Behind these walls

While the general pace of our lives tends to leave us each absorbed in our own microcogisms, lately I see I've spent an unusual amount of time peering out to my world from behind one set of wall or another. It is a world marked by the slow moving pace of security guards blending in with shadows. It's a world filled with sterile beauty and composed with pieces from a not so distant past. I wonder often how it is I've found myself in such unlikely settings that rebel against every belief I've come more strongly to hold. This constant assault upon my senses challenges my silence.



   

 Safari Park Hotel, Cafe Kigwa  - Nairobi, Kenya

 
 I escaped the isolation of our campus life for a surreal turn in this Kenyan hotel. The grounds are unarguably breathtaking- color blooming aside every path, water falling and pooling like landscape paintings and trees lit up from below in striking illuminations that rival the display of the most famous masterpieces. Only the promise of a free meal lured me to the closing gala ball. Teachers from all over Africa had been meeting for days, networking, learning and exchanging ideas (admist the ever present agendas of shopping and safari, I suppose it is fair to add.) The 'ball' is traditionally the culminating event.

Dinner was buffet style- a mixture of dishes bland enough to please everyone sprinkled with the occasional ethnic item. Waiters brandished kabobs of meat that were longer than their arms and forced them to wield the pieces of carcass like daggers. An equally long knife accompanied the costume and they moved swiftly through the crowd disposing dripping pieces of meat onto dinner plates.

Though I could accept this as culturally Kenyan, the choice of music was much more bizarre. As I gazed at the brave and brazen dancers who'd made their way to the stage, I realized I truly was not among like-minded peers. They all seemed to be enjoying things immensely. I wrestled with my disappointment and dashed hopes for an evening of soul catching music. I laughed and chatted with my tablemates as we tried to be generally amused by the foibles occuring before us. We told jokes about the self fulfilling prophecy that white people can't dance and insisted to each other that it didn't have to be so (the proof was clearly not before us, but we rationalized surely it existed somewhere.) 

The most amusing moment came when a voice sounded over the loudspeaker. It was the calm and neutral, though slightly sexy, voice of computer generation. "Ladies and gentleman, the Safari Cats will now begin." It began to repeat itself and we envisioned rogue electronics gone haywire. People eventually cleared the stage and the 'dance show' began. I had caught a glimpse of it in passing the night before and expected to be completely horrified. I had a small glimmer of hope that there was some transformation after the first few minutes. The music that blared from the sound system was reminiscent of a B movie soundtrack, bland and unoriginal. The dancers appeared in degradingly stereotypical costume and moved in a graceful ballet. It was an odd mixture of European colonial vision and theme park surrealsim. I had to leave.



I felt I would be much better placed had I been wearing a Stetson with leather vest and smoking a cigar.  The show seemed catered to the white elderly male who wanted to hold onto images of a long ago past when masters had money and Africans were periphery wall decoration. I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that a show like this still existed and worse, was performed every night. The crowded hollered and clapped and I felt like the only sane person within 50 kilometers. I wondered about the hotel staff and what they truly thought of the act. I pondered the dancers and how they viewed their role as an artist, a performer and a Kenyan.

In truth, I was not alone in my rejection of the atrocity. But escape hardly seemed enough. I continue to question why this opportunity- hosting people from around the globe- isn't put to a more responsible use. Why doesn't the show display the traditional dance and music of Kenya? - the most obvious question and the one I still can't answer. I realize the motivating power of money, of catering to client need and desire- surely a club playing hip hop and dance music would not be well received by the average guest- but there could be some compromise. Some social accountability.



This 'Garden of Eden' is clouded with the smoke of pesticide
 spray for mosquitoes. The gardener wore a mask, though it was
perched atop his head. Those of us dining in the nearby cafe did not
have masks and quickly abandoned our drinks. Paradise at a price.



I can't go on too much because I myself have not found the motivation or inclination to step off the grounds for more than the prearranged excursions to the international school--more teacher training. It is mostly my lack of funds that keeps me bound- ironically- to this oppulance. I'm told a taxi downtown will cost me about 2000 Kenyan shillings ($20.) While I'd love to see some of Nairobi from a different lens, I am remaining content to focus on my job, collect my information and return to my other walls- less culturally enriched and still pocket poor.

All of this returns me, as always, to thoughts of Guinea. I am comforted with images of the boys playing soccer in the red dirt streets and the slats of sunlight streaming into the Maison de Jeunesse where some kids practiced their dance moves to the backdrop of a percussion group rehearsing their rhythms. I have yet to be anywhere that welcomes me home so completely and so openly as the streets of guinee.  This is what it means to miss a country, a homeland. To feel you are growing and changing in a foreign culture as you wait and long for return to the place that you love.

I think also of my Kenyan students and how I will go back to tell them how beautiful their country is. There is much less tension here and I find people to be polite and well spoken. I sense beauty and pride in the air despite acknowledging that the true spirit of the land has eluded me on this trip. It is the Kenyan students that strike me often as the ones who hold the most reverence for their country, the quiet longing that colors everything they write and wear and do. It is the story of the immigrant, the migrant, the reluctant traveler.  It is a feeling that requires a constant influx of patience and reassurance. You must tell yourself, it will not be too late when I return. My country will be waiting to recognize me, to embrace me, to open the walls and welcome me home. Perhaps that's what I've been sent to here to collect- not just tools and strategies to enrich student learning, but empathy as well.