Anyone for Some Kool Aid

“I have a dream,” he thundered out across the tapestry of humans surrounding the monument. I remember that day in 1963, holding my daddy’s hand as we listened to him. I remember the heat, the energy ,the optimism, and also despair. I drank the Kool Aid. I believed that it would happen for my generation. Perhaps it has to some extent, Michelle Obama is the new definition of beautiful for a generation of girls, and indeed Obama, while he may not see a second term is surely progress. I thought with the colonialists out of Africa racial bigotry and hatred would disappear. That was a whole pitcher of Kool Aid.

I am now in my third day here in Kenya. I have been listening mostly. It’s like the wise old owl my grandmother taught me. “The less he spoke the more he heard”, and so I listen to both black and white women these last couple days. The black women complain about their husbands and how little they do around the house. Sort of like how it was back in the 50’s, before we started burning our bras. I don’t think a sexual revolution is going to happen here any time soon.

The most poignant, though, was a white friend of mine who moved to Nairobi 2 years ago. She picked me up at the hotel and we left the city to go have lunch. She has always belonged to Africa and to their women and children. She is all that one of my generation would have wished a woman could be. Bright, independent, gentle, strong, curious, and human in her frailties, she now treads on difficult terrain. She is pregnant and is marrying a Luya man. She works hard at her job, as does her husband. She described the difficulty of finding a nanny. They interviewed one who came from Central Kenya and when the nanny found out that the father was Luya she refused to take the job. She spoke of trying to find a new place to live that would be safe enough and convenient enough for both she and her husband to travel to work. The traffic is one thing, but the robberies and car jacking are truly frightening especially now that she shall soon be a mother.

As we sat in the garden of the restaurant talking about politics, Obama, and Kenya, my young friend talked about the difficulties here. The bigotry and hatred, which I have always felt, are palpable. She confirmed it. Last week, the Prime Minister dismissed two governmental ministers who were being tried for corruption. He put them on a leave of absence, but the President (from another tribe) overruled the decision and the ministers are back on the job. It is just as it was before the election: Luos against Kikuyus and the cities shall burn again when elections come round again. “Power sharing” solved nothing; it is a total sham.

She spoke of Niger, another country she has lived in, in her young life. Two days ago there was a coup, but no bloodshed. She has been in touch with her friends there and things are carrying on as usual there. She said that one of the bad things about freedom of the press in Kenya is that people feed on it and politics is so important on a personal level that every official is known for his tribe, his history, his indiscretions, and folks can rattle it off like 12 year old boys rattle off the statistics of their favorite baseball teams. It serves to fuel the festering fires of ethnocentrism.

What is missing here is national pride, a sense of national identity. It simply doesn’t exist, it’s all tribal all the time. Tanzania was able to turn their people around. Tanzanians are just that, and there is a sense of commonality despite their tribal origins. We wonder how they did that. Neither she nor I are students enough of African history to know how that came to pass, but marvel at the idea of it.

My friend and I sigh. There are further invidious insults that abound, corruption by most officials, special traffic laws that cops lay on whites, especially white women. We call it the skin tax, laugh and drink our bottled water. We know…she and her family will come home when the next elections come…and they shall return when the violence is over. Over here they don’t serve Kool Aid.