No writing for very long; so I will throw out a bit from mud hut life in Kenya, Africa; unedited fragments from time 1992-1994:
And what is my mind? This never ending race of thoughts, reacting, thinking of plans for the future, analyzing the past, on and on and click! It is an illusion.
Once was is. Is to be is to flee. The grasp of knowledge.
To seek or not to speak, that is the question?
A passing car. Did I hear it or not?
Voices out my isolated grass hut, the sound of a cow mulching out my window. Miles Davis on the audio, thinking of 'Days of Wine and Roses', Mack the Knife, people have always been the same. Happy and bad times, we must look on the good.
It is solemn and quiet. The sound of dry leaves blowing over a white painted porch in late autumn. The crisp breeze against the face.
A stretch to the sky unbothered. A dog to greet. Africa.
On a plane of peace, and my feet in a stream, a valley, tall grass thick in their greenness, families on the hill picking tea, a green fish pond, birds, small dashes of yellow or black, a mini Teradactaline green and maroon with long feathers glides to a stop. Two big cranes with white wingspan, coast to the tops of trees. Goats on hind legs, sheep, cows dashing in hedges, chickens of all variations.
An old man and a cane, a group of school kids, two cows and a four-year-old herder, a boy with a stick and sometimes rock. The path is well traveled.
The voices.
...
and no idea.
Silence in my head and face. A beautiful night to see the stars.
Negative interpretations. Reading body motions and cadence of sound. Whisper to me in and out.
I will put you in a tree or bush. A bird may take you away to a trout in a stream. Then to the pan of Mr.
Devon Milbrest, a shoe salesman from Denver, whose trash is picked up by a dog Spinner. Spinner takes home the fish remains, where a cat gets, bites man serving papers, who dies.
My second meeting with the traditional herbalist - witchdoctor?
A regular mzee with his bag of tricks. Tricks or treats? The oldest con game known to man?
I will know soon. Yet an interesting experience. Tree bark in water.
Tree ash in can to be mixed with water in old gin bottle and corncob cork given to me to heal a bad back. Muma took me to the wooden shack behind the butcher shop after hours by lantern and the little man with quick gait and shining eyes, blue golf hat; a respected village herbalist.
Warning.
‘Do not touch Tina. (Neighbor lady). She has something that can change your blood, or seeing.
That thing cannot be cured by medical. Cured by traditional mamas. Wear red, no worries.
Touch or allow her to step on you or through your hands. If you get it, you can tell by looking at your hand, see those things which were around you coming to your hands like a mirror, get a thorn and beat her anywhere until the blood comes out.’ Edward Magori told me on Nov 20, 93.
Note: On Dec 2 93, I wrote as told: ‘Tina was sent home. She looked at a child and the child fell sick, swelling stomach, crying. Sent home to be washed instead of being killed or beaten bitterly.
Washing is for removing evil spirits--goat is killed, skin of goat wraps her, traditional medicine, stopping her from eating goat meat.’
The police is on..
or is it Sting? A nice pace to conclude the evening, potatoes and bananas boiling for dinner. The sound of children laughing and the frisbee’s thud to the ground.
Tina, Nashie, Osoro playing in the small cow pasture, some yellow dried bean husks bundled in the corner. A beautiful young woman named Rosa, with an empty bottle comes for milk at the Mabira compound where I am guest.
I thought of something about home today.
Feeding the cat; all they need here are scraps. Yet in the US, there are twenty brands of cat food and all the accessories. If anything, Americans are the ultimate consumers and are lured into buying many things that could be said to be excessive or unnecessary.
Kenyans have taught me, the lack of necessities ‘necessary’ to many Americans. I always used to joke with my friends in America; Why the need for so much soap? Dishwashing soap, dishwashing detergent, chrome cleaner, tile cleaner, body soap, face soap, shampoo, shaving cream, conditioner, soap for the car, window cleaner.
It is amazing the excess and created demand, spurned on by P G and marketers. In Kenya, you go to the general store and they cut off a piece from a long yellow stick of soap that is used to clean the body, clothes and the dishes. I needed a broom when I first came to Rigoma; Kenyan’s solution is a branch from a tree, and it works perfectly.
Need a knife? How about a large nail hammered at the end and sharpened? How frickin’ beautiful!
The good question to me is how advanced are we really as a civilization in the West in terms of waste and excess. Where does all the plastic go? And the trees, and the additional income needed to earn the money to pay for excess?
How manipulated are we as a whole in thinking we need so much in the first place. It comes down to jobs, I know, and this is the great paradox. Call it a mutually dependent society based on irresponsible consumption.
Americans, the Ultimate Consumers,
Created demand by advertisers,
Tell me what I need?
Simplicity of working on insecurities,
Bad breath, soiled clothes, yellow teeth,
Bathing; Soap, Shampoo, Conditioner, Crème Rinse,
toothpaste, toothbrush, mouthwash, shaving cream, after-shave,
Household; Dishwashing detergent, Dishwashing soap, tile cleaner,
window cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, chrome cleaner,
How about just soap and elbow grease?
God bless Thoreau and Walden,
Simplicity of life.
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.”
“Shall we always study to obtain more of those things, and not be sometimes content with less?
”
“The state endeavors to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which result from the use of excess things.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.’
James, Varieties of Religious Experiences
14 Dec 93.
Today, Bosco (my beloved dog) was pronounced dead this morning. Yet, I checked on him at 11am, and something urged me to not give up. I have brought him home, as he lies on the ground, under the shade of trees, spinning in circles, crying.
I have given him perhaps two gallons of water, and am encouraged. It has seemingly purged his system, as he throws up yet is in very bad shape. Yet, there is life in him now, and if he can live on liquids, milk and soup, he may just make it.
Violent convulsions, Johnny Menta, nearby watching. I thought Bosco was going to see his maker. Now he rests, his eyes glazed, he is in a bad way.
Now Bosco is yelping in such great pain, with the screams of kids playing beyond, the twangy sound of the Gusii radio, the loud moos of cows. I hear a woman wailing on a kid with a long stick. The sounds are enough to drive one mad.
I am dirty as shit, no water to clean myself, and my dog is dying.
A haunting story. Getting involved in euthanasia with my dog.
Overdose of chemical. Comatose with interspertent circles and head slams, bitter crying moaning, his sounds outside my hut. Two attempts to suffocate him, three hours later, moans, it is killing me.
I cannot kill him. Neighbor visitors enter, pronounce a friendly death, THE HAMMER OF MY ATTEMPTS. Hell.
Darkness of darks. His moans are haunting me. The worst night of my life.
Tried to kill Bosco. Evil barks in retaliation, gathering strength. The neighbors know what I tried to do.
Howling now. I yell, ‘someone kill him’. I am thinking, I got his nose and mouth, must be through his ears.
Moaning. Silence. A howl.
I went to stop his air after hitting him with a branch around skull and ribs. 6 attempts. 10 pm-3 am.
Brick to head. DEAD Dec 15 93.
Last night was a nightmare.
Trying to relieve Bosco's suffering brought on greater suffering. Trying to suffocate him only to be brought back to life 3-4 times. Howls, evil growls, crying in the silent night.
Comatose, yet still breathing, then a wimper, cry, moan and rabid bark. Each time coming to me, haunting me, chilling my nerves. I am trying to ease beloved Bosco's pain, yet he keeps coming back, in the deepest suffering.
His head, ribs, body broken, I still see his eyes, he winks, like when I picked him up as a pup. The breathing will not stop. Exhaustion, a bad dream, repeated, over and over again.
The story goes like this: I had given Bosco to Edward to take care of (for I will leave the country in one year and I did not wish to keep him on the Mabira compound). Bosco contacted a form of tick disease from some younger pups at Edward’s compound (Edward lives in a triplex, a new cement and brick apartment building closer to town. Pacifica, my secretary friend with her three girls and Isaac, the village modern ‘doctor’ who treats patients out of a tattered Where there is no Doctor textbook are the other two tenants.
Isaac also allows a couple of young ladies to live with him, where he teaches them, they do his laundry, and at some time they get a certificate).
Isaac, is mostly a pill administrator and gives injections. About a week ago, I noticed that Bosco was weak and not himself on a long walk to a women’s group meeting.
He lagged behind and his coat was as if dirty. I thought it was a passing thing but kept close attention. One day, an old mama who lived in a mud hut just behind Edward’s compound told me Bosco was dying and I needed to leave it alone: “He is witch-crafted’ she says and ‘nothing can be done.
’ This same woman has a son who has a form of epilepsy that she attributes to witchcraft as well. (Which brings up the important point of when does an outsider jump in and begin telling his opinion of matters). Going to the back of the apartment complex, urged by the old woman’s warning, I went back to see how Bosco was doing.
He was clearly worsening, and ignoring the old woman’s suggestion, I decided to do something about my dog.
This involved carrying my dog to the village center, setting him down, and waiting for the next matatu to Kisii. The plan was to visit the district Livestock and Agricultural headquarters in Kisii and to get an ‘educated’ opinion and treatment for Bosco.
Well, of course, my gentleness with a dog, and simply the fact that I cared so, threw many into great interest. We arrived in Kisii in mid-afternoon and I carried Bosco to the Livestock office and met with a government veterinarian. In professional manner, he inspected my weak Bosco, identified some large gray ticks, gave him two injections and then wrote a prescription for the Kisii chemist.
He gave me instructions for the next three days and sent me to the chemist. Bosco could only be carried, and so we proceeded through the busy town and arrived at the chemist as she was getting ready to close for the day. The chemist took the prescription, and handed me the chemical powder in a packet with three syringes and repeated the instructions to mix the chemical with water and give Bosco three separate injections in the morning on the next three days in succession.
Returning to Rigoma at night, I returned Bosco to his place, and waited the next day to give him his first injection. The next morning came, I went to Isaac (the village doctor?), explained the situation and gave him the packet of powder and instructions.
He mixed the first injection and gave Bosco the shot in his hindquarters as the Kisii veterinarian instructed. I returned Bosco to his spot, set him down, staying with him and then left him to rest for the day. Later that day, I came to check on his progress.
Bosco was clearly in great pain and could not get up. It was as if his lower body were paralyzed. He could only use his front legs and work himself in a circle using his front paws.
At this point, I knew that something was wrong and located Isaac and asked to look at the chemical packet. Upon closer inspection and in reading the fine print, I realized that the particular medicine packet had enough potency for a large cow. Bosco had been overdosed.
The decision now was to put him in a wheelbarrow, and return to the Mabira compound, where I could keep closer watch, and determine what course of action to take. As I wheeled him along the wide main dirt road, Bosco could only slap his head up as if to bite me, and looked deformed in a way. We arrived at the compound of Mabira.
I placed him outside my mud hut under the flowering tree with white petals on the ground. My yard is small and surrounded by a high green fence of thorn bushes surrounding my cube giving privacy. All that was left was myself and my three little children (Nashie, Osoro, Tina) and older siblings (Teresa, Edward, Johnny Menta) to survey the damage.
Bosco again only could work himself in circles as his haunted growls grew worse. My first course of action was to purge him with water. I would open his locked jaws against his will, pour the water down and then lift him up by his ribs in an attempt to get him to drink.
He fell to the ground like a bag of rags. The attempt in purging his system went on from mid afternoon to dark as various people visited. Nobody gave any advice.
Most stood and watched my ‘strange’ actions. (How they perceived them I do not know).
As darkness approached, there were periods when it was silent.
Every half hour or so, the abrupt circling and moaning would start softly and then reach a peak quickly and then die. I was contemplating on what to do. It was clear that my beloved pup, who brought so much joy to others, was dying.
Even if he was to survive, I felt he would be deformed in some way. As the night came on, and at the sound of his intense suffering, I decided that the best course of action was to end his life. The dark night, the battle of death and life, Bosco’s fight and my own sense of ‘murdering’ something I loved, presented something words cannot wrap around.
Core words might suffice; horror, helplessness, surrender, pain, love. How I loved Bosco and his friendship and I know not if I did the right thing and feel great and deep sorrow. He is gone.
How strong he was and excited in being social, in roaming the African countryside, along the rolling hills of beauty, and the coolness of forests, to greet everyone who showed a gentle spirit.
16 Dec 93. I have somehow been changed and am going through a very dark period.
The experience with Bosco was very difficult. My Kenyan friends say to just forget it which is perhaps the best action, yet I want to talk to someone about it. I am lost to who I am.
The evil felt as the murderer of Bosco, the dark of night, terrible thoughts, I delved into utter darkness, I am unsure how to get out. I look at photos from home, me and friends tacked to the mud wall, and I ask myself, 'Who is that person?'.
Somehow I feel hardened by the experience with Bosco. It was so unfortunate, so terrible.
Where it will take me I am unsure, yet I see it as a turning point.
I cannot make it a negative direction. I feel so very lost now. I crushed his skull.
It will take a long time to get over. Oh, please Lord, help me. I am so very sorry.
A new kid. I laugh. Moses.
Crawls through the hedges, the funniest grin, he does what he wants, his commands in Gusii, grabbing everything in sight. Dancing to Mozart. He's eating.
Slopping on rice and beans, from the sufuria, the cat knocked over, twice, on the dirt floor.
Merry Christmas from Momanyi’s; a slaughtered goat, throat slit, blood flying, dinner lies on large green banana leaves on a dirt floor. I am part of a circle; five faces surround a lantern doing math problems.
Granny, the youngest, sneaks into the kitchen, bringing out sweet mandazis, tearing the sweet donut-like bread to share with all. Dancing with stick outside to laughter, the kids circling, clapping, stomping their feet, singing a Gusii song. Mzees visit in the dark of night for busa, a man without a home in rags, herbs in pocket to eat, mumbling to himself.
An ex-teacher who has lost his mind? or taken it to another dimension? I make a dog and bird with a shadow cast, the kids laughing, my dog attacks their dogs.
The lost man in seclusion later tries by himself with silly grin. Sharing a bed and blanket with young Owenga. Christmas in Africa.
Up at the crow of the cock. Little figures huddle around a fire. Sitting on the top of the world, a view stretches forever.
A roar through the valley in the morning mist. A moment in the life to remember.
A young skinny girl with a sack of corn on her head,
Travels across the green pasture in bare feet,
The morning dew cleaning her feet,
An old mzee with funny hat and worn cane,
Sits on a bench watching his cows graze,
A young man sits on a stool mending shoes,
With a couple of idle friends sitting by,
Watching the day pass with crackly radio blurting,
Two sisters in green and yellow school uniforms,
shuffle off to school munching on corn,
Men in suits start early walking to their jobs far away,
A man on a bike pedals fast with a crate of bread behind,
Three men in the cool of the morning begin the slaughtering of a cow,
Duka owners and hotelis open their doors at the break of dawn,
Sweeping in front of their stores with a branch,
A warm kettle of tea,
And mandazis frying in fat,
Big black and white crows flying and screeching in search of food,
A mama lays out wimbi on a slab of concrete to dry in the morning sun,
Sokoro begins the day on his sewing machine mending friends’ clothes,
A herd of cattle taken to market along the road,
Hit with a stick by a man in an old suit,
A deaf mute man carries water in buckets in a wheelbarrow,
his two dogs following close behind,
Women in the back of stores,
Wash clothes hanging them to dry on wires,
Stretched between a chicken coop and a choo,
Little kids running in circles,
Matatus pass through town,
Picking up commuters; to work or to market,
Young children with big glass bottles of milk,
in tiny hands,
Taken to customers,
It is the morning,
The beginning of another day,
Enjoy it shithead!
I have gained an insight, wisdom to know when it is time to put away all agenda, and recognize that a moment fully to be enjoyed, or, to be lost in, is at hand, when time is lost. Edna was gathering firewood, bundles of twigs from in between tea bushes, slowly, deliberately. I had stopped and squatted, just watching her in her slow deliberate work.
Finally, she finished and sat next to the bundle of twigs lying on a rope waiting to be bundled. Everyone was away, all was quiet as night approached. All that could be heard were muffled voices from afar, and birds.
Tina just sat, and she recognized IT; two friends with an opportunity for complete silence and a union with God and nature. Soon, I caught on to her wisdom, and we both sat in silence for eternity, grinning. One of the greatest experiences of my life.
My love for her was recognized and fully absorbed. Love indeed knows no words. A lesson from a six year old.
It was simply hollowness, all energy flowing. I was looking ahead, humming, or we. A union of everything, a lightness, a peace.
..yes, full circle.
My playtime this evening was great. Listening to Beethoven, I played with the kids out in the shamba as the sun set throwing a glow on all. The youngest ones, Anna and Moses, could not get enough of my throwing them high in the air or spinning them in circles.
John and Martin, the older boys were in an attack mode, and so we darted around and played scenes out of the World Wrestling Foundation. We would run and jump through the cabbage patches, sugar beets, corn stalks in huge laughter and then collapse as the night came on. Then we would just sit and listen.
After the kids were called into the house, I elected to remain outside and I stood alone on a stack of firewood, surveying the surrounding fields with Lake Naivasha in the distance. Two children, taking a shortcut through our shamba, looked back at me while they stopped to share some gum bought at our duka. The older brother led the way, with his little sister close behind with her hair in a scarf.
They stood for a moment and then waved and then returned silently to their home, little dots vanishing in the dark. This is Kenya; hard-working children, politeness, family structure, respect, something as one piece of gum shared is enough, silently barefooted travel through shambas. The image of the two children, passing through rows of corn, hoes in hand, silent curiosity, innocence, and beauty.
All I had seen in America prior to my arrival regarding Africa were pictures of starving children and savages with spears. It is different than we are taught I think.
Zig Zigler and Tom Robbins.
Go get what you want! Be more assertive! Their teachings are not peaceful enough, too demanding, too aggressive.
Something to become. You as you are now is not enough. Excellent doctrine for the system.
The environment is not the problem, it is YOU! Change, fit into the capitalistic machine! Desire.
All that you desire, can be YOURS! P.M.
A.: Do not question it, this system that has brought so much division, separation and violence, greed and brutality. I believe in P.
M.A., thinking the best of oneself, seeing the best in others yet a very important variable is missing in the equation: ENVIRONMENT AND HEART, and HABITS.
Environment, a person needs to know the environment where he or she feels the most comfortable; city, country, business, teaching, art, retail. Look at friends, get yourself into the proper environment. Heart, shatter all conditionings, peer pressure, media, do what your heart tells you.
Habits; minimize your needs to give you freedom. Lesser car, used clothes, one soap, simple food. This is where Buddhism comes in, lose desires, live in the moment, yin-yang, all is necessary, enjoy the ride.
All needs a religious moral base.
BROTHER PIG
You live in a house with your family. Over the years, ‘life’ has been overcome with all of its demands and joys; somehow the human spirit has been triumphant.
Out of your father’s, grandfather’s and ancestor’s travails, a pace and structure of life has been established. You have not ventured outside your circle, for you are struggling with existing. You have lost out before to those more educated; the government, the big boss.
Out of your problems, you have fought for the existence you currently share. All the good and bad decisions present you with your common status. Through this, your dignity is in question, for modernity and efficiency gives the true worth of a man.
The race around the circle.
Your neighbor, from a faraway land visits. His house has overgrown.
To maintain his lifestyle, he has ventured onto your doorstep with a smile. He wants to help you.
PMA.
Positive Mental Attitude. No voiced negativity. Life circumstances.
Not disillusioned. Life affirming thoughts. Back to my reading review 1994; Carl Jung, dream analysis and projections, Aristotle, Ethics, The Philosopher Ruler, Plato the Republic, Bible, Nietzsche is sometimes absurd and too rebellious in his extremes, the root is good, Zen and Tao.
As Kalu Rinpoche states: “All is attitude”
Oct 1993. Clinton's US escalates war in Somalia, warships halted off Haiti coast, American embassy hurried, Part-of-Big-Union-PLO v Israel putting kerosene on fire, UN/US policy, NAFTA, Health care restructure/sham. "If we wanted to blow up Somalia it could be done.
" Clinton adds. Blind decisions, first year. The EC and opening up Western borders.
But how is the DOW? Forty-two points up? Top Heavy earning.
CocaCola and Lobbyists and consultants. White haired, white shirt, appropriate cheerleader tie, leaders coached, painted with prepared statements, there are few brown or yellow in the bunch, "That's right. You got it.
Show enthusiasm. Look away from the camera at times." High five.
"Right on dadeo, and you are such a coach!" What major decisions at home? Where is L.
A. post Rodney King riot growth and improvements in Watts?
‘A Tree grows in Brooklyn’.
Pottier, black and white, family struggling in New York city. Where are their stories now? TOP COPS.
And what trash? But I watched it. That is the direction of the American mind.
‘Lao Tan asked, ‘May I ask your definition of benevolence and righteousness?’ Confucius said, ‘To be glad and joyful in mind; to embrace universal love and be without partisanship.’
Government of the sage.
Confucius was a philosopher and politician. What words do we hear out of our politicians? How advanced are we?
Mimicking sounds. Me in my hut, the children within earshot behind shrubs. Mamamama.
Mamamamama. Ohohohohoh. ohohohohooh.
Then I will throw in a Giglioaraopopra. Laughs. I go outside to catch Edward pruning tomatoes and the kids putting small tomatoes on sticks and throwing them high into the air, coming down in sugar cane or tall rows of corn eighty yards away.
The Gusii radio is on. I am surrounded by eight kids and I look at them, and they tilt their head back with a laugh, then comes the sweetest most lovable smiles, their eyes shine. We meet and gaze at each other for what seem minutes, our beings connect, there are just smiles and a glow, radiance, condensed love for each other.
A moment when time stops, in between climbing trees and gazing for bad tomatoes to toss. I have never experienced such a strong feeling of love I get from these young children, these incredible happy faces, the energy. The love is coming out I know, and the love I feel coming back cannot be explained.
SKY 101. Again, I went to my favorite spot of 1994. Although on the path, there are few passer-bys to disconnect a direction, as the sun set.
I lay on the cold green grass, looking up at the various hues in the sky and slowly moving clouds, shapes at dusk. The colors are not bright, faint blue and grays of one hundred shades. I remember that the sky has always been there, and it gives me an opportunity to think or get lost if I wish.
The sky reminds me America does not seem so far away now. The sky, a blue unseen and shots of light at the closing of a day. A sharp cool surrounding breeze, it breathes through fields of chai, and brushes my face.
To enjoy and see the sky. People go their whole life without truly seeing the sky, studying it in movement and grace and solemnity and respectfulness.
A fortress and hobbits.
Smooth running - hierarchy of lessons. Thorn bushes will catch you. Crafty children who could outsmart the ‘Home Alone’ boy.
A five-year-old girl, sitting on a kanga, rocking her little brother between her legs. The type of bird that steals chicken eggs is spotted. Tina laughs 'Ha' sharply, picks up a rock and waits till the right moment to toss, a shout 'Ho'.
She laughs and sits down again and begins singing. An alertness and quick thinking that is part of playtime. It is instinctual, passed for generations.
There is no posted board, no asking, it is done without thinking, just a part of life. Tasks for boys: Watch kids, herd cattle, dig in shamba, pick tea, cut wood, make bricks, sell vegetables to dukas. Tasks for girls include: watch kids, clean, gather firewood, water, pick tea, wash dishes, sweep compound, milk cow, cook, wash clothes, wash clothes.
The kids are so tough, resourceful, together. There is no drudgery, complaining, everything is done with a dance and a song. What happens to them as adults I cannot figure out.
I guess the realization that childhood is over, and a true lack of seen opportunity. Soon one is a husband or wife with the demands of modern rural life; depleting land, inflation, unemployment, increasing school fees, large number of children..
...
Observation on my trip to the Ngangas at the many stops along the way via the Gusii Express:
Gusii Express to Naivasha, lady throwing up, stewardesses or stewards fight their way on ship (a large bus) at stops to shouts to sell boiled eggs or warm sodas, music blaring, heat and mustiness inside. Survival at town centers, dirt and discarded trash, every transaction negotiated, con men, a young homeless boy carrying a piece of salvaged wire, a chunk of wood outside the bus, gazing at the litter strewed on the ground as a boy in the U.S.
might look for a four leaf clover. Think about that. Hawkers, bottles of sodas in a cardboard box, cheap calculators and big red combs, razor blades, a ball point pen pushed in your window.
Young boys in funny hats, fighting for their daily bread, growing up fast in an increasingly dangerous game in the African sludge, the city. This is their playground, their habitat; dirt, waste, the sound of repeated horns, loud music from all corners, pushing and shoving, arguments, controlled chaos. Their method for dealing with it is by smiles and laughter.
Take what is dealt, in good cheer, even in the worst of circumstances. My lesson for the day.
The fish earrings.
Outside my hut under a pink purplish flowering vine. Little kids trying to catch a bee inside the smooth feathery lining of long petals. A trap, a try to the ear.
Bzz and laughter intermixes. The older children, Johnny Menta, Pacifica, and Veronica rummage through my toolbox, with argumentative bantering in fun; a measuring tape, small screwdriver drills, sunglasses, cologne, ziplock bags, and a pair of earrings in a plastic pouch. Veronica, putting up light blue fish earrings to her face and grinning in a mirror.
Shifting them up to set in her thick light hair, the earrings lying on her ear. What is beauty? What is right?
The next morning, I woke to discover the earrings gone. There is a fine line between letting something taking its natural flow, and trying to stand for pride or notions of right? and re-guide it, interrupt it.
How we/I make my/our world. The negative way in which I interpret things around me. The voices are here, chickens and muffled voices, sharp gasps of tone, is it questioning?
Different children at 20, 30 and 35 yards in conversation or singing. People pass on the path chanting things, the beating of a sufuria, a spoon in a can, commands. I go out to bathe, with bucket of water, soap in some trousers, barefoot with towel around my neck, to a cool breeze through dry fall-like leaves to a makeshift shower.
I have many eyes and must postpone, walking outside on smooth dirt and twigs, crackling. I come in and sit down. Ed stomps in, stomping and chanting, no words, to interpret?
The confusion with my life here.
Darkness takes on a total adding to fear, as Jung alludes to in his: Collective Unconscious. All the heritage of fear and man gathers a roll.
Primal to darkness back to cave man, somehow they can become lessened to suppression. The further man is away from his natural existing self-sufficient core to nature the further he lapses into controlling factors. Controlling what?
In relation to dreams, I think the dream is the darkness, the evil coming into attempted good actions, a reshuffling of the deck. Perhaps those issues we are trying to come to perception in our waking life, or unresolved issues, disputes with dream members, where you were the worst trounced, a pivotal experience, and you strike back in darkness. You try to remember them the next day, and you feed it, you think in-depthly of the past.
The key is to die to the moment. Hell, I dream all day long. Thinking of then.
The dream in the day is as much nonsense as the one at night.
Rain on my parade,
Hollow black faces line the street,
The music is muffled,
Distant voices of admiration from afar,
Dark and murky,
Discarded papers ruffle in the wind,
On a journey unknown,
Moanings of ancestral trappings,
Stirring in the statuesque shapes,
Waiting to be set free,
My parade must continue,
My radiance must shine,
Looking for the land of milk and honey.
My binoculars scoping the valley from Momanyi’s compound high on the hill: Green.
Orange shirt, green dress and gold dancing on a field of green. A black cow. Golden brown ears of corn.
All three or four in activity, kicking a ball high, a little girl with a stick walking in circles.
Out my window,
Shaved headed young children,
Smooth skin, running like gazelles,
Hand gestures, a smile,
Communicating through an interpreter,
Addition in Africa,
A classroom of twenty adult students,
A pencil and paper,
In rugged hands,
Soil, and rain, and hardship,
A cycle of kids, African demands,
A sanctuary; the schoolroom,
Lost childhoods, a window to the past,
Inside, innocence, hope,
Eager faces, togetherness,
A circle, a community,
A beautiful bond,
There is hope in this world,
Children and learning…
Teach the adults and watch,
The children play.
Hearing voices and imagining things?
!?
One hundred and one interactions per day,
Want to get out of this negative jibe,
I am dancing with utter weirdness.
I feel like Walt Disney.
Tina Edna knows me so much, she has my eyebrow movement down. My bud.
She looks at me and does the lifting. She gets her hair cut, and gets a part on the side like me.
You get up.
.
in the morning, and there are twenty people to greet on the way to your car. Five ask for you to take their picture because you are carrying your camera.
Two want to look through your briefcase, asking ‘Why do you do things this way?’ You get in your car, a man gets in the passenger seat, begins playing with your radio, five ask for a ride. You go to McDonalds for breakfast.
Strangers sit next to you, ask you for food, money to buy a soda. You go back to your car, two people want a ride..
.on and on..
...
Put all foolishness aside. A class of forty students, all of different sizes and ages, tall Ondiek and little Rasaro, mature young men and women and little boys and girls. Four to a desk, school boxes on the floor, I come to class, and a frenzy of noise and activity.
Hesabu, time for Hesabu (math), students continue with various projects, playing musical chairs, finishing an assignment in Home Science. Children shuffle through twenty notebooks, share pens and rulers, it is a slice of chaos. I stand at the front of the class, Hesabu, kitabu, kalamu na karatasi.
(and pen and paper). Some are very obedient, yet the majority do not understand or ignore my plea. Repeatedly I catch a student doing other work in class, I take their work and throw it out the window.
The majority of the class enjoys this non-beating approach. We will ‘not continue until you pass the last test’ is something they have never heard, a challenge to learn. Half the class does not understand and are confused by my words and actions.
Yet, I keep trying.
Can I make the Bible my one book and avoid this intellectual exercise and pride in being wise? It is indeed the difference between the occult and the Bible.
I have reached the great threshold, the pyramid of decision, which way?
RIGHTEOUSNESS ME SIN
It is here Tree of Knowledge
Humility Creative
Sheep Pride in self
Surrender to Group Separate from masses
Avoidance of seeing dark side. Unconscious, evil drives
The Light Judgment
With the masses Individuality
One Way Many ways
God Me
A trip to get mail.
I had to take a matatu to the village junction at Tombe and then caught another to Nyamira to pick up my mail (maybe thirty kilometers). On the return trip, there was no matatu in Tombe, so I was forced to walk the 12 kilometers home. In Tombe, it was at the peak heat of the day, the sun was bright and hot, the dust swirled and got in your eyes.
Tombe sits on a hill with few trees. The village is like the others consisting of one dirt road cutting through with wooden shack businesses on each side. It was so quiet walking through the town that I swear you could hear a door hinge.
The big sun sat high in the sky. People sit in front of various stores like shadows and like a domino effect, others appear mysteriously from nowhere or peak through windows. Slowly walking down the middle of the road, I swear I somehow started to walk like Clint Eastwood (I have not seen a mzungu, or Westerner for six weeks; you amuse yourself at times, actually push the edge of sanity).
I became a gunman from a Western movie. I looked for a dog to spit between its eyes, the dust rising, my arms to the side, ready to draw. It was quite strange.
In reality you can do whatever you want to do for you are the mzungu, an alien being.
The diversity of geography in Kenya is great. Just over and down the hill of Tombe, the stark and dusty village, the hot turned into cool with a view to rolling valleys, green tea fields, and pastures with resting cows and people at work in their fields.
I took off my shoes and walked barefoot on the packed clay road lined on each side by towering jacaranda trees with views both up and down the valley to a multitude of patchwork farms that dotted the landscape to infinity. Down at the base of the valley, I stopped at a rushing brown stream, took off my shoes and nursed my then sore feet in the cool stream. Soon ten kids appeared at my side to take a close look, mesmerized at my white calves and feet.
The children had brought cattle to the river to cool, the mini-forest and lushness bring a garden of Eden feel. The area is so picturesque, yet with time the newness wears off, and as I become more secure in my environment, my external senses turn internal. I must daily breath in nature, sit out at night, and enjoy long walks in this African paradise.
It was brown hue dirt dust and wind against the tin sheet A-Frame, “Crawly lizards, scurrying little bastards’, thought the mzungu1. Fighting the amoebas, a thin man looks for a dead leaf to wipe his ass. Strategically squatting to avoid passersby; tree vegetation borders lead the way, trodden paths, little barefoot rugged feet, cattle and their horns, discarded sugar cane balls, eaten corn of cob.
Here comes four-year-old Toreen flying with a bucket on her head! The Flying Nun! It is like living in a cartoon, the colors, the characters.
No Mister Magoos or Uncle Charlies, however.
Dacko compares himself to an old man sitting in a Western deserted cowboy town. ‘Hey Marge’, your breasts are looking pretty nice all high up on two turnips, barley fritter face, on a skillet, push pin eardrop, flower of my life.
’ The thin man returns on his walk back from the choo2, he sits himself looking at a reflection of a mirror at the person over ten thousand miles away in the tropical forests of Africa.
Greenness and squared areas of fertile cultivation, banana trees, high golden ears of corn intermixed with the leaves of beans not ready to hoe. Bright flowers of bright pyrethrum, goats and brown cows, speckled black, proud cocks and hens and their eggs.
The man greets the day with a stretch and big yawn. The beginning of a day, fluttering birds, black and white, yellow-green diving and dashing. The early sun warms the area.
Little kids are off to school, a school wooden box on their heads, a handmade purse full of exercise books and worn pencils. Some warm corn in their pockets, or the sweet small green fruits of tall trees, as a snack.
The old man in the Western, gets up and washes his face in a basin, a woman practices a violin, a small black haired boy in pudgy jeans and an embroidered shirt.
His daddy the miller tying his tie, on the way to work, horse and buggies bringing in, stagecoaches, a group of passing men, with parched lips, dust covered faces, tumbleweeds tangled gnarly fragments, passing through town. The barber, the hoteli3 and bar, the unused piano in the corner, the owner’s wife outside washing clothes, with a total view of nothingness. Dacko walks her way, as he doesn’t pass a woman he knows without first a simple acknowledgement, “Hey mama darling, prettier than a little white eety-beety teacup in your daughter’s doll house.
And aren’t you the doll of all dolls, mama pretty sweet as lemonade punch.’
The man watches the kids pass and counts his blessings. God has really blessed the young, how do you direct their futures?
‘I wish people would do less directing except in the movies’ the man thinks as he washes his feet. White and yellow eggs, frying in a pan, within reach, the sound of a short-wave radio. Six years till the year 2000.
Moon unit.
The rural African countryside of farms, rolling hills, darked skin natives intricately woven as a thick cloth sack of corn on its way to be crushed. An ex-pharmaceutical salesman, trying to find the love all attitude that eludes him.
Is love earned, can it be given to all? I am fighting an Aristotle-Plato-Bible ethics game, 007. Lighten up a bit, focus on your path.
In my two years, I would certainly walk a thousand miles away from home. My days were principally centered on strolling through the endless hill and dale of the Rigoma district traveling the triad of home, school and village, and almost daily visiting and exploring new areas by foot or by bike.
“I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on any account, for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found another for myself.
I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible, but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or mother’s or neighbor’s instead. The youth may build, plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.” Thoreau, Walden
“The statement that man can live under almost any condition is only half true; it must be supplemented by the other statement that if he lives in conditions which are contrary to his nature, and to the basic requirements for human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting, he must either deteriorate and perish, or bring about conditions which are more in accordance with his needs.
”
Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
“Whether small or great, and no matter at what stage or grade of life, The Call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration, a rite or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown, the old concepts, ideals and emotional patterns no longer fit, the time for passing of a threshold is at hand.”
“The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments of illumination.
Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed – again, again and again.”
“’Call to adventure’, destiny has summoned and transferred his spiritual center to a zone unknown. This fateful, region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight.
”
Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces
“To understand the misery and confusion that exists within ourselves, and so in the world, we must first find clarity within ourselves, and that clarity comes about through right thinking. Right thinking comes with self-knowledge.”
Krishnamurti, First and Last Freedom
“The one thing we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety…to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment.”
Evans-Wentz, Milarepa
‘Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into the conformity to the logic of its system.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. The development of an educational methodology that facilitates this process will inevitably lead to tension and conflict within our society. But it could also contribute to the formation of a new person and mark the beginning of a new era in Western history.
Those who have been denied their primordial right to speak their word must first reclaim this right and prevent the continuation of this dehumanizing aggression.’
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
March 94. I look back and all I see are struggles and joy under the African sun.
As the weather changes, clouds appear, and the nurturing rain comes, my moods also change. A moment, sitting on a wooden bench, by myself, next to Kenyans discussing a topic in a foreign tongue. Old men, in funny hats, and worn shoes pass on their way to another town.
Black and white crows circle and perch themselves on the tops of tin buildings. A smiling young woman passes, just fresh from the river, bringing water to help her on her daily chores. Two boys run across the soccer field, the little one pushing a plastic lid with a wire, the big one chasing as they fall in exhaustion and happiness on a grassy knoll.
A passing matatu, crammed with people, sugar cane and a barrel, boxes on top. I finish my rest, trying to lose myself, a spectator, I am not here. Walking in front of open stores, peaceful greetings to shop owners, a group of men in discussion, I find myself at the duka of a good Christian friend, Nyakundi.
Hiding in the corner, beautiful Josephine, waiting to catch an uncrowded matatu, to return to teachers college, happy, full of herself, in peaceful silence. A shared soda, and discussion of her little ones, school, my return to America, sitting on a sack of corn seed. Jonas, the butcher, carrying a slab of beef from a just slaughtered cow, heads to conduct business.
No business hours, no watches, yet a clockwork timing, an unconscious efficiency. I sit, and think of my life here, how lucky I am to be a part of all this, and silently get up and walk down the road, not too concerned where this road will take me. Faith.
Smily was trying to write from his bed as a change of pace. His life as of late had been commonplace. "lack of choices can play havoc on a man," he thought as he leaned on his side.
"What brought me here and why am I here?" Life's paths and detours like a ski slope down the white Rockies, gray granite slabs and changing skies.
"I have been here for two years and I still do not feel at peace, looking for the new step as my salvation", Smily was scared at repeated cycles and his long endured faith forced him to smile.
"How did this white yuppie thirty-something find himself in Africa; isolated in a time machine underworld of confusion?" The heat of the lantern and smell of kerosene kept him awake as he wrote in nighttime isolation under the African stars. Spiders on the walls and rats scurrying, the discussion of black Africans surround.
Quite a change of setting from middle-class America.
He had been brought up a promising young lad. As a toddler, Smily was referred to as the 'cherub' and Jonathan Winters.
He was president of his elementary school, my God, read the morning announcements on the loudspeaker.
Sixth grade; baseball practice, bubble gum and cherry koolies, a round of golf, swimming at the pool are activities which place a type of attitude and understanding upon a young boy.
Leaning back, Smily realized he was a pretty funny kid.
But back to these cycles of reaction to a new environment which brought him to the apex in a mud hut in rural Africa. "Where do we get our adaption skills?" Smily has been getting very deep as of late.
He is 32 years old, almost 33, "I have never read a story about a 32 year old guy, almost 33." Smily ponders, very proud of himself.
He has been living his last two years in Africa, he is writing now with the wind blowing in the dark night.
His mud hut could be an igloo, but he is in Africa where everything is dark, or from the earth; grass roof, river, mud paths, crops surround him. Smily is very white and he lives in a black beehive of confusion, "A fish out of water gazes at his reflection," he starts his poem.
"My business meetings with the village elders and women have not been going too well as of late", the talk of Smily's protector-guilt spectator breaks the flow of his perfection.
His Peace Corps experience has become the ambassador-Christ goodwill defender of the moral code variety. He insists on bathing in the river, speaking the local language and being friendly with the thousand natives. "But it is such a bloody fake," faces and faces race forward him, mockingly laughing, echoes and clowns, a three ring circus, the dog and pony show.
The ferris wheel and salt and pepper shaker, the gravity drop and octopus. All emotional rides of the spirit.
"I came sane.
The 1992 World Series Champions were the Toronto Blue Jays. Rozanne was the #1 rated TV show. Johnny Carson on every night at 10:30.
Here if it rains, it will be muddy, walk slowly around cows, there is no sense of bearing, I am losing my mind, falling into a deep pit." Not the pit again! And always at the right time.
It must be time to move on.
In reality, in three months Smily will get on a jet plane airliner to whisk him back to the US, his home base of suburbia, Waltons and mass consumption. Are you a smart shopper?
But for now he must go to sleep and wonder if he will dream America or Africa? He is now a Gusii, a respected member of a village, externally a very positive adaption, internally tossed and turned, losing grasp of his past. The second line of the poem falls: "Inevitability of the returning splash to break the wonderful image created, is that image the reality?
" Smily is pleased with that.
He remembers through his only lesson in mythology his teacher gave him was Narcissus, that that self-image is a crazy thing. Illusion and truth.
The darkness behind the eyes. Why do you want to see? Wallow in the depths, never search for the light.
"Enough to make one tired I should say so," Smily admits.
Smily fell asleep, as he is accustomed, to dreams within dreams, and repetitive awakenings in confusement, turn to the East or the West?, the sun will come up, the rooster crows, and I continue on this journey controlled by whom?
is it me or He?
The sun rises, Smily wakes up groggy, trying to recapture his escaping dream content. Faces and aloneness, his reality of existence now awakes him.
He gets out of his dirty bed, steps into dirty slippers, and starts his day. Five steps to his radio to turn on KBC Breakfast Hour; Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Julio Iglesias and Lionel Richie. "Wow", Smily thinks, "another day to salvage.
"
He dips a cup of water in his clay pot, pouring the water over his head, the water falling into a green plastic bucket. The cool water feels good on his face. Then the dirty water is sprinkled on the dirt floor and swept.
A cup of water can go a long way in Africa. Everything is scattered, cluttered and messy on his desk and cupboard, dirty dishes. "If I just lived in the now, finishing each task to its natural conclusion, it could be easier.
" Smily has looked at Zen lately. He decided to be human.
Smily has established a routine while in Kenya.
It centers around simple tasks in surviving; getting food and washing and being an ambassador to the whole town, thousands of people staring and shouting his name, requests and trying to understand their native language and broken English.
His variety of friends, go from a one-year old baby, Aricha, breastfeeding on Mama Francisca's black ones. He reaches for the mzungu whenever he sees him to a one hundred year old grandma Nyabuche, the gnarly old woman in a shoe, without the kids, seen on the side of the road picking weeds for food.
She calls him grandson, gazes in his eyes, and asks for some pocket change. Her mumbled voice in thanks is like all the grandmothers that ever lived thanked Smily at that moment. Every step are friendly faces, people in a dream, a space age odyssey back in time on another planet.
Smily has many friends to greet; old men with canes and smile and raise their hands in salutation. Little children on the way to school, shopowners and mamas with infants. Everywhere Smily goes he is accepted, and asks questions to understand his new world around him.
It is difficult, though, he passes three processions in a row of sick people, malaria is deadly. A young woman in a wheelbarrel with cloth over her face, brothers wheeling her, her mama behind looking frightened. Death.
Darkness.
It never stops. At home, a brother of the village, died yesterday but one (as the Gusii say).
Edward Nyiego, the second eldest son, in simplicity and good cheer, is choosing a pine of timber to take to the bereaved families to make a coffin. "No not a casserole, shithead, a timber to make a coffin!" Edward picks up a timber and holds it up on end to see if it is long enough, the man will rest in peace.
He smiles.
To get lost in others lives without really having one of your own has been Smily's way now for two years. "Where is it taking me?
", Smily asserts, "I hope the rule of karma holds true." Caring for others, and struggling in an environment, trying to live righteously with gratitude has its own intrinsic rewards. "Yet, still, this has been an incredible experiment.
" Smily is happy with his life at this juncture and looks forward to his return to the states, or as a fish, returning to the water.
He is reminded of his poem of last night and returns to it.
"A fish out of water gazes at his reflection,
Inevitability of the returning splash to break that wonderful image created,
is that image reality?
He adds: Can we maintain it? Do we shape our environment, or does our
environment shape us?
Ah, so many questions present themselves when you indeed take yourself out
of the water, and gaze deeply at the cosmos.
"
"I smell like shit, a dirty animal," Smily brings himself back to the now. A bar of soap in the pocket, and slippers and to his bathing place in the Gusii forest. Smily looks all ways, then sheds his clothes, and climbs down into the stream unnoticed.
The sun sneaks through the shadows like a spotlight and he finds himself a smooth rock to secure himself. The birds sing and all is quiet, the wind in the trees. Ah the coolness of the stream and Nature cleansing.
Waterbugs and spiders in webs keep Smily company. "I cannot believe I am still in Africa," he shakes his head unaware of his creation.
The tens of thousands of encounters on this dark continent, the black and silence of endless nights, the hidden prayers and blessings gathered, the joy, oh yes, the joy, the dancing glorious joy!
"
Warming in the sun, a film of muddy river water evaporating into the air, the breeze and pollen touching him, Smily feels as if one with the Gods. The spirits have smiled upon him, his soul journey, or is it sole journey? to this continent.
It has been kind of a dance, the birds and cows, children and old have all lifted him, brought out his very best. Only he and his faulty thinking have brought out the very worst.
Smily thinks to his twenties, playing the yuppie role to perfection: ambition, desire, pleasure, oh that elusive pleasure!
It was like pushing that boulder up the hill. "Why did I push and where was I going?" The boulder killed him and he was reborn.
It came to him in a battered Ford Escort, hood tied down and temporary tire, crossing the interstate across Kansas and Colorado. Oh, I-70, the yellow brick road. At thirty years old, all his possessions in the back, being tossed on the road by passing semis, his eyes shed a layer.
The golden hues of the sun, the beauty of the prairie at that moment! By societies standards, that man was a failure, unemployed, in a borrowed car, few possessions and escaping from his past. But, oh how wonderful the future looked for the first time!
To be free!
Now Smily is in Rigoma, Kenya, some two years after that event. He is now clean, it is 1:20 p.
m., and he sits and thinks of his strange life and prospects for the future. The fish will return to the water in three months!
The water with all its old rules and familiarity. "After teaching an old dog new tricks, can he use those tricks in the old setting?" The complexity of life and the escape of the approved beaten path.
Throw up your arms, and accept the flow? Or force through societies pressures and inflicted demands? Patience and gratitude and prayer nurtures faith.
It is time like this when Smily may just stretch on his bed, read his Bible or Thoreau, and forget all these questions that he forces on himself. He thinks of Bud Dry, "Why ask why?"
He wakes up after a brief passout to Edinah's calling, "Weaver, Inaki Ogoteba.
" She wants to play. Edinah is clean! All shiny and black with not a spot of mud on her.
We play catch with a ball of discarded plastic and twine. The family is soon headed to the family’s house of the dead relative. I am asked if I want to go.
There will be about two hundred people, it will be a four-hour procession in the Abagusii language. "I will be asked to say a few words about death or a guy I do not know. I think I will pass on this one.
" There are few instances Smily will say no to: harambee fund raisers and funerals.
It is amazing the difference between individual people and events of the community. "I hate events of the community!
" Smily needs an attitude adjustment perhaps on this one. He asserts, "Culture and appropriate rules of behavior. Handed down ways of doing things.
Why not faith in reacting and spontaneity?"
If anything Smily has been a teacher. Just a toa-ongeza (addition/subtraction) corn kernel game teaching Swahili and maths with Edinah and Nashie.
Omwalimu. Parents are away, kids are hyper. "I am too kind to these kids," which is true in relation to their parents approach.
"What is kind?". Yet I am learning that their parents approach prepares the children for the environment, a tough difficult world.
I cook a corn muffin sweet bread and give to children, it is like "Don't show them the luxuries, they might be tampered." Again, it all is relative. Comparison breeds feelings of emptiness and breeds desire.
That is what the West has done.
Walking home from Muma’s, a mud hut village, I am looking very white, with a bundle of just washed clothes over my shoulder. Muma has just taken a new bride from a distant village, they now have an infant boy, eight months, crawling around, being held by younger sisters, as the young boy stares at me in bewilderment.
Nearby is a newborn stray pup, yellow in color. Theresa, Muma’s wife, moves into this new environment, an extended family of twenty on three acres. Theresa’s responsibilities will be to wash clothes, keep the mud hut clean and swept, the walls smeared, she will cook and tend to the elders in the village.
Muma, wears a Rambo t-shirt, a rugged man, who digs in the fields, keeps chickens, watches cattle. He is my best friend who discusses the Bible and Bhagwan with me. The inside walls of his hut are covered with Newsweek photos I have given to him.
I begin my walk home with some eggs in my pocket that Muma has given me. I stop at Makori’s duka where old men and friendly faces are huddled in discussion. It is sports day; a soccer match is at the town center and so there are an additional thousand people in the village from the surrounding area.
There are hundreds of kids circling about, and believe me, I am a sight in the middle of this action. I say Goodbye to the old guys and walk 5 feet to the next action. I joke with the group: ‘I am walking until I meet the Masai (the tribe seen on Western TV with spears), what should I buy?
½ kilo of meat?’ ‘No, Tigers like white meat’, one replies. We decided on a goat, a sheep, a chicken and 5,000 shillings.
Leave it and run away is the solution. Five feet away, I enter the next circle at the duka (general store) of Daniel. I talk with Mama Grace, keeper of cattle, married to Peter, and Conslata, my eleven-year old student at Biticha Primary.
They are bantering about the ‘right church’ (Daniel is a 7th Day Adventist and Grace is Catholic). I head across the dirt street, and brother Paul comes to repay thirty shillings I had lent him to take a journey. ‘Thank you’.
The next stop, just twenty feet, is at the duka of Pricscilla, Mama-Lou (The old big-breasted maid of ’68). Then it is ten steps to the Hoteli of Daniel, with sister-wife. (He keeps insisting to me that Kwomboka who works at his side is his sister (I should marry her) when everyone tells me she is his wife.
)
I then walk across the town center, greet some mamas selling vegetables, and check in at the tiga (flour mill where my friend Stephen works). His wife and daughter Granny are sitting on a bench and soon Granny, age 3, comes running and hitting my thighs with her palms, and a smile, arms outstretched. She runs behind the fence and peeks through tin sheets painted blue and white on wood posts.
There are more old men and women to greet; Wilson and grandma Magokoro, who sit outside Wilson’s duka. A greeting from friend Wilson, the mzee, has a duka and an old sign that reads: Mafuta ya Taa (Kerosene for Lanterns). All he sells is kerosene and matches in a wood hut.
He was the one who had a big beehive at the side of his place, and as I walked through, I was stung three times on the head. I explained the discomfort, he shows me the hive from the inside. Thanks for the memories.
Next I walk to the posta (post office) of Mboga, which has the one telephone that sometimes works, and people usually playing an interesting form of cards or checkers. In front of the post office sat the chief Manduku from Mbogo. He is like the Big Chief paper tablet guy, huge, with big hands.
God he is big. He is like the guy from Tom Sawyer, a big man in knowledge and presence as well. He is a good chief too.
I have been sponsoring some beekeeping projects (I like them because once the boxes are built ($30 each) there are no other expenses, there are quarterly harvests and no disease and the honey is good for health. I have been working with two groups on marketing ideas (bottling, labeling and selling in Kisii).) Manduku does not like the idea so much because there is little labor involved.
‘The young men to be kept busy.
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