Randomation
on It began in Africa (Kenya), 16/Jan/2012 15:05, 34 days ago
I have now lived in Kenya for over a year. So what is my overwhelming emotion? How do I mostly feel every day? Ground down by the poverty? Bored out of my wits by the meetings? Happy watching the little kids walk to school hand-in-hand every morning?Mostly I feel confused. The sheer randomness of everything still takes me by surprise almost every day and after 15 months I am still utterly at a loss to understand... well, pretty much everything. To try and explain why I am so befuddled I thought I would share a conversation I had on a bus a little while back. It's just a vignette, a window into my world, but it might help to explain.Let's set the scene. I am on a matatu, headed fromMigori to Kisumu. It doesn't look far on the map. Of course we can't leave Migori until the matatu is full, so we wait for an hour, by which point the matatu is all but exploding with passengers. Half an hour out of town we blow a tyre and are left stranded on the road, then at a garage. When we finally set off again we seem to have even more passengers and I am crammed into half a seat in the far-back corner (mercifully next to a window). It's two hours into our journey before the stares at the random white girl are broken by the man whose elbow is wedged into my ribs:Man 1: So where are you from?Me: England.Man 1: That's good. So you will take me to your country?N.B. This is one of the most persistent and annoying questions random strangers ask me in Kenya - I understand the reasons for it but after a year I am just utterly bored by it.Me. No.Man 1: Why?Me: Because I don't know you.Man 1: Still, I think you can take me to your country. I would very much like to go.Me: Look, it is not possible for me to take you to my country.Man 1: Why?Me: Because it is very expensive and because you must get a visa to work.Man 1: But you are mzungu! I think you can get these things for me.Me: I cannot.At this point Man 2 interjects from the seat in front, initially to my relief:Man 2: Look, she cannot do that thing for you.Man 1: Why?Man 2: Because she would have to ask the Queen.Me: That's right, I would have to ask the Queen, and you know she can be very much difficult.(OK, so I seized on the guy's ignorance: in my defence we had another two hours to go and no elbow room to swing a punch, so it seemed the best solution).Man 2: Yes you must ask the Queen. Tell me, what will you do when the Queen dies?Me: Then Charles will become King, unless he abdicates - gives up.Man 2: What! You do not choose? That is very bad. That is not democracy. [Turns to Man 1]. You see? This is how you make conversation with a mzungu. Not talking of taking to her country or what and what. You make conversation. Are you getting it?Man 1: I am thinking that she could take me to her country if we were to marry. Me, I would very much like to marry a mzungu.Man 2: What you say is true. [To me]. Are you married?Me: Yes. I am very much married.Man 2: What, the bride price has been paid?Me: In my country we do not have bride price, but I am married.Man 2: Ai! That is why there is so much divorce in your country. You know, if the couple had to repay bride price when they divorced I think you would not have so much divorce.Me: Right.Man 2: Also, here we just take another wife when things do not go well.Man 2 turns back in his seat with a shake of his head that says, "these mzungu, they will never learn".Man 1: So, when will you take me to your country?One hour, forty five minutes to go...Random, right? I keep hoping that one day it will all start to make sense but somehow the more I see the less I understand! I do laugh more so I suppose that counts as progress...