American Paradise?

I think Obama's face has been on the front of every newspaper here for the last 2 weeks, regardless of whether or not there's any relevant "news" on him.

In an effort to be somewhat patriotic in light of the looming election, I thought I’d share some interesting assumptions the middle schoolers at Shimo Primary had about America.

Probably the most interesting one was that all Americans are Christians.
What else would you think when every American who has ever come to your community is a missionary? They were so surprised to find out there are other religions within the states.

The kids believed all Americans were wealthy, and that problems like alcoholism, rape, AIDS, and street kids were non-existent in the U.S. Surely only a country as poor and unlucky as Kenya would deal with things like that.

We tried to spend a good portion of that class emphasizing how beautiful Kenya is to us and that we actually enjoy the food, the landscape, the people. These are kids who have lived in the same small, issue-ridden communities all their lives and can only assume America, with it’s advanced technology, health care, and nice Christian citizens is as good as it gets.

The black/white issue is very relevant here; white is beautiful, black is not. Outside the largest grocery store in Kitale, there is a huge ad for “Fairness Beauty Cream”, that promises to lighten dark skin. And people actually use this! Kenyans that have darker skin than others are often made fun of; last week at the girls house, one of the darkest (and incidentally, prettiest) girls was getting teased that if she were sitting at a coal stand and someone came to buy coal, they would accidentally buy her, that’s how black she was. (Is it racism when said by another black person? I don’t even know.. )

Maybe this is some insight into the mind of Michael Jackson.

Anyway, as disturbing as it is, it means that we as Americans/white people get a lot of respect from the kids at Shimo. This has been a blessing in disguise since we are talking about things like AIDS and sex, and encouraging the kids to wait until they are finished with school and with a committed partner to have sex; they hear it often from most of their teachers, but coming from us it somehow means more.

"Greatest Show on Earth"

Every year during harvest time, there is a big weekend fair put on in the showgrounds near Kitale. This took place last weekend. The closest thing to compare it to would be the county fair at home with African undertones, which mostly means thumping reggaeton music until 5am, starting again at 9am. It features the World’s Smallest Man, the "Mermaid from Mombasa”, all sorts of displays and markets and food stands and games.

On Friday, Nate, Ina, and I got to go to the fair with all 50 kids from Oasis.

This was such a blast. We got our faces painted, walked through all the agricultural displays and the kids told us the names of each plant; had bread and Coca-Cola for lunch, and went to the grandstand to watch the marching band and the Kitale soccer and rugby teams play. The cool part was that at least 20 other schools were there that day, with all the wealthier kids in their expensive uniforms arriving on their posh school buses. The Oasis kids had to walk to the fairgrounds, in all their mismatched, tattered uniforms, but they were the ones who got to walk around with the mzungus, which made all the difference.