Sorry it's been so long since I've written. I normally write at bedtime, but I've been emotional and introspective at that time recently, and have been writing about my feelings lately. I put that on another blog, though, b/c it's rambly and self-indulgent. Which is completely different from this blog...
A couple of times in the past week, I've almost started to write about my feelings about running outside in the cold weather... but then I thought better of it, because I'm not sure who wants to read about that. But guess what? That's probably what I'll end up writing about tonight.
First of all, I want to say thank you to my grandma who sent a check to this effort for my birthday gift. So, thank you, grandma! I know she does not read this blog so that "thank you" is not really for her benefit, but I wanted to express my thanks in a public forum, anyway. You will notice - or have noticed and have been turned off by - my extreme use of ellipses in my blogging. This must be genetic, b/c my emails from my grandma are filled with them, as well.
Oh! Now I know what I will write about tonight. I just thought of it. And, that's a good thing, because I was literally going to start writing a short manifesto about how people (ie me and my roommates) do not rake leaves from their sidewalks and it's SO ANNOYING to run through them so please, Glen Ellyn residents (again, including me) please rake. Anyway!
Ok, so... back to the birthday card. I literally cannot tell you how excited I was to receive this check from my grandma. I am about to enter my late-early 20s (23, to be precise), so I've experienced many a birthday, although I don't remember the first few... It's always nice to receive money and gifts. It feels great to be remembered - more because it's so nice to know that someone took the time and effort, than because of the actual thing they gave me. This is not a hint to anyone who has not bought me a gift. Your friendship is enough! Or, maybe you don't think it's enough, and maybe you're right, and maybe you should send flowers I like sunflowers but I digress. So, yes, I like to receive money, but, at the same time, I don't really need $25 from my grandma. I mean, yes, I will use it to buy exactly two cups of coffee and I will completely enjoy it, but it's not really something I need. But, to see that she cared to send money for these great causes, that really got me, right in my heart! I won't say it made me tear up a little, but it also didn't not make me tear up a little. If you know what I mean. These issues - bringing clean, sustainable water to people who do not have it, and empowering and educating young girls in Kenya in ways that most of us take for granted - are issues that have touched my life profoundly, and to see that someone I love cared enough to stand for these causes is so, so touching. I know I do not do nearly enough to embrace these causes, but I am so humbled by the generosity of others. So, thank you, grandma!!
I have very strong memories of my birthday in Kenya, about 2 years ago. I turned 21, which honestly, was not exciting at all. I feel like 21 is one of the most exciting birthdays for your average, law-abiding American, but for me - in Kenya - it wasn't at all. The drinking age in Kenya was - ahh I'm not even sure what it was. But I certainly wasn't ever carded or refused service while I was still 20. Rest assured, I was not a crazy drinker in Kenya, but drinking Tusker (the local beer and yummm it was good probably because it was the only option) was something of a "pasttime" so, there you go. Besides the other interns, nobody knew my birthday was coming up, so nobody talked about it or really cared. So, it was easy to just kind of not care about it. I lived in a house with a couple of Kenyan women - my host sisters - who were both in their 20s. One of them was exactly my age - she was to turn 21 in October 2007 as well. (sidenote: "she was to turn"? I feel like I'm narrating an episode of "Wishbone" right now) We didn't talk much, because she didn't speak much English, and I didn't speak much Kiswahili, but we tried to communicate. I vividly remember one conversation we had as she was cooking over the stove in the kitchen, and I sat there helping aka staying out of her way. I was trying to get a feel for Kenyan culture - asking her about her birthday, how she celebrated, what the exact day was. And, although there was a language barrier, what she communicated to me was that her birthday was not and had never been a "thing." Like, at all. She didn't know the date of her birthday, and seemed confused as to why I was so fixated on the idea of them. I realized that I wanted to make everything so me-centric. It was MY internship experience and MY host family and MY adventure and MY birthday and I wanted everything to fit neatly into MY worldview, and if it didn't fit, then I would make room for it and it would still be MINE. And I didn't understand why she didn't just answer my dang questions so I could go think about them and journal about them in MY personal journal which I would then re-read and feel satisfied about how much I had learned and how well-rounded and cultured I was becoming. ME ME ME. But that conversation changed me, maybe in a small way, but still a significant way. I realized that things aren't always about me and shouldn't be about me. I felt strange. She and I had come into this same world in the same time in history, yet our lives were so very different. It reminds me of the trailer for that new movie about babies called (wait for it) "Babies" that they showed during previews for "Where the Wild Things Are" - these babies that came into the world at the same time, both starting out with everything and nothing, and yet, in 20 years, what different, different people they will have become. I connected to my host sister on this deep level through that conversation. It was apparent that we'd both been shaped in ways that we could never really understand in one another; and yet, she taught me something that no English-speaking American ever had. And I could never really express that to her, and that's probably OK.
So, I don't really know what I'm trying to say. The problem with me writing this at 11:45 p.m. (almost 2 hours past my normal weekday bedtime - I'm off caffiene so I need approximately 14 hours of sleep per night - do not make fun) is that I write all these things and I get emotional and then I don't really know how to finish my thoughts. I don't want to be like, "the moral of this story is that women need to be empowered so give me money!" because that seems too simplistic. Remember how I said this is the blog where I DON'T ramble and get emotional and inarticulate? Juuuuuust kidding about that. But anyway, these are just my thoughts. I want to draw attention to these issues because they are important. I do not think my host sister is any less happy or fulfilled than I am - she may be more so. But I think that only good can come of us, as co-humans (I think that's a term from a Will Ferrell movie but I hope you get the sentiment behind it), sharing stories and getting to know one another better. And I am an introvert who doesn't really live out this philosophy as I would like to, but I can say that some of my most powerful experiences in Kenya came from getting to know others who are so different from me in so many ways. So, I'm sure that everyone reading this has had similar experiences, getting to know people and places so foreign from who you are; yet you were able to learn something so profound. So, I don't want to pretend that my experience in Kenya more valuable than others' - it's just the way I've learned to see things.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment