So clearly, I am a terrible blogger! Ummm... 10 days in Kenya and you'd think nothing happened!
Or that I learned nothing.
Neither could be farther from the truth.
Perhaps, I should do some of this blogging in retrospect!
So let me tell you my thoughts on the bui bui (hijab, to the rest of the world) - the head to toe covering of some Muslim women.
Anyone who thinks that covering is by its very nature oppressive and diminuitive has clearly never stood near a woman wearing one. I'm telling you, the sisters are saw were bad. And it was not hard to see... cutting your eyes at other women coming down the street is a universal language! LOL.
In Lamu, the covered sisters were fierce. nails done hair done everythang done. Jeweled cuffs, chic handbags, gilded sandles - and the baddest eyeliner and mascara technique I've ever seen.
They laughed, they rolled eyes, they bargained bartered bantered...
At any rate. It's the woman in the bui bui, not the bui bui.
One.
12 March 2011
06 March 2011
Some things about children... are universal!
Went to a celebration last night - our welcome celebration! The students from the Girls and Boys school performed for us. I have to say... the girls killed it!! Ridiculous!!
And boys will be boys... and all that heart.
It is what it is!! Got to let the boys be boys.
Wrote a poem about it, like to hear it? Hear it go!
The Boys
the boys, ahh the boys
sometime before puberty takes over
but just about the time you can see it setting in
the boys
the girls have already memorized their lines
coordinated their movements
gone to competition
and won first place
last week
the boys? well, the boys
still learning the words
figuring out the movements
is that his line? yesterday
you could hear him yell 3 alleys down
and 4 houses over
but tonight, he barely whispers above the geckos
the boys, ahh the boys
just let them dance
forget the choreography
madame, just let them be
let them move like men
a wedding dance, a harvest dance
anything with a cane
give them a stick they can bang on the ground
tell manhood to come
quicker
for they are ready
in their own minds
almost
the boys, ahh the boys
And boys will be boys... and all that heart.
It is what it is!! Got to let the boys be boys.
Wrote a poem about it, like to hear it? Hear it go!
The Boys
the boys, ahh the boys
sometime before puberty takes over
but just about the time you can see it setting in
the boys
the girls have already memorized their lines
coordinated their movements
gone to competition
and won first place
last week
the boys? well, the boys
still learning the words
figuring out the movements
is that his line? yesterday
you could hear him yell 3 alleys down
and 4 houses over
but tonight, he barely whispers above the geckos
the boys, ahh the boys
just let them dance
forget the choreography
madame, just let them be
let them move like men
a wedding dance, a harvest dance
anything with a cane
give them a stick they can bang on the ground
tell manhood to come
quicker
for they are ready
in their own minds
almost
the boys, ahh the boys
04 March 2011
Kenya Travelogue - Day 1 (shoulda posted two days ago!
As I sit here 24 hrs, almost to the moment, of getting on a plane to start this trip, I have time for my first moment of “tell all.”
Truthfully, stuff was much more interesting about 10 hours ago, but I wasn’t in the mood! And didn’t have time to write. Yep. That was when a member of our travelling party lost their passport in Amsterdam. Uh-huh. (Stop giggling. It was a legitimate and completely understandable misplacement of a document that was ultimately recovered.) First of all, let me say, thank God for American Express – and I am not being sacrilegious. I truly mean it. I am ever so grateful for that slightest beacon of sanity amidst the chaos (drama, fear, and panic) of lost passports on foreign soil.
(When I called last week to tell Amex I’d be in Kenya, flying through Montreal and Amsterdam – so don’t shut down the card when you see the charges! kind of call – the representative directed me to the international number on the back of the card. She said, Call us if you need anything. If you lose your baggage, you’re covered – call us. If you have to update travel logistics midstream, call us. Lost documents? Call us. Need a wet team, drop squad, emergency air-evac? Call us.
Okay. I could be exaggerating a tad but, that’s what it sounded like she was saying to me. Felt like I had a Marine on standby in my wallet!
And when shinola hit the fan, “call us” turned out to be the best travel advice I had gotten all month! God save Amex. Seriously.)
Any way.
I’m in typical travel gear, which is to say, prioritizing comfort over pride! Though I did buy a whole new outfit for the plane ride (why, diva, why?) but it’s essentially a semi-fancy set of sweats. Ran out of time, couldn’t tame the fro, so I threw one of my biggest headwraps on it as I walked out the door. That wrap, it turns out, is a crowd favorite, with silver and gold highlights over a simple black and grey pattern.
I love being around international people. Yes, there is a bit of rudeness that pervades a good part of the EU (LOL) in certain areas, but there is also an expectation of radical diversity when you are out. By “radical,” I mean, you expect to see not just people of different colors, but different continents, multiple ethnicities and various faiths when you’re in a truly international airport.
I was stopped twice to inquire of my origin –folks kind of assumed they “knew” who/what I was. You know, those kinds of questions that have built in assumptions of the answers. The first, Are you Muslim? High compliment from a Pakistani man in an elevator. That I suppose is the headwrap combined with the long pants and swing sweater. The second, You’re from Somalia, yes? No, but thanks. I tend to think of the Somali’s as fine featured and smaller – but perhaps my 21 straight days of working out is really doing something!
I tend to smile when people say something that lets me know their thought process is basically, well, since she’s clearly not American, what could she be? I get that at home, as well as abroad. I suppose I enjoy those remarks because sometimes I feel that we Americans can be so rigid, so anti-culture, so still so pre-occupied with deciding on a “norm” and fitting everybody into it. It just breeds “inauthenticity.”
On the other hand, perhaps it’s really just a moment for me to be reminded that we truly are a global community and that includes Black folks, especially. And we’re all over. Like cousins. Just looking like each other and confusing passersby.
And that is a good and comforting thing, don’t you think?
Truthfully, stuff was much more interesting about 10 hours ago, but I wasn’t in the mood! And didn’t have time to write. Yep. That was when a member of our travelling party lost their passport in Amsterdam. Uh-huh. (Stop giggling. It was a legitimate and completely understandable misplacement of a document that was ultimately recovered.) First of all, let me say, thank God for American Express – and I am not being sacrilegious. I truly mean it. I am ever so grateful for that slightest beacon of sanity amidst the chaos (drama, fear, and panic) of lost passports on foreign soil.
(When I called last week to tell Amex I’d be in Kenya, flying through Montreal and Amsterdam – so don’t shut down the card when you see the charges! kind of call – the representative directed me to the international number on the back of the card. She said, Call us if you need anything. If you lose your baggage, you’re covered – call us. If you have to update travel logistics midstream, call us. Lost documents? Call us. Need a wet team, drop squad, emergency air-evac? Call us.
Okay. I could be exaggerating a tad but, that’s what it sounded like she was saying to me. Felt like I had a Marine on standby in my wallet!
And when shinola hit the fan, “call us” turned out to be the best travel advice I had gotten all month! God save Amex. Seriously.)
Any way.
I’m in typical travel gear, which is to say, prioritizing comfort over pride! Though I did buy a whole new outfit for the plane ride (why, diva, why?) but it’s essentially a semi-fancy set of sweats. Ran out of time, couldn’t tame the fro, so I threw one of my biggest headwraps on it as I walked out the door. That wrap, it turns out, is a crowd favorite, with silver and gold highlights over a simple black and grey pattern.
I love being around international people. Yes, there is a bit of rudeness that pervades a good part of the EU (LOL) in certain areas, but there is also an expectation of radical diversity when you are out. By “radical,” I mean, you expect to see not just people of different colors, but different continents, multiple ethnicities and various faiths when you’re in a truly international airport.
I was stopped twice to inquire of my origin –folks kind of assumed they “knew” who/what I was. You know, those kinds of questions that have built in assumptions of the answers. The first, Are you Muslim? High compliment from a Pakistani man in an elevator. That I suppose is the headwrap combined with the long pants and swing sweater. The second, You’re from Somalia, yes? No, but thanks. I tend to think of the Somali’s as fine featured and smaller – but perhaps my 21 straight days of working out is really doing something!
I tend to smile when people say something that lets me know their thought process is basically, well, since she’s clearly not American, what could she be? I get that at home, as well as abroad. I suppose I enjoy those remarks because sometimes I feel that we Americans can be so rigid, so anti-culture, so still so pre-occupied with deciding on a “norm” and fitting everybody into it. It just breeds “inauthenticity.”
On the other hand, perhaps it’s really just a moment for me to be reminded that we truly are a global community and that includes Black folks, especially. And we’re all over. Like cousins. Just looking like each other and confusing passersby.
And that is a good and comforting thing, don’t you think?
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