It takes a village to host an intern. Or such is the generous custom of the people in Bukura. Even in the last weeks I have not gotten used to my being received as such an honorable guest. People still hop up to offer me their chairs whenever I walk into a room, give me extra treats at tea time, and make sure that I always travel places safely and am never ever alone. In the evenings after school when I would go to my host mother’s cell phone shop I would meet many of her friends and people who worked in the neighboring market shops. On our walk home from the shop we would pass by many of the same people each day and greet them. In the mornings when I was walking to school alone they would recognize me and say hi. Or sometimes, in a fantastically uninhibited manner I would hear “Mzungu, greet me!” as I walked past.
Some of the female teachers at school began to call me their little sister. By the third of my eight weeks of work at the school one of the teachers offered to have a dress tailor made for me. So on our walk from school to my mother’s shop after school that day, we stopped by the tailor and she had me choose the fabric. They made it in the traditional Eastern African kitenge style. In the last week when it was completed and I wore it to school, my students told me I looked smart.
Even the students took it upon themselves to make me feel very welcome. One day in Class 5 after we had had some time to ask me questions about the US – during which they inquired of Albert Schwarzenegger, Tom and Jerry, and flying cars – they offered me an orange, some pop corns they had packed from home, some biscuits also brought from home, some mango juice, and ground nuts. Apparently I wasn’t grading their homework harshly enough. Another time when we were at a musical competition, some Class 8 students offered to buy me a myriad of snacks from the vendors who had lined the walkways. Once when we visited the house of my mother’s friend and she found that I liked fish, she sent me home with some hard-to-come-by canned tuna. When early on I expressed a satisfaction with roasted sim sim (sesame seeds) and ground nuts (peanuts), they were almost never absent from the tea table. I am still marveling at the extent to which people supported my being there.
After my mother and I had returned home from the shop around 6pm, I either work on reports that are due to the FSD site team, or help with some household chore. Since I can’t cut the cabbage small enough, or slice the tomatoes as daftly as my host sister without the use of a cutting board, and don’t yet know how to milk the cow or work the cooking fire, I prefer pumping
and carrying water from the bow hole in the yard. While I did that my sister would be cooking vegetables or rice in the top house on the gas cylinder, my mother would be in the house below assisting grandma at the fireplace to prepare lentils or fish whilst responding to cell phone repair needs and other business opportunities on her smart phone, and my mothers’ nieces would be helping cook or clean in the house below. My younger host sister would be enthusiastically screaming the poems and songs she learned from school to anyone or no one who would listen. If I am seated in one stationary place for any extended period of time she tries to braid my hair or rather twist it around itself. Once my host father returned home he will be cutting the grass or attending to some other part of the yard and then catching up with the latest news on the TV while simultaneously reading the newspaper with a flashlight as the fluorescent, uncovered lightbulbs on the ceiling didn’t lend themselves well to fine print. The sun sets by 7pm and everyone must be in by then.
Codes of decorum are loyally upheld when held up to question is the decorum of codes. As a “third world country”, there is a keenly felt desire to be “better,” to grow, to try new and different and more endeavors, to question and improve the codes of governance and living, to develop. But development is an undertaking which requires much risk and audacity to confront the lack of a certainly identifiable best path forward. The certainty that is lacking in the realm of development is often compensated for in the realm of social expectations, no matter how limiting. When my mother saw a woman on the TV wearing a “mini skirt” (a skirt hanging just above the knees) she would chide “Aiii look how she is putting on! Here in Kenya that just can’t work.” And that was the end of that. When Obama was preparing to arrive in Kenya for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and the media coverage primarily comprised his position on gay rights and the strife that that was causing many socially conservative Kenyans, she wanted to bring that conversation to an even shorter end.
I still have yet to decide if when travelling in completely foreign places I should try to “fit in” out of respect for the surrounding culture, or be completely my own out of recognition of my own heritage. Both have their perks. Trying to dress in the style of a traditional African woman is fun and authentically demonstrates some sort of appreciation for their customs, especially to the older generations. At the same time it can look very awkward on a white girl. It even has the ability to attract some fantastic glares from girls closer your own age on the streets who are wearing the kind of western clothes you were told to leave at home. But dressing like I would in the states is a bit more comfortable and familiar, and makes me feel like I have better command of myself. 
This is especially important in a place when your every action is being carefully watched and seemingly scrutinized, and confidence is key. Also, as much as it is a learning experience for me to be living amongst a different culture, it is likely a learning experience for them to have me living with them, purely because of the difference that I embody. So then, why shouldn’t I appear as I would in the states so they can experience as authentic a foreigner as I desire to experience an authentic Kenyan? Trivial as dressing may seem, it consumed enough of my thoughts to receive a paragraph of recognition.
On these Saturdays I meet with the FSD site team and fellow intern(s). Here amidst white people I can talk as fast as I want and be understood without repeating myself even once. Sometimes even without finishing my sentence. If you want to talk about taking things for granted – this ease of communication would be one. No doubt the teachers at my school feel the same way, as they often have to repeat themselves in different ways until we understood each other. During FSD workshops we discuss topics such as grant writing, creative facilitation, and monitoring and evaluation. We review our current progress and discuss possible ideas for further work. One of the hardest parts about this type of work is the fact that the work to be done is very much undefined. It requires much initial innovation and then much continuing implementation. Altogether this demands lots of devoted energy.