Guests and Gifts

The homestead gate opens. A man holding a small boy's hand walks through. The man has the little boy's colorful backpack in his other hand. He greets Anne with a big handshake. She laughs and her boys come running in to greet their cousin. We walk over to Eve's house. The man is Eve's brother-in-law, Mom's son. He, Simon, lives in the city and has come for a visit. Simon reaches into the colorful backpack and hands small bags of peanuts to Paul and Daniel, a lollipop to Eve, and a hard candy to me.  By the looks of it, this piece of candy has been in that boy's backpack for a very long time. As everyone else unwraps theirs sweets to chomp down, I follow suit.

After Eve and Simon have had a short conversation in Kikuyu, he asks me in English, "You don't speak Swahili?" There is a small exchange about my inability to speak Swahili, though feeling inadequate I do mention that I speak other languages. Though, eventually I say, "Kidogo" (a little). Hoping that will suffice.

"100 bob?" He asks matter-of-factly.

I am confused and think that maybe I didn't understand him correctly. He repeats himself.

"No," I respond just as matter-of-factly.

"50 bob?"

"No."

"You don't have?" he asks.

"No. What I have is for Anne and your mother." Despite my initial apprehension of actually paying my participants, I learned very soon after my arrival that guests are expected to arrive with gifts. Traveling with pounds of flour and sugar are heavy. So, following advice of Kenyans, I decided to not only bring sweets on arrival but also give money to my participants (and new Kenyan families) upon my departure as a gesture of appreciation.

"How much?" he questions.

"That is between me and them," I tell him.

"10 bob?" He requests.

I shake my head at him.

"You don't have?" He asks in utter disbelief. "I want to smoke"

I look at him blankly.

"I want to smoke." He repeats.

"No."

"I want to smoke. 10 bob."

"No."

I say good-bye and pass Mom as she enters Eve's land.

In stereo

I need to skip ahead to Saturday evening and go back to the neighborhood walk later. Jane, the kids' mother, called to say that she would be late. And because she had promised me a traditional Kikuyu dish, the girls - Damaris, their daughter, and Esther, the house help - would have to make it instead. She sent them the directions via SMS.

The three of us chatted while we prepared lunch together, which was when I found out that Esther was only one year older than Damaris, and also that Esther had only been working for them for the last nine months. Since Damaris had been away at boarding school, the girls must have only just met a month or so ago, when Damaris had returned. During lunch it was obvious that they were friendly - despite being from different ethnic tribes and, of course, the class difference. While we - and I really mean the two of them - made dinner it was abundantly clear that the two were actually quite close. There were giggles and shared knowing looks. 'Thick as thieves' one might say from watching them cook.

Damaris dictated the steps to Esther from the text message. Previously Esther had pealed and cut plantains, but it turned out that they weren't needed. Instead they were put in water and then placed in the fridge. The recipe only called for yams, squash, and kidney beans. The yams and squash were boiled together.

Today was the third day without running water, and since this morning we were out of drinking water. Jane had promised to pick some up on her way home. But because Damaris, Kirioki, and I had had our adventure in the neighborhood today, we were all parched. Kirioki decided to suck on ice cubes, but when he pulled the tray from the freezer it was covered in frost. He got out a knife and started to pick away at it. At the same time Esther started cutting up cabbage in her hand. There was that rhythm again: schka schka schka, schka schka schka... but this time it was in stereo.

I looked up from watching Esther's chopping and saw Damaris and Kirioki on either side of the fridge. Both sitting on the floor with their knees pulled in. Damaris and Esther continue to talk and laugh in Swahili. Kirioki munches on his ice, as all three of us wait for the woman of the house to return to quench our thirst.

Nicole Rademacher was in Kenya during the first part of 2012 doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

Being invisible in the pitch-black

In the small mud-floored kitchen, around the kitchen fire bordered by 3 large stones (to put the pots on), the middle son is home with his 8 year-old for a visit. The three adults discuss life, the city, work - or lack-thereof. The 2 grandsons that live on the homestead are seated there as well, with their cousin, quietly listening to the adult conversation. One of the boys sings, but it is barely heard; the others dig their feet into the ground and fidget. But I can only imagine this based on the conversation in a language that I don't understand that comes billowing out of the barely open door and the small square window. The conversation is accompanied by the suffocating smoke from the kitchen fire, fighting for a place to escape from the confines of the small space.

I steal understandings of bits of words and, of course, proper names like the capital city where the son now lives, with his wife and son in the second largest urban slum on the continent, barely making ends-meet. I stand just a few meters from the wood building, looking up through the rainclouds of the Long Rains season through the pitch-black to a few constellations, barely visible. I look back at the square-shaped room with an orange burning light shining through not only the cracked door and window, but also the open slats that let the rain in this morning while we watched the water heating for our baths.

The conversation is familiar, one that I have had with my own parents in their kitchen during one of my countless visits home. There is a relay back and forth of question-answer, then intermittently the son explains further or the mother continues on a monologue asking and comparing, hoping to glean a bit more about her son's life that is not so unfamiliar to her, she is from a city near by, not the capital, but she is no stranger to the hustle and bustle, but perhaps she has forgotten all of that. Perhaps the forty-some years that she has spent in the high rolling hills tending to their farm and dairy cows, perhaps this less-busy life has allowed her to forget the hand-to-mouth that she, presumably, once lived.

The oldest of the grandsons pops out and I quickly change my gaze back to the sky again, attempting to make myself invisible. Though the night is so dark with no moonlight and no artificial light for miles, at least to the closest town, being invisible isn't so difficult. Then I remember the conversation I had with the shopkeeper today when we made the hike to town for supplies that cannot be reaped from their land, power had been out in the town for the last 2 days - no mobile charging, no television, only the police station, with their noisy generator, could be seen with their lights on at night. The grandson dumps some water and with a clang grabs something from under the chicken coop and glides back into the warm kitchen shutting the door just a few centimeters more behind him.

How long is ten years?

'So he is your husband?' I ask. She nods yes.

'How many years have you been married?' I carefully choose my words; her English is quite limited (please note that my Swahili still only consists of pleasantries and my Kikuyu only happens by accident), and if I have learned nothing else from teaching English and living abroad for so long, I have definitely learned how to grade my language and construct sentences so that communication happens and less ???s occur.

'10 years', she responds.

*Anne is a slight woman, and, to be honest, when I met her the day prior I thought she was an older grandson in the family. I had failed to notice that she was wearing a long skirt below her billowing boy-sweater. Given the short hair, and the fact that in this small village at a very high altitude everyone wears winter caps, a skirt can often be the only way of telling the sex of children ... and very slight women.

Ten years seemed like a lot to me. I've realized that Kenyans can be very deceiving with their age (I mentioned this in my first post from Kenya). She also told me that she is 28, her oldest of two children is 9, and that she is from a small town very far away so she never sees her family. Ten years still seems like a long time to me.

The milk is at a rolling boil, and she adds the tea and stirs.

'Yes, 10 years,' she repeats and laughs. She seems to be a generally happy person, and around me almost everything that I do or say deserves a laugh. Sometimes even her own response deserves a laugh.

She pulls the pot off the fire using only bits of cardboard as oven mitts to protect her not-so-delicate fingers. She sets the pot on the mud floor and places a new pot on the fire and fills it with fresh water that she had fetched from the well in the morning. The family is lucky to have the well on their homestead. I've seen many women and girls carrying large 10 gallon jugs (at least I think it is 10 gallons) of water using a strap that is placed around their forehead, thus carrying the jug on their backs. Despite what, in my Western eyes, may be considered poor conditions, the family seems to do quite well for themselves.

She grabs a teapot and strainer from the free-standing cupboard with mismatched doors and pours the chai, in a not-so-careful manner, from the pot through the strainer into the teapot. As she calls telling the others to come because the afternoon chai is ready, she tosses the dirty silverware and some small dishes from lunch into the soon-to-be dishwater warming on the fire.

*Name changed for privacy

Nicole Rademacher is a currently in Kenya until the beginning of May doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

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Black onions

First she peels them, and then she grates them. She is *Faith the “house help”. Kenyans don’t like skins, she explains. Actually, she tells me, Kenyans don’t eat chopped carrots. She says that in her own family, as well, she would have to grate the carrots in order to cook them – even though carrots are grown here, she defends. She’s young, maybe 25, but has rarely been outside the kitchen. I am surprised that she is working in this particular home because she is from a different tribe than the family. Perhaps the mother is from the same tribe, but I can’t discern. A girl is from where her father is from until she gets married, at that time her husband’s homeland becomes hers. Names are changed easily, going back only three generations. Oral history carries more weight.

She tells me about her older brother, gentle, intelligent, went to university. He died at a young age, but was a very finicky eater - never eating carrots, greens, or onions. Once Faith was old enough to cook, she learned how to burn the onions so that he could easily identify them and pick them out.  Until he left for university, she recounts, they never ate greens in the house and only grated carrots and black onions.

*Name changed for privacy.

Nicole Rademacher is a currently in Kenya until the beginning of May doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

official website • follow her project on Facebook

Wash Day

*Esther washes all the clothes on Saturdays. "I don't have help come in, so Saturday is the only day that I can wash everything." Almost immediately she retracks the "everything" and explains that the heavy clothes are washed on Saturdays, but the other clothes, the "light clothing", is washed during the week - "a bit every day".

Assuming that she does not have a washing machine (I have yet to see a machine in even the middle-class homes), I try to calculate in my mind how long it must take her to wash the clothes and bedding for a family of three, by hand.

Everything is scrubbed with brushes, and many of the women who come in as housekeepers scrub too hard and ruin the clothes; this is why she prefers to wash everything herself. Esther has a 23 year-old daughter and shows me a photo of her on her smart phone. She tells me that she is finishing her studies, but she requires her to wash her own clothes. The loads are getting lighter, but I am still having a hard time calculating the hours it must take.

When I arrive at her house for the first time, it is a Sunday evening - after church. We enter the metal main door of the building and make our way up the dimly lit concrete stairs. Turning left at the first landing, I am greeted with, at least, one woman per doorway scrubbing and dunking, scrubbing and dunking, scrubbing and dunking. Clothes are hung on thin rope strung between walkways. A lulling chatter fills the hallway, accompanying the scrub-dunk rhythm kept by the same busy ladies.

The socialization built into the lives of Nairobians keeps me bewildered. I have been conditioned to segregate, categorize, and compartmentalize, making time for everything through strategic decision.

*Name changed for privacy.

Nicole Rademacher is a currently in Nairobi, Kenya until the beginning of May doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

official website • follow her project on Facebook

A third note from Kenya

In Nairobi, you can make time stand still. I'm contemplating the stationary second hand on the watch of the woman next to me. She quietly stares at the people who are not frozen; the men with wide gaits moving swiftly, and the women passing us less hurriedly in pairs or groups of three unassumingly chatting in their dress suits and heels. They will all most certainly get to their homes before we do, but our existence has been suspended on the #40 Citi Hoppa bus to Ngumo.

I am surprised that I don't hear Hot 105 pumping through the speakers promoting "1 second can win you 1,000 bob" (Kenyan slang for Kenyan schilling). Instead my attention is shaken from the motionless second hand by the jangle of coins in the conductor's hand. I look up and he tells me, "40 bob" in little more than a whisper. Despite the cosmopolitan hustle and bustle, the capital city can be quite taciturn using gesture to communicate. He collects our fares and passes me 2 tickets separated by a perforation.

As I hand her her ticket, I steal a glance at my neighbor's watch, but the second hand is stubborn; the bus driver turns off the engine and activates the parking break. The woman across the aisle sighs as she turns the page in her book about the habits of being efficient. The man in front of her relaxes further into his seat as a breeze cuts through the bus bringing with it the exhaust from the other cars and buses in the parking lot that is sometimes Valley Road.

I close my eyes so as to attune my ears to the murmur of a conversation behind me, hoping to glean a detail or two about their lives.

Nicole Rademacher is a currently in Nairobi, Kenya until the beginning of May doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

official website • follow her project on Facebook

Cooking

*Wanjiru doesn't like to cook, but she has been cooking her whole life, she tells me bluntly as she picks through the red mung bean (a bean that I will become very accustomed to during my time here as it appears at many meals). I am surprised that she doesn't like cooking, only because cooking to me is a joy; it's a hobby of mine. I ask about her hobbies. She doesn't have any. After finishing sorting the usable from the not-usable, she proceeds to the kitchen to wash and strain them.

While her English is perfect, the dialect here takes some getting used to for me. When asked her favorite meat, Wanjiru promptly responds "leaver". I give her a confused look and wonder if she told me in Swahili, certain food is commonly known in its Swahili name rather than in English.

She proceeds to spell it, L-I-V-

- Ahhhh, I say before she can finish, Liver! I repeat, as if correcting her. Am I correcting her?

I'm immediately ashamed for having said it in that fashion, but try to disguise it by asking her, Beef or pork?

With a scornful look she says, Beef! Not pork, and she gives me a disdainful grimace while shaking her head.

After washing and straining she lets the beans soak overnight, but says that she will have to get up at 6 am in order to cook them - she doesn't normally cook on Sundays, it's sabbath. Curiously I ask her about her plan for Sunday.

Usually, I go to church from 10:30 am to 1pm, she explains.

It's not that Wanjiru isn't forthcoming with information, but she simply doesn't tell me much unless I explicitly ask her. So, I pry further: Do you come home after church?

No, she tells me that afterwards she either goes and visits with her mother or visits a friend, who owns a salon in Kibera.

That's enough, she says almost already exhausted, That's enough.

*Name changed for privacy.

Nicole Rademacher is a currently in Nairobi, Kenya until the beginning of May doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

official website • follow her project on Facebook