Adventures as a Mzungu (white person)

I am post-dating this (which you will only notice if you have checking the blog regularly) because I actually wrote it offline on Monday but have been so busy or not able to connect to the internet that it has stayed as a Word-document until today. It turned out rather long, but I am hoping you will enjoy it nonetheless.

Yesterday, I had an interesting day which made me feel like I was in the rural area, even though I was still in Nairobi.

I was at a retreat from Friday to Sunday up at Karen, which is a place unto itself, even though it is still part of Nairobi and only about twenty minutes from here by car. Even the weather feels cooler, and everything is much greener out there. On Sunday, I got permission to miss church and go visit two girls at their school visiting day. These two girls had been part of the outreach I was here for in 2005, and since they were not in school then, two of my team mates decided to sponsor them. I joined the sponsorship shortly after, and have been privileged to see them a few times since then.

I had agreed to meet Pastor Stephen, the contact person for the Giraffe Project girls, at the Karen round-about at 9am. I was early, and as was to be expected, I waited for about half an hour. When Pastor Stephen came, we got on a matatu (a minivan for public transport, but public transport in Kenya is worth a blog entry to itself). There were a few Masai in the matatu – recognizable by their dress (Masai blankets wrapped around their shoulders) and the woman’s colourful beaded jewelry. Apart from that, you can usually tell a Masai by the way their ears are pierced and stretched out so that they have a huge hole and their earlobe is hanging way below the rest of the ear. The Masai lady had her ears covered in interesting jewelry, including the huge hole (or the sides of it). As I entered the matatu, I noticed her looking at me and saying something. I sat down behind her. She kept turning and looking at me, commenting to her husband and then looking back at me. After a few comments, Pastor Stephen explained to me that she was admiring me. Now, I have gotten used to people giving me more attention here, but this was a new experience. After about another minute, she stopped turning and looking and seemed to forget me for the rest of the ride.

A Different Church Experience
Even though the main goal of my excursion was to visit the girls, Pastor Stephen of course wanted to take me to his church. Sometimes it feels like mzungus are like a prize exhibit (Vorzeigestück) that you want to show off to everyone you know – at least that’s what it felt like at this church. This church was like the kind I had seen in the slums (though it is not a slum area): a simple, one-room church with a wooden frame and corrugated iron (Wellblech), wooden benches, a few plastic chairs, and a pit latrine (Plumpsklo) behind the building. The ground was just packed-down dirt and even the stage was just dirt enclosed by large oblong hewn rocks (wie in der Schweiz Trottoir-Randsteine). The sound system (consisting of four microphones and a keyboard) was not very reliable, and the people kept exchanging microphones when singing. Nevertheless, the church has three pastors and about 60-70 people attending. The church service officially started at 10am, but I think it was 10:30 when we actually began with worship. The singing went on for one and a half hours, interrupted only for a short time of welcome of visitors and prayers. When they welcomed the visitors, they had them either come up front and share or at least stand up and say their name. Strangely enough, they did not ask me to do any of that – even though I was seated very conspicuously (deutlich sichtbar) with the pastors at the front (it is impossible for a mzungu to hide!). What I did not realize was that they were saving me for later…

After a short presentation by the Sunday School kids, the main pastor got up and said he had some announcements to make before inviting our sister from Switzerland to the front (everything was done bilingually for my sake). At that point I started wondering whether they had forgotten to tell me that they were expecting me to preach! However, I knew from previous experiences that they like having a special guest from afar come up and share something brief. It is their way of honouring a guest – and the guest’s way of honouring them (never mind the fact that some people would rather die than be honoured that way!). I hoped that it was just a case of sharing, and that is what I proceeded to do. I managed to keep it below fifteen minutes :-) which I felt was very considerate of me.

By the time the sermon began it was already 12:30pm, and Pastor Stephen actually said he would keep it short for the sake of time. Short in this case meant half an hour, and considering the fact that everything was translated, you could even say that it was just twenty minutes (not fifteen because he often was shouting so loudly and speaking so fast that the translator hardly had time to properly translate). By the way, I find it interesting how preachers here have a distinct “preaching voice”, maybe for added effect or the emphasis of authority. Even at Nairobi Chapel, I find that the preachers raise their voice or shout ever so slightly. On the other hand, I now remember people in Switzerland who would lower their voice for effect… But it did make me wonder whether here one has to do that to be taken seriously – maybe next time I could improve my sharing by developing a “preaching voice”. :-)

Enna Girls Secondary School
Before, after and during the service, many pictures were taken, and the senior pastor even advertised that today, people could have their picture taken with a mzungu – for free! After having tea and bread in the church “office”, we finally set out at 2pm to go and visit the school. Stacey and Grace had been waiting for us. We were their first visitors that day as their families live all the way across Nairobi and too far for most of them to come (except Stacey’s sister and sister-in-law who came a bit later). While Pastor Stephen visited with the other Giraffe Project girls (check out the website if you are interested in sponsoring a child in school or want to see pictures of the Enna Girls School: http://www.giraffeproject.org/), I got to chat with the Stacey and Grace. They are both almost 18 years old, but still in Form 3 (grade 11 or grade 3 of high school) because they missed a year or two as they were waiting for the finances to go to high school. Until just recently, high school has not been free, and many parents cannot afford the tuition. Grace is an orphan; she stays with her aunt when she is not in school. Stacey’s dad died some time ago, so of course her mom has a hard time providing for all the kids.

Nyama Choma
We only stayed at the school for about an hour, but I enjoyed my visit with the girls. I expected to go home from there, but Pastor Stephen insisted on taking me to have “lunch” (at 4pm). In Kenya, guests are honoured very highly (even more so when they are mzungu guests). He would not let me pay for any of my matatu fare, and he felt he could not let me go without my having had a real lunch (the tea and bread at the church was “just a snack – food is for the stomach and snack is for the mouth”).

We went back to a place called Dagoretti market to get some nyama choma (roasted meat). There were many Masai at this place, and Pastor Stephen explained to me that the largest slaughter house of Nairobi was just nearby and that the Masai come in to sell their cattle. Without my realizing it, he had called the team from the church to come and join us for nyama choma, so I was rather surprised when they suddenly turned up (the two pastors and two ladies who had still been at the church, planning for an upcoming event). I do not know how the pastors get paid at this church, but I could tell that all really enjoyed working together and doing ministry.

After this enjoyable “lunch” of nyama choma and ugali (something like polenta), they all escorted me to the matatu stage (bus station) and sent me off. This reminds me of another interesting thing that I experienced that day: almost every time we took a matatu, people would make room for the mzungu at the front of the minivan – something that has never happened to me otherwise. I actually prefer sitting in the back for a number of reasons: 1. I would rather not see so clearly how we are driving and what crazy manoeuvres the driver is making; 2. in case of an accident, you are probably better off in the back; 3. as I discovered, it is easier to get on and off the back of the matatu, especially with a skirt – unless you are sitting in the very back, in which case it is never easy to get on and off. On the other hand, you actually get to see where you are going when sitting at the front. Carrying my backpack with my things for the weekend did not make all the “matatuing” very easy, but fortunately it was a direct trip home from where we had eaten.