BlackBerrys Before Water

Many of my friends and family have realized something very strange about my situation in Muhuru.  While I shower out of a bucket with water provided by good ol’ Lake Victoria (heated using a wood fire and transported by donkey, of course), I can easily gchat with a friend in New York while walking three miles home on a rocky, dirt road.  Yes, I have a BlackBerry in Kenya.

Several months ago in Muhuru Bay, Safaricom, a huge cell service company, built a tower atop one of the hills over looking the lake.  “How is a cell tower possible if you don’t have electricity?” you ask.  Generators.  Big, loud generators powered by diesel fuel.  “And how do people charge their phones if they don’t have anywhere to plug them in?” you ask.  Easy – our hut is one place. There are a few other families with solar powered generators, and a few scattered petrol powered generators that charge Sh 20 per charge.

So, believe it or not, we have BlackBerry devices in this tiny fishing village before we have running water.  Isn’t it strange how development works?

I have a theory. Cell phones have begun to revolutionize Muhuru. People need to charge their phones… they purchase solar. People want computers so that they can browse the internet. They have begun to realize that they are CONNECTED to the world outside of Muhuru, and they want to be more connected. It is almost as if, in this tiny town without a paved road, without gridded electricity, we are skipping decades, even centuries of development, moving straight to the part that matters the most – our connection to the people around us – calling them, emailing them our precious thoughts, and gchatting with them when we wish to communicate.

I could go into a full analysis of how the past 150 years of development in the west has materialized us, has alienated us from each other, and has even hardened our abilities to love and unite with other human beings. (AKA “the Ipod Phenomenon. Leave me alone, I’m listening to my Ipod.”) But what I am seeing here in Africa is that our consciousness as human beings may, in fact, be moving to a new level, one of strength, one of understanding, one of unity. We are longing to connect.

Carol Calls

When I met Carol, she immediately came up to me and asked me if I could help her. Her story is all too common here in AIDS-affected Africa, and I felt so bad for her after hearing her story. She is an orphan, 19 years old, and never graduated from secondary school. She currently lives with a close friend that she calls a sister, with her 6-month year old child. Carol calls me every single day. Sometimes 5 times a day. Sometimes even more. She is DESPERATE to have her school fees paid for by anyone that will help her.

I promised myself I could not and would not help everyone. I came to help serve the community, not provide them with money, and had Carol been one of the girls that I interact with daily, I would have undoubtedly helped her right then and there. I do not know her very well, but I have gotten to know her persistence and relentless drive to finish secondary school through the endless phone calls that she insists on making to me.

She asked me to help her find someone in the states to sponsor her. So, this blog is an advertisement for Carol’s schooling. She told me that it costs her 8,000 Kenyan Shillings each year to continue with primary school, and this is equivalent to $100 US. If boarding is included, which she wants it to be, it will cost about 23,000 Sh or a little under $300. If you have ever wondered whether you could actually make a difference in one girl’s life, now is your chance… I have the capacity to meet with Carol, give her the money and connect you to her. I feel incredibly bad for her, and know that she would be so grateful for a year’s schooling contribution.

Please email me if you would like to sponsor her. tmaravig@gmail.com I will put you in touch with her immediately by phone, if you would like. I know she would be absolutely delighted.

Surprisingly Normal

Since many are interested, I will share the most shocking thing about being in Kenya. It is not the lack of running water or electricity, nor the unpaved roads, congas, or lack of stoves that is the most shocking. What I have found to be the most shocking thing about being here is how surprisingly normal things are and have become after adjusting.

I thought about it yesterday as I was gchatting with one of my friends from New York, telling her that I had to go because the sun was setting. Every night before bed, I scramble to get my things together where I know they will be so that I am not struggling to find things in the pitch black before I go to bed. I said that I also needed to go help bring the cows in. This statement made her type, “Haha,” and ask if we ate the cows. I explained that cows are a source of value here, and that it was very rare that will kill them, but use them mostly as a source of wealth and milk. It was as if this was completely normal in the U.S., that I shouldn’t have to explain the meaning of cows being kept as domestic animals.

Another way to explain it is like the feeling you get when things in your house or room become “part of the scenery.” When I moved into my last apartment in New York, I put off getting a bookshelf for so long that I forgot my books were just piled in the corner, waiting to be shelved. After some time, you no longer notice the books in the corner that once irked your mind causing dissonance, but rather, your mind accepts them and forgets that they are placed in your room improperly. I suppose living in a foreign country anywhere causes this to happen to your mind – it grows so accustomed to the things it sees and the day-to-day routines that they simply become “normal,” even if entirely different from the routines of a life you may have lived just one month prior.
Living here has proven to be surprisingly normal, so much so, that I could probably write ten things in this section already…