And Who Are You?

Hey guys!

First off I just want to say this blog expresses only my views and thoughts, has nothing to do with the charity, and could have occurred at any school in the world. I still love Africa and I love USIU.

So I have always promised to be open and honest in my blog, so here is me being honest about my most horrifying moment at USIU. The names have not been changed, for the innocent have no reason to be ashamed.

The reason I came home for the summer is because I was sexually assaulted by another student first semester. His name is Guled and I thought he was my friend.

I will not describe the attack as there is a line between honesty and having a private life. Let me say that I did get away with some severe scratches and a hysterical mindset. I ran to a friend’s house and cried in terror and humiliation.

The next morning it turned out things were going to get worse before they became a complete and fucking shitstorm.

I went to my school for help and did everything that was asked of me. I wrote statements, went to the clinic (given a tetanus shot and antibiotics), broke up with Wilson, felt like a public pariah, has my life put on trial, was no longer allowed to have boys in my room, had to switch classes to avoid him and people talked to me about it as if I had made it up or it wasn’t a large deal.

I did this all thinking I would get justice and after a disciplinary hearing was given the verdict that Guled would be suspended for 2 semesters, meaning until the end of this current semester.

It was this knowledge with my summer home that allowed me to come back to USIU.

So imagine my surprise when I saw my attacker in the library.

The school had let him back on campus, after one semester, and without informing me.

This presented a delicate situation.

My absence along with him being back fueled a ridiculous rumor mill with people thinking I made the whole thing up. But the rumors were not the worst.

I was hysterical when I first saw him, unable to go to class, to eat, to sleep for period longer then 4 hours or to speak to friends. But that was not the worst.

People came up to me and talked to me about my attack as if it were no big deal and wondered “would I squash the beef”? But this was not the worst.

The worst was feeling so betrayed by the school. The worst was living with the knowledge that I had gone through all of this for nothing.

The worst my girlfriends telling me about their own sexual assaults and how they refused to go to the authorities to avoid an experience like mine only to receive no justice.

That was the worst.

So now what was I to do?

My last blog was about how to I blend into Kenya? How do I maintain my background as well as live and work here?

But now my question is - what do I have a right to change?

After weeks of deliberation and wondering what my next move would be I decided that at this point I had a right to do whatever I damn well pleased. I decided to stomp my goddamned feet.

The way I did that was to walk over to the Vice Chancellor, President and real leader of this university, Dr. Frieda Brown, and ask for a meeting. To me delight this woman said yes.

Today was that meeting. I spent the first 20 minutes of it crying.

And the wonderful, beautiful, delightful Exhilarating thing was that this woman came down on my side and promised to look into my case.

But then quite suddenly, in reaction my stomping foot, the ground shifted.

It seems that I am the first girl to report a sexual assault at USIU. Woah. Now either I am a terrible anomaly or men here have been getting away with this shit for way to long.

Suddenly Vice Chancellor Brown was talking about policy changes, mandatory counseling, a women’s empowerment group- No! A women’s empowerment seminar! (My idea) - New training for the entire faculty, basically what amounted to a complete system overhaul.

And may I reiterate. Woah.

And with a pep talk and a promise to get back to me in 48 hours I left her office and stumbled into the daylight.

But now I wonder, do I have any part in this overhaul?

Is it my responsibility now to make sure all these things happen? Should I be the one to encourage open communication about this subject? About any subject?

Could I possibly have that kind of strength in me?

The thing is I’m a little exhausted what with the assault and the work with Small Planet Big Plans and the drought to take care of. I’d also like to fit a date it at one point or another.

If I become active in this cause then not only will my story be public (which it kind of already is) but I have a feeling the boys won’t be so friendly.

But if the boys are going to stick together like that (because god help us all. It can’t be a whole campus of assholes can it?) Then shouldn’t us women too?

I’ve always said that every facet of life is intimately related, and I also believe that about people. So shouldn’t all of the women here, regardless of class or creed, stick together to scream we will not take this shit a second longer?

And if all of us women have a responsibility to each other then do I have a choice but to scream at the top of my lungs until some things start to change around here? Isn’t it my duty to reach out? It seems I have no options but to do my part.

But then again I question. Just who the hell do I think I am?

I guess the answer is I am the first woman to go public as a sexual assault victim at this school. And I do not feel ashamed one little bit.

Oh and about those rumors? I forgive the girls for spreading them. I think it’s mostly weak minded girls who feel that need to be “one of the boys”. But if anyone gives me an ounce of crap I will have to correct them quite severely. Although I doubt anyone will be that brave.

Anyway guys here I am once again laid bare. Hope you enjoyed it.

If anyone wants to e-mail me about this one I can be reached at aliyadegrazia@yahoo.com

Stay safe boys and girls!
Aliya

Nigerian Drunks and Other Things I Have No Buisness Writing About

Hello esteemed readers,

So I have been in Nairobi about a week and things are…interesting.

First off I had no idea my leaving in the middle of the night without saying anything and then returning unannounced as if nothing had happened would cause such a splash. Who knew, eh?

No but seriously every day I get yelled at. Yelled at well getting my coffee, going to the library, waiting for a matatu, etc. But in a good way.

Being back has really gotten me present to how much I love Kenya. I let all the nastiness of first semester cloud my judgment and forgot how amazing it can be here. I had this epiphany as my head was slamming into the ceiling of my matatu.

The interesting thing about this semester is I have interaction with the exchange students which makes me weirdly uncomfortable. I’m so used to being the only white American around and now I know so many- am I not special anymore - but the weird thing is when I want to explain something to one of them I have no idea how.



First off I don’t want to come off as a know it all bitch. “Oh I’ve been living here for over a year, I know everything, la deed a”. No one likes that girl.

The thing is sometimes they say things or do things that just feel so inherently wrong and I can’t explain why.

The second thing is who am I to explain a culture not my own to them? Isn’t that a bit arrogant to assume I know more then them? Or that they can’t learn it themselves?

Can anyone really know another culture?

Not to mention I have no business as I seem to be getting myself into enough trouble so I have no business giving advice.

Thus the title.

One of the things that kind of embarrasses me, and this sounds silly, is that I’m a parrot. I tend to adapt pretty quickly to my environment adopting the accent, gestures, etc. the problem, you ask?

Well I sound like kind of an asshole.

When I’m speaking Swahili and my accent mimics Kenyans that all fine and dandy but what about my English; if I replace “stop that” with “we we” or I adopt the African accent and drop pronouns like my peers am I adopting their culture or am I just a dick? Also what does it mean for my culture back home?

I’m kind of struggling for an identity all the time because as much as I don’t want to lose my home, I also want to blend in with my friends and a place I consider home.


I guess the question is really who the hell do I think I am?

The past summer at home was more about facing my past so I could move forward, so now that I’m at this magic healthy move forward place where shall I go? Is it in an African direction or do I move back towards the west?

Last Friday I was at a bar and a very drunk man approached me as I lit my cigarette. He came up and told me how light my skin was (um, really?) and asked how I got it. Now I have no idea why I said the next thing I said.

Nikko point 5

Meaning I am half black half white.

I then proceeded to convince him in Swahili and sheng that my mother was a white and my father a Kenyan and blah blah.

Now I will say that he was pretty drunk and the club was very dark but I was actually quite proud of myself. First because of the Swahili but second because I’d been able to convince someone that I belonged in that bar, that I wasn’t an outsider.

Except why did I feel like I needed to be African to have a right to be in that bar? I had friends there, who know I’m not at all black, I had a drink, and I could dance damnit! Why did I feel the need to lie?

I kind of feel like betrayed my family and friends and culture back in Chicago by lying. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, so why make things up?

Of course it was pretty cool.

The next one should be written from the mission!!


MISS YOU ALLLLL

Love,
Aliya

Round Two

Okay, here we go again.

I’ve decided it’s about time that I restart writing the blog. I know I’ve been slacking for awhile, but the past six months have been really tough on me, so I thought it’s be better for all of us if I took I went offline for a little. I do have a journal written of my first semester at college in Nairobi but I don’t know if I will post that yet, if I do I can promise it will be gruesome.

So here is a quick overview of what happened at USIU that had be go off the grid so suddenly

1) Wilson and I broke up- a few times. This often resulted in him threatening to kill himself or hurt someone
2) It turns out the mean girl phenomena is not only alive and well in college but alive and well in Africa. A group of girls took it upon themselves to ostracize and be bitches.
3) I was assaulted by a guy I thought I was friends with so I reported it to the school which causes a whole mess of issues.
4) I was hit by a car
5) I had to have my appendix taken out at a Kenyan hospital that had kittens running around it.
6) I got punched in the face on my last birthday
7) Other miscellaneous that I forget at the moment

So that was my first semester at school.

So I came home for the summer, had a good cry and a stiff drink with some friends, pulled up my big girl pants and am now preparing to return to the scene of the crime.

The problem is my big girl pants are chafing me.

I am no longer as wide eyed and excited as I was when I lived on the mission. In fact I’m actually quite afraid.

Since we’ve been on hiatus things have changed. For one there is a terrible drought going on in eastern Africa which has caused food prices to raise over 300%. This has definitely made it harder for the charity to run as much of the money we’ve sent has had to be spent of food rather then continuing the water project. It’s been expensive to keep these kids in school as well try and keep the project going, and with the economy still in this dip it’s hard to get people to give. I feel a little bit desperate for ideas on how to raise money.

On the other hand we have finally succeeded in putting the pump and the generator in, so clean water is now accessible in Mulot but people just keep asking for more and sometimes it feels like I’m drowning.

SPBP has finally made contact with Kenyan community here in Chicago and it looks like were going to underwrite a reception dinner for the Kenyan marathon runner coming to Chicago in November but I feel like we’re slightly at odds with some of the dinner planners so I’m scared we’re going to lose money on it, rather then make any donations.

I guess my fear comes down to the most basic human fear of failing. I don’t want to lose the project, I don’t want to make any (more) enemies, and I don’t want to fall short.

I suppose we’ll just have to see.

On the other hand I’m not scared for school as I have two secret weapons.

One is Bell Evans, SPBP’s new deputy director who will be enrolling at USIU with me this sem. She is one of the most beautiful, intelligent driven people on earth and a best friend to boot. With her at the school I cannot imagine another catastrophic semester.

The second has to do with a very kind compliment my dear friend and the great, yet under appreciated, philosopher sage BitxBit gave me. She said to me-

“Aliya, it’s so you just to go back to a place and fucking own it””

Which is true, although I might not end up leading the school by any means- I can’t imagine I’d be that driven- I do have a stubborn streak in me along with a contrarian personality. I will not allow myself to be beaten.

So my goals for this new semester are as such.

1) I will return to the positive place Kenya took me to when I first arrived and not let disasters large or small get in the way
2) I will, with the help of bell, bring the charity to a whole new level and raise another $10,000 this year
3) I will keep the physical fighting and disasters to a minimum

And most of all I will not lose contact with you all again. I will bring the blog back to its original place that not only helped me keep connected with home but kept me in an honest place centered in the now. I will document every scrap, every victory, I will be disgusting and honest and raw. I will let you all back into myself, and I will most defiantly not change any names. If I mentioned you in a poor context, you had no innocence to be protected. (Insert evil chortle)

Wish me luck boys and girls for I am returning to the lions den.

Kenya motherfucking believe it?

Love,
Aliya

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE FEMINIZED

Hey Readers!

So school is beginning to pick up a bit. Sadly the reason school is picking up a bit is I’m stirring up a bit of trouble.

The interesting thing about being a white woman in Kenya is the paradox I am to many people. I am white and thus powerful but a woman and thus weak, so the compromise often made is that I must be rich but fragile. This is a theory I am constantly disproving through bumming cigarettes as well as slight fights.

Now when I say fights I don’t mean any sort of street fighting with punches thrown and blades out (although one guy did step into me); these fights are more along the lines of intense arguments.

I have found myself on the side of radical feminism in this country as I argue for more education as well as available contraception for women all over the country. Weirdly these are radical ideas. The men here find me as one said “a destroyer of the traditional family life and thus traditional family and societal values and thus society itself) because I said I wouldn’t was his underwear.

This seems like a strange argument but essentially this is a live action example of globalization. Kenyans want a globalized economy and technological industry but were unprepared for the flow of ideas. It’s actually fascinating to be in the middle of.

The really mind blowing part is when the girls over hear.

My argumentative friend asked why if women were so strong why men were able to keep them down. I made the radical (and I do see how it’s radical) assertion that it is because men are the weaker sex.

Cue gasps.

My argument was that men knowing they had less innate power then women intentionally kept women uneducated, ignorant and pregnant as soon as possible. As ignorance leads to early pregnancy and early pregnancy leads to continued ignorance as well as the ability to control a woman through her children. I claimed that women’s sexuality actually shaped most history (e.g. Anne Boleyn, Helen of Troy) and that when given access to education women are able to expand the economy in ways never thought possible.

At this point my friend left the table.

Now the point of this conversation wasn’t to change this man’s mind and force him accept equality (although that would have been nice) it was for the girls to overhear.
Because that’s when the magic happens.

Women made aware of their own power as a woman suddenly feel stronger then ever before. From there the conversation was able to grow into hope of building all girls schools in India, teaching sex education in the bush, opening clinics for poor young women in the city and from there it grew into orphanages, free schools, space stations. Anything we could think of. The world was ours to build and to create us merely required the ability to think it.

And this is what I love about living in Kenya. There is simply so much more world left to create. There are more views to argue, more experiences to be had. (Did you know you can go sky diving in Nairobi for 3500 shillings? That’s about $45.)

In a country that is rapidly changing and developing through things such as the new constitution and new schools and new immigrants we are at the center. We are the new change. Here is the new change. Africa is the new change.

Here is the final frontier.

Because this really is the unexplored land. It is mapped out (sort off) but it is unexplored. Right now each step taken in this country is new, each breath different then the ones taken before it, and everything is growing and changing in ways thought impossible. The moon isn’t where we want to go to learn who we are as humans or where the future lays. Africa is.

In many ways Africa is our last chance. This is our chance to industrialize without severe damage to the environment; this is our chance to create fashion embracing all shapes. This is our chance to create governments that are equitable on the first try. This is our chance to put into place all these beautiful ideas we discussed in our basements as kids.

I firmly believe that the entire future of humanity lays in Africa. These are some of the last world being built up and changed and grown and if everyone here and around the world works to protect these worlds from the economic hit men, and fascist puppet governments and if we all start to care about the fate of this continent then within a few hundred (decades?) years these will be the societies we look up to.

And that is what I feel apart of. That is what is bigger then myself. That is what is bigger then the mission and the kids and the water and the anything and everything.

That is the ripple in the pond.

The stars don’t have shit on us.

So everyone care. Do donate, do visit, do volunteer, do anything you can think of. Help your community but think of this as your community to. Think of us over here as your poor but very smart neighbor who you help put through school. Low input high output. High interest rates on your loans.

After all Carl Sagan did say we are all essentially the same as we are all made of star stuff

So I guess that gives space something

Love and miss you all

Aliya de Grazia

Average

Hey all!

So I guess my life is only as messy as the average college students now days. The average confusion, heartbreak and general confusion; maybe with some extra dancing, I mean we are in Africa.

I can think of very little to say to you all right now. I guess I’m just like any other angsty college student. I feel a little scared, very lost, and very small.

I’ve been trying to do some soul searching, but the problem is I seem to have misplaced it.

Suddenly things that had ceased to bother me when I was dealing with problems on the mission have come back in full. Now that I’m not worried about water and food and school fees (as much) I’m again worried about sex and love and friendship.

I feel like I’m in sort of a reinvention funk. When I’m not Aliya-saving-the-world who am I? Who is College-life-Aliya?

I been feeling lately like someone cut off my connection to the earths center and I am sort of floating away. I’d hold onto the grass to stay down but touching it is a 2,000 shilling fine at USIU. As is littering.

It’s strange the areas in our life that make us feel a mess. I am, for all intensive purposes, a very smart and very successful young woman with an excellent charity who was able to live on her own for quite a few months in a foreign city.

Except I feel like a little kid whispering “Please like me”

Now don’t get all worried, I AM making friends and many of them great friends. But I can’t stop feeling like people don’t like me enough, or don’t want me around, or just don’t think I’m that interesting.

I don’t know what I was expecting but I didn’t expect to feel so upside down.

But this has to be normal for everyone who moves right? Do all new freshmen feel like this? Is everyone’s confidence fake?

On one of my last nights in Chicago Matt, D-kwon, my father and I got into a sort of pseudo philosophical argument. I had put forth my two bit 40 proof theory that although there isn’t a fate leading us there is a balance in the universe. This balance doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is happy it just means the universe is working at its most efficient. My theory was that each of us has an optimum path we can be on to help achieve this universal balance and when things in life suddenly start going well or going easy then you are on this optimum path.

Kenya felt like my optimum path at the time, which it still does, but whereas at the time it all seemed so clear my path has suddenly become hazy. I went from a corn field stretched highway to driving through the Appalachians. I just can’t see that far ahead. And now I have a nervous curiosity about the future. Like I’m walking along a ledge and need to inch slowly to get to the right place.

I don’t know. For now my “optimum path” is to go to all my classes, turn in my essays, and learn how to shake my ass like all the other girls here.

Miss you all and hope your not too cold back in Chicago!
Love,
Aliya

VIVA

Hey guys

So I’m sorry it’s been so long but I have been adjusting. It’s been a bit of work but besides having over 1000s mosquito bites (yes we counted) caused by a broken water pipe everything has been really great.

I’m adjusting to college the way anyone would I guess. Just in Africa. I have a core group of people whom I already love very much and have hit the club scene hard. According to my friend Oti this has caused me to “lose all my whiteness”.

When Oti said that I almost fell over with relief. I was so scared that school I would end up as “The White Girl” but as it turns out I’m just Aliya. Don’t get me wrong, everyone brings up my Caucasian aspects once in awhile (thus a 3 hour dance lesson from My friends Nonni and Charlotte) but I am not a token.

Suprisingly there is a clique known as “The White Girls” at the school who are girls from the US and Europe doing a semester abroad. They are never seen apart and appear to bother the hell out of everyone thus making people like me more. Isn’t that lucky?

I know I said I wouldn’t talk about SPBP as much in this blog but I am dying to get all this out this email I just got from Father Patrick-

I hope you have the
news that we TOPPED in this County which has three district and with
Narok South district having 254 primary schools. Our School had a
mean score of 357 out of 500. the number 2 school in our distict had a
meanscore of 337 followed closely by the number 3 with 335 marks.
Thanks for your kind thoughts and timely assistance especially to
those who are in desperate need of some one who can accord them their
hearts desires of a better and assuring education.
We have gotten a quotation from the Kenya Power and Lightning as
pertains to the power for the water pump and the power room or house
is being constructed. Pump testing was done and any time electricity
will come in as we have already paid for the power.

I don’t think I could be any happier!

It’s nice to know that the big and important things in your life can work out even as your personal life shatters and is gently put back together.

Shatter you ask?

Well I broke up with Wilson and it went far worse then anyone could have guessed it would. It went O.C., 90210, Melrose Place bad. Africa edition. This has caused me to lose any friend I made in connection with him.

But sei la vie (La Vie!).

And I have made many other friends. So thank god.

Anyway I have nothing insightful or thoughtful to say so I will sign off with promises of bigger and better.

Miss you all! Just not as much as I thought I would

Rocket Man

Hello Readers!

So here we are again in O’Hare airport waiting to return to Kenya. Deja’vu and such.

As I sit here I consider what it is waiting for me this time in Kenya; I know what to expect in many aspects (I have friends, the infamous Wilson, the Priests) but now at a time in my life when most people are almost halfway done with their schooling I am about to begin.

I’m excited to have a normal college experience but I’m also interested on an anthropological level about what the difference between an African school and American school will be.

I want all the parties and the great loves and the great disappointments that come with the experience but of course, being the Laura Croft wannabe I am, I want to have my own adventure. Something wild and crazy and that others will be jealous of.

So now I think there are going to be some changes to the blog. Knowing what I know now I think the blog will be less about discovery. As my loyal readers know I disregarded self discovery as a goal during my last trip, remember the puzzle piece metaphor, and I already understand a lot about African culture. I guess what I’ll discover now is how to be a normal college kid.

Also the blog will just have to be more about me.

How can this possibly be you ask? You WRITE the blog Aliya, you say, it is all about your experiences you exclaim!

Well yes, I admit, but to be fair I was also writing about the mission, and Small Planet Big Plans, and the kids and things much bigger then myself. I think as my life becomes more about me and less about the charity- I am handing a lot of responsibility over to the US side and we have the kids tuition paid up for a year- and more about me and what I am predicting will be a pretty humorous black and white indie movie experience. I think I’ll have more stories about misunderstandings on Matatus, language barriers, and such things that caused me to end up holding a chicken in a foreign country with no understanding of my surroundings.

Of course I will return to the mission and Kisumu so I will still have heart wrenching terrible stories of hardship and over coming impossibility and the shear joy one can experience just because they are alive and thankful.

Have you noticed how many times I’ve used the word “expierence” in this blog? Interesting.

God I’m excited. And terrified. And joyful. And sad.

I am leaving my home.

But I am also coming home.

Stay tuned boys and girls because this trip promises to be quite the experience. (tee-hee)

Anyway I will update you all once I am settled.

All the best readers,
Aliya

P.S. JUST because I’m not as focused on my charity it does not mean I will stop harassing al of you for donations. Keep donating. It’s a new year and so we have started a new goal of 10,000 by 2012. GO TEAM.

 <3 . (tee-hee)

Here It Goes, Here It Goes

Hello Loyalists!

So I’ve decided to start up the blog again. I guess it makes sense with going back to school there and so people can keep tabs on Small Planet Big Plans.

Speaking of SPBP things are going really well in that area. Most of you probably heard my interview with WBEZ (if you didn’t you can find it on www.smallplanetbigplans.org there is a link to the podcast) and because of that we hit our $10,000 goal which means we can buy our pump! It also gets our kids a year through school which is a huge weight off my shoulders. If we can have 6 more years like this we can finish our project.

As amazing as this is I’m having difficultly being excited. Actually all I feel is…scared.

I usually try and make these blogs inspirational and a bit humorous but I keep finding myself coming back to fear. More like terror.

It’s like that feeling I used to get before I went to a scary movie when I was younger. I was really excited until I sat down but then I became really afraid of being afraid (powerless, I know). I would dread the feeling and how for the next couple of days my skin would crawl and then when the music started playing and you knew the 25 year old playing the 16 year old was about to get it I would think…

I can’t do this.

I always made myself sit through it because I never want to look weak but it would take a lot of determination to keep sitting. This is a really painful way to have spent the last few weeks.

Everyone keeps telling me how happy I’ll be once I get there and how I felt like this before and blah blah blah but they really have no idea how bad it is.

The problem is that this time I KNOW how terrible and hard it will be some days and I KNOW how much it will hurt to give all this up. I can already feel that first night again when I was practically hysterical and I don’t want to go back again.

I forgot how nice it was to fit in back here. I used to think I was kind of a misfit and weird etc (teenage angst and such) but the truth is that I have a lot of friends here and as much as my past here hurts, there are also so many amazing memories.

I hadn’t realized how amazing it is to be in a place where people speak your language, look like you, dress like you, get your references and generally are all the same as you. Even though we don’t want to admit it, as Americans we are all a lot alike. And that’s comforting to me.

I also have regular old going to university fears such as will I make friends? Will the work be too hard? What if I hate it?

And one of the worst parts is how final this all feels. With school there being year round and ticket prices being what they are who knows when I’ll be back? It could literally be years before I see any of my childhood friends again. The same goes for my family and that makes me feel ill. And teary. But I’m not crying, my tear ducts have just sprung a leak (stiff upper lip and such. Be a big girl now.)

And you know what really sucks? How unexpectedly (at least for me) and amazingly successful I have been in raising money since I got home. I mean 10k? I never even imagined that.

What’s so bad about success you ask? Well….

Now the stakes are higher. Now 10k is the floor. My projected trajectory is much higher and thus failure means a much longer fall.

I have no idea how to keep this momentum going. I have no idea how to ever raise this much again. It’s almost like now I have even more pressure because this kind of success which feels like a complete fluke to me is expected. And that terrifying. I thought I was scared when I started this, but I had no idea then.

I just keep waiting for someone to stand up and shout WAIT she’s only 19! This girl has no idea what she’s doing! And it will all fall apart. This whole thing feel so fragile and I’m scared to make a move because that will break this amazing accident and the miracle will be over.

I’m so determined to finish this project; I want this done more then anything. I just thought that it would be easier by the time I got to this point.

God I am so stopped at the idea of going back. I have nightmares about going to the airport and seeing my mom cry again and being alone again and being harassed again and having to be on my toes again. It’s enough to make me want to go to sleep for years.

I wonder if my parents can write me a note to get me out of college…

I have no choice at this point but to man up and do the damn thing. But that kind of resolve sounds exhausting.

I just hate this feeling of losing control of my life, like I’m being pushed in a direction that I’m unsure of all of a sudden. And the weird part is everyone else feels so sure.

It’s strange but getting what I wanted my whole life has suddenly made me miserable.

I’m just so scared.

But ready or not here I go. So welcome back boys and girls. We have returned to the roller coaster. Buckle up and keep your arms and legs inside the compartment because we are in for….well who knows?

$10,000 raised. $60,000 to go. 1 girl. 1 mission. And 13 days until we are back in country.

Well fuck.

Love,
Aliya

Kwa Heri kwa ajili yangu

Hey all.

So I’m sure by now you have heard the news about me contracting typhoid (see below) and some of you might also now know that due to this I will be leaving Africa early.

Like really early.

Like the day after tomorrow.

I guess that means it’s time for me to write the finishing up blog.

I’ve been thinking about this particular blog for awhile. What will I write in it? Who is it for? Is it the last one I will write or will this be a brief hiatus?

Usually when I write these posts I imagine myself writing a letter to you. I imagine the people who read these were, or are by now because honestly if you’ve read these you know parts of me that were unchartered mere months ago, intimate friends. This imagination allowed me to be completely honest and allow myself to write about what I loved and what I feared and what I wanted more then anything. It allowed for honesty I can be proud of and some of the purest, most raw, best writing I have done in awhile.

But this blog isn’t for you.

This one is for me. Because this is my time being finished up, my era ending, my closure needed; I need to write for myself this once. Welcome to my inner monologue of goodbye.

Of course this leaves questions of how will I write this? Will I address you or me? I suppose this will just flow.

So here I am, and how do I feel?

Well it’s a mix.

I can’t deny an ecstasy at knowing I am going to go home (of course I have started referring to coming back in January as “coming home”). Suddenly I am much freer with my thoughts and feeling about this place. For example I am now able to admit that I hate chipatis (a nasty thick fried tortilla), that I despise hand washing my clothes, and deplore almost everything about living in the bush (i.e. no running water, the heat, and the boredom). I can do this now because it’s okay to hate them because it’s all almost over.
When I had months left it was dangerous to admit how much I hated these things because it would depress me. If I had admitted to myself how hard this was on me and how much I hated so much of it I would have been crushed under the depression of months more to go. but now with only hours left I can breathe a sigh of relief and admit that my skin is a mess, my hair looks awful, I desperately need a manicure and miss wearing stilettos more then anything because it’s not for too much longer. I get to go home now.
On the other hand it has also brought into sharp focus all the reasons I have stayed. There is more love here then I have felt in a long time. I am near tears thinking about days (MONTHS) without the family I have here.

Today I learned to make Mandazi (kind of like a fried African doughnut) with Mama Michelle. We laughed and discussed church and played with Michelle and I was given (even more) dating advice as we mixed the dough and suddenly I wanted to sob as I felt a rush of love for this place.

It’s the same washing over feeling I get when I eat at the Father’s house or watch Madame Grace make Ugali (because she will never let me help). And it is a stronger force then I could have expected.

But it’s more then the people. It’s the smell of the air that always has the scent of cut grass and nature. It’s the sky that I swear to God is bluer then any sky I have ever seen in the states. It’s the fact that here I can see more stars then I knew existed.

A part of me dreads going back to the states where it will be loud and aggressive (and cold!). I can’t imagine going to a grocery store in the states and just putting things in a cart and leaving. Not seeing each particular woman I buy each particular different vegetable from and not calling her “mama”.

It also exhausts me because I know the work is no where near over. Being here sometimes it seems like the point was just to identify the projects. There is still so much money to rise, so much to do, only $3,000 has been raised and I want $10,000 by the end of the year more then anything.

This train of thought always brings me to the dark part of my mind that thinks I am a failure (compounded by the fact that I am wimping out and leaving early. Noticed I think elliptically?). I am honestly disappointed with myself that I wasn’t able to get to $5,000 before I left and that I have spent my last days here lying in a bed wishing for the sweet release of death.

But I will raise the money. I don’t know how ling it will take, but I will.

So I guess now it is time to start thinking about my life after this. What’s next for me?

I suppose next is university in Nairobi. But my oh my can you imagine what that will be like?

But the most nagging question is who am I now?

I thought that would be clear after six months here (god knows why) like this experience would mature me to a point where I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted; like my life would stretch out in front of me in a long highway instead of a series of corners I can’t see around.
Rather then looming in front my life is now on a blind curve. But I like it this way.

I don’t know who I am- although I have learned some things about myself- and I definitely don’t think I am an adult now.

But this decimation of who I thought I was and the lack of format for who I am now are good. Now I have a bunch of raw materials to piece together and make myself. I have time to learn and change and experiment.

I think that we’re all kind of like puzzles and the problem with most people (myself included) is that we more often then not don’t want to put the work in to discover who we are and what we really want. Rather then finding pieces that fit we find pieces that look close enough and try to force it all together, like a child trying to force puzzle pieces together. The problem is we usually break the piece and then get upset. Few people want to put the work in to figure it all out. Or else we might concentrate on one part of the puzzle and forget to look at the big picture. We get one part together perfectly but forget to put the rest together so we end up with empty spaces.

But as I sit here and write this I think that maybe the puzzle will put itself together, smoothly the way it’s supposed to be, if we just let it. If I walk away from the table and forget about the puzzle I’ll still be a person right? It’ll get put together and I’ll have room to surprise myself. Perhaps trying to figure yourself out all the time forces you into a box of who you think you should be not who you are and causes even more frustration (I guess that’s trying to force the wrong piece in).

So instead of figuring out who I am I’m going to work on figuring out the world (as best I can).

So here we are with a girl who doesn’t know herself (and isn’t sure she really wants to), bounces between self-respect and self-loathing, and is not at a crossroads so much as in the middle of the spaghetti bowl (that’s what my father calls the loop when all the roads intertwine together). All the paths lead somewhere and run over each other but they are hard to distinguish.

So although I sort of know where I am going (USIU!) I’m not sure how that’ll look or if it will work out.

This has also taught me that sometimes you simply can’t do something. Sometimes you bite of a piece too big for you and you can’t finish (just yet) and that there is no shame in that. I might not last very long at USIU. I might miss home too much, or decide I want to live in a place that only speaks English, or it might just not be the right fit but my oh my isn’t it exciting to try?

That’s really the best part. Knowing you tried something crazy and scary and hard and insane. Knowing that you did something most people wouldn’t do in a million years. Succeeding is a nice added bonus but knowing you have the guts to have tried is really the best part.

That’s what I hope everyone reading this can get one day. I’m not saying you should all move yourself across the world to someplace you don’t know anyone (of course it is fun) but I am saying that doing something you’ve always wanted to do but thought you were too (and excuse my French) chicken shit to try is an amazing feeling.

It’s beyond self-expression, it’s beyond adventure; it’s allowing yourself to be yourself. It’s giving yourself permission to live beyond what you only thought was your capacity and saying it’ ok to fail because the ride down is great.

I guess I’m sort of rambling now.

The thing is I am suddenly overcome with excitement. I suddenly can’t wait to go home and see friends and live life there and then come back and see friends and see what happens here. It’s like that feeling in the pit of your stomach you get at the top of a roller coaster right before it goes down.

Anyway I think that this blog is going to stop for awhile. I might right one and what it’s like to be home and how things differ but I’m not sure. I don’t know what’s going to happen to it. Do you guys think I should keep writing in it?

I suppose, like all other things, we shall see.

Anyway love to all. State side on Wednesday (flight leaves on Tuesday)

Love,
Aliya

Typhoid

Hey guys.

So I have talked a lot about the water project, and thus a lot about this sickness called typhoid, but I seem to still be lacking in donations.

So because I am incredibly dedicated I thought to myself “how can I convince people how vital this is?”

So I got myself some typhoid.

Ha-ha just kidding guys. But in all seriousness I did get typhoid. So I thought it would be good to give you all an in depth description of how this feels. I want you to keep in mind that 20 people a month here get this from contaminated water, most of them being children, and the strain I picked up was strong enough that I got it even though I took a vaccine meant to last me four years.

So first off was some crippling stomach pain. At first it came in short bursts I thought I could ignore and fight off with some Pepto-Bismol. I was really committed to this plan until Wilson found me in my room curled in a ball half in tears. He wanted to take me to the dispensary right away but first I had to vomit until I was dry heaving.

Then came on fatigue; I felt like my actual life force had been drained out of me. As I half walked/ was carried back to my room a fever began.

I was sick enough to legitimately scare Wilson so he called deacon and I was moved to the Father’s house.

There I was forced to eat, exhausting me more and hurting my stomach immensely, because the antibiotics I was given cannot be taken without food. I went to bed shortly after and that’s when the fever got really high.

The stomach pain probably would have kept me up if not for the exhaustion from the pills and the movement. I felt like I could have slept for a million years but the fever was now high enough to make me half delirious and give me awful fever dreams. I can sort of remember that night and the following day, but I can’t establish what really happened and what didn’t. The only concrete evidence I have of anything that happened that night is looking at my call history. Apparently I called my father sobbing and also at one point talked to Wilson rambling enough for him to call the Father to make him check on me.

The next day the fever seemed to break. This should have been a blessing but now I was fully aware of the awful pain I was in.

Imagine being kicked in the stomach with a steel toed boot as that creature from alien rips its way out of you. That’s how my abdomen felt.

As an added bonus my head hurt so much I could barely finish a thought.
The good news was I didn’t have the diarrhea that is common with typhoid. The bad news is the reason I didn’t have the diarrhea is because I was one of the lucky few who react to typhoid with constipation.

Top it all of with some nausea and there you have a nice bout of typhoid.

So that’s how I felt.

Now here I am a 19 year old girl with lots of people around me and the ability to get myself to a hospital if anything really goes bad. Or even back to the states.

So imagine how small children must feel. Imagine 5 year olds, even 10 year olds, contracting this and having to be home alone well they have it as mom and dad need to work. No real medical care is available except for whatever medicine can be scraped up and there is no one to make sure the fever doesn’t climb too high.

Imagine that this happens to 20 people a month.

Imagine that most people don’t have the money to pay for the needed medicine (it cost me over 500 shillings, that a lot of money here)

Imagine that this is all completely preventable with some education and some money.

Now I suppose you don’t need to imagine why this is so important.

So here is another plea. Please donate.

I’ll write more later as for now I am exhausted from sitting up. but I wanted to get some out well I was in the throes of it.

Unvarying Melancholy

What shall I write for the blog?

So 19 more days until I come home. wow. I can’t believe I’m leaving.

As excited as I am to come home and see everyone (and eat a bagel) I am so scared and sad to leave.

I’m scared because I feel like there is still so much left to do. I have a little more then 3,000 right now but I want more then anything to get up to $5,000 before I leave. I feel like if I can do that then all this will have been worth it and I can really be proud. My friend ATL keeps telling me to come to Nairobi early and leave the mission because I’ve already raised enough. Partly that’s because he can’t understand how someone could stand living out here but also because I don’t think he understands how important this is to me.

I’m not sure why the water project became so important to me, why it became my “thing”, but it has. And now I won’t be able to rest until I can get it done. I feel like if I can get to $5000 I will be able to take a deep breathe and calm down a bit, but I’m not sure what to do next or where to turn for this last bit. I’ll take any suggestions.

And then the reasons I am sad are probably pretty obvious.

Just like it was hard for me to imagine moving out of Chicago and living here it is hard to imagine not living here anymore. I remember when I left Chicago I sort of felt like that with me gone my home town would just freeze over until I came back, so I guess that’s how I feel now.

I think that’s because as we get older and move into the newest phases of our lives we become afraid of losing the people and the places we loved so much and kept us so comforted. Maybe it’s not a feeling so much as a hope. I hope that the mission will freeze over so that Mama Michelle will always be here making Mandazi, Madame Grace will always be around for sage advice and Ian will never get any older (he is turning 6 this week).

When a place becomes your home like this it’s hard to separate yourself from it but more so it’s hard to imagine anyone else separate themselves from it. Sure there are people on the mission I might not like, some kids I think need more discipline, a cook I could live without, but I don’t want anyone to leave. I want to keep this place I have loved so much exactly the way it is with everyone just as I left them so I can return to it whenever I need to. When the world becomes too much I want to be able to return to my home the exact way I left it—full of love and comfort and laughter. Whether it’s here or Chicago I would like to superglue everything in place. I never want my parents to get older and I never want the seasons to change on the mission.

The problem is that things do change. They always have they always will. In this world, even in the parts we love so much it hurts us, nothing is static. A few years from now Father Patrick might be at a new mission, the teachers will have scattered and Peter and Ian will be on their way to secondary school.

That’s why people say you should always keep people and places in your heart so you can return to them mentally, and although it’s not the same it is helpful. For better or worse Madame Grace will now be the voice in my head telling me something is bad manners, Mama Michelle will be the laughter I associate with tea and Mandazi and peter is as much a member of my family as anyone else.

So here we are stuck between two worlds and pushed forward at a terrifying momentum. I saw "we" because this describes me perfectly but I think it also describes most of the people reading this. Whether it’s my parents being forced to deal with their upcoming “empty nesters status” or the friends who are around my age on their way to moving out; we are all being propelled forward. I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m not sure if I’m ready.

Except that’s not true. I am sure I’m ready (or at least as ready as I will ever be) and that I have been well prepared by everyone in my life for this new phase.

Thank you friends, parents, uncles, priests, seminarians, animals, sisters, brothers, students, ex-boyfriends, cousins, aunts, grand parents, teachers, and all others, thank you to strangers who showed kindness and friends who turned out to be less then honest. Thank you to all I have ever encountered because everything we did together has prepared me for the next moment of my life.

So although I’m sad because of the firmness with which you have been set in the past I am excited for the next phase. I am excited to turn back to the time when I thought I would die of heart break when the next boy shatters my heart, to remember the first days of our friendship as I reach out for new ones, to be comforted by our memories as I tread lightly into a new world. I am excited to hold hands with my past as I move into the future and really realize how important it is.

So what does the future hold? For now it holds a month back in Chicago and then a return flight to Nairobi. Some school registration and a few gen ed classes. Otherwise who knows?

For now I will concentrate on raising money and moving forward.

Remember, you are the pinnacle of all history at any given moment. The entire universe has led up to you.

Love you all!

Aliya

P.S. I know this is kind of like the last one but it’s all that’s on my mind now a days.

Redo and Revisit of Countdown

Hey guys!

So I decided the last blog I posted was kind of lame cause I was distracted talking to my dear friend and apparently avid reader Alameen (Thanks dude! Miss you!) so I wanted to make up for that.

Anyway today I have exactly one month left here on the mission, so what does that mean? How have I changed? What do I have left to do?

What it means is sadness, a profound melancholy I did not expect. I have created for myself, or more likely it has been created for me, a family and a home. Yesterday the kids, about 200 of them, some watchman, some teachers, and I were watching TV as it was a Friday after all. The show we all like is an English dubbed Spanish soap opera called “In the Name of Love” and when it started everyone tried to sing along to the theme song in Spanish and half way though the younger kids fell asleep, and watching them made me realize how tightly knit all the lives on the mission are. How much love I had for the girls asleep on the floor. It made me want to cry when the kids sang along to the credits.

It also means that a new chapter of my life is about to begin. This time on the mission has felt like a prologue for the rest of my life. It has allowed me to do a lot of good for others but more so for myself. I have grown in ways I never expected and it makes me excited to start the next chapter. Also it has made me feel like I am actually living my life, not waiting for it to start as I felt for many years. I think a lot of people my age feel that way- particularly in high school- that they are waiting for their life to really begin and that it will after college, or when they have a job, or when they’ve moved out or whatever but now I feel like I am constantly living in a present that excites me. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, this sort of happy every day thing, and although a part of me waits for it to fall apart I know it won’t go anywhere if I don’t let it.

Which I guess brings me to how have I changed? Well first off I see an expansive future for the first time. My dad always talked about “ripples”. He was talking about the little things you do and how it can radically change the lives of many others. I understood this logically when he talked about but now I see it in action. When I watch the kids here whom we’ve (we’ve including all who’ve donated) helped it makes me want to scream and run and jump and cry out in joy for the future. I wish I could adequately explain how the world has changed now.

Peter, the boy from Loita who used to walk 30 kilometers through jungle to school, has gone from 27th in his class to 16th in less then 2 months. He keeps telling me he will be second in a few months. Yesterday he told me all about his plans to go to university and get a job to help his family, to get a job to help his tribe, to get a job to help all of Kenya. We even talked about presidency.

I am closest with Peter but I see the change in all of the kids brought here. Davin, for example, who used to talk to no one, has become a talkative and popular girl. She also finds herself in a bit of trouble every so often and although others see a disobedient girl I see the beginnings of a strong young women who is going to question and change what she sees fit. Ian and Junior are too young for my untrained eyes to see much but who knows where they could lead now.

I guess the change in me is I know live what I talked about when I spoke about the interconnectedness of everyone and everything. I can now see it the way others can see math or others can see physics. It is alive and real and physical to me.

I also understand responsibility now. Yesterday Peter asked me how long I would help him, when I asked what he meant he told me that he was scared of having to go home after class 8 because he couldn’t pay for secondary school. I told him that as long as he kept his grades up and stayed in the top 5 of his class I would be helping him. the relief on his face was obvious as was the tension in mine. This is an awesome responsibility I feel heavy on my shoulders. Yet the rewards are so great I finally understand why my parents never kicked me out during my rebellious stage (thanks guys).

I have the privilege of being intimately connected in a young person’s life, and of seeing the possibilities for them they cannot imagine. I can sit around for hour’s fantasizing about they day they graduate from University (hopefully on full scholarships). On their way to some school. I can almost taste the tears that will run down my face the day I hold hands with Madame Grace and Ian graduates and it seems as if it will happen tomorrow, because time is much faster and less forgiving then I ever imagined when I was younger.

Another change in me is I can feel the physical ache of a hunger for life. I sort of felt it before but it was a part of the waiting for my life to start feeling, but now after tasting a bit of what I always wanted the feeling is different. It makes me want to run towards the unknown at a sprint, arms open to whatever I can touch or feel. It’s sort of like I climbed a small mountain in Colorado and now my goal is Mt. Everest because why not?

But also I understand now that I don’t need to be high speed all the time to be living all there is to live. I am just as alive when I am cooling Ian’s tea in the morning, or buying clothes for Peter, or just staring at a sky I swear is bluer in this part of the world. There is no need to be afraid of slowing down, a lower gauge is just as nice every once an awhile.

What I have left to do? Everything.

In the larger sense I have the whole rest of my life to live, and everything left in the world to experience. It’s the less cosmic more physical sense that is killing me.

I still have so much money left to raise for the water project. If I could just get halfway through phase 1 ($5000) I think I might be able to be happy cause then I’d be half way to a healthy community with clean water.

Some of you might be a little sick of me talking about the water project but I don’t know if I have ever explained it in fact so here it is.
The Mission Well Project is vital and practicable. Working together with the Regional Water Commissioner and the Mission Manager, I have figured out how to get to the water and how to store it. More importantly, I have solved how we could provide the water to the rest of the town. I could share with you stories and pictures of puddles you and I would not step in, that young children drink directly from on the side of the road, but I trust you grasp the seriousness of this without a lot of drama and hysterics. It is simple, children get sick and children are dying. This one project will eradicate the 20+ reported cases of typhoid per month as well as the countless cases of cholera, Amoebiasis, Hepatitis E and other water borne pathogens.

Besides the health benefits the economic benefits are enormous. Right now any people go to the river and not only gather the water but sell it to the town. If the mission was able to access the water at a higher rate then they could employ the now impoverished and unemployed women of the town to sell the water at a reduced price, making money for the women and the mission pushing us towards further self sufficiency, not to even mention the immense building progress that could take place in the town as it is a documented fact that with water access comes higher prosperity in small towns. If this happens, and the town expands then the government might start paying more attention and pave the roads, help fix the public school, help…..who knows? The ripples of this could be huge. Will be huge.

But again my eyes glaze over in fantasy.

Man, I can’t believe I come home in a month. See you all soon!
Everyone can start calling my US number around Nov. 10th!
Love,
Aliya

Countdown

Hey guys,

Sorry I know it’s been awhile, I’ve just had some stuff in my own life to finish up. For those of you who might have missed the post, although I’m sure ALL of you are avid readers, I will officially be starting school here in Kenya at USIU in January. The third to be exact.

More crazy news is that I leave the mission in 33 days. That’s really hard for me to deal with actually. Even though I am so excited to go home and see everyone and eat chipotle I’m so sad to leave. I’m also scared that it’s so soon because I have so much left to do.

What I really want to make real headway on before I leave is what I’ve been calling “The Community Well Project”. I’ve talked a lot about how important this project is but I don’t know if I’ve explained it any sort of detached factual way because I am so passionate about it.

Basically this project would save lives. But that’s not the half of why it’s so important. Nobody in the town besides those of us living on the mission has clean water. There are 20 cases of typhoid a month in our dispensary alone because of this. The public school which the majority of the small children in the town go to has no water at all. It has to send the kids off during the school day with small containers to either risk the rushing river or get water from stagnant pools of bright green liquid.

But besides the health aspects of the project it actually has the capability to lift the town out of poverty. Father Patrick has said that he would hire the no impoverished and unemployed women of the town to sell the water at a reduced price from the people who sell the dirty water to the town. This would give countless families monetary support.

And then when suddenly there is clean water the town can grow exponentially. It is a documented fact that when a town can suddenly access a precious resource like this the economy booms. Imagine how the school could expand, imagine how many more people could pay for teachers at the public school, imagine how the government might pay attention and pave the roads, imagine….

Sorry. My eyes glaze over a bit when I start to think like this.

It’s the time that’s killing me. I have $3,000 now so I need at least $7000 more to really start the project. The problem is I only have a month left and I’m starting to feel out of options. And yet suddenly this time crunch is making me feel more invigorated and determined. I will finish this. I will get this done. I want it done in thirty days. If not then I will get it by the end of the year (I hope).

I’m just not sure how to go about raising this kind of money though. I’ve never asked for anything like this, I had trouble asking for five dollars back home—now I’m asking for five thousand?!

But this is just so important. I was in Nairobi over the weekend and I went out to this bar where I met a guy from Atlanta. He is living in one of the richest neighborhoods in Nairobi with his wife and three kids and we talked about what it is like to be an American in Kenya. When he asked me what I was doing out here and I described Mulot he looked at me and said

“oh, so your living in hell?”

Now although I do think this is a little bit extreme I will admit that I am missing some creature comforts here. He asked me if I was out of my mind coming here on my own, living out in the bush, and starting these projects. I told him some things are just more important than yourself. So he said “oh you are insane”

Maybe this is why I’m having so much trouble getting the money I need together, but I really do believe that this is more important then me. It is more important then most everyone I know. I don’t mean to offend anyone, please try to understand I love you all dearly. But still can you understand what I mean? What could be more worth sacrifice? Worth time? Worth Bucket Baths? Worth the same food every day for 6 months?

My answer is yes…if I succeed.

It’s hard for me to talk to people about this because I feel like this is so obvious. Like of course you should help me because look at how amazing and important this project is. I really have a difficult time understanding people not wanting to help— but maybe I’m biased a bit.

I just hope I can do this.

See you all in about a month!
Aliya

Musings

Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed.

I honestly don’t believe I am going to accomplish everything I want to here. The water project is always on my mind but what scares me more are the students in need of scholarships.

Sure I have the money for this term but what about the next? And after that? Do I seriously think I have the ability to put these kids through school? (No.)

I often feel like I did something wrong taking these kids on. I know I’m not following the normal NGO or charity template when I do this, the PaciCorp might even condemn what I want to do here calling it destabilizing, and that embarrasses and shames me. I mean who the hell do I think I am that I can do something major and long running charities won’t or can’t do? Who the hell do I think I am that I am going to be able to keep these kids in school? That I am somehow ready to be responsible for lives.

That’s what scares me the most, the fact that I am no responsible for the lives of these students. My failure here means what I fear might be the deconstruction of their life.

It scares me so much I am exhausted. Just thinking about it hurts and makes me wish violently I hadn’t insisted on doing things my own way or going down my own path and I had just gone to college and followed the same path everyone else had. People talk about the pain of conformity but do they truly understand the terror that comes with doing things by yourself?

I mean sure I’m not completely alone. I have the support system of many people back home and I have been able to raise some money but…I often feel alone.

I don’t know how to explain this panic that keeps me up at night. I literally can’t breathe when I think about it. I sometimes have to fight the urge to hide from Mama Michelle when she asks me for school fees or from Peter when he comes to tell me he needs school supplies. Instinct tells me to run away, hide under my bed, and do anything to keep from facing this.

Of course I don’t. I feel compelled to put my head down and push myself forward throughout this, but it’s a painful compulsion.

I put everything I have into this but I know it’s not enough. I need the help of other people but I am ignored. I have been turned away by every rotary club, every church, and every major corporation I have approached. I am in this with myself and a few others and I am suspicious none of us have any idea what we are actually doing. This makes me feel like I am drowning.

I want to succeed here, but to succeed is to be responsible for these kids for the next, what, 12 years? It is to somehow stumble upon $70,000 or even just $10,000 to provide clean water to the surrounding town. It is to spend next 10 years of my life picking and choosing who to help and whom to let suffer. I want to say yes to everyone but knowing I can’t makes me want to turn everyone away.

I know a lot of my panic is illogical but still. It’s there. Also anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been super confident in myself. This means I am constantly questioning everything I do out here. Am I making the right decision? Am I moving in the right direction? Am I completely fucking over small children and ruining lives? Could I possibly be doing things correctly?

I look around the town I live in and wonder what I have really done. I only have 46 days left here and I feel like I am going to leave ashamed and secure in the knowledge that I have made no real impact.

I wish more then anything I could just get the water project started well I was here. As if I could magically come across $10,000 so we could get the tank to supply water to the town. If I could reach this benchmark then maybe I could sleep.

This fear of failure is so strong it’s hard to look at myself. I am already convinced I won’t be able to get these kids through school, let alone start putting in a water project, and it makes me kind of disgusted with myself. It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror without a bit of detest for the lack of action on my part. Luckily Madame Grace and I don’t have a mirror in our house.

What am I doing here? How can I still be asking myself these questions this long after my arrival?

I thought that I would know myself at the end of this project. I thought that the mists would suddenly clear and my life would appear before me as a straight line after this. Call it wishful thinking but I thought I would be a grown up. Someone who knew what it was they were doing.

The problem is I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing but now it’s at a higher level of game. Me not knowing what I’m doing means a lot of trouble for a lot of people.

I try to portray a confidence to everyone here. I act as if there are no problems and we are moving smoothly forward. I act unafraid. This makes me feel like someone who not only has no fucking clue what they are doing but a shameless liar. I don’t want to talk to anyone about it here, although I have poached the subject with Wilson, because…I guess because I like the way they look at me here.

I don’t even want to post this because I want everyone to think I’m running smoothly here. I want everyone to keep thinking I’m like, I dunno, a superhero or something. Taking on the world at 19 saving Africa one orphan at a time. I like the reaction people have to me when I act strong and as if I am unbothered and unburdened. When I pretend nothing is wrong hard enough sometimes I can believe it too. I can believe I am going to be able to do this. And I like the way that feels too.
On the other hand if I don’t write this out and tell somebody then I probably will have a mental break down.

I question if this show of weakness will make people hesitate to help me. But the truth is very few people are helping me and anyone who uses that as an excuse wasn’t going to help me in the first place.

The thing is I do have a plan. I have many plans. I have them all neatly organized on Microsoft excel sheets prettied by calculations and estimates and plans. I have plans and estimates from the school, from the water commission, from the companies that would put the system in. I have estimates from students, from teachers, from everyone I can think of. I have all the plans. I know how much I need. The problem is I just don’t have it.

It’s just not there.

Well okay. Now that I have written out some of my hysterics I can be more rational. Some of it is there. I have about 3000 which isn’t too shabby. My dream is that I will find a company to match me at 5,000 so we can start the water project. And that when I turn over this 10,000 to the school it can be in the name of the students who are being scholar shipped to cover their school fees. Then there will be constructions, and tanks, and clean cool water. And then when people come to the mission to buy the water, when the clean liquid is brought to the public school and the kids can stay in class, when people aren’t sick and dying all the time, when the mission is making money selling the clean water and the now unemployed women of the town are being employed by the mission to sell and carry the water, when this godforsaken little town expands and grows with the water until the government pays attention and brings other amenities, when we have gotten enough money for solar panels and the kids are taking hot showers for many of them the first time in their lives then I can think; Damn. I helped make this happen.

My eyes sometimes glaze over when I fantasize about this.

I have other fantasies too. I dream about watching Davin or Peter graduating from high school and on their way to university. Or a few years forward and Ian is on his way to medical school. Or law school. Something school. That sort of manic hope for the future parents have for their kids before they can walk and talk and sully the plans with their own ideas. I actually gave Peter a stern talking to about his hopes for the future when he told me he wanted to be a driver, telling him he was too smart to think small. I am pushing him towards politics, but I’m not stuck on that.

Speaking of Peter, I bought him his first pair of pants a few days ago. I’m serious. He wore short pants to school back in Loita and couldn’t afford any clothing besides his school uniform so the jeans I bought him were his first. Kinda mind blowing. Not to mention the belt and polo. (He looks so cute in them!)

It’s that kind of moment that makes the panic worth working through. I just wish I could stop thinking I was doing everything wrong. I wish I could banish my self doubt and move forward. I want to stop letting myself be infected by other people’s views on how I should do things or how this should look but I keep thinking that I have to be wrong.

Oh on a side note of daily life here—

I try to go jogging around this acre muddy field at least four times a week. The problem is the mud is so think during the raining season I get stuck and fall. I took my 3rd fall in about a month yesterday and it was pretty nasty, I actually had to go to the dispensary and when the doctor tried to touch it to rub some diclomed into it I screamed and attempted to kick him in the face. This lead to a small intervention being held where the people on the mission asked me to stop running as they are legitimately afraid for my well being. Wilson asked the same thing, I tried to tell him my clumsiness was endearing (well wrapping my sprained wrist from falling off a motorcycle) but he disagreed. He claims it’s more frightening.

Anyway I guess that’s enough for now. Thanks for reading guys!

Aliya

Nymph

So lately I’ve been thinking a lot bout reconciliation.

By this I mean I’ve been considering how to resolve who I think I am, who I really am, and where I live.

Before I came to Kenya I thought I had a pretty clear picture of who I was and what I wanted. I was known for my sarcasm, a bitter wit, I didn’t like kids, there was almost nothing about me you could call conservative and I had a lot to say. I mean honestly did I ever shut up?

So am I still that person? The answer is no. I am definitely not the person I knew 5 months ago. But now I’m not sure who I am or what I stand for.

The reason this distresses me and I have spent so much time thinking about this is because I kinda liked the person I was. I liked the image I had of myself as a tough sarcastic in your face kind of girl who dressed how she wanted and did what she liked. I was pretty invested in the image I had made for myself.

On the other hand I like this me too. I like this quieter more thoughtful sincere version of myself. I like the work I do, I like hanging out with the women at church, I like doing some simple labors, and I will admit it- Betty Friedan forgive me- I even like cooking for my boyfriend.

So how do I bring these two self’s together? Sometimes the harder version of myself comes out whether or not I like it like when I push a guy down for grabbing at me or tell someone bothering me to fuck off. And I can’t deny that I have some very sarcastic and blasphemous thoughts in church- in the church painting Mother Mary has her eye brow raised like even she can’t believe what’s going on in church.

Now that I have decided to move here permanently I have been forced to consider what things and what’s really important to me nowadays.

An example of this is my Judaism. I mean any one who knew me would tell you I was never a religious person or in touch with my “Jewish Soul” but that was when I was in a Jewish community and I never really had my “jewishness” questioned. Recently I have felt my Judaism under attack and discovered that a lot of my identity is rooted in this faith and that this history is incredibly important and meaningful to me. Maybe my faith isn’t under attack, people have pretty much stopped trying to convert me, but it is not understood (case in point trying to explain the event as well as the significance of the Holocaust to Wilson yesterday)

But on a baser level I struggle with my identity as a “sweet girl” here. I mean sweet? I don’t think anyone has ever used that adjective on me before. I like being a sweet girl but the not so sweet part of me rages against this identity.

I feel quite empty now a days. Not like a painful empty but a noticeable absence of understanding is constant.

When I was in the third grade we all had to do space reports. I did one on sputnik, a Russian satellite, which wasn’t that interesting. The reason I remember this report is because of a space encyclopedia I looked at for the project. The book had a sort of fold out map that outspread to show the 9 planets in an attempt at a scale picture. That night at home I went outside and looked at the night sky and realized how big the universe was. As I pictured the nine, I guess now eight, planets and the billions of stars and the trillions of molecules I felt small. I didn’t feel small in a bad way but in a way that let me know I was a minor component in something much bigger then myself. I felt how little I really knew and how big the world was and how ignorant I was to so much of what was around me. It wasn’t unpleasant but it was sort of…jarring.

That’s the feeling I have now, except turned inwards. It’s as if inside of me has become an empty space I have suddenly become aware of and I don’t fit quite right in my skin anymore. It’s slightly uncomfortable.

I mean I worked really hard to become the person I was, and now that feels useless but maybe that is just a part of growing up?

Or maybe I never really knew myself. Maybe we are incapable of seeing ourselves in any sort of clear light and only others can truly know us.

Or maybe we are just so moldable and changeable that there is no true self but a constantly in motion and changing core acted upon by the environment. Perhaps there is no self for me to know.

And, finally, perhaps it doesn’t matter one way or the other. If I just keep moving forward and making myself happy and moving in the direction I want then there is nothing to reconcile. There is just a love of life to embrace, and a love of people to be enfolded in.

There is no need to struggle for my identity because it will constantly change. I am not the person I was 5 years ago, or 6 months ago, and I will not be this person in a few short years. Maybe this constant struggle for identity is what keeps people from moving forward, and if we allow ourselves to be more fluid we can become people and do things we never imagined.

I mean if I wasn’t fluid minded then I would never have ended up on a catholic mission. I might have ended up somewhere else and still have been happy, but I wouldn’t have this happiness, and I really like this happiness.

So I guess I should stop struggling for who I am because parts of it will be created for me- let’s not kid ourselves for the next couple years I will probably be known as “the white chick” or “the American” or in the community of dancers I’m being introduced to “Wilson’s girlfriend” which is weirdly the one that bothers me the most- but other parts I will create myself and those parts will grow and change my whole life. I kind of feel like if I find a stagnant identity then it means I’m dead, because the only part of my life I want stagnant is my death but that’s only cause there isn’t much choice there.

So I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to be like water. Water changes shape to whatever container it is in but it is still constantly water. So that sounds like a plan.

Anyway I am home in 49 days!
see ya’ll at the airport?
Aliya

Caterpillar Questions

Hey guys!

So in case you are wondering Wilson’s mom nixed the whole moving in together plan, thank god, so awkward situation avoided. Kenya is weird sometimes.

I’m glad for a lot of reasons one of them being I wouldn’t want to leave Madame Grace and Ian. I love living with them. I love coming home to find Madame Grace making Mandazi and Ian with 6 friends sitting around the table. I love having a home where people stop by all the time. I love the crazy religious decoration and the plastic bottles we have collected to hold water. I love having an alarm clock of Ian getting ready for school.

I love leaving the house at 8 every night to go watch English dubbed Spanish soap operas and coming home to dinner.

I love the freedom it gives me to wander from house to house in hopes of getting fed. I can wander into the father’s house for dinner, Mama Michelle’s for tea, the staff room etc. It allows me to move around and see all the people I have come to love.

Besides, he can just come over for dinner.

Like last night. Wilson stopped by my office to say hi since he was dropping his sister’s off at school. He of course could not leave the mission without saying hi to Madame Grace so we wandered over to my house insisting he had to leave soon.

We came in to find Madame Grace making fish (SO EXCITING, a rare delicacy) and Peter, the boy we brought from Loita, and Ian doing homework.

We sat together discussing crazy mike the “house boy”, of course he is more like a house man considering he is like 27, and his most recent antics. I asked Wilson if he wanted to leave as he just haaad to go which, of course, upset Madame Grace.

“no” she announced “He will stay and eat”. So he did because you can’t really say no to Madame Grace. As we ate Wilson made fun of my squmaweki, a vegetable they make here that is quite difficult to make, Madame Grace and I discussed how to avoid having the school take our chairs and we all tried to coax Ian into eating. Then Wilson saved me from a spider the size of my hand that caused me to fall into a near hysterical panic- although he was laughing too much at me to do it very gracefully. Thankfully the boys were there to do such helpful things as laugh and point and tell Madame Grace about my near panic attack.

Later that night as we were getting ready for bed I mentioned to Madame Grace how glad I was that Wilson stayed to eat with us; she agreed that it was good he could come and be a part of our “ever growing family”.

And that is really how it feels to me all the time. It’s as if I am always picking up people to become a part of some strange cross cultural hipster semi catholic family. it’s kind of that feeling you have about the friends you had in high school who you swore, and still swear, you are as close to as your family- closer sometimes.

When I first decided to stay in Kenya and attend USIU I was scared I was signing up to years of being an outsider but I realize now that that’s not true. I am signing up to increase the family I have here.

The thing is sometimes I feel caught between two worlds and I feel exhausted with having these two families. A part of the family here are the kids who I have decided to take care of. This means having to watch their clothes for wear and tear, make sure they are fed, keep them clean. I’m also exhausted by the 2 or 3 adopted mothers I have here who all have their own opinions and ideas about what my life should look like (not to mention the fathers and worse of all adopted older brothers).

Sometimes I also get scared of losing who I was in the U.S.A. because I am certainly changed. Do I betray my Jewish upbringing when I cross myself in church? Have I lost the biting wit that people loved so when I have almost completely honest and sincere conversations all the time? Am I a poser when I download African bongo music?

I suppose the questions come down to if you are created by your environment and I keep constantly changing mine- then who am I? and who do I want to be?

I will take any suggestions.

See you guys in 55 days!
Aliya




P.S. Confused about the title? Go read "Alice in Wonderland"

Cross Continental Flirtation

Hey guys,

So a lot of people, myself included, made the assumption that I would remain very single and very very abstinent well I was here in Africa. Unfortunately, depending on your view of dating and relationships, this has not been true.

I am actually seeing someone here. His name is Wilson.

But this blog isn’t about him, it’s more about how dating works here and the difference between courtship here and back in Chicago.

How I met Wilson is probably the first glaring difference between courtships on our respective continents.

I was standing in the market smoking a cigarette yelling at an old drunk man to leave me alone (which is something quite possible in the USA). I had just pushed him down when Wilson sauntered on over.

Now back home is a guy checks you out he tries to hide it. He focuses on his drink or his friends or his whatever and stays in one spot well he tries to watch you without being seen. Here a guy will blatantly stare at you, unabashed, and might circle you a few times to check out all your angles.

This is what Wilson did about three times.

Now I am not used to being “picked up” most of the time any coquettish conversation I have had have begun by one of the parties finding a common ground- the same drink, a need for a light, liking an article of clothing- and striking up a conversation. Here the flirtation began with Wilson walking over and saying

“Hey girl I just wanted to let you know, you’re pretty fly”

Now the equivalent of this line in the USA might be a compliment on a girl’s hair or eyes or some other feminine feature. This is our cue to giggle and shake out hair a little bit well we lower our eyes.

Instead I kept my eyes level and said “gee, thanks”. As far as I can tell most of the girls here act as if you just stated an obvious fact- imagine a guy walking over and saying “hey the sky is up!”- And react with a polite smile.

After my attempt at a rebuff I grabbed my friend Lydia and tried to walk back to the mission. Now back home this sort of snub would cause a guy to go back to his friends, sip his drink, and complain about bitchy girls or claim I was gay. Instead Wilson followed me- or “escorted me” as he claims- and continued trying to talk to me, at one point introducing himself to Lydia as my future husband.

Alright so I can hear some of the girls back home going “ugh” from here. If a guy had done it in the U.S. I would probably be retching along with you but its different here. In Chicago a phrase such as that would drip with insincerity and probably beer and reek with a desperation covered by false confidence. Here it was actually quite smooth and stated like another fact, “you are fly” and “future husband” being equated with “Kenya is in Africa” or “I have two eyes”.

Wilson followed me back to the mission and asked for my phone number which I refused. He asked for my name to look me up on facebook and I told him only if he could spell it without my help.

Now most guys would have considered this a “shut down” and moved on, here this is considered normal practice for the girl. Girls are serious about playing hard to get here.

Anyway he ended up getting my number from Lydia and has sense called me every day seemingly never doubting the fact we would end up together. I of course acted like it would never happen up until the day it did. Which was three months by the way. Maybe this happens elsewhere in the states but in my neck of the woods I have never heard of a guy chasing a girl for that long.

The differences between the actual relationships astound me though.

Now again maybe this has to do with the weird town I grew up in but to me it seems like guys often don’t even like their girlfriends. They seem to avoid their calls, moan when they have to hang out and do something the girl likes and are often busy looking for a replacement. (That also might have to do with the age…)

Here Wilson calls me everyday at least twice…plus I call him, this is something I always thought I would hate but it’s actually incredibly nice. The security of knowing he is thinking of me is a nice comfort.

Guy’s here are also old fashioned in the way they take care of their women. The old rule of the girl pays for nothing is alive and well here. This extends not just to your girlfriend but to anyone one with the XX chromosome in your area. Wilson always brings me some small sweet when we see each other- which kind of makes me feel like a child- and he holds open doors and pulls out chairs.

As much as we girls in the USA say we don’t need these things it is very nice to have them even if the first time Wilson pulled out a chair for me my heart skipped a beat from shock.

The problem with all of these old fashioned manners is they come along with some old fashioned ideas. As the girl friend I am expected to clean up after the meals, allow myself to be pulled along by my arm, and happily sit in the chair that was pulled out for me even if I wanted to sit somewhere else.

The most infuriating thing is that men will often talk about you like you aren’t there and as if you aren’t capable of doing things yourself. For illustration- once I was with my friend William in Nairobi on my way to meet Wilson (I got a thing for Ws) and on the way their William spoke to me as an independent adult; this changed when Wilson arrived. I was passed off like a child between divorced parents. William informed Wilson that I had not eaten yet and that it was now Wilson’s responsibility to get me fed, ignoring my insistence that I wasn’t hungry, and then it would be his responsibility to make sure I could get to a Matatu safely.

Now can I get around Nairobi by myself? Not that well, so it is nice to have someone come with me to help me out. But feed myself? That I can do.

So I can get frustrated when I feel like guys aren’t listening to me. But I think I get the point across when I grab Wilsons face and speak clearly and slowly about how I’m feeling. Then he clues in that he might not have been listening.


Now I don’t mind carrying a plate to the kitchen but I think anyone who knows me can say I’ve never been much of a domestic and I’ve defiantly never taken on traditional female roles before. I mean I’ll make breakfast bust someone else is sure as hell doing the dishes.

So this is where our cultures clash.

And this is why Father Patrick has offered us a house.

Another thing about dating here is people don’t really believe in “casual”. All relationships should be working towards marriage to be working towards babies to be working towards more people to get married so they may have babies etc. etc.

I suppose this is why Father Patrick wants Wilson and I to move in together into our own “house”, meaning room, and live together to make sure we are compatible. He also made us promise not to get married until I was out of college.

You might be wondering how this conversation came about. You’re probably asking yourself “now how does a priest encourage two youngsters to live in sin on a catholic mission? And how would that conversation go?”

Well I will tell you.

Father Patrick called me outside to sit on the rectory steps well I smoked a cigarette. I could tell the conversation was going to make me extremely uncomfortable when it started with “Aliya is Wilson a serious man?” when I answered yes he asked me how serious. My brilliant response was

“Well he wants me to meet his mom…?”
Father declared that very good and that I should go meet his mom tomorrow if possible. He then talked to me about how whites really love people but Africans don’t so he wanted to look out for me and such. At this point I began to relax and asked father if it was alright for Wilson to visit me on the mission.

This is when the bomb was dropped but like the silence before a storm I had no warning.

“Aliya I want you and Wilson to live in a house together here on the mission. The problem I see is how will you cook?”

“That’s the problem you see?” I asked incredulous.

Father called Wilson to come sit outside with us and after a few invasive questions told Wilson his plan.

By this time I was chain smoking and was close to offering Wilson a cigarette even though he hates when I smoke.

Father Patrick gave us a week to think about it and talk to our parents but seem very keen on this plan.

Wilson and I are less so.

But if it does happen you guys will be the first to know!

See you guys soon,
Aliya

Birthday Potatoes

The thing about life here is that things tend to snowball. Once people get excited about an idea they tend to run with it. This is how the first Rosh Hashanah occurred.

I hadn’t really realized it was Rosh Hashanah until that morning when I logged on to face book and someone sent me “Shana Tova” which is the greeting used on this holiday fyi.

This news of course upset me a bit because it made me think of what I must be missing at home- day of at school, a party the night before, some delicious Jewish food at my grandmother’s, and so I was kind of moping around when I arrived at Mama Michelle’s for tea.

Because Mama Michelle is highly tuned to my emotions and takes wonderful care of me she instantly asked me what was bothering me. I explained to her that it was the Jewish New Year in which case she immediately demanded we make the dinner. I told her the food I needed trying to explain how it was impossible but before I knew it she was off to Narok to buy the needed food.

I went to the father’s house to have a cigarette and called my friend Wilson. I explained the holiday to him and being the guy he is he first asked me why I hadn’t told him earlier so we could have stayed in Nairobi to go to the synagogue near the campus or so he could of stayed in Mulot with me so he could come celebrate and then decided he would celebrate the holiday with me the best he could by calling me at sunset and using the 3 Hebrew words I had taught him, meaning the only three I know, as much as possible through out the day.

After I hung up Moses, one of the seminarians found me outside and asked me if it was in fact a holiday. When I told him yes he asked if there was a meal. When I answered I was going to try he declared he would not eat lunch so he would have room for the food at dinner because of how much he loves Jewish food- this is because I made Latkes once.

This is when the panic set in.

Now I never came from a very religious family and I have certainly never put together any sort of Jewish dinner so I pretty much had no idea what to do when I realized it was suddenly up to me to make the dinner as well as create the ceremony that goes along with it. After pushing down the anxiety and hyperventilation I did what anyone else would do in my situation.

I hit the internet.

I wrote out some of the prayers- do things right and such- and set off for the rectory to make latkes. (Yes I know Rosh Hashanah is the apples one but Moses LOVES latkes.)

At first it made me feel kind of lonely to be making this meal. Nothing says I’m a lonely Jew like peeling and grating potatoes by yourself. I thought about home and everyone I was missing and just how out of place I was here. Well I mixed in the flour I realized there were some fundamental differences between me and the people here that no matter what I did we would never get over.

I sighed and left to go make a phone call and give my wrists a break from the peeling.

I called Wilson, (incase you guys haven’t put two and two together I call him a lot. We are kind of more then friends) and before I could say anything he was wishing me a happy new year and asking when I was going to recreate this meal for him. He was anxious for the next Jewish holiday to arrive so we could be together during it.

After I hung up with Wilson I walked back into the kitchen to find Mike, the house boy who is in all likelihood certifiably insane, and Angelia, another teacher, making the Latkes. Mike had figured out how to scoop them out and fry them- even if they were a bit thick- and had decided to take over latke making. I cut the carrots and celery to mix in with the boiling Nyama (that’s goat. Usually it’s fried but for once I put my foot down. It was awesome) well Mike tried to ask me how I learned to make Latkes. I tried because before I could even begin to answer he had already interrupted with another question. Mama Michelle walked into the house with bags of the food I had told her I would need. She stayed in the kitchen to munch on Mike’s thick Latkes and watch me peel carrots.

Angela set the table well I cut apples and honey.

Eventually it was time to sit down around the candles I had lit 18 minutes before sundown and placed on a white napkin- as we didn’t have a white table cloth- and I did my best to say the Hebrew prayers.

The meal was devoured within minutes. Pretty soon we all felt like we wouldn’t be able to leave the table from being “cabesa sheba” (completely full) which is how any Jewish meal should end.

“So” Moses said perking up “will you make Latkes for my birthday?”

“Sure Moses” I moaned from under the table as I had slumped down in pain.

“And next year in Chicago?” Moses said reaching for another Latke

“No next year in Israel”

Moses was quiet for a second.

“No, next year in Chicago, everyone should be together”

So I guess we all aren’t really so different.


I’m glad I have started the New Year here. It is the beginning of forever.
Miss you guys! Shana Tova!
Aliya