African Incense
Africa takes something from you that you can’t name—it’s unidentifiable. It’s the kind of thing where you think you are entitled to water, and that such water should always be hot on demand. It’s where you bitch when your roads aren’t smooth or your bus is crowded. Where you need new clothes every season and your children have to have the best teachers available.
In its place, Africa leaves an unexpected acceptance that will never leave. That’s where walking two miles to do your weekly shopping is completely ordinary, and a day without running water is just as normal as the next. Where a bus, a “matatu,” is packed with ten more people than seats and costs 35 shillings (about 18 cents) to take you anywhere along it’s route since the driver probably doesn’t have a license anyway and that’s as common as the potholes in the roads they take you on.
It’s not about thinking “they have it worse than we do;” it’s not an appreciation. Everyone always thinks that’s what you learn—a “realization,” if you will. But it’s not about that. It’s about loving something and letting it go but having it follow you like you never broke apart in the first place. It’s about not being able to go to sleep at night because the sounds of the monkeys on the thatched roof are gone, and the soft rain that used to filter in through only the blinds over holes in the walls is now blocked by the glass in such windows.
Even relations in Africa seem closer than they do here. I felt closer to two-month-old Alfon strapped to my back all day than I ever have to any child in the US. The pounding of his tiny heart beating against my shoulder blades forced my own to speed up to beat in harmony with his as we worked on preparing lunch for the day. In America, there isn’t a lot of effort that goes into daily living—our water comes straight from pipes, through out taps and into our drinking glass or our pot or our tub. There is always food available in a refrigerator somewhere and microwavable treats in the pantry on the off chance that the fridge is empty that day. Here, it is completely normal for a family of four to have four different meals in four different places at four different times. It’s also completely normal to call those four the “family” unit.
In Africa, you learn what it means to be a family. Your family doesn’t just consist of you, your parents, your siblings, your children and your husband. It doesn’t even limit itself to aunts and uncles, or cousins or nieces or nephews. The African family is an entire community. You live together, you collect food together, you cook it together, and it’s a group effort simply to feed your “family.” Family isn’t just the people you put up with at Christmas, they are the people with who you survive with.
There is a great feeling of emptiness when your lifestyle changes from the Kenyan to the American. In Kenya you belong to everyone. Everyone waves and says hello as you pass, most know your name and your life story. They will strike up a conversation with you just walking down the street—even if they don’t speak the same language as you. But here in America nothing is personal. Everyone calls you “ma’am” and no one ever asks your name or shakes your hand for no reason. Even when people know your first name, it is seldom used. You are simply a “Miss” or “Mrs.” somebody—you either belong to someone or to no one at all.
Everything in America runs at a fast pace that is unknown to Kenya. The motto in Kenya is “pole pole,” or “slowly, slowly.” If you are an hour late somewhere then you are plenty early. No one rushes to do anything and they would spend their entire day talking to you if you wanted them too. In America, people ask “How are you?” but never actually want to know the answer—they don’t have the time. Always in a hurry to get wherever it is they have a deadline for. If they did have the time, most wouldn’t want the truthful answer anyway—it’s simply a polite conversational piece. In Kenya, if they ask then they want to know—and in great detail.
Africa is not a place you go to “get away” from things. If you have a story to tell, it will drag it out of you within 24 hours. If you’re going to “forget about men” then you’ve gone to the wrong continent—you will be proposed to by a random stranger on the street within a few days of arriving. Nothing about Africa leaves you alone. Not while you are there, and not after you’ve left. It’s like a pesky, whiney child craving for more of you than you can give—but a child which you could not love more.
The only wish Kenya can grant is love. If you are looking for love, then you’ve gone to the right place. It doesn’t have the luxurious hotels and the rich restaurants and the huge monuments that attract tourists, but it doesn’t need any of those to be the most gratifying place one will ever encounter in life. It has a people who make you feel at home before you’ve even plopped your sandals into the red dirt of the land, a culture that teaching the value of a pole pole life, and an experience that will follow you throughout your entire life. When you leave you will be in upendi—in love—with the only country you’ll ever meet that sweeps you off your feet with a bucket of water on your head and a monkey stealing your sandwich right out of your hand.
Africa takes a lot from you—but I wouldn’t want any of it back.
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