Shikamo

I am supposed to be doing research right now, but I can’t get my mind away from where my heart is at. I want to show you the change of spirit and perspective that is taking root within my soul. This is not meant to make you feel guilty, make me seem like I am above you for coming here (because I most certainly am not), nor make you fear or worry for me.

Here is the reality of Africa.

Even though I feel like the camp we are living in is too American, it is still very different from the common luxuries of home. You wake up every morning to the rooster before an alarm clock. My skin is two shades darker, not from lounging at the pool, but from the dust on the roads that clings to every inch of you. Having a shower every 3 days is very normal, and if you take longer than 5 minutes it is considered wasteful. The bathroom floor always has a layer of mud on it. You only flush the toilet once a day. You don’t wear makeup, blow dry or straighten hair, paint nails, or even shave. It is rare to wear a matching outfit. You absolutely have to wash your feet before bed or you will get jiggers. It is completely normal for the power to go out 5 times a day. Seeing a spider in the bathroom that is as large as my palm doesn’t scare me as much as the mosquitoes. I have to scrub my clothes by hand, and it takes over 2 hours. I haven’t had a glass of milk, desert, or any food that comes out of a package. Meals consist of bread, rice, beans and protein from whatever animal they killed out back. The most highly prized things here are clean water, juice and any dairy. You never leave excess food on your plate.

And I am not trying to make you feel sorry for me. Because here, I live better than royalty.

The town I am living in, Rhotia, is not very impoverished by African standards. It is a small rural town that has a lot of livestock, few vehicles, and lots of children. As you walk through the town the children come running up to you and hold your hand, and the best way to tell them apart and remember their names is by what they are wearing as it is the same every single day. One girl showed me her house yesterday and it is smaller than my bedroom at home. And usually a whole family sleeps there, which can be over 8 people. And the houses are built out of mud and tree trunks. The girls wonder at my long hair, as theirs is as short as the boys. They people have never tasted clean water or cold milk. A flushing toilet would scare them. A hot shower is unheard of. No one has even seen a picture of a washing machine.

This makes me wonder exactly what more poverty can be, and also fear it.

My Swahili is getting to the point now where I often can understand what the children are saying, and it makes me sad because sometimes they ask me for money or for pens or a sip of my water and I can almost not bare to say no, as we have been asked to do. But even when you say you don’t have anything to give them, they still want to play with you anyway – which makes me wish all the world were as these simple, loving children.

Even though I am constantly surrounded by dangers seen and unseen here, the thing that has frightened me the most up to this point in my journey is a little boy, about 5 years old. We were driving through town and my window was open and he threw a piece of sharp glass at my face. It was the first time in the entire eleven days I have been here that I felt resentment for being here instead of a welcoming smile. It was the first time I have been reminded that the color of skin can still come between two people. It was the first time I have even felt racism against my own people.

After reflecting on this I am glad it happened. It allowed me to feel the shame, anger and fear of what these people have experienced nearly their whole history when interacting with “mzungos” (white people). Feeling this first hand made my heart ache  and my stomach sick and pray for a future where people can fully understand other cultures and love them despite their differences.

But don’t fear for me here. That experience was an exception; usually the locals and the children are always overflowing with joy to see me. True, unfiltered, real, full, blishful smiles: a smile often forgotten in the US. And it is more than that – they lookout for me. Yesterday I almost fell into a bush and one of the locals pulled me away from it telling me it was poisonous. Another little boy had found a US penny and tried to give it to me, which made me laugh. An old man put his hand on my forehead yesterday and blessed me, as though I was his lifelong friend.

Something I have learned in Swahili is to the elders here the correct greeting is “Shikamo”, which means “I respect you” – and the correct response is “Marahaba” which means “I accept your respect”. Many times the people here say “Shikamo” to me as I am walking, and even though by culture I am bound to respond by saying “Marahaba”, I don’t know how to accept this mentally. Because I don’t think they should respect me. I don’t know how to hand wash clothes, herd cattle, milk a goat, kill a chicken or even which side of the road to walk on. I know nothing about life here: I know nothing about the sting of poverty, the growl of a hungry stomach, sleeping in the dirt, drinking unclean water, nor do I have the wisdom of how to be content in spite of this. I don’t have the courage to run up to strangers and immediately love them, hold their hand, bless them, and offer them room in my house. I have not yet learned how to always be grateful just for having family, friends and a breath of fresh air in my lungs.

What’s worse is we often come to this amazing place acting as though we know better than they do: guaranteeing that we know how to “live the life”. We act like they need our education, our money and our government. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying they don’t need help. But I am saying people value things that don’t make a difference in “the quality of life”. More valuable than money, education, and government is learning how “to be content in any and every situation” as these people have mastered.

I pray every day that I would discover how to see the world as they do.

I pray that we would let them teach us the secret of how to smile with joy when all seems hopeless.

It is I who should greet these beautiful people with “Shikamo”.