The Kenyan Trip Chronicle

What follows are the mass email entries I sent to my friends and family while in Kenya for 3 weeks from July 22nd to August 13th.

...
July 25th
So, I'm sitting here in an internet cafe in Kisumu (Kenya's 3rd largest city) watching a mosquito buzz around the monitor wishing I'd put some bug spray on after swimming in the hotel's pool. Actually the trip has been very smooth sailing thus far, we made a tight connection in London in the nick of time, had all of our bags arrive with us (a minor miracle occording to the shocked look on people's face when they hear nothing was lost) after our 26 hour flight. We spent today at an amazing New Life Home in Kisumu playing with 46 infants and toddlers and ate lunch at a dock on the edge of Lake Victoria where we watched hippos wade and make huge rumbling burping noises.

We are leaving for Nakuru tomorrow, and will spend the following day in a game reserve and national park checking out "the big five" (which i guess refers to elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hippos and lions?). Everyone we meet is all huge smiles and very quick to help in whatever way they can. I've only been in country for a couple days (the jet lag and lack of sleep has made it all a bit of one continuous dream) and already ridden on the back of a bicycle, 3 wheeled cab, minibus, and assorted planes. I think we take a land rover with open top cockpit on safari:)

Hope everyone is well,
Cheers,
Jordan

...
July 29th
Jambo!
Another internet cafe. This time though I'm better rested - we're in Nairobi and will be here for several days, which will allow me to gather strength for the next epic trek along some absolutely crazy roads. I can feel the pink in my cheeks (and a good burnt neck no doubt) from spending the ENTIRE afternoon in the Masai market. I left my video camera in the guest house, which I'm sure was a better move logistically, but i do regret not having captured the over-the-top ritual of bargaining on the prices of everything. I think i have a natural talent:)

The safari ended up being a great experience. So, peaceful to be out on open ground with zebra and giraffes grazing around. Lake Nakuru has over 1 million flamingos standing in it at any one time, with gives it large pink swaths from a distance. And baboons are always a hoot, including the one who climbed into the van and stole biscuits out of my bag. Thank god, we're well armed with cameras and a video camera.

We attended church this morning which was a great experience, fun music and a pretty inspired sermon as well actually. I found a nice health food store and have been fairly impressed with the grocery stores and restaurants in general. There is quite a bit of Indian food and we're going to get Ethiopian tonight. I've been tentative with the fresh fruit and vegetables but the juices are amazing. Tusker beer has quickly been adopted by the group as our drink of choice and my water intake is hovering right around a healthy liter a minute.

So, yeah - good times. The Kenyan people are as hospitable, friendly and kind as they are rumored to be and huge smiles are everywhere.

See you soon,
Jordan

...
August 2nd
Hey all,
I spent an incredible day yesterday in Kibera, which is the largest slum in Sub-Sahara Africa, right on the outskirts of Nairobi, and wanted to share a quick note with you all about it. I was flooded with ideas and feelings this morning as I lay in bed reflecting upon the 10 hours I spent trekking through winding walkways being introduced to amazing people doing amazing things. The Goethe quote that was referred to several times in our course together came to mind while thinking about how often knowledge of all the intricacies of how much needs to be done in the world holds us back from engaging in immediate, bold action.

There is something incredibly clarifying about immense poverty. While the obstacles these people face are truly staggering, so was the amount of faith displayed to me again and again as I traveled from one grassroots organization to another. A boys club formed when 15 boys who play football together decide that they are going to do something to improve their area and began to collect trash and sort it to sell to recyclers and in the process become unofficial safety officers, patrolling the streets in the evenings and talking to other youth about violence, drugs and HIV/AIDS. Now 6 years later, over 75 boys and girls are engaged with what has become a bit of an under-the-radar community center, regularly performing street theater which spreads positive messages in the slang that the young people speak.

We met women who operate a "merry-go-round" which acts as a savings and loan, as well as death insurance which will pay for the funeral costs and try to take care of children left behind by a member. The women contribute a few cents each week to a kitty which goes to one women so that she is able to buy some larger purchases, she repays this loan with a few cents interest and at the end of year they are able to purchase several bolts of cloth to dye and sell. Their goal is to be able to afford to buy school uniforms for their children so that they can attend the "free" primary school. Because of the frequent deaths due to AIDS it is rare that any of them are able to attain this illusive goal for their children.

There were many other examples of social entrepreneurship and community collaboration, but what impressed me most about them all was the optimism, hospitality, kindness, humor and faith of the people engaged in them. Almost to a person, everyone I met was unbelievably articulate about the problems they are confronted with and the intangible qualities that give them hope. There was a palpable experience of the genius and magic that participatory action carries with it.

We'd been warned before we went in that people would be asking for money and that people would try to run a scam on us. I was surprised (and somehow also not so surprised) that I was instead asked for something quite different. These people were excited to share their story and show us their daily lives, not for the money that I, or most of us in the West, could have provided, but with the hope that my mind would be changed about the quality of life they were leading and that I would recognize the spirit by which they were engaged in their attempts to better themselves and their families. I was asked for support, not to throw money at their immediate problems, but support for the initiatives that had arisen out of themselves.

Our classes conversations about Inner and outer transformation come to mind as I reflect on the local projects and local interactions that will solve the global problems looming. The relationship that occurs when diverse people meet and are transparent about their needs, their strengths and weaknesses and learn from each other must be the exact quality of global healing.

I'm currently in awe of the absolutely beautiful, authentic smiles surrounding me and am inspired in some small way to help pass that on.

Best,
Jordan

...
August 5th
Hey Everyone!
"Jambo" from Kenya! Mom, Kathy and I have had an amazing two weeks. We just returned to Nairobi last night from two days at Lake Naivasha where we were able to walk around a game park (whispering distance from a herd of zebras) and travel on "Matatus" the public transportation mini-buses (complete with 24 people packed into a 12 seater and blaring music).

Kathy and Mom fly home early tomorrow morning and I'll be taking an overnight train to Mombasa on the coast for one more week of solo traveling.

I'm sure we'd all highly recommend a trip here. The people are incredible - kind, hospitable, passionate and very quick to laugh and smile. The food has been amazing and I've personally been very inspired by the grassroots community organizing that is striving to improve the quality of life here, in what is still a very poor country.

I regret missing the reunion and look forward to seeing pictures.

Best to everyone,
Jordan

...
August 8th
Another internet cafe, another city. Though this feels like it could
be another country. I'm on Lamu Island which is about 6 hours north
of Mombasa in the Indian Ocean. Technically still in Kenya, Lamu is
very rooted in its Swahili past. The police commissioner owns the
only automobile on the whole island, everyone else gets around on foot
or donkeys (there are donkeys walking around everywhere - and kids
race around bareback!). The city is breathtaking, "main street" is
about three donkeys wide, ancient cobblestone with even more narrow
allies running off of it.

I'm staying in an incredible place made out of the traditional coral
rock, an interior courtyard covered in plants and lounge chairs on the
3rd story roof that overlooks the 14th century city and a horizon
lined with ornate mosques and beautiful, hand carved fishing boats
bobbing in the ocean.

Its a very good thing the island more than lives up to everything the
guide book made it out to be because the trip here has been quite the
adventure.

I took an overnight train from Nairobi to Mombasa - 17 plus hours. I
had to do a mad dash to catch the train from the Kibera slums where i
was shooting a Yo-MTV raps style video with crowds of street kids
following me as I took video of two local MC's who led me across the
slum's garbage dump and through their market, gulping air to keep up
the rhyming for a seamless 15 minutes. So, I do a dramatic jump onto
an almost moving train (in honesty, it ended up turning off its engine
and being delayed 20 minutes:) and arrive in the car that Paul, a
Scottish guy I had met at Hell's Gate National Park a couple days
earlier, had booked, reeking like raw sewage and rotting garbage.
Jonathan, a brit who had just been climbing Mt. Kenya for two weeks
joined us in our cabin and we quickly realized that there weren't any
lights on the train as it began to get dark.

We were the last car in a line of 20 before the dining car. Due to
delays caused by the "electrical malfunction"(i.e. no lights) we
weren't "called" (i.e. cook in a chef's hat walking through the cars
hitting a chime with a metal knife) until almost midnight for our
dinner. I was laughing like a little kid as we ran through the
rocking narrow passage-ways of identical train cars by headlamp. It
felt like a fun house mirror maze. Finally, with bruised shoulders,
we sat down to eat our fantastic meal by candlelight in the dining
car.

Much of the novelty had worn off after spending the better part of the
next day chugging through small dusty villages and African bush. Once
we arrived in a smoggy Mombasa we decided to immediately head north
for the sea-side (and Italian resort) town of Milindy. Jonathan, the
high-rolling Londoner adventure guy, Paul, the "please slow down when
you tell your long winded stories 'cause I can't believe that's
english you're speaking" Scottish guy, and myself got in a cab that
agreed to take us to the Gedi ruins and then on to Milindy where we
would spend the night.

The cab driver drove around the block and then told us that his
radiator wasn't working but that he had a friend who would drive us
for the same price. Things were going well enough (aside from the
cratered road) when we arrived at a police checkpoint (they're
everywhere) and the cop, complete with AK47, ripped the car's sticker
off the window and took the driver's licence and papers. The driver
assured us that it would be ok, even though he obviously wasn't a
registered cab. We sat alongside the road as we waited for the
driver's police officer brother-in-law to come and write a letter,
which, along with 500 shillings in an envelope, had us back on the
road.

So, fast forward through mythical ruined city with wild monkeys
everywhere and a night talking about monty python with two guys from
the u.k., to this morning and my decision to take a Matatu the 4.5
hours up to Lamu rather than wait another day for space on a coach
bus. I found someone who assured me he could get me on a mini-bus
which would stay at the legal 14 passengers (already an insane amount
of people in such a small space) and would run express to Lamu.
Knowing this would be my only chance if I was going to get to come up
here, I paid too much money and got into a vehicle already loaded with
a roof-full of produce sacks and watched as person after person
crammed in. After arguing with the driver and getting an empty
assurance that he was responsible for our safety and would get us
through the police check points, we took off - the engine working
overtime and the shocks creaking at every bump.

The ride up was completely Wild West; gun-toting boy soldiers,
platoons of baboons, illicit trading in back water villages, more
corrupt police chiefs and lots and lots of close contact with locals
content to contort themselves into crazy positions to fit into an
already full vehicle. Needless to say, getting a visual of the ferry
was a godsend. My legs felt like someone else's after having assorted
strangers sitting in my lap.

So, yeah - Lamu. I'm here and its amazing. The mosques compete to
see who has the best call to prayers going on and the little kids
playing in the walkways are all smiles and not afraid to make contact
(a little girl latched onto my leg and wouldn't let go after I
responded to the "how are you?" that children all over Kenya call out
any time they see a white person).

Sending mad love from the dark continent,
Jordan

...
Aug. 18th
Hello Everyone -
I thought I'd finish up with the last email of my little
Kenyan chronicles. I'm safe and sound on U.S. soil after a couple of
days getting re-accustomed to U.S. roads (they are so smooth!) and
U.S. air (where is the not-all-together-bad smell of burning trash!?!)
and most of all, the sheer volume of resources at our disposal.

My final few days in Kenya were the perfect closing on an incredible
trip. I spent way too many hours on buses first from gorgeous Lamu to
Mombasa and then from Mombasa to Nairobi - about 18 hours of driving
in all. Upon arriving back in Nairobi I met-up with a couple I had
met on the airplane coming over, they were from Kenya but now live in
Canada. They wanted to take me to "Carnivore" which is probably the
most famous restaurant in Kenya, and consistently voted one of the top
50 restaurants in the world. I was interested in checking it out, but
the idea of having an endless stream of roasted red meat (including
zebra, crocodile and ostrich) brought to your table on long Masai
spears until you signal your waiter that you can't possible eat any
more - made me a little queasy. We decided to eat at an Indian place
and then go to Carnivore for drinks afterward so I could get a look.

The whole evening felt pretty opulent after what I'd been seeing on my
trip. We spent over 5,000 shillings ($75) for dinner and then the bar
attached to Carnivore cost 400 shilling (about $6) to get in and I'm
not sure how much drinks were but a water I paid for was 200 shilling
($3 - it costs about 30 cents in a Kenyan supermarket). All pretty
typical by U.S. standards, but the difference there is that the people
bringing you your food might be making 300 or 400 shilling a day. The
guard at our guest house (every "compound" has a guard who opens and
closes the gate) makes 150 shillings for a 12 hour shift. That's just
a little over 2 U.S. dollars.

So while dinner was fantastic food and Carnivore's bar had a huge
dance floor with DJs playing to a global crowd, I couldn't help but
think about the vast majority of Kenya's who not only wouldn't see the
inside of either of these places, but couldn't. I suppose there are
plenty of places in the U.S. like that, exclusive resorts where the
rich spend thousands of dollars a night, but in general - much of
Western economic life is moderated by a big fat swath of "middle
class" who can save up for dinner at Trump Towers if they wanted to.
In Kenya, as a "developing nation", this middle class is in short
supply.

It was interesting that it was Africans that I was with and while we
did comment on the gap between rich and poor - there was also clearly
a sense that this is what development looked like. This couple had
been able to study and work abroad and when they returned to visit
their friends and family, they had to work to not be conflicted about
having a drink with the tourists at the disco, knowing what the
evening could buy so many in this country.

The following morning I met up with the Kibera crew (Kibera being the
largest slum in Sub-Sahara Africa with a majority of its 700,000
residents living on less than one U.S. dollar a day) and we met Tom
Trigga who has a tiny recording studio, open workshop space, a video
editing computer and a small arsenal of video cameras. He is
sponsored by a Swedish organization named Global Relations and
regularly receives gifts of equipment and rent payments for the
compound housing it all. I'd brought Sizza who I'd video taped on an
earlier occasion, MCing acapella as we made our way through the Kibera
marketplace. Tom Trigga blew us away with the documentaries he was
making, the media classes he was teaching young people and his
willingness to get involved with supporting any positive projects
coming out of Kibera where he had grown up. His small studio and the
record label he established are regularly putting out number one
reggae and hip hop hits in eastern Africa. He agreed to record one of
Sizza's songs and wants to speak more about putting together a yearly
arts and culture festival for the youth of Kibera.

Leaving Tom's, Zam took me to meet an amazing friend of hers who is a
craftsman within Kibera and was classically trained to make the
intricately carved doors I had been so impressed with in Lamu.
Although probably just 40, he is considered an elder within the slum
and often parents bring him their children to teach. He showed me his
workshop, a 8'x8' room neatly lined with wooden projects and tools but
barely big enough for 2 people to work. And because he has only one
set of carving tools, the boys that he takes on to teach usually are
only able to sand the projects with small pieces of sand paper that
are used until perfectly smooth. He has one electric sander that has
been welded and re-welded together and he won't let any of his
apprentices use it for fear that if the spinning plate comes flying
off someone other than himself might get hurt. He showed me the
clever wooden preschool toys that he makes and provides for a school
in exchange for secondary school fees for his children and I promised
to look into getting them sold in stores outside of Kenya.

The whole day had been incredible and I fell into bed absolutely
committed to being of service to the people that I'd met while there.
A car picked me up at 5:30 in the morning to catch my flight out of
Nairobi and after 24 hours of traveling, with a dazed lay over in
London drinking free liquor and inhaling too much perfume in the duty
free shops, I was back in New York.

So now I'm going back over my notes, playing back conversations and
proposals, and trying to imagine how it will all fit into my expanded
spectrum project. The ideas are very concrete, the need is real and
the support is very possible.

It was a three week trip that changed the course of my life. Not in a
big, flashy, earth shattering way, but in the subtle, inevitable way
of something that comes in the perfect way at the perfect time.

So, this is the last email on my first trip to Kenya but only the
beginning of hearing more about the expanded spectrum project I'm
sure. It'll be awhile before I have a chance to upload photos and
even longer before I'm going to be able to do anything with the 20
hours of video I took, but when I do post it - it'll be available at
http://www.expandedspectrum.org.

namaste.
Jordan