An Hour Past Noon

>>This post, and the post titled "A Few Words on Kenya from an American Passport" were written to my engineering professor as he asked for my reflections on Kenya and some advice to give if another student were to follow me. Just thought I'd share it with you all.<<

What have I learned since being in Kenya? Has it grown me? As I look at the broad but brief span of my life, how has this trip to Kenya made an impact? Has it damaged my vital systems? Has it informed me of some unseen danger or perhaps of some greater treasure to pursue? Has it merely been an near-miss, leaving me and my crew shaken, but otherwise unchanged?

As I sit here and think of what to write relating how I’ve grown and changed since being in Kenya the most pressing questions seem to be: How has Kenya not changed me? and How do I untangle myself to be able to point to one distinct part and say, “This is from Kenya,” and to another and say, “This is not.”?

I could say I learned to be relational from Kenya, but America isn’t devoid of relationships, they just do it differently. In America it is sometimes seen as a form of weakness to take gifts of hospitality or guidance from people considered strangers, but in Kenya it is seen as the beginning of a wonderful social advancement. In Kenya if you simply worked all day you don’t always go home and proclaim that you’ve had a productive day, but if you make a few new friends you make sure your wife hears all about it. In Kenya missing a business meeting to help a friend push his car to the petrol station isn’t an indicator of unreliability, but rather a sign of good priorities. You may have missed important information, even a promotion, but the attitude won’t be criticizing, it will be reflective of saying, “Well, it’s just the way it worked out. There will be more work to be done later so don’t worry. Did your friend get his gas alright?” There is much more interest given to the relationship than to the work.

I could say I learned a laidback lifestyle from Kenya, but America isn’t a workaholic, they just prioritize differently. In Kenya a full day is having two things planned and getting one of them done. That isn’t at all to say that Kenyans are lazy. On the contrary, I have never met more resilient workers in my whole life. Each has his own skill, but the skill they have they work well in. They just don’t plan their day around their work, they simply work and as other things come up they adjust. They don’t ignore or avoid for the sake of finishing a row of maize or sewing a shirt. They stop and watch or engage in the distraction, whether it be a guest or a lorrey accident, they allow the flow of life around them to sweep them up and change their direction. In America the mindset is different. Not worse, just different. When an activity is scheduled, it takes priority. The craziness of life takes a back seat, and you get your assignment done. Whether it is going to the store or writing a paper or building a bridge, what you have been assigned to complete you do so without compromise. It creates a very efficient society, and one in which the majority of the world would like to live, but it denies life its joy if spontaneity. Everything must have a place and a program in America, whereas in Kenya nothing has a place or a program. It’s just different.

I could say that I fell in love with the outdoors because of Kenya, but that would smack the face of my childhood, being raised on a farm. Ironically, Kenya has a comparable size and population to California. There are plenty of urban centers in Kenya and there are vast stretches of California without a soul insight. The difference, then, lies in how the urban and rural areas are constructed. There is no such thing as zoning in Kenya. It can cause confusion and make it much less predictable to find certain buildings in certain places, but it allows a much more organic, albeit chaotic, transition between rural and urban. You never really get away from people in Kenya, there are very few places where there isn’t a village is reasonable access. But you almost always feel like no one is around. This, I think, is because of the virtual lack of a societal safety-net. There may be people, but that doesn’t mean there is help. Oh, the people will help all they can, but that doesn’t mean it will actually be helpful. You never can be sure where the next gas is, or the next market, or the next place to sleep. You know they are there somewhere, but the finding could prove difficult. And so you always feel just a little more outdoors and isolated in Kenya than you do in America, even in a place like Yosemite.

I could say America taught me financial responsibility, but in Kenya I owned and ran my business. And it ran well; I had established contacts to receive new products from, and I had a trustworthy bank to keep my earnings. It worked well, and all parties were responsible with their money. I learned a lot about accounting and finances from some Kenyan friends, so they are not at all money-dumb. They just find that “protecting their own” is extremely important, and it comes back to no safety-nets. They would say that they are responsible with their money because they make sure that their parents and children are taken care of, and that’s responsible. To an American, transparency and investment show responsibility, but that is because the children have free education and the elderly have (or had) Social Security and good healthcare. Kenyan financial responsibility doesn’t benefit the country as much as American financial responsibility, but it does honor the family.

I supposed what I can say, then, is that I have needed both. I’d be less if I lacked one or the other. I cannot say that America has left me unlearned any more than I can say Kenya has left me un-experienced. I didn’t know Kenya was so relational except that I could see how America was so financially responsible. I couldn’t see that America was domineering until I saw that Kenya was so familial. So I haven’t so much as learned or grown from Kenya so much as I’ve watched the relationship between myself and the two countries grow and change, and me with it.