Blow-out

It's incredible how this trip has had both its high highs and low lows, sometimes within the same day. Today has turned out to be one of those days.

Within hours of my triumphant egg toss competition where I finally felt accepted by the Kenyan people in spite of my exposed legs, blonde hair, and white skin, I felt as if I were a three-legged circus freak in the eyes of these people.

I had just taken a bucket shower (you get one bucket of boiling water and a bucket of freezing water and you mix them together in a third bucket until your desired temperature and then you are given a cup to use to pour the water over your body while standing on a floor with a drain) when my Mama Mary asked me what I usually do with my hair at home. I told her how I usually liked to dry my hair with a blow dryer at home and she quickly told me of a place near our home where they could blow my hair out for me. I was soooo excited. "I can get a blow-out in Kenya? What a day this is turning out to be!" I thought to myself.

Mama Mary had the house girl take me to the "salon" which was a room made out of cow dung with some mirrors, plastic chairs, and a poster depicting the different African weaves you could get. Tempting... I thought.

I sat down in the chair and complimented the lady about to do my hair on the work she had done on her last customer. She started laughing uncontrollably along with everyone else in the room including the house girl so I started laughing too. She started drying my hair and applying wax like products which terrified me but I tried to remain calm and not question the lady so as to be culturally sensitive and not offend anyone.

Soon people from the surrounding shops started to come in to watch the lady doing my hair. They were all talking in Swahili and laughing and pointing at me while I sat there having grease embedded into my scalp. I looked to the house girl for support but she was laughing with them. I finally asked why they were all laughing so hard and they laughed even more.

One lady in the chair next to me then controlled herself enough to ask, "don't you want them to dye your hair black so it is not so light and disgusting?" she then started pointing at my skin and laughing even more. The whole place was out of control with laughter including the house girl and the lady doing my hair had to put down her brush she was laughing so hard. Even the spectators who had come in to observe where all the raucous was coming from began pointing at me and doubling over. Nobody stopped even when I started tearing up.

Finally I could take no more. I stood up and placed the fee on the counter and in the sternest voice I could manage said, "Thanks. And just so you know, nobody appreciates being laughed at".

I stormed out as fast as I could looking like Rizzo from Greasr as they continued howling. No amount of baby powder could save my hair now. The house girl tried to keep up with me while chuckling, "they were just happy to see you!"

"I'm not stupid," I told her as I made a point of walking too fast for her and going directly to my room when I got home. She could explain what happened to Mama Mary.

When I got to my room I cried for the first time in Kenya. Here I was taking time out of my summer to work at an NGO benefiting their community and all these people could do was make fun of me when I'm sitting right there and point at my skin and hair as if they were the most atrocious thing on the planet. I was not prepared for this. After feeling on top of the world that morning I now felt like such an outsider and so unwelcomed. I had been so polite and nice to these people and this was how they treated me?

As someone who, naïve as it may seem, genuinely believes that human beings are naturally good, this act of outright cruelty shocked as much as it hurt me. As an American, I feel that the evil of racism is something that was naturally ingrained into me for as far back as I could remember. I have traveled to Europe, Asia, and South America and never once have I judged the people around me. Suddenly I realized, maybe that was it. These people have never even left Kenya let alone Africa. Most of them have never even seen a white person before. My own host father had never heard of New York City. These people had no idea what it felt to feel like an outsider and so that was why they had treated me as they had. Yes... This makes sense. I had finally learned the true value od traveling.

But wait, isn't tribalism a huge part of Kenyan culture? Isn't it the Kenyan government that is currently being ruled by a coalition government with the prime minister from one tribe and the president from another so as to not lead to an ethnic war? Hm... Racism is clearly something very familiar to these people. It is a huge part of the Kenyan identity and also what has lead to their inability to progress with the rest of the world. Their government will not be able to function until the people are able to overcome their ethnic ethocentricism and agree to work together as one country towards common goals.

I suddenly felt sorry for the ladies at the salon. Racism is not only an ugly thing, but also a very unproductive way to go through life. These people weren't ignorant, as I had previously thought. It wasn't there lack of travel and diversity that had lead them to act in such a way. It was simply all they knew.

I thought back to the shop made of cow dung and how none of the ladies had been wearing shoes. I thought of the meager fifty-cent equivalent schillings I had payed the lady and suddenly it all seemed so clear. Their racism was simply a classic result of the conflict between the haves and the have-nots. If the have-nots gang up upon the haves and focus their attention on one of the stand-out features among the haves, such as my hair and skin, they finally feel a sense of triumph in having something the haves do not.

These ladies must have seen me walking in, and in their immediate desire to poses something that I did not, decided to gang up against me and single me out for the color of my body. What a sad way to go through life.

Luckily, as seen earlier today if you read my previous post, not all people in Kenya are like this, but I truly feel sorry for those who are. I saw both ends of the spectrum today and both were very surprising. I still chose to believe in the good in people and I can't help but imagine that those ladies from the salon, when they finally make their way home alone, will genuinely feel bad for the way they treated me... But maybe that's just me.

In unrelated news : no headway on the Kenyan bathroom mystery. Please email me your ideas. There are sixteen people in my house and no one has entered the latrine all day... Troubling.