Sunday 5 September 2010

1st sep

1st September

Wow ive been here in Kenya over three months (not actually three months but Ive written my blog in July, Aug and Sep now). Had the day off - my stomach was bloody killing me last night. Been trying to work out what is causing me all this jip, and I have concluded that its the water. I only drink bottled water and I am quite facetious about this actually. However, I bath with water that is collected from a well and placed in a big container over our shower and that is what drips out of the shower head when I shower. All other water that I use is boiled and so I reckon that when I shower and the water drips into my mouth that I AM BEING CONTAMINATED!!! So today i laid in bed and finished beloved (finally) man alive that book is absolutely bloody wonderful. Seriously, no wonder Toni Morrison won the noble prize for literature and numerous other awards. I think she may be the only reason that I would ever take a trip the USA. I urge you to read Beloved, and actually her other book ‘Sula’ which I managed to finish in four hours. All her books are pretty heavy and really thickly filled with metaphors, segways from the plot and lots of words that I’ve had to look up –lol but essentially good reads for example this portion of text towards the end of ‘Beloved’ I thought was beautiful; Sixo is a young man describing why he has so much love for the ‘thirty-mile’ woman, named so because that was the distance he had to travel each time just to see her.

He says, ‘She is a friend of my mind. She gathers me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is friend of your mind’.

From the book ‘Sula’ there is a conversation between the girl the book is named after and her lover, in which they are competitively comparing how much they love each other. Each trying to outdo the other with beautiful metaphors.
I quite like what Sula says, - ‘ I will put my hand deep in your soul, lift it, sift it with my fingers , feel its warm surface and dewy chill below’.

I love her lovers reply, ‘I will water your soil, keep it rich and moist. But how much? How much water to keep the loam moist? And how much loam will I need to keep my water still? And when do the two make mud?’

Sula is a literal triumph for Toni Morrison, the part of the story that really resonated with me was the part in which Sula (the kind of heroine of the book) returns back to her post slavery village, where nothing much has changed and her best friend has moved on, got married, had children and is satisfies with married life and all its mundanities. Sula, is unlike her best friend, she is educated, worldly, much travelled and open to new experiences and most important of all is constantly asking the question – ‘why’. She is rejected by her best friend and the villagers and is branded a witch for her displays of ‘unruliness’ which are actually the behaviours of an educated woman. Toni Morrision eloquently describes Sulas frustration with the ignorant happy-to-live-a-life-that-their-mothers-did-and-their-grandmothers.
It is this frustration that I carry here in Kenya and to some degree in London.
The kids here call me ‘Muzungo’ (which means white person) er because apparently I talk like a white person. I got this same ignorant bullshit when I was younger in London, after finishing my secondary education at a private school, I went to normal regular state school. Here I was ribbed for speaking ‘posh’. As this ribbing did my head in I did lose my well spoken ways sharpish, but on reflection I think, er why did I do that. Anyways how does a white person talk? Or is it that black people aren’t well spoken. Its bullshit and to have the villagers here classify me as a white person despite my appearance looking just like theirs. AND THEN this afternoon on my way to get some fried dough as a snack one of the women vendors in the village, was like ‘why don’t you have children?, you are getting old you must have a husband and children, we will find you a husband’.
Ergh this was all quite charming in the beginning but six weeks on i feel that having to explain that my education comes first because if I did have children now I wouldnt have money to raise them, has become bloody BORING. I had to really bite my tongue and not say what I really thought of Kenyan village men.
Ah slight segway, I gave a lovely girl called Victoria my Kenyan number because she asked for it as she wanted to text me and practise her English. Ok fine i thought. Until today Im getting bloody texts from Kenyan students asking me if I could help them find jobs and placements in London and asking if they could stay with me. FUME. Thankfully the mobiles here have a block number feature, and thats what I have done.
Oh back to the village women, one of the women, showed me her beautiful grandson, who was swaddled in a massive blanket despite the weather being at least 24 degrees. (I know it is winter here and it is cold (24 degrees min) compared to the temperatures that they have in the rainy season (up to late thirties) but the women here wrap their children in so much clothing, that it is no bloody surprise that there is a stigma associated with febrile convulsions, cause every bloody child gets one cause they get so bloody hot!)
Anyways this child was cute, and then its mother came along to say hello, er its mother was 15. 15 mate, mum was proud of her despite this child dropping out of school, having no money and father- long gone into the Kenyan sunset as soon as he slept with her. AND THIS I thought is the life they want for me, instead of studying? EY. I have tried on numerous of occasions to explain that an educated women is a women with choices. The choice of a good husband, the choice of a good job and the choice of her own future. Deaf ears mate, these women don’t listen and don’t have any idea, they are living the life that their mothers did and their mothers before their mothers did. No ambition, or ambition stifled by the harsh reality of life. The excitement of feeling wanted by some Kenyan male whose only ambition is to have his way with as many women as he can. -Without condoms, without the fear, or even knowledge of STIS, HIV being something that, cant happen to him cause he is strong. This excitement is overwhelming for adolescent Kenyan men (and women all over) but nine months later is replaced by sadness as children bring joy, but children need clothes, food, clean water, vaccinations and medication when they are sick most of which a mother n poverty cannot provide.
These very same women, ask me to give them money.
‘Help me feed my baby’, they say.
‘You are rich’ they say.
‘Can I have your clothes’ they say.
Their eyes plead with me to buy the fly ridden food they sell on the roadside, as I walk to work.
Some wont talk to me if I buy food from another women.
Some make jokes with me, hoping that at the end of my laughter I will empty my purse into their hands.

These same women look down on me because I speak like a white person, dress like a boy have no husband or children, but will beg for money from me. It is so confusing.

Anyhow, I do have some village female friends and I really appreciate them. My neighbour lets me play with her children, we chill and talk about life. Today I actually managed to get her 9 month old son to repeat dada.

So the book ‘Sula’ made me think –what is my identity. Who am I. Stuck between two cultures, not feeling a part of either but not really wanting to either. In a world that is becoming ever more multicultural, children being born with families from numerous countries. Life isn’t as simple as black and white people. Black and white culture. Speaking like a black or white person. I cant explain this to the village women, I really want to open their eyes and perhaps initiate change or help them to think about change, but they have resided to living the way life has always been. Complaining but not changing. Im not the first medical student to reside in this village. I know that they would have conversed with other similar black females like me and so I feel that there is no excuse for this perpetuation of ignorance.

The worse feeling is knowing that change is possible, but being unable to propagate it despite really really wanting to.

Oh on a lighter not. My bum hole is well fucking itchy. Like itchy and sore. I think i have worms.

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