Considering "Revolutionary Road"

I made a poor choice of surprise for my first Surprise-and-a-Treat Night. I have been bored by movies, and I have been hard pressed to remember anything about it as soon as I left the theater. I have felt manipulated by by movies, and I have been disappointed by movies (I'm looking at you Australia and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Don't try slinking into oblivion.). But it is the rare movie that I wish I had never seen. As you might have guessed by now from the title of this post, Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road is one of those movies.

It's hard to point to any single classic element of cinema as the source of my frustration. The score, as simple and as repetitive as it is, is perfect. It is employed to set the earliest scenes and at the moments of highest drama but is always appropriate. The kudos surrounding Kate Winslet's performance are well earned, and the rest of the cast play their roles well. The only off note is sounded by Leonardo DiCaprio who comes off as something of a brute, prepared only for violence, when something more subtle is called for. The direction and pacing are fine. No complaints with the scripting or costumes or set design either. Really, when you look at the individual parts, it's a fine film.

It's only when I pull back and consider the overall effect that it begins to leave me nauseous. It's the motive pervading Revolutionary Road that irritates me most. When a cast and crew that has already received so much attention from the Academy creates such a self serious film based on an acclaimed work of literature, it's rather impossible to consider it anything other than Oscar bait. In and of itself, this is not a problem. While I prefer to side with C.S. Lewis on this and attempt to create honest art rather than art which will be great, bait can still lead to some fine films like There Will Be Blood. Revolutionary Road took a turn for the disastrous when it decided that the theme which will bring in the statuettes is that the American suburbs are stultifying and encourage conformity thereby crushing the human spirit and zest for life. Whoa. My mind is blown. Brain is all over the wall it was so blown. Then it takes a twenty-pound sledge to the remains just in case the point didn't come across. Film set in the 1950's? Check. Insecure husband works in a cubicle? Check. An incredibly ironic name for their street which only serves to further draw out how not revolutionary their lives are? Check. An incredibly ironic advertisement composed by the husband which only serves to further draw out how he isn't actually doing what he really wants to do? Check.

It was awfully generous of Revolutionary Road to provide its own best analysis of itself. Trying to convince her husband that they need to abandon their pleasant home on Revolutionary Road for Paris, the only place where he ever really felt alive, Winslet argues that everyone in the community has told them they're special, meant for something better, but they aren't. Only in this case it's not everyone else telling this movie it's special. The movie's telling us its special in every aspect of its production and performance. But it isn't.

The suburbs may very well be the refuge of the middle class and enclaves of those who prefer the norm to change, but somehow people still prefer to live in them. Some even manage to thrive. Who could imagine that? We are not slaves to our environments. We choose and find our own happiness and fulfillment. Anyone who says differently is posing a poor excuse for their own misery and should spend a few months in a slum. See how long their existential crises lasts when they actually have to put effort into their survival.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Another favorite picture

I haven't had much time to write this past week as the senior director left and two new directors were hired to take her place, so please accept this brief photo post in the stead of the more traditional anecdote or essay.

There are a lot of things I like about this picture. The composition for one. The layer of sand rises to meet the bushes on the hill's crest of the hill which touch the clouds on the horizon, finally ending in the clear blue sky at the very top. The women, especially the one flaring her shawl, provide powerful focal points. The color is rich.

But this is where it gets interesting. Clearly, I like this picture, but it bothers me, too. Pokot simply does not look like this. The color is more muted, less intense. If this picture were left out in the sun for a few hours, then the color would begin to approach that of Pokot. Fortunately, that's unnecessary as the original captures it all quite well. That picture was processed through Picasa which tweaked more than a few settings. The result was this picture, one that I find ultimately more striking but less honest, and therein is the problem. More than most any other art medium, photography can claim to present the greatest truth of its subject, but even in something as minor as modifying the colors, it already is departing from that truth. This was never a problem when I stuck with black-and-white.

If you want to see other pictures, less good, from Pokot and the center in Nakuru, please check out my Picasa album.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Orphans with families

Working at an orphanage is demanding. Seeing to the children's health, safety, education, happiness engrosses you, sometimes to the point that you forget why you're doing it. During the past school holiday, we allowed many of the children to return to Pokot, a chance to get away from the city and return to their tribal culture. About a week and a half ago, we visited the villages to pick the children up, and a mother refused to return one of them, a pre-schooler, to us. My hackles went straight up. She hadn't been able to provide for him and given him up to us. He was our kid now. She had no right to him.

We informed the founder of the Foundation of this the next day. She was glad. It was a much needed cold splash to the face. The boy shouldn't be in an institution. He should be with his family.

I hate my job. Absolutely abhor it. It's not the long hours or the dulling government paperwork. It's not even the children who decide that the best possible time to break the rules is after midnight. It's that my job exists at all.

I'll let you in on a secret. Despite the title of orphanage, the vast majority of the children who live here have living parents. No more than ten have no parents whatsoever, and they still have other relations that would be willing to take care of them. The children should be with their families, immediate or distant, and not in an institution with a hundred others where they can't get the particular attention and all the care that they need. But they can't because their families are subsistence farmers in a drought-stricken land, because the nation lacks a strong economy with jobs for the educated, because the government is too corrupt to protect water sources, much less provide adequate social services.

We and the center are only here because things are wrong with the world. If everything were right, we wouldn't be necessary. We should dream for that world.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Buying bootleg DVD's

Work at an orphanage that is home to over 100 children is exhausting. Big surprise. And, as fun as living with the children, eating with the children, teaching the children, putting the children to sleep at night, waking the children up in the morning and playing with the children can be, we occasionally need time away from them.

That is why we instituted Surprise and a Treat Night. The treat is biscuits or crisps or some other goodie with a British name. The surprise is a bootleg DVD. One of us chooses the surprise, the other the treat. And then we switch the next week.

When my turn to find the surprise first came around, I was, I am ashamed to admit it, more than a little scared. The problem was certainly not finding one. This isn't the black market where you need to know the right people and use the right hand jive at the right time. To say that bootleg DVD's are abundant in Nakuru is a gross understatement. If you spend any time in the city whatsoever, you have to go out of your way to avoid the street vendors. They set up shop in front of every store whose owners do not ask them to move on, and there are at least three on every block, both sides of the street. The selection isn't bad either. Hollywood releases appear on the streets within two weeks of opening in American theaters, and so long as you like star-driven films, there is a rich catalog to choose from. They even have the taste to package all of the Godfather movies on a single disc, even if they use the cover of the video game to advertise it.

No, my concern was looking like at idiot tourist while flipping through the selection and being ripped off. Bargaining over two hundred shilling, rough equal to $3 American, may seem like the height of arrogant Western tourism. That's change. You can't even buy a full meal at a fast-food joint in the States with that much, but the Kenyan on the street could eat for a day on it. Still, knowing you're getting cheated is a more than disquieting feeling, and when you intend on spending a few more months in the city, you don't want to be setting a bad precedent for future exchanges. My original strategy to deal with this was to watch the vendors out of the corner of my eye while walking by at full speed. If I saw one I wanted, the plan was to stop, grab it, pay and get out. No time for haggling or being seen. That never worked. On the rare occasion I actually saw a DVD I wanted to pick up, I had already passed by. Turning around would only smack of desperation and kick the price up a few notes.

I realized this Friday afternoon. Then I humbled myself to stop in front of a vendor and flip through their selection. There was no hard sale. She pointed at a few options on display that I might like. Classic Schwarzenegger Films? Ultimate Horror Movie Collection Vol. 3? I settled on a collection that included Revolutionary Road. 200 shilling and a handful of my popcorn? Sold. I think the woman laughed to her friend and I definitely heard her say “two hundred” as I walked away, but that's still better than anything Demetra had paid.

One note, only buy your bootlegs from Dubai Digital Movie. They fill their DVD's to the far edges of the disc with at least 12 films on each. These things are high quality. No worrying about jerky cameras that inexplicably periodically go out of focus while filming a static screen. Dubai gets its rips from promotional copies as often as possible. My only complaint: who decides who selects the films for each set? I really want to meet the person who thought there was a demographic desperate to have Twilight, The Wrestler, The Alphabet Killer, Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia, and Slumdog Millionaire all on the same disc. Maybe it's a family collection, something for everyone?

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: The Chinese Restaurant

For a belated birthday celebration, Demetra took me out to one of the nicer restaurants in the city for lunch last Monday, Nakuru's downtown Chinese restaurant, Ming Yue. I was excited.

I don't think I've ever visited any restaurant one could remotely claim was authentically Chinese except once in San Francisco, but that's beside the point. Chinese food is nearly as ubiquitous as McDonald's, and except maybe for Panda Express, this global infiltration has not been carried out by international chains but immigrant families who realize that everyone wants a taste of the exotic. What's so fascinating is that these families always accommodate for the national palette. It's a delicate balance between offering meals that your customers have never seen before but also making them familiar enough that they won't outright reject them. Pairing pineapple and chicken may be prima facie a wacky idea for most Americans, but the flavor is still sticky sweet and not so foreign as one might expect. Thus, no matter where you are in the States, a land of sugar, you can find cream cheese wontons, but these are totally unknown in Germany where a heartier fare is preferred.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Paradoxically, if you want to really discover the culinary identity of a nation, you need to visit its Chinese restaurants. I've defended McDonald's on these grounds before. Don't go to the locally-owned-and-operated bakeries and cafés if you want to know what the people really eat. It will be too much. You will drown in the flood of new flavors and styles. Instead, go where you think you know what to expect. Go to McDonald's and the Chinese restaurants. There will be similarities, yes, but the differences will stand out all the more. Whatever those are will be the soul of the people's diet. The Germans may pass over the egg foo young, but they cannot fill their plates with enough sausages with the Szechuan spices.

Which made it all the more of a surprise to discover that Ming Yue was about as American as you could get in its food. The vegetable lo mein and ma poe bean curd would not have been out of place in Baudette's The Oriental Wok. Kind of a disappointing, yes, but the closest thing I've had to a taste of home since coming here, and that has its own pleasures.

Maybe I'll have better luck with the Bamboo Hut, Nakuru's second Chinese restaurant. Maybe they'll drizzle sweet and sour sauce over ugali and list General Tso's goat on the menu.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: A favorite picture

Sorry for the drought in posts this week, and I may have to apologize in advance for the drought continuing for the next week or two. Please accept this brief analysis of how this picture has become my favorite of the children as a more concrete apology.

I like this picture for a number of reasons. First, it's an absolutely honest portrayal of the children. Not a single one of them is camera. They love to mug and rush into the picture no matter where I point my Nikon. The boys also love to wrestle. This picture captures both elements. The boys are literally fighting for position within the frame.

Second, the lines of this, from those on their bodies to those in their clothes are so powerful. With all of the faces turned away or otherwise obscured, the picture becomes abstract as the lines become the focus. In this, it reminds me strongly of the picture of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, especially the child in the lower-left corner. But mine is better. Why? Because it wasn't staged.

If you enjoyed this picture and would like to see others like it though not nearly so good, check out my Picasa album.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: A nice surprise

Something unexpected but rather nice happened late Saturday afternoon. The senior director, Naomi, expected it, but she had neglected to mention anything before leaving to spend the day in Nairobi with Demetra and to teach her how to deal with public transportation and get to the airport and what not in the capital.

I had just begun revising a 186-page draft of the manual which describes in detail most every possible aspect of the Foundation when one of the guards came down to tell me that there were visitors at the gate. I was expecting a hopeful looking to apply for a job. Instead I found some 200 children in paper crowns sitting on the slope that leads down from our barbed wire fence singing a hymn led by a man whose black sport jacket hardly had time to settle against his body before he spun again. Our children sat facing them, about eight meters away, more than a little cowed by the crowd. I could have dealt with a job seeker. I would have politely accepted their CV or suggested they apply online. I had no idea how to deal with this and stood far to the side with my thumbs in my pockets. Were they looking for converts? I hoped not. The Foundation's policy is a free exercise of all faiths without compulsion in any direction. I didn't like my odds of escorting all the children and their teachers out if they started asking our children if they were saved.

By that point, one of our older children introduced me to the woman directing the whole affair. She finally explained that it was the final day of their vacation Bible school, (ironically appropriate as it was the first day of Ramadhan) and they had been collecting change in small, plastic Bottles of Love. Now they had combined it all into one massive Bottle of Love and wanted to present it to us. The woman made a small speech, the exuberant man read a Bible verse, the kids sang another song, and there were pictures as a small girl passed the bottle to me with our children standing tight behind me. Then I made a small speech of thanks. Mostly it was me saying thank you, but the kids seemed impressed that I knew enough Kiswahili to even say asante sana. As the teachers herded the children out, they mobbed me to shake my hand. I felt like a candidate for president. There were too many of them and not enough time to give each hand a proper shake. All I could do was thrust my arm out and give about three hands a single squeeze at the same time. They loved it when one passed me his baby blue crown, and I tossed it atop my mess of hair.

Like, I said it was nice. The money wasn't much. A bit over 1000 shillings, a bit under 15 dollars. It'll pay for maybe half our monthly water bill. Still, to be recognized within the community as a deserving organization and receive donations from people who have bills of their own to pay and not much money of their own to pay with, it feels good. A reminder that other people think we're doing a good thing, I guess.

The greatest irony of the whole thing? Just before reminding all the children why they were there and what they had accomplished, she asked me if I had heard of some city in Mexico. It wasn't Mexico City, Tijuana or Cuernavaca, so I hadn't. I missed the explanation, but it sounded like they were maybe the first choice for receiving the Bottle of Love and something went wrong and our center was the second choice. I feel really bad for Mexico now. These kids live in a slum in a country with a government so corrupt that every candidate for major office makes stamping it out a key part of their platform, are facing the fifth year of a regional drought and lived through a month of near civil war almost two year ago, and they felt sorry enough for the Mexicans to want to donate their money to them.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Running

Coming in, I had few dreams of adventure in Kenya. A professor and aunt had suggested I visit Lamu Island, an early Islamic trade port where most all modern technologies are now forbidden. That sounded fun but was the extent of my plans for travel. I had little interest in a safari, the ultimate in cliché tourist activities in Africa beside contracting malaria and being the object of severely marked up prices at the street market. Beside, I had come here to work. Travel would have to come second to my obligations to the Foundation, and in all honesty, simply being in Africa for the first time and within in a foreign culture and new environment would be adventure enough for me.

Well, that and running. Come on, what runner wouldn't feel their pulse quicken by the opportunity to run in Kenya? The nation which has given birth to some of the greatest long-distance runners in the world? The vistas of the Rift Valley? A country whose people actually cared about runners? Kenyan victories at the World Track and Field Championships in Berlin this week have made the front page of The Daily Naiton, Kenya's national newspaper, every day, and its sports pages were dominated by previews and profiles in the weeks leading up to the meet. How many other countries can claim this same respect and passion for professional running? Maybe Jamaica, but Usiah Bolt is a special case. Everyone loves him. For funsies, Kenyan coaches and long-distance runners respect opponents from Ethiopia and Tanzania first and Morocco and Mozambique second. I don't think any other nation can field a team worth being concerned about.

Even with all my hopes and dreams of running here, it was nearly a month before I tied my Mizunas tight for the first time. It took two weeks to find a route that didn't go through the slums or into the heart of the city and another week after that for my work schedule to settle down enough that I had time in the morning to run. The route is really quite nice. It's just outside the city and follows the trails and side roads which run parallel to the Nairobi-Nakuru highway. There are some gradual uphills and downhills, and rolling hills to the sides offer wonderful panoramas. I have no idea how long it is, just that it takes about an hour to complete. After that first outing, the truth of running in Kenya became apparent to me though there were plenty of hints before.

The truth is that the States have a better running culture than Kenya. In a single hour of running on Centennial Trail in Spokane, no matter the time of day, I could see more runners than I have in all my weeks in Kenya. No exaggeration. The runners here may be faster and more focused than the average American, but they are severely outnumbered.

The truth is that running is totally middle class, a privilege of those with money. It's odd to read, I'm sure. When I became aware of it, I thought it was utterly bizarre. How could running possibly be middle class? It's one of the most fundamental actions in the world. The first man ran down his prey, and modern man runs to his appointments. Once a child learns to walk, running isn't far behind. It's fundamental. How could running ever be considered a privilege?

What we neglect to recall, I believe, is the most common reason for running: our health. I fully acknowledge that there are other reasons to run. I, for example, like to think I run for the joy of the movement and release of energy, but shedding a few pounds or toning our legs is always a part of our motivation. Ultimately, most of us run because we enjoy access to more food than we need. Not so much the case for those who don't live a Western middle-class life. There may be no famine in Nakuru, but there is a five-year drought. Food is expensive, and wages aren't particularly high. Running means investing a few hundred more shillings into food every week to maintain a healthy weight, and not everyone can afford it. And, when you don't have the cash to spare, you walk everywhere, and that is more than enough to stave off excess weight for most.

It doesn't mean I'll stop running. That wouldn't change anything. Beside, I like the release of energy. I am, however, a bit more aware of the stares of those I pass and realize that there may be more there than surprise at seeing a really white guy pass in silver shorts and a yellow tank-top when the Kenyan runners prefer full track suits and caps when early morning temperatures are in the low 60's.

Reflections on the House of Charity: Crime and punishment or lack thereof

Like every institution, the House of Charity has rules. To assure the fair and equal distribution of limited donations, you can only go through the lunch line again after seconds have been called and you are only allowed in the clothing room once a week. To make sure there is space for everyone who needed it, you can only keep two bags, both under 35 pounds, in the storage closet at any one time. To protect the other clients, absolutely no alcohol or drugs are allowed on the premise. To protect the staff, their directions must be followed at all times. To protect everyone, weapons and fighting are never permitted.

Punishment is simple. If you break a rule, you have to leave. There are no time outs, and revoking privileges is rare. When you break a rule, your case is brought before the weekly sanctions council, and they determine the length of your punishment according to your history and the circumstances of the latest. A night or day for a minor infraction. A few weeks or months if you are a repeat offender or the first offense is severe enough. A year or permanent if your very presence is a threat to everyone at the House.

Staff broke and ignored this rule all the time. Infractions wouldn't be recorded, and clients would be let off with a warning. Men could come in with full beer cans falling out of their jacket and be sloshed that someone literally had to drag them into bed, but the next day no one would say anything when they came down for coffee and doughnuts. Another woman could spend 30 minutes roundly cursing out anyone who came near her and screaming that there was a conspiracy against her, and nothing would be done except, maybe, trying to calm her down.

There were reasons for this, good reasons I like to think. Like I wrote, many rules were in place to to protect the resources and the staff. When it came down to it, though, we were there to serve and protect our clients. If we weren't doing that, we weren't doing our job, no matter how many official, written rules we could hide behind. Sending someone out from the House and onto the streets was a serious decision. The streets at night carry a host of dangers. Thieves and drunks looking for a cheap thrill could roll you. Opportunistic diseases could have their chance. Exposure to the cold and elements are constant threats. No one wants to have a client's death on their conscience after they kicked them out for sneaking in a beer. Not that the consequences were always so severe. Sometimes it was as simple as grabbing someone a sandwich when they missed dinner or pulling a coat out of the clothing room for someone else who had forgotten that it was only open in the morning.

Making exceptions could quickly become exhausting. You want to believe that when you're doing them, you're helping whatever poor soul just come through the door, but it gets hard to see how that's happening when you make a special trip into the clothing room for that one particular man for the third time that day. Even if you have no other work and would otherwise be just leaning against the counter, you begin to ask yourself at what point you're no longer helping and just feeding their mental illness or addiction or whatever.

There was one client, severely mentally ill, who would literally come in every day to ask for a new T-shirt. Sometimes it was honestly dirty, as though he had rolled in the dirt with it. Other times you would be hard pressed to tell what the problem was. You couldn't reason with him or suggest that he wash it. He was single minded in his pursuit. If we didn't get a new shirt for him in due time, he would stuff the old one into the nearest garbage can. It was rare that we didn't give in. There may have been plans to present a united front and force him to take more responsibility or at least keep a shirt for a week, but I can't recall them ever working. Another man had a ban of indeterminate length from every possible service for refusing to work with our case manager. He could only move with a walker and desperately needed hip surgery, and he knew it. Every morning he would come in and demand attention at that exact moment. She could never help him then, and he would leave because he couldn't go longer than an hour without a beer. I felt for him. Really. He was in an impossible situation. No surgeon would operate on him until he underwent a full and complete medical detox. That wouldn't happen until he was cleared by Spokane Mental Health, and they refused to work with him until he had the surgery. He could have been a character in a Joseph Heller novel. Then again, the man was a pain of the worst sort. After dealing with him, I would need time alone in the back hallway to calm down. Our staff did everything for him. They cleaned him and gave him new clothes when he soiled himself, which was about every other day by my count. Our case manager spent hours trying to get someone to bend and get the surgery started. But he would still only stick around just long enough to be noticed before leaving to get loaded again. I've been out of touch with the House for over a month now. I hope something has changed.

I spoke with the House's assistant director about this after one particularly trying episode. I could hardly even sit down to talk with him. I wanted to pace the three steps across the width of his office until my hands stopped shaking. When I finally said it with the words rushing over each other, halting every ten seconds as I realized I was descending into rant, he told me I was acting as Christ would when I made exceptions and that was my job. The permanent staff in the back had agencies to liaise with and reports to file. If they made exceptions, they would never get to their real work. The AmeriCorps, the Jesuit Volunteer Corp, the Gonzaga work studies were all there to make the exceptions when the others couldn't.

It wasn't what I wanted to hear then. I wanted him to tell me to throw the bum out on his rear with the walker following soon after. I wanted to hear that it was alright to not care about him. But it was reassuring. Our job remained to help and care for those who received nothing from anyone else. That's how we earned our pay on the front desk.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: The book list

Of the many hypothetical questions one can pose to learn more of another, from “If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?” to “Would you rather have a razor slid under each of your fingernails or have the nails on your two largest toes ripped clean off?”, there are very few that personally intrigue me and cause me to put real thought into the answer.

One of these is the classic “If you were stuck on a desert island for eternity, what books would you bring along?” While pondering, it's a chance to show off your literary chops by name dropping the big ones and a few unknowns, but it also leads you to really consider what the most important books in your life have been.

This time in Kenya is a little like that hypothetical made real. A reading culture simply does not exist here. There are more than a few bookstores, but far and away, these are stocked with class textbooks, dry things on the fundamentals of biology and chemistry. For those owners adventurous enough to display works one might actually want to read in their free time, the selection is limited to Joel Osteen's latest and books with titles like Why do you choose to be poor when there is so much money out there?

I guess Kenyans can't get enough of improving themselves, but that's not my cup of darjeeling. I prefer fiction and have essentially been limited in my choices to what Demetra and I brought. Good thing I expected this and didn't just pack a book or two to read on the flight over. I ultimately settled on seven books and two poetry collections, excluding a Swahili dictionary and Teach Yourself Swahili. Choosing them, however, was a bit of an ordeal. These books would have to sustain me for at least a year. I couldn't depend on length alone to get me through, but works that I would willingly and eagerly race back to, fiction that could not be exhausted no matter how many times I read it. Another rule was a focus on short story collections. If I really want to be a writer, I need to know the best of the form and its masters.

Thus, the following list. Naturally, it is too late now to take suggestions, but go ahead and make them. I may have a chance to replenish my supply this January.

They Come Back Singing by Fr. Gary Smith.

Ironically, this book was the last brought but the first read. A gift from a good man who volunteered at the House of Charity, it was too appropriate to my upcoming my year to not bring. If you would like to see my further thoughts on it, I've already written a post on this journal of Fr. Smith's experiences while serving Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda.

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann

I read Mann's The True Confession of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, a few summers back on a suggestion from my grandfather. I was torn in my response. The language was extraordinary with a richness that is never seen in contemporary literature, but it could be a slog, especially considering Mann's penchant for spending at least a page physically describing every character with a single line of dialogue. But I came back for more, so I guess it's clear which way I was finally torn. And the man won a Novel Prize for Literature. A master for sure. Unfortunately not in the original German, but I fear, rightly, that his prose is well beyond my comprehension.

The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor

The woman won most nearly every award and received most every honor the American literary community could bestow in her too brief lifetime. Seems as though I could learn a little something from her. Since I didn't bring a Bible either, it seemed like I could do worse in my source of daily source of spirituality.

Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges

I picked this up according to my rule of three. A friend mentioned that one of my stories reminded him of Borges, I read an essay online comparing The Dark Knight to “The Three Versions of Judas,” and the same friend wrote an essay considering Borges' approach to death. I haven't been disappointed. Not quite stories in the traditional sense, Borges writes ideas in such a way that you have to totally reconsider what literature can be.

The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff

I first read “Smorgasbord” in a collection of short stories accompanied by interviews with their authors. I was blown away by the tightness of the prose and force of the ending. Then I read “Powder” and “Bullet in the Brain,” which combined aren't enough half the length of “Smorgasbord,” in another collection and was knocked back even harder. I read this collection before coming but couldn't bear to leave it behind.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

I picked this up a few months after Wallace's suicide and the accompanying accolades and read it shortly thereafter. Not quite as singular in my adulation of his work as Wolff, but there is some good stuff in here that bears further thought and time, both, fortunately, available in spades here in Nakuru. The man's style is something else entirely, but the important question is whether it is the surface for something important or just a clever mask.

Über Deutschland by Heinrich Heine

I had to take something to keep my German up. I would have preferred a collection of Schiller or Heine's poetry, but this is what Auntie's had.

Four Quartets and The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot

A dedicated year probably wouldn't be enough for The Waste Land, but this will have to suffice.

Then Demetra brought along Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, David James Duncan's The Brothers K, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams. I think I'll be alright until next summer.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: One month anniversary

Today marks the one month anniversary of my arrival in Nakuru. Even though we left from the States on July 8, the plane didn't land in Nairobi until the 9, and by the time we picked up our luggage and got out of the airport, it was too late to catch a bus or matatu into Nakuru. Thus, my lighthouse of explanation to penetrate the coastal fog of confusion which may have set upon any who knew our itinerary intimately.

For the rest, this anniversary provides a nice opportunity to pause and look back on those things I miss most and least back in America.

Chairs with backs Without a doubt, before anything else, these would be the first things I would import into Kenya. I have only found chairs with adequate backs in two places in Nakuru: the pews in the Catholic church and the easy chairs in the office of the center's lawyer. Everywhere else the backs are either broken or non-existent. My lower back will never take them for granted again.

Movie theaters Yes, the bootleg DVD market in Nakuru is flourishing. The turnaround from premiere in the United States to the main streets of Nakuru on a $3 disc with at least two other movies is under three weeks for most, but I do miss the full immersion offered by a proper theater with surround sound and the works. Something about a much smaller screen sapped of all color that occasionally goes out of focus just doesn't do it for me.

Wireless Internet from home Not so much in and of itself as that I have learned to absolutely abhor Internet cafés. They're slow, you can't take a quick break to relax your eyes because there's a line ten-people deep to take your spot and five different viruses minimum load onto your flash drive every time you plug it into the USB port. I read an article in the Kenyan national newspaper about café owners being concerned about losing business since high-speed cables were finally being laid and made available to home users. I just couldn't find it in myself to care.

Cheese I haven't had any cheese since coming here. It won't be long before I begin to crave something that comes vacuum sealed in plastic. Not yet singles, but those can't be far behind.

Western-style toilets I get ridiculously excited about these now. I keep a running list in my mind of all those I've found in town because they beat, hands down, squatting over a hole in the concrete every day. Especially when your flexibility is limited and you have to hold on to a crossbar on the door to balance.

Television There are only two or three shows that I try to keep up with and, even then, mostly when the seasons come out on DVD, but the house I lived in for the two months before leaving had a nearly complete cable package. It had only two of five possible movie packages, but that was still about 600 more channels than I had ever had before. Add in high definition channels and a DVR, and I always had something to turn to for distraction when I was the least bit bored. Now I find myself, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, with more time to read and write even with a much more demanding job.

American soda I hardly ever drink the stuff in the States. It's too sweet for my tongue, but they actually seem to care about taste here. The superiority of every flavor Fanta in any country not commonly referred to by a three-letter acronym that doesn't end in Emirates is already well known, but there's more. The Coca-Cola here is a bit more orange and a bit less dark than the American incarnation. Not exactly better or worse but different and worth a try. The Stoney Tangawizi is where it's at though. Imagine a grape ginger ale followed up by a sharp sour sarsaparilla kicker. Now that's a mouth full of flavor. Don't ever try Krest Bitter Lemon, though. It's like quinine with a splash of lemon juice.

Official Photographer

On our journey into Pokot two weekends back, I was called to fill a particular role for the first time: that of official photographer. It was my duty to move about and take pictures of the tribal people as we delivered bags of cabbage and maize flour to them, as we bought and shared goats and cows and camels. These pictures would then be included in messages to all those sponsors who had made the donations possible.

Like I wrote, this was my first time in the role, and it felt odd. My favorite photographers include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz and Walker Evans, and their most renowned pictures are candid shots of life in progress. To the best of my abilities, I have tried to imitate their approach and create something reminiscent of them. Being an official photographer seems to run counter to this. I tried to remain on the periphery but was invited in. Chiefs would move their people out of the way so that I could have a better shot of the main action. People no longer shirked from my lens. They knew I was there. They knew by my presence that this was an event, something worth recording and sharing. They wanted to be a part of it.

It was not exactly unpleasant. I am far from a forceful person and probably would have never been close enough to capture the men pouring out buckets of flour into the bags of the waiting without the aid of those in charge. I don't think this work was necessarily antithetical to that of my favorites either. Much of their best was part of a long, intense process. They embedded themselves in their communities until the people were no longer self-conscious about their cameras. The people came to accept and expect that they would take pictures. The Famine Feed and Survival programs have been going on for years. By this point, the Pokot expect photographers at them. I just benefited from all those who came before me and prepared them.

But there is an important distinction here between my work and theirs that does bother me on a personal level. Cartier-Bresson, Stieglitz and Evans earned their positions within the community through long stays. They had become members of the communities in their own way. In the parlance of sociologists, they were insiders. I just showed up in Pokot in a truck one hot July afternoon. In no way could I have been confused as a member of the tribe. What concerns me still more is that the camera may have pushed me farther still into the margins. I was just the observer and recorder. They would tolerate me for this time but could not accept me.

While I must accept that there are very real limitations to how much I will ever be accepted over the course of these brief, monthly visits, I do hope for something a little deeper than photographer/photographed to emerge during the coming year.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Getting around

The U.S. State Department offers potential visitors to Kenya the following warning about driving:

“Excessive speed, unpredictable local driving habits and manners, poor vehicle maintenance, bumpy, potholed and unpaved roads, and the lack of basic safety equipment on many vehicles are daily hazards on Kenyan roads. When there is a heavy traffic jam either due to rush hour or because of an accident, drivers will drive across the median strip and drive directly toward oncoming traffic. There are often fatal accidents involving long-distance, inter-city buses, or local buses called “matatus.” Matatus are known to be the greatest danger to other vehicles or pedestrians on the road. They are typically driven too fast and erratically.”

Had I bothered to read this or anything the State Department wrote regarding Kenya before making my decision about this year, I would have been a touch more wary about coming. Had I known that the matatus would be our basic form of transportation, I would have been straight up terrified. Good thing I didn't. I guess.

For what it's worth, it's all true. The driving habits are unpredictable, the vehicles are poorly maintained, the roads are in worse condition still and probably the only thing keeping there from being too much excessive speeding is the aforementioned poor vehicle maintenance. When a student protest outside the local university shut down part of the highway, our matatu driver had no problem pulling a U-turn across the median to avoid waiting for police to break them up. There must be a shortage of blinker fluid, too, as I can't recall the last time I saw a turn signal used. As a three-and-a-half week resident of the Republic of Kenya, I find no exaggeration in this piece.

But that's part of the fun. You never know what to expect. The delay in getting from Point A to Point B is no longer a necessary evil but an adventure.

Consider the matatu. It's a hollowed-out van with room only for rows of seating that would be more appropriate in a school bus. They are used for everything from long-distance inter-city travel to getting around town. There are defined routes, thankfully, but they pass through erratically. Even when you see one, it's not guaranteed that you will get a ride as they can only carry 14 passengers and fill quickly. The only schedule the drivers follow is leaving from the lot, an ocean of matatus packed as tight as possible at every conceivable angle, once they're full. There are no prescribed stops either. When you want to get on, you raise your hand. When you want to get off, you tap the conductor on the shoulder.

In spite of their omnipresence in Kenya, or possible because of it, every matatu is a world unto itself. Drivers seem free to decorate their vehicle in whatever way they see fit. I have ridden in matatus which are miniature shrines to the Sacred Heart and others devoted to Arsenal. Walking through the lot, I pass back windshields with room only for portraits of 2-Pac or Bob Marley or Christina Aguilera. Matatus at night are obvious. They're the ones with undercarriage and flashing lights all over the exterior. The seats may be covered in material better suited to curtains or in vinyl printed with a grossly pixelated flock of flamingos. Catching a ride back from a farm outside of town, the mutatu had the most terrible, most amateur music video I had ever seen on loop. Do not ever search for Rose Muhando on YouTube lest you see it yourself.

Yes, they are dangerous. I haven't seen a seatbelt yet, and conductors have no trouble throwing open the sliding door and hopping out while the matatus still in motion in order to move passengers in and out faster. Still,they're better than any of the other options. I haven't yet had the courage to hail a motorcycle or boda boda, a bicycle outfitted with a passenger seat, neither of which offer a helmet. And the matatu is a far sight faster and safer than walking. On the totem pole of priority on the streets, pedestrians come in dead last. It's their duty to jump out of the way when matatus, cars, motorcycles, tuk tuks and boda bodas come down the street, and pedestrians spend a lot of time on the streets as the sidewalks are overcrowded with vendors of newspapers and bootleg DVDs of movies released last week. Crosswalks would probably strike most Kenyans as a funny idea, too. If you want to cross the street, you take a hard turn, look right and left and go if no one is too close.

Kenya's principal source of tourism is the safari, promises of adventure on the savanna and in the wild. The tourism board may as well admit that getting to your hotel will be adventure enough for most.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: First journey into Pokot

Ironically named, East Pokot is actually in far western Kenya, very nearly on the border with Uganda. A chief, who earned the position through an application process, told me it is a wonderful place during the rainy season, lush and green and full of cattle. East Africa, however, is in the midst of a five-year drought, and that time has not been kind to Pokot. It resembles a desert now. Rough, fist-sized rocks outnumber tufts of grass, and every shrub and every vine is well protected by thorns both long and short. Outside one small village, the people were forced to dig for water in a dry river bed. Over this same memory of flowing liquid, two-thirds of a bridge stretches. Perhaps the contractors decided it wasn't worth the effort to finish when one could just as easily drive through as over what had once been an obstacle.

The International Humanity Foundations has deep ties to East Pokot and the people who make it their home. Many of the children at the center are of the Pokot tribe and still have family there. The Foundation also runs two unique program in it, the Famine Feed and Survival, both of which I participated in for the first time this past weekend. Through the Famine Feed, we delivered bags of cabbage and maize flour to supplement the people's limited diets. International sponsors donated money through the Survival Program which we then used to purchase chickens, goats, calves, camels and cows at the local market and give them to families in need.

About a week before the trip out, the director of the Foundation began sending me emails dealing with issues of cultural sensitivity while among the tribal people. These were not minute items of etiquette like what the proper greeting is (The people, like all Kenyans, are great fans of handshakes. Conversations both between friends and between strangers all begin with one.) or with which hand one will be expected to cut their meat (They use their fingers). No, these issues were absolutely fundamental. She warned us that tribal people have a hard time thinking in terms of the future tense because they are so focused upon surviving in the present, that garbage and trash as filth are entirely new concepts as so many of their tools are made from stone and wood and can be disposed of wherever, that the feast-or-famine mentality is very real and very present. I needed to be aware of these differences and be prepared for them. For better or for worse, I read her warnings and remembered them but put in little further thought. Had I paid more attention, I would have realized this would be culture shock to the nth degree. These were not going to be like the differences between middle-class America and Western Europe or urban Kenya where, despite the physical distance, people still hold specialized jobs and buy most of the goods they use. These differences go to the very core of our lives.

It all washed over me while I was there. Without the earlier emails, I would have thought the Pokot only differed from me in their choice of homes, languages and dress. That's the consequence of dealing with any people only briefly and mostly in the very superficial role of photographer rather than friend or equal.

Before my journey into Pokot, I had wanted this post to offer great insights into the Pokot culture and life, but now I am afraid of such ambition. I spent a few hours with them. I know nothing beside what another has told me. Insight and revelation can come only later and a little bit at a time.


Thus this post is a reflection on the simplest of observations, the visual. Coming in, I was subconsciously prepared for something out of National Geographic: people in minimal clothing and that made out of animal hide and bone. I joked that I would struggle for an answer if the women went topless, and people asked me why my eyes were averted. So it was disconcerting to discover how similar their dress was to that which I see everyday. Many men wore polo or collared shirts, and both sexes sported tank tops. I saw plenty of T-shirts and wool caps for Arsenal. Short of their walking sticks and stools, nothing seemed as though it were handmade from materials available in the desert. The women's dresses may not have been bought from the local Tusky's, but they were at least made from printed cloth. Their sandals were crafted from strips of tire, not exactly a material cultivated in East Pokot.

Still, their style was distinctive. Those fan chokers on the women may have been made from beads built in some factory in China, but I certainly don't see anyone in Nakuru wearing them. Other plastic beads were used in original earrings for both the men and women. Some men wore skirts made from the same cloth as the women's dresses. Those men with hats kept a single feather in them.

It was a fascinating blend of the traditional and contemporary, the Pokot finding ways to make modern materials meet their needs and lifestyle. After all, culture is not a static thing, no matter whether you are in the suburbs of a rapidly-changing Western city or part of a tribe which prefers the lifestyle untold generations before practiced. Culture constantly changes and adapts according to the people and ideas and technologies and materials available to it. The difference between us of the West and the Pokot here, I believe, is whether we prefer to make those things adapt to us and our ways or whether we change for them. Given the Internet, our essential means of communication and business undergo an intense evolution. Given tires, the Pokot make sandals, a much different form of transportation than first intended. Marshall McLuhan may argue that our technologies structure our thoughts, but there may be more agency in this process than he anticipated.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong about all this. Perhaps my observations and reading of them totally missed the mark, and later journeys into Pokot will reveal this. We'll see.

Reflections on the House of Charity: Death on the Street

A life on the streets is not typically a long life. Diets consisting largely of day-old doughnuts and other expired foodstuffs from supermarkets, severely limited access to health care and prevalent substance abuse on all levels are not exactly practices conducive to good health. And that's not mentioning the frequent violence.

Of course clients of the House of Charity died, five during my tenure. In accordance with papers I signed before working there, I cannot reveal their full names, but I would like to list their first names here lest they be forgotten entirely. Vickie. Sarge. Albion. Mary. Eddie.

I believe Vickie was the victim of abuse. In the weeks leading up to her death, every time she came in, it seemed as though she was sporting a new bruise or had her arm set in a sling.

A writer for The Inlander covered Sarge's memorial and final days.

I liked Albion. He was a quiet man but respectful and caused no problems. I think I worked the night he died of exposure. I can't remember whether he had come in for a bed, whether we had turned him away when all were claimed.

I attended Mary's memorial service. The director of the House asked me to attend since the rest of the staff was participating in training, but he still wanted someone to represent us. It was held at Women's Hearth, one of Spokane's day shelters for women. It was heartfelt. The friend who delivered the eulogy fought tears the entire time. When the microphone was opened to all who wanted to share a memory, one woman admitted that she had never known Mary but was moved by the many who did come forward and by what they said.

I remember the last time I saw Eddie. He was drinking a beer across the street from House of Charity, and I had to ban him for breaking our rule against alcohol on the premise. He was dead less than two weeks later. Massive internal bleeding. I remember the first time I saw Eddie, too. He had an itch on his back and leaned against a column near the House's front door, going up and down it like a bear, a comparison only more apt because of the fully beard he was wearing at the time.

I have been fortunate in my life in regard to a lot of things, death among them. Only rarely has it come upon my family and friends, rarely have I had to grieve. How, then, do I deal with this? How am I supposed to feel? None of them were old, the oldest in their fifties, though all looked far older. Probably none of them went how they would have liked.

Should it bother me that their deaths did not impact me more, that I heard about their sufferings and ends and was able to keep working? Of course people die all the time, and I don't care a whit for them. I can, after all, see the obituary page and not burst into tears. Still I feel as though it should have been different with Vickie, Sarge, Albion, Mary and Eddie. As so many of the clients are estranged from their own relations, the staff of the House of Charity becomes a sort of family for those who spend time there. If I can't care for their deaths, who will? This is more than a little arrogant of me. The services for Sarge, Mary and Eddie were more than well attended. Sarge's daughter visited him in his hospital. Eddie had his own family in Spokane. There were plenty to mourn for them. But what about Vickie and Albion? I don't even think any memorials were held for them.

I don't know what I should have done, but I hope these memories mean something, maybe recall experiences for the others who also knew them.

Considering Fr. Gary Smith's “They Come Back Singing”

I was hoping for some sort of guidebook from They Come Back Singing. Fr. Gary Smith and I have similar backgrounds, if you kind of squint and cock your head to the side that is. I'm Catholic and he's a Jesuit. I attended Gonzaga, and he attended Santa Clara. I worked part-time at Spokane's House of Charity for about a year and a half. He spent the greater part of the '90's working with the homeless and mentally ill of Portland's inner city. We both even enjoy our little forays into the literary arts, his book Radical Compassion being a collection of his experiences and thoughts while in Portland and very worth your time to read. I thought this shared background would make Singing, written by Fr. Smith while serving Sudanese refugees in Uganda, a suitable guide to my year (or two) of service of Kenya. Thought it might give me an idea of the challenges I would face in this foreign land and concrete advice on how to overcome them.

Not so much. Not surprisingly, the expectations of a Jesuit serving the pastoral and spiritual needs of the displaced and a recent college graduate serving the academic and physical needs of over one hundred children are rather different. If I wanted to know that dramatic re-enactments of the parables would be one of the better ways to teach the Gospel and reveal their active and continuing presence in our lives, Singing would have no peer for me, but I'm trying to explain quadratic equations with an acronym that means nothing in Kiswahili. And it goes without saying that refugee camps in northern Uganda constantly under threat of attack by the Lord's Resistance Army and an orphanage on the outskirts of one of Kenya's major cities and a center of tourism to boot are rather different places and have their own challenges.

But I discovered something much more important in Singing than any practical advice: a kindred spirit. In the introduction, Fr. Smith writes that after eight years in the inner city, life had become too comfortable. “I wanted to be with the poor in a different way,” he writes. He has no delusions about his ability to cure all the ills which afflict the refugees, but he wants to go to them and provide what help he can. When Fr. Smith first arrives in Africa, he is overwhelmed. Unused to even the basic traffic laws of Uganda, he is almost hit by a car driving on the left side and suffers doubts about his ability to make any difference. To know that this man who has gone through so much more than I yet still know these same anxieties, is heartening in its own way. There is another like me. I am not alone in this. I think.

From this inauspicious beginning, Fr. Smith muddles through the best he can and sometimes even succeeds. A lot happens during these six years. When one of his catechists is accused of abusing his wife and the his seminar on theology is turned into an impromptu council of elders, Fr. Smith does not decline the position but does the best he can. When a friend is hungry and another needs money to pay for further schooling, he does all he can. It's the only real option available to him. When Fr. Smith has to use the open-air latrine in the center of a distant village, there is humor. When he is stricken by malaria and, later, appendicitis, there is terror. When he learns of the death of a dear friend in the United States, there is grief. Still, Fr. Smith gets through it all. And I know I can, too.

A theme of service is revealed in Fr. Smith's letters and anecdotes, something I believe to be of the greatest importance, much more so than some simple goal. Service of any sort, whether passing out sandwiches to the homeless or spending years among the displaced, can never be only about what we can do for them. We must acknowledge, too, that we are learning from them and being served at the same time. Fr. Smith learned the depths of love from a man who sacrificed all his savings to put his wife into a hospital for bilharzia treatment and sacrifices weeks to be with her yet still must ask Fr. Smith for money to pay for her coffin. When parishioners give him gifts of chickens and goats worth weeks of wages, he knows the greatest charity. Service is not about them, it's about us and them together.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Football

The popularity of football everywhere but the United States is a widely acknowledged fact within the United States. In one of those fascinating paradoxes, we know what our ignorance is. National Geographic made it a cover story, and the book How Soccer Explains the World was a best-seller.

It is one thing to be aware of this in the abstract, though. It is something else entirely to actually see it in person. Nakuru and the boys at the center are no different from the rest of the world in their love of this sport. Football is their game. They have a dirt field: mostly flat and mostly clear of debris and about the right size. They have sidelines: shrubs and patches of thick grass. They have goals: long tree branches planted firmly into the ground. They have a volleyball. They have no sport shoes, but that's no problem. They have enough to play, and they play hard every afternoon.

Football gives the center a particular international flair, too, beyond the whole International Humanity Foundation thing. Pictures of the English club Manchester United are clipped from newspapers and pasted on the boys' bedroom walls. Given that Kenya has already been eliminated from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, they are prepared to cheer for Brazil.

On a side note, I hate sports photography. Not the pictures themselves. Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine devote full-page spreads to single pictures for good reason. There's conflict and high emotion, all elements of a great dramatic picture. And I respect that sports photographers have skills, that their craft is not merely focusing on whomever has the ball and opening the shutter every fraction of a second, something anyone could do. What frustrates me is that the best sports pictures cannot be planned in any sense. This one? An accident. I was not trying to shoot it at all and was hardly aiming, but it turned the best of all those I took during the game. My photography should be more purposeful than that.

Reflections on the House of Charity

It is amazing for me to consider now how little I have written about the House of Charity. For the last half of my junior year and all of my senior year I worked there part-time and full-time last summer. At least one day every weekend and more than a few evenings and afternoons throughout the week were spent at the House yet all the space it has merited on this blog are a few oblique references and a single dedicated post. This is boggling. My work at the House of Charity was honestly life altering. It led me to see my life in a new light and to seriously re-evaluate the rest of my life. How is it possible that I avoided writing about such a pivot? But that is how it goes, I guess. You remember the lecture on Ovid's take on Apollo and Daphne, but the whole of your first semester of world literature washes over you even though you now find yourself reading writers you had never before heard of.

Now the task of writing about the House of Charity seems nigh impossible. By my reckoning I spent over 1,200 hours behind the front desk and wandering among the clients. How do I begin to capture all that time, all the people I met, all I learned, all I felt and experienced in a single post of a few hundred words? In the simplest terms, I don't. It comes piece by piece, a sliver of memory, a connection with the now at a time.

The House of Charity is one of three main shelters for homeless and transient men in Spokane, Washington. Of them, the House deals with the toughest. The other two, Union Gospel Mission and Truth Ministries, actively seek to take their clients off the streets. They demand discipline in order to prepare the men for life in traditional society. Acts of disrespect and signs that they are not of the highest moral standing and thus undeserving of the staffs' time receive little tolerance. The Mission requires incoming clients to pass a breathalyzer test with a 0 before they can come in to sleep. When checking whether a client could sleep at Truth that night, I was told he had been banned over a year ago for telling dirty jokes.

All those who couldn't go or were unwilling to go to the other shelters came to the House. Chronic alcoholics and drug addicts, pimps and prostitutes, felons and the mentally ill freely used our services. They could be high out their minds and so drunk they couldn't stand still without stumbling, but, so long as they didn't bring their product on the premise, treated the staff and their fellows with minimal respect and avoided confrontations, they would not be asked to leave. We did this because the first need is a safe place. The House of Charity offered two hot meals a day and a bed at night to most anyone who came through the doors. It offered mailboxes and showers and gear storage too, necessities not so immediately apparent to the comfortable as food and shelter but necessities just the same. All the rest, transitional housing and similar programs, came later and only following inquiries by the client.

It could be a tough place. I called 911 on more than a few occasions when fights broke out or a client collapsed. It could be frustrating trying to accommodate everyone's desperate needs and petty requests, especially when the weather was foul and put everyone in a sour mood. But more often than not, it was quiet, skirting and crossing over into boring most Sunday afternoons, affording plenty of time to talk with anyone who felt like it. I learned a lot at those times.

I came to the House through State Work Study, a government program which would pay half of my salary with select businesses and non-profits in the hopes that I could begin to practice my professional skills in real-life situations. There were no journalism positions open when I searched for a placement, and I chose the House of Charity because I had volunteered there my freshman year and thought I may as well try to do some good in the community if I couldn't write.

I don't know how much good I did, but I know the House and its staff and clients did me a world of good. I hope I can somehow explain it all to you.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Academic Day

Nakuru West Secondary, school to eight our children at the center, hosted Academic Day yesterday. It included a meeting for parents where teachers discussed the average class scores of the students in standard 7 and how everyone could help improve them scores to the level of Moyo Secondary, a school only about a 10-minute walk away. I learned a lot. Not so much from the meeting proper since only about 40 minutes of it was in English and the other 200 in Kiswahili but an awful lot from simply being there.

I can remember school board meetings where the stands of our basketball gym were filled to capacity with concerned parents when public funding was discussed. I can never remember a bond not passing the vote. I attended a private university which built three buildings and two sports stadiums and completed major renovations to the oldest structures just in my four years. For anyone vaguely associated with either of these schools, a visit to Nakuru West Secondary would be more than enough to make them scuff the dirt of the courtyard with their toe and mutter a vague apology. With every respect to my friends in Teach for America, they don't know real education disparity. The roofs were sheet metal. The walls were bare concrete blocks. There was no glass in the windows, only iron bars. The desks we sat in were made from lumber that would have been used as scrap wood in the States. There weren't even any electric lights. The only light was day light.

And the funniest thing about this? Funding was hardly discussed, at least so much as I understood. For a school where the families were personally responsible for paying their children's tuition and buying their uniforms and books and other supplies, the head teacher only asked for 400 shillings (about $5) from every family to help pay for more furniture for the buildings, some doors and the beginning of a fund to pay for a wall which would provide a barrier between the school and the metalwork business across the street. Otherwise the teachers emphasized the need for parents to set a good example of discipline for their children, to answer their questions about the changes that come along with adolescence and to educate them in protection against HIV/AIDS.

I learned, too, just how cold equatorial Africa can get. At the beginning of the final hour of the meeting, a thunderstorm blew in, bringing rain in heavy sheets. Even though it slacked off to a drizzle by the time we left, the wet coupled with the cool July temperatures were enough to drive me to put on the North Face fleece I use under a shell during the winter and the heavy socks I brought “just in case” as soon as we made it back to the center.

I also learned that Kenyans are great not only at quick greetings with friends they pass on the street but also long monologues. They bloody love the things. In that four-hour meeting maybe nine people total spoke. Three spoke mostly in English while the rest freely used English words and phrases as the situation called for it. They would not stop for anything either. Even when the rain pounding on the roof drowned out two speakers they only shouted louder. And they were all good at it. Granted many of them were teachers and used to being in front of a group, but they all used strong hand motions and made eye contact across the room. I was impressed.

So it turns out you can learn a lot at school, even in a foreign country and even months after graduation from university.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Raison d'Etre

Now, two full days deep into my term in Nakuru, seems like a terrible time to consider exactly why I'm doing this. Seems more like something I should have thought about maybe a few months ago when I was making the commitment. Or maybe a year or two back when I began to actively consider a period of service after graduating from Gonzaga. Seems, too, like this is a bit of a habit.

At their most essential, my reasons for returning to the International Humanity Foundation and dedicated service are the same: when the advantaged and privileged offer what they can, in whatever way they can, to those who have enjoyed fewer opportunities, I believe it is the right thing to do, and the only thing worth doing is the right thing.

Still, there has to be more to it than that. This is a year of my life. It may not be the biggest deal, but it is still kind of important. Working in Nakuru wasn't the only right thing to do. I could have stayed in America, a country where I speak the language and understand the culture, and served through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps or Americorps, both organizations I respect since working with members of them at House of Charity. What drew me to Kenya, a nation wholly foreign to me and a city which will take me months, if not longer, to become familiar with? The simple act of shopping, the transfer of money for goods and services, terrifies me as I consider the many possible faux pas I could commit. I only showered for the first time yesterday because I wasn't even sure what that process was.

The reason lies beyond the simple goals of service. No matter where I would have gone, I would never have ended homelessness or saved every orphan, but as negligible as my impact may have been regardless of my placement, I can be sure it would have deeper in the country where I understood the culture and could communicate easily with the majority of the people.

But the possible good I could do is only a part of why I made this choice. The other part is personal. I want to see what I'm made of. I think it is little exaggeration to say that this coming year will be one of the most demanding and difficult in my life. Not only do I need to live in this entirely new place but I also have responsibilities to over a hundred children in assuring their health and happiness. I want to know whether I can take this and how well I will respond. Will it be a resounding success? Or will I just barely limp through? Maybe I'll limp through at the beginning until finding my stride. That wouldn't be bad. I want to know, and I can think of few better opportunities than this.

Digital photography

I did it. I honestly never anticipated doing so. In 2007 I wrote a blog post about why it would never happen. At the beginning of the summer even I would have said it was impossible. Apparently that was an underestimation of its likelihood.

Two weeks ago I bought a digital camera. A Nikon D60 to be precise. Two zoom lenses, too. An 18-55mm and a 55-200mm. Within the digital SLR world, it's nothing particularly fancy though the manual is well over a 100 pages long, and I still haven't figured out what all the buttons and dials and switches do. Nothing a professional would use but more than enough for an amateur hobbyist like me.

As must be apparent, buying this new camera was not my first choice. It was forced upon me by the circumstances of my upcoming time in Kenya. The reasoning went along these lines: In order to develop my film and print my pictures, I require a darkroom. I do not know whether there is a public darkroom in Nakuru. I totally do not want to pack my luggage full of film rolls for the flight back. A digital camera does not require a darkroom, only a computer. I will have a computer. Wait a minute. I'm philosophically opposed to digital photography. But it's the only choice. ... Bummer.

I am happy to relate, though, that despite my past misgivings, since taking the D60 out a few times, I am plenty content with my decision to go digital. I will miss the physical tangibility of the contact sheets and final pictures, but the benefits more than make up for these. I credit Google's Picasa for most of this. It's an organizing and publishing program that streamlines both processes wonderfully. Now, rather than taking months to find time to get into the darkroom and print off maybe four pictures in a night and then wait another week or two to find a scanner to upload my prints to Facebook, I can have pictures online that night. I don't even have to waste time flipping through my contact sheets to find the right negative since Picasa lets me tag my pictures and search for them in seconds. I already have two small web albums online. You can check them out here. Be sure to check back there often. All of my pictures will be going up on Picasa now.

Both my paradoxical fears of digital photography inspiring laziness and feeding perfectionism still require some assuaging, though. The camera has something like eight different automatic exposure settings depending on the lighting and subject, and the lenses even have an auto-focus setting. Together these features can take care of most of the photographer's work. Photography literally becomes a point-and-shoot affair with these at my side. What I need to come to grips with is that it is entirely possible to manage aperture, shutter speed and focus manually. Just because the features exist, I don't need to use them.

Dealing with the perfectionism is a little more difficult though. Through GIMP, the freeware-alternative to Photoshop, every aspect of my pictures can be manipulated to a ridiculous degree. I don't quite like the levels of red in my fruit still life? I can change them. I want a little more contrast in the foreground but less in the background? Those can be chaged too. Color, lighting, saturation, everything can be adjusted to the most minute level. Fortunately, Picasa has some very easy to use editing options which take care of basic contrast and color adjustments, enough to make a picture fit for the Web. With this, I will only have to delve into the deepest depths of manipulation in picture editing only for those few pictures which I want to print and frame.

Digital photography is a brave new world for me. At least I can face it with some excitement now.

For those interested in my philosophy of photography, it is contained in the final paragraphs of this post after some blather about history.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Practing Swahili

There is at least one major difference between last summer's time in Jakarta and this coming time in Nakuru beside the whole different continents thing: the length of my stay. In the former case, I spent a month in the city. In the latter, I don't even have a return ticket. I anticipate staying at least a year, but I may hang around longer still depending on a number of circumstances I now have no power to predict. You know, stuff like how much do they need me and how much have I enjoyed my time abroad. Understandably, I would like to be a little more prepared this time around. Not that it would be hard. My preparation for Jakarta amounted to reading a few articles on the BBC. One was on efforts by law enforcement to reduce the number of train riders who sat on top rather than inside due to overcrowding. Apparently this can be dangerous. The police would spray top-riders with a dye so those officers at later stations could find and fine them appropriately. But I digress.

Toward this end of preparation, I have begun to study Swahili. I chose to go with the Pimsleur Compact lessons over those offered by Rosetta Stone for two reasons. First, the cost. On Amazon, the Pimsleur package costs roughly a fifth of that offered by Rosetta Stone. Second, the Pimsleur lessons are entirely audio and can be transferred to my iPod. Rosetta Stone depends an awful lot on images and having a computer, and I would rather use the product I can be sure will work regularly even if it may not be as effective as its celebrated competitor.

The first thing to note upon using Pimsleur's compact lessons is that they are more like an audio phrasebook than anything else. Almost no time is spent teaching the fundamentals of grammar. Though it is easy enough to figure out which words are which and to construct a few original sentences, the greatest stress is upon learning basic phrases like "How are you?" (Habari gani?) and "It is here" (Iko huko). This is useful but only to a limited extent since no time is spent building vocabulary. The lessons teach some highly useful phrases including "I would like to eat something" but no food words are offered. The only drinks we learn are beer (pombe) and wine (mvinyo). But this is fine because most of the phrases and mock conversations revolve around picking women up and actually eating or drinking things that are not alcoholic would just delay the ultimate goal. These lines are near direct translations from a couple of dialogues:

"Would you like something to drink? Yes? Two beers, please."

"Would you like to eat something? At my place? This evening?"

At least the lesson is self-aware enough to realize this. One of the mock conversations follows the long attempt of a lonely man to somehow meet this woman again at a later date, changing time, place and nature of meeting every time the women shoots his suggestion down.

So far, I've liked the language itself. Surprisingly, despite the East African preference for throwing around 'n' and 'm' wherever they could conceivably fit, the sounds of the words have not been terribly difficult. I also appreciate the compactness of the language. Apparently they're not very big on independent pronouns or prepositions in that part of the world, preferring to turn them into prefixes and suffixes. Even the future tense is just the syllable 'ta' glommed onto the beginning of the verb. In fact, one can make a complete, reasonable sentence with a single word. Natafahamu. I will understand. You cannot suggest that it does not have a certain elegance.

Of course, all of this may be a moot point. Swahili developed centuries ago as a trade language between Arab merchants and the local coastal East Africans. This accounts for the many nations where Swahili is present. Unfortunately, without indigenous speakers, the language never became popular enough to totally take the place of tribal languages, of which there are hundreds within three distinct language groups. So even though Swahili is one of Kenya's two national languages (the other being English), it may still take some effort to find people who speak Swahili. For the record, the kids at the orphanage all speak Pokot.

For a highly accessible article on the ways in which language structures our thinking accompanied by some fascinating examples, check out this article by Lera Boroditsky.

At a picnic

Most of my picture posts are extended routes to explaining why I like the accompanying photography. I am not going to do that today. Suffice to say, I like this picture. I especially like the contrast between the girl's excitement and the boy's disinterest. I have had a few opportunities to shoot a pair sharing ear buds but never before managed to pull it off. For that, I feel fortunate that this one turned out as well as it did.

Stuff

I think it would be worthwhile for everyone to occasionally pack up all of their belongings. Everything goes into a box, and the boxes are all stacked together. If it can move, it is packed. Everything in the dresser and closet, everything in the medicine cabinet, everything in the kitchen, everything in the living room, everything in the garage. For many, this is unpractical due to the sheer amount of stuff in their home. Push comes to shove, and packaging a single room will suffice. Once this is done, clean. With everything out of the way, you can finally, fully wash the walls and vacuum the carpet. Then check out the pile of stuff. It is everything you have accumulated over the years. It ties you down. When you are not around, it must be secured from thieves. If you move, it will have to be dealt with through sale or transportation.

I had the opportunity earlier this year when I moved out of my college dorm for the last time. I spent the morning with my dad going through my room and dividing my stuff into three piles: that which I would keep during the summer before leaving for Kenya, that which my parents would take back to my hometown to store and that which would be donated to local organizations. It was a lot. It was humbling. With an eye toward frugality, I had always fancied that I bought only what I needed. Even less than that actually since the apartment was furnished and I bummed my roommates' silverware, dishes and cookware. Still, the storage third of my stuff rather comfortably filled the back of the Honda CR-V my parents were driving. Another trip was necessary to drop off the clothing donations and another one after that was needed to move into my house for the summer.

I had always thought I was the kind of person who neither needed nor had a lot of things. I have described myself as an anti-consumerist on more than one occasion. I was wrong. My things are just too well spread out to realize how much there is. Seeing it all together is a rather forceful reminder of how much I have. It's kind of a punch to the stomach, too, in light of my time at House of Charity. One of our most popular services is a gear storage closet where our clients can leave their stuff and not need to keep it with them while going to appointments or searching for jobs or whatever. Due to limited space, the rules of use are strictly enforced. No more than two bags, and neither can weigh more then 35 pounds. It can be incredibly frustrating trying to find space to fit gear. I mutter curses while trying to wedge someone's full-size, black garbage bag into a space far too small because it's the only spot available. When I see someone in line with a metal-frame hiking backpack, I just want to tell them "No. Put it all in something smaller first." Then I realize that my stuff alone could easily fill a wall of shelves in the closet and probably more. Perspective can suck.

Possessions overwhelm me. Yes, we need things. We need shelter and a place to sleep, means of preparing and serving food, ways to keep clean. We need clothes and entertainment. But do we really need this much? What is the proper relationship between us and the things we have collected?

In less than two weeks now I am going to Kenya and will only be bringing what fits into my backpack, a sport duffel and an old army duffel. I can only hope that at least of year of being reminded what things are really necessary will provide me with some answers.

If you prefer a comedian's take on the whole issue of stuff, check out this classic George Carlin bit.

Considering Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" and Fr. Gary Smith's "Radical Compassion"

I like to think that in my one-and-a-half-years at House of Charity I have learned a little something about homelessness and the people that live it and the varied solutions to the whole sordid affair. As much as anything, I think this is due to my ignorance upon entering the job. I had no personal experience with it seeing as how my northern Minnesotan hometown of 1,000 wasn't able to attract a homeless population of any regard. That might have had something to do with the sustained periods of sub-zero daytime temperatures in the winter. Neither had I any particular interest in the topic when I was flipping through the folder of local organizations which offered State Work Study positions. House of Charity just seemed like the most exciting of the placements and the one that that offered the greatest opportunity to do good. So I came in with only the most general stereotypes and prejudices, all drawn from popular media.

But that's better now. Seeing people struggle to get off the streets and out of the House of Charity and into a place of their own, seeing some succeed and others fail, seeing some not try at all, and, perhaps most importantly, seeing the professionals and organizations and systems that have helped and hindered them has given me some insight and understanding into this mess.

This was hardly enough, however. My experiences working the front desk were only the slightest part of the greater issue. I still needed to get out from behind my limited perspective and find the words of those who have approached it from a different angle. This mission led me to read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and Fr. Gary Smith's Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor. While a direct comparison between the two would be unfair as Nickel and Dimed focuses upon the working poor and Radical Compassion is more concerned with the chronically homeless and jobless, the difference in their approaches and ultimate conclusions is worth noting.

Responding to welfare reform in the late 90's, Ehrenreich took a series of low-wage jobs across America in the summer of 2000 in an attempt to discover whether it was possible to make a living on jobs which paid only $6 or $7 per hour. A month at a time she worked as a waitress in Key West, an employee of Merry Maids in Portland, Maine, and a Wal-Mart clerk in Minneapolis. Her modus operandi was to come into town with only $1000 and minimal belongings, search for low-income housing and generally try her hardest to live like her co-workers. Nickel and Dimed is the product of this investigation and features a long series of condemnations. A pox on the cleaning franchise for not using proper disinfecting methods and its suspicious clients. Fie on the low-quality living conditions of the poor. A giant middle finger to a certain world's largest retailer for not allowing its employees to unionize. Understandably, Nickel and Dimed is a highly personal account. Ehrenreich's personality and politics are infused with the reporting, and the two are near impossible to separate. Which is a pity. When Ehrenreich's press cap is on, Nickel and Dimed is at its strongest. She easily explains how a job and a salary are not enough and the compromises the working poor must make to survive. She writes facts of poverty that many of the middle and upper classes never before paused to consider. The poor only get poorer as they are unable to pay the deposit on an apartment and end up paying more to pay the weekly and monthly rates of hotels. Without health insurance, the poor push through pain and illness until the condition compounds and becomes debilitating. This is important and necessary reporting. It reveals how poverty persists even when jobs are available. When Ehrenreich turns her attention toward herself, however, she struggles. She fetishizes her jobs. She notes with interest when she begins to take pride in her work. She complains that no one ever tells her good job. She attempts to live the shift in a state of Zen calm where the work has meaning in and of itself. When that fails, she turns to bitterness against the bourgeoisie, one of her favorite topics. At this point Nickel and Dimed is no longer about the working poor. It's about Barbara Ehrenreich doing menial labor jobs, something of much less interest.

Radical Compassion is incredibly personal, too. More than anything else, it reads like Fr. Smith's diary of his time working in Portland, Oregon's Old Town, the neighborhood that is home to the homeless, but the two could not be more radically different. While Ehrenreich focused upon the business and economics of poverty, Fr. Smith turns his attention toward the people. Stories of people who touched his life and memorable incidents are loosely grouped together by themes like mental illness, love, prison, addiction and death. He writes about the chronic alcholic who gave Fr. Smith five dollars at a baseball game to buy himself a hot dog and beer. He remembers the long death of a man with HIV. Spontaneous prayers are interspersed. There are no numbers or calls to action in Radical Compassion. All Fr. Smith offers are his humble memories and how the heart of God, the poor, committed companions and friends have allowed him to keep going in this work.

I wrote earlier that it is unfair to directly compare these two books. Afterall, their purposes are entirely different. Ehrenreich wants to change the world or, at least, the economic systems which undergird it. Fr. Smith wants to be a better person. Both messages have their value, but I prefer Fr. Smith. Not all of us are going to be in a position to improve the lot of the working poor or homeless. If they come up on the ballot, we might vote for change, but we won't be running for office or managing campaigns ourselves. We can always use Fr. Smith's compassion and humility, however.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Feelings at the onset

In just under a month I will be leaving the United States. I have no intention of coming back for at least a year. Maybe two. I'll probably make that decision about this time next year. I'll be working at an orphanage just outside of Nakuru, Kenya, with the International Humanity Foundation, the same organization I went with to Jakarta last summer.

By now, this is fairly common knowledge among my family and friends and acquaintances and those with whom I interact semi-regularly. It tends to come up when people ask me about my plans after graduation, and now, as the date for departure comes ever nearer, they're beginning to ask how I feel about the whole thing. Excited? Nervous? The simple answer? Yeah, I am.

Of course, I'm excited. The world is a big place. Enormous, really. So far I've managed to spend copious amounts of time only in northern Minnesota, eastern Washington and southern Germany. There is an awful lot more to this world than that and visiting ethnic restaurants can take me only so far in knowing the rest. This next year is going to be something completely different. Africa, much less Kenya, is an entirely new continent to me. New people, new languages, new cultures, new foods, new sights, new everything. Is it even possible to not be excited for coming to a land wholly outside the experiences of my life so far? When every day promises to teach me something I did not before know?

Of course, I'm nervous. This is not going to be a vacation. I am going to work. I am going to teach English. I am going to be at least partially responsible for the well-being, safety, health, happiness and education of over a hundred children whose mother tongue is a language I do not understand at all. On a daily basis I will be interacting with people who speak a different language, live a different culture and relate to people differently. There is no doubt that I will make mistakes along the way and shame myself or those I am with. All I can really do is hope none of these gaffes will be too heinous.

I hope this is a healthy attitude to approach the coming year with: an excitement for the new and unusual tempered by an awareness of the challenges. Otherwise I might be in for a rough go of it at the beginning.

In any case, I hope you all, my faithful readers, are excited. If nothing else, this year (or two) abroad will provide some fresh grist for the mill that Spice of Life is. That ought to be fun.