Blog post numba 3: I can’t believe you offered that with your poop hand.

So last I left you, I believe I was about to leave for Mombasa. So the journey to Mombasa begins on the Friday night that we were to catch the overnight bus, in order to arrive on Sat morning. “What’s this,” you ask? “Taking a Friday night away from a bunch of study abroad students?” Not to worry, several of my classmates decided to meet at a pub before going on the trip, so while we were all at the bus terminal waiting for our overnight, there were plenty of white people rapping, singing, and being generally drunk whilst I’m sure all the other locals sitting there were stuck halfway between general amusement and fear of having a seat next to one of them (sober and boring, I think it’s safe to say I was not included in those thoughts) though it reminded me quite strongly of the way that people look at a baby while waiting to board a flight; with a combination of amusement at the baby’s cuteness and hope that the general cuteness is supposed to sit far, far away in case of tantrum. Luckily, the drunkenness subsided, and we all had an equally semi-miserable time trying to sleep on our way to Mombasa.

Upon our arrival, I think everyone was struck immediately by two things: the incredible culture apparent even in just the little architecture we could see in the pre-dawn darkness, and by the humidity. The humidity became more and more apparent as we all started to realize that we were sweaty even before having moved anywhere, and before the sun had risen. Then, after a nap at the SIT office and some terrible shopping (somehow haggling just isn’t the same when you’re part of a group of 23 white people all trying to buy things simultaneously) for lesos (kangas- African cloths that women tie around their waists, among their other uses), moo-moos (giant, light, shapeless nightgown-type things women wear in an effort to be modest without dying of heat), and a few other things, we were on our way to Shirazi for a week with our rural homestay.

That first day was incredible as we got the taste of so many cultures that were so, so different and enticing, though it was also pretty difficult, as we all must have sweated out at least 2 litres of water, were running on very little sleep, and ended up in some new village trying to communicate with our new host families in Swahili, all the while forgetting essential words like “forget”, “practice”, “no problem” “are you sure”, etc etc. Turns out, being cordial is a lot easier in your own language.

Living in Shirazi for the next week was an incredible experience for so many reasons, but especially for the people there. My host family (immediate family) was AMAZING (except for one of my host brothers—ask me about this in person… it’s not a story that I have the time or inclination to include here), and I have to say, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to bond with a group of people the way I did in such a short time. Nearly everyone in the village was Muslim (including my fam), so the first few days were definitely an adjustment, as modesty has never really been one of my strong points, especially in intolerable heat/humidity.

That being said, I came to learn that a headscarf is actually an incredibly convenient tool for wiping sweat off, and is not quite mandatory, even when you are walking places where you encounter other people. I remember the first time I went on a walk with one of my friends, I finally decided that it would be appropriate to ask him if I could tak it off, when we were somewhere where we clearly would not find other people (we were hiking down the river to hunt a crocdile)… at first I thought it might give the wrong impression, given the fact that he was a boy about my age, and maybe me asking something like that would be perceived as promiscuous. Then, though, I just thought “screw it” (or words to that effect) and asked, and he gave me some response that clearly meant “uh… of course its okay… why wouldn’t it be?” Unfortunately, making costume adjustments wasn’t quite so easy when it came to playing mpira (football/soccer) at one of the Shirazi league games… between continuously pulling my leso back up as it fell down, keeping my headscarf in place, and picking thorns from the bottom of my feet, I ended up mostly just making a fool of myself more than I actually touched the ball, despite the fact that I was playing with a bunch of little kids. I guess that’s what playing with little kids is all about, though…

So family and friends in Shirazi: In my family there was Fatuma (Mama), Ali (Baba), Wafula (one brother), Mohamed (another brother), a third brother whose name I don’t remember, and then Mariam (a sister) and Ashura (another little sister—the one after whom I was named while I was there… I was Ashura Mkubwa (Old Ashura) and she was Ashura Mdogo (Little Ashura)). Everyone in the extended fam lives near one another (like within 10 feet of the next house) so around our house pretty consistently were uncles, cousins, grandma, etc. At first when people would introduce themselves to me and tell me how we were related, I would try to keep track, though I quickly found this to be near impossible for two reasons. The first is that ideas of family there are a little different, so culturally/linguistically, it’s pretty hard to differentiate between things like mom and aunt, or brother and cousin, so when people would translate over from Swahili to English, nothing quite matched up. On top of that, people had kids at all kinds of ages, so a number of my uncles, for example, were my age. A few of the other kids on my program had host mothers that were younger than they were… Regardless, everyone in the immediate and extended family were wonderful, welcoming, and plenty forgiving as I learned about things that were(n’t) allowed, doable, polite, etc. I have to say, looking back on a lot of the mistakes I made in my cultural assimilation, I’m incredibly thankful for all those times when my family clearly noticed I was doing something wrong, but didn’t mention it, like the first day or so that it took me to realize why everyone reclined on their left hand, and ate with their right. SO nice of them to not mention that I was touching our shared food (we all ate from a giant plate) with the hand meant for wiping my bum.

I’ll post more on Shirazi and Mombasa later, but I know how short some of your attention spans are, so I’ll give you a break for a few days before boring you with more details. In the meantime, I think you all should know, if you go out in public wearing a leso (kanga) as a skirt, everyone will laugh at you. I was about to do this, and was on my way out the door to school when the house-help, Jess, laughed in my face and told me that I definitely would NOT look smart unless I put on my trousers.