I Have An Uncle in Eighth Grade ...

So I'm at my uncle's house. Several of my uncles are around, and it's a pretty standard gathering of uncles. All of them are about the same age. All of them like to tell stories about times when they used to be full of energy and when things were "different" (of course they were).

A young lady, probably around 25 years old, walks up to my dad from the road. About a minute later, my dad summons me.

"This is my cousin."

Wait a minute. I paused for a minute because I wasn't sure exactly how to proceed with my line of questioning. It crossed my mind for a moment that I should just accept the relationship and carry on with the day. But that moment didn't last long.

"You can't just drop that and not give an explanation," I said. "You are clearly not even close to the same age. How can you two be cousins? Or, I get it, you're an African cousin in the way that close friends and neighbors that you grew up with can be cousins, right?"

Wrong. It turns out that my dad's mom and her dad are brother and sister. But how? My quick calculus determined that if my grandmother is conservatively 100 years old, and her brother is roughly in the same age bracket, that would mean that my dad's cousin was born to a father that was between 70 and 80 years old. Unbelievable.

But obviously the story doesn't end there. My 25 year old aunt tells me that her youngest brother is in eighth grade. You do the math. That means my uncle is in the eight grade. And it's not because he can't pass classes. It's because he's 13 years old. I'm almost 20 years older than him. Which could very well mean that at the age of 80-something, this man was still having children. I think I'll be turning to some other hobbies at that age, like tai chi or denture cleaning.

Now for the explanation. My dad's uncle had multiple wives. So my youngest set of uncles and aunts were from his last marriage. So has children who are my dad's age, and a child who is in the eighth grade. And there you have it ... the story of my uncle in the eighth grade.

Crazy Conversion Stories (cont'd)

A few posts ago, I wrote about my grandmother converting to Christianity. I said that once I found out how and why she transitioned from her initial impression of Europeans to converting to Christianity, I would let you all know. So I’m about to let you in on the additional nuggets of information she bestowed on me.

This time I skipped the small talk. I grabbed my cousin and said, “This is what you are going to ask her for me.” A minute later, we sat down across my grandmother and my cousin laid out the question. I had no idea how she was going to react.

It turns out that my grandmother did not decide to convert to Christianity. It was a decree issued to all the people in the area. She said, “We did not have a choice.” Additionally, not only was everyone to convert to Christianity, but everyone was also supposed to start wearing Western clothing. What was the local attire before? Great question. Women were topless, and the rest of the clothing was generally made of goat skins.

I think that it is necessary to frame this transformation in another way so that the craziness of the situation can be properly digested. Most of you reading this have worn some combination of shoes, pants, dresses, t-shirts, etc. for as long as you can remember. Now imagine that someone walked into your neighborhood and said that the following executive decree has been issued: From now on, everyone must go shirtless and wear goat skin for added coverage.

Most likely, you would think that the person issuing the decree was out of his or her mind. But this is what happened to my grandmother’s generation. Someone tried to mandate the wearing of crazy-looking foreign clothes. And the locals did it. Not even a generation later, people walking around wearing traditional attire were the weird ones.

Today, this sort of drastic transformation would be considered highly irrational and may even warrant someone getting checked into a psychiatric ward. Imagine if you went home for the holidays and your mother had just decided to start going topless and wearing goat skin bottoms. And then she explains that the catalyst for her change was these very interesting purple people who moved in down the street who wear goat skins. At minimum, you would probably have a very serious family discussion -- also known as an intervention. But for some reason, when religion was involved, this sort of behavior was seemingly rational. Go figure.

And that was just the beginning. When my parents were growing up, they would not be allowed to attend school unless they also attended Sunday School every week. Locals knew prayers in English before they could even speak English. Effectively, within one generation, the Europeans who came to the area succeeded in many ways at making the locals into replicas of what they considered “civilized” people. This is not necessarily an indictment of religion. However, it does raise serious questions about how the psyche of a people are affected by virtually adopting another culture wholesale. Rarely does this formula -- one culture trying to mimic another -- result in successful, independent societies. Rather, dependence seems to be the lasting legacy. If you think about it, locals were not dependent on foreign aid and sources until foreigners started trying to shape African societies in the mold of their societies. Of course you would need endless assistance if your goal was to become something that was once completely alien to you. Africans have never been, and will never be, as good at being European as Europeans. Along the same lines, perhaps one of the inherent flaws with African development is that Africa continues trying to replicate something that it is not. Or maybe a better question is: What is Africa now?

Certainly there is some good that comes out of interaction with other cultures. But when one culture so disproportionately adopts the way of life of another culture, surely confusion will follow. And let me be frank, confusion has followed and it remains.

This model of copying all things foreign can be seen throughout post-colonial Africa, from the organization of public institutions to simple things that were non-existent in communities a century ago that are now the norm -- like hair-straightening.

Don’t be too surprised if the next time you see me I’m wearing goat skins. I’ll just be getting back in touch with my roots. Or maybe I'll be wearing this ...

Everyone Relaxes On The Coast

New Years was spent at the Coast. Mombasa. South Coast. The picture above isn't representative of the beaches in Mombasa. The lax demeanor of my furry friend, however, is indicative of the laid back environment. I was looking at him and thinking, "Do something!" But it was a bit too hot. He looked back at me as if he was saying, "Hell no. Why don't you do something!"

To be honest, some of those frequenting the beach were just as hairy as my buddy in the picture. Pictures of East African beaches to follow ...

Obama - The Musical

I'm headed to the beach for a few days, so this is the last post until Friday. Feel free to return then for more updates. I will have plenty to share.

But, in the meantime, many of you are wondering about Obama Fever over here. Well, here's an ad in a major newspaper for Obama - The Musical. I would love to see this. It could potentially be highly entertaining in a humorous way. I'm hoping that there is a new version every few months. Perhaps, Obama - The Musical: Dealing with Terroism, then Obama - The Musical: Recession or Depression, then Obama - The Musical: Healthcare Reform. You get the idea.

Kenyans love them some Obama. Hopefully a soundtrack follows. Watch this space.

More Debriefing of a Very Old Grandmother

It takes more than one person to have an opinion. -- Juju (My translation: A strong opinion can only be formed after hearing the perspectives of others.) Juju means grandmother in Kimeru. She just keeps dropping these nuggets of knowledge in the middle of stories. I can't wait until I can start doing that.

So, 1901.

My grandmother remembers 1901 as the year when she first saw a white man in the area. Later it turns out, he was actually Indian. The name they called him translates into the Wanderer because that’s just what he did, wander. Settlers have to actually settle in an area. When they saw the wanderer, they would run home and tell their parents that they saw God. Parents would sacrifice a goat each time this happened. I’m quite pleased that this practice has stopped considering how many Indians inhabit Kenya, let alone the earth. We’d probably be out of goats, and that would be a bad thing for Kenyans and my diet.

I asked my grandmother the logical follow-up question. What did she think the first time that she saw a white person. She said that she thought they were unhealthy and weak. She thought that if you just swatted them they would run away like a chicken. She actually said, “run away like a chicken.” A literal chicken. I tried this yesterday and it did not work. I just got stared at like I was crazy. But, when in Rome, right? She also thought that if you pinched a white person, his/her skin would fall off.

At least nowadays, if someone hasn’t seen a person of a different color before, they’ve at least seen them on television, a newspaper, book, or magazine. In Africa today, there are probably few places where they haven’t seen white people, and many where people rarely see white people. Largely because Jesus Christ has been almost everywhere. And where missionaries have left an area, there remain pictures of that long-haired white Jesus Christ all over churches, bibles, and matatus (the local minivan public transport system). So even though the people in an area may not know any white people first-hand, they still worship one as the son of God. What effect does this have on people? I’m almost sure that it does have one that I’ll explore in a subsequent post.

My grandmother was an early convert to Christianity. It will be interesting to hear how and why my grandmother transitioned from her initial impressions of white people to being converted by them in a relatively short period of time. Once I know (and get to a computer), so will you.

The Grandmother Continues to Amaze

My grandmother knows a lot. She knew that President Kibaki was in Mombasa for the holidays. Most of the rest of us, even those relatives who live in Nairobi, didn’t. She knew that there was a coalition government in Kenya. She advised that the Commission looking into the events that took place after the Kenyan elections earlier this year should take place outside of Kenya because a domestic Commission would be susceptible to corrupting influences. She asked why someone would fly planes into buildings in America. She said the new President of America is a Luo. Obama’s dad was a Luo from Western Kenya. (And then she asked if the white people really allowed a black person to rule them. I told her that many people of all colors voted for him to be their next leader. I also told her that people of all colors voted for him not to be their next leader. After all that she's seen in her over century of living, I can't even comprehend how she processes this recent development.)

Now let me put this into perspective. My grandmother cannot read or write. She is illiterate, as are most people that she grew up with largely because there were no schools for them to attend when they were young, at least the way we think of formal schooling today. She can’t read the paper, doesn’t have a television or a computer, and doesn’t listen to the radio. As a matter of fact, I remember when she got electricity. Before that, we would have to use kerosene lamps when it got dark. The same lamps that my parents used to do their homework. Up until relatively recently, her only option was to get information the old fashion way.

Her world is surrounded by several acres of animals, corn, tea, coffee, banana trees, orange trees, and more tea, corn and coffee. So the extent of her knowledge beyond her immediate world amazes me.


To walk to her house, which she and many of her children have had to do over the course of their lives, you would have to walk over an hour down a dirt road that runs off the tarmac road.



Ask someone what the name of the road is and they’ll laugh at you. The road doesn’t have a name. You just have to know where to turn. Walking at night, you’re basically walking in pitch black becasuse there are no street lights. Technically, there are no streets. If you’re lucky enough to be driving by car at night down one of the dirt roads, you’ll see figures passing you by sans light and wonder, “How in the hell do they find their way around?” I guess we’re all creatures of habit, and I‘m just fortunate enough to live in a place where streetlights are the habit. Or would I rather be less “fortunate” and be fortunate enough to live near my grandmother? These are life’s quandaries.

The area that my grandmother lives in is a relatively wooded area from which you have a beautiful view of Mount Kenya when it is clear outside. The area used to be densely wooded, and was frequently used by Mau Mau freedom fighters to hide from the British during the fight for Kenyan independence.


As you can tell from the pictures below, there isn’t much to distinguish one hill from the next rolling hill.




You get places because you know where you are going, not because of road signs or GPS navigation systems. If you get dropped off around here in the dark and think you can find your way out to a main road, I hope your first name is Bear and you host Man vs. Wild. Otherwise, best of luck to you.

I’ve grown up in the States with a concept of the middle of nowhere. Yet, in all my travels across six continents, I’ve never been anywhere inhabited by people more in the middle of nowhere than this place. But for some time, it hasn’t been nowhere. It's somewhere. It's my roots. Over the years I have become intimately familiar with various shortcuts around these dirt roads. But drop me off in the dark on one these roads, and I’d never find my way out without assistance. To think that my parents made it out of this nowhere to the States is pretty mind-boggling each time I come back. I often feel like if I had grown up in their shoes in the 1940s and 50s, I would have been a huge success if I had just heard of this America place. Stories just don’t do their journey justice. You’ve got to see where it started to fully appreciate it.

As we pulled on to my grandmother’s land, the place looked deserted. Our visits are typically unannounced to avoid unwanted guests who may show up to get Christmas. Christmas is what a guy asked for this afternoon, and what he meant was "some money". “Can I have some Christmas?” You are destined to encounter a few people who tangentially know somone you know who will ask for something like Christmas because in their eyes, you made it to America. It’s a strange feeling to be stared at celebrity-style when all that I’ve done is be born in the States, which may arguably be fortunate, but certainly is not a testament to any particular skill that I have. By now, however, I'm oddly accustomed to the looks from the numerous times I've been back to Kenya. I know ... I keep getting sidetracked.

We parked and saw my uncle standing on the cusp of the corn field. He came out said hello. Then we saw my aunt who emerged from the kitchen. (Here's a picture of my grandmother's kitchen just so you know where my aunt emerged from.)



So where’s my grandmother? Shouldn’t this dear old lady be crumpled up on a bed being spoon fed and reminded about the good old days? Not a chance. She's in the coffee fields working. I mean you just can’t script this stuff.

We found my grandmother in the coffee field supervising workers picking coffee.


(She's the one on the right with the walking stick)

Here’s a woman who is at least 106 years old (see the 1901 comment below -- I now suspect that she might be older), outside instructing people what to do, how much they can expect to get paid, and then staying outside to supervise. She was sitting on the ground on an empty coffee sack with her walking stick laying next to her. We walked up to her and greeted her in Kimeru. Her face lit up. It’s rare that my presence makes an old person happy. But it also could have been my parents’ or my brother’s presence. I’m thinking it was probably the cumulative effect. Anyway, I hope that our random surprises don't cause her heart problems in the future. I’d feel pretty guilty about that.

She reached for my hand. I helped her up, handed her the walking stick and off she went unassisted to tell the workers that she would be back. Then, back to the house with us in tow.

We sat down for a few minutes in her living room. Suddenly, she grabbed her walking stick, reached for a hand to help her up, and then shuffled out of the house. After about five minutes, I started wondering where she disappeared to and scurried out of the door to go look for her. I didn’t have to go far. My grandmother was seated on a stool with about ten to twelve women sprawled out around the compound holding court. She was effectively laying down the law and distributing money. At least that's what my cousin told me. I don't know if I've mentioned this, and I don't feel like going back to check, but I don’t understand a word my grandmother says. Well, actually, I probably understand one out of about every ten words she says. She only speaks Kimeru, her local dialect. And in typical American fashion, I'm fully fluent in English, and losing what competence I had in French very quickly. So we use whoever is around and hand gestures to communicate.

So my cousin tells me that our grandmother is closing by telling the women when she expects them back, and then she heads back to me and we head indoors for her to retake her seat in the living room.

She amazes me more and more every time I see her. I’ve never seen a person so old, yet so full of life, mobile, and with a sharp memory. I can barely remember things from ten years ago, and here she is telling stories about 1901. Seriously. 1901. I'll get to that next time.

My Grandmother on Birthdays

In an earlier post, I alluded to my grandmother being old, but not knowing how old she is. The other day, she said something to the effect that there’s no reason that one needs to mark down their date of birth. According to her, at birth you have not done anything yet, so there’s not much for you to remember. In other words, a day worth marking down is the day that you contribute something. The woman is deep.

The whole grandmother-not-knowing-her-birthday thing actually explains a lot about my perspective on birthdays. In short, I don’t care for them. Never have, probably never will. I’ve pretended in the past to care, but I was just pretending. And this goes for my birthday as well as other people’s special days. My sentiments are not out of spite or a feeling that birthdays are somehow oppressive, although they can be oppressive on the pocket. My sentiments are simple. My grandmother and people of her generation did not know their birthdays. Therefore, they didn’t celebrate birthdays. My parents both know when they were born because identification cards had been introduced. But growing up with parents who didn’t have birthdays and didn’t celebrate them, they didn’t grow up thinking that their birthdays were that big of a deal. [As a side note, I’d like to do some research into whether Africans began celebrating birthdays upon conversion because they began to celebrate the birthday of Jesus, because of some marketing campaign, or for some other reason.]

Most traditions get passed down generation to generation. For instance, if your parents or, perhaps more importantly, your community didn’t pay any attention to birthdays, Valentines Day, or Halloween, most likely neither would you. Birthdays not being a huge deal was the tradition passed down to me. I do, however, remember a few makeshift celebrations when I was younger. I recall my parents half-heartedly buying me a cake to take to school just because that’s what they saw other people doing. They didn't want to completely buy in to the craze, but they didn't want me to feel left out either. But as soon as I grew old enough (around age 9) and they could tell that I wasn’t going to be seriously damaged for them not worshiping me on my birthday, the half-ass birthdays ceased. Coming to the States is a difficult thing for parents who weren’t already indoctrinated into Western ways. For them, I’m sure that the obsessive birthday culture was a bit odd.

To this day, I have a hard time telling people when it’s my birthday. Largely because, I don’t really care all that much. And no, I’m not just saying that. I love a good hang-out, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be on my birthday. It just turns out that friends who care about you will only turn up en mass if you tell some them that the gathering is in celebration of the day you were born.

I hope this doesn’t come across as me passing judgment on those who emphatically celebrate birthdays, because I’m not. It’s more of just me providing some color to explain my stance of birthdays. A few years ago, I though that my perspective on birthdays was just that, my perspective -- something that I created. After thinking through the history of birthdays throughout generations of my family, it’s clear that that my belief is something that was passed down. What other thoughts do I have that I think are mine, but are actually passed down by my grandmother and those who came before her?