Lessons from Jackie

"A country of immigrants and you all hate immigrants. White hate black, black hate Jew, and you all hate anyone new! And you think your kids don’t see that?" - Brooklyn the musical

I'm a stickler for a feel good Hollywood movie.  Even overly romanticized films starring attractive actors making exorbitant amounts of money and inflated 'true' stories don't bother me much.

Last evening I watched 42, the movie about Jackie Robinson and his experience as the first black man to play Major League Baseball.  I knew it would be "hard to watch" as my father warned.... but I didn't expect to be so blown away by the vignettes presented.  One man faced great hatred so baseball and society could speed their rate of evolution ever so slightly. 

Last evening, I sat on my bed watching this movie and wept. 

Though the portrayal of Robinson by Chadwick Boseman was very good, it wasn't the performance that got to me.... or even the scenes of blatant racism.  What bothered me so was the fact that in some ways things haven't gotten too much better since Jackie's days in the late 1940's. Jim Crow laws are a thing of the past and we don't see "White Only" restrooms anymore, but new targets for hatred have emerged. The recent stripping of the voting rights act is just the latest blow to Hispanic Americans. Immigration reform seems to have stalled and high stakes tests that are all the rage in public education today are written in English.  Meanwhile Hispanic Americans are working (and working and working) to stay in this country which is a supposed "nation of immigrants." Too many Americans lump all Arabs and Arab Americans into simplified categories that don't accurately reflect who these people are.  Brown is seemingly the new black.

I'll fully admit that I'm no race expert.  I haven't done the research to make an academic analysis of these issues/situations. But my mind often wanders to questions like:

Why are we so quick to hate? Why are we so quick to judge? Why are we so quick to point the finger? Why are we so quick to tear others down to make ourselves feel better? Why do people need to have an enemy? Why do people derive such pleasure from hurting others?  

Seen from another angle, why don't we as a culture celebrate people helping people?  Why is the front page of the paper and the lead story on the evening news nearly always about corruption, violence, adultery, or scandal? Where are the stories of cooperation, respect, kindness, and love?  I know violence and sex sell... but is there no room for sunshine in the news?

We can do better, America. When will we start?

Anatomy of a Palkki family Christmas

I'm in my hometown, Ishpeming, Michigan for the holidays.  I left here at 18 and it's always surprising to me when I come home what a unique... er... interesting place this is.  All the little idiosyncrasies of my family and this blue collar "Yooper" community are amplified now that I only get back here once or twice a year. 

I love my family.  I really do. So please understand that this entry is not meant to poke fun at anyone. 

Here is how our Christmas day went.  For this to make sense, you need to understand that my sister and I asked my mom when our main meal for the day would be served.  We remarked how strange it is that often on holidays we eat a big meal at strange times (3 pm, for example).  She assured us we'd eat lunch at 1:00 pm.  Enjoy.  (Thanks to my my cousin Beth and my sister Brenna for their assistance with recording all this):

7:00 a.m.--Woke up; checked Twitter; Tried to go back to sleep
8:00 a.m.--Out of bed. Turned on coffee. Ate breakfast.
9:30 a.m.--Opened gifts with mom, dad and Brenna.  Turned on The Family Stone (new tradition!)
1:00 p.m.--Grandma Ayotte arrived
1:30--Beth (my cousin) and Justin (her husband) arrived; freezer started to leak.  Keith (my dad) was agitated.
1:33--Dad emptied freezer to defrost. 
2:15--Grandma and Grandma Palkki arrived. We are thinking "Will we ever eat?!"
2:35--Aunty Lo and Uncle Al arrived and remarked how the box fan fits perfectly in the freezer. Still no food.
Justin realizes he's not in the calendar I made for my mom.  He was peeved. (In all fairness, he IS in the photo book I made for Grandma Ayotte!)
2:44--Chairs brought out.  Still no food.
Beth and Brenna had a lengthy discussion about terminology: spatula vs. spoonula vs. scraper.  We broke out the chocolate covered blueberries Aunty Lo brought. 
2:49--Beth noticed my father is wearing my sister's Fubu sweat pants with his shirts tucked in. What can we say... the man's retired.
2:52--Drinks all around (let the day drinking commence!).  Still no food.
2:55-- Beth insults Josh's choir CD playing (she says it "must be the snow drift beer.")
2:59--Brenna and Beth explained Pinerest to Justin and Keith
3:01--Justin questions Josh about his blog. (Idea: Ray (Ramsden)'s World!)
3:04--Brenna's covert drinking habit exposed!
3:06--Still no food.  Josh's blood sugar had plummeted in a big way.
3:09--Yogi Yorgesson Christmas song sung (Palkki family tradition!).  Still no food and none in sight.
3:16--Brenna was concerned about Aunty Gayle (Beth's mother).  It's been 54 minutes and she hasn't "liked" Brenna's picture on Facebook.
3:17--Josh began dying of starvation.  STILL NO FOOD.
3:19--Grandma Lois was egging on Grandma Bernice to "have another" (they were fighting over the strong rum balls).
3:23--Beth insulted my taste in music.  I delivered my signature "teacher death glare." Beth died of that before dying of starvation which was rapidly coming for all of us.
3:26--New beer idea: Christmas in a Can! Also a song by Carole King was sung.
3:29--Silence in the house.  Did someone forget to cook??!?!
3:38--Beth and Justin leave.... starving (oh wait, they hadn't planned to eat at 680 W. Division anyway!)
3:43--Food finally came out!  YUMMMM!
4:06--"We've eaten. Blood sugar level coming back up. FINALLY."
4:07--Brenna in need of a beer or hard cider.
4:15--Brenna in need of a nap.
4:16--Text from Cousin Wendy Hadley in California.
4:18--Grandma Ayotte had no card money. 
4:20--The ice maker was making ice but with NO ICE TRAY in the freezer.  Keith looked nervous.  Ice was everywhere.  Keith in need of an extra beer.
4:21--Card playing commenced.
6:44--Dessert eaten. Many hands of smear played.
7:28--Grandma Ayotte departed. Al and Lois arrived again for more cards.

Always a fun day with the Ayotte and Palkki clans.  They're looney tunes, but I love 'em... And I wouldn't be anywhere else for the holidays.  Much love to all of you and best wishes for a fabulous 2013!!

:)
Josh

Kenya: some final thoughts

It is my second day back in D.C. and I still don't know quite where I am.  This "reverse culture shock" is quite interesting.  I see things a bit differently now.  I look at how absolutely extravagant everything feels now.  How even a $5 latte at Starbucks seems ridiculous when you think about what that money could do in Kenya and how most families in Kibera live on less than half that per day.  Crazy.

There are some things I wanted to write about before I forget:

Obsessive cleanliness at malls and public places

I still don't quite understand this.  When I walked down Ngong road from Shalom House to Junction Mall, there would be litter everywhere on the side of the road.  In Nairobi it's not uncommon to see piles of trash (including plastic) on fire on the side of the road.  This is very common in Kibera (also in Kibera there are HUGE trash heaps as the city considers it an "unrecognized settlement" so they don't do any trash pickup.... a reason Carolina for Kibera's Trash is Cash program is all the more ingenious. 

Then you get to the mall and there are people obsessively sweeping and mopping the floors.  At Shalom house they mopped the floors twice a day (despite the fact that the tile is from the 50's and will never really be clean again).  The dichotomy between dirty and clean was so strange and hard to understand.

Being mistaken for a missionary 3 times in an hour

Last Saturday I walked from the National Museum to the city center where I visited the Masai Market in the parking lot of the court house building.  As I didn't spend much time in the central business district, I wasn't quite prepared for the hustling that went on.  I was wearing my Children of Kibera Foundation t-shirt, which in retrospect wasn't a good idea.  At the market a lot of people were asking questions about why I'd want to spend time in Kibera.  One gentlemen was quite angry, saying that Kibera isn't a "real" slum because of all the white people pumping in money and resources.  He said where he lived was the real slum and why wasn't I helping there?  You just don't have answers to questions like that.  And it's not a good feeling.

Three different people stopped me and asked me if I was a missionary.  I said no. (Little do they know...)!

Christianity everywhere

Christianity is everywhere in Kenya.  Most of the matatus have Christian slogans all over them and some are even "Christian themed."  I took one matatu to Prestige Plaza mall that had bible verses all over the inside and was playing a sermon from an American church on the radio very loudly.  Even on the "regular" (non-Christian) radio stations, there are overt Christian messages.  There are many churches.  Many BIG churches... which begs the question:

Why are there massive churches but not enough houses for everyone?

I really struggle with this.  The Lutherans are building a HUGE national church on Ngong road not far from where I stayed.  The largest non-mall or government building I saw in Nairobi was the Baptist Church.  There is one church on the outskirts of Kibera awaiting a building which has erected four HUGE tents in the meantime.  I really don't understand why these churches would rather have sanctuaries than provide housing. 

Next steps

What I'm really struggling with now is how I will use this information to inform choices about next steps in my life.  How can I incorporate my love of travel, African music, African culture, music education and choral conducting?  How does it all fit together?  Any insights are welcome. 

Kenya: farewell for now

I am soon off to the airport to fly home. 

I have met so many amazing people here.... seen so many things.  Challenging things.  Inspiring things.  Perplexing things.  Life-changing things.  I feel so connected do Mother Africa.  I feel so connected to African music.  How this will play into my life's path in the upcoming months and years may be difficult to understand.  But I know that being here has been good for me on so many levels.

This is only the first of many trips to Kenya.  So for now, goodbye, but not for long.

Kenya: last day

 

Moi Girls High School Nairobi Choir

I can't believe this is my last morning in Kenya!! Time has gone by WAY too quickly.  I will keep this brief as I need to practice for my drum lesson and get out the door, but:

I have had the opportunity to meet with the Kenyan Boys Choir twice.  I got a private concert at their rehearsal (outside under some trees at the National Arboretum) Thursday evening and last night during their exchange concert with Moi Girls High School.  The Choir from Moi has won the national music competition in Kenya the past two years.  They are fantastic.  What a cool evening this was.

I have had two music lessons with my amazing (and incredibly patient) teacher Festus from Bomas of Kenya.  Today I have my final lesson after my morning farewell at Red Rose School.  I will go to meet the wife and baby of one of the gentlemen from the Children of Kibera office this afternoon and then do some final packing and head off to the airport.  

There are many more memories to share here which I'll have to do either this evening or when I get home.  In the meantime, THANK YOU to everyone who made this trip financially possible.  It has been nothing less than life-changing and I feel so lucky to be here. 
 

The boys warming up

 

 

Kenya: one thing I forgot

I love this Coke ad.  You see it quite a bit around Nairobi.

Kenya: Ramblings and Anatomy of a Field Trip

I've now been in Kenya three weeks and with my time here growing extremely short, I want to try to remember the little things.  For example:

*Small businesses and painting.  There are TONS of small business ventures everywhere.  Everyone's trying to make a buck.  If I go out to the main road (Ngong Rd.) from my guest house, there are men making gorgeous wooden and wicker furniture, women selling fruits and vegetables, car repair places, pubs, a lumber yard, etc.  Many of these small business are just primitive shacks on the side of the road.  Some of them are painted red and have Coke advertising (Coke has a monopoly here-- no Pepsi allowed in Kenya!).  Some fences are painted light blue and bear the slogan "If you like it, Crown it!".

*The traffic here is horrible.  I will never complain about DC traffic ever again.  The driving is worse.  It's something that needs to be seen to be believed, truly.

*I have seen very few people begging since I've been here-- maybe 4 or 5.  This shocks me.  With the astronomical level of unemployment here and the many people who are struggling financially, my American bias made me expect more of this.  People in Kenya want to earn their living (hence all the small business ventures as described above).  There's something really noble about that.

*The radio stations we listened to on the way back from 14 Falls yesterday (more on that below) are all playing the hits from summer 2010 in the USA.  Strange.

*Tusker is one of the beers brewed by East African Breweries Keyna.  It's pretty good.

*M-Pesa is a service provided through Safaricom, the major cell phone provider in Kenya.  It basically turns your phone into a mobile bank account.  You can pay all your utilities with it and even pay for cabs and other daily expenses.  In talking with some Kenyan friends about this, a major reason for its existence is the need to send money to relatives outside Nairobi.  Many Kenyans, even those who have their career in Nairobi, return to their ancestral/tribal country to retire.  People used to have to have someone carry money (which would often mysteriously disappear) or wire money which involved paying high fees.  M-Pesa makes transfer of funds easy and instantaneous.  Cell phone technology is very efficient here-- like Europe there is a "pay as you go" system.  You put Ksh 500 (500 Shillings) on your phone and when your credit is gone, you buy more.  A call within Kenya costs very little (1-20 Shillings) and calls to the US cost Ksh 10-50 (less than $1).

*Taxis here have no meter.  You need to negotiate the price of your trip before you leave.  For non-Kenyans this can be tricky.  I know I'm being over-charged.  What can you do?!

Yesterday I chaperoned the Red Rose Schoool field trip.  There were separate trips for the little kids (baby class through Class 3) and the bigger kids (Classes 4-8).  The little ones went to the Wilson Airport to watch planes take off and then to a few kid-friendly museums in Nairobi (I think they went to the snake park).  The bigger kids went to 14 Falls outside the town of Thika.  A "superhighway" connects Nairobi and Thika-- this is one of the many infrastructure projects being financed and built by the Chinese.  Since the discovery of coal reserves in Kenya, China is investing huge amounts of money in roads to get the coal to Mombassa (the port city on the Indian Ocean) to be carried back to China by boat.  They're also building a massive beltway (which crosses the hill bordering Kibera) to alleviate traffic on some of Nairobi's major streets.

So the chronology of yesterday went something like this:

The principal told me the trip would leave at 7:00 a.m.

6:36 a.m. -- Picked up by Daddyz, the friend of my driver (George) who was unavaialble
6:46 a.m. -- Dropped off at the bank in Kibera because the driver doesn't know where the school is
6:49 a.m. -- Picked up at the bank by the Red Rose principal who takes me to the lower (little kids) campus
7:00 and on -- I am greeting the little ones as they come to school
7:30 a.m. -- Two women have started a fire and are boiling water in a MASSIVE pot.  They're making pilau (a Kenyan dish of rice with chunks of beef and some Indian spices) to take on the trip to 14 falls.:
8:00 -- Still hanging out with the kids.  Some teachers begin to arrive at school.
8:45 -- Still hanging out.  The kids start talking about the bus being lost.
9:00 -- The lower school teachers gather for chai (tea) and chapati.  I join.
9:15 -- Still waiting.
9:45 -- I go to the upper campus with Teach Lilian.  They are loading the bus.  A huge, pink 35 (or maybe 40) seat bus arrives for 70 kids, a guide and 2-3 teachers.  They start piling in (2-3 kids per seat).  Kids are sitting on each others laps.
9:55 -- Teacher Lilian, Teacher Obed and I walk to the lower campus where the principal is loading flats of soda, utensils/plates and the pilau into the trunk of his car.  A few teachers load into the car and we're off at about 10:05.

We get to Thika and it's clear no adult in the car knows where 14 falls is.  We ask 4-5 people on the roadside for directions and finally make it.  We pass a police checkpoint not far from the pull off to the falls.  I'm still not clear what they're checking for.

The bus arrives and we pull in.  Immediately the teachers are approached by some men who are trying to sell them guide/boat services.  The principal negotiates.  The kids take a quick bathroom break and then we are off on our adventure.  We piled into boats to cross the river to an island where we've got a great view of the falls.  At the parking lot and throughout the day there are people selling food, snacks, soda/water, and photos.  The photo business is quite ingenious-- they've got photo printers powered by car batteries under trees.  They take your photo at the falls, print the photo, and sell it to you (of course you can negotiate the price-- this is Kenya).  One of the Class 8 girls got hers for Ksh 20.  On the island, we had a photo opportunity, saw some guys diving off the falls and learned from our guide about the site and its origins.  Then we crossed back over on the boats and found a nice shady spot with some trees to have our lunch.

After lunch we walked up stream a short ways to find a place for kids to swim.  This was, without a doubt, the highlight of the day.  Most of these kids had never been swimming before in their lives.  The absolute, pure, sheer delight of this experience is something I will never forget.

 Then it was back to Nairobi.  We departed just after 4:00 pm (the time we were supposed to arrive home).  It took about 90 minutes to get to Nairobi, and about an hour and 45 minutes to navigate through Friday evening rush hour traffic.  We were at some stop lights for over 10 minutes.

The thing about rush hour traffic in Nairobi is that it becomes really difficult for me to breathe.  Between the dust and the exhaust, it's very difficult to find fresh air.  Rough.  Very rough.

Oh, one more word about taxis.  They're constantly driving around on E.  Petrol here costs Ksh 108 per liter.  If my calculations are right, it would cost ~$100 US to fill up their tank.  No wonder people are always stopping in at the gas station for small fill-ups!

We got to Kibera just as the sun was setting, so I hopped on a matatu to Prestige Plaza mall to pick up a few small things from Nakumatt and visit the ATM.  George picked me up from there and it was a quiet evening at Shalom House (dinner at L'Arena in the compound and early to bed).

Today I'm supposed to have a class at Bomas of Kenya, but they have been unresponsive.  I think I will visit the National Museum in the meantime.  

It was really cool to be a part of this experience.  Many of these kids have VERY few opportunities to leave Nairobi.  For them yesterday was the one field trip opportunity they get all school year.

Photos from yesterday:

One word on the last photo.  There is trash everywhere here.  I expected Kibera to have a trash problem (there is no regular trash collection there).  But in Nairobi and at 14 Falls (which could be a gorgeous, pristine area), there is trash-- mostly plastic bags.  When I put some litter in my pocket yesterday one of the Red Rose kids told me it was OK to throw it on the ground.  I said I'd rather not...

Many more thoughts are swimming around in my head.  More tomorrow perhaps.