rain and race

The rainy season is upon us now. Every day, the sky grows dark and menacing and we all clutch our umbrellas anxiously to our chests, wondering whether we will be caught out in the downpour. When it rains here, it rains hard, transforming streets and sidewalks into lakes in mere minutes. The rains can last from an hour, to all afternoon and evening. It wouldn't be that bad if most of the city were paved, but it's not; brickwork and concrete randomly give way to stretches of dirt all over. When it rains, everything turns muddy. On the first day of the rains, unaware of the extent to which the mud would cover the city, I naively wore flip-flops to work. As the matatus and buses from our side of town no longer enter the city centre (yes, the plan was finally implemented a few weeks ago and thousands of Eastlands residents have been walking and grumbling ever since), I had to walk from the drop-off point, the mad Muthurwa market, into town to get my second matatu. The walk isn't so long, it takes maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but in that time I managed to cover my bottom half nearly completely with mud. Every time I took a step, my flip-flop would spray mud all over my legs, and of course my feet were covered instantly. I must have looked completely miserable, because everyone I passed, and even the guys walking past me hauling hand-carts piled high with charcoal and vegetables, were saying "pole, sister, pole". Pole, which means sorry, is used as a kind of catch-all expression of sympathy. If you're feeling sick, or if you stopped your toe, dropped something, a relative died, your house burned down... "pole, pole sana". It was a pretty ridiculous situation, so I just had to laugh and clean myself off as best I could when I got to work. Of course, I also had a forum to attend that afternoon. Very professional. Since then, I've worn closed shoes on my commute and have been much more successful in keeping myself relatively clean.

Soon I won't have to walk from the market into town anymore -- in fact, I won't be going through town at all, unless I want to. On Monday, we're going to be moving out of Buruburu to South C, on the other side of town. It should shave a good forty minutes, if not more, from my commute, so I'm very excited. The new place is a bit smaller than this one, but it's new and really nice. It's basically a "servant's quarters" behind someone else's home, so we'll come in the huge gate and walk around the house to get to our flat. The woman who lives in the house is the landlady, and I'm not really sure how I feel about her yet. We've only met her once and she was completely shocked and thrown off when she saw me. She ended up speaking with George in Kikuyu almost the entire time, which pretty much sucked for me as I literally only know three words in Kikuyu. She has been quite helpful, though, so maybe she'll warm up to me. I guess she doesn't get too many non-Kenyans looking for apartments.

One of the strangest things for me about living here is that I'm constantly perceived as white. I'm mixed race, and back home when I'm subjected to a game of Guess That Ethnicity (which happens surprisingly frequently, and always starts with people wanting to know where I'm really from, because obviously people of colour can't come from Canada), guesses range from Brazilian to Lebanese to Indian to Moroccan. Definitely "brown". Here, it's German or Italian or Russian or American. Once in awhile, people will call me mhindi (Indian), but most of the time I'm just assumed to be a mzungu (white person). Only those who know me well know that I'm mixed. The Sheng (street slang) term for mixed race is pointi, short for "point five", which I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with either. Now that I have more of a substantial tan, people on the street trying to get my attention will sometimes call out "hey brown skin" or "brown skin lady", which is at least accurate, if a bit blunt...

With the arrival of the rains, the calls for resettlement of displaced people have reached a fever pitch. Unsurprisingly, the politicians in Nairobi are ignoring the warnings about the insufficient shelter, the lack of sanitation and food, continued sexual harassment, cholera and TB outbreaks, the people who remain traumatized by the attacks and the hundreds, if not thousands, of children who have yet to return to school. Instead, they are concentrating on their childish squabbling about how the ministries should be divided between the parties, which new ministries should be created, and how big the cabinet should be. It's all about them and what they can squeeze out of the deal that was meant to bring relief to those suffering in the aftermath of violence. While I understand that a certain amount of reshuffling is in order, and responsibilities must be allocated, the way it's being drawn out and the fights that are erupting over various seats is completely insensitive and belies a lack of concern over what is happening in the rest of the country. I'm not surprised, but I am deeply disappointed at the way that, once again, greed and powerlust have trumped the needs of people on the ground.