Back in Kenya. My program ended in Rwanda and I must admit I was on the first bus out. The country is beautiful but very intense, like most beauty. I don't know how to summarize the experience there because I am still processing. It will take it's own time.
Thank you for reading.
I feel like I am starting all over again. I have one month left on my trip and needless to say, I am exhausted from going full force since last semester in January. I am taking my rest and I have the opportunity to still learn all around me in the new environments I find everywhere here.
Lately Kenya had been immersed in debates on how to deal with the post-election violence of 2007. Where around 2,000 people lost their lives after results were shown to have reelected the previous President. Just now the country is deciding whether to prosecute internationally the instigators of violence or to have truth and justice commissions, who take a non-punitive approach to justice and reconciliation. These issues are very close to the things I have been studying and writing about all summer. Everyday I read the paper full of conflicting opinions about moving forward after large scale violence. Moving forward objectively and subjectively.
Hard questions and I flip-flop between the different approaches often. But moreso I ponder whether we can ever have a clear notion of what justice ever really is.
But I wanted to write you about the camle I saw last night!
It was amazing. I am currently with my friend from Lamu (the island I wrote about) in his Gikuyu village visiting his mother while we both take well deserved breaks from school and work.
So last night we were in a restaurant and I went downstairs to find Murrey's mother and there was a huge camel chillin' in the streets of Nyeri, where we are!
I am writing about it because I was seriously enraptured. And my reaction and experience with it makes me smile. I love life stuff like that. I just wondered up to it and started petting it. His owner was very nice and gave me four mangoes to feed it. It was amazing. That camel, I don't know if they all are, was seriously a zen creature. He was just being. I'm serious!! Anyway it was awesome, and I eventually found Murrey's mom who is amazing and cute and watches WWF saying "Owwwww" and "powwww" all the time. It is like I have stepped into a comic book, that has really good food.
So rest assured I have been sucessful in my studies and programs here. And more importantly I have had experiences that are lifechanging and made connections with people that are extremely special, from me to them and them to me.
But the blogs aren't stopping!
I have one more month here, and there is so much I am inspired to write about. More pictures to come too. Murrey and I will be traveling across Kenya again back to his island town of Lamu where I will be practicing my Swahili.
More to come.
Love,
Chelsea
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
I Have Been Hesitating to Write
Because it is so hard. Not to write, but to emotionally internalize what I have been experiencing here. I knew I was coming to a post-genocide environment, but to read those words or to conceptually know that reality is absolutely different from physically being immersed in that space. And in the same moment, Rwanda is so much more than the genocide that took place here. I would never want to reinforce the singular association the world places it in.
I have been sad/irritated for two weeks, and during those interworkings of myself I knew it was due to being overwhelmed by the tragedy you have to interpret, if you have eyes or heart open at all, when you are introduced to this place.
I was (of course) beating myself up about feeling these ways and not eminating a positive sheen, but then I met an incredible woman here who told me the wisest thing. She said you must go through this process, really feel it, to get to a position where you can be proactive in positive change inside the blanket of this reality, whatever characteristics it provides. It made me fel better and take it easy on myself to be in this environment and so upset.
I am finally seeing through to some of the purpose of my interpersonal reactions to this place.
I mean, to tell street children on a daily basis that, no, I won't give them money is enough to break someone like myselves spirit. But then layer it with a nostalgia encased atmosphere of loss and trauma lurking behind everyones vision and experience. It is quite un-understandable.
And the immense feeling of helplessness to change anything I see here at this point, takes another jab at me. But in the same moments fortifies a conviction that, I am so thankful and belssed to say, burns like a ragin fire inside of me. It is there, and I have so much gratitude for it. Anyone of you who have known or seen a glimpse of the inside of me will be familiar with tis flame. That's why you read isn't it? And it is why I write, to actively (reader and writer) observe how the flame take to the Rwandan wind.
I wasn't sure how the elements were meeting and that is why I hesitated to write.
I went to another memorial site that was immensly upsetting. My stomach starts hurting everytime I am face to face with the close history of the genocide. It was a church where a smaller town's community fled while hiding from the genocidaires. 10,000 people were killed in brutal and torturous ways at this site with only 7 survivors. One of the 7 gave us the tour of the church. He must have been around 20 and had worked there for two years.
I can't imagine that reality placed in someone's daily life. Brutal, brutal killings that I won't go into here. But, as part of my research assistant work for a professor at Columbia I have documented all of the extensive information about the first memorial site I told you about and if anyone is interested in those readings I will post them here.
Skulls and bones lined the memorial catacombs, you could see machete cut fractures in the skulls and bullet holes. Priests were often in collaboration with the killers and would baptise people before sending them to death. I don't even want to write this stuff to you and expose you to it, but the only saving grace I have had, in this sea of feeling helpless is that if I can reach your ears in some form of information dissemination and advocacy for victims of violence then it is not in vain.
One day I will do more.
Villages that used to stand are no more as there are no remaining citizens from there left alive. People hid in marshes, scavenging for food at night.
And amongst these stories the opposite exists. Stories of people digging trenches to hide the hunted in and concealing the patch of earth by planting sweet potatoes on top. Or hiding 400 orphans, who had standing room only with their arms crossed in front of them, and bringing them food hidden in waste bins.
What can you make of all this? How do you organize these events in your mind and emotional body? I would like to hear some of your thoughts.
But for now I need some new shoes. In places like this, even a frivolous thing like that inflicts guilt upon my consciousness of having more than others and of wanting comforts.
Just another thing to sort out.
I am touched that you are engaged wityh me through reading my experiences.
Notice that Peace When it is With You,
Chelsea
I have been sad/irritated for two weeks, and during those interworkings of myself I knew it was due to being overwhelmed by the tragedy you have to interpret, if you have eyes or heart open at all, when you are introduced to this place.
I was (of course) beating myself up about feeling these ways and not eminating a positive sheen, but then I met an incredible woman here who told me the wisest thing. She said you must go through this process, really feel it, to get to a position where you can be proactive in positive change inside the blanket of this reality, whatever characteristics it provides. It made me fel better and take it easy on myself to be in this environment and so upset.
I am finally seeing through to some of the purpose of my interpersonal reactions to this place.
I mean, to tell street children on a daily basis that, no, I won't give them money is enough to break someone like myselves spirit. But then layer it with a nostalgia encased atmosphere of loss and trauma lurking behind everyones vision and experience. It is quite un-understandable.
And the immense feeling of helplessness to change anything I see here at this point, takes another jab at me. But in the same moments fortifies a conviction that, I am so thankful and belssed to say, burns like a ragin fire inside of me. It is there, and I have so much gratitude for it. Anyone of you who have known or seen a glimpse of the inside of me will be familiar with tis flame. That's why you read isn't it? And it is why I write, to actively (reader and writer) observe how the flame take to the Rwandan wind.
I wasn't sure how the elements were meeting and that is why I hesitated to write.
I went to another memorial site that was immensly upsetting. My stomach starts hurting everytime I am face to face with the close history of the genocide. It was a church where a smaller town's community fled while hiding from the genocidaires. 10,000 people were killed in brutal and torturous ways at this site with only 7 survivors. One of the 7 gave us the tour of the church. He must have been around 20 and had worked there for two years.
I can't imagine that reality placed in someone's daily life. Brutal, brutal killings that I won't go into here. But, as part of my research assistant work for a professor at Columbia I have documented all of the extensive information about the first memorial site I told you about and if anyone is interested in those readings I will post them here.
Skulls and bones lined the memorial catacombs, you could see machete cut fractures in the skulls and bullet holes. Priests were often in collaboration with the killers and would baptise people before sending them to death. I don't even want to write this stuff to you and expose you to it, but the only saving grace I have had, in this sea of feeling helpless is that if I can reach your ears in some form of information dissemination and advocacy for victims of violence then it is not in vain.
One day I will do more.
Villages that used to stand are no more as there are no remaining citizens from there left alive. People hid in marshes, scavenging for food at night.
And amongst these stories the opposite exists. Stories of people digging trenches to hide the hunted in and concealing the patch of earth by planting sweet potatoes on top. Or hiding 400 orphans, who had standing room only with their arms crossed in front of them, and bringing them food hidden in waste bins.
What can you make of all this? How do you organize these events in your mind and emotional body? I would like to hear some of your thoughts.
But for now I need some new shoes. In places like this, even a frivolous thing like that inflicts guilt upon my consciousness of having more than others and of wanting comforts.
Just another thing to sort out.
I am touched that you are engaged wityh me through reading my experiences.
Notice that Peace When it is With You,
Chelsea
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Make sure you look at the older posts icon, there are pics and writing on the next page too....
Where were we? I was getting onto a bus at 6 in the morning for Rwanda. Ok, bumpy ride and red dust paved the path. It is rumored that the zebras are red and black here, genetics or dirt source, is currently unknown by me.
I arrived in the capital city of Kigali, Rwanda on the 27th of June. I was shocked to see order and cleanliness abound. This city blew Kampala and Nairobi out of the water in those regards. Unbelievable, eery, order here. Needless to say, I find the most charm in the bustling streets of Kampala. I have thus decided this place is a mix between A Wrinkle in Time (you know that part where they go to the other planet and all the kids bounce the balls at the same time) with a dash of 1984 thrown into the mix. So those are descriptions of my impressions.....
But moving on, I met the members of the youth delegation I would be doing the human rights training with and we spent a week with other Rwandese youth studying human rights and making a site visit to a rural area where land disputes are mediated through the organization I am volunteering with, The Center for Information and Social Mobilization. Land allocation is a huge issue here, and all over the world, in part due to subsistence living being the main mode of survival for many people.
During our course we had the opportunity to meet with various human rights organizations from the grass roots NGO level to the governmental department of the Commission of Human Rights. While meeting there I found out that their organization, being affiliated with the government, has certain judicial powers other human rights organizations can only dream of. Like entering places of investigation for abuses unnanounced, and requesting interviews with suspected offenders. Interesting stuff. Although to note, there is a marked difference between a human rights organization funded by the government and one that is not. I will let you decipher that one.
Warning: I am going to talk about the genocide a little and the memorial center in Kigali and it is heavy stuff.....
So one of our first visits was to the Gizozi Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali. Where I will be returning to to do some extensive reseach assistant work for my professor from Kenya. The memorial center has a flame lit from April to June to mark the three months that the genocide took place. Part of their project is to rebury victims of the genocide in collective burial sites at the grounds of the memorial. So bones from all over the country are exhumed from the sites where they were literally dumped during the genocide, and given a proper burial at the memorial site. Some bodies on the bottom of these massive dumping sites where so compacted that they still have skin intact 15 years after the genocide.
The reburial sites are so long I could really contextualize the massive extent of the atrocity but currently about 250,000 people have been reburied there. Barely 1/4 of the casualities which occured in 1994.
Actual clothes and graphic pictures line the walls inside of the memorial. There is also an extensive history from colonial times until the present mapping the roots of divisionism in the country. For those that don't know, one theory about the tensions in Rwandese societyis that the colonial powers issued 'identity cards' distinguishing the Hutu and Tutsi and allocating different levels of priviledge within the society. The original colonizers beleived the Tutsi were superior the the Hutu, thinking they were decendants from a white figure from the bible, you could look up more about this it is called the Hamitic Hypothesis.
Anyway, the memorial dedicated an entire room to the thousands of children who were murdered in the genocide and in those moments I started to believe that the devil exists. You leave with a sick feeling in your stomach at the magnitude of the unimaginable. How do you make sense out of the unbelievable, how do you organize your conscience around a reality of massive violence extremely beyond your frame of reference? That is where the sick stomach feeling comes from.
Our guest house is near the oldest church in Kigali where hundreds of people tried to seek shelter during the genocide and it is thought that the priests would pick certain people out of the crowd, Tutsi, claiming they had safe hiding places for them only to send them outside the church to be hacked to death by machetes; the main weapon used in the genocide. I will be visiting the infamous Hotel Rwanda soon to see the pool, where people swim today, where the survivors survived by drinking the water from.
Many of the Rwandese delegates in our human rights program lost all or some of their family members. Pictures on their cells phones include their current boyfriends maybe followed by a picture of the bones of their parents.
I don't bring it up with them, if it comes into a conversation naturally I will engage in a discussion with them about it. I don't want to treat them like objects of study. Fascination of the abomination, as my teacher at Columbia would put it. I a minterested in being human beings with them.
So this place and time of my travels has been the most challenging, for more reasons than the collective trauma that blankets this beautiful country.
Be Well,
Chelsea
I arrived in the capital city of Kigali, Rwanda on the 27th of June. I was shocked to see order and cleanliness abound. This city blew Kampala and Nairobi out of the water in those regards. Unbelievable, eery, order here. Needless to say, I find the most charm in the bustling streets of Kampala. I have thus decided this place is a mix between A Wrinkle in Time (you know that part where they go to the other planet and all the kids bounce the balls at the same time) with a dash of 1984 thrown into the mix. So those are descriptions of my impressions.....
But moving on, I met the members of the youth delegation I would be doing the human rights training with and we spent a week with other Rwandese youth studying human rights and making a site visit to a rural area where land disputes are mediated through the organization I am volunteering with, The Center for Information and Social Mobilization. Land allocation is a huge issue here, and all over the world, in part due to subsistence living being the main mode of survival for many people.
During our course we had the opportunity to meet with various human rights organizations from the grass roots NGO level to the governmental department of the Commission of Human Rights. While meeting there I found out that their organization, being affiliated with the government, has certain judicial powers other human rights organizations can only dream of. Like entering places of investigation for abuses unnanounced, and requesting interviews with suspected offenders. Interesting stuff. Although to note, there is a marked difference between a human rights organization funded by the government and one that is not. I will let you decipher that one.
Warning: I am going to talk about the genocide a little and the memorial center in Kigali and it is heavy stuff.....
So one of our first visits was to the Gizozi Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali. Where I will be returning to to do some extensive reseach assistant work for my professor from Kenya. The memorial center has a flame lit from April to June to mark the three months that the genocide took place. Part of their project is to rebury victims of the genocide in collective burial sites at the grounds of the memorial. So bones from all over the country are exhumed from the sites where they were literally dumped during the genocide, and given a proper burial at the memorial site. Some bodies on the bottom of these massive dumping sites where so compacted that they still have skin intact 15 years after the genocide.
The reburial sites are so long I could really contextualize the massive extent of the atrocity but currently about 250,000 people have been reburied there. Barely 1/4 of the casualities which occured in 1994.
Actual clothes and graphic pictures line the walls inside of the memorial. There is also an extensive history from colonial times until the present mapping the roots of divisionism in the country. For those that don't know, one theory about the tensions in Rwandese societyis that the colonial powers issued 'identity cards' distinguishing the Hutu and Tutsi and allocating different levels of priviledge within the society. The original colonizers beleived the Tutsi were superior the the Hutu, thinking they were decendants from a white figure from the bible, you could look up more about this it is called the Hamitic Hypothesis.
Anyway, the memorial dedicated an entire room to the thousands of children who were murdered in the genocide and in those moments I started to believe that the devil exists. You leave with a sick feeling in your stomach at the magnitude of the unimaginable. How do you make sense out of the unbelievable, how do you organize your conscience around a reality of massive violence extremely beyond your frame of reference? That is where the sick stomach feeling comes from.
Our guest house is near the oldest church in Kigali where hundreds of people tried to seek shelter during the genocide and it is thought that the priests would pick certain people out of the crowd, Tutsi, claiming they had safe hiding places for them only to send them outside the church to be hacked to death by machetes; the main weapon used in the genocide. I will be visiting the infamous Hotel Rwanda soon to see the pool, where people swim today, where the survivors survived by drinking the water from.
Many of the Rwandese delegates in our human rights program lost all or some of their family members. Pictures on their cells phones include their current boyfriends maybe followed by a picture of the bones of their parents.
I don't bring it up with them, if it comes into a conversation naturally I will engage in a discussion with them about it. I don't want to treat them like objects of study. Fascination of the abomination, as my teacher at Columbia would put it. I a minterested in being human beings with them.
So this place and time of my travels has been the most challenging, for more reasons than the collective trauma that blankets this beautiful country.
Be Well,
Chelsea
Miracles at the Border and Into Uganda
Ok, so I left the land of donkeys no sooner than I danced all night on the "floating bar" which sits itself in the middle of the ocean, only reachable by boat or swimsuit. And took the ferry at 6am to the mainland to start on bus extravaganza. I crossed Kenya and my second bus was overnight, I woke up to find the bus stopped because there were fears of thieves in the area who shoot th tires out of nice buses and loot. But alas, there was no problems.
And I forgot to mention the Somalian refugees I met in the northern part of Kenya, where there is the second largest refugee camp in the world, currently at quadruple mass capacity....I did not go there but met some folks along the way.
So I headed from Nairobi to Uganda. I needed to pass through there to get to Rwanda and planned to break up the long trip with a couple of days in the capital city of Kampala. The border crossing was hectic and miraculous...I (after being travel cushioned by the academic program taking care of everything) did NOT do my homework and got a surprise in the dusty border crossing line that I needed 50 dollars in U.S. currency to pass through. Yikes, long story short I held up the bus, almost got severly ripped off by a curreny change guy, and almost got left at the border of Kenya and Uganda. But my bus driver came to the rescue, and somehow I pulled 50 from my account. The thing is is that the inflation rates are insane around here. For example, in Rwanda a cup of tea is 1,000 franks. So conversion is not necessarily my bag so it takes alot to get used to.
But anyway, after some interesting conversations from East Africans on the bus I arrived in the "pearl of Africa" Kampala, Uganda. Which is an insane ball of perfect chaos!!! And I loved it. To my surprise the city of 7 hills (or 6?) like Rome, was amazing. The traffic blows Rio de Janeiro out of the water and speeding amongst all the insanity are these motorcycle taxis names Boda-Bodas.
I decided to spend my nights at a youth hostel (which I think I am growing out of ;( and researched the university library to post up in and do my essay.
Needless to say I was on the boda-bodas with a quickness and loved them. I told myself I must get out of this city because I liked the motorcycles too much.
So I talked the libraries into letting me pay a small fee to use the libraries and during my studies, which I spent all day there, I met intellectuals at the university and had dinner with them after studying all day. It was lovely, very non-touristy experience.
Another highlight of my grief stay in Kampala was contacting a former teaching assistant of mine at Columbia who is doing his dissertation work concerning the alleviation of poverty in Uganda. We had breakfast and he unexpectedly gave me a slew pf advice about my near graduation and pursuit into law school. He gave me contacts of amazing people doing projects such as refugee law and others in Kampala, who I have since contacted and had wonderful conversations with people who are actively doing my dreams.
Then Micheal Jackson died, and EVERY boda-boda driver knew in the whole city!! Through broken english wizzing down the street we would have conversations about the late pop idol.
Priceless.
Then after three nights it was off to Rwanda to start the human rights delegation, which has been VERY interesting!! More to come, love you guys. Thanks so much for reading and your comments, it gives me support here.
And I loaded pics! finally. p.s. they take 30 minutes to load dudes.
Oh and p.s.s....This is a shout out to my lovely world traveling sister....where are you my dear? I miss your words.
Love and Respect,
Chelsea
And I forgot to mention the Somalian refugees I met in the northern part of Kenya, where there is the second largest refugee camp in the world, currently at quadruple mass capacity....I did not go there but met some folks along the way.
So I headed from Nairobi to Uganda. I needed to pass through there to get to Rwanda and planned to break up the long trip with a couple of days in the capital city of Kampala. The border crossing was hectic and miraculous...I (after being travel cushioned by the academic program taking care of everything) did NOT do my homework and got a surprise in the dusty border crossing line that I needed 50 dollars in U.S. currency to pass through. Yikes, long story short I held up the bus, almost got severly ripped off by a curreny change guy, and almost got left at the border of Kenya and Uganda. But my bus driver came to the rescue, and somehow I pulled 50 from my account. The thing is is that the inflation rates are insane around here. For example, in Rwanda a cup of tea is 1,000 franks. So conversion is not necessarily my bag so it takes alot to get used to.
But anyway, after some interesting conversations from East Africans on the bus I arrived in the "pearl of Africa" Kampala, Uganda. Which is an insane ball of perfect chaos!!! And I loved it. To my surprise the city of 7 hills (or 6?) like Rome, was amazing. The traffic blows Rio de Janeiro out of the water and speeding amongst all the insanity are these motorcycle taxis names Boda-Bodas.
I decided to spend my nights at a youth hostel (which I think I am growing out of ;( and researched the university library to post up in and do my essay.
Needless to say I was on the boda-bodas with a quickness and loved them. I told myself I must get out of this city because I liked the motorcycles too much.
So I talked the libraries into letting me pay a small fee to use the libraries and during my studies, which I spent all day there, I met intellectuals at the university and had dinner with them after studying all day. It was lovely, very non-touristy experience.
Another highlight of my grief stay in Kampala was contacting a former teaching assistant of mine at Columbia who is doing his dissertation work concerning the alleviation of poverty in Uganda. We had breakfast and he unexpectedly gave me a slew pf advice about my near graduation and pursuit into law school. He gave me contacts of amazing people doing projects such as refugee law and others in Kampala, who I have since contacted and had wonderful conversations with people who are actively doing my dreams.
Then Micheal Jackson died, and EVERY boda-boda driver knew in the whole city!! Through broken english wizzing down the street we would have conversations about the late pop idol.
Priceless.
Then after three nights it was off to Rwanda to start the human rights delegation, which has been VERY interesting!! More to come, love you guys. Thanks so much for reading and your comments, it gives me support here.
And I loaded pics! finally. p.s. they take 30 minutes to load dudes.
Oh and p.s.s....This is a shout out to my lovely world traveling sister....where are you my dear? I miss your words.
Love and Respect,
Chelsea
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
You haven't LIVED until you have been on a bus for two days!
Sorry for the stint of incognito. In the time lapse, I have left Kenya to delightfully visit Uganda for two days and then into Rwanda (where plastic bags are illegal) and am one week into my human rights training program.
But, to backtrack, because Lamu needs its due description. Craig (who has thus departed back to Canada) and I spent two wonderful weeks amongst 10,000 donkeys and two cars on the island of Lamu. There is a very large Muslim population on the island of Lamu and the call to prayer rings out five times a day. The first couple of days I would wake up still inside of a stupor and wonder if I was in a dream. Then I realized that the first call to prayer in the day was at 4:45am, followed by 6:45am. So, after I internalized that information into the main frame I would habitually wake up one minute before the call to prayer at 4:45am, listen to the call, and then fall back to sleep. Very surreal daily practice to get into.
And as I know about the callers to prayer from studying about it at Columbia, the singers must dedicate a big part of their lives to pronouncing the sacred words correctly.
Many women chose to cover their entire bodies and faces, some covered their bodies and heads, and some covered their bodies alone. And if I was there any longer I think I would start wearing the full face/body garb because woman not covered receive ALOT of attention and it is very tiresome. I met a very interesting western woman who married a Muslim man (non-practicing, I think) and she chose to wear the covering in the Lamu community because she felt you were not respected as a woman if you are not covered.
I found out that Swahili weddings are completely gender segregated and the Muslim woman dress in gold to the 9's and dance with each other all evening. It was also a sign of wealth status previously to have enough clothes to cover yourself as a woman and now-a-days poorer Muslim woman choose to completely cover to show it as a sign of being financially well off. I thought that was a particularly interesting facet of the community.
The Muslim woman also swim in the ocean in their full dress.
The streets of Lamu are narrow and winding, and anytime a donkey passes you must step into someone's doorway to allow the donkey to pass (he is usually carrying a big load).
I met wonderful people and made many friends on Lamu. They taught us how to make ugali, which is a staple Eastern Africa uses instead of a spoon. It's great! It is made from casava or corn meal and after cooking it comes out in the consistency on play-dough. And after a bowl and poured water is brought around to wash everyones hands, you break off and mold pieces of the ugali and use it as a spoon (that you eat with the bite) to pick up the other food like vegetables or meat.
I must apologize because I had a great blog written before this that got erased.....:( So there is more to come, 2 day bus ride, Kampala the capital of Uganda, motorcycles, and human rights. Oh and yesterday I saw the President of Rwanda, Kigame. Crazy.
Thank you for reading, more to come.
Love,
Chelsea
But, to backtrack, because Lamu needs its due description. Craig (who has thus departed back to Canada) and I spent two wonderful weeks amongst 10,000 donkeys and two cars on the island of Lamu. There is a very large Muslim population on the island of Lamu and the call to prayer rings out five times a day. The first couple of days I would wake up still inside of a stupor and wonder if I was in a dream. Then I realized that the first call to prayer in the day was at 4:45am, followed by 6:45am. So, after I internalized that information into the main frame I would habitually wake up one minute before the call to prayer at 4:45am, listen to the call, and then fall back to sleep. Very surreal daily practice to get into.
And as I know about the callers to prayer from studying about it at Columbia, the singers must dedicate a big part of their lives to pronouncing the sacred words correctly.
Many women chose to cover their entire bodies and faces, some covered their bodies and heads, and some covered their bodies alone. And if I was there any longer I think I would start wearing the full face/body garb because woman not covered receive ALOT of attention and it is very tiresome. I met a very interesting western woman who married a Muslim man (non-practicing, I think) and she chose to wear the covering in the Lamu community because she felt you were not respected as a woman if you are not covered.
I found out that Swahili weddings are completely gender segregated and the Muslim woman dress in gold to the 9's and dance with each other all evening. It was also a sign of wealth status previously to have enough clothes to cover yourself as a woman and now-a-days poorer Muslim woman choose to completely cover to show it as a sign of being financially well off. I thought that was a particularly interesting facet of the community.
The Muslim woman also swim in the ocean in their full dress.
The streets of Lamu are narrow and winding, and anytime a donkey passes you must step into someone's doorway to allow the donkey to pass (he is usually carrying a big load).
I met wonderful people and made many friends on Lamu. They taught us how to make ugali, which is a staple Eastern Africa uses instead of a spoon. It's great! It is made from casava or corn meal and after cooking it comes out in the consistency on play-dough. And after a bowl and poured water is brought around to wash everyones hands, you break off and mold pieces of the ugali and use it as a spoon (that you eat with the bite) to pick up the other food like vegetables or meat.
I must apologize because I had a great blog written before this that got erased.....:( So there is more to come, 2 day bus ride, Kampala the capital of Uganda, motorcycles, and human rights. Oh and yesterday I saw the President of Rwanda, Kigame. Crazy.
Thank you for reading, more to come.
Love,
Chelsea
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