Epiphanies and freebies in the unlikeliest of places…New York City

New York City-I've been back in North America for almost 2 months, 1 of which I have been officially unemployed. While being jobless in winter is not nearly as fun as it would be in summer, I have been indulging in all that New York City has to offer.

Today, in what I thought would be a dining experience filled with abuse and good food, I was gifted with 2 epiphanies, courtesy of the head chef at Shopsins, my new favourite eatery on the Lower East Side. While I had heard that f-bombs and verbal effrontery were on display at Shopsins, I was treated to much more. Stimulating conversation came as the main course with the hearty bounty of satisfying grub. (I ordered the Edmonton, and not just because my boyfriend is from there).

The first epiphany had to do with the TARP bail-out. Rather than focus on whether we should or shouldn't give the money to banks, our chef focused on whether we even want to go back to the place we were in the first place. Was the 'old world' of pre-banking collapse sustainable? Desirable even? This attempt to get the country back to a place of over-consumption and a growing gap between the haves and have-nots is perhaps the misguided part of TARP, not how and where the money is going to be spent.

The second one had to do with intellectual compensation for taking away someone's innocence. No, I'm not talking about that girl (who I think is made-up) selling her virginity on-line. I'm talking about the idea that when you teach someone something about how the world really works or is, the dark side of life let's say, what do you give them back to compensate them for the ugliness you have introduced into their world? For example, when you teach someone in a rural Kenyan village that he has to wear a condom to prevent HIV/AIDS, what do you give him in return for taking away the simple joy of sex?

Scott and I have also been busy playing 'tourist in your own home town'. Two must dos: the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side and a walking tour of Lower Manhattan. The Tenement Museum offers guided tours through an old tenement on Orchard Street. We did "Getting By" and visited the homes of German-Jewish and Italian Catholic families as they tried to survive the Panic of 1873 and the Great Depression.

Every Thursday and Saturday at noon, Big Onion tours offers a free tour of historic Lower Manhattan. This is the second time I have done it, and it was even better despite sub-zero temperatures. We explored the history, architecture, and people of the neighbourhood stopping at the old US Customs House, Trinity Church, J.P. Morgan, the Stock Exchange, and Fraunces Tavern.

During Restaurant Week we pretended to be a power-couple, power-lunching on our delicious Jean-Georges lunch at Mercer Kitchen. The food was absolutely divine.

We also made a visit to the American Museum of Natural History where Scott spent 90 minutes looking at African tools and artifacts. Fortunately he agreed with the curators exhibits on the Maasai, otherwise I'd have been in for a real treat. Then we hit up MOMA, which is free on Friday nights. Can I just say that I enjoy a good Picasso like anyone else, but seriously, there are way too many at MOMA…give someone else a chance!

Coupling our free events with brown bag lunches to Central Park and runs up the FDR, we are getting quite a lot of mileage out being unemployed (and a PhD student). However a job, and a paycheck are starting to look really good right now. Fingers crossed.

Tying up loose ends

Kampala-I haven't blogged in ages. I wonder if that means I'm not a real blogger? I don’t really have one specific reason, but it has been a lot of things: I got tonsillitis last week and still haven't quite recovered; I'm in Uganda doing another week of refugee interviews; Scott and I went camping to Lake Naivasha and Lake Nakuru; and I am trying to finish up my life in Nairobi as I leave in just 3 days.

Camping was very fun. I took the bus up to Naivasha, which is horrible town, then a matatu out to the lake where I met Scott. We stayed at Fisherman's Camp, which has bandas right on the lake and hippos roam at night behind electric fences. It was beautiful. Then we drove up to Lake Nakuru, which is a National Park. On the way we stopped at Menengai Crater, a dormant volcano now it is a big lava-filled crater covered in lush greenery. You can see steam rising from cracks. There is a lot of geothermal activity in this area and the geothermal companies are all over it.

We arrived in the park in time for an evening game drive to get to the campsite near Makalia Falls. We saw rhinos and flamingos right away, which was what we came for. We set up camp in our 1-person tent and Scott made dinner. He is very handy and outdoorsy, which is good because I haven't camped since I was 11. He is also a huge nerd with GPS in hand and headlamp on his forehead. Truthfully, the headlamp is so key and my flashlight was so lame in comparison.

We woke up at 6am which was a miracle for us and the ground was covered in dew, it looked like frost. We were up in time to see over a hundred baboons run through the campsite and up a rock towards the waterfall. It was awesome.

We drove around and found giraffes that we got within 3 metres of and more rhinos and flamingos, and even hyenas humping. I also saw my first warthogs and lots of pretty coloured birds. We had late breakfast up on a viewpoint overlooking the whole lake, it was breathtaking and totally deserted. As we looked out across the entire park we couldn’t see sign of another human being.

We came home via a winding, bumpy, mostly dirt road along the Rift Valley. It was fun for the first 4 hours, but I got tired and grumpy during the last 2 as the novelty of driving in a safari truck from the 80s with no suspension wore off. Scott finally saw my bad side, luckily he thinks it is funny.

If cranky Nikki wasn't enough to turn him away, I decided to get tonsillitis. Fortunately, Scott was in the field so he wasn't there to see me curled up in a ball whimpering in my bed. My friends, Jess and Rich, who live at my second home Upperhill Campsite took me to the hospital. The first time, after waiting 2 hours, the doctor was convinced I had malaria and wouldn't even look at my throat, which according to Jess who is a trauma nurse, had pus on it. At 3am when my throat almost closed up, I went back and finally was given injectable antibiotics. I feel almost human.

Before heading to Uganda, my housemates, Scott and I, had our last supper at one of the top restaurants in Nairobi, Tamarind. It is a delicious seafood place, and although the atmosphere was slightly old school, the food was amazing. The swimming twist is that the executive chairman of Tamarind and its more famous sister, Carnivore, is none other than the father of swim-stars Jason and David Dunford who now swim for Stanford. Jason was 5th in the 100 fly in Beijing for Kenya. I had dined with all of them early on in my trip at their other restaurant Tamambo, which is also fantastic.

Kampala is a beautiful city, or at least the 10 block radius I have seen since arriving. Our hotel and the NGO where we are doing the interviews is on the top of one of 7 hills that make up the city and there are flowering gardens and perfectly manicured lawns. Mansions loom behind huge gates and hedges. We could be anywhere in the world, but we are in Uganda.

I feel like I have come full circle being here. My human rights law professor who further inspired my dream of being a human rights lawyer was from Uganda. He fled during Idi Amin's reign of terror and became a refugee in Australia before relocating to the US and teaching me Property and Human Rights at Brooklyn Law School. Now I am here, interviewing refugees, mostly from Congo and Somalia, to resettle them in Australia. In the 3 months I have worked for the Aussies here in Africa I have sent over 200 refugees on the path towards new lives in Australia. There might not be a Professor Murumbu among them, but when I get to talk about democracy and the rule of law and playing sports in their adopted country, the smiles and relief I see, is the best gift I could ever receive.

Made in Kenya

Accra-While I am excited to be in Ghana this week, I am a bit bummed that I am not in Kenya for Obama’s win. Some Kenyans are under the distinct impression that once Obama is President of the United States, he will somehow save Kenya from herself. With a Kenyan father, Obama is a god there. In fact, I just got word that they are calling a national holiday tomorrow to celebrate! A friend of mine went to a Kenya national team football match in September and there wasn’t a single football t-shirt for sale. The only goods available were Obama t-shirts. They came in English and Swahili and had his picture with the slogan, “Made in Kenya”.

Of course, Ghana has been a fun place to be this week too. They have a presidential election coming up in about a month. One candidate uses the catchphrase “Hope and Change” on his billboard, while I heard another guy on the radio likening his party to the Democrats in America.

Ghana is generally more American friendly than Kenya. Our driver has an American flag deodorizer tree hanging from his rear view mirror and I have seen a number of mini-vans sporting both American and Israeli flags. It took me a few minutes to piece that together; then I realized that they must be Jewish.

The people here are very beautiful and well dressed. The attitude is a little more laid back and carefree than Kenya, but best of all, they have proper roads and drivers actually obey the traffic lights. Kenya, it can be done!

I am here with 2 colleagues from the Aussie High Commission. We are interviewing almost 200 refugees in 1 week for possible resettlement in Australia. It is mentally and emotionally exhausting. Yesterday I interviewed 8 families from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo. Many have seen their parents murdered, often beheaded. Some are orphans who have lived in refugee camps for over a decade. Almost all of the women have been raped or even gang raped.

At the end of every interview I get to tell them about life in Australia. I tell them to play sports when they arrive because it will help them make friends with their classmates. I tell them I am a swimmer and then I get to give them candy. It is the only time I can find a smile. Well, that and the outfits they wear. One woman wore a “Diva” shirt. Under what scenario could she possibly think that is appropriate? Another wore a t-shirt with a British flag. I told her that she probably shouldn’t wear it in Oz…most Australians aren’t too partial to the Brits. But the kicker was a woman who walked in with an American flag scarf on her head. At least she wasn’t interviewing with the Canadians.

I feel a bit overwhelmed with the state of things here in Africa. Having given myself Wikipedia crash courses in the civil wars of the region, to go with those I learned earlier to interview my Somalis, Sudanese, Congolese and Ugandans, there doesn’t seem to be much silver lining in the clouds that dump torrential rains everyday at 3pm.

When I was about 19 I wanted to be the Prime Minister of Canada. Even at that age I was attracted to power. I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with being a public servant. Then when I realized that all politicians are crooks, I knew it wasn’t. But I would give a crappy Canadian PM or even a Republican any day of the week for the evil that runs most African governments.

It took me a while to jump on Obama’s bandwagon. I was a Hillary fan and wanted a woman in power. But even I teared up a bit during his victory speech, which I watched this morning with my Kenyan friend who was shedding her fair share of tears. I still don’t know if I actually believe that Obama is a different kind of politician, but I really hope so.

As for change, it is a like a 4-letter word over here. But a big part of me wishes that the Kenyans’ dream could actually come true. This continent could do with a man like Obama and a few ideas like hope and change.

I’m Homesick

Nairobi-It all started last week with the beginning of the short rains. I mean what is the point of being in Africa in late October if it isn’t warm and sunny? Instead it was grey and overcast all week. Then there was the mud. It got me a little depressed.

Then I started to book my ticket home to my parent’s for December. I am also toying with the idea of staying an extra week here so that I can go to Uganda or one of the Kenyan refugee camps for another refugee interview trip. All of which got me thinking about my life back home in NYC, and that is when I realized I was officially homesick.

I have a lot of wonderful and amazing friends and the thought of making more here in Kenya was a bit unwieldy. Although I met one of my best friends on the planet, Nia C. (and several of her friends also became great friends), when I lived in Sri Lanka, I was kind of relishing the thought of 3 months where I didn’t have any social engagements. If I wanted to sit home and watch 4 movies, I could do it and I wouldn’t be letting anyone down for missing her birthday or house party or going away party or after work drinks. I mean I love doing that, and I am often the one planning it, but I was excited to just be.

Now I would die for a good 8pm beer after swim practice with my friends, especially my girls. I miss having girl-time. I realized that for the last 3 months I have been hanging out predominately with men. While I do love men and enjoyed running hotel Nikita in Beijing and living with 3 men here in Nairobi and having a boyfriend, I miss gossiping, being silly and just laughing with the girls.

It kind of hit a head late last week when I realized that some of the people I’ve become friends with here have very, very different ideologies than me. It started with a little bit of racism, moved onto sexism, then ended at homophobia. I was so shocked that all I could do was make jokes to get out of the situation. In hindsight I realized I’ve just had enough adventure and I want to be home.

I am here for another month, and the sun is shining beautifully today. I go to Ghana next week for a refugee interview trip and then the time will fly by trying to get in a few more weekends away. Specifically, I have to see some rhinos and flamingoes before I leave! But try as hard as I can to be an internationalist, I am a New Yorker. I love my city and my busy, cozy, safe, familiar life there. Plus I am pretty sure I will be able to find enough adventures in NYC to keep me entertained…At least for a few months anyway.

Lying in Lamu

Lamu-On an island off the north-east coast of Kenya, just 40KM from the Somalia border and a pirate filled sea, I vacationed with my new safari-partner (advertised for right here on this blog), Scott M.

Lamu is the heart of Swahili culture and I had a chance to really hone my Swahili while there. Scott is fluent, so he made contact immediately. It is also his nature to ask questions, very personal questions, about leases and livelihoods, culture and language, and how the economy is going. While I tried to smile and interpret the gist of the conversation through hand signals, Scott made friends, lots of them. Yes, I am quite friendly and outgoing, but even I get tired. As the weekend went on we collected many new friends so by the final night dining at Bush Gardens on a seafood platter of lobster, shrimp, and fish, no less than 6 of our friends stopped by to chat. They were all very considerate of our time, spending only 5 minutes a piece, but by number 6 and what with the cat meowing for scraps at our feet, it kinda starts to ruin your appetite.

Most of those guys were “beach boys” or “captains” of sailboats, called dhows. We met at least 3 guys named Captain Ali, including the man who captained our dhow trip. For just over $10 a piece we joined up with a sweet and funny young duo from the University of Minnesota and cruised around Lamu and Manda islands. We came aground on Manda where we spend the day playing in the surf, walking on the deserted beach, and eating yellow snapper and biriani cooked over an open fire. We also “fished” unsuccessfully on a reef with angel fish and then snorkeled over it later.

The previous day we had hiked from Lamu town to Shela beach. We wanted to be there early and make it back for lunch. By the time we got up, ate breakfast and walked for an hour it was 11:30am. We had the beach virtually to ourselves. At one point there was no one as far as the eye could see. It was so hot we played in the water for most of the day.

We went back for an afternoon of shopping through Lamu’s narrow winding streets filled with open sewers and donkey shit. There are no cars on the island, so donkeys do all the work. In the sweltering heat this old town really heats up. You can imagine the smell, but the architecture is beautiful, and oh the doors! We passed half a dozen workshops where young men carved ornate doors by hand. We decided that by the time we have a house we will be able to afford to ship one home.

My most unfavourite part of Lamu, and unfortunately, Kenya in general, are the lies. Lies rolled off the tongues of Lamu’s residents easier than flattery at a strip club. No matter the question, no matter the true answer, they seemed to be committed to telling us what they thought we wanted to hear. I have a similar problem in many of my refugee interviews. One Somali woman with 9 dependant children said to me yesterday, “Yes, the truth, whatever truth you want.”

We met this one guy, Slim the jeweler. He was lovely. He invited us for Arabic coffee flavoured with cinnamon and another “special” ingredient he refused to provide. He talked of all the people who have come into his shop and all the elders in the town. Then he showed us all their pictures. I took a picture with him after playing the Olympian card and getting a sweet discount. His store was filled with pictures: Jimmy Carter, Oprah, and the Queen. He wore an Obama pin on his shirt.

There was also the Olympic Restaurant. Our waiter had a Canadian pin, so we told him we were Canadian. He was so delighted, he skipped to the back to tell the owner who then came out and told us his entire family lived in Vancouver. I again played the Olympic card (I couldn’t help myself it was the Olympic Restaurant!), and our dinner was cooked with extra special care. Scott took our picture and we have promised to send it along with a Canadian flag that they want to hang up inside.

The only thing that was really crummy about our stay was the hostel, the Casaurina Guest House. While Lonely Planet said its roof deck was a social paradise, it was closed, and there wasn’t even any soap in the dirty bathroom. In case you didn’t notice, I’m not what you call a real hardcore backpacker. I like clean. We did have an ocean view, so we woke up to sunrises each day.

Despite some of my complaints the trip was amazing. Having a safari partner like Scott was everything I could ask for and Lamu was the perfect destination.

Down ‘N Dirty

Nairobi-As a city-girl, I rarely came across the four basic elements: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water in my daily commute from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Wall Street, so I assumed the same would be true in Nairobi. Yet, in a city of almost 3 million people, my life is governed by dirt, pollution, smoke, and of course, water.

In order to get to the bathroom where I work at IOM, I need to walk across a dirt path, that when it rains, turns to mud. Of course, this is nothing compared to the short walk I need to take to get to the main road to catch my matatu (where 2 days ago I got on board only to find my skirt the victim of a huge whole near my butt where I ripped it on a screw left uncovered by old upholstery.) I must navigate beside narrow roads with no sidewalks, trudging along the muddy, dusty, dirty, rocky shoulder. Sadly my cute red leather kitten heel shoes bought in the Stokey in London are ruined and will not make it back to NYC.

If you happen to walk barefoot in Kenya you could find yourself with some unwanted visitors under the skin of your feet. Affectionately known as “chiggers” these lovely guys are larvae which crawl into your feet by forming a hole in the skin and chewing up tiny parts of it, thus causing severe irritation and swelling. Once inside they inject digestive enzymes into you that break down skin cells, and then they suck up the digested tissue. Or this is at least what Wikipedia says.

Fortunately, I have yet to get a chigger, but I still itch all the time. Scott returned from his first trip to his field site with bites all over him. His sleeping bag was filled with fleas, which I have now also been attacked by. Then last night I woke up to buzzing in my ears and itching bites all over my wrists, neck and ankles. We turned on the light to find, and eventually kill, 8 mosquitoes, filled with our blood. Malaria is not so common in Nairobi, but I started taking Malarone today for my trip to the coast tomorrow. I cannot wait for beach and sun!

But back to the elements. I come home each day, filthy. I have zits and dirty hair, both of which I thought the end of puberty had curtailed. I try to wash my locks, but the water is so hard, I can’t get my Pantene to sud-up properly. It’s a combination of dust and air pollution which fills the sky from every car, truck and motorbike that zooms past me as I try to balance precariously on the edge of the traffic.

The air is not just filled with car fumes though. Over the radio waves, the morning DJ asks callers to debate such hot topics as: multiple sex partners in marriage and whether women like men circumcised or untouched. The wind also carries the smell of burning plastic at all hours of the day. As garbage piles up in roadside ditches, it is simply set on fire. From Tetra Paks to plastic Coke bottles, the whole lot burns, while the denizens of Nairobi choke.

I will say one good thing about Nairobi's environment; the water is drinkable. At our house we still do one quick boil of the tap water before drinking, but I use it to brush my teeth and wash my food with no problems. Out in the bush, that’s not the case. Being a polite guest who doesn’t refuse tea with conversation, over the past 4 years in Kenya, Scott has gotten giardiasis 4 times. Fully knowing that the water hasn’t been boiled for 10 minutes, or worse, that the tea cups were just washed in dirty water, he still takes the tea and then gets infected with parasites that colonize in his small intestine. You can imagine what happens next.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some glorious parts of Nairobi. There are huge trees with purple flowering limbs and ones with big orange blossoms. There aren’t that many stray dogs and you can buy beautiful fresh cut flowers on many street corners. Best of all the people are lovely. When Nairobians smile (which takes a little prompting) it lights up my day and I (almost) forget that my feet are smelly, my hair flat, my skin dull, and my clothes coated in dust.

Ps-In retribution for my negative post about the dirtier side of Nairobi, it poured rain right when I was about to leave work today. Rivers of mud flowed down the streets and I had to wade through pools of filthy water to get to my matatu stop. At one point there were 23 drenched people crammed into the 15 passenger van, including 4 schoolgirls whose polyester skirts and nylon sweaters were sopping wet. So much for building up good Karma.

Kenya versus Sri Lanka

Nairobi-It was inevitable that I would need to compare one experience to the next; I think it is human nature to look for similarities and differences. I lived in Sri Lanka for almost a year after finishing law school and when I returned I know I talked incessantly about what life was like there. I compared and contrasted away, surely driving my friends crazy. Now I'm doing it again. Every adventure I have here, from driving to the store, posting a letter, or learning the local language, I immediately compare it to my time in Sri Lanka. Strangely I rarely contrast things to life in NYC, perhaps because there are some things that are too dissimilar to try and find parallels.

Food

For almost 15 years I was a vegetarian. I grew up on meat and potatoes, then in 1992 right after the Olympics, and at least 6 books on the subject of nutrition, I decided to make the commitment. I didn't do it for the animals, I mean we are at the top of the food chain, but I did do it for my health and for ecological reasons. Somehow, now that the rest of the world has jumped onto the "green" bandwagon, I have jumped off into the world of meat. It is a good thing too, because in Kenya, meat is king.

Nyama choma is roasted goat meat, which I've really only had once and that was at an Ethiopian restaurant with Scott and this cool British couple we met at Upperhill who took a year off from their lives to drive from England to India before shipping their car to Mombassa and driving around Africa and back up to Europe.

I love Indian food, but I must admit that as a vegetarian back in '06 in Lanka, my choices were very limited. Unlike Indians who venerate those who abstain from meat, Sri Lankans just look at you real funny. The curries there are very hot and my palate did grow accustomed to it, but hotness doesn't mean goodness and other than Kotthu Roti, a noodle-like stir-fry dish that is great late-night, I didn’t take any favourites home with me.

Language

Mate Sinhala tikkak puluwan: I can speak a little Sinhala. That was after a year and one round of lessons at the British Council during my last 6 weeks on the island. I didn't want to make the same mistake I made in Sri Lanka where I tried to learn the language too late in my stay, so I bought my Swahili Made Easy book and got off to a roaring start. Sadly, that sputtered and died quickly. The book I bought wasn't making Swahili easy, in fact it has made me almost give up. Normally when you learn a language they teach you important things at the start, like what to say when you go to the market and need to buy 5 tomatoes. This book is teaching me complex verbs that I will never use in the next 2 months and I still can't go shopping. My swimmer girls did teach me to say ninataka ku-ogelea: I want to swim.

The worst and most embarrassing part of my language problem in Sri Lanka was not knowing until I was there for 9 months that "O" means yes. I spent months talking to co-workers who would nod their head side to side in the South Asian fashion saying O, O. I thought they had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out I was the idiot.

Transportation

The greatest thing for me in Colombo were tuk-tuks, 2 stroke diesel powered 3-wheelers which took me everywhere I wanted to go. They were cheap too, which made them perfect for getting to work and to coaching. It was also pretty safe to travel at night. As long as I was in a tuk-tuk I felt safe, even when the drivers tried to ask me to marry them. I always relied on my made-up fiancé back in the US to dissuade them. Once I learned to speak with a bit of a Sinhala accent it certainly helped.

I thought there would be tuk-tuks in Nairobi since there were pictures of them in the Lonely Planet. Sadly those pictures are old and there are no tuk-tuks which has forced me to use public matatus, of which you can read about my last post.

Clothing

When not dressed in traditional saris, unfortunately, Sri Lankan women are quite possibly the worst dressed in the world. Their style is non-existent when trying to dress Western; they combine polyester shirts from the 70s and 80s with long narrow skirts, sandals and UV protection umbrellas. I don't understand this at all since price is not the issue: Sri Lanka is home to dozens of factories which produce everything from Gap and Victoria Secret to Speedo and several UK store brands. The prices are low, and it is just as cheap to buy this stuff as it is the ugly stuff. I wish they all wore saris or even shalwar kameez because they look so much more beautiful when they do.

While in Colombo, I got to tour a clothing factory that made swimwear, including Speedo. It was really cool to see the FastSkins being made and I was given several after the tour. I was also relieved to see that the place was not a sweatshop, in fact things looked very civilized for all the workers. The weirdest part, and what for a feminist is a bit hard to swallow, was how the pregnant women had to wear pink smocks to differentiate them. On the one hand it seemed sweet that people were warned to treat these women with a little TLC, on the other it is quite offensive to think that just because a woman is pregnant she somehow cannot do her job the same way.

In Nairobi, the style is a lot more revealing that conservative Colombo. There are women wearing shorter skirts and showing much more cleavage. I am dressing much like I would in NYC. There are a few women who I see wearing more traditional African dresses, but for the most part everyone is wearing western clothes. Men cannot wear shorts though and Scott is often the teased by schoolboys who see him in shorts and think he looks like a young boy. Personally, I can't stand wearing jeans when it is so hot, so shorts are usually part of my weekend wardrobe.

Up next week: Prices, Swimming, Tourism, Development, Animals and of course, Men.