not enmity. This is not inimical to fighting for one’s right to live in freedom; in fact, this is the onlyun-repressible route to this end. I hope the confluence between these two ideas is clear. But when violence is carried out in the name of an underlying resentment, whether in response to a perceived wrong or out of one’s own reckless volition, we should ask the hard question of how much of that aggression is really directed at ourselves.
brown warthogs rustling in the tall grass had my name and number. I also participated in the slaughter of a big Kenyan chicken, which I cooked over an open fire for my new Kenyan family. And after taking a drink called Chang’aa, a locally-distilled version of vodka, and reading the next day’s headlines that 17 people were killed taking the same drink in Kibera, I am happy to be living and well right now. (A caveat: theirs was laced with methanol by a cheap pub owner. Mine was made by poppa Johnson at his farm).
[22.08.10]