Good morning!
I’m up before my apartment mates and we’ve yet to get wifi so it only seems fitting to write. The past few days have been overstimulating and I feel sensitive, or more so hyper aware to all that is going on around.
If you had told me when I was younger that when I was twenty, I would be sitting on a balcony overlooking Nairobi and sipping on hot kahawa na sukari [coffee with sugar], or that I would have a developing elementary proficiency in Swahili, or that I would enjoy baking Kenyan pastries (or just baking) at a point in my life, I’d sarcastically laugh, “K good one.” What are ovens.
Lakini, ninaisha hapa sasa [But I live here right now]. And it’s not necessarily that I wouldn’t believe that I was abroad because I’ve really always had a burning inclination to hop in planes and trains and automobiles and on bikes and climbing ropes and longboards and use my feet to get places. People call it wanderlust. My understanding of the term is that one experiences it during their youth and it only applies when you are on an adventure abroad. I’m not convinced this is just a phase.
From asserting my independence at 10 years old and telling my parents I’d be riding my bike to school then returning home around 5 because me and my biker gang had Tom Sawyer stuff to do after classes, to going on pilgrimages throughout the US with my youth group to the Navajo Nation or Heifer International Farms or to tent cities in Florida, to spending weekends among the waterfalls in the Shenandoah National Park because there was absolutely nothing to do at Mary Baldwin unless there was a Shakespeare show at the Blackfriars that we could get into for free—I don’t actually live my life any differently than I ever did.
Wanderlust is debatably a character trait. This craving for adventure can be satisfied anywhere, it is just a matter of perspective. Even in D.C. this summer, one of my bests Nicole and I made “excursions” out of the seemingly blandest things, like walking across town to cafes or skating our apartment parking lot at all hours of the night. I even considered starting my abroad blog in July. It always seems like a huge shift, sort of a vacation from student life, when I go from being an American University undergraduate in residential NW to a summer intern working blocks from the White House among the swanky young professionals. I lived in the same apartment building but instead of going right on Massachusetts Avenue, I would catch the bus to the left, headed downtown. It is the little things.
We were coming back from a market yesterday and laughing about how naps are perceived by adults and kids. For young adults, naps are this beautiful, glorious thing you hopefully get to do in the middle of the day to recharge. For kids, they are the worst. It is as if they have so much to discover and see and grasp about existence that it would be absolutely torturous if they had to sleep any bit of it away. It is like they have FOMO (fear of missing out) from living life. As frustrating as it can be when you’re babysitting a nugget who absolutely won’t go to sleep, you’ve got to appreciate their outlook. I hope to hold onto at least a sliver of this part of my youth as long as I can.
Hmm… I’m rereading what I wrote and playing self devil’s advocate. So saying everything is an “adventure” arguably reinforces the theory of “the other.” Like, “here I am on my journey and your people and way of life is just a part of my experience.” That’s not good adventuring. Without incorporating a level of immersion, which is admittedly sometimes uncomfortable, what are you even doing abroad?
This is a good segway to food. Assimilation from the inside out: aka digesting local cuisine.
Connecting food to my previous rambling about wanderlust (I don’t know why I feel the need to continuously italicize this word), I was not an adventurous eater as a kid. I ate pasta, parmesan cheese, and butter. I’m not going to lie that is still one of my favorite meals because it is my version of chicken soup, but my taste buds have grown more accepting. Instilled by my parental units, I have a strong belief that you must at least try everything. The food experience while traveling isn’t about loving everything you eat, but showing respect for the local cuisine and give it a go. And if it is absurdly disgusting (I struggle with French meats), fight your instinct to make a sour face.
On Friday, I gave a presentation on social media marketing and networking at my internship then ventured into Kibera with the crew to do some production photography for their latest short. We stopped for lunch in a roadside restaurant on the way. There was room for three tables and about 25 people if you got really cozy. The ovens and stoves were on the outside, as to not overheat the dining room. The walls and roof were made out of scrap metal and the ground was no different than the path outside.
“Welcome to Hilton Hotels Kibera,” Charles laughed as the 15 of us squeezed in.
"Thank you kind sir," I played along.
I had spent the walk there asking them about how they felt about the “Kibera slum tours”. A curious product of the tourism industry in developing countries, a few companies and organizations now offer tours of informal settlements. Kibera, being the biggest settlement in East Africa, is a desirable destination recommended in travel guides. Geared up in their hiking boots, safari hats, and cameras slung around their necks, groups are joined by armed guards on a stroll through the streets. I did not previously know that they were surrounded by armed guards, but a friend of mine who is interning throughout the districts saw a tour. In his words, there was a clump of multicultural foreigners wandering about between men with AK-47s. Maybe we don't know what these people status is, but the arms seemed unnecessary to my friend.
Based on a brief survey from the crew who all live in Kibera, there is not consensus on how community members feel about these tours. One guy gives the tours and he loves sharing with others his way of life. He wants to take me on one, because he thinks that working in there I should know more about the diverse cultures and politics of the 13 districts. One girl thinks they are a joke, another finds them obnoxious and exploitive, and a guy thinks they are good for the economy.
This guy is the same one who ordered for me at the restaurant. The waitress came for my order and with everyone’s eyes on me, my ability to order in Swahili peaced out.
“Uhhh.. Ninatoka Marekani.” [Uhh..I’m American] I stuttered. What kind of an order is that? Sometimes I just can’t hang.
So Mike cut in- “Anataka this, this, na that tafadhali” [She would like this, this, and that please]. Based on what I was given, the this and thats were chapati (a flat bread), ugali (maize meal similar to sudza), a red bean stew, and some little crunchy fishes that I can’t remember what they are called (I had actually fished for these in Zambia a few years ago but had been afraid to try them then).
It is unacceptable to not finish your plate in this part of the world (I hear, “We don’t waste food in Africa” almost daily), so I dug in. I had yet to try ugali but recognized it immediately as similar to sudza, so I glanced to my left to see if Mike was eating it with his hands as I had learned to by Ngwena a couple years ago. I really wanted to not look like dumbfounded mzungu (white person) in front of the crew. He was, so I balled a bit in my palm, dug in an indent with my thumb, then scooped up my stew, using the ugali as a spoon/bowl.
Mike and Chris were watching me and laughed, “You’ve had ugali?”
I joked, “It’s really popular in the States.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike smiled and shook his head. “Have you had [crunchy little fishies]?”
“I’ve caught them before but never tried them.” Pressure was on. He motioned to the dish: tens of full fishies, fins and all, lying dead on my plate looking up at me with their bulging eyes. Hi friends. To hide my hesitation, I plunged— balled up a wad of ugali and disproportionately scooped five little guys on.
Even in the mushy maize meal, they crunched. They have a powerful punch to them, first a wave of salt then an after taste of something like tuna. I put them under the classification of foods that I wouldn’t order, but would definitely eat if put in front of me. Other foods in this category are eggplant, zucchini, and lamb. Artists in this category are the Dixie Chicks, Madonna, and post-nineties Green Day. Movies in this category are anything with Tom Cruise, Miss Congeniality 2, and Blades of Glory.
I’m writing with all this excitement because I’m procrastinating from doing the nuts and bolts of life. AKA studying for midterms. IT IS ALREADY MIDTERMS. Our classes are jam packed in our first 7 weeks here so we can spend the months of November and December interning and attending USIU. It is an awesome schedule but that means 7.5 hours of class a day right now and midterms the last week of September.
I will spend this beautiful Sunday studying Swahili, the Social and Political History of Kenya, and outlining my second paper for Institutional Strengthening. In addition, the whole crew is gathering for a potluck tonight and my apartment designated themselves the vegetable ladies (+ mango + avocado). So we’ll have to go to a vegetable stand or the market at some point and scheme over what deliciousness we’ll be contributing. I think our plan is to buy a bunch of stuff, put it all in an oven pan, drizzle it in herb oil, coat it in lime juice, mix in some garlic, sprinkle chili flakes, rip up some cilantro, and of course, shake some salt and hopefully we’ll have a master piece. We are known as the food apartment. The other day I Skyped with my Mama and gave her a tour of our spice library. I’ve never had such good meals consistently in my life except maybe when I’m spending too much time at the Papp’s house.
“We’re all fluid, evolving works-in-progress, full of possibilities. Home is a skill, not a shoe or a puzzle. There are people and places to be called home—after effort.”
- Caley Mikesell, “Home is a Skill”
I’m up before my apartment mates and we’ve yet to get wifi so it only seems fitting to write. The past few days have been overstimulating and I feel sensitive, or more so hyper aware to all that is going on around.
If you had told me when I was younger that when I was twenty, I would be sitting on a balcony overlooking Nairobi and sipping on hot kahawa na sukari [coffee with sugar], or that I would have a developing elementary proficiency in Swahili, or that I would enjoy baking Kenyan pastries (or just baking) at a point in my life, I’d sarcastically laugh, “K good one.” What are ovens.
Lakini, ninaisha hapa sasa [But I live here right now]. And it’s not necessarily that I wouldn’t believe that I was abroad because I’ve really always had a burning inclination to hop in planes and trains and automobiles and on bikes and climbing ropes and longboards and use my feet to get places. People call it wanderlust. My understanding of the term is that one experiences it during their youth and it only applies when you are on an adventure abroad. I’m not convinced this is just a phase.
From asserting my independence at 10 years old and telling my parents I’d be riding my bike to school then returning home around 5 because me and my biker gang had Tom Sawyer stuff to do after classes, to going on pilgrimages throughout the US with my youth group to the Navajo Nation or Heifer International Farms or to tent cities in Florida, to spending weekends among the waterfalls in the Shenandoah National Park because there was absolutely nothing to do at Mary Baldwin unless there was a Shakespeare show at the Blackfriars that we could get into for free—I don’t actually live my life any differently than I ever did.
Wanderlust is debatably a character trait. This craving for adventure can be satisfied anywhere, it is just a matter of perspective. Even in D.C. this summer, one of my bests Nicole and I made “excursions” out of the seemingly blandest things, like walking across town to cafes or skating our apartment parking lot at all hours of the night. I even considered starting my abroad blog in July. It always seems like a huge shift, sort of a vacation from student life, when I go from being an American University undergraduate in residential NW to a summer intern working blocks from the White House among the swanky young professionals. I lived in the same apartment building but instead of going right on Massachusetts Avenue, I would catch the bus to the left, headed downtown. It is the little things.
We were coming back from a market yesterday and laughing about how naps are perceived by adults and kids. For young adults, naps are this beautiful, glorious thing you hopefully get to do in the middle of the day to recharge. For kids, they are the worst. It is as if they have so much to discover and see and grasp about existence that it would be absolutely torturous if they had to sleep any bit of it away. It is like they have FOMO (fear of missing out) from living life. As frustrating as it can be when you’re babysitting a nugget who absolutely won’t go to sleep, you’ve got to appreciate their outlook. I hope to hold onto at least a sliver of this part of my youth as long as I can.
Hmm… I’m rereading what I wrote and playing self devil’s advocate. So saying everything is an “adventure” arguably reinforces the theory of “the other.” Like, “here I am on my journey and your people and way of life is just a part of my experience.” That’s not good adventuring. Without incorporating a level of immersion, which is admittedly sometimes uncomfortable, what are you even doing abroad?
This is a good segway to food. Assimilation from the inside out: aka digesting local cuisine.
Connecting food to my previous rambling about wanderlust (I don’t know why I feel the need to continuously italicize this word), I was not an adventurous eater as a kid. I ate pasta, parmesan cheese, and butter. I’m not going to lie that is still one of my favorite meals because it is my version of chicken soup, but my taste buds have grown more accepting. Instilled by my parental units, I have a strong belief that you must at least try everything. The food experience while traveling isn’t about loving everything you eat, but showing respect for the local cuisine and give it a go. And if it is absurdly disgusting (I struggle with French meats), fight your instinct to make a sour face.
On Friday, I gave a presentation on social media marketing and networking at my internship then ventured into Kibera with the crew to do some production photography for their latest short. We stopped for lunch in a roadside restaurant on the way. There was room for three tables and about 25 people if you got really cozy. The ovens and stoves were on the outside, as to not overheat the dining room. The walls and roof were made out of scrap metal and the ground was no different than the path outside.
“Welcome to Hilton Hotels Kibera,” Charles laughed as the 15 of us squeezed in.
"Thank you kind sir," I played along.
I had spent the walk there asking them about how they felt about the “Kibera slum tours”. A curious product of the tourism industry in developing countries, a few companies and organizations now offer tours of informal settlements. Kibera, being the biggest settlement in East Africa, is a desirable destination recommended in travel guides. Geared up in their hiking boots, safari hats, and cameras slung around their necks, groups are joined by armed guards on a stroll through the streets. I did not previously know that they were surrounded by armed guards, but a friend of mine who is interning throughout the districts saw a tour. In his words, there was a clump of multicultural foreigners wandering about between men with AK-47s. Maybe we don't know what these people status is, but the arms seemed unnecessary to my friend.
Based on a brief survey from the crew who all live in Kibera, there is not consensus on how community members feel about these tours. One guy gives the tours and he loves sharing with others his way of life. He wants to take me on one, because he thinks that working in there I should know more about the diverse cultures and politics of the 13 districts. One girl thinks they are a joke, another finds them obnoxious and exploitive, and a guy thinks they are good for the economy.
This guy is the same one who ordered for me at the restaurant. The waitress came for my order and with everyone’s eyes on me, my ability to order in Swahili peaced out.
“Uhhh.. Ninatoka Marekani.” [Uhh..I’m American] I stuttered. What kind of an order is that? Sometimes I just can’t hang.
So Mike cut in- “Anataka this, this, na that tafadhali” [She would like this, this, and that please]. Based on what I was given, the this and thats were chapati (a flat bread), ugali (maize meal similar to sudza), a red bean stew, and some little crunchy fishes that I can’t remember what they are called (I had actually fished for these in Zambia a few years ago but had been afraid to try them then).
It is unacceptable to not finish your plate in this part of the world (I hear, “We don’t waste food in Africa” almost daily), so I dug in. I had yet to try ugali but recognized it immediately as similar to sudza, so I glanced to my left to see if Mike was eating it with his hands as I had learned to by Ngwena a couple years ago. I really wanted to not look like dumbfounded mzungu (white person) in front of the crew. He was, so I balled a bit in my palm, dug in an indent with my thumb, then scooped up my stew, using the ugali as a spoon/bowl.
Mike and Chris were watching me and laughed, “You’ve had ugali?”
I joked, “It’s really popular in the States.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike smiled and shook his head. “Have you had [crunchy little fishies]?”
“I’ve caught them before but never tried them.” Pressure was on. He motioned to the dish: tens of full fishies, fins and all, lying dead on my plate looking up at me with their bulging eyes. Hi friends. To hide my hesitation, I plunged— balled up a wad of ugali and disproportionately scooped five little guys on.
Even in the mushy maize meal, they crunched. They have a powerful punch to them, first a wave of salt then an after taste of something like tuna. I put them under the classification of foods that I wouldn’t order, but would definitely eat if put in front of me. Other foods in this category are eggplant, zucchini, and lamb. Artists in this category are the Dixie Chicks, Madonna, and post-nineties Green Day. Movies in this category are anything with Tom Cruise, Miss Congeniality 2, and Blades of Glory.
I’m writing with all this excitement because I’m procrastinating from doing the nuts and bolts of life. AKA studying for midterms. IT IS ALREADY MIDTERMS. Our classes are jam packed in our first 7 weeks here so we can spend the months of November and December interning and attending USIU. It is an awesome schedule but that means 7.5 hours of class a day right now and midterms the last week of September.
I will spend this beautiful Sunday studying Swahili, the Social and Political History of Kenya, and outlining my second paper for Institutional Strengthening. In addition, the whole crew is gathering for a potluck tonight and my apartment designated themselves the vegetable ladies (+ mango + avocado). So we’ll have to go to a vegetable stand or the market at some point and scheme over what deliciousness we’ll be contributing. I think our plan is to buy a bunch of stuff, put it all in an oven pan, drizzle it in herb oil, coat it in lime juice, mix in some garlic, sprinkle chili flakes, rip up some cilantro, and of course, shake some salt and hopefully we’ll have a master piece. We are known as the food apartment. The other day I Skyped with my Mama and gave her a tour of our spice library. I’ve never had such good meals consistently in my life except maybe when I’m spending too much time at the Papp’s house.
“We’re all fluid, evolving works-in-progress, full of possibilities. Home is a skill, not a shoe or a puzzle. There are people and places to be called home—after effort.”
- Caley Mikesell, “Home is a Skill”